Her Montana Man (10 page)

da Harper had worked at the hotel since its construction, Eliza learned the next morning. She shared that

she’d had a husband once, but he’d deserted her and their two small children five years ago. After she

eked out a living in a mining camp that was eventually abandoned, her last coins had brought her this far.

She’d been ready to foster out her children to spare them starvation when Jonas had hired her. Her

family now lived in a sturdy little house and owned a cow and half a dozen chickens.

“My boys go to school and then hire out to the ranchers in the fall,” she told Eliza. “Fine young men

they’re growing up to be.”

Eliza and Tyler had met her sons Matt and Daniel at supper the evening before. They were polite young

fellows of eleven and thirteen who spoke respectfully to their mother and kindly to Tyler. Ada’s story

gave Eliza hope that a woman alone could raise a boy and do well by him. Of course—and this gave her

pause for regret—she was running from the very place and the man that had been Ada’s deliverance.

She enjoyed tucking clean sheets around the mattresses, dusting rooms and polishing furniture that day.

Though the tasks were simple, she was keeping busy and earning a wage. Checking her brooch at three

o’clock, she wondered if Bonnie would miss her afternoon visit. Eliza had neglected to mention to Ada

that she would be walking to school to collect Tyler. After looking, she couldn’t locate the woman. She

asked Ward where she might find Jonas.

“At his office down at the saloon, miss.”

She had time, so she freshened up and pulled on her bonnet before strolling eastward four doors to the

Silver Star. The green enamel batwing doors were hooked open against the exterior wall, and two

mahogany-stained doors stood closed against the afternoon sun. Eliza Jane opened one and entered.

She’d never been inside the Silver Star Saloon. Before Jonas had purchased and renovated the business,

it had been a disreputable hangout, populated by drifters and no-accounts who occasionally shot up

Main Street and often mistreated the women of ill repute who worked there.

No sign of the past remained now as she studied the interior. Sun streaked through sparkling clean

windows and louvered shutters, creating interesting blocks of light on the clean, polished oak floor. Three

men sat eating at a table, and a couple others were playing cards at the back of the room.

She’d heard how Jonas had gutted the interior and designed it to welcome respectable clientele. There

were ladies in town who still believed any establishment that sold liquor was scandalous, but the town

council appreciated the taxes the profitable business paid into the coffers.

The tall, slender man standing behind the bar greeted Eliza. “Afternoon, miss. What can I get for you?”

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“I came to speak with Mr. Black.”

The man walked to the open end of the bar and pointed down a corridor. “Second door back there.”

She thanked him, traveled the hall to where he’d shown her and knocked lightly.

“C’mon in.”

She opened the door. Jonas stood at a window, dressed as usual in dark trousers and a light blue shirt.

He was holding the arm that rested in the sling with the opposite hand. She noted there wasn’t much of a

view, what with a brick building next door.

He turned. “Eliza Jane? Somethin’ wrong?”

“No. Nothing. I forgot to mention to Mrs. Harper that I’d need to leave long enough to fetch Tyler from

school. I didn’t find her anywhere.”

“Go,” he told her. His hair looked as though he’d run his hand through it half-a-dozen times, and his

expression was hard.

“Is your arm hurting?” she asked.

“Like a—” He bit off whatever he’d been about to say and nodded. “Doc came by. Said I have a fever.

Warned me to rest.”

“You should be in bed then.”

He scowled at the pile of papers and the open ledger on his desk. “Too much work to be done.”

“Won’t it wait a few days?”

He shook his head. “Payroll needs to be figured. And there’s a mix-up with a couple of deliveries.”

She glanced at the ledger. “I could do it for you.”

“The payroll?”

She nodded. “I’m quite efficient, actually. Would you like me to look it over?”

He hesitated a moment, but then nodded. “Reckon you’ve figured plenty of payroll accounts, eh?”

“Reckon I have,” she replied with a grin.

One side of his mouth curled up at her teasing. “Go get your nephew. After today the Harper boys can

gather him and walk him home. If that suits you.”

“Tyler has been acting embarrassed that I come to walk him home,” she admitted. “I think he’d like

being with the older boys.”

“Go on and get him. Tell Ada you’ll be helpin’ me here. Ask Matt and Danny to look after Tyler until

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supper. He can help them with their chores.”

“Is it safe?” she asked.

“Lily’s bark is louder’n her bite. They’ll fetch her wood and pump water. She’ll sneak ’em cookies.”

Assured, she headed for the door, glancing back. “Did you take the medicine?”

“Makes me too sleepy. I’ll take it tonight.”

Eliza left the Silver Star and headed back along Main past the hotel. From across the street, Bonnie

opened her door and called out, “Afternoon, Eliza Jane! I missed you today.”

Eliza glanced at the street before running across. “I probably won’t be in to have tea for a while.”

She didn’t feel she should try to explain. Anything she said would sound awkward. She didn’t want to

lie, but she couldn’t tell Bonnie she was working.

“Well, stop whenever you can,” Bonnie offered.

“I will, thanks.” Another block and she crossed to the grassy area where the school was situated. The

children were already trailing from the building, and Tyler spotted her immediately.

“Jimmy Jeffries brought a snake in a big jar today,” he told her.

“Oh my goodness.”

“It had yellow stripes. Danny said it’s a wandering garter snake and he says maybe
we
can find us one!”

The Harper boys were walking a few feet behind them, so Eliza turned to include them in their

conversation.

“There’s tall grass ’cross the alley behind the dry goods store,” Danny said. “Snakes’re in there for

sure.”

“Do you know the difference between the safe snakes and dangerous ones?” Eliza asked.

“Yup,” Matt replied importantly. “Jonas showed us a long while ago when he found out we played back

there sometimes.”

Eliza nodded, still not certain snake hunting sounded like a safe pastime.

She shared what Jonas had said about looking after Tyler, and watched them enter the hotel before

continuing on to the saloon.

Jonas was seated on a chair at the table with the card players when she arrived. He stood and

accompanied her to his office. “Been thinkin’ to take this stuff to the hotel, so you can work there.”

“Whatever you prefer.”

“More people are likely to see you comin’ here is all. What with you wanting to keep your employment

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a secret, I thought it’d be wiser.”

“I appreciate that.”

Jonas’s entire arm throbbed, all the way from his shoulder to his wrist. The more tasks he couldn’t do

and the fiercer the wound hurt, the more frustrated he’d grown throughout the day. Though it galled him

to admit he needed it, Eliza Jane’s help would make a big difference. “Tyler all right?”

Tyler hadn’t mentioned Jenny. Hadn’t mentioned going to the house or seeing Royce. “He’s pleased to

have a change, and the Harper boys are older and exciting. I think they’ll be good for him. I’m just a little

uncomfortable about letting him run about.” She arranged a stack of invoices, glancing at them and

automatically putting them in some sort of order as she spoke. “Is it safe for them to hunt snakes?”

Jonas chuckled at the worry wrinkles between her brows. “He’s a boy. It’ll do ’im good.”

“Aren’t there rattlesnakes?”

“Not as common in these parts as garter or bull snakes. They like the sun, so they mostly stay out in the

open. They’re sit-and-wait predators and avoid people. You get a warning with the tail, too.”

Her eyes widened, and he didn’t know if he was helping or hurting by trying to explain. “If you see one,”

he went on, “you leave it be and it leaves you alone. People don’t get bit unless they bother ’em or try to

pick ’em up. Matt and Danny know that. They’ll teach Tyler.”

She gave him a speculative look. “How do you know all this?”

“I was a boy once.”

“How do boys learn such things?”

He stacked a couple of ledgers and pushed the pen and ink toward her. “Same way girls learn to have

tea parties. Instinct, I reckon.”

She gathered as much as she could carry, and Jonas asked Quay to help him load a few crates and then

carry them down the street.

He called upon Ward to rearrange the room behind the hotel clerk’s area, directing the moving of

cartons and chairs to unearth an old desk. Originally intended for an office, the room was away from the

traffic of the foyer and the dining room, but it had become a depository for lost items.

He was certain Eliza Jane was accustomed to far more lavish surroundings. “I’ll have the place cleaned

up tomorrow,” he told her.

“I’m the cleaning help, remember?” she said with a smile.

“Not for a week or two, you’re not. You’re my right hand.”

She directed her gaze to his hand where it extended from the sling. Her eyes seemed unnaturally shiny.

Was she going to cry?

Ward entered and set down another crate of files. “Here, boss?”

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“That’s good. Thanks.”

Eliza Jane removed her bonnet and stood to the side, waiting until Ward left.

“Somethin’ I said?” Jonas asked.

She shook her head, but didn’t meet his eyes.

“Doesn’t improve my day to make ladies cry,” he said.

She set the pen and ink she’d been holding on the desktop. “Jenny once told me I was her right hand.

Not literally, of course, not like you meant it, but because she couldn’t manage without me.”

He didn’t know what to say. She’d been such a tower of strength whenever he’d spoken with her. Her

grief was a hard thing to see. “If you need some time…before startin’ to work on this…before workin’ at

all…”

“No, I don’t. I need to work.”

To keep busy? Then why would her brother-in-law disapprove? Jonas had picked up on her

desperation more than once. Her insistence indicated she truly needed the money, though he couldn’t

understand why. Intuitively he suspected there was more to her and her situation than met the eye. More

than she was letting on.

After watching her from this side of the street while she made her way to the tearoom those many

afternoons, it seemed like fortuity that she was right here. A black tendril of her hair had come loose and

hung alongside her face. He noticed the winged shape of her eyebrow and the delicate curve of her

cheek with a cautionary warning in his gut. She was too vulnerable, too naive to know his undisciplined

thoughts when he looked at the slope of her breasts beneath her white shirtwaist or let his attention waver

to the curve of her lips.

What was it about this woman that unsettled him? Admittedly, he had a weakness where females were

concerned, but it was a protective instinct, a fighting urge that had been born one night twenty-five years

ago, the night he’d been helpless to protect the woman who’d needed him.

This was different. He felt protective toward Eliza Jane, yes, but more…he was drawn to her by a

compelling fascination…and yet wary, like a moth fluttering near a flame.

“Today’s a bust,” he said, deciding. “Tomorrow’ll be soon enough to get the payroll done.”

Her amber eyes were wide, showing her confusion when she looked at him. Such an unusual

combination, that hair and those eyes. Had it only been the night before that he’d kissed her?

He shouldn’t have done that.

He wanted to kiss her again.

He wanted to satisfy this bone-deep quest to somehow
reach
her. The craving was the confoundedest

thing he’d ever felt.

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Stepping to a shelf beside the door, he reached for two keys lying in the dust. He extended one. “If you

can’t sleep tonight and you want, come on down and clean the place to your likin’.”

She reached for the key, careful not to let her fingers brush his, and nodded. As though she’d picked up

on his foolhardy thoughts, she backed away and hurried out the door.

That night, he used his better judgment, took the doc’s medicine early on and slept like a rock.

A startled shriek woke him.

Jonas rolled to his good side and squinted at Francine Kluver. “What?”

“I didn’t know you were still sleeping! You’ve never been here before when I came to make the bed!

I’m so sorry, Mr. Black. I shoulda knowed when I saw your water pitcher still sittin’ outside the door.”

The housekeeper had turned around and was talking over her shoulder.

He reached for the sheet and dragged it to cover his lower half. The movement shot pain through his

right side. He stifled a groan to sit on the edge of the bed. “What time is it?”