Chapter 18
Blade glanced at the girls who’d interrupted his business with Purdy. Am I losing my mind? The fancy one in the middle is the spitting image of Stormy. Same red hair, same bluebonnet eyes. His breath hitched as he remembered what he’d left in Prosperity.
The fancy girl didn’t smile. Her eyes evaded his, and her hunched shoulders made it seem she wanted to be anywhere but in Miss Purdy’s office.
She was definitely cut differently than her companions. One brazenly moistened her lips. The other sidled her knee to show off more leg.
“Look closer,” Purdy said softly.
He stood, approached the redhead, and gently raised her chin. The scent of roses clung to her shoulders and neck, and her eyes glistened with tears.
“Stormy?”
“It’s me. I should have let you explain. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t know whether to be furious with her or elated for himself. He opened her robe and fingered the seductive lace hugging her pushed-up breasts. “What’s this?”
“Aimee and Marie thought this get-up would make it easier to talk.”
Talk? In a brothel? Her outfit was designed to make him want to carry her upstairs, tear off her bloomers, and bury his face between her legs.
Willing his body to remember how he’d been ordered off the ranch at gunpoint, he drew a deep breath and took a step back. “How did you get here?”
“Just like you. I rented a horse from Olin. It’s at the livery by the docks.” A tear trickled down her cheek, and she swiped it away with her hand.
She wore his ring! Now he felt jubilant. “Could we have a moment, Miss Purdy?”
“Take all the time you need, Blade.” Purdy rose from her chair, shooed out Stormy’s two sidekicks, and shut the door behind her.
The urge to seize Stormy’s hand and run to the nearest Justice of the Peace was barely controllable. If they were married, Zed, Brownie, and Running Bear would have to let him back on the ranch. And, he’d have legal justification for killing Vance if the banker ever tried to force himself upon Stormy again.
Uncertainty flamed his frustration. He’d had a plan all worked out before she showed up. Hop on the next eastbound freighter. Make the treacherous journey to St. Louis. Extract his savings from his father’s control. Rush back to Prosperity to claim her.
In this plan, Stormy stayed on the ranch, safely away from Vance. But, she never did what he expected.
Stormy threw herself into his arms. “Zed and Brownie and Running Bear will be so mad at me for running away, they’ll forget all about being angry with you. I’ll tell them how you saved me from Sultan. You can explain about being a land speculator. We’ll go back to the way things were, only better.”
Blade closed his eyes and hugged her, committing to memory how good she felt. This, and knowing she was truly his fiancée, would sustain him while he was gone. He kissed the top of her head and eased her back. “Sweetheart, I’m going to ask Purdy for a room. Promise me you’ll put on your own clothes in the morning and ride straight home.”
She ran her fingertips suggestively across her corset. “It’s laced in the back. You’ll have to help me out of it.”
Three hoarse blasts of a steam whistle interrupted his thoughts. “Wait here,” he ordered.
He yanked open the door and strode into the lounge. The evening rush had started, and Purdy was pairing customers with girls. He waited impatiently for her to finish. A freighter was approaching, and he needed to find out if it headed east.
If the approaching freighter was leaving tonight, and he managed to talk his way onto it, Stormy would need a room equipped with a door lock. Purdy’s charge for that, plus Stormy’s meals and dressing-up, was more than he had left on his account, and Purdy was an uncompromising businesswoman.
He couldn’t spare the time to help Stormy undress, and he couldn’t leave her in the brothel dressed in that get-up while he checked out the freighter. Odds were she wouldn’t stay out of trouble.
Two whistle blasts sounded. Purdy wasn’t finished.
He retreated behind the curtain and returned to Purdy’s office. Stormy stood at the window, looking tired and forlorn. “Where are your clothes?” he asked.
“Upstairs.”
“Put them on over that . . . that costume and come straight back.”
She perked right up. “Are we going to ride home by moonlight?”
“We’re going to the docks. A freighter is coming in. I need to know if it’s headed to St. Louis. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
~ ~ ~
Stormy gripped Blade’s hand as they approached the docks.
Fires in iron cressets, mounted on poles, gave off smelly black smoke and illumined the dock with an eerie, writhing glow. Hulking men in mismatched clothes spit tobacco on the rough-hewn planks suspended over the river. A woman wearing an eye patch leaned against a stack of burlap sacks and tossed a small dagger into the air.
Showing no fear of challenge, Blade strode through the maze of goods piled on the pier. Soot-covered dock rats who stared at them looked away after saying, “Evening, sir.”
Blade stopped a foot from the edge of the dock and looked down at the river.
She did the same and gasped. The water flowed with a ghostly light.
“Moonlight reflects off silt particles suspended in the water. Missouri River freighters run day and night.”
With a stab of guilt, Stormy realized Blade’s tales of working on the river were true. She’d chosen not to trust him. About this and a lot of other things. Hoping he wouldn’t read her thoughts, she turned her head and peered downriver. “I don’t see the freighter.”
Blade tapped her arm and pointed in the opposite direction.
The freighter rounded a bend. Gray-black smoke and an alarming number of glowing sparks billowed from its single stack. Its whistle shrieked like a berserk ghoul.
Blade sighed like he was disappointed, but she didn’t know why.
“Is it headed toward St. Louis?” she asked.
“Yes. Stay close and don’t say a word.”
Stormy looked around apprehensively. Despite the late hour, or maybe because of it, dozens of unsavory people milled about on the pier. She shivered and tried again to button her shirt over her corseted breasts.
The steam freighter glided up. It was much smaller and plainer than she expected, having seen hundreds of pictures in Harpers. And, it was missing an upper deck with staterooms and a promenade deck with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen parading about.
At the very front of the freighter, a giant beam rose thirty feet in the air. Tethered to cables at its peak, it was attached to another beam that plunged straight down into the river. In the eerie light, she read the ship’s name, painted on the side of the wheelhouse. Snagger II. She wondered what had happened to Snagger I.
An ebony-skinned giant, with hands big enough to crush coconuts, jumped off and tied a thick rope to a dock post. Hastily, he wrestled a stack of crates and sacks onto the dock. A tall man emerged from the wheelhouse and wiped his face with a bandana.
Blade hailed him. “Captain, would you have room for a passenger?”
“Who’s askin’?” The captain wore dark trousers and a ruffled shirt ornamented by a diamond stickpin. His accent was deep Southern-bayou.
“Blade Masters is my name. I need to get to St. Louis as quickly as possible.”
He’d said ‘I,’ and not ‘we.’ Stormy dug her fingernails into Blade’s forearm. She was going along with him, come hell or muddy river water.
“What about this one?” The captain jutted his chin at her. “She goin’ too?”
“Yes!” Her shout overrode Blade’s subdued “No.”
“You related? I don’t take relations. Can’t stand the squabbling.”
“Well, I’m going,” she announced. “Whether he wants me to or not.”
“Stormy, you have to go home,” Blade hissed. “The river is dangerous. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“You haven’t explained why you have to go at all.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, pivoted her away from the captain, and leaned close to her ear. “I think Jonathan Vance is threatening my family.”
“That trouble-stirring snake. You need help, and I’m going with you.”
“No!”
“That’s what fiancées do.”
“You runnin’ away, eh, girlie?” the captain said.
“Yes, sir. I’m sick of chores and small towns. I want a big city like St. Louis.”
The captain’s gaze dropped to her chest, where her corseted breasts strained the buttons of her shirt. His tongue flicked across his lips. “You can ride for free if you service me.”
“I’ll work for her passage,” Blade snapped. “It looks like you’re short a hand.”
The captain glared, clearly not pleased with the interference in his bartering. “What could you possibly know about snagging? You’re nothing but a cowboy.”
“I used to work for LaBarge. I’ve loaded freight and cleared snags.”
“Right.” Rolling his eyes, the captain started to turn away.
Stormy put her hands on her hips and posed like Marie and Aimee. She jerked her head toward Blade. “He’s my second cousin. I took off, and he couldn’t stop me. He’s telling the truth about LaBarge.”
Blade’s hand found hers and squeezed hard enough to hurt. Clearly, he wasn’t happy with what she’d said, but the captain seemed to be coming around.
“You don’t say.” The captain looked them up and down until his features softened. “I do need another snagger. My other darkie drowned just north of Pierre.”
“I’m your man,” Blade said. “If I don’t measure up, you can put us off in Sioux City.”
“You are mighty close cousins, eh, Masters?” He broke into a genuine belly laugh. “Trimble’s the name. Rufus Trimble. Gather your things and stow her in cabin six. We shove off in one hour.”