“It’s not him,” Serena cried. “It’s you. You make what I feel for Matt sound dirty and wrong, and it’s not. You know it’s not, Pace. Don’t do this to Matt. Don’t hurt me this way.”
“I’m not hurting you,” Pace said. “You’re hurting yourself. You always have, when it came to him. He’ll hurt you, too.”
Matt straightened and jerked his head around. Hurt Rena? He would die before he would intentionally hurt Rena. Surely Pace knew that.
“He’s a grown man,” Pace told her. “You’re just a kid.”
“So much younger than you,” Serena tossed back.
“I don’t doubt he’ll take whatever you offer him, but he’ll get tired of you fast enough. Then where will you be?”
“Rena’s right, Pace,” Matt said. “You do have a dirty little mind.”
“What’s going on over here?” Travis’s voice boomed beside them. “I thought you were going out to bring in Carlos and Jorge, like I asked,” he said to Matt.
“You mean like you ordered,” Serena said.
“You stay out of this,” Travis told her.
“I will not.”
“Ride, Matt.”
Matt gave his father a hard look. “You gonna browbeat her while I’m gone?”
Travis looked outraged. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
“Don’t worry about me, Matt,” Serena said. “I can take care of myself.”
Matt ignored Serena and answered his father. “Pretty damned pertinent, if you ask me.”
“Impertinent, you mean,” Travis said. “You’re my son. You don’t tell me how to deal with my own daughter.”
Matt gave his father a level look. “Yes, I’m your son. And she’s your daughter. But she’s not my sister.”
Serena felt a fluttering sensation in her chest.
Daniella pushed her way past Travis to Matt’s side. “Ride on out and get Carlos and Jorge.” She stretched onto tiptoes and kissed Matt on the cheek. “Supper will be ready by the time you get back.”
Matt looked into Dani’s bright blue eyes, just one of the gifts she’d given to Pace and Serena, and saw the calm strength there. She hadn’t said much all afternoon about his and Rena’s new relationship. She hadn’t hovered over Rena or tossed Matt dirty looks the way his father and Pace had. She was obviously reserving judgment.
Matt gave her a nod. Maybe while he was gone she could calm everyone down.
No one calmed down. Jorge and Carlos were obviously nervous at the tension and undercurrents evident around the campfire that night. Serena bitterly regretted her earlier outburst that had started all this. But then, Pace was the one who really started it, with his nasty comments about Matt.
Still, she knew he thought he was looking out for her best interests. She just wished he would give her enough credit to know what those were for herself.
“Notice you got the buggy horse back,” Matt said to Pace. “Where’d you find her?”
Pace smiled grimly. “Fronteras.”
“You found Pablo?” Serena asked.
The grin widened. “I found him.”
“Who’s Pablo?” Travis demanded.
“The one who sent Matt the scalp,” Pace answered.
Serena’s mouth went dry. “Scalp? What scalp?”
Matt frowned at Pace while he answered Serena. “Just a little message Caleb presumably paid Pablo to send, trying to convince me you were dead.”
A chill raced down Serena’s spine. “So that’s what he meant,” she whispered. “He surely didn’t expect you to fall for it. Nobody else in the world has hair like this.” She tugged on her white streak.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a shudder rip through her mother.
Matt cocked his head at Pace. “Just how did they do that?”
“How did they do what?” Serena asked, a sense of dread crawling up her arms.
“Took them several tries to get the one they sent you.”
Daniella raised a hand to her mouth. “You mean they—”
“I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, Mother,” Pace said.
“No.” She swallowed. “I want to know exactly what happened, how they could have made it look…like…”
Serena’s stomach clenched. Her family had been sent a scalp that looked like hers! Oh, God, how they must have hurt.
Pace looked to his father. Travis gave him a reluctant nod. “Go ahead. We might as well hear the worst.”
With grim, clipped words, Pace told how Pablo and his brother had bragged about the way they scalped a Mexican woman, then tried to bleach a strip of her hair white. But the streak turned out red rather than white, and they knew that wouldn’t work.
With no more thought than they would give to an old pair of boots, the two men then took another scalp and tried again. This time the streak turned yellow. Still not good enough, they knew.
“They finally got smart,” Pace said. “They found a white-headed old man and died his hair black except for the streak. Came out just the way they wanted, so they scalped him.”
“Madre de Dios,” Carlos muttered.
“How—” Daniella cleared her throat and started over. “How did you get them to tell you all this?”
“Don’t worry, Mother, I leave the torture to Matt. All I had to do was furnish the tequila and start asking questions. And speaking of torture,” Pace said to Matt, “you had a witness at Cos-codee the day you caught up with Abe Scott.”
Matt raised a brow.
“Good ol’ Pablo was up on the rim. Apparently saw the whole thing. He had met Scott a time or two, so he sent word to Caleb. That’s how Caleb knew about Abe, about Cos-codee.”
Matt held Pace’s gaze and took a slow sip of coffee, then balanced the cup on his knee. “Where’s Pablo now?”
Pace gave a nonchalant shrug and said, “‘Éguusdi.”
Serena tensed. Beside her, her mother paled.
“How did he die?” Matt asked softly.
Pace gave another shrug. “From trying to breathe through a slit throat.”
“Pace,” Daniella cried. “You didn’t!”
“You better have,” Matt muttered.
Pace stood and stretched like a lazy cat. “Think I’ll turn in.”
“Pablo’s brother?” Matt called to Pace.
Pace grinned over his shoulder at Matt. “The ailment ran in the family.”
Chapter Twenty
Pain bit deep and sharp and woke him. Fierce, hot pain. Burning. Like fire.
Fire.
In that instant, memory rushed in, and Caleb Scott knew who and where he was, how he got there. And he knew hate. Hate so powerful it cleared the vision in the one good eye he had left.
Dim light glowed from somewhere above, telling him that out in the world, the sun was shining. Daytime. How long had he been in this pit? How many days since he had wakened to find himself falling, bouncing down the sheer rock walls with the triumphant roar of the cat in his ears?
Matt Colton had done this to him. Matt Colton. Damn the bastard! “He’s killed me, sure as he killed Abe.” Just as slowly, just as painfully, Caleb was going to die. He knew it. He lay burned, broken, and bleeding in a stench-filled den somewhere in the bowels of the rocky canyon wall. And any minute, the cougar would return.
He wouldn’t think of it. He would think of the woman. Serena. Calm, beautiful Serena. She had been weakening. Had Colton not shown up when he did, Serena would have been Caleb’s. He would have buried his flesh in hers and she would have welcomed him. She would have loved him.
Just one more thing Matt Colton had taken from him.
Colton had taken everything. He’d taken Abe, wiped him off the face of the earth. He’d taken the revenge Caleb had lived for. He’d taken Serena, Caleb’s freedom, and now, his very life.
Goddamn you, Matt Colton. I’ll be waiting for you in hell.
A snuffling sound echoed in the hidden cave and sent icy fingers of terror down Caleb’s spine. The cat was b
ack. Female, Caleb remembered. Her sagging tits told of a recent litter.
The sweat of fear rolled down his face and nearly blinded him. A mother cat with a hungry litter somewhere close. And Caleb Scott stretched out before her like a pig on a platter. A big platter. His body broken and useless, his strength gone.
The cat licked her lips and showed her teeth. A low rumbling came from her throat.
Caleb shook so hard he heard his bones rattle.
No. Not bones. Something else, something important. But what?
He tried to raise his head, but couldn’t.
The rattling grew louder, taunting him. It was important, he knew. Something in him, on him, near him. He couldn’t tell.
The cat sniffed his foot.
He jerked.
She sniffed his ankle, his calf.
“No! Goddamn it, no!” Gagging on the stench of fear—his—and rotting flesh—from the mangled carcass in the corner—Caleb tried to move away.
The cat leveled hungry yellow eyes on him. She put a giant paw on his thigh and let out a howl so sharp and loud that dirt sifted down from overhead.
With his one good arm, Caleb frantically swiped the dirt from his one good eye. Something hard and cold hit him in the nose.
Serena’s derringer. He blinked. There it was, the little two-shot pistol, right there in his hand. It must have been there all along, since he’d pulled it on Colton. His mind was suddenly so clear and calm, he knew instinctively he was saved the horror of watching himself being eaten alive, limb by limb, bite by bite, by the devil incarnate disguised as a cougar.
He knew, because he remembered. The derringer had one shot left. Only one, but one would be enough. One little .22 slug to the brain, and Caleb would be free of the teeth even now reaching for his bloody thigh. Free of the fear, the horror.
Free.
With the last of his strength and no regrets, he raised the pistol slowly, carefully. His finger was sure and oddly strong on the trigger. He squeezed.
The shot echoed through the cavern and erupted from the crevice overhead like lava spewing from a volcano.
At the abrupt rend in the silence, birds squawked and flapped away. Small animals raced for cover.
And somewhere across the canyon, a bear threw his head to the sky and roared.
For Serena, the trip home was a nightmare. The tension in the air crackled like lightning. Even her mother got caught up in it, no longer able to keep her serene attitude. Pace couldn’t speak to Matt without snarling. Travis couldn’t look at Matt without frowning. It was enough to make Serena want to cry.
And both Pace and her father were treating her as if she were some hothouse flower that might wilt at the slightest inconvenience.
“Ride in the wagon, Serena. You’re still too weak to handle a horse.”
“Sleep next to your mother, Serena, in case you need anything during the night.”
“Let me help you up, Serena.”
“Let me help you down, Serena.”
It was enough to make her grind her teeth to keep from screaming. By the time they crossed the border into Arizona, they were still at it.
“Let me help you down, Serena.” Her father reached his arms up to lift her from the wagon, where she had ridden most of the day to pacify him.
“I can get down just fine, thank you.” The sharpness in her voice was something she could no longer control. She didn’t bother trying.
“I know you can, honey. I just want to help.”
The hurt in her father’s voice made her feel small and petty. She fought the feeling. “I appreciate it,” she told him, “but I’m starting to feel like I’m smothering with all this attention. Please, Dad, stop hovering. I’m a big girl.”
Travis sighed, shook his head, and walked away.
Serena was halfway over the side of the wagon, one foot on the back wheel, when Pace ran up.
“Here, Rena, let me help you.”
She ground her teeth. “I don’t need any help, thank you.”
“Well, pardon the hell out of me for offering,” he said before stomping off in a huff.
Matt came next.
“Don’t you dare offer to help me down, or I swear, I’ll spit in your face.”
“Not me.” Matt raised both hands in defense. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
Serena finally made it to the ground beside Matt and shook the dust from her skirt. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” She tossed her father and Pace a glare.
“They getting to you?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“They’re only acting this way because they love you.”
Serena whirled on him. “Don’t you dare take up for them. They love you, too, and look how they’re treating you.” She glanced up at him and knew instantly she shouldn’t have.
This was the first time they had been within yards of each other without an immediate audience since Pace and their parents had arrived in the canyon. It was the closest she had been to him since he had carried her away from her near fatal fall from the ledge.
She wanted to touch him so badly. She wanted to lean against him, feel his arms around her, taste his lips on hers. Oh, Matt.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said softly, his brown eyes flaring with heat. “I mean it, Rena. If you think what you said that day in the canyon shocked them, that was nothing compared to how shocked they’ll be with what I’ll do right here and now if you don’t stop looking at me that way.”
Serena sucked in a sharp breath. The images his words conjured made her knees go weak. “Matt.”
“Rena, don’t.”
“What are we going to do?”
Matt fought for the strength to resist the plea in her eyes. He fought the need to pull her to him and hold her close. With a deep breath, he stepped back and looked up at the sky. It was the same color as her eyes. “We’re going to give everyone a chance to calm down and get used to the idea of you and me.”
“And then?”
“And then we’re going to make damn sure of my feelings and yours before we take this…whatever it is between us, one step farther.”
“What are your feelings, Matt? You’ve never said.”
The quiver in her voice made him face her again. The anguish in her eyes made him ache. “I’m still…trying to understand, myself. But one thing I do know, whatever we decide will be between you and me. The rest of them have nothing to say about it.”
“Nothing to say? Matt, this whole family is already tearing itself apart because I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself, couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I don’t want them to hate you because of me.”
“Ah, Rena.” He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms and holding her close. “It’ll work out, you’ll see. This family’s too strong to fall apart. What I feel for you, what we can have together, is too strong for them to stop us if we don’t let them. Trust me, Rena,” he said softly. “Trust me.”
Serena clung to him, savoring the shelter of his embrace. “They’re watching,” she whispered.
“Let them.”
She wanted to melt into him, become part of him so no one could separate them. Footsteps crunching on gravel told her it couldn’t be. Not here, not now.
“What’s wrong with her?” Travis demanded.
Serena squeezed Matt once, then stepped back.
Matt refused to drop his arms as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He kept them loosely around Rena’s shoulders. “Nothing’s wrong.”
From out of nowhere, Pace grabbed Serena’s arm and jerked her from Matt’s embrace. “Then leave her the hell alone, you bastard.”
“Damn you!” Serena swung her fist against Pace’s jaw. Pain shot up her arm at the impact.
Pace reeled from the blow, stunned.
The fire of righteous anger heated Serena’s blood. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again,” she told him. “I am not some mindless rag doll to be tossed and jerked around. You
remember that, shilahúkéne. You stick your nose in my business again, I’m going to cut it off. K’eedaashnndi,” she repeated in Apache.
“You threaten me? You—”
“No. Bíni’. Stop, stop!” Matt could not watch Serena and Pace fight because of him. He simply couldn’t. They were saying and doing things they didn’t mean, because of him. How long before they both turned on him, blaming him for coming between them, hating him for destroying their closeness? Matt shivered at the thought. He clamped an arm around each one’s head and a hand over each mouth and held them tight. “Stop it, both of you.”
Pace stood stock still. Matt could feel every muscle in the young man’s body quivering with rage.
With her eyes full of outrage, Serena squealed behind Matt’s hand.
“I know,” Matt told her. “I know, but stop. Please.” He pulled them both against him and rested his head between theirs. “Please don’t do this to yourselves, to each other.”
When he released them, they both started to speak. Nearly trembling with rage at them, at himself, at the whole damn world, Matt raised his hand. “No! Rena, Pace is only acting like an overbearing asshole because he loves you. He thinks he’s protecting you from me, that I’ll hurt you.”
Pace made a snarling sound. Matt turned on him. “I know it’s not her you’re angry with. You want a piece of my hide, you come get it any time. Just stop ripping at her for whatever it is you think I’ve done.”
Pace snarled again and raised a fist.
“Don’t!” Matt squeezed his eyes shut. “Please, please don’t let me come between you two.”
After the wearing tensions of the day, Daniella couldn’t sleep. Judging from the restless rustlings around her in the dark, no one else was having much luck, either. Except Serena. Daniella ached with each sleepy whimper from her daughter’s throat. Dreams shouldn’t be painful. After what her daughter had been through these past few weeks, plus the sharp friction now among the men, Daniella could well imagine what tormented Serena’s sleep.
As a family, the Coltons had weathered every crisis they had faced and come out stronger each time. But never had they torn at each other the way they had on this trip.
Pace’s anger she understood. Anger bred by a pain he refused to admit. His twin sister was a woman now, with a woman’s needs, a woman’s wants. She was growing away from the close bond the two had shared since before their birth. She was turning to another man.
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