by Craig, Emma
She pushed herself away from him, and he felt bereft. The sensation was so astonishing, he could do no more than blink down at her. She still clutched his arms.
“You will?”
Her eyes were wide blue pools, swimming with tears. His heart gave an enormous lurch, and he discovered an urge to vanquish tyrants on her behalf. Anything. He’d do anything to make those tears go away.
So he swallowed and said, “Yeah. I’ll get Rosie back for you.”
He was almost glad for his idiocy when she threw herself against him again and cried, “Oh, thank you, Mr. Hardcastle! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Chapter 4
Rosamunda was fit to be tied. In fact, she was tied.
She hadn’t gone meekly into this dark sack, however. Even though she was still scared to death, the knowledge that she had acquitted herself well in battle made her proud. The perfidious Mr. Cesare would bear scars from this day’s dark deed, no matter what happened to her. She might not have slipped through his fingers as she’d tried to do, but she’d at least bitten several of them while making the attempt.
She couldn’t deny being worried, however. And she missed Mistress like mad. She was pretty sure she’d be able to find her again once she escaped, though. Her nose was as keen as anything. She wasn’t a championship Yorkshire terrier for nothing, after all.
There was no denying, however, that it would be a daunting journey. This awful territory was very much bigger than she, after all, and it all looked alike. And it was dry as a bone, too, albeit much less tasty. Nevertheless, Rosamunda would not fail. She’d achieve her goal or die trying.
She frowned into the darkness of her burlap prison, her last thought striking her as having been rather unfortunate. She resolved to banish all thoughts of death from her mind as unprofitable. She would find Mistress, and that was that.
Of course, first she had to chew through this wretched burlap sack, which she’d been working on ever since the black-hearted, villainous, swindling, cheating, kidnapping Mr. Cesare had succeeded in stuffing her into it. Then she’d have to gnaw through the rope binding her front and back feet together. It would be difficult, but she’d not shrink from her duty. It made her furious to know that she’d actually liked this awful man after dinner last night.
If she’d known what a scoundrel he was then, she’d have eaten two of his wretched steaks!
# # #
Damn! Jedediah Hardcastle had never allowed himself to be taken unawares like this before. It nettled him to know that this Pisklefletcher fellow had gotten the better of him. Drugged brandy! And he hadn’t suspected a thing. Jed could hardly stand it.
The incident was especially galling because he already knew Miss Tacita Grantham didn’t esteem Jed’s frontiersmanship as she ought. He’d meant to teach her some respect by showing her how masterful a guide he was. Allowing that black-hearted villain to drug him wasn’t the way to go about it, and Jed was really annoyed with himself. Masterful, ha!
Not content with allowing himself to be duped by that blasted Gypsy, he’d managed to further disgrace himself in Tacita’s eyes by allowing her dog to get napped.
“I don’t suppose you can just buy yourself another one of them—those blankety-blank terriers, can you?” he asked as he tried to grope for reason through the drug-induced fog enveloping his brain.
Tacita gaped at him for only a second or two before she burst into tears again. Jed watched in dismay and wished he knew what to do. He couldn’t very well put his arms around her again, even though he wished he could. Such behavior would be terribly unprofessional. Not to mention dangerous in ways he didn’t care to contemplate.
“Buy another dog? How can you even ask me such a question, you horrible beast? Rosamunda is the only thing on earth I have to call my own! The only thing on earth I love! She’s the only living creature on earth who loves me!”
Jed stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it in order to get his hearing to work right. Her piercing screech had almost knocked him out again. But surely he’d misunderstood. Had she just said what he thought she’d said?
“Your dog, ma’am?” he asked at last. “Your dog is the only thing you have that you love? That loves you?”
Her face buried in her hands, Tacita sobbed, “Yes! Yes! Oh, please find her for me, Mr. Hardcastle. Please find her for me!” She looked up, her drowned blue eyes accusing. “You said you would!”
Stunned, Jed stared at her for a full minute, her words piercing his thick hide, staggering through the drugged-brandy fog in his brain, and lodging in his heart. That hairy rat was the only thing on earth this beautiful, albeit shrill, woman had to love? The only thing on earth that loved her? He shook his head, bothered more than he cared to admit by the sadness her grief-stricken statement evoked within him.
“I’ll find her for you, ma’am,” he said at last. “I said I will, and I will.” He sucked in a deep breath and added, “Anybody who’d go back on his word to a lady isn’t one as I’d call a man.” There. That Texas-sized declaration made him feel a little better.
She shook her head and moaned. The dart of sadness that had lodged in Jed’s heart twisted, bringing forth another flood of compassion.
Awkwardly, he walked over to her and considered patting her on the back. He was afraid he’d knock her down if he did, though, so he just stood there watching her cry and feeling terrible for a minute, wishing he could think of some other comfort-giving gesture that wasn’t so perilous. If only she wasn’t so small. Jed was pretty sure he couldn’t have knocked Miss Amalie Crunch down with a two-by-four.
What he wanted to do was hold her in her arms and kiss her until she forgot about that damned rat of hers. Jed frowned. Shoot, that brandy must have been spiked with something really potent.
He finally gave up and left Tacita to wring her hands and cry as he set about packing up the mules and saddling the horses. The morning breeze cooled the tearstain blot on his chest and wouldn’t let him forget that Tacita had lately been weeping there. His chest still felt oddly empty.
The feeling of emptiness annoyed him. There was no reason he, Jedediah Hardcastle, frontier guide extraordinaire, tough outdoorsman and staunch Texas male, should harbor anything other than a feeling of disinterested protectiveness towards Tacita Grantham. She was, after all, employing him to do a job. He should, therefore, guide and guard her to her destination; nothing more. Tender feelings were not part of his job description.
The tenderness he was feeling now, however, went way beyond disinterestedness. He didn’t like it. He was betrothed to Amalie back home in Busted Flush. Well, he was as good as betrothed to her, at any rate. Granted, he hadn’t quite managed to make himself pop the question to her yet. Still, both his family and hers anticipated the match. And so did Amalie, for that matter. She was the right woman for him, too; Jed knew it. She’d been born and bred in these parts; she knew what was what.
And if Amalie was a rather large woman, and if she had a laugh like a horse and tended to fall over her own size thirteen feet a little too often for Jed’s taste, why, what did it matter? Amalie was a good girl. She was a good Texas girl, what’s more, and knew what to expect from life out here in the West and what to give back to it, as well. Besides, she could cook up a storm, and Jed knew very well that while beauty faded, a good cook went on forever.
Miss Amalie Crunch wasn’t any city girl, as beautiful and delicate as a hot-house flower and apt to go into hysterics if she lost her dog. If she lost the only thing in the world that loved her.
Aggravated with himself for remembering Tacita’s mournful words, Jed commanded his thoughts to “Hush up!”
Tacita uttered a miserable, “I-I’m s-s-sorry, Mr. Hardcastle. I’m just so worried about poor Rosamunda.”
Jed whipped his head around to find Tacita trying valiantly to fold her bedroll blanket while tears rolled down her faultless porcelain cheeks, a little splotchy now with emotion and misery. The blasted arrow in his heart gave another viciou
s twist and he regretted that she should have taken his words, spoken to himself and for himself, as criticism of her and her grief.
“I didn’t mean you, ma’am,” he muttered, feeling worse than he’d felt in a long time. Only this time the feeling had nothing to do with Cesare Piskerwhisker’s cherry brandy.
They drank cold coffee and ate hard biscuits for breakfast, a meal Jed refused to set forth without, no matter how much of a hurry Tacita was in. He knew they couldn’t travel on an empty stomach without courting disaster, even if she didn’t. Besides, he needed strong coffee, even cold, to etch through the sludge that buzzard’s drugged brandy had made of his brain.
There was something about Tacita’s unhappiness that nibbled at the edges of Jed’s conscience like a rabid mouse. He felt he’d failed her, and it was an uncomfortable feeling for the generally invincible Jedediah Hardcastle to deal with.
He didn’t even harbor black thoughts in his heart when he put that stupid sidesaddle back on the mare. He hoped she wasn’t too stiff to ride, and his heart clenched again.
He hated that. It worried him and it didn’t seem right. He had no business harboring tender feelings for anything. He was a rugged frontiersman, for heaven’s sake. Moreover, the longer he considered what he was about to do—head out across the vast plains after a damn-fool terrier, his tender feelings started to slide downhill.
He had managed to fall into a towering grump by the time they finally set out to follow Picklewickle’s tracks. The blackguard was aiming vaguely northwest, so at least he wasn’t taking them very far out of their way. It was a small consolation, and it didn’t assuage Jed’s crabby mood.
“Oh, can’t we go any faster?”
Even though he’d come to anticipate the question, which Tacita asked every fifty yards or so, Jed cast a beseeching glance at the heavens and wondered what she expected him to do. Fly? No matter how much she valued that blasted rat of hers—the only thing on earth she loved; he wasn’t sure he could stand it—he wasn’t about to abandon three pack mules and all her earthly belongings in the middle of the desert to hare out after it.
“No, Miss Grantham,” he ground out for at least the hundredth time, “we can’t go any faster. We’ve got two horses and three pack mules with us.”
He heard her miserable sniffle and felt like a monster for being short-tempered. At least this time she didn’t ask him why not. Her restraint didn’t make him feel much better. Even though he was still mad at her for making him care, he couldn’t refrain from offering her a measure of comfort. “We’ll catch him, though. Don’t worry.”
“But we’re traveling so slowly.”
“He’s going even slower than we are, in that wagon of his. It’s heavy, ‘cause it’s full of pots and pans and such. And food.” The thought of that food made Jed scowl. Damned bastard, to lure them with beefsteak and brandy and then steel Tacita’s dog. It made him mad.
“But what if he hurts her before we can catch them?”
“He won’t hurt her.”
“How can you know that? Why, she might be in mortal agony even as we dawdle along after them!”
Jed knew Tacita was upset. And he felt bad about it, too. Actually, he felt more than bad. He felt responsible and had a tremendous urge to take all her burdens—every one, including that would-be dog of hers—onto his shoulders, which were so much broader than hers. Nevertheless, he couldn’t keep sarcasm from sounding when he muttered, “For the good Lord’s sake, woman, why do you expect he took her, anyway? He ain’t—he isn’t going to hurt her!”
“But, how can you know that?” Her voice had gone squeaky, and Jed winced.
“Bless it, if you hadn’t bragged about how much money your blasted dog cost, the idea of taking her would never even have occurred to him!”
Only the clopping of their animals’ hooves met his angry declaration. It was almost silence, and it almost made him happy. Actually, he felt both triumphant that he’d finally got through to her and more than a little bit mean. She was already upset. He didn’t suppose he ought to rub her nose in her foolishness.
At last she said, “Do you really think he took her for the money?”
“Well, why the h-h-harmony else would he have taken her? He sure doesn’t need the meat.”
“Meat?”
Her shriek pierced his still-aching head and made tiny, barbed shards of pain stab the inside of his skull and cling, twisting. Damn, he wished she’d stop screeching at him.
Hunching over, he grumbled, “Pickskinicker wouldn’t be the first man on the plains to have to eat a dog, damn—dad blast it. But he won’t eat your pet, ma’am.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God!”
She was in a full-fledged fit of agonized grief again. Jed cursed himself for bringing up meat, and said, “He’s got a whole wagon full of food, Miss Grantham. He’s not going to eat a two-bite dog when he’s got an icebox full of beefsteaks and barrels full of vegetables just sitting there.”
He heard her blow her nose and hoped she’d quit worrying now. How she could cry when her head must be at least as sore as his, Jed couldn’t fathom. In his experience, which admittedly wasn’t large—he was, after all, a man, and men didn’t cry—tears only made headaches worse.
He decided not to tell her that some Indians considered dog meat a delicacy. Even if the abominable Gypsy were unlucky enough to meet up with a band of renegades, Jed expected the Indians would prefer beefsteak to inch-high mop-bucket terriers.
“Oh, I hope you’re right, Mr. Hardcastle.”
Her voice sounded incredibly sad and very thick, and Jed’s big heart gave another immense throb. He frowned, wondering if drugged brandy could cause heart palpitations. Surely he couldn’t care this much about Tacita Grantham and her pork-butt terrier.
Could he?
His frown deepened, and he told himself not to be stupid. Of course, he couldn’t. He had a girl in Texas; one who was as right as rain for him. He just felt sorry for this addle-pated female, was all.
“Of course, I’m right.” He was surprised by how gentle he sounded.
“Thank you,” caressed his ear, feather-light and delicate. Jed’s heart executed another painful athletic maneuver, and he hoped to God she wouldn’t talk any more. Her misery was too hard on him in his hung-over condition.
To ensure her silence, he said, “Better pull that scarf over your mouth and nose, Miss Grantham. It’s dry out here, and the dust will get to you if you don’t.”
He was relieved when she followed his advice. She must have been truly upset, though, because she didn’t even argue with him about it first.
# # #
Jed and Tacita had been trailing Picinisco for about two hours when they made their way out of a stand of straggly scrub oaks and caught sight of the Gypsy’s wagon in the distance.
Yanking her scarf down from her face, Tacita cried, “Oh, Mr. Hardcastle, look!” and Jed cursed himself for not having had the foresight to tell her to keep her mouth shut when they eventually spotted their quarry so as not to alert him of their presence. Not, of course, that an admonition would have done much good, he thought glumly.
“It’s probably not a good idea to announce that we’re after him, ma’am.” His voice was as dry as the dust under their horses’ hooves. “I don’t think he can get away, but he might try something if he knows we’re here.”
“Oh. Oh, dear, I’m sorry.”
Well, this was really something. Searching his memory, Jed couldn’t recall another instance before today when Miss Grantham had apologized for doing something stupid. Today, however, she’d apologized twice, and the morning wasn't even over yet.
Feeling almost gracious, he said, “It’s all right, ma’am. You aren’t used to the way things are around here. Just, please don’t screech anymore. He might hear you.”
“I didn’t screech, Mr. Hardcastle. I never screech, and don’t appreciate your saying I do. I think you’re being mean.”
Jed shut his eyes and prayed for s
trength. Then he decided to hell with it, turned in his saddle, and said roughly, “Stay here. Don’t even think about moving.”
He handed Tacita the mules’ lead ropes, nudged poor Charlie in the ribs, and tore out after the wagon.
“You want that blasted dog back, I’ll get the blasted dog back,” he growled into Charlie’s mane, leaning over the horse’s neck as the huge animal stretched out into a ground-swallowing gallop.
# # #
Rosamunda had just poked her nose out of the hole she’d gnawed in her burlap sack when she heard Mr. Cesare mutter something foul in a language she assumed to be his native tongue. She didn’t understand the words, but coupled as they were with the sound of a horse’s hooves pounding across the ground behind them and getting closer, she understood their import.
She cocked her ears and listened hard. Although she couldn’t be sure, her ears were nearly as sharp as her nose and she thought she recognized the sound as coming from that beastly Jedediah Hardcastle’s beastly brute of a horse. Eyeing the thin rope tied around her front paws, she bent to her task and began to chew quickly. Her mouth was dry and her jaws ached, but she knew where her duty lay and she aimed to do it.
# # #
Tacita grabbed the lead ropes Jed thrust at her and her mouth fell open. She saw him nudge his heels into Charlie’s shiny hide, and forgot the question she’d been about to hurl at him. Holding the ropes in one hand, she gripped her leaping tree with the other, her heart flying to her throat.
“Oh, my land! He’s going after him! At last!”
Her nerves jumped and skipping like water beads on a hot griddle as she watched. She saw the ghastly Mr. Picinisco lean over to see who was following him. Even from this distance and the beard covering most of his face, she recognized his look of astonishment. Then she saw the wagon begin to pick up speed, churning up a huge cloud of dust, and she feared he might outrun Jed.
“No!” she cried, and kicked her own placid mare’s flanks. “No, you wretched man! I won’t let you escape!”