Read Online Double Mountain Crossing by Chris Scott Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

twenty-eight, and what was more she still looked young, not like some of the women, aged prematurely by sun and wind and the demanding life of the frontier. She would take any steps within her means to prevent herself becoming frumpish like all the others who had succumbed to the rigours of her profession and settled into complacency.
    God, with a bankroll that ran into thousands, Shuck could take her to San Francisco and she could be a real lady, dressed in the finest clothes money could buy. Nobody would know what she had done in the past. She would be able to entertain other ladies of stature, tea from a silver teapot, the finest imported china, cups like thimbles. The house would have fine carpets and fine velvet drapes. She had spent so long dreaming about it she could see it all in the minutest detail.
    The images flashed through her mind as she approached Morgan Clay, still standing to one side of the doorway as he scanned the room. She noted with pleasure he was dressed decently in a jacket and clean trousers, unlike the usual grime encrusted prospectors who did not know what a bathtub looked like, never mind what it was used for. He was freshly shaved too, befitting a man with a bankroll as thick as she had been led to believe.
    â€œHello there. New in town?” Anne Marie said as she came within touching distance. Morgan took in the black hair carefully piled on top of her head, thick coils hanging from the arrangement to brush her bare shoulders. She had a pretty face, the prettiest one he had seen in both his visits to Redrock, with a pert nose above a generous mouth. The eyes too, were interesting, sombre brown but with a sparkle that seemed to size him up at a glance. He was embarrassed. He dropped his eyes from her penetrating gaze, but found himself examining the revealing neckline of her dress. Color flushed his cheeks and he lifted his gaze back up to her faintly amused eyes. He couldn’t fathom what a girl like her was doing working in a saloon. Not unless she was the owner, but a glance at the bar told him the owner he knew from before was tending the customers.
    â€œWell, are you?” she asked, her lips barely moving.
    â€œWhat?” he replied, gruff voiced.
    â€œNew in town. I haven’t seen you in here before.”
    â€œYes. Passed through a couple of months back.”
    â€œBut I wasn’t here then.”
    â€œNo,” he agreed, smiling a little now. Something in her voice had dismissed her immediate impact on him and he felt easier. “Would you like to have a drink with me, er… ”
    â€œAnne Marie,” she filled in brightly, linking her arm through his and steering him to an empty table. As they sat down she waved an arm to the bartender. “A bottle and two glasses over here!”
    â€œMake it Irish,” he added. “None of that rattlesnake pi…” He faltered. She watched his expression with interest then laughed gaily.
    â€œI’ve heard the word before,” she said, her long eyelashes beckoning.
    â€œStrange,” he said, more to the tabletop than to her face as the whiskey arrived. “You seem, well, not…I mean you…you don’t appear…”
    â€œâ€¦To be the usual kind of girl to work in a saloon?” she filled in again. It was getting to be a habit. “I haven’t always worked the saloons,” she lied. “I came west with my family but the wagon train was attacked by the Cheyennes . Nearly everybody was killed, but I escaped with a few others and I tried to go west in search of my uncle.” The lies came easily, told so often she almost believed them herself. “When my money ran out,” she lowered her head in shame that she should have to tell it, “I had no choice. A job as a saloon girl was the only work I could find.” She glanced up, a practised pleading in her sombre eyes. “A girl has to eat, Mister…”
    â€œClay. Morgan