“Can’t blame him for bein’ happy,” Old Joe muttered as he pulled the hat from his head and smoothed back the wispy strands beneath. The sweat on his forehead helped to plaster the wayward strands to his scalp as he settled the hat back on. “The fight coulda gone either way, as if you didn’t know. Can’t say there weren’t a few seconds when I was perty sure he Frazier was gonna lose.”
Using her palms to flatten the folds of her skirt, she sent the old man a victorious smile. “But we didn’t,” she reminded him lightly, “we won. We get to keep our claim.”
“Fer now.” Old Joe shrugged, turning his head to spit in the dirt. He sent a skeptical gaze with his bulging eye to Bart, who was heartily congratulating Drake Frazier.
Hope eyed Old Joe warily. With that crooked face of his, it was hard to tell what he old man was thinking. Had he guessed the price she was willing to pay to get Drake Frazier to fight? There was no way to tell. His lopsided gaze had shifted to the men who were slowly starting to drift back to their shafts.
Luke gave his sister’s hand an impatient tug as Old Joe sent her a meaningful look, then slowly wandered off. “Come on, Hope. Let’s go congratulate him.”
“No,” she cried, snatching her hand back, “I mean—” she hesitated, her gaze nervously searching the men. Frazier and her father were getting closer. “You go. I have to get back. I—I have laundry to finish.”
“Finish it later. This is more important.”
“So is mending your shirt,” she replied with feigned good cheer. She took a quick step toward the burro. Too quick, her mind told her as she forced her feet to a slower pace. It wouldn’t do to have people see her rushing away as though she was being chased.
“Besides,” she continued, taking another step, then another, “the candles will never harden in time if I put it off much longer.” It didn’t matter that she had hidden a dozen in reserve beneath the dresses in her trunk. Those were for an emergency. “And I still have more soap to mill.” Half a dozen bars lay next to the candles. Even stretching her imagination to its fullest, she couldn’t think of an emergency that involved soap. “You men use more in a day than the estate used in a week. I can barely keep up.”
Luke scowled at his sister’s curt, nervous laugh. “But –“
“And I have to start supper,” she added, almost crying with relief when she felt the burro’s coarse coat beneath her fingers. “It’ll never get made if I stand around chatting all day.” She swung on top of the coarse back and gestured impatiently to her brother. “Go on. Off with you. Send my congratulations to Frazier, then get back to work. The sooner we hit a vein and are out of this damn camp the better.”
With a shaky smile, she turned the mule around, guiding the animal past the men who were slowly making their way back to town.
The fingers gripping the reins trembled, but Hope passed the involuntary shiver off as a lack of breakfast. She was lying, of course, and she knew it. But lying was far better than admitting what was really troubling her.
Frazier would be coming for payment, and he would be coming for it soon. Hope couldn’t let that happen, although she saw no way around it—yet. With a little time alone, maybe she could come up with a scheme that would free her from paying him his due. It was doubtful, true. In three days, she hadn’t thought of one yet.
Her mind drifted to the strip of rippled flesh marring her back. Her spine stiffened as her heart took a nervous leap.
She’d think of something. Dear Lord, she had to!
Chapter 5
Hope wrapped a thick cloth around the handle of the iron kettle and lifted it from the hearth. The muscles in her arms accepted the weight easily as she toted the heavy burden from the fireplace and set it down on the table with a thump. The hot, melted tallow swished against the kettle’s gritty surface, clinging to the black iron sides and dripping slow, thick paths back down to the melted pool on the bottom. Fingers of steam curled in the air as she stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon, scenting the small room with the tallow’s cloying aroma.
For the past two hours she’d gone about her chores in a daze, her mind concocting one farfetched plan after another, considering anything that could get her out of paying Drake Frazier. She’d tossed the majority of her crazy schemes aside—except that of telling him the truth. This was the one idea that returned over and over, annoying Hope to no end. She wouldn’t tell him that, she rebuked herself, each time her mind toyed with the idea. She couldn’t tell anyone that.
She was in the process of dipping the hardened candles for a second time when a prick of awareness tickled the nape of
her neck. Suppressing a shudder, she draped the candles over a limb of the candle tree and spun on her heel.
Hope gasped when she saw Drake Frazier leaning casually against the door frame. He’d changed into a pair of snug-fitting denim trousers. As always, the Colt was strapped to his rock-hard thigh. A sky blue shirt stretched tightly over his broad shoulders, beneath a dull, cracked leather vest. His arms were crossed lazily over his chest, and his narrowed eyes were watching her every move. A slow smile of satisfaction spread over his lips as he reached up and pushed back the hat riding low on his brow.
Her heart skipped a beat as she nodded a greeting and turned back to her work. The normally easy task of lifting the second set of candles from their branch without allowing them to brush against the first became a difficult lesson in coordination. It didn’t help to know that Frazier’s eyes never left her. The heat of his gaze smoldering over her back as though tangible fingers stroked her flesh. While not a welcome feeling, Hope was surprised to find that the sensation was not nearly as unpleasant as she would have thought.
She ignored the sound of a match being struck as she dipped the wicks into the steaming tallow. By the time she had placed them on their branch, the room was heavy with the sulfurous odor of the match, intermingled with the scent of his cheroot. Hope recognized the distinctive aroma immediately, though where he had found one of those tiny cigars in this godforsaken place was anybody’s guess. The scent brought unwilled memories of long summer days spent romping playfully on her grandparents’ farm. Her grandfather had also appreciated the taste of a fine cigar.
Pushing the memory aside, Hope sent a disdainful glance over her shoulder. “If you have to smoke that thing, I’ll thank you to do it somewhere else. Papa will be home soon and he can’t stand the smell.”
Drake kept his peace as he let the cheroot roll over his tongue, clamping it tightly between his teeth. He had no more intention of throwing the expensive, half-smoked cigar away than he had of leaving. He was having almost as much fun watching the color splash over high, regal cheekbones as he was eying Hope’s suddenly rigid, self-conscious movements.
Before she had noticed his presence, Drake had been treated to the gracefully fluid movement of enticingly long limbs. Watching the chestnut-haired beauty reminded him of watching a fragile leaf skimming the ground, wafted by an autumn breeze. Now that she had spotted him, though, her movements were tight, strained, and awkward. Knowing it was his presence that caused her discomfort brought a satisfied smile to his lips.
Drake took a puff of the cigar and released the smoke in a long, slow exhalation.
“Hello to you too,” he said, as his gaze raked her body.
Her fingers were long, he noticed as she turned to drape another candle to dry, the nails well-tended, although her hands were slightly red and work-roughened. For a woman with large bones, she had a nicely turned wrist, tapering into a creamy forearm. The tanned flesh there was exposed by the peach-colored sleeves she’d turned up to just below the elbows. His gaze narrowed on the gentle curve of her waist, and though he couldn’t see her hips beneath the coarse folds of her dress, he imagined they would be lean, as would her legs, muscled from long hours of hard work.