Fire Lily (A Dangerous Hearts Romance)

by Deborah Camp

  The gravity of the situation bored down on her, bringing tears to her eyes. Where was she? Why did she ache all over? Was her jaw broken? She tried it, wiggling the lower portion back and forth. Pain erupted like fireworks. A trembling began in her stomach and spread outward. She shook, teeth chattering, thoughts tumbling in her head like pebbles rolling downhill.

  Never in her life had she felt so alone, so frightened. She forced herself to look around. Her lashes were wet with tears and felt heavy as she lifted them again. A silhouette appeared like a ghost before her. It moved, writhing along the gray curtain, misshapen, monstrous. Then a head and shoulders took shape above her. Slanty eyes stared down at her. Lips spread to show teeth, some stained, some white. Desperation clawed at Lily’s consciousness. She wished she could faint.

  “Hiya, sweet thing. Welcome to my lair.”

  She trembled as the voice triggered a dreaded knowledge. Ham Jeffers was the man staring at her. Ham Jeffers had hit her, slapped her, stolen her. She closed her eyes and whimpered, unable to find any courage in her battered mind and body.

  “These here are the caverns. Me and you is gonna spend our honeymoon down here.” His chuckle sounded like dry bones clacking together.

  “You can’t keep me here,” Lily said, forcing each word past her parched throat. When had she last eaten anything? What she’d give for a drink of water! “I—I’ll scream.”

  “Go ahead, sweet thing. Scream your purty head off. Nobody down here gives a damn. We uns is way, way down under the ground. This here place is rock-ribbed, so there ain’t no way anybody’s gonna hear your wailing. So go right ahead and make your female noise.” He reached out a forefinger to touch her, and she angled her head away sharply. “You is my wife now, woman.”

  He laughed at the strangled sound she made. “I picked you and took you just like my big brother took himself a woman. He got himself a better-looking woman than the one he had before. She’s a prize, but he’ll bust a gut when he sees you. Why, you put that fuzzy-haired gal to shame, you do. That dark red hair of yours drives a man wild. You and me’ll throw off some good chillen.” He rubbed his hands together and smacked his lips. “I can hardly wait to get started on making ’em.” He glanced around, then fashioned a huge shrug. “Hell, why wait? I’m halfway hard and full of seed. Once I see them pert little breasts of your’n, I’ll be ready to shoot my wad, I reckon.”

  He grabbed a handful of her hair. Lily screamed. The sound rose up and fell over and over and over. It went on forever, even when Ham’s mouth closed over hers to squelch her squeals. The front of her dress ripped, torn by his cruel hand. Futility settled over her. She could barely move, so how in heaven could she fight? She struggled to no avail, unable to move more than an inch either way. It was impossible to spit out his tongue and angle her mouth from his. He held her hair so tightly her scalp burned. His other hand poked and prodded, sliding under her torn bodice to knead her breasts as if they were not flesh but unfeeling bread dough. She winced, groaned, hated him with every inch of her soul.

  Using the only weapon left to her, she bit his tongue. He howled and released her, hands going to his mouth.

  “You bitch!” His eyes watered. Rage shone in their black centers. “Now you’ll get what’s what. I was gonna be careful, but no more. I hope I hurt you. I hope I rip you in half!” As he spoke, he shrugged out of his suspenders and unbuttoned his trousers. He pushed them down, and his member sprang up, a dark, thick root.

  “No, no!” The words stumbled from her in panting breaths, and she strained against the ropes that bound her. Instinctively, she pressed her thighs together, guarding herself from his evil intentions.

  “Yes, yes!” He sounded like a hissing snake.

  Snakes! Snakes! Look out! They’ll kill you! Lily’s rational mind deserted her completely. Wild thoughts flashed through her, jumbling the past with the present. She struggled and thrashed, dimly aware that she was fighting a losing battle. Her skirt flipped up to cover her face. He ripped her underclothes, then tore the rope from her ankles. She kicked, but connected with nothing but air. He wrapped his hard hands around her thighs and pried them apart. Lily heard her own cries, her shrieks, her protests. They rained down on her in unrelenting echoes.

  Then the head of his member touched her, and she thought she’d go mad with rage, with shame, with utter humiliation.

  “No!” The word exploded from her like a gunshot. She bucked, using the last of her strength. It was enough to unbalance him. He cursed and held on to himself, then guided his fleshy rod toward her again.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  It was a different voice; a deep, angry voice. Lily sensed Ham’s jolt of surprise, then she felt something sticky splash her thighs.

  “Aw, hell! You made me miss the target and spill too soon,” Ham complained. “What the hell does it look like I’m doing, brother?”

  “Looks like you’ve lost your damned mind. Who is that gal and why is she here?”

  Rage had blinded her temporarily, but her sight returned, and Lily turned her head to locate the other man. He stood a few feet away, throwing a long shadow across the rock wall. Lily studied him, certain she’d seen him before. But had she actually met him? He resembled Ham. The same slanty eyes and coffee-colored skin. She gathered in a noisy breath when the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Anson! This man was Anson. She’d seen him in her visions. She’d seen him with Cecille’s eyes. She’d seen him murder his own wife.

  “I took me a wife. Just like you.” Ham scrambled off her, pulling up his trousers and stretching his suspenders over his shoulders. “I was on the brink of making my first child with her when you busted in.”

  “Take her and yourself and get out of here.” Anson turned to go.

  “How come? You don’t own these here caverns.”

  “I got rights. I brought my woman here first. You’re trespassing, seeing as how I never gave you permission to come in here. So get.” He thumbed the way. “And take that squalling female with you.”

  “I ain’t going. I took me a wife, just like you. I got every right to keep her here, just like you. Nobody gave these here caverns to you, brother o’mine.”

  “You heard me. I’m through jawing. You get.” Anson ran his gaze over Lily, making her aware of her exposed breasts and legs. She hunched her shoulders and turned sideways, away from him. “Where’d you find her?”

  “In town. Jasper met her first. She’s not from around here.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Fort Smith.”

  Anson’s black eyes tracked slowly to Ham. “Fort Smith, you say?”

  Ham nodded, grinning like a jack-o’-lantern. “Yep. Her and your gal is cousins.”

  “Cousins?” The word bounced back and forth, just like Anson’s gaze as it moved from his brother to Lily and back again. “You loco? Why, you dumb jackass! Why’d you snatch her kin?”

  “Look at her. You ever seen a purtier gal? She’s better-looking than your’n.”

  Anson whacked Ham alongside the head, making him stumble sideways. “Use your noggin, dumb butt. Me taking the first one has brung all kinds of folks sniffing around this place. Now you go and take another one from the same damned family! Why, these hills’ll be crawling with law.” He pointed a shaking finger at Lily. “You get that gal out of here. If you got any sense, you’ll take her back to town and leave her.”

  “Will not! She’s gonna have me some chillen.” Ham rubbed the side of his head and belligerence set on his face. “You might be my big brother, but you ain’t my pa. I don’t have to mind you.”

  “You do if’n I take your head off,” Anson said, snarling like an animal. “You get out right now or get ready to fight and lose. I’ll send you out of here a bloody stack of bones, I will. I been hiding that gal for weeks, and the law had slacked off looking for her. I ain’t about to let you sic them on me again.” He held up his fists in a fighting stance. “What’ll it be, pipsqueak?” />
  Ham released his breath, and it looked to Lily that he wilted a little. Then, in a stunning reversal, he let out a howl of anger and charged his brother. His shoulder rammed into Anson’s stomach and he pushed him back, slamming Anson against the wall. Anson grunted, groped for a hold, grabbed handfuls of Ham’s sticky hair, and pulled. Then the two of them toppled sideways and rolled in a bundle of flying fists and flailing legs.

  Lily wriggled and sat up, placing her feet on the cold floor. Where were her shoes? She rubbed her wrists together and felt the rope around them loosen. Twisting and turning, she freed her hands and sprang to her feet. Anson had Ham on his back and was straddling him. He landed a vicious blow to Ham’s right cheek, but Ham connected with an upthrust fist that caught Anson in the throat.

  Dashing past them, Lily ran headlong across the cavern floor. Around a bend, she found herself in a much narrower space. She flattened herself against the cold rock wall and inched along the ledge. Below was a fifty-foot drop to a pool of black water. Above her, spikes of rock dripped. She hadn’t realized the cave she’d been in had been lit by a torch until she moved farther and farther from it. Ahead of her was a blackness she’d never known before. Could she make herself step into that void?

  “You jackass! She’s gone!” Ham’s voice acted like a whip on her. It echoed hollowly around her like a dreadful ghost.

  “Get the torch, damn you,” Anson ordered, then let loose with a string of foul words. “Stupid sonofabitch. Gimme that light.”

  Lily felt them bearing down on her before she heard their footfalls and saw the light dancing across the ceiling. Taking small steps, she started forward again, afraid of the darkness, but more afraid of who stalked her. Ham’s sticky seed dried on her legs, and she could still taste him, horrid on her tongue. She held the bodice of her dress together with one hand and used the other to feel along the wet, slimy wall.

  It was impossible to know how far back Anson and Ham were because the cavern echoes cheated distances. A droplet of water splashed on the back of her neck, and she smothered a shriek of fear.

  “I heard her,” Ham said.

  “Me too. She’s right up ahead of us. Better stay put, girlie. You’ll fall and break your durn neck,” Anson called to her. “If you don’t stop right now, I’ll break it for you!”

  The light behind her vanquished more of the dark. They were getting closer. Something made a whooshing noise above her, and Lily looked up to see the ceiling undulate, flutter, move! The black separated to become a hundred bodies, two hundred flapping wings. A squeak, loud and long and earsplitting, rose up. Bats!

  Screaming, Lily ran into the pitch blackness. It took her in, closing around her, making her feel as if she were falling, although her mind told her that her feet were still slapping solid rock. Her eyes strained, hungry for illumination. Then they found it. A pinpoint of light, a shaft, an arrow of brightness slanting across the cavern floor. Lily navigated to it like a ship following a lighthouse beacon.

  A crack in the wall face let the light escape. The opening was large enough for Lily to step through. She found herself in another cavern room, smaller than the first. Torches stuck in the wall face lit the area and gave a measure of warmth. Blinking, Lily waited for her eyes to adjust and show her something besides bright light and spotty images. A sound turned her head to the right, and she squinted to observe a figure rising from the cavern floor. Lily swallowed another scream. Her pupils contracted, and her vision cleared.

  “Lily?”

  If the voice had been a chorus of angels, it would have had the same effect on Lily. Tears ruined her vision again, but she didn’t care. She knew who had spoken. She knew that face better than she did her own. Sobbing, she closed the space between them and gathered the frail body against her.

  “Cecille,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably. “Thank God! Cecille!”

  Chapter 22

  Voices raised in song drew Griffon to the creek. He sharpened his mind, forcing the cloudiness from it with a shake of his head. Minutes ago he’d gotten a clear image of Lily. He’d felt her consciousness, and that had relieved him. Before that, he’d received nothing of her, and he’d feared the worse. But she was in the world again, and her spirit tickled his psyche, urging him on; a carrot dangled before a dumb ox.

  That’s how he felt: dumb, helpless, plodding along on instinct. Never had he known such desperation. If he’d needed any further proof that he had fallen under fiery Lily’s spell, he now had it. If he didn’t find her soon, he was quite sure he’d go mad.

  Moving stealthily, he reminded himself he was in enemy territory and Lily’s best hope of rescue for the time being. He half expected an ambush at every turn. The Jeffers Gypsy Band would be home from their dance, and they knew these woods far better than Griffon. The ground was sodden, a mush of dead leaves and new grass, muddy soil and pine needles. His boots left damning prints, but time was too short to bother with covering his tracks, even if he could. Bits of leaves clung to his black shirt and pants. He ducked under a low branch, and the new leaves dampened his hair, robbed of their morning dew.

  The voices were stronger, nearer. A woman and a boy. He knew before he spotted them that it was Eva and Jasper.

  Parting the budding underbrush, he peeked through the branches at the mother and son. The two squatted at the creek bank. Eva held a scrub board and rubbed a shirt across it while Jasper wrung water from a pair of long-legged underwear. A basket lay between them, clothing tumbling over its sides. The sun dazzled the water’s surface, but clouds were rolling in from the north, pushed by a brisk wind. A few early roses grew on a wild bush near the creek. Some had been picked and lay in a bouquet atop the clothes to be washed. The scene was so peaceful, it struck Griffon an ironic blow.

  He was reminded of a poem. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still aflying: And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.” The words squeezed from his heart Lily’s name. It winged past his lips, a whiff of sound heard only by his ears. He felt her spirit and felt something else … her panic, her confusion. Hold on, he thought as hard as he could, then wondered if she could feel him as well. She had once in this woods. She’d tracked him with her mind. Could he track her with his?

  Jasper and Eva harmonized, and the song was sweetly familiar to Griffon. He’d heard it on Queen Sofie’s knee; a Gypsy folk song.

  Free is the bird of the air,

  And the fish where the river flows;

  Free is the deer in the forest,

  And the Gypsy wherever he goes.

  Hurrah!

  And the Gypsy wherever he goes.

  Griffon’s mouth formed the words with them, his Gypsy heart gladdened by the tune. Sing, he thought, but the song won’t make you free. Eva and Jasper were prisoners of a tyrant named Butch and his band of outlaw sons. Two alone, he thought, watching them working in happy harmony. They stood apart from the rest of the Jeffers clan but were shackled to them, nonetheless. Griffon whistled the song of a thrush, testing Eva’s Gypsy roots. She stuttered, fell silent, and glanced around apprehensively.

  “What’s wrong, Maw-Maw?” Jasper whispered.

  “I heard a thrush. It’s a sign of company.”

  “Company?” Jasper dropped the garment he’d wrung out and clapped his hands. “Goody!”

  Eva set the washboard aside and dried her chapped hands on her apron. She looked around again and spotted the parted brush Griffon crouched behind.

  “Who’s that?” she called. “Show yourself or I’ll show you the business end of this gun.” She tugged a big revolver from her apron pocket and pointed it at the brush.

  “It’s me.” Griffon moved into the open, hands up in the universal sign of peace. “Griffon Goforth. I heard you singing. It’s a song I recall from my youth.” He smiled, offering friendship.

  Eva stuck the gun back into the deep pocket. “I knew you’d come nosing around.”

  “Lily’s missing.” Griffon switched his attention
to Jasper, who ducked his head and refused to meet Griffon’s gaze. “Her necklace was found in the alley beside the hotel.”

  “There are all kinds of bad people roaming about. Especially in town,” Eva said, still wringing her hands in her apron. “I figured we hadn’t seen the last of you. Still looking for that other woman?”

  “I’m looking for both of them now. Cecille and Lily. Jasper, have you seen them?”

  Jasper glanced sheepishly at his mother but remained silent.

  “Don’t bother him,” Eva said. “He don’t bother you.”

  “You don’t care if Lily’s hurt or afraid?” Griffon persisted, disregarding Eva’s warning. Jasper swallowed hard and poked at the soft ground with his big toe. “Have you seen her lately, Jasper?”

  Jasper’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, and his lower lip trembled. “What’ll Jasper do, Maw-Maw?”

  Eva hooked a hand behind his neck and hauled him to her side. He buried his face in her bosom. “You make him cry. Happy, Borossan?”

  “You were stolen from your family and now your sons are stealing women. You’ll stand by and let this happen? These girls aren’t Gypsies. Their family won’t shrug this off. Their family will never give up until blood is spilled. Is that what you want, Eva?”

  “They ain’t my sons. They didn’t come from my womb.” She pressed her free hand to her stomach. “Their ma was a crazy Indian squaw. Crazy as Butch, I hear. Butch has poisoned their minds with his wild talk.” She ran a hand over Jasper’s baby-fine hair. “This one is all mine. His father and brothers make fun of him, but he’s my angel. Del sent him to me so I’d have someone to love with all my heart, with all my soul.” Her black eyes flashed. “He’s a good boy with a simple heart. I’ll kill anything or anyone that tries to hurt him.”