At last. Hubert didn’t know whether to whoop for joy or sigh with relief after his afternoon in the stable with Bebe. He’d let his desire for her get the better of him, and did some things that, arguably, he shouldn’t have done. But Bebe had enjoyed it, and he had been left with the confidence that he could make her happy once they were married.

And since they were going to be married now, he had a lot of things to get in order. They would need a place to live, first and foremost. So he marched through town, looking for signs of apartments to rent. They’d have to start with an apartment. He wanted to build a house eventually, but he wasn’t about to jump into that without getting Bebe’s input every step of the way. She’d be surprised how much money he had stored away, waiting for this moment. But for now, an apartment would do, and there were a couple just off Main Street that would suit them.

He was just leaving an apartment above the festively-decorated Haskell office of King Cole Builders when he came face to face with Price Penworthy.

“Stay away from my fiancée.” Price shoved Hubert’s arm.

The attack—if it could even be called that—came out of nowhere and left Hubert more startled than shaken. He blinked a few times, then stared Price down. “She was my fiancée long before you ever met her.”

Price didn’t seem to be the least bit deterred. “You left. You’re not a part of her life anymore.”

“I beg to differ,” Hubert said with a smirk. “I think you’ll find Bebe begs to differ too.” In fact, the only reason Price was giving him a hard time now had to be because she’d declared her intentions to leave Price and marry him. That thought brought a smile to Hubert’s face.

“Bebe is confused,” Price said. “She has cold feet. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“She does. We’ve been in love for years.”

“You were in love years ago,” Price corrected. “Bebe and I are in love now.”

Hubert snorted. “The two of you aren’t in love.”

Price’s face pinched. “We might not be in love, but we have a deal.”

“A deal?” Hubert arched a doubtful eyebrow.

“I don’t think you understand what I mean to Bebe, to the entire Bonneville family.” Price met Hubert’s stare with a sly grin. “I’m the only thing standing between them and foreclosure.”

“So I’ve heard,” Hubert said. “But I seriously doubt Solomon Templesmith would foreclose on his wife’s family’s ranch.”

“That goes to show what you know. That jumped up slave has always had his sights set on destroying Rex and his legacy.”

There was something a little too harsh and shifty about Price’s reply. It set Hubert’s teeth on edge. It was true that there’d been no love lost between Rex and Solomon, and even though Hubert didn’t know Solomon well, what little he did know was that Solomon wasn’t vindictive. Not like Rex was, and not, as he suspected, like Price was.

“You say you love Bebe,” Price went on before Hubert could say anything else. “Do you really want to see her and her sisters lose their home? Do you want to see them lose everything their father worked to build?”

Hubert let out a breath, but before he could admit that he didn’t want to see more harm come to Bebe and her sisters than was necessary, Price went on.

“Do you want to end up with Vivian and Melinda and that brat Reese living with you?”

Hubert winced, then swallowed the guilt that his reaction raised. “I’m sure something can be done to save the ranch,” he said.

Price snorted. “Something can be done. Bebe can marry me. I have enough money coming to me when I marry to pay off the debt and then some. As of Christmas Day, Bebe will be mine and the ranch will be saved.”

Hubert let his arms drop and shifted his weight. “That’s what I keep hearing, but what I can’t figure out is what’s in it for you.”

Price’s face splotched with color. “What’s in it for me is that I get to marry a beautiful girl, whom I love, and save her family at the same time.” He couldn’t quite meet Hubert’s eyes as he said it.

Hubert squinted. “You just said you didn’t love her. You’re lying.”

“Why would I be lying?” Price’s voice shot up. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been serving the Bonneville family for almost two years now. I’m fond of them. I just want to help.”

“No one is fond of the Bonnevilles,” Hubert said, planting his hands on his hips. “What’s in it for you?”

“The ranch,” Price stuttered. “It’ll be saved, and we’ll all be happy.”

“Uh huh.”

Price was after the ranch. Hubert was convinced of it. He was doing a poor job of hiding what he really wanted. But why would any man want a failing ranch? Why would he be willing to sink all the money his family was supposed to be sending him into a ranch that would take all that money and more to get back to making a profit like it had in Rex’s day? Unless there was a whole lot more about the ranch than Price was letting on.

“Listen.” Hubert glared at Price. “I care about Bebe more than you ever could. If you think you can—”

“You don’t know who my family are,” Price interrupted him, suddenly going on the attack. It was enough of a surprise to have Hubert flinching backward. “They’re important people in Denver.”

“So?”

“So we’ve got connections,” Price went on. “Important connections. Financial and, shall we say, physical.”

Hubert shook his head and shrugged.

Price leaned toward him. “If you think you can meddle in my plans, then you’d better stop and think about what a family like mine could do to you. Think you’ve got a future in journalism? My family can make that disappear. Certain your finances are in order? What would you do if they suddenly disappeared? Why, I’ve got a few cousins who would make you disappear.”

Hubert snorted. “What, you think you’re a shogun or something?”

Price blinked. “A what?”

“In feudal Japan, a shogun was—” Hubert stopped and shook his head. Why was he attempting to explain Japanese culture to a moron who was threatening him? He should have been investigating the weasel’s complaints instead. In fact…. “Go on,” he said. “You go run to your family and tell them to do all those things to me. But stop wasting my time.”

He marched past Price, leaving the man sputtering and glaring. Hubert didn’t really believe the Penworthy family was as important and threatening as Price claimed they were, but the entire confrontation left him with a pile of questions. Just what was this money that Price claimed he had coming to him when he married? And what was really going on with the Bonneville ranch? There were a lot of questions about the whole business he’d pushed to the back of his mind, and now was the time to answer them, and he had a pretty good idea where to start.

* * *

“And now, ladies, raise your glasses to the bride.”

“To the bride!”

A chorus of whistles and catcalls from the women who had gathered at The Silver Dollar Saloon made Bebe blush and crack a smile, but she was going to need a few more glasses of Julia’s special punch before she was ready to laugh along with the rest of them. Then again, her stomach had been so unsettled since her conversation with Price and Vivian the other day that she’d barely been able to look at food or drink without turning green.

“Drink up, sweetie,” Pearl, the current operator of Bonnie’s Place—which was just as much a shelter for women as it was a whorehouse these days—threw her arm around Bebe’s shoulders. “You’re marrying Price Penworthy, so you’re going to need to learn how to hold your liquor.”

Julia and a few of the young women from Bonnie’s Place who were in attendance laughed. Erin, one of Bonnie’s girls, tipped her head back and gulped down the entire large glass of punch she’d just poured for herself.

“Whew, this stuff is good,” she laughed, raising her empty glass to Julia.

“Unlike Price,” another girl, Katiebelle, seconded, then laughed so hard she nearly fell off her chair.

Bebe managed to crack a smile over the antics of Bonnie’s girls, but it didn’t penetrate her heart. She was too weighted down by worries to truly enjoy the party Julia had thrown for her.

“Don’t listen to that lot,” Cleo Kline said, shaking her head. “They’re just pulling your leg.”

“Yeah,” Ruby Palmer agreed. “I’m sure it will be wonderful being married to a man like Price. He’s been so helpful, hasn’t he?”

Ruby looked expectantly at Bebe, as did the rest of her friends. She hadn’t realized she’d had so many friends, but Julia had somehow convinced most of the women their age to attend her wild hen party. Even if half of them were whores from Bonnie’s Place. Bebe didn’t mind Bonnie’s girls. They didn’t have the same debauched feel or the same hard edge as the girls Vivian employed at the Château d’Amour. And she hadn’t realized Cleo and Ruby and the other girls she’d gone to school with still cared a fig about her. It was too much.

“I can’t,” she confessed as Erin filled her glass from the punchbowl one more time. “I just can’t.”

“You can’t what, sweetie?” Pearl asked. She was the oldest of the guests and some might argue the wisest. She inched her chair closer to Bebe’s and rubbed her back. The scent of flowery perfume that wafted off of her reminded Bebe of her mother.

“I can’t go on with his party. I can’t keep lying,” she said.

The rest of the women gasped or hummed in sympathy and scooted closer. Some of them swayed dangerously as they did.

“You’re not lying to us,” Julia said, sitting in the chair on Bebe’s other side and taking her hand. “We all know you’re not really in love with Price.”

A chorus of agreement rose from the others.

Bebe shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s much worse.” She sucked in a breath, sat a little straighter, and said, “No, it’s much better.”

All around the table, her friends blinked and looked confused.

“Don’t tell me he’s got an enormous—” Erin burped, blessedly not finishing her sentence.

“No,” Bebe groaned, pinching her eyes shut. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. “I’m not going to marry Price.”

Her friends cooed and sighed and tried to comfort what they must have thought was last-minute jitters, but Bebe shook her head.

“I’m not going to marry Price because I’m going to marry Hubert instead.”

As she spoke, her friends erupted into excitement and joy. Bebe wanted to join them in rejoicing, but the burr of doubt had taken hold deep within her. What should have been the happiest thing in her life filled her with fear.

“I knew it,” Julia declared, raising her glass in salute and sloshing punch over the edges. “I knew the two of you would get together in the end.” Everyone agreed with her.

“When did this happen?” Ruby asked.

“A few days ago,” Bebe confessed, her heart squeezing at the memory. “I…I was so confused. Vivian and Melinda were making me miserable.”

“So what else is new,” Katiebelle muttered.

Bebe sent her a look of agreement, then went on. “I had to get away. And I found myself here in town, at Vernon Strong’s house.”

“Vernon Strong,” Erin said the man’s name as though it were incredibly naughty.

A few of the others laughed. Bebe ignored her and went on. “Hubert and I talked. It turns out that half the things that happened between us were misunderstandings.”

“Isn’t that the way it usually is?” Cleo said with a sigh.

The others agreed with her.

“And in the end,” Bebe said, skipping the delicious part in the middle, although she blushed scarlet as she did, “he asked me to marry him. And I said yes.”

“But that’s wonderful,” Pearl said.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Julia asked, looking a little hurt.

Bebe squeezed her hand, suddenly feeling miserable for even more reasons. “I was confused. I needed to think things through. But I still feel like I haven’t solved anything in my head.”

“What is there to solve?” Ruby asked. “You and Hubert have been in love since school.” She glanced to Cleo, who nodded.

“That was a long time ago,” Bebe sighed. “A lot has happened between us since then.”

“Not all of it was Hubert’s fault,” Julia reminded her, a light of understanding in her eyes. At least one of them understood the situation.

“And now you’re not sure if you know who he is now,” Ruby said, nodding as though she’d figured out the answer to a riddle.

“Hubert will always be Hubert,” Cleo argued. “He’s was a total sweetheart in school, and so devoted to Bebe, and I’m sure he’ll be that way this time.”

“Yes, but you can’t always trust what a man says,” Katiebelle argued. “Trust me on that one.”

“You’re just saying that because men have treated you poorly.” Cleo shook her head.

“I suppose that doesn’t mean all men are bad,” Ruby said.

Bebe blinked and watched her friends carry the argument away. If she let them run away with it, maybe they’d solve things for her.

But all too soon, Julie dragged the whole thing back around to her. “I know you can trust Hubert,” she said. “I know that he loves you. And I know that when he went away to seek his fortune, it was for the best. Also, your father was as much of a problem back then as anything else. I was there. I saw how he was.”

The other girls hummed and nodded in agreement.

“But she’s got to be worried,” Katiebelle went on. “Anything a man does once, he could do again. Even leaving.”

“Not Hubert.” Ruby crossed her arms with absolute certainty.

“And he’s a damn sight better than marrying Price,” Erin agreed, gesturing with her glass and spilling half of the punch she’d poured. “Even if Price does have a huge….” She spread her hands wider, then burst into a peel of giggles.

Of all things, Erin made Bebe want to laugh. The rest of the conversation was growing far too serious and hitting far too close to home.

“I want to believe everything Hubert says,” Bebe confessed. She’d already revealed some of her thoughts, and while she was at it, she might as well confide everything in her friends. “I want to run off with him and live the rest of my life as his wife, never worrying about a thing. But so much has happened since he left.”

“Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about your second thoughts,” Cleo said.

“You can’t possibly not marry Hubert now that he’s asked you,” Ruby agreed.

“But my family,” Bebe sighed.

“They’re a bunch of sour old biddies,” Erin blurted out what everyone in the State of Wyoming must have thought. “What do you owe them?”

What did she owe them indeed? Vivian would argue that Bebe owed her everything, but that was just what Vivian did. Bebe was beginning to wonder if setting out on her own and letting the ranch fail would really be so bad.

“But you love Hubert,” Julia said, exactly as Bebe’s thoughts brought her back to that place. “So why is this even an issue? Why are we discussing it?”

“Because Hubert left her,” Katiebelle said. “And he might do it again.”

Bebe winced. More than that, she reached for the glass of punch on the table in front of her. She hated to admit that Katiebelle was right, but the facts were the facts. She took a long drink of the fiery punch to try to settle her doubts.

“Hubert won’t leave,” Julia said, as though declaring the sky were blue. “He loves Bebe, and he’s here to stay.”

No sooner had she finished her pronouncement, then the doors of the saloon opened.

“We’re having a private party tonight,” Julia started to say, rising from her seat.

She stopped and gasped, and as soon as the rest of the women turned to the door, they gasped too. There was Hubert, looking as dashing and determined as ever.

“Ladies.” He nodded to the group, approaching the table. “Bebe. I need to talk to you.”

Bebe whirled up out of her chair, nearly losing her balance as she did. Apparently she’d had more punch than she’d thought. “Hubert.” She rushed to him, grateful on several levels when he took her arms and held her steady.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, studying her face with concern.

“I….” Bebe’s mouth stayed open, but nothing more came out. There didn’t seem to be words to tell him how anxious she’d been, how much she loved him, but how he still didn’t have her complete trust. There wasn’t a way to tell him how guilty she felt for not believing in him in every way possible. “I’m just so glad you’re here,” she said at last, surging forward and hugging him. She didn’t care who was watching or how many of them sighed longingly at the scene playing out in front of them.

“I’m glad I’m here too,” Hubert said, holding her close. “But I’ve come to tell you that need to go to Denver for a—”

“What?” Bebe’s heart stopped. The world stopped spinning. She pushed back, gripping Hubert’s upper arms like a vise.

He watched her intently. “I have to go to Denver. I’ve been suspicious for a while, but Price said something—”

She didn’t let him go any further. “You’re leaving me? Again?”