He was a big man riding an enormous horse. The mount was a mottled blend of grays and white with brown mixed in at intervals, as if by mistake. My brother would have known the name of it. He would have run out to meet the rider, hopping alongside as he admired the horse. I swallowed thickly.
The Captain’s saddle was worn, dark leather. A workingman’s saddle, not a fancy tooled thing like the one my daddy’s boss at the bank had. The Captain wore boots and dark pants with a gold strip down each leg. They were faded pale and the cording sapped of color until it looked more lemon than golden. His work shirt was grayed and buttoned casually up over a broad chest. He wore no jacket. The hat on his head was low, keeping his face in shadow.
On the saddle behind him hung a string of rabbits. He untied them and dropped them by the fire.
Athena picked up the string and said sweetly, “Thanky, Captain.”
He gave a half nod and backed up his horse. As he turned, the angle shifted and the shadows cleared from his face. For the first time, I saw him full-on. He had eyes the color of the Mississippi River—all muddied browns and swirling greens. Dark, yet glimmering with light and current. I recognized him, of course. He was one of Lonnie and Jake Smith’s riders.
I’d seen him once in town. I’d been coming out of the dry goods store as he went in. We bumped into each other, and for a moment he held my arms between his big hands. I remember looking into those eyes, seeing the ebb and flow of the powerful tide of emotion and hot-blooded man-thoughts that swept across his face. I’d felt the sensation of his look as it skimmed over me and lingered on my breasts. I’d never seen a man like him before. He was hard and weathered, his face tanned. He smelled of a fresh bath, and his cheeks had been smoothly shaven but for the blond-gold mustache that curled over his lip.
He’d held me longer than was necessary, and I didn’t protest as I should have. My hands were pressed against the hard warmth of his chest and his heart beat steady beneath my palm. My imagination took flight with thoughts of him pulling me tight against the solid breadth of him. Bending me back over his arms as he kissed me. I didn’t really know what he might do next. I had an idea of what went on between barnyard animals but no clue how that really applied to humans.
He’d smiled at me then and the look had a hint of devil-may-care. It took my breath away while at the same time making me smile back. His attention focused on my mouth, and it seemed he was as fascinated by me as I was of him. He’d even leaned forward, ever so slightly.
That was when Mama had noticed us. She’d already walked out of the door, pushing Grandma’s chair and chattering about the new fabric she’d purchased. She hadn’t realized I wasn’t at her side.
“Sir, kindly release my daughter,” she’d snapped when she turned back to the store where we stood.
He’d dropped his hands instantly, tipped his hat at us both and stepped aside. I allowed my hands to trail his chest as I lowered them. He recognized the gesture for what it was. Even though I’d never been so bold with a man before, I wanted him to know that I liked his touch. I succeeded.
“Outside, Ella,” my mother snapped, angrily grabbing my arm. She’d marched me home where my father told me who he was. Sawyer McCready. A Smith rider.
He narrowed his eyes at me now, noticing for the first time that I sat near the fire. I held my breath, wondering if he recognized me, too. He didn’t say a word, just cut his eyes from one woman to another as he sat astride that huge horse.
“Captain,” Honey said, moving up to his side and setting her hand on his thigh. She had long, slender fingers, slightly darkened at the knuckles but smooth as the rest of her. “This young woman found her way to our camp last night. Her family’s been murdered.”
Those eyes snapped to me again, and I felt them drilling into me. I inched my hand down to my pocket and eased it in. My father’s knife lay heavy and warm against my thigh. It wasn’t the shotgun—they’d taken that from me last night— but it would do. My fingers closed on the smooth metal, and I slowly pulled it out, keeping it hidden in the folds of my skirts. He was still watching me, and I knew I would have to act fast before he figured out why I looked familiar.
Hands behind my back, I pulled the knife from its leather sheath and I charged. I’d moved so quickly and unpredictably that no one thought to stop me. It didn’t occur to me that they might. I was focused only on one thing—this man who’d helped slaughter my family. One way or another I would be dead soon, either by starvation or murder, but I wouldn’t be a coward anymore.
I didn’t hesitate as I took a running leap up and over one of the crates on the ground by his horse and hit him square on as he sat horseback. I knocked him off-balance and ruined any angle I had at bringing my knife down in a fatal blow. We fell off to the other side, and my blade glanced his arm. He cursed and rolled with me, the weight of him far too much for me to fight. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. I kicked and bit and swung wildly with my knife until he got me pinned on my back, both hands captured by one of his. I had the satisfaction of knowing he was breathing heavily as he looked down at me. I stared defiantly back and saw the dawning of recognition.
“Ella,” he said.
He remembered my name, though my mother had only said it once. For a moment, this distracted me. He’d remembered my name. But I remembered why I wanted him dead.
“You murderer! They were good people,” I shouted. “You killed them. You killed them as they ran.” I was shrieking, but I couldn’t stop. I screamed at him again and again. “Murderer.”
He wrestled the knife from my hand, easily twisting it out of my grip as I cried out with rage. He sat astraddle my body, looking at the long wicked blade I’d nearly skewered him with. His expression crossed between disbelief and anger. I waited for him to bury it to the hilt in my heart—I welcomed it. He looked at me, those muddy eyes cold, and then he backed off and stood. I flipped over and took off running. I heard him curse again and the others scream in surprise. I hiked up my skirt and ran for all I was worth. I didn’t know if he was following me or not until he tackled me, sending me sprawling on the ground, my mouth full of dirt and grit.
Roughly, he turned me, lying on me to keep me pinned to the ground. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shouted at me, his face inches from mine. He was hurting me.
“My parents,” I shouted back. “My brother. My grandmother. Why? They were leaving. They were leaving.”
I was sobbing, hysterical with fear and anger and hurt.
“Go ahead and do it,” I told him. “Spill my blood like you did theirs.”
“Who are they? Your parents? Who were they?”
The correction caught and silenced me. Were. My family had to be spoken of in past tense now. “My father was Conrad Beck.”
Sawyer knew the name. I saw it in his face. I waited for him to deny it, though, expecting only lies from the likes of him.
“I don’t ride with Smith anymore. Not for almost a year.” He stood up and reached down to offer me a hand. “I didn’t kill your family.”
I didn’t believe him. I’d heard Lonnie sit on the witness stand and swear he hadn’t touched Louise Franklin, even though more than five witnesses saw him rape her before he’d murdered her. I hadn’t believed him, either. Just because I didn’t see him do it, didn’t make him innocent.
Sawyer offered his hand, but I stayed where I was, glaring my hate. He stared back at me for a moment and then walked away. He had my knife, but my rage was far from gone.
“Get the hell out of here,” he said over his shoulder.
That stopped me. I looked around at the same desolate nowhere I’d journeyed through for days without seeing another sign of life. I didn’t know where I was now any more than I had last night when I’d stumbled across the women. Where would I go? What were the odds of me finding another camp, another living soul who would help me? My father had taught me enough about gambling to know they weren’t good.
Sawyer didn’t wai
t to see what I would do. He showed me his back, which I thought both brave and foolhardy considering I still wanted to kill him. When he reached the camp, the women fussed around him, tending to his wounded arm and bringing him food.
I put my face in my scraped and bloody hands, wanting to sob until all the pain inside had come out. But what good would that do me? I wouldn’t stay out here like a hungry dog waiting for scraps. I wouldn’t let him see that he’d broken me. Wincing, I pushed to my feet. My knees were as skinned and torn as my hands, and my ribs felt bruised and battered. But my anger fueled my steps. I followed the stream that I’d found last night with a determination rooted deep in my desperation.
The long steps between afternoon and twilight gave me too much time to think. Sawyer’s words played through my mind, keeping time with my progress. He said he hadn’t ridden with the Smiths for over a year. Was it true? I hadn’t actually seen him among the riders who had killed my family. Nor were the murderers with him now. And the women ... They’d been genuine in their surprise when I’d asked about the Smith brothers.
Sawyer had ridden with them once, though. And if not a murderer, it at least made him a thief. An outlaw, all the same.
The tears I’d refused earlier would be denied no longer. They burned my eyes and slid down my cheeks, but they didn’t slow my steps. I didn’t know what I would do now, but somehow, quitting would mean that I’d failed my family even worse than when I’d let them die. My mother had always said I possessed an inner strength that would keep me going when times were hard. I hadn’t believed her, but now I felt her whisper to my heart, You can do it, Ella.
The words of encouragement didn’t slow my tears, but my steps became more certain. Maybe I could survive this. But all around me only open terrain and encroaching darkness waited. I was scared. I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Sobbing, I stumbled in the widening stream to nowhere and howled with grief and heartache as I plowed determinedly forward. I cried so loudly that at first I didn’t even hear the hoofbeats of the approaching horse. It was not until the animal came to a stop abreast of me that I noticed it. Although it was fully night now and only the black silhouette showed, I knew who the rider was: Sawyer McCready. Captain McCready.
I slowed to a stop, staring at the powerful man and horse. My face was wet with tears, my shoulders still shaking with my anguish. But I managed to hold my head up and glare at him.
“I hope you brought my gun and knife since you’ve sent me out here to fend for myself,” I said.
His mouth dropped open with shock. The reaction brought me a flush of satisfaction. Then he said, “You attacked me.”
“I was just protecting myself.”
“Yeah? So was I.”
I heard him click his tongue, and the horse came closer. He stopped beside me and looked down.
“You’re going to get yourself killed out here,” he said, his voice dark as whiskey.
“What do you care?”
In the silence that followed, I bit my tongue. He was right: I was going to get myself killed. If a bear or mountain lion didn’t decide to make a snack of me, then perhaps Indians or even the Smith brothers would see me dead. But I’d go down fighting, as my daddy used to say.
“I didn’t murder your family, Ella, and I’ll be damned if I’ll have you out here dead weighing on me. I’ll take you back to camp. Tomorrow we’ll be moving on, and when we get to a town, you can find your way home from there.”
My nose was running and I had no handkerchief. Feeling foolish, I lifted my skirt and wiped it. I thought I saw a flash of a smile, but it was gone so fast, I might have imagined it.
“Why would you help me?”
He looked down, shook his head, then met my eyes again. “Because I’m a damn fool. Because I know what Lonnie and Jake are and you shouldn’t have had to see it.”
The truth of his words made me want to start crying fresh tears, but I bit my lip and nodded.
“You got nothin’ to fear from me,” he said. “But I won’t sit out here all night trying to talk sense into you.”
That made me want to snarl back, but for once, I managed to hold my tongue. I looked around at the clustered darkness, the black woods in the distance, the deep valleys between the foothills. Swallowing, I peered into his shadowed face, wishing I could read him. Wishing I knew what to do. How could I trust this man? How could I not?
“Come on, Ella. It’s late.”
He kicked his foot free of the stirrup and reached down a hand. With a deep breath, I took it.
CHAPTER 12
This was how the morning went.
First Gracie damn near gave him heart failure when he heard her horse-dog barking like a killer was on the loose, and then Analise had topped it with a bloodcurdling scream from her room. They’d both been so shaken up that he couldn’t doubt they’d seen something. He’d wanted to scoff at Chloe’s claim that a spirit from beyond had been in the room, but he really couldn’t.
Especially after what happened later.
Gracie left for the doctor’s—without saying good-bye—and the storm morphed into a full-fledged monsoon, which she was out driving in, behind the wheel of a car that was no match for the rising water and gusting wind.
With his daughter.
He snorted. A daughter. Poor kid. The only thing worse than not having a father was having Reilly Alexander for one. Jesus, she was screwed no matter what.
He’d showered and dressed, then came downstairs to find Chloe, Jonathan, and the priest sitting at one of the tables in front of the oh-so dry bar, playing cards and drinking coffee. They seemed like a parody of the many portraits surrounding them. Chloe’s dark eyes followed his anxious wandering from window to window, making him even more irritable. She seemed a little shaken up herself. Gracie’s sharp reprimand must have done the job.
“Where’s”—Abe the Vampire—“Bill?” he asked, looking around.
“He’s not a fan of bacon, eggs, and toast,” Jonathan answered with obvious disdain as he played his card. “He went to the store to stock up on gluten-free products, free-range whatever, and organic vegetables before the roads wash out.”
Reilly almost laughed. Bill had his work cut out for him if he thought he’d find a good selection here.
But the mention of the roads washing out worried Reilly anew. He stared out the window, willing Gracie’s safe return. At last, he went to the porch to find the rain had finally cooled things off. The wet wind felt good after the sweltering heat inside, and he took some deep breaths, trying to settle down and quit worrying about Gracie. As she’d pointed out, she’d done just fine without him for the past seventeen years. Chances were she’d do fine without him for the next seventeen, too.
That should have made him feel better.
He took another deep breath and went back inside. “I’m going to try opening all the doors upstairs,” he said. “See if that gets the air circulating.”
Jonathan jumped to his feet. “Want some help?”
“Opening doors?” Reilly asked, glancing over his shoulder as he walked away. “I think I can handle it.”
But Jonathan tried to follow him anyway. Reilly turned on him with a hand up before he got too far. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk to you,” he said, surprised.
“About?”
“I like music. I was a big fan of your band. You’re famous.”
Badlands had played the kind of music that resonated in smoky bars with drunks who had too much to forget. Mr. Rogers here didn’t exactly fit in their demographic, but weirder things had been known to happen…like Reilly and Gracie Beck ending up in Diablo Springs at the same time.
Reilly narrowed his eyes at Jonathan. “Name one song.”
“Dead Lights Calling,” he said instantly.
Reilly shot him a bored look. That one had topped the charts and made them a household name. A one trick pony. Ten years after the band had broken up and it still got play time. “Try again.�
��
“Dark Water Gold.”
Reilly shut his mouth. That one had never been released as a single. Maybe Jonathan really had been a fan.
“You think it’s there?” Jonathan asked.
“What?”
“Gold in the old springs. That’s what the song’s about.”
The tension drained out of Reilly and he laughed. “That’s not what it’s about.”
“Treasure’s calling me from under it all…” Jonathan sang off key.
Reilly had written Dead Water Gold years before his brother shot himself. Now he wondered if he’d known even then. A darker song had never been put to music.
“It’s about suicide, Jonathan. The treasure is the joy of having it all over and done with.”
Jonathan’s face went slack. “That can’t be true. It’s such a beautiful song.”
Reilly laughed again. “Okay. You got me. It’s about buckets of gold in a dried up hole.”
Flushing angrily, Jonathan went back and sat at the table and Reilly felt like an asshole. The guy was harmless, wearing a wounded expression and a baby-blue sweater he had to be roasting in. As ridiculous as it felt, Reilly probably was the most famous person he’d ever met and he’d just treated the guy like crap.
Christ, he needed to get out of here. Without another word, he turned and headed for the stairs again.
As Reilly passed through the entryway, he caught sight of an iron doorstop shaped like a hound taking a piss. He pulled it from the corner and used it to prop open the front door. Rain whisked in on the damp wind, but the cold air was worth it. Upstairs, he opened all the bedroom doors and immediately felt the chill pouring out of Gracie’s room and into the hall. Pleased, he turned to head down again but a tickle danced over his spine a second before he heard the whisper of the first door closing.
He spun in time to see the second door swing shut and watched as one by one, they all closed. Frowning, he went back to Gracie’s room and opened the door again. He used a stack of books he’d found on the dresser to prop it open before doing the same to the others. Yet again, each door clicked shut before he made it down the first few steps.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 176
