Quillan swung his leg, leaped off his mount, and crouched beside her. “You all right?”
Frowning, Carina pulled herself up by Jack’s rein. “What sort of horse can’t jump a stream?”
“He can jump it. Just not without Jock. He thought they were pulling together.”
Pulling together? And then she pictured them hitched to the wagon. Were they so trained they responded to him as one horse? What kind of power did Quillan Shepard wield over his animals?
“They’re twin foals, you see. They almost think as one.”
She ran a hand down the wet side of her skirt, feeling the damp all the way to her skin. “And you knew that would happen?”
“I suspected.”
Bene. “But you said nothing.”
“You might have reined in at the stream and called it a draw.” He stuck his tongue in his cheek to keep from laughing.
She was not amused as she pulled wide her soaked, soiled skirt, the beige linen she had worn into Crystal. “You have a habit of spoiling my things.”
He sobered only slightly. “The choice was yours.”
Her anger flared. “As it was the first time?”
He met her eyes without flinching. “The first time there was no choice.” He looked off to his right, toward the lake just visible beneath the peak. “This way.” He started to walk, tugging both Jock and Jack’s reins. She stood a moment, stubborn, then released a sharp breath and followed.
They walked along the stream, which was tucked so deeply into the overhanging grasses that only an occasional sparkle marked the water’s path. She watched a bumblebee the size of a pecan hum over a globe of clover, then make its weaving way to the next. She would not be the one to speak this time.
“Ever pet one?”
She looked up, confused, and he pointed at the bee. He was teasing, of course. “Like touching the rattler’s head?”
His mouth quirked. “It’s safe. Especially if you find one dozing, late afternoon, evening.” He straddled the stream and held out his hand. After a moment’s pause, she took it, and he lifted her over the marshy ground.
His grip was firm and strong, but his voice low and silky. “You reach out nice and slow and stroke it right down the fuzzy back. You can almost hear it purr.” There was playfulness in his eyes, something she wouldn’t have credited him.
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Shepard.”
“Quillan.” He gave her time to step away, then urged the horses across. They looked eager to join him again, as though his bidding was their delight. He started walking. “You think I’m lying?”
“I think you stretch the truth.”
He shrugged. “Try it and see for yourself.”
“And have a sting for my trouble.”
He studied her a moment. “Only if you telegraph fear, Miss DiGratia.”
She frowned. “I’m not afraid of bees. I just don’t ask for trouble.”
“No?” He sauntered past her a step and turned. “What sort of work do you do for Berkley Beck?”
His change of subject surprised and bothered her. What business was it of his? But then, what business were his birth and the death of his parents to her? Conscience demanded she answer. “I keep his records.”
Quillan raised his brows. “His books?”
She shrugged. “I file his cases and keep his ledger if he gets behind.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Where’d you get legal training?”
She scoffed. “What training is there to putting dates in order?”
“You only look at the dates?”
She wiped the dampness from her skirt. “They are all the same. Land disputes, claim disputes. Too many.” She waved her hand. “I will not get my house back.”
“Your house?”
She had forgotten he didn’t know. Why should she tell him and reveal the depth of her ignorance, of her plight? She sighed. “After you destroyed my wagon, three men took my house.”
Quillan stopped walking. “What three men?”
She made a scornful sound. “Carruthers.”
“On what grounds?” There was something in his expression, some knowing, some … but then it was gone.
“I don’t know.” She waved her arm in frustration. “Mr. Beck thinks a fraud; Mae says forgery. It must be a forgery because another man—” She bit off her words.
“Another man what?”
She blew out her breath in exasperation. “Another man had the same advertisement and deed. He came to Mr. Beck for help, but I sent him away. How can Mr. Beck get the house for us both?” Her voice rose to a petulant pitch in spite of her efforts.
Quillan stood slack-hipped. If he cared at all for her hardship, it scarcely showed. “Why did he go to Mr. Beck?”
“I suppose he saw the sign, same as I. Berkley Beck, Attorney at Law. Where else do you turn when you’re wronged?”
Quillan looked as though he had an answer to that but kept it to himself. “Where’s your deed now?”
“I gave it to Mr. Beck. He’s handling it.”
Quillan snorted.
“I know what you think of him. But—”
He raised an arm and pointed. “That spot should do all right.”
Carina followed his arm. Away from the stream, the ground had firmed into clumps of fine gold and pale green grass. Masses of kinnikinnick and red-berried bushes grew beneath the white-barked aspens amid thorny rock roses with pale pink blooms. The leaves of the aspens trembled in the breeze, twisting on their stems so that the sunlight glinted off them like paper-thin stained glass.
Quillan stopped walking when he reached the place he’d chosen. “Hand me your gun.”
She pulled the gun from a deep pocket in her skirt and gasped when he wrenched it from her with such force it burned her hand. She jumped back, her eyes wide, her breath catching in her throat, his speed and power and brutality of motion overwhelming her.
He scowled. “Never point unless you mean it. You hand over your gun grip first.”
She met his scowl with her own. “My finger was not on the trigger.”
“You think anyone will wait to find out?”
She opened her mouth, then accepted the reproof in silence. With her gun in hand, he walked the horses to an aspen that stood to the side of the clearing and loosely wrapped the reins, then returned to her side. He slid the barrel forward and dumped the rimfires into his hand.
“Didn’t I load it right?”
“You did.” He slid them back in. “Now the firing pin rests on these so you can’t bang it around. If I’d known you had it in a pocket …”
“You would not have thrown me from your horse?”
“I didn’t …” He paused, rested the gun in his palm, and examined it. “No, I wouldn’t have. My Colt revolver would have blown through your limb. This Sharps …” He handed it to her. “Don’t take that chance again.”
As though she had planned to fall from the horse. He was the one who knew, who watched to see it happen. No warning, no explanation.
He adjusted the weapon in her grip. His palm was callused, yet smooth from the rubbing of leather reins. “All right, pull back the hammer.”
She did.
“Now, when you pull the trigger, the firing pin strikes the charge around the rim of the factory load. The fulminate of mercury ignites and sends a spark to the powder inside the shell. But then, you already understand the mechanism, don’t you.” Again his mouth pulled into a sardonic smile.
She didn’t actually know all he had just told her, but she nodded anyway.
“Then shoot that aspen with the scar.” He pointed.
She squeezed the trigger. The shot splintered the bark of an aspen some twenty feet off. Not the one she had aimed for.
“You closed the wrong eye. If you’re shooting with your right hand, close your left eye. That gives you a straight line down your arm.”
She raised both arms, centering the gun between them. This time the bullet grazed the side of the
tree she meant to hit. He raised his eyebrows as her third shot took a chunk from its other side. The last one nicked a branch. She turned to face him.
He took the gun, extracted the shells, and reloaded. “Try again.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. I don’t deliver worthless goods.” Quillan handed it back. “Try it from your pocket.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll shoot my limb?”
“Don’t hold the trigger when you pull it out.”
She sank the gun into her pocket, then tugged it free and fired. She couldn’t tell where the bullet hit, though she heard the faint click of it somewhere.
“Don’t take the time to close your eye. Just pull it and shoot as though you’re pointing your finger.”
She put the gun into her skirt again, pulled it out and shot. It caught a branch of the aspen.
“Again.”
She shot and missed. And missed again. He reloaded and she fired until they’d run through a box of rimfires.
“One more.”
Her arms ached as she raised the gun for one last shot. She nicked the side of the trunk. Sighing, she extracted the shells as she’d seen him do. He dropped the last four cartridges into her palm. Still silent, she slid them into place, closed the barrel, and dropped the gun into her pocket. She rubbed her arm below the shoulder, knowing she had shown little aptitude for the weapon. Reluctantly she looked at Quillan Shepard.
“The trees better watch out.” He smiled, his well-formed features and bent brows over dark-rimmed gray eyes looking more rakish than ever. A pirate’s grin. A rogue’s grin. Then it faded. “What you won’t know until it comes to it is if you can point at a man and pull that trigger.” His scrutiny delved deep, searching her, seeking her mettle.
She imagined herself putting a bullet into living flesh, recalled the time Papa had dug a lead ball from a man’s side. He’d held it up between his pincers and said, “Behold man’s cruelty.” In spite of her papa’s efforts, the man had died, poisoned inside by the wound. He’d come too late.
Looking now at Quillan Shepard, her voice shrank. “I hope it never comes to that.”
His answer came, low and caustic. “Hope is for fools. Are you a fool, Miss DiGratia?”
She bit him back. “I am no fool. I am the daughter of Angelo Pasquale DiGratia, physician and advisor to Count Camillo Benso di Cavour.”
Quillan Shepard eyed her darkly. “Do you think a lofty birth makes you anything more than you are?”
Her breath released in a haughty rush. “It makes me everything I am.
If I were born a contadini, a peasant like …”
“Like what?”
“Like you.”
“What makes you think I’m a peasant, Miss DiGratia?”
“Are you not?” She trembled with the accusation. She hadn’t meant to go so far, but her anger dulled her instinct.
He started for the horses.
“What else could you be, born in a hole on the mountain, the son of Wolf?” She could think of no worse insult than a nameless parentage.
He turned, his face defined in chiaroscuro, light and darkness, like a portrait by the masters. A renaissance face: handsome on the outside, deadly within. “What do you know about Wolf?”
And now she trembled in earnest. She had gone too far, betrayed herself.
His jaw twitched. Above it, his eyes stormed, a fierce, deadly force showing itself in their depths. His voice grated. “My father was a savage, my mother a harlot. Is there anything else you want to know, Miss DiGratia?”
Quaking inside, she refrained from crossing herself. She could scarcely listen to such words, never consider applying them to her own mamma and papa. Yet he said it with such defiance, such loathing. Her voice wouldn’t come, so she shook her head quickly, ineffectively, then watched his back as he untied the horses for their escape. He was, no doubt, as eager as she.
Quillan let the silence lie between them. What did Carina DiGratia know of the hole in the mountain—the Rose Legacy? Where had she learned his father’s name? And why? There were some who knew, some right there in Crystal, but why would Miss DiGratia know? Had she asked? Again, why?
Quillan controlled his breath, forcing it to come in short, even spurts. He wished he could be rid of her, this woman who mouthed the name of Wolf, who shot it at him like a weapon. How could she know the very mention conjured thoughts and emotions too deep to contain?
They were too far from town. Why had he brought her so far? Some lingering guilt or misguided desire for gentle companionship? To keep their gun practice quiet, as he’d said? Or to make certain Berkley Beck caught no wind of his courting her?
Courting? Hardly that. Rather winning her trust to make use of her familiarity with Beck’s business.
He refused to glance her way, that beautiful Italian princess who thought she could throw his past at him. How could she know? Mae? No. Mae kept secrets close to the vest. She had never betrayed him before. Beck? It was possible. She had Berkley Beck panting at her skirts like the miserable dog he was. But did he know? What use could that blackguard make of it? Plenty.
Quillan dismounted before Mae’s porch. Miss DiGratia waited, no doubt her breeding requiring his assistance. He lifted her down from the horse, the feel of her narrow waist nothing more to him than any other piece of baggage he might haul. Her feet were on the ground, and he was free. He caught up the reins and pulled the twin geldings behind him. He should at least take his leave. Common courtesy demanded it.
But he kept walking. He never turned until he reached the livery and took the horses inside. Then he released the breath that had stagnated in his lungs.
“I dinna think a bonny day with a lass could bring such a face.” Alan Tavish reached for the reins.
Quillan’s scowl deepened. “What makes you think I was with a lass?”
Alan tapped the side of his head. “I keep me wits about me and me eyes open.”
“Well, don’t carry on like an old maid. It was business.”
“Aye, I can see that by yer sour look.”
Quillan dropped his chin. “Just reminded me why I prefer the company of men.”
“She’s a fetching lass, Quillan.”
“She’s a fury.” Quillan patted Jock’s wither and left Alan to the task.
Carina stood where he had placed her, firmly, silently. Not one word had he given her to ease the tension. And the look on his face—stark, embittered fury … She brought her hand up to finger the crucifix on her neck. Madonna mia, the man was pazzo.
ELEVEN
To think is pain; to remember, torment; but to consider the future—more than I can bea r.
—Rose
“YOU LOOK AS THOUGH you’ve seen a ghost.”
Carina jumped when Mae spoke from the chair in the shaded corner of the porch, but she took the two steps up and joined her. Not a ghost. He was far too real for that. “I should know better than to trust Quillan Shepard to be civil.”
Mae’s laugh was little more than a mezzo rumble in her chest. “You don’t look much the worse for wear. What did he want with you?”
“To teach me to shoot. He said he doesn’t deliver useless goods.”
“And that’s a fact.” Mae brushed an iridescent fly from her arm. “Takes pride in his goods. That’s why folks pay his price with no thought even to bargain him down.”
No? Had she not done just that with the gun? Her chest swelled at the thought. Only a fool wouldn’t quibble. And he had accepted without countering, then presented himself as instructor. He was not the idol Mae thought him, only a man with a bad temper.
Carina leaned on the rail. A strain of birdsong sounded from the corner of the roof, and she watched the sparrow flit to the side rail. Mae held out a lump of fat from the bowl beside her chair, and the bird hopped closer.
“Come on, you little beggar. Come on over.”
The bird’s feet made tiny clicks on the wood as he advanced, cocking his head
to one side, then the other. His eyes were shiny beads of onyx, his beak a delicate ivory point. Would he go all the way to Mae? Would he take the food from her hand? He puzzled it, hopped, puzzled it some more. Slowly Mae reached to the side and set the fat on the rail.
Carina held her breath. The sparrow hopped, bobbed his head, hopped again, then took sudden flight as a man rushed around the corner, knees and elbows akimbo.
“Mae! Mae, I can pay my bill.” It was Joe Turner, who slept in a dead man’s bed. “The Ulysses S. Grant hit ore.” He swiped the hat from his head and crushed it to his chest. “Miss DiGratia, will you marry me?”
Carina startled. “Marry you?”
“It’s all on account of you!”
She looked bewildered.
“You see, the night you took my room I was so angry I stomped off in the dark and started to dig. I didn’t even look where. The next morning I figured I may as well keep digging there as elsewhere and, well …” He pulled a black chunk of rock from his pocket. “Here she is. Silver- and lead-bearing ore.”
Carina smiled to think her wrongdoing had played a part in his good fortune. “I’m happy for you, Joe Turner, but you’d do better to ask Mae.” “Well, I would if she’d have me. But I know better than to expect it.”
Mae laughed. “And right you are. My marrying days are done.”
And I am already spoken for, Carina thought, then chided herself. No longer, Carina. Don’t be a fool.
“Well, I’m off to have it assayed.” He kissed the rock. “Wish me luck!” He plopped the hat back on his stringy brown hair and darted off.
Carina watched him run down Drake to Central, knees to the side like a gray cricket, then turned back to Mae. “I’m absolved.”
Mae’s belly rolled with the laugh. “And more. His blood’s so thick with prospector’s fever, nothing’ll thin it save embalming fluid.”
“I hope his strike is rich.”
“You’ll become a legend if it is. He’ll likely tell that tale all over town. You’ll have folks asking you to put them out so they can find a hole just like Joe Turner.”
The Rose Legacy Page 13