Christmas
Gold:Colorado Wife
Christmas
Gold:
Chapter One
"What are those poor bedraggled children doing out in front of your place
in the cold?" Esmerelda Clark shook snow from her woolen scarf and hung
it on a peg inside the front door of Home Street's Finest Eatery, then shrugged
out of her coat.
Rosalyne Emery placed a basket of oven fresh yeast rolls at a table where four customers were seated, then wiped her hands on her apron as she hurried forward. "What children?"
"Those right there." Esmerelda pointed through the multipaned window that had been shipped all the way from Ohio. Outside, snowflakes drifted past the frosty glass and settled on the wood molding. Leaning close and peering out the window into the bitter December evening, Rosalyne's breath fogged the pane.
Sitting on the rough-hewn bench which sat at the front of her restaurant were two forms bundled in dark coats, thickly dusted with icy snow. One child wore a cap, the other had a strip of burlap barely covering blond hair.
"What in the name of goodness are those children doing out there in the cold--and not dressed properly?"
"That's what I asked," Esmerelda replied.
Without pausing for so much as a shawl, Rosalyne opened the door and hurried to where the huddled figures sat leaning against one another for pitiful warmth. "Are you waiting for someone?"
The one who wore burlap for a head covering appeared to be the oldest and nodded. A long tendril of hair escaped the wrap and draped across the front of her snowy coat. Not really her coat, Rosalyne noted with dismay. Both of them wore oversize men's jackets with the sleeves crudely hacked off.
"Who are you waiting for?"
Teeth chattering, the girl glanced at her red-nosed sibling and shrugged, a barely perceptible movement inside the enormous coat.
"Is your mother or father inside one of the stores?" Rosalyne would certainly give that parent a tongue-lashing when she found them. How cruel for someone to leave these youngsters out in the cold while they went about their business. Surely the children didn't belong to anyone eating in her restaurant! "Or--." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Your parents are not inside here?"
The girl denied it by shaking her head.
"Where then, dear? Where's your mother or father?"
Again the child looked at her younger sibling before she spoke. "Our pa's dead."
In confusion, Rosalyne glanced up and down Home Street, where glowing gas lamps had been lit against the early darkness. The few teams harnessed to wagons or buckboards seemed in order with the number of patrons in her establishment. Had there been an accident? A gunfight? She'd heard no commotion. She moved closer to the pair and knelt. "What's happened?"
"Got caught in the mud last summer. River drownded 'im." The anguish beneath that matter-of-fact statement was palpable, and Rosalyne's heart went out to the girl and her brother. How distressing to see someone of such a tender age initiated to the pain of life's hardships. These children's father had been another careless miner caught in the dangerous clay of the river. "Last summer?" she repeated, thinking of the months since then. "Where have you been until now?"
"The Thompsons took us in for a time," the girl replied. "But supplies get short in winter. They couldn't afford to feed us no more. Miz Thompson cried, but she said someone would find us here and take us in. She said sit tight right here until someone comes."
Rosalyne's whole chest ached at those pathetic words. She knew firsthand the abject poverty and destitute situations in the winter camps. Mining families helped one another as best they could, but hardships forced situations nobody could help. At least none they could help without turning their backs on their foolhardy dreams and going back to towns and cities with real jobs and secure homes. And miners were a blind bunch of fools.
"Come inside, then," she said quickly. "You can't sit out here and freeze."
"But someone might come for us!" the child said, fear in her reedy young voice.
In that moment, Rosalyne saw herself as a girl, felt the fear, isolation and hopelessness to her bones, and wanted to help. "I've found you, now, haven't I? There's a warm place right in here, plenty of food, too. Are you hungry?"
The smaller child came to life immediately and slid to his feet. "I am!"
The girl reached out a small chapped bare hand to grab the other's coat and hold him fast. "Matt," she warned.
"Matt's got the right idea," Rosalyne told her. "Come in out of the cold and eat. I have hot cocoa."
That did it. The reluctant girl released her brother's coat in favor of taking his hand and pulling him, and Rosalyne ushered them both into the warm eatery and past the now staring patrons. The appetizing smells of beef and rosemary and hot rolls permeated the inviting kitchen into which she led them.
White-haired, full-figured Mrs. O'Hearn turned from the stove, where she was removing golden-crusted beef pies, and spotted the newcomers. "Who have we here?"
"Two hungry children." Rosalyne removed their inadequate wraps. The youngsters were thin and unkempt, their blond hair lank and dull. Both wore threadbare flannel shirts and ill-fitting trousers with rope holding them up at their waists. Rags showed through holes in the toes and heels of oversize boots. The boy's stomach growled loudly, and his eyes opened wide with anticipation.
Rosalyne blinked back the threat of tears and placed a bright smile on her face, while guiding both to a wash basin. "Wash your faces and hands while Mrs. O'Hearn and I dish you up a hearty supper."
"We ain't dirty," the girl said with resentment lacing her tone. She cast Rosalyne a dark look.
"Of course you're not. It's just good manners for everyone to wash up before they eat. Why, I wash my hands before I eat my supper, and I've had them in dishwater all day. Go ahead now."
The siblings obeyed, but kept their attention on the food being served by the two bustling women.
"Where did you find such scrawny youngins?" Mrs. O'Hearn whispered. The woman had remained in Needle Creek after the death of her husband several years ago, and Rosalyne considered herself fortunate to have made her acquaintance. An excellent cook and Rosalyne's right arm, she'd become invaluable as a friend as well as an employee.
Before setting the table and pouring steaming mugs of hot cocoa, Rosalyne quietly explained how she'd found them. The widow woman clucked with sincere sympathy. Rosalyne kept her lips clamped lest she say something she shouldn't in front of the children. She had no use for miners and this was proof of why she was justified in her feelings.
She waited until the two were seated, then spooned rich-gravied stew into bowls and buttered thick slices of bread. "My name's Miss Rosalyne Emery, and this is Mrs. O'Hearn."
The girl sat with her hands folded in her lap. She forced her hungry brown gaze from the food in front of her to Rosalyne's face. "I'm Zandy Baxter and this here's Matt. He's my brother, and I take care of him."
"Go ahead and eat," Rosalyne urged.
The two didn't need a second invitation. They lit into the food and didn't stop until Matt burped.
Zandy elbowed him. "Say 'scuse me."
"Ow! I mean, 'scuse me."
"You're excused," Rosalyne said graciously.
"Zandy is an unusual name," Mrs. O'Hearn commented, once their appetites seemed sated.
The girl wiped her mouth on the napkin beside her plate. Her delicate wrist seemed far too frail and bony. "It's really Alexandra, but Matt always called me Zandy and my pa caught on to it."
"You said your father died last summer," Rosalyn began gently, hating to ask, yet needing to know. "Was his last name Baxter?"
Alexandra nodded, and Rosalyne noted that the girl's lips were as chapped and dry as her hands. "Yes. Lowell Baxter was our pa's name."
"What about your mother?"
The girl's wide brown eyes seemed to swim with forlorn sadness. Her voice came out small and shaky. "She died when Matt was just a tiny baby."
Life in mining camps was difficult enough without the added loss of a mother. Rosalyne knew that all too well. "My mother died when I was very small, too."
Zandy's liquid brown eyes softened with sympathy. "Do you miss her?"
Once again Rosalyne's heart ached with kinship for these children's losses, and she nodded.
"What about your pa?" Matt asked bluntly. "Did he die, too?"
Standing then, she picked up a plate. "No. I imagine he's out there mining in the hills somewhere. I see him once in a while when he comes through for supplies." He usually asked for money, but she didn't mention that.
Obviously a kind family had taken in the children for as long as they could, but with winter full upon them and supplies running short, they'd had no choice but to make a hard decision for the well-being of their own. How long the two had been sitting in the cold, Rosalyne had no idea. She hadn't seen them that morning when she'd shoveled, or at noon when she'd turned over the sign from breakfast now being served to dinner now being served.
No one from the supper crowd had mentioned anything until Esmerelda, and thank goodness she'd spoken up.
"How old are you?" Rosalyne asked.
"I'm eight," Zandy replied. "Matt is six."
Rosalyne placed several of the caramel cookies she'd baked that morning on a plate and set it before the children, then refilled their mugs. "Help yourself to one of my porch cookies," she offered.
Matt took a huge bite of the cookie filled with raisins and nuts, chewed and swallowed. "These here are the best cookies I ever ate," he said. "How come you call 'em porch cookies?"
"Well, I don't know," Rosalyne replied, frowning at one of the treats remaining on the plate. "I suppose perhaps because people serve them on their porches in fair weather."
"Do you got a porch?" he asked.
"No, I'm afraid not. I have a small home just around the corner a ways. But no porch."
Matt seemed disappointed.
"Mrs. O'Hearn has a porch," she told him.
"She does?"
Mrs. O'Hearn nodded in affirmation. "My dear Henry built our home. He was a handy fellow with a hammer and nails. Could slap together just about anything you could ask for."
"He built a whole house?" Matt asked.
"He had a little help, but he mostly did the work himself."
"Our pa always said we'd have a house someday." A note of childish melancholy laced Zandy's voice. "Soon as we hit the big load."
Anger simmered in Rosalyne's belly. How many times she'd heard those hollow promises. How many times she'd wished for and dreamed of a solid home, rather than a drafty tent, prayed for a bed that didn't hold dampness and a floor that wasn't dirt or canvas and prone to bugs and snakes. She had gone after those things for herself once she'd been old enough. At seventeen, she'd panned a small bag of gold flakes and made her way to Needle Creek, where she'd bought a tent, a stove and supplies and started baking for the miners. But these youngsters weren't old enough to be on their own.
"We prob'ly woulda hit the big load this time," Matt said confidently, obviously speaking like a chip off the old block.
"Pa said that every time." Zandy seemed a lot less sure. "But he kept having to go back to Mr. Calhoun to get more food and stuff."
The name provoked Rosalyne's ire to a new pitch. Sam Calhoun was known far and wide as a rich mine owner who lived resplendently in town and grubstaked the poor placer miners. He now owned the Red Dolly Saloon, the Legal Tender Gaming Hall and the mercantile. It was men like him who made it possible for fathers to run after hopeless greedy dreams. "You can sleep at my house tonight," she assured them. "I'll light the hard coal heater and we'll be warm and toasty."
"Last two meals," Mrs. O'Hearn said gently, gesturing with a ladle to the plates she'd just set on a scarred wooden counter.
"Thank you." Rosalyne scooped up the plates and delivered the suppers to her customers, pausing on the way back to take money and wish the diners a good evening.
It was quite late by the time the last customer had gone and Rosalyne and her helper had washed the dishes and started beans to soak for the following day. As she'd worked, she'd kept glancing toward the exhausted children who were now snuggled against one another on a pallet of flour sacks and blankets near the fireplace.
The more she thought about their situation, the angrier she grew and the more she cast about for someone to blame. The longer she considered, the clearer it became. Sam Calhoun was directly responsible for their destitute situation. If he hadn't repeatedly grubstaked their father, the man might have been forced to face his failure and make a home and a life for these young people. As it was, with someone to keep loaning money and supplies, these men could keep their pie in the sky illusions alive at the sake of all else.
"Mrs. O'Hearn," she began. "I know it's late, and you've worked a long day."
"What is it you need, dear?"
"I want to go have a word with Mr. Calhoun."
The older woman raised a questioning brow. "Do you think that's wise?"
"I think I have no choice. Because he makes loans that he knows the miners can't pay back, he makes it possible for them to do things like this to their families."
"They pay him back with a share of their strikes." Mrs. O'Hearn hung a length of damp toweling to dry.
"Half!" Her shout had been too loud and she glanced to make certain she hadn't awakened the children. "He takes half of whatever the miners dig--if they find anything at all. Do you know what a percentage of profit that is?"
"I agree it's a terrible situation, and I know you take this personally because of your own circumstances, but--."
"What person with a heart wouldn't take this personally?" Rosalyne untied her apron and hung it on a hook. "Will you please help me get the children to my house and into bed? I want to go speak with Mr. Calhoun."
"I'll do whatever you wish, of course."
Together they banked the fire, extinguished the lanterns, bundled Matt and Zandy into their inadequate wraps and led the sleepy children through the cold to Rosalyne's home.
She scooped coal in and lit the heater while Mrs. O'Hearn helped them wash and dress in shirts Rosalyne located. Tucked into the feather bed in the small room just off the dining room, brother and sister looked small and frightened as they huddled together.
"Don't you worry your little heads," Rosalyne assured them. "I'm going to take care of everything."
"I can take care of Matt," Zandy told her.
"I know you can. And you've done a good job."
What she was going to do or how they would be taken care of, Rosalyne had no idea, she thought as she changed her dress and brushed and pinned her hair. But she was going to confront Mr. Calhoun and insist he make atonement of some sort before this night was over.
"I'll return as quickly as possible," she told her friend.
Rosalyne made her way along the snow-laden streets, her head bowed to stinging flakes propelled by the biting wind, her boots occasionally slipping on the layer of ice beneath the buildup of white. The Red Dolly was in full swing with yellow light shining from every pane of glass. The tinny sounds of the piano planking in the cold night air, laughter and an occasional whoop of gaiety broke the stillness.
Rosalyne took the path on the boardwalk across the street, avoiding the rowdy saloon and hurrying by with a skittish feeling nipping at her heels. She rarely traversed the streets at night, except to make her way home from work. The town had grown and prospered over the past few years until she barely recognized it.
Sam Calhoun's ostentatious three story house sat at the end of the block on Main Street, and as she neared, lights and sounds of gaiety filled its walls, as well. What kind of tawdry entertainment did the man provide in his own home? The street and the walks had recently been shoveled, enabling her to brush the snow from her hem and walk over the bricks with a modicum of dignity.
A collection of well-appointed buggies and teams lined the yard, and Rosalyne hurried past them to make her way up the walk.
The door opened before she had raised her hand to lift the shiny brass knocker. In surprise, she placed her hand over her heart. "Oh, hello."
"Good evening, miss." The burly bald-headed man who greeted her filled the entire doorway with his imposing size. He wore a tie and a jacket, but the gun in the holster on his hip made him more suited to horseback than a social gathering. "Do you have an invitation?"
"No, I don't. But I need to speak with Mr. Calhoun, please. It's important."
"Sorry, but no one's allowed in without an invitation."
"That's ridiculous. This is Needle Creek, Colorado, not Boston. I merely require a few moments of Mr. Calhoun's time, and then I'll be on my way."
"Sorry, miss. This here shindig is for Mr. Calhoun's friends only." His gaze seemed to glance over her and dismiss her as unworthy of being one of the elite friends welcome at this function.
"And what makes you so certain that Mr. Calhoun and I are not friends?" She raised one brow in what she hoped was an imperious and aristocratic manner. "I happen to know Mr. Calhoun very well." She had seen the man in her eatery. She had even taken his order and brought his food once or twice.
His forehead wrinkled and he peered intently at her. "Aren't you the waitress from that eatin' place?"
At that moment the door was opened farther and a slender man in a crisp white shirt and dark jacket filled the space. "You're a friend of Sam's, you say?"
"Yes," she replied, encouraged that someone might finally let her have a word with the man. A tiny twist of the truth seemed a small price to pay on behalf of the two orphaned children at her house right this moment. "I never dreamed I would need a formal invitation. Why, when we spoke of it just this afternoon, he seemed to take it for granted that I'd be here."
The slender man poked the beefy one in the ribs with an elbow. "He was with her this afternoon, Stoney."
The big man's brows rose in surprise. "You're the important meeting he had?" He glanced at the other man, "Hear that George?" then back at her. "You're the partnership that's going to change his life?"
Caught off guard, but not willing to lose the ground she'd gained, Rosalyne nodded her bluff. "Yes. If you'll just tell him I'm here and allow us a few moments in private. . .."
The two men exchanged knowing glances.
George reached for her arm and guided her into an enormous foyer lit by hissing gas lamps. Swags of fragrant evergreen draped a polished banister and the holiday scents of cinnamon and clove hung in the air. He closed the door. "Let me take your wrap, miss. I'm so sorry you were made to wait in the cold."
Just the mention of waiting in the cold assured her she was justified in what she'd just done.
"Stoney's sorry, too, aren't you Stoney?"
"Er. Yeah. Sorry."
"Miss--I'm sorry, what's your name?" George asked.
"Emery," she replied, shrugging from her coat and removing her damp wool scarf.
"Miss Emery is a very close friend of Sam's, isn't that right?"
Stoney looked her over, his scornful expression plainly revealing his skepticism that a woman dressed in a plain dark blue shirtwaist with no adornment to her hair and no jewelry was of a class to be mentioned in the same breath with Sam Calhoun.
Rosalyne raised her chin. "Very close."
Stoney cracked a grin.
George couldn't hide his amusement, either, and Rosalyne experienced a pang of unease that perhaps she'd gone too far in emphasizing her relationship to their employer. She certainly didn't want them thinking she was a chippy from the Red Dolly! She'd heard talk that Sam Calhoun frequented the place.
Just then a couple wandered past, arm in arm, both holding
glasses of bubbly liquid. "Mr. and Mrs. Greene, I'd like you to meet Miss Emery." George
politely performed introductions.
"How do you do, Miss Emery."
Stoney whispered something to Mr. Greene and the man's eyes bore into Rosalyne's. He turned and spoke softly to his wife. She smiled and took Rosalyne's arm. "Come with me, dear."
Rosalyne balked and held back. "I really need to speak with Mr. Calhoun."
"You'll have plenty of time for that," Mrs. Greene said with a sly smile. "For now you must meet Sam's friends and business acquaintances."
More introductions were made, and with each person she met, Rosalyne's confidence wavered. She was inappropriately dressed, feeling like a mud hen among the plumage of these socialite peacocks. All she'd wanted were a few private moments alone with the man who lived here, but she'd been drawn in and introduced as a guest at his elegant gathering. When she did run into the man, he would be furious at her ruse.
"This is such a surprise, dear!" A woman who'd been introduced as Trudy made an exaggerated fuss in the midst of the gathering around Rosalyne. "How long have you known Sam?"
"Well. . .." She'd know his kind for a long time. "It seems like forever."
"How sweet." Feminine voices murmured.
"Sam, you sly old dog," a male voice called. "How cagey of you to keep this gem to yourself."
"You're naughty, Sam Calhoun," a young woman named Althea accused, waving a fan she had no need of. "Just plain naughty."
With a shiver of apprehension crawling up her spine, Rosalyne strained to see who they were speaking to. She had misconstrued her identity to gain admission, and now her lie was going to be exposed.
"What are you talking about?" The voice was like a beguiling melody she'd heard before, resonating, haunting, making the hair on her neck stand up.
"I'm talking about Miss Emery, here," Althea continued. "Your fiancé!"
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