by Maggie James
On the hunt for a killer, they find passion along the way…
Left all alone after her mother’s death, Kitty Parrish receives word that her beloved uncle has been murdered in far-off Arizona. With nothing left to tie her to her hometown, Kitty embarks on a long journey to Arizona in search of revenge.
Handsome half-breed Ryder McCloud is on a mission of his own. His father was half-owner of a gold mine, and both he and his partner—Kitty’s uncle—were murdered as a result. Worse yet, it seems they took the location of the gold mine to the grave with them. Desperate to claim his birthright, Ryder anxiously awaits the arrival of the one person who may have the key—Kitty Parrish.
United in their quest for revenge and riches, Ryder and Kitty soon find themselves in the thick of danger, adventure, and a growing passion they cannot resist.
This Retro Romance reprint was originally published in August 2000 by Signet Books.
Arizona Gold
Maggie James
Chapter One
The Parrish family cemetery, situated on a grassy knoll, was ringed by the cool, green mountains of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Dogwood trees were bursting into spring bloom, and delicate white flowers laced through the twisting blackberry bushes on the hillsides. The air all around was sweet with the fragrance of the first honeysuckle blossoms.
It was, Kitty Parrish supposed, a nice day for a funeral. But she was not about to say so. The few people there would not understand how struggling to find something, anything, good in a bad situation had always been her way of coping with life’s miseries.
Even her mother, at eternal rest inside the pine coffin being lowered into the ground, had been baffled by Kitty’s often-bizarre method of rising above sadness or disappointments. She had accused her at times of being flippant and sarcastic, never knowing, of course, that, even though Kitty managed to smile in the face of adversity, she would be crying within.
Ezra Bynum, the preacher, bent and picked up a clod of dirt from the ground. Crushing it in his hand, he began to sprinkle it over the coffin as he said something about ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Then, a few murmured words of prayer, and it was over.
Kitty dusted her straw hat on her leg and put it back on her head against the hot sun. She supposed it would have been proper to have worn a dress, but the fact was she didn’t have one. She had one other pair of overalls besides the ones she was wearing, and a couple of threadbare shirts. That was the extent of her wardrobe. But what the heck, she told herself, it wouldn’t matter to her mother if she could know, and there were only five others at the funeral. Preacher Ezra Bynum and his wife, Mildred, and the hired hands—Jabe and Loweezy and Roscoe—were as poor as she was and dressed no better.
Preacher Bynum walked to where Kitty was standing at the foot of the grave. He was a tall man, thin, with dark eyes that seemed forever condemning of the world around him. He wore a black suit, white shirt, and string tie. “If there’s anything me or Mildred can do for you, Kitty, let us know.”
They both knew it was merely lip service, just as they both knew the reason he had come was that Kitty had sent Jabe to fetch him with the promise of two dollars if he would give her mother a decent burying. Otherwise, Preacher Bynum would have stayed away like everyone else in the Shenandoah Valley that hated her mother like the plague.
“And you know you’re welcome to stay with us.” Mildred Bynum, standing next to her husband, stepped to put her arm around Kitty’s shoulders and gave her a hug. She was the only person Kitty could remember ever being kind to her, and that was probably because she was an outsider—a Yankee. Ezra had met her during the war, when he was wounded and captured. She had been working in the hospital he was taken to. Afterward, when he was freed, he had married her and brought her home to Virginia to live, and folks had forgiven her for being a Yankee because she was married to a preacher.
But they had never forgiven Kitty’s mother for what she had done in the war—not that Rosalie Parrish had ever asked them to. She had held up her head and gone about her business, not caring that she was ostracized for having sold horses to the Yankees instead of giving them to the desperate Rebs. It was a matter of survival, Rosalie had explained to Kitty when she was old enough to understand, not loyalty.
Sadly, Kitty had grown to realize what it meant to struggle to survive. The children at the one-room schoolhouse had taunted her and called her names. No one had wanted to play with her, and even though she’d begged to quit and stay home, her mother refused. Kitty was going to learn to read and write and cipher, she’d declared, and she might as well learn to stand up to those who would beat her down.
And Kitty had done so, but there were a few bloody noses along the way—hers as well as others’.
Mildred Bynum knew all that, because she was the schoolteacher. Many times when parents would demand punishment for Kitty’s brawling ways Mildred had taken up for her by pointing out that she never started the fights.
“I’ll be fine, Miss Mildred,” Kitty said, shaking off the memories. “I don’t plan on staying around here, anyway.”
Ezra cleared his throat and held out his hand. “I reckon we’ll be going now.”
Kitty knew he wanted his money. Fishing in her pocket, she brought out two crumpled one-dollar bills. It was all she had until she could sell the two horses she had managed to save from the fire that had also killed her mother.
Ezra stuffed the bills in his pocket and, with a mumbled “Let’s go” to his wife, started walking towards his buggy.
Mildred hung back, brow furrowed with concern. “I don’t like you being here alone, especially after all the trouble. Those men might come back.”
Kitty turned from the grave. She did not want to watch Jabe and Roscoe shovel dirt on top of the coffin. “If they do, I’ll be ready for them. I would’ve got a couple that night if Momma hadn’t run out on the porch and stumbled into me and made me drop my rifle.”
“Well, I’d just feel better if you’d come stay with us for a spell.”
“Like I said, I’ll be leaving as soon as I can make all the arrangements.”
Mildred made a tsking sound. “You’re still planning to go look for your uncle, aren’t you? Oh, child, that’s such a long trip for a young girl, all alone.”
Kitty managed a laugh. “Now, Miss Mildred, you’ve always told me I don’t even look like a girl.”
“That’s because you’ve never tried to. And you could be so pretty. I remember when you were in school I offered to buy you a dress and a pinafore and a ribbon in your hair. But you wouldn’t hear of it. And neither would your mother.”
“She wasn’t one to take charity, and I felt like if I didn’t look and act like a girl the boys would leave me alone. A pity it didn’t work with Tormey Rankin,” Kitty added, making a bitter face at the thought of that awful night.
Mildred patted her shoulder. “Now, now. It wasn’t your fault, and you shouldn’t blame yourself no matter what folks say. Those devils ought to be caught and punished for what they did, and—”
“Mildred, we have to go.” Ezra was in the carriage, holding the horse’s reins and glaring impatiently. “We need to stop by and see how Sadie Postner is doing. She’s been down with her back, you know.”
“You know I don’t care what folks say about me,” Kitty said to Mildred. “What happened wasn’t my fault. I didn’t mean to put out Tormey Rankin’s eye with that pitchfork, but if I hadn’t got my hands on it after he sneaked up on me in the barn, he would’ve had his way with me. As for the devils that set fire to the barn, they’ll never be punished for it, and the sheriff knows who they are, too—Tormey’s kin and the rest of the bastards who ride around at night wearing hoods over their faces, burning crosses an
d scaring the Negroes to death.”
Mildred shook her head and made more tsking sounds. “Maybe it’s best you do leave these parts, child. You’ve got too many bad memories of your life here, and you’re filled with rage.”
“Perhaps I am. If it had been up to me, we’d have left here years ago, but Mother said she’d never run from the land that had been in her family for so long.”
Ezra shouted, “Mildred, I mean for you to come now.”
Both women glanced at him briefly, then Mildred fretted, “But can you be sure you can find your uncle?”
“My stepfather,” Kitty corrected. Actually, she thought of Wade Parrish as her father, because he was the only one she had ever known. Her real father had been killed in the war, when she was only two years old, and she did not remember him. “And, yes, I’ll find him. I have his address where he stays when he’s not out prospecting for gold with his partner, a man by the name of Dan McCloud.”
“And that’s a place called Tombstone, isn’t it? In the Arizona Territory?” She shuddered. “Such a horrible name for a town. I don’t want to think about the reason for it. And he’s still looking for gold, is he?” Her nose wrinkled ever so slightly in condemnation.
“Yes, and one day he’ll make a big strike. I just know it. Last fall he wrote that they were digging near a river called the San Pedro, in the southern part of Arizona.”
“But has he remarried? I recall your mother told me a few years ago that she had scraped up the money and got a divorce so he’d have no further claim on the family land.”
“I don’t know if he has or not.” And in that particular moment, Kitty did not care. All that mattered was that she leave Virginia before she got herself in a whole peck of trouble, because she feared if she laid eyes on any of those responsible for the barn burning she would take the law in her own hands.
“Well, he might have a wife by now,” Mildred reasoned. “I seem to recall all his letters have been in the same handwriting for the last year or so. For a while, he was getting different folks to write for him.”
That much was true. Wade had never learned to read or write. When three letters had come in the same script, her mother had sneered and said he had probably taken up with some trollop, because he never mentioned taking a new wife.
It was only natural Miss Mildred would have noticed the sameness. Ezra’s father ran the general store, and after school she worked at the post office in the back and saw everybody’s mail.
Ezra yelled louder, and Mildred waved at him to shush, then said to Kitty, “Well, I wish you’d reconsider, dear. You know you have a home with us.”
Kitty managed to keep a straight face and not scowl at such a thought. Miss Mildred would be all right to live with, but Preacher Bynum would resent her terribly, even though he might try to hide it. The situation would not be pleasant, and besides, Kitty had been waiting for the chance to leave. She just wished it had not come in the wake of such a tragedy as her mother’s death.
“So when do you plan to leave?” Mildred asked.
“I have to take care of things around here first. I’m turning everything over to Jabe and his family.”
At that, Mildred Bynum’s brows crawled up into her gray hair. “You’re giving your land to your Negroes?”
“They aren’t my Negroes,” Kitty was quick to correct. “And they never have been. Or my mother’s, either. That’s another thing that rankled folks, even before the war. Her family never believed in owning slaves. They paid the Negroes by giving them a roof over their heads and making sure they had enough to eat, but they were always free to go whenever they wanted to.
“As for giving the land away,” she continued, head high and chin set, “as bad as I need money, I’d rather give it away than see it sold to people around here who treated me and Ma like dirt.”
Mildred shook her head. “So much bitterness, child. Perhaps it’s best you do go. You won’t be happy here.”
“I never have been, so I’ve got no reason to think it would ever change.”
“Well, you be sure to come by for supper one night to say good-bye.”
“Maybe.” Kitty looked beyond her to Ezra’s angry face and knew it was out of the question.
A week passed. Kitty found herself filled with excitement to be leaving in only two days to begin her new life. Jabe had taken the horses to a rancher in the next county. He hoped to receive a better price there. All Kitty needed was enough money to get her to Arizona. She was confident her stepfather—whom she had always called Daddy Wade—would look after her once she got there. But she did not intend to be a burden. She was certainly willing to work for her keep.
With a bouquet of crab apple blossoms, Kitty made her way up to the cemetery for one last visit to her mother’s grave. She missed her terribly and wondered if the sorrow would ever go away.
“Oh, Momma,” she said out loud, staring down at the raw mound of earth. “You had such a hard life. I wish I could have made it easier for you, and I’m so sorry you had to die like you did.”
Her mother said they had lived good during the war, thanks to the Yankees’ money. It was afterward that things got bad, because when word spread that Rosalie Parrish had done business with the Yankees, no one wanted her horses. She might as well have been raising dogs for all the interest anyone had.
The horses Jabe had taken to sell should have brought top dollar, but Kitty knew she would be lucky to get enough for her trip. She would take the train as far west as possible, switching to stagecoach the rest of the way.
She had been to Richmond to ask about the schedule, then written Daddy Wade to tell him when to expect her. She had said only that her mother was dead, leaving out the sordid details. All that could come later, when they were together. He would be saddened, of course, but would feel no loss. After all, he had only married her mother out of a sense of duty to his dead brother.
Kitty had adored him and grieved when he had left five years earlier, the year she turned fourteen. They had been so very close. He had taken her hunting and fishing and taught her how to ride and rope and shoot as good as any man—much to her mother’s disapproval. And, yes, Kitty smiled to remember, he had taught her how to fight, too, so she could take up for herself when boys got scornful or frisky.
The years when Daddy Wade was there had been good ones, but only for her. Kitty knew he was miserable, because her mother nagged him constantly and treated him as no more than a hired hand. Then one day he drew Kitty aside and told her he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was going away, heading west to look for gold, adventure, and, perhaps most important of all—peace.
But he had not completely abandoned them. First of all, he asked her mother to go with him, saying that maybe they could be happy in a place where people didn’t hate them on sight. She had refused, and he had stayed in touch by sending a couple of letters a year, enclosing money when he could.
Kitty wrote to him and told him one day she would join him, and he had replied by saying she would always be welcome, but he was sure she would marry and settle down right where she was.
No chance of that, Kitty thought grimly as she placed the flowers next to the wooden cross she had made. Boys from decent families would never dare court a girl considered white trash, and the others, like Tormey, only wanted one thing. If she stayed in Virginia, she would be an old maid—if she didn’t wind up hanging for shooting the varmints responsible for her mother’s death.
Hearing the sound of a horse coming up the road, Kitty hurried down from the ridge to see it was Miss Mildred in her carriage.
“I’m glad you came by,” Kitty said when she rolled to a stop. “I’m leaving day after tomorrow.”
Mildred looked surprised. “So soon? Oh, dear, I am going to miss you, Kitty.” She handed her a letter. “I was on my way to take Sadie Postner some stew and thought I’d drop this off to you. It’s from your uncle.”
Kitty took it eagerly. She hadn’t heard from him in quite a while.
“Especially,” she added, “when you start dressing like the lovely young woman you are.” Her eyes twinkling, Mildred handed her a package.
“What’s this?”
“A little going-away present. I want you to look nice for your trip, so I talked my father-in-law into selling me two nice dresses at a bargain. Shoes, too. And a bonnet. You’ll be so pretty, Kitty. I wish I could see you when you’re all dressed up. Maybe I’ll see you at the depot.”
“Well, that’s real nice of you, Miss Mildred,” Kitty said awkwardly. Nobody had ever given her a present in her whole life, except for the shotgun Wade gave her when she turned twelve. But a dress? Good heavens, the last time she’d worn a dress was when she got into a fight with Billy Ledbetter, probably ten years ago, and it had got ripped up so bad her mother had said she could just wear overalls if she was going to carry on like a boy, and that had suited Kitty just fine.
“And there’s more,” Mildred laughed happily, handing down yet another bundle. “Undergarments and stockings. I didn’t let Mr. Bynum see me buy those, of course.”
Kitty thanked her, feeling awkward. She had not thought about wearing dresses in Arizona, hadn’t thought much about anything beyond getting there, in fact. The ticket agent had told her it would be a grueling journey. Not only would the weather be unbearably hot and the roads rough and bad, but there could be danger from Indians, especially the closer she got to Tombstone.
Then something happened that had given her an idea. Stepping away from the ticket window, she had watched as a young woman inquired about passage to Texas to meet her fiancé. The agent had minced no words in warning of the perils to be faced by a woman, and it dawned on Kitty how he had mistaken her for a boy. So that was when she decided that if she could fool him, she should also be able to deceive the potential villains he had warned the other woman about—Indians and outlaws who delighted in taking females captive to perform unspeakable acts of savagery.
