In the Arms of a Cowboy

by Pam Crooks

  “Ever steer a ship this size?” Trig asked.

  “No. But I’ve taken the helm on Papa’s yacht many times.” Excitement glittered in the depths of her eyes. He marveled at her lack of fear. “It’s all the same.”

  Did she have an inkling of what she was in for? He moved the injured quartermaster out of harm’s way and tied him down to keep his limp body from lurching overboard. Carleigh took the wheel, and Trig found another coil of rope. He looped one end around her waist, then repeated the same to himself. If Carleigh was washed overboard, she would take him with her.

  The Liberty had sailed past the reef. She traveled at high speed, impetus, Trig knew, to crash through the waves. He swallowed at the monster of seething, hissing foam in front of them.

  “Get ready!” Carleigh said, both hands gripped on the wheel handles.

  One second passed.

  Trig braced his body, gripped the wheel with her.

  Two.

  They were nearly there.

  Three.

  The Liberty rammed into the wall of water.

  Her spars trembled and shook; the entire ship creaked from the hit. A violent mass of seething water burst over them, filling the decks fore and aft, lifting the Liberty up, then dropping her down again. The huge force of water hurtled into the mainsail, and the boom swung off, its power lost. Only the head-yards and jibs saved them from capsize.

  Captain Rooney barked orders to secure the boom, and his crew jumped to obey, gathering spare tackle, stumbling about in the blinding spray washing over them.

  But before their work could begin, a second wave hit, knocking inward part of the taffrail and doubling Trig and Carleigh over the wheel. He clung hard to keep her from being swept away; she would have bruises from him when it was all over.

  Fierce and determined, the Liberty rode the crest of a third wave, soaring high, higher on the crest. She shuddered and groaned; the water slid off her deck, and at last, at last, she dropped into the hollow of the last wave with a bone-jarring thud.

  They’d done it. They’d sailed through the surf-line.

  Exuberant cheers rose up amongst the crew. Trig loosened his grasp over Carleigh’s on the wheel. But victory evaded him.

  He stared out over the water, now deep blue and relatively calm. They’d stumbled upon a narrow passageway, and familiarity nagged at him. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

  But something nagged at him.

  Captain Rooney hustled toward them.

  “Where’s Anderson?” he demanded, his trim beard dripping from the ocean’s spray.

  “Knocked unconscious, sir,” she said.

  A quick check of his man’s pulse convinced the head officer he lived. He glanced at her position.

  “See the hillocks over there?” He pointed toward the ribbon of water before them, bordered on both sides with low, tree-covered hills. “Keep her right between them. We’ll moor beyond to assess our damages. I’ll send another helmsman to take over for you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain rushed off. The crew secured the main boom, and by the time the sail was off, Carleigh had guided her gently to the mouth of the channel.

  “You’re pretty good at this,” Trig muttered.

  She smiled and gave him an impulsive kiss on his cheek.

  His eye roamed the coastline and snagged on a tree, its branches knarled and grotesque and hanging over the bank at a precarious angle. As they drew deeper into the mouth, an image flashed in his mind. An image of Nathaniel as a little boy, swinging on a tree branch. The branch had broken, and he’d broken his arm from the fall . . ..

  Carleigh spun the wheel and hauled sharply northward. Captain Rooney shouted orders to haul up and drop anchor. The Liberty was stripped of her remaining canvas and brought to rest.

  Trig clawed a sharp gaze over the spacious land-locked harbor. And that nagging feeling of familiarity returned with a vengeance.

  “It’s lovely here,” Carleigh said.

  “Where are we?”

  “Somewhere north of the Port of San Francisco, but not far.” She consulted a chart behind them, encased in glass and illustrated with sea depths and shore elevations. “Here, I think.”

  Trig’s blood ran cold. He snatched a pair of binoculars and focused the lenses on the horizon, on the land.

  On that damned ugly tree.

  Twisting slightly, he slid the lenses over the harbor. A Chinese junk, three–masted and more than a hundred feet long by his estimation, had anchored on the far side. Several multi-oared boats moved swiftly from the junk to shore.

  Trig breathed a stunned curse.

  They’d found the secret entrance called “Taku”.

  And it bordered his father’s farm.

  “I want to go with you,” Carleigh said, hurrying after him as he sprinted down the lower deck.

  “No.”

  “Those ships out there are smuggling. You think Papa might be involved.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If you’re going to look for evidence against him, I want to be there if you find it.”

  He flung open the door to the quarters he shared with Pierre, found his gun belt and buckled it around his hips. “You’re staying here.”

  “I’m not!”

  “It’s too dangerous for you to go with me.”

  “Trig, please.”

  He steeled himself against her desperation. “You heard me, Carleigh.”

  She clamped her mouth shut and spun to flee him, but his arm shot out, stopping her.

  He pulled her against him, words of reason and comfort racing inside his head. He didn’t want an argument between them, not when their time together was almost gone. He didn’t know what he’d find on shore. On his father’s land.

  He only knew the sheltered life she’d always known would be shattered.

  She strained against him. Blue fire flashed in the depths of her eyes, her hurt and fury a palpable thing. “It consumes you, doesn’t it? This revenge against my father.”

  His mouth tightened. “You know it does.”

  “Go then. Destroy him, if you must.”

  He released her abruptly. She pivoted with an angry swirl of skirt hems and ran from the cabin. The door slammed behind her.

  He grabbed his Stetson and yanked it open again. Savagely. But she was gone.

  Damn it to hell.

  Pierre met him rushing back to the upper deck, his weathered face worried. “You are going to shore to investigate the opium?”

  “Yes,” he snapped, his frustration with Carleigh still strong within him. “See that Carleigh stays with her mother. I’ll signal you when it’s safe for her to come ashore.”

  Captain Rooney joined them. “The boat is nearly ready.”

  “Good. Keep an eye on the junk. If they figure you’re with the Customs Service, they’ll try to escape. Don’t let them.”

  “I have eighty guns that’ll keep them right where they’re at.” Yet again, Rooney peered through his telescope and grunted. “Busy sons of bitches.”

  With all that activity going back and forth from shore to the receiving vessel, this was the shipment from Macau Belle had spoken of.

  It had to be.

  And with all that opium on board, yeah, they’d be busy.

  A crewman signaled from the rail that the boat was finally ready, and Rooney walked with Trig toward him.

  “You’re taking a risk going to shore by yourself,” the head officer said. “Someone should go with you.”

  “I’ll slip in undetected alone. I know the area.”

  “Be careful, then. Fire off a shot if you’re in trouble. We’ll come running.”

  “Good enough.”

  The boat had already been lowered into the water, and one of the crew members was seated aft, waiting for him. Trig descended the Jacob’s ladder and took his seat. He pointed toward a dip in the shore line, the most obscure place to land that provided the least chance of him being spotted.


  “Head that way,” Trig ordered.

  The man mumbled agreement and began rowing. Trig took the binoculars and studied the coast again. Tension hummed through him. He trained the lenses on the hillock he’d chosen, a growth of trees thick enough to hide him but one which would require a fair run to his father’s farm.

  And one that would give him the advantage.

  Before long, labored breathing behind him filtered into his thoughts. Rooney’s man sounded tired when the distance to shore wasn’t that far. He should’ve been used to work a hell of a lot harder than this.

  Trig stilled.

  He twisted. And threw his gaze right into Carleigh’s.

  He hadn’t even bothered to look at her when he climbed into the boat; she was dressed the same as the rest of Rooney’s crew. And she’d kept her face averted.

  “You can be angry with me all you want,” she said, her cheeks flushed with exertion beneath her seaman’s hat. She stopped paddling, and her arms fell limp at her sides. “I don’t care.”

  He gauged the distance they had left. They were almost to shore. It’d take too much time to take her back to the Liberty. Time he couldn’t spare.

  “Give me those oars,” he grated through his teeth, and she quickly handed them over. He put them in the water, taking over the rowing for her, the soft splashes of water an uneven cadence to the irritation pounding in his veins.

  He glared at her over his shoulder. “So what happened to the poor bastard whose clothes you stole?”

  Her gaze wavered only a moment. “I lashed him to the taffrail. He’s fine. But if you intend to lash me to this boat or a tree or—or something when we get to shore, I swear I’ll scream with every breath I have. Which will only alert the drug-runners that you’re after them, and--.”

  “When this is over, you’re going to pay the price, Carleigh. Remember that.”

  Her chin lifted at his threat, but otherwise, she appeared unfazed. The bottom of the boat scraped sand, and Trig jumped out to pull it the rest of the way onto shore. Carleigh jumped out, too.

  “I won’t slow you down. I promise,” she said.

  “Give me your hand.” She did, and he fitted it firmly into his. “Stay right beside me. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to. Keep your mouth shut and move as quiet as you can.”

  “I will.” She nodded vigorously.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Unencumbered by heavy skirts, she moved surprisingly fast with him upon the hilly ground, her step light and agile around the wild growth of foliage and shrubs. Trig hadn’t been to this part of the coast in years, and never with Nathaniel, not when Ma would have worried about them straying so far from home.

  But then, as now, Trig could’ve found his way in pitch dark. The farm drew him like a beacon—it always had—and a growing dread of what he might find there only gave him the impetus to run faster.

  Soon, the terrain began to level out; the forest-like growth of trees thinned, and suddenly, it was there.

  His home.

  The log cabin Trig helped Pa build when he was barely out of knee-britches was nestled half-hidden in the trees. Ma’s flowers hadn’t poked their faces through the dirt yet, and the place looked drab and bare. A few strutting chickens gave the yard its only sign of life.

  Carleigh sagged against the sturdy trunk of a cottonwood tree, her gaze riveted to the cabin. “This is where your father lives?”

  What she was thinking? Did she compare it to her own home, an opulent mansion in the wealthiest section of San Francisco?

  “If he’s still there,” Trig said, grim.

  Or was her shyster father holding him somewhere else?

  She pulled off her hat, and her hair tumbled free over her shoulders; she dragged her arm across her forehead and wiped away the perspiration from her run. “But no one is around. Maybe we should go down and take a look.”

  Before Trig could reply, the front door to the cabin opened, and he quickly pulled her behind the tree with him.

  A Celestial strode out onto the front porch. A Chinese merchant, judging from the fine-cut of his clothes. And a wealthy one.

  A wagon driven by another Celestial approached from the direction of the barn. His blue cotton blouse and baggy trousers, cone-shaped hat and sandals, indicated his low status as a peasant. Wooden crates filled the wagon’s bed.

  He spoke to the merchant briefly in the strange jargon of their country. The merchant bowed, and the peasant left, heading toward the only road that took him away from the Mathison farm.

  Yet another peasant Celestial appeared, this one leading a horse. He handed the reins over to the Chinese merchant, gave him a respectful bow, and scurried away. The merchant mounted, and without a backward glance to the cabin, galloped in the same direction as the wagon.

  Once again, the yard was deserted.

  Their flagrant presence in his father’s home and land flamed stunned fury through Trig.

  The cabin was secluded, far from the nearest road and neighbors. The drug-runners had claimed the Mathison homestead as their headquarters.

  But where was Pa?

  “It’s the perfect set-up, isn’t it?” Carleigh sounded appalled. “Your family’s farm being so close to the bay like this, with no one to see them.” Wide-eyed, she turned to him. “What do we do now?”

  “Find my father.”

  “You think he’s down there?”

  “I won’t know until I take a look.”

  “Oh, Trig.” Worry stole the color from her cheeks. “We have no idea how many men we’re up against. They’ll be armed. Let’s go back for help from Captain Rooney. Or the police.”

  The police? Trig almost snorted out loud. How many of them were corrupt, their pockets lined by Judge Chandler’s bribes?

  “No.” Nothing could keep him from searching for Pa now that he was home. “Stay here. Don’t go anywhere until I come back.”

  She exhaled a heavy breath. “I won’t.”

  She looked so serious, so apprehensive, he delayed leaving her for precious seconds.

  Was she worried her own father might be there? Or that he’d be incriminated by the Celestials, the men who dealt in opium with him?

  Trig didn’t know, and he didn’t ask.

  Instead, his fingers trailed across her cheek, down the column of her throat. He breathed her name and captured her mouth, his lips rolling over hers in growing desperation, a deepening conviction his time with her was almost over.

  He wasn’t ready. Hell, he should be. He’d prepared himself for it a thousand times.

  But he wasn’t.

  She leaned into him, taking his kiss hungrily. She knew, too, he realized. She knew everything between them was going to end.

  She broke the kiss with a gasp. “Oh, Trig.” She cupped his face in her hands, those velvet blue eyes shimmering with a desperation of her own. “Be careful. Promise me you will.”

  “Carleigh, I--.”

  What did he intend to say? That he loved her? That she meant more to him than any other woman he’d met before? That no matter what happened in the coming hours or days he would always treasure what they had together?

  He shoved aside the thoughts. To say them now would only hurt her deeper.

  Suddenly impatient, he stepped away, and her hands clenched, dropped to her side.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said roughly and withdrew a Colt from its holster.

  Assured one last time she’d be safe hidden in the trees, he swept a sharp glance around the cabin and empty yard, then sprinted down the hillock.

  The waiting was always the worst.

  Liko hated to wait.

  But it wouldn’t be long now. Mathison would come.

  Liko could feel it.

  The old man sat at the kitchen table, his plate of rice stubbornly untouched, his coffee long since gone cold.

  He was waiting, too.

  Father and son.

  Uncanny how alike they were. Same dark eyes. Same
lean, muscular build. Same taut alertness.

  Each as formidable as the other.

  Seth Mathison hadn’t taken kindly to their arrival via Taku only a couple of hours ago.

  Nor did he appreciate the business Sam Kee conducted in his front room.

  Tsk. Tsk.

  He had the bruises to show for those objections.

  Liko shifted impatiently from his stance near the door.

  How much longer? Chandler was due to arrive for his pay-off. He expected Liko to have Carleigh with him.

  Would Mathison come by before then?

  The wait was getting to Liko. He had to have a look around.

  His glance slid to the Celestial who guarded the old man with him. The same one who’d accompanied him to the opium den the night Mathison’s kid brother was killed.

  He was spineless. Never wanted to be in control. He never wanted to be called ‘sir’ and treated with both fear and respect.

  He didn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger like Liko did.

  But Liko didn’t trust him. He didn’t trust anyone but himself.

  “Huang Fu.”

  The henchman’s head lifted.

  “Watch the old man. I have to take a piss,” Liko ordered.

  Huang Fu nodded and took his place at the door. The old man shot Liko a contemptuous glare. Liko ignored him and stepped outside, then headed toward the trees.

  Toward Taku.

  Once out of sight of the cabin, he pulled out his telescope, held the glass to his eye and focused on the junk. With its cargo of opium unloaded and brought to shore, the waters around it had fallen silent.

  Liko moved the lens in a slow sweep over the horizon.

  And froze.

  Christ. A warship.

  His pulse pounded in alarm.

  The armed schooner blocked the mouth of the bay. The junk wasn’t going anywhere.

  No one was.

  He swallowed and slid the telescope’s lens over the water. The coast. The hills. And all those damned trees. He ran the lens almost full circle back to the Mathison cabin.

  And then he saw her.

  Beautiful Carleigh, hiding behind a cottonwood tree.

  He almost didn’t recognize her, dressed in a seaman’s clothes. But he knew her hair.

  So many times, he fantasized about that gleaming red-brown hair.