High and Wild (12 page)

Dropping her gaze momentarily was by strategy. It gave the local lawman a moment to drop his own gaze to the well-filled corset of her silk and taffeta gown, whose burnt-orange color perfectly matched her hat and her dangling gold earrings inset with orange rhinestones. She knew that men took whatever opportunity they could get to ogle a young woman's jugs, and she saw in the upper periphery of her vision that the sheriff of Wendigo was just now allowing himself a heaping eyeful.

When Raven looked up, he jerked his gaze from the dark mystery of her cleavage to her eyes with a faint start, and he flushed slightly with embarrassment. “I couldn't agree with you more, Miss York.” He stepped back and threw an arm out toward the room behind him. “Won't you come in?”

“Oh, but you were just getting ready to go out, Sheriff,” Raven said. “I don't want to intrude. You probably have law work to do and don't have time to sit and chin with a . . .”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” Goodthunder said, scowling. “I was just going out to get some lunch—it's been a busy day, as it usually is around here—but I must admit that I'm suddenly not nearly as hungry as I thought I was. I'd much rather sit and
chin
, as you say”—he chuckled like a schoolboy with a hard-on—“with your lovely self, Miss York. Please, do come in.”

“All right,” Raven said, lifting her skirts at she passed over the threshold. “Don't mind if I do.”

13

K
nowing, as did most
women, that to fool a man, you need only to start by buffing his ego, Raven sat down in the visitor's chair beside Goodthunder's rolltop desk, smiled with unabashed admiration at the man sitting back in his own leather swivel chair before her, and said, “Goodthunder—what a masculine name. So rugged-sounding. Is that . . .?”

“Pawnee,” the lawman said, hiking one boot onto a knee and lacing his fingers across his relatively flat belly. “My father was half. My mother, however, Scotch-Irish. That's where I get my fair features and gray eyes.”

“Oh, and I bet a very masculine temper, too.” Raven laughed.

“Only when I need to unleash it, Miss York, I assure you. But I can also assure you that when you're the town sheriff of a growing mining camp, you get ample opportunity to unleash it!” He chuckled at that and couldn't help, although she was meeting his gaze directly, letting his own eyes flick back down to her corset.

Raven knew that although she'd been in the man's presence for less than ten minutes, he'd already undressed her several times with his eyes. Probably had her lounging buck-naked, clad in only her earrings and an erotic smile, on a red velvet settee in his private living quarters. In his simple male imagination, he was probably raking that brushy little mustache that he must have thought passed for cultured elegance across her distended nipples while she pumped his swollen manhood.

He brushed a hand across his nose, raked his impish gaze quickly up and down her gown-clad frame once more, and said, “So, please tell me, Miss York—”

“Please call me Raven, Sheriff Goodthunder.”

“Only if you call me Jack.”

“Jack it is.”

“Raven—now, there's a name fitting for such a raven-haired beauty as yourself, Miss, uh, I mean
Raven
.” His deep voice was practically a purr, but she still thought his eyeballs were about to pop out of his head. She'd have bet pearls to jackstraws his pants were getting tight.

“You're too charming, Jack.”

Goodthunder threw his head back and laughed a little too loudly, with a little too much nervous abandon. “So tell me, Raven, whom or what do I have to thank for bringing you to my humble little town?”

“Oh, just call it the good old American entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Ah, you're a business lady.”

“Right, I am. And I've a mind to move my business here to Wendigo. I've been doing quite a bit of investigating on the subject of your fair little city, Jack, and it seems that most in these parts think that, thanks to the wealth of the minerals being mined from the Ute Field in the near mountains, Wendigo might be vying with Leadville soon in terms of size, wealth, and, um, business opportunities.”

Raven smiled and bit gently down on her lower lip as she slowly recrossed her legs, knowing that her skirt was shifting tightly and thus allowing him an opportunity to see how long and fine her legs were and to imagine them wrapped around his dirty old back. She removed her upper teeth, which she knew to be as white as freshly fallen Rocky Mountain snow, from her ruby-red lower lip, and, smiling radiantly, she filled her lungs and felt her corset swell.

Goodthunder shifted a little uncomfortably, making his chair chirp. “I have no doubt we'll be competing with Leadville very soon. In fact, I've heard Miss O'Brien, who owns the Sawatch House, mutter under her breath of late about possibly investing in an opera house. That would be Judith along with her companion and business partner, Mr. Geist.”

“Now, you see there, Jack,” Raven said, giving a husky laugh. “You know, when folks start thinking about building dance halls, their pockets are getting so dad-blame full they simply don't know what to do with all that
dinero
!”

“Right, indeed, Raven.” Goodthunder chuckled, removing a long, slim black cheroot from his shirt pocket. “Right, indeed. Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all. I've always loved the smell of a good cigar.”

“Raven, you're a girl after my own heart.” Goodthunder shoved some wanted posters aside and scratched a match to life on his scarred desktop. As he touched fire to the cheroot, he said, watching the flickering flame, “So tell me if I'm being too inquisitive, Raven, but what is your line of business, anyway?”

She leaned forward to expose more of her corset, lacing her hands around a knee. She felt her bosoms slope down and separate a bit, offering the sheriff a little deeper view of her cleavage. “I'm in the entertainment business, Jack.”

Goodthunder coughed and waved the match out. His eyes suddenly rheumy, he blew smoke out through his nostrils and said, “Dancer?”

“Well, I guess you could call it dancing.” Raven gave a devilish snort while keeping her gaze bold and direct on the man's faintly sheepish eyes. “The most beautiful dance known to men and women,” she added.

Goodthunder stared at her skeptically for a time. A single sweat bead ran down the side of his face, following the line of his left sideburn. As his eyes turned fleetingly opaque, his imagination no doubt continuing his goatish promptings, she sensed the man's pants getting tighter.

“I see, I see,” the sheriff said, stifling another cough. “Well, I'm sure . . . I'm sure one as beautiful as you would have no great trouble at all setting up a, uh, business of that sort in our fair city. Would this be a business involving other, uh, employees, Raven?” He paused. His face was brick-red between his salt-and-pepper sideburns, his nose a deeper red above the salt-and-pepper mustache. “Or just you?”

“Just me for starters,” Raven said. “But after I've established my business and have grown a clientele, I'd like to hire more girls to relieve some of the strain. A girl can only spend so many hours on her back, you know, Jack!” She laughed again huskily.

He laughed, too, and shifted his position again with a telltale little wince. Raven was enjoying the man's struggle to keep from popping his fly buttons. She allowed herself a glance—after all, he'd allowed himself plenty—and sure enough, his charcoal-gray, white-pinstriped trousers were drawn taut across his crotch, with a telltale bulge over the inside of his right thigh.

She had him on his back, so to speak. Simple fool.

Now she could pretty much do anything she wanted to him, and he'd just give her that dimwitted smile.

“One thing does have me worried about Wendigo, Jack.”

“Oh, what's that, Raven?” he said, arching a brow and tapping cigar ashes into an overfilled ashtray on his desk.

“I heard while researching this area that there's been some trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Yes. What was it, now? I think what I heard was that there was some trouble between the freighting companies here in Wendigo. That what was under normal circumstances considered fair business competition had grown rather . . . violent. Do you know about this? I heard that a couple of men were killed, and one was . . . I believe, if I remember correctly, one had gone missing.”

“Now, Raven,” Goodthunder said, dipping his chin to smile at her with gentle chastisement from beneath his dark brown eyebrows, the cheroot smoldering in his right hand, “I'm sure you know as well as I do that not even Leadville and certainly not Nevada City got to where they are today without a little trouble.

“All mining towns—especially ones that have grown to the size of Wendigo and especially ones with as much wealth fairly boiling up out of the ground like the gold and silver deposits stretched across those ridges up there—have their share of problems. Yes, even bloodshed at times. Now, you're right, there have been some isolated occurrences among the freight companies. There are three such companies in town, including Black Diamond owned by Judith O'Brien and Benjamin Geist. Of course, each outfit wants all the ore-hauling contracts for itself. But you can rest assured that I and my two deputies, Jake Bodeen and Lowry Slake, have it completely under control. Not to say that more isolated, uh, circumstances won't occur again but damn few. And none of it should bother your pretty head one doggone bit!”

“Wonderful!” Raven stood and held out her hand to the man. “Thank you, Jack. I feel much better. I'm sure I'm going to have a rollicking and financially rewarding good time in your fair town. I have a sense about such things, and my sense about Wendigo is a very good one, indeed.”

She didn't feel it prudent at the current time to push Goodthunder about the one freighter who'd gone missing. She'd save that for later, when he was even more mesmerized and vulnerable to her feminine wiles.

The sheriff stood and shook Raven's hand. “Wonderful. My mission, then, is accomplished.”

“Thank you for visiting with me.”

“Well, how about if you return the favor? Would you be so generous as to have supper with me this evening?”

Raven gave him a skeptical sidelong glance. “Isn't there a Mrs. Goodthunder?”

The sheriff grinned. “Never has been, never will be.”

“In that case, I would be charmed.”

“The Sawatch House has a very nice dining room. It rivals any similar establishments in Leadville, and the food is better than you'll even find in Denver.”

“Wonderful.”

“Meet me in the lobby around seven?”

“I'll be there.” Raven turned and headed for the door, Goodthunder on her heels. “Good day, Sher—” She stopped and swung around with a winning smile, giving him one more look at her thrusting bosoms. “I mean Jack.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Raven.”

Goodthunder opened the door for her. She started to step through it but then stopped again and turned back to him. “Oh, one more thing.”

“Of course.”

“A favor.”

“Anything, Raven.”

“In the Sawatch House earlier, there was a disturbance.”

“Ah, yes. I do apologize. Trust me, my dear, the problem has been well taken—”

“Oh, your men handled it quite effectively, of course. The problem is the instigator of the trouble, that shaggy-headed brute of a man . . .” She manufactured a troubled expression, as though the topic was almost too distasteful for her to mention.

Goodthunder frowned. “You know the man, Haskell?”

“Well, of course, not personally! But you see, one of the wheels of the stagecoach I was on yesterday slipped over a slight ledge, and the driver and shotgun rider were having trouble getting it back onto the trail. Well, the big man—Haskell, did you say?—rode up and helped them, and you see, if he hadn't come along and offered his services, we all would have been stranded or set afoot.”

Goodthunder opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Raven stepped toward him and placed one hand against his chest, gazing up at him beseechingly. She pressed the edge of her corset against his chest and thought she could sense his body temperature spike.

“I know he did an awful thing in the Sawatch House, Jack. What an uncouth character he is, really. I just don't think he knows any better. Probably not raised right at all, if he was raised by anyone besides bobcats or jackals, that is. But I did hate to see him thrown in jail.

“Don't you think that in light of his assisting the stagecoach, you might set him free and maybe just fine him or something? Possibly bar him from the hotel? He proved to be a decent sort—you know, deep down—and I'm sure he now realizes the error of his ways. I think he mentioned something about needing a job. Maybe you could have him work for free until he's paid off that beautiful rug he ruined.”

Goodthunder studied her. Raven shrank a little, wondering if she'd stepped too far. If she'd blown her cover because of Bear Haskell, she'd bury a stiletto in the big idiot's belly and twist it.

She was relieved when Goodthunder said, “Hmmm—work off the price of the rug . . . You know, Raven, that might be a very practical idea. Certainly, he's no use to anyone in jail, and he's only costing me and my men extra work, and the taxpayers of Wendigo are footing the bill to feed him. Hmmm. Yes.”

“Oh, would you, Jack? I'm sure he's learned his lesson by now. Sometimes the bigger they are, the thicker their heads are, and, sadly”—she knit her brows together—“all the emptier. It takes a good tap to get their attention.”

“So true. Yes, Raven, I will see to it that he's set free. I can't turn him loose today, though. That wouldn't be setting a very good example. But first thing tomorrow, I'll set him free and even help him look for a job. With a build like his, I'm sure he'd be right handy with an ax and spitting maul. I'll get him a job splitting wood for the Sawatch. They go through a lot of firewood over there.”

“Thank you, Jack.” Raven rose up on her tiptoes and planted a discreet kiss on the sheriff's cheek.

Goodthunder beamed. The tips of his ears were mottled red. “No, thank
you
, Raven.”