by Alice Sharpe
“Doyle,” he muttered at last.
“Doyle? As in your brother? He’s with the princess?”
Lucas nodded.
“He killed Harley and beat up the kid?”
“Yeah. I tried to stop him. The kid was screaming and kicking…?.”
“I bet you tried.”
“Doyle gets crazy when he drinks.”
“I suppose he killed Darrell, too?”
Lucas hunkered into his coat and didn’t respond.
“Who else?” he prompted.
“Who else what?”
“Who put you and Doyle up to this? Was Harley involved? Did you guys have an argument?”
“I ain’t saying no more. You know about Doyle, that’s enough.”
He was right; Doyle was the problem right now. “Call him off,” he demanded. “Right now, or, so help me, I’ll shoot you in the foot and work my way up.” He made his point by jabbing the barrel of the gun against Lucas’s boot.
“Doyle! Come on out,” Lucas called. “Bring the girl.”
“Louder,” Pierce coaxed with a jab.
Lucas repeated himself. There was no response.
The Doyle Garvey Pierce remembered wasn’t a man of finesse. If he was in that house with the princess he’d be marching her through the door threatening to kill her or at the very least firing shots through one of the cracked windows.
“Let’s go,” Pierce said, and shoved Lucas ahead of him again, pulling him upright when he slipped. As they stepped onto the porch, Pierce glanced through the big window, but it was even darker in there than outside. And then he saw a dark heap on the floor.
He shoved Lucas against the side of the house and tried the knob. It opened readily.
“Analise?”
He was greeted with silence. The heap didn’t move. His heart froze.
“Get in here,” he said, turning back to Lucas, just in time to hear the second shot of the day. Instinctively dodging out of the way, he looked back for Lucas who was sliding down the outside wall, bullet hole in his forehead, eyes open and surprised-looking. Half of the back of his head was gone.
For a second, Pierce was dumbstruck. Who in the hell had fired that shot? He looked across at the barn from where the shot had to have come, but it was too dark to see. Self-preservation finally kicked in and he scrambled into the lodge, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
Analise came to as a heavy weight lifted from her chest. Her eyes flew open. A scream died on her lips as the shadowy figure looming over her turned into a familiar one.
“Pierce!”
“I thought you were dead,” he said, and then she was in his arms, tears she’d fought for so long running freely down her face.
He held on to her as though she was a mirage and he was afraid if he let go she’d disappear. The image came easily as it was exactly the way she held on to him.
And then he was leaning back and she knew he was trying to see her through the dim light and she knew it didn’t matter if they were blurs to each other. In the next instant, he’d pulled her back against him and cupping her face in his hands, kissed her lips.
His face was rough with stubble and cold from the snow and it felt wonderful against her skin, he felt real, and his kiss was the fabric of fantasy. Happiness welled inside her like an untamed artisanal well, tickling her from the inside out with the delirious feeling of safety she’d thought she’d never again experience.
Toby!
“Where is he?” she cried, looking deep into Pierce’s eyes. “Pierce, where is he?”
He helped her to her feet. “He’s dead. He must have fallen on his knife.”
“Not Doyle,” she whispered, almost afraid now to hear it. “Toby. Where is Toby?”
Pierce’s handsome face grew solemn. “They bashed him on the head. There was some kind of horrible fight—”
“At the ice shack,” she muttered.
“That’s right.”
“Was Harley one of them?”
“I think so. Something must have gone wrong at the ice shack, though, because he was dead when I found him.”
“And Toby? How badly is he injured?”
“No way to know. Jamie took him back to the ranch. They’ll move heaven and earth to get him to a doctor.”
“Don’t you have a cell? Can’t we try to reach the ranch or Jamie? I have to know about Toby—”
“In a minute. I have to go outside and check the barn. Someone killed Lucas a few minutes ago. They may still be out there. I want you to stay in the house, lock the doors, stay away from the windows. Here, take Lucas’s rifle. I’ll be fast.”
“Be careful,” she said, kissing him again. Now that he was here, it was unbearable to let him go, even for a few minutes. “Come back to me,” she said.
He kissed her forehead, then slipped through the front door into the night and was gone.
She stood with her back against the door, the gun in her hands although she wasn’t sure how to use it. Five minutes passed in agonizing slowness then she heard Pierce’s voice and a soft rap. “Analise?”
She opened the door and he came inside. She could barely see him in the darkness.
“I think we can risk light now,” he said. “Whoever was here is gone. He took one of the snowmobiles and destroyed the other. I didn’t even hear an engine.”
Analise was just glad whoever it was had left.
Pierce produced a flashlight and together they found a few candles and lanterns and illuminated the room. Doyle’s huge shape seemed to shrink as they worked and Analise did her best not to look at him.
“There’s a lot to do,” Pierce said.
“We have to call about Toby.”
He dug the cell from a deep pocket. “We can try. I’m not promising anything. The signal lines are weak.” He punched in a number and held it low so she could hear it ring on the other end.
“Pierce?”
“Jamie, thank goodness. The boy—”
“…doc…recovery.”
“You’re breaking up,” Pierce said, with a swift look at Analise. “Are you saying the boy is out of danger?”
“No…danger,” Jamie said.
“Jamie, listen. Is everyone at the ranch? I mean all of the princess’s party, are they accounted for?”
“The ranch…fine,” Jamie said.
“No, the people—”
“…princess?”
“Yes, I have her. She’s safe. About the people—”
“The princess?” Jamie said again.
“Safe,” Pierce repeated.
Silence. The signal was gone.
Pierce set the phone aside.
“It sounded as though Toby saw a doctor,” Analise said, taking a deep breath. There had been no desperation in Jamie’s voice.
“I’m sure Jamie will let the general know you’re safe and the general can call your father.”
“If he heard you tell him,” she said. Then she added, “My father will do what is best for Chatioux regardless of my fate. He would never give in to pressure like that.”
“Even for you?”
“Especially for me. How are we going to get back?”
“I left two horses tied under some trees. I need to go get them into the barn and take care of—well, him.” He nodded toward Doyle Garvey’s body. “And Lucas, too, for that matter.”
“And then we can go?”
“Not until daybreak. We can’t wander around out there in a storm in the dark with a murderer loose.”
AFTER DRAGGING BOTH dead men out to the barn and hefting them into the trailer where he covered them with the tarp, he went to find the horses. He settled them in two of the stalls and fed them some leftover hay he found in a third. Then he took a few minutes to jerry-rig traps over both doors. If anyone tried to tamper with the horses, a god-awful racket of falling tools and paint cans would bring him running.
Back on the lodge porch, he stripped off his gloves and coat and left hi
s boots by the front door. He paused by the fire to warm his hands before collapsing on the sofa, and then had serious doubts he’d ever get up again.
The princess had been busy during his absence. She’d managed to start the old propane stove and had several big pots and kettles of water heating even as they spoke. She even handed him a warm, wet cloth which he ran over hands and face.
She hadn’t told him how she came by the cut on her cheek and the bruise on her forehead, but he’d found a pocketknife on Doyle when he moved his body out to the barn. No use wasting anger on a dead man.
Especially when there was a much better diversion so close at hand. Analise Emille was like a mountain flower braving a blustery spring. It amazed him that she was also practical enough to haul snow inside to melt, wash down a table and figure out an ancient stove. Hard to picture a princess ever having to do much scullery work in the castle.
Well, wait now. Didn’t Snow White do things like this? And Analise kind of looked like Snow White with her ebony hair and porcelain skin.
Okay, he was way beyond bushed.
“It seems to me I’ve been cold forever although I have to say Chatioux has much this same kind of winter,” the princess said as she emptied the contents of the saddlebag he’d brought with him from the barn. Wrapped sandwiches, fruit, cookies—typical Pauline fare. It all looked delicious. “Everyone in my country skis,” she added, casting him a smile.
“I have a hard time picturing General Kaare on skis,” he told her.
“You’d be surprised. He was quite the athlete in his day and still practices. Even Bierta and Mr. Vaughn take to the slopes when we travel.”
Hard to picture any of them on a vacation for some reason. Were one of them in on the kidnapping? Had one of them killed Darrell? He’d seen snowshoe tracks coming toward the barn when he searched for the horses—whoever had killed Lucas had apparently arrived in that manner.
“Lucas couldn’t have killed your driver in Seattle,” he mused. “He was at the ranch at the time, but Doyle might have traveled. What I can’t see is either Garvey coming up with this plan on their own, especially since one of them told Bierta their goal was to stop your father’s vote. Men like the Garveys do stupid things like this for one reason—money. They would have no interest in the internal workings of a country half a world away.”
She perched on the edge of a chair facing him. “Or maybe they do stupid things for love,” she said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“Doyle Garvey was teasing Lucas about a girl. He said Lucas would have a chance with her now that he had money and Darrell was dead.”
“Oh, God,” Pierce groaned.
“Do you know who he meant?”
“Miley Lindquist.”
“Yes, that’s the name.”
“Pauline mentioned her. Apparently she was going with Lucas but recently got engaged to Darrell. Lucas was the one who suggested Darrell join him as a guard. I wonder if he killed Darrell just to get him out of the way. Are you sure you only traveled with the Garvey brothers?”
“After leaving the ice shack I’m pretty sure, yes.”
“When were you aware of Harley?”
“It’s all still so fuzzy. I remember being abducted—they used Toby to get me to open my door. Then I awoke in a small cold building that I heard them call the ice fishing shack. Toby and I were dumped in a corner. I was blindfolded but I don’t know if Toby was. There was a big fight. I heard Toby shouting. And Harley, too, but his voice sounded funny.”
“Funny how? Excited? Angry?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I found this in his hand,” Pierce said, digging something from his pocket. He handed it to Analise. It was her diamond pendant, given to her on her eighteenth birthday by her mother. She hadn’t realized it was missing, but now she recalled it snapping from around her neck.
“He must have ridden one of the snowmobiles. Maybe the Garvey boys shared the other.”
She shook her head. Something wasn’t quite right…
“Maybe there was a falling-out among thieves once they got to the ice shack and they whacked him. You can’t remember anything before the shack?”
She stared at the sparkling diamond flower. “Nothing. I woke up at the shack and then again in the trailer after leaving the shack. I was alone by then. I found a gun—”
Pierce sat forward. “A gun? You found a gun?”
She looked around the room, obviously flustered. Spying what she was apparently looking for, she got to her feet and retrieved a small object from a dark corner. “I found this. I thought it was a gun but it turned out to be nothing but a cigarette lighter.”
Pierce’s brow wrinkled as he looked at it. “That’s Harley’s,” he said at last. “I remember seeing him pocket it. From a distance, I thought it was real, too. And at the time I also thought it an odd choice of a weapon for a guy like him.”
She ran her fingers over what passed for the grip. “His initials are engraved in the handle,” she said softly. “BRH. I wonder what the R stood for.” Her voice faded to a whisper and she frowned.
“Wait a second,” Pierce said, quickly realigning what he thought he knew. “There’s some charred, blood-stained cord out in the trailer. And Harley’s wrist was burned. What if Lucas drugged him after the cookout and stuck him in that trailer, then added you and Toby later? Maybe while you were all being toted across the lake, Harley managed to burn off the ropes with his cigarette lighter. He could have attacked the Garvey boys at the ice shack.”
“But why would they take him along if he wasn’t involved?”
Pierce started to shrug, but stopped. “No one else witnessed Harley drinking or being drunk. I bet Lucas set it up to make Harley a scapegoat. I couldn’t figure out why they’d bother to stop at the ice shack, but if Harley was making a fuss in the trailer, that might explain it.”
“Lucas was furious with Doyle for losing control.”
“I assume whoever killed Lucas did it to keep him from naming who hired them. I think he would have spilled his guts without much prodding. And if that someone didn’t come with you then they followed me or already knew the destination.” He yawned, and flashed her an embarrassed smile. “I guess I’m getting a little weary,” he admitted.
“No wonder. It’s been a pretty eventful two days.” She handed him a wrapped sandwich. He sat there staring at it. He’d been so hungry but now all he wanted was sleep.
No, that’s not all he wanted, he admitted to himself as he did his best not to stare at Analise. But his gaze kept wandering to her as she nibbled on a wedge of orange. To her lips, as succulent and juicy as the fruit. To her breasts pressed against blue cashmere. To her shapely legs.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.
He hadn’t even unwrapped the food. “Not particularly,” he admitted as their gazes locked and held.
She finally got to her feet and approached the old stove. As she hefted one of the kettles, he went to help her. “Let me get that.”
“I have this one. Grab another.”
He took what looked like the heaviest. “Where do you want it?” Until that moment, he’d been too tired to wonder why she was heating so much water.
“This way,” she said, and led him into the bedroom. There were several bright quilts laid over the bed that he vaguely recalled as his mother’s handiwork. “While you were out in the barn, I investigated the house.”
There was a small adjoining room off to the left. As Pierce entered it, long ago memories of trips to the lodge flooded back.
In his day it had held two sets of bunk beds and was where he and his brothers spent the night when they went hunting with their father. Sometimes, way back before their mother took off, their uncle and his stepdaughter would come along, too. Even though she was younger than any of the Westin boys, she’d always insisted on a top bunk. Bossy little girl.
Echo, that was her name. He hadn’t thought of her in eons. Soon after Pierce’s mot
her left the ranch, his uncle Peter had moved Echo and her mother away from Wyoming, selling his share of the Open Sky to Pierce’s father, and the two families had lost touch.
But now the room held little more than the cast-iron bathtub that had formerly been set up outside for extremely casual bathing. It was situated right smack in the middle like in an old Western movie. There were candles placed around the room and their light cast golden shadows.
“Dad must have parked the old tub in here after I moved away,” he said. “Look at that, he even rigged a drain.”
“I already wiped it out and put the plug in,” Princess Analise said as she poured her kettle of water into the tub, steam billowing up around her lovely face.
After he added his, their eyes met. How was he going to get through the next hour knowing she was in here all stretched out in this big tub, naked and soapy and wet and did he mention naked?
He felt like gulping. Instead, his voice a little raspy, he whispered, “Enjoy your bath.”
A smile curved her beautiful lips. “It’s not for me. It’s for us.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Us,” he repeated.
She looked up and away quickly. “Yes.” She gestured at the only other furniture in the room, a small table which held a few items. “I even found clean towels and a sliver of bath soap.”
“Do you mean us as in you first, me second?”
“No. I mean us as in, well, together.”
He studied her. “You’re a constant amazement to me, Analise.”
“I am?”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you how unique you are?”
“I’m not unique,” she protested.
“To hell you aren’t.”
Her eyes suddenly glistened. “If you don’t want to—”
He stepped around the tub and pulled her into a warm embrace. “Want to? Are you kidding me? What man wouldn’t want to?”
She buried her face against his chest. Her body heaved with sobs. He smoothed her hair and closed his eyes. Damn, had Doyle—hurt her? He had to know. “Tell me what happened,” he whispered. “Did Doyle do more than cut your face and bruise your throat?”