Tomorrow's Dreams by Heather Cullman

could see cruelty gleaming in her eyes. “Sam was in town today. He says to tell you that your brat has the croup again.”
    â€œTommy is nearby?” Penelope held her breath as she awaited the answer. During the past year and a half, Adele had had the Skolfields hold the baby in hiding places along the company’s performing route. Having him near was an effective way to control Penelope, for it made Adele’s threats terrifyingly possible.
    It also made it possible for Penelope to see him regularly. It was those few hours with her son that made her life bearable.
    As if reading her thoughts, Adele replied, “Yes. If you’re wise, you’ll remember that while you entertain Seth Tyler.”
    â€œI’ll do anything you say. I promise,” Penelope swore. “Just let me see him for a few hours on Sunday. It’s his second birthday, and I want to take him some presents.”
    Adele let out a scornful grate of laughter. “As if the brainless little brat knows what day it is … or anything else for that matter. I’ve seen smarter children in idiot asylums.”
    Prudently curbing her impulse to protest Adele’s cruel assessment of her son, Penelope implored, “I know what day it is, and it’s important to me that I make it special for him. Won’t you please just consider letting me go?”
    Adele gave a noncommittal shrug. “I’ll consider it … if all goes well this evening.”

Chapter 8
    â€œHow come them Injuns didn’t scalp you?” gasped the saloon girl, her red-rouged lips forming a wide O of horror.
    Seth stuffed another bonbon into her mouth, grinning at the way she wiggled her backside against his groin as she chewed.
    â€œI was rescued by a fellow stagecoach passenger, a traveling saleslady from Chicago,” he explained, letting one finger meander from her lips to her thinly veiled breasts. “Seems she was set on making a killing peddling her extra-heavy cast-iron frying pans to Denver’s wives. Claimed those pans were thick enough to fry a steak to perfection and heavy enough to persuade a roving husband to stay home at night.”
    With tantalizing slowness, the girl unfastened the tiny pearl buttons at the front of her camisole. “Nivver seen a travelin’ saleslady before,” she murmured, baring her plump breasts to her new boss’s appreciative gaze. “Was she pretty?”
    â€œAside from the fact that she was six feet tall and almost bald—”
    â€œBald!” The girl’s eyes bulged with disbelief.
    â€œCurling tongs accident,” Seth replied mournfully, though his expression was anything but mournful as he cupped the girl’s soft breasts in his palms. “Burnt her hair off to the roots. What was left stood straight up on end, kind of like an irate porcupine.”
    â€œPoor saleslady.” The girl practically purred as she arched her back in response to Seth’s caresses.
    â€œPoor me. Since the other passengers had gotten off the stage at Fort Lyon and the driver had headed back for help, the Indians were left with slim pickings as far as scalps went. Hers, of course, was rejected without a second glance, while it was decided that mine would make a fine trophy.”
    The girl raked her fingers through his hair, pulling it over his shoulders. “Can’t say I blame ’em. You do have purty hair.”
    Seth chuckled and dropped a kiss on her vanilla-cream flavored lips. “Fortunately the saleslady liked it, too—on my head. So just as those two savages were all set to scalp me, she came bounding up behind them bellowing like a raging bull. Before they could say ‘Ugh,’ she whomped them over the head with her top-of-the-line frying pan and knocked them out cold.”
    The girl shrieked with laughter and threw her weight against him, sending him sprawling backward across the worn red velvet settee. “Yer funnin’