Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 (30 page)

Bowden was taken aback. “Did I hear you right?” he demanded.

“You did. How soon can you transfer everything?”

“Why, why, very soon,” Bowden sputtered. “An hour. Are you sure?”

When Colt had convinced Carleton Bowden of his certainty, the latter said, “The bank will have everything ready in an hour. Then you’ll go over to Tom Kirk’s office, and he’ll be sure the legal aspects are in order.”

Still glaring at Colt, Bowden ventured, “Does this mean you’re leaving town, Coltrane?”

Colt nodded, offering no explanation, and Bowden said, “Thank God. I can’t stand the sight of you.”

Two hours later, Colt rode out of Silver Butte. He had only his stallion, Pedro, his rifle and pistol, the clothes on his back, and a few hundred dollars crammed down in his saddlebag. He no longer owned anything.

He headed west. As he rode, heading into the butter-gold afternoon, a soft breeze touching his warm face, he dared think things through one more time.

How
could he have let something so despicable happen?

Goddamn, weakening-of-the-flesh-and-mind whiskey hadn’t helped. Still, that didn’t explain it.

He cared for Dani; that was the truth. Yes, he cared. The feeling went beyond anything he’d ever felt for a woman. What was weird, too, and frightening, was that he could not remember making love to Dani. Try though he did, he couldn’t recall a thing about it, either time it had happened.

Shoulders hunched, head lowered, the very picture of a man whose spirit was broken, Colt rode away from Silver Butte to whatever Destiny had in store for him.

Gavin read the message from Carleton Bowden to Daniella Coltrane four times before he allowed himself to believe that it had worked. He had won! The entire Coltrane fortune was his!
 

Now it was over, except for the transfer of property into gold.

The Coltrane holdings would be sold so that Gavin could take his fortune to France in gold bullion. That’s where Dirk Hollister and the five men Hollister had hired for Gavin would come in. They would be the guards he would need for so much money. True, he was going to have to pay them a large salary and pay their passage to France, but Gavin was now a rich man.

It warmed him to think how Coltrane would react when, one day, he learned that “Dani” had sold everything they owned, everything the Coltranes owned! Oh, he would be crazed with fury. And even more delicious, Gavin mused, would be the reaction of Travis Coltrane. All he’d acquired after killing Stewart Mason had been wiped out by Stewart’s son.

Delia came in then, and Gavin stared at her in deep contemplation. Delia was not as beautiful as many women, was a bit older than he liked, and her body was on the plump side. But she was the first woman he had ever bedded who agreed to do anything Gavin wanted, no matter how bizarre, or painful, and he appreciated that. Through the years he’d become bored with having to cajole in order to get the kind of satisfaction he craved. Even Alaina, who had once been so hot-blooded, had never thrilled him as Delia thrilled him. So, despite her flaws, he knew he would keep her with him for some time.

He smiled. “It’s over, dearest. Coltrane gave everything to his sister. Now we can make plans to leave.”

Delia’s eyes shone. “You’re really taking me with you, Gavin darling? I’m going to France?”

Gavin made her wait for a suspense-filled moment, then nodded slowly. She screamed and ran to throw her arms around him. “Oh, you make me so happy, Gavin, so happy…” A lusty gleam entered her eyes as she looked up at him. “Let me show you how happy, my darling. Now.”

Her voice was husky with desire, but Gavin shook his head regretfully. “Not now, my sweet. Dani and I have business at the bank.”

Delia made a face. “Is Briana—Dani—going with us?” she asked. When Gavin nodded, she said, “She’s going to stay with us always, isn’t she?”

Gavin nodded again. “I can’t let her go,” he said. “She could cause me a great deal of trouble if she said the wrong things to certain people.” Delia nodded eagerly, and he admonished, “You will say nothing to her about this, Delia. If you do, she’ll be too hard to handle.”

Gavin smoothed his coat, took his hat from the table, and headed for the door. “Now I have to run along. When I return, we’ll play, all right?”

Delia gave him a coquettish smile. He left.

As the door closed, Delia stuck out her tongue.
Slimy bastard,
she thought. How she loathed his touch. How she despised yielding to his perversions and having to pretend she loved it. One day, she would no longer have to put up with him…one day when she got her hands on some of that money he had so easily tricked out of the Coltranes.

She locked the door behind Gavin and went back into the sitting room. There was a large box of chocolates on a table by the divan, and she sat down and began to stuff them into her mouth, one after another. Gavin Mason was an insufferable pig. As she wolfed down the candy, she recalled the night she had first met him, in a Silver Butte saloon. She had known he was peculiar, but that made no never mind. Peculiar men, she’d learned in San Francisco, are always willing to pay more than straight johns, and if the price was right, she would perform any trick a man wanted, no matter how painful. Money was a great healer.

She heaved herself from the divan and went to the corner bar where Gavin had left an open bottle of wine. She filled a glass and began sipping, reminiscing about meeting Gavin. During those first moments in bed with Gavin she realized that he was absolutely the strangest nut she had ever met. She decided not to see him again. But then he’d mentioned being from France, and when he talked about going back there, teasing that he might take her with him because she was so marvelous in bed, well, that had gotten her attention. She’d been with him ever since—and didn’t intend to let him go. She knew what he’d been doing to the Coltranes but didn’t figure she was implicated.

She finished the wine, reflecting on how smart she was to hook a man like Gavin Mason. Devouring the candy, she lay down on the divan and fell asleep.

The next thing she knew, someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes to see Dani—she had to remember to call her that—standing over her.

“Have you seen Gavin? I need to—”

The women heard Gavin’s key in the lock at the same time. Gavin dismissed Delia, who grumbled but left. Then he gave Briana a huge smile. Studying her, he prepared to break the good news.

He knew there was only so much leverage he could get out of her brother. Blackmailing her through Charles had kept her in the role of Dani, but once they were home in France, it would take force to keep her in line. Until then, he was forced to pacify her as much as possible to keep her from becoming hysterical and confessing everything to the authorities. Guilt over Colt might make her do that, he knew.

Keeping a happy look on his face, Gavin said, “We will be leaving soon for California, my dear. We’ll buy gold bars, and then we’ll take the first available ship to England, then go on to France.”

She stared at him, waiting for clarification.

“Coltrane signed over his share of everything to you, Dani,” he said slowly, proudly. “You see, it was the least he could do after committing the unforgivable sin of incest.”

Briana started, then stepped back in horror. He was lying, he had to be. Her whisper was barely audible. “No. Tell me Colt didn’t give up everything he had…”

Gavin reached into his pocket and brought out Carleton Bowden’s letter—addressed, of course, to Daniella Coltrane, not to Gavin, who had no legal claim on Dani and was not her guardian. If Briana had really been Dani, she thought for the hundredth time, she would have been furious. But she was thoroughly numbed by the realization of how much they had hurt Colt, and she spared little thought for Gavin’s effrontery in intercepting the letter.

After scanning it just enough to be sure Gavin wasn’t making this up, Briana threw the letter at him and went to sit down, burying her head in her hands.

“He did,” she whispered. “He gave up everything, and gave it all to me.”

Gavin was jubilant. “He did indeed. I planned it this way, you silly girl. And I’ve more wonderful news. Mr. Bowden has already found a buyer for the ranch! So, Dani will sign the papers tomorrow morning, and we’ll leave with a fortune in gold as soon as Bowden can arrange for the purchase of so much bullion.” He took a deep breath. “Go put on your prettiest dress and prepare to celebrate with me tonight. We are going home…and we’re going home
rich!”

Briana closed her eyes. If only she could shut out the horror of what she had done.

Chapter Twenty-One

Seth Parrish sat unsmiling behind his massive oak desk, hands folded across his stomach. He wanted to hear what John Travis Coltrane had to say to him. He’d had an uneasy feeling ever since Carleton Bowden had contacted him about the sale of the Coltrane property. Yes, he’d been eager to buy it, and yes, he’d also had a lot of questions as to why it was for sale.

Seth had known Travis Coltrane since Travis had first come to Nevada. He respected the man immensely. He liked his son, too. Seth knew nothing about the daughter. He’d heard the girl’s mother was a woman Travis was never legally married to, and that the girl had gone away with her aunt some years ago. Other than that, folks knew nothing about Dani. Seth was the kind of man who kept his business to himself and respected other people’s right to do the same.

Colt sat in a high-backed leather chair. He ignored the splendid view through the wide glass window that ran the length of one whole wall. The plains stretched toward Coltrane land, and Colt didn’t need any reminders of why he was there.

“You know why I came,” he said firmly, pushing aside the whiskey that had been set before him. Like Seth Parrish, he was not interested in socializing. And Lord knew he’d had enough trouble from liquor.

Seth nodded slowly, shifting in his chair. He looked at Colt levelly, face expressionless. “Suppose you tell me what’s on your mind.”

Colt met his piercing gaze. Seth Parrish was a big, powerful man, but. Colt couldn’t afford to let himself be intimidated. He said flatly, “I want my family’s land back.”

Seth’s face showed no surprise. He supposed this was what he’d expected. “Then why’d you sell it?”

Colt shook his head. “I didn’t. I’d never have given it to my sister if I’d known she was going to sell the land, Seth.”

After riding out of town, a defeated and bewildered man, Colt had headed for the desert. There, he agonized over everything that had happened, driving himself mercilessly through each memory until, bit by bit, he’d pieced the truth together—or as much of it as he could uncover. He’d rationalized every possible motive Dani might have had, even considering that she might have been so stunned by his giving everything to her, and also been feeling guilty over what had happened between them, that she’d wanted to turn her back on everything and leave, as he had done. But no, that was being naive. She would have needed a little time to react that way, to make plans. She had made her move the second the ink dried on the papers he’d signed, as though she had known all along what he would do and was just waiting for, the chance to swindle him.

Hell, he asked himself, what did she care about the land anyway? She was not a true Coltrane, did not care any more about her heritage than she cared about their father. She and Mason probably had the whole thing planned from the beginning. But that was a secret Colt had to carry alone, for he couldn’t let anyone know how things had come to this pass.

“I don’t want to talk about her reasons,” he admitted. “I came here to find out how much you paid her, how much it will take to buy everything back.” His gaze didn’t falter.

Seth sighed, then leaned back in the chair as he stared thoughtfully at the young man. Making his voice gentle, he said, “I want you to know that I am willing for you to buy the land back, son. I’m not a greedy man. Certainly not a land-grabber. I never had any inclination to be a land baron. The only reason I jumped at the chance to buy your family’s place was because it was right next door, and the price was good. I have three sons of my own, as you know, so I figured, with your land, I’d have plenty to divide up three ways.”

He paused and shook his head sadly. “I can tell you never intended for this to happen. Maybe I should have checked with Travis and tried to find out what was going on, but contacting him would have taken a lot of time, and I didn’t want anyone else to get that land.”

“How much?” Colt urged.

“Carleton Bowden told me your sister put the whole price in gold since she was leaving the country. I didn’t have that much.”

Colt leaned forward, the tension creeping up his spine. “Tell me how much you want for the land, Seth. Please.”

“Exactly what I paid for it.” Seth looked him straight in the eye. “I had to borrow a lot of money on this place to raise that much, and I’m not going to lose my land over this. You’re going to have to give me back every penny of that million dollars.”

John Travis Coltrane leaped to his feet, more rage- in his face than Seth had ever seen. The curses came out hoarse, rasping, and Colt’s chest heaved furiously. “A million dollars?”

Seth stood up, facing Colt across the desk. “We’re talking about a silver mine that’s still producing, a fine mansion, barns, stables, horses, livestock. Everything on that land is mine. If you want it back, I’ll sell it to you for exactly what I paid for it. I’m a fair man. And I’m a friend of your father’s.