“Miss Soams, I know damn well why you claim you don’t know me.” His blue eyes darkened as he struggled to find the right words. “I know that I’m not what you expected.” He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “I meant to clean up a bit before we met, but I ran out of time.”
He hated having to apologize for his appearance in front of the others, but if he was going to hurry her up and get her out of her seat and off the train so that they could head back to Blue Creek in time, he knew he had to do some fast talking. He glanced out of the window behind her. Thankfully there was not a cloud in sight.
“A bargain is a bargain and I kept my end of it. I mailed you money for your ticket and here you are. Now”—he looked at her valise and writing box—“if this is all you have, I’ll carry them for you so we can get on our way.”
When he reached for her valise, Annika grabbed it and hugged it close as if protecting it from his touch. “I’ll thank you not to touch my things, Mr. Scott.”
She stared at him now, openly experiencing fear for the first time since this whole nightmare had begun. On close inspection he was not as wild as he appeared, but he was obviously sincere in his intent to force this Alice Soams to keep her end of the bargain. From the desperate way he was watching her, Annika knew that this impending marriage meant a lot to this man. She tried to see beyond the curling, shoulder-length hair, past the dirty buckskins and callused hands. He was still clutching his hat and the two letters, leaning forward so that the entire carload of passengers could not overhear what he had to say.
He was not as old as his stubbled beard and sun-creased skin made him seem. She guessed he wasn’t quite thirty. His eyes were clear and blue, but they were the eyes of a much older man. Old eyes in a young face. Suddenly, Annika felt compelled to explain, without hurting him, that she was not Alice Soams.
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Scott, but I’m afraid there’s been a terrible mistake. I don’t know where that letter came from, I really don’t. I’m not Alice Soams, although I am from Boston...”
He leaned toward her.
Buck reached out and gingerly traced the gold letters embroidered on her cape. “A S.” He arched a brow and shook his head. “Even your cloak gives you away. Am I that repulsive?”
Annika stared down at the long finger pressing against the spot above her heart before she looked him square in the eye. “My name is Annika Storm,” she said slowly.
He stared back, then his gaze moved over her face, her hair, her clothing. Annika could almost see the wheels of his mind at work. When he came to a decision, he abruptly stood. Then, without hesitation, he put the letters in his pocket, shoved on his hat, and then reached down. He grabbed her valise.
“Are you coming, Miss Soams, or do I carry you off this train?”
“If you so much as touch me, I’ll have you arrested.”
“A bargain’s a bargain, Miss Soams.”
“Will you stop saying that?”
A man three rows back called out, “A bargain’s a bargain, just like the man says.”
Suddenly everyone else felt compelled to chime in and offer their opinions.
“Stick to your guns, mister!” a drummer in a bowler hat called out.
A young cowhand shouted, “Come on, lady, go with him!”
“Haul her out of here!” advised an old gent.
“She shouldn’t ough’ta have to go if’n she don’t wanna,” a woman yelled from the back.
Annika looked around and spied the conductor hovering near the door. She tried to appeal to him by shouting over the ruckus, “This is ridiculous! If you’ll just wait until we reach Cheyenne, I’m sure my brother can clear up this whole situation. Wait”—she reached for her writing box—“I know I must have something in here with my name on it.”
Before she could open it, Buck leaned down and grabbed the box and shoved it under his arm. “We’ll take this, too.” He grasped Annika by the wrist and jerked her out of the seat.
She tried to pull away, but he was so much bigger that she might just as well have been a dust mote fighting against a tornado. Before she could do more than struggle against his relentless grip, Annika found herself standing before the open doorway of the railroad car. The conductor stood outside watching them with a worried frown of indecision on his round face.
“You can’t just stand there and let him do this!” she called to him.
The conductor looked hopeless as he measured Buck Scott’s stature.
Buck Scott stepped down onto the uneven ground beside the track and then pulled Annika down the steps behind him. “He doesn’t have a thing to say about it, Alice. A deal’s a deal. Everybody knows that. Besides, if you don’t intend to carry out your end of the bargain, then I’ll have you arrested for stealing my money.”
“What money?” she yelled.
He leaned close and said very slowly and distinctly, as if she were an idiot, “The money I sent you for train fare.”
With that, Buck abruptly turned around and began dragging Annika down the line toward his horses. She dug in her heels. He jerked her off them. The conductor, followed by a crowd of passengers, some that had disembarked again just to watch, hurried after them.
When Buck reached his horses and mules, he started to release Annika, then thought better of it. He glanced up at the sky, tried to ignore the harsh wind that had begun to whip around them, and wondered how he was going to tie her valise and writing box to the mules with one hand.
“If I let you go are you going to run off?”
She couldn’t believe he was stupid enough to even ask. “What do you think?”
He shouted over his shoulder to the conductor. “Come over here and strap these things onto that front pack mule.”
“Mister, listen,” the conductor said with sudden reservation, “maybe we should wait until we get to Cheyenne. You can come aboard, we’ll haul your animals back in the stock car and—”
“No. I don’t have time.”
“Listen,” the man tried again, “I don’t see that it would make much difference one way or the other. Whether she’s your fiancée or not, this lady doesn’t want to go with you. I think it would be better all around if you waited so we can clear this up in Cheyenne.”
Buck stared at the crowd around them. Ladies and gentlemen from the East, farmers, traveling salesmen, a cowhand or two, some wide-eyed immigrants. They were all watching him intently. Watching and sizing him up. It had been that way since he was fourteen years old and taller than most grown men. Even back then people took him to be much older, far rougher than he really was, and for that reason he’d been challenged time and time again by men who had to prove they were better than the overgrown son of a wandering buffalo hunter.
He recognized the expressions in the eyes of the women. Some of them watched him with undisguised fear, while others merely stared at him with disdain. He was big and rough, crudely dressed and he knew it, but his appearance reflected all that he had experienced during his lifetime. Changing the outside wasn’t going to change all he carried around inside.
He could feel the emotion of the crowd as it slowly shifted from support to one of suspicion. Sensing his hesitation, the girl began to struggle harder against his grip. He squeezed her wrist, was immediately contrite when he saw her wince, but didn’t ease up. As he jerked her to his side, he thrust the valise and writing box toward the conductor, who had no choice but to grab them before they hit the ground.
With a lightning swift move, Buck drew his skinning knife from the sheath anchored to his thigh and pulled Annika into his arms. He pressed the tip of the knife against her throat.
She stopped struggling and stiffened immediately. He glared at the conductor. “Now tie those things on the mule.”
The crowd standing nearby was silent. Buck kept his gaze roving over them, carefully watching the men for any sign of movement, any indication that one of them was reaching for a gun.
“I didn’t want to have to do this to you,
ma’am,” he growled low in her ear, “but you didn’t leave me any choice. You’ll see that when we get to the cabin.”
Annika was afraid to move. The warm breath that crept along her ear and neck did nothing to calm the fear that spurred the uneven beat of her heart. For a moment she feared she might faint, but never one to be a shrinking violet, Annika didn’t intend to start now. Besides, she thought, she had to keep her wits about her so that she could escape this madman at the first opportunity.
The drummer in the crowd slipped his hand inside his coat and pulled out a handgun. Buck Scott froze and held Annika tighter. He threatened to use his knife, pushed it closer against her tender skin. “Don’t do it,” he warned the man. “Drop the gun.”
The drummer dropped his gun.
When Buck started to walk backward, holding her tight against him with the wicked blade of the long knife pressed against her throat, she did not struggle, but moved with him instead. It was like walking with a solid wall at her back. She knew when they reached his horse, for he paused and lowered the knife long enough to grab her around the waist. Before she expected it, he tossed her up onto the saddle. Ever conscious of the weapon that threatened her rib cage, Annika made no move to escape. Instead, she met the eyes of the conductor and said slowly and carefully, “My brother will be waiting on the platform in Cheyenne. His name is Storm, Kase Storm. Please, please tell him what happened, and tell him I’ll be all right until he can find me.”
The conductor nodded, afraid to make a move that might anger the man who had vaulted onto the back of the horse behind her and grabbed the reins. The knife was at her throat again.
With the slightest movement of his knees, Buck controlled his prancing horse. The rich brown bay backed away from the crowd. The extra mount and the mules were forced to follow. Buck stared down the crowd until he was far enough out of gunshot range to feel safe, then he spun the bay toward the west, sheathed his knife, and kicked the horse into a gallop.
BUCK Scott couldn’t believe his bad luck.
It was one thing to finally come to the decision that he had to marry, but it was altogether another one to learn that the woman who had promised to do so was refusing so adamantly. He wished like hell that he had taken the time to clean himself up, bought a new shirt, and tried to impress Alice Soams. Maybe then she would have come along with him willingly. Maybe.
But as soon as he thought it, he knew that even a new shirt probably would not have helped. She was far too beautiful, too finely dressed, too citified for a man like him. He could tell just by looking at her that she would never fit into his life, never adjust to the cramped quarters of his cabin or the loneliness of life at Blue Creek. So why in the hell didn’t he just turn around and take her back?
He’d been asking himself that question for the last few miles, but the answer was not swift in coming. He tried to tell himself it was because she had promised to marry him and a deal was a deal. He’d always stood by his own promises. But deep down when he wasn’t trying to fool himself, Buck knew that the real reason he’d carried her off the train in the first place was because she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen or could ever hope to call his own. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her, it had been impossible to stop himself from wanting to keep her. Time would be on his side, he decided. In time he’d convince her to accept him.
Annika had been too scared to speak for the first few minutes as they thundered across the landscape and he held his knife tight in his fist, close enough to her side to scare her, but expertly enough so that it would not cause her any harm at all. As soon as he had sheathed the weapon she had started arguing with him, adding to the incessant rattling sound from her satchel. Whatever was inside it kept banging and clanging against the side of the pack mule. She had hollered at him for a good quarter of an hour and although he’d tried to drown her out, he couldn’t.
“When my brother hears about this, he’ll kill you!” She squirmed in his arms, trying to get a better look at him.
Buck didn’t let her twist an inch in his embrace. He jerked her up against him and she reacted immediately by trying to pull away. She continued to babble about her brother. He was determined to ignore it.
“My brother’s twice the man you are. It won’t take him long to find you, even if you plan on riding to the ends of the earth.”
Thinking of the secluded cabin in Blue Creek Valley hidden beyond the pass in the Laramies, Buck nearly told her that the end of the earth was exactly where they were headed.
“... Kase Storm’s no coward,” she was saying. “No, sir.”
The ground beneath them flew past as the big bay horse thundered northwestward. Somehow her words finally registered. Finally he concentrated on the name she threatened him with. Buck eased his hold a bit. “What did you just say?” he asked.
“I said you had better release me this minute, or—”
He shook her. “Not that. Who’d you say your brother was?”
He felt her gloating even though he could not see her face.
“Kase Storm!” she shouted over the pounding hoofbeats.
“The Kase Storm, the one who used to be the marshal of Busted Heel?”
“Exactly. The Kase Storm who is a crack shot, the man who wiped out the Dawson gang six years ago.”
Even Buck had heard of Kase Storm. If this woman’s claim was true, Buck knew he was in worse trouble than he could ever imagine.
He nearly believed her. He almost stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, but then he recalled one pertinent fact—Kase Storm was a half-breed.
This striking blonde with the wide blue eyes could not possibly be the man’s sister.
Buck smiled smugly to himself and urged his horse on. “My guess is that you heard stories about Kase Storm on the train and now you’re using his name to get me to let you go.”
“That’s not true. He is my brother and when he finds you he’s going to beat you to death and shoot you between the eyes, skin you alive, and slowly roast you over hot coals!”
She was really worked up now.
“Jesus, lady. Just pick one, will you?”
She pounded on his thigh with her balled fist. “I’m not joking. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll turn around and take me back.”
“Not a chance, Alice.”
“I’m not Alice!” she screamed.
He detected a hoarseness in her voice and was pleased. Anything that might give him some relief from her constant protestations would be welcome.
“You had better shut your mouth, Alice. This cold wind will give you a sore throat if you get it down your windpipe.”
She groaned in frustration and then pouted in silence for a while before she said, “I have to relieve myself.”
“Sure you do.”
“Damn you!”
“Shut up, Alice.”
Buck stared up at the base of the mountains looming before them. Even riding double they had made good time, but he knew he would wear his mount into the ground if he didn’t put Alice on the mare soon. He glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of anyone following; nothing but open plain stretched behind them for miles. He decided he had better ride a mile farther before he stopped and tied her to the other horse.
4
ANNIKA clung to the pommel of the saddle, her hands numb with cold, and wondered how she would ever escape from this wild man. She ached all over. Her shoulders screamed with pain. He had tied her wrists together and then anchored the rope to the saddle. They raced over the uneven, barren ground against the biting cold wind, heading for the mountain range that lay to the north and west, judging by the position of the late afternoon sun.
Fingers of clouds reached over the ragged mountaintops. Barely streaking the sky, the gathering wisps did not appear to pose a threat to them yet, but Annika knew by the harsh pace the man had set for himself and the way he kept glancing up at the sky that he was certain his earlier prediction of a storm would come to pass.
She was freezing, her satin opera cape little comfort against the sharp wind. Thankful that she had worn her woolen traveling suit, she still chided herself for being foolish enough to bring such an impractical cloak, but she’d never intended to be out riding in it in the first place. She had chosen the satin creation only because it would keep the dust off the suit and if she were totally honest with herself, because it was her favorite new piece of clothing. Before she had called off her wedding, she had envisioned wearing the cape to the opera in Paris while she and Richard toured the Continent on their honeymoon. As she glared at the broad back and shoulders of the man who had abducted her, she wondered if she would ever live to see Richard Thexton again or anyone else, for that matter.
Staring straight ahead, she had become mesmerized by the rhythmic pounding of horses’ hooves mingled with the rattle and clank of her button collection in the tin inside her valise. The satchel had beat against the pack mule every step of the way. When they suddenly halted, the absence of sound startled her out of her lethargic state.
Buck Scott leapt from his horse in a surprisingly fluid movement and stomped back to where Annika sat imprisoned on the mare. He glared at her long and hard, then started toward the lead mule.
“I’ve had just about all I can take of that godforsaken rattling,” he mumbled aloud as he began to untie her valise. “I don’t know what the hell is makin’ that noise, but whatever it is, I’m throwing it out.”
She nudged the horse with her heels until it turned enough to permit her to watch with growing horror as Buck took her valise off the mule.
“You can’t do that!” she yelled. “Don’t touch my things.”
“Watch me.” He started to rifle through her most intimate belongings. When he found the gold embossed tin that was the cause of his annoyance, he shook it and then shook his head.
Annika knew she had to talk fast to dissuade him from pitching the thing away and moving on. “Please, Mr. Scott, I beg of you, don’t throw that away. Stuff something into it, if you will, and it won’t rattle. That’s my button collection. I’ve had it for years.”
Come Spring Page 5
