Mountain Angel

by Patricia McAllister

  Angel hoped he hadn’t sensed her burgeoning response to his caresses, or felt the shameless way she’d leaned into him. She could hardly believe it herself. Nobody had ever affected her in the way this angry, mysterious man did.

  Holt had told her nothing of himself or his life, yet she felt compelled to trust him. Her instincts were all she had to go on, and though Angel realized how foolish she was, letting a stranger into her hotel room, it had never occurred to her to worry. She was so determined to prove herself right.

  Angel swallowed as Holt simply looked at her for an endlessly tense moment. “You’re not safe in Clear Creek,” he said.

  “I’m putting you on the stage first thing tomorrow,” he added, and his eyes narrowed on her. Gone was the burning moment they had shared, the flare of unexpected passion that consumed her. Angel felt a curious mixture of relief and disappointment, and she couldn’t speak.

  “I’ll call for you in the morning and see you to the stage,” Holt said. He paused by the door and gave her a long, unfathomable look. “Can you stay out of trouble till then?”

  Angel nodded shakily. The moment he was gone she walked in a daze to the bed and sat there staring out the window until darkness fell.

  A SHARP RAPPING SOUND JOLTED Angel from a deep sleep. She sat bolt upright in bed, her long braid falling over one shoulder. It was still dark outside. She wondered if she was having a nightmare when the knocking came again.

  “Who is it?” she called out warily.

  “Holt.”

  The curt announcement launched Angel from the bed. Hastily drawing a wrapper over her cambric nightgown, she moved toward the door.

  “Are you ready to leave?” he demanded.

  Angel hesitated. “I’m afraid I haven’t packed yet, Mr. Murphy. It’s early morning and I thought …”

  From the other side of the door she heard Holt make an exasperated sound. “This is not New Orleans. Here ladies don’t sleep till noon unless they entertained all night.”

  Angel flushed at the reminder of what he had first thought she was. It also explained the townsfolk’s reaction to her, especially the snubs from the women.

  “Give me five minutes,” she requested.

  There was no reply but the sharp chinking sound of spurs as Holt turned and stomped down the stairs.

  Angel moved to light a lamp and gazed over her trousseau, spread over half of the room. How proud she had once been of her wardrobe. She sold her finest gowns back in Missouri to pay down some debts.

  The remaining dresses were a bit frayed now, others out of fashion, but here in Clear Creek she might be the reigning fashion plate.

  She hastily donned lacy under things, a plain yellow skirt and white blouse, and cinched a wide leather belt around her waist. It was her most practical traveling outfit, and she slipped on bronze kid boots to match.

  Afraid Holt would give up waiting on her, she swept up a woolen mantle and hurried from the room. The hall was dark, the only light coming from her room and the downstairs lobby. The hotel itself was eerily quiet; she seemed to be the only occupant.

  Taking a deep breath, Angel navigated the gloomy stairs. She reached the landing when a dark shadow glided up to meet her, and she released a small shriek.

  Holt steadied her with a broad hand. “Ssh, we don’t want to wake the clerk.”

  Angel nodded and let him guide her down the last steps outside into the frosty morning air, just in time to see the first rosy blush of dawn peeking above the Rocky Mountains.

  “Why did you fetch me so early?” she grumbled as she rubbed her eyes.

  “I didn’t want you to miss the stage.”

  His hard, quick answer hurt a little, but she waited on the boardwalk while he departed to retrieve her bags from her room. A smug smile teased at Angel’s lips when Holt stormed back outside with an angry accusation.

  “You didn’t pack.”

  “Of course not. I’m staying,” she announced.

  The broad shoulders tightened as he frowned. Then Holt reached into a fringed pocket and withdrew some coins. He grudgingly held them out to her. “Here, then. Fare for the stage.”

  “No, thank you.” Angel knocked his hand aside, and the coins scattered in the dusty street. “I have enough money when — or if — I ever choose to return to Denver. But I’ve been thinking, Mr. Murphy. I’ve decided to stay.”

  By the look on Holt’s face Angel knew she had struck a raw nerve.

  “That’s out of the question,” he growled, rubbing his jaw with the back of his hand.

  She gave him a brilliant, insincere smile. “Impossible is all in the mind, Mr. Murphy. Don’t waste your time trying to talk me out of staying. I’m not some silly-headed southern belle who is scared off so easily by your growls. Don’t think for a minute you’re deceiving me.”

  She saw Holt’s gray eyes darken to the color of thunderclouds. “What do you mean?”

  “Why, it’s obvious as sauce on the goose you’re just trying to get rid of me in order to claim my share of the Lucky Devil.” Much to her satisfaction, Angel saw him redden slightly at her accusation. “Since my father has died I happen to know his half of the mine now belongs to me, and I’m going to claim my share.”

  “Why, you little — ” Holt began, but he fell abruptly silent as the nearby door of the apothecary cracked open an inch.

  Lowering his voice, he hissed at Angel, “I told you I have no patience for games. But if you want to play, sweetheart, just remember … according to your own story, you’re not a McCloud anymore. Anything you own now belongs to your husband.”

  Angel gulped. She’d forgotten that niggling detail. “But you still don’t believe we’re really married,” she added desperately.

  “No, I don’t. But until we can get to a court of law and settle this properly, I choose to operate under the assumption we’re man and wife.” Holt’s silver gaze raked over her figure with slow relish. “Which means I can legally demand my rights.”

  “Your r-rights?” Angel stammered, staring up at him with shocked disbelief as Holt chuckled low in his throat.

  “Precisely, sweetheart. All of which has little to do with the mine.”

  Heaven forbid. Angel hadn’t counted on this at all. While her mind frantically sought for a way out, she kept one eye trained for the stage. Perhaps Holt was only teasing her. Yet the deep warm thread running through his voice told her he wasn’t.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t complain too much if you stayed,” Holt said, reaching out to twine a golden curl, which had escaped her braid, around his callused finger. “It gets mighty cold in the winter up on the mountain, and I could use another body to keep me warm.”

  “Sleep with your horse, then,” Angel said tartly, pointing at the sleepy buckskin hitched to a wagon at the hotel post.

  “I don’t think so,” Holt mused, drawing the tendril of golden hair over his upper lip. “Old Buck smells like horse. You smell like roses.”

  “Don’t touch me.” Angel batted away his hand, gaining a yank on her own scalp for the effort. “I declare, sir, you are the rudest man I have ever met. I wish I had never left Missouri.”

  “So that explains your charming accent, if not your manners,” Holt said dryly. “What town are you from?”

  “Independence.”

  “I should’ve guessed.”

  “I’m serious. I have no intention of leaving until I get my share of the Lucky Devil’s profits. I have to save Belle Montagne.”

  At Holt’s quizzical look, she explained. “It’s the family estate back in Missouri. All that’s left of my heritage now, except for the mine.”

  “Belle Montagne? What kind of a name is that? Sounds like a cheap French wine.”

  Angel sniffed at his remark. “Yes, it’s French. It means ‘beautiful mountain.’ The house is in a little valley, surrounded by rolling green hills and a river. It’s the most beautiful place in the world.”

  Her look dared him to deny it. Holt threw up his hands, uni
mpressed. “Then go back if it’s so wonderful.”

  “I can’t go back, not until I have the money to buy it.”

  As they argued, dawn heralded a slow but increasing activity in Clear Creek, and with an uneasy glance down the street Holt finally sighed and nodded. “All right. You can have your share of the mine, Angel.”

  Shocked, she stared up at him, hardly believing he had capitulated so quickly and easily. “What’s the catch?” she demanded suspiciously.

  “You have to work up at the mine for a month. Not by proxy this time, sweetheart, but with your own lily-white little hands.” He gave her a slow, infuriating smile that burned all the way to her tingling toes. “You can keep whatever you find and I’ll throw in your half when you leave. Take it or leave it.”

  Angel hesitated. “One week.”

  “Three and not a day less.”

  “Two?”

  “Two-and-a-half.”

  “Deal.” She stuck out her hand in a businesslike fashion her father would have approved of, and felt Holt’s fingers close around it, rough and warm. He looked as surprised as she herself felt, but Angel had never shirked hard work or a challenge. This qualified as both.

  “When do we leave?” she asked him cheerfully.

  “Damn.”

  PERCHED SO LADYLIKE UP on the wagon seat, Angel looked like a fancy porcelain doll shipped in from back east. Holt kept his sour thoughts to himself as he tossed her bags in the rear of the buckboard, but he was already fuming and the day wasn’t warm.

  He still couldn’t believe she had accepted his offer. He tried to think of the most repulsive, appalling, compromising scenario to scare her off, and thrown in a rude grope or two for good measure. But instead of clearing out of Clear Creek like any respectable woman, Angel had cleverly negotiated her stay.

  Double damn. Holt glanced up from heaving luggage in the wagon bed and saw a familiar horse and rider making their way down the main road.

  As the man got closer, he waved at them. He didn’t seem to notice Holt’s scowl as he brought his mount up beside the wagon, but he did doff his bowler hat when Angel looked his way.

  “Miss. Holt.”

  Angel saw the other young man’s hair was fair and wavy, combed carefully back over his ears. His sandy lashes were almost invisible and made his pale blue eyes all the more startling. While he wasn’t strikingly handsome in the sense Holt was, he was certainly pleasant-looking. His coat and trousers were black wool, and the unrelieved color made his fairness all the more pronounced. Angel couldn’t imagine who he was or why Holt looked so angry until the other man spoke again.

  “I’m here in Clear Creek on the Lord’s work today, brother. I hope you will offer me succor.”

  “Sorry, Neal, but I’ve been your ‘sucker’ once too often,” Holt retorted as he hurled the last of Angel’s bags into the wagon with a loud thud. He ignored her gasp of outrage for both his comment and the abuse of her bag, and stalked around to the front of the wagon to climb up beside her.

  The other man nudged his horse up beside their wagon. He was closest to Angel, and he smiled as he leaned over and spoke softly to her.

  “You’ll have to forgive my little brother, miss. Sometimes he forgets himself. But the good Lord can work miracles, even with hardened souls like Holt.”

  Angel saw Neal Murphy had a Bible clutched in his free hand. She felt acutely uncomfortable sandwiched between his gentle smile and Holt’s dark scowl. Neal must be the preacher she had heard about, but it had never occurred to her they might be brothers; they looked and acted as different as night and day.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Holt?” Neal pressed. “Surely Father taught you better manners than this.”

  “You leave Arthur out of this,” Holt snapped, but after a taut silence he grudgingly introduced Angel. “Neal, this is my wife.” He appeared to enjoy shocking the other man, and after a long silence he added only the briefest facts. Holt admitted her maiden name was McCloud, which caused a flicker of surprise to cross the preacher’s face.

  “Royce McCloud’s daughter?”

  “Yes. You knew my father?” Angel said eagerly, leaning toward Neal, to her seatmate’s dismay. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a poke bonnet today, and Holt tensed when he saw his brother drinking in her beauty like a parched man.

  “I didn’t know Royce personally, I regret to say, but I’d heard from Father what a fine man he was.” Neal hesitated, seeing Angel’s expression. “Has something happened?”

  “He died,” Angel choked out, pressing a hand to her lips. She blinked and saw Neal’s kindly face swimming through her tears. “It was quite sudden. I’m afraid there was nothing anyone could do.”

  “You have my sincerest condolences.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Belated congratulations on your wedding.” Neal looked as uncomfortable as Angel felt, and it was obvious he could sense something amiss with the couple.

  “Are you two finished?” Holt demanded.

  Startled by the harshness in his voice, Angel merely nodded. She was appalled he would be so rude to his own brother, especially in public. And Neal was a preacher to boot.

  “Where are you headed?” Neal asked Holt.

  “Back to the mine. Not much of a honeymoon, but I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  There was a brief silence while Neal observed Angel’s rosy cheeks and looked as if he toyed with the notion of asking more questions. But eventually, and probably wisely, he decided not to provoke Holt any further and said goodbye.

  As Neal rode off, a somber figure garbed in black, Angel couldn’t resist voicing her displeasure.

  “You are insufferable. If that’s how you treat your family, I certainly got off lucky being a stranger.”

  Holt’s steely gaze swung on her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Just thank your lucky stars, sweetheart, that you’re prettier than Neal. Or believe me, you’d be riding the rail out of town right after him.”

  Angel opened her mouth to speak, then clamped it shut again. Oh, what a despicable man Holt Murphy was. Perhaps she was mad to toy with him and his precious mine. Well, it was too late now.

  The wagon shot forward with a hard jolt, headed out of town. While she clung to the post with a vengeance, Angel set her teeth and her mind to hang on. The Lucky Devil was half hers. She would not give it up, not for a madman or a minister.

  Chapter Three

  “WHAT DO YOU HAVE against Neal?”

  Angel saw Holt’s frown close on the heels of her question. His long callused fingers tightened on the reins, yet he kept his gaze trained fiercely on the twisting, rutted road stretching up the side of the mountain.

  “He’s your brother,” she pressed. “If I’m truly your wife, then I have a right to know.”

  “Nosy woman,” Holt muttered, and spared her an irritated glance.

  “I’m not nosy; I’m curious. I can’t help wondering why you dislike him so much. He seemed perfectly pleasant to me.”

  Holt snorted. “Maybe your blue blood mingles well.” Under the wide brow of the cowboy hat Holt had clamped down hard over his glistening black hair, his features were hidden in shadow. But Angel could sense the thundercloud crossing the high planes of his face, and she steeled herself for the storm.

  Instead, Holt sighed. “If you must know, Neal and I are only half-brothers. We had different mothers. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Of course, it certainly explained the lack of resemblance between the two. But the one-sided animosity? Angel’s silence served as a question.

  Holt reluctantly explained. “Neal’s mother, Virginia, was married to Arthur for fifteen years. Neal was their only child. Virginia died of consumption when I was ten. I remember her funeral.”

  “You remember … but how?” Angel was puzzled.

  “I was there.” Holt’s voice lowered an octave. “Arthur forced me to go out of respect. It was the first time I saw Neal. He’s
just a year older than me.”

  Suddenly Angel understood. She went bright pink, and then flushed a dull red. “B-but you’re a Murphy, too,” she stammered.

  “Oh, Arthur never denied I was his son.” Holt’s voice was barely above a growl now. “I’ll admit it takes a pretty big man to claim a half-breed.” He shrugged. “In his own way I think he loved my mother, Soft Snow. But she could never fit into Arthur’s world, and neither could I.”

  Angel swallowed, feeling guilty over rousing sad memories and Holt’s obvious ire. But she was pleased with herself for discovering Holt was indeed part Indian, as if it might explain the aura of mystery about him.

  He chuckled, throwing her off guard. “You can see why I wasn’t too surprised to think Arthur might have yet a third wife tucked away somewhere.”

  She straightened on the seat beside him. “I have more pride than that.”

  “Do you?” Holt slanted her a silver glance, narrow and mocking. “My father was suave with the ladies in his day, and Neal is his spitting image. Even if he is a holy roller.”

  “Just because your brother has manners doesn’t mean he’s a womanizer.” Angel bristled. “I think you would do well to take lessons from Neal yourself. Obviously he holds nothing against you personally, though he easily could. He has found peace and acceptance in his own way, and now it’s your turn.”

  “How do you expect me to find any peace with you here?” Holt grumbled. He slapped the reins to urge his horse faster, and they ascended the rough road at a brisk pace.

  Angel fell silent, tilting back her face to gaze up at the solitary splendor of Mount Elbert, soaring up into the white clouds. Somewhere up there was her mine, and the fortune necessary to save Belle Montagne. She shivered with the mixed sensations of the crisp, clean breeze blowing across her face, hinting at the winter to come, and the icy silence of the man beside her.

  What had ever possessed her to come to Colorado Territory? It didn’t matter now. She was here, and whether Holt liked it or not, she was going to stay.