Orchids in Moonlight (42 page)

"I ought to," Blake snarled, reaching out, "but I want you to live to hang, damn you."

He froze, astonished, as she suddenly let go and disappeared down the hole.

It was a long time before the screaming stopped.

And he never did hear the splash when she hit the water.

But then Blake figured it must be a real long drop all the way to hell.

He would have helped her, pulled her out, but for some strange reason, she had decided to end it all. Maybe it was his telling her about how awful it was to hang. He didn't know. He didn't care. All he wanted now was to let the past go and get on with his life.

He turned to go.

The large white serpent Morena had seen rising up from behind him was no longer there.

Epilogue

Jaime sat beside her father's hospital bed, holding his hand and smiling gratefully as the doctor assured them he was going to be all right. "He needs rest. Good food. Lots of care and love."

With a glance at Jaime as he left the room, the doctor knew James Chandler would lack for nothing.

James motioned for Cord to step closer, for he had been standing in the background, not wanting to intrude. "I can't thank you enough. You saved me. Saved my girl."

Cord shook his head. "I couldn't have done it if she hadn't been strong enough to do her part. Like on the wagon train." He felt a warm rush as his eyes met Jaime's.

"Well, it's over." James was beaming. "And as soon as I've got my strength back, I'm going to work my mine, and we'll be rich, darlin'." He squeezed Jaime's hand.

She seized the opportunity to ask something that had needled her all along. "I never wanted to mention it to Stanton, but what I never understood was why he was willing to believe the ore samples you gave him were actually from your mine. I mean, it looked as if you gave him a bogus map, because you didn't really have a mine worth anything. So why was he so convinced you did?"

James stared from her to Cord incredulously. "You mean he told you that's all he ever got from me? A bogus map and a few ore samples?"

"That's right."

He shook his head in disgust. "That liar. I gave him the wrong map, I admit. But having a map, even if he
didn't
know at the time it wasn't worth anything, wasn't enough for him. He wanted more gold. I wound up giving him several thousand dollars in ore. He knew I had to be getting it from my mine. That was proof enough for him, and also partial payment on my debt, but I wasn't worried, 'cause I knew if he hit the mother lode in his mine, and my investment paid off, I'd be well staked to go for my own.

"Only it didn't turn out that way," he said bitterly. "When I started suspecting he'd salted, I told him I wasn't giving him any more. And when I discovered he'd plugged drill holes, I was about to turn him in. Only he got wind of what I was planning.

"And we all know what happened next," he concluded grimly.

Jaime got up, patted his hand, and tucked the sheet beneath his chin. "There's no need to bring back the pain. Besides, the doctor said you should rest. I'll be back later, and we'll talk about where we'll live when you get out of here."

Enthusiastically, he told her, "I've got a shack near my mine. It's not much, but it's good enough till we can do better. And that won't be long, I promise. With his help"—he nodded happily in Cord's direction—"we'll find a way to finance hydraulic mining, and then we'll all be rich."

Jaime kissed the top of his head, feeling uneasy over his optimism that Cord would be around to help. In the three days since they had reached San Francisco, things had been hectic. Cord had gone to the law, and officers had gone with him to Pointe Grande to arrest Morena. They had learned of her death, questioned Blake, and decided the case was closed. Staying at her father's side constantly, she'd had no time alone with Cord, and through it all she had not allowed herself to think about the future.

Now she knew the time had come.

As Cord took her hand and led her from the room, she could tell he had something on his mind by the tight-set expression on his face.

The hospital was situated on a pleasant knoll overlooking San Francisco Bay. They walked out onto the grassy lawn, neither speaking. Jaime wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. She had wondered the same thing so many times in the past when he was near.

They stopped walking.

Cord started to speak, but suddenly Jaime knew she could not bear to hear him say what would surely break her heart forevermore. Foolish though it was, she had clung to some hope he might love her too, and now she dreaded his pity. Her words tumbled out in a torrent. "Don't pay any attention to my father. Goodness knows, nobody expects you to hang around and work after all you've done. I'll see you're rewarded handsomely when we do make a strike, I promise. But you've had to deal with my problems enough, and I know you've got your own life to live, and—"

"Sunshine," he said with a chuckle, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile, "you talk too much."

He silenced her with his lips.

They clung together, there on the windswept knoll. And when he could finally tear himself from the kiss, he continued to hold her tightly as he made his confession, "I was afraid to love you, Jaime. I was afraid loving a woman made a man weak. Someday I'll tell you how I came to feel that way, but it's not important now. The important thing is for me to tell you that I love you. I found that out when I jumped off that cliff and thought I was going to die.

"Loving you saved me," he went on to explain, in a voice thick with emotion. "It made me strong, not weak. It enabled me to survive, to propel myself out far enough to reach deep water. And when I finally hit, and the waves closed over me, and my lungs were filling up, and I thought I was surely drowning, it was your face I saw. I knew I had to survive. For you. For the love I feel for you and always will."

"And I love you," she said solemnly, looking up at him through misty, happy tears. "I always have. I always will."

And from that day forward, Jaime and Cord knew they could face and conquer anything that dared stand in the way of their deep and abiding love.

The End

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Excerpt from

Say You Love Me

A Historical Western Romance

by

Patricia Hagan

NYT Bestselling Author

Jacie did not want to wake up, but something was nudging her foot, hard. She forced her eyes to open, then instantly shrank back in horror.

The man was framed by the setting sun, a flaming red and gold halo streaming around him. He stood with fists at his hips, legs wide apart as he stared down at her.

Horrified to think Black Serpent had found her, his name instinctively escaped Jacie's lips, but when the man spoke, she knew it was her original nocturnal visitor.