Elizabeth Lane (22 page)

“He’ll know.” Sarah sagged against a cabinet, her legs gone limp beneath her, as the half-breed glided out of the room. She had to be strong, she reminded herself. She could not rest until the children were safe.

Donovan entered the kitchen, rubbing the circulation into his wrists. Sarah’s throat went hard as their eyes met across the table. She saw the fear, the soul-chilling anger in his face. Couldn’t he see through her mask? Didn’t he understand what she was trying to do?

Maybe she had played her part too well.

Breaking away from his painful gaze, she glanced down at Dooley. “Hold him,” she said in a flat voice. “Don’t let that leg move until I’m finished.”

Donovan nodded curtly. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Sarah picked up the forceps. “Now!”

Donovan’s weight braced Dooley’s chest and legs as the probing began. She could feel the shock of pain that surged through the big man’s body, but he bit hard on the leather-sheathed knife and did not cry out.

Perspiration trickled down Sarah’s face as she dug for the bullet. It was deep, too deep for the smaller forceps to reach. Frustrated, she abandoned them for the larger pair. Dooley’s rancid sweat smell made her stomach lurch. She was aware of Cherokee, leaning against a cabinet with the pistol cocked in his hand, waiting like a coiled rattler for the first excuse to strike.

Her head brushed Donovan’s arm as she labored over the wound. She could feel the tension in him, the nerves frayed to the snapping point. If only he would give her some sign that he trusted her—a look, a touch. At least she would know they were on the same side.

But Donovan was making every effort to ignore her. Even when she looked straight at him, he stared coldly
ahead as if she were invisible, or as if she were someone he had no wish to see.

Why couldn’t Donovan have stayed away? she asked herself angrily. Why did he have to be here, complicating everything, including her own emotions? She hadn’t asked him to risk his life! She hadn’t asked him to come tumbling down the stairs, just when she was gaining some sense of control! And now—but what was the use? Donovan was here, and there was nothing to be done about it.

Forcing his presence to the back of her mind, Sarah bent to the task of finding a lead ball the size of her little fingertip in the purpled mass of Dooley’s flesh. If she bungled it, if she slipped and punctured an artery—but no, she had to save the man. Dooley’s death would unleash Spade and Cherokee on the children, on them all. Then anything could happen.

As she glanced up to wipe her perspiring face with her sleeve, she noticed that Donovan was bending close to Dooley’s ear, his voice a rumbling whisper. Sarah strained to hear as she worked the probe deeper.

“Listen to me, Dooley, I’ve got a business proposition. But it’s just for you, not those two hired freaks of yours.”

Dooley’s pain-glazed eyes rolled in Donovan’s direction. His jaws tightened on the knife. He was in agony, but he was listening.

“I’m finished with the law,” Donovan continued. “It’s a dirty, rotten, thankless way to earn a living. But I’ve stumbled onto an idea. One that’ll make that bank loot of yours look like pocket change—and I’m willing to take you on as a partner. For a price, of course.”

Sarah’s hand had fallen still. Catching herself, she swiftly resumed her work.

“Interested?” Donovan quirked a sardonic eyebrow.

Dooley could not answer. His body arched as the forceps touched lead. Grunts of pain exploded past the blade in his teeth.

“Hold him!” Sarah muttered. “I think I’ve got—”

The knife fell loose as Dooley screamed, an inhuman shriek that ripped out of him, tearing from the core of pain before he passed out and went limp in Donovan’s arms.

Sarah stood gazing down at the misshapen lead ball that she gripped between the bloody points of the forceps. Her head felt weightless. Her legs quivered like a newborn colt’s. She had done it.

Donovan had let Dooley fall back onto the table. He stepped away, his shoulders heaving from the strain, his eyes staring at the wall. Sarah knew she could not speak to him now. Not with Cherokee lurking so close. But she struggled to reach him with her thoughts.

Do something, Donovan…look at me, touch my hand, anything to let me know…

But she could feel her efforts meeting a wall of resistance. It was achingly clear that Donovan wanted nothing to do with her.

“Do you need help dressing the wound?” His voice was coldly guarded.

“No,” Sarah murmured. “But unless he wakes up soon, I may need your help getting him off the table.”

“He’ll wake up in time for that.”

“In that case, why don’t you go see what you can do for George and MacIntyre?”

Donovan turned without a word and strode out of the kitchen. To Sarah’s relief, Cherokee made no effort to stop him. It had become common understanding that as long as Spade held the children at gunpoint, Donovan Cole was as good as bound.

But things could not go on like this, Sarah reflected as she wiped away the blood, bathed the wound in disinfectant and bandaged Dooley’s leg. The presence of the three desperadoes was a burning fuse, the inevitable explosion just a matter of time.

At first she’d hoped the resolution might be simpler. She’d hoped that once Dooley’s wound was treated and enough supplies rounded up, the outlaws would be on their
way. But Donovan’s arrival had complicated everything. Dooley hated him, and, from the looks of it, so did Cherokee.

They would not leave until Donovan was dead.

Sarah’s eyes shifted to the razor-edged scalpel where it lay on the bloodstained table edge, and she found herself wondering whether she had the strength to kill with it. One well-placed slash, and Dooley would die before even Cherokee could stop her.

But no, she could not commit the act, even for Donovan. She might risk her own life, but she could not risk the children. Somehow, she would have to find another plan.

Dooley was beginning to stir. His mouth twitched. A moan quivered deep in his chest. Very soon he would be awake.

Sarah leaned against a cabinet and closed her eyes for an instant, drawing on the empty well of her own strength. The ordeal was only beginning, she reminded herself. And she could not rest until it was over.

Simeon Dooley sprawled on a mattress that Donovan had lugged down from an upstairs room. The big excorporal was fully awake now, but in considerable pain—a pain whose edges he’d dulled with more whiskey than Donovan had ever seen a man swallow in his life. Aside from the stench, the drinking had done little more than worsen Dooley’s grizzly bear disposition. It was anybody’s guess when he would be ready to ride.

Things were settling down some in the saloon. Donovan had persuaded Dooley to let him drag the two dead men into a cool room off the kitchen, where they wouldn’t upset the youngsters so. Greta had been sent outside to relay Dooley’s demands for food, ammunition and fresh horses to the crowd that waited outside. Hopefully, the woman would have better sense than to come back.

Cherokee had spelled Spade on guarding the children. He lounged in a chair a stone’s toss from the corner where they
huddled, his steel-wire body tautly relaxed. Donovan studied him furtively through the slits of his narrowed eyes. Of the three outlaws, it was Cherokee he feared most. Simeon Dooley was a man of volcanic temper and rash judgment, dangerous but predictable. Spade appeared to be dull, mean and slow-witted, a follower of stronger men’s orders. But Cherokee…his was a reptile’s nature, cold and black and unfathomably silent. He could strike with a rattler’s speed, and he killed without emotion or remorse.

Cherokee would not hesitate to kill a child.

Or a woman.

All evening, Donovan’s eyes had avoided Sarah. He had told himself he mustn’t trust her. The sad truth of it was, he couldn’t even trust himself. As things stood, he didn’t dare give her so much as an open glance. His emotions were too raw, too close to the surface. A single meeting of their eyes would betray everything he felt.

But now, cautiously, his gaze drifted around the saloon to seek her out. He found her kneeling on the floor in her bloodstained apron, helping Zoe dress MacIntyre’s awful wound.

MacIntyre, whose hate had nearly destroyed her.

Donovan struggled to distance his feelings as his eyes followed the strong, sure motions of her hands. This was Lydia Taggart, he reminded himself. This was the woman who had coldly gathered information from smitten young officers and relayed it through the lines to Union troops. This was a woman who could lie and betray from behind myriad smiles and voices. She was the last person on earth he ought to trust.

Yet, as he watched Sarah nursing the unconscious MacIntyre, Donovan was struck only by her tenderness, her compassion, and the softly shining light of her courage.

Could he trust her?

Even as he asked himself the question, Donovan realized he had no choice. They were in this trap together, he and Sarah. They were fighting on the same side, for the
same cause—to save the children. Whatever his plan, she would have to be part of it. He would have to take her into his confidence. Otherwise they would only find themselves working at cross-purposes.

A ripple of childish laughter, startling in its beauty, burst from the corner of the room. George, the wounded piano player, had volunteered to join the little ones and distract them with a few stories. He was doing his job almost too well, Donovan observed as Dooley, swearing under his breath, hurled an empty bottle toward the group.

“Shut them damned kids up!” he bellowed as the glass shattered harmlessly against a table leg. “Take ‘em upstairs or somethin’! Let a man get some rest!”

Sarah glanced up from wrapping a bandage. “Take those little brats up to one of the bedrooms, Faye.” Her voice cracked with weariness. “Haul in some extra pillows and blankets and see if you can get them to sleep. We could all use some peace and quiet around here!”

“Go with ‘em, Cherokee!” Dooley snapped. “Where the hell is Spade?”

“Gettin’ some beans in the kitchen,” Faye said. “He told me he was hungry.”

Dooley muttered a curse. “Damned fool boy’s nothing but a walking belly! Go on, now! Get them kids upstairs!”

Donovan sat rock still as the children trooped past him. Katy’s big ginger eyes darted in his direction, but she kept her head high, her small chin thrust bravely ahead. Aching with pride and fear, Donovan sent her a flicker of a smile. Right now, it was all he could do. One wrong move on his part, and Katy would be the first child to die.

Dooley watched the procession trail upstairs, Cherokee bringing up the rear. Only when they were gone did he beckon Donovan slyly over to where he lay.

“This proposition of yours—it better be as good as you say it is, Cole.”

“It is.” Donovan crouched beside the mattress, forcing himself to pace things slowly. He could bluff well enough
when it came to poker, but this was a game he’d never played before, a game where the rules changed as you went along, and the stakes were life and death. The worst of it was, he didn’t even know where his plan would lead. It was little more than a diversion, a way of buying time while he searched for a way out of this debacle.

Should he involve Sarah? The question flashed through his mind, but Donovan swiftly realized he had no choice. Sarah was here. She was part of this. There was no way he could
not
involve her.

“How much money have you got in those saddlebags?” he asked Dooley. “Four or five thousand? Ten? Fifteen?”

“I ain’t took the time to count.”

“No matter.” Donovan took his time dangling the bait. “It’s pocket change compared to what this would give you. And it’s legal. You could go someplace else. Mexico, maybe, or South America. You could change your name and live like a king for the rest of your—”

“Quit stalling and tell me, damn you, Cole!”

“All right.” He hesitated, then took the plunge. “But we’ve got to include my partner in this. Otherwise, it’s not going to work.”

“Your partner!” Dooley’s face had purpled. “Who the devil—?”

Donovan glanced knowingly toward the far end of the room, where Sarah had collapsed in a chair, her shorn, tousled head drooping like a wilted chrysanthemum. She was exhausted, he realized. And now he was about to demand more of her.

“Lydia!” He stage-whispered the name over the distance. She glanced up as if he had struck her with a stone, her eyes wide and startled. “Get down here!” Donovan beckoned with his arm, praying she would understand and play along. “Come on, partner! You and I are about to negotiate some business!”

S
arah forced herself to rise from the chair and walk slowly toward the two men. Maybe she had fallen asleep—yes, that was it. She was having the strangest nightmare of her life, and it was getting stranger by the minute.

That, or Donovan Cole had lost his mind.

He was beckoning to her now, his expression as guileless as a schoolboy’s as he swung a wooden chair away from a nearby table and motioned for her to sit. “Take it easy, partner,” he muttered. “You look like you just fell off the back end of a wagon.”

Sarah collapsed onto the hard chair, so frayed that even breathing seemed too much effort, let alone talking. She had hoped for some sign of trust from Donovan, but this high-handed summons, coming so abruptly, was more than she was prepared to deal with. How could she play along with his game when she didn’t even know the rules?

“How’s MacIntyre?” Donovan glanced up at her from the floor, where he had resettled himself near Dooley. His casual tone did not match the snapping tension in his eyes.

“It’s too soon to tell. He’s a big, tough man, but lung shots are always nasty, and he’s lost a lot of blood.” Sarah forced her mouth to form the answer, forced her fatiguedulled mind back to full alertness as Donovan impaled her with his gaze. Whatever his plan, she had no choice except to go along with it. But until she understood her own role,
she would have to feel her way from one moment to the next.

Dooley shot a contemptuous glance in MacIntyre’s direction. “Huh! Cherokee don’t usually miss shots like that. I shoulda finished the big son of a bitch off myself.”

Sarah willed a cold chill to pass unseen beneath her careless mask. “Leave him be,” she said. “We’ve had enough killing for one night.”

She glanced back to where MacIntyre lay with his head in Zoe’s lap. Dressing his wound, even touching him, had not been easy at first. Her whole being had revolted at the memory of that awful night. Her hands had trembled so violently that she could scarcely do the work. But as the minutes ticked by, she had come to see only the wounded body, only a person who needed her help.

“And how are you faring, Corporal?” She cast a jaded smile in Dooley’s direction. “That bullet was so deep it missed shattering your thighbone by a finger’s breadth. You’re lucky it didn’t hit an artery.”

Simeon Dooley shot her an alcoholic glare. “Hurts like hell,” he growled.

“And you,
partner—”
She nudged Donovan’s leg with the toe of her shoe. “You said something about negotiating a little business with the corporal, here. Personally, I’d like to hear more. Go on, I’ll just listen.”

Donovan’s eyes flashed a tentative warmth into hers, but only for an instant. The face he turned back to Dooley was a mask of indifference.

“As I was about to explain, Corporal, I’ve been Lydia’s silent partner in this saloon for as long as she’s owned it…and in a few other things, as well.”

Other things…
Sarah swallowed hard as Donovan’s hand found the arch of her foot. His index finger stroked a simmering path around her silk-stockinged ankle, tracing the circle of each bone, then gliding lightly up the sensitive curve of her inner calf.

Her breath went ragged at his touch. Oh, she knew what he was doing. The sensual gesture was for show, nothing more. It was just an act, part of some elaborate ruse to befuddle Simeon Dooley. All the same, she could do nothing to quell the sensations that quivered up her leg, triggering surges of warm wetness from the intimate core of her body. Her mouth softened, lips parting in a soundless moan.

Even a man as drunk as Dooley could not have missed her response. “Hell, Lydia, I thought you said you didn’t like him,” he mumbled.

“So, I lied.” Sarah affected a shrug and an easy laugh. “Let’s hear what my silent partner has to say.”

Donovan’s hand had paused mercifully at Sarah’s knee. For an agonizing moment it lingered. Then, withdrawing the torture, he turned back to where Dooley sprawled on the mattress. “All right, then.” He spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Lydia and I bought this saloon last fall. The place was pretty run-down, but it was cheap, and I figured that when I quit the law in Kansas, I could always come back here and keep an eye on my widowed sister.”

“So get to the point, Cole.” Dooley upended his whiskey bottle to let the last drops trickle down his throat.

“Just this.” Donovan edged closer, dropping his voice. “I learned something last week, something that could make this place worth a hundred times more than either of us ever dreamed, and I’m willing to let you in on it.”

Dooley’s small, pale eyes narrowed greedily. “This damn well better be good, Major. If you’re pullin’ my leg—”

“You’ll know I’m not when you hear this. You were in Central City. You know about the new stamp mill.”

“Yeah. So?”

“The ore around here’s at least as good as what they’re blasting out of Gregory Gulch for the mill. Once a hard-rock mining operation moves in, the folks who’ve hung on to their claims will be as rich as Croesus.”

The tip of Sarah’s breast brushed Donovan’s hair as she leaned forward to hear. Casually she let her hand drop to
his shoulder. It was part of their act, she reasoned, even as his muscles hardened in response to the contact, even as her own hand warmed to the unexpected pleasure of touching him. Danger crackled in the air like the prelude to a summer storm.

“An’ you think they’ll be spendin’ their money in this two-bit saloon?” Dooley spat off the edge of the mattress. “Stop wastin’ my time, Cole.”

“All right, have it your way. Don’t listen to the rest.” Donovan twisted backward to glance up at Sarah, his eyes guarded, his hand resting lightly on her knee. “Come on, darlin’. It looks like we get to keep all those mining claims for ourselves.”

Dooley’s hand shot out to catch his arm. “Minin’ claims? Hell, man, how many you got?”

“How many?” Donovan settled back onto his haunches. “I can’t rightly say. I’ve never counted. Never even seen them, in fact. But Lydia has, haven’t you, partner? Remember all those old claim transfers you wrote me about? The ones the miners had signed over to the former owner to pay their bar tabs when the town was going bust?” His hand tightened almost painfully on her knee. “Don’t tell me you threw them away!”

Sarah scrambled for her wits, still unsure of what Donovan had pulled her into. “Oh—those papers! No, I knew they weren’t worth much, but I wouldn’t have thrown them out. Let me think—I haven’t run across them in the office lately. I…uh…may have boxed them up with the other things and had Smitty put them in one of the storage rooms.”

She paused for breath, her heart pounding. “They could be anywhere. And unfortunately, Corporal, I can’t ask Smitty to help find them because he’s one of the men you shot.”

Dooley’s string of oaths broke off abruptly. His head jerked up as Spade walked out of the kitchen, wiping his mouth on his shirtsleeve.

Spade had taken off his hat, giving Sarah her first full view of his face. What she saw there—the pudgy, almost babyish features, the lusterless eyes—only confirmed her first impression of a young man whose life had been nothing but brutality, first received, then learned to be inflicted on others. The lamplight swam around his head, its devilish halo glittering in Sarah’s eyes as he moved. She needed to lie down, she realized groggily. She had pushed herself beyond the end of her strength.

With his gun holstered, hands in his pockets, Spade ambled over to where Zoe, still in her bloodstained dressing gown, knelt on the floor cradling MacIntyre’s head in her lap. He stopped a pace away and stood there, his eyes roving openly over Zoe’s pitch-black curls and voluptuously exposed body.

“Hey,” he announced in a loud, nasal tone. “This ‘un ain’t too bad.”

Zoe, acting with stoic dignity, did not even look up at him. When no one else responded, Spade spoke again.

“Them other two whores is old ‘nough to be my ma, an’ that Miss Lyddie’s as skinny as a goldanged plucked pigeon. But this ‘un ain’t bad a’tall, an’ I ain’t had no woman in a good six weeks o’ Sundays.”

When he clapped a familiar hand on Zoe’s shoulder, she twisted away. “Leave me alone, boy,” she said in a low voice. “I got better things to do.”

“An’ I got a itch that’s hot to be scratched!” He seized a fistful of hair, yanking her head upward. “C’mon, gal! Now!”

Zoe’s hand lashed out like the paw of a lynx. Her long, pointed fingernails raked the back of Spade’s wrist, leaving wet, red streaks on his skin. Spade yelped and went for his gun. “You bitchin’ black slut—” He cocked the pistol and aimed it at Zoe’s defiant head.

Sarah was up, flying toward them even before Donovan could stop her. She would have hurled herself against
Spade’s trigger arm if Dooley’s whiskey-laced voice had not grated into the tense silence.

“Oh, hell, Spade, leave the woman alone! You leave all them whores alone, or you’ll end up with a knife in your fool back!” He eased up taller on the mattress, wincing as he shifted his bandaged leg. “Go on upstairs and see if Cherokee needs any help guardin’ them kids. Go on, now, boy.”

Sarah watched the pistol waver, then drop once more to the holster. She watched Spade turn away with a nasal whine and disappear up the stairs, his lower lip outthrust like a thwarted child’s.

The room had begun to blur and shift. Sarah turned unsteadily and found herself staring into Zoe’s dark-rimmed eyes. As she met the fear in their depths, they seemed to grow as large as lakes. The irises swirled with moon gold flashes around the bottomless black pits of the pupils. Those eyes were pulling her in, Sarah realized. She was floating, drifting helplessly in narrowing circles, down, down into the darkness.

A whimper shook her body as she crumpled to the floor.

Donovan moved like lightning. His arms caught Sarah where she fell and lifted her tenderly against his chest. Her small, cropped head lolled in the hollow of his shoulder, cheeks white below the darkness of her lashes. Her weight seemed no more than a bird’s, her body more air than substance. For the first few seconds, he had hoped her fainting spell might be a ruse, but no, this time, he realized, Sarah was not acting.

And he realized something else, as well. Through the nightmare blur of the evening he had been studying her, weighing her actions on the pan-balance of his trust. He had watched as she joked with Dooley, snarled at the children and tended the wound of a man who hated her. He had pulled her into his own web of intrigue and seen her quick-witted response—and still he had held back, afraid
of his own emotions. Only now had this last small act of hers—this dash into danger to save a woman many would judge as worthless—tipped the scales.

Only now did Donovan realize what an unforgiving, judgmental fool he had been.

“She’s sick,” he said, turning back to Dooley. “If I don’t get her to bed for a while, she’ll be no good to either of us.”

Dooley muttered something under his breath, eyes squinting in an effort to bring the room into focus. “All right. But I’m not finished with you, Cole. I want you back down here in fifteen minutes. And no funny stuff. Cherokee don’t care who he hurts, if you get my point.”

“I do. And I’m not finished with you either, Dooley. Fifteen minutes.” Donovan swung up the steps with his delicate burden. He could feel Sarah stirring against him, feel her erratic breath fluttering against the hollow of his throat. She was waking up, and he wanted her away from the horror of this room. He wanted her as safe as possible.

A sense of urgency stole over him as they rounded the top of the stairs. Every minute was a burning fuse, sputtering toward the inevitable explosion. Danger lurked in every tick of the clock, in every breath and heartbeat. There was no time to resolve the past or contemplate the future. For Sarah and himself, there was only here, only now.

She lay in his arms, infinitely precious now that he saw her with clear eyes. Her bravery, her tenderness, her unbending integrity glowed in her pale face.
The Angel of Miner’s Gulch,
he had called her once, hurling the appellation like a curse. Only now did he realize how right—and how wrong—he had been. Sarah was as close to being an angel as anyone he had ever known.

He remembered his first sight of her as prim Sarah Parker, bustling around Varina’s cabin in those ridiculous little pince-nez glasses. Even then he had loved her. Even after he’d recognized her as Lydia Taggart she had remained stubbornly in his heart. He had fought her, but the only real battle had been with his own pride.

Not that it did either of them any good, Donovan reminded himself bitterly. Sarah did not love him. His actions had long since crushed any chance at happiness they might have had. Now, in this time of peril, she might tolerate him as an ally. But that was the most he could expect.

She moaned and opened her eyes as they entered her bedroom. He felt her body stiffen as she recognized him. “What happened? Did I faint?” she asked in a tense whisper.

“You did. But it’s all right. I talked Dooley into letting me put you to bed for a while. You need rest.” Donovan battled the urge to lower his head and devour the tempting softness of her mouth. She was so soft and light, so vulnerable in his arms that it was all he could do to keep from crushing her.

Aching with frustration, he masked his feelings with anger. “You’re the damnedest woman I ever knew, Sarah Parker!” he growled in her ear. “How the hell did you get yourself into such a mess?”

“I might ask you the same question,” she retorted coldly. “I was doing fine until you let Cherokee sneak up from behind and crack you over the head! And now you dredge up this crazy scheme about the claim transfers! I was hoping Dooley would take those two monsters and leave once the bullet was out of his leg! Now we may never get rid of them!”

“Sarah—” Donovan had glimpsed a movement in the dim shadows of the hallway. Spade, he suspected, or even Cherokee. He might have guessed someone would be watching.

“And you!” she sputtered, ignoring his efforts to warn her. “Dooley hates you! He’ll never leave you alive! And he’s singled out Katy—”

“Be still, Sarah!” He wrenched her face upward and smothered her words with his mouth. His kiss was rough and angry, charged with desperate fear. For the first instant
she went rigid in his arms. Then, as if she’d suddenly realized they had an audience, her hand caught the back of his neck. Her thin fingers combed through his hair as she pulled him down to her in a response so passionate that it sent a surge of hot, tight shock waves rocketing into Donovan’s loins.