Susan Johnson (25 page)

In the morning Trey woke stiff, but rested. He looked across the small room to where Empress stood adding wood to the cook stove and said softly, “Good morning.”

She turned around and smiled.

His smile leapt back across the room.

Lifting both hands, he laced them on top of his head and, leaning back comfortably, asked, “Where did you sleep?”

“Over there,” she replied, pointing to the bed built into the dark corner under the loft, neatly made already with a colorful quilt covering.

Stretching his back slowly, he removed his hands, his smile widening. “I don’t think I’ll sleep in the chair tonight.”

“You can share a bed with Guy.” Empress gestured over her shoulder to the opposite wall. “It’s Mama and Papa’s bed, and large enough for you two tall men.”

Lowering his voice when Trey saw Guy sleeping in a tumble of disarranged blankets, he flexed the stiffness from his arms and murmured, “He seems to be a sound sleeper.”

Empress faced him across the small distance, dressed in her familiar costume of trousers and flannel shirt, looking fresh and young. “Don’t get any ideas, Trey.”

“I have them already, darling.” His pale gaze slowly traveled up her slender legs and curved body to her brilliant green eyes. “It’s too late.”

“This little cabin has four other people in it besides you and me, all with big ears and wide-eyed curiosity. Keep that in mind.”

“I promise,” he said with a genial smile, “to be discreet.” Laying the quilt aside, he stood, ran his hands through his tousled hair and, arms upraised, looked at her in an intimate, assessing way. “I missed you,” he said softly.

“You tell that to all the ladies,” Empress replied calmly, making a serious attempt that morning to keep Trey at a distance. She had decided in the cold light of morning to: first, not be dazzled by Trey’s beauty and charm (easy to say when not in his presence); second, try to maintain a cool detachment (equally hard when he smiled like that); and third, send him on his way as soon as possible, for he would only complicate her life. Unbelievably.

“Never,” he said very low. “You’re the first.”

His deep, husky voice, his startling reply, sent a flutter down her spine, and all Empress’s carefully crafted plans blurred. It took a full moment for cooler reason to prevail over the swift, flashing response. “Pardon me if I find that difficult to believe,” she declared firmly. The overheard conversation,
the sound of Arabella’s snide aspersion, came hurtling back to remind her … any man that popular with the ladies had to know all the charming phrases.

Trey moved toward her, past the rough-hewn table with its mismatched chairs, knowing he could make her believe when he was holding her close. Her reserve, her shyness, changed once he kissed her or whispered sweet love words or managed to get by the barriers she kept reconstructing whenever he allowed her.

There was no reason for all the reserve or barricades anymore. Her shadowy past was revealed—the brothers and sisters, the dire poverty with its poignant remnants of a genteel respectability, like the family portraits, the lone silver candlestick, and the officer’s dress sword hanging over the mantel. What more was there to hide? In Montana Territory—anywhere in the West—were countless families who had moved to the frontier to repair their fortunes. Why the cool detachment now? And he mentioned it gently, before he reached out to touch her. “Why the restraint, sweetheart? I meant what I said. I missed you.” But when his hand went out to grasp hers, she moved away and took three steps aside, so the table separated them again.

How do you respond to a man whose bedroom is larger than your entire home, with your brother possibly listening only a few feet away, or the other children overhearing, so near that Trey could reach up his hand and touch them? How do you say, “I’m not a tart, and although I was at Lily’s, I’m not for sale—not inside my soul”? And how do you tell someone as accomplished with women as Trey, “I’m not capable of simply playing the game”? According to Arabella and Lucy, dalliance for Trey was normal and frequent; perhaps
habitual
was the more suitable word.

Her feelings for Trey were too disastrously involved already to allow even the mildest game to begin again. She must be strong. She had been and could be, she knew, for she’d taken on the full burden of her young family when her parents died. So she chose to give Trey the bland answer that wouldn’t reveal her feelings, or embarrass her if the children were listening, and would also serve as protection. “There’s no privacy; be practical.” But her emotions were not so easily
quelled, and much against her will, she heard herself say, “I’ve missed you too.”

“I will
arrange
the children,” Trey said very low, watching the rapid pulse beat under the fine skin of her throat, remembering how it felt to kiss the pale golden flesh near her ear, knowing she was feeling precisely what he was feeling. “You and I are going to be alone.”

“No,” she protested, his words causing a pink blush to creep up her cheeks, her disloyal senses too receptive to his assault. “You can’t.”

“Yes,” he said, very, very softly, “I can.”

He didn’t attempt to touch her again, but his words were as potent as if he’d stripped her naked where she stood. She shivered. He smiled.

“Would you like help with breakfast?”

Trey was the model of respectability that day, although his pale eyes would stray to hers circumspectly when the children were busy, and Empress was sure the thudding of her heart was audible clear to Helena. He was on his very best behavior, and from the first moment that morning when Trey said to the silent, wide-eyed young children who had just wakened to find a strange man in their home, “Let’s have cake for breakfast,” he was universally adored. Empress hadn’t realized he could cook, and when she said as much, she was accorded an arrogant, arched brow and a conversely feigned humility. “Why shouldn’t I?” he said, which didn’t explain a thing and made her want to shake him and ask where he’d learned to cook anything as complex as applesauce cake (from memory, no less) when she’d never seen him lift a finger at the ranch other than to ring for a servant. After the children had cheerfully assisted in the cake baking and eating, Trey suggested everyone dress warmly and he’d take them out sledding.

He instantly became a combination of paragon, idol, and best friend, a remarkable feat considering the gender and age difference among the children he was bewitching. “I’m hoping the children will want me to stay,” he said casually as he ushered the last one out the door and turned to take leave of
Empress. His smile was ironic, his luminous eyes aglow with amusement.

“Can I throw something at you?” Eyes narrowed, she glared at the self-assured man.

The sunlight streaming through the window defined the stark bone structure of his face, the perfect, straight nose and severe cheekbones, illuminated the teasing light in his eyes. “Have I ever refused you anything, darling?” he said, his arms open wide.

But his reflexes were superb. He was outside, the door already slammed shut when the kettle Empress flung at him hit the door.

He seemed as much a child as they, Empress thought, watching them frolic in the snow, and she briefly wondered who was having more fun. Later she was coaxed out for the building of the snow forts, and although Trey’s side lost (he told Guy and Eduard that a gentleman always lets a lady win, which lesson they resignedly accepted), he had whispered to Empress that he’d really won, since he intended to steal a kiss from her during the surrender ceremonies.

That kiss had shaken them both. It was the merest brushing kiss, bestowed and received in a clamorous, shouting frenzy of children’s voices and brilliant winter sunshine. But it was like touching through prison bars or greeting a lover in full view of a spouse. They were both flushed and warmed from the furious snowball warfare, and unexpectedly experienced the singular sensation of wind-chilled flesh meeting in a kiss. Hypersensitive detonation, riveting magic. Trey turned and walked away abruptly. Empress leaned her cheek against the ice-block fortress wall and trembled.

That afternoon they all became involved in snowshoe construction, and after having seen her mother and father so incompetent in the wilderness, Trey’s casual expertise was astonishing. His long-fingered hands bent and molded the steamed wood, tied and wove the rawhide, and glued with smooth, even strokes, despite the frequent interruptions to help struggling, chubby fingers and willing, but inept, apprentices, all cheerfully involved in “helping” him. He was kind and benevolent, quick to praise small successes, indulgent with the numerous blunders. He fixed, repaired, adjusted, so each one’s project bore a reasonable resemblance to its ultimate
goal. But his eyes met Empress’s occasionally over the children’s heads, and Trey’s gaze sent desire racing through her blood. He’d smile then in that slow, lazy way she remembered, and another shiver of pleasure would course through her. It was only a matter of time, that lazy smile was saying as clearly as though the words were spoken aloud.

And when the wind started howling as evening fell, Trey said, “Now here’s the storm that was brewing last night.”

B
y morning, the mountain valley was snowed in, and Trey’s clansmen, forty miles away, still out searching for some sign of him, gave up. His tracks had almost disappeared that first day, and last night’s storm had seen to the rest. The group trailing him was stranded at Cresswell’s store three days, before the wind and snow abated. Twenty-two inches of snow fell in forty-eight hours, and when the winds picked up on the third day, the drifts were man-high in places.

In questioning Cresswell, Blue had discovered both Empress and Trey had gone through only hours apart, before the snow, a full day before the snow had even threatened. Aware of Trey’s ability as a tracker, Blue was sure he’d found her. And if she’d reached her destination before Trey overtook her, Blue hoped that no interfering family had taken issue with his pursuit. If Trey had overtaken her on the trail, they may be holed up in some shelter from the storm. That, too, Trey was capable of finding; survival techniques were honed to a fine edge in Hazard’s heir.

But now that the storm was over, their search would go on. Blue sent men back to the ranch to bring additional horses and supplies while he and Fox began questioning the ranch owners around Cresswell’s to determine the direction Trey had taken. No one had seen him.

While the hunt for Trey went on, Jake Poltrain spent more and more time at Li Sing Koo’s Pleasure Palace. He’d plan his revenge on the Braddock-Blacks, and in his opium dreams he was never thwarted; he always won. It was opium’s major appeal, the convincing triumph and the sense of euphoria at besting Hazard Black at last. And in his dreams he never had to back down like he did in reality. Like the last time, when the fences he’d put up protecting his water rights had been leveled, Hazard standing there larger than life, with his damn son and damn private posse. With his hands loose at his side, the Colts with as big a reputation as their owner slung low on his hips, Hazard was just hoping Jake would make a move for his gun. Damned arrogant Indian. He knew no one had ever outdrawn him. And his son, as insolent as the devil, the spitting image of the old man, with more flash, it was said, than the cold-blooded calmness of Hazard’s gun-play, in his own handling of a Colt. And out to match his father’s record, it was rumored. Hazard had said in that deadly quiet voice of his, “You’re on Absarokee land. We don’t allow fences on Absarokee land. The water rights are ours.”
⁷
He could have been God himself for all his humility. Jake drew in another breath of opium smoke, and the towering resentment dissolved like the outer ripples of a pond splash. One inhalation more and the much more pleasant dream of triumph was restored.

Jake had coldly shot the man he’d paid to kill Trey at Lily’s. On the night the Texan had met him for the second half of his payment, Trey was at death’s door and, had the killer but known, so was he. Jake was no fool, understanding with the ruthlessness of a predator that witnesses were by definition expendable. The derringer concealed in his gloved hand was a surprise even to the gunfighter from Texas, who’d learned to be wary at a young age. His frozen body was found
by a homesteader out looking for a stray a week later. No one knew his name, although Jake Poltrain’s bunkhouse crew, with whom he’d stayed the past month, said he called himself Waco.

Another suspicious set of circumstances was laid at Jake’s door.

A week after Trey had left in pursuit of Empress, Hazard and his lawyer left the sheriff’s office in Helena.

“It doesn’t look too hopeful,” his attorney said to Hazard. The sheriff had just informed them that the evidence against Jake Poltrain was all circumstantial. Nothing concrete enough to file charges. Hazard had scowled, and the sheriff had quickly said, “We’re continuing the investigation.”

“He owes me,” Hazard grumbled, moving through the ornate portals of the courthouse and out into the sunlit winter day. The cold wind rippled his dark hair over the fur collar of his topcoat, and he stopped to button his coat. Why, he wondered, was he allowing himself to be so civilized about this shooting? Just put a bullet in Jake Poltrain and be done with it, was his first reaction. When he was growing up, he’d been taught to take vengeance on his enemies. He sighed into the gusting wind.