Susan Johnson Read online

  Jimmy’s eyes came up fast, locked with Hazard’s for one flashing moment, and then fell before the perplexed scrutiny. “Is something wrong, Jimmy?”

  “No sir.”

  “Is the money all right?”

  “Yes sir, it’s not that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Well, Ma saw—you know—what I brought up this morning, and—” His downcast eyes regained some of their usual sparkle. “It don’t seem so odd to me, but Ma sort of pursed her lips, and, well …”

  Amusement replaced perplexity in Hazard’s dark eyes. “And?” he prompted, one finger lazily smoothing a nonexistent tablecloth.

  “Ma says Mrs. Gordon was right all along.”

  “Right about what?” Hazard asked, a knowing smile beginning to curl the edges of his mouth.

  “I don’t rightly know, sir. Something about a thing called a tawdry hussy.” Blaze choked on her food, but Jimmy didn’t seem to notice. “Damned, oops, sorry, sir,” he apologized, “if I know what that is. But Ma was right indignant and told me not to stay after sunset. How come, sir?” Jimmy innocently asked.

  “I expect she’s worried about you up in the mountains at night,” Hazard calmly replied, his glance straying to Blaze’s flushed face.

  “But I stay here lots of times after dark.”

  “Maybe some grizzlies have been sighted lately.” Hazard resumed eating.

  “She didn’t mention no grizzlies. What’s a tawdryhussy?” Jimmy said the unfamiliar words in one unbroken breath.

  It was Hazard’s turn to choke. The small boy’s face staring at him was plainly bewildered, while Blaze’s heated blue eyes were burning into him. “Ah—actually—it’s a matter of definition,” he equivocated, “one of those things women take issue with. I wouldn’t give it another thought. And do what your mother wants. Come up if you can.”

  “I sure will. It don’t seem like she minds so much if’n it’s daylight, so I’ll come same as usual with your supplies, OK?” Jimmy had been afraid he’d lose Hazard’s friendship when his mother had harangued him that morning about the large crate being loaded on the pack saddle. He wanted reassurance that all would remain the same between himself and the man who treated him with a gentleness he’d never known, even from his own father.8

  “Fine, Jimmy, and tell your mother how much I appreciate your work. Now, would you run down to the stream and get a fresh bucket of water?” Hazard asked, knowing the woman across the table from him was about to explode.

  “Right, sir. Right away,” Jimmy exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  He’d no more than crossed the threshold when Blaze blurted out, “The nerve of that woman! The unmitigated nerve! Who the hell does she think she is?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Hazard said placatingly.

  “I’m not worried about it. Why should I worry about what some washerwoman says about me?”

  “Your snobbery is showing, Boston,” Hazard observed wryly.

  “My snobbery?” she sneered, the emphasis drawlingly apparent.

  One dark brow raised fractionally. “Point taken,” he said.

  “I should hope so!” she snapped, rounding on him with a rush of movement. “You were about to take her side!”

  He put both palms up in defense. “I wouldn’t think of it. ‘Hussy’ isn’t in my vocabulary at all.”

  “Knowing you, as long as they wear a skirt, right?”

  “Or black slacks,” he added, casting an admiring glance at her.

  “Hazard, I’m not interested in compliments at the moment. Can you believe it?” she rushed on, hotly berating what she considered a gross injustice. “Of all the gall!”

  Hazard’s deep voice was tolerantly soothing. “Gossip is like that. Ignore it.”

  “I intend to! Damn her—Hussy?” she repeated incredulously, her fingernails drumming the tabletop.

  “It’s a small mining camp.”

  “Too damn small.”

  “Everyone knows everyone else’s business.”

  “Why the hell would she call me that?” Blaze questioned, more bewildered now than resentful. “I’m a hostage, for God’s sake.” Immune to the world’s opinion in general, Blaze took issue with the pettiness of the remark. The point wasn’t what she did or didn’t do with Hazard. That was her own business—she’d always done what she pleased with her life. It just astonished her that some laundress would comment on respectability in a rough, wild mining camp like Diamond City where vice itself was a business—a major business. “She probably wants you for herself,” Blaze scathingly commented.

  “Probably does,” Hazard agreed.

  Blaze’s eyes snapped up. “Have you?”

  “I don’t see as it’s any of your business,” he replied, precise and fastidious, and went back to his eating.

  The fork was halfway to his mouth when she snatched it from his grasp. “Have you?” she repeated, not knowing herself why it suddenly mattered. Only knowing that it did.

  Slowly lowering his hand to the table, Hazard stared at her quizzically for a moment. “Are you my mother?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Do I look like your mother?” She returned his sarcasm, hers honey-sweet.

  He stared at her for another silent moment, debating his answer, debating whether he cared to answer at all. It amused him finally, he decided, her hot-tempered inquisition. “No,” he said.

  “No, what?”

  “No, you don’t look like my mother.”

  “And?”

  He smiled crookedly. “No, I haven’t. Now may I have my fork back?”

  The door banged open just then and Jimmy appeared, out of breath, with a pail of fresh water. Blaze tossed back the fork and Hazard resumed eating. Jimmy decided as the meal continued that it was twice as much fun being fussed over by two people as one.

  Chapter 14

  Later that evening, in the lull after supper, imminent darkness having driven Jimmy home, Hazard finished cleaning his rifle, put it carefully away on its rack above the door, and walked outside.

  Blaze, hearing the latch drop into place, thought with panic: Was he going into Diamond City? Would he be back tonight? Would he be back at all? Lord, would she be found by a search party in a month starved to death if he’d really left for good? Then the door reopened and Hazard came in struggling slightly under the awkward weight of a large wooden crate.

  “You’re back,” she breathed spontaneously, relief evident in the soft exhalation.

  “I was only gone two minutes,” he replied, with the grin she was becoming familiar with. Setting the slatted wooden box down, he looked up with a lazy, half-lidded gaze. “Should I have checked in sooner?”

  “You didn’t say where you were going; you’ve never gone out this late before. It’s so dark when there’s no moon. Oh, hell,” she finished in a disgusted rush.

  He found her artlessness charming. Always had. It was a curiously innocent quality in an ostensibly independent female. “Maybe I’ll be forgiven such ruthless discourtesy,” he said, straightening, “when you see what I’ve brought you.” He gestured to the open crate in invitation.

  “For me?” Blaze said, a throaty anticipation reminding him again how young she was. With the exception of her occasional hot-tempered reprisals, she really did view this all as some kind of adventure.

  “For you,” he agreed. And when she uncurled from the easy chair and stood, unrehearsed grace in motion, he caught himself staring. She was barefoot, her long legs accented by the tight black trousers, her slender body outlined by firelight. How long, he wondered, could he withstand his need for her?

  A peal of delight interrupted his wandering thoughts and his glance focused on her face. “I thought you’d like it.” His smile reappeared; her joy was contagious.

  “How ever did you think of it? Wherever did you find it?” she exclaimed, touching the shiny rim of an elaborate copper bathtub.

  “Since you seemed reluctant to en
dure my outdoor bathing facilities, I decided an alternative was—”

  “Necessary?”

  “I’d never presume to mention …” he deprecatingly murmured, a piquant sparkle in his eyes.

  “Where did Jimmy find it?”

  “After discreet inquiries—he knows all the young store clerks in town—he found one at Klein’s. It seems Jimmy persuaded his friend to sell us this tub that one of the—er—working girls in town had ordered.”

  “It is a courtesan’s model, isn’t it?” Blaze said, smiling. Small porcelain inserts, inside, front and back had caught her eye. The scenes portrayed on the painted tiles, while mythological, were also provocatively salacious. “This is what Jimmy’s mother saw.”

  “I’m afraid so … and that’s not all.”

  “There’s more?” She tried to keep from breaking into laughter.

  “Only a couple of small items. Take a look under that linen sheet.”

  Lifting the fabric, Blaze took one look, turned to Hazard, and with a teasing smile said, “You ordered these or do they come with the tub?”

  “An unfortunate series of events. What I told Jimmy to buy was two dresses for you. I thought you might appreciate a change of clothes.” He sighed. “It didn’t occur to me that ‘respectable women,’ the few we have here in Diamond City, sew their own clothes. The dresses Klein’s and Bailey’s and the hawker carry are for the … the other women.”

  “Jimmy’s mother must have thought you were opening a brothel up here,” Blaze cheerfully remarked, shaking out an outrageous creation in purple satin and feathers. “Do I have to cook if I wear this?” Her sidelong glance was replete with meaning.

  Hazard caught himself just in time. The remark on the tip of his tongue matched the heat in her eyes. “You don’t have to wear it at all,” he said, his voice cool with hard-won control. “I meant for Jimmy to get something with those small flowers … calico, is it? Something comfortable.”

  “I’ve never worn calico,” Blaze said, warmed by his gallant attempt to outfit her in “something comfortable.”

  “No, I suppose you haven’t,” he acknowledged, “but these I don’t think are going to work. We’ll reorder and have someone sew something for you. You specify the material if you think calico won’t do, and send your measurements down next time Jimmy comes up.”

  “I don’t know them.” Her eyes lifted slowly to his, her face hauntingly beautiful in the firelight.

  Hazard moved back a half-step, as if the withdrawal would ensure him safety from her inviting eyes. “I’ll find some string around here. You could measure with that.”

  “Or rawhide?” she reminded him, challenged by his constant restraint.

  “I’ll find some string,” he emphatically repeated. “After I haul some water up here for you.” And he narrowly escaped outside. Resisting Blaze Braddock required a kind of courage he’d never cultivated. He was a novice at saying no to a beautiful woman.

  Within fifteen minutes the boiler on top of the stove was filled and in another half-hour the water was steaming. Carefully lifting the heavy boiler off the stove, he poured the hot water into the tub. Cooling it with some water from the stream, he explained to Blaze, “Add as much cold water as you like from these buckets. You know where the soap is.”

  “This is all very kind of you. Thank you.” No teasing now in her voice, no facetiousness glinting behind her long lashes. She was sincere, warm and appreciative. Harder, he discovered, to resist than her more blatantly sensual mockery.

  His tone was brisk and, he hoped, pragmatic. “You might want to wear one of those garish satin things after your bath. At least they’re clean. We’ll get something more suitable in a day or two.” Unconsciously, he’d said “we.” He didn’t notice, but Blaze did.

  He was affecting her tonight in a way she’d never experienced before. The tub, the hot water, his solicitude for her taste in clothing, all were poignantly touching. He was a dazzling creature physically, but, more remarkably, a beautiful man with a core of gentle kindness she’d never seen before in the masculine world of her acquaintance. “You won’t stay?” she asked very softly, for he was already moving toward the door.

  He half turned back, and a hushed silence fell between them. He waited so long to answer she thought he might not have heard. She opened her mouth to say the words over again.

  “No,” he quickly said, his eyes telling her yes. Then, swinging around briskly, he walked out.

  THE bath was heaven. The tub, made for a courtesan’s trade, roomy enough for two; Blaze’s leisurely bath, however, was solitary.

  Hazard spent the time on the ledge overlooking the mountainside, his chin propped on the housing of the Gatling gun, his arms sprawled out before him along the smooth, cool barrel. The lights of Diamond City, at a short distance, were reflected as a pinkish glow on the underbelly of the cloud cover. The quarter moon, obscured tonight by heavy clouds, shone somewhere, but on Hazard’s mountain it was black, the atmosphere heavy with activity, his own thoughts as turbulent as nature around him.

  He thought of her a hundred times a day, he wanted to touch her no less often. Her smile and laughter—even her explosive temper—created a kind of warm companionship he hadn’t experienced since Raven Wing died. Unfortunately, she was utterly untouchable—a woman linked irrevocably with a faction willing to kill him, more succinctly, linked with a world anathema to everything he held dear. His long-boned hands tightened around the multibarreled metal until, white-knuckled, the pain roused him from his musing. Enough, he resolved. His decision was firm. She wouldn’t be here forever. He wanted no part of her, no reminder when she was gone, no complexities added to his already complex life. So he stayed there in the dark night, forcing his thoughts to the priorities that mattered—the mine, the gold, his people’s welfare.

  He wanted to be certain she was out of the bath and dressed before he returned.

  WOULD he come to her? Blaze wondered, lying back in the warm water, resting her head against the richly embossed copper. Like a child wishing for an expensive toy, she wished he would. But also, unlike a child, she was fully aware of the difference between reality and wishing. He didn’t come, of course, as she very well knew he wouldn’t. But he’d been thinking of her when he bought the tub, when he’d ordered the dresses. He was, she knew, no more immune to her than she to him.

  They would make love again, she knew. It was inevitable, as spring followed winter. She felt the excitement of attracting him, the excitement of her fledgling sexual power. She could feel the intensity between them like a scorching living force. And the anticipation of drawing him out from his reserved world of duty and moral obligation was irresistible.

  WHEN he entered the cabin at last, the fire had died to glowing coals, casting burnt-gold shadows on his bare chest, his face reflecting muted saffron. Only his eyes and his silky hair shone black.

  The moment Hazard saw Blaze, flushed, one slender leg curled under her, seated on the chair near the fire, he was shaken to the core of his conviction. He felt his heart miss a beat. She had chosen the black taffeta gown: an extremely low décolletage barely covered her pale, mounded breasts; white shoulders and arms glistened purity and innocence in contrast to the sinful black taffeta; jet bugles, lavishly sprinkled like midnight stars, caught the fire, accenting her provocatively upthrust breasts spilling out over the low-cut neckline. Then she moved slightly, her gleaming hair slipping over her shoulder like coiled copper and his adrenaline pumped wildly. With the same motion, the full, crisply pleated skirt fell open, crumpled silk shimmering with a life of its own. Suddenly her shapely legs were bared, as were portions of one hip and thigh, the revealing construction designed for a customer’s ease.

  She was a sorceress, half-naked before him, accessible as original sin, shimmering with heated invitation as cut velvet lures the eye to touch … an enchantress whose blue-eyed glance said, “You want me.”

  For the hundred-and-first time that day Hazard shut his mind to the
tempting possibilities. “How was your bath?” he said very softly, his eyes focused on her supple, curving thigh.

  She felt pretty and feminine in the sleek black silk, and alluring, the fragrance of the soap lingering on her warm skin. “Do you like the dress?” Blaze asked, ignoring his question, her voice low like his.

  “Only a dead man wouldn’t,” he replied, his drawl velvety-smooth, his dark stare sliding upward in complimentary reassessment.

  “It feels cool on the skin.”

  He didn’t move. He felt his heart beating as if he’d run too many miles. “I can imagine.”

  “Did you notice the inventiveness of the design?” And she shook the skirt open another few inches.

  “Of course,” he said, his voice husky now. “My compliments to the designer. And,” he added, “to the model. It may not be what you’re accustomed to, but guaranteed, I assure you,” he went on, his black eyes caressing, “to strike a ballroom speechless.”

  “Or a brothel reception room.”

  “Even that,” he agreed quietly. “I wish,” he gallantly continued in the mildest tone he possessed, “I could take advantage of the opportunity.”

  “I wish you would.”

  It always startled him momentarily—the candid impertinence. No artifice. No hypocrisy. White women generally practiced a fraudulent coyness, sanctimonious until the very last. “Not, I think,” he said with a soft sigh, “as much as I do.”

  “Well, then?” She held out her hand with a delicacy that surprised and excited him.

  All he had to do was reach out and touch the inviting hand, slide his fingers up her creamy arm, and slip the black taffeta off her smooth white shoulders. The dream was brief, however, and he came back to himself. “You don’t understand, do you?”

  Lowering her arm, she shook her head slowly and long shimmering hair, flame-red in the firelight, flowed over her bare shoulders.

  “Your father will come for you.”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t want to be responsible for anything more than keeping my claim intact.”