Her Dearest Enemy

“Before I agree to help you, I need to be sure there won’t be trouble.”

“You can’t be sure.” She strained against him, setting off heat waves where their bodies touched. Whatever was happening, Brandon could not bring himself to step away and let her go.

“You can’t be sure of…anything.” Her voice was breathy, her words tangled skeins of logic. “You can’t just bend life to your will, Brandon. Things happen, and sometimes you have to let them. You bet and you lose, you love and you get hurt, or you hurt others.”

“Since when did you become so wise, schoolmarm?” His lips brushed the soft hair at her temple as he spoke. “You don’t strike me as a lady who’s done a lot of living.”

Or a lot of loving, he thought. Lord, the lessons he would teach this woman if things were different between them!

Elizabeth Lane has lived and travelled in many parts of the world, including Europe, Latin America and the Far East, but her heart remains in the American West, where she was born and raised. Her idea of heaven is hiking a mountain trail on a clear autumn day. She also enjoys music, animals and dancing. You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her website at www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

A recent story by the same author:

ANGELS IN THE SNOW

(in Stay for Christmas anthology)

Elizabeth Lane

Chapter One

Dutchman’s Creek, Colorado, 1884

It was late afternoon on an October day when sunlight pooled like melted butter in the hollows of the land. The children of Dutchman’s Creek savored its warmth as they trooped down the path that led from the one-room schoolhouse to the wagon road. They laughed and chattered, their feet swishing happily through the thick carpet of dry leaves.

In the west, rising from foothills brushed with pine and aspen, the jagged peaks of the Rockies jutted against the indigo sky. The mountains were already white with snow; but here in this high valley the beauty of the day was like a last, lingering kiss, bittersweet, as only Indian summer can be.

A vagrant breeze swept through a clump of big- toothed maples, swirling leaves into the air like flocks of pink-and-crimson butterflies. The schoolhouse door, which the last departing child had left ajar, blew inward, causing Miss Harriet Smith to glance up from the half-graded stack of arithmetic papers on her desk. What she saw through the open doorway made her heart plummet like a mallard shot down in flight.

There was no mistaking the identity of the angry figure striding up the path toward the schoolhouse. Brandon Calhoun, who owned the bank, the hotel and, so it was whispered, the saloon, was the tallest man in town, with shoulders like a blacksmith’s and rough-hewn features that captured the eye of every woman he met.

Under different circumstances Harriet might have been flattered that the most powerful man in Dutchman’s Creek had come to pay her a call. But she knew exactly what was on Brandon Calhoun’s mind. She had been dreading their confrontation all day. Now that it was at hand, she had only one regret— that she hadn’t taken the offensive and bearded the lion in his den. After all, she had her own concerns, her own pride. And, truth be told, she was as worried about her brother Will as he was about his precious daughter Jenny.

Harriet’s nervous fingers tucked a stray lock of dark brown hair behind one ear as she watched his approach. Dressed in the slate-gray suit he often wore at the bank, he walked leaning slightly forward, like a ship battling its way in a storm—no, she thought, more like the storm itself, raging up the path, his elegant black boots plowing through the fallen leaves, creating chaos in their wake. His brow was a thundercloud, his mouth a grim slash in his chiseled, granite face. All he lacked was a fistful of lightning bolts to hurl at her with the fury of Jove.

As if this debacle were her fault!

Harriet’s heart drummed against her ribs as she settled her reading spectacles on her nose, dipped her pen in the inkwell and pretended to write. Her pulse broke into a gallop as he mounted the stoop and crossed the threshold. Fixing her gaze on the scribbling pen nib, she forced herself to ignore him until he spoke.

“I want a word with you, Miss Smith.”

“Oh?” She glanced up to see him looming above her, his face a study in controlled fury. Slowly and deliberately, Harriet removed her spectacles and rose to her feet. She was nearly five feet eight inches tall, but she had to look up to meet his withering blue eyes.

“You know why I’ve come, don’t you?” he said coldly.

“I do. And I’ve spoken with Will. There’ll be no more sneaking out at night to meet your daughter.”

“You’ve spoken to him!” Brandon Calhoun’s voice was contemptuous. “I caught your brother in a tree, last night, talking to Jenny through her open window! If I hadn’t come along, he’d likely have climbed right into her bedroom! If you ask me, the young whelp ought to be horsewhipped!”