Morrow Creek Runaway. Lisa Plumley

curtly, unwilling to hear any more about the man she’d briefly and disastrously been wed to. Elijah Dancy might have unwittingly enabled Rosamond’s new life by obligingly getting shot at a gambling table, but that didn’t mean Rosamond felt a speck of gratitude for the man.

      In fact, she had yet to meet the man she felt grateful for. No one who truly knew her would have blamed her for that fact.

      But if any man were to come close, it would have been Gus Winston. The lanky, bandanna-wearing stableman had approached Rosamond’s household with an open mind and endearing enthusiasm.

      You have a gentleman caller, she remembered Bonita saying. She had to get busy. She couldn’t keep Gus waiting all day.

      Breathless with the aftereffects of her athletic endeavors, Rosamond patted her bedraggled, mostly upswept auburn hair. Vigorously, she brushed off her bodice and her bustled, lace-trimmed skirts. Playing baseball wasn’t strictly among her duties as the lady of the household, but whenever one of the children asked her to join in, Rosamond simply couldn’t resist. She loved hearing their raucous laughter and seeing their little faces smudged with dirt...but wreathed with smiles, all the same.

       You have a gentleman caller.

      When would those words not stop her heart?

      She’d escaped from Boston, Rosamond reminded herself firmly. She had nothing more to fear from the Bouchards or anyone else. She’d made a new life for herself in Morrow Creek.

      A life that left her—a supposed lady—hopelessly untidy.

      Nonetheless, she faced Grace brightly. “How do I look?”

      Her friend assessed her. “You look perfectly invigorated!”

      Hmm. That wasn’t terribly helpful. “Bonita?”

      “It’s Gus,” her assistant reminded her. “He won’t mind if you’re slightly less stringently ladylike than usual.”

      Bonita’s teasing grin reminded Rosamond that to everyone here, she truly was ladylike. Despite the gossip and whispers that had initially greeted the arrival of her Morrow Creek Mutual Society—and the ladies therein—no one in town suspected Rosamond of anything untoward. Her neighbors approved of her.

      Almost a year after her ignoble departure from Boston, Rosamond had created the haven she’d always longed for. In the unlikely refuge of Morrow Creek, she was finally secure.

      Unless a particular and unwanted “gentleman caller” arrived, that is. If that happened, all her security would be shattered.

      Rosamond couldn’t bear to consider it. “I’ll be back for the next round,” she assured everyone. “Good luck!”

      “It’s the next inning!” Tobe called. “Inning!”

      But Rosamond gaily waved off his assertion and headed for her private parlor, hauling in a deep breath as she went.

      If nothing else, she was in charge here. She had friends, security, a family of rescued women and their children, and a useful occupation to occupy her mind. She’d done good work here.

      As proof, Rosamond reminded herself, she was about to meet the first and most satisfied client of her mutual society.

      The just-married Mr. Gus Winston, waiting in her parlor.

       Chapter Two

      Within half an hour of his arrival at the saloon, Miles had the dispiriting realization that he’d become an expert at subterfuge. Wholly without meaning to, he’d become a man who knew how to pick a lock, when to trade cash for information and where to find answers that didn’t send him off cockeyed on a wild, time-wasting goose chase. He’d learned how to suss out the truth and how to protect himself. He’d had to. The kind of people he’d dealt with were neither reputable nor trustworthy.

      At this point, maybe he wasn’t, either.

      But the urgency of his search had demanded more from him. More, maybe, than he’d been willing to give at the outset. But he’d had no choice then. Now that Miles was so close—now that he knew Rosamond McGrath was within reach—he couldn’t quit.

      He’d always been able to handle himself, of course, Miles recalled as he studied his ale. He had the usual masculine willingness to fight, if the outcome of that fight mattered. In his time, he’d settled a few disputes with his fists. He had the musculature that came from hoisting horse-and-carriage equipment from dawn to dusk, the wits that came from growing up in the hardscrabble city tenements and a hardheadedness that owed itself, quite naturally, to his Callaway forebearers.

      Each of them was as stubborn as a stuck mule and more than eager to boast about it. But they also had the charm of several fallen angels to sweeten their obstinacy. Miles’s own father had possessed unholy amounts of charisma...coupled with an unfortunate unwillingness to quit playing faro until his pockets were empty.

      Too bad he could always finagle the faro dealer into letting him play a mite longer on credit, Miles remembered. Without that damnable charm of his, Silas Callaway might have been able to save and move out from the grimy tenements. That certainly would have pleased Miles’s mother. But none of the Callaways had ever really expected to leave the rougher side of Boston—at least not unless it was in service to someone like the Bouchards.

      In the end, Miles had been the only one who’d left.

      He’d brought some of that infamous family charm with him, though, he reckoned as he signaled the barman for some food. He’d twisted the Callaway charisma into use not for gambling but for a greater cause.

      For Rose. For finding her, just as he’d promised, and for—

      “You must be Callaway.” A huge, friendly-faced man wearing homespun trousers and a loose buttoned shirt stepped up to the bar beside Miles. He ordered, then nodded at Miles. “The man with all the questions about Mrs. Dancy and her establishment.”

      Mrs. Dancy. Miles still couldn’t get used to that.

      He knew Rosamond had married. But how? Why?

      Had she really, as Genevieve Bouchard had insisted, become smitten with Elijah Dancy and run away with him in the night?

      He couldn’t believe the woman he’d known would do that.

      Even if she had, she would have written to someone. To him.

      Knowing there had to be more to this situation, Miles nodded calmly at his interrogator. “I am. You know Mrs. Dancy?”

      Another, more curt nod. “Yep. But I don’t know you.”

      With new respect, Miles eyed the man. He had the burly build of a stevedore, the jovial demeanor of a gambler who always won big and the jaded gaze of someone who knew better than to trust an outsider.

      “Miles Callaway.” Miles offered his hand to the man. “I’m new in town. I couldn’t help hearing about Mrs. Dancy’s place. I don’t mind saying, it’s got me mighty intrigued.”

      The man laughed, then accepted Miles’s handshake. “Daniel McCabe. I wouldn’t get yourself all het up about Mrs. Dancy’s society, if I were you. It sounds scandalous, but it’s not.”

      With a genial nod for the barman, McCabe accepted what appeared to be a midday meal of beans, bacon and bread. All around them both, the business of the saloon continued apace, full of low conversations, clinking gambling chips and quickly dealt cards. More whiskey flowed. Clouds of cigarillo smoke drifted toward the ceiling, almost obscuring Jack Murphy’s painted image of a cavorting water nymph behind the bar.

      “The Morrow Creek Marriage Bureau?” Miles repeated the name he’d heard used. “Sounds scandalous to me—and to every other man who doesn’t want to get hitched in the next week.”

      Another laugh. “Officially, it’s