Fires of Paradise Read online

  "I am," Shoz said. "Shoz Cooper. I'm looking for work."

  Derek's brow lifted, then he gestured at Shoz to go inside. "We'll talk in my study." Shoz followed him into a grand foyer with high ceilings and a curving oak staircase. The floors were pine, waxed to a high shine. The walls were fresh and white. He caught a glimpse of himself in a big, ornate silver mirror and hastily removed his battered Stetson.

  "Sit down," Derek said, once he'd closed the double doors behind them.

  Shoz sat, hiding his relief.

  "Drink?"

  There was a mug of coffee steaming on the large mahogany desk. "You have something stronger than coffee

  around here?"

  Derek poured them both whiskeys. "Doc tell you to take

  a ride in the heat today?"

  "I'm fine," Shoz said. "You look like you can always use more men around here."

  "You know cattle? Horses?"

  "Yeah."

  "You don't look up to work to me."

  Shoz hesitated. "I need the job," he said stiffly. It was a lie. But even the lie was hard to say because of his pride, and if it were the truth, he'd never, ever say so.

  Derek studied him. "Where are you from?"

  Shoz was startled. "Southern California."

  "I've been out to the West Coast. My daughter Storm and her kids and their kids live in the San Francisco area. Your family from around there?"

  Shoz shifted. "No, Bakersfield."

  Derek leaned back in his chair. "Rancher?"

  "I was raised on a ranch," Shoz said. "If that's what you're getting at."

  "Your family still there?"

  "Yeah."

  Derek smiled. "You don't give much, do you, son? Tell me about them."

  Shoz stood, angry. "What is this? Do I have the job or not?"

  "I want to know what kind of man I'm hiring." Derek was unruffled.

  "My father's name is Jack. He built the Gold Lady with his own two hands, starting right after the Civil War. I have a half-sister, Christina, about my age, and three half-brothers. She married some Russian prince or something and lives in Saint Petersburg. My brothers, last I heard, are still at the ranch." The words came out hard and fast like rapid gunfire.

  "Your mother?"

  That did it. "My mother is an Apache squaw and I don't know where the hell she is, maybe behind some pretty stockade fence, maybe dead. You about through?"

  To Shoz's amazement, Derek chuckled. "Guess we have something in common, son. My ma was an Apache squaw, too, Mescalero."

  Shoz blinked, but quickly recovered. "I was raised by my stepmother, Candice. She is my real mother," he said, stiffly, not understanding why the hell he was volunteering more information to the nosy bastard.

  "Okay." Derek smiled, rising. "I can always use a good hand around here." He grabbed Shoz's hand and shook it. "Wages are at the end of the month, fifteen dollars to start, all you can eat. Find yourself a bunk in one of the bunk-houses. Ask for Jim. He's ramrod around here."

  Shoz nodded. He had his cover. But he didn't feel relief, more like he'd been worked over with brass knuckles. His head throbbed.

  "Glad to have you at the DM." Derek smiled.

  Shoz found the foreman in the broodmares' barn after some searching, finally being directed by one of the stable boys. Jim instructed him to set his gear in the cabin with the red door, which was only half-full. He was given a generous lunch by Wally, one of the two cooks, and then set to fixing a loose section of fence in one of the paddocks.

  He didn't protest. He'd come too late to ride out with the other hands; it was already midafternoon. He began inspecting the section of fence, then took out the three split rails. It was hot. Sweat poured down his body, even interfering with his vision, poor as it now was. He removed the standing post, which was loose, and set about digging a new hole.

  After ten minutes he was acutely dizzy and his head hurt like the devil. Maybe Jones had been right. He paused to strip off his soaking shirt and dunk his head in the trough of water between two blooded mares. It was clean and cool. He paused to croon to the pretty little chestnut and scratch her ears. Then he started digging again.

  He heard her laughing, first. He hadn't heard her laugh before, but he knew it was her, and every nerve in his body stiffened. He froze, spade jammed hard into the ground. Her laughter stopped abruptly.

  He straightened and turned.

  Lucy, almost a virginal vision in lacy white cotton, faltered beside her grandfather.

  Their gazes locked. He clung to the spade. Shit, he thought. She would have to appear now, just in time to witness his weakness.

  He would not, he vowed, reveal any.

  So he stood even straighter.

  It was a shock.

  Seeing him standing there was a terrible shock. Lucy had returned from Paradise yesterday confident of her victory, confident that she had chased him from town. Her victory hadn't come cheaply, but her secret was more important than money. She knew she should be ecstatic.

  But she wasn't. Her mood was restless. That night she could not sleep. Reading did not help. She kept seeing him as she'd last seen him in the Governor's Suite, his face handsome even when enraged, his body with its sheen of sweat as carefully and perfectly sculpted as a Michelangelo statue. She began to eat imported chocolates from Switzerland, but they failed to satisfy her, too, and she gave them to the tiger-striped cat. The next morning, exhausted, she went to help Miranda in the kitchen.

  At home in her parents' New York mansion, there was a head chef and many assistants who would be shocked if she ever entered their domain. Here her grandmother liked to cook, even though she had plenty of help. Lucy hadn't set foot in the kitchen at Paradise since she was thirteen or so. When she was a child, they had baked cookies and cakes together. Her mother did not cook, being too busy with . politics and social work, but she had joined them, too, and it had been a merry trio. Those days had passed, of course, but Lucy found herself wishing today could be spent in just the same way.

  She ignored her grandmother's surprise and offered to help. Fetching items from the icebox and mixing bowls of ingredients gave her something to do. Anything to keep busy.

  The Duryea was being fixed in town and would be ready later that day. Lucy was looking forward to having her automobile back; she and Joanna could drive about the ranch, or even into Paradise. After finishing in the kitchen, still feeling restless and vaguely dissatisfied, she dressed in something cool and white and wandered downstairs. Derek invited her to join him in inspecting the broodmares down at the foaling barn. Lucy agreed.

  Halfway there she froze, thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her. It couldn't be. It was. It was him.

  He nodded politely.

  And then she saw his face. Lucy gasped. What had happened to him? He looked like a prizefighter! He looked terribly hurt!

  Lucy realized that she was staring, but so was he. She looked away quickly, aware of her grandfather asking him if he was okay. The image of his terribly discolored eye and jaw remained. But there were other images, too, competing ones—his leanly sculpted chest, slick with sweat, his thighs braced in the snug, faded jeans as he leaned on the spade. Those thoughts were not welcome, and stubbornly she shoved them away. What was he doing here?

  "You sure you're okay, Shoz?" Derek was asking.

  "Fine."

  "Why don't you take a break."

  "I'm almost finished," Shoz said, lifting the spade. He lost his balance slightly but recovered it.

  "Take a break," Derek said. "Go lie down in the bunk-house. You wind up with a fever and you're no good to anyone."

  Shoz smiled sarcastically. "Yes—sir." One cool gray eye met Lucy's. She abruptly turned to her grandfather. Yet even as she asked, her mind was racing ahead. He shouldn't be here, he shouldn't be anywhere near Paradise. He had said he was leaving. "What happened to him?"

  Shoz was slowly taking his shirt off the fence and putting it on. As he walked away, Lucy's gaze follow
ed him. "Grandpa?"

  "He was in a fight yesterday with two ironheaded louts. One of them took the butt of his six-shooter to the back of Shoz's head."

  "Is he all right?"

  "I don't think so," Derek said. "He looks mighty pale around the gills to me. I'll send Miranda down to check on him. Come on, honey."

  Lucy followed her grandfather into the cool, stone-floored barn. She shouldn't be worried about him; his health was not her business. What should concern her was why he was still in the county—and why he was here at the ranch. She wanted to know just what Shoz was doing working at the DM, but she didn't dare ask. And if he was up and working, he couldn't be seriously hurt, and the look in his good eye had been unmistakable.

  "Isn't she a beauty, Lucy?" Derek asked, eyeing a gray Anglo-Arab mare. "She's in foal to Thunder." There was pride in his voice. Thunder was his oldest and most prized— and proven—stud.

  "Yes," Lucy said automatically. "Grandpa, who is that?"

  "Who?"

  "That—cowboy." "Just a new hand." "When did you hire him?" "Just today." "Why did you hire him?"

  "He said he needed a job. I like him. You know the DM is the main source of employment in the county. What's your interest, Lucy?"

  She flushed. "None, of course! It's just that—" she shuddered dramatically "—he looks so mean! He looks like a thief! Or worse!" It was hard to believe that for once, someone had pulled the wool over her grandfather's eyes.

  Derek laughed. "He's no thief. I'm a good judge of character, and I can tell you that. He's just a hothead is all, and a proud one. Don't you worry."

  Lucy frowned. The situation was insufferable. She had paid him to leave town, but instead he was working at her grandparents' home. He must be fired, and immediately. "I don't know, Grandpa. Maybe this once you're wrong. Maybe you shouldn't have hired him."

  He was amused. "Leave the running of the DM to me, sweetheart. Being as no one else in the family has shown any inclination to do so! Nick is running that earldom he inherited from Miranda in England, Rathe's built up Bragg Enterprises from New York to Hong Kong, Brett's got hotels across the country and shipping across the world. You want to run the DM, Lucy?"

  Lucy squeezed her grandfather's hand. She heard the disappointment in his voice, even though he was trying to make light of it. Everyone in the Bragg family knew he'd built the DM for Miranda, and had one day intended to pass it on to their children. But none of them wanted it; they were all too involved in their own affairs. Likewise, Nick's eldest son would inherit his estate, his second son was studying the law, and his other children were girls, while Brett's two boys were already grown men running his shipping and hotel interests. Her own brothers were too young yet to really judge, except for Brian, the oldest, who seemed to be heading for medical school.

  "Well," she said, slyly, "I'm a city girl myself, Grandpa, but I do have five brothers, and even though Daddy has more than enough of Bragg Enterprises to go around, I'm sure he wouldn't mind one of the boys taking over here."

  "And I'll be a hundred," Derek said gruffly.

  "Probably only ninety, Grandpa."

  Lucy lifted the hem of her skirts and ran.

  Derek was preoccupied in the south paddock, and this was her chance. She was going to find out why he was here. She had a terrible suspicion. No one must see her, of course, but all the hands were still out on the range. She darted onto the porch of the whitewashed bunkhouse with the bright red door and paused, panting. She heard footsteps and froze. The door opened, and she came face-to-face with Wally. "Miss Lucy!" "Wally!"

  "Howdy, gal. What are you doing down here?"

  Lucy thought fast.' 'Grandpa asked me to come and check on the new hand, to see if he needs anything. He's hurt."

  "Yeah, guess so. He's inside." Wally gestured and waddled off.

  Lucy took a breath. Then, trembling, she stepped inside. With five bunk beds pushed up against the walls of the house, ten cowboys could bunk here comfortably. A round table with five chairs was in the center of the room, an iron stove with two more chairs in a corner. Another corner housed a sink and mirror, and a bathroom with showers was to the left. All the hands ate together in a communal dining room in another building. The DM had about fifty men and boys employed on the premises. This did not include the help up at the house, or those employed in the iron mines, the freight lines, the oil well, or in the many Bragg-owned businesses in town.

  Any concern she might have had for her enemy's injuries vanished the moment she saw him.

  He was grinning. Like a lion licking his chops. Shoz sat at the table, his booted feet kicked up on the top, a cigar in his mouth, coffee in his hand. He'd obviously heard her outside. He set the mug down.

  Lucy saw that they were alone. He didn't look ill. She glared at him and slammed the door shut, advancing toward him. "What are you doing here!"

  His feet hit the floor with a thud. "Hello, princess. Real sympathetic woman, aren't you?"

  "Go to hell!"

  "I don't doubt I will. No tender inquiries about my poor battered face?"

  "None! How dare you! How dare you!" Lucy cried.

  "I dare pretty much what I please, Miss Bragg."

  His snide tone wasn't lost on her. "How dare you get a job here! I told you to leave town!"

  He caught her hand and his smile reappeared. Slowly, oh so slowly, he pulled her toward him, and then she was in his lap.

  "Let me up!"

  His arms went around her, holding her flush against him, her legs dangling over the side of the chair. She wore pretty little orange booties with a dozen pearl buttons. "Nobody tells me what to do," he said, as if she weren't struggling wildly.

  "You took the money!"

  He stared at her mouth.

  She stopped wriggling. Her heart pounded against her breast. "You want more."

  "Yes," he said softly. "More, a lot more." His hand slipped into the nape of her hair, which was pinned up. Abruptly the huge mass came spilling down. Lucy didn't move. Beneath her buttocks, she felt him—all of him.

  "But not money," he said.

  His tone was low and sexy. His gaze was utterly compelling, mesmerizing. It took a great effort for Lucy to tear herself free of the spell he'd cast, but she did, lunging to her feet.

  She stumbled away from him. "You have such audac-ity."

  He smiled, enjoying his power. "You'd like it if you let yourself, honey."

  It was a battle, and she had almost given him a victory. "And what if I tell my grandfather that you grabbed me?"

  "And what if I say you came here, looking for me—and that we're old friends?" he replied coolly.

  There was no mistaking what he meant. It had been her horrible suspicion all along. "That's why you're here, isn't it? To blackmail me. Isn't it?"

  He squinted at her, his bruised face not revealing anything.

  "There's no other reason for you to be here," Lucy accused. "You're a monster. A despicable, low-down monster. ''

  "You didn't seem to think so the other night. Not the way you were carrying on."

  He would, of course, bring up that one damn indiscretion; he had not one shred of decency. She glanced wildly around, but no one was outside listening; they were still alone.

  "You seduced me!" she cried. "I was upset, stranded, without a protector—and you seduced me!" "And you liked every moment." "I want you off of this ranch." "I'll bet you do." "How much more do you want?" He kicked back the chair furiously. Lucy jumped backward. She rushed for the door when she realized he was coming after her. The look on his face told her she was in

  dire jeopardy.

  "I don't want your goddamn money!"

  She rushed outside.

  "Run!" he flung after her. "Run as far as you can, Miss Bragg! But it won't be far enough, and you damn well know it!"

  Chapter 12

  Shoz had moved to his bunk. He'd taken the upper one even though the bottom one was free, because he didn't want his ability to move to be restr
icted. Now he sat on his bed, back against the wall, one knee up, listening to the sounds of the ranch hands outside approaching the bunk-house.

  The door opened and the men started filing in. Six of them, mostly young cowboys between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. They all regarded him openly, with more than unabashed curiosity, as if looking at a rare reptile in a zoo. Shoz steadily stared back. No one said hello. He hadn't expected them to. Instead, they all exchanged "what's this?" glances.

  If he were white, they'd have said hello and offered him smokes and whiskey and invited him to join in the game of cards that was now about to start at the center table.

  He had another headache. It wasn't a good feeling, not being in the best of shape, knowing he could not handle a situation the way he normally would. Not that there would be trouble here. He knew a man like Bragg made rules that were not broken. The men might not accept him or like him, but they wouldn't start anything.

  It was unnaturally quiet in the bunkhouse. The hands, all six of them, began a game of five-card stud, pulling up an extra chair from in front of the stove. The lone chair left there seemed annoyingly symbolic. Shoz lay back on his bunk, hands beneath his head. He wondered how a man like Derek Bragg could be related to a spoiled brat like the princess.

  "Hello," Miranda said, smiling, stepping within. A tray was in her hands with a big bowl of steaming soup, a cloth napkin, silverware, and a covered breadbasket. Shoz could smell the chicken from across the cabin. A Mexican woman followed her with a plate of cookies—he could smell them, too, still fresh from the oven.

  A chorus of greetings came from the cowboys. Miranda looked from them, seated around the table, to Shoz, who was now sitting up on the bunk. She turned to the young woman behind her. "Maria, put the cookies down for the men, and thank you."

  Maria did so and left.

  Miranda approached Shoz, inspecting him from his head to his toes, not critically, just thoroughly. Shoz stiffened in astonishment when he realized what was happening. She had come to bring him soup!

  "Hello," she said. "Derek didn't tell me that the new hand was the man who gave the girls a ride."