Ruthless Heart

by Beth Williamson

  Grady wanted to finish what he’d set out to do, to get free of the yoke he wore. For the first time in his life, he had something to live for, but he couldn’t do that until he’d finished what he had to. He had no idea how he would explain to Eliza why he’d disappeared. Right now, he had to focus on doing what he had to do, then he’d worry about her.

  Eliza would be looking for him, and he tried not think about the fact she was probably worried about him. She’d made it clear she wouldn’t be abandoned again, and he’d done it again on the same day. If he wasn’t a piece of shit human being, he didn’t know who was.

  The truth would be too ugly to tell her, so he would have to lie. Not the best way to start off a life with the woman who’d captured his heart, but he didn’t know what else to do. He had accepted the job to hunt and kill Angeline. What did that say about him? He was a broken man, living on the edge of nothingness. This sweet young girl was about to lose her life because he’d tracked her for some lousy son of a bitch who’d given him two hundred dollars.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  The air had cooled to the point where his breath puffed out in white clouds as he rode out of town. He’d seen a few likely places to bury a body on the outskirts. If he could get there, kill the blonde, then return to town quickly, his life might just begin in earnest. Tears stung his eyes, and he told himself it was the cold, even if he knew that was a lie.

  It would have been easier if Eliza hadn’t told him he was a good person, that she loved him. The damn woman had woken up his conscience and his heart. Grady didn’t want to deal with either, and he didn’t know how to turn them off. Their sex in the bathing house had been the most powerful experience of his life. He was still shaking from it if he were honest with himself.

  Grady shook his head to clear his thoughts before they made him foolish or careless. His fascination with Eliza had to be tucked aside until later.

  As he left the lights of the town behind, the inky darkness closed around him. The moon was high and bright in the sky, guiding him to a clearing in the woods two miles outside of town. It was private and quiet, exactly what he needed.

  He pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted, keeping his hand on the blonde lest she wake up suddenly. The last thing he needed was to chased her through the woods in the dark.

  He pulled Angeline off the horse, and she moaned as she hit the ground. Grady stared down at the woman and realized just how young and beautiful was, with fresh-faced creamy cheeks and bow-shaped lips.

  No wonder that old man was angry with her. She was a treasure he’d let slip through his fingers, and now Grady had her life in his hands.

  He squatted beside her and pulled out his gun.

  Eliza rode like a mad woman after Grady. Logically, he would go back the way they had travelled, being familiar with the terrain. She didn’t believe he knew the area well enough to select a different direction to return to Tolson.

  All she could think of was that Angeline would return to Josiah, to a certain death by his hands. She couldn’t let Grady do that to her sister, no matter how much she loved him. Josiah wasn’t the forgiving type, as evidenced by the fact he’d hired a bounty hunter within a few days of her disappearance.

  Eliza was fortunate the moon was bright enough to see where she was going. Cab, good-hearted horse that he was, ran for all he was worth. It was as if he knew what Eliza was trying to do, to rescue her sister. Desperation coated her tongue as she realized the horse couldn’t run like that for long, and Eliza’s current state of mind could hinder her ability to find him.

  The wind whistled past her ears as the cold night air made her nose numb. A bright patch ahead revealed a clearing, and a single horse, riderless. Eliza didn’t know if she believed in God, or whose to believe in, but at that moment she knew something had given her wings. She blinked away tears of gratitude for whatever had guided her to the right spot.

  She slowed down and approached slowly, recognizing Grady’s bay Bullseye, but not seeing any sign of him or Angeline. Her heart still thumped madly in her chest, but she was able to take a breath for the first time since she’d realized they were both missing from Bowson.

  Eliza dismounted and left the horse to graze on the cool, sweet grass while she followed the sound of his voice from up ahead. When she got closer, she realized Angeline was on the ground, and Grady stood above her, his pistol aimed at her sister’s head.

  Bile coated the back of Eliza’s throat as she realized exactly what Grady had been hired to do. He wasn’t a bounty hunter; he was a killer sent to rid Josiah of the wife who had dared to run from him. How stupid had she been to think he was a simple bounty hunter? He wouldn’t return her sister to Josiah, he would bring back evidence of her death.

  Grady had told her over and over he wasn’t a good person, but she hadn’t listened. She’d been convinced that, deep down, he was more than he believed himself to be. Yet there he stood, ready to murder her sister because a madman in the guise of a church elder had paid him coin to do so.

  Perhaps even the golden eagles he had left for her.

  She swallowed back the urge to vomit and forced herself to think of a way to stop him. He was too skilled for her to sneak up on him, particularly given his current state of heightened awareness. Perhaps she could surprise him by knocking him unconscious with something.

  After feeling around the area, she located a rock a bit larger than her fist. She scrambled quietly across the pine needles to a vantage point above him as quickly as she could, took aim, and threw it as hard as she could.

  Her aim was true enough to knock him sideways where he landed on a much larger rock and lay still, his gun in the dirt beside him. A sob tore from her throat as Eliza ran to him and picked up the gun. She had never hurt another human being in her life, and yet she might have killed the man she loved to save her sister.

  She put her hand on his neck and felt a strong steady pulse, although blood was sliding down his forehead.

  “Did you kill him?” Angeline’s raspy voice startled Eliza so badly she almost dropped the gun.

  “I don’t know. Are you all right?” Eliza knelt in front of her sister and examined her. She didn’t appear to have any wounds, thank goodness.

  “My head aches, and my stomach is sore, but otherwise I’m fine.” Angeline got to her knees and pulled Eliza into a fierce embrace. “Thank you, sister. Thank you.”

  Eliza allowed herself a moment or two then pulled back from Angeline. “I need to tie him up.”

  Her sister nodded. “I don’t know how to do much more than a simple knot, but I’ll help.”

  Eliza tried not to sound bitter, but it was difficult. “He taught me how to tie several different kinds. How perverse is it that fate has now given me the opportunity to use those skills on him?”

  Angeline held the gun on his inert form while Eliza searched for rope in his saddlebags. Although she didn’t want to acknowledge her love for Grady was still in her heart, she’d also brought the medical kit and the canteen.

  After securing his hands behind his back with the rope then binding his ankles, she examined the damage she’d inflicted on him. Eliza had much better aim than she’d thought judging by the ragged wound on his head. She cleaned it as best she could with water and a rag. The blood had nearly stopped, so she placed a piece of gauze against the wound to soak up any additional seepage.

  When Eliza finally looked up from tending to Grady, Angeline sat on a rock, watching her with wide eyes and the gun in her hand. Suddenly, Eliza felt decades older than her younger sister.

  “Who is he?”

  Eliza gathered up the supplies, sat beside Angeline, then took Grady’s gun from her. “He’s the man who’s been hunting you.”

  “You know him.” It wasn’t a question. Although young, Angeline was very bright and had always been observant.

  “I’m afraid it is a very long and complicated story.” Eliza put her arm around her sister’s slender shoulders. “Right
now, I want to enjoy the fact that you’re sitting beside me, safe and alive.”

  “It’s amazing!” Angeline smiled as she hugged Eliza hard. “I never expected to see you again, and here you are, so far away from Tolson. What are you doing here, Eliza?”

  “Rescuing you.”

  Grady heard the women’s voices first, soft murmurs that were soothing. Then a hammer started pounding on his head, and the soft murmurs resembled a screaming mob. Survival instincts kicked in, and he didn’t open his eyes until he knew what his situation was.

  He determined that he was lying on the ground with pine needles, dirt, and a host of insects beneath and around him. A tug on his hands and feet let him know he’d been tied up. The excruciating pain in his head told him whoever had tied him up had also conked him on the head with something.

  His memory was still a bit gray around the edges, but he remembered finding who he’d been searching for, and then, nothing. What the hell had happened? Someone had managed to sneak up on Grady, and he had to figure out who.

  He heard an unfamiliar voice ask what Eliza was doing there, and when Eliza responded, “Rescuing you,” he opened his eyes.

  At first he didn’t quite understand what he saw. Eliza was holding his gun and sitting on a rock beside the blonde he’d been chasing. Their heads were close together, and Eliza’s arm was around the other girl’s shoulders.

  Holy shit.

  He must’ve made a noise because both women turned their gazes on him. That’s when he noticed the similarities between them, in stature, in the curves of their cheeks, in their identical bright blue eyes. His stomach clenched up so hard, it threw bile up his throat.

  The blonde was her fucking sister.

  In Eliza’s gaze, he saw anger, betrayal, and pain. The same emotions catapulted through him like a mule kick to the balls. Eliza had more skill than he’d given her credit for. She’d been playing with him all along, waiting for him to find her sister. He’d done exactly what she’d wanted, believing every damn lie she’d fed him as if he were a complete and utter fool.

  Grady’s faith in humanity’s lowest form of life, a female, had been reaffirmed yet again. This time, he’d let himself believe in Eliza and in what she felt for him. Jesus Christ, he’d thought she loved him. He should have known better than to believe a woman, to believe she could love him of all people.

  His heart shattered into a million pieces, this time for good. There was no chance in hell it would ever be whole again, nor did he want it to be. To think he had wrestled with his conscience about killing Angeline, when the entire time her sister had been playing her own game with him. What a fool he’d been.

  Grady wanted to howl in fury at her, to shake her until she told him exactly why she’d just destroyed him. It wasn’t enough that she’d managed to ride along with him while he’d found her sister, but she’d also had to play with his emotions.

  The bitter taste of betrayal filled his mouth, and he spat toward her, startling both women. “I guess you got what you came for, eh Liz?”

  “Liz?” The blonde sounded completely confused.

  Eliza swallowed visibly. “You were going to murder her.”

  Grady pushed her comment aside. “I was getting paid to do what I had to.”

  “There was nothing you had to do. You chose to do it.”

  “Fuck you, Eliza whatever-the-hell your name is. You used me to find your sister, and don’t tell me you didn’t.” He struggled against the bonds. “You’re a conniving, lying bitch.”

  She flinched at the words but didn’t deny them. “And you are a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Never said I wasn’t.”

  Eliza narrowed her gaze. “You lied each and every day we traveled together. Don’t cast stones when you’ve been practicing the same deceit.”

  “You traveled together?” The blonde was like an echo to everything Eliza said.

  “My lying wasn’t going to hurt anyone,” he said.

  “Except Angeline.” She pointed his gun at him, the barrel looking a lot larger than when he wasn’t at the receiving end.

  Grady didn’t know how to respond to that. The two of them were bald-faced liars who deserved the pain they’d caused each other. He had known what might happen if he let Eliza into his life, so he shouldn’t place all the blame on her. But oh, how he wanted to.

  Eliza had done what no woman had in many, many years—she’d brought Grady Wolfe to his knees.

  “I am not proud of being disingenuous with you. My conscience was constantly pricked by the way I kept information from you.” Eliza looked at the gun in her hand. “My intention was to save my sister from returning to a certain death at Josiah’s hands. What I didn’t know was that he’d already ordered that through yours.”

  “I don’t even know what disin-whatever you said means. All I know is you were just as bad as I was, lying to me, and to everyone we met.” If only Grady could get free, he’d take his damn horse and leave. The money from Brown wasn’t worth what he was going through, no amount was.

  Eliza had the good grace to nod. “I was deceitful, and I’ve wronged many people along the way, but I did it to save my sister.” She took the blonde’s hand in her own, holding up the clasped hands for him to see. “She is all I have in the world, the only person who cares if I live or die.” Her voice caught on the last word.

  Grady refused to feel anything but anger and contempt for Eliza. She had made her choice and he’d made his. “Until you had me convinced you had me. You should be an actress, y’know.”

  Eliza’s face blanched. “I wasn’t lying about that.”

  He hooted. “Oh, of course you weren’t. Pardon me if I don’t believe your lying ass.”

  They locked gazes, staring at each other across the moonlight ground. He didn’t want to believe what he saw in her gaze, so he looked away. Whatever they’d shared together was dead. He had no desire to resurrect it.

  “Let’s start a fire and get the camp set up.” Eliza rose, pulling her sister to her feet. “You must first start with a level surface and put together a ring of stones to contain the blaze.”

  As Grady watched, the unbelievable Eliza taught her sister how to start a goddamn fire, while he lay on the ground like a trussed-up turkey. If he wasn’t there to witness it, he’d never have believed it. She ignored him, left him in the dirt, with beetles tickling his ear, and a headache the size of Texas.

  Before he could open his mouth and tell her a thing or two, she came back to him. She grabbed his feet and started pulling him across the soft pine needles. He was surprised she had the strength.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She grunted out a word with each foot she managed to move him. “Pulling. You. Into. A. Safe. Spot.”

  Perversely, he tried to be dead weight, unmovable by the resourceful, deceitful Eliza. She wasn’t deterred, and while her sister gathered rocks, she yanked and pulled Grady until he was beneath the shade of a pine that seemed to be taller than God. Its branches reached out twenty feet in each direction, providing ample shelter and warmth from the elements.

  Damn, he wished he could find fault in what she’d done. Eliza had been paying attention to him and her goddamn books. Was there nothing she couldn’t do well?

  She pushed him into a sitting position, and he pushed against her as she did it. “Stop it, Grady, or you’ll have to lie on your side all night. I’m certain you do not want insects to be depositing larvae in your orifices.”

  “Depositing what in my what?” He stopped fighting her and let her push him upright.

  “Insects put their young inside warm holes.” She touched his ear and pulled out a beetle. “Such as this one.”

  He scowled at her and the bug. “Untie me.”

  “I can’t, not until we can come to an agreement, and I fear you’re far too angry to have an unemotional conversation.” She got to her feet and looked down at him, the shade of the tree making her face dance with shadows. “Whatever you beli
eve, Grady Wolfe, I do love you, but I also love my sister. This situation is untenable, and we must find a way to resolve it amicably.”

  With that, she left him sitting there while she gathered wood for the fire. She’d started using words again that he didn’t understand, maybe to confuse him, maybe because she was as upset as he was. Either way, he hadn’t understood half of what she’d said.

  His anger simmered down to a low boil as the sisters worked. Eliza was definitely the older sibling and more efficient in everything she did, but the blonde had a grace that her sister lacked. It was as if the girl had received Eliza’s share of the beauty, and Eliza had gotten her sister’s common sense. It must’ve been the other woman, Lettie Brown, who had carried the burden of decisions for Angeline, because it sure as hell wasn’t her.

  Within ten minutes, the fire was crackling merrily. Grady had a chance to really look at the two of them while he busily picked at the ropes binding his wrists. He recognized the knots he’d taught Eliza and silently cursed his own foolishness.

  The women talked quietly by the fire for a few minutes, and then Eliza came back over to him. She carried a canteen and what appeared to be another stale biscuit.

  “I ain’t hungry.”

  She shrugged. “Very well, but you may become hungry in the near future.”

  He thought she’d return to her sister, but instead, she sat down so they were facing each other.

  The firelight flitted across the right side of her face. “You’re very angry with me.”

  Grady gritted his teeth. “You got that right.”

  She nodded. “Deservedly angry. I wanted to speak with you, and I hope you understand my actions. You see, Angeline and I grew up without a mother; she died shortly after Angeline was born. Our father, Silas, was a dictator, a cold man whose only concern was the ward. Before you ask, the ward is the place we live, as part of the church. You may have heard of the Mormons or the Latter Day Saints, followers of Brigham Young.”