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Scott said nothing, feigning disinterest. But he had to admit that Amanda was probably right. She seemed to know his father even better than he did himself and he respected her judgment when it came to her opinion of just how his old man thought. Every time he took Amanda's advice it always turned out to be the best, thing to do and though he would never admit to her or anyone else how much he listened to her, he listened nonetheless,

He removed his hand from the warm interior of Amanda's silk blouse and began to drum his fingers lightly on the window. Yeah, Amanda was something else alright, almost too good to be true, and she'd been keeping him out of trouble ever since they'd met. Fuck, she'd put up with more shit from him and still stayed with him, than anyone he had ever known, his father included. Scott knew he was a no-good, conceited bastard, but he didn't care, he was the spoiled rich son of a millionaire, and he could afford to be an asshole, and he knew it and he knew he could get away with it because it was expected of him. The rich were the traditional asses of society, so after all, wasn't he just living up to the image? He laughed quietly, because he knew he would have started the idea if it hadn't already been created. He used his father's power and money to get himself everything he wanted, and he used it ruthlessly without, feeling for those he trampled along the way.

His father hated him, hated him for the way he took for granted all the things it had taken him his life to build. The money, the power, had all come after years and years of hard, backbreaking labor and Scott took and used it all as though it were owed him and not something to be grateful for. Scott didn't feel sorry for the old man, he was his father's son, and he had made his son what he was today. If the end product didn't suit his fancy, tough shit, he was still the only son he had, and he would never abandon him. He was stuck with him just as Scott was with his father. Some critics would even say they deserved each other and he had to agree.

Absorbed deeply in his thoughts, Scott was only vaguely aware that the scenery was rapidly changing outside the car. No longer were the trees thick along the side of the road, but they were thinning now. And off in the distance he could see the ugly scar of the mine cut into the mountain. The building surrounding the mineshaft and the building built over the shaft itself all stood out like great dusty blemishes against the brown-like dirt of the surrounding area. The cage-tower, full of its cables and pulleys that operated the cage-like elevator that took the miners down into the mines, stood out grotesquely from the rest. Below the mine, the miner's dwellings lay scattered about haphazardly around the mine buildings. Even from the road, all Amanda could see was the few pitiful attempts they had made on some of the homes to make them look more like normal houses, instead of the homes the company had built for its employees, but the attempt had been futile. The mine itself was too hideous to let anything too close look beautiful.

Amanda shuddered as they got closer to the village of Beaulea, and realized that this was to be her home for the next couple of months. Damn good thing Mr. Thorpe was paying her extra, or she would have turned back and gone to the city.

"Would you get a load of that place?" Scott said suddenly, incredulously, at her side, "Holy shit, dad sure threw one at me this time. The bastard, he really knows how to make me pay for my sins."

"Scott, would you take a look at the map Rogers drew for us back in town and find out which one of these shacks we'll be staying in?" Amanda pointed to the dashboard, and a small piece of paper.

Scott picked it up for a moment and studied it, then looked back up to the village itself.

"It's the blue house, the big one on the edge of town, just as you come into the place."

The sun had gone behind the mountain by the time they finally drove into Beaulea and followed the pitted road to the blue boarding house where they would be staying. The house was run by a miner's daughter named Jassy Newquay.

Jassy came from a long line of miners Her great-great-grandfather had worked the copper mines in Cornwall, England until the copper had run out and after that, he had worked in the tin mines until in the mid 1800's when he had immigrated to the United States with his family. All of his sons had been miners too, and their sons, and theirs Jassy's father had mined the Beaulea mine for twenty years before it finally killed him in the disastrous cave-in of '74. Twelve miners had been killed in that disaster, buried forever in the bowels of the earth crushed beneath tons and tons of rock. Jassy had been only one of the many who mourned that day.

She had, had to get a job herself after her father had died and since she had never lived in any other place but Beaulea, she had stayed. The miners had laughed at the idea that she get a job as a miner, but they gave her a job, though it was not in the mine itself. Jassy was a counter, it was she who kept track of the amount of coal removed from the mine each day, and she did her job well. Aside from her work at the mine, she had also opened her home to boarders. She did own the largest and most elegant, considering the rest of the houses in the village, and she treated her boarders well, when she had them. Her only real permanent resident was the crew eight foreman, Dirk Mulligan.

The Mulligan men had been miners from way back and they looked the part, big, brawny and with eyes as black as the very coal they mined. Dirk Mulligan was a hard man, but he had one weakness, Jassy Newquay. He found her frustrating and unpredictable, but one of the most fascinating women he had ever met. He was sometimes sorry that he couldn't quite think of her in any other terms than that of a sister, but he couldn't. Maybe he had known her too long and known her father as one of his best friends. Whatever the reason, he knew that she considered him as her family for she had no other, and he was happy to leave it at that.

Aside from Dirk, and a few short contract miners or visitors, the boarding house remained nearly empty. But it paid for itself, because it was the only house in town where a newcomer could stay, and now it would be getting two new guests, Amanda Woods and Scott Thorpe.

But Amanda and Scott didn't know all of this when they drove up in front of the house and sat in silence as they surveyed the somewhat, run down home where they would be living for the next few months.

"Not bad," Scott finally said. "No offense, or anything, but I sure hope they have some good-looking pussies around here to keep me happy."

"Thanks for the insult," Amanda laughed but then turned serious. "Just remember what we talked about, about staying out of trouble."

"Yeah, yeah. I won't forget it and I know you won't let me, will you?"

"No, I probably won't," she said truthfully.

"I didn't think so," he looked at her with mock anger and turned to get out of the car and began to survey the grounds.

Amanda remained in the ear momentarily to check out her appearance in the rear-view mirror. Not bad, she thought, arranging a few curls of her coppery tresses, not bad at all. Although she was rapidly approaching thirty, the ravishing beauty knew she was a beautiful woman and made most men know it. She readied herself now to turn on the charm with the miners of Beaulea. Easing out of the car, she saw Scott standing in front of the house, looking crisp as ever in his tailored shirt and slacks. He had his hands on his hips, and was scrutinizing the large house before him, and for a moment Amanda felt her heart skip a beat in spite of her occasional dislike of Scott's egocentric personality. There's no question about it, he's a good-looking man. Too damn good-looking.

"Doesn't look like anybody's home," Scott said.

"There's got to be. It's a boarding house and Jassy Newquay's expecting us. Come on."