“Lady, if I was going to kill him, I would’ve done it when he first showed up, and I would have finished the job, not hauled him to town unconscious. No one, not even the doc, knew that he wasn’t going to wake up and talk again before he passed on. And now you’ve pissed me off. Point a rifle at me again and you damn well better pull the trigger. You’re on your own.”
Nowshe’d made him angry? He’d already been furious, she’d just tipped the scale. She let the rifle slip from her fingers as she watched the lantern light move down the short tunnel. Then it was gone—and the cabin door slammed shut in the distance, like a bell tolling her doom. She was horrified by what she’d just done after he’d admitted he and her father had been partners. Her panic at seeing him so angry was no excuse. She’d just enraged a bear, and he wasn’t forgiving.
She had a lantern, but that wouldn’t give her any warmth tonight. She untied her father’s bedroll and spread it out, then curled up on it, hugging her father’s jacket to her chest. Tears were running down her cheeks again, but for herself this time. Morgan really was abandoning her in this cold, dark mine.
Chapter Seventeen
MORGAN LAY ON HISbed, glowering at the ceiling. He was still livid. Stupid woman. She just didn’t get it, that no one could find out about this location or else Sullivan would use underhanded methods, even resort to violence, to commandeer his highly productive mine. He didn’t want to have to kill anyone to protect his property. No, she just didn’t care about the hell it would put him through, was only interested in what she could get from a mine she thought was now hers. It wasn’t. His partnership agreement had been with Charley, made with a handshake. There was no document to prove it. It sure as hell didn’t mean he was going to partner with Charley’s heirs or a woman who’d just tried to kill him!
If he hadn’t known Charley’s rifle was empty, he would have had to grab it from her and risk getting shot. But she didn’t know it was empty. Her threat had been valid in her mind, but her reason was ridiculous.
The woman was cunning, smart, too beautiful, and she’d used it all to get under his skin and lull him into trusting her. He’d been a sucker for that pretty face, and had been feeling guilty ever since she mentioned the loan that Charley also had mentioned. Actually, even before that he had started thinking he might be wrong about her. She was stubborn like her father and had a natural refinement that went deeper than any role-playing. He wished he still thought she was an impostor. It would be so much easier to deal with her now if he did, but he didn’t.
But he sure as hell wasn’t going to partner with a viper, Mitchell or not, who now had a very good reason to want him dead, so she’d have both mines and could do whatever she wanted with them. That wasn’t happening.
He sat up and stared at the closed door. She wasn’t even going to ask to come back in? She was going to deliberately spend the night in that cold tunnel just to make him feel more guilt! Like hell....
He went outside and entered the mine, following the light to the end of the tunnel where he’d left her. She sat up.
“I’m—” she started.
“Shut up,” he snarled.
He swiped up the lantern, grabbed her hand, and dragged her back to the house, then slammed the door shut behind them. “Not one damn word if you know what’s good for you,” he warned before he got back in his own bed and glared up at the ceiling as she settled on hers.
She was silent.Finally she listens?He snorted to himself. And still fumed. And couldn’t sleep. It was small consolation that he knew she couldn’t either after she’d slept the day away.
An hour later, he said coldly, “The agreement I had with Charley was only temporary to help him out of his bind. It ended the day he died. And without a new partnership, which I am in no way inclined to make, that mine is useless where it sits, so there’s nothing for you to exploit or sell here. You and your brothers are welcome to the money Charley made from the mine if you can find it, but under no circumstances will I allow you to tell anyone where these mines are located. Got that?”
“I’m sorry I drew a gun on you. I don’t really think you killed Papa. It’s just that your anger frightened me and I reacted badly.”
Was that tearful voice real or just an act? Damnit, she was doing it again, trying to make him feel sorry for her. “You come west without knowing the difference between a gun and a rifle?”
“I do know the difference, but it was a traumatic moment and I misspoke. Must we discuss this? I have apologized, and it was quite sincere.”
“Words don’t cut it after the fact, so drop it and go to sleep.”
He shouldn’t have even been here to meet this woman. He’d meant to return to Nashart in the spring. He had more than enough money now to do what he wanted. But he’d bought those damn flower seeds, and Charley had showed up the day after he’d returned from town with them. And when Charley died, he still didn’t leave. He kept coming up with excuses not to go home, because the simple fact was he was in no hurry to be browbeaten by his father to go back to ranching.
That wasn’t going to happen. He had other plans for the fortune he’d dug out of these hills that had nothing to do with cattle, and nothing Zachary could say would make him change them. He’d been thinking about it too long. And it was going to make his mother happy. But he would face one hell of a fight when he did get home. Arguing with his pa was never easy. It simply went against the grain not to do what Zachary Callahan wanted.
His brothers felt the same way. Hell, even his oldest brother, Hunter, was going to marry a woman this summer that he’d never met, just because their father said so. The marriage was supposed to end a feud that should have ended long ago but hadn’t. Hunter hated the idea of an arranged marriage, but he’d still go along with it. Heck, it might have happened already, though the letter his mother had written him early last month had said the girl was delayed in arriving. And he hadn’t gotten around to checking the post on his last trip to town—because of prissy Miss Violet Mitchell.
Anger still gnawed at him. He didn’t hear any movement in the bed across the room. He knew she tossed in her sleep. He’d watched her do it when she’d slept on the trail, and again today when he came in to start dinner. Not one toss yet tonight, which told him she was lying there plotting her next move. He didn’t for a moment think she’d give up on that mine. She was stubborn like her father. He’d never imagined Charley had a daughter, let alone such an exasperating one—who was far too attractive.
He got up and started opening crates until he found the one full of whiskey bottles. He winced at the fumes that rose up. At least one bottle hadn’t survived the trip despite the careful packing.
He took a bottle back to his bed, drank a quarter of it before remarking, “You said they’re older than you?”
“Who?”
“Who else? Your brothers. Fact is, I’m not sure I would have felt sorry for Charley if I hadn’t pictured two young boys, destitute, helpless, waiting for him to come home with some money. I should have pressed him about his family, asked him how old his sons were—then you wouldn’t be here, and he might not be dead.”
“So he’s dead because you didn’t ask a very obvious question? You admit it was your fault?”
He glanced over to see that she was leaning up on an elbow, staring at him, looking as huffy as she’d just sounded. He should have turned out the lanterns. Seeing her in bed again, even if she was fully clothed, still had an effect on him. There was no getting around the fact that she was a beautiful, desirable woman, even if she was the most stubborn, exasperating female he’d ever met.
“That’s not what I said. As it happens, if I hadn’t dug for him for the month he was up here, Charley would have fallen over dead within a week doing it himself. So you could say that I gave him a few more weeks of life. But I sure as hell wouldn’t have helped him if I knew his boys were full-grown men who can take care of themselves. And you, a fancy dresser, obviously don’t need money.”
