“You know how to use that thing?”

Kate VanNam swallowed hard as she raised the revolver. “Certainly,” she lied. “I’m an excellent—”

Before Kate could finish her sentence, Sheriff Travis McCloud had taken the gun away from her and then pulled her up against him. “Never aim a weapon unless you mean to fire it. You hear me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Damn it to hell, I knew it.”

“Knew what?” she asked, intensely aware that his slim hips and long legs were pressed flush against hers. She could feel the heat radiating from him, making her own body warm.

“That you’d be trouble. You are trouble. You’ll cause trouble. For yourself. For me.”

“That’s a lot of trouble, Sheriff.”

“Too much trouble,” he said, releasing her before he placed the revolver on the sofa bed. “Why don’t you pack up and leave before somebody gets hurt?”

“I am staying in Fortune, and if you don’t like it I’d suggest you stay out of my sight.”

Both annoyed and amused by Kate’s determination, Travis raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, Miss VanNam, but if I catch you anywhere near a saloon or out on the streets after dark, you’re going to jail.”

“Fair enough, Sheriff,” Kate said. “And if I catch you anywhere near this house after dark, I’ll be forced to shoot you.”

Also by NAN RYAN

DUCHESS FOR A DAY

CHIEFTAIN

NAUGHTY MARIETTA

THE SCANDALOUS MISS HOWARD

THE SEDUCTION OF ELLEN

THE COUNTESS MISBEHAVES

WANTING YOU

The Sheriff
Nan Ryan

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For my fellow classmates with whom I graduated dear old Bryson High on that warm Texas night all those summers ago.

Fannie Ainsworth

Rollins Bilby

Vernon Crager

John Denning

Joe Gillespie

Jerry Graybill

Shirley Harrison

Joyce King

LaRue Matlock

Imogene McNear

Bobby Mitchell

Glenda Odom

Delores Shook

Dorothy Sims

Malvin Teague

Betty Lou Wells

Colleen Wolfe

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Prologue

In a candlelit hotel room on San Francisco’s rowdy Barbary Coast, a handsome man lay on his back upon the bed.

He was naked.

So was the woman astride him.

The pair were making hot, eager love.

They had been at each other from the minute they rushed into the room, locked the door and hurriedly began stripping off their clothes.

Now the lusty pair moved together in a frenzied mating. The voluptuous woman’s heavy breasts bounced and swayed with her rapid movements. She gripped the man’s ribs and murmured his name repeatedly.

A blue officer’s campaign cap bobbed atop the woman’s head. A captain’s uniform was draped over a bedpost.

And atop the bureau, a pair of golden spurs gleamed on freshly polished black boots.

In minutes, the pair climaxed.

Immediately after the loving, the man anxiously asked, “Did he die?”

“Yes,” the woman replied breathlessly, doffing the campaign hat and brushing back her long dark hair to reveal a blue trinity tattoo on the side of her neck.

He nodded. “Did you get the assay?”

“Yes, I did,” she confirmed.

“Did the doctor or nurse see you?”

“No one saw me,” she assured and leaned down to kiss his doubts away. On the Embarcadero below, drunken miners shouted and fired their guns in the air.

One

Boston, Massachusetts

March 1855

A cold winter afternoon, in a sparsely furnished room in Boston’s South End, twenty-two-year-old Kate VanNam read to her elderly, hard-of-hearing uncle. Nelson VanNam was a gentle, caring, life-long bachelor, who had raised Kate and her older brother, Gregory, after their parents had perished in a fire at sea a dozen years earlier.

For a short time, he had been a successful and prosperous businessman who had provided well for his niece and nephew. But in 1849, an unexpected reversal of fortune had changed all that. The once prominent VanNams had fallen on hard times. The grand Chestnut Street mansion in Beacon Hill had been lost, along with the VanNam fortune.

When the fortune disappeared, so did Gregory VanNam. The senior VanNam was now in failing health and eternally grateful to his sweet-natured niece for selflessly tending him.

On this bitter January day, the two sat as close to the fire in the grate as was safe, blankets draped over their knees. As Kate read to her uncle—shouted, actually—she heard a loud knock on the door.

Kate lowered her well-worn copy of the Dickens novel Oliver Twist, and gave her uncle a questioning look. He shrugged his thin shoulders. Kate laid the book aside.

“I’ll see who it is. Stay right where you are,” she said to her uncle.

Nelson nodded.

Kate opened the door. A uniformed messenger stood shivering on the steps. He handed her a sealed envelope on which only her name was written in neat script. She started to speak, but the youth who delivered the message had already turned and left.

Puzzled, Kate closed the door and returned to the fire and her uncle. She held out the envelope to him.

Squinting, he read what was written. “It’s addressed to you, my dear. Open it.”

Kate tore open the end of the sealed envelope and slipped out the folded velum paper. After reading the brief message quickly, she explained to her uncle that it was a summons for her to come to the law offices of J. J. Clement, the attorney who, like his father before him, had always represented the VanNam family.

“Why on earth would Clement want to see me?” Kate mused aloud, as she handed the message to her uncle.

“I have no idea, child,” he stated, reading the missive. “But I’m sure it can wait. No need for you to…”

He stopped speaking, shook his white head and began to smile. The curious Kate was already reaching for her heavy woolen cape hanging on the coat tree beside the front door.

Swirling it around her slender shoulders, she said, “It’s time for your afternoon nap, Uncle Nelson. While you rest I’ll walk to the law offices and see what this is all about.” She smiled at him as she buttoned the cape beneath her chin and drew the hood up over her gleaming golden hair. “I will be back within the hour, the mystery solved.”

Nelson VanNam knew it would do no good to argue that it was far too cold for Kate to be walking to the attorney’s office. His pretty niece, while as kind and caring as a ministering angel, was also a decisive, strong-willed young woman who discharged duties and met challenges with an immediacy that was admirable, if at times somewhat annoying.

The old man smiled fondly as Kate waved goodbye and stepped out into the cold. He sighed, folded his hands in his blanketed lap and gazed into the fire, recalling the first night the ten-year-old Kate had spent in his home.

“No, Uncle Nelson.” She had set him straight when he’d offered to leave her door ajar at bedtime. “Please close it. I do not fear the dark, sir.”

Nelson VanNam was warmed by the memory. He had learned in the years since that the dauntless Kate was not afraid of much.

His smile abruptly fled. He was afraid for her. What, he wondered worriedly, would become of his dear sweet Kate once he was gone?

Teeth chattering, shoulders hunched, Kate briskly walked the eight blocks to the law offices of J. J. Clement. Hurrying across the narrow cobblestone street, she dashed up the steps of the two-story redbrick building and entered the wide central corridor.

Sweeping the hood off her head and smoothing her hair, she knocked politely before entering the attorney’s private chambers. A warming fire blazed in a large hearth.

“Why, there you are already, Miss VanNam,” said J. J. Clement, rising from his chair. “I had no idea you’d come in this afternoon. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to one of two straight-backed chairs pulled up before his desk.

Kate frowned as she sat down. “Your message summoned me, Mr. Clement, did it not?”

The attorney smiled. “So it did. Your prompt response is admirable, but I hope you didn’t freeze on your long walk.” He sat back down across from her. “It was thoughtless of me to have you come in. I should have paid you a visit at your—”

“Never mind that.” Kate waved her hand. “What’s this all about?”

The attorney smiled at the impatient young woman. He leaned toward his desk, picked up a legal document and informed Kate, “My dear, I believe I’ve a bit of good news.”

“You do?” She shrugged out of her heavy cape. Unlike the drafty rooms of home, this handsomely appointed office was comfortably warm. “For me?”

“Indeed. The firm has been informed that Mrs. Arielle VanNam Colfax—Nelson’s aged aunt and therefore your great-aunt—has passed away in San Francisco. She has left all that was hers to you.”

Stunned, Kate said, “Why? I didn’t know her. Never corresponded. I never even met her, so why…?”

“The elderly widow had no children. With the exception of Nelson, you are her next of kin. You and your brother, Gregory. However, Arielle made no provision for Gregory. Now, to tell the truth, I don’t know if you’ve inherited anything of real value. The old lady was quite secretive.” The attorney shrugged.

Kate nodded.

“However—” he shoved a printed handbill across the polished desk “—as you probably know, a great deal of gold has been brought out of the Sierra Nevadas of California in the last five years.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about the gold rush. Who hasn’t?”

J. J. Clement said, “You have fallen heir to a house of sorts. I understand it has not been lived in for the past five years. And there is a claim to a California gold mine that may or may not be worthless.” He handed Kate a map indicating the mine’s location.

“The house? It’s in the mountains of California?”

“Yes, the house and the mine are both high up in the Sierra Nevadas in a mining camp called Fortune,” said the attorney. “I’ve no idea what Fortune, California, is like, but I would imagine it’s one of those primitive tent cities populated by hardscrabble miners hoping to strike it rich.” He shook his head.

“But if my great-aunt built a house there, then surely—”

Interrupting, he said, “As I told you, Kate, it has been abandoned for years. Obviously, your great-aunt deserted the house and the camp for a good reason.”

“I suppose so,” Kate grudgingly conceded.

“Child,” said the kindly attorney, “I’m aware of your financial woes. Your uncle has been a friend as well as a client for many years. I’d like to be of help.”

Lips parted, Kate stared at him. “That’s very kind, Mr. Clement.”

“Tell you what, I’ll have our California agent, Harry Conlin, take the claim and the property off your hands and—”

“No,” she interrupted. “It is not for sale. I’ll just hold on to it for the time being.”

She rose to leave, fastening her cape under her chin. J. J. Clement came to his feet.

Kate said, “When I lose my dear uncle Nelson, there’ll be nothing holding me here. Who knows?” She picked up the printed handbill. “I might just head West.”

Two

Kate hurried home with the plat map and the will rolled up and tucked under her arm. She could hardly wait to show both to her uncle Nelson. No doubt he would be as surprised as she that a woman whom Kate had never met had left everything to her.

She smiled as she envisioned her uncle putting on his spectacles and studying the documents while she knelt beside his easy chair and stretched her hands out to the warmth of the small fire.

Nose cold, cheeks red, Kate reached the rented rooms and hurried inside, calling her uncle’s name.

“Uncle Nelson, you are not going to believe this!” she exclaimed loudly as she removed her woolen cape, hung it on the coat tree and rushed across the room toward his chair. Mildly annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to turn around when she’d come in, she continued, “My great-aunt—that mysterious lady you have told me about, Mrs. Arielle VanNam Colfax—has passed away out in San Francisco and left me a…I have her will here and…and…” Kate stopped speaking.

She was beginning to frown when she reached Uncle Nelson’s chair and the old man still had not responded.

“Uncle, what is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, and gently touched his shoulder. He fell forward in his chair. Kate immediately dropped the documents and sank to her knees before him, grabbing hold of his upper arms. “You’re ill,” she said, “that’s it. You’re not feeling well. I’ll just run and get Dr. Barnes and he’ll fix you right up. You’ll be good as new and…no…No, Uncle Nelson, no!” Kate murmured, not wanting to believe that the kind man who had been mother and father, friend and protector, was dead. Gently, she leaned him back in his chair and closed his sightless eyes as tears filled her own.

When finally she dried her eyes, she saw that her uncle was clutching a piece of neatly folded bond paper in his right hand. She carefully removed the document and laid it aside without looking at it.

Long minutes passed while she sat on the floor with her forehead on her uncle’s knee. Finally, eyes red from weeping, Kate rose to her feet, took a deep breath, and immediately went about the unpleasant task of seeing to it that her beloved relative was taken to the undertaker’s parlor around the corner.

Afterward, when she returned home alone, Kate paced the chilly room, wondering how she could possibly give her uncle the kind of funeral he deserved. She had no money. And she had too much pride to ask for help from her uncle’s few close friends.

Despairing, Kate sat down in her uncle’s chair and leaned her head back. The fire in the grate had died. It was cold in the room. She shivered and rubbed her arms. It seemed she could never get warm.

Kate turned to look for the blanket she’d had earlier, and suddenly noticed the folded sheet of heavy bond stationery her uncle had been clutching when she’d found him.

She reached for it and carefully unfolded it.

She read and reread the message. In his neat, distinctive hand, Nelson VanNam had told his niece where the last of his cash was hidden, along with a pearl-handled Navy Colt pistol he treasured.

Kate refolded the letter and put it in the pocket of her dress. She went into the tiny alcove where her uncle had slept, and removed a battered tin box from beneath a loose floorboard at the foot of his bed. When she opened the box, Kate’s eyes widened. The heavy pistol rested atop neat stacks of cash.

Kate hurried to the dining table and placed the box there. She lifted out the pearl-handled Colt revolver and gently laid it down. Then she took the stacks of bills from the box and carefully counted them.

Immediately, Kate felt as if an unbearably heavy load had been lifted from her shoulders. There was more than enough money to give her uncle a proper burial.

And to get her all the way to Fortune, California.

“You simply cannot do this,” warned Kate’s best friend, Alexandra Wharton. “A woman does not go alone across the country from Boston to California. It isn’t safe. No telling what might happen to you.”

“I’m not going across the country, Alex,” Kate said, and affectionately hugged the frowning Alexandra.

The two women had been friends since the days both had attended the Willingham Academy, an expensive private school for young ladies where they had learned the difference between a lemon fork and an oyster fork and how to converse in French. While Alexandra still enjoyed a privileged life with wealthy parents, she continued to count Kate as her best friend and an equal in every way.

“But, Kate,” Alexandra said now, “California is on the other side of America. You will have to travel across the country.”

“No, I won’t,” Kate merrily corrected. “I’m going by ship!”

“Oh, you know very well what I mean,” scolded Alexandra.

“Yes, of course I do. Ah, Alex, don’t look so grim. No terrible fate will befall me.” Kate pulled back and smiled reassuringly at her friend.

“You don’t know that to be true. Even if you travel by ship, the horn is treacherous and—”

Interrupting, Kate shook her head and said, “Did you know that the route via Cape Horn is a journey of thirteen thousand nautical miles and takes four to eight months to complete?”

“Well, there you have it. You can’t possibly—”

“I’m not going via the horn. I’m taking the shortcut across the Isthmus of Panama.” Kate snapped her fingers. “Nothing to it! I’ll be in California in no time at all.”

Alexandra frowned. “Even so, it’s uncivilized out there, Kate. There are bandits and Indians and…”

“I appreciate your concern and I will miss you terribly, but this could be my golden chance, don’t you see? Maybe there’s actually gold in the mine my great-aunt has left me. Wouldn’t that be something? And maybe the house is a solid, well-built mansion where I’ll be warm for once in my life.”

Continuing to frown, Alexandra said, “I’ve told you a dozen times you can come to live with us. Father and Mother would welcome you and—”

“It’s a kind offer and I’m truly grateful to you and your parents. But I cannot accept. My mind’s made up. You know how I love the idea of embarking on a great new adventure. I am going to California to seek my fortune!”

“What about Samuel? Will you just leave him behind with no regrets?”

Kate shook her head. Alexandra was referring to Sam Bradford, a fine young man who had shown an unflagging interest in courting Kate. But the attraction was not mutual. While Kate genuinely respected Sam and realized he had a bright future ahead in his father’s flourishing ship brokerage firm, she was not interested in him romantically. Nor was she interested in anyone else. While Alexandra dreamed of marriage and children, Kate yearned for excitement and travel.

She laughed now and said, “Tell the truth, Alex. Wouldn’t you like to console Sam in my absence?”

Alexandra flushed guiltily, then smiled. “I can’t deny that I find Sam incredibly appealing.” She frowned again. “But it’s you he likes, not me.”

“So he thinks. But I predict that a week—two at the most—after I’m gone, Samuel T. Bradford will come calling on you.”

Alexandra’s eyes sparkled. “You really think so?”

Kate laughed. “I do, yes. And in a year or so, I’ll expect a wedding invitation.” Her well-arched eyebrows lifted.

“Where shall I send it?”

“Soon as I’m settled, I’ll write,” promised Kate. Then, with a sly grin, she affected brittle, privileged, lady-of-the-manner diction, and teased, “My dear Miss Wharton, I shall see to it my personal secretary drops you a note with the return address of my California mansion.”

Both young women laughed and hugged once more.

At the Boston harbor, on the bitter cold morning of March 27, 1855, the two young women hugged again.

But neither laughed.

“I’ll miss you so,” said a teary-eyed Alexandra.

“And I you,” Kate replied, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat.

She turned away and hurried up the gangway of the clipper ship Star of Gold.

Three

May 1, 1855

San Francisco, California

“Conlin. Harry Conlin, California representative for Clement and Clement.” A smiling, expensively dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair stepped forward to meet Kate when she disembarked at the busy harbor early on that May morning. “From J.J.’s description, you must be Miss Kate VanNam, heir to Mrs. Arielle VanNam Colfax’s estate.”

Kate shook his offered hand. “Yes, sir, I am Kate VanNam. Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Conlin.”

“Welcome to San Francisco,” he said with a friendly smile, “port of entry and financial center for the mining camps of the mother lode. Here, let me take that.”

Harry Conlin quickly relieved Kate of her heavy valise. He took her arm and guided her through the swarms of merchants, shippers and passengers packing the Vallejo Street wharf. Dodging handcarts and wagons, coaches and cabs, Conlin and Kate carefully threaded their way through the crowd.

When they reached the berth where the steam packet Lady Luck was moored, Harry Conlin explained, “Miss VanNam, I’ve engaged a stateroom for you on board.”

“No, Mr. Conlin, I won’t be needing a stateroom for such a short journey. I’ll just—”

Interrupting, he said, “Miss VanNam, Fortune is a hundred and fifty miles from San Francisco.”

Kate frowned, disappointed. “That far? I thought surely I’d be there this by afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. I know you must be terribly exhausted. Perhaps you’d prefer to spend the night here in San Francisco and leave tomorrow or the next day?”

“No, I’m quite anxious to reach Fortune.”

“Very well. You’ll spend a couple of nights on the Lady Luck before reaching the river settlement of Golden Quest and transferring to a much smaller steamer for the shorter trip to Fortune.” Kate nodded, trying to smile. Conlin ushered her up the gangway.

Once on board, Harry Conlin said, “Now, tell me about your long journey from Boston. Was it terribly harrowing?”

“Not at all,” Kate replied and meant it. “It was an unforgettable adventure.” Though weaker than when she had set out, Kate had lost none of her enthusiasm. “I can’t imagine why anyone would complain about such an incredible experience.”

“No seasickness, no ocean storms?”

“Well, I was a bit seasick, but only for a day or two. And there were a couple of storms with high winds that pitched the ship around, but I wasn’t all that frightened.” She smiled then and declared, “It took us only eleven days—with an overnight call in Havana—to reach the Caribbean port city of Aspinwall. There all the passengers disembarked and we were transferred to open-air railcars for the forty-eight miles across the isthmus to Panama. There, we embarked on the Sonora and steamed north for fifteen days. And here we are!”

“Here you are indeed,” said Conlin, charmed and amazed that this spirited young woman registered no complaints whatsoever regarding a route most found extremely difficult.

“I’m so glad to be in California,” she said. “And I can hardly wait to reach Fortune.”

“Well, the Lady Luck will be getting under way very shortly,” he stated. “Time for me to disembark. You’ll be okay? You don’t need anything or…”

“You’ve been most kind, Mr. Conlin.” Kate thanked him warmly.

“My pleasure, Miss VanNam,” he said with a smile. “Should you decide you’ve had enough of Fortune, just hop the steamer coming downriver and return to San Francisco. Our firm will work something out with you, take the Fortune property off your hands.”

“I’ll remember that,” Kate said, and bade him goodbye.

In minutes the Lady Luck left the harbor. Soon it was steaming its way up the American River toward the towering Sierra Nevadas to the east.

Within an hour the vessel left the coastal hills behind and rode a rising tide up the long, winding waterway.

Two days later as Kate boarded the much smaller steamer at Golden Quest that would take her the rest of the way to Fortune, she entered the main cabin and looked curiously around. It was empty. There were rows of wooden seats. She chose one by a porthole, lowered her valise and sat down. She hoped against hope that no one would sit beside her. She wanted the opportunity to doze. She hadn’t slept well on the Lady Luck and was tired.

She started in alarm when she spotted coming down the aisle an unshaven, mean-looking man whose wrists were clamped in irons.

Kate tensed, then released her held breath when a skinny, sandy-haired fellow shoved the bearded character down into a seat across the aisle and two rows up. He then sat down beside him.

The man in irons looked back over his shoulder. His gap-toothed, leering grin sent a chill of distaste darting up her spine. Quickly, she turned her head and looked out the porthole.

“Would you mind if I sit beside you, miss?” a friendly voice asked. Kate looked up and saw a white-haired, well-dressed gentleman with a craggy, but kindly face smiling down at her. “Allow me to introduce myself,” the elderly gentleman said, thrusting out his hand. “I’m Dr. Milton Ledet and I’m on my way up to Fortune, just as you are.”

The steamer began to slowly move away from the levee as Kate nodded. “Kate VanNam, Dr. Ledet,” she replied, shaking the offered hand. “Yes, by all means, please join me.”

“Thank you, child.” The elderly physician took the seat beside her. “I so enjoy having a bit of company on long journeys, don’t you?” Not waiting for an answer, he added, “Have I seen you in Fortune before, Miss VanNam? Or is it Mrs. VanNam?”

“Miss. And no, you have not,” she replied. “I’ve never been there.”

The doctor’s white eyebrows lifted. “Then I suppose you live in San Francisco and you’re going up to visit a…?”

“No, sir. I am moving to Fortune from Boston, Massachusetts. I intend to make Fortune my new home.”

“Oh, my dear Miss VanNam,” Doc Ledet exclaimed impulsively, “I’m afraid you’ll find Fortune quite different from the charming old city of Boston.”

“I am well aware of that, Doctor,” she said with conviction. “No doubt there will be a degree of adjustment, but I don’t mind. The truth is I look forward to the challenges ahead.”

Dr. Ledet was instantly curious. Why would this beautiful young woman move to a mountain mining community she had never seen before? Not for a minute did the doctor entertain the possibility that she might be aiming to join the ranks of numerous “ladies of the evening” servicing the lonely miners. There was an innate dignity about her that spoke of good breeding and background. But why was this beautiful, golden-haired girl moving to Fortune, where the males outnumbered the females fifty to one?

Dr. Ledet longed to question her, but was wise enough to wait until she was ready to tell him.

“You probably know my reason for moving to Fortune,” Kate said, as though she’d read his mind.

“Let me guess,” he said, and rubbed his chin. “You have a sweetheart that came out to the goldfields, got settled in, sent for you and now you’re joining him to get married?”

“Heavens, no!” She waved a hand in the air as though it was a preposterous idea. Proudly, she stated, “I have inherited a gold mine.”

“You don’t say,” he replied. “Why, that’s wonderful! Is the mine…?”

“The Cavalry Blue,” Kate interrupted. “You may have heard of it?”

The physician exhaled heavily. “The Cavalry Blue,” he repeated, his brows knitted. “Arielle Colfax’s old diggings.”

“Yes, my dear great-aunt. You knew her?”

“Yes, I did. I knew Arielle, albeit briefly, and her husband, Benjamin. He was a geologist who came out West with Freemont.” Dr. Ledet shook his head. “Miss VanNam, I hate to tell you this, but the Cavalry Blue has been boarded up for years. Ever since your aunt left Fortune.” He paused, then as gently as possible said, “My dear, there’s never been a single ounce of gold brought out of that mine.”

Kate smiled, undeterred. “That’s excellent, Dr. Ledet.”

“It is?”

“Why, yes. Obviously all the gold is still inside, just waiting for me to bring it out.”

Charmed by her childlike exuberance, the elderly doctor had no wish to burst her bubble. That would happen soon enough. He said, “Could well be, child. Could well be.”

Kate kept glancing out at the changing scenery. The banks bordering the ever narrowing river had become lofty cliffs forested with tall, fragrant pines. She was enchanted.

And all the while she conversed with her congenial companion. Kate learned that the doctor was a childless widower who had left his San Francisco practice after Mary, his cherished wife of thirty-three years, contracted scarlet fever from one of his patients. She had died three days later.

Dr. Ledet had been in Fortune for the past six years, and Kate had plenty of questions about the community she planned to call home. He had all the answers and was glad to share them. Enjoying his captive audience, Milton Ledet regaled Kate with tales of the wild and woolly town where he practiced medicine. He knew just about everyone who lived in Fortune and had a story to tell about most of them.

Kate was fascinated by the colorful yarns, which made the time pass quickly. As morning turned to afternoon, Kate noticed that the air thinned so dramatically she was having a little difficulty breathing.

She heard the physician say calmly, “Take a deep, slow breath, Miss VanNam.”

Kate nodded and obeyed.

“They say it’s the air the angels breathe,” he stated. “We’re getting close to Fortune.” He rubbed his chin. “Now where was I?”

He continued by telling her that at one time or another, he had cared for just about every citizen in town.

The steamer rounded a bend in the narrowing fork of the river and the buildings of Fortune loomed just ahead.

Laughing, Dr. Ledet said, “All but one, that is. The sheriff.”

“The sheriff has never been sick or injured?”

“No doubt he has, but he’s never sought my services,” said the doctor. “He patches himself up and goes on with business. He’s one tough son of a gun, begging your pardon for my crude language, Miss VanNam. He was hired by the Committee of Vigilance—of which I myself am a senior member—to keep the peace, and Travis McCloud rules Fortune with fast fists and faster guns,” he declared, his eyes twinkling. “Step out of line and you have to deal with the fearless Marshal McCloud.” He paused, then smiled at Kate.

Feeling as if she were expected to comment, but not knowing what to say, she said, “And this courageous sheriff, is he from San Francisco or…?”

“No, no. McCloud’s a native Virginian. Came from an aristocratic Tidewater family.” The steamer was sliding slowly toward Fortune’s levee. “McCloud was educated to be a physician like me, but he—”

“He’s a murderer!” muttered the man in irons from across the aisle. He was then roughly urged to his feet. “Killed a man back in—”

“Move it!” ordered the armed, sandy-haired guard, prodding the prisoner up the narrow aisle.

Kate gasped at the startling accusation. She immediately turned questioning eyes on her companion. “Can that be?”

The steamer’s whistle blasted loudly in the thin mountain air, silencing her.

“We’re here,” Doc Ledet announced as the vessel came to a stop, its hull slapping gently up against the wooden dock. Smiling, he pointed and said, “There’s our sheriff now.”

Curious, Kate looked out the porthole.

A tall, broad-shouldered man in a black hat with the brim pulled low over his eyes stepped up to the lowering gangway. He wore a white, long-sleeved shirt, black leather vest and black trousers. A gun belt with a brace of Colt revolvers rode low on his slim hips.

As Kate stared, he lifted a hand and with the tip of his long index finger, he pushed up the brim of his hat, releasing a shock of coal black hair onto his high forehead. The move afforded Kate a good look at his face.

She quickly sucked in her breath.

Fortune’s fearless sheriff was a ruggedly handsome man with smooth olive skin, soaring cheekbones, a straight nose, sensual lips and eyes of a color she couldn’t quite determine, shaded as they were by long, curling lashes.

“That’s him, sure enough,” said the physician. “Marshal Travis McCloud. He’s here to take possession of that foul-mouthed prisoner that came up on the steamer with us.”

Kate continued staring at the imposing sheriff. There was a strong masculinity about him in the set of his lean, hard body, the way his broad shoulders moved. He came forward to meet his skinny, sandy-haired deputy and the man in irons as they stepped down from the gangplank.

“I’ll take over, Jiggs,” Kate heard the marshal say in a surprisingly soft voice with a slight Southern accent.

“He…the sheriff looks…he looks mean,” Kate murmured over her shoulder, unable to take her eyes off the most compelling man she had ever seen.

“I doubt he’ll be mean to you, Miss VanNam,” the doctor said, adding with a chuckle, “that is, unless you misbehave. Then he’ll have to throw you in jail.”

“I’ll be very careful,” she answered with a laugh, but felt a shiver skip her up spine at the prospect.

“Here, let me help you with that,” said Dr. Ledet when Kate lifted her heavy valise and started down the gangway.

“No, thank you.” She turned down his kind offer of assistance. “I can manage. It’s been a genuine pleasure visiting with you, Doctor.”

The man beamed. “I look forward to seeing you again soon, although not as a patient. You take care of yourself and stay well. You need anything, Kate, you let me know. My office is two doors down from the Eldorado Hotel. You can’t miss it.”

Kate smiled, nodded and left him. She carried her belongings from the riverfront to Main Street. The hotel that the doctor had mentioned was the first one she saw. Kate entered the Eldorado, checked into a third-floor room, glanced around and immediately focused on the big double bed.

She smiled and hurried to examine the mattress and bedding, turning back the covers and admiring the clean white sheets. She sighed with pleasure. The two things she wanted most in life were hers to be had in this hotel room.

A bath and a bed.

Soon Kate, fresh from her hot, relaxing bath, climbed into that soft, clean bed and smiled.

She fell asleep at sundown.

Four

At sundown Fortune came alive.

Thirsty miners hit the town’s many saloons the minute they laid down their picks and shovels. Tired and dirty, the men swarmed into the bars, eager for their first bracing shot of rotgut whiskey.

In Fortune’s most favored saloon, the Golden Nugget, the long polished bar, faro wheels and poker tables filled up as the sun slipped fully behind the western mountain peaks. Loud piano music resounded up and down the busy streets as the shrill feminine laughter of painted women in gaudy gowns mingled with the voices of lusty miners.

The man who single-handedly saw to it that trouble stayed away from his town was presently at the Golden Nugget.

But he wasn’t downstairs.

Sheriff Travis McCloud was enjoying a hot bath in a plush upstairs suite at the soft hands of Miss Valentina Knight, the Golden Nugget’s beautiful songbird owner and Travis’s favorite female companion.

With his clothes neatly draped across a blue brocade-covered chaise longue, and his black hat hooked on the newel of a high-backed rocker, the six-foot-three-inch Travis sat in a suds-filled tub with his knees and torso sticking up out of the steaming water.

Feeling relaxed and enjoying himself, he smoked a fine Cuban cigar and drank Kentucky bourbon from a lead crystal glass, while the prettiest woman in Fortune gently scrubbed his broad shoulders with a soft-bristled, long-handled brush.

“Feel good, Marshal?” Valentina asked as she drew the brush back and forth over his gleaming back.

“Mmm,” he replied lazily, his eyes half-closed, his even white teeth clamped firmly on his lit cigar.

Valentina smiled, pleased. She loved giving this big handsome sheriff a soapy, sensuous bath. She loved even more the moment when he stepped out of the tub, allowed her to dry him off, and then spent the next hour in her soft bed while she cuddled in his strong arms.

Those fleeting golden moments were as much of Travis McCloud as she would ever have.

So she made the most of his visits.

Valentina Knight was a clever woman. She knew that she couldn’t hem Travis in, so she never tried. She realized that the reason she, and she alone, was allowed to entertain the handsome marshal was because she was convenient and made no demands on him.

Valentina Knight was a beautiful, porcelain-skinned Creole who had come out West from her New Orleans home to seek her fortune. She had wisely surmised that the goldfields of California offered an opportunity to make lots of money without ever going near a mine. There were, she had read, literally thousands of men pouring into the many mining camps springing up across the Sierra Nevadas. They were willing to part with their precious gold dust for a drink and a smile from a pretty woman.

Valentina had guessed correctly.

In this male-dominated world with very few women and little semblance of customary society, she had become very wealthy during the four years she had owned the Nugget.

She was a respected citizen of Fortune who turned heads wherever she went, but it was more than her raven hair and magnolia skin that made her so desirable. Her generosity, charm and wit secured her position as the object of affection to Fortune’s many menfolk.

When she came downstairs to sing for the miners, they immediately fell silent. They gazed worshipfully at the sweet-voiced vision in the stunning gowns that accentuated her voluptuous figure, in the diamonds that sparkled at her throat and ears.

It was a whispered, well-known secret that in her plush upstairs suite, she drank—from fragile stemmed glasses—vintage French champagne delivered by Wells Fargo. And fresh cut flowers, that rarest of all luxuries, were delivered daily.

The lovely Creole had a French maid, a must for the most prosperous of the frontier madams. Gigi responded to the summons of the richly brocaded bell-pulls, then prudently disappeared when her mistress was entertaining the town sheriff.

When Valentina went out, she rode behind matched blacks in a Brewster carriage imported across the Isthmus of Panama at great expense. Sable muff, scarf and lap robe kept her warm on exhilarating winter rides. Gloves, straw hat and silk parasol protected her porcelain skin on summer jaunts.

Valentina Knight had everything.

Except the man she loved.

Travis McCloud.

The lawman’s heart would never belong to her even though hers belonged to him. Valentina never so much as batted a flirtatious eyelash at any other man, nor would she allow another to make to love to her.

Now, as she rinsed the soap off of the most magnificent male chest she’d ever laid eyes on, Valentina shivered with sweet anticipation of the lovemaking ahead.

“We have two whole hours before I must go downstairs to sing,” she said as Travis gently moved her hand away and rose to his feet, water sluicing down his body.

Valentina picked up a large white towel and began blotting moisture from his clean, wet flesh. “Promise you’ll spend those two hours right here with me?”

“You talked me into it, darlin’,” said Travis with a smile.

He motioned for her to back away, and stepped out of the tub. Valentina rose to her feet before him. He took the towel from her and finished drying off. She stayed where she was as Travis dropped the damp towel, turned and padded across the patterned Persian carpet to the bed. He stretched out on his back atop the satin sheet and laid his dark head on an abundance of soft feather pillows resting against the ornately carved headboard.

Valentina shivered deliciously.

If ever there was a sight that was pleasing to her, it was that of the lean lawman lying naked on her bed. The darkness of his skin against the whiteness of the sheets never failed to delight her senses. His fierce masculine power, unclothed and unprotected, was for the moment hers and hers alone.

Valentina began to sway seductively toward the bed. A subtle but purposeful movement of her shoulders made the shimmering satin lapels of her long, ice blue robe part, revealing to her naked lover tempting glimpses of her full breasts. She raised a hand, took the diamond pins from her hair and allowed her dark, lustrous locks to spill down around her shoulders.

She laid the pins on the marble-topped night table, then leaned over and gave the sheriff’s tight belly a wet, warm kiss.

Travis sucked in his breath. His hand came down to clasp a handful of her hair and gently pull her head up. “Get in bed, baby,” he gently commanded, and she obeyed.

Valentina didn’t take off her tightly sashed robe, but left it on as she stretched out beside Travis and snuggled close against his bare torso. He kissed her, then urged her over onto her back. He moved atop her, supporting his weight on stiffened arms.

The satin of Valentina’s robe lay between them. For a time they left it there, a sensuous slippery barrier to the pleasure of penetration.

Travis found it incredibly erotic to feel the summoning heat of Valentina’s feminine softness just out of reach beneath the fabric. For Valentina it was tremendously exciting to feel the insistent power of his masculine hardness thwarted by the sleek obstruction of satin.

It was a thrilling game.

But short-lived.

Soon he levered himself up, reached between them and swept the robe out of his way. Valentina eagerly parted her legs and sighed in approval as he slid into her. She raised her knees, gripped his ribs and clung to him as they made leisurely, lusty love.

But just at the instant of climax, a gunshot rang out.

Valentina’s eyes flew open and she blinked in stunned surprise. “You got me, Sheriff!” she proclaimed, and pretended to fall over dead. Then she laughed throatily and teased, “Any ammunition left in that…?”

“Afraid not,” said Travis, and laughed with her.

Then, with a quick kiss, he pulled out, fell over onto his back, took a couple of deep, quick breaths, and got out of bed.

“No,” she protested, raising up on an elbow, “don’t go, Travis.”

“I have to, Val,” he said, pulling on his trousers. “Somebody’s firing a weapon downstairs. I’m the sheriff, remember? Hired to keep the peace.”

Five

Kate awoke at dawn feeling rested and ready to start her new life. She hummed happily as she donned a simple blue-and-white gingham dress and brushed her blond hair. Optimistic, tingling with excitement, she left the hotel with map in hand. She was eager to explore the town, but first she wanted to locate her newly inherited property and inspect the house her aunt had left her. She planned to return to the hotel for her belongings later and then move in. She was sure there would be no reason to stay another night in the hotel. She would spend it in her own home.

Kate passed—two doors down from the hotel—the offices of Dr. Milton Ledet, the kindly white-haired physician she had met on the steamer ride to Fortune. She dashed past his office windows in case he was inside. She had no time to visit this morning.

Kate walked to the very end of the sidewalk and soon left Fortune behind. Her breathing grew short from the altitude, and her legs quickly grew weak, but she climbed an ill-defined lane up through the towering green conifers and white-trunked aspens, swatting low, leafy limbs out of her way.

When she’d gone no more than a half mile, Kate stepped out into a broad, lush clearing and saw a large white house looming in the distance.

She had, she knew, located the real estate she now owned.

Set amid the tall sheltering pines, the property bordered a breathtakingly beautiful deep turquoise lake no more than a hundred yards from the front door of the house. The lake was fed by a clear, crystalline stream flowing out of the mountains on the north side of the estate. Swift waters poured down from the melting Sierra snowpack. Kate could hear the crystal water gurgling and splashing over the rocks.

With her lips parted in awe at the spectacular scenery surrounding her, Kate skirted the grassy banks of the placid turquoise lake and headed toward the house. When she stood directly before the large, two-story structure, she clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

Before even going inside she could see that the once splendid Victorian mansion was uninhabitable.

Kate despaired. Like it or not, she would have to live in this badly neglected house. She had no choice. If she were to have enough money to hire men to work her mine, she could ill afford to live at the hotel, even for a brief period of time.

Kate exhaled heavily and made her way across the weed choked grounds to the mansion’s broad front steps. The second step was missing. Kate grimaced, lifted her skirts and cautiously stepped over the gaping hole.

She crossed the broad veranda and paused at the entrance. There was no front door. It had been removed from its hinges and carried away. Kate shook her head and went inside.

The mansion had been ransacked. Most of the furniture had been carted off; only a few odd pieces remained. A French gilt chair with a broken leg lay on its side before a magnificent black marble fireplace. A gigantic crystal chandelier that had been carelessly pried from the ceiling was on the floor, its fragile prisms shattered. There were blank spaces on the faded, silk-covered walls where massive mirrors and oil paintings had undoubtedly hung. Remnants of an elegant silk shade dangled from an open window.

Kate quickly realized that more than half of the solid wooden doors had been carried away. Most of the windows had been broken.

Kate climbed the stairs to the second floor. She jumped, startled, when she stepped into the spacious master suite and a bird flew in through an open window.

“Shoo! Fly away!” she shouted, chasing the winged intruder, flapping her skirts to scare it. “It’s bad luck to have a bird fly into one’s house. Get out, get out!”

The bird circled the room, then sailed away.

Kate shuddered with the dawning knowledge that the bird might not be the only creature that had the run of the place. No doubt there were black bears and sleek bobcats and all manner of dangerous animals roaming these rugged mountains. How would she stop them from taking up residence in the mansion? And how on earth could she survive the coming winter with no windows and doors to shut out the cold?

Kate shook her head again as she slowly went back down the grand staircase, whose steps sported only remnants of the fine carpet that had once covered them.

Kate had been in Fortune for less than twenty-four hours when Sheriff Travis McCloud heard about her arrival. His deputy, Jiggs Gillespie, had been the first to mention it. Dr. Ledet, the second. The newcomer quickly became the topic of conversation all over town as word spread that the young woman from Boston who had inherited the old Colfax mansion and the abandoned Cavalry Blue Mine intended to make Fortune her home.

They were all certain she was in for a big disappointment. There was no gold in the Cavalry Blue. Travis knew that. Everyone knew that. Which meant, mercifully, she wouldn’t be staying long in Fortune. That suited Travis fine. The sooner she gave up and left, the better.

But that could take awhile. Gold fever was a sickness from which it was hard to recover. She might stay weeks, even months in the vain search of a treasure that did not exist.

Travis ground his teeth at the possibility. He hoped to hell she was homely. Protecting a young, single woman from a townful of lonely, lusty miners would be anything but easy.

Kate returned to the Eldorado, collected her belongings, paid her bill and trudged back to the ruined mansion. She deposited her things in the drawing room at the very front of the mansion. She looked around, sighed, then turned away. She’d see to making the room livable later.

First things first.

By noon she was back in town to visit the Federal Land Office. When she stepped down into the street, she encountered a dirty, drunken man weaving dizzily toward her. Kate shook her finger in his face and warned him off, threatening him within an inch of his life. The drunk anxiously backed away.

Chin raised, Kate stepped past him and into the land office. Deed in hand, she introduced herself and handed the document to the balding clerk. He studied it for only a minute. Then he looked up and shook his head pityingly.

“Miss VanNam, I’m sorry you’ve traveled all this way for nothing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re wasting your time,” he informed her. “All the placer gold is gone from the stream on your property. Has been for years now.”

“Placer gold?” she repeated, having no idea what he meant.

“Placer. The pebbles containing particles of gold that wash down the stream from the mountains. It’s all long since been panned and sold. There is no more.”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I knew that. But the mine…”

“Miss VanNam, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the Cavalry Blue has been abandoned for years. All boarded up. And with good reason. There has never been a single speck of gold brought out of that mine.”

Kate said calmly, “I know.”

“You do?” He frowned and scratched his gleaming pate.

“Yes. I came up on the steamer from Golden Quest with Dr. Milton Ledet. He mentioned that the Cavalry Blue has never produced any gold.”

The man nodded.

Shoulders squared, Kate continued, “I informed the good doctor and now I’ll tell you. The gold obviously remains inside. I will bring it out.”

Travis got his first glimpse of Kate VanNam at noontime.

He was alone in the front office of the city jail, doing nothing. Leaning back in his chair, booted feet propped up on his desk, hands folded behind his head. He yawned and exhaled slowly, enjoying the peace and quiet that came all too infrequently in this wild mining community.

He looked out the window at nothing in particular and his eyes immediately widened.

He spotted her sunlit hair, shining as brightly as the gold she sought.

Kate VanNam.

He knew it was her.

Travis swore under his breath. He was instantly reminded of another golden-haired Jezebel whose memory was still vivid after all these years.

Travis scowled as Kate encountered the weaving, drunken Zeke Daniels, but his frown quickly turned into a grudging smile when the delicate young woman shook a finger in Zeke’s liquor-veined face and rebuked him.

Zeke backed away as if he had encountered a bobcat.

As the sheriff studied the woman, he noted that her gleaming golden hair was not her only attribute. She was tall and appealingly slender. Her lithe, willowy body was draped in a girlish blue-and-white gingham dress with flounces and bows that made her look all too young and innocent. Her fine-boned face was exquisite, her ivory skin flawless. She was very pretty, very feminine, very desirable. She did not belong in Fortune, California.

Six

Map in hand, sunbonnet on her head, Kate went up into the mountains alone the very next morning and easily located the Cavalry Blue claim. The entrance was boarded up, just as she’d heard. She peered curiously through wide cracks in the weathered timber, foolishly hoping she might detect a vein of gold winking at her from deep inside the dark cavern.

She saw nothing.

It would take further exploration to uncover the treasure. She was undeterred. Gold was likely buried in the floor and the walls of the mine. The solid granite would have to be hammered and chiseled, and the crushed rock that fell away carefully probed and sifted and picked through. She couldn’t possibly do it by herself. She would, she realized, need to hire at least a couple of strong-backed men to work the claim. Kate returned to the mansion and decided she would wait no longer to begin the daunting task of making a home of sorts in the downstairs drawing room. For the time being, she would leave all the other rooms untouched.

In a back room, Kate located a sofa that had once been a grand piece of furniture. Elaborate mahogany trim on the couch’s arms and high back was artistically carved. The once plush rose velvet covering was faded and torn, but the sofa was long and comfortable, ideal for a bed. She would move the heavy sofa once she’d thoroughly cleaned the drawing room.

The sun had already reached its zenith as Kate made a short list of necessities and walked back to town. Once there, she took the opportunity to fully explore Fortune, strolling leisurely up and down Main Street.

The bustling alpine community was spectacularly framed by the pine covered peaks of the high Sierras, and it was larger than she had realized. There were a half-dozen hotels—the Bonanza, the Eldorado, the Alpine, the Sierra, the Frontier and the Mint. There were at least twenty-five or thirty saloons. The Glitter Gulch. The Bloody Bucket. The Quartz. The Mother Lode. The Golden Nugget. The Amber Lantern. And many more.

Fortune had five general stores, the largest of which was Barton’s Emporium and Dry Goods. She also found one doctor’s office, four banks, an elaborate two-story opera house, a stationery store, a bakery, three express offices, two barbershops, four blacksmith shops, five livery stables, three assay offices, two fire companies, two undertakers, a newspaper and a city surveyor.

And, of course, the city jail.

When Kate had reached the southernmost end of town she saw a large tent city that stretched for a half mile down a gentle incline. As she gazed at row upon row of small canvas shelters placed very close to each other, she wondered who was unfortunate enough to live in the tents.

When she reached Barton’s Emporium and Dry Goods, she walked among its display tables looking at the varied merchandise while Clifton T. Barton, owner and proprietor, pointed her toward her requests. He never moved from his cane-bottomed stool behind the counter.

A big man with droopy eyelids and large ears, Barton paid little attention to Kate as she gathered up a broom, a mop, a large pail and a coal oil lamp. She came over to place the items on the counter.

“That it?” he asked, continuing to sit.

“Not quite.”

While Cliff Barton scratched his chin, Kate turned away and went in search of sheets, a blanket and a pillow.

“All right, I guess that’s all for now,” she announced, and placed everything on the counter. She reached for her reticule. “How much do I owe you?”

The store owner finally got off his stool and totaled up her purchases. Kate was stunned when he informed her she owed him $28.75.

“That can’t be. You’ve surely made a mistake in addition,” she said. “These few items can’t possibly cost—”

“Everything’s expensive up here, miss,” he interrupted. “You’re in a gold camp high in the Sierras. Everything has to be transported up from San Francisco.” He grinned then and added, “Just wait till you want to buy a mincemeat pie from Mrs. Hester down the street at her bakery. A dollar and a half is how much it’ll set you back.”

Kate shook her head in disbelief. “I can live without mincemeat pie and…” She sighed, took the blanket and pillow from the stack of merchandise she’d chosen, and pushed both back at him. “I can sleep without a pillow. It’s almost summer, so I need no blanket.”

“You can say that again. Gets hotter than the hell up here in the summertime.”

Kate nodded, paid for her merchandise and left.

Out of breath by the time she reached the mansion, she allowed herself only a few short minutes to rest. Then, covering her hair with a cloth, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work. She spent the remainder of the day making the large front parlor as livable as possible. She swept the hardwood floor, sneezing and coughing from the dirt she stirred up. She mopped with water brought up in a pail from the lake. She cleaned the marble fireplace.

Kate returned to the back room where she’d found the faded sofa. She batted the dust from it and polished the wooden trim. Then, puffing and groaning, she dragged the heavy sofa through the wide center hallway and into the spotless drawing room.

Come nightfall an exhausted Kate blew out the coal oil lamp. She tiredly climbed onto the sofa, which was now made up with the newly purchased sheets. Wishing she had a pillow, she folded an arm beneath her head and turned her face toward the tall front windows looking out on the untended yard and turquoise lake beyond.

Kate was grateful for the full moon that shone with an almost day-bright radiance. The light made her feel safe and secure. No one could possibly slip in and surprise her.

Kate lowered a hand and touched her uncle Nelson’s Navy Colt revolver where she had placed it on the floor. Then she laid her arm across her waist and closed her eyes.

She was almost asleep when a noise from the back of the house shattered the silence. Kate snatched the gun and sat up. She lit the coal oil lamp with shaking fingers, and then, gun in one hand, lamp in the other, she moved down the wide hallway in search of the intruder.

“Who’s there?” she called out, expecting to encounter a bear or man any minute. “Show yourself or I’ll shoot!”

No response.

After a thorough inspection of all the downstairs rooms turned up nothing, Kate began to relax. She told herself the noise she’d heard had probably been nothing more menacing than a field mouse. Laughing at herself for being so easily frightened, she went back to bed.

She returned the revolver to its place beneath the sofa. She exhaled tiredly, yawned, and again gazed out the windows to the placid lake beyond.

The moon was full.

The gun was loaded.

Kate was soon fast asleep.

After spending several fruitless days trying to hire help to work her mountainside diggings, Kate was becoming exasperated.

She had thoroughly combed the community for laborers, finally realizing that she was looking in the wrong places. She knew exactly where she had to go. There was no use delaying any longer. She needed to go where men congregated.

In the saloons.

Kate waited until well after sunset.

Then, making sure the loaded Colt revolver was in her reticule, she walked the short half mile to town. Once there, she headed directly to the largest, liveliest saloon on Main Street.

The Golden Nugget.

As she approached she heard loud music, men’s voices, thunderous laughter, and what could only be a fierce fistfight in progress.

Kate slowed her steps. Then blinked in astonishment when a man with a bloody nose and a bruised face came flying out the saloon doors and landed flat on his back in the middle of the street.

She gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Hesitating, she strongly considered abandoning her mission. She knew she should just turn around and go right back home.

But she couldn’t do that.

Kate squared her shoulders and marched forward. She had never been inside a saloon, but she had to go in and find men willing to work the Cavalry Blue.

Kate reached the saloon.

She drew a quick breath, stiffened her spine and placed a hand atop the slatted bat-wing doors.

But before she could push them open, a low, masculine voice warned, “Hold it right there.”

Seven

Kate’s head snapped around.

She found herself looking squarely at a shiny silver badge resting on a man’s broad chest.

Kate tipped her head back and looked up.

Sheriff Travis McCloud stood with his booted feet apart and his thumbs hooked into his low-riding gun belt. His facial muscles were drawn tight and his dark eyes cold.

“You’re not going in there, miss,” he informed her in soft, low tones.

“And why ever not?” she retorted. “There are ladies inside. I hear feminine laughter.”

He looked at her and his expression changed. His lips widened in a slow smile and his dark, daring eyes held the probing scrutiny of a highly virile man. Kate was instantly unnerved by him.

After a pause that seemed interminable, he said, “They are not exactly ladies. I imagine you are.” There was another pause. “So you’re not going inside.”

“You know nothing about me, so how…?”

“I know a great deal about you,” he said, taking hold of her upper arm and firmly turning her away from the saloon’s swinging doors. “You are Miss Kate VanNam from Boston and you’ve come to take up residence in the house your late great-aunt Arielle VanNam Colfax left you.”

“The house is the least of it, Sheriff.” Kate attempted to pull her arm free of his encircling fingers.

He refused to let her go. “Ah, yes. So you’ve seen the elephant.”

“Seen the elephant?”

“Never mind. You’re here for gold,” he said, shaking his head.

His air of egotism was offensive. Kate gave him a sharp look. “Why, yes, if you must know, I intend to bring gold out of the Cavalry Blue. Which is why I was going into the Golden Nugget. I need to find laborers to work my claim.”

Travis quickly set her straight. “That’s not going to happen, Miss VanNam. You won’t find anybody willing to work at the Cavalry Blue.”

“Why not?”

“The people in Fortune are dreamers, just as you are. They work at their own small claims and diggings, hoping to strike it rich. That’s why they came to California, the ‘land of second chances’.”

“Does that include you, Marshal?” She smiled when she saw the slight narrowing of his eyes, then told him, “It really shouldn’t matter to you why I’m here. My presence in Fortune is none of your concern and I—”

“You’re wrong there, Miss VanNam. It is very much my concern,” Travis said. “I’ve been hired by the Committee of Vigilance to keep the peace in Fortune. That’s exactly what I aim to do.”

“Well, I should hope so,” she retorted. Glancing up at his handsome face, she immediately felt the same frightening tingle she’d experienced when she’d looked out from the riverboat’s porthole upon arriving in Fortune. She mentally shook herself, and then flippantly teased, “I promise not to cheat at cards or get into fistfights or shoot up the saloons.”

She laughed.

He didn’t.

Stopping in midstride, he yanked her to such an abrupt halt her head rocked on her shoulders. Drawing her close, he fixed her with his dark eyes. “Listen to me, Miss VanNam, and listen well. In case you’ve failed to notice, there are at least fifty men to every woman in this community. Any idea what that could mean to you?”

“No, I—”

“Word has already spread that you are to be living alone up there in the Colfax mansion. How safe do you suppose you are?”

“I don’t see—”

“No, you don’t see. If you did you’d climb right back on the steamer and head downriver to—”

“Listen to me, Marshal, and listen well,” Kate interrupted. “I’m going nowhere. I am staying in Fortune until I find the gold in the Cavalry Blue. You don’t want me here? Too bad. This is now my home. I have no other and nothing to go back to Boston for.”

Travis frowned. “Your family?”

“I have no family left,” she declared, no longer counting her brother, Gregory, as family. “But I’m made of rather stern stuff, Sheriff. One of my ancestors, Ebenezer Stevens, participated in the Boston Tea Party. Like him, I don’t back down or frighten easily. Now if you’ll kindly unhand me, I am going home.”

“I’ll see to it you do.” He finally released his hold on her arm. “I’ll walk you there.”

“Not necessary.” Kate was swift to turn down his offer. “You surely have troublemakers to apprehend.”

“I’d say you’re presently the biggest troublemaker in Fortune,” Travis gently teased.

Kate was not amused. “There is no need for you to escort me home. Good night to you, Marshal Mc-Cloud,” she repeated, and walked away.

Travis stayed where he was, crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head in annoyance. Then he easily caught up with her.

“It will be a good night once I’ve seen you safe inside behind locked doors.”

Kate sighed irritably. She didn’t want him to go with her. She knew what would happen. He would see what bad shape the house was in and insist she couldn’t live there. She didn’t like this big, bullying marshal. She didn’t trust him. He was too decisive, too commanding, too cocksure.

The thought struck her that this tall, hard-faced sheriff was nothing like her gentle companion and friend, the boyish, soft-spoken Sam Bradford, half a world away back in Boston. Instinctively, she knew no one would dare boss this handsome Virginian around, as she had so often done with the good-natured Sam.

The pair reached the end of the wooden sidewalk. As she stepped down onto the ground, Kate glanced up at Travis and made a misstep. He reached out to steady her, and she found herself leaning against him.

The moonlight struck his face fully. He was even more handsome than she had thought. For a moment they stayed as they were—she pressed against his side, her hand lying on his hard abdomen, he holding her until she could regain her balance, his eyes focused on her upturned face.

Travis wanted to lift a hand and run his fingers through her long golden locks, which gleamed silver in the moonlight. He was tempted to bend his head and kiss her cherry red lips as they parted over her perfect, small white teeth.

“Sorry, Sheriff,” Kate said finally, and pushed away, shaken by the contact with his lean, hard body. “I lost my footing. How clumsy of me.”

“Quite all right, Miss VanNam,” Travis said, his eyes glinting as he spoke.

Kate realized she would only waste her breath if she again told him she could walk home alone.

The moonlight disappeared as they left town and climbed through the dense pine forest. After walking only a few yards they were forced to continue single file, Travis falling in behind Kate.

Over her shoulder, she explained that the house was in need of a bit of repair, but that she had already fixed it up some. She would have to keep him far from the mansion so he wouldn’t notice the missing front door, among other defects.

When they stepped out into the broad clearing by the sparkling lake, Kate turned to face Travis. She put out her hand for him to shake and said sweetly, “I do appreciate you walking me home, Sheriff. It was most kind of you. Good night.”

Travis didn’t take her offered hand.

His eyes were on the darkened mansion. Without a word he left Kate standing there, and moved along the curving bank of the lake, headed directly toward the house. Kate gritted her teeth and followed.

“As I mentioned, the place needs a little work and—”

“Jesus Christ.” Travis swore as they reached the overgrown yard. “There’s no front door.”

“Well, no, but…that’s…wait…wait! Where are you going?”

Travis had crossed the yard, climbed the front steps and walked right into the house. He took a sulphur match from the breast pocket of his white shirt, struck it on his thumbnail and looked around the wide central corridor.

He glanced into the large front parlor and spotted the coal oil lamp on the floor beside a long sofa. He went inside, sank down into a crouching position and lifted the glass globe. He touched the match to the wick and the lamp blazed to life.

Kate entered the room as he was replacing the globe. She gave him an apologetic little smile and said, “I told you the house…”

“I had no idea this place had fallen into such bad repair,” he said, shaking out the match. He rose to his feet. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t stay in this house. I can’t leave you here alone and unprotected. Get some things together and I’ll take you back to town. You can sleep in a vacant cell at the city jail.”

“Thank you, no.”

“I don’t want to argue, Miss VanNam. Get your clothes. You’re coming with me. You’ll be safe at the jail.”

Travis stood with his feet apart, his hands at his sides. The lamplight cast eerie shadows on the mansion’s walls. And on the marshal’s scowling face. He looked angry.

“What an absurd proposal.” Kate swiftly vetoed the idea, uncaring how angry it made him. “Have I done something illegal? You don’t own me, Marshal. You can’t tell me what to do.”

Travis exhaled heavily. “I’m trying to help you here.”

“I don’t need or want your help, Marshal. All I want is for you to leave. Now. And in the future, if you’ll kindly stay out of my way, I promise I’ll stay out of yours.”

Travis gazed at the gorgeous golden-haired girl standing there with her hands on her hips and her chin raised, speaking to him as no one else dared.

“Do you have a gun, Miss VanNam?”

Kate raised her right arm. From the drawstring reticule dangling from her wrist, she withdrew her Colt revolver. “I am armed, Sheriff.”

“You know how to use that thing?”

“Certainly,” she lied. “I’m an excellent shot.”

“Fine, you hear anything moving, shoot and ask questions later. Anything comes around here, be it bear or panther or man, shoot to kill.”

“Does that include you, Sheriff?” The minute she’d said it, Kate wished she could take it back.

His dark eyes blazed and he took a menacing step toward her. “Try it, sweetheart.”

Kate swallowed hard. She started raising the revolver. In a flash he was next to her and had taken the gun away from her. He grabbed the sashed waistband of her dress and yanked her up against him. His face was now inches from her own. “Never aim a weapon unless you mean to fire it. You hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it to hell, I knew it.”

“Knew what?” she asked, intensely aware that his slim hips and long legs were pressed flush agains thers. She could feel the power and heat radiating from him.

“That you’d be trouble. You are trouble. You’ll have trouble. You’ll cause trouble. For yourself. And for me.”

“That’s a lot of trouble, Sheriff.”

“Too much trouble.” He released her, stepped back and placed the revolver on the sofa. “Why don’t you be a good girl, pack up and leave before anybody gets hurt?”

“You must have a hearing disorder, Marshal,” Kate said acidly. “My uncle Nelson was hard of hearing, so I’m used to having to raise my voice to be heard.” She then shouted loudly, “I am staying in Fortune, and if you don’t like it I’d suggest you stay out of my sight.”

Both annoyed and amused by her determination, Travis raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, Miss VanNam, but I catch you anywhere near a saloon or out on the streets after dark and you’re going to jail.”

“Fair enough, Marshal,” Kate said. “And if I catch you anywhere near this house after dark, I’ll be forced to shoot you.”

Eight

Travis muttered to himself as he walked back to Fortune.

Damn her to hell!

Of all the gold camps in all the mountains in all the world, why did she have to wind up in his? Protecting Kate VanNam would be a twenty-four-hour-a-day job, and just himself and his deputy, Jiggs, wouldn’t be enough manpower to keep ten thousand desperate miners at bay.

Impossible.

He’d be damned if he’d spend all his time worrying about a woman who didn’t have enough sense to know what she was in for. She’d confront all sorts of problems up there all alone in that run-down mansion where she didn’t even have a door to lock.

By the time Travis reached the sidewalks of town, he was in a black mood. He would have to forget about Miss Kate VanNam.

It had been a long day. Travis was tired and thirsty.

But when he heard the piano music coming from the Golden Nugget, he finally smiled. He walked into the saloon and immediately felt better. All was as it should be.

In a corner was Big Maude, the muscular, six-foot-plus Amazon who was a fixture at the Golden Nugget, presiding nightly over the roulette wheel. With a smile, she called for him to come join her.

In the most crowded part of the room, Rosalita, a strikingly pretty Spaniard, sat behind the monte table, a cigarillo dangling from her painted red lips. Players flocked to Rosalita’s table, their hard-earned money going across the green baize and into her small deft hands.

Travis walked inside just as the beautiful, dark-haired Valentina, garbed in a dazzling gown of bronze satin, climbed up on the square piano, smiled down at the piano player and crossed her shapely legs.

Whistles and applause from the roomful of men was deafening.

Valentina caught sight of Travis and threw him a kiss. He nodded and headed for the bar. She turned her attention on her adoring audience. Raising her hands for silence, she waited until they had calmed a bit before she placed a palm on the skirt of her shimmering gown, raised it a trifle, opened her mouth and began to sing.

“Ring, ring de banjo,

I love that good old song,

Come again my true love,

Oh where you been so long?”

Travis stood at the bar. He tossed down a straight whiskey and motioned the barkeep to pour another. As the liquor burned its way down into his chest, he relaxed and stopped worrying about the strong-willed, golden-haired Kate VanNam. Instead he looked at Valentina perched atop the piano, singing to the miners in her sweet, clear voice.

She was both a temptress and a tease. Her gown was cut so low and the waist was so tight that the tops of her full breasts swelled above the bronze silk. Travis grinned. He could see the twin nipples pushing against the shimmering fabric and a shapely gartered knee of her crossed legs.

“…Come again my true love,” she sang, and looked directly at Travis.

He lifted a hand, pointed a finger at the ceiling. She smiled and nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

Travis turned and walked out of the saloon. For a time he stood just outside in the cool mountain air, listening to Valentina sing. Then he walked away. When he reached the alley, he turned and went to the back of the two-story building that housed the rollicking Golden Nugget. He climbed the outside stairs, fished in his trousers pocket for the key and turned the lock.

When he entered Valentina’s private quarters Gigi bowed and quickly took her leave. She had been told that anytime—day or night—Travis McCloud came to visit, she was to leave and stay in her quarters until Valentina summoned her.

Travis stripped down to his skin and sat down on Valentina’s bed. From the silver box on the night table that Valentina kept filled for him, he took a fragrant cigar and lit it. Next to the silver box was a cut-crystal decanter filled with Kentucky bourbon that was also for him. Valentina drank only French champagne.

Travis poured himself a drink, then sank back onto the soft bed. He knew he’d have to wait at least an hour for Valentina to finish entertaining, but he didn’t mind. He’d enjoy a smoke and a drink and unwind so he’d be completely rested and ready to make love to the beautiful Creole when she arrived.

When an hour finally passed and Valentina walked through the door, she smiled seductively at Travis. Yanking the covering sheet down, she glanced at his flaccid groin and said, “Well, now, I can’t allow this.”

Travis grinned. “No? Then what are you going to do about it?”

Valentina assured him she could fix it. She laid a warm hand on him and felt him immediately stir against her palm. She leaned down, kissed his bare chest, nipped playfully at his flat brown nipple, then raised her head.

“That’s better, my love,” she said. “I like my man with a drink, a smile and a hard cock.” She laughed musically. “And not necessarily in that order.”

Travis laughed, too, then surged upward when she ran her long-nailed forefinger the length of his erection and around its thrusting head.

“Don’t torture me tonight, Valentina,” he said, ready for her to come into his arms.

“My impatient darling,” she murmured as she hastily shed her shimmering satin gown and climbed astride her lover. She wore nothing but her long silk stockings and a necklace of glittering jewels.

Hands folded beneath his head, Travis watched approvingly as Valentina reached out to the bedside table, stuck her fingers in his shot glass of bourbon, rubbed up and down the length of his straining masculinity, then guided him up inside her. She moved her hands away, loosened her swept-up hair from its restraints and allowed the dark locks to fall down around her bare ivory shoulders.

“I’m gonna give you some extra special loving tonight, my darling,” she promised, rolling her pelvis and setting her heavy breasts to swaying. “And I will not allow you to get out of this bed before morning,” she whispered, using her lush body to excite him in ways she had been taught in New Orleans. There she had learned how to please a man so completely he’d become a helpless slave to the unique sexual pleasures she could provide. Valentina practiced everything she knew to keep Travis satisfied and coming back for more. She wanted only to please this darkly handsome lawman, with whom she was madly in love.

She was extremely disappointed when Travis said, not an hour later, that he couldn’t stay the night.

“What is it?” Valentina asked, when he rose and hunched into his trousers. “What’s bothering you, Travis?” She sat up in the bed and wrapped her arms around her raised knees.

“Not a thing. But you know that I can’t lie around here all night making love. I’m the sheriff, hired by the Committee of Vigilance to keep the peace.”

Left unsaid was that he couldn’t forget about a young, foolish woman who was living alone and unprotected in a run-down mansion. Or that he felt compelled to walk half a mile and check on her.

With his white shirt back on but unbuttoned, Travis shoved his arms into his black leather vest and strapped on his gun belt.

“Thanks for a great evening, Val.”

“It wasn’t an evening,” she huffed, “it was one short hour.”

He grinned. “You sure made that hour count, baby.”

“Go! Get out of here,” she said, and threw a pillow at him.

After the sheriff had gone, it had taken Kate awhile to calm herself. She was upset and it was his fault. She didn’t like Travis McCloud. She didn’t like the conflicting emotions he aroused in her. She’d met him only tonight and yet he was keeping her awake. One minute she was seething with anger at him for his high-handed audacity, and the next she was squirming at the vivid recollection of being momentarily pressed against his lean, powerful body.

Finally, after a couple of hours had passed, Kate was just about to fall asleep when a noise came from the back of the house. It was the same sound she had heard every night for the five nights she had been here! Her heart racing, Kate reached for her loaded revolver. She lit her lamp and crossed the room to the wide corridor.

Cautioning herself to stay calm, but remembering the sheriff’s advice to “shoot first and ask questions later,” she crept down the long hall, not knowing if she would encounter a bear or a bandit. She was halfway to the back of the house when she saw something move in the shadows.

She lifted the revolver and took aim.

“I…I’ve got a gun,” she threatened. “I know how to use it!”

Her eyes widened when she heard a distinctive hiss. Kate lifted the lamp high and saw, crouched against a wall, its back arched, a big fat calico cat, its golden eyes gleaming in the darkness. Relief flooding through her, Kate sank to her knees.

“Here kitty, kitty,” she called, not really expecting the overweight feline to come to her. “So it was you,” she said in soft, low tones. “You’ve been making all the noise and I thought it was a bear. Come here, let’s be friends.”

The cat made a low rattling sound in the back of its throat and stared at Kate with slitted golden eyes. It didn’t budge.

She laughed softly. “You know, I wondered why there were no rats in this old house. From the looks of you, I’d say there’s not a rodent within a mile of the place. What do you say?”

The rattling stopped. The calico finally meowed.

“That’s better. Now come over here. Please. I’m all alone and I need a friend.”

To Kate’s surprise, the cat padded slowly closer, stopping just beyond her reach. “I’m Kate, Cal. If this is your home, that’s fine with me. We can live here together. Okay?” Kate reached out and tried to touch the cat. It backed away.

But when she’d sat there unmoving for a minute, the cat cautiously came closer. It reached her and, when she didn’t make a move to touch it, rubbed its furry side against her knees. Then it slowly walked around her, rubbing up against Kate as it went.

When the cat was again facing her, Kate said, “I’m going back to bed now. You’re welcome to come sleep at the foot of my bed. It’s up to you.”

She lifted the lamp and gun, rose to her feet, turned and walked away. She was disappointed to see that the cat hadn’t followed. Still, just knowing it was there made her feel less lonely and afraid.

She lay back down, but sleep still would not come.

Kate again got up.

She left the lamp and gun where they were and went out onto the porch. She yanked up the tail of her long gown, sat down on the first step and tucked the fabric between her knees. She gazed up at the deep cobalt sky overhead. The heavens were brilliant with stars. They glittered like diamonds in the still, thin mountain air.

She smiled when she felt something warm and furry press against her hip. She looked down at the big calico cat and knew she’d found a much needed companion. Very slowly, very carefully, she lifted a hand and laid two fingers lightly atop its head. When the cat looked up at her, she slipped her hand beneath its throat and began to gently stroke it. The cat purred contentedly and was soon catnapping.

Neither the girl nor the cat were aware that someone was watching.

When Travis had reached the clearing, he’d seen a lamp flickering inside the house. From afar, he’d watched as the light moved from the front room and down the hall to the back of the mansion. Minutes later it returned to the front and soon went out.

The girl had, he supposed, gone to sleep.

Travis had started to turn away. Then he hesitated, deciding to stay just a few more minutes.

He’d moved closer to the mansion and took up a post beneath a towering pine at the edge of the yard, where he had an unobstructed view of the house and its surrounding grounds. He sat down and leaned back against the solid trunk.

Less than ten minutes later the girl came out of the house dressed in her long nightgown. She stood on the porch for a couple of heartbeats while the night winds pressed the thin white garment against her tall, slender body, and her unbound hair whipped around her head.

His eyes dry from not daring to blink, Travis stared at the vision in white and lost his breath entirely when she impetuously yanked the long skirt of her nightgown up around her thighs and sank down on the front step, shoving the fabric between her legs and pressing her knees together.

Travis ground his teeth so hard his jaws ached.

Damn her beautiful hide!

All the warning in the world hadn’t made one bit of difference. He had a good mind to march up there and haul her back inside.

Just then a big calico cat sauntered out of the house and over to her. Travis watched, disbelieving, as Kate stroked the cat’s raised throat.

That cat had been left behind when Mrs. Colfax moved away. He’d seen the creature running wild through the woods. Apparently it had taken up residence in the empty mansion.

The animal had turned feral years ago. Yet already this Boston blonde had made an obedient pet of it.

Travis’s eyes narrowed.

He stared at Miss VanNam, remembering how another golden-haired beauty had made a pet—and a fool—out of him.

Silently he vowed that would never happen again.

Nine

As Sheriff McCloud had suspected, Kate VanNam’s presence in Fortune caused quite a stir. In mining regions, men would travel a great distance for a glance at a newly arrived female, since, aside from the girls working in the bordellos, very few unattached women lived in gold camps, and none were as young and as pretty as Kate VanNam. She was, fortunately, such a novelty that most of the hard-bitten miners treated her with awed respect. She represented their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and sweethearts back home.

But not all.

There were a number of dirty, foul-mouthed curs who would have loved to get their hands on a genteel woman like Kate VanNam. Sheriff McCloud put the word out that if anyone trifled with her, he would have to answer to him. Still, Travis worried for her-safety. She was, he knew, too much of a temptation to the lonely miners.

Travis enlisted the help of his deputy, Jiggs Gillespie.

“I need a hand, Jiggs,” Travis said early one morning as the two were drinking coffee at the jail.

“What can I do?” asked the always congenial Jiggs.

Travis took a sip of the steaming black brew. “The young woman up at—”

“Kate VanNam?”

“Yes, Kate VanNam. Jiggs, she’s up there by herself in that run-down mansion. Jesus, there’s not even a front door and—”

“Why don’t we take turns checking on her?” said Jiggs, anticipating Travis’s request.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

The skinny deputy smiled, rose to his feet and hitched up his trousers. “Lordy, no. It’s not like I have a wife and family to go home to at night.”

“I’d be much obliged to you, Jiggs.” Travis frowned when he added, “God knows she’s a royal pain in the ass, but I don’t look for her to be staying long in Fortune.”

“I do, Trav.”

Travis blinked, taken aback. “Why would you say a thing like that?”

He shrugged narrow shoulders. “I heard her talking to Doc Ledet on the steamer up from San Francisco. She told him she was going to stay here until she found gold in the Cavalry Blue. I’d say that should take about…um, well, put it this way. You and I will be dead and gone, and she’ll be a withered old woman, before an ounce of gold is brought out of the worthless Cavalry Blue.”

Travis nodded. “I’m betting she’ll tire of the futile undertaking.” He took another drink of coffee. “But until that happy day, we’ll have to keep an eye on the pretty Easterner.”

“I’ll wander on up two or three times tonight.”

“Thanks, Jiggs. Once you’re up there, stay safely out of sight. She’s got a gun and I told her to shoot and ask questions later.”

“She’ll never know I’m within a hundred miles of the place.”

There were no respondents to her “Miners Wanted” ad in the weekly Fortune Teller. Kate was disappointed. She was becoming increasingly frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t find anyone to work her mine. Obviously Sheriff McCloud had been right when he’d predicted she wouldn’t be able to hire any laborers. It seemed that all the men in Fortune were working their own claims.

Since she had been warned by the inflexible sheriff not to step foot inside one of the many saloons, Kate had to limit her hunt to placing the advertisement in the weekly newspaper and to checking at the Wells Fargo office when the mail carrier delivered the post.

After sending a letter to Alexandra Wharton, her dear friend back in Boston, Kate made an inquiry at Wells Fargo. No takers. Discouraged, she left and was heading down the sidewalk when she heard loud thudding sounds and muffled groans.

She stopped, turned her head and listened.

She heard the unmistakable moaning of an animal in pain. Kate hurried and peered down the shadowy alley between two buildings.

She gasped in horror.

Two big, rough looking men, the taller one with a black patch over one eye, the other sporting a bushy red beard, were mercilessly beating a helpless little Chinaman. The one-eyed man had his knife out, trying to cut off the Chinaman’s queue.

Kate didn’t hesitate.

She reached into her reticule, drew her uncle’s Navy Colt revolver, hurried into the alley, raised her arm above her head and fired into the air.

“Hit him one more time and I’ll blow your heads off!” she warned, lowering the gun and at the same time taking close notice of their faces and clothes so that she could describe them to the sheriff and help identify them.

The startled ruffians instantly released their victim and fled out the back of the alley. Kate put the weapon away and hurried to the suffering Chinaman, who lay crumpled on the ground.

“You speak English?” she asked, taking a hand-kerchief from her reticule to dab some of the blood from his pummeled face.

He grimaced, but nodded.

“Good. We’ll get you across the street to Dr. Ledet’s and he’ll—”

“No…no,” said the man through clenched teeth. “No doctor. Not need one.”

“Yes, you do! You’re badly hurt and—”

“Do not need doctor,” the Chinaman said again.

“You are going to the doctor!” Kate stated firmly. “Now, we’ll carefully sit you up and let you lean back against the building. Once we’ve accomplished that,” she told him, “I’m going to drape your arm around my shoulder and put my arm around your waist. You understand?”

He grimaced, his eyes glazed with pain. Kate slipped her arm around him and very carefully, very gently positioned him beside her.

“That’s good. You ready to give walking a try?”

“Ready,” he muttered, then groaned in agony when she moved him.

“I’m so sorry,” Kate murmured, supporting the little man’s weight as she half dragged, half carried him across the street.

“Can I help?” asked a toothless old sourdough with a miner’s pallor who looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away. “Want me to carry him?”

“We can manage,” Kate said with a smile of gratitude, “but thank you, Mr….”

“H. Q. Blankenship,” the man said, and backed away.

Dr. Ledet, seated at the desk in his front office, looked out the window, saw the pair and came running out to meet them.

“Chang Li, who did this to you?” asked the white-haired physician. The battered Chinaman gave no reply. Dr. Ledet instructed Kate, “Let’s get him into the back room, Miss VanNam.”

Once there, they carefully lifted the suffering man up onto the examining table. While the doctor turned away to wash his hands, Kate stood gently patting Chang Li’s shoulder while she stated, “Two bullies, Doctor. Both very large, very dirty men. One had a black eye patch, the other a full red beard.”

Over his shoulder as he soaped his hands, Ledet said, “Titus Kelton is the one-eyed man. The red-bearded fellow is Jim Spears. Miscreants both. Always trouble, they are. Mean as snakes and—”

“I must go, Dr. Ledet,” Kate interrupted, then smiled down at Chang Li. “The doctor will care for you.”

“Yes, yes, you go on, child. I’ll take over,” Dr. Ledet said as he dried his hands on a clean white cloth.

Once outside she took a deep breath but quickly lifted her skirts and hurried across the dusty street. The few men who were loitering about noted the set of her jaw and the flash of her eyes. Everyone wisely stayed out of her way.

She marched two blocks up the sidewalk to the city jail.

Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light inside the office, Kate saw Fortune’s fearless sheriff, his feet propped up on his desk, his hands laced across his stomach. He was dozing in his chair.

Her anger immediately flared.

While a poor, defenseless little Chinaman was being brutally beaten in an alley two blocks away, the town marshal was asleep at his desk. Unforgivable! Seething, Kate swept over to Travis. Peaceful as a baby he was, shiny star moving up and down on his chest with his slow, rhythmic breathing.

She reached out and shoved his booted feet to the floor.

“What the devil!” he snarled.

“I’ll tell you what the devil!” Kate said, leaning close. “You! You’re the devil! The big, bad sheriff who’s supposed to be some kind of legend. Everybody talks about your he-man prowess, your pistol-packing, rifle-toting, frontier-taming…your unsurpassed greatness. You think you’re tough. You’re not so tough. Dear Lord, here you are sleeping on the job! You’re supposed to keep the peace in this town, Sheriff! Do it!”

She turned to leave. Travis’s hand caught hold of her flowing skirts.

“You let me go!” she ordered, trying desperately to free herself.

“Go? You came here to make a complaint, didn’t you?” He reeled her in by her skirt. To her chagrin, he plunked her down hard on his left knee. “Make it. Tell me what has happened to bring you here in such a state of agitation.”

“I am not agitated and you are not awake. I’ll come back later to—”

“You’re going nowhere until you tell me what this is all about.”

“Let me up this minute or I will scream,” she warned.

“No you won’t,” said Travis, clamping a long arm around her trim waist.

Kate stiffened. “I will, so help me.”

“You do and I’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace,” he said, unsmiling. “Toss you right into a cell and lock you up. Now what’s on your mind, Miss VanNam?”

Leaning away from his muscular chest as far as she possibly could, Kate stated, “Two of your town bullies—Titus Kelton and Jim Spears—have beaten a poor, helpless man within an inch of his life while you were sitting here sound asleep!”

Travis said nothing. Looking directly into his dark eyes, she continued, “They attempted to cut off his queue, but I got there in time! Swear to me you’ll make them pay.”

“I swear,” Travis said. He yawned, pushed her to her feet and rose to his own. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Kate took a step back. “What are you going to do to them?”

“Find ’em first,” he said with slow smile that made her want to smack his smug face.

“And then?”

Travis shrugged broad shoulders, “Perhaps a dose of their own medicine.”

Kate was appalled. “For heaven’s sake, are you saying that you intend to beat them?”

“What would you suggest I do with them?” he asked, running a hand through his thick raven hair. He reached for his hat.

“Why, that’s barbaric! You simply cannot behave like an animal, Sheriff. You’re supposed to be an officer of the law and—”

“I am the law, Miss VanNam. And you have just reported a criminal act, one that calls for harsh punishment. This is not Boston. It’s Fortune, California. If you don’t like the way things are done here, may I suggest you return to the civilized East.” He picked up his gun belt, slung it around his hips and buckled it. “You come in here and tell me that Kelton and Spears beat up a defenseless man. Fine, I believe you. Now believe me when I tell you that they will pay.”

Travis stepped around her, headed for the door.

“Marshal McCloud.”

He turned back to look at her. “Yes, Miss VanNam?”

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“What’s that, Miss VanNam?”

“Sit me on your knee.” Her face flushed as she said the words.

Travis put his hat on his head and adjusted the brim. “Wake me like that again and you’ll be lucky if I don’t turn you over my knee.”

He tipped his hat and left Kate glaring after him. She watched him unhurriedly cross the street, and felt again the heat of his arm around her waist when he’d sat her on his knee. She shivered inwardly. There was an air of mystery and power about the town sheriff that both repelled and excited her. He was handsome in a ruthless way and she had no doubt there were women who looked upon him with favor.

Kate shook herself out of her foolish reveries and hurried back to Dr. Ledet’s office to check on the patient.

For the next hour she stayed at the physician’s elbow, assisting in any way she could while he worked on Chang Li. Dr. Ledet had given the suffering man a liberal dose of laudanum, and Chang Li was now sleeping soundly.

When finally the doctor was finished with the task, and both he and Kate had washed their hands, he quietly motioned her to precede him out of the room.

Once they were in the front office, Kate reached for her reticule. “How much does he owe you, Doctor? I want to pay.”

“Not a thing, Kate.” He smiled as he rolled his sleeves down. She tried again, but he refused to take any money. He said, “Chang Li is resting well, so we’ll leave him here in my office for a couple of days. He’s going to be fine. Sore for a while, but no permanent damage was done.”

Kate nodded. “Thanks to you.”

“No, I’d say it’s thanks to you, child.” He chuckled and said, “You faced down the town bullies. I don’t know of many men, much less a woman, who would….”

A disturbance outside caused the doctor to stop speaking. He and Kate exchanged glances, then quickly turned to look out the window.

Marshal Travis McCloud, mounted atop a snorting Appaloosa stallion, came riding down the center of the Main Street with two big, dirty prisoners—one with a black eye patch, the other with a full red beard—stumbling behind him. A long length of rope was wrapped around their bound hands and tied to the sheriff’s gun belt.

Bordello girls, bartenders, hotel clerks, store proprietors and anybody else who happened to be in town spilled out into the street. The spectators pointed at the humiliated pair and laughed merrily. They shouted and whistled and applauded.

“Dr. Ledet,” Kate said, aghast at the sight of the men’s bloody noses and blackened eyes. “Those prisoners have been beaten. Did the marshal…?”

“Indeed he did. Found them and fought them both and brought them in to jail. And look at Travis—not a scratch on him,” the doctor said admiringly.

Kate’s jaw dropped. “You approve?”

“Absolutely,” he declared with a smile. “Street fighting, stabbing, shooting and claim jumping. You name it, Travis handles it with ease. He’s the bravest, finest sheriff in all California.”

Ten

“Don’t shoot!” shouted a strapping, ruddy-faced man in dirty overalls, raising his big hands in the air.

“I surrender!” called another, pretending to be frightened.

“Take me prisoner, please!” pleaded a grinning young boy as he fell to his knees on the sidewalk and offered up his wrists.

Everyone guffawed and whistled.

The teasing was directed at Kate.

And she could thank Doc Ledet.

The miners had learned from the physician that the pretty newcomer had boldly stepped into an alley, fired her big Colt in the air and threatened Kelton and Spears.

Now when Kate went to check on Chang Li, the miners clowned with her as she walked down the street. Unconcerned with their childish ribbing, she headed directly to Dr. Ledet’s office two doors past the Eldorado Hotel.

“Dr. Ledet?” Kate called softly as she stepped into the front office. “Are you here, Doctor?”

The physician came through the back room’s curtained door and placed a finger to his lips. Kate nodded in understanding.

In low tones, the doctor said, “Chang Li is resting. He awakened earlier this afternoon and ate a little broth. He told me the whole story of how you saved his life.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “And you promptly informed the rest of Fortune.”

Looking sheepish, Doc Ledet said, “I might have mentioned it to a couple of people.” When she didn’t scold him, he smiled, offered her a chair and said, “Some of the miners are saying maybe Marshal Mc-Cloud should deputize you.”

At the mention of the marshal, Kate frowned, but made no comment. She sat down and carefully spread her billowing skirts around her feet. “Doctor, why were those men beating Chang Li? What had he done to deserve such brutality?”

“He did nothing to provoke them,” the doctor said, stepping behind the desk and dropping wearily into his high-backed chair. “Coolies are hated and reviled because they will work harder and longer for less, and that brings wages down.”

The doctor knew a great deal about Chang Li, as he did about everyone in Fortune. And he was more than happy to share the information. Kate listened attentively.

“Chang Li has been in Fortune for three years while his family is back in China. He’s longing for a better life, hoping to make enough money in California to bring his wife and children here one day.

“He lives alone in the tent city at the southern edge of town.”

“Those two bullies must be properly punished,” Kate replied. “They should stand trial. Chang Li must testify against them and—”

The doctor interrupted. “Kate, Chang Li can’t testify. And even if he could, no one would believe his word against theirs.”

“But why? Surely…”

“The Foreign Miners License Tax Law of 1850 prohibits Indians and Chinamen from testifying in court.”

“That’s unfair.”

“It’s the law,” said Doc Ledet.

Kate sighed wearily. “It’s getting late, Doctor. I’d better go.”

“Yes, you shouldn’t be out on the streets after dark,” he stated, rising from his chair. “The sheriff wouldn’t like it.”

Kate frowned. “I don’t give a fig what the sheriff would like.”

“Now, now, you don’t want to get crossways with Marshal McCloud.”

Kate bit her tongue, but did not reply. She rose and moved toward the door, then stopped and turned back. “Dr. Ledet, have you ever heard the expression ‘seeing the elephant’?”

He chuckled. “Where’d you hear it?”

“Sheriff McCloud accused me of that.”

“Child, it’s a well-known term that best characterizes the forty-niners and the gold rush.”

“It makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does. When gold was found in these mountains, people planning to come out West announced they were ‘going to see the elephant.’ Those who turned back claimed they had seen the ‘elephant’s tracks’ or the ‘elephant’s tail’ and swore they’d seen more than enough of the animal.” Eyes twinkling, he rubbed his chin, warming to the story, one he’d told many times before.

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