Lonesome Rider and Wilde Imaginings Read Online Free PDF Page A

first!”
    Blade smiled. “Why, that’s just fine, Mrs. Peabody. I don’t mind waiting in the least. And the green room is here, next door, right?”
    â€œRight as rain.”
    The door closed on Blade. He grinned, then stepped out of the way as he saw two of Mrs. Peabody’s boys, one a black lad of about sixteen, his blond-haired companion a year or so younger, both strong and with clean-scrubbed faces that attested to Mrs. Peabody’s insistence on cleanliness in her house.
    Someone had told him once over at the saloon—some old geezer who looked as if he might have been allergic to water, both drinking it and bathing in it—that Mrs. Peabody was so insistent on danged blasted bathing that she had one tub for lady guests, one for gentlemen, and one for her hired help, and that all three had to be replaced just about once a year.
    Blade nodded to the boys with their heavy load, then hurried down the stairs and outside. He slipped his saddlebags from his bay’s shoulders and walked the horse around to the stables where a slim Chinese lad was brushing down one of Mrs. Peabody’s carriage horses. He left Mallory with the boy and went into the house, leaving his saddlebags with his clean clothing, shaving equipment and all on the hardwood dresser with the wavery mirror in the green room, so called, of course, as it had been painted green.
    He noted that there was a door against the wall near the dresser. One that must lead into the blue room.
    Mrs. Peabody was an interesting lady, he mused.
    And then he wondered if he was glad or dismayed about the door. Irritated, he told himself that the damned thing didn’t matter either way. He’d stay tonight, and he’d spend his evening at the saloon. Maybe he’d even spend a few hours with one of the perfumed ladies there.
    No. One of the whores, not ladies. It was the “lady” part he didn’t like about Jessica Dylan. That and more—much, much more. The way she fascinated him. The way she was just so damned beautiful and beguiling. The way she made him forget too damned much.
    He left his room, hurrying down the stairs again, to pour a brandy and sit back in one of the handsome leather chairs in the library. He closed his eyes, savoring the fine brandy as it rolled over his tongue then burned slowly down his throat.
    The whiskey over at the saloon wasn’t nearly as fine as Mrs. Peabody’s. But nothing about the saloon was as fine as anything at Mrs. Peabody’s—even though Mrs. Peabody and Henry Larkin, the saloon’s owner, were very good friends. Blade had a feeling that although the two of them were running very different establishments, they both had similar, shrewd heads for business. The saloon offered everything that Mrs. Peabody’s didn’t, and vice versa. Mrs. Peabody’s was elegant and refined—the saloon was far from it. But then, there were some damned good poker games to join over at the saloon, while there sure as hell—heck—were no poker games to join at Mrs. Peabody’s.
    Both Henry Larkin and Mrs. Peabody were making very good money. Stagecoaches were a miserable way to ride west. They were small, cramped and crowded. Most stops were poor indeed, with mud-chink guesthouses in which the mud sometimes fell on guests as they slept at night, especially during the dry season. There were other miserable places, establishments run by men who wiped the dinner plates clean instead of washing them for the next set of travelers. In such a world, both the saloon and Mrs. Peabody’s place were just a small step from heaven.
    He sipped more brandy and leaned his head back. He’d seen a hell of a lot of the West in the last few years.
    Ever since the war had ended. Looking. Always looking. Because he couldn’t stop now, not until he found the men who had destroyed everything and everyone he had ever loved.
    Not until they were avenged.
    He leaned back in