Free The Tracker by Mary Burton Page A

too far from it.”
    His hand was warm, callused. “The only thing Montana has given me is long days filled with hard work.”
    “Better to stay with the devil you know than the devil you don’t know,” he said softly. “It is hard to leave one’s home.”
    She pulled her hand away, not liking the way her heart hammered in her chest when he touched her. “If I had twenty thousand dollars, I’d find it in me to leave.”
    He stared at her as if he were trying to read her thoughts. “Yes, I believe that you would.”
    The baby fussed and Ellie moved away from him, grateful for the reprieve. She picked the child up, savoring the soft scent of her skin. Rose calmed her nerves. Ellie warmed a bottle she’d already made up and teased the baby’s lips open with the nipple. The gentle scent of milk wafted around her.
    Nick folded his arms over his chest. His face held as much expression as a wall of granite. “How old are you, Ellie?”
    “Nineteen, I think, this past spring.”
    He frowned. “You’re not sure?”
    “Adeline didn’t bother with records when one of her girls gave birth.”
    “Your mother worked at the Silver Slipper, as well?” He sounded surprised.
    “Ma arrived at the Silver Slipper two years before I was born, but she’d worked a dozen different saloons in Montana since she was twelve.”
    “How old were you when she died?”
    “Six.”
    “And Miss Adeline kept you?”
    “I didn’t have any family and Miss Adeline thought I’d be of help in the kitchens.”
    “Why didn’t you leave?”
    She sighed. “I thought about it enough, but I didn’t know where I’d go. At the Silver Slipper, I knew I’d at least be able to get a good meal and have a bed to sleep in each night.” She pulled the bottle from Rose’s mouth and checked to see how much she’d eaten. “And there was an old man I worked with in the kitchen, Chin Lo. We got on well and in his way he looked after me. As I got older, I talked to him about the both of us leaving, but he said he was too old to start over. So I stayed with him. He died about five months ago.”
    “What do you mean, he looked after you?”
    “If a customer got out of hand with me, Chin Lo would slip him something to make him sick or sleep.”
    “Did you love him?”
    “I don’t know. I suppose.”
    Nick was silent for a moment. “When did you move to the upstairs work?”
    Ellie laid Rose on her shoulder and patted her back. Everyone assumed Ellie was a whore. There’dbeen a time when she’d watch the proper ladies in town and try to copy their speech and the way they walked. But no matter how much she’d tried to be like a lady, no one thought any better of her. “ When doesn’t matter, does it?”
    “I suppose not.”
    She could have told him that she’d never worked the upstairs rooms. Lord knew the money was better. But his assumption made her mad. She didn’t feel as though she had to justify anything to Nick.
    Ellie had decided when she was a young girl to guard that part of her that was only hers to give. Women had so little and it pained her to see them sell their souls for a couple of bits.
    Nick sat in the chair by the stove, easing the pressure on his leg. He didn’t say anything to her for the next half hour as she finished the baby’s feeding. She wrapped up the last of her evening chores and locked the front door as she did every night. Leaving didn’t mean she’d shirk today’s chores. She’d give Annie her due until the moment she left.
    She laid Rose in the cradle in the main room. Nick rose and walked to his room. As she stood, she didn’t notice Nick approach with the handcuffs until it was too late. He clicked a cuff closed over her wrist.
    Before she could speak, the second bracelet clinked closed—around Nick’s wrist.
    She jerked at the handcuff. “What have you done?”
    There was triumph in his eyes but no satisfaction. “I won’t get much sleep if I’m worried about you running. Now I don’t have to