“Sleep well, Molly Rose.”
“Goodnight, Jake.” She glanced at him then flicked her gaze away, her cheeks awash in a faint blush.
It was the first time she’d used his first name, and the sound of it snagged a space in his chest, causing it to swell with some unnamed emotion.
I have no sweetheart.
Once outside, he couldn’t wipe the grin from his face.
Chapter Five
Molly’s horse trailed behind Jake’s in search of this person, Pedro, that Boom had mentioned. According to Jake, the man had a cabin over the next ridgeline.
Boom had left them first thing that morning. She liked the big Russian man, but she suspected she’d offended him with her prickly attitude regarding the vote of women. Molly had grown up surrounded by strong women, from her mama to her Aunt Tess, and her Aunts Molly, Emma and Claire.
Her folks had been keen on education, and once the Plaza School in Tucson had opened when she was ten years old, Molly had dutifully attended, learning literature, history, Latin, algebra, and bookkeeping, as well as studying the nature of alcoholic drinks and narcotics and their effect on the human system.
Molly had managed to convince her mama and papa to allow a woman in town to tutor her in French. The resourceful, well-informed Mrs. Haynes—who had traveled extensively through Europe—had whetted Molly’s appetite for the world at large. Mrs. Haynes had urged Molly to read such books as John Richard Green’s long History of the English People, poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Silas Marner by George Eliot.
If women were intelligent enough to travel and write books about the world around them, then they surely possessed a sound mind to vote in the communities in which they lived.
She wondered if Jake was upset with her behavior, but, in truth, he’d been quite agreeable all morning.
A blue sky and sunshine was welcome after all the rain. Despite the chill, she was heartily glad to be outside. She suspected Cinnamon was happy to stretch his legs as well.
Molly inhaled the clean, fresh air suffused with pine trees and the budding signs of spring. It was late-April, and winter still touched the land with patches of snowpack. Despite that, the area was bathed in a lush anticipation of new life. Boulder-strewn slopes reached toward smooth pinnacles, and Molly wondered at the beauty of it. She could well understand why so many people flocked here because in addition to the riches of silver and gold present in the terrain, there was also a richness of nature almost beyond comprehension.
Was Wyoming half as beautiful as Colorado? If so, perhaps she should consider living there one day, if only to experience the right to voice her opinion in the form of a vote. Although rumor had it that those in charge of such things only granted that right to lure women to the state. Apparently, men in that wild country struggled to find a wife.
Molly wrinkled her nose. In Wyoming, she might have the right to vote, but she’d be pressured to marry. Actually, matrimony would be an issue if she stayed in the Arizona Territory as well. And right now, marriage didn’t fit into her plans, not if she hoped to travel to places like Morocco.
Where else had Jake been?
She could learn much from him.
In the afternoon after a steep descent down into an adjacent valley, they rounded a bend, and Molly saw a dilapidated cabin built right into the mountain. Up ahead, Jake pulled the rifle he kept in a saddle scabbard and rested it across his thighs. Molly tensed, glancing around. He was too far ahead for her to ask what trouble he sensed. She had her derringer close, but it would only be useful in an up-close encounter.
Jake slowed his horse. As Molly caught up to him, the door to the cabin opened. A wiry Mexican wearing a floppy hat appeared and pointed a shotgun at them.
“Hold it right there, McKenna!”
Jake raised one hand, palm out, while resting the other on his rifle. “Easy, Pedro. I’m just here to talk. You can put the gun down.”
“You gonna apologize for your thievery?” Pedro spoke with a thick accent.
“I didn’t steal your gear over in Landry’s Valley last month. And you’re one to talk. You help yourself to other people’s stuff all the time.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Can we just agree to set our differences aside for a bit? I need to speak with you.”
“Who’s that girl?” Pedro waved the barrel of the gun in her direction.
“She’s Robert Simms’ sister. We’re looking for him. Have you seen him?”
Pedro growled out several colorful phrases in Spanish, and—having grown up in Tucson—Molly understood every one of them. He lowered his weapon, and she started breathing again.
Pedro shook his head and relented. “I saw him a few days ago in the valley to the west. He was with Winston, but I suspect you knew that.”
Jake swung down from Fernando, his rifle in hand, and walked back to her. He motioned for her to dismount, and she obeyed. He stepped close, which caused her to bump into Cinnamon, and the brim of his hat cast a shadow over both of them. “Would you rather stay out here?”
“No, I’m fine.” At such close range, a faint golden glimmer was visible around the edges of his dark, dusky-brown eyes.
“If I thought he was really dangerous, I wouldn’t have brought you here. He’s a lot of bluster.”
She nodded, trying to act as if the close presence of a man like McKenna didn’t affect her one whit.
“But that being said,” he continued, “stay close.”
As close as you are to me now?
Not trusting her voice not to betray her, she gave another silent agreement.
He took one last look at her then turned away, and Molly felt as if a gust of wind had just knocked into her, leaving her a bit giddy and shaken.
She led Cinnamon to the hitching post and secured him beside Fernando, then climbed the two uneven steps into Pedro’s cabin. Once inside, she had to step around the mess that greeted her, putting her in mind of Robert’s room at the boardinghouse. Were all prospectors so unkempt?
Jake’s cabin hadn’t exhibited such disarray. The tolerable Jackal was apparently more neat-as-a-pin than his brethren.
“You keep the place so tidy, Pedro,” Jake remarked.
“I wasn’t expecting visitors.” The Mexican—the same height as Molly—had wrinkles bunching at the edges of his eyes, but up close it was clear he wasn’t old. In fact, Molly was struck by his almost-handsome features. He reached his hand out to her. “I’m Pedro Elizondo.”
“I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Molly Simms.”
“Robert’s hermana, huh?”
“Yes.”
Jake cleared off a stool and offered it to her to sit on. She settled herself while Jake scanned piles of rocks covering a corner of the cabin. “Find anything?”
“Don’t think for one minute you’ll get squat out of me regarding my claims.” Pedro adjusted his scowl to a more pleasant expression when he turned back to her. “What’s happened to Robert?”
“We were hoping you might know,” Molly replied. “He was supposed to meet me at the train station three days ago when I arrived for a visit. Can you say exactly how many days ago you saw him?”
Pedro thought for a minute, scratching the side of his nose, his fingernails rimmed with black dirt. “Lo siento. I can’t recall exactly.” He glanced toward Jake, who knelt and handled several of the ore pieces. “You’re so damn meddlesome, you jackal.”
“These specimens are shit. Why do you have them?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
Outside, the horses nickered in agitation. The sound of a shotgun being cocked registered in Molly’s mind just as a man yelled, “Elizondo, you scummy prick. We can see the horses. We know you’re in there. Get your ass out here.”
Jake grabbed Molly’s upper arm and yanked her from the stool, pushing her to the back of the cabin and into a crouch. “Stay down.”
He shuffled along the wall to p
eek out the window. “What’ve you done now, Pedro?” he murmured.
“Take your pick. It’s been a busy week.” Pedro grabbed his shotgun.
Jake readied his rifle. “It’s Winston and Jones. They were last seen with Robert.”
“We know you took ore from our claim,” one of the men yelled. “Come out here and apologize like a man!”
“You’re lying,” Pedro hollered, his body taut with anger. “That was my claim and you know it!”
“You need to stay where you belong, you little Mexican degenerate. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!”
Gunfire erupted.
Pedro and Jake dropped to their knees as shots pelted the cabin and splinters flew. Molly covered her ears and sank lower on the floor, desperate for a way to escape, but the only way in or out was the front door. Jake and Pedro returned fire through the one and only window.
Her derringer was useless, so Molly scanned the piles of ore and mining tools for a weapon.
Nothing.
Lying on her stomach, she attempted to slide to the right, but the rug beneath her caught on something. She rolled to the side and yanked at the ratty woven cloth. It popped free, revealing a metal latch.
Prospectors and their hidden compartments.
She flipped the rug back, exposing a trapdoor.
“Where does this go?” she said, keeping her voice low so the men outside didn’t overhear.
Pedro glanced back at her. “Oh hell no.”
Jake glared at Pedro. “Now I know how you disappeared after you drank all my whiskey last month. Can we get out that way?”
Pedro’s lips thinned. “Sí.”
Molly unlatched the door and pulled it upward. The odor of damp earth engulfed her as she stared down into black nothingness. A new panic began to rise that had nothing to do with the bullets splitting the wood above her head. Slivers sprayed into her face, causing her to duck repeatedly, but she couldn’t move.
“Go, Molly,” Jake demanded. He turned back and continued to fire.
“I can’t,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
She attempted to bring moisture to her parched throat, licking her dry lips with a tongue that had turned to cotton. Her heart beat so hard that she thought it would explode at any moment.
“Molly, go!”
The anger in Jake’s voice made her jump. Limbs trembling, she swung her legs into the opening and struggled to find the wooden ladder with her feet. Time stretched itself like honey dropping from a spoon as she floundered, and there was no end in sight for her terror. Her boot snagged a cross board. Slowly, she lowered herself one rung at a time, her arms threatening to fail her with each desperate grip.
When she finally hit the bottom, she stepped back and glanced upward.
The door crashed shut and absolute darkness consumed her.
* * *
Jake closed the trapdoor above him and descended the ladder. In the pitch black, he felt his way along the wooden slats until his feet hit the dirt. Pedro remained in the cabin—the crazy coot insisted he had important items to gather, and he didn’t want Jake present when he did it.
Where’s Molly?
And where was the light? Pedro had said there were candles and lucifers in the tunnel. Jake hesitated, the air in the tunnel thick.
A whimper came from his right.
“Molly?”
He barely heard her response. In the dark, he held a hand out for the tunnel wall, his fingers meeting moist earth. His feet bumped into something soft. He leaned down and pulled her to stand. Beneath his hands, she shook like a frightened animal.
“What’s wrong?”
All he heard was gasping.
Jake had seen this before—an uncontrollable panic in men when faced with life or death situations. There was no reasoning when the brain crumbled from the terror. The shoot-out had knocked the balance out of her.
He tried to calm her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms then cupping the side of her face while he leaned his forehead to hers. “It’ll be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
But his words had little effect on her.
Guided by instinct, he sought to calm her with touch since they could see nothing in the complete darkness of the tunnel.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
She went still. He held his lips to hers, letting the contact slowly ease her fear, but when she stiffened, his misgivings began to rise. He’d been certain she’d felt the same spark between them that he had.
He’d been wrong.
He began to pull away.
She shifted toward him and joined her mouth to his, her lips hungry and searching and desperate. Jake didn’t hold back, drinking her in, and the world fell away as he deepened the contact, aware only of the softness of her lips.
Desire flared, fierce and intense, and he held her closer. With the force of a sandstorm, longing swept through him and nearly knocked him to his knees.
My God. He’d had no idea that behind his fascination with her lay this.
He had the oddest feeling that it had always been her.
Light poured over them and Molly jumped, her eyes wide as she stared at him.
“Run, you idiotas!” Pedro yelled.
His mind spinning, Jake released her and scanned the ground for the candles. He knelt and struck a lucifer. Pedro—a knapsack hanging from his shoulder—yanked the rug just as he shut the trap door in an effort to hide it, then scrambled down the ladder. He took the candle from Jake and scurried away.
Jake looked back at Molly, her stunned expression still visible in the waning light of the candle. He sought to ignore the acute need of his body that merely kissing her had ignited.
He clasped her hand. “We need to go.”
“Jake,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I freeze in confined places.”
He brought a hand to her cheek. “I wish we didn’t have to do this, but we have no choice. Take a deep breath and keep a hold of me. We’ll get through it together.”
He dragged her behind him—and it was dragging—and caught up to the light Pedro’s candle was emitting.
The tunnel narrowed and Jake was forced to his knees. Since he had to release Molly’s hand, he pushed her ahead of him. If he didn’t, he was afraid she would stop where she was and refuse to move.
He removed his hat, and dirt sifted into his hair. Molly ducked and threw her arm over her head as the tunnel closed in on them. They emerged from the narrow passageway, and sunlight greeted them, blocked only by the dark outline of Pedro’s body.
They’d reached the end.
Pedro struggled out of the exit, then pulled Molly free.
As Jake took a welcome inhale of fresh air, he froze.
Winston, Jones, and three other men had them surrounded, guns aimed.
“Your tunnel ain’t much of a secret, Pedro,” Emmett Jones sneered.
Chapter Six
Molly sat in a chair, her arms bound behind her and her legs tied at the ankles. Winston and his men had brought them to what appeared to be an abandoned homestead on a flat valley floor.
Across from her, Jake and Pedro also sat trussed up in chairs.
Whenever her eyes met Jake’s, a warmth greeted her, and she felt he was still trying to calm her down, as he’d attempted in the tunnel.
He kissed me.
Her stomach flip-flopped over the memory.
Even more shocking was how she’d kissed him back, like a starved lunatic in the desert. There’d been no time to explain her terror, her panic…and the symbol of safety and distraction he’d represented.
Her heart pounded—as much from the sudden, powerful connection to Jake as the dangerous predicament in which they now found themselves.
“I hope you know what you’re doin’, Winston,” one of the men murmured.
Molly’s focus jerked to the fair-skinned, red-haired man who was clearly in charge. Winston shot his collea
gue a threatening look.
This must be James Winston, the man who’d told Mabel that Robert was dead.
She was shaken over the rough treatment of their capture and the heap of guns the gang of five possessed, but now she was mad. “I understand that you were recently with my brother, Robert Simms.”
Winston narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re Robert’s sister?”
Somehow she suspected he already knew that. “I am, and I find this detainment to be unacceptable.”
Mock surprise crossed Winston’s face. “Then you shouldn’t associate with men like McKenna and Elizondo.”
“Let her go,” Jake cut in. “She’s got nothing to do with whatever has you so cross.”
“Tell me what happened to my brother,” Molly demanded.
Winston shrugged. “How should I know? Maybe he ran off and joined the circus in Denver.”
At that, all Winston’s comrades snickered.
Winston turned toward Jake. “I know it was you who broke into the stock office, destroyed legal documents, and stole money.”
“And what proof do you have?” Jake’s gaze was unflinching.
“You shoulda been arrested, but the Marshal was a coward. And now we find you in the company of this low-life.” He nodded toward Pedro. “What do you have to say for yourself, Elizondo? You trespass on claims that aren’t yours and steal from good, hard-working prospectors, such as these men here.” He swept the room with an outstretched arm. “And you haul sham samples to Charlie.”
“Who’s Charlie?” Jake asked.
Winston opened his mouth to answer but turned his head toward the sound of an approaching rider. He pulled his gun from the holster and stepped outside, closing the front door behind him. Once the rider arrived, the sound of muffled voices could be heard, escalating quickly into an argument.
Winston entered the house abruptly, followed by a tall older man with a mustache, graying hair visible beneath the brim of his hat, and a slight belly that pressed tightly against his vest. He wore a fine wool jacket, far better dressed than the five ruffians currently holding them hostage. His gaze swept Jake and Pedro but settled on Molly.
The Bluebird Page 5