Upon a Midnight Clear

by Jude Deveraux

  But Cole had ruined the moment by leering at Kathryn as though to let her know he knew she was intrigued by him. So Kathryn had closed the picnic basket just as he was slipping his hand inside.

  Cole had drawn back with an expletive, then sucked at his fingertips, which she had caught with the lid. "What is wrong with you?" he muttered, then looked at her with anger in his eyes. "Don't you ever forgive a man?"

  "There is nothing whatever wrong with me," Kathryn said firmly. "And I do forgive people, but not when they put me through the humiliation that you did," she said, referring to the trial. With her back rigid and her resolve strengthened, she had led the boys back to the house.

  So now she was going into his private domain in order to get a bottle of ink, which she was sure he kept there just so she'd have to come after it. There was no answer to her knock, and since she knew he was still outside, she went into the room. The first thing she saw was that a wall safe was open and scattered on the cabinet below were a stack of papers. Rushing toward the safe, with thoughts of robbery in her head, she saw that there were stacks of what appeared to be hundred-dollar bills inside the safe. So there was no robbery, she thought, relieved, just someone's carelessness at leaving a safe open.

  With a few stern thoughts about the irresponsibility of some people, she began to put the papers away, but then one of them caught her eye. It was a bank statement for an account in Denver, opened in the name of a man in Legend who had begged Kathryn to get Cole to allow him to buy his store.

  With interest, Kathryn began to go through more of the papers. There was a book that showed that Cole was paying for a retirement home in Denver, and the names of the tenants were things like Diamond Sue and Tricky Jane. There were huge bills for the repair of the houses of Legend.

  "Seen all you want?"

  Kathryn nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Cole's voice, then spun on her heel to see him sitting in a chair in the far corner of the room, at least half a dozen ledgers on his lap.

  "I… I came for a bottle of ink," she said, and even to herself she sounded as though she had something to hide.

  "I rarely keep ink in the safe," he said, one eyebrow raised..

  "I didn't mean to pry," she said as she put the papers she held back onto the cabinet below the safe. She knew she should leave now. She should forget the ink and leave, but instead she looked at him. "What are all these documents? Why don't you sell Legend to the inhabitants? Why do you have to be such a, a…"

  "Despot?"

  He was laughing at her, but she didn't care; she wasn't going to back down. When he took a while to answer, she knew he was trying to decide whether or not to trust her.

  "I'm sure you won't believe me, but I'm doing this town afavor." Standing, he walked across the room to reach above her head and put the ledgers back into the safe. "The mines are playing out. Colorado is no longer in a silver boom, and most of the towns that were near here when I was a kid are now ghost towns. And the people who put their money into them have lost everything."

  As he turned his back on her and walked to his desk, she tried to put together what he had just told her, and when she did understand, she gave a little laugh. "Am I to believe that you are retaining sole ownership of this town out of some altruistic motive? When the mines do give out, every person in this town can walk away without losing a penny because you've allowed no one to buy any property? Is that what I'm to believe?"

  When Cole looked at her his eyes were cold. "It doesn't matter to me what you believe. But what I have just told you is the truth."

  "And I guess there is nothing in this for you," she said, one corner of her mouth tilted up in a smile of disbelief. "You don't get riches beyond belief? You don't get power to control a town full of people? To make their decisions for them? To—"

  "Power?" he half shouted at her. "You think that running a place like Legend is power? Have you actually looked at this place? There are more whorehouses than there are businesses."

  "But that's because you won't allow decent people into this place. You encourage only the lowest people to come here."

  He advanced on her. "That's exactly right, and have you ever stopped to ask why I encourage such decadence as this?"

  Kathryn was backing toward the door, and he was moving closer to her, leaning over her.

  "Have you ever asked yourself why my own family moved to Denver, yet I stay here alone? I'll tell you why, Mrs. High and Mighty de Longe. It's because there is no future for this town. My father wanted to close the place down; he said it made him ill."

  "Then why not bring in some decent people? Why not allow—"

  Her back was against the door, and he was so close to her now that she could see the tiny flecks of black that were in his blue eyes. And she could feel his breath on her skin.

  Abruptly, he turned away and walked to the center of the room, then stood there looking down at his desk. Kathryn knew this was her opportunity to escape, but instead she took a breath and said, "Why?"

  He didn't answer for a while, and when he did his voice was soft and low. "My family has made a lot of money from this town, enough to keep us for generations if we have any sense. A few years back when my father found out the mines wouldn't last much longer, he could have sold every inch of land to anyone who wanted it, then left here forever."

  "But he didn't," Kathryn said. "No, you didn't. You stayed behind to run the town.''

  He turned back to her. "Yes, I stayed behind. I had Zachary so I wasn't totally alone, and my grandmother had long ago fenced off this part of town so we could have some semblance of life that didn't involve liquor and bets being wagered." He gave her a little half smile. "But I haven't done so well with my son. He's grown up knowing more about a roulette table than about…"

  "The Bible?" Kathryn supplied.

  "Exactly," Cole answered, then gave her a genuine smile.

  Kathryn moved away from the door and went to the safe, where she picked up a handful of papers. "So what are these?"

  "Just a bit of management," he said, taking the papers from her, as though he were embarrassed at her seeing his good deeds. When he'd put the papers away and closed the safe, he walked away from her, and his gesture was a dismissal, but Kathryn didn't move.

  "Why have you done this?" she asked. "I can understand why you didn't sell the land, but the rest of this is not something I can comprehend. The people of Legend are adults; you are not their father or their guardian. You don't have a right to decide their futures for them."

  "A right?" he asked, turning back to her, his face angry. "I have an obligation to them. I have—" Halting, he put his hand over his face. "That's right, Mrs. de Longe. I have no right. I am rich, therefore I am bad. Isn't that what you believe? Isn't that what everyone believes? Now, would you please leave so I can get back to my work of duping poor innocent people out of their hard-earned money?"

  When Katbryn just stood there without moving, he barked, "Go!" and she had to work to keep herself from running away as though she were a schoolgirl. Calmly, she opened the door and left the office.

  It was after that encounter that she began to ask Zachary questions about his father's business. At first the boy was very secretive, until Kathryn told him what she already knew.

  "He told you the mines are playin' out?" Zachary said in disbelief. "He told you that? Don't nobody know that."

  "No one knows of that," she corrected him automatically, then waved her hand before Zachary started one of his "That's what I said" routines that could go on for half an hour. "Why has he stayed here?" she asked.

  "A dream," Zachary said as he bit into a piece of apple pie, then grinned at the look Kathryn gave him. "All right, I'll tell you, but it don't make no sense to me."

  Kathryn had to bite her tongue to keep from correcting his grammar, and the imp knew it. Finally, Zachary told her that when his father was nine years old he'd had a dream that changed his life. In the dream his whole family had been shot by the people of
Legend, and as a result all the townspeople were sent away and died terrible deaths.

  "And because of this dream he now takes care of the inhabitants of this town?"

  "Don't make no sense to me, either, but that's the way he is. He won't carry no gun, and he makes sure that when this town goes under, nobody is hurt but him. He's put money into banks in Denver for the people who have been here the longest."

  "And knowing that the mines are going to give out, he doesn't encourage family people to come here. They'd lose their homes in a few years," Kathryn said thoughtfully.

  "That's right. My grandpa wants Pa to stop tryin' to be a hero and move to Denver with the rest of the family, but Pa says he owes something to these people and he has to keep them from cursing the Jordan name for all eternity. That seems to be part of the dream too. Oh, and that woman Wendell told him some things too. I think she's a distant cousin to my pa."

  It was later, as Kathryn felt her resolve melting toward Cole Jordan, that she renewed her distance toward him. Hadn't he made it abundantly clear that he wanted no woman who was interested in him in a matrimonial way? And as for Kathryn, she knew where such closeness could lead. Jeremy was evidence of that.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  "Damn her!" Cole muttered as he pulled the barbed wire even tighter.

  "Hey!" Joe yelled. "You almost caught my hand in that." He started to say more, but then a bolt of lightning flashed nearby, the horses let out screams of fear and tried to get away, then Cole yelled something that Joe was sure he didn't want to hear. All in all, Joe decided it was better to keep his mouth shut, which was what all the men who worked or lived in Legend had decided of late.

  Ever since Mrs. Kate had come to live in the Jordan house, Cole's temper had been like that of a wildcat caught in a trap. Couldn't nobody talk to him or even look at him for fear of having his head bit off.

  The only way the people of Legend could stand Cole's temper was because they knew what was going on, since everybody who worked near the Jordan house made sure they told everything they saw. And they saw plenty!

  Mrs. Kate had indeed tamed that brat Zachary. Everyone was amazed at what she had been able to do with him. Who would have thought that the boy was smart? Clever, yes, but not book-learnin' smart. But he was.

  After Mrs. Kate showed that hellion Zachary that if he was going to eat anything besides Manuel's swill, he had to apply himself to the books just as her perfect, prissy son did, Zachary settled down to become a real scholar. Of course it greatly helped matters that one day the two boys went behind the barn and young Jeremy knocked the stuffing out of Zachary. Everyone on the place had gone running to watch that fight. Everybody except Mrs. Kate, that is. Of course she must have known that it was going on, what with all the hollerin' and swearin' that she was sure to have heard in the house, but maybe she decided not to try to stop what was bound to happen.

  Manuel said that when the boys came to breakfast she didn't say a word about their bloody faces and bruised, sore bodies. In fact, she made them both sit on hard benches without a break for three hours. And when both boys were nearly falling asleep from fatigue, she said their problem was that they needed some exercise, so she took them outside and made them run halfway up a mountain then back down. By the nightfall both boys were united by a common enemy: Mrs. Kate.

  So now, three months later, the boys, if not exactly friends, certainly were together a great deal, both of them challenging each other to be the best at whatever they tried.

  No, the problem was not the boys. The problem was Cole. For all that weeks had gone by, Mrs. Kate had not relented in her complete and absolute disregard for Cole Jordan. Manuel reported that for all the notice that Mrs. Kate took of Cole, he might as well not exist.

  At dinner she and the boys sat at one end of the table and ate what she cooked, while Cole sat at the other end and ate the greasiest mess Manuel could manage to come up with. And considering Manuel's expertise in that area, Joe hated to think what that was like.

  With Zachary's help, Mrs. Kate had hired a couple of women who had retired from "other" work in Legend to do the cleaning, washing, and ironing. Except they didn't clean or iron or wash for Cole. His room was left a pigsty and she left the care of his clothes to Manuel, who made sure they stayed dirty and rumpled.

  The result of all this was that Cole Jordan's temper was enough to send bears running for cover. Half the hands had quit and moved to Texas. "Or hell," they'd said. "Hell couldn't be worse than this place."

  Now, when the sky opened up and cold rain poured down on them, Cole didn't seem to notice, so Joe kept on holding the fence posts for him while he strung the wire. But when the sleet started and icy pellets hit the two of them, Joe didn't bother to tell Cole he was going back to the bunk-house. After all, it was already ten o'clock at night, they were working by moonlight (which wasn't there anymore), and they'd both been up since four a.m. And if that weren't enough, it was Christmas Eve.

  After another half hour, Joe just turned away, got on his frightened horse, and started riding away. Even over the storm he could hear Cole behind him shouting that he was fired and that a man couldn't find anybody today who knew how to work.

  "Damn them all to hell," Cole muttered under his breath as he pulled on the wire again, but it slipped from his gloved hand and landed… He had no idea where the wire went, and it was much too dark to see. Reluctantly, he stuck the hook in his back pocket and mounted his horse. When the animal was skittish, Cole pulled back on the reins until it knew who was master.

  The sleet was so bad that it took nearly an hour to find his way back to the house, and when he rode into the barn he was shivering. Shaking one of the men awake, he told him to rub his horse down, then Cole staggered to the house.

  As always, the back door was bolted closed, and the sight of the Christmas wreath on the door just angered him more. "Damn her!" he yelled just as thunder cracked and drowned his words. Her and her obsession with locking him out of his own house! In one of her rare moments of addressing actual words to him, she'd handed him a key and said that he could use it. But now his hands were too cold to find a key in his pants pocket.

  After fumbling for a few moments he said, "Oh, the hell with it," then raised his foot and kicked the door in. "Fat lot of good a lock does," he muttered, then stumbled toward the big cast-iron stove along the far wall. But of course the stove was cold; the coals had been banked for the night. With hands that were like pieces of wood, he tried to pick up the iron lifting handle and insert it into the plate so he could throw some kindling on the coals and get a fire going. But his hands weren't responsive, and he dropped the plate so it went clattering onto the stone floor. The crash of the iron plate knocked about half a dozes homemade Christmas decorations down with it.

  "Take another step and I'll shoot you," came a woman's voice from the shadow of the doorway.

  "Go ahead," Cole growled. "Might as well kill me since you're trying to starve me anyway."

  "Oh, it's you," Kathryn said flatly. "I thought you were—"

  "I was who?" he said angrily as she lit a lantern and golden light flooded the room. But she didn't waste any time looking at him; her interest was in the door. "Look what you've done! "You've broken it Now the lock won't work." Bending, she picked up the wreath that had fallen when the door crashed back.

  "Lock?" He half yelled at her. "Can you tell me why the hell you need a lock when there are armed guards around the place night and day? And where the hell did you get a gun?"

  After Kathryn put the wreath on the end of the table, she pushed the shattered door closed against the wind, then braced it shut with a kitchen chair. "I don't have a gun. It was a bluff." When she had the door relatively well shut, she turned toward him. "Well then, good night," she said stiffly and started toward the doorway.

  But when she glanced at him, she paused, her eyes widening as she stared at him. He was thoroughly wet, and ice had formed on some of his clothing and in his
hair. He was holding his gloved hands close to his chest, as though they were lifeless things somehow attached to the end of his arms. With a glance at the pot handle and the stove lid on the floor, it didn't take much to figure out what he had been trying to do.

  With a grimace, she said, "If you get sick and die, I'll be out of a job so I guess I’ll have to help you."

  If Cole hadn't been so cold he would have laughed. As it was all he could do was curl one corner of his mouth up in amusement. "That would be very sensible of you," he said, then stepped away from the stove as she quickly moved to stand in front of it and build up the fire.

  Standing to one side, he stood there looking at her for a few moments. Her thick dark hair was in one fat braid down her back; she was wearing an old robe that looked as though it had been made from a blanket, and the front was gaping open so he could see the front buttons on her flannel nightgown. Cole was sure he'd never seen a more beautiful or desirable woman in his life.

  But then he'd felt that from the first moment he'd seen her. When he'd turned that first day and seen the woman who had called out and warned him that Bartlett was about to shoot him, Cole had been shocked at the beauty of her. No, not just her beauty. There were lots of pretty girls in Legend. But what Cole saw in her eyes that day was the kindness of her, the sweetness—and the strength. At that moment if someone had told him that he'd die if he kissed her, he still would have done it.

  "Are you just going to stand there?" she snapped.

  But all Cole did was stand there and stare at her. For these last weeks he had been able to stay angry enough to keep away from her. And he'd used trips to Denver and working from early to late to keep himself out of the house. Anything to keep from seeing the coldness in her eyes. He couldn't bear seeing that day after day.