The Preacher's Wife Page 3

  “So do I, and I have a lot more financial responsibility than you.”

  Her pulse sped. The tight bodice made it hard for her to catch a breath. “You can’t renege on what we agreed to. You had us all cheat for you to get your money, and yet you still don’t have enough?”

  “Watch your mouth when you speak to me. Did you forget that I own the saloon? You’re only here because I made a promise to your ma upon her death that I’d look after you. If she hadn’t keeled over before her contract expired, I’d have left you a long time ago to pick up scraps along some riverboat dock.”

  Marissa bit her lower lip. Her voice wavered when she spoke. “Jason, please. I’ve spent years earning that money for when I would be able to step out on my own accord. I can’t lose it all just as I’m about to leave.”

  He peered at her, narrowing his eyes. “What’s this I hear about you servin’ coffee to a preacher tonight?”

  She stiffened. “The new preacher arrived in town today and wanted something other than a libation.”

  “A better question, then, is why he would come to a saloon, of all places, for coffee. What’s he look like?”

  “Tall, dark hair, clean shaven.” She withheld her opinion of the striking dark blue of his eyes, or his reassuring smile and how it put her at ease.

  Jason was able to read her thoughts, anyway. “You think he’s handsome.”

  “Absolutely not. I only saw him as a paying customer.” A feeling deep in Marissa’s gut let her know that she was denying the truth. Warmth spread in her chest when she thought of Rowe’s calm and gentle words spoken to her in the face of the saloon’s harshness.

  “Go back to work,” Jason ordered. “I don’t want to do it, but I’m taking three-quarters of everyone’s earnings tonight.”

  Marissa wanted to break something. He was lying again. She clenched her fists and marched downstairs.

  She had to go to Claywalk tomorrow to look for work and check on the general store investment. Her exit from Assurance could be in place as soon as she was able to leave the saloon. Then, when it was safe to do so, she would expose Jason’s practices.

  “Your friend’s gone,” Simone said at the bottom of the steps. “He left right after you went upstairs.”

  Marissa felt a twinge of disappointment. She barely knew the man, yet he left an indelible impression on her.

  “Don’t cater to him again if he comes back,” Simone continued. “He’ll make you lose your other customers. Let another girl tend him.”

  Rowe’s former seat was occupied by Keith McCauley. He waved her over for another dance.

  Marissa sighed. “This poor man is just handing Jason his wallet tonight.” She resigned herself to another stumbling round of the Varsovienne. She wouldn’t charge Keith for this one.

  Chapter 3

  THE VERY NEXT morning, as soon as Marissa saw that the day’s supply of liquor, drinking glasses, and money for the register were ready at the counter, she left for Claywalk.

  “Where are you off to, dressed so highfalutin?” Jason caught her as she got to the door. He folded his lean-muscled arms in suspicion.

  Marissa tugged on her gloves then adjusted the brim of her hat. Although her eventual departure from the saloon was no secret, she didn’t wish to stir up conflict with him by telling of her plans to find new work. “I have several errands that I need to tend to. I’ll return before the early patrons arrive.”

  “What errands in Assurance require you to be in a frock fit for Sunday?” He raked his eyes over her. “With that on you could almost convince me you were high bred and not quarter-Indian.”

  Smoothing a portion of hair at the nape of her neck, she replied, “I’m not trying to fool anyone. I just want to look respectable as I tend to my business. Please, Jason,” Marissa entreated as she backed away from his approach. “Let me leave to return in time for work.”

  She froze as his hand caught the back of her neck, his fingers probing though the wispy strands not concealed by her hat.

  “Hair this black won’t fool anyone who’s been around the tribes. And those round, soft lips.” The rough skin of his tobacco-stained thumb scraped the sensitive pink of her mouth. “You remember when I kissed you, don’t you, Missy?”

  Terrible memories sprung to the surface. Of his hungry mouth—with its hard stubble, scratched and bit—leaving her with the sour taste of stale bourbon. Her muffled cries for him to stop as the fabric ripped from her dress, her limbs clad in tattered stockings kicking and thrashing beneath the heavy weight thrown upon them.

  “Yeah, you remember.” He lowered his mouth a hair’s breadth away.

  The pain and humiliation consumed her all over again until her knees buckled, making her teeter on her feet.

  “Jason.” Simone came from the dancehall, broom in hand from where she had swept. “Let Marissa get some air. She’s looking pale.”

  Jason opened the space between them again. Marissa grabbed the back of a chair as light-headedness claimed her.

  “Your eyes are going bad, Simone. Missy’s as tawny-colored as she ever was.”

  Marissa touched her face. It was clammy and tingled from where her blood drained. Jason and Simone sounded like they were speaking in a tunnel.

  “It’s stuffy in here. The fresh air outside will do her some good. Isn’t that what you need, Marissa, to go outside?”

  Marissa nodded as her senses slowly returned to normal.

  “Get back in time for tonight.” Jason slunk back to the counter. Pete and the other clerks hurriedly returned to work so he wouldn’t know they stopped to watch the incident.

  Simone propped the broom against one of the gambling tables. “You alright?” She laid her hand against Marissa’s forehead. “You can’t go fainting in here. He’ll think you’re putting on, and he gets real mad.”

  Marissa offered her a weak but grateful smile. “I won’t faint. Thank you.”

  Simone nodded with a compassion that most people rarely witnessed from the steely-faced woman. “Best go before he comes back.”

  Marissa made for the doors, pushing them open to the hot sun outside. There was never a time she felt happier to be out in the heat.

  Timothy Lyle, one of the liverymen’s sons, worked alone at the stables that day. She found him mucking the floor and greeted him good morning.

  “I need someone to take me to Claywalk. Are there any drivers?”

  “I’ll take you, ma’am, when my pa gets back from the house. Be about an hour.”

  Marissa opened her brocade purse. “I’ll pay an extra two dollars if you can take me now. I’ve got to be back before evening.”

  Timothy tied the reins of a horse to the livery post. “Stay here until I get another worker to come watch the stable.” He ran off across the street.

  A little over an hour later Marissa stood in one of Claywalk’s two general stores. The time it had taken her to calm down from Jason’s lewd advances only served as a prelude to another upsetting incident of a different sort. “What do you mean, the store’s been bought and sold? I made a deposit weeks ago, as did your other investors.”

  The store owner shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “The store took out a loan from a banker in Topeka before we were having financial troubles. He put a lien on the property when we couldn’t pay on the loan and claimed a right to the store. Sorry, Miss. Nothing we can do.”

  Marissa shook her head, incredulous. This news wasn’t worth the five dollars she paid to hire a driver to take her down the road. “Why did you advertise the store as being up for sale when there was a lien attached?”

  “The store was up for sale. That was our attempt to get an outside investor to put up enough money to pay off the loan and buy the business before the bank could get to it.”

  “You didn’t specify that in your advertisement. You stated that you were accepting payments for the sale of the store and that they could be sent in installments. I sent you three of them.”

  “Yeah,” the own
er said cautiously. It was apparent that he did not expect to be questioned to this degree about the acquisition of his business, especially by a woman. He scratched his arm. “My business partner and I thought that with enough money from the installments, either from many folks or one investor, that we would be able to pay everything off. We were gonna give the one investor all rights of ownership to the store, or we would divide the rights among multiple investors, should that be the case. As we’ve been foreclosed on yesterday, none of our goals were met.”

  Marissa folded her arms across her chest. “What about our money, then? Do we, the investors, get it back?”

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am. All the money we received from our advertisement went into paying off some of our lesser debts. We really didn’t expect this to happen. Times are hard, you know.”

  “This scheme of yours to repay your debts sounds illegal. I’m questioning whether the banker in Topeka knows about it.”

  “If you want to pursue us by law because you think you’re owed money, get in line behind everyone else. We’ve got claims to settle that are worth far more than the fifteen dollars you put in every month or two.” In a dismissive gesture he picked up a carton holding sacks of sugar and carried it into the storeroom.

  “Thieves,” Marissa uttered.

  The man’s shadow grew smaller until it disappeared from sight. Picking up her skirt hem, she marched back to the coach.

  “Where to now, Miss Pierce?” Timothy jumped down from his box seat and opened the door, but she declined his help in stepping inside.

  “Back home. This trip has proven to be a waste of time.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” The red-headed young man closed the door. “Do you want somethin’ to eat before we head out?”

  “I’m not hungry, Timothy, but I’ll wait for you to get a meal before we leave.”

  “I had some corn hash while you were in the store. Thanks all the same, though.”

  Marissa’s coach left Claywalk at two in the afternoon. Pulling the curtains to the windows, she had no further interest in seeing the town that would have been her new home had things turned out the way she planned.

  It made no sense to find a boardinghouse in Claywalk, either. None of the merchants were hiring. The town had three saloons, but she didn’t want to inquire in them. That was the life she was trying to get away from, not go back to.

  She tucked more of her skirt and bustle beneath her for extra padding on the hard wooden seat of the jostling coach. Didn’t God want her to leave the saloon and be a proper woman? Why was He letting this happen when He could see she was trying to better herself?

  Seems as though I can never escape this.

  You can if you want to. A still, small voice whispered a reply in her mind.

  Marissa disregarded it as wishful thinking, an attempt to cheer herself when her plans had gone awry. She had to think of another plan, and soon, because her contract with Jason was set to expire in a little over two weeks, with a lesser amount of money than she had expected to receive. The streets would be her new home if she didn’t act fast.

  An hour passed, and the coach drew to a halt in front of Assurance’s town square, next to Linda’s seamstress shop. Tired from the physical and emotional strain of the trip, Marissa allowed Timothy to help her down from the platform.

  “Well, well,” an artificial, girlish voice called out. “Look who’s ridin’ around town, unescorted.”

  Sophie Charlton, daughter of the town’s wealthiest resident, David Charlton, came out of the shop. Linda followed her, as well as Sophie’s close companion Margaret Rheins, another member of the town’s small group of eligible young ladies.

  “Thank you, Timothy.” Marissa handed the young man some coins.

  “Much obliged, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and hopped back onto the coach, driving off.

  Sophie waited for the dust to settle before approaching. Her steps were quick as she treaded lightly in her silk brocade gown, the soft blue color bringing out her eyes and complementing her shiny, gold ringlets. Her face had the look of a baby doll, but it held nothing innocent or sweet.

  “Good afternoon, Marissa.” Sophie smiled with her mouth. Her eyes were cold. “Looks like you’ve been traveling. You’re positively covered with dust.”

  “Do look at her, Sophie. Her hair has blown out of her hat,” Margaret added with a smirk and giggled. Her voice contained hints of the English accent of her immigrant parents.

  Linda giggled too, glad to be welcomed into the fray.

  Marissa addressed their leader. “Good afternoon, Sophie. I’m in a hurry and can’t stay to talk.”

  Sophie laughed, much higher and shriller than the other young women. “Whatever for? Do you have customers waiting?”

  Marissa steadied herself, something inside pleading with her to remain still. This did not warrant a confrontation. “I needn’t remind you that your father is a genteel farmer. He’d think us foolish if he heard us now.”

  “The only thing my father thinks is foolish is a girl like you wasting her life away in a den of iniquity.”

  “Sophie, that’s enough,” Marissa countered. “You’re doing nothing to show yourself a woman above juvenile reproach.”

  Sophie and her cohorts all glowered. Linda taunted, “You dance the hurdy-gurdy. What do you know about gentility and proper womanhood, anyhow?”

  “Marissa doesn’t know.” Sophie put in. “She’s just a common, ungracious, mixed-breed Comanche with a prostitute for a mother.”

  Marissa huffed. “My mother was no prostitute. How dare you speak poorly about a woman in her grave?”

  The wealthy young debutante beamed at her reaction. “If she was not a lady of the night, why did she leave you in the charge of Mr. Garth when she died?”

  “Don’t talk about things that you know nothing about.”

  “Then school me. Why did she give you to Mr. Garth, and why are you still with him as a grown woman?”

  They sounded like cruel school-age girls taunting one of their peers. Marissa berated herself for taking part in the juvenility. She was twenty years old, too old to listen to any of it. Their words stung, but what did she stand to gain from defending herself against their pettiness? They wouldn’t believe that it was her contract that held her at the saloon past the age of majority. Besides, there were bigger things to worry about, one of them being homelessness if she didn’t find employment.

  Without further answer Marissa took her leave of Sophie and the other young women and strode the rest of the way to the saloon.

  Afternoon sunlight highlighted the dust particles trapped between the grooves of the heavy oak cabin door. Rowe winced at the loud, high-pitched creak it made when he pushed it open. “Remind me to get some oil for those hinges. And a locksmith.”

  Dusty came in after him and looked behind the door. “That’s what this bar and latch is for.”

  “Then I’d have to leave it unlocked when I go outside. That’s not very secure.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry. We don’t have that kind of trouble here like in the big cities.”

  Rowe set his crate of canned goods and meat from the general store down and studied the cabin’s interior. It had two floors. A small staircase led to the second floor, complete with two bedrooms. The main floor contained a common area and a hearth for the old GM Iron Column stove left behind. The adjoining room was much smaller with one window.

  “Spacious and bare,” he remarked.

  “Our old preacher used to keep his study there before he and his family left for the Dakotas.” Dusty indicated the smaller room. “He had a family of six.”

  Rowe nodded, taking everything in. “Many people once lived here. It’s just me now.” A flash of loneliness took a stab at his heart.

  The farmhand’s mouth curved into a rakish smile. “Not if the town pretties have anything to say about it.”

  “You’ll get no competition from me, Dusty. I’ve got a congregation to think about.
”

  It was Rowe’s intention to keep himself busy within the church and by making repairs in his home so that he wouldn’t give in to memories of Josephine and the child that never was. Shelves needed to be built, the door hinges lubricated, and the fence outside required mending. A second trip to the general store for building tools was necessary.

  “Speakin’ of town pretties, here comes the best filly right now.” Dusty left the windowsill and tore outside.

  Rowe heard a girl’s high-pitched giggle close by. Curious as to Dusty’s sudden departure, he peered out the window to see the cause.

  A petite young lady with a glorious golden crown of curls rode sidesaddle up the path leading to the Charlton farm. Beside her rode another girl, not dressed as extravagantly as her companion, but also in fine clothes. The two women chattered like baby birds, oblivious to anyone or anything taking place outside their conversation. Rowe could hear everything through the thin glass.

  “I saw him at the general store today, Linda. He is simply marvelous!” The golden-haired one gushed.

  “Did you introduce yourself?” Linda asked.

  “He was too hurried to see me and left before I could say anything. But I’m going to introduce myself to him this Sunday and congratulate him on his first sermon here.”

  Rowe’s brow quirked at the flattering reference. He double-checked to make sure they couldn’t see him from his vantage point.

  “My, my, Miss Sophie, you’ve got the whole thing planned, don’t you?”

  Both women turned their heads to Dusty. Sophie wrinkled her delicate little nose. “You’re just jealous, Dusty, because I don’t pay you the same mind.”

  “Oh, that don’t bother me none.” He leaned nonchalantly against the side of the cabin. “You’re just practicing those sweet charms so you can use ’em on me.”

  She gave him a pinched look, much like one would if offered buffalo chips for a snack. “The only thing I’d use on you is a good switch to send you on out of here.”

  “You can’t do that because your pa rather likes my work on his farm.”

  Sophie snorted, managing to make even that guttural noise the daintiest of sounds. “Daddy doesn’t know how vile and uncouth you truly are.”