Betina Krahn (39 page)

“I doubt you came to enjoy my hospitality, either.”

Bear’s smile had nothing to do with humor. “I came to talk to you about my former engineer, Johnson … a dry riverbed … and an offer you made to Jim Danvers.”

“Danvers? Don’t recall the fellow,” Beecher said with
nasty pleasure. “But then, I’ve made a good many offers in my day.”

“One too many.” Bear flexed his shoulders, loosening, preparing. “I’ve come to see you take back the one you made to Danvers.”

“Refresh my memory, McQuaid.” The glint in Beecher’s eye made Bear’s hands clench at his sides. “Just what did I promise him?”

“That his family wouldn’t live to see harvest if he sold us his land adjoining our right-of-way,”

“It’s coming back to me.” Beecher reached for his glass and downed the contents. “Not one of my more inspired threats, I’m afraid. He had such a brood of brats, losing only one or two of them wouldn’t much matter. And that woman of his is such a pious little drudge, she wouldn’t provide much sport. But losing the lot of them … even a stoic little worm like him would have to feel a certain amount of discomfort at that prospect.”

“You’re going to take it back. And you’re going to leave town … carrying this message to Jay Gould: we’re pushing this track through to Billings before snowfall. And there’s nothing you or he or anybody else can do about it.”

“Brave words … for a man outnumbered two to one.

Bear watched the trio of gunmen at the tables sitting straighter, sizing him up, and the ivory handles at the bar squaring off on him, behind Beecher.

“Only two to one?” Bear smiled coldly. “You’re not participatin’? For once, Beecher, be a man. My quarrel isn’t with them. It’s not them I’m callin’ a liar and a bully and a damned coward. It’s you.” He shifted, ever so slightly, so that his right shoulder, right arm, and right hip were slightly forward. His gun felt heavy and familiar on his hip. In his mind, his hand was already snapping up, seizing his gun, and pulling back the hammer as he drew it from its
holster. His shoulders were twisting, his left shoulder jerking back to present a smaller target, even as the powder in the chamber exploded and the gun recoiled in his grip.

“You in the blue shirt,” Bear said, without taking his eyes from Beecher. “Give him your gun.”

There was a long, volatile silence as the gunman looked between Bear and his employer. Beecher sealed his fate when he gave a snort of contempt.

“He’s not your trained monkey, McQuaid. He’s mine.”

The flint-faced gunman tossed a speaking glance to his companions and apparently found them of like mind. He eased back in his chair and flipped open the buckle of his gun belt. Keeping his gun hand well away from the revolver, he drew the belt from around him and laid it on the table. Beecher’s face flamed as his hired gunman gave the weapon a shove toward him.

Beecher looked from one gunman to another, demanding they intervene. Their sullen stares declared that they saw this as a matter of guts, a test of honor, in which none of them intended to interfere. Even “trained monkeys,” their pointed refusal said, had their limits.

“This is absurd,” Beecher declared, tensing. “I’m not a gunfighter.”

“That makes two of us,” Bear declared with deadly calm. “Strap it on.”

Bear could almost taste Beecher’s anxiety, could almost feel the way his heart was beginning to pound, could certainly see the trouble he was having swallowing. By the time Beecher moved toward the table, Bear would have put the odds at fifty-fifty that he would accept or refuse the challenge.

As Beecher picked up the gun and unbuttoned his coat, he tossed a speaking look at the bartender, who reached under the counter and pulled out a shotgun. One fleshy thumb pulled back the hammers on both barrels at once.
The gun came down to rest on the bar, and the bartender swiveled it so that it was aimed straight at Halt. Bear stepped to the side in order to keep the bartender and Beecher both in his sights.

“Insurance,” Beecher said with an ugly smirk. “To keep things fair.”

Like hell. If Bear were the one left standing, the bartender would likely cut him down on the spot … or so Beecher wanted him to believe. It was pressure that Bear didn’t need and helped to even the odds.

With slow, deliberate movements, Beecher buckled on the gun belt and tied it down on his thigh. Then they faced each other squarely, and Bear took a deep—

“Stop!” A blur of green and white, wearing a black hat with a white feather, burst through the swinging doors. Both Bear and Beecher whirled, but only Bear’s gun cleared the holster before the face and figure of the speaker registered.

Diamond froze, staring down the barrel of Bear’s gun and into his fiercely narrowed eyes. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Those memorable copper eyes eased, then widened in horrified recognition.

“Bear, you can’t do this,” she said hoarsely, glancing down at the chilling circle of steel pointing her way.

“Get out of here,” Bear snarled, lowering the gun only slightly.

She swallowed the fear collecting in her throat and made her feet move … forward. “Please—you have to listen to me—”

“Diamond—dammit!” he roared. “Get out of here!”

“No.” She swallowed hard again. “Put away that gun and listen.”

“If you don’t leave now—go back to camp!”

“No. Not unless you come with me,” she said, planting herself directly between him and Beecher. She could see a
vein throbbing in his temple and knew she was trampling his manly pride and independence. Better that, she told herself, than trampling across his grave.

“I’ve solved our land problem.” She pulled a folded paper from her skirt pocket and opened it, holding it up … partly for him to see it and partly to block his view of Beecher. Exploding forward, he smashed the paper down and grabbed it from her in the same movement.

“Are you crazy? Do you want to get killed?”

“No, I’m not crazy. I’m determined.” She pulled on the paper and his hand came up with it. “I was able to arrange a special lease. We won’t have to purchase anything. The use of the land is ours for one hundred twelve years … until 1999.”

He glanced furiously at the paper in his hand, then held it out to Halt, who had risen. The Irishman took it from him and looked it over.

“It’s a land lease, all right,” he confirmed, his eyes widening. “Like she said. One hundred twelve years. No purchase involved.”

Bear looked down at her, then at Beecher, whose face looked like blood on granite.

“Danvers’s land, I take it,” Beecher said, lowering his gaze to her and his voice to a menacing murmur. “A lease. No
purchase
involved. What a clever little wife you have, McQuaid.”

“Go back to camp, Diamond,” Bear said fiercely.

“No.” She faced him, praying he would read the softer, more frantic plea in her eyes. “I won’t go … unless you come with me.”

“Do go, my boy,” Beecher said with a notable relaxation of manner. “There will be plenty of time for murdering me later. Count on it.”

As Bear wavered, Beecher ripped open the holster ties, raised both hands into view, and then lowered one to undo
the gun belt buckle. The thud and then metallic clank of the gun hitting the floor somehow snapped the last of Bear’s restraint.

He jammed his gun into his holster, ducked, and rammed his shoulder into her stomach—hoisting her up onto his shoulder. She began to flail frantically as they reached the door and didn’t stop until they reached their mounts and he dropped her into the dirt beside her horse.

“Mount up!” he ordered.

Bear was furious enough to throttle her. He ran the devil out of his horse instead, leaving her to trail behind with Halt until they reached camp. He pounced to the ground, paced furiously … then charged down the track to the first man he saw with a hammer, wrenched it from him, and proceeded to bash several spikes into unrecognizable lumps.

By suppertime, he had stalked and snarled enough to put the entire camp on its ear. Halt tried to drag him aside and talk some sense into him, but he warned his partner off and continued to work like the proverbial Irish banshee.

He told himself that he’d give both himself and her time to cool off. He didn’t need to compound the trouble between them by erupting with all the anger and accusations he felt toward her. She was probably just trying to help, in her own misguided way. He needed to stay calm and collected. He needed to plan out what he was going to say. Their future together depended on him laying down the law and forbidding her from interfering with his railroad
and inserting herself into matters as dangerous as those this afternoon.

Then she came around with her big enameled coffeepot and he saw the men turning—none too subtly—to collect his reaction. How the hell had his relationship with her become the business of every man on the crew?

That annoyance was minor compared to what he felt when she swayed over to him with her back straight and her chin raised, looking as if she were doing him a huge favor to be seen in the same territory with him. He glanced up, caught her gaze unexpectedly in his, and felt as if he’d been struck by the blue lightning in her eyes. She was furious with him.

She
was furious with
him!

Broadsided by that bolt of feminine anger, he jumped to his feet, ripped the pot from her hands, and for the second time that day hoisted her onto his shoulder, and carried her off, kicking and squealing in outrage. He stalked through the camp, through the picket lines, through the piles of brush cleared from the track bed … out into the twilight.

By the time he set her on her feet, she was well winded and thoroughly rattled … unable to do anything but listen to what he had to say.

“What the hell did you think you were doing this afternoon?” he roared.

He had underestimated her ability to talk as long as she drew breath.

“Saving your damnable railroad,” she panted out, holding her aching ribs. “Not to mention your stubborn, prideful neck!”

“I didn’t
need
saving.”

“Oh, yes, you did … from yourself, if not from Beecher.” She stomped closer. “You were going to shoot it
out with him like some hired gun out of a dime novel. Of all the absurd … arrogant … ridiculous—”

Her tirade poured over him like molten lead. Every nerve in his body was jangling, demanding not just rebuttal but revenge for every insulting word. He grabbed her by the upper arms.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he declared. “Beecher is a mean, dangerous son of a bitch. He’d as soon kill me or you or the Danverses as look at us. It’s not the first time he’s used threats and violence to try to stop the Montana Central and Mountain and—thanks to you—it won’t be the last.”

“So you decided to take a gun to him.”

“I decided to call him out. It would have been a fair fight.”

“If you had killed him, it would have been murder.” Her volume was rising steadily. “This is your idea of progress? Making yourself judge and jury and executioner? No wonder your blasted railroad is falling apart.”

“It’s
not
falling apart!”

“You haven’t got a decent right-of-way, you’re hardly making two miles a day, and all you can think about is running around waving a gun and playing cowboy,” she charged. “And when I try to do something to help—”

“Help?” he roared back. “Is that what you call running smack into the middle of a face-off between two men? This is not ‘playing cowboy.’ This is not just some damned social disagreement. Out here people live and
die
by their words. You had no right to come barging into something you don’t know anything about and clearly don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand?” She wrenched free and stepped back. “I understand that you were about to lay your life on the line because you couldn’t bear the notion that you might have to accept help from a mere woman. I understand
that you’re so blasted determined to keep your precious Montana Central and Mountain all to yourself that you won’t let me do anything to help you. That’s not only selfish and prideful and hurtful, Bear McQuaid—it’s just plain stupid!”

Every shocking word sliced straight to the core of him.
Selfish
. No one in his entire life had ever accused him of that. He’d never had anything to be selfish with, never had anything to withhold from somebody. He’d always been the outcast, the spoiler, the underdog. His entire being recoiled, then reacted.

“Now I’m selfish as well as prideful and stubborn and stupid?” He towered above her, grinding out every unfortunate word. “Well, at least I’m not barging in where I’m not needed.”

She stared up at him, feeling those words sinking into the depths of her heart. Not needed. In one horrifying sentence he had summed up their past, their present, and—she now could see—their future. He might want her as a bankroll and a pleasurable bedmate … but not as an equal, a partner, a loving and vital part of his life. His railroad was
his
and he didn’t need her to share it. In fact, he’d rather see it go under than allow her any part in it.

As they stood there, face to face, chests heaving, confronting the deepest division between them, the sound of hoofbeats came out of the distance, growing steadily. It was a long moment before Bear could pull himself from Diamond’s stare to register a light … moving along the horizon … yellow and eerie gray … sparks and smoke. The hurt and anger roiling inside him prevented him from making sense of it at first. It was only his struggle to contain the volatile words in his head that permitted him enough control to finally recognize the shape of a rider on horseback dragging something. Something burning.