“Loralee.”
“It’s on me, tonight. You’re a good man, Sloan.”
“And a weary, angry one this evening. Break the girl in in a gentler way, Loralee!”
He picked up the bottle, dropped coins on the bar, and left the saloon.
He walked across the small yard in between the saloon and Mrs. Smith-Soames’s proper establishment, looking up at the velvety night sky. Damn, he did need some sleep.
He didn’t see anyone as he entered the inn by the side door. He climbed the stairs to his room, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it. Nice enough place. A big hearth with a big fire. A handsome set of library chairs before it. A desk to oneside, dressing table to the other. A huge bed. It must have cost a fortune to have the thing hauled out here from the East.
Sloan gazed at his bottle of whiskey. Half gone, and the rough edges of his temper remained. When it was all gone, he just might sleep.
A few minutes later, and he sat before the fire, broodingly watching the swirl of dark amber liquid he had poured into one of the two snifters he had found in his room. He studied the color of the swirling whiskey before each swallow.
“To the wrong life!” he murmured aloud, lifting the glass snifter and watching the firelight play upon it. Glittering gold and amber. The rough edges were beginning to blur.
What in God’s name had he ever thought that he could do? As a half-breed, he lived not so much in treacherous times as wretched ones. There would be no real truce now, and if so, what would it matter? The Indians would be pushed back again and again.
He rubbed his forehead. He was a madman, trying to make some kind of difference for the Sioux by serving in a white man’s army where the general consensus was that it was all right to murder Indian children because “nits made lice” and Indians were “savages” while the white men were “civilized.”
He was in this frame of mind when his door suddenly opened and closed. Frowning, his fingers instantly falling upon the Colt sidearm he had placed on the occasional table next to the chair, he stared at his unbidden visitor.
He hadn’t lit any of the lamps within the room. The brocade drapes at the windows had been shut. There was only the light from the fire, which cast a warm orange glow and many shadows over the room. The flickering firelight only served to enhance the exquisite and stunning beauty of the woman who had entered.
All right, he thought, so he was, finally, fairly drunk. Maybe she wasn’t so beautiful. She was blurred. As softened as the rough edges of fate that had been ripping at his soul.
She stood stiffly with her back pressed against the door, her eyes at first closed as if she were listening for something out in the hallway. Her hair was glorious—dark and waving with a touch of gold and crimson fire down her back, over her shoulders. Her face, framed by the thick tendrils, was an ivory oval, cheekbones high, mouth generous and defined. Her beautifully arched brows added to the regal perfection of her face. Her skin looked smooth and flawless.
Her eyes suddenly flicked open. Sloan could hear the murmur of voices in the hall. It appeared that those voices had alarmed her, and he realized that she must be Loralee’s new “beauty,” just in from the East. Perhaps it was the first time she had been sent over to the inn, and the appearance of others in the hall had disturbed her.
He’d never seen a woman arrive from Loralee’s in quite the fashion this one did.
Even whores usually dressed to come across the yard.
She was wearing an elegant white robe with chaste and virginal white lace at the collars and cuffs. She hadn’t quite tied the garment though, and it hung open to reveal white hose, pantalettes, and corset, the latter laced through with blue satin ribbon. Even taking into consideration the effect of a corset, she had to be the most incredibly curved female he had ever seen, elegantly slim, but endowed with ripe, voluptuous breasts and enticingly rounded hips. He might be deep into the bottle, but this girl was still extraordinary. He found himself standing. He had told Loralee not to send her new beauty. Loralee had apparently done so anyway, undoubtedly thinking she knew damned well what could lighten his mood.
He opened his mouth to tell the woman harshly to go away. To his own surprise, the words died on his lips. He might be drunk, but only a dead man wouldn’t be aroused by this creature.
She was staring at him, as if she had just noticed he was in the room. It was a strange gaze she gave him. One something akin to alarm. He wondered if Loralee had warned her he was half Sioux. But any whore coming west would have to realize much of her clientele would have mixed blood. Her gaze moved swiftly from his face to the opening of his white civilian shirt, down to his black boots.
He wasn’t sure why, but a sudden warmth suffused him. Lust. Straight and simple, he mocked himself. She was something, all right. She’d make a mint. All a man needed to do was stare at her. Half the deprived fellows coming out of the hills would explode before ever setting a hand upon her.
“Come in,” he said. Was his voice slurring roughly? What if someone had been coming in to rob him? Would he have swept that Colt from the table and taken aim quickly enough?
He smiled wryly at himself. He’d wanted the world a little bit blurry. It was damnably so. Was the girl real? He’d have to get closer to find out.
“Wh—what?” she whispered. Her hand was on the door.
“Come in,” he repeated, rising from the chair.
She continued to stare at him.
He shrugged and took a long sip of the whiskey. What in the hell was she doing? This was Gold Town. People were shy. Whores weren’t shy. Miners weren’t often in the mood for a simpering belle. Business was done here, short and simple.
“To be honest, I don’t want you here, but you’ve come. So, either get out or get in and quit clinging to the door.”
He took three long strides toward her. “If you don’t want to be here, get the hell out. And if you’re going to stay, come into the room and away from the damned door!”
