For a wild second she thought Reno was talking to her. Then she realized that it was Rafe kneeling next to her.
«How…?» Eve’s question ended in a cough.
«When the wall went, it opened up a whole new passage. I don’t know how long it will last, though. Can you walk?»
Shakily Eve got to her feet.
«Take the lantern,» Rafe said. «We’ll be right on your heels.»
He bent, levered his brother into place across his broad shoulders, and followed Eve. Soon they met Caleb and Wolfe, who had heard the rumble in the gut of the mine and had come running.
Fresh air and the jostling that came on the way through the mine revived Reno. He regained consciousness in a haze of pain and dizziness just as he was carried out of the mine. Sunlight was a hammer blow in his eyes. Groaning, he closed his eyes and wondered why the world was bumping so badly.
«Lie still,» said Rafe’s voice. «You’ve been hurt.»
Other voices came to Reno, men’s voices, Caleb and Wolfe talking as they carried him into the shelter of the camp.
Nowhere did Reno hear Eve’s voice, her touch, her scent. When he opened his eyes, sunlight blinded him.
«Eve?» he asked hoarsely.
«Other than being crazy enough to try to cut a deal with Slater, she’s fine,» Caleb said dryly. «Let’s set him down over here. Feet first, Wolfe.»
Reno heard nothing but the words about Eve. They echoed in his mind like the waves of concussion, pounding home the old truth about men and women and betrayal.
Tried to cut a deal with Slater. Cut a deal with Slater. Cut a deal…
The words echoed terribly in Reno’s mind, bringing a pain in their wake that was like nothing he had ever known. When he had felt the tunnel collapsing around him, his last thought was that at least Eve would be safe.
Her first thought had been to take the gold and cut a deal with Jericho Slater, leaving Reno to die in the mine.
«Should have learned…Savannah Marie,» he said bitterly.
«What?» Caleb asked.
«Did that cheating saloon girl…leave any gold?»
Before Caleb could answer, Reno passed out again.
Eve wished she could have done the same. She stumbled as though the ground had been taken away from beneath her feet.
Rafe caught her before she fell.
«Easy there,» he said kindly. «You’re at the end of your rope.»
She simply shook her head and said nothing.
«Who’s this Savannah Marie?» Caleb asked Rafe.
«A girl back home who used to drive boys crazy with her teasing. For a while there, Reno was young enough to think he loved her,» Rafe said as he set Eve back on her feet. «Who is the cheating saloon girl?»
«I am,» Eve said tonelessly.
Abruptly Caleb realized that his words about Eve cutting a deal with Slater had been misunderstood by Reno.
«Reno’s out of his head,» Caleb said roughly. «When he wakes up, I’ll set him straight.»
«It doesn’t matter,» Eve said, turning away.
«Eve,» Caleb said. «Wait.»
She shook her head and kept walking.
Everything that mattered had already been said. Reno might have enjoyed her company, might have been gentle with her, might have shared the most intense kind of passion with her; but he didn’t love her.
He never would. Love required trust, and Reno would never forget that Eve had been a card cheat and a saloon girl.
I understand that women have to make up in cunning what they lack in strength. Understanding isn’t the same as liking.
You can’t count on women, but you can count on gold.
Sugar child, would you feel better if I told you sweet lies about love?
While the others hovered around Reno, Eve went into a grove of trees and washed the grit of the mine from every bit of her, and while she did, she wished she could wash away the past at the same time.
But she couldn’t. She could only leave the past behind her, like the dirty water she was pouring from the basin onto the stony ground.
With a calm that came from a loss so deep it numbed her ability to feel pain, Eve pulled on her only remaining clothing — the red dress with jet buttons and a bullet hole in the hidden pocket where she carried her derringer.
Mechanically she went about her preparations. The most difficult part was figuring out how to carry the gold. Finally she brought her mount over to the mouth of the mine, tied on her empty saddlebags, and loaded them. Reno’s saddlebags, she tied around the saddle horn. Then she loaded them, too. Gold bars clanked and shifted within the heavy leather pouches.
Only Caleb noticed Eve’s transformation from grubby miner to tawny-haired saloon girl. He watched with brooding amber eyes that shifted between the half-conscious Reno and Eve’s quick, efficient preparations.
Abruptly Caleb stood up and went over to her.
«You’re getting ready to pull out,» he said.
She nodded.
«Where are you going?» he asked.
She shrugged. «Canyon City, I guess. It’s the nearest saloon.»
«You’ll need someone to ride shotgun. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.»
«I’ll pay you.»
«Like flaming hell you will. I was planning to get back to Willow as soon as I could anyway. Pig Iron is a fine guard, but he’s a mite short on social graces.»
Caleb stalked off, whistling shrilly. A black gelding stopped grazing in the meadow and trotted over to him. He saddled and bridled the horse with swift motions before he came back to camp to pick up his saddlebags. Their unexpected weight nearly yanked him off balance.
He spun toward Eve just as she mounted the lineback dun in a flurry of scarlet silk and rode across the meadow toward the people gathered around Reno.
Rafe and Wolfe looked up at her, saw the dress and the tightly drawn beauty of the girl with shining hair and golden eyes, and were too shocked to speak.
Jessi saw, too. Her eyes widened, but she said only, «Reno is much better. Steady pulse, good deep breaths. He’ll be coming around soon. I don’t think he’s badly injured at all. He’s strong as an ox.»
Eve’s smile was the saddest Jessi had ever seen.
«Yes,» Eve said softly. «He’s very strong.»
Caleb rode up, reined in beside Eve, and waited, saying nothing.
Jessi came to her feet and stood next to the girl who looked as though she had been pushed beyond her last reserves. Jessi knew what it was like to be pushed that hard by life.
«Caleb told me,» Jessi said in a low voice. «Reno didn’t know what he was saying. When he wakes up, he’ll call himself ten thousand kinds of fool.»
The compassion in Jessi’s blue eyes made Eve want to laugh and cry at the same time.
«You’re very kind,» Eve said huskily. «And very wrong. Reno knew exactly what he was saying. He’s said it often enough before.»
Jessi bit her lip and shook her head unhappily.
Eve continued speaking in an unnaturally calm voice.
«My half of the gold came to eight bars. I left two for you and Wolfe and two for Rafe. Caleb already has his.»
Wolfe and Rafe started to speak at the same time.
Eve ignored them. With breathtaking speed, she bent over and yanked Caleb’s belt knife from its sheath. The lethally sharp blade flashed, slicing through the tie that held Reno’s saddlebags to the saddle horn. They landed with a weighty thump a few feet from Reno’s legs.
«That gold belongs to Reno,» Eve said. «He can count on it.»
The lineback dun spun on its hocks and leaped forward as once again Eve left Reno behind in a drumroll of hoofbeats and a wild swirl of scarlet skirts.
23
Reno sat quietly in the shade of a fir tree, watching the meadow through narrowed eyes. For the first time in five days he wasn’t dizzy in the least. The ringing in his ears was gone, as was the nausea that had plagued him. Though his mouth was drawn in a flat lin
e of pain, his headache had subsided until it was little more than a nuisance.
It wasn’t the headache that was hurting Reno. It was thinking about a girl who had loved her own comfort more than she had cared whether he lived or died.
Reno hadn’t seen Eve since he came out of the mine. When he had asked where Caleb was, Rafe told him that Caleb had taken Eve back to Canyon City. Reno hadn’t mentioned her name again. Neither had anyone else.
The sound of Wolfe laughing came back through the clean air, followed by the silvery music of Jessi’s laughter as her husband lifted her off the ground and spun her around and around. Finally he sank down with Jessi and disappeared in the meadow’s long, lush grass.
A bitterness that Reno refused to acknowledge as grief twisted through him, memories like razors slicing him, making him bleed in secret.
Once he had chased Eve through this meadow, caught her, and pulled her laughing down into the grass. Once, but no longer. Now even the memory of their shared passion was a pain he couldn’t face, so he shoved it down in his mind, condemning it to darkness.
Yet the pain remained, reflected in the new brackets on either side of his mouth.
Tried to cut a deal with Slater. Cut a deal with Slater. Cut a deal…
Slowly Reno became aware of his brother standing nearby, watching him with shrewd gray eyes, holding a pair of saddlebags over his arms.
«Sure is a wonder to hear Wolfe laughing,» Rafe said. «Makes a man feel good just watching them together.»
Reno grunted.
Rafe’s smile was a warning any man other than Reno would have heeded. Rafe had been waiting impatiently until concussion and physical pain no longer hazed his brother’s eyes. Rafe wanted to be certain that Reno would hear and understand each word with great clarity.
The waiting was finally over.
«How’s your head this morning?» Rafe asked blandly.
Reno shrugged.
«Glad you’re feeling better, baby brother,» Rafe said. «We were all real worried about you.»
The look Reno gave his older brother didn’t invite convesation. Rafe ignored it and kept talking.
«Yessir,» he drawled, «the story went through the countryside like wildfire. A gunfighter called Reno, a Spanish treasure map, and the girl from the Gold Dust Saloon.»
Reno’s eyelids flinched at the mention of Eve, but he made no other response.
If Rafe hadn’t been looking closely for a reaction, he would have missed it. But he missed nothing. His smile widened without becoming a bit warmer.
«I was in the Spanish Bottoms when I heard you were trapped in a blind canyon and were going to be cut to bloody rags by Slater and a passel of Comancheros,» Rafe said.
«They tried.»
«By the time I got there, nothing was left but coyote bait.»
Reno’s smile was a cold match for his brother’s. «It was a near thing.»
«That’s what Caleb said. He came up on me when I was reading sign after the fight, trying to figure out which way to go. That man’s like a ghost. Near scared me out of my boots.»
More laughter floated up from the meadow, a man and woman’s voices joined in celebration of the sheer joy of being alive.
Reno looked away from the sunlight and grass, trying to forget the time when he had laughed and breathed in the heady fragrance of lilacs from Eve’s hair, her skin, her breasts.
«Seems word had gotten to Cal through that Comanchero squaw one of his men keeps,» Rafe continued. «I’ll tell you, brother, that was one hair-raising trail you found out of the blind canyon.»
«It was better than what Slater had waiting for me.»
«Well, Cal and I decided on the sensible route. We took after Slater. He left a lot wider trail than you did.»
«I didn’t expect friends to be following me,» Reno said dryly.
«You left signs for me.»
«Just covering my bets.»
«Bets, huh?» Rafe said sardonically. «Appears you’ve turned into quite a gambler since Canyon City. Must have been Eve’s bad influence.»
Reno’s mouth thinned even more beneath the black stubble that covered his cheeks.
Rafe pretended not to notice his brother’s grim reaction each time Eve was mentioned.
«We hooked up with Wolfe and Jessi on the far side of that mesa you blazed a trail over,» Rafe continued. «One of Wolfe’s Indian friends had told him you were in too much trouble to shoot your way out of alone, so Wolfe and Jessi came on the run.»
Reno barely heard. He was too busy trying to shut out the sound of laughter coming from the meadow where Wolfe and Jessi enjoyed the sunlight and the day and each other.
The rippling music of feminine laughter haunted Reno, reminding him of everything he wanted to forget.
«…Caleb came on Slater’s guards just after they were changed,» Rafe said. «No sooner had he taken care of them than he heard someone go by. Turned out it was Eve, on her way to spy on Slater’s camp.»
Abruptly Reno started to get up.
Rafe uncoiled. A single swift motion of his foot brought his brother down. The blow was as unexpected as it was precise.
Reno looked at his brother in shock.
«Settle down, baby brother,» Rafe said flatly. «You’re not going anywhere until I’ve had my say. You want to fight about it, you go right ahead. I’ll beat you, and you know it.»
«You and those damned Chinese wrestling tricks,» Reno said angrily.
«I’ll teach you every one of them when you’re well. But right now you’re going to listen to me.»
Reno looked into the icy gray eyes that were so like his own. Though none of the coiled readiness left Reno’s body, he nodded curtly.
Rafe backed away with a lazy motion and sat on his heels with the saddlebags beside him. The appearance of being relaxed didn’t fool Reno. If he showed any sign of getting up again, he would be brought down just as swiftly as he had been the first time.
«Cal snagged Eve before Slater saw her,» Rafe said. «Seems she had some damn fool notion about taking Slater at gunpoint and offering him gold if his men dug you out.»
«Is that was she told Cal?»
Rafe nodded.
«And he believed it?» Reno asked sarcastically.
Rafe nodded again.
A mockery of a smile curved Reno’s mouth.
«Marriage has softened Cal’s brain,» Reno said in a flat voice. «That little saloon girl was going to trade forherlife, not mine.»
«The less you say, the fewer words you’ll have to eat,» Rafe retorted. «But don’t let that stop you from running off at the mouth. When you get tired of eating your words, I’m looking forward to feeding them to you one by one.»
Green eyes narrowed into glittering slits, but Reno said no more. He was in no shape at the moment to take on his brother, no matter how badly he wanted to. Both of them knew it.
«After we took care of Slater’s gang, we went to the mine,» Rafe said. «Eve stood there covered with dirt from head to heels, cut and scraped and bleeding from trying to dig you out. She refused to let Wolfe or Caleb go into the mine. Said it was too dangerous.»
Tension began to steal through Reno’s body once more as he listened.
«She said she wouldn’t have minded killing Comancheros to dig you out,» Rafe drawled coolly, «but she wouldn’t risk family men. Said she was going to do it herself, because she had no family waiting for her.»
«You didn’t let her go back in the mine, did you?» Reno asked in a harsh voice.
«She was the only one who knew where you were,» Rafe said flatly. «She led me to the cavein, and I dug like hell burning, not knowing if you were alive or dead, and that goddamned ceiling kept coming down on me like a hard rain.»
Reno gripped his brother’s arm. «Christ! You should have gotten out. The rock in that coyote hole was as rotten as fruitcake!»
«Would you have gotten out if I were stuck down in some godforsaken hole?» retorted Rafe.
&n
bsp; Reno shook his head. «Not a chance.»
Rafe’s expression softened for a moment. Of all his brothers, he had been closest to Reno.
«I finally opened up a hole a cat would have had trouble getting through,» Rafe said. «I saw light, but you didn’t answer my yells. Every time I tried to make the hole bigger, the ceiling came down.»
«Then how did you get to me?»
«I didn’t. Eve did.»
«What?»
«Somehow she shoved herself through that little hole. She started uncovering you, and then the whole damn shooting match started groaning and grinding. I yelled at her to leave you and save herself.»
Reno’s hand clenched on his brother’s arm hard enough to leave bruises.
«But she didn’t,» Rafe continued harshly. «Somehow she managed to drag you out of the rubble before the wall caved in. When I got to her, she was still pulling on you, crying your name, trying to save your life and to hell with her own.»
Reno opened his mouth, but no words came through the constriction in his throat.
«You may have found that girl in a saloon,» Rafe continued in a savage voice, «but she’s worth more than any gold you ever dug out of the ground.»
Eyes closed, Reno fought for control.
«She hung around long enough to hear you run off at the mouth about cheating saloon girls,» Rafe said. «Then she washed up, put on a fancy red dress, and took that lineback dun out of here like its heels were on fire.»
Reno put his head in his hands. He had thought he could hurt no more than the moment when he had learned of Eve’s betrayal.
He had been wrong.
But Rafe was still talking, and Reno was still learning how much he could hurt.
«She left you a message,» Rafe said.
With a deceptively easy motion, Rafe upended the saddlebags he had brought with him. Gold bars tumbled out and clashed to the ground.
«Here’s your gold, brother. You can count on it.»
The agonized expression on Reno’s face made Rafe regret his harshness. He reached toward his brother, but Reno was already on his feet, walking away from the gleaming gold bars.
«Where are you going?» Rafe asked.
Reno didn’t answer.
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