Renegade Man (5 page)

Jonah Jones
certainly couldn’t be called scrawny anymore. Sinewy would be a better
description. His straight and heavy hair—and his positively barbaric
mustache—were the dark yellow-brown shade of split pine that had been left to
season in the weather. He had shot up at least half a foot, and his shoulders didn’t
seem to have an end. Swimmer’s shoulders, with a swimmer’s powerful legs to
match. The wet suit he had been wearing had left nothing to her imagination.
Neither had his hands. From the way they had moved over her in the river, she
could very well guess how they would roam over a woman in bed.

The distant hum
of a dredge engine, almost too low to hear, informed her that he was still at
it, diving and suctioning the riverbed, looking for a streak of gold. If he
succeeded, the area would be overrun by prospectors. She had to find Renegade
Man first!

Another sound, a
low rumble that began deep in Magnum’s throat, made Rita-lou sit back on her
heels. Her gaze swept the scrubby bank. The fur on Mag¬um’s neck bristled, and
he came to his feet. A moment later, a horse trotted out of the brush.

Instantly she
recognized its rider. Buck Dillard— Meat Processor. This time his 30-30 was
sheathed in its scabbard on the saddle, along with a lariat. Still sitting on
her heels, she waited as Buck approached. Magnum bared his teeth, and she
stroked his stiffened fur.

Buck reined in
the pinto just short of the dig’s edge, puffing dirt over the side. He pushed
his hat back on his head. His skin, from midforehead to thinning hairline, was
white. “Morning, Rita-lou.”

“Morning. You
wanted something?”

His lower lip
was distended by a pinch of snuff. “Boss just sent me over to pay a neighborly
visit, see how you was getting on.”

“You’ve paid
it.”

He leaned
forward in the saddle and spat into the excavation. “You could be a sight more
civil, Rita- lou.” A leer played around his smug mouth. “After all, you and I
went to school together.”

She knew exactly
what he was thinking. That she would be an easy mark. Well, she had expected
that kind of illiterate, rednecked mentality when she made up her mind to come
back to Silver City. She was still being condemned for the mistake she had
made. A mistake she would have made all over again, since it had meant having
Trace in her life.

Magnum growled,
a menacing sound that forecast trouble. She caught his collar. “Hush, Magnum.
You’d better leave, Buck.”

He eyed the dog
with contempt. “Magnum. A weird name. For that champagne stuff?”

“Not for the
bottle.” Her smile, she thought, probably resembled the Lab’s bared canines.
“For the Smith and Wesson.”

Her expression
obviously annoyed him. “You oughta keep a leash on that dog. He might get
mistaken for a coyote or a wolf.”

Magnum was
straining at his collar, and she was relieved when Buck wheeled the pinto
around and rode away. “It’s all right, fella,” she said soothingly.

After she put a
pot of leftover stew on the burner, turned low, she went out to the work tent,
where her lab equipment was set up: a washtub, a mesh screen, cleaning
chemicals and brushes and cigar boxes for sorting. Quickly she culled the
potsherds and lance heads she had found that morning, separating any that might
suffer damage. She wanted to finish her morning’s sorting and washing before
she broke for lunch, and she hurriedly cleaned a brass button with an
eyedropperful of sodium bicarbonate solution, humming as she worked.

A moment later
Magnum began to bark outside the tent. Abruptly her hands ceased their delicate
work. Obviously C. B. Kingsley didn’t like her digging on what he considered
his land, and apparently Buck Dillard wasn’t finished paying his boss’s
respects.

Her mouth set in
a defiant line, she pushed back the tent flap and stepped outside. Immediately
Magnum trotted to her side. What she spotted wasn’t Buck’s pinto but a tall man
striding across the creek meadow toward her camp. A cowboy hat shadowed his
features, but one glance at the set of those shoulders and she knew that her
latest visitor was Jonah Jones. Just one more person who didn’t want her
digging here.

He made his way
carefully across the crisscrossing network of twine, skirting the grids where
the topsoil had already been removed. She remained where she was, her hands on
her hips, her expression unyield¬ng, as he drew nearer. He walked with what was
almost a swagger, a man steeped in his own self- confidence.

As much as she
resented his presence at Tomahawk Flats, she couldn’t help the way her stomach
bottomed out and her breathing rushed as rapidly as Renegade Creek. He was so
tall in a pair of scuffed boots that he dwarfed her five-foot-three-inch frame,
making her feel terribly vulnerable.

Apparently he
had changed his wet suit for western attire for the call. When he was close
enough, she said, “Well, if it isn’t the old salt. You paying a neighborly
visit, too?”

His brows,
straight as rulers, rose over sea-green eyes with saltwater-and-wind lines at
the corners. “Too?”

“I was just
treated to a visit by Meat Processor, making his morning rounds for C.B.”

Thoughtfully, he
ran a finger along the line of his mustache. “I would think, as an occupant of
this part of the valley, that I’d also be on C.B.’s schedule of ‘morning
rounds.’ ”

Beside her,
Magnum remained in a guarded stance, but the snarl with which he had greeted
Buck Dillard was absent, at least for the present. “Well, if this isn’t a
neighborly visit,” she asked, “then what is it?”

His clenched jaw
eased with his wry smile. “Coming across the flat there, I felt like I should
be waving a white flag. Hey, listen. This is ridiculous. We’re camped less than
a quarter mile apart. If we’re going to be working within hailing range of one
another for the rest of the summer, I think we should be on sociable terms, at
least.”

She resented his
easy charm. Or maybe she resented how easily he had gotten over her. Vanity,
vanity! “Just what does ‘sociable terms’ mean?”

“Well, for one
thing, it’s a little silly for both of us to make that long trip into town
every time we need to buy supplies or run an errand. It seems like we could
correlate our trips, doesn’t it?”

She folded her
arms and examined Jonah, really examined him. He had changed so much over the
years, become so thoroughly masculine. The face alone was overpowering: strong,
sexy mouth framed by that raffish mustache; deep tan; deeply cleft chin. The
easy friendship they had shared—and later the hand-holding, followed eventually
by the chaste kisses of adolescence—was wiped out by the overwhelming presence
of the boy become man.

For courage, she
injected skepticism into her voice. “What’s the second thing?”

He grunted,
jamming his hands in his pockets. His gaze drifted to the distant Burro
Mountains. His nostrils flared, as if scenting something. When he glanced back
at her, he was frowning. “Ah, hell. I want to apologize about the other
afternoon. At the laundry. What went on between you and Chap was none of my
business.”

“You’re wrong
about that. What went on between me and Chap was everybody’s business. No soap
opera could hold a candle to the drama that took place in Silver City twenty
years ago.”

She inflected
her voice with the sharp edge of sing¬song mimickry: “Girl from wrong side of
tracks goes to work for cattle baron’s household. Cattle baron’s heir falls for
her. She turns up pregnant. They go to his father for permission to marry.
Father refuses, then offers her money to leave town. She refuses. Heir comes to
her, announcing he has realized his obligation to his heritage and to the Split
P and has changed his mind. Girl from wrong side of tracks leaves town.”

The lines beside
his eyes deepened. “That’s how the story goes. Is that what really happened?”

“Just what do
you mean?”

“Word went that
you accepted C.B.’s bribe. That that’s why Chap changed his mind about marrying
you.” His glance flickered over her camp. “You have done quite well for
yourself.”

She felt the way
she had when she fell from the apple tree—when she had been unable to breath
for several long, painful seconds. “That’s a lie! I wouldn’t touch his filthy
money. I hitchhiked to Houston. Hitchhiked! And I waited tables to support
myself and Trace for five years while I went back to school. Only after my late
husband came into our lives did we have a life-style that could be considered
comfortable.” She dusted her hands and started toward her tent. “If you’ll
excuse me, Captain Outrageous, my lunch is probably burnt by now.”

“So that’s what
I was smelling?”

She paused and
looked over her shoulder. He had been magnanimous enough to apologize. Could
she be any less civil? “Would you care for some lunch?”

He stared at her
with wary amusement. “You sure?”

“Leftover stew
and chicken salad sandwiches.”

“I’ll stay. I’ve
run out of everything but bologna.”

She lifted a
brow. “Is such a heavy lunch wise for a diver?”

“Gotta run into
Silver City this afternoon to pick up my mail. That’s what got me thinking I
oughta stop by and see if you wanted anything while I was in town.”

Perhaps she had
been too generous in her assessment of him. She eyed him suspiciously. “You
wouldn’t by any chance be thinking of sweet-talking me out of excavating this
site, would you?”

His thumbs
hooked in his belt loops, he regarded her steadily. “Ritz, if I thought I could
get away with it, I would. But I remember you from the old days, from the first
grade—when you refused to take naps.”

“You weren’t so
biddable either, Jonah.” In fact, he had been a real rebel, an intractable boy
who lived life on his terms. “Are you forgetting the third-grade Christmas
play?”

His abashed grin
was all too charming. “I guess I was. Whoever heard of an elf being taller than
Santa?”

When he had
refused—and continued to refuse—to play an elf, the principal had sworn to keep
Jonah in his office until he relented. He never did. Day after day passed, the
Christmas play passed, and he continued to sit silently in the principal’s
office. Finally the holidays arrived. Come January, when he went back to
school, nothing was ever said about returning to the principal’s office.

He narrowed his
eyes on her. “If I remember rightly, you were a reindeer, and you didn’t even
show up the night of the play.”

She started
toward the tent. “I was sick with a stomachache.” She could have told him how
terribly shy she had been. But that wasn’t the complete truth. She settled for
the nearest to it she could come. “Besides, I didn’t believe in Santa or
Christmas.”

Ducking his
head, he followed her inside the tent. His keen gaze swept over her personal
belongings: the sleeping bag atop an air mattress; her field journal open on
the table; a pair of white long johns draped over the back of a folding chair.

“Did you?” she
asked, trying to make light conversation to cover her unease. He was standing
so close that she could barely move without touching him. “Did you believe in
Christmas?”

He laughed
sharply, his gaze sliding from her rumpled bedroll to her. “Never. But I
desperately wanted to.” He removed his sweat-stained Stetson and sailed it onto
her pillow, as if staking his claim to her bed. “Pa would come home drunk on
Christmas Eve and pass out. He’d come home drunk practically every day, so why
would Christmas be any different?”

She dished out
two plates of stew and made a couple of chicken salad sandwiches. “Your father
might not have been a good provider, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good
man.”

“My mother
wouldn’t have argued that.”

His mother had
died of some “female disease,” as Mrs. McLeod had put it at the time, and Jonah
had rarely mentioned her after that. Feeling awkward, Rita-lou set the plates
rather unceremoniously on the card table. “Lunch.”

He wedged
himself into one unsubstantial chair. “Forks?”

With his hair
rumpled from the Stetson, and that disreputable mustache, she decided that all
he needed was an eyepatch and he’d look like a buccaneer. “In the grub box.”
She set out two glasses and poured milk without asking his preference.

After she seated
herself, he began to eat, almost wolfing down the stew. He caught her watching
him and grinned. “Great stew, Ritz. Your ma teach you how to cook?”

“She hated
coming home to cook after cooking all day for the Kingsleys. Grandpops taught
me.”

“You still miss
him, don’t you?”

“Very much.” Her
grandfather had worked at the mile-wide, mile-deep open-pit Kennecott copper
mine until an accident had confined him to a wheelchair thirty years earlier.

After her mother
had run off with Kennecott’s corporate pilot, Rita-Iou had dropped out of the
tenth grade to support her grandfather by working at the Kingsley mansion. “The
one thing that saddens me the most about the whole episode that summer was that
Grandpops died before he could find out about his great-grandson.”