Silver Mist

by Raine Cantrell

  “See here, Lucio, I’ll not listen to an impugning of Eden’s reputation.”

  “There’s no need to defend me, Alfred. Lucio and I understand each other perfectly. However, since you insist that I render my opinion, I suggest that you send your own chemist down to inspect his holdings and analyze samples of his phosphate before the end of the month. I’ll even lend your man my equipment to do the tests. If they bear out Lucio’s claims, your half-million-dollar investment will more than triple. You did offer him the same amount, didn’t you?”

  Alfred colored. “I hadn’t quite got ’round to setting my offer.”

  Eden smiled. His eyes reflected the predatory slant of his thoughts. “Send Edward Soams, Alfred. He’s one of your best. Now, excuse me,” he added, glancing at his own watch, “seems it’s time for my appointment with the London agent. Have a good day, gentlemen.”

  “Good man,” Alfred remarked, sensing nothing amiss, as Eden walked away. “I’ll do as he said and send Soams down before the end of the month.”

  “I thought we were ready to come to an agreement today,” Lucio protested, watching Eden’s back.

  “Well, now, Lucio,” he said, rocking back on his heels, “it was careless of Eden to reveal how much I offered him. But since he did, I’m prepared to offer you the same, after I have those reports.”

  Lucio wasn’t listening, but he did agree, “Sí, it was most careless of him.” His dark eyes narrowed. If he did not have the money he needed to remain solvent quickly, he would lose everything. He had failed to remove one remnant of his past, but this time there would be no failure. If it was the last thing he did, he would destroy Eden McQuade.

  Eden made one stop before he boarded the evening train. When he arrived in Rainly, he fired off another telegram to his brother, Paradise, engaged Luther’s cooperation for what he planned, and decided to walk over to Jake’s house, where he knew Dara would be. There was a sense of coming home as he walked down Charleston Street, shopkeepers greeting him by name, his own charming manner no longer a facade, but one of genuine caring. When did he make the conscious decision to remain here? Eden didn’t know, but the restlessness inside him eased the moment he thought of Dara. He fingered the box in his jacket pocket, impatience guiding his steps when Matt hailed him from die store porch.

  “Dara’s still at Anne’s. The doc sent Jake home this afternoon, and Sophy’s there helping.” Matt waited until Eden crossed over to him, admiring the hand-tailored fit of his suit. “When you get Dara, tell her not to worry ’bout supper. Miss Loretta sent Annamae over with all the fixings.”

  “Doc take your father’s cast off today?”

  “Yeah, and he’s in a dither ’bout the itching. Eden, I gotta tell you something.”

  “What is it, Matt?” he asked with impatience.

  “Before you go over there, you should know that Clay was in town. Damn angry, too. He was talking big ’bout taking over for Jake while he’s mending. Said you had—”

  “Will you slow down! Did he see Dara?”

  “I’d guess. He went there. Don’t see what—Eden, are you gonna marry her?”

  “Don’t you think that’s between us, Matt? Why don’t you tell me the rest about Clay?” he suggested, knowing that Matt asked the one question he wasn’t ready to answer.

  “He was mouthing off ’bout you not having the right to hire Jesse’s boy Lyle to take over for Jake. Said that you needed to have yourself taken down to size, and Rainly wasn’t your town. He was bragging that when he was done with you, you’d turn tail and run just like you did before. What was he talking about, Eden?”

  “Nothing.” He bit off the word, already striding away.

  After Suelle arrived and agreed to spend the night—for Anne and Jake both needed care—Eden escorted Dara home. He listened to her account of Anne’s refusal to talk to Jake and his own heartbreaking tears of blame that she couldn’t stop no matter what she said. Dr. Vance had come and pronounced Anne out of danger, although he cautioned Dara to watch for fever. It wasn’t the fever that worried Dara, it was the bitterness Clay’s visit provoked in Anne, but she couldn’t tell Eden about that.

  He waited, and by the time they entered her house, Eden knew she would not tell him without his asking. Cyrus demanded to know if his trip to Ocala had been a success, and for a while their talk was of the contract he negotiated with a London agent to deliver a large shipment of phosphate by the first of the new year.

  “Three thousand tons at twenty-five dollars a ton should net you seventy-five thousand dollars,” Cyrus stated.

  Eden smiled. “Well, I’ll gross that much from the first shipment. If things work out the way I planned, I’ll have this one account supplied on a quarterly basis.”

  “Figure yourself to get rich?”

  “I might, Cyrus. I might just do that.”

  Dara was proud, she said as much, but avoided his direct gaze whenever she could. He bided his time and after supper asked her to walk down by the river with him.

  The night scents bloomed around them as they headed away from the noise of town, Eden’s memory recalling the first time he had walked here and its pervading silence. When the lights had faded into a far distance, he stopped, leaning against a tree, and without a word, he drew her against him, content to hold her. “I know you’re hurting, love, share this with me. You don’t need to be brave alone.”

  Her body softened and curved to fit the rough contours of his, and Dara absorbed his warmth and strength as the parched earth would welcome life-giving rain. She cried as he gently held her, and when done, her voice shook with the force of her feelings. “It was not knowing what to say or do to make Jake and Anne realize they still had each other. They both wanted this child so much, and she screamed her hate at him, blaming him for the loss. He cried, Eden, and all I could do was hold him when she turned away. Love shouldn’t be that way.”

  “Sometimes, Dara, sorrow can make love strong, and there are other times, when love is divided between others, that it falls prey to destructive forces who know only hate.”

  She lifted her head from his shoulder and gazed up at his face. “You knew that Clay was there?”

  “I knew.”

  “He told Anne that Jake knows who shot him. That it was his fault she lost the baby.” Her palm closed over his lips, stopping the flood of swearing. “No, I don’t want more of grief and fighting and hate.” She cradled his cheek, one fingertip nibbing the thickened edge of his sideburn, and a warming glow spread inside her. Every breath she drew brought to her the light scent of bay rum and the heated essence that was wholly male, Eden’s alone. The love she had for him flowered, and she thirsted for the blissful peace he brought to her, until the minutes passed and, with them, the bitter helplessness of her day.

  “What more can I give you, love?”

  He dragged his lips across her palm, and her throat grew tight, her pulse softly beginning to pound. Dara slid her fingers into the thickness of his hair, glorying in the smooth glide of his mouth down the arched expanse of her throat, the tightening of his arm around her waist, the gentle thrust of his leg between her own. Need shafted with lightning-like intensity to every nerve ending in her body. His name was a whispered plea from her lips as she scattered kisses over the bronzed skin of his face. She wanted the celebration of all that meant life with new beginnings to chase the specter of death.

  Eden responded to her silent command, guiding her hips up and into him, the impelling force of his knee hard and tense between the layers of cloth that hid her trembling warmth from him. Desire spread like fire-licked brandy inside him, and his mouth claimed hers with a fevered intensity.

  Shimmering peaks of ecstasy danced out of reach with his ever-deepening kisses, with the chafing abrasion of cloth that separated his skin from hers, and Dara shied away from voicing her need, showing him with every aching move of her body what she wanted.

  “Tell me, love,” he whispered, his own b
reathing ragged. “Tell me,” his softly sensuous voice demanded while he stroked the lush fullness of her breast. He drank the soft moan from her lips and lifted his head, watching the play of the new moon’s light on her passion-soft features. “No secrets, love,” he insisted, his long fingers lightly caressing all but the already erect peak of her breast.

  “Eden … I … please…” She clung to his shoulders, her hips pressed against him, the sear of his touch spreading and spreading … and it became a delicious torment to keep silent despite his coaxing voice.

  “Whatever you want,” he promised, lowering his head, his lips tantalizingly close. “Show me, love.”

  The provocative whispers curled inside her, desire kindling already heightened senses. He raised his head, brushing her lips with a delicate touch. The press of his rising knee, the slow up and down glide he maintained with a devastating expertise, built the quiver in her body, and he waited, his kisses enticing until she clung, shuddering, as white heat raced inside her. “Anything, love.” He slid one bronzed hand beneath the cluster of linens and her skirt, caressing the thin-clad silkiness of her inner thigh and with one finger gently pressed the fine cambric against the already dampened heat of her.

  “You,” she breathlessly implored moments later. “I want you.”

  Her avid kiss stole his own whisper, but its echo lingered in his mind until a long while later, when, with a shuddering groan so intense that he shook, Eden found his own release and murmured, “I’m yours, love.”

  The light fall of rain forced him to return her home, and Eden found himself unable to let her go, but their kisses held a bittersweet flavor. He finally withdrew his mouth from the pouting fullness of hers.

  “Listen to me, Dara. I said there would be no secrets between us. I want—”

  Her laugh was full and sultry, that of a woman sure of her sensual power over one man. “How can you think we have any secrets after we…” She had to whisper the rest in his ear, her cheeks flushed, but the reward for being so bold resulted in the hard press of his body against hers.

  “Tease me so wickedly, love, and I’ll…” He didn’t finish, for she tilted her head back, her arms around him, and her eyes were dark with a woman’s promise. “I adore you,” he murmured, stroking the tantalizing sheen of her lips. He did adore her, her delight in finding her own sensuality, the loss of shame attached to it, her shyness in demanding that her own desire for him be filled. But it was her quiet strength and the love that she offered him in every way but with words that made it hard to leave her. He admitted that Dara brought him a peace he had never known.

  He had to fight the distraction she presented. “You will listen to me,” he insisted, but the demand was softened by the satisfied male smile that curved his lips.

  “I’m going to stay out at the mine for a few weeks. I wanted to be the one to tell you so there are no misunderstandings of where I am or why.”

  “Eden, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about. I have a matter that needs my attention, and I can’t work it out from here. I’ll try to see you … oh, love, how can I stay away when you look at me like this.”

  “Then don’t,” she whispered against his lips, offering him a silent promise not to make demands, not to hold him, but aching with the need to hear a promise from him.

  “I was going to wait to give you this,” he said, reaching into his inside pocket and handing her the velvet box.

  Dara stared at the box he thrust into her hands, but she made no move to open it. When she finally dragged her head up, she couldn’t meet his gaze. “You’ve made a grave mistake, Eden. I cannot accept this.”

  “Cannot? Did you think I’d bring you the more proper gifts of flowers and candy? Or a book of poetry, perhaps?” She looked at him then, her eyes snapping with anger, and he added, “You couldn’t think that I’m offering this as a form of payment, could you? Open it, Dara.”

  She had heard that tone of voice once before when she had accused him of everything that Clay believed about him. Dara shook from the chill of it. But what else was she to think? Gentlemen did not bring ladies a gift of jewelry. She wasn’t so innocent that she didn’t know men often lavished such items on their mistresses.

  “If I was going to pay you for services rendered, love, I’d need to buy you diamonds until you couldn’t walk from the weight of them. Please,” he intoned, his voice amiable in a sarcastic fashion and so, so soft, “never believe that I valued the price of your virginity so cheaply. Or could this charming display of prim reluctance be due to your seeing Clay this afternoon? Did he make you another offer? I couldn’t blame him. I did promise that you would wear a smile that women would envy and men would kill to have for their own. And you wear it well, love,” he snarled with barely controlled fury.

  Dara bolted through the open doorway, shaking with rage. She barely managed to control it before turning around to face him. “You sanctimonious fool! If I do wear that smile, it’s because I love you!” Before Eden could move, she slammed the door, turning the key with the sense of locking him out of her life. She was forced to lean against the door, knowing she could no more rid herself of him then she could stop breathing, and stared down at the box clutched in her hand.

  Tension and anger drained from her the exact moment he walked away, and that’s when she opened the box.

  Tears blurred her vision as she traced the delicate gold links of a chain, but she had to search for her spectacles before lifting the gold heart at its end from the satin bed to read the elegant script.

  “Divide all but your love. Eden.”

  Dara ran out after him, calling his name, but he was already gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eden prided himself on his patience but found this past month had nearly depleted his store. The wait for the chemist to arrive and begin his test of Lucio’s claims, the demands of stepped-up production of his own mines, and the constant ache of missing Dara, had all taken their toll.

  “Well, that’s the last of the samples, Mr. McQuade. I know once Mr. Weeks has my report, he’ll be most grateful for your advice. Saved him from giving Senor Suarez the other half—”

  “You mean he already gave Lucio half the money?”

  “So he said,” Edward Soams replied, gathering up his papers. “If you’ll be kind enough to provide me with a ride back to town, I’ll send him a telegram immediately stating that the claims are worthless.”

  “You do that, Edward,” Eden responded with a satisfied smile.

  “Unlike your own,” the chemist remarked, glancing at the wooden shelves lining the mine office where samples of both colorless and faintly yellow phosphate in their waxlike consistency rested. “I’ve never tested samples so rich.”

  “I know. And Edward, make sure that Mr. Weeks is informed of all Senor Suarez’s holdings in Rainly. The land, the buildings, and the businesses he owns should go a long way toward compensating him for the loss of his cash.”

  “Will you be making him an offer, then?”

  “I might, Mr. Soams, I just might.” Eden no longer questioned his decision to destroy Lucio financially. A well-placed bullet would have ended the matter. One shot, and he would have had his revenge for past losses, for Jake being set up and wounded, and for the death of Jake’s unborn child. He was aware that once Jake was well, he would go gunning for Lucio. Eden had to prevent Lucio’s death from staining their lives as both he and Jake tried to forget their past and begin anew.

  Greed drove Lucio to indiscriminately destroy anyone who came in contact with him. Lucio was a man who thrived on the power his wealth gave him. Eden’s predatory instinct was to bait a trap from which his prey could not escape.

  Alfred Weeks, for his own perverse reasons, delayed rescinding his offer to Lucio for almost ten days after he had forwarded his chemists’ reports.

  “This time I will kill him!”

  “Stop shouting, Lucio. Surely yo
u haven’t spent the money Mr. Weeks invested?” Satin asked, her slumberous gaze watching Lucio pace back and forth in her suite.

  “Si. I spent it. There were pressing matters I could not ignore. And now I have incurred additional debts to have my samples independently tested to prove that this man was a fraud.”

  “Was he? Or did Eden manage to falsify the reports?” “This does not matter. Not now. I must recover the money.”

  “Can’t you just be satisfied with the reports that Regis and Chauvenet sent you from St. Louis? They are certainly respectable chemists in their own right. You shouldn’t have a problem getting other investors, Lucio.”

  “Where do you suggest that I find them? Not in this state, now that word is given. I would need to travel to New York, and that, my dear Satin, takes money. These men would expect me to entertain them in style.”

  Satin rose, drawing her silken wrapper tight. “I can’t see where killing Eden would solve your problems.”

  “If you have developed a tendre for him, you could not. He will never care for you, querida.”

  “Tell me, Lucio, did you have Jake shot?”

  His black eyes snapped with anger and he stopped long enough to pin her where she stood. “Why do you ask me this?”

  Satin shrugged. “Just a bit of feminine curiosity, that’s all.”

  “Do you know why, my lovely?”

  “So you did order it.”

  “And this upsets you? No matter. It was necessary. He was asking questions. There was some talk that he had found evidence he would present to the prison board about the convicts.”

  Satin turned her back to him so he couldn’t see how her hand shook filling a glass with whiskey. “And Eden, what do you plan for him?”

  “Since he has pitted himself against me and determined my ruin, I will retaliate.”

  “How, Lucio? Tell me how.”

  “So demanding?” he asked, coming to stand behind her. His hand brushed the fall of her black hair away from her neck. “Would you think to betray me, Satin?”