by Nancy Bush
Mary was thrown from the driver’s seat and crushed beneath the coach’s wheels.
Initially, there was some mystery surrounding the accident. Several eyewitnesses swore she wasn’t alone in the driver’s seat when the coach plowed into the trolley, but there was so much confusion no one knew for sure. Samuel didn’t care. His beloved Mary was dead.
He threw himself into his practice and very quickly built it up to respectable proportions, respectable enough to gain him an invitation to the Arlington Club and entry into Portland’s most socially prominent homes. But there was no joy in it. In fact, there had been little joy in Samuel Danner’s life since the death of his wife, and when Ezekiel Drummond requested an urgent meeting with one of his investors, Samuel felt only mild irritation. He wanted to go home and work on a pressing battle over land rights that looked as if it might end up in the court of one Judge Barlowe, who could be bought for the right sum, but Drummond had been so insistent that Samuel had agreed to see Drummond’s client if he came to his office.
Glancing down at the sheet of paper in front of him, Samuel thought of Judge Barlowe. His only defense was to tie the issue up in such legal knots that Barlowe would grow impatient with the length of proceedings and endless court dates and hand things over to some lesser and more ethical judge. It all depended on how big a fish Barlowe considered the other party in this deal. Samuel stared down at the inked-in name: Montana Gray.
Not good. Not good at all.
The buzzer outside his office door sounded. He could see the figures of a man and a woman through the glass. Drummond’s investors. Heaving a sigh, he thrust back his chair and swung open the door.
The sight that greeted him left him speechless.
“Hello, Samuel,” Kelsey Garrett said almost apologetically. In a high-necked lavender gown, her hair flowing like a warm red waterfall over her shoulders and down her back, her gray eyes full of soft humor, she was as lovely as a dream.
But it wasn’t Kelsey who struck Samuel dumb. It was the man beside her.
“Jesse,” he said hoarsely, recognizing his brother instantly even though Jesse had definitely changed. He wore a dark blue suit with a snowy white shirt. He looked tougher and harsher than Samuel’s adolescent memory of his wayward brother. His nose less perfect, broken, undoubtedly in some fights. His cheeks were bladed and harder. There was nothing boyish about Jesse now.
“Good Lord, where the hell of you been?” Samuel heard himself ask as Jesse shook his extended hand.
“In and out of trouble,” Jesse drawled.
“And what are you –” He turned back to Kelsey in bewilderment. “What are you doing here – together?”
Kelsey suddenly reached for his hand, squeezing them between her gloved ones. “It’s so good to see you,” she said with genuine delight. “How’s Harrison, and Lexie? And Joseph?”
“I – fine.” Samuel’s emotions had been so long dead, buried alongside his wife, that the stirring of nostalgia inside him made him suddenly draw Kelsey close and hug her. She hugged him back just as warmly. “Good Lord,” he murmured hoarsely again. “Come on in. I was waiting for a client, but I’ll just reschedule. How long have you been in Portland?” This was for Jesse, who moved into the room with that fluid grace Samuel recognized again. A Danner trait, but strongest in Jesse.
Jesse!
“We’re that client,” Jesse told his flabbergasted brother. Samuel looked as if he’d been struck by a sudden illness. The color washed out of his face and he stared first at Kelsey, then Jesse, then Kelsey, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Jesse would not have immediately recognized Samuel as the little brother he’d left behind. He’d filled out to look like all the Danners, except that he alone had inherited the dark Danner eyes. Jesse, Harrison, and Lexie had all taken that aspect of appearance from their mother. So had Tremaine, come to think of it, though his mother hadn’t been the same as theirs. But Samuel’s eyes were deep brown and his hair was lighter than Tremaine and Jesse’s, but still darker than Harrison and Lexie’s blond locks. Samuel’s hair color was more of a dark russet – brown shot with faint streaks of red. Not as lush and wildly beautiful as Kelsey’s reddish-brown tresses. Darker, deeper, and smooth against his head. Controlled. Just like Samuel himself, totally controlled.
This was his little brother?
The way Kelsey was eyeing Samuel stirred the embers of jealousy. Her reaction to him was warm and loving, and Jesse remembered vaguely that she’d always been an open, giving, and sweetly genuine child. He’d thought she’d just radically changed, and so she had. Some. But that other side was still there and apparently available to Samuel.
It annoyed the hell out of him.
“You’re the client Ezekiel Drummond insisted I see tonight?” Samuel was nonplussed.
“Yes.” Jesse strode across the room to his favorite spot near the window, any window. Samuel’s view wasn’t as imposing as Zeke’s; over the top of the nearest buildings could be seen Portland’s waterfront complete with its den of whorehouses and taverns and sailing masts.
“You want to see me on a business matter?” Samuel was having great difficulty getting a handle on this odd situation. He glanced again at Kelsey, sensing correctly that she was the more approachable of the two. “Both of you?”
“It’s a rather involved story.” Amusement lurked around the corners of her mouth as she tugged off her gloves. “Oh, Samuel, it’s so good to see you. I’ve spent months, years, it seems, trying to avoid you, and now all I want to do is hug you and tell you how much I’ve missed your whole family!”
“Well, you found one of them,” he pointed out dryly.
“Yes… well…” She slanted Jesse a look beneath her lashes.
“How did you two link up? And why were you avoiding me?” Samuel asked Kelsey.
“Because you could recognize me and I didn’t want to be recognized. I’ve been hiding out in Portland, living under a false name,” she confessed. “I don’t want Jace and Emerald to know where I am. You’ve got to promise you won’t tell them.”
“I promise,” Samuel said automatically.
“Can we count on you for that?” This was from Jesse. Said without his turning around.
Samuel crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his hips against his desk. The waters were murky and they weren’t growing any clearer. “For keeping Kelsey’s whereabouts a secret? Yes.”
“For keeping our whereabouts a secret,” he said, finally turning to face Samuel. “I don’t want Pa or Harrison or Tremaine or Lexie knowing I’m in Portland.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got my reasons.”
“Better spell a few out,” Samuel suggested easily, “if you want my silence.”
“I don’t want them interfering with what I have to do until it’s done.”
“What do you have to do?”
“Jesse has to reclaim some stolen property,” Kelsey inserted quickly.
“What property? Stolen by whom?”
Kelsey looked to Jesse, waiting. Samuel followed her gaze, eyeing the brother who was so much a stranger with both curiosity and wariness. Kelsey’s greeting had been warm. Jesse was as cold as the Alaska frontier.
“Montana Gray.”
Samuel started. Gray was the man uppermost in his own thoughts these days.
“What?” Jesse asked, seeing Samuel’s reaction.
“I have a client who’s run up against Gray. There’s legal action pending.”
The questions came thick and fast, but Samuel raised a hand to stem them. “As his lawyer, I can’t discuss my client’s situation.”
“Well, if he needs help,” Jesse said coldly, “give him my name.”
What kind of help? Samuel wondered. By the color creeping up Kelsey’s neck, he suspected it might not be quite within the law either. “Why are you involved?” he asked Kelsey.
“She’s my wife,” was Jesse’s blunt answer.
Samuel couldn’t have been m
ore shocked if his own wife had suddenly risen from the grave before his very eyes.
“Your wife?” he gasped, gazing in disbelief at Kelsey.
“We’re newlyweds,” she admitted through a too-bright smile.
“Okay, that’s it.” Samuel levered himself from the desk and grabbed his coat and hat. “We’re going out to dinner, and you’re telling me this story from beginning to end, top to bottom. Don’t leave out any details.”
“You might not want to hear it all,” Jesse drawled.
“If you want my support, you won’t omit a single word.”
He waited for both of them. Jesse looked at Kelsey, who stared right back with what could be described only as absolute challenge.
Deliberately placing her arm through his, Jesse said, “Looks like it’s time for the truth, my love.” He brushed his lips against her cheek.
Kelsey linked her free arm over his. “Yes, darling.”
Samuel had never before heard such loathing expressed in endearments.
¤ ¤ ¤
Two hours later he knew a great deal more about both Jesse and Kelsey, yet neither had explained the actual circumstances of their marriage. He knew that Kelsey had married Jesse to protect Charlotte Chamberlain from him, and that Jesse had wanted to marry someone – anyone – of social significance to allow him into the upper echelons of Portland’s inner circle. He also knew they both truly believed those were their motivations, but Samuel suspected there was considerably more at work here. Fact one, Kelsey, as Orchid, would have merely had to tell Agatha Chamberlain the truth from the beginning and she would have extricated herself from the whole damn mess. Fact two, if Jesse truly were interested in using someone to social climb, why not use him, Samuel Danner, his own brother? It struck Samuel that both Kelsey and Jesse were bent on their own pursuits and the rest of the world be damned. They were two of a kind, whether they knew it or not.
And that cold hatred they displayed to each other every time they thought he wasn’t looking was all an act. He’d bet money on it.
But did they realize it? he wondered. It amused him to think they probably hadn’t even gone to bed together yet, and they were married, for chrissake!
“Is something funny?” Jesse asked acidly when Samuel couldn’t control a chuckle.
“So what do we do next?” Samuel fought back a smile, but his eyes danced with laughter as he turned to Kelsey.
Kelsey couldn’t help smiling in return, even though she had the sinking sensation that Samuel saw far more than either she or Jesse wanted him to. “My husband’s the one with the plan,” she said with a lifting of her shoulders.
Jesse ground his back teeth together and stared over their collective heads to a space at the back of the restaurant where Samuel had directed them. The place was paneled in walnut, dark and clublike. Though the establishment apparently allowed the female gender, the maître d’ clearly did not, looking down his long nose at Kelsey as he took their order.
It irked Jesse that Kelsey had warmed to Samuel as if they’d once been lovers. And it irked him even further that they shared a history – a history where great gaps were missing for Jesse. He’d left Rock Springs of his own free will, yet now it bothered him when they spoke fondly of a certain time, or person, or place that he knew enough about to make him wish for more.
In the lamplight Kelsey’s hair shown richly. Her gown lay smoothly on her figure, and the vision of her as he’d seen her the morning after their wedding, wearing only drawers and the scanty camisole, left him with a huge ache and a dawning passion.
He wanted her. Wanted her in a way it was becoming increasingly difficult to deny.
She laughed at something Samuel said, and Samuel smiled slowly. Then Jesse nearly fell off his chair at his brother’s next words.
“Harrison blames himself for your leaving,” Samuel told Kelsey gently.
“I didn’t leave because of him. Or because he deserted me.” Her smile disappeared, but her eyes were gentle. “Or even because of Miracle.”
“Deserted you?” Jesse demanded.
“Kelsey and Harrison had planned to be married,” Samuel explained.
Dazed, Jesse let the news sink in slowly, feeling an irrational anger toward his older brother. Harrison and Kelsey had been engaged? “What miracle?” he asked.
Kelsey’s laughter rang gaily through the quiet club. Several men turned and frowned, and Samuel’s smile broadened into a rich chuckle. Jesse merely glared at the two white-haired gentlemen with the disapproving looks sitting closest to their table.
“Miracle is the name of Harrison’s wife, Miranda ‘Miracle’ Jones Danner, to be exact,” Kelsey enlightened him.
She didn’t seem too distraught about being thrown over for another woman, Jesse decided, instantly cheered. “Harrison’s married?”
“To a half-breed Chinook medicine woman,” Samuel explained. At Jesse’s look of disbelief, he added, “You’ll have to meet Miracle. She’s quite a lady.”
“She’s also my half-sister,” Kelsey put in, drawing Jesse’s attention back to her. “My father apparently had a long-running affair with Miracle’s mother,” she explained diffidently. “Infidelity seems to be an affliction of all the Garrett men.” Her cool gaze leveled on Jesse and he knew she was thinking it would be an affliction of one of the Danner men as well.
“Miracle sounds – interesting,” was all Jesse said. The topic was rapidly becoming dangerous.
“How long have Harrison and Miracle been married now?” Kelsey asked, her gaze swinging back to Samuel.
“About four years?” Samuel shrugged. “It wasn’t long after you left Rock Springs. They have a baby now. A little boy.”
“Do they?” Kelsey asked quietly.
“The Danners are good at having boys,” Samuel said as if it were a known fact. “But then there’s Matilda.” He seemed to be waiting for some kind of reaction, but Kelsey shook her head.
“You left before we knew,” Samuel said, the realization dawning on him. “She’s Lexie and Tremaine’s daughter. About three year’s old now.”
“Lexie and Tremaine have a daughter?” Kelsey said, absorbing this news with a pang of wistfulness. He was describing the kind of life she seemed never destined to even brush.
He nodded. “Along with their two sons, Jamie and Seth, who are in practically in their teens.”
“I recall there was a cow named Matilda,” Jesse said repressively, irked by Samuel and Kelsey’s warm communication. “Lexie’s favorite.”
A corner of Samuel’s mouth lifted. “Don’t go telling Mattie she was named after her mother’s favorite bovine. She might stomp on your foot or shove her fist in your stomach.”
“Sorry to miss that,” Jesse said sardonically.
“You’re never going back to Rock Springs…” Samuel looked at him.
It wasn’t really a question so Jesse didn’t bother answering. He was taking in a lot of information, but one piece niggled at his brain. “You were really engaged to Harrison?” he asked in spite of every instinct he possessed, all of which were crying out to him to steer clear of Kelsey’s life.
Her lashes swept her cheeks, their curling length creating shadows against her alabaster skin. He’d embarrassed her.
“Yes,” was her only answer.
Jesse revised his initial impression that Harrison’s defection hadn’t bothered her. It had hurt deeply, perhaps even been the cause of her descent into spinsterhood.
Scowling down at his drink, Jesse fought back an unreasonable spurt of jealousy against his older brother. Harrison hadn’t married Kelsey. He had. And it wasn’t Harrison’s fault if Kelsey still longed for him.
Holy Christ, first Samuel, now Harrison. The only brother he wasn’t jealous of was Tremaine.
“The Grays are sponsoring a charity auction,” Jesse said into the silence that had fallen over the table. “It’s by special invitation. Only those people who they know will donate and donate heavily have been invited. Zeke’s on t
he list.”
“So am I,” Samuel said, though he knew it was a testing of loyalty where Montana Gray was concerned. Gray would like to buy him off, as he had Judge Barlowe. Samuel had planned to refuse the invitation.
“I’m going to attend that auction if I have to gate-crash,” Jesse continued. “Zeke’s working on an invitation, however, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem. My wife’s an excellent reference.”
Jesse’s dry tone didn’t escape Kelsey. “Agatha and Charlotte will be invited,” she said in a low voice. The thought of walking into the auction on Jesse’s arm and having to face them made her feel uneasy and miserable.
“I wasn’t planning on going,” admitted Samuel, “but now I wouldn’t miss it for the world. How do you want me to act when I see the two of you?”
“Samuel, I’m determined to get Gray,” Jesse warned solemnly. “It might not be in your best interests to claim a relationship with me.”
“If you don’t mind admitting you’re my brother, I don’t mind,” Samuel assured him.
“It could get” – Jesse hesitated – “sticky.”
“I’m not worried.” Samuel was calm. “But what about Kelsey?”
“She’s Orchid Simpson Danner.” Jesse glanced at Kelsey.
“I told Agatha who I really am,” Kelsey said.
“Will she keep your secret?”
“I – don’t know. I had to explain, after the marriage, and I’m not sure she’d want to lie for me.”
“Hmmm.” Jesse frowned. “Does Charlotte know?”
Kelsey nodded.
“Damn,” Jesse muttered with repressed fury. “Well, it can’t be helped. I signed the papers on a house along the Park blocks tonight, and we’ll be moving in soon. I suppose we’ve already bought enough respectability, no matter what your name is.” Jesse downed his drink with finality, regarding his new wife soberly. Some changes were going to have to be wrought in the few weeks they had before the charity auction. Some changes Kelsey Orchid Garrett Danner was going to undoubtedly object to strenuously.
¤ ¤ ¤
Three nights later, after a surprisingly enjoyable dinner with her usually impossible new husband, Kelsey strode imperiously across her luxurious bedroom carpet, threw open the door to the salon, and demanded in a carefully controlled voice, “Where are my clothes?”