triple it, can’t you, Lily?”
Dora’s face grew hot.
“My record’s fourteen, but that was in the winter. The nights are longer.” Lily tipped her nose in the air and looked out across the range toward the snow-capped peaks, making it clear she was bored with the conversation.
“Oh,” Dora said, trying to hide her shock. “I…uh, see.”
“You girls hush now!” Delilah said. “Don’t be bothering Miss Dora with your stories.”
Dora turned back in her seat, grateful for the older woman’s intervention.
“Don’t pay ’em no mind. They’re ninnies, most of ’em. Wouldn’t know how to get by in this world if it weren’t for me and your pa taking ’em in.”
Dora considered their predicament now that the Royal Flush was closed. “Surely they can get work elsewhere. There are two other saloons right here in town.”
“Don’t you worry about it. They’ll find a place. Won’t be as nice as the Flush, and they won’t be treated half as good as me and your pa treated ’em. Like daughters, is what Bill used to say.”
“Did he?” The thought of it made her feel funny inside.
“Oh, not like you, of course. Bill was wild about you. Talked about you all the time.”
“He did?”
“Oh, sure. He’d sneak off to the Springs just to get a look at you.”
“He told you that?”
“Didn’t have to. He was a fine man, your pa.” Delilah abruptly lowered her gaze, then roused the horses to pick up the pace.
Dora studied her profile as she drove the surrey toward home. Under all that face paint she was a handsome woman, and had likely been beautiful when she was young. Something about her seemed strangely familiar, yet Dora was certain she’d never seen Delilah before arriving at the Royal Flush.
“Those men that Mr. Gardner introduced me to at church…”
“Hmm?”
“They made it seem as if the whole town depends on the business my father’s saloon brings to Last Call.”
Delilah nodded. “It does. Boardinghouses, the hotel, the mercantile and livery, the laundry, the barber shop, the stage… Heck, even the other two saloons fare better because of us. Last Call’s nothing without the Flush. It was nothing before your pa arrived, and it’ll be nothing again.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so, honey. I was here before your pa quit ranching. Last Call was barely a stage stop and a few shacks.”
“Hmm.” All the same, the town would still need a school, although most of the children lived on outlying ranches. She’d confirmed that fact at church today. “Where will you go now?”
Delilah sighed. “Don’t know, exactly. But it’s time for me to move on, what with…” She paused and sucked a breath. “With the Flush closing and all.”
Dora had the oddest feeling Delilah had meant to say something else, but had stopped herself.
She thought about John Gardner’s advice to her that first day, to close the saloon until a suitable buyer could be found. Would the bank not go under, as well, if the Royal Flush closed its doors and the town’s trade dried up?
She’d hate to be responsible for an economic disaster, but she simply had no choice. She couldn’t be the proprietress of a drinking establishment and gambling house. It simply wasn’t proper. Besides, she had her heart set on opening a school. Now she wondered how she might fund it, if the town’s enterprises dwindled. Schools were often run on taxes. If Last Call had no thriving businesses, there would be no taxes.
“What am I going to do?” she said to herself.
Delilah tossed her a sober look. “You’re your pa’s girl, I can see that right off. You’ll do what’s right. That’s what he always did.”
“You thought a lot of him, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer, and Dora took that as a yes.
Glancing back at Chance, she wondered, not for the first time, what he was hiding—or hiding from. If she closed the saloon now, she’d never find out. She’d also never get to know the woman whom she’d come to believe had known her father better than anyone else.
You’re your pa’s girl.
Was she?
That afternoon, while the staff was assembled in the dining room sharing their last Sunday dinner together, and while Chance Wellesley was across the hall packing his bag, Dora stood in front of the walnut bureau in her father’s bedroom and, for the first time since she’d arrived at the ranch, went through his personal belongings.
She realized she knew little about him except what she’d gleaned from his letters and what other people had told her. Opinions as to what kind of a man he was diverged wildly.
Her mother had called him reckless, a dreamer, a poor husband and an unsuitable father who’d abandoned them in favor of a carefree life. But that’s not the impression she’d gotten from speaking with the people she’d met here, or from reading his recently discovered letters to her.
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