by Stacey Kayne
“Hardly,” he said with a snort. He gave Juniper a long measuring glance that let him know he hadn’t forgotten the scene he’d witnessed this morning. Juniper and Lily had awakened at first light, still tangled in each other’s arms. After a few lengthy, intimate caressing stretches, they’d sat up to find a wide-eyed Reginald sitting across the smoldering fire. June figured he had some fast explaining to do, but Lily had simply greeted her cousin with a cheerful “Good morning” and had begun to pull out breakfast supplies as though spending the night snuggled up with her father’s killer was nothing out of the ordinary. Juniper had followed her lead, and Reginald hadn’t uttered a word about it. But Juniper had felt his gaze on him during the ride to camp. Once there, Lily hadn’t given either of them time to sit around and speculate about anything.
“I’d say you’re the only one suited for such a task,” Reginald insisted.
“Think I’ll go track down Davy,” Jim said, shuffling down the steps. “Make sure he hasn’t washed away in all this rain.”
Juniper walked into the office. “Miss Carrington? Gentlemen?”
“Sheriff Barns,” Lily said, glancing up as though he were just the person she wanted to see. “Do you think we could arrange a meeting with all the camp foremen? If we’re going to compile information for improving efficiency, I would like to hear their input before we leave tomorrow.”
“I’ll mention it to Jim. I’m sure he can get them together after dinner.”
Lily glanced back at the men sitting before her.
“All right then,” said Allen, removing his glasses. “Should we adjourn until after dinner?”
“Very well,” she agreed.
Allen, Johnson and Brown walked past him, each giving a greeting of “Sheriff Barns.”
Juniper waited near the door as Lily pulled on her thick wool coat. She fastened each shiny black button then grabbed the umbrella she had propped against the desk. She walked toward him, not-quite-five-feet of pure feminine primness from head to toe to umbrella. She stopped beside him, her eyes suddenly bright with an excitement that bubbled over into a smile.
“Oh, June,” she whispered, stepping close. She glanced past him, making sure the coast was clear before stepping into his arms and giving him a quick squeeze. “The numbers look good,” she said in a soft tone, as though conveying a secret.
“Not as bad as you anticipated?”
“It’s going to take some funding to make up for McFarland’s loss, but the potential is there.” She drew a deep breath, regaining her schooled composure. “The mill’s production capabilities will be worth the investment.”
“That’s good news,” he said. “Is there a reason why you’re keeping that a secret?”
“It’s no secret, but it’s hardly appropriate to give anyone false hope at this stage. There’s still much to be done. I feel so much better having seen the actual proof. McFarland provided some paperwork while looking for investors, so I had some idea of the mill’s capabilities, but not the details I needed to truly put my mind at ease.”
“Why did you buy the camp instead of just investing?”
Lily’s good cheer dampened at the thought of revealing the details behind her acquisition of McFarland Lumber. “We started out as investors,” she said. “He put requests in with various companies. I looked over the information and expressed an interest. Upon meeting me, he refused to deal with Carrington Industries.”
“Because…?”
“He refused to do business with a woman.”
“Then why would he sell you the mill? I knew he was losing money and scrambling for more financial backing, but the change of ownership hit everyone here without any warning.”
“He didn’t intend to sell, nor did he bother to investigate his new investors. I own various companies and I used them to take control of the Pine Ridge Lumber Camp, knowing he wouldn’t want to stay on with a woman controlling his company.”
Juniper’s eyebrows shot up and Lily felt the warming signs of color rising into her cheeks.
“So you can understand why he went out of his way to make this a difficult transition. He was not a happy man when I arrived to personally claim the title.”
“I would have liked to have seen that.”
“It was rather a fun morning,” she admitted.
He laughed and took the umbrella from her hand. “I’m thinking you did this camp a favor,” he said, holding out his arm to escort her downstairs.
Thunder clapped and rolled, rattling everything inside the hollow building as they walked through the millhouse.
“It would appear we arrived just in time this morning.”
“The rain has made a mess of the roads. It’s not going to be a pleasant walk back.”
Regi and the others stood just inside the wide doors of the sawmill, all of them pressing down their hats and flipping up their coat collars.
“We haven’t had a bad meal,” Johnson was saying.
“You won’t find better food in San Francisco,” Allen agreed.
“A lumber camp is only as good as its grub,” Juniper told them. “And we have the best in the Sierras. Cook is about the only reason this camp still has workers willing to put in a day’s work. Any man who works is guaranteed excellent food and a place to sleep.”
“I was told corned beef would be served tonight,” said Allen.
All of their talk was starting to make her hungry. “Should we head to the dining hall?”
“Everyone but you,” Juniper said evenly.
Lily gaped at him.
“No way am I taking you into the cookhouse with nearly a hundred men. You’ll eat in your cabin. Reg can join you if he likes.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Lily, I’ll go ahead and dine with the others.”
“All right then,” Juniper said, ushering her forward before she could respond. “We’ll see you back at the cabin after you eat.” His hand pressed against the small of her back, guiding her toward a steady veil of rain pouring off the rooftop.
“In a hurry?” she asked, smiling up at him as he popped out the umbrella.
He only grinned. “Hold this.”
The moment her fingers curved around the wooden handle he lifted her into his arms, saying, “And I’ll hold you.”
“Juniper!”
“The mud will ruin your fancy coat.” Rain spattered across her coat and skirt. The steady tapping echoed beneath the umbrella like artillery fire as he charged through the downpour.
Figuring there was no point in arguing with him, Lily leaned close and breathed in the refreshing scent of spruce, pine and Juniper. “I’ll try not to complain,” she said, discreetly kissing his jaw.
“Easy.” His eyes darkened with blatant desire. “I can’t get caught kissing the boss.”
Lily contained herself as he hurried down the hillside and across the rain-soaked grounds. She was still quite warm and cozy when he bounded up the steps of her cabin. He tilted the umbrella back to shield them from any onlookers and plastered his mouth to hers. Lily slid her arms around his neck and kissed him for all she was worth.
By the time he’d released her mouth and set her feet on the small wooden porch, she was dizzy and short of breath.
“I’ve got to stop doing that,” he said, shaking out the umbrella and closing it.
Lily could only smile. She rather enjoyed his surprise bursts of passion. “I wasn’t complaining.” She took him by the hand and pulled him into the cabin. The moment the door closed behind them she launched into his arms, and he was kissing her the way a starving man devours a feast. His lips shifted, touching her cheeks, her eyes, her nose, her chin.
Abruptly he stepped away from her. “I’ll go grab us some food.”
She’d rather have him, but managed to keep from blurting out the words as he pulled the door open.
“Bar the door behind me,” he said, the steady sound of rainfall muffling his voice. “Don’t open it for anyone else.”
She did
as he said, sliding the bar into place. Pulling off her jacket, she sat heavily onto the lower bunk of the first bunk bed. She expelled a hard breath, trying to ease the sudden rise of passion. The tingling swirls only increased as she recalled the way he’d looked at her as he’d stood in the doorway to the office, the pride in his grin…She loved him.
Lily was certain of it.
Juniper Barns. Just his name sent a hopeless surge of emotion expanding through her chest.
How can this have happened? How could she have fallen in love with the man who’d killed her father? Yet, after getting to know Juniper, she couldn’t blame him for what had happened.
Her eyes burned at the thought.
She was leaving tomorrow. Would he come to see her in San Francisco? Did he want her? Just because he’d kissed her with bone-melting desire didn’t mean—
The floor creaked behind her. She turned just as a force shoved her facedown onto the mattress.
Lily struggled and tried to scream but more than one set of hands held her pinned against the bedding, one holding down her head and shoulders as another secured her hands, the rope burning across her wrists.
“Good and tight,” a man instructed. “She’s a feisty little bitch.”
She knew that voice. Oh, God.
Chandler.
Fingers clenched the back of her hair, lifting her head as a cloth went over her mouth, cutting off her cry for help.
“I don’t know about this, Billy,” said the other man. “We were supposed to grab one of those ’Frisco men.”
A man’s bruising grip wrenched her up. She stared at Billy Chandler and the man who’d been standing beside Mr. Grimshaw on the afternoon she’d arrived. Traitor!
“Lady Luck must finally be shining down on us,” said Chandler, his crimson lips tipped in a sickly grin as he closed in on her.
Something wasn’t right. Juniper knew it the moment he spotted what looked to be an open cabin door in the obscured distance.
Chills prickled up the back of Juniper’s neck as he rushed forward, looking harder through the blur of rain.
Lily’s cabin door was wide-open.
Tin plates hit the ground and he was in a full run.
“Lily!”
Her coat lay on the bed, a piece of paper beside it. Juniper’s breath stalled as he read the sloppy pencil scratches.
Deliver the strongbox to the fork in the road at Piney Gultch Pass tomorrow at midnight or Carrington’s man won’t walk off the mountain alive.
He knew the place. A low spot of crossroads with a ridge on each side to offer adequate cover. But the money had already been dispersed. The men who’d escaped Chandler’s place wouldn’t have known that. They also hadn’t expected to find Lily in this cabin.
He’d told her to bar the door! She hadn’t been alone for more than fifteen minutes.
Crumpling the note in his fist, Juniper grabbed Lily’s coat and ran outside to search for tracks. He circled the cabin. Rain pummeled the pitted ground, puddling water everywhere. He ran toward the woods at the rear of the cabins. A few rows in, he spotted the faint tracks of two horses heading up the mountain.
“Lily!”
Rainfall had already distorted the prints. They likely had a fifteen-minute lead. He’d never catch them on foot, certainly not with the rain washing out their tracks.
“Damn it!” He turned back. He needed a horse, a posse—he needed to know where Chandler was taking her.
He burst through the door of the cookhouse and slid to a stop. Water dripped from the brim of his hat. His chest pulling for breath, panic shaking him, his gaze raked over the men whose mouths gaped open; others froze in the midst of taking a bite.
Kyle stood up from his spot at a long table. “June?”
“Who here was on a crew with Chandler?”
Movement drew his gaze to the back of the room. Instead of a man coming forward, the timbermen sitting on either side of a slender man Juniper knew only as Rogers slid away from him, singling him out on the bench.
Juniper started toward him. Rogers swallowed hard and stood.
“Billy Chandler has taken Lily Carrington.” He didn’t slow his pace until his gun was shoved under the man’s chin. “Tell me where he took her.”
“I do-don’t—”
“He wouldn’t have gone up the mountain in this storm unless he had a safe spot. Every range of timber has a hidey place where men go to sit out storms or take a break. Where is it?”
“Ch-Chandler will kill me.”
He clicked the hammer back on his gun. “Not if I kill you first.”
“June,” Kyle said softly from beside him.
He released Rogers long enough to shove the wadded ransom note against Kyle’s chest. Juniper resumed his hold, his gaze pinned on Rogers as Kyle unfolded the crumpled paper.
“Ah, hell!”
He tightened his hold on Rogers’s shirt, lifting the man to the tips of his boots. “You’re gonna lead Marshal Darby and me to every cave, shack and hollow tree you know about until we find Lily Carrington.”
Rogers nodded vigorously. “Th-there’s a couple places he’s likely to go for sure.”
“Günter!”
“Right here, Sheriff,” his deputy answered.
He released Rogers as Günter made his way up the row of tables. “Assemble a posse, issue firearms and fan out. Every man searches. We’re looking for two men on horseback, Billy Chandler and likely Ted Mathews. So long as Lily Carrington isn’t in range, you can shoot on sight.”
Everyone stared up at him in stunned silence.
“Move!”
Dishes clattered, benches scuffed the floor as the roomful of men rushed for the door.
He looked back at Rogers, who had paled to the color of a bed sheet. “You better not let me down.”
“No, sir. If’n he’s lookin’ to keep dry for any length of time, he’d go to one of two places.”
“Grab your hat and tell me on the way.”
Kyle stood outside in the rain, already holding the reins of three horses.
“Rogers,” he said as the man reached for a saddle. “Try to run from me and you’ll die. I’ve never missed a target, moving or otherwise.”
“No, sir. I sure don’t want to see the lady hurt.”
Lily’s coat still draped over his arm, Juniper rolled up the thick wool and jammed it into his saddlebag before mounting his horse.
Kyle rode in beside him as they started east. “We’ll find her, June.”
He knew he would. It was the inevitable time she’d spend in Chandler’s company until he reached her that worried him. If Chandler hurt her, he’d be praying for hell before Juniper issued his ticket.
Chapter Sixteen
“J ust wait until I get you alone.”
Soaked to the bone and shivering, Lily didn’t doubt Chandler’s intentions for getting her alone; he’d detailed them several times. They’d ridden through the rain for what felt like hours. She sat on Chandler’s lap, a constant shower of chilling drops against her face. She counted her one blessing—she was far too numb to feel Chandler’s bruising touch beneath her wet waistcoat.
She kept hoping to hear gunfire and Juniper riding up behind them. But all she heard was the steady hush of rainfall and Chandler’s disgusting words. The drenched gag tied around her mouth prevented her venomous replies. Mathews rode a short distance ahead of him and she couldn’t help but think he ought to be minding his back. Chandler had whispered his plans. He was waiting on his brother and intended to kill her and Mathews—once he no longer had use for them.
Up ahead, she spotted a white trail of smoke snaking into the darkening gray sky. A shudder of fear broke through her cold tremors. Once they stopped, she wouldn’t stand much of a chance against two brutish men.
They reined in outside a crude shack constructed of stripped bark. She spotted other horses out in the tall pine trees and recalled that some of the bandits had headed back up the hill.
Chandler
hoisted her up over his shoulder as he dismounted. Her hands and feet bound, any struggle was useless. She pinched her eyes tight, terrified of what she’d find inside their makeshift cabin.
Please, God. Let Juniper come for me.
A door squeaked open and heat rushed out with the sound of male voices.
“You got ’em,” a man said, sounding surprised.
“Sure did.” He dropped her onto a dirt floor. Lily winced as pain shot through her aching muscles.
“It’s a woman.”
“Not just a woman,” said Chandler.
Lily struggled to her knees and looked up through the sopping strands of her hair. Four unfamiliar faces stared down at her. Behind them a fire crackled in what looked like an old boiler for some kind of machinery.
“The Carrington girl.” The biggest of the group, a man with a wide brown mustache streaked with gray, stepped toward her. His startled expression gave her a flicker of hope.
“Let’s see how negotiable Carrington is when he finds out we have his daughter,” said Chandler.
“I heard she was his niece,” said a lanky young man sitting on a crate near the stove.
“Won’t matter how she’s related to Carrington when Sheriff Barns is likely to kill us all,” said Mathews.
“He should be wanting his pay, too,” said Chandler.
“As much as he wants his woman?”
“Button it, Mathews,” ordered Chandler.
“What’s he jawing about, Chandler?” said another man.
“Barns was kissing her,” Mathews announced, glaring accusingly at his accomplice. “We both saw ’em.”
“Which don’t mean anything,” snapped Chandler. “What man worth his salt wouldn’t be tryin’ to get under her skirts? I never should have dropped her that first time! We’d all be on our way to Mexico by now instead of hiding out in this damn shack.”
“Who the hell said they wanted to ride to Mexico?” said the older man with the mustache. “I got a family, for cryin’ out loud! I haven’t seen my wife in two months! I just want my pay.”
“Barns is no fool.” A stout man standing behind the others came forward. “You courtin’ the sheriff?”
