Savage Heat (2 page)

“All aboard,” called a chubby-faced black man as the train’s whistle gave a loud, sharp blast and steam hissed from the mighty engines.

“It’s time!” Martay said excitedly, lifted her gloved hand, and waved good-bye to all her friends. “See you in the fall,” she shouted, to be heard above the noise. “Thank you all for my wonderful party.”

She stepped onto the stairs and looked at Farrell. He was so forlorn, she leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I’ll write.”

“No, you won’t,” he said, knowing her all too well.

She smiled and started to object, but he suddenly pulled her from the steps, crushed her to him, and kissed her ardently, eagerly, mindless of the crowds witnessing his fervent display of passion. When finally he tore his lips from hers, he murmured, almost apologetically, “Just so you won’t forget me.”

The train had started to move, wheels turning on the track. Martay, grateful for the opportunity to escape, said, “I must hurry!” lifted her flowing skirts, and dashed up the steps. In seconds she was rolling away, pulling out of the station, while Farrell, his face flushed with emotion, ran alongside the moving train. Martay sighed with relief when the train picked up speed and he could no longer keep up. He stopped, out of breath but still calling to her, while she stood in the open doorway and waved a linen handkerchief.

“It’s time to get inside,” said Lettie from behind her.

Martay nodded, turned, and impulsively hugged the big Irishwoman who had tended her since the day she was born. “Oh, Lettie, can you believe it! We’re finally on our way to Colorado!”

“The only place you’re on your way to right now is bed,” said Lettie, hands on ample hips, her plain, ruddy face screwed up in a frown of disapproval. “Up half the night, kissing gentlemen in public, going across the country. What next?”

Undaunted, Martay happily whirled around and around. “Indeed, what next? I don’t know, and that’s the fun of it, Lettie. I’m going to a new place, I’ll meet new people, and I’ll do things I’ve never done before.”

“I don’t know what’s got into the General.” Lettie took Martay’s arm and jerked her to an abrupt stop. “A young girl’s got no business going off to the wilderness.” She started to unhook Martay’s exquisite pale yellow ball gown.

Martay stopped her. “I can undress, you go on to bed. You must be tired.”

“A little. My arthritis is acting up and I …”

“Poor Lettie. Get some sleep. Is Dexter …”

“That no-account Dexter’s been asleep in his quarters since before nine o’clock. Fat lot of help he’s going to be on this trip.”

Martay could hardly hide her delight that Big Dexter was fast asleep and therefore couldn’t be his usual nosy self. She knew she didn’t need to worry about Amos, the family cook. If she knew Amos, he’d found a dice game somewhere on the train and wouldn’t return to the California Gold until it was time for her breakfast.

Lettie, Big Dexter, and Amos were the only servants accompanying her to Colorado. The rest of the staff would remain in Chicago, taking care of the big house on Michigan Avenue. She’d miss them. Her mother had died when she was four years old, so Lettie and the others had raised her. They had their faults; Dexter was lazy, but he was also big and powerful and would lay down his life for her or the General. Amos was a hopeless gambler, but one of the best cooks in Chicago. And Lettie—well, Lettie was becoming increasingly hard to get along with. Martay put it down to the “mysterious change” she’d heard matrons whisper about. Lettie had turned fifty-one last winter and on the coldest of days she went about fanning herself, saying she was burning up.

“You’re too hard on poor Dexter,” said Martay, smiling up at Lettie. “And too hard on yourself. Go on to sleep.” Martay put a fist to her mouth and yawned dramatically. “I can hardly hold my eyes open. I’ll just fall right into bed.”

“You sure you don’t want me to help you get ready?”

“I can manage nicely, thanks.”

“Well, all right. Don’t be staying up reading any of those trashy dime novels, you hear me.”

“I heard you. Now, good night.”

Again Martay sighed with relief when Lettie left her alone. And then she smiled; raced to the vanity; looked into the gold-rimmed mirror. She snatched up a pot of lip rouge and quickly repaired the damage from Farrell’s last lusty kiss. She impatiently smoothed the mass of tousled blond curls falling about her bare ivory shoulders, jerked the low-plunging bodice of her yellow gown up over the swell of her full breasts, turned out the lamp, and quietly tiptoed to the rear door.

The California Gold rode six cars ahead of the caboose. In front of it were the dusty chair coaches and shipping cars. Behind it were the sleeping and first-class coaches. Martay slid the big, heavy door of her stateroom open and stepped out onto the platform.

The fast-moving train had already left the lights of the city far behind and was now traveling over the rolling moonlit countryside. The wind blew so strongly into her face, Martay felt tears spring to her eyes and her long skirts whip about her legs.

She hurried to the next car, jerked the door open, and stepped inside. She made her way down the aisle where elegantly clad gentlemen were smoking cigars and talking of the stock market. Three well-dressed ladies were traveling together. A couple of brash young soldiers smiled and winked at Martay, and she smiled back. A child, breaking away from his weary, distracted mother, grabbed Martay around the knees and held on for dear life, saying, “Do you have candy?”

“No. No, I’m sorry,” Martay said, smiling down at the adorable blond boy.

“Tyrone, turn loose of that pretty girl’s dress,” came the quick reprimand from Tyrone’s mother.

He obeyed, and, smiling, Martay took a step forward and realized the hem of her dress was caught on something. She looked down. The delicate lace of her petticoat had somehow become snared on the toe of a man’s gleaming black boot. Martay started to speak but saw that the man was obviously asleep. His head was resting on the seat back, his black hat pulled low, completely covering his face.

Half irritated that his foot had been in her way, Martay sat down on her heels to disengage her petticoat from his boot toe. While she was there she cast a curious glance at the man, who was traveling alone. His dark frock coat lay on the seat beside him. His cravat was untied and his white linen shirt was open at the throat. Long dark fingers were laced atop a flat abdomen, and a broad, powerful chest rose and fell evenly.

And long, lean legs, encased in fine black trousers, were sticking out into the aisle.

He shifted slightly and Martay held her breath. And for some reason the hair on the nape of her neck rose. Jerking the caught lace from the shiny boot, she heard it rip, but didn’t care. She rose and hurried back down the aisle, feeling as if someone were after her. Her heart pounding, she stepped back inside her own gleaming stateroom and slammed the heavy door, whirling to lean back against it.

Then immediately laughed at her foolish attack of unease. Humming to herself, she undressed, turned out the gaslit lamp, and climbed into her big, soft bed. Her slender arms flung up over her head, she smiled in the darkness and thought about the glorious days ahead.

In moments the happy young woman, lulled by the monotonous clickity-clack of the wheels on the track, fell into a dreamless sleep.

In the middle of the night, while Martay slept peacefully in her stateroom, a tall, dark man stood alone on the observation deck at the back of the moving train. Cupping bronzed hands against the night wind, he lit a long brown cigar. The flare of the match briefly lit his chiseled face, the tiny flame making twin reflections in his black eyes.

He lowered the match and did not blow it out. The wind extinguished it. The cigar clamped firmly between his even white teeth, the man lifted a booted foot up to rest atop the wrought-iron railing. His eyes narrowed and, reaching down, he drew a tiny piece of torn lace from the toe of his gleaming black boot.

Rolling it slowly between thumb and forefinger, he smiled in the darkness.

2

A
fter five days, Martay was growing restless and bored, despite the opulence and comfort of her “moving hotel” with its satinwood paneled walls, Queen Anne chairs with hand-embroidered rose upholstery, blue Frederickian sofa imported from Germany, and Louis XVI bed. It was almost noon and still she had not dressed. Her tumbled blond hair falling about her face and down her back, she still had on a lace-trimmed satin nightgown and matching robe. Her feet were bare.

Sighing loudly, she rose from the secretary, where she’d spent the past hour writing notes to her friends back in Chicago. After long, uneventful days of the train’s snaking across the Great Plains, she’d grown tired of looking out the windows. There was nothing to see but mile upon mile of flat, high prairie, the sameness of the scene occasionally broken by a herd of cattle being driven to market by a handful of weathered drovers.

Wondering dismally if Denver was to be as tedious as this flat, lonely eastern part of the state, Martay made a face and flung herself down on the white velvet recamier, entertaining, for the first time, the idea that she might have made a big mistake by promising to spend her entire summer in Colorado.

She sighed again and closed her eyes, the idleness making her sleepy. She was just beginning to doze when Lettie came into the room and announced, arms folded, “Rocky Mountains straight ahead.”

Martay’s lassitude melted away and she was up off the daybed and at the window as quick as a cat. Pushing aside the curtains, she stuck her head out, squinted into the brilliant Colorado sunshine, and gave a great whoop of glee.

Before her, on the far, far western horizon, rose the majestic Rockies, their tallest peaks dusted with snow, their color, from her vantage point, a cool, deep, inviting blue.

Awestruck, she studied their grandeur unblinkingly for several minutes before she pulled her head back inside so swiftly, she bumped it. Ignoring the minor pain, she flew to Lettie. “Please run my bathwater, I must get dressed!” She slid the long sleeves of the satin robe from her arms and raced to the big armoire.

Shaking her gray head, the big Irishwoman smiled, her young charge’s mercurial nature ever an amazement to behold. She said, “Honey, you got plenty of time. We won’t arrive in Denver until tomorrow morning.”

June 8 was a perfect day in the Rockies. Warm, but not summertime hot. Clear, the sky a robin’s-egg blue with only a few high scattered puffy clouds floating aimlessly. Air thin and clean.

Martay, beside herself with excitement, looked every inch the “Golden girl” as the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy pulled into Denver’s Union Station. Attired in a well-cut traveling suit of pale blue linen, her gleaming golden hair swept atop her head and covered with a saucy blue straw bonnet, white kid gloves on her pale, slender hands, and a smile as big as Colorado stretching her luscious Cupid’s-bow mouth, she stepped down from her private railcar and felt every eye in busy Union Station turn her way.

Her own emerald eyes were anxiously surveying the crowd, looking for a noble head whose pale gold locks had turned to gleaming silver. She spotted him almost at once. Still a vitally handsome man at forty-seven, he was striding purposely forward, a young blond soldier at his side.

Martay hurried down the steps and started toward him, pushing through the throngs, murmuring “Excuse me” and “I’m sorry” until at last she reached him and found herself swept up into his arms and whirled around as though she were still a child.

“Daddy, Daddy!” she murmured, tears of happiness stinging her eyes, “it’s been so long.”

“Too long, angel,” said her father, his strong arms threatening to squeeze the very life from her. At last he lowered her to her feet, cupped her flushed cheeks in his hands, and kissed her. Then drawing her under his right arm, he said, “Honey, I want you to meet a very fine young officer, Major Lawrence Berton.”

“My pleasure, Miss Kidd,” said the smiling blond man, his warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners as he held out a square freckled hand.

“I’m glad to meet you, Major Berton,” said Martay, placing her small hand in his and feeling his blunt fingers firmly grip hers.

“Major Berton’s agreed to have lunch with us, Martay. Isn’t that grand?” said her father.

“Why, my goodness, yes,” Martay answered, smiling up at the major but secretly wishing he had not come along. It would have been so lovely to have had a long, leisurely lunch all alone with her father. Her mild disappointment increased when she saw the four stocky military men standing beside the waiting carriage. She’d forgotten, almost, that her father never went anywhere without an armed military escort. She supposed it was necessary; she wanted him to be safe, of course, but it got awfully tiresome having strangers trail him every time she was with him.

Her father slid an arm around her narrow waist, leaned down, and said, “My God, I’ve missed you, sweetheart.” And Martay’s dashed spirits promptly lifted.

Touching the crown of her blue straw bonnet to his medal-bedecked chest, she said happily, “We’ve the whole summer together and it’s going to be wonderful.”

“That it is, my sweet girl,” said the beaming general.

Martay was laughing sunnily by the time she stepped up into the carriage. Her father followed her up and sat down beside her, promptly putting a long arm protectively around her, while Major Berton took the seat across from them. The black carriage driver spoke in low, calming tones to a team of matched, nervous sorrels while waiting for the general’s military escort to mount their horses. The four big men, their alert eyes moving constantly over the crowd, swung up into their saddles to ride alongside the carriage.

Being in a lively holiday mood, Martay took the pin from her straw hat, drew the hat from her head, and tossed it onto the seat by the spread-kneed major. Studying him from beneath full dark lashes, she noted that he was really quite handsome in a shy, cute way, like a great big overgrown boy, all scrubbed clean and on his best behavior. His eyes were a warm shade of brown, his nose patrician, his mouth just a shade too large, lips wide and full. He was stockily built, but there was no fat on his frame. His massive shoulders strained the fine blue blouse of his uniform and his summer whites pulled against hard, muscular thighs.