by Pam Crooks
Jesus.
Trig yelled and grabbed a Colt from his holster. The man spun toward him. His bloodied, pock-marked face twisted with a snarl, and he half-dropped Carleigh to the floor.
The shock of recognition slammed into Trig.
Nathaniel’s killer!
A thousand times, Trig had relived the nightmare in the Jackson Street opium den, had played back in his mind the sequence of events which left his brother dead. The faces of Chandler’s henchmen had been branded into his brain.
Now, one of them was here.
And he had Carleigh.
He reached for his gun and leveled it at Trig; Trig jumped back, and the shot went wild.
But he didn’t shoot back. He didn’t dare. Not when Carleigh could get hit in the cross-fire.
The elevator doors slid open, and Gif bellowed. The half-breed Celestial spat an epithet and leapt toward the stairwell to flee. He collided with an unsuspecting maid, a matronly woman carrying a silver tray heaped with someone’s dinner. She toppled to the varnished floor, arms and legs akimbo.
Dishes shattered. Food flew. Hot coffee splattered, and the man’s feet went out from under him. He fell on top of the thrashing woman and cursed mightily. Slipping, sliding, he got himself up again, then stumbled down the stairs to escape.
Trig ran toward Carleigh and dropped to a knee beside her.
“I’m going after him, Trig,” Gif shouted. He leapt over the maid, barreled his way over the ruined dinner and down the stairs.
Trig made a swift inspection over Carleigh. She’d been knocked cold, but she would make it.
“Oh, no!” Flower gasped, seeing her.
“Stay with her. Don’t let her out of your sight,” Trig commanded.
He took after Gif down the stairs and narrowly missed the maid, slowly getting up again. He hurtled down all four floors, down a dim corridor and out the back of the hotel.
But Nathaniel’s killer was gone.
Pitch dark shrouded the alley behind the establishment. And stark silence. Trig strained to see, to hear, his every sense fine-tuned for movement, but there was nothing.
Nothing.
“We lost him,” Gif muttered, chest heaving.
Trig clenched his teeth against a roar of frustration.
Of pure, unadulterated rage.
Revenge for Nathaniel had almost been his. A few minutes sooner. Seconds, damn it. And he would have had sweet, satisfying revenge.
So close.
Gif turned at the murmur of voices behind them.
“It’s Horace Brewster himself, come to see what the ruckus is about,” he said. “Go on up and tend to Carleigh. I’ll take care of the explanations.”
“Thanks, Gif.”
He disappeared into the darkness and re-entered the hotel via another entrance. He found Flower dabbing a damp washcloth to Carleigh’s forehead and cheeks.
“Let’s get her out of this hall and into bed.” Trig slid his arm behind her shoulders, but she stirred, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Oh, Trig.” She shuddered, slid her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shirt.
What if Nathaniel’s killer had killed her, too?
He held her hard.
“What hurts, Carleigh?” he demanded into her hair. “Where did he hurt you?”
“He hit me, but I’m okay. Really.”
Grimly, Trig lifted her into his arms, and Flower rushed to open the door and pull back the covers before he laid her down on the mattress.
“She needs an ice bag,” Flower said, already heading out of the room. “I’ll be right back.”
The door latched behind her, and Trig turned up the bedside lamp.
“Let me take a look at you.” He cupped her chin, turned her this way and that in the light. Her bottom lip was split and swollen; bruising had already set in on the left cheekbone. The rage flared again. “He cuffed you pretty good.”
“I noticed.” She touched a tentative finger to her puffy lip.
Did Chandler have any idea that Carleigh could have been injured a hell of a lot worse than she’d been? Had he looked beyond his own selfishness to understand that?
“I think I broke Liko’s nose,” she said, frowning.
A corner of Trig’s mouth curved upward. “Good girl. Next time, maybe you’ll kill him.”
She eyed him dubiously. “I don’t want to have a ‘next time’.”
“I don’t either.” If there was, Trig would kill him himself. He straightened. “Where’s your dog?”
Her gaze flew to the fireplace. She started to leave the bed. “He tried to protect me, and Liko kicked him.”
“Stay put,” Trig ordered. “I’ll get him.”
Tail wagging furiously, Spencer watched them with doleful eyes. Trig freed him from the leash, then pulled off the handkerchief.
The little dog was yet another victim of Chandler’s greed. An innocent victim. Trig ran a hand through the white fur in search of blood or broken bones and found only a slight swelling on the flank.
He handed him to Carleigh. “He’s fine. He was lucky.”
“Thank God.” She peppered him with kisses and hugs. Trig removed his Stetson and tossed it onto the dresser. His questions demanded answers, but a knock sounded on the door, preventing them. Gif walked in with Flower, an ice bag in her hand.
She carefully pressed the cold bag to the side of Carleigh’s face. “The hotel’s kitchen has plenty of ice. You must get more when this is melted.”
“The cold feels good. I will.”
A waiter from the Dining Hall appeared with a cart containing an assortment of covered dishes and a bottle of chilled wine.
“I have asked that your meals be brought to the room,” Flower said. “You will need privacy and rest after your scare.”
Trig nodded, pleased. “We appreciate it.”
“How kind of you,” Carleigh added, surprised.
After the waiter left, Gif’s concerned glance met Trig’s.
“Horace Brewster has called for a police watch around the hotel,” he said. “Just in case Carleigh’s attacker comes back.”
“He’s probably crawled under a rock somewhere to lick his wounds. He won’t be back. At least, not tonight.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help you catch the s-o-b . . .,” Gif said.
Trig heard the grim determination in Gif’s words. The loyalty.
The same fierce need for revenge that Trig had.
“You’ll be the first one I come to when I’m ready. You know that,” Trig said.
“You’d damn well better.” Gif hesitated, slid a meaningful glance toward Carleigh. “You two going to be all right tonight?”
“We’ll be fine.”
“All right, then.” He nodded and took Flower’s arm. “C’mon, wife. Let’s give these folks some peace and quiet to settle their nerves.”
“Remember, Carleigh. Use the ice,” Flower said, heading toward the door with him.
“Thank you both. For everything,” Carleigh said.
After they left, Trig set the lock, strode toward the window and jerked the drapes closed. Even four stories up, someone could look in.
Someone like Nathaniel’s killer.
Savagely restless, Trig found a cigarette, lit it, tossed the spent match into a bowl. He paced to one end of the room, then the other. He glanced up and found her watching him, her eyes shadowed. Troubled.
“You’re angry,” she said.
“I’m furious.”
“At my father.”
“Yes.” He fairly snapped the word. “At your father.”
She swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m not sure yet, but whatever it is, I’m sorry you hate him so much.”
Setting the ice bag aside, she slid from the bed and put Spencer on the floor, leaving him to entertain himself while she removed the pins from her hair at the dresser.
“Don’t apologize, Carleigh. He’s n
ot worth it.”
“I’ll decide that, if you don’t mind,” she said, her tone unusually sharp.
However foul his mood, Trig never intended to get into an argument with her. She’d been through enough tonight as it was.
“The man who tried to kidnap me tonight works for Papa.” Her hair tumbled in a heavy, red-brown mass over her shoulders and back. Her gaze met his in the mirror. “Or have you already suspected as much?”
“Yes.” Trig held that gaze. “You called him Liko.”
“His full name is Liko Kwan.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Nothing. Only that I’ve seen him in Papa’s office now and again.” She turned, facing Trig again. “What do you know about him?”
“He killed my brother.”
“Oh, my God.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth and stared at him. “Are you sure? I mean, how do you know that?”
“Because I was there, damn it.”
“Oh, Trig. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
There she was, apologizing again, expressing regret and dismay for something she was completely innocent of.
He finished his cigarette, mashed the stub in the bowl.
“There’s something Papa doesn’t want me to find out, isn’t there?” she asked. “That’s why he sent Liko after us.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
He met her point-blank question head on. “I have my suspicions. I’m just not sure of them yet.”
Reginald Chandler was involved in the San Francisco underworld. In opium smuggling and under-the-table deals. But until Trig had the evidence to prove it, he kept the knowledge to himself.
Time was running out. Judge Chandler was closing in on them. Carleigh needed to understand why.
“Do you know what Belén is?” he asked.
“It’s the city where my mother lives. Somewhere in Mexico. She’d noted it on her letter.”
He shook his head slowly. “Belén is a penitentiary, Carleigh. Housing mostly female inmates.”
The color drained from her face.
“Jorge Esteban has agreed to have your mother brought from her penitentiary to his to meet with you,” Trig added.
For long moments, she didn’t say anything, until he wondered if she’d heard anything he said.
“A penitentiary?” she said, clearly stunned. “Why? What crime has my mother committed?”
“She didn’t commit any crime at all,” he said.
“Why is she there, then, if she’s innocent?”
“She was sent there. Banished unlawfully.”
Confusion knitted her brows. “By who?” Her eyes widened. “Papa?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He had his reasons. Obviously.”
“Are you saying he framed her?”
“I’m saying she went to Mexico against her will. Only hours after you were born.”
Carleigh swayed, but gripped the edge of the cloth-draped table to steady herself. “How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
She looked as if she’d faint any minute. Trig reached for her, but she jerked away.
“You’re lying. You’re lying.”
He saw the hysteria creeping in on her. He reached for her again.
“You hate him so much you’re just saying this to make me hate him, too.” She pivoted, bumped into the table and knocked over a water glass. “You want to turn me against him.”
Impatient that she would even think it of him, Trig’s eye narrowed at the accusation. “I figure he did that well enough on his own when you found the letter.”
“I don’t believe you. Do you hear me? I don’t believe you!”
She choked on a sob and spun around, as if she intended to bolt from the room. But only a few feet from the door, she halted suddenly and covered her face with her hands.
He worried she’d crumple to the floor from the ugliness of all he revealed to her. The weight of it. He strode toward her, rested his hands on the slender span of her hips. His mind groped for all the right things to say.
But at his touch, she turned and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I’m sorry, Trig. Truly I am. I didn’t mean the hateful things I said to you. I didn’t.”
He cupped the back of her head and drew her closer against him. “You’ve had a rough night. I threw a lot at you.”
She pressed her cheek to his chest. “He told me she was dead. Luann, too. And Pierre. They all said she died giving birth to me.”
“They were only trying to protect you.”
“Luann and Pierre, maybe. Not Papa. How could he do such a thing to her? Or to me?”
Trig’s lips thinned. How could anyone?
“Nothing justifies what he did,” she said.
“No,” Trig said, letting her work it out of her system.
“I have to find out the truth. I won’t go back to San Francisco until I do.”
“I want to know the truth, too. I figure your mother will help us with it.”
Her head lifted. “We’ll see her tomorrow?”
“As long as Esteban comes through for us,” he said.
Carleigh pressed a hand to her chest, as if the realization of actually meeting Belle had begun to sink in.
“When tomorrow?” she asked.
“Esteban will send word. By nightfall, at the earliest.” Trig released her and held out a chair. “Until then, sit. Flower was kind enough to have dinner brought up for us. The least we can do is eat it.”
“I’m really not hungry.” But she swept aside her skirts and sat.
“Well, I am.” He lifted the silver lid off one of the dishes; the steamy aroma of filet mignon garnished with artichokes wafted to his nostrils, and his stomach tightened in appreciation.
He lit the candle in the center of the table, then turned down the bedside lamp.
“What are you doing?” she asked, watching him, her voice soft. Curious.
“Giving you our evening out. Not the fancy restaurant you’d hoped for, but the best we can do under the circumstances.”
“I see.” She managed a smile through her swollen lip.
“Wine?”
“Please.”
He poured a glass for them both, just as he’d done the night he met her in Visalia. Passion had erupted between them afterward, aided by that wine.
Something he couldn’t allow to happen again.
He’d been hell-bent on revenge then. Used Carleigh to strike back at her father. But it had been her he had hurt the most, and she’d hated him for it.
So much had happened since then. So much had changed.
Carleigh set out plates, silverware. He served the filet mignon; she spooned portions of mashed potatoes and gravy. She declined the cranberry sauce; he took her share with his.
“This is nice.” She smiled again, lifted her fork and took a bite of the beef.
Candlelight sheathed her in a muted, golden glow, bounced off her hair and skin. She took a sip of wine, set the stemmed glass down again.
“I’ve never had dinner with a man in a hotel room before,” she said.
His brow arched. “I hope not.”
She seemed amused by his response. At the high-handedness of it.
“Why is it different with you?” she asked.
“Different?”
“That it’s acceptable to be with you like this tonight, but any other man before now—before you—would not have been. At least, in your opinion.”
He took his time chewing the mignon, letting her wait.
“You never bedded a man before me,” he said smoothly. “Guess that gives me some rights over you.”
Her jaw sagged a little. “Rights?”
“Like being first with you on other things besides making love.”
A twinkle appeared in her eyes. “Are you this arrogant with all your women, Trig Mathison?”
“There are no other women in my life
. Only you, Carleigh,” he said.
She’d begun to get under his skin. Little by little. Every touch, every smile, every moment he spent with her burrowed her deeper inside.
How had it happened, when once he’d vowed to hate every fiber of her being?
“I find it hard to believe a man like you doesn’t have a woman waiting for him at every turn,” she mused.
He shook his head. “None.”
“Hmm.” She considered that. “You’re the first man in my life to do many things. Besides bedding me, of course.”
“Such as?”
“Show me how to survive on next to nothing in the wilderness. Risk your life for me, no matter how great the personal costs. Go through all kinds of hell so that I might find my mother.” Her mouth pursed. “Which my father is determined to prevent.”
She took another swallow of wine.
Abruptly, she rose, began gathering her dishes. “I’m afraid I’ve lost my appetite for dinner. Are you finished with yours?”
He watched her move about, her energy coiled tight. “Yes.”
He thought of what would happen next. Sleeping with her. Being in a real bed with four walls to surround them with intimacy.
He thought of her father. Her mother. A lifetime of betrayals and briberies. He thought of Liko Kwan, too. Nathaniel and his own father. All the truths he knew about and those he didn’t.
And he thought of the lust coursing through him.
They had no future together.
Judge Reginald Chandler would pay for his crimes. He would spend the rest of his life in a rotting jail cell to do it.
Trig vowed it.
And Carleigh would hate him for it.
Chapter 14
Carleigh had a headache.
She attributed the affliction more to a sleepless night spent with worry about her parents than to the after-effects of Liko Kwan’s abuse. Her lip and cheekbone had improved greatly by morning; lingering bruises disappeared beneath a dusting of her face powder.
But when a light breakfast of hot tea and toast failed to ease the throbbing in her temples, Trig insisted they stop by the hotel’s pharmacy. Carleigh had to agree. The planned rendezvous with her mother convinced her she had to feel her best.
They left their room, taking Spencer with them, and rode the elevator down to the Brewster Pharmacy, located on the ground floor next to the lobby. In keeping with the rest of the hotel, the drug store was exquisitely furnished. Trig’s dark eyes swept the scrolled woodwork, plush carpet and crystal chandelier. A low whistle slid through his teeth.