Desperate Hearts

by Alexis Harrington

  The other man shook his head and clutched his injured hand. “Not me—that gal spits and bites like a viper.” He paused a moment, then added with a greasy smile, “’Course, if she was tied up proper and gagged, she couldn’t kick, spit or bite. All she could do is buck.”

  “I’ll bet she ain’t quite so horny-hided under them clothes as she lets on, either,” Lem added with an infuriating cackle, scratching his privates with no regard for Kyla’s presence.

  Kyla suppressed a shudder. Showing fear of any kind right now could be her undoing, but her heart pounded so hard she felt it nudging her stomach. “Just think—Hobie McIntyre, the man who finally brung down the famous Jace Rankin. And we was here for it. This story ought to be good for a few drinks in any saloon in the territory,” Dirty Hand predicted.

  Beyond mere disgust, she averted her head and stared dully at the vista of mountains against the gray sky while the two chatted amiably about Jace’s death and the money and fame this job would bring them. Every reference to Jace lacerated her heart with excruciating pain.

  Their annoying voices faded to a drone—her fierce struggle to escape, combined with her grief and anxiety left her drained and listless. Her hands and feet were becoming numb from the tight ropes lashed around ankles and wrists.

  Jace couldn’t die—he was larger than life, she told herself. He’d survived a hundred dangerous situations, a thousand. He couldn’t die when she had only just found him and had had a glimpse of his heart. Fate and five evil men couldn’t take him without giving them a chance to heal each other’s souls.

  She tried to blank out the pictures trooping through her mind, but she was too tired to fight them. She remembered her own childhood, always seeking her father’s approval and never winning it, no matter how she tried.

  And there was Jace, just a youngster, facing a stepfather whose notion of manhood was so twisted he had extinguished Jace’s ability to love anyone, including Kyla . . .

  That night a year ago—oh, God, was that what waited for her now? Becoming a prisoner of Tom Hardesty, trapped in a place where no one would help her, perhaps even being forced to marry him?

  No, she wouldn’t do it. Especially after the tenderness that she and Jace had shared. The way it’s supposed to be, he’d said. And she knew he was right. If she couldn’t escape, she’d kill herself or Hardesty before she’d become his victim again. She swore she would.

  Kyla’s grim thoughts were interrupted by an uneasy tone she heard in Dirty Hand’s voice. Keeping her gaze fixed on the landscape, she turned her attention back to the conversation.

  “—oughtta be back by now? It’s been a long time and that canyon ain’t but a couple of miles from here.”

  Lem stepped out of the trees and craned his neck toward the canyon, then walked back, squirting another stream of tobacco juice. “It could be there was a little trouble. But just a little.”

  “What should we do?”

  “We’ll wait,” Lem decided firmly. “Hobie said to wait, and so we will.”

  It had been a long time since those shots were fired, Kyla realized. If Jace were—if he had been—she had trouble even thinking the word. If he’d been killed, he would have taken a man or two with him. And without a leader, Lem and Dirty Hand were lost, or so she believed until more time passed and Lem had an inspiration.

  “Maybe they’re all dead,” he suggested, giving to voice everyone’s thoughts. “But if Hobie and the others don’t come back, and we take the woman to Hardesty . . . won’t that be worth a big reward?” He spoke in hushed tones, as if the spirits of the departed might hear him and strike him down. “Hell, we could say it was us who killed Rankin after he got Hobie.”

  The more Lem and Dirty Hand discussed this idea, the more eager they became.

  “We could hole up a day," Lem went on. “You know, spend it at that cabin over yonder. Restin’ up and takin’ our ease with the woman.” He spoke as if she were a horse or a wagon wheel, with no ability to comprehend them. But she stared back at them with coldest look she could muster, one that she thought would make Jace proud.

  “That’s right, take our ease,” Dirty Hand said, repeating the phrase with a certain relish. “Who’s left say we can’t?”

  “I am.”

  Lem and Dirty Hand swung their guns around to an intruder. Kyla’s head swiveled to see Jace standing at edge of the trees, his Henry rifle trained on the two men. She uttered a shapeless cry, muffled by the gag.

  He spared her the briefest of glances, then approached slowly, deliberately.

  He seemed ten feet tall to her. A day’s growth of dark beard shadowed his face, making him look even more sinister, and he moved with an easy but controlled grace. He looked as frightening as she’d ever seen him, and as welcome as the cavalry. Waves of emotion sluiced through her—love, joy, overwhelming relief, and the sense that now the situation had become really perilous.

  “I’ll see to it that you won’t have an easy moment for the rest of your lives,” Jace added, his eyes flat and cold, nearly colorless, “You’d better drop your weapons.”

  “Like hell I will,” Lem said, holding fast to his shotgun. His gaze darted around, as if he were searching for one of his own group to appear behind Jace. It didn’t happen. “Where’s Hobie and others?”

  Jace lifted the Henry a notch. “Dead.” His voice had a dry, papery sound, like October leaves tumbling over a grave in the wind.

  “You’re a liar, mister. No one by himself could outgun three armed men. Not even you,” Dirty Hand said. Any crude amiability he’d shown earlier was gone.

  Without taking his eyes or his aim off the two men, Jace reached into his coat pocket and produced a leather thong strung with bear teeth. "Recognize this?"

  Lem started. “It belongs to Hobie, everybody knows that. He cut it off’n a Indian he killed. Where’d you get it?” he demanded.

  Jace smiled slightly, cool and deadly. “I cut it off Hobie.”

  The blood drained out of the two men’s faces, as if the true danger of their situation had begun to dawn upon them.

  “Only a no-count snake would rob a dead man,” Lem charged with shaky indignation.

  “I wonder what that makes a bunch of cowards who lure another man into a trap to kill him." Jace stuffed the thong back into his pocket. “Drop your guns or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  A taut moment passed when neither Lem nor Dirty Hand spoke or moved. Jace watched them, unblinking like a blue-eyed cat. The air crackled with tension, and Kyla scarcely breathed.

  Suddenly, Lem lunged at Kyla where she sat against the tree and jammed the shotgun barrel against her jaw. He crowded his face next to hers and gripped her with his free hand. “You decide, Rankin—is she gonna live through this? Let us go or the hellcat dies.”

  Kyla froze, and her eyes grew wide with terror as she stared at Jace. But he kept his eyes fixed on the man next to her and never looked at her once. Lem’s breath against her neck was moist and sour, and the smell of fear oozing from his pores compounded his rank odor “Don’t you think we make a pretty—”

  A rifle blast exploded in the forest morning, and Lem was blown backward and away from Kyla, with a neat, dime-size hole just above the bridge of his nose. She screamed behind her gag at the horror of it all. The bullet had come so close, she’d felt its heat. She swallowed and swallowed, but her mouth and throat were bone-dry. God, what was Jace thinking? Was he crazy? Events were whizzing by so quickly she struggled to grasp them as they occurred.

  Dirty Hand stared at Lem’s inert form uncomprehendingly, then turned his angry, malevolent glare on Jace. “You killed my partner!” Instead of putting down his gun, to Kyla’s utter amazement, he lifted his revolver and extended it the full length of his hamlike arm to point it at Jace. Another shot rang out and Dirty Hand fell like a sack of meal into the pine needles, facedown. The smell of burning sulfur was thick.

  Jace approached slowly, then rolled him over with his foot. A bright red stain bloo
med in the center of his chest. Prying the gun from the dead man’s hand, he threw it into the woods with what looked like his full strength. Then he turned to Kyla. His face was pale and blank, and his eyes narrowed, as if against the gunsmoke hanging over them

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, worry overlaying voice. He yanked down the bandanna that served her gag. “Did they hurt you?”

  She shook loose of the scarf. Now that the emergency had passed, she felt the remains of her courage ebbing away, leaving her shaky and rubber-limbed. “No, I’m not hurt. Oh, God, Jace,” she said in a low, quivering voice, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I thought . . . I thought you were dead.” Tears edged her eyes and she lowered her gaze to hide them.

  He drew his long hunting knife from the scabbard at his waist and cut the ropes tying her wrists and ankles with two swift strokes. Pulling her into a tight embrace, he murmured against her ear. “It’s all right now, it’s all right. You’re safe.”

  Kyla tried to stop her tears, but the longer he held her and reassured her, the harder her sobs came, and she poured them out on his shoulder. He stroked the back of her hair and she clung to him, feeling as if she could be safe only in his arms. Her face pressed against the canvas of his duster, she smelled the familiar and comforting scents of him—horses, leather, fresh air—so much different from those of unwashed, sweat-stale bodies and rotting teeth. “How—how did you get away?”

  He backed up and took her face between his gloved hands. “Hell, honey, I’m a lot smarter than they bargained for. I know what kind of track your horse leaves when you ride him. The man they put on Juniper weighed a lot more than you. I figured out what they were up to.”

  Was there anything that this man didn’t know? Couldn’t do? Hadn’t seen? Kyla knew that Hobie McIntyre would have easily killed a man less capable Jace.

  His gaze drifted over her face and shoulders, down torso to her legs and feet. “You’re sure you aren’t hurt?”

  She shook her head. "Just a little bruised from being pushed around and thrown over a horse’s back. And cold—they took my coat.” She stole a glance at the bodies sharing the small clearing. “If you hadn’t come when you did, though—well, I guess you heard their plans.” She sighed tiredly. “Are the others really dead?”

  He looked at her straight on. “Yeah. It was them or me.” His voice reflected the weary sound of a man who had seen too much in his years. Perhaps that was why, when the light was just right, lines emerged in his young face, the ones around his eyes. He pulled off his glove and rubbed the back of his neck. “This is a hard life, you know. And it doesn’t get easier.”

  She wasn’t sure if he referred to life in general, or his own. “Jace, please—take me away from here.”

  Nodding, he stood and pulled her to her feet. Pins and needles shot through her legs, and her backside was soaked from sitting on the wet forest floor.

  “I’ve got the horses tied up on the other side those trees,” he said, gesturing in a westerly direction.

  “Oh, did you bring Juniper back? Is he all right?” she asked, hope giving her new energy.

  “Yeah, he’s a sturdy mount, even if he doesn’t like snow. Can you walk?” he asked, lifting his hat resettling it.

  “I think so—” But her knees buckled and he swung her up into his arms. His muscles flexed under her, strong and capable, and she hid her face against his neck to shut out the gruesome scene.

  “We’ll go back to the cabin so you can dry off,” Jace said. “Then we’ve got to get you another coat somewhere.” He laughed humorlessly. “Damn, Kyla, you need to hang on to your horse and stop losing your gear.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In his life Jace had learned that there were a number of to insult a man. They included questioning his heritage, his courage, and the size of his privates. In his opinion, the person doing the insulting usually revealed more about his own shortcomings than anyone else’s.

  And to his way of thinking, no affront was worse than to willingly leave a dead man unburied.

  So while he was inclined to abandon Hobie McIntyre’s worthless carcass and those of his men to the coyotes, decency would not let him. He had discovered a spade outside the abandoned cabin, and after taking Kyla back to rest and warm up, he returned to begin the backbreaking job. As he rode away from the graves he had dug for them, his shoulders ached but he was satisfied that he had done the right thing.

  Kyla had said nothing about his decision, but he could tell she was baffled. Hell, maybe no one would understand it. But he didn’t have anyone to answer to except himself. The one thing he would not do, though, was mark the graves. Burying those bastards was enough—certainly more than they would have done for him.

  This day never should have happened, he thought grimly. He realized now how obvious the trick had been to lure him out. It was a clever enough scheme for a man of Hobie McIntyre’s limited intelligence. But Jace had years of experience—he had outmaneuvered men like McIntyre a dozen times or more.

  The plain truth of it was that Jace had gotten sloppy, careless. And it was because he’d let himself fall into the arms of Kyla’s comfort. For a brief moment, he’d permitted himself the luxury of needing someone and filling the emptiness that he’d begun to feel lately.

  Crossing the open range, silent and autumn gold beneath the clear, late-day sky, he gazed at the cabin ahead. The weather had finally broken, and the landscape was serene and peaceful, giving no hint of the blood spilled here today. If he blocked the day’s events out of his mind, he could almost picture that scene again, the one that had him riding home to a warm kitchen and a hot meal. Lying with Kyla last night had made the image sharper, brighter. There she was in the open doorway, flame-haired and welcoming, waiting for him.

  Trouble was, he couldn’t block out today, or any of the days that had gone before. And she had to be told that.

  * * *

  “It’s done?” Kyla asked, watching him unsaddle horse. The low sun filled her hair with fiery glints and turned her turquoise eyes translucent. Jesus Christ, but she was beautiful, with a faint roundness to her cheeks that he knew would reach full bloom if she ate three meals a day and wasn’t living on the run.

  “Yeah, it’s done. I guess it might be hard for someone else to understand.” He hobbled his own horse next to Juniper, then glanced up at her. "I suppose I hope that when my time comes, someone will do the same for me, and not leave me out for the buzzards to pick at.”

  “Oh, Jace," she said, her voice dropping to barely than a whisper, “please don’t talk like that. I was so worried today, so scared. Not just for me, but . . . for you.”

  His head came up sharply. Strange—even though no woman had ever told him she cared about him, he knew that was the emotion hovering behind her words. It was more than her reluctance to lose the man she’d hired to do a job for her, or a woman’s fear of losing her protector. A lot more.

  No, Kyla, don’t say it, he willed her silently. Don’t think it. She stood aside to let him pass into the cabin, and he paused to lightly grip her shoulders.

  “Listen, now, don’t start worrying about me.”

  “How can I not, after all that’s happened? Jace, after this is over, after Hardesty is taken care of, maybe then we—maybe together—” She left the sentence unfinished but her meaning was plain enough, the possibilities she implied as bright as a morning. She gazed up at him, trusting, vulnerable, her moist pink mouth just inches from his own.

  She was right—they had been through a lot, and he’d almost been killed. A kiss, he could permit himself that, a small celebration of his own survival and hers. Her eyes drifted closed and her clean fragrance, of sage and new-mowed grass, floated to him from her body heat. And beneath the rough shirt and jeans he knew she was smooth and lush. A familiar heavy tightness gathered in his groin. He lowered his head to her upturned lips, his mouth just grazing their warmth—

  No, he couldn’t let it happen. He pulled back suddenly and turned
from her, avoiding her puzzled expression. Where she was concerned, he couldn’t afford to let himself be an ordinary man with ordinary desires. He needed to be stronger. Pacing over the flooring, he pulled off the duster and flung it on the table.

  “Come here and sit down.” He pulled the flimsy chair forward with the toe of his boot. “I need to make you understand something.”

  Kyla edged toward the chair and perched on its rough seat. Her posture, rigid and taut, spoke of her apprehension.

  “You could have been killed today,” he began. “If that had happened I’d have had no one to blame but myself.”

  He would have thought it impossible, but she snapped up even straighter in the chair. “How can you say that?”

  He resumed his pacing in narrow circles around cabin floor. Every muscle in his body was tight. “If I’d been paying attention, McIntyre and his men never could have lured me away from here. But I wasn’t on my guard—I was busy thinking about how it felt to make love with you.”

  She glanced down at the floor, but not before he a glimpse of the blush that stained her face. “Well, I’m sorry . . .” she murmured. Her hands were folded into a tight knot on her lap.

  He dropped to one knee in front of her. “Jesus, Kyla, don’t think I’m blaming you for what happened.” He put his hand on top of hers, but then withdrew it. “It was my fault—”

  “Why does it have to be anyone’s fault, yours or mine?" she demanded then, trapping him in an angry glare. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a normal life, to be close to someone.”

  “No, there isn’t, and you should have that. But don’t expect to have it with me. I don’t have a normal life and I can’t. There will always be a Hobie McIntyre out there someplace." He felt as if he were on his knees before her, begging her to understand his situation, one that she stubbornly refused to see.