Jess hardened her resolve. She couldn't stand the idea of him questioning her courage, but more than her pride was at stake. She needed to prove to herself, even more than to him, that she could resist his seductive advances.
She took a deep breath. Since she was sitting on his lap, her face was at the same level as Devlin's. All she had to do was lean forward.
She did, slowly, and touched her mouth to his. His lips were soft and warm and somehow luxurious. It made her think of savoring rich chocolate.
Involuntarily, Jess shut her eyes, while her arms stole around his neck almost of their own accord.
She heard the throaty sound of approval Devlin made as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. Drawing her breasts against his chest, he forced her to increase the pressure of the kiss. Tentatively, almost shyly, Jess's lips fluttered beneath Devlin's in unwilling surrender. She didn't know how to deal with the physical sensations overwhelming her. He made her feel hot and quivery and weak, as if she were no longer in control of her senses. When he used his tongue to paint her bottom lip with dampness, she almost gasped at the erotic ripple of heat that surged through her body.
Eventually, he pulled away, and she saw that his smoky eyes had darkened to charcoal. "Not bad for a first time," Devlin said in a low, husky voice. "Try it again with more passion this time."
"But . . .dinner's . . . getting cold. . . ."
"Let it. Open your mouth to me, Jess," he whispered against her lips.
"But—"
"Don't think, angel, just feel."
Unbelievably, Jess wanted to obey him. She wanted just once not to think about everyone else first. Just once to give in to pure lush sensation. And that was what his kiss was . . . sensation. Exquisite and arousing. Delicious and intense. She felt as if her bones were melting as Devlin tasted and sipped at her mouth, irresistibly blending tenderness and demand, intimacy and boldness. His tongue was like slow fire as it took the deepest corners of her mouth, spreading and stroking, leaving her without a breath to call her own. He was a highly experienced man with a masterful touch, she knew that. But it didn't matter. Not when she was so stunned by the wildly primitive urges beating in her blood.
She clung to him, wanting his incredible kiss to last forever, desperate for it to end before she dissolved into a pool of liquid heat.
Devlin felt her trembling acquiescence. He had known too many women not to recognize need when he saw it, held it in his arms. She was so needy for everything a man could give her. And he ached to be that man.
He made his kisses deliberately provocative, stroking and sensual, using every skill he possessed to heighten her pleasure. It was an art he had been practicing for a very long time. And Jessica responded with blind desire, pressing closer and giving a hushed little moan from deep in her throat.
Her eager hunger entranced him, inflaming his own hunger. He wanted to throw away the pins in her hair and plunge his fingers into her glorious tresses. He wanted to unbutton that high-necked blouse of hers and lavish attention on her beautiful, full breasts. He wanted . . . But he knew very well that once he began such intimacy, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from going further.
With agonizing reluctance, Devlin summoned all his willpower and forced himself to end their embrace. When slowly he drew back, Jessica opened her eyes with a dazed look of pleasure.
Devlin drew a ragged breath and gave her a smile of blatant male satisfaction mingled with frustrated desire. "I think that's enough of a lesson in passion for one afternoon. Any more and I won't be able to let you go."
When he tucked an errant tendril behind her ear and eased her off his lap onto her feet, Jessica stood there unsteadily for a moment, looking around blankly, trying to remember what she'd been doing before she'd so foolishly accepted Devlin's challenge to prove her womanhood, before his devastating kiss had left her aroused and flustered and shaken to her very core.
Oh, yes, dinner. She had been about to sit down and eat.
Moving slowly around the table, Jessica lowered herself into her seat. Somehow, after Devlin's kiss, she knew it would be impossible to keep her mind on roast beef and mashed potatoes.
Chapter 7
Monday morning dawned bright and clear, with none of the smoky blue haze that usually hung over the mountains. Up at the mine, Devlin watched the Colorado sky turn from ebony to pale gray to cloudless cobalt, but he made no effort to saddle his horse. The Wildstar crew tramped up the mountain road and reported for work, and the endless toil of hard-rock mining began . . . drilling and blasting, shoring tunnel and shaft walls, shoveling rock and tramming it to the surface in buckets, to be loaded into ore cars. But still Devlin hesitated to leave. He wasn't sure he trusted himself alone with Jess.
He'd gone too far yesterday with her, he knew. The game he'd been playing had turned dangerous. It had been easy—too easy—to awaken her passion and make her respond to him, but his plan had nearly backfired. He was an experienced man taking advantage of an innocent, yet he'd come close to losing control himself.
His reaction had surprised the hell out of him . . . and scared him, too, if he were honest. Jessica Sommers wasn't his usual kind of woman, the only kind he ever allowed himself to get involved with. The sophisticated, worldly kind who could share his bed and indulge in sexual intimacies without thinking it meant a lifetime commitment. The kind who lacked the power to ensnare his heart and then savage it, the way his one-time fiancée had done.
Jessica likely was the kind to take his flirtation seriously, or at least convince herself he was serious. If he continued in the same vein, she'd doubtless be looking for a ring on her finger. He didn't want to lead her on. Certainly he didn't want her to get hurt by his careless games. It had taken him a restless night of guard duty and prowling the mountainside to come to a decision. From now on he would quit teasing her, quit trying to prod her into some kind of reaction. From now on he would keep their relationship strictly business.
Devlin still had made no move to leave when he heard the rumble of an ore wagon, accompanied by the crack of the skinner's whip and the genial sound of bells. Ore wagons belonging to various hauling outfits passed the Wildstar regularly, carrying supplies up to the highest mines and loads of ore down, but Devlin had no trouble recognizing Clem Haverty's distinctive voice and colorful language.
Shortly Clem appeared around the distant hairpin turn, driving his ten-mule team up the steep grade, applying his whip with utmost precision. Devlin had once seen a bullwhip expert knock a fly off the ear of an ox at twenty feet without drawing a drop of blood, and Clem's skill was better than that.
"Haw! Steady, Milo, George! Milo, you got mush for brains, you lop-eared excuse for buzzard bait," the ornery mulewhacker yelled. "Whoa!"
Having reached the mouth of the Wildstar and turned the narrow, high-sided ore wagon around, Clem positioned it beneath the loading chute, then hauled back on the reins and set the brake. As he climbed down from the wagon seat, he was still cussing Milo with relish. "That mule is just too indegodampendant! I want my Nellie back!"
Clem gave Devlin a glare that had all the charm of a riled grizzly. The mule skinner still wasn't happy that his usual leaders, Nellie and Gus, had been appropriated to act as sentries for the Wildstar each night.
Repressing a grin, Devlin pushed himself to his feet and went to fetch the two mules that he'd come to know rather well over the past week. They no longer brayed in his presence, and had actually provided welcome company during the long nights alone.
He led the mules to the head of the team, and decided to use the opportunity to ask the old-timer about the conflict between Riley Sommers and Ashton Burke.
"Why do you suppose Burke only recently developed an interest in buying the Wildstar?" Devlin inquired as he helped Clem with the harnesses.
"Don't rightly know."
"I can think of at least one good reason. If Burke discovered a rich vein in the Lady J next door, he might
suspect the Wildstar of holding good pay ore. Have there been any rumors about the Lady J hitting a big strike?"
Clem grunted. "Not so's I've heard."
"Well, if that is the case, then Burke would certainly want to keep the news quiet until he had the deal locked up. I wouldn't be surprised if he's planning something else to force Riley to sell the Wildstar, would you?"
"How the goddamn hell am I s'posed to know what Burke is plannin' ? You gonna keep pestering me with your dang-fool questions?"
Devlin gave him a cool glance from his gray eyes. "I'm on your side, Haverty."
"Mebbe you are. But jest because Riley's taken a shine to you don't mean I got to. And you ain't gonna turn me up sweet, neither, by bein' nice to my mule," Clem added with a suspicious look when Devlin scratched a grateful Nellie behind her ears.
"I wouldn't dream of even trying. An ornery old cuss like you could sour a lemon."
Clem harrumphed loudly. Pulling a pouch from his shirt pocket, he drew out a plug of chewing tobacco, cut a fresh quid, and stuffed it in his mouth. Devlin turned and joined two other men who were pushing an ore car from the mine up the timbered ramp to the loading chute.
When that load was dumped, Devlin picked up a shovel and climbed into the wagon himself. As he spread the heap of ore more evenly over the bottom of the wagon, he eyed the mule skinner narrowly. "What is it you have against me, anyway?"
Clem finished buckling a leather cheek strap before answering. "Nothin', I guess."
"You want me to leave, is that it?"
He spat a stream of tobacco juice on the ground. "Naw. The boys've been right edgy since Riley got shot, but it's only 'cause you hired on that they're even working. What I got no notion of is why you was game to hire on in the first place."
"The pay's good."
"There's lot easier ways to make money."
"Maybe it's because Jessica asked me."
Clem gave that a long consideration. "Yep, that's a good reason. It ain't easy turning that gal down when her mind's made up."
Devlin made another trip to the ramp to help dump a load. "What makes you think Riley has taken a shine to me?" he asked when he returned.
" 'Cause he said so. 'Course he didn't take kindly to Jessie staying up here that night, jest like I warned you, but he's right glad you hooked up with us." Suddenly losing his sour look, Clem grinned broadly through his beard. "I reckon Ash Burke was madder than a new-made steer when he found out."
Devlin grinned as well. "He was indeed."
"How come you always talk so highfalutin', young fella?"
"It's the way I was raised, I expect. Do you intend to hold it against me?"
Clem tipped back his hat and shook his shaggy gray head. "I guess not."
"Then why don't you tell me why Burke would want the Wildstar enough to kill Riley for it?"
Relenting in his fierce attitude somewhat, the mule skinner squeezed his weathered face into frown. "I dunno. I still ain't so sure that's what Burke meant to do. Ash Burke is snake-mean, but I never figured him for a killer. I reckon maybe he jest wanted to scare Riley a bit. Nothin's happened since the shootin'."
"You think hitting Riley was a mistake?"
"Could be. 'Course you could be right 'bout a strike at the Lady J. This here hill's full 'o silver, and me 'n Riley always did think this was the best place to find it. I'll get the boys to see what they can sniff out about a Lady J strike down to town."
It took another half hour to load the rest of the ore into the heavy wagon. When it was done, Devlin saddled up his horse and reluctantly headed down the mountain. With any luck Jess would be occupied with her father.
Behind him, Devlin heard Clem climb aboard the driver's seat in order to drive the ore down to the stamp mill in town.
"Up, Nellie! Up, Gus! Gee up thar!"
The heavy wagon wheels began to turn just as a faint noise like the echo of thunder sounded from beyond the crest of the hill at Devlin's back. Because of the wagon's rumble, it was a minute before he recognized the sound as the drumming of horse's hooves, and by then it was too late. The pounding hoofbeats crested the hill in a thunderous wave, accompanied by men yelling and the explosions of rapid gunfire.
Wheeling his horse even as he reached for his gun, Devlin mouthed an expletive at having been caught unprepared. Above him, at the mouth of the mine, riders were attacking the Wildstar—whooping and racing their horses in circles and firing pistols in the air. Devlin couldn't make out exactly how many raiders there were, or who they were; their faces were masked by bandannas. But he spied the distinctive red coloring of a roan horse.
His curse drowned out by the chaos, Devlin rammed his heels into his mount's barrel and started up the steep road at a gallop, his revolver raised. He had taken a sight on one of the riders when he recognized a new danger. The ore wagon, with Clem on board, was headed pell-mell down the mountainside, dragged by a dozen galloping, panic-stricken mules.
The skinner was wildly hauling on the bunch of reins with his left hand, shoving on the brake lever with his right foot, and bracing his wiry body against the footboard in a desperate effort to hold back the racing vehicle. The hold-back chains that locked the rear wheels in place did little to check the momentum.
With the heavy wagon bearing down on him like an avalanche, Devlin had only an instant to decide. Ignoring the bullet that whined past his head, he abandoned the chase and pulled up his horse. Spinning around, he started back down the road, trying to match speed with the wagon.
"Hellfire and thunderation!" he heard Clem yell above the screech of brake blocks as the wagon shot past. "Whoooooa!" He had planted both feet on the brake, pushing for all he was worth, but it was like trying to stop a bullet with a feather. Galloping alongside, Devlin saw the brakes smoking as the wheels spun faster and faster.
"Jump, man!" he shouted as he drew even with the driver's box. He extended his right arm, gesturing for Clem to abandon his attempt to save the wagon.
Just then the left forewheel struck a rock and the brake pole snapped. Clem was nearly pulled off the seat and thrown headfirst into the galloping team, while Devlin barely missed colliding with the wagon body as it veered toward him. He swerved his horse on the narrow road and almost went over the edge. Throwing his weight to the right, Devlin used the reflexes honed by long months of punching cows in order to aid his mount. The horse stumbled but somehow regained balance and galloped on.
In another four strides they made up the ground they'd lost and again reached the front of the wagon. Clem was still clinging to his seat and trying ineffectually to halt his uncontrollable team.
Looming before them was the hairpin turn of the road. Beyond that was a rocky ledge and a drop of several hundred feet.
"Clem, dammit!" Devlin shouted again. "Let it go!" Still desperately clutching the reins, Clem held on to the wagon seat and inched his way to the left.
"Clem!"
Devlin knew he had to pull up now or risk going over himself. He'd just started to draw back when the old mule skinner finally decided the situation was hopeless. Lunging to his feet, Clem jumped free an instant before the mules, the wagon, and a ton of silver ore plunged over the ridge in a cacophony of splintering wood and screaming animals.
With one arm clutching the mule skinner's waist, Devlin savagely hauled back on the reins, bringing his horse to its haunches. They slithered to a halt a scant two yards from the edge. His blood hammering in his ears, Devlin let Clem drop to the ground.
For another instant, neither of them moved. They were both breathing hard, and Clem was staring up the steep road in shock.
"They were fixin' to kill me," he gasped in disbelief. Then he raised his fist and shouted furiously, "You goddamned yellow-bellied buncha sidewinders!"
His cry echoed over the range. The gunfire had stopped and the mountainside was now ominously silent.
Devlin felt a surge of pure rage streaking through him. The disaster had erupted so suddenly
that he'd had no time to consider how to deal with it, but it could only have been a few minutes at most since the shooting had started. The gunmen couldn't have gained that much of a head start.
"Are you okay?" he asked Clem. "I ought to ride after them."
Still looking dazed, the mule skinner nodded. "I'm beholden to you. You saved my bacon."
Devlin turned his sweating horse up the steep slope and spurred it into a lumbering gallop—then promptly swore. After the punishing ride and gallant effort, the animal had gone lame and was limping badly, favoring its off rear leg.
Devlin had drawn rein and swung down from the saddle, intending to inspect his lame mount, when he heard a plaintive wail.
"My mules!" Clem cried. Devlin turned to see him staring down over the rocky slope, and had to grab the old mule skinner's arm to prevent him from rushing over the edge.
A look of shock and devastation gripped Clem's face. "My Nellie . . ." he said hoarsely.
The thud of booted feet interrupted them as a score of miners dressed in grime-coated overalls, shapeless jackets, and coarse felt hats came running down the road from the various mines along the way. Devlin suspected some were from the Lady J, but their supervisor, Hank Purcell was not among them. They slowed to a halt beside Clem and Devlin and took in the scene of wreckage below.
They were followed by several men of the Wildstar's crew. One of them looked at Devlin helplessly and shook his head. "There was three of 'em this time," he said in a hushed voice. "They made for tall timber."
Devlin's jaw hardened. He couldn't take off after them now, with a lame horse and without the proper gear or adequate weapons. He would have to go down the mountain to get another saddle horse. And before that, he would have to see to Clem. Tears were streaming down the old man's grizzled face, disappearing into his shaggy gray beard.
Without warning, Clem lurched forward drunkenly, intending to climb over the rock ledge, but Devlin tightened his grip on the mule skinner's arm, dragging him back.
"I g-got to see to my mules," Clem protested in a choked voice.
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