Sahara glanced up to see him gazing at her, as though reading her thoughts. He walked slowly toward the desk, his brown eyes glowing in a face bronzed and toughened by the Kansas sun. “Mighty serious reading matter,” he commented as he stopped behind her. “Who would’ve thought that impassioned little angel I loved the other night would comprehend the intricacies of her new business? Do you have any questions?”
His query sounded sincere, but when he leaned over her shoulders and slipped his arms around her waist, it was an effort to remain rational.
“Wh-why doesn’t the safe lock?” she stammered. “If anyone found out—”
“Jennifer was apparently so fascinated with hiding her toys in it as a child that Spade had the bolt removed,” he murmured beside her ear. “She probably pestered him so much he thought it was easier to keep anything of real value secured somewhere else.”
“Jenny, a pest? I—I can’t imagine,” Sahara breathed. He was holding her against the chair back, his arms cradling her breasts. “So…so what’s in the gold-edged box?”
“Personal effects, I think…Mamie Spade’s jewelry,” he replied in a low voice. She smelled of delicate talcum and wildflowers despite the day’s heat, and he was suddenly wishing Jennifer were off on a long journey. “I have no idea what else is in the safe, or where his other private papers might be. He claimed he had no secrets, yet I was never allowed in this room without him being here. Just the hired help, you know.”
His lips were lighting a silken trail of fire along her neck, headed for the exposed skin above her cleavage, and Sahara had to struggle for her next breath. “Where’d he keep his second set of ledgers, then?”
Madigan jerked up. “Where’d you get that idea?”
His sudden ire made her falter, “Well—all the men at Zerelda’s talked like—I mean, those walls are thin, and it sounded like the everyday thing, to have one set of real records while—”
“I’ve been Horatio Spade’s accountant for seven years, young lady,” he replied in a deep, serious voice, “and my figures are his only figures. Take the books to the bank if you doubt me.”
His dark-eyed gaze left no room for further questions, and Sahara let out the breath she’d sucked in. “I didn’t mean to question your integrity, Dan,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as scared as she felt. “But nearly everyone in Atchison raised an eyebrow when they learned I was marrying Horatio, as though they didn’t trust him.”
Dan saw the innocent fear in her green, green eyes and laughed softly. “They envied him, sweet Sahara,” he whispered. “After one kiss, I, too, was wishing I were in his place. Shall I remind you how that kiss felt?”
It was a moot question, because Dan’s lips descended upon hers with that sure, fiery splendor that threatened to consume her in its heat. His hand found the lace edging of her dress and slipped beneath it as he pulled her closer to deepen the kiss. Sahara lost herself in the sensations his mouth and fingers so deftly created. How could this man, so brusque and businesslike one moment, ignite her like a torch the next?
“Sahara,” he breathed, “ever since we loved, I’ve wanted to—”
“Dinner is served, Mr. Madigan. That is, if Mrs. Spade hasn’t spoiled your appetite.”
Dan swore softly and straightened to his full height. “I’ll be there in a moment, Miss Jenny. Sahara had a question about the accounts.”
There was a disbelieving sniff behind him, and then the quick clatter of pumps upon the hallway floor.
Madigan sighed. “Please join us. You’ve hardly eaten since—”
“And spoil your fun with Miss Spade? Not a chance,” Sahara said. “The leftovers will taste better with Pearly, in the kitchen.”
“That’s a poor attitude for a woman who controls enough wealth to purchase the state of Kansas,” he remarked. “You’d better get used to playing your new role, or Jenny’ll—”
“What’s the ‘p’ stand for, Mr. Madigan?”
Dan let out an exasperated sigh. “You know damn well what ‘p-poor’ means, so why—”
“No, I mean the ‘p’ in Horatio P. Spade. A wife should know these things, don’t you think?” she asked lightly.
Sahara’s impish grin begged to be wiped away with a kiss that would show her who was going to call the shots. From one moment to the next, he never knew what to anticipate—but he knew not to linger too long in her enticing presence. “Pinkley.”
“Pinkley?” she hooted.
“His mother’s maiden name,” Dan replied wryly, “and I only know that because I saw it on a document at Dulaney’s office. It’s not nice to poke fun at the dead, Sahara.”
“Nor at the living,” she shot back, “but I can’t help laughing when I think that it’s you Miss Jenny’s expecting for dinner. Enjoy your meal, Madigan.”
Just that fast she’d dismissed him! Dan turned on his heel, determined that Miss Caldwell—he could hardly think of her as Mrs. Spade, after claiming her beneath the trees—would get her comeuppance for that flippant mouth of hers.
Sahara watched until she heard his heavy, booted tread enter the dining room down the hall, and then clapped the ledger shut. After this brief, seductive encounter she felt only more confused about where she stood with Dan Madigan, and where he should stand with her…and how much trouble Jennifer would stir up because of it.
When she replaced the books in the safe, however, her thoughts turned to the ornate box in front of her. There had to be a key to that gilt-edged lock, and with Spade gone nobody could tell her she had no right to open it. Someone should, to ascertain its contents. She lifted it carefully, with both hands, and carried it to the desk. Then, after hearing the stilted conversation and clink of silverware against china from down the hall, she shut the study door. And locked it.
Chapter 9
Where would Spade hide the key to this box?
Sahara stood beside his desk, studying the gilt-edged container, thinking it looked like an expensive steamer trunk for a doll. She’d seen keys hanging in Horatio’s armoire, but the portly express baron surely hadn’t puffed up the stairs each time he wanted to open his strongbox. The key had to be in this room.
On an impulse, Sahara pressed the tonguelike latch, which fastened into a gold fleur-de-lis insignia, and gaped. It popped open! Had Spade been so preoccupied when he changed his will that he forgot to lock it? Or—as she saw the tangle of pendants, gold locket chains, and brooches, Sahara suspected this was the case—did Jenny have the key? She’d produced the will in no time at all, as though she’d explored the box’s contents before their conference with Mr. Dulaney.
Sahara lifted Mamie’s jewelry out, noting that it was much less pretentious than Spade’s, and then removed a fat packet from the bottom of the box. She sat down to sift through the papers it contained, glancing briefly at them: the deed to the ranch—all two thousand acres of it!—and the bills of sale for various Morgan mares and stallions were on top, and looked as though they, too, had been pulled out and hurriedly replaced.
The only other paper was a contract for a hundred Concord coaches, priced at fifteen hundred dollars each. Attached was a page of specifications: basswood cabin panels, upholstered benches, and the red paint, gold lettering, and decorative stenciling that made Spade Express coaches turn heads when they passed through town. Sahara had often gawked at the gleaming vehicles, thinking what an adventure it must be to cross the country in one! Quick multiplication gave her the astounding cost of this fine fleet, and the thought that she now owned it, plus freight wagons and other coaches Spade had acquired in his takeovers, made her head spin.
But the paper was dated three years ago—and, like the other documents she held, it wasn’t anything private or incriminating. Surely an entrepreneur like Spade had other records of a more sensitive nature…the talk at Zerelda’s hinted that he was crooked, and she believed those rumors. Where would he keep…
Stories about castles with hidden passageways, and noblemen pressing secret panels to re
veal them, made Sahara study the box more closely. When she replaced the papers, she noted a difference of nearly two inches between where they lay and the real base of the box—which meant it probably had a false bottom! Fascinated, she pressed various points along the gleaming gold edges, holding her breath. She was on the right track—she could feel it—and then she noted that on the back of the box, below the hinges, was another fleur-de-lis. When she pressed it, she heard the quiet ping of an interior spring and sucked in her breath. The bottom inch or so, disguised by the ornate gilt trim, was a drawer that she found herself easing out before she could even think about it.
This compartment housed only neatly bundled papers, and Sahara sensed that the real Horatio Spade was about to appear before her. On the left was a stack of receipts, all from the Lewis General Store in Atchison,
listing huge quantities of flour, coffee, dried apples, beans, bacon—supplies that were undoubtedly for the stations where the stagecoaches stopped for meals and fresh horses. There was a page for each month of the past two and a half years, each signed by Ira Lewis…nothing underhanded about that, until she reached the last page—a note in Lewis’s hand, on the same letterhead as his receipts:
As per our agreement, ½ each month’s allotment to be delivered to Fts. Riley, Harker, Hays, and Wallace, by your agent Tom Underwood, who is solely responsible for its safe passage and for collecting the payment thereof. On this 10th day of December, 1863, Ira J. Lewis.
Sahara scowled. Tom Underwood wasn’t listed on any of the payroll sheets—and further study revealed that the dates of these purchases matched the payments Madigan made to Lewis’s store for station supplies, and the dollar amounts were correct to the penny. But if half the supplies were being diverted to army posts, while being charged off to Spade Express…
“Well, well,” she murmured as she placed the receipts in the drawer again. It seemed her late husband had been selling supplies to the military, probably at considerable profit, and enlisting Lewis and Underwood to carry out these secret deals. And sure enough, here were slips from the various forts noting the shipments of these same supplies, at twice what Spade had paid Lewis for them! Horatio had been pocketing huge profits while his ledgers boasted of generous monthly shipments to his stage stops—and yet, when divided by the forty-some stations, Sahara wondered how the employees could possibly feed themselves and Spade Express’s daily passengers on such minimal amounts.
Voices in the hallway made her hold her breath. It was Jennifer, lecturing Pearly, and after a pause Dan was bidding Miss Spade good night. Should she confront the ranch manager about this major discrepancy in the accounts, or quiz him tomorrow? His replies would either prove him innocent or convict him as part of Spade’s double-dipping.
As his footsteps resounded across the porch, Sahara kept quiet. There were more papers here, and she wanted to know the full extent of Spade’s piracy before she pointed any fingers.
Next she found contracts for horses, signed by the same army clerks who received the food shipments. The stage line’s stock had to be replenished occasionally, so these deliveries, made along the same route where the stations were, would appear completely normal and aboveboard to anyone who happened to witness them. But again, Horatio was making huge unrecorded profits at the expense of his—now her—express company.
“That’ll soon come to a halt,” she muttered, a plan already forming in her mind. These men would continue to take advantage of her until she informed them she was wise to their schemes, which meant personal visits and a lengthy trip across Kansas to—
Sahara stopped her musing after she glanced at Mamie Spade’s obituary from the newspaper, because the last few items had nothing to do with supplies and profits. She sensed a dark secret was unfolding with the yellowing page she now held. It was a letter from the Riverside Sanitorium, dated fifteen years ago, informing Horatio of the death of Olivia Madigan due to complications of premature childbirth.
Sahara thought back. Dan had mentioned that his mother went away ill, never to return, but he hadn’t said she was pregnant. Only one page remained in the drawer, and when she unfolded it, a small daguerreotype of a striking blond woman who closely resembled Dan fell onto the desk top. When she saw the delicate, feminine script, she sensed she’d be eavesdropping if she read this note, but the first few lines hooked her before she could refold it.
Mr. Spade,
I fear I must leave before my condition becomes obvious. George will soon suspect something, because he seldom touches me. I’ve often wondered if he knows Dan’s not his son.
My paleness and vomiting will pass for something more serious if a doctor cooperates. I’ll understand if this forces you to send me away forever, and I can only pray you’ll forgive me the inconvenience I’ve caused you.
Please look after Dan. He’s a bright boy, quick with his sums, and George pays him little mind.
Your obedient, Olivia
Sahara’s mouth felt like a dusty field. Dan Madigan was Spade’s son—had to be, or Olivia would never have written him such a note! What kind of a mother signed herself away, leaving her boy to one man who drank himself to death and to another who would scar him permanently with his whip?
It was the coward’s way out…but the only way Olivia saw to escape the certain wrath of two men—one of whom probably forced her into this situation in the first place. As Sahara herself knew, there was no refusing Horatio Spade. He’d probably been happy to get rid of Dan’s mother, knowing she might demand privileges for his bastard children, and thus expose him to his family and employees for the beast he was.
Now that she knew Madigan was illegitimate, and that his real father had never acknowledged him—and that she herself had inherited most of what could’ve gone to Dan under different circumstances—how could she face the handsome man who was now her lover? She’d be a horrible liar if he asked too many questions about what she’d found.
And Jennifer—all hell would break loose if Miss Spade knew what she’d discovered about her father and Madigan! Sahara’s heart pounded as she imagined the rage, the accusations from both of them. And Bobby’s losing poker hand had placed her smack in the middle of this hornet’s nest!
It seemed like a fine time for a long, long trip. And as the new owner of Spade Express, what better justification would she need? There were station keepers and drivers to apologize to, and army clerks to confront, and a dishonest storekeeper and delivery man to set straight—and each of these intimidating tasks seemed like a tea party compared to staying here with Madigan and Miss Spade.
Sahara quickly stuffed Olivia’s letter, likeness, and the note from the sanitorium down the front of her camisole, and then shoved the secret drawer back into place. Jennifer would snoop in her absence: if she found this hidden compartment, she wouldn’t understand the account discrepancies, but she’d latch on to Olivia Madigan’s story with a vengeance! Dan deserved this one favor from her, anyway. She could spare him the pain and degradation of knowing he was Horatio Spade’s son.
She slid the gilt-edged strongbox back into the safe, and then hurried up the dark stairs on tiptoe, to pack.
Madigan heard the stealthy sound of something being dragged down the path that ran in front of his small cabin, and got out of bed. The moonlight revealed a slender figure in pants pulling a trunk toward the barn—a figure that could belong to only one person.
What was she up to now? He remained at the window, chuckling because the trunk probably weighed as much as Sahara did. The light in Spade’s study had winked out about half an hour ago, and she must’ve found something in those records that was mighty compelling, or she wouldn’t be sneaking away at this hour—especially with enough luggage to suggest a lengthy absence. It was his job to know about the Spade businesses—she’d said to herself—so Dan pulled his pants on and padded barefoot after her to ask a few questions.
He paused just inside the barn door. By the pale shaft of moonlight from the window, Madigan could see that s
he’d hitched up a small wagon and was angling a board against it to use as a ramp for her trunk. Her hair was pulled back into a braid, and her lean, boyish body moved with an agile strength few females possessed.
Even so, she stirred him. His first taste of her beneath the trees wasn’t nearly enough, and if she was going away—well, he had business to tend to before she could sidetrack him with her wiley, unstudied charm. “Taking a ride?”
Damn! Sahara gripped her trunk, which she’d just shoved onto the flatbed. Of course Madigan would come after her; he had a stake in the papers she’d been studying, and she could’ve wakened the dead hauling her luggage out here. But she couldn’t be swayed by his low, subtle voice this time—and he certainly couldn’t come with her! “Matter of fact I am.”
“Care if I go along?” he asked casually. “It’s a nice night, and we could settle a few things off by ourselves. Jenny has a way of intruding every time I get near you.”
“So I noticed.” She checked the harness and reins, searching for a reply that would convince him to leave her be. Then she turned to him, wishing immediately that he’d put on a shirt. “Now that I own Spade Express, I feel I should observe my company firsthand, so—”
“In the middle of the night?”
Sahara faltered. Dan was slowly approaching her, his muscled chest gleaming in the moonlight and his eyes aglow with questions and…obvious intent. “I—I want to be on the stage when it pulls out of Atchison tomorrow morning. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep things in line here while I’m gone, so Jenny won’t—”
“Are we being perfectly honest, Sahara?” Her sudden scowl told him his query had struck a nerve, so he advanced, stopping about a foot in front of her. “Last time I found you here, you were running out for good, so I assumed—”
“Last time I was running for my life,” she blurted. “And now that Spade can’t hurt me anymore, and Bobby’s gotten his due, I can go anywhere and do anything I please—without your permission!”
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