By
Jane
Archer
Copyright
by Jane Archer 2003
Prologue
Heat
clung in the KATY passenger car like grease in a skillet. Slate Slayton fanned
his face with his Stetson, but it did little good. Only way to cool off in North
Texas in July was a dip in the Red River, but the mosquitoes were so big and bad
they'd carry you off first.
As he listened to the music of the ride, a familiar click and clack and
clatter of wheels on rails, he smiled as he watched his dearly beloved across
from him. Nothing dared mar the perfection of her face or dress, not dust, heat,
nor noise. She could be the raven she was named for, her feathers all sleek and
shiny and beautiful. Raven Cunningham . . . and add Slayton when she wasn't
working undercover as a private investigator.
She still fascinated him, as she had from the first moment he saw her in
Topeka, Kansas. Her soft, ash-blond hair was arranged high on her head, with a
few curls left to dangle and brush her shoulders. Her eyes were so dark as to
appear black, like a raven's wing. Her nose was straight with a narrow bridge,
her cheekbones high, her eyelashes long, but her lips caught a man's attention
most for they were full and a crimson color.
He sometimes wondered if they would ever settle down in one place and
start their own family. Yet something or someone always seemed to need their
help, calling on the investigative firm she inherited from her father, or the
Texas Rangers sending him to solve another problem.
Today they headed north into the Indian Territory, not unfamiliar country
since Raven's mother was Kiowa. For once they traveled as husband and wife, set
to spend some pleasurable time together while he looked into disturbances at the
coal mines in Choctaw Nation. Too many unexplained dangerous incidents and too
much blame thrown from both sides, Texas railways and Choctaw Nation.
One job. One Ranger. He had no official jurisdiction in the Indian
Territory, but the powers-that-be in Texas figured that he could get some
straight answers and calm down everybody so business could go on as usual. He
made no promises to anyone, not until he talked with the Italian miners and got
an idea if anything unusual was going on in the mines.
Ranger business went right out the window as Raven pursed her lips at
him, pressed a kiss to her fingertips, then turned them toward him and pushed
the kiss his way. Joining her game, he caught her kiss in his fist, then opened
his hand and touched his fingertips to his own lips.
They both suppressed laughter at their intimate game, their eyes sharing much
more than the kiss, knowing there would be long, hot nights in the Indian
Territory to while away with each other.
He could already smell her sweet lavender scent, taste the tangy salt of her
smooth skin, and hear her inarticulate murmurs of pleasure. He felt a familiar
hard, hot stab of desire and love penetrate him, and he wondered if they could
find a private place on the train.
As he considered possible locations for their tryst, the train whistle blew and
he looked out the window. They neared the wide, muddy Red River that served as a
border between Texas and the Indian Territory in 1885.
He watched as Raven pointed out the open window to a sandbar below. A flock of
black birds rose as one, then flew straight north like a black arrow. He felt a
chill of premonition and leaned toward her, seeing what he felt in her eyes.
As he reached for her hands, he heard a sound like a tornado ripping up a rooted
tree, and the train shuttered, creaked and groaned, then began to buck like a
wild bronco. And in that moment he realized an explosion had ripped into the
train or the bridge over the Red River.
People screamed and scrambled and thrashed around them, but he focused totally
on Raven who was reaching for him even as she was being dragged away from him,
down, down toward the river below. He threw his body after her, but the train
car broke apart, throwing him backwards as it spilled her outwards.
And for a moment, he saw her silhouetted between the blue of the sky and the red
of the river, then she was gone from sight.
CHAPTER
1
Yellow paper crackled as Jasmine Rivers opened and read the telegram again.
July 3
STOP EXPLOSION STOP MARTINELLI MINE STOP RANGER SLAYTON STOP INVESTIGATE
She had enough memory left to know that she was not seduction material. She was
a typewriter, plain, simple and pleasingly plump, or so she told herself. For
some reason she failed to understand, she was plucked out of the typing pool and
sent on an undercover mission. Her, of all people. Texas Republic Railway had
trained investigators for that type of work, but President Bergstrom gave her no
choice. She owed her life, the very food on her table to the railway's charity,
or so he told her.
She worked long hours at top efficiency for her meager salary. She simply kept
her head down and did her job, even when her left shoulder and arm ached so
badly she wanted to cry. And that didn't even begin to describe the headaches.
But she knew she was considered handicapped, so who else would hire her, or
marry her, or anything else for that matter? She sighed, as she did so often,
and raised her left hand to the left side of her head. She felt the scar, long
and raised across her scalp, dipping down to form a crescent on the left side of
her forehead. A streak of white hair cut dramatically along the line of the scar
through her dull blond hair, calling attention to an accident she couldn't
remember.
She was canon fodder for this assignment, probably, or maybe plump duck decoy
while train investigators did the real work. She didn't relish either role. But
she couldn't afford to lose her job, so here she was.
Suddenly elevated to President Bergstrom's private railway car she kept having
visions that the enormous chandelier swaying and tinkling overhead would finally
succumb to gravity and fall on her head. She could imagine a telegram reaching
President Bergstrom.
July 4 STOP CHANDELIER PROJECTILE STOP BERGSTROM PARLOR CAR STOP TYPEWRITER
RIVERS STOP BURY
A quick, sudden death would solve all her problems, but she figured the whole
train would come apart before the chandelier gave up.
When the engineer blew the train whistle, she jerked, feeling her heart speed
up. Fear of trains plagued her, for no reason that made any sense. But she was
finally at her destination. Sherman, Texas, gateway to the Indian Territory.
And gateway to her new job as the woman to get information on Choctaw mines out
of Texas Ranger Slate Slayton. One job. One woman. Reportedly he would be in
Sherman on Ranger business, so here she was.
All decked out for a Fourth of July celebration, the Sherman depot sported red,
white and blue bunting. A band composed of tuba, snare drum and trumpet
assaulted everyone's ears with rousing music. A colorful crowd of people milled
about, raucous with good spirits.
A porter opened the car door and she stepped down the stairs to the baked ground
outside. Hot wind like a furnace fire almost whipped her brand new,
approved-by-President-Bergstrom hat off her head.
All her carpetbags, filled with new, again approved-by-President-Bergstrom,
clothes were quickly stashed on a waiting trolley. President Bergstrom left
nothing to chance, not with his company on the line.
As she followed the porter through the crowd toward an Excelsior Hotel buggy,
she heard a deep male voice call out.
"Raven!"
She ignored the voice, but something inside her shifted, sort of awoke then
subsided into sleep again.
"Raven!"
A strong hand on her arm jerked her around, and she found herself looking up
into the intense gaze of blue-gray eyes. And again that deep shift inside, a
little closer to the surface this time, then it subsided again.
"Excuse me."
She smiled gently at the stranger, wishing she could be this woman he so
obviously longed her to be. "I'm sorry, but you've mistaken me for someone
else."
He looked puzzled a moment, then smiled, a slight lift of one corner of a mouth
that looked like it laughed too little, much like her own.
She looked him over. Black Stetson, black vest, blue plaid shirt, faded Levi's,
black cowboy boots, six-shooter in a black tooled-leather holster on his left
hip. He had smooth-shaven bronze skin, and he wore his thick black hair long,
pulled back and tied with a leather thong. All in all, a hard-muscled, six-foot
plus body, long, lean and maybe mean. Heartbreaker, she figured.
"I'm sorry for disturbing you." He glanced at the Excelsior Hotel
buggy, then back to her. "I'm staying at the same hotel. Mind if I get a
lift with you?"
She felt a smile tickle the corners of her mouth, and a lightness filled her
chest. She might as well get what pleasure she could out of this job. He was
good to look at. "Please join me. I'm Jasmine Rivers."
"Slate Slayton."
She froze. What were the odds that the first person she met in Sherman would be
the very man she was here to get to know? It made her feel uneasy.
"Do you work for Texas Republic Railway?"
How did he know? It made no sense. But she held her features still, she hoped.
"Yes, indeed. I'm a typewriter. They let me out into the light once a year.
I pick as close to the longest day as I can get."
He grinned. "You ought to get out more often. You're almost giddy."
"Giddy is right." And no match for a trained professional. But how did
you guess?"
"Deduction, pure and simple."
