Nan Ryan (11 page)

“I won,” she said, smiling up at him. “I won.”

“No,” he corrected, struggling for breath, “no, you didn’t.” He stretched out on his stomach beside her. “I won.”

“You! How do you figure?”

Heart still pumping rapidly, he said, “You wanted to beat me so badly you half killed yourself to do it.”

“So? And you didn’t?”

He shook his head and grinned. He lifted a hand and touched his forefinger to her bottom lip. “Now you’re so exhausted I’ve got you where I want you. Lying here too weak to fight me off.”

“Don’t count on it,” she warned, continuing to smile easily.

“I mean to kiss you, Diane Buchannan,” he cautioned, smiling just as easily.

“I know,” she replied, looking straight up into his green eyes, arms staying as they were, flung up above her head.

The Kid moved his hand to her narrow rib cage. His fingers gently curved around her waist. He leaned down and kissed her, his mouth warm and eager on hers. Diane’s arms didn’t come down to twine around his neck. But she did kiss him back, turning her head a little, molding her lips to the gentle pressure of his.

As soon as the Kid lifted his blond head, she pushed on his broad chest, sat up, and said, “I’m starved. Let’s ride over to Pell’s Fish House for lunch.”

She shot to her feet while the Kid sat there on the ground, stunned by her abrupt manner, disappointed that his kiss hadn’t had a more lasting effect. He was accustomed to having women sigh and swoon when he caressed them. His green eyes narrowed as he watched Diane dash merrily over and jerk up her bicycle. He had the uneasy feeling that this overly independent raven-haired beauty meant to lead him a merry chase.

That unpleasant prospect annoyed him. He felt his temper rising, was struck with the strong desire to grab her right off that damned bicycle, fling her back down on the summer grass, and kiss her until she knocked off all this haughty foolishness and sighed his name in rapture.

He exhaled heavily. He couldn’t do it. He had to swallow his pride and take the time and patience to woo this one properly. She wasn’t just another woman with whom he wanted to go to bed. She was Diane Buchannan, the Colonel’s only granddaughter. It appeared the heartless little bitch enjoyed playing games. Well, he would let her play.

Smiling again, the Kid rose to his feet, brushed the grass blades from his trousers, hurried to climb on his bicycle and overtake the beautiful, maddening woman. For once in his life he intended to play his hand right. The Colonel was quite fond of him; he was sure of it. In the two years he had been with the troupe, Colonel Buchannan had been right there to bail him out of a couple of scrapes. And instead of preaching to him, the old showman had laughed, clapped him on the back, and said, “Kid, you remind me of myself when I was a young man. Why, back before I married my sweet wife, Ruthie, I was quite the hell raiser.”

Pedaling up the street, the Kid was silently making plans. Plans that involved the laughing young woman racing breezily ahead of him. Almost from the minute he had joined the troupe he’d begun looking forward to the day when the Colonel and Mrs. Buchannan were too old to travel.

Soon after meeting the lovely Diane, the aging couple’s granddaughter and only heir, he’d been stuck by the idea that if he and Diane were to marry, the old man might step aside sooner. Being married to the granddaughter wouldn’t be all that bad. She
was
very beautiful, and he had no doubt he could take her down to size, train her to be the kind of wife every man wanted. Sweet. Passionate. Loyal. Patient. Obedient. Willing to accept his occasional indiscretions without complaint.

Marrying Diane Buchannan was definitely the answer. Then the show, and the girl, would be his.

The Kid pulled up alongside Diane. When she glanced over at him, he turned his most winning smile on her and said, “Diane, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to frighten you back there.”

Her dark, perfectly arched eyebrows shot up and her violet eyes flashed with derisive laughter. “Kid, you couldn’t frighten me if you tried!”

Stung by her unexpected retort, he wisely kept his bruised ego to himself. Docilely he rode back into town with her, making small talk, doing his best to charm her. They shared a hearty meal at Pell’s Fish House, and afterward he again followed her lead as she climbed back on her rented bicycle and rode off down toward the fairgrounds.

Diane didn’t consciously head straight for the Redman’s cage. At least she told herself she didn’t. But minutes after reaching the fairgrounds, she was rolling to a stop directly before the barred cage, her anxious eyes searching for the creature.

She got off the bicycle, moved up closer to the cage’s steel bars, and peered in at the reclining Redman.

“Isn’t he something?” The Kid’s voice came from just behind. He discarded his bicycle and came to stand at Diane’s elbow. “A real throwback. A dirty, ignorant Stone Age Neanderthal.”

The Redman, lying down in the shade at the back of his cage, turned a bored, scornful gaze on the gawking pair, then yawned and stretched his legs apart and clasped his hands behind his head. His mouth fixed in a hard, thin line, he flexed the muscles of his upper body, causing his taut stomach to cave in under his ribs, the flat belly to fall away from the covering loincloth.

“Diane, stay away from down here unless I’m with you,” the Kid warned. “If he should get loose …”

“Yes, I will,” Diane murmured, unable to take her eyes off the relaxed Redman. The creature showed no emotion. None at all. Did he feel anything? Was there anything they could say or do that would capture his attention?

Diane realized she was being thoughtless and maybe even unkind, but she caught herself longing to get a rise out of the Redman of the Rockies. To evoke some kind of emotion. Looking straight at the Redman, Diane moved a step closer to the Kid, slid her hand up around his big arm, and, pressing the hard biceps with restless fingers, murmured, “I sure enjoyed our morning together, didn’t you, Kid? It was lovely being off alone, far away from the others. Just the two of us.” Her voice was low and coated with honey.

Pleased but baffled, the Kid said, “It sure was. Only thing is, it didn’t last long enough.”

Diane smiled knowingly and pressed her dark head to his shoulder. She gaily flirted with the Kid, flirted as she’d not done all morning. She laughed softly and squeezed his big arm, pressed herself close. She looked into the Kid’s eyes and leaned up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear so the creature couldn’t quite hear. Actually what she whispered was nothing more than teasing nonsense, but the big blond man smiled and nodded and looked immensely pleased.

While the pair laughed and whispered and flirted, Diane stole quick, curious glances at the caged creature, lying in his shaded cage not ten feet from her. When she saw that his dark eyes were closed and his bare chest was rising and falling rhythmically, she felt let down.

The savage was sound asleep!

Unreasonably disappointed, she promptly pulled away from the Kid and said, “It’s getting late. I must go to my quarters at once.”

Puzzled by her mercurial mood changes, the Kid said, “Well … wait, I—I’ll go with you.”

“No.” She stopped him. “You have to return the bicycles to the Brown Palace. Don’t you?” She turned and walked away.

Frowning, he scratched his head and called after her, “Have a late supper with me tonight after the show?” No response. “Please, Diane. Have dinner with me.”

“All right,” she called over her shoulder, not bothering even to glance back at him.

The Cherokee Kid tried hard to impress the beautiful Diane Buchannan. He spent his free time in an all-out attempt to fascinate, excite, and overwhelm her with his masculine charm. He took her on a carriage ride through the city park one afternoon. The next day he took her up into the foothills, where they picnicked in a lush green valley a thousand feet above the city.

He escorted her on window-shopping forays past the May Company, the Denver Dry, the big Daniels and Fisher store, and Buerger Brothers. She was unlike the other show girls he’d known. She didn’t drag him inside the fine stores, hoping he’d spend money on her. She was more than content with window-shopping. He found that very refreshing.

He squired her to Denver’s fanciest restaurants, including the elegant Tortini with its private, intimate dining salons, the Brown Palace’s dark and cozy Ship’s Tavern, and the Hotel Windsor’s opulent dining room with its diamond dust mirrors, marble floors, Brussels carpet, and hand-carved furniture.

Together they toured the Tabor Grand Opera House, that gaudy self-monument erected by the late, flamboyant silver king. They wandered through the sprawling Richthofen Castle, ambitious folly of the Prussian nobleman Baron Walton von Richthofen. They toured the huge Tivoli Union Brewing Company, graciously sampling the foamy brew. They sipped nose-tickling phosphates at McMahan’s drugstore, caught a Sunday matinee melodrama at the ornate Broadway Theater, and ventured into the posh Inter-Ocean Club for a round of roulette one midnight after the show.

The bold and well-informed Diane tried to persuade the Kid to take her down to Denver’s red-light district. He refused. She was disappointed. She’d heard of Mattie Silks and Jennie Rogers and was dying for at least a look at the outside of the gaudy Market Street houses.

“Have you seen their places?” she asked the Kid.

“Certainly not,” was his quick reply, and he hoped his face wasn’t red as he grinned, fondly recalling the fun and frolic on the golden throne at Jennie Rogers’s.

The Cherokee Kid showered Diane with sentimental gifts, compliments, and more attention than he’d ever afforded any one woman in his life. But it was not easy to impress Diane Buchannan. She was not one of the sweet, simple farm girls who showed up at the fairgrounds with stars in their eyes and dreams of romance and adventure in their hearts.

Diane Buchannan had been “raised on the road.” As a child she’d had private tutors from the age of five. She had traveled the world over, met influential people from every walk of life. She had sat on the knee of Queen Victoria—when the troupe appeared in Europe, had been received at the White House by three different administrations.

As a grown woman Diane had had dozens of rich, handsome young men vie for her affections.

She wasn’t falling right into his arms the way the Kid had hoped.

He had no intention of giving up. The stakes were too high.

Colonel Buchannan was firmly in the Kid’s corner. The Kid had managed, very skillfully, to pull the wool over the old man’s eyes. Almost everything he had told the Colonel regarding his past had been fabricated. Lying came easily to the Kid. He had been doing it with great success all his life. So the Colonel didn’t see Philip Lowery—the Cherokee Kid—for the kind of man he really was. The Kid was ambitious and selfish and had little respect for his fellow troupers. He possessed, indeed, all the essential qualities of success.

The old showman had noticed that the young couple had become almost inseparable. He was pleased. The prospect of having his overly adventurous, headstrong granddaughter safely married was more than appealing. His blue eyes twinkling, he offered the anxious Kid a slice of sound advice regarding the wooing and winning of his beautiful granddaughter.

“It’ll take a man of iron will, strong heart, and sensitive manner to tame Diane Buchannan.”

Chapter 10

Diane just couldn’t get the Redman of the Rockies off her mind.

She seized every opportunity to pass the cage of the hard-featured savage. Untamed and dangerous he might well be, but physically he was a superb specimen and Diane found herself alarmingly intrigued by him.

She told herself it was a harmless fascination, no different from that which she felt toward the tawny mountain lion caged beside him. She relished watching both, especially when they were unaware of her presence, and reasoned that the fierce savage was as different a species from her as the big male cat. Therein lay her captivation. It was perfectly normal. It was not the least bit unhealthy to be dazzled and drawn by the beautiful pair.

Diane secretly acknowledged that the creature had a disarming way of looking sideways at her whenever she passed his cage. What did it mean? What was going on in his head?

On occasions, when she was feeling unusually curious and courageous, she’d stop, step up close to the barred cage, and study him thoughtfully; it seemed by turns to amuse, then enrage him. She could have sworn that a time or two she caught a teasing light shining out of the dark eyes, a minute lifting of his cruel lips into something resembling a smile. By the same token there was no doubt in her mind that on a couple of occasions her very presence had filled him with unreasonable fury.

Monday morning.

Diane awakened very early. The first thought that popped into her mind was the Redman of the Rockies. She hastily dressed and wandered down to the holding pens shortly after sunup.

The Redman’s cage was being hosed down. The roustabout wielding the high-pressure hose carelessly pummeled the Indian with the full force and blast of the water.