Harlot (Bartered Hearts 2)

Chapter 1

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Cooper’s Meadow, Colorado, 1875

Jessica wasn’t a whore.

Caleb Hightower knew that for a fact. She wasn’t a whore, she wasn’t running a whorehouse, and this wasn’t her place.

Yes, the house sat a mile past Black Rock Creek and was shaded by a cottonwood half-dead from a lightning strike, just as he’d been told, but he still didn’t believe the story. She wasn’t a whore, and he wouldn’t find her here.

The paint on most of the south wall of the farmhouse was cracked and peeling, but a small patch of it shone white and new. A ladder leaned against the wall below the freshly painted square. No one stood on it. Lunchtime maybe. It was nearly noon.

As he rode his horse up the long dirt lane, Caleb adjusted his hat to better shade his eyes from the summer sun, trying to give himself a view through the dark windows of the house. There was no movement he could see. Not inside the house, or around the barn or the smaller outbuilding. A garden plot lay beyond the barn, and a small cornfield just past that.

A cow lowed, but no one moved to tend it. A lone chicken edged around the shed and pecked aimlessly in the dirt.

He drew even with the sagging front porch of the house and finally heard voices. A woman. And a man.

He dismounted slowly, realizing that he was doing everything slowly, delaying the moment. He tugged off his gloves and tied his horse to one of the graying rails of the porch, then adjusted his hat again. Slowly.

When his boot hit the first step with a dull thunk, the voices inside stopped. There was a long quiet, and Caleb forced himself to take the three steps to the screen door and knock. His rap met more silence. Then came the sound of sturdy shoes on wood. He caught movement past the screen.

It was a woman, but it wasn’t Jess. He knew Jess’s silhouette, and this woman was too curvy. More importantly, she was too short. Jessica Willoughby could’ve gained weight in the two years since he’d left town, but she couldn’t have lost height. Caleb blew a long breath past his teeth and felt his gut untangle for the first time in hours.

It wasn’t her.

“Help you?” the woman asked from the hallway, her tone unwelcoming for a lady who made coin on charm.

Caleb touched his hat, but his hand froze when she drew closer, wiping her fingers on a worn apron. The sun touched her then, and he saw her dark skin and oil-smoothed hair. This wasn’t the mistress of the house. It was the other whore he’d heard tell of in the saloon.

His hand fell numbly away. “May I speak to your mistress?”

Her head cocked. Just slightly. “She’s not home at the moment. If you’d care to—”

“Melisande?” a woman called from deeper in the house.

And then…then it was here. This moment he’d been trying to delay. It was her voice. Jessica’s.

He hadn’t heard it in so long, and his heart tried to leap with joy at the sound, but he slapped it down. No. This wasn’t right. This was wrong.

The first woman looked over her shoulder, and a shape moved out of the shadows of the hallway. Her head was down, her eyes on the towel she was folding, but Caleb would’ve recognized her even from behind. Her hair was a color of red he’d never seen until he’d met her. Dark and deep and looking as if it might be cool to the touch. And her shoulders, always straight and proud.

Her head rose, and Jessica’s forward motion stopped.

Even past the screen and the dimness, he could see the shock on her pale face. Shock and fear. She was quiet for a long moment, but she finally broke the silence. “What do you want?” she asked in that beautiful voice. He couldn’t see much of her eyes. He didn’t want to.

“You’re a whore,” he said, meaning to ask it, but spitting it out instead.

She stood straighter, those proud shoulders moving back. “This is private land.” Still the voice he knew, but icy now. Hard. “I’ll ask you to leave it. Good day.”

Caleb didn’t move. They stared at each other, though he could see nothing of her eyes except a pale glimmer.

“Bill,” she called out. A big shadow moved in the hallway behind her.

“Right,” Caleb muttered. She’d have muscle here. Any whore worth her salt would. “Right, then.”

He took a step back and removed his hat as he turned, meaning to wipe the sweat from his eyes before he got on his horse for the long ride back to town, but Jessica suddenly gasped. Caleb froze, hand going to his gun at the alarm in that sound.