Steve shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Seems strange a woman as pretty and intelligent as you didn’t get married.”
“That sounds like a polite way of calling me an old maid,” she chided gently.
Steve jammed his hands in his pants pockets self-consciously. Andrea smiled. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “You’re right. I’m too old to be single, but I lived in a small town. The men I knew just didn’t interest me. Or I them. The men I could have liked were fenced off from me.”
“Because of your mother?”
“A number of things.” Steve was forgetting she was a half-breed. He must have been seventeen or eighteen when she and Mama had come to Rancho la Reina. She hadn’t seen him. Where had he been? What had he been doing then?
His lips tightened. “And you are encouraging me to let Judy—”
“No! Judy is going to live the way she wants to live no matter what you say or do. All I’m suggesting is that you not judge her so harshly. My mother is a good woman. With the right man we would have had a normal life. She loved us! She would have done anything for us. From what I’ve seen of Judy, she may be cut from the same cloth. What good does it do to make her feel badly about herself?”
Steve frowned. The way Andrea said it, it almost made sense. Was he befuddled by the fight with Judy or by this passionate, meddling woman befriending his sister? She was surprisingly persuasive and very appealing. Her lavender cotton gown was crisp and clean, and it hugged the soft curves of her body in such a way that he felt certain she was not wearing stays. His mind made a picture of her breasts, with their small, dark rose nipples. An irritating heat quickened in his loins.
Andrea started to put forth another argument, then stopped. His eyes had changed—the pupils were dilated so much they looked almost black. Suddenly she was remembering the incident at the hotel. Her body tingled with the memory of Steve’s hands on her skin, the way his skin tasted and felt against her lips. Her throat constricted.
“Did you go away to school?” she ventured.
“Went to MIT. Before that I lived in Illinois for a while.”
When Mama brought her here, Steve had been ten or eleven. Andrea remembered hearing from one of the housekeepers that Burkhart’s wife had banished Steve to relatives in Illinois…
The clang of an iron pot startled Andrea. She looked away. “I guess I’d better go help the women with breakfast.”
“You don’t have to. Judy doesn’t, and neither did my mother,” he said quietly. His body signaled hers in some mysterious way. Andrea’s knees felt strangely weak. He had shaved, and one small place on his chin looked raw. Her fingers tingled with the urge to reach out and soothe that spot.
She swallowed. “Thanks, but I like to keep busy.”
Strangely subdued, Steve nodded.
Andrea joined the women in the kitchen and tried hard to become engrossed in their activity and camaraderie. They had breakfast on the table for the first shift by six-thirty—bacon, fried chicken, flapjacks, gravy, mashed potatoes, biscuits, pitchers of milk, hot syrup, and coffee.
Tía noticed Andrea’s preoccupation, but she had problems of her own. Johnny Brago was one of the first to the table. He sat next to the door, so she had to pass by him each time she came through with another platter of food, removed empty dishes, or refilled a coffee cup. His dark eyes followed her every move. Carefully, she avoided looking at him until she felt his hand on her arm.
“Yes?” she asked politely, looking into his eyes for the first time.
“Hi, Tía.”
“Hi.”
Johnny frowned. The smile that had started in his eyes turned to puzzlement. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. What do you want?”
“Any more coffee in the kitchen? Our pot’s empty.”
Tía looked down at his hand on her arm. He flushed slightly and dropped his hand. She knew she had embarrassed him; confusion added to her problem. She had no ties on Johnny Brago, and Andrea didn’t want her to have anything to do with him anyway, but she ignored Andrea’s advice as often as she took it. She had purely loved kissing him, and she had thought he liked her. So what had he been doing with Judy, and what did knowing he had been with Judy entitle her to? Among Mama’s friends, some women got mad, others sulky, one tried to shoot the man, and some didn’t seem to do anything. Tía just felt confused.
She took the empty pot, refilled it in the kitchen from a bigger pot, and carried it carefully back to the table. Johnny looked up at her. His dark-eyed gaze held hers; he lifted his cup and held it out to her. Tía had to steady the pot. Part of her wanted to pour the hot coffee on his leg, but common sense won out: she poured it only in his cup.
“I’ve got a horse I want to let you ride,” he said so softly she nearly missed it over the din of men eating and clanging dishes and forks.
Tía wanted to ride more than anything else. But she wasn’t sure she should be riding with Johnny. At least not until she figured out what he was doing with Judy. “No, thanks.” She moved on to the next man, the next empty cup. Johnny’s eyes burned holes in her back. As soon as she could, she escaped into the kitchen and helped Carmen until he was gone.
At seven o’clock the second group came in. By seven-forty the dining room finally emptied out. Cruz, who seemed as tireless as she was grumpy, carried out fresh platters of food for the women’s breakfast.
“Where’s Judy?” Tía asked when they were all seated around the table.
Rolling her eyes, Lupe snorted. “You won’t see Her Highness until noon, if then!”
Carmen clucked her tongue at Lupe. “For shame!”
“Less bad to speak truth?” Lupe demanded. “La Excelencia was out all night with her caballero,” she sneered, glancing at Cruz for confirmation.
“Hush!” Carmen hissed. “El patrón deserves better than that his own people should speak in this fashion about his sister.”
“El patrón deserves a better sister.” Lupe looked to Cruz for support.
Tía rapped her fork on the table. “Lupe, please do not say rude things about Miss Burkhart. We work here, but it is not our place to judge the actions of our employers.”
Lupe flashed Tía an angry look. Before she could speak, the outside door burst open, and Steve strode into the room.
“Sorry I’m late, Carmen. I was down at the barn helping Mahogany foal. Can I use a pan of your warm water and some soap on these hands?” Holding out bloody hands for their inspection and without waiting for a reply, he shouldered his way into the kitchen through the swinging doors.
“¡Sí, señor!” Standing up quickly for so heavy a woman, Carmen clapped her hands at Lupe. “Get another plate and utensils for the patrón, quickly!”
Lupe shot Tía a speculative look to see if she resented being ignored in the chain of command. Tía nodded, and Lupe flushed as if she regretted looking askance. Tía noticed, but she was too distracted to care. Her mind was still grinding on the remark about Judy spending the night with her caballero.
Lupe came back with plate, cup, and flatware. Looking at the table, she paused in the doorway. Andrea tapped the place next to her own. Begrudgingly Lupe set a place for Steve across from Andrea.
Steve emerged from the kitchen. Andrea caught his gaze and nodded at his plate.
As if he had seen her for the first time, the open, friendly look left his face, leaving it guarded and wary. He was not particularly happy to see her. Ignoring his lack of enthusiasm, Andrea smiled.
“And how are mother and foal getting along?”
“Fine. She did very well for a first-timer,” he said, slipping stiffly onto the chair across from Andrea.
“Did you breed her yourself?”
“Yeah, by Velvet Warrior, an Arabian I bought last year.”
“I’d like to see them,” she said.
“I guess we can arrange that.” He ate mechanically, methodically, with very little conversation. When he leaned back to pour another cup of coffee, his p
late was clean.
“Seconds?”
“No, thanks.”
“What do you do all day?” The other women were moving back into the kitchen, carrying dishes and platters.
“I’m usually at the mine. I only came out to help you get settled.”
“How thoughtful of you,” she murmured.
“I’m practical. I don’t want you tearing Judy to pieces.”
Andrea laughed softly. “I’m having difficulty keeping up. A couple of hours ago you were busy taking her apart.”
“That’s different.”
“Oh, I see. Well, then, let me assure you that from what little I’ve seen, Judy looks like she can take care of herself.”
“Looks can be deceiving. Judy has been a little thin-skinned since Pa died. I don’t want her hurt any more than she has been.”
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’m the one in the vulnerable position. I’m the outsider. I have to make all the adjustments and concessions.”
“But that won’t be a problem for you,” he said.
“Oh, I see. Was that a left-handed compliment?”
“Call it what you like. It’s obvious you can take care of yourself.”
“And Judy can’t?”
“Not like you.”
Frustrated, Andrea fell silent. Somehow Steve even managed to make her competence seem like an undesirable quality. Judy seemed to inspire an abundance of masculine protectiveness. Undoubtedly Steve still smarted from what had happened in the hotel room. Like the responsible man he so obviously was, he would not risk a repeat of that embarrassing and upsetting experience. That was expected, but somehow it piqued Andrea’s vanity that he was so successful at it. A true engineer, he had chosen the safest and most proper attitude for a brother to take toward a sister. Part of Andrea knew that he could do nothing else, unless he wanted to play the fool, but his easy success at keeping distance between them hinted that perhaps he did not like Andrea after all—that if he hadn’t been tricked initially, he might have shown his real feelings from the very first encounter.
“Well, at least I managed to get your attention,” she said softly, unable to stop testing his reactions. “You were ignoring me yesterday.”
“Not as much as I should have been.” Muscles clenched beneath his smooth, suntanned cheeks. Andrea remembered how his lips had felt and tasted, how his skin had smelled.
“Can’t we at least be friends?” she asked, watching him closely.
Steve looked at her and then around at the dining hall that had emptied to the point where only he and Andrea shared the big room. “I don’t think so,” he said bluntly. “We have a conflict.” Andrea looked at him as if asking what it was, and anger raced through Steve. She knew as well as he did that he wanted her. She had to realize that with lust between them, friendship would be all but impossible. “You are determined to stay here at all costs, and I’m determined to protect my sister,” he said lamely.
“Perhaps we could accomplish both without inconveniencing anyone.”
It further angered Steve that she chose to speak to the problem he mentioned rather than the one motivating them. “I don’t want you here, Miss Garcia-Lorca.”
Andrea struggled for control. “Why? Because of yesterday?”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’d like to make a deal with you,” Steve said. “I gave this considerable thought last night. I want to buy your half of the mine and Rancho la Reina.”
Andrea Garcia-Lorca—or Andrea Burkhart—was the epitome of intoxicating femininity. Her dark eyes absorbed his statement without rancor.
Steve had had some experience with women when back east at school. But the only thing he had learned for sure was that it made good sense to pay attention when dealing with them. Women were not like men. Women had their own way of thinking, and it always surprised him. Watching Andrea now as she absorbed his offer, he had the worrisome thought that she might be even more different from him than other women. Andrea could beat Judy at her own game one day and then defend her the next. He did not know any woman who would waste time defending a woman who had crossed her.
Steve had no cause to trust women. His own mother had died and left him. Then Pa had married another woman, who had seemed to like him some of the time, but hadn’t, not really. His stepmother, Judy’s mother, had been pretty, but she’d played tricks on him when Pa wasn’t around.
Andrea was pretty, too, as pretty as a dream woman. He couldn’t believe she could have come this far in life without finding a husband. All the women around here had been married at least once by her age, some three times. Men died or got killed pretty regularly in Tombstone. And women needed protection. He pondered why she remained single and put it down to her being so different. Andrea might not suit anyone else in the world, but she suited him. He wasn’t sure how he could be so certain of that, but he was. He’d never felt so provoked by a woman before and could not imagine what he had done to deserve a dream woman who turned out to be his sister. He knew that if he wanted to keep himself from wanting her, he was going to have to get rid of her. Soon. He could not imagine living the rest of his life with such worrisome desires. His thoughts were uncontrollable. They came in a continuous sheet, like water falling over a dam. And lately a great number of his thoughts were about Andrea and downright disturbing to him.
He had lain awake half the night thinking about the problem his sister posed for him. And all he had for his labor was excuses. He had been angry since the reading of his father’s will. He still grieved. He had been unsettled by Judy’s taking his razor and even thinking about hurting herself. The past two months had been difficult for everyone, but none of that was Andrea’s fault. In all honesty, not even the near disaster in the hotel room was really her fault. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He was twenty-nine years old, and he had never felt like that before.
He had assumed that someday, somehow, he would marry, if he found someone who met his basic standards for cleanliness, seemed easy to get along with, and didn’t play tricks on him. He sometimes dreamed about how nice it would be to have a woman of his own, but that was mostly because he got lonely. He’d been too busy to court a woman, and neither the university nor the Arizona Territory was exactly overrun with women willing to risk a baby under their apron before the benefit of a wedding ceremony. He didn’t feel comfortable going to the whores. He liked to look at them, but he didn’t like the idea of dipping his wick in a community pot. His father had been openly bitter about women. Perhaps some of that had rubbed off on him.
Andrea was waiting for details. He didn’t have them. All he had to do was see her from a distance, and his heart pounded like a schoolboy’s. That morning she had brushed against him in the hallway, and for an hour his guts had been knotted up like a tangle of barbed wire. If this didn’t stop, he’d be a wreck. Too bad he didn’t have Morgan Todd’s complacence about women. Morgan would never fall in love or even moon over one woman. Morgan made it plain that lust was one thing and love another, and no woman wanted both. He took his lust to the whores, and he courted a number of young women, Judy among them.
“Is your offer legal?” Andrea asked.
“I talked to Jim Furnett when I was in town, and Pa’s will did not preclude that possibility. We have an appraisal. Over twenty years we expect to take several million dollars out of the Lucky Cuss. One-fourth of that would be yours, but in order to obtain full value, you’d have to live here. As you can see,” he said, waving a deprecatory hand, “it is primitive and dangerous and lacking in many of the comforts you are no doubt accustomed to. There are Indians; the weather can be intolerable at times.”
“Please come to the point.”
“All right,” he said roughly. “I am offering to buy your half for fifty thousand cash now and fifty thousand a year for five years.”
“Isn’t part of that money already mine?”
“No. After my father’s—excuse me, our father’s death, Furnett set
up separate accounts. The fifty thousand I’m offering you is in addition to a little over a hundred thousand on deposit for you at First National.”
Hiding her surprise, Andrea nodded coolly. “I’ll let you know my decision.”
“Keep in mind that there’s always the risk that the silver vein could peter out at any time. Each month the amount of silver being taken out of the Lucky Cuss has decreased.”
“I heard in town that the mine is producing over ten thousand in silver each week,” she protested, altering her source slightly to protect Tía and Johnny.
“That’s gross, before payroll, materials, and cost of smelting. We get one-half of the net. Our share has been running four thousand a week.”
“That’s over a hundred thousand a year each. Over twenty years that’s approximately four million dollars total.”
Steve spread his hands. “I admit my offer may seem low, but there is an excellent possibility that we’ll never be able to get all the silver out of the mine, even if we know where it is, even if the vein doesn’t peter out unexpectedly.”
“Why not?”
“Water,” he said tersely.
“Pump it out.”
“We do! But each year, as we dig more shafts and go deeper into the mountain, the expense of pumping becomes greater. We will reach a point one day where it’ll cost more to pump than we can get paid for the silver.”
“You must know when you expect that to happen.”
Steve smiled. He was beginning to enjoy himself. She was not only prettier than any female had a right to be, she was damn smart. She knew the right questions.
“I do, but depending on the activity in the other mines, I can be off by one to ten years. If someone does something stupid, he could ruin it for all of us.”
“And if no one does?”
“The Lucky Cuss could last the full twenty years, maybe longer. An outside chance.”
“And the mine is two years old?”
“A little less.”
“So you’re offering me three hundred thousand dollars for a one-fourth interest in a mine that could be worth two and a half million.”
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