Lasso That Cowboy

by Lynde Lakes

  Once she was sure he couldn’t get loose, she re-climbed the tree. Using leverage, she eased his bound body to the ground, and then released her rope from above. Amber untied his neckerchief and stuffed it in his mouth. She slipped her rope from his arms, rolled his body into a ditch, and covered him loosely with a mesquite branch. She looked down at him as she re-looped her rope. “When this is over, I’ll come back and free you. And if I don’t come back…”

  Sweat rolled from Amber’s face. She grabbed her canteen from her saddlebag and took a long swig to fight dehydration. She needed to stay fit for whatever came next.

  Amber hid her shadow’s horse in a tangle of mesquite and tied the animal securely. “I’m sorry about tying you up, boy. Really sorry.” She didn’t want him showing up somewhere without a rider.

  One down, she thought as she remounted Firebrand. She was getting better at climbing on and dismounting. “I couldn’t manage, pal, if you didn’t cooperate,” she said as she reined him toward Verde Creek.

  Another wave of doubt hit her. She knew the man she’d tied up was one of the bad guys. Could she have forced him to lead her to Alicia? No. She had done the right thing. It was one less bad guy to deal with.

  Her heart pounded in quaking thuds. How many others were there? And how the devil would she deal with them? First, she had to see what she was up against, then improvise. She groaned. After the guy who’d called her showed up, any action could be too late. I will survive, she repeated to herself in a mantra. Amber closed her eyes, bringing forth a cherished image of the man she’d come to love. She’d had dreams of after this was over, impossible dreams that included making a life with Luke and Alicia. But she had failed him. He would never trust her with his daughter again. “Luke,” she whispered to the breeze. “I’m so sorry I brought all this misery to you.”

  He’d been through so much already, losing his brother, Parker, his dad and his wife. If he lost his daughter, too… She couldn’t let that happen. “God, I need you now like I’ve never needed you before. Help me save this spunky little girl.”

  The sun slipped behind the hills, shadows deepening. Amber recognized the rise in land. Endless Cave was just ahead. The shadowy mouth looked dark and menacing. Caves and mining shafts had a lot in common. Thank goodness this wasn’t her destination. Anything could be inside, unstable ground, wolves, snakes. She reined Firebrand to the left away from the entrance.

  A hawk flew up, wildly flapping its wings as it deserted a twisted mesquite growing near the cave entrance. Startled, Amber jerked the reins, making Firebrand jump to the side. “Sorry, Firebrand,” she said, steadying the horse.

  “That’s far enough,” a man shouted as he stepped from behind a boulder with a rifle aimed at her heart. “What took you so long?”

  His coal black hair had a streak of platinum in the deep wave combed back from his forehead. He was over six feet tall with a wrestler’s body and a lean, angular face with deep-set, icy black eyes. A straw hat dangled down his back from its chinstrap. Always before, there had been stocking masks. Now he flaunted his features. Not a good sign.

  Amber felt the blood drain from her face. Her trembling fingers tightened on the reins as she brought Firebrand to a halt. She got a glimpse of the top of a helicopter behind the tangle of mesquite.

  “Get down, nice and slow,” the guy with the platinum streak said in a gravely monotone. The up and down once-over he gave her made her skin crawl.

  Behind him, a big guy with massive arms and black stubble on his face, and the tall blonde with the Las Vegas showgirl figure, backed him up with rifles. All three were darkly tanned and wore typical ranch clothes—blue denim shirts, worn Levi’s, and straw hats—pushed back off their faces. They’d dressed the part, even down to the worn jeans, to blend in with the other ranch workers. Probably spoke Spanish, too. The men would pass scrutiny—the woman wouldn’t.

  “Where’s Alicia?” Amber was surprised at the steadiness in her voice.

  “Where’s the journal?” The guy with the platinum streak looked toward her horse. His gaze zeroed in on her saddle bag.

  “You guessed it,” she said, putting sass into her retort to buoy up her courage.

  He grabbed the saddlebag and dumped the contents on the ground. Good thing she’d had the forethought to tuck her gun inside the blanket. He cut her triumph short when he shook the blanket, too, and the gun fell to the dirt.

  He gestured with his head toward her, and the guy with the five o’clock shadow did a thorough body search.

  “Watch your hands, Big Guy,” she snapped as he invaded her private creases and hollows.

  In retaliation for speaking up, Big Buy pinched her hard on the bottom. She bit back a yelp and glared at him. He laughed. “She’s clean, Ricardo,” he said.

  Ricardo. Amber remembered hearing the name Ricardo Carrillo and had seen it in the journal. Because his name was on some of the documents, she’d assumed he was a partner in the plastic firm.

  “Look, we had a deal, Mr. Carrillo.” His head jerked back and his eyes narrowed at her use of his last name. “Now that you’re sure I’m harmless, I want to see Alicia.”

  Carrillo glared at her a moment, then thumbed through the journal. “Where’re the pages with the account numbers?” Had Mr. Rhoades held back pages? Why? And where were they now?

  If she admitted she didn’t know about any missing pages, Carrillo would kill her on the spot. “You didn’t think I’d come here without a couple of aces in the hole, did you?” She wished she were as clever as she sounded. “Give me Alicia and you can have them.”

  “You don’t have them on you. So where are they?”

  “I hid them on the trail.”

  He laughed smugly. “My man will know where you stopped along the way. Probably saw you stash them.”

  She lifted her chin. “Don’t count on it. Believe me, no one knows where I put my insurance. No one.” Not even me.

  Carrillo looked over her shoulder as though he expected the rider who had tailed her to show up any minute. “Nina,” he told the woman, “take the lady’s horse and find Pedro.”

  Amber shivered. Pedro Montoya had been one of the confirmed new hires at Buck’s ranch. Was Mr. Big Guy the other new hire—Angel Garcia?

  She was matching names with faces, but what good would that do her if she were dead? “I hate to be a broken record, but I want Alicia. How do I know you even have her?”

  “You have no leverage to make demands,” Carrillo said. “But I’ll let you see the brat. In case you forgot, her life is in your hands.”

  ****

  In the fading light of the bronze sunset, Luke and Matt loaded their gear into the ranch chopper. The sheriff and his men would follow in the sheriff’s helicopter. Luke frowned. He was setting out on a blind man’s journey. But he had one chance—find the secret passage on the far side of the hill that cut through the bowels of Endless Cave, then follow it to the west bank of Verde Creek. No one had ever made it through that part of the cave and lived to tell about it.

  A truck sped across the tarmac and skidded to a stop in front of him. He was surprised to see his mother behind the wheel. The lines in her face looked deeper, her gaze more intense. The last time he’d seen her distressed like this had been just before Dad died. He stiffened. “Do you have news?” he asked as she leaned her head out the window.

  “No, but—” She pressed two rosaries with silver crosses into his hand. “Give one to Matt.” She gestured toward his brother, who looked up and waved, but continued loading emergency supplies. “Molly said you men were going into the lost passages of Endless Cave. Please, keep the rosaries close to your hearts.”

  Luke forced his thanks past the constriction in his throat. The kidnapping and everything connected to it had been hard on his mom. And she’d come to love Amber like her own daughter. If that wasn’t enough, now she had to worry about her only remaining sons going into the inky passages of hell. He had to succeed, or the whole family would never be t
he same.

  Minutes later, with Matt at the controls, the brothers were airborne, heading for Endless Cave with the whir of the propellers pounding in their ears. With the threat against Alicia’s life, Luke hadn’t dared to follow Amber in a more direct way, although every fiber of him wanted to. She’d raced into danger, gambling her life for Alicia’s, showing a love as great as any mother’s. She’d taken a tremendous risk. And it might be for nothing. There was no proof Alicia was even in the state.

  Luke touched the rosary. His gut wrenched. The world was closing in on him, and his mind exploded with an emotion so crushing, so devastating that it was beyond anything he’d ever felt before. Amber may have already sacrificed her life for Alicia. Holy Mother of God, he could lose both Amber and his darling little Rosebud.

  As though sensing Luke’s agony, Matt reached over and touched his arm. “Hang on, bro.” He cleared his throat. “I was wrong about Amber. She’s an emotional wildcard, but sometimes it’s good to have one of those in your hands.”

  Luke nodded. That was as close as Matt would come to saying he liked Amber—that he trusted her. But his remark was too much like a eulogy for Luke to draw much satisfaction from it.

  An image of Amber’s heart-shaped face with those huge green eyes lifted his sagging spirits. In spite of her amnesia and fears, she had always put his daughter first. He’d been right about her from the beginning. She was all heart, all about giving. He’d been a fool not to let her know he loved her more than any woman, anywhere, living or dead. Without Amber he’d be a shell of a man going through the motions, with no zest for life. He had to save Amber to save himself.

  Why did the kidnappers want her? Did she know something deep in her subconscious? Those bastards had used razor blades on their other victims. Would they cut Amber, trying to find out things she couldn’t possibly tell them because she couldn’t remember? Or had never known? Luke’s stomach knotted. If she couldn’t tell the kidnappers what they wanted to know, they wouldn’t need her anymore. They’d already killed a passel of innocent people. If he didn’t find Amber first, it would be over for her. His heart thundered in his ears. He couldn’t let her die without knowing the depth of his love—a silent cry tore at his throat—couldn’t let her die period!

  He should have made love to Amber. The memory of their last kiss twisted his heart. In that moment, he had forgotten everything but how much he wanted her—the texture of her lips as familiar as his own, and the taste of her rushing through him with the force of flood waters, threatening to sweep him away on raging currents of passion.

  Hellfire. He mustn’t regret not making love to her! He had done the right thing. They would have the rest of their lives to make love. His thoughts forced heat to pool low in his belly. Dammit. He hated himself for thinking about lovemaking when lives were at stake. But he couldn’t help it. Tension charged his nerve endings. When he had Amber in his arms again, there would be no holding back. And she would be in his arms again.

  ****

  As Carrillo roughly pushed Amber ahead of him into the dank cave, a wave of anxiety flooded her. She was caught in darkness, afraid her next step would be on unstable ground and she would fall into a pit like when she had been a child.

  Carrillo flicked on a heavy-duty flashlight. “Stay to the right. There’s a crevasse to the left. Someone your size could easily slip through. When we dropped rocks inside, we never heard them hit bottom.”

  Amber shuddered. “You left Alicia in this cave alone?” Amber remembered the two days she had spent in total blackness. It was like being buried alive.

  “Nina was with her most of the time,” Carrillo said. “She left her a flashlight.”

  Carrillo shoved Amber into a stone room with camping supplies and packaged food scattered recklessly about. He and Big Guy followed.

  Alicia was nowhere in sight. “Where is she?” A long rope tied to a boulder had an empty loop. Amber’s stomach knotted. “You tied her up like a dog?”

  Carrillo frowned. “Should’ve hogtied her. It was Nina’s damned idea to give the kid some freedom to move around. Looks like the brat got into the supplies, made a mess of them. Hey, kid. Where are you?” He flashed the light around. “Looks like the brat’s playing hide and seek. She couldn’t have gone far.”

  Amber’s heart pounded. “What if she fell into that crevasse?”

  “She should’ve stayed put,” Carrillo growled. “When we find her, she’ll wish she did.”

  Oh, God. Amber wanted to find Alicia, but she didn’t want to return her to the clutches of these horrible people. Yet the thought of her falling into a bottomless pit was worse. “We have to look for her. She must be terrified.”

  “Angel,” Carrillo said, lighting a small lantern, “see if you can find the brat.”

  Now, Amber was sure. Big guy was Angel Garcia. He let loose with a string of profanity.

  “Let’s all go,” Amber said. “She knows my voice. We’ll find her faster.”

  Carrillo shoved Amber backward. “Forget it. You stay.”

  Garcia left, grumbling, leaving Amber alone with Carrillo. He was as dangerous as a rattler, but he was only one man. She would never get a better chance to escape. But she couldn’t go without Alicia.

  Although she could identify the players now, she still didn’t know what was going on. Amber had a hunch Carrillo wanted more from her than the missing pages, or she’d already be dead. Did she ever know the details of Mr. Rhoades’ Las Vegas deal? If only she could remember.

  “I’d like to clarify something,” Amber said as she eased away from him. “I understand about the plastics firm and the nuclear test site, but what’s with the explosives?” She almost choked on her bold-faced lie. She didn’t understand any of it, but her immediate goal was to get him talking.

  He put his rifle down next to him, and rested his hand on the gun handle of the weapon holstered at his side. “M-o-n-e-y,” he said, spelling it out. “Lots of money. The plastics firm is a front for making explosives. Stored them at an underground shelter at the edge of the nuclear test site, a place where no one would come nosing around.”

  Amber shuddered. His loose tongue confirmed that he planned to kill her. She spied Alicia’s Barbie doll behind a boulder. She started to pick it up. Carrillo grabbed it before she had the chance. He smoothed the doll’s hair in slow strokes that sent chills down Amber’s spine.

  “What did Senator Whitmore have to do with this?” Amber fought to hold her voice steady.

  “When Rhoades got suspicious,” Carrillo said, “he asked Whitmore about the government contracts. If he’d just backed out of the deal instead of digging around and stirring things up, he’d still be alive.”

  “Was anyone in the government involved?”

  “Yes and no. The government paid us inflated prices for the plastic parts we made by daylight, but they had no idea what we produced on the late shift. We combined ammonium nitrate, and crystal zinc—a byproduct of plastic production—and nuclear dust to produce untraceable dirty bombs for Ram Sandhi.”

  Amber had heard the name. Reports claimed they were a fringe terrorist cell hiding out somewhere in the Vegas desert. But something didn’t add up. “So why did you put the plastics firm up for sale? That brought attention to you.”

  “After Nine-Eleven, my partner, Morris, got scared and wanted out. He contacted Rhoades on the QT to buy the business. Morris, the stupid bastard that he was, turned his books over to Rhoades for review. Rhoades got suspicious of the other income and the maps of the nuclear site. That’s when he contacted Senator Whitmore.”

  “Morris tried to market an underground business?” Amber couldn’t believe it.

  “Like I said, he wasn’t the brightest neon sign in Vegas.”

  “Does Morris know you kidnapped Alicia?”

  “He doesn’t know anything anymore. He’s dead.”

  Amber forced herself to breathe. “You’re as hard on your friends as your enemies.”

  Carrillo held her
gaze with icy eyes and yanked off the Barbie doll’s head. “I assure you I’m harder on enemies.”

  With effort, Amber squelched a shiver. Show no fear, she repeated to herself. “You’re not going to let us go, even if I give you the missing pages, are you?” She knew the answer, but stalling gave her time to think.

  He stared at her. Deep furrows formed above the bridge of his nose. “If? There is no if. Only when.” Slowly, he removed his skintight leather gloves. Then, he pulled a pack of razor blades from his Levi’s pocket and withdrew one. It glinted in the yellowy light of the lantern. He shoved the blade into a metal holder that looked like an old-time shaving implement. “And I’m not a patient man.”

  ****

  Alicia rubbed her eyes, trying to wake up. She’d dreamed she’d heard a woman talking in a familiar tone, strong, but not mean. Comforting, like a mother’s voice—not a bit like Nina’s angry words. As mean as Nina was, Alicia feared the three men ten-gazillion times more. The man with the white skunk-stripe shook her really hard—said he’d kill her. She hadn’t even done anything bad, ’cept cry to go home. When they left her alone, she’d climbed up on this ledge so the bad men couldn’t find her. She lifted her chin. Her daddy would come soon. He wouldn’t leave her with these bad people.

  She knew this part of the cave well. Her daddy had brought her here lots a times. They’d climbed this wall and crawled into the mini cave just big enough for her and her daddy if he scrunched up like a pretzel. He had shown her the funny stick pictures on the wall and told her a story about the buffalo in the drawing. Hairy beast, her daddy had called him. Alicia eased a little way out of her hiding place and looked down from the high ledge above the stone room.

  Amber! Alicia wanted to scream her nanny’s name in delight, but she didn’t want to give away her hiding place. She would wait until the bad man left. Instead of leaving, he grabbed Amber’s wrist and jabbed her finger with something. Amber winced and cried out. Alicia forgot her wish to stay invisible and threw her flashlight at the man and shouted, “Don’t hurt Amber!”