She started to laugh. “So not just an entrepreneur, but on your way to being a business tycoon?”
“No, just thinking ahead, mainly making sure this particular street doesn’t attract any rowdiness.”
She raised a brow. “You promoted your town as peaceful, as I recall.”
“Cowboys will still raise hell on a Saturday night.”
“Oh, that.” But her thoughts had raced ahead, and she suggested, “An ice cream shop! I haven’t seen one here. And a bookstore or a library.”
Now he laughed. “Let me finish designing my store before I start thinking about others. But by all means, start a list. And maybe think about sticking around to help me bring it all together.”
That suggestion sort of fell out there. He wasn’t even looking at her when he said it. And she actually wished she could be there to see his finished dream. If she didn’t have to get back to that lord—what the devil was his name? Staring at Morgan, it simply wouldn’t come to her.
And then she realized what he meant. “Are you offering me a job?”
“No, I was thinking more about a partnership.”
Her eyes flared. In his store? Or in his life, as his wife? His store, of course. That was not how a man proposed marriage. And a business partnership would require her staying here and being tempted by him indefinitely. . . .
She assumed he would give her time to think about it, which was good, because she didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm with her answer. His store was an exciting venture—but Morgan was the real excitement, the man she wanted to be partnered with in every way. Oh, good grief, having only half of the partnership she wanted would never be enough for her.
She almost said no immediately. She didn’t, but she would have to say it eventually.
Chapter Forty-Eight
“WHAT ARE THE ODDS?” Morgan said as they left the restaurant.
Violet glanced at him, about to ask what he meant, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing down the boardwalk. She squealed in delight when she saw her brothers hurrying toward them. Indeed, what were the odds of seeing identical twins in town who weren’t the Mitchell brothers? She laughed and ran ahead to hug them.
“Why didn’t you let us know you were arriving today?” she asked.
“We did,” one of them—Daniel?—said. “I sent the telegram to Butte as soon as I bought the train tickets and got the date of our arrival here. You must already have left by then.”
“No matter, you’re here! And you must be anxious to see Father. We’re staying at the Triple C ranch with his partner’s family, and”—she turned to make sure Morgan was still behind her—“this is his partner, Morgan Callahan. Introduce yourselves, I’m not even going to try.”
He laughed and did—it was Daniel—but told her, “I’m making it easy for you. My hair got long while I was detained, and I decided not to cut it. I’ll wear this queue for now, until you get used to us again.”
Evan was shaking Morgan’s hand. “We can’t thank you enough, Mr. Callahan, for sending us that money, first to ease the urgency of making the loan payments, then to actually pay off the loan. Vi, you should have seen Mr. Perry’s face. He looked so disappointed.”
“I wanted to throw the money in his face, but Evan wouldn’t let me,” Daniel added. “You can’t imagine what a relief it was to pay off that loan. Thank you, Mr. Callahan.”
“Charley was, is, my friend,” Morgan replied, then grinned. “And your sister just had to remind me of that with a bit of nagging.”
Violet gasped. “I don’t nag!”
“Charley?” Evan asked.
She tsked. “That’s what Morgan calls Papa.” But she wasn’t letting her brothers off the hook. “Daniel, why and where exactly were you detained?”
“My tailor had me thrown in jail for not paying my bills.”
Evan quickly added, “With the first money that arrived, there was enough to hold off Perry and pay off Dan’s debts to get him out of jail. But that was a hellish month, Vi, grieving for Father, worried sick about you when we didn’t hear from you again, all while the clock was ticking down on the house.”
“Well, you’ll be glad to know that the man responsible for faking Father’s death and causing us that grief is on his way to prison, but I’ll let Father explain that later. I’m sure you’re eager to see him, so shall we?” She pointed them toward the buckboard in front of the restaurant.
Morgan helped her onto the driver’s seat to ride next to him again, so she had to turn in the seat to converse with her brothers.
“Papa did exactly what he set out to do: he’s found a new fortune, thanks to Morgan’s benevolence. You two won’t have to work in the mine, but one or both of you will need to oversee the miners who will do the work, at least until a manager is hired and until we’ve earned enough to pay back the loan Morgan gave us. But Papa and Morgan can explain that in more detail later. So you can both stop worrying—and that means you won’t need to marry that heiress now, Evan, unless you want to.”
“No!” He laughed. “It was merely an option, and a very unpleasant one. She’s rich as sin but doesn’t even feign being nice.”
“He’s politely not saying she’s insufferable and arrogant, and he was being overly kind when he told you she was pretty, because she’s not,” Daniel put in. “But we thought it best not to mention that when we had all that other bad news to tell you the day you got home.”
“Good of you to spare me, but next time, don’t. Well, there won’t be a next time.”
“I’m excited to be here,” Evan said. “I never dreamed we’d get to see this part of the country.”
“I feel the same,” Daniel said enthusiastically. “So I volunteer to manage the mine.”
But Evan objected. “We may have to fight over it, Brother.”
“Mines,” Violet corrected. “There are two of them side by side, and we have an equal partnership with Morgan. We can figure out who goes or if you both go later.”
They were halfway to the ranch when Evan said, “Vi, I just remembered! You’ll need to send someone with a wagon for your trunks.”
“Trunks? I just asked for one.”
“Yes, but you didn’t say which one, so we had to bring all of them to make sure you got the right one.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Morgan told her, then added in a whisper, “You’re happy around them, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am, they’re my brothers.”
He smiled. “Another good reason for you not to run back to England.”
Was that a subtle way of asking for her answer to his partnership offer? But he wanted her to help run his store here in Nashart, and her brothers would be near Butte—but they wouldn’t be an ocean away, either. Was Morgan playing underhanded, or just sweetening the pot?
She might be able to put off answering him until she was ready to leave, so she could continue helping him in the meantime. She wanted to fantasize a little longer about how wonderful it would be working beside this man permanently. She just had to ignore for now the one stumbling block: how inappropriate it would be to partner with a man while she was an unmarried woman. It just wasn’t done. She was sure her father would forbid it.
Her brothers’ argument about whether they should rent a carriage while they were in Nashart caught her attention. “Stop it,” she ordered. “There are no carriages to be had—” She broke off, and gave Morgan an excited glance. “A carriage-maker! For one of the shops on your new street. Or you might even bring in a few carriages yourself and add them to your emporium’s inventory.”
He grinned. “I like seeing you like this, open, bubbly—bossy.”
She laughed. “I’m not bossy.”
“She is!” both brothers said in unison.
Chapter Forty-Nine