An Impassioned Redemption: A Defiant Hearts Novella Read online

  An Impassioned

  Redemption

  Sydney Jane Baily

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either 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.

  Copyright 2014 Sydney Jane Baily

  Cover: Christy Caughie, Gilded Heart Design

  Copyeditor: Chloe Bearuski

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For more information, contact Cat Whisker Press through the contact page at www.CatWhiskerStudio.com.

  Dedication

  To Pandora,

  My iron-willed, independent daughter

  Who personifies bravery and loyalty on a daily basis.

  I love you more than you can ever imagine!

  Acknowledgments

  Sincere thanks to the following: My dear friend and fellow writer Marliss Melton, who gave this story the once-over, offering me invaluable advice on personality types. Fellow writer, E. Ayers, who generously gave of her time to read my story and steer me in the right direction. Wendie Grogan, who caught typos, inconsistencies, and some poor word choices. This book was made better by all of you.

  Table of Contents

  A Note About An Impassioned Redemption

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  More Books by Sydney Jane Baily

  Author Bio

  A Note About An Impassioned Redemption

  by Sydney Jane Baily

  While all of my books’ heroines are either independent or feisty or unorthodox (or all three), I’ve never before written about such a wayward female as An Impassioned Redemption’s Josephine Holland. Though unmarried, she is not a virgin and is unapologetic about that fact. She is passionate, smart, and liberated, particularly for a woman in the 1880s, and a capable businesswoman, as well. She captured my interest and my heart when she arrived full-blown and sassy in An Inescapable Attraction, Book 3 of my Defiant Hearts series. Though she had only a small role to play, she played it larger than life, helping her friend Thaddeus Sanborn rescue the love of his life, Eliza Prentice. But could a saloon owner who is also a brothel madam have a romantic story of her own? Yes! Jameson Carter never had a name in Book 3, though he behaved heroically, saving the lives of Eliza and Thaddeus after a terrible shootout. And he lived only a stone’s throw away (actually, a river’s width) from Miss Josephine Holland. Naturally, this sexy riverboat gambler frequented her saloon. However, he wanted to know her better—intimately, in fact. It was up to me to make his wish come true. This is their story…

  Chapter One

  Jameson Carter entered The Pork and Swallow, hoping as always to catch a glimpse of her. She was elusive though. The lovely Miss Josephine Holland wasn’t a common sight, but then nothing about her was common. With her mane of thick sable hair and slanted green eyes that reminded him of the mouser cat he kept on board his boat, she could have any man she wanted on either side of the Mississippi River.

  Occasionally, she sat at a private table, sipping some amber beverage, chatting with one lucky customer whom she invited to sit with her. More often, she had an accounting ledger in front of her and a focused expression on her exquisite face. Tonight, there was no sign of her.

  Jameson took a seat at the bar, gestured for Pete to pour him a whisky, and surveyed the room. He saw a familiar face or two, men who sometimes sat in his own establishment, the best gambling riverboat on this stretch of the Mississippi if not the whole damn river. And with that thought, he always said a private thanks to one Eliza Prentice Stoddard Sanborn, who had made it all possible for him. The gutsy lady had given him her dead husband’s ring and his boat, and then she’d left with the love of her life.

  Knowing what he knew of love, Jameson thought he’d got the better part of the deal.

  Tonight, he wanted an unwatered drink and some womanly company. He could get both on his gambling boat docked on the Hamilton side, but he made it a policy not to take any of his own female employees to the comfortable bed in his cabin. Bad for business. Next thing he knew, they ‘d be putting on airs and lording it over the other ladies whom he employed to entertain the gamblers, to sing and dance, and to generally brighten up the place.

  No, it was better to go elsewhere, and The Pork and Swallow was his favorite saloon across the river in Keokuk. The women were young but not too young. They were well-looked after, so they had their teeth, and one didn’t risk French pox by getting close to them. They could even chat about the state of affairs or politics, or they could stop talking and do delightful things to a man’s body. And there was always the chance of seeing Josephine, who owned the place along with her business partner, Pete Carlisle.

  When Pete gestured as to whether Jameson wanted another drink, he nodded. It was clear to him that Josephine was the guiding light behind the success of the saloon, and probably only partnered with Pete because it was safer for a woman to have a man at her side. He knew in his gut there was nothing else between them, just from the way he’d seen them together.

  In fact, he’d never seen Josephine take anyone upstairs with her. Not that it was any of his business.

  Jo came down the stairs from the second floor that housed her and four other women—her girls, as she thought of them. Glancing around her establishment, she faltered to a halt on the last step when her eyes came to rest on the man in black. Carter. They’d never been formally introduced, but months ago, she’d asked one of her saloon’s regulars about him.

  Jameson Carter owned the lively riverboat where she’d once spent the night with its previous owner, the late Jack Stoddard. That had been an evening to remember, though not because of Jack; unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on one’s point of view—the man had been as unable to have relations with her as one of the worms in the small but thriving garden to the side of her saloon.

  No, it had been memorable because she’d helped out her good friend, a man with whom she’d considered falling in love. However, after watching him take care of Stoddard’s wife and seeing how they looked at each other, Jo realized that what she felt for the man wasn’t love at all. Instead of the pang of a broken heart, she felt only the tiniest twinge of foolishness at falling not for the man himself, but for the idea of someone rescuing her from her life, such as it was.

  After that night, she’d decided she didn’t need rescuing anyway. Her life was damn good. No man owned her or could tell her what to do. And her saloon made decent money, however indecently it made it.

  Why she didn’t simply stroll up to Carter, place her hand on his broad shoulder, and introduce herself, she had no idea. Well, she did actually. He sparked an interest in her that was simply not allowed. She knew she could have him in her bed if she wanted. All her life, she’d been told of her appeal—she was curvaceous in all the right places and had naturally red-tinged lips to which men s
howed an inordinate amount of interest. However, at the moment, she found she couldn’t put her mouth to use to smile or even to speak. She simply didn’t know how to approach the man.

  Jo glided quietly toward her private table. She didn’t want to speak to him in the guise of a saloon owner and a madam because more than anything, she wanted to impress him, talk to him, get to know all about him. Then she wanted to run her fingers through his dark brown hair and look into his intelligent toffee-colored eyes.

  Oh, she wanted him in her bed all right—after all he was the essence of dash-fire and sensual appeal—but she also wanted a man, an interesting man like him, in other aspects of her life. To take supper with, to go to a play, to sit with on a sunny afternoon and talk about the day’s events or read over the local newspaper. And women like her simply didn’t get that opportunity, except the bed part, and then only for a night at a time. No matter how financially rewarding that arrangement might be, it wasn’t what she wanted with Jameson Carter.

  With his back still to her, Jo pulled out her chair, which made a thunderous scraping sound that seemed as loud to her ears as a gunshot. She cringed as heads started to turn and Carter looked around.

  Another shot rang out and all hell broke loose. Jo realized that it hadn’t been her chair making the first noise after all. As her heart leaped into her throat, she dropped to her knees and scrambled under the table. Gunfights were few and far between, especially in her classy establishment. And even then, a broken window was usually the most damage. Everyone knew this wasn’t the wild west of twenty years ago, and she’d be cussed if she’d let her place get a bad reputation because some idiot had drunk too much.

  Slipping her small derringer out of its ankle holster, she peered over the tabletop. Not much to see after the initial shots—everyone had taken cover as best they could. She glanced to the bar, where Pete’s eyes were staring back at her, just visible over the polished oak counter along with his Purdey double rifle. Beside him was Carter, who must have jumped over the bar and taken aim next to Pete.

  With his revolver jutting out over the counter’s edge, one hand on the trigger and the other on the cocked hammer, he presented an image that captured her for a moment—calm and controlled, with his golden brown eyes surveying the room. Yup, Jo felt as if she had all the support she needed. She swung her gaze back to the room. Overturned tables hid most of the patrons in the sudden deadly quiet.

  “Who the hell is shooting up my place?” Jo demanded into the silence.

  No answer at first.

  Then all of a sudden, the table closest to her rolled aside and fell flat with a crash. Frank Hirsch stood up, holding one of her girls—Madeleine, a sweet blonde who could do things with her tongue that made her extremely popular. Some nights, however, she was as choosy as a wealthy virgin princess, especially when it came to men like Hirsch, a little heavyset and not very attractive with large chipmunk jowls. For him, she would do nothing more than sit on his lap and sell him Pete’s good booze.

  Jo sized it up in an instant because she knew Frank had propositioned Madeleine more than once and had been soundly rebuffed each time. Frank was a strange one, an Evangelical preacher with a bible always tucked in his pocket and usually a glass of whisky in his hand.

  Blazes! If she hadn’t been so distracted by Carter, she’d have noticed trouble brewing as soon as she’d entered the room.

  “Frank, honey, what in the hell are you doing?” she asked him.

  “I want Miss Madeleine to take me upstairs,” he said, a slight slur to his voice, and his grip tightened around the young woman’s waist, as Madeleine pushed against him trying to free herself. “And no one is going to stop me,” Frank added belligerently.

  Jo’s eyebrows lifted. Did he think firing his gun would get him what he wanted? Liquor had obviously turned his brain to mush. It was clear from Madeleine’s stricken expression as she squirmed in his arms that she feared Frank’s unpredictability.

  “No one forces my girls anywhere,” Jo said, and knowing she was taking a risk, she slowly stood. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Pete’s head rise higher above the bar, and she even saw Carter shake his head in warning.

  “I don’t want to force her,” Frank said, “I want her to like me.” He gave Madeleine a shake to still her movements, and when that didn’t stop her struggling, he put his pistol to her ribs.

  “Do you want to be banned from The Pork and Swallow?” Jo asked, taking a step away from her table, the derringer all but hidden in her palm.

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “But I’m sick of her games. I can help her see the light of the gospel and become a good preacher’s wife. She just has to submit to me is all.”

  “Frank, you listen to me and you listen good. You put your gun away and you let Madeleine go. If you don’t do it by the time I count to five, you will never be allowed to set foot in here again. One,” she started to count.

  “I aim to have her,” Frank insisted.

  “Two,” Jo said.

  “I’ve been waitin’ long enough.”

  “Three.”

  “That’s not fair,” Frank bellowed. “Stop your damn countin’.”

  “Four.”

  Jo felt cold drops of fear slide down her spine. The last thing she wanted was to be saying “five” and have him still holding Madeleine. Then what? She’d have to shoot him or lose all control of the situation, not to mention all authority for the future.

  Frank shifted his weight from one leg to the other and drew his gun away from Madeleine.

  “I am never taking you upstairs,” the blonde hissed, and Frank howled before shooting at the ceiling in his rage.

  “Five,” Jo yelled bringing his attention back to her. And it came back full force, with him leveling his gun directly at her. Three shots went off at once, none of them from Frank.

  Jameson leaped over the bar as the reverberations faded and as Frank Hirsch hit the floor, blood pouring out from under the man’s body. Madeleine started shrieking and crying, though Jameson could see she hadn’t been hit. Immediately, she was hauled aside by another of the saloon girls, who wrapped her arms around the pretty blonde and comforted her.

  His gut told him instantly that Frank was done for. He and Pete had shot the man at the same time, but who had fired the third shot? Turning toward Josephine, he saw the smoking derringer she was still holding at hip height and realized she’d also fired at the man. No wonder Hirsch had dropped like a stone.

  Josephine stood unmoving, transfixed, as she stared at the dying man on her saloon floor. Jameson took a step toward her, not knowing what he was going to do—comfort her somehow. At that moment, her gaze shifted to intercept his, and he couldn’t tear his eyes from hers. Brilliant green, clear, and unwavering. Then he noticed her mouth—her beautiful, lush mouth—was trembling.

  As she stared at him, however, she seemed to collect herself. She blinked, lifted her skirt a couple inches, bent down and stowed her gun in one easy motion that took his glance to her heeled shoes and slender ankles. Then, with only the barest of nods that he took to be gratitude, she turned on her heel and went back up the stairs, her small feet clattering quickly on the wooden treads.

  Back in his stateroom on his boat, Jameson removed his holster and put it on the table beside his bed. Times were quieter at his floating casino since the days when Jack Stoddard ran things. Less dangerous—nothing more than a few fistfights and, rarely, an occasional shooting over the deck rail spurred by exhilaration if someone won big. Still, he would feel naked without his six-shooter, and thank God he’d had it tonight.

  Pete’s rifle had nicked Frank Hirsch, rest his tortured soul, in the left arm, and Josephine’s bullet had hit him squarely below his collar bone, but Jameson’s bullet had gone right into his heart. He shuddered to imagine if Frank had only been wounded and angry, and fired on Josephine at such close range.

  Running a hand over his eyes, he sank down onto his bed. She was so lovely; it nearly hurt him
to look at her. And he’d barely had a chance anyway, since she’d disappeared so damn fast without a word. Tomorrow evening, he’d go back and see if she was all right. Hell, he knew she was all right. Clearly, she was a resilient woman who could take care of herself and her business. But like an itch between his shoulder blades that he couldn’t quite reach, he could not ignore the persistent notion that he had to see her again.

  As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait for the next evening, nor did he have to leave his own boat. Finishing a midday meal with his right-hand man, Ben, whom he trusted with his life and his boat and his business—maybe the only person in the world whom he felt that way about—Jameson saw Miss Josephine Holland’s carriage through the open doors of the main gaming room on the second level.

  His heart gave a quick jolt, and he sprang up from his seat to get a better view.

  Yup, unmistakably her, in a glamorous buggy that was festooned in red trim, with her quick little gelding that trotted up to his dock and stopped gracefully.

  Ben stepped outside onto the deck first. “We’re not open yet, ma’am.”

  Coming to stand beside him, Jameson couldn’t help the smile that broke out on his face, merely at seeing the woman.

  “That’s all right,” he called out. “Come aboard, Miss Holland, and then come on up.”

  He watched her alight from her carriage, wishing he’d been closer so he could have taken her hand. As it was, he would have looked foolish running downstairs, across the deck, and down the shallow, wide gangplank onto the dock. Instead, he tried not to let his impatience show as he waited, appreciating the view as she walked in a her own swaying-gliding way.