Trail of Aces (Hot on the Trail Book 8) Read online

  TRAIL OF ACES

  Copyright ©2015 by Merry Farmer

  Amazon Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)

  ASIN: B017RKFX16

  Paperback:

  ISBN-13: 9781519148162

  ISBN-10: 151914816X

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  Trail of Aces

  By Merry Farmer

  For Justin Rose

  Once upon a time, I, Merry Farmer, won a poker tournament.

  It came down to me and Justin at the final table.

  He totally underestimated me.

  I won with a pair of nines.

  He had a pair of sevens and assumed I didn’t know how to play.

  NEVER assume a woman doesn’t know how to play!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Wyoming Territory, 1865

  She never should have married him.

  Olivia Garrett balled her fists at her sides as she marched up the line of parked wagons. Her delicate brow was furrowed with fury and determination. Her gentle heart ached with betrayal. After everything she had been through, after everything they had been through together, after all the promise that had been shown, she’d been betrayed. Her eyes stung with tears she was determined not to shed. She may have been heartbroken, but she was still a woman of honor. She would not break down into the fit of weeping that she was certain would be expected of her. She would not wilt like a daisy. And she most certainly would not let Charlie Garrett get the best of her.

  She never should have married him.

  “Olivia, is everything all right?” her dear friend, Estelle Ripley, called as Olivia stormed past the wagon train crew’s camp.

  Olivia kept her eyes straight forward, zeroing in on the target of her erstwhile trail husband, chatting with Graham Tremaine and Pete Evans, the trail boss, several yards ahead of her. Heaven only knew how difficult it was for her to speak her mind. If she stopped to answer Estelle—and now Josephine Lewis, who had hopped up from her camp at the sight of Olivia’s march—she would only lose her nerve and back down. She couldn’t back down. Not when she’d just learned that the man she’d married, the man who had likely tricked her into marrying him, was a thief and a liar.

  “How dare you?” she hurled at Charlie when she came to a stop a few yards away from him. She could feel the deep flush on her cheeks, feel the fire in her eyes. She could also feel the trembling deep in her soul, her heart weeping. Things had been going so well. They had come to an understanding. Charlie’s kisses had become so wonderful, increasing in fervor to the point where she found herself longing to be his wife in every way. “How dare you drag me into your nefarious schemes?”

  Estelle and Josephine caught up to her, one on either side, flanking her with support. Olivia’s other friends, Lucy Haskell and Gideon Faraday, lifted their heads from the campfire where they were laughing over something to see what was going on. Charlie broke away from his conversation and faced her.

  “Sweet Pea. What’s the matter?” He put on a charming smile, but Olivia was no fool. She could see the panic in his dark eyes, the tension in the lines of his face. She’d seen that look on the faces of countless naughty little boys she’d taught, both at home in Ohio and in her trail school. It was a look of pure guilt.

  “I won’t let you call me Sweat Pea anymore.” Her back was straight and her chin tilted in defiance, but her voice shook in concert with the crumbling of her heart. Even now, Charlie stood before her, a perfect picture of everything dashing and forbidden. She’d found him handsome beyond compare from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. Handsome with that air of wickedness that had sent spirals of longing through her body.

  She shouldn’t have trusted those feelings, should instead have paid more attention to the wickedness.

  Still trying to maintain his rakish smile, but slipping, Charlie took a step toward her. “Tell me what’s upset you, Olivia. I’m certain we can work through this together.”

  Olivia swallowed, closing her eyes to fight back her tears. How many years had she waited to hear a man say they could work through their problems together? But all that meant nothing when the man in question had just been outed as a criminal.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Olivia spotted the tall, well-dressed form of Chet Devlin ambling into the scene. He wore a sly smile on his face—a face that was arresting, though not quite as handsome as Charlie’s. Charlie scowled at his old friend for half a second before his attention returned to Olivia. Olivia wasn’t as dismissive.

  “If Mr. Devlin hadn’t informed me of—” She paused, sending a quick glance around to the assembly of her friends. “—of the means by which you acquired your wealth, would you ever have told me?”

  Understanding, and something far more devastating—confirmation—glowed around Charlie. He dropped his shoulders in defeat. “You knew when you married me that I was a gambler by trade, Olivia. You may not consider those sorts of winnings as an honest living, but—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” She lowered her voice, leaning toward him. She waited—waited for him to tell her that the things Chet revealed were lies, waited for a cleaner, more wholesome explanation of the treasure that lay hidden in Charlie’s wagon.

  He didn’t say a word. He closed his mouth and pressed his lips together, staring hard at Olivia. But Charlie knew exactly what she was talking about. While the rest of their friends stood around confused, the harsh light of truth and understanding glared between Olivia and the husband she never should have consented to marry. He met her eyes. It didn’t matter how much sadness and regret they held. The admission was right there for her to see. His silence screamed guilt.

  Charlie Garrett was a thief and a shyster.

  “I never should have married you,” she hissed. Her tears threatened to flow and drown her hurting heart. “I should have gone against my sense of honor and ignored the obligation to deal fairly with you. I know now that there is no such thing as honor or fairness in you. You’re a low-down, dirty cheat, Char
lie Garrett, and I don’t want anything to do with you ever again.”

  She spun to go, catching a glimpse of Chet with his hand covering his wide, sneering smile, his eyes bright with victory and spite. Before she could take a single step, Charlie was by her side, clasping a hand around her arm to hold her to her spot, close to him.

  “Sweet Pea, this isn’t fair,” he murmured, loud enough for her to hear, but not for the others watching. “Let me explain.”

  “What kind of explanation is there?” She turned in his arms, looking up at him. The rich, spicy scent of him—so familiar now, and yet still such a mystery—filled her aching heart with needles of regret. She hadn’t set out to befriend him. She hadn’t expected she would marry him. Most of all, she never, ever intended to fall in love with him.

  No, she wasn’t in love. She couldn’t be in love with a lie. So why was her heart burning now?

  “There is always an explanation,” Charlie told her. “For everything that happens. There is always a reason that things turn out the way they do.”

  He didn’t say more, didn’t rush to deny the things that Chet had told her. He didn’t even ask her what those things were. He must have already known, known because they were true.

  Still, her tender heart held on to hope. She relaxed in his grip, gazing up at him, longing softening her features. “What explanation? Please, tell me. Please, Charlie.”

  She held her breath, waiting for him to brush the whole nightmare away with a few words and a laugh, and to kiss her, once again the man she had let herself come to care for. A cool breeze ruffled the air between them, sending tendrils of her blond hair fluttering. If he could just come up with some sort of answer, banish the suspicions Chet had raised, she would fall into his arms and hold onto him forever. If he would just tell her he was an honest man, this was all a misunderstanding, then they could continue the dance they had begun weeks ago.

  Charlie rested his hand against the side of her face. “I’m not the man you want me to be,” he said, simple, heartbreaking. “I am the man that I am, sins and all. I may have been a thief and a scoundrel in my past, but I am not that man now.”

  The lump in Olivia’s throat tightened. Her breath came in shallow gasps. She pushed away, heartbroken. “So you admit that you are a thief?”

  “I admit that I was a thief,” Charlie answered. He sent a nervous glance to Pete Evans and the others watching. “That life is behind me.”

  Once again, Olivia clenched her fists at her sides. “So tell me, then. Explain to me how you got…” Even now, she couldn’t betray Charlie’s secret, even if his old friend had just revealed the origins of that secret. “Explain where your wealth came from.”

  Charlie went still, staring at her, face stoic. His gaze darted over her shoulder to Chet. “I’m a gambler,” he said, then looked to Olivia once more. “I took a chance, placed my bet, and I won.”

  It wasn’t the answer Olivia was looking for. Heaving a breath, she shook her head. “You’re lying to me, I know it. I won’t be married to a liar and a fraud.”

  She turned and began to march away. Estelle followed her.

  “Where are you going?” Charlie stopped her with words, but without touching her this time.

  “I’m taking my things and going back to the Hamiltons’ wagon,” she said, turning to walk backwards for a few steps. “I never should have married you in the first place. If I could go back and undo it, I would.”

  “Olivia,” Charlie began, but she wouldn’t let him continue.

  Instead, she turned to face forward once more and broke into a jog, fleeing from the greatest joy and most bitter disappointment she’d ever known. At last, her tears broke with a mournful sob.

  If only she could go back and stop this madness from ever happening….

  Charlie clenched his jaw, heart thumping hard in his chest as he watched Olivia run from him. He wanted to chase after her, draw her into his arms, and stop her. He wanted to assure her that whatever lies Chet had spilled to her, they were just that, lies. Chet Devlin may have been one of his oldest friends, but as he flicker his glance in Chet’s direction, the only thing he saw was a vicious trickster having the ultimate revenge. Charlie wanted to tell Olivia that this was all a bad nightmare and, in truth, he was everything she had come to believe he was in the last several weeks of their journey across the prairie and into the West along the Oregon Trail.

  He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Because whatever Chet had said, it was probably true. He was a liar and a crook.

  But he wasn’t defeated. Not yet.

  “What did you say to her?” He rounded on Chet, marching up to him with such intensity that his dear old “friend” backpedaled, nearly tripping over a traveler’s crate. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Chet’s fine, linen shirt, raising his fist. “What did you say?”

  Behind him, Charlie’s true friends sprang into action.

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on there.” Pete leapt forward, Gideon beside him. The two rushed to pull Charlie off of Chet before any blows could be landed.

  “Take it easy,” Gideon advised in his gentle, scientific voice.

  Chet merely laughed, brushing his sleeves once Charlie was restrained. “Looks like I’ve got you good and riled this time,” he said, an infernal light in his eyes that made Charlie’s skin crawl. “Don’t worry, boys,” Chet went on to Pete and Gideon. “Wouldn’t be the first time old Charlie and I came to blows over a woman.”

  “That woman is my wife,” Charlie insisted.

  “In name only,” Chet teased, his smile bordering on a sneer. “Unless there’s something I don’t know.”

  Charlie froze. True, he’d never intended things to go as far with Olivia as they had. Theirs was an unusual marriage, born of a bet, a jest. It had become so much more, in spite of everything.

  As the tension left Charlie’s body, Pete and Gideon let him go. Charlie pulled out of their grip, shaking his arms to straighten the sleeves of his expensive, tailored jacket. Panic and anger may have ripped through his insides, but that was no excuse not to look his best. He straightened his hat, rolled his shoulders, then resumed glaring at Chet as though he could strike the man down with a glance.

  “What did you say to her?”

  Chet shrugged, relaxing into the kind of smile that sent female hearts beating. “Only that you have a tendency to gamble with kindly older gentlemen who have fortunes to bestow.”

  Charlie’s scowl darkened. Behind and around him, Pete, Graham, Gideon, and the women looked on with as much confusion and uncertainty as if Chet had started speaking in Russian. They may not have had a clue what Chet’s cryptic words meant, but Charlie did. He was no fool. Chet had revealed something to Olivia that he would have given his right arm to keep secret.

  “You’re a lying, cowardly snake,” he growled.

  Chet only laughed. “You would know snakes, wouldn’t you, my friend.”

  It took everything Charlie had not to snap that Chet had no right to call him a friend ever again, that they’d never been friends in the first place—not the way he’d come to be friends with the likes of Pete and Graham and Gideon. He ground his jaw tightly shut, forced a grin. There was an old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. If ever he needed to heed those words, it was now.

  “You sly devil,” he growled, narrowing his eyes at Chet.

  “Yep,” Chet chuckled. “You can thank me later.”

  The snake, in all his conceited glory, touched the brim of his hat, then turned to go.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Charlie hissed, “I’ll murder him.”

  “No, you won’t.” Pete was quick to step in. “Not in my train, at least.”

  Charlie turned to him, frustration warring with the sore temptation to fall back into every devious, destructive way he’d put behind him for as long as it took to get revenge.

  Pete caught the look and went on. “I told you before, I don’t give a hoot what your past was as long as
you keep your nose clean in the present.”

  “Sometimes you’ve got to get a little dirty in order to keep everything else clean,” Charlie warned him.

  Pete raised his hands. “Be that as it may, sounds to me like you’ve got bigger problems on your hands right now.” He nodded over Charlie’s shoulder.

  Charlie turned, spotting Olivia marching between wagons at the far end of the parked train. She had her carpetbag in one hand and a sack of other belongings over her shoulder. Her cheeks were red with anger and misery.

  The sight of her looking so distressed—even from a distance—shot an arrow through Charlie’s heart. She was a sight to behold, his Olivia. When he’d joined up with Pete’s wagon train, he’d heard a few of the farmers and pioneers say that Olivia wasn’t much to look at, that she was too pale and delicate. They couldn’t have been more wrong. She was an angel, with hair the color of corn silk and eyes as blue as the sky on a sunny day. She might not have come up to his chin, but she had a height of character that towered above any woman he’d ever known.

  And he was on the verge of losing her.

  He wouldn’t have it. Squaring his shoulders, he started off in her direction.

  “Hold on there.” Pete stopped him as Graham made a sound to stop him as well, and Gideon reached out to grab his arm.

  Scowling like a thundercloud, Charlie whipped back to them. “Unhand me,” he told Gideon.

  Gideon did as he was asked, but the solidity of his stare was as tight as any grip.

  “Don’t go kicking a hornet’s nest, son,” Pete counseled him, though the man couldn’t have been ten years older than him.

  “I need to speak to my wife,” Charlie replied, pulling himself up to his full height. “I need to set things right before they get any worse.”

  “Let us go talk to her,” Lucy spoke up, glancing to Josephine. “Sounds like she needs the company of other women right now.”