Scully’s expression remained unchanged as he replied, “Pete and I are old acquaintances.” He addressed Pete directly, adding, “I appreciate your looking after Lacey, Pete, but she’s in good hands now.”
Scully turned again to Lacey. “I’ll get your bag.”
Dismissing the introduction and Pete with that statement, Scully strode toward the rear of the wagon to catch Lacey’s suitcase as it was tossed down from the stage.
“Ma’am…”
Lacey’s attention jumped back to Pete.
His voice lowered, Pete whispered, “I hope you’ll remember what I said.”
“Thank you, but you don’t have to worry about me. As Uncle Scully told you, I’m in good hands now.”
“Like I said, if things don’t turn out the way you expected and you’re needing any help, I’ll be around.”
“Well, thank you again, Pete.”
Glancing back at Scully as he approached, Pete added, “I guess that’s all I got to say.” He walked away without waiting for her response.
Scully was frowning when he reached her side. “What did Pete say?”
“Pete just offered me his support. It was very kind of him.”
“Kind…right.” Scully’s frown deepened. “Let’s get going. I told Helen to make up a room for you upstairs from the saloon.”
“Helen?”
“Helen’s the woman who cleans the second floor for me at the Gold Nugget. She’s a nice old lady whose husband died a while back. She agreed to move into the spare room and serve as a chaperone while you’re living there.”
“Living there…like before.” Lacey’s throat choked tight as memories began flooding back. “I’m glad.”
“I’ll find a more suitable place for you as soon as I can.”
Struggling to keep up with Scully’s long-legged stride as they started across the street, Lacey was not able to reply.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
Intensely aware of Lacey as she walked beside him, Jake Scully shoved open the swinging door and stepped back to allow her entrance into the saloon. His jaw ticked at the silence that came over the barroom as she walked in.
Well, what had he expected? Did he think Lacey would return the same little girl in pigtails that he had sent away to school years earlier?
Scully remembered that little girl clearly. Lost and alone, and so brave…Charlie’s granddaughter. She had looked up at him with total trust in her eyes, and he had lost his heart to her the moment he saw her. He hadn’t doubted for a moment what he would do.
Memories of Charlie were vivid. Scully had been in his teens when he met the old man. He’d been out on his own after the deaths of his parents—jobless, homeless, without funds and unsure where his next meal was coming from. He couldn’t remember exactly how he met Charlie and struck up a conversation with him, but he did remember that Charlie bought him the first good meal he’d had in days, and that he’d never tasted anything better. He had ending up working with Charlie at his claim for almost a year before starting back out on his own with a stake that Charlie had insisted on providing. He had made good use of that stake, and he had never gone hungry again.
Nor had he forgotten Charlie. Years passed, however, before the old man walked into Scully’s saloon one day and told him he was prospecting in the area, then mentioned during their extended conversation that he had taken in his granddaughter after his daughter’s death.
The next time he saw Charlie, the affable old man was lying dead outside his burned-out cabin.
There hadn’t been a moment during the years following that Scully had doubted providing for Lacey, the poor, wounded little girl in pigtails who had needed him. But the child in pigtails was now a woman—and everything had changed.
Scully remembered the look in Pete’s eyes as he had stood protectively at Lacey’s side. He recalled the stunned silence when Lacey and he had walked through the saloon doors moments earlier.
It had started already.
The truth was, he hadn’t been ready for Lacey Stewart, the beautiful woman who had stepped down from the stagecoach, and the shock of it was with him still. Charlie Pratt had been a rare man, indeed: sincere, generous, God-fearing and God-loving, and the truest friend he’d ever had. But he had also been a scrawny little fella with a crooked smile and bowed legs. Somehow, Scully hadn’t considered for a moment that Charlie’s granddaughter would turn out to be a beauty.
And not only was Lacey beautiful, but she was also a lady, and the combination of the two had set his mind spinning.
His hand on her elbow, Scully ushered Lacey directly toward the staircase to the second floor. Barely acknowledging the greetings of a few customers in passing, he urged her up the stairs. He introduced Lacey briefly to Helen when the old woman appeared at the top of the stairs, then pushed open the door of her room to allow Lacey to enter and followed her inside, making certain to leave the door open behind them. He deposited her case on the bed and turned to face her expectant expression fully.
Lacey looked up at him, waiting for him to speak, and Scully went suddenly still. There she was…the child he had seen ten years earlier. She was visible in the trusting blue eyes Lacey turned up to his, in the shadows of uncertainty he saw there, in the faint glaze of tears gradually overwhelming them. On the outside, Lacey was a mature, beautiful woman, but on the inside she was still the little lost girl who had looked up to him…to whom she had come “home.”
And she was waiting.
His slow smile sincere, Scully said again, “Welcome home, Lacey.”
With a single, spontaneous step, Lacey stepped into his welcoming hug. With that step, the past dropped away. Lacey was again his brave little girl, and he was her protector, provider and guide for her future.
And he was glad.
The hum of curious conversation and leering snickers following Scully and Lacey’s entrance into the Gold Nugget had gradually faded. No one noticed that the swarthy fellow at the bar glanced back surreptitiously over his shoulder to scan the upstairs landing where the couple had disappeared from sight. Nor did anyone hear the angry curse he muttered under his breath before exiting the saloon as inconspicuously as he could manage.
Chapter Two
“I like the Gold Nugget. I don’t want to ‘find a more suitable place to stay.’”
Scully looked at Lacey, who sat across the small table from him in Sadie Wilson’s restaurant, the town’s only eating establishment. They had taken to having breakfast together there each morning, and in the few days since her return, an indefinable bond had developed between them that somehow erased their years of separation and dismissed the reality that they were virtual strangers. Lacey had grown into a woman whose stunning beauty left Scully a bit breathless—yet she was still the determined little girl who had walked miles in a deadening heat, injured and feverish, in order to follow through on her grandfather’s last wishes.
“Scully…”
Lacey had automatically dropped the “uncle” prefix from his name when she saw it was turning heads, and Scully was glad. He didn’t need it to remember he was still responsible for her safety and for the direction of her future.
“Scully…”
Responding with an