Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (3 page)

One of the boys trudged past; Reagan edged deeper into the
shadows. At the same time the sound of footfalls and low-voiced conversation
approached from the direction of the river. Trapped, Reagan took cover behind
the hundredweight bales of fur stacked against the rear wall.

Much to her dismay, the footfalls entered the lean-to and stopped.
Reagan held her breath, expecting at any moment to be caught, yet there was
only the soft rustle of movement precariously close at hand. Drawing a deep and
steadying breath, Reagan gathered her much battered courage around her and
pressed her eye to the crack between the bales.

Standing in the shadows was a man; she had the impression of great
height, yet her vantage point was poor, and she could see little else. Shifting
her position slightly, she leaned her weight on the hand that still clutched
her now forgotten dinner, and strained this way and that.

From outside came the stir of movement, followed by the soft
thunk
of fuel being fed to the fire. The fuel quickly caught, spilling light into the
lean-to... a light that partially dispelled the shadows, flickering molten gold
over the stranger’s face and form, and providing Reagan with her first clear
look at him.

Bearded scarecrow he was not. Tall, well muscled, and stripped to
the waist, with an impressive shoulder span and an economy of flesh, he cut
such an impressive figure that even Reagan could not help but admire him, and
her opinion of men in general was none too high of late. Hair that was glossy
and black swung loose about his tawny shoulders, framing a face that could best
be described as fiendishly handsome.

Dark brows arched over eyes that were luxuriously lashed. His
features were finely chiseled, the arrogant nose, high cheekbones, and clefted
chin scraped meticulously clean of whiskers were pure masculine perfection, the
stuff of every woman’s dreams... except for the livid scar that slashed across
his left cheek, a scar that, by its appearance alone, Reagan judged quite
recently attained.

The imperfection drew the left corner of his sensual mouth ever so
slightly downward in a perpetual half frown, lending his aspect a formidable
air that frightened and intrigued her at once. And she could not help wondering
as she observed him if he’d had a tiff with a grizzly bear.

“Much as I enjoy your stellar company, I ’spose I’d better get
movin’,” a voice said, issuing from the far side of the fire; its owner
remained just beyond Reagan’s field of vision.

“I thought you lost your cache to Dan Wilhelm last night,” the
handsome stranger replied. “I believe that ‘picked clean’ was the term you used
to describe the state of your finances.”

“For your information, I’m not intent on a poker game. I thought
I’d amble on over and watch the festivities. Watchin’ don’t cost nothin’, and
Tom Bridger’s waitin’ my arrival with a jug of Monongahela whiskey. You feel
like comin’ along? It’s better than brooding, and you know what a social
butterfly Tom is. Why, he’ll be plumb crushed if you don’t put in an
appearance, this bein’ your last night here and all.”

“Somehow I think he’ll survive the disappointment,” the man in the
lean-to said dryly. “Besides, I still have to straighten things out with Frank
Levie. I’ve tried twice to meet with him, with no success. The way he’s acting,
one might think he was avoiding me.”

“Think you can convince him to stay?”

The dark-haired stranger shrugged. “I have to try. Navarre’s
depending upon me, and if Frank goes, half of Broussard’s Yellowstone trappers
go with him.”

The unseen man whistled low. “That could mean substantial losses
for the company. How do you intend to handle it, Jackson?”

Reagan watched as her host slipped into a fringed buckskin shirt,
which he belted at the waist.
Jackson . .
.
Funny, but he didn’t strike her as a Jackson.
The name Jackson triggered images of iron gray hair and stern features in
Reagan’s mind, not the exotic specimen standing before her.

“Frank has always been a company man,” Jackson said, “loyal to
Papa and Clay, if not to me. I fully intend to appeal to that loyalty, and if
that fails, I’ll do whatever I must to finish the task so that I can leave here
tomorrow.”

“Sure wish you’d rethink this thing, Jackson. Saint Louis has a
decidedly unhealthy air about it just now, especially where you’re concerned.
Why not stay on awhile? You’d be more than welcome at winter quarters, and when
you return in the spring, things will have cooled down considerably.”

Jackson just snorted. “You’re sounding suspiciously like Uncle
Navarre.”

“Aye, damn it, and if you had a brain in your head, you’d listen.”

“It’s been three months and I can think of nothing else,” Jackson
said. “I need to get back, for Clay’s sake, if not my own. I owe him that
much.”

“And your father?”

Jackson’s head came up. “What about him?”

“You going to try to mend the rift between you?”

At the mention of his sire, a tic worked furiously in Jackson’s
ruined cheek. “It isn’t a rift--it’s a chasm. Clay was the only thing holding
the family together. Now that he’s dead, there’s nothing left to mend.”

“I expect I’ve said all I’m liable to say on the subject,”
Jackson’s companion replied. “Think I’ll go find Tom. I could use that whiskey
right about now.”

The other man departed.

As Jackson turned away to rifle through his saddle packs, Reagan
realized that the time had come to slip silently away. Turning just slightly,
she tested the hide wall, judging its tautness, tugging against the stakes
that held it, grimacing at the soft, almost imperceptible ripple of sound it
gave off.

Behind her, her host paused in his rooting. “Josephine,
ma petite chat,”
he said,
“is that you?”

Reagan eased the edge of the wall upward and, clamping her hat to
her head with one hand, wriggled her way under the barrier, feet foremost. She
was halfway out and already figuring what to do next when something cold and
wet nuzzled the sensitive skin on the back of her wrist.

A snuffling sound issued from close at hand, followed by a throaty
growl that raised the fine hairs at her nape. At the same time, something
tugged at the roasted meat still clutched in her hand, gently, yet insistently.

Her heart pounding high in her throat, and a fist-sized knot in
her stomach, Reagan slowly raised her head and froze, nose-to-nose with two
hundred pounds of hungry mountain cat.

Inside the lean-to, Jackson Parrish Broussard took the gold timepiece
from the flat leather pouch, running his finger over the small compass that had
been fitted into the lid and the inscription that encircled the tiny dial.

Fata viam invenient.

“The Fates will find a way,” Jackson murmured.

Clay had truly believed it, yet Jackson did not possess such blind
faith. Indeed, he never had.

It seemed that he had always been seeking, searching for something
he could not name that would ease the tortured ache inside him. When he was a
youth, his restless wanderlust and daring had often landed him in trouble,
earning him the sobriquet “Jack Seek-Um,” a name he’d never embraced, but one
that would seemingly haunt him to hell and the hereafter, and even into the
High Shining.

That endless search had been the motivation behind the gift of the
timepiece and compass, which his brother Clayton had presented to Jackson on
his twenty-first birthday. “The words are to guide your path,” Clay had said,
“the compass to keep that path unerring, and the timepiece to let you know when
the time is right to come back home, back to the bosom of your loving family.”

At the time Jackson had laughed. Now, quite suddenly, he saw no
humor in it, just heavy, inescapable irony. Clay had given the gift, hoping to
guide a wayward younger brother back to the family fold. Yet the family fold
was a place where Jackson, the proverbial black sheep, had never been truly welcome.

Almost from the cradle, Emil Broussard—sire to Clayton and Jackson
Parrish, patriarch of an old and revered French Creole family—had seemed to
harbor an unflinching animosity toward his younger son. Emil would not be happy
to know that he was returning, yet cursed and reviled as he might be at his
homecoming, Jackson remained determined. He was going home to St. Louis, the
city of his birth, and the scene of his brother’s murder, and nothing and no
one would stop him.

Sighing, Jackson returned the watch to safekeeping inside the
leather pack and stood.

A low growl sounded outside the rear of the lean-to, capturing
Jackson’s immediate attention, interrupting his thoughts. “Josephine,” he said
again. “Come. Come to Papa.”

He had just started to turn away toward the door of the hut when a
terrified screech split the air, and the night exploded all around him.

Something came hurtlin
g
out of the shadows. Low to the ground and moving at the speed of
lightning, it slammed into Jackson’s knees and knocked him sprawling.

The missile fell with him, but didn’t seem to slow. Borne on the
wings of a mindless panic, it cursed and clawed its way up, off, and past a
stunned Jackson, scrambling to all fours, then gaining its feet, seemingly
determined to get away.

Jackson was every bit as determined to prevent the intruder’s
escape. Rolling to his stomach, he thrust out a hand, grabbing a handful of
baggy breeches, dragging what seemed to be a ragged urchin down and beneath
him.

Slight of frame, weighing no more than a half-filled sack of
grain, it was garbed in clothing two sizes too large and screeching like a
banshee. “Let go o’ me, damn it, or so help me, I’ll scream this place down
around your ears!”

Jackson just smiled and cocked an ear toward the din rising from
the evening’s festivities. Hoarse shouts, raucous laughter, and the scrape of a
country fiddle filled the air, punctuated by an occasional gunshot. “Go on and
scream, if you feel you must. Somehow I doubt that anyone will notice.” His
smile, never genuine, abruptly faded. “Now, just who the hell are you, and what
are you doing in my camp?”

Seeming to see the truth in his statement, the waif swallowed
hard. “I wasn’t hurtin’ nothin’, honest, mister. I just needed a place to lay
up awhile. Nobody was around, so I figured it was safe enough. I didn’t mean no
harm.”

“Any
harm. You didn’t mean
any
harm.”

“Ain’t that what I just said?” the youngster said impatiently.
“Anyway, I was fixin’ to leave when I ran into a panther. God almighty, it was
near big as a house, an’ for a minute there I was certain I was done for.”

Jackson shifted his weight, frowning down into the urchin’s
features, abruptly aware that the body beneath him was not the gawky frame of a
half-grown boy, but soft and pliant, almost
feminine.

Jackson stared hard at the face beneath the brim of the battered
hat, a cold trepidation gnawing at his consciousness. The features were
shadowed, yet even in the half-light he could see their fragility. Reaching
out, he grasped the slightly rounded chin, turning the face aside, studying the
curve of the cheek, the line of the jaw.

She must have sensed the moment when realization struck him, must
have seen amazement, then genuine horror dawning, for his hand was instantly,
forcefully batted away. Yet her protest came too late. She tried to twist away
from him, but he straddled her and clamped both hands down over her shoulders,
his fingers molding the delicate bones, pinning her to the ground. “Who the
devil are you?” he demanded, “and how did you get here?’ ’

The girl remained stubbornly silent.

“Where is your guardian? You must have one. You can’t be here
alone.”

“Why can’t I?” she burst out suddenly. “I’m old enough to look
after myself!”

“Are you?” Jackson said, circling her wrist between thumb and
forefinger. “Well, you haven’t been doing a very good job of it, now, have you?
You’re thin as a fence rail.” It was a slight exaggeration on his part. In
truth, the body beneath him was as lithe and supple as a reed; her rounded
bosom and delightfully soft hips left no doubt in his mind that she was no
child. She was definitely a woman fully formed, and unless he missed his guess,
quite the fetching piece beneath the oversize men’s rags she wore.