Betina Krahn (42 page)

That was exactly what he had tried to do all along. Make a railroad. Make progress. Make a life for himself and others in a hostile and difficult land.

“Bear?” She made her way through the grasses to the stream bank and knelt beside him on the rocks. He stiffened at her touch and turned his face away. She might have taken that as a further rejection and pulled back herself, if it hadn’t been so very clear that he was hurting. She could somehow see through that toughness, that manly decisiveness that he wore like a shield.

“Bear,” she said, taking his arm and refusing to release it, “it’s not your fault, either. You’ve done your best. You’ve started a railroad and worked hard—against all odds—to make it a reality.”

“Yeah, I’ve worked. And I’ve failed,” he said hoarsely, his
entire body tensing against the pain caused by that admission.

“That’s not true.”

“The hell it’s not.” He turned to her with his eyes blazing and tracks of liquid glistening on his soot-covered cheeks. “I’ve stomped and roared and bellowed like a tyrant—I’d have laid that track with my own two hands, if I could! I refused to let anyone help—even Halt, and he’s been my partner for three years. If I had listened to him, we would have had any one of a number of loans and the track would have been finished and operation would have started last summer. Every decision was mine. I had to personally supervise every damned signature line, bolt, and I rail.” When the insight struck, he could no more keep it inside than he could fly. “I haven’t been building a railroad, sweetheart, I’ve been building a monument to my own damned pride!”

Unwilling to suffer the disgust he knew would be in her expression, he shoved to his feet and stalked back toward the horses. She scrambled up and went after him, dragging him to a halt and planting herself in front of him.

“You’re right—you were proud and independent and damned bullheaded. So what? That’s not exactly news to anybody, Bear McQuaid, least of all to me. And, yes, a whale of a lot has gone wrong on the Montana Central and Mountain. But none of it was your doing—least of all what happened to the Danverses.

“You just told me that it was Beecher, and you were right. He wanted to stop you, to keep you from building your dream. You had every right to fight for that dream, in any and every way you chose. I was wrong, Bear. There are times when you have to defend yourself and what you’re trying to create. Even with force. Even against interfering females who love you with all their hearts but blunder in where they’re not needed!”

She realized she was yelling at him and shaking his arms … that she’d just roared her love at him. Closing her eyes, she released him.

It took a moment for what she’d said to penetrate his anger and humiliation. How could she stand there with her heart in her eyes, trying to shake some sense into him, fighting her way through both his pride and his despair to declare that she loved him?

How could she love him? He’d deceived, distrusted, and disappointed her. His railroad was a shambles and his life with her even more so. But she was standing there … with her heart in her eyes …

“Who said you weren’t needed?” he said, his hands clenching at his sides.

“You did.” She looked up.

“And you listened to me?” His voice softened to a tortured rasp.

“I’m a soft touch, remember?”

The sight of her face glowing through soot and the smudges and streaks of tears caused that ache in the middle of him to spread. She loved him. And it didn’t depend on him finishing a damned railroad or proving that there was something worthwhile inside him. She loved him just as he was. Proud, stubborn, arrogant, selfish, overbearing …

“And I’m an idiot. You should have better sense than to listen to me.”

“You shout. It’s impossible not to listen.” Through her tension bloomed a pained and tentative little smile. “Just like it’s impossible not to love you. Believe me, I tried.”

He felt an unexpected and wholly undeserved spot of warmth developing inside that cavernous hollow inside him. Hope.
Please don’t let it he too late!

“Let me into your dream, Bear,” she said, so quietly he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it. “Let us all in. A dream
only big enough to hold one person will never amount to much. A dream worth having has room for lots of other people in it … especially people who love you.”

She stood there in the moonlight, her eyes shining, risking everything to offer him her hope, her faith, her heart. She had loved him enough to adopt his dream as hers, to give herself to it despite his selfishness. She had claimed a stake in his dream, took pride in it, and worked hard to realize it. Just like Halt. And the men in his crews. And the Danverses. They were all a part of what he’d started. And until he realized it and made room for that reality-welcomed it—his precious dream would never come true.

“Will you let me in, Bear?” she asked softly, searching his face.

“You’ve always been in my heart, Diamond. You’re the very core of me. I want you—need you in my dreams and the rest of my life, as well.”

He flung his arms around her and held her tightly, pouring his joy out in kisses all over her lips, her face, her hair. She threw her arms around him, holding him tightly, surrendering even her breath to the pleasure of his touch and exuberance of his kisses. Again and again he kissed her; some kisses were deep and soft, some short and playful. He kissed her nose, her eyelids, her smoky hair, her earlobes, and every square inch of her cheeks.

When he finally settled once again on her lips, she kissed him back with all the passion his long-awaited invitation to share his life produced in her. She ran her hands feverishly over his back and shoulders, curled her fingers in his hair, and cradled his bristled face between her hands … claiming every part of him she could reach.

When they ended that kiss, they were breathless, weak with desire and fatigue, giddy from lack of sleep, and glowing from an abundance of pleasure.

“Come on!” he said, grinning. “Let’s get rid of this soot and salt.”

She laughed as he pulled her across the rocks to the small pool he’d constructed. “A pity … I was just beginning to like it.”

“I think there’ll be plenty left after we’ve washed …”

Taking turns, they shed their clothes and stepped into the small bathing pool, letting the cool water and warm hands flow unchecked over them. They dried on what was left of her petticoat and the night air sent them shivering into each other’s arms.

Bear made a bed of grass, laid his saddle blanket over it, and pulled her down into a cocoon of smoky clothes and warming kisses. Before long, their bodies were warmed and glowing, drawing on reserves of energy and desire neither knew they possessed.

Their bodies molded gently together, moving, lapping, caressing, merging. It was as if they were making love for the first time. Every sensation was deepened, every response heightened by the strain and terror of the night that even now was passing into the cool promise of another day. As they joined hands and moved together, the first rays of dawn appeared and bathed them first in gray, then in blue, rose, and pink. As the sun climbed above the horizon, they each found pleasure in the other’s lavish giving. And by the time the first rays of the sun dipped into the ravine to dust them with morning gold, they were both sound asleep.

Four men on horseback moved stealthily across the morning horizon, not far from where Bear and Diamond slept. Behind them on a long lead rope labored a pack-horse burdened with two wooden crates. And on the sides
of those crates, stenciled in bold black letters, was the word “dynamite.”

As they neared Great Falls, they spotted another party of men waiting on a bluff overlooking the town. Steering around the inhabited area, they headed for that group … one of whom had dismounted and now stood with his fists on his hips, like a gaunt, menacing colossus, waiting to hear their report.

“Well?” Lionel Beecher demanded, glaring at the pack-horse, then at the lead rider.

“It’s all set,” he was told. “Jus’ like you said. Nobody was there … they wus all gone off to fight th’ fires.”

“And the sod buster? Danvers?”

The leader leaned on his saddle horn and gave a yellowed grin. “They’ll be pickin’ up pieces o’ him down in Wyomin’. McQuaid’s crew run over there, all right. Wasn’t nothin’ they could do. It wus all over but the buryin’.”

Beecher smiled and strolled over to a horse that had a blanket-draped human form tied across it. He took one last draw from his cheroot and stubbed it out on one of the small, scuffed riding boots sticking out from under the blanket. The action caused a groan and rustle of protest from the figure, and Beecher smirked and walked around the horse to pull back the blanket. Beneath it was a shock of unruly red-blond hair, very much like Diamond McQuaid’s.

“Uncomfortable, my boy?” he asked, fishing through that mop of hair for a face and chin, lifting it up. “We’ll try to do a bit better once we get you to the—
e-e-owww!
” He lurched back, shaking his hand, then grabbing it tightly while he bent over and hopped around, gasping out: “He bit me—dammit!—the little bastard
bit
me!” A moment later he grabbed Robbie Wingate by the hair and jerked his head up. “You stinking little turd—you think you can get away with—”

He saw his men staring at him, halted, and dropped the boy’s head as if it besmirched his fingers.

“Let’s ride,” he snapped. “I want to be ready when the fun starts.”

It was early afternoon before the whistle of the returning train awakened Bear and Diamond. It was mid-afternoon before they arrived back at the base camp, walking hand in hand, leading their horses, and looking as if they had just set the entire world to rights.

They were greeted nervously by the men in the dinner line, holding empty plates. “After last night th’ men weren’t in no shape to start work straight off,” one of the crew foremen told him, watching anxiously for his reaction.

Were they so used to his temper that they believed he would begrudge them dinner?

“Of course,” Bear said, giving the men in the food line a nod and a taut smile. “After dinner. A man’s got to have a little something linin’ his belly.” He felt their questioning looks and paused, taking a deep breath. “You men did a great job last night, fighting those fires. I want you to know … the Danvers family is grateful. And so am I.”

Diamond, watching from the platform of their car, felt a surge of warmth in her core as the men responded warily to Bear’s improved demeanor. Feeling as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders, she headed inside to wash her hair and change her clothes. Thus, she wasn’t there moments later when Halt and Bear brought the prisoners Carrick and Sikes from the boxcar where they were imprisoned.

“Lucky for you, your little ‘surprise’ was a failure,” Bear said, standing over them as they were being loaded onto a wagon. “None of the Danvers family was killed. That may
be the only thing that stands between you and the gallows.”

Carrick looked up with a murderous glare in his blackened eye. “Yeah? Well, it ain’t over yet. Beecher’s got an ace up Is sleeve.”

Bear cast a look at Halt. Was this a legitimate threat or just hot air?

“Save it for the sheriff, Carrick,” Halt ordered, shoving their feet back onto the bed of the wagon and raising the rear board, latching it in place.

“We ain’t going to jail,” Sikes said defiantly. “You take us in, an’ you’ll never see that snot-nosed kid o’ yours agin.”

Bear froze. “What do you mean?”

“That kid. Th’ one tha’ belongs to your woman.” Carrick’s grizzled face creased with a smirk. “Beecher’s got ’im.”

“The hell ’e has,” Halt snarled, ripping down the rear gate of the wagon to get at the pair. But Bear wrestled him away from the wagon and dragged him off to the private car in search of Robbie.

Diamond appeared out of the sleeping compartment, freshly washed and in clean clothes, insisting that Robbie was with Silky. But when they checked the kitchen car, Silky hadn’t seen Robbie since the previous afternoon, and when they searched the camp and talked to the men, none of them had seen him since the start of the prairie fire.

“Talk, damn you!” Halt roared, charging back to the wagon and shaking Sikes until he was almost too dizzy to speak. “What’s Beecher got planned?”

The pair refused to talk. Bear suggested Halt climb into the wagon with him and together they drove with the prisoners off across the prairie.

After a quarter of an hour, they stopped near a rock outcropping and Bear climbed down and walked around, searching for something. When he returned, he said simply,
“This ought to do.” He and Halt dragged the pair out of the wagon and rolled them across the brush and grass to the base of the rocks.

Between choking on dust and cursing and pleading, Carrick and Sikes demanded to know what Bear and Halt were going to do with them.

“You don’t want to go to prison,” Bear said. “So I’ve decided to accommodate you. See those ants?” He scuffed the dirt with his boot toe and the pair could see red ants scurrying in all directions … including toward them. “They don’t often get a year’s supply of fresh meat, all in one big lump.” He smiled fiercely and looked at Halt.

“A pity Robbie isn’t here. He’d
love
this.”

By the time they returned to camp, they knew that Beecher had won a small ranch, just north of Great Falls, in a poker game, and that he had likely taken the boy there. Word had spread fast through the camp that Robbie was missing and that someone had taken him. Bear didn’t have to ask men to accompany him; they volunteered … the entire crew … to a man.

“ ’E’s a game little squirt,” one of the foremen declared solemnly, speaking for the men.

Diamond heard that and her throat constricted so that she couldn’t speak. Her Robbie. Her mischievous, infuriating, sneaky, sticky-fingered disgrace. He had a way of endearing himself to even the toughest of hearts.

Bear was choosing a number of men to accompany him and Halt and issuing rifles to them when the second part of Beecher’s plan rumbled through the camp. The train cars swayed on their carriages, windows rattled so hard they cracked, dishes crashed and pots overturned in the kitchen car, and tent poles came crashing down. They staggered and teetered, trying to keep their feet.