Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (37 page)

      
“So you see, the Central Pacific will reach Salt Lake no later than April of next year using the route our crews have graded. Given the Union Pacific's present position in Wyoming Territory with winter coming, we see no reason to place the meeting site anywhere near the one they proposed,” Lawrence concluded, looking around the room with smug assurance.

      
As the “Hear, hear's” of the Central Pacific men began to die down, Cain said, “I see a dandy reason.”

      
“Oh, Cain, what's that?” Lawrence asked, taken aback to have a man so recently a mere hired hand dare to speak out in the august assembly.

      
“Our work crews and yours have been grading parallel routes across Utah for two hundred miles already and your Central Pacific track layers aren't as close to Salt Lake as ours are. We're holding all the aces, Powell,” Cain replied evenly.

      
“Do na' think the public won't protest such a shameful waste of taxpayers' dollars subsidizing duplicate routes when only one will be used,” Jubal added with a sour scowl.

      
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, I'm certain this will all be sorted out in the fullness of time.” Leland Stanford spoke slowly in a pompous pontificating voice. With his carefully trimmed beard and deep-set eyes, the beefy-faced president of the Central Pacific was a consummate politician, always oiling the waters.

      
While Stanford droned on, saying absolutely nothing of substance, Cain and Powell studied each other quietly. Cain's level gaze was disdainfully amused; young Powell's was affronted and angry. When the session finally broke for the afternoon, MacKenzie observed the tension between the two younger men with an uneasy feeling of foreboding.

      
Lawrence Powell, born to privilege, had never been forced to confront a man he considered his social inferior across a boardroom table. The very idea of such a thing had never occurred to him before. Jubal was familiar with that attitude and the mocking relish Cain had just exhibited. As an impoverished young Scots immigrant, MacKenzie had risen far beyond his social station in the brash no-holds-barred world of American enterprise. He understood how good it felt to thumb your nose at affronted bluebloods, old-money aristocracy. But the possibility that Alexa might get caught between these two men worried Jubal. He did not want to see her hurt by their animosity, but somehow he felt in his guts that it was inevitable.

* * * *

      
Cain decided to walk the short distance back to the hotel. He needed time to think, away from the political maneuvering going on around him. He opened the note he'd received that morning from the detective he'd hired to locate Isobel Darby. After brief stops in Cheyenne and Denver, she had surfaced in San Francisco late last spring, in Andrew Powell's lair. Too much of a coincidence to be one. His wife's vindictive and dangerous enemy allying with Powell was cause for real worry.

      
Damn Roxanna for her deceiving ways, for embroiling him in such a mess...for not being the Alexa he had married. Life would have been so much simpler if she really were Jubal's granddaughter. Reconsidering that, he shook his head. No, nothing about life with Alexa/Roxanna could ever be simple. But Lawrence's sudden pursuit of his wife was certainly complicating an already difficult situation. What possessed the Powell heir apparent to set his sights on her at this late date? Did it have something to do with Isobel’s appearance in San Francisco?

      
Several solutions to the conundrum presented themselves: Wring the truth out of the Darby woman and frighten her away from Roxanna for good. Go to San Francisco and beard the old lion in his lair. Face down Lawrence and see what he knew right now. The latter one held the greatest appeal because he could act on it at once. His knuckles itched to wipe that air of shocked condescension off Powell's whey face, but he would resist the temptation. No sense in embarrassing Jubal and proving himself to be the savage most of those captains of industry already thought he was. Tonight before the reception he and Lawrence would have a small private talk.

      
Cain strode into the Imperial Hotel blinking his eyes to adjust from the brilliant autumn sunlight to the dim interior of the lobby, which was nearly deserted. Just as he started to make his way toward the stairs, he caught sight of his quarry heading out the side door onto the private terrace. A slow smile spread across his face, but it did not reach his eyes as he followed.

      
Lawrence Powell lit up one of his father's Cuban cigars and inhaled deeply, feeling the sweet thick smoke curl soothingly through his lungs. One of life's many fine pleasures. His presentation at the meeting this afternoon had gone well...except for Cain's jibe, he grudgingly admitted to himself. Not that he didn't expect some protest from the Union Pacific crowd. But it galled him that the Scot's Injun had dared to make it.

      
As if conjured, Cain's tall dark figure strolled casually through the open doors and approached him. “Did you come to make a deal for MacKenzie, Cain?” he asked, wishing he were taller when they stood face-to-face. Cain had a good three to four inches on him. He'd always resented that...and other things.

      
“I make my deals with the men in charge, not their wet-behind-the-ears flunkies,” Cain replied.

      
Powell's face reddened. “You made some sweet-talking deal with Alexa, conning her to marry so far beneath her station.”

      
Cain laughed mockingly. “It really galls you, doesn't it, that I have her? You were too spineless to stand up to the old man when you wanted her for yourself. What did he tell you—that you couldn't take the leavings of his half-breed bastard? That she might be carrying a red baby in her belly?” The guilty flush on Powell's face was easy to read. Cain pushed relentlessly, relieved, even eager to have it out in the open after letting it fester for so many years. “I finally beat you both, Larry. I made a deal with Jubal after you jilted Alexa. No Indian ever touched her, not even me. MacKenzie needed someone to marry her once the rumors started and I wanted to be operations chief.”

      
“You're saying he sold her to you in return for a promotion,” Powell said scathingly.

      
“Not just a promotion, Larry. Right now I'm in a position to ruin our father—and you, if you get in my way. I'd advise you to stay out of it.” The silky threat was unmistakable.

      
“You always did resent my being the legitimate son, the heir, didn't you, Damon?” When Cain's expression tightened imperceptibly, Lawrence smiled. “You hate your given name, don't you?”

      
A hard edge of sardonic humor laced Cain's voice as he said, “Too bad while the old man was giving it to me he didn't throw in his last name along with it.”

      
“Not very likely. You know how he despises Indians.”

      
“Funny he didn't seem to despise my mother whenever he came riding into Leather Shirt's village.”

      
“That was a long time ago. Things have changed now.”

      
“Yeah, he's a hell of a lot richer. But I'm going to be just as rich as he is one day, just as powerful. I'm going to beat him at his own game. Why don't you run back to San Francisco and tell him that? Better yet, I have some other business to take care of there. I'll deliver the message in person.”

      
Lawrence Powell stood with his cigar clenched tightly in one hand, staring at Cain's back as he walked away. The ash on the tobacco burned down several inches, then fell on the tops of his highly polished shoes, but he did not seem to notice.

      
Cain walked through the lobby and headed to the bar, pleased with his day's work. His spineless half-brother wouldn't be sniffing around Roxanna anymore and he was pretty certain the Powells didn't know that she was not Jubal's granddaughter. If the Darby woman had told them, how could Lawrence have resisted turning the taunt around by blurting out the truth?

      
Cain decided he would leave the rest of the boring posturing here in Denver to Jubal. Nothing would be decided until after Grant was elected. Once in office, he could force the Central Pacific to agree to a meeting site. Meanwhile, it was long past time for Damon the bastard to face his father. The very thought of confronting Andrew with documented evidence that would end his career with the Central Pacific quickened Cain's step. Yes, he would leave at once!

      
Roxanna stood frozen inside the terrace door long after Cain had walked by her unaware. Pain, great red waves of pain, exploded behind her eyes and squeezed the breath from her lungs, but most of all it centered in her heart. The heart he had shattered. Damon. The Lone Bull. Cain. By any name a treacherous embittered man who used those around him without a care for their feelings.

      
How ironic that the icy Andrew Powell, Jubal's arch enemy, was Cain's mysterious father. His Eyes Are Cold. Now she could see the resemblance between them, father and son, both tall and lean, hawkish and hard. Their souls were as bleak as their pitiless cold eyes. Cain hated his father for using his mother, but he was no better.
I made a deal...MacKenzie needed someone to marry her.

      
Roxanna pressed her fingers to her temples and stumbled woodenly to a leather sofa in the lobby. She had spent the day with Sarah, who had just let her off from her private carriage outside. On her way upstairs to dress for dinner this evening, Roxanna had seen her husband walking out onto the terrace and followed him, eager to learn how the meeting with the Central Pacific had gone. Eager to hear his voice, to touch him.

      
What a fool she was! She had lived for months in fear, riven by guilt because of her shameful past. But her husband had deceived her in a far more calculated and coldhearted way than she ever had him. She had pretended to be Alexa, but she had never pretended her love for him. No wonder he had never spoken of love. He considered their marriage to be a business arrangement.

      
I made a deal...
Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall.

      
She had to think, alone, somewhere private, away from Cain. Rising, she made her way inconspicuously to the front door and had the bell captain summon a hackney. Once inside, she directed the driver to head down Larimer Street. “Just drive. I'll tell you when to stop,” she said woodenly.

      
Thank God she had not told Cain about the baby. What leverage he could make of that! Jubal's great-grandchild! She had to leave her husband. The very thought of ever facing him again made her stomach clench with fear, for she knew if he touched her she might believe his lies again and weaken. “I won't be used and neither will my child,” she whispered to herself.

      
But where could she turn for help? Certainly not to Jubal MacKenzie. The old Scot's betrayal stung almost as badly as Cain's. She had begun to feel that he really was her grandfather, that once more she had a family. But like Cain, he had betrayed her with far greater callousness than any deception she had worked upon either of them.

      
Once again she was alone and penniless, cast adrift to live by her wits. Only this time she had her unborn child to consider too. In all too short a time her pregnancy would begin to show. Somehow she would protect her baby from Cain, from Jubal.

      
Then the old line from a play came to her: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The irony of it did appeal, but she was desperate, with nowhere else to go. What other choice did she have but to ask Lawrence Powell for help?

Chapter Seventeen

      
When Roxanna returned to the hotel, Cain was gone. She felt profound relief as she crumpled one of his typically terse notes, announcing that he was attending another in the endless series of meetings. Then she sat down to compose her final message to him. Her first impulse was to pour out all the heart-searing pain, the bitter betrayal she felt, but her pride quickly asserted itself. Damn him! She would not give him the satisfaction. Her message was brief and pointed, as emotionless as she could make it.

      
Once she had finished it, she threw a few changes of clothing in a valise. Her life as Alexa Cain was over. She wanted none of the elegant finery or jewels that Cain and Jubal had bought her. The amethyst necklace and combs were so lovely they almost made her weaken—until she remembered they were a wedding gift from the man who had used her to obtain his position as operations chief. All she had ever meant to Damon Powell was a means to an end. Roxanna walked out of the hotel and hailed a hackney.

* * * *

      
Cain left the Union Pacific bigwigs bickering endlessly, fueled by port and cigars. The bitter rivalries between the backers of the Durant and the Ames factions could not agree on the location of the sun if it was high noon. Jubal had already spoken his piece and departed for bed. Cain was inclined to do likewise...although thoughts of his wife stirred a desire to do much more than sleep. In spite of his anger with her and the very real fear that her deception might cost him his job, he could not get enough of her. Cain could not trust Roxanna, but he was as powerless as she against the need that drew them irresistibly together.

      
Her hold on him was dangerous. He had continuously reminded himself of it. Everyone in his life he had ever needed had left him. Blue Corn Woman and Enoch had died. Andrew Powell had denied him his birthright, even his name. His father's betrayal had cut him so deeply that he had vowed to trust no one except himself. Roxanna had almost overcome those betrayals...when he believed she was Alexa. Which only proved that he should have stuck to his old resolve.