But he realized that when he’d thought about it before, it had been nothing more than an abstract concept. It wasn’t something he could truly relate to simply because he hadn’t actually felt it. Hadn’t felt the pain of her absence.
Now though, everything was different. Adeline was gone and he felt, in very real terms, just how big of a hole her departure left in his life. And in his heart. He realized for the first time that not being able to ride with her and while away their time down by the stream, laughing and talking, holding her and stealing kisses, left a profound hurt in him.
He didn’t like it. No, Ernest didn’t like it one bit. And he made a silent vow to himself that if he was fortunate enough to find her in his life again, he’d do everything in his power to make her presence there more permanent. He couldn’t believe it and the mere thought of it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs, but he could no more imagine his life without her anymore than he could imagine it without breathing.
But the problem remained – he needed to find her.
It wasn’t Milton’s fault but Ernest didn’t know if he could rely on his old friend on this one. He knew Milton was in a bad spot, caught between him and the wealthy power brokers in Talon Peaks. He had to balance doing the work he was appointed to do and keeping those vipers happy or risk losing his appointment.
Which meant that he was gonna have to find her on his own.
The trouble with that was he had nothing solid to go on. He had nothing but rumor, innuendo, speculation, and coincidence. He knew Shotgun Ford was back out in the world and there were plenty of rumors that he was in the area.
And shortly after those rumors cropped up, Adeline felt like she was bein’ watched. Even thought she saw somebody in Richard’s yard lookin’ at her. Hell, Ernest could even throw the trap that had been laid in his field that had killed his horse into the mix.
After that, Adeline disappeared without a trace. Taken from her bed, according to Richard’s maid Tillie.
As Ernest weighed and measured the facts along with the speculation and coincidence that filled up his plate, he threw one more thing into the mix – the mysterious telegram Richard had received just before they’d left his place.
Ernest allowed that it could be innocuous and nothing more than something to do with his business ventures as Richard claimed. But he had a feeling there was more to it than Richard said. He didn’t know what it was but something had set the red flags waving in his mind.
As he thought about it further and thought about the words he’d seen – time to pay up. In gold – Ernest realized that’s what had set his teeth on edge. It had probably been a ransom note. But if so, why hadn’t Richard shared it with Milton? Why had he kept it a secret? Ernest understood him not sharing it with him but Milton was the law, so why hide it from him?
It was just another thing that didn’t add up in his mind. Just one more thing on the pile of things that didn’t make sense to him and left him scrambling for answers.
Ordinarily, his thinking was clear and logical. He would have been able to put the disparate pieces of this goddamn puzzle together to form a clear, coherent picture. He would have been able to figure out what was happening. He was very good at reading people and situations. And he was even better at getting to the heart of the matter and figuring out what was going on no matter the situation.
But when it came to Adeline, his heart was so engaged and so fully wrapped up in her, he was not able to think clearly. His emotional investment in her was clouding the issue, muddling his mind, and keeping him from seeing the complete picture. His emotions were wildly out of whack and were keeping him from using his brain and forming logical conclusions.
As he sat on his porch though, staring out into the darkness of the night, he made a silentvow to Adeline that he would figure all of this out and he would find her. He would save her.
And he wouldn’t let anybody, regardless of who they were – rich land baron or escaped murderer – stand in his way.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Adeline awoke in near darkness and the first thing she became aware of was the sour taste in her mouth. The second was the throbbing in her head that made her groan in pain. It felt as if there was something alive in her skull trying to pound its way out. After that, it was a relentless barrage of aches and pains. And questions. So many questions.
Where in the world am I? How long have I been out?
She was disoriented and frightened. The last thing she clearly remembered was a man coming into her room at Richard’s house. She racked her brain, trying to dredge up some memory of where she was or how she’d gotten here but everything in her mind was fragmented. All she got were scraps and pieces of memory.
But then one memory came crashing back into her mind – she recalled him making her drink something from his waterskin. She had tried to resist but the man had forced the liquid down her throat.
“Drugged then,” she murmured to herself. “He drugged me.”
Adeline gripped the sides of her head, trying to stop the steady thrum of pain that seared her insides and thoughts that seared her mind. It took several long, agonizing minutes but the pain slowly dissipated, becoming a dull hiss rather than the full-throated roar it was.She worked her mouth open and closed for a moment, grimacing at the gummy texture coating her tongue and teeth. She was thirsty and in desperate need of something to drink.
The smell of dirt, hay, and horse manure was thick in the air around her. She was obviously in a barn. And although there were no horses in the stalls around her, she could hear a horse outside whickering and pawing at the ground.The blindfold that had been covering her eyes had slipped so she reached up with hands that were bound and pulled it all the way down.
The barn she sat in was old and in disrepair. Sunlight rained down from cracks and gaps between the boards that made up the roof. The interior of the barn was warm. Stifling. And she felt beads of sweat rolling down her back, making her blouse stick to her skin uncomfortably. She sat on a pile of old hay and her body ached from laying on the hard-packed ground beneath – which told her she had lain there for quite some time.
The door to the barn was thrown open, the rusted-out hinges letting out a high-pitched squeal. The sudden flood of sunlight that poured in made her wince and turn away. As her eyes began to adjust, she turned back to the door and saw the figure of a large man silhouetted against the sunlight sending a wave of fear over her.
She held a trembling hand over her eyes, trying to block out the rush of illumination.
“W – who are you?” she asked, her voice trembling.
His laughter was low, gravely, and menacing. Despite the heat, it sent armies of goosebumps marching up her arms as she felt a nervous prickling on the back of her neck. The man took a step forward and she shrank back, bumping up against the stall door behind her but got her first look at the man, which sent wave after wave of chills coursing through her.
He stood just under six feet tall and had limp, greasy brown hair that hung to his shoulders. A thick mustache and a scraggly, bushy beard covered the lower half of his face. The man’s skin was pale and blotchy, the red, spiderwebbed nose and unnatural flush of his cheeks telling Adeline that the man was a drinker. His teeth were yellowed and stained – a few of them were missing. The man’s clothing was dirty and stained, as if they hadn’t seen a wash basin in weeks, if not months. He was of average weight but the paunch forming at his midsection told Adeline he likely wouldn’t be that way much longer.
The skin on the right side of his body she could see – his face, neck, hand and forearm were covered in extensive scarring that lent him an even fiercer look. To Adeline, they looked like burn scars and she wondered what sort of tragedy had befallen the man to give him such a grisly visage.
He had a rough look to him and Adeline knew just from looking at him that he was a hard man. She just knew he was a man used to doing violence.
This man is well accustomed to death – and probably murde
r.
No sooner had the thought passed through her mind than she knew exactly who he was.
“H – Horace Ford,” she whispered – a statement, not a question.
“The man was right – you is as smart as you is purty,” he replied.
“Please – why am I here?”
He chuckled again and stepped forward, thrusting a mug in her hands. It was dirty and the water inside had a slightly sour smell to it but as thirsty as she was, Adeline wasn’t going to complain. She clutched the mug with both hands and raised it to her lips, letting the tepid liquid spill down her throat. She drank it greedily, swallowing every last drop of it and when she was done, she looked into the bottom of the mug, trying to will it to refill. When it didn’t, she sighed and looked back up to the man standing before her.
“What do you want with me?” she demanded.
“A payday, sweetheart,” his voice rumbled. “I want a payday.”
“M – my father will pay whatever you want,” she said. “If I could only send him a telegram I am quite certain –”
“Deal’s done and the contract’s already been signed, sweetheart,” he grinned. “I just came to see if you’re hungry is all.”
Her stomach rumbled but she looked away from him, trying to process everything going through her mind. But the fear coursing through her made her thoughts as insubstantial as puffs of smoke – when she reached for them, they slipped right through her fingers.
“Hey rich girl,” he growled at her. “I asked, is you hungry?”
Adeline was ravenous but she was not going to give him the satisfaction. Besides, if the food he served was anything like the water she’d just swallowed down, she would rather not try to choke that down since she’d probably only sick it up again soon after.
“I am fine, thank you,” she said. “I would like more water though. Please.”
It might smell sour and taste fairly brackish but it soothed her parched throat and quenched her thirst. It was better than nothing.
“You’ve had enough for the moment,” he snapped. “I’ll bring you some more later. If I remember.”
Ford turned and chuckled to himself as he headed for the door. A maddening thirst still gripped her and Adeline needed a drink. He reached the door and stepped out, his hand on the door to swing it closed when Adeline called out, stopping Ford. He turned and stared back in at her.
“What?” he said, irritation in his voice.
“If somebody paid you to hand me over to them, they probably won’t like it if you hand me over dead of thirst.”
Ford chewed on his bottom lip and looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. She could see him weighing the pros and cons in his mind. Finally, he blew out a long breath and disappeared from sight for a few minutes. He returned with another dirty mug filled with the same sour, brackish smelling water and Adeline quaffed it down. It left a foul taste in her mouth but she drank it like it was the sweetest ambrosia she’d ever tasted. And when she was done, he snatched the mug out of her hands, a dark expression on his face.
“Too durn smart fer your own good,” he grumbled. “Just don’t be thinkin’ you’re smarter than me.”
I am almost certain the horse I hear stamping around outside the barn is smarter than you.
He leaned close to her, his face mere inches from hers. Adeline recoiled as the stench of his foul breath washed over her and he chuckled low, menacingly.
“Don’t you go gettin’ them smart ideas in that pretty lil head of yours, y’hear? Cuz that’d be bad fer you,” he hissed. “Real bad.”
Ford turned without another word and left the barn, slamming the door shut behind him. Adeline sucked in a deep lungful of cleaner air, grateful to have his foul breath out of her face. But as she sat there, she heard a chain rattling and a lock clicking into place. She was trapped.
As she listened to Ford’s boot steps retreating, she climbed awkwardly to her feet. Her legs were stiff and cramped and it took a few moments of flexing her muscles and taking short, shuffling steps before she regained sensation in her lower extremities. It was a few moments after that, she was able to move about with the ease she normally did.
Once her body was working normally again, her mind soon followed. The foggy haze that had enveloped her mind since she’d woken up lifted and she felt sharp – her fear perhaps making her feel even sharper than normal. And she knew without a doubt that she couldn’t afford to sit there and wait. She needed to move.
I must get out of here. I cannot wait to be handed over like a head of cattle, bought and paid for by God knows who for God knows what purpose.
As she racked her brain, trying to formulate some semblance of a plan of escape, her mind spun with a thousand other thoughts. Adeline forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. She followed that with another. And another. Adeline closed her eyes and tipped her face up into one of the sunbeams filtering down from a hole in the barn roof and forced herself to slow down and relax.
Not for the first time, she thought of Ernest. She wished that he was there, that he would get her out of this mess. She was not the type who normally wished for or needed a man to save her but this was not an ordinary situation and in that moment, more than anything, she wished for Ernest’s strong, comforting arms around her right then and there.
Please Ernest, if you can hear me, help me. I need you now, more than ever.
She needed to escape and the only way that was going to happen was if she had a clear head. Adeline knew she could never hope to overpower Horace but she also knew she didn’t have to. What she needed to do was outthink him. She was a smart, clever girl who could outwit the man if she put her mind into it.
She needed to take things one step at a time and the first order of business was to free her hands. Looking around the barn, she spotted an old farming scythe hanging on the far wall. Adeline dashed over to it and started to rub the rope binding her wrists upon the rusty, pitted blade of the scythe. It was dulled by age and use but she thought it would work.
“Ouch,” she gasped. “Gosh darn it.”
She looked down and saw blood welling in the shallow gash that she’d opened on her arm. It stung but wasn’t too bad. She grabbed the hem of her dress and wiped away the blood on the inside of the fabric where Horace wasn’t likely to see it. She had to repeat the process twice before the blood stopped welling.
Careful to avoid her skin making contact with the blade, she set to work again, rubbing the ropes harder and faster until the ropes snapped and fell away. Adeline had to stop herself from letting out a cry of triumph.
With her hands free, the next step was getting a lay of the land around her. Adeline ran over to the door Horace had gone through and peered between the cracks in the door. She saw the paddock where a horse wandered listlessly and across a yard that was nothing more than dry, packed earth stood a dilapidated old farm house.
She knew all of Richard’s closest neighbors but didn’t recognize the house, which told her she wasn’t anywhere close to his ranch. The place was old and looked to be falling apart.
A strong wind could probably knock the house down.
Her heart raced when she saw Horace walking from the far side of the paddock. But he headed up the rickety steps that led to the porch and she let out a small sigh of relief when he disappeared inside the house. She took the opportunity to rush around to the other walls in the barn, peering through knotholes or cracks between the boards, trying to get her bearings as she formulated her plan.
She did not know where she was, nor did she know the direction back to Talon Peaks or Richard’s farm. About the only thing she was certain of was that she needed to get out of there. That night. She had no idea what the dawn would bring but she had no intention of sitting there and waiting to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Adeline had wrapped the rope she’d worked so hard to sheer off around her wrists again, making it appear as if she was still tied fast. As the sunlight faded away and dusk sett
led over the land, heralding the approach of the night, the chains and lock on the outside of the barn rattled loudly, a bolt of terrified energy searing her veins.
A moment later, the barn door swung open and Horace walked in, carrying a wooden bowl. He dropped it into the hay in front of her and stood there staring down at her as he smoked a cigarette. Adeline watched as he took a deep drag, the orange glow from the tip illuminating his face and making him look more like a demon than a man.
“You sure is a purty little thing,” he drawled. “It’s too bad the man ordered me to hand you over – unspoiled. I sure wouldn’t mind a little taste.”
He ran the tip of his tongue around his lips suggestively and lasciviously and Adeline felt her stomach lurch.
The Cowboy's Stolen Bride (Historical Western Romance) Page 20
