CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

  But Caroline forced herself to be strong. Trying to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary, she set out for the barn.

  Ferris had her horse ready, but he still looked worried. “If something’s wrong, Miss Caroline, you could tell me,” he said.

  She bent and kissed his cheek, an act that obviously increased his confusion, rather than soothing his worries. But it couldn’t be undone. “Work on your essay, Ferris,” she said, and then she mounted the horse with only minimal help from her pupil.

  There were many dangers between the ranch house and Cheyenne, especially for a woman alone, but Caroline didn’t think of them as she rode at her mare’s top speed. Her mind held no room for anything or anyone but Guthrie.

  Reaching Cheyenne, she went immediately to the Wells Fargo office and bought a ticket to Laramie. Uneasily, she watched as the driver and the man who would ride shotgun loaded trunks and baggage onto the top of the coach. These men were in real danger, and so were the passengers, and yet she didn’t dare warn them.

  Guthrie would die if she did.

  Still, Caroline’s conscience wouldn’t permit her to simply leave everyone’s safety to chance. She went to the driver, a weathered middle-aged man with a big mustache, and touched his sleeve.

  “Pardon me, sir, but I’d like to ask if you’re properly prepared for any highwaymen we might happen to meet.”

  He grinned at her and spat a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. “Highwaymen, ma’am? You’ve been reading too many of them dime novels.”

  Caroline bridled. “Robberies happen virtually every day,” she pointed out.

  “Not to me,” the driver answered, with insufferable arrogance.

  Caroline glared at him, tempted to show the man Seaton Flynn’s note and prove him wrong. But such a rash act would certainly bring on Guthrie’s death. She turned on one heel and climbed aboard the stage.

  An elderly lady and a young man with a very bad complexion soon joined her, and once again Caroline felt terrible guilt. Mr. Flynn had killed before, and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. Neither age nor youth would be any particular deterrent to him.

  “May I read your palm?” she said, in a burst of near hysterical inspiration. Caroline knew nothing about telling fortunes, but she couldn’t let that stop her.

  Twittering, the elderly lady extended her hand. “I just hope you see a handsome stranger in my future,” she said.

  “No, you don’t,” Caroline argued—whatever else he was, Mr. Flynn was undeniably handsome—pretending to study the woman’s outstretched palm. She frowned thoughtfully. “It certainly looks as though you shouldn’t travel any time this month,” she ventured. “I see potential disaster.”

  The woman laid one plump hand to an equally plump bosom.

  “Horsefeathers,” said the pimply young man with disdain.

  Caroline reached out and grabbed his hand, turning it over to examine the palm. “You will be captured by hostile savages,” she predicted, purely to pay him back for being so uncooperative. “They’ll stake you out in the sun and …”

  The scoffer had gone deathly pale beneath his many blemishes.

  “But,” Caroline finished triumphantly, “it will only happen if you travel to Laramie within the next ten days.”

  To her secret relief, and amusement, he got off the coach immediately and demanded that his baggage and ticket money be returned.

  The lady was not so easily led. “You’re not a fortune-teller,” she accused good-naturedly, squinting at Caroline.

  Caroline settled back against the hard seat and sighed. “You must get off the stage,” she said wearily. “I cannot tell you why, but I beg you to delay your journey for at least one day.”

  “Oh, dear,” murmured the lady. “You do seem sincere.”

  “I’ve never been more sincere in my life,” Caroline retorted. “Everyone on board this stage is in danger.” Including me, she reflected philosophically. She’d have to come up with some plan to protect herself from Seaton Flynn when the time came, but so far nothing had come to mind.

  Caroline’s companion was already reaching for the lever on the door. “Oh, driver,” she called. “Please get my things down again.” Her attention returned to Caroline. “If something is going to happen, then surely you should get off the coach, too.”

  Caroline only shook her head, unable to explain. No matter what happened to her, she couldn’t stay away and leave Guthrie to die because of her cowardice. She was sick with relief when the woman disembarked.

  Almost immediately, the driver put his head through the window of the coach and studied Caroline indignantly. “What have you been tellin’ these people?”

  She smiled and smoothed her riding skirt. “Not a thing,” she lied. “They decided to change their plans, that’s all.”

  He glared at her for a moment, then retreated. A few minutes later, the stagecoach was rolling toward Laramie. They would stop at the mountain way station for the night, provided they made it that far.

  Only when the journey was underway did Caroline pause to consider her own fear. She was walking right into Mr. Flynn’s trap, and yet she saw no other choice. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the little frame with the crack across the glass.

  Opening it, she found Annie’s photograph beneath the one of herself and Guthrie. Nothing short of total incapacitation could have persuaded him to give the item up; it was the one thing Caroline had ever known him to cherish.

  She touched Annie’s sweet face with the tip of one finger, and felt a painful twist in her heart. Even though Guthrie had covered the first picture with their wedding likeness, his love for Annie would always be there, underlying what he felt for Caroline. Once, she would have minded that very much, but now she only wanted to see him, and hold him, and say, “I love you.”

  She replaced the portrait of her and Guthrie and, after kissing his image, returned the frame to her pocket.

  Of course, if Guthrie was still alive, and Caroline prayed he was, he would be furious with her for obeying Mr. Flynn’s summons. In fact, she’d probably be in for a loud lecture, sprinkled with didn’t-I-tell-you’s and those empty threats to turn her over his knee that seemed to give him so much solace.

  Right now, Caroline thought with a sniffle, she wouldn’t even mind that if she could just be with him.

  As the afternoon dragged on and nothing happened, however, she was beginning to think that Seaton had only been bluffing. And she still didn’t have an idea to save herself.

  Then when it was almost twilight, and they were climbing steadily up toward the mountain trail, the riders came. Their horses galloped alongside the coach, and one man jumped into the wagon box with a defiant shout.

  Caroline was leaning out the window by that time and she watched in horror as the driver was thrown to the ground and nearly run over by the wheel. When shots were fired, she closed her eyes tightly and sank back into the coach.

  Only moments later, the stagecoach was brought to a noisy halt and a rider in a long canvas coat reached down to open the door on Caroline’s side.

  Even though the man was masked, Caroline recognized his dark, shining eyes. Seaton Flynn pulled the bandanna from his face and smiled.

  “I knew you’d come, darling,” he said formally, dismounting to stand on the ground, looking up at her. “You’ll never know how much I’ve missed you.”

  “Stop it before I vomit,” Caroline responded contemptuously, stepping out of the coach with as much dignity as she could summon.

  Seaton laughed. “You have spirit—a quality I particularly appreciate in my women.”

  “I’m not your woman,” Caroline replied, “and I never will be.” She was scared to death, but she knew that the less fear she showed, the better.

  He caught her chin roughly in a leather-gloved hand, while his men looked on, all mounted, all wearing masks and carrying rifles. “That’s where you’re wrong, Caroline, my love. Tonight you’ll share my bed, and I’ll see
what tricks you’ve learned from your persistent lover.”

  The men laughed at that, then one of them climbed up on top of the stage to open the strongbox by shooting off the lock.

  Caroline couldn’t help starting at the sound, even though she’d known it was coming. “I don’t care what you do to me,” she said, lifting her chin, “as long as you let Guthrie go.”

  Seaton mounted his horse and then bent to curve an arm around her waist. Before she knew it, she was in front of him in the saddle. “I don’t have to let him go,” he breathed into her ear. “I never captured him in the first place.”

  Twisting to look up into Seaton’s face, Caroline blurted out, “But you had the picture!”

  A gloved finger traced the outline of her jaw in a familiar, proprietary way that chilled Caroline’s blood. “Some cow-hands jumped Hayes outside a saloon a few days ago,” he replied indulgently. “While he was kicking their asses from one end of the street to the other, Charlie here went through his saddle-bags and helped himself to the photograph. It’s charming, by the way.”

  Caroline closed her eyes as pure terror swept over her. “How could I have been such a fool?” she whispered.

  Seaton’s lips touched hers, sending revulsion rippling through her, and his hand cupped her breast. She pushed him away, only to have him grasp her again, harder. “You’d better get used to my attentions,” he warned, in a husky undertone, “because you and I are going to be together until I get tired of you. And that’s likely to be a long time, judging by the way you’ve filled out.”

  Although she instituted a fresh struggle at that, Caroline couldn’t break free of Seaton’s hold. He reined the horse away from the stage and spurred it hard, and Caroline held on tight to the saddle horn.

  The branches of trees clawed at her hair and face as they rode farther and farther from the trail, but Caroline was too proud and too frightened to complain. The other bandits did not follow, though she suspected they were simply taking a different route so that anyone who tried to track them would be confused.

  Just at dark, Mr. Flynn pulled his horse to a stop in front of an isolated cabin. The place was weathered, all its boards crooked, with gaps between them in places.

  Seaton swung down from the saddle and reached up to lift Caroline after him. She could hear his men arriving from various directions, and desperation fairly choked her.

  Her escort gripped her by the arm and fairly flung her into the cabin. While she leaned against the cold stone face of the fireplace, the breath knocked out of her, Seaton lit a lamp. Light flared to reveal a dirt floor, a working stove, a spindly chair, and a bedstead with a stained mattress but no blankets or sheets.

  She drew a deep breath and stood up straight, only to have her captor grab her by the shoulders and fairly lift her off her feet.

  “Why did you do it?” Seaton rasped, baring his fine white teeth as he spat the words. “Why did you give yourself to that saddle bum?”

  Caroline raised her chin another notch. “I love him,” she answered starkly. “He’s my husband.”

  “We’ll see if he wants you when I’m through with you,” Seaton bit out, slamming Caroline down hard onto the dirty mattress and bending over her.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, so terror stricken that she could barely think. But she hadn’t forgotten her baby for as much as a moment, and she made a frenzied bid to protect it. “In the name of God, Mr. Flynn,” she whispered, “let me go. I’m expecting a child.”

  Seaton’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He thrust himself away from Caroline, turning his back. “The bastard planted his seed in you,” he breathed. “I’ll kill him for that!”

  Slowly, Caroline sat up, thinking of Pedlow, the man who’d killed Annie. “No, Mr. Flynn. He’ll kill you. I know Guthrie Hayes, and if you harm me or this baby I’m carrying, there won’t be a place on earth for you to hide. He’ll find you, and he’ll have his vengeance.”

  Seaton turned to her again, slowly, distractedly. If he’d heard her warning at all, he gave no sign of it. “There’s a woman who’ll know how to get rid of the brat,” he said, running hot eyes over Caroline.

  And then he strode over to the door, wrenched it open, and went out, leaving Caroline to stare after him, rocked to the soul by the horrible words that echoed over and over again through her mind. There’s a woman who’ll know how to get rid of the brat….

  Chapter

  Caroline tried to ignore the raucous laughter and coarse talk outside the cabin. For the baby’s sake, and her own, she had to pull herself together and try to think in a coherent, productive way. Somehow, she had to escape.

  But Mr. Flynn’s henchmen were all around the shack, standing guard.

  After drawing a deep, steadying breath, Caroline squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and smoothed her hair and her soiled, rumpled clothes. She would waste neither time nor energy wishing she hadn’t been taken in by Seaton’s trickery. The photograph had seemed to be incontrovertible proof that Guthrie had been captured.

  Given that belief, Caroline would have done the same thing all over again, once, twice, a thousand times.

  She began to pace the dirt floor as the din outside grew in intensity. Heaven knew Mr. Flynn was vile, but his men, if possible, were even worse. And he’d left her alone with them in his insane eagerness to fetch this mysterious woman who could erase all traces of Guthrie’s possession from Caroline’s body.

  A chill moved up and down her spine. Somehow, she had to get away before she was forced to sacrifice her child.

  Guthrie, she called, in desperate silence.

  “I say we don’t owe Flynn nothin’,” one of the outlaws said to another, and Caroline went to the window to see two men arguing in the shadow-streaked light from the lamps inside the cabin. “We got a right to a share of the woman, just like the gold we took.”

  Caroline laid one hand to her chest and ordered herself not to panic, then looked wildly around the shack for something she could use as a weapon.

  “This ain’t just any woman,” argued another voice. “You heard what Flynn said when he left here—any man as touches her, he’ll kill. Maybe he’s bluffin’, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna make him show his cards.”

  “I’m goin’ in there,” replied the first man, and Caroline’s hands tightened around the handle of the rusted skillet she’d found as she waited for the door to open.

  Instead, a shot made a bone-chilling twang sound in the deepening darkness, and a man screamed in rage and pain. “Godammit, McDurvey, you shot me!”

  “The boss gave orders and I mean to see that they’s followed,” was McDurvey’s answer.

  Caroline was peering through the window again by then, but she couldn’t make out McDurvey’s face, only his rangy frame and big, misshapen hat. A motion of his hand told her he was reholstering his gun.

  The injured man began to moan as his disbelief and his agony grew. “Somebody’s got to help me,” he whined, but as Caroline watched, the other men resumed their posts.

  She tried to ignore his suffering—after all, the man had meant to rape her—but the effort ran contrary to everything Caroline had ever been taught. Finally, she wrenched open the cabin door.

  Her would-be attacker was lying on the rough, filthy boards of the step, clutching a wound in his side, and she crouched to assess the damage.

  “Bring him inside,” Caroline ordered flatly, rising to her feet again.

  McDurvey and the others just stared at her, unmoving, their faces invisible in the darkness, while the wounded man tried to stand. With Caroline’s help, he managed to pull himself up by clutching the wood of the doorjamb.

  He was small and wiry, no taller than Caroline herself, with dirty blond hair that trailed past his shoulders and strangely guileless eyes. Behind them, Caroline knew, lurked the mind of a fiend, but she couldn’t leave him to suffer and die unattended, no matter what he’d done.

  No one protested or moved to stop her as she positioned her
self under the man’s arm and walked him to the bed. After depositing him there, she began opening and peeling back his bloody shirt for a look at his wound.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, glad of something to distract her from her own impossible predicament.

  “Willie Fly,” he answered, and the only feature in his childlike face to betray his real character was a slight curl to one side of his lower lip.

  McDurvey had blown away some flesh and part of a rib. Willie Fly was standing on the threshold of eternity without much to say in his own defense.

  Caroline glanced toward the stove. She’d need hot water and a clean cloth to accomplish anything, and it seemed to her that there was virtually no chance of Fly’s surviving. Still, she had to try. “Where are you from, Mr. Fly?”

  “Coffeyville, Kansas,” he replied, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

  Caroline went to the door, opened it, and asked for water. “Do you have any family?” she inquired, when she returned.

  Fly’s forehead was beaded with sweat, and his eyes were sunken. Dark smudges seeped through the skin beneath them. “Just a sister, Eudora. She won’t miss me none.”

  He knew, then, that he was probably going to die. “What made you take up with somebody like Seaton Flynn?” she asked, finding a valise and opening it. Sure enough, Seaton had a supply of clean shirts.

  “I might ask the same question of you,” Fly retorted insolently and, even in his dire position, he ran his eyes boldly over Caroline’s body, making no apologies for what he’d meant to do.

  Caroline flushed as she tore one of the shirts into strips. “Mr. Flynn had me believing he was a fine, upstanding citizen. But you don’t have that excuse, Willie.”

  Willie let out a raspy sigh and gazed up at the ceiling. For all that he was surely damned, he seemed resigned to his fate. Then Caroline realized he probably didn’t accept either God or the devil as being real. “Fine, upstandin’ citizens are for spittin’ on,” he said. “It was fine, upstandin’ citizens that stole my pa’s farm after the war.”