“Ick,” Bay said, and shuddered again.
Owen slid his arms around her. She pressed close to him, as she tried to still her trembling body. “I feel silly,” she admitted.
He rubbed his hands up and down her back and said, “My sister isn’t afraid of much, but she hates bats, too.”
Bay ducked her head and said, “It’s just that they look like … flying rats.”
She heard Owen chuckle. The husky sound, and the moist warmth of his breath against her temple, made her feel safe. She put her arms around him, which brought her soft breasts into contact with his rock-hard chest.
His arms tightened around her.
Suddenly Bay didn’t feel the least bit safe. In fact, the emotions she was experiencing felt downright dangerous. “Owen?”
She felt his hesitation before he let go of her and sat back so he could look into her eyes. “Are you okay now?”
She nodded. “I’m fine.” She was a great liar when she needed to be.
“I think maybe it’s time for bed,” he said.
“It’s so early,” Bay protested. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.” Oh, she was tired, all right. But still scared of what might go bump in the night. Exhausted, but aching all over. She was sure there was no comfortable way she could lie down to sleep.
“We’ll be getting up at first light,” he reminded her. “You’d better grab what shut-eye you can.”
It took a bit of maneuvering to get them both inside the tent. It was amazingly cold in the desert once the sun went down, since there was no foliage to hold the heat. They ended up spooned together inside the sleeping bag, with Bay’s uninjured cheek lying on her hand.
Bay tried not to notice the warmth of Owen’s body. Tried not to notice the muscles in his chest and thighs as they pressed against her. Or how much she liked the musky smell of him.
“This is cozy,” Owen murmured.
“This is all your fault,” Bay replied peevishly. If not for him, she’d be safe in her own sleeping bag. Alone. Instead of lying here loving how it felt to be snuggled up next to a Blackthorne.
“I’ve got no complaints,” Owen said.
“My father would roll over in his grave if he could see me with you like this.” She felt Owen tense and knew she was ruining the budding closeness between them. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “My brother was in that wheelchair at the breakfast table every morning to remind him that a Blackthorne had turned his eldest son into a cripple. And there were no consequences for what you’d done.”
“No consequences,” he muttered. “That’s a laugh.”
Bay turned her head to look at Owen over her shoulder, because there was no way to turn her entire body in the tiny space. “Were you ever punished? I never heard about it, if you were.”
“I got kicked off the football team my senior year.”
Bay snorted. “That’s no punishment.”
“It meant I wasn’t scouted for college football. Which meant my football career ended before it ever started.”
Bay was startled by his revelation. “You wanted to play football professionally?”
“I was big enough and fast enough and strong enough.”
“A Blackthorne playing football for a living? I can’t imagine it.”
“Neither could my father,” Owen said. “Or my brother Clay. But it was my dream. It ended when your brother got hurt.”
“It’s hard for me to feel sorry for you,” Bay said. “You walked away from your mistake. My brother will never walk again.”
“If I could change what happened that day, I would,” Owen said. “I can’t. I tried apologizing to your father, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Have you tried apologizing to Sam?”
She felt Owen move restlessly behind her. At last he said, “I’ve thought about it a lot of times. Once or twice I tried to see him, but he avoided me. Maybe I’ll try again. If you think it would help.”
“Apology or no, Sam will never accept the idea of your dad and my mom getting together,” Bay said. “It’s pretty hard for me to accept it myself, and I’ve seen them kissing. Everything’s been crazy since my dad was murdered.”
“Do you think that might have something to do with why your brother stole those mines?”
Bay stiffened. “I’m positive Luke didn’t take those mines. As positive as you seem to be that your brother didn’t do it. I’m sorry about what happened to your friend.”
“Being sorry isn’t going to help your brother if he was in any way responsible for getting Hank killed.”
“My brother came to the Big Bend for the same reason you and I did. To find the real culprits.”
“Why didn’t he just go to the authorities?” Owen asked.
Bay took a deep breath and said, “Because he knew the authorities would want proof when he accused your brother of stealing those mines.”
“Your brother’s crazy.”
Bay lifted Owen’s arm off her hip and shoved it back onto his own. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
There was no room to shift without bumping against hard male flesh. No room to turn without encountering the smell of a man who’d spent a day in the sun—a scent she found strangely alluring. No room to escape the brush of his soft hair against her temple.
“You’re more restless than two bobcats in a potato sack,” he growled at last. “Come here.”
He cinched a strong arm around her waist and hauled her back against him. Snug enough to feel what a profound male response all her moving around had produced. She should have felt frightened. Instead, she felt secure, protected by Owen Blackthorne’s embrace.
“Now go to sleep,” he snarled.
Bay would have said that was impossible, but she closed her eyes and started counting roadrunners and soon felt herself drifting off.
She didn’t know what woke her. Had no idea how long she’d been asleep. But she suddenly realized Owen wasn’t in the tent with her. And despite the fact they were supposed to be totally alone, she could hear him talking to someone.
Chapter 8
BAY CREPT OUT OF THE TENT AND CRAWLED cautiously toward Owen, until she could see him in the shadowy grayness between dawn and daylight. “So you did bring secret spy stuff!” she crowed.
Owen swore, as he swiveled on his knee to confront her. “What woke you up?”
“I heard you talking to someone. Who’s on the other end of that satellite line?”
“FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge Paul Ridgeway. I have to contact him at five A.M. every morning to let him know exactly where we are.” He held up a global positioning device.
“Even if we haven’t found anything?”
“It was two days before the Rangers realized Hank was in trouble,” Owen said. “Even with satellite photos, it took them another day to find his body. This way, if anything happens to us, the cavalry knows where to come running.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had all this stuff?” Bay asked.
“It was none of your business,” he said bluntly.
Bay made a disgusted sound in her throat.
“Sounds like you’re in fine voice this morning,” he said wryly. “How are you feeling?”
Bay surveyed the scabs on her hand and arm and tried a nonchalant smile that ended when she realized that the scraped skin on her cheek wouldn’t tolerate the strain. “Everything’s still a little sore, but I’ll be fine.”
“I want to see if we can find your horse before we have breakfast.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
They both went to work, folding up the sleeping bag and tent as though they’d been working together all their lives. Bay managed her ablutions while Owen repacked the satellite phone and the global positioning device. When she rejoined him, he said, “You’d better have a drink of water before we start.”
She took the two-quart canteen, stared into it, then swished it around. “This is nearly empty. Is this all the water we have?”
“I’ve
got another full canteen.”
“Thank goodness.” She hadn’t yet quenched her thirst, when she felt Owen taking the canteen away from her.
“Better save some of that till we catch up to your horse.”
“You said he’d be easy to find this morning.”
“Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t.”
Owen stepped into the saddle and reached a hand down as he took his foot out of the stirrup, so Bay could mount behind him. Once she was settled, he said, “Hang on. And don’t be wiggling around. We can’t afford any more accidents.”
Bay glowered at him. She clamped her hands on either side of his waist at his beltline, but his Colt .45 was holstered on one side, which kept her from getting a comfortable hold. She put her right hand above the gun, but that meant it was practically under his armpit. Then she moved it below the gun, but that put her hand low on his hip, close to his crotch.
“Sonofabitch.” He grabbed her hands and pulled them around his midriff. “Now hang on.”
Bay kept her breasts rigidly distanced from Owen’s back, but her nipples puckered anyway. It was that damned washboard of male abdominal muscle under her hands. The man could do commercials for those workout machines they advertised on TV.
The horseflies were a surprise. Where had they come from? She let go with one hand and swatted at one that seemed determined to bite her on the nose. And knocked Owen’s hat askew.
“That does it. Off.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Bay said. “I was getting bitten.”
“Off.” He grabbed her arm and levered her out from behind him and onto the ground.
“You’re not going to make me walk!” she protested.
He stepped out of the saddle. “We’re both going to walk, since the terrain here is mostly uphill, and give my horse a breather.”
Bay pursed her lips. She couldn’t very well insist that he let her ride, if he was going to walk, too. She wished she could change into her hiking boots, but they were tucked in her saddlebags, which were with her horse. He seemed perfectly happy in his lizard cowboy boots, but she knew they couldn’t be comfortable, since they weren’t meant for walking.
She followed him up the trail, a safe distance behind his horse. “I’ve been looking, but I haven’t seen signs of any tracks being brushed away. Have you?”
“Your horse destroyed whatever signs there were when he came through here,” Owen said. “Maybe we’ll find some again after we find him.”
They traveled the two-plus miles to the cairn of stones marking the junction of the Strawhouse and Telephone Canyon Trails. From the hoofprints in the loose sand, it was plain even to Bay (and she was no tracker) that her horse had taken the turnoff to Strawhouse Trail, rather than continuing along the Telephone Canyon Trail. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“We need the water and medical supplies your horse is carrying. We’ll have to go after him.”
“What if the men who have my brother went the other way?” Bay asked.
“They did go the other way,” Owen said, as he pointed out the faint compression marking the definable sole of an army boot a good dozen feet ahead of them on the Telephone Canyon Trail.
“Why don’t I go after my horse, while you stay on the trail of the men who kidnapped my brother?”
He lifted a brow. “You mean you’re going to trust me not to shoot your brother on sight?”
“Don’t even joke about something like that.”
“You don’t know how tempted I am to be rid of you,” Owen said. “But I think we’d better stay together.”
“I’ll be glad to take the less full canteen of water. I won’t need as much as you and—”
“I said we’ll stay together.”
Bay realized she didn’t really want to be out here alone. “Fine.”
“Mount up,” he said.
She stared at him. “Shouldn’t you mount up first?”
“I think it’s safer if I ride behind you.”
Bay didn’t argue with him. Time was passing, and the longer it took to find her horse, the longer it was going to take to find her brother. She mounted quickly, then extended her hand and took her foot from the stirrup.
Owen grabbed the saddle horn with his left hand and threw himself onto his horse behind her in a feat of such grace and strength that she only barely managed to stifle an admiring “Oooh.”
He surrounded her with his arms and took the reins from her, then clucked to set his horse in motion.
Bay realized as they entered a narrow creekbed choked with vegetation that there wasn’t much “trail” to the Strawhouse Trail. “Is the whole trail this bad?”
“No. It gets worse.”
They hadn’t gone very far before Owen reined to a stop. “The foliage in this wash is too dense to ride through. Which means we’re going to have to walk above it, along the side of the trail, and lead the horse.”
Bay took one look at the lechuguilla, sotol, and cat-claw cactus that rimmed both sides of the wash and groaned. “Good Lord. Why didn’t my horse stop here? This must have been impossible to travel through in the dark.”
Owen shook his head. “Beats me. Maybe he went a little loco.”
Bay was grateful for her cowboy boots when they began walking through the spiny cactus. “This stuff is dangerous.”
“Yep.”
Bay slipped, and Owen leaped to catch her before she could fall. “Thanks,” she said.
“Uh-oh.”
His voice was so quiet, Bay didn’t realize at first that in rescuing her, he’d slid into a lechuguilla. Several of the needle-sharp three-inch spines had pierced Owen’s boot and were embedded in his calf.
“Stand still,” she said. “Let me help.”
She slid a pocket knife from her boot, where she’d sewn a leather holder for it, and used the knife to cut the spines away from the bush. One by one, she pulled each of the spines out of his flesh, then out of his leather boot, and finally through his denim jeans. “Did I get them all?” she asked at last.
He moved his leg and said, “Whatever’s left is more a nuisance than anything else. We’d better get moving. The sun is getting hot.”
Long before they reached a faint trail on the west side of the wash that marked the end of the heavy vegetation, Bay noticed Owen was limping. “Are you okay?”
“Hurts like hell.”
She glanced at the leg of his jeans above his boot. “You’re bleeding.”
“Probably a good thing. Get rid of all the dirt.”
Bay chewed on her lower lip. “Doesn’t it seem a little strange to you that we haven’t found my horse yet?”
“Yeah, it does,” Owen admitted.
“What do you think happened to him?”
“We know he came this way,” Owen said, pointing to the recent hoof marks in the sand. All of a sudden, Owen’s horse jerked against the reins and began to whinny. “Whoa, boy. Easy, boy.”
Bay searched ahead to see what might have frightened him. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
“My horse. He’s down. It looks like he’s been hurt.”
Bay hurried toward the spot where she could see bits of the chestnut’s body through the vegetation, anxious to do what she could to help the animal, which was lying in the center of the sandy wash. As she approached, a half dozen turkey buzzards that had been dining on the concealed carcass were frightened into flight around her, their black wings filling the canyon from wall to wall.
Bay screamed in fear and backpeddled as fast as she could. Owen caught her, and she turned and pressed her face against his chest. His arms surrounded her and held her tight.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re okay. I have you.”
She clutched at him, her body trembling violently. She felt his hands smoothing her hair, heard him saying quiet words, but couldn’t make sense of them. As she calmed, she realized there was something odd about the scene she’d witnessed.
Suddenly, she leaned ba
ck and looked up at Owen. “There was no saddle. No saddlebags.” She pulled herself free, and holding her hand over her mouth and nose to stifle the smell of the decaying horse, crossed back to look at it. “Where are the saddle and saddlebags? What could have happened to them? Did he buck them off?”
Owen walked around the dead animal, examining the carcass and the ground around it. “He sure as hell didn’t buck off the bridle. And that’s gone, too.” His mouth formed a grim line. “Somebody else found your horse last night,” he said. “And left us a message.”
Bay gasped as she looked where Owen was pointing. Her horse had been shot—right between the eyes. “That’s horrible!”
“These are not nice men.”
Bay’s gaze slid uneasily back and forth along the trail, as she searched for some sign of the depraved soul who’d killed an innocent animal to make his deadly point. “Why didn’t we hear the shot?” she asked.
“Most likely muffled by these canyon walls.”
“You said they took the other trail,” Bay said accusingly.
“That footprint might have been put there to fool us into going in the wrong direction. Or maybe they split up.” Owen pointed to the compression of an army boot that showed beneath the horse’s tail. “At least one of them was here.”
“What do we do now?” Bay asked. “Go back? Or keep going?”
“If I were alone, I’d keep going. I think the smart move is to make sure you’re safe and then come back here on my own.”
“We can’t be far behind the men who took my brother. We can catch up to them, if we keep going.” Bay knew she was a liability now, but any delay might endanger Luke’s chances for survival. If the two men they were hunting would shoot a poor defenseless animal, she didn’t want to think what they might do, or might already have done, to her brother.
Owen shielded his eyes and peered up at the scorching sun. “We need to get out of the sun during the heat of the day.”
Bay waited with bated breath, as Owen looked back in the direction they’d come, then forward along the Straw-house Trail.
“Hell,” he muttered. “I don’t like either of my choices.”
“Please, Owen.”
He met her gaze and frowned. “Let’s go,” he said brusquely. “There are some limestone caves up ahead.”
The Texan Page 12
