"That doesn't make sense," Silver said, knitting her brows. "If the plan's divine, how can it be shifted?"
"Our destinies may be written in the stars, Silver, but we still have free choice. That makes it hard to predict anyone's future with total accuracy. You can refuse to marry Rafe, of course, but..."
"But what?" Silver demanded uneasily.
"This isn't good," Cellie muttered, shaking her head. "Not good at all."
"What? What's not good?"
Cellie shook her head again.
"Cellie, please! What do you see?" She peered anxiously over the fortune-teller's shoulder, trying in vain to glimpse whatever Cellie was seeing in that perfectly clear globe.
But Cellie snatched the orb away and stuffed it back inside her sling. "I have to find Max. There's nothing we can do for Benson, but Rafe we can intercept at Swindler's Creek."
Silver nearly strangled on her breath. The truth dawned hard and fast. "Did... Aaron kill Benson?"
Cellie waved fretfully. She was already on her way out the door. "There's no time to explain," she called, her words trailing after her as she dodged a barrel of dynamite and ducked into the mine.
Silver's legs were beginning to shake. She swayed against the desk.
At the séance, Cellie said blood would be shed in retribution.
She sickened, clapping a hand over her mouth.
Dear God, I have to find Rafe. I have to warn him!
Chapter 15
Camouflaged by olive green shadow, Rafe crouched downwind of the otter slide on the banks of Swindler's Creek. A trio of Tavy's cousins frolicked beneath the cottonwood trees. Forepaws pressed to their sides, round ears squeezed closed, they zipped as sleek as torpedoes down the mud-slickened grass on their bellies. A round of uproarious barking would follow each splash, and then the merrymakers would waddle as fast as their webbed paws could carry them back up the hill for another dive.
Tavy was mesmerized. As motionless as the mushrooms festooning her log, she stood on her hind paws and gawked. Indeed, the only sign of life she'd betrayed in the last half hour had been her twitching whiskers. Rafe tried to be grateful to see her so enthralled by her brethren. Otters tended to be solitary, seeking each other out only to mate and, occasionally, to play. It had been a rare coup for him to stumble across this trio of males. And he wasn't sure he was happy about it.
Do I have to lose Silver and Tavy all in the same week?
Glumly, he envisioned the weather-scoured wagon, with its peeling blue paint, that creaked with each stomp of the nag somewhere behind him. He'd been forced to trade his carriage for something more practical. So much for the luxuries of dukedom.
And so much for Jimmy. He couldn't afford a retainer anymore. Still, practicality hadn't been much of a consolation, not when he'd had to face Jimmy. The youth had been so crestfallen to learn he'd have to return to melon picking that he'd nearly wept. Rafe hadn't blamed him. He'd tried to gentle the blow by telling the boy to keep his livery as a souvenir of the "grand and glorious service he'd rendered a duke." Jimmy cheered somewhat at the prospect until he realized he'd have to tell Tavy good-bye.
Rafe was still commiserating.
Damn the whole lousy marriage idea, anyway. How could something so right between him and Silver go so wrong? Was God toying with his fate? Perhaps more to the point, did God even exist? Because if this misery was the reward sinners got for praying, Rafe thought bitterly, then God could rest assured He'd never hear "Amen" from Raphael Jones's mouth again.
A strange thumping roused him from his brooding. Frowning, he listened more intently, straining his ears for the familiar sound of creaking over the otters' barks. A shivery sense of foreboding seized him. The birds had grown quiet. Too quiet.
Unwilling to frighten off Tavy's prospective family, he eased backwards out of his nest of reeds. He intended to circle through the undergrowth, making a wide swath around the wagon, before approaching it openly. He never got the chance. Suddenly, a gun hammer clicked. Sunlight glinted off the muzzle aimed point-blank at his head. He froze, and his captor gave a raspy chuckle.
"Well, howdy Mr. Smart-ass Duke," came an unmistakable Texas drawl. "We've tracked you fer damned near two days across this big ol' mountain, but I reckon hide 'n seek is over now. Hell fire. I was expectin' you to be duded up in rubies and diamonds."
Another thump resounded through the ominously quiet wood. Rafe suspected somebody was hammering a gun stock against the lock of his trunk. He suppressed his initial inclination to go after the bastard, and cautiously tipped his head to regard his captor.
A stream of tobacco juice nearly hit him in the eye.
Rafe did his best not to grimace. Instead, he donned a bland smile and his smoothest Kentucky drawl.
"I apologize for the inconvenience, er..." Marshal? Deputy? He searched the foul-smelling checkered flannel of the one-eyed Texican's shirt for a badge. None was visible, not even on the gunman's vest, where the flies were happily swarming through the matted, black bear fur.
Rafe wasn't reassured, though. This was the same Texican who'd been stalking him since his arrival in Aspen. And that meant he was either a paid assassin (bounty hunter, as the law agencies euphemistically called them) or an outlaw. "I'm afraid you've been tracking the wrong man. As you can tell, I'm no more British than you are."
"Hey, Snake!" This cry, rife with disappointment, came from the vicinity of the wagon. "The sumbitch doesn't have any money. And no damned crown jewels, neither! Just a coupla old darned socks and this here beat-up shaving kit."
Snake, who was no doubt aptly named, and not just for the patch over his left eye, bared yellow teeth. "So where'd ya hide them?" he snarled, shoving the muzzle under Rafe's chin. "We want the jewels."
"Yeah, that's right," the second man said, thrashing into the thicket. Except for the pronounced slouch of his shoulders, someone could have run a flag up his spine; he was that lanky. "Say, Snake, the way you got that ol' John Bull on his knees, you'd think he was bowin' to royalty."
"That's 'cause Gracie here knows his place afore Texicans."
"The sumbitch'd have to be dumber'n I am not to be prayin' fer mercy with yer .45 shoved up his nose." The second man grinned, as if he'd just made the most profound observation of his life. "Say, Snake, you gonna make him dance?"
"Later." Snake, apparently, wasn't as easily distracted. "Ye're burning daylight, Gracie." He ground the muzzle into Rafe's Adam's apple. "Start talkin'."
Rafe swallowed, cursing himself for the involuntary reaction. He was sure the outlaws would mark it as fear. "What makes you think I'd leave diamonds and rubies lying around in an unguarded wagon?" he hedged, wracking his brain for a way out of this ambush.
"'Cause Mr. Townsend said we could have whatever jewels we found—"
"Shut up, Loon," Snake snapped, tossing his cohort a vile glare.
It didn't do the trick, though. Either Loon was too stupid to realize he'd exposed his employer and the bogus incentive that Townsend himself had probably invented, or Loon figured it didn't matter, because Snake would plug any witnesses.
"Shut up yerself, Snake," Loon groused. "I'm tired of you always being the stud buzzard. Mr. Townsend hired us both to kill Gracie, and fer the same wage. That means you ain't more important than me."
"Whatever he's paying you, I'll triple it," Rafe countered quickly, deciding his ducal identity was his best chance of survival after all.
"With what?" Snake sneered. "Patched socks?"
Rafe met the Texican's eye squarely. "I'm a duke, remember? I've got plenty of money back in England—"
"Yeah, like we're that stupid," Loon jeered. "You ain't sailing back to England to get no money."
Actually, Rafe had been hoping for a jaunt to Aspen's busy telegraph office. Or a crowded street.
"If you don't let me wire my castle for help, how do you expect to get your ransom?" he said evenly.
"Ransom?" they chimed in unison.
"Sure. If you kidnap the
duke of Chumley, you ought to get a couple thousand farthings, at least."
"A couple thousand farthings? Hot damn!" Loon cackled like his namesake, which only cast further doubt on the soundness of his mind. "Did ya hear that, Snake? We'll be rich!"
"Rafe?"
He stopped breathing. The outlaws did too. The call had been Silver's. Anxious and questing, it reverberated through the fading afternoon like a death knell—her own.
"Holy shit." Loon craned his long neck over his shoulder. "It's a skirt! A purty one, too. And from the looks of it, she's headed this way!"
Rafe clenched his fists, if only to keep from doing something insane: like punching one of the outlaws and getting himself killed for his chivalry. For the love of God, what was Silver doing here, on horseback, without a single escort and twilight humming fast through the trees?
Loon and Snake locked eyes. Snake grinned. Loon licked his lips.
"Sounds like the little filly's plumb lost her man," Snake jeered.
"Just like Bo Peep," Loon commiserated.
"Lucky fer her, I got me a ram."
"Hey!" Loon whispered hotly. "I saw her first!"
"Yeah? Well, bully fer you. 'Cause I'm calling dibs."
"Gentlemen," Rafe chided, his heart doing its bloody best to rip free of his chest, "I suggest you both corral your mighty rams. Don't you recognize that young woman?"
Loon glared at him suspiciously. "Why should we?"
"Because that's your very own Mr. Townsend's fiancée. And I daresay he wouldn't be pleased to know that you, er, sampled her fleece before he did."
Snake snarled something unintelligible, grabbing Rafe's collar and slamming him into a tree trunk. As much as he itched to flatten the shorter, stockier man, Rafe didn't struggle. The Texican had yet to lower his gun hammer. And the only weapon Rafe carried was the hunting knife in his boot.
"Listen here, you biggety prick," Snake growled, "I ain't afeared of Townsend. And I ain't afeared of humping his woman, neither."
"Yeah, but Snake," Loon whined, rubbing his crotch longingly as he watched Silver's horse circle the overturned trunk, "she'll go and tell."
"Not if I put a bullet through her—"
"Rafe?" More high-pitched and nervous than the first time, Silver's call sent lightning streaks of foreboding through Rafe's veins. Snake jerked his head, and Loon nodded, grinning macabrely. There was only one thing left to do as Loon started stalking the woman Rafe loved. And Rafe did it.
"Silver, ride!" he called frantically. "For God's sake, it's an ambush—"
Snake's gunstock dropped like a hammer; white fire exploded in Rafe's skull. Dimly, he heard a muffled oath; even fainter came the thud of the boot that bludgeoned his ribs. Then he rolled, crunched up on the earth, gasping desperately for air.
Silver froze, her knuckles whitening on the reins. She could have sworn she'd heard Rafe. She could have sworn she'd heard his cry break through the eerie silence of these hills...
"Lookin' fer me, princess?" came an oily tenor not ten paces to her left.
She started, wheeling her mare, and the ill-kempt stranger lunged. The horse reared, nearly unseating her, and the stranger grabbed for the bridle. Silver cried out. It didn't take her half a second to realize this lanky blond, whoever he was, had ransacked Rafe's wagon. And it took her even less time to think, with sickening dread, that her worst nightmare had been realized.
"No! What have you done with Rafe?" she screamed, struggling against the iron arm that dragged her from the saddle.
"Ooh, ye're a feisty one," the outlaw crooned. She tried to kick him in the shin. He only chuckled. "Don't think some skirt never tried that on me before."
Twigs broke and bushes snapped behind them. She twisted in time to see Rafe, followed by a one-eyed desperado. Rafe staggered into the clearing. The outlaw, whom she suspected had been Cook's pie thief, shoved Rafe, and he dropped to his hands and knees, a patch of blood matting the glorious, sun-streaked hair above his ear. She sobbed, uncertain whether to be grateful he was alive or terrified that he had a head wound.
"He's hurt!" She lunged futilely against the forearm that squeezed her ribs into her lungs. "What have you done to him?"
"Madam." Rafe spoke with obvious effort, shaking his head as if to clear it. "Do not concern yourself with me." When he raised his eyes to hers, the pewter in his gaze had turned to steel. Even she, in her panicked state, could not mistake his warning. "Your fiancée, Mr. Townsend, will no doubt rue it."
Silver frowned, momentarily baffled. Surely, after everything they'd discussed, Rafe didn't think she'd thrown him out of her house to run back to Aaron?
"Now where were we, gentlemen?"
His British accent roughened by undercurrents of pain, Rafe tried to climb to his feet. The desperado jammed a .45 under his chin. When Silver heard the hammer click, she had to bite back a cry. But Rafe only smiled. His cynicism fairly dripped.
"Ah yes. Now I remember."
"Shut your trap, Gracie, or I'll shut it fer you," the one-eyed man threatened.
"If you insist. But don't blame me if you never find those crown jewels."
Silver swallowed, fighting the panic that battered the walls of her reason. Crown jewels? What was Rafe talking about? And why was the one-eyed man calling him "Gracie"? Surely the outlaw wasn't stupid enough to think Rafe was a British duke? Not with those blue jeans and that eyesore of a coat!
"I thought we changed the plan to ransoming him, Snake," her captor whined, his breath hot and foul above her ear.
"That's 'cause ye're more dim-witted than a 'possum, Loon. The way I see it, we split the jewels and the ransom. You got somethin' against that?"
Her captor fidgeted. He took so long to answer that Silver began to wonder. Was he really dumber than a opossum? Were opossums even dumb?
"That all depends," Loon finally conceded, his Texas drawl making his speech as slow as an addlepate's. "You mean fifty-fifty?"
"Hell no. Not if you take the woman."
"Now you wait just a consarned minute!" Loon's arm tensed belligerently across her waist. "I never said I wanted some woman more'n I wanted them jewels."
"Then ya better make up yer mind. 'Cause Mr. Townsend expects us to report back on how we killed Gracie by supper."
"Aaron?" she repeated weakly. So Cellie had been right!
"Don't you worry, sweet pea," Loon said in a cackling voice. "Yer fiancée ain't ever gonna know you was up here by yer lonesome, making eyes at us."
Dear God. Guilt avalanched to Silver's gut. If she hadn't been so rash, if she hadn't thrown Rafe out of the house, he would never have been ambushed by these idiots—idiots who thought he was a duke!
Oh Rafe, oh Rafe, I'm so sorry. I never dreamed our hoax would come to this! She looked helplessly at the man she loved more than life itself. He returned her gaze with a steady, reassuring stare. She caught her breath.
He was planning something. She knew it then.
Calling her Townsend's fiancée had been his way of protecting her. Signaling her about the jewels had been his plea for help. Rallying her nerve and her wits, she waited anxiously for his next cue.
"So it's settled then," Rafe said. "You gentlemen can have the jewels and the ransom, and I'll take the woman."
"Like hell," Snake snapped, his gun arm tensing with renewed menace. "You ain't in any position to bargain, smart ass."
"My... my brother Rafe and a party of his loggers should be along here any minute," Silver said, doing her best to match Rafe's aplomb. It wasn't easy, even with the encouragement pouring from his gaze. "We were planning to meet my Papa, back at... at his office. So you gentlemen had best let us go."
"Is that a fact?" Snake leered at her. "Only sounds to me like we gotta clean up business a bit faster than we planned, eh, Loon?" He grabbed Rafe's hair and wrenched his head back. "Where are them damned jewels?"
Rafe's eyes swiveled to her. She wished desperately she could do something, anything, more than spout enigmas. Would
he understand her clue? Would he guess the nearest source of help awaited them at the mine?
"The mine," he choked.
Silver's knees buckled with relief.
"What mine?" Snake growled.
"The one about seven miles south of here," Rafe gurgled.
"Hey, that'd be the haunted mine," Loon volunteered uneasily. "The one what got closed down. Why'd you go and hide yer diamonds in a haunted mine?" he whined.
"What better place to keep them safe from... mortals."
"Come now, Mr. Loon," Silver chimed in, praying that Papa actually had hired the guards he was supposed to have hired before he'd arrived at the mine early that morning, "surely you're not afraid of a little old ghost?"
Snake snorted, releasing Rafe's head with a shove. "Hell, if the woman ain't scared, why're you pissin' your pants, Loon?"
"I ain't! I'm just, uh... double-checking the facts."
"How very diligent of you," Rafe taunted, the gunmetal gray of his eyes fairly smoking. "If I were to venture into a haunted mine, I'm sure I'd want to know how many men had gone in before me... and never come back."
"Smart ass," Snake snarled, lashing out with his gun butt.
The .45 struck Rafe's temple, and Silver choked off his name, nearly strangling on her fear to see fresh blood spurt from his wound. Oh God, oh God... He crumpled like a sack of oats at the outlaw's feet. Rafe, no. Please! Wake up! Don't be dead...
"Hell, Snake," Loon grumbled as Snake kicked Rafe onto his back. "Ya think ya coulda asked him how to get to the mine, first?"
Silver had to bite back a chorus of Alleluias to see Rafe's chest still rising and falling.
"The skirt lives around these parts. She knows." Snake cast her a look that would have iced Satan's furnace. "Don't ya, sweetheart?"
Silver nodded through her tears, her tongue working frantically to carve words from the desert of her mouth. "But I don't know where the diamonds are," she croaked. "You'll need the duke to tell you—"
Scoundrel for Hire (Velvet Lies, Book 1) Page 28
