A Fire in the Blood (18 page)

      
Easier said than done
.
When he had seen her naked in that water, he had been like a man possessed, beyond thought, beyond reason. She fancied herself in love with him. Avoiding her would be next to impossible since she had already demonstrated her persistence and ingenuity—and that was before he had lain with her.

      
Sweet lord, just thinking about her slender, delicate body made him hard all over again. He had never taken a virgin before. Her very innocence had fueled his passion. Lissa was not the only one thrilled by the forbidden. Jess could see them again, entwined, with his dark hands on her pale flesh.

      
Strange, he had made love to many white women over the years and felt no different about them than he had about those with Indian blood. All of them had been experienced. Some were plain whores who charged for their favors; the rest were faithless wives cheating on their husbands. He had always felt contempt for the double standard that made him at once an enticement and a pariah from civilized society. That would never change. His relationship with Lissa Jacobson was impossible. What did she really feel for him? He had accused her of the sins committed by so many of his women over the years, but now he had doubts.

      
The pain in her wide gold eyes had been real. The answering pain that tightened his chest was just as real. He would not call it love, but he feared that Lissa might.

      
"I should be thinking about how I'm going to finish the job, not about her." A man in his business could snag some lead if his mind was not focused on survival every minute. In more ways than one, Lissa was a luxury he could not afford.

* * * *

      
Marcus looked up as Germaine entered his library with a tray in her hand. She placed it on the desk and handed him a cup of coffee, saying, "Black with extra sugar, just the way you like it,
Cheri.
"

      
A frown creased his face. "I've told you, don't call me that. Someone might overhear."

      
"Someone! You mean Lissa," she replied angrily.
 

      
"Yes, Lissa, my daughter," he said levelly, his eyes the color of a frozen lake.

      
"You are a fool, Marcus. She is not the proper lady your wife was. She and that Indian—"

      
"That will be quite enough, Germaine," he interrupted sharply. "You've made these wildly inaccurate, insanely jealous accusations before. I refuse to listen to such errant nonsense again." He stood up, towering over her even though she was tall for a woman.

      
"You refuse everything! After all I have given you, you should know I would not lie—"

      
"All you've given me," he mocked with an ugly sneer. "You made your sexual favors available when I met you in St. Louis, then when I was alone and desperate for a woman after Mellisande died. You would lie, my dear. You would do anything to discredit my only child."

      
"She is not—"

      
"Silence! Don't say it again. I know where this conversation is leading, and I refuse to hear it one more time."

      
"You treat me badly, Marcus."

      
"I treat you admirably and you damn well know it," he snapped. "I've given you a hefty bequest in my will and a position here running my household for as long as I live."

      
"And made me swear an oath by the Blessed Virgin that I would never reveal our relationship on pain of losing everything!" she said in a scathingly bitter tone.

      
He smiled a cold, nasty smile. "The oath is bound only by your own papist superstitions. Break it," he dared.

      
She seemed to crumple in on herself for a moment, then straightened and faced him with that same old black fire in her eyes. "No, I will not break it as you well know. Unlike you, I keep to my loyalties. You and your daughter are alike—faithless. She will bring you low, Marcus. I will have to do nothing. Nothing at all but sit back and wait."

      
She turned and walked from the room, leaving Marcus Jacobson to ruminate on his own folly, ruing the day he had ever been desperate enough to take Germaine Channault as his mistress.

      
Their liaison had ended long before Lissa returned from St. Louis, of course. He would never have permitted his gently reared child to learn about his sordid arrangement with a common woman like Germaine.

      
No woman could ever replace his beloved Mellisande. He had never considered remarrying, and if he had, it would not be to an impoverished French Canadian who was homely and possessed of morals that would bear no close inspection.

In the early days there were so few women in Wyoming, he temporized for the hundredth time. Yet he cursed the fate that had ever kept him in Germaine's bed.

      
She was irrationally jealous of Lissa, which was understandable, and the two had been at odds ever since his daughter was a child. When she returned home permanently last year, the feud had worsened. Now it had become so virulent as to include Germaine's ridiculous accusations about Lissa having an affair with that half-breed gunman. Of course Lissa had shown an interest in the exotic stranger, but he knew that Robbins was too smart to try and touch her. Even more important, Lissa's morals were of the same caliber as those of her mother.

      
"Damn Germaine, always stirring up trouble," he said aloud as he took a swallow of the coffee. There was a bitter edge to the thick, sweet liquid and it grated on his teeth as he set down the cup and resumed working on his books.

* * * *

      
When Jess arrived in Cheyenne, he went straight to the telegraph office. Pardee's wire was waiting for him. The gunman would arrive on the Monday train along with a dozen well-chosen companions. As soon as he had the backup he needed, the trap could be sprung on the rustlers. He had watched Sligo's trips to the line shack and checked all the messages he had left. Rather than tip off the rustlers, he had let them take several small bunches of cattle on isolated ranges and merely doubled the hands who guarded the larger herds closer to the J Bar big house. That had held down losses, but it was not a long-term answer to the problem.

      
After the fall roundup, when the four-year-olds were shipped for sale, the remaining cattle would spread out across the vast rangelands. Winter snows would isolate them, and hands would be fewer since many quit after roundup, using their warm-weather earnings to live in town during the bitter blizzard season. By spring, before another roundup crew could be organized, the scattered cattle would again fall prey to the rustlers who only waited for the weather to break before swooping down.

      
But why did such a carefully coordinated bunch, of thieves single out J Bar? Diamond E and Empire Land and Cattle were almost as big, yet Evers and MacFerson had barely been touched, and the beeves they did lose were taken from herds adjacent to J Bar. Someone was squeezing Marcus Jacobson. Who? Why?

      
Deep in thought, Jess folded the telegram, tucked it into his vest pocket, and strolled out of the Western Union office into the busy street. He nearly collided with Camella Alvarez. She was sporting a frothy concoction of ruffles and bows that was supposed to be a parasol.

      
"Watch that damn thing, Cammie. You almost put out my eye," he said, directing the point away from his face.

      
She turned from the distraction of the medicine show drawing a crowd in the center of the street. A rumpled man in a stovepipe hat proclaimed the miraculous curative powers of Dr. Hamlin's Wizard Oil, Blood Pills and Cough Balsam. "What are you doing in town, Jess?"

      
Her liquid black eyes danced mischievously as she twirled her parasol on her shoulder and studied him. She was a confection in a bright pink taffeta dress sporting a poufed bustle in the back. The color flattered her olive skin and ebony hair. A big white smile played across her generous mouth. "I've missed you,
querido
," she said, running her hand up his arm proprietarily.

      
For reasons he preferred not to examine, he felt uncomfortable with her, knowing where their conversations always led. The last place he wanted to be now was in Cammie's bed. "You're out early in the day. Some special reason?" he hedged.

      
She shrugged. "A woman gets bored rehearsing all day, performing for that pack of slavering drunks every night. I just wanted some air. What are your plans? I have the afternoon free."

      
"Sorry, Cammie. I don't. I just came to check on a wire I sent. I have to ride back to J Bar before nightfall."

      
"If you walk me back to the theater, I can tell you about Sligo . . . and some of his friends." She let the bait dangle.

      
He fell into step beside her. "So tell me about Sligo."

      
"He was in the audience three nights ago. Got mean drunk. Talked like he was planning to leave Wyoming soon."

      
He digested that. Things had not been going well for the thieves. "Maybe the rustlers are displeased with their inside man."

      
She shrugged. "The barmen were ready to evict him when a couple of Diamond E hands came over and quieted him down."

      
He stopped in midstride. "Who were they?"

      
"An older fellow—Kirk, I think is his name. And Yancy Brewster."

      
"I'll be damned. You ever see them together before?" he asked as he opened the back door to the music hall stage. They stepped into the gloomy silence. The place was deserted so early in the day.

      
"I heard both men rode together in Colorado before Brewster became the Diamond E foreman."

      
Jess whistled low. "Cammie, I owe you."

      
"Oh, I can think of lots of ways to make you pay, Jess," she said with dancing eyes. "Come upstairs with me now. You have plenty of time to ride back to J Bar before dark."

      
He shook his head. "Not today."

      
She studied him, feeling the tension coiled in him when she stroked his arm. "There is more than your job involved in this, isn't there,
querido
? I could tell when I first touched you. You feel different. Who is the woman?"

      
He muttered an oath beneath his breath. "Look, Cammie, I can't explain now. Maybe never."

      
Her expression was troubled. "Whoever she is, she has hurt you."

      
"More like I've hurt her," he replied grimly.

      
"Old Marcus's daughter! Yes, it must be." Now her eyes were wide with concern. "Jacobson will kill you if you so much as look at her—or did she do the looking first?"

      
He ignored the question. "I know it won't work, Cammie. As soon as this job is done, I'm leaving Wyoming." He gave her trembling lips a light kiss, then reached for the stage door. "If you hear anything more, leave a message at the telegraph office for me. And thanks, Cammie."

      
"I would say stay away from her, but I will bet my newest hat you will not listen. Just be careful,
querido
. And remember, I am always here."

* * * *

      
"But Lissa, you must realize what a perfect opportunity the dance would present." Lemuel's smile was indulgent as he sat holding her hand in the ranch parlor. He and Marcus had just concluded some business transactions in the library. Her father then excused himself, leaving his associate and his daughter alone until dinner. Lemuel was staying the night.

      
"I've already explained that I need more time to consider your proposal, Lemuel. Announcing our engagement at the dance is simply out of the question." There, she had said it. She met Mathis's piercing gaze head-on.

      
His face was faintly flushed, as if he were at the end of his patience. "You know how dearly your father wishes us to be wed," he wheedled.

      
"Nothing could be clearer, believe me. And I don't want to hurt Papa. . . ." Her words trailed away as she compared the stodgy older businessman sitting next to her with Jesse Robbins.

      
As if reading her thoughts, Mathis asked, "Is there someone else, Lissa? That Brewster fellow, perhaps?"

      
"No," she answered almost too quickly, then realizing that Yancy's suit was perhaps the safest camouflage she could devise, she added, "That is, Yancy is one of the men who has courted me. I'm only nineteen, Lemuel. I just want some time for myself."
Some time with Jess
.

      
Mathis's broad forehead creased in a frown. "Nineteen is past the age when most women are married, Lissa. And marriage won't be the end of parties and gaiety if you marry me. Then you could live in Cheyenne. Preside over my splendid brick residence and attend all of the city's social events. Quite a bit different from what young Brewster could offer. He's nothing but a cowhand who's worked his way into Cy Evers's good graces," he added righteously.

      
Lemuel was insufferably pompous and stuffy. What would he think if she told him she fancied marrying a man like Jess? He would have a seizure, she was certain.

      
"A penny for your thoughts, my dear?" he said, leaning close to her, preparing to steal a clumsy kiss.

      
"Oh, nothing really, Lemuel," she said, as she quickly stood up and paced over to the big front window.