This time, after looking her over, the hotel clerk assigned her a better room than she had received in Idaho Springs when she'd entered the lobby fresh off the road. This room had wallpaperugly, but more pleasing than bare walls. A pitcher of water stood ready beside the washbasin, and someone had placed silk carnations in a vase before the vanity. The man who carried up her tapestry bag opened both windows to the smell of dust and cow dung, but the breeze was welcome.
Then he asked if she wanted a bath sent to the room, carefully looking aside as he put the question. Such an idea had never entered Fox's mind, that she could have a bath in her room.
Also looking aside and stupidly blushing, she allowed that she would indeed like a bath. "And a beef steak with fried potatoes," she added, waiting for him to say that was not possible. But he only nodded. So she added, "And coffee with sugar. And cake! It should have thick frosting."
She could learn to love hotels, she decided, setting out her new comb and old brush alongside extra hairpins. This kind of luxury was worth the extra money. Of course, in the past, she'd never had extra money. But now she had a pocketful from the sale of the mustang and her rifle, and a limited time to spend it.
Only one cigar remained from her stash and she smoked it while soaking in the tub and reading the newspaper.
Hobbs Jennings's disappearance was solved, the newspaper announced in large headlines. Accompanied by his son, Matthew Jennings, Mr. Jennings had returned to Denver yesterday afternoon following a harrowing ordeal with kidnappers. The amount of the ransom was hinted but not revealed. Officials predicted they would soon have the kidnappers in custody.
Fox rolled her eyes and thought of Jubal Brown, then read that Mr. Jennings was exhausted and weak but basically unharmed. Hobbs Jennings predicted he would be in his office by Tuesday at the latest and assured the public that Jennings Mining and Mercantile would resume business as usual.
Fox flung the newspaper across the room then leaned back in the tub and drew on her cigar. The bastard led a charmed life. He'd drawn three kidnappers who were such novices they had treated Jennings like a prince instead of killing him as more experienced thugs would have done. If Fox had been running that show, at the very least Jennings would have needed more than a few days to recuperate.
Tuesday. Narrowing her eyes, she formulated a plan. She'd give him until Friday afternoon to deal with well-wishers and business associates and whoever else might crowd into his office after a three-month absence. Then his charmed life would end.
Not until the tub and service tray had been removed did Fox remember that she had promised Tanner she would wait two weeks before she put her neck on the line for a noose. But that had been before he knew his father was the man she intended to kill. She doubted there was a chance in hell that Tanner would leave Denver knowing she was going after his father. Besides, if she was going to defy Peaches's death wish, what did a promise to Tanner matter? It wasn't like she was trying to reserve a spot in heaven. That wouldn't happen. And Tanner wasn't going to say, "Yes, you murdered my father, but it's all right because you kept your promise to wait two weeks before you did it."
Now that she'd worked out her plans, Fox had expected to drop off to sleep without a qualm. Instead, she lay in bed staring at the windows and thinking about Tanner. His face rose in her memory, his saddle brown eyes soft with a smile. There were so many memories of the surprise and joy he'd given her. But the image that broke her heart was the tender expression he'd worn when he'd looked in her eyes and talked softly about a man's wife growing radishes if she had a mind to.
Fox pushed her face into the pillow trying to smother the images that reeled through her thoughts. Tanner, face tight with concentration, leading a string of mules across the creek. Tanner, looking into her eyes as he made love to her. Tanner, taking his turn at the fire, flipping flapjacks. The look and feel of his hard body, the sound of his deep voice in her ear. "Oh Tanner," she whispered, her voice cracking. "It isn't fair. You should have been another man's son."
It drove him wild. Tanner knew she was in Denver, but he couldn't find her. He'd checked all the public stables, searching for the mustang and then he'd hired a dozen men to canvass private stables owned by the hotels. The last two days had driven him to the desperation of riding the streets looking for a faded poncho and a long red braid.
He'd posted guards around his father's mansion, armed with her description, and he'd assigned a couple of men to watch the doors of the company offices.
After signaling the waiter in his club to bring another drink, he raked his fingers through his hair. She couldn't just vanish. Denver had a few thousand residents, but the city wasn't so large that a woman as striking and memorable as Fox would fade into the population without someone taking note.
She was here somewhere, he could feel her.
He loved her and, damn it, she loved him. If she would just agree to sit down with him and with his father, surely they would find an answer that could give them a future.
Dropping his head on the back cushion of the club chair, Tanner closed his eyes. Until the moment he had questioned his father about the past, he had continued to hope there was a mistake, a set of unlikely coincidences that had led Fox to believe Hobbs Jennings was her stepfather and that he'd stolen her inheritance.
But everything Fox had claimed was true. During the course of a night-long conversation intensely painful for them both, his father had admitted the long ago crime. And so many puzzles had been solved. Finally he understood the pain and flashes of torment in his father's eyes. And he understood that nothing Fox could do would punish his father as deeply as his father had punished himself. That punishment changed nothing. But maybe if Fox knew the price his father had paid in self-hatred and recrimination, maybe it would be enough. She wouldn't forgive any more than Tanner could forgive. But maybe it would be enough.
He had to find her before revenge destroyed the two people he loved most. If she would just talk to his father, if she could bring herself to do that much, just maybe they could get through this.
Staring into space, he listened to the clubhouse clock ticking down the minutes. Whatever would happen was going to happen soon.
"Good afternoon," Fox said pleasantly, modestly dropping her gaze away from the young man at the desk. "Is Mr. Jennings in?"
"Do you have an appointment?" The name on a brass plate said Claude Piper.
"No, but I was assured Mr. Jennings would see me. I'm soliciting donations from businessmen in support of children without mothers."
Mr. Piper put down his pen and studied her as thoroughly as Fox had ever been studied. Face flaming, she wondered if her Colt was outlined by the fabric of the bag looped over her wrist. As his examination continued during what seemed like an eon of silence, Fox fidgeted and tried to decide what she would do if she couldn't get past the obstacle presented by Claude Piper.
"And your name is?"
She felt positive that he stared at her bag. "It will be sufficient if you inform Mr. Jennings that I represent the Motherless Children's Society." She forced her lips into a wooden smile and questioned the wisdom of presenting herself as a respectable young lady even if doing so was certain to garner newspaper attention and the public exposure of Jennings's crime. If she'd chosen to come here as herself, the moment would have been easier. She would have kicked Piper aside and pushed into Jennings's office. By now the bastard would have been standing at the gates of hell.
Mr. Piper rose behind his desk. "I'll only be a moment."
Having waited twenty years, she decided another minute or two didn't matter. It was surprising, however, that Jennings had hired only two men to guard his building, and that she had walked right past them. Tanner would certainly have informed his father that she was coming. Did Jennings believe the threat was idle? That she lacked the nerve to actually kill him? Her gaze turned stony. If so, that would be his last mistake.
Immediately she wished she hadn't thought of Tanner. Not now. He would
be devastated by what she was about to do. Whatever else Jennings was, he was still Tanner's father and Tanner cared deeply about him. Fox wished that didn't disturb her so much.
"Follow me, please." Mr. Piper stood beside the entrance to a short hallway paneled in honey-colored pine.
Fox squared her shoulders and pressed her lips into a thin line. Her pulse increased and her skin tingled with electricity. She had waited so long for this moment.
Smiling tightly, she followed Piper down the hallway and into a commodious office crowded with bookshelves, paintings, and rugs in muted colors of burgundy and blue.
"Mr. Jennings will be with you shortly." Mr. Piper gave her a long stare, then shut the door behind him.
Irritated at having to wait, Fox walked to the windows and scanned the mountains she had so recently crossed. Snow hung on the distant peaks, reminding her that she wouldn't live to see another winter. She'd never cared for winter anyway.
Turning slowly, she glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel, then examined Jennings's large mahogany desk. And jerked backward in shock. Two framed portraits faced Jennings's desk chair. One depicted Tanner as a boy, and the other was unmistakably Fox. Reaching a gloved hand, she held the portrait to the window light, her mouth dry.
This was the child's face she expected to see in the mirror, slightly mischievous and smiling on the verge of laughter. Clear blue gray eyes and a smiling rosy mouth beneath a tumble of red curls. She didn't recall sitting for this portrait, but she remembered the white pinafore and the little string of pearls.
"That is the daughter I should have had," a voice said behind her. "Not a day passes that I don't regret her loss."
Fox whirled, dropping the portrait and gripping her bag. Finally, she stood face-to-face with the man who had occupied her thoughts more than any other.
The years had not been kind to Hobbs Jennings. She knew for a certainty that he was twenty years younger than he appeared. Once his hair had been as thick and dark as Tanner's. Now the thinning strands were white. He no longer stood tall and elegant. His back hunched as if he were in pain, and he leaned heavily on a cane. What shocked most was the deep sadness in his dark eyes. Fox had never seen a man with sadder eyes.
She fumbled with the drawstring on her bag. "I've come here to"
"I know why you've come, I've been expecting you," he said quietly, sinking into his desk chair with a heavy sigh. "And I know who you are."
"Tanner told you." She had known he would. Standing across the desk from Jennings, she aimed the gun at his forehead.
"I would have known you in any case, dear Eugenia. You're the spit image of your mother, did you know?"
The comment was so unexpected that it swept the ground from under her, and brought an unexpected and embarrassing rush of tears to her eyes. There was no one else alive who remembered her mother, just this man.
Confused and angry, Fox adjusted her grip on the butt of the gun and finally lost an argument with herself. Unable to speak above a whisper, she couldn't resist asking, "I don't remember any more. What did she look like?"
"Your mother was lovely, as slender and elegant as a reed. Her eyes were blue gray, and her hair as red as yours." A ghost of a smile pleated the wrinkles scoring his cheeks. "She was graceful but strong, wise and courageous and loving." Shifting sideways in the chair, he fixed his sad gaze on the mountains. "I wasn't much of a match for her. She had wealth and position, I didn't. But Delphinia didn't care about those things."
"You betrayed her trust, you bastard!" The gun leveled at his head shook in her hand.
"Yes, I did." He turned back to her, his old man's voice steady. "Since the night Matthew told me that you would appear, I've tried to think what I would say to you. I could tell you that without Delphinia I didn't have the funds to keep my son in school, but that's only part of it. I wanted the life Delphinia had shown me." His knotted hands laced together. "Nothing I can say will explain that time in my life. There is no justification whatsoever. I betrayed Delphinia's trust, and I changed your life irrevocably." Hunching forward, he drew a hand across the pain in his gaze. "Matthew told me that you and your friend ate food out of garbage bins. There's nothing I can do or say to change that. I would give everything I own if there were."
Fox's eyes burned from staring, acid churned in her stomach. "You didn't just change my life, you bastard. You destroyed it!"
The Colt felt heavy in her hand. Was Jennings stalling? Hoping Mr. Piper would return with a dozen henchmen? No. He'd said he expected her. Claude Piper knew who she was, too.
"You won't believe this, but I ruined my life, too." Bending, he picked Fox's childhood portrait from the floor and held it in his hands. "I spent years searching for you. But by then Mrs. Wilson was dead and no one knew what had happened to you."
"Your life was ruined?" He was right. She didn't believe it.
"Once I thought of myself as a good decent man. But I learned that I wasn't. I'm not. That knowledge has permeated my life, soured everything I've touched, I haven't been the father I should have been. I pushed Matthew to achieve impossible heights to justify what I'd done, so I could tell myself my crime had been worth betraying your mother's trust. I've lived alone since" His voice trailed. "I've done some things with the money that I hope Delphinia would have approved of. But trying to use your mother's money well didn't change what I'd done to get it. It didn't change what I'd done to you."
"It was my money you stole!"
"That was the greatest crime of all. Abandoning a child."
Her heart pounded against her rib cage and the gun wobbled in her hand. Her mother had loved this weary tormented man. Tanner loved him.
"I'm going to kill you," she said, gritting her teeth. His remorse didn't touch her. It was too late.
"I know."
But he'd done nothing to protect himself. He'd known she would come but he had not instructed Mr. Piper to block her from his office. The sheriff wasn't waiting. He hadn't pulled a gun from his desk and shot her first.
Hobbs Jennings waited in calm resignation, gazing at her with eyes filled with anguish by the guilt that drove him to keep a portrait of a little girl on his desk. This man would not regret dying. Death would come as relief from living with a past that shamed and haunted him.
"I am the justice you've been waiting for," she whispered, hating him.
Hobbs Jennings placed her childhood portrait next to the portrait of Tanner as a boy, then he looked up at her. "I'm sorry, Eugenia, for the terrible wrong I inflicted on you and for betraying the trust of a woman I loved. Sorrier than you could ever imagine. You deserved so much better."
"You're damned right I did."
Fox leveled the gun and fired.
* * *
CHAPTER 22
The door to the office burst open and Mr. Piper rushed forward, skidding on one of the rugs.
"It's all right, Mr. Piper." Hobbs Jennings opened his eyes and drew a breath. "Continue about your duties."
Claude Piper's eyes widened on the smoke curling from the gun in Fox's hand, then swung toward the shattered window behind Hobbs Jennings. Swallowing hard, Mr. Piper nodded and backed into the hallway.
Once he had gone, Fox's knees collapsed and she sank into the chair facing Jennings's desk. She dropped the Colt on the floor then covered her eyes.
"I hate you more than any person I have ever known," she said, her voice shaking. "I've hated you for so long that I can't remember a time when hating you wasn't part of me. I can't find words strong enough to express how much I regret not killing you. But I can't do it. I don't understand why but I can't."
Part of the reason had to do with the people she loved. Her mother, Peaches, and Tanner. Another powerful reason was knowing if she killed Hobbs Jennings, she would be doing the bastard a favor.
"So what happens now," she asked after the silence between them had grown heavy. "Will you call the sheriff?"
Jennings roused himself from gazing at the two portraits on hi
s desk. "Actually, I was considering buzzing Mr. Piper and requesting tea. Do you drink tea?"
"Lord, no. I don't drink that stuff. Coffee's acceptable, but whiskey would be better. This has been a confusing, upsetting, whiskey damn drinking kind of day." She glared. "Thanks to you, I'm not a refined tea-drinking woman. Whiskey's my choice and I can drink most men under the table." Her chin jutted and her gaze challenged him to express disapproval.
"Then something good came out of this." Jennings managed a small tired smile. "I see why my son loves you."
His words sent a jolt to her heart. Tanner. There would be time to think about him later.
During the wait for Piper to fetch whiskey and glasses, which arrived in a crystal decanter and etched glasses, Fox stared at Hobbs Jennings. Never in a lifetime of trying could she have imagined that she would end by sharing a glass of whiskey with a man whose death she had dreamed a thousand times.
Jennings lifted his glass to her but Fox didn't return the salute. "Why?"
"I don't know," she answered after a long hesitation. "I guess I love your son more than I hate you."
Something odd was happening in her mind and chest, something cracked and broke free. She hoped Peaches was watching, wished she could tell him that he had been right. The past couldn't be changed. It was time to let go of old wrongs, old bitterness. Hobbs Jennings had punished himself more than a quick death ever would have. She wondered if Peaches had guessed that.
And there was another truth. If Fox had grown up in a grand mansion surrounded by servants and fine-mannered friends, she would have missed so much.
She would never have known the smell of morning coffee boiling over a campfire. Or the splash of cold river water on her face. She wouldn't have watched deer and elk in the wild, would never have traveled the country in the way she had. She wouldn't have experienced the satisfaction and, yes, the pleasure of labor and earning her own way. She wouldn't have been independent or self-reliant. Worst of all, she would never have known Peaches. If she had lived the life she might have had, she would not be who she was. She would be someone else entirely.
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