Silver Mist

by Raine Cantrell

  “But think, Cyrus,” Eden interjected with a cynical tone, “how those poor folks will turn their greed around and use it against them.”

  “Like Rainly?”

  “Greed, my friend, has become the god your towns­folk worship.” He sipped his drink, then added, “Did you know there’s talk of wiping out the Negro shanties? Suarez brought them here along with Georgia sharecroppers to work his mines, and now folks find their presence a blight. Clay’s vigilante committee has been busy.” He looked at Dara, but her head was lowered over her mending, and he had no satisfaction of seeing her reaction to hearing Clay’s name. Did she regret what she had done? Beyond telling him that she had made her intent clear not to marry him, she had never mentioned Clay again.

  “And was greed the reason you fought with Suarez’s men?”

  “No.”

  Cyrus knew better than to ask for an elaboration. It was the depth of privacy that Eden maintained that sometimes made Cyrus wonder what his intentions toward Dara were. His behavior couldn’t be faulted, but there was something … He left his thought unfinished and returned to his paper.

  Eden made no apology for his surly mood. He knew its cause and exactly what he could do to end it. Claws of tension raked his spine, and once again his glance strayed to where Dara sat, prim as a Charles Gibson illustration. The ornate frame of the lady’s slipper chair with its dark green brocade upholstery held the same lemon-scented sheen as her mink-dark hair. He was tired, damn tired of working long hours, keeping one step ahead of Lucio, trying to talk sense into Jake, and worrying over the senseless violence that was escalating daily in Rainly. There was Dara, too, and he did not want to think of that mouth…

  “Will you walk out with me, Dara?”

  For a moment she didn’t react. When she dragged her gaze up, looking at him, she felt a leashed tension intensify in herself. She gripped the wooden sock darner, uncertain of what to answer.

  “Why don’t you go, Dara?” Cyrus suggested, peering over his paper. “For a little while,” he amended. “You haven’t been able to walk down by the river for weeks, and I know you miss it.”

  There was doubt clouding his eyes, but he nodded toward her, and Dara set her mending down in the basket at her feet.

  “I would be pleased to accompany you,” she answered, rising, smoothing her skirt.

  Eden tossed off the last of his drink, finding no enjoyment in his own smoked-satin bourbon. He rose, murmured good night to Cyrus, and offered his arm to Dara.

  He led her down the hall toward the back door, stopping for a moment before they reached the doorway. “Before we leave, let’s remove these,” he ordered in a gentle voice, taking off her gilt-rimmed spectacles and leaving them on the table.

  It was impossible for her to ignore the roughness in his liquid voice, or the knowledge that the tension inside her was rapidly accumulating into tiny knots as he placed his hand on the small of her back to usher her outside.

  Dara lifted her skirt with one hand and felt the heated imprint of his touch through the layers of her clothing. At the head of the sloping path that led down to the riverbank, he paused for a moment to light a cigar.

  His continued silence unnerved her. She tried to regain the peace of being here, listening to the cooing of doves and the buzz of the night insects, but the scent of Eden, lithe and in a dangerous mood, swamped her.

  With his hand on her elbow, he guided her down the path and, once there, turned away from town. Dara stood this as long as she could, uncertain of why he asked her to accompany him, floundering to know what it was he wanted from her.

  “You’re not enjoying this, are you, Dara?”

  “It’s your … Eden, what’s wrong? Did something happen out at the mine today? Or is the fight you had with those men to blame for your mood?”

  He stopped abruptly, flinging the cigar into the water. Tilting his head back, he stared up at the widespread glitter of stars and considered the absurdity of his noble gesture to allow Dara time. And he knew that tonight he didn’t want to talk, he just … wanted…

  She stood before him, and he reached out to run the back of his fingers lightly down her cheek. “You still don’t understand, do you?” But Dara had no chance to answer. He cupped the back of her neck, dragging her closer, lowering his head, and without a word he brushed his lips across hers, seeking the satin warmth of her mouth with a compelling need that swelled his sex into aching. With one hand he held her still; with the other he caressed her rigid back, coaxing her closer to him, a groan rising before her mouth suddenly softened and became greedy for his kiss.

  Dara knew what she was doing was wrong. Modesty and virtue were not only qualities to be respected and adhered to, they were ones instilled in her. But she had no thought but to appease the need she felt in him. His mouth was hot, smoky, and tanged with liquor, and she longed for the solace of his hands caressing her back, dragging her closer, and then closer to his body. Her neck arched high, then higher still, and she pressed parted lips eagerly against his, dragging her hands through his hair, satisfying the longing she’d had all night to touch it.

  The giant cypress trees sheltered them beneath their branches, but Dara wasn’t aware of where they were. The night scents clung to Eden, and she absorbed them with flaring senses. Eden … making her feel alive, his kisses, deep, drawing her…

  “Open your mouth, love … there … let me…” He drank her ardent moan, felt its spearing presence deep inside, and gathered her slender, pliant body against him, easing her upper torso into a slow, abrading dance back and forth across his chest. “Better, love,” he whispered, hunger tempered by his innate gentleness.

  Dara swayed, his hands guiding her hips, dizzy with the pleasure expanding, warming the tensioned knots that dissolved and reformed with frightened clarity into desire. Her mouth opened to the heavy stroke of his tongue, her fingers twisting into his silken curled hair, longing to heighten the sensations that both sated and increased need until she lost pace with her breath.

  Scattering hot open kisses, his lips moved over the delicate bones of her face, his hands a murmur against her body. Dara felt her blood flow, thick and hot, his kisses burning with a caressing intensity that left her softly moaning. She trembled, aching…

  His hands discovered the warmth of her through layers of cloth and boned guardian, rode the curve of her hip, tested the contour of her waist, and then Eden spread his fingers to sculpt the lush fullness of her breast.

  Dara cried out, shocked with the feel of his palm cupping such an intimate part of her body. Desire sharpened into passion, and she knew Eden would know how to bring her to ease.

  “It hurts, love, doesn’t it?” he queried in a sensually drugging voice. “Here”—his palm traveled in a slow hot circle, letting the pleasurable balm of his touch bring her flowering arousal up to a peak—“that’s better, isn’t it?” A slow, sensuous smile took possession of his mouth, and his eyes grew sultry, tarnished silver dark and hungry.

  It was too powerful for Dara. Her betraying blood rushed to meet his fingers, but he was wrong, the ache wasn’t better.

  Eden couldn’t think of anything more than his need to bury himself within the lush femininity softly crying his name. He savored her mouth with sharp-set passion, with the abstinence he blamed her for, languidly probing her mouth with his tongue, his lean experienced fingers stroking sensitive cloth-bound flesh until the flaming response he sought began to smolder. Eden felt the infinitesimal acquiescence, and he lifted his mouth.

  “Tell me you want me, love,” his night-dark voice murmured.

  “Eden, please…” Her breath rushed out, drying her lips. Dara leaned her head against his chest.

  “Still too fast for you, little saint?”

  Her rioting senses would not still, and Dara couldn’t reply. His heartbeat thundered in her ears, her legs felt weak, her whole body heated and trembling.

  Eden took her weight against him, caressed h
er shoulders, sighed at the feel of the heavy softness of her breasts pressing his chest, and nestled his lips against her lemon-scented hair, knowing he would not seduce her further. Why this one woman, innocent and charming as she was, should beguile him, he didn’t know. But it was the sweetly given surrender of that very innocence that pricked his conscience just when he thought to overcome it.

  He held her shivering body for long minutes, long for him, since every delicate shudder of her body stroked his, and when they ceased, he urged her home.

  She turned to him after he opened the back door.

  “Are you angry with me?” she asked, filled with certainty that he was indeed furious since he hadn’t spoken a word to her.

  “Anger is not the sentiment that best expresses what I’m feeling, darlin’,” he replied in a caustic tone. “Now, go inside and dream your sweet little virginal dreams—”

  “Must you add the insult of patronizing me?”

  “Insult, love?” he repeated, backing her against the doorjamb. “Is that what you thought I was doing, insulting you?”

  Dara lowered her head, a flush stealing across her cheeks. She had no right to say anything after her wanton behavior. And it was now, when she was no longer in his arms, her senses slowly returning from the drugging ease of his sensuality, that she berated herself.

  Eden lifted her chin, refusing her solace of her own condemnation. “You did enjoy every moment, didn’t you, darlin’? I would know if it had been otherwise.”

  The sharp reminder that he was a man far too familiar with women transferred Dara’s anger from herself to him.

  “That was a remark I would expect from a cad.”

  “Didn’t I tell you from the first that my intentions weren’t honorable? Did you think I’d slip into the role Clay was better to play? The touching scene between you that I was forced to witness, where you begged him to kiss you like a woman he wanted, was you, love.”

  “And is that what you’ve been doing? Making me feel wanted?” She glared at him, furious, and he dared to smile. It took her a few moments to realize how cynical that smile was.

  “Lord, darlin’, you’re something else when you get angry. All dark eyes and flushed cheeks, and it sure beats the devil out of the starched primness you wear most times.”

  “My mother tried to raise me to be a lady!”

  “Oh, you’re that,” he agreed far too quickly, his head angled downward to whisper, “but you’d be a hell more excitin’ if she raised you to be a woman, too.”

  “Your kind of woman? I think not. I much prefer you in the role of gentleman, but your behavior tonight indicates that was merely an act calculated to lead me down the garden—”

  “I warned you that I would teach you what the word gentleman means, little saint. Gentle,” he intoned, his voice insidiously soft, “is this.” His palms framed her cheeks, and he took her mouth in a kiss of infinite tenderness. Lifting his head, he murmured, “Now, if I weren’t a gentle man, then I would kiss you like this.” Suffocating the cry of alarm that died in her throat, his tongue claimed her mouth with a shattering surge of passion that brought a soaring pleasure to his body.

  And when he was done, he left her.

  Chapter Ten

  “I don’t understand, Matt. Why do you need the day’s receipts?”

  “I need them. Can’t that be enough of a reason for you?”

  “No, it’s not. And what would I tell Papa?”

  “You don’t have to tell him anything, Dara. He would never ask you where the money is, and you know it. ’Sides, I’ll have it back for you tomorrow. I just need it now.”

  Watching Matt’s restless pacing back and forth in front of the store’s counter, Dara was struck by the subtle difference in him. There had been little time this past week for them to see each other or talk, but she realized she could pinpoint the exact day she began to notice that Matt was no longer a boy. Six nights ago she had walked with Eden down by the river, where he had assaulted her senses and left her. Six days ago Satin Mallory arrived in Rainly. Eden was in town each night but not to supper, and Matt hadn’t been home at all.

  But Dara couldn’t let her thoughts dwell on Eden when her brother faced her with desperation in his eyes.

  “Matt, what kind of trouble are you in? And don’t put me off by saying you aren’t. You just asked me to give you two hundred dollars.”

  “I owe it out,” he answered curtly, staring down at the money spread out behind the counter. He itched to grab it, but Dara, while willing to cover many lapses on his part from their father, would never condone his just taking the money. And Dara’s temper, which he honestly had never known she had, made him walk like a tomcat in thin mud around her lately.

  With a guilty flush he stopped and stared down at the floor. “Dara, please. I need it now.”

  “It’s that woman, isn’t it? She’s your trouble and has been from the moment she stepped off the train last Sunday.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t? I’ll tell you. Last Sunday at the train station, you, Julian Tucker, and Logan Kinnel got into a fight over who was going to carry that hussy’s bandbox.”

  “She asked me!”

  “Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, Matt.”

  He had the grace to mumble an apology. Running his large hands through his hair, Matt resumed his pacing.

  “Did you tell Papa?”

  “No. And neither did anyone else. I asked them not to mention it to him. But Matt, you can’t be going … oh, no! Is that why you need the money? You’ve been going there and gambling!”

  “And what if I have been? It ain’t so terrible. I win enough hands to know how good I am.”

  “So good that you need to borrow money to pay debts that you shouldn’t make?”

  “Don’t give me that holier-than-thou look, Dara. I could say a few things about what you’ve done that wouldn’t stand the light of day.” He loomed over the counter to whisper, “I saw Eden take one of your unmentionables and put it in his pocket. And you, you stood there laughing.”

  “Matt!” Dara gripped the edge of the counter, fury making her tremble, fear the furthest thing from her mind. How could he threaten her? How could he say such a thing to her? But when he stood back, there was panic in his eyes. It was wrong to give in to him, she knew that, but Matt…

  “Dara, please.”

  “Take it.” But when he reached out for the money, Dara placed her hand over his. “Promise me that you will use this to pay off whoever you owe and then no more, Matt. Promise me you won’t gamble. I don’t know what Papa would do if he found out.”

  “Papa this and Papa that. When are you going to stop living for Papa? I’m not a boy anymore, Dara. I do a man’s work for a man’s pay out at Eden’s mine. So stop trying to treat me like a boy.” He shook her hand off, pocketing the money.

  “Matt,” she called out as he strode down the aisle, “does Eden know about this?” He turned around and Dara was taken aback by the hard look in his eyes.

  “Are you asking for me or do you really want to know if he’s there every night?”

  “For you, Matt,” she answered after a few moments of tense silence. Not even to her brother would she admit to being curious if Eden numbered among the men that filled the Gilded Lily every night since it opened.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t said anything to him. But maybe I should have asked him first. Eden would understand about a man’s debts and honor. He sure as you’re in a swivet wouldn’t be asking six questions to a dollar before he did the right thing and helped me.”

  “Matt, you’re forgetting that he’s older than you. I’m sure Eden wouldn’t gamble money he didn’t have.”

  “Yeah? You don’t know him very well. But if you want, go on believing that.”

  “Matt! Come back here. Matt…”

  She started to run after him, knowing it wouldn’t
accomplish anything. Matt had what he wanted from her. If it hadn’t been for the late arrival of the drummers, she wouldn’t have been in the store this afternoon. They were the one thing that Matt refused to deal with. Rubbing her temples, Dara wished there were someone else she could relieve her burdens upon. Some of the goods they offered were shoddy, but it was underhanded of them to tell her how much her competition had bought. Lonn Rogan was as Irish as they came, and he had made a dent in taking on the miners’ business. Dara knew she didn’t care a wit, but her father did, and she couldn’t tell him that the raw vitality of the miners made her uncomfortable. Eden would understand if she told him, but there had been a decided reserve between them this past week when he stopped by. Frustrating was the word that summed up Eden McQuade, and she had to finish tallying the accounts.

  But this business with Matt wasn’t something she could ignore.

  “Dara! Dara girl, where are you!” Miss Loretta’s imperious voice rang out.

  “Back here.”

  “Ah declare,” she stormed, coming down the aisle, “Ah don’t know what’s gotten into yore brothah, girl. He jest past me like chain lightnin’ with a link snapped. What’s got him in a snit’n basket?”

  “Matt’s grown now, Miss Loretta. His business is his own. I was about to close the store,” she hinted gently.

  “Ah can tell time. Ah ain’t come to buy. Ah jest had a peek inside that hussy’s place, an’ Ah promised yore papa if Ah did, Ah’d come tell him ’bout it. Seein’ as how yore in a cotton-spittin’ mood, Ah’ll take mahself off to visit with him.”

  With that, Miss Loretta, bustle waddling, hat swaying precariously, sailed down the aisle and out the back door. Dara admitted she was curious about the interior of the Gilded Lily—so were most women in town. Their menfolk, she learned during the week, were close­mouthed, and no amount of cajoling from wives or women kin could get one of them to describe what it looked like. Whatever little Miss Loretta viewed, she knew her father wouldn’t relay the information to her. “It wouldn’t be fitting for a lady to know,” he would say. And Dara once again felt the restrictive chafe maintaining ladylike behavior put upon her. Sometimes she wanted to cry off the burden of being a lady just as…