Wanted

by Potter, Patricia;

  None of them talked much, except to discuss the hellishly hot weather. Morgan wasn’t wearing his badge; he often didn’t when he wasn’t on duty. He didn’t like attention. He didn’t want people remembering his face. He worked undercover frequently, and he’d learned the value of anonymity. Only his eyes were memorable—a rare, deep indigo-blue—and he tried to hide them by wearing his wide-brimmed hat low on his forehead. He also often added an eye patch, which distracted attention from the distinctive color of his uncovered eye.

  The three men had retired early, but something had nagged at Morgan, and he’d dozed lightly. In the late hours of the night the two strangers had made their move, and Morgan had heard the cock of a pistol. But Morgan had been faster.

  Both were killed immediately. Morgan didn’t make mistakes. He went through their pockets and immediately found the reason for the attack. The promise of a five-thousand-dollar bounty. A fortune! His eyes skimmed the drawing, visible in the bright light of a full moon. He stiffened. He might as well be looking at himself. He read the text slowly and carefully.

  WANTED

  NICHOLAS “NICK” BRADEN

  For the murder of Wade Wardlaw of Harmony, Texas

  There was a sketch, then a description:

  Six feet tall, dark-brown hair, dark-blue eyes, 180 pounds

  Rides bay horse

  $5,000 Reward

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  Contact Lew Wardlaw or Sheriff Nat Sayers,

  Harmony, Texas

  Hell, Morgan thought, the description fit him. The face might as well have been his, and he too rode a bay horse. The five thousand dollar reward would have every bounty hunter in the west gunning for this Nicholas Braden. Few bounty hunters had scruples. They wouldn’t give a damn if they had the real Nicholas Braden or not, as long as they had a dead body with that damned face. There was only one solution, he realized, and that was to find the real Nicholas Braden and return him to Harmony, Texas.

  Morgan had heard that every man had a look-alike. But the likeness in this case was uncanny. Perhaps it was only the drawing. Perhaps in person the resemblance wasn’t that close. He knew Braden couldn’t be a blood kin. Morgan was an orphan, the only child of a couple who had been killed by Comanches immediately after his birth.

  He had pocketed the drawing, buried the two bounty hunters, and returned to Ranger headquarters, where he’d requested the job of seeking out Nicholas Braden and bringing him to justice. It was the first favor Morgan had ever asked, and it was readily granted.

  He had not left his troubles behind in Texas. The poster had followed Morgan along his trail. He’d had encounters with two other bounty hunters. One he had wounded and left with a sheriff in a small mining town; the other, a man named Whitey Stark, had finally been convinced that he had the wrong man. At least he’d acted convinced at the wrong end of Morgan’s rifle.

  Morgan pinned on his Texas Ranger badge—not that it meant much in this territory. But he wanted no mistakes; he wanted Braden to know he was the law.

  He wanted to take Nicholas Braden alive.

  Usually Morgan wasn’t that particular. A killer was a killer. Morgan had little remorse when he was forced to shoot one, and he never aimed to wound. A dead man couldn’t shoot back. It was one of the first lessons he’d learned. But Morgan had no wish to carry a corpse hundreds of miles back to Texas, even though the alternative meant a long, hard journey with a live prisoner.

  The only thing stopping him from cornering Braden now was the young woman. He didn’t want a female involved in possible gunfire.

  He surmised the woman was Braden’s sister, even though they didn’t look one bit alike. Lorilee Braden had honey-colored hair, and he imagined her eyes were that peculiar golden brown shared by her father and other brother, Andy.

  Morgan had tracked the family first, hoping they would give him a lead as to Braden’s whereabouts. And they had. He’d overheard them talk about Braden’s ranch in Wyoming. He’d also learned from others that Braden had shot an unarmed kid in Harmony and that the entire Braden clan operated a small medicine show that traveled back and forth through Texas and Colorado. Con artists, that’s what they were. Wherever they went, rumors followed of card cheating, shell games, selling little more than alcohol as medicine cure-alls.

  Morgan loathed the fact that he was mistaken for one of them. It was a situation he intended to correct.

  Soon.

  Surprisingly, the sister stuck with Braden most of the morning, working alongside him as they completed a corral that they would probably never use. She had tied her long hair at the nape of her neck with a ribbon and wore men’s trousers. He’d never seen a woman in trousers before, and he was surprised at the reaction of his own body at the sight of the slender body so neatly outlined.

  He shouldn’t be surprised, though. From what he’d learned of her, she could tempt angels down from heaven.

  The sun was high in the sky when the woman went inside the cabin and Nicholas Braden rode off on a horse, a rifle in its scabbard on the saddle. Going hunting, Morgan surmised. There would be a lot of game here. Morgan had never been this far north, and the area looked like God’s country. He’d never seen grass so plentiful. The hills were blanketed with it; nothing could have been so unlike the arid prairies of west Texas.

  He waited fifteen minutes, then moved down the hill where he’d spent the night. He left his horse, Damien, tethered above, along with his rifle. The six-shooter should be enough. He had already fastened a pair of handcuffs to his belt; leg shackles and another set of wrist irons remained in his saddlebags. He’d learned the hard way to carry sufficient restraints for taking reluctant prisoners back to justice.

  A wisp of smoke spiraled up from the chimney of the cabin as he snaked silently along the newly constructed fence. Additional timber lay in piles nearby.

  Morgan reached the door, and his left hand went out to determine whether it was bolted from the inside. It wasn’t. He pushed the door open abruptly, moving quickly to fill the doorway, his six-shooter leveled in front of him.

  The woman spun around from where she was standing in front of a table, evidently cutting something. A knife in her hand caught the light from the sun suddenly flooding the cabin.

  Morgan didn’t move. He allowed her to take in his gun, the badge he wore on his shirt. His hat was pulled down and with the sun behind him, he knew she couldn’t see him clearly. The new bristle covering his face would also hide the resemblance to her brother, temporarily at least.

  To his surprise her eyes were fearless. And they were golden-brown, almost amber with flecks of gold. He saw that clearly enough.

  He also saw that she was furious!

  And she continued to hold the knife.

  “Put it down,” he said softly in his most intimidating tone.

  She ignored the order. “What do you want?”

  “Nicholas Braden,” he said. “And I don’t want trouble from you.”

  Her eyes went back to his badge. Morgan saw her swallow, watched a number of emotions move swiftly through her eyes. Then calculation. “Texas Ranger? Why …?”

  Morgan admired her composure—but, then, he should have expected it. He’d heard that she’d often played poker, that she was good at it. He’d also heard she cheated.

  Obviously, she had learned to control her emotions, which he thought highly unique in a woman. She didn’t scream or cry or plead, all the reactions he usually encountered when taking a fugitive.

  He moved farther into the cabin and tipped his hat back so she could see him better. He wanted to startle her, so he could reach out and grab the knife.

  He saw her eyes focusing on him, saw them widen suddenly. Her hand faltered for a moment, and he made his move, grabbing her wrist. The knife fell under the relentless pressure of his hand.

  But just as he started to ease up, her booted foot stamped down on his and her knee jerked up to his crotch. Morgan felt an agonizing pain. He was barely aware of her moving toward th
e gun that had fallen from his hand with that blow.

  He cursed himself for being careless, and, disregarding the agony that assaulted his lower body, he grabbed her waist just as her hands reached the six-shooter on the floor. The shot echoed in the cabin, and he realized that she’d meant to warn her brother. He wrested the gun from her and tugged her hands behind her; then he pulled her close to him, using his own legs to pin hers tightly together, to prevent another kick.

  “Goddammit, lady,” he said. “You might just have gotten Braden killed with that stunt.”

  Morgan felt a certain tension in her body, and he knew she was going to try something again. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t even think it.”

  “Or?” she taunted him. “Do Rangers kill women, or do they just hunt men for bounty?”

  “You know about the bounty?”

  “Why else would you come all this way?” she retorted. Those golden-brown eyes were pure fury. There was nothing soft about them.

  “I have my reasons, and it’s not bounty,” he said, unexpectedly stung by her accusation, even as his hurting body made him wonder why he gave a damn about what this she-devil thought. What in the hell would he do with her? He couldn’t stand here like this all day, holding her body trapped against his.

  When she started twisting, trying to move away from him, he held both her wrists in one hand and took his bandanna from his neck. He quickly tied her hands behind her, then turned her around so her back was against his chest. She couldn’t kick him again, not with any strength, in that position.

  “Where did he go?” he demanded.

  She was silent, though her body tensed into one furious package. Like a stick of dynamite, Morgan thought.

  “You sure do want to get him killed, don’t you, Lori?” he said, purposely using her name to throw her off balance.

  Her back just stiffened even further. Her body was so tense, so seemingly brittle, that Morgan thought she would easily break into a dozen pieces if he made a sudden move. But her silence was maddening, her defiance purposely goading, as if he weren’t worth a single word, a single glance.

  Morgan sighed. He’d known this wasn’t going to be easy. It was never easy to take someone with kin around, but he’d never encountered a woman like this, one who so readily defied a man so much larger and better armed than herself. He had hoped …

  Hell, he didn’t know what he’d hoped. He only knew what he had to do now.

  He gazed around the cabin, looking for what he needed. There was a man’s shirt hanging on a peg in the corner. That would have to do.

  Holding on to her bound wrists, he moved over to the peg, forcing her to follow. He took the shirt and momentarily released her while he reached down swiftly and picked up the knife she had dropped.

  She turned, watching him with those hostile golden eyes, as he cut the shirt into strips. She obviously sensed what was coming, because her jaw set stubbornly, and her wide mouth firmed into a straight, angry line.

  She was tall, but the top of her head still came below his chin. She had to look up at him, and he felt the waves of enmity radiate from her. Strands of her honey-blond hair had come loose from the ribbon during their brief struggle and fell alongside her face.

  “Open your mouth,” he ordered, balling a piece of material in his hand.

  She didn’t say anything, refusing to give him the opportunity to stuff the gag into her mouth. She just stood there and looked at him, her lips firmly pressed together.

  He shrugged. “We’ll do it the hard way, then.”

  Just then her leg reached out again for his one still-aching vulnerability, but this time he was ready and stepped back. She was barely able to regain her balance, but she did so, and stood quietly.

  Morgan didn’t kid himself. If he tried to force her mouth open, she would bite. This woman was oblivious to the fact that she was bested, by strength if nothing else. He was irritated by the admiration he was beginning to feel for her, and damned annoyed she was making things so confoundedly difficult.

  How long before Braden returned? If he had heard the shot, he would probably be back by now. At least that was one thing that hadn’t gone wrong.

  “I want your brother alive,” he said, “but if you make that impossible, I won’t hesitate to kill him. Do you understand that?”

  She nodded.

  “Then open your mouth, Lori. Or so help me God, I’ll leave you here hog-tied, and you can yell as much as you want. I’ll just wait and ambush him as he rides in.” He paused, allowing the words to echo in the room, in her mind, then added, “I don’t miss, Lori, and I don’t shoot to wound.”

  At the blatant threat to kill her brother, her eyes measured him and openly found him contemptible. But even as her gaze burned holes through him, there was a question in them. What would he do if she did as he ordered?

  Did she really care for her brother that much?

  “I want him alive,” Morgan said again.

  “And then what?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I’m taking him back to Texas for trial.”

  “That’s a long way.”

  Morgan didn’t say anything. Texas was a long way. A lot of things could happen between Wyoming and Texas—but not if her brother was dead.

  “He didn’t murder anyone,” she said suddenly, an unexpected plea in her face.

  “That’s not my affair. My job is taking him back.”

  “Lew Wardlaw owns that town. Nick won’t have a chance.”

  Morgan shrugged. Everyone was innocent.

  “You don’t even care?”

  “A judge and jury decide that.”

  “Not in Harmony.”

  He realized she was stalling for time and he forced himself to look away from her golden-amber eyes. God, a man could get lost in them. It would do him well to remember that this particular flower had sharp thorns. The pain in his crotch made remembering easy.

  “Enough, Lori. Open your mouth.”

  “You won’t … kill Nick?”

  “Let’s just say his chances will be a lot better if you cooperate.”

  Morgan saw acceptance settle in her eyes. But not surrender. She had simply weighed the odds and folded on this one hand, hoping she would have a stronger hand on the next go-around. He warned himself not to underestimate her. Not now, not in the future.

  She opened her mouth, allowed him to place the ball of cloth in it, and then bind it with a strip of fabric from Nick’s shirt. He took her arm, leading her out of the cabin into the woods behind it. He found a likely tree, strong but not too thick, and forced her to sit, first tying her ankles together and then her already bound wrists to the tree.

  For the first time Morgan sensed fear in her—and it wasn’t for herself. He couldn’t guarantee that he would take her brother alive and he wouldn’t make a promise he might not be able to keep.

  It all depended on Braden now.

  Lori frantically tried to undo the strip of cloth that tethered her to the tree. She’d already worked at the gag and given up, telling herself not to panic.

  She hated the man who had forced this upon her, had made her obey him. But she hadn’t doubted for a moment his threat to shoot Nick. One look at those cold blue eyes, and she had believed. Dear God, she had believed. The Ranger’s eyes were hard and merciless in a way that she had seen before in lawmen.

  She’d run into two kinds of lawmen: the corrupt ones and the ones who wore righteousness like a cloak. She detested both.

  If only Nick survived the day, she could find a way to free him. No way could this bastard take her brother all the way to Texas, not with her on his trail, not if she could get word to Papa and Andy and Daniel Webster, her papa’s best friend.

  All that would be unnecessary, though, if she could free herself and warn Nick. But the knots that the Ranger had tied so easily wouldn’t give. The more she tried, the more secure they became.

  She leaned back against the tree, trying to think. Could her muffled attempts to
warn her brother be heard? Or should she just wait until she could take the lawman unaware? Dr. Braden’s Medicine Show had once employed a trick shooter as a prime attraction, and both she and Nick had practiced with him. Nick had been twenty, she only ten, but she’d had good eyes and a natural talent for it, and her budding skill had made her a prime attraction with the show. She had continued practicing over the years, for self-defense and simply because she enjoyed target shooting, doing something she excelled at.

  The Ranger knew her name. She only hoped he didn’t know some of the rather unusual talents she had, that both she and Nick had.

  She thought only fleetingly of his similarities to Nick. They had startled her at first. She had tried to keep her surprise to herself, not wanting to give anything away to a man she instinctively knew would use any weakness. But the familiarity had been unsettling. The color of the deep-set eyes, the facial structure, the wide mouth. She wondered if the Ranger’s beard hid the same indentation in the chin that Nick had.

  She tried the bonds again, tensing her wrists, feeling the cloth cut into her flesh. The Ranger had handcuffs with him; when he hadn’t put them on her, she’d immediately realized he was saving them for her brother.

  She couldn’t bear the thought of Nick going to jail, or worse, being hanged. The Braden family had never had much money—their father usually ended up giving away what little they brought in—but they’d always had one another, a deep affection and loyalty binding them firmly together. There had never been any neighbors or friends, because the Bradens constantly moved from one town to another. Only Daniel Webster, a dwarf who had a giant’s heart, and an occasional entertainer often down on his luck, had been taken in and accepted as part of the family.

  Nick had always been the conscience of the family. He had participated quite willingly as a boy and young man in their father’s small cons, but lately he had been trying to get the family to settle down. The west was changing, he’d repeatedly said. Law and order were coming. The life they had lived was no longer feasible. People were now questioning the “miraculous medicine,” and the Medicine Show was barely surviving.