“Wouldn’t that have been a shame,” she muttered.
With the gold stored, he approached her, carrying a bowie knife. Sunlight glinted off the long, curved blade, and Tess watched with an eagle eye as he sliced through her bindings, ready to take advantage of any lapse in attention. But he gave her no opening.
With his meaty hand wrapped around her forearm, he dragged her over toward a crate that smelled of onions and forced her to sit down. His gaze raked over her and lingered on her bosom. Heat flared in his eyes; dread washed through Tess.
“You sure are a pretty thing,” he said. “I like women with big tits. Show ‘em to me.”
With his attention locked on her bosom, the big knife dangled at his side. What the heck, Tess thought. A smart woman uses the weapons at her disposal.
“No, please don’t do this,” she begged, the tremble in her voice dismayingly real.
“Pop those buttons.”
“I can’t. Not without standing up.”
“Do it, then.”
Tess slowly stood. Her mind raced as her fingers went to the buttons at her white shirtwaist. She fought to overcome the sick feeling sitting like a lump in her stomach and use Bodine’s lust against him.
She made a show of undoing each small pearl button. Cowering and sniveling and pleading, she flamed the fires of his arousal. She recognized the danger in what she was doing. The man was stronger than she and sometimes physical strength did win out over superior intelligence. But Tess simply refused to accept that this could be one of those instances. Her buttons all undone, she pulled the blouse off her shoulders.
Bodine’s eyes rounded as the fabric pooled at her waist “Now the corset. Peel it all the way down to the skin. I want to see those beauties.” His mouth widened in a hungry grin. “I want to see what Montana gets to see. In fact maybe I’ll go ahead and have me a taste. I’d figured to wait until Montana showed up, but now I reckon I’ll go ahead and have me a snack while I’m waiting. Hurry up, there, gal. I like looking a bit before I get down to business.”
She’d have to take off her skirt to get to the corset. Her stomach took another flip. Tess was finding this more difficult than she’d anticipated, but she made herself stay focused on the goal—unman him, unarm him, and make him her prisoner. To that end she unbuttoned her waistband and gave her hips a wiggle and both skirt and bodice floated to the ground. Her petticoat slowly followed.
Please let this work.
She stepped free of the fabric pooled at her feet and stood before the criminal in her corset and drawers. Jimmy Wayne looked like he was about to swallow his tongue.
Come here, you murdering piece of filth. Come try to lay a hand on me.
“Faster,” he rasped “Go faster.”
His stare was avid but she needed his eyes glazed. She worked the hooks on her Primrose Path corset, then took a deep breath and tossed it atop her skirt and shirtwaist, leaving only the thin lawn of her chemise to shield her from Bodine’s lust-coated gaze.
“Take it off.”
No, she didn’t think she would. This was where she drew the line, and if Jimmy Wayne Bodine wanted her naked he would just have to handle the task himself. Of course, she had no intention of allowing that to happen.
“I c-c-can’t,” she stammered and allowed tears to pool in her eyes as she brought her arms up to cover herself. Come do it yourself, you snake-eyed whoremonger.
When she interrupted his view, Bodine scowled and started walking toward her. Tess wanted to cheer when he absently sheathed his knife. Instead she lifted her hands away from her body, acting fearful, but in truth trying to keep his attention on her bosom and away from her feet. She eyed the angle of his approach and shifted her body slightly, then balanced the majority of her weight on her left foot.
Bodine was four steps away…three…two…
Tess drew back her foot, then put all the force she could summon behind the weight of her riding boot as she kicked him square in the crotch.
He yelled out and dropped immediately, his hands cupped between his legs, his breath coming in a long, pain-filled gasp. Tess grabbed the pistol from his holster, and then the knife from the sheath. She backed away to a safe distance just as he caught his breath and let out a moaning stream of particularly vile epithets.
Tess shut him up by shooting at him. Not at him, actually, but in his general direction. Close enough to get his attention. As the sound of the gunshot echoed off the canyon walls, Tess told the stunned outlaw, “Throw me my skirt and shirtwaist.”
He did and she struggled into them, careful to keep the gun aimed at Bodine. When she was covered, she said, “Now, take off your boots.”
“My what?”
“Your boots. Throw them over here.”
He pitched them hard, right at her, but Tess had expected that so she dodged them with little trouble. “Socks next.”
“What is this? Are you trying to pay me back or something?”
“You’d have been better off having me take off my boots instead of my clothes, Bodine. Have you noticed the rocks beneath your feet? You will if you try to stand up. I guarantee it. Bare feet will slow you down enough to give me extra time should I need it. Which I won’t, by the way. Unlike you, I am not easily distracted. Now, toss your gun belt along with the socks, please. Just in case I need more bullets.”
He growled at her, but was unable to manage anything more threatening as he met her requests. Tess was filled with a sense of empowerment and she had the silly urge to stick out her tongue at him and say, I win.
Instead, she glanced quickly around the campsite and chose a bare spot toward the center, out of reach of anything he might turn into a weapon. She pointed to it saying, “Move over there, Bodine.”
“No.”
She shot at him again. “Another thing. Don’t think you’ll annoy me into using up all my bullets. I give you fair warning, the next bullet will hit you, if not kill you. I’m quite good with firearms, you see. I spent a few years in Ireland with an avid hunter and when we weren’t studying the stars, he was teaching me how to shoot. The gentleman was offended by the notion that any Texan didn’t know how to use a gun. It ruined the Wild West fantasy for him, you understand.”
Bodine stared as though she were speaking a different language. Tess waved the gun. “Now. Move.”
He attempted to rise, but ended up crawling to the spot she had indicated. Tess grabbed Bodine’s canteen and saddlebags, then took a seat atop a huge boulder, the position providing both a bird’s eye view of her prisoner and unobstructed sight of the mouth of Burro Canyon where Gabe was most likely to enter.
Thus supplied, she settled down to wait.
FEAR OF this dimension wasn’t a new experience for Gabe. He’d felt this gut-wrenching, mind-numbing terror previously in his life. Once. The night Billy died. But back then the fear had come on in a flash and ended quickly in despair. He’d never been this scared for such an extended length of time. It was a damned lucky thing Robards was with him, because he was having a hell of a time concentrating on the trail. One thought continued to override all the others in his brain, and it all but froze him into immobility.
Jimmy Wayne Bodine had his family.
Gabe followed Robards blindly through the rocky, winding trail of the Big Bend. In the few moments when terror loosened its grip on him, anger took its place. Fury at Bodine for being the bastard he was; anger at himself for bringing this danger to his loved one’s door. Cold, violent rage at the man—no, the filth—who had seen Jimmy Wayne released from prison.
Was his father responsible? Had Monty Cameron become the animal behind all this grief? Despite himself Gabe recalled the father of his youth, the man who had explored the world around him with such interest and excitement. Why would he do this? Why would he go to all this trouble? Had the years changed him this much?
Tess believes in Monty. Will thinks he hung the moon. If he’s betrayed them this way, I’ll kill him in a heartbeat.
P
atricide. Gabe shuddered and shied away from the thought.
Sweat dribbled down his back despite the coolness of the day. He rode with grim determination, trying not to recall the carnage Bodine had left in his wake in times past. He reminded himself that had Bodine wanted Tess and Will dead, he’d have left their bodies back where Gabe had stashed the gold. No, Bodine or, more likely, the bastard’s boss, had plans for Gabe’s family. Otherwise, they’d already be dead. He refused to believe such an end might have already come to pass.
A shout interrupted his musings. “Montana,” Robards called. “Burro Canyon is just ahead.”
Gabe sent up a quick, silent prayer, then spurred his mount forward.
IN THE course of an hour, Jimmy Wayne made four rather feeble escape attempts. Tess was able to stop him with words rather than the gun, which was good because she didn’t want to kill the man. But she had made the threat, and motherhood had taught her the mistake of making threats then not following through.
With the passage of time, Bodine’s frustration built. She could hear it in the threats he made, see it in his choppy movements. She tried to distract him—and gain a little in the exchange—by asking him about his partner.
“That’s right. Doc. Doc will take care of this, of you. He’s liable to get a wild hare and come watch the show when I have my payback with Montana. You’ll be in trouble then, missy. Doc is a mean sonofabitch.”
“And that makes you…?” she muttered. “Where is he now?” she called out.
“Probably on his way here. His caves aren’t far, you know. That’s where he spends all his time, down there counting his money. He’s a real smart man. A scientist. Tells me there’s all kinds of riches buried in these rocks.”
A scientist. Oh, no. How could I have been so wrong about him far so long?
“He knows these mountains inside out, so even if you get away from me, you’ll never get away from Doc.” While Bodine spoke, he took small, ginger steps toward her. Tess winced at the thought of how all those rocks were biting into his bare feet. Just as she was fixing to raise the gun and send him back to where she wanted him, he let out a yell and lifted his foot.
The man had stepped on a cactus.
“Ow,” she observed. “That’ll teach you to stay where I said.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Jimmy Wayne lost his temper. He charged at Tess, heedless of the sharp stones and the bloody trail his feet now left. He yelled with rage. “Damned rocks. Damned woman. You bitch! I’m going to kill you, you hear? I’m going to kill you!”
She aimed the gun, but he kept coming. She realized he wasn’t going to stop and she wanted to curse right back at him. “I didn’t want to do this!”
Tess pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him in the shoulder where she had aimed, and as he fell to his knees, she shimmied off the rock. “Curse you, Jimmy Wayne Bodine. This didn’t have to happen. I didn’t want to shoot you. I’ve never shot another human being, and I didn’t want to do it today.” She approached him carefully, keeping the gun trained on his rolling, groaning body.
“You murdering female,” he moaned, swaying but not going down. “Help me, dammit.”
Her teeth tugged at her lower lip as she tried to figure what to do next. The challenge was to staunch the blood flow without putting herself in danger. But how could she get near him without putting herself at risk? The man was a killer. Wounded, but still a killer. It would be stupid of her to get within ten feet of him.
But if you don’t, then you’ll be a killer, too. You should have thought of that before you shot him.
But what else could she have done? She’d had to protect herself. Jimmy Wayne Bodine had murder in his eyes and on his tongue when he ran at her, and Tess knew he would’ve killed her in a heartbeat given the chance.
She stopped just outside his reach, his every groan cutting her like a knife. “I can’t let you bleed to death. I just can’t.”
Blood seeped through Bodine’s fingers of the hand holding the wound. It scared Tess. This man truly could die and the responsibility would be hers.
She reached beneath her riding skirt and loosened the tapes of her petticoat, then pulled it off. Still beyond his reach, she set the gun onto the ground and set about tearing her underwear into strips. These she threw toward Bodine saying, “Wad this up and put pressure on the wound.”
He sank back on his heels, his complexion gone pasty white. “My back. It’s dripping down my back. You’ve killed me, girl. Kilt me dead.”
Tess circled around him to get a view of his back. Oh, no. She covered her mouth with her hand as she realized what she would have to do. “You know, I am not ordinarily a stupid person,” she told the outlaw as she approached him. “Don’t make today be any different. I’m going to help you, Bodine, but if you so much as lift an eyebrow in a threatening manner, I will leave you for the buzzards.”
As she reached out to touch him, Bodine jerked once, twice, three times. Bullets drove him backward, bloodstains bursting across his chest as he fell in a crumpled heap against the rocky ground and lay still.
Jimmy Wayne Bodine stared at the sky through sightless eyes.
HALFWAY DOWN the trail to the bottom of Burro Canyon, Gabe tried to get his throat to work as facts flew at him like bullets. Captain Robards had shot Bodine. Tess stood by the body, apparently safe and sound. Where was Will? Ah, hell. Where was his son?
He gigged his horse, riding him dangerously fast on the uncertain trail. Oh God, oh God, oh God. It was a prayer playing over and over in his mind.
Then he was there and Tess was in his arms, murmuring words of thanks. She laughed with a tinge of hysteria and cried a little, too. Gabe urged her away from the corpse, away from the evil, and when he could drag enough air back into his lungs to speak he asked “Where’s Will?”
“He’s not with you?” Tess pulled back to look up at him. Concern dimmed her blue eyes. “You didn’t return to where you left the gold?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t there. I expected him to be with you.”
She shook her head “Bodine left him behind he left him tied up. What about Castor? Was she there?”
The camel? “No. Nothing was there.”
“Good.” Tess lay her head upon his chest. “He’s fine then. Will must have gotten loose and gone back to Twinkle and the others. That’s what I told him to do, and your son is good about minding his mother.”
Since she appeared so confident, Gabe relaxed a little. He took his first good breath in what felt like days. The peace lasted only a moment, however, because he spied Tess’s corset lying on the ground. Everything inside him cringed and he rattled off a mental string of curses. Outwardly, he nodded toward the discarded undergarment and asked, “Did he hurt you, Tess?”
She followed the path of his gaze and her body tensed. “No, not that way.”
He didn’t believe her. “Tess. Tell me.”
“No. Really.”
She made a quick summation of what had occurred after Bodine brought her to Burro Canyon. Gabe suspected she glossed over much of the story, and the parts she did tell him made him want to go kick Bodine’s corpse. Before he went that far, Robards, having taken the steep, rocky trail slower than Gabe, rode up and dismounted. He sauntered over to the body on the ground and knelt beside it. “That was some damn fine shooting if I say so myself. I’m glad to see you’re all right. Tess.”
Watching the Ranger pat down Jimmy Wayne’s pockets, Gabe asked, “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but why did you kill him?”
Robards looked up in surprise. He slowly pushed to his feet, then walked toward them, his gaze focused on Gabe’s wife. “Why, I killed him to save Tess. Montana here didn’t think too straight once we heard the gunshot and spied you two from up top of the canyon. I kept my wits about me enough to watch for the opportunity to ensure your safety.”
“But he was already shot,” Gabe protested. “Couldn’t you see that?”
Robards shrugged. “It was only a sh
oulder wound; it wasn’t fatal. The man wasn’t down. No telling what he might have done to her once she got close to him. Bodine was strong enough and big enough to strangle her with just one hand.”
“I was being careful,” Tess assured them. “I knew what I was doing.” She glanced up at Gabe and added, “I had to try and stop the bleeding.”
Tess hadn’t wanted a man’s death on her hands. Gabe understood that. He hugged her tight, then drew back and stared deeply into her eyes. “You didn’t kill him, darlin’, the Texas Ranger did. Remember that.”
“I know,” she replied, her warm gaze telling him she appreciated the reminder anyway.
Gabe was leaning down to kiss her when Robards cleared his throat and asked, “Where is Will?”
Tess explained her theory of where the boy might be, and Robards agreed she was probably on target. “I’m sure he returned to the others. I’ve come to know Will quite well, remember. He’s a responsible young man. I’m sure he is fine. After all, he’s traveled much farther across the desert by himself in the past, hasn’t he?”
Gabe found himself wishing the Ranger would shut up. He didn’t like being reminded that another man knew his son better than he did. It made him feel strange and the old saying of “like father, like son” reared up in his mind. Which brought his thoughts around to Monty. “Bodine had a partner, don’t forget. The bastard has been pulling our strings for who knows how long.” He hated to say it, but he couldn’t ignore the possibility that plagued him. “The partner might have our son.”
Robards grimaced and shook his head. “Doc won’t hurt Will. He may have had us fooled about other matters, but he does love the boy. I’ve seen that plenty of times.”
With that, Gabe had had enough. “Well, we can’t be certain the culprit is my father, now can we? And we don’t know what a stranger would do to my son. So I suggest we get busy trying to find the pair of them.”
“You don’t think Doc Cameron is the man who broke Bodine out of the Walls?” Robards asked.
The Kissing Stars Page 28