“Now’s the perfect time. What in hell is all this about?”
“Damn Mary Beth and her mouth.” Jeremy pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “You’re putting me in a hell of a spot.”
“That’s too damned bad. We’ve never kept secrets in this family.”
“Maybe you and I haven’t,” Jeremy said in a strained voice.
“And what, exactly, does that mean?”
“That Father isn’t so candid around you as he is me.”
“Meaning?”
Jeremy’s lips thinned. “Meaning I’ve overheard certain things, seen things, that have made me—” He swiped his sleeve across his mouth. “I have reason to believe our father assists small operations in going under so he can buy them out.”
Jake stared at him. “Have you any idea what you’re saying?”
“Yes.” The starch went out of Jeremy’s shoulders. “Take Wolf’s Landing, where you’re headed tomorrow? About two months ago, as I was approaching Father’s office, I heard a conversation between him and Hank Sample. Wolf’s Landing was mentioned. I remember the name because it’s unusual. Father said, ‘Take care of it, Hank.’ Now, you’re headed there to make the owner an offer.”
Jake waved a hand. “So? It’s a fair offer. And he’ll be damned glad to get it. The owner’s laid up with an injury and can’t work. He won’t be able to for months. Our stepping in may save him from financial ruin.”
“How was Hunter Wolf injured?”
“You know the man’s name?”
“I’ve done some investigating, yes. How was he injured?”
A trickle of uneasiness inched up Jake’s spine. “A cave-in, I think.”
Jeremy nodded. “One of several. Just small ones. Little inconveniences, costly but fixable. There has been a rash of accidents in and around that mine this last month.”
Jake knotted his hands into fists. “That’s a despicable accusation, and you know it. Hunter Wolf was nearly killed. Father may be greedy. God knows I’d be the last person to defend him. But he’s no murderer.”
Jeremy’s gaze didn’t falter. “That’s a risk with arranged accidents. Sooner or later, someone is bound to be in the wrong place at the right time.”
Jake could see by the look in his brother’s eyes that he truly believed what he was saying. He slumped against the desk.
“Check the records,” Jeremy challenged. “There’ve been no injuries in the past, but practically every acquisition Father made was preceded by a string of bad luck that put the business in the red. I’m certain of nothing, but in every instance, the bad luck miraculously ended the moment Ore-Cal took over.”
For a moment, Jake was swept back in time and standing by his mother’s grave. Mary Beth’s voice rang in his mind. All Pa cares about is finding color. “I couldn’t be that blind.”
“Maybe I’m seeing what you don’t because Father isn’t quite so careful around me. I’ve seen him tidying his desk before you enter the office, stashing papers, covering them with other correspondence.” Jeremy threw up his hands. “Just think about it, Jake. How is it that Father always knows, Johnny-on-the-spot, when a business is in trouble? It’s not only mines, you know. Three months ago, it was a hotel. In every case, he steps in with an offer at just the right moment. Do you think people facing bankruptcy send out notices to prospective buyers?”
Jake stared at the ceiling. There was a ring of truth in what Jeremy said. His father did seem to have an almost uncanny sense of timing, moving in for a takeover at the perfect moment. And Jake knew Jeremy well enough to feel certain he wouldn’t say such things without reasonable cause. Dear God. The study seemed to close in around him.
“I’ll check into it,” he said.
“And do what?” His brother’s voice sounded shaky. “I’m sorry, Jake. I never intended to drop it on you like this. I wanted more proof. But if I’m right, what are we going to do? We have to make amends and keep it quiet somehow. The scandal will ruin us. You can scotch your engagement to Emily.”
Right now, Emily was the least of Jake’s worries. As a boy, he had once run head-on into a tree, and he felt exactly the same now, dazed, disoriented, unable to remember what he had been thinking an instant ago. Scarcely able to feel his feet, he circled his desk and lowered himself into his chair.
“Jake, are you okay?”
Was he okay? Jake bit back a harsh laugh. His sister had just ripped him wide open, and now his brother was telling him that he’d been orchestrating unethical business acquisitions. Hell, no, he wasn’t okay. He thought of all the times he had dealt the death blow to businessmen, buying their livelihoods for a fair market price, believing he was doing them a favor because he was saving them from inevitable financial ruin.
You’ve despised him all your life, and now you’ve become just like him. Everything within Jake rebelled against that thought. He loved his father in a detached way, but he had never liked him. And therein lay the problem. He was happiest when he didn’t see the man. Until this moment, Jake had been content to keep a separate household and tend the management of their enterprises, sparing little if any thought for his father’s end of the business, acquisition and investment.
“I should have spent more time at the main offices,” he whispered hoarsely.
“That’s famous. Blame yourself. Good old Jake with the broad shoulders. Overseeing a few mines would be a gargantuan undertaking. He’s loaded you down with nearly forty, plus several other nonmining enterprises. When you’re not worrying about safe working conditions, you’re doing accounts. Has he ever once offered to hire someone to take over part of the load? Has he encouraged me to do so? Hell, no. And now we know why. He wanted to keep you so bogged under, you wouldn’t have time to notice anything he did.”
Jake’s mouth felt dry. He tried to swallow and couldn’t. “We can make excuses all day, but the bottom line is that I should have seen what was happening.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to Wolf’s Landing, just as I planned, and check into it.”
Jake knew he was repeating himself, and that it wasn’t a solution. But beyond that, he hadn’t a clue. How did one rebuild destroyed lives?
Chapter 2
Wolf’s Landing, 1885
LIGHTNING SLASHED THE SKY; THEN THUNDER clapped. Indigo Wolf settled herself on a patch of grass and looped her arms around her knees. With a cleansing sigh, she leaned back to catch the rain on her tongue. Water streamed from the brim of her leather hat down the nape of her neck. She shivered and straightened her spine. Somewhere above her on the hillside, lightning struck. A tree, split asunder by its force, gave a loud pop and crashed to the ground. The rumbling vibration and the smell of scorched pine reached to where she sat.
Her pet wolf, Lobo, whined and pressed closer to her thigh. Buffeted by the wind, she placed a hand on his rain-soaked ruff and closed her eyes to absorb the electrical rage that eddied in the air. For a moment, she didn’t feel quite so impotent against the forces that threatened to tear her life apart.
Today had been one of the longest she remembered. Every minute she had spent up at the mine had seemed like an eternity, her thoughts centered on home and what might be happening there. Now that she had finished work for the day, here she sat, afraid to find out.
She wished the storm could last forever, but within a few minutes, the thunder grew more distant, and the rain began to abate. She opened her eyes to see that the blackest of the clouds were moving south. An anemic ray of sunshine shafted through the gloom, then blinked out. Her father would say the glimmer of light was a promise from the Great Ones that all would be well. Indigo lacked his faith. Things weren’t going to get better unless she fixed them herself. The question was, how?
She sighed and pushed to her feet, gazing somberly at the settlement that clustered below her. Home. The word probably conjured different images for different people; for her, home meant Wolf’s Landing. A few more dwellings had gone up over
the years, but otherwise the town looked the same. The sprawling house that her father had built after coming to Oregon over twenty years ago had held up well, its log walls seasoned to burnished umber, its patched roof a confused checkerboard of weathered gray and blond shakes. From her vantage point, she could see her ma’s chicken house and garden spot out back. Farther into the trees stood her father’s lodge, the cone of leather honey-brown with age, its poles crisscrossed among the lofty pines. Out by the woodpile was the scarred stump she and her brother, Chase, used as a practice target for their knife and axe throwing.
Indigo couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Yet, right now, her father might be signing the papers that could change her life forever. If he hadn’t already. Ore-Cal Enterprises. She had first heard the name only a month ago, and already she hated it.
Feeble strings of gray smoke drifted skyward from the town’s many chimneys and canted southward with the wind. She turned her gaze in that direction, filled with dread because she knew a different world lay beyond those distant snowcapped peaks. Here, only a snobbish few looked at the color of her skin and found her lacking. In the digs, no one tried to restrict her because she was female. If her father followed through with his plan to sell his mine, the life she had always known might be snatched away. In all her nineteen years, she had ventured no farther away than Jacksonville, a distance of ten miles.
Selling the mine wasn’t necessary, but thus far she had been unable to convince her parents of that. She could get things running again and manage alone until her father recovered. She knew she could. If a bunch of narrow-minded people were bent on closing them down, let them do their worst. She could battle them as well as any man. If her parents would only give her half a chance, she’d prove it.
Filled with frustration, she stroked Lobo’s wet fur. He leaned against her, the ridge of his back as high as her hip, an unwelcome reminder that she had inherited her mother’s slight build. She hated being small, especially now when so much rode on her ability to cope. Every afternoon since her father’s accident, weariness had ached across her shoulders, but she had never once complained. Yet her father still intended to sell out? It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to leave here.
Lobo lifted golden eyes to hers, his expression uncannily human and far too intelligent to ignore. They were a pair, she and Lobo. A wolf would never be accepted in that world beyond the mountains.
“Well, my friend, shall we go home and see how bad the news is? We can’t avoid facing it forever.”
Indigo struck off down the hillside, taking care where she placed her moccasins so she wouldn’t slip in the mud. Lobo paced beside her, a silent silver wraith that blended with the gloom.
As Indigo turned onto the main street of town, she saw Shorty Dixon reclining on the bench in front of the general store. As was his habit every day after work, he was having a chew with his two cronies, Stretch and Stringbean. Acutely aware of the strange buckskin horse tethered to the hitching post out in front of her house and none too anxious to meet its owner, Indigo wished she could run down the street and linger on the boardwalk with the old men. She could almost smell the delicious aromas that would be coming from the hotel restaurant at this time of day. She lingered a moment in the rain. Stringbean’s laughter floated on the wind to her, and she smiled, fairly certain Stretch was probably telling another of his outlandish stories.
The slamming of a door caught her attention. She glanced over her shoulder to see her mother on the front stoop. Indigo broke into a run. As she neared the sprawling log house, the strange buckskin, frightened by Lobo’s approach, shied and whinnied. Casting a wary look at the sidestepping horse, the wolf slunk under the porch.
Indigo nudged her hat back, pleased to see that her mother was smiling. Not a halfhearted smile, but ear to ear, as if something grand had happened. “What is it?” Indigo asked, afraid to hope for good news, yet heartened by the twinkle in her mother’s blue eyes. “Ma, don’t just stand there grinning. What are you so happy about?”
“Oh, Indigo, you’ll never guess in a million years.”
“Ma!” Taking the steps two at a time, Indigo joined her mother on the porch. “Don’t play guessing games. I could use some good news for a change.”
Her mother pressed one hand to her slender waist, the other to the swirl of golden braid atop her head. “The Lord answered our prayers with a miracle. We don’t have to sell the mine.”
Indigo gave an involuntary gasp of pleasure. Then a dozen questions sprang into her mind. “What kind of miracle?”
“A man named Jake Rand. He happened to be in Jacksonville yesterday and heard about your father’s accident. He’s between jobs and down on his luck. He’s got lots of experience running mines. He’s offered to be our foreman until he’s saved enough wages to move on. It’s a perfect solution for us and him.”
Indigo knew she should be happy, but instead she felt as if a giant fist had hit her in the stomach. Rather than count on her, her father preferred to hire a complete stranger? After all that had happened, how could her parents be certain this Jake Rand could be trusted?
“Anyway,” her mother went on, “Mr. Rand needs to familiarize himself with things. Your father volunteered your services. You won’t mind taking Mr. Rand on a tour, will you? No one knows more about the mine than you.”
That was true, and it rankled that she was expected to hand over the reins. “Ma, I can run the mine. We don’t need an outsider coming in. This will only mean more wages.”
Her mother’s mouth twisted. “Oh, darling, I know you’ve dreamed of running the mine yourself, but dreams aren’t always practical. No matter how capable you are, you’re still just a girl. You can’t expect a crew of men to take orders from you.”
Indigo could, and would, but she could see saying so would change nothing. She swallowed down an angry retort. These last few weeks hadn’t been easy on her parents. “When does Mr. Rand want to go up?”
A relieved look crossed her mother’s face. “Immediately, I believe. He’ll be taking over first thing in the morning.” She placed a hand on Indigo’s shoulder. “Don’t look so crestfallen. Your time will come when you’re older. For now, be proud that your father has chosen you to be Mr. Rand’s right arm. That is what you’ll be, you know. You’ll provide the answers to all his questions. Why, if you think about it, you’ll be running things through him.”
That seemed like idiotic thinking to Indigo, but then life was pretty insane sometimes, especially for a woman. She knew the mine as well as the lines upon her palm, yet she was supposed to instruct another in its operation? It wasn’t enough, but she knew she must settle for it. Her father was seriously injured. Their mine was teetering on the edge of disaster. Her mother was holding things together with a prayer and a smile.
“You can count on me, Ma.”
“Was there ever a question?” Her mother took a deep breath of the rain-touched air. “Things are looking up. I can feel it in my bones.” Her brilliant blue eyes met Indigo’s. “Would you like to come in and be introduced to Mr. Rand?”
Indigo brushed at her buckskin pants. “If I’m going back to the mine, there’s no point in cleaning up. I think I’ll just wait out here rather than muddy up the floors.” A thought occurred to her. “Ma, what happened to the man from Ore-Cal? He was supposed to come today. Didn’t he ever show up?”
“No, thank God. They wired saying he’ll be delayed a couple of weeks. Imagine how we would have felt if we’d sold the mine to Ore-Cal and then Mr. Rand had knocked on the door.”
Lantern light touched the bedroom with amber, a pleasant contrast to the stormy gloom that spilled in through the window. The rain started up again, tapping an uneven tattoo against the polished glass. Soothed by the lamp’s steady hiss and the cozy warmth coming from the stove and fireplace in the other room, Jake settled himself more comfortably in the rocker beside Hunter Wolf’s bed.
He couldn’t recall ever having seen another home
with this one’s simple charm. Everywhere he looked he saw evidence that Loretta Wolf’s hands had been at work. When Jake considered the extraordinary amounts spent on decorating his house in Portland and compared the resultant cold elegance with his present surroundings, he felt strangely lonesome and hollow.
“You have a nice place here,” he said to his bedridden host. By Portland standards, the place was little more than a shack, but he liked the colorful rag rugs and rustic log walls. They gave him a feeling of timelessness. And something more, an unnameable something that made Jake want to linger.
Hunter Wolf’s indigo eyes warmed with affection. “My woman has magic in her hands.” He shifted his broad shoulders and winced as he tried to get his bandaged right arm into a painless position. He settled his gaze on the wedding ring quilt stretched across his lap. “She puts great love into everything.”
Yes, Jake thought, that’s what I feel in this room, a great deal of love, something all the money in the world can’t buy or duplicate. Suddenly uneasy and uncertain why, he rocked forward and braced his arms on his knees.
Hunter Wolf wasn’t what bothered him. Jake liked the man, so much so that he couldn’t credit anyone wanting to kill him. Yet the proof lay before him. From the looks of Wolf, he had more broken bones than not.
Regret filled Jake. Even if his father wasn’t responsible, he hated to see such a strong, rugged man confined to bed with little hope of leaving it for weeks to come. Jake knew how he would feel if he were forced to rely on a woman Loretta Wolf’s size. He’d be reluctant to request the simplest things, even having his pillow fluffed, for fear she’d try to lift him.
“What makes you think the trouble around your mine may be due to racial prejudice?” Jake asked softly.
Wolf toyed with a tuft of blue yarn on the quilt. “Why else? I feel certain the accidents have been—”