LITMIR.BIZ

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Maybelle, but I can’t stay a moment longer. I have business to take care of.”

      “In that pretty shift?” A blonde with a scar on her chin asked. “I thought you wasn’t a whore?”

      “Janie, you know we don’t use that word here,” Maybelle admonished. She smoothed her hands on the front of her modest dress. “We are professional ladies, purveyors of pleasure to discriminating gentlemen.”

      “Janie didn’t begin her career at Maybelle’s. She came from outside.” Emily inclined her head toward the closed door. “She started at Pete’s Palace. Life out there is different.”

      “It’s mean,” said a woman who touched her shoulder, appearing to rub away some old pain.

      “And dirty,” added a brunette with shiny curls.

      Maybelle scratched Muff behind his mud-crusted ear. “You and your pup will stay with us until you can find your way home, but I have to warn you, Luminary isn’t the place for a lady like you.”

      “You are a prize, Maybelle.” Zane kissed her cheek. “I’ll be on my way.”

      “You chasing some outlaw?” Emily asked.

      “Hot on his heels, darlin’.”

      Missy’s heart gave a kick when he called the woman darlin’. It had been naive to think that he’d meant something personal when he’d called Missy that.

      Zane passed quick kisses all around. Except for Missy. He wished her luck then strode out the front door.

      “I sure do hope it’s not another year before we see that man.” Emily took Muff from Missy’s arms. “What a sweet little poochie.”

      “Let me have that dirty old coat, dearie.” Maybelle slid it off her, held the coat at arm’s length and wrinkled her nose. “Who knows when this was last laundered?”

      “I can’t stay, really.” Missy sprinted toward the door.

      Maybe if she offered Zane a huge sum of money he would take her along.

      She yanked open the door then remembered that she didn’t have a huge amount of money. She had no money. The only way she had to get money was to wire Edwin and beg him for some.

      Missy stepped onto the boardwalk. Bright sunlight nearly blinded her. She shaded her eyes with her hand and watched Zane trot away in a haze of dust.

      “Hey, chuckie!”

      Missy turned to see a man, greasy hair hanging past his shoulders and black spittle oozing from the corner of his mouth, crossing the street. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small coin. “This’ll be all your’n if you let me taste your—”

      Whatever revolting thing the man had intended to say was cut short by a gunshot. The coin vanished from between his fingers. He let out a yelp of profanity and chewing tobacco.

      Missy spun toward the sound of the shot. Zane sat tall in his saddle with a gun sitting easy as a heartbeat in his steady hand. Wisps of smoke twirled out of the gun barrel. The fury in his eyes made her shiver. It made the greasy man run for cover.

      Half a dozen hands from behind grabbed her shift and yanked her back through Maybelle’s front door.

      An hour before sundown, Zane settled Ace into the Dereton livery. He gave the liveryman an additional coin to make sure the horse had an extra bag of oats and the best stall. At the stable door he paused and glanced back. The extras he had purchased were bare payment for a couple of hard days. He whistled softly in good-bye and got a whickered reply.

      Reassured that Ace was well-tended, Zane walked two blocks to the marshal’s office.

      The marshal, Joseph Tuner, was a family man who would likely be home for supper with his wife and younglings. Unless he had a tenant in a jail cell, his habit was to leave his office unlocked. That would suit Zane fine. If he could skip a drawn-out conversation, he would be able to search the establishments where Wage might be before he had the relief of checking in to the hotel for a dry night’s sleep.

      As he had expected, the door was unlocked; it swung open with a rusty groan. The last hour of daylight shot across the floor and cast an orange glow on the wanted posters pinned to the wall behind the marshal’s desk. Outside, a dog barked, footsteps passed behind Zane, thumping down the boardwalk. A handbill with the ink barely dry stared back at him.

      “Blue eyes,” he said out loud then rounded the desk. He tapped the likeness of Missy Lenore Devlin on the nose with his finger. He traced the curls winding pertly on top of her head.

      He ought to have known who she was from the first. The clothing on the sketch, particularly the collar, standing stiff and prim, must have thrown him off. The tidy loops of hair marked in pen didn’t reflect the sun’s gleam the way the true tresses did. But strike him silly, he should have recognized those eyes. The artist had captured the spark of whimsy and lurking mischief that he had struggled to put out of his mind on the short ride from Luminary to Dereton.

      Damn, he might never forget the look on her face when he shot the coin from the derelict’s fingers. She hadn’t uttered a word, but her round eyes and sagging jaw had shown her astonishment.

      She looked pretty when she was astonished. He shook his head to dispel the image.

      There was the poster of Wage. The poster, as usual, had been pinned under another one, newer with a higher reward.

      The sum on Missy’s poster nearly blinded him. He ought to turn back to Luminary, collect Missy and deliver her to her mother’s doorstep. Two thousand dollars would sit pretty in his bank account. Life would be a good deal more comfortable with that sum behind him.

      The reward tempted him, to be sure, but it couldn’t sway him from his purpose. Catching Wage, and others like him, made him get up in the morning. It made him saddle up Ace, head out to dangerous, ugly places and do dangerous, ugly things.

      Maybe when he quit hearing his mother’s dying breath in his ear, if the day came when he didn’t feel her blood sticky on his young hands, then he would follow a bounty of sky-blue eyes.

      Not today, though. For now, he was after Wage, even at only five hundred dollars.

      Zane plucked Missy’s flyer from the wall, folded it up and put it in his pocket. For an instant, he thought that her eyes flashed with humor. Of course, if he tried to take her back to Boston it would not be humor that flashed in her eyes.

      Pity the bounty hunter who tried to bring Miss Devlin home.

      Missy followed Maybelle’s swaying skirts up a narrow stairway to the only room on the third floor of the brothel.

      “Every great while, we have a guest who only wants to sleep.” Maybelle jingled a set of keys attached to a chain looped about her waist. She selected a polished brass key and opened the door. “It’s mostly quiet up here, if you keep the windows closed. You will do that, won’t you, dearie?”

      Missy glanced at the window. It was a small dormer with lace curtains tied back with white satin sashes. It looked tasteful, ladylike even.

      Maybelle spun about, giving the room a critical glance. Apparently not expecting an answer to the window question, she didn’t catch the negative shake of Missy’s head. Who knew what mysteries the night would reveal through an open window?

      “Please do understand that this is for your good as well as mine.” Maybelle rubbed the room key with her thumb. “I wouldn’t want any of my gentlemen to get the wrong idea about you. Since you have everything you need for now, I’ll say good night.”

      The wrong idea? A dozen fascinating stories flashed through her mind at once. In that instant Maybelle swished out the door, closed it and turned the key in the lock with a swift snap.

      Missy stared at the door that she only now noticed had two locks. One to keep strangers out and one to keep her … locked in!

      Arms spread wide she

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