Czytaj książkę: «The Cowboy's Cinderella»

Dedicated to the memory of

“the luckiest man in the world”...

my father, Glenn Lester Ebert.

“love you I.”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Coulson, Montana, June 1882

“Gull-durned female traps!”

Ivy Magee watched three women dressed in all manner of frippery stroll across the gangplank of the River Queen.

Leaning over the rail of the upper, hurricane deck, she observed their slow, sashaying mosey from the boat to shore.

With all the fussy petticoats, there wasn’t room for all of them to walk side by side. They were trying, though, arms linked and giggling. One wrong step and someone would tumble headlong into the river.

While the image playing in her mind presented a humorous picture—with flailing legs getting all tangled up in ruffles, elegant hair dripping water and mud weeds—Ivy could only pity the woman who would have to launder the muck from the clothes. Sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to be those fancy ladies.

Wasn’t going to be Ivy, either.

Just because she was a female didn’t make her honor bound to clean up after folks. Uncle Patrick was training her to pilot the River Queen. She was happy as a fish in deep water to be his “cub.”

For the life of her, Ivy couldn’t figure the female species out.

Gosh all-mighty! Why would a soul want to stuff her body into whale bones and yards of heavy cloth that would only make her sweat and stumble? If she guessed right, the whole of female creation could not breathe.

“Gull-durned female duds...worst kind of a trap,” she repeated, this time with a dash of scorn.

Sometimes she thought her fellow sex were touched in the head to willingly—even happily—submit to such abuse.

Once again, she was grateful for the soft cotton shirt she wore, for the durable denim pants. Even the belt that held her trousers up was just a strip of red cloth. Its flower print and the bow she fastened it with was all the adornment she needed.

The oldest of the three women, the one walking in the middle, lost her balance when the plank heaved with the current. The young ones tried to set her to rights but they all listed toward the water.

Just in time, young Tom, a deckhand, dashed across the plank to help them rebalance.

Ivy had grown up on this boat. In her twenty-two years, she’d seen that not all of the ladies maneuvering the plank were so lucky. Last fall, one had gone over and washed up half a mile downriver. A couple of roustabouts fished her out a second before her waterlogged skirts dragged her to the Great Beyond.

These ladies were luckier than some. At least they might be, were they not destined for a life of selling their bodies in this wicked town.

Ivy was glad the boat would dock here only one night before turning east toward respectable towns...more profitable ones, too.

The River Queen was unique among the boats that did business along the Missouri. Most of them were workhorses, transporting goods and passengers.

But Patrick Malone, her uncle and the man who had raised her, had a different vision for his boat. The River Queen did transport people and their goods, but it was also a high-class gambling boat.

Like Ivy, Uncle Patrick had spent his life on a riverboat, but a grand one on the Mississippi.

Oh, the stories he loved to tell of a night, when the after watch took over and the boat grew quiet. He’d spend hours spinning yarns about the glory of the old days when floating palaces plied that great and perilous river.

He’d started as an apprentice, a cub. He’d gone on to become the highly respected pilot of the Jewel of the Mississippi.

The tales he’d spun about that huge boat left her breathless. The glitter of crystal chandeliers, the orchestra playing and lots of folks becoming instantly rich, then just as fast, poor again...it was as though she’d seen it all herself.

The events she witnessed through his eyes had been beyond grand, the gentlemen and the ladies all rich and refined, the firemen and roustabouts not refined but strong as bulls, their mighty muscles glistening with sweat in the reflected heat of the fire that kept the floating palaces moving.

Ivy’s favorite stories involved the river pilots, whose uncanny intuition sensed how the river changed, noticed every ripple in the current that might foretell disaster, could see below the water in their mind’s eye, even on a pitch-dark night.

Lives depended upon their knowing when and where the riverbed shifted. If a pilot made a mistake, failed to sense sudden changes below the water, tragedies occurred.

Uncle Patrick remembered many such events. But none of them were of his making.

Even as a tot, no more than two years old, Ivy used to sit at her uncle’s feet and listen to him spin his magical stories, fascinated even though she didn’t understand much of what he said.

By the time she was four, she knew that she wanted to be a pilot, just like Uncle Patrick.

But time was running out for riverboats. Her uncle expounded on this very subject every time he saw her becoming breathless with excitement over piloting a boat.

The railroad had done in the Mississippi years ago. It would do in the Missouri as well.

Just last night she had argued with him over it.

To her way of thinking, yes, freight hauling and transporting folks would give way to train travel, but gambling would not. Folks were always in a sure-fired hurry to lose their money and there was romance in doing it on a steamboat.

But Uncle Patrick believed even this recreation would end.

She sure did hope he was wrong because she was set on being a pilot.

“The ladies invited me to the Sullied Gully tonight, me being their hero and all.” Young Tom settled beside her at the rail.

“My uncle will have your hide, Tom.” And he would. “He promised your ma he’d keep you in hand.”

“I’m of an age.” Tom grinned at her. Sunshine touched his nose, dotting it with fresh freckles.

“An age for what, you young fool?”

“Women.” Just saying the word made him blush.

“Wait until you grow up a bit for that.” Ivy knocked the cap from his hair with a flick of her fingers. “There’s one of our passengers down there on her knees. Looks like she tripped over her fool skirt. I don’t think she’s a lady of the night, though. See if you can find her a safe place to stay.”

Tom pushed away from the rail. “Sure won’t miss that noisy green bird of hers.”

She watched him cross the deck, disappear down the stairs then reappear on the stage plank.

He was carrying the woman’s trunk across his shoulders. She indicated a spot on the ground for him to set it down. It looked like she handed Tom some money for his effort.

“Gosh almighty.” She sighed. “Uncle Patrick will tan his hide if he spends it at the Sullied Gully.”

All of a sudden her hat shifted, tipping toward her nose. She caught the small white mouse that slid from the brim.

“You little varmint, what’s waking you so early? Sun’s not even set yet.” Ivy fished a peanut from her pocket and gave it to the mouse.

It sat on her shoulder nibbling the treat. After a moment she tucked the furry creature back into the special pouch under a large satin flower that was attached to the brim of her hat.

“Go back to sleep until dark. It’ll be Hades own chaos if a passenger sees you.”

To her relief, the mouse snuggled into his space and became still.

Not even Uncle Patrick knew that her best friend was a rodent.

* * *

Moonlight reflected off the liquid face of the Missouri River.

From the cabin deck of the docked River Queen, Travis Murphy watched the sparkling ripples gliding past, not in a straight line, but with the twisting tug of the current.

The sight kept him mesmerized, since at the moment, his life resembled those twisting ripples. It sure wasn’t traveling the straight line that he hoped this journey would take him on.

The future of the Lucky Clover Ranch depended upon him finding Miss Eleanor Magee. But it seemed the harder he searched the more twisted the trail became, the pursuit more urgent.

At one point, he’d nearly caught up with the woman, but his horse had come up lame. It had taken some time for the poor creature to heal properly.

That delay had been frustrating, but he’d finally made it to Coulson, a day ahead of the steamboat.

Now, here he was, the boat finally arrived, but he sure didn’t see anyone who resembled the woman’s twin sister, Agatha.

Travis swatted a moth away from his face. The determined insect seemed intent upon incinerating itself on the lamp hanging over his head.

Where the blazes could Eleanor Magee be?

Hell, he’d only learned of Eleanor’s existence when his boss, the man he loved as much as he remembered loving his own father, confessed on his deathbed that he had another daughter.

That revelation had nearly kicked Travis to his knees. He’d always felt like a member of the family, believed he’d known everything about them.

When, at six years old, his parents had been put in the grave, Travis had wanted to leap into the hole with them. But Foster Magee had been there, his big hand pulling him back from the shadow of death. He’d taken him to the big house and raised him as his own.

But another daughter? In the moment he’d demanded that Foster tell him why this girl’s existence had been kept a secret, why she had not been raised at the ranch.

The reality was, he’d had no right to demand anything of Foster. But in that moment he had been a stunned son, not an employee.

The reason turned out to be a divorce agreement. He’d learned the full story while watching tears drip down his mentor’s disease-ravaged face—his stand-in father’s face.

He’d given up Eleanor in an agreement with Mollie Clover Magee.

“She was a beauty, my wife,” he’d admitted.

The proof of that, her portrait, still hung over the mantel of the huge fireplace in the great room back at the ranch.

“She was a wild flower, a free spirit, the plain opposite of me. Fire and ice I reckon.” he whispered, his voice hoarse, weak from the effects of his illness.

It was true. Foster Seamus Magee had been a man of purpose. His desire to have the largest and most influential ranch in the state had consumed him. A proper life of social niceties, all the rules of etiquette observed, this was what he’d striven for.

“My Clover, she was never cut out for that kind of life. I watched her dry up in front of my eyes. My pretty wife... The life I sought sucked the life out of her.

“Son, you understand that I never stopped loving her, but I had to let her go when she wanted to...just not all of her. I wouldn’t let her have Agatha because of the two girls she’s the one who reminded me of my Clover, with that blaze of red hair and those emerald-colored eyes. Turned out, though, she didn’t have her mother’s high spirit. The girl is sickly...well, you grew up with her, you know.”

He did know. Agatha was a shut away. She was frail, retiring, and lacking the vigor that the demands of inheriting the ranch would place upon her. He only hoped that Eleanor was different from her twin.

A lot of livelihoods depended upon her being strong, but even more, that she was willing to step into her role.

Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, not with stressful thoughts of past and present, but because the heat of the day lingered on the land and shimmered over the water. In the mountains nearby the temperature would be different. He reckoned just a short distance away the night was getting cold.

Well, not the night so much anymore, but the wee hours. Even the gamblers had taken to their beds.

He swiped the ticklish moisture from his neck while he strolled to the side of the boat facing west. Maybe there would be a breeze off the water.

There wasn’t a breeze...but there was a woman.

A naked woman.

Naked women weren’t so unusual in Coulson. But here on the riverboat at this hour? Perhaps she’d been entertaining a gambler.

Propriety told him to look away. Nature urged him otherwise.

The woman stood on the lower deck, her back toward him and her arms reaching for the night sky. When she lifted her face toward the moon, he saw the slim line of her nose but nothing else.

He smiled, wished he was the moonglow. That elusive finger of light touched the curve of her hip, shimmered in the fall of blond hair tumbling down her back. It cupped the lovely round orbs of her bottom.

She bent her knees, pushed off the deck, and dove headlong into the water.

She came up, grinning, then went under again. Her fair-skinned body skimmed inches below the surface of the water as she swam alongside the boat.

Hell, now he wished he was the river, with the right to touch her so intimately.

Spinning about, he strolled toward the other end of the boat, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Whoever the woman was, she was not Eleanor Magee. From what he’d learned from the Pinkerton he’d hired, Miss Eleanor was watched over by her uncle. It was hard to imagine the guardian who would let his niece loose at all hours of the night, who would allow her to leap into a river naked.

The fact that Patrick Malone was Eleanor’s guardian, and that she’d grown up on this boat, was all he knew of Miss Magee. He couldn’t be certain that she even lived here any longer since the Pinkerton had never actually laid eyes on her. For the price Travis had been able to pay, all he’d got for his investment was a bunch of the man’s “educated guesses”...leads that may or may not find the Lucky Clover’s heir.

If the investigator was wrong in his information, Travis had wasted a valuable month away from the ranch.

* * *

The nosey gambler was supposed to be abed but Ivy felt his gaze between her shoulder blades...and lower. She longed to twitch, to ease the burn on her back.

Gosh-almighty, she wouldn’t give the voyeur that satisfaction. This was her boat and her time. To her way of thinking, swimming bare was no sin. Eavesdropping was. Let him be the one to squirm before the preacher of a Sunday.

Doing her best to ignore the intrusive gambler, who was probably too drunk to really see her anyway, Ivy dove into the cool murky water.

She burst the surface of the river, grinning. Wasn’t this as close to paradise as a body could get?

Treading water, she inhaled, savored the scent of damp mud, of verdant plants growing at the water’s edge.

“Howdy-doo, all you fine crickets...good evening, all you fat old frogs.”

She stroked through the cool water, feeling the day’s sweat and grievances wash off her skin. It was her custom to float on her back, watch the twinkle of the stars while feeling weightless, but the gambler was still up there.

It wasn’t likely that he’d come out intentionally to spoil her solitude—chances were, he only wanted a bit of fresh air.

All at once, the man spun away. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he slowly walked toward the other end of the boat.

She stroked along through the water, this time she was the one watching him. There wasn’t a whole lot she could learn in the dark, not until he passed under one of the lanterns hanging from the roof over the cabin deck.

Then—gosh all-mighty, he was handsome! Fine of figure, he had the stride of a man of authority, a fellow who knew where he wanted to go and how to get there.

He didn’t seem drunk.

“Hey, mister!” she called up to him while treading water.

He stopped, looked down at her then came to the rail. Resting his arms on the balustrade, he gazed toward her.

“This here’s my private time. I don’t hanker to spend it with a Peeping Tom.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” Well, now she wasn’t sure his smile said sorry or not. “I didn’t know. I was only cooling some sweat, walking away some worry.”

That was probably the truth. On a gambling boat, for every winner there was a loser worrying over his loss. Not that the wealthy clients of the River Queen needed to worry over the loss...most of the time.

As far as the knowing went, he probably didn’t. There were no signs posted about Ivy’s private time—it was just something that the men who lived on board knew and respected.

This fellow didn’t live on board so she ought to allow for that.

And the river was a balm when one wanted to wash away a day’s stress. She couldn’t imagine living her life away from its soothing embrace. Often, she pitied land folks who never knew the feel of the river against their skin.

One more thing she ought to allow for was that the fellow up there was a paying customer. According to Uncle Patrick, those were soon to become scarce.

“I reckon you lost money tonight.” It was not unpleasant carrying on a conversation with this handsome fellow. Not when she was hidden in the cool kiss of the inky water and he was up there sweating in his fancy duds.

“If it’s a woman you’re looking to sooth yourself with, I ain’t her, but over yonder in Coulson you’ll find what you need.”

“I doubt it, ma’am.”

He was still smiling in the way that let her know that in this moment, his stress was relieved, but under that half-lifted mouth, life was not grand. She saw this to be true even in the dim light of the boat’s lamps.

It was her duty to make sure the passenger was happy so that tonight he would take a seat in the casino again.

“Look here, mister, if you agree to keep to the paddle side of the boat, I’ll share the water with you.”

“I’ll need to strip bare. You don’t mind?”

“I reckon I’ve got a peek coming since you were ogling me. Just keep to your side of the boat and we’ll get on just fine.”

The fellow pushed away from the rail. She heard his boots tripping down the stairs. He reappeared on the lower deck, his shirt in hand and his chest bare.

It wasn’t uncommon for Ivy to see a man bare chested. The roustabouts often worked shirtless.

But there was something different about this man, something curious. He made her insides feel fluttery.

Why was that? Men were men. One was not so much different than another. Two arms. Two legs.

Two muscled buttocks. She could not help but notice when he turned his back to her and stepped out of his trousers.

He was giving her the same glimpse of him that he had taken of her.

That was not quite true. He turned his head to flash her a mischievous smile before jumping feet first into the water, his back still presenting.

“Looks like we’re even, mister,” she said when his face broke the surface of the water.

She felt safe enough even though she kept only a twenty-foot buffer between them instead of the boat length. If he made an untoward move, she’d be off as quick as a minnow.

“What’s your name, gambler?” she asked then ducked under the water, surfacing a foot closer to him.

“Travis.”

Travis went under the water then came up a yard closer to her. His handsome face was dotted with water. He shook his head, splattering droplets from his short brown hair. It stood up in spikes all over his scalp—gave him a real boyish, friendly look. That sure was contrary to her first impression of him being a no-nonsense man of authority.

“What’s yours?”

“Ivy.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ivy.”

Naked sure was an odd way to meet a fellow, but the night was dark and so was the water.

“So, how much did you lose to keep you restless so late?” She ought to swim to the other side of the boat and float about gazing at the stars, but she was enjoying gazing at Travis’s face instead.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t do much gambling.”

“Most folks aboard the River Queen come just for that.” A fish nibbled her toes. She kicked it away. “There’s some who just need transportation, but mostly they’re gamblers. Big money gamblers.”

“Are you familiar with the ship?”

“A bit.” She didn’t want to say she knew every inch of it, every board and shadow. That she was training to be a pilot. A lady pilot tended to be frowned upon and for some reason she did not want Travis frowning upon her.

“I’m looking for a woman named Eleanor.”

Her swim time was about up. If she didn’t rap on Uncle Patrick’s door telling him she was safely aboard, he would come looking.

“A sweetheart?” Gosh almighty she couldn’t swim away without knowing about that.

“No...not a sweetheart.” Oh? For some reason she was relieved to know it. “She’s inherited a ranch. I’ve got to find her and let her know.”

“And you believe she’s aboard?”

“I have reason to think so,” Travis answered, parting the water between them.

Only ten feet of sparkling river lay between them. Just because the water was dark did not make her any less naked.

Her imagination saw a dozen things that her eyes couldn’t.

It was time and past for her to be in her room.

She ducked under the surface and swam away. When she came up for air she looked back to see Travis on the deck, knee-deep into his britches.

Whoever this Eleanor was, she was a mighty lucky woman to have him looking for her, even if they were not sweethearts.

* * *

With the exception of one gambler, still in his chair but dead asleep with his head lying on the poker table, the saloon was empty.

The man’s pockets were turned inside out. His heavy breathing stirred the cards in front of his mouth.

Travis figured the fellow must have fallen asleep over the losing hand in front of his nose. No doubt, the smile tugging his mouth meant he was dreaming of the winning hand for tonight’s competition.

A lingering scent of cigars hovered in the corners of the large room. For all its size and elegance, the saloon was still cozy. The overstuffed chairs near the windows, the padded stools about the gaming tables, all invited one to stay and enjoy an evening.

With the piano covered for the night, the lamps turned low and everyone abed but the lone sleeper, Travis decided to continue his restless night right here, with his butt snuggled into a plump brown chair and his feet up on a gold ottoman.

For comfort, it beat the hell out of the cot he’d put up beside his horse on the main deck.

He’d taken only a small amount of money on his quest to find Eleanor. The more he left behind for the ranch to keep going, the better.

Since he was on his own, it would not be a problem to live frugally for a time. Even the little bit of gambling he’d done had been for the purpose of gaining information about Miss Magee. It sure hadn’t hurt that he’d won a few dollars.

Hadn’t gained a thing by way of discovering anything about Miss Eleanor, though.

At daylight, the boat was going to turn south. If the lady was not aboard, it would cause him all kinds of trouble. He only hoped the Pinkerton knew his business.

If Travis didn’t come up with any information by nightfall, he’d try and get a moment of the captain’s time, not an easy thing to do, he’d discovered, with such a busy man. But if he couldn’t find out something about Eleanor from her own uncle, he despaired of finding it at all.

That was a notion he couldn’t let his mind dwell on. Futures depended upon him bringing her home.

Hell, what he did want to dwell on was the magical water nymph.

Ivy. Even her name conjured up things fresh, green and growing with abandon, having no regard for rules.

He closed his eyes, reliving the memory of her diving into the water, of her face as she surfaced, so full of the joy of just plain living.

If only he could be more like her. Not that he wanted to run from his responsibilities, but if he could rise above them from time to time...

When Ivy invited him to strip down and join her in the water, he’d felt ten years old again.

He’d liked being ten. By then he was past the constant grief that his parents’ deaths had caused and had come to love his life on the Lucky Clover Ranch.

For a few moments last night, he had been that boy again because looking at Ivy—and he didn’t just mean in appreciation of her lovely body, but her smile and the love of life that shone from her eyes—he’d felt fresh. Renewed.

He’d come from the water full of hope and now he sat in this chair because the only way to hold on to that feeling was to hold her memory fresh. To keep her in his mind so that he could draw on that brief moment out of time.

When life was not so fresh, he would remember Ivy.

Too bad he would never see her again. No doubt by now she was back in Coulson doing whatever a free spirit like her did in the wee hours.

Turning frogs into princes, coaxing butterflies from their cocoons, maybe even leading a symphony of light with fireflies as her instruments, that’s what he would like to think, even though he knew reality was certainly far different.

Reality or not, he was good and sorry he would never see Miss Ivy again.