Hostage Heart

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Look, I didn’t mean to get carried away,” he muttered, coming as close to an apology as she was ever going to get from him. His heart wrenched as he saw the corners of her once tense mouth relax into a vague smile. It changed her entire face, and a keen need for her swept through him with unexpected force.

  “You’ve been gravely ill. I didn’t mean to get angry or short with you, either. It’s just that I…well, I’ve had many burdens to carry of late.”

  Moved by her halting apology, Matt felt the last of his anger dissolve. She was right; she didn’t deserve his hatred. He liked her strength and her vulnerability. In that poignant moment, as she met and held his gaze, he wanted to reach out and protect her. He cleared his throat. “When will you be back?”

  Lark noted the change in Matt and was warmed by his sudden concern. “It is a five-hour ride to Prescott. I will try to get a doctor to come out, but I cannot promise you anything. There is other business I must also attend to. Perhaps by moonrise I’ll return.”

  “I see.”

  “Before you sleep tonight, Maria will change the poultice once more.”

  “You won’t be back in time?”

  Lark shook her head. “Tomorrow morning I will tend you.”

  Matt stared after her as she left the room, excruciatingly aware of the loss of her vibrant presence. Was Lark really in danger by going into Prescott alone? Dressed like a damned Apache, she was certainly going to draw plenty of attention to herself. He strained to hear the voices of Lark and Maria outside the room, but it was impossible. When the two burly brown mules drawing the wagon walked by, Matt was able to get one last glimpse of Lark as she sat on the seat of the buckboard. Frustrated, he lay back down, filled with guilt and anger.

  Chapter 5

  Lark tried to ignore the malevolent stares of the people of Prescott as she drove the buckboard down the dusty main street. Two years ago, her father had begged her to come to town with him so she could try again to adapt to the white world. Since her humiliation by the school children when she was twelve, she had never wanted to return to the place that held only painful memories for her. At sixteen, she had reluctantly joined her father on his monthly trips. He had wanted to show her “his people” and had tried to tell her that there were kind white people, not just bad ones like Cameron and Shanks. She remembered with mortification that the trip had only multiplied her pain. Although she had worn a dress like a white woman, the children had taunted her when she walked down the wooden sidewalk from the bank to the dry goods store, calling her a breed and throwing rocks and clods of dirt at her. Finding safety in Abe Harris’s store, Lark had thought she was finally safe, but she had been wrong. Bo Shanks had ambled in and caused her the worst embarrassment of her life. Lark slammed the door shut on those memories, concentrating instead on the present.

  The children were in school now, so she was saved from their revilement. Fleetingly she saw the white women in all their finery and remembered Matt Kincaid’s words about dressing as they did. Wearing a white woman’s dress did not guarantee her acceptance by them, as Lark had already discovered.

  She passed Madam Bouchard’s Dress Shop and saw in the window a dress made of blue silk with a violet sheen to it. The cloth took her breath away as she stared at the confection. But her momentary awe was squelched when an obviously wealthy patron emerged and spotted her. The woman raised her nose daintily into the air and pressed a lacy handkerchief to her face, disdain evident in every line of her aristocratic features. Her lips set, Lark forced herself not to react to the woman’s rude behavior.

  Why Matt would want her to acknowledge her white heritage was beyond her. Did white men want their women merely as pretty baubles? The Apache were the opposite; they applauded a woman’s strength, intelligence, and ability to fight at her husband’s side.

  The three-story brick building owned by Jud Cameron loomed ahead. Lark’s fingers tightened around the worn leather trace reins. Nervousness rose like stinging bile in her throat as she pulled the buckboard to a halt. Tying the nearest mule to the hitching rail, Lark girded herself for the confrontation with Cameron.

  She had no more than pulled open the glass-and-brass door and stepped inside when two women who were doing business with tellers turned and ogled her. Lark froze, staring back at them. It was noon and the bank was filled to capacity with customers; at least ten people were present. Her mouth went dry as she saw two men automatically scowl in her direction. A third man whispered, “Apache squaw.” Everyone in the bank fell silent, their eyes focused on Lark.

  Squaring her shoulders, she walked to the first teller. “I’m Lark Gallagher and I wish to see Mr. Cameron. I have business with him.”

  The clerk, who was no more than seventeen, with a hint of acne on his pale face, gave a jerky nod to the left, as if seeking approval for her request.

  A shiver of warning rippled up Lark’s spine. She barely turned her head. Standing in the background was Bo Shanks, his tall, lean body slouched against the wall, his guns worn low on his narrow hips. His eyes focused intensely upon her. They were the eyes of a coyote. All her senses shrilled in warning, but she refused to react to the twisted smile on his full mouth. He chewed on a toothpick like a cow chewing on its cud, his arms across his chest. Silence built to a brittle crescendo as they locked stares.

  Bo Shanks eased from his position, spitting out the toothpick on the highly waxed tile floor. He grinned as he walked with the ease of a predator who knew he was master of his territory. As he approached Lark, his smile reflected barely veiled insolence.

  “Roarke Gallagher’s breed daughter, eh?” he said in a soft, sinister voice. “Well, what do ya know…”

  Lark stood her ground. She was as tall as the gunfighter and refused to look away from his amber eyes. Her heart beat hard in her breast as his scalding gaze traveled upward from her booted feet, lingered hotly at the apex of her thighs, then moved on to where her breasts were thrust against the shirt she wore, the soft cotton emphasizing their fullness. Finally his gaze swept up her neck to her face. Her nostrils flared as she registered his sour, unwashed smell. His sandy hair was parted to one side and slicked down with grease, emphasizing the long lines of his face. He was in his early twenties, yet his face looked unduly aged due to bouts of hard drinking. Lark doubted the lines in his face had come from an honest day’s labor. Everyone knew Shanks was Jud Cameron’s hired gun even though he was supposed to work as a drover on the banker’s ranch.

  “What’s it been, Lark? Two years since I last saw ya?” He grinned, his uneven teeth exposed as if in a snarl. “You’ve changed,” he added with more than passing interest.

  “And you haven’t, Shanks.” Her voice vibrated with hatred. “Now let me pass. I have business with Mr. Cameron.”

  “And if I don’t, breed?”

  Lark remembered with humiliating clarity how Shanks had once grabbed her in Abe’s store and mauled her playfully, unmercifully. His long, skinny hands had roved across her breasts and she had frozen in shock and pain. Then, gathering, her wits, she had fought back. The proof of her attack, four long scars, lay like dull pink slashes along Shanks’s left cheek where she had raked him. As he had backed off, he’d sworn he’d have her someday—his way. At the time she had been too young to realize what he meant by his threat. Now she understood completely.

  Lark checked her anger, feeling all eyes upon her. Automatically she placed the palm of her left hand over the butt of the knife that rested in the scabbard. “I’m taking care of my father’s banking business now. Let me pass, Shanks,” she said in low tones.

  Shanks snickered and took a step back. “Yeah, I heard yore old man took a bullet in the back. Ya oughta be careful that yore not next.” He threw a look at the nervous young teller. “Willy, tell Mr. Cameron he’s got a visitor. A Miss Gallagher,” he emphasized, grinning.

  Jud Cameron had just raised his shot glass full of mellow sipping whiskey in a toast to Colonel Parker Morgan, commanding officer of Fort Whipp
le, when the knock interrupted him. With a scowl, he ordered, “Come in.” Damn, he didn’t want to be disturbed, and Shanks knew that. What the hell was going on?

  “Willy doffed the green visor he wore over his eyes. “Sir, Mr. Shanks says to tell you a Miss Gallagher is here to talk business with you.”

  Morgan shot a wry glance at Cameron. “That Apache half-breed daughter of Roarke Gallagher’s?”

  Jud smiled as he rose, tossing the whiskey down his throat. It burned pleasantly all the way down. “The late Roarke Gallagher.” He turned back to his clerk. “Take her to my other office, Willy. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

  Jud waited until the door closed before speaking. “This is the beginning of the end for the Gallagher Ranch,” he announced. “And don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

  Morgan shrugged his broad shoulders and poured himself another whiskey. “I didn’t think you could get Gallagher, but I was wrong. What’s next in your campaign to get the water rights to that ranch?”

  Jud rebuttoned his paisley velvet vest and shrugged into his gray business coat. “I’ve told Sheriff Cole to tell Lark Gallagher that an Apache shot her father outside of town. Of course, he’ll blame it on Ga’n since he’s been keeping the area a hotbed of problems for the U.S. Army. Now she’s by herself. No woman can run a ranch on her own. I plan to offer her cash to sell it. In her present position, I’m sure she’ll accept.”

  Morgan’s fleshy features broke into a smile and he lifted his glass in another toast. “I’ve got to give you credit, Jud. You and the Ring have certainly brought more government funds to the Arizona Territory, more than I ever dreamed possible. Your idea to keep the damned Apaches stirred up and force the government to bring in more troops has been a brilliant success.”

  Jud checked the time on his gold watch before placing it back in the side pocket. The Tucson Indian Ring had been created ten years earlier by some very astute businessmen in the Arizona Territory who saw a way to make huge profits. Jud was in charge of the northern area. He bribed men like Morgan, Cole and Shanks to bend or ignore the law completely. Yes, he liked greedy men; they were easy to control. The Ring’s power and influence was building yearly, their coffers filling with more money than he’d ever dreamed existed. Now the Ring’s influence reached clear back to Washington, D.C. Cameron felt the keen edge of power, and he savored the sensation. It was simple arithmetic: keep the whites and Indians at war with one another and the government would keep sending more money and troops.

  Jud looked over at Morgan. “You’re building a nice little nest egg, too, don’t forget. Just keep turning your head the other way when I send Shanks and my boys out to raid an Apache rancheria, and when Ga’n and his renegades attack the settlers.”

  “We need to talk about tactical raids along that line, Jud.”

  He raised a well-manicured hand. “This won’t take long. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes to discuss the Ring’s next series of raids. In the meantime, enjoy this good whiskey.”

  Lark looked up as the door to the office opened and closed. She held the voucher tightly in her hand, along with the bankbook to her father’s savings account.

  Jud Cameron reminded her of a snake. Although he wore only the finest clothes, although his black hair was neatly cut and his thick mustache trimmed, he was the most poisonous kind of pindah. Again she had to endure from him the kind of torrid inspection she had come to expect from white men. As Cameron stripped her naked with his cool green gaze all her muscles tightened with wariness. She stood without speaking, her eyes blazing with distrust.

  Finally Cameron came forward and sat down at the massive maple desk. With a flourish he gestured toward a leather wing chair. “Sit down, Lark. How long has it been? Almost two years since I last had the pleasure of seeing you?” He smiled to himself: she was a breathtaking creature, a wild, untamed golden savage. Just her proud, silent stance fired his blood. By the age of thirty, he’d sampled just about every kind of female there was, but he’d never had a half-breed Apache woman, and he savored the thought of having her.

  Lark sat down on the edge of the chair, the voucher clutched in her hands. “I’ve come to take over my father’s business with the Prescott Bank, Mr. Cameron.”

  Jud steepled his long, slender fingers in front of him and leaned back in his chair. “Yes. I heard about your father’s untimely death. My condolences to you, Lark. It was a shame. He was a respected man here in Prescott.” Respected for the quality of horses he raised, Jud amended silently, and endlessly gossiped about because of his squaw wife and breed daughter, plus that menagerie of coloreds, greasers, and God knew what other half animals he had working for him at his ranch.

  Lark inclined her head. “I bring an Army voucher to place in our account, Mr. Cameron.” She stood and laid the voucher and book in front of him. Swallowing her pride, she admitted, “I’m not familiar with how to bank. If you will show me…”

  “Of course, Lark.” He studied the Army voucher, some of his smile slipping. That damned Frank Herter was giving her top dollar for the offspring of that red Kentucky Stud! The U.S. Army had commissioned Herter directly as supply officer in charge of buying horses for the forts in the northern Arizona Territory. Because of that, Colonel Morgan couldn’t control Herter’s dealings or what he paid for a particular ranch’s animals. Jud had wanted Herter to buy his own stock at top price, but Herter had claimed the Gallagher stallion sired better foals. Clearly, he needed that red stallion. Well, it was just a matter of time and he’d have him.

  Cameron fingered the thick, heavy paper with Herter’s signature on it. Herter was due to retire shortly. Soon they’d be rid of that bastard, who had stood like a wall between the Ring and Gallagher’s Ranch.

  “Before I can take this,” Cameron said, “you must sign it. Can you write your name?”

  Lark held his gaze. “Yes, I can. I also speak three languages fluently.” Lark couldn’t read or write well, but she relied on her memory, which had never failed her.

  Jud placed a pen and ink pot in front of her. “I’m impressed,” he complimented her smoothly. “After I heard you quit school, I lost track of your education.”

  She signed her full name across the back of the voucher. “My father became my teacher,” she explained tersely.

  Studying her neat penmanship, Jud smiled. “And quite a good one judging from the flourish of your handwriting.”

  Praise coming from a snake was still venom in disguise as far as Lark was concerned. She ignored his compliment. “I want six hundred dollars put in this,” she said, pointing to the green bankbook, “and I want four hundred dollars in cash.”

  “First you’ve got to pay up on this month’s mortgage, Lark,” he said, shaking his head.

  Lark’s mouth fell open. “What? My father paid this month’s mortgage already!”

  “Do you have any proof that he did? My teller always gives him a payment slip confirming that the mortgage was paid on time. Do you have it?”

  Her head swam in confusion. When Father Mulcahy had brought her father’s body back in the buckboard, all his money and his gold watch had been missing. There had been no payment slip in the bankbook she had retrieved from his shirt pocket. “But he was killed after leaving Prescott. That means he stopped here at your bank and paid the money we owed, then got supplies and had a drink over at the saloon before he left.”

  With a lift of his shoulders, Jud said, “I’m sorry, Lark, but there’s no evidence he paid the one hundred dollars he owes the bank this month.”

  She sat down, dazed. If only she understood math and banking! If only she wasn’t so poor at reading and numbers. Anguished, Lark knew her father had already paid this month’s mortgage. She looked up at Cameron’s smiling features and hated him even more, knowing she would have to pay two months’ mortgage. Education was power, she was discovering.

  Jud smiled paternally once the transactions were complete. “Are you going to
be selling your ranch soon?”

  Lark stuffed the books in her pocket. “No.”

  With a light laugh, he stood. “Now, now, Lark. No woman can handle a ranch by herself. Surely you know that.”

  Her jaw tightened. “I’m half Apache, Mr. Cameron. Apaches know their women can do anything a warrior can do. I’ll run the ranch.”

  Jud scowled. Damn her, anyway! She had her father’s obstinacy. Trying to soothe her ruffled feathers, he took another tack. “Since you’re going to manage your ranch, then I need to discuss buying water rights from you, Lark.”

  Slowly she rose to her feet. “I have only enough water for my livestock, Mr. Cameron.”

  “Come now! You’ve got artesian wells on your property. Surely you can see your way clear to selling me some water over the summer months. I’ve got ten thousand head of cattle that will die if I don’t get them water.”

  Lark stood her ground, her jaw set. “I don’t have enough for both my stock and yours! I’m not interested in selling water rights.”

  “Goddammit, I’m not going to have my herd die just because you’re being a stubborn redskin!”

  Lark gasped, anger exploding within her. She lunged toward Cameron, poking her finger into his chest. “You cowardly dog! You shot my father over this very issue! I know you did!” Her nostrils quivered, and she held his shocked stare. “My father wouldn’t sell the rights to you and I won’t either,” she whispered tightly.

  With a curse, Jud strode to the door and jerked it open. “Get the hell out of here! You’re as crazy as those drunken Injuns! Going around accusing me of killing your father—that’s ridiculous! Get out!”

  She stood where she was, trembling with fury. The silence became suffocating, both of them breathing hard. Her voice was a rasp when she spoke. “I’ll leave, Cameron. But I’m going to track down my father’s killer. I know you had something to do with it. I know it had something to do with the water rights to our ranch. And I won’t let you get away with cold-blooded murder. I swear it….”