Page 4 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
Shehadbeen Miss Martin, once upon a time, so she turned with a smile of greeting, but it immediately fell off her face, all the way to her suffering feet.
He was bigger than she expected. Tall and broad-shouldered, wearing an ill-fitting jacket that wasn’t brushed. He had owned up to thirty-five years in his letter to Pearl, which accounted for the threads of silver at the temples of his dark brown hair. He had also warned Pearl his cheek bore a scar, but Marigold hadn’t expected a puckered red line that cut from his brow down his cheekbone into a runnel that left a part in his untrimmed beard.
“Mr. Gardner?” She bravely pressed on, pretending his ne’er-do-well appearance wasn’t alarming the life out of her.
Whatever welcome might have been in his rugged features evaporated. His gray eyes became as hard as granite while he frowned in confusion at her appearance.
Pearl had included a self-portrait when she’d responded to Mr. Gardner’s advertisement. Marigold had neither Pearl’s talent with watercolors, her pleasing round face, her bright red hair, nor her ample bosom. She did have her sister’s honey-brown eyes, a deeper sense of responsibility, and a sharper wit—none of which had impressed any man thus far.
Mr. Gardner’s brows bunched together even more when his gaze reached the bloomers poking from beneath her shortened skirt. “You’re a suffragist?”
Might as well admit to being a witch and light the fire herself.
“I wonder if we could speak somewhere more private?” she suggested.
He snorted. His gaze flickered to the men who were watching them avidly. “You’ve come to the wrong place for that.”
He had her there. She had thought the farmers in Topeka had been starved for entertainment. These miners were nosier than a barnful of kittens.
Marigold slipped around the corner into the alley between the Express office and the building that was being erected next to it. The putrid smell from a nearby outhouse almost knocked her over, but she turned to see Mr. Gardner had followed her.
“The truth is, Mr. Gardner…” She forced herself to lift her chin and not cower before his intimidating presence. “Pearl was unable to make it. I’m her sister, Marigold Davis.”
He ignored her offered hand. His narrowed eyes squinted even harder.
Her heart gave a thud of alarm, but she forced herself to continue speaking.
“A man of our acquaintance learned of Pearl’s plan to marry here and professed his feelings for her. They’re likely engaged by now. Since I also need a husband, I took it upon myself…”
Was he physically growing larger as she spoke, like an anvil head preparing to send tornadoes whipping across the land?
“You did describe your situation as urgent,” she reminded him. So was hers. His letter with the ticket for Pearl had arrived while they’d been picking through the ashes of their farmhouse. Marigold had had to decide within a matter of hours whether she would take a chance on meeting him here today or return the ticket unused. She’d had plenty of time to regret this leap into the unknown while she was bouncing around in the stagecoach, but it was too late to go back now. She had nowhere to go back to anyway.
“Why didn’t you write to me when your sister did?” he demanded. “So I could make the choice between you myself?”
Because she had thought her sister weak in the head for replying to such an outrageous ad. Which likely said something about her own faculties, now that she stood before him.
“My circumstance changed very suddenly.” She gave her arms a rest and set her carpetbag on the dusty ground by her feet. “I wasn’t planning to marry…again,” she mumbled while she was bent. She warily peered upward as she straightened.
“You’re widowed?” His brows lifted.
“Divorced?” She didn’t mean to sound so uncertain. There was no doubt about it. She definitely was divorced.
Crash went those dark brows, exactly like thunderheads.
“Whatever you’re selling, lady, I ain’t buying. You owe me a ticket on the Express and fifty cents postage.”
“Mr. Gardner, I’m not— Wait!” She grabbed his arm as he started to turn away, earning a glare that Medusa herself would have found petrifying.
Marigold had had plenty of time while she’d been rolling like a loose marble in the carriage to formulate Plans B and C, anticipating that Plan A might not work out. Plying her wares at a brothel was down around W, and posting a “husband wanted” ad in a saloon was a solid F.
None of those plans offered what he had, though. If Mr. Gardner didn’t accept her, she had no real options. No home to go back to, no money to go anywhere else, no family or friends to help her. Nofood. She would have to throw herself on some other man’s mercy, and this one, at least, had made what had seemed like an honorable offer. The scar made him seem dangerous, but there was something in his air of command that was also reassuring.
“You don’t have to marry me,” she blurted. “I like children. I’m good with them, and I’m one of the most educated women you’ll find this side of the Missouri River. Two years more than my sister. I’ve been cooking and keeping house for my uncle. I know how to grow a garden and put up preserves. I can sew. Do you really wish to start over with your search when I’m right here?”
“I already hired a Ute woman to dry meat and make my children’s clothes. I want a wife,Mrs. Davis.” He said her name like it was an accusation. “Having been married before, you should understand a man needs more than a hot meal and a mended shirt.”
The way his gaze raked over her seemed to strip her bare and score into her skin, but the underlying contemplation made her blood sing in her veins.
