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Someone held Jenna down and stabbed her in the side. She gasped and flailed with her hands, trying to push them away. The bushwhackers. . . had to be the bushwhackers. No, claim jumpers. They'd taken her papa and hurt Mama. "Papa, Papa, please come back."
Her throat clogged as though someone had stuffed a hand down it. The ache became unbearable. Tears pricked her eyelids. She fought them. Fought the unseen hands imprisoning her.
"Don't, Mama. You scare me when you talk to Papa like that. He's gone. Remember? The sheriff said Papa's dead, but I'll take care of you. Don't cry, Mama."
The hands gentled, stroking her face the way Papa used to do.
"Easy, darlin', don't fight me. I have to clean your wound."
Not Papa's voice.
Jenna forced her eyes open. For a moment, the image of a man wavered in front of her in the dim light—a hairy man. The claim jumpers had been hairy. But they were dead, weren't they? No. . . no, not the one who took her papa away. Finally, her vision cleared, and she saw him.
"Welcome back, hellcat."
"McCauley?"
The tenderness of his smile made her heart catch. Two days’ worth of stubble covered his cheeks above his beard where he usually kept it shaved. More stubble darkened his neck under his jaw. Shadows rimmed his tired eyes.
"You took a bullet, but you're going to be all right. I've been taking good care of you."
"Bullet?"
She lay on a bed, McCauley perched beside her. Only the coal oil lamp next to the bed offered any light. A soft, gentle rain pattered steadily against the window.
Branch's hands brushed her skin as he bowed his head over his work. Peering down the length of her body, she saw that she wore her lace-edged camisole with the thin yellow ribbon through the drawstring neck. The hem had been folded up over her breasts, barely covering them, and leaving her entire midriff bare. It was there that Branch labored.
"What are you doing? And why am I naked?"
"You aren't naked. You're wearing a camisole and a pair of clean drawers Maura found in your valise." With a teasing grin, he added, "Unfortunately for me. As for what I'm doing, I already told you: I'm cleaning your wound. You don’t remember being shot?"
The memory of their escape from Echo Canyon rushed back. She’d suffered a painful hitch in her side that wouldn't go away, along with nausea and dizziness. Branch told the truth—she'd taken a bullet. How could that be? She was too young, too good a shot herself, to come so close to death.
Branch's knuckles brushed the underside of her breast. She jerked as though struck by lightning. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she tugged the thin undergarment down. Branch pushed it back up.
"Stop that. I have to see what I'm doing, you know."
"Where's Maura? Why can't she tend me?"
"The sight of blood makes Maura ill. She can't even tend her kids' scraped knees. I sent for Mad Rose. She's the closest thing we have here to a doctor. She took one look, said I was doing a good job, and flew off on her broom."
He dabbed a vile-smelling ointment into the red puckered hole. Jenna grunted at the pain and tried to push away his hand. "Ugh!
What is that awful stuff?"
"Something to draw out infection and help it heal." He set aside the jar of ointment. "You might have to help me a little now, sweet. The bullet hit you in the fleshy part of your side here and went all the way through. I've taken care of the hole where it came out. Now I must turn you onto your side, so I can reach the wound where the bullet went in. They're only a few inches apart. You're damned lucky that lead hit nothing vital, but you did lose a lot of blood before I could get you home. That's why you're so weak."
Home. The word sounded so good. Yet, wrong. This wasn't her home. All the same, she felt safe, almost cherished. After all the lonely years of taking care of her mother, to have someone fuss over her felt wonderful. Wonderful, and scary, too.
She tried to turn herself onto her side to ease his job and cursed herself for the moan that escaped her lips.
"All right," he said a few moments later. "I'll bandage it up, and we're all done. A week or two in bed and you'll be good as new."
He slid his hand under her to draw the bandage around her middle. But his aim went awry, and he found his hand filled with the delicious firm flesh of her breast.
Jenna gasped. "Blast you, McCauley. I should have known better than to trust you."
She shoved his hand away, but not before he felt her nipple harden in sweet reaction. His own body responded in turn. He closed his eyes and willed it to behave. As badly as he wanted her, the timing was wrong.
"Give it to me," she muttered. "I'll do it myself."
"How do you expect to do that? You can't even see where the wounds are."
"I felt where you were working. I have a brain, you know."
An exasperated sigh left him as he relinquished the bandage. He sat back, watching her struggle to get up on her elbow. She tried to hide the pain, but he saw it in her eyes and tightened his hands into fists to keep from snatching the bandage back. Stubborn little mule.
Leaning on her elbow stretched Jenna's side, sending a hot shaft of pain through her whole body. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She simply hadn't the strength to sit up alone. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying out and tasted blood. It galled her to have to give in, but she had no choice.
Without a word, she handed him the bandage, thankful he did not chide her for her obstinacy. His hands, as gentle as before, went back to work, and made sure to avoid touching her more intimately than necessary. It made her feel small and childish. Blast the man! He wanted her to feel guilty. It made it easier for him to work his charm on her. And as much as she hated to admit it, he was charming—in a rough sort of way.
Every time he bent close to wrap the cloth under her, his breath feathered her cheek, reminding her of his kisses. He smelled of tobacco as he had then, and of what she suspected was whiskey. Despite herself, she peered over her shoulder and found herself mesmerized by the full, sensuous mouth partly hidden by the rusty beard and mustache.
"That does it." He knotted the ends of the bandage and pulled the camisole in place. "Do you want something to eat?"
Her stomach growled at the thought of food. He chuckled and walked to the door, carrying a basin of pinkish water. "I'll be right back. Don't climb out any windows while I'm gone."
"Wait, McCauley. What did you do with my prisoner? If you've turned him in and collected that reward, I'll—"
The smile slid from his face, and his eyes turned cold enough to freeze hell. Through clenched teeth, he said, "If you're talking about my brother's murderer, he's chained to a post down at Watt and Brizzie's Livery. It's the closest thing we have to a jail. You can have the damned reward. All I want is justice. And make no mistake, little Miss Bounty Hunter, I won't let you stand in my way. You'd best keep that in mind."
She had the grace to look abashed. "I'm sorry. Of course, seeing him pay for killing your brother is more important than money. It's just that. . . getting that reward is the only way I'll be able to stay in the territory and search for my father."
A fragment of ice melted from his gaze as he recalled the words she had mumbled as she regained consciousness. She'd suffered a lot at a young age. He had a hunch she'd pretty much raised herself and taken care of her mother. All because her father had vanished on them like mist in the morning sunshine. It was no wonder she tried so hard to be self-reliant. McCauley hoped he was around when she found her father. There were a few choice words he'd like to say to the old man himself.
"You can have the money," he told her, "as long as I see Mendoza hang. He's griping about the accommodations and the fact I won't let him wash or shave. Bastard's the fussiest damned dandy I ever met. He asks about you constantly. What in hell went on between you two in Echo Canyon before I showed up?"
Her smoky blue eyes darkened to indigo. "Nothing that’s any business of yours."
He took one long stride toward the bed and halted, sloshing water onto the floor from the pan he held in white-knuckled fists. "I'm making it my business."
"By what right?"
"I just saved your life. Is that right enough?"
She didn't answer. He glared at her a long time while the air snapped and crackled between them like lightning between metal rods. Then, without another word, he spun about and stomped out the door, slamming it shut behind him.
Rembrandt rose from the checkers table as Branch, his mouth a grim line beneath the red swoop of his mustache, tromped down the stairs.
"Is she worse?"
"No, she's awake and as prickly as a horned toad."
Maura, helping Jake Longan try on a pair of canvas-topped boots, interrupted the man mid-sentence to snap at her brother, "Sure, and wouldn't you be prickly, hurting as she must be? You didn't go and lose that famous temper of yours with the poor girl, did ye, brother mine?"
He turned his glower on her. Maura glowered right back until his shoulders slumped, his gaze dipped to the floor, and he shrugged. "Reckon I did." His head came back up, and his eyes once more spit sparks. "I swear she's the most infuriating woman I ever met. Why can't she see I only want what's best for her?"
"Is she not to be allowed her own ideas of what's best?" Maura tried to suppress her smile and failed. "Be ye jealous, Branch?"
"Jealous of who? Some two-bit gambler who's about to get his neck stretched? I couldn't care less who that stubborn little hellcat messes with as long as she doesn't rob me of seeing Mendoza swing." He shoved the water basin into his sister's hand. "Get her something to eat. I've got better things to do than play nursemaid to a horned toad."
"Aye, but nothing quite so much fun, I'll wager."
MIGUEL MENDOZA, BETTER known as Black Jack Mendoza, sat hunched in a bed of straw, the rough wood of a horse stall against his back. Metal cuffs bit into the tender, lacerated flesh of his wrists as he angrily rattled the chain linking the cuffs to those on his ankles. The connecting chain was barely long enough to allow him to squat over the slop jar in the comer. Another chain, attached to one of the leg cuffs, firmly anchored him to a stout comer post.
He shoved ebony hair out of his eyes and dropped his hands to his lap. His fingers itched for the feel of a deck of cards. His were all in his saddlebags, somewhere in this cold cave of a barn. Now and then, he heard the impatient stomp of horse hooves, a snort, or a whinny. He'd tried calling Fortuna, telling himself that knowing the mare was close by would make him feel better. It wouldn't, of course.
What hurt most was facing the fact that Lady Luck might have abandoned him.
Why? What had he done to deserve this cruel prank fate played on him? Fifteen years ago, when he had been young enough—and brash enough—to think himself immortal as well as invincible, he might have understood. He had done many foolish things then. Like letting himself get involved with a bunch of claim jumpers.
He wanted to scream, to rage at the unfairness of it all. Hadn't he paid his dues? Learned his lessons? His father disowned him because of his affection for gambling. And women. For other reckless deeds. Wasn't that enough? What he had once done for joy, he now did for security. For food, for Dios' sake!
All he could do was yank on the iron chain until the merciless metal bracelets sliced into his wrists until they bled.
Miguel cursed as he examined the wounds, fearful that the hands—his beautiful, competent hands—would now be scarred.
Scratching sounds brought Miguel's gaze to the rough four-foot-high wall that formed the opposite side of the stall. A yellow-and-black mottled cat jumped effortlessly onto the narrow railing and crouched there. Passionless golden-green eyes stared down at him. Still, Miguel liked seeing the furry mouser. Its presence eased one of his fears—rats.
With the rough texture of its coral pink tongue, the cat blissfully cleaned first one front paw, then the other. Watching, Miguel ran his tongue over his gritty teeth. One thing he hated—other than rats—was having to go without brushing his teeth. As if being chained like a rabid dog wasn't enough.
The least these gringo bastardos could do was let him keep his dignity. His hair hung in his eyes, greasy, and flecked with chaff from the straw bed. And he could smell himself—when the stench of his urine and excrement didn't overpower the other malodorous barn odors.
At least the straw was clean, and warmer than the bare ground. To complain would be a waste of time.
When he heard the big barn door slide open, he prayed it would not be the young señorita. Miguel could not bear for her to see him this way.
Then McCauley's face appeared over the stall door. "Ah, it is about time you came to see me again, señor. I was beginning to think
you had forgotten me, and I would be left to die here alone."
"Oh, you won't die alone, I can assure you of that." Branch flipped open the latch and stepped inside. "I wouldn't miss seeing you die for anything. In fact, if I had my way, you'd already be dangling from the nearest tree."
Miguel flinched. The gringo's voice sounded as cold and cutting as a January blizzard; the look in his eyes every bit as passionless as the cat's. For the first time, it occurred to him that there might truly be more to this miserable situation than discomfort and inconvenience.
"Tell me why this is so, señor. I have done you no harm."
"No?" Branch hunkered down out of the Spaniard's reach and dug out his Bull Durham tobacco.
Miguel watched him roll a cigarette, light it, and take a long pull. In the dim light of the barn, the tip glowed blood red and brilliant like the fires of hell. Chilled by McCauley's iron gaze, Miguel thought he might prefer hell. At least it would be warm there.
"Why'd you kill my brother, Mendoza?"
"I did not even know your brother. Why would I kill him?" Branch's nostrils flared exhaling blue smoke. His eyes hardened. "You tell me. And make it good. It may be the last chance you have to clear your conscience."
Miguel saw the man's fists tighten, nearly crushing the burning cigarette. McCauley kept his temper on a very short leash. Fear coiled at the base of Miguel's spine. If he could not convince this gringo he was innocent, he might not live to stand trial.
"I swear to you—" Miguel placed his hand over his heart, "—on my dear mother's grave, señor, I have murdered no one."
McCauley studied the glowing tip of his cigarette a long time, reconstructing the conversation he'd had with this man in the Wasatch Bathhouse. Then, holding Mendoza's gaze in the steel grip of his own, he took one last drag and ground the burning cigarette between his bare fingers. "I'm listening."
Miguel thought hard. Fortune offered a second chance.
He had to make the best of it.
THE NEXT MORNING FOUND Jenna stronger and in less pain. She shoved back the covers and eased her legs off the bed. Once on her feet, she found herself weaker than she'd expected. But she managed to totter over to the dressing screen and use the chamber pot. Feeling a bit stronger as she headed back, she paused at the window.
Outside, the sun created blocks of shadow beside the buildings, like quilt squares. The mud of the street changed from chocolate brown to rich dun as it dried. She tried the window and found it easy to lift. More proof, she told herself, that she was gaining strength. Her fine nostrils flared as she breathed in the fresh air and, with it, the smell of wood smoke, grass, wild mint, roses, and freshly cut pine. She ignored the aroma of horse manure and the cabbage someone was boiling at this improbable hour.
When a knock sounded on the door, she whirled and almost fell. Branch would throttle her if he found her out of bed without someone dancing attendance. She straightened her shoulders and reached for the robe Maura had loaned her. No way would she allow Branch McCauley to reduce her to a whimpering female incapable of taking care of herself.
Rembrandt peeked around the door, looking very hesitant. "I suspected you might be bored up here now that you're feeling better." He brought a checkers board out from under his arm.
"You suspected right. Come in, Mr. Rembrandt."
"No mister, just Rembrandt, please."
She nodded and sat in the one chair the room boasted, so she could continue to enjoy the open window. "I don't think I've ever
played checkers before, but I'd like to try if you'll teach me."
The old man's eyes widened. In surprise or dismay, she wasn't certain which. But all he said was, "It's an easy game, as long as you don't try playing with that young partner of mine." Then he winked. "He cheats."
Jenna laughed. "Even when he plays against himself?"
"Has he been doing that again?"
"He says it's the only way he can win."
"That I guarantee you is an outright lie." Rembrandt sat on the edge of the bed. "Playing checkers seems to relax him. Usually, when he resorts to playing himself, it's because he's troubled."
The old man moved the lamp on the small table that stood between them to make room for the game board. He picked up her open sketchpad. He glanced up at her, then back down at a penciled illustration of the inside of her room. The furniture lacked perspective—mere boxy shapes, awkward and out of proportion to one another. "You did this?"
Jenna shrugged. "No talent, I know. It made my mother happy to see me drawing though. I guess it became a habit."
His mouth tightened beneath the bushy white mustache. "Your mother's not here, however, and I have a feeling you don't truly enjoy it. Why do you persist?"
Her gaze slid to two charcoal sketches on the wall over her bed one on each side of a wooden crucifix. The first was a bearded Jesus, the other the Virgin Mary. The lines were slightly squiggly as though made by an unsteady hand, yet the faces reflected gentleness and acceptance, a serenity that made them beautiful and divine. "If I could draw that well, I might like it a lot."
Rembrandt glanced up at the pictures and made a rude sound. "Those are lousy, and I think you know it."
"They're better than mine. They remind me of a sketch my father did once of my mother. She was much younger then, though she hardly looks any older now." Jenna's mouth curved in a sad smile. "Maybe living in the past keeps one young."
"What do you mean. . . living in the past?"
"Nothing." She began taking game pieces from the box, sorting them by color. "Do you want red or black?"
"I'm rather partial to red," he said, a bit distractedly. He cleared his voice. "You said you'd never played before. Didn't you play board games with your brothers and sisters?"
"There was only Mama and me, and our housekeeper, Isa."
"No brother or sister? You're sure?"
She laughed, puzzled. "Of course, I'm sure."
"I come from a big family, like Branch. I guess I find it difficult to imagine being an only child."
"I can't imagine having so much family."
"Yes, I suppose so."
For a moment, his eyes filled with sadness. She stiffened at the thought that he might pity her for her lonely childhood. Then she assured herself she was being overly sensitive and concentrated on the rules he explained. He must be lonely. Why else would he seek out a total stranger with whom to pass his time?
"That cheating partner of yours is coming down the street now," she said, looking out the window. "He must have been at the livery stable checking on Mendoza."
"Good. Maybe now that you're up and about, I'll be able to get him back to work up at the mine."
"What do you mean?"
"He's barely left this room since he brought you back with those bullet holes in you. Didn't you know?"
Jenna frowned and nibbled at her thumbnail. "I've been sleeping, mostly. Did he stay here all night, too?"
"As near as I know."
She gnawed her thumbnail to the quick and moved to her forefinger, speculating as to why he would do such a thing. "I wonder what his sister thought of that."
Rembrandt chuckled. "My guess is that Maura's too happy to see him involved with a proper young lady to be judgmental."
"She's wasting her time if she's considering matchmaking McCauley and me. Maybe you'd better switch places with me, in case he comes up here."
Rembrandt glanced up from the board to study her. "You're not supposed to be out of bed yet?"
"You won't tell on me, will you? That partner of yours would make a better army sergeant than a nurse."
Giving a full-throated bellow of laughter, the old man gave a negative shake of his grizzled head. "I wouldn't want to see you thrown in the stockade. You're much too delightful."
"Delightful enough to get away with the impertinence of asking how you came to team up with a gunslinger?"
One bushy brow rose to his hairline, but his smile remained. "Branch is a complex man. Don't judge him out of hand, my dear."
A childish shout drew Jenna's gaze back to the street where two boys were pummeling each other with their fists. A scrap of a dog bounded around them, snapping and barking. "Coward!" one yelled.
"You're the coward."
Branch reached them about the time they rolled into a thick ooze of mud. "Come on, now, this is no way to settle an argument."
Recognizing his partner's voice, Rembrandt rose and joined Jenna at the window. Using both hands, Branch held each boy at arm's length.
"All right, now," he said. "What's this all about?" Neither of the boys seemed eager to talk. They stared back at him with wide, fear-stricken eyes. Branch released them and hunkered between them. The largest was a towhead, the other dark, both barefoot and covered with mud. Branch rubbed a dollop off the towhead's cheek. "Gonna have a shiner there. Reckon your ma'll be upset about that."
The boy nodded, wiggling his toe in the ooze at his feet. "It was Charley's fault."
"Was not," Charley countered.
"Was, too."
"Was not."
Branch turned aside, and Jenna smiled, knowing he was trying not to laugh.
"It was too his fault, Mr. McCauley. He dared me to run up and touch your Peacemaker and then called me a coward 'cause I didn't want to."
Branch's smile faded, and he rose to his feet. "Why would you dare him to do that, Charley?"
The boy hung his head. "Didn't mean nothing, sir. It's just. . . Well, everybody knows you're a gunslinger."
Again, Branch crouched in front of them. "Are you afraid of me?"
When neither answered, he said, "I'd feel powerful bad to learn any child feared me. I'm only a man like your pa or any other man."
"But you kill men," the towhead argued. "And you aren't afraid of nothing."
Branch studied them a moment, then glanced around and leaned closer to whisper something Jenna could not hear. The boy's eyes grew as round as the blazing sun overhead.
"Really?"
"Aw, you're just joshing us."
"No, boys, I'm not. I'll tell you something else. It takes more courage to be sensible than it does to be rash."
Beside Jenna, Rembrandt chuckled. "That's Branch, all right. He detests violence, believe it or not."
"Then why. . .?" Confused, she let the sentence trail away.
The old man returned to his seat and scooted a black checker into a new square on the board. "He grew up in a coal mine. . . literally. Only nine years old and scrawny as a toothpick—according to Maura—when he went down that black pit for the first time, along with his father and older brothers. He worked ten hours a day, six days a week. And most of his pitiful wage, like that of the other men, went to pay the family debt at the company store, which was the only place available to purchase food and goods."
"How does that make a man a killer?"
"Branch watched his mother and sister die of a fever because they couldn't afford medical treatment. Later, his father died a protracted death of black lung disease—an all too common end for coal miners, I'm afraid. When you grow up in a world where life is that cheap and violence is an everyday occurrence, you either become so inured to it that you barely notice it or you grow to hate it with every fiber of your being."
Jenna turned back to the window. Down below, Branch stood again and talked to the boys in a low voice. She found it difficult to imagine him as a child, let alone scrawny. His shoulders strained the seams of his shirt and looked a yard wide.
Rembrandt jumped two of her checkers and snatched them from the board. "It seems to me sometimes that no matter how bent a person may be on traveling a particular road, life becomes even more, bent on seeing him take the opposite way, almost as if to punish him for having the audacity to think he can choose."
Jenna moved one of her men, and the old man immediately jumped it, too. Half her checkers had gone missing. "I thought it was only women who weren't allowed to choose their own way," she said bitterly.
For a long moment, Rembrandt stared at her, his pale old eyes full of surprise and questions she hoped he would not ask. He didn't. "No, my dear. The gods rule us men same as you gentler females."
"I still don't understand how Branch ended up a gunslinger."
"When he grew up, he became involved with a labor group called the Molly Maguires."
Jenna's head snapped up. She'd heard of the Molly's in Chicago. A rabid gang of Irish cut-throats and troublemakers, according to the Pinkertons. The organization had its origins in Ireland during the 1846 potato famine and migrated with the Irish to the Pennsylvania coal fields in the 1860s. They fought for better wages and working conditions in the mines, but their methods were violent. Numerous murders and bombings lay at their door. Yet, Branch had been one of them?
As if hearing Jenna's thoughts, Rembrandt said, "Branch hated the violence. He tried so hard to convince them to try peaceful methods of dealing with the mine owners that they began to distrust him. When it became obvious a spy lived among them, some pointed fingers at Branch. They beat and threatened him until he bought a gun and learned how to use it. Then all hell broke loose. The real spy, a Pinkerton sent in to infiltrate the Molly's, escaped. Before it was over, about nineteen of the Molly's were hanged, including Branch's brother, Pat."
Now Jenna understood Maura's odd comment that first day when Branch learned his nephew had died. Maura had said then that Branch would have been hung—like their Patrick if he hadn’t left.
"When Branch came west, his first job was protecting ore shipments from the mines," Rembrandt continued. "He became very good with his gun, so good he beat a well-known gunman to the draw. After that, others came to see if they could beat Branch. It became ‘kill or be killed’ for the simple reason he was fast with a gun."
A distant, melancholy sort of look came into the old man's eyes.
"But then, few of us get to travel the road we most desire."
Listening to the soft clickity-click of the wooden game pieces as he absently jiggled them in his hand, Jenna knew he was no longer thinking about Branch McCauley. She wondered what road life had prevented Rembrandt from taking and whether fate had the same trick up its sleeve for her.
In the street, Branch ruffled the towhead's muddy hair, and Jenna felt her chest swell with emotions she didn't want to study too closely. When Branch turned away from the boys to continue toward the hotel, Charley streaked out a hand and touched the Peacemaker.
"See, you big coward, I ain't scared," he taunted the other boy.
A knock on the door took Jenna by surprise. Maura was usually too busy this time of day to visit, and Branch couldn't have gotten here that fast. At Jenna's reply, a middle-aged man with mousy brown hair poked his head inside.
"Excuse me, Rembrandt, I need to see you a minute."
Rembrandt rose to his feet. "Of course. Eugenia, this is Jake Longan. He works for us at the mine."
She nodded and smiled. Longan stared at her with a curious grin on his face until Rembrandt took the man by the arm and drew him from the room. After they had gone out, she took up the photograph she had leaned against a vase of wildflowers.
Something about Jake Longan struck her as familiar. Something about the mouth, she thought, studying the man in the beloved photo. The shape of the face was the same, too. James Leigh-Whittington would be forty-five now, about the same age as Longan. They even had the same initials. Coincidence?
Excitement set her heart racing, but she firmly tamped it back down. Most of the men here stared at her the way Longan had, many with painfully wistful expressions on their weathered faces. Women were scarce here, Maura had told her. They missed their wives, mothers, sweethearts, and daughters. Simply looking at Jenna made them feel a bit closer to those they'd left back home while they tried to gouge their fortunes from the harsh, stingy earth of western America.
For Jake Longan to be her father, he’d have had to change his name. Why? To hide from Jenna and her mother? Or could there be another reason? Either way, chances were he wouldn't admit it even if she asked him straight out. After all, if he'd wanted his wife and daughter, he would have come back to them in the first place, and she wouldn't be here now.
Maybe Charley Long Bow was right. Maybe it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.