The kitchen doorknob rattled and then the door opened interrupting her thoughts.
“Smitty,” she exclaimed her hand covering her racing heart. “You startled me.”
He stared at her in silence through the darkness giving Chaney an eerie feeling. Why hasn’t he turned on the light? What is he doing in here at this hour? When did he get a key to the house?
“Is something wrong? Are the rustlers back?” Chaney stood, but before she’d moved a step, Smitty wrapped his wiry fingers around her wrist.
“Yes, we need to hurry.” He dragged her toward the door.
When he pulled her, Chaney’s foot caught on the leg of the table jarring it. The milk carton fell to the floor. “Wait, Smitty.”
“I said we need to hurry. Move.”
With his last word, Chaney felt a pistol under his jacket as he pressed against her to open the door. Fear as cold and hard as the barrel of the gun froze the blood in her veins. Walking in stiff-legged steps, she tried to slow him down.
“Smitty, what are you doing? Let me call Jed. He can help us with--”
“He’s helped enough,” Smitty growled. “And if you wake up that nosey housekeeper I’ll shoot you both.”
Chaney stumbled as he shoved her out the door onto the porch and down the steps. “What? Smitty--”
“Shut up.” He grasped Chaney’s upper arm in a painful grip.
“Ow!” she cried her knees almost buckling at the intensity of the pain.
He ignored her and hauled her to a truck that’s motor was running. The door was open though no light shown from within. With a strength belying his age and size he slammed her against the truck. “Get in.”
“I’m not going--” The barrel of the gun halted her words.
“Get in.”
***
“Quiet down, boy,” Jed said, patting Sterling’s neck as the stallion tossed his head. “Patience has never been my strong point either.”
They were behind a stand of Aspens overlooking the fence line where the rustlers had broken through before. The anonymous tip to the sheriff saying the rustlers would strike again tonight was looking like a hoax.
Jed glanced in the direction of his uncle’s house where his daughter slept. It had been a long evening trying to explain to her why they weren’t staying at the ranch with Chaney. His throat had felt like gravel after reading four stories before she fell asleep. When he kissed her forehead before leaving the room, he thanked God for giving her back to him. Then he prayed that Chaney would allow him to be a part of his unborn child’s life.
His gaze moved back to the rise between his uncle’s and Chaney’s land. Something didn’t feel right. They had been sitting out here for two hours and nothing. He glanced at the sheriff again.
“Wait here,” he said, and then broke from the trees.
Jed gave Sterling free reign as they raced over the pasture. Though neither was accustomed to jumping, they cleared the fence in a smooth arc.
Sterling’s long stride chewed up the distance between the rise and Chaney’s house. In a matter of minutes, Jed was jumping from the horse’s back and stomping into the bunkhouse.
He scanned the room. Five men sat at a table littered with cards and cans. Only one man was missing. Jed feared he had his answer to who was bleeding Chaney dry.
“Where’s Smitty?”
“Went out a couple hours ago,” one man said.
“Where?” Jed demanded. All he received in answer were shrugs from all the men.
Jed slammed the door and remounted Sterling. A quick turn and he rode to the house.
It was dark and silent. In all probability, Chaney and Martha were sleeping and he was going to disturb the entire household. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of doom.
He reached in his pocket for the house key as he climbed the steps. Pulling open the screen, he froze. The door was ajar.
Now Jed knew his intuition had been right. Chaney would never leave the house unlocked. When she was a teenager, someone had broken in while her father was out of town. No one had been hurt, but ever since then Chaney had been obsessive about locking up at night. Jed wished he had a weapon other than his fist as he pushed the door open.
Not wanting to alert the intruder if they were still there Jed didn’t turn on the light. He walked as silently as he could, easing his way toward the hall. Two steps into the room and his feet flew out from under him. “What the hell?” he cursed as he landed flat on his back.
“Who’s there? Oh, Jed,” Martha said as she turned on the lights. “What are you doing?”
Jed looked across the room. The housekeeper was standing just inside the entryway, a broom in her hand.
“Where’s Chaney?” He asked as he stood and milk dripped from his hand.
“In bed, I assume. I thought you were staying at your uncle’s ranch. What are you doing eating here?” Martha asked as she walked across the floor. She pulled a towel from the counter and handed it to him.
“I’m not eating. I slipped in the milk spilled on the floor.” He wiped himself off as best he could as he made his way to the hall and up the stairs. There was no need to be quiet now. If his curses hadn’t warned an intruder someone was about, the light in the kitchen had.
Bursting through Chaney’s bedroom door, he came to a dead stop. The covers weren’t disturbed at all. Jed rushed out of the room and back down the stairs. This time he went to the office. The door was open. He looked inside.
No Chaney.
Dread seeped into his bones. His footfalls were loud in the quiet house increasing his unease as he made his way back to the kitchen.
Martha stood with the refrigerator door open. One hand held the door; the fingers of the other pressed against her lips. The milk carton she must have been putting away had fallen from her grasp and lay at her feet, spilling more milk on the floor.
“Martha, what is it?”
“It’s her plate,” she said turning fear-filled eyes on him.
Those eyes, the almost empty plate, spilled milk, no Chaney. It all added up to bad news.
Like the shrill scream of a child, the phone rent the heavy silence in the room. Jed grabbed it from the counter. “Sampson!”
“Thought you might be there by now.”
Jed’s blood ran cold at the sound of the familiar voice.
“Where is she, Smitty?” he growled into the phone.
“Watch your tone, boy. I’m tired of takin’ orders from the likes of you. Miss Priss is jist fine. She’ll stay that way long as you call off your dogs and do what you’re told.”
“First, I talk to Chaney.” He heard a yelp over the phone line. Jed knew the man must be yanking on Chaney’s hair. Having her hair pulled was the only kind of pain Chaney couldn’t stand.
“First,” Smitty hissed, “You call off the sheriff and his men. Then maybe I’ll let you talk to the princess.”
The line went dead.
Before Jed could contact the sheriff on his phone, he heard hoof beats outside the house. He stepped close to Martha who still stared wide-eyed at the phone. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he forced her to meet his gaze. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll be right back. I have to go talk to the sheriff.”
She nodded and he gave her shoulders a hopefully reassuring squeeze before he walked outside. The short walk didn’t give him much time to devise a plan. He knew he couldn’t just let Smitty have his way. The fear that someone else on the payroll was involved made him wary of doing anything else. An accomplice might be watching and reporting in. If he didn’t send the sheriff away, Chaney would pay the price. He couldn’t risk her life.
He hid his anger and fear as best he could when he reached the sheriff at the bottom step. “I just got off the phone with your office. Seems it was a hoax. Some kids that heard about the trouble out here called in to see if they could fool you guys. Guess you better call everyone in.”
He held the sheriff’s questioning gaze. The way the man looked at him told
Jed the sheriff didn’t believe a word he was saying. The sheriff pulled out his radio though and called the stakeout off. While he waited for everyone to check in Jed watched him pull a pad from his front pocket and scribble on a piece of paper. After replacing his radio, he tore off the paper and put it in his hand. Jed palmed it in his when they shook hands.
Jed didn’t chance looking at the note out in the open. With Chaney’s most trusted employee a kidnapper he wasn’t willing to take the chance someone else wasn’t in on it as well.
When he reentered the house, Martha was on her knees cleaning the floors and crying. He went to her and gently urged her to her feet.
“I’ll get her back, I promise. Don’t worry.”
“Why?” Martha wailed. “Why would Smitty want to hurt her?”
“I don’t think he wants to hurt her. I honestly don’t know what he wants,” Jed replied as he helped her to a chair at the table. He bent and finished cleaning up the mess. Anything was better than sitting idle waiting. “But I will find out and I will get her back.”
When he finished the floor, he pulled the note the sheriff had given him from his pocket. A quick scan told him the sheriff had sensed Jed’s tension and would be available at a moment’s notice. He’d given his cell phone number and a location close by. Jed shoved the note back in his pocket then filled a glass with water for Martha.
“Here, drink this. Waiting is all we can do now.”
“I don’t recall waiting being one of your best qualities.”
Jed had to grin. Martha knew him well. “No. It still isn’t. I think I’ll go in the office and see if I can find any clues to make some sense of this mess.”
“Change out of those wet clothes,” Martha said.
“My clothes are all at my uncle’s.”
“Not all of them. I washed some and put them in your and Chaney’s room,” Martha told him. “So go change.”
Jed knew an order when he heard one. He started up the steps.
He stepped into the room he had shared with Chaney. After closing the door, he walked to the dresser. Instead of opening a drawer to pull out clothes, he started fingering Chaney’s belongings scattered across the top.
When he had left the house that afternoon he never expected to be back in this room again. He certainly didn’t expect such overwhelming pain. She didn’t believe in him. Didn’t trust him. She definitely didn’t love him. So, what did Smitty want from him in exchange for Chaney?
He tossed down Chaney’s hairbrush and pulled open the drawer she had given him to use so hard it came all the way out. When he put it back in and tried to close it, it wouldn’t fully close. Jed reached in and pulled out a couple pair of panties that had fallen out the back of Chaney’s drawer above.
When he opened her drawer to replace them he chuckled. No wonder the panties had fallen out, the drawer was so stuffed it was overflowing; stuffed being the operative word. No neat piles of panties and socks for Chaney, no, shove it in and get on to something important was her opinion on putting clothes away.
Jed couldn’t resist straightening the drawer a bit. When he lifted out a pile of socks, he found something that amazed him.
In the back corner of the drawer, he found the cowgirl he had carved for her. Chaney had kept it even after she believed he deserted her. Jed dropped the socks and gingerly picked up the figurine.
He stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed. He stared at the figurine as if it were Chaney herself and a knot grew in his chest.
“Why couldn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t I tell you?”
He wanted to throw the figurine against the wall. It symbolized all the wasted time and words that had passed between them. “Empty words. Not important ones like, I love you, or I want to try again.”
He wanted to put it on a pedestal because it also symbolized the love they had both carried, unspoken, all these years.
“If I hadn’t been so damned proud, you would be here now, Chaney girl.”
Guilt threatened to swamp him. Fending it off Jed stood and placed the figurine on the dresser. He would use it as inspiration until he had Chaney back home where she belonged.
Even if she still doesn’t want you here with her?
Yeah, he knew doubt still resided deep inside him. When he told his uncle he wasn’t sure he would believe her if she did say she loved him, he meant it. Right now, that didn’t matter. Whether she loved him or not, he wanted her to have one last chance to make that choice.
He had wasted enough time. Jed quickly stripped the wet jeans and shirt off. He pulled on dry jeans from the drawer, but couldn’t find a dry T-shirt. After checking the other drawers, he glanced around the room.
His shirt was hooked on the bedpost near Chaney’s pillow. Jed lifted it to his face and inhaled deeply. Her wild rose body lotion had seeped into it and sent his senses reeling. Yep, she’d been using his shirt to sleep in, more proof that she had wanted more from this marriage than the ranch.
“Damn it!” he thundered clutching the shirt in his hands.
After a few deep breaths, Jed pulled the floral scented shirt over his head, tucked it in, snagged his wet clothes in one hand, and walked purposefully from the room.
When he walked in the kitchen and headed for the laundry room Martha took the clothes from him and told him to go on to the office.
“I’ll put on a pot of coffee,” she called as he walked down the hallway.
He agreed that would be a good idea. Not that he needed coffee. There was enough anger-induced adrenaline running through him to keep him up for a week, but Martha needed something to keep her busy.
Jed was a step from the office when the phone rang. He bolted into the room and grabbed up the receiver. “Sampson.”
“You follow orders real well, boy,” Smitty said. “Must be the military taught you your place.”
Jed was grateful that Travis McBride had insisted on keeping an old rotary phone on his desk. If it had been a cell phone, it would have crumpled his grip was so tight. He didn’t like being put in his place, especially by bullies.
“I want to talk to Chaney,” he said in the calmest voice he could muster.
“In time.”
“Now,” Jed growled into the mouthpiece.
“I told you not to give me orders,” the old man yelled. “You listen or you’ll never talk to the princess again.”
That was the second time Smitty had referred to Chaney as the princess. Jed couldn’t understand. The McBride’s had always been good to the old man. Why was he doing this?
“Fine,” Jed said through clenched teeth. “What do you want?”
“I want you to bring me the deed to the ranch.”
The deed? Smitty wants the ranch? “What? I don’t have the deed.”
“Get it.”
The line went dead.
Jed stared at the phone. How was he supposed to get the deed to a ranch he didn’t own? And where the hell was he supposed to take it?
“Was that him?”
Jed replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned to face Martha. “Yes.”
“Is Chaney all right?”
He wanted to lie and ease her worry, but Martha had always been able to tell when he did. “He wouldn’t let me talk to her.”
Martha’s quick intake of breath had Jed beside her in an instant. “But he knows if he harms her he won’t get what he wants. All I have to do is give him what he wants and we’ll have her back safe and sound.”
Jed wished he could believe that. Unfortunately, there were two problems with his plan. First, he didn’t have the deed or any right to the deed as far as he knew. Second, even if he could get it, Chaney would never sign over her beloved ranch. The unwelcome image of her lying lifeless on the floor with the damned deed clutched in her hand shot a new surge of angry adrenaline through him.
If it was the last thing he did, he would convince Chaney their child and his love was worth more than a piece of land.
***
; Chapter Thirteen
Chaney sat on the cot in a corner of the cabin her great grandfather had built as his first home. After he built the main house, workers used the cabin for refuge in the ever changeable Colorado weather.
“What are you starin’ at Princess?”
“A stranger,” Chaney said, as an evil grin spread on Smitty’s face. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I deserve it. I’ve worked this land for more ‘en forty years and what have I got to show for it?”
“A home forever?” Chaney replied indignantly.
“A home?” he cackled, standing and walking across to her corner. “I live in a damned bunkhouse! What kind of home is that? Your daddy was too cheap to build me a cabin, even one as plain as this old thing.”
“Did you ask him?” Chaney couldn’t imagine her father refusing Smitty anything. The man had been his right hand man.
“I shouldn’t have to ask,” he yelled at her. “He should have given it to me, but no, how does he repay me? He brings in a young stud to marry you off. That stupid foreman didn’t know cow shit from horse shit. How was he supposed to run a damned ranch?”
“I agree with you, and I had no intention of marrying Walker,” Chaney said. “I’m sure you knew that. Once my father was dead, why didn’t you say something to me? We could have worked something out. I figured you didn’t want the responsibility of being foreman. That’s the only reason I didn’t offer it to you, Smitty.”
“Don’t lie to me, Princess. I always knew you wouldn’t give up control of the ranch. That was obvious long before your daddy finally died. So I took matters into my own hands.”
A chill of foreboding brought goose bumps to Chaney’s arms. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Travis was crying in his beer one night about ruinin’ your life. He said you were burying yourself on the ranch instead of finding a husband and makin’ babies. Said he was afraid if he left you the ranch the way he planned, you’d bury yourself for good. It was pitiful.” He turned and spat on the floor. After wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he met her gaze again.
“I told him not to leave it to you then. Course, weak man he was, he said he had no choice. So I said, make her get married, or lose the ranch. He balked at first, but after thinking about it awhile, he agreed. Guess he figured you’d marry the foreman and everything would be perfect.
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