Fiery Passion

by Dawn Luedecke

  They rounded the corner to the nearest building when Victoria regained her composure, and yanked her arm from his. “What did you do?”

  “From what I saw, I saved your pretty little hide.”

  “You’ve ruined everything.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You went and lied about our partnership, and they certainly aren’t going to take me seriously as a businesswoman now if they think I have a man calling the shots.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but they don’t take you seriously…as a…” He stopped talking once her icy glare permeated his thoughts.

  She halted, and crossed her arms. If it wasn’t for the mud and dung bogging down her feet, he suspected she’d be tapping one impatient foot.

  “Don’t stop now,” he urged, hoping she wasn’t going to be the one to go to the hoosegow for murdering him. “You’re standing in the middle of horse shit.”

  She jerked her gaze down and yanked up her skirts to view her feet, ankle deep in manure. Wall chuckled as her chin quivered. She tried valiantly to walk with dignity, but tripped.

  He might find the whole situation amusing were the pathetic person in question anyone but Victoria Harrison. Without waiting for her to argue, he took her elbow and entwined her arm through his once more. As expected, she fought to yank her hand free.

  “Don’t get your back up. My ma taught me to always help a woman cross the street.” He studied Victoria’s raised chin, and chuckled. Even a woman as surly and vulnerable as the one by his side. “I would do the same for a big ol’ barmaid named Gertrude were she the one to step in dung.”

  “Aren’t you the charmer,” Victoria quipped, as she leaned onto his arm for support.

  “Gertrude has never complained.” He smiled, and maneuvered so they walked along the less muddy sections of the stockyard as they progressed toward her pretty little buggy.

  “I’m certain she hasn’t.” Victoria straightened her back and eased her arm away from him when she was once more on solid land. “Do you even know what you’ve entangled yourself in by interfering back there?”

  “From what I gather, you’re an easy target because you’re a woman in a man’s world, and should be back home finding a husband who will look past your advanced age and manly disposition.”

  She answered by growling at him and stepping hard into her buggy.

  “What did I say? Is there more to it?”

  “Stay out of my business, Mr. Adair. Else you might find yourself being nothing but a filthy cowboy for the rest of your life. You certainly won’t work at Great Mountain if you irritate me further. I can always find another logger eager to fill your position with the Devil May Cares.” Without another word, she snapped the reins and sent her buggy rolling, barely missing his toes as he stepped back.

  Wall shrugged, and turned to check for his brother among the cattle and cowboys, but he wasn’t there. He headed toward his horse. Victoria was right about one thing—if he wasn’t careful he could lose his job at the lumber camp. And it would make his pappy and pa damn happy to have him back home to help on the homestead.

  He wasn’t ready to settle down on the Lazy Heart Ranch. Not just yet.

  Victoria’s spirit reminded him of the bay mustang he’d tamed five years ago. Wild and unmanageable. The mare had bucked and kicked whenever anyone tried to approach her, even took one of their cowhand’s fingers clean off with one good bite, but in the end, Wall had won the battle. It had taken him almost a year to gain the animal’s trust, but by God he’d broken the beast with a strong hand and hard determination. Maybe what Victoria needed was to be tamed like the mare.

  * * * *

  Victoria lifted her skirts as she climbed the steps to her father’s house. The muck from the stockyards had long since dried on her shoes and hem, and the extra weight made the fine lace aligning the bottom of her dress heavy against her shins with each step. The gown was ruined, but it couldn’t be helped. She had to address the blackmailer who’d sent her the letter earlier that morning and, to her great disappointment, without Garrett there to stand by her side as partner.

  And then Wall—with his irritating smile and patronizing comments—showed up out of nowhere to intervene just as she was gaining ground in her battle. Didn’t he know the blackmailers wanted to see her fail because she was a woman? And his interference had done nothing but help to prove the blackmailers right in their assumptions. They knew she worked with Garrett, but Wall’s interference gave the impression she’d taken on a man in her life. One to take care of business for her. It would make them think she was weak in matters of business, and maybe she was, but it wasn’t because she was a woman.

  It was because she wasn’t cutthroat enough. She’d expanded her father’s business into railroad logging by making an equally beneficial deal with Garrett. One where they’d agreed to work together based on her managing Great Mountain as she’d always wanted…only this deal gave her free rein to do so without having to share the responsibility with a husband. To her surprise, her father had accepted the business arrangement with only minimum argument.

  She’d gambled by adding a few dozen more workers to the camps. And who was to say if the risk would pay off in the end? It had better, or else she chanced running her company into the ground the very first year she took it over from her father.

  What she needed to do was show her authority not only to her workers, but her rivals as well. But how?

  “Victoria, is that you?” her father called from his study as she walked through the ornate front door, and shut it behind her.

  She dropped her head to the side to stretch the tight muscles in her neck, and yanked her gloves from her fingers. Tossing them on the side table next to the front door, she hurried into her father’s study.

  “Ah, it is you,” he said from his favorite wing-backed chair next to the large fireplace. “Good. Have you seen this article in The Missoulian about Hartland, Montana?”

  “No.” She sat into the chair opposite him and settled her skirts in an attempt to hide the filth.

  “It seems Hartland is a little nothing town up the road from the mill. The mountains around the town are belly full of Douglas fir,” her father said, folded his newspaper to fit in one hand, and peered at her from over the top of his spectacles. “And you know who needs a mountain’s worth of fir, don’t you?”

  Lordy, this is a test. Although the man claimed to have retired, he loved to whip the reins from the back of the wagon. Not that she wasn’t grateful for his help. Over the last year he’d taken her to task over the workings of the mill so he could take her mother to visit her sister in Washington, and that time was fast approaching.

  But she had no idea who needed a mountain’s worth of Douglas fir. She shook her head and held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t reprimand her like he was apt to do when disappointed.

  Instead, he slapped his knee with the newspaper and lifted his head when he said, “The railroad company. With Garrett expanding the lines for the new logging operation, he’s going to need those trees.”

  “I’d venture to guess he already has a supplier.”

  “Yes,” her father said. “Us, and we’re running low. We need to broaden our reach, and Garrett’s given us the means to do so with his railroad logging contraptions.”

  “So you think I should get the rights to log up there? Move the company?”

  “Well, not today, obviously, you have a season coming up and plenty of trees where you are. But it’s something to think about.”

  “Garrett is away on business. When he returns I’ll speak with him, and then talk to Gustav to get the land rights from the town of Hartman. He seems like a good enough lawyer.”

  “He is,” her father agreed. “Gustav told me Laughlin Hartman, the owner of the biggest ranch around these parts, well, he brought some cattle in today. See if you can’t track h
im down and feel him out.” Her father pulled his pocket watch out by the chain, and flicked it open, squinting at the face through his spectacles. “I imagine he should be finding a good place to eat right about now.”

  Victoria tipped her head to the side. “Why would we need to talk to a rancher?”

  Her father peered at her from over his spectacles again. “Because he owns the town and all of the land around it. You need to meet with him. Charm him. See if he’s open to selling the rights, or even some land.”

  “I thought you were retired?” she asked, giving him a teasing grin. “And letting me take over the family business. After I so subtly convinced you I didn’t need a husband to run the mill.”

  Her father chuckled at her jest, for the way in which she escaped a marriage with Garrett was far from subtle.

  “I am letting you run the mill, my dear,” he said. “With Paul watching your every move until he’s certain you’re ready to go at it alone.”

  “Yet here you are, orchestrating a new endeavor.”

  “Discovering, more like. All the logistics I’ll leave to you.” Her father reclined back in his chair, and snapped open his newspaper once more. Successfully bringing their conversation to a close. Which she was happy for. Her skirts were all but begging to be tossed into the wash bin.

  Victoria rose from her chair, and then leaned over to kiss her father on the cheek.

  “Give that dress to Ms. Bates to wash before your mother sees you. You’ll send her into a tither if she sees you’ve been traipsing around a hog barn in your French lace.”

  “Is she upstairs?”

  “In the kitchen,” he answered, and then turned back to his reading.

  Victoria tiptoed in her no doubt smelly slippers down the hallway and up the stairs, flinching when the middle step squeaked. She wanted to change and escape without her mother knowing she was even at their Missoula home.

  Lately, Victoria had been living with a small staff at their Bonner home, and only came into town for necessary social events and when her mother called her back. Her parents, however, had opted to stay in town, much to her father’s irritation. But whatever her mother wished, her father supplied. At least that’s how their relationship had been ever since her father had decided to retire.

  It was sweet really. After several decades of sacrifice and tears on her mother’s part, she was rewarded with a newly retired, doting husband who did nothing but please his bride of twenty-five years.

  If only Victoria could find a man who loved her as much as her father did her mother. She’d fancied herself above such frivolity until Garrett had pleaded to be released from their engagement because he was deeply in love with Elizabeth Sanders. She’d released him, and ever since then had envied the looks lovers shared, and not just her parents or Garrett and Elizabeth, but any couple who peered at each other with that certain look in their eyes. She dreamed that one day she could be so lucky.

  But first she must concentrate on making the mill even more successful than her father did. Not to mention fight off a couple of blackmailers who wanted to see her fail. Who were these men, anyway? Whoever it was had to be a coward to send another man to talk for him. She preferred to do business in person.

  Not bothering to ring for help from Ms. Bates, she struggled to change into a simple white, high-necked blouse and black walking skirt. Opting for the sturdier work boots she loved to wear at the mill. When she’d set out that morning to run errands, she hadn’t anticipated getting a threatening letter or meeting a nefarious lackey in an alley across from the stockyards—or stepping in horse manure, for that matter—so she’d worn slippers and a dainty dress suitable for tea with bosom friends, not barn work.

  Victoria laced her shoes, and stood back to look at herself in the mirror. Satisfied, she ran a quick hand over her hair to smooth the loose tendrils, and sniffed to ensure she no longer smelled like manure. How cowboys could stand to walk around reeking of sweaty horse, or worse, was beyond her comprehension. Of course, Wall did have a more pleasant smell. Like leather and musky soap. As if he were the odd sort of cowboy who bathed more than once a month.

  But she much preferred the scent of fresh-cut lumber. Wood was clean. It was earthy and light. Sure you might get a little sawdust on your shoes, but sawdust didn’t make you smell like you’d only just come back from lunch with a pig.

  She scooped up her ruined dress and, with as much care as she could take to stifle her footsteps and avoid her mother and the servants, made her way downstairs and out the side door. She searched the yard for Ms. Bates, but to her relief she was nowhere to be seen.

  She deposited her dress in the wicker basket next to the wash bin. Ms. Bates wasn’t going to be happy that she’d dropped the laundry in the basket without even a word as to her being at home, but that couldn’t be helped. She had to find Laughlin Hartman and charm him. Luckily for her, she was just as charming as a businesswoman as she was in society.

  An hour and one hefty bribe later, she slipped through the doors to the quaintest little café she’d failed to ever notice before, and immediately picked out the man she sought. A weathered man who, at one point in his life, had left hearts scattered around Montana, maybe even all the way to the Mississippi River—based on a surprisingly good description from the desk clerk at the Grande Hotel.

  She took a deep breath and made her way to his table.

  He glanced up as she neared, and smiled. The knot in her stomach eased a bit.

  “Good evening, sir.” She held out her hand to him. “I’m Victoria Harrison of Great Mountain Lumber Mill. I want to talk to you about a deal I believe would be beneficial to both of us. May I?” She pointed toward an empty seat across from him.

  He shook her hand and nodded toward the seat. She took it.

  “Now before you go assuming I’m here for scandalous reasons,” she began, not giving him time to introduce himself. “I own the mill and am talking solely of a business arrangement.”

  The man chuckled. “I wouldn’t have assumed any different, Miz Harrison. Not with the way you came up to my table. Name’s Laughlin Hartman, by the way.”

  “Yes, I know who you are. You own Hartland and the land surrounding it.”

  “My family does, yes.”

  “I hear you’ve got more trees than you can imagine up there. I’d like to purchase the rights to log those trees.”

  “I’m sorry, miss, but I can’t sell. We need that land for our cows.”

  “I can offer you one hundred dollars above the going price.”

  Her stomach dropped when he shook his head. “It ain’t the money. The land and everything on it has been Hartman land for quite some time now.”

  “We wouldn’t bother your operation, or impede on anything but what is contracted to us. The only thing you’ll lose from it is the trees we take.”

  He sat back and stretched one arm along the back of the chair next to him. “Them trees is what makes the land what it is. Without them, it’s just dirt.”

  “Would you consider selling me a piece of the mountain? From what I understand you have thousands of acres up there under your name.”

  “That’s true, but I can’t. Sorry,” he said, and then straightened in his seat as the waitress brought him a plate overflowing with food.

  Victoria’s teeth began to ache and she realized she’d clenched her jaw. “I understand.” She stood. “I won’t bother you during your meal, but you can be confident that I will bother you again on the subject.”

  “I look forward to it,” he said with a smile. “We’re the second road on the left once you go through Hartland. Follow that road until you can’t anymore, and that’s where we live.”

  Victoria nodded her goodbye and left.

  She wasn’t finished fighting for the trees in Hartland, but she was smart enough to know when she needed to bow out and reassess. At the least sh
e’d planted a seed, so to speak. She would get the contract with Mr. Hartman. Even if she had to use her feminine charms. Which, by the looks of the older man she left in the café, was more than likely the way to his grove.

  The bell above the café door jingled as she left. As it closed she moved to duck past two cowboys who entered.

  “Miz Victoria?” a familiar voice said. She peered up into frighteningly blue eyes.

  “Wall,” she said breathlessly.

  Wall swiped his hat off his head, and a young man with a striking resemblance to him did the same. Like he’d done before, he smoothed the brim of his hat between his rough, calloused fingers. “Are you having supper?”

  “No. A meeting, but I’m finished.”

  “I notice you’ve changed. Is your dress ruined?” He ran his hand down the front of his pant leg.

  “I don’t know. I’ve left it with our maid.”

  “Again, I’m sorry I got mud on your skirts. I can replace the dress if you’d like. My sisters should be coming into town later this month to shop. I can dispatch them to find you a new gown.”

  “No. Thank you. Even if it’s ruined, I have plenty of other dresses. And it was never one of my favorites.”

  The moment grew silent, but for some reason she didn’t want to walk away. Even though the man before her still smelled of leather and sweat. Somehow, the scent wasn’t as bad as she remembered, though.

  “This is my brother Jax.” Wall motioned toward the young man next to him. “We were about to meet our pappy for a bite to eat. Do you want to join us?”

  “I’m expected at my parent’s house for supper, but thank you.”

  “Every time we’re late at home,” the young man said, “our mother whups us with her spoon.”

  “Sounds dreadful,” Victoria said with a smile. Up until recently she’d accompanied her mother almost everywhere, so she’d never had an issue with being tardy to the table at home. She had no idea how her mother would react.