don’t have to understand,” he told her. “Just fill the damn thing in!”
His sharp tone brought a flash of color to her cheeks. She’d already instructed the workmen to close up the passage when they had time but she wasn’t about to say so to him. His autocratic manner rankled. She looked him steadily in the face, her jaw set as rigid as his. “This is my property now. I’ll decide what to do with it.”
A black cloud crossed his face, then he swore, got to his feet and stared down at her. For a moment, she thought he was going to jerk her to her feet. Instead, he turned his back to her and put his hands on the mantel. Leaning against it, he stared into the fire.
She was bewildered by his dramatic reaction to the discovery of an old tunnel that had been closed off for years. What importance could it have after all this time?
He stood looking at the fire for a long while. The loud cracking of falling logs was the only sound in the room. Then he gave a deep sigh and turned around. “I suppose I’d better explain as best I can.”
The anguish in his tone touched her. She wanted to say something but no words would come. Tiny lines deepened around his eyes, and he surprised her by sitting beside her on the couch. His nearness only heightened the disturbing physical awareness pulsating through her. He leaned his dark head against the sofa cushion and stared at the ceiling.
“What is it? I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“The Delaney family has quite a sordid past. And that tunnel is a part of it.”
If he hadn’t been so intense, she would have chided him about family skeletons. The muscles in his hard cheeks flickered with suppressed anger, but there were other emotions in his eyes, hurt and sadness. She didn’t know what to make of him. When he began to speak, his voice was soft, as if the words came from far, far away.
“When this hotel was built in 1880 one of the vacant lots across the street had a brothel sitting on it. The infamous Maude Mullen’s Pleasure House. The tunnel you found connected this hotel to that whorehouse.” He stared at some unseen point in front of his haunted eyes. “That’s where my great-grandfather was murdered. Stabbed to death on its doorstep.”
She knew that her mouth had dropped open. No wonder the discovery of the tunnel had given him an emotional jolt, she thought. “I didn’t realize that the tunnel was tied in with any personal history. I haven’t read much about old-time Denver,” she confessed. She’d been raised in New Mexico and had only been in Denver for a few years, working as bookkeeper for an oil company until she bought the hotel. There must be more to the story, thought Della, more than he’s telling. Why should he be so emotional about a tragedy that happened over a hundred years ago? She waited for him to go on but he just stared with narrowed eyes as if watching a film roll by in his mind. She was uneasy with his silence. “Why don’t you tell me about it. I never heard of your great-grandfather or what happened to him.”
His mouth tightened in a hard line. “My illustrious forefathers debauched the Delaney name in great fashion. There’s speculation that my great-grandfather, Shawn Delaney, ran all the illegal activities in Denver’s early red-light strip and was murdered by someone who wanted to take over. Others claimed that a jealous lady of the night stabbed him to death.” There was a grim edge to his voice. “A true Delaney. And he passed along his legacy.”
“What legacy is that?”
“My mother called it the devil’s spawn.”
The devil’s spawn. She stared at his ashen face. “Do you believe in such things?”
“I only know that the Delaney men passed on their dark genes,” he said bitterly. “My grandfather, Shawn’s son, grew up to be a ruthless slumlord, heartless and selfish, exploiting the run-down Market Street properties without ever putting one cent back into them. Everything touched by the Delaneys had the smell of decay and decadence.”
“Were you close to him…your grandfather?”
“Hell, no. He wasn’t close to anyone. Everyone said he was Shawn Delaney all over again, but he didn’t get himself killed. He lived to be nearly ninety. His only son, my father, grew up to be a bastard in true Delaney fashion. He made life hell for my mother and drank himself to death before he was twenty-five.”
“And you inherited all the Market Street property from your grandfather?”
He nodded. “I decided to sell most of it. I thought I could lay an ugly past to rest—but it just won’t stay buried. Why did that blasted tunnel have to come to light? It’s as if the ghost of Shawn Delaney just won’t let go.”
His talk of ghosts gave her a creepy feeling. She could hear wind and rain pounding the old building, and the tempo of lightning and thunder had increased. Once again, she felt a harmony between Colin’s dark glower and the raging storm.
Maybe I shouldn’t have bought property in this part of Denver. Maybe no matter how she painted and remodeled, Della thought, the hotel would remain the same depraved place as when a tunnel had connected it to a fancy bordello. Maybe the area’s colored past would never be changed, either.
As if reading her thoughts, Colin said, “This was a wild part of Denver in the late 1880s. Variety halls, saloons, gambling houses, cribs, racy madams running houses of ill repute…you name it. Drugs. Gambling. Drinking. And hapless young women selling themselves.”
Della’s lips tightened. Young women plying their favors for money struck too close to home. As a runaway, her sister, Brenda, had taken up with men who paid her bills. In the end, she had thrown her life away on men and drugs.
Colin watched her face. “I should have torn down the blasted hotel instead of selling it to anybody.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Her practical nature overrode her fantasies. “I came to you, remember? Property in this part of town was attracting a lot of investors and I knew that if I didn’t buy it, somebody else would. What’s past is past!” she added more firmly than she felt at the moment.
“Not when it intrudes upon the present.”
“Don’t let it intrude,” she answered bluntly.
“I wish it were as simple as that. I sold the hotel to you because I thought that you were the one who could give it a new life…a different karma. But it’s no use. Some places are like sinkholes, no matter how you try to cover them up, they suck the innocent in.”
“I don’t believe that finding an old tunnel changes anything about my hotel and its future. Maybe its history is sordid and ugly, but what happened over a hundred years ago is only a curiosity as far as I’m concerned.”
A shaft of shadow crossed his face. “I hope to God you’re right. I wouldn’t want you to be drawn into any of the black machinations I’ve fought all my life.” A fearsome pain crossed his eyes and a dark strangeness put his whole face in shadows. She wasn’t afraid of him, but his presence completely unnerved her.
He must have felt her withdrawal. “I’m sorry. I can’t expect you to understand.” He turned away and said abruptly, “I’d better be going.”
“Wait.” She stood up and caught his arm. “I want to understand.”
“No, don’t try. I was wrong to come.” He
