“Miss Leiland, I’d as soon have your salt as your butter.”
“Humph!” she snorted, charmed in spite of herself.
“I’ll quit my job, burn down the office, destroy the press. Just promise not to change the perfect prose propounding your pique. Don’t edit one phrase, not one word.”
“Amen!” said the masculine voice that had earlier entreated the Almighty. Venice swung her head around. A young man sat at the table next to them, his chin cupped in his hand, his eyes glazed over, and a beatific, lopsided grin spread across his freckled face.
“Did you say something, young man?” Venice asked.
“Yes’m. I said ‘amen,’” the youth drawled unabashedly. With a dirt-rimmed thumb, he tipped his hat back on his head, revealing a scalp covered by pale hair as fine and short as a newborn kitten’s pelt.
Memories of Slats, his head similarly shorn, flowed from Venice’s memory. He’d looked something like this young man: gangly, loose-limbed, like a piece of taffy that had been pulled too thin—pale and taut.
“And just what were you saying ‘amen’ to, young Farley?” Tim asked indignantly.
“Whatever you was sayin’, if’n what you was urgin’ the lady here to do was to keep on talking. I didn’t understand the half of it, ma’am, but I sure like listening to it. Anythin’ that keeps that high-tone sauce rollin’ outta that pretty mouth of yours gets my vote.”
“Blaine Farley, are you getting fresh with Miss Leiland?” Tim demanded.
Blaine snapped bolt upright in his chair, as though face-kicked by a mule. “No, sir, I am not,” he shot out. “I wouldn’t offend Miss Leiland here for the mother lode. Swear to gawd, I wouldn’t.”
The boy’s distress was so evident, Venice couldn’t help taking pity on him. “And none was taken, Mr. Farley.”
Clearly, she wasn’t going to get any useful information from the editor. At least not today. She rose, brushing crumbs from her skirts. “I hope you will be able to come to my party . . . Mr. Farley”
The young man stumbled to his feet. Tim scrambled to get upright first.
“Good morning to both of you gentlemen,” Venice said. Noting that Tim was attempting to shoulder Blaine aside and Blaine was making some sort of noise that sounded like a snarl, she quickly backed out the door.
Venice grabbed the hitching post in front of Grundy’s Mercantile and clambered off the boardwalk, dropping a full twenty inches to the dust-choked street below. The clomp of sturdy boots drew her eyes up to three women marching determinedly toward her. They didn’t pause, only nodded curtly as they passed.
None of the Convivial Ladies would have a thing to do with her. She’d tried to explain she hadn’t been laughing at them, but at herself, for mistaking her for Katie. She wasn’t so bold as to expect their friendship, but was a mutual regard too much to ask? She’d truly been looking forward to throwing a party for the careworn ladies and the hard-eyed men of this town. Until an anonymous note had arrived at the Gold Dust Emporium stating that proper ladies, no matter what their family’s fortunes, did not consort with “women of ill-repute.” The thought of that poorly worded missive still made her angry.
The Gold Dust Emporium, where she was heading, had the distinction of being the only bona-fide two-story building in town. The original owner, a homesick southern gentleman, had spent his last dram of gold wrapping the entire second floor with a Dixie-style verandah. Venice could see brilliantly dyed feather boas hanging like pennants from the upper railings and sequin-studded garments strewn over the peeling banisters, winking luridly in the brilliant morning light.
As she was about to cross the rut-scarred road, something flew past her ear. Absently, she swatted at it. Bugs were a given in any of the more unpleasant areas of the world—Calcutta, Cairo . . . Salvage. The straw brim of her hat pitched forward over her eyes as one of the demons hurtled into its crown. “Bloody monster,” muttered Venice, readjusting her bonnet. Something thunked solidly into her thickly padded bustle.
That was no bug.
She wheeled around, the motion dislodging a quarter-sized pebble from the folds of her dress, dropping it at her feet. Someone was pegging rocks at her! If it hadn’t been for the bustle, she’d be wearing a bruise on her . . . Eyes narrowing, Venice looked around for her assailant. There was nowhere to hide except behind the huge boulder that marked the northern boundary of the town. Resolutely, Venice stalked its perimeters.
No one was there, but her attention was caught by signs of recent digging. Obvious pickax marks formed a shallow pocket in the rock. Someone had filled in part of the indentation with a crude form of cement: What appeared to be—Venice leaned closer for a better look—a bone stuck out at odd angles from the moist mixture.
Tentatively, Venice extended her fingers toward what looked to be a tiny ribcage and then, as a precaution, drew on a leather glove. Gingerly, she tugged at the object. The mortar dropped in damp, gravelly clumps as she pulled the object free.
Venice shivered. The skeletal portions of two separate species lay in her hand. The body looked like some sort of rodent, but the head was definitely a bird’s, possibly a crow’s. What made it so revolting was that someone had fitted the bird’s head onto the rodent’s body, securing it with a twist of wire threaded through the base of the skull. The wire was all but invisible until you turned the gruesome thing over.
Somewhere in this town lurked some mighty disturbed children. Or perhaps, Venice thought, some perverse cult. The thought raised gooseflesh on her arms.
“Yuk!” She dropped the grizzly little body on the ground and hurried to the Gold Dust Emporium.
High above, their bellies pressed flat to the sheared-off top of the boulder, Anton and Harry Grundy watched the eastern gal drop their “fossil” like it was fresh dog crap and scoot off toward the Gold Dust.
“Well, what the hell do you think got into her?” asked Anton, rising to his knees as the saloon door slammed shut. “Do ya think she bought it?”
Harry’s face twisted into an expression of contempt. He snatched the hat from his head and whacked his baby brother across the face with it.
“Jes’ shut up, Anton!” he hissed, flopping over onto his back and commencing to pick his nose. “I got more thinkin’ to do.”
“Hey, Venice,” Katie mumbled morosely, dragging a straw broom across the floor.
“Miss Jones,” Venice answered politely.
Katie tossed down the broom and wiped the sleeve of her kimono across her eyes, smearing last night’s application of kohl into a muddy band. Plucking a soggy, half-spent cheroot from the sawdust-covered floor, she twirled it consideringly between her fingers, then reached into her pocket for a match and flicked her thumbnail across the head, setting it aflame. Inhaling, she caught Venice’s expression of disgust and shrugged.
Venice’s stomach, already primed on greasy eggs and the smell of stale smoke, rebelled. With a quavery smile, she edged past Katie and hurried upstairs to her room.
The last tenant’s fragrance—an overpowering mixture of frangipani and lilacs—clung to the horsehair fainting couch and permeated the threadbare pile of the red velvet bed curtains. Venice’s stomach lurched.
Pulling open the door to the second-story verandah, she scooted outside. She closed her eyes and took deep, even breaths. Better. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Immediately, she squinted. Facing west, the verandah was dark beneath its overhanging roof, slanting a long early-morning shadow into the field behind the Gold Dust.
The striped tents Venice had ordered for the party were scattered across the meadow. The eye-dazzling sunlight shimmered off their white canopies. A breeze found her, bringing with it the fragrance of the high, pine-rich mountains and ice-cold creeks.
So much beauty, thought Venice, her gaze traveling from the carpet of sweet spring grasses to the gleaming tops of snowcapped mountains. She moved forward. So lovely and tranquil. If only you didn’t have to turn around and confront the loud, stench-riddled, happily squali
d sight of Salvage.
She was approaching the railing when she heard the sound of splashing water. Stopping, she angled backward, moving deeper into the shadows. She wasn’t ready to be ogled by yet another slack-jawed man. Despite her familiarity with such attention, Venice shied away from it.
The splashing continued and after a moment Venice stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of whoever was gurgling, bubbling, and spluttering down below. She slid a foot forward until she could see the corner of a horse trough. Another step forward and she could see a strong, tanned hand holding on to the splintered wooden rim. Half a tread, and she saw a powerful wrist followed by a long, bronzed forearm, tendons stretched and delineated beneath the fine golden skin. A stride and Venice stopped, as though she’d just run full tilt into a blow to her stomach.
There, arms braced on either side of the trough, just about to plunge his head once more into the muddy, grass-flecked water, was the most extravagantly masculine being Venice had ever seen. Teak-hued muscle banded the shallow bed of his spine, rippling and flowing as he leaned his forearms on the trough’s rim. His pose stretched his faded denim trousers low beneath his corrugated flanks, revealing a contrasting strip of pale flesh, testifying to a complexion varnished by years of intense mountain sunlight. He straightened, shaking his head. Long ropes of antique-gold-colored hair flew out, scattering beads of water across his wide, sloping shoulders. The air left Venice’s lungs in a gentle whoosh.
He was a Greek Olympian, a satyr, a pagan deity, and a Christian saint all in one. Casually, he toweled off the glistening water trailing over his muscled chest, a chest as cleanly smooth as burnished metal, just as unyielding and twice as inviting. She’d read about attraction so intense, so spontaneous, as to be frightening. She’d dismissed the accounts as exaggerations. More the fool she. His magnetism was palpable.
The man twisted, looking for something on the ground, and Venice thumped feebly on her breastbone, hoping to induce her lungs to start working again. A tiny hiss of inhaled air had just managed to make its way past the constriction in her throat when the man turned back toward her. He flipped a chambray shirt over the hitching rail and began a leisurely, languorous, and—in Venice’s opinion—absolutely carnal stretch.
Lifting his arms high above his head, he interlocked long, lean fingers, pushing upward, deliberately lengthening the ladder of sleek ribs on first one side and then the other. The tendons and sinews beneath his skin flexed and relaxed, dancing across the flat, washboard belly, rippling through the taut forearms.
There was no way such a physical ideal could contain a mind worthy of it, she thought. Please, don’t ruin it by doing something stupid, Venice silently begged the man. Like talking.
She withstood the sensual onslaught for forty seconds before, with an audible gulp, she inhaled. The man’s arms fell. Instantly, he dropped into a half-crouch, swiveling lightly on the balls of his feet, turning his face upward into the bright morning sun to scan the balcony.
His face was as beautiful as his body. Jaw, cheek, and forehead were cleanly defined and perfectly proportioned. Because he was squinting directly into the morning sun, she couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but his brows were dark and his eyes were shadowed by what had to be thick lashes. His mouth was wide, firmly curved, his upper lid notched directly beneath his only physical imperfection, his nose. Though it was long and elegant, midway down from the high bridge it had been broken, and was now slightly askew. It didn’t matter. His nose only accented the flawlessness of his other features.
“Someone up there?” the man asked.
Venice sighed, a soft sound of pure pleasure. His voice was as perfect as the rest of him, well modulated, a hint of intriguing raspiness coloring the deep timbre.
“Come on, out with you!” he demanded.
Venice tried to speak. An odd liquid sensation flooded her limbs. Her heart, thumping in erratic counterpoint to her breathing, didn’t seem to be working properly. She wondered vaguely if she was having some sort of attack. All she could do was stare, beguiled and bewitched, at the provoked male beneath her.
With a sound of annoyance, the man wrenched the shirt from the rail and started to push an arm through a sleeve. Overwhelmed by the fear that he was going to cover all that wonderful sculptured flesh, Venice, without conscious volition, pursed her lips and let loose a low, clear, absolutely unmistakable whistle of appreciation.
The man’s head snapped up. This time Venice caught the flash of amber-colored eyes as his gaze moved across the verandah, seeking her. An expression of puzzlement replaced his wariness. He punched his other arm through a sleeve. Venice sighed.
“Why do you want to go and do that for?” she said softly, not recognizing the low, throaty drawl as her own, certain she had lost her mind but unable to stop the words from coming. “You’re so . . . so . . . pretty just as you are!”
The words arrested him in mid-motion. He stood still; not a nerve twitched. Slowly, captivatingly, a boyish smile spread across his face. A quiver of pure attraction nearly brought Venice to her knees. With a shrug, the man pulled the shirt off and casually tossed it over the rail. Looking up, he parted his lips. His straight teeth gleamed whitely.
“Lady,” he drawled on a grin, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Chapter 3
The water in the trough, warmed by its few brief hours in the sun, had soothed Noble McCaneaghy’s tired body, sluicing off the topmost layer of grime. But its balm hadn’t even begun to compare to the one provided by the unseen woman on her shadowed balcony. No woman had ever whistled at Noble before. Winked, beckoned—if he was lucky—but never whistled.
It was a little unnerving to be the recipient of such a bold advance. For a second, the specter of his Irish Catholic mother stood stolidly aghast at such brazenness. Without much of a second thought, Noble banished her spirit back to Schenectady and her third, and hopefully last, husband.
Hell, Noble thought, grinning up at the dark form on the balcony, maybe I don’t look as awful as I feel. The thought made his smile stretch wider. He had raced down out of the mountains determined to arrive back in Salvage in time to send his report on to Washington via the spur line. Now the throaty whispered approval of the unseen, fallen angel above him was going some way toward making up for that godawful trip.
The way he saw it he had two choices: stand here basking in the open admiration of a soiled dove with enough expertise in matters of masculine desirability to make any man’s head swell with conceit, or drag his sorry rump around Salvage looking for a gallon of axle grease and a cake of lye to burn, blister, and delouse his hide. It really wasn’t much of a choice at all and he made it the moment the woman called him pretty.
Noble knew she was a whore; after all, she was in a whorehouse. Yet, there was something so inexplicably ingenuous, and at the same time so unexpectedly sensual, about that simple whistle. And her voice, bless her heart, sounded as wholesome and unsophisticated as any girl sighing over her first crush.
What did it matter that it was all a show? She made him feel as young and guileless as Blaine Farley. And he hadn’t felt that young in a long, long time.
What the hell, Noble thought, enjoying the game.
He lifted his right arm, making a fist. His biceps bulged creditably. Frowning in concentration, Noble clenched his fist tighter, willing the muscle to more impressive proportions. He was rewarded by a fluttery, utterly feminine gasp from above. One corner of his mouth lifted, a deep dimple scoring his lean cheek.
Throwing himself into the unaccustomed role, Noble raised his other arm and, taking a deep breath, pumped both arms simultaneously. His biceps swelled into hard, prominent ellipses. Noble, who’d never displayed himself like this before, took a covert glance at his arms. His dark brows rose in surprise. Not bad for a rangy, weather-beaten ex-soldier. He was even a mite impressed himself. Not bad at all. As if in agreement, the woman sighed again with satisfaction.
“You look just like a statue
in a museum!”
What a crock, Noble thought, amused. Where had this kid come up with a line like that? Chances were she wouldn’t know a museum if she walked into one. But her voice was so convincingly awe-filled he couldn’t help but smile.
“Sure, honey, a gol-durn Michelangelo, right?”
“Oh, yes!”
His swagger was short-lived. A sudden cramp drilled through the quivering muscle of his right arm. With a grimace, Noble dropped it, shaking the charley horse out as he searched his memory for more ways to amuse the little lady.
The only strong man Noble had ever seen had been a Romanian in a traveling medicine show. The bald-headed giant had gone through all sorts of contortions and displays of strength as the spielman toted the benefits of Kickapoo Indian Elixir of Manly Principles.
Noble wasn’t about to start bending metal rods in his teeth, but he thought he could remember enough to keep his audience entertained. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and, praying that something would happen, pushed his palms together.
Something happened.
His pectoral muscles leaped into sharp, dramatic relief, corded veins throbbed into life, snaking in thick ropes over his upper torso. Up above him, the lady’s sigh turned to a moan.
Feeling the muscles in his back burn with his effort, Noble turned around, fervently hoping his back was worth looking at. Apparently it was.
“Oh my God, have mercy!” It was a whisper so rife with promise Noble’s concern in keeping the lady entertained took an immediate and decidedly different bent.
“What do you say, darlin’? Should we play a different sorta game?”
“Different?” she asked wonderingly. “You mean there’s more?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I can come up with something.”
“Then yes, I’d like that.”
“Honey,” Nobel chuckled. “I haven’t any clue where you learned to sigh like that, but you could make a fortune on stage in Chicago.”
Connie Brockway Page 3