California Caress

“Name another one,” she insisted breathlessly. “One that I can meet.”

Although he doubted she was aware of it, the girl’s eyes were round with an odd mixture of desperation and fear. Even a fool could see that the terror shimmering in that tearful gaze was genuine, and Drake Frazier was no fool. Reluctantly, he pushed her away.

Hope took a ragged gulp of air and leaned heavily against the door, all the while wondering why her body suddenly felt cold in the spots his hands had warmed.

“That,” he said as he retrieved the bottle and glass, “is my price. Meet it or not, it doesn’t matter to me.”

Her mind raced. Of course she couldn’t meet his price, and for reasons other than the obvious, but she wasn’t about to confess it to him. No, there had to be another way. Jenny Clarke was the first idea to spring to mind, and Hope pounced on it like a starving cat would a mouse. “What if I were to arrange a—um—meeting with someone else?” She rubbed her hands together nervously and tried to gauge his reaction. Damn it, but that face could be as emotionless as a stone! “Would that meet your—er—needs?”

Drake casually returned to the chair, stretching his lean frame out and crossing his ankles beneath the bed. He polished off her unfinished drink, all the while eying her over the rim of the glass. “Depends. Who’d you have in mind?”

Lie, Hope, lie.

“A friend of mine,” she answered evasively. Her mind was running in circles as she tried to think of a polite way to describe the brassy redhead, a girl who would lie with any miner who said please in the form of a sack of gold dust. “You’d like her,” she rushed on when he sent her a skeptical glance. “She’s very well endow—er, cute.” Well, she could be, she reasoned, except for the abundance of color the girl caked on her face. “And she knows how to make a man happy.” Ah, now that much was definitely true. Any prospector seen leaving Jenny Clarke’s shanty sported a grin of satisfaction longer than the Ohio River. “Would that arrangement be suitable?”

Please, dear God let him say yes. Why is he shaking his head no?

“Why not?” she cried. She caught herself before she could stamp her foot in childish frustration, but the urge was still there.

His eyes were narrowed, his gaze warm and insinuating. “I’ve already stated my price. Now it’s up to you to decide how much your brother’s life is worth to you.” His voice hardened. “Keep in mind, though, these fights can get messy.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she asked, shaking her head incredulously. Hugging her arms close to her chest, she sidestepped the chair and went to the window. It was too smeared with dirt to see much more than the inky black sky above. “I didn’t just get off a ship in San Francisco yesterday, Mr. Frazier. My family and I have been in the mines almost two years now. We’ve seen more than our fair share of fights over claims.” She suppressed a shiver. The memories—one in particular—still had the power to make her blood run cold. The clink of glass meeting glass was followed by the sound of gin splashing into his glass.

“I saw a Swede fight a guy once,” she said when he held his peace. Her voice was soft, no stronger than the wind. “He was big, tall, blond. His poor opponents didn’t stand a chance.”

“Opponents? There were more than one?”

“Um-hmmm,” she murmured, lost to the memory. “There were two, the guy originally chosen to fight, and the one who stepped in for him when his friend fell. Both were carted away in a burlap sack. Or, more correctly, what was left of them. Neither lived to tell the tale.” Slowly, her voice grew stronger as she turned and fixed Frazier with a cold glare. “You see, Mr. Frazier, the winner cheated. He used a knife to win the round. Not that it made any difference to the two dead men.

“To the miners’ way of thinking, the Swede won the fight fair and square,” she said, her voice filled with contempt. “Who knows? Maybe if the two men hadn’t been so new to the mines they would have known that cheating is a way of life to most prospectors. But they were new, they didn’t know. They fought a gentleman’s fight with a man who was as much a gentleman as a cast iron skillet is a teapot, and they lost their lives in the bargain.”

Shaking her head in disgust, she turned back to the window. “I still don’t understand it. The Swede had size and strength on his side. He could have whipped his smaller opponents without even working up a sweat. He didn’t. He cut them down instead. And all I could do was stand there and watch.” She cleared her throat and wiped what looked suspiciously like a tear from her cheek. “The Swede passed by me, on his way to the saloon afterward. I heard a friend ask him why he’d bothered with the knife. ‘I was winnin’ the card game,’ he said.” She gave an emotionless chuckle. “He killed the two men quick so he could get back to a goddamn game of cards!” her fist hit the window casing, and the force of the blow surprised even Hope. “Sometimes, in the middle of the night when I can’t get to sleep, that voice still haunts me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.” She turned to Frazier, who was watching her intently. Her dark brown face shimmered with desperation. “I can’t let that happen to my brother. Not if I can stop it.”

He lowered the glass from his lips. “Your brother is a big boy. I think he can take care of himself.”

“No.” she shook her head vigorously. “You don’t understand. Luke will fight fair. He might be a bit slow with things, but he’s a southerner born and bred. He’ll fight like a gentleman and expect his opponents to do the same. He won’t know what to do if the Swede pulls a knife, or tries some other dirty trick.”

Drake eyed her long and hard, then turned his attention away. His voice, when it came, was hard and uncompromising. “Your devotion is admirable, but you’re asking a hell of a lot from me. My price still stands, sunshine. You want my cooperation, you pay the price—my price.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath as her heart plunged. Reluctantly, the words formed on her tongue, but she had to push them forcibly past her lip. “All right,” she said, her voice shaking almost as badly as her hands. “I’ll do it.”

There, she had said it, she had agreed to the impossible. So why don’t I feel any better? she wondered as she inched her way to the door. Why did she feel like a mouse cornered in a trap of its own making? Deep down, she knew why, but she pushed the answer away, banishing it to a hidden corner of her mind as her hand rested on the doorknob.

The feel of a hand on her cheek made her jump and spin around. She hadn’t heard Frazier leave the chair, hadn’t heard his silent tread as he crossed the floor. That he had done it so swiftly and stealthily was, of course, the reason for the sudden racing of her heart. Or so she told herself—repeatedly—as her lids flew open and her gaze was so captured by intense, searching sea-green eyes.

Her throat constricted until she felt as though she would die of suffocation. Surely he wouldn’t demand payment now. Yet, as his lips slowly descended toward her own, she found that prepayment was exactly what Frazier expected.

“No.” she cried, turning her face away to that his lips landed harmlessly on her cheek. Well, not quite harmlessly. Her flesh was sizzling beneath the tender caress of his mouth.

“Don’t play games with me, sunshine,” a husky voice whispered in her ear as he buried his face in the sweet-smelling softness of her hair. The silky smooth tresses had the distinctively enticing aroma of blossoming lilac petals. A rare scent to be had in these parts to be sure, and one that Drake found he thoroughly enjoyed.

“I’m not playing games,” she insisted, forcing her voice to sound calm, rational, everything that her insides were not. She pushed against his chest. Hadn’t she learned by now that struggling with Frazier was worse than useless? “I’m not foolish enough to pay you before you do your job. You’ll—” she hesitated, her mind racing as she was allowed space to pull slightly back, “you’ll get paid Saturday night, after the fight. That is, if you show up.”

“Oh, I’ll show, alright,” he replied, his voice a warm rush of breath in her ear, “with the right incentive.”

His hands cupped her cheeks, and this time Hope had no opportunity to turn away as his lips claimed her own. Like the man, his kiss was hard and probing, demandingly insistent. She thought about pulling away. His fingers banished that thought as they traveled a slow, hot path over her cheeks, tickling the sensitive hollow behind her ears before his palms moved to support the back of her head. He pulled her closer than he had any right to, but she was beyond trying to stop him.

His lips tasted of gin, but then, so did hers. The taste was not all that unpleasant now. Indeed, just the opposite—it was wonderful, magnificent. Her knees felt suddenly weak, and it was against her will that she leaned against him, molding her body into the hard length of his.