by Jill Gregory
“No!” She scrambled up and backed away from him, her gaze fixed in dread on the rope. “No, don’t do this, Cal. I promise not to try to escape. So there’s no need.”
“I can’t trust you, Melora. There’s no point in arguing. You see, in my family I’m known as the stubborn one. That ought to give you a clue. So let’s not waste time.”
Even as Melora thrust her hands behind her back and pressed her lips together, determined not to make things any easier for him, he seized her, yanked her hands before her, and wound the rope around them in a flashing movement that made her eyes darken with anger. She couldn’t follow the pattern of the knot, and when he secured the other end of the four-foot rope around his belt, she could have spit with frustration.
So much for escaping.
And just how would she manage to get any sleep at all, tethered to this arrogant outlaw, who probably snored to raise the dead?
When he dropped down without warning onto his bedroll, she was dragged down to her knees. Tears of desolation and helplessness pooled along her lower lashes.
But I’d rather die than ask him for mercy or pity or anything at all, she thought fervently. After all, she was a Deane, and the Deanes were as tough as old boot leather.
She threw herself down on the bedroll, stifled a sniffle, and closed her eyes.
But, oh, she was conscious of Cal’s long, hard-muscled frame beside hers. Strange, she ought to be sleeping alongside Wyatt in a feather bed tonight, feeling the warmth, the solidness of his body, knowing the gentleness of his hands, his kisses, and learning what it was to love a man. Instead she was freezing to death on this godforsaken plateau, trussed up like a calf waiting to be branded, sleeping beside a stranger with no heart and the coldest eyes she’d ever seen.
Suddenly she felt a hand grip her shoulder, and lightning seemed to strike through to the bone. She drew in her breath as he rolled her over, and Melora tensed, every muscle taut for battle.
Cal held her by the shoulders, studying her face. “You’re crying.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
In the waxy starlight she saw his lip curl. “Uh-huh.”
“I don’t understand,” she said in a low tone, wishing she could wipe the moisture from her eyes, “how you can tear a bride away from her groom before their w-wedding. Haven’t you ever wanted to get married?”
He gave a scornful laugh. “Can’t say as I have.”
“Haven’t you ever loved someone?” Melora cringed as her voice broke, but she forced herself to continue. “Loved someone so much it hurts inside?”
“No.” Cal’s tone was as hard as the gates of hell. “No one besides my family.”
“Family? You mean you have a family?”
Silence. Then he answered at last. “A pretty big one, matter of fact, though it used to be bigger.” His thumb gently stroked away the tears that had slipped down her cheeks. “Look, Princess, I may not have grown up rich and spoiled like you, the owner of a huge, prosperous spread, but we’re not all that different. I have family that I care about, just as I imagine you care for your... sister?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Her name is Jinx.”
“What I’m doing right now, I’m doing for my family. Because—oh, hell, it’s a long story, and you’re not interested anyway. Let’s just say that maybe in the end I’m doing you a favor. Maybe your not marrying Wyatt Holden is the best thing that could ever happen to you.”
Melora jerked away, a deep, shuddering breath running through her. “You’re crazy!”
“Could be.” Cal restrained the urge to stroke her hair. It glinted like spun gold in the faint light that crackled off the campfire. He wanted to plunge his fingers through those thick, glorious strands, to bend close and kiss the back of her neck, to inhale the flower fragrance of her.
There was something about her, something that was getting to him. Something besides her beauty, her spunk, the graceful, decisive way she moved, the elegant tilt of her head.
No, he’d never loved anyone. He’d known plenty of whores and plenty of virgins; he’d slept with the former and steered clear of the latter. But a woman whom he could talk to, understand, tell his troubles to, take care of, kiss, hold... love?
Never.
What the hell was she doing to him? Why was he thinking about all this now, when he should be getting shut-eye, so they could make an early start in the morning?
Sunup, he’d told her, and sunup it would be. “Get some sleep. We’ll cover rough country tomorrow.”
“Where are we headed?” she ventured to ask, still trying to sort out what he’d said about his family and about Wyatt.
He hesitated for a moment before answering. “Guess you might as well know. The Black Hills.”
“Cal, why?” She lunged up, shivering in the frosty air that whistled through the pines. The wrenching note in her voice was not from cold or fear but from sheer tortured frustration. “What’s the point of all this? What do you want from me—or, rather, from Wyatt?”
Cal pushed himself up to sit beside her, and suddenly he looked fierce and frightening. “I don’t want anything from you, ma’ am,” he drawled with cool mockery, “except your company for a ways. But your precious fiancé, that’s another story. I want to hurt him. To make him suffer. To twist his insides with worry and pain and loss. And in the end to watch him die.” Cal finished with awful, brutal calm.
Melora gasped, all the color rushing from her face, leaving her smooth skin as pale as ice and her golden brown eyes wide with horror.
He reached out to grasp her shoulders again and gave her a shake. “That scares you, doesn’t it? Well, then don’t ask me any more questions about it because I guarantee you won’t like my answers. But you can stop thinking about marrying that son of a bitch because it will never happen. He’s a dead man.”
“You’re going to murder him?”
His mouth curled unpleasantly, sending twisting fear through her. “I’m going to see that he gets what he has coming.”
“Damn you, what did Wyatt ever do to you?” Suddenly, as he stared back into her eyes, she saw the wariness, the iron purposefulness close down in a harsh mask over his features. Everything about him tightened. If he’d been planning to answer her, he changed his mind.
“It’s a long story, Melora,” he said curtly. “Go to sleep, unless you’ve got something else in mind.”
His taunting tone and the sudden hard gleam in his eyes told her exactly what he was hinting at. Melora flushed to the roots of her hair, apprehension squeezing through her blood as she gazed at the lean outlaw beside her.
“The only thing I have in mind,” she retorted, shaking with a fury that shared space with fear, “is getting back to my fiancé and going on my honeymoon with him. We were going to San Francisco. And you’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined everything. But Wyatt and I will get married, and you’ll be the one who is dead!” she assured him, her eyes flashing.
Cal, looming over her, with that scornful, almost amused sneer on his face, seemed more unmoved than ever.
Because Melora was unnerved and at a distinct disadvantage, she forgot her resolve to master her temper and did what she usually did under such circumstances: she attacked.
“And when Wyatt’s killed you—or I have—I’ll take my cameo back off your carcass!” she hissed.
Suddenly a ghost of a grin flickered over his face. “Reckon I’d like to sit here and jaw with you all night, but we’d both better get ourselves some shuteye. Sweet dreams, Princess.”
“I hope you have nightmares.”
“How could I, sleeping next to you?”
Melora slumped back down on the bedroll as Cal slouched down beside her and closed his eyes. Odious, disgusting man! If her hands were free, she’d claw his eyes out. If she had her gun...
Oh, what’s the use? she thought, breathing hard as she lay there on the ground, her body taut with hatred. Your hands aren’t free, and you don’t have a gun, and you’re not going to
be able to escape tonight, so you may as well go to sleep. Because as smart and cunning as Cal thinks he is, and as much as he believes he’s thought of everything, one of these days he’s going to let his guard down, he’s going to slip up, and when he does, you’d better be ready.
She closed her eyes, no longer feeling sorry for herself. She was filled with a deep, passionate purpose. If it was the last thing she did, she’d turn the tables on this loathsome desperado.
* * *
She didn’t know when she drifted off to sleep; she only knew when she came awake.
It was still dark, the cool, deep blue darkness well before dawn, when the night is at its lushest and most dangerous. A rough hand covered her mouth, and an arm across her chest held her shoulders still.
Her eyes flew open to see Cal leaning over her, his broad chest crushing her breasts, his fingers digging against her lips. “Shh. Horses. Someone’s coming this way.”
Melora heard then. Muffled sounds in the brush, hoofbeats over rock, a low, guttural voice, another one answering.
Quick as a wink Cal cut her bonds and the rope that bound them together, and the next moment he was standing, with his rifle pointed at the two riders who broke through the trees.
“Hold it right there.” His rifle fixed itself in a businesslike way upon the broad chest of the man in front.
Melora couldn’t see his eyes, but his clothes looked dirty and tattered, and with his wide red face partially covered by a bushy black beard and the big rifle at his side, she knew instinctively he was trouble.
“Not another step, stranger,” Cal warned.
But the bushy-bearded man didn’t seem to notice Cal’s rifle. He halted his big gray horse, held up a ham-size hand to his companion, a sullen, unkempt-looking scarecrow in a greasy duster, and spoke in a soft, clever voice.
“Hold your fire, mister. Name’s Strong—Otis Strong. Me and Jethro here, we’re not looking for no trouble. But we seen your smoke from your campfire a while ago and headed this way. Lookee here, Jethro.” He smirked, half turning toward his companion. “We sure never expected to see a pretty lady out here in no-man’s-land, now did we?”
“Keep moving,” Cal said calmly. “My wife and I don’t take kindly to strangers.”
“We’re running mighty low on rations, mister. Maybe we could share your campfire tonight and buy some coffee off you and maybe some hardtack if you and the little lady can spare it—”
Before he could finish speaking, there was a dull thud. Melora, who’d been watching the bearded man closely with growing distrust, turned in time to see Cal topple forward and hit the ground.
She gasped in terror as she saw the third man. He stood over Cal, studying his prone form with a satisfied smirk, and she realized with a jolt of dismay that he’d evidently sneaked around the camp in silence and coldcocked Cal from behind.
Melora sprang toward Cal, horrified by the blood seeping into the dirt beneath his head. He wasn’t moving, and his eyes were closed, and the fear that he was dead struck her like a fist in her stomach, but before she could reach him, the third man barred her way. With a grunt he grabbed her around the waist.
“Good work, Lomax!” Jethro, the scarecrow, whooped.
Lomax looked to be about fifty, a potbellied and foul-smelling goat of a man with long, greasy red hair and lashless eyes the color of river mud. Instinctively Melora kicked him in the shin, and he released her with a bellow of pain.
“Git her,” Strong commanded as she bolted. Jethro spurred his pinto forward.
She got no farther than the shadow of the pines before Jethro whipped the horse around her, cutting her off. With her heart in her throat, Melora changed direction, darting to her left, but found Lomax blocking that path, his arms outstretched. Strong slid from the gray and sauntered over, stepping over Cal’s unmoving form without even glancing down.
“I told you boys I’d find us a woman to keep us entertained while we’re hiding out,” he said smugly, grinning around the group. He approached Melora, beaming like a skunk eating cabbage. “And a real looker she is, too.”
“You leave me alone.” She retreated a step as he bore down upon her. “If you let me tend to... to my husband, he might live. If not, you’ll all be hunted down for murder! So if you don’t want to get yourselves hanged—”
“Hell, we’re already bein’ hunted for murder,” Jethro broke in, guffawing, shrugging his bony shoulders. “And they kin only hang us once, so why the hell should we give a damn about your poor ol’ husband there?”
The chill that swept through Melora froze her blood like creek water. She knew there was no point cajoling or arguing with these men. She recognized their ilk. Suddenly she dodged past Strong, whipping by him so quickly he didn’t have time to grab her. She ducked beneath the pine boughs and ran through the thick, soft blackness toward the stream. From behind her came the noise of pursuit, and her feet slid ever faster over the rough ground.
Was Cal dead? Horror churned through her. My God, she was trapped out here with these three murderers! She knew what they would do to her, and shivers convulsed down her spine as she plummeted forward in a desperate run for freedom. She’d rather die than be caught; she’d rather break her neck running through this thick, pillowy blackness than submit to them.
But as she spied the glint of the stream and pelted toward it, a rope slithered around her shoulders, slid nearly to her elbows, and then tightened so swiftly she gasped in pain. She was flung to the ground as the rope jerked sharply, and then Jethro leaped off his horse and trod over to her, grasping the rope between his hands.
Lomax and Strong appeared out of the darkness and leered down at her as Jethro knelt, grabbing a handful of her hair as she struggled to sit up.
“Hope you’re worth all this trouble, lady.”
“Bring her back to the hideout,” Strong ordered without further ado. “Me and Lomax’ll check out the camp and get their horses and supplies and finish off that hombre. Then we’ll meet up with you straight away. And lookee here, Jethro,” he added, jabbing a finger at the scarecrow twisting the rope in his hands. “You’d better make damn sure she’s still alive and kicking until we’ve all had a turn with her. Don’t you forget.”
Fighting back the nausea rocking through her, Melora presently found herself wrenched up before Jethro on his horse, the rope still taut about her shoulders, crushing her bones. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. The fear was now a living, breathing thing inside her, consuming every thought. She tried to keep from trembling as the pinto galloped through the darkness, crossing a short gully, then veering west beneath the shadow of a series of buttes.
Strong and Lomax had gone back to finish Cal; that meant by now he was almost certainly dead. And she, instead of finding herself the prisoner of one man, someone at least who had demonstrated no desire to hurt her, was now the captive of three cold-blooded murderers, three disgusting animals who planned to do far worse than shoot her.
She closed her eyes as they rode, picturing her little sister, recalling all the happy times she and Jinx had shared in their home and out on the range. She remembered their picnics at the swimming hole, the days spent watching Pop and the ranch hands breaking in newly caught mustangs, evenings with Pop and Aggie on the porch drinking cool lemonade while the sun set over the golden prairie. What she wouldn’t give to be back there right now, riding across her own belovedly familiar rangeland, breathing in the sharp tang of pine, the sweet night air, with her own stallion, Dusty, galloping beneath her.
The pinto halted so suddenly Melora jerked forward.
“Here you go, lady,” Jethro drawled with mocking politeness as he pushed her off the horse, sending her tumbling down into tall, stringy weeds. He dismounted and yanked her up by the rope, grinning as she cursed at him.
“Guess I might as well tell you, I got only one use for women, and aside from that, I don’t like ‘em much. Lomax or Strong don’t neither, so if you think we’re goin’ to coddle you, y
ou’re dead wrong. Dead wrong,” he reiterated, chuckling over the emphasis he placed on the word.
A shack loomed out of the murky grayness of the night. Dingy and ramshackle, with boarded-up windows and peeling logs, it looked about as inviting as a coffin. He pushed her inside and lit a kerosene lamp set on a small table sticky with spilled whiskey. Gray and black rats fled to the corners of the room, deserting a pile of filthy tin plates piled in the sink. Other than several bedrolls flung down on the earthen floor, the cabin contained only three chairs, the little table, and a fireplace half filled with blackened logs.
Melora took a deep breath. “If you let me go, I’ll see that you’re well rewarded—” she began, but Jethro again grabbed a handful of her hair and twisted it until she cried out in pain.
“Right now I don’t care much about money. We’ve got enough stashed away to last us awhiles, and when we want more, we kin just rob us another bank. What I really want is right here lookin’ at me with big brown eyes. See, little lady, I haven’t had a woman in ‘bout three years now. I’ve been stuck in a damn hellhole of a prison. Had to kill me a couple of guards to get out, but I made it. And now I figure I deserve a little fun.”
“I’m sorry,” Melora managed to croak, trying not to cringe as his fingers left her hair and groped to her breast. He grabbed it and squeezed. “I didn’t know. Of course you want to have some fun. If—if you take the rope off me, I’ll t-try to be n-nice to you. I’m sure you’re just lonely and—”
“Yeah, real lonely.” He hooted, grinning from ear to ear as if showing off the rotten yellowing teeth that gleamed like those in a jack-o’-lantern. “Well, why not?” Suddenly he let go of her breast. He studied her eagerly, his small, wolfish eyes gleaming with an unbridled lust that curdled her stomach. She tried to remain still and calm beneath that insulting scrutiny, but it took all her willpower to manage it.
