Golden Flames

  Golden Flames is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2017 Loveswept Ebook Edition

  Copyright © 1988 by Kay Hooper

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Originally published in paperback in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 1988.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101969366

  Cover design: Diane Luger

  Cover photograph: Kiuikson/iStock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part II

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Dedication

  By Kay Hooper

  About the Author

  I

  Chapter 1

  Falcon Delaney drew his glass toward him and, with the other hand, reached for the gold coins lying on the bar. As soon as the coins lay in his palm he went still, staring at his drink. The loud noise around him in the dingy waterfront barroom faded, and he felt his breath quicken as excitement stirred in his veins.

  Christ, he thought then, this thing is beginning to affect me the way a beautiful woman would!

  Some would have called it obsession. Falcon called it duty.

  Ignoring the fight going on in one corner and the loud beginnings of another nearby, he slid his gaze to his hand and slowly opened the long fingers. And his eyes focused, as if on a lodestar, on a single, dully gleaming coin.

  A three-dollar gold piece.

  After a moment, his expression betraying no undue interest, he picked the three-dollar piece from his palm and placed it on the bar. Then he dropped the remaining coins into his pocket and fished out a five-dollar gold piece, placing it on the bar also.

  “Sam,” he said quietly.

  The bartender, five feet away in a very noisy room, heard the summons instantly, and responded by moving quickly to stand across the bar. Busily wiping the stained wood with an equally stained cloth, he stole a glance at the lean, powerful man who had called him. “Yes, sir?” Not many rated a “sir” in Sam’s establishment, but he bestowed it on this stranger automatically.

  One long finger tapped a coin gently. “Do you recall who paid with this coin, Sam?”

  Sam looked at the coin, then darted another glance at the stranger’s face. “Well, sir—“

  The stranger’s free hand pushed a five-dollar gold piece across the bar. “Think hard, friend,” he invited gently in his soft voice.

  Sam was tough enough to have survived a good many years on the waterfront. He was also smart enough to know what was necessary in order to spend a few more years there. “Yes, sir, I remember.” He kept his voice low, even though no one was near the stranger.

  “Do you know him?”

  “No, sir, not really. He’s been in here once or twice. He’s here now.”

  Falcon removed his hand from the five-dollar gold piece and pocketed the other. “Describe him. And tell me where he’s sitting now.”

  “He’s sitting by the front window, alone. Mean-looking bastard. Black eye patch and a scar down the other cheek.”

  “No one has asked about the coin or him tonight, have they, Sam?”

  Sam met the mild, green eyes steadily. “No, sir. No one at all. I never saw that coin.”

  Falcon drew out a thin cigar and became wholly absorbed in lighting it. “Thank you, Sam,” he murmured.

  Sam swept the five-dollar gold piece neatly off the bar and moved away, expressionless.

  Drawing strongly on the cigar, Falcon allowed smoke to veil his eyes and half-turned to glance casually around the room. He spotted the man instantly—sitting alone by the window, powerful shoulders hunched as he stared moodily down at his drink.

  Falcon watched him without appearing to, his mind speculating. One coin. Hardly basis enough for an arrest. But the man was about the right age, and, God knew, any leads at all had been few and far between.

  He was marking time tonight, or had been until he saw the coin. Word had come from another agent that the list had finally been assembled, so that, finally, they would know the men who had composed the circle of power out of Charleston. But Falcon had grown bored with waiting, and had spent the afternoon down at the waterfront. There would be no harm, he decided now, in keeping an eye on this man.

  Falcon thought of the long years, the fruitless search for a million dollars in gold. He thought of trails ending in nothing. He thought of the years he had spent in Texas as a Ranger, searching, always searching for some hint of a gold shipment stolen by rebels years before.

  Almost ten years of his life spent searching.

  Unconsciously, his jaw hardened, and something inside him hardened too. This was the first time he had stumbled across one of the specially minted coins, the first time he might be able to question a man who’d possessed one. Keep an eye on him? Hell, no. This time, he meant to take full advantage of the kiss of luck. This time, he meant to get some answers.

  Falcon finished his drink and cigar leisurely, watching the man unobtrusively. And he speculated. Why, he wondered for the thousandth time, had so few of those coins found their way into circulation? And why had this one turned up after so many years?

  Even in the turmoil of war, it had been relatively simple to determine that almost none of the stolen shipment had been used in payment for anything; after April of ‘63 there had been no evidence that the Confederacy had been in possession of the money. In fact, after that time, the gold had disappeared. There had been only a few of the specially minted coins changing hands during the war…and then nothing.

  They had heard rumors from their spies in the South, rumors of a falling-out among the thieves. Rumors of treachery. But none of the spies had been able to get anywhere near the secretive group believed responsible for the theft. It was only now, after years, that they had been able to piece together certain facts.

  And now…this lone coin. None knew better than Falcon how unwise it was to trust in coincidence, and he was bothered by the coin turning up. It had been years since any of the coins had come to light—and then it had been only a handful, untraceable.

  Was he assuming too much? Did he believe this coin was a valuable piece of evidence only because he wanted it to be?

  He had heard other, older agents talking from time to time about the “hellish cases.” Those assignments that dragged on, year after year, with no progress, and the plodding work that continued with no end in sight. That kind of thing destroyed good men. Face a man with a gun, Falcon knew, and it would all be over quickly—one way or another. But a case such as this one—obscure, clouded by the chaos of wartime, the trails going colder by the year—yes, it could wear a man down.

  Out of the dozens of agents who had begun this search, only a handful remained.

  Pushing the speculation from his mind, Falcon’s eyes narrowed as he watched the man by the window check his watch and then rise and purposefully leave the barroom.

  Instantly, Falcon slid away from the bar and made his way through the crowded room, hardly noticing
that hardened waterfront denizens gave way before him as though by instinct.

  Sam noticed. On the whole, he was glad he had answered the stranger’s questions.

  The waterfront was alive with noise and darkness; Falcon ignored the noise, and the darkness was an old friend. He moved easily and silently from one patch of gloom to the next, his eyes never leaving the man striding along some distance ahead.

  Would he discover just another hand that had innocently touched the gold? Would this man tell him he had received the coin in payment, or in change, or that he couldn’t remember and what the hell difference did it make?

  Another dead-end trail?

  Falcon unbuttoned his coat and loosened the gun he wore stuck inside his belt. Out of deference to the city he was visiting, he had chosen not to wear a gun openly; the loose cut of his coat hid this one admirably. He had worn a gun since he was old enough to lift the weight, and not even a “civilized” city could persuade him to abandon the habit.

  And no man in his right mind went unarmed at the waterfront.

  Intent on his quarry, Falcon almost swore in surprise when the man went into a lighted shop with dusty books displayed in the front window. It was hardly a destination Falcon would have suspected this man to have as his goal, but it wasn’t that surprising either. Falcon had known weathered saddletramps who cherished the few books they’d been able to beg or borrow.

  So why had his hackles risen like a dog’s with the scent of a cougar in the air?

  Frowning a little, Falcon hesitated in the shadows of a nearby deserted building. Then, loosening his gun a bit more, he strode quickly to the door of the shop and went inside.

  He saw no one for a moment, just shelves and shelves of books. He smelled them, dry and dusty, and—from somewhere outside this room—dampness and mildew. And then he smelled something else; a whiff of lavender, as unexpected and intoxicating as a single flower found blooming in the desert.

  She moved into his view, intent on the shelf of books one gloved finger glided along slowly. Her hat was precisely angled, her calico dress neat, her kid boots only a little dusty. Wheat-gold hair was arranged simply, with delicate ringlets lending even more fragility to her exquisite face. She moved with a grace that was totally unconscious and utterly riveting.

  And Falcon discovered then that, whatever his obsession with the gold shipment, his reaction to a beautiful woman was quite definitely a thing apart after all. It might have been the sheer unexpectedness of her presence, or perhaps even his heightened senses—but whatever the cause, Falcon had never felt such an instant and total attraction in his life.

  For one of the very few times in his adult life, he allowed his emotions to distract him. He couldn’t question the man here, not with her in the shop, not the kind of questioning he meant to do. He could wait outside…but if there was a back entrance?…Cursing his own indecision, he finally stepped forward, toward the woman, intending to move on to the rear of the shop and find out if there was another door.

  She glanced up, meeting his unconsciously fixed gaze with the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Then those eyes flickered beyond him, widening, and emotion flashed in the depths like sudden, green fire.

  And something hard struck him a solid blow just beneath his right ear. He felt the instant wave of sickness as he fell forward, the blinding pain and shock. And he was already losing consciousness as he hit the floor, hearing only dimly a sharp, feminine cry of alarm and the sudden scuffle and thudding of booted footsteps.

  —

  Victoria Fontaine picked herself up from the hard floor, aching all over, and reached instantly into the little hidden pocket of her skirt for matches. She struck one and cautiously looked around. A damp cellar. She stood beside a rickety wooden table with a sooty lamp on it. To her relief, she saw there was plenty of oil inside it and lighted the lamp.

  The big man lay sprawled at the foot of the steps, just where he had been left, and she carried the lamp over and quickly knelt at his side. A touch assured her that his pulse was strong, and there didn’t seem to be any blood. A gentle search of his head with expert fingers located the swollen area beneath his right ear, and experience with the results of such injuries told her he would be unconscious for some time yet. She bit her lip in hesitation for a moment, then left the lamp on the floor beside him and moved lightly up the flight of stairs.

  The door at the top was locked, of course. Too thick and stoutly made to be easily dislodged, especially since the stairs were steep and there was no way to find the necessary leverage to force through it. She pressed an ear to the thick wood and listened intently.

  “You botched it, you stupid bastard.” A low voice, cold and hard. And—familiar?

  Victoria frowned. Where had she heard—?

  “What was I supposed to do?” another male voice whined. “He followed you from Sam’s, and he was goin’ to—“

  “He followed me?”

  “Slid out the minute you left, Read. And he was goin’ huntin’—I saw ’im check his gun.”

  “I took his gun.” A third voice—more cultured, but not much. And she knew this voice; she had taken him to be the owner of the shop when she had spoken to him earlier. “He came in, looking around; he didn’t see me. But he saw the woman. Looked at her like a starving man at a church picnic. Couldn’t take his eyes off her.”

  After a moment, the cold, hard voice spoke again, thoughtfully this time. “I don’t know who he is, but I can’t take the chance he knows something. We’d better move out tonight.”

  “What about the woman?” asked the whiny voice that made Victoria’s skin crawl.

  “We don’t need her.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but I—“

  “Shut up.”

  “She was bustin’ out of that dress, Read, and her legs was really somethin’! When her skirts flew up like that, I got a look all the way up her legs. I’d like to crawl between ’em and—“

  There was a sharp sound, like the crack of a pistol.

  “Aw, Jesus, Read, did you have to—“

  “I said, shut up.” The hard voice was very soft now. “Buy your whores in whorehouses and leave ladies alone. Try to act like a man. Now, move out. Whoever owns this place can let them out in the morning. I got the address from the hotel, so we can go directly to…”

  Victoria strained to hear the rest, but the footsteps moved away, a door closed loudly, and then there was silence.

  She stood there on the top step for a moment, considering what she had heard. It was all very puzzling. She had the odd feeling that she was more than an innocent bystander in all this, even though the men had seemed most concerned with the big man they had knocked out.

  The big man…

  She went back down the stairs, glancing around once before kneeling beside him again. There were mildewed books piled here and there, but little else that she could see. The lamp threw off scant light, leaving the corners and lower walls in darkness. She couldn’t see so much as a scrap of canvas to provide a cushion against the cold hardness of the floor, there were no windows, and there was nothing at all to use in battering against the door at the top of the stairs.

  She checked his pulse again, hesitated, then sighed and began arranging herself on the floor. The bottom step, she thought, would have been much better, but she could hardly drag what she estimated to be two hundred pounds of unconscious man to the steps and then raise his head and shoulders. As it was, she found it difficult to raise him enough for her to wriggle her legs beneath him and cushion his bruised head in her lap.

  The floor was wretchedly cold and hard, but she managed to fold as much of her dress as possible underneath her hips, and that helped a bit.

  As comfortable as she could be under the circumstances, she absently chose one of Morgan’s favorite oaths and murmured, “Bloody hell.” Her own voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the cellar, and she sighed again as she looked down at her unwitting companion.

  A big man,
certainly. Well over six feet, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and hips, he looked both powerful and fierce in a contained way. He was also, she thought, strikingly handsome, only a curving scar on his left cheekbone marring the good looks. He was dressed casually, all in black; he was clean-shaven, and had thick, black hair. A man who looked to be somewhere in his thirties, and who was handsome in a dark and brooding way. A man who was quite likely dangerous, who had moved like a cat, and whose vivid eyes had—

  “Looked at her like a starving man at a church picnic.”

  Victoria became suddenly conscious of the warm, heavy weight of his head in her lap, and she recalled that moment upstairs when her eyes had met his. She had felt a peculiar sensation—hot and cold and taut. Something in his eyes, something so intense she had felt overwhelmed by it. Something naked.

  She realized that her index finger was slowly tracing the crescent scar high on his cheekbone, and hastily moved her hand away. But there was no place she could rest her hands except beside her on the cold floor—or on him. Her left hand came lightly to a stop on his chest. Her right hand hovered uncertainly for a moment until her gloved fingers found the shining thickness of his coal-black hair. She brushed a lock back from his high forehead, and saw that her fingers trembled.

  He was a stranger: why did she feel drawn to him, affected by him? Unlike many of the men she had encountered here in the city who were sweetly perfumed, he smelled of horses and tobacco, of sunlight and dusty winds, like the rough western land she had grown to love. He had worn a Peacemaker Colt tucked inside his belt, and the men upstairs who’d taken it off him had been almost instinctively wary of him, she thought shrewdly.

  She felt, gazing down upon him, that his voice would be soft and unusually cultured, that he would be polite and well-mannered. He would be a man to whom servants would instantly respond with respect, a man to whom other men would look for leadership in a crisis.