Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) (44 page)

"No." He smiled. It was the sort of smile he'd honed over the years: cocksure, devil-may-care. He was afraid if he didn't convince her to swim now, she never would, because she wouldn't leave him behind.

He met her gaze evenly, another tactic he'd learned for his cons. "It's better this way."

Her fingers shook in his hand. "Then you have to promise me you won't let go—"

In answer, he kissed her. He combed his fingers through her hair, and crushed her hips against his, and made love to her with his mouth. He would have breathed his last breath into her if it would have guaranteed she'd make it to the other side alive. But she pulled away shakily, accusation glimmering through her tears.

"Don't kiss me like that! Not like it's going to be the last time!"

He fought down a crushing desperation.
Guilty as charged.
But he couldn't tell her that. Not if he wanted her to fight her way to the surface.

"Come on, then." He reached once more for her hand and pasted on what he thought would be his last smile. "Tavy's waiting."

The water was hot. Unbearably so. But Tavy had survived, so they plunged in, gasping as the nigh-scalding liquid poured over every inch of their flesh. Muslin and denim were poor protectors compared to an otter's waterproof fur. Human senses were even poorer navigators for the pitch void that yawned before them.

Rafe prayed for the second time in as many days.
Swim hard,
he begged her with his eyes.
God, make her swim hard.

Gulping head-pounding breaths, they dived, leaving the feeble light of the lantern behind. The current was fierce and swift; it propelled them, as blind and helpless as newborns, into the womb of Mother Earth. In the deepest, darkest heart of the mountain, an eerie timelessness prevailed. If not for his lungs, and their urgent need for air, Rafe would have had no sense of the minutes ticking off his life. In that space, deprived of all sound, all color, all gravity, there was nothing but the elemental force that drove them relentlessly forward to some unknowable end.

Then suddenly, there was light. They shot out of the tunnel in a burst of black bubbles and foam. The dull, muted roar of the waterfall pounded somewhere before them. If Rafe could have breathed, he might have sobbed. The waning moon shimmered like a smile on the surface above them; a long, spindly shadow jutted somewhere beyond that. Kicking frantically now against the current, he dragged Silver toward the sky and what he prayed was the limb of a tree.

A shout rose, sounding dim and far away above their splashing. "Over here, Silver!" Max called.

Two plump skirted figures—Cellie and Fiona?—scrambled with Max down the riverbank. Then there were hands, blessed hands, all around Silver as they hauled her to shore.

Rafe mustered his failing strength. He grabbed for the branch, determined to cling to consciousness just a few moments longer. But as he waited for his own rescue, an ominous splintering rose from the tree.

"Rafe!"

Silver screamed her warning as the branch snapped. Suddenly, he was sinking, engulfed by boiling black foam. He thrashed, gagging on water hot enough to scald his throat. The current that had once befriended him swept him helplessly forward. The waterfall and the edge of the mountain loomed before him like the precipice to hell.

No!
he screamed silently at the God who had repeatedly let death snatch his one sacred desire away.

Don't You kill me when I finally have a chance for love with Silver!

Did God really care enough to answer prayers? It was a question Rafe had thought God had answered, the hard way, a long time ago. He struggled against the river, but it did little good. He'd used up his last dregs of strength to bring Silver to the surface.

"Hold on, lad!"

A mighty splash rocked the water behind him. A head as hairless as a rat's tail bobbed on the waves. Within a heartbeat, perhaps two, an arm like bulging steel tightened over his chest. Rafe coughed, reeling with fatigue as his spine collided with a mass of muscle.

"Fred?" he choked as his rescuer's legs began to churn. Slowly, doggedly, they swam away from the cliff and his doom.

"Aye, lad," the Brit crooned in his ear. "Breathe easy now. You're safe. Just like that night in the snowstorm."

Rafe shuddered, slumping against his foster father's chest. Fifteen years ago, when he'd nearly gotten himself killed trying to start life anew, Fred had rescued him. And now the lying, cheating windbag was rescuing him again, just like Fred always seemed to do when the chips were down.

Fred.
Rafe's head lolled. A disjointed sense of irony washed over him.
Papa...

It was his last thought before exhaustion finally drowned him in the peace of oblivion.

Chapter 17

According to Max, three days passed while Rafe lay unconscious, three days of abject agony for Silver—at least, that's what Max would have had Rafe believe.

But the sting of Silver's handprint on his cheek was not a distant memory. And Rafe couldn't help but be worried when he woke to find Max's chubby face smiling down at him, not Silver's.

"You gave us all the devil of a scare, son, while you were traipsing 'round the Land of Nod, " Max said, patting Rafe's shoulder and then sinking back into the plush, wingback chair that he'd pulled next to the bed. "The womenfolk have been duking it out for three days over who would take care of you.

"'Course, thanks to her crystal ball, Cellie had the advantage of knowing when you'd feel up to rejoining us, so she hurried down to the kitchen to rustle you up some soup. Fred went to fetch the doctor, and Fiona's getting Tavy."

"Fiona's getting Tavy?" Rafe repeated weakly as Max sipped from a snifter of cognac.

"Yep." Max chuckled, winking broadly. "Tavy's a heroine now. After she led you and Silver outta that cave-in, Fiona's had a change of heart about an otter's 'rightful place' as a hat. Fiona even donated a whole wig for Tavy to chew on—which is a good thing. 'Cause Silver's gonna hit the roof when she comes back from Leadville and finds Tavy gnawed on a half dozen of her shoes."

Rafe was still pulling tufts of cotton from his brain, but he'd managed to free enough wits to register the most important of Max's news items.

"Silver's in Leadville?" His sense of disappointment grew sharper as hurt needled him.

"Well, she didn't go willingly, son. She practically had to be pried from your side. Still, you had plenty of nursemaids, and she was needed for business."

"Business?" Rafe repeated dully, the knife plunging a little deeper.

"There, there. It ain't how it sounds. I couldn't very well have a wedding while my best man was stretched out on his back, now could I? So, Cellie and me postponed the dang thing for a month, which is fine by me.

"But then Cellie's cousin, Judge Gates, wired and said he'd be presiding over a California trial on our new date. And with the judge unlikely to make the wedding, Silver flew into a tizzy. She was afraid Marshal Hawthorne would arrest you for some back warrant. So, Silver went to talk to Gates."

Rafe groaned, letting his head drop to the pillow. His self-sufficient heiress was going to be the death of him. No fugitive wanted to attract the attention of a judge, much less a
federal
judge with a reputation like Gates's. Around San Francisco, Gates was known for his unwavering honesty and his bulldog adherence to the law.

Good Lord, Silver hadn't gone to
bribe
him, had she?

"Not to worry, son," Max said, sniffing an unlit cigar. "Silver's got a lawyer with her."

I'm doomed.

"And I told her to go ahead and pay off any debts you owe. I reckon she can talk just about anyone into dropping their charges, once she offers 'em the kind of restitution they ain't likely to see from a jury."

Rafe winced. Silver was going to make an honest man out of him—by indebting him to her father?

"Hell, Max," he said, shame lancing his chest, "I'd rather do my time than have you pay back all the money I swindled."

"I appreciate the sentiment, son. But it just ain't practical. 'Sides, you and me got a deal. You're supposed to stay around here, keeping Silver happy, so I can chase my woman around the bedroom, remember?"

Rafe smiled feebly. "Yeah. I remember."

"And I expect a coupla grandbabies out of you. You can't very well raise my grandkiddies from jail, now can you?"

Rafe averted his gaze. His heart was growing sicker by the moment.

"And don't forget too," Max said less boisterously, as if he sensed he'd made one of his habitual faux pas, "I owe you more'n a couple thousand dollars. You saved my daughter's life. Got her outta that damned cave-in and nearly cashed in your chips in the process. One of these days, when you have a daughter, you'll come to understand. They're worth a sight more than a measly fortune."

"That's kind of you to say," he murmured dutifully.

Max fidgeted, his chair creaking in protest. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them.

"At any rate," Max said, "I'm glad to know Silver had the good sense to fall in love with you and forget Townsend. I still can't get over the things he did: murdering his brother, beating Amy, hiring Benson as a spy, siccing those two thugs on you—not to mention what he'd intended for my Silver.

"Cellie's crystal ball couldn't have been more right. Me and Fred might have drawn straws to see who got to plug the bastard, if Nahele hadn't killed Townsend first."

"Nahele?" Rafe repeated distractedly.

"Sure. Don't you remember? Silver told me how Nahele appeared in a puff of green smoke, stinking as rotten as bad eggs, and rose up out of the treasure chest to strangle Townsend."

Rafe eyed Max dubiously. "Silver told you that?"

"Well, not in so many words." Max grinned impishly. "I sorta read between the lines. The 'green gas' part of her story tipped me off. After all, everyone knows sulfuric gas ain't green.

"'Sides. You can't tell me it wasn't strange how a howling wind swept through the cave at the
exact same moment
Townsend stepped on ol' Nahele's artifacts. Wind ain't normal underground."

Rafe's skin prickled. He hadn't thought of that. In fact, he wasn't sure he
wanted
to think of that. It reminded him of a line from
Hamlet:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Max grinned triumphantly, as if guessing his thoughts.

"Say," the millionaire blurted after a moment. He reached for his coat's breast pocket. "I almost forgot. You got a letter the other day from a Miss Seraphina Jones. Is that your sister?"

Rafe nodded, unable to disguise his sudden wistfulness.

"Reckon it'll make you feel better," Max said more gently, offering him the envelope.

Rafe grasped the paper, the tremor in his hand betraying his eagerness.

Max climbed to his feet. "Tell you what, son. I'll, uh, be out in the hall, if you need anything."

Rafe's throat was too tight to respond. He barely waited long enough for the door to shut before he was ripping open the envelope and tugging out its contents: two pages of flowery scrawl. Sera, he'd learned over the years, was a bit of a dramatist herself.

"Dear Rafe,"
the letter began,
"I'm in love! But of course, Michael disapproves. I just know you would like my sweetheart, though. His name is Kit McCoy. He's handsome and blond—just like you! And even though he swears he's not, I think he's secretly a gunfighter! Isn't that exciting?"

Unease coiled through Rafe's innards.

"
Michael is being positively beastly
,"
Sera complained in typical eighteen-year-old fashion. "I
have to sneak in and out of my window at night. I declare, I would have run away by now, if Michael weren't so sick. Do you think you could come home now, Rafe ? Michael thinks I'm a baby, and he won't listen to a single thing I say. Especially about letting a Louisville doctor see him..."

Rafe scanned the rest, his chest constricting.
Sera was behaving just as irresponsibly as Silver had in Philadelphia with Townsend. Recalling the consequences of those moonlight rendezvous, he threw back the quilt—a mistake. The pain in his head nearly blinded him. Gritting his teeth, he sank back to the edge of the mattress.