Susan Johnson (26 page)

“Martin’s trying,” his lawyer said, reading the sigh correctly. “But there’s no witnesses.” The judicial voice was pleading the sheriff’s cause with a reasonableness that was typical. “No one was out in the hall at Lily’s that night to see the killer either arrive or leave.”

“Do I detect a touch of defense for Martin? He’s a nice enough young fellow, if you like conservative procedures. Good-looking fellow too. Do you want him? I could—”

“Don’t you dare say he owes me a favor, Father,” his daughter said levelly, her large, dark eyes serious. Hazard’s daughter, Daisy, born before he met Blaze, drew herself up to her full height. “Can’t I make a sound statement about the legal process without having it misconstrued as some silly female crush on a man? There is not suitable evidence for conviction, Father, whether you like it or not.”

“Relax, Daisy.” Hazard smiled, but Daisy didn’t smile back, her expression adversarial, the arch of her brow, which matched his in contour and sweeping line, raised high in disdain.

“I wasn’t questioning your judgment on the legalities,” he apologized gracefully, reflecting that the years at Vassar and the highest score on the bar exams ever recorded in Chicago, where she’d studied law,
⁸
lent a certain haughtiness to his daughter. He was very proud of her. “It’s only that I prefer a bit more expeditiousness.”

“You can’t put a bullet in everyone who disagrees with you, Father.” The words were contentious, but her smile was not. She had a beautiful smile, with a touch of sensuousness, which was what had attracted him to her mother.

“I’ll try to be more civilized. Would you like that?”

“Don’t put on noble-savage airs with me. You know damned well you’re more civilized than most anyone in Montana.”

“Well, what do you say to being civilized, then, and inviting Martin over for dinner? Would that be amenable to your punctilious sense of etiquette?” Hazard asked, grinning down at her.

“Don’t embarrass me, Father.”

“Don’t call me Father. It sounds like we just met two days ago.”

“Very well,” Daisy said, deleting the form of address altogether because Dad, Daddy, or Papa were much too informal for her staid, earnest soul. Even when she was very little, she’d been gravely solemn, looking out on the world with a thoughtful concentration, slow to express her opinion until she’d weighed all possible alternatives, an ideally suited personality for the profession she’d chosen.

Conceding to her careful omission, Hazard said, “I’ll settle for Father, rather than that judicious blank,” and with a quick grin he ruffled the feathers on her plum velvet bonnet.

Ducking away swiftly, she ran a smoothing palm over the expensive feathers and then, in her slow, attentive way, returned his smile. She was dressed by a Paris couturier, her Virot hat lavishly feminine, and while she’d inherited her height and her opulent eyes from her father, Daisy Black was lovely, like her mother. “Don’t worry, Father, I won’t go through life an old maid.”

Not likely, Hazard thought, with his experienced eye for female beauty, but his reply was tactful and mindful of Daisy’s
views on women’s rights. “I don’t care if you do, Daisy, if that’s what you want, but damn, if you want Martin Soderberg, let’s do something about it.”

“
Us
is not the operative word, Father. I’ll take care of it in my own way.” She reached out conciliatorily and slipped her small gloved hand in his.

And Hazard was reminded of the frightened twelve-year-old who had just lost her mother and stepfather in a hunting accident and was waiting for him in his study long years ago. She’d seemed so quiet and grave, he didn’t know if she’d understood all he’d said to her, but when he’d put his hand out and said, “Come, Daisy, I want you to see if your room looks the same,” she’d slipped her hand in his and had become a permanent part of his life, not just a summer visitor.

So Hazard shrugged, smiled, and let the topic drop.

But when they arrived home at the town house on the hill, he sought out Blaze at her desk in the library. “Next dinner party, love,” he said, “invite Martin Soderberg for Daisy.”

Blaze looked up from her letter writing, her glance mildly surprised. Hazard hadn’t completely crossed the threshold before he’d spoken. This, apparently, was serious.

“Surprised the hell out of me, too, but that’s the way it looks.” He pulled the silk scarf from around his neck with one swift tug and tossed it on a chair. “Make it a big party, though, so it’s all very tactful and Daisy doesn’t get suspicious. She made it plain that I wasn’t to interfere.”

“I see you’re following orders in your usual fashion.” The startling blue of her eyes was as provocative as her tone.

“Don’t follow orders at all,
bia
, as you well know.” And he walked over and bent to kiss her gently on the cheek. “With one exception,” he murmured, his breath warm on her cheek, his voice teasing. Straightening, he looked down at her with a boyish grin. “You know I do everything you tell me to.”

Blaze smiled up at him as he shrugged out of his coat, thinking he looked as wonderful as he had the first day she’d met him all those years ago. And she knew under the cutaway coat and dark trousers that his lean body was as fit as ever. It came from the horse training he always casually maintained;
it kept every muscle toned. She replied with her own mocking amusement to his teasing. “You may do as I say, Jon, but only if I beat you into submission first.”

Hazard’s glance was cheerful as he lounged on a corner of the desk, one long leg idly swinging. “And you’re the only one who can.” Checking the hour on the desk clock, he grinned. “Is there time before dinner?” His wife’s raised eyebrows brought forth a full-throated chuckle.

“Not unless you can set new records, darling,” she said. “And you know, I’ve never been interested in speed. However,” she went on in the lush, suggestive tone he always adored, “once we get rid of all those tedious politicians, I would be happy to share the remainder of the evening with you.”

“A bottle of Cliquot and a roaring fire?” Hazard proposed.

“With the curtains open so we can see the stars.”

“
Our
stars, like the lodge in the mountains.” Each year Hazard and Blaze went back to the place where Trey had been born the first winter of their marriage, and stayed for as many days as they could arrange. It was a time of peace for them, away from the demands of the world. “We don’t have to go back, do we?” Blaze would always ask when the time for their departure drew near. And Hazard would say no, and hold her tight. It was a barefaced lie they delighted in, like children shutting out the demons with a litany of nonsense.

“A very poor second to the lodge in the mountains but the best we can do here in town. Say eleven o’clock?” Her smile was open.

“You’re on,
bia cara.
This is going to be the shortest dinner party in the history of Helena.”

“Oh, dear,” Blaze said nervously, “you won’t be obvious, will you?” Hazard had a tendency to overlook the subtleties of etiquette on occasion.

“Now, sweetheart, you know how easy I am to get along with.” He ran a fingertip over the irregular, downy arch of her brow. “You’ve till ten-thirty to see them all out the door—with my help, of course. After that, I can’t guarantee any civilized manners.”

“You’re incorrigible, Jon, but I adore incorrigible men.”

“Keep that singular, love, so I don’t have to kill anyone.” His dark eyes were affectionate, and he thought how lucky he was to have found the only woman in the world he’d love till he died. Which brought to mind Daisy’s affections. “What do you think of Martin?” he asked, loosening his cravat and vest buttons.

“He seems very pleasant. If he meets Daisy’s standards, he must be even nicer than he looks. She’s
very
particular.”

“With a remark like that, I don’t know if I should take offense. Meaning you’re not?” he inquired teasingly.

“Heavens, no,” Blaze replied with a quick grin. “I’m not particular at all. The only thing I ask is that a man love me more than anything else in the whole world.”

“That must be why we get along,” Hazard said with an easy charm.

“If I ever catch you saying anything that smooth to another woman, I’ll kill
you.
” Blaze’s smile was wide, but her heart was touched by their love, undiminished by the years.

“Knowing how well you shoot,” Hazard replied, amusement rich in his voice, “I’ll be careful.”

Shortly afterward, as Blaze and Hazard were dressing for dinner, Fox was announced and immediately admitted.

“Did you find him?” Blaze asked, worry evident in her voice and expression and in the anxious way she reached out for Hazard’s hand.

Fox filled them in on the quest, ending so far at Cresswell’s store; answered Hazard’s brisk questions about timing, supplies, and the amount of snow, and left with further orders from Hazard to relay to Blue when he returned up-mountain the next day.

Blaze was more concerned than Hazard. Hazard had every confidence in Trey’s ability to survive on the trail. Trey had plenty of supplies, he’d assured Blaze, but her apprehension was with her son’s health. Mothers, Hazard thought, were always prone to overlook little things, like the reports he’d heard about Trey and Empress’s hermitage in Trey’s room while everyone had been gone the previous week. Not exactly, he’d decided on hearing the gossip, the conduct of a
weak young man. So Hazard wasn’t worried about Trey’s health, but if Blaze wanted to overlook those activities, which she’d heard of as well as he, that was her motherly prerogative. And he wasn’t foolish enough to point out the error of her thinking.

T
rey was, with cheerful vigor, shoveling a wider path to the barn. It was after midnight, the moon shining brightly down on him once again after the storm, and everyone in the snug cabin was fast asleep.

The past days with the children had been genial and pleasant. The snowshoes were finished, they’d begun bows and arrows, and before supper that night everyone had made snow angels in the fluffy, drifted whiteness. He and Guy had carried in dozens of pails of water so everyone could bathe; both the boilers had been put on top of the cook stove and filled; a makeshift curtain had been hung in front of the stove; and each person in turn washed in the large tub, on the floor.

During supper, with everyone’s skin scrubbed clean and shining, the array of faces around the table reminded one of an idyllic image of wholesome health. With the children, Trey sang round songs in French and English he’d never heard until that night, and when Empress whispered, “Thank you,” to him before she herded the little ones upstairs, he’d wanted to say, “The pleasure was mine.” But it sounded too glib, and
she was disturbingly suspicious of his warmth. At times it bothered him to see her obviously enjoying herself and then abruptly withdraw from the easy gaiety, as if she’d let herself go too far in her enjoyment. She was very different in those instances from the captivating, spontaneous Empress he remembered from his home, and all he could credit the curious retiring disparity to was the fact that the children were present.

So … that night he was cheerfully shoveling because he intended to talk to Empress alone, with no children. He’d already made a warm bed for them in the hayloft, with two heavy quilts burrowed deep in the sweet-smelling hay.

It was a dream, her slumbering mind lazily noted, and Empress murmured a low, purring sound deep in her throat. Unconsciously lifting her chin a scant, drowsy distance, she reached for the elusive, cool mouth on hers. She found it and felt the heated rush of feeling, sharp and splendid, like melted gold sliding into hidden corners. The texture of pleasure took on tenuous substance, surprisingly cool on her lips, her cheeks, stroking down the delicate skin of her throat. And she purred again, a contented, feline vibration, answered finegrained and exact, graphically, like a flare deep in the pit of her stomach. And lower.

Her arms responded like flagrant wantons to that flaring glitter of feeling, and when they rested lightly, then twined around a strong, solid neck, an answering sound, male and relevant, brought the small fevers precipitously to combustion.

Anyone who had watched the young couple during the previous days could have foretold the speed of their arousal; hot youth and passion burn still and, if repressed, flare higher when released. And all the foreplay, seductive assault and withdrawal, perceptible, unmistakable, even though silent, veiled from children’s eyes was material now. Palpably, tangibly material.

She woke when he lifted her into his arms but hardly felt the chill when he carried her outside, so heated were her senses. Wrapped in blankets and his arms, she tasted his
earlobes in little nibbling caresses as he strode down his newly widened path to their haven in the hayloft.

With swift efficiency he lay her in the soft bed, slipped her nightgown off, and covered her with the heavy weight of the quilt. She watched him quickly undress with a high-strung impatience and felt as though some inexplicable sorcery were in motion that night, and it was her right to possess the magnificent body revealed before her.