Leaden Skies by Ann Parker Read Free Book Online

stock prices gyrated up and down, dancing to the tune of East Coast investors and their nervousness over the stability of Leadville’s silver future.
    She sighed.
    The Silver Queen’s fortunes are looking up. That’s good. But I need something I can call my own. Something that has my name on it, clear and legal. I own a third of the saloon, but only verbally, and those words were spoken long ago, in another life. If the unthinkable happens and my husband returns, I’m not certain those words would mean anything at all.
    “Did you mean what you said earlier, about getting a divorce?” Reverend Sands’ question seemed almost as though he’d read her mind.
    They were at the corner of Harrison and Fourth, preparing to turn the corner and walk the long block to her home. She faced away from him for a moment, away from the lights on Harrison. Fourth Street was dark, quiet, its modest one-story homes, punctuated every once in a while with an ambitious two-story stand against the formidable cold of Leadville’s ten-month-long winters.
    “Of course I meant it.” She turned onto Fourth. Sands followed. “Mark has been gone a year. Over a year. I’ve had not a word, not a letter, nothing. He could be dead, he could be alive. He loved our son, so much.” Her throat closed as she thought about little William, almost two years old and living so far away, back east with her sister, Harmony.
    It was the right decision, to send him away. With his lungs, he’d not have lived through another winter up here. And I couldn’t leave Leadville then. I still hoped that Mark would return. That there was a reason for his sudden disappearance. An accident. Some unfortunate circumstance. But that was long ago. Now, the time is coming when I will be able to think about leaving. I swore, when I handed William to Harmony, that I would do whatever was necessary to get him back and move somewhere where we could live together. Making a deal with Flo would allow me the wherewithal to do that sooner, rather than later. William may never know his father, but he will know his mother.
    She coughed, forcing tears away, and continued, “When I visited the lawyer several weeks ago, he indicated I could sue for divorce on grounds of desertion. That’s exactly what I intend to do. And the sooner the better.”
    The sooner the better.
    Despite her verbal assurances to Reverend Sands, a lingering doubt still pulsed, like water seeping from a heated mineral spring in winter.
    What if Mark is alive? Not just alive, but here somewhere in Colorado?
    There had been indications. Possible sightings. Reported to her second- or third-hand. Not in Leadville, but in Denver. And again, in Central City.
    Best to finish the job. I can’t claim proper widowhood without proof of his death, but I can end this half-existence with a divorce.
    The societal backlash from a divorce was inevitable, but then…
    Better a “grass widow” here out West than home back East.
    They’d arrived at Inez’s small house. She reached for her key and then realized it was back at the Silver Queen. Reverend Sands pulled a small ring of keys from some pocket inside his coat and thumbed through them until he found the one he wanted. He inserted it, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.
    She stepped inside, then turned to face him. “Are you coming in?”
    His face was invisible, unreadable, cast into shadow under his hat. His figure, no more than a black silhouette, seemed to blend with the pressing darkness of the overcast night, punished by rain.
    “Am I invited?”
    The slight huskiness of his voice was all the indication she needed that their walk here, together, had served to turn aside his attention from the outside world and its recent troubles. That he was, like her, hoping for comfort and connection in the most human of blessings, the simple touch of skin to skin, breath to breath, heart to heart.
    Without a word, she took his hand and gently pulled him inside.

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