1
ROWAN
* * *
Despite the hard sun beating down on her, a little shiver ran down her spine as an icy wind gusted along the dusty street. The broad, faded brown hat she wore to hide her braided long hair also shaded her face, but her hands were getting darker every day as the sun tanned them a deep bronze. They were already rough from years of millwork while growing up in Chicago, but the time she’d unwillingly spent as a shoe shiner in this booming city in the Montana Territory had added another layer of callouses and dry skin.
At least it helped lend credibility to her disguise as a boy. Well, that and some ripped up bed sheets that she’d used to bind her already meager chest.
For the first time in her life, she’d been glad she didn’t have the abundant curves of most women had. She’d been traveling in disguise since Chicago, all too aware of the dangers of simply being female. Back home, she’d had the protection of friends and family, here she had no one.
No one at all.
Swallowing back her tears, she stood slowly and stretched out her back, not even attempting to shout her business like the other shoeshine kids. Her lungs still ached after her illness and the constant dust rising up from the dirt road, and she didn’t want to get beat up again. Many of the boys were orphans in the same situation as her—no money, no food, and no place to live. That made them as desperate as she was to earn the coin of passing men and women who wanted the grime of the wilderness polished off their shoes.
As she crouched back down to brush some dust off the top of her shoeshine box, she traced over the name etched onto the lid. Ted, her brother. Three years younger than herself, they’d been close for as long as she could remember. Rowan had practically raised him before she’d been forced to get a job at the mill in order to help provide for the family. Her mother tried the best she could, but it was hard for a woman who looked like her to find honest work as a seamstress that paid enough to house and feed two children. Out of the many names Rowan had heard her mother called, mulatto was among the nicest.
Dust puffed into the air as a wagon rumbled past, so she looked up, hoping to see someone she could talk into getting a shine.
The elevated sidewalks of Butte were always busy, and she was one of many trying to hustle the crowd. Some sold newspapers, some sold fruit from stands, but a good many had their own shoeshine kits that were in much better repair than hers. And most of them weren’t as dirty and undoubtedly smelly as her. For the past week, since she’d run out of money to stay in even the dingiest of boarding houses, she’d slept where she could. She was tired, beaten down on every level possible, and just about ready to give up.
For a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm her, and she had to bite her lower lip as she tried to take a deep breath. Unfortunately, the tight cloth she’d wrapped around her chest to hide her breasts made that impossible, but she didn’t dare loosen it. Without her brother at her side, she’d have a much better chance at survival if the low lifes in this city thought she was just another orphan boy trying to go West in search of fame and fortune, rather than a woman all alone without anyone or anything to protect her in a rough and tumble frontier city.
But Ted had promised he would come back for her.
He promised.
And he made her promise to stay here in Butte, where he could find her.
But, week after week, she waited at the train station, watched each car empty, and hoped to see his curly blond hair, so like her own.
And each week, she left the train station alone, returning to the cheap boarding house where she shared a room with a dozen equally poor people and cried herself to sleep.
“Hey, lad, can I get a shine?” a smooth, British accented voice said, interrupting her dark thoughts.
Sitting up quickly, she made sure her hat was still in place before she smiled up at the stranger, her chapped lips stinging slightly. “Sure thing, sir.”
Anything else she might have said died in her throat as she took in one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. A hot burning rush burst through her—almost like the heat of a fever, but far more pleasant. The man, with his boot propped up on her box, wore a dark blue shirt that was lightly stained with sweat and clung to his hard, broad shoulders. His arms were equally impressive, and his pants molded to his heavily muscled thighs, highlighting a body used to hard work. A belt hung around his trim hips, with a pair of guns strapped to the side. The silver buckle on his belt twinkled in the sun, and she tore her gaze from his body to look at his face.
And what a face it was. The golden hair that dusted his jaw drew her gaze to his full lips and friendly smile, and she could barely make out that his eyes were either blue or green beneath the low brow of his black cowboy hat. The faint scent of cloves and cedar came from his clothing as he leaned forward slightly, his gaze growing slightly puzzled as he stared down at her.
“Are you okay? What’s your name?”
Shaking herself out of the odd daze, she blurted out in her real voice, “Yes, I’m fine.” Worried that he saw through her disguise, she quickly ducked her head and said in an unnaturally low voice, “My names Roger, sir.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “What happened to your face?”
Self-conscious, she touched the bruises no doubt darkening her cheekbone and her healing scraped chin. “I fell down.”
If being curled up in a ball on the ground while getting kicked by two grown men could be considered falling down, she thought to herself with more than a tinge of bitterness.
Just like in Chicago, vile men here preyed on the most innocent. One of this city’s pimps, Mr. Charles, had tried to recruit her, saying that there was a lot of money to be made for a young boy with her looks. He’d promised her shelter, and good food—all she could eat—if she came to work for him. When she refused, he had his goons beat her up and encouraged her to think about his offer, because he intended to see her again tonight.
Touching the bruise on her jaw, she winced, then tucked her hat down lower to hide the signs that she’d been in a fight.
“You fell down,” he repeated in a flat tone that practically screamed his disbelief.
“Yes, sir.”
“Huh,” he replied, but she was too afraid to look up to get a read on his face. “Haven’t seen you around the city before, and your accent is different. Where are you from?”
Using the brush, she began to scrub the dirt and dust off the man’s black boots. “Back east. Chicago.”
The man let out a low whistle. “That’s a fair bit of travel. Your mum and dad come with you?”
“No,” she said as she looked down. She pretended to mess around with the shoe polish as she tried to swallow back her tears. “Both my parents have passed on.”
Her father, Jonas, had been a dreamer. He’d regaled his children with tales of the American West—stories he’d heard all the way in Norway which drew him to the United States. One day, he’d intended to take his family out west. Rowan had spent many evenings planning with her father on how they’d strike it rich mining for gold.
Unfortunately, when Rowan was only ten, he’d gotten severely injured at his job as a welder. On his deathbed, he’d made Rowan vow she’d someday escape Chicago, and she would go West with her family. She’d worked hard to fulfill her promise to him, but her mother had passed five years after her father.