Her initial fright and bewilderment gave way as Lacey thought they were going to be treated to a shivaree. She had never participated in one but had heard stories where friends of the bride and groom had come in the night and stolen one or the other away. There would be a great deal of teasing and laughter, blushing and pleading before the bride and groom were allowed to be rejoined. Rafe cursed softly, and Lacey smiled as he jerked on his pants, muttering for her to cover herself.
“This better not be someone’s idea—” He cut off his words as he threw open the door, glaring at the men who stood gathered there.
Leaning forward on the bed, Lacey saw that it was Luke and Matt McCabe with other men from the Reina crowding behind them. She held the quilt up to cover her mouth and stifle her giggles. Rafe was going to be furious when they hauled him out of their room and kept them separated for a good part of the night. She almost felt sorry for the tongue-blistering he was about to deliver.
But he wasn’t given a chance. “They took it all,” Luke said. “Every damn cow and calf—and the horse remuda.”
Lacey’s smile died. She heard the sudden babble of their voices as they all tried to talk at once until Rafe’s rose above theirs. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Got your horse saddled,” Matt said. “There was shooting, and we don’t know how bad.”
Rafe nodded and closed the door before he realized that Lacey was up, fumbling with her underthings to dress.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“With you,” she snapped without looking up.
“You heard him say there was shooting,” he muttered, finding his boots and cursing the liquor that slowed his movements.
“Rafe, don’t leave me here.”
Angrily he pulled on his shirt and roughly tucked it, unbuttoned, into his pants before he grabbed his gunbelt.
“Rafe, answer me.”
He looked up, despair in his eyes. “I want to keep you safe. Can’t you understand that? And while I might enjoy the sight of you half-dressed, since this is our wedding night, I’m not having any man see you like that.”
“Then go down to Rebecca and get my clothes. I left them there.”
“Por Dios! You were drunk. You told Maggie to take them home when she left with Fletcher.”
Lacey ignored the forbidding frown that marred his face. “I may have been drunk, but I’m sober now. Find me something to wear or … or I will go as I am.”
Rafe knew he risked breaking their fragile bond if he refused. He wanted to stay and make that belligerent gleam disappear from her eyes, but he flung open the door and headed down the hall.
Using the door as a shield, Lacey thought about his temper as she watched him enter a room, only to emerge a few moments later, empty-handed. He repeated the same with several more before she saw him come out, carrying clothes.
He pulled the door open, tossed the clothes at her. “Put them on. They’re all I could find. I do apologize for the lack of a pair of boots, princess, but the cowboy wasn’t sleeping all that soundly when I stole these.”
“They smell.”
Precious time was wasting, and Rafe snapped, “Just where would you like me to find suitable, clean clothes at this hour? You want to come, wear them. If not, stay.”
Lacey couldn’t tell him about the fear of being apart from him. She hid her revulsion at the strange odor of the shirt and pants. They were of an undeterminable color, caked with travel dust, and way too big, but she used a torn piece of her petticoat for a belt after stoically rolling them up. With a strip of lace she tied back her hair and joined him.
“I offered a bonus to the man who catches and hangs the first rustler. Let’s ride, Rafe. I want to be there.”
When Lacey saw the men’s faces, she knew they had not expected her to ride with them. Rafe swung up onto his saddle while she fumed that there was no horse for her. She didn’t bother to ask why. A lone horse tied to the hitching post across the way caught her attention, and without a word she headed for it. Rafe rode up alongside as she readjusted the stirrups.
“What are you—”
“I need a horse, Rafe. Now we have two thieves in the family.” Mounting, she thought Rafe was laughing as she followed him out of town. Her head pounded along with the thundering beat of hooves on the hard-packed earth. But the mustang she rode was not going to be able to keep up, and she spared one damning thought for Rafe forcing her to ride with him this morning.
The moon lent its light to guide the group across the open flat plain. Rafe dropped back to ride beside Lacey, worried that she was with him. He signed to Cal to pull up even with them.
“Switch horses with Lacey,” he ordered, motioning Lacey to slow her pace. Both cow ponies were well trained, and they accomplished the change in seconds. Cal rode off at a word from Rafe, and Lacey took point position at his side.
To Lacey, she felt this was a true peace offering from Rafe and glanced over at his features etched like granite in the moonlight. With an arcing swing they headed north, steadily covering ground, grim determination guiding them in the darkness.
Rafe began to grow uncomfortable with the nagging that burned his gut. He turned time and again to be certain that Lacey was there. The sky behind them was paling, its grayness tinged with soft rose streaks, and he made out the sharply edged crags of the Blues toward their right. Judging they were still a good hour’s ride from where the herd had been quartered, Rafe eased his horse into a canter, shifting his weight in the saddle even as Lacey did the same. They could not afford to tire their horses when no one was sure how long they would need to ride them.
Lacey noticed that the men behind them followed suit. Scrub brush and angled cactus marked their trail now, and she knew they were well past the southernmost boundary of the ranch. The intruding sound of someone groaning made her realize that the men she rode with, on whom her very life would depend in the coming hours, were for the most part still reeling under the effects of the celebration they arrived late for. It was a sobering thought and gave her a feeling of unease. Her hand slid down her side, but there was no reassuring feel of her gun holstered there.
Two miles from the main house Rafe slowed and fired orders. “Half of you men take the north range. Two shots will mean you sighted them. The rest of us will ride south. Just find them.”
Automatically taking the lead of the group splitting off to obey him, Lacey pulled up when he shouted at her.
“Stay with me. You don’t have a gun.”
“If we split up, we have a better chance, Rafe. Let’s not waste time by fighting. I won’t be coddled.”
Against every instinct screaming a warning, Rafe rode back toward her. He leaned over his saddle to roughly catch her chin. Before Lacey could move, he kissed her, hard and fast. “Keep yourself safe for me, princess.”
Her whispered promise was lost, for he spurred his horse away. Lacey caught up with the men, riding beside each one, reassuring herself that if he was drunk, he hid it well. The threat to the Reina had sobered her from the effects of the liquor, but she tasted the lingering warmth of Rafe’s kiss, which was an intoxication all its own.
Minutes later she called for Scanlon to take the lead. Lacey veered off, knowing she had to get a pair of boots and her gun. Fletcher and Maggie came running from the house as she rode in. Lacey was thankful that only two men had been wounded and not badly. Neither Fletcher nor Maggie wasted time with questions. Fletcher ran off to saddle a fresh horse for her, and Maggie followed her into her room.
Lacey stripped and changed into her own clothes, firing warnings at Maggie. Once her boots were on, Lacey took the gunbelt that Maggie handed her.
For once Maggie was at a loss for words. Lacey looked ready to kill to protect the Reina as she buckled the belt with the ease of long practice, hazel eyes glitter
ing, her jaw clenched.
They both heard the sounds of someone running on the tile bricks and turned toward the door. Maggie was the one who cried out.
“Take it off, Lacey, nice and easy,” Curt ordered, motioning to the belt. “Put it on the bed where I can see it. Get near her, Maggie.”
Lacey was too stunned not to obey. Curt was no longer dressed in one of his impeccable suits and finely starched shirts, but in coarse fringed buckskins that made him a stranger. “Curt? Why? You can’t—”
“Shut up. We’ll talk after you tie her up. And don’t think your pepper-gut husband will find the cattle. My men have already driven them south.”
His eyes blazed with a coldness that frightened Lacey. Yet she refused to accept what he said, what was happening here in her home. The shot he fired splintered the wood at her feet. His face was a mask of violence, and without a word she grabbed the discarded shirt to tie Maggie’s hands.
“Gag her and tie her feet.”
Lacey went to her dresser and tore apart a drawer looking for a neckerchief. Her hand closed over a small forgotten derringer concealed there, but she was never given the chance to use it. The mirror exploded into a thousand shards of glass as he fired another shot.
She jumped back and spun around.
“No games, Lacey.” He shoved Maggie to her knees. “Do it.”
Afraid that he would hurt Maggie again, Lacey moved. She didn’t dare make the ties loose. She pleaded with a glance for forgiveness as she gagged Maggie.
“Get over here, Lacey.”
With a last helpless glance at Maggie, Lacey walked to his side. His arm snaked out, pulling her against him, his hand roughly covering her breast. His jeering laugh grated in her ears as she shuddered with revulsion.
“Tell that Mex bastard that Lacey is mine, old woman. She was mine first.”
His voice shook with rage and other emotions that Lacey refused to name. He backed from the room, dragging her with him. Under the tiled archway he changed direction toward Rafe’s room. “I’ll kill you if Rafe doesn’t, Curt.” She struggled against his hold, and he spun her around, backhanding her to the floor. Lacey gazed up, refusing to beg as he stood straddling her prone body.
“I was good enough for you once. That bastard deserves to know his bride spent her wedding in bed with me. Go on,” he taunted, “you were willing enough once.”
He began to unbuckle his gunbelt, and Lacey judged her moment. He screamed when her boot caught him square in the gut, but before she scrambled out of his reach, his hand tangled in her hair and yanked her face up. His free hand caught her wrist and wrenched it behind her back before his mouth ground down on hers. She trembled with the need to scream. He leaned his body against her until she thought her back would break. A roaring filled her ears along with the sound of a voice calling, and she prayed that someone, anyone from the Reina had come.
Shock registered with a despairing jolt when she realized who it was calling for Curt to answer. It was Evan’s voice she heard as Curt seemed to suck the very breath from her.
Evan grabbed Curt away, leaving her kneeling, sick with the thought of how thoroughly they had fooled her.
“You want to blow it all, Curt? There’s time later.”
“Just so you understand how it’s going to be, Evan.”
Lacey could not fight them then as she was shoved out to the courtyard. Betrayed. Curt and Evan together. The doubts they planted about Rafe. The trust she had for each of them. But she needed her wits, not self-recrimination.
Why she ever noticed the clarity of the night sky that reminded her of Rafe’s eyes, she never knew. She fought free of the painful grip Curt had maintained as they neared the corral and she spotted Fletcher’s prone body. He was lying sprawled in the dirt near the hooves of the white mare that Evan had given her.
“Come along quietly, Lacey,” Curt ordered. “He isn’t dead … yet.”
The click of the gun hammer made her reassure him. “I won’t give you any trouble.”
“She won’t, Curt, but I sure as hell will.”
Lacey half turned to see Bo, his gun drawn, standing to their side. She started forward, but Curt grabbed her and used her as a shield.
“Put it away, Bo.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal, Curt. Let her go.”
Part of the deal? What was Bo talking about? Lacey repeated the words to herself. Bo couldn’t be partners with them. Not Bo. He had been a part of her life. But Evan made her realize that she wasn’t having a nightmare. She was living one.
“Settle your differences after we ride out. Curt, you’re wrong to take her with us. She’ll slow us down, but I can’t blame you. Bo, either shut your mouth and ride with us, or stay and face Rafe. It might be interesting to hear you explain your part.”
“Bo?” she questioned, but he wouldn’t look at her.
Fear for Fletcher’s life made Lacey mount up on Curt’s horse. He sat behind her as the four of them rode out into the night. Lacey clung to the saddle horn, her back rigid, but the rocking motion of the horse pressed Curt’s body to hers. She blocked out the whispered threats he made and tried to think clearly.
Rafe would come after her. She had to find a way to leave a trail for him. And it was thoughts of Rafe that helped her bury the screams that rose as Curt’s voice grew more gloating with lust.
Chapter 21
Angry frustration was clouding Rafe’s thoughts as he rode with his men. Why he should persist in thinking of Lacey when his mind should be directed on where else to search for their cattle, he didn’t question. He knew that something was wrong. The short hairs on the back of his neck were prickling with alarm.
He was riding point toward the south range near the small canyons where Lacey had been shot when the sounds, like that of rolling thunder, caught his attention. No man who worked cattle needed to be told they were listening to stampeding cattle.
“Sweet Christ!” someone yelled.
They turned as one and spotted the oncoming tide of close-packed bodies that headed directly toward them. Their horses, Rafe knew, were winded, yet they pushed them to a man as the fear of being caught under the onrushing hooves made them lash and spur and curse the tired beasts for speed. Rafe thought of firing his gun to try and turn the cattle to the side, but they were already too close.
The noise was a roar as cattle, lowing with terror, bawled like souls lost in hell when a shot rang out. Someone screamed, and Rafe tried to see in the darkness. The shadow of a man and a horse went down before the sight was blotted by the herd. Riding off to the side, and slightly ahead of his men, he realized he had drawn his gun. Luke gave him a shout of approval, and Rafe knew it was one of the rustlers he had shot in a reflexive gesture. A quick look told him he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting off another. He used his reins as a whip on the powerful grulla’s neck. The advantage was all the rustlers’ now—he and his men had to fight for their lives. Their only hope of not being crushed to death was to reach high ground.
Dust clouds swirled up, coating them, blinding them. Rafe moved to draw his shirt collar up as men used their neckerchiefs to protect their mouths and noses from the stifling grit that made it impossible to draw breath. Men’s knees pressed tight against heaving horses’ sides, guiding the well-trained horses into blind obedience of their riders. It was the western slope that Rafe headed toward, rising up before him, offering the only hope they had.
Labored breathing marked with swearing filled Rafe’s ears. Along with his men he urged the grulla up the graveled slope. He felt the grulla’s swerve and saw the rider beside him slide from his saddle as his horse stumbled. Rafe reached out blindly for the man’s hand. Clasping the callused palm firmly, he felt the strain he put on his horse and demanded more as the grulla faltered and lost precious moments. Rafe leaned toward his left to give th
e man purchase as he clung to the saddle and threw the reins aside to give the grulla his head. The horse regained his footing, muscles straining as he carried them to safety.
No one spoke. The silvered profiles of the ragged line of harsh-breathing men hunched over their horses’ necks were totally silent as they watched the herd thunder past below them. Bleak eyes turned upward as Rafe watched, whether in prayer or rage, he didn’t know, but he was sure they all understood how close they had flirted with death.
The dust clouds below made it foolish to shoot, just as one horse going down made Rafe realize it was foolish to try and follow them without fresh mounts.
“We head back for fresh mounts and grub,” he stated, slowly straightening himself in the saddle. Luke was by his side, but Rafe brushed off his thanks for saving his life. “Who’s got the freshest horses?”
“Me an’ Hank’ll trail them,” Matt McCabe answered. “But first we need to talk.”
Rafe knew they all could do with a few minutes of rest and dismounted. He walked off away from the others. A few curious glances followed him, but no one spoke. He only hoped that this time they had something worthwhile to tell him.
“It ain’t much,” Matt began. “Back in town Hank here saw Curt and Evan as cozy as peas a bit after you wed. When they left Rebecca’s, they were with Bo James.”
“So? They know each other. Have for years. Don’t waste my time, McCabe.”
“Ain’t wasting your time. Jus’ listen. I followed them to the edge of town, but they were too far away for me to overhear them. That lawyer’s got a powerful hate for you.”
“Like I said, tell me what I don’t know.”
“The judge finally answered our wire,” Hank cut in. “It seems that Bo James ain’t got a past. He’s the only one that the judge couldn’t trace.”
Rafe’s gut twisted. Lacey had refused to believe him when he told her his feelings about Bo. Now he’d have proof. Before he could ask any questions, Luke walked over.
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