An Unlikely Lady Read online

  She lifted her hand to her throat and freed the ruby from beneath her blouse. Tears stung her eyes. She’d sworn she’d keel over dead before giving up the only valuable thing she owned, but now, faced with the choice of keeping the bauble or uncovering the secret Deuce had taken to the grave, she felt there wasn’t much of a choice to make.

  With a decisive flick of her wrist, she wrenched the chain from her neck and dropped the ring onto the table between them.

  Jesse stared at it for several long, stunned seconds before looking askance at Honesty. “What’s this?”

  “Your reward. It’s well worth your time.”

  Silence lay thick in the air as she waited for his decision, and she watched as his eyes went from a hard green to a turbulent blue. The shift in color sent a jolt of alarm through her, for it came dangerously close to the shades seen only in her dreams.

  Finally he relaxed his obdurate stance, but just when Honesty thought he would agree to take the job, he dashed her hopes.

  “I don’t think so, Honesty. Find another pigeon.”

  “You’re refusing? Just like that?”

  He quirked one brow. “Never had anyone turn you down before?”

  “Not with such haste.” Or such vigor!

  “Look,” he sighed. “As much as I sympathize with your wanting to find your brother, you’re barking up the wrong tree with me. I’ve already got a job.”

  “Surely you don’t mean here!”

  “No, but now that you mention it, I do have a commitment to Rose. Then first thing Sunday morning, I’m kissing this town goodbye.”

  “But that’s when I would want—”

  “Alone.”

  And before Honesty could stop him again, he spun away and climbed the stairs.

  She clenched her hands into fists. Why was he being so difficult? Her request was a simple one, yet he swatted it off as if she’d asked for the moon.

  Fighting the temptation to go after him and demand he reconsider, Honesty sat hard in an empty chair, slammed her arms in a fold across her breasts, and blew out an aggravated breath. So much for her spontaneity theory. Now she’d have to endure the rest of the week knowing he’d gotten the upper hand.

  Just as suddenly, her mouth curved in a naughty grin. She still had three days. She was Honesty McGuire, and in the proud words of her father, she’d been born with the creativity of a thespian, the resilience of steel, and more tenacity than a pack of timber wolves. And if she’d learned anything during her time with Rose, it was that there were ways of bending a man to her will—even a man as inflexible as Jesse Jones.

  Over the next three days, Jesse couldn’t decide whether to choke the life out of Honesty or drag her upstairs and show her the danger of pushing a man too far. She catered to him as if he were the Prince Royal, serving him breakfast, drawing his bath, seeing that his clothes were kept freshly washed and pressed. She also teased him during rehearsals, praised his music, and laughed at his stupid jokes.

  Though he knew that she was only pursuing him for her own benefit, he couldn’t help but compare her lively, even seductive, efforts with Miranda’s “helpless maiden” manipulation—which he’d fallen for hook, line, and sinker, and barely lived to regret.

  And against all wisdom and reason, the initial temptation to take Honesty up on her offer grew until he could hardly bear it. The thought of her all alone, searching for the last of her family . . . God knew, she’d not have an easy time going down that road.

  But he already had enough on his plate.

  He thought about demanding that she quit her nonsense, but two things stopped him: he hadn’t been this pampered since childhood, and he wanted to see how far she was willing to go.

  By Saturday, Rose’s plans had become a reality. The saloon sparkled from top to bottom, thanks to Honesty; Rose had cajoled Jesse into cutting down a few trees to block the path of the stagecoach, so they’d be forced to take the detour; a sign the size of a barn wall had been painted by Rose and Sarah Wentworth; then Joe and Jake had hauled the monstrosity up to their mountaintop and planted it well. It read, SWEETEST SONGBIRD IN THE WEST! PERFORMING SATURDAY, JUNE 12, SCARLT ROSE SALOON, and could be seen for miles. If all went well, not only would the blocked road force passengers to the Scarlet Rose, but any traveler looking for a bit of entertainment would see the sign and make his way to Last Hope.

  Joe and Jake came in early to stock the shelves with liquor. They hadn’t given him any trouble since the day they’d caught him near their claim, but they continued to keep a watchful eye on him, as if waiting for any excuse to thump his skull. Jesse’d had enough skull-thumping in the last week to last him a lifetime, and he avoided them as much as possible.

  After helping Rose with last-minute arrangements that morning, Jesse slipped out back to check on his horse. Gemini pranced around the split rail paddock, head high, tail raised, almost parading his prowess to the sorry mule grazing nearby. Spotting Jesse, he cantered to the fence for his daily ration of oats.

  Jesse scratched the shank of black hair between Gemini’s eyes. “Itchin’ to hit the trail, aren’t you fella?”

  Gemini whinnied and pawed the ground.

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  Jesse led him into the stall and hung a bucket of feed from the top rail. A quick examination of Gemini’s leg put a satisfied smile on Jesse’s face. Though the wound was still visible, the gash had closed to a healthy pink seam, and the swelling had receded after the first day.

  Only one more day. Then he’d kick the dust of this two-bit town from his heels.

  Prickles at the back of his neck warned him he was no longer alone. He turned slowly, and the sight of Honesty hit him like a blow to the sternum.

  She stood in a beam of sunlight, wearing a frothy pink gown that fit her like a dream. The silk fabric was drawn tight around her figure, emphasizing the length of her legs, the flare of her hips, the fullness of her breasts. A draping of fabric hemmed in white lace fit snug around her stomach. A sash sewn with baby roses crossed from right shoulder to left hip, while the other shoulder had been left bare, revealing flawless peaches-and-cream skin.

  “Do you like it?” She whirled in a circle.

  Jesse’s mouth went dry. His gaze traveled up her slender neck, past lush, pouty lips, to the snub of her nose and the rich coffee brown of her eyes. She’d piled her hair atop her head, and a wreath of silk roses sat upon the mass of loose amber ringlets at her crown. A fire kindled in Jesse’s veins and sent the blood rushing to his groin.

  He clutched the rag he’d used to polish his saddle tightly in his hand and brushed past her to reach for a bridle on the wall. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I came to ask your opinion. I can’t decide which outfit to wear tonight. What do you think? Soft and alluring?” She paused a moment, then flipped the red and black lace dress she’d worn his first night in town in front of her, and pulled the wreath from her hair. The pale mass tumbled down her shoulders and back. “Or bold and brazen?”

  Was she trying to kill him?

  Every memory he’d retained of that night ambushed him in vivid detail; the lush curve of her body, the heat of her skin, the sultry promise in her eyes and in her smile. Sensations he’d fought to ignore this past week blazed through his system like wildfire, searing through his chest, his loins.

  Damn, he wished he could remember being with her.

  “It wouldn’t matter if you went out there in sackcloth and ashes,” he said gruffly, turning away before she noticed his arousal. “You’ll have that audience so wowed, they won’t know what hit them.”

  “You’re no help.” She chuckled.

  It grew quiet then, with nothing but the occasional stomp of a hoof against packed ground, a twitter of sparrows nesting in the rafters, and the dim bark of orders from inside the saloon to break the silence.

  Jesse knew it was too much to hope that she would leave him to suffer in peace.

  “That’s a fine looking animal.”


  He glanced over his shoulder as she sashayed toward Gemini.

  “Have you had him long?”

  Jesse tore his eyes away from the fluid swing of her hips and cleared his throat. “Since he was a colt.”

  “I’ll bet he cost you a pretty penny.”

  “He was a gift.”

  “You must be quite talented.”

  Jesse’s hands froze on the bridle. Realizing she’d thrown his remark back in his face, he turned to her in shock. Her impish grin told him she’d done it on purpose. “I’m not changing my mind, Honesty.”

  “Why, Jesse? You’re leaving tomorrow anyway. And I won’t be any trouble, I promise.”

  “Look,” Jesse sighed. “In a few hours, you’ll have a whole bevy of protectors to choose from. I guarantee that you’ll be able to convince one of them to help you.”

  “But I don’t want one of them. I don’t even know them.”

  “You don’t know me, either,” he reminded her.

  “I know you’re honest and reliable and decent. And I know that I would never come to any harm with you. I don’t have that confidence in anyone else.”

  The faith she placed in him weighed on his shoulders like medieval armor. Honest. Reliable. Decent. Hell, he was even better at his job than he thought.

  Jesse raked his fingers through his hair, as frustrated with the burden she put on him as his own desire to be the man she professed him to be. “Honesty, I admire your ambition to track down your brother, but if you ask me, you’d be a whole lot better off staying here with Rose and hiring a professional to find him.”

  “You mean, like a detective?”

  “Why not?” Though it galled him to encourage her to remain in the lifestyle Rose provided, he sure as hell couldn’t cave in to her request, no matter how tempting it seemed. “I’m sure there are some who specialize in finding people.”

  For a moment he could have sworn he’d seen panic flash across her face, but it disappeared so quickly that he wondered if his suspicious nature was running amuck. She gave a flippant wave of her hand. “You’re right. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. So, which is it?” She lifted the dress in front of her again. “The red or the pink?”

  Jesse frowned. He might have accepted the abrupt change of subject if the blinding smile she gave him reached her eyes. “What’s wrong, Honesty?”

  “What makes you think anything is wrong?”

  “Your hands are shaking.”

  She dropped her gaze. “I’m a little nervous about tonight, I suppose. Sometimes the audiences get a bit rambunctious.”

  Again, a logical answer. “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about,” he countered gruffly. “I’ll be right there.”

  “You will?”

  “I have to be. I’m the piano man, remember?”

  Her crestfallen expression snaked around his heart. He tipped her chin in the air and stared into worried brown eyes. “I’ll be right there. I give you my word.”

  She closed the distance separating them with two swift steps and wrapped her arms around his neck in a bruising grip, not seeming to care that her fine costumes were being crushed between their bodies.

  Jesse closed his eyes and let her hold on, but he didn’t embrace her back. God knew he wanted to, though.

  Just when he thought he’d lose his self-control, she pulled back and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Jesse.”

  As she picked up her skirts and hurried back to the saloon, Jess touched his fingers to his cheek. It was a damn good thing he was leaving tomorrow, because if he had to spend one day more in her company, he feared he’d might do something really stupid.

  Like fall for the devious minx.

  Despite her efforts to banish their conversation from her mind, it stayed with Honesty throughout the afternoon and into the evening as she dressed for her performance. Hire a detective. A reasonable solution if not for one minor fact: Detectives had been hunting her father off and on for as long as she could remember. Deuce had once confessed they were after him due to a con gone awry years ago, but he’d never revealed the details. It must have been serious, though, or else he wouldn’t have feared them. She hoped that they would learn of his death and drop their search. Unfortunately, she feared the opposite—that if they learned of his death, they’d redirect their hunt to her. She had, after all, been part of his schemes . . .

  “Honesty, are you ready? We’ve got a crowd down there clamorin’ to hear the ‘Sweetest Songbird in the West.’”

  “I’ll be down in a sec,” Honesty called to Rose through the closed door.

  With brittle precision, she set the brush on the vanity, then stood and smoothed her skirt. She’d chosen the pink gown, for the way it had made Jesse’s eyes light up, and for the roses that promoted the saloon. Then she adjusted the wreath in her hair and left her room.

  Conversational murmurs from the crowd mingled with a rising layer of cigar haze. Rose had recruited Sarah Wentworth’s help for the evening and the two wound their way around tables and chairs, serving drinks and exchanging banter, while Joe and Jake manned the bar and the gaming table.

  Hollow dread curled in Honesty’s stomach. The last time she’d sung before an audience her world had crumbled, and anticipation of all hell breaking loose again had her palms growing damp and her tongue swelling.

  She managed to hang onto her fragile composure by forcing herself to concentrate on placing one slipper in front of the other instead of thinking of the men watching her descend the stairs. Curiosity had drawn a good majority of them from the Black Garter, and the stagecoach passengers—a dozen men and two women—were scattered about the room. The ladies sat close to the door and looked to be related. The younger of the two stared in wide-eyed fascination at Honesty while the elder one glared at her with undisguised disapproval. Honesty would have bet her white silk garters that if there had been any other place in town to bed down, the woman would have braved a wall of fire to get there. The picture might have made her laugh if she hadn’t been so darned petrified.

  Then she heard Jesse whispering her name like a caress. He stood at the piano, lighting up the room with his presence, an angel in disguise, an answer to a prayer.

  Their gazes met and held for endless seconds. Awareness of him sped through her every nerve ending: the way his borrowed black coat hugged his broad shoulders, the contrast of his white shirt against his tanned complexion, the aura of confidence he wore with the same ease as the gun belt around his waist. She sank into the warmth of his blue-green eyes, drawing strength.

  Then he winked.

  The heavy coat of anxiety she’d been wearing slithered off her shoulders, and she gave him a wobbly smile of thanks. While he took a seat on the bench, she climbed the stairs to the stage, then waited for her cue.

  Miraculously, the audience disappeared. Honesty sang to him and him alone, songs they’d practiced so many times that she often found herself humming them in her sleep. Saucy numbers, jocular ditties, bittersweet ballads.

  Though she was dimly aware of the claps and whistles around her, the world had narrowed down to the two of them.

  Then Jess keyed in on the first sweet notes of “Greensleeves,” and Honesty’s voice carried to every lonely heart in the saloon. By the time the last sweet note faded to silence, warm tears tracked down her cold cheeks.

  Even Jesse’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny.

  And Honesty had never felt closer to another human being in her life.

  A movement to her left broke the spell as a man got up from his seat and instantly went to Rose. After a brief conversation she took his hand with a compassionate smile and led him upstairs to the rooms above. The exchange didn’t go unnoticed by the elder lady; she clapped her hand over the younger girl’s eyes, then ushered her out of the saloon with an imperious tilt of her nose.

  Jesse didn’t miss the exchange, either. He turned to Honesty, pinning her with a gaze so hot and accusing that her heart jumped into her windpipe. The fer
ocity in his eyes and the disapproving line of his mouth made her feel low and dirty and cheap.

  A touch at her elbow drew her gaze to a flannel-shirted man in his late forties. With a stiff smile, she took him by the hand, and, as Rose had done, led her customer upstairs.

  Jesse lost count of how long he spent at the piano with a bottle of whiskey for company, but it was long enough to make fuzz grow on his brain and turn his muscles into jelly.

  He knew he shouldn’t be drinking himself into oblivion, but it was the only thing he could do to blot his mind of the sight of Honesty heading upstairs with yet another lovesick customer. Having Honesty all to himself the last few days, he’d almost been able to forget how she made a living.

  Tonight had been a cutting reminder.

  One after another, he’d watched through increasingly bleary eyes as men came stumbling down the stairs. Most of ’em would still be buttoning their shirts and carrying their boots in their hands. And all of ’em, every damned, stinking, thievin’ one of ’em, would be wearin’ a shit-eating grin.

  Thick loathing pooled in Jesse’s gut to join the excessive amount of liquor he’d consumed. He took another deep swallow of whiskey to wash it away. It didn’t help. The thought of her lying in one of those beds, her amber hair spread across the ivory sheets, her mouth parted in ecstasy as hands cupped her breasts, had printed itself in his mind so deeply and so permanently that he could have painted the son-of-a-bitch.

  Not just any hands, though.

  His hands.

  Jesse pounded the keys with a heavy fist. Joe glanced up from behind the bar, and the broom in Jake’s grip stopped its motion. Everyone else had either left, fallen asleep at one of the tables, or found a bed upstairs to catch a few winks before the stage left the next morning.

  Jesse ignored the lot of ’em and downed the last bit in his glass, then slammed it atop the piano and grabbed the bottle, only to find it empty, too.

  Why the hell couldn’t he remember being with her? Had he been as incredible as she’d claimed, or had he been just one of the many besotted fools who’d paid for the privilege of her body and her praise?