The Lady and the Robber Baron Read online

  “It’s not. We got a bill for steel rails today. If we pay it right away, we’re going to be short what we need for payroll next payday. I’m encouraging men to sign up for the land exchange, but some of them have to have the money. I’ve been meeting with the men ahead of time to get an idea of how many need to be paid cash. It’s not as good as we’d hoped.”

  Chane scowled. “If we don’t pay the steel bill, there’s a good possibility the rails will stop coming, or, worse yet, the rolling plant could fold. Can we make a partial payment?”

  “I’m sure he’d prefer that to no payment at all.”

  “If we have any luck, Lance is on his way.”

  Steve was miserable. He didn’t feel like eating. He let Chane go to dinner without him. A noise at the door caused him to look that way. Marianne leaned against the doorjamb with a plate of something in her hand, a smile lighting up her eyes. The sight of her produced an unaccountable rush of feeling in him.

  “Everyone else is down at the mess cars eating. You work too hard,” she said.

  Steve leaned back and dragged in a breath to uncramp his tired muscles. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I brought you some blueberry pie. It’s the first one I ever made, and Mrs. Kincaid says it’s wonderful.” Marianne fairly beamed with pride.

  Her proud smile caused a slight discomfort around his heart that he didn’t know what to do about. Her soft brown hair was loose, blowing gently against her cheek with the evening breezes that came off the river. He’d never seen her looking prettier.

  “How come you’re not eating?” he countered.

  Marianne shrugged. “I don’t know. How come you haven’t come to see me?”

  “Work.”

  “You used to work and still come see me,” she reminded him.

  “I thought you had a beau.”

  The pride and happiness disappeared as if they’d never been there. Her face took on a pinched look of such misery, Steve was sorry he’d brought it up. He couldn’t imagine why a woman would keep seeing a man who caused her such discomfort.

  “Is that why you haven’t talked to me? Because of Jason following me around? He doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “I’d hate to see how it’d look if he did.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “You don’t need to explain to me. What you do with Jason is your business.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Don’t be mean to me, Steve. I hate it when you get mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Yes, you are. You know you are.” She paused. “Walk with me? Please?”

  Steve knew he shouldn’t, but he had missed her. “All right.”

  They walked south alongside the Santa Fe Trail toward the railhead. A hundred feet ahead the roadbed had been cleared and filled with gravel. The task would have been easier if they could just run the railroad down the middle of the Santa Fe Trail, but it was in daily use.

  “I’d have bet money you couldn’t put a railroad through this brush country,” she said.

  “You’d have counted without a thousand stubborn Chinamen.”

  “They don’t look like they’d be good for anything at all, do they?”

  Steve laughed. Marianne leaned against him for a moment, then turned and put her arms around his waist. She felt so good and warm and soft that his mind went blank. She reached up and touched his lips. Then she went up on tiptoe and kissed him. She led him into the thick bushes beside the cleared roadbed and pulled him down beside her. He knelt over her for a moment, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. Her skin was so soft and sweet under his fingers.

  “Why did you stay away so long?” she asked, caressing his cheek with warm fingers.

  “It’s a waste of time to court a woman who’s making eyes at another man.”

  “Is that what was wrong with you?” She frowned up at him. “I wasn’t making eyes at Jason, nor he at me. Besides, his eyes give me the shakes.”

  “They do?”

  “Sure, and that’s not all. The very idea of him gives me the shakes. I really think he hangs around me because of Mrs. Kincaid. I think he’s got eyes for her. It’s not me,” she said with certainty.

  Steve chuckled his relief. “Glad to hear that.” He was surprised by how much he meant it. A heavy weight that had been pressing on his heart seemed to lift.

  Marianne shuddered with the memory of how miserable she’d been without him. She’d thought up all sorts of reasons why he didn’t like her anymore. It was such a relief to find out he’d been jealous. She reached up, pulled his head down, and kissed him.

  He kissed her back, and she realized how close she’d come to losing him.

  “I love you, Steve Hammond.”

  He hugged her hard. “I love you, too.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Sure, and I guess I do now.”

  Marianne giggled. “Sure, and you’re making fun of me.”

  “Sure, and I wouldna’ be doing that,” he teased.

  She was so happy she thought she would burst. He kissed her with heat and hunger, and she surrendered completely to his lovemaking, which quickened so many feelings in her, such darkness and sweetness and fire, that she wanted it to go on and on.

  Jennifer woke to the strident cock-a-doodle-doo of the camp’s loudest rooster. She had half a mind to tell Cooky to use that rooster next. The sky looked blue from horizon to horizon as far as she could see, but waking up made her feel cranky. She turned over and buried her face in the pillow.

  Chane was already gone. She must have overslept. Usually she heard him dressing while Cooky and Marianne rattled pots and pans cooking breakfast.

  The outside door opened and closed. She thought she recognized his footsteps. Someone knocked softly on the door to her sleeping compartment. “Are you awake and decent?” Chane asked softly.

  “Yes.” Holding the blanket around her, she sat up.

  Chane stepped into the compartment and stopped beside the armoire that faced into the room. His black hair had fallen over his forehead. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing strong, brown forearms covered with crisp black hairs. He looked handsome and solemn this morning. One hand was behind his back.

  “What do you have?”

  “I found a rose.”

  It was small and wet and pitiful. Several of the petals were missing and the green stem was bent and thorny. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, taking it gingerly from his hand. Her heart pounded against her throat and seemed to swell there.

  “I doubt you’d have given that scrawny little bud a moment’s notice last year.” He had to clear the unaccustomed huskiness out of his throat. “After all, you’re used to getting two or three dozen bundles of long-stemmed roses onstage every night.”

  Jennifer laughed. “I’d forgotten that.”

  Her life as a ballerina seemed only a dim memory. She searched his face. He seemed different somehow. More open to her. His eyes so intent on hers, so burning, his lips so grimly set, as if he were holding himself back from saying something to her, caused her heart to pound.

  This one tiny rose seemed more wonderful than any dozens of roses in the past, because she’d earned this one. It had taken her months. She had suffered more than the whole rest of her life, but she had earned it with her own sweat and determination. She would keep this rose forever. Now she understood why women pressed flowers. If she lived to be a thousand years old, this would be the most special flower she would ever get. Part of her saw it as hopeful that he had given her the flower, and part of her saw it as the end of hope, his way of saying, “I’ll never love you again, but I appreciate you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  They reached El Moro on the last day of April. They submitted to the usual festivities, then work resumed. Jennifer followed the track layers, but Chane stayed behind to build stations, switchyards, and institute freight and passenger service. At every station, Chane’s plans called for between five and six sets of tracks to facilit
ate switching and assembling trains. That took days to build. And the time away from his wife was both agony and ecstasy. He missed her, but he was grateful for the respite from seeing her and all the confusing emotions she aroused in him.

  The first day of May, a telegram came from Lance saying he had finally raised the money they needed. Chane appreciated how difficult it had been to bring together $300,000 in a small town like Phoenix. In New York it could be done in ten or fifteen minutes with interbank transfers. In the Arizona Territory, it meant actually gathering the money and transporting it.

  Lance’s telegram said he was leaving immediately. By a combination of train, stagecoach, and horseback, he expected to reach them in five days.

  “What’s he like, your brother?” Jennifer asked.

  Chane shrugged. “He’s big and good-looking, the kind women can’t seem to resist.”

  Jennifer smiled. “He looks like you, then.”

  “Not really. He takes after Mother. And he’s the black sheep in the family. Everyone went into business except him. He became a Ranger…”

  “I thought you were a Ranger, too.”

  “I was, but I got over it. Lance didn’t.”

  “You don’t like him…”

  Chane scowled. “I love him; he’s my brother.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “I know he’s your brother, but I saw a flash of something…”

  “No one’s perfect.”

  “It goes deeper than a little imperfection. I sensed something when you mentioned your brother.”

  Chane expelled a frustrated breath. “I can’t hide anything from you, can I? I might as well tell you the truth. Then if you make the wrong decision, it will be on your head. You couldn’t claim ignorance.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Colette?”

  “How did you know about Colette?”

  “You told me, remember?”

  Frowning, he shook his head. “Six years ago Lance was in love with a woman who was set on by three men, who raped her and beat her. She managed to get back to Lance’s apartment and died in his arms. Lance tracked down two of the men and killed them with his bare hands.”

  “What was her name?” Jennifer asked.

  “Lucinda. We were both in Paris about six months after Lucinda was killed. And that’s where Colette, my fiancée, fell in love with Lance.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Not on purpose. Neither of them knew the other had any connection to me. From what Colette told me later, she’d seen Lance on the street, flirted with him, and he followed her back to the dress shop where she worked. I guess one thing led to another. One day he drove up to the dress shop in a carriage, took her by the hand, and led her off. Three days later he returned her.” He glanced at Jennifer.

  Chane had left out a lot, but Jennifer sensed the passion and obsession that must have led to that bizarre behavior. A chill tingled along her spine. Chane watched her closely, as if her response were extremely important. As if she would be judged harshly on it.

  “Later, much later, Colette admitted to me that those three days were the wildest, most satisfying experience of her life. She never fully got over it.”

  Jennifer didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, Chane didn’t seem to need a response. “She said all Lance had to do was appear, and she’d start to tremble. To his credit—I heard this from friends—he never pursued her. He never courted her. Just every now and again he’d get the urge, appear out of nowhere, and whisk her off for two or three days. She lived for it. She was obsessed by him.”

  “Did Lance find out she was your fiancée?”

  “No. She finally put two and two together and told him.”

  “What did Lance do?”

  “He left Paris immediately. And as far as I know, he never went back. Lance was always a little hotheaded, but he had the good grace to be mortified at what he’d done.”

  “Did you ever talk to him about it?”

  “No.”

  “Something that important between brothers?”

  “Well, he did say once that he was sorry.”

  “Did you accept his apology?”

  The look in his eyes told her he hadn’t. “Of course. He’s my brother,” he said grimly.

  Either he’d just lied to her, Jennie thought, or he had no idea he hadn’t forgiven his brother. “Why did she tell you all this? Didn’t she know it would hurt you?”

  “She didn’t do it to hurt me. After it came out, we talked. I think she told me because she needed someone to share it with. The experience had left her shaken. There was no one else she could discuss it with. I was her friend.”

  Jennifer puzzled over it for a moment. “It seems odd she didn’t know immediately who he was. He had to have told her his name.”

  “No. He didn’t. That was part of the mystery that hooked her into it. He didn’t tell her his name, and he wouldn’t let her tell him hers.”

  “How odd.” She searched Chane’s eyes for some clue. “Well, I’m curious now to meet your brother.”

  “Curious?” he asked skeptically. “Or intrigued?”

  Jennifer shrugged.

  “Be warned. I’m less forgiving now than I was then.”

  “What a dreadful thought,” she said, meaning it. The meeting with Lance might reveal even more about her stubborn husband than about his brother.

  Jason Fletcher leaned back in his chair and grinned. The money was on its way from Arizona. He had worked out a plan for taking it. He turned the plan over in his mind, looked at it from every angle—it still looked good. They would take the payroll and the woman. She would assure their safe passage to Mexico. Once alone with her, he would be free to do what he needed to do to her. And he’d have all the money he’d ever need. After a while in Mexico, he could give up this life and go back to Georgia, maybe become a gentleman planter. Hell, he could do anything he damn well wanted.

  A late blizzard roared out of the Rockies and stopped all traffic for days. Jim Patrick came into camp and huddled in one of the sleeping cars with the laborers. When the blizzard dwindled away, some sheep had to be cut loose from the ground again, but a lot of the young man’s sheep got lost, and he either didn’t go after them or couldn’t find them. Jennifer felt disappointed in him, because she wanted him to track them down and keep them safe. The herd seemed to be dwindling instead of growing, as it had in the early spring.

  Lance was overdue because of the bad weather. He was supposed to have telegraphed them from the halfway point on the third and hadn’t. Chane was worried about him.

  May fifth found them at the base of the Raton Mountains. May tenth was the next payday, and they were broke already. Jennifer had ordered enough supplies to get them to the Pass. They’d have to worry about going farther if they made it that far. She’d learned to fight one battle at a time with their suppliers. So far she’d managed to keep their suppliers from knowing about their financial problems.

  Track laying slowed almost to a halt in the rough canyon country. It took days to cut even a narrow path through the rocky, brushy slopes and valleys. The sound of dynamite was commonplace now.

  Jennifer’s foot appeared completely healed. She could wear shoes or boots again. Campbell had declared her recovered. “You’d do anything to make a liar out of me, wouldn’t you?” he’d said, grinning ruefully.

  The days were warm now, but that high up the nights were still frosty. On the sixth Jennifer rode the handcar back to El Moro with Tom, Steve, and Marianne. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing to do, because the work train had left without them.

  It was hotter and more uncomfortable than they’d expected. About halfway, they stopped to rest and find water. Walking along the creek, Jennifer suddenly realized that she and Tom were alone. Only the sounds of birds overhead greeted her ears as she stopped to listen for the sounds of Steve and Marianne.

  “We’ve wandered away from
our party,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. Tom had the power to make her dizzy, even from a distance. She was no longer sure whether it was because she was so needy or he was so attractive.

  “Have we?” he asked, his voice husky.

  The look in his eyes told her it had not been an accident. She thought he would say more, but instead he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Jennifer was so startled that at first she didn’t respond, but slowly, under the force of his kiss, she felt her body coming alive. His lips were hot and hungry, as if he had been half starved to touch her. She didn’t know whether it was his ardor or her own answering ardor, but suddenly she felt a heavy, unwanted throbbing in her belly.

  The kiss ended, and he held her close, trembling with the force of his emotion. “I love you, Jennifer. Oh, God, I can’t even tell you how much I love you. I want you so much,” he whispered.

  Jennifer burned with need. Enclosed in the circle of his arms, she wanted him, too. Her body trembled with hunger, and it didn’t matter that it hungered for Chane. Tom would do. Perhaps anyone would do. In a daze of desire, she considered his request. It felt so good to be held and kissed and wanted.

  “Please, Jennie,” Tom whispered. After months of being rejected by Chane, it was a satisfying, heady experience to know that she affected a man so powerfully. She was sorely tempted to accept the comfort he offered. Her mind and body urged her to give in. Tom was tender, loving, and attractive. She enjoyed his company. Chane might never relent. Part of her was tired of the struggle; part of her wanted to give up and just say yes to Tom.

  But deep inside she could feel the resistance of her soul, where hope still lived. That part of her wanted to hold out. That part of her believed that she could soften Chane, reawaken the love he’d once had for her. She had no idea if that were true or only a delusion that she was too stubborn to recognize, but it didn’t matter. She wanted Chane. She loved Chane. Her body might settle for Tom, but her heart and soul longed for Chane alone.

  Her mind flayed her, reminding her that she might lose Tom and not get Chane either, but even that fear didn’t matter. Her love for Chane was too strong. Win or lose, she had to stay and fight for what she wanted to the bitter end.