Ah, now, why would a saloon girl want to conceal anything? Her skin was winter pale, not powdered or painted, and her hair was pinned up in a haphazard way that bespoke more practicality than come-hither.
The more he looked, the more curious he got, and since the subtle approach hadn’t worked thus far he decided to go straight for the gut. “All right, woman. Who are you? Why did Bill leave?”
She blinked twice, then said, “Drink?” With a flurry of motion she retrieved a glass from the shelf behind the bar.
Jake regarded her through narrowed eyes—narrowed mostly because they hurt, like the rest of him. He needed sleep. “What? No, I don’t want a drink.” He ran the flat of his hand over his face, trying to wipe the exhaustion away. Maybe if he could clear his mind some of this would make sense.
When he looked again she was pouring liquor, the drink he’d just turned down. With a sigh he ignored the glass she was intently shoving at him. “I asked your name.”
“Why?”
“Is it a secret?” He could be as tenacious as her.
“It’s none of your business. Now, have a drink if that’s what you came for, then leave. I keep telling you we’re closed.”
Thunder rumbled overhead and she flinched. He saw her fingers tighten on the glass, saw her gaze dart to the window.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked one more time.
“Yes.” Her tone was curt.
Okay, he’d had enough. Without another word he retrieved his hat and coat from the table where he had tossed them. He looped his slicker over his shoulder, the muddy hem banging against his pant leg, smudging the black wool with mud. “I’m going to bed.”
“Goodbye,” she said, her lips curving up in the closest thing to a smile he’d seen since he’d walked in. “Come in again sometime, when we’re open.”
Of course, Clair didn’t mean a word of it. She was hoping he’d get on his horse and ride out of town, never to be seen again. Bounty hunters were trouble. Bounty hunters with suggestive smiles were a whole other kind of trouble. She wasn’t in the market for either.
She circled around the bar intent on following him to the door and closing it firmly behind him.
She was making a beeline for the front when she realized he was headed up her stairs. “Hey, hold on there.” She skidded to a halt and planted her balled fists at her waist. “Where do you think you’re going, mister?”
The man never stopped, just kept plodding up the stairs, his boots making one hollow thud after another, like a man climbing to the gallows. “Like I said, I’m going to bed.” Gripping the oak banister, he glanced back over his shoulder long enough to say, “Care to join me?”
It was a brazen, impudent remark and she should be offended. She was offended. The nerve of the man!
Never mind the wicked grin on his face, never mind the dimples that were barely visible through the beard.
The man has dimples!
Rogues and scoundrels and charmers had dimples. Bounty hunters did not. Even so, it took two tries to get her voice to work. “I most certainly don’t wish to join you! Now get off my stairs and out of my saloon!”
He turned on her, gunfighter slow, and she actually took a step back, banging into the wall by the front windows. Her eyes were riveted to his.
“What do you mean, it’s your saloon?”
She was in it now. That temper of hers was on a rampage. “I—” she thumbed her chest near the top button of her blouse “—own the Scarlet Lady.”
He came down a step, then paused again.
There was no sign of humor or kindness in his eyes or tone when he spoke, and she instinctively knew this was the darker side of the man, the side that killed people. “All right, honey, let’s have it. What’s going on?”
Clair’s temper knew when to beat a retreat, and this was definitely time. In a voice that was mild, maybe even a little shaky, she said, “I own the Scarlet Lady.
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday.”
“You buy it?”
“I won it.”
“how?”
“In a card game.”
He closed in on her like a predator on the hunt, standing on the bottom step so that he towered over her even more. “You’re a gambler?” There was a bit of the incredulous in his voice—and disdain.
Who the hell did he think he was to judge her? “Yes,” she returned, refusing to flinch. “I’m a gambler. What of it?”
“And you tricked Bill out of the place, huh?”
“No. I won the saloon fair and square, not that it’s any of your business, and if anyone tries to say different I’ll—”
“Hold on, honey. I believe you.” He held up his hands in surrender, but since they were both holding weapons, a shotgun and a rifle to be precise, he didn’t look very meek.
“Don’t call me honey,” she snapped back.
“Fine.” He started back up the stairs again speaking as he went. “Look...whatever your name is...I have a deal with Bill. When I’m in town I sleep here...up there.” He pointed to the second-floor landing and the two furnished rooms that were there.
Panic merged with that temper of hers. She’d moved in here right after Bill had left, figuring to save the rent money. “You can’t sleep here.”
He was still climbing the stairs. “Lady, I’m not arguing with you. I’ve been on the trail a week, the last three days without enough sleep to fill a shot glass. I’m going to bed.”
“Find another place.”
“No.”
“I’m ordering you to leave,” she said with all the authority she could muster, which was usually enough to send a bleary-eyed cowboy on his way. This man had the audacity to laugh.
“Honey, you want to stop me, then you’re gonna have to shoot me. As a matter of fact, I wish you would, just to put me out of my misery.”
Tempting as that was, she resisted. These days she had an understandable aversion to guns. “I could call the marshal and have you thrown out.”
He was nearing the top of the stairs. “Go ahead and call the marshal. It won’t do you any good.”
“And just why not?” she hollered after him. “I doubt the marshal has any sympathy for bounty hunters.”
“Bounty hunter? Is that what you think?” He paused on the landing long enough to look down at her. “I’m no bounty hunter. I’m Jake McConnell. I’m the sheriff of Carbon County.”
Chapter Three
Morning came as cold and gray and wet as yesterday. The rain and gloom were bad enough; having a sheriff, of all things, sleeping in the next room—well, that was nothing short of a disaster waiting to happen.
With a flounce of sheet and quilt and nightgown she rolled over in the bed and was rewarded with a chill where her feet touched the sheet her body hadn’t warmed yet.
“Damn man,” she muttered, punching her pillow, trying to get a little fluff out of the feathers that were long since matted down to the thickness of an envelope.
Her hair fell across her face and she swiped it back. Muscles in her back