On an impulse she grinned at him. “I don’t suppose you could show me how to handle the reins sometime? It looks like great fun!”
The Scot’s brow furrowed, but before he could object, Sahara squeezed his elbow gently. “I promise not to overturn the coach,” she pleaded, “and you’ll be right beside me; so what could possibly go wrong?”
“Well…since ye put it that way.” His lingering smile made Luther cough and roll his eyes, but Fergus didn’t seem to notice: “’Twill make the miles pass faster. And I’d be honored to instruct ye,” he said proudly.
Her grin reflecting her contentment, Sahara settled against the seat to enjoy this leg of the trip. Everything about stagecoaching excited her: the steady pounding of the horses’ hooves, the sheen of their dappled, rippling haunches, the caress of the wind, and the solid, secure warmth of the men seated on either side of her made her thrum with a heightened happiness like she’d never known. And she had hundreds more miles to go!
She also had business to discuss with her new partner, and she sensed Dan would soon be tapping her on the shoulder. “I’ll go on back to the roof now,” she told the driver. “Thanks for making this ride such a fine time!”
He adjusted his broad-brimmed hat, making her pause with his purposeful look. “Not me place to butt in, Miss Sahara,” he said quietly, “but I’d watch meself where Madigan’s concerned. Ambitious men’ve been known to take advantage of a wealthy woman’s means…and her charms, as well.”
Dan was watching her, reaching toward her to help her over the roof railing, so she gave the rugged driver a quick wink. “Right you are, Fergus. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Then she stood carefully, and after a few precarious moments of climbing up the moving coach, she was hoisted into Madigan’s arms and onto the wooden bench beside him. He’d probably heard every word that passed between her and the coachman, yet his gaze displayed only a keen interest in her, a possessive intensity she enjoyed very much.
“How are you, partner?” she quipped.
“Never better.” Dan quelled the urge to kiss her deeply, in plain sight of her presumptuous driver. Sahara had never looked more glorious, with her golden hair shimmering in the wind and that air of wild abandon about her that made his insides tighten. He’d seen the look of utter joy on her face—witnessed her passion for the road—and hoped her eyes would shine with such a brilliance for him someday. “Shall we study those papers? If we sit very close, with our backs against the wind, they shouldn’t blow away.”
“Schemer,” she murmured, and she couldn’t help chuckling as he lifted a sheaf of documents from his saddlebags, scooting against her. He was a changed man since she’d granted him a share of the Spade empire—and he did warrant careful watching over—so she snuggled against him, eagerly anticipating the information he was about to reveal to her.
“Well, you know about owning the general store,” he began, shuffling through the crisp pages, “and here are the figures on your Mississippi steamers, and on the warehouses where your goods are stored after they come upriver. Spade liked to have a hand in every aspect of his freighting businesses, so he owned them. He could bargain for the best prices that way, and give the Butterfield line and Ben Holladay a run for their money without taking a loss.”
Sahara nodded at the riffling pages between his lean, tanned fingers. “Competition’s fierce, isn’t it? Everything he did either expanded his empire or increased his profits,” she murmured in awe.
“Precisely. Which is why Spade Express has government mail contracts, and agreements with these other warehouses, as well. With so many families moving west, we can’t lose if we supply their every need,” he commented as he showed her the companies’ names on various documents. “And, being a man of insatiable appetites, Horatio also owned several saloons, restaurants, and whorehouses. I guess you could say the pleasure was all his.”
Sahara laughed, looking up into his warm brown eyes. “Does he own Zerelda’s place?”
“Used to, until she bought him out a few years back. She’s another shrewd operator.”
“That’s no secret.” She leaned into him when he slipped his arm around her, taking one side of the papers to keep them from flying away in the constant breeze. After looking over a few more contracts, Sahara cleared her throat. “Does Jennifer know about all these businesses—all this money and influence her father left me, with just a swish of his signature?”
“She has no idea, because until he died she didn’t give a damn about what he owned.” He looked deeply into her eyes, savoring her awed, lovely expression, “Can you see why I’ll be such a valuable partner? Miss Jenny has her fine estates, but she can’t touch what’s yours now. She’s outnumbered…outclassed.”
Sahara’s throat went dry as Madigan’s gaze heated up. “I—I still wonder what possessed Spade to relinquish all this. And so quickly, without a thought for his daughter.”
“I don’t.” Dan lowered his face until their noses nearly touched. “You had your way with him, just as you do with me. You’re fresh and vibrant, and…simply irresistible.”
She was so close to kissing him she could taste the stirring male sweetness that was Dan Madigan, but she held back. “Does Jennifer know you’re Spade’s son?”
“No.” His whisper caressed her, full of meaning and promise. Yet she had to hear the full intent of this roguish bookkeeper who now shared control over what he’d just shown her.
“When will you tell her?”
“When she has to know. She was throwing one of her hissy-fits, ordering the servants around and leaving for St. Louis to spite me,” he said with a shrug. “It was hardly the time to reveal the fact that we had the same father. All those years she thought I’d marry her got written off with a stroke of Horatio’s pen.”
“Would you have married her, if she weren’t your half-sister?”
Dan gripped her elbow to drive his answer home. “Never,” he vowed, “and it sickens me now to think that Spade was encouraging it. I was shocked to learn the circumstances of my birth but those letters set me free, Sahara. You did me a huge favor in the barn, even though you didn’t intend to.”
A chuckle rose in her throat, sounding much more suggestive than she wanted it to. “I did you a huge favor this morning, too, Mr. Madigan,” she reminded him. “Demanding little shrew that I am, I’ll expect you to show your gratitude a hundred ways—by driving a better supply deal at the forts, for starters.”
He laughed, basking in her impish, demure gaze. “I’d had other methods in mind, honey.”
“And they won’t work if you so much as think about dealing behind my back. Understand?”
“Perfectly.” Dan admired the steely undercurrent in her velvet voice, expected no less from the wiley little tycoon in his arms. “Every move I make will benefit both of us, Sahara. We’re partners through thick and thin…for as long as we both shall live.”
His fervent phrases seemed the perfect excuse to seal their pact with a kiss, but McGee and Bean were glancing at them, and the freight wagons were following closely enough that Tom and Charlie would catch an eyeful, too. “Keep those other methods in mind,” she murmured, adoring the virile grin that flickered only an inch above her face. “We’ll have to stop the stage sometime—so Fergus and Luther can get their beauty sleep, you know.”
“A woman after my own heart,” he replied. And deep down, Madigan hoped that was exactly what Sahara was after.
All thought of seduction vanished a half a mile from the next home station, when Fergus slowed the coach with the squeal of the brake and a melodic “whoa, there,” to the horses. “What do ye make of it?” he murmured to Bean.
“Trouble. Too dry to be burning off a brush pile, but that smoke’s more than somebody’s cigar.”
When the express messenger reached for his shotgun, Sahara turned to survey the scene that was causing such a terse discussion. Ahead she saw a white frame house, flanked by the usual barn and corrals, but even to her,
the scene looked suspicious.
“Where’s the stock?” she asked, leaning closer to the driver’s box. Madigan stiffened beside her, gazing intently toward the station. “There should be horses pastured, and mules, too.”
“And surely the lady of the house does a neater job of hanging clothes out,” Dan commented.
“Aye, Mrs. Kent’s a fine housekeeper,” Fergus muttered. “It’s too quiet for my likin’.”
The stage came to a complete stop as they studied the thin wisps of smoke rising from behind the house, and shirts and dresses that flapped crazily in the breeze, hanging from oddly spaced clothespins.
“We’ll wait for Charlie and Tom to catch up,” Luther announced. Still clutching his gun, he leaned down and spoke toward the stagecoach window. “You folks sit tight. I’m guessing either marauders or Indians paid the Kents a visit, and we’ll not ride into a trap.”
There was a gasp, and little Mitch’s chatter took on a higher pitch, which made Phineas shush him impatiently. As they waited for the heavy freight wagons, Sahara’s heart seemed to pump the moisture from her mouth and throat. Wind whispered across the flat plain, eerie and secretive, interrupted only by the plodding of the mule teams behind them.
After what seemed like an hour, Fergus glanced up at her. “Perhaps ye and Madigan should slip inside the coach before we go on. For all we know, there’s men at the windows with guns, just waitin’ till we get into their range.”
It was an alarming thought, and Sahara was scooting toward the railing; but Dan took her elbow.
“A woman’s coming out—waving to us,” he said quietly. “Do you still think it could be a setup?”
“Won’t know till we get there,” Bean grunted. “Take it slow, McGee. The freight’s behind us now, and those boys’ve read the situation, too.”
Clucking, Fergus urged the team forward at a walk, his watchful eyes riveted to the plain house and the woman waving in wide arcs from the front stoop. Even from here, Sahara sensed a forlorn air about the plump, solitary figure who wore a blue gingham dress with the sleeves hiked above her elbows. “Isn’t she married?” she whispered.
“Yes, and it’s usually Alonzo out front to greet us, with two hostlers to handle the teams,” the expressman replied. He was stroking his unruly beard, studying their hostess closely. “I’d say Elizabeth’s in the family way.”
“And lookin’ none too rosy,” McGee chimed in. “We’d best stop our pussyfootin’ and help the poor lass. Somethin’s gone wrong since the daily stage passed through.”
As the team trotted into the neatly kept yard, Sahara could tell that ghastly events had taken place. Elizabeth Kent’s pale face and red-rimmed eyes looked out of place on a figure that seemed otherwise as stalwart as any Kansas farm wife had to be. Before McGee halted the team, Sahara was clambering over the rail and hopping onto the dusty, hard-packed ground in front of the house. “Mrs. Kent, what’s wrong? When we saw that the station’s horses were—”
Her words were choked off when Elizabeth rushed toward her, sobbing. “Oh, Miz Spade, we were so proud
to hear you’d be along, when—Indians! From out of nowhere! They—they—”
“Easy now. One thing at a time,” Sahara crooned as the taller woman leaned into her embrace. “Sorry we crept up so slowly, but—”
“Elizabeth, where’s yer man?” the Scot said from behind them. “If ye’ve got trouble—”
“Shot!” she gasped. “When Alonzo saw the savages swarming like hornets to raid the corrals, he and the hands rushed out with their rifles, but—but—”
Sahara held the woman more tightly, squeezing her eyes shut against the frightful pictures Elizabeth’s words painted. Three brave, loyal men standing against Indian warriors on horseback…and Mrs. Kent’s outpouring told her none of them survived the attack. “You’d better find them before Mitch does,” she told her men quietly. “Roxanne and I will see to Mrs. Kent.”
Keeping an arm around the quavering woman, Sahara reached for the door, but Mrs. Pruitt already had it open. “Mitchell, you come in with Mama,” she said in a firm whisper. “Mrs. Kent’s had a nasty shock, and we’ll need you to help, just as you do when I’m having my headaches.”
The towheaded boy entered the house, his wide eyes fixed on the weeping woman Sahara was guiding to a settee in the front room. “I—I’ll put water on,” he declared. “We’ll need it for tea, and to wash up before supper.”
“Thank you, dear.” Roxanne was on Mrs. Kent’s other side, looking over her dark, tousled hair at Sahara. “Do you think we’re safe? If those Indians return—”
“There’s a trap door, under—that rag rug—by the table,” Elizabeth said as she knuckled tears from her blotchy face. “Alonzo ordered me into the hidey-hole, or I—I guess they’d have got me, too. Oh, Miz Spade, they were on us so fast! I—I could hear their whoops and the poundin’ of the horses’ hooves when they stampeded ‘em out, and—and—they were such fine animals you sent us—”
“We’ve got plenty more, so don’t you fret over horses,” Sahara said. She stroked the raven wisps of hair from the woman’s brow, unsure of what to say except that she had to do something. The front parlor was sparsely furnished but neat, giving a view of the kitchen, where Mitch was lifting a heavy, sloshing cast-iron kettle onto the cookstove.
“Something smells wonderful,” Roxanne said with forced cheerfulness. “And those loaves of bread must’ve just come from the oven.”
Elizabeth nodded., “I—I was fixin’ up a nice dinner of fresh prairie chicken and the last of the ham, and greens from the garden, and—you must be hungry, and here I sit like a—”
“And you’ll stay sitting, too,” Sahara insisted. “You and the baby have had quite a shock, and you need to calm yourself.”
Mrs. Kent’s face puckered into a pitiful grimace at the mention of her unborn child, and it was more than Sahara could bear to watch. Thank God Roxanne’s maternal instinct took over, and she was cradling the poor widow in her arms, cooing the comforting phrases that made sense only in times of deepest woe. Rising unsteadily, Sahara walked to the kitchen to look out the window. Mitch was helping himself to a slice of fresh bread—poor little fellow was no doubt starved, and the scene out by the barn was nothing his young eyes needed to see.
Charlie and Tom had found a plank of lumber, and with Dan’s help they were scooting a long, charred object onto it. She covered her mouth and turned away when she realized it was a man’s body.
Fergus and the others were dousing grass fires with buckets of water from a creek out back, and Luther trotted to the barn to open the door for the trio that bore the makeshift bier. Such a grisly business…only an hour ago she’d been reveling in the open stretches of the prairie, and now the consequences of her station keepers’ isolation kicked her in the gut like a crazed horse.
Alonzo Kent and two others had given their lives to protect her stock. His wife and unborn child were now her responsibility.
When Mitch shoved the last large bite of bread into his mouth, she made herself smile. “Let’s you and I set on the plates,” she said. “The men’ll be hungry when they come in, and with some help I can get this dinner on the table. Smells heavenly, doesn’t it?”
The little boy nodded. He seemed as thankful as she was for the everyday tasks of mealtime. They found the silverware, and while Mitch set places around the long, narrow table, Sahara checked the pots on the stove. The gravy now looked fit only for barn cats; but a large, covered skillet of ham slices made her mouth water, and besides the other food Mrs. Kent had mentioned there was a cauldron of black-eyed peas and a pan of new potatoes.
It touched her that Elizabeth had gone to such an effort to prepare this meal for her arrival—and it was plain, from the various bins and cabinets, that the remaining food would last barely another day. Such a hand-to-mouth existence must be horrible, all because Horatio Spade had been skimping with loyal employees so that he could rake in more profits elsewhere.
“I’m going to the springhouse for butter,” she told her little assistant. “You’re doing fine, Mitch. I bet Mrs. Kent’s hoping her child’s as helpful and nice as you.”
His pinched face brightened, and he went about his task with renewed energy.
Outside, all was quiet—too quiet. There should’ve been the whickering of horses in the corrals, and the lowing of a few milk cows, and mules showing their blocky teeth as they brayed about their boredom. On her way to the small building that was set into the stream, she saw Tom Underwood checking the corral fence for breaks. When he swung the gate open, he caught sight of her.
“How’s Elizabeth?” he asked somberly. His black shirt clung wetly to his broad chest as he wiped his face with his shirtsleeve.
“All right, for now. I’m not sure she fully realizes what’s happened—about her husband, I mean.”
He nodded. “McGee thinks we should stay the night. Rest our horses, and see about any other damage we can fix. And there’s the burial, of course, hot as it is.”
Sahara sighed. “We can’t just leave her here,” she said, glancing back toward the house. “Why don’t you men come in and eat while the food’s warm?”
“Soon as we get the teams corralled,” Tom agreed. He squeezed her shoulder, letting his hand linger on her hair. “You’re a fine woman, Sahara—far deeper than I first gave you credit for in the mercantile. Elizabeth’s a survivor, too, and tragedies like these strike every day out here on the plains. Things’ll work out. Don’t take it so personal. It’s not your fault.”
His ebony gaze belied a different intent than his soothing words, and after smiling ruefully, Sahara continued to the springhouse. Underwood was dark and alluring despite the dust from the trail, but what he probably wanted from her was the last thing she’d ever offer him.
After a somber meal, she and the other two women kept themselves busy in the kitchen, making chatter that didn’t drown out the steady slicing of spades into dry earth. The sun was ablaze on the horizon when Madigan came to the back door and looked in. He was buttoning his shirt over his damp shoulders, enveloped in the same funereal mood that hung over the whole farmstead.
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