The Valiant Hearts Romance Collection

by Kristin Billerbeck

  Take off your hat, Wyatt! For pity’s sake. Wyatt scrambled for his brown leather cowboy hat with his free hand, gun wobbling, and clumsily dropped the hat on the floor.

  “What,” he stammered, “in thunder’s name are you doing here?” He cleared his throat, all nerves and shaking fingers. “Ma’am?”

  Wait. Shouldn’t he translate? The girl spoke as much English as her ridiculous Indian pony. Arapaho, maybe, the few words he knew—or French or something? She came from a French trapper’s outpost in Idaho. That much he knew, from all his wasted tutoring sessions back at Uncle Hiram’s cabin—mainly trying to pry her knowledge of the gold.

  But his dry mouth couldn’t form any words. Couldn’t think.

  On a good day at the ranch he could barely meet her eyes, so graceful she was—so darkly mysterious, so confident. Oh, how he envied her ease and confidence—her uplifted chin and sparkling black eyes, meeting his for a fleeting second over the Bible pages or across the stable.

  And his gaze would flutter away in embarrassment, landing on his boots or the table, or on her simple wedding band. Scurrying off like a field mouse before she noticed the ruddy glow in his freckled cheeks.

  Jewel raised her head from behind the barrels, her earrings glittering in the light from the lantern, and said nothing.

  “Answer me, miss, or … or …” Wyatt couldn’t finish his own sentence, trying to keep the gun level and make his lips move. “Why are you here? At my uncle’s, and at Crazy Pierre’s?”

  He blinked, feeling sweat break out on his forehead under his hat. Her appearance made no sense. His uncle’s Arapaho horse trainer who bungled all her verbs and couldn’t understand a lick of English? In Crazy Pierre’s root cellar at midnight? Black spots swirled before his eyes, and he reached out a shaky hand to steady himself against a brittle shelf.

  Jewel lifted her chin in an almost haughty manner. “My given name is Collette Moreau,” she said coldly in perfect English, standing up to her full height. Hands raised. “But you may call me Jewel like everyone else. What are you doing here?” She nodded to the floor. “And you may get your hat.”

  Wyatt stared then fumbled on the dirt-littered floor for his hat. He slapped it back on his head at a crooked angle.

  “I’m…I’m looking for something,” Wyatt stammered, strangely unnerved by her calm and even accusatory demeanor. For pity’s sake. He was the one holding the gun!

  He jabbed the gun barrel forward, trying to keep a steady grip as his palms perspired. “How did you find out about this place?” Wait a second. “You speak English?” Wyatt stared, openmouthed. “I thought you could … could barely get out a sentence.”

  His mind reeled as he recalled hours and weeks of tedious tutoring, trying not to fall asleep at his uncle’s brawny oak table while she stammered over the simplest of words in the thick family Bible. He’d lean his stubbly red-bearded chin in his hand and yawn, pulling off his glasses to wipe bored tears from his eyes.

  “That fool girl can’t speak a word of English,” Uncle Hiram had said after she left, rocking back in his chair and making the wooden slats of the chair groan in complaint. “Figures. Redskins are awful slow at learning. Which is why you’ve gotta work your hardest to get anything she knows outta her. You hear?” He swept an arm around the golden-hued room. “This is a fine ranch, Wyatt, but we’d be sitting on a gold mine if she led us to that treasure. Why, we’d be kings. You know that?”

  Now here Wyatt stood, trying to remember how that same tongue-tied girl—who had stumbled over his broken French and questions about the gold with blank eyes—had just spoken in flawless English.

  “But I thought …” Wyatt blinked at her through crooked glasses.

  “Of course I speak English.” Derision flashed in Jewel’s eyes. “I did go to school, you know—the mission school where I grew up—and I worked for an English doctor for a while. I’ve heard and understood every word you’ve said since your uncle hired me on the ranch. And as for the intelligence of my people, why don’t you let me give you a lesson in Arapaho nouns—since you think you’re so smart?” Jewel moved closer. “Truth is, you can’t even say the name of my pony correctly, and I’ve told you dozens of times. You pronounce all the consonants wrong, and you’ve absolutely no tonal distinction whatsoever.”

  She put her hands down slowly and moved, as if in defiance, from behind the barrel, sweeping her long skirts and shawl with graceful ease.

  Wyatt took a step back and kept himself between Jewel and the revolver on the shelf, trembling. “So this is your gun,” he said, finally finding words. He picked it up and stuffed it in his belt. “And that must have been your light I saw. Now get your hands up, or I’ll … I’ll shoot!” He gulped the words down, ashamed. He’d sooner put a bullet through Uncle Hiram’s prize stallion than this wisp of an Indian girl who worked tirelessly, frosty dawn to blue-cold evening, without complaint.

  Then again, she’d probably shoot him first if she got the chance.

  Jewel made a swipe for her revolver and then put her hands back up. “Of course it’s my gun. You think I’d be foolish enough to ride off the ranch at night without a firearm?” She tossed her head. “You startled me. I didn’t have time to grab it before you came down the stairs.”

  Wyatt opened and closed his mouth. “So … you know.” His words came out hoarse. “You know where the gold is.”

  Jewel tipped her chin up. “As if I’d tell you.”

  The gun wobbled in his hand as he took another step back, strangely terrified by her fearlessness. “I mean it! I’ll shoot!” he stammered, gripping the stock with two hands to keep it from shaking.

  “No you won’t.” Jewel crossed her arms as if in defiance. “What clues can I give you if I’m dead? That’s what you’ve been after the whole time, isn’t it? With your ridiculous questions about Pierre DuLac that you thought I couldn’t understand?” She pushed the gun aside. “And you’ve got a spider on your head. Hope it’s not a black widow. One bite can disable or even kill a man.”

  “A … a what? A spider?” Wyatt scrubbed at his head in a panic with the crook of his arm. “You’re lying.”

  Jewel shrugged. “Suit yourself. Odds are it’s a black widow, though. They nest in dark and undisturbed places just like this.”

  Wyatt wavered, and nausea rose in his gut. “Where is it?” He dropped the lantern on a shelf with a clatter and slapped his forehead, nearly dropping his gun. “Get it off me, will you?”

  “Give me the gun.” Jewel calmly held out her hand, rings sparkling. “Before you shoot yourself.”

  He hesitated, his chest heaving. How could she possibly know he hated spiders? His deepest, darkest, most tightly kept secret that he’d kept from everyone, including Uncle Hiram. What was she, some kind of a mind reader, intent on humiliating him beyond reason?

  “You’re lying.” Beads of sweat broke out on Wyatt’s forehead, and he leveled the gun at her, trying not to think of webs and crawling legs. “Put your hands up.”

  “If you say so.” She fixed her stare on his forehead and raised her hands about two inches as if in mocking. “Black widows use a poison that paralyzes the nervous system of the body, you know,” she added. “Which causes incredible swelling and pain. In fact, in just five minutes after the initial bite, the venom spreads to—”

  “Cut it out!” Wyatt slapped at his head again in agony, doing a little dance.

  “I’m warning you.” Jewel held out her hand again. “Don’t complain to me if you shoot a hole in your foot and can’t walk to the doctor to get an antidote.”

  “Fine.” Wyatt smacked the gun in her hand, trying not to hyperventilate. “Get it off me, will you?”

  Jewel took the gun and leveled it at him. “Thanks.” And she kept the gun trained on Wyatt, spreading out her skirts to kneel on the cold dirt floor in front of the wooden chest.

  Wyatt shook out his hat and hair and then slowly turned to Jewel. “You were bluffing about the spider,” he croaked, watchi
ng in horror as she produced a key from the folds of her skirt. No, two keys. His eyes bulged behind crooked glasses. “Why, I ought to … to …”

  “To what?” Jewel aimed the gun at him. “Hands up, please.” She wagged the barrel of the gun. “And don’t bother trying to use my Smith & Wesson. It’s empty. See for yourself. I used five rounds on a pack of coyotes on the way over here.”

  In a quick second Wyatt raised his head and pictured poor Samson hobbled to a tree by his lead, fending off half a dozen coyotes—while he poked around in Crazy Pierre’s basement.

  “Coyotes, you say?” He glanced upstairs nervously. “Did you kill them?”

  “I’m an excellent shot, Mr. Kelly.” She raised an eyebrow. “Samson’s fine. I’m sure of it.”

  Wyatt swiveled his head back and forth between Jewel and the cellar door, mouth open in question.

  “How did I know you were thinking of Samson?”

  Jewel’s tone softened, tender almost, and she gave the faintest hint of a smile. “I’ve seen you in the stable, Mr. Kelly. You might not be so good with roping and branding, but you love that horse. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”

  Wyatt felt his fingers quiver on her revolver, nearly dropping it, as that humiliating blush of heat climbed his neck.

  The gun. The gun, for Pete’s sake! Wyatt fumbled with the barrel, showing an empty chamber. Six hollow clicks. “So you are out of rounds. But … but you’re lying about one thing, Mrs. Moreau.” He stood up straighter and forced himself to meet her eyes. “There’s no spider. And you stole my key.”

  “Of course I stole your key, since you were so kind as to leave it carelessly lying around in the stable. And”—she shot him a cool look—“it matched the one Pierre sent my husband.”

  “Your husband?” Wyatt sputtered, trying to straighten his glasses and nearly knocking them off. “That’s who Pierre sent the letter to?”

  “Thing is, you need two of his keys to open the lock.” Jewel ignored him, holding both keys together. “See how they interlay?”

  Good heavens. Wyatt craned his neck to see the pattern in the keys, which made a rough “PD” in dull metal. Pierre DuLac. That son of a gun.

  “I didn’t know there was a fourth key,” Wyatt muttered, humiliated at being duped.

  “What did you think, that Pierre would carry around the missing key to the coffer in his pocket while the US Army was tromping right past his house?”

  “The army?” Wyatt scrunched up his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, the army.” Jewel raised her eyes boldly to meet his, endlessly black in the flickering light of the lantern. “Didn’t they settle the borders of the national park while he was still living here?”

  “What are you, a history expert?” Wyatt snapped, feeling like a simpleton.

  Jewel ignored him. “And Pierre wanted for all kinds of crimes? What a ridiculous idea. He was smarter than that. He planned to come back to his cabin once the army backed off, and he sent the key to my husband for safekeeping. Intending to get it later.”

  “Your husband,” Wyatt repeated in a hollow voice, feeling doubly duped. He took a chaste step back, putting his hands up so as not to touch her. “A Moreau.”

  “A DuLac Moreau.”

  “Well, you’re overlooking something, Jewel. Collette Moreau. Whoever you are.” Wyatt pointed a shaky finger. “I knew Crazy Pierre myself. I used to haul wood for him. And key or no key, you won’t find the gold in that chest.” He gestured with his head. “I saw him bury this. There’s no gold inside.”

  “Liar.” Jewel jabbed the gun at him.

  “Don’t believe me? Pick it up yourself. It’s too light to hold gold.” He scooted the wooden chest with his foot, and it moved easily. “And Crazy Pierre had far more gold than would fit inside a little box like that. Savvy?” He shot her a triumphant look. “But I have a hunch there’s something inside that’ll tell us where to look—and I bet I can interpret Pierre’s clues. I met him, remember? You didn’t.”

  Jewel shook the chest furiously, and Wyatt watched as her bright eyes dimmed and her lips turned downward. She sat back on her heels and rested her chin in her hand.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Jewel swallowed and looked up, her long braid falling over her shoulder. “But I have something you don’t.”

  “My key?” Wyatt took a step closer, his fingers curling into fists.

  “And mine.” She clinked them both together. “Plus the actual letter Crazy Pierre sent my husband with instructions.”

  “Give me my key back.” He held out his hand.

  “No.” She hid the keys in her skirt pocket. “And I’ve got the gun, so I give the orders here.”

  They were stalemated. Wyatt stood there silently a moment, wondering if he should offer peace or try to grab the gun. He flexed his fingers and then made a swipe for the gun.

  Wrong choice. Jewel turned the barrel on him in a liquid second, her dark eyes flashing.

  “My uncle was right about you,” Wyatt spluttered, slowly putting his hands up. Feeling hot, angry blood pump in his veins. “That’s why you came here looking for work, isn’t it? So you could pick us off one by one after you steal all our clues to find the gold?”

  “Your uncle said that? Well, that’s certainly ironic.” She aimed coolly at him, and for the first time Wyatt’s heart pulsed with real fear. “You’ve both been trying to get as much information as you can from me about the gold, but you’ve forgotten one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Wyatt licked his lips, wondering if he could dart up the stairs or if she’d really shoot.

  “That I’ve been doing the same thing with you.”

  “But … but you’ve no right! My uncle hired you!”

  “He hired me to train his horses. Which I’ve done. Exceedingly well, I might add, on such a meager salary and without heat or running water in the bunkhouse.” Jewel took a step closer. “Have you ever slept a night out there? It’s pure misery in the winter. The place is full of rats.”

  “Still.” Wyatt shivered, chilled by the images of scurrying mice and Jewel aiming at his nose. “Taking a job to smoke us out is wrong. And by taking the key, you’ve stolen from me.”

  “It’s not your key. It belonged to Crazy Pierre.” Jewel sniffed. “And why are you hiding it from your uncle? Skulking around here at midnight instead of telling him what you’re doing?”

  “Because my uncle can’t keep a secret to save his life. He’d tell everybody in town about the key, and I’d be shot by a dozen gold diggers trying to strike it rich.” Wyatt’s pulse burned. “And what business of yours is it anyway? It’s certainly more my key than yours.”

  “It was Crazy Pierre’s key, and you stole it from him.”

  “I didn’t steal it! I found it. There’s a difference.” Wyatt took a step forward. “I was in Deadwood, South Dakota, buying horses, and I found it in the stable grounds. Pierre died before I could return it to him.”

  “Really.” Jewel smiled as if in amusement.

  “It’s the truth, I tell you! Why would I lie?”

  She studied him a moment, her dark shadow quivering against a pitted wall in the flickering lantern light. “So you found the key.” She narrowed her eyes. “Even if I believe you, it makes no difference. I also found it in the stable when I happened to be sweeping up. You dropped it there like refuse, did you not?”

  “Irregardless, the key was my property!” Wyatt jabbed a finger at his chest.

  “Irregardless?” She cupped a hand over a laugh. “That doesn’t even make sense, Mr. Kelly. It’s regardless.”

  “You’re wrong!” He raised his voice, sweat prickling under his hat. “I think I know English.”

  “Well, I think I know prefixes. And it’s wrong.”

  Wyatt felt his fists clench in fury. Of all the nerve. “Listen, miss,” he growled, trying to think of an argument that would catch her, corner her, into letting him go and handing over the letter. “That key was pr
otected in the domicile of my uncle, and I’ll have you arrested!” He waved an arm for emphasis, bluffing the first thing that came to mind. “The last time a no-good Indian stole something from one of the ranchers in this part of the state, the sheriff had him hung. You hear me?”

  Jewel paled visibly in the lantern light.

  “I’ll have you arrested and taken before a magistrate before daybreak!” Wyatt leaned forward and tried to look menacing. Making it up as he went along. “Why, I know all about you. All about your … your sordid past. You thought I wouldn’t find out, but I know everything—and I’ll tell it all to the judge!”

  Jewel swallowed, and the revolver shook in her hands.

  What on earth did I say? Wyatt’s jaw dropped in surprise.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she hissed, taking a step closer and holding the gun out with both hands.

  “I know everything.” He didn’t back away, determined not to lose the upper hand—no matter how he’d come by it. “And if you kill me now, it won’t be the first time. You’ll hang for it!”

  “If you kill me now, it won’t be the first time?” Wyatt halted, horrified. What did he mean by that? That it wouldn’t be the first time she’d killed Wyatt? How utterly ridiculous. What, did he sleep through grammar school? He gripped his head in both hands, wondering how he managed—by sheer, bumbling luck—to mess up everything.

  “Fine. Take it.” Jewel thrust the revolver at him so swiftly he nearly dropped it. “You don’t turn me in, and I won’t turn you in. Deal?”

  “Uh … pardon?” Wyatt craned his neck to see through smudged glasses.

  “Let’s just start over—you, Mr. Kelly—and me, nobody of any consequence.” Jewel flipped the corner of her shawl around her shoulder, a movement that should have resonated carelessness but did not. Instead, Wyatt noticed her eyes take on a terrified cast, like a deer startled by an intruder.

  “As business partners. Fifty-fifty. Everything secret. Do you agree?” She knotted her hands behind her back, and Wyatt saw them trembling.

  “Fifty-fifty?” Wyatt felt the weight of the revolver in his hands, like an idiot, and quickly spun it around to face her. “Are you crazy? You lied about the spider. How can I trust you with anything?”