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  Feisty ex-harlot Ellen Finch is finally free to escape her troubled past and make a fresh start, far away from the dusty town of Deadwood. But Ellen’s plans are interrupted when a dark and brooding stranger bursts through the doors of the Gem Theatre and Saloon begging for her help as a midwife.

  Ellen can’t refuse his pleas, or allow another woman to suffer when she can help. Nor can she ignore the pang of regret she feels upon discovering this stranger is about to become a father; if only she’d had a man like Clayton Kile to care for her! Relief floods Ellen when she discovers the labouring woman is Clayton’s sister. Clayton can’t afford to pay Ellen for her help; instead he expertly demonstrates his gratitude!

  It’s been years since a man’s passion has moved Ellen, but there is something about this cowboy that tugs at Ellen’s emotions and fires her own long-latent desires. Ellen faces a difficult choice: surrender to the demands of her body and risk losing her heart to love, or follow her head and leave Deadwood and her past behind forever…

  Also by Molly Ann Wishlade

  Trying Too Hard…

  Bound

  Coming Soon

  Menage

  Scandal

  Molly Ann Wishlade

  www.CarinaUK.com

  MOLLY ANN WISHLADE

  has always been an avid reader and writer of stories. She regularly indulges her love of romance and passion by getting lost in the delicious worlds created by romantic novelists. When not reading, she’s busy with her current WIP, usually her next highly erotic tale about hunky heroes and their lady loves – and sometimes their gorgeous male lovers too.

  She wants to take readers on the rollercoaster that is life through the creation of loveable characters, exciting relationships and vivid worlds. She has a soft spot for a HEA.

  She loves to hear from readers.

  For Lucy, Victoria and the Carina UK team. Thank you for your enthusiasm, support and advice, and for giving the daughters of Deadwood the chance to tell their stories. xxx

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Book List

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Extract

  Endpages

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “I tell ya, Ellen, I’m just not having it!”

  Ellen stared into the hard, dark eyes of Al Swearengen. Her heart thundered and she trembled from head to toe. The familiar aroma of stale sweat and whisky that permeated the bar of the Gem suddenly made her feel queasy.

  “It ain’t your choice to make, Al!” she snapped.

  She would not give in to him on this. She had every right now to follow her own heart. Her life would finally be her own.

  “But…what’ll I do without you?” Al wheedled. He held out his hands and tilted his head. “I need you here, Ellen. You’ve been with me since the outset. Besides…” He gestured around the saloon. “The girls need ya. How’ll they manage? Most of ’em will end up pregnant after a flop or two then try to get rid of it themselves and wind up dyin’ of a fever.”

  Ellen ground her teeth together and pressed her fists into her thighs. She tried not to look around at the faces of the whores but the urge was overwhelming. They gazed at her from all corners of the Gem, their painted faces haggard and drawn, their eyes sad and pleading.

  What Al said was true. They did need her.

  Her resolve started to drift away like gun smoke on the breeze.

  “Don’t you let him change yer mind!” Kacey appeared at her side. “You’re doin’ the right thing, honey! It’s time for you to get outta this hell hole!”

  “If you’re gonna listen to that dried-up old dove then you’re a bigger fool than I had ya pegged for!” Al shrugged then moved behind the bar and poured himself a slug of whisky.

  Ellen turned to Kacey. “I know that it’s time for me to go.” She straightened her corset and repositioned her breasts. “It’s just…I feel so responsible for all of you.”

  “I know, Ellen. You’ve been like a mother hen to us but you’ve a right to try out a different kinda life. Hell, we all envy ya! But not many whores have the determination to save a dime, let alone enough to set off into the world.”

  “The world?” Ellen grinned.

  “Well…Custer City at least,” Kacey shrugged.

  “Hell, it’s gotta be better than this place.” Ellen slapped her thigh. “An’ if it ain’t then I’ll just keep on goin’.” She hoped that she sounded more confident than she felt.

  “Come on, sweetheart, I’ll help ya pack.” Kacey strolled through the bar then up the three-tiered wooden staircase.

  Ellen followed, casting an apologetic glance at the girls as she passed them. Surely the time had come for her to cut the apron strings? It wasn’t easy for any of them. She knew that. She’d been where they were now. These poor daughters of Deadwood had little to make their lives bearable but Ellen had done her best for them. She’d protected them from Al’s fiercest rages, rescued them from violent customers and helped them to get rid of the babies they could never manage to care for. She had tried to ease the tragedy that surrounded them daily in the only way she could – by being there for them.

  But now it was her time. Time to leave and live a little while she still had the chance.

  She just wished that it wasn’t so difficult leaving them all behind.

  She’d been with Al since 1877, just after he’d opened the Gem. Thirteen years of her life dedicated to whoring then caring for the other girls. With her help, he’d rebuilt it following fire and flood. He was an old goat and could be hellish mean to the girls when his black moods took him. But he was all she’d ever known. Ellen had been just sixteen when he’d taken her in and she’d been swayed by his charm for, what, all of five minutes. Then she’d become a victim of his harsh treatment and bullying.

  And she had been so young and vulnerable then. Her mama had died of the smallpox and her stepfather had immediately taken up with another woman. An actress no less. He spent his days drinking and gambling away what money her mama had saved and Ellen was left with nothing. As a young woman, her choices were limited. She had gone to the handsome young Al Swearengen and naively asked him for employment, hoping that he would offer her a job cleaning the rooms or helping with the cooking. But he had coerced her into another role altogether. One flop led to another and before she knew it, she’d been whoring for a year with no prospect of escape.

  The years had passed and she had sunk into a kind of acceptance of her role. She was a whore. That was how it was. Whisky helped to numb the distaste and occasionally opium offered a complete numbness that helped her to drift away from her life altogether. But when one of the girls had overdosed on the drug, Ellen had weaned herself off it and sworn never to succumb to its deadly embrace again. It just wasn’t for her.

  Until finally, just after her twenty-seventh birthday, she’d found the bravery to stand up to Al and the lifestyle she loathed. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that changed in her, but something snapped. Perhaps it was losing that last little baby…She shook the image of the perfectly-formed little corpse from her mind. It could well have been that.

  And enough was enough. Al had given her a few days to recover from the miscarriage then told her to get on her back again. She had refused. Sure enough, she’d gotten a black eye and a few cracked ribs in the process as she had continued to refuse, but after that he left her alone and stopped trying to make her whore. She was surprised at his acceptance…amazed if she was honest…but he was a
hard man to understand and, in the face of the opportunity to keep her pussy to herself, she didn’t want to question his intentions. So, instead of being ground into the straw-filled burlap ticking of an evening, she stayed on as a kind of nurse to the other girls, helping them with their daily scourging and treating them when they got poorly. It had suited her…for a while…as she continued to save the money she got paid for her new role. It wasn’t much but it was what she intended on using to support herself once she got to Custer City. After that, she’d find work cleaning or perhaps in a shop. She had to believe that there would be a way for her to earn money that didn’t involve opening her legs for a string of randy men.

  “Hey, Al,” she called from the bottom step. “I don’t want no trouble atwixt us, ya hear? It’s been a long journey and I just wanna move on now.”

  Who was she trying to convince?

  He gave her one of his sardonic smiles then raised his shot glass. “I wish ya well, ma dear! I wish ya well.”

  ****

  In the small messy bedroom, Ellen handed Kacey her silver-plated hairbrush.

  “Here, I want you to have this.”

  She turned and stood before the smudged full-length mirror, gazing at her sorry reflection. She’d changed so much in her time at the Gem. Her long black hair still shone but a few strands had turned white and, though her eyes were still as blue as cornflowers, they were hard and tired. If only she could turn back time to be a sweet and innocent sixteen-year-old once more.

  But she was almost twice that. And she doubted that she’d have the energy to go through it all again.

  “I can’t take your hairbrush.” Kacey shook her head as she ran her fingers over the bristles. “Wasn’t this from yer…gentleman friend? The special one.”

  Ellen moved away from the mirror and perched on the end of the bed. “Mr Hawkins. Bill.” It still hurt to say his name and regret swirled like a grey storm cloud at the edges of her mind.

  “That’s the one. Didn’t he ask yer to marry him?”

  Ellen’s heart sank. “He did indeed and I was fool enough to refuse him.” She picked at a loose thread on the colourful patchwork coverlet, twirling it between her fingers and trying to push the handsome face from her thoughts.

  “He was setting off to…” Kacey frowned. “What was it he wanted to do again?”

  Ellen laughed. “To help design a railroad that would cover the whole of America.”

  “That’s it!” Kacey jabbed her finger in the air. “Knew it was something real ambitious.”

  “And not that far-fetched.”

  “No for sure,” Kacey nodded, running the hairbrush through her fine red hair. “I’ll bet he’s living it up now in New York or some place. All fine and dandy in a big fancy house.” She pursed her lips and lifted her right hand to her mouth with the pinkie jutting outwards, holding an imaginary tea cup which she proceeded to drink from.

  Ellen laughed. Kacey always knew how to make her smile.

  “Probably got himself a sweet little wife who keeps it all in apple-pie order.” Ellen sighed and fell backwards on the bed. Somehow she couldn’t imagine herself as a sweet little wife. She tried to picture herself keeping house but her face just didn’t fit. Wearing a proper dress and a tidy hairstyle would just feel so strange. Yet wasn’t that what she was hoping for…once she quit Deadwood?

  Kacey lay down next to her, cradling the brush to her chest. “And why was you it you declined his offer?”

  Ellen swallowed the lump in her throat. “I was so young. I was confused. I felt some misguided sense of loyalty to Al for taking me off the streets. And, I guess…I had my head full of romantic nonsense and I thought that I didn’t love Bill.”

  “Love!” Kacey snorted. “Love is a dollar bill and two fingers of whisky. What I wouldn’t give for a man who offered me that every night.”

  They fell silent as they sank into their own thoughts.

  Kacey was right. Ellen had been a fool to refuse a man because of some naïve notion about needing to be in love. After years as a harlot, she doubted that love even really existed, at least not in the form she’d dreamt of as a girl. Men were weak creatures who obeyed their basic urges – the ones that told them to drink liquor and to stick their cocks into anything with a pussy. Even the married ones regularly made their way to the nearest whore house. She bet there wasn’t a decent one out there.

  Pah! What would she want with love or marriage?

  All she wanted now was her independence and a hearth to call her own as she saw in her old age. No more dragging drunks off girls half their age in the hours before dawn and running to fetch the doctor as yet another whore complained of a burning where the sun didn’t shine.

  All she wanted now was some peace and quiet.

  ****

  “Ellen! Wake up!”

  She lifted her head from the saloon table and absently wiped cigar ash from her cheek.

  “Ellen, there’s a man here to see ya.” Joanna, one of the Gem’s new girls pointed towards the front of the saloon.

  Ellen blinked, trying to clear away the whisky haze. Once she’d packed her meagre belongings and seen to the whores one last time, she’d joined Kacey and Al for a farewell drink. But one drink had turned into five or more and now her head ached and her tongue was thick and furry.

  Yuck…

  “Who is it, Joanna?” Ellen frowned.

  “No idea,” the girl shrugged, “but he sure is handsome.” She grinned, revealing a set of teeth that would make an old man blush.

  “Okay, sweeting,” Ellen nodded. “Go tell him to come on through.”

  Ellen shifted in her seat as a tall figure dressed head to toe in black followed Joanna. He stopped just in front of her and removed his dripping Stetson. She looked up from his muddy boots to his raised collar then into the darkest eyes she had ever seen. A shiver ran down her spine like a lazy finger.

  “Excuse me, Miss Finch,” the man fingered the brim of his hat. “I’m mighty sorry to disturb you at this time but…ah…um…my name is Clayton Kile, ma’am. And I uh…”

  Ellen watched him. His face was covered with a few days’ stubble. His dark hair flopped over his forehead and it was long enough to hang over his collar at the sides. He had a generous mouth and a strong, square jaw. Joanna was right. He was handsome…if a little unkempt. But there was nothing unusual about that in a mining town. And he was young. Clearly younger than her by at least five years.

  In fact, he seemed familiar. As if she’d passed him in the street a few times…or even served him a drink or two. But wouldn’t she remember a man as easy on the eye as he was? She shrugged. Maybe…maybe not. Men were men. She didn’t take that much notice of them. Not even the handsome ones.

  “Yeah, what is it?” She leant back in her chair and watched his expression change.

  He stared at her like he’d never seen a half-naked woman before. Ellen wore the typical chemise, corset and bloomers of a Gem saloon whore. Even though she didn’t lie with the customers any more, she still accompanied them for drinks and shows, so it made sense to dress to maintain their interest. Like most of the girls, her clothes were shabby and worn but she’d be darned if she was going to waste her hard-earned money on new under garments to make Al Swearengen more money. Hell no! She was saving every dime towards her new life. And she wouldn’t be needing fancy undergarments just for herself to look at.

  Besides, she was never short of admirers. With her generous curves she was well sought after and the state of her garments didn’t deter the men who clambered to buy her drinks in the hope that she’d weaken and choose to offer them a flop.

  Take Samuel Foxdale, for instance. That man knew she’d been off the menu for two years, yet he persisted in trying to get her to surrender. He kept on and on about the last time she’d let him fuck her as if they’d been proper sweethearts and him her intended. As if! Surely two years was time enough to get over it?

  Damn fool. They were all damn fools these men.
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  But now…the young man who’d appeared in the dead of night, in the middle of a storm, was gazing at her like she had a pot of gold tucked into the top of her corset rather than two large creamy bosoms. Men looked at her all the time. She was used to it. But this one…his interest was arousing her curiosity and it uncurled from deep inside her like a lazy cat and began to stalk around her edges.

  “What’s the matter?” She scowled at him. Best to seem cold and hard. No point encouraging the young fool. “Ain’t ya ever seen a whore before?”

  She swept her long black hair over her one shoulder and combed her fingers idly through it. He followed the movement of her hands, his eyes hungry.

  “No I…I mean yes I…but not like…” His face filled with colour as he stammered. Ellen’s defences relaxed. He seemed harmless enough. Sweet enough.

  “It’s okay, sugar,” she soothed, adopting the seductive tone that she’d honed over the years. She grinned inwardly as his eyes darkened in response. She bet his cock was hardening right now and pressing against his rain dampened pants. She pouted slightly, just to complete the effect. She couldn’t help herself. There was just something about him that made her feel playful. More kitten than cat. “Now why in the hell are ya here at this time of the night? Surely you should be home in bed with a pretty young wife?” At the thought of him snuggling into someone, Ellen felt a surge of something unsettling. It finished in a hot, sharp pain that pierced her core and took her breath away.

  Was she jealous? Of what? The idea of lovers holding one another close? Or was it the idea that this particular young man was already taken?

  “I was wondering,” he sniffed as a raindrop plopped off the end of his nose, “I was hoping, Miss Finch, ma’am, that you’d come with me. I’ve heard that you’re as good a midwife as any round here and I’m in desperate need of your help.”

  Ellen chewed at a jagged fingernail.