Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 (3 page)

Kitty did not share his humor. It was all too much to be absorbed at once.

Travis’s smile faded, and he lifted her face to meet his imploring eyes. “Tell me you’ll go with me, Kitty. Please.”

That did it. She spoke for the first time. “You don’t think I’ll let you go without me, do you? But… I need time, Travis, to think about all of this. I can’t just leave my home as though we were taking a two-week trip. I’m not sure I want to leave, Travis.”

He nodded sympathetically, and she went on, laughing nervously, “Oh, Travis Coltrane, you have outdone yourself this time. You’ve just handed me the biggest shock of my whole life.”

His eyes searched hers, and Kitty understood that there was more to come. She knew well though what it was. Sure enough, Travis confided sadly, “We may just get another chance with Dani if we go to Paris.”

Kitty felt his pain through the misery in his voice. Although they had not discussed it for a long, long time, she knew the agony was always there for Travis, the disappointment and the heartache over the estrangement of his daughter, Dani.

The girl was in twenty, and neither Kitty nor Travis had seen her since she was six. Kitty had tried to raise her, to love her as her own, but when Dani’s mother’s sister, Alaina, moved to Silver Butte, trouble started. Alaina undermined everything Kitty and Travis did. She delighted in Travis’s anger, and Kitty, no fool, understood intuitively that the real reason for Alaina’s bitterness was something that had happened between her and Travis in the past, something Kitty knew nothing about. Kitty asked no questions, for she wanted no answers.

Alaina’s scheme to disrupt Travis’s home and take Dani away from him succeeded after a year of hell for everybody. Within that year, Dani changed from a sweet, happy, obedient child to a willful, spiteful, complaining brat. Kitty was at her wit’s end. Their lives had become unbearable, and the day Kitty scolded Dani for something and Dani slapped her, Travis sent word to Alaina that she had won. Perhaps, he reasoned to Kitty, the child would be better off growing up around her mother’s people in Kentucky.

The day Alaina came to the ranch, gloating, to take Dani away, John Travis’s temper exploded. It was a powerful temper, even at his young age. He screamed at Alaina that she was taking his little sister away and he hated her. He told Alaina that she was the reason Dani had turned into such a hellion in the first place. Dani, protective of the aunt who had spoiled her so terribly, turned on John Travis in a rage, kicking and screaming. Kitty and Alaina had to pull the two apart, and John Travis’s last words to his sister were, “I hate you! I hope I
never
see you again!”

“I hope you die, John Travis!” Dani screamed in return.

John Travis still carried a tiny scar at the corner of his left eye, the result of that fight, and to the present day, Kitty could not recall his ever mentioning his sister.

The painful memories tore at her, and everything she was feeling showed on her face, as it always did. Travis pulled her closer as she said, “Maybe Dani would like another chance, too, Travis. It’s been a long time. Maybe she grew away from Alaina’s influence.”

“If she had, we’d have heard from her,” he said grimly. His eyes narrowed as he mused, “She’s living in the South of France now, but that’s all I know. When Alaina married that French count she’d been stalking, she and Dani went to live on his estate. I know no more than that about my own daughter.”

“Can you get an address? You can write and let her know when we’ll arrive in Paris.”

He nodded. “The bank in Silver Butte has it. You know I’ve sent money all these years, though Dani never once acknowledged it.”

Kitty squeezed his hand. “Maybe things will be different. She’s older now. She must have seen through Alaina by this time.”

He said nothing to that, and she knew he was trying not to hope for too much.

“Now then,” she said jovially, dressing quickly and getting to her feet, “let’s make ourselves presentable and go tell our son the news.”

Travis reached for her hand and roughly pulled her down beside him again. Rolling on top of her, he whispered huskily, “That was just the appetizer, my dear. Now let’s devour the main course.”

Kitty succumbed once more to the love and passion she felt with every beat of her heart.

Chapter Two

France

July, 1889

Staring, mesmerized, into the gilt-edged mirror, Gavin Mason studied his reflection.

He liked what he saw.

Average height, a physique accented neither by obesity nor by thinness…he could find no fault with his body.

Gavin smoothed his blond hair back from his forehead, frowning. Curls. Little-boy curls, tousled and mussed. Damn it, how he hated them. Because of those blasted curls, he hardly looked his twenty-five years, even with the mustache.

He hated the color of his hair as much as he hated the curls. It reminded him of egg yolks, bright yellow. Still, women liked the shade—and the riot of curls. Well, things weren’t all bad, he guessed.

He leaned forward to brush a tiny speck from the corner of an eyelid. Blue eyes. Once, one of the many demimondaines he had encountered in his lustful life told him in a fit of anger that he had eyes like a snake—a
blue-eyed
snake—and that he’d surely been sired in hell by Satan himself.

A sneer touched his thin lips. Snake. He liked that, liked it a lot. Some of the men he caroused with had begun calling him “Snake”, and that pleased him, too. It made him sound mean, tough…like his father. Yes, he recalled proudly, Stewart Mason had been one of the bravest men in all Kentucky, and would probably be alive today if not for that goddamn Travis Coltrane.

Anger mottled his face. He’d been very young, but he remembered all of it, remembered when they brought his pa’s body home and laid it on the kitchen table. His mother had screamed and screamed and then fainted, and young Gavin got sick to his stomach and puked all over the floor. Shot right between the eyes, Pa was. Dead center.

Alaina Barbeau had come to the house with the men who carried Pa’s body. She’d been the one to tell Gavin the story of how his pa believed in one thing, Coltrane in another. She said Gavin was going to hear all kinds of stories about how his pa had been on the wrong side, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, doing terrible things, but she said he wasn’t to believe any of it. Stewart Mason, she said, was the bravest of the brave, because he’d dared to stand up for what he believed in. What he believed in was niggers in their place, and white supremacy. Gavin was never to think any other way…and Stewart’s son never had.

His mother withered after that, lost all her will to live, and just lay down and died within a year. Gavin’s only relatives, an aunt and uncle, didn’t want him. He was too boisterous for those childless people. They decided to send him to the state orphanage, but Alaina stepped in, saying she’d never allow Stewart’s son to be raised by strangers or dependent on charity. So Gavin went to live in the big, fancy Barbeau mansion, and nothing was ever the same afterward. He found out what it was like to eat on the high side of the hog, have good clothes, never be without shoes. Alaina went away for a while, and when she came back she had Dani Coltrane with her, and, Lord, did he go into a rage. Live with the daughter of the man who’d shot his pa? Hell, no! He wouldn’t do it. He’d rather live in the orphanage, that’s exactly what he told Alaina. She slapped him, told him she never wanted to hear that kind of talk again. Dani couldn’t help who her father was. She was Alaina’s sister’s daughter, and a Barbeau, and that was all that mattered.

Well, it had taken some getting used to, but Gavin learned to get along. And as Dani and he grew older, he started to like what he saw. She radiated a quiet, gentle beauty. Her eyes were the color of coffee laced with the richest cream. Her gleaming hair was the color of vibrant cinnamon. Her body ripened into sheer delectability, and Gavin was constantly struggling with himself to refrain from attacking the sweet, succulent fruit.

During their growing-up years, Alaina’s father died, and Alaina rapidly mismanaged the family estate until they were almost broke. So when Count Claude deBonnett proposed, they all heaved sighs of relief and moved to France with him. DeBonnett owned a fancy château perched on a cliff along the Maritime Alps, on the Mediterranean, near Monaco.

Those first years; Gavin was terribly homesick. All he wanted was to go home to Kentucky, but he eventually settled down, and even began to see the benefits of his new life. Thanks to Prince Charles III granting a charter thirty-three years ago to build a gambling casino, Monaco—or Monte Carlo, as the Prince wanted it called—became a luxuriously beautiful playground for the world’s wealthy. Life there was exciting, glamorous, and Gavin loved it. He stopped thinking about returning to America, and began to dwell on how it would be when he was old enough to indulge in all that was available.

Gavin recalled with a wave of disgust that the Count developed a penchant for gambling at the casino, and when he got himself killed in a duel, just a year ago, it was revealed that he’d lost most of his fortune. Since then, Alaina had barely been squeaking by on what was left.

Things were so bad that Gavin approached Alaina and asked why she didn’t request more money from Dani’s father. Coltrane was quite wealthy, the owner of one of the largest and most productive silver mines in Nevada.

Alaina heard him out, then shook her head, explaining that Travis would never agree. After all, he hadn’t heard from his daughter in fourteen years.

Gavin found that incredible. “Is Dani crazy? He’s one of the richest men in America, and she won’t have anything to do with him? How can she be so stupid?”

Alaina regarded his outburst coolly, then confided to him that Dani actually thought it was the other way around, that her father did not want to be in touch with her. “You see,” she smiled at him, “Dani has written to him over the years, many letters that I destroyed. Since she never had an answer to any of her letters, she thinks he wants nothing to do with her. She believes he’s angry because she wanted to live with me.” She shrugged, smiling again.

Gavin exploded, calling her a bitter old fool. Thanks to her stupidity, they were practically penniless. In defense, she sputtered that there’d been no way of knowing the Count was gambling away all their money. She’d thought they were secure.

So Gavin was in a quandary. What could he do? He liked being rich, and he wanted to continue being rich.

He reached for his shirt, hand-sewn of the finest silk in a rich ivory shade. It complemented beautifully the royal-blue suit he chose from the hundreds of suits in his dressing room. Thank goodness the casino refused to take clothes in payment of debts, he reflected bitterly, or the Count would have left him naked.

A slow smile spread across his face as he met his own gaze in the mirror. Thanks to fate, a wonderful plan had begun to form in Gavin’s mind. When Alaina had come running into his room earlier that day, waving a letter and babbling, something had occurred to Gavin, something that took root in his imagination and was already growing.

He grinned as he recalled reading the letter, and Alaina’s staring at him, wide-eyed, when he burst into laughter.

“Don’t you see what this means?” he’d asked her.

She nodded slowly. “Travis is living in Paris with Kitty. He wants to see Dani, get to know her again.”

Gavin dismissed that with a wave. “Not that, the rest of it. He says he’s planning to remain in Paris indefinitely…” His eyes scanned the letter hungrily. “Here. He says he’s put the silver mine and the ranch in Nevada in her and her brother’s name, equal shares for both.”

He had waved the letter at Alaina in exultation. “This is it! Dani can sell her share to her brother, or to whomever she wants, and we’ll be rich again.”

Alaina reminded him that Dani would, no doubt, have her own ideas about what to do with her property. “She might even want to go back to America and live there,” she added cautiously.

“Well, she’ll quickly get that notion out of her head,” Gavin snapped. “Leave everything to me. And
not one word
to Dani about this letter, understand?” he warned. Alaina, knowing his temper, nodded. She assured him that, as with all the letters from Travis through the years, she would pretend it had never arrived.

Gavin finished dressing, elation growing as he developed his plan. Not only was he going to be wealthy again, he was also going to hurt Travis Coltrane.

Gavin laughed aloud as he left his room, beautifully attired and charged with new hope.

Making his way through the house, he whistled softly as he glanced about admiringly at the furnishings. Expensive bric-a-brac, valuable paintings, the very best chairs, tables, and rugs. The château was opulent, but Gavin thought of it as a mausoleum. He preferred simplicity, a feeling of space and light, not this musty gloom. No matter. Soon he would have everything his way. He would have money. Coltrane’s money! Ah, revenge was sweet!

Dani’s room was at the end of the hall. He always wished he had her windows, and that sweeping view of the azure Mediterranean below, the waves crashing on the rocks. When they had first moved to the deBonnett château, Dani was more reckless, and even mean and haughty at times. She teased Gavin cruelly about being given the best, biggest, prettiest room, declaring nastily that she was a real member of Alaina’s family, while he was only adopted. He retaliated by threatening to throw her from the window to die on the rocks below and. have her bones picked clean by the crabs and sea gulls. That would send her screaming to Alaina. As the two young people matured, however, Dani mellowed, becoming quiet, even sweet. She changed completely, bewildering Gavin and mystifying Alaina.