Hope looked over her brother’s shoulder and scowled. “So where is everybody?”
“Pa sent the twins into Sutter’s Fort for supplies. Him and Old Joe’ll be up shortly. They’re puttin’ stuff away.” He licked his sun-parched lips as his gaze settled on the raw pies.
“They aren’t cooked so don’t even think about it,” she warned him as she wiped her hands. Since it never occurred to Luke to offer to help, Hope herself was in the process of tucking the pies into the alcove inside the brick hearth when the door opened again.
“Damn, but if’n he ain’t right.” Old Joe shook off the rain that clung to him like a dog shoot off his bath. Crystal droplets splattered the floor and the table as Bart and Drake Frazier did the same.
“There’s better money in hydraulics, sure,” Drake conceded grudgingly. Hope watched as he plucked the hat from his head and hung it on what was quickly becoming “his” hook on the rack. “But it’s an expensive thing to start. You’d have to buy more equipment and hire more men, and there’s no guarantee it’d pay off. The mine could run dry.”
“But it’s still something to think about,” Bart said as, with a flick of his wrist, he flipped his hat on a curved wood hook. When had her father started seeking out Drake Frazier’s opinion or approval? she wondered.
Drake nodded, his eyes lighting on Hope. “Yup, it’s something to think about.”
For a split second, she thought he was speaking to her, then blushed furiously when she realized he was talking to her father. No, that was wrong. His lips might be talking to Bart, but he gazed at her alone. You haven’t paid me, sunshine, those eyes accused.
She turned away and tossed the towel onto the counter. The cloth landed in a crumpled heap on top of a pile of browning apple peels.
“I don’t know,” Old Joe said, shaking his head as he scratched his chin. Noticing where Frazier’s gaze rested, the narrow eye widened until it was almost the same size as the one that bugged. “Try askin’ Hope. The gal’s got a right good head on her shoulders. Perty one, too,” he added, with a wink. “‘Course, right now she looks like hell. What’s a matter with you, girl?” he added, noting the dark circles etched beneath her bloodshot eyes.
“Nothing. I’m fine, just a little tired,” she lied, badly. She dearly wished she could blame her lumpy mattress for her recent restless nights, instead of the piercing sea-green gaze that haunted her, which even now was directed at her intently. “Ask me what?”
Drake shrugged. “Bart’s thinking about investing in hydraulics. Joe doesn’t like the idea.”
“And your opinion?” she asked cautiously, settling her hands on her hips. “Or don’t you have one?”
“He’s keepin’ it to himself,” Old Joe told her, glancing between the two. “Fer now.”
“It’s not my decision.” Drake’s tone lacked the defensiveness his words suggested. “Well, sunshine, what do you think?”
“You saw what hydraulics did to the land in Comstock County, Papa,” she replied as she untied the apron from behind her back and pulled it off. That, too, was banished to the counter. “As I recall, you were just as shocked as the rest of us. The hoses and forced water ravaged the land until there was nothing left but crevasses and muddy gulches. Didn’t you say what they did was disgusting?” her gaze narrowed accusingly. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.”
“See?” Old Joe preened as he perched on the bench. “Told ya she had a good head.”
“Gotta do something, missy,” Bart grumbled. He lowered himself carefully onto the bench, massaging his aching back. “As it is, we’re only pulling out enough dust to buy necessaries. What’s going to happen when winter sets in? We don’t have nearly enough to buy the supplies it’ll take us to weather another winter in Thirsty Gulch.”
If they didn’t have the money to buy supplies, it went without saying there would be none left over to pay the taxes on Lake’s Edge. Time was running short. If they didn’t strike pay dirt soon, it would be too late to save the plantation. And then what? Hope thought. Lake’s Edge was the only thing that kept her father going—that, and the dream that one day, with a little luck, he could restore it to its former glory. Without that dream to cling to, the same dream that had brought them to California in the first place, Bart Bennett would crumple and die as surely as a dry leaf withered and fell from a late autumn maple tree.
Hope ran her palms down the front of her homespun skirt and sighed. “Maybe hydraulics are the answer. I don’t know,” she shrugged, ignoring Old Joe’s look of horror. “It doesn’t matter; it’s too late in the year to start now anyway. Like he said,” she nodded to Drake, grudgingly admitting he was right, “starting up would mean adding expensive equipment. We don’t have the money for it any more than we have the money to hire on more men. Maybe in the spring.”
Bart lowered his face into his hands. “Time is one luxury we don’t have, missy.”
The hopeless look in her father’s eyes told Hope what she had suspected all along. Either the mine paid off—and paid off quick—or Lake’s Edge was lost. Suddenly it was crystal clear, the reasons behind her father’s tight-lipped, evasive answers whenever she dared to inquire about matters back home.
Old Joe launched into a lecture on his somewhat dated opinion of hydraulics. Hope didn’t hear a word as her gaze shifted to Frazier. He was listening to the exchange between Bart and Old Joe with apparent interest, but occasionally she caught his gaze straying to her.
Her eyes narrowed, her mind racing. What little profit the mine churned out was being drained away by the gunslinger’s cut. Her mouth went dry. Could Frazier be convinced to abandon his share of the profits? And did she have a right to ask him to? No, she didn’t. She had already welched on half of their deal, as Frazier took every opportunity to remind her of, so how, in all good conscience, could she ask him to forget the rest?
She had no choice. Time was running short, if the look on her father’s face was anything to go by. Better by far to get rid of Frazier’s cut of the profits, and risk his wrath, than to lose Lake’s Edge.
While the men were deep in conversation, Hope slipped quietly to the gunslinger’s side.
“I seen a few Chinamen driftin’ ‘round town with not much to do. We could hire them pretty cheap.”
“Yeah, probably but....”
The rest of her father’s answer was lost as she placed a hand on Drake Frazier’s shoulder. A shiver of delight coursed up her arm as her gaze was captured by his.
“I need to talk to you,” she said, her words soft enough for only him to hear. One golden eyebrow cocked in question. “In private,” she added, her gaze insistent, “please. It’s—it’s important.”
Drake nodded. “I’ll get your cloak,” he said, uncoiling his lean frame from the hard bench. Hope caught a whiff of his soapy scent as he strode to the rack and retrieved his hat.
Setting it atop the silky mane of hair, he reached out with the other hand to retrieve the black cloak.
He tossed it to Hope, and she caught it in midair, flinging the coarse wool over her shoulders. It billowed around her legs, settling like an ebony cloud around her ankles.
“Where’s you two off to?” Old Joe asked, his large eye bulging with suspicion. Bart might not see what was going on between his daughter and the gunslinger, but Old Joe wasn’t so blind. He’d caught more than one secretive glance pass between the two when they both thought no one was looking. And he caught the looks Drake sent Hope when she wasn’t looking. It didn’t help that he knew Frazier from way back, and knew him well enough not to trust him for a minute.
“I promised Fra—Drake I’d show him the hens Mrs. Magrew sold Luke yesterday,” Hope said weakly, as she tied a poorly shaped bow beneath her chin. Her fingers were trembling as she pulled the hood into the place.
“Don’t stay out long, missy,” Bart said, seemingly unfazed at the prospect of his daughter leaving with Frazier. “It’s only drizzling out now, but it’s going to be raining fier
ce soon.” He massaged the base of his spine. “This back never lies.”
“I won’t be long,” she assured him, heading for the back door. Drake followed close behind. She could feel the heat of his body melting through the layers of her clothes, caressing the skin beneath as she stepped into the rain.
Drake pulled the door closed behind them, then fell into step behind Hope as she bypassed the lopsided coop. It had taken Luke the better part of yesterday afternoon to nail together a crude little shelter for the three scraggly hens. The trio of gaunt, feathery birds ran about in the barbed wire run, cackling wildly as raindrops pounded against their beaks.
The previous week Luke had built a shed for tools, and it was to this Hope now headed. She stopped in front of the door, then, on impulse, reached back and took his hand. Opening the door, she game his arm a tug.
Stumbling in the mud, Drake came treacherously close to falling. “Wait a minute,” he muttered. “Where are we going?”
“In the shed, fool.” She swung the door wide, sparing him a brief glance. The only concession he’d made to the foul weather was his cracked leather vest, and the collar he’d turned up high. “Or didn’t you notice it’s raining out here? Duck,” she said as she crouched and entered the shed, “Luke made the door too low.”
The scent of sawdust was strong in the large, as yet vacant room. But the dirt floor was dry and the walls cut the chill, moist breeze. Dreary gray sunlight filtered in through the single window and the slats in the walls, streaking the floor.
“You call those things hens?” he chuckled sarcastically as he nodded to the door. “I’ve seen fatter pigeons.”
“Laugh all you want, but you won’t think it’s so funny when you sit down to a proper breakfast of poached eggs,” Hope scoffed defensively. She brushed the hood back from her head and let it hang limply over her shoulder as she sent him a crooked grin. “Or doesn’t the thought of a dish of custard at the end of a long day appeal to you?”
“I don’t think you brought me out in the rain to talk about custard, sunshine,” Drake said as he stuffed his hands into the pocket of his tight denim trousers. It was either that or surrender to the temptation of reaching out to caress one of the silky chestnut curls brushing against a flawlessly ivory cheek. “Get to the point.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she averted her gaze to a ray of sun that flickered over the hem of her skirt. Where were all the words she had carefully rehearsed as they’d crossed the yard? she wondered. Shaking her head, Hope tried to pull them back to mind, but they were gone. Her mind was frighteningly blank.
Drake’s hand reached from out of nowhere to cup her chin, gently pulling her attention back to him. The caress of his rough fingers was warm against the coolness of her rain-damp skin. His gaze was dark, searching, and totally unnerving.
“I never paid you.” To her embarrassment, she spilled out the first words to enter her mind. The comment brought a spark of emotion to Drake’s eyes. Or was it a trick of the light? She couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, it disappeared too quickly.
“I know that.” His voice rang a pitch lower than normal as his thumb traced the delicate line of her jaw. She shivered, but didn’t pull away from the touch. Drake wondered why.
“No, you don’t understand. I never...never—”
“I know.” Turning his hands, he savored the feel of satiny flesh beneath his palm. She felt good, he thought, as he caught the sweet scent of the lilac petals clinging to her skin. The fragrance, though fleeting, overrode the smell of sawdust, of dirt, of everything. Did she know how much emotion her doe eyes revealed? No, he didn’t think she did. Otherwise, she would have turned away.
Hope swallowed hard. The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. She tried to focus her attention on forming the words that came awkwardly to her tongue, but it was difficult to think with the feel of his palm searing her cheek.
“You—you know I haven’t paid you,” she conceded, her voice husky with pent-up emotion. Her gaze dropped to the pulse throbbing at the base of the thick cord of his neck. “You don’t know why.”
“Then tell me.”
Hope looked long and hard into that penetrating gaze, then nodded. She dropped to the floor of the shed as though her knees could no longer support her weight. Drake hunkered down beside her. To Hope’s relief, he made no move to touch her. She didn’t think she’d be able to concentrate with that roughened hand caressing away her thoughts.
“I never intended to pay you,” she admitted, finally. The words were torn from somewhere deep in her soul. “I—I really thought I could—?” she sucked in a ragged sigh. “That I could—oh, I don’t know what I thought.”
“You thought you could hire me to fight for your brother and that afterward, with any amount of luck, I’d find myself on the wrong end of a Winchester come dusk on Saturday night.”
She chuckled despite herself. “No, I’ve never had that kind of luck.” She ran her fingers through the sawdust that powdered the dirt. Her expression turned serious. “I should never have promised you something I couldn’t give. My father’s a good man. He brought his kids up better than that. He told me to never make a promise I couldn’t keep, and until now I never have. But Luke’s life was at stake and I had to do something. I couldn’t let him fight Larzdon. He would have been killed. I know it as sure as I’m sitting here—and so do you.”
The urge to touch one of the chestnut waves spilling over her shoulder was too great to resist. Drake reached out and captured one of the curls between his fingers, marveling at its softness and the way it wrapped around his finger. “So you came to me.”
“Damn it, Drake,” her open palm slapped her lap, “you were supposed to take the money. You weren’t supposed to—”
“Take you?”
Sea-green clashed with brown velvet. Hope’s gaze dropped to the lips that were slowly lowering toward her. A heartbeat passed, more than enough time to stop him if she tried. She didn’t try.
This was not at all like the hard, punishing kiss he’d left her with that night in his hotel room. His lips were soft, surprisingly gentle, and when he urged her back, Hope went without complaint. It was enticing, the feel of the hard floor against her back, and the feel of the hard man against her front. Her arms circled his neck.
He drank deeply of the honeyed sweetness being offered. There was no stiffness in the body beneath him, only soft, generous curves begging to be explored. His palm slowly ascended the small taper of her waist, brushed lightly against the outer swell of her breast, then ran a tantalizing path down the sensitive inner column of her arm. He marveled at the way her breath fanned his cheek, igniting a burning fire there that quickly seeped into his blood. A groan escaped his lips as her body curved into his own with bittersweet perfection.
The aroma of fresh sawdust mixed with the tender scent of lilacs. It rekindled the fire that had been burning in Drake since the first minute he’d laid eyes on the chestnut-haired beauty. Her hair spread around them like a pillow of glistening silk, soft and inviting. His lips left hers to trail a path of fiery kisses across her cheek, fluttering over her brow, and finally tasting the salty pool of tears clinging to her eyelids.
Grudgingly, he pulled away, resting his weight on an elbow as he looked down at the delicately carved face, and the stream of tears that moistened her cheeks. Mesmerized, he reached out to capture a tear on the tip of his index finger. It glistened for a second in the shadowy light before he rubbed it into the calloused finger with his thumb.
“I don’t understand,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper against the backdrop of squawking wet hens outside. She was crying now, but she had responded to him, damn it! It wasn’t his imagination, not this time.
“I know,” she sputtered weakly. With a clenched fist, she wiped away her tears. “You can’t understand. You don’t know.”
“Know what?” Drake tried to keep his impatience from creeping into his words, and failed miserably. “I’ll receive pay
ment from you now, or I’ll have the reason why.”
“Damn it, Frazier! You don’t understand anything.”
Taking a deep breath, Drake struggled to restrain his raging emotions. Fear had crept into Hope’s eyes, and it pierced him to the core. “Maybe not. But one thing I know for sure, sunshine. You can’t tease a man with promises, then expect him to turn away.” His fingers trailed a feather-light line over her trembling lower lip. “Life doesn’t work like that. I don’t work like that.”
“I didn’t mean to tease you. I would never do that.”
Her doe eyes pleaded with him to believe her. Instinctively, he did. “But you won’t pay me either. You’re talking in circles, Hope. Either you want me or you don’t.”
She released a trembling sigh and turned her gaze away, only to have him drag it back. “The situation isn’t that easy. I—I’m not like the other girls. I—I can’t do what they can, no matter how much I might want to.”
Drake strove to read some meaning into her words, knowing that whatever she was trying to convey bothered her deeply. Yet, no matter how he tried, his mind circled back to one thing. He couldn’t understand how she could kiss him with such unabashed passion one minute, then tell him she couldn’t physically love him the next.
He scowled as he reached out and cupped an ivory cheek. The tingling sensation her cool skin caused his palm made coherent thought impossible. He wanted her; God! he wanted her, like no other woman he’d known before. And she wanted him, too. The fire in her kiss told him that. So why did she insist on building this wall between them? Didn’t she know that he would tear it down, brick by brick, if that’s what it took to possess her, body and soul?
Hope watched the emotions flickering across Drake’s face. For once they were not concealed. For once he had dropped his guard long enough to reveal the inner workings of his mind. He was confused, and he had every right to be. She had made promises she hadn’t kept. But how could she explain her reason for entering into their arrangement under false pretenses, and explain it in a way that didn’t sound foolish and contrived?
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