Love at Any Cost (4 page)

He scowled, and the dark cleft in his formidable chin suddenly loomed ominous. “I told him he should have stuck with cattle
ranching instead of drilling for oil. Blast it, Cass, if he needed help, he should have called me. What kind of idiot is he?”

Aunt Cait patted his arm with a patient smile. “A McClare idiot, Logan. He's your brother, remember?” She lifted her chin enough to send him a message. “It's Cassie's first night in San Francisco. Don't you think this conversation can wait?”

He eyed Cait with a gum of his lips before taking Cassie's hands in his. “Sorry, Cass, I didn't mean to spoil your arrival dinner—I'm just concerned.”

She nodded, lowering her voice. “I shouldn't have said anything, Uncle Logan, because Daddy asked me not to, so you have to promise you won't breathe a word to anyone—not Daddy, not my cousins, no one.” Her frantic gaze flitted from her uncle to her aunt, calming somewhat at the look of tender concern in their eyes. “But Aunt Cait, I just couldn't
not
tell you because we need you to join us in prayer. Daddy, Mama, and I really do have faith it will all work out, but we could sure use the prayers of someone with a strong faith like you.”

“With four dry wells, it's going to take more than—” He stopped, lips compressing at the jut of Aunt Cait's brow. “Sorry, Cait, but it's true.”

Her aunt's eyes softened, a trace of sadness in their depths. “For you, Logan, perhaps, but not for Quinn and Virginia, and not for Cassie or me. Faith in God can move mountains.”

One corner of Logan's mouth edged up. “Is that so?” The gray eyes glinted with a dare. “Well, let's see if it can ‘move' you into the winner's column, Cait, because when it comes to faith, you're going to need a mountain to win at cribbage tonight.”

A serene smile settled on her aunt's features as she laid a hand on Cassie's arm. “As tempting as it may be to pit my faith against your vanity, Logan, I much prefer to chat with my niece.” She
glanced up at the gold-plated clock on the mantel before offering him a calm smile. “But cheer up. As soon as Bram and Jamie arrive, you can go head-to-head with them.”

His slow grin was a perfect match for the gleam of challenge in his eyes. “But I'd rather go head-to-head with you, Cait,” he whispered, giving Cassie a wink.

A pretty shade of rose dusted her aunt's cheeks. “You're incorrigible, Logan McClare, and I have a mind to never play cribbage with you again.”

He laughed, the sound bold and confident as he returned the chair to the game table. “But you will, Cait, and we both know it.” Giving her a disarming grin, he reached for a neatly folded copy of
The San Francisco Examiner
from the coffee table and ambled toward the cordovan easy chair he claimed as his own. “Since I have a few moments before the other gentlemen arrive, I'll let you ladies chat while I peruse my stocks.”

“The divil, you say!” Mrs. Rosie O'Brien stood at the door, her brogue as thick as her disdain. Aunt Cait's notorious housekeeper and nanny scowled. “The only pa-rusin' you'll be doing, Mister ‘Beware', is in that dining room for a welcome supper for your niece.”

“Rosie!” Cassie jumped up, giggling at the intentional slaughter of her uncle's name which marked a humorous enmity that went back as far as she could remember. Dressed in her gray uniform with a calf-length white apron, Rosie often appeared as starched as her lace cuffs and collar, but behind that gruff exterior lay a heart as big as San Francisco Bay. “I've missed you!” she said, embracing the slip of a woman who had been Aunt Cait's nanny from little on.

“Awk, Rosie's the boss, Rosie's the boss!” Miss B. quipped, and everyone chuckled.

At sixty-five, Rosie was still a handsome woman in spite of her bristly nature. Dark hair heavily sifted with silver and pulled back in a tight chignon emphasized steel-blue eyes that whittled Uncle Logan down to size even when her words could not. With a petite frame that was tiny and trim, Mrs. O'Brien wielded power in the McClare household that far exceeded both height and rank, a fact evidenced by the family's so-ugly-he's-cute bulldog, Logan Junior. Despite Logan's objections, Rosie had won when she'd suggested naming the pet for the uncle who'd given it, citing the “creature's propensity to intestinal odors” as commonality enough.

“Aw, but it's grand to have you back with us, Cassidy McClare,” Rosie said with a grin, patting a veined hand to Cassie's cheek. Blue eyes in a squint, she peered at Uncle Logan who stood stock still, newspaper still dangling from his hand. “Sure, and it's high time we feed this scrawny, little thing from the cow ranch, wouldn't you say?”

Lips gone flat, Logan glanced first at his watch and then at Aunt Cait, obviously ignoring Rosie to the best of his ability. “We should wait for Bram and Jamie, don't you think, Cait?”

“I suppose . . . ,” Caitlyn said with a concerned glance in Rosie's direction.

“Oh, aye, that's a grand idea,” the housekeeper said with a grunt, the mulish press of her lips matching Logan's to a T. “Bar the starving lass from her welcome dinner, why don'cha?”

“Now, Rosie,” Aunt Cait said softly, “dinner'll keep for a moment or two, won't it?”

Rosie's chin angled high. “Sure, if it's cowhide you be wantin' to serve. Fixed a rump roast, I did—” She spared a sliver of a smile in Logan's direction. “In
his
honor.” Her gaze swiveled back to Aunt Cait with a spike of a dark brow. “Any longer and may as
well serve the poor lass the sole of my shoe, but then I suppose cow leather will make her feel right at home.”

Aunt Cait sighed, gaze flicking from Rosie to Logan and back. Her lips twitched at the obvious clamp of his jaw. “All right then, Rosie—we'll be right in.”

The elderly housekeeper shot Logan a smug smile on her way to the door.

Logan tossed the newspaper on the table and snatched his dinner jacket off the back of the chair, slipping it on with a growl. “Blast it, Cait, why do you let the help push you around?”

“Rosie is not just the ‘help,' and well you know it. For goodness' sake, the woman's been an anchor in my life since I was born. Besides,” she said with a half smile, “she pushes you around, not me.” She rose. “And heaven knows I'd be lost without her.”

Logan extended his arms with a grunt, adjusting his sleeves for comfort. “Then it's high time you ‘found' yourself, Caitlyn—it
is
your house, after all, and you should have the final say when dinner is served. I can tell you one thing, if it were my house—”

“But it's not, now is it?” Aunt Cait said softly, standing her ground with a lift of her chin as always when Uncle Logan pushed too hard.

His jaw began to grind, a symptom with which Cassie was all too familiar when her outspoken uncle attempted to restrain his tongue, and she couldn't help but bite back a grin. Poor Uncle Logan—a powerhouse attorney used to getting his own way—except with Aunt Cait.

“Blast it, Cait, she doesn't like me.” He tunneled a hand through perfectly groomed hair, bludgeoning until several strands toppled askew.

“Of course she likes you,” Aunt Cait said in a soothing tone.

“No, she doesn't,” Alli called from across the room, studying
her cards. She glanced up, her face the picture of innocence. “She says Uncle Logan's a pain in the posterior.” She gave him a wink. “Of course, the term she actually used may have been ‘rump' . . .”

“Awk, pain in the rump, pain in the rump . . .”

“See?” Logan stabbed a finger in Alli's direction, his voice reduced to a hiss. “She's even turned the blasted parrot against me and my nieces and nephew as well.” He scowled. “First you, the parrot, then my own flesh and blood.”

Aunt Cait stepped toward him and adjusted his tie. “Don't be silly, Logan, nobody's against you . . .”

“We all love you, Uncle Logan, don't we, Cass?” Alli called, taking a trick in whist.

Cassie's smile was angelic. “Absolutely. Who else would have taught us poker?”

“Good gracious—you taught them
poker
?” Aunt Cait took a step back, hand to her chest.

A loud whistle pierced the air. “Awk, ante up, ante up . . .”

“Traitor.” Uncle Logan glowered at Cassie, the semblance of a smile tugging his lips.

“And don't forget the shell game and darts and spoon on the nose . . .” Alli bobbed her head in cadence while shuffling the cards.

“Awk! Whoop-whoop—eye on the shell, eye on the shell . . .”

Logan winced.

Tugging on a ruffle of her mother's dress, Maddie glanced up. “I love Uncle Logan too,” she said with childlike wonder. “He taught me how to make money by pitching pennies.”

“And ghost stories that kept me up at night,” Meg said with a giggle.

Aunt Cait folded her arms. “Gambling? Horror stories? You are nothing more than a juvenile delinquent, Logan McClare. It's a wonder these children turned out at all.”

He offered her his arm with a boyish smile. “That would be your influence, Cait. But their spirit of fun and adventure?” He waggled a brow. “I'm afraid that's pure Logan McClare.”

Lips in a slant, Aunt Cait ignored him to cup a hand to Cassie's waist, taking Maddie's hand in the other. “Yes, well, ‘afraid' is the operative word.” She ushered them to the door. “Goodness, and you wonder why Rosie picks on you—”

Logan paused, jaw slack and fingers stilled while buttoning his coat. “There—you just admitted it! The woman doesn't like me and I have no earthly idea why.”

Aunt Cait turned at the door, looking for all her somber stance as if she were fighting a twitch of a smile. “I suggest we get a move on, Logan, and not dally over the obvious.” With a squeeze of her niece's waist, she turned to lead the way to the dining room, her voice laced with tease. “I don't advocate gambling, of course,” she whispered, head tucked to Cassie's, “but I'll bet before Rosie's done with your uncle—” eyes twinkling, her aunt glanced over her shoulder before giving Cassie a wink—“his rump will be more charred than the roast.”

 4 

J
amie glanced at his watch and picked up his pace, loping the final blocks to the Blue Moon where he'd told Bram to pick him up instead of the boardinghouse.
But, dash it, now I'm late!
He huffed out a sigh and began to sprint, hoping to make better time. Yes, they'd be late for dinner at the McClares', but then his mother was worth it.

“Do you have time to take these clothes to Julie and Millie?” she'd asked, hesitation in her tone that belied the excitement in her eyes over clothes she'd sewn for their old neighbors.

“You bet,” he'd said without the slightest reluctance, adjusting the tie of his tuxedo in the mirror before turning to deposit a kiss to her cheek, grateful for any task he could do for his mother. Still, it always felt strange returning to the seedy cow-yard they'd lived in until his father had died, especially dressed to the nines for a welcome dinner on Nob Hill. Even so, few things gave his mother more joy than sewing clothes for the lost women and children who lived in the brothel on the first floor, many of whom had become her good friends. And his.

“Whoo-ee, Jamie MacKenna,” Julie said as she'd eyed him in the secondhand tuxedo Bram had passed down. Butting a hip to the door, she gave him a lonely smile in a faded kimono, red hair
trailing one shoulder while faded bruises mottled her neckline. “Well, aren't we dressed to kill! You sure you wanna have supper with some prissy girls on Snob Hill instead of me?”

Dressed to kill.
By thunder, he hoped so. Dressed to kill all memories of a wretched past in the bowels of the Barbary Coast, not only for his family, but for women like Julie Graves. He issued a low grunt. An appropriate name for a poor soul buried alive in the deep, deep “grave” of the Barbary Coast. All the more reason for Jamie to court wealth and political influence while he courted senators' daughters in a game where the end justified the means. Robin Hood of the Barbary Coast—taking from the rich to give to the poor.

“Regrettably, yes,” he said with a forced grin, heart wrenching over the dark smudges under her eyes that made her look fifty instead of twenty-nine. He handed her his mother's package containing clothes for her, Millie, and Millie's little girl Bess. “Although I'm quite certain an evening spent with you would be far more interesting, Miss Graves,” he said with a dip of his head, top hat to his chest, “I'm afraid I'm obliged to keep my commitment tonight.”

“A commitment, huh?” she said with a tease of a smile that somehow came off sad. “Sounds a bit stuffy to me.”

He smiled. “Commitments usually are, Julie—at least on Nob Hill.”
But necessary if one hopes to help innocent young girls like you used to be.
A nerve flickered in his cheek.
And
his mother—once a homeless fifteen-year-old forced to work in a depraved dance hall to even survive. He studied Julie while she tore into the tissue-wrapped package like a little girl at Christmas, tired eyes suddenly aglow, and an ache stabbed in his chest. She and the other ladies of the evening had shared a commonality with Jamie's family that went well beyond the roof over their heads. They were
misfits all, shackled to the Barbary Coast, and Jamie swore that someday, somehow, he would work to change that for as many young women as he could. To set women like Julie and Millie free from the bondage of poverty and degradation that left a slime over the Coast as vile as the sewage that slithered its streets. Just like he'd set his mother and sister free, first by moving them to a boardinghouse in a poor but decent neighborhood awhile back, and then someday soon, God willing, to a home on Nob Hill
.

God willing?
His jaw tightened at the mental slip of tongue. It wasn't God who worked three jobs while going to school, no matter what his mother and sister thought, and it wasn't God who would sacrifice love for money in a marriage of convenience. No, it was Jamie MacKenna who “willed” that things would change for those he loved. But first, he needed the wealth to buy his own boardinghouse and then the political stature to fight prostitution and dance halls, an evil blight that ate away at women's lives like cancer. Young girls like his mother, Millie, and Julie—with no place to go, forced into slavery of their bodies. His gut cramped as he stared at the hope-ravaged soul before him because he knew his dreams would come far too late for someone like her. Grazing a gentle hand to her cheek, he offered a melancholy smile. “Get sleep tonight, Julie—alone. You need the rest.”

Her lips tipped in a sad curve. “That I do, Jamie MacKenna, that I do.”

The blare of a horn jerked him back to the present as he jogged down Montgomery Street. He slowed his gait to catch his breath, only to have it hitch again when a brand-new Flint roadster almost collided with a horse and buggy. Curses defiled the air along with the stench of raw sewage and gasoline fumes, and for the thousandth time, he realized just how lucky he was that he and his family no longer lived in the Barbary Coast.

“What took you so long?” Bram called from the front seat of his brand-new cherry-red Stanley Steamer, a graduation gift from his parents. Clouds of steam billowed from beneath the parked vehicle as it hissed and rumbled at the curb.

Jamie hopped into the front and released a weighty sigh, finally able to relax against the plush leather upholstery. The knots in his stomach unraveled as he angled his top hat back. “Mom asked me to deliver clothes to some old neighbors.” His smile, like his words, held an apology. “Sorry I'm late—Alli will have our heads.”

Bram's chuckle sounded above the chug of the car. “Only because that's all that'll be left after Rosie gets through chewing on us.” He maneuvered the tiller to ease out into traffic, glancing both behind and ahead. “Next time let me know when your mother has a delivery, and I'll pick you up early and drive you there.”

“No, thanks, buddy, the Blue Moon's just fine.”

Bram shook his head, passing a buckboard and horse. “You're crazy, Mac, you know that? So you were born in the Coast, so what? It's not like you're a part of the slums anymore.”

Oh, but I am
, Jamie thought with a tight smile,
it's a
permanent stain on my soul.
“Sorry, Bram, but that's part of my life I don't want anyone to see.” He looked away, unwilling to give an inch, even to the best friend who saved his life on a daily basis. His “imaginary” life, that is, with fashionable hand-me-downs and ready loans that Bram insisted Jamie need never pay back. But he always did, of course, even if it meant tending bar most of the night at the Blue Moon before eight hours of classes the next day. Jamie expelled a noisy sigh lost in the chug of Bram's car. Nope, no one knew from whence he hailed, nor would they.
Ever.
Especially Bram and Blake, the two most important people in his life other than his family.

He'd met them at the Olympic Club, a prestigious gentlemen's club where Jamie worked since college. The fates had smiled on him through Logan McClare, a board member of the Oly Club who thought Jamie had “gumption” to work three jobs and still tackle higher education. So he introduced him to his two nephews, and the three men had been inseparable in law school, where Jamie had been the recipient of a merit scholarship to assist “needy and worthy students.” His jaw twitched. He was certainly that—a Barbary Coast street rat in dire need of rich buddies to give him a leg up. The edge of his mouth crooked in a smile. But in the end, they'd given him far more than that.

The Three Musketeers, they called themselves—quickly becoming the two closest friends Jamie ever had. His lips veered to the side. The only friends he'd ever had, if truth be told. Fourth cousins twice removed, Bram “Padre” Hughes, Jamie's best friend, could have easily been a minister, and Blake “Rake” McClare was a rogue who took after his uncle Logan in his endless pursuit of women. Two friends as different as night and day, while Jamie shored up the middle—moral enough to steer clear of Blake's reckless pursuits of the flesh, but rogue enough that his morality had little to do with Bram's God. His jaw compressed. And poor enough to appreciate the opportunities they afforded him in his relentless pursuit to marry well.

The very thought caused his pulse to race. “So, know anything about this Texas cousin?”

“Cassie?” Bram smiled and turned the tiller to steer past a horse and buggy that was making a left turn, missing a cable car by mere yards. “Not real well, although we met once briefly a few summers ago. Seemed like a sweetheart, though. More like a sister to Alli, Meg, and Maddie than a cousin. Pretty, bright, no-nonsense—you know, real down-to-earth for an oil heiress.
Her father is Logan's brother Quinn, the maverick McClare cattle rancher turned oil man. Made a small fortune in Texas oil the last few years and looks to make more. Could be wealthier than Logan before all's said and done, if you can imagine that.”

Jamie whistled. “An oil heiress, eh? And pretty to boot? Be still my heart.”

Bram grinned, the wind whipping wheat-colored hair against his top hat. He shot Jamie a sideways glance. “I thought you had your sights set on the senator's daughter?”

“I do,” Jamie said with a grin that matched Bram's, “but let's not rush things, Padre. Haven't decided to officially court her just yet. Besides, throw in a wealthy heiress from one of the top political families in the state?” He shook his head. “Not sure I can pass that up.”

“What happened to no mixing business with family, counselor?” Bram said, reminding Jamie of his caveat to pursue social contacts of the McClares and not the McClares themselves.

Hiking a shoe to the stainless railing of the carriage seat in front of the dash, Jamie flashed a grin, dark curls buffeted by the breeze till one tumbled over his eye. “The fine print being the McClares of San Francisco, buddy boy, not an heiress from the windswept prairies of Texas. And, yes, the McClares' mansion has been like a second home with all the time I've spent there with Blake and you. Heaven knows Alli and Meg are certainly more like sisters, which is why I've been forced to focus on their wealthy friends instead. But . . . new McClare blood, part of a family that could help my career and my bankbook?” He wiggled his brows. “I just may have to work on my Texas drawl.”

Bram shook his head, easing past a peddler on a bicycle. “You're something else, MacKenna, you know that? One of the nicest guys I know, hard-working, smart, give the shirt off your back—”
He smiled. “That is, if it didn't belong to me first. Yet under that heart of gold is a fortune hunter with the glint of gold in his eyes. Doesn't make a lot of sense, you know?”

“Sure it does.” Jamie grinned. And why not? His dreams were worth it—from his hopes to provide a surgery that could heal his sister someday, to his drive to be the youngest senator from the state of California and effect change in the Barbary Coast. He gave Bram a wink. “May as well fall in love with a rich girl as a poor one.”

“So you say,” Bram said with a shift of gears, “but it's been my experience that life doesn't always comply. You fall in love with whom God chooses, Mac, and sometimes a fortune doesn't come along with it.”

Jamie propped hands to the back of his neck, absently staring down Market Street with a stiff smile. “See, Bram, that's where you make your mistake—leaving everything up to some deity who may or may not exist. Well, not me. I've gotten this far on my own ingenuity, so I see no reason to depend on some fairy tale for the most important thing in my life—” his smile veered into a scowl—“marrying well so I can take care of my family because God hasn't had the time.”

Bram peered out of the corner of his eye, a frown pinching his face despite a melancholy smile. “God has both the time and inclination, Jamie. He's the Savior you see every week on that cross at church, remember? The One who laid down his life for you and your family?”