Copper Fire

by Fayrene Preston

  “Are you?” Patrick asked again, his eyes never leaving Tucker's sweating face.

  “You know,” Lee Reardon said in a conversational tone he might have used to discuss the rain outside, “I really don’t think Tucker meant anything out of line. In fact,” he continued slowly, “I’m positive he was referring to your skill and to your family’s skill at cards.”

  Completely detached, Sloan knew exactly what each man at the table was thinking and feeling. He had learned to read men well, and right now Tucker was wishing he were somewhere else, while at the same time trying to figure out how he could back down without losing face. On the other hand, Isaiah Carter and Lee Reardon were men who had seen too many killings on the frontier, and they were at- tempting to defuse the situation. And as for Patrick Delaney, Sloan had never seen a man more capable of taking care of himself. Patrick needed no help from him, and even if he did, Sloan told himself, he had no time to get involved with other people or their problems.

  “I’m waiting for your answer, Tucker,” Patrick said.

  Tucker’s gaze went to each man at the table, then he looked away. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Isaiah Carter let out a sigh of relief and swatted Tucker on the back. “What’d’ya say we go up to the bar and get us a drink? It seems a mighty thirsty night to me.”

  Without a word Tucker pushed his chair back, stood up, and headed for the bar. Carter followed him.

  Reardon pushed his hat back on his head and glanced from Patrick to Sloan. “Anyone for another game?”

  Sloan shook his head and rose from the table. “Not me. I think I’ve had it for tonight.”

  “I don’t think so either,” Patrick said, and pulled Katy down in his lap. “I think I’ll play another game for the rest of the night. Are you interested, darlin’?”

  The girl rubbed her bottom against his groin. “Fine by me. Anything special in mind?”

  Patrick whispered in her ear and Katy threw back her head, laughing loudly. “That’ll be a new experience for me, but I’m willing to give it a go.”

  Sloan raked the money he had left in front of him off the table and handed it to Janice. “Maybe another night.”

  She reached her hand behind his neck and pulled his head down for a long, slow kiss. “Anytime,” she whispered. “Anytime.”

  Sloan nodded to Delaney and Reardon. “Have a pleasant rest of the evening, gentlemen.”

  Chapter 4

  Brianne awoke early in the big, tall, four-poster. For a minute she lay where she was, her eyes fixed on the far wall. Sloan Lassiter had said that his room faced the back of the hotel, overlooking the corral – just as her room did. Patrick had been given the room on her right. That meant the chances were good that Sloan’s room was on the left side of hers, just a wall away. Unbidden, her mind conjured a picture of him, prowling his room in that powerful, elegant way he had of moving. Perhaps he hadn’t yet gotten dressed. She imagined that his back would be roped with muscles of strength and flexibility. His chest would be wide and blanketed with fine, dark hair. The hair would continue down his abdomen, where it would narrow and descend in a straight line – Enough!

  She threw back the bedcovers. Today she would be leaving Chango behind, and with it Mr. Sloan Lassiter.

  She washed, then dressed in her riding clothes for their journey. After repacking her two portmanteaus, she went next door to Patrick’s room. A knock on the door elicited no response. She knocked harder.

  “Good morning, Brianne.”

  At the sound of Sloan Lassiter’s voice, her nerves jumped as if he had burnt her flesh with his words. Still, when she turned, she allowed no sign of her agitation to show on her face. “Good morning, Mr. Lassiter.”

  He gave her a teeth-baring smile. “Sloan, please. After all, I feel I know you so well.”

  This was the first time they had been alone since their encounter yesterday afternoon, and she was disturbed. She could remember all too well the way she had sensed danger, yet still she had clung to him. “I know this is going to really start your day off badly, Mr. Lassiter, but the fact is you’re going to have to find another lady to practice your mocking ways on. And right away too. My brother and I are leaving directly after breakfast.”

  He chuckled, a rare occurrence for him. But last night Brianne had been stunningly beautiful in the turquoise gown, every inch a desirable woman. This morning she was dressed in her riding clothes. Her hair was plaited, and her hat was dangling by its cord around her neck and down her back. At her throat a gold cross hung on a delicate gold chain. She looked young, fresh, and so obviously untouched, a less experienced man in the ways of a woman might go crazy just thinking about being her first lover. He reached out and grasped the small cross and began to move it back and forth.

  The backs of his fingers grazed the hollow of her throat, heating her skin, her blood, her mind. Was it that simple? Brianne wondered. Was it possible that desire could be so easily raised by a mere touch?

  She took a step back, and he was forced to release the cross or break the fragile chain.

  “Miss Delaney, the town won’t seem the same without you,” he said, feeling a vague surprise because it was the truth. “Going down to breakfast?”

  “Yes.” She gave a last look at Patrick’s door. “That must be where my brother is.”

  With a wave of his hand he gestured that she should precede him. “After you.”

  His politeness grated on Brianne because she had every reason to know that the courtly manners were a sham. She would have known it even if that scene in the bathroom hadn’t occurred.

  In the dining room there was no sign of Patrick. “Would you care to join me for breakfast?” Sloan asked. “I’m sure your brother will be along soon.” She turned to him, wondering why in spite of everything, she wished she could take him up on his invitation. “No, thank you. I'm going to go find Patrick.”

  As he had done the night before, he raised her hand to his mouth. “Then as I might not see you again, let me say how much I’ve enjoyed our … meeting.” The cool of his lips against the back of her hand scorched oddly, and the innuendo of his words infuriated. As he didn’t voluntarily release her hand, she removed it as gracefully as she could manage. “Thank you, Mr. Lassiter.”

  “I really wish you’d call me Sloan,” he said softly.

  Brianne called upon every deportment lesson Mal-

  vina had ever given her to resist the urge to listen to the enticing softness in his voice. “Have a pleasant day. Mr. Lassiter.”

  The stable was the logical place for Patrick to be, Brianne decided. As she headed in that direction, she noticed that folks had begun to stir up and down the street. The sun was out, but the ground had a long way to go before it dried. Brianne stayed on the boardwalk, and when she crossed the side streets, she was careful to walk on the planks that had been laid over the mud.

  Although small, Chango seemed to be a bustling town, businesses and stores lining its main street. Brianne admired the pots of flowers at the doors of several offices and noted how many of the windows sparkled in the morning sun. She felt a touch of regret that she had to leave the town so soon, and she told herself that it was because she wouldn’t have the opportunity to do much sketching in Chango rather than because she was having to leave Sloan Lassiter before she could get to know him.

  At the wide door of the stable she stopped and peered in. She could see no sign of Patrick, so she walked down the wide aisle that separated the stalls. An old man with long scraggly hair was mucking out one of the stalls, and appeared to be the only other person there. Her horse, Dancer, was there, as was their pack horse, Sam. But Patrick's horse, Stormy, was nowhere to be seen.

  She approached the old man. “Pardon me, but have you seen Mr. Delaney this morning?”

  Without looking around, the man spoke as he worked. “Hain't seen nobody.”

  “Are you sure? He’s tall, young, with reddish hair.” She paused, but the man made no sign that he
was even paying attention to her. “He stabled our horses here yesterday afternoon. His horse, a big palomino, had thrown a shoe.” Still the man said nothing. “The horse was shod late yesterday, so it should be here, but I can’t find it.”

  The man shifted the angle of his head slightly and spit. “Then it’s gone.”

  Silently giving her brother a piece of her mind, Brianne walked out of the stable and started back up the street. Patrick wouldn’t take an early morning ride, not with a hard day ahead of them, and certainly not without telling her. So he had to be up to something. The question was what ?

  Then another thought hit her. Could someone have stolen Patrick's horse? She almost laughed. If someone had, he had made the worst mistake of his life, because Patrick thought the world of Stormy.

  She passed the barber shop and the lawyer’s office. As she approached Nilsen’s Emporium, she noticed a young woman sweeping off the boardwalk in front of the store. Patrick’s Anna, she guessed. He had been right. Anna certainly was beautiful with her blonde hair, ivory skin, and clear blue eyes. She was curious about the type of woman who would attract her brother, and it suddenly occurred to her that Patrick might have gone back to visit Anna last night.

  “Good morning. I’m Brianne Delaney.”

  The young woman stopped sweeping and, with a polite reserve, smiled, showing two perfect dimples. “I’m Anna Nilsen. Can I help you?”

  Anna must not have smiled at Patrick, Brianne thought, amused, or he certainly would have mentioned those dimples. “It’s just that my brother, Patrick Delaney, was in your store yesterday, and I was wondering – ”

  A look of concern replaced Anna’s smile. “The hat! Oh, I’m awfully sorry! He said it was for his sister. I tried to talk him out of buying it. I told him there had been a mistake and I planned to send it back, but he seemed to think it was just what you’d want.”

  “Patrick has a peculiar sense of humor,” Brianne explained, thinking how pleasant Anna’s slightly accented voice was. “He bought it as a joke.”

  “Oh, then I suppose that’s all right.”

  “Have you by any chance seen my brother this morning?”

  “No. I only just came down to open the store.” She glanced toward the second-story windows of the store. “My father and I live upstairs.”

  “I see. Well, thank you anyway. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” Anna said, and resumed her sweeping. Back at the hotel Brianne got the owner’s wife, Mrs. Potter, to open Patrick’s door for her. A sweeping glance told her that his belongings were undisturbed – as was his bed.

  Mildly irritated, Brianne made her way back down the stairs and out to the front porch of the hotel. Sloan Lassiter was there, lounging in a chair. She had seen him sitting there when she had entered the hotel minutes before and had nodded. Now, though, she realized that he might have the answers she needed.

  “You haven’t found your brother?” he asked, knowing that she hadn’t. From his vantage point on the hotel’s porch, Sloan had seen her go into the stables, come back out, then stop and talk to the woman at the emporium.

  “No. You were with him last night, weren’t you?”

  “Part of the night. We played a few hands of poker.”

  “Did he happen to mention where he was going when the game ended?”

  “Not that I can recall.” Sloan deliberately refrained from telling her about Katy, the pretty little saloon girl Patrick had had his hands full of last night. Unless he was very much mistaken, Katy had kept Patrick busy for most of the night. Chances were he was still sleeping in one of the rooms above the saloon.

  Brianne frowned, puzzled. “He didn’t say anything about this morning?”

  “Nothing.”

  Brianne gazed down, noticing absently that she was worriedly tapping the tip of her boot against the wooden planks of the porch. Abruptly, she raised her head. “I’ll just have to go over to the saloon and ask around.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  Sloan’s quiet but authoritative statement surprised Brianne for a moment, because you can't do that was something she had heard very rarely in her life. Growing up as she had, with the freedom of Killara, she had never been bothered over much with the restraints of being female.

  Of course, there had been the day, right before Brianne was to turn ten, when Malvina had looked out a window and seen her frolicking with several of her uncles, cousins, and Patrick in the water hole, completely naked and unconcerned. Malvina had jerked her out fast, and ever since had attempted to mold Brianne into her idea of a young lady.

  Brianne had listened and absorbed everything Malvina had said, then had gone out to learn how to do what she really wanted to do – ride, shoot, track, and hunt. Luckily, since she had been the first girl child born in three generations to a large, loving family, there had always been someone eager to teach her. Brianne had had uncles, cousins, and a grandfather, all of whom had seen no reason why she couldn’t do exactly as she wished.

  But reasonably, she knew Sloan was right. No respectable woman ever entered a saloon. But Patrick was nowhere to be found, and that, to her mind, took precedence over whatever code of behavior she should be following.

  “I have to go to the saloon,” she said calmly. “Someone over there might know where Patrick is.” Sloan came to his feet slowly and reluctantly. As much as he didn’t want to become involved in someone else’s problems, he couldn't allow Brianne to go into the saloon. Besides the fact that it just wasn’t done, there was a chance she would find a naked Katy draped over an equally naked Patrick. Briefly he wondered what Brianne’s reaction would be to such a scene. Then, remembering the composed way she had reacted when he had opened the door to see her rising from the tub, he decided she wouldn’t be that shocked.

  Brianne Delaney was an interesting lady, and if circumstances were different – But they weren’t. And he wouldn’t even allow himself to wish that they were.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Wait here.”

  Instinctively, Brianne started to protest, but then thought better of it. He was right. It would be better if he went alone. She just hoped he could find something out.

  When Sloan entered the door of Lucky’s Saloon, he saw Lucky puffing away on a cigar and wiping down the bar. Several men were there, some already drinking the hard stuff, some just drinking coffee. Katy was at a back table, sitting with Janice and eating breakfast.

  Janice’s bored face brightened when she saw him approaching, and she stood up. “Sloan! I mean, Mr. Lassiter, I’m so glad you came back. I was afraid you’d already left town.”

  It barely registered with Sloan that her enthusiasm sounded genuine. “I’ll be here for a while.” He looked at the other woman. “Katy, did you spend the night with Mr. Delaney?”

  His question couldn’t have embarrassed her, Sloan thought, yet she suddenly appeared flustered.

  “I was with him for a few hours,” she said cautiously.

  “Did you take him upstairs?”

  Straightening in her chair, her eyes defied Sloan to criticize her. “Yes, and I gave him a real good time too.”

  “Why are you asking Katy these things?” Janice asked, eager to regain his attention.

  He ignored her. “Katy, take me to the room where you two were.”

  For a moment Sloan thought she was going to argue with him, but she finally got up and began leading him up the stairs. Janice’s resentful gaze followed them.

  “I don’t know what all the uproar is about,” Katy said. “I did everything Mr. Delaney said. You never saw a man more tuckered out than he was by the time we got finished.”

  At the top of the stairs she pushed open a door to a small room. Sloan stepped in and looked around. The room was sparsely furnished with a washstand, two chairs, and a bed. The bed was empty, but the sheets, lying in a tangled heap on the tick mattress, testified to the energetic activity of the night before.

  Years of having only himself to rely on had honed Sloan’s i
nstincts to a fine edge, and now his instincts were telling him that something was wrong here. He could feel it.

  Sloan wheeled on Katy. “When did you last see him?”

  The saloon girl took a step back. “Mr. Delaney, you mean?” Her tongue snaked out to lick her upper lip. “Well, after we were, you know … uh, through, I left him here. He was sleeping.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since?”

  Although Katy planted her hands on her hips in a defiant gesture, she looked about ready to burst into tears. “I told you I haven’t! Leave me alone!”

  Sloan’s hand shot out, knotted in Katy’s hair, and pulled her to him. “If I find out that something's happened to Delaney and you know anything, anything at all, you will personally answer to me. Do you understand?”

  He was pulling her hair with just enough force to give an indication of the pain he could cause her if he chose, and Katy nodded.

  He released her with a push. “Good, now get out.” After she had left, Sloan took a closer look around the room. There were no personal items of any sort. He shook out the sheets and found nothing. It was then that he noticed the rag. A corner of a dirty cloth lay just under the bed. He bent and scooped it up. Holding it to his nose, he took a light sniff. Ether.

  Brianne had no idea how she knew it, but from the minute she saw Sloan walking down the boardwalk toward her, she was certain something was wrong. She waited, though, and did not run to him as she wanted.

  Deciding that there was no easy way to tell her, Sloan chose the direct approach. When he was beside her, he held out the rag. “Ether.”

  She took the rag from him and smelled it, nearly gagging as she did. “I don’t understand.”

  “Your brother spent the night over at Lucky’s Saloon. My guess is that sometime during the night someone used this rag soaked with ether to put him out.”

  “Oh, God! Where is he? Is he still at the saloon? Is he still unconscious?”

  Thinking of the times he had heard her joyful laughter made him hesitate. What he had to tell her would put a stop to all her laughter.