Texas Moon TH4 (2 page)

He didn't think too hard on the years wasted tracking gold with thousands of other hungry men. He'd been in California, Colorado, and India, contemplated following the hordes to South Africa, but in the end he'd taken what miserable gleanings he'd found and come home. Not home, precisely. He'd never go there again. But he'd come back to the states and the mountains where he'd first started. He was an older, wiser man now, but his ambition hadn't changed. He intended to be wealthy, and he would do it with his own hands, on his own terms.

This time, he meant to succeed. The fire in his belly burned strong as he guided his stallion down the mountainside. The gold was there, and no one else knew about it but Townsend. He'd met Townsend in India, saved his life once, dragged him back here while he still burned with the fever. The man would lay his life down for him but it wasn't Townsend's life he wanted, it was his knowledge.

Townsend was the engineer Mulloney was not. Mulloney was the financier that Townsend was not. Between them, they would not only find the gold, but sell it without being cheated or murdered in their beds as so many had been in the past. They trusted only each other.

Mulloney settled himself more comfortably in the saddle as the horse trotted across a level valley. As a city boy, he found this method of transportation convenient but uncomfortable. He'd learned to manage mountain ponies, mules, and even elephants, but sometimes he had difficulty forgetting the proud bays and elegant carriages he'd once known. At the time, he hadn't realized how spoiled he had been. Now he knew better.

He wasn't bitter about leaving all that behind. It was a choice he had made on his own. He had wanted to rid himself of the corrosion of his father's money. He'd never felt dirtier in his life than when he had stood in his parents' bedroom, wearing a silk shirt and expensive frock coat, listening to the news that he had an older brother he had never known, a brother who had been thrown away because of his deformity.

His skin still crawled when he thought about it. The discovery of his father's cruel deception had led to other discoveries, each one more ruthless than the next. He'd spent his early years living like a leech off the blood of the helpless.

So he didn't think about his past any longer. He didn't think about the wealth he had left behind, the wealth he had known only by default and at the expense of his own kin. He didn't think of the people whose lives had been crushed because of his father's greed. He didn't think about the family he'd left behind. His brothers were in a position to straighten out what was left of the wreckage of their lives. They didn't need him. After twenty-five years of living a lie, he'd had to get out. It was the only way to save his soul.

Only, somewhere along the way, Mulloney thought he must have misplaced it. Perhaps he'd never had one. There were any number of people who could attest to that. Instead of finding his soul, he'd found a goal. He was going to be rich again, but he would earn it with his own hands and mind. And right now, the goal sparkled on the horizon, just out of reach.

If he knew how to whistle, he would as he urged his horse through a rock-strewn streambed. Two days ride ahead, at the foot of the range, waited a little cabin he'd built when he'd thought what he needed was a home. The cabin hadn't held him for very long, but he liked to think of it as home when he was out here with only the sky for a roof. He'd left a warm and willing senorita there last time he'd been through. She'd promised to wait. He wondered if she had. It had been six months since he'd shared her favors. He was more than ready to enjoy them again.

As the first day rolled into the second, Mulloney began to contemplate the woman with more burning intent. She had a body like no other he had ever known, full breasts and wide hips and a tiny waist, all of which she used to advantage. Her voice was low and sweet, and she said all the things he wanted to hear when they were together. He wasn't enamored of Mexican cooking, but he could learn to like it under the right conditions. Lying in her arms seemed right enough.

He hadn't been interested in settling down before because he hadn't reached his goal, but now that it was in sight, he needed to find new horizons. He'd spent twenty-five years of his life surrounded by family, and he'd been happy to escape their limitations. But five years of life among strangers was taking its toll. He could admit that he missed coming home to familiar voices. He'd like to have a decent roof over his head again. The thought of having a loving wife and the smell of baking bread meeting him at the door had been little more than a daydream these last years. The possibility lurked tantalizingly within reach now.

He'd lived a pampered life before and it hadn't made him happy, but he wasn't that much happier living the life he led now. He was a free man for a change, but freedom meant little when he had little to show for it. Maybe once he had the mountain in his name and gold in his pockets he could ask his little senorita to marry him.

They could build a house in that valley back there. They could build a whole damned town if they wanted. Once he and Townsend owned the mountain, they could hire laborers to dig the gold. Then all he'd have to do was go into his office every day, work the business end of the operation, and figure out where to invest the profits. He could go home every night to a decent meal and a clean bed and a wife who would welcome him with open arms. He could be content living like that.

He would admit to needing a woman in his life. He'd spent the better part of his life protecting his mother, but he missed her soft reassurances, their quiet talks, the little things she did to make his life comfortable. He could find solace in the arms of willing women, his handsome face was good for that much, but that wasn't the same thing. He wanted a woman of his own, one whose bed was reserved just for him. He had that much of his father in him. He liked owning things. He was a possessive man.

Women were still too few and far between out here. He'd not wasted much time looking for one, but he'd seen what was available. His little senorita was the best of the lot. He would stop by the cabin, ask her to marry him, and when he came back with the money to buy the mountain, they'd tie the knot. He could move her up the mountain with him until the mine was established.

The idea grew more pleasing the closer he came to her bed. Peter could almost taste her lips against his. He liked the anticipation of coming home to a woman's arms.

The sun was setting behind him when the first smoke from the cabin chimney curled on the horizon. He owned this land, but the summers were too dry for farming, and he wasn't a rancher. Grass rippled a healthy green from early spring rains. He'd sold his horses before he'd left the last time. Catalina couldn't take care of them herself. Peter missed hearing their whinnies as he rode up, but his thoughts were on the woman tending the fire inside.

He tried to envision Cat's thick dark hair wrapped in a braid around her head, the sway of her hips beneath a long full skirt as she bent over the fire, but the image was slightly hazy as he dismounted. It didn't matter. Once he got inside, she would be in his arms, all round and warm and soft. He hadn't eaten all day, but the hunger he felt now wasn't for food. He'd have her in the bed before he thought about food. He needed a woman right now. He needed her desperately.

The fire was burning low when he entered, and the lamp wasn't lit. A pot of something simmered over the embers, and Peter remembered he had meant to buy her a stove. He would do that as soon as he got to town. His funds were nearly nonexistent after putting the down payment on the mountain and leaving some for Townsend, but he could get by without money. Catalina ought to have the best. He would dress her in silk once they owned the mountain.

She must be in the bedroom. The door was closed, but he could hear movement. Perhaps she had seen him coming and was putting on clean sheets. That thought made him randier than hell. He hadn't seen clean sheets in six months, since he'd been here last.

He ought to take time to bathe, but he couldn't. She'd have to take him as he was right now. He'd do things properly later, when he proposed. He should have done that long ago, but a wife hadn't been one of those things he had considered back then. He was considering it now.

The last rays of the setting sun filtered through the bedroom window when Peter threw open the door. The rosy haze befuddled his eyes a moment as he stood there in the doorway, expecting Catalina to turn and throw herself at him. A movement from the bed brought his gaze into better focus.

Catalina was there, buck naked against those sheets he'd just been imagining. And so was the rancher he'd called neighbor, equally naked and on top of her.

The man turned his head and looked over his shoulder, paling with recognition. His gaze dropped in terror at the sight of Peter's hand going to his holster.

With only a grim smile, Mulloney dropped his grip on the gun and politely tugged at his hat. "Good to see you again, Roger, Catalina. Just stopped by to tell you I'm heading for Texas and won't be through here anytime soon. If you hear of any buyers for the land, drop a line to my box in town."

He turned on the heel of his worn but expensive boots and walked away.

Chapter 2

Texas

June, 1885

Janice Harrison carefully typed the final two words, frowned as the platen smeared the ink, and, deciding it wasn't worth retyping, jerked the paper out of the machine. She had diligently taught herself to type with some competence, but she wasn't impressed with the machine itself. Good handwriting still looked neater.

Laying the letter on Jason's desk, she tidied up her work space, put on her spectacles, found her straw hat, pinned up her skirt, and set out for home.

The ranch hands working in the paddock yelled and waved as she maneuvered the tall, spindly front wheel of her tricycle through the gate and out onto the road, hat ribbons flying. Handling the awkward machine on the rutted road was too difficult for her to risk waving back, but the men didn't mind. She was the one who wrote out their paychecks at the end of every month.

She had wanted a bicycle ever since reading about one back during the centennial, but of course she had been too poor then to afford one. That had been back in Ohio when she had only been an overworked, underpaid factory worker with younger siblings to feed. She'd come a long way since then with the help of a few good friends.

They'd helped her order the bicycle too, only they decreed a tricycle was safer. Since then, she'd decided the two tiny wheels in back were definitely a stabilizing factor on these roads.

Jason had thought it hilarious when she first rode up on her new machine, and it probably had been a sight with her skirts flying up and her hat flying off and the wheel tilting this way and that. But he'd had the road smoothed out since then, and she'd learned to pin her skirts back, and practice had made the ride much better. Without the tricycle, she would have had to buy a horse or give up this extra income altogether.

She couldn't afford to give up a single penny. With a worried frown, Janice sent the cycle flying down the open road toward town. Betsy had been looking pale again this morning. She would stop at the drugstore and see if they had any new nostrums that might work. Modern science was wonderful, but so far it hadn't extended very far into medicine. And so far the medicine it had produced was more expensive than effective.

Perhaps she ought to take Betsy back to the doctor in Houston again. He'd worried about consumption and recommended a new tonic that had actually eased one of Betsy's worst attacks. That was before she had heeded her friend Daniel's warning and learned the tonic consisted of chloroform and opium. It had taken Betsy a long time to recover from her need for that medicine. Maybe doctors didn't know best.

Betsy had been doing so well, Janice had hoped that whatever was wrong with her was improving with age. Betsy was ten now, and she no longer had attacks that left her blue and weak for days. Maybe if they were just patient, everything would work out. And maybe the sun would rise in the west, too.

Janice cycled wearily into town. Now that school was out for the summer and her teaching duties had been temporarily lifted, she ought to have more time for Betsy. She could write copy for the newspaper at home, or Betsy could come into the newspaper office when she worked in the copyediting. Mr. Averill didn't mind. He was grateful for all the help he could get now that his twins had grown up and moved away. Maybe they could even teach Betsy to do some of the work around the office, if it didn't involve too much physical labor.