Leo nodded. “It’s settled.” He turned his horse and rode out before Cilla could get another word in.
She looked back and forth between Miguel and the cloud of dust where Leo had been, her mouth dropped open in surprise.
Miguel made a half-hearted attempt to keep the smile off his lips. “You’d better hurry and catch up,” he said, his smile widening as Cilla scowled at him.
She turned and spurred her horse after Leo, catching up to him a few minutes later.
“I didn’t need you to come with me. It would be better for you to stay behind in case they need you at the ranch.”
Leo glanced at her briefly before turning his attention back to the trail ahead of him.
“They’ll be fine at the ranch. We haven’t seen another soul there in weeks. You are the one riding into possible danger. You need me at your back.”
“I would have been fine,” Cilla muttered, prompting a laugh from Leo.
“Do you have to fight everything?”
“I don’t have to,” she said, inciting another laugh from him.
Her lips twitched in response. She was well aware she was a stubborn ass. It would do him good to keep that in mind.
They spent nearly the entire ride in silence, but for the first time since the night Coraline was born it was a comfortable silence. It felt good to be near him without the danger of anything happening between them. Just to be alone with him for a minute, out in the open air. Cilla relaxed for the first time in weeks. She wished the ride could last forever.
The town appeared at the end of the trail long before Cilla was ready to arrive. The tension began to return to her body, every muscle tightening, wary for any sign of danger. It was a weird sensation riding through the streets that had once been filled with their friends and allies. Now people stopped their conversations to watch them pass, their eyes wary, some distrustful, some concerned. But none were outright threatening. Yet.
That is, the people who were visible on the streets. The place looked like a ghost town. Some of the shops had boarded up windows; most looked like they’d seen better days. Not that the town would have ever won any awards, but now it looked like a town under siege. Which, Cilla supposed, it was.
They tethered their horses outside the general store and went inside. Mrs. Williams looked up as the bell chimed, her face paling when she saw who it was. Cilla hesitated just inside the door, not certain she’d be welcome. There were a few other shoppers in the store who looked back and forth between Mrs. Williams and Cilla and Leo, probably wondering the same thing.
Leo moved closer behind her and put one hand on her upper arm, though she noticed he was careful to leave her gun arm free. Finally, Mrs. Williams drew herself up and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Come on in, Priscilla. What can I get for you?”
Cilla could feel the tension going out of Leo even as she relaxed a bit. She went to the counter and gave Mrs. Williams her list. Leo stayed near the door, meeting her eyes every now and then with a reassuring look, before resuming his scan of the store and walkway outside. Mrs. Williams laid the last item on the counter and took the money that Cilla handed her. Leo came over to help carry the supplies, but Mrs. Williams grabbed Cilla’s hand.
“Just a moment, please. I’ve got something for you.”
Cilla’s brow furrowed but she nodded. The older woman gave her a small smile and hurried into the back.
Cilla glanced at Leo, but he just shrugged. Big help.
The door opened and Leo tensed, so Cilla immediately knew that whoever had come in was a potential threat. He put his arm around Cilla and turned her to face the counter, keeping their backs to the newcomers, but kept his head slightly turned so he could keep watch.
Two men Cilla had seen riding with Frank came bustling into the store as Mrs. Williams came out of the back with a parcel wrapped in brown paper. Her face went even paler, if that were possible, but the men were too engrossed in their conversation to pay attention to anyone else.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” Mrs. Williams said, the tremor in her voice revealing her anxiety.
“A pound of tobacco, and make it fast. We’re in a hurry,” one man said, not even bothering to look her way.
“I’ll be glad when we get this next load safe under guard,” the other man said to him.
“Me too. Blood Blade has been too quiet lately. I don’t like it.”
Cilla froze, every sense on alert the second Blood Blade’s name was mentioned.
“Me either. This is exactly the sort of thing he’d love to get his hands on. All that gold sitting there just waiting to be taken.”
Tobacco Man snorted. “It’s not here yet. And when it does get here, he wouldn’t dare try to touch it. Even he’s not man enough to steal it from right under the sheriff’s nose. Though I don’t know why he’s insisting on bringing so much here anyhow. It’d be safer in his bank in San Francisco,” he said, grabbing his tobacco. “Well, it’ll be gone soon enough once we get that safe in. Then I can rest easy.” He finally looked at Mrs. Williams. “Put it on my tab.”
Mrs. Williams’s lips tightened—she didn’t run tabs, and never had, Cilla knew—but she didn’t say anything as the man burst out laughing and turned away. The men continued talking as they headed out the door.
Cilla fumed, incensed at their treatment of Bobby’s mother, and their outright theft of the tobacco. She had no doubt that Mrs. Williams would never see a penny from them. And she had a feeling that this happened more often than not.
But as the men’s conversation seeped into her consciousness, her body buzzed with excitement. A shipment of gold! If she could get her hands on it, they could hold it as ransom and use it to bribe Frank to get out of town, or give it back to the townspeople and show just how much Frank was really bleeding them dry. Or…hell, she didn’t know, hire a gunslinger to clean all the riffraff out of the town or something.
Better yet, they could buy back all the property Frank had been snatching up and rescue those he was pressuring to sell. Without the gold to pay his goons and bankroll his overtake of the town, Frank’s hold on the town would be over. They could make plans for the gold later. All she knew was that she wanted to get her hands on that gold. Frank had no right to it! He’d stolen it from every person in town and they deserved to have their hard-earned money back.
As soon as the men were out of the store, Cilla turned to Mrs. Williams. “I’ll be right back.”
She ducked behind the counter and ran for the back door, ignoring both Mrs. Williams’s squeak of protest and Leo’s cursing. She poked her head out the back and crept to the corner of the building. The men had paused just inside the alley between the general store and the Whitteker’s old, now-abandoned, hotel.
Their voices were a bit muffled, but Cilla could just make them out.
“Think she bought it?”
“Oh, yeah. Did you see her droolin’ over the thought of all that gold? She’ll tell the devil bandit for sure.”
“You really think he’ll be dumb enough to try and snatch it?”
“ ’Course. Too much a temptation for a regular man, no counting one like him. When’s it going to be here, anyhow?”
“Cooper’s bringin’ it in on the morning train on Thursday. The sheriff has us setting up a fake safe and everything back in his office. Damned waste of time, if you ask me. We’ll grab the son of a bitch soon as he shows his bandana’d face.”
“Yeah, but the boss wants to make it look real. Wants to make sure the bait is set nice and proper.”
“Let’s get to it then. Sooner we get this pain in the ass out of the way, sooner we can run this town the way it should be.”
Cilla had to clench her fists to keep from jumping out and pummeling the two braying jackasses. But she kept it together. Time enough for revenge.
Cilla turned to go back into the store and ran smack into Leo’s hard, unyielding chest. She jumped as if he’d bitten her.
“What do you think y
ou are up to?” he asked.
“Just wanted to hear a little more, that’s all.”
“Cilla…”
She ignored him and the warning tone in his voice and marched back into the shop.
“Mrs. Williams, how often are Frank’s men in here getting free goods?”
“Oh, don’t pay any mind to that. They just keep an open tab, that’s all.”
The sound of shattering glass interrupted Cilla’s next thought and she ran to the window to look out into the street. A fight had broken out in the shop across the street and it looked as though a chair had been thrown through the window. Cilla gasped and made to run outside, but Leo held her back. She went back to Mrs. Williams, who didn’t seem surprised in the least.
“Does that happen often?”
“Often enough. It’s all right. That’s the Bartons’ place. They cleared out of town a few weeks ago.”
“The Bartons have been around for longer than I can remember. Why would they leave?”
“Sheriff Richardson raised their rent again. They couldn’t pay. He gave them a week to pay up or get out. So they left.”
“But Frank doesn’t own their shop. They were in this town before it was a town.”
Mrs. Williams fidgeted with a few knickknacks on the counter. “The sheriff bought them out, let them stay on as tenants. He owns most of the places around here now. Keeps trying to get me to sell, but I won’t, no matter how much pressure he puts on me,” she said, a spark of her old stubbornness returning to her eyes.
“If I could get word to Blood Blade how bad things have gotten, he could…”
“Oh, goodness, no! I mean,” she said, her face turning red as she reached out for Cilla’s hand, “I know you mean well, child. But no. We don’t want no part of Blood Blade in this town anymore.”
Cilla felt as though she’d been socked in the gut. Blood Blade had never done anything but help these people.
Mrs. Williams obviously knew what Cilla was thinking.
“I know your family has always been…friendly with…you know who. And I know he’s helped a bit in the past. But any help from him would just come at too great a cost. Maybe if my Bobby hadn’t been…” She sniffed and shook her head.
“Never mind. Here.” She pushed the package toward Cilla. “Here. Give this to your sister. We heard that she had her baby. Is it…doing well?”
The guilt on her face made it apparent that she also knew that the midwife had refused to deliver the baby. Cilla pushed away the spark of anger that flared up. She couldn’t blame these people for not wanting to get on Frank’s bad side. Even if it had almost cost her sister and the baby their lives.
“Yes, Brynne and the baby are both doing well. She had a little girl.”
Mrs. Williams smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. Children are such a blessing.”
Her smile faded and grief crept across her face. Now it was Cilla’s turn to feel guilty. She took the package.
“Thank you. This is very kind of you.”
Mrs. Williams swiped away a few tears that had escaped and waved Cilla away. “Oh, it’s not much. Some old baby blankets I’d been saving and some cloth that makes the softest diapers this side of the Rockies. A few other odds and ends.”
“Brynne will be glad for them.” Cilla gave her a warm smile and gathered up the rest of their purchases.
By the time they’d stashed the supplies away in the saddlebags, Cilla’s mind was already back on the gold. They mounted and headed out of town. Leo didn’t say anything, but she knew it was coming. He knew her well enough by now that he would know what she was thinking.
He waited until the town was a ways behind them and it was clear no one was following them before he let into her.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Leo, do you have any idea what we could do with that amount of gold? We could buy the whole town back!”
“First of all, you have no idea how much gold will be there. And second, it has to be a trap! Do you really think it was coincidence that two of Frank’s men just happened to walk into the general store at the same time we were in town for supplies?”
“Well, no.”
“And do you believe they would just walk into a public place blathering about a train full of gold coming in, where anyone could hear it, and just happen to let it slip where they’d be keeping all that gold once it did arrive?”
“Of course not!”
“You’re crazy. Absolutely, lock-you-away, out-of-your-mind crazy!”
“I am not! If we’re aware it is a trap, then it’s not really a trap, is it?”
Leo frowned at her but he didn’t argue. She took that as a good sign and pressed on.
“A trap needs a certain element of surprise in order to work, agreed?”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll agree with that. So what’s your point?”
“If we know going in that they are waiting for us, then we can plan ahead for that. We are already two steps ahead of them because we know that they know that we are coming but they don’t know that we know. See?”
Leo sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. “Cilla, no one could follow that.”
“You’re just being obstinate! This can work, Leo. We can do this.”
A grudging smile played at the corner of his lips. “Arguing with you is like yelling at a deaf cat. Neither one of you hears a thing and wouldn’t follow directions if you could.”
Cilla grinned at him. “So you’ll help me?”
Leo shook his head and laughed. “I’ll hear you out. But you get to tell Brynne.” He spurred his horse into a gallop.
Cilla stuck her tongue out at him and followed him home. She had no idea what to say to her sister, but she had a feeling Brynne would be a lot harder to convince than Leo.
Only one way to find out.
Chapter Seventeen
“Are you out of your mind?”
Brynne slammed her hands down on the table and glowered at Cilla. The scene felt eerily familiar. Leo had apparently noticed because he spent an unnecessary amount of time rubbing a finger across his twitching lips. Finally, Cilla had had enough.
“Brynne, I am not crazy. This could work! And you!” she said, rounding on Leo. “I fail to see what is so amusing about this.”
He shook his head. “Then you are blind as well as deaf. Brynne is right. You are out of your mind. It’s a trap. You know it’s a trap. Frank will be waiting to pounce the second he sees your face. Did you ever stop to wonder what Frank is doing with all that gold? What possible purpose he might have for bringing it here?”
“It doesn’t matter what he plans on doing with it. It can’t be for anything good.”
“Exactly!” Brynne shouted. “Cilla, that gold is nothing but bait to lure you in. And you are falling for it.”
“I’m not falling for it. I’m fully aware that Frank is trying to lure me in, but he can’t capture me if I steal the bait first.”
Leo frowned and even Brynne calmed down enough to look curious. “What do you mean?”
“Frank will be waiting for us, as you said. He’ll probably have a dozen men guarding his office, his house, and anywhere else where he might hide a safe. His men even said they were setting up a fake safe, which means he doesn’t plan on putting the gold anywhere we’d look for it. So we just have to get to the bait before the trap is set.”
Brynne sat with a huff and crossed her arms. But her expression did carry a spark of interest. “Explain.”
“We take it off the train before it ever gets to Bethany Ridge.”
Leo was shaking his head again. “That’s easier said than done. Frank might be setting the trap here, but that doesn’t mean the gold won’t be guarded on the train. We know there will be at least one man with it. And even if you manage to get back into the cargo hold without being seen, how are you going to get the gold off the train? You can’t just stuff it inside your reticule.”
“True. So we simply have to separate the
train from the gold.”
Leo and Brynne both stared at her like she was a cat chasing a fly on the wall.
“How?” Brynne asked.
“We can stash away underneath the train, and once it’s on the move, and a safe distance from any station, we unhook the cars. By the time the conductor realizes he’s lost the cargo car, we’ve already gotten in and out again.”
Brynne and Leo stared at her for a full minute without speaking, their mouths open in shock. Finally, Brynne turned to Leo. “You were right. She’s gone insane.”
“Argh!” Cilla dropped into her chair and glared at both of them. “It could work!”
“You are going to hang on to the bottom of a moving train and climb across the connectors to release the pin? While the train is moving?”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
Brynne snorted.
Cilla shot her a dirty look. “But I think it can be done. I can even practice.”
A short bark of laughter erupted from Leo. “How?”
“Strap me to the bottom of a moving wagon and see if I can unhitch the wagon from the horse.”
Brynne stared at her, dumbfounded. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s better than trying on the train for the first time and finding out I can’t do it.”
Brynne kept quiet, just shaking her head as if Cilla had finally struck her speechless.
Leo leaned his elbows on the table and Cilla took heart in the fact that his brows were drawn together in thought.
“How do you get the gold?” he asked.
“We get in, incapacitate whatever thug they’ve got watching the gold, snatch it, and get out of there.”
“What if there’s more than one?”
“We deal with it then. But Frank doesn’t have that many men he trusts, and I’m guessing he’ll have most of the men in place at his office and stashed around town. Especially if he thinks we are behind Blood Blade. Frank has a bad habit of underestimating us. I doubt he’d believe we’d try a train heist. All the information those idiots were feeding us at the store revolved around the gold being in his office. Not the train. They didn’t know I was listening to that part.”
Blood Blade Sisters Series (Entangled Scandalous) Page 16
