“Oliver isn’t like you,” she replied.
“Anyone can be like me. He’s more like me than you know. His daddy was the same, and he’s Gyles through and through.”
He knew Oliver’s father?
Rayner smiled at her confused expression.
“You don’t know, do you?” he asked smugly. He threw his head back and laughed. “This is gonna be better than I thought,” he continued. He looked at her squarely. “What did he tell you?”
Amelia didn’t reply.
Rayner laughed harder. “He didn’t tell you who I was, did he?” He waved a hand at her dismissively. “Don’t bother to deny it. I can see it all over your face. He’s kept you in the dark all this time. I, at least, would have told you the truth and the danger I was puttin’ you in.” He glared at her. “And you think he’s better than me.” He scoffed.
Amelia rolled onto her back and stared at the cobweb-filled ceiling. He was right. Oliver hadn’t told her anything. She’d asked countless times and he constantly assured her that everything was fine. He was lying. What had she fallen into?
“Don’t fret,” Rayner said suddenly. “I wouldn’t want your last hours to be so miserable. Stuff like that shouldn’t be botherin’ you, but if it does, feel good knowin’ that he’ll pay the ultimate price for keepin’ you in the dark.”
Her heart stopped immediately and for a moment she couldn’t move. Amelia replayed Rayner’s words in her mind several times before she rolled onto her side and looked up at him. A dam broke in her chest as her heart restarted its beat at a stampeding pace. He couldn’t mean what she thought he did. He couldn’t. Yes, he wanted to take things from others, but not that. He couldn’t mean that.
“You want me to tell you somethin’, so I will,” he said calmly. Rayner leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “Watchin’ Melvin fall apart is just the cherry on the cake when he finds out what’s happened, but it’s all ‘bout Oliver. It always has been. You can say he inherited this story.”
Amelia couldn’t tear her eyes away from him as he spoke, despite the growing fear that was stealing the breath from her lungs.
“I’m waitin’ for Oliver,” he continued. “I kinda want him to take his time. I want him to plan to save you and realize that he can’t. I want to see him suffer as the life drains from your eyes and know that it was his fault…before I kill him, too. As I told you, this is where the story ends, Miss Amelia. Yours and his.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Oliver had done so much to keep Amelia safe, to protect her from the truth and everything else that might harm her. Now, the very person he feared most, had her in his clutches. It felt like a colossal joke was being played on him.
Amelia’s horse whinnied beside him. Oliver turned his attention to it. The animal seemed sad, as if he knew what had become of its owner.
Is she safe? Has he hurt her? Is she even where he says? What if he has her somewhere else and this is just to lure me away?
Oliver stormed from the barn, Rayner’s note still crumpled in one hand and his horse’s reins in the other. His blood was rushing through his veins so loudly that it sounded like a waterfall and his body was trembling with rage. Rayner had done it. He’d taken Amelia to get to him.
“I should’ve told her the truth,” he growled under his breath. “She could've protected herself. She could’ve…”
“Oliver?” Melvin called. The older man was striding toward him with a look of concern.
He unfolded his hand and shoved the note into Melvin’s chest. “He took her!” Oliver growled. “Rayner took her and he’s left me a map to find her.”
Melvin took the note and read it. “He actually wrote it.” He raised his eyes to Oliver’s. “This is proof. You can take this to Sheriff Manchester. He can arrest Rayner for kidnappin’.”
“Look closer,” Oliver commented. “He’s got her at that old abandoned ranch just outside of town.”
“Outside of Manchester’s jurisdiction,” Melvin replied. “It doesn’t matter. He can still go get him and bring her back.”
“No!” Oliver insisted. “I’m gonna get her back. I got her into this and I’m gonna get her out.”
Melvin attempted to grab hold of his arm, but Oliver yanked away from him. “Don’t be foolish,” his old friend cautioned. “If you ever doubted that Rayner was plannin’ for you, he’s made it clear with this note. He wants you to come get her. He’s got somethin’ planned for you. Don’t fall for his trap.”
“Stop!” Oliver growled. His frustration was almost overwhelming. Melvin didn’t understand. He didn’t know the depth of feeling Oliver had for Amelia or hers for him.
“Ollie…”
Oliver’s emotions erupted out of him. “How could I ever look Amelia in the eye again if I left it to Manchester to bring her back? How could I be who she thinks I am and do that? Leave her to another man’s care?”
“She thinks you’re a smart man who should know better than to walk into a trap,” Melvin interjected. “She wouldn’t want you puttin’ yourself in danger as much as I wouldn’t want you to do it.”
“No!” he huffed. Oliver jammed his hands onto his hips. His eyes fell to his boots as he exhaled a deep breath. “I’m the man who said I’d do anything to protect her,” he stated. He raised his eyes to Melvin. “I’m the man who said he loved her. I can’t just leave her when she’s in trouble. I can’t abandon her.”
The look on Melvin’s face was hard to describe. It wasn’t one Oliver had ever seen before. It almost seemed like wonder.
“Is that so?” Melvin questioned. “You tell each other this?”
“Yes,” Oliver answered. “I told her just a few days ago. You want me to go back on that?”
“Do you really love her?” Melvin questioned. “Not infatuation. Not for fun, but true love?” He looked at Oliver seriously. “To the level of takin’ a wife? Givin’ her your name?”
Oliver was incredulous. Was Melvin choosing now to interrogate him on his motives toward Amelia? He was acting as if he was her uncle and only living kin, just as they’d told everyone.
Oliver stood tall. “All that and more,” he replied.
“I’d never thought I’d see the day,” Melvin replied. “I always hoped for it, but I doubted whether I’d ever see you love someone like that. Now you have.”
“Now you know why I have to go. I can’t let anything happen to her. Not when I can do something about it. Not when I should have done something about it a long time ago.”
Melvin stepped toward him. “You made the right choice three years ago.”
“Did I?” Oliver questioned. “Did I really? Or did I just delay the inevitable? Look at us, Melvin. We are almost right back to where we were three years ago.”
“No,” the older man replied. “We aren’t. You’re older and wiser. You can make better choices than you did then. You made the best you could at the time…”
“And now Rayner’s got Amelia in order to get to me. I could have stopped him, Melvin. I could’ve ended this.”
“You can’t change the past,” Melvin replied.
“If I could, I’d do it. I’d save us all this grief. Save Garrett his troubles. If I’d just gone after him three years ago, a lot of lives would be different.”
“Yours, too,” Melvin interjected. “We both know what would have happened if you’d gone after him back then. Could you really live with the repercussions if you had? Do you think you’d be the man you are now if you’d done it?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“We’ll never know, now will we?” Oliver retorted. “What we do know is Rayner’s running around here like he owns the place and no one and nothing can stop him.”
“He might think that, but that’s what the law is for, and for once we have proof,” Melvin declared as he raised the wrinkled piece of paper. “You can take this to Sheriff Manchester. He can take care of this for you. Even if you go along with him, you need to tell him.”
<
br /> “That’s just wasting time,” Oliver countered. “It will take hours for me to get to town and get back here, far less to that ranch. Who knows what he’ll do to her in that time, Melvin.” He shook his head lightly. “I can’t risk it. If anything happened to her I’d never forgive myself.”
“You can’t go alone. I won’t let you,” Melvin said calmly. “I won’t let you go to your death.”
“You can’t stop me,” Oliver replied.
“I have to try,” Melvin countered with a weak smile. “I promised your Pop I’d look after you.”
“You have, Melvin,” Oliver assured the older man. “Every day of my life since that day, you’ve been there. You’ve helped me. You’ve guided me. You’ve been the one person I can rely on. The one person I could trust…before Amelia.”
Oliver sighed.
Melvin smiled at him. “Now you’ve got someone else who does all of that for you.”
“Someone I want to,” Oliver replied. “I should’ve told her the truth, Melvin. I should’ve told her everything, been open and honest with her, the way she was with me. I don’t know why I didn’t. Now I wish I had.”
“You will,” Melvin assured him. “When you get her back, you tell her everythin’.”
“What if I don’t? What if he hurts her? What if he takes her from me the way he did my Pop?”
Oliver’s heart trembled at the thought. It would be his greatest fear realized if Rayner took Amelia from him. Rayner had stolen his father in the night, he stole Amelia by day. He wasn’t about to let him get away with it again. He wasn’t about to let him win and steal from him everything Oliver held dear.
Rayner didn’t want Glenore. There were plenty of ways he could have tried to take it from him. He wanted more. He wanted to finish what he started with Oliver’s father three years ago.
“He wants to end the Gyles name,” Oliver whispered to himself.
“He almost did,” Melvin added. “Don’t let him win.”
“I won’t,” Oliver said steely. He turned to his horse and threw his leg over its back. He looked down at Melvin. “Today will be the last day Jerome Rayner ever spreads his evil.”
Amelia felt hollow inside as she lay there in that strange place with her back to Rayner. She couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. If Oliver loved her, he would have told her the truth. Wouldn’t he?
Sadness tainted her thoughts. She came to Rattleridge for something new and different. This wasn’t what she had in mind. How could she have known that beneath the still and happy veneer of the town and the people at Glenore, such malevolence lurked?
Rayner will kill Oliver if he comes here. I can’t let that happen. I need to figure out what he’s planning and how I can stop him, or at least warn Oliver.
Amelia rolled over to face where Rayner sat. She kept her eyes closed as if asleep and tried to keep her breathing steady. If she knew his plan, then she could think of something to thwart it. He wasn’t about to tell her anything knowingly. He’d made that clear. She had to fool him into giving something away.
She lay there for a long time, hoping to hear anything that might help. She ignored the pain in her wrists and the constant stinging. She was sure she’d worked the skin right off of them, but pain meant very little at that moment when both her and Oliver’s lives were on the line.
I could yell to him that it’s a trap. I could try to distract Rayner so he could get away.
Amelia contemplated her options as she hoped to hear something useful, but it was no good. Rayner wasn’t making any sense. He’d chuckle and make some comment under his breath that she could barely hear.
If only he would say something so I’d know what he was planning.
Amelia wanted to help Oliver if she could, but in her heart, she didn’t want him to come at all. It would be easy if he left her there. He could go on living, free of Rayner’s schemes. However, as simple as it sounded in her mind, Amelia knew it wasn’t true. Rayner would find something or someone else to use to get to Oliver. Besides, Oliver leaving her to fend for herself was contrary to everything she knew about him.
Flashes of pain, her own father’s cruelty, streaked through her mind. She thought of the times he’d hit her and knocked her to the ground. The thrashings she got as a girl for disobedience or just because her father was drunk and angry. During those times, he would recite her sins, blaming her repeatedly for her mother’s death. Each accusation was a crack of the stick or belt across her body. Her father didn’t care where he hit her, as long as he didn’t miss. If he did, it only made him angrier and the whipping longer.
I never imagined anyone could be worse than him. I didn’t know how wrong I was. I was so naïve, living in Thinvale, thinking I had it bad when there is so much worse out there.
It was the first time in Amelia’s life she was considering that her life might have been better than she knew. There were no Rayners in Thinvale. No one looking to use her to hurt someone else.
People were generally good in Thinvale, just as they were in Rattleridge. It’s just Rayner who’s tainting it. He’s the stain on this town. A bigger stain than my father ever was.
Her father was cruel, but Rayner was diabolical. She could only imagine what he would do to her if Oliver failed to come and she was forced to bear the brunt of his anger. She was sure it would be horrific and then he’d find some way to use it against Oliver, to wound him with it. Everything was a game and she was a pawn to him.
Amelia fought the temptation to open her eyes and look at Rayner. Instead, she listened as he chuckled and talked to himself, reveling in the idea of taking Oliver’s life. He had so many ideas for how he would do it. A bullet to the heart, or one to the head. He considered slitting this throat or tossing him off a cliff. The more he sat there contemplating it, the more horrid and painful the ideas became. What had happened that earned Oliver such hatred? What could he have done, for Rayner to hate him so much that he would go to this extent? It occurred to Amelia that it might have nothing to do with Oliver, but with his father. After all, Rayner knew the man, and had for a long time before he passed away. Oliver’s father’s death was a matter Oliver tried to avoid speaking about whenever it was broached. There was a chance that all of this had started because of something Oliver had nothing to do with, but now had to face the consequences of.
“Killin’ her will really do him in.”
Rayner’s words made Amelia’s heart stutter. She did her best not to shiver. She could hear the laugh in his voice as he continued.
“I can just see the look in his eyes as he watches her limp body fall to the floor. Have to make it slow. Have to make it hurt,” he said in a low tone that made Amelia want to vomit with fear. She was listening to him plan how to murder her.
“A gun will be too quick. He has to beg for her life. Plead for it.” He chuckled. “Maybe I should have him get down on his knees. Down in the dirt like a dog,” he continued. “Where he deserves to be. No one takes from me. No one.”
Someone had taken something from Rayner, whether it was Oliver or his father, Amelia wasn’t sure, but whoever it was, they had started a sequence of events that was now affecting all of their lives. What was it?
There were too many questions and she seemed to be only getting more of them.
“He thought he could get away. No one gets away,” Rayner continued in his incoherent ramblings. “First his father and now him. She’s my way of gettin’ him. Pity she has to die, but that’s the price. She knows too much. Can’t let her walk away. I could kill her quick. I could slit her throat and show her some mercy, but that won’t be painful enough for Oliver. No sir, not nearly painful enough.”
Amelia’s eyes opened involuntarily at the mention of slitting her throat. She stared at Rayner and her stomach lurched as she found him staring right back at her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rayner’s eyes were black beads that bore intently into her. It was as if he had no soul inside of him. His heart was
as black as his eyes and the clothes he liked to wear.
“Looks like someone was playin’ games,” he said coldly. Suddenly, in a burst, he sprang up from his seat and crossed the short space between them. Rayner said nothing. There was no warning before his boot collided solidly with her midsection. Amelia coughed and groaned as the breath was knocked out of her and pain ripped through her gut. She doubled over on herself.
Tears streamed down her face as Amelia gasped for breath. It felt as if she couldn’t breathe, her lungs lacked the capacity and her stomach was clenched into an impenetrable fist.
For the Love of a Wounded Cowboy: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 24