High Country Bride Read Online Free PDF

and bolt, but at the same time she was powerless to move.
    “You must be new here,” he drawled. “I don’t remember you from last time.”
    Emmeline pressed her lips together briefly. “Yes,” she agreed awkwardly.“That’s right. I’m—I’m new.”
    He raised one eyebrow slightly.“What’s your name?”
    She hesitated, glanced in her aunt’s direction, and saw that Becky was still blessedly occupied and thus had failed to notice her. “Lola,” she said, having read the name in a novel.“Lola McGoneagle.”
    He smiled again, leaning against the stair rail and watching her. “Well, Miss Lola,” he said, “I’m mighty glad to make your acquaintance. It’s been a real long trip up from Texas.”
    Emmeline swallowed so hard that her throat ached. “Oh,” she said stupidly.
    He grinned.“Buy you a drink?”
    Emmeline hesitated, and then decided to live dangerously. She would write about this lovely, dangerous encounter later, in her remembrance book, she thought, and felt a pleasant thrill at the prospect. “Yes,” she said. “I would like a drink.”
    “What’s your pleasure?”
    This time, Emmeline didn’t just swallow, she gulped. Good Lord. He wanted to know what kind of liquor she preferred, and she’d barely tasted the stuff, beyond taking a little brandy in her eggnog last Christmas Eve. “Whatever you’re having,” she said. When he turned away to approach the elegant table that served as a bar, Emmeline told herself to run. To turn right around and head upstairs and lock herself in the other parlor. Instead, she sat down hard on the step, feeling a little dizzy, and clasped her hands together.
    She’d just get her breath, that was all, and then she’d flee.
    Except that the Texan came back, and seated himself beside her on the step before she worked up enough gumption to stand, let alone make her escape.
    “You been in this business long?” the stranger asked, handing her a glass with half an inch of straight whiskey in the bottom, glowing amber.
    Emmeline had never even been kissed, let alone done the things she imagined Becky and the others did with men, but she was embarrassed to say so. Another lie leaped readily to her lips, with an ease that both surprised and shamed her. “Oh, yes,” she said, flipping through the large repertoire of imagined Emmelines she’d developed over the years. “I came from Chicago, originally. I was on the stage there.” It had always been her dream—one of them, anyway—to be an actress, a famous and legendary beauty, in fact, with a fortune at her disposal and countless boon companions. She decided that Lola traveled regularly to Europe, and to all the other places Emmeline had read about as well, enjoying the slavish devotion of kings, princes, and potentates.
    He smiled in a way that seemed, well, tolerant to Emmeline, and she was a little stung. “I see,” he said. “And now you’re—doing this.”
    She bit her lower lip. No, she said inwardly. “Yes,” she said.
    He pondered that for a while, very somberly, while sipping his whiskey. Emmeline had yet to imbibe; she held the glass tightly in both hands, willing herself not to spill the stuff on the carpeted stair. “Seems like a hard way to make a living,” he observed, after some time.
    Emmeline downed the whiskey in a single swig. “Is there an easy way?” she countered, shuddering as the fiery liquid coursed down her throat and burned in her stomach. She was instantly light-headed and gripped a banister post to steady herself.
    “I don’t guess there is,” the man said, and smiled slightly, though his eyes were sad.“More whiskey?”
    “Don’t mind if I do,” Emmeline said. She’d been possessed by some mischievous spirit—that was the only explanation for her present behavior. If Becky caught her at this game, there would be hell to pay.
    Still, they talked, Emmeline and the Texan, and drank more whiskey, and the man said his name was Holt, though she couldn’t