Wildstar

by Nicole Jordan

  "It ain't the money, goldammit! I don't give a flyin' hoot about the money! If I did, I wouldn't've stuck by you all these years!"

  "He's gonna help us fight," Riley said quietly.

  "We done just fine by ourselves till now. We sure as hell don't need any two-bit—"

  "We can't go it alone any longer, Clem. Do you think I would have trusted a near stranger with something this important if I didn't think he could do better than me at protecting my daugh—" Riley suddenly broke off and fell silent when he spied Jess standing at the door.

  Her heartbeat slowed down. Her father and Clem were sitting at the kitchen table all alone, with no Devlin in sight. "I'm sorry I slept so late," she said uncertainly.

  Clem glowered, while her father tried to smile. "You needed it, Jess"

  She walked over to the stove to pour herself a cup of coffee. "Where's Devlin?" she asked casually, as if the an­swer held little importance to her.

  "He said he was going to check into a hotel last night."

  Jess turned with a startled look. "A hotel?"

  "He didn't want to inconvenience us any longer, especi­ally you. Said he didn't feel right, turning you out of your bed and all."

  It had been something of an inconvenience, his staying here at the house, so why did she feel as if she had been slapped in the face? She'd been worried sick about how she would act toward Devlin, how he would act toward her. In fact, she would have given anything to avoid him today. But now that she was getting her wish, all she could think was Why? Why had he suddenly decided to move out? Was it something she had done? Had she scared him off by demanding he make love to her, by forcing him to do something he hadn't wanted to do? Had it been so dis­tasteful to him?

  "He said he'd be by later on to pick up his things."

  He was actually leaving. As the realization sank in, Jess was shocked at the fierce knot of hurt that was gathering in her chest. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering and turned away, holding on to the towel rack at the end of the stove. Her face felt as if it were burning, while her mind wouldn't seem to function.

  "What were you two arguing about?" she asked finally, surprised that her voice hardly shook.

  "We weren't arguing," her father began.

  "Yes we was!" Clem said with a growl. "I never thought I'd see the day, Jessie, but your pa done sold us out." Pushing back his chair, the old mule skinner stood up, jammed his hat on his head, and stomped past her, out the back door.

  Turning, Jess stared white-faced at her father. "You didn't sell to Burke?" she demanded hoarsely. "No, not to Burke."

  Relief flooded through her, until she realized Riley wasn't meeting her eyes. "Then what did Clem mean about selling us out?"

  "Your Mr. Devlin bought a quarter interest of the Wildstar."

  "My Mr. Dev— You sold part of the Wildstar to him?"

  "That's right," Riley replied irritably. "And I don't need you giving me any grief over it. Clem's already likened me to Judas."

  Jess didn't know what to say. Like Clem, she felt be­trayed. She had worked hard for years to make sure Riley could keep the Wildstar operating, and now . . . It was more than giving up part ownership of the mine. It was selling out a dream. How could you, Riley?

  "Why?" she asked in a raw voice. "Because we needed the money?"

  "That, partly. We couldn't have afforded to dig out and shore up the timbers and make it safe to mine again with­out the cash Devlin's willing to put up."

  "We would have found the money somehow."

  "How?" He lifted a weary gaze to hers. "Jess, I'm tired of scraping by. I'm tired of having you scrimp and save and work your fingers raw so I can beat my head against a rock wall. You deserve better than that."

  "But I don't mind! And anyway, it won't be forever. Just until you make a strike."

  Riley sighed. "I don't know if I even believe that any­more. And even if I did, it's too dangerous to go on like we have been. We can't fight Burke alone—it was foolish to try. It nearly got you killed. If you had died in that ex­plosion, I couldn't have lived with myself. . . ." His voice quavered and broke off.

  "You're letting Burke win," Jess said tonelessly.

  Her father shook his head. "I don't think so."

  She didn't reply.

  "Jess, I know what I'm doing."

  When still she didn't respond, Riley carefully got up from the table, clutching his chest and avoiding his daugh­ter's accusing gaze. "I'm going up to the mine."

  That gave Jess a start. "Riley you can't, your wound—"

  "My wound's fine. It only hurts like the devil. And it's about time I got back on my feet and did something for myself, instead of letting you and Devlin carry all the load. Somebody has to check out the damage and figure out how it can be fixed, and I'm still the best one to do it. It's still my mine."

  His low tone held stubbornness and pride and left no room for argument. Jess knew better than to try.

  He walked over to the wall by the door where coats and hats were hung on pegs. Taking down his hat, he put it on and let himself out quietly.

  Hearing the door close, Jess felt the raw ache of tears prick her throat. Why did it suddenly feel like her whole world was collapsing around her?

  When Jess showed up at the boardinghouse twenty-five minutes later, Flo scolded her for getting out of bed so soon after her ordeal. But she wasn't about to laze about all day, not when there was work to be done, and not when she had only her own despairing thoughts for company. The only way she could get through the day without dwelling on the past week's disturbing events, Jess fig­ured, was by keeping busy.

  There was a good deal of household work that had failed to get done in her absence. All the dusting, cleaning, dishwashing, laundering, airing bed linens, ironing, mend­ing, baking, ordering supplies, carrying out stove ashes, trimming lamp wicks and filling the bases with kerosene— all the thousand and one chores that were required to care for two dozen rugged bachelors—were too much for Flo and Mei Lin and Mr. Kwan to handle alone. Jess plunged in with a vengeance, grateful for the occupation. At least here, in her own familiar domain, she could exercise a small amount of control over her life, something that was sorely lacking in the rest of her existence.

  It was perhaps two hours later that a delivery wagon from Greene's Drugstore in Georgetown pulled up at the back door.

  "Since when do you order from Greene's?" Flo de­manded, peering out the kitchen window.

  Jess pulled her hands out of the pie dough she'd been working and wiped them on a towel, a puzzled look on her face. Greene's was altogether too fancy and expensive a store for her to patronize. In fact, the last time she'd shopped there was seven years ago when she was hunting for a special Christmas present for her mother.

  The delivery boy came to the door, carrying two pack­ages, each tied up in a red bow. He couldn't, or wouldn't, say who had commissioned the purchases, but both were for Miss Jessica Sommers.

  When the boy had gone, Jess sat down at the huge wooden table to open the packages. One turned out to be a large crystal jar of bath salts that smelled of lavender. The other was an elegant bottle of glycerin hand lotion scented with roses.

  "Jess, you sly thing," Flo said, grinning. "You got you a new beau. That handsome devil Devlin is sweet on you."

  "No, he isn't," Jess protested automatically, staring down at the gifts.

  "A man doesn't give presents like this to a girl who's not his sweetheart."

  "No, you don't understand. . . . He's only keeping a promise he made when we were trapped in the mine. He said if we got out alive, he would buy me something to put on my hands."

  "Uh-huh." Flo's grin didn't waver one bit. "I understand all right. That gorgeous fella is courtin' you."

  Jess didn't know how to answer that charge. She'd never felt more confused in her life. On the one hand, Devlin had walked out of her life without so much as a by your leave, and then gone behind her back to strike a deal with her father to buy into the mine.
On the other hand, he'd given her these expensive presents. The crystal jar alone had to have cost at least ten dollars—enough to pay two full days' wages for a miner, or cover the cost of room and board at her place for nearly a week. He shouldn't have done it. It was sinful, spending that kind of money on something so frivolous. But still . . .

  She touched the delicate crystal timorously. It gave her a strange, warm feeling inside to think Devlin cared enough to give her something so beautiful. She'd never had a present so lovely.

  "I say he's taken a fancy to you," Flo declared again. "The question is, do you fancy him back?"

  Could she answer that question? Did she fancy Devlin? Was she actually falling in love with him?

  No, it was impossible. She would be a fool to follow that dangerous path. She had no business harboring such tender feelings for a gambler, a professional gamester who made his living wagering on men's ill luck. Besides, he wouldn't want her love. He'd already made that plain enough.

  She didn't want to fall in love with a man like him, ei­ther. She wanted a man she could look up to, a man who was dependable and honest and hardworking.

  And yet she couldn't deny the hot, flushed feeling she got every time she remembered Devlin's kisses, his ca­resses. Or the rapid quickening of her pulse when she re­called how it had felt to have him moving inside her. Or the soft glow in her heart when she thought of how protec­tive and caring he'd been.

  Warm, insistent memories tugged at her constantly . . . Devlin keeping her calm in that awful crushing darkness. Devlin making her laugh. Devlin turning her inside out with his magical touch. If she wasn't in love with him yet, she was dangerously close.

  That gentle, bewildering feeling lasted only an hour. Jess was still trying to make sense of the turmoil in her heart when a small band of Chinese laborers showed up on her back doorstep—three women and two men, all dressed in wide-sleeved tunics and straight trousers, flat wide-brimmed straw hats, and glossy black pigtails. None of them spoke much English, and the words they could say didn't make a lick of sense. They seemed to think they were to be employed at the Sommers's board-inghouse.

  "Maybe we should fetch Mei Lin," Flo said after Jess had tried for the third time to convince them she didn't need any hired help.

  And so Mei Lin was called to interpret. The pretty Chi­nese woman had worked here at the boardinghouse since Jess's mother saved her from a life of prostitution in an opium den, but she lived with her husband in the small Chinese community at the edge of town, and apparently she knew these people.

  Mei Lin held a discussion in rapid Cantonese with the newcomers, then turned to Jess. "They say they here to work for you, Missy Jessie."

  "But I don't need them. Please tell them I'm sorry but I can't afford to take on any more workers."

  Another conversation ensued.

  "They already have payment, full month," Mei Lin re­layed. "Salary very generous."

  Jess stared. "That's impossible. Who would have paid them?"

  "I can guess," Flo said with a satisfied smirk. "You still gonna try to convince me that gorgeous fella isn't sweet on you?"

  Devlin. It had to be him. Rather than flatter Jess, how­ever, the realization that he'd gone behind her back for the second time in one day only annoyed and frustrated her. "He may have bought part of the mine from my father," she said tightly, "but he has no right to interfere with my boardinghouse!"

  "Now, Jess, don't you go gettin' on your high horse. You know we could use the help around here. What with you being gone so much lately, Mei Lin and I just haven't been able to keep up."

  That sent a stab of guilt through Jess. "I know, Flo, and I'm sorry. But I can't let Devlin spend that kind of money on this place. I won't be able to repay him."

  "Maybe he doesn't want to be repaid." The widow looked at the eager Chinese laborers, who were smiling and nodding and making small respectful bows. "Me, I've never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I think we ought to put 'em to work. You can always argue with Devlin later."

  Jess gave in grudgingly, with a silent promise to do more than argue with Devlin. She intended to give him a piece of her mind at the first opportunity. It was bad enough for him to make secret deals with Riley behind her back and to send her expensive presents as a result of a promise he'd made under duress. It was another thing en­tirely for him to blatantly meddle in the running of her boardinghouse.

  What occurred next, however, made Devlin's interfer­ence in her business pale in comparison. Doc Wheeler stopped by to check the gash on her temple that she'd re­ceived in the mine explosion.

  "I'm all right, Doc," Jess protested as he pushed her down in a chair. "Flo's already seen to it."

  "Might as well look now that I'm here. That Devlin fella ordered me to get over here first thing, and I don't dare report back to him empty-handed."

  Jess's lips tightened—and not in pain, even though Doc was poking and prodding at her scalp.

  "Just where do you and that young fella stand, anyway? I thought he'd taken sides with you and Riley."

  "He has," Jess said, puzzled.

  "Didn't know he was so cozy with Ashton Burke."

  "What do you mean, cozy?"

  "Why, he was at Burke's house early last night. I had to drive into Georgetown and I saw him myself at the front door, talking to that fancy butler. Seemed mighty odd to me when you're in the middle of a mine feud."

  Jess felt a sudden coldness start to creep over her skin and curl in her stomach. Devlin and Burke? There had to be some mistake. "I . . . don't know what he was doing there," she replied in a voice that didn't seem like her own.

  "Well, it just seemed strange."

  Yes, it did seem strange. The coldness inside her inten­sified as a horrible suspicion began to take root. She tried to dismiss it. It wasn't possible that she and her father had been betrayed, surely. Devlin and Burke hadn't been in league together all along. Devlin couldn't have been work­ing for Burke and merely pretending to be on their side . . . could he?

  Disbelief, shock, denial all screamed at her in warning. She couldn't accept that Devlin might be a traitor. It wasn't true. And yet there was no denying that Devlin had been keeping company with Ashton Burke. Doc had seen it with his own eyes.

  No, what she was thinking wasn't possible. She knew Devlin. She had lived in the same house with him and rid­den with him and faced death with him. She'd made love to him, for God's sake.

  But did she really know him? Until two weeks ago, be­fore she'd offered him a job as night guard, he'd been a total stranger.

  And he had been with Burke the first time she 'd met him.

  He had followed her outside the saloon, and she'd con­vinced him to take the job. He had seemed so reluctant at the time. . . . Dear God, had she just played right into his hands?

  "Yep . . . your head's okay," Doc pronounced, "but you oughta keep it dry for a few days. Miss Jess?" Doc waved a hand in front of her face.

  Dazed, Jess turned to look at him. "I have to talk to Devlin."

  Doc's forehead wrinkled in a frown. "I passed him on the road a while back. I think he was headed to your house."

  Rising to her feet, she fumbled with her apron strings. "I have to see him," she murmured again.

  Leaving Doc Wheeler to stare after her, she made her way blindly out the door, anger, dread, and anguish war­ring within her. She almost ran the block and a half to the house, hardly seeing her surroundings. Surely Devlin hadn't betrayed them. Surely she couldn't be that mistaken about someone. No one could be that good an actor, could he? No one could be that cruel, that low, that deceiving.

  Devlin's horse was tied up out front when Jess arrived. She let herself into the house quietly, surprised to realize her hands were actually shaking. Devlin was in her bed­room, stowing his clothes and gear in a carpetbag.

  He looked up to find her standing in the doorway. When he saw her, he pushed his hat back and smiled. "Riley wasn't here, so I let myself in."

  "
He's up at the mine," Jess replied absently, distracted as usual by the sheer masculine beauty of Devlin's face.

  He looked different today. He was wearing a superbly tailored suit and waistcoat that fit his lean contours to per­fection and gave him an added aura of sleek elegance and power—as if he needed any other advantage to enhance his striking physique. Her gaze slowly swept downward, drawn by a force more potent than she could resist. She could remember all too well how that hard body felt pressed against her own, how it felt moving over her, be­tween her thighs, God help her.

  Realizing she was staring, Jess forced herself to drag her gaze upward to meet Devlin's smoke-hued eyes. She wanted to demand that he tell her what he had been doing at Burke's house, but the words wouldn't come. She couldn't just come right out and accuse him of something so sinister. She didn't know what she would do if it were true. Desperately trying to maintain her composure, she clasped her fingers together.

  "Were you just going to sneak out?" Her voice was raw, unsteady, and it seemed to take Devlin by surprise.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You heard me."

  He frowned as he surveyed her pale face. "Jess, are you all right?"

  "No . . . I'm not all right."

  "I suppose you're angry about the laborers I sent over."

  That had totally slipped her mind, but now that he'd brought it up, it gave her something else to focus on be­sides the terrible possibility that she'd been so wrong about him. "Yes, I'm angry about that. I've been running our boardinghouse on my own for five years. I can man­age without your help—"

  "Whoa, hold up there, angel. I never said you couldn't manage by yourself."

  "Why didn't you ask me before you went and hired five people to work for me?"

  "Because you would have refused to accept them if I'd offered first."

  "Of course I would have refused! I don't need them!"

  "You do. You just won't admit it." Devlin paused. "What are you so upset about? I'm paying their salary. If you don't want to use them, that's your affair, but you'll just be wasting a good money."

  "I don't want you paying for my hired help—" Jess fal­tered, a burning ache in her throat. They were arguing over something that was totally trivial compared to the real is­sue. She swallowed hard. "You didn't bother to consult me or even let me know about any of the decisions you've made on my behalf recently. I'm wondering what else you haven't seen fit to mention."