Luke’s Runaway Bride by Kate Bridges Page A

alley.
    Adjacent to the saloon was a smaller building, one he’d been renting for years. It housed his kitchen and supply pantry. The cook and his wife lived in the two rooms above it, and when Maria couldn’t find a sitter, she’d lay Adam down for naps in a room off the kitchen. Luke had opened one of the walls and connected the building to his saloon with a hallway. Soon he’d have enough money to buy the building.
    When he was a boy, most of these buildings had been tents. The town had started out as a rowdy frontier town, then had exploded in growth. The neighboring shops now boomed with business. Every investor from here to the Atlantic wanted to get in on the economic surge. It filled Luke with pride to be part of it.
    “What are they doing over there?” asked Jenny, motioning to a crowd gathered at the side of the road. A dozen people were lined up behind a wagon, where a man was selling clothing out of the back.
    “Oh, that’s Harris. He’s selling new gowns. Direct from Paris, France. They come in once a year.”
    Jenny craned her neck as they passed. In the crowd, a flock of arms tugged at a yellow dress. “He’s selling French gowns at the side of the road? Why? Don’t you have stores?”
    “Most stuff like that sells before it gets to any stores.” He looked ahead and nodded to two of his men, who stood at the saloon doors—Beuford James and Travis Brown.
    “Is that your saloon?”
    “Yeah.”
    Jenny came to full alert, as if she were a soldier going into battle and she’d just glimpsed the enemy across the river. Lord, she was suspicious of him. Could he blame her? She leaned forward in the fading light. Her loose, tangled hair glistened like spun gold.
    The hooting from inside grew louder, the lights brighter as they neared. Luke’s trained ear picked up amiable noise—music, laughter, raised voices, but no serious ruckus. He’d learned years ago that it paid to keep two men at the doors on Friday nights. It was payday for many workers, and some of them went a little wild.
    They pulled up to the boardwalk, underneath the large, burnished wood sign, Luke’s Saloon. Luke jumped off the buckboard, ignoring the dull ache in his ribs. He helped Jenny down to the street. As he picked up the traveling bag Daisy had packed for her, Jenny scurried away, a flurry of arms and legs.
    “Evenin’, ma’am,” said Travis, tipping his hat as she walked by. His bushy black mustache covered much of his dark-skinned, smiling face. She nodded with suspicion and kept walking.
    Luke stepped beside his men. “Howdy Beuford, Travis.”
    Jenny stopped and spun around to face Travis. She searched his face and stiffened. “You’re Travis. You’re the man who’s looking after my friend.”
    “Ma’am,” he said again, sheepishly, tipping his cowboy hat. “Pleasure to, ahh, meet you.”
    “Huh! A pleasure indeed,” she snarled. “What have you done with Olivia? If you’ve harmed her in any way—”
    “No ma’am, she’s not harmed.”
    “Shame on you. Both of you.” She shot Travis an icy look, then turned her frosty glare to Luke. Lord, she could make herself look mean when she wanted to.
    A prickly heat tingled up his neck. He was more than a little embarrassed. What could he say after the way he’d treated her and Olivia? He’d acted shamelessly, but he still intended to let them go. She stood there staring at him, and all he could do was raise his palms in the air, as if he were declaring a surrender. No use fighting with the gal.
    She flung the fringe of her shawl over her shoulder and stepped within inches of Travis. “How could you go along with this man? Your mother should take a switch to your bottom.”
    Travis’s bushy dark mustache wiggled as he smiled. “Been a long time since my ma switched my bottom, ma’am.”
    “Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me. Where is she?”
    “She’s in there someplace. Last I saw her, she was at the card tables. No,” he corrected himself, “she was