CHAPTER 2

The Silver Slipper was everything the Glory Hole wasn’t.

In fact, Marsh thought, it was probably the finest saloon he’d patronized since before the war, when he’d visited the most fashionable ones in Richmond and Washington. It certainly was one of the biggest.

Yards of hardwood floor, polished to a fine sheen, stretched to a rich mahogany bar that spanned the width of the room in the rear. To one side was gambling paraphernalia: two roulette wheels, several poker tables, a blackjack table with an elegantly dressed dealer presiding. To the left was an elevated stage with a piano. Stairs at the back led up to a landing that disappeared into a hallway. Dazzling chandeliers lit the room, light dancing off the mirrors and gleaming floors. Pale-blue velvet curtains framed windows as well as the stage.

The saloon was welcoming, friendly even, and Marsh never before had had that impression in a public drinking place. A table laden with food was near the front door; tables with chairs were placed around the room. Small groups of men, several enjoying the company of pretty hostesses, sipped from frosted mugs, another rarity in western saloons, and Marsh thought the cost of ice must be astronomical.

He went to the bar and hooked his right boot on the brass footrest. The bartender was there immediately with a smile. “Your pleasure, sir?”

“Whiskey,” Marsh said, and the man nodded and poured a generous dollop in a clean glass. Marsh was impressed, despite himself. Cleanliness was rare in western establishments. He sipped the whiskey, savoring its fine rich taste. No rotgut here.

“You’re new in town?” the bartender asked.

Marsh nodded.

The bartender, obviously trained as to when and when not to pursue conversation, looked down at the glass. “Another?”

Marsh nodded again. He needed it after comparing the Silver Slipper with the Glory Hole. He only wished he had that welsher in his gunsight.

A woman with light-brown hair approached him with an oddly hesitant expression. “Like some company?”

Marsh eyed her speculatively. She, like the whiskey, was premium. She looked about eighteen or so, a bit young for his taste, but she was very pretty in a soft way, and she had an appealing vulnerability about her. Her eyes were an expressive coffee color, and her smile was appealingly tentative rather than practiced.

If he’d been of a mind for company, he might have sought information from her, but he wasn’t. He was in a foul mood. The unwanted memories sparked by the wreck across the street, and the knowledge he’d been gulled by a tinhorn, fed a simmering anger.

He watched the woman’s face as her gaze met his, and he saw the familiar withdrawal in them. Philosophers said the eyes were the mirror of the soul, and he knew his had become about as black as sin. Not many people looked at him without flinching and inching away. The lawyer had been one of the few, and even he had been wary.

The young woman was moving slightly backward, even as a question remained in her eyes.

Why not? Marsh thought suddenly, changing his mind. The girl was unusual. She couldn’t be as vulnerable as she appeared, not if she worked in a saloon. Perhaps he could learn more about the Ice Queen, who, apparently, was not in the saloon this afternoon.

He nodded and gestured to the bartender while keeping his eyes on her face. “Your pleasure?”

“Champagne,” she said, her voice a little shaky.

More like tea, Marsh knew, at champagne prices, but he gave the order to the bartender along with one for another whiskey. That would be his limit. It always was. He held his liquor well, but it was pure stupidity for a gunfighter to drink more. A fraction of a second was often the difference between life and death.

When the drinks came, he took them and followed her to a table where she sat down, her hands nervously taking the glass of champagne.

“My name’s Molly,” she said, obviously waiting for him to reveal his.

“Canton,” he said curtly, hoping there would be no recognition. He doubted there would be, for he had not worked in California, but there had been one of those god-awful dime novels about him. Mostly fiction, of course, but with a grain of truth.

“First or last?”

He shrugged. “Just Canton.”

The girl looked even more nervous. “First time here?”

He gave her a slight smile and nodded.

Her gaze wavered, apparently unnerved by what she saw in his smile, in his face. She bit her lip and took a nervous sip of the drink, and he watched with interest. She was nothing like the saloon girls he had met in the past. There was something rather … uncertain about her. He wondered whether there were upstairs rooms, whether the Ice Queen dealt in prostitution as well as liquor, gambling, and bribery. It was a matter of interest, rather than desire. He was becoming intrigued. Shy, frightened bar girls were unusual.

He waited for her next question, not making it easy for her with his hard, steady stare; but then, he never made things easy for anyone.

She was tongue-tied now, whether because of lack of wit or his intimidation, he didn’t know. One hand tapped the table while the other clutched the empty champagne glass.

He gave her as close to a real smile as he could manage. It was meant to disarm, but it apparently had the opposite effect, for the glass shattered, cutting her hand. She gave a sudden cry, and the bartender moved quickly to her side, glaring at Marsh as he wrapped a towel around the wounded hand.

“Aw, Molly,” he said with real concern. “I’ll get Catalina.”

Marsh sat back, watching with a bemused air. A skittish saloon girl. A protective bartender. Strange. He looked around, and even the customers were glaring at him.

Was he that frightening these days?

He heard movement above him and looked toward the stairs, his gaze riveted on the woman descending them. Marsh Canton had never been awed by a woman. Christ knew he had seen enough of them and bedded a good many, but the woman who was approaching was unique, and he couldn’t immediately give a reason why.

But he understood why she was called the Ice Queen, and it certainly wasn’t because of her coloring. He had expected her to be blond and blue-eyed for some reason, but her hair was as black as his own and her eyes the most spectacular emerald green he had ever seen. It wasn’t her vivid beauty, though, that caused her to be called Ice Queen. It was an aura that cloaked her, one that proclaimed her separateness from the rest of the world.

The thought was so quick, so certain, that it astounded Marsh. Intrigued him. Fascinated him. Very little did that these days, and the sudden surge of interest surprised him. He rose as she approached.

Her gaze was only for Molly and went directly to the bloody towel. “Are you all right?”

Molly nodded, a shamed, half-frightened expression on her face. “It’s just a little cut. I’m … sorry.”

Cat gently unwrapped the towel and examined the cuts; then she looked over at Marsh, as if seeing him for the first time. Anger sparkled like green fire in her eyes. “Are you responsible for this?”

Of everything Marsh had been accused of in his ill-directed life, hurting a woman had never been one of them, and he stiffened.

But Molly shook her head. “No … Miss Catalina, he didn’t do anything.… I was nervous and broke the glass.” Marsh recognized the courage the girl had to muster to speak up, and wondered why.

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

Molly shook her head.

The woman turned to the bartender. “Take her upstairs and send Wilhelmina for the doctor.” She turned her attention to Marsh, studying him as if he were a specimen under glass.

He was used to perusing other people that way. He wasn’t sure he liked the turnaround.

“Mr.…?”

“Canton,” he replied easily. “You must be Catalina Hilliard.”

This time she stiffened. It was obvious that she liked control and equally obvious that somehow that control was drifting between them.

“I don’t allow manhandling of the girls who work here,” she said in a frigid tone.

He raised an eyebrow. “Unusual policy for a saloon,” he remarked. “However, I think anyone in here would tell you that I wasn’t close to her.” His voice grew harsh. “And I don’t care for the implication.”

Their gazes met, held. Something flashed between them, a recognition of sorts. Two strong wills probing, testing. Marsh almost lost himself in her eyes; the depths were limitless, yet they revealed little.

Now he saw every feature, every perfectly molded feature. He tried to judge her age but discovered that he couldn’t. She was one of those few women who were ageless, whose fine bone structure would mask years. Her wary eyes were experienced, and a few fine lines, which she didn’t try to conceal, spread from their corners. He didn’t think they were laugh lines.

He knew she was weighing him in the same cold, methodical manner, and he knew she was experienced enough to see, and sense, the killer in him. Strangely enough, it didn’t seem to frighten her, even as he saw the awareness enter her eyes. He suspected it was that recognition again, a recognition that would make them wary of each other, but not afraid.

Instead, she relaxed slightly. “A visitor to San Francisco, Mr. Canton?”

He shrugged. “I’m thinking about opening a business here.”

“The same kind of business you have been in?”

He smiled. “Not exactly.”

Heat suddenly radiated in waves between them. A peculiar kind of heat. A dangerous kind of heat. The kind he had felt in the Midwest just before a tornado hit.

She felt it too. He could tell from her startled expression.

“I have to go look after Molly.” She started to turn and then looked back at him. “She’s new here,” she added in an explanatory but not apologetic tone. “The drink is on the house.”

He bowed low, as he used to in Georgia so many years ago. A lifetime ago. He had been the scion of a plantation family, a student at the Virginia School of Law. He’d had exquisite manners and had been gifted with a number of talents, from riding and shooting to playing Mozart and reading law.

He’d been all that, before the war had sifted out all the gentler pursuits and left only the deadly ones.

He hadn’t lost his touch, however. He saw a certain appreciation, then amusement in those brilliant eyes that were as cold as the gems they resembled.

She walked away, her dark-green silk dress floating around an exceedingly fine female form. He had been so absorbed with the face, he hadn’t noticed the rest of her. The neck of her dress was fairly high, and the sleeves covered the upper part of her arms. It was modest for a saloon owner, but as he felt a sudden hardening in the groin area, he realized the modesty was even more enticing and challenging than a revealing gown would be.

He sat back down, spreading his long legs out under the table as he considered the last few moments. She fascinated him, as, he’d surmised from the attorney, she fascinated much of San Francisco. Otherwise she wouldn’t have the power she did.

She was an odd combination, showing such concern for the girl and real outrage at him before deciding he was innocent—in that matter, at least. But there was also a coldness in those eyes that he had rarely, if ever, seen in a woman.

Catalina Hilliard was interesting. Extremely interesting, and would make a worthy adversary. He felt a flicker of excitement, the first in a very long time. He thought he had been deadened to human emotions. Did he really want them? Could he afford them?

Maybe not, but anything was better than the emptiness of the past few years, the absolute black void that had become his life. It had been growing, almost swallowing him whole as he realized he no longer felt anything when he killed another human being, nothing at all. Not regret or pain, or even relief that it was someone else lying dead in the street, or some hot desert, or lonely mountain valley. That indifference would kill him someday, someday soon.

And God knew he could spend what money he had. If the Glory Hole didn’t pan out, he could command almost any price in Colorado for his particular specialty.

A certain unfamiliar exuberance took hold of him. And he wondered only for the briefest of seconds whether he was really looking for a new life, or if he just wanted to see whether he could melt the Ice Queen.

Cat waited with Molly for the doctor, but her thoughts remained in the saloon … with the stranger.

She would never forget that face, that too-handsome face that had no soul in it. She wouldn’t forget his hard, lean grace, his all-black attire, his worn gunbelt—or his air of danger. She had damn little use for most men, or this kind in particular.

What kind of business could he have in San Francisco? Nothing respectable. She was sure of that. Well, she wasn’t very respectable herself, and she certainly had no right to judge others. But why couldn’t she erase him from her mind? Something baffling had transpired with him. She had felt what must be desire, and that had never happened to her before, not in a lifetime of altogether too many—

It couldn’t be desire, she told herself. Couldn’t be.

Using all her willpower, she banished him, temporarily at least, from her thoughts. And she sighed. What to do with Molly?

The girl sat stiffly in the chair, clutching the bloody towel wrapped around her hand, her soft brown eyes pleading like some wounded doe. Cat had had reservations about trying Molly as a hostess. It was unfortunate that one of Molly’s first attempts was a man who would probably scare most women silly, or else seduce them right in the middle of a crowd.

Dear Lucifer, why had she even thought of that?

She turned her attention back to Molly. Cat considered herself hard-hearted, her emotions almost untouchable, but Molly had somehow cut a swath through her usual defenses. Perhaps because she reminded Cat of another girl so long ago. Scared. With no place to turn.

Cat didn’t know Molly’s history, but she recognized fear when she saw it, the kind of fear that came from abuse of some kind, and she felt a peculiar protectiveness. She knew Molly was desperate for a job and shelter, and that had been enough.

Molly wasn’t like the other girls who worked at the Silver Slipper. Cat had chosen each of them carefully. They were all attractive, all vivacious, and all experienced. Cat paid them well, well enough that they wouldn’t have to sell their bodies, and many of them eventually married customers.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said. “He tried to be pleasant, I think, but …”

Cat knew. She had looked into his eyes too. But she had not felt the fear Molly had. She’d felt challenged to a duel of sorts, almost as if he’d thrown a gauntlet. She had lowered her eyes first, simply because her body was doing unexpected things as their gazes had met, searched, weighed.

She wondered if he would be back.

She hoped not. She didn’t like the reckless emotions he stirred in her.

Canton. He’d said his name was Canton. It had a familiar ring to it.

Where had she heard that name?

Marsh returned to the law office. He had to wait, but he used the time productively, envisioning improvements to the Glory Hole.

The attorney finally ushered a client from his office, and by the nod of his head invited Marsh in.

“Record the deed,” Marsh instructed.

“You’ve decided to keep it?”

Marsh nodded. “You’ve done your duty in warning me, and I agree it’s in abysmal shape. But it does have promise.”

“Promise?” David Scott’s voice was full of doubt.

“Of a sort,” Marsh said with a smile tight enough to cool hell. It certainly didn’t invite more questions.

Still, David hazarded one. “Did you visit the Silver Slipper?”

His new client’s obsidian eyes flickered as he inclined his head.

“And you still want to proceed?”

“I think there’s room for a different kind of drinking establishment in that part of town,” Marsh said.

David shrugged. He’d warned his client. “I’ll get the deed recorded in your name today. How do you want it?”

“Just Canton.”

The attorney started to protest.

Marsh hesitated. Perhaps he would discover how honest this lawyer was. “I have a certain … reputation that I would rather not advertise.”

“Do you have a middle name?”

“Taylor.”

“We’ll use that, then.”

“Good. Now, do you know some good carpenters?”

Another kind of banging woke Cat up. She had become used to the slamming of the sign against the building across the street, but this was something else. Not so random. Steady. As if controlled by a human hand rather than nature’s.

She had a very bad feeling about it.

With a slight groan she rolled out of bed. Early. Much too early, especially when she’d had a restless, unsettled night. She went over to the window.

A small army was working on the Glory Hole. The sign had been repainted, the gold-colored letters bright and gaudy, and it had been neatly nailed in place.

Cat swore.

And prepared to do battle once more.