Iron Ties Read Free Page A

Denver and Rio Grande Railway.”
    Reverend Sands pulled Inez close. “I prefer a certain strong-willed woman with hair cropped short.” He pushed a strand from her forehead. “Who can beat the devil at poker, play piano fine enough to make angels cry, and is smart enough to run her own saloon.”
    The next kiss was long and reciprocal. The faint crackling of paper in her breast pocket finally reminded Inez why she’d detoured to see Sands on her way out of town. She pulled back and said quietly, “My discomfiture isn’t entirely due to Miss Snow and her well-turned ankles. My sister’s letter arrived.”
    “She’s bringing your boy to Denver, isn’t she?” His gray-blue eyes quizzed her.
    “No.” Inez swallowed with difficulty. Her sister Harmony’s careful script rose like words of fire in her mind’s eye:
    The family doctor insists that William’s summer is better spent by the seaside than in the West, particularly since he is so young and his lungs still weak from his first winter in the Rocky Mountains. By the time you read this, we’ll be in Newport with Mama and Papa. Rest assured, dear sister, your little son will be spoilt endlessly by his grandparents.
    “I should never have sent him back east last summer with Harmony,” she whispered. “But I was at my wit’s end. Mark had disappeared. There I was, with William not even a year old and a missing husband. I couldn’t leave town, couldn’t leave the business. I kept hoping Mark would return. But William couldn’t stay. Another Leadville winter would have killed him.”
    The reverend’s arms tightened around her. “Under the circumstances, it’s a blessing you had a sister able and willing to care for him.”
    “But I’m afraid—” Inez hesitated, then rushed on— “that I’ll never get him back. Oh, that’s rubbish, I know. Harmony has William’s best interests at heart. And, if the doctor says he shouldn’t come west because of his health, then he shouldn’t. I just have this feeling….”
    His face softened with concern. “Maybe you should go east then. See your son. And your sister. Set your mind at rest.”
    She stepped away from his embrace, turning to smooth Lucy’s mane. “I can’t go now. Abe and I have one month to finish the second floor of the saloon before the railroad comes to town. If we can find the money. The money. Now that’s another thing. The miner’s strike nearly ruined us.”
    The iron taste of bitterness, tinged with fear, filled her mouth. “First Mooney told the strikers to stay away from the saloons.” She remembered the disbelief she’d felt—the near betrayal—when she’d heard of the pronouncement from the strikers’ spokesman, Michael Mooney. “He didn’t warn them away from the brothels. Or the dance halls. And then, if that wasn’t enough, the governor sends in the state troops to keep order and shuts us all down for a week.”
    Inez gripped Lucy’s bridle fiercely and turned to the reverend, trying to bring normality back to her voice. “In any case, Abe and I have to watch every cent. We’ve got two men pounding nails and laying boards this week, and then that’s it until more cash comes in. Abe may be a gem of a business partner, but he isn’t one to crack the whip. I’ve got to stay and see it through.”
    Sands pulled out the hammer holstered at his belt and tossed it up in a lazy circle, catching the handle on the down spin. “You haven’t seen William in over a year. Whenever the topic’s come up, the timing for going east is never right. What’s keeping you from going back? Something from the past?”
    “Pah! The past is over and done. My sights are set on the future. And my son.” She watched him toss the hammer again. “And you don’t exactly practice what you preach when it comes to facing the past. When talk turns to the war, you always change the subject. The war, and your life after.”
    “What do you want me to say? The war was a dark time. I don’t