by Shirl Henke
"Chris, put orange blossom bath salts in—ooh!" Lissa stood frozen in the doorway. He was in her bathtub! Naked! His bronzed shoulders rippled with muscles, and one long-fingered hand rested against the pelt of black hair on his chest, holding a bar of soap. His hair was wet and he shook his head to clear the water from his eyes. She could see the faint outline of his body beneath the water—but not too clearly, thank God. Then he opened those mysterious eyes that she had wondered about earlier. They made her heart stop beating. Fringed by long black lashes, they were pure silver. His sensuous mouth curved in an intimate smile that heated her blood. Then he spoke and her heart raced wildly.
"Orange blossom isn't exactly my fragrance," he said drily. "You don't look like the hotel maid. Might I hope you're a present from my employer?"
Lissa was unable to tear her eyes from his gleaming wet skin. The tantalizing patterns of soap bubbles foaming on his shoulders fairly beckoned her hands to glide over the lean, hard muscles. "What are you doing in my suite?" she finally managed to choke out.
"Your suite? I have the key." His voice was laced with laughter.
"Well, you certainly didn't use it!" she said indignantly as a flush scalded her cheeks. "The door was unlocked. This is the suite my father always reserves for me. I naturally assumed—"
"You naturally walked right in and opened the bathroom door when you heard me splashing," he interrupted ungraciously, still smiling. "Do you often spy on men in their baths?" Before she could sputter an answer, he started to rise out of the water, saying, "Sweetheart, hand me one of those towels as long as you're here."
She whirled and fled to the echoing sound of rich male laughter.
What a breathtaking little cat, he thought as he rinsed off and rubbed himself dry. Since it was unlikely that any other uninvited guest would be so lovely, Jess strolled into the lavishly appointed parlor, slipped the lock on the outer door, then returned to the steamy bathing room with his razor to complete his toilette. The uncharacteristic carelessness of the unlocked door niggled at the back of his mind.
As he pulled a clean shirt and pants from the armoire where the bellboy had hung them, Jess turned his thoughts to his fire-haired intruder. For certain no hotel maid. He had known that at a glance. Her tan linen traveling suit was far too expensively cut for her to be a mere servant, and her hands were too pale and soft to have endured any kind of manual labor. She might have been a very expensive whore, but he doubted it. The way she blushed gave away her lack of experience, but there was the matter of those hungry gold eyes. He chuckled. A she-wolf never eyed up a young maverick with any keener interest than the little redhead had shown while she studied him in that bathtub. She was ripe for the taking all right.
But before he accepted her unconscious invitation, he wanted to know who she was. A man of his background could get in a mountain of trouble over a rich white lady, even if she was the one who initiated the whole affair. Maybe after dinner he would head to the biggest saloon in town and ask around. A beauty with her unusual coloring would certainly be well-known in a territory with as few females as Wyoming.
He inspected his appearance in the mirror. The black homespun suit made him look like a preacher—or a politician. He considered wearing his .41- caliber double-action Colt Lightning, but decided against it. After all, this was the classiest hotel in Cheyenne and he was having dinner with one of the wealthiest cattlemen. There was an unwritten law on the plains about rich men. Seldom did anyone try any fireworks around them. They were too powerful, and the retribution for any disgruntled cowhand or outlaw was swift and terrible.
"Just in case the unlikely occurs," he muttered grimly and pulled open his gun case. He selected a single-action Colt pocket revolver and its specially-made shoulder holster. He strapped it on and shrugged into his suit coat, then glanced in the mirror one last time. He needed a haircut, but what the hell. It was not likely that Jacobson would bring his wife along, and even if he did, Jess was not interested in impressing Lissa Jacobson.
* * * *
Lissa inspected her appearance in the mirror. Her hair had turned out rather well. How heavenly to have a hairdresser here in Cheyenne! The woman had fashioned it in an elegant bouffant style with a heavy chignon at the crown and soft wispy curls framing her face. "Now all I need do is select a gown," she murmured, moving to her wardrobe, which overflowed with neatly pressed dresses in a rainbow of colors.
Dinner in a civilized dining room was quite an occasion after the endless winter months spent snowbound at the J Bar Ranch. The isolation had nearly driven her mad, with only her father and that hateful housekeeper for company. In desperation, she had often gone down to the bunkhouse to talk with Vinegar Joe, the crotchety old cook, and Moss, the ranch foreman. The young hands were not much company since they mostly tended to stare gape jawed at Marcus's beautiful daughter and shuffle around trying to please her. All the poor, homely illiterates did was add to her sense of frustration.
Marcus had sent his only daughter East for an education when her mother died. Her Aunt Edith and Uncle Phineas had taken in the frightened girl and lavished everything on her that a childless couple could give. She had spent brief summer vacations at J Bar, but her life had been in St. Louis.
When she was eighteen, Lissa had made her debut at the Veiled Prophet Ball, the most elegant social event of the aristocratic old city's season. Handsome, wealthy young men from all the best families had courted her. She had adored their attention, thinking that she would eventually marry one of them and settle down to be one of the social arbiters of the city, like Aunt Edith.
Then Marcus had swooped down and snatched her back here to this beastly wilderness the summer before last. His plans for his sole heir were quite different from hers. She was to marry an influential stockman who could run his empire. Together they would provide heirs to inherit the kingdom Marcus Jacobson had spent his life building.
As if that had not been bad enough, his first choice for the position was Lemuel Mathis, a well-to-do attorney in town and president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. Lemuel was, she supposed in all fairness, a fine-looking man for one approaching the advanced age of forty. Unfortunately, he was a crashing bore.
All Lemuel was interested in was the cattle industry. Of course, Marcus and all the rest of their friends shared the same singleminded interest. At least Lemuel did attempt to court her in his own punctilious way.
But Lemuel Mathis was the farthest thing from her mind as she prepared for dinner. All she could think about was the possibility of encountering the gunman again. Just thinking of that swarthy, hawkish face with the mocking silver eyes made her heart pound. He was an arrogant beast, no doubt of that, a mixed blood, forbidden to all decent women. Her mouth went dry, and she felt queerly faint and flushed just thinking about him naked in that tub. She could still envision the soap bubbles coating his dark skin, the cunning patterns of hair on his chest and forearms, the lean, sinuous rippling of his muscles. How would it feel to touch that hard body and run her fingertips along the contours of his heated flesh?
Lissa gave herself a mental shake and turned her attention to the gowns. They were cramped in this smaller room, which had fewer armoires and chests for her extensive wardrobe. Damn his insolence for taking her suite! She had been forced to settle for a smaller room at the end of the hall.
She could not keep her wayward thoughts from trespassing to Jesse Robbins. There had been a great deal of trouble here lately with cattle and horses being stolen. She knew that her father and several of the other big ranchers like Cyrus Evers had been conferring about how to solve the problem. Could Papa be the one who hired Robbins?
Just thinking about it made her smile wickedly. If so, the presumptuous devil was in for quite a rude awakening. He would be Marcus's employee, and she would be the boss's daughter. Now that might make him a bit more polite!
Just then a rap sounded at the door, and her father's voice called out, "Are you there, Princess?"
; "Come in, Papa. I was deciding which gown to wear for dinner tonight. I thought the aqua, but perhaps the gold . .."
Marcus turned his hat in his hands, fingering the leather headband nervously. "Princess, I know how you've been looking forward to dinner here in Cheyenne, but something has come up—"
"You promised, Papa! What could be more important? I'll wait if you have to have some boring old meeting over at the Association."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Lissa," he said placatingly.
"But I just had my hair done, and the hotel maid pressed all my gowns in a special rush...." she wheedled.
His jaw was set in that stubborn way that she knew meant he would not be moved. Lissa recognized it because she too clenched her jaw the same way on frequent occasions.
"I'm sorry, Princess. I'm going to have to have a business dinner. A man I just hired has arrived a day early, and Lemuel and I need to discuss vital J Bar affairs with him."
Her heart skipped a beat. Jesse Robbins! "I don't see why I can't sit in. I promise to keep quiet and let you talk."
His blue eyes were glacial as he replied, "This man is not the sort that a lady would ever be seen socially with. He's a half-breed stock detective from Texas."
So it was he. "Oh, poo! What difference does that make to me? I only want to dress up and have an elegant meal in a civilized place." She knew Marcus shared the Westerner's prejudices about good women associating with Indians or gunmen—and stock detectives were by definition gunmen. But the whole thing was narrow-minded and silly. She had half a mind to say so, but he gave her no opportunity.
"I know you've spent your formative years away from here, and for that reason I'll ignore that foolish remark," he said sternly. "I promise to take you to dinner tomorrow night. Now be a good girl and order whatever you want sent up from the hotel dining room for tonight." He walked over to her and placed a kiss on her forehead, then started for the door. He paused midway and said, with a twinkle softening his cold blue eyes, "Oh, Princess, your hair does look grand. Have the hairdresser come again tomorrow—and wear the gold dress."
After her father left, Lissa began to pace and scheme. If Lemuel was going to be present, too, then she could say she was so eager to see him that she just couldn't wait. Papa would be furious, but since he had been pushing Mathis at her for over a year, he could not stay mad. And he would never guess that her real motive for coming to the dining room was the silver-eyed gunman.
Lissa could not wait to see Jesse Robbins's face when she made her grand entrance and was introduced as Marcus Jacobson's daughter. "I bet he swallows his tongue!"
Chapter Two
Jess waited in the lobby of the hotel, which was adjacent to the fancy dining room. The aroma of rich coffee and fresh-baked bread perfumed the air. His stomach let out a low grumble, and he realized that he had not eaten since a hasty breakfast of bacon and beans on the trail at daybreak.
Marcus Jacobson and three companions strolled into the hotel, laughing and talking jovially. They must've had a drink at their club. He imagined them inviting him to enter that hallowed sanctuary. Hell would freeze over first.
As they approached, he studied the men with Jacobson. One of them wore expensive boots with a dress suit that was stiff and ill-fitting. He had a weathered face, creased as old buckskin and blasted by the elements. The second fellow was better dressed, with well-barbered hair and Celtic features. He, too, wore boots. The two of them were like old Marcus, no mistaking their hard-eyed toughness.
The third fellow had the look of a townsman. His clothes were well-tailored and he moved as if at ease in a fancy shirt and buttoned suit coat. He wore highly polished shoes and gold jewelry. Jess studied his face, which was flat and broad, with pale colorless eyes beneath sandy eyebrows. Quick eyes, missing nothing. He was younger than the others but no kid by any means. His thick sandy hair was liberally thatched with gray, and his hairline receded slightly.
"Good evening, Mr. Robbins," Marcus said, as jovial as one of his saturnine disposition could be.
Yeah, they had a drink or two. Aloud, Jesse returned the greetings when Jacobson introduced his companions.
"This is Cyrus Evers. Jamie MacFerson. Lemuel Mathis. Gentlemen, Jesse Robbins." Both of the older cattlemen returned Jess's keen inspection, measuring him with the shrewd gaze of men whose survival skills were hard won in this harsh wilderness.
As Jess shook hands with Mathis, he felt the soft skin of a man unused to physical labor. "You aren't a stockman, Mr. Mathis."
Lemuel Mathis's eyes narrowed for an instant as he withdrew his hand. Then he smiled. "No, but I'm president of the Stock Growers Association and vitally interested in protecting and promoting the cattle industry in our territory."
"Lemuel is modest. He'll be one of the biggest ranchers in Wyoming in a year or two when he marries my daughter," Jacobson replied.
"Now, Marcus, the lady hasn't done me the honor of saying yes yet," Mathis protested.
"Just a matter of time. She'll come around," Marcus said with self-assurance.
As they walked into the dining room, Jess could feel curious eyes on him, hear speculative whispers. He had grown used to it over the years. How many men has he killed? Does he notch his gun? How much is he paid to shoot a man? People were vultures, feeding their own prurient curiosity through him.
A prim, punctilious waiter, probably a first cousin to the desk clerk, showed them to a table in the rear of the room. It was situated privately so no one would overhear their conversation. No doubt Jacobson reserved it regularly.
Just as they were pulling out chairs to be seated, a familiar voice called out. There you are, Papa! I declare, I almost couldn't find you all hidden away in that corner."
The beautiful redhead, fetchingly dressed in a topaz silk gown, wended her way across the crowded dining room toward them. She did not see Jess, who was standing behind the latticed partition wall. Jacobson stiffened but said nothing as she fluttered up to them, wreathed in smiles. So Lissa was old Marcus's daughter, not his wife! Jess cursed his luck. Just what he needed, some spoiled little chit getting her dander up because of the incident in his room. Still he could not help but wonder how she would react when she saw him. He knew her pa was furious that she had interrupted their dinner, but the old man said nothing as she effusively greeted the other ranchers and Mathis.
"Why, Cy Evers, Cridellia said you looked splendid in that new suit and she didn't exaggerate one bit. Mr. MacFerson, I've missed you since roundup last fall."
"How good it is to see you again, Lissa," Mathis said, gallantly bowing over her proffered hand.
"Why, thank you . . ." Her voice faltered as Jess stepped out of the shadows and his eyes met hers. She felt her heart accelerate like a runaway train when his smile mocked her.
"Lissa, this is Jesse Robbins. He's a stock detective," her father said tightly, his eyes promising retribution.
Her smile was dazzling as she inclined her head, quickly recovering her poise. What was it about the man that wrecked her composure every time he smiled at her? "A pleasure, Mr. Robbins. I trust the hotel accommodations are to your liking?" she asked innocently.
"Yes, ma'am. The rooms are very luxurious," he replied. The little flirt was playing with him!
"I especially enjoy the luxury of the bathing facilities." She smiled as his face darkened.
"Lissa, I don't think—"
"Are you gentlemen going to stand around and let a lady perish of hunger?" she said, interrupting her father's careful remonstrance.
Mathis rushed to pull out a chair. "Please, do have a seat, Lissa," he said in a stiffly formal voice, ushering her pointedly away from the gunman and placing her at his side.
Cy Evers cleared his throat nervously and took the chair on her other side. "And how have you been these past months?"
"Now that winter is finally over, I'm splendid, thank you."
Jess watched Lissa work her wiles. She was obviously used to getting her way. Surrounded
by her little court of admirers, she quickly recovered her courage and delighted in baiting him. Obviously, she would never tell her father about barging in on him mother-naked in a bathtub. He smiled grimly to himself as he listened to them discuss the long northern winters and the coming of spring.
"I've been so anxious for the snow to melt," Lissa said, sipping from her glass of sherry daintily.
"Eager for the smell of orange blossoms?" Jess asked in a low voice.
She choked on her wine, then quickly recovered and replied, "Why no, Mr. Robbins. There are no orange blossoms in Wyoming, but I carry the fragrance with me all year long." Her big gold eyes were fathomless as she met his gaze with an innocent expression on her face.
Marcus watched the exchange between his daughter and the half-breed with growing unease. What the devil was going on? Then he glanced at Lemuel, and a slow smile spread across his face. The spunky little filly was making him jealous! Lissa always wanted Lem to be more exciting and attentive. Well, this was certainly putting a burr under his blanket. The idea that she would find the half-breed attractive never occurred to him.
"The winters in Cheyenne are much more hospitable than out in the basin. I think you would find life in the city much to your liking, Lissa," Mathis put in smoothly.
Lissa rewarded him with a wide smile. "Perhaps I would, Lemuel."
"I've certainly missed you. It's been a long time since your birthday celebration," Mathis said.
"That was a princely affair," MacFerson added, rolling his r's in a thick Scots burr.
Lissa turned to Jess. "My father throws a big party every spring in honor of my birthday. He's a very generous man who gives wonderful presents. Don't you, Papa?" She turned to Marcus but watched Jess scowl from the corner of her eye.
"Only what you deserve, my dear," Jacobson said indulgently.
Jess coughed.
The waiter appeared to take their orders before she could make a riposte.