King of the Mountain (2 page)

She wilted back against the buttery-soft seat, wallowing in the sheer luxury of it. “Positive.”

“You’re liable to be pretty stiff and sore by morning.” Rain played the steel roof like a drum as he started the car and shifted into drive. “And I’d be glad to pay—”

“It’s not my health I’m worried about.” She felt a rush of toasted air sweep over her as the heater came on. “It’s how I’m going to get to work without a car.”

“I’ll buy you another one.” His cavalier attitude toward money flicked her on the raw.

“I hope to shout you will.” Anger made her speak louder than necessary in the confined space.

He rounded the next curve at a slower rate of speed than he’d taken that last one. “The accident was partly your fault, you know.”

“And just how do you figure that?” Kitty clenched both her teeth and her fists, thinking he was the most obnoxious man she’d ever met.

“If you hadn’t been creeping along like a turtle on tranquilizers—”

“What about
you
?” she accused him, breathing fire. “Flying down the mountain like a … a bat out of—”

Foolishly, now that she was safe, she started to sniffle.

He stopped the Cadillac with an exasperated curse but left the engine running.

“Keep going.” She knuckled her tears away, mortified at losing her normally rigid control. “It’s just a delayed reaction.”

Ignoring her protest, he leaned across her and
removed something from the glove compartment. She couldn’t see what it was until he sat back and uncapped it.

“Drink this.” He tilted a flask toward her.

“What is it?” she asked suspiciously.

“Bourbon … Kentucky’s finest.” His voice sounded as promising as the contents of the flask—warm and mellow and aged to perfection.

A spattering of rain struck the windshield.

“I don’t—”

“Good for what ails you.”

The burnished silver flask gleamed richly in the dash lights.

Kitty could take liquor or leave it. Mostly she left it. But she decided that a couple of nips couldn’t hurt anything. She had just cheated death.

“All right.” She reached for the flask.

They bumped hands during the exchange and she felt an instinctive need to put up her guard. She raised the flask to her lips to hide her confusion.

She tasted cold silver against her teeth and fiery bourbon on her tongue. Her first swallow of the hundred-proof whiskey seared both her throat and her stomach lining before spreading a welcome heat to her shivery limbs. But her second, longer swallow went straight to her head.

“That’s enough,” he declared, reaching for the flask when she lifted it to her lips yet a third time.

Kitty relinquished it without a fuss, knowing
she couldn’t very well stand up to the coal baron if she was falling-down drunk when she got to the union hall.

After recapping the flask and replacing it in the glove compartment, he slung one elbow over the wheel and half turned her way. His white shirt showed up starkly against the black window, emphasizing the width of his shoulders.

“Feel better now?” he asked softly.

She nodded and laid her head back against the cushioned headrest, feeling a decidedly pleasant buzz from the bourbon. “Thanks.”

With the rain easing to a whisper against the windshield and the powerful engine purring hypnotically, she almost forgot where she was. And she almost forgot that it had been years since she’d been alone with a man.

She turned her head his way but couldn’t see his face in the shadows. Even so, she could remember it perfectly: gray eyes with the sheen of polished steel; cheekbones sharp enough to cut a finger on; a strong jaw and sensuous mouth that conveyed equal measures of danger and carnality. Now, if she could only remember where she’d seen him before …

Kitty drank in his bay rum scent which clung to the fibers of the borrowed jacket; it was as intoxicating as the bourbon. But cologne and cashmere proved a poor match for her own experiences with men.

Sobered at the thought, she sat up resolutely
and looked at the digital clock on the dash. Its glowing green numbers told her the bargaining session would be starting soon.

“We’d better go.” Her brisk tone broke the intimate spell that had settled in their dimly lit world. “I don’t want to be late.”

“Fine.” His voice was as crisp as the rustle of his starched white shirt when he turned back to the wheel. “After we’ve seen the sheriff, I’ll drop you off at your costume party.”

“Costume party?” she asked, puzzled.

“I’ll admit it’s a little early for Halloween.” His hand fell idle on the gearshift as his gray eyes sought her out in curiosity. “But where else would you be going dressed like that?”

She remembered her grimy work clothes and her grandfather’s worn neckerchief, and smiled for the first time since the accident. “Would you believe the union hall?”

One black brow vaulted in surprise. “You’re a miner?”

“A roof bolter.” She spoke proudly of her recent promotion.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, his voice dropping to a self-mocking drawl.

“Yes,” she agreed in the spirit of the moment, “you probably will.”

A slow smile tinged the corners of his stern mouth as he reached across the front seat. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought red neckerchiefs went out with the Hatfields and the McCoys.”

Kitty saw his hand coming toward her and reacted instinctively, tucking her jaw down into her collarbone and throwing up her forearms as if to deflect a blow.

His fingers, long and lean and tawny in the dim glow from the dash, immediately relaxed their teasing hold on the tail end of her neckerchief. “What in hell’s name is the matter with you?”

Realizing she’d misread his intentions, she dropped her arm and turned her face to the darkened window, staring out in embarrassed silence. She clasped her hands together tightly in her lap to stop their shaking and wondered if she’d ever conquer her fear of—

“You thought I was going to hit you.” Comprehension had gentled his voice.

Obstinately she remained mute. She didn’t want his sympathy, she only wanted him to drop the subject.

“Didn’t you?” he demanded more forcefully.

“Just drive, will you?” She sighed wearily, wishing she could crawl into a hole and close it up after her.

“With pleasure.” He shifted gears and stepped on the gas, racing the car as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

The car shot forward like a missile, and she gripped the cushioned seat beneath her for all she was worth. “But just to set the record straight,” he added testily, “I want you to know I’ve never hit a woman and I never will.”

As much as she hated to admit it, she believed him. He was a maniac behind the wheel but he wasn’t mean. His earlier actions convinced her of that.

“I’m sorry I acted like such a ninny.”

To her relief, he eased up on the gas going into the next curve. “I shouldn’t have reached over there and grabbed at you the way I did.”

Surprised by his ready admission, Kitty didn’t know how to respond. Her ex-husband had never accepted responsibility for his actions. Quite the opposite, in fact. By the time she’d worked up the courage to leave him, he’d almost convinced her that his explosive rages were her fault.

But her confusion turned back to anger when she remembered how old Lead Foot over there had accused her of driving too slow. Just like a man, she fumed. Blaming a woman for his own—

“Well?”

“Well, what?” she snapped.

He drove one-handed as they neared the bottom of the mountain. “What’s with the neckerchief?”

“I want the coal baron to see red when I walk into the union hall.” But not until she’d seen to it that the sheriff gave this road warrior she was riding with a ticket for reckless driving.

“The coal baron,” he repeated thoughtfully.

“Benjamin Cooper,” she clarified tartly.

Thunder grumbled in the distance.

“You make him sound like Simon Legree.”

“I meant to.”

Behind them, the mountain brooded darkly; ahead of them, Cooperville dripped in a cold mist blowing down off the knobs.

He shot her a piercing glance that put her on the defensive. “Do you know the coal baron?”

“Not personally.” She’d come too far to back down now. “I’ve heard things, though.”

“Like what?” he pressed as they went from shadow to streetlight.

“That he has a degree in mine engineering, for one.” She studied his hawklike profile, her memory quickening with every passing mile.

“And for another?” His rough-edged drawl refocused her attention on the man in question.

The wind howled a warning.

She paid it no heed. “That he’s never lifted anything heavier than a pencil or a negligee.”

He didn’t respond, but the groove that arced from his nose to his mouth deepened in amusement. Not until he’d pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office and turned to face her did she notice that his eyes were glittering like knife blades.

That wasn’t all she noticed, either.

He had her cornered now and was watching her with the patience of a predator. A dark memory from the past blended with the present. A dangerous moment. She experienced a dizzying sense of déjà vu, and a feeling of being hopelessly trapped. She realized she was extremely vulnerable.

Through sheer force of will she rid her face of any telltale expression and looked him squarely in
the eye. But way down deep she wondered how she was going to get out of this without losing any more than she already had.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding anything but, “I didn’t get your name.”

“Kitty Reardon.” She lifted her chin a notch, answering his challenge with one of her own. “And yours?”

Before he could answer, the sheriff opened the driver’s door and peered inside. The overhead light beamed down, startlingly bright and starkly revealing.

“Somethin’ wrong, Mr. Cooper?” the lawman asked, his languid cadence fairly oozing solicitude.

“Cooper?” Kitty felt the sickening kick of recognition as she stared into the silver and steel eyes of the most powerful man in these parts.

The coal baron’s feral smile made her blood run cold. “Benjamin Cooper.”

Kitty felt as if she’d lost her power of speech, which might have been to her benefit. After all, the only time she’d had her foot out of her mouth these past few minutes was when she’d been changing feet!

“Very funny, Mr. Cooper,” she choked out when she finally found her voice, wishing to high heaven she had something more scathing to say.

“Call me Ben,” he encouraged her, his smile widening across his deeply tanned face. “I’ll even answer to ‘Simon’ in an emergency.”

Kitty recalled all too well the insulting comparison she’d drawn between the infamous slave driver and the coal baron. Now she burned at the memory.

“Sheriff—.” She shucked off the cashmere coat
and scrambled out of the Cadillac. “Arrest that man!”

The sheriff, whose Groucho Marx eyebrows compensated for what he lacked in hair, looked at her over the roof of the car. “On what grounds?”

“Attempted murder,” she declared self-righteously.

“Attempted murder?” Ben roared from the driver’s seat.

“That’s a pretty serious charge,” the sheriff pointed out as he scratched his balding pate.

“You’re damn right it is!” Ben shot out of the car, towering over the lawman and glowering menacingly at Kitty. “Are you forgetting I saved your life?”

Her nostrils narrowed haughtily and she drew herself up to her full five foot five inch height. “Only after you tried to kill me.”

Their eyes, his an icy gray and hers an irate blue, clashed and held over the car roof. A nearby streetlight flickered forebodingly. The sheriff headed for safer ground, waiting on the otherwise deserted sidewalk outside his office to see who would win this battle of wills.

Ben was fighting mad over her trumped-up charge, yet the longer he studied the bristling little hillbilly who’d made it, the more intrigued he became with her.

Not that she was much to look at right now. Her black hair was plastered to her head, partly from the rain and partly from having been mashed
under a helmet all day. Coal dust had sketched dark streaks on her pale heart-shaped face, and that dirty coverall hid a figure he remembered as being slim and shapely and honed by hard work.

But it wasn’t her good looks—or the subtlety of them at the moment—that kept his attention riveted on her. She had a grit that the women of his experience rarely exhibited and a grace that he found enchanting. And it was those characteristics coupled with the secret sadness that emanated from her big blue eyes that piqued his interest.

His curiosity was so powerful, so palpable that Kitty could feel it radiating through the two thousand pounds of steel and glass that separated them. It took great fortitude on her part not to turn and run from the probing stare that seemed to read her so clearly. But she stood her ground.

“What do you say we go inside and settle this,” the sheriff suggested when it seemed that neither one of them was going to give.

“Good idea,” Ben agreed grudgingly.

“
Excellent
idea.” Kitty barely topped the roof of the car, but she was determined to top the coal baron’s remark.

Ben held the door open for Kitty. Head high and shoulders squared, she swept past him like a queen. But her heart leapt when their bodies brushed. And the scent of his bay rum lingering on her collar reminded her that he had done her as much good as harm.

The thought took some of the wind from her sails. How could she press charges against the man who’d risked his life to save hers? On the other hand, how could she let him walk away scot free after he’d almost killed her?

Kitty stood there, stewing in the juices of her own confusion, until Ben asked to use the sheriff’s phone to call the union hall to postpone the bargaining session to another night.

He growled a low greeting into the receiver and said, “I’ve run into a little trouble.”

Trouble?
Trouble
was she? She glared at the man who was lounging against the desk, his lean, supple body totally relaxed. He didn’t know what trouble was!