Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (14 page)

* * * *

      
Once apprised of her hated enemy's amazing resurrection, Isobel had planned her strategy along the way to Cheyenne. As a genteel lady from a fine old Mississippi family, she would be welcomed to a crude frontier city such as Denver, where rough miners and illiterate stockmen still outnumbered gentlemen two to one and soiled doves were a dozen times more numerous than women of refinement. Gable Hogue had informed her that MacKenzie intended to announce his “granddaughter’s” engagement in Denver.

      
When she arrived, it would be so easy to let slip the juicy gossip about poor Alexa's captivity by the Indians. How shocking that she survived it, she would tsk, the clear implication being that a nobler woman would not have. She would not even have to expose the hateful harlot as a fraud to ruin her. Then when that ruthless old railroad baron saw her usefulness to him end, Isobel would play her trump card and inform him just exactly who the viper was he had taken to his bosom.

      
She sat down at the writing desk in her room and began to compose a note to Nathan Baker, the editor of the
Cheyenne Leader.
That should get things moving along nicely before she left for Denver.

Chapter Seven

      
“How the hell did this get out? I’ll hog-tie that damned editor and sell him to the Cheyenne!” Jubal ranted, throwing down a copy of the scurrilous
Cheyenne Leader
. He cursed some more and stormed across the office. Word of Alexa's shocking abduction and rescue by the infamous “Scot’s Injun” was spreading like wildfire up and down the rail camps. It was inevitable that Andrew Powell would hear the ugly rumors by the time they reached Denver.

      
Cain listened to Jubal, then said, “I brought Miss Hunt in after dark. I even had her put all that hair up under her hat so no one would remember her. Maybe you didn't pay those men at the relay station enough to keep them quiet, or a man from Fort Kearny hit town and started talking when he heard your granddaughter was here with you. I can check around, find out,” he said. Kitty would know the source of the gossip. Nothing on “the line” got by her.

      
MacKenzie sighed. “I do na' believe that would serve anything now. The cat's out of the bag, lad. All I can do is take Alexa to Denver for the betrothal as planned. Brazen it through and dare old Powell to back down.” Jubal clamped down on his cigar so fiercely he bit through the tip. He muttered an oath and threw the expensive smoke into the cuspidor.

      
Cain knew Andrew Powell would never agree to the marriage once he learned about Alexa's time with the Cheyenne. That she'd spent time alone with him would only enrage the old bastard all the more.

      
Better not to borrow trouble for MacKenzie—or his granddaughter. Maybe the rail camp gossip wouldn't reach as far south as Denver.
But you want it to, don't you?
an inner voice nagged. Did he? Did he want Alexa left standing at the altar, deprived of her blue-blooded bridegroom? Absurd. It was hardly as if he wanted to marry her himself. Or did he? The idea, far-fetched and fleeting, whispered to him once again, curling enticingly around his mind. He brushed it away. Jubal would never agree to it. Neither would Alexa, after the way they'd parted. But then she had agreed to marry Larry boy sight unseen just to please the old man.

      
Cain left Jubal fuming and rode down to Kitty's place. He was long overdue for some sexual recreation…and a little conversation with the shrewd madam as well. One way or the other, it would be wise if he went to Denver with MacKenzie and his granddaughter. At least he would know firsthand how the situation resolved itself. Besides, he wanted to see the look on Alexa's arrogant little face when he walked into the ballroom, even if he was there as a paid employee instead of a guest. How the hell had the woman gotten so deep under his skin that he cared what the hell she thought? Or what happened to her?

      
He pushed open the swinging door of the Calico Cat and walked inside. After a bottle and a few hours of Kitty's charms he might just completely forget about that little silver witch. To hell with the harebrained idea. It would never work out anyway.

* * * *

      
Roxanna stood at the head of the receiving line with Jubal towering over her, exuberant in his greetings to all the movers and shakers in Denver society. Everyone who was anyone in the gold capital of America had turned out to meet MacKenzie’s granddaughter, including a goodly number of merchants, bankers, mining magnates and railroad barons escorting their ladies who were all decked out in silks and jewels.

      
The glittering assembly of notables was there to observe the final burying of the hatchet between the building-site chiefs of the Union and Central Pacific. It would be quite a show, to see the canny old Scot and the ruthless San Franciscan, archrivals since the race for the rails began back in '64, actually shake hands instead of drawing pistols! The vehicle for this was ostensibly the engagement between MacKenzie's granddaughter and Powell's son. Although not official, rumor had it that the announcement might actually be made that very night.

      
“Alexa, this is my old friend Nathaniel Hill, chemist and world traveler,” Jubal said as a portly gentleman with a walrus mustache shook her hand effusively. “Nate's cornered the market in Denver real estate—along with Hank Brown and Davie Moffat.”

      
As Roxanna smiled, Hill nodded politely while he and Jubal exchanged small talk about Union Pacific politics and the directors back East. “Did you see that fancy new portrait of Tom Durant?”

      
“The one they hung in the Omaha depot last fall? Aye. Dinna' look a thing like him.”

      
Hill looked bemused. “Oh, why not?”

      
“The good doctor had his hands in his own pockets—instead of somebody else's,” MacKenzie replied sourly. Nate Hill burst into raucous laughter and Jubal joined him.

      
As the men talked, Roxanna extended her hand to Mrs. Hill, who smiled shyly, a fragile swallow of a woman overshadowed by her robust spouse. As the receiving line wended its way past them, Roxanna continued smiling and making the appropriate responses, while nervously scanning the vast ballroom in the Imperial Hotel for her first glimpse of Lawrence Powell.

      
There was an air of hushed expectancy about the crowded room and some undercurrent which she could sense yet did not understand. Some of the men had eyed her as if she were still an actress, not quite leering but not truly respectful either. Others looked her over with avid curiosity, as if she were some sort of circus freak. Many of the women seemed stiff and formal, almost to the point of being rude, as if dragged by their husbands to meet her.

      
Jubal did not appear concerned with the peculiar behavior of so many of his associates. He was loud and jovial with many men like Hill, going out of his way to laugh and make jokes. Was he covering up something? Her first thought was that somehow her real identity had been exposed by Isobel Darby, but that was absurd. A man like Jubal MacKenzie would not tolerate such a deception, much less attempt to soothe her feelings after she had made a fool of him.

      
The only other possibility was almost as dire—they knew she had been an Indian captive and that Cain had ridden in alone to buy her freedom. That would explain Jubal's hovering protectiveness, the forced joviality. It would be just like him to think he could suppress a scandal by sheer force of will. But she knew a man as ruthless as Andrew Powell was reputed to be would never be forced into anything. Would he and his son even attend her gala tonight or simply break off the agreement with no further ado?

      
As if to answer her question, a tall man with a face as harsh as a bird of prey strode imperiously across the room toward them, followed by a younger man who was considerably shorter with none of the hard-edged features of the elder. Although they did not bear any discernible physical resemblance, Roxanna knew they were father and son, Andrew and Lawrence Powell.

      
As the older man approached Jubal, the guests parted before the newcomers like the Red Sea for Moses. The two old enemies were of a height, freezing blue eyes meeting steel gray levelly, but there the resemblance ended, for while Jubal was barrel-chested and heavyset like a bulldog, Powell had the lean look of a greyhound.

      
“MacKenzie,” he said stiffly, offering one elegantly manicured hand, the hand of a powerful man who used his brains, never his fists, to succeed in the world.

      
Roxanna watched Jubal extend his gnarled beefy paw, its freckles and weather-blasted roughness testimony to long hours spent out in the elements. “Yer late, Powell, but I believe that's prophetic. The Union Pacific will be through Salt Lake before you even get out of the Sierras.” MacKenzie smiled, but the forced humor never reached the cool gray depths of his eyes.

      
“We've just completed the summit tunnel and it's all downhill from now on for the Central Pacific. You'll be up against your first real test soon—the Rockies.”

      
Roxanna was so absorbed in the electric exchange between the two old pirates that she completely forgot about the tan-haired young man standing beside Andrew Powell until he stepped forward and smiled disarmingly.

      
“I'm Lawrence Powell, and you must be Miss Alexa Hunt,” he said, taking her hand in both of his and squeezing it ever so slightly.

      
Roxanna recovered herself quickly, returning his smile as she gazed into a lightly tanned face that was round and even-featured. His chin was a bit weak and his eyes were a lighter shade of blue with none of the predatory fierceness of Andrew's. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance at long last, Mr. Powell,” she replied, waiting for some feeling, some spark of attraction to leap between them. But none did. Nothing.

      
“Please don't be so formal. Under the circumstances, don't you think it permissible to call me Larry?” he asked, still not relinquishing her hand.

      
Roxanna nodded. “If you will call me Alexa.” Jubal had been right about Lawrence. He was attractive in a mild sort of way that drew none of the magnetized stares focused on his father. All for the better, since Andrew looked as ruthless and deadly as a hawk.

      
“Please allow me to welcome you to the West, Miss Hunt,” Andrew Powell said, fixing her with an icy gaze but not offering his hand. “I understand you're from St. Louis. I do hope you found your journey out here...pleasant thus far?”

      
Until now, she wanted to say. His look was anything but welcoming and the remark about her journey west made clear that he knew about her abduction. She looked to Jubal for guidance, wishing he had not tried to protect her from the inevitable.

      
Moving forward to take Powell's arm, MacKenzie said, “It would seem the young people have struck it off, Andrew. I think it would be best if you and I repaired to the bar and let them enjoy the party.”

      
The elder Powell bowed stiffly to her, then gave his son a meaningful glance before turning away. Roxanna could sense every eye in the room riveted on the two of them as Jubal and Andrew walked away.

      
Lawrence's expression narrowed for an instant when he made eye contact with his father, but then the warmth returned when he looked back to her. ‘The orchestra is playing the first dance. I believe it's customary for the guest of honor to lead off. Would you do me the honor, Alexa?”

      
From the mezzanine across the room, Cain watched Lawrence Powell sweep Alexa into his arms and whirl across the floor to the strains of a Strauss waltz. She would have stood out in any glittering assembly even if she were not the guest of honor. Her hair was caught up in an elaborate mass of loops and twists piled atop her head and intertwined with pearls. Her pale aquamarine silk gown glittered softly in the flickering gaslights, hugging every seductive curve of waist and breasts, revealing the creamy whiteness of a good deal of skin, which had been lightly sun-kissed when he brought her back from the Cheyenne.
She must have soaked in milk baths for this requisite pallor
, he thought grimly, his mind at once conjuring up images of her silky naked flesh glistening in the bubbles.

      
Just then she threw back her head, laughing at some sally of Larry's. He was holding her with just the right degree of propriety for a prospective suitor. Trust him to do everything by the book. But if his old man didn't break the engagement, there would be no rules for Larry to worry about. He would have Alexa to do with as he pleased, bury his fists in the mane of silver-gilt hair, suckle those pink-tipped breasts and bury himself deep inside the beckoning heat of her lithe slender body. Cain squeezed his eyes shut tightly for a moment to clear his head of the disquieting thoughts, then looked down and realized that he had clenched his hands so tightly on the marble balustrade that his bronzed knuckles shone white as the stone.

      
He stepped back, releasing the railing, but not before his eyes met Alexa's as she suddenly looked up when the music stopped.

      
Roxanna had sensed someone was staring at her for several minutes, but dismissed it given the circumstances. She was the guest of honor and ugly rumors about her were no doubt being whispered around the room. But this feeling was different somehow than the sly darting glances of people talking behind their hands. Then the orchestra finished its piece and Lawrence released her. As she stepped back, her gaze raised to the balcony across the floor and her eyes locked with Cain's.