"Not before you let me undress you," she teased.
Violet had undressed both her father and brother, but this was a whole new experience. Jeff's body was young and strong and firm, and very much aroused. Knowing that caused her fingers to fumble their familiar tasks. His shirt wasn't the problem. It was his pants. She kept remembering the tiny pants he wore that morning she found him exercising. The pants he wore tonight weren't similar in the least, but they were no more able to disguise his aroused condition.
They stood facing each other, Violet in her shift, Jeff in his shorts.
"I never told you you're beautiful," she whispered. "I thought so the first time I saw you. I didn't know how beautiful until that morning I saw you exercising."
Jeff slipped her shift off one shoulder. "You were horrified. You couldn't wait to escape."
"I was terrified of what seeing your body was doing to me." She pulled at the draw string on his shorts.
"What's it doing now?" he asked as he slipped the shift off her other shoulder. The garment slid from her body and pooled at her feet.
"The same thing," Violet said. She pulled the knot loose. A slight tug and Jeff's pants lay on the floor as well.
"What's that?" Jeff asked. One fingertip traced a line along Violet's jaw, across her lips, down her chin and neck, across her shoulder and down to the tingling nipple.
"My entire body feels like it's on fire. I feel like I'm about to burn up."
"I wouldn't like that."
His fingertip circled and recircled her nipple until she felt reduced to a single point of aching sensitivity.
"The strangest feeling is in my belly. A weakness seems to be flowing from it to every part of my body. My muscles tremble. I can hardly stand up."
"Then let's lie down."
They lay beside one another, but Violet didn't feel any change in the weakness consuming her. Only Jeff's attentions to her breasts enabled her to think of anything beyond his erection nudging her thigh.
She lost track of everything else when he touched her other breast with his hot tongue. She felt assaulted; her body felt ignited. With finger and tongue, he teased and tortured her nipple until she heard herself groan with pleasure. She couldn't lie still. She ran her hand over his shoulders, his back, his neck, pressing into his flesh harder and harder as the exquisite agony in her breasts increased.
She was disappointed when his lips deserted her breasts, but the tension spiraled another notch when he started planting kisses across her stomach and down to her navel. He teased it with his tongue before angling over to one hip. Violet felt her body tense involuntarily. She tried to relax, but it was impossible. She knew what was coming next.
But it didn't.
Jeff took her hand and settled a nest of kisses in her palm. Then trailing his way up her arm, he returned his attention to her breast. Only this time he took her nipple between his teeth and pulled gently. Violet gasped. Pleasure exploded through her. It was a moment before she realized he had moved his hand to the inside of her thigh. Before her body had time to clamp down in panic, he had invaded her.
Violet nearly rose off the bed. She had known what to expect, but she had no idea of the effect it would have on her. Jeff seemed to have found a spot that was excruciatingly sensitive. Soon she was trembling. She forgot the feel of his lips on her breast. She forgot his kisses. She could think only of what his hand was doing to her.
Pulsating waves began to wash over her, taking her with them. The waves grew higher and stronger, deeper and longer. She moaned and writhed as Jeff continued to touch her. Then there was a convulsive push, and suddenly the pressure was released, and it all drained away.
Violet floated down like a feather on a soft ocean breeze.
It was several moments before her breathing returned to normal. She looked at Jeff. He was smiling. "What did you do?" she asked when she could speak.
"I'll tell you some day. Now we come to the part where you have to help."
After what she had just experienced, Violet wondered how there could be anything more.
"What do you want me to do?"
"First I want you to touch me," Jeff said. "Be careful," he said when she was quick to sit up. "You need to be very gentle."
"Why?"
"I'll explain that someday, too."
"You're leaving out an awful lot."
Jeff smiled ruefully. "It's about all I can handle in one day."
She touched him. He was hard and warm and soft.
"Very carefully put your hand around me."
Violet reluctantly followed his orders. It seemed strange.
"Now I want you to sit astride me. We can make love the conventional way, but this is much better for me."
Violet didn't need to know any more. She straddled Jeff, but she felt uncertain.
"Now sit down slowly."
Despite the tension, she lowered her body until she felt the pressure of Jeff against her. She hesitated before lowering herself still further.
"This may hurt a little, but it won't last long," Jeff said.
Before Violet had time to ask what he meant, Jeff thrust into her. A sharp pain shot through her body. Before she could flinch, Jeff pulled her down until he had entered her all the way.
"Now kiss me," he said.
As Violet leaned forward, Jeff began to move within her. Before long, she realized she was feeling the same sensations she had felt moments ago, only now they were more intense. Instinctively she began to move with Jeff, rising when he drew away, then lowering her body to meet his.
Gradually she forgot his kisses, his hands on her body, everything except the feeling that was spreading through her loins causing the muscles to bunch and her breath to come in gasps. She was vaguely aware Jeff had increased his tempo to match hers, but she was hardly aware of anything except the urgency that drove to meet the need buried deep inside her. Angling her body, she drove Jeff deep inside her. Still, it remained just out of reach.
She became swallowed up by her own need. Increasing her tempo, Violet felt herself approach the outer ring of her need. Each thrust seemed to bring her closer to the core. Straining every muscle, Violet drove Jeff deeper and deeper until she felt the waves begin to grow, each higher and wilder than the last. Almost frantic now, she forced her body to go faster, ride higher, to experience more intensely until she reached the core at last and release flooded her body.
She was vaguely aware of Jeff as he tensed and drove into her with a few hard thrusts. Violet collapsed on top of Jeff as she felt the heat of his seed released within her.
Violet lay snuggled against Jeff's side, his arm around her. She was quiet. She didn't feel like talking. It was going to take her a while to adjust to what had just happened. It was more than her first experience at making love. It was even more than making love to the man she loved. It was more than the loss of her virginity.
She felt recreated.
That sounded a little foolish, but that's how she felt. And it had little to do with the physical experience. Something had happened between her and Jeff that changed everything between them forever. A part of him belonged her, a part of her to him. No matter what happened in the next few days or the next several years, they could never take it back again.
She wasn't the same woman who invited him to make love to her. She didn't know who she was or how she had been changed, but now she began to understand the special relationship that existed between Jeff's brothers and their wives. She felt as though their souls had merged. No matter where she went, no matter what happened to her, she could never be fully separated from him.
"Are you sorry?" Jeff asked.
"Yes."
She felt him tense.
"Sorry it took me so many years to find you."
He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.
"How about you?" she asked.
"I'm not sorry in the least. If I hadn't been such a son-of-a-bitch all these years, I'd probably have married someone
else. I'd have been mad as hell when I finally found you."
Violet liked that, but she couldn't help pushing him to expand on the subject a little more. "You'd have found some beautiful southern belle who was everything you wanted. You wouldn't even have noticed a Yankee."
"I'd have noticed you," Jeff said. "I did from the first."
"Me, too," Violet confessed. "One look at your body, and I was consumed by lust."
Jeff twisted until he could see her face. "You?"
"Yes. Mortifying, isn't it?"
"Your soon-to-be-husband is delighted. Lust can be a wonderful thing."
"We agreed to wait a while before we spoke of marriage," Violet said, pulling away and sitting up. "You promised, and Randolphs don't go back on their word. You told me that."
Jeff pulled Violet back down. "Maybe not, but Randolphs don't always like it."
Violet giggled. "That's okay. I'd be upset if you did."
"Are you going to torture me, woman?"
"I'm not sure," Violet said, with another giggle. "I'll have to think about it."
"While you're thinking, I'll just . . . "
Violet didn't do any more thinking for a while.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Jeff sat at a table in the Hattenback Saloon on the corner of State and Harrison. Miners came in at all hours of the night, some to eat, others to drink. All were waiting for their time in the few beds for hire in Leadville, most of which were rented out in eight-hour shifts. While they waited, they ate, talked, drank, and gambled. Most were too tired or too drunk to know or care what they said.
No one would have recognized Jefferson Randolph, President of the First National Bank of Denver. All they saw was a man just as dirty as everybody else leaning on what was left of his arm after a mine accident.
Finally the man Jeff had been waiting for, Pete Colfax, entered the saloon. Jeff kicked the chair out from under the man next to him snoring with his head on the table. "Go find another table," Jeff said, his voice rough and threatening. "You snore too damned loud."
The man picked himself up and shuffled off to find some place else to sleep until it was time to go back to work. Jeff waited as Pete searched the room for a chair. The chair next to Jeff was the only empty one in the saloon. Pete came over and sat down without introducing himself. Jeff let him down a whiskey.
"Been a hard shift?" he asked.
"They're all of them hard," Pete said, pouring himself another whiskey. He glanced at Jeff's empty sleeve. "You ought to know if anybody does." He swallowed his whiskey then looked at Jeff again. "Don't remember seeing you about."
"Went away after this happened," Jeff said. "Can't do much with one arm."
Pete didn't comment.
"Then I heard the Silver Wave was producing again. I figured they owed me, so I come back. I mean to collect."
Pete spat out a foul epitaph. "You won't get nothing out of that pair."
"Why not? I heard they made a big strike."
Pete was silent.
"They owe me," Jeff repeated in a harsh voice.
"If you mean to get anything, you'd better get it soon," the miner said in a lowered voice.
"Why?"
He wouldn't answer.
"I wouldn't have come back, but I got a wife and kids to think about," Jeff said. He tried to shift from sounding angry and threatening to defeated and hopeless. He wished he had Zac's talents. The boy would have had the miner in the palm of his hand in minutes. "The wife's swelling up with another kid. There's no way to get food during winter except by working in the mines."
Pete downed two drinks, one right after the other. Jeff could tell he wanted to say something, but caution made him hold his tongue.
"You got to think Harlan and Chapman would act kindly since I was injured in their mine."
"They're more likely to throw you out," Pete said.
"Why?" Jeff asked, his voice full of disbelief.
"Those bastards would steal from their mother if they got the chance," Pete exploded.
He realized he'd spoken too loud. He looked nervous, like he was ready to jump up and leave before he said any more. Jeff pretended to take a deep draw on his beer. He'd pour some more of it on the floor as soon as the miner wasn't looking.
"Maybe I ought to see if I can find work at the Little Johnny," Jeff said, trying to sound half drunk. "Eli Goodwin is a good man."
"Eli's dead and the mine gave out," Pete said. He downed another whiskey. Jeff could tell he was becoming less cautious. "You take my advice and clear out, or your wife's liable not to have a father for her baby."
"That seems strange," Jeff observed, "one mine turning rich just as the other turned poor, one pair getting rich just as the other one died."
"It ain't as strange as you would think," Pete whispered. "There's ways."
"What ways?" Jeff asked.
Pete lowered his voice. "I ain't sure. I used to work for Harlan and Chapman. The Silver Wave was cleaned out. They was trying to sell it, but nobody wanted it. The Little Johnny right next to it was played out, too. Folks said Eli Goodwin was crazy to buy it. But about a month later, Eli starts telling everybody he's made a big strike."
"All of a sudden Harlan and Chapman up and fired me and everybody else who worked for them. They said their money was gone, that they couldn't keep working a played-out mine. It wasn't a week later I heard Eli Goodwin met with an accident. Harlan and Chapman found the cave in. They said they didn't find no silver. They figured Eli was planning to salt the mine and try to sell it. Meanwhile, somebody files a claim against the Little Johnny. They ain't in town. Eli's kin ain't in town. So the mine stays closed. Unless somebody buys it, it's likely to stay closed a long time.
"That's when the Silver Wave starts producing again." Pete lowered his head until his mouth was close to Jeff's ear. "Peculiar thing. Nobody works the Silver Wave but Chapman and Eli. They could bring up a lot more if they was to hire the old crew back, but they don't want us."
"Did they sink a new shaft?"
"They said they found a new deposit in one of the old tunnels."
"Hasn't anybody wondered why their success should coincide with the Little Johnny failure?"
Pete indicated Jeff was to lower his voice. "That kind of question could get you killed. A lot of funny things go on in those mines."
"But you've wondered, haven't you?"
Pete nodded. "But I don't suppose you could tell nothing without going into the Little Johnny."
"Or the Silver Wave," Jeff said.
"Can't. Harlan and Chapman never leave it. They even sleep there."
"You think they're pulling silver out of the Little Johnny and using it to salt the Silver Wave?"
"That's what I thought at first. But I watched one whole night. Nobody went near the Little Johnny, yet the silver came up just like usual next day."
Jeff had never been in a mine, but it seemed to him the only explanation for the sudden reversal of fortunes in the two mines was that their tunnels met. Harlan and Chapman were taking ore from the Little Johnny out through the Silver Wave tunnels.
"Can you get me down into the Little Johnny?"
"What you want to do that for?" Pete asked.
"I need money. I can't work with this arm. If I can find out what they're doing, maybe they'll pay me to keep what I know to myself."
"I wouldn't mess around with those two. Besides, the mine's not safe. Part of it caved in on Eli. It was so bad they didn't even bring his body up."
"Was anybody else hurt?"
"He was working alone. Harlan and Chapman claimed they were passing by the shaft when they heard an explosion. They went down and found the cave-in. Everybody thought they was heros to even go in there."
Jeff knew he had to get into that mine. Whatever was being done, or had been done, the secrets were all underground.
"Will you help me?" Jeff asked.
"You gotta be crazy."
"I have to know."
"Why the hell a
re you damned curious? You can get killed."
"I might as well be dead without an arm," Jeff said. "It's a chance I got to take."
The miner thought for a while. "I hate those sons-a-bitches. They're getting away with something. I'll help you, but I ain't going down with you. I'll let you down in the bucket. You're on your own after that."
"You got some equipment I can borrow?"
"There's plenty at the mine. Nobody'll miss it."
Violet rolled over. Only half awake, she reached out for Jeff. It took her a moment to realize she was alone in the bed. She sat up, wide awake. Why had Jeff left without saying anything to her. And where had he gone?
* * * * *
A sign was nailed to the shaft.
MINE UNSAFE.
DO NOT ENTER
"They put it up right after Eli died," Pete explained. "They said they'd leave it there until the claim was settled."
Jeff didn't like the feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't liked facing enemy fire during the war, but it was daylight. He could see then. Going down into a tunnel nearly a hundred feet deep was quite different.
You're a coward! I'm ashamed to be your father!
For the first time in his life, the memory of his father's words didn't make him sick to his stomach. He was fearful. He was facing the unknown. He'd never been underground. Someone might already have committed murder. A fortune was at stake. He would be a fool not to be afraid.
But he wasn't going to back out. The answer was in the mine. If the only way to find it was to go down that shaft, he'd go. But he didn't have to like it.
"I'll lower you all the way to the bottom," Pete said. "It'll be easier to find the other tunnels coming up than going down."
"How will I signal you when I'm ready to go to another level or when it's time to stop?"
"There's marks on the cable for the different tunnels," Pete explained. "You use the bells if you want to go up or down. One is up, two is down. Be careful when you climb into the bucket. More than one man's turned it over and pitched headlong to the bottom."
Jeff took care not to upset the bucket when he climbed in. He was armed with a pocket full of candles, a box of matches, and a pick.
Violet Page 35
