Before the Dawn (8 page)

“But I've known you longer. She's been on your mind, whether you want to admit it or not. I also know that any woman who'll stand up to you is worth her weight in Colorado gold. You need a wife, and I think she'll do.”

Ryder's dark eyes widened with amazement. “A wife? What have you been drinking? I'm not marrying anyone, especially not that proper-talking firecracker. Didn't I tell you she was an adventuress?”

Sam waited.

The silent standoff lasted for a few moments longer, then Ryder sighed resignedly. “All right. I'll see what I can do. Not because of her, but because you'll nag me until next Christmas if I don't.”

Sam smiled.

“And don't smile yet,” Ryder warned. “If I do have to intervene, I do it my way. I don't want to hear a peep out of you about my methods.”

Sam turned an imaginary key in his lips. “Not a peep.”

They both knew he was lying. Asking Sam to keep his opinions to himself was akin to asking the seasons not to change.

Ryder shook his head good-humoredly. “Go home. I've work to do.”

Sam smiled and left.

As Ryder watched the door close, he acknowledged that Sam was the only person he allowed to see his true self. After his mother's death, his Cheyenne grandmother, called Little Tears, raised him. She taught him life, the history of the Cheyenne, and how to survive the bittersweet, day-today existence forced upon the tribes by the ignorance and greed of those in power. She died the day after he left to attend school in Minnesota. It was almost as if her purpose for living ceased upon his departure. Miss Eloise, one of the local residents, had wired him to inform him of her passing. Had it not been for her, Ryder doubted he would have even known. No one else in the area gave a tinker's damn about him or his redskin kin.

He met Sam a month after arriving in Minnesota. At the time, the old man had been a cook at the boardinghouse where Ryder rented a room. The job suited Sam well after his years of cooking for the men and the mules of the highly decorated Ninth Cavalry. Initially, Ryder met Sam's attempts at friendship with suspicion; soldiers, even retired
ones, were symbols of death, bitterness, and betrayal to a man with Native blood, especially in light of Ryder's personal connection to the massacre of the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek. He wanted nothing to do with Sam, and bluntly told him so.

But Ryder's attitude changed the day Sam came across Ryder being beaten by some local town toughs. There'd been six of them. Ryder could've handled three, maybe even four, but his inability to handle all six cowards alone could be measured by his bloodied, swollen face and the way they were kicking him as he lay nearly unconscious in the dirt.

To this day, Sam refused to tell Ryder how he extricated him from that hate-fed encounter, but Ryder knew he would have been kicked to death were it not for the old pony soldier. They became solid friends after that; Ryder listened to Sam's stories about his life, and Sam listened to his. When the time came for Ryder to leave school, he asked Sam to return with him to Colorado and help him make his fortune and Sam agreed; they'd been together ever since.

However, Ryder found Sam's championing of the Widow Montague surprising. Sam rarely butted into Ryder's private life, and never before had he ever mentioned any woman and the word marriage in the same sentence. Ryder shook his head. He could just imagine himself married to Leah Montague. They'd spend every waking moment arguing. He had no plans to hitch his fate to such an ornery female. If and when he decided to marry, he'd pick a woman with a lot less sass and a lot more deference. That didn't mean he wouldn't welcome Leah into his bed though. Sam was right, she had been on his mind. He found her dark beauty as desirable as an untapped source of gold, but claiming that gold would take a patience Ryder never had to exercise before when pursuing a woman. Usually he
beckoned, they smiled and came willingly. He sensed the Widow Montague would be as combative as a wild mare, but taming and claiming her would undoubtedly be worth the loss of a finger or two, not to mention how it would affect Seth.

His eyes strayed back to the paper. If the report about the lien on the Montague estate were true, prison could indeed be her fate. Ryder assumed Cecil Lee was out working his legendary magic in an attempt to get her a reprieve, but Ryder knew the Butler would find times had changed in the thirty years since Louis's day; the cutthroat rules of business and finance were the same but the players had changed. Syndicates and foreign investment were now running things, and they had more gold than Zeus and more lawyers than an indicted politician. The political climate had changed also. With the death of Reconstruction, men of color were less tolerated and more likely to be given short shrift in everything. Without Louis's influence and wealth behind him, Cecil stood little chance of gaining access to anyone powerful enough to aid the widow's case. Maybe Sam was right, maybe he should intervene. But what would he gain? She'd probably not appreciate his help, and therein lay the challenge. Just like the wild mare he'd mused upon earlier, she'd fight his lariat all the way, but, given time and the proper handling, he saw no reason why she couldn't be gentled. After all, the Cheyenne had always been excellent horsemen.

 

Later that afternoon Mrs. France came up to Leah's room to inform her that she had a visitor waiting in the parlor.

A wary Leah asked, “Is it a creditor, or someone with a summons?”

“No.”

Leah felt relief flood her. “Who is it then?”

“Mr. Damien.”

“Ryder Damien?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

For the life of her, Leah couldn't come up with a reason why he'd want to see her. Unless he'd heard about her dilemma and had come to gloat, she told herself. Noting that Mrs. France looked a bit impatient, Leah finally said, “Tell him I'll be down momentarily.”

Mrs. France departed.

Leah took a deep breath. Ryder Damien was the last person she wanted to see today. She had enough on her mind.

When she walked into the parlor, Ryder was again caught by her beauty. Her dark skin was as pure and as clear as a jewel. The fashionably piled hair made him imagine how it might look after a night of lovemaking. As always his eyes slid admiringly over the tempting figure. The long-sleeved black dress sported a narrow band of black lace at the wrists and around the high-necked collar. She presented a prim widow's innocence he knew she didn't possess, and that made her even more desirable.

“You wished to see me?” she said from the doorway.

“I do. Word has it you're having financial difficulties.”

Leah didn't deny it. “Yes, I am. Have you come to gloat?”

“No.”

“Did Seth send you?”

“The only place my brother wishes to send me is to hell.”

“Isn't that where we are?” she asked in response.

He raised an eyebrow. “Sarcasm?”

“Truth.”

He watched her walk fully into the room and take up a stance at the windows, her back to him.

“You are more everything than I thought,” he admitted.

She turned to view him over her shoulder. “Do you always offer such backhanded compliments?”

“Only when necessary.”

Leah sensed the male in him subtly seeking out the woman in her, and it made her look away from his penetrating eyes. “What did you want?”

“Sam thought maybe I could help in some way.”

“Do you have fifteen thousand dollars you can spare?” she asked boldly.

“Yes.”

Leah looked back at him once again.

He shrugged those magnificent shoulders. “Obviously, I have more of my father in me than I care to admit. Making money seems to come easily.”

Leah scanned him silently. Could he really extricate her from this awful situation? If so, what would he ask in exchange? She already knew the answer, but needed to hear him say it. “And in return?”

“That you be on my arm. Grace my table. The rest you know.”

Leah fled from his unreadable eyes. His mixed ancestry had produced a man as beautiful and as formidable as a pagan god; women probably knelt at his altar often. “I'd like to wait until Cecil and Seth return before I make a decision. They may have found a solution.”

Ryder hadn't expected her to agree readily, and she hadn't disappointed. “I have no quarrel with that.”

For the first time Leah could see that he, too, bore a strong resemblance to his father. The chin and the shape of his mouth mirrored Monty's exactly. As a result, pleasant memories of Monty rose unbidden. “He was a good man, your father.”

“He left behind two dead women and abandoned two small sons. I see nothing good in that.”

Leah was stung by his response, and her chin rose defiantly. “At the end he was sorry for abandoning you. He'd wanted to close the breach but was afraid he'd be rebuffed—afraid you and Seth hated him.”

“An astute man, that Louis.”

Leah wondered how much of Ryder's bitterness was rooted in anger and how much pain. She sensed a great deal of both. “Do you truly hate him? Truly?”

“I hate what he did to my mother, and to me.”

“Is that why you don't carry his name?”

“I don't carry his name because he never married my mother.”

Leah felt the chill in his words. “But you don't really believe he murdered her, do you?”

“And if my answer is yes?”

“I'd say you were wrong.”

“Then we disagree.”

Ryder supposed it made her feel better to believe in her version of Louis Montague, but Ryder had lived with the truth all his life. “A woman like you should know that men are capable of anything.”

Leah stiffened.
“A woman like me?”

Ryder heard the temper in her voice. “We are who we are.”

“And, as I told you before, you wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face.”

“You didn't marry Louis Montague for his money?”

The question was filled with such confident disbelief it only reinforced what she'd deduced earlier; even if she told him the truth, he wouldn't believe it, so why bother?

Leah's voice dripped with sarcasm. “I'd be lying if I said, ‘hope to see you again,' so I'll simply say, good day.”

He stepped forward to block her passage. She didn't feel threatened; she was too busy being aware of his body's heat mingling with her own and the faint spicy tones of his cologne.

“You play the offended widow well.”

“And you the bitter, estranged son.”

He inclined his head. “You joust well, also.”

“Another compliment?”

“An observation. I don't like women who run and hide.”

“I'll be sure to pass that along to anyone who might be interested.”

“Your claws are showing.”

Leah had grown up in a seafaring town; she'd met men from all over the world but never one as commanding or provoking as Ryder Damien.

In spite of the tension in the room, Ryder didn't want her to leave, even as he wondered how many other men she'd known in her past. “Is my brother treating you well?”

“Unlike you, Seth's been a gentleman.”

“It's one of the things he's best at. Shall I emulate him?”

Leah searched the sculpted face framed by the falling black hair. “To what end?”

“My own.”

In response to his low-toned words, something she had never felt before snaked up past her bad mood, making her respond to his silent, potent call. “Women surrender to you easily, don't they?”

“I've never had a problem in that area.”

“It shows.”

“I like you.”

Leah held his gaze. “But, I
don't
like you.”

“You prefer my brother?”

“Why should that matter?”

“He and I have fought over everything our entire lives.”

“So, if I took an interest in him?”

“Then I'd do everything in my power to turn that interest my way.”

At first she thought he was merely being sarcastic, but seconds later realized he was quite serious. He exuded a power that put a haziness in her blood. A woman as inexperienced as she had no idea what type of defense to deploy
against such an overwhelming man, yet she was contemplating being his for a price.

Ryder wanted to ease her into his arms so he could determine once and for all if her mouth tasted as lush as it appeared. The charged air between them was filled with the thunder of their volatile interactions and the lightning of their unacknowledged, mutual attraction. In time, the situation would explode with the force of a summer storm, but he had the patience to wait.

They were both so attuned to one another, neither of them noticed Seth's presence in the room until they heard him demand, “Leah, what's he doing here?”

Ryder replied, “Offering the lady a way out of Louis's trap.” Only then did he turn his cold eyes on his brother. They faced each other like the adversaries they were.

Seth shot back smoothly, “What can you offer?”

Ryder posed a question of his own. “Then you have the money she needs?”

Seth's face reddened.

Ryder's smile was icy. “I thought not.”

Ryder directed his attention back to Leah. “I'll be by tomorrow morning for your decision.”

Leah nodded almost imperceptibly.

Seth seemed unwilling to concede defeat. “Leah, you aren't seriously considering an offer from him?”

She asked him frankly, “Shall I go to prison instead?” and waited for his response.

He didn't have one it seemed. Although Leah enjoyed being in Seth's company, she had to look beyond emotional reactions and deal with reality. Ryder had a solution.

Seth held his brother's eyes, and said, “Mr. Lee will never let her agree.”

At that moment, Cecil entered the room, “What won't I agree to?”