Jake Redman didn’t seem to need conversation. He drove in silence, armed with a rifle across his lap, as well as the pistols he carried. There hadn’t been trouble out here in quite some time, but the Indian attack had warned him that that could change.
He’d recognized Strong Wolf in the party that had attacked the stage. If the Apache brave had decided to raid in the area, he would hit the Conway place sooner or later.
They passed no one. They saw only sand and rock and a hawk out hunting.
When he reined the horses in, Sarah saw nothing but a small adobe house and a few bartered sheds on a patch of thirsty land.
“Why are we stopping here?”
Jake jumped down from the wagon. “This is Matt
Conway’s place.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Because it didn’t appear that he was going to come around and assist her, Sarah struggled down herself. “Mr. Redman, I paid you to take me to my father’s home and I expect you to keep the bargain.”
Before she could stop him, he dumped one of her trunks on the ground. “What do.you think you’re doing?” “Delivering your luggage.”
“Don’t you take another piece off that wagon.”
Surprising them both, Sarah grabbed his shirt and pulled him around to face her. “I insist you take me to my father’s house immediately.”
She wasn’t just stupid, Jake thought. She was irritating.
“Fine.” He clipped her around the waist and hauled her over his shoulder.
At first she was too shocked to move. No man had ever touched her before. Now this, this ruffian had his hands all over her. And they were alone. Totally alone. Sarah began to struggle as he pushed open the door of the hut. Before she could draw the breath to scream, he was dropping her to her feet again.
“That good enough for you?”
She stared at him, visions of a hundred calamities that could befall a defenseless woman dancing in her brain. She stepped back, breathing hard, and prayed she could reason with him. “Mr. Redman, I have very little money of my own-hardly enough worth stealing.”
Something came into his eyes that had her breath stopping altogether. He looked more than dangerous now. He looked fatal. “I don’t steal.” The light coming through the low doorway arched around him. She moistened her lips.
“Are you going to kill me?”
He nearly laughed. Instead, he leaned against the wall. Something about her was eating at him. He didn’t know what or why, but he didn’t like it. Not one damn bit.
“Probably not. You want to take a look around?” She just shook her head. “They told me he was buried around back, near the entrance of the mine. I’ll go check on Mart’s horses and water the team.”
When he left, she continued to stare at the empty doorway. This was madness. Did the man expect her to believe her father had lived here, like this? She had letters, dozens of them, telling her about the house he’d been building, the house he’d finished, the house that would be waiting for her when she was old enough to join him.
The mine. If the mine was near, perhaps she could find someone there she could speak with. Taking a cautious look out the doorway, Sarah hurried out and rounded the house.
She passed what might have been the beginnings of a small vegetable garden, withered now in the sun.
There was a shed that served as a stable and an empty paddock made of a few rickety pieces of wood. She walked beyond it to where the ground began to rise with the slope of the mountain.
The entrance to the mine was easily found, though it was hardly more than a hole in the rock wall. Above it was a crudely etched plank of wood.
SARAH’S PRIDE
She felt the tears then. They came in a rush that she had to work hard to hold back. There were no workmen here, no carts shuttling along filled with rock, no picks hacking out gold. She saw it for what it was, the dream of a man who had had little else. Her father had never been a successful prospector or an important landowner. He’d been a man digging in rock and hoping for the big strike.
She saw the grave then. They had buried him only a few yards from the entrance. Someone had been kind enough to fashion a cross and carve his name on it. She knelt and ran her palm along the rubble that covered him.
He’d lied. For twelve years he’d lied to her, telling her stories about rich veins and the mother lode. He’d spun fantasies about a big house with a parlor and fine wooden floors. Had he needed to believe it? When he’d left her he’d made her a promise.
“You’ll have everything your heart desires, my sweet, sweet Sarah. Everything your mother would have wanted for you.”
He had kept his promise-except for one thing. One vital thing. He hadn’t given her himself. All those years, all she’d really wanted had been her father.
He’d lived like this, she thought, in a mud house in the middle of nowhere, so that she could have pretty dresses and new stockings. So that she could learn how to serve tea and waltz. It must have taken nearly everything he’d managed to dig out of the rock to keep her in school back east.
Now he was dead. She could barely remember his face, and he was dead. Lost to her.
“Oh, Papa, didn’t you know how little it mattered?”
Lying across the grave, she let the tears come until she’d wept her heart clean.
She’d been gone a long time. Too long, Jake thought. He was just about to go after her when he saw her coming over the rise from the direction of the old mine. She paused there, looking down at the house her father had lived in for more than a decade. She’d taken off her bonnet, and she was holding it by the ribbons. For a moment she stood like a statue in the airless afternoon, her face marble-pale, her body slim and elegant. Her hair was pinned up, but a few tendrils had escaped to curl around her face. The sun slanted over it so that it glowed richly, reminding him of the hide of a young deer.
Jake blew out the last of the smoke from the cigarette he’d rolled. She was a hell of a sight, silhouetted against the bluff. She made him ache in places he didn’t care to think about. Then she saw him. He could almost see her chin come up as she started down over the rough ground. Yeah, she was a hell of a sight. “Mr. Redman.” The grief was there in her red-rimmed eyes and her pale cheeks, but her voice was strong. “I apologize for the scene I caused earlier.”
That tied his tongue for a moment. The way she said it, they might have been talking over tea in some cozy parlor. “Forget it. You ready to go back?” “I beg your pardon?”
He jerked his thumb toward the wagon. Sarah noted that all her trunks were neatly stacked on it again. “I said, are you ready to go back?”
She glanced down at her hands. Because the palms of her gloves were grimy, she tugged them off. They’d never be the same, she mused. Nothing would. She drew a long, steadying breath.
“I thought you understood me. I’m staying in my father’s house.”
“Don’t be a fool. A woman like you’s got no business out here.”
“Really?” Her eyes hardened. “Be that as it may, I’m not leaving. I’d appreciate it if you’d move my trunks inside.” She breezed by him.
“You won’t last a day.”
She stopped to look over her shoulder. Jake was forced to admit that he’d faced men over the barrel of a gun who’d had less determination in their eyes. “Is that your opinion, Mr. Redman?”
“That’s a fact.”
“Would you care to wager on it?”
“Look, Duchess, this is hard country even if you’re born to it. Heat, snakes, mountain lions-not to mention Apaches.”
“I appreciate you pointing all that out, Mr. Redman.
Now my luggage.”
“Damn fool woman,” he muttered as he strode over to the wagon. “You want to stay out here, hell, it don’t matter to me.” He hefted a trunk into the house while Sarah stood a few feet back with her hands folded. “Your language, Mr. Redman, is quite unnecessary.” He only swore with more skill as he carried in the second trunk. “Nobody’s going to be around when it gets dark and you change your mind.”