more closely, seeing what appeared to be a jail, a barber shop and several other stores. Her gaze halted. Memory stirred when she viewed the establishment that took up the major portion of the street at the far end.
The Gold Nugget Saloon.
Lacey took a shaky breath, then searched the street again. She was expecting too much, she knew, to expect Uncle Scully to be waiting for the stage as she had hoped. The exact date of her arrival had been uncertain when they had last communicated. She certainly couldn’t expect that he would meet every stage the week she was expected to arrive.
The stage shuddered to a halt in front of the mercantile store and Lacey’s heart began pounding. She silently scolded herself for her rising apprehension as she waited for her fellow passengers to alight. She reminded herself that she had just traveled hundreds of miles alone, that she had walked through the Gold Nugget’s swinging doors by herself once before, and she certainly could do it again.
“Ma’am…” Lacey took the hand Pete offered her. She stepped down onto the street as he continued politely, “If you’re needing any help…”
Lacey skimmed the street again with her gaze. She saw a tall, gray-haired gentleman step out onto the boardwalk a distance away. Her heart leaped when he turned in her direction.
“Lacey?”
She went still at the sound of the deep, familiar male voice behind her. She turned toward the big man who started toward her from the shadow of a store’s overhang.
Lacey’s throat went dry as the well-dressed, dark-haired man approached. This fellow wasn’t old at all. Actually, he appeared to be a man in his prime, with strongly cut features and dark brows over eyes that were a soft, sober gray.
Lacey caught her breath. She remembered those eyes.
The man stopped in front of her. He said, “Welcome home, Lacey.”
“U-Uncle Scully?”
“If that’s what you want to call me.”
Lacey looked over at Pete, who remained stiffly solemn beside her. Uncertain why he stood rooted to the spot, she said, “I’d like you to meet one of my fellow passengers on the stage, Uncle Scully. His name is Mr. Pete Loughlin, and he’s been very kind.”
Scully’s expression remained unchanged as he replied, “Pete and I are old acquaintances.” He addressed Pete directly, adding, “I appreciate your looking after Lacey, Pete, but she’s in good hands now.”
Scully turned again to Lacey. “I’ll get your bag.”
Dismissing the introduction and Pete with that statement, Scully strode toward the rear of the wagon to catch Lacey’s suitcase as it was tossed down from the stage.
“Ma’am…”
Lacey’s attention jumped back to Pete.
His voice lowered, Pete whispered, “I hope you’ll remember what I said.”
“Thank you, but you don’t have to worry about me. As Uncle Scully told you, I’m in good hands now.”
“Like I said, if things don’t turn out the way you expected and you’re needing any help, I’ll be around.”
“Well, thank you again, Pete.”
Glancing back at Scully as he approached, Pete added, “I guess that’s all I got to say.” He walked away without waiting for her response.
Scully was frowning when he reached her side. “What did Pete say?”
“Pete just offered me his support. It was very kind of him.”
“Kind…right.” Scully’s frown deepened. “Let’s get going. I told Helen to make up a room for you upstairs from the saloon.”
“Helen?”
“Helen’s the woman who cleans the second floor for me at the Gold Nugget. She’s a nice old lady whose husband died a while back. She agreed to move into the spare room and serve as a chaperone while you’re living there.”
“Living there…like before.” Lacey’s throat choked tight as memories began flooding back. “I’m glad.”
“I’ll find a more suitable place for you as soon as I can.”
Struggling to keep up with Scully’s long-legged stride as they started across the street, Lacey was not able to reply.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
Intensely aware of Lacey as she walked beside him, Jake Scully shoved open the swinging door and stepped back to allow her entrance into the saloon. His jaw ticked at the silence that came over the barroom as she walked in.
Well, what had he expected? Did he think Lacey would return the same little girl in pigtails that he had sent away to school years earlier?
Scully remembered that little girl clearly. Lost and alone, and so brave…Charlie’s granddaughter. She had looked up at him with total trust in her eyes, and he had lost his heart to her the moment he saw her. He hadn’t doubted for a moment what he would do.
Memories of Charlie were vivid. Scully had been in his teens when he met the old man. He’d been out on his own after the deaths of his parents—jobless, homeless, without funds and unsure where his next meal was coming from. He couldn’t remember exactly how he met Charlie and struck up a conversation with him, but he did remember that Charlie bought him the first good meal he’d had in days, and that he’d never tasted anything better. He had ending up working with Charlie at his claim for almost a year before starting back out on his own with a stake that Charlie had insisted on providing. He had made good use of that stake, and he had never gone hungry again.
Nor had he forgotten Charlie. Years passed, however, before the old man walked into Scully’s saloon one day and told him he was prospecting in the area, then mentioned during their extended conversation that he had taken in his granddaughter after his daughter’s death.
The next time he saw Charlie, the affable old man was lying dead outside his burned-out cabin.
There hadn’t been a moment during the years following that Scully had doubted providing for Lacey, the poor, wounded little girl in pigtails who had needed him. But the child in pigtails was now a woman—and everything had changed.
Scully remembered the look in Pete’s eyes as he had stood protectively at Lacey’s side. He recalled the stunned silence when Lacey and he had walked through the saloon doors moments earlier.
It had started already.
The truth was, he hadn’t been ready for Lacey Stewart, the beautiful woman who had stepped down from the stagecoach, and the shock of it was with him still. Charlie Pratt had been a rare man, indeed: sincere, generous, God-fearing and God-loving, and the truest friend he’d ever had. But he had also been a scrawny little fella with a crooked smile and bowed legs. Somehow, Scully hadn’t considered for a moment that Charlie’s granddaughter would turn out to be a beauty.
And not only was
