Nora Roberts: Lawless

There it was, under my still-bleeding fingers.

Glinting dull against the dark rock. It ran like a river, back, back into the dark mouth of the mine, narrow, then widening. I know it cannot be, yet to me it seemed to shimmer and pulse like a living thing. Gold. At long last.

I am not ashamed that I sat on the dusty floor of the mine, my lamp between my knees, and wept.

He’d found it, Jake thought as he frowned over the words. It was no longer just a hunch, a feeling, but fact. Matt Conway had found his gold, and he’d died. Perhaps there would be an answer to why and how in the remaining pages.

Do men grow more foolish with age? Perhaps.

Perhaps. But then, whiskey makes fools of young and old. There need be no excuses. A man finds his heart’s desire after years of sweat. To what does he turn? A woman, and a bottle. I found both at the Silver Star. It had been my intention to keep my discovery to myself for a little longer. Sarah’s letter changed that. She’s coming. My own little girl is already on her way to join me. There is no way to prepare her for what she will find. Thank God I will soon be able to give her all that I promised.

It wasn’t my intent to tell Carlotta of the gold, or of Sarah’s arrival. Whiskey and weakness. Undoubtedly I paid for my lack of discretion with a vicious head the next morning. And the visit from Samuel Carlson. Could it be coincidence that now, after all these years, he wants the mine? His offer was generous. Too generous for me to believe the purchase was to be made from sentiment on his part.

Perhaps my suspicions are unfounded. He took my refusal in good temper, leaving the offer open. Yet there was something, something in the way he held his brother and his man Donley to silence-like holding wild dogs on a leash. Tomorrow I will ride into town and tell Barker about my discovery. It may be wise to hire a few men to help me work the mine. The sooner it is begun, the sooner I can build my Sarah the house she believes is already waiting for her.

It was the last entry. Closing the book, Jake rose.

He had his answers.

“Miss Sarah, seeing as you’re going into town and all…”

Sarah sighed as she adjusted her straw bonnet.

“Again, Lucius?”

He scratched his grizzled beard. “A man gets powerful thirsty doing all this work.”

“Very well.” She’d managed to cure him of his abhorrence of water. Easing him away from his passion for whiskey would take a bit more time.

“I’m obliged, Miss Sarah.” He grinned at her. In the weeks he’d been working for her he’d discovered she had a soft heart-and a tough mind. “You check on that wood you ordered. I’ll be right pleased to put that floor in for you when it gets here.”

Easily said, she mused, when the wood was still hundreds of miles away. “You might finish building the pen Jake started. I intend to inquire about buying some piglets while I’m in town.”

“Yes’m.” He spit. He’d build the cursed pen, but he’d be damned if he’d tend pigs. “Miss Sarah, I’m getting a mite low on tobacco.”

Whiskey and tobacco, Sarah thought, rolling her eyes heavenward. What would Mother Superior have said? “I’ll see to it. You look in on Alice regularly, Lucius. See that she has a bit of that broth and rests.” She heard him grumble about being a nursemaid and snagged her lip to keep it from curving. “I’ll be back by three. I’m going to fix a very special meal tonight.” She gave him a final glance. “You’ll want to change your shirt.” She cracked the reins and headed out before she allowed herself to laugh.

Life was glorious. Life was, she thought as she let the horses prance, magnificent. Perhaps she was rich, as Jake had said, but the gold no longer mattered. So many things that had seemed so important only-a short time before really meant nothing at all.

She was in love, beautifully, wildly, in love, and all the gold in the world couldn’t buy what she was feeling. She would make him happy. It would take some time, some care and more than a little patience, but she would make Jake Redman see that together they could have everything two people could want. A home, children, roots, a lifetime.

What they had brought to each other had changed them both. She was not the same woman who had boarded the train in Philadelphia. How far she’d come, Sarah reflected as she scanned the distant buttes. Not just in miles. It was much more than miles. Only weeks before she’d been certain her happiness depended on having a new bonnet. She laughed as the hot wind tugged at the brim of the one she wore now. She had come to Lone Bluff with dreams of fine parties and china dishes. She hadn’t found them. But she had found more, much more.

And she had changed him. She could see it in the way he looked at her, in the way he reached for her as he slept, just to hold her, to keep her close. Perhaps the words were difficult for him to say. She could wait.

Now that she had found him, nothing and no one would keep her from being with him.

She saw the rider coming, and for an instant her smile bloomed. But it wasn’t Jake. Sarah watched Jim Carlson slow his horse to a trot as he crossed the road in front of her. She intended to ride by with a brief nod of greeting, but he blocked her way.

“Morning, ma’am.” He shifted in his saddle to lean toward her. The stink of whiskey colored his words. “All alone?”

“Good morning, Mr. Carlson. I’m on my way to town, and I’m afraid I’m a bit pressed for time.” “That so?” It was going to be easier than he’d thought. He wouldn’t have to go through Lucius to get to her. “Now that’s a shame, since I was just riding out to see you.”

“Oh?” She didn’t care for the look in his eyes, and the smell of whiskey on his breath didn’t seem harmless, as it did with Lucius. “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Carlson?”

“There sure is.” Slowly, his eyes on hers, he drew his gun. “Step on out of the wagon.”

“You must be mad.” She’d frozen at the first sight of the barrel, but now, instinctively, her fingers inched toward her rifle.

“I wouldn’t touch that rifle, ma’am. It’d be a shame for me to put a hole in that pretty white hand of yours. Now, I said get out of the wagon.”

“Jake will kill you if you touch me.”

He’d already thought that one through. That was the reason he was altering Carlotta’s plan to suit himself. He wasn’t going to kill Sarah here and now, unless she did something stupid. “Oh, I got plans for Redman, honey, don’t you worry. You just step out of that wagon before I have to put a bullet in your horses.” She didn’t doubt he would, or that he would shoot her in the back should she try to run. Trapped, she stepped down and stood stiffly beside the wagon. “God Almighty, you got looks, Sarah. That’s why Sam took to you.” With his gun still in his hand, Jim slid out of the saddle. “You got those fine lady looks like our mama did. You saw her picture at the house. Sam, he’s mighty fond of pictures.” He grinned again. When he reached out to touch Sarah’s face, she hissed and jerked it aside. “But you, you got some fire. Mama was just crazy. Plumb crazy.” He stepped forward so that his body pushed hers against the side of the wagon. “Sam told you she was delicate, didn’t he?

That’s the word he uses. Crazy was what she was, so that the old man would lock her up sometimes for days. One day when he opened up the door he found her hanging dead with a pretty pink silk scarf around her neck.”

Horror leaped into her eyes and warred with fear.

“Let me go. If Samuel finds out what you’ve done, he’ll-”

“You think I run scared of Sam?” Laughing, Jim forced Sarah’s face back to his. “Maybe you figure he’s smoother than me, got more brains. But we’re blood.” His fingers bit into her skin. “Don’t forget it. You ever let him get this close, let him do what he wanted? Or did you save yourself for that breed?” She slapped him with all the force of her fear and rage. Then she was clawing at him, blindly, with some mad hope of getting to his horse. She felt the barrel of the gun press into the soft underside of her jaw and heard the click of the hammer.