* * *
ACE WATCHED PETUNIA stroll down the street in that purposeful way of hers and shook his head. Seems he’d been watching Petunia since the day she’d stepped off the stage all pale blond elegance and temptation. She wasn’t the sort of woman a man like him would approach. Buttoned-up women were notoriously boring in and out of bed, but there was a reckless side to Petunia that no amount of blue serge could conceal. One that, once fed by the fire of conviction, could take her where angels feared to tread. Like right up into Simon Laramie’s face when he’d protested her effort to feed his hungry kids. Laramie outweighed her by a hundred pounds, but she’d stood there like size didn’t matter and taken him to town. A man had to admire that much gumption. Protect it. Preserve it... Nurture it. Shit. He wanted to punch a wall. He wanted to follow her, pick her up, toss her over his shoulder, swat her on that delicately rounded ass and carry her off to his bed with her gasp still ringing in his ear. He wanted her in his arms. His bed. His home. With a silent curse, Ace cut that line of thinking short. Again.
That was the dangerous side of Petunia Wayfield. She made him want things he’d long ago given up hoping for. A wife. Family. Men like him didn’t have those things. But it didn’t mean they couldn’t protect the one who fed that faintest of hopes. About a month ago, he’d accepted Petunia was that one for him. There was something within her that drew him. Fascinated him. Enthralled him to the point that lately, all he could think about was her lying bound in his bed, that sweet pale flesh wearing his mark, her femininity sweetly displayed. His blood heated even as he ground his teeth. The woman was like a bad case of poison ivy, a constant irritation.
“Why do you tease her so?” Maddie asked when Petunia was out of earshot.
For no reason fit for Sunday discussion. “The woman has too much starch in her bloomers.”
“So you irritate her just to get a reaction,” Maddie stated, coming up beside him and shaking out her cleaning cloth.
He smiled, watching Petunia step up onto the opposite walk, for a moment catching the hint of ankle beneath her layers of skirt and petticoats. His cock, semihard, threatened to become an embarrassment. He pulled his gaze away. “She does have a short fuse.”
“It seems to me the only reason you want to take the starch out of her bloomers,” Caden remarked, taking a seat in the chair he’d just settled against the door, “is because you want to be getting in them.”
Ace snorted. “The woman’s an old maid.”
Maddie huffed and put her hands on her hips. The cloth fluttered against her side. “She’s intelligent, passionate and she cares about the same things you do. You could do worse.”
Petunia couldn’t.
“The only reason that woman’s ever been in a saloon is to try and shut it down. She probably thinks it’s hell on a good day.”
Maddie snorted. “You’re always rooting for the underdog, just like her.”
“Not that anyone notices.”
Caden stretched his legs out. “That’s because you don’t want them to notice.” Ignoring Ace’s glare, Caden caught Maddie’s hand and pulled her into his side. The ease with which she relaxed into Caden’s embrace sent another pang through Ace.
“And why is that?” Maddie asked, shoving the cloth in her apron pocket.
Ace leaned over and tugged her hair, goading Caden with the casual familiarity. “Maybe because I’m not an upstanding pillar of the community.”
Caden growled under his breath and knocked his hand away.
Maddie sighed and caught Caden’s hand in hers, all the while shaking her head at Ace. “I know you, remember?”
It was Ace’s turn to shake his head. The last thing he needed was Maddie speculating on his comings and goings and ways to put an end to them. He liked his life in town. He liked the adventure. He liked the challenge. He liked the occasional fight, and he loved the card games. It alleviated the boredom of working at the assayer’s office. The job was a useful tool for sorting out bad news coming to town, but not much else. Once in a while he did stick his nose into business that wasn’t strictly his, but unlike Petunia, he didn’t make his life’s work out of it.
“This town’s got enough do-gooders,” he told Maddie. “One more isn’t needed.”
Maddie looked at him calmly. Almost expectantly. “Petunia’s going to need help.”
“You might as well get that look out of your eye, Maddie. Whatever Petunia’s got going, it’s not my problem.”
“It will be.”
He didn’t like the knowing glance or the implication behind it. The woman saw too much. “No, it won’t.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Caden interrupted. “This latest project of hers isn’t going to go over well. There are some prominent citizens in this town who’d be mighty upset to see a couple of those children brought forward into polite society.”
“Then they shouldn’t have created them,” Ace retorted.
“I don’t think that was the plan.”
“It’s still the result. Not like you can mistake who their fathers are.”
Damn, now he was sounding just like Petunia.
“It would have been better for those children if their mother had just left town with them.”
“And leave their meal ticket?” Ace shook his head. “No way in hell. As long as those kids exist, Hester has leverage.”
“But they don’t exist. They’re not allowed out of that awful house,” Maddie added. “And that little girl, she’s almost eight now...”
Maddie’s voice broke. Caden rubbed her arm. The one thing Maddie knew all about was how a little girl growing up in a whorehouse lived on the edge of trouble. It made him burn to think about the life Maddie had been forced to live before coming to Hell’s Eight. Petunia was right about one thing. No child deserved that.
Pressing her hand briefly over Caden’s, Maddie took a step back, straightened her hair and then her skirt. Ace said nothing, letting her gather her composure, regretting it as soon as she did, because she turned those soulful green eyes on him again and declared, “You need to help Hester.”
“I do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re wrong about her.”
Ace sighed. It didn’t really matter whether he was right or wrong about Hester. When it came to the kids, Petunia and Maddie were right. The situation was getting bad. Hester needed to take those kids and leave town. Or Dougall, their father, was going to have to claim them, but they couldn’t be left to be as they were living in the whorehouse. He thought of the little girl, pretty face, pretty hair, but still a little girl and tempting to some. Unprotected except by her mother and a couple of the nicer whores, but their ability to guard her was limited. And if it was decided she needed to earn her keep, then earn her keep she would.
“It’s a mess, and Petunia’s meddling is going to make it blow up before anything can be done.”
“She means well,” Caden interjected.
“She always means well.” Ace growled as the aggravation swelled within him. “She meant well when she decided every child at school should have a decent lunch.”
“She was right,” Maddie chimed in. “They