King of the Mountain

by Fran Baker

  “You thought I was going to hit you.” Comprehension had gentled his voice.

  Obstinately she remained mute. She didn’t want his sympathy, she only wanted him to drop the subject.

  “Didn’t you?” he demanded more forcefully.

  “Just drive, will you?” She sighed wearily, wishing she could crawl into a hole and close it up after her.

  “With pleasure.” He shifted gears and stepped on the gas, racing the car as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

  The car shot forward like a missile, and she gripped the cushioned seat beneath her for all she was worth. “But just to set the record straight,” he added testily, “I want you to know I’ve never hit a woman and I never will.”

  As much as she hated to admit it, she believed him. He was a maniac behind the wheel but he wasn’t mean. His earlier actions convinced her of that.

  “I’m sorry I acted like such a ninny.”

  To her relief, he eased up on the gas going into the next curve. “I shouldn’t have reached over there and grabbed at you the way I did.”

  Surprised by his ready admission, Kitty didn’t know how to respond. Her ex-husband had never accepted responsibility for his actions. Quite the opposite, in fact. By the time she’d worked up the courage to leave him, he’d almost convinced her that his explosive rages were her fault.

  But her confusion turned back to anger when she remembered how old Lead Foot over there had accused her of driving too slow. Just like a man, she fumed. Blaming a woman for his own—

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” she snapped.

  He drove one-handed as they neared the bottom of the mountain. “What’s with the neckerchief?”

  “I want the coal baron to see red when I walk into the union hall.” But not until she’d seen to it that the sheriff gave this road warrior she was riding with a ticket for reckless driving.

  “The coal baron,” he repeated thoughtfully.

  “Benjamin Cooper,” she clarified tartly.

  Thunder grumbled in the distance.

  “You make him sound like Simon Legree.”

  “I meant to.”

  Behind them, the mountain brooded darkly; ahead of them, Cooperville dripped in a cold mist blowing down off the knobs.

  He shot her a piercing glance that put her on the defensive. “Do you know the coal baron?”

  “Not personally.” She’d come too far to back down now. “I’ve heard things, though.”

  “Like what?” he pressed as they went from shadow to streetlight.

  “That he has a degree in mine engineering, for one.” She studied his hawklike profile, her memory quickening with every passing mile.

  “And for another?” His rough-edged drawl refocused her attention on the man in question.

  The wind howled a warning.

  She paid it no heed. “That he’s never lifted anything heavier than a pencil or a negligee.”

  He didn’t respond, but the groove that arced from his nose to his mouth deepened in amusement. Not until he’d pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office and turned to face her did she notice that his eyes were glittering like knife blades.

  That wasn’t all she noticed, either.

  He had her cornered now and was watching her with the patience of a predator. A dark memory from the past blended with the present. A dangerous moment. She experienced a dizzying sense of déjà vu, and a feeling of being hopelessly trapped. She realized she was extremely vulnerable.

  Through sheer force of will she rid her face of any telltale expression and looked him squarely in the eye. But way down deep she wondered how she was going to get out of this without losing any more than she already had.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding anything but, “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Kitty Reardon.” She lifted her chin a notch, answering his challenge with one of her own. “And yours?”

  Before he could answer, the sheriff opened the driver’s door and peered inside. The overhead light beamed down, startlingly bright and starkly revealing.

  “Somethin’ wrong, Mr. Cooper?” the lawman asked, his languid cadence fairly oozing solicitude.

  “Cooper?” Kitty felt the sickening kick of recognition as she stared into the silver and steel eyes of the most powerful man in these parts.

  The coal baron’s feral smile made her blood run cold. “Benjamin Cooper.”

  Two

  Kitty felt as if she’d lost her power of speech, which might have been to her benefit. After all, the only time she’d had her foot out of her mouth these past few minutes was when she’d been changing feet!

  “Very funny, Mr. Cooper,” she choked out when she finally found her voice, wishing to high heaven she had something more scathing to say.

  “Call me Ben,” he encouraged her, his smile widening across his deeply tanned face. “I’ll even answer to ‘Simon’ in an emergency.”

  Kitty recalled all too well the insulting comparison she’d drawn between the infamous slave driver and the coal baron. Now she burned at the memory.

  “Sheriff—.” She shucked off the cashmere coat and scrambled out of the Cadillac. “Arrest that man!”

  The sheriff, whose Groucho Marx eyebrows compensated for what he lacked in hair, looked at her over the roof of the car. “On what grounds?”

  “Attempted murder,” she declared self-righteously.

  “Attempted murder?” Ben roared from the driver’s seat.

  “That’s a pretty serious charge,” the sheriff pointed out as he scratched his balding pate.

  “You’re damn right it is!” Ben shot out of the car, towering over the lawman and glowering menacingly at Kitty. “Are you forgetting I saved your life?”

  Her nostrils narrowed haughtily and she drew herself up to her full five foot five inch height. “Only after you tried to kill me.”

  Their eyes, his an icy gray and hers an irate blue, clashed and held over the car roof. A nearby streetlight flickered forebodingly. The sheriff headed for safer ground, waiting on the otherwise deserted sidewalk outside his office to see who would win this battle of wills.

  Ben was fighting mad over her trumped-up charge, yet the longer he studied the bristling little hillbilly who’d made it, the more intrigued he became with her.

  Not that she was much to look at right now. Her black hair was plastered to her head, partly from the rain and partly from having been mashed under a helmet all day. Coal dust had sketched dark streaks on her pale heart-shaped face, and that dirty coverall hid a figure he remembered as being slim and shapely and honed by hard work.

  But it wasn’t her good looks—or the subtlety of them at the moment—that kept his attention riveted on her. She had a grit that the women of his experience rarely exhibited and a grace that he found enchanting. And it was those characteristics coupled with the secret sadness that emanated from her big blue eyes that piqued his interest.

  His curiosity was so powerful, so palpable that Kitty could feel it radiating through the two thousand pounds of steel and glass that separated them. It took great fortitude on her part not to turn and run from the probing stare that seemed to read her so clearly. But she stood her ground.

  “What do you say we go inside and settle this,” the sheriff suggested when it seemed that neither one of them was going to give.

  “Good idea,” Ben agreed grudgingly.

  “Excellent idea.” Kitty barely topped the roof of the car, but she was determined to top the coal baron’s remark.

  Ben held the door open for Kitty. Head high and shoulders squared, she swept past him like a queen. But her heart leapt when their bodies brushed. And the scent of his bay rum lingering on her collar reminded her that he had done her as much good as harm.

  The thought took some of the wind from her sails. How could she press charges against the man who’d risked his life to save hers? On the other hand, how could she let him walk away scot free after he’d almost killed her?

/>   Kitty stood there, stewing in the juices of her own confusion, until Ben asked to use the sheriff’s phone to call the union hall to postpone the bargaining session to another night.

  He growled a low greeting into the receiver and said, “I’ve run into a little trouble.”

  Trouble? Trouble was she? She glared at the man who was lounging against the desk, his lean, supple body totally relaxed. He didn’t know what trouble was!

  “No,” he said then, straightening and looking directly at her. “More annoying than serious.”

  That did it. By the time he hung up the phone Kitty was fit to be tied. And she intended to prosecute him to the limit the law would allow.

  From the fully stocked gun rack by the front door to the cross-barred hotel in back, the office fairly reeked of truth and justice the Cooperville way.

  “Now,” the sheriff said, plopping his bulk into the swivel chair behind his scarred oak desk. He eyed them one after the other. “Would someone mind telling me what in the name of tarnation’s going on here?”

  They both spoke at once.

  “She was poking along like Mr. Magoo’s twin sister—”

  “He came barreling toward me at about warp seven—”

  “One at a time, please.” The sheriff held up both beefy hands as if to stop traffic, then pointed at Ben. “You first.”

  Kitty clammed up and crossed her arms over her chest, bracing herself for the biggest con job on record.

  “It was all my fault,” Ben admitted to Kitty’s total surprise. “I was going too fast and I didn’t see her until it was too late to stop.”

  The ceiling light glinted on the sheriff’s badge as he swiveled his chair toward Kitty. “Then what happened?”

  “After he hit me, my car started sliding toward the edge. I slammed on the brakes, but all that did was make it slide sideways.” Her blood curdled in her veins as she verbalized that nightmarish moment. “I thought I was a goner.”

  “And then?” the sheriff prompted, looking at Ben.

  “When I saw what was happening, I threw my car into park and ran to help her.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, making light of his own heroics. “Fortunately I was able to get her out before her car dove over the edge.”

  A dreadful silence enveloped the room. Each of them contemplated what might have happened had Ben not run to Kitty’s rescue. Like a gentle, generous thief, the memory of his sheltering arms and shared coat stole through her thoughts, robbing her of her resolve.

  The sheriff cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “It doesn’t sound like attempted murder to me. Careless and reckless driving maybe, but not—”

  “I’m sorry.” Kitty turned her dark-fringed eyes to Ben’s. “I was upset about my car and—”

  “Forget it.” He all but drowned in the shimmering blue depths of her eyes, and at the moment he could have forgiven her anything.

  “You suppose there’s anything left that’s worth salvaging?” the sheriff asked then.

  “Not of the car.” Ben took off his tie and put it into the pocket of his sharply creased trousers. Kitty couldn’t help noting how they showcased his fluid thigh and leg muscles before falling to a stylish break upon his polished Italian loafers. “I thought I’d go back and check on the contents, though.”

  The sheriff stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Is there anything in particular you want us to look for?” Ben’s question caught Kitty completely off guard.

  Her startled eyes flew to his, and she saw by the lazy smile that curved his lips that he knew she’d been staring at his well-dressed body.

  “My pit helmet,” she said quickly, trying to cover her consternation. “And my lunch pail.”

  “What about your coat?” the sheriff asked.

  “That too,” she confirmed.

  “And your purse?” he queried.

  “I don’t carry it to work,” she said, then remembered with a sigh. “But my billfold was in the glove compartment.”

  The sheriff whipped out his notebook. “Any money in it?”

  “No. Just my driver’s license and”—sudden tears spiked her lashes—”and my daughter’s baby pictures.”

  Ben placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and felt the delicacy of her bones through the rough fabric of her coverall. “If it’s humanly possible, we’ll find them.”

  She nodded her appreciation but flinched away from the too-familiar hand. “I hope so.”

  He took her rebuff in stride. “Well, we’d better get moving if we’re—”

  “Not so fast, Mr. Cooper.” The sheriff didn’t sound quite so deferential now as he reached into the desk drawer for his ticket book. “About that charge of reckless and careless—”

  “Please, Sheriff.” Kitty felt honor bound to intervene on Ben’s behalf. “Can’t we just forget that?”

  “You’re dropping the charge?” The sheriff let his ticket book lay.

  Kitty nodded, ashamed now of her earlier claim. “Yes, sir.”

  “No complaining witness, no case.” The sheriff closed the drawer and donned his ten-gallon Stetson. Then he ushered Ben and Kitty out the door and locked it behind them.

  After getting directions on where to find Kitty’s car and saying he would see Ben shortly, the lawman took off—red light flaring and siren blaring—toward the mountain.

  “Get in,” Ben ordered, his tailored white shirt pulling taut across his wide shoulders as he reached to open the passenger door. “I’ll give you a lift home.”

  Wishing she’d thought of asking the sheriff for a ride, Kitty stood pat. “I’ll get in if you’ll promise to observe the speed limit.”

  “Cross my heart,” he said, drawing anion his muscular chest with a long, dark forefinger.

  Her own heart stopped in mid-beat at the mouthwatering display of black chest hair coiling out of his open white collar. Thinking she must have lost more than her car in the accident, Kitty gave herself a swift mental kick and got into the Cadillac.

  Ben closed her door and cut around to the driver’s side.

  “I got your jacket dirty,” she confessed as he slid in.

  He noticed she’d folded it and laid it between them.

  “Send me the cleaning bill,” she added apologetically.

  He had no intention of doing that, but he just nodded and asked curtly, “Where to?”

  “East on Main,” she said, oddly deflated by his terse tone. “Then left on Maple.”

  An awkward silence fell between them as autumn leaves danced in the headlights. Night had risen from the hollow that held Cooperville, smudging the contours of the mountain. The sky was now luminous with emerging moonlight.

  “Which house?” he asked after turning onto her street.

  “Last one on the right.”

  He rolled to a stop in front of a small row house with a washtub hanging on the sagging porch and a light burning softly in the window. It had been years since he’d been in this part of town, and he was surprised to see how little it had changed.

  Kitty opened her door, wanting desperately to get out of the car. “Well, thanks for the—”

  “Wait.” He reached to detain her, reluctant to let her go in just yet. Then recalling how she’d recoiled from him earlier, he dropped his hand.

  “What?” Her eyes were wide and wary.

  Ben had been an absentee employer for longer than he cared to admit. He always came back to Cooperville at contract time to oversee the negotiations and to put his John Hancock on the bottom line. But the old hometown had held precious little else of interest to him.

  Until tonight …

  “Close the door, Kitty,” he said gently.

  But she just sat there as if she’d turned to stone.

  “Please.”

  Maybe it was his newfound politeness. Or maybe it was her own curiosity. For whatever reason, she closed the door and waited for him to go on.

  He killed the engine and adjusted the overhead light until only a mellow g
low remained. Then he turned to her with deliberate slowness. “I’d like to hear what you were going to say to me at the bargaining session.”

  “I don’t remember now.” Strange, she’d rehearsed her speech all day, but her mind seemed to have gone blank since the accident.

  “Give me the gist of it,” he suggested.

  She did. “Well, if you must know, I was going to call for a strike vote.”

  “But the miners haven’t struck in over a quarter of a century.” He was genuinely surprised. He remembered his father ordering a lockout. Remembered, too, what a turning point it had been for him.

  “Then they wanted more.” She remembered her father walking a picket line. Remembered, too, the hard-candy Christmas that had followed. “Now we’d settle for status quo.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  “Doesn’t look like you’re hurting too badly to me.”

  “I think you’re comparing apples and oranges here.”

  Kitty fingered the sleeve of his cashmere jacket, figuring she couldn’t get it any dirtier than she already had. “Pretty nice apples, if you ask me.”

  Ben couldn’t believe it. First she’d accused him of never having lifted anything heavier than a pencil or a negligee. An accusation that his military record alone would refute. Now she had him feeling like he owed her an apology for how he spent his own damn money.

  “Do you think I enjoy cutting salaries?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know what you enjoy.” Nor did she care. “I know only that if we’re forced to take a wage cut, we’re going to lose everything we’ve worked for.”

  He thought about telling her that expenses were up and profits were down. That he’d been making up the difference out of his own pocket for nigh onto three years now, and that he couldn’t continue operating the mine at a loss. That if the miners didn’t take a pay cut they were going to find themselves standing in the unemployment line.

  Then he thought the hell with it and turned his eyes to her semidark house.

  “It’s not much,” she said defensively, “but it’s mine.”

  He squared himself in the seat and changed the subject. “What made you decide to become a miner?”