Improper Gentlemen by Mia Marlowe, Diane Whiteside, Maggie Robinson Page A

Johnson’s intensity made Justin’s laughter fade into the same polite wariness he’d show a stranger.
    Heavy footsteps moved away from the other side of the door.
    Justin cursed the departing eavesdropper privately, then added a warning to his old friend. “She’s more than holding her own against the regulars. Half my bouncers are down there enjoying the show and ready to protect her.”
    The only other genuine Confederate officer in Wolf Laurel looked him in the eye, then folded his lips and walked over to the sideboard. “What’ll you have to drink?”
    “The usual.” There had to be something left of their friendship.
    Johnson handed him a glass full of rye whiskey. “Here’s to the blue-belly soldiers, without whose attempt to bushwhack you and steal your horse, we’d never have met.”
    “Here, here.” They clinked glasses in their oldest of toasts and drank.
    Christ, he hadn’t much cared where he went or what he did that autumn when he returned from surrendering to the Yankees. Not after seeing his home’s blackened rubble and sere fields, empty of life except vultures and shifting shadows.
    He’d spent a few minutes at his father and brothers’ graves in Charleston but shrugged off any condolences from their admirers. He had no need to remember bullies and demagogues, who’d spent years stealing their wives’ money and whipping up rabble then hiding from the resultant fight. Even at eighteen, he’d been cynically amused that he was the only Talbot to go off to war.
    His hand tightened on his glass and he drank again, to honor his English mother. She’d been his closest friend during childhood, even through his wildest escapades. In return, he’d tried to protect her from the world she loathed—where a wife had to make way for her husband’s concubines in her house and live with bastards who resembled her husband far more than his legitimate children. Where chains and whippings and screams sounded through the landscape as often as the clink of tea cups settling on fine porcelain and violin music drifting out of the ballroom.
    Justin had learned to be glad death had sent her to a better world. The only time he’d almost wished to join her was after he left her grave to head south and west. Surviving five years of war was easier than traveling that wasteland.
    He cocked an eyebrow at his old friend.
    “Ten years since you first saved my life back in Georgia.” Johnson’s vitality had shaken him back to life and given him a new purpose.
    “Done the same for any other scarecrow in a gray uniform.” Johnson slid the bottle down the table toward Justin and opened another for himself. “You’ve returned the favor a dozen times since, in good times and bad.”
    “As have you. Remember that flood on the Rio Grande, back in the San Luis Valley? I thought we’d never get out.”
    “Or that brawl in Abilene.” Johnson whistled. “I remember it every day when we practice gunplay together. An hour or two disappears mighty fast when measured against surviving fights like that.”
    Justin nodded agreement and took a small sip of whiskey. The bottle must have been a gift, since his friend normally preferred far better brands.
    “How’s the hotel business?”
    “Couldn’t be better.” Johnson glanced at him in surprise. “Between it, my two saloons, and the dry goods store, I should make back my investment within two years.”
    Too damn slow for a mining town that was likely built on a glory hole and would disappear the moment the ore did.
    “Hey, pardner, if you need a loan to tide you over—”
    “No!” The word rang through the room, sharper than an ice saw.
    Justin rocked back in surprise, then leaned his arms on the chair back to study his old pal. They’d shared cash through good times and bad before. What was the difference now?
    “No,” Johnson repeated more politely but his eyes were still angry and ashamed. “Some members of the town council gave me a loan months ago to