Lake of Fire (27 page)

A man with apparently a single purpose, Cord stalked straight toward Laura. Only at the last, when his gaze settled on Hank, did she realize she was not his goal.

“Falls. Tell me about your brother.”

Hank’s narrow nose lifted. “I don’t have a brother.”

Cord’s ringing laugh made the cocktail crowd go silent and look their way. “You’d have me believe you lead a dual life? That you trade in your gray suit for buckskin and hit the trail? That you ride a blooded palomino for your stagecoach-robbing escapades with a fellow named Frank Worth?”

“I … I’m sorry. Did you say Frank Worth?”

“Did I not speak clearly? When I, yes … I … rescued Laura Fielding from Frank Worth and your doppelganger down in Jackson’s Hole, Frank was gut shot. I finished him.”

Hank gasped.

Laura saw the Pinkerton man sidle around the corner of the fireplace and take up a listening pose.

“Danny got away,” Cord finished.

With a visible effort, Hank’s features transformed. Back in control, he beckoned Resnick forward. “I suggest that someone find this mysterious ‘Danny’ before
there are any more accusations that I have participated in violent doings.” He turned to Laura and placed his palm at the small of her back. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

It did not escape her that Hank’s hand trembled.

She wanted to pull away, but her father came up behind her and placed his fingers on her elbow. He gave her a warning look from beneath furrowed brows; she assumed it had to do with her and Cord’s secret being out.

“We’ll have a nice Burgundy this evening.” Hank spoke to the tuxedoed waiter leading the party of him and Laura, along with her father, Aunt Fanny, and Constance, to a prominent window-side table.

He held a chair for Laura and brushed her shoulders while seating her. She looked at his long pale fingers, those of a pampered gentleman, and imagined identical hands pawing through her belongings, stealing her mother’s precious cameo.

Hank said he didn’t have a brother, but he had a sister. One who might be tripped into answering a cleverly placed question.

Laura turned to Hank. “Why does your sister, Alexandra, not join us for dinner? I have seen her about the hotel several times.”

“Yes, we would be happy to see her.” Though Forrest’s demeanor toward Hank was pleasant, he gave Laura another dark look that said he would deal with her later.

When the waiter arrived, Hank declined the menu. “This evening I think the spring lamb, with wild sorrel
and a mint glaze … for myself and Miss Fielding.”

“Perhaps you might ask what I would like.” Laura gestured toward the waiter for the leather-backed menu.

Before Hank could respond, Forrest broke his reach for the breadbasket. “Perhaps you should be happy that the gentleman wishes to order for you.”

Laura almost flashed back at him, too, but there was nothing to be gained. She bit the inside of her cheek and put her hands in her lap when the menu was tardily offered.

Hank nodded to Forrest. “Thank you, sir, for calling me a gentleman. At least I am not a boor like Mr. William Cordon Sutton.”

Without warning, Constance flared, her dark hair dancing in the light from the chandeliers. “How dare you speak that way about William!”

Before Laura could point out that Constance had denied him this afternoon, Aunt Fanny put a gentle hand on her daughter’s just above the garnet ring.

Constance shook off the restraint and fixed on her Uncle Forrest. “William should be with me tonight, but this deal you men are fighting over is spoiling everything!”

Forrest gave his niece an impatient look. “The last time we spoke of the man, you seemed to think something else had come between you.” He glanced at Laura.

She reached for the Burgundy the waiter set before her, surprised at how steady her hand was. “I’m not
about to apologize for traveling with Cord. He saved me from …” She looked at Hank. “Danny Falls.”

“That again,” he sneered.

Laura’s heart pounded. “That again. Unless you wish to confess your role in killing Angus Spiner.”

Hank pushed back his chair.

Norman Hagen’s hand on his shoulder kept him in place. The big man, elegantly attired in a dark brown suit with a thick gold watch chain, took in the disquiet. “When I agreed to come out here to help sell the hotel, I had no idea how complicated the situation was going to get.”

Hank’s expression turned from ugly to accommodating. “Won’t you join us, Norman? I can have the waiter set another place.”

Norman shook his head. “I came to give you a piece of news. It seems my boss, Hopkins Chandler, has been called away on business to Bozeman and will not be back until the day after tomorrow. He telephoned and asked that I extend an invitation to you gentlemen to make an excursion to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in the morning.”

Laura noted that Constance’s head was up and the old sparkle in her eyes. “Just the gentlemen?”

“Girls,” Aunt Fanny chided, “you know the men have important business.” She lifted her glass and sampled the Burgundy. “We’ll take a tour up to the canyon together one day, just the three of us.”

“It’s all right.” Hank favored Fanny with a smile and put a bold hand on Laura’s bare forearm. “You can
sit with me in the wagon.”

Before she could pull away, she realized Cord stood outside the dining-room doors with Manfred Resnick. With a drink in his hand and an unreadable expression on his dark countenance, he raised his glass to her in a toast. Though the gesture could have been sincere, she felt he mocked her.

Cord watched Norman come toward him from the dining room. Though he had just watched him being cordial to Hank, his instinctive respect for the Union Pacific representative was undiminished as Norman joined him and Resnick near the bar.

“Evening, Sutton. Resnick.”

After shaking hands with both men, Norman addressed the Pinkerton representative. “Any progress on apprehending that outlaw?”

Resnick shook his head. “Word travels fast.”

“Soldiers talk, especially when they find something more interesting to do than entertain the tourists.” Norman looked back at Hank and the Fielding party. “Tempers seem to be running high after Miss Fielding’s suggestion the outlaw is related to Hank.”

“If he’s not,” Cord said, “it’s the most uncanny resemblance I’ve ever seen.”

“And still at large.” Norman stroked his beard and looked at Resnick. “Do you think it safe to take an excursion away from the hotel? Say to the Grand
Canyon of the Yellowstone?”

“As far as we know, Danny’s partner in crime died beside the stage. Unless he has a gang we don’t know about, he’s unlikely to ambush a large party,” Resnick replied. “I would think there’s safety in numbers.”

Norman nodded.

Resnick squinted his good eye and looked toward the lobby door. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I see someone I need to speak to.”

Cord followed his gaze and saw the retreating form of Captain Feddors. It was a good thing he wasn’t coming toward them; he would have likely made some bigoted remark. The last thing Cord needed was for something like that to happen in front of Norman Hagen.

As soon as they were alone, he asked, “Could you and I meet with Mr. Chandler early in the morning?” Even as he spoke, he hoped he still had the backing of the bank in Great Falls.

Dammit, where was Edgar?

“I’m sorry,” Norman replied. “The reason I wished to speak to you is to let you know Mr. Chandler will be away this evening and tomorrow. He requested I entertain you, Hank, and Fielding with the Grand Canyon excursion I mentioned to Resnick.”

Cord grimaced. “I would think Hank’s seen the park and has plenty to do keeping up with this place.”

“I believe he has agreed to go. In fact, he invited the ladies of the Fielding party, most particularly Forrest’s daughter, Laura.”

Cord frowned before he caught himself.

Norman cleared his throat. “Something I have been meaning to ask. Word is that you and Miss Constance Devon …”

Cord swallowed. He’d seen Constance and Norman together several times in the past few days.

“I wanted to ask you, sir, about your intentions.”

He felt like a cad. “That’s something I must discuss with Miss Devon before I speak with another.”

Norman nodded. “Then may I expect your company on tomorrow’s excursion?”

“Certainly.”

“I shall see you out front in the morning at eight.” He bowed and took his leave.

On his own, Cord looked in again through the dining-room doors. He should just walk in and take Constance out with him. Tell her that he and Laura had been together on the trail before it got to her from another source.

When Cord started toward the dinner table, Laura’s mouth went dry. During his conversation with Norman she’d been aware of the several looks both men had given her and Constance.

When he came to stand, not beside her chair, but Constance’s, Laura studied her gold-rimmed dessert plate.

“Good evening.” Cord bowed and kept his focus
on Constance. “I wonder if you might step out with me for a little while.” He looked at the empty sherbet bowl at her place. “That is, if you have finished your dinner.”

“I have,” she murmured and pushed back her chair. Forrest Fielding whip-cracked, “Don’t you dare!” Constance sagged back.

Forrest was on his feet. “You low-down cur. You asked my niece to be your wife, yet you have not paid her the slightest attention since we got here. Now I have learned that you compromised my daughter by traveling with her unchaperoned.”

Laura broke in, “Would you rather he had left me alone in the wilderness?”

Forrest’s face colored. “He could have done any number of things. Waited with you for the stage scouts, escorted you to the town of Jackson, which would not have been an overnight ride … things any gentleman would have considered.”

Cord faced him. “Whatever you may think of my and Laura’s judgment when we decided to travel together, I am here to do the right thing.” He extended his hand to Constance. “Are you coming with me?”

Constance studied her uncle’s angry face and shook her head.

Cord bowed again. “Then I will speak with you at your convenience.” His tone sounded perfectly correct, but Laura sensed anger at her cousin’s mealymouthed refusal to go along. Perhaps what she feared was not Forrest’s wrath, but what Cord might say about her
falsely representing them as engaged.

Cord’s regard swept the table at large. “Good evening.”

He turned away and left with swift steps.

Laura got to her feet and followed him from the dining room. When her father called for her to come back, she walked faster.

L
aura lost sight of Cord in the crowded lobby. Deciding he must have gone out, she headed for the nearest door.

Outside, she stood a moment while her eyes adjusted to the deepening dusk. Upon the opposite hillside, she noticed the glow from the campfire at Wylie’s. Remembering her suggestion to go with Cord to hear Bitter Waters, she suspected he’d gone there.

Without going up to her room for a shawl, she hugged herself and moved toward the tipi near the fire. Halfway there, she heard the barker introduce Bitter Waters of the Nez Perce Nation.

Laura had never thought of the tribes as nations, but, of course, that was exactly what they were.

When she reached the outer edge of the campfire crowd, she wormed her way to a place where she could see. Several of the casually dressed campers looked askance at her emerald silk.

Their attention was quickly diverted when a distinguished gentleman came out of the tipi. His dark business suit and white shirt made a startling contrast to his braided hair, breastplate of bone, and colored beads. His powerful gaze swept over the audience and, as his focus came to rest on someone to Laura’s left, she located Cord.

The two men looked at one another for no longer than a heartbeat. Then Bitter Waters raised both arms and began to chant. The mellifluous tones sent a chill up Laura’s spine.

She moved toward Cord, but stopped. If Bitter Waters saw them together, her idea of helping the two men connect after the program might go awry.