Midnight Lover by Barbara Bretton Read Free Book Online

bill of goods. I seriously doubt Silver Spur to be the haven of matrimony they say it is."
    Caroline was about to relate some of her father's stories about Silver Spur when Abby pointed out the window. "Look!"
    Caroline cleaned a small circle of glass with the heel of her left hand. "Men!" she breathed as they entered the town. Men as far as the eye could see.
    Men in torn and dirty overalls lounged in the doorway of the Silver Horseshoe Eatery and Ben's Emporium and Dry Goods Store. Men in large-brimmed hats tilted down over their foreheads straddled horses larger than any Caroline had ever seen before. The men were old and whiskered; the men were young with faces smooth as a babe's. They were tall and short and fat and thin and everything in between.
    They were every spinster's prayer come true.
    The stage rattled past a cluster of men near a place called the Golden Dragon and Penelope Nelson nearly fell off her seat staring at the women in their bright red dresses who lounged on the porch, sipping cool drinks and fanning themselves while they flirted with the men.
    For the first time since she left Thomas Addison behind at the railroad station in Boston, Caroline wondered what on earth she'd gotten herself into. She hadn't figured there would be quite so many men—or that they would look quite so dangerous.
    "Will you look at them?" Sarah Wilder scrambled closer to Caroline and pointed out the window. "I bet they don't come like that in Boston, do they?"
    Two men—one, tall and clad in shamelessly tight-fitting breeches and a fringed rawhide waistcoat, the other in coveralls—leaned casually against the railing of the Golden Dragon.
    "Will you look at them?" Abby whispered to Caroline. "Just waitin' there as fine as you please, as if they were first in line at the butcher shop."
    Not even her own Crazy Arrow Saloon across the street could draw Caroline's gaze away from the man in those wicked breeches. It was a wonder he could draw a breath in them, much less walk. They were the most scandalous thing she'd ever seen in her entire life but, heaven help her, she felt as if she would rather die than turn away.
    "It would seem they're eager for brides," she managed finally, drawing in her breath as the man looked up and tipped his hat in the most arrogant of fashions. A shock of dark hair fell across his forehead and she had a fleeting glimpse of eyes bluer than the skies overhead. He seemed to be looking right at her in a way so possessive, so powerfully male, that her hands began to tremble.
    Quickly she sat back down and busied herself with pulling on her pale grey kid gloves. Her cheeks burned with some strange emotion she didn't dare identify. This wasn't why she'd come to Silver Spur. Let the McGuigans and the Wilders and even Abby go husband-hunting; she had more important things to do.
    The coach stopped and they waited while the driver clambered down from his perch in a flurry of mumbled oaths, then dragged a wooden step stool over to the passenger door, his one concession to the ladies on board.
    "Well," said Margaret McGuigan, "from here on it's every gal for herself."
    "You'll dance at my wedding," said Jenny Wilder, "or I'll know the reason why."
    There was no turning back now and Caroline knew it. Boston was her past and, like it or not, she was about to meet her future head-on. Straightening the collar of her dark blue traveling suit, she winked at Abby. "I'll dance at your weddings, if you'll promise to have the wedding party at my saloon."
    There was a long, shocked silence.
    "That was a fine joke, Miss Bennett," said Reverend Nelson, patting his bride on the arm. "Your own saloon, indeed."
    "You had me goin'," said Margaret, gathering up her belongings while the stagecoach driver grumbled. "A saloon owner! You!"
    Jenny laughed out loud. "You look like a gal from a fancy finishin' school. Everyone knows saloon owners ain't women."
    Caroline reached for the Moroccan leather bag and accepted the driver's hand.