Silken Thunder

by Fayrene Preston

  He jerked his head away. “Cally!”

  She started down the path. The rain had let up, and the moon had come out, providing some light. She’d been down this ledge path and across the meadow several times now, although never at night and never with the ground as slippery as it was now.

  She slipped and fell, rocks biting into her hands. Her leg dangled over the edge. She was close to the same place where earlier in the day her rifle had slid off the ledge, fallen some twenty feet, and bounced off a rock before coming to rest in the grass. Now the same thing had nearly happened to her.

  Cold horror held her in its grip. If she’d fallen, Sloan would have been left defenseless. She’d bound his hands and feet for his own protection, but if something happened to her, he would be totally vulnerable to the savagery of the elements and wild animals. And, perhaps even worse, to Dan Cummings.

  Sloan’s death would be a certainty.

  For the first time in her life she realized that she was in a position where she couldn’t be careless with herself. She was the only chance Sloan had, and he was completely dependent upon her.

  She pulled her leg back up and got slowly to her feet. Brushing her sore, bleeding hands down the sides of her riding skirt, she started out again, this time taking extra precautions to make sure that she had firm footing.

  Even so, she had trouble. The darkness, her weariness, and her intense concern about Sloan were combining against her. She’d always taken her physical grace for granted, but now she had to concentrate.

  Upon returning, she emptied a portion of one of the canteens into a pan and set it over the fire. She wanted to bathe her hands and the new wound on his head. While she waited for the water to heat, she listened carefully to Sloan’s muttered ravings. He kept talking about the woman named Cally. Who was she, Brianne wondered. She’d known that Sloan would have had many women before her. But this woman had obviously been important enough in his life that even held tightly in the grip of a raging fever, he called out to her.

  When it came right down to it, what did she know about his life before she’d met him? That during the Civil War he’d been a blockade runner. That he was a successful financier. That he lived in New York City but had been raised in East Texas. And that he’d come to Chango to seek vengeance against Wes McCord for his brother, David’s, death fifteen years earlier.

  He’d never mentioned a woman to her, and, she realized with a sinking heart, it wasn’t impossible that he was married.

  She’d fallen in love with him. Given her virginity to him. Risked her life to save his. But she was just beginning to understand that in many ways he remained a closed book to her. Just after meeting Sloan she had told her brother Patrick that she thought the stranger was a very dark and dangerous man. He’d certainly turned out to be those things and more. Complex was now the word that came to mind. She didn’t know him at all.

  Brianne took the pot from the fire, cut a large piece of material off the other leg of her pantalets, and made her way over to Sloan. Hampered though he was by the ropes, he was still tossing and turning, restless in his fever.

  The tenuous control she held over her emotions nearly shattered when she saw that his wrists had been rubbed raw from his efforts to break free. He was panicked and afraid, and as much as she loved him, and as hard as she was trying to help him, she couldn’t even reach him to quiet his instinctive fears.

  She cleaned the wound on the side of his head, then opened his shirt. The bruises he’d received from the vicious beating had darkened since the last time she’d checked. Large, ugly discolorations covered nearly every square inch of his chest. In a few places the skin was puffy and broken, and she could see the start of what appeared to be infection. In the firelight the bruises looked almost black.

  She gently sponged his face, arms, and chest de- spite his ceaseless attempts to flinch away from her touch. She knew she was hurting him, but it was vital that his fever be brought down. She silently wept as she confronted anew the brutal evidence of how badly his body had been damaged. And she was seeing only what was on the surface. God only knew what was going on inside him. He could be bleeding.

  She had no idea how long she worked over him. When one arm would become tired, she’d change to the other. At one point she stripped off his trousers and washed down his legs. Several times she managed to get some moisture into his mouth by squeezing the rag against his lips.

  She ignored the ache in her back, and the muscle spasms that threatened her arms. She drove her own pain and weariness from her mind and continued in her efforts to cool his fever.

  “Oh, God, I murdered him. I murdered him.”

  She had her back turned to Sloan and was adding more wood to the fire when she heard him scream. She whirled and ran back to him. “Sloan, what’s wrong?”

  “I murdered him.” His voice was thick and hoarse.

  “Wake up, Sloan. Wake up.”

  He mumbled something, but she couldn’t quite make it out. Then he opened his eyes and looked straight at her. “That was a … hell of a … ride we had.”

  Gratitude without measure washed over her. “Thank God. You’re going to be all right.”

  “I think that property by the river is a good investment,” he said very clearly.

  She slumped, crestfallen. For one brief moment he’d been with her. Now he was gone again, and it scared the hell out of her.

  “Untie me, dammit.”

  “Sloan, I can’t.” The anguish in his voice nearly broke her heart in two. She took him into her arms and held him, rocking him back and forth in an agony of tenderness. “Just be still,” she murmured. “Just be still.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  His words were spoken tenderly, but this time she didn’t make the mistake of thinking that he was speaking to her. Somehow she knew he was talking to someone else. She kissed his cheek. His skin was so dry it felt like tissue paper to her lips. But was it any cooler? She couldn’t tell. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

  “I hurt, Mama.”

  He thought she was his mother, but she was past caring that he didn't recognize her. She’d do anything, be anyone who would bring him comfort. She held him closer and began crooning him an Irish lullaby that Malvina had sung to her many times.

  “I wish I could see you,” he said. “I'm so lonely.”

  She understood, she thought. Since Sunday she’d learned all about loneliness. How it could weaken your spirit, how it could gradually gnaw away at your soul, and how it could make you feel as if you’d been forsaken. But feeling sorry for herself would serve no purpose. She continued her lullaby, singing in a soft, broken voice until he drifted off again.

  Then, holding his heated body to her breast, she leaned back against the cold, clammy rock wall of the cave and stared out into the darkness. Layers of everything she had thought she was — her strength, her talents, her self-assurance — felt as if they were peeling away, leaving her raw and unprotected.

  She had always been sure that she had the ability to do almost anything. Now she was realizing that there was something she couldn’t beat. Death. And oh, dear God, she could feel it drawing closer and closer.

  Chapter 2

  Wes McCord stared grimly at the desolate, blackened ruins of what only two days earlier had been the heart of his scheme for achieving his dream of immeasurable wealth and power. His tent city … the place where he’d marshaled men and supplies for the railroad he was going to bring through Chango.

  He’d gotten his financing. He’d put men and supplies in place. He’d worked damned hard. And now this.

  His gray eyes scanned the devastation around him. More had been destroyed than Dutch had originally reported to him. All the tents were gone, and most of the supplies and building materials too.

  The fire had proved costly in terms of both money and time. The people in Washington weren’t going to be happy about this delay in starting the railroad line. They might even withdraw the grant money and
award the contract to someone else.

  Cold fear twisted slowly in his gut. He couldn’t allow his project to fail. He was not going to lose everything he’d worked for.

  Absorbed as he was in his thoughts, the sound of hooves and the squeak of leather behind him came as a surprise. He whirled to see Dutch. He pinned the muscular younger man with a hard stare and barked a question. “Has Cummings found Lassiter and that Delaney woman?”

  Deciding not to dismount, Dutch merely shook his head. He didn’t need a closer look to tell him that McCord was in a dangerous, black mood. “Seems that girl’s pretty good at losing people.”

  “Dammit, she’s got an injured man with her. It can’t be that difficult. You go back and tell him to find those two people.”

  “It’s gonna be kinda hard to find Cummings again.” “Don’t give me that bullshit.”

  Tossing up his head, the horse shied at the hard, angry voice and took a couple of dancing steps. Dutch got the horse back under control and leveled a look at McCord. “It’s just that Cummings is movin’ awful fast. He’s not even givin’ the men with him a chance to rest.”

  “No one rests until those two are found and I’ve got my ledger back. No one. Understand?”

  Dutch straightened in the saddle. “Yes, sir, Mr. McCord.”

  “Round up some men and ride out again. Split up if you need to. But track down Cummings. I want constant reports as to what’s happening.”

  “Yes, sir.” He reined his horse around and headed off into the gathering darkness. He was caught between two madmen — Cummings and McCord — and it wasn’t a safe place to be. If that ledger wasn’t found soon, Dutch reflected, he just might ride out one of these days and not come back.

  Wes turned back to view what was left of the tent city. Ruination and disorder were everywhere he looked, and he couldn’t shake the terrifying feeling that perhaps it was an omen.

  When I find you, Sloan, you’re going to pay for what you've done.

  Before Sloan had come to town, he’d had everything arranged just as he wanted. Anna. The railroad. All the money and power he’d ever wanted within easy grasp. Now he could feel control slipping away from him.

  Dark memories were crowding in on him, and suddenly he wasn’t standing in the middle of a burnt- out tent city. He was a little boy in a Nevada mining camp, his stomach empty and cramping with hunger, his thin body shivering with cold.

  His hands flew up and clenched his skull with a viselike grip. He had to push the specter of that little boy out of his mind. Never again would he allow himself to be so hungry … for anything.

  Wild with emotion, he spun around. “You,” he barked at a cowhand who was passing, “bring me my horse.”

  He rode the horse flat out, mercilessly whipping it to ever greater speed. By the time he got to Chango, it was late. His horse was lathered and blowing hard, froth dripping from its mouth.

  Wes reined in so hard and fast at the stables that the horse lunged back on its haunches. He leapt off and threw the reins to the stableboy.

  Without looking back he headed through the dark streets to Nilsen's Emporium. On an ordinary night quiet would have settled over the town by this time. But this evening Wes saw signs of distinct unrest. Men still milled about, or stood in groups of twos and threes, speaking in hushed tones. And when they saw him, their heads lifted and their gazes followed him. It was obvious that everyone in town had heard about the goings-on out at the tent city, and they were speculating about events, though no one dared approach him with the questions they’d come up with over long hours of gossip.

  He turned into a side street that would take him around to the back of the emporium. By now the townspeople would have figured out that the fire was going to cause delays and other problems for the railroad. Everyone would be affected in some way. Suddenly their prospects for the future didn’t seem so bright; their pleasant lives, full of promise of even more prosperity, might not be so pleasant for a while.

  A thin smile touched Wes’s lips. He’d never known a pleasant day in his life. Fear and restlessness constantly pushed him, giving him little rest. Usually he was able to keep a check on the turmoil that churned so violently inside him, concealing the traits that would betray it. But he’d had two days to ponder the consequences of the fire and the possibility that he wouldn’t get the ledger back. Two days for frustration and fury to work its corrosive way into his soul.

  He stopped beneath the second story window of Anna’s bedroom and looked up. Christ. How many times had he stood there when the demons that drove him wouldn’t allow him to sleep? At those times he’d done nothing more than stare at the window like a calf-sick boy.

  Well, by God, he was going to do more than that tonight. He hurled a spray of pebbles at the window.

  When Anna heard the pebbles hit the window, she jerked upright in bed.

  What on earth?

  She threw back the covers and hurried over to the window. Although she’d retired sometime earlier, she hadn’t been able to sleep, and the flame in the lamp beside her bed still burned brightly. But when she looked out and saw Wesley, she wondered if she might be dreaming. He’d never done anything like this before.

  Taking pains to be quiet, she eased up the window and stuck her head out. “What is it?” she called in a whisper.

  “Come down here,” he said, making no effort to lower his voice.

  “Shhh. Are you mad? Papa's just in the next room. He’ll hear — ”

  “I don’t give a damn. If you don’t come down, I’m coming in after you.”

  Anna wasted no more time trying to reason with him. She could see it would do no good. He was in some wild, strange mood that she didn’t recognize. She closed the window and left her room on the fly. Alarm beat in her heart as her bare feet skimmed across the floor of her room and down the plank stairs to the storeroom of the emporium. Why had Wesley come here, risking discovery like this? She’d never seen him drunk, but she’d heard what had happened out at the tent city. She supposed it was possible that he might have turned to whiskey. Even so. He should never have come. …

  Reaching the back door, she quickly grasped the knob, turned, then pulled.

  And Wesley was there.

  She hardly had a chance to take in his dusty, disheveled appearance before he was shoving her back against the doorjamb and crushing his mouth down on hers. Unprepared for his assault, she knew a thrill of sheer pleasure.

  There was no taste of whiskey in his mouth, but rather the familiar hot sweetness she always tasted when he kissed her. Every part of her body that could feel was telling her to cling, but the thought that they were standing in the back doorway of the store where her father or even a passerby might see them made her recover quickly.

  Twisting and pushing against him until she gained some space, she gasped out, “What are you doing?”

  He laughed softly, but there was something she’d never seen before burning in his pale gray eyes. “I thought it would be obvious. I didn’t have you last night. I want you now.”

  “I went to your house as usual,” she whispered fiercely. “You weren’t there.”

  He pressed into her again, and the thin lawn gown she was wearing proved no shield against either the rough wood of the door frame or him.

  “You sound upset,” he said, his voice a mocking growl. “Did you miss me?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I missed you. God, how I missed you.”

  Frantically she pushed against him. “Wesley, I don’t know if Papa is asleep yet or not. And even if he is, he could wake up at any time.”

  “Then let's get away from here.” He moved suddenly, grabbing her arm and pulling her outside and away from the emporium.

  For a moment she was too stunned to resist, her mind slow to follow his actions. He was a different man tonight from the one she’d come to know, and it frightened her. It was as if all civilized restraints had dropped away from him and left his nerves exposed and his emo
tions raw.

  “Wesley, wait a minute. I don’t understand. Where are you taking me? This isn’t the way to your house.” His long strides never faltered as he dragged her along with him, away from the town, and into the woods that rimmed one side of Chango. “It would take too much time to get to my house,” he muttered.

  Her blood congealed as she realized that, too impatient to take her to his bed, he planned to have her in the woods like some rutting animal. The idea horrified and disgusted her. “No!” She wrenched away from him and took off, running back toward the town. Darkness enveloped her, the branches of the trees tore at her gown and painfully snagged her long pale hair. Her foot came down on something sharp, and she stumbled. Too quickly, then, she was caught up in his arms.

  Moonlight shaded the hard, hungry look on his face, giving him a formidable, virile, and unconquerable air. To her despair, she felt fear and excitement whip through her.

  “You’re mine, Anna. Don’t ever forget that. And when I want you, I’ll take you.” He turned on his heel and strode off with her toward the heart of the woods.

  She beat her fists against his chest, but he was holding her so close her efforts were futile. “This isn’t part of our deal. We’re not supposed to be together tonight.”

  His laugh might have scared away wild animals, she thought, for it was cold and menacing.

  “New rules, Anna.”

  “That’s not fair,” she cried out.

  “You expected fairness from me?” he asked as he broke free of the woods and advanced into a glade.

  Clouds passed across the moon. Silver light shone, disappeared, then reappeared moments later. There was hardly a break in his movements as he laid her on the ground and came down on top of her.

  She didn't have an opportunity to draw a breath before his mouth was claiming hers with a fierceness that shocked her to her toes. It was as if a blind, hungry need held him in its grip, and nothing she could do would stop him from taking her. But she tried. Oh, how she tried.