Silver Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #1) Page 4

  I knew better. I'd heard the stories of buying the mine in letters, and of Matthew deciding to join Hutch and their sister, Annie, following them both to Gold Hill from California. "And Matthew?"

  "Was seeing Mr. Seth's sister, Bess, until late when an argument between them ended the courtship. Miss Seth was of the opinion that we should sell her brother, Jason, a stake in our claim. She believed she would then marry Matthew and join our families."

  I remembered sitting near the fire on a Boston winter's night as my Mother read a letter from Mr. Longren, in which he described his brother's fights in saloons and the women who came to call, the number he was courting and the ribbons and dresses they wore just for him, the fights they hissed between themselves over which of them he'd choose. Matthew settling down seemed unlikely. Matthew settling down with someone like Mr. Seth's sister not only seemed unlikely, but incendiary.

  "You're smiling," Mr. Longren said.

  "Just a little," I returned. "The younger Mr. Longren's – escapades are not unknown in Boston." And at that, I forced myself to brush aside a small ember of jealousy that had no right to exist.

  His mouth twitched, just a little, but what he said was, "We shall have to marry fast, so that you can call him Matthew and perhaps, learn to call me Hutch. Calling a reprobate like my brother Mr. Longren is farfetched."

  I laughed at that, then asked, "His engagement?"

  His eyebrows went up. "Such a strong word."

  "The courtship, then. It broke off recently?"

  "Most recently," he agreed. "But not so recently that we haven't had time to see which way the wind blows. Jason Seth wants revenge. He feels his sister's honor is sullied and that she can no longer hold her head high in Virginia City and its surrounds, or so he says. He feels that he is owed a stake in our claim and denied that, he is out for whatever he can get, in whatever way he can get it."

  I contemplated the best way to phrase my next question. Hutch watched me, head tilted. Finally, I said, "Was this, er, an isolated incident?"

  That made him actually laugh, though he sounded rueful. "Matthew has been seeing the daughters, sisters, and cousins of many local gentlemen. None of them ever shot him before, not even the Mayor, whose daughter was quite convinced she had extracted a promise."

  I stood and paced to the window, pulling shut the bright yellow curtains another woman's hand had hung. The night seemed too vast, as if curious eyes stared in. "But, surely Jason Seth has no legal claim." I stopped, because that was stupid.

  "And so he took other action," he said. "He was drunk and angry and he doesn't have the sense God gave a goat." He cleared his throat, ran a hand over his face. "If he'd waited. Or if Matthew hadn't seen fit to court Miss Elizabeth Seth. Then, Jason would have known the truth. He will soon anyway, that we are mining more dirt than silver, and he will know the precarious financial grounds upon which we stand, and then I fear he will seek other means to avenge himself upon us. And you have thrown in your lot with this family, but you did not have this information before. Much has changed in the week you traveled from Boston and I promise you, I did not misspeak on purpose. I will make the best life for you that I can, but I will understand if you wish to return to Boston."

  He looked at me then, and I wished those strong hands would follow his eyes. I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me. I did not want to be sent away. Not anymore. The fears of the afternoon had fled.

  "Are you asking me to leave?" I asked for the second time.

  "I'm asking you to stay," he returned again. "But with more disclosure." His eyes were serious. He didn't smile and I felt a shiver build, despite the heat of the night and the closeness of the room.

  "I would like to stay, Mr. Longren. I would like to marry you soon and learn this place and understand about your household and help you as I may. Surely there are women having children here, and the doctor didn't outright challenge me."

  "Close enough," he said, but he was smiling.

  I didn't smile back. "Maybe I can help. In Boston, there was so little need for my skills."

  "So I am to be your project?"

  I think he meant it lightly, but his voice carried something deeper that made my hands clench. "You are to be my husband," I said.

  Our eyes met. Nothing outside the kitchen existed. Not heat or desert or silver ore or gun fights, not Matthew on the davenport or the howl of coyotes coming through the clear air of night.

  "I should show you to your room," he said, and stood at once, knocking his chair back as if something had suddenly made him anxious. He held out a hand to me.

  I took his hand. Mine was damp and I wanted to laugh at that, but my fingers trembled and my legs were very tired. He stopped at the edge of the kitchen to light a lantern from the oil lamps and then I let him lead me through the kitchen door and down an ill-lit hall, where shadows flickered.

  He'd put my trunk in the room he'd prepared for me, the room some neighbor had probably scrubbed and oiled and waxed until it gleamed in the lantern light. He lit the lamps there for me, and stepped back so I could enter.

  A four poster bed heaped with pillows. Light curtains hung in the windows but in the uncertain light, they no longer seemed a cheerful yellow. There was a sampler above the bed, something embroidered I didn't take the time to read, and a pitcher and bowl upon the dresser.

  I turned to thank him and found him standing close. I did not step back. My breath caught.

  "Take tonight," he said, and I thought he meant something quite different until he added, "If, tomorrow, you're still of a mind to stay, we shall marry."

  I'm already sure, I thought, and pushed away the stray thoughts of other blue eyes and dark curls.

  Hutch reached to give me the lantern and our hands touched, fumbled at each other, and then the lantern had been put down on the floor and his hand was over mine.

  My skin caught fire. My hand burned like I held on to nettles. I didn't think, only turned my hand upright within his so our palms touched. His breath came faster. My free hand fumbled, found its way to his chest. Under the coarse work shirt, I could feel hard muscle and the pounding of his heart.

  He slid his other arm around my waist and pulled me to him. Our hands still held to each other, burning hotly. My mouth opened. I looked up slowly, met his gaze, and couldn't look away. He searched my eyes, looking for an answer. I didn't look away, didn't close my eyes, until he moved, so slightly, then lowered his head toward mine.

  My chin tipped up. My mouth met his. My eyes closed and the tension inside me all at once let go so I could sink against him, and at the same time, coiled up so that inside, I felt like a storm about to break.

  His lips were chapped, roughened by the heat and dry of the desert. His hands were hot, burning against my skin. Our hearts pounded together.

  He didn't stop. I'd been kissed, a time or two, polite goodnights from Boston boys, who would call again but eventually faded away.

  This was nothing like that. Hutch Longren was older, taller, stronger, and bigger, pressed against me with heat and the scent of the sage and the dust of this place. His mouth moved over mine, his teeth found my bottom lip, his tongue darted out to taste my lips. Where before I had been kissed, on this night in this strange new place, I kissed in return. I tasted him, the coffee he'd drank, the sweetness of sugar he'd added to the last cup. His heat was like the desert night.

  There was nothing to stop us. We would be wed soon. Fear crept up. I'd never anticipated this. Never joined in the talk of friends. I felt young and foolish and at the same time, too old for such feelings and afraid he'd find me naive.

  I was afraid he wouldn't stop and that I wouldn't stop him, and at the same time, I never wanted it to end.

  He let go of me abruptly. From the sitting room had come a harsh cry. Matthew was awake, had moved, perhaps in his sleep, his injury forgotten until the stab of pain woke him. He didn't make another sound but Hutch Longren pulled away from me until only our hands remained linked. Hands and
eyes.

  But he was clearly thinking now, worrying about his brother, and I collected myself enough to nod in that direction. "Make sure he's all right," I said and tried to reclaim my hand.

  He smiled, and drew my hand to his lips before he released it. "Sleep well," he said, and was gone before I could think of anything to say.

  Heart pounding, I stepped into the room he had prepared for me and shut the door.

  Chapter 5

  I did not sleep well.

  Coyotes called at all hours of the night. In the East, we thought the coyotes a fiction of the wild legendary West and further, that they bayed at the full moon. Whether the moon was full or not, I didn't know. I hadn't paid any attention but somehow doubted that it was. The coyotes were simply alive within the night, and their lonesome cries sometimes sounded like laughter, and always at my expense.

  At first, I fell into bed, anxious and awake and in a tumult of confusion when first Mr. Longren left me and then, the moment my head hit the pillows, I discovered I was drained. I couldn't read any of my Bible, couldn't read any of the novel I had brought, and ignored all the way across the country as Great Aunt Agnes talked and many newly formed states rolled by. I couldn't keep my eyes open and I blew out the lamp, laying back in the intense darkness, which gradually dissolved to starlight outside the bedroom window.

  When I slept, I dreamed. Of Jason Seth, stalking about like a monster, coming after not Matthew Longren but his brother, looking to take the mine, the house, and any monies that returned and, maybe, to the victor go the spoils – me.

  I dreamed of Joseph Gibbons, interchangeable with Jason Seth because I had heard their names together and knew neither man. Both of them became the doctor, wagging a warning finger at me, letting me know that this was his territory, these men were his to treat – or to lose, if an accident at another mine kept him too long from the gunshot wound.

  And then, at last, naturally, I dreamed my confusion and fear and feelings, seeing first Hutch and then Matthew, the two of them changing places, each of them walking with me through gardens that couldn't bloom in this arid land and kissing me, as wonderfully and fully as my husband-to-be had kissed me the night before.

  I woke tangled in the sheets at dawn, exhausted and cross and half wishing I was back in Boston. But the land smelled fresh and wet at that hour, and the moon was just setting, I could see the glow to the west. The coyotes had retired for the night and half a dozen rabbits ran across the garden when I stood and moved to the window. They seemed not in the least intimidated by the scarecrow someone had hung out there.

  My room was in a wing built out from the house, probably directly under Mr. Longren's, as I'd heard his boots the night before. My room looked out into the garden to the west as another window looked to the north. If I stood to the edge of that window, I could almost see into the kitchen. Instead, I stood looking at the garden, at the tops of corn I'd seen the day before, and the small orchard beyond that, a collection of fruit trees. Someone had been caring for the garden and I doubted it was Mr. Longren. That duty would fall to me, I supposed and bit my lip. I had nine green thumbs when it came to midwifery. Babies I birthed usually thrived unless there was a problem in the womb, before birth or with the mother. Plants, on the other hand, suffered at my touch, withering and all but dying to quit my tender ministrations.

  Well, I'd learn.

  Through my sleep, I'd heard Mr. Longren in the room above mine, his boots on hardwood floor as he moved about and I assumed he was long gone, out to the mines, perhaps leaving me to cope with the Sheriff, who was due to visit the incorrigible younger Mr. Longren and another visit from the doctor.

  That wasn't such a bad thing. Seeing him again this morning, I figured it might be awkward. Last night, we had been tired, had talked so long and about so much, had seen through two emergencies together – what had transpired between us seemed natural.

  By morning light, it might not.

  I went down the hall, my ankle boots clicking on the hardwood, admiring the shining, polished wood floors. Whoever had kept house for Mr. Longren before my arrival could teach me a thing or two about keeping Nevada dust from the wood surfaces.

  At the end of the hall, I veered to the right, checking in the sitting room. Matthew Longren still slept on the davenport and this morning, his color wasn't good. He looked gray and washed out, like bed sheets laundered too many times, and his face shined with heat. It would be good if the doctor came again, though maybe Mr. Longren had simply spent a restless, pained night, and now, perhaps he was simply hot.

  I could understand. The day's heat was already starting as the sun came up and burned away the cool, fresh smell, replacing it with a dusty smell of earth and the heady scent of sage. Still, I wanted to brush the curls from his face and pat down the shine of moisture on his forehead. I wanted him to open his eyes and see me there and I wanted to touch his hand again, to make certain that spark didn't happen this time.

  Only to make certain that spark didn't happen again.

  I forced myself away, shielding my thoughts from myself, and continued through the sitting room, heading left through the connecting door into the kitchen.

  And found myself face to face with Hutch Longren.

  It hadn't been the lateness of the hour or the quiet kitchen or the endless stars in the nighttime sky. My breath caught and my mind went empty. I couldn't speak.

  He didn't speak either, just crossed the kitchen to me as if he thought I might fall. I didn't feel faint. I simply wanted to be caught.

  Standing in the circle of his arms, I thought of him saying we must marry soon. Then even that thought was lost.

  His mouth on mine was hot as the day dawning beyond the kitchen. His hands burned through my dress. I pressed against him and opened my mouth to his, letting my hands move over the muscles in his back. He was lean and hard and very real, not the apparitions I had dreamed. He was proof of his own existence when I doubted he was anything beyond daydream. Because in the back of my mind, a voice of reason said, Nothing happens like this. A marriage of convenience, of logic and reason, doesn't result in these feelings, that such feelings would have be to grown into and probably unearthed at quite a price. I wasn't a silly girl, believing in fairy tales.

  He pushed me up against the kitchen wall, and something on a shelf smacked against my shoulder and tumbled, falling to the floor with a metallic clatter. Hutch's body pressed against mine and my mind flashed to thoughts I'd seldom entertained.

  We were to be married. Surely, it was –

  A sudden sound from the sitting room, Matthew waking, startling himself with pain and calling out. "Hutch? A hand?"

  We sprang apart like illicit lovers, staring at each other, each too flushed to go to the call and smiling slightly, sheepish and pleased.

  "I should," he said, and gestured.

  "You should," I agreed, and didn't move.

  "Hutch? I can hear you," Matthew called from beyond the door.

  I put a hand over my mouth, stifling an unladylike giggle. Hutch kissed the hand in place of my mouth and whispered, "Don't go anywhere."

  "Where would I go?" I asked and slid away from him, curving around his body and moving to the stove, looking for logs and matches and keeping my elbows clear of the metal rod used to pick up the burners, the one that had caught my arm the night before.

  There would be bacon in the cold storage, and bread possibly, though probably I'd need to bake soon or find the baker in Gold Hill or Virginia City.

  The dizzying conversation from the night before came back to me. There was no money here, no more than there had been at my father's house in Boston. Maybe I wouldn't be able to stay here. Maybe he'd only asked me if I wanted to be set free of him and this place because he needed to, wanted out of the contract himself.

  So I'd need to bake and start thinking about dinner, and find ways to economize. I could do the washing and if the good neighbor who had been keeping house had been paid for her services, I could
take over those services, learning somehow to keep a cleaner house than I'd ever even lived in. I would do whatever necessary, if he'd let me stay, and I was thinking of dark hair and blue eyes.

  Hutch, of course. I ran my hands up and down my arms, cold despite the heat.

  Through the unlatched door, I heard Matthew's voice. "Ask her."

  Startled into motion, moving to start preparations for breakfast, and Hutch came back into the kitchen. "Miss – " He stopped himself. "Margaret, the trouble is awake. May I impose on you – "

  "Maggie," I said, laughing. "The trouble. It's a grand name. Give me enough time to find my way 'round this kitchen and you'll both have breakfast."

  The Sheriff came not long after we'd eaten. I was scowling at the remains of the eggs and potatoes when he arrived, thinking that economizing with two such appetites in the house would require my own extended fast. Concerned with what stores there were, I didn't hear his horse come up the drive and jumped when footsteps crossed the porch.

  He knocked then called through the door, and I heard voices raised, the doors opening and closing, men's footsteps, and a hearty gale of laughter. Matthew must be looking better, else the laughter was cold hearted.

  I moved to the kitchen door and stood, holding a plate and drying it, waiting for more.

  "He's in the jail, Longren. Will be there until this is sorted out."

  "What's to sort out? He shot my brother, in plain sight of the men at the mine."

  "Who are loyal to you," the Sheriff's voice said.

  "What's that supposed to mean? That they'd lie for me? A dying mine only buys limited loyalty. Jason Seth shot Matthew."

  Matthew himself was adding bits and pieces to the story, not particularly coherently.

  I moved so I could see through a crack in the door, in time to see the Sheriff raise both hands to shoulder level, palms out. "I know what Seth has said and I know what young Mr. Longren says and I'm inclined to believe the latter. Given both are hotheads, still, Matthew has never shot anyone – "