Claire, Angela - Heart of Stone (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

So here he was on this dusty, sunny platform waiting for the answer to his domestic dilemma to arrive. A shout from the railroad office, if the little shack that stood for one could be called an office, told him that the train was approaching, which he could see for his own eyes now that the smoke was in sight and the distinctive chugging audible. The whistle that signaled its shrill stop darn near broke his eardrums as he took his hat in hand, waiting humbly to meet his aunt. Even if she’d come readily without a fight, he knew his Aunt Lil, and he expected a lecture or two had come along with her. As the few passengers who were getting out at this tiny town climbed down, he scanned the faces for his aunt’s stern features and rigid posture. But all he could see at first was a tough old cowpoke surely looking for work and a dandified bald-headed fellow from the railroad, if he had his guess. Then she stepped down onto the platform.

Not his aunt. No, she was something else altogether. Tall and shapely, even in her plain dress, with blonde curls tumbling down her back, not kept in place by the staid bonnet she wore, she was quite simply every man’s fantasy. Her big blue eyes searched the platform, lush pink lips pursed as if to call out any minute. Jake looked her up and down for a minute and then resolutely looked away. It wouldn’t do to greet his aunt with the kind of thoughts in his mind that that little filly inspired. Lil’d see right through him, just as she had when he was scant man enough to shave, but plenty man enough to satisfy the lusty upper chambermaid in his aunt’s home. He smiled as he remembered what a licking the old lady had given him for that one.

He continued watching the passenger car’s exit, hoping his aunt hadn’t fallen asleep or some fool thing, until he felt a light touch on his arm. He turned to see his dream girl staring up at him. Man, close up, she was even more delectable with her creamy complexion that looked cool even in this heat and a moist mouth that looked made for kissing. For one hopeful moment, he wondered if she was one of Sally’s new girls, come west to work in the saloon, fresh and eager to make her fortune bedding desperately lonely cowboys. Jake had never been one for whores, but after his wife died, he’d made the occasional trip to Sally’s. Fucking was just like eating as far as he was concerned. A man could go only so long without it. If this girl was joining the ranks at Sally’s, he’d be indulging a bit more frequently for sure. Even as he held the faint hope, he knew by looking at this girl that she wasn’t a whore. She was too proper and pretty. No, she was undoubtedly somebody’s sweetheart or young wife come to join her man in this harsh world. He felt a little sorry for her and very sorry for himself that he wouldn’t ever get to see how well her long lovely frame fit underneath his as he plunged into her. Whores were one thing, but a man didn’t poach on another man’s woman.

Not that there was anything wrong with a little looking though. Without meaning to, he glanced discreetly down to see if her neckline covered that entire delectable bosom or if he could get a peek or two of white flesh. So preoccupied was he that he missed what she’d timidly said to him.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said politely. “What was that you said?”

“I said, are you Mr. Stone?”

“Yes, I’m Jake Stone.”

“This is for you then.” She dug into her reticule and fished out a letter. With a sense of foreboding, he saw that the handwriting on the envelope was his aunt’s distinctive scrawl. Without a word, he tore it open and read it with incredulous dread, his gaze darting down at her every once and a while.

Then he began to swear. Not even under his breath either. Right out loud. He crumpled the letter in his fist. “The old bat has finally gone insane.”

* * * *

Melinda O’Chauncey bit her lower lip as she listened to the tirade coming out of the big man beside her. She thought she’d heard every version of a swear word ever invented in the orphanage where she had grown up, but Mr. Stone had a few new ones in his vocabulary. She tried not to shrink back. Old Miss Stone had said the only way to deal with her headstrong nephew was to stand up to him.

“If you don’t,” the kindly old lady had warned her, “he’ll put you on the next train back to
Boston
.”

Melinda took the threat very seriously, and now that she had met Miss Stone’s nephew, she saw that the old woman wasn’t kidding. Miss Stone hadn’t given Melinda a physical description of Jake Stone, just a psychological one. “Bullheaded as they come. Dragged that poor, sweet, delicate wife of his out west with him when any darn fool could see she wouldn’t be able to take root in all that dusty soil, would just wither up and pass away. So she did, just one year out, but left him with a baby to care for, darn fool that he was. Should’ve kept his hands off his wife until he saw whether she could make it out there, but my nephew is not one to exercise discipline in that area, my dear.”

Melinda had blushed at such plain speaking, although she’d heard plenty of it in the rough-and-tumble world she’d grown up in.

“So now he’s saddled with a baby. But will he just marry some young miss out there to solve his problem or even come back to
Boston
and hire a proper governess to take care of his daughter? Or even send the child back to
Victoria
’s parents to bring up, heartbroken as they are? Of course not. He has to do things his own way. So he comes up with this fool idea of dragging me out west to help him. Darn boy always did have more faith in me than any right-thinking person should. Doesn’t he realize I’m pushing sixty-four and too old to care for a baby? Lord knows, I was too old even to raise him to begin with, but without another soul in the world to claim him as kin, and all that money to tempt others to claim him for their own reasons, I had to step in. Boy’s looked up at me like I was some kind of fairy godmother ever since then. But I’m sorry. I just can’t help him now. So that’s why I’m going to send you.”

Miss Stone had offered to pay her wages for a year, upfront, if she could just stick it out with Mr. Stone and care for her great-niece until her nephew came to his senses. With hardly a dollar to her name, and too old at nineteen to stay in the orphanage, she had no other prospects. Well, she guessed she had one or two rightly distasteful ones, if you counted the leering offer made by one of the trustee’s husbands or the veiled hints of the orphanage’s married doctor, fifty if he was a day. But Miss Stone had always been a fair-minded trustee, and when she approached Melinda with this proposition, she had jumped at the chance. Besides, Melinda had one very good reason why staying in
Boston
was not such a smart idea, one she hoped Miss Stone herself would never discover.

The train ride in itself had been a wonder. Melinda had never imagined how big and sprawling and just plain beautiful this country could be. Though Miss Stone had booked her a sleeping compartment, Melinda had spent much of the long train ride sitting in a seat by the window just watching the panoply of greens and blues and browns. After years and years of the closed dark environment of the orphanage, she finally felt like she could breathe again.

So if she had to put up with this big man breathing a little fire at her to do that, she could handle it. Especially since Miss Stone had neglected to mention how handsome her nephew was. He was tall, making her normally too-tall-for-a-girl five foot eight seem downright dainty, and his hair was coal black and wavy. She’d noticed, before he started swearing at her that is, that his eyes were a deep mesmerizing green. A bonny man, the old Scottish cook at the orphanage would have said. Only it was a touch hard to enjoy his good looks when he was scowling at her so.

“Really, Mr. Stone, I’ve no idea why you’re carrying on so. I’m perfectly capable of caring for an infant. Why, at St. Michael’s, I cared for a dozen of them at a time.”

“St. Michael’s? Good God. Did she send me a
nun
just to torment me, that crafty old biddy?”

“St. Michael’s was an orphanage, not a convent, Mr. Stone. I grew up there. And I am quite familiar with babies, so you needn’t worry that your aunt sent someone who was unsuitable to care for your daughter.”

“Unsuitable? Ma’am, you’re just about as
unsuitable
as they come for this, this…” He turned away in disgust, as if he couldn’t quite find the words.

Now she really was perplexed. She knew he was disappointed not to have his aunt, but really, how selfish. “Your aunt is very elderly, Mr. Stone. The journey would’ve been too much for her, and caring for a baby is very strenuous work. She couldn’t accede to your request for help personally, but I assure you, I can stand in her place very well.”

It was quite a reasonable speech if she did say so herself, but he still glared at her. “Ma’am, if you think I can treat you like my maiden aunt, then you must not have just come out of an orphanage. You must have come out of a lunatic’s asylum.” To which he stomped off.

* * * *

Jake slammed through the doors of the saloon and curtly ordered a whiskey at the bar. Damn. He couldn’t bring his daughter home now. All his plans were ruined. Lil hadn’t argued with him because she’d never intended to come. Fine. A letter would have sufficed, but to get his hopes up and then send this, this…girl. As if he could live in a ranch house with that walking, talking inspiration for sex. He’d last about two seconds before he let his cock lead him to disaster. He had no intention of marrying again. Ever. So if Lil thought she could trick him into it by sending that luscious little…orphan...out here, she had another think coming. He could read his aunt’s designs as clearly as he could read her handwriting. All that mush about what a fine girl this Miss Melinda was, how hardy and resilient she was, and how this was the perfect opportunity for him to exercise some Christian charity. All that was code for “I know you can’t keep it in your pants for such a gorgeous girl, so I’m sending you your second wife… unless you want to ruin this lovely little thing and send her back to me despoiled and disillusioned.” It would serve Lil right if he did just that. For just a second, he let himself imagine taking little Miss Melinda, with her wide-eyed innocence, home to the ranch and fucking her brains out, and then sending her back on the train to Aunt Lil. That’s just what he ought to do, he brooded, finishing off his whiskey and calling for another. His cock warmed to the idea as he remembered the girl’s lips and the shape of those tits, even though he couldn’t quite see them bound up in the little orphan dress.

In the midst of imagining it, he heard the saloon doors open and suddenly she was at his elbow. The bartender frowned. “Excuse me, Miss, but you shouldn’t rightly be in here.”

Melinda looked around. “Why? Is this a gentleman’s only establishment?”

“You could say that,” the bartender equivocated.

One of Sally’s girls loitered up on the upper balcony, dressed in a shift and long, ratty robe. Melinda noticed her just then and did a double take. A disapproving frown crossed her features, and for a second, damned if she didn’t just look a little like Lil. “Oh, I see. Of course. Perhaps you’d be so good as to speak with me outside then, Mr. Stone.”

Jake gestured for his third whiskey without answering and downed it, clinking the glass down on the bar. He reached in for some coins, dropped them on the bar and sauntered out, his little orphan close behind him.

He turned on his heel, and she practically rammed into him. “Look Miss, er… what did you say your name was?”

“O’Chauncey. Melinda O’Chauncey.”

“Well, Miss O’Chauncey, I’m sorry you’ve come out all this way for nothing, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to just get right back onto that train.” He gestured towards the tracks. The now-empty tracks. Shit.

“I’m afraid there won’t be another train for a week or so. So perhaps you could be reasonable about this, Mr. Stone. I’m not precisely sure what your objection to me on sight could be, and I know you’re disappointed your aunt couldn’t make it out here, but perhaps you could allow me a trial period of some sort. If after that time, you don’t think me capable of handling your daughter, I promise to get back on the next train out of here.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can handle my daughter, but I don’t quite think you can handle me.”

Her beautiful blue eyes scanned his in confusion. She really didn’t have a clue as to what was wrong with this picture. Hell, she must be as innocent as a babe herself not to know why a healthy, full-grown man might not be able to live day and night with a gorgeous young woman in his house with no one to chaperone them but a nine-month-old infant.

“Miss O’Chauncey…”

“Please, that’s quite a mouthful. Please just call me Melinda.”