Sapphire Dreams

CHAPTER ONE

1881
Bozeman, Montana

Saturday was the busiest morning of the week at the Sapphire Palace. The restaurant was filled to capacity, the noise of conversation and laughter causing Kate O’Malley to feel a headache coming on. She appeared outwardly calm as she approached Marshal James Freeman’s table in the Sapphire Palace dining room, though deep inside her temper raged. If she were a teakettle, she’d be steaming! She had no doubt her cheeks were about the same shade as her red calico day dress. Why couldn’t she be a pretty blonde like her best friend, Annie Callahan, instead of red-haired and freckled?

Annie passed by just then, carrying plates heaped high with the breakfast special. Dressed prettily in a robin’s egg colored gown that set off her blonde hair and matched her cool blue eyes perfectly, Annie threw her a smile that said, “Be calm, Kate.”

Kate sighed. Annie had to know about all she could do was try.

Once again last evening, the Marshal had done his blasted duty by closing down Marie Hannigan’s establishment across the street—a diner and brothel, the last establishment of its kind in Bozeman.

Kate thoroughly despised James Freeman’s holier than thou attitude. Since he’d begun charging through on a swathe of destruction, she’d vowed he would find no cause to close down the Sapphire Palace, fondly called Kate’s Palace by most folks who frequented the combination saloon, dining room and boarding house.

The Palace had been her mother’s dream, not hers. Kate’s father died several years ago, in a mining accident, leaving his wife and daughter to fend for themselves. Grace O’Malley had seen a need for a room and board place in Bozeman. Luckily, Kate’s mother was a no-nonsense woman with a clear mind for business. Kate had been in business three years, acquiring the business from her mother, who’d found a second love and moved to Texas.

Balancing a platter filled high with buckwheat cakes, over easy eggs, bacon and toast with marmalade jam, she wondered if Freeman’s conservative nature explained why he ordered the same breakfast every day. She felt tempted to fake a stumble and dump the entire contents on the good Marshal’s head. No, spending time in jail wasn’t in her plans.

Just as she reached his side, he looked up and gave her one of those steady lawman looks that seemed to penetrate her body and soul. Searching, she decided waspishly. The man was always searching for some evil-doer to toss into a jail cell. She smiled to herself at the image of the Marshal sleeping in one of the cells each night. Being rather new to town, he’d yet to find or build a home of his own.

He sat back with his arms crossed over his brawny chest. Her hands shook as she set the plates of food in front of him. “Thank you, Miss O’Malley.”

His deep baritone caused a shiver up her spine. His voice had been the first thing she’d noticed about him. Annie said his voice conjured up dreams of something she had no business fantasizing. On principle, Kate insisted she found his voice cold and crude. She didn’t try to explain why it affected her so profoundly every time if she truly hated him.

Kate gave him a brief nod, unable to meet his penetrating gaze any longer. Turning her back on him, she’d taken just two steps away when he spoke again. “More coffee would be appreciated when you’ve got the time.”

Keeping her back ramrod straight and her hands on her hips, she closed her eyes and counted to twenty. She’d already poured him several cups of coffee while he waited for his breakfast. Now she turned to him with a vivid but false smile on her lips. “Coming right up, Marshal.”

Her stride back to the kitchen was long and furious. She’d fix him up with coffee all right! She’d fetch the damn burr under her saddle his own personal pot.

Upon her return to the dining room to deliver breakfast to other customers, she wasn’t the least bit surprised to see he’d cleaned up more than half his breakfast. He was a huge man with an equally huge appetite—some appetites she could imagine more vividly than others, to her shame. Not for the first time, she found herself noticing his muscular frame, blue-black hair and attractive brown eyes.

More so than others, she knew there was more to a man than looks. Her last two beaus were utterly gorgeous. Too bad neither of them possessed much by way of manners where a lady was concerned. Bozeman remained a young town filled with youthful, wild men, some permanent and some passing through, but never would she accept outrageous behavior from her beaus or patrons. She expected any man entering her establishment to behave as a gentleman should, and that included removing his hat and leaving his gun with Brewster Johnson, the doorman she’d hired to keep the peace. Only the Marshal was allowed to keep his gun, owing to his job.

Back in the kitchen, she grabbed the handle of a coffee pot. Blinding pain shot through the palm of her hand, and she gasped, pulling her hand back. Annie dropped the plate of food she’d been dishing up on the counter to run to her. Grabbing her hand, she stuck it into lukewarm dishwater nearby.

“Kate? Whatever were you thinking?” she scolded.

Tears filled Kate’s eyes. “That’s the problem—I wasn’t thinking. Darn it! That man has the ability to make me forget common sense.”

Annie stood back with hands on curvaceous hips. “I gather you mean the Marshal?”

Kate caught the wry tone in Annie’s voice as her friend dried her hand gently with a cloth. Turning a sheepish look on Annie, she gave a curt nod. “When will he stop spying on me?”

“Likely not until he finds a reason to shut you down,” Annie said with a nonchalant shrug. “The man seems to have a personal vendetta against brothels.”

Kate watched Annie take up the plates and leave the kitchen. Scowling, she remembered how Brewster told her about the new man in town who’d refused to give up his weapon upon entering. She confronted James Freeman herself then, and her cheeks burned with humiliation when he merely smiled as he pulled his badge from his pocket. At the time she hadn’t wondered why he hadn’t been wearing the badge, but she knew the answer now. He was hoping to employ entrapment to shut her down.

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