by Jillian Hart
"Miles, what did you tell that nice lady?" Pa wanted to know, ambling closer, wide awake now. "You did assure her that you'd marry her, right? You didn't let her think she was just a night's fun for you."
"That's none of your business," he informed his father and grandfather, scowling hard at them so they knew he meant it. He launched down the stairs, taking two at a time. "She's gone and I'm going to find her. You tell the sheriff, Pa. Heaven help that bastard when I find him."
He ran through the kitchen, crunching glass beneath his boots (he didn't even remember putting those on). Stabbing his arms into his coat sleeves as he went, he sprinted across the fresh snow in the backyard (no sign of tracks, of course) and flew into the barn. Big Jack looked up in surprise, the other horses in their stalls started and neighed their opinions as Miles unlatched the gate and stampeded into Big Jack's stall. No time to bother with a saddle or bridle, so he hopped up onto the gelding's back, gripped with his knees and dug in with his heels.
"Let's go," he ordered. Big Jack arched his neck, nickering in agreement, sensing the urgency. He took off with a clatter of hooves down the aisle and into the first light of dawn, which tossed a rosy path across the shadowed snow in an all out gallop.
Still, it wasn't fast enough. Miles leaned in, low against the horse's neck, feeling the whip of mane and wind, signaling Big Jack to go faster. The ground whizzed by in a blur and so did the snow-capped trees lining the narrow lane. All Miles could think about was Maggie. Was she frightened? Was she hurt? What was Chester doing to her? Rage built to a frenzy as the trees gave way to a small clearing and the dark, silent Collins house came into view.
He shot off Big Jack's back before the animal had stopped, ordered him to stay as he kicked open the door and stomped into the house, into the stale-smelling darkness where four unwashed men lay in a heap in front of the cold fireplace, snoring beneath a pile of blankets. One of them raised his head, woken from his drunken slumber as Mile's boots hammered against the floorboards.
"Wha—?" Chester blinked, his face slack, his jaw hanging.
Whatever he'd been about to say was silenced as Miles grabbed the bastard by the throat and hauled him off the floor and into the air.
"Where is she?" he demanded, dispassionately watching Chester gasp for air, choking to death. "What did you do with her?"
Chester's eyes bulged in answer, and it took everything Miles had not to squeeze, not to kill the man. Instead, he threw the no-good son of a bitch against the wall, listened to him hit hard and then slide down to the floor. The bastard lay there, heaving in air, too dazed to get up.
"What the hell?" Pa Collins slurred, his beard as matted as the long stringy hair on his head. "Miles, is that you?"
"Tell me where she is, Chester." Ignoring the other men waking up in various states of disorder and drunkenness, Miles booted Chester in the gut. "I swear to God I'll kill you."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about." Chester covered his stomach with his hands, sounding like the coward he was, cowering there, blood running down his face.
Hmm, Miles thought. Maybe he'd thrown him against that wall harder than he thought.
"I'm talking about Maggie," he spit out, bringing his foot back for another hard kick. "She's missing and you took her."
"Maggie? That stupid blond gal?" Chester snorted. "Do you mean my mail-order bride?"
Even bleeding, Chester had the balls to sneer.
Wrath overtook him and Miles realized someone had kicked Chester in the head. Well, maybe it was him. Apparently he'd blacked out there for a second. Intense rage could do that to a man. Since Chester had slumped over on the floor, his re-broken nose bleeding copiously, Miles grabbed him by the chin and roughly hauled him back up to a sitting position, leaning in so they were eye to eye, feeling as deadly as a grizzly. "Tell me the truth now and I spare your life. I'll count to three."
"I don't know, I didn't take her." Chester whispered, tears running down his face to mingle with his blood. "I swear it, Miles. I stayed away from her just like you told me to."
"He was with me." Pa Collins climbed to his feet, swaying unsteadily, but his gaze was unyielding, holding the look of truth. "All the boys were. We played cards at the saloon until around two-thirty this morning, then we came straight home. You can ask Ed."
"We didn't take no woman," Delbert chimed in, eyes wide, staring at the gun in Miles's hand.
Hmm, he didn't remember drawing the gun either, or thumbing back the hammer. No wonder Chester was sobbing like a little girl. Grinding his back molars together, Miles eased back the hammer and holstered the revolver. It looked to him like the Collins men were telling the truth. Plus, judging by how drunk they still were this morning, they would have been too inebriated last night to have carried off a kidnapping without stumbling and waking up everyone in the house.
"Then where is she?" he asked, backing off and offering Chester a hand to help him up. Chester looked afraid to take it.
"Don't know, don't care, don't think it matters." Pa Collins turned his back and ambled over to the whiskey bottle sitting in the middle of a rickety table. "We all know there's only one thing a woman's good for."
The three Collins brothers laughed in agreement.
Disgusted, Miles turned on his heels, biting back the enraged words building up on his tongue. But it would only be a waste of time and Maggie was still missing. She was out there somewhere and he was going to find her or die trying.
He leaped onto Big Jack's back, and grabbed a handful of mane, turning the horse around in a full out, no holds barred gallop. Wind whistled in his ears, blasting against his face but he didn't feel the cold. Only his determination to tear the town apart if that's what it took. He couldn't consider the possibility that maybe whoever had taken her had already left the area. Last night's snow would have wiped clean all evidence. Agony gathered in his chest, a violent, crippling pain, worse than anything he'd ever known.
Big Jack raced past home, chewing up the distance, tearing down the road toward town. Miles hauled him to a stop at the first house they came too. He bounded off, dashed up to the front door and beat on it until someone answered.
Mrs. Dahl seemed startled to discover him on her front step. She wore her housecoat over her nightgown and a nightcap on her head.
"Why are you banging like that on my door, young man?" Silver gray curls peeked out as she raised a suspicious eyebrow. "What's the matter with you?"
Then Mr. Dahl ambled over, pulling on a flannel shirt over his long johns.
Miles didn't wait for an invitation. He pushed his way inside.
* * *
Maggie opened her eyes. Did she hear something? Was someone coming? Her pulse jumped in her chest and she strained her ears, terrified whoever did this to her was coming back. Teeth chattering, her body shaking involuntarily, every inch of her ached painfully from the cold. She'd yelled herself hoarse, so she couldn't even manage more than a croaky gasp when she heard a footstep squeak on the floorboards over her head.
It was too late to cry out for help. She knew it in her gut. Whoever was coming, he wasn't here to save her. Another footstep creaked overhead, followed by another. A trap door rasped open, letting in bright, blinding light. The shock was a pain to her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut, used to the absolute dark, listening to the rustle of clothes, a rapid breath and the scrape of a shoe against dirt.
"Good, you're still alive. I wondered. It's pretty cold down here." The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. "I would have been here sooner, but I had to go home to the wife when I was done tying you up. That way if anyone comes looking for you, my wife can swear I was home last night."
"Your wife?" She croaked out, repulsed. She tried opening her eyes but the light speared straight to her brain and her eyes watered, blurring his face as he bent closer, crouching over her. She blinked, trying to get her vision to clear. "Who are you?"
"Your lord and master." He gave a soft bark of laughter—a hollow,
frightening sound. "Leastways that's what I am to you. From this moment on, I say whether you live or die."
She didn't see the blow coming. His boot rammed into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her lungs. Pain slammed through her, she gasped for air that she couldn’t take in, tears running down her face. With her hands tied behind her back, she was helpless as he grabbed her by the collar and dragged her painfully across the earthen floor and into the direct fall of that bright light.
Helpless, overwhelmed, she couldn’t fight, she couldn’t breathe as he hauled her up by the back of her hair and threw her up onto a wooden floor. She hit hard, the side of her head crashing into something wooden, bringing her to a stop up against a piece of furniture. A chair leg. She squinted through her lashes into the stinging light, recognizing the chair. She'd seen it before. There were others gathered around a wooden table. She was in the saloon.
"Ah, so you know where you are, do ya?" Ed the bartender strode up, towering over her with fisted hands. "You should have taken me up on my offer."
She couldn't breathe, so she couldn’t ask him what he was talking about. He knelt down in front of her and cupped her face in his rough, small hands. A weasel-like smile twisted across his pallid face as he leaned in kissing close.
"I would've been good to you if you'd have hired on," he explained, his eyes going flat. "But no woman turns me down. Now it's gonna be worse for you and I'm gonna enjoy it."
His mouth met hers in a cold, slimy kind of kiss. Hard and brutal, bruising against her lips. Her stomach sickened. Tremors of terror rolled through her. Yuck.
She tried to push him away, but she couldn’t. Her head was blocked by the chair so she wouldn't twist away. He tasted like old whiskey and overcooked mushrooms and something dark, something she couldn’t name but it repulsed her. But not as much as his hand on her thigh, yanking up her nightdress or the hitch in his breath, that horrible heavy cadence of his breathing, rasping out in a lusty, horrid kind of way.
"No," she rasped out against his kiss, breathing easier now. Her eyes had adjusted to the light. She saw the bartender loosen his trousers with his free hand, pulling out his erection.
The sight of his arousal made her angry. Angry enough to drown out the fear. Angry enough to wrench her head from his bruising grip and sink her teeth into his wrist. She bit down with all the strength in her jaw and held on, even when he shouted. He punched her with his other hand (at least he'd let go of that sad little erection) and stars burst in front of her eyes. She reeled, her teeth losing her grip on him. Her head thudded back hard against the chair leg. Dazed, she tried to fight, but he was on top of her, his fists connecting with her right cheekbone, her bottom lip, her stomach.
"You don't say no to me. Not ever." He yanked her nightgown up over her hips, exposing her drawers (she'd put them back on when she'd changed into her nightgown). Her ankles were tied together, but that didn't stop him from forcing her thighs apart by drawing her ankles up to her butt.
"No," she told him, stubbornly, staring him straight in the eye. Well, with her right eye since the left one was really blurry and swelling shut, but she didn't let that stop her. "I'll say that word as much as I want. No, no, no."
"You little bitch." Ed's pallid face turned bright red with fury. He rose up over her, kneeling between her thighs, his face twisted, his beady eyes wild. "I'm gonna teach you a lesson you'll never forget. I'm gonna break you so good, you won't be fit for any man. No one'll have you."
His erection jutted toward her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. He braced his body weight against her hips, so she couldn’t try to thrash away. Her hands were tied behind her, she couldn't strike out, she couldn’t save herself. Tears streaked down her face, she was helpless as he yanked at the bow on her drawers, loosening them.
Then the front door flew open with a bang, and Miles stood in the doorway.
Chapter Sixteen
He took one look at that rat-faced bartender with his pants down and his temper blew. He turned grizzly—ten feet tall, pure male fury charging through the door he'd kicked down, growling like a wild animal. Ed didn't have time to blink. Fear flashed into his beady little eyes as Miles grabbed him by the throat and hefted him from the floor—from between Maggie's bared thighs.
"I could kill you," Miles roared, shaking the bastard hard, teeth knocking together. He'd never felt so protective or possessive. No one was going to hurt Maggie—no one. "I should kill you."
He gave Ed a final shake and threw him hard into the air. The bartender smashed into a table and crashed to the floor. He didn't get up. The sheriff moved in, his deputies trailing him and Miles turned his attention to what really mattered—Maggie.
His raging heart silenced. The adrenaline spiking through his system stilled. His defenses were gone, blown apart into smithereens. So he had no way to fight the soft feelings rising up like water in a well, brimming over, filling every part of him. He didn't even try. He let them in. She had sat up and was trying to shimmy her nightgown down to her ankles. In the lamplight she looked ashamed. Her lips and hands were blue. Poor baby. He knelt down beside her, overcome. As he untied the rope at her wrists and feet, he wanted to kiss away her every scrape and bruise, every ache and hurt.
"Are you all right?" he asked, tipping her chin up to meet his gaze.
Terror and pain lingered in those cornflower blue depths. She looked so small, so vulnerable, with her golden hair tangled and disheveled, with dirt streaking her white nightgown. His chest squeezed tight. He'd thought he'd lost her. He feared she would be dead. He'd feared he'd never find her.
"I'm f-fine," she insisted, trembling so hard her teeth chattered. Bruises darkened her face, one eye was swollen shut and her lower lip was puffy and bleeding. "I'm great, now that you're here. Miles, you saved me."
He nearly broke apart inside as her hand landed on his chest, right over his heart. He cleared his throat, his voice gruff. "Guess I did save you. I don't know what came over me."
"And on an empty stomach, too." She raised her gaze to his, full of love. Real, authentic love. It shimmered in her eyes, mixed with her tears.
This was the real thing, a rare, once-in-a-lifetime love. He covered her hand with his, trapping it there against his chest. His heart came to life in a whole new way, as if he was truly alive for the first time.
"That's why I hunted you down, so you could cook breakfast," he confessed, wryly, but it wasn't close to the truth. He had to find a way to say what was in his heart. "I didn't want Pops to man the stove. He burns eggs. It's terrible."
"There's always oatmeal," she teased, her voice still shaky. "Although I suppose he might burn that too."
"Yes, he does." When he should have been teasing, there was no humor in his voice. Just tenderness. "Besides, it wasn't just breakfast that motivated me to find you. Pops was worried about you."
"Pops, huh?" She arched a brow, not at all fooled as he carefully gathered her into his strong arms. She went willingly, snuggling against his iron-hard chest, letting his body heat warm her. Oh, it felt good. So good. She felt safe and comforted, as if everything was going to be all right.
"Yes, it was all Pops. I didn't want to go out in the cold morning." The emotion in his eyes and the resonance in his voice betrayed him. He tightened his hold on her, tucking her head beneath his chin. "I should be at my desk right now, working away, with a full belly and a steaming cup of coffee. I guess that means you ruined my morning."
"So sorry about that," she said, her chest starting to ache in a new and different way. She could feel his emotions behind his words, and it meant more to her than anything. "I was sort of busy, being tied up and left in a pit beneath the saloon, or I absolutely would have been there cooking breakfast for you."
"I appreciate your dedication." He stood, lifting her with him and carried her over to a corner table, near the window. The new day's sun tumbled through the glass like a promise of things to come. He pulled out a chair with his foot and eased her
down into it carefully, as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
Her chest squeezed with a wonderful pain, with a happiness so big it hurt. She shifted on the chair, feeling the warmth of the fire someone had built in the nearby pot-bellied stove. The sheriff and his men marched the bartender out of the saloon in cuffs, wanting to know the name of the man he'd been about to sell her to. She watched Ed go, and he tossed a belligerent glare her way before the sheriff shoved him out onto the boardwalk.
"He was going to sell me." That made her shake all over again. "You saved me from that."
"It's only fair," Miles said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Since you saved me first."
"How did I do that?" She blushed, thinking of last night. "Do you mean when we—"
"That was part of it." He knelt down before her, his gaze intense on hers, soft and passionate, the same way they'd been last night in front of the fire. His heart shone there. "Something happened when I realized someone had taken you. I rode straight over to the Collins house and kicked open their door. I was a little crazy and a little rough trying to find you."
"A little?" She caught one of his hands up in hers, studying his knuckles. They were bruised, bleeding and swollen. "Looks like you used these more than a little."
"True, but Chester didn't seem to have you so Big Jack and I raced down the road to the next house." He leaned in to kiss her right cheek. "I was going to search every building in this county looking for you."
"Every building?" she asked, shivering down deep when he pressed a light kiss to her left cheek.
"Lucky for me Mr. Dahl had been up late last night with a colicky horse." Miles leaned in to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. "He happened to see someone drive by, heading to town around three this morning. He recognized the bartender's horse, which was strange. So I got the sheriff and we came looking for you. Just so you know, I wouldn't have stopped until I found you. I would have died first."