Copper Fire

by Fayrene Preston

  Humming a little tune under her breath, Brianne swiveled away from the window and walked to the dresser. This trip had proved to be everything she had hoped, giving the two of them the opportunity to be together, just like old times.

  And in a few more weeks they would be in St. Louis. She hoped Elspeth and Dom would be back from the Indian Mounds by the time she and Patrick arrived. It would be so good to see them again, and Silver, too.

  She gazed into the mirror and grimaced. Dark brown mud smudged her face, arms, and legs, and splotched her hair. She had tried to sponge off what she could here in the room, as the muddy water in the washbowl attested, but a bath would have to take care of the rest.

  Shrugging, she turned to survey the three dresses she had laid out on the bed, trying to decide which she would wear to dinner. At Killara, she had an armoire overflowing with fine dresses, and Malvina had wanted her to pack at least half of them so she would look her best in St. Louis. Patrick had saved his sister, telling their grandmother that they were limited by what their pack horse could carry. Brianne had been happy, caring only that she have her sketchbook and charcoals with her. And she had been able to appease Malvina by convincing her that she would buy twice as many clothes in St. Louis and have them shipped home.

  So with the decision of what to wear to dinner tonight facing her, she eyed each dress in turn. There was the sensible brown dress that Malvina had insisted she bring because, her grandmother had said, it would travel well. Then there was the dress of emerald green that Patrick always said made her eyes look like the necklace of Kantalan emeralds he had given her and that she wore to dinner practically every night at home. And last there was the pale rose silk with the square neck that was one of Brianne’s favorites. The color appealed to her artist’s eye, a color not quite pink, not quite peach, but a combination of both. She would wear the rose, she decided.

  Sloan turned the knob of the bath and pushed the door open. As he did, he felt the latch on the other side give, then heard it pop off. With one foot already in the room, surprise made him hesitate for, rising out of the white-porcelain claw-footed tub, water sheeting off her naked body, was the young woman he had watched fall into the mud just an hour before – Brianne.

  Confronted by a strange man in her bath, Brianne grabbed for a towel and covered herself as best she could.

  “Excuse me, but the bath is occupied,” she said, and returned his stare. She saw a tall, powerfully built man with an arrestingly rugged face, wearing dark brown pants and a white shirt, opened so that his throat was exposed. In a holster slung low on his hips rested a gun. Not unusual. Actually, the only threat Brianne felt was that of embarrassment. She waited for him to apologize and leave, but at last realized that time was passing and he was neither saying anything nor making any move to go.

  “Excuse me,” she repeated. “You’ll have to come back another time.”

  The brief seconds it had taken her to grab the towel had given Sloan a tantalizing glimpse of her lovely young body. His hesitation ended. He entered the room and kicked the door closed behind him, then leaned back against it as a sweet fragrance rose and enveloped him. The scent did not assail, but gently seduced.

  Sloan felt a flicker of admiration. Caught in what to most women would be a shocking and defenseless position, she was reacting with cool self-assurance. In fact, her imperious, regal attitude reminded Sloan of a princess rather than the high-spirited hoyden he had seen down in the corral.

  “I really did have my heart set on a bath before dinner,” he told her. “Perhaps I could join you.” A fire burned brightly in the fireplace, heating as it cast a soft golden light. A kerosene lamp supplemented the light from the fire, but to Sloan's mind, all the radiance in the room seemed to have gently surrounded the young woman standing in the tub.

  How dare he? Brianne wondered. The man’s outrageous suggestion had been made in a voice that was deep and arrogant … and somehow stirring. “I paid for a private bath!” she said, maintaining her dignity. “It should be obvious to anyone with the lowest intelligence that some mistake has been made.”

  “Ah, but sometimes, if a person is very, very clever, a mistake can be turned to advantage.”

  “I assure you that won’t be the case.” Brianne didn't have to look down to know that the towel she held up covered her only from her breasts to her upper thighs. Extending her arm, she reached for another towel that was folded and laying on a small marble-topped table. But the towel she was holding slipped, and she was forced to give up her quest.

  Sloan pushed away from the door and slowly walked toward her, not stopping until he stood in front of her, so close that, if he chose, he could rip the towel from her grasp.

  Her fingers tightened on it, and she jerked her head toward the door. “Get out!”

  Plainly, he mused, the lady was used to having her wishes obeyed. Well, so was he.

  With slowness deliberately designed to disconcert, he surveyed her. Her hair was wet and lay against her skin in dark red rivulets. Her eyes were a deep green and were glittering at him with a fiery indignation. Her skin was pale peach. On her shoulders and above her towel-covered breasts water beaded as if reluctant to abandon such luscious perches. He ignored an urge to lean down and lick off the drops of water one by one. Continuing his survey, he discovered that her breasts were so ample that they swelled enticingly out either side of the towel.

  A series of white scars marked her left forearm. Rather than marring her perfection, the scars made her all the more interesting.

  Yes, he decided, the situation definitely offered a myriad of possibilities, and all of them were amusing. It had been a long time since anything had amused him. He reached out and ran a finger down her forearm, and she jerked away.

  “I'm only going to tell you one more time,” she said, her tone icy. “Get out!”

  “What will you do if I don’t?” he asked, definitely curious. Fully expecting female hysterics, he was surprised to see her smile at him sweetly.

  “Well,” she said thoughtfully, “first I’d geld you.”

  Her answer was totally unexpected, but his only reaction was a slight lift of one dark brow. “And second?”

  “Do you really think I’d need to do anything else?”

  Almost imperceptibly, the corners of his mouth lifted. “Good point.”

  He reached for the folded towel from the table, held it out to her, and her fingers closed around it. He had every intention of releasing the towel and he started to, but then some impulse stopped him.

  This close to her, he could see things he hadn’t noticed before. Her skin had the texture of fine porcelain. Her mouth was closed, but still her lips were soft and moist. And her eyes were as clear and green as a magnificent emerald. Yes, there was the icy aloofness in them that he would have expected, but there was also an angry fire. He wondered if he could turn the anger into passion and in the next moment decided to find out.

  Slowly, he lowered his head until his lips were barely touching hers. She tried to pull away, but he released the towel and grasped her shoulders. Holding her to him, he found that her damp skin still retained the heat from the bath and felt as smooth as satin.

  Increasing the pressure of his mouth on hers, he parted her lips just enough so that his tongue could enter the warmth of her mouth. There he discovered a luxuriant array of tastes, textures, sensations.

  Her backside was completely bare, and Sloan was not a man to deny himself a pleasure so readily available. Holding this delectable woman in his arms, feeling himself grow hard, was reminding him how long it had been since he’d had a woman. He slid his hands down the silky skin of her spine to cup her buttocks. They were warm and firm and fit into his hands with a fullness and an ease that was a provocation in itself.

  Brianne clung to him, knowing that she shouldn’t, knowing that it was wickedly improper. Stunned, both by his actions and her own reaction, she uttered a sound that held both anger and confusion. She had kissed before –
light, pleasurable, fun kisses – but no man had ever kissed her with such a primitive hunger, using his tongue in a sensuous rhythm of tasting and licking. And certainly no man had ever dared be so audacious in touching her.

  Brianne had not felt jeopardy until he had laid his hands on her. But now new feelings, new emotions, new fire stirred within her, and she knew that there was the jeopardy.

  Yet still she clung.

  Abruptly Sloan broke away. His breathing came unevenly, his face showed taut sensuality – but his eyes were completely unreadable. For a long moment he gazed down at her. Then, after inclining his head, he murmured, “It’s been a pleasure, Brianne.” He turned his back on her, walked to the door, opened it, and left.

  Brianne stared at the closed door, then slowly sank back into the tub of hot water. She felt odd, as if when the dark stranger had left, he had taken all the breath in her body with him.

  Throughout her life Brianne had been surrounded by men – the men of her family, the men who worked on Killara, and the men who had tried since she’d entered her teens to make her fall in love with them. No man had ever overwhelmed her … until now.

  Recalling how she had responded to the stranger’s kisses, she was absolutely appalled.

  She rested the back of her neck against the rim of the tub, wild impressions of the man whirling through her mind. Strangely, he reminded her of the land where she had been born. She felt as if his strength was as vast as her beloved Arizona. He and the land shared the same hardness, the same untamed ferocity.

  His overall coloring had been as dark brown as the desert at dusk. But then there had been his eyes. Because they were gold, they should have been beautiful. Yet she had seen no beauty as she had looked into them. They were hard and opaque, like a nugget of gold that was incapable of showing emotion.

  She had never seen a man who exuded such blatant menace, but she couldn’t decide if the menace sprang from a danger that long ago had been bred into his bones or from a sensuality so potent it could have been deadly. Perhaps it was both.

  In the heated water of her bath she shivered, then decided it would be prudent not to mention the strangely exciting encounter to her brother. Patrick, for all his teasing, was strongly protective of her. And if he knew a strange man had kissed her and touched her, much less had seen her nude, there was no telling what he would do. Patrick was very, very good with a gun, but she remembered that the stranger had also worn a gun, tied down to his muscular thigh. He was either hunting trouble or expecting it.

  Then a thought struck her. The man had called her Brianne! He knew who she was.

  But who was he?

  Chapter 3

  The hotel dining room was nearly empty as Patrick and Brianne finished their dinner. A brass-based chandelier with etched crystal globes hung from the center of the ceiling, and candles burned in a two branch silver candelabrum on their damask-covered table. An ominous boom of thunder cracked in the sky above the hotel.

  “Last night’s storm is back with a vengeance,” Patrick commented before sipping his coffee.

  Although Brianne nodded her agreement, she was paying little attention to Patrick’s conversation. The scene in the bathroom flashed in her brain like the bolts of lightning flashing their brilliance through the sheer white curtains at the windows. The heavier crimson drapes had not yet been drawn.

  “It was great luck finding this nice hotel when we needed it,” Patrick said. “Mr. Potter was telling me that it was once the home of an English duke. For a while this duke fancied he might become a cattle rancher, and he built this enormous house and imported all the furnishings from Europe.”

  “Really?” Brianne asked, Patrick’s words at last snagging her attention. She glanced around, taking in the embossed wallpaper in a pale pearl-gray, and the oversized walnut sideboard heavily carved with a variety of fruit. “What happened to the duke?”

  “He found that the American West wasn’t as romantic as he had thought, and he eventually got tired and went home. But in the meantime he had started this town, and when he and his people left, he sold everything for a song. The Potters have been here for about ten years now.”

  Another boom of thunder followed by a crashing sound made Brianne turn, just in time to see the young boy who worked for the Potters – George, she had heard him called – struggling with a heavy tray piled high with dishes. A shattered plate lay at his feet. Brianne smiled reassuringly at him, but the smile didn’t have the effect she intended. The rest of the dinnerware toppled from the tray and crashed loudly on the floor. Mrs. Potter appeared and, delivering a tirade, marched the boy out of the room.

  Watching his sister, Patrick grinned. “The men in St. Louis don’t have a clue as to what’s in store for them. I’m going to enjoy watching the chaos you cause.”

  Brianne made a face at her brother. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Your effect on boys and men, my love. We’ve all lost count of the number of men who have come to Killara to court you, only to leave with a broken heart.”

  “Can I help it if I’ve never found a man to equal the men of our family?” Brianne asked, then remembered the man who had come into the room as she had bathed and surveyed her with cold golden eyes that had somehow held a strange heat. And his lips had been hard, yet they had conveyed such sweet passion.

  “Thank you,” Patrick said.

  “With the exception of you, of course,” she hastened to add. Attempting to put aside all thoughts of the golden-eyed man, she studied her brother and felt a surge of love.

  His broad shoulders were covered by a soft suede Spanish-cut jacket, and his long legs were clothed in close-fitting dark trousers. She thought he looked wonderfully handsome with his warm, intelligent brown eyes, his strong jaw, and his beautifully shaped mouth. And the slight depression in the center of his chin seemed to drive women wild, or so her girlfriends had told her.

  “The family’s real concerned about you, Bri. Everyone is afraid you’re going to be an old maid. Granda’s already turned down a score of marriage proposals on your behalf. You’re just too picky.”

  She fixed him with a stern look. “Nonsense. Granda would be perfectly happy if I never married at all, and you know it.”

  “Maybe,” Patrick conceded. “You’re his princess and he’s bound to be jealous of any man who wins your heart. But there’s Malvina to consider.” He shook his head sadly. “Night and day she says rosaries for you.”

  Brianne scooped up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and aimed it at Patrick. “One more word and you'll be wearing this all over that ugly face of yours.”

  “Okay, okay, we’ll drop the subject of your lamentable spinsterhood … for now.”

  “You’re too kind,” Brianne muttered.

  A comfortable silence fell between them, lasting for a few minutes, until Patrick said, “If this weather lets up by morning, we should be able to leave.”

  “Then Stormy's been shod?”

  Patrick nodded. “The blacksmith did it this afternoon.”

  “Marvelous. I can hardly wait until we get to St. Louis.”

  “Eager to make new conquests, are you?”

  She sighed as if she bore a heavy burden. “You know very well that I’m eager to see Uncle Dom and Elspeth. It’s been too long.”

  “I agree.” He lifted his napkin to his mouth to wipe away a few bread crumbs. “By the way, I met the most unusual young woman today.”

  “Really?” she asked, immediately interested. Although Patrick rarely spoke to her about his amorous adventures, she picked up things here and there, and knew that he had a lot of women scattered about the country. But with a highly refined sense of self-protection, he made sure none of them were of the kind suitable to bring home to Killara and the family. “Who is she?”

  “Her name’s Anna Nilsen. She’s Swedish and the daughter of the man who owns the local emporium.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “There’s nothing much to
tell. I was just intrigued, that’s all. She’s beautiful, but cool. Keeps herself to herself.” Knowing the reason behind his sister’s ques- tions, a grin creased his face. “I talked with her while I was buying you a gift, but plainly she’s not a lady who’s the least bit flirtatious. I was really hurt, I don’t mind telling you.”

  Brianne had a quick mind. “Gift?” she asked, even as he got out the last word of his sentence.

  With a smile, he bent to his side and brought up a hat box. “Here you are.”

  Brianne snatched the hat box out of his hands and, without ado, lifted the lid and pushed aside tissue paper. Then she gasped. Nestled snugly in the box was a hat unlike any she had ever seen. At first glance it seemed to match the description of the hat she had made up as she had circled the corral. The hat was in the latest fashion, complete with feathers and a blue satin ribbon to tie under her chin. It even had a bird perched perkily on its crown. But, unfortunately, with the bird, the milliner had gone very much awry.

  Gingerly she lifted the hat out of the box so she could get a better look. She supposed the bird was intended to be a dove. It certainly had the beautiful pale coloring of that tame breed, yet somewhere along the line the bird had acquired the predatory eyes of a hawk and the crooked, ugly beak of a vulture. To make matters worse, its wings were spread and its feathers raised, so it looked as if any moment it might swoop down off the hat and attack some helpless creature. All in all, it was the most hideous hat she had ever seen in her life.

  She raised her gaze to her brother and saw that his brow was crinkled anxiously. “I hope you like it,” he said. “The minute I laid eyes on it, I knew it was just the thing to enhance your many and considerable charms.”

  Brianne’s smile was absolutely adoring. “Patrick, you are completely full of horse manure.”