Blaze (16 page)

Hazard rose from the table. "Thank you for breakfast. I'll be back at noon for lunch." Halfway to the door, he hesitated, turned back, and said, "Do you… that is…" He lapsed into Absarokee, the sibilant words softly exasperated. Returning to English, he went on, "… Would you care to, ah, ease yourself before I leave."

"So you can watch?" she demanded indignantly.

There was a momentary pause before Hazard flung back his damp head and laughed. "Is that," he asked when he'd regained control, "some Boston fetish I've overlooked, Miss Braddock? I could, of course, if you like," he said, a shadow of amusement lacing his voice.

Blaze's gaze was glacial. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not a comfortable one," Hazard said tenderly.

She flounced by him, convincing even without flounces, in black twill slacks.

He stayed discreetly inside, but cautiously began counting. If she wasn't back by two hundred, he'd have to go out and look for her. Now that the hostage idea was under way, it seemed a damnably simple solution.

He was on 193 and beginning to strap on his gun holster when he heard her step on the gravel north of the cabin. His swiftly moving fingers stopped, leaving the leg tie undone. And the adrenaline already anticipating a possible chase downhill was put on hold. But his voice when she entered the small room betrayed none of his mistrust. "Did you enjoy my outside facilities?"

Blaze looked at him sharply. Was he mocking her? The expression greeting her glance was warmly diffident, the trace of a smile, sincere. She relented in her ill-humor. When on his best behavior, Hazard was impossible to stay angry with. "The view's magnificent."

"I hoped you'd like it. We Absarokee call it 'Bare race itsiram matsd-tsk,' literally translated 'Our hearts are joyous.' It does that to you, the view from these mountains."

Hearing the softly muted inflection, melodic as a hymn, she tried the sounds on her tongue. "Bara ra-ice…"

Steeling himself against the warmth invoked by Blaze's childlike repetition of the words, mispronounced in a pretty confusion on the last three syllables, Hazard shakily reminded himself of his vow.

"Now if you can learn to say 'yes' as prettily," Hazard said with a trace of a drowl, "we'll get along famously."

Blaze's face clouded over. "Must you always be so damn provoking," she acidly inquired.

"For a woman," Hazard confronted her, his libido more comfortable with her adversarial posturing, "you're much too used to having your own way."

"For a woman—for a woman," Blaze sputtered, sparks beginning to ignite in her eyes. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Only that, like you, I've traveled quite a few miles across this continent and you may have noticed, Miss Braddock," Hazard blandly declared, taking down a buckskin shirt from a peg near the door, "it's a man's world."

He was out the door before the tin cup hit the pine door jamb. She had a remarkably good throwing arm, he noted in retreat. The thud of the striking cup was within inches of where his head had been short seconds before.

"Lunch at noon," he called back to her, fastening the latch into its locked position, his dinnerware crashing against the wall in rapid succession now.

Blaze stood in the debris of what had once constituted Jon Hazard Black's cozy cabin and called him every despicable name she could dredge up from her well-stocked inventory. It wasn't that Jon Hazard Black was, in fact, any of the multitude of names she called him. It was, rather, that Jon Hazard Black was the first individual in Blaze's self-indulgent life who had had the audacity—and the ability—to order her about.

"We'll see who does the ordering," she muttered into the silence of the pottery-strewn cabin. "We'll just see who the hell does what!"

LUNCHTIME, as it turned out, was spare and silent, noteworthy only in the dramatically rearranged interior of the cabin. After carefully navigating the broken crockery with thinly shod moccasined feet, Hazard found himself some jerky in the cupboard, scraped pottery chips from the butter, and proceeded to make his second meal of the day on bread and butter. He ate in the heavily condemnatory glare of Blaze's sullen gaze and after finishing said, with a small exhalation of breath, "You know, Boston, you're going to have to clean this up."

"Now listen—"

Hazard's voice cut her short. "You listen first, then you get equal time." Blaze's lips pursed into a tightly drawn line, but she quieted. "Sit down." It looked for a moment as if she wouldn't. Hazard swept an inviting hand toward the chair and smiled his particularly winning smile that few could resist. "Please," he said, offering a conciliatory bow, and she sat.

"Since this is an… arrangement," he began, seating himself on the corner of the table, "neither of us anticipated, I suggest we keep it as civil as possible. Taking the obvious shortcomings of this small cabin into consideration, of course." He was neither nervous nor condescending, exuding instead a calm pragmatism, one moccasined foot swinging idly. "I won't live with tantrums in this small space, so you must clean this mess up. But enough of that. More important, I realize this will probably have ramifications on your future and I apologize for that, but I didn't start any of this—didn't ask for it, didn't want any part of it." He shrugged slightly. "But it happened, unfortunately, and since you now are my insurance against Buhl's machinations, I feel it would be best if we avoided the sort of… ah… intimacy that took place yesterday. And since this is at base," he said, all seriousness, "a business arrangement, I for one would prefer—"

"You needn't go on," Blaze interjected, her voice taking on the same cool detachment as Hazard's. At once both humiliated and relieved, his proposal, she understood as well as he, was the only reasonable alternative to an exceedingly uncomfortable situation.

Hazard received her acquiescence with contradictory emotions. He had been practical about the need for distance. What he'd prefer, in lieu of practicality, would be Miss Braddock's ready sensuality as a delightful and frequent respite to his hard gold mining.

"If we're agreed, then—" Hazard paused.

Blaze nodded and said, "I shall control my impulses without any trouble, Mr. Black, I assure you. I pray, however," she continued, rising from the chair with a petulant toss of her red-gold hair and a new caustic edge to the sweetness, "that Daddy comes to some arrangement with you very soon."

"Amen to that, Miss Braddock," Hazard agreed, noting his exquisite companion's sulk. "I'll add my prayers to yours."

AT THAT moment, Colonel Braddock was following a Bannack Indian guide along a mountain trail on an urgent journey to find a go-between from Hazard's clan to save his daughter. Since Hazard wouldn't allow any of them to approach, it was imperative that the Colonel find an acceptable negotiator.

Hazard's ominous ultimatum had struck terror in Billy Braddock's soul. His daughter was the center of his life, his entire world, and he would willingly give up everything he owned to see her safe. His love for her had been unconditional from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her, all fragile pink innocence, on the day of her birth. And he'd vowed from that very first moment, his daughter would have all the love and luxury his own orphaned childhood had lacked. She would never know the grinding poverty and uncaring neglect of his harsh early years. And he had spared neither time nor money to fulfill his vow.

Father and daughter had become inseparable even before she could walk. A nursery had been installed on the top floor of the Braddock Block in downtown Boston, and with the relieved blessing of Millicent Braddock, who found motherhood a distasteful interruption to a busy social schedule, Venetia grew up under her father's doting regard. She'd become "Blaze" shortly after her fourth birthday, when the full glory of her vivid hair had grown to luxurious magnificence. And Blaze she'd remained, despite her mother's displeasure at the unladylike sobriquet. But long before Blaze was four, her mother had relinquished any interest in her daughter, embracing the upper-class dictum that children should be ignored until they became civilized enough to enter the adult world at eighteen. By that time, of course, there had been too many years of cool neglect for any rapport to exist between mother and daughter. Blaze was her father's pet by then, and that, too, blunted any hope of amity between mother and daughter.

Millicent Hatton had bartered her fragile beauty and old Virginia name for the richest fortune on the open market at the time, and under her terms of the sale, as she saw it, she had to neither like William Braddock nor indulge him—only marry him. Once wed, her duty was done. Before the honeymoon was a month old, Billy Braddock had known he'd made a disastrous mistake, but his young bride was already plagued by morning bouts of nausea. They returned to Boston immediately and, politely avoiding any discussion of their differences, took up their separate lives. They met occasionally at dinner, when by coincidence both were home for the evening, infrequently attended a social fete together, and because of Blaze they celebrated holidays as a family. It was a marriage devoid of all emotion, leaving Billy Braddock vast reserves of affection to lavish on his only child.

Yesterday, every inch the magisterial millionaire, he'd commanded his colleagues under no circumstances to make a single move toward Hazard Black's claim until he returned with a member of Hazard's clan to act as mediator for him. He knew from experience when a bluff is a bluff. And the Indian on the mountain yesterday had meant what he said. He intended to offer the Indian whatever he wanted to free Blaze, but a gnawing fear remained that perhaps this time money wouldn't be enough. Anxious, disquieted, Billy Braddock pressed on, restlessly vetoing a suggestion to make camp for the evening. "There's twenty more minutes of daylight," he declared, gently prodding his tired horse. They'd been riding upcountry steadily for sixteen hours, and for a man his age, the effort was draining. He'd been running on adrenaline the last two hours.

The guide finally had to warn him they'd lose their horses to broken legs if they didn't stop. The moon was behind heavy cloud cover that night, and their mounts had stumbled twice in the last few minutes. Reluctantly, Colonel Braddock agreed to stop, picked at his food, and lay awake all night waiting for enough light to start out again.

On the third day they found the first Absarokee summer encampment, but the Indians were Black Lodges, a related clan, but not Hazard's. The Many Lodges, they were told, had moved over the mountains a week ago looking for new pasture. Perhaps they could be found down by the Horses River.

Only taking time to trade for fresh mounts, Colonel Braddock and his Bannack guide traveled on, arriving at the upper reaches of Horses River two days later, where they found that the camp had moved once more. The summer migrations were on, each clan and its pony herds journeying from pasture to pasture in the foothills to escape the heat and insects of the sultry plains below.

The guide couldn't help noticing the white man's difficulty breathing in the thin upland air. But his recommendations that they stop and rest were always waved off. The yellow eyes weren't used to the high altitudes. Most of them, like this one, had spent too much time indoors and not enough time in physical activity. The man looked near collapse, his lips blue, his face pale and perspiring. The guide feigned a caught stone in his horse's hoof and was pleased to see color return to the white man's face after the short rest to examine the pony's "injury."

HAZARD slept that night on the floor, buffalo robes serving as a mattress. Blaze told herself she was glad he was gentleman enough to honor their businesslike agreement, but her dreams were of strong arms holding her and silky black hair brushing her cheeks moments before tender lips touched hers. The pleasure these thoughts sent coursing through her body warmed her flesh, and restlessly she tossed her covers aside. Hazard rolled over then, away from her alluring exposure, and faced the wall. Unable to sleep, his own desires more conscious and real, his dark eyes had strayed to the narrow bed a hundred times the last few hours. Blaze's voluptuous nude body—now fully exposed—was too tempting. If he trusted himself more, he would have gotten up and covered her again, but he was cognizant of his resolve's limitations, and he daren't go too close. Not the way he was feeling now, not with the urgency of his desire battering his sanity.

He finally dozed off long after midnight but woke, silently alert, just as the first slivered beams of morning sun slid over the mountains. Quiet, unhurried footsteps approached.

He was on his feet in one smooth motion and across the cabin, rifle in hand seconds later. The door slowly opened, a soft warbler trill announced the intruder, and Hazard relaxed against the wall, his mouth curving into a smile. A tall Absarokee stepped into the room and without turning, his eyes on Blaze's voluptuous sleeping body, addressed Hazard standing behind him. "Show-da-gee ba-goo-ba (Hello, brother). She's much too good for you, Dit-chilajash. Let me take her off your hands, Hazard… say eighty horses? She's going to cut into your work time like hell." Male drollery laced the soft Absarokee tongue.

"It's nice to have such a solicitous friend, but save your horses, Chadam Chelash; she's not for sale," Hazard said, slipping into his leggings. "She's my hostage, Rising Wolf."

Rising Wolf half turned toward Hazard, the long beaded fringe on his clothes catching the light, one dark brow raised. "Better yet. If she didn't cost anything, eighty horses will be pure profit." He was familiar with Hazard's pattern with women. They were all beautiful but transient. "I can wait awhile," he added with a smile. "Shouldn't take more than a few weeks, if I remember your style." They spoke in low tones, the sibilant sounds of their native tongue conducive to quiet dialogue.

"If I didn't value my life more than your pleasure," Hazard said, returning the smile, "I'd consider the eighty horses." Rising Wolf had the most discerning eye in the clan with horses, and his ponies were always superior. "Tempting as it is—this female has a temper like the hot springs up north—her presence here is guaranteeing my mine, and my life, at the moment."

"Really a hostage, then." Rising Wolf saw Hazard was serious.

"They tried to buy me out, run me off, and then"— Hazard's black eyes nickered in Blaze's direction— "bribe me."

"Who?" Rising Wolf was wondering if a small raiding party some night would handle the menace.

Hazard knew how his mind worked; it was, after all, the customary way of dealing with enemies. "Too many and too influential for that, Rising Wolf. It's the Eastern mining money that's been throwing their gold around for the last couple of months."

"Will it work? The hostage?"

Hazard shrugged. "The yellow eyes are crawling over this country like ants. Every week brings wagonloads more. It's my only choice."

"Too stubborn to sell?"

"Why should I, just because they've more money than I? This is a valuable vein I'm sitting on. Don't see any reason to hand it over to them. They've got lots of interests in this country—they can live without mine." He smiled faintly. "Not that their kind is likely to do that. But, hell, this whole thing could blow over in a few weeks, or even days, if some new strike with bigger potential comes through somewhere else."

"Need help?"

"With what?" Hazard teased, his mood lightened by Rising Wolfs familiar presence, the feel of home he always brought with him.

Rising Wolf chuckled. "When the pines turn yellow, as they say… No, I was thinking about some lookouts. We could set up out here."

"You haven't seen my new toy."

"You have another one besides her?"

Hazard laughed aloud at Rising Wolfs characteristic leer. The ringing resonance woke Blaze. She took one look at the strange Indian and screamed. Hazard moved toward her with a soothing gesture of his hand. Only then did her frightened eyes shift to Hazard's familiar lean form and the shock turn to recognition. "A friend," Hazard said, pulling up the light blanket over her shoulders possessively. "Don't be afraid." It was an unconscious action immediately reminding Rising Wolf of Raven Wing years before. Hazard had responded to her in the same solicitous way. And he'd never seen him behave that way since.