by Carol Finch
“Let me do it.” Boone spoke up, waving his knife in front of Newton’s face. “I haven’t carved on any palefaces lately.”
“Me, either. I almost forgot how much I enjoyed slicing up spineless white men.”
“Jesse!” Beau railed at the top of his lungs. “Help me!”
Jonah glanced over at the spot where Jesse Gibbs had last been seen. “Looks like your sidekick bailed out on you. Guess it’s just us against you now.” His intimidating gaze settled directly on Beau. “Pick your method of torture or we’ll start carving from both sides at once and meet in the middle.”
Beau’s frantic scream echoed across the ravine as darkness settled around them.
“You big sissy,” Boone mocked. “We haven’t even laid a hand on you—yet.”
Jonah doubted the gutless man would hold out too long before he sang like a canary. Any man who got his greatest thrills in life by terrorizing women would crack easily under pressure. Jonah vowed to have his revenge on this cowardly son of a bitch for falsely accusing Maddie of theft and trying to blow her to kingdom come on two occasions.
Maddie stood at the parlor window long after Jonah and Boone disappeared from sight, watching the sun make its leisurely descent in the cloudless sky. He was well and truly gone, and she would never see him again. A tear dribbled down her cheek and she wiped it away. Maddie drew in a cathartic breath, squared her shoulders and told herself not to spend the rest of her days staring into the distance, wishing Jonah would have a change of heart and return.
He’s gone. Get that through your thick skull, princess.
Maddie smiled ruefully, recalling that she never had broken Jonah of the habit of calling her princess. He was the only man alive she had allowed to get away with it.
“Maddie?”
She glanced sideways to see her sister, garbed in a pink satin robe, clinging to the stair railing for support. Her face was still pale, but she’d mustered the strength to venture from her bedroom. That was a good sign.
“You should be resting.” Maddie strode into the foyer to frown disapprovingly at her sister. “Go back to bed.”
“I just remembered something about my captivity. I took off the ring Papa gave me for my thirteen birthday and dropped it on the floor between the cot and the wall that first night, before someone poured drug-laced wine down my throat.” Her curious gaze settled on Maddie, who stood at the bottom of the staircase. “Do you suppose Avery had a musty-smelling wine cellar of some sort? It’s the taste of wine that I recall. Never water. Just wine.”
When Christina swayed slightly, Maddie dashed toward her. She lifted the hem of her skirt to keep from tripping, then glanced down at the step. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach when she noticed the clump of red mudstone on the stair. She hurriedly scooped it up on her way to assist Christina back to bed.
A niggling feeling hounded her as she escorted Chrissy to her room. With sickening dread, Maddie plucked up her sister’s soiled blouse and held the mudstone near the fabric to compare the stains.
“Maddie? What’s wrong?” Christina said worriedly. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Maddie drew herself up and manufactured a smile for Chrissy’s benefit. “I’m fine. Just tired is all. I think I’ll lie down while you’re resting.”
When she stepped into the hall she uncurled her hand and stared at the telltale clump of reddish-brown mudstone. A vivid image formed in her mind, causing her to mutter an unlady-like curse. She had the unmistakable feeling that she knew where to find Christina’s ring. But now that Jonah and Boone were gone and the sheriff was a three-hour ride away, Maddie was left to tend to the matter herself.
She scurried down the hall to change into her riding breeches and grab her pistol. Then, gritting her teeth with determination, she walked outside to fetch her horse. As the sun sank on Forbidden Canyon, leaving the world in darkness, Maddie rode off to investigate.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know!” Beau yelped when Jonah drew a bead of blood on his index finger.
Jonah was amazed at Beau’s odd tolerance for pain. He’d been winged by a bullet in both shoulders, but the equivalent of a paper cut on his finger sent him over the edge. “You’d never qualify for warrior status with the Kiowa or Comanche,” Jonah said as he sank back on his haunches. “Now, who sent you after Maddie Garret and then after us?”
“He’ll kill me,” Beau muttered apprehensively. “You have to promise you won’t tell him that I told you.”
Jonah and Boone exchanged glances. Obviously, Beau wasn’t acting under Avery Hanson’s orders, because Avery was dead. When Boone got that impatient look on his face and grabbed Beau’s right hand, the man commenced squealing like a stuck pig before the dagger even touched his flesh.
“It was Ward Tipton!” Beau wailed. “Two years ago he discovered that Avery had an informant relaying information about his ranch operation. Ward decided to get even by paying the spy more money to work for him.”
“Clem Foster?” Jonah asked.
Beau shook his head. “Jesse Gibbs.”
Jonah and Boone stared curiously at him.
“Then how did Clem fit into this scheme?” Jonah asked.
“He spied at the Garret ranch for Avery,” Beau wheezed. “Ward and Avery were both after the Bar G Ranch. When Ward found out that Avery sent Clem to kill Maddie’s father, he knew Avery was making a play for Maddie.”
“So Ward Tipton had Christina Garret kidnapped and held for ransom?” Boone growled.
Beau swallowed apprehensively, then glanced this way and that, as if he expected someone to leap up from nowhere and shut him up with a well-aimed bullet. “No, that was Avery’s doing.”
Jonah was thoroughly befuddled. Apparently Boone was, too. He wore the same muddled expression.
“Then how does Tipton fit into this tangled mess?” Jonah demanded impatiently.
“Jesse informed Ward that Avery was sending him after Maddie to make sure she didn’t acquire the ransom money on her own. Then Ward sent me along with Jesse to steal the money so Avery couldn’t get hold of it.”
“So Ward took Avery’s scheme and played it to his advantage,” Jonah surmised.
Beau swallowed hard and bobbed his head. “Yeah. He intended to expose Avery’s involvement, then convince Maddie to turn to him for help. He was angling to negotiate a wedding between them so he could take over her ranch.”
Jonah swore under his breath. Ward Tipton was one manipulative son of a bitch.
“When we told Ward that you’d married Maddie, he ordered us to dispose of Avery and Clem and make it look as if Maddie had struck out in revenge for her sister,” he said with a ragged breath.
“That might have worked if Jonah hadn’t used the power of his position and insisted Maddie wasn’t responsible,” Boone mused aloud.
“Why take potshots at Boone and me?” Jonah questioned.
He scowled in irritation when Beau’s eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out before answering the question. Jonah hurriedly bandaged Beau’s gunshot wounds while Boone tied him up to ensure he’d still be there when they got back.
“I still don’t get it,” Boone said as he strode toward his horse. “Why would Ward dispose of us if he already got rid of his rival and now has the chance to buy Avery’s ranch?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jonah said as he swung into the saddle.
“Right. Ask Ward Tipton in person. Damn that English dandy and all his polished manners. He almost got away with murder.”
Jonah jabbed his heels into his mount’s flanks and took off at a gallop. He wasn’t leaving this part of Texas until he knew exactly how Ward Tipton fit into this convoluted scheme, and was positively certain that Maddie wasn’t on a collision course with more trouble.
Maddie trotted her strawberry-roan gelding along the moonlit path. She knew of only one place in the area that fit the description of the dank niche where Christina had been held captive. I
f Maddie found the ring in that makeshift wine cellar, she anticipated that it would raise more questions than provide answers. She had been in that musty wine cellar with Ward Tipton only once—which was one time too many, because it had made her break out in a cold sweat. That was when she’d first realized she had an unnatural dread of being confined in tight spaces. She had experienced those sensations momentarily when Jonah led her into the cavern behind the falls, but the apprehensive feelings were nothing compared to the ones that tormented her that day almost a year earlier.
Despite the thought of closeting herself in narrow spaces again, she intended to retrieve Christina’s ring and solve this perplexing riddle once and for all.
Dismounting, Maddie tethered her horse, then hiked up the rugged slope to locate the door that opened into a hand-dug hole in the canyon mudstone. Leaving the door ajar, she made use of the ladder, then inched along the rough wall until she located the lantern. Even when light blazed forth Maddie didn’t breathe easy. The narrow cubicle reminded her of a tomb, where not one ounce of air stirred to indicate the slightest sign of life. She felt clammy and short of breath, and unreasonable panic tried to sink its claws into her hard-won composure. When she tried to inhale, the air was so heavy with moisture that it seemed to be sucking the oxygen from her lungs. The stench was as cloying as she remembered from her one and only visit here, and she recalled that she hadn’t been able to escape this place fast enough.
Hounded by a fierce urgency, she hurried to the narrow cot butted up against a damp mudstone wall, where water droplets had condensed. Maddie eased down and shoved her arm between the wall and cot, groping about for the missing ring. Sure enough, her hand closed around it almost instantly. She held it up to the flickering light, noting the red mud that clung to the jeweled stones.
“You devious sidewinder,” she muttered aloud.
“Are you referring to me, my dear?”
Maddie started when the taunting voice wafted toward her. Her left hand inched toward the pistol she had tucked in her waistband.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ward Tipton warned.
The click of a trigger broke the vaporous silence, indicating that Ward had a pistol trained on her back. Maddie thought quickly and decided she did dare because her fear of being closeted in this dingy hellhole was greater than her fear of being shot at.
Employing Jonah’s technique of dropping and rolling, she dived from the cot and reached simultaneously for her pistol. Ward’s bullet whizzed over her head and struck a glass bottle. Wine dribbled onto the rock floor. Maddie aimed at the weasely scoundrel who had sneaked up on her through the narrow tunnel that connected the wine cellar to his ranch house. Unfortunately, Ward ducked around the corner into the tunnel and her shot ricocheted off the stone wall.
Ward’s next shot shattered the lantern, plunging the small cavern into darkness. Before Maddie could control her apprehension he was upon her like a pouncing panther. He wrested her pistol from her hand, grabbed her by the hair and jerked her roughly to her feet. His chokehold on her neck only intensified the panicky sensation of being enclosed in these dark, narrow confines that reminded her more of a sepulcher than a cellar.
“Nervous, Maddie?” Ward jeered. “I noticed you were uneasy that time I brought you with me to fetch a wine bottle during one of my dinner parties. I’m surprised you found the gumption to come back here.”
“I’ve developed considerable gumption during the past six months. And I will never forgive you for stashing my sister in this wretched place,” she muttered. Then she winced when he crammed the pistol against her jugular vein, making it even more difficult to breathe in this vacuum of darkness.
“You’ll forgive me, all right,” Ward said confidently as he frog-marched her into the tunnel that led to his house. “If you care about your sister you will cooperate completely.”
Maddie tensed as Ward forced her through the dank passageway, which was barely five feet high and two feet wide. Her nerves screamed and her severe case of the jitters had her gasping for breath.
Ward smiled devilishly as he hunched over and propelled her along in front of him. “When we’re married you can expect to be punished for your insolence by spending time in the cellar. That should serve to make you a cooperative wife.”
“I’m already married.”
“Widowed by now,” Ward predicted as he hurried her along toward the ladder that led to the trap door in the floor of the pantry. “Your husband and his friend have met with a stroke of bad luck—not uncommon in this wild part of the country, what with all the Indian renegades, outlaws and rustlers running loose around here. In fact, rumor has it that those two half-breeds were connected with the rustling.”
Maddie was having trouble maintaining her composure, but Ward’s comments practically knocked her to her knees. The thought of Jonah and Boone having their reputations ruined and then perishing because of their association with her deflated her spirits in one second flat.
She moved numbly up the ladder as Ward shoved her forward. But defiance and fury returned in full force when she reached solid footing in the pantry and dragged in a fortifying breath of air. Maddie plunged forward in an attempt to escape.
“Bloody hell!” Ward snarled as he snaked out his hand, grabbed her ankle and jerked her off balance.
She landed hard on the planked floor, scraping her chin and snapping her teeth together so quickly that she bit her tongue and tasted blood.
“Behave yourself, you little twit,” he snapped as he hoisted her to her feet. The spitting end of his pistol jabbed her between the shoulder blades. “You are trying my patience, woman. It’s bad enough that I have to saddle myself with an untitled nobody of an American wife in order to expand my holdings. But you can bet your life that I will do what I must to return to the earl’s good graces and collect my rightful inheritance. When that controlling bastard finally keels over, I will claim my title and no longer have any need of you.”
Maddie found herself shoved into Ward’s elaborately decorated office and pushed into a chair.
“Now then,” he said briskly. “Here are the terms of our agreement.” He smiled tauntingly as he held her at gunpoint. “I will allow your sister to live, provided you agree to marry me and turn control of your ranch over to me.”
“You sniveling bastard. You are not going to hold my sister’s safety over my head and I will not be intimidated into marrying you!”
Ward clucked his tongue and shook his blond head in disapproval. “You were much easier to deal with before you allowed your feisty temperament to rule you.” One refined brow lifted in aloof challenge. “Just as Avery made your father disappear, so I can arrange for your sister to conveniently vanish.”
“You won’t be able to blame Avery for her disappearance this time. Obviously you disposed of Avery when you no longer needed him as your scapegoat.”
“That queer bastard tried to outmaneuver me,” Wade said, and scowled. “I simply turned his own underhanded tactics on him, and he got what he deserved. I should think you would be grateful that I had him killed for disposing of your father, in his treacherous crusade to marry you so he could take control of your valuable property.”
Maddie sneered at the arrogant dandy. Having her worst fears about her father confirmed caused angry resentment to coil in her belly. Her anguish and grief over her father’s death—and quite possibly Jonah’s and Boone’s—made her daring and reckless, and she vented her frustration on Ward. “I am not appreciative. You are no better than Avery was and I won’t marry you under any circumstances. I can’t believe innocent people have died just to ensure you are reelevated to some ridiculous stature in British society.” She flashed him a scathing glare. “You are unworthy of any title other than bastard, and you are beneath contempt!”
Ward took offense at her disrespectful slur and glowered disdainfully. “If you refuse to cooperate then I will marry a child bride after you suffer an untimely accident. It hardly makes any di
fference to me. Christina will serve my purpose just as well.”
He contemplated that prospect for a moment, while Maddie battled the insane urge to go for his throat, despite the loaded pistol aimed at her chest.
A sinister smile stretched across his lips, making them all but disappear from his face. He didn’t look as handsome when the dark side of his personality came pouring out, Maddie noticed.
“As it turns out, I really don’t need you, after all,” Ward declared. “Christina will welcome my consolation and support after your mangled body is found at the bottom of a canyon. No one will question the fact that your horse lost its footing on the crumbling edge and sent you plunging to your death.”
Maddie swallowed the lump of fear that jammed in her throat. For all Ward Tipton’s proper British manners and blue-blooded breeding, he definitely had an evil mind and a black soul.
“I doubt Chrissy will be as easily manipulated or eager to accept your pretentious compassion as you seem to think,” Maddie snapped. “Turns out that she’s fallen in love with someone else and I doubt she’ll settle for less, even after she learns of my demise.”
A muffled noise in the foyer caught Ward’s notice. The instant Maddie realized she wasn’t the absolute focus of his attention she launched herself off the chair, lowered her head and plowed into his midsection. Howling in outrage, Ward stumbled over his feet and fell to the floor in an unceremonious heap. While they wrestled for control of the pistol that was clenched in Ward’s fist, the roar of a familiar voice distracted Maddie. She made the crucial mistake of glancing toward the doorway.
And found herself clamped in Ward’s arms, used as a shield to protect him from the men who burst into the room.
Maddie was so relieved to know Jonah and Boone were alive that she didn’t react immediately when Ward shoved the pistol into her neck again. Her wild-eyed gaze flew to Jonah in silent apology as Ward climbed awkwardly to his feet without releasing his stranglehold on her.