“Zane Coldridge, where have you been?” A woman’s sleep-tumbled voice drifted down from the balcony. “We figured you were dead.”
He looked up, past the front door of Maybelle’s Place to the sign that declared in bold red letters, Spirits, Gaming, and Dancing Women. On the balcony just over the sign the speaker leaned against the railing with a cup of steaming coffee cupped in her palms.
It was as though he saw her for the first time. The way Missy must be seeing her.
Red hair that he knew was not natural fell in messy curls over bare shoulders. Pale breasts propped up by her forearms seemed ready to spill over the top of her crimson corset. Whatever she had used to make her lashes black had slid while she slept and given her under-eyes a coal shadow. A white feather, limp from a night of hard work, flopped over one eye.
Missy sagged backward against him.
“Is that …?” she whispered. “Is she …?”
“Miss Emily Perkins.”
Muff whined. His dirty tail whipped up a cloud of dust.
“Is Miss Perkins a dancing woman?” Missy settled Muff on her lap with quiet fuss and scolding. She must be trying hard not to stare at Emily.
“She knows a step or two.”
“You’ve … danced with her?” It was a bold question from someone who had suddenly blushed the same shade of red as Emily’s sleep-smudged rouge.
“We grew up together. Emily is like a sister to me.” And she was, but she hadn’t always been. There had been that long-ago summer, just before Emily’s folks had died of the cholera, when the pair of them had been green sixteen-year-olds. Emily hadn’t been like a sister then.
“She’s beautiful.”
Missy Devlin was a woman of neverending surprise. “You aren’t offended by her?”
“Mercy, no! If all the women in Luminary dress like your friend, I can give you back your coat.”
He ought to feel relieved by her attitude. Now he wouldn’t lose time trailing Wage while he took Missy to a more appropriate town. But he didn’t feel relieved, he felt worried. Her eyes shone too brightly. Her smile curved with anticipation. No doubt by sundown she would get a new journal and write to her sister, describing every step that she saw the dancing women of Luminary take.
Zane slid backward off Ace then led him to the hitching post outside Maybelle’s.
“Let’s go in, I’ll introduce you to Maybelle.”
He reached up. She leaned down, keeping both arms around Muff. She didn’t tense when his fingers closed about her ribs. She fell into his hands with perfect trust. Unease shivered up his spine. A fearless innocent in Luminary equaled a victim.
He’d have to pay Maybelle extra to keep Missy out of trouble until he arranged her way home.
Missy’s hands itched. Words trembled at her fingertips, eager to pop out. Everything she had written before would pale against the description of this cherry-red room.
Enchantment in the form of red velvet curtains covered whole walls. Purple couches sat boldly on a gold carpet. Not a finger of daylight strayed through the windows, so six crystal chandeliers were lit, casting fairy lights on ceiling, walls and floor. On the right side of the room was a marble-topped bar that ran the length of the wall. Behind the bar was an endlessly long mirror framed in polished wood. Above that hung a huge painting of a woman lying bare on a couch that looked very much like the couches in this marvelous parlor.
She had been warned often enough that it was rude to stare, but she had never seen a woman so seductively nude. It was difficult to draw her gaze away from the honey-brown eyes and the moist red mouth that seemed to smile with a great secret. Surely, with her arms sprawled languidly over her head and her breasts pointing at the viewer, with her hips turned so that the black shadow between her thighs was right there for all to see, the woman could have no secrets.
The grand room was empty, quiet except for the swish of Muff’s tail stirring the air.
“Maybelle?” Zane called out.
A gray bun streaked with brown popped up from behind the polished bar. The woman’s head turned, revealing a round face. Laughter spun in honey-brown eyes. Missy glanced at the painting then at the smiling woman. Her eyes still held a secret.
“Welcome home, sugar.” The woman, dressed in plain brown wool, swished out from behind the bar. She hopped, sparrow-like, toward him with her arms flapping in welcome. “Where have you been gone to for so long?”
Zane took half a dozen steps across the room, caught the woman’s plump embrace and spun her about. Crisp petticoats swished through the air. Crinkling lace flashed past a piano that gleamed like a mirror.
Missy’s fingers itched again. What a surprise to find such a fine instrument in this prairie-weathered town. She could hardly think over the words crowding her mind. She would need them all to describe Maybelle and her decadent, opulent and oh-so-delightful establishment.
“Earning a living.” Zane set Maybelle on the floor then pecked her cheek with a quick kiss.
The worldly-wise yet down-to-earth-looking woman blushed and touched her cheek.
“You always were a sweet boy. The girls have missed you.”
Sweet boy? Missy looked him over with narrowed eyes. His hair glinted midnight-blue in the light of the chandelier, his thighs swelled beneath his jeans, his feet would be long and lean under his well-worn boots. Possibly Maybelle hadn’t seen the way his shoulders filled his flannel shirt. Evidently she hadn’t taken note of the way his eyes could melt a woman in her shoes. Certainly, the woman could never have felt the scrape of his beard stubble under her fingertips.
It had been some time since Zane Coldridge was a sweet boy.
Throaty giggles erupted at the top of the stairs. Like a swarm of multicolored butterflies, women fluttered down the steps. Bare arms reached, bosoms jiggled over corsets, red mouths puckered for kisses.
Maybelle had been dead-on about the girls missing Zane.
“Have you brought me a new girl, dear?” Maybelle called out over the brightly colored heads of the women surrounding Zane. She wrapped Missy in a soft, quick hug that Muff didn’t seem to mind. Then she took a step back, smiling all the while. “Turn around, dear. Let me get a good look at you.”
Missy made a pretty pirouette with one hand out, palm up. Muff, wedged against her side, wiggled in apparent delight.
“Very nice,” Maybelle crooned. “Take off that old coat, dearie, and let me see if you will appeal to our gentlemen.”
The coat hadn’t slipped to her waist before Zane had extricated himself from the flock of soiled doves and yanked the lapels back over her bosom.
“I’d like you to meet Missy Devlin.” He fastened the top button and tugged to make sure it held. “She’s not a professional lady.”
The professional ladies made a colorful circle, gazing at her with interest.
“Why, then, is she in her underwear?” Emily asked. Curly heads of red, black and blond nodded all about.
“Yes, dear, what has happened to your clothing?” Maybelle asked, her voice soft with concern. “Zane?” This time her voice had a bite to it.
“I started off yesterday with a lovely dress, white and red with pretty bows and brass buttons shaped like roses, but it was eaten.” A multivoiced gasp came from the circle. Six pairs of eyes stared at Zane with disapproval.
“By a cow!” Zane rushed to clarify.
“Ohhh!” The women sighed as one.
Emily nodded her head in apparent understanding, as though gowns were