Unconsciously Eve laced her own slender fingers together, remembering the pain the old couple suffered in cold weather. Donna’s hands had been little better than her husband’s.
«I guess they spent too many winters in gold camps where there was more whiskey than firewood,» she said huskily.
«All right, Eve Lyon. Keep talking.»
«My name isn’t Lyon. They were my employers, not my blood relatives.»
Reno had caught the change in Eve’s voice and the subtle tension in her body. He wondered if she was lying.
«Employers?» he asked.
«They…» Eve looked away.
Reno waited.
«They bought me off an orphan train in Denver five years ago,» she said in a low voice.
Even as Reno opened his mouth to make a sarcastic remark about the futility of tugging on his heartstrings with sad stories, he realized that Eve could easily be telling the truth. The Lyons could indeed have bought her from an orphan train as though she were a side of bacon.
It wouldn’t have been the first time such a thing had happened. Reno had heard many other such stories. Some of the orphans found good homes. Most didn’t. They were worked, and worked hard, by homesteaders or townspeople who had no cash to hire help, but had enough food to spare for another mouth.
Slowly Reno nodded. «Makes sense. Bet their hands had started to go bad.»
«They could barely shuffle, much less deal cards. Especially Don.»
«Were they cardsharps?»
Eve closed her eyes for an instant, remembering her shame and fear the first time she had been caught cheating. She had been fourteen and so nervous, the cards had scattered all over when she shuffled. In picking the cards up, one of the men noticed the slight roughness that marked aces, kings, and queens.
«They were gamblers,» Eve said tonelessly.
«Cheats.»
Her eyelids flinched. «Sometimes.»
«When they thought they could get away with it,» Reno said, not bothering to hide his contempt.
«No,» Eve said in a soft voice. «Only when they had to. Most of the time the other players were too drunk to notice what cards they were holding, much less what they were dealt.»
«So the nice old couple taught you how to colddeck and bottom-deal,» Reno said.
«They also taught me how to speak and read Spanish, how to ride any horse I could get my hands on, how to cook and sew and —»
«Cheat at cards,» he finished. «I’ll bet they taught you a lot of other things, too. How much did they charge for a few hours with you?»
Nothing in Reno’s voice or expression revealed the anger that churned in his gut at the thought of Eve’s beautiful body being bought by any drifter with a handful of change and a hard need filling his jeans.
«What?» Eve asked.
«How much did youremployerscharge a man to get under your skirt?»
For an instant Eve was too shocked to speak. Her hand flashed out so quickly that only a few men would have been able to counter the blow.
Reno was one of them, but it was a near thing. Just before her palm would have connected with his cheek, he caught her wrist and flattened her out on the bedroll beneath him in the same violent motion.
«Don’t try that again,» he said harshly. «I know all about wide-eyed little hussies who slap a man when he suggests they’re anything less than a lady. The next time you lift a hand to me, I won’t be a gentleman about it.»
Eve made a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. «Gentleman? You? No gentleman would force himself on a lady!»
«But then, you’re not a lady,» Reno said. «You’re something that was bought off an orphan train and sold whenever a man was interested enough to hand over a dollar.»
«No man, ever, paid for anything from me.»
«You just gave your, uh, favors away?» Reno suggested ironically. «And the men were so grateful, they left a little present on the bedside table, is that it?»
«No man ever got under my skirt, with or without paying,» Eve said icily.
Reno rolled aside, freeing Eve. Before she could move away, his hand settled at the apex of her thighs, where a bronze thicket guarded her sultry core.
«Not true, gata. I’ve been under your skirt, and I’m a man.»
«Go to hell, gunfighter,» Eve said through clenched teeth, her voice steady despite the tears of shame and rage in her eyes.
Reno saw only the rage. It occurred to him that he would be wise not to turn his back on his little saloon girl until she cooled off. Eve was quick, very quick, and at the moment she looked fully capable of picking up the shotgun and emptying both barrels into him.
«Mad enough to kill, aren’t you?» he asked sardonically. «Well, don’t worry. Nobody ever died of it. Now, talk.»
Eve watched Reno through glittering golden slits. He lifted one black eyebrow.
«If you don’t feel like talking,» he said, «I can find something else for that quick little tongue of yours to do.»
4
«Sosa found gold,» Eve said, her voice vibrating with anger. «He paid the King’s Quinto and bribed the other officials and kept the truth about the mines to himself.»
Reno looked away from Eve’s flushed cheeks and pale lips, feeling something close to shame for pushing her so hard. Then he cursed himself for feeling anything at all for the saloon girl who had done her best to get him killed while she stole everything in sight and ran to safety.
«What was the truth about the mines?» Reno asked roughly.
«All of them weren’t listed for the tax collectors. The silver mines, yes, and the turquoise mine and even two of the gold mines. But not the third one. That one he kept to himself.»
«Go on.»
Though Reno wasn’t looking at Eve any longer, she thought he sounded truly interested for the first time. She drew a discreet, relieved breath and kept talking.
«Only Leon’s eldest son knew about the secret gold mine, and then that son’s eldest son, and so on until the journal came into Don Lyon’s hands at the turn of the century,» Eve said. «By then, Spain was long gone from the West, the Leon name had become Lyon, and they spoke English rather than Spanish.»
Reno turned back to look at Eve, drawn by the shifting emotions in her voice.
«If there’s a gold mine in the family,» he asked, «why was Don Lyon making his living cheating at cards?»
«About a hundred years ago, they lost the mines,» Eve said simply.
«A hundred years. Was that when the Jesuits were thrown out?»
Eve nodded.
«The family was closely tied to the Jesuits,» she continued. «They had enough advance warning to bury the gold that had been smelted but not shipped. They covered over all signs of the mine and fled east across the mountains. They didn’t stop running until they came to the English colonies.»
«Didn’t any Leon ever try to find the gold they had left behind?» Reno asked.
«Don’s great-grandfather did, and his grandfather, and then his father. They never came back.» Eve shrugged. «Don always wanted the gold mine, but he didn’t want to die for it.»
«Smart man.»
