A Fire in the Blood

by Shirl Henke

  "I told you it'd be like this," Jess said as he watched her clutch Johnny protectively.

  Lissa raised her chin. "I don't care. They're nothing but a pack of ignorant jackasses."

  As they rounded the corner of 15th Street onto Ferguson and stopped in front of the Metropolitan Hotel, Jess said grimly, "It's only going to get worse." He climbed down from the wagon.

  "Then let's give them something to really talk about." Lissa leaned over and gave Jess a kiss on the lips as he lifted her from the wagon seat. When she picked up her skirt and stepped onto the wooden sidewalk, her eyes collided with the cold, twisted face of Yancy Brewster.

  Lissa felt Jess stiffen beside her, but he said nothing, just stood taut and still, with his hand resting lightly on his Colt. Brewster stared insolently at her, then at the baby, through bloodshot eyes. His face was unshaven and his skin had an unhealthy pallor beneath his wind-blasted complexion. He looked as if he had slept in his dirty, wrinkled clothes or been up gambling and drinking all night. After a tense moment, he contemptuously spat on the sidewalk and shambled away.

  "Cy fired him several months ago—something about heavy gambling debts and drinking on the job. Dellia must have been devastated when Cy broke the engagement. She had her hopes pinned on marrying him." Lissa shivered in revulsion, recalling when he had once courted her.

  "Dellia Evers is better off dying a spinster than marrying him," Jess replied. Once he was certain Brewster had gone, he helped Clare from the wagon and escorted the two women into the hotel.

  Noah was still manning the front desk. He paled when he saw Jess with Lissa and the baby.

  "Wait here," Jess commanded, motioning for the women to be seated in two overstuffed chairs beside a huge potted palm.

  "Afternoon, Noah. I need a couple of rooms. I think the old Jacobson suite would do for Mrs. Robbins and me. We'll need an adjacent room for the maid and our son." His tone of voice was low and silky, but his cold eyes pierced the sweating clerk like silver daggers.

  "We're full up," Noah replied, snapping his mouth shut like an irritated turtle.

  Jess reached across the desk and grabbed the registry. “Odd. Did all those guests forget to sign their names?" he asked as his eyes swept down the page. He held out his hand for the pen the clerk clutched in a white-knuckled death grip.

  "You'll get me fired."

  Jess waited a moment until the red-faced clerk handed him the pen in defeat. Robbins signed the register and shoved it back, then waited for the key. Noah fished it out and handed it over.

  "There's a spring wagon out front with our luggage. See to it. Then send up hot bathwater for the ladies . .. plenty of it," Jess added with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

  Noah rang for the bellman, silently huffing in outrage as the gunman and his womenfolk walked up the stairs.

  Once she had settled Clare and Johnny in their room and the luggage had been brought up, Lissa crossed into the bathroom of their suite. "I remember the first time I saw you here." Her eyes danced as she approached him. "All of you."

  His face broke into an unwilling smile in spite of his tension. "You didn't stick around to see quite all of me that time. Seems I remember your turning tail and running off when I stepped out of that tub."

  She eyed the big white porcelain claw-foot tub. "I promise not to run off this time. Let's take a bath together." She appraised the tub critically. "We'd fit."

  He raised one eyebrow. "We'll give old Noah a heart attack if we soak his fancy floorboards."

  "I dare you."

  He walked over to her with a crooked smile on his face and raised one of her hands to his lips. "You dare too much, I'm afraid." He kissed her palm. She caressed his cheek softly and snuggled against him.

  A knock sounded on the door. "That's probably the bathwater. Enjoy your soak. I have some business to attend to; then I'll go to Reamy's for a bath and shave."

  "What business?" she asked crossly.

  "I have to check the telegraph office and some other things. I told you coming along wasn't a good idea." He opened the door and admitted Chris, the brawny bellman, carrying two enormous buckets of steaming water.

  While Chris was filling the bathtub, Lissa followed Jess into the suite's parlor. "Will you be back to take me to dinner tonight or should I order a meal sent up?"

  "Be ready around seven," he said as he picked up the small satchel containing his clothes.

  A secret smile hovered around the corners of her mouth. "Now who's turning tail and running?"

  He merely grunted and walked out the door. As soon as he was gone, Lissa knocked on Clare's door. "Do you have it ready?" she asked eagerly.

  The little maid scurried over to the large leather traveling case the bellman had set beside her bed. "It'll need pressing, Missus. I had to fold it up to hide it in here." She pulled out a man's beautifully cut dress suit of dark charcoal wool.

  "Oh, Clare, you've done an outstanding job!" Lissa exclaimed as she examined the suit, which had been completed the previous evening. "I'll go see about having it pressed."

  Perhaps it was just as well that Jess had left for the afternoon, Lissa thought as she headed down the back stairs carrying the suit. She wanted to avoid the hateful Noah and find Chris's mother, Iris, who was in charge of housekeeping for the big hotel. No one was as meticulous at pressing as Iris Graves.

  A few minutes later, Lissa was on her way back upstairs, having left the new suit with the housekeeper. She was just about to round the landing on the second floor when whispered voices stopped her—familiar voices.

  "You've been drinking again, Yancy." Cridellia Evers's sharp voice was accusing.

  "I only had a few. I been up all night, Dellia, waiting for you to get here. I won us enough cash money to afford that wedding in Laramie. See."

  Lissa peeked around the corner at the pair. Brewster was flashing two railroad tickets in front of Dellia's pale face. Should she interfere? Make her presence known? Before she could decide, Dellia threw herself into his arms with a squeal of delight.

  "Oh, Yancy, my darling! I knew you'd come for me. We can get married tonight in Laramie and be back here in time for the big dance tomorrow night. I'll be Mrs. Yancy Brewster."

  "Shh. Not too loud. We gotta be quiet. You know how your pa feels about me."

  Dellia looked into his haggard face. "I know he's been hard on you, dear one, but once we're married, everything will be just fine." She hesitated, sniffing delicately. "Do—do you have any clean clothes? I mean, to wear on the train?"

  "No time for gussying up now. Once we're married, I can use yer pa's credit to buy some new duds in Laramie—unless you got some extra money here in your room."

  "I have a little." Her voice quavered uncertainly.

  "Go get it. Then meet me at the station. The train pulls out in an hour. Here's your ticket."

  He grabbed her for a brief, rough kiss, then turned and headed toward the stairs. Lissa picked up her skirts and dashed back downstairs, hiding beneath the open stairwell on the ground floor. Brewster stalked out the side door without seeing her. Breathing a sigh of relief, she began to climb the steps, trying to decide what to do.

  Should she attempt to reason with Dellia? That appeared hopeless. The foolish girl had been smitten with Yancy since he had first come to work at Diamond E. His attempts to court Lissa had led to the final breaking of her friendship with Dellia. If she ever could have honestly called it friendship.

  But Lissa could not sit by and let Dellia ruin her life, no matter how spiteful the girl had acted. Yancy was a drunk and a brute, and Lissa was positive he would abuse poor besotted Dellia once he married her. Cy Evers would be at the Cheyenne Club. She owed it to the old man to let him know of the elopement. She hurried the rest of the way to her suite to compose a note. Perhaps Cy could prevent their escape with no one in Cheyenne the wiser.

  * * * *

  "We'll take over five hundred head. Easy with the beeves spread out to reach clean water." His face
was in the shadows of the railhead building.

  "Poisoning the water near the ranch was a good idea, but the time for mere stealing is done now," Germaine replied over the hiss of a train stopping at the depot.

  "What do you mean?" the man replied guardedly. "It's too soon. Robbins is—"

  "Surely you are not afraid of that half-breed cur, hein?"

  He bristled angrily. "You know better. I thought you were the one worrying about me."

  "Robbins received a wire yesterday which he will no doubt pick up today, telling him his gunmen are prepared to work for him. It is a fortunate thing the clerk in the telegraph office has a special dislike for Indians. He has been most helpful to me." Germaine's eyes glowed malevolenty. "We must act at once before help arrives for Robbins and his whore. It is good that he is here in town. When he receives word about the cattle being run off, the timing will work perfecdy. Here is what you must do...."

  * * * *

  When Lissa awakened early the next morning, Jess was already up, shaving in the bathroom. She slipped a robe on and tiptoed quietly into the doorway to watch the male ritual.

  Without missing a strong, sure stroke with the gleaming razor, he said, "Why are you up so early? Thought you'd be tired enough to sleep late."

  Her cheeks warmed as she recalled their love-making the previous night. "I'm quite resilient, in case you hadn't noticed," she replied, feeling muscles in her belly tightening as the razor glided along his jaw, shearing away the black stubble with foaming flecks of soap. He wore only a towel tied carelessly at his waist.

  She walked into the room and slid one hand up his back, then around his side, tracing the patterns of hair on his chest. "It's very sexy for a woman to watch a man shave," she said huskily.

  "It's a damn nuisance for the man," he grunted.

  "Did all the men in your family have heavy beards?" He was still not at all forthcoming with information about his past in spite of her efforts to draw him out.

  He slowed a stroke and glanced at her with cool silver eyes, then resumed shaving. "I reckon so, although my pa's beard was yellow, like Jonah's. Didn't know my mother's people. They'd all died by the time I was old enough to remember anything."

  "You're educated more than most men in Wyoming—”

  He laughed mirthlessly. "That wouldn't take much."

  "Who taught you—your mother?"

  He finished shaving and wiped away the traces of soap from his face. "Nosey, aren't you?" he said, walking past her into the bedroom, where he pulled a clean shirt from his case.

  "I've told you all about me. Why won't you tell me about you? Are you afraid if I learn too much I'll have some sort of hold over you—to make you stay even if you still want to go?"

  She had hit far too close to the truth. He yanked on his denims and reached for the shirt. "Maybe," he replied grudgingly, then added, "My mother was illiterate, just like most of the impoverished Mexican peasants Richard King brought to Texas. My pa was a booklover. He taught us the basics." He paused then, as if rediscovering things lost in the mists of the past.

  "When I was eight or ten, just a tad, Mr. King found out I could read. He took a shine to me for some reason, maybe because my ma worked at his big house. He let me use his library. It was a whole new world opening up for a poor Mexican breed."

  "Why . . . why if you had that opportunity ... why did you ..." Her voice was halting, for she was unwilling to break the harmony of his earlier reminiscences.

  "The war was hard on my family," he replied with a shuttered look on his face. He buckled on his gunbelt without saying anything more.

  "How old were you when you joined the French Legion?"

  "Don't you ever run out of questions?" he asked, obviously wanting to change the subject. "I have to see a man about a roundup."

  "Wait, Jess. Let me go with you."

  "Do you honestly think Lemuel Mathis will want to see you with me?"

  She shook her head. "Not Lemuel. I know he'll refuse. It's Cy Evers and Jamie MacFerson we need to talk with—they'll listen to me."

  "Mathis listened to me the last time I had something to say. I can handle him," Jess said firmly.

  "Or what—you'll shoot him? Be reasonable, Jess. The Association's too big for you to take on alone. Anyway, Cy owes me a favor." She quickly explained about Dellia's aborted elopement with Yancy Brewster and her part in thwarting it. "I heard him bring her back to her room and post a guard at her door."

  "Why didn't you tell me about this last night?" His eyes searched her face, and she knew at once that he was comparing the way Marcus had caught them with the way Cy had caught his daughter.

  Lissa met his steady gaze. "I'm learning how you think, Jess. And I guess I just didn't want to give you one more reason to contemplate leaving us again."

  He sighed in resignation. "Hell, all right, get dressed. We'll go see Evers."

  "It might be best if I—"

  "No," he interrupted flatly. "I'm not hiding behind your skirts, Lissa. Either you go with me or you don't go at all."

  She gritted her teeth and silently said some uncharitable things about insufferable male pride as she hurried through her morning toilette.

  Evers and MacFerson were quartered at the Cheyenne Club. The return note from Cy agreed to meet with them in the Metropolitan's dining room at noon. When they arrived, Cy was already sitting at the private table that Marcus had always reserved. To Lissa it brought back bittersweet memories of happier times with her father.

  Evers rose and nodded to Lissa and Jess. He looked grim and uncomfortable as they all sat down together. The serving help had apparently already been instructed not to intrude.

  "I owe you for Dellie," Cy said stiffly to Lissa.

  "I hope she's all right," she replied.

  "Found 'em at the station waitin' on the Laramie night train. I had Brewster beat within an inch of his life 'n throwed him on the train with his own ticket," he added with a harsh glance at Jess. "Dellie's cryin' a spell now, but she'll get over it. Your note said you had business with me and Jamie."

  "J Bar wants in on the fall roundup," Jess said.

  "That's Association business." Cy's shrewd brown eyes studied Jess.

  "Next to J Bar, you and Jamie run the largest spreads in southeast Wyoming. If you let J Bar reps participate, everyone else in the Association will follow your lead. Even Mathis."

  "Lemuel has a personal reason to refuse me. You understand how that is," Lissa said to Evers.

  The old man's face reddened beneath leathery, wind-blasted skin. "I'll talk it over with Jamie. I reckon I owe you that."

  "I'd be much obliged, Cy. Jess and I will be at the dance tonight. Perhaps it can all be settled then," Lissa said in a brisk, businesslike manner as they rose from the table.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  After Evers had left, Jess turned to Lissa with a shuttered look on his face. "I never said I'd go to that dance. In fact, I don't even own a suit."

  "I knew you'd use that as an excuse. Come with me. I have a small surprise for you."

  She wended her way from the restaurant back upstairs to their suite with Jess unwillingly in tow. The suit was hanging in the armoire, freshly pressed.

  "Clare took the measurements from your clothes. She's really a splendid seamstress. What do you think?" she urged, holding it out with such a look of wistful entreaty on her face that he could not refuse. "I had her make up a new white silk dress shirt as well, and I selected the cravat, but if you don't like the maroon, there's dark blue and—"

  "Maroon is fine, Lissa," he said gently as he took the suit from her. It was the handsomest gift he had ever received—at least since the time a wealthy young madam in New Orleans had bought him a solid gold pocket watch. Jess decided it would be politic not to mention that to his wife.

  My wife. A rush of emotion overcame him without warning as he touched the rich, dark-gray wool. The lining was of silver brocade, as was the matching vest, and the workmanship was exquisite.
These were the clothes of a wealthy stockman, a respectable pillar of the community.

  He looked at her gravely, and when he spoke his voice was husky. "Wearing these clothes, going to the Association's big shindig—you're taking me into a world that's closed to me, Lissa. I'm afraid that because of who I am, I'll close it for you, too."

  She shook her head and caressed his cheek. "Husband, your nobility is beginning to wear on me. Either they accept us together or I don't want to belong," she said with determination.

  He would have argued more, but Johnny's cries from the next room interrupted them.

  Jess prepared for the gala like a man facing the gallows. He cared not at all for himself if it turned out to be a disaster. A lifetime as an outsider had inured him to isolation from polite society. But Lissa had grown up as part of this privileged circle, and he knew it was going to be closed to her now too.

  He stood in the bathroom door looking into the bedroom at Lissa with their son at her breast. Each time he watched, it was as if he were storing up the beautiful memories to last him the rest of his life. Although darker-complected than his fair mother, Johnny could pass for white, especially back East, dressed and educated as a gentleman. The troubling thought had haunted him ever since he had agreed to try living at J Bar.

  A feeling of impending disaster gnawed at him. I'm living on borrowed time with them and only I realize it.

  * * * *

  Early that evening Lissa took the special gown she had selected to Clare's room so the little maid could help her dress. She wanted to surprise Jess. Standing in front of the mirror, she turned this way and that.

  "What do you think, Clare?" she asked uncertainly, smoothing one hand over the low-cut neckline. The color was really unusual.

  "I think you will be the most beautiful lady there." The maid appraised her handiwork with a critical eye. She had sewn this gown for Miss Lissa while still working at Durbin's over a year ago, but her mistress had never worn the unusual creation of soft, gleaming silk.