Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail(34)
Dusty accepted the key and followed the clerk’s young helper up the stairs, with Curly and Skip at her heels. Shaking his head in amusement, Zach went outside to the men’s bathhouse next door, where he scrubbed himself till his skin stung and got a shave. When he was so clean he squeaked, he reentered the hotel and met Jase and Skip in the lobby. He couldn’t help joshing them about their newly trimmed mustaches.
Then he went in search of Ned Palmerston, the cattle buyer he had arranged to meet.
An hour later he stepped from the Rocky Rooster Saloon into the street with four hundred dollars in gold to pay the men and a bank draft for forty thousand dollars. A thousand dollars of that money was his cut as trail boss. That, plus what he’d saved up over the years, ought to be enough to buy good land and some stock to start his own ranch. The thought made his heart almost fly out of his chest.
The bank teller agreed to wire the money to Charlie Kingman at the Smoke River Bank, and Zach felt so relieved that the drive was over he swung on down the street whistling “Streets of Laredo.” He couldn’t wait to change into some clean duds and take Dusty out for a thick, juicy steak dinner.
Curly and José waylaid him in the hotel bar, where he paid them the money they’d earned, plus a little extra. Naturally they insisted on buying him a shot of Red Eye.
An hour later he pulled on new jeans and a clean blue shirt and went downstairs to the hotel dining room to meet all the other hands, except for Cherry, and wait for Dusty. Five o’clock, she’d said. “After I visit the dressmaker and curl my hair.”
On the drive he’d seen her only twice when her hair hadn’t hung down her back in a single thick braid. The last time was the night he’d made love to her, and her hair had been wet, not curly.
Oh, damn, remembering that night is getting me hard.
He walked around for a few minutes to get himself under control, then entered the hotel dining room and settled down to wait for her. Knowing his hands would want to join them, he chose the big round table in the center of the room, right under the tinkly glass chandelier.
Five o’clock came and went with no Dusty. After another half hour, a spiffed-up Curly and Juan wandered in and joined him. He paid Juan his wages, and as the rest of the hands straggled in, along with Roberto, he counted out some more gold coins. While they waited for Dusty, José and Jase, each bought him another whiskey.
“Sure takes a woman a long time takin’ a bath, don’t it?” Curly complained. “I’m gettin’ mighty hungry, boss.”
“Do not complain, Señor Curly,” Roberto cautioned. “The señorita she is wear man’s clothes for over a month. Now she wants to look like a—” He broke off, his brown eyes widening, and rose out of his chair.
Curly frowned at the cook, and then his mouth dropped open. “Hel—” he muttered. He shot to his feet, followed by Juan and the other hands around the table. Zach had his back to the dining room entrance, so he didn’t see the reason. He stayed seated and went on sipping his whiskey.
* * *
Dusty glided across the room, shaking off a bevy of obsequious waiters, and sent Roberto a wide smile. Then she floated toward the table of gaping cowhands, all of whom were now on their feet and swiping off their broad-brimmed hats.
Zach stared up at his men. What the—
“Señor Boss,” Roberto hissed. “Look behind you.”
Zach twisted his head in the direction the cook pointed. Nah, that wasn’t Dusty. But he had to admit the woman moving toward them was the prettiest female he’d seen in a long, long time.
“Must be dreamin’,” Curly breathed.
Roberto barked out a laugh. “Ah, no, Señor Curly, is no dream.”
Zach shot a look at Curly. “You’d think you’d never seen a good-lookin’—”
“Gentlemen,” a feminine voice drawled. “Do sit down.”
The eight men sank back into their seats, and very slowly Zach got to his feet, hoping his tongue wasn’t hanging too far out of his mouth. The vision in ruffly yellow silk moved to his elbow.
My God, it is Dusty. She looked so beautiful it made his mouth go dry.
She even sounded beautiful with the soft swish-swish of petticoats under her billowing yellow skirt.
“May I join you?” she asked with a laugh in her voice. She headed for the empty chair across from Zach. Roberto, on his right, leaned toward him. “Say somet’ing, Señor Boss,” he intoned. “Is not polite not to speak.”
He wasn’t real sure he could speak. The other men all managed polite greetings, then tumbled over each other to draw Dusty’s chair out for her. When the waiter appeared, Zach was still standing, speechless at the sight of her.
“Sir? Is something wrong?”
Without taking his eyes off the vision now seated across the table from him, he shook his head at the waiter and dropped into his chair.
“Sir?” the waiter persisted.
“What? Oh, no, nothin’s wrong.”
Not true. Everything was wrong. His head felt muddled and his body was beginning to ache in places he couldn’t afford to think about at the moment. God, she was so beautiful, and he was so much in love with her, his brain was trussed up like a branded heifer.
And she was leaving in the morning!
She held his gaze across the table. “I do apologize for being late,” she said. “I had to visit the dressmaker and then get a hotel maid to press the creases from my gown and...” she looked straight into his eyes “...curl my hair.”
Zach swallowed hard. “You look beautiful, Dus—Miss Murray. It was worth the wait.”
Curly gallantly snapped open her linen napkin and unfolded it for her. Juan, on her other side, signaled the waiter to fill her water glass and Skip stretched an arm across the table to slide his own menu in front of her. Zach sat dumbfounded, unable to think of a single thing to say.
She gave a delighted laugh. “Have you all ordered dinner already?”
“Nope,” Curly assured her. “We was waitin’ for you.”
“Well, then...” She studied the offerings. “I bet you’re all having steak tonight, am I right?” She grinned.
“No, Señorita Alex,” Juan said. “We have had enough beef this past month. We have fried chicken.”
“Well, I want a big juicy steak!” she announced. “I want to commemorate this cattle drive with something special. Something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
She looked across the table straight at Zach, and he noticed that her eyes were shiny.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alex twirled her spoon in the dish of chocolate ice cream and scooped up a ladylike portion. “Gentlemen, before I go back to the city, there are two things I’ve always wanted to do.”
“What’s that, Miss Alex?” Curly asked eagerly. “If you wanna dance with a top hand, I’d sure be willin’.”
She smiled, caught Zach’s puzzled look and shook her head. “I want to visit a real saloon.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Curly recovered first, clearing his throat and leaning forward. “Aw, that’s easy, Miss Alex,” he said. “What’s the other thing?”
She swallowed a mouthful of smooth, cold ice cream. “I’ve always wanted to sit at a poker table. And play a game of poker.”
“Poker!” Curly’s brow furrowed.
“Poker,” she said calmly. Zach stared at her from across the table.
Skip hesitated, taking his time to formulate his question. “You, uh, got any money you’re hankerin’ to lose, Miss Alex?”
She gave the wiry cowhand a wide-eyed look. “Of course I have money. On this cattle drive I have earned, let’s see...almost six weeks’ salary from the Chicago Times.”
“Yeah?” Skip intoned. “How’re you gonna pay up if you lose?”
Alex leaned toward him across her ice-cream dish. “You have my word, Skip. If I lose at poker, and you will please note that I said if, you have my word that I will send you any money I may owe. That is,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “if any one of you can manage to vanquish me at the poker table.”
“You mean ‘win a hand,’ Miss Alex,” Curly corrected.
“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “Anyone who wins a hand from me will be paid, I promise.”
She risked a quick look at Zach. He was frowning, and that gave her pause. He probably disapproved of ladies who played cards. Or was it visiting the saloon where the poker tables were located that bothered him? She didn’t care. She was feeling reckless tonight.
Liar! You are feeling numb with grief tonight.
She couldn’t look at Zach for fear she would burst into tears.
Curly self-consciously straightened his leather vest. “You gonna write about us in your newspaper?”
“Yes, of course I am. That is what I was sent out here to do, write about life in the West and some of the interesting char—cowboys on a cattle drive. That’s why I interviewed each one of you.”
She caught Zach’s wary expression across the table. He hadn’t wanted her to interview him, and when she had finally cornered him, he’d told her things about himself that broke her heart. She knew she could not ever speak of these things. Much as she longed to write about the tall, good-looking trail boss, she would protect his privacy. She would leave Zach out of her columns.