Despite his head injury, Colt had slept little since leaving France, succumbing only when weariness gave him no choice. He was filled with a myriad of emotions galloping through him like wild creatures.
He kept a constant vigil at the ship’s railing, as if he could will the ship to move faster.
Inquiries and bribes at the port in Monaco had given them the information that Mason had procured a vessel to take himself, two women, six men, and cargo to the Greek island of Thera, sometimes called Santorini. Obtaining that information had not come cheap, for Mason had paid a large sum to keep it from being given out. Travis paid more to receive it
Travis and Colt departed four days after Mason did. Nevertheless, the captain assured them that they stood a good chance of reaching the island at the same time as Mason, if not actually before. “I know the ship they’re on,” he had told them confidently. “The ship is old…with only a four-cylinder steam engine and a six-mast sail. Its top speed is only eleven knots. We can achieve over twenty knots because this ship sails entirely on steam.
“If speed is what you want,” he finished with a grin, “you’ve got the fastest ship available.”
Colt had winced when his father told him just how much the voyage and the bribes had cost, but Travis smiled. He couldn’t resist a good-natured barb. “Did you really think I left my whole fortune in your hands?”
Colt appreciated the lightness, knew that, somehow, his father was hurting for him as much as he hurt. Travis understood how a man can make mistakes. He understood how Colt was feeling, knew the pain, the fury, the burning need for revenge.
And, yes, love for the woman who had been used so cruelly.
Travis watched Colt as they stood at the bow of the ship taking them to Greece. What, Travis wondered, could he say to his son? He wasn’t angry with Colt for having been deceived. They would get the gold back—and, ultimately, the ranch and the mine.
He placed his hand on Colt’s shoulder, understanding the pain he was feeling, and the humiliation. Colt didn’t take his gaze from the water. Neither did he speak. It wasn’t necessary. Both men acknowledged that sometimes silence was the best communication between people who truly understand each other.
Briana huddled on the floor of the cave, trying not to feel the sharp rocks pressing painfully against her body. She pretended to be sleeping, but every nerve was afire.
She had tucked the knife behind a rock, then practiced feeling for it in the darkness until she knew exactly how to reach it from wherever she lay. There could be no miscalculation, for she would get but one chance.
A servant from the mansion brought her cheese, bread, and wine as darkness closed in. Briana tried to speak to her, but the Greek woman stared at her with wide, frightened eyes, backing away quickly after shoving the food through the bars.
Briana ate, needing the strength, then took up her position inside the cave.
As it grew late, she started to feel panicky. What If Dirk didn’t come? What if he had gone off with his men to get drunk? What if he had decided not to risk it? What if he had talked to Gavin? -
Just as she began to believe the ship would be sailing without her, footsteps crunched against the gravel outside her prison.
She lay very still, forcing herself to breathe deeply and evenly.
There was the sound of a key grating in the lock, and the rusty gate squeaking open.
She tensed, ready, as Dirk crept forward, groping. He laughed drunkenly.
“Hey, little spitfire,” he whispered, “where are you? Me and you are takin’ a little trip, isn’t that nice? You better come along nice and quiet, because you’ll be a lot happier with me than with some crazy Turk—”
He bumped into her foot. She stirred, moaning softly, pretending to be asleep.
“There you are…” He ran his hand over her back, and when he felt the swell of her buttocks beneath his fingertips, he breathed deeply, declaring vehemently, “I’ve waited a long time for this—too damn long. I’m gonna have what’s been due me a long time.”
She heard him fumbling with his trousers, but she managed to will her body to stay relaxed, as though asleep.
When he had made himself ready to take her, he jerked her roughly over onto her back, pinning her wrists together with one hand while pressing his other hand across her mouth to keep her silent. Her eyes flew open and he grunted, glad to see her awake and looking at him. He reeked of whiskey. “You’re gonna give me what you gave Coltrane, damn you,” he snarled, “and you’re gonna give it to me good. You belong to me now, and I’m gonna teach you how to please me. The day you don’t is the day you die!”
He used his knee to spread her thighs, warning that if she made a sound when he took his hand away from her mouth, he would make her wish she hadn’t.
Briana made little moans deep in her throat, as though terrified and submissive.
Dirk was pleased. “Hell, I knew once you found out I was boss you’d lose that feisty temper. Now, just relax and it won’t hurt…”
He positioned himself between her legs. She continued to whimper and made no move to defend herself, so he released her wrists, moving his hand to fondle her breasts.
“You’re doin’ good,” he gloated. “You know when you’re licked, and I think you’ve also gotten a look at me down here, so you realize how good it’s gonna be.”
It took all the nerve she had to wait, and not reach for the knife too soon. It was all she could do, too, to keep from screaming aloud with outrage.
He continued slobbering over her, and then, very slowly, she reached out for the knife. Her fingers closed around the handle.
Above her, Dirk Hollister grunted and mumbled. She gripped the knife handle, tensed, then brought the knife down in a deadly arc. But just before it reached the back of his neck, Dirk felt her sudden movement and rolled to the side just fast enough that the blade thrust into his shoulder instead of his neck.
He screamed with pain. Briana knew there wasn’t time to try to jerk the knife out so that she could stab him again.
She slammed her hands against his shoulders, pressing her own shoulders back against the ground. With one mighty heave, she raised her hips, bucking him away from her. She lunged to the side and slipped from beneath him, scrambling to her feet while she put as much distance between them as she could.
He was writhing and moaning. Blood was coming in a steady stream, and she could only pray that he was weakened by the loss of it.
She rushed from the cave, pausing outside just long enough to gulp in fresh air and try, for a few seconds, to compose herself and remember the way.
Then she took off, running as hard as she could. She left the rocky plateau and headed down the precarious trail, casting fearful eyes upward every few steps, praying for the miracle of moonlight. But it was a cloudy night, and she could barely see.
Lifting her long skirt, trying to pick her way carefully while moving as fast as possible, she began panting with exertion and fear.
Now and then, when the moon teased her by breaking through the clouds, she made a point of not looking to her left…where she knew she would see the sprawling black space down there that reminded her of how easy it would be to slip and plunge down six hundred feet to her death.
Every so often she had to stop and rest, panting. The way was treacherous, and she couldn’t afford any missteps. Raoul had said the walk down would take about two hours, maybe a bit more. The trail zigzagged first one way, then another way, for the mountain was too steep for a single trail straight up. If she continued at her present pace, she ought to reach the ship in plenty of time. She was breathing hard now, and hoped the nearness of Raoul and the ship would buoy her flagging energy.
Like a bat swooping in the night, strong hands clutched her throat and forced her down against the stones. She clawed at the hands choking her, felt dizziness overtaking her.
“Bitch…” came the guttural snarl. “Die, bitch…”
He kicked her, sending her sprawl
ing forward and down, down into the endless night.
She felt but one sharp pain as her head struck a rock, and then she began floating in that endless sea of night.
Dirk Hollister stared down into the darkness, chest heaving. The knife was still buried to its hilt in his shoulder. He hadn’t been able to remove it. But there was, at long last, jubilation at knowing the bitch was dead. He’d sooner have died himself than allow Briana to escape. Well, she’d never escape again.
He began to make his way back up to the mansion, where he would get someone to pull out the goddamn knife. And then, by God, he was going to find out what Briana had been doing with Gavin Mason’s knife!
Briana moaned against the terrible pain clawing at her head. She remembered nothing of what had happened, didn’t know where she was, desired only for the clutching fingers of oblivion to take her away again from the terrible hurting.
When Dirk kicked her, she had not pitched off’ the ledge as he had meant for her to do. The large rock on which she’d struck her head had stopped her fall only twenty feet down.
As she waited for the black fog to waft her away again, a sound reached Briana’s ears. But a moment later she was unconscious once more. She didn’t hear the clicking of hooves on the trail, didn’t wonder who was riding so dangerously fast up the mountain.
Chapter Thirty-Two
By the time Dirk made his way to the room their host had assigned to Gavin, pain had driven all vestiges of reason from his consciousness. It had all been a trap, he knew, to get rid of him. Mason, deciding to keep Dirk’s share of the wealth for himself, had given Briana a knife and set Dirk up to get killed.
He kicked Gavin’s door in. Gavin was asleep, head on Delia’s breast. At the sight of Dirk, covered in blood and looking like a bull gone mad, Delia screamed. Gavin came groggily awake just in time to see Hollister lunge for him, a nightmare apparition. It was Gavin Mason’s final vision of life before Dirk plunged the knife into his throat.
Delia flung herself off the bed and ran from the room, screaming. Some of Gavin’s blood had spattered into her strawberry-blonde curls. “You’re next, bitch!” Dirk hollered after her. “You were in on it, and you’re gonna die tonight, too!”
Delia ran blindly down the unfamiliar corridor, knowing only that she had to run, but not where to run to. She screamed on and on.
She turned a corner and started running down the stairs, stumbling and then falling, bouncing against the stairs until she landed hard, on the floor. There was an awful pain, and she knew something was broken, but the maniac was coming after her, the knife held high over his head.
He cackled triumphantly as he scrambled down the stairs, eyes glittering. Reaching her, towering above her, he raised the knife as high as he could, then brought it down.
A gunshot exploded, deafening her, and then Dirk Hollister pitched forward, dead, a bullet between his eyes.
John Travis Coltrane knew joy for the first time since that magical morning in Briana’s arms.
There was no time for contemplating Hollister’s fate. Travis helped Delia to her feet, demanding she tell them where Briana was. Babbling, she told them what she knew: that Gavin was dead, that Briana was probably responsible for the knife wound in Hollister’s shoulder, and that Briana was on her way down the mountain to the waiting ship.
Colt left on the run, and Travis didn’t try to stop him. He would catch up.
Ignoring the servants who had appeared suddenly out of nowhere to stare and whisper, Travis went to see for himself whether Gavin Mason was really dead.
Then he would deal with the men who’d helped Gavin steal from him, and get the gold that was rightfully Coltrane gold.
Colt would take care of finding Briana…if she could be found.
Briana was sobbing. Time was running out. Her head was bleeding and her feet were torn, but the moment she’d wakened enough to remember what had happened, she’d forced herself up, forced herself to get moving again. Her head hurt unbearably and she was shaking, but she kept going. The sky had lightened, and it was nearly dawn.
She still had another twenty feet or more to climb down when she paused to wipe her eyes, then stared downward in horror. “No. Oh, dear God, no…”
The ship was starting to move!
Panic thrusting her forward, she scrambled over the rocks as fast as she could. She was getting dizzy again, but all that mattered was getting down as fast as possible. The ship would pass directly beneath her, and if she could reach that last ledge, she could jump into the water. Surely someone would see her in the water, wouldn’t they? It was her one last chance.
“Please, please, please God,” she whispered, her body trembling with pain and desperation.
At last, at last, she reached the ledge. Raising her arms, she took a final deep breath, offered up a prayer, and flung herself outward in a smooth arc.
The cool water took her. She went under, then pulled herself up to the surface, taking a deep breath as her head broke through the water.
She swam toward the ship’s prow, mustering all her strength and all the control she could impose on herself. Panic would kill her. She had to stay in rigid control of her body and her mind.
Intent on reaching the ship’s path, panting with the exertion of swimming so hard after her injury, Briana failed to hear the voice crying out to her from the rocky ledge, did not hear the splashing behind her.
As she swam toward the ship’s path, crying out silently for someone on the ship to see her, she sensed movement behind her and to the side, but she didn’t dare turn her head to look.
And then Briana began to wonder whether she might be drowning. Her head ached terribly and her limbs were bruised, sore, and begging her to stop swimming. While forcing her tormented body onward, onward, she began dreaming of sleep, and blessed relief. Stay awake! she screamed to herself, and fixed her gaze on the ship’s prow, which was now a little nearer. Something warm touched her shoulder, but she barely felt it, so intent was she on straining herself forward, forward.
All at once she remembered that, if someone saw his life flashing before him, that meant he was drowning. She must be drowning, then, she realized. Why else would she see her life—her love—before her? Why else would Colt’s dear face rise up out of the turquoise waters? How was it that she felt his strong arms around her, guiding her? Why, as she relaxed against him, did she feel herself in shallow water, and then on land?
She felt herself leaving the earthly realm, yet she struggled for consciousness, lest she be denied the joy of her dying, vision.
“Briana…”
She closed her eyes, yielding to his kiss, felt his strong arms lower her to the sand.
“Briana, I love you.”
She opened her eyes. She knew then, praise God, that it was real.
Sometimes, she acknowledged, tears of joy in her eyes, sometimes the dream is real.
She prayed the dream would never end.
About the Author
Patricia Hagan might be the New York Times bestselling author of 38 novels and 2500 short stories, but she can also lay claim to being among the vanguard of women writers covering NASCAR stock-car racing. The first woman granted garage passes to major speedways, she has awards in TV commentary, newspaper and magazine articles, and for several years wrote and produced a twice-weekly racing program heard on 42 radio stations in the south.
Patricia’s books have been translated into many languages, and she has made promotional trips to Europe, including England, France, Italy, Norway, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Spain and Ireland.
Hagan’s exciting eight-book Coltrane saga, which spans from the Civil War to the Russian Revolution, has appeared on every major bestseller list and is one of the most popular series published in France, never having been out-of-print in that country in nearly 30 years.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Patricia grew up all across the United States due to her father’s position as a federal attorney, finally settling in Alabama where she gr
aduated from the University of Alabama with a major in English. She now resides with her husband in south Florida where she volunteers as a Court-appointed Guardian Ad Litem for abused children.
But of all her accolades and accomplishments, Patricia most of all loves to boast of being the proud mom of a Navy SEAL.
Look for these titles by Patricia Hagan
Now Available:
The Coltrane Saga
Love and War
The Raging Hearts
Love and Glory
Love and Fury
Coming Soon:
Love and Splendor
Love and Dreams
Love and Honor
Love and Triumph
The course of true love is running anything but smooth for Travis and Kitty.
Love and Glory
© 2012 Patricia Hagan
The Coltrane Saga, Book 3
Together at last, Kitty Wright and Travis Coltrane are married and rebuilding her North Carolina farm. But despite his love for Kitty and his son, Travis is not one to be content behind a plow. And when President Grant asks him to be a government emissary to Santa Domingo to explore establishing military bases there, Travis cannot resist the lure of adventure.
Kitty is heartbroken but tries to understand. Then an old nemesis shows up—Luke Tate. He has always desired Kitty and abducts her, taking her West. When Travis returns to find Kitty gone, he places his son in the care of a friend, then goes after Tate, only to be told that Kitty is dead.
It is only much later, when he sees Kitty working in a hospital, that he realizes she is not dead, but is suffering from amnesia after a severe beating. She does not know who he is…does not know who she is.
With love, patience, and pure stubbornness, Travis is determined to regain the one thing he can’t live without—Kitty’s love.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Love and Glory
Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 Page 33
