Lover's Gold Read Free Page A

give us much argument. ’Sides, those Daniels boys ain’t got no kin left ’round here.”
    Dolph Redmond spoke up for the first time. “You should have stayed in New York, McAllister. We could have used that extra capital you might have raised. Instead, you came
    running back here at the first sign of trouble.” He shifted his position on the velvet settee and uncrossed his thin legs.
    “Personally,” he continued, “it won’t hurt my feelings one bit to see those two troublemakers disappear. That older boy spends half his shift trying to convince the other miners that conditions in the mine aren’t safe anymore, and the young one goes along with him.”
    “Well, obviously they aren’t safe!”
    “That’s no longer your affair,” Redmond softly warned. Her father ignored Redmond’s warning. “If I remember correctly, the boys’ father died in a similar accident four or five years ago over at the Middleton Mine when you two were running things there.”
    “Yeah, Ed Daniels was a troublemaker, too. Always fightin’ for miners’ rights—higher pay, shorter shifts, that kinda thing. See where it got him, don’t ya?” Dawson removed the stubby cigar from his mouth and spat into the brass spittoon beneath the clock on the wall.
    “How soon did you blast after that cave-in?”
    Redmond smiled, his lips a thin red wound.
    Dawson balled a fist but kept it near his side.
    Grampa McAllister’s cherrywood clock ticked heavily, the only sound in the room.
    “Why didn’t you just fire the man?” her father finally asked.
    “You oughta know that by now. Them hard-rockers is a close-knit bunch. A firin’ leaves hard feelin’s. Better to make things tough enough so’s the man’ll quit. Ed Daniels weren’t smart enough to know when to give up.” Dawson moved closer, his barrel chest heaving.
    “Gentlemen, please.” Dolph Redmond stepped between the two men. “There’s no need to stir up the past. These things happen. It’s just part of doing business.”
    “Then it’s settled,” Dawson said. “Time’s money and we’ve lost enough already. We put fire in the hole at first light. If the buggers git out afore then, so be it.”
    “I want no part of this.” Her father sank down on the settee, his face hollow and pale. “You men are murdering those boys.”
    “Relax, McAllister. Nobody’s murdering anybody, and I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk, if you know what’s good for you—and for your family.” Redmond smoothed a wrinkle from his immaculate blue suit, then gestured at Dawson, and both men moved toward the door.
    Elaina still remembered Dolph Redmond’s last words: “All miners take risks. Besides, there’s hours left till dawn.”
    She had returned to her room in tears and cried until she was numb. Hours later she’d thought of something that just might save her friends. . . .
    A second jingle of the bell above the door drew Elaina’s thoughts from the past. As she rose and headed toward the first noon arrivals, she glanced again at the gunman, her sympathy for the miners’ cause stronger than ever. Maybe it was time she did more than just sympathize. More than just wish conditions would improve.
    Maybe it was high time indeed.
    Chapter 2
    O VER THE TOP of his steaming mug of coffee, Morgan watched the men he had come to see walk into the room and head directly toward his table.
    “Mr. Morgan?” Dolph Redmond extended a pale hand. With black hair slicked back from a too-high forehead and ears too close to the sides of his face, Dolph Redmond reminded Morgan of a rattlesnake—without the decency to sound a warning.
    “I’m Morgan.” He unwound his lanky frame and accepted the handshake while his cold gaze brusquely assessed the three men.
    “I’m Adolph Redmond. My friends call me Dolph.”
    “Mr. Redmond,” Morgan responded pointedly.
    “This is my partner, Henry Dawson, and his son, Chuck.”
    Morgan shook hands with the other two men. Redmond was the