Taming Eliza Jane Read online

  As far as she knew, Edgar was still in his room, but she’d been unwilling—after the confines of the stagecoach—to wait for him any longer. She needed to stretch her legs and get to know Gardiner.

  As a rule, the social climate of a town determined how she got started. In some places she could give a lecture in an opera house or schoolroom. In others, she was forced to be more discreet, speaking to smaller groups of women in their parlors or anywhere else they could find.

  Her attention was caught by two men walking down the sidewalk toward her. One was tall and dark, with a star pinned on his chest. The other was as tall, but fair, with a star pinned improbably to a medical bag. And there was not a doubt in her mind they were heading straight for her.

  Her reputation preceded her, apparently. Occasionally in the past, she’d been approached by the local law enforcement and warned to keep her opinions to herself. She’d even been bodily placed inside of a stagecoach in one particularly rough town. It was an embarrassment she didn’t care to repeat any time soon.

  No, she didn’t especially care for the law. Though she tried not to think about the time her asking them to intercede on behalf of an abused wife had led to disastrous and heartbreaking results, she was inherently distrustful of them when it came to her cause.

  As the two men closed in, Eliza Jane very nearly regretted leaving Edgar behind. He wasn’t physically threatening by any means, but men tended to speak to her in a more civil manner when he was close by.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” the one with the medical bag said, tipping the brim of his hat. The other man only glared at her.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Eliza Jane maintained the smile she’d long ago perfected—polite and friendly, but still determined. She might tremble on the inside, but she never let it show.

  “My name is Will Martinson, but most folks around here just call me Doc. On account of my being the town doctor and all.” The other man snorted, but otherwise remained silent. “This is Sheriff Adam Caldwell.”

  “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” Eliza Jane replied, purposely not mentioning her name. It was something of a little test she used to see how much, if anything, strangers knew about her.

  “Don’t make trouble in my town, Mrs. Carter,” The sheriff confirmed her suspicions. “I sure would hate to have to shoot you.”

  And then he walked away, leaving Eliza Jane staring after him with her mouth hanging open in a most unladylike manner. How dare he threaten to shoot her? And his companion had the nerve to find it amusing?

  “I do hope, Doctor Martinson, that you are about to tell me Sheriff Caldwell merely suffers from an extreme lack of social skills, but is really rather harmless in fact.”

  “Either Doc or Will, ma’am.” He looked her up and down in an appallingly familiar manner. “I do believe I’d prefer hearing you call me Will.”

  She’d barely summoned enough indignation to reply when he smiled, completely disarming her. Her heart stuttered and she felt her cheeks flush as if she was but a simpering girl. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin, sending a message to her traitorous senses. This kind of foolishness would be neither entertained nor tolerated.

  “As to Sheriff Caldwell,” he continued, “he is sorely lacking in what you call social skills, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him harmless. He does seem to enjoy shooting people.”

  “With no cause?”

  “Cause for a bullet means different things to different people. Walk with me.”

  He took her elbow and spun her around so swiftly she didn’t have a chance to demur. He tucked her arm under his and led her down the uneven planks. She tried not to notice the muscles of his arm or the warm, spicy scent of him. It was merely in her best interest to make an ally of at least one of the town’s lawmen.

  “How is it, Doctor…Will, that you are both a doctor and an officer of the law? Wearing a sidearm in the manner of a gunslinger seems at odds with the Hippocratic Oath.”

  “To be honest, I wouldn’t wear the deputy star for any man but Adam. There have been occasions on which the two oaths have come at odds with one another, but shooting the bad to preserve the lives of the good is a compromise I can live with. I sleep at night. How did you come to travel around getting happily married women all fired up?”

  Eliza Jane stiffened against him. It was tempting to jerk herself out of his grasp and return to the hotel, but she was reluctant to make a spectacle of herself so soon. And, as she’d previously decided, she may need the doctor’s good favor if she should run afoul of the sheriff.

  “Most men will consider their women to be happily married rather than admit to problems for which they may be at fault.”

  “I’ve ain’t married, ma’am, so I can’t rightly speak to that. But I asked you to walk with me for another purpose.”

  Asked wasn’t an entirely accurate description of how they’d come to be walking together, but Eliza Jane let it pass. More than a few of the townspeople had waved greetings to the doctor, and it was good to be seen in his company. Perhaps she would find her way somewhat smoothed socially.

  “What purpose would that be?”

  “Given Adam’s bent toward shooting people, he asked me to be the one to watch over you and keep you out of trouble.”

  Eliza Jane’s cheeks burned. “I already have a chaperone of sorts, if you will. My traveling companion, Mr. Whittemore—”

  “Is probably as pussy-whipped as you want all men to be.”

  Eliza Jane stopped walking and tried to pull her arm away. “Doctor Martinson, I must object to the use of such language in my company!”

  He didn’t release her. “So you only want to be treated like a man when it suits you?”

  “I assure you, Doctor Martinson, I do not want to be treated like a man. I simply want women to be afforded more respect than a man gives a horse.”

  “You’ll find you’ll get as much respect as you earn for yourself around these parts, Eliza Jane.”

  She didn’t bother to call him on his overly familiar use of her given name. And when he nudged, she started walking again. There was no sense in arguing with him. Men were naturally the most resistant to her beliefs.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I figure I’ll give you a little more freedom to do your preaching if you do a little favor for me.”

  “I do not preach. And what favor could you possibly need from me?”

  “There’s a whore that got herself in a family way. Her name is Sadie.”

  “Doctor, while I am able to educate women in ways to minimize the possibility of pregnancy, there is nothing I can—or will—do about it after the fact.”

  There were, in fact, ways in which women tried to end pregnancies, but Eliza Jane refused to be a part of such activities. Morality aside, the health risks were simply not to be ignored. Will Martinson, if he was any kind of doctor, should know that.

  “You’re a prickly thing, aren’t you?” he asked in a cheerful tone that set her teeth on edge. They were nearing the end of the sidewalk and she wondered if they would turn around, cross the dusty street, or simply part ways. “I’d be real appreciative if you’d just talk to her. She doesn’t know any life but whorin’, and I thought maybe you could talk to her about how else a woman alone could raise up a child.”

  In today’s society, her best option was to move to a new town, proclaim herself a tragic widow, and find herself a husband willing to raise another man’s child. A man could populate an entire state with his bastards, but a whore and her illegitimate baby? It was a bleak future mother and child faced.

  “Unless you’re too good to talk to a whore,” the doctor said tersely when she didn’t reply right away.

  “I don’t turn away any woman in need, Doctor Martinson. I will gladly speak with Sadie, though I don’t know how much help I can be. It will be very difficult to persuade a woman with an uncertain future to turn her back on a profession which provides her with income.”

  He had relaxed as she
spoke, and his forearm brushed her ribs. Her body reacted to him like a thirsty man yearning toward a glass of water. Her pulse quickened, her breasts tingled, and she prayed the flush creeping up her neck didn’t appear as feverish as it felt.

  How utterly mortifying it would be to be caught lusting after a man she barely knew because of the slightest contact.

  “But you’re willing to talk to her?” he asked, apparently oblivious to her unseemly arousal. “I don’t reckon you’d want to visit the Chicken Coop, so I can tell her a time to meet you somewhere else. My office, maybe, if that suits.”

  “Your concern for her future seems at odds, sir, with the fact you have so little regard for her situation you would have us meet in a chicken coop!”

  The doctor stopped walking and laughed. He laughed so hard, in fact, that many a person paused to watch him. Eliza Jane, her arm finally freed, placed her hands on her hips. She certainly didn’t find their conversation humorous in the least.

  She’d resorted to crossing her arms and tapping her foot before Will managed to compose himself. Of course, it had taken all of her considerable self-control to keep from smiling herself. His laughter was probably the most infectious she’d ever heard.

  “We passed the Chicken Coop during our walk, darlin’. See that pretty building with the flower pots in front?”

  Eliza Jane stifled the small thrill she felt at hearing him drawl out that word darlin’ and nodded. She’d noted in passing how pretty the flowers looked in this stark town and wondered at the work the building’s residents must put into their care.

  “That’s the Chicken Coop. Gardiner’s grandest—and only—house of ill-repute.”

  “Oh, I…they do grow beautiful flowers.”

  “Among other things,” he added, and had the audacity to wink at her.

  “You, sir, are incorrigible.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Eliza Jane couldn’t think of anything else to say. He was entirely too forward, but she dared not call him on it lest he remind her yet again he was simply treating her as he would a man. Not that he would be flirtatious with another man, of course, but in his general lack of manners.

  She realized they were attracting some attention standing at the end of the sidewalk as they were. “Thank you for the walk, Doctor Martinson. I will send a note to Sadie at the first opportunity requesting a moment of her time.”

  “It’s Will, and she can’t read.”

  Eliza Jane sighed. The lack of educational opportunities for poor women sorely vexed her. “Then I shall visit her at the Chicken Coop. I assume mid-morning would be a…safe time to call upon her?”

  “I’ll tell her to expect you soon.” He tipped his hat and grinned. “You should know, Eliza Jane, that if you do stir up too much trouble, the good sheriff has authorized me—as his deputy, of course—to spank you in lieu of shooting you.”

  He walked away, leaving her stuttering and brimming with righteous indignation. Spank her?

  Eliza Jane stomped her foot, so mad she wanted to spit. And as she walked quickly back to the hotel, she fanned her hot face, telling herself it was anger alone that had her so flustered.

  If Will Martinson ever dared try to bend her over his knee, she’d find herself a good sharp knife, and he could learn how it felt to be a woman.

  Four days later…

  Oh, the hell with spanking. If ever a woman deserved to be shot, it was Eliza Jane Carter.

  Will pointed at her, sitting there on the red velvet cushion, thinking she ought to be damn glad it was his finger and not his pistol. “You! Get yourself out of here and leave these whores alone or I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.”

  She had the gall to smile at him—that smile that made his teeth clench in frustration and his balls ache with their own brand of frustration. “Why, Doctor Martinson, I do believe you asked me to initiate a conversation with one of these ladies.”

  “I asked you to discreetly talk to Sadie about getting out of whoring. I did not ask you to talk them all out of whoring! Do you know how temperamental cowboys get when every one of them is riding all day with a cockstand he can’t shake? Adam had to shoot two men just last night.”

  Eliza Jane cocked an eyebrow at him. Hellfire, she had pretty eyes. “I regret the need to be indelicate, but there are ways a man can find his own sexual release, Doctor. Neither I nor these women are responsible for their behavior.”

  “We’re knittin’ woolens to sell to the cowboys,” Fiona chirped. She was young and none too book smart, but she’d established herself as a favorite among the cowboys…and other men in town. Will was especially fond of how flexible she was. “And iffen our cowboys don’t want ‘em, Miss Carter’s gonna ship ‘em north to sell.”

  Will yanked his hat off and ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. “The cowboys don’t pay you to knit, they pay you to fuck.”

  Eliza Jane leapt to her feet, unmindful of the ball of yarn that fell and rolled away. “Doctor Martinson, I will not have you use such language in the presence of these ladies.”

  “They ain’t ladies,” he shouted. “They’re whores.”

  “William James Martinson, you get in here right now!” The woman’s voice came from a back bedroom, and Will groaned.

  Then he pointed his finger at Eliza Jane again. “Now look what you’ve done. I told you what would happen, woman. When I’m done here I’m going to bend you over my knee, throw up your skirts, and spank you until your ass is as red as a cherry.”

  “I charge a dollar extra for that,” Fiona told Eliza Jane as Will walked like a condemned man down the gaudily decorated hallway.

  Miss Adele reigned in all her glory from her bed. She’d been ordered there by Will on account of her health, but she didn’t see any reason to let herself go.

  Over the top of the red satin sheet, a panel of black lace and ribbons barely constrained the finest, largest breasts a man had ever seen. Her lip rouge accented a pucker made for pleasing a man, and her waves of auburn hair were swept up to accent her graceful neck. She was slowly dying, and yet she remained the strongest, most desirable women he’d ever met.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Adele. How you feeling today?”

  “Are you insulting my chickens?”

  Will managed to kill the smile that threatened to get him in a whole lot more trouble. She wasn’t amused, and therefore he wouldn’t be either. “I apologize, but they’re knitting. That infernal woman is going to be the ruin of you, and I won’t let that happen.”

  She tried to laugh, but didn’t have the air for it. She coughed instead, waving him away when he bent to listen to her chest. He felt the knot of a whole lot of emotions in his gut as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  He loved this whorehouse madam like he’d loved no other woman but his own mother. Seeing her like this damn near killed him, and he’d be goddamned if that crazy man-hater was going to add to her anxiety. He’d save Adam the bullet and shoot her himself before he let Miss Adele come to any harm.

  “William, I got more money stashed away than half the big ranch outfits in Texas. I can survive my chickens taking a little vacation. Sometimes they’re like children, you see. They’ve got their mind set on something and it’s easier to let them have their head and get it out of their blood than to try to persuade them otherwise.”

  “She’s got no right interfering in your business.”

  “William, darlin’, who do you think paid for those knitting supplies?”

  Damnation, but women never made a lick of sense. “Why would you go and do a damn fool thing like that?”

  Miss Adele reached over and squeezed his hand. “Because maybe one of those sweet chickens will find a better way and fly the Coop.”

  “What if they all fly away and leave you alone?”

  “They won’t. But even if they did, I’d be all right. Now…don’t you go losing your temper with Eliza Jane. She’s just trying to do right by those girls.”

  Will slapped
his hat against his leg, aggravated all over again just by the mention of her. “You tell me what the hell’s gonna happen to the women whose hopes she’s raised up when she gets on that stagecoach tomorrow and never looks back?”

  “Eliza Jane promised them she’d be here at least another week, and I believe her to be a woman of her word.”

  And goddamn if he didn’t have a totally mixed reaction to that bit of news.

  It was best for everybody if Eliza Jane Carter got on that stage the second it rolled into Gardiner. The townsfolk didn’t need stirring up. Adam didn’t need another target. Miss Adele, no matter how she claimed otherwise, didn’t need a women’s libber in her business. And Eliza Jane was hell on his own sanity.

  On the other hand, he’d had a strong hankering of late to stroke his way down through those hard, prickly layers of hers and find the soft, passionate woman he suspected she was. It was a damn fool notion, but one that had cost him a few hours of sleep nonetheless.

  “Go,” Miss Adele said, nudging him with her knee. “Go give her the stern talking to you’re composing in that head of yours. Just don’t let that sheriff shoot her and everything will come out the way it should be in the end.”

  He bent to kiss her cheek, then pressed his own to hers for a moment. It was his sneaky way of checking her temperature, and it didn’t fool her for a minute.

  “Go,” she ordered, this time slapping him on the ass. “And be nice to my chickens or you’ll be one gelded rooster, you hear?”

  Will made his way back to the front parlor in time to see Fiona hold up a misshapen, hole-riddled bit of knitting that could have been a sock, a mitten or a saddle for all he could tell.

  “This is hard,” she whined. “I make more money by just spreading my legs and lettin’ the cowboys bounce up and down a few times.”

  Eliza Jane had taken up her own knitting again, resolutely clacking the needles together, but Will could see the high color in her cheeks. “Yes, Fiona,” she said, “but this way you can hold up your head while you’re spending your money.”

  Fiona snorted. “Gardiner ain’t like those hoity-toity places back East. I don’t reckon I’m too welcome at services on Sunday, but Mr. Dunbarton over at the Mercantile treats me real nice and likes my money just fine. He even gives me a discount on account of my letting him tickle my feet.”