“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Reardon said. It was almost an accusation.
“I just arrived this morning. When I saw you riding up, I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity for us to have a little talk in private.”
Reardon took his hat off, ran his hand through silky blond hair, then put his hat back on again. “I wish I could give Mrs. Chandler more time to pay,” Reardon said, getting right down to business. “But I’ve got debts of my own to take care of.”
“Would it make a difference if I told you I’ve got a lead on where to find Sam’s gold?”
Reardon’s odd-colored yellow eyes widened. “You do? Where is it? I mean, how do you know where to find it?”
“I met up with a niece of one of the gang members, Anabeth Calhoun. She seemed to think her uncle might have hidden the gold in the valley where they lived. She’s going to take me there and help me hunt for it.”
“She is? That’s very interesting. A niece, you say? When do you think you might get started?”
“Soon,” Jake promised. “Just thought I’d lay up a day or two here and visit my sister. I wanted to ask you whether, in light of this latest information, you might not be able to wait a little longer for payment on the note.”
Reardon pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped at his brow. “Yes,” he muttered. “Yes, this does change things a bit. If what I think is true …”
“So your answer is yes?” Jake prodded.
“Certainly. Certainly I can do a favor for a neighbor, Mr. Kearney. Actually, I only rode over to apologize to Mrs. Chandler and tell her I can’t come for supper this evening. I’ve got some urgent business that’s going to take me away from the ranch for a while. Perhaps you’d be willing to extend my apologies to your sister for me?”
“If that’s the way you want it.” Jake knew Claire would be happy to avoid the rancher if she could.
Reardon tipped his hat. “Then I’ll be leaving. Nice meeting you, Mr. Kearney. I wish you luck on your treasure hunt.”
“Thanks,” Jake said. I’ll need it.
Jake kicked his horse into a lope and soon arrived back at the house. He called for Claire as he shoved the front door open.
“No need to yell, Jake. I’m right here.”
She wasn’t the only one there. Anabeth was standing right beside her in front of the fireplace. And she looked radiant. Her face glowed with pleasure. Her hair had been freed from its braids and was caught up high in back with a blue bow.
Claire urged Anabeth a step closer to Jake. “Now tell me she isn’t beautiful,” she dared Jake.
“She’s beautiful,” Jake agreed. “About the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Claire laughed. “I’m going to let you get away with that because I’m your sister and don’t expect such compliments from you,” she chided.
Without Reardon’s presence, the supper Claire had planned was relaxed and cordial. Or at least as relaxed as it could be for a man sitting across the table from a beautiful virgin who shot bashful looks at him from under long, fluttery lashes.
After supper Jake mentioned to Claire that he wanted to speak with Anabeth alone for a few minutes.
“Why don’t you take Anabeth into the parlor,” Claire said. “I’ve got a fire going there, and it’s more comfortable.”
Anabeth eyed Jake warily as he sat down across from her in one of the two Spanish leather chairs that were situated in front of the stone fireplace. In her Levi’s, with her gunbelt at her waist, she would have known how to handle Jake Kearney. But in the silk taffeta dress, she was someone else. Someone less confident of who she was, and what she wanted from the attractive man whose eyes had never left her all evening.
Jake’s guts were tied up in knots. From the moment he had walked into the house and seen Anabeth in that dress, he had tried to imagine her behind iron bars. It wasn’t a picture he could conjure. What came more readily to mind were pictures of her sleek naked flesh as it had appeared when she stood before him earlier in the kitchen. During supper he had mentally undressed Anabeth Calhoun and made love to her a dozen times.
And he was still hard as a rock.
He cleared his throat, but his voice was still husky with desire when he spoke. “I’d be willing to speak to the judge on your behalf, ask for leniency, in exchange for the gold. All you have to do is take me to it.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t!” Jake retorted. “You stubborn—”
“Can’t! Won’t! What difference does it make?” Anabeth said. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, I don’t know where it is!”
An instant later she found herself nose to nose with an angry man. Jake had risen and leaned over with his hands braced on the arms of her chair so she was trapped between them. Anabeth could see the fine webbed lines around his eyes and the thin white scar that pulled his mouth down on one side. Right now he looked like he could easily—and happily—wring her neck.
“I’m not going to argue with you about this, Kid. When we leave here in a couple of days, after my leg has time to heal a little more, you’re going to lead me to that gold. Understand?”
Anabeth said something in Apache very unflattering to Jake’s family tree.
Being an intelligent man, Jake didn’t ask her what she had said.
“You can’t make me do anything,” Anabeth said at last.
“Can’t I?” Jake stood and in the same movement grabbed Anabeth’s hand and yanked her out of the chair. She came flying toward him, stopped only by contact with his chest. He tunneled his fingers into a handful of her hair and arched her head back at a painful angle so she had no choice except to look at him. His other arm circled her hips, pinning her against his thighs.
Jake felt the heat in his loins and cursed. “You’ll do what I say, Kid, or I’ll—”
Anabeth opened her mouth to argue and Jake closed it in the most efficient way possible—with his own.
He wasn’t sure what he had expected her to do—fight him, maybe, or jerk her head away. Instead, her body melted against him, and her mouth trembled under his, open and vulnerable to his kiss.
Jake felt the blood pound in his veins, felt his whole being slipping away as she surrendered to him. He gentled his mouth on hers, but the effect was no less devastating to his senses. He lifted his head and looked into eyes dark with passion—yet confused and a little frightened, too.
The breath she had been holding shuddered out of her.
He realized he was still pressed against her, that his hand was still fisted in her hair. He released her.
Almost in slow motion she took a step back away from him.
“Look, Kid, I—”
Claire entered the room in what had to be the most awkward moment of Jake’s life. She took one look at Anabeth’s frightened face, frowned fiercely at Jake, and said, “I think it’s time I showed Anabeth where she’ll be sleeping.”
Claire led Anabeth to Jeff’s room and showed her the nightgown she had laid out for her on the bed. Anabeth’s glance slid to Jake’s saddlebags in the corner of the room. Those bags contained Booth’s guns.
“Are you all right? Do you need any help undressing?” Claire asked.
“I’m fine,” Anabeth replied with a stiff smile. “I’ll undress myself.”
“Good night, Anabeth,” Claire said. “Sleep well.”
“Good-bye, Claire,” Anabeth murmured. As soon as Claire was gone, Anabeth began a search through Jake’s saddlebags for Booth’s pearl-handled guns. Then she began unbuttoning the eighteen cloth-covered buttons on the silk taffeta dress. She stepped out of the gown and laid it carefully across the bed, smoothing the fabric. Where she was going, she wouldn’t need it.
She dressed herself in one of Jake’s shirts and a pair of his trousers rolled up in the legs. In the masculine clothes, she felt more like what she was. Kid Calhoun, outlaw. She couldn’t afford to have feelings for a lawman. Especially not one as
determined, as single-minded, as Jake Kearney.
Unfortunately, Anabeth was afraid it was too late. A shuddery sigh escaped as she conceded that she could very well be falling in love with the Ranger.
The worst of it was, she knew Jake didn’t love her. He couldn’t love any woman. He only desired her, as Booth had desired Sierra. Anabeth needed more than that. So before she let Jake tempt her to go hunting for gold, instead of revenge, she had to leave this place.
She had no doubt he would pursue her. Not for herself, of course, but for the gold. She would need all the skills Wolf had taught her to elude him.
Anabeth took one last look at the silk taffeta dress. She hated to leave it behind. But the truth was, it had been made to be worn by a lady—not an outlaw named Kid Calhoun.
Anabeth opened the shuttered window and slipped out into the night.
10
Jake knew he ought to wait until morning to confront Anabeth about what had happened between them, but he had never been a patient man. He had persuaded himself that the stunning kiss they had shared had been more a result of his anger and frustration with her than his desire for her. He wanted to reassure Anabeth that she wouldn’t have to worry about him losing control again if—when—they traveled to the valley together.
The moment Claire extinguished the lamp in her bedroom, he rose from Sam’s chair in the parlor and headed toward the room where Anabeth had retired earlier in the evening. He knocked softly, but when there was no answer he quietly edged the door open.
“You asleep, Kid?”
No answer. In the moonlight that streamed through the open window, Jake could see the silk taffeta dress had been laid neatly across the foot of the bed. The Kid lay wrapped in a lump of quilts. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I thought we ought to talk,” he said. “Get some things settled between us without involving Claire.”
He put his hand on what he supposed to be Anabeth’s shoulder. The pillow collapsed beneath the weight of his hand. Incredulous, Jake yanked the quilts away. At first he didn’t believe what he was seeing. The truth hit him hard and fast. “Hell and the devil!”
She was gone.
“Claire!” he bellowed. “Claire!”
Jake was already in the parlor retrieving his gunbelt from the back of Sam’s chair by the time Claire reached the hallway. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“She’s gone!”
“Who?”
“Anabeth,” Jake snarled. “I should have known she’d light out first chance she got! I never should have trusted her!” He buckled on his gunbelt and headed for the kitchen to pack some food for the trail.
Claire followed him. “Why would she run away?”
Jake turned on her and said, “I should have told you the whole truth. Anabeth is Booth Calhoun’s niece, but she’s also Kid Calhoun. She rode with the gang that robbed Sam.”
Claire’s brow furrowed. “She didn’t act like an outlaw, Jake. And you didn’t treat her like one. Are you sure she’s so bad?”
“I don’t know!” Jake said in an agonized voice. “One minute I think she’s lying through her teeth, and the next I just don’t know.”
“Where would she go?”
After Booth’s outlaw gang. Jake’s stomach churned as he thought of the danger she was courting. He should have kept a closer eye on her! He would from now on. He had warned her that he would show no mercy if she tried to run. Now he intended to make good on that promise.
Claire laid a hand on Jake’s sleeve as he grabbed the supplies he had tied up in a kitchen towel. She could see the signs of temper in the racing pulse at his temple, the jerk of the muscle in his jaw. “You won’t hurt her, will you, Jake?”
“Oh, I’ll be gentle with her,” he promised. Jake was already out the kitchen door when Claire heard him mutter, “When I catch up to her, I’m going to gently wring her neck!”
Claire frowned. She hoped for Anabeth’s sake that Jake didn’t catch up to the girl before he simmered down.
Claire headed toward Jeff’s room to see how it had been left after Anabeth’s abrupt departure. She seldom went into the room because it held too many memories. She didn’t light the lamp. She rearranged Anabeth’s dress over the rocker in the corner. As she straightened the sheets and settled the pillows at the head of the iron-frame bed she thought of the hours she had spent here reading to Jeff and listening to his prayers.
She sat on the edge of the bed and traced the embroidery on the pillowcase with her fingertips, then laid her head down for a moment and closed her eyes. The ache in her chest was as strong as it had been the day she learned her son was never coming home. Now Sam was gone, too. She needed the demands of Window Rock to give her life purpose.
“Please, Jake,” she whispered. “I’m counting on you to find that gold.”
She was so very tired. How many sleepless nights had she spent lately wishing, thinking about what might have been. If she could rest here for a moment, she would have the strength to go to her own bed. Slowly, surely, her eyes drifted closed.
Claire woke abruptly when a heavy hand clamped across her mouth. She stared, confused, at the shadowy specter sitting on the bed beside her. At first she thought it was Jake. A second later, both sight and scent told her it was not.
The scream caught in her throat as the Apache spoke to her in guttural tones. She clawed at his hand, trying to free her mouth, but his hold only tightened. She arched her back, trying to raise her head from the pillow, but he held her captive.
“Do not fight me, Stalking Deer,” Wolf said in the Apache tongue. “I have come to take you away from this place. You will be my woman. We will be together always.”
The Apache’s words fell on foreign ears. Claire scratched and bucked and kicked, fighting for her life.
“So be it,” Wolf said, his voice hard. He had hoped Stalking Deer would not fight him, but he had come prepared in case she did. He used a piece of rawhide to silence his struggling captive, forcing her mouth open and tying the gag tightly behind her head. He rolled her into the bedding to still her thrashing, then leaned down and whispered, “You give me no choice. I will not let the white man have you. You are mine.”
Wolf hefted the still-struggling body over his shoulder and made his way silently down the hall and out the back door. Moonlight flashed on Wolf’s self-satisfied smile as he emerged from the adobe house with his prize. Stalking Deer was his at last—and forever.
Silently, stealthily, he carried his burden up the hill to the spot where he had left his pony. Wolf threw the squirming bundle over the withers of his pony and mounted behind. He nudged the pony into a distance-eating lope. He was miles from the ranch house before he slowed his mount.
He patted what he thought to be Stalking Deer’s bottom and said, “If you will lie still, I will free you now.”
Claire writhed with humiliation and rage and fear at the familiarity of the Apache’s touch. She grunted angry noises through the gag in response to the Apache’s guttural speech.
“So be it,” Wolf said, frowning at Stalking Deer’s continuing defiance. “You can stay as you are until we reach the end of our journey.”
After another half hour, when Stalking Deer lay so still she might have been dead, Wolf reconsidered. He knew it was only Stalking Deer’s pride that made her fight him, and he did not want her sick when they arrived at the village. He turned her over and pulled her up into his arms. The pained groan of relief he heard from within the bundle of blankets made him smile. Stalking Deer was often stubborn to a fault. Nevertheless, she would make him a good wife.
Claire had been fighting the urge to vomit for so long she took several gasps of air when she was finally turned upright. She was too sick to resist the Apache as he turned her over and pulled her into his arms. When her head fell against his shoulder, she left it there and closed her eyes trying to recover from the awful nausea caused by her upside-down ride.
The Apache co
ntinued speaking to her as though she could understand him. The guttural sounds rumbled low in his chest, and she found them almost soothing. She did not fight him again, afraid to draw his attention to her. She could endure this closeness if it meant avoiding another painful ride over the pony’s withers.
As Claire lay in the Apache’s arms, she was able to detect his man-scent, a not unpleasant, but definitely foreign, musky smell. She was aware of his strength. Only a thin quilt separated her from a body that was hard as rock.
Claire had no doubt of her fate. She refused to think of it. When the time came, she would find a way to end things quickly.
Wolf was not far from home by the time the sun began its ascent. He did not wish to bring his bride into the village in such a way. There would be comment enough when it was known he intended to take a white woman for his wife. He stopped his pony at the edge of the pines that led up into the forested mountains where the camp was located. Taking a firm hold on his bundle, Wolf slipped off his pony.
“Can you stand, Stalking Deer?”
Evidently not. Her knees buckled. He picked her back up and carried her over to a fallen log and set her down on it. The sun broke over the mountains as he slowly, carefully unwrapped his prize.
Wolf’s jaw dropped in shock. The woman staring back at him, her features rigid, her golden eyes blazing, was not Stalking Deer!
“Who are you?” he demanded, teeth bared.
Claire’s eyes went wide as the Apache spoke to her in perfectly understandable English. Of course there was no possibility of answering him. She was still gagged.
The Apache recognized his error and roughly released the gag. He grabbed a handful of her golden hair and yanked her head back until she thought her neck would break.
“Who are you?” he asked again. “Where is Stalking Deer?”
Claire’s lips were dry, her mouth sore from having been gagged. She licked her lips painfully and managed to rasp, “My name is Claire Chandler. I don’t know anyone called Stalking Deer.”
“She went into the house with the white man, Jake Kearney. I saw her lie down in the bed where I found you.”
Kid Calhoun Page 15
