Wildstar

by Nicole Jordan

  The reports from the Pinkerton detectives had suggested Silver Plume, Colorado, as a starting point for his search. It would be foolish, though, to advertise his millionaire status if he meant to quietly hunt the outlaws, so he'd de­cided to pose as a gambler.

  The trail to Silver Plume had led him here to this moun­tain, to this mine, to a tawny-haired hellion who went for a gun every time she felt threatened by a man.

  Recalling the incident in the mine shack just now when he'd kissed Jessica, Devlin shook his head in self-disgust. He couldn't deny that he wanted her, but the attraction was purely physical. She was too strong-willed and self-sufficient for a woman. Too tough. Too capable. Too in­tense. A man wanted a woman to be soft and feminine, to look up to him, to need him.

  Devlin's mouth curved sardonically. Jessica Sommers needed a man all right. She was crying out for some hot-blooded male to take her in hand and soften her tough edges, to teach her about passion, to show her how to en­joy being a woman. He was tempted to take on the task himself. Oh, how he was tempted. Her rejection of his kisses had piqued his male vanity like nothing else had in a long while.

  Devlin shifted his body uncomfortably. Just the thought of being the man to awaken her to pleasure was arousing enough to make him grow hard again.

  Resigned to a long night, he resettled his shoulders against the boulder and turned his thoughts to the delight­ful prospect of avenging his wounded pride, indulging in forbidden fantasies that resulted in Jessica Sommers's con­version to full womanhood.

  In the darkness, a slow grin of anticipation claimed his mouth.

  He would protect Jessica from anyone who threatened her and her mine with harm. The question was, who would protect her from him!

  Chapter 5

  "You did what?" Riley Sommers bellowed at his daughter. He tried to raise himself on his elbows and then promptly groaned as the raw flesh in his back stretched and pulled.

  "Riley, please!" Jess said urgently. "You'll aggravate your wound. There's no reason to get so upset."

  Riley had regained his senses around mid-morning, hun­gry and crotchety and anxious about his mine. Because of his bullet wound, Jess wouldn't feed him anything heavier than chicken broth and soda crackers, but she was able to reassure her father about the Wildstar. Clem had managed to convince the crew to carry on without their boss, and they'd gone to work that morning as usual.

  It was only after she'd spoon-fed Riley half the bowl of broth that Jess told him about hiring Devlin to guard the Wildstar and about staying up there with him the previous night.

  "No reason?" Riley repeated incredulously. "My daugh­ter spends the night with a hired gun, alone, up on a mountaintop, and I have no reason to get upset?"

  "Please, Riley, calm down."

  "I don't want to calm down! I want to know who in thunderation this Devlin fellow is and what in blazes he was doing up there at the mine with you!"

  Jess bit her lip. She hadn't expected her father to be happy about her actions, but neither had she expected him to be so furious. His stewing had caused a fresh crimson stain to blossom over the dressing on his wounded back. "Lie still. You're bleeding through your bandage."

  Quickly she grabbed a towel and began swabbing gently around the edges of the gauze, trying to stem the flow of blood. "I thought you would be pleased that I tried to pro­tect the Wildstar," she said lamely.

  The fight seemed to go out of her father. "Of course I am, Jess, but you had no business going up there with a strange man, even if it was for a good cause. What in tar­nation were you thinking of? You don't know this man from Adam, and you spend the night with him alone? You were risking your life, not to mention your reputation."

  She collected herself enough to protest. "I'm not that bad a judge of character. You'll see when you meet him that Devlin isn't the kind of man who would hurt a woman."

  "Well . . . maybe," Riley grumbled. Awkwardly he reached for her hand and squeezed it in his large, cal­loused one. "I'd rather lose the mine altogether than have something happen to you."

  His avowal warmed Jess's heart. "Well, nothing hap­pened to me."

  At least almost nothing. Devlin had kissed her half senseless last night, but he hadn't taken it any further after she'd pulled his gun on him. The speculative gleam in his smokey eyes when he'd woken her early this morning didn't count.

  It had startled Jess to open her eyes and find Devlin sit­ting beside her on the small bed, his hip pressed intimately against hers through the blanket, his hands on her shoul­ders. He'd looked disreputable and dangerous with that shadow of stubble darkening his cheeks and jaw, though not a whit less handsome. But he'd behaved like a gentle­man this morning . . . almost. His teasing threat to crawl into bed with her if she didn't get up had been delivered with so much charm and with such a dazzling male smile that she'd blinked in stupefaction. She'd only been the ti­niest bit nervous until she was able to ride away, leaving Devlin there to question the mine crew when they arrived for work.

  "Where is this Devlin fellow?" her father's voice broke into her disturbing reflections. "I want to talk to him right now."

  "I don't know. I thought he would be here by now. He stayed up at the Wildstar to talk to the men and see what he could find out about the coward who shot you."

  "He's coming here!" Riley asked ominously.

  Jess took a deep breath, preparing for another explosion. "Yes, here. He's going to sleep here during the day and look after you while I'm gone—"

  She wasn't disappointed. Riley let loose a tirade that made Clem's rebuke the previous night seem tame. But Jess didn't back down. Determined to make her father see reason, she laid out all the logical arguments she'd formu­lated for letting Devlin stay with them instead of at the boardinghouse. The discussion turned into a shouting match, at least on her father's part.

  "Goldarnit, I don't want you getting involved, Jess!" Riley said finally, his face twisted with pain. "If somebody tried to kill me, you could get hurt, too."

  "I already am involved! You can't possibly expect me to do nothing while you go and get yourself murdered. Be­sides, I'm not about to let Burke win."

  That was a potent argument Riley couldn't refute. He gave a weary sigh of resignation. "All right, I'll wait to meet this Devlin fellow before I decide to send him pack­ing, but I don't want you going near the mine again, do you hear me?"

  "I hear you."

  "Promise me, Jess."

  "All right. I promise." It shouldn't be a difficult promise to keep, she thought. From now on she intended to let Devlin guard the Wildstar alone. She didn't think she could go through another night with him like the last one.

  Riley didn't seem satisfied with her capitulation, though, for his scowl merely deepened. "You're too much like your ma, Jess. You're liable to find out the hard way that some men aren't to be trusted."

  His comment surprised her, but he didn't elaborate. He merely closed his eyes, grimacing in pain.

  A frown gathered on her brow as she rearranged the covers to let him sleep. She already knew some men weren't to be trusted. What she didn't know was whether Garrett Devlin was one of those men.

  Devlin spent his morning productively occupied, talking to the mine crew of the Wildstar and the guard from the Silver Queen who had found Riley just after the shooting.

  Most of Riley's crew were Cousin Jacks—Cornishmen known for their colorful clothing and language. Like all hard-rock miners, they were rough as the ore they dug out of the earth and tough as oxen. Handling drill steel or swinging a four-pound hammer or a muck stick for ten hours a day built muscles and stamina and sheer grit. The Silver Queen guard was no miner, merely a kid who fan­cied himself a gunman.

  He hadn't actually seen the shooting, but Devlin discov­ered several things of interest from him. First that the man with the scar who'd been poking around the area looked an awful lot like a rough character who once worked as an armed guard for Burke's Lady J Mine.

  "His name was Zeke McRoy. 'C
ourse I could be wrong," the young guard said. "I didn't get a close look yesterday. But that red scar above his eye stood out good enough. Don't know how he got that—didn't use to have it. Somebody musta shot him. 'Course Zeke was the kinda fella folks wanted to shoot."

  "Any idea where he went?" Devlin asked.

  "I dunno. When he saw me coming, he jumped on that roan of his and lit out over Republican Mountain, bound for the north. I figure he was headed to Middle Park or maybe Empire. There's some rough country up there, lots of places for a man to hide if he don't want to be found."

  "You say this Zeke worked for the Lady J mine? Do you know why he left?"

  "Nope. You better talk to the super over to the Lady J. His name's Hank Purcell. Or maybe the big boss, Mr. Burke, could tell you."

  Burke probably could tell him, Devlin reflected, but it was doubtful that he would, especially if he'd employed Zeke as a hired gun.

  Knowing he would have to get the information else­where, Devlin returned to the Wildstar to question Clem and his crew about Zeke McRoy. No one had seen Zeke around for perhaps six months, but everyone agreed he was mean enough to shoot a man in the back.

  It was going on ten o'clock by the time Devlin rode down the mountain, accompanied by the echoing thunder of hammering and blasting. The purple haze that had wreathed the high range had burned off, leaving behind a brilliant blue sky.

  Tired though he was, he headed toward the Diamond Dust Hotel, intending to settle his bill and make sure his trunk with the rest of his things had been collected by Jess's Chinaman.

  This was the first day of a work week, and Silver Plume's Main Street looked entirely different from the sleepy place of yesterday. Hard-rock mining was an ugly, noisy business, and the hubbub and smoke had turned the town into an outdoor sweatshop. Ore wagons and buck-boards jammed every corner, while numerous stamping and crushing mills ran full tilt, concentrating ore so it could be shipped by rail to the smelting works farther down the canyon for final processing. The street teemed with horses and mules and rugged men of every descrip­tion and descent—Irishmen, Welshmen, Cornishmen, Ital­ians, Mexicans, even a few Chinamen. Miners mixed with merchants, bankers, freighters, clerks, and occasionally women.

  The hotel was quieter at least. Lena must have been watching out for him, though, for no sooner had Devlin gone up to his room than there was a soft knock on his door. When he opened it, Lena slipped inside.

  "I missed you last night, sugar," she purred, wrapping her arms around his neck and enveloping him in a heady perfume.

  When she lifted her mouth to his, Devlin returned her kiss perfunctorily, with his eyes open, finding it impossible not to compare the kiss he'd taken from Jess last night to this one—with surprising results. Beautiful, sultry, seduc­tive Lena, even with all her experience and skill, came in a distant second to the unpracticed, tawny-haired firebrand he'd ached to make love to last night. And, while Jessica had adamantly refused his advances, Lena's embrace was proprietary and clinging.

  She was also apparently fishing for information. Draw­ing back slightly, Lena pouted prettily. "Where'd you go last night, sweetie? Not to some other woman, I hope."

  He gave her an apologetic smile and a gallant answer. "What sane man would want another woman if he could have you?"

  Somewhat mollified, Lena suggestively pressed her vo­luptuous body against his, which amazingly did nothing to arouse him.

  "The truth is," Devlin prevaricated, "I spent last night alone, out in the open, on the cold hard ground, playing nursemaid to a mine shaft. Not an experience I relished."

  Unwrapping her arms from around him, he poured Lena a shot of whiskey and sat her down in the leather armchair so he could explain about his involvement in the mine feud and ply her for his own information. Stretched out on the large bed, his hands behind his head, he told her about accepting the job guarding the Wildstar mine.

  Lena wasn't at all pleased that he'd taken sides against Ashton Burke, or that he'd become involved with anything having to do with Jessica Sommers. But she told him ev­erything she knew when he asked about Zeke McRoy— which wasn't a lot more than he'd already learned. Zeke was a trigger-happy drifter who'd ridden into town one day and hired on as a guard at the Lady J mine. He was on the payroll for almost a year before he'd disappeared about six months ago.

  Lena did, however, have a lot to say about how the bit­ter feud between Ashton Burke and Riley Sommers had started. It was, naturally, over a woman.

  "Mercy, but it was a big scandal at the time," Lena re­flected. "Not that I recall it—I was only a baby back then. But I've heard a lot of talk since. Jenny Ann Elliot was a real pretty girl, not fancy or anything, just nice and a bit shy. Well, one summer Ash got smitten with her and began to pay her a lot of attention . . . dishonor-rable attention, you might say. Being British and all, Ash has these notions. He says he's the son of some esquire back in England, what­ever an esquire is. Doesn't sound very important to me. Anyway, Jenny Ann wasn't good enough for him to marry. Her pa was well-to-do, but only a doctor, and Ash was a rich man even back then.

  "It shocked everybody when one day she up and mar­ried Riley Sommers. Riley was only a miner, working for another outfit. But I guess Jenny Ann finally got wise to Ash and was willing to settle for being poor if she could have a respectable ring on her finger. Of course, she would never have become his mistress. Wasn't the type. But that was all Ash would have offered. Still, the way Ash saw it, it was like she'd jilted him."

  Lena frowned down at her glass. "You know what I think, Garrett, honey? I think Ash named the Lady J mine after Jenny Ann. It was his way of causing talk and getting back at her for giving him the cold shoulder. Maybe he wanted to make her remember what she gave up. Not that she gave up much. He would have lost interest in her after a while, and then where would she have been? Ash only wants what he can't have."

  She looked up and gave Devlin a half smile that held a bleakness that oddly touched his heart. "You know, I guess I ought to thank you, sugar. Ash has been a lot nicer to me since you came to town. Maybe it's the competition, you think?"

  Devlin couldn't help the sympathetic urge he felt. Drag­ging his weary body off the bed, he crossed to Lena's chair, bent over her, traced her lips with a gentle finger, and gave her a chaste kiss that was more consoling than passionate. "I think Burke must be a blind man to over­look what you could offer him."

  Lena's dark eyes grew moist. "You sure do know how to make a girl feel wanted, sugar." When Devlin smiled and tucked three gold double eagles into the pocket of her morning gown, her gaze turned solemn. "Jess Sommers ain't your type, any more than her ma was Ash's. You sure you want to get tangled up with her?"

  He was already tangled up, but that wasn't an answer he could give. "After being up all night," he said instead, "the only thing I'm sure of right now is that I want a bath, a shave, a meal, and a soft bed—not necessarily in that or­der."

  "I guess you want that soft bed all to your lonesome."

  "If I had the energy, sweetheart, I would love the com­pany, but I'm wrung out. And I was supposed to report for duty at the Sommers place several hours ago."

  Lena gave him a sad little smile as she rose. "Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind."

  Devlin didn't change his mind during the following week. In the first place he was too busy settling in to his new job and adjusting to his strange new schedule, not having slept during the day in years. In the second place, he remained distinctly uninterested in the notion of taking any woman to bed other than Jessica Sommers. Taking her, though, was out of the question. Besides the fact that she was a virginal young lady, having an irate father on his hands was not something Devlin wanted to deal with.

  He was already under suspicion, it seemed. That first morning when he'd arrived at the Sommers home, bedrid­den Riley Sommers grilled him for a full half hour—about his name, his background, his previous occupations, and his current prospects—to make certain his intentions we
re honorable.

  Devlin kept to the truth as far as possible, revealing that in the past he'd worked cattle, been involved in railroad construction, and served a stint as a law officer. But it was only when he admitted to having done some hard-rock mining in the Dakota Territory and that he could hold his own on a double jack team that Sommers reluctantly de­cided his character would pass muster. Double jacking was the old-fashioned method of breaking up rock. It required two or three skilled men, one to hold and rotate the drill steel, the others to pound the steel with a double-weight hammer. It was faster than single jacking—one man alone—but ten times slower than the new steam-driven pneumatic drills, which independent miners like Riley Sommers could rarely afford to own.

  "Takes a good man to double jack," Riley conceded, his words slurred by pain. Obviously hurting from his back wound, he winced and shifted carefully on the mattress, as if trying to find a more comfortable position. "Still," he observed, "working a mine isn't the same as guarding one. You ever done that kind of duty before?"

  "Not professionally," Devlin answered truthfully. "But I had a claim in the Black Hills that I couldn't leave un­guarded for a minute, not if I wanted to protect it from claim jumpers. For three months I did nothing but camp there with a rifle, sleeping with one eye open."

  Riley nodded wearily, discernibly beginning to tire but apparently not yet satisfied. "So why did you agree to hire on with us? If Burke wants the Wildstar bad enough to shoot me, he isn't likely to give up. It could get pretty rough."

  "Your daughter persuaded me to take the job, Mr. Sommers. The salary she offered was generous, and I have nothing better to do at the moment."

  "She's using the money she saved," Riley muttered, with a grimace of pain not entirely due to his bullet wound.

  Devlin judiciously remained silent.

  "It still doesn't set well," Riley said finally. "I don't like letting somebody else fight my battles for me. But I guess I'm in no position to be choosy." Giving in to exhaustion and pain, he closed his eyes. "Doc says I'm to lie on my stomach for a week, and then maybe I can get out of this blamed bed for short spells." He gave a sigh. "All right, Mr. Devlin, you've got the job guarding the Wildstar. And I'm much obliged for your help."