Betina Krahn (32 page)

“Beaaarr McQuaaaaid! You han’some devil, you—come on an’ give your fav’rite filly a big ol’ kiss!”

Diamond watched him jerk his head up to locate the source of that grating voice and, an instant later, saw him flattened against the wall by a typhoon of femininity. A blur of frizzed red hair and even redder silk taffeta engulfed him and kissed him as if she were claiming territory for the King of Spain.

“Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph—I’ve missed you!” It was difficult to tell whether Bear had pushed her away or she had simply come up for air.

“How are you, Silky?” Bear said with a husky laugh.

“Right as rain, now that you’re back, you handsome dog.”

Something—a pang of conscience or perhaps the heat of her stare—caused him to glance toward the women’s door, where he spotted her. Silky followed his gaze to her, then pulled back to allow him to stand upright.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Diamond said, her face on fire as she started past the pair. “I just need to collect Robbie and I’ll be on my way.”

“Diamond.” Bear lurched around Silky to grab her arm, but once he had it he seemed unsure just what to say to her. “This is … an old friend of mine. Silky Sutherland.” He turned to the flamboyant creature in the gaudy red dress. “Silky, this is my wife, Diamond Wingate … McQuaid.”

“Wife? Finnegan said you got hitched. Didn’t believe a word of it.” Silky gave a wicked laugh. “Till I heard she was rich.”

Silky swayed toward Diamond with her hands on her hips. Diamond stood her ground as she was circled and examined with insulting thoroughness. She was a heartbeat away from yanking out handfuls of frizzy red hair, when Silky stopped directly in front of her and looked her right in the eye.

“She’s pretty as a picture,” she continued, speaking to Bear. “No mystery here, McQuaid. Rich and beautiful—hell,
I’d
have married her, if I could!”

Diamond tucked her chin, staring in shock at the most brazen female she had ever met. From the corner of her eye she could see Bear squirming and looking pained. When she focused on Silky, the creature smiled at her … a beguiling expression that was honest and open and utterly fearless.

“You treatin’ my friend McQuaid right, Diamond Lady?”

It was a demand for a decision: would they be friends or foes? Diamond’s first thought was that she had never seen that much kohl on a women’s eyes before and her second
was that if Evelyn Vassar were here, she would most certainly be sinking into a ladylike swoon and expecting Diamond to do the same. But Evelyn wasn’t here, and Silky’s forthright manner had a defiant sense of freedom about it that Diamond was shocked to find she rather admired.

“I intend to wait until he falls asleep tonight,” Diamond said calmly, “before I kill him.”

Silky’s laughter was cut short by a male voice from behind Bear.

“Now, there’s a rousing endorsement of married life, if I ever heard one.”

A tall, rail-slender man in a dark, Western-style suit was standing on the wooden walk behind Bear … holding a cheroot in one hand and wearing a smile that had nothing to do with pleasure. The recognition on Bear’s face was not at all reassuring.

“Beecher,” he said as if the name fouled his mouth.

“McQuaid.” The man gave an exaggerated nod of acknowledgment, then turned his gaze full force on Diamond. “I believe congratulations are in order.”

“I don’t want anything from you, Beecher—not even congratulations.”

“Hardly a civilized response, McQuaid,” Beecher said with a wave of his smoking cigar, still staring too intently at Diamond. “But I suppose your lovely bride must learn the truth about you sooner or later. Lionel Beecher, ma’am.” He doffed his hat, then replaced it. “An old acquaintance of your husband’s. I pray you don’t measure all Montanans in his half-bushel.”

Bear rolled his right shoulder back and drew his arm aside to call Beecher’s attention to his side arm. Beecher glanced down at Bear’s revolver and with taunting deliberateness flicked back the side of his coat, revealing that he was unarmed.

“Oh, and just so you know,” Beecher continued with an
unpleasant smile. “I’ve filed an exception with the land office in Washington. I’ve told them there is only one way a spur line will be built between here and Billings … that’s if Mr. Gould, Mr. Harriman, and the Northern Pacific build it. You had your chance, McQuaid. It’s been more than twelve months, and you haven’t laid a single mile of track. No doubt you’ll be hearing from them soon.”

Diamond couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe. The air between the men crackled with animosity, lacking only the smallest spark to set it off.

“Hey—lemeeggo!” Robbie’s voice preceded him out the bathhouse door. An instant later he came flying out into the middle of the standoff with his wet hair standing on end and his shirt only half on. “Crazy bast—” He spotted Diamond and bit off the rest, substituting a scowl of indignation. “They poured scaldin’ water all over me in there—tried to cook me proper!”

The tension cracked and Diamond stepped through it to claim Bear’s arm.

“You’ll have to finish this conversation another time. Good day, Mr. Beecher.” She collected Robbie in her free hand and gave Silky Sutherland a fierce nod. “We should have tea someday, Miss Sutherland. I’m certain there is a lot you can tell me about … Montana.”

“Don’t
ever
do that again,” Bear said furiously as he trundled her up the steps of their private car.

“Or what?” She turned around, halfway up the steps, to face him. “You’ll pull your gun on me, too?”

“You don’t know who or what you’re dealing with.” He grabbed both railings and vaulted up onto the first step, expecting her to back up onto the platform. But she held her ground and they came suddenly chest to chest and eye to eye.

“Then you tell me what all that was about,” she challenged caught unexpectedly in the molten copper of his gaze. “Who is this Beecher fellow and why in heaven’s name did you threaten to pull a gun on him?”

“It’s none of your concern,” He tried to turn her but she refused to move and his hands on her shoulders unleashed the heat that had simmered between them for the last ten days. He stared at her lips; she stared at his. She felt his chest moving as he breathed; he felt her breasts surge against his chest.

“Wouldn’t you rather know about Silky?” His voice thickened.

“No.” Her mouth was going dry.

“Liar. Silky is a damn fine woman. And an even better friend.”

“I don’t want to hear about her, I want to hear about Beecher.”

His jaw clenched and the heat in his eyes cooled. “He’s Jay Gould’s handpicked henchman. A swindler. A cheat. A coward and a bully.”

“Who doesn’t wear a gun,” she charged.

“Who hires other scum to do his beating and shooting for him.”

“What did he mean … he’s filed an exception with the land office in Washington? What does that mean to the Montana Central and Mountain?”

“Nothing. We put up the money for the right-of-way and as long as we lay the track, the grants are ours. When we sell the land, we’ll recoup most of the loan money. Don’t worry, you’ll get your blessed money back … every damned penny of it.”

The words rumbled through her.
Your money
. The stubborn heat in his eyes and the exasperation that caused his hands to tremble suggested that he was speaking impulsively … and forthrightly. For the moment at least, he
seemed to mean what he said.
You’ll get your blesset money back
. He spoke as if he still considered her asses
hers
, instead of
his
. Her heart skipped a beat and then began to thud wildly. Was it possible that he had just wanted a loan in the first place? That he really had intended to ask her for the money, to make her a business proposition?

Just then a familiar figure came racing down the siding toward them. It was Halt, trailed closely by Robbie.

“I was lookin’ for ye. Johnson’s quit?” Halt panted as he grabbed onto the handrail of the steps.

“Quit?” Bear stepped down with one foot onto the gravel by the tracks. “But he can’t just—What the hell happened?”

“Don’t know. He left a paper at th’ office sayin’ he quit—I just found it. Went straight to ‘is room at the boardin’ house … he’s cleared out. Paid up his room an’ cleared out, survey gear an’ all.”

“Damnation.” Bear pounded the handrail with a fist.

“Who is Johnson?” she asked Halt.

“Our engineer,” Bear responded for him. “He surveyed and staked out our first twenty miles, and until yesterday, he headed up the crew preparing the rail bed.” He looked at Halt with his chest heaving. “How much did they get done?”

“Don’t know, lad,” the Irishman said. “Haven’t been out there in two or three days.” He was already on his way before Bear had a chance to speak. “I’ll get th’ horses.”

When Diamond called after him that she would need one, too, he nodded and waved to acknowledge that he’d heard and would oblige.

“You’re not going,” Bear declared flatly as he pushed by her up the steps and ducked inside the car. “You’re staying right here.”

“
No
, I am not.” She hurried in after him and dropped her satchel, and folded her arms. “This is what I stayed to
see … what I suffered ten long days cooped up in a train car to witness. And I’m not going to miss a minute of it.”

Bear stopped in the middle of sorting the papers on the desk and looked up. The flame visible in her eyes burned all the way to his soul. She expected him to fail and she wanted to be there to see it. For one fleeting moment, he experienced a deep sinking sensation. Was it already too late? Staring at her, recalling the warmth and tenderness he had once touched inside her, he shook off those despairing thoughts. He was going to build this railroad or die trying.

By the time they set off from Great Falls, heading south and east, their party included Bear, Halt, Diamond, and Nigel Ellsworth, their newly appointed engineer. Following the prepared track bed, they reached the construction camp by mid-afternoon. There were tools scattered hither and yon, an abandoned, half-cleared work site nearby, and not a man to be seen.

Bear called out as he dismounted, but got no response. He and Halt stalked through the camp, ducking into the four tents and locating two warm bodies. When the men were dragged out into the warmth of the afternoon sun and lay sprawled on the ground, it was immediately apparent that they were in no condition to work. The smell of stale whiskey reached Diamond, yards away.

“Falling-down drunk!” Bear grabbed one by the collar and pulled him up onto his knees. “What the hell happened here? Where’s Johnson?”

“He run off,” the miscreant declared. “Th’ rest hightailed it back t’ town.”

“Where did he go?” Halt demanded.

The fellow shrugged, swayed, and squinted against the sun. “Some fellers rode in t’ camp an’ talked to ’im. Next thing we knowed, he was packin’ it in.”

“What fellers?” Halt demanded. “Think, man! Was one of them tall an’ lean—dressed fancy an’ smokin’ a cheroot?” Bear didn’t have to see the wretch’s nod to know the answer.

“
Beecher.
” Bear stalked toward the edge of the small camp with his hands on his hips, and stood staring at the wind-ruffled prairie grass. “He got to Johnson—bought him off or ran him off, or both. No wonder he was so damned smug this morning. Without an engineer, he figured we would be—” Feeling Diamond’s gaze on him, he squared his shoulders and strode back to his new engineer and ordered him down from his horse.

“This is where you start to work, my friend.” Bear indicated the roadbed they had just ridden along on their way from town. “What do you think? Can we start building on it tomorrow?”

“I—I—don’t see why not.” Ellsworth adjusted his spectacles and collected himself. His knees wobbled slightly as he made for the track bed, walked up and down it, and toed out a few clumps of dirt and rock. “The foundation seems solid enough. I suppose we should … check the base and see what we’re on. I’ll need some surveying equipment.”

“Get started,” Bear ordered. “We’ll see you get what you need.” He glanced up at Diamond, his mood grim, then turned to Halt. “We’ll have to get the men together and send a crew out here. We have to get the cars switched and recoupled tonight. I want to be ready to start laying track at first light.”

Long after dark, that night, two hulking figures slipped down the dark alley between the land office and the Sweetwater Saloon. They were admitted to the back door of the saloon, where they stood by the door, letting
their eyes adjust to the light of the storeroom. Sitting in the midst of those barrels, kegs, and crates of bottles, was a makeshift planking desk spread with a map of the surrounding territory. And poring over that map was Lionel Beecher.

He looked up and pinned them to the spot with a murderous glare. “Sikes and Carrick. What the hell have you two been doing?”

“We had to help switch cars an’—”

“Not that, you numskull—what have you been doing to sabotage McQuaid’s railroad? Or did you forget what I’m paying you to do?”

The two glanced at each other and jammed their hands into their trouser pockets. “Wull … we jus’ got here,” the one called Sikes offered.

“Cretins. I’m surrounded by cretins.” Beecher wheeled on one of his stone-faced gunmen. “You see what I have to put up with?” Then he turned back, gliding around the desk toward his beefy henchmen like a diamondback ready to strike.

“There were a thousand things you could have done to prevent his damned crane and rails from even reaching here. Uncouple a car or two—cut a brake line—set something on fire—do I have to think of
everything
?”

“Wull—we dumped one o’ them carloads o’ steel,” Carrick offered.

“Not successfully, I take it,” Beecher sneered.

“McQuaid—he made us stay up half the night haulin’ it back up on th’ car,” Sikes declared with injury, as if still smarting from the imposed indignity of manual labor.

Beecher stared at the pair. “I see. So you decided not to make any more work for yourselves.” He brought a fist crashing down on the desk and they flinched. “Well, the free ride’s over for you idiots. I want to see some disruption,
some trouble, some
chaos
, and I want to see it now—tonight!”