Paint the Wind

  "I am most definitely not teasing you." He swung his body up into an easy half-sitting half-lying posture very close to hers. Chance leaned near enough to see her blush a little. "I'm going to be a rich man, Fancy." His mouth twitched in amusement as he reached over to brush a strand of her hair back under the kerchief that restrained it. He tugged at the scrap of cloth and let her hair fall loose about her shoulders. The gesture was intimate and sensual.

  "You might want to kiss a man who's just promised you the world on a silver platter, sugar," he said, his face nearly touching hers. He encircled her easily with his arm and kissed her full on the mouth before she could protest.

  Fancy melted into the sweetness of the kiss and the assurance behind it; her blood pounded and she felt light-headed. She kissed back with more longing than she'd wanted to reveal to him, and only with the greatest reluctance pulled her mouth away from his.

  "You could turn a girl's head with a kiss like that," she murmured, trying to cover her own imbalance with nonchalance.

  "I have every intention of turning yours," he answered.

  Damnation! Fancy thought with annoyance. He's just teasing me, and I'm the one who's supposed to be doing that! She half hoped he'd try to kiss her again so she could rebuff him.

  But instead, he rose languidly from the ground, brushed the grass and leaves from his clothes and stretched himself in the warm sun. He had the ability to do that—seduce you with his absolute attention, then in an instant, lose interest completely. He's never serious for more than a minute except while gambling, Bandana had said. Elusive as quicksilver.

  "Time to get back to work," Chance said offhandedly, as if the last few minutes had never happened. "Don't forget to miss me while I'm gone."

  Fancy watched him saunter toward the stream where the others labored. He walked as if he owned creation, collected as a blooded stallion. Just watching made her long for things she shouldn't.

  "A little too much of a good thing, Fance?" Bandana asked with a wry chuckle, from somewhere just behind her shoulder. How long had he been standing there?

  "Which one's it gonna be?" he asked. That was part of what she loved about McBain—there was not an ounce of subterfuge in him.

  "It can't really be either one of them, can it, Bandana?"

  "You've got both them boys turned every which way but loose, little lady. What're you plannin' to do about that?"

  "Damned if I know."

  Bandana laughed out loud. "You're all right, Fance," he said, giving her shoulder a friendly squeeze. "It's not really your fault you fire up their engines. They're young, you're young... nature sees that mistakes are made."

  It was Fancy's turn to laugh. "It would be terrible to come between them, Bandana, and being with both of them is damned confusing. Chance makes me feel that everything in the world is possible, all the unlikeliest dreams and farfetched ambitions... he wants all the same things I do and he might just be lucky enough to get them for me."

  "And what about Hart?"

  "Oh, I don't know what I feel about Hart, Bandana... he's like a big old furry bear, all warmth and goodness. He'd never let me come to harm, I'm sure of that. But his dreams are so different from mine. He's likely to go off somewhere painting Indians... why, just the thought of it makes my blood run cold. I've had enough wandering to last me three lifetimes."

  "But the truth is you cain't get all that mixed up with neither one of 'em right now because they ain't rich, and you'll have to go get it all for yourself. Ain't that the real story?"

  Fancy looked genuinely startled that he'd seen through to the truth so easily, but she nodded.

  "God Almighty, Bandana, I need such a lot of things. I can see now I'm just not going to find them on this mountain. That doesn't mean I don't wish I could stay."

  "Either one of them boys would give you a powerful lot of lovin', honey. You might find you need that, too, before so long."

  "And a baby every year to go with it, and soon I'd look like every other woman in the Gulch, all pruned-up and finished." Fancy's voice was sharp. "And I'd never even have tried to get what I want out of life. Do you really think I could stand that, Bandana?"

  "It surely is a sore dilemma," he answered, and she couldn't tell if he was making fun of her or being sincere.

  "Just so's you don't flaunt your favors in front of 'em, come between 'em, and then pack your sweet little fanny off and be on your way. Men have been known to do real stupid things over women who looked only half as good as you." He winked at her as he said it and she leaned over impulsively to hug him.

  Bandana shook his head in mock distress.

  "Now you're tryin' to add my poor old heart to the notches on your garter belt. You should surely be ashamed of your brazenness."

  "Don't you wish!"

  "Damned right I do!"

  Arm in arm they retraced Chance's path down the mountain trail to the claim.

  "I will not let my heart or any other part of my anatomy keep me from getting what I want in this life," Fancy told herself as they walked. "No matter what I have to do, or what I have to give up to get what I want, I will get it. By God, I will!"

  Chance grinned to himself as he walked the long route back to the cabin. Christ Almighty but she'd looked beautiful shivering there in the sun, all innocence and wantonness combined.

  How could any man be expected to live in such close proximity with a girl like that? Had she simply been somebody he'd met in town, he could have charmed her into bed by whatever means were necessary—but because of the strange circumstances in which they lived, there hadn't been the opportunity. And now she was his friend... or something like it. Never having had a woman friend before, he wasn't sure just what to do with that fact. But it did change things... and it did make the question of seduction thornier. Not less enticing, or impossible, but thornier.

  Chance whistled a little as he walked; he felt in high spirits. Hart, hearing the whistle, straightened from his task of chopping kindling.

  "Strike gold while you were out walking?"

  "Better than gold, bro," Chance replied, with a self-satisfied grin. "There's precious things lurking up on this mountain you could barely dream of."

  Hart looked at him suspiciously. Chance seldom drank before sundown and never when there was work to be done, so that couldn't be the answer.

  "Well, seeing as how you're in such good shape, maybe you'd care to finish up these chores I've been handling while you were out finding precious things in the hills."

  "Can't think of anything I'd rather do, bro," Chance responded generously.

  Bandana looked up sharply from mending the water trough. "Must've found a still up there on the mountain. That, or he fell down and hit his head on somethin' sharp."

  Chance only grinned as he unbuttoned the sleeves of his flannel shirt and rolled them past the elbow. Not even work could change his mind about what a good day this was turning out to be.

  Chapter 25

  "Tell me more about how rich we're going to be, Chance," Fancy prompted. "Tell me in infinite, delectable detail." She was seated on the floor near the hearth and, except for the long dark hair that was fanned out around her shoulders, she looked like a young boy in the fireglow. She wore Bandana's old breeches and shirt, for the two McAllisters were far too big to be able to offer hand-me-downs. Men's trousers made it possible to sit in all sorts of comfortable positions that would have been unthinkable for a lady in a skirt; Fancy loved the freedom.

  Her knees were drawn up and her arms hugged them. Bandana had been playing his banjo, Hart was stretched out beside her, catching the firelight on the page of the copy of William Shakespeare's plays Ford had given him when they parted.

  "You mean about how great a lady you'll be, wearing Paris gowns and golden slippers?" Chance teased, stretching himself like a lazy cat before the fire.

  Hart looked up from his book and smiled; he knew Chance's imagination tickled Fancy and made her feel confident about the future. You could almos
t see her expand and blossom with sheer pleasure when Chance spun his gilded web of fantasy.

  Hart quenched his own thirst with books instead of tales; in a pinch, he thought he could probably go without food better than without books or charcoal. But he hadn't his brother's imagination.

  Hart sometimes wondered if he needed other men's dreams to clarify his own, just as he needed models for his pictures. Once he'd seen a tree or a farmhouse or a horse or a cart, he could reproduce its form and spirit, but first he needed to see... needed something tangible to be the catalyst of his creation.

  Not so with Chance. Why, he could conjure up the best goddamned dreams you ever heard of, out of whole cloth. And he believed every single one of them would come true, too. No matter how much common sense pointed to the contrary, he knew life would turn out just fine. Even when he'd been perched up there on Hart's shoulders waiting to be hanged, he'd believed it would all turn out all right—or so he'd told his brother afterwards.

  Chance had the grit to go along with the dreaming too; he would have walked right on up to God Almighty if he thought God had something good to offer him.

  "Let's hear your story, Chance," Hart prompted. "We're all so twitchy with spring fever we could use a good dream or two to get us out of this hole in the wall."

  Bandana played a riff on the banjo like the opening of a minstrel show and Chance stood up and straightened his lanky frame.

  "Matthew Hart McAllister," he intoned with theatricality, "was today feted by the First Lady of this great nation on the occasion of his newest painting being hung in the drawing room of the White House."

  Fancy clapped her hands with glee and Hart grinned appreciatively. You never had the least notion where Chance's imagination would light.

  "Mr. McAllister had just returned from abroad, where his paintings of the far western region of the American continent had been purchased by several potentates for their private collections. Mr. McAllister is well known in international art circles for his extraordinarily realistic paintings of Indians in their natural habitat, and of various wild creatures doing various wild things." Chance winked at Fancy and she laughed delightedly.

  "The high point of the gala evening, however, was the arrival of the mysterious Fancy Deverell, world-renowned actress and singer, whose name has been linked romantically with several of the richest and most powerful men in the world."

  Bandana frowned. "None of that, now, you young jackass; if this was a decent sort of story, she'd be married to one of them rich and powerful characters. 'Linked' ain't good enough for Fancy."

  "Give me time, Bandana," Chance answered, with an easy grin. "Don't you know a good fantasy needs to build up a little tension before it comes to a happy end?"

  "Oh, Lord, Bandana, do let the man continue..." Chance smiled at her, his blue-violet eyes merry; a hint of pleasant male arrogance played around his mouth.

  "Informed sources tell us," he continued, coming near enough to Fancy to hold her attention entirely with his gaze, "that Senator McAllister, the artist's elder brother, is the front-runner in the race for Miss Deverell's affections. The senator's great fortune, of course, was made in the gold mines of Colorado and is rumored to be one of the largest ever to come out of that state. The fact that he named his biggest producer 'The Fancy Penny' in honor of Miss Deverell is considered to be proof positive of his intentions."

  Bandana saw that the smile had died on Hart's lips and a thoughtful expression replaced it before he returned his attention pointedly to the book in front of him.

  Bandana interrupted hastily to move conversation in a different direction from Fancy's affections. " 'The Fancy Penny,' eh, I like the sound of that."

  "It's got more of a ring to it than 'The Last Chance' anyway," Hart said, not looking up from his book.

  Chance chuckled. "It's hard not to get a kick out of teasing you, little brother, you rise so well to the bait. Guess we'd have to call your mine 'Hart on Your Sleeve,' wouldn't we?"

  An uneasy silence followed and Chance, realizing he'd overstepped the bounds of fun, was instantly contrite.

  "I was only teasing you, bro," he said softly. "I meant no harm." His eyes sought his brother's with real apology. Hart knew Chance never meant to be hurtful, it was just his unthinking way sometimes to let words slip out that would be best left unsaid.

  "That's okay, Chance," Hart said. "It was a damned fine fantasy until you tried to marry off Fancy. Why, any man can see she's meant for better than the likes of us."

  "Hear, hear!" hooted McBain as he launched into so spirited a rendition of "My Old Kentucky Home" that everybody in the room joined in.

  Chapter 26

  The wind is so damned mournful on this mountain, Fancy thought as she looked around the dim cabin, grateful for the fire in the hearth and the comforting glow of the candle on the table and the kerosene lamp on the wall. They had to conserve the candles now with winter hard upon them; their tallow supply could give out long before the roads were passable again.

  The sounds of the boys chopping kindling outside, mingled with the wind in counterpoint They talked when they worked, and laughed from time to time, their rhythms in tune with one another. Fancy took great comfort in the male sounds of their work; the thunk of the axes set to new wood, the occasional curses that punctuated the restless wind and somehow held it at bay.

  She was becoming too attached to them, too dependent. When the thaw came next spring, she would move on. She had been found in winter, and now it was winter again. A momentary ache tightened her chest at the thought of leaving. On to where? To what? To whom? And what exactly was the value of what she would leave behind? She feared she'd fallen in love with Chance.

  Just the thought of him excited her. He knew his place in the world, as she did not. He laughed at life and expected the best from it, while she expected hardship and prepared to fend off danger. How restful it would be to have his turn of mind, and his luck! Why, even Hart and Bandana said Chance carried luck with him as other men did a pocket watch.

  Was it his handsomeness that made her want him so? The black hair that fell over his forehead with just the right degree of playfulness, his eyes that queer blue-violet she'd never seen before, his easy carriage that hinted at arrogance and confident strength.

  Or was it something more than all his physical attractions that filled her with such relentless longing? Was it some knowingness behind his laughing eyes, some worldliness that curved his mouth into a self-satisfied grin and said, "You can fool the rest of the world, Fancy Deverell, but I know exactly what you're thinking."

  It wasn't just that he wanted the same things she did out of life... or that he dreamed on a mighty scale to match her own. It was that he wasn't bound by rules and conventions as the others were. He was free in a way they weren't—uninhibited, unrestrained.

  Hart provoked no such feelings in her—although she had to admit to herself that his strength and common sense made her feel secure, as Chance did not. Or perhaps it was Hart's staunch adherence to the rules that she liked so much.

  Fancy laughed aloud at her own mad contradictions. She was drawn to Chance because he scorned the rules and to Hart because he lived by them! How nonsensical. Yet it pleased her to fantasize about Chance and still have Hart for her friend.

  She heard the sounds of chopping end, and Hart's laughter rise above the wind; Chance's echoing response was full of warmth and camaraderie. They were so good for each other, so in tune despite their different temperaments.

  The door opened and a frigid gust pushed the two men into the cabin. Fancy struggled to close the door behind them and Hart put his shoulder against it to fight the wind. The men's arms were loaded with firewood, their hats, beards, and bodies sifted with snow. The gladness she felt at the sight of them made her heart beat faster; perhaps she didn't have to think about leaving them just yet.

  Chapter 27

  "What was Christmas like at Beau Rivage?" Hart asked the question as gently as he could; Fancy's gr
owing melancholia troubled him. She'd fussed more than need be over the food that simmered in the hearth; she'd lifted her apron several times to dry her eyes and, once, when she realized he'd caught her crying, she'd blamed the wild onions added to the stew. But Hart knew better.

  Deep December drifts had piled up inexorably outside the cabin since sunup, appropriately enough for Christmas Eve. Fancy glanced out the window a hundred times an hour, until the snow obscured the day completely, for Chance and Bandana would have the devil's own time trying to get through to them for the small celebration they'd all planned for this holiday. Why in God's name they had insisted on going out to check the traps two days ago, knowing the dangers of winter travel and the holiday so near at hand, was more than Hart could figure.

  Hart felt secret pleasure at having her all to himself and wished he could cheer her. Christmas meant a lot to Fancy, just as it did to him.

  She turned from the hearth and tried hard to smile for his sake. "We had a tree near two stories tall that stood in the foyer by the spiral stair," she answered, pride in the memory. "There were ornaments my mama brought home from Europe on her Continental Tour and strings of popcorn my brother and I made for ourselves... and beautiful carved angels and Father Christmas in hand-blown crystal. And there were candles on every single branch, so it seemed a thousand fireflies had been captured...." Her voice trailed off with a sigh.

  On impulse Hart reached for Fancy's hand and led her to the rocker that was the only comfortable chair; obediently she sat down on the faded rag-cushion seat. Hart sat himself on the floor between her and the fire; he smiled to encourage her to tell more, but when she didn't, he began to speak instead. The cabin had been stilled to a special quiet by the snow, the oil lamp flickered playful shapes on the rough walls. Hart's voice sounded deep and comforting to the wistful girl.

  "We used to go as far as we needed to, so we could chop down a tree, Pa, Chance, and me," he said, the pleasure of old memory in his voice. "We'd have to ride damned near forever just to find woods in Kansas, mind you. Then we'd drag it home and Mama would ooh and aah over some spindly little pine like we three had invented trees." He grinned up at Fancy and she couldn't help but smile a little in return.