Page 25 of The Saloon Girl's Only Shot

“About that damned dog you sicced on me the other day.”

“Clarence? He’s good company, isn’t he?” She was shameless, wearing such an ingenuous expression.

“He chewed a hole in my jacket.” He lifted the bottom edge to show her.

“That’s unfortunate.” She tilted the fabric to examine the damage. “Perhaps Jane can mend it. She takes in sewing when she has time. She’s very good.”

“You should mend it. You stuck a sausage in my pocket! Didn’t you?”

“Do you know, that reminds me of something that happened to our dear Mavis.”

“What?” This woman was making no sense.

“I’m glad you came along, Mr. Stames.” She shifted her touch to his sleeve and gave it a pat. “Are you looking for a wife?”

“Hell, no. I don’t even want a borrowed dog.”

“Do you know any man who wishes to marry? A good man,” she added gravely, then mustered a smile for Fritz as the saloonkeeper added a glass to her tray and refilled the rest.

Fritz glowered at her, then chalked the same number of ticks in a column of his slate while she lingered to watch him do it.

“Why? Are you looking for a husband?” Owen experienced a sharp yank of dismay at the thought.

“Goodness, no.” She picked up her tray. “The more I learn of men, the more I think a dog makes a better companion. Mavis, however, could use a husband. Are you acquainted with her? She was working here until a few days ago, when she had her son. Freddie,” she provided with a smile.

The mousy, full-figured gal? He scanned the crowd and noted she was absent. He hadn’t realized she was carrying.

“I wouldn’t be so bold as to advertise her happy news, but there were several miners in earshot to the event. You would have heard soon enough. We’ve been encouraging anyone who wishes to help her to add some coins to the jar Mr. Fritz has kindly set up.” She nodded toward the pickle jar behind the bar. It had a thin layer of dimes and quarters in it.

Owen offered up one of the company’s ten-dollar promissory notes. They were good for the mercantile. He’d only spoken to Mavis a few times, but she’d always been friendly and struck him as rather shy and sweet. A little too sweet for saloon work because the first time he’d met her, she’d been with?—

“Ah, shit,” he muttered.

Temperance paused in turning away and shot him a startled looked.

“Are you saying the father of Mavis’s baby isn’t doing right by her?” Owen asked.

“He is not.” Temperance’s tone lowered with regret, but her steady stare warned him against judging Mavis for having a baby out of wedlock. The tightness around her mouth told him how concerned she was for her. She took one step closer to confide, “Mr. Fritz said she only came to Denver in June. That would suggest she was fleeing an unworkable situation. Either way, the full care for the boy will fall on her. We want to do what we can to help her. She said she wouldn’t be averse to marrying, if the right man presented himself.”

Owen caught back a loud, Ha. He knew exactly which man she was talking about.

He shot his whiskey and buttoned his coat, pulling his hat down more firmly onto his head as he walked out into the brisk night.

It was a long, cold walk to Madame Beauville’s Parlor House, almost all the way back to the corral, but Owen had enough heat under his collar he arrived in short order.

He loathed men who shirked their responsibilities to a child. Children were helpless. They depended on the older, supposedly smarter people around them. That kind of responsibility was heavy and hard. He knew that. That’s why he wasn’t planning on making children of his own. He didn’t want to fuck up ever again, but it was also why he wouldn’t stand by and allow a selfish knucklehead to pretend he hadn’t made Mavis’s newborn.

“Owen,” Madame Beauville greeted him. She was an ample woman of forty who had turned up in Denver when the rumors of gold strikes here had made their way to California. She’d brought four enterprising women who were known to barter an evening in their company for the framing of a wall or the bricking of a chimney. This brothel was one of the most solidly-built houses in Denver. It boasted a front porch and a parlor full of pretty furniture where men drank and gambled in supreme comfort. “Is this a social visit? We took care of business the other day.”

“Different kind of business,” he replied. “I’m looking for— Ah.” Owen spotted Elmer Greenly through the cloud of cigar smoke.

Elmer was the son of Woodrow Greenly, the judge who had recently presided over Virgil and Marigold’s nuptials. Woodrow had also married Elmer to the daughter of an army colonel earlier this July, not long after introducing Owen to the newly arrived Mavis.

“Owen!” Elmer greeted with an oblivious grin as Owen tapped his shoulder. He had shaved for his visit to the cathouse and turned up the ends of his chestnut moustache with a twist of wax. His jacket was brushed, his hair smoothed to the side. He wore the stink of privilege and perfume from pressing up on the girls.

“I hear you got a pretty new gal out at Quail’s Creek. What are you coming here for your entertainment for?”

“Get up. We need to talk. Outside.” Where it was cold enough to sober him up.