the Gold Nugget Saloon, the most successful business in town. He had always been proud of his success. He had dressed appropriately and behaved as suited him best, uncaring of fluctuating public opinion.
Scully paused to glance back at Lacey as she walked toward the mercantile store. His jaw tightened at the assessing looks she drew from passing matrons. Those busybodies were already beginning to talk. Given a few more weeks, they would paint Lacey a scarlet woman simply because she lived in a room upstairs from the town’s only saloon—two doors down the hallway from him, the town’s most notorious bachelor.
Illustrating his concerns, Scully watched as a bearded cowboy turned with a sly remark to his friend when Lacey passed them on the street. Scully took an angry step in the man’s direction, then checked himself in time. He’d just make matters worse by defending Lacey’s honor when it needed no defense at all.
Galling him was the reality that Lacey seemed oblivious to the implications that living at the Gold Nugget raised. He was living proof that rumors—sometimes without a speck of truth—spread fast and functioned as gospel. He also knew that once damaged, a woman’s reputation was never fully regained. Charlie had trusted him with both Lacey’s reputation and her future. He owed it to the old man and to Lacey to see that she found a man who was worthy of her—a respectable man who would marry her and give her the good life she deserved.
Scully watched as Lacey neared the store entrance. It occurred to him not for the first time that Lacey dismissed her beauty as playing any part in the person she was, just as she dismissed her own purity of heart with the belief that everyone had the same spark of goodness inside them—including him. He knew that wasn’t true. He had been on the wrong side of that equation for too many years as a youngster not to realize that the spark—if it ever existed in him—had long since been extinguished. He was determined Lacey would never experience that difficult truth firsthand. He was dedicated to that resolve…more than he had ever believed he could be.
Lacey disappeared through the mercantile store entrance, and Scully took a shaken breath. Whoever that respectable man who eventually won Lacey’s hand turned out to be, he’d be lucky, indeed.
Still frowning, Scully pushed his way through the Gold Nugget’s doors. He had started toward his office at the rear when a familiar, throaty voice turned him to the sultry redhead who stepped into his path.
“You don’t have time for a good morning today, Scully?”
Scully’s gaze swept over Charlotte briefly. He remembered the first time he saw her, when she came into the saloon looking for a job a year earlier. He had known at a glance she’d be an asset in his establishment.
Scully’s smile softened. He and Charlotte had both been on their own long enough to be well versed in what the world had to offer people like them.
He responded, “You’re in early today, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” Charlotte smiled with a quirk of her arched brows. “I’ve got a lot of energy stored up, I guess.”
“Charlotte…”
She said unexpectedly, “I like her, Scully. Lacey’s a real nice girl…innocent, you know? Not like you and me, who’ve seen it all and made our choices.” Charlotte took a step closer. “I expect she’ll make some rancher a real good wife someday. She’s suited to that life. She’ll take to it like a duck to water.”
Charlotte’s heady perfume filled his nostrils as she added, “I’ll see you around, Scully.” She winked. “You know where to find me.”
Charlotte walked back out through the saloon doors, disappearing as quickly as she had appeared, and Scully looked up to the expressive wiggling of Bill’s hairy eyebrows as the rotund bartender stood behind the bar. Bill had the keenest eye in town, but Scully resented having it turned in his direction. He made a mental note to tell him so, too.
That thought firmly fixed, Scully turned toward his office, and within seconds he had slammed the door behind him.
“You’re sure you don’t know of any positions that might be open for a young woman in town…anything at all?”
Wilson Parker stared at Lacey Stewart from his customary position behind the mercantile store counter. He had been standing in this same spot ten years earlier when a bedraggled little girl walked down the town’s main street dragging a scrawny burro behind her. Nobody had been more shocked than he to see how that pale little girl had turned out.
“Mr. Parker…?”
And no one was more incredulous than he as he responded, “Do you mean to say Scully thinks that you should…that he expects…”
“Scully has nothing to do with what I’m intending.” Lacey’s gaze pinned him as her smooth cheeks colored. “Is there something wrong with supporting oneself, may I ask? If I were a man, everyone would expect it of me. Certainly being a woman doesn’t change things that much.”
“But you’re not a woman. You’re a lady.” Lacey snatched back her well-groomed hands as Mr. Parker said, “Scully wouldn’t have to support you forever, just until the right fella comes along.”
The right fella, Lacey thought. There it was again.
Lacey controlled a spark of impatience as she responded, “I have plans for the future that don’t include waiting for the ‘right fella’ to turn up, and I’ll need to earn some money in the meantime.”
“Still, I don’t think—”
“That’s the trouble.” Lacey turned toward Sadie Wilson as the matronly restaurant owner interrupted their conversation. Sadie continued, “You don’t think, Parker. You just react, and this lady here is the kind who chooses to use the abilities God gave her to support herself instead of depending on others. I’d say that’s admirable, wouldn’t you?”
“Admirable?” Mr. Parker shrugged his narrow shoulders. “For a woman your age, I suppose it is, but Lacey—”
Sadie turned her back on the storekeeper, dismissing him with a roll of her eyes that said she had heard it all before. Addressing Lacey directly, she said, “I couldn’t help hearing your conversation, and I’m thinking it might be lucky for both of us that I happened to come in here to get some things I ran out of in the restaurant this morning. The fact is, I’m going to be shorthanded at the restaurant soon. Millie—you know, the redhead with all the freckles—she’s leaving to get married at the end of the week. I’m going to be needing somebody who’s looking for good, honest work.”
Lacey’s heart jumped a beat.
Sadie searched her expression. “It’s not easy work, mind you. There’s a lot of running involved when things get busy.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work.”
Appearing pleased at her response, Sadie replied, “Well then, as far as I’m concerned, you’re hired. The restaurant is busiest in the early morning and during the supper hours. I have a woman who helps at night, so I’ll try you out in the morning. If you’re agreeable, you can start at the end of the week when Millie leaves. I’ll pay you what I was paying her.” Sadie winked. “I’ll be expecting to get more work out of you, though, because Millie’s mind hasn’t been on her job lately.”
“That’s fine with me.” Lacey added, “And…thank you.”
Lacey watched as Sadie walked to the back of the store to scout out her purchases. Her heart was pounding. She had a position and she’d start at the end of the week! She’d have money to pay for her board at the boarding house and she—
Lacey’s high spirits plummeted as she bid the disapproving storekeeper goodbye and started back toward the Gold Nugget with the prospect of moving from the Gold Nugget suddenly looming closer. Also plaguing her was the prospect of informing Scully that she had agreed to take a job. He’d be angry, but she’d remind him that she’d be able to take the room at Mrs. McInnes’s sooner than she thought. That