Gone was the wealthy-looking man in the expensive silk shirt and tailored suit. Dressed like a common laborer, he stood with his booted feet spread wide, a pair of well-worn and faded blue Levi jeans riding low on his narrow hips and hugging his long, muscular legs. His blue chambray work shirt was open at the throat, the unstarched front plackets drawn limply back by the turn of his collar to reveal a broad swath of darkly burnished, powerfully padded chest, the light furring of hair glistening against his skin as if the fairies had sprinkled him with gold dust.
Since Ambrose had gone into town to look for work and her papa was so weak, Cassandra was the one who had to face him. She rose on trembling legs, one hand pressed protectively to her waist. She had the horrible feeling that Luke would guess her secret the second he looked into her eyes.
He inclined his tawny head, squinting against the light to see her. A muscle along his darkly tanned jaw twitched as his gaze shot past her to rest on Milo.
“Hi, Luke!” Khristos called.
Luke glanced toward the boy, who sat on a rock by the fire. “Hello, Khristos. It’s good to see you.”
Her papa pushed up on an elbow. “What’re you doing here, Taggart? We’ve issued you no invitation, and you’re not welcome.”
Luke’s mouth twisted up at one corner. “I didn’t expect to receive a welcome, Milo. But I’m here, all the same. As for my reason, I’ve come to work.”
“Work?” Milo repeated hoarsely. “At what?”
“Busting rock.” Luke hefted the tools in one hand. “The way I see it, you and Ambrose worked at my silver mine for three weeks, and you refused to take the pay you had coming to you. That means I owe you six weeks’ labor.” He sauntered into the tunnel. “You can say what you like about me, but I pay my debts.”
Milo snorted. “You won’t last half a day, swinging a pick. Those baby-soft hands you used to defile my daughter will be blistered and oozing blood in two hours, maybe less.”
“They’ve been blistered before,” Luke said, and kept coming. “Believe it or not, I could once swing a pick with the best of them.”
“Yeah? Well, go prove your manhood someplace else. As I said, you’re not welcome here.”
Luke never missed a step, just kept moving toward them.
“I mean it, Taggart! Stop right there and get out of here!”
As he came abreast of them, Luke turned to face them. He glanced only briefly at Cassandra before meeting her father’s fiery gaze. “I came here to work off my debt, Milo, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He glanced around the tunnel, his gaze narrowing as he assessed the jags of rock along its walls. “So, you think there’s some gold in this hole, do you?”
“That’s none of your damned business. Get out, I said!”
Luke smiled slightly. “The only way I’ll leave this tunnel is if I get carried out feet-first.”
“You know I can’t best you in a fight, you son of a bitch.”
Cassandra had never heard her papa use such language. That he did so now conveyed the depth of his rage.
“No,” Luke agreed solemnly. “And it’s my fault you’re lying there, isn’t it?”
“And you think busting rock in my mine will make up for it?” Milo cried.
Luke shook his head, his gaze moving to Cassandra’s. He looked into her eyes for an endlessly long moment. “No, I don’t think anything can ever make up for it,” he finally replied, returning his attention to her papa. “Some things can’t ever be undone, no matter how you try or how much you might wish they could be.”
He turned and headed toward the darkness that lay like a pit behind them, tugging a miner’s light from his belt as he walked.
“I may be flat on my back,” Milo yelled after him, “a weak old man who can barely stand! But, by God, Ambrose isn’t! He’ll beat the ever-loving hell right out of you when he gets here!”
Luke missed a step, then drew to a slow stop. Looking back over his shoulder, he softly said, “If he does, I’ll just bandage myself up and be back tomorrow so he can beat the hell out of me again. And again the next day, I’ll be back. Sooner or later, he’ll get tired of barking his knuckles.”
“Goddamn you!” Milo cried as Luke resumed his pace. “You’ll stop at nothing, will you? First you try to buy my daughter with your money. Now with your sweat! Well, Mr. High-and-Mighty Taggart! My girl isn’t for sale, not for any price!”
TWENTY-SEVEN
With the first ring of steel striking rock from deep within the bowels of the mining tunnel, Cassandra wanted to run. The thought of listening to Luke swing a pick all day was almost more than she could bear. She threw a frantic glance at her father, who’d fallen back against his pallet, pale from expending his strength in the argument with Luke.
She couldn’t leave, she realized. She was trapped here because her papa needed her to care for him. Biting the inside of her cheek, Cassandra tried to block out the sound of Luke’s pick, which struck the stone with forceful and rhythmic precision, testimony to the hard, sharp-edged muscle that corded his lofty build. Was this just another attempt on Luke’s part to buy her, as her papa had determined? Or was it a bid for her forgiveness, a last-ditch effort to show her what he seemed unable to say with words: that he loved her?
“Don’t even think it, lass,” Milo said weakly. Swinging his head toward the tunnel behind him, he added, “The man’s a master, isn’t he?”
Cassandra flinched, realizing her thoughts must have been showing on her face. Her papa looked deeply into her eyes, his own aching with sadness.
“You mustn’t let yourself fall for it, Cassie, love. He knows how to tug on your heartstrings. I’ll give him that. But love is as love does. He’s a shallow, empty man, with nothing to offer you but heartbreak. Trust me on that.”
Cassandra nodded and rose to her feet. Grabbing up the bucket, she said, “I think I’ll go fetch some water before the afternoon rains hit.”
Her father held her gaze for a long moment. “You do that. And maybe sit for a while by the stream in the sunshine, lass. By the time you have a nice long rest and get some color back in your cheeks, that no-account yonder will have given up and gone home.”
Relieved to escape the tunnel, where the ring of Luke’s pick was a constant reminder of his proximity, Cassandra nearly ran down the hill to the creek, her feet flying so fast the bucket clanked against her leg with every step. Once at the stream, she sank onto a rock and let the pail tumble from her hand to roll over the rocks. Hugging her waist, she bent forward over her knees, her heart twisting with a pain so acute she wasn’t sure how she might survive it.
Luke. Oh, God, she wanted to feel his arms around her again, so badly it was like a ravenous hunger eating away at the lining of her stomach. She wanted to feel his big hands running firmly over her body again, feel his silken lips against her skin, lose herself in the passion that had flared so easily to an inferno between them.
Oh, God, she wanted him so—an awful, terrible wanting that lurked deep inside her, someplace where Papa’s words of wisdom couldn’t reach. A place where dreams and yearnings dug in and lay low, like an army under siege, to survive the ceaseless riddling of facts and reality Papa kept drilling into her head like a furious volley of hot lead.
Luke. As she rocked back and forth, her heart racing, his name kept going through her mind until she felt nearly demented. She pressed one hand against her belly, thinking of the babe nestled somewhere inside her. Luke’s baby. Her baby. Their baby. Dear Lord, had she created life with a man who cared nothing for her, who thought her no better than a whore?
What a pitiful legacy to pass on to an innocent child.
Though she’d lost her mother at a young age, Cassandra could still remember her mama’s warm hugs and the lilting sound of her voice. Never once had Cassandra doubted that she was loved.
Would her own child grow up and be able to say the same?
Don’t be a fool, Cassandra, a voice inside her head chided. Made to look the fool
once, shame on Luke. Made to look the fool twice, shame on you.
For her baby’s sake, she had to set aside all her tangled feelings and look at the facts. And they weren’t pretty. Luke was in the mine, trying to play on her sympathy, acting the part of martyr. And to what aim? To convince her that he was sincerely remorseful, that he’d changed. That he was willing even to punish himself physically to prove it. And here she sat, rocking and weeping, her heart fairly breaking because of it.
Who was she going to believe? she asked herself harshly. Luke, who’d almost never told her the truth since she’d known him? Or her papa, who’d never lied to her in her entire life? Setting aside her feelings for Luke, which had been born in a treacherous web of deception, Cassandra figured it was a fairly easy decision to reach. She had to believe her papa, who was a lot older and a lot wiser than she.
Luke Taggart was a master of manipulation. Even now, he was attempting to work his wiles on her, acting as though he really intended to swing a pick for weeks on end in the black bowels of the Zerek mine because he cared for her. How long would he stick it out? A couple of hours? Maybe several days? Even if he lasted it out the entire six weeks, was she going to let that sway her?
Once he realized she was no longer the gullible, gushing fool he’d found in a leaky miner’s shack, he would cut his losses and move on. There were plenty of women in Black Jack who’d give their eyeteeth to be Luke Taggart’s lady.
Her heart ached at the thought, but she made herself square her shoulders and lift her chin. Papa was right. Luke was the lowest of the low, a man without heart. Without honor. A man she dared not trust ever again.
When Ambrose returned to the mine, he was white-lipped, glassy-eyed, and holding his arms rigidly at his sides, his massive hands knotted into fists. Cassandra turned from the fire, where she was simmering a stew made from a rabbit Khristos had killed with a makeshift slingshot and some vegetables Father Tully had given them. When she looked up at her older brother, she thought she’d never seen him look so angry—a cold, shaking anger that frightened her.
“Ambrose? What is it?” she asked faintly. “Couldn’t you find any work?”
Ambrose gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, yes. I found eight jobs, all of them full-time and offering better wages than I’ve ever made in my life.”
Cassandra frowned, certain she must have misunderstood him. Her papa, who’d pushed up from the pallet on his elbows, looked equally bewildered.
“Eight jobs?” Milo repeated. “And all for good wages? Ambrose, that’s wonderful.”
Ambrose just stood there, gazing down at his father for an interminably long while, his hands still clenched into fists. “No, Papa, it isn’t wonderful. Not unless you want to take Luke Taggart’s money.”
“Taggart’s money?” Milo’s dark brows drew together. “What d’you mean, lad?”
Ambrose shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. He glanced around their makeshift living quarters. “Where is Khristos?”
“Off hunting with his slingshot,” Cassandra replied. “Lycodomes went with him.”
Ambrose drew in a ragged breath and slowly exhaled. He returned his gaze to his father. “After I landed the first job, I was so excited and happy, I almost did a jig in the street, Papa. Then, as I started home, it occurred to me I’d come by it too easily, and that the wages were way too good for a stock boy at the dry goods store. Better than the hourly rate paid a miner who swings a pick all day.” He gave a bitter laugh and shook his head. “I hated to look a gift horse in the mouth, but something about it didn’t ring true. So I headed back for town. Everywhere I stopped and asked for work, I had a good-paying job offered to me so fast it almost made my head swim.”
Fingers of dread clutched at Cassandra’s throat. She didn’t want to hear the rest of what Ambrose was going to say.
“Finally, at the livery stable, when I landed a job as a groomer for better pay than that of a shabby woman who works on Sundays, I knew for sure what was happening. Just to be positive, though, I slammed the livery owner up against the wall and demanded the truth. It seems Luke Taggart put the word out. Anyplace I go and ask for a job, I’d better get one, and a damned good-paying one at that. And why the hell not, when he’d be the one paying my wages?” Ambrose dragged in a lungful of air, his frown thunderous. “It’s blood money, that’s what it is. And I’ll be damned if I’ll take it.”
Milo fell back against his pallet and closed his eyes. “Well, then, and I don’t know why I’m surprised. We’ve always known he owns the whole town, or nigh close to it.” He licked his parched lips. “It’s a long reach that Luke Taggart has…a very long reach, indeed. When we first came here, I was told he had political clout all over the state. Now I’m beginning to believe it.”
Cassandra’s legs had begun to tremble. All over the state? She curled an arm around her waist, wondering how far she would have to run to get safely beyond Luke’s reach. More specifically, to get her child safely beyond his reach. She looked down at Papa, knowing she had to tell him of her pregnancy soon. Somehow, they had to figure out a way to leave Black Jack. Maybe by wagon—they could make Papa a bed in the back. If they took it slow, maybe he could withstand the trip.
“Anyway, I didn’t take any of the jobs,” Ambrose finally finished. “I can chip rock here and keep us alive with the bits of gold dust I can scrounge. We’ll make it through the winter without Luke Taggart’s money, dammit, or my name isn’t Ambrose Zerek.”
As Ambrose finished speaking, the sound of steel striking rock rang up from the depths of the tunnel. Ambrose jerked his head around and stared into the darkness. “What was that?”
“Just what it sounded like,” Milo said, and then recounted to his older son the events of the morning. “It seems Mr. Taggart doesn’t stop with trying to buy people with his money. Now he’s going to try bribing us with a little of his sweat.”
A cold, hate-filled hardness came over Ambrose’s features. His teeth flashed white behind snarling lips as he whispered, “Like hell he is. Not in our mine.”
He started past Cassandra with his fists already raised to fight.
“Ambrose!” Milo said sharply. “Stop right there, lad.”
Trained since childhood to obey his father, Ambrose halted in mid-stride, his stocky body vibrating with rage. Cassandra could see that her brother was itching to go into the mine to find Luke, that he was relishing the thought of crunching his knuckles against the bones of the other man’s face.
“The man had us thrown in jail,” he said softly. “Then he bought my little sister as his whore. When that didn’t earn him a place between her spread thighs, he married her. And you tell me to stop? It’s about time that piece of slime got what’s coming to him! We’ll see how much good his money does him when I beat the bloody hell out of him.”
Milo shook his head. “He’s getting his comeuppance at the business end of a pick. He hasn’t done an honest day’s work in years, and he’s been swinging that pick or sledge steadily for four hours, without so much as a break.”
Ambrose’s body relaxed slightly. He glanced from his father down into the tunnel with a speculative frown.
“We’ve been there,” Milo said with a humorless chuckle. “I’ll bet his hands are raw with blisters by now, and every muscle in his body is screaming. Let him go, Ambrose. It’ll be far harder on him than a good, quick licking would be. Besides, the man isn’t worth you breaking a sweat to kick his ass.”
When dusk fell several hours later and Luke came staggering from the depths of the mine, Cassandra didn’t even look up. She continued to dish stew, her heart enclosed in a hard, cold wall of numbness.
“I’ll be back at daybreak,” Luke told her father, his voice heavy with exhaustion.
“That’s your choice,” Milo said smugly. “If you can walk, that is.”
Luke didn’t respond to the jibe. He simply turned and headed out into the rain-swept darkness. Cassandra turned to hand Khristos a tin cup of stew.
br /> “Mind that you don’t slop any on your jacket,” she warned.
“He tried to hide them,” Ambrose said with a snort of laughter, “but did you see his hands?”
Milo chuckled. “Down to raw meat,” he said with satisfaction. “We’ll not be seeing him up here again, mark my words. It’d take a better man than he is, by far, to swing a pick with hands covered with bloody blisters.”
Cassandra winced but refused to let herself think about the pain Luke must be suffering. Her papa had suffered worse. All of them had.
Because of Luke.
Yes, she thought as she stooped to dish up a bowl of stew for her papa and brother. Papa was dead right. They’d not be seeing Luke at the digs again.
Milo Zerek was dead wrong. Right before dawn the next morning, Cassandra jerked awake at the sound of footsteps and metal softly clanking. She pushed up from her pallet, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and squinting to see. In the eerie twilight of the newborn morning, Luke stood at the mouth of the tunnel, the rising wind whipping his tawny hair and molding his faded chambray shirt to his ruggedly lean torso. Lycodomes, who lay at the foot of her bed, whined in welcome and gave a glad thump with his tail. Traitorous dog.
Her defenses momentarily crumbled by sleepiness, Cassandra simply sat there staring at Luke. He stared back, his whiskey-and-smoke eyes emitting a heat that curled around her like smoldering tendrils. Bathed in the multihued iridescence of dawn, he appeared to be surrounded by a nimbus of rosy light, making him seem unreal—the embodiment of the phantom lover who now haunted her dreams. His firm mouth kicked up slightly at one corner, his jaw muscle bunching as he returned her regard.
“I’ll just tiptoe through,” he said softly, his darting gaze taking in the sleeping members of her family who lay around a fire long since burned down to ash. “No need to get up.”
Last night, he’d left his mining tools in the tunnel. This morning, he carried a dented lunch box in one hand and a brown paper package tucked under his other arm. As he drew abreast of her, Cassandra saw that his palms were bound with white strips of linen—bandaging to protect the blisters he’d gotten from swinging the pick all the previous day.