Midnight Flame

by Lynette Vinet

  “How terrible for all of you,” Laurel said and squeezed his hand.

  Tony nodded, only vaguely aware that she had spoken. “I rode to the spot where the accident had occurred. Jean was taken back to the house and later found to have two broken legs. Simone was in horrible shape. She was bleeding everywhere and lost her baby that night. Doctor Fusilier told me he didn’t have much hope for her. She woke for a few minutes and asked for me. In Doctor Fusilier’s presence she told me that the baby wasn’t mine. She wasn’t certain who the child’s father was. It might have been Seth’s child for all she knew. She begged my forgiveness for what she’d done by trying to trap me. She admitted that she and Seth wanted you to think that I was the child’s father. If not for Seth’s involvement with the whole plan, you’d not have lost our child, Laurel. I can’t forgive Seth for how he conspired to get you away from me. I forgave Simone because I realized she had no one to love her. However, I can’t forgive myself for putting her in that buggy, for speaking to her the way I did. I caused her death as surely as if I’d shot her.”

  A sob escaped Laurel’s lips, and she threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t blame yourself. Simone was wild and destined for unhappiness. Her death was her own making. I just thank God that Jean will be all right.”

  Tony hugged her fiercely and buried his face within the sweet scent of her hair. “I love you, Laurel. I’ll always love you. But if you want to stay here, I won’t force you to come home with me. I only want you to be happy. I want that more than anything.”

  “Oh, Tony! You make me happy. I love you, too. I can’t stay here without you, can’t imagine living without you now that we’ve found each other again. I’ll go home with you to Petit Coteau. I don’t want to be anywhere but within your arms.”

  ‘‘Then that’s where you’ll be, chérie. Forever.”

  Their lips met again, and the kiss was filled with the promise of a new beginning, the start of their life together without deceit. From this moment on, both of their hearts overflowed with happiness and love and trust in each other. Each felt that nothing could mar their joy.

  “We better get dressed and head back to the ranch or we’ll never leave.” Tony grinned and stroked her breasts. “Unless you’d like to stay here a while more.”

  Laurel made a pretense of pondering this suggestion. “Hmmm, that’s a tough decision to make.”

  “You hard-hearted vixen.” Tony playfully nipped her ear. They dissolved in laughter, but Tony made a move to start dressing. “We better go back. Jim will wonder what happened to us.”

  Laurel sighed. “I suppose we should. “

  After they had dressed, they kissed and embraced again, then headed outside into the quiet dusky evening with arms around each other’s waists, oblivious to everything but their delight in being together. They moved to their horses, but Tony suddenly stopped in his tracks and his head shot up. Laurel’s did also, and in that instant, Tony was roughly pulled from her by two Mexican men who seemed to appear from nowhere.

  Another man reached for her, and in one fell swoop, she was hauled onto his horse and perched before him. She struggled and screamed for Tony, aware that Tony called her name and attempted to pull away from the men who held him. A long scream dissolved in her throat when one of the men raised a gun and hit Tony on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

  “Tony! Tony!” she screamed as she saw him fall to his knees and pitch face down onto the muddy wet ground.

  “Quiet, chica,” the man behind her whispered into her ear. “Your man can’t help you now.” He made a nasty-sounding laugh, chilling her to her soul. “Don’t forget the note!” he yelled to one of the other men. Quickly he turned the horse around and spurred the animal in the other direction and rode into the fast descending gloom of night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The sun blinded Tony’s eyes when he woke. The golden orb beat upon him, rousing him from his unconscious state. For a few minutes he lay still, unable to think, feeling only a sharp pulsating pain in the back of his head. Finally he sat up, trying to orient himself. A distance away, his horse grazed peacefully, but something was wrong, very wrong.

  Out of the blue the memory of what had happened hit him like a lightning bolt. Laurel! He must find Laurel! Rising to his feet, he swayed unsteadily and started to go to his horse but stopped. The world spun dizzily before him, and for some seconds he felt as if he were on a wild carousel ride. But slowly, by degrees, he got his bearings. At that moment, as he moved his arm to grasp the horse’s reins, he heard the crinkle of the paper in his shirt pocket.

  He scanned the contents.

  Place $10,000 in gold on the porch of the old Montgomery farm. Your wife will be released unharmed. If not, you’ll never see her again.

  Tony crumpled the paper in his huge fist and cursed. The men who had kidnapped Laurel and knocked him unconscious had been Mexican, but somehow he was sure that Seth Renquist had a hand in this. The time for a showdown was near, and he hoped that Seth was praying in fear of losing his life, because if not, Tony vowed the man would spend an eternity in hell.

  He got on his horse and rode quickly in the direction of the Little L to rally the hands together.

  ~

  “I can’t believe Seth would do this,” Lavinia told Tony and Jim later that day while the two men saddled their horses for the trip to the Fredricksburg bank to get the money. “He’s not a stupid man.”

  “Just crazy,” Tony said through ground teeth. “That makes him more dangerous.”

  Lavinia looked imploringly at Jim when he mounted his horse. “May I go with you?”

  “No!” Both Tony and Jim spoke in unison.

  “But Laurel is my cousin, and somehow I feel I should help her. Maybe I can talk some sense into Seth. He can be a nasty, mean person when he’s riled. If he sees both of you and the hands, there’s no telling what he might do. I’ve seen him when he’s angry, and he’s not a nice sight to behold. Sometimes he can’t control himself, but I’ve been around him enough to know how to calm him.”

  “Sorry, Lavinia.” Jim bent down and kissed her. “Stay here.”

  “But I can help. Laurel has been my only friend over the years. A bond holds us together somehow—”

  “Perhaps you feel like that because Laurel is your sister,” Tony broke in. He hoisted himself onto his horse and began pulling on a pair of leather gloves, aware of Lavinia’s shocked face. “Arthur was her father, too. She didn’t want to tell you yet, but I think you should know. If you want to keep her safe, to help her, then stay here and wait for her return. Will you do that for her? Do you understand how important it is for you to remain here and not meddle in something you can’t handle?”

  Always used to acting on impulse, Lavinia contemplated Tony and mulled over what he had just told her. Finally a shadow of a smile flitted across her face and she nodded. “I understand.”

  “Good” was all Tony said and knew that for once Lavinia put another person’s welfare ahead of her own.

  ~

  “Do you hear them?” Seth turned to Laurel. His eyes swept over her as she rested against a granite boulder, her hands tied behind her back and her feet tied together as well.

  “I don’t hear anything!” she snapped. “What are you talking about?”

  “The spirits, of course.” He sounded as if she were an ignorant child he must educate. He glanced up at the pink granite dome where the sun cast a soft orange glow. “They’re talking again the way they do every day when the sun starts to set.”

  A large shadow from a nearby rock moved across Laurel’s face by degrees. The evening air had taken on a definite chill, and she was glad she was wearing the warm flannel shirt. Last night had been cold, and this night promised to be the same. She would have to huddle against the rock the best way she could and hope that the small outcropping of rough rock behind her would finally break the rope on her wrists. She had been rubbing the rope against it whenever Seth wasn’t watching her.


  She had to admit that he appeared to be calmer now than yesterday after the Mexican had left her here alone with him. He had paced for hours over the rocky landscape, not giving her time enough to attempt an escape. Whenever she thought she was free of him, he had come to check on her again, foiling any plan she might have.

  “The Comanches never come here,” he continued. “This spot is sacred to them. They say it’s enchanted. But I’m not afraid to come here at night. I found this place years ago and watched the sun set as it’s doing now. I’ve never been afraid.” He spoke proudly, almost as if he considered the Indians to be cowards. He turned to her, his blond hair blowing around his face, and Laurel ceased rubbing her rope-bound hands against the sharp edge of rock.

  “You don’t think I’m a coward, do you, Laurel?”

  She didn’t know if this was a question or a statement, and it caught her off guard.

  “Answer me. Am I braver than Tony Duvalier?”

  “No.”

  “Why you—” He lunged forward and grabbed her arm, hurting her. “Do you know that I could rape you and toss you back to Duvalier like a used washcloth? I bet you’d see what a coward he was then, Laurel. He wouldn’t want you, would sooner spit on you than take you back as his wife after I was finished with you.”

  “Tony isn’t like that! He loves me!”

  The fire, died in his blue eyes. Suddenly he let her go. “Do you know what I wished each time I came here? What I asked the spirits for? I asked for money, a lot of money. I asked for a woman who’d love me, a woman who was a lady, not one of those tarts in San Antonio or a rancher’s plain, long-faced daughter. I wanted a woman who always smelled nice, who was kind to everybody, and pretty. But I never got a lot of money or found a woman like that. Soon, however, I will have money, thanks to Duvalier, and I’ll have a real lady. You, Laurel. I’d do anything to have you and the money.”

  “If I have anything to say about it, Seth, you’ll end up with nothing.”

  “Hah!” He appeared amused by her answer. “I’ll have it all! You see, Lavinia was my first choice because she was Arthur’s daughter, but she’s such a tramp, and I can’t marry a woman who sleeps with every man she meets. I also wanted Simone Lancier and thought she was a lady with money, but I learned quickly that she didn’t have any money to speak of and most certainly she wasn’t a lady. As we well know.” Seth bent down and his eyes gleamed with sapphire sparks. “You, Laurel, fit the bill perfectly. Lots of money and a lady to boot. Now I didn’t have to ransom you, because I’m certain you’ll be more than generous to me eventually, but I like being a thorn in Duvalier’s side. I like to see him in a lather.”

  “Why, Seth? Is it because Tony is everything you’d like to be but aren’t? He’s polished and wealthy, a true gentleman … something you’ll never be.” She practically spat in his face. Seth backed off.

  “I could hit you for that.”

  “But you won’t. You’re afraid that if you harm me, Tony will kill you. Your actions prove that you’re the coward, Seth.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying. In time you’ll think differently and know that I’m better for you than Tony. I can be a gentleman, too, with the proper clothes. Then you’ll want me.”

  Laurel shook her head. “I could never want you. How can I after learning that you and Simone tricked me into thinking she was having Tony’s child? What was worse was that I believed the lie and lost my own child over it. I hate you, Seth. I’d rather die than give in to you.”

  Closing his eyes, he then peered at her through tiny slits and stroked a long curl that trailed across her breast.

  “Maybe you will, Laurel. Just maybe you will.”

  ~

  Tony and Jim crouched low on the hilltop that overlooked the old Montgomery place. An hour before, they had placed the bag of gold on the dilapidated front porch in full view of any henchmen who sought it. Now they waited for Ortega and his men to claim it, and when they did, Tony, Jim, and the hands of the Little L, who waited on the other side of the hill, were ready to follow in pursuit. The hope was that they would be led to Laurel.

  “If that bastard has hurt her,” Tony muttered thickly for the tenth time that day, “I’ll torture him first before I kill him.”

  Jim immediately knew Tony spoke about Seth, and Jim had to agree. “Not before I get first crack at him. Because of him, I lost Lavinia.”

  After a few moments, Jim nudged Tony and pointed. “Some men are riding down the road to the farm.”

  “It’s Ortega,” Tony muttered as the five came closer.

  The two men on the hillside watched as Ortega dismounted before the farmhouse, drew his pistol, and sent a wary eye in all directions. When he seemed convinced that no one was watching, he went to the porch and grabbed the bag of gold. Even at a distance, Tony and Jim saw the white triumphant smile flash across his face when he mounted his horse. With wild, gleeful cries Ortega and his men rode swiftly down the road, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake.

  Tony motioned for his men, who outnumbered Ortega’s group. Soon he and Jim and the others were on the Mexicans’ trail. However, the early afternoon sun, which had been so bright and warm hours before, now cooled and started to sink in the western sky. Tony’s frown wasn’t lost on Jim when they realized that the direction they had expected Ortega and his men to take didn’t lead to Laurel and Seth. In fact Tony and the men had doubled back in their pursuit and seemed to be heading in an easterly direction. Finally Tony cursed.

  “The bastards are heading for Mexico!”

  Spurring his horse forward, Tony galloped ahead, and the men followed suit. Soon they had caught up with Ortega and his bunch. Sliding from his horse, Tony pulled Ortega from his and grabbed the wiry man around the throat.

  “Where’s my wife? Tell me where she is, damn it!” His balled fist looked large and ominous, and Ortega trembled before the broad-shouldered man with the burning eyes.

  “Please, señor, have pity on me. I know nothing.”

  “Liar! You’ve got the money. Where’s my wife?”

  The threatening fist in front of his face caused Ortega to swallow hard. “She is with Renquist by the stone the Comanches hold in reverence.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Enchanted Rock,” Jim interjected. “I know where it is. Old legends say that the Comanches used it for human sacrifices to their gods.”

  “Just great!” Tony exclaimed and threw Ortega at one of the Little L hands. He gave instructions to his men to take the Mexicans to the sheriff in San Antonio. Then he and Jim rode toward Enchanted Rock.

  ~

  “Where is that slimy bastard Ortega?” Seth stormed as he paced up and down, a large rifle in his hand. “He was supposed to be here hours ago with the ransom money. If he double-crossed me…”

  “You couldn’t possibly have expected him to come back for you, Seth,” Laurel observed. “Ortega didn’t even leave you your horse.”

  She shivered in the cool night air and leaned against the rock where she had sat for the last two days. Seth hadn’t given her food, and her stomach rumbled like waves breaking upon a beach in a hurricane. Sometimes he did lift his canteen of water to her mouth for her to drink, but he hadn’t eaten either. All he had done was pace like a caged animal. “Ortega’s got to come back. The ransom money was my idea.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Ortega and his men are probably long gone. There’s no reason to keep me here. Let me go, Seth. Untie me, and I’ll find my way back to the ranch.”

  Seth whipped around to face her. A full moon had already risen and was reflected in the depths of his frosty blue eyes, causing them to appear harder and colder than usual.

  “I’m not stupid. Even if they did leave me here, I’ve got you, the golden goose, Miss Moneybags herself. Duvalier will pay a fortune for you, but he won’t ever see you again. Somehow I’ll arrange to get the money, and we’ll slip over the border into Mexico. That should really stick in his craw like a sack
of rocks. Duvalier’s precious wife in my bed.” Seth laughed, a shrill piercing sound that hung on the air and sent shivers through Laurel’s body. She had to free herself. What if Tony didn’t find her? Who knew what madness Seth was capable of? She watched him as he began pacing again, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon, barely discernible in the darkness. Pushing against the jagged outcrop of rock behind her, she sawed at the rope. Over the last two days, she had constantly endeavored to break the rope. Though she couldn’t see her bound hands, she felt that the rope had frayed some. It no longer felt so tight around her wrists. If only Seth would fall asleep, she would be free to work on the rope until it broke away. But Seth hadn’t slept at all. He appeared unable to relax enough to sit down and doze off.

  She watched him continue his vigil while she surreptitiously worked at the bonds on her wrists. A shudder of hopelessness overcame her at times because she didn’t feel any further along. Two hours later, the moon was high in the sky, and spilled its silvery light across the rock. Suddenly Laurel felt the rope break free. She made an involuntary moan of surprise. Seth twisted around and faced her.

  “What was that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” Laurel huddled against the rock, shivering from cold and covering up her triumph.

  “I heard a moaning sound.” His eyes slid up to the top of the rock. “It’s them. They’re back.”

  “The spirits you hear?”

  Seth nodded. “They’re trying to tell me something.”

  “They want you to release me. Why don’t you listen to them?”

  Moving closer to her, Seth’s breath fanned her face. “You think I’m stupid or crazy, or both, don’t you? I’m not. You’re mine now, Laurel, and I don’t mean to give you up to Duvalier. I’d rather see you dead first.”

  He continued to listen to the sounds he heard coming from the rock, and Laurel heard them, too—groaning, queer sorts of sounds. Her heart raced with fear, not from the sounds, which she knew couldn’t hurt her, but because of Seth, a man who would.