She hoped the clear weather would help Jack find her in time.
The marshal was organizing search parties by the time Donovan got to town.
As he rode down Main Street, he saw the faces of his neighbors and friends grow wary as he passed them by. Mothers clutched their children to their skirts. Men took on a challenging stance.
Blade had returned.
As he brought his horse to a stop near Marshal Brown, he felt as isolated as if he had never lived these past few months as Jack Donovan.
Maybe it was the buckskin pants or the long, dark brown duster or the wide-brimmed black hat that sat low on his forehead. Maybe it was the six-inch bowie knife at his waist or the revolver strapped to his thigh or the two rifles fastened to his saddle. Or maybe it was just the look in his eyes. But somehow the people of Burr recognized him for what he was.
Dangerous.
Jedidiah looked up as Donovan dismounted. “Glad to see you, Donovan,” he said as casually as if the entire town wasn't staring at their neighbor in uncertainty. “I imagine you’ll want to help plan this operation.”
“You imagine right.” Even his voice had changed, had taken on that low, emotionless cadence that had served Blade so well. “That’s my family he’s got—my wife, my sister-in-law.”
“We can certainly use your help. You ride with my group, Donovan.”
“I was going to.” Donovan glanced at the men who were going to help him get his wife back. “I’m obliged for your help,” he said in an attempt to bridge the chasm he felt forming between them. Never again did he intend to walk that lonely path between decency and vice, cut off from society on both sides of the scale.
At this glimpse of the man they knew, some of the stiffness immediately left the expressions of the other men in the posse.
“Mort,” said the marshal, “did Mrs. Donovan say where she was headed?”
“Stony Ridge,” Mort answered immediately. “But how do you reckon to find her in the dark? Even in daylight, her trail would be hard to read up there in those rocks.”
Donovan turned his head to fix Mort with a steady, certain stare. “I’ll find her.”
“I bet you will,” Mort agreed.
“Let’s get started,” Marshal Brown said and headed for his horse.
Sarah approached the cabin as quietly as she could, but Luke must have been watching for her. The door to the building opened and he leaned against the door frame, the revolver in his hand and a smile on his face.
“Glad to see you could make it, Sarah.”
“Where’s my sister?” she demanded, grateful that her voice didn’t tremble. The weight of the derringer was heavy in her pocket.
“Sister Sue is right inside. We’ve been having a little visit,” he sneered.
“If you hurt her—”
He straightened. “Don’t threaten me, Sarah.” The firelight from inside the cabin played over his face. With his fine-boned features, thin mustache, and short black hair, he looked like Satan on a holiday. She fisted her hands to stop their trembling.
“You said if I brought you the plates, then Susannah would go free.”
“That’s the deal,” he agreed.
She reached into the saddlebag hanging over her shoulder and pulled forth a cloth-wrapped bundle. “Here they are.”
He arched his brows. “Really, Sarah, how foolish do you think I am?”
Shrugging off the saddlebags, she pulled open the leather bag and drew out the plates. The metal gleamed in the moonlight. “There. Satisfied?”
“For the moment.” He gestured with the gun. “Bring the plates over here, Sarah.”
She didn’t budge. “No, you bring my sister out here.”
“Sarah…” he warned.
She slipped the plates back into the bag, then hefted it in her hand and extended her arm backward, poised to throw. “Bring my sister out here, or I fling these off the mountain.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped impatiently. “I could shoot you before you had the chance to do it.”
“You might miss.” She stretched her arm back a little more. “Would you like to take that chance?”
He hesitated, then said, “You’ll pay for this, Sarah.”
“I know I will,” she muttered.
“Wait here.” He disappeared inside for a moment, then reappeared with Susannah, who was conscious but unsteady on her feet. Sarah felt a pang of pride as she saw how her sister struggled to maintain her balance, rather than depend on the man who held her captive to support her weight. Luke grabbed a handful of Suzie’s hair and jerked her sister’s head back, pressing the gun to her temple. A whimper of pain escaped Susannah’s lips.
“Let’s have those plates, Sarah,” he demanded. “You know it would give me the greatest of pleasure to shut your sister’s mouth permanently.”
“All right.” She knew better than anyone what atrocities Luke Petrie was capable of committing. “I have what you want right here; just don’t shoot.”
“Bring the plates, Sarah.”
She came forward hesitantly, holding the neck of the bag with a firm grip. Two steps…then one…and she’d be ready to make her move.
She saw the half smile on Luke’s face as he gloated at having her in his grasp. She remembered that he had worn that same expression right after he had taken her virginity. At the time she had thought it was a smile of pleasure, but now she knew it was one of conquest.
This time, Luke Petrie would not win.
She reached them. This close, Sarah could see how pale her sister was even in the moonlight, and how she trembled. Fury rose, but she squelched it. If they were to escape alive, she couldn’t give in to emotion. Still, the very real feelings made her performance all the more authentic as she gasped with alarm and reached out a hand to Susannah. Luke turned his head, a snarl escaping his lips, and swatted her arm away. At the same time, Sarah swung the bag of plates around with her other hand, slamming him solidly on the side of the head.
“Run, Suzie!” she screamed. She shoved at Luke with her body, breaking his hold on Susannah. Suzie stumbled forward a step, then swayed on her feet. “Suzie, run! Get help!”
Luke raised his arm, blood trickling from his temple, and pointed his revolver at Susannah. Sarah gave a shriek of rage and brought the bag of plates down hard on his gun arm. The shot fired harmlessly into the dirt at Susannah’s feet.
“Run, Suzie!”
The gunshot apparently got through to Susannah as Sarah’s screams hadn’t, and she took off at an unsteady run.
“Bitch!” Luke roared, turning his gun on Sarah. She swung the bag around again, but he was ready this time and deflected it with a blow to her arm that numbed her fingers. The bag dropped into the dust at their feet. Luke seized her with his arm around her neck and dragged her back against him, pressing the gun to her temple as Susannah disappeared down the rocky incline.
“The only reason I haven’t killed you yet,” he rasped, “is because I want you to take a long time to die. I want you to suffer for what you’ve done to me!”
With one hand, Sarah clawed at the arm that was cutting off her air supply. With the other, she reached down to the pocket of her skirt.
Suddenly her throat was free. She spun to face him, but his hand closed over her wrist as she pulled the derringer from her pocket. Despair swamped her as he easily took the weapon from her.
“What’s this? Were you going to kill me, darlin’? How very bloodthirsty you’ve become.” He tossed the derringer over the cliff, and with it, Sarah’s greatest hope for survival. Then he grabbed her braid and used it to drag her face close to his. “You’ll wish you had it back by the time I’m done with you,” he hissed, the promise of pain shining in his eyes. “You’ll want to kill me—or yourself.”
With a nasty laugh, he jerked her around and shoved her into the cabin.
Donovan and the search party sat looking up at Stony Ridge.
“They could be anywhere,” Mort was saying. “T
hem mountains are full of caves and ravines where a body could hide for months, as long as he had enough food.”
“What about water?” Donovan asked.
“There’s plenty of water. Streams all through the caves.”
“Damn.” Donovan glanced at Jedidiah, whose expression was grim. “We know she stopped here.”
“But where did she go from here?”
Donovan dismounted and walked slowly around the area. He knelt where they had found the hoofprints from Sarah’s horse, then got up and walked around some more, his gaze directed to the ground. Finally, he knelt again, this time by a break in the trees. “Here. She went this way.”
“There’s a track off that way,” Amos said. “Goes up the mountain to some of those abandoned mines.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.” Donovan mounted his horse and picked up the trail.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this moment?” Luke asked softly. “Do you have any idea what it was like in that filthy prison, constantly on guard against the scum that inhabited the place?”
Sarah said nothing, since any words that passed her lips would only set off his temper. She sat on the bare dirt floor in front of the fire, which was where she’d landed when he shoved her. Luke stood just inside the door with his gun pointed at her and the bag of plates in his hand.
“Do you have any idea,” he continued, “how I used to dream of getting you in my grasp again? First your father interfered with my plans, and then you sent the sheriff after me! Every night in that stinking prison I imagined what it would be like to make you pay for that little betrayal, just like your father paid. And now I have my opportunity.”
He slammed the door with a suddenness that made her jump. She watched him warily as he came toward her, prepared for him to make a move in her direction. Instead he sat down on the bedroll he had spread on the floor close to the fire. Tucking the plates safely in his saddlebags, he waved the gun at her. “Stand up, Sarah.”
Her limbs shaking, she got to her feet. Would he simply kill her now?
As if he read her thoughts, he leaned back and gave her a cocky grin that she had once found roguishly charming. “Don’t worry, darlin’, I have no intention of killing you—yet.”
She licked her dry lips. “What do you want, Luke?”
“To start?” He traced a finger over his slim mustache and watched her with unreadable pale gray eyes. “To start, you can take off your clothes.”
Her legs lost all strength, and her stomach knotted. “What?” she asked hoarsely.
“Take off your clothes, Sarah. I want you dressed like the whore you are while you cook my supper.”
“Cook your supper?”
“You always were the wifely sort.” The smile faded. “Take off your clothes. Now!”
She flinched at the unyielding command and raised trembling fingers to the buttons of her blouse. This could buy her some time, she realized as she slowly unfastened the first button. Perhaps she could draw out the process…
“That’s it, darlin’.” A half smile of pleasure tugged at his thin lips. “Do it slowly, as if you were a slut I’ve paid to please me.”
She moved to the next button, and the next, her nerves becoming more and more frayed with every second she stood as slave to that steady, unrelenting regard. The only thing that kept her from losing control was the knowledge that Jack was coming for her.
All she had to do was stay alive long enough for him to find her.
Chapter Twenty
Donovan held up a hand to halt the search party. “I hear something.” He pulled a rifle from his saddle.
Jedidiah rode up beside him, the Colt in his hand. “What is it?” the marshal murmured.
“Someone’s up ahead,” Donovan answered in the same barely audible tone, lifting the rifle to sight down the barrel.
The marshal signaled to the rest of the posse, and Donovan was satisfied to hear the quiet snicks of weapons being cocked. They had the advantage, since they were at the edge of the woods right before it opened up at the base of Stony Ridge. To make it to the safety of the concealing trees, whoever was ahead of them would have to leave the shelter of the rocks and cross a bare, flat clearing that would leave that person vulnerable.
Donovan hoped it was Petrie coming down the rocky path. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in the bastard who had taken Sarah from him.
A horse and rider cleared the rocks. Donovan recognized Senseless immediately, and his heart leaped as he saw the blonde hair flowing over the back of the person who clung precariously to the saddle.
If Petrie had hurt her—
“Susannah!” Jedidiah shouted.
Susannah. Donovan saw the differences even as the marshal galloped from the cover of the trees to assist Sarah’s sister. The silver-gilt hair that should have been honey blonde. The fancy green dress that should have been a practical shirtwaist and skirt.
Not Sarah.
Rage made him want to howl, but he needed to keep calm. If he gave in to his emotions now, Sarah was as good as dead.
If she wasn’t already.
That thought made him spur his horse forward. Jedidiah had pulled Sarah’s sister off Senseless and was now cradling her in his arms on his own mount. Susannah had to be hurt, Donovan thought grimly, otherwise she and Jedidiah would have been into one of their near-famous arguments by now.
“She’s almost unconscious,” Jedidiah said as Donovan pulled his mount alongside the lawman’s. “But she insists on talking to you. Won’t let us take her to the doctor until she does.”
Donovan looked down at Susannah, frowning as he saw evidence of hard treatment in the bruises that marred her skin. Her eyes were closed, and he wondered if she were even conscious. “Suzie,” he said, using Sarah’s nickname for her sister, “it’s Donovan.”
Her eyes opened, and he could tell from the dullness of her blue gaze that she was in a lot of pain. Her lips formed his name, a mere breath of sound.
“I’m here, Suzie.”
“Luke…”
“Luke has Sarah. I know that. But where, Suzie?” He stroked a hand gently over her cheek. “Tell me where.”
“Plunkett,” she rasped, wincing. “Up…Plunkett.” She made a weak upward gesture with her hand, then with a whimper, she passed out.
Jedidiah cradled her close, his gaze meeting Donovan’s with implacable resolve. “I’ve got to get her to Doc Mercer’s.”
“Go.” Donovan clapped a hand on the marshal’s shoulder in farewell, then turned to the search party as the lawman galloped toward town. “She said Plunkett,” he announced. “Does anyone know what that means?”
“Horace Plunkett,” Amos answered, spitting a wad of tobacco juice into the shrubbery. “Crazy old prospector who used to live up the trail. Filthy son of a gun. Used to stink like an outhouse.”
Everyone turned to stare at Amos.
With a defensive scowl, he snapped, “I take baths once a month just like the rest of you!”
“Amos,” Donovan said, drawing the old man’s attention. “Do you know where this place is?”
“Sure do,” Amos replied, sending another wad of brown spittle into the trees. “Horace’s shack is up the trail a ways. Real easy to find, if you’re looking for it.”
“Then you ride with me. The rest of you, get ready to surround the place when we get there. No one fires a shot until Sarah is safe.”
With Amos at his side, Donovan started up the trail.
Barefoot in her camisole and bloomers, Sarah wished Luke Petrie to hell with every fiber of her being.
She could tell that he enjoyed humiliating her. He had made her take off everything but these last garments, and he made her do it in such a way that she felt like a harlot putting on a performance for a paying customer—just as he had wanted her to feel.
“You’ve got a real talent for this sort of thing,” Luke drawled, his gray eyes narrowed with meanness. “I think you missed your calling, Sarah.”
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
He merely laughed. “Take off the rest of it, darlin’. I want to see if your body is still as lovely as I remember.”
“No.”
She hadn’t planned on saying it, but when she saw the surprise that flashed across his face, she was glad that she had.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.” Grateful that he had been too startled to shoot her, she straightened her spine proudly. “I refuse.”
He sprang to his feet, and it was all she could do to hold her ground. “Do you want to die, Sarah?”
“You’re going to kill me whether I do what you ask or not,” she replied. “I’d rather die with my clothes on.”
“So you want to choose how to die?” He gave a nasty chuckle. “Let me help you then.”
He came to her and cocked the gun. Bile rose in her throat as she felt the deadly steel pressing against the pulse that throbbed at her temple. “I could shoot you in the head,” he said. “Very quick death. Or perhaps…”
He slid the gun down the arch of her cheek and along her jaw, leaving a trail of chilly fear prickling her flesh, until the barrel touched her lips. Her panicked exhale misted over the cool metal. “This would be quick, too,” Luke mused, “but messy.”
She didn’t dare take another breath until he moved the revolver away from her mouth. Once more the weapon glided along her flesh, tracing a path down her throat to rest snugly between her breasts.
“Heart shot,” Luke whispered, the thrill of power in his tone. “Again, quick, but messy.”
Not taking his eyes from hers, he reached up and deliberately caressed her breast with his other hand. A shudder of revulsion shook her, and he laughed.
“There was a time when you moaned my name when I touched you like that,” he taunted. He squeezed her breast until a gasp of pain escaped her lips. Grinning in enjoyment, he moved the gun down her torso until it nudged her abdomen. “Gut shot,” he whispered close to her ear. “Very painful, and a very slow death.”
Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 Page 24
