An Unlikely Lady by Rachelle Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

frown she sought out Rose and found her sitting alone in the main room of the saloon, scratching on a tablet with a pencil. “Where’s our guest?”
    â€œYou just missed him,” Rose answered without looking up. “He left about ten minutes ago.”
    He’d left? The bottom dropped out of Honesty’s stomach. “Where’d he go?”
    â€œSaid he was goin’ to check on his horse.”
    â€œIs he coming back?”
    Rose shrugged. “He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”
    A strange emptiness spread through her, which made no sense. She should be glad he was gone. It had been hard enough waking up beside him; seeing him after her story of unbridled passion would not only have been awkward, but downright foolish.
    â€œHe seemed mighty taken with you, though,” Rose said with a smile in her voice.
    Honesty glanced quickly at Rose’s bent head and fought a surge of panic. “Did he say something?”
    â€œNope. But he was askin’ all kinds of questions about you.” She peered up at Honesty and her mouth twitched, as if holding back a grin. “I don’t know what you did, but it sure left an impression on him.”
    Honesty averted her gaze. She didn’t want to think about what Rose would do if she ever learned how she’d “handled” Jesse. And if Jesse ever found out how she’d duped him . . .
    A sliver of guilt crept into her conscience. Drugging a customer, then playing it off afterward hadn’t bothered her any other time she’d been forced to do it; why should it bother her now? She’d been trained to play on human weakness; it had been ingrained since she could remember. The one time she’d given in to aweakness of her own, she’d paid the price—with her father’s life.
    Fresh grief welled up at the memory, and Honesty pushed it to the back of her mind, then slipped into the chair across from Rose. Strands of her golden-red hair had escaped their pins and fell about her shoulders. Honesty couldn’t tell if Rose had recently woken up or if she’d not gone to bed at all. “What are you doing?”
    â€œTrying to turn coal into gold,” Rose said, scribbling something in one of the books before her. “That damned Eli Johnson is going to be the end of me yet. First he steals my girls, then he steals my customers, now he’s about to steal my livelihood.”
    Contrition instantly rose up inside Honesty. Lately, she’d been so focused on her own problems that she hadn’t given much thought to the struggles Rose faced in keeping the saloon’s doors open. Eli Johnson owned the Black Garter, a bordello that sat directly on the stage route a few miles east. He’d been sweet on Rose once, but when she didn’t return his affections, he swore he’d make her regret spurning him. Evidently, it was working. “Are things that bad?”
    â€œPut it this way—if I don’t figure out some way of drumming up business soon, I’ll be closing my doors.”
    Sometimes Honesty wondered if maybe thatwouldn’t be the best thing. Her father always said, “Life is like a horse race: sometimes ye draw a quick mount that’ll take ye far, and sometimes ye draw a plug. If that happens, ye don’t waste time kickin’ a dead horse; ye look for a fresh mount.” She supposed that was why they never stayed in one place very long. He’d always promised that they’d settle down one day, but the promise only lasted until a fresher, faster horse came along. And before Honesty could unpack her bags, they’d be off again.
    It used to be exciting—new horizons, fresh adventures, greater opportunities . . . it never mattered where they went, they’d had each other. If over the years she’d found herself yearning more and more often for a place to call her own, she only had to remind herself what would happen if