Chapter 4

Nobody but the desk clerk heard Jarrod's exclamation. He looked up for a moment and then went back to what he was doing. Jarrod hesitated there in the lobby, not sure whether to go into the restaurant and find out what was going on or run up to his room and lock the door behind him again. What he saw in front of him was completely beyond belief.

Emily Springer was supposed to have gone home last night. Nat Springer was supposed to have gone home today. And certainly Sarah Essen was NOT supposed to be sitting there having dinner with the both of them.

Jarrod decided fast that he wanted absolutely no part of this insanity, and he turned to head up to his room, but he was walking in a daze. Before he got to the stairs, he heard Nat's voice behind him. "Jarrod!"

Jarrod stopped. Springer was coming toward him. Jarrod held his hands up. "No, I don't know what's going on but I don't want any part of it. Just turn around and go back in there to your – women. I don't know what you're up to, I don't want to know, I just want you to leave me out of it."

Jarrod turned to head upstairs but Springer took his arm and stopped him. "I know this looks crazy, but – "

"Crazy?!" Jarrod said. "Have all three of you lost your minds? Do you want to make me crazy too, because you're doing a whale of a good job of it!"

"Will you just let me explain?!"

"NO!"

Springer kept hold of him. "Jarrod, we've made peace. All of us. Emily and I are leaving on the late train."

"Next you'll tell me Sarah Essen is going with you," Jarrod said.

"No, no," Springer said. "She's staying right here. She's Johnson's partner in this hotel now."

"What?!"

"She bought the hotel! We settled today! Who would have thought she'd have done so well as a – well, she had enough money to put into this place with Johnson – turns out he was a friend of hers too, if you know what I mean – anyway, Emily and I have talked it out and worked it out and now we're just giving Sarah some details about this place – she's going to move into room 2B, by the way."

"No!" Jarrod said. "Nat, I don't want to hear it! This has all been crazy and I'm glad if you've sorted it out, but I don't want to be involved in any way anymore! Go settle everything with your wife and your - friend, but leave me out of it, and for God's sake, stay away from room 2B until I'm gone in the morning! And I don't want to hear any fun going on in 3B either!"

Jarrod was out of breath after his rant and he just wanted to get away from Nat Springer forever. He turned and headed upstairs, and almost choked on the laugh he felt come over him when Springer called after him, sincerely, "Thanks for you help, Jarrod!"

Jarrod got up to his room, let himself in, and locked the door. He put his papers down, shed his tie and jacket and wondered what he was going to do for food, because he sure wasn't going down to the restaurant or even leaving this room. He decided to just go hungry and make it all up at breakfast. He flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

But everything that had happened made such little sense that it kept rolling through his mind, trying to straighten itself out. Not that he was sorry peace had descended on the Springer marriage and even with Sarah Essen. He was happy about that, but completely baffled. They must have had one heckuva day, the three of them, to have sorted it all out by dinnertime, but how the heck did they do it? Emily had been ready to kill Nat over Sarah, and now they were all smiles in the restaurant? That was crazy!

Jarrod fell asleep despite himself. He had absurd dreams, dreams about strange women fighting in the street while Nat Springer cheered them on from the sidelines. Dreams about Emily bashing him – Jarrod – over the head repeatedly with divorce papers. Even dreams about Sarah Essen wandering around the hotel and visiting every single room, including 2B while he was occupying it. He woke up fast from that one, the moment the door opened in his dream and Sarah Essen was there.

Jarrod moaned and checked his watch. It was still dark, but edging on toward five o'clock. Jarrod sat up, lit the bedside lamp, saw he was still dressed and realized for the first time that he had fallen asleep and slept through the night. For a moment he thought all the tumult in the days before between the Springers had just been another part of his insane dreams, but then he realized that it had really happened. Every crazy bit of it had been real.

He cleaned up, shaved, dressed in his trail clothes and carefully folded and packed his suit into his saddlebags. He wouldn't need the suit again on this trip. He'd have it cleaned and pressed when he got home. From here he was only going to a meeting with a cattleman to finalize a contract for cattle Nick wanted him to take care of, then to another ranch to check out some horses Nick had heard about but didn't have time to look into. Then he'd go home. Then life would get normal again.

But not yet.

By the time Jarrod was finished cleaning up and dressing, the restaurant was open for breakfast. He went down, taking his saddlebags with him, and checked out, leaving 2B behind forever. But not leaving everything behind.

He was the first customer in the restaurant, but there was Sarah Essen, talking to two waitresses in the back of the room. Jarrod nearly left, half afraid the Springers were going to come out of the woodwork, but Sarah turned and saw him. She came over to him right away, and he was too much a gentleman to turn and walk away from her.

"Mr. Barkley," she said. "Please, come in, sit down, breakfast is on me."

Jarrod gave in. Sarah pointed him to a table with four chairs. He left his saddlebags in one, sat down in another, and before Sarah finished sitting down across from him, a waitress was pouring coffee into a cup in front of him. He ordered ham and eggs.

"Nat and Emily and I had some pretty blunt conversation yesterday, and I know how caught up you got in our little drama," Sarah started.

Jarrod held his hand up. "Miss Essen, I really don't want to know."

"Just know that Nat and I are through," she said. "We'll never see each other again, and he and Emily have worked things out. I will tell you the truth, as I told the two of them. The only thing I ever wanted from Nat was this hotel."

Jarrod thought about the future of the hotel. He couldn't help the skeptical look that came over him. "Why didn't you just make him an offer?"

She shook her head. "I knew his former partner in this place, the man who died and left the whole thing to him. That man would never have sold out, and I knew I could never afford this place on my own. It took me a while to work Luther Johnson into the picture – he's my partner in this place now. Well, anyway, I - made friends with Nat, worked him down on the price and confessed everything to him and Emily yesterday and – well, you probably won't be surprised to learn that Nat wasn't even mad that I'd used him so. In fact, he congratulated me on my business sense."

Jarrod actually moaned. "You're right. That doesn't surprise me about Nat. But Emily?"

"I convinced her I was out of Nat's life," Sarah said. "I convinced the two of them that their marriage shouldn't be thrown away over me, and they actually told me that you had tried to counsel them to keep it. I guess between you and me both, they listened."

Jarrod rubbed his forehead.

"I'm a fraud, and worse," Sarah said, "but I get what I want, Mr. Barkley. Maybe I'm a little on the wrong side of the track for you, but this time I did some good, for them and for myself."

She had smiled through this whole thing. She really was pleased with herself for getting this hotel, for getting Nat Springer out of her life and back to his wife. Jarrod shook his head. "Your methods are a bit inventive. And I suppose if Nat and Emily go bad again, I'll be one of the first to hear about it, since I recommended a good lawyer to her."

"You were very patient with them," Sarah said. "Needless to say, Nat told me he had made your entire stay complimentary, and I'll go with him on that. I assume they didn't charge you for your room at the front desk."

"They didn't," Jarrod said. Then he looked carefully into Sarah's big brown eyes. "How is it a woman as sharp as you turns to the type of business you conduct out of your room over the saloon, instead of an honest business that would keep you out of all kinds of trouble?"

"A woman has to have means, Mr. Barkley," she said. "I wasn't born with a plateful of money. I had to earn it somewhere, and a dress shop wasn't going to give it to me. Maybe, if I'm lucky, that business from that other room is a business I can give up now that I'm the owner and manager of a hotel. But I know what you're thinking – hotel? What kind of hotel will it be next week?"

Jarrod nodded with a lifted eyebrow. "A legitimate question, considering the way you've made your living thus far."

Sarah Essen smiled back at him. "You'll be welcome to come and check it out anytime – first visit on me. You might be surprised at what you find."

"Yes, well, I wish you luck," Jarrod said, looking for a way to end this conversation now. "I'd say it's been a pleasure meeting you, but it's been more an adventure than a pleasure."

"You know, when you stopped by my place the other night, I wasn't expecting the man I found at the door."

Jarrod gave an uncomfortable little laugh. "I gathered."

"In a way, I was sorry," she said.

The waitress bringing his ham and eggs gave him a break to get the end of this conversation started. "Well, I'm afraid the business you run out of that room is not a business I'm often a patron of." He dug in, then he stopped and looked at her. "But if you ever need a good lawyer…"

Sarah Essen laughed. "Believe me, Mr. Barkley. I'll be coming to you a lot faster than I'll be going to Nat Springer."

Sarah got up, and Jarrod stood up as she did. He extended a hand. "Good luck with your new enterprise, Miss Essen, and thank you for whatever you did to get the Springers back together. They really are friends of mine – though sometimes I wonder why."

She took his hand. "Thank you, Mr. Barkley, for your good wishes. The next time you're in Cedar Grove, make sure you stay here. By then, who knows? I might be able to move out of 2B and renovate the upper floor into one nice, big suite of my own."

Jarrod gave another awkward smile. She wasn't through with the invitations, and he wasn't through wondering what these were invitations to.

Sarah Essen smiled a sly smile, then turned and went out of the restaurant.

Jarrod sat back down, shook his head, finished his breakfast, and left town. Happily.

The End