Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  "Because you like a challenge." She set the cup carefully on the washstand beside the bed and moved out of his reach. It was time she got dressed and out of here.

  "If it's a challenge I wanted, I could have tried digging a hole to China," he said grumpily, sipping at the scalding coffee and watching as she examined the clothes in her trunk. "You could order a wardrobe full of clothes if you wanted, you know. I'm the one who got you into this fix. I ought to be the one who pays the price."

  Sam shrugged and pulled out one of her old work shirts and a pair of denims. "I'll earn my own way sooner or later. I'm not worried about that." She sent him a swift look over her shoulder. "And I don't mean in bed, either." She gathered up the clothes and started for the other room. "I ordered some material so I could make more pants. I can't order ready-made pants that fit."

  "Samantha," he called after her. She stopped in the doorway to look at him questioningly. Sloan touched his hand to the bandage wrapping his head, and he looked slightly embarrassed. "Thanks for last night. I thought I was a goner." At the uneasy expression crossing her face, he asked quietly. "You've never actually shot a man before, have you?"

  Sam pulled her wrapper bodice tighter. "If I'm carrying a gun, I have to be prepared to use it. I knew that from the first time I picked one up for target practice."

  "It's not the same as hitting a target or a deer." Sloan closed his eyes as if struck by a debilitating pain. When he opened them again, they were cold and glazed over. "I know, believe me. I'm not worth what you're going through. Next time, just let them shoot me."

  Stunned, Samantha stared at him. In only twenty-four hours his beard stubble had darkened his jaw. Combined with the bloodstained bandage and thick tousled curls, he looked the part of outlaw or worse. For all she knew of him, he very well could be. She just didn't think too many outlaws had a conscience, and it looked to her as though Sloan Talbott suffered the effects of a guilty one now.

  "There are times I'd just as soon shoot Jack, but I'd never let anyone else do it." Sam turned around and walked out, closing the door behind her. Let him puzzle out the sentiments behind that. She couldn't.

  Sloan stayed close to the hotel for the next few days while his minions went down the mountain to investigate this latest attempt at murder. Sam found it a trifle disconcerting while in the middle of laying the kitchen tiles or stirring soup on the stove, to look up and see him standing there. His expression had a brooding quality that was particularly disturbing.

  She thought she knew what he wanted, but she wouldn't let him have it. He'd tricked her, used her, and driven her from her home. No matter how her insides quivered when he came near, she wouldn't let Sloan Talbott shame her.

  "If you haven't anything better to do, you could finish painting that wall Joe was working on." Sam nodded at the half-yellow wall. Since Joe had gone down the mountain, Sloan had assigned other men the task of standing guard around the hotel. None of them were much inclined to be helpful.

  "There are enough layabouts in this town you could hire to do the work," he reminded her, drifting in to examine what had already been completed.

  "They don't listen to orders real well. They want to lay tile before the walls are done or paint without preparing the walls. I'd rather do it myself and have it done right." She sat up in the middle of the newly tiled section of floor and watched as he checked her flowerpots for new growth. The twins had gone back to the house to help her mother serve the noon meal. She wished she had gone with them.

  "You've been cooking soup all morning. Isn't it ready to eat yet?" He nodded at the pot simmering on the stove. The heat from the fire had warmed the kitchen until it felt like a spring day in here.

  "It's ready if you are. There isn't much in the way of utensils around here, but what few I found are over in the cupboard. Help yourself."

  Amusement almost curled Sloan's lips as she went back to what she was doing. "It's hard to remember that there was once a time when women went out of their way to impress me," he commented, checking the cupboard for a bowl and spoon.

  "Well, I reckon there might be women out there desperate for the attention of a surly, inconsiderate wretch, but I'm not one of them."

  Since there was no table, Sloan sat cross-legged on the tiles with his bowl of soup, watching as she laid out the pattern. "I'm not any more surly than you are, Samantha Neely, and we both know the reason for that. The urge to procreate is a natural one and not meant to be stifled unnecessarily."

  "Hogwash," she answered succinctly.

  "You'll run out of things to clean and scrub and build before you exhaust those urges," he said calmly, sipping at the soup.

  "You're the one who can't keep his pants buttoned," she snapped. "You'll remember I was doing just fine until you came along."

  That hit a mark. He winced, but the sound of Joe's voice floating through the window interrupted before he could retaliate. Sloan stood up and yelled for Joe to get himself in here.

  Sam produced another bowl and spoon and handed them to Joe when he entered. Sloan glared at her for this defection.

  Joe leaned against the windowsill and took a spoonful of soup. He, too, ignored Sloan's angry glare. Rolling his eyes in defeat, Sloan refilled his bowl and returned to his earlier position.

  "Just give me the news anytime you're ready," he said dryly. "I might die of old age between now and then, but it's better than the alternative."

  Joe glanced at Sam innocuously sitting in a far corner, picking at her own bowl of soup.

  Sloan grimaced. "She'll nag it out of me if you don't say it in front of her. Save me the trouble."

  Sam glared at him, but he was impervious to glares.

  Joe swallowed the beef he'd been chewing. "The eastern fellow left as soon as he heard you were still alive. Word gets down that mountain mighty fast these days."

  They both stared at him impatiently, waiting for more. He sipped some broth directly from the bowl. "Good soup, Miz Talbott. Kinda nice having real meals around here."

  "You're welcome to have more, Joe," she answered, "But if you don't stop playing games, it's likely to be served over your head."

  Joe shot her a straight look that could have been a glare, but it didn't equal one of Sloan's. She shrugged, and he continued with his story.

  "The sorry bastard that tried to kill you was in over his head at the gambling tables in Ariposa. I ain't got proof, but there's two men down there swears the easterner offered to help them out with their debts if they'd put a permanent end to you. I reckon this one took him up on the offer."

  Silence reigned. It didn't take Sam long to figure the other attempts on Sloan's life had been arranged in the same way. The first attempt might even have been the easterner himself. The men up here weren't trying to kill him. It was hired strangers. She looked to Sloan to see how he was taking this new knowledge.

  He scraped his bowl clean and left it sitting on the floor since he had nowhere else to put it. "Did you find Hawk's kid brother?"

  Joe nodded. "He's on the trail of the easterner now."

  "I don't suppose the man had a name?"

  "Clark. He called himself Harry Clark. Mean anything to you?"

  Sloan shrugged. "I doubt it's his real name. Did you get a description?"

  "Slender. Not quite six-foot. Brownish blond hair. Wore suits. Ladies like him."

  Sloan's face went stone cold. "Anderson. My God." Without another word, he got up and walked out.

  Sam and Joe were left to stare at each other. Sam broke the silence first. "Who's Anderson?"

  Joe shrugged. "Hell if I know."

  Sam looked out the window where a sparrow searched for a treat among the dried grapevines. "Well, I guess one of us had better find out," she said with more serenity than she felt.

  "It ain't easy to get him drunk," Joe reminded her in an almost mournful tone. "I don't know how else you get a man to talk if he don't want to."

  Sam did. She figured Joe did, too, but he was too polite to sa
y it. A woman could make a man talk. There were ways. She just didn't think she was woman enough to do it. She didn't have any business doing it. She wasn't his wife.

  But she might as well be, she realized gloomily. She was in love with the damned man.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Sloan swung his boots up on one sofa arm and rested his head against his hands on the other. The damned sofa was too short. Maybe he'd do better to stay in the mining camp. But it wasn't the shortness of the sofa that made him think that.

  He glanced over at the closed door cutting him off from the bedroom. Sam was behind there. He'd heard her moving around earlier, carrying pails of hot water, opening and closing her trunk. He'd walked in on her when she was trying on the new trousers she'd sewed. They were made of some material lighter than denim and fit her tiny waist and rounded buttocks perfectly. They also emphasized the length of those marvelous legs of hers. She would have men crawling on their knees and panting if she wore them outside. She'd thrown a hairbrush at him when he'd tried to tell her that.

  He probably hadn't phrased his objection in the smartest terms. He hadn't been in the best of humor at the time. Sloan sighed and tried to stretch his cramped legs. He knew perfectly well that he had insulted her when she'd been doing her innocent best to impress him. He also knew damned well why she'd been flaunting her derriere at him. Sam just wasn't cut out to be devious.

  Two days ago he might have taken her up on the challenge. He'd give half a year of his life to have Samantha trying her wiles on him. He'd give more than that to be in her bed right now. But even if he wanted to—which he didn't, he reminded himself—he couldn't marry her with Anderson sneaking around. It was dangerous just pretending to be married to her. And Sam had already proved she wouldn't settle for anything less than the real thing.

  For her own good, he needed to figure out how to get her out of here. If that really was Anderson down there, Sloan couldn't imagine what he wanted or how he'd found him. Anderson could probably drive Sam away just by telling her what he knew. But if for whatever insane reason Anderson had decided to take revenge on Sloan, he wouldn't hesitate on taking it out on Sam, too.

  He had to tell Sam the truth, though he didn't like the idea. He would rather somebody had found her confounded valley so he could send her out there to farm. Then maybe someday he'd have the chance of talking her back into his bed again. There wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of that once he told her the truth.

  Sloan still might have delayed the inevitable if Sam hadn't taken that moment to walk in on him. She was wearing a nightshift made of some kind of long, filmy material that made his staff rise to the occasion without need of any other stimulant. It was probably just good quality lawn—Sam wouldn't have any of that French stuff Melinda wore—but the lantern light behind her allowed Sloan to see clear through the material.

  Her legs went on forever, he decided idly, staring at the shadows revealed through the gown. Her hips were long and narrow also, but they indented nicely at her waistline. He didn't need to raise his gaze any farther to know he was in trouble.

  "We need to talk," she said bluntly, dispelling any illusion that she meant to seduce him.

  "Talk isn't what comes immediately to mind when you're dressed like that." Sloan was amazed at how calmly he made that sound when his throat was nearly raw with desire and his blood pumped through his veins faster than a mountain stream in spring.

  "I thought I might hold your attention a little longer this way." There was dry humor in her voice as she took the overstuffed chair nearest him.

  A seated position put her breasts in direct line with his gaze. Sloan studied this new view with concentrated interest. She had all but the top ribbon of her bodice fastened, so he could see very little skin. Poor planning on her part, he decided. She probably didn't realize, though, that the tug of fabric outlined every curve when she sat down. The gown even had an innocently placed blue ribbon just below her breasts to emphasize the roundness above. He could almost imagine he saw the darker shadows of her nipples beneath the thin cloth.

  "You've got my attention all right. I'm just not certain I'll hear a word you say. You're not even wearing drawers under that, are you?"

  She pulled her legs up under her, probably attempting to hide her embarrassment. It only served to focus his attention more avidly on the juncture hidden behind them. Sloan wondered how he could persuade her to the sofa so he could pull her down on top of him. He almost groaned at the aching response in his loins.

  "It's the wrong time of month," she told him primly, "so you can just put those thoughts out of your head. Let's divert them to this fellow Clark or Anderson or whoever he is."

  She was giving him the opening he needed to drive her away. Sloan screwed his eyes closed and tried to cooperate, but he'd buried the story for ten years. He didn't want to unearth it now. He wanted to bury himself inside her instead, cloak himself in her innocence, bask in her concern, revel in her intelligence. He didn't want to give her the final excuse she needed to leave.

  "Let's go to bed first and talk about him later. I can protect you if that's all that's stopping you."

  Sloan dared to look up at her face then. The almost naked desire in Sam's eyes would have knocked him over if he hadn't already been lying down. That look pierced him right through the hard shell he'd developed these last years, drove right into his gut and twisted with a vengeance that took his breath away. She wanted him. After all the hurt and pain he'd caused her—all the growling, frowning, surliness—she still wanted him. She was as mad as he was.

  "That's not all that's stopping me, and you know it." As if they weren't both sitting here going up in flames, she turned the conversation back to him. "Does this Anderson have anything to do with the wife you left back East?"

  She may as well have slapped him. Sloan drew his gaze back to the ceiling. "Among other things, Harry Anderson is her stepbrother. But that doesn't mean it's Anderson down there."

  He heard her sharp intake of breath. He'd just confirmed that he had a wife. That ought to drive her away fast enough without revealing the rest. Just because it was a half-truth at best didn't mean it wasn't effective.

  He underestimated Sam's tenacity.

  "You told me once that you might not really be married. Is that the reason he's here?"

  Sloan scowled at the ceiling. He said entirely too many things to this tempting witch. He ought to just bed her and send her on her way. He couldn't figure out why he didn't. The Sloan Talbott he'd become these last years would have. Maybe he could throw a knife at her and she'd go away.

  She hadn't the last time he'd done that. She was still here. Drawing a deep breath, Sloan gave Sam the answer she didn't want. "Harry probably just found out that I divorced Melinda, and she can't pry anything else out of me. Of course, I just broke the terms of our divorce agreement by telling you that."

  "Your name is really Sloan Montgomery,” she said carefully, outlining what she knew. “You've been married and divorced, and your ex-wife still carries your name. I assume the secrecy about the divorce means she's pretending she's still your wife. Or widow, by now, I expect. What does her stepbrother have to do with all this?"

  She must enjoy disappointment, Sloan thought glumly as he considered what to tell her next. He'd just told her he was divorced and free to marry, but he still hadn't married her, and she hadn't blinked an eyelash.

  "Harry's her lover, has been since she was old enough to know what a lover was." There, he'd said it. That part ought to be enough to scandalize her Southern Baptist morals.

  When Sam said nothing, Sloan turned to catch a glimpse of her face. She managed to look horrified, disgusted, sympathetic, and curious all at the same time. He still wanted to pull her under him and lose himself in her. To hell with all the rest. He had to force himself to remember why he was stripping himself naked.

  "It happens." Sloan shrugged, but he doubted if she could see it. "They grew up in an isolated area. They only had eac
h other. Their parents were ..." He couldn't use the word that most adequately described those brutally self-absorbed and abusive creatures. He substituted, "Not affectionate. Harry and Melinda learned about love from each other—or their rather warped version of the word."

  She was nodding now, he could tell from the movement in the corner of his eye.

  "At least they weren't related."

  Sloan turned and watched her squirm under his regard. She gave him an unhappy look. "I knew a girl ..." She hesitated, then forced herself to say it. "Her father was widowed. They lived out in the country. She had two babies but no husband. I heard it whispered about. It's not all that unusual, I suppose."

  Sloan wanted to take her in his arms and tell her it was unusual and wrong, and she shouldn't know anything about such things, but he planted his head firmly against his hands and glared at the ceiling. It had grown a cobweb since it had been rebuilt and painted after the fire.

  "In the case you're talking about, it's called incest, and it's perverted as all get-out. But there was no blood relation between Harry and Melinda,” he agreed. “They could have married, but neither of them had any money. They couldn't support themselves. Harry would probably have inherited his stepfather's farm if he could have waited long enough, but he didn't consider himself a farmer. So he eventually ran off to the city and found himself a rich woman. Then he brought Melinda to the city and introduced her as his sister."

  "And you were wealthy, and he married her off to you," she finished quietly. "You couldn't have been very old. How long were you married?"

  "I was a young, idealistic fool. Melinda made me think I was her savior. I still had two years left to earn my degree. I knew I wanted to do it in Scotland, and that was no place for a delicate lady. Damn, but I was dumb."

  "Degree? You can't be completely dumb if you have a degree. Not even my father went to college. I don't think I know anybody who actually has a college degree."