At first, Hart thought he'd paint Jewel with the Rockies for a backdrop, prospectors and all. But once he saw her stretched out on the fancy settee in her bedroom, it was plain that no man's eye would ever get to the background while that sumptuous body occupied the foreground.
Fancy was more Hart's personal style of feminine pulchritude— small and fine-boned, elegantly rounded to a less voluptuous measure-—but there was no denying the effect Jewel's overabundance had on a man.
The artist stood at the easel he'd constructed out of timber from the local mortuary, and tried to decide how to handle the blatancy of Jewel. There was so much more to her besides a body; pride and sadness, side-by-next the bravado, lust, and jollity everyone knew so well. She was his first commission and he meant to live up to her trust.
The madam dozed comfortably on the chaise wearing nothing but goose bumps and a lusty smile; she had no more compunction about being seen naked than other women felt fully dressed, which seemed only reasonable to Hart, because of the flawlessness of what he saw.
Unaccustomed to working in oils, or on anything bigger than a sketchbook, he was trying to cope with the tricky medium when he felt a small hand on his arm and turned to find Fancy standing behind him. Her presence took his breath away, as it always had. She'd filled out since her time on the mountain and she had the bearing of a woman, not a girl, but her eyes were Fancy's and her voice was the one that rang in his dreams.
"I missed you," she said, as if he'd been a train she was to take an hour ago.
"I missed you, too. I'm glad to see you, babe." There, it was out, the old endearment; she smiled at it and he was glad.
"You're trying to see past her warpaint, aren't you, Hart?"
He nodded, surprised she understood his dilemma.
"She's afraid, you know. Afraid the world will take back everything she's struggled for. Afraid it's a desperately hard place out there and she may wake up one morning and be at its mercy."
Hart wondered if Fancy might not be describing herself as well.
"What do you think she'd like to see in this portrait, Fancy? It seems to mean a lot to her."
A medley of emotions crossed Fancy's face before she replied. "Paint her as if the worst had been the best."
"Make her a courtesan, instead of a whore?"
"That's it exactly, Hart. Paint her as she might have been if life hadn't played such dirty tricks. And be good to her like you always were to me." Then she was gone.
"Paint her as if the worst had been the best," he repeated under his breath, after she left. And that's just what he did.
"How'd she seem to you, bro?" Chance asked, when Hart had finished the painting and returned home.
"More beautiful, if anything. More mature, I suppose you'd call it, Chance. A little chastened by life, like the rest of us. She's got quite a business head on her shoulders, too, it seems. Jewel told me a man would have to get up pretty early in the morning to outwit her in a deal...." He stopped, wondering what Chance really wanted to know.
"Did you know Bandana sees her all the time, since she's come back?" Chance said enigmatically.
"No, I'd no idea of that."
Chance looked his brother straight in the eye as he said, "She's not a woman a man forgets easy, is she, bro?
Hart shook his head no but couldn't find exactly the right words for a reply.
Chapter 61
"What do you really think about men, Jewel?" Fancy asked the question as she gingerly lowered her naked body into the steamy depths of the galvanized tub in their new bathhouse, and settled under the water with a sigh of unmitigated pleasure. There wasn't anything in life a hot bath couldn't cure, or at least improve considerably.
Jewel snorted a laugh from the other side of the great tub, which was, for once, free of grubby miners and "fallen angels"; only hot, clean water with some sort of flowery scent that Jewel had contributed. Her wiry hair was pushed up on top of her head in an unruly mop of red, tied with a ribbon.
"Most selfish critters God ever made. But I love 'em. Most of 'em anyways. Always have."
Fancy stretched out under the water, letting the warmth dissuade her muscles from the tensions of the night before.
"Me too. But why do you?"
Jewel knitted her penciled brows a moment in thought, then smiled. "They're kinda simple.... Simple needs. Simple pleasures. They think simple, too. Kind of in a straight line. Not stupid, mind you. Just less complicated than we are. Course, life's easier for 'em than for us. They don't get babies when they fornicate, don't have bodies that fall apart easy." She paused to take inventory. "Near all they have to worry about is followin' their peckers around and makin' money." Both women giggled at this assessment.
"Maybe I like 'em 'cause it's easy to figure what they want and what they're thinkin'. Why?"
"Because the whole subject of men is making me miserable at the moment." Fancy made idle patterns in the water with her hand; she looked young and ingenuous to Jewel as she spoke, like a precocious child puzzling out the mysteries of the universe. "I think I really want one of my own."
"One that heats up your engine, you mean?" Jewel asked, and Fancy laughed ruefully.
"My engine's always heated up, Jewel. It's my head and my heart that aren't so easy to satisfy!"
Jewel snorted merrily at that and ducked her head once, under the water. When she came up, she heard Fancy say, "Every man I meet falls in love with me... except Chance."
"Don't matter who loves you, kid," Jewel broke in, running her hands over her hair and face to push back the water. "Matters who you love. A man could love you 'til hell freezes over, and if you don't love him back it don't matter more'n a tick on a buffalo."
"So what happens when you fall in love with the wrong one?"
"Hell, honey! Everybody falls in love with the wrong one. Women are real jerks where men are concerned. Even the smart ones. Besides, there ain't nobody perfect out there. Some got millions in the bank and tally-wackers so small you can barely see 'em. Some're good-hearted but dumb, or smart and mean. It all depends what sets your heart aflutter. Most women ain't got the choices you do. You might say you got more chances to choose wrong than the rest of 'em." She chuckled at her own humor and sank down lower in the tub. "You're so headstrong, kid, you were almost bound to pick wrong. But then some of the wrongest men I know could give you the best damned memories. Seems to me, Chance McAllister falls right into that very category."
Fancy laughed and let her mind drift for a while. She never really understood why everyone thought her headstrong—she only did what needed doing to survive. If you don't have an easy life and there's nobody to take care of you, how can you be anything other than headstrong? Wasn't that just another name for having the courage of your own convictions?
Fancy shook the bolt of dimity to unfold its pretty pink flounces to the floor of the Tabor General Store.
The deep voice behind her was a shock.
"You were born for brighter colors, sugar. Red satins and purples, I think. And black lace. Don't you ever forget the black lace." The voice of a thousand desperate dreams sounding pleased to see her. Fancy turned toward Chance, trying not to remember how long she'd loved and hated him.
He stood beside her, confident and smiling, in the Levi pants and muddy boots of a digger, and a buckskin jacket that had seen better days.
"You haven't changed one bit, have you, Chance?" she said. He saw the moisture in her eyes and was touched that she'd missed him so.
"Well, you've changed, Fancy." He held her out at arm's length, his touch lingering too long for propriety and too short for her needs.
"What are you doing in town in those work clothes?" she asked, lowering her voice to thwart the disapproving stares of Augusta Tabor and several of her female customers. "You're such a dandy these days, hobnobbing with the rich and cutting a wide swath through all the ladies' hearts."
Chance laughed easily at the flattery. "Hart makes me work for a living from time
to time, just to keep in practice. He says neither the law nor politics is a decent profession for a man. I've been to the mine."
It all sounded so natural on his lips; Hart, the law, the mine.
"There's so much that's happened in all our lives, Chance, isn't there?" she said wistfully. "There just wasn't near enough time the other night to talk about it."
Chance smiled and she felt bathed in sunlight.
"If you'll have dinner with me tonight, we can fill in all the blanks for each other. I've missed you, Fancy. How about the Clarendon Hotel at eight?"
"The Clarendon?" she said to cover her agition. "How grand you are these days. Seems to me the last meal we had together was possum and beans."
"They were good times, weren't they?"
"They were good times."
"Have dinner with me tonight, sugar. You won't regret it."
"You know I can't meet you at eight, Chance. That's the time of my show."
"After the show, then. And wear something red. I'm in the mood to celebrate."
He didn't wait for a reply, but turned a dazzling smile on Mrs. Tabor and her customers, ignoring their disapproving glares. "Good morning, ladies," he said as he passed them by. "I trust you're having a lovely day."
Fancy suppressed a laugh. Stupid old biddies... imagine what they'd say if they knew the truth. She watched the retreat of tight muscles and broad shoulders and felt all the old longings. Chance had cut a dazzling figure in town since striking it rich; she wasn't the only woman who'd felt the lure of those eyes that undressed you so knowingly, you didn't care what they saw.
She fingered the bolt of red silk that occupied the place of honor on the shelf above the practical chintzes and muslins and broadcloths. She couldn't have a dress made by tonight even if she wanted to, and who the hell was he to tell her to wear red... but perhaps a scarlet scarf or sash wouldn't hurt.
Chance whistled softly as he walked down Harrison. He was glad he'd finally made the move. How many times had he thought about Fancy over the years, playing and replaying the moments of their brief love affair and longer friendship? Sometimes angry, always lusty, often glad she'd disappeared and removed all need for decision making. He'd felt guilty, too, sometimes, that he'd taken her innocence too lightly, but he'd always dismissed the guilt as unnecessary. They'd been no more than kids playing at life; now they were adults capable of making choices. It troubled him not in the least that she had a child; being a mother had settled her down, made her less elusive, more human.
Why did it all seem so natural and inevitable, as if so many years hadn't passed them by? Maybe because he'd always believed they'd find their way back together. Perhaps that had made him sanguine, or even rebellious—he'd never been one to be pushed into choices. Yet the memory of Fancy's tempestuous nature had stayed with him through dozens of encounters, lingering insistently. The cool hauteur, the fire banked beneath... the intelligence, too keen for a woman, and the femininity too pervasive to be thrown off course by intellect. On such a woman as Fancy, men had been known to stake kingdoms in times past—but only such men as could handle the challenge.
"If I weren't so gallant, I might even say she's more beautiful than her mother." Chance pronounced the words easily as he met Aurora, and Fancy breathed again. Was it relief or anger that was foremost in the sigh? Chance had met his own daughter, but he had not known her... and that wasn't exactly what she'd wanted to have happen.
Chance bent his knees to bring his face closer to the little girl's. "I've looked forward to meeting you, sweetheart," he said with a smile. Aurora responded warily. This friend of her mother's wasn't Jason, but he was handsome and seemed nice enough.
"I'm very pleased to meet you," the child replied with an elaborate curtsy, and Fancy beamed approval.
"You may run along now, darling," she prompted. The lies she'd told him about Aurora's father had come easily enough to her lips after all the years of practice, but why hadn't Chance known they were lies?
"I don't want to go, Mommy. I want to stay and play with Mr. McAllister." The voice was firm. Chance chuckled at the flattering response.
"See there, I told you, Fancy. It's a simple matter of irresistibility. Let her stay. It isn't every day I have a chance to be seen with two such beautiful ladies."
Aurora thought perhaps Mr. McAllister had possibilities after all.
Chance lounged on the steps behind the Crown, while Fancy sat contentedly beside him. The day was warm and the flies swarmed thick around the two horses tethered to the hitching post. The roan whinnied softly in annoyance and tossed his head in an effort to avoid the distracting insects.
Fancy wore her split-skirted buckskin and a plaid shirt open at the neck; a red bandana was tied beneath the collar. "Cain't live west of St. Louis without a bandana, honey," McBain had told her years before. "Use it to wash your face, plug up a bullet hole, keep the sweat out'n your eyes. Sling up a broken arm, help you breathe in a sandstorm. Goddamnedest invention anybody ever thunk up!" She smiled at the memory as she tugged at the knotted bandana and used it to flick at the horseflies as Chance spoke.
"There's money to burn, sugar. Money now for everything we ever dreamed up there in that cabin. Of course, Hart keeps reminding me it'll take a minute or two to get it all out of the mountain to where we can spend it."
Fancy laughed softly, noting that he'd lately begun to say "we" about most things. "How like you, Chance. You think it all happens magically with no work attached. No wonder Hart has to crack the whip to keep you in line."
He squinted at her in the bright morning sun. "I recall a time when you wanted to believe in my magic."
"I still do. It's just that I've lived long enough to know that life doesn't work that way. Atticus always said, 'Anythin' you git for nothin' is likely worth jes' that.' Mostly, Atticus was always right."
"Far be it from me to dispute such a source, but in this case it's not 'something for nothing' at all. We worked our asses off for the money in that hole in the ground, Fancy. All of us. And the odds are we'll work harder still before it's all out and spendable."
"I suppose you're right. You just have a way of making everything sound possible... I guess I'm afraid of believing too hard."
Chance's expression softened at her vulnerability. He liked the instincts he was feeling lately, the desire to take care of her and make her happy.
"Then why not let me do the believing for both of us, sugar? You just sit back and let me make the dreams come true."
Fancy smiled her answer and tried to remember she was supposed to play hard to get; it was such a bother to remember all the rules of the game on a lazy morning when you were in love.
Chance had that teasing look in his eye that she knew so well. "If I were to ask you to have dinner with me tonight, do you suppose you'd say yes, or would you feel forced by propriety to play hard to get and turn me down like you did last Thursday?"
"As a matter of fact, it would be quite unseemly to accept such a last-minute invitation...."
"But the truth is, you don't care a hoot in hell for seemliness. Not deep down underneath. You've got too much goddamned spirit for that, Fancy. And ninety-nine times out of the hundred you think people who pay attention to proprieties are damned fools."
"I care very much about doing things the right way!"
"Except where it interferes with your doing what you want to do?"
"Are you suggesting I'd like to throw propriety to the winds because I'm just dying to have dinner with you tonight?"
"Exactly that."
Fancy laughed, low and throaty. "Well, you'd be quite right. Just don't tell anybody."
Chance's chuckle sounded heartily irreverent.
"You are one in a million, Fancy, my girl, and my magic is plenty strong enough for both of us, you can count on it. I've got meetings all over town today, but I'll come collect you after the last show tonight and we'll teach this town something new about style."
He rose to his feet, then lea
ned down close enough so she could feel his breath on her cheek.
"Stick with me, Fancy. I'll give you everything you ever wanted and some things you never even imagined."
She studied his face without knowing she was doing so. The broad intelligent forehead and fine straight nose; something about it called to mind the head of a stallion—high-strung and restless. The eyes were restless, too, seeking something big and elusive— just like her own. Something others didn't even know existed.
He kissed her lingeringly, provocatively, on the lips. "No more no's between us, Fancy," he said quietly as he pulled away. "I intend to make love to you tonight. Think about that today, sugar."
He mounted the dark horse and turned its head effortlessly toward the mountains. Startled and titillated, she let him go without saying a word.
Fancy spent the day in a state of agitation. She wanted Chance so desperately, and yet she feared him, too, for to want him so completely gave him power over her again. She changed her clothes twice and her lingerie four times before there wasn't any time left for changing.
It seemed to Fancy that Chance's eyes hadn't let hers go for an instant, since he'd picked her up for dinner. She felt mesmerized by them, lost in her own desire and confusion. Anticipation hovered at the edges of her hard-won composure; just the thought of lying in his arms again was nearly overwhelming.
"Do you remember what I told you this morning, Fancy?" he asked quietly, as the supper she had barely touched was cleared away.
"You know I do."
"I've never forgotten..."
"Nor I."
"There've been other men for you since me?"
"A few. And women for you?"
"More than a few. But none like you."
Tears welled up in Fancy quite against her will; she'd lived a lifetime since leaving him. Chance saw the tears and reaching for her hand, pressed her fingers to his lips, still watching her carefully, as if she were a fawn who might be frightened away by a sharp sound.