The Ballad of Emma O'Toole (15 page)

She retrieved the pencil with a sigh. “You said I should write my own story. That’s what I’m trying to do. But I never imagined it would be so hard.”

Logan noticed the crumpled pages that littered the table. “Should I leave you to it?” he asked.

“I’ve been at this most of the day. It’s probably time for a break.” She rose from her chair. “I need a second opinion before I continue, anyway. Would you mind looking at what I’ve written so far? I’ll dish up your supper while you’re reading.”

Surprised but pleased that she’d asked him, Logan sat down and picked up the notepad. Emma bustled around the kitchen, slicing the bread, ladling stew into a bowl and casting furtive glances toward him, as if trying to gauge his expression.

He willed himself to focus on the pages. Emma’s penmanship was classic grammar school, the letters rounded and easy to read. Aside from a few spelling errors, she expressed herself with surprising fluency. As his eyes moved down the page, he became absorbed in the story of the young man she’d met, crippled by the mine
and unable to work. She wrote about the widows and orphans, the men dying of the dreaded miners’ consumption. Logan was aware that she’d invaded the mine, in part, to spite him. Only now did he begin to understand her other motives.

Her description of the mine was chilling. After Logan’s own narrow escape today, the words struck home with double impact. The dust, the noise, the falling rocks, the constant danger to life and limb, all added poignancy to her plea for safer conditions underground.

Emma placed his supper before him and sat down. “What do you think?” Her lips were trembling. He fought the urge to lunge across the table and kiss her until the strain between them melted like butter on a hot griddle.

“It’s good, Emma. Damned good.”

“You don’t think people will laugh at me?”

“It’s a lot better than the slop Armitage cranks out. Nobody laughs at him.”

“You really think so?” Her eyes were dancing. She seemed happy for the first time in weeks. No, Logan resolved, he wouldn’t tell her about the mine tonight. He’d look at his options tomorrow, when his mind was fresh. Maybe he could come up with some plan to ease her disappointment.

“If it’s good enough, I want to get it published,” she said. “But I don’t know where to begin. Armitage would crush it at the
Record.”

“Not if you went over his head.”

She stared at him.

“Take it to his boss,” Logan said. “Sam Raddon would jump at the chance to publish this. Armitage couldn’t block it once it got his boss’s approval.”

“And if Raddon doesn’t buy it?”

“Then we could take it to Salt Lake City—to the
Deseret News
or the
Tribune.”

“Not
we.”
She looked pained. “I know you want to help, Logan. But you’re not just my husband, you’re a mine owner. I went down in
your mine
, for heaven’s sake! You mustn’t have anything to do with this.”

Logan mulled her words for a moment. The truth stung, but she was right, he conceded. Any involvement on his part would taint the credibility of her story. He had no choice except to back off and let Emma do this alone.

His emotions warred. He was fiercely proud of his wife—her intelligence, her courage, her determination. But wrapped around his heart was an icy coil of dread. Emma was trying her wings, savoring her independence. Would the
day come when she’d be ready to fly—away from him?

A darker fear stirred. If published, Emma’s story could make some powerful enemies among the other mine owners. They would view her as a troublemaker. Some of them might even try to silence her.

Logan remembered when she’d come up in the mine cage, so pale and still that for an instant he’d feared the worst. It was much the same now—that stab of bleak despair at the thought of losing her. He hadn’t planned it that way, but after so many years alone Emma had become the most cherished part of his life.

His desire was to keep her close and safe, to shield her from danger. But how could he do that and be a man? How could he deny his Emma the chance to grow?

If he loved her—and God help him, he did—he would let her take this risk. He would do his best to protect her and be there when she needed him. But his only hope of making her happy was to allow her this freedom.

“Your supper’s getting cold.” Her voice was as soft as the brush of a petal.

“So it is.” He tasted the stew. It was still warm but Logan had lost his appetite for food. Looking at her across the table, with lamplight
glowing on her skin, he ached with a different kind of hunger. Right now, all he wanted was to sweep her into the bedroom, bury himself in her sweet body and forget every wretched thing that had happened today.

As if she could read his thoughts, her lips parted. Her hand slid across the table toward him. His pulse leaped as their fingertips touched. He hadn’t made love to Emma since the loss of her baby. Now the urge to have her was like a cry of pain. Logan had taught himself to believe he didn’t need anybody. But he had almost died today. He needed his woman. His hand closed around hers. Even after he cleared his throat, his voice was thick and husky. “Emma, if you don’t want me you’d best say so now. Wait one more minute, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

Freeing her hand, she rose, dropped her wrapper and came around the table. Her finger brushed his lips. “Hush,” she whispered. “Talking just complicates things.”

Catching his face between her hands she bent and kissed him. Her lips feathered his with a lightness fit to drive a man wild. With a groan, Logan pulled her against him. Deepening the kiss, he tasted the juicy nectar of her mouth, lingering, savoring until he was dizzy
with her nearness. his kisses moved down her throat, down past the open collar of her nightgown until he could bury his face in the hollow between her breasts. She was lushly endowed, his Emma. He adored the natural generosity of her body. For a time he simply burrowed into her warmth, his senses drunk with the aromas of woman—musk and the lavender soap she favored.

He wanted her the way a drowning man wants air.

He could hear the drumming of her heart as his hands moved downward to cup her buttocks through the thin nightgown. Logan had never been more aroused by a woman’s sensuality. He pressed his face against her belly, drowning in her heat. All he could think of was wanting more.

Still holding her close, he slid a hand up her bare leg. She tensed, then softened, opening to him. A whimper rose from her throat as he found her wetness. Her fingers raked his hair, gripping in a catlike frenzy as he parted her moisture-slicked folds. The tiny pearl nub at their center rose and hardened to his touch. She moaned as he stroked her, arching against him like a bow.

Logan’s own arousal was as hard as a hickory
knot. Part of him wanted to fling her down on the tabletop and slam into her until he exploded. But his woman had been through hell since the last time they’d made love. She needed time. She needed tenderness. For all he knew, he needed the same.

His finger slipped inside her, riding on her slickness. If she flinched in pain he would stop, Logan promised himself. But her only response was a deepening moan and the press of her body against his hand. “I’m all right,” she whispered. “I want you, Logan. I want you inside me.”

Her words drove him over the edge. With a growl of need he swept her up, strode toward the bedroom and laid her on the coverlet while he yanked off his clothes. Emma’s summer nightgown was airy and loose. Resisting the temptation to rip it off her, Logan pushed it up past her breasts. His sex was engorged to the bursting point, but he held himself in check long enough to graze her lovely body with kisses—her luscious breasts, the swollen nipples dark as plums; the soft flesh of her belly; the sweet mound of curls that framed her opening.

Her hands caught his hair, guiding his head between her thighs. The taste of her was saltysweet,
like nothing else on earth. She whimpered as his tongue brushed her risen bud. Her hips pressed upward. She cried out as she shuddered beneath him.

“Logan…” Her voice was a plea.

He rose above her and pushed home.

Her wet, silky heat enfolded him in a deep embrace. Hands clasped his back. Legs opened and wrapped, pulling him deeper. Hips rose, pushing to meet his thrusts.
Heaven
.

Logan could only hold back for so long. He felt her clench around his sex, felt the throbbing pulse of her own climax as he burst inside her with shattering force. As his release ebbed, he held her close. His lips whispered her name. She was his woman, his refuge. She was his world.

Later, as she slept in his arms, Logan lay awake in the darkness. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Emma. But as a washed-up gambler with a failing mine, a pile of business debts and a shadowed past, how was he going to provide for a wife?

And what about children? The loss of Emma’s baby, a child he’d been prepared to welcome as his own, had left an unexpected void. He wanted to give her more children. But children
had needs—shelter and protection, food, clothes, schooling and so much more.

Somehow he had to make a go of the mine. Otherwise his choices would be grim. As a gambler’s wife, Emma would have a rootless existence with no home and no security—children would not even be a possibility. A job in the mills or mines would be hell on earth for him—and Emma would join the ranks of women who lived on the frayed edge of despair.

There was silver in the Constellation—that much he knew. What he didn’t know was where the vein ran, how rich it was, and whether he could afford to keep on mining it.

Starting tomorrow, he would take stock of his assets and debts and hire a geologist. Once he had enough information, he would weigh his options and make a decision. Until then, there’d be no need to tell Emma about the water. Why cause her needless worry?

Turning on the pillow, he studied her sleeping face. As if to balance the darkness in his life, fate had given him this beautiful woman. Whatever it cost him, Logan vowed, he would do right by her. He would die before he’d see her hurt the way she’d been hurt before.

But what about the monstrous lie that his life had become? Would she still want him if
she knew that Logan Devereaux was really Christián Girard, wanted for murder in New Orleans? Would she stay with him and bear his children if she knew that at any time he could be dragged home in chains to face a speedy trial and a certain hanging?

Even after all that had happened, could he trust Emma with the truth?

Emma was dreaming again. She stood alone on the edge of a bottomless ravine. From its depths, tendrils of fog rose like cold, white fingers.

Half-veiled in threads of mist, Billy John stood on the far side of the narrow chasm. He was bone-thin, his clothes in tatters, the bullet wound a raw, red stain on his shoulder. He stared at Emma with haunted eyes.

“So, you’ve failed me again,” he rasped. “I thought I could count on you. But that bastard’s won you over, and now you’ve gone and lost our baby.”

“Do you think I wanted that to happen?” Tears were streaming down her face. “I tried to do the right thing, but it all went wrong. Forgive me.”

He shook his head. A ghostly smile stretched his lips across his teeth. “You’ll have one more
chance, girl—a chance to destroy the snake who murdered me. When that chance comes you’ll know, and you’ll know what to do. Keep your promise, and I’ll have my peace.”

Emma stood silent.

“Do you hear me?” he demanded. “One last chance. Will you keep your promise this time?”

“No.”

“What?”
He reeled as if she’d struck him.

“You heard me. I’ve suffered enough for you, Billy John. Leave me alone. Let me live my life.”

“How can you say that to me? I loved you. I
died
for you! ‘For love of Emma O’Toole’—that’s what the song says, and it’s true!”

“I’m sorry you died. But I can’t give you peace. You can only do that for yourself. Forgive those who wronged you. That’s what the Bible teaches us. Logan didn’t mean to kill you. He’s been a good husband, and he would have been a good father. Maybe it’s time you forgave us both.”

The icy mist swirled. From its center came a shriek of fury. “You’ll be sorry for this, Emma O’Toole! Let me down again and I’ll haunt you till the end of your days!”

Steeling her resolve, Emma turned her back on the ghost and walked away.

E
mma sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair. Her fingers wadded a fold of her skirt, as Sam Raddon scanned the pages of her story. Would the
Record’s
legendary editor like what she’d written? Or would he dismiss her with a patronizing comment and laugh behind her back as she slunk out the door?

Glancing up, Raddon adjusted his spectacles and cleared his throat. Middle-aged with wiry hair and a vigorous manner, his very reputation was enough to make fledgling writers quake in their boots.

“So you’re the famous Emma O’Toole,” he said. “I’ve read Armitage’s pieces, of course, but I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“It’s Mrs. Devereaux,” Emma said. “And
after what’s been written about me, I’m hoping people will be interested in the truth for a change.”

“I see.” Raddon laid the pages on his desk. “Believe me, Mrs. Devereaux, I have no illusions about Hector Armitage and his methods. But the man has a nose for a good story. What’s more important, since I’m running a business here, his stories sell papers.”

Emma’s heart sank. “So you don’t think my story would sell papers?”

“I didn’t say that. Your piece is well-written, and you obviously have something to say. But it isn’t front page material.”

“Why not, may I ask?”

“Because it isn’t news. Everyone who reads the paper knows you went down in the mine. This story is background. It explains why you went, but it doesn’t have any new revelations or excitement. I can see it, maybe, on the second page of the Sunday section—that is, if you still want to sell it.”

“Of course I do.” Emma swallowed her disappointment. Her story wasn’t the headliner she’d hoped it would be. But at least it would be published and read.

“My offer is twenty dollars for your story and ten dollars for every other paper that runs
it. I trust you’ll find that satisfactory. It’s what I pay most of my freelance reporters.”

Emma nodded. Twenty dollars wasn’t a fortune, but it was more than she’d made in a month at the boardinghouse. “Does this make me a freelance reporter?” she asked, venturing a smile.

Raddon’s mouth twitched. “If you like,” he said. “No promises, mind you, but I’d be happy to look at anything else you bring in. Just one more thing. I’ll want to use Emma O’Toole as your byline. That name will get people’s attention all over the country.”

Emma sighed her consent. She’d have preferred using her married name, but Raddon was right. Emma O’Toole would sell papers. Emma Devereaux would not.

After signing a contract and accepting a twenty-dollar bank draft, Emma left Raddon’s office. Disappointment was fading as her excitement over the news grew. She’d fallen short of her highest hopes, but she’d just become a published writer. It was all she could do to keep from breaking into a giddy little dance on her way out.

Her eyes cast furtive glances around the open newsroom. Several of the desks were empty. Hector Armitage was nowhere to be
seen. But he was bound to learn about her story. When he did, she could imagine him grinding his teeth. The thought gave her more than a little satisfaction.

Crossing the street, she headed for the bank to cash her payment. Maybe she’d use the money to buy something nice for Logan. She’d never felt right about buying a man a present with his own money. But this was money she’d earned herself. What she chose for him would be a true gift.

Color crept into Emma’s cheeks at the memory of last night. Whatever had been keeping Logan at a distance, their loving had banished it. This morning he’d left her with a lingering kiss and a look in his eye that said he’d be back tonight for more. She was already counting the hours.

An alley lay between Birdwell’s Emporium and the bank. Narrow and little used for passage, it was stacked with boxes and crates from the store. Emma had walked past the entrance countless times and would normally have done so again. But this time she heard voices from the shadows—one of them familiar.

“Nice doing business with you, Phineas.” There was no mistaking Hector Armitage’s
cocky tone. “I’ll be back around to see you next month.”

“Damn you, Armitage! I hope you rot in hell!”

Emma didn’t recognize the second voice until she ventured a glance around the corner. The speaker was Phineas Barton, the president of the bank. Armitage stood facing him, grinning as he tucked a fat envelope into his vest.

“Consider this an investment in your reputation, my friend.” Armitage chuckled as Phineas Barton stalked toward the bank’s rear entrance. Whistling, the reporter turned and strolled out the far end of the alley.

Emma steadied herself against the brick wall. What had she just seen? Did Armitage and the bank president have some sinister tie? Or was her imagination running away with her?

Never mind, Emma told herself. Whatever was going on, there was no way to know the truth of it. In any case, it was none of her business and best forgotten.

Forcing the matter aside, she walked into the bank and cashed her payment at one of the windows. With the twenty dollars in her pocketbook, she went outside again and headed back up the boardwalk toward home.

At the corner, a ragged youth was hawking
the morning paper. Emma had paused and was fumbling for change when she noticed the headline.

Hero Saves Miners in Constellation Flood

Stuffing her coin into the boy’s hand, she snatched up the paper. Every thought she’d had that morning fled from her mind as she read the story on the front page—how water had broken through in the Constellation Mine and how Logan had gotten his men out, refusing to leave the tunnel until they were safe.

She glanced at the byline. The reporter’s name was unfamiliar, so at least Armitage hadn’t been involved. But that didn’t matter now. Her husband had nearly died yesterday. Then the wretched man had come home, made love to her and never mentioned a word about it.

Stuffing the newspaper under her arm, she strode up the street toward the Chinese bridge. As she passed a saloon, the hated ballad, sung by a drunken voice, drifted out through the open door. Emma scarcely heard it. Why had Logan kept her in the dark about the disaster at his mine? What had he been thinking?

And what other secrets might he be keeping from her?

At home, she spread the paper on the kitchen table and sank onto a chair. It appeared that the reporter had interviewed some of the miners after their return to town. There was no indication he’d talked with Logan or seen the mine for himself.

But Emma had been down in that tunnel, and she knew what water could do in a mine. The mountains were honeycombed with underground streams and seeping pockets. When water broke through, the damage could be ruinous.

For small mine owners like Logan, with limited funds, water could mean the end of a mining operation. That, Emma realized, was what Logan would be facing.

Why hadn’t he told her?

She thought back over the events of last night—how he’d come home, beaten and exhausted, to find her laboring over her story. She’d asked him to read it; and when he’d told her it was good, she’d been so excited…

Suddenly Emma understood. He’d held back his news because he didn’t want to spoil her happy moment.

Where was he now? Probably out scrambling for a way to save his mine. And he hadn’t even asked for her sympathy. She understood that
Logan was a private man who kept things to himself. But she was his wife. Why couldn’t he have been open with her?

A sharp knock at the front door riveted her attention.
What if something had happened to Logan?
She raced to the door and flung it open.

The man on the porch was a stranger, expensively dressed in a gray tweed suit and bowler hat. One hand carried a leather briefcase.

“Mrs. Devereaux?” His hair and neatly clipped moustache were streaked with gray. “Emma O’Toole Devereaux?”

“Yes.”

“Eli Hastings. I represent the Silver King Mining Company. May I come in?”

“Of course.” She backed away from the door. “Please have a seat. Can I get you some tea?”

“No tea, thank you.” He gave her a reassuring smile as he sat down on the sofa. “I’m hoping we can conclude our business in short order.”

Emma perched on the edge of the rocking chair, eyeing the stranger nervously.

Hastings removed his hat and set the briefcase on the coffee table in front of him. “I understand you’re the recorded owner of a claim in Woodside Gulch.”

“I am. When my fiancé died, he passed it on to me.”

Hastings nodded. “Yes, I’m quite familiar with your story, Mrs. Devereaux. Does your husband share your ownership of the claim?”

“No. He insisted it remain in my name alone.”

“So you alone would be authorized to sell it.”

“Sell it?” Emma’s heart broke into a gallop. “But it’s…Never mind.”

“My clients are mining the land to the north of your claim. They’ve discovered a vein of silver, one they have reason to believe runs through your property, as well.”

“So you’re offering to buy my claim?” Emma’s hand crept to her throat. Billy John hadn’t found more than a few grains of silver on that claim. She’d long believed the claim was worthless.

“Exactly. For a fair price, of course.”

“But…I could work the claim myself if I chose. Isn’t that right?”

“It is. But I wouldn’t advise that. The vein runs deep. Mining it would require the kind of resources only a big operation like the Silver King can manage. And there’s the legal aspect, as well.”

“The legal aspect?”

“There are some gray issues over a law that claims the discoverer of a vein can follow it wherever it goes, even under someone else’s property. If you chose to work that vein on your claim, or if we chose to go ahead and follow it from ours, the resulting dispute could be tied up in the courts for months, if not years, costing thousands in legal fees, to say nothing of wasted time. My clients feel it’s in everyone’s best interest to simply buy you out.”

“For how much?” Tension gripped Emma. If only Logan were here.

“My clients are honest men, Mrs. Devereaux. They have no desire to take advantage of you. I have the claim transfer and the bank draft in my briefcase. Our firm and final offer is one hundred thousand dollars.”

As the sun sank over the western peaks, Emma stood on the front porch. Her eyes peered anxiously down the road, toward the Chinese bridge and beyond. Surely Logan would be coming home soon.

She had passed the day in an agony of waiting, lifting the bank draft out of the drawer, staring at it, touching it, then replacing it and running out onto the porch to gaze down the road. She could hardly wait to tell Logan his
troubles were over. They were rich beyond her wildest dreams. They could put the money into a pump for the Constellation, buy a business, or even leave Park City and make a new start.

Supper was warming on the stove, but Emma had no appetite. She was still in shock.

Oh, where was he? Why didn’t he come home to her? By now she was getting worried. Maybe he was gambling in an effort to forget his problems. What if he’d been in an accident, or even, in a fit of despair…?

But she wouldn’t allow her mind to follow that thought. Logan was a fighter. It wouldn’t be like him to take his own life.

The sky had deepened to indigo by the time she saw him. He was trudging up the road, head down, shoulders slumped. Clearly his day hadn’t gone well. But all that was about to change.

Checking the impulse to run down the road and meet him, she waited on the porch. By now he would have seen the paper. And he’d know that she’d likely seen it, too.

He mounted the steps in the fading light, his face lined with weariness. Emma had been prepared to scold him for not telling her about the mine, but she didn’t have the heart. She
waited with open arms, almost weeping with relief when he walked into her embrace.

“You know, don’t you?” he murmured as she held him close.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Logan? Why did I have to learn about it in the paper?”

He sighed. “I was hoping the news might be better today.”

“And it isn’t, I take it.”

Logan shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s bad on all fronts.”

She could surprise him now, Emma thought. But the timing would be even better after they’d had a chance to talk.

“You must be hungry,” she said. “There’s pot roast on the stove. You can tell me everything over supper.”

Emma had taken pains to prepare a good meal. But her husband showed little interest in food. The bites he took seemed driven more by politeness than by hunger.

“I did manage to find a geologist in town,” he said. “We rode out to the mine, and he spent a few hours taking measurements and samples.” Logan shook his head. “In his estimation, the good vein we’ve been working runs below the present waterline. The only way to
keep mining it would be to install a pump and dig a drainage tunnel.”

“What about sinking a new shaft?”

“He said we’d only hit water again. And we’d be taking a chance on finding silver at all. Either way, we’re talking big money and big risk.” He fell silent, as if summoning the will to finish. “This afternoon I went to the bank. They won’t lend on a flooded mine. Neither will any of the other people I’ve approached. We’ve hit a wall, Emma. Without funds, the Constellation is finished.”

“No! No, it isn’t!” Emma was out of her chair, flying to the cabinet drawer where she’d put the bank draft. “Look!” She thrust it into his view. “I sold my claim today, to the Silver King, for a hundred thousand dollars!”

He stared at her as if her words hadn’t penetrated his exhaustion.

“My claim,” Emma said. “The one Billy John left me. The Silver King bought me out—we’re rich, Logan! You can buy the pump, drill your tunnel and have plenty of money left over!”

She waited for a happy response. He sighed and shook his head.

“Be still and listen to me, Emma. First thing tomorrow morning I want you to go to the bank, open an account in your name—your
name alone, mind you—and deposit all of that money in it. I won’t touch a cent of it, do you understand?”

She recoiled as if he’d slapped her. “But the money’s
ours
. You need it to save the mine.”