by Pam Crooks
“You haven’t failed me yet, McClure,” she said. “You’ll get them across fine.”
“Is that a compliment I’m hearing?”
At the drawled surprise in his voice, she slanted him a look. “I suppose so.”
“Not often my boss gives me one.” The hard line of his mouth softened.
Her mood left her lacking a flippant response. It was, she knew, the truth.
“Maybe I’ll have to start,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I do appreciate you. More than you realize.”
“There are ways to show it, Carina.”
Her mind pointed to bonus money, privileges, legions of compliments. God knew he deserved them all. “I know.”
“A few more kisses like we had would be a good start.”
Her gaze jumped to his. She frowned against the flutter of her pulse. “Those kisses between us should never have happened.”
“Considering we both seem to enjoy them, no doubt we’ll have more.”
He sounded so sure, her belly curled. “I do believe, McClure, you’re out of line in your thinking.”
“It’s the truth.” His glance, vaguely troubled, held on to hers. Dark and smoldering, thickly fringed, his eyes had the power to make her forget where they were. Or why. “I want you, Carina.”
Unexpectedly, he leaned toward her with a creak of saddle leather, curled his fingers around her neck and tugged her closer. He found her mouth under the brims of their hats, and their lips met. Clung, for long, blood-warming moments.
Then, his head lifted. He drew back, straight in the saddle again.
“Right or wrong, I do,” he said, his voice rough.
She blew out a flustered breath, the feel of his lips lingering. The power this man had over her. How could she best him on it? “You’ve got nerve, McClure. I’ll say that for you.”
He grunted, reached for his lariat and tugged his Stetson lower over his forehead. “Better that I had more sense instead, Carina. Let’s get this herd moving.”
What did he mean by that? Better that I had more sense instead. Did he dislike this growing awareness between them as much as she did? Had she become an irritating distraction? A temptation he was struggling to ignore and couldn’t?
He took the reins and moved into position near the front of the gather, leaving her frustrated by his response and his ability to change his focus as easily as he changed a shirt.
He was leaving her, she reminded herself firmly. Moving on to his damned office job. If he could be so focused on this trail drive despite the temptations between them, then she could, too.
Resolute, Carina followed him and scanned the mass of cowhide and her men surrounding it—Stinky Dale and Jesse as point riders, Ronnie Bennington, Billy Aspen and Orlin as drag riders, and the rest of the outfit in between as flank. Each ready and waiting.
“Hee-yah! Hee-yah!”
McClure’s yell set the cattle into motion. The prairie rumbled from the thunder of their hooves; the air filled with a noisy mix of bellows and the cowboys’ shouts. Happy Sam barreled off the grass and into the sandy stream with the rest of the herd behind him, sending up a spray of river water in their wake.
It didn’t take long, considering the number of beeves, their speed and the breadth of the stream. But Carina spied an ornery calf bolting from its mother’s side to veer back and steal a drink, and she spurred the Appaloosa to take off after him. By the time she circled the little stray back toward the herd again, the rest had roared into the distance, driven hard by the cowboys determined to keep them moving.
She met up with Ronnie farther down the stream, rounding up a few stragglers, too, and added the calf to his bunch.
“Did we get them all?” she asked, turning in her saddle to check.
“Reckon so, ma’am, but I lost Orlin. He and I were runnin’ after these critters, and then he just disappeared.”
She sighed. Where could he be? She glanced at the herd, looking small in a cloud of dust, the drone from their hooves fading. “All right. You go on. Join the others. I’ll see if I can find him. He’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Releasing a sharp whistle, Ronnie prodded the recalcitrant cows forward.
Carina headed in the opposite direction and battled a healthy dose of annoyance. The ranch hand had better have a good excuse for losing himself. There weren’t that many places to go, in land as flat as this.
Yet, there was an elevated ridge of prairie farther downstream…
Suddenly, someone yelled out, startling her. Her hand went for the Colt at her hip, just as a horse and rider took off like a cut cat from within a thicket of wild plum bushes near that ridge.
Orlin. He rode alongside the streambed as if Lucifer himself was on the chase. Carina braced herself for gunshots, for someone in hot pursuit, but there was nothing, no one…
“Orlin! Orlin!” she called.
His head came up just as his horse slowed, faltered and abruptly dipped. The ranch hand screamed, lost his seat and went down. His mount flailed and kicked, and Carina realized with a jolt of alarm they’d ridden right into a pocket of quicksand.
The horse shrieked in fear, head swinging, legs stepping high. And sinking. Carina galloped toward them both, her rope ready. Finally, his strength superior, the horse stumbled out and bolted toward dryer ground.
Orlin wasn’t as lucky.
“Miss Lockett! Help!”
He floundered in the sand and managed to get himself upright. Panting, panicked, he stood in the wet mess up to his knees.
“Don’t move, Orlin!” Carina ordered. “You’ll only go deeper.”
“Get me out of here!” Eyes wild, he struggled harder.
“No one ever drowned in quicksand.” Far as she knew, she was telling him the truth. She knotted a fast loop on her rope. “But the more you move, the deeper you’ll sink, then the harder it’ll be to get you out.”
“It’s sucking me in!” he shrieked.
And that it was. Wet sand, shifting, creeping up to his thighs.
“I’m going to throw my rope at you, Orlin. Grab it, understand?”
“Hurry!” The pitch of his voice grated shrill. “Hurry!”
She swirled the lariat high over her head and gave the loop a smooth toss. He lunged for the hemp with both hands.
“Put the rope around your shoulders. That’s right.” She kept talking, figured he needed to hear the sound of her voice. “I’m going to pull you out, real careful, like we did with that cow stuck in the mud, remember? Hang on now.”
She tied the hemp around the saddle horn. Aided by the skill of her horse, she carefully inched him higher through the sand.
“Oh, Miss Lockett, Miss Lockett.”
The raw terror on his face cut her deep. This wasn’t the Orlin she knew—lazy, at times belligerent, prone to foolish mistakes. This man was a stranger, his anguish born of some nightmare he alone knew. What had happened in that thicket?
“We’re almost there,” she said.
The sand clung to his pant legs, the tops of his boots. His knuckles turned white from gripping the rope, but at last, the pit released him with a slurp. He stumbled out, fell to his knees. And sobbed.
Carina slid off her horse, sympathy running strong through her, and knelt beside him. Had she ever seen a man cry so hard before?
“You’re okay, Orlin,” she said gently. “You’re just fine now.”
He slumped into her arms, his shoulders shaking, and she took him against her. Held him until his sobs quieted. Carina tried not to think of McClure and the herd, leaving them farther behind.
The cowboy drew back and blew his nose into his bandanna.
“I’m rightly sorry for acting like this, Miss Lockett. It all caught up with me, I guess. Thinkin’ I was gonna die in that quicksand, right after I was thinkin’ I saw an Injun back there in the thicket.” He sniffled, stuffed the bandanna into his back pocket, and blew out a breath.
“Well, did you?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out for sure.” He shuddered.
She slipped her lariat from his shoulders. “Why not?”
He stared down at the sandy ground. “I ain’t never told no one in the outfit this, ma’am, but I’m plumb scared of Injuns.”
She nodded, knowing it already. “Did they ever do anything to you?”
His eyes squeezed shut. Opened again. A haunted look filled them. “A band of ’em on the warpath, back in Missouri not even a year ago. Killed my wife and two little girls, then burned my cabin to the ground. I was herdin’ my sheep, and heard everyone screamin’. By the time I ran home—” he swallowed “—it was too late.”
“Oh, Orlin.” Compassion swept through her. “I’m sorry.”
“I up and left, else I would’ve died from pure grief. That’s when I came to Texas and hired on with the C Bar C.” He sniffled again. “I ain’t been no good to you as a cowboy, I know. Might be I should’ve left after the roundup. But I didn’t.”
She coiled her rope, loop by loop. His scare had opened the gate to his talk-box. Carina didn’t mind listening. “Why not?”
He looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. “It ain’t fair what happened to you with your Callie Mae. Just like it weren’t fair what happened to me.”
“No.” The tragedy of their circumstances different, yet similar. Her heart tugged. “No, it wasn’t.”
“I’ve been nothin’ but a heap of trouble for you, but I want you to get your young’un back, Miss Lockett. That’s why I stayed. To help.”
Emotion pushed up into her throat. For a moment, she couldn’t speak.
He’d started out as green as a greenhorn could be. The trail drive had been difficult, more for him than anyone else in the outfit. Yet he endured it for her and Callie Mae. Worse, Carina knew she hadn’t made it any easier. How many times had she snapped her impatience for something he had—or hadn’t—done?
Regretting it, she embraced him in a quick hug. “Thank you, Orlin. I appreciate it more than you know.”
“Naw, I have to be the one doin’ the thankin’. You saved my life in that there quicksand. If you hadn’t come along, I’d still be stuck in it and goin’ down fast.”
She released him with a smile. “You wouldn’t have drowned, you know.”
He shivered. “Glad I don’t have to find out.”
She stood up with him and noted the sand caked to his wet denims and boots. He’d have a miserable time of it until they made it to camp for a change of clothes.
He retrieved his hat, pushed it onto his head. “Reckon we’d best get going before Mr. McClure gets worried.”
“You go on without me.” She mounted up and returned the coiled lariat to its place against her saddle. “I’m going to keep looking for strays.”
“Reckon Ronnie got ’em all.” He slid an apprehensive look toward the thicket as he climbed onto his horse.
“I’d hate to lose any of my cows to gyp water, Orlin. Won’t take me long.”
He hesitated, clearly reluctant to leave her alone. “If you’re sure.”
“I am. Go on.”
“Keep a watch out, then.” He touched a finger to his brim and rode off, calmer for his ordeal, and oblivious to the lie she told him.
Driven by a hunch that whoever had given Orlin the scare of his life was the same man she’d glimpsed in her mirror yesterday morning, she headed straight for those wild plum bushes.
She kept a hand on the butt of her Colt, her eyes keen for movement. Carina didn’t appreciate being followed by someone not man enough to admit he was, and she had every intention of letting him know it.
“Take your hand off that gun, Carina. I can shoot faster than you can.”
The hair on the back of her neck rose. She drew up. A horse moseyed out of the shadows, carrying a rider with his revolver trained to her chest.
Recognition hit, and she froze. She’d been all but sure she wouldn’t find a warrior hiding in the thicket. She’d been sure she’d find Rogan Webb instead.
She hadn’t expected his gunslinger accomplice, Durant.
“But I’m no good to you dead, am I?” She crossed her wrists over the saddle horn, keeping her hands in plain sight, giving herself the appearance of a calm she was far from feeling. “Where’s Rogan?”
He smiled coldly. “With his mother and Callie Mae, I believe.”
At the sound of her daughter’s name, she kept her features impassive. Refused to let the man know how instant yearning shot through her, hot as a branding iron.
“You know of her whereabouts, then.”
“I’m quite aware of where she is.”
He said nothing more, toying with her, and damn him, what did he hope to see her do? Get down on her knees and beg him for the information she craved?
She was on the brink of it, for sure. But how was she to know he’d tell her the truth if she did? What would he gain by it?
Nothing, she realized suddenly. There was something he wanted from her, instead of the other way around. No other reason why he showed himself, considering all he had at stake.
The knowledge gave her the control she’d come precariously close to losing.
“Would you like to know where she is, Carina?” he asked. He leaned forward; his thumb absently stroked the butt of his revolver. “Because if you do, I have a proposition for you.”
She braced herself. “What kind of proposition?”
“Rogan doesn’t give a damn about what happens to Callie Mae,” he said. “But then, maybe you already know that.”
“I’ve spent the last ten years knowing it. What does that have to do with us now?”
“It means, I can tell you how to find her. For a price, of course.”
Hope quickened her pulse. “Name it.”
“We split the money from your herd fifty-fifty.”
She blinked. Replayed the terms of the deal again in her brain. “And Rogan gets nothing?”
“Not a dime. He’ll never find out we changed his plans until it’s too late to stop us.”
“Don’t play me for a fool!” she snapped, suddenly angry. “Why would you offer me terms like that? You helped him kidnap Callie Mae. You wouldn’t do the crime unless he gave you a fair cut of the ransom. You could get the same money from him.”
“Yep.” He nodded, nonplussed. “But I trust you more.”
Her lip curled. “You trust me more?”
“Put yourself in my place, Carina.” He sighed, as if she were being obtuse. “Trust a greedy bastard with the law breathing revenge down his neck. Or a mother who wants to have her child back. Who would I think would be the guaranteed deal?”
Carina was tempted. Sorely. Could she trust Durant to reveal Callie Mae’s whereabouts? She didn’t know. But if she dared, if he saw the bargain done, she’d have Callie Mae and enough money to keep from losing the ranch. She’d have to lay a few ground rules, of course, but—
“Whatever you’re thinking, Carina—” McClure’s voice shattered her thoughts “—don’t.”
Chapter 15
Penn rode closer and kept Rogan Webb’s accomplice in his rifle’s sights. He’d heard enough of the conversation between them to know Durant intended to double cross Rogan. His gut told him Carina’s silence meant she was giving serious consideration to going along with it.
Like hell she would.
Carina’s head whipped toward him. “He knows where they are. We might get Callie Mae home sooner.”
“I don’t think so.” He halted next to her, the barrel of the Winchester pressed to his shoulder, his eye still on the black-suited lowlife who kept his gun trained on her. “Don’t trust him, Carina.”
“It won’t hurt to hear him out.”
She didn’t seem to notice she could
be shot any time Durant took the notion. Had she even thought Rogan might be with him, watching somewhere out of sight, conspiring with Durant for reasons Penn couldn’t fathom yet?
“So why the change of heart, Durant?” Penn demanded, ignoring her.
“Who’s asking?”
Penn didn’t respond.
Carina moved to do it for him. “He’s—”
“Trail boss,” Penn said before she could say his name. “You and Rogan have a falling-out?”
Durant’s glance bounced between them. “Quite the opposite. We get along famously.”
“And yet you’re here, talking to betray him. Why?”
“I have my reasons,” Durant said.
“Care to share them with us?”
“No.”
“What changed your mind, Durant? His crimes?” Penn hammered out the questions. “Are you afraid the government will throw you in prison, like they’ll do to him when they find him?”
Carina sucked in a breath of surprise.
“Or do you think he’ll betray you next? Steal your share of Carina’s money?” Relentless, Penn continued the interrogation. “Maybe you’ve realized it’ll be a cold day in hell when Rogan gets away with blackmailing her.”
“Or maybe I’ve decided he’s not worth shit when it comes to being a father!” Durant snapped.
Penn lowered the rifle a fraction. That he hadn’t expected.
“Look, the girl deserves better, all right?” Durant shifted, straining the leather on his saddle and looking furious. “She should be with her mother. I didn’t see it at first, but now I do. He made me see it.”
“How?” Skeptical, Penn had to ask. “What’d he do that made you decide?”
“Does it matter, McClure?” Carina demanded in a sharp tone. “He’s willing to—”
“McClure?” Shock drained the blood on Durant’s face. “Hell. Penn McClure?”
Penn’s muscles coiled, one after the other. “That’s right.”