Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  "Look, we can do this one of two ways." Sloan pulled a vine out of the neck of the kid's coat. "You can do what you're told, or I'll blister your behind." Jack gave him a defiant look in response to that. "Or you can do what you're told, and when I'm satisfied you're behaving, I'll give you a book I've got full of naked women."

  His eyes lit like lanterns. "A whole book full of them? What kind of book is that?"

  An anatomy book, but Sloan didn't tell him that. He was guaranteed a few days of peace, then Jack would slip up, and that would be that. With satisfaction, he replied, "A really good book, if you get my drift. Now go peel those potatoes."

  By the end of the week Sam would be back in pants and life would return to seminormal again. In the meantime, Sloan had a killer to catch.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere else?" Sloan asked absently when The Nuisance materialized inside his office, casually scanning the shelves of books. He had shut himself in here to do the monthly accounts, but he'd found himself making lists of the men who'd been in the saloon the night he'd been attacked, lists of men who were in town that night, lists of men who might hate him enough to kill him. The lists were depressingly long.

  He looked up and scowled at Jack. The boy had occupied his shadow all week long. He'd ignored him at first, then tried to put him to use. When he'd caught him sampling the whiskey they were supposed to inventory, Sloan had sent him back to his aunt. He could understand why she hadn't kept him around very long.

  "They're making pies and told me to get lost." Jack didn't even turn around. He was methodically searching each shelf with his eyes.

  Sloan could guess what he was looking for, and he stifled his grin. Until the Neelys came along, he'd been able to scare a full-grown man with a glare. Now, he couldn't even scare a half-pint with a glare and a growl. It made it a little difficult to be convincing around his men. They might jump when he barked, but then they would catch sight of The Nuisance sitting at his feet and decide maybe he wasn't so dangerous after all. He was going to have to shoot someone just to prove his point if this kept up.

  "Nice to see you've learned how to obey," Sloan answered sarcastically. He got up from his desk and threw a sheaf of papers on a table. "Here, make yourself useful. Practice your math along with obedience and add these up for me."

  "That's hard work!" Jack protested as he looked at the long columns of numbers.

  "Good. It'll give you something to do for a while." Sloan slammed out of his office.

  The widow was complaining she didn't have enough wood for the stove in her room. He felt more like chopping wood than adding numbers. Besides, everyone knew he spent the end of the month in his office. If they came looking for him, he wouldn't be there, and they wouldn't know where to find him. He wasn't in the mood for talking to anybody.

  He didn't like the idea of someone trying to kill him. He hadn't gotten where he was in ten years by being Mr. Nice, but he'd always considered himself fair. Men didn't have to work for him. They could go elsewhere. He knew he was a harsh taskmaster, but he paid well. What would anyone have to benefit from killing him?

  That question left him smashing wood into tiny splinters. Only one person in this world would have benefitted from his death, and she'd already taken everything he'd once owned, including his name. Melinda didn't even know where he was now and certainly had no reason to care. He couldn't imagine how she could think she could get anything else out of him even if she knew where to find him. And he'd made certain she couldn't.

  So that left someone right here. Doc Ramsey hated his guts on general principles, but did he hate him enough to kill him? He'd been here when Sloan had first arrived. He'd been sopping up whiskey ever since, when he wasn't butchering his patients. He wasn't dependent on Sloan in any way, so he would derive nothing but drunken satisfaction if Sloan should die. That didn't sound like enough to kill. Besides, Ramsey couldn't shoot a grizzly at point blank.

  He could narrow the list down to men who knew how to shoot and use a knife, but that didn't eliminate many. A man had to know how to use weapons if he meant to survive out here. Even that fool Donner knew how to wield a knife—he used one in his woodworking. Hell,

  Sloan wagered even Sam knew how to use a knife, and she certainly knew how to use a rifle.

  It just didn't make good sense. If he died, the mine and the mill and the hotel would close for lack of anyone to operate them. Everyone would be out of a job. It had to be vengeance. Some idiot had gone around the bend and decided to exact retribution for some imaginary wrong.

  Deciding that didn't make him feel any better, Sloan splintered the last log and gathered a load to carry up to the widow. He didn't want to run a damned hotel. Hell, if he had paying guests, he'd have to hire maids and clerks and whatnot. That blamed well wasn't worth the effort. He may have come a long way from what he'd been trained to do, but he wasn't ready to go that far yet.

  Dumping the load of wood at the widow's door and getting the hell out before she could pounce on him, he headed for the general store. There was something else he didn't want to do. He'd kept some stores at the trading post so his men could have supplies, but he wasn't a shopkeeper. Still, now that the store was running full-time, he supposed he couldn't neglect it. He had a damned lot of money invested in that inventory Sam's little sister had insisted on.

  When he swung the door open, he found both twins inside. He assumed the one behind the counter was Harriet because it was Harriet who minded the store. Beyond that, he couldn't tell one from the other.

  "I thought you were baking pies," he said abruptly, shoving past a table full of cloth and aiming for the till. He didn't mean to sound curt. He just hadn't expected to find them here.

  "They're all ready to go in the oven. Mama can handle that. Is there something you needed, Mr. Talbott?" Harriet stepped out of the way as he opened the cash drawer.

  "Proof I'm not going broke financing all these gewgaws. Where are the books?"

  Harriet slid a ledger from beneath the counter. "It's all right here. Most of it's in credit, though. You'll have to take the sums out of the men's pay on the first of the month."

  "Credit!" Sloan glared at her. To his gratification, she cringed a little. The twins looked like plaster saints. It made him feel guilty as hell to terrify them, but it felt good to know he could still terrify someone. "Who in hell told you that you could give them credit? You don't even know how much they make. They could run up bills higher than their paychecks and take off before the first."

  Harriet straightened her shoulders and tightened her mouth in a manner vaguely reminiscent of her older sister. "You can't run a store without credit. People expect it. And I had Mr. Injun Joe tell me how much each man makes, and I only let them charge up to half of that. I figure the other half gets spent over at the saloon."

  Damn! He really was out of touch if women had gotten this smart since he'd been around them last. He knew some of them were good in the kitchen, a few of them were good in bed, but he'd never had much use for them outside of that. If she was that smart, she was probably robbing him blind.

  Sloan picked up the ledger and started for the door. "I'll bring this back when I'm through with it."

  "I've got a daily journal to go with it, Mr. Talbott," she called after him. "Would you like that, too?"

  He didn't even know what a journal was, but that didn't matter. He held out his hand and the second twin ran to carry it to him. He was beginning to think he should have shot Emmanuel Neely the first day he'd set foot in this town. Then these women would never have shown up on his doorstep, and he could have gone on living in peace and ignorance. Now he would have to be a bookkeeper.

  To add insult to injury, he saw Samantha running across the plaza toward him as he stepped outside the store. She was probably coming to protect her little sisters from the big bad wolf, except she wasn't carrying a rifle. She didn't carry a rifle much these days. She had her hands full of petticoats instead.


  Sloan derived a certain sense of satisfaction from that even if he preferred the idea of getting her back into pants again. He was just waiting for Jack to embroil himself in a major pot of trouble before conceding defeat. Surprisingly, the week was almost up, and the kid had remained remarkably obedient, relatively speaking, of course. Still, it couldn't last much longer. It had better not last much longer. He was enjoying watching those slender ankles entirely too much.

  "Mr. Talbott, do you know where Jack is? There's smoke coming from behind the hotel, and he has an affinity for fires. I didn't know if you were burning . .."

  She grabbed her skirt and ran after him when Sloan took off at a long lope toward the hotel. He hadn't left any fires burning. He was used to the cold.

  He turned around and shoved Sam toward the street when she started to follow him down the alley. "Stay here. Those damned petticoats will go up in flames if there's any fire back there. Go find Joe if you have to do anything."

  He trusted her to do as told, although he couldn't have said why if he'd troubled to ask himself. He didn't.

  The alley separated the sprawling hotel from Ramsey's adobe shack. The livery was on the far side. Behind them all was the courtyard some efficient Spaniard had built for his kitchen gardens and vinery. The gardens had long since died, and he used the yard for little more than equipment storage, but there was lumber everywhere. The back stairs were wood. Firewood filled one corner. The men had stored lumber for repairs in no certain order wherever they found an opening. The whole yard would go up in flames before it started on the hotel and livery. That would take about five minutes, and they had no water pump.

  It wasn't the yard that was on fire. It was the hotel. Sloan cursed and grabbed an axe and a bucket of dirt as smoke rolled out of his office window. He'd left the kid in there.

  He smashed through the window frame, and flames instantly flashed through the gush of fresh air. He heaved the bucket of dirt on them, but it only made the smoke thicker.

  Making a muffler of his coat, Sloan ran around to the back entrance. Smoke seeped along the high ceilings of the hall, but there wasn't any flame yet. He blessed the foot-thick walls and raced for the office door. It was open.

  Fire danced along his bookshelves and crept toward his carpet, but he didn't see any sign of Jack. As a matter of fact, it looked very much like the fire had come from above. Heavy timber rafters supported the wooden floor directly overhead. The rafters were still in place, but fire still licked through the gaping holes between them.

  He was aware of running footsteps coming through the front hall. Sloan hoped they had buckets of water, but he didn't linger to find out. The unmistakable shouts of a young boy came from somewhere overhead.

  He raced up the stairs, only to lose himself in thick clouds of smoke. Dropping to the floor, he crawled cautiously in the direction of the shouts. The fire must have started in the rooms above the office and not the hall because the floor here was still intact.

  He could hear Jack's shouts coming from the front, from the direction of his own rooms. He should have gone up by the gallery stairs. His room was the only one with access to the back stairs. All the other front rooms led to the gallery. Why in hell didn't Jack go out the front?

  As if in answer, a beam engulfed in flame crackled and crashed across the only other exit.

  ***

  Sam watched in horror as another billow of smoke erupted from an upstairs window. Men poured in from all directions, carrying shovels and buckets, but she didn't see any hope. Flames danced across the timbers supporting the tile roof. Ice-covered rain barrels were being rolled into line. Someone systematically chopped through the ice while others filled their buckets once the water was uncovered, but they couldn't possibly work fast enough.

  She heard a wagon full of empty barrels race out of town toward the nearest stream, but it wouldn't be enough. They might save the town, but they would never save the hotel. Did anyone know where Sloan was?

  She'd told Joe, and he'd gone running toward the back, but she hadn't seen him in a while either. Men were on the gallery, pouring water through windows and doors, but smoke still continued to billow around them.

  That's when she heard Jack's cry and knew beyond a shadow of doubt where Sloan had gone.

  Without a sliver of compunction, Sam ripped the fastenings holding her skirt to her bodice, shoved the mass of petticoats to the ground, and stepped over the puddle of material in just her drawers and top. She couldn't climb into that building wearing a walking firetrap.

  She heard her mother and the twins screaming in protest as she ran down the alley, but sometimes she just had to ignore what was right and do what had to be done. Men wouldn't listen to her if she gave them orders, and none of them were doing what needed to be done.

  The entrances through the gallery were obviously inaccessible. She checked the back and found Injun Joe and some of the others working back there. It looked as if they had much of the fire out in the office, but the back stairs were gone. That left only one alternative, one none of the men had considered, lunkheads that they were.

  She didn't hear Jack anymore. She couldn't see Sloan anywhere. That meant both of them were still in there. She knew beyond a shadow of doubt if either of them were safe, they would be right in the midst of the fire fighting. They weren't. That meant they had to be trapped upstairs.

  She found the old ladder just where she'd seen it last, in the alley. It didn't look particularly stable and probably wouldn't hold a grown man for more than a few minutes, but it might hold her if she moved fast.

  She slammed the ladder against the side of the building and started scrambling up before anyone knew what she was about. She could hear Doc Ramsey below her yelling curses, but that was typical. Some of the others came running, but it was too late to stop her. She felt the ladder steady from someone holding the bottom. She gave him a mental thank you as she grabbed the window frame and shoved it up.

  The room looked like a sitting room of some sort, but the smoke filling it prevented her from seeing much. As she threw her leg over the sill, a sliver of flame licked at the top of the door. She was operating on sheer energy without thought of fear, but the crackle of fire gave her cause for hesitation.

  "Thank God!" The voice came from close by, and Samantha nearly jumped out of her skin.

  Before she could turn to investigate the source, Sloan had materialized beside her. Through the dim light she could tell he was carrying someone, and she very much feared it was Jack.

  "Damn!" he muttered as he recognized her. Then noting her eccentric garb, he cursed a little more pithily and jerked his head at the window. "Get out of here. Tell one of those dolts to send someone up to get the kid. I've got to go back and find the widow."

  Sam was already back to the window ledge. "They've already got her and her kid out. The ladder won't hold anyone else. I'll go partway down, and you'll have to hand Jack out to me. Then pray the ladder holds together enough so you can follow." Samantha coughed as she hurried to put her words into action.

  She didn't give him a lot of choice. Most of the fire may have been doused, but the smoke made it impossible to breathe. The window was their only escape. Sam let herself partway down the ladder and waited for Sloan to hand Jack over the sill. She caught the boy around the waist and wobbled unsteadily, clutching Jack and the ladder and hanging on until one of the men below understood.

  Ramsey grabbed a box, stood it on end, and reached high enough to grab Jack out of her hands. Sighing with relief, Sam rushed down the ladder and clenched her fingers into fists as Sloan lowered himself out the window.

  The ladder broke apart before he climbed halfway down. Feeling it give, he jumped clear, falling backward, and slamming his sore shoulder into the building behind him. But he was on his feet and following the men carrying Jack out of the alley before anyone could offer a hand.

  Sam raced after them. The sight of Jack's lifeless face released all the fears she had ignored earlier. S
he was literally shaking in her shoes by the time she rounded the corner just in time to see Sloan grab Jack from Ramsey and throw the boy on the ground.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the time Sam caught up with them, Sloan had Jack sprawled in the frozen street, and he was bent over him, breathing into his mouth. Somewhere in the background the widow screamed for attention, and men still ran up and down with buckets of water, but Sam's concentration was entirely on Sloan and Jack. One of the twins brought her a blanket, and Sam wrapped it around herself without conscious thought.

  Sloan pushed on Jack's chest, forcing smoke out of his lungs, then breathing into his mouth again. Jack didn't move at all. That frightened Sam more than anything. A Jack who didn't move was either sleeping or dead.

  She grabbed her mother's hand. Alice Neely's grip was so tight it hurt, but Sam scarcely noticed. She clung to her mother as Sloan worked.

  He was such a big man, he had to be crushing Jack's chest, but he seemed to wield his size with gentleness. There was no questioning the intensity of his concentration as he pushed and blew, pushed and blew. He didn't even curse. For Sloan not to curse under pressure meant he had closed everything else out. He was putting all of himself into saving a boy he didn't even like.

  Samantha didn't think these things through as she watched the man she hated working over her lifeless cousin. She just knew she didn't hate him anymore. She couldn't hate a man who worked so desperately to save a child, who had obviously risked his life to save that child. The callous, angry man everyone saw from day to day wasn't the same man here right now. He might return any minute, but she had seen past the barrier he presented to the world.

  Tears rolled down Sam's cheeks by the time Jack stirred. She held her breath and prayed frantically until Jack thrashed against the pressure of Sloan's hands. Then she dropped to her knees beside her cousin and hugged him, while her mother went to Sloan. Sam couldn't bring herself to look at Sloan. There was something too fragile between them right now. It would shatter if she looked too closely.