Upon a Midnight Clear Read online

  Maybe it was the word richest that finally broke through to Kathryn, or maybe it was just the whole rotten day in which she had been repeatedly accused of being a prostitute, and had seen her son nearly murdered in the filthy streets while a bunch of dirty ruffians watched. Or maybe it was kissing a man who turned out to be such a pig as this one. Whatever it was, Kathrytfs temper broke.

  With measured steps, she walked toward the desk, then put her fists on it and leaned toward him. He was sitting, so she was the one looking down at him.

  "Let me make myself clear, Mr. Jordan. I have no, let me repeat that, no desire to marry you or any other man. I came here because I signed a contract for a job. You hear me? A job! And I want nothing else from you. Right now I don't even want that because I have never met a more vain, egomaniacal man than you in my life—and that includes the aristocracy of Ireland. I have no idea how the photographs were exchanged, but I can assure that I did not switch them. I represented myself honestly and with integrity, and that is how I expect to be treated in return. Now, I demand that you honor your contract with me!" Never in her life had Kathryn demanded anything, except sometimes that Jeremy not do something dangerous, but this man seemed to elicit emotions and responses from her that she'd never felt before.

  "Demand, do you?" the man said with a one-sided smile, then slowly he stood up, pulling himself to his full height of well over six feet. "Well, Mrs. de Long, I demand that you get out of my house and never step foot into it again. Now which of us is more likely to have our demands obeyed?"

  Standing there, Kathryn looked across the desk into eyes that had turned as cold as sapphires, and she knew she had lost. There was nothing she could do or say that was going to make this man give her the job that was hers by right, the job that she and her son so desperately needed.

  Trying to retain her pride, she stiffened her back and walked toward the door. If she allowed herself to think for even a second about what this man was condemning her to, she'd collapse.

  Once she was outside the odious man's office, she took Jeremy's hand in hers and led him out of the house. Jeremy knew his mother well enough not to ask questions about what had gone on; besides, their voices had been loud enough for him to hear most of it.

  Kathryn half pulled him down the dirt road, past the stone wall that separated the two very different parts of town from each other, and into the muddy streets of Legend proper. For all that Jeremy was only nine, he had seen a very ugly side of life, and he knew what jobs were open to women in a place like Legend.

  "I can work," he said softly. "I'm strong and I can get a job. There are mines here and I—"

  Abruptly, Kathryn halted in the middle of the street and stared at her son. "Going to work in a mine at nine years old?" she said, horror in her voice. "Is that what kind of mother you think I am?" For a moment forgetting his age, she said, "I'll make a living on my back before I—" She broke off as she stared at something above Jeremy's head.

  "Mother?" he said, then turned and looked at the sign that was behind him. "Prettiest girls in the West," the sign read. "Highest prices for the best."

  "Mother!" Jeremy said in fear, then grabbed her arm when she took a step forward. "I'll work. I'll—:"

  But Kathryn wasn't paying any attention to him. As though she were in a trance she started walking, half dragging a fearful Jeremy behind her.

  "No, no," he began, but stopped when his mother walked past the entrance to the saloon and instead started up the stairs beside the building. For a moment Jeremy stood rooted where he was, then he saw a small sign hanging beside the bottom of the stairs. I'll sue anybody about anything, the sign said. No case too small. I ain't afraid of nobody. John T. Stewart, attorney-at-law.

  "What an extraordinary sentiment," Jeremy said, reading the sign. "Mother, did you—"

  But Kathryn was already halfway up the stairs, and Jeremy had to run to catch her. "Mother, whatever are you thinking of doing?"

  "I'm going to sue the bastard," Kathryn de Longe said, which made her son stand where he was, his mouth open in disbelief, for he'd never, ever heard his mother use such a word before. She thought damn might open the gates of hell.

  "Wait for me," Jeremy called and ran to follow his mother into the grimy little office.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  "Cole Jordan?" the attorney, John T. Stewart, said as he pulled on the long point of his drooping mustache. "You want me to sue Cole Jordan?" Turning around in his chair, he glanced over his left shoulder at his plump wife, who was knitting what looked to be a twelve-foot-long scarf. Mr. Stewart seemed to be highly amused by the very prospect of suing such a man—and he didn't seem to have any intention of taking the case.

  "Mr. Stewart, your sign says that you are afraid of no one," Kathryn said, her lips tight, and she couldn't resist a bit of sarcasm. "Why didn't you write, 'With the exception of Cole Jordan'?"

  She had meant to shame him, but instead, he grinned at her. "I didn't write on there, 'Except for the devil,' either." After a pause, he looked over his shoulder to see if his wife had caught his witticism, and since she was smiling into her wool, she had.

  "No sir," Mr. Stewart said, "I'll sue anybody but the devil and Jordan, which in my book is about the same thing. I'll take on murderers and thieves. I'll even take on preachers, but I’ll not go against the Jordans."

  For Kathryn, what she was hearing was too much like what she'd encountered in Ireland over nine years before. No one would stand up to the O'Connors then, and now no one would help her fight the Jordans. "Are you telling me that in a free country like this you'd allow one man to rule you?"

  "You can wave all the flags you want, ma'am, but it won't help. The Jordan family owns every inch of this town, and we all do what they say."

  "How many of them are there?" Kathryn asked, eyes wide.

  "A passel, but most of 'em went to Denver years ago. Only Cole stayed behind to run the town."

  "This isn't a town, Mr. Stewart, this is a Den of Sin."

  "It is nice, ain't it?" Mr. Stewart said, smiling fondly. "This town is a lawyer's dream-come-true. I got so much business, a dozen of me couldn't do all the work. And I can charge whatever I want."

  Kathryn would have left as soon as she heard the man's cowardly attitude, but she was hungry and she knew Jeremy was too, and hunger makes a person desperate. Besides, in the last minutes she had been watching Mrs. Stewart. With every word that was exchanged, the woman's head had bent lower over her knitting, and she was now wearing a frown. Her look encouraged Kathryn.

  "I have a case that you couldn't lose," Kathryn said. "I have a contract signed by Cole Jordan, and I'm sure someone in town could verify his signature. But then he admits he signed the contract. I'm no longer asking to work for him, but he does owe me money, and I need that money. I traveled a long way on his word, and now he's going back on his word. Doesn't that count for something here in America?"

  "Maybe in America it does, but this here is Legend, and the United States government don't own this place, the Jordans do. They—"

  "Isn't there someone who isn't afraid of him?" Kathryn asked in exasperation. "I can see by the filth of this town that the decent people here are fighting a losing battle, but surely, someone, somewhere…" She was looking at Mrs. Stewart, who still had her head low, her frown deepening. "Maybe someone with children…Surely there must be someone besides me who isn't afraid of him. Or maybe there's something he's afraid of," she said as an afterthought.

  "Cole's afraid of guns," Mrs. Stewart said, speaking for the first time. "He won't touch a gun ever since he was nine years old. The boy had a dream that his whole family was killed by the people of Legend shooting at some robbers. Of course nothing like that ever happened, but that don't stop Cole. Won't touch a gun."

  After that statement the woman looked back down at her knitting, and Kathryn blinked in confusion. What did that information have to do with Mr. Jordan's refusal to honor a contract?

  But Mr.