by Candace Camp
“I love you, Sam. I love you.” Amy’s arms went around him. She was still holding the revolver in her hand, and it bumped against his back.
Sam reached back and took the gun from her hand. He held it out, looking at it. “What’s this?” He gazed down into her face, his own expression softening into a kind of tender awe. “You were carrying my pistol? Why? To shoot Purdon?”
Amy nodded. “I was afraid he would hurt you. There were three of them. I didn’t know what they’d do. I had to save you somehow.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” He squeezed her even more tightly. It made his chest feel full to think that she loved him that much—that she, sweet, gentle creature that she was, would have fought to protect him. “I love you. And I swear to God, I’ll make you happy. I’m going to make your life sweet from here on in.”
Amy smiled and laid her head trustingly against his chest. “It will be, as long as you’re with me.”
It was too late that night to dig up the gold, and, anyway, Brody wasn’t about to separate himself from Amy long enough to hunt for it. They went to bed in the hut and held each other throughout the night. Amy slept, comforted by his presence, but Brody lay awake much of the night, savoring the joy of holding her, and making plans.
***
Slater and Victoria set out the next morning, following the men’s tracks. Slater reflected bitterly that Victoria seemed to have no difficulty sleeping when she was around him, for she was as bright and beautiful as ever.
However, no matter how fresh and lovely Victoria looked to Slater’s eyes, she had been anything but free from tension. She had done little the past two days except think about what had happened between them—and how much more she had wanted to happen.
Her desire surprised her. She had never felt even an inkling of this feeling for a man before. She had assumed that desire was something a woman felt only for the man she truly loved. Yet she desired Slater, and she didn’t love him. She couldn’t love him. He was completely wrong for her. He lived like a gypsy and was always in danger. He had no ties to the land; why, he had simply abandoned his home. He was maddening, infuriating, conceited…
And strong. Brave. Quick, confident, skilled, smart. He could laugh wryly at himself. He was even man enough to admit Victoria’s abilities. And his fingers on her skin were like fire. His mouth was velvet, hot and aggressive. His hard body, pressed against her, had aroused trembling, eager sensations she’d never known before, but wanted desperately to feel again.
So her thoughts went, circling around in futile argument, half of her wanting him and urging her to toss aside the consequences, the other half reminding her of all the reasons why she couldn’t love him. Victoria had never been so confused or helpless, and she hated the feeling.
She was an unconventional woman, and there were moments when she told herself that she should take the physical pleasure Slater could bring her and forget about love and marriage and living with him forever on the ranch. This might be the only chance she would ever have to feel this way. She had never felt this before, so it was possible, even likely, that Slater, rough and hard and oh, so masculine, was the only man who could arouse her. Why not take the leap and let the consequences come as they would? What did it matter if he didn’t love her? What did it matter if there could be no future for them? There was at least the present, and surely she would feel no worse when Slater left her if she had slept with him.
But she balked at taking that final, irrevocable step. Somehow she knew that if she made love with Slater, she would never be the same, that she would be utterly vulnerable to him. So despite her turmoil and the desire that ran hidden in her veins, Victoria remained aloof.
She was so deep in her thoughts that it took her a moment to realize that Slater had pulled up and was dismounting. Victoria took the opportunity to swing out of the saddle. “What is it? Did you find where they made camp last night?”
“No, not yet. They must have ridden a long way before stopping. But look.” Slater squatted down, examining the ground. “There are more tracks here.”
“Joining them?” Excitement rose in Victoria. “You think they met up with Amy and Brody?”
He nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just two people traveling in the same direction.” He followed the set of tracks backward to the point where they diverged from the others, coming from the south. There was a dried up puddle here, and he went down to examine it. “It’s the same. See that notch?” He glanced up at Victoria, his eyes alight. “They were coming here from that direction, the way Brody would have come.”
They renewed their pursuit, their pace faster. Though the tracks were numerous and easy to follow, there was still no sign of a campfire or of people dismounting and walking around. “Do you think they rode through the night?” Victoria asked. “It’s bound to have gotten dark on them by the time they got this far.”
“There was a full moon last night, so they wouldn’t have been completely blind. What I’m wondering is whether their hide-out is near-by. If they knew they’d be there in an hour or so, they wouldn’t have bothered to camp.” Slater frowned. “Damn it! I shouldn’t have stopped.”
“You didn’t know they were going to keep on riding,” Victoria pointed out reasonably. She glanced around at the rocky hills and boulders around them. “This looks like good country for hiding.”
“They picked up their pace here.” Slater pointed to the ground as they trotted by. “See how the prints are deeper?”
“Horses heading home?” Victoria suggested, and he nodded.
“Yeah, I think we may be getting close.”
“Well, it looks like we’re riding straight into that hill,” Victoria pointed out.
The tracks ended on the rocky layers at the foot of the bluff. Slater swung down to search the ground more closely. It was rocky and difficult to read, but there was ample evidence of horses in the droppings on the ground. “They must have turned here.”
“Why come so close to the hill?” Victoria asked, joining him.
He shook his head, making a sweeping search as he moved northward. “Here. More prints.” When Victoria reached him, he was frowning at the hoof prints on the ground. “But there are just three of them, like there were coming from Austin? I don’t see any sign of the other two horses.”
“Then Brody and Amy went another way again?”
“I don’t know.” Slater shook his head, retracing his steps. He walked past a boulder and glanced behind it, then let out a soft curse. Tying his mount to a mesquite tree, he skirted the large flat rock and walked along the narrow passage leading to a mesquite bush nestled against the cliff. Hearing Victoria behind him, he said, “Watch out. This is a good place for snakes.”
“Then why—” Victoria’s words died in her throat as Slater pushed aside the branches of the shrub, revealing an opening in the rock wall.
Slater peered into wide crack in the rock. He could see the ground in front of him for only a few feet before it was swallowed up the dark. “Damn. No wonder I’ve always lost him. I think Brody’s hideout is a cave.”
***
After a cold breakfast, Brody dug up the small strongbox of gold and transferred the money into his saddlebags. It felt strange, leaving the hideout behind, and nerves danced in his stomach. Was he being a fool? Could a man like him start a new life?
But then he looked over at Amy, and she smiled, and everything inside him settled down. Whatever happened, he had to risk it. Picking up the lantern, he led his horse into the cave. Amy stayed close behind him, leading her own mount. Near the mouth of the tunnel, Brody doused the lantern and set it down near the entrance, as he had always done, though now no one would be using it. Just as he was about to step out into the bright sunlight he heard the unmistakable sound of voices. He drew back, reaching for Amy’s hand.
She looked at him, puzzled, and he raised a finger to his lips, signaling for quiet. He tapped his ear and pointed toward the entrance, and Amy
went still, listening. Understanding dawned on her face. Quickly and quietly, Brody led Amy and the horses into the offshoot on the opposite side of the cave, not stopping until they were hidden by the darkness. He slid his Colt out of the holster.
The voices grew louder and more distinct. He could separate them now into two different voices, one feminine and one masculine. A man stepped into the cave, followed by a woman in boots and a riding skirt. They stood in the daylight coming in from outside, and Amy and Sam could see them clearly. Sam stiffened. Slater—and Amy’s cousin.
He glanced down at Amy. Her face lit up with recognition, and his stomach clenched. Would she call out to her beloved cousin? If she did, he was done for. He couldn’t ever hurt someone Amy loved, and he couldn’t shoot Slater in front of her, not after the promises he’d made last night. He thought of clamping his hand over her mouth to stop her, but he couldn’t even do that. Instead, he put his hand on his horse’s nose to keep it quiet and slipped his gun back into the holster. He waited tautly, the sweat trickling down his back.
Slater and Victoria moved around clumsily in the dim light near the entrance, then disappeared into the darkness beyond. Slater lit a match and held it, and Brody saw him in the small glow.
“Slater, look, a lantern!” Victoria cried, holding up the lantern Brody had set down.
Slater lit the lantern and held it up, looking around him. He turned all the way around, but Brody and Amy were several feet beyond the circle of light. Amy was glued to Brody’s side, and her fingers curled into his arm. He could feel more than hear the soft in-and-out of her breath.
Slater examined the floor, then peered down the opposite tunnel. Motioning silently to Victoria, he started off toward the arroyo. Brody relaxed. Elation poured through him. Amy hadn’t called to her cousin. She had had a chance at freedom and returning to her family, but she had chosen him instead.
He waited for another nerve-stretching minute, letting Slater get far enough away that he wouldn’t hear the sound of the horse’s hooves. Then Brody started forward as quietly as he could, leading his mount. Amy followed him. He peered outside the cave, and when he was sure that there were no reinforcements lurking there, he motioned to Amy that it was safe to leave.
Slater’s and Victoria’s horses waited outside, reins tied to a mesquite bush. Brody untied both reins and took them in hand, then mounted his own horse. They walked their horses carefully through the jumbled rocks at the base of the hill. When they reached level ground, they broke into a trot. Amy glanced uneasily at the horses he was leading. He knew what she was thinking—that Slater and her cousin would die if they were left out here without their horses.
He stopped, still in sight of the cave entrance, and looped the reins around a cedar. They’d be able to get to their horses, but it would slow them down. Amy smiled at him, and Brody put his heels to his horse. They galloped off, laughing, giddy with the knowledge that they had escaped.
A lone rider, a long thin man dressed in a vest of animal skins, sat on his horse on the hill east of the cave, watching. Then he tapped his heels to his horse’s sides and started down the hill after them.
Chapter Seventeen
The tunnel made Victoria nervous. Even with the lantern to cast a light in front of them, she disliked walking into the dark unknown. She kept imagining a pit suddenly yawning at their feet, or Brody’s gang waiting in ambush around the next bend. After they passed a pile of rubble that blocked half the passageway, she added a vision of the rock ceiling tumbling down on them.
Slater glanced back at her, and she could see the white flash of his grin in the lantern’s light. “Don’t tell me I finally found something that scares you,” he whispered.
Victoria arched an eyebrow. “I notice you’re the one whispering,” she hissed back.
His grin grew wider, but he winked at her reassuringly. Once, a dark tunnel branched off from the one they were following, and, another time, they could have stepped out into a huge vault, the tops and sides of which the lantern couldn’t even reveal. But Slater stayed with the main tunnel, following instinct more than any kind of trail on the stony floor. Victoria expected that they would eventually reach a larger cavern where the outlaws lived. What she had not expected to see was a glow of light in the distance that grew in size and intensity until at last it became clear that it was another entrance to the cave.
“Have we gone around in a circle?” she whispered.
Slater shrugged in irritated puzzlement as he gazed out the opening. The sunlight was dazzling, but he could see well enough to tell that they weren’t back where they’d begun. “It’s not the same entrance.”
“How could it not be?”
“This cave must honeycomb the inside of the hill. We’ve come out...somewhere else. ”
“Then we’ve missed them? They’re in a different part of the caves?”
“I’m not sure.” Slater crouched by the entrance, his eyes moving over the landscape. “There.” Victoria heard the underlying excitement in his voice. “Victoria, look. There are a couple of shacks, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s a campfire site. I think this is their hideout.”
Victoria joined him at the entrance and scanned the cliffs on either side. “You think this place is boxed in? Sealed off from the outside?”
“Or close to it. That’s my guess. Brody has a secret little valley to retreat to.” He shook his head in admiration. “No wonder he can stay hidden.”
“It doesn’t look like anybody’s around. Do you think they know we’re here?”
“Let’s give it a test. You cover me.” He drew his pistol and ran, bent over, to the nearest tree. Victoria held her rifle to her shoulder and waited, her eyes searching the area for a glint that would tell of a gun hidden behind a rock or bush. She could see nothing, and she heard nothing except the call of a bird.
Slater reached the dubious cover of the pin oak without incident, so Victoria followed him. They moved in this fashion across the floor of the small canyon until finally Slater reached one of the huts and ducked inside. A moment later, he emerged, shrugging. He checked the other hut, and came back to Victoria.
“Looks like they’re gone.”
Victoria sagged in disappointment. “I don’t understand. You said Brody and Amy didn’t leave.”
“Not with the others.” Slater sighed. He swung his arm out to encompass the canyon. “I don’t see any spot where Brody could be hiding; this place isn’t very big. Maybe there’s a back way out. It’d be just like that sorry bastard to have an escape hatch.”
“Do you think Amy’s been here at all?”
He nodded. “There are tracks all over the place—horses and people. One of the prints is a woman’s shoe. The rest are big, men’s, I’d guess—for all the good that does us.” He drew closer to the cold ashes of the fire. “See all the tracks around the fire, how scuffed and jumbled they are? Like a lot of people were here, or maybe a few people moving around a lot.” He stopped, his attention riveted to the dirt.
The ground was a rocky shelf, lightly covered with dirt. A splotch of dark color stained the dirt. “This is blood, I think.” He glanced around. “Here’s why.” He reached over and picked up a long hunting knife from the ground. The edges were stained with brown. “These aren’t old stains.”
Victoria’s lungs stopped moving. “Do you think he’s killed Amy?”
“More likely a couple of men got into a knife fight. I don’t know if he got killed or just wounded. But I’d bet money the loser wasn’t Brody.”
“But what’s happened to them? Where have they gone?”
“I don’t know. Unless Brody figured out his men had been followed. Maybe that’s what caused the fight. The gang lit out, afraid we’d find the hideout.”
“Then let’s go after them. They can’t be too far ahead of us.”
“Far enough. Like they have been all along,” he said in disgust.
They went through the cave at a f
aster pace this time, driven by urgency and no longer afraid that their next step might pitch them into a chasm. They emerged from the front entrance, blinking in the blazing sun.
“Damn.” Slater came to an abrupt halt, and Victoria, right behind him, ran into his back.
“What is it?”
“They got our horses.”
“What?” Victoria stepped around him. Their animals were no longer tied to the mesquite bush in front of the entrance. She looked around frantically.
“There they are.” Slater spotted them near a spindly tree in the distance.
“Could they have wandered away?” Victoria asked as they strode toward the horses.
Slater shook his head emphatically. “That far? Not likely. Besides, I’m positive I tied the reins tightly. Didn’t you?”
Victoria nodded. “That means someone was here when we went into the cave. They saw us, and while we were exploring the cave and the valley, they led the horses over there to give themselves more time to get away.”
Slater nodded, his face grim. “I can’t believe I was so careless. Damn! We must have been this close to Brody.” He held up his fingers to form a space smaller than an inch. “If I’d just looked, I’d have had him!”
“You did look,” Victoria pointed out reasonably. “He must have been well hidden.”
“Hell, we could have passed right by him in that cave. There were lots of dark places.”
“But if it was Brody and Amy was with him, why wouldn’t she have called out to us?”
“Gagged, maybe. Or he put his hand over her mouth.”
“But wouldn’t she have made some noise—with her feet or something?”
“Don’t go thinking she’s dead, Victoria. Maybe she didn’t think of making noise, or maybe she did, and we didn’t hear it. Brody could have knocked her out to keep her from saying anything when he saw us. Or maybe she wasn’t even there. There are a hundred reasons besides her being dead.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”