Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  Kneeling in the street, Sloan swayed slightly, watching in relief as Sam took charge of her cousin. He wasn't thinking anything, feeling anything. A cool hand examined the painful burns on his hands and arms, but he hadn't noticed the injuries until she touched them. He merely watched as the boy breathed on his own, coughed, and tried to wiggle from the hands of the men picking him up. He was alive. He'd made the boy live.

  It didn't make up for the one who had died. He would never replace the one who had died. But it helped in some inexplicable way. Sloan let the Neely woman salve his hands and tried to breathe fresh air into his own lungs.

  By the time his thinking was restored, Sloan's hands hurt like hell, his shoulder hurt worse, but the fire was out. He gazed up at the smoke-blackened walls of his home, shrugged, and followed the Neely women across to the house where they had taken Jack and the others hurt in the fire.

  It wasn't the scene of chaos he'd anticipated. The twins had obviously learned from their mother. They had their patients seated and sipping at coffee as if they were guests. The men were all too eager to ignore their pains while watching the women work. The widow wasn't quite so docile. As soon as Sloan walked in, she hurried to his side. She didn't seem harmed beyond disheveled hair and a ruined gown, and Sloan shoved her aside.

  "All my things were back there, Mr. Talbott," she cried as he strode past. "What am I going to do?"

  "Do without." The fool that he had once been many years ago would have held her hand and sympathized, but that man had died. The man he was now didn't care about anything else but killing whoever had set that fire— because he knew it had been set. There wasn't any other reason in the world to explain it. The firewood he'd left for the widow had been moved to provide kindling for the flames.

  Sloan made mental notes of who was present and who wasn't as he strode through the front parlor and sought the back bedrooms where Sam would have taken her cousin. It was just one more list to add to his collection, but one of these days, something was going to click.

  Sam didn't evince any surprise when he walked in. She still wore little more than a blanket. Sloan was conscious enough to note that fully now. Jack was sitting up in bed, hacking, trying to swallow some concoction she offered him.

  At Sloan's appearance Sam merely stood up and gestured toward the pitcher. "You'd better drink some of that, too. Mama said it will help."

  He hadn't noticed, but he was parched. He poured a glass and winced as his shoulder refused to move with him. Before he realized he'd done it, Sam was tugging him into a chair.

  "You've hurt that shoulder again. Get your shirt off. I'll call Mama to come look at it."

  He sat, but he shrugged off her offer. "I don't need nursing." He turned to examine Jack. He took a sip of the liquid, grimaced, and set the glass aside. Jack watched him warily. Sloan noted the size of his pupils, took his scrawny wrist and checked his pulse, put his head to the boy's chest and listened to his breathing. Jack writhed beneath these ministrations but didn't make a vocal protest.

  Straightening, Sloan sipped at the liquid again. "You'll live," he concluded. "Now tell me what happened."

  He knew Sam was staring at him in astonishment, but he didn't intend to explain. His first goal was to find the man who had tried to kill him, and in the process had nearly killed three others. Sloan figured shortly he'd start remembering the sight of Sam crawling through the window in nothing more than a shirtwaist and pantalets, but he'd had ten years of experience in pushing away those kind of thoughts. His formidable concentration was one of his best assets.

  Jack coughed, tried to drink from his glass, and coughed some more. Sam planted herself between the bed and Sloan.

  "Let him alone for now. He won't be going anywhere. You need to have that shoulder looked at, and Jack needs to rest. You can ask your questions when you're both feeling better."

  He wasn't used to interference. Sloan glared at the slender wraith in his way. She'd forgotten what she wore or wasn't wearing. The blanket gaped revealingly, presenting him with the fascinating sight of lace-trimmed drawers and a chemise dangling daintily beneath a sprigged muslin bodice. Buttons marched up the nicely curved front of her bodice, and he momentarily considered unfastening them to explore the undertrimmings.

  When he realized what he was doing, he growled, stood up, and shoved Samantha toward the door. "You win. Go get some pants on before one of my men discovers you're actually a female."

  Her eyes widened into astounding blue pools. Then she glanced down at herself, turned red, and practically ran out of the room.

  Satisfied, Sloan sat himself back beside the bed. Jack still watched him warily, but he no longer cared. The tightening in his groin drove away any remembrance of other pain. He'd like to damn Samantha to hell, or take her to bed and drive himself into her. He didn't care which. It wasn't a mood made for concentration.

  "Tell me what happened," he said curtly, just to divert his attention from the woman who had run out.

  "I smelled smoke." Jack coughed and took a sip of his drink.

  Sloan leaned wearily back in his chair and eyed his recalcitrant patient. "And?" he prompted.

  Jack shrugged in embarrassment. "I went to see where it came from. I thought maybe someone needed rescuing."

  Sloan rolled his eyes heavenward. Pure Neely. He would have to strangle the whole damned family to prevent the contagion from spreading. With a sigh of resignation, he returned his gaze to the bed. "And of course, it never occurred to you to run for help instead."

  Jack's jaw clenched and he turned away. "That's not what my dad would have done."

  Of course, it wasn't. His dad was probably just like Emmanuel Neely—nuts. But the boy must have idolized him, and Sloan couldn't help but feel a pang of something he'd rather not categorize as he watched the boy struggle with the pain of his loss. He'd loved his dad. Children didn't know any better.

  In a softer voice Sloan said, "I understand. It's okay. You ran upstairs to see if you could warn anyone. What did you see?"

  The boy took a deep breath and choked on the cough that came out. Sloan was instantly at his side, holding him up, applying pressure to his chest, helping him breathe. The kid was too young and small to rescue himself. He was a helpless bag of bones and blubber. Sloan held him carefully, and when he breathed again, made no objection when Jack turned into his arms and cried.

  Sam had to take that moment to walk in on them. She had changed into a man's shirt and vest and a pair of denims that did nothing to disguise the curve of her hips or the trim size of her waist. Sloan decided he was too old and set in his ways for this. He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes. The boy huddled against him, obviously unaware of his cousin's appearance.

  Sloan jerked his head in the direction of the door. Sam's eyes narrowed suspiciously. She took a good look at her cousin and satisfied herself that he was taken care of before obeying his unspoken order. Sloan heard her walking out. He didn't dare open his eyes again until she was gone.

  "All right. What did you see when you got upstairs?" He hated being relentless, but there was a killer loose in this town, and he had to find him.

  Jack sniffled and shrugged manfully. "Smoke was coming from your bedroom. I thought maybe you were in there, so I opened the door. Fire shot out everywhere, and I yelled. Then I tried to get down to Widow Black's. A timber came down and I couldn't get past it. I don't remember too much after that."

  "When you were downstairs in my office, did you see anyone? Outside the window, going down the hall, anything?"

  Jack finally straightened up and stared at him. "You think someone started it?"

  Sloan stared back. "You got a better idea?"

  Jack's eyes widened much as his cousin's had earlier. "It wasn't me!"

  "Never said it was. But there wasn't anything in my room to catch fire by itself."

  "Maybe it started in the widow's stove and went down the hall?"

  It wasn't likely from what he'd seen, but Slo
an didn't try to explain that. He'd go back over there himself in a little while and explore. "I'll look into it. You get some rest, and if you remember anything, you send for me. That was a brave thing you did, trying to rescue the widow. Next time, try to get a little help first. It's always better to do these things in pairs."

  "I'll remember that," the boy answered solemnly, but his freckled face nearly beamed with the praise.

  Such a little thing, a word of praise, but it could turn a man around. Sloan tried not to feel it as Jack gazed at him with pride, then closed his eyes to rest as ordered. He didn't want the boy looking at him like that. He didn't want anyone looking at him like that. He preferred to be despised and feared.

  He strode out of the Neely house as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.

  Sam watched him go, but didn't go after him. Sloan Talbott was a big man. He could look after himself.

  ***

  Sam watched from her window as men scrambled up and down the side of the hotel, repairing the roof supports, installing new floors, checking the gallery for damage. She didn't know where Sloan Talbott had spent these past chilly nights, but he apparently had no intention of taking shelter there much longer. Except for the singe marks around some of the windows, the hotel would be in better shape than before.

  She turned away from the window. It was January, and they still hadn't heard from her father. She wanted to go down the mountain to the nearest town, but her mother wouldn't hear of it. If she could just get down there and question a few people, she might turn up some clue. Few people forgot a man like Emmanuel Neely.

  But she couldn't take one of the twins with her, and her mother insisted it wouldn't be proper to take any of the men, and riding out alone would be the height of foolishness. It would have been different if she'd been a man, but she wasn't.

  That fact had been a major disappointment to everyone in her life. Sam knew her father had dreamed of boys to follow in his footsteps. He'd had a boy's name ready for each and every one of them. He'd named her for his father, Samuel. Harriet and Bernadette had been named for his uncles, Harold and Bernard. She'd always wondered what he would have named a fourth girl if nature had so blessed him. He didn't have any more uncles. Would he have tried to name one after her mother's father next? Aloysius was a hard one to feminize.

  Despite his disappointment, her father had loved them in his own way. He'd made them dolls that moved and doll dishes that didn't break. But dolls and playing house had never interested Sam. She'd wanted to go where her father went and do what her father did. And he'd indulged her as he'd indulged all the women of his house.

  She couldn't believe he would disappear without warning. He would never have left her wondering. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. He was out there somewhere, waiting for her to come for him—if he hadn't met with a fatal accident.

  Even then, Sam expected he would have carried enough documentation on him so that someone would have written to notify them of his death. People just didn't ignore Emmanuel Neely. They wouldn't ignore his body either—unless he'd been deliberately murdered and hidden from view.

  She didn't like to think about that. The only person she knew who might be capable of such treachery was a man who had kissed her nearly senseless and showed kindness to a little boy he had no reason to like. When she'd first arrived, she'd thought Sloan Talbott capable of murder. She wasn't sure of that any longer.

  Without anywhere else to go, she wandered across the street toward all the activity. She didn't actually go looking for him, but Sloan was hard to miss. He was directing the placement of lumber in the courtyard behind the hotel. Jack sat near his feet, carefully measuring off lengths and marking them for Injun Joe to saw.

  Sloan glanced at her as she entered the walled garden, then looked away again to one of the men installing wooden riders for the rear staircase. "What do you want?" he asked brusquely.

  "I thought maybe I could help." Sam shoved her hands into her pants pockets. For some reason, she felt nearly as awkward wearing pants now as she had when she wore skirts.

  "Why don't you go shoot a squirrel?"

  He still wasn't looking at her. Sam scowled. "Why? We've got more beef and pork than we had back home."

  "Then go knit a scarf or something."

  He was deliberately dismissing her. She wanted to kick his shins to get his attention. "I can't knit. I'm tired of sitting around. I want to help. Is that a grape arbor over there?"

  At that completely irrelevant question, Sloan glanced back at her. She was looking at the arbor and not at him. "What does it look like?" he asked irritably.

  "It ought to be pruned. I experimented with grapes back home, but I never found a variety that grew well there. Do you get many grapes?"

  "How the hell do I know? I'm not a gardener."

  "I am," she answered softly, wistfully. "Daddy said he'd bought me the finest valley in the country for my garden, but no one can tell me where it is. Do you mind if I take a look at your vines?"

  She walked off, not waiting for a reply. Sloan watched her go without saying a word. The emptiness ringing from that husky, sultry voice of hers struck corresponding chords in a part of him that he hadn't thought existed any longer. His insides lurched as he watched the natural sway of her hips as she strode away. It wasn't just the way she looked in denims that made him ache.

  The lady was as lonely and bored as he was—unfulfilled, looking for something that wasn't there. Maybe he could show her where to find what they were both missing.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sloan let the thought of Sam dangle in the back of his mind while he worked on the hotel. She made him itchy, and he didn't have time for itchy. He had work that needed to be done and a killer to find.

  But he couldn't concentrate. All of his life he had beer able to call on his formidable concentration to accomplish his goals. But now, when his life could be at stake, he found himself watching for a pair of denim-covered legs swinging from the grape arbor or the sound of a sultry voice calling Jack to dinner.

  The blamed woman had adopted his grape arbor. She spent hours every day gazing up at the ancient woody vines, snipping carefully, unwinding yards of cuttings from the crumbling slats. He could hear her actually talking to the blamed things. Crooning was maybe a better word. The sound sent shivers straight up his back, or more accurately, right to his loins.

  When he hollered for Joe to carry a load of newly cut lumber up to the second floor and discovered the old goat was in the arbor instead of where he should be, Sloan exploded. Stalking across the yard, scattering workers left and right, he came up behind his right-hand man and shouted in his ear, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  Joe jumped and nearly dropped the pruning shears he held. Recovering, he handed the shears through the vines to the feminine hand reaching down for them. "She's going to kill herself working up there."

  "That's not your concern. I'm going to kill you if you don't get back to work."

  By this time, Sam had stuck her head down through the broken slats of the arbor to see what the yelling was about. As Joe walked off, muttering angrily, she lowered herself through the vines to the ground.

  She was wearing a fringed buckskin jacket over a faded blue work shirt open enough at the neck to reveal shadows and curves Sloan didn't want to see. Irritated, he growled, "Get the hell out of my life!"

  "I'm not in your life; I'm in your arbor." She propped the pruning shears on her hip like a rifle and gazed back at him as if she were in her proper place and he was the one who courted madness.

  Something in Sloan snapped. He had dragged himself through his own murky hell for ten years now, trudging through an abyss in hopes of seeing daylight somewhere ahead. Just when he thought he was making a little progress, somebody tried to kill him. He'd been shot at, almost knifed, and burned out of his own home. His nerves were a ragged edge. These women frayed them to threads of exquisite pain. And now he couldn't see any farther than a pair
of long legs in denims and high-heeled boots. Something had to give.

  He didn't think it was his mind that snapped, but anything was possible where these Neely women were concerned. "If you don't get out of my sight and stay out of my sight, I'm coming after you with a whip," he warned her.

  Sam tilted her head and regarded him quizzically. "Is that what you told my father to drive him out of here? He's a peace-loving man. He doesn't like provoking fights."

  Sloan reached for his hat and curled his fingers around the brim to keep from curling them around her throat. "Your father had my men up in the hills roping mustangs and breaking their damned necks! He's lucky I didn't throttle him. And if you don't get out of my sight, I'm going to throttle you."

  "Roping mustangs!" She brightened at this new piece of information. "Then he must have been meaning to stock the valley with horses. Do the mustangs have good bloodlines? I've heard about the Spanish breeds. Are they close? Could I find them on my own?"

  This wasn't going as he had hoped. She stood there with blue eyes sparkling, red hair curling from beneath her hat brim in a riot of sunshine, looking like some kind of sprite in work clothes, and all Sloan could think about was the softness of the skin lurking behind rough fabrics. She was supposed to cringe, and he was supposed to furiously drive her out of here. Instead, he eyed the curve of her breast and wondered what would happen if he put his hand around it.

  That was the proverbial straw. If he couldn't even concentrate long enough to throw one feeble female out of his yard, he was going to have to take drastic action. He didn't even have to think about what that action ought to be. He knew it instantly, had known it for some time. He needed a woman. And since this was the woman driving him to distraction, it seemed reasonable to take his needs out on her. They would both be better for it later; she just didn't know it yet. All he had to do was bring her around to his way of thinking.