A Fire in the Blood (39 page)

      
"What do you mean?" the man replied guardedly. "It's too soon. Robbins is—"

      
"Surely you are not afraid of that half-breed cur,
hein
?"

      
He bristled angrily. "You know better. I thought you were the one worrying about me."

      
"Robbins received a wire yesterday which he will no doubt pick up today, telling him his gunmen are prepared to work for him. It is a fortunate thing the clerk in the telegraph office has a special dislike for Indians. He has been most helpful to me." Germaine's eyes glowed malevolenty. "We must act at once before help arrives for Robbins and his whore. It is good that he is here in town. When he receives word about the cattle being run off, the timing will work perfecdy. Here is what you must do...."

* * * *

      
When Lissa awakened early the next morning, Jess was already up, shaving in the bathroom. She slipped a robe on and tiptoed quietly into the doorway to watch the male ritual.

      
Without missing a strong, sure stroke with the gleaming razor, he said, "Why are you up so early? Thought you'd be tired enough to sleep late."

      
Her cheeks warmed as she recalled their love-making the previous night. "I'm quite resilient, in case you hadn't noticed," she replied, feeling muscles in her belly tightening as the razor glided along his jaw, shearing away the black stubble with foaming flecks of soap. He wore only a towel tied carelessly at his waist.

      
She walked into the room and slid one hand up his back, then around his side, tracing the patterns of hair on his chest. "It's very sexy for a woman to watch a man shave," she said huskily.

      
"It's a damn nuisance for the man," he grunted.

      
"Did all the men in your family have heavy beards?" He was still not at all forthcoming with information about his past in spite of her efforts to draw him out.

      
He slowed a stroke and glanced at her with cool silver eyes, then resumed shaving. "I reckon so, although my pa's beard was yellow, like Jonah's. Didn't know my mother's people. They'd all died by the time I was old enough to remember anything."

      
"You're educated more than most men in Wyoming—”

      
He laughed mirthlessly. "That wouldn't take much."

      
"Who taught you—your mother?"

      
He finished shaving and wiped away the traces of soap from his face. "Nosey, aren't you?" he said, walking past her into the bedroom, where he pulled a clean shirt from his case.

      
"I've told you all about me. Why won't you tell me about you? Are you afraid if I learn too much I'll have some sort of hold over you—to make you stay even if you still want to go?"

      
She had hit far too close to the truth. He yanked on his denims and reached for the shirt. "Maybe," he replied grudgingly, then added, "My mother was illiterate, just like most of the impoverished Mexican peasants Richard King brought to Texas. My pa was a booklover. He taught us the basics." He paused then, as if rediscovering things lost in the mists of the past.

      
"When I was eight or ten, just a tad, Mr. King found out I could read. He took a shine to me for some reason, maybe because my ma worked at his big house. He let me use his library. It was a whole new world opening up for a poor Mexican breed."

      
"Why . . . why if you had that opportunity ... why did you ..." Her voice was halting, for she was unwilling to break the harmony of his earlier reminiscences.

      
"The war was hard on my family," he replied with a shuttered look on his face. He buckled on his gunbelt without saying anything more.

      
"How old were you when you joined the French Legion?"

      
"Don't you ever run out of questions?" he asked, obviously wanting to change the subject. "I have to see a man about a roundup."

      
"Wait, Jess. Let me go with you."

      
"Do you honestly think Lemuel Mathis will want to see you with me?"

      
She shook her head. "Not Lemuel. I know he'll refuse. It's Cy Evers and Jamie MacFerson we need to talk with—they'll listen to me."

      
"Mathis listened to me the last time I had something to say. I can handle him," Jess said firmly.

      
"Or what—you'll shoot him? Be reasonable, Jess. The Association's too big for you to take on alone. Anyway, Cy owes me a favor." She quickly explained about Dellia's aborted elopement with Yancy Brewster and her part in thwarting it. "I heard him bring her back to her room and post a guard at her door."

      
"Why didn't you tell me about this last night?" His eyes searched her face, and she knew at once that he was comparing the way Marcus had caught them with the way Cy had caught his daughter.

      
Lissa met his steady gaze. "I'm learning how you think, Jess. And I guess I just didn't want to give you one more reason to contemplate leaving us again."

      
He sighed in resignation. "Hell, all right, get dressed. We'll go see Evers."

      
"It might be best if I—"

      
"No," he interrupted flatly. "I'm not hiding behind your skirts, Lissa. Either you go with me or you don't go at all."

      
She gritted her teeth and silently said some uncharitable things about insufferable male pride as she hurried through her morning toilette.

      
Evers and MacFerson were quartered at the Cheyenne Club. The return note from Cy agreed to meet with them in the Metropolitan's dining room at noon. When they arrived, Cy was already sitting at the private table that Marcus had always reserved. To Lissa it brought back bittersweet memories of happier times with her father.

      
Evers rose and nodded to Lissa and Jess. He looked grim and uncomfortable as they all sat down together. The serving help had apparently already been instructed not to intrude.

      
"I owe you for Dellie," Cy said stiffly to Lissa.

      
"I hope she's all right," she replied.

      
"Found 'em at the station waitin' on the Laramie night train. I had Brewster beat within an inch of his life 'n throwed him on the train with his own ticket," he added with a harsh glance at Jess. "Dellie's cryin' a spell now, but she'll get over it. Your note said you had business with me and Jamie."

      
"J Bar wants in on the fall roundup," Jess said.

      
"That's Association business." Cy's shrewd brown eyes studied Jess.

      
"Next to J Bar, you and Jamie run the largest spreads in southeast Wyoming. If you let J Bar reps participate, everyone else in the Association will follow your lead. Even Mathis."

      
"Lemuel has a personal reason to refuse me. You understand how that is," Lissa said to Evers.

      
The old man's face reddened beneath leathery, wind-blasted skin. "I'll talk it over with Jamie. I reckon I owe you that."

      
"I'd be much obliged, Cy. Jess and I will be at the dance tonight. Perhaps it can all be settled then," Lissa said in a brisk, businesslike manner as they rose from the table.

Chapter Twenty-Three

      
After Evers had left, Jess turned to Lissa with a shuttered look on his face. "I never said I'd go to that dance. In fact, I don't even own a suit."

      
"I knew you'd use that as an excuse. Come with me. I have a small surprise for you."

      
She wended her way from the restaurant back upstairs to their suite with Jess unwillingly in tow. The suit was hanging in the armoire, freshly pressed.

      
"Clare took the measurements from your clothes. She's really a splendid seamstress. What do you think?" she urged, holding it out with such a look of wistful entreaty on her face that he could not refuse. "I had her make up a new white silk dress shirt as well, and I selected the cravat, but if you don't like the maroon, there's dark blue and—"

      
"Maroon is fine, Lissa," he said gently as he took the suit from her. It was the handsomest gift he had ever received—at least since the time a wealthy young madam in New Orleans had bought him a solid gold pocket watch. Jess decided it would be politic not to mention that to his wife.

      
My wife
. A rush of emotion overcame him without warning as he touched the rich, dark-gray wool. The lining was of silver brocade, as was the matching vest, and the workmanship was exquisite. These were the clothes of a wealthy stockman, a respectable pillar of the community.

      
He looked at her gravely, and when he spoke his voice was husky. "Wearing these clothes, going to the Association's big shindig—you're taking me into a world that's closed to me, Lissa. I'm afraid that because of who I am, I'll close it for you, too."

      
She shook her head and caressed his cheek. "Husband, your nobility is beginning to wear on me. Either they accept us together or I don't want to belong," she said with determination.

      
He would have argued more, but Johnny's cries from the next room interrupted them.

      
Jess prepared for the gala like a man facing the gallows. He cared not at all for himself if it turned out to be a disaster. A lifetime as an outsider had inured him to isolation from polite society. But Lissa had grown up as part of this privileged circle, and he knew it was going to be closed to her now too.

      
He stood in the bathroom door looking into the bedroom at Lissa with their son at her breast. Each time he watched, it was as if he were storing up the beautiful memories to last him the rest of his life. Although darker-complected than his fair mother, Johnny could pass for white, especially back East, dressed and educated as a gentleman. The troubling thought had haunted him ever since he had agreed to try living at J Bar.

      
A feeling of impending disaster gnawed at him.
I'm living on borrowed time with them and only I realize it.

* * * *

      
Early that evening Lissa took the special gown she had selected to Clare's room so the little maid could help her dress. She wanted to surprise Jess. Standing in front of the mirror, she turned this way and that.

      
"What do you think, Clare?" she asked uncertainly, smoothing one hand over the low-cut neckline. The color was really unusual.

      
"I think you will be the most beautiful lady there." The maid appraised her handiwork with a critical eye. She had sewn this gown for Miss Lissa while still working at Durbin's over a year ago, but her mistress had never worn the unusual creation of soft, gleaming silk.

      
"Here, let me." She took the heavy beaten-gold necklace from Lissa and fastened it around her slender throat. Matching gold combs held up elaborately piled coils of burnished curls with a few soft tendrils falling artfully at her ears and on her nape. "Go show your husband."

      
Nervously Lissa nodded. "First let me kiss Johnny. Are you sure he'll sleep through?" she asked as she knelt by his crib.

      
"If not, I have plenty of soft food ready for the lamb. Please, don't fret." Clare's eyes were dazzled by how splendid the missus looked. "You'd better not keep the mister waiting."

      
With a deep breath for courage, Lissa opened the door and stepped into the suite's parlor. Breath escaped her as she looked at Jess, who was standing by the window, unaware of her entry. His hair gleamed blue-black in the evening light, offset by the snowy white of his shirt collar. The charcoal suit and silver gray brocade vest were tailored perfectly to fit his tall, lean figure. Even in the rarified social circles of St. Louis and Chicago, she had never seen such an elegant man.

      
He turned, sensing her presence. His appreciative gaze swept from the elaborate hairdo down to the shimmering gown that clung with silky seduction to every lush curve. The color was not quite green, not gold, but a cross between the two, the shade of a new leaf in sunlight. For most women, it was an impossible color, but with Lissa's sun-kissed skin, golden eyes, and burnished hair, it was magic.

      
She stood poised in the door, her eyes locked on him, acutely aware of his perusal. Striding over to her, he touched the gold necklace and caressed the velvety skin of her throat. "You're incredible," was all he could say as he raised both her hands to his lips and saluted them.

      
"So are you. The suit fits even better than I could have imagined. You'll have every woman in the place drooling over you." She smiled brilliantly.

      
His expression was guarded as he replied, "The less attention I attract the better, but I do thank you for the suit—and Clare for her sewing skills."

      
She ran her hands down his chest, then paused when she felt something foreign. "What—"

      
He opened the suit jacket to reveal a .38 caliber Colt pocket revolver slung in a shoulder holster. "I know the opera house doesn't approve of guns, but I never go unarmed, Lissa."

      
"I'm certain there'll be no need for it," she said, trying to assure herself more than him. One look into those cool gray eyes made her realize that protest would be useless. He would always be a man who lived in the shadow of the gun.