Miner's Daughter (25 page)

“It’s only what?” he asked gently, hoping
she’d divulge one or two of, her deepest secrets, although he
couldn’t imagine why she would. Not to him. Hell, for all he knew,
she still despised him, both for being rich and for being . . .
well, a little harsh with her at first.

He heard her expel a huge gust of breath.
“It’s only that my father and I were . . . well, we were close, but
he didn’t really help much with anything.”

Exactly as Tony’d expected. His antagonism
toward Mari’s deceased parent grew another yard or so. He tried to
keep anger from sounding in his voice when he next spoke, since he
knew the quickest way to shut her up was to disparage her, her
father, her dog, that damned mine, Mojave Wells, or anything else
connected with her life. He cleared his throat and “Oh?” There. He
was proud of himself for being so absolutely noncommittal. Not even
Mari, who was good at it, could take exception to that one teensy
word.

“Yes.” She shut up.

Damn. Tony had been hoping she’d open up and
spill the beans about her idiot father. An idea blossomed in his
head, and he decided it was stupid. Then he decided, what the hell,
and used it anyway. “I, ah, have never been close with my own
father.”

“No?”

She sounded interested, so Tony decided to
take one more baby step.

“No. He, ah, wasn’t home much.”

“Too busy earning money, I expect.”

He heard the smile in her voice and took
heart. Maybe he could do this without getting all maudlin and
mushy. He decided he could place his long-distance call tomorrow,
and the two of them walked outdoors together. “Yeah. He loves
money. More than he loved my brother and mother and me, I sometimes
thought.”

“Oh, you knew your mother?”

What an odd way to put it. Tony lifted the
lantern so he could see her face. She appeared nearly avid. “I
still do. She lives in New York. You didn’t know your mother?”

She shook her head. “She died when I was a
baby. I don’t even have a memory of her.”

Although she spoke lightly, Tony thought he
could detect traces of ancient pain. His own heart lurched and
ached for her. So, she’d had no mother and an obsessed father.
Great life for a darling little girl. He was sure she’d been
darling. She still was. “I’m sorry, Mari.”

“It’s all right.” She shrugged.

Tony got the impression of both great
strength and hurt. “Doesn’t sound all right to me. No mother and a
father who . . . well, I know he was a good man . . .” He knew no
such thing. Tony thought he was a damned idiot, if not worse. “But
evidently he didn’t take very good care of you.”

He cringed as soon as the words left his
mouth, knowing from bitter experience that Mari didn’t take kindly
to censorious comments about her parent. She surprised him with
another huge sigh.

She followed it up with, “No, he didn’t. It’s
not that he didn’t love me, but he didn’t think about it. I mean,
he just figured I was part of his life and would naturally share
his ambitions and dreams.”

“That mine—that is to say, the Marigold
Mine—was what his ambitions centered on, I imagine “

“Yes.”

“He named it after you?” That had been a nice
gesture, at any rate:

“No. He named me after the mine.”

Tony stopped dead in his tracks for no more
than three seconds. He didn’t want to upset Mari and make her stop
spilling her guts. Hmmm.That didn’t sound right. He chucked it and
went back to the conversation. “He named you Marigold for the mine,
did he?” He was pleased that none of his rage could be detected in
his voice. “That’s, ah, an interesting round-about.”

She laughed, and it sounded genuine. “You
don’t know how much my dad loved that mine. And me, of course.”

“Of course.” It didn’t escape his attention
that she’d tacked herself on as an afterthought. His fury against
Mari’s father had risen to such a proportion that what he said next
surprised the socks off him. “I imagine there are lots of ways
people show their love. Your dad’s might have been a little
eccentric, but there you go. Just because he was, um, kind of an
oddball doesn’t mean you can’t love him, either”

Good God, where had that come from? It
sounded like something out of one of those soppy women’s magazines
his mother liked to read.

Now that he came to think about it, that
might say something about his parents’ marriage. Shoot, when he’d
started this conversation, it had been to get to know Mari better.
He hadn’t intended to open any of his own cans of worms.

“You’re absolutely right.” She sounded happy
that he’d admitted it. “That’s exactly what I think, too. I know a
lot of people in Mojave Wells thought my father didn’t treat me
very well, but he loved me, and I knew it We had great times
together, even if I did feel rather like I was the parent
sometimes. If you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.” He could picture it
in his mind very well, in fact. He imagined Mr. Pottersby, an
inveterate dreamer, being hauled down to earth by his little girl.
Poor Mari. He wanted to hug her and promise to take care of her for
the rest of her life.

That was probably the stupidest thing he’d
ever wanted. His train of thought was interrupted precipitately
when Tiny gave a sudden, ear-splitting yowl and plunged into the
darkness like a locomotive thundering into a tunnel. Tony was so
startled, he nearly dropped the lantern.

“Tiny!” Mari yelled, exasperated. “Tiny, you
come back here.” Lowering her voice, she muttered, “Drat that dog.
Must be a jackrabbit.”

“You think so?” Tony’s heart had started
drumming like the timpani in an orchestra. He wasn’t accustomed to
dogs scaring the bejesus out of him. He hoped, too, that whatever
Tony was after really was something as benign as a jackrabbit.

A huge sigh preceded Mari’s next comment.
“I’m sure it is. They come out at night, and Tiny just adores
running them down.”

“Yeah? You mean he can catch them?”

“Sometimes. Not always.”

Tony saw her glance up at him in the dim
lantern light. Her face, shadowed with night and lantern glow, was
appealing and mysterious, not at all like the face of the rugged
miner’s daughter. She was a remarkable woman, he thought in that
moment. Beautiful, honorable, tough as rocks, and as hardy a
specimen of womanhood as he’d ever encountered. She’d have made an
admirable pioneer, his Mari.

His Mari? Good God. This whole thing was in
danger of getting out of hand.

He spoke hurriedly in order to dispel the
ungentlemanly surge of lust threatening him. “Um, can you do
anything with the rabbits after he catches them?”

“Do anything with them?” She sounded puzzled.
“Well, I generally bury them, but Tiny just as often digs them up
again. It’s a losing battle.” She chuckled.

“You can’t eat them?”

“Jackrabbits? No. They’re tough and stringy.
The cottontails are pretty good eating. In fact, I eat cottontails
and chickens a lot more than beef. I raise the chickens and shoot
the rabbits, and they make life cheaper. So to speak.”

“I see.” Tony never thought twice about
ordering thick porterhouse steaks in whatever restaurant he found
himself. He could scarcely comprehend having to shoot his dinner.
Curious, he asked, “Do you shoot anything else?”

“Oh, sure. Birds, for instance. There are
quail around here, and they’re pretty tasty, although they have all
these little bones that I find tiresome. I’d rather eat a
chicken.”

“Ah. Yes, quail do have lots of bones, don’t
they?”

Tony knew they did, because, when he wasn’t
ordering porterhouse, he often chose quail. But he didn’t have to
shoot it first.

“Then, too, you have to be careful not to
break a tooth on the buckshot.”

Break a tooth on the buckshot? Sweet Lord in
heaven. He said, “I see.”

“So I generally go for chicken and
rabbits.”

“Makes sense.”

Mari whistled for her dog who, true to form,
ignored her summons. Tony heard her sigh. “Will he come back on his
own?” he asked after a moment.

“Oh, sure, eventually. Probably with a
jackrabbit dangling in his teeth. He brings me gifts, you see.”

“I see.” Tony chuckled.

“Oh, good, here we are.”

“We are?” Where were they? Tony glanced
around in the blackness and was disappointed to see a light not far
off. “Oh. Is that your cabin?”

“Yup. Home, sweet home, and all that.”

“You’ve made it quite cozy,” he murmured.

She laughed outright. “Come on, Tony, you
don’t really mean that, do you?”

“Well . . .” He thought about it and said,
“Yes. I do mean it. I think you’re a remarkable young woman,
Mari.”

“You do?”

Tony knew he shouldn’t resent the amazement
in her voice, but he did. “Yes, I do.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad one?”

“Being remarkable? I’d say it was a good
thing. A darned good one, in fact.”

“Well. Thank you.”

Tony got the impression she didn’t believe
him but didn’t want to say so. Impulse made him say, “I’d better
stick around until your dog comes home. Don’t want anything to
happen to you, all alone out here.”

“Don’t be silly.” There was no exasperation
in her tone, which Tony found minimally encouraging.

“No, really. I think I should.”

“Well . . .” She hesitated for a few seconds.
“Okay. I’ll bring out a couple of chairs. It’s kind of nice to sit
outside and look at the stars once the sun’s gone down and the
mosquitoes go away”

“You have mosquitoes out here? But it’s so
dry.”

“I know, but I guess they live somewhere,
because we sure have them.”

“I’ll be darned.”

She pushed the door to her cabin open, and
Tony went inside to retrieve two chairs. He noticed that the one
room was neat as a pin. Even though he couldn’t even imagine living
in such a place, he gave Mari credit for doing the best she could
with what she had.

Maybe the money she was going to make with
Peerless would go toward making her life easier. As he lugged the
chairs outside, he knew he was dreaming. She’d pour all those
thousands of dollars down that damned mine of hers, and before long
she’d be just as badly off as she was now. The notion riled
him.

When he set the chairs down with their backs
against the cabin wall, though, and looked up to see Mari serenely
gazing into the night sky his heart plunged crazily. He walked over
to stand beside her. “You’re right. It’s pretty here.”

“Beautiful. I think this is when I love the
desert most.”

“I can understand that.” The urge to touch
her, to hold even her hand, was so powerful, Tony stuck his hands
into his trouser pockets in order to make them obey his command to
remain gentlemanly.

“Your eyes get used to the dark after a
while, too,” she said softly. “If you stay outside long enough and
are still, eventually you’ll begin to see jackrabbits hopping
around, and sometimes even the wild donkeys will wander by.”

“Yeah? The closest I’ve ever come to nature
before this was the menagerie in the Bronx back home.”

“The Bronx? My goodness, I’ve heard of the
Bronx. I’d kind of like to travel someday.”

Her voice sounded so wistful and her profile
looked so soulful that, combined, they succeeded in undoing all of
Tony’s commands and lured his hands out of his pockets. Carefully,
so as not to alarm her, he reached out and took her hand. She
whipped her head around, and he read fear and suspicion in her
eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “My intentions
are pure. I just didn’t want you to stumble heading to the chairs.”
If she bought that one, she was a fool. Tony, who already knew she
wasn’t a fool except when it came to that mine, expected her to
slap him.

She didn’t. She only sighed, turned, and
walked with him back to the cabin. She didn’t yank her hand out of
his, which, again, he found mildly encouraging. Therefore, he
didn’t release her hand when they both sat, but kept it in his for
several moments. Then he lifted it to his lips and very gently
kissed her palm. It wasn’t a soft, delicate palm; it was callused
from years and years of hard physical work. Tony’s heart hitched
and pitched, and he stifled the urge to make all sorts of wild
declarations and promises to this independent girl.

“Tony . . .” Her breathy voice came to him as
if in a fog.

“You’re a lovely young woman, Mari,” he
murmured into her palm. “Beautiful.”

“Oh, but—”

To stop her from denying his assertion, which
he knew to be true, he leaned over and kissed her lips. Worked like
a charm. She didn’t say another word. He did hear a tiny mew of
surprise, perhaps even pleasure. As gently as gently could be, he
put both of his arms around her and drew her nearer to him. He’d
had the foresight to set the chairs close together, so there were
no perilous gaps to worry about.

Pressing her hands against his shoulder, she
whispered, “Tony, no.”

“I won’t hurt you, Mari.” He meant it. He’d
never hurt her.

“But, this is—this isn’t right “

“It feels right to me.” His sex had stirred
and was standing at attention, but Tony felt no urgency to ravish
Mari. Perhaps the desert’s magic had got to him. He thought it was
more probable that Mari herself had. As much as he yearned to bury
himself in her luscious body, he’d sooner shoot himself than add to
her burdens.

She moaned softly, and he got the impression
it felt right to her, too.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he
whispered as he feathered kisses down her chin to her throat.

“You-you have?”

“Yes, I have. Are you surprised?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know why you should be. I was afraid
I was being too obvious.”

She gave a soft, shaky laugh. “I thought you
hated me.”

“Good God, no.” Although he feared he might
spook her, he began to caress her with his hands. Carefully, he
stroked her back to the waist and a smidgen lower, where her hips
flared gently. Lord, he wanted to see her. She had legs that went
on forever; he already knew that much, because he’d seen her in
britches the first time they’d met. She was lithe and slender, and
as womanly as a woman could be.