by Amber Scott
“Six hours.”
Samantha blanched. “Six hours?” No wonder the dream seemed so long. Oh God, Charles! She had to pick up Charles at the airport. His plane landed hours ago. He would be worried sick. Or raving mad. Or both.
She again tried to get up. “I have to go.” Again, the dizziness took hold of her, and she pressed her hand to her forehead, sitting back down.
“If you’d like, I’ll call someone. But I think you should at least drink some water.”
Carla’s tone sounded strangely concerned. She definitely sounded worried, but for some reason, Samantha didn’t get the feeling the woman was worried about her health. Probably annoyed a customer had gone and passed out for six hours—
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance or something?” Samantha looked up at the woman.
Carla had the decency to look caught and a bit remorseful. “I thought you’d wake up?” She said it like a question, one eye squinting dubiously at Samantha.
A weird thought sprang into Samantha’s mind. “Did you slip something in my tea?” Even saying it sounded ludicrous, let alone thinking it, but she couldn’t seem to stop the words.
Carla snorted, shook her head, and crossed her arms. “No. Like what? Drugs?”
Samantha slowly nodded. “Yeah. Drugs. Did you slip me something to try to get my dad’s map and poster from me without paying? Are you trying to steal from me?”
God, she wished she could stand up, move, or something. Too late, it occurred to her that accusing someone of something like foul play wasn’t done well from a vulnerable and immovable position, such as her current one. In case it was true, probably not the smartest thing to do.
Carla’s response was anything but evil or villainous. She stammered, gasped, and threw up her hands, only to recross them over her bust. She turned back to the counter, where the cup sat.
A funny feeling formed in Samantha’s stomach. She suddenly got the idea that she knew Carla from somewhere. That was impossible. She’d never met Carla before. The funny feeling turned to a sour feeling. The hollow became hurting. She didn’t like this, any of it. She almost wished she hadn’t awakened, and that scared her.
She didn’t want to be depressed or ill. She didn’t want to be a woman who couldn’t live life, emotionally crippled.
A tear slid down her cheek.
Carla turned to her, saw it, and rushed to her side.
“Shhh. There, now. Don’t cry, Sammie. You’re okay. Here, drink a little water, and I’ll call someone. Okay?”
Samantha nodded, wanting to tell her not to call her Sammie, that only her dad called her Sammie. She missed him now more than ever. Stupid treasure hunting and all. Emotion overwhelmed her, and she wanted everything to be normal again. To feel normal again.
Carla smoothed her hair, and Samantha drank from the teacup she’d almost broken. She gagged a bit, swallowing, realizing it wasn’t water. She looked up, terrified, at Carla, and a strange sympathy swirled in the woman’s gaze. Whiskey. Why on earth would Carla give her whiskey?
As though in answer, Carla said, “Go back to him, Sammie. He needs you.”
As she was about to ask who, the world went blank.
*
Not ten minutes after he found her gone, Jesse came upon Samantha sprawled in the grass, legs akimbo, hair pooled like a puddle on the ground. He rushed to her side, looking for signs of injury.
“Damn it,” he said through clenched teeth. This woman would be the death of him. The longer he knew her, the more enigmatic she became, and the more suspicious he grew.
He touched her brow. It was warm. She was breathing. Gingerly, he scooped her into his arms. No snakebite could explain this.
The pieces of the puzzle began to fit together, and he hated the picture they formed. First, he found her asleep, whimpering near camp with Mick and Joe, the very site Mick had chosen.
Next, she is discovered, not by him, but by Tommy. Weeks after an encounter exceptional both in experience and possibility, Tommy finds her. Not Ginny, not him. Tommy.
Tommy was a good man, a good husband and loyal to the bone, but he’d never be deemed a genius. He often reminded Jesse of the proverbial gentle giant. He wasn’t stupid. By no means. A bit gullible, perhaps.
Now, after a full night of lovemaking almost too good to be true, she disappears again, only to be found vulnerable and fainted not ten yards from his front door. One minute he was making her breakfast, preparing to ask the questions that needed asking, the next, she was gone. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he’d checked this very area. That would mean worse than suspicious. That might mean outright deception.
He didn’t want to believe it, yet. Yet? At all. There it was, forming in his mind anyway. Mick. Joe. Samantha.
What’s the next best thing to killing the man who knows where buried loot lies? How about finding it, stealing it, and carrying on in the greediest, backstabbing way as always.
He’d been set up. He’d let his guard down one too many times, and his partners had gotten to know him well enough to find this woman and play his emotions.
Jesse carried Samantha across his threshold, into his room and laid her on the bed. She didn’t waken. He watched her breathe. An actress. A good one, to be sure. One with loose enough morals and, no doubt, some experience.
His stomach turned sour, anger roiling in it. He fisted his hands, released them, and fisted them again. Damn them for making a fool of him. Damn himself for being one.
Any right-headed man would have detected foul play from the first. He’d been blindsided by beauty and vulnerability. The same she practiced now, lying in his bed, the same spot where they’d gone to heaven and back only an hour ago.
“Hello to house?” Ginny knocked loudly on the front porch.
Jesse walked the short distance through the living room and braced an arm on the doorframe, barring her entry.
“Jesse,” she protested. “You can’t keep her here like some concubine. The woman has a reputation to keep intact. Every woman does.”
He shook his head, and for a moment he thought he might be too angry to speak. Even worse, for a moment he thought they might have gotten to her, too. And to Tommy.
“She’s gone.”
“Gone?” Ginny stopped fighting him. “Gone where?” Her eyes narrowed.
“She dressed and left not an hour ago. Leave it be, Ginny.”
“If she’s gone, then she’s well. If she’s gone, you’ll let me pass.”
Jesse didn’t move. He shook his head and gave his sister his most penetrating warning look. “No, Ginny. Get back home. I’m leaving here.”
Ginny didn’t wince, but he’d obviously hurt her feelings. He couldn’t help his brisk tone, though. His mind raced so fast with implications and plans, he hardly had time to soothe his sister’s matronly concerns for a woman who plainly didn’t deserve them.
As Ginny looked past his shoulder and back to his face, silence stretched and pulled between them. Finally, she stepped back.
“I don’t know what is going on here, Jesse. But I love you, so I’m going to trust you.”
Jesse nodded. He ignored the well of guilt her tenderness caused to bloom inside his chest.
“How long will you be gone?”
She always liked a deadline, a worry date she’d call it. The day when she knew something bad had happened, something terrible, and maybe even her worst fear. Because a sister shouldn’t have to be informed of such a thing by some stranger. Or so she said.
This time ... “I don’t know.” And he didn’t.
He didn’t know how Mick and Joe had come to find where he’d made his home, but they had. If they didn’t get what they wanted from the woman lying in his bed, he didn’t know what their plan might be.
He would soon find out, and he wouldn’t do it here.
“Tell Tommy to keep an eye out.” Jesse hugged his sister gruffly and nudged her off. “A good one. Tell him if anything happens to my little sister ...”
<
br /> “Nonsense, Jesse. Stop talking that way. Everything’s fine. Tommy will protect me just fine.” Ginny held a stiff smile on her lips and walked away with such forced lightness it was all he could do not to tear into his room and shake Samantha awake.
She’d brought them to his home, to his family. He’d die before letting them hurt a hair on Ginny’s head.
He watched his sister walk evenly and surely down the hill. He kept his gaze to the view, making certain he was here if she chose to glance back, verify in a look things would be all right somehow. She didn’t look back. So he didn’t wave, only watched her disappear.
Once she was gone, he turned and returned to his bedroom. She lay there still, her eyes open and warily taking in her surroundings. She appeared frightened, like a rabbit whose hunt was now ended. She was the prey, he the hunter, and she was ensnared, caught, nowhere to go and no one to come to her aid. She knew it.
She didn’t see him at first, and when she did, she smiled a smile that could melt the devil’s icy-cold heart. Jesse’s own ached. Whatever he’d begun to believe in, whoever he thought she had been—angel, bewitcher, he didn’t know—she was no longer.
He steeled himself, masking his features so as not to belie his discovery of her black heart.
“What happened?” Her voice was painfully melodic.
“You fainted again.” Jesse swallowed, willing his voice not to strangle in his throat. “The snakebite effects, I reckon.” He smiled tightly.
She nodded, and her smile waned. As she regarded him, the fear crept back into her gaze. “There’s something else. Isn’t there?”
Jesse cocked his head to the side. Let her wonder. Let her muse and stew about what he may or may not have found out. Slowly, he shook his head. “No. Nothing else.” He winked. “How is your leg? Does it hurt?”
He wanted to move to the bed and sit down next to her, touch that very leg. When she raised it, exposing another inch of creamy skin, he bit down. His nostrils flared. He’d not be able to keep up a farce for long.
He needed to get the two of them packed and riding. Fast. Mick and Joe could be nearby, in wait. He couldn’t risk her knowing he knew, or the two of them coming in to get her. Surely they’d allow more time for their spy to get the information they wanted—the location of the loot. Surely that could take days.
If he left with her, he could lose their scent and vanish while forcing her to admit to her plan and where the bastard brothers were. He’d have a little surprise for them.
“Jesse? Is everything all right? You look as strange as I feel.” He focused on her face. Too beautiful—deceptively beautiful. Resisting her might be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. However, he would.
“Everything is fine. I just was thinking, is all. If your leg is all right, I’d like to show you something. Some place, really. It’s not far. We could ride to it, if you’re able.”
“I’m not much of a rider.” Her gaze still seemed to search his face for meaning.
“I beg to differ.” He winked again. “I remember you being quite adept at riding.”
Her cheeks shocked pink, and her eyes widened. He smiled. Genuinely, this time. She was talented, he’d give her that. Too good to be true. He should have known from the first night. Good old-fashioned lust and anonymity had taken lead. Her turning up on his doorstep should have triggered immediate caution. Again, lust had besotted his brain so well he’d gone blind to what had seemed like mere coincidence.
No more.
Now he knew. Not coincidence, calculation.
“I think I can sit in a saddle,” Samantha said at last, testing a turn of her ankle. She tested it as though she hadn’t up and walked on it out the door and then pretended to faint yards away.
Very good. Too damned good. So good a part of him wanted to believe it again and take her at honest face value. That would put his sister at risk. His own neck he’d gamble with any day, but not Ginny’s.
“Good. I’ll pack. You dress.”
“Pack?”
Was that a tremor in her voice?
“Food, supplies. You never know what you might need to be prepared for out there.” He lightened his regrettably ominous tone with a wide grin. “Snakes, outlaws ... squirrels.”
Samantha chuckled, her relief evident. She trusted him. Why wouldn’t she? Particularly when she had two bad men on hand to defend her honor—dishonor he mentally amended.
Nothing honorable about the game she was playing. He didn’t care if she had ten hungry mouths to feed at home. There were limits on what a person should do. Betrayal, lies, hell, murder might even be in the cards she held.
He couldn’t tell. Until he got her alone and away from here, where Mick and Joe couldn’t be far, he couldn’t know.
She shifted and began standing, and he left her. He had to, or he’d have been over there, taking her elbow and helping. Not that he shouldn’t play his part, but he first had to rein in his emotions, and they were running wild. If he touched her now, he wasn’t sure what might happen.
He might hurt her, though normally he wouldn’t hurt a woman, no matter how black her heart.
Jesse saddled his black stallion and the old mare he’d recently bought for plowing, a quarter horse and mustang mix bred for power, not speed. Ginny’s old saddle would fit Samantha fine, even though she was a head taller than his sister.
Ginny. Seemed like yesterday his sister was riding her bay stallion in tow with him as they plodded into town with some meager table winnings and high hopes.
No sense thinking about the past. Not when the present could put it all at risk.
Jesse reentered his home and found Samantha trying hard not to snoop through his things. She held her arms crossed, but leaned over the stack of papers on top of his desk. He walked in loudly, and she jumped at being caught.
“Ready?” was all he said, ignoring the blush coloring her cheeks
Samantha nodded.
Something was different about her. She seemed timid. No, timid wasn’t the right word. Samantha was too bold and too brave to be timid. Uncertain, though, for sure.
He could only hope he hadn’t exposed his suspicions.
Jesse turned on his boot heel and listened for her to follow. She did. She still wore his shirt and had taken a pair of his pants, which she fit into too damned well. It wasn’t exactly proper, but he’d seen women wear worse out here, and he couldn’t help marking her as practical. The only things that wouldn’t be practical were her shoes. They looked like slippers.
Boots would have been better, even the soft-soled kind Ginny preferred. They didn’t have time for that, and he wasn’t about to go anywhere near Ginny’s place, in case Mick and Joe weren’t aware of their blood connection. Hopefully, they seemed like good neighbors and little more.
Samantha hadn’t left his side, except for the half hour unaccounted for and, by hook or by crook, he knew the brothers hadn’t been in the vicinity at that point. She had probably gone out to check if they’d come or maybe even to use the outhouse.
No. Not to use the outhouse. That was his silly hopes still trying to keep from dying. She wouldn’t have disappeared to use an outhouse.
She would have told him, taken him along. After all, a snake had bitten her during the last visit. No, she’d likely been checking out the grounds, looking for signs of her employers.
Jesse climbed into his saddle and waited patiently while she did the same. She had a difficult time, but he didn’t dare get down and help her.
Once settled in, she shrugged and gave him a wary look. “Ready when you are,” she said.
Ready. He wasn’t ready for this. That didn’t matter. Did it?
To think, he’d been about to give up this life. Wouldn’t you know that would be when his partners came sniffing. They must have sensed his reticence during the last robbery.
What was he supposed to do, tell them? Men like Mick and Joe would never understand wanting to go straight, wanting to live a life inside of the la
w.
Jesse kept the mare’s reins in hand with his, in case Samantha did ride well and decided to run. She didn’t protest, but if she really didn’t know how to ride, she wouldn’t. Instead, as he led her into the shadow of woods, up the steep, sloping path, Samantha kept unusually quiet.
If she noticed the way he zigged and zagged and doubled back, she didn’t question it. She kept quiet, smiling tightly when he glanced back, chuckling halfheartedly when he winked at her.
The sour pit in his stomach had hardened, and soon the hardness would reach his chest, until finally, his mind turned cold to match. If he was lucky, by the time he took them down into the narrow gorge to the small lake—actually a pond of melted snow water—he’d be ready to face Samantha with the truth.
~~~
Chapter Twelve
Samantha stared at Jesse’s back. Her mind finally calmed enough to start thinking rationally, without the surge of hot, flashing panic sending her heart into high speed and her brain into meltdown.
He was acting strangely. Well, different from before. She didn’t know what that meant. She knew only that reality seemed to be slipping in and out of her life with far too much ease. She knew only that when he looked at her, her heart hurt.
God, he seemed so real. Worse, what she felt seemed so real. What in the hell was happening to her?
She really couldn’t guess, and her mind no longer wanted to. All she could do was ride the horse, watch his back, and work on suppressing the little pockets of panic in her belly.
Something unnameable was different about Jesse. More than his words, more than the unreadable and yet changed way he regarded her. He held himself a bit more stiffly, his voice sounded more controlled.
Why would she even be able to note such a difference? How could she, when she’d spent only a matter of hours with this man, and those so rapt in pure physical sensation?
Maybe the intimacy they had shared somehow translated his mannerisms to her by some strange osmosis. She couldn’t understand it, and stopped trying to. She just knew it, without knowing how or why.
