Twelve

“Hey, girls, come and look!”

Gretta MacBain held out the Denver newspaper for some of her girls to see.

CITY OF BOULDER CALLS JAKE HARKNER A HERO

“I wonder how he’s recovering,” one called Tilly commented. “They say he was all shot up in that robbery.” She wrapped a flimsy robe closer around her nakedness.

“The man is tough as nails,” Gretta answered. “He’ll be fine. It takes a lot to put down a man like that.” Gretta picked up her coffee cup and took a swallow. She loved the quiet mornings here at her bordello. Last night, the Range Club had been extra busy, but mornings were quiet, with the girls waking at all different times, usually late. The last of their customers had been ordered out at nine this morning, and the girls were having breakfast and coffee.

“I don’t even know him, but I still hope he’ll be okay,” one called Peach commented. She stretched and shook out her hair, her full breasts spilling out of her red corset. She wore only that and red panties with a garter belt and black stockings. “That hearing last year here in Denver was something, wasn’t it? I don’t care if he did blow a man’s head off. If Jake Harkner showed up at my door, I’d welcome him with open arms.”

“Open arms?” another teased.

They all squealed and laughed.

“I’d open my legs for Jake Harkner or that son of his any day.” Gretta laughed. She shook her head and lit a cheroot. “And I can just imagine what Judge Carter is thinking right now. Jake really pulled a fast one on him, didn’t he? Carter told Jake if he ever used those guns of his unnecessarily again, he’d send him to prison; but this thing in Boulder just made him a hero. I’ll bet the judge and Prosecutor Wicks are eating crow right now, and I’m loving every minute of it.”

“I wish I could have seen that shoot-out,” Peach said excitedly. “There can’t be anything much more entertaining.”

“Tell us again what he’s like,” another girl named Trudy asked Gretta. “You’re the one who had the pleasure of seeing him up close last summer—and in his underwear!”

Gretta set aside her cup and sighed, leaning back in a lounge chair. This morning, she wore only a pink, fuzzy robe and nothing more, and she couldn’t help fantasizing about Jake Harkner reaching inside that robe.

“He’s the most handsome man I ever saw,” she said with a grin. “I mean he’s rugged and a little weathered from too many years on the back of a horse in this unforgiving climate, but some men just age beautifully, and he’s one of them. I wish I could tell you intimate things about him, but all I got to enjoy was the sight of him half-dressed in the men’s dressing room at Porter Men’s Wear. I’d looked him up to tell him I suspected Mike Holt was in town.”

“And he was only half-dressed?” Peach asked, grinning.

“Nothing but the shirt and pants he was trying on for the Cattlemen’s Ball.” Gretta smiled. “I helped him get the shirt off, and he stepped out of those pants. His long johns fit just right, if you know what I mean. Didn’t leave much to the imagination, and you don’t need to ask what I was imagining!”

They all giggled again. “It didn’t bother him to undress in front of you?” Tilly asked.

“Hell no. He’s seen it all and done it all, and he’s bold and honest—and not a bashful bone in his body.” Gretta wiggled her feet in frustrated desire. “And what a man! He has a beautiful build, great arms, and a smile that practically makes you climax just looking at him.”

They screeched with laughter.

“And he actually asked you if that bastard Mike Holt hurt you?”

Gretta sobered. “He actually asked. He actually cared.” She drank more coffee. “He hugged me when I told him how Holt treated me. And those arms!” She let out a little whimper. “Let’s just say I envy his wife.”

A few of the girls snickered and some sighed.

“It’s too bad the judge told him to stay out of Denver,” Tilly commented.

“Well, it was only for a year, and that year is almost up,” Gretta told them. “But it wouldn’t matter. He’d never cheat on that wife of his.” She straightened up. “And it’s time you girls took your baths and started cleaning up for new customers. We’d better rake it in while we can. God only knows when Mr. Harley Wicks will show up at the door, telling us the City Council is closing us down.”

Someone rang the electric buzzer at the front door. Gretta pulled her robe closer and smoothed back her hair, shooing the other girls up to their rooms. She frowned as she headed for the door. It was too early for customers, and that was usually the only kind of visitors they got. She opened the door a crack, then wider. Loretta Sellers stood there, a woman she figured she’d never see at the front door of the Range Club.

“Mrs. Sellers!” She looked around behind the woman and saw no one. “You shouldn’t be seen here!”

“I know, but—Miss MacBain, we need to talk.”

Gretta’s heart dropped. The very Christian woman had adopted her baby daughter fifteen years ago. Gretta had seen her daughter several times from a distance, but the girl never knew Gretta was her mother, and that’s how Gretta wanted it. “Go through that hedge there so no one will see you, and go around back,” she told Mrs. Sellers. “You’ll see a gazebo. I’ll meet you there.”

She closed the door, putting a hand to her chest. Her baby girl! Something was wrong! She hurried to her room and quickly put on a corset and underwear, then pulled on a house dress and buttoned it up. She stuck combs in the sides of her unbrushed hair and hurried out, not wanting to take time to put on petticoats or fix her face. She stepped into a pair of slippers and walked to the back of the house and out through the kitchen, telling her cook not to let anyone else come into the backyard for a while.

A hot wind hit her. Up until now, the weather had been quite cool for late June. The shade of the gazebo felt good when she stepped inside. Loretta was already there, sitting on a bench and sniffing into a handkerchief. Once a hefty woman, Loretta had gotten much thinner since the last time Gretta had seen her, which was at least a year ago. Gretta hurried to her side. “What’s happened? Is my daughter all right?”

Loretta, now a wisp of a woman with mousy-brown hair and gray eyes just shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Miss MacBain. I’ve failed you!”

Gretta sat down next to her and put an arm around her, hoping Loretta wouldn’t be offended at the intimacy, but the woman turned and wept against her shoulder.

“She’s gone, Miss MacBain! She’s run off! And I don’t think anything good will come of it!”

Gretta felt sick inside. “Run off where? With whom?”

Loretta blew her nose and wiped at her eyes. “With a Mexican! He has bad intentions. I just know he does! He’ll sell her into slavery in Mexico! He’ll turn my little girl into a…” She hesitated, rising. “I’m so sorry, Miss MacBain, but I fear she’ll end up…”

“Like me?”

Loretta met her gaze. “Forgive me.”

Gretta looked away. “What’s to forgive? I gave her to you so she wouldn’t end up like me. You don’t need to apologize, Mrs. Sellers.”

“But I fear it will be worse than your situation.”

Gretta rose and faced her, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s a virgin, Miss MacBain. I’m sure she’s still a virgin. She’s all starry-eyed over this man. He’s quite handsome, but he’s a lot older. She thinks he loves her. She’s fifteen!”

The same age I was when I gave birth to her, and I’d already been sleeping with men for money for two years, thanks to my uncle. Gretta felt sick inside.

“She’s young and foolish, and she’s been a bit lost since my husband died,” Loretta continued. “She truly thought of him as a father and never knew any different. She was looking for that love and protection. This man—Luis Estava—he appeared out of nowhere and started attending our church and giving her a lot of attention. Before long, they were good friends, and he was filling her with all sorts of lies about…about loving her…telling her he had a huge hacienda in Mexico and he wanted to take her there and marry her. He’s a smooth talker, Miss MacBain. Nothing I told her could change her mind.” Loretta turned away and stared out across the backyard.

“I told her she couldn’t trust him…told her it was dangerous to go into a different country at her age. I suggested what I thought this man’s motives were once he got her there, and she went into a defensive rage, furious that I would think anything bad about him. She carried on about how good he was to her and how handsome he was and how he was rich and she’d have a beautiful life on his horse ranch in Mexico and live like a high-born Mexican woman. I couldn’t convince her otherwise.” She turned and faced Gretta. “Then one night…a week ago…she disappeared. I’m sure he’s taken her to Mexico without my permission, and God knows what’s happened to her!”

Gretta tried to think straight. She’d been so sure her Annie would have a much better life raised in a Christian home. She grasped her stomach, pacing. “I…I don’t understand! Annie was such a good girl, so beautiful and sweet…at least from the few times I got close enough to see her.”

“She was.” Loretta blew her nose again. “Ma’am, girls change at her age. They start noticing boys, and in this case…this man was so handsome and charming. Even people in church liked him.”

Gretta met her gaze again. “I find it hard to believe your church actually accepted this man into their congregation, knowing nothing more about him.”

Loretta stepped closer. “That’s how charming Luis was, Miss MacBain.”

Gretta put a hand to her head, trying to think. “Is there any chance he was sincere? That he really will make a good life for her?”

Loretta looked away, strands of hair falling from under her small straw bonnet and from the bun at the base of her neck. “I prayed for that when he first started wooing her. But when I stood up to him one night and asked him his real intentions…” She looked at Gretta again. “Ma’am, you know men, but we women… I think we all have that instinct, you know? When we’re a little older, I mean. An instinct for that look in a man’s eyes, when they’re being honest and honorable, and when they aren’t. He looked at me in a way that actually frightened me. We were standing there in my kitchen alone, and for one quick moment I feared for my life. I can’t explain it, but—”

“I’ve seen that look!” Gretta interrupted, pacing again, her fists clenched. “Too many times!”

“I just knew…the way he looked at me…that he had bad intentions for Annie. But nothing I said to her after that would convince her. She’d become totally infatuated with Luis, and she told me I was just an old widow who was jealous she had a man in her life and I didn’t. She even accused me of wanting Luis for myself because he was older!” Loretta turned away and broke into tears again. “I’m supposed to be her mother. That’s what she believes, yet she talked so mean to me. I couldn’t believe how she’d changed. I think Luis… I think he’d been giving her something…maybe some kind of drug, and she fell for his compliments about her beauty.” She blew her nose again. “And she is beautiful, Miss MacBain, like you.”

Gretta swallowed back tears. “I’m not so beautiful anymore, Mrs. Sellers, but thank you. At thirty-one, I’m considered a used-up whore.” She noticed Loretta hold her stomach and turn away again. “I’m sorry, but those are the cold, hard facts. I’ve accepted my life, Mrs. Sellers, but I wanted so much better for Annie.”

Loretta covered her eyes. “I’ve failed you.”

“No, you haven’t. Things happen in life we can’t control, Mrs. Sellers. You didn’t expect that devil to come along when he did and move in on an opportunity to woo a foolish young girl away from everything she’d known.” She walked over and touched the woman’s shoulder. “I’m damn sorry about your husband, and about this. I’m glad you did what you did for my baby, Mrs. Sellers. You loved her like your own. And you took good care of her.” She blinked back tears. “God knows I couldn’t have raised her. No innocent little girl should grow up knowing her mother is a…prostitute. I did what I thought was best for her, and what’s happened now is no one’s fault.”

“I just don’t know what to do.” The woman’s shoulders shook. “The law wouldn’t go after her. They won’t go into Mexico. I did find a man who said he’d try to find her.”

“Who? Has he left yet?”

“I gave him a picture and paid him two hundred dollars. His name is Jesse Valencia. He speaks Mexican and he used to be a sheriff in some town in Mexico. He bills himself as someone who can help people here find anyone. There have been a lot of kidnappings.”

“So he figured, rather than get the rotten pay he gets in Mexico to go after these kidnappers, he’d come here to America and make a lot better money doing the same thing.”

Loretta nodded. “Something like that. He has an office in Denver.”

“I’m not sure I trust he’ll really try to find her.”

“He’s all the hope I have. And I’ve already paid him. All we can do now is wait and pray.”

Gretta paced again, feeling sick inside, hoping Mister Jessie Valencia wasn’t just taking money for nothing. “And what if he comes back without her—or doesn’t come back at all?”

Loretta shook her head. “I don’t know. I fear it’s already too late. Luis Estava has likely already…already shattered all of Annie’s big dreams of living like a rich man’s wife. Once she’s down there long enough, there will be no changing what’s happened. She could even die of disease or be murdered or…who knows? If Mister Valencia can’t find her, no one will.”

Gretta stared at a rose bush. “I’ll pay you back the two hundred dollars and pray right along with you,” she told Loretta, wanting to scream and weep. Her baby had been so beautiful. She’d grown into a sweet, loving little girl with red curls and blue eyes and fair skin. Just the kind men consider prime flesh and worth a lot of money, she seethed inside. “I know someone who I’m betting could find her,” she told Loretta. “And he’s not a lawman, at least not anymore. He’s half Mexican and speaks their language; and obeying the law means nothing to him. He could ride right into Mexico and fit right in. He knows prostitutes and brothels, and best of all, he knows outlaws.”

You didn’t handle those bank robbers the way you did because you used to be a lawman, Jake Harkner. You knew how to handle them because you used to be just LIKE them! Gretta smiled at the thought.

“Who are you talking about?” Loretta asked.

Gretta shook her head. “I don’t even know if he would do it. He’s a family man now, and recently hurt.” She faced Loretta. “But if that supposed investigator of yours doesn’t bring my daughter back in a month, you let me know. This man could damn well find her, and you might say he owes me a favor. I helped keep his head out of a noose last year.”

Loretta thought a moment. “Do you mean that man who made such a sensation here last summer? The one who shot a man in the head at close range at the Cattlemen’s Ball?”

“That’s exactly who I mean.”

“But he’s…he’s no better than an outlaw!”

Gretta grinned. “I guess in some ways that’s still true.”

“And you would trust him with your fifteen-year-old daughter?”

Gretta felt suddenly calmer. “You bet I would. If Jake Harkner cared that a woman like me might be hurt, he’d sure as hell care about an innocent fifteen-year-old girl.”