His Golden Touch [Gold Rush 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (12 page)

“No sense letting him live to return with friends to exact revenge.”

Brady and Gus came running. Brady grabbed Hannah and held her to his chest. “We heard the shots. Rocco is at the mouth of the mine ready to defend it if necessary. Did they touch you?”

“No. Take care of Wade. I’m fine.”

A moan from inside the tent galvanized Brady. He went into the tent. “Oh, dear Lord. Somebody help me with Wade.”

Gus went to Sam. “Are you all right?” Sam nodded. “We thought it was a raid on the mine, but I see the target was Hannah again. When we go for supplies, we have to buy her better fitting men’s clothes.” Sam went into the tent to tend to Wade.

“Let’s get these bodies underground.” Rocco grabbed Gus by the arm.

Gus went for the shovels and quickly returned.

Hannah stopped him. “Should we report this to someone?”

Gus let out a guffaw. “Have you seen the kind of justice available in San Francisco? The prison is an abandoned ship that couldn’t hold rats. Better to keep this to ourselves unless someone comes looking for them. My guess is when they don’t return to their claim, someone else will gladly take it over and never say a word about the original owners.”

Sam emerged from the tent and nodded. “Gus is right. People disappear around here like wisps of smoke, and no one cares or seems to mourn them.”

Gus and Rocco went to town the next day while Sam and Brady built the shaft to take the gold to the surface. Hannah stayed with Wade and tended his wounds. He couldn’t see out of one eye and could only hobble on one foot. His right arm was useless and the flesh on his hands too raw to lift a fork.

The worried expressions on Gus and Rocco as they unloaded supplies from the wagon scared Hannah. She cornered Rocco. “What happened in town? Are they looking for the two we buried?”

“No, nothing like that. A lot of interest in us was generated once we left the assayers office and started buying black powder and food others couldn’t afford.”

“What has you and Gus so worried?”

“Too many questions were thrown our way, and we suspect a raid on the mine. We’ve loaded up with barbed wire and arranged for some guards, but until they get here we all have to be extra vigilant. If any word gets out about the missing miners, they’ll use it to get rid of us and take over here.”

“When is the extra help arriving?”

“They had things to settle in town. Perhaps they’ll get here tomorrow.”

“Then all we need to do is set up a rotation system and have someone awake at all times to alert the others in case of attack.” Hannah relaxed a bit.

Rocco ran a hand through his hair. “Trouble is we’re all so danged tired from all the celebrating. I hope we manage to keep our eyes open.”

Since Wade had slept most of the day, he took first guard duty. He’d be useless in a fight, but he could serve as a warning signal to alert the others. Nothing happened on his watch, but when Sam was relieving him, they noticed bushes rustling on a particularly still night. Wade hobbled to Rocco’s tent. Hannah was with him, and she alerted Gus and Brady.

They had spent most of the day setting up a barricade of tree trunks at the mouth of the cave. Hannah, Brady, and Wade crawled behind it. They’d also set booby traps of wire and explosives likely to take off a man’s leg if he stepped in the wrong pile of brush.

Three bedraggled men snaked out from the bushes, guns drawn. Sam and Gus had circled around and came up behind them. Gus cocked his rifle. “Looking for someone, gents?”

The men swirled to face him, cocking their own guns until Rocco and Brady stood. “Drop ’em or we’ll blast you to kingdom come.” Brady’s raspy voice convinced them. Their weapons fell to the ground. Gus and Sam tied them to the sorry nags they had hidden in the foothills and sent them on their way.

“We’re not home free, yet,” Rocco said. “We’ll keep to our original schedule until the extra help comes.”

“How do we know we can trust the men we hired not to turn on us?” Wade asked.

“We don’t trust anybody from here on out, and we stay away from town. One of us will always be on duty with the hired guns. We never leave them anywhere near the mine together. Until we get a professional crew to work this mine, we won’t get much rest. Nobody ever said this was going to be a piece of cake.” Rocco dusted his hat against his leg and took up guard duty. “Get along to bed and be ready to take a turn as arranged.”

“What about me? I haven’t been given a time to be on watch.” Hannah leaned on the rifle she carried and scowled at them.

Wade spoke when everyone else stared at the ground. “We decided you were not going to be needed except to nurse me back to health.”

Hannah bristled at being dismissed but didn’t want to add to their worries by arguing. She took the rifle to her tent and seethed in private, letting poor Wade maneuver in pain to his side of her mattress without assistance. Sometime in the middle of what was left of the night, guilt ate at her and she sucked his cock. Later, she crouched over him, knees on either side of his head, and let him lick her pussy until she came.

Morning brought new challenges. Two men with badges rode up to the camp. At first Hannah feared they’d seen the newly dug graves, but they’d been covered well and the law men were only inquiring about the raid on the mine and likely trying to find out for themselves how vulnerable the camp was. Luckily, as they were being questioned, the two new guards rode in. The badges must have decided they couldn’t penetrate the place, and they left in a hurry.

The new men were good workers in addition to being guards. Gold came up the shaft in unbelievably large loads. The two men, Andre and Cade, were young and seemed to have no designs on the mine. They were happy to be part of the find and were paid well for being discreet.

Andre and Hannah became friends. She loved his French accent and the way he called her “
chérie
.” One afternoon as Hannah washed plates from dinner in the stream, Andre came up behind her. “May I be of assistance,
chérie
?”

“Thanks, but I’m going to let them sit on this towel and air-dry. I want to dangle my toes in the stream for a while. Do you swim?” She spoke as she balanced on one foot to tug the stocking off the other foot.

He came to her aid and held her as she removed shoes and stockings. When she finished and looked up to thank him, his lips were awfully close. She licked hers wanting to see how his would feel. He obliged her, and they tumbled to the sand.

For as young as he was, he was adroit in removing her underwear. Though she kept on her dress, he had access to her breasts and pussy and played with them as they laughed on the shore.

Wade, who hadn’t healed enough to have any sex save being sucked and sucking her, found them entwined at the water’s edge. “That’s my wife, you know.”

Andre sat stiffly upright, still holding Hannah in his arms. “
Mon dieu,
I am sorry, sir. We seem to have been carried away by the lovely morning.”

Hannah laughed. “Go back to my tent, Wade, and we’ll join you there to talk about this. I believe we may need another husband.”

In the tent, as the three of them sat on the mattress, Andre was contrite but did not back down. “Hannah is the first woman I have felt affection for since leaving France. I have wanted her since the day I arrived. I did not do anything until today, I swear.”

Hannah cuddled onto Andre’s lap. “Wade, all my husbands have been so busy, I’ve felt neglected. Andre is a sweet boy. I will do whatever you say. If you want me to resist him, I will, though I’d rather not.”

“You are my one and only love, and you are the same to Brady. We never quite understood about Rocco, but your happiness is our happiness. If this is what you wish, go ahead and explain to him what we have here. He may not want you under those terms.”

He did want her under any terms. Wade gave him some condoms and lay next to them. “I want to be here just in case.”

Hannah loved knowing he was watching her and Andre undress each other. She posed, arms behind her head, holding up her hair to give Wade a clear view as Andre sucked her nipples. Andre surprised her by taking a long, long time caressing and nipping at every part of her body before putting his cock into her. Even then, he went slowly, slithering in and out of her like a drugged, sinuous cobra. He felt hard and smooth and managed to scrape against every nerve ending in her pussy as he wriggled into her and slid out again.

Again and again the cobra struck, sometimes pausing a second or two at the entrance to make her wait in anticipation for the next strike, anxious in fear it would not come. Finally, he moved with great thrusts and she was ready. Immediately, she pulsed around him with gushes of viscous liquid. He drained himself into the condom, pushing each drop out with gusto.

By this time Wade was moaning. Hannah took pity and got on her knees to suck him, but as soon as she struck up a rhythm, Andre was into her from behind holding his hand over her pussy to stroke it as he thrust into her ass. Wade nipped and sucked her breasts, and she came violently. Wade spewed into her mouth when he realized she came, but Andre’s assault lasted several minutes and brought her satisfaction again. The ass fucking she loved, and his hand massaging her pussy at the same time was ambrosia. As soon as she recovered from the aftershocks her body pulsed with, she wanted more of the same.

Hannah had many sessions like this with Wade and Andre before the others caught on. They’d been consumed with the gold and hadn’t noticed the missing trio each afternoon. The discussion was heated, but ultimately it was Hannah’s choice. “I love all of you and can’t imagine giving any one of you up, unless, of course, you wanted to go.”

No one wanted to go. Cade had found his niche in Gus and Sam’s tent at night.

For weeks and then months they pulled gold out of the mine with no signs of depleting the lode. With the arrival of more hired guards and safety ensured, Brady took Sam back to Plantsville to check on the ranch and to deposit a great deal of the money in the banks there. Hannah had more trust in the banks there than those in San Francisco. She also gave instructions to purchase from her shares anything in new equipment that would make Rocco’s parents’ jobs easier, including updating the kitchen and installing the new flush toilets popular in England.

Hannah cajoled Wade into taking her for a buggy ride through all of San Francisco and the environs. She was silent for most of the trip because she was making mental notes. “Somehow, Wade, I don’t feel right about having all this money.

“I don’t feel right about spending it as easily and recklessly as Sam and Gus do. Sure, the mine looks good so far, but it could run out tomorrow.”

“They’re young with no responsibilities to anyone but themselves.”

“What are we, shriveled up old prunes?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Wade jerked the reins, and the buggy pulled up short and nearly flung them both out of the carriage. “Hannah! I can’t believe it. What should I do? Do you need to go to a hospital?”

“Of course not. Kiss me and tell me if you want a boy or a girl.”

They kissed until the horses started pawing the ground, eager to be off. “Wade, you’d better pick up the reins before we have some runaway horses.”

They started up again, and Hannah continued, “What I want to do with some of the money is build a house, a big house on a big hill.”

“Will it have land for crops?”

“Most definitely. We’ll need lots of land, and what crops we don’t need for ourselves, we’ll use to sell and to feed the poor.”

She didn’t go into more detail, although in her mind she knew she wouldn’t stop at one house. She intended to buy as much land as possible for as long as the mine gave up its gold.

She didn’t tell Wade about the house she would build for them, but she knew exactly what she wanted, a mansion on Nob Hill. They needed ballrooms and dining rooms for entertaining. She intended to make a place for family in whatever society developed in this town. And she wanted a wing for children sealed off from the bedrooms she and her husbands would use. Hannah wanted a family that would survive for generations. Since, so far, she had attained everything she desired, she had no reason to think this would not happen according to her plan.

She was certain San Francisco would one day grow into a law-abiding town where people would want to live. The rash of fires and shootings and occasional quakes didn’t deter her. Her project was to build houses made of brick with steel underpinnings to withstand whatever nature had in store for San Francisco.

She would eventually buy waterfront property in anticipation of starting restaurants and hotels where people would actually be safe one day. These plans would wait. For now, all her attention centered on the hilltop residence she would have built for herself. In her mind, it had seven bedrooms, two ballrooms, several bathrooms, two kitchens, two fancy parlors, a fancy dining room for large gatherings and a smaller one for the family, and a cozy room for family gatherings. She’d get advice for the most important wing of the house, the nursery.

Present day: Golden Touch Mine, San Francisco foothills.

“So this was where your family dug up all its wealth.” Bolt Carmody slapped his hat against his thigh.

“Yep, lots of ghosts lurking around here.”

“Right, Hannah, darlin’, if you say so.”

“You don’t believe in ghosts?”

“Of course not and neither do you.”

“Don’t be too sure about that or about me.”

Bolt took her arm and stopped her forward progress into the cave. “Hannah Tolliver Janes, for twelve years, since you were a fifteen-year-old squirt, I’ve known everything about you.” Although she was five seven, in tennis shoes, she was nine inches shorter than his six four and couldn’t reach his lips. He raised her off her feet to pull her into a kiss.

When he set her back on solid ground, Hannah shot him an enigmatic smile. “I know, cowboy. You were my first and only love when you were seventeen and now when you’re pushing thirty. But your scientific bent sometimes makes you closed-minded. Let’s go inside and see if a ghost or two can make believers of both of us.”