A Kiss in the Shadows

by Marie Patrick

  Ah, Stevie Rae, what in blue blazes do you think you’re doing sitting out here in the wilderness, easy pickings for bears and mountain lions? How stupid can you be to chase after a man who doesn’t want you around to find another man who doesn’t want to be found? The thoughts rambled through her head, followed by uncertainty and doubt. Maybe MacDermott is right. Maybe I should just go home, try to get on with my life, and let the law bring Logan in.

  Her vision blurred as unwanted tears filled her eyes and a ragged breath caught in her throat. Once again, she tightened her knees and brought Willow to a halt, struck by indecision and an overwhelming sense of…despondency. She could go back to Little River, but why? She no longer had a home there. With both her father and Lucas gone, she had no future and no one to love her except Martha and Dan. And until she settled the score with Logan, she’d have no life at all.

  She slid the shotgun into its fitted slot and stared unseeing at the horizon in front of her as the tears she fought so hard to repress seeped from her eyes to wet her face. Her throat constricted to the point that she could hardly breathe. Searing pain seized her heart as she tried to draw a breath. She dismounted, afraid she’d lose her balance and fall if she didn’t and staggered to the stream burbling merrily down the mountain. She fell to the ground on her hands and knees at the brook’s edge, tossed her hat to the side, and plunged her entire head into the cold liquid, screaming her frustration and despair into the swiftly flowing water, until there were no words left, no air in her lungs. Pulling her head from the stream, she sputtered and gasped from the frigid bite of the water, then sat back on her heels, her hair dripping onto her duster to wet it as well as her shirt beneath. She gazed upward through the drops of water clinging to her lashes. Big, puffy clouds dotted the dazzling blue sky.

  “What should I do, Daddy?” she asked, her throat raw.

  No response came from the heavens, no voice telling her what she should do, just the birds chirping from the trees, but clarity rocked her to her core just the same. The pain receded and her indecision cleared into one thought. Never give up. And yet, fear still jangled her nerves.

  Stevie Rae drew a deep breath, then another, and slowly rose to her feet. She swiped at the water on her face, relieved that tears no longer blurred her vision as she grabbed her hat and plopped it on her head. Her heart no longer hurt, at least not with the clenching pain of moments ago. Instead, the resolve she’d come to depend on filled her once more.

  She stumbled back to Willow, exhausted from the turmoil that had claimed her. She rubbed the horse’s nose, then climbed into the saddle, nudged the horse with her knees, and continued onward.

  By the time Stevie Rae smelled the acrid scent of a campfire and saw the wisps of gray smoke rising upward between the trees, her hair was dry and her emotions were in full control. Except for the anger, the sweet blessed anger that sustained her when nothing else did. She tugged lightly on Willow’s reins and turned in that direction, Whiskey Pete bringing up the rear, and for once, silent. She saw the flames of his fire first—and then she saw him, dropping an armload of wood beside the ring of rocks making up the fire pit.

  She rode into his camp without announcing her presence. “Did you think it would be that easy to get rid of me?”

  “You again.” Resignation, not anger, colored his voice as he glanced in her direction. His eyes lingered on her for a moment before he carefully placed a small log on the fire, allowing it to catch flame, then rose to his full height.

  Stevie Rae slid from the saddle and advanced on him, stopping less than a foot from his broad chest. Her hands clenched at her sides and her heart thundered in her chest. The desire she’d felt earlier to do him bodily harm made her breath catch in her throat, but she denied herself the pleasure of punching him in the belly. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you? Just because you backtracked and went in circles to throw me off your trail? I was still able to hunt you down, MacDermott.” Anger simmered a little bit hotter. “Was it more important to lose me than find Logan?” Her entire body shook as she uttered the words through barely parted lips, her eyes never leaving his face. “Well, no need to worry on that account. I won’t be bothering you anymore. I no longer need your assistance…and I wouldn’t ride with you if you were the last man on earth.”

  Having said her piece, she turned and stalked back the way she’d come, grabbed the pommel of Willow’s saddle, and nearly vaulted into her seat. She glared at him, the heat of her anger keeping her warm despite the chill in his eyes. “Stay out of my way, MacDermott. I may shoot you by mistake, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t be a mistake.”

  She nudged Willow’s sides and rode off, Whiskey Pete making his displeasure known with his high-pitched hee-haw as he followed behind.

  I don’t need him. I can do this on my own. The words careened around her mind as she followed the bend of the stream, but they were a lie. She did need him. The realization made her shoulders slump in defeat.

  There was only one thing she could do…apologize and beg him to let her tag along. That glimmer of insight alone made her grit her teeth. Apologies had never come easily to her, neither had admitting she needed help, but the plain truth, if she were honest, was that she didn’t want to do this alone. Hadn’t her scare earlier in the day shown her that?

  Stevie Rae slowed Willow to a walk and turned in the saddle to look behind her while she debated her choices. Admit defeat? Or continue hunting Logan alone? Neither option appealed to her. She hated feeling so vulnerable. Weak and afraid.

  She took a deep breath, then another as she studied the trail…

  And spotted Brock, coming up the path behind her. She couldn’t see his face, but she didn’t need to. He rode fast, Resolute’s hooves pounding the dirt beneath him. “Stevie! Wait!”

  Stevie Rae had no desire to wait for him, but she didn’t dig her heels into Willow’s sides either. She kept to a steady pace.

  He caught up with her in mere moments, then slowed Resolute to a walk beside her and made a grab for Willow’s reins. Stevie Rae slapped at his gloved hand. He pulled back, then moved his horse closer to hers, and reached for the reins once more. Again, she slapped his hand away, in no mood to listen to anything he had to say, although the fact he’d come after her cooled her anger…a little.

  Frustration gleamed from his granite-colored eyes as he reached for Willow’s reins one more time. “Stop,” he bellowed, his voice raw with aggravation. Whiskey Pete hee-hawed in response.

  “Why should I?”

  “Because we need to talk.”

  Stevie Rae stared straight ahead, unwilling to look at him. “So talk, although why I should listen to a word you say is beyond my comprehension.”

  “Damn it, kid.” Exasperation filled his voice, making it gruffer and overloud in the silence of the forest. He blew out his breath between his lips in a huff, then dropped Willow’s reins to grab her hand. Warmth and comfort flowed through her from his strong fingers, despite their gloves and her anger. His tone gentled. “Please.”

  Stevie Rae turned her head in his direction to study him and noticed, not for the first time, how his jaw tended to clench and make a muscle jump just beneath the skin. His expression was dark and set as if carved in stone, but it was his clear gray eyes, warm and glowing, that made her tug on Willow’s reins and bring the horse to a halt. She didn’t dismount. Instead, she continued to stare at him and waited for whatever it was he wanted to say.

  “I shouldn’t have left, but it was for your own good. Hunting Zeb Logan is a foolish thing to do.”

  “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

  He didn’t respond to her question. Instead, he drew another deep breath, his broad chest rising and falling. Strands of dark hair peeked from the open space at the base of his throat where he’d left the buttons of his shirt collar undone. “You need to go home, Stevie.”

  “I told you before, I have no home. He took it all away from me.”

  “I understand.”

&n
bsp; She shook her head, and her hands tightened on Willow’s reins. “No, I don’t think you do. My life changed completely the night Logan killed my father, and not for the better. He needs to pay for that.” She didn’t mention how Lucas Boyle had broken their engagement when she told him she planned to find Logan, nor how it felt when Mr. Rendell came up to the cabin and posted his sign on the door, letting all know the property had been seized for non-payment of the mortgage. Pride kept those emotions locked in the recesses of her heart. Maybe it was false pride, but it was all she had.

  She swallowed over the lump growing in her throat. “I’m going to find that man if it’s the last thing I do.”

  His voice lowered, the deep, rich timbre barely a whisper. “It may well be the last thing you do, Stevie. I can’t—I won’t have that on my conscience.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “I don’t want to be responsible for your safety,” he said, as if he hadn’t even heard her. The muscle in his jaw seemed to tic faster, and a flicker of sadness shadowed his eyes when he mentioned being responsible, but it was gone so quickly, she wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all.

  “Look, MacDermott, I never asked you to be responsible for me. I can take care of myself. I simply wanted to ride with you. That’s all.” She continued to watch him, her gaze taking in the stubble of whiskers on his handsome face, the small scar near his left eyebrow, the bump on the bridge of his nose that told her it had been broken, maybe more than once. “But that just seems to be too much to ask, doesn’t it?”

  The question must have upset him, if the sudden tensing of his body was any indication. The iciness that came into his eyes might have scared someone else, but not her. He inhaled deeply, his frigid glare intent upon her as his breath whistled between his lips. “You’re not going to veer from this path you’ve settled on, are you?”

  She wondered if he’d been dropped on his head a time or two when he was a baby, because he just couldn’t seem to get it through his thick noggin that she was determined to find Logan and nothing he said or did would change her mind. “No.”

  “Damn.” Again, his icy gaze settled on her. Stevie met his glare straight-on. She didn’t blink or avert her eyes. His lips tightened into a thin line until he finally shook his head. “All right. You win. Against my better judgment, you can ride with me.”

  Despite the fact she had won this battle, his patronizing tone stung her and she responded in kind. “Don’t do me any favors, MacDermott.”

  “Good God, kid! You are the most stubborn—”

  She cut him off. “Yes, I am. That and more. It would be best if you remembered it.”

  Chapter 5

  Two days later, with an uneasy alliance still developing between them, they rode into a small clearing to find a dilapidated, crumbling cabin, if the structure perched upon short stilts could be called a cabin. A shelter from the elements, but nothing more. The roof had partially collapsed to expose the interior to everything Mother Nature could unleash—rain, snow, wind. The windows at one time had glass but they didn’t now. Small shards, still stuck in the window frames, glittered in the late afternoon sun. Trash—old newspapers and empty whiskey bottles—littered the area. A shirt, threadbare and worn, hung from the branch of a tree, beside a washtub resting on a tree stump, rusted and abandoned like everything else Stevie Rae saw.

  Beside her, Brock sighed and gently tugged at the reins, bringing his mount to a halt in front of the structure. “If this is Logan’s hideout, he hasn’t been here in a long time,” he said, disappointment clear in his voice.

  “Did you think it would be that easy, MacDermott?” Stevie Rae asked as she slid from the saddle and let the reins dangle to the ground. “There’s more than one abandoned cabin up here in the mountains. The Sangre de Cristos are filled with broken dreams as well as broken buildings.”

  She didn’t pause as she pushed against the partially open warped door, making it scrape against the equally warped floorboards to produce a sound that sent shivers skittering up her spine. Despite the eerie sound, she entered the lopsided, crumbling abode. The inside was worse than the outside, a state of utter chaos in the form of old clothes strewn about, molding mattresses, battered pots and pans, rotten food—the wooden frame reeked with the smell of desperation. And beneath the pungent aroma of despair, she smelled evil. The same smell that had permeated the cabin she’d shared with her father after Logan killed him.

  “Look at this.” Dark brown stained the floorboards as if someone had lain right there and bled until he died. Brock came up behind her, his huge frame blocking out the light coming in from the doorway. “Someone died here.”

  He hunkered down and rubbed his fingers over the stain, but the blood, if it was blood, had long since dried. His features had hardened to granite when he looked up at her. “I believe so, but long ago. Several weeks at least. Predators must have dragged the body away.”

  Stevie Rae stared at the stain on the floor, unable to draw her gaze from the evidence that someone had lost their life right here. With effort, she forced her eyes to focus on something else, and there, on the wall, was a handprint of the left hand. In blood. And the little finger was missing.

  She couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her lungs. The back of her throat burned with the acid rising from her gut. “Logan was here.” She swallowed hard and tried once more to breathe. “This wasn’t his hideout, but he was here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He left that.” She pointed to the handprint.

  “How do you know Logan left it? I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that before.”

  “It’s the same as the one I scrubbed off the wall in my cabin. He killed whoever lived here, then went on his merry way as if he hadn’t a care in the world.” Tears stung the back of her eyes and her stomach lurched. “I can’t stay in here.” She scrambled for the doorway and blessed freedom from both the cabin and the malevolence that settled in the pit of her stomach. She filled her lungs with fresh air, but it didn’t help. The taste of metal and the bacon she’d consumed for breakfast filled her mouth.

  Without warning, she leaned over and vomited.

  Brock came up behind her and rested his hand on her back. When the nausea passed and there was nothing left in her stomach, he handed her the faded red handkerchief he usually wore around his neck. “It’s all right.”

  No, it wasn’t. And she doubted it would ever be again.

  Stevie Rae grabbed the piece of fabric and wiped her mouth…and kept wiping until the awful taste was gone. She took a step away from him, then turned to face him. Concern for her well-being etched his face, but nothing else. No disappointment. No censure for losing her breakfast in a most undignified manner. Self-doubt filled her, fighting against the stubbornness and rage that had carried her. “Why am I doing this? What possessed me to think I can hunt and capture such a horrible man? I can’t fight that. I can’t fight him.”

  “You’re right. This isn’t something you should be doing. A smart woman would go home.”

  It wasn’t his words, but something in his intent gaze, in the tone of his voice, filled her with resolve, made her stiffen her spine, and allowed her to breathe. “I have no home, MacDermott.”

  His mouth spread into a lazy grin as he grabbed her upper arms and stared into her eyes. “Then stay and help me find him, Stevie. No one deserves to go what you went through. What I went through.”

  She returned his intent gaze. Sorrow dwelled within the clear gray of his eyes. What had he gone through? Did Logan kill someone he loved? Was that why he pursued a madman to hell and back?

  She wiped her mouth one last time and whispered, “Yes.”

  He pulled a silver flask from his pocket and unscrewed the cap. “Here, rinse your mouth, then take a drink. It’ll help.”

  Stevie took the flask and sniffed at the opening. The smell of whiskey assailed her nose before she tipped the container toward her lips. Taking a small amount, she swished the
liquid fire around her mouth as instructed and spit—her mother would have had an apoplexy if she had seen that—then took another drink and swallowed. She coughed against the raw burn in her throat as the heat of the whiskey traveled all the way to her empty stomach, flaring outward, chasing away the chill that seemed to permeate her.

  “Better?”

  “Yes.” She handed him the flask, noticing that her hand no longer trembled. “Thank you.”

  Brock screwed the cap on the fancy flask and tucked it back where it belonged. “Anytime, kid.” His lips spread into a generous grin. “What do you say we make camp early? Rest up a bit? Things will look better with a new day.”

  “Yes, of course.” Her gaze took in the desolate cabin and the desperation infusing the structure. “But not here.”

  • • •

  They found three other cabins like the first one, minus the splotch of dried blood on the floor. And the handprint on the wall. All were abandoned.

  “This is hopeless.” Frustration changed the tone of Brock’s voice, making it sharp. “I don’t even know where the hell we are.” He drew air into his lungs to relieve whatever tension he felt, as if forcing himself to stay calm and focused. “Where’s the next town?”

  Stevie Rae pointed toward a valley between the mountain ridges. “There’s a small settlement not far from here. We could be there before nightfall.”

  “What’s there?” he asked as they continued riding forward.

  “A general store, a few homes.” She gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “The Silver Spur Saloon. The town doesn’t even have a name, Brock. At least it didn’t the last time I was there.” She shrugged, as frustrated as he. And tired. Oh, so tired—of chasing a man who didn’t want to be caught, of finding abandoned homes, the general air of depression surrounding each sapping her strength. She wondered when she had last laughed. Or smiled, for that matter. Still, it wasn’t in her nature to give up, no matter how hard the task might be. After a few days of continuous riding, from sunup to sundown, she felt his aggravation as deeply as he did and shifted in the saddle, trying to find a more comfortable position for her sore bottom.