by Judy Duarte
The cowgirl looked from one to the other and then she gave a little shrug. “The good ones are always taken. See you around, cowboy.”
Emily knew her cheeks were bright red. Her heart was racing so fast she could hardly breathe.
She was ready to sink into her chair and keep quiet for the rest of the night when Brad’s arm went around her shoulders. “We told her we were going to dance so we’d better get out there and do it.”
Couples were already on the dance floor. But they weren’t standing in traditional dance poses, and Emily didn’t understand the steps they were executing.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she whispered as Brad walked her to the dance floor.
“It’s the Texas two-step and it’s real easy to catch on to. Just follow me. You’ll be fine.”
Follow him. She was beginning to think she’d follow him anywhere.
At first Emily felt totally ridiculous. She didn’t know how to dance the Texas two-step. She didn’t know how to dance! Her feet seemed to want to go in every direction but the right one. But then Brad’s arm tightened around her, his feet seemed to direct hers and they were moving around the circle behind another couple, amazingly keeping in step. Finding herself breathless, she realized it was because she could feel Brad’s heat, inhale his scent, lean into his strong body. Everything about him shouted “fantastic male,” and she wished she could get past the dizzying sensations of dancing with him, being with him…loving him.
When she almost tripped, Brad caught her. “Are you okay?”
No, she was definitely not okay. She was irrevocably in love with Bradley Vaughn. Not falling in love. Already fallen.
“Just learning the steps,” she mumbled as they got into the rhythm of it again and she tried to pull the blinds on the realization that seemed life-altering.
They had finished the first dance when Emily felt a twinge in her side and then some cramping. Familiar with the rhythms of her body and its shifts and changes, she pulled away from Brad’s arm. “I’m going to freshen up.”
He cocked a brow inquisitively.
She simply smiled and slipped away, finding the short hall that led to the ladies’ room.
Five minutes later, Emily washed her hands at the sink and wanted to cry. Her reaction was totally irrational. She should be glad she’d gotten her period—absolutely thrilled. It meant she wasn’t pregnant. A baby now should have been the last item on her agenda. Yet she realized she hadn’t yet bought a pregnancy test because she’d been nurturing the idea of a baby, getting used to it, anticipating a bond with Brad that would last a lifetime.
As she looked herself in the eye in the mirror, she saw the futility in all of it. Getting pregnant was the worst reason to have a connection to a man. It was the worst reason to think about a relationship. She’d known that for years. Her love for Brad had to rise or fall on its own merit. If he had feelings for her, she couldn’t attach strings to them. If he had feelings for her…
She knew they would change and evaporate once they returned to Chicago.
With her purse under her arm, Emily practiced a smile in the mirror and returned to her table to pretend to enjoy the Mustangs for the rest of the night.
As she approached Adele and Caleb, she saw Brad talking to a uniformed officer. It was the policeman from the SUV that had arrived after Brad’s 911 call from the mine.
By the time she reached Brad’s side, the officer had moved away and was threading his way through the crowd.
She took her seat and waited for Brad to take his. When he did, she asked, “Did he catch whoever shot at us?”
“Yes, they did. After I called, they notified surrounding towns. Law enforcement in Livingston spotted the truck. It turns out there was a warrant on the driver for an assault charge. The good guys won this one.”
“Because of you. Not just anyone would have had the courage to get that license number.”
“You didn’t see it as courage at the time,” Brad joked.
“Yes, I did. But I was scared and you weren’t. At least if you were, you didn’t show it.”
“I’ve had a lifetime to practice hiding what I feel.”
When they’d arrived in Thunder Canyon, his guard had been solidly in place. But while here, she’d seen it slip now and then.
Caleb ordered another round of drinks, interrupting their conversation. As the Mustangs played, all Emily wanted to do was talk to Brad privately. They couldn’t do that here. After munching on peanuts and sipping her club soda with its twist of lime, she danced the Texas two-step with Brad again.
When the song ended and the band began a slow ballad, Brad turned her into his arms. “Maybe we can catch our breath on this one.”
She doubted that. She absolutely couldn’t let Brad hold her. She couldn’t give in to her love for him because she knew it had no place to go. “I’d like to go back to the ranch,” she said seriously.
His smile slipped away and he released her. “If that’s what you want.” His expression had gone stony and she explained, “It’s not that I don’t want to dance with you. I do. But we need to talk. Can we go?”
He relaxed some. “All right. Let’s find our coats and I’ll tell Caleb and Adele we’re going back.”
“The Mustangs too much for you?” Caleb asked as Brad brought her her jacket and she slipped it on.
“The Mustangs were great,” Emily assured him. “But I have some notes I want to work on.”
Caleb’s brows arched and he looked as if he didn’t believe her. “Don’t forget to collect your winnings,” he reminded Brad.
Brad nodded. To Emily he said, “I’ll just be a minute.”
Waiting by the door while he spoke to one of the band members, she studied the picture of the Shady Lady again. After Brad joined her, they went outside.
“Did they give you a check?” she asked.
After a short hesitation, he responded, “The Mustangs donate time and money to juvenile diabetes. The lead guitarist has a daughter with it. So I told them to donate the prize money to that.”
It was becoming harder and harder for Emily to reconcile her old image of Brad with the new one that was forming.
As soon as they’d climbed into the SUV and fastened their seat belts, Brad asked, “Do you want to wait until we get to the ranch to talk or do you want to talk now?”
She didn’t want to wait. She really didn’t have that much to say. “I’m not pregnant. I got my period tonight.”
After a few moments of silence, Brad started the engine, pulled out of the parking space and drove onto the main road. They’d driven about a half mile when he commented, “I suppose that’s a relief to you.”
“Isn’t it a relief to you?”
“Actually for the past few days I was thinking of the possibility of being a father.”
“Only the past few days?”
“Have I ever lied to you, Emily? Or misled you?” His voice was gruff with a hint of anger.
She thought about the months she’d worked for him and had to say, “No, you haven’t.”
“Then why would I start now?”
She held on to what she once believed about him because she was safer with that barrier between them. “Maybe because Suzette Brouchard could take you to court and use me as a witness. You want to make sure I’m on your side, and if you convince me to believe you—”
“Stop! We’ve spent almost two weeks together. Some of that time in very intimate contact. Just how do you think you would feel if I told you I thought you were lying to me?”
“I have no reason to lie.”
“And neither do I.”
Confused by her love for Brad, his reputation as a love-’em-and-leave-’em bachelor, feelings that she couldn’t understand and she couldn’t push out of her heart, she kept silent. Anything she said right now would only make matters worse. She knew if they didn’t soon leave Thunder Canyon, her heart would be irreparably broken and she’d never be able to piece it back together
again.
For the next few days, Brad tried to keep everything businesslike between him and Emily. His body yearned for satisfaction with her again, and he told himself it was simply a physical need that he could deny or take care of himself. But when she was beside him, taking notes, asking questions or just listening, he resisted the urge to take her into his arms. He resisted the urge to admit he felt closer to her than he’d ever felt to anyone.
While they waited for the mayor’s return, as well as Tildy’s, Brad left no stone unturned. After conferencing with Mark again, he went through piles of issues of the Thunder Canyon Nugget as far back as they went. He also spoke to the prospector again and with anyone else who might know anything about the history of Thunder Canyon, the Queen of Hearts mine or Amos Douglas. But he came up empty.
He and Emily were poking around at the historical society Tuesday afternoon when he got a call on his cell phone from his father. As Emily studied exhibits, he took it in an alcove.
“What in God’s name are you still doing there?” Phillip Vaughn demanded.
Not for the first time in his life, Brad realized he didn’t like answering to his father. “Look, Dad, if I could wind this up now, I would. If I’m going to take over the agency someday, you’re going to have to learn to trust me.”
“As long as I’m still the head of the firm, I call the shots.”
That was the problem. His father was still head of the firm, and Brad wondered now if he would be until his dying day. It wasn’t just answering to his father that bothered him, it was the type of cases that Vaughn Associates dealt with. He was still waiting for word from a California contact about Tess’s daughter. What he would prefer was going out there himself. Then again, he had to rely on the people he trusted.
Glancing at Emily after hanging up, he saw she was standing in front of a display of a mannequin wearing a faded red satin dress that was trimmed with black lace. Ropes of fake pearls around the mannequin’s neck, along with a black ostrich feather in its hair, accented the outfit.
“These clothes belonged to a woman named Lily Divine,” she mused as he came to stand beside her. “You said she’s the Shady Lady in the portrait.”
“That’s what I heard. She was supposedly the madam of a whorehouse.”
Emily studied his expression, her concern now with him rather than with the artifacts. “Is everything okay?”
“My father expected us to return to Chicago by now. I was trying to explain for the third time why we were still here.”
“I guess he didn’t listen the first time,” Emily said with a smile.
“If my father ever listened the first time, the world would stop spinning on its axis.”
“You’re not friends, are you?” she asked.
“Friends? Hardly.”
He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that idea. He didn’t think Phillip Vaughn was a friend to anyone, yet he did have his cronies who dined with him at the club and expensive restaurants, who played tennis with him. Brad had known true friendship with James, but since then it had eluded him—until this trip with Emily. It was odd, but he felt as if they’d become real friends.
“Are you and your mother friends?” he asked.
“Absolutely. I mean, she was a parent and all, gave us rules and guidelines, made sure we lived up to our potential. But she was always there to talk to. She helped with makeup and went to the movies with us. She’s still a big part of my life. So are my sisters and brother, and I can’t imagine it any other way.”
The museum was shadowy, with not a lot of direct lighting. Brad gazed down into Emily’s pretty face and watched her green eyes sparkle like emeralds. “We’re so different, you and I.”
“I guess we are in some ways. But in others…” She shrugged. “I think we’re a lot alike.”
Her conclusion surprised him. “How?”
“We work the same way. We analyze and think things through. We’re both perfectionists. We both have a few walls, but deep down inside we just want to be accepted for who we are. And on top of all that—” she grinned up at him “—I think I’ve even grown to like Thunder Canyon and Montana.”
Her expression was so mischievous, so genuine. He cupped her chin in his palm and raised her lips to his. When he kissed her, she didn’t pull away.
Until the beeping of his cell phone intruded.
Aware that a docent might interrupt them any second, Brad broke the kiss, gave her a wry smile and answered the phone.
“Vaughn here.”
“This is Elma Rogers, Mayor Brookhurst’s sister. He’s back. He said he’ll meet you at the archives room anytime you’d like.”
Brad glanced at Emily. “How about in fifteen minutes?”
Twenty minutes later, if the mayor was surprised by Brad’s impatience, he didn’t show it. Unlocking the door to the archives room with his key, he turned the knob and pulled the heavy door open.
The mayor was in his fifties and dressed casually. A portly man with a handlebar mustache, he wore trousers with tan suspenders and a pale blue, long-sleeved shirt. The top of his head was bald and his graying black hair fell over his collar in the back.
“I’ll have to stay with you,” he said to them now in an apologetic tone. “These are all documents that need to be protected, and nothing can leave this room without my okay. Understood?”
“Understood,” Brad agreed, eyeing stacks of ledgers, books and boxes. “Do you know if this is in any type of order?”
The mayor motioned to the left wall. “All I can tell you is that those ledgers are being entered into the computer.”
“Do you know the years?”
“Eighteen eighty to 1920, but not all of them are there. Our last archivist hadn’t finished going through the boxes to find more. And, of course, there are those that were destroyed by the fire in the late 1800s and the flood more recently. From what I understand, there are gaps and holes. But you’re welcome to look through all of it if you’re careful.”
Brad and Emily spent the next three days looking through all of it. They went through every box, every musty page, every book, newspaper and bound volume. They found some ledgers from the late 1800s. There were a few volumes from between 1890 and 1910, but none listed a transaction concerning the Queen of Hearts mine.
Finally at the end of their third day, Brad shook his head. “Tildy Matheson was supposed to return home yesterday. Let’s call her and see if she’ll let us come over this evening. She might be our last hope. It just doesn’t seem possible if Caleb Douglas’s ancestors owned this mine, as well as the mineral rights, that there’s not a record of it somewhere.”
“We’re used to the tech age. Recording deeds was very different back then.”
“Maybe. But I’m not ready to give up. I’ll buy you dinner at the Hitching Post and we can call Tildy from there.”
When Brad called Tildy from the saloon, she warned him not to eat dessert. Her sister had sent homemade oatmeal cookies with her, and Emily and Brad were welcome to share them.
Tildy Matheson lived in an old Victorian house. When she opened the ornate old door graced with a stained glass window, she was smiling. Tonight she wore a brightly colored blouse and slacks as she motioned them inside. “I’m so pleased you called. My family doesn’t want to hear about old times. It’s nice to talk to younger folk who do. Come on in.”
Tildy’s house was situated in Old Town, and Emily glanced around the interior, seeing at once that it was charming. Tildy obviously loved flowers. Her chintz sofa was covered with blue and green ones, and the drapes were made of the same material. The window-sills were hardly visible under small plants.
Crossing to the window, Emily took a closer look.
“African violets,” Tildy explained. “I just love them. My neighbor took care of them for me while I was gone.”
A Tiffany floor lamp brought rainbowed light into the room. Many of the furniture surfaces, including the bookshelves and the end tables, were covered with fram
ed photographs.
“I put water on for tea. It should be ready now. I’ll get it and the cookies.”
As Emily helped Tildy in the kitchen, the woman chattered all the while. “I was just finished napping when your young man called. Traveling always tires me out for a while.”
“Did you have a nice trip?”
“A wonderful trip. I appreciate every minute I have with my family. At my age I never know what the next day will bring. I just wish I could get around better. I don’t go upstairs much anymore. Last year my niece insisted I turn my sewing room into a bedroom on this floor so I didn’t have to do the steps. She was right. I certainly don’t want to fall. But I miss not being able to wander into every nook and cranny of my house.”
Emily admired Tildy’s bone china painted with pretty pink blooms as she set three cups on a tray. “It was my grandmother’s. It is pretty, isn’t it? She had a fondness for flowers, just like I do. Just grab that can of cookies over there on the table.”
After Tildy led Emily back into the living room, she spotted Brad studying the photographs.
“Some of these look quite old,” he noted as Tildy settled herself in a fern-covered wing chair.
“They are.”
After they all balanced their saucers and their teacups, Tildy asked, “Now, where would you like me to start?”
“Do you know Caleb Douglas?” Brad asked, setting his cup on the coffee table. Emily knew he didn’t much care for tea.
“Everyone in Thunder Canyon knows Caleb Douglas.”
“He’s trying to prove his family owns the land where the gold mine’s located.”
“That gold mine. Such a hubbub over a few nuggets of metal.”
“Mark Anderson told us one of your ancestors knew Catherine Douglas.”
“Oh, yes,” Tildy admitted proudly. “That would have been my grandmother.” She pointed to the photographs on the bookshelves. “See that end photograph on the first shelf? That’s my grandmother and Catherine.”
Brad’s gaze met Emily’s and he stood, crossing to the shelf to pick up the photograph.
