“Her name’s Joe?”
“Giuseppina. J-o.”
“So when are we going to meet our engineer half sister?” Trey’s curiosity was piqued by more than the circumstances of her birth.
More circumspect, Daisy gauged her parents’ expressions. “Or would you prefer we didn’t?”
“No, not at all. Your father and I were going to talk to you both this morning. You simply heard the news first. By all means, we’d like you to meet Jo. She gives every appearance of being agreeable doesn’t she, dear?”
Hazard nodded. “Although I’m reserving judgment until we get to know her better. With Lucy for a mother..his voice trailed off. “In any event,” he went on briskly, “your mother and I were planning to speak to our visitors this forenoon and perhaps we could all plan on meeting later.” Daisy lifted her chin a fraction. “Are you talking to them with or without your lawyers?”
“Without.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Daisy always erred on the side of caution.
Hazard had carved an empire for himself on the frontier where violence was a way of life; he wasn’t easily intimidated. “It won’t hurt to begin informally,” he said. “But whatever the direction of our discussions, I’d prefer not involving you in this.”
Daisy’s mouth firmed for a brief moment. “I’m perfectly capable of dealing with these negotiations.”
“Of course you are. Not wanting you involved has nothing to do with your capabilities.”
“I think your father feels it’s too personal,” Blaze interjected. “He’d prefer someone outside the family handle the arrangements.”
“Everyone knows you’re the best lawyer in Montana,” Hazard noted. Daisy had passed the bar with the highest scores every posted. “I’d just like to keep the haggling over money separate from family. Then socializing with Jo won’t pose any problems.”
“We were thinking of having them over for tea this afternoon,” Blaze remarked.
Trey groaned.
“I’ll have something alcoholic for you and your father, so you needn’t break your bad habits for me.” His mother swept a glance over his range clothes. “But I will insist you find yourself some more decent attire. Surely with your tailor’s bills, you have something more appropriate to wear.”
“Yes, Mama.” When his mother spoke in that tone of voice, it never paid to disagree.
“Good. Tea then—say at five?”
And the conversation turned to less tumultuous matters as the servants brought in fresh servings of breakfast for Daisy and Trey. The family was even able to forget for brief moments during the lively conversation concerning their many businesses and activities that a ten-ton elephant in the guise of a young lady from Florence was hovering in the wings.
❧
But once Trey and Daisy had gone, the potent question of birthright returned, as obdurate and difficult as ever.
“You don’t actually want to go and see Lucy in action, do you? And I’m not saying that to avoid taking you.” Hazard’s dark gaze was open, but he knew how little his wife liked controversy and whenever possible, he shielded her from the more turbulent issues in their lives.
Blaze wrinkled her nose. “Of course I don’t wish to see
Lucy anymore than I have to, but I’m curious—I can’t say I’m not. On the other hand, I know what she wants”—her brows rose—“and I don’t mean just money. So I suppose it’s a question of whether I care to watch her try to seduce you.” Her sky-blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “Which now that I think about it, I’m sure I don’t. So, no, I won’t go. I would suggest, however, that you keep your daughter, Jo, out of the negotiations. There’s no point in exposing her to all the ... er ... titillating details of your liaison.”
“I agree, but how do you propose I accomplish that? Jo didn’t look like the type who takes directions.”
“An inherited trait, no doubt,” Blaze said with a faint smile. “Perhaps I could go to the hotel with you and invite Jo to go shopping. If she doesn’t like shopping, we have one of the better bookstores in the West. A studious young woman may find that an appealing alternative. And I suspect, if Lucy sees an opportunity to get you alone, she’ll find a way to send Jo with me.”
“No question there,” Hazard said, drily.
“A better question is, Can you defend yourself?” Blaze teased.
“I’ll bring Sheldon along.” Although knowing Lucy, it wouldn’t matter if God himself were on the sidelines. She was brazen as hell. “Between the two of us, we should be able to hold her at bay,” he said with more conviction than he was feeling.
“Perfect. Sheldon has excellent mediation skills. He saved us at least a half million on those copper leases last year.”
Hazard smiled. “We’ll see how he fares against Lucy.”
Blaze held her husband’s gaze for a potent moment. “Just a reminder—I’m more than willing to be forgiving... up to a point. I even understand how Lucy Attenborough might have been appealing when you were young and without ties. However—”
“You needn’t say more, darling. I’ll see that Lucy understands.” But he almost felt like crossing his fingers behind his back as he spoke, because Lucy was not only bold as brass, but without scruples.
If he had his way, she’d be on the next train heading east no matter what it cost.
Chapter 5
On that same morning, while family matters were occupying the Braddock-Blacks, Flynn Ito’s thoughts were consumed with vengeance. He was standing on a windswept hill a day’s ride north of Helena, gazing down on the Sun River valley below. His ranch house, barns, bunkhouse, and outbuildings lay in an untidy sprawl along both sides of the river, the buildings’ rooftops covered with a light dusting of snow. Smoke curled up from the chimneys into the clear blue sky. The storm had blown over, the strong winds sweeping east into Dakota, and unlike the violence of his thoughts, the scene below was one of tranquility and calm.
He was standing in the small cemetery where his parents were buried; it was his place of solitude when the burdens of the world became onerous. And after yesterday’s standoff with the crew of the Empire Cattle Company who was found three miles inside his borders, and after his men had discovered a score of his cattle slaughtered at the Aspen ford this morning, he needed the peace of the graveyard to clear his thoughts.
To plan and prepare his reprisals.
He and his men would be riding out come nightfall.
The remittance men who ran the Empire Cattle Company needed to be taught a lesson.
Standing before the simple headstones, the granite unembellished except for the names carved into the rough stone, he spoke to his parents as though they were still alive.
“They keep coming, Father—like you said they would— the Sassenach devils,” he murmured, a small smile forming on his mouth. His Irish mother had detested the English.
Like many of the large cattle companies, the Empire was funded by English nobles looking for profit in the American West, and on occasion for a distant locale to send their scapegrace sons until their scandals died away. Remittance men, they called those ne’er-do-well sons, and tonight, Flynn would face those running the Empire Cattle Company. Not that blue bloods from England were worth a damn as fighters. But the brutal men they hired to maintain their range lands were quick with a gun and dangerous.
And like his samurai father before him, Flynn had fought a constant battle to guard his land from men like that. In this outland beyond the arm of the law, the strong took from the weak. An eye for an eye wasn’t just a biblical injunction, and justice was determined by the number of armed men who rode at your side.
Flynn’s men were loyal, their fighting skills well honed. He’d learned the art of war at his father’s knee. The military arts were the highest form of study in Japan, the way of the warrior a philosophy of honor and loyalty his father had always lived by. A ronin or “wave man” (wanderer), his father had been set adrift when the feudal system had been
replaced by a central government and the samurai class disenfranchised.
Ito Katsakura had sailed for the goldfields of California to mend his fortunes, taking with him his samurai swords, the badge of his class, and the principles of Bushido that had guided his life.
Flynn’s mother, Molly, an Irish immigrant, endured the drudgery of a scullery maid in Boston for three scant months before seeing the advertisement heralding high wages for mule skinners in California. Who hadn’t heard the glorious tales of striking it rich in the goldfields? Hadn’t she seen a team driven a thousand times? How hard could it be?
She’d learned to drive by sheer audacity and wits, holding her own against the male drivers, working the route from San Francisco to the goldfields for almost two years. By then, she’d saved up enough to stake her claim, and on her first day panning for gold, she’d met Katsakura. She’d known immediately, she’d always said, that she’d found a man as strong as she.
The young couple worked a series of claims up and down the Sierra Nevadas, making just enough to keep their appetites whetted for more. But the big bonanzas were few and far between eight years after the Sutter’s strike. And when word arrived of the new gold discoveries in Montana, they’d followed the rush to the virgin fields.
Their luck turned in ’63—maybe it had to do with the fact that Molly had called their claim Flynn’s Luck, after their five-year-old son. She’d always said it had, but whatever the reason, that patch of real estate near Diamond City lay over a gold vein rich enough to enable them to buy vast acres of prime land, make them good friends with the bankers in town and give them a life free from want.
With bowed head, Flynn stood at his parents’ graves, asking their blessing as was his habit before he rode off to face his enemies. “We leave tonight,” he said, his harsh features in repose, his long black hair blowing in the wind. “The moon’s full—your favorite kind, Father... a raiding moon.” He smiled, remembering all the times he’d ridden with his father. His father’s samurai swords were thrust through his belt—a long sword and short one, their cutting edges uppermost, the fearful blades, strong and sharp enough to cut through armor. “Give me your strength and courage.” He lifted his head as though listening and his mother’s voice echoed in his ears. “A Flynn can take on a hundred Sassenach devils without breaking a sweat, my darling boyo . . . and don’t you forget it.”
His father’s calm voice seemed to resonate in counterpoint: “Attack when your enemies least expect it.” And attack your enemies' weak point, Flynn silently added; his father’s wisdom had become his own.
He missed his parents—as if they’d left him yesterday although almost a decade had passed since the choking disease put them in their graves.
And had he not been young and strong, it would have killed him, too.
Almost from the first, he’d had to fight to hold on to his land. He’d been attacked on the day of their burial—and the struggle had never ceased.
It made one cynical and if it didn’t break you, it made you strong. He had a reputation now for violence. Swaggering young gunfighters wanted to take him on to prove their manhood—arrogant, stupid, impatient young men—all of them dead. Although someday he knew, he’d meet someone who could outdraw him; it happened to everyone.
But until that day, he thought grimly, he still owned twenty thousand acres of the best grazing land north of the Sun River. And tonight, he’d see that the Empire Cattle Company understood exactly who owned that range.
Chapter 6
"You needn’t be polite,” Jo said when Blaze invited her shopping.
“Nonsense. If I wanted to be polite, I could have sent you a gift and been done with it. Come, we might as well get to know each other. Hazard is your father, after all. You’re part of the family.” Blaze took Jo’s hand, waved to those in the sitting room at the Plantation House Hotel and left Hazard to deal with Lucy’s avarice.
She’d never been part of any family, Jo reflected, following in Blaze’s wake, unless you considered her flighty mother and moody, self-centered Cosimo a substitute. Which she couldn’t unless she suspended credulity entirely.
Her mother had always been primarily concerned with her looks and her entertainments. Jo had understood early on that a daughter was a liability and more often than not, overlooked. A fact the monks at San Marco had taken note of one day when she was found wandering in the monastery gardens without her nursemaid. She’d been four at the time and Father Alessandro’s offer to tutor her free of charge had turned out to be an unaccountable blessing for which she would always be grateful.
Keeping pace with Blaze as they moved through the hotel corridor, Jo said, “You’re very gracious to include me in your family. I hardly expected such kindness.”
Blaze smiled at her. “What happened in the past has nothing to do with you or me, now, does it? We can simply enjoy each other’s company and leave all the talk of business to others.”
“I really want to apologize for my mother’s—er—presumption.”
“I’m sure your mother has the best of intentions.” Blaze’s tone was one of exquisite politesse.
You don’t know my mother, Jo wished to say.
“Although, I must confess, my husband is under orders to behave.”
Jo flushed. Had she read her mind? “I wish I could say the same of my mother,” she replied, deciding to answer with frankness of her own. “She’s rather bold on occasion.”
“I’m sure everything will work out,” Blaze said, blandly, deciding Hazard’s daughter had his gift for understatement. “In any event, we needn’t worry ourselves over anything more taxing than whether we want to go to Swanson’s Bookstore first or second. Do you like fiction or nonfiction best?”
❧
While Blaze introduced Jo to the shopping establishments of note in Helena with the aplomb and immunity to gossip that enormous wealth conferred, Hazard and Lucy faced each other across a marquetry tea table. Sheldon Whitney sat off to one side, as though understanding he was there as duenna and referee.
“I’m finding Helena most charming, Jon. Thanks to you,” Lucy purred. “I can’t believe you have grown children. You look so wonderfully virile . .The last word was the merest of whispers as she leaned forward to show off her cleavage.
Lucy had dressed for the occasion—provocatively, rather than appropriately—in a lacy pink froth of a gown more suitable to the boudoir than a morning visit. Carefully focusing his eyes well above her partially exposed bosom, Hazard expected Sheldon was enjoying the view. Personally, she wasn’t his style—nor had she ever been—but in his youth, he rarely said no to a woman.
That conduct unfortunately brought him here today.
Not that he begrudged Jo’s existence.
He begrudged Lucy’s use of their daughter to line her own pockets.
“If you didn’t need money, would I have ever seen my daughter?”
It took Lucy a moment to reply. She’d not expected such bluntness. “I didn’t think you so uncivil, Jon,” she said with a pettish toss of her head. “Our visit is purely social.”
“Ah . . . then, we won’t be needing Sheldon.” Hazard tipped his head toward his associate. “Sheldon brought the company checkbook with him.”
Lucy shot a quick glance at the man she’d barely acknowledged when they’d been introduced and silently chastised herself for being so obtuse as to not notice that lovely black leather folio he carried. “Jon, you needn’t be so crass.” She made a pouty little moue. “I’m sure our discussion needn’t be ungracious or venal. Would you like some tea? Would you, Mr. Sheldon?” she queried, offering the man with the checkbook a charming smile.
“No tea,” Hazard said, brusquely, “And Sheldon’s here to keep your price down, so you needn’t smile at him.”
“My goodness, how surly you’ve become. I don’t recall you being ill-natured at all. In fact, you were one of the most accommodating men I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet,” she murmured, sweetly.
“Well, we’re here now,” Lucy said, brightly, as though their presence was enough to erase all the years she’d kept him in ignorance. “Don’t tell me you’re going to hold a grudge against me because I didn’t inform you in a more timely manner. Actually, I didn’t think your wife would appreciate the information,” she added, coyly, thinking herself very clever to have devised such a good excuse. “I’m sure I wouldn’t if I were your wife.”
The thought of Lucy being his wife was terrifying enough to put everything about their visit back into perspective. And just because Lucy was as avaricious and self-centered as ever needn’t obscure the fact that he had a lovely daughter. So it was only left for him to give Lucy what she wanted and see that she departed as soon as possible. “Why don’t you tell me what you need to say, live comfortably once again,” he offered, mildly. “I’m not au courant on prices in Florence.”
His sudden volte face was disconcerting and Lucy debated how best to answer. Was he being sly? Was he trying to disarm her with politeness? How much could she reasonably ask for without jeopardizing the negotiations? “My little villa wasn’t too expensive,” she said, trying to read his expression. “Jo had her own small apartment as well,” she lied, thinking to influence him with her concern for her daughter and add to her expenses in the bargain. “The darling girl is really quite serious about her career.” She smiled, hoping she was conveying a proper maternal solicitude. “Sometimes I do wonder if I’ve been a trifle unsympathetic about her vocation.” She uttered a theatrical little sigh. “But you know how men feel about blue-stocking women; I simply feared for her future. Call me old-fashioned, but surely I’m not remiss in wishing my daughter to marry well, am I?” Lucy’s melodrama was grating; she was a very poor actress. In an effort to scotch any further thespian exertions and minimize his irritation, Hazard said, abruptly, “Would twenty thousand a year maintain you adequately?”
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