Outrider Read online

  Outrider

  Colleen French

  Copyright © 1999, 2018 by Colleen French. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of The Evan Marshall Agency, 1 Pacio Court, Roseland, NJ 07068-1121, [email protected].

  Version 1.0

  This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by The Evan Marshall Agency. Originally published by Kensington Publishing Corp., New York, under the title If You Were Mine and under the name Colleen Faulkner.

  Cover by The Killion Group

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Nevada Territory, 1864

  "God, you there?" Mercy sank her shovel into the dark soil, leaned against the handle, and peered upward. The twinkling stars above looked like sugar crystals sprinkled across a puddle of molasses. "It's me, Lord, Mercy Atkins out Nevada way."

  She paused and sighed deeply, her heart weighted with a heaviness she'd never known. "I . . . I realize there's no need me confessing, Lord. You know what I've done. You saw it all from Your perch up there in those clouds." Her voice caught in her throat. "I just hope You understand."

  She twisted the shovel in the garden soil. Though it was already mid-April, the night air that blew out of the foothills was so cold that it numbed her fingers. "I hope you can forgive me, and not be too hard on me the day I come knocking on Your pearly gates." She gazed into the sky again. "I just want You to know I'm not trying to hide anything from You, or pass off the blame. I did what I did, and even though I knew it was wrong, it would have turned out worse if I hadn't. You know what I mean."

  Surprised by the single tear that slid down her cheek, Mercy wiped it away with the back of her hand that smelled of sun-baked soil and rye flour. She took a deep, cleansing breath. "That over, God, I've got a request to make.

  "I know." She released the spade and offered open palms heavenward. "It's probably not right, me asking for something now, considering what I just did. But I've got to ask. I've got to ask for my Jacob."

  She paused, drawing her crocheted wrap tighter around her shoulders. "God, will you look after us? Keep us in food, with a roof over our heads?"

  Mercy glanced at the two-story ramshackle hotel that loomed in the darkness beyond her small garden. "Or what roof there is."

  She smiled in spite of the ache in her heart and the constriction in her throat. "Please protect my secret. Not for me, but for Jacob and for Pap. Give my son a chance to grow up happy. To be someone. To give something more to this world than his father did."

  She waited. "Well, guess that's all I've got to say."

  Mercy's gaze drifted from the star canopy overhead to the Nevada soil turned by her own hand. The compost pile she kept nearby had made the parched Nevada soil so rich and dark. Her papa said this had to be the best soil in all the territory.

  Her gaze lingered over the freshly turned patch for another moment and then she grabbed the shovel with firm determination, determination she knew it would take her to survive alone in this cold, hard world she'd found herself in.

  When she spoke again her voice was lighter. She felt better. Stronger. "I think I'll plant my peas right there. What you think of that, Haman?" She didn't smile as she made her way back across the dark yard toward the hotel and her responsibilities. "Never did like peas, did you?"

  One

  Nowhere, Nevada

  Four Years Later

  April 1868

  "Why do you have to carry out the potato peelings?" Mercy asked, halting in the middle of the kitchen, broom in midstroke. She was hot and tired and it was only midmorning. She'd been up since four, making ready for the first paying customer the Tin Roof Hotel had had in years. "Because I told you to, that's why, Jacob," she said sharply. "Because I'll fan your bottom if you don't, Mr. Sassy."

  The moment she lifted her finger to shake it at her six-year-old son, she regretted her actions. Her own mother had been nothing but harsh words and shaking fingers and Mercy had vowed she'd never become like her.

  Jacob's eyes teared up as he tucked his tin whistle into the back of his patched pocket and reached for the bucket of potato peels.

  "Why?" Mercy repeated, softening her voice. "Because I love you too much not to make you haul potato peels to the chickens. Because I love you too much not to make a decent man out of you."

  To her relief, Jacob broke into a shy smile. "Be right back and then I'll finish the sweepin' for you if you like."

  "Sweeping," she corrected, returning to her chore. "We speak the queen's English in this house. You know that, Son. Sweeping."

  "Sweeping," Jacob repeated. Halfway to the back door, he stopped and turned back to her. "Mama, I know we speak the queen's English, but just who is the queen? Would that be President Johnson's mama?"

  Mercy's father, who sat at the table playing cards, burst into laughter. Mercy lifted her eyebrows indignantly and tapped him with the broom to get him to lift his feet so she could sweep under them. Both of her "men" loved to see her get indignant.

  Now Jacob was laughing, too.

  "It's just a phrase," she explained. "It means we speak proper English, like the queen of England, that's all. You know we were English before we were Americans. That's why we speak English."

  "And not Chinese," Jacob added.

  "And not Chinese."

  The boy nodded, satisfied, and pushed through the squeaky back door. "Be right back."

  Mercy continued to sweep. Tinny kept his feet high off the uneven plank floor.

  "Your turn, Joe," her father, Tinny, said. "Been your turn for half an hour."

  Joe made no reply, of course, because there was no Joe. Joe was her father's invisible friend. Joe played cards with Tinny, though not well. He sat on the front porch in late afternoon, and walked him to the outhouse in the dark at night. Joe even snitched a peek at the red petticoats of the local saloon girls for Tinny on occasion.

  Mercy had long ago given up trying to convince her father that Joe didn't exist. What harm did Joe do? He kept her father company and made him happy. Sometimes Mercy wished she had a Joe of her own.

  "You can put your feet down, Pap."

  When Tinny made no response, she laid a gentle hand on his knee. "Pap, put your feet down."

  Tinny lowered them to the floor, not looking up. "I'll not wait all day, Joe. Take your turn, or lose it."

  Mercy swept toward the back door. "When you and Joe are done with that hand, would you mind going out and catching a chicken from the coop? I thought I'd fry one up for supper. Something special for our first paying customer."

  Tinny gave a hurrumph. "Don't know why we have to let someone in our house. I don't want him to come."

  "It's not a house, Pap, it's a hotel. You live in a hotel," she said patiently. "And boarders stay in hotels."
>
  Tinny thrust out his tobacco-stained lower lip. "Don't know why he has to stay in our hotel."

  Mercy swept the dust onto a piece of newspaper and dumped it out the back door. "I told you. It's how I'm going to make enough money to feed us. The egg and the hen money and what little laundry and sewing I've been able to do isn't enough. We've got to have more money to live on."

  Tinny discarded two dog-eared cards and retrieved two fresh ones from the deck. It was the sixth or seventh time he'd discarded. Tinny always played until he won. "If you'd let me go to California, I could bring back some of that gold. They got gold in California, you know."

  Mercy brushed back a wisp of honey-blond hair that had fallen from her chignon. "You can't go to California, because I need you here." She hung the broom on its nail beside the door and returned to the cast-iron cook-stove to check the heat of the oven. Two loaves of bread waited to be popped in to bake. "You know I couldn't care for Jacob without you."

  "If that worthless, cheating, lying, whoring man of yours would come and get a decent job, you wouldn't have to let strangers into your house." Tinny laid down his cards. "Straight. Looks like you lose again, Joe."

  Mercy ignored Tinny's comment about Haman. She just wasn't up to it this morning. "Pap, the fact of the matter is that Haman isn't here, and I have to take care of us. I have to see Jacob fed, and put a pair of decent shoes on his feet for once. Mr. McGregor is talking about starting a school in the fall in the back of his store. I want to send my son to school in shoes."

  Tinny began to collect his cards. "You want Joe and me to do what, again?"

  "Kill a hen."

  Slowly he pushed out of his seat and rose, dropping his bollinger hat on his head. The dress hat looked out of place on a man wearing patched denims, suspenders, and long underwear, but Tinny liked the hat so Mercy let him wear it. He'd found it in an alley behind a saloon somewhere years ago.

  "Be better if we had a hog." He walked to the door, surprisingly spry for a man his age. "I like pork chops."

  "It would be better if we had a hog." She crossed her arms over her chest. "It would be better if I had two loaves of silver ore from the Comstock lode on top of this stove, too, instead of just bread. But I don't."

  As Tinny passed her, he touched her chin lightly. "And you call the boy sassy. Wonder where he got it?"

  Mercy smiled bittersweetly. A human mind was a strange thing. How could her father be so crazy, and yet so sane and perceptive at the same time? "I'll boil the water for you to pluck the hen, but I want you to pluck it, Pap," she called after him. "Not Joe. Joe never does it after you tell him to!"

  The door slapped shut in response and Mercy reached for the bread to pop it in the oven. Mr. Cook, from the bank, would be here any minute with the outrider and his first week's room and board. If she were going to wash her face and repin her hair, she'd have to hurry.

  Noah Ericson stared at his muddy boots. He hadn't seen a boot scrape on the front porch, but he guessed he should have at least stomped his feet before he walked into the front hall of the hotel. Not that it was a fancy place or anything. Far from it. The porch sagged, the roof looked like it leaked, and more than one shutter hung crooked. But Mr. Cook said it was the only hotel in Nowhere, Nevada. Besides, the bank was paying his room and board. What did he care so long as the Tin Roof had a bed and no lice?

  Mr. Cook, the man who had hired him to escort the stagecoach from the bank, south to Carson City, rapped his small white fist on the door. He waited, his hands tucked behind his back.

  Noah waited behind him.

  A moment later, the door pushed open and a young blonde woman appeared. It wasn't like him to be curious about anyone, but Noah swung his forelock off his forehead and glanced at her from beneath the brim of his hat. She was pretty in a wholesome, earthy way, with blue eyes that sparkled and a mouth . . . a mouth that . . .

  Noah lowered his gaze to his muddy boots again, surprised by the stirring he felt inside. It had been a long time since anyone stirred him.

  Mercy smiled and nodded as the banker introduced her to Mr. Ericson, though she couldn't help noticing the outrider's dusty boots. He'd tracked dirt all the way across her freshly swept porch and into the front hall. It was true enough that a woman faced a losing battle against the dry, sun-baked soil of the region, but it wasn't a battle any decent woman surrendered to easily.

  Mercy should have known that a man who hired himself out as a gunman would be careless, with no respect for carpets or decent manners.

  But she didn't protest. She didn't say anything because she desperately needed the bank's money. And frankly she didn't care if Satan himself was one of her boarders, just as long as he paid his bill in advance and in cash.

  Mr. Cook repeated the original agreement between them, his waxed mustache twitching as he spoke. He handed her Mr. Ericson's first week's payment. With a jaunty nod, he returned his hat to his head and went around Mr. Ericson.

  "Good day," Mr. Cook called as he stepped out the door.

  Mercy slipped the envelope with the precious greenbacks into her apron pocket. "Good day. See you next week," she called cheerily.

  Then suddenly she was alone, face-to-face with a man with an old army-issue Colt .45 strapped to his hip. Unable to stop herself, her gaze slid from his mop of chestnut hair and hard, angled face to his dusty boots. He shifted his weight in the boots but still didn't move. She wondered if he was stuck to the floor.

  "Um . . . sorry about the mess." He glanced at the ridges of red dirt that had fallen on her floor.

  There was something about Noah Ericson that made Mercy feel strange inside. Uneasy. Had she made a mistake in allowing a hired gunman into the hotel? Sure, it was a hotel, but it was her home, too. Would Jacob be in danger around such a man?

  She tried to look him in the eye, but he averted his gaze beneath the fringe of ragged hair and the brim of his leather hat. "Just try to knock the dirt off before you come in next time, all right?"

  He gave a nod. "Yes, ma'am."

  At least he wouldn't talk her to death.

  She eyed the leather-brimmed hat that had seen better days. She didn't let Jacob or Tinny wear a hat inside. She was tempted to tell Mr. Ericson so, but decided against it. What did she care if he had manners or not? "I'll show you your room so you can unpack your bags—Bag," she corrected herself, realizing he carried only one small canvas duffel tossed over a broad shoulder. Obviously he wasn't planning on staying long or changing clothes often. "Travel light, don't you, Mr. Ericson?"

  She waited on the bottom tread.

  He seemed to hesitate, but then finally freed himself from the spot in her front hall. He followed her up the steps toward the second floor. "All I need."

  At the top of the stairs she pointed right. "Family quarters. Rooms to rent are this way." She adjusted a rag rug that covered a floorboard she'd recently replaced. She wasn't much of a carpenter, so the new piece didn't fit well, but at least it kept the rats out of the hall.

  "Meals are at six, one, and six. If you miss a meal, there's always something in the kitchen, but it might just be a cold cheese sandwich."

  The outrider grunted a response she took to mean that was all right. Not that she intended to change her meal-times even if he didn't. Mercy didn't have time to fiddle with men and their peculiarities. She was too busy just trying to take care of Tinny and Jacob. Just trying to survive.

  Mercy pushed open his door. She still had the strangest feeling about this man. He was trouble. She could feel it in her bones. Somehow, he was going to change her life. She wondered if she ought to turn him away. She already had enough problems. But she needed the money.

  "This is your room." She rested her hand on the white glass doorknob. "Clean towels on the sideboard. My boy will bring up a pitcher of hot water morning and night for your shaving, bathing, and such. Sheets'll be changed once a week. The dining room is down the stairs, through the parlor. Outhouse is directly out the back kitchen door, or out the f
ront and around the house. I've got a barn if you've a horse that needs stabling." She paused. "That'll be a dollar and a half more a week, though," she dared.

  "Bank's stabling my mount at the livery." He tossed his canvas bag on the bed covered with a green-and-blue patchwork quilt she'd stitched herself. All five rooms, three upstairs, two down, that she'd prepared for boarders had similar quilts spread neatly on their beds, but this one was her favorite. She wished now she'd put it on a different bed.

  "Well." Mercy lifted her hand from the doorknob. "I'd best get back to the kitchen. Like I said, dinner's at one. You're always welcome to bring someone else. Only thirty-five cents a head for a hearty meal."

  She didn't know why she said that, except out of nervousness. Something told her Mr. Ericson was the kind of man who dined alone.

  Again, he just nodded his bristly chin.

  She started to pull the door shut behind her, then turned back with a swish of her petticoat and sprigged calico skirt. "The rules, Mr. Ericson. No women. No drunkenness. No indecency."

  "I don't drink," he said quietly. "I don't have a woman, and I'll keep my pants on."

  She nodded, not in the least bit embarrassed. "Good. Well . . . I'll see you shortly."

  Noah listened to the woman's light footsteps as she went along the hall and down the steps. He sat down on the edge of the rope bed and ran his hand over the quilt's star design, feeling the texture of the tiny, even stitches. Blue and green. Alice had loved blue and green together.

  His gaze shifted to the four walls of the small room as he pushed thoughts of Alice and cozy quilts from his mind. He was good at redirecting his thoughts like that. He'd been doing it a long time.

  The room was plain, and small, only eight by eight. The walls were freshly whitewashed; he could smell the paint. They were unadorned except for a small oval mirror over the sideboard that looked as if it might have come from a woman's dresser. There was a slightly chipped washbowl, a pitcher, and two neatly folded, but thin, towels on the sideboard that served as a washstand.

  Noah lifted his hat from his head, set it on the bedpost and lay back, taking care to keep his boots off the quilt. He stared at the ceiling. It looked much the same as all the other ceilings he'd lain beneath in the last three years, a little more cracked than some, less cracked than others. He wouldn't need to escort the first stagecoach to the train station for two days. That would mean he'd have plenty of time to stare at the plastered ceiling. Plenty of time to torment himself.