The Sheriff (Historical Romance) (9 page)

T
he Bird Cage was Fortune’s newly built opera house. It was an imposing three-story brick structure with wide swinging doors opening into a spacious antechamber with a floor made of gleaming white marble. A lush carpet of deep turquoise covered the grand staircases at each side of the vestibule.

All stairs led up into the large audience room, where row upon row of adjustable seats afforded patrons an unobstructed view of the stage. Turquoise velvet curtains trimmed in gold were yet to be raised as an eager assembly predominantly of men scrambled into their seats on this hot Saturday night.

Directly below the curtained stage, an eight-piece pit orchestra tuned their instruments.

Half a dozen private boxes flanked the walls on either side of the stage. They, too, were upholstered
in turquoise velvet, and featured gold lace curtains that allowed the occupants a degree of privacy.

It was to one of these private boxes that Winn DeLaney and Kate VanNam were directed by a helpful usher. Kate was aglow with excitement as she sat down upon a gilt-and-turquoise chair. Her escort, handsome in his dark evening clothes, motioned for the usher to draw the curtains at the back of the box.

Leaning forward on the gilt-painted railing, Kate eagerly looked all around the impressive theater. Below, on the main floor, every seat was taken, but there was not a woman in the crowd. She wondered if she was to be the only female present.

Then she noticed that in a private box on the wall directly across the auditorium, the beautiful Valentina Knight sat alone. Valentina was stunning in a low-cut gown of ice blue taffeta. Sapphires and diamonds flashed on her pale throat, and a snow white gardenia was placed in her dark hair.

“You’re much lovelier than she,” Winn DeLaney whispered.

“I beg your pardon?”

He smiled and nodded to the dark-haired woman in the box across from them. “You were staring at that lady.”

Kate flushed. “Yes, I suppose I was.”

Winn reached for her hand. “She’s pretty. But not nearly as pretty as you.”

“You know her?”

“She sings at the Golden Nugget,” Winn stated matter-of-factly. “I stopped in there on my second night in Fortune.” His fingers closed around Kate’s and gently squeezed. “Before I met you. I haven’t been back since.”

“Did I ask?”

“No, but I wish you had.” He turned his most dazzling smile on Kate. “I’d like you to be a little jealous.”

Just then the heavy turquoise curtain began to slowly rise. The whistles and applause were deafening.

The celebrated Lola Montez sang and danced to the delight of her captive audience. Kate accepted the opera glasses Winn magically produced, and gazed at the woman on stage. She had read about the celebrated entertainer’s three marriages and numerous love affairs, so she was surprised to see that Miss Montez was not particularly beautiful. Nor was she all that talented.

But the lusty miners whistled and stomped and were soon chanting, “Do the spider dance! Do the spider dance!”

Leaning close, Kate said in Winn’s ear, “What do they mean? What’s the spider dance?”

“I don’t know, but I imagine we’re about to find out.”

The dark-haired Lola gave the miners what they wanted, though Kate found the performance startling, almost laughable. Montez engaged in a series of whirling motions, during which spiders made of cork, rubber and whalebone were shaken out of her full skirts.

Kate looked at Winn.

He winked at her.

“Silly, isn’t it?” he whispered. And before Kate could answer, he raised an arm, laid it along the back of her chair and said, “I’m not interested in Lola Montez. I’m only interested in you. Kiss me, Miss VanNam.”

“Winn DeLaney! We’re in a crowd of people.”

“Ah, but no one’s looking at us,” he pointed out. “They’re all watching Lola.”

The prospect of being kissed in a roomful of people was, for some reason, incredibly exciting to Kate. Suddenly she wanted to be kissed.

“Yes,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. “Yes, kiss me, please.”

Winn smiled, laid a hand on her cheek, turned her face more fully toward his and kissed her. His lips were warm and smooth on hers, but the kiss was as chaste and as brief as the others they had shared. In the blink of an eye it was over.

You call that a kiss?
The sheriff’s taunting words instantly flashed into her mind, and she had to agree that Travis had been right.

Kate felt disappointed. And guilty.

The kiss had not been thrilling. It did not send a flush to her cheeks.

It wasn’t remotely like the one time Travis Mc-Cloud had kissed her, and he hadn’t even asked if he could. He had just reached out and hauled her into
his arms. The vivid recollection of that dazzling kiss still had the power to make her tingle and squirm.

And to want more.

Kate nervously glanced at Winn. He was looking directly at her. She stiffened. Had he read her guilty thoughts? She hoped not. She didn’t want him ever to know that she fantasized about the brash, seductive sheriff.

Winn DeLaney was the consummate gentleman and she was grateful that he was. He could have kissed her the way McCloud had, but he had too much respect for her.

“A penny for your thoughts, Kate,” Winn whispered.

“I was thinking,” she lied, “that I wish you’d kiss me again.”

“Ah, Kate, sweet Kate,” he said, and brushed his lips to hers.

The pair held hands through the rest of the performance and whispered to each other. Kate was pleased by Winn’s interest in her. He asked dozens of questions. He wanted to know all about her, including her previous life back in Boston. He teased her about her search for gold, then seemed truly engrossed when she declared that she believed there was gold in the Cavalry Blue.

“I’m convinced there’s gold in the mine,” Kate said. “It’s not just some pipe dream. My great-aunt’s husband, Benjamin Colfax, was given the claim by Colonel Freemont himself for charting and mapping
the Sierras in 1844. Uncle Benjamin was an educated geologist with mining experience, and on his deathbed he told Aunt Arielle that there was gold, lots of gold, in the Cavalry Blue. He told her to keep it in the family, to never give it up. She kept the promise, but she returned to San Francisco and an easier life.” Kate abruptly stopped speaking, embarrassed by her fervor.

But Winn had not missed a word. “Go on, my dear, I’m fascinated.”

“It’s there, I know the gold is there, and I intend to bring it out one day.”

Kate told Winn about Chang Li, disclosed the location of the mine and said that she and Chang Li were about to give up on finding any more placer. They were now focused on quartz—or hard rock—mining.

Kate talked and talked, and the attentive Winn hung on every word. He looked directly into her eyes and made her feel as though she were the most entertaining company he had ever enjoyed.

When Lola Montez’s performance ended, they wisely waited until the thirsty miners had exited the auditorium and headed for the saloons.

The crowds had dispersed when Kate and Winn came out of the Bird Cage. The sidewalk in front of the opera house was nearly deserted.

But not quite.

Marshall Travis McCloud stood just outside, leaning back against the wall, his thumbs hooked in his gun
belt, one of his knees bent, his foot raised so the sole of his boot rested against the building’s rough brick facade. The sheriff glanced at the pair and nodded.

“Evening, Miss VanNam, Mr. DeLaney.”

Winn laid a proprietary hand on Kate’s arm and drew her closer. “Sheriff,” he acknowledged. “Did you catch Miss Montez’s performance?”

Travis grinned and lowered his foot to the sidewalk. “I was inside,” he said. “But I didn’t see much of her act.”

“Late to arrive, Sheriff?” Winn asked politely.

Travis shook his head. “I was there the whole time.”

“Oh?”

“In an official capacity. Watching the crowd.” Travis looked directly at Kate. “Making sure everyone behaved themselves.”

K
ate had given up on finding any more placer.

She now joined Chang Li in the Cavalry Blue, working alongside him, hacking at the stubborn rock, hoping to find the illusive vein of color. She quickly realized what a monumental task lay before them.

As good as his word, Chang Li knew a great deal about mining for gold. He had already built a rocker, which was a necessity to the quartz mining they were undertaking. The sturdy, oblong wooden box was three feet in length and mounted on curved wooden rockers.

Chang Li had nailed wooden bars that he called “riffles” along the cradle’s open end. He’d stretched a piece of canvas over the wooden frame and placed it at a slant inside the upper end of the rocker. He had then fitted a handle on a metal screen called a hopper, and placed it at the top of the cradle above the canvas.

“Just tell me what we’re supposed to do with this contraption,” Kate said on her first morning at the mine, when a beaming Chang Li proudly showed her the hopper.

She was dressed for the undertaking in a pair of britches and rubber knee boots she’d bought at Barton’s Emporium. She looked from Chang Li to the hopper and said, “Together we’re going to find gold in the rock, aren’t we?”

Chang Li bobbed his head and demonstrated how the hopper worked. Kate quickly learned that this phase involved hard, backbreaking work.

First, they would hack at the stubborn stone. Once they had filled a couple of big buckets with the loosened rock, they carried the buckets out of the shaft and dumped the ore into the cradle.

Then they had to trudge all the way down to the lake, fill the buckets with water and return to the hopper. Kate poured water over the rock and gravel while Chang Li rocked the hopper. The rocking motion caused the water to wash over the gravel, which strained through the hopper and canvas screen, allowing any gold sediment to gather in the riffles below.

Nothing gathered in the riffles.

There was no gold in the rock.

The tedious exercise had to be repeated over and over again. At day’s end, Kate was more tired than she’d ever been in her life.

As she and Chang Li walked down the mountain,
she said, “Chang Li, I’m beginning to think they’re right. There’s no gold in the Cavalry Blue.”

The little man frowned and shook his head. “Not give up! Not quit! Will find gold. Just take a while.”

Kate tried to rally. “You’re right. We can’t give up, can we?”

“No, not ever. If give up, then Missy have to leave Fortune. And I never bring wife and child to America.”

Kate smiled and said, “I’ll meet you at the mine bright and early tomorrow.”

“I be there,” he said, and left her.

When she got home that evening, Kate was so bone tired she wanted to do nothing but lie down and rest.

Cal greeted her when she came into the yard, but it was not the “I’m glad to see you” sweet meow. Instead it was the “I’m starving, where’s my food” mewling as he rubbed up against her aching legs.

“Okay, okay,” Kate said to the whining feline, and went inside with him close on her heels. “Why don’t you get out and hunt food like you did before I moved in?”

Cal ignored the question and raced toward the kitchen. He devoured the leftover pork she gave him, while Kate stood at the cabinet and ate a cold supper of bread and cheese and jerked beef. After only a few bites, she made a face and tossed the beef to Cal. He pounced on it, ate it quickly, licked his chops and then begged for more.

“It’s all gone,” she said, then turned and walked toward the drawing room.

Cal passed her in the corridor. He raced toward the open front door, shot out onto the porch and disappeared as the last light of day cast long shadows throughout the silent mansion.

Kate lit the coal oil lamp and sank tiredly down onto the rose sofa. She bent forward, drew off the rubber boots and stockings, then leaned back and sighed. She was dirty. She badly needed a bath. But she was tired. Dead tired.

She yawned, rose from the sofa, walked out into the corridor and closed the heavy front door against the gathering night. She went back into the drawing room, blew out the lamp, stripped down to her skin and drew on her nightgown.

She stretched out on her back, sighed and closed her eyes. In minutes she was sound asleep.

Much later that night, Kate awakened.

Bright moonlight streamed in through the windows and fell across the sofa where she lay. Reaching for the small clock she kept on the floor beneath the sofa next to her pistol, she saw that it was ten past two in the morning.

Kate put the clock back in its place, sat up and swung her legs to the floor. It was a miserably hot night. She was perspiring, her face was shiny, her gown was sticking to her skin. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, she rose from the sofa.

On that sweltering June night Travis lay in bed in his private quarters behind the city jail, wide awake as usual. He was worrying about Kate VanNam up there all alone in that secluded mansion. At least he supposed she was alone. Travis frowned. Maybe not. Maybe Winn DeLaney was…

“Damnation!” Travis swore and got out of bed. He drew on his trousers, tugged on his boots and grabbed a shirt. He reached for his gun belt and went out the rear door.

Travis skirted the backs of the buildings and disappeared into the forest. Muttering under his breath, he trudged up to Kate’s place. When he reached the clearing he saw that the house was dark. Satisfied she was alone and sound asleep, Travis considered returning immediately to his quarters, but instead he chose a towering pine and sat down beneath it. Reaching inside his breast pocket for a cigar, he suddenly stopped, blinked and then squinted.

Kate had come out onto the porch wearing nothing but a nightgown.

Travis stared, entranced, as she skipped barefooted down the front steps and crossed the yard. She was headed for the lake. Hardly daring to breathe, Travis watched as she paused at the water’s edge, looked warily around and, seeing no one, lifted her gown over her head and dropped it to the ground.

Naked, she stood unmoving for a fleeting moment—just
long enough for Travis to get a good look at her beautiful, unclothed body. Then she waded out into the moon-silvered lake and began to swim.

It was all Travis could do to keep from stripping and joining her in the cool, clear water. Perspiring, burning up, he became unreasonably angry as he watched her slicing gracefully through the water. Damn her! What if someone other than him was watching?

Travis rose to his feet.

When Kate began to tire and swam back to shore, she was horrified to see the sheriff standing there holding her nightgown. She screamed and ordered him off her property.

“I’ll go,” he told her, “but not before you get back inside that house and stay there.”

Arms crossed over her breasts, Kate sank down into the waist-high water and shouted at him, “I am
not
getting out of this water until you are gone.”

“Yes, you are,” he stated firmly, and started to come in after her.

“All right, all right, I’ll get out, but you have to turn your back.”

It took every bit of willpower he possessed to not look at her, but he obeyed. He held the nightgown behind him. Scowling, Kate stalked out of the water and grabbed the gown away from him.

“Don’t you dare turn around,” she warned, and anxiously drew the gown over her head and stuck her
arms through the sleeves. She yanked the long tails down past her knees and grimaced when she saw how the thin batiste fabric stuck to her wet flesh.

Travis stood facing away from her, knowing she was naked, wanting to turn and look at her. He was coiled as tightly as a watch spring. His jaw was clenched and his heart was hammering. Perspiration beaded his hairline and dampened his shirt.

“Now,” she said, “you may leave!”

Travis didn’t leave.

Instead he turned to face her and then reached for her.

“What do you think you’re doing!” she protested, pushing against his broad chest.

He yanked her up into his arms and carried her, kicking and screaming, back up to the house.

He deposited her on the front porch and said, “Get inside that house and lock the door, which, as you may recall, I hung to keep you safe. And stay there, Miss VanNam.”

“You go to blazes, Marshal. You don’t own me. You can’t make me do anything.”

“You’d be surprised what I can make you do,” he said with a soft drawl as he reached out and plucked at the wet nightgown clinging to her breasts.

Kate slapped his hand away, looked down and was mortified to see her tightened nipples stood out and were as visible as if she wore nothing at all. “Get off my property! You’re trespassing, Sheriff.”

“I’m going,” he said, “but you keep running around here naked and the Vigilance Committee will have me throw you in jail for indecent exposure.”

“Leave!” she shrieked, trembling despite the heat of the night.