Wildstar

by Nicole Jordan

  It was a long moment before she decided there was no point in tormenting herself with such possibilities. She would just have to face it if it happened.

  But the terrible ache in her heart wouldn't go away. She'd known Devlin didn't want a wife and family. What she hadn't realized was that their whole association was based on a lie. He had used her. For his own purposes, his own convenience. She couldn't forgive that or forget.

  Confound it, she would forget it—and him! If she had to dose herself with laudanum for the next century, she would quit thinking about Devlin day and night and every minute in between.

  Trouble was, she hated laudanum and the headachy sluggishness it always left behind. Trouble also was, ev­eryone around her seemed to conspire against her. No one would let her forget Devlin. Riley was pushing ahead with the renovation of the Wildstar and the expansion of his op­eration, and he refused to hear a word against the man who'd made it possible. Clem, while still unhappy, had ac­cepted the situation when Devlin's money financed five brand-spanking-new ore wagons and mule teams. That many would be needed just to keep up with the new steam-powered mechanical rock drills they'd ordered. Flo couldn't stop talking about how grand it was that that "gorgeous fella" was obscenely rich and that he was gonna give Burke his comeuppance.

  Jess could hardly stand it. Could no one see what Dev­lin was doing with his filthy money? Pretty soon he would have total control of the Wildstar. Oh, maybe not legally, but her father would be under such a financial obligation that he couldn't dare refuse whatever Devlin wanted to do with it.

  She nearly took Flo's head off one afternoon for merely mentioning Devlin's name, but it didn't seem to faze the widow one bit.

  "What's got you so het up?" Flo demanded.

  "Not a blessed thing," Jess returned resentfully. "I like seeing my father being taken in by a snake-in-the-grass."

  "You talking about Devlin?"

  Jess gritted her teeth, remembering what he had done yesterday. She'd gone to the bank to draw out the two hundred and fifty dollars she owed him, which put a huge hole in her savings. She'd sent Mr. Kwan over to Devlin's hotel with the money, but Devlin had sent back double the amount, with a note scrawled on the back of a gold-embossed calling card saying he carried more in pocket change and why didn't she buy herself a pretty gown with it, something soft and feminine? Reading the note brought back the red-hot shame Jess had felt when he'd last ac­cused her of acting like a man. And then he'd had the gall to show up for dinner yesterday at the boardinghouse when she wasn't there. Not only had he weaseled Flo into serving him a three-course meal, he'd managed to sweet-talk her into swallowing his side of the story.

  "Yes, I'm talking about Devlin," Jess ground out. "He lied to me from the start about who he was, pretending to be a tinhorn gambler when he was as rich as Croesus, and then—"

  "Come on now, Jess, he explained all that."

  "Okay, maybe he had cause for not telling the whole world who he was at first, but there was no good reason for not telling us. Especially after he found Zeke McRoy. All Devlin did was use us," she added bitterly. "And he had no call going behind my back to buy the mine from Riley. He didn't even have the gumption to tell me to my face." Jessica had more she could say about why she felt betrayed, but she wasn't about to tell Flo. Her seduction at Devlin's hands—or his seduction at hers, if she was per­fectly honest—was not something she intended to discuss with anyone.

  "Don't you think you're being a mite unfair?" Flo de­manded. "Not every rich fella is like Mr. High-n'-mighty Burke."

  "Devlin's like him. Worse, even. At least I knew better than to trust Burke. As far as I'm concerned, Devlin can take his fat bank account and ride out of town with it."

  "I swear I don't understand what has you so riled."

  "You don't understand? He's already started trying to run our boardinghouse, and he's changed everything up at the mine—how can you be so blind? If we keep taking his money, he'll be able to ride roughshod over us any time he takes a notion."

  "Well, I think you're gettin' stirred up over nothing."

  "I am not! And if he tries anything else . . . if he so much as looks crossways at me, I'll . . . I'll . . . box his ears."

  "Us widows aren't so picky as you young gals," Flo said cheerfully. "That gorgeous fella can look at me any which way he wants, and I'll be right glad of it."

  Jess shook her head, but she understood very well the appeal Devlin held for females of any age. She herself couldn't deny the fierce attraction, no matter how hard she tried. But it wasn't Devlin's stunning looks that she ob­jected to. It was the way he used them to get his way.

  Much worse, though, was the way wealthy men like him used their money, manipulating people and events to insure whatever outcome they wanted. Devlin had yet to prove that he was any different from all the other greedy, power-hungry magnates she'd known all her life. He'd bought into the Wildstar with a huge infusion of capital, in a way that seemed downright suspicious. What did he re­ally want? was the question Jess yearned to have an­swered. Was his magnanimity really a bid to eventually take over the mine? That would have been a scheme worthy of Ashton Burke, and Jess couldn't dismiss the possi­bility as blithely as everyone else seemed to be doing.

  She tried to warn her father of the danger, but Riley merely brushed off her concerns.

  "I can't believe you actually let Devlin waltz in and take control of our mine," Jess finally exclaimed in frus­tration.

  "He didn't take control. He didn't want it."

  "It's close enough to make no difference. How could you let him talk you into it?"

  "He's not a man to take no for an answer, Jess."

  "That's exactly my point. He's no different than Burke when it comes to wanting his way. How do we know Dev­lin's not only out for himself? How do we know we're not being taken in? That we can trust him?"

  "Because my instincts say so."

  Jess couldn't buy that; Riley's instincts had been wrong before. "Then why did he spend so much money on the Wildstar when there's so little profit in it for him?"

  Her father gave her a long look. "He did it for you, Jess."

  She blinked, startled. "What do you mean, for me?" she asked.

  "Do you really think any man in his right mind would sink a fortune into a low-grade mine that's not likely to pay out his investment just on a lark? No, he wanted to help you, and giving me the money to start over seemed the best way. He probably figured you would appreciate what he did instead of doubting his intentions."

  Jess stared. "I don't believe it," she said finally. "Why would Devlin want to do anything for me?"

  Riley was silent for a minute, his mouth pursed as if de­bating how much more to say. "Well, maybe that wasn't his only reason. After getting caught in that cave, he was riled enough at Burke to want to get even. And being part owner gave him the legal clout to take on Burke."

  That sounded much more like the truth, Jess decided. Like Burke, Devlin would doubtless hate having his will crossed by anybody.

  But even if he wasn't like Burke, even if she was wrong about Devlin, even if he didn't have any ulterior motives and wasn't trying to take over their mine, it still stuck in her craw having to suffer his patronage. Until now, she and Riley had always made it on their own, without any help from anyone—in fact, with active opposition and sometimes with pretty poor luck. Having to admit they needed Devlin didn't go down easy. And his apparent suc­cess in making Burke back off when they'd failed was only one more bitter pill to swallow.

  That afternoon, the pill got so large Jess nearly choked on it. The Wildstar miners discovered a vein of silver ore in the lower level of Riley's mine, a vein so rich that it nearly went off the assayer's scale.

  Clem came racing into the boardinghouse kitchen to tell Jessica the fabulous news, waving his felt hat in the air and whooping like a painted Indian.

  "We're rich, Jessie! We're goddamned rich!"

  Before she could do more than look up, the wir
y mule skinner had picked her up by the waist and was whirling her around and around.

  "Lord have mercy, what's goin' on?" Flo exclaimed, seeing all the excitement. "You been hittin' the bottle again, Clem Haverty?"

  "Not hardly, woman! Riley made his big strike! We done found a lode!"

  It was a long moment before he calmed down enough to make sense, and even then he was almost breathing too hard to tell them what had happened and his words all ran together.

  "Riley found this crack in the low tunnel, see, and we set a charge, and you could see it was a vein, and Riley said 'Holy shit,' beg pardon, Jessie, but it was the damnedest sight you ever seen, all that ore what looked like pure silver! We done our own testin', but the numbers came out plumb crazy, I mean who would believe nine hundred a ton? I thought Riley was funnin' me, but we took some ore down to the assay office an' they said it was for real, more'n nine hundred ounces to the ton, and it goes on like forever! Hallelujah, we're richhhhhhhh!"

  Just about then Riley came limping through the back door, a big grin on his weary face. When Jess asked, "Is it really true?" in an awed tone, her father laughed and held out his arms. His bear hug was full of love and tri­umph and completely ignored the still-painful wound in his back, although Jess tried to tell him to be careful.

  Riley wasn't having any of it. This day was the culmi­nation of a lifetime of searching for that elusive lode, and he declared he wasn't going to spoil it by playing the in­valid.

  At Riley's request, Jess broke out the decanter of cur­rant wine that she kept for special occasions and the bottle of good rye whiskey she kept hidden from Clem, and poured glasses all around.

  Riley raised his glass for a toast, meeting his daughter's eyes. "I only wish your ma could have been here. That's my only regret."

  A bittersweet ache caught at Jess's throat. Riley missed Jenny Ann even more than she did, and all the silver in the world couldn't make up for her loss.

  They drank to Jenny Ann Sommers—which made them all somber—and to the future of the Wildstar mine—which made them all light-headed with excitement—and then sat around the long pine-board table in the communal dining room and planned the expansion of the mine. Riley drew a layout of the tunnels on the writing paper Jess had fetched.

  "We'll start a new drift there," he said, pointing, "and follow the vein back. From the looks of it, we may have trouble smelting the ore around here—got too much silver for the rock—but we can ship it down to Denver."

  "All that purty silver," Clem said reverently.

  Riley grinned. "I'm still not sure I believe it. Of course, the first thing we have do is hire a surveyor. We've got to make sure we have the rights to mine that lode, though as best as I can tell, it starts on our claim."

  Adjacent to the Wildstar, Riley sketched in the outline of Burke's Lady J mine. "We don't want to get in a legal tiff with Burke over this and have it tied up in court so we can't mine—" He broke off suddenly, seeing what he'd drawn. "I'll be damned."

  They all stared at the rough pencil marks that showed a Lady J tunnel running smack into the vein Riley had dis­covered. It wasn't an accurate rendering, certainly, but it raised the suspicions of every person sitting at the table, even Flo, whose extent of knowledge about mining was only that it resulted in hungry men.

  "That low-down, two-timin' skunk," Clem growled. "That's why Burke was so hot to get his hands on the Wildstar. He found our lode!"

  Riley nodded slowly. "Look's like it. What do you bet they've been mining our vein?"

  "I ain't betting those odds," the mule skinner snorted.

  Suddenly Riley started to chuckle.

  "What's so funny?" Jess asked indignantly, her anger at Burke obscuring her ability to see the remotest humor in this situation.

  "Maybe this is what books call poetic justice," her fa­ther said. "The only reason we found the lode was because of that crack in the wall. And that crack wasn't there last week. I know every inch of that lower tunnel and I'd stake my life on it. The blast that Burke's hirelings set off—the one that almost killed you, Jess—must've shook something loose."

  She forced a smile. It would indeed be ironic if the fab­ulous strike was the result of Burke's foul play; if by try­ing to coerce them to give up the Wildstar, the silver king had actually hastened the discovery of the vein that would set them up in riches for life.

  "Have you told Devlin?" Flo interjected.

  Jess stiffened at the very mention of the name, and her father gave her a sharp glance.

  "He knows," Riley answered. "We sent somebody over to the Diamond Dust to fetch him down to the assay of­fice. He said if everything turns out the way we hope, he's going to take us all out to celebrate."

  "Not me," Clem declared adamantly. "I ain't gonna put on no fancy suit."

  Flo hit him on the arm. "You will, too, you old coot, and you'll take a bath and put on some o' that sweet-smellin' shaving cologne, even if you won't get rid of that rats' nest you call a beard."

  Jess didn't add her own declaration—that she wasn't go­ing, either. Not for all the silver in the state of Colorado would she spoil this day for her father by reminding him of her estrangement with Devlin. This day was Riley's tri­umph, the fulfillment of a dream . . . if it didn't fade away like a mirage when a survey was done, if it was really and truly real.

  But this strike didn't make up for what Devlin had done, not by a long shot. She still wasn't willing to ab­solve him from having hidden motives regarding the mine.

  Come to think of it, it did seem a bit odd that he had bought a large share of the Wildstar just before the vein had been discovered. It was almost as if he'd known about the silver being there. . . .

  Jess frowned as she tried to form a mental picture of the tunnel the night of the explosion. Devlin had left her in or­der to find some water, she remembered, and he'd taken a long time to return. She'd even called out to him, asking if anything was wrong, which he'd denied. Had he been inspecting a crack in the rock wall?

  A score of troubling thoughts assaulted her at once. Had Devlin discovered the rich silver vein then? Was that the real reason he had forked over such a huge sum for an in­terest in the Wildstar? Because he knew they would soon be hauling out ore worth many times that amount?

  It made all too much sense.

  A raw, scorching anger started to build inside Jess, along with a stabbing anguish that Devlin might have betrayed them so callously.

  She didn't mention a word to her father about her sus­picions, though. He was so blinded by gratitude, by Dev­lin's charm and money, he wouldn't have believed her any more readily now than he had earlier.

  Instead, she waited until her father and Clem had left for the mine before she grabbed a bonnet and her reticule, which held the two-hundred-and-fifty dollar salary that Devlin had refused and the extra money he had tried to throw in her face. Then she snapped out an excuse to Flo about having business to attend to and stormed out of the boardinghouse.

  All the way to Devlin's hotel, Jess dredged up every single grievance she had against him, the latest being his possible concealment of the silver lode in the Wildstar. His combined transgressions were enough to whip her fury into a white-hot pitch. By the time she arrived at the Di­amond Dust, inquired in the lobby for Devlin's room number, and endured the shocked stares of the clerk be­hind the counter, Jess was so mad she was breathing smoke. Muttering a thank-you for the information, she turned and nearly collided with Ashton Burke.

  At her involuntary gasp, the Englishman reached out to steady her, his golden eyebrows raised in an expression that showed surprise and perhaps a hint of disdain. "Are you lost, Miss Sommers? May I be of assistance?"

  Burke had a right to ask such questions, Jess remem­bered as she regained her balance. He was the hotel's owner, after all. She was the one who had no business be­ing here, since no lady would visit a gentleman's hotel room alone. It was apparent from Burke's snide smile that he'd heard her ask for Mr. Devlin's room number.


  Refusing to be discomfited or sidetracked from her pur­pose, though, Jess glared up at him. "No, Mr. Burke, I am not lost—and I hardly think I must account for my pres­ence here to you. This is a public hotel, is it not?"

  With that, she turned and made her way through the wide doors at the rear of the lobby and down the corridor, smarting from the humiliation of being discovered in such a position by her arch enemy, Ashton Burke, but not enough to forget her reason for coming here or her conten­tion with Devlin.

  Her fury had returned in full measure by the time she'd marched up the stairs and along the hall to his room. Rather than knock, she pounded on the door with her fist. She hadn't even planned what she would say to Devlin if he was in, other than to ask if he had known about the sil­ver vein before he'd made that lavish contribution to Ril­ey's future. She had raised her arm to hammer a second time when the door swung open on a masculine curse. "What the hell . . .?"

  Jessica's fist arrested in mid flight, six inches from Dev­lin's shoulder.

  He had discarded his coat and vest, and his finely ruf­fled linen shirt was partially open, revealing the dark hair covering his muscular chest. Her heart did a flip-flop—she couldn't help it. He still had more masculine appeal than any man she'd ever known—and she was still half in love with him. no matter what he'd done, or how degenerate his character, or how hard she'd tried to forget him.

  There was the barest tinge of surprise in his smoke-hued eyes at finding her at his door. She. supposed he must be growing accustomed to her showing up in places no lady would ever willingly go.

  "What is it?" he asked sharply, whether from annoyance or concern she couldn't tell.

  "I should like to speak to you," Jess replied through gritted teeth.

  Devlin raised a dark eyebrow, regarding her narrowly. He hesitated a long moment before stepping back with a sweeping gesture of his arm, inviting her to enter. Jess took three steps inside and stopped cold. The room was occupied. By a woman. A beautiful, sultry, lushly shaped woman.