Chapter 1
1
ALLISON
October
"You should not have your sights set on a man," Mr. Quinn said, his voice deep and almost quiet, as if speaking to me in a crowded room, instead of alone in an early season snowstorm.
He was generous enough to escort me from the Bridgewater Ranch back to the boarding house in town where I lived and worked, although it did not seem as if I had much choice in the matter. Instead of asking to lead the wagon and the team for me, he'd told me. The snow had tapered, at least temporarily, but the wind was bitter cold on the exposed prairie. The heat radiating from his side where our bodies touched from shoulder to hip kept me warm, but I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to have such warmth surrounding me. Holding me. Pressing me into a soft bed. I pushed those thoughts away and considered his words.
The heat of embarrassment that rose to my cheeks warmed me as well, for he must have seen me eye Dashiell McPherson on occasion. "Oh?" I responded.
"You should, instead, keep your eyes on the man who has his sights set on you."
I tilted my chin and looked up him. His dark eyes were clearly set squarely, and solely, on me.
The stage was cold. Bitterly cold. The leather flaps covering the windows did nothing to keep the frigid December air from seeping in, and into my bones. I shivered beneath my heavy coat, boots, gloves and thick scarf, but this was the Montana Territory and there would be no reprieve until April. No other passengers joined me on the ride to Carver Junction, but that was no surprise for it was Christmas morning. The stage driver himself admitted he was only making the journey to return to his home in Billings to be with his family. He was as desperate to get home as I was desperate to get away.
While I didn't begrudge the Arnolds for selling the boarding house where I'd worked for the past two years, their decision to move south to Denver to be near their grown son and family had been unexpected. A letter bearing news of a second grandchild on the way has spurred them to sell the house to a young couple and move before the longest days of winter. I was out of a job and there was nothing in the small town for me to do. There were no needs for a seamstress, for Mrs. Carnes did that. I couldn't be a laundress for I had no place to live, nor supplies. Besides, Mrs. Adams took in wash for others. Miss Richmond was the school teacher. The only other role for an unmarried woman without family was working at Rose's. That was not a choice. But when Carlton Matthews approached me and forced my hand toward marriage, working in the town's brothel looked a rather appealing alternative. When he'd threatened me with slander or worse if I did not wed him, I fled, boarding the cold, rough stage in the pre-dawn light.
As a gust of wind made the leather window covering flap noisily against the wood, I thought longingly of the men from the Bridgewater Ranch—Mr. Quinn and Mr. Porter specifically. They filled my thoughts, but any interest they may have had in me would have been lost after hearing the lies Mr. Matthews intended to spread. They were too honorable to be with a woman who had supposedly bedded Mr. Matthews only to steal from him.
Mr. Quinn and Mr. Porter had been very attentive when I was in their presence, but they'd done nothing untoward, and neither of them had officially declared his intentions. Perhaps it had all been wishful thinking on my part, and I had put too much hope where none laid. Either one of the men would have been a worthy catch, but it did not matter any longer. I crossed my arms over my chest and hunched my shoulders, trying to keep warm as the stage rolled over a rut in the frozen path. Perhaps it was for the best I left town, for what man would want a woman who had lustful thoughts, even impure actions, about two different men?
Their handsome faces had taken turns filling my mind as I touched myself at the apex of my thighs in the privacy and darkness of my attic bedroom. It had been the unknown things they could do with their big hands—used to gentle a skittish horse or carry heavy sacks of grain—that had made my back arch off my bed as I succumbed night after night to my body's pleasure.
I groaned and grabbed my small bag, pulling out the biscuits I'd packed. They were dry and stuck in my throat, clogging there with tears. I lusted after not one man, but two. I eagerly sought the attentions of not one man, but two. I longed for not one man, but two. I was a...a hussy.
I sighed, my breath coming out in little white puffs, knowing the men would remain on the Bridgewater Ranch while I sought work in a larger town such as Miles City or Billings, most assuredly turning their attentions to other women in town, women who were virtuous and did not dream of two men. I would be quickly forgotten. No, not forgotten, for what Mr. Matthews would tell the town would spread like a July wildfire and either one of them would be thankful they'd been saved from a woman such as I.
Mr. Quinn and Mr. Porter would each have a wife to warm their beds and direct their carnal attentions while I, from whatever town I found work, would continue to think of them in my late night fantasies. It was wrong, I knew, to touch myself intimately and inappropriately, but I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop, for that short moment of bliss wiped away the hardship, the loneliness and the fear. Even now, as I pressed my head back against the hard wood of the seat and shut my eyes, my core clenched and pulsed. My body didn't care that I was painted a loose woman and a thief. It knew what it wanted.
When the stage pulled to a rough stop in Carver Junction and not just Mr. Quinn met me, but Mr. Porter and a man with a star pinned to his heavy winter coat, I knew that Mr. Matthews had followed through with his more extreme threats. I'd hoped Christmas would at least delay the rumors, but that did not seem to be the case. Usually my heart skipped a beat at the sight of either Bridgewater man and this time was no different, but the reason for it had changed. It wasn't eagerness or feminine interest. It was trepidation and worry, for their faces were grim beneath their hats. I swallowed down my fear at being hauled off to spend Christmas in jail. At least I would be warm.
