Only 03 - Only You

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
    “S OSA 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 thefirst 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.”
    She smiled sadly. “In some ways. He was far too gentle for this world, though.”
    “A gentle cheater?” Reno asked ironically.
    “Why do you think he cheated? It was the only way he had any chance at all against men like you.”
    “A gambler who’s that bad at cards should find another profession.”
    “That’s not what I meant,” Eve retorted. “Don was a small man. He didn’t have the strength to fight with his fists, the speed to fight with a gun, or the greed to be a good cardsharp. He was a kind man rather than a strong one.
    “But he was good to Donna and to me, even through we were weaker than he was. That’s more than I can say of the big men I’ve met!”
    One of Reno’s black eyebrows rose. “I suppose if you had been cheating for rather than against me, I might feel more kindly toward you myself.”
    Eve’s smile was as small and cold as the spring hidden against the cliff.
    “You don’t understand, gunfighter.”
    “Don’t bet on it, saloon girl.”
    She tossed her head, sending her deep gold hair cascading over her shoulders.
    “I thought you were different from Raleigh King, but you’re not,” she said. “You haven’t the least idea what it’s like to make your way in a world that is stronger, harder, and more cruel than you could ever be.”
    “You won’t get into my good graces by comparing me to the likes of Raleigh King.”
    “I’m not trying to get into your good graces.”
    “You’d better start.”
    Eve took one look at Reno and bit back the angry words that were crowding her tongue.
    There was no gentleness now in Reno’s eyes or in the line of his mouth. He was dead angry. When he spoke again, his voice was as cold and remote as his ice green eyes.
    “Be grateful Raleigh needed killing,” Reno said flatly. “If you had set me up to kill a country boy, I’d have let Slater have you. You wouldn’t have liked that. Slater isn’t one