Desire in Deadwood by Molly Ann Wishlade Page A

furious and I thought you’d abandoned me. I had to think of the child.”
    “The child? Bringing him up with a man like that?”
    “A man like what?”
    “Oh, I don’t know, Evelyn! But I do get it! He had money, a nice house and my son!”
    He jumped up from the bed and pulled on his pants then snatched up his shirt from the floor.
    “He was kind to me…and to Aaron. Even though he’d had his family and his boys were grown by the time he took up with me, he still looked after us.”
    “So why’d he leave you destitute? What kind of man doesn’t leave provision for his widow?”
    “He did.”
    Nate frowned. “So you were pretending to be broke?”
    “I just couldn’t take what belonged to his sons, Nate. It was legally theirs and not mine or Aaron’s. They let me stay at the house until recently—when they both married—but then it was time for us to leave, so as they could get on with their lives.”
    “They gave you nothing…at all?”
    “I refused to take anything. They paid for our journey then we said our farewells. They knew Aaron wasn’t their kin.”
    “So you’re telling me that after all those years, after setting yourself up in a nice cosy little arrangement, you just upped and left without a dime to your name?”
    “Yes, Nate.”
    “After throwing away what we had, you then threw away everything else?”
    She inclined her head.
    “But what about Aaron?”
    “I just had to have faith that it would work out for us. I couldn’t provide for him with money that wasn’t ours. I want him to grow up to be an honourable man, Nate. Just like you.”
    He pulled his shirt over his head and looked wildly around the room.
    “I have to get out of here!”
    “Nate, please!” Salty tears rolled down Evelyn’s cheeks in torrents, spilling over the coverlet and trickling onto her naked breasts beneath it. She wanted to scream at him, Don’t leave me again …but instead she whispered, “If I had my time over I would do it all so differently.”
    He glared at her.
    “You chose another man, Evelyn. There’s no way to change that.”
    “He was a good man, Nate. He just…”
    “He just what?”
    “He just wasn’t you!” She fell forward onto the bed and buried her face in her hands, sobbing like her heart would break.
     
    * * * *
     
    “How are you feeling, Mama?”
    Evelyn stood on the porch of the Grand Central hotel, shielding her eyes from the harsh midday sun.
    “I’m okay, Aaron.” She forced a brief smile but she was sure it appeared more like a grimace.
    “Do we have to go? I kinda like it here.”
    She placed a hand upon his arm. “You know that my position fell through, Aaron, and I need to find work to support us.”
    A cloud of dust at the end of the street signalled the arrival of the stage coach from Cheyenne and her heart sank into her boots. They were really leaving.
    “But can’t you find other work here, Mama? There must be something?” He wrinkled his little freckled nose. “Or maybe I could work?”
    Evelyn laughed and cradled his chin. “Oh, my boy, you’ll be a fine man one day. Plenty of time to work then. Be young while you can. Now don’t worry.”
    She looked around to ensure that all of their belongings had been brought down from their room, then she stared out at the busy street. The arrival of the stage always created such excitement for the inhabitants of Deadwood as they greeted family members, new settlers and the arrival of goods.
    She wished that she could share their excitement and that her stomach wasn’t clenched so tightly. If only she’d been able to make her home here as she had hoped less than a month ago. But it wasn’t to be. It seemed like a lifetime since then and in that lifetime she had won, then had lost, everything that she had ever wanted.
    The stage pulled up in front of the hotel and the unloading process began. Evelyn knew that the horses would need to be changed, the coach emptied and repacked, so they had some time left