Copper Fire

  Copper Fire

  Fayrene Preston

  Prologue

  West Texas

  1858

  Heat radiated off the hard-baked ground, penetrating Sloan’s skin like the needles of a cactus. The mesquite tree just a few feet above his head provided meager shade, yet he was immensely grateful for even that scant protection.

  Sloan glanced down at his brother, David, cradled in his arms. David’s fair skin had been burnt an ugly red. And his leg – Sloan could hardly look at his brother's upper thigh – was mottled and swollen to three times its normal size.

  David had to be in terrible pain, but at fourteen years old, three years younger than Sloan, he was proving to be quite a man, uttering not a sound.

  The muscles in Sloan’s arms were cramping from the hours of holding David, but he didn't dare move. David needed all the rest he could get. And he couldn’t let himself think about what a desperate situation they were in; that was a weakening thought and he needed to find the strength to get them both home.

  He gazed out over the desolate landscape of West Texas. The vastness of it intensified his feelings of loneliness. Oh, God, he was so alone! If only he knew where they were! He had tried to keep them walking due east, but he was very much afraid they had been traveling in circles for the last two days.

  Again Sloan glanced at his brother, sleeping in his arms, so frail, so near death. Ominously, a buzzard had begun to circle overhead. Sloan held David closer, wishing he knew more, wishing he weren’t just a green farmboy from East Texas.

  David stirred in Sloan’s arms, moaning. Tenderly, Sloan tried to soothe him, cupping the burnt flesh of his cheek with his hand.

  Had it been just this morning that they had come upon the rocks shaped like a turtle? David had let out a shout of joy. “The water can’t be far now!”

  A stone that had penetrated the sole of his boot had held Sloan up at the base of the rise, but David hadn’t been able to wait. He disappeared over the rise. As Sloan sat down to take off his boot, he heard him yell, “It’s here. The water hole is here, but it’s dry! That son of a bitch led us to a dry water hole! Wait a minute, I’m going to try to dig down and see if I can find water.” Sloan was putting his boot back on just as he heard “Jesus Christ!” and then a cry of pain and terror.

  Sloan jumped to his feet and raced over the rise in time to see his brother, writhing on the ground, holding his leg, and the biggest, longest rattler he had ever seen slither off into a large outcropping of rocks.

  Sloan had never known such fear. With no knife, he had nothing sharp with which to cut into his brother’s leg so that he could suck out the venom. His helplessness had turned to a desperate anger. He had ripped open David’s jeans at the seam and tied his belt tight above the wound. His prayer was that it would slow the deadly effects of the snake’s venom long enough for him to get help for David.

  Damn Wes McCord’s black soul to hell!

  “Sloan.” His name trembled from his brother’s lips.

  “I'm here.”

  “Are … we going to make it?”

  “Of course we are. Just hang on. Tonight, when it's cooler, we’ll move out. Tomorrow, for sure, we’ll find a town and water, and it’ll be clear and clean.”

  “My leg. There's no way I can put any weight on it. I can’t make it.”

  “Yes, you can. I'm going to carry you.”

  David's eyes fluttered open for a brief moment, revealing an awful pain. “You go … leave me.”

  “You know Dad would skin me alive if I left you out here,” he said, a forced smile punctuating his words. “Don’t you dare give up, David! Promise me. We’re going to get out of this. Don’t give up.”

  Again David looked at his brother. “I won’t. Honest.”

  David lapsed into silence, his breathing labored, and Sloan slipped into a light sleep.

  “Momma … I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to break your teapot.”

  His brother’s words jolted him from sleep. “David, wake up.”

  “I won’t do it again … Momma… it was so pretty … I’m sorry … Momma.”

  When he realized that David was delirious, Sloan was filled with despair. David was raving about the time when he had been six years old and he had accidentally broken his mother's favorite teapot. It was something she had treasured, one of the few things she had managed to bring with her from her home in the East.

  What Sloan wouldn’t give to see her just one more time. Their beautiful mother, whom David favored so strongly with his blond hair and blue eyes, had died shortly after the accident with the teapot. Of course there was no connection between her death and the broken teapot, but deep down David hadn’t been able to separate the two events.

  A tear spilled from Sloan’s eye and trickled down his dirt-stained face. Sweet, shy David, whose love for everyone was always reflected in his ready smile. Sloan couldn't lose him too. “David, oh, David.”

  Eventually, Sloan again dozed off. When next he woke, the sun was low in the sky. The horizon shimmered with feverish waves, distorting the landscape into weird shapes. Sloan squinted against the intense brightness. Was that … could that possibly be… a rider? His heartbeat accelerated. He shook his brother.

  “David, wake up, there’s someone coming! David!” David’s eyes remained closed. Sloan’s hand went to his face and found it strangely cool. His fingers searched for David’s pulse point on the neck and found it frighteningly still. No!

  “Noooo! ” The scream tore from Sloan’s throat, pushing into the searing air, filling it with his grief. His scream continued, layering the land with his rage and his sorrow.

  Chapter 1

  New York City

  1873

  Having neither the inclination nor the patience to use the glass within easy reach, Sloan Lassiter swigged from the bottle of whiskey. He plunked it back down on the cluttered surface of his mahogany desk that sat in the center of the opulently furnished room. The flame in the lamp next to him flickered weakly as if tired of trying to illuminate the large room all by itself. Heavy dark blue velvet curtains drawn across the tall windows in the large room were a shroud against the night. Deep shadows crept up to the dim pool of light in which he sat.

  From habit, not interest, Sloan kept slogging through the papers in front of him. And drinking. Lately, drinking had become not so much a habit as a necessity to get him through the long days and endless nights that had come to make up his life.

  At age thirty-two, he was head of an empire that had a shipping line as its base. No one would argue that he was a phenomenal success. Sloan’s lips twisted into an unkind smile. As a matter of fact, very few would argue with him about anything at all. A score of men would crawl to him if he commanded;

  even more women would go on their knees for him if he asked them to.

  All that he knew, he had taught himself. All that he was, he had purposely become. He was a self-made man who had learned to be as deadly with a gun as he was with his investments.

  So where was the happiness? Where was the peace?

  Damn! He needed to shake himself out of this depressed state and get back to his business. He drew another set of papers to him, careful to keep his attention from the document he had received today that lay at the edge of the desk. He didn't need to read again the missive from the Pinkerton Agency. The words were burned into his mind, because finally, after fifteen years, Sloan knew where Wesley McCord was.

  Once more he reached for the bottle and swilled down more whiskey. He wanted to get good and drunk. Right now he didn’t want to remember the hell that he and David had gone through. He didn’t want to remember how he hated Wesley McCord, hated him with a sickness that had eaten into him for far too long. He wanted only the blessed b
lackness, the cool, airy nothingness that too much drink would bring him.

  Cally Lassiter smiled as she saw the sliver of light coming from Sloan's study. The door was ajar and she carefully opened it wider so she could slip into the shadowed room.

  Leaning back against the wall, she watched her half brother. She wished she could believe that he had stayed up to see she arrived home safely, but she knew he didn’t care about her. As far as she knew, there was no one Sloan cared about. And because he didn’t, her mind constantly whirled with schemes that would make him sit up and take notice of her.

  Cally toyed with a long black curl of her hair as she observed Sloan. Even still and quiet, his head bent over a pile of papers, he excited her as no other man could. His indifference to her had made her quake with wild excitement a thousand times during this last year or two. She knew what a virile man he was and how sought after he was by a host of women in New York.

  Besides the power he wielded, there was his extraordinary appearance. He was a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped man who moved with astonishing grace. Deep creases vertically dissected his bronzed cheeks. But those lines had not been carved there by frequent smiles. Rather, they’d come from time, weather, and, most intriguing of all to Cally, hard living.

  With his brown hair and deep moods, he was a dark man both in color and in character. Except for his eyes. They were gold – not yellow, not amber, but pure gold. And then there was his body. To Cally's mind, his body was a perfect mixture of smooth planes and muscled bulges. She loved the way he wore clothes, as if he didn’t know he had them on. But other people noticed. They noticed everything he did, especially the women.

  Cally had long envied the women with whom he slept. Her favorite pastime was to imagine what it would be like for him to make love to her. Because by nature he was such a ruthless man and physically he was so strong, he was bound to treat his women rough. At least she hoped so.

  She wanted him. And she had made it obvious to him any number of times that he could have her by a mere lift of a finger. But always he had rebuffed her.

  Her gaze went to the nearly empty whiskey bottle, and she smiled. Drunk. He would have no defense against her.

  As she watched, his head nodded, then dropped to the desktop. As usual, he was oblivious to her. Tonight it was because of alcohol, but normally he deliberately ignored her, just as he ignored her mother and his father. She could understand his indifference to her parents. Emily, her long-suffering mother, was very close to being a saint and, as a result, she was a complete bore. Her father was a bitter old man who hadn't left his room since the three of them had moved in with Sloan. His health had been broken when his darling David hadn’t come back all those years ago.

  But why should Sloan ignore her?

  At eighteen, with her black hair and violet eyes, she was beautiful. Everyone said so.

  Her hand slipped from her curl to the top of her breast, and she began to lightly caress herself through the ruby-colored silk of her dress. The dress had been designed to be worn off the shoulder, but her mother had insisted on the stupidly decorous neckline.

  She moved her shoulders with an unconscious gesture of dismissal. It didn’t matter. The modest design of her dresses hadn't proved a hindrance. Most men found the way her breasts mounded lusciously against the bodices of her dresses enticement enough. And most men found no difficulty in getting under her skirts. Only Sloan resisted.

  With her gaze still firmly fixed on Sloan, Cally dipped a finger beneath the neckline of her dress to stroke a tight nipple. Take tonight, for instance. Her breasts were still throbbing from the caresses Peter had given them in the Alexanders’ garden during their party. She hadn’t allowed him to go any further, of course. It wasn’t time yet. He couldn't be allowed to think that she was easy. Besides, she didn’t really want him.

  She wanted Sloan, and tonight she was going to have him.

  Pushing away from the wall, she crossed the room. She laid her hands on his shoulders and shook him. “Sloan, Sloan, wake up!”

  “What?” He raised his head, trying to see who was shaking him, but he couldn’t seem to get his eyes to focus.

  “Sloan, I can’t get my dress unhooked. Would you do it for me please?”

  He heard a sweet, breathy voice very close to his ear. He smelled the scent of a heavy perfume, musky and erotic. “What?”

  “My dress, Sloan. Unhook it.”

  The room seemed darker than it had been just a short while before, and it was spinning strangely. Blindly, his hands went out, but instead of encountering hooks, they found skin – smooth, satiny, female skin.

  “Ohhh, that feels so good.”

  She was right, he thought. There was nothing like the bare flesh of a woman to divert a man’s mind from his troubles. He let his hands rub across her back and felt her shiver. Then the feminine weight of the woman lowered onto his lap, and he noticed that his head was hurting.

  “Here, rub here.”

  He could hear a gentle voice crooning, giving him directions, and he did its bidding. His hands slid around the warm, soft form until they closed on two large breasts. It was habit for him to shape his hands around the generous globes, because sex had become an unthinking act to him.

  He heard the rustle of silk and realized the woman had slipped her dress down to her waist.

  “Sloan, oh, Lord, Sloan … I want to feel your lips on every part of me just as I’ve always imagined.”

  The woman twisted in his arms and he took what was offered. Maybe this was all he needed, his brain dimly told him. A woman. He received a long, hardened nipple into his mouth and began to suck. When he heard the woman’s passionate cry, he increased the suction, pulling hard. This was what he needed! Oh, God, yes! His hands worked under her skirt and petticoats and began to loosen her drawers.

  He needed this, but … why did he feel something was wrong? God, but he wished his head didn’t hurt so badly and his mind wasn’t so foggy.

  “Oh, Sloan, I knew it would be like this. I’ve wanted you for so long. You won’t be sorry. I’ll be so good to you. Here, take this breast. Suck. Oh, please, harder!”

  He did as she asked, accepting the other breast gladly, knowing that even if he might be hurting her, she wanted it … and he – what did he want? He wanted this woman, of course! Why was he even questioning? He had found that while women couldn’t solve a man’s problems, for a little while, at least, they could make his problems go away. Lately though, even women hadn’t been able to ease his pain. Maybe this one would be different. She certainly seemed willing enough, knowing just how to move against him, knowing just how to touch him.

  His teeth nipped her flesh and his fingers dug into the pliant mound. Moans of pleasure filled his ears. Who was this woman? He should know, although he couldn’t recall the last woman he had had. It must have been just a few days ago. Who was it? Was it Marie? No, no, it must have been Judith. He tried to remember, but all his feelings seemed to be concentrated in the swollen bulge between his legs. He would take this one savagely, he decided, and maybe, just maybe, in doing so he could find some relief.

  Her drawers were undone, and his hand delved between her thighs to the waiting warmth and wetness. Through his daze he could feel her urgency as she twisted, trying to undo his pants and at the same time achieve better contact with his fingers.

  But … what was it? Something was wrong. He didn’t want this woman!

  Something crashed to the floor. “What was that?”

  “Probably just one of your silly documents,” she murmured, her fingers closing about his swollen manhood. “Dear God, Sloan, you’re so big! I knew you would be. You’re going to split me in two, and I’m going to love it. Don’t hold back.”

  Document … the document … Pinkerton … reporting on Wesley McCord – the bastard who had killed his brother! Roughly, he shoved the woman from his lap. Damn McCord! Damn the man straight to hell! For fifteen years he had haunted his dreams. Sloan pressed his hands to t
he sides of his head and pushed, trying to expel the image of a smiling Wes. Wes always smiled.

  “What was that noise, Sloan? Has Cally come in yet?”

  Sloan’s eyes opened and slowly the image of his stepmother, Emily, swam into focus. “Cally?” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”

  “Cally Lassiter, what are you doing?”

  A disgruntled Cally got up from the floor, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her dress, and pulled up the bodice. “Nothing you need to be concerned about, Mother. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

  Emily’s hand went to the high neck of her dressing gown as in shock she took in the state of undress of both her daughter and Sloan. “Cally! Oh, dear God in heaven, how could you?”

  Sloan's mind suddenly became crystal clear as his eyes met the defiant violet eyes of his half sister. “Cally?”

  “We were just having a little fun, weren’t we, Sloan? Nothing for anyone to get upset about.”

  Emily stood stiff and straight. “I think you’d better go to bed now, young lady.”

  Cally defiantly stuck her hands on her hips, her breasts, swollen from Sloan’s attention to them, threatening to spill over the top of her still unhooked dress. “I’ll go only if Sloan asks me, and I don’t think he wants me to go.” She went to him and possessively laid her hand on his shoulder. “Do you, Sloan?”

  He pushed her hand away. “Get out of my sight.”

  “Sloan!”

  “Cally, for your own safety, get out … of … my … sight.”

  Her face took on the expression of a spoiled little girl, obliterating any beauty she might have possessed minutes before. “Oh, all right. For now.” She flounced out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Emily’s thin face had gone even paler than normal, appearing milky in the dimness. “I’m sorry, Sloan. I don’t know what to say.”

  He rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger, willing away the pain in his head. “Why should you say anything at all? There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”