Nora Roberts - Lawless

“The main chance, sweetheart. Always the main chance.” She ran her tongue over her lips, grimly pleased with the way Jim’s eyes followed the movement. The surest way to lead a man, she knew, was from a point just below his gunbelt. She rose, knowing the shuttered light would be flattering to her skin. Slowly she ran her hands up her body, letting them linger on her breasts.

“You know, Jim,” she began, slipping into a thin red negligee that was as transparent as glass, “I’ve always been drawn to men who take risks, who know what they want and take it.” She left the negligee open as she walked back toward the bed. “That night you came in and told me how you and Donley had dragged Matt up to the mine and how you’d killed him because he wouldn’t hand over the deed. You told me just how you’d killed him, how you’d hurt him first. Remember that night, Jim? You and me sure had ourselves a good time after we came upstairs.”

He wet his lips. Her nipples were dark and just out of reach. “I remember.”

“It was exciting. Knowing you’d just come from killing a man. Killing him to get what you wanted. I knew I was with a real man.” The negligee fell carelessly off one shoulder. “Trouble is, nothing’s happened since. I keep waiting.”

“I told you. Sam’s going-”

“The hell with Sam.” She battled back her temper to smile at him. “He’s too slow, too careful. A real man takes action. If he wants the Conway girl, why doesn’t he just take her? Or you could take her for him.” She moved closer, letting the idea take root. “She’s all that’s in the way, Jim. You deal with her-and I ain’t talking-about firing one of her sheds.” The quick wariness in his eyes pleased her. “Hurt her, Jim. She’ll hand over the deed quick enough. Then kill her.” She murmured the words like a love song.

“When she’s dead, you come to me. We can do anything you want.” She stood beside the bed, glorious and gleaming. “Anything. And it won’t cost you a cent.”

She didn’t cry out when his hand clamped over her wrist. Their faces were close, each of them aroused in different ways, for different reasons.

“You’ll take care of her?”

“Yes, damn you. Come here.”

Carlotta smiled bitterly at the ceiling while Jim collapsed on top of her.

From her window an hour later, Carlotta watched as Jake rode into town. Her hands clenched into fists- from anger, yes, but also from a stab of desire. Soon, she thought, very soon, he’d come back to her.

She turned as Jim pulled up his pants. She was smiling. “I think it’s a real good time for you to pay Sarah Conway a visit.”

When Jake walked into Maggie’s, she set her fisted hands on her hips and looked him up and down with a sniff.

“Fine time to be strolling in, boyo.” What she wanted was gossip, and she hoped to annoy it out of him. “Can’t figure why a man would be paying good money for a bed and never sleep in it.”

“I pay for your chicken and dumplings, too, but I ain’t stupid enough to eat them.” He started resignedly up the stairs, knowing she would follow.

“You don’t seem to be suffering any from lack of food.” With the audacity she’d been born with, she poked a finger in his ribs. “Must be getting meals someplace.”

“Must be.”

“Sarah a good cook, is she?”

Saying nothing, he pushed open the door to his room.

“Don’t go pokering up on me, Jake, my boy.”

Maggie swiped a dustcloth here and there. “It’s too late. Every blessed soul in town saw the way you looked at her at the dance. Then there was the way you rode out of town after her when she socked you in the jaw.” The dark, furious glint in his eyes had Maggie cackling. “That’s more like it. Always said you could drop a man dead with a look as quick as with those guns of yours. No need to draw on me, though. I figure Sarah Conway’s just what you need.” “Do you?” Jake tossed his saddlebags on the bed. He considered starting to strip to get rid of her. But he’d tried that before, and it hadn’t budged her an inch. “I reckon you want to tell me why before you leave me the hell alone.”

“Like to see the back of me, would you?” She just laughed again and patted his cheek. “More than one man’s considered it my best side.”

He barely managed to control a grin. He was damned if he knew why the nosy old woman appealed to him. “Why don’t you get yourself another husband, Maggie? Then you could nag him.”

“You’d miss me.”

“I reckon some dogs miss the fleas once they manage to scratch them off.” Then he sat by the window, propping his back against one side and his boot against the other. “Somebody’s got to bite at you. Might as well be me. I got something to say about you and Sarah Conway.” Staring out the window, he frowned. “It won’t be anything I haven’t said to myself. Go away, Maggie.” “Now listen to me, boy,” she said in an abruptly serious tone. “There’s some who’ve born to the pretty.

They slide out of their mothers and straight into silk

and satin. Then there’s others who have to fight and claw and scratch for every good thing. We know something about that, you and me.”

Still frowning, he looked back at her. With a nod, she continued. “Some go hungry, and some have their bellies full. The sweet Lord himself knows why he set things up that way, and no one else. But he didn’t make the one man better than the other. It’s men themselves who decide if they’re going to be strong or weak-and that’s the same as good or bad. Sometimes there’s a woman who shoves them one way or the other. You take ahold of Sarah Conway, Jake. She’ll shove you right enough.”

“Could work the other way around,” he murmured.

“A woman’s easier to shove than a man.”

Maggie’s brows rose in two amused peaks. “Jake, my boy, you’ve got a lot to learn about women.” It was the second time in so many days he’d been told that, Jake mused when Maggie clicked the door shut behind her. But it wasn’t a woman he had to think about now.

It was gold. And it was murder.

He took Matt Conway’s journal and started to read. Unlike Sarah, Jake didn’t bother with the early pages. He scanned a few at the middle, where Matt had written of working the mine and of his hopes for a big strike. There were mentions of Sarah here and there, of Matt’s regrets at leaving her behind, of his pride in the letters she wrote him. And always he wrote of his longing to send for her.

He had wanted to build her a home first, a real home, like the one he’d described to her. The mine

would do it, or so he had thought. Throughout the pages, his confidence never wavered.

Each time I enter, I feel it. Not just hope, but certainty. Today. Each time I’m sure it will be today. There is gold here, enough to give my Sarah the life of a princess-the life I had wanted so badly to give her mother. How alike they are. The miniature Sarah sent me for Christmas might be my own lost, lovely Ellen. Looking at it each night before I sleep makes me grieve for the little girl I left behind and ache for the young woman my daughter has become.

So there had been a painting, Jake mused. Questions might be answered once it was found. He skipped on, toward the end.

In my years of prospecting, I’ve learned that success is as elusive as any dream. A man may have a map and tools, he may have skill and persistence.

But there is one factor that cannot be bought, cannot be learned. Luck. Without it a man can dig and hammer for years with the vein he seeks always inches out of reach. As I have been. Sweet God, as I have been.

Was it the hand of chance that caused my own to slip, that had me sprawled in the dirt nursing my bruised and bloody fingers and cursing God as I learned to curse him so eloquently? And when I stumbled, half-blind with tears of frustration and pain, was it his hand that led me deeper into the tunnel, swinging my pick like a madman?