But he didn’t laugh. “And how did Miss Nicole Thompson come to be at Sanctuary? Why isn’t she married or entertaining a long line of beaus?”
Nicky snapped her mouth shut. She had already said too much. Her uncle’s life, as well as hers and Robin’s, depended on the image of Nat Thompson’s infallibility. She couldn’t tell him how much she wanted to leave, how often she’d thought about it.
She shrugged. “My uncle took us in when my father … was killed. My mother had died a year earlier when Robin was born. Uncle Nat’s been very good to us.”
Some emotion crossed his face. It came and went so quickly, she couldn’t place it. But his shoulders seemed to stiffen, and tension radiated from his body.
“Don’t you think you’d better be getting along home?” It was as if he’d slammed a door in her face. The impact hurt. She whirled around so he wouldn’t see it. Confusion flooded her, confusion and hurt and a need to strike back.
“This is my home, Mr. O’Brien. My hill. You’re the intruder.”
“I would think my gold makes me a very welcome intruder.” There was a sudden coldness in his eyes that made her shiver. Why had she thought, even for a moment, that he was different? He was only a chameleon, a man who used charm better than most.
“It doesn’t. You’re paying for protection, that’s all. For extending your life. Maybe you forgot my uncle’s rules.”
“Staying away from you? Fate keeps interfering. I had no idea you would be riding this morning.”
“Or that anyone else would be,” she observed acidly. “I wonder what my uncle would think of you inspecting the walls of the canyon.”
“I didn’t realize I was exchanging one jail for another,” he replied, his jaw setting. The scar stood out as he did so, and the aura of danger heightened. An almost imperceptible shudder seemed to run through his body, as if he were trying, and failing, to maintain that rigid control she saw in him. “But I’m sorry to have disturbed your morning ride.”
His tone said he wasn’t sorry at all. He was angry, and she didn’t understand why. She had more reason to be angry than he. He had disturbed her morning, had seduced her into liking him and then had thrown it in her face.
Even worse, he had made her feel things she’d never felt before. She didn’t want to feel them, not for him, not for an outlaw. Loving an outlaw had killed her mother, had kept her from a doctor who might have saved her. And her uncle, for all the comforts here, was an exile. As were she and her brother.
She often ached for normalcy, for an end to fear. Fear for her uncle, for her brother. Fear over leaving here, the only place she really knew, and fear over staying and never knowing anything else. She’d always been able to push these fears aside before, but now they smothered her.
She stiffened her back, lifted her chin defiantly and walked over to her horse.
“I’ll help you,” Kane O’Brien said.
She didn’t want his hands on her again. She couldn’t stand that melting sensation, the yearning anguish that settled in the pit of her stomach. “No,” she said sharply and walked Molly over to the log where she’d been sitting when she’d first seen him. Nicky stepped onto the log, then threw her leg over Molly’s back. She knew she wasn’t graceful, but at the moment flight was more important. Without looking back, she kicked Molly’s sides and felt the mare bolt in protest. The wild, uncontrolled ride was fine with her. She leaned down on Molly’s neck and raced down the hill.
Kane’s first instinct was to go after her, but he saw immediately that she had control of the horse. His second emotion was admiration. He’d never seen a woman ride as well. She rode like she was a part of the horse. He watched them until they disappeared, his thoughts in turmoil.
He should never have touched her. But she’d looked so appealing, with curiosity darting in her eyes, her wide mouth in a slight, wondering smile, and the sun touching her hair like specks of gold. She had the oddest combination of innocence and toughness, and it touched him in surprising ways. He’d felt her shiver when he touched her, and he’d known instinctively that no man had touched her before, not with any kind of intimacy. She was like a rosebud, so ready to open and yet fragile.
He sighed heavily, feeling every inch the villain he was said to be. There was an honesty and openness about her that made him hurt, had made him wrench his fingers away from her petal-soft cheek before he did anything to crush her spirit.
My uncle took us in when my father died, she’d said. So she wasn’t here by choice. But why didn’t she leave? She couldn’t have much of a life here.
She’s not your problem. Davy is, a hard, cold voice in his head spoke in warning.
Kane’s mouth tightened into a grim line as his gaze scanned the canyon walls one more time. So far he’d found no hint of an unguarded exit. How could he pinpoint Sanctuary’s location without getting outside? Without a blindfold.
Nicky. Nicky was the answer. She must know where they were. She couldn’t have stayed locked in this valley all her life. The thought of using her sickened him. But he didn’t have any choice, not if he was to save the man who was as close to him as his brother.
He should never have come home from the war. He’d never understood how or why he had survived when other men, better men, had died around him. Bullets caught those next to him, but always missed him. The bayonet had missed its real target, his throat, and had merely ripped into his cheek. Even in the Yank prison camp, he’d thrown off diseases that killed so many others. He’d started thinking he lived a charmed life until he’d returned to Texas, and carpetbaggers had ridden up to Davy’s ranch. Hell, even then, he hadn’t minded the outlaw life so much. His one regret was that he’d pulled Davy deeper and deeper into trouble.
He mounted his gray. He wondered whether Nicky Thompson would mention his explorations to her uncle. Kane wouldn’t be surprised if Thompson already knew. Kane thought there was little that happened in the valley that Thompson didn’t know.
Nat Thompson stared at Mitch Evers through hooded eyes. Since the episode a few days ago with Yancy, he’d asked Mitch to keep an eye on Nicky.
“She met O’Brien?” Thompson said, his voice rising ever so slightly.
Evers nodded. “I don’t think it was planned.”
“What in the devil was he doing riding at that time of the morning?”
“Andy says he does a lot of riding.”
“Then why in the hell didn’t he stay on the run instead of coming here?”
Evers shrugged. “We checked him out real good.”
“Well, he’d been in prison a few months. Maybe he’s just restless. But I think we should watch him.”
“He’ll have a shadow wherever he goes.”
Pain struck Nat’s stomach. He’d come to expect it now, yet he wasn’t prepared for its growing fierceness. He tried to keep his face blank. He didn’t want even Mitch to know how bad the pain was getting. In a moment, it faded. Not entirely, but enough so that he could straighten up. “I have another idea,” he said. “I think I’ll invite him for supper.”
He almost grinned at Evers’s surprised face. He would have, had not the pain continued to nag him.
“You’ve never—”
“I know,” Nat said. “There’s something, though, that puzzles me about Diablo.”
“Nicky …”
Worry etched even deeper in Nat. “She’s never shown any interest in anyone before. Damn, I wish I could send her out of here, but I don’t have everything ready yet. A few more months … just a few more months.”
Chapter Six
Kane finished shaving and gave himself a wry look in the mirror, trying to see deeper than the image that stared back at him, searching for the man inside. He didn’t know why he even bothered with a razor, except that it separated him from many of the other guests. He didn’t know why he cared about that, either. He wasn’t much better than the worst of them. The law sure as hell didn’t think so.
At least he’d never killed for f
un. And the faces of those he had killed haunted him. All but one had been men in uniform, many little more than boys who were fighting for their country, just as he was. He hadn’t felt anger toward them, nor any pride in killing them.
He had been here nearly ten days now, and he knew the others better than he’d like to. Most of them reveled in their kills. Their boasts sickened him, but there had been little else to do in Sanctuary other than share tales of banditry. Especially since he was avoiding Miss Thompson and, therefore, limiting his rides. Gambling, boasting, and whoring were the order of the day, not necessarily in that order. He knew he was considered odd because he did little of the last. So he gambled a lot, drank sufficiently, and listened appreciatively. He hoped his own lack of stories made him appear more discreet than reluctant.
But Davy was never far from his mind. As he looked in the mirror, he sometimes thought he saw his friend standing next to him. Davy had been his savior when he was a child, smuggling food to him and ointments for the bruises and cuts from frequent beatings. Davy had even taught him to read, since Kane’s father considered it a waste of time and money to send him to school. Later, when the Carson family took Kane in after his father’s death, Davy had helped him catch up on other studies so he wouldn’t be so far behind in school. He owed Davy everything, including his life.
He remembered his friend’s face when they’d been condemned together. Davy’s face was anguished as he’d turned toward his wife and child. Kane would never forget that look. And he would never stop blaming himself for the incident that forced both of them into the life of outlaws.…
Kane had just arrived home from the war after traveling three months across half a continent without horse or money. He’d never had many dreams before the war, but after three years of war and a year in a prison camp, he dreamed of a ranch of his own, of a family like Davy’s. He’d stopped at Davy’s ranch to see him, his wife, and his boy, Alex, before joining a trail drive north. He’d hoped to earn enough money to buy a small ranch.
Alex, at twelve, had hungered after stories of war, and Kane had reluctantly told several, trying to keep them free from the actual horror. Kane grew cold thinking about it. He’d always felt it had been those stories that prompted young Alex to aim a rifle at land-grabbing government officials hours after the telling.…
A knock came at the door, jolting Kane out of the past and back to the present. He opened the door to find Mitch Evers standing there, an uncomfortable look on his face.
“Nat wants you to come to dinner tonight,” Evers said. “Seven.”
Surprised and wary, Kane asked, “Why?”
Evers shrugged. “I don’t usually ask him why he does anything.”
Kane pondered the invitation almost insolently. He was damnably tired of being pushed and manipulated.
“He would like an answer,” Mitch said.
“Do I have a choice?” Kane said.
“Depends on whether you want to live,” Evers said.
“That’s a real gracious invitation.”
Mitch Evers smiled. “Nat might have put it better. Besides you’ll enjoy it. Nicky’s a good cook.”
“Am I supposed to enjoy it?” Kane asked suspiciously. “I thought I was to stay away from her and the kid.”
“I think Nat just wants to thank you for yesterday,” Evers said, not answering the implied question.
Kane wiped the soap from his face. “I’ll be there, but I don’t like summonses, not when I’m paying a king’s ransom to be left alone.”
“An invitation,” Evers insisted.
Kane was in no mood to argue semantics. He didn’t know what Nat Thompson wanted, but he suspected it wasn’t the joy of his company. He nodded curtly.
“Seven,” Mitch Evers reached for the doorknob, got halfway out and turned back. “Don’t be late.”
Kane swore at the closing door.
John Yancy rubbed his sore wrists. They were bloody from the tight ropes. He’d awakened in an alley with an aching head, an empty stomach, and a fierce hatred. An hour later he sat in a crowded bar in a godforsaken border town nursing his third shot of whiskey and an enormous grudge.
He’d kept trying to make sense of the series of events that brought him here. Back in Sanctuary, two men with guns had escorted him to Thompson’s office after he’d just seen Diablo ride in with that brat Robin. He’d been told his brother tried to rape the Thompson girl and was dead. He was told he was damn lucky to leave Sanctuary alive. It had taken him a few minutes to understand, and then he’d thrown himself at Thompson. The two hired hands had subdued him, tied and blindfolded him, and thrown him on a horse.
Cobb was the only person he’d ever cared two hoots about. They’d been raised in a one-room cabin by a father who’d terrorized both his wife and children. They had run off when he was eleven and Cobb was twelve and they had been together ever since. John couldn’t believe his brother was dead.
It had been the bitch—and Diablo—who’d caused his death.
Both would pay. He would find Sanctuary. He knew some of the guides. He would keep looking until he found one, then follow him. He knew what to look for: a man with a steep price on his head.
John Yancy didn’t care how long it took. He would find—and kill—the Thompson bitch, though he might enjoy her first. Then Thompson, and finally Diablo. He would kill them. He would do it for Cobb.
Nicky cleaned the house. She scrubbed the floors and the pots and pans. She scrubbed them until her hands were red and raw. She wanted to scrub the image of Diablo from her mind, but all the soap and water in the world wouldn’t do that.
He was the most infuriating man she’d ever met. The most contradictory. Hell’s bells.
She scrubbed harder, ignoring her brother’s sideways glances. Her uncle had left this morning and had not returned, but he’d left a message telling her to plan on five for supper tonight. He had probably invited Jeb over.
Nicky had cooked for Nat and Robin and often Mitch for as long as she could remember. She usually enjoyed it. Her mother had taught her a little, and she had picked up the rest catch-as-catch-can. She associated cooking with smiles, and she liked feeling useful. There was little to feel useful about in Sanctuary, little her uncle approved of her doing. The encounter with Cobb Yancy had proved his dire warnings right. So had her recent experience with Kane O’Brien.
She still smarted from his dismissal, still tingled when she remembered his touch.
She wished he would leave. Until he did, she would take no more rides to her hill. She suspected that he would be there. She could take a gun, but she feared a gun wouldn’t give her the kind of protection she needed.
With effort, she turned her mind to other thoughts, like what to fix for supper that night. She heard a door opening and turned to see Robin coming into the room, his good arm carrying a box with the baby hawk in it.
“Can you help me feed him, Sis?”
She nodded. “How do you feel?”
“Real good. I want to go over and see Diablo. Maybe he can tell me something about hawks.”
“It’s Mr. O’Brien,” Nicky said irritably. “And I don’t think he wants to be bothered.”
“But he brought him to me.”
“You know Uncle Nat’s rules. You know what happened last time you broke them.”
“Diablo ain’t nothing like Cobb Yancy.” Hero worship was in his eyes.
“Seems I remember you liked Cobb Yancy a few days ago.”
Robin’s face turned bright red, and guilt surged through Nicky. She had been as deceived by Kane O’Brien’s charm as Robin had been by Cobb Yancy’s interest. Damn O’Brien. He had an easy way, a quick warm smile when he cared to use it. Don’t even think about it.
If only she could stop.
“He’s an outlaw, a killer, just like all the others,” she said curtly.
“Uncle Nat’s an outlaw, and you like him.”
“And he can’t go any place without being hunted. Is that what you want?
”
“No one could catch Uncle Nat, and no one could catch me.”
“They caught Diablo,” she said, even as she realized reason wasn’t working. It never did. She would talk to Uncle Nat tonight, try to convince him to go to Mexico with her, or some other place where the law couldn’t find him. Now. Not six months from now.
“Yeah,” Robin said, “but they couldn’t keep Diablo in jail. They couldn’t keep me, either.” A gleam came into his eyes. “You think he would tell me how he escaped?”
Real fear snaked through her. She leaned over and put her hand on Robin’s shoulder, but he shook it off impatiently. She sighed. He was still so young. She wanted him to have a good life, a family and children. She wanted …
She wanted those same things for herself. But what decent man—and she would have no other kind—would want the daughter and niece of notorious outlaws?
She kept remembering her mother. A Kentucky belle who had fallen in love with an outlaw and run off with him. She’d died by pieces as she waited for him in dirty boarding houses, never knowing whether he was dead or alive. And when Robin came early, they were on the run again, and there had been no doctor. Nicky and her pa had watched her die in a dirty, cold cave. Her pa was never the same again.
Then Sanctuary had become her home, and she’d felt a measure of safety here.
She didn’t feel safe any longer.
Kane arrived at Thompson’s house precisely at seven. He’d had a few drinks first, though he’d been careful not to have too many. He needed all his wits tonight.
Nat Thompson opened the door when he knocked. “O’Brien,” he acknowledged. “Good of you to come.”
Kane had to rein in his temper and his mouth. He’d had damn little choice. He simply nodded.
Thompson had studied him before—when they’d first met—but that had been nothing to the perusal now. Kane felt like a specimen pinned to a board as the outlaw’s dark eyes seemed to penetrate his very soul. He shook off the notion. It was intimidation only. Damn good intimidation.
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