Susan Johnson

by Susan Johnson

  “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

  “Not,” he said drily, “for me. In any case, there’s no advantage to either of us.” He stopped. “If you were an Absarokee woman”—he shrugged—“it would be different. But you’re not. Our culture allows more freedom in these matters. Yours doesn’t.”

  “I wish you’d stop intellectualizing this. My God,” she exasperatedly declared, “you can’t pretend you don’t want me.”

  “I’m not that good an actor.”

  “Damn you, then,” she said, rising suddenly. “I’m going to kiss you.”

  He laughed, but as the jet bugles brushed like glittering teardrops against her pale breasts when she walked, their shiny hardness intensifying the lush, trembling softness, a palpable heat enveloped him. She was very close, the stiff rustle of taffeta crackling like static in the fire-shadowed silence.

  Reaching up, she touched the curve of his neck where it met his shoulder, softly brushed her finger over a wisp of black shiny hair caught in the supple arc of muscle and sinew. “I’m going to kiss you,” she whispered this time.

  He let her pull his face down so she could reach it, let her lips brush a threshold pulse of pleasure across his cheek, let her mouth almost reach his before he grasped the naked perfumed shoulders with fingers as pitiless as her seduction, bent his head down, and forced on her, with bruising and deliberate violence, an uncivilized savage kiss that changed at the end to a languid exercise in arousal.

  She was shaken when he released her. Holding her at arm’s length, for she was none too steady, his own face masked what hers revealed. It took him a moment to speak, but when he did his voice was near-normal. “You mustn’t tease me, Boston,” he observed, “or you’ll get burned. I’ve been playing the game so much longer.” Then, in spite of himself, Hazard grinned. “To think,” he said with a chuckle, “I’m protecting my virtue. What idiocy. But sweet, spoiled darling,” he murmured, his glance straight and true, “you can’t have everything you want. I’m not available,” he said, looking down into the beautiful pouting face, “for reasons that matter to me. And now,” he went on, giving her a push in the direction of the bed, “I think I’ll sleep outside tonight. Pleasant dreams.” Picking up a buffalo robe, he walked away.

  “Damn you, Jon Hazard Black,” Blaze called after him, finding her voice at last as he strode through the door, the ebony taffeta only precariously containing breasts heaving high in resentful anger. “Damn you to hell!”

  Get in line, he wryly thought, and set the latch in place.

  Chapter 15

  The mosquitoes were fierce that night, hovering around him in small clouds, attacking in relentless hordes. He moved his bed twice before he found respite halfway up the mountain where a cool breeze kept the insects at bay.

  Maybe he was being a fool about the woman, Hazard thought lying awake, the welcome breeze fresh on his skin. Old Man Coyote, the Almighty’s irreverent helper, would have adjusted his sense of honor and duty in one capricious moment. But the Absarokee world view had been instilled in him as a child; the individual vision as a source of power represented a rationale uniquely Absarokee. Hazard’s vision dreams had guided him always, a sharply defined cosmic and emotional stirring. And he felt an unease about the woman. He prayed that night for a sign. Maybe the woman was meant as a benevolent gift; maybe she didn’t personify betrayal and greed. Maybe she was a gift from the mystical universe.

  It was late when he woke, and unfortunately morning brought no clearer revelation to the turmoil in his mind. He hoped, with less emotional conviction than logic, that Colonel Braddock would appear soon.

  Blaze was up and dressed in one of Hazard’s cotton shirts when he came in for breakfast. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, cheerfully insincere.

  “Not particularly.” It was telling on him, the restless nights on the buffalo robes.

  “Are you ready for breakfast?”

  “Soon,” he curtly replied, rummaging through his wardrobe for clean clothes. He abruptly turned around when her question finally registered. Had she actually made breakfast? She had, he saw. The table was set and something vaguely resembling biscuits reposed next to the charred bacon on the plate. He smiled, his sullen mood dissipating. She looked so damnably pleased with her efforts; she had even included a bottle of cognac in case he wanted a drink with his breakfast. Not a bad idea, given the condition of the food on his breakfast plate.

  “Do you mind,” she asked, seeing the smile on his previously somber face, “if I empty the tub outside?”

  “No, of course not.” And when he saw her struggle with the full pail of water she’d pulled from the tub, he added, “Let me help you.” As it turned out, he emptied the tub himself while Blaze helped fill the buckets and thanked him prettily.

  When he sat down for breakfast some minutes later, she said, “I’ll be back posthaste,” and before he’d tried the curiously shaped biscuits and black bacon, she reappeared. He was still contemplating whether his stomach was up to the punishment when she stepped over the threshold, an apology rushing before her. “I think I must have forgotten something in the biscuits. They’re a bit hard and … well … I’m sorry about the bacon. I hope it didn’t cost too much.”

  “I appreciate the effort, and don’t worry about the money. If I didn’t have a few thousand people to worry about, I’d be considered a relatively rich man, even by your standards.”

  “Oh,” Blaze said, taken aback. Hazard’s life hardly bespoke wealth, and she had never contemplated him in that light.

  “Sit down,” he suggested, waving her to a seat. “I wanted to apologize myself … about last night. It’s nothing you … I have responsibilities.”

  Blaze sat down opposite him. “I know. Friends then?” she softly asked and put her small hand across the table.

  “Friends,” he replied, and prayed for restraint.

  Blaze held his hand, warm and callused, and remembered where she’d felt it before. The memory brought a blush to her cheeks.

  “Thanks for the breakfast,” he politely said, looking for an excuse to drop her hand. The feel of her fingers curled under his brought his own reminiscing disastrously to the fore. “It was very nice of you.” His voice was moderate, but his fingers when he unfolded them from her hand were trembling.

  “Well, after the tub and dresses and everything,” Blaze pleasantly said, determined to be as casual in her conversation as Hazard, “I thought I’d try.” She glanced at the food on their plates. “It looks so easy when Jimmy does it,” she ruefully conceded.

  “I know,” Hazard sympathized.

  “You don’t have to eat it.” It was the first time he’d seen her contrite.

  “And you don’t have to wear the dresses,” he gallantly rejoined.

  She laughed and brightened, and he smiled that heart-stopping smile. A singing harmony, charitable and enchanting, passed between them.

  Breakfast was revised to the usual boiled eggs, bread and butter, and milk, simple enough for them to manage.

  “If Jimmy didn’t come up we’d starve to death,” Blaze admitted, her smile pure sunlight.

  Hazard didn’t tell her that, on raiding parties, they often subsisted on jerky and pemmican for weeks. He was familiar with rudimentary eating habits. “Perhaps a raise would be in order,” he suggested with a grin, “to ensure our survival.”

  “By all means; I’ll pay him too.” When Hazard’s brows rose in inquiry, she added, “If you’d accept my I.O.U. It might be a little touchy getting to my bank right now.”

  “Incredibly touchy, for me at least,” he acceded, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “And you needn’t pay.”

  “I’ve plenty of money.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “And think of the drudgery he’s saving me.”

  “Speaking of drudgery,” Hazard softly drawled. “And I hesitate to even bring up the subject.…”

  What a change, Blaze pleasantly reflected, from a few days
ago. “My jailer has mellowed,” she couldn’t resist teasing.

  “Your demure acquiescence charmed me,” Hazard mockingly replied.

  She gave him a straight look under arched eyebrows. “You wouldn’t like me if I was demure or acquiescent.”

  “I’d be willing to try,” he offered.

  “Fat chance,” Blaze retorted, her eyes cloudless, her expression as cheerful as an admiral watching the last of the enemy ships sink from sight.

  “How,” he said with a theatrical sigh, “were you ever allowed to grow up so damnably willful?”

  “How were you?” she countered.

  “I don’t suppose it would do any good to bring out the arguments relating to male and female roles in society?”

  “Not a scrap.” Another brilliant smile.

  “I don’t exactly know how to broach the subject then, but …” His tone was far too casual, and had she known him better she would have recognized the underlying irony.

  “Yes?” She was feeling delightfully invincible, a not uncommon feeling for an extraordinarily beautiful daughter of a millionaire.

  “My buckskins need washing.” And inexplicably, he felt himself brace against her reply.

  “Is that the drudgery you mentioned?” was all she said in a mild, unexcited way, having no idea whatsoever that washing buckskins entailed any more exertion than rinsing out a few soiled handkerchiefs.

  He nodded and nominally relaxed.

  “Can’t you send them in to the servants or,” she sweetly added, “to Mrs. Pernell?”

  “They don’t know how to handle them.”

  “Who usually does them then?”

  “One of the women from my clan comes down occasionally.”

  Blaze could picture it: young, beautiful, acquiescent. The women probably drew straws or paid for the privilege of coming down and working for Hazard. Since she wasn’t entirely naive about men nor naive about Hazard’s reputation with women that preceded him lasciviously, nor, more important, naive about the man’s incredible expertise at making love, her next question came to mind immediately. “How long do they stay?” she suspiciously inquired.

  Her piqued curiosity gratified Hazard. “Overnight,” he replied.

  “Why did I bother asking?” Blaze’s voice was arch with mock derision.

  “I don’t know,” he interjected. “I’ve never professed to be monkish.”

  “Except with me.”

  “For numerous reasons—all logical.”

  “That,” she said ironically, “is a matter of opinion.”

  “Would you care to learn how to wash buckskins?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation back to a topic which couldn’t be argued into infinity.

  “Do I have a choice?” she asked with sarcasm and a softly snide jeer.

  “Certainly.” He smiled and looked across the table at her with an open, guileless expression.

  “But,” she serenely murmured, feeling far from serene, “the choice entails an overnight guest—a female one.”

  “That’s been the pattern.” Hazard’s smile widened.

  Straightening, she placed her hands squarely on her hips, his oversized shirt riding up dangerously with the pose, drew in a large breath which did dangerous things to Hazard’s libido, and said, “Ha!” The exclamation was accompanied by a glowering look.

  “Does that mean you’d like to do it?” he replied, cheerfully ignoring the stern, unvarnished meaning of the exclamation, and striving as well to ignore the taut outline of her nipples temptingly visible through the worn fabric of his shirt.

  “Only in contrast to listening to you make love to another woman five feet away from me, you mean?”

  “Is that a yes?” Hazard wasn’t about to respond to her last heated statement, not with his present thin line of control stretched to the limit.

  “Damn you Hazard …”

  He only waited, not daring to speak in the capricious, fitful mood enveloping him. Was he a fool to keep saying no? Would it really matter if he took what was so enticingly near and available? His eyes drifted over the precious jeweled beauty of a woman close enough to touch.

  “Goddamn you … yes! Satisfied?”

  “Very,” he quickly said, relieved in ways he wouldn’t care to admit.

  “I won’t have another woman in this cabin.” It was the same imperious woman he’d seen so many times before. Whether in worsted trousers, pearled satin, or scavenged clothing, she was sure of herself.

  “Fine,” he said, the concession infinitely easy. The thought of another woman in the small cabin with Blaze was a disquieting notion. And for reasons he wasn’t quite willing to face yet.

  HAZARD showed Blaze what had to be done to the treated leather. Showed her how to soak the clothing in the clear water of the pool, how to scrub it with the mild yucca soap they traded from the Shoshones, then spread it on the grass, out of the sun. And within sight of the sluice box he worked all day, she scrubbed and washed and rinsed, seeing that Hazard’s buckskins were clean, ensuring that Jon Hazard Black didn’t have some other woman in his bed.

  Jimmy didn’t come up that day, and when Blaze remarked on it Hazard told her it wasn’t unusual. He had other duties to attend to at home, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary. Blaze thought otherwise but she was too tired to argue. Even too tired to bathe when Hazard offered to carry water up. And she told him so, half dozing in the chair by the fire. “Besides,” she said, “I was in the water almost more than I was out, washing those damn clothes of yours.”

  “Thank you again. You did a beautiful job.”

  “I know, and I’ll expect the usual payment,” she sleepily replied, impertinent to the end. Hazard opened his mouth to reply and then closed it. She’d fallen asleep. He smiled at the sight of her curled up like a small child in the oversized chair. He realized she had worked very hard for him that day; he didn’t realize, however, that it was the first time in her life that Blaze had worked for anyone at all.

  Chapter 16

  A half-hour later Hazard picked her up very gently, carried her to the bed, and tucked her in. He allowed himself a light kiss. “Thank you, bia,” he whispered, brushing her cheek with his lips. “You’re a charming laundress.”

  In a dream Blaze heard the warm compliment and smiled.

  Locking the cabin when he left, an hour later, Hazard was contemplating the shadowed back stairway of Confederate Gulch’s most prosperous, elegant brothel. A silent perusal assured him the dark night held no secrets, and with soft footsteps he ascended the stairs to the second floor. Coming out into a red-carpeted hallway, the smell of waxed wood, cigar smoke and incense was distinguishably familiar. Without hesitation, he strode along the plush carpet, turned left down the corridor, and opened the second door on the right as if he were expected.

  Although not exactly expected, Hazard had an open invitation and was welcomed, literally, with open arms. “Hazard, you sweetheart,” the dark-haired beauty cried on seeing him. Rising from the plum velvet armchair, she glided over to him, arms outstretched, in a cloud of ruffled lace, expensive scent, and warm welcome. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.” She stood almost as tall as he in her satin slippers, and when they embraced, her splendid body fit meltingly into Hazard’s as perfectly as matched bookends. She put her mouth up the scant difference in their height and waited for his kiss. It was warm, friendly, lingering, and inexplicably indifferent.

  “You’re looking marvelous,” Hazard said, holding her half an arm’s length away, his lazily appraising smile as perfect as she’d remembered.

  Rose Condieu, gazing at the man she’d nursed back to health after his bloody mourning practices and reluctantly relinquished as bed partner when he’d staked his mining claim, dimpled engagingly and softly replied, “You look like hell,” then added with barely concealed interest, “Is it that woman?”

  “No,” Hazard retorted, his smile widening. “You worry too much. I’m just working long hours.”

  “Gett
ing any sleep?” Violet eyes the color of exotic orchids appraised him but could learn nothing except that he was more than a little drawn with fatigue.

  “No problem,” he lied smoothly.

  “Everyone’s talking about it, you know.”

  Hazard released his grip on her arms and, moving over to a chair near the heavily draped window, dropped into it. He leaned his head back and stretched out his legs before answering. “Didn’t really think it would pass unnoticed,” he observed, his low voice full of mockery.

  “They say you’re flaunting her as your trollop by keeping her.”

  He laughed derisively. “If I wished to flaunt her, I’d do it in a less private way. They knew what they were doing when they sent her up. It backfired and they’re regrouping, that’s all.”

  She clasped her ringed fingers and, walking over, stood before him like an admonishing tutor. “You’re up against some powerful people.”

  “But I’ve got the woman,” he said, lifting his eyes to take in her face now that she was so close. “And I can bluff better.” He appreciated her concern, but the warning was unnecessary. He knew, perhaps better than she, what he was up against.

  “Did you know the Colonel’s up mountain?”

  Hazard shook his head slowly against the chair back, his thick black hair drifting over the rich mauve brocade, silk on silk.

  “Looking for a spokesman in your tribe.” She walked a step nearer, bringing the familiar rose perfume to his nostrils, and stood to one side of his chair, where the dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced in the shade of the table lamp.

  “Good, he’ll make an offer soon, then.”

  “You do look tired, Jon.”

  Hazard sighed, his fingers tightened, then relaxed and curled loosely over the rosewood chair arms. “I’m working like a coolie, Rose. Harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. And there’s not a whole lot of time. How many pioneers”—the word was etched in sarcasm—“do you think have come into my country this month?” Bitter thought.