Promises Kept

  “You don’t need to be going anywhere,” T. J. said. “Doc says you are never going to mend if you don’t stay in that bed. I’ll send all the men we can spare to help search.” Watching Colt struggling into his pants, he knew his words were falling on deaf ears. “Hold on a dang minute, I’ll get the darn holster.” T. J. stalked to the trunk and shuffled through the contents. He found the holster at the bottom of the trunk and handed it to Colt. “Doc’s going to have a fit, not to mention Victoria,” he muttered.

  Colt strapped the holster around his hips, and out of habit he checked the cylinders of each pistol to make sure they were loaded. He cleaned the pistols frequently, so he knew they were in good order. “Do you mind tying them down for me? I don’t think I can bend over that far since the doc tied these bandages so tight.”

  T. J. bent to tie the leather thongs around Colt’s thighs. “Mind telling me how you are planning on riding a horse?”

  “I’ll manage.” Bandit jumped off the bed, ready to follow Colt out the door. “You have to stay here, boy.” Colt had a feeling Wallace was involved in this somehow, and the time had come to have it out with him.

  As they walked down the stairs side by side, T. J. said, “Razor’s out front. I’m going with you.”

  Colt smiled. He should have figured that T. J. knew he would go. “I guess you’ve been around me too long.”

  “Yep, and you ain’t getting any smarter.” He’d told Rex to get Colt’s horse saddled before he went to tell him about the boys. “Your head is harder than . . . than your old man’s.” That was the hardest thing T. J. could think of at the moment.

  They were leaving the ranch when Lane came riding in.

  “What are you doing back here? Did they find the boys?” T. J. asked.

  “No, and now the woman is missing.”

  “Victoria?” Colt asked, sure his heart skipped a beat.

  “Yeah. Bartholomew took her to town to see if someone might have found the boys but didn’t know where they belonged. They were gone so long that Rance thought he should ride to town to see if they had problems. He found the buckboard on the road. Bartholomew was shot—he ain’t dead, but he’s in a real bad way. Rance took him to the farm and that Englishwoman is tending him since it was closer than going to town. Victoria was nowhere around. I rode to town to see if she was there, but it looks like they never made it. I sent the doc to the farm to do what he can for Bartholomew.”

  “Let’s ride,” Colt said.

  T. J. had the presence of mind to tell Lane to round up some men and meet them at Victoria’s farm.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Victoria asked Hoyt Nelson when he reined in at Wallace’s ranch.

  He pulled her off the saddle. “The boss told me to.”

  Nothing was making sense to her. Nelson shot Bartholomew, and as she tried to help him, the gunslinger had forced her on his horse at gunpoint. “Why does Mr. Wallace want me here?”

  “I guess he has his reasons. You’ll have to ask him.” He pushed her in the direction of the front porch. “Now walk.”

  “Did he tell you to shoot Bartholomew?” she shrieked.

  Hoyt didn’t respond. The front door opened and Wallace appeared. “Victoria, my dear, do come in.”

  “I want to know why I am here,” she demanded. Pointing a shaking finger at Nelson, she said, “He shot Bartholomew!”

  “Now you have all of them,” Hoyt said to Wallace.

  Wallace took her by the wrist and pulled her inside. When they reached his office, he threw the door open and Victoria saw the twins sitting on the settee. They scrambled down and ran to her. Dropping to her knees, she held them to her and felt their thin bodies shaking uncontrollably. She kissed their tearstained cheeks. “It’s okay, I’m here. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.” She hoped they couldn’t tell how fearful she was. “Why did you run away from home?”

  “We didn’t run away. That scary man with the fancy guns made us go with him,” Cade said.

  “He pointed his gun at us,” Cody added.

  Standing, she whirled around to confront Wallace. “Why are they here?”

  Wallace didn’t respond, so she took the boys by the hand and said, “We’re leaving here right now.”

  Wallace smirked at her. “I’m afraid not.” He pulled a pistol from his waistband, pointed it at her, and yelled for his housekeeper. When she appeared, he instructed, “Take these boys upstairs to a bedroom and don’t let them out until I tell you.”

  The boys clung to Victoria. “We don’t have to, do we?”

  Wallace pointed the pistol at Cody’s head, and Victoria saw in his cold eyes that he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. “Everything will be okay. I will be with you in a little while, so please go with the lady,” she said as calmly as she could.

  They released Victoria and walked past Wallace. “Colt will come for us,” Cody said bravely. “He’s going to be our pa.”

  Wallace laughed. “I’m afraid not.”

  Cade agreed with his brother. “He will too! We asked God for him.”

  “He said he would always protect us,” Cody added.

  They turned around and looked at Victoria, their eyes wide with terror. “He will, won’t he?” Cody asked, his lips quivering.

  Just as she started to reassure them, she noticed something she had not seen before. Her eyes slid to Wallace. Why hadn’t she noticed this before? Cade and Cody’s eyes were the same steel blue-gray as Wallace’s. They had the same white-blond hair, the same lanky, lean physiques. No! It couldn’t be! Is this what Wallace wanted with them? Were the boys the reason he’d stayed in Abilene?

  “He will, won’t he?” Cade repeated his brother’s question.

  Victoria was afraid to respond; she didn’t want them to see her own doubt. “Go with the lady now. We’ll talk later.” Victoria gazed at the Mexican woman and saw pity in her eyes as she gently took Cade and Cody by the hand and led them from the room.

  “So you think you are going to marry McBride?” After what Gage Hardy told him about Victoria, or Delilah, he didn’t think any man would want her. He wouldn’t marry her now that he knew about her past, but he had plans for her. He would force her to sign over her land to him. If she didn’t, he would make sure she never saw those boys again. Hardy made it clear she would do anything for those boys. It would be her choice. The boys would be leverage as long as he needed them to get what he wanted.

  “No, I’m not marrying Mr. McBride,” Victoria responded as calmly as she could manage. She was frightened to death, but she had to remain strong for the boys. “Now what do you want with us? And why did that man shoot Bartholomew?”

  Wallace walked toward her, grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. “Gage Hardy told me you worked at the Lucky Slipper in Abilene. I’ve been there plenty of times, but I don’t recall seeing you there. I thought you were the mother of those boys, but now I find out they are the offspring of another gal from that saloon. I knew Kitten and Ruby well, so who is their mother?” He didn’t really care who they belonged to; they were his ticket to get what he wanted.

  He doesn’t know! He doesn’t know! She was overcome with relief. He’d never really looked at the boys, and apparently Kitten never told him. She wondered why she hadn’t recognized the resemblance before now. The similarities were unmistakable. She needed to distract him from asking questions about their mother. “I didn’t . . . I cleaned and sewed for the girls at the saloon, nothing else.”

  “Save the lies, Delilah. Is that your given name, or just the name you used at the Lucky Slipper? Hardy told me all about you. He seems to know you very well.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  Still holding her arm behind her, he wrapped his fingers around her neck with his free hand. “I think you know what I want. Land. That’s all that matters to me.”

  She tried to push away from him, but he held her firm.

  “I was going to ask you to marry me. Now I don’t have to marry you
. I don’t want someone like you for a wife.” He spat, close to her face. “You are not worthy to be my wife, but you will stay here as long as I want. And you will sign over your land to me.”

  “Take your hands off me!” she cried.

  His eyes were cold and devoid of emotion. That had to be the reason she hadn’t noticed the resemblance to the boys—there was no life in his eyes. He was a monster. What had pushed him over the edge? Did his greed for land make his mind snap? “Haven’t you forgotten about Mrs. Wellington? She will alert the sheriff. They will come looking for me.”

  He squeezed her neck, demonstrating his power to control her. “The sheriff?” He laughed. “I own the sheriff.”

  She recalled Colt saying the same thing. If only I had listened to him. What a fool I’ve been. How many people have been fooled by his good manners?

  “If that old woman comes here, you will tell her you are going to marry me.”

  “I won’t do that. Besides, she would never believe me.” She struggled against his hold until she heard the sound of cloth tearing. She looked down to see he had ripped her dress down the front. Thankfully, her camisole was still covering her.

  “Don’t fight me. I will kill those boys, don’t think I won’t. I might even kill the old woman. I will get what I want, one way or the other.”

  She was terrified, more so than that night back in Abilene when Gage Hardy attacked her. Gage Hardy had been nothing more than a drunk, but Wallace was worse. He was a man without conscience. “This is about land? You can’t mean you’ve done all of this for land?”

  He fisted her camisole like he was going to rip it from her when a knock on the door stopped him. “What is it?” he bellowed.

  A man replied, “The men are here.”

  “Get them into the stable.” He shoved Victoria to a chair, walked to his desk and poured himself a brandy. “This is about my empire. It’s all going to be mine. These ranchers haven’t the intellect to run an empire. They don’t deserve this land.”

  She didn’t think he would listen to reason, but she had to try. “Look at what you have here. It’s more than enough for one man.”

  “It’s never enough. Land is power. A man is judged by what he owns, and the wife that he chooses to bear his offspring.” Leaning against his desk, he regarded her as he sipped his brandy. “I had chosen you to run my household and have my sons. Pity, you are so beautiful and you have learned the graces of a lady, yet you are nothing but a trollop.”

  “Gage Hardy lied to you.” She didn’t expect him to believe her, not that it mattered to her. “Did you kill that boy and shoot Colt? That boy was an innocent. Was taking a young life worth it to you? Was shooting Bartholomew worth any land?”

  “Your concern is touching. Almost like a real lady,” he mocked.

  If only she had her reticule with the pistol in it, she would surely shoot him for his evil deeds.

  He poured himself another drink. “I didn’t shoot them, Hoyt did. He assured me McBride was dead, but, alas, I see that he isn’t. Don’t hold out hope he will come to your rescue. I have plans for him if he doesn’t die from Hoyt’s bullet. His land will soon be mine.”

  She wondered if the men who worked for him knew he was crazy, or were they all just hired killers and it didn’t matter as long as he paid them well?

  “Colt has a family. I doubt you can just take his land without their knowledge.”

  “You underestimate me, my dear. I already have the papers drawn, and witnesses who swore to his signature deeding the land to me. It’s just a matter of time, and Hoyt will dispatch him like he should have done the first time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Rance walked to the porch with rifle in hand as Colt and T. J. reined in at the Barlow farm. “Colt, we’ve looked everywhere for those boys.”

  “Lane told us. How’s Bartholomew?”

  Hearing Colt’s deep voice, Mrs. Wellington walked outside. “And just what do you think you are doing out of bed?”

  He smiled at her concern. “How’s Bartholomew?”

  “He’s in a bad way. The doctor is with him now. It wouldn’t hurt for you to come inside and have the doctor take a look at you. You look ready to fall out of your saddle.”

  He thought he probably looked better than she did, but he wasn’t about to say that to a woman. “Don’t worry about me,” he assured her.

  “Do you know what’s going on?”

  Intuitively, he knew the boys’ disappearance was linked to him getting shot. Someone thought he wouldn’t pose a threat if he was dead. And the only person who would take advantage of his death to get what he wanted was Wallace. Of course, Wallace didn’t shoot him, he just pulled the strings. Then his thoughts went to Gage Hardy. The man was obsessed with Victoria. He couldn’t ignore the possibility that he took the boys to lure her to him, knowing she would not go with him willingly otherwise.

  He didn’t answer Mrs. Wellington’s question, but asked one of his own. “Mrs. Wellington, did anything unusual happen this week? Did you see anyone hanging around the farm?”

  She thought a minute before answering. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Mr. Wallace came by to see Victoria, but I told him that she was at your place looking after you.”

  “Did he already know I had been shot?” Colt asked.

  “I do believe he did, but I had the feeling . . .” She hesitated.

  “What?”

  “I must say, I had the feeling that he was surprised that you were alive. It wasn’t what he said exactly, it was the look on his face when I told him Victoria was tending you. At the time, I thought he acted odd, but the man is quite strange, so I dismissed the thought.”

  “After Maddie’s visit I’m sure anyone who went into the saloon knew you had been shot. You think he assumed you were dead?” T. J. asked.

  “Maybe.” To Colt’s way of thinking, if Wallace or Hardy had anything to do with this, then he would find both men at the same place. “Let’s ride to Wallace’s.”

  T. J. leaned over in his saddle, closer to Colt’s ear. “Don’t you think we should wait on the men, boss? You don’t look like you can make that ride, and you know there will be trouble.”

  “I’ll make it.” He glanced at Rance. “Stay with Mrs. Wellington, and tell the men to ride on over to Wallace’s.” Before he reined his horse around, he glanced back at Mrs. Wellington. “That old man is tougher than nails. He’ll make it.”

  “I’m counting on it, just like I’m counting on you to find Victoria and those boys,” she responded.

  Wallace’s housekeeper left the bedroom, giving Victoria her first chance to speak to the boys alone. “Boys, we need to talk,” she whispered.

  “I want to go home,” Cade said.

  “I don’t like him,” Cody said, referring to Wallace. “Where’s Colt?”

  Victoria hated to alarm them even more, but this might be her only chance to tell them what they needed to do. “Mr. Wallace is not himself. He is holding us here because he wants our land.” She pulled them to her. “If you see a chance to leave without being seen, I want you to run as fast as you can and go to Colt’s ranch. Do you think you can find your way?”

  “Yes, but Colt will come and get us,” Cody said, and Cade nodded his agreement. “He told us he wants us to be his boys.”

  Victoria wasn’t surprised by their faith in Colt. “When did he tell you that?”

  “The last time we saw him,” Cody replied.

  Cade added, “He said he wants that more than anything ’cause we are good boys, and he was just waiting on you to decide to marry him. Are you?”

  They seemed more concerned about her marrying Colt than being held hostage at Wallace’s. “We will talk about that later. Colt is hurt and he can’t ride his horse right now. We have to depend on ourselves to get out of here. Besides, no one knows where we are.”

  “Colt will know,” Cade assured her.

  “God will tell Colt,” Cody confidently added.

 
“Now pay attention.” Her serious tone made them stop talking. “Do you think you could find your way to Colt’s in the dark?”

  “Without you?” Cody asked.

  “Yes, I want you to go, even if I can’t go with you. Even if it is dark outside,” she replied. “Do you understand?”

  Both boys nodded.

  The housekeeper came back into the room. “Señor wants you.”

  The housekeeper seemed at odds with what she was being directed to do, but Victoria dared not trust her since she was obviously too afraid of Wallace to help them.

  Hoyt Nelson passed her on the staircase, and she watched him walk into the room with the boys. She started to turn around and go back to the room when Wallace yelled to her.

  “Come down here.”

  “Why is he going into that room?”

  “We have visitors riding in. As long as you know he is with the boys, I will have no trouble from you.” He walked up the few steps separating them, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her behind him into his office. Tossing a paper in front of her, he thrust a pen at her. “Sign.”

  “What am I signing?”

  “You’re selling your land to me.”

  “Are you going to let us go if I sign this?”

  He tapped the paper on his desk impatiently. “So you can tell everyone that I forced you to sign this document? I think not, my dear.”

  “Then why would I agree?” The man was mad, his reasoning was not sound. He had truly gone insane.

  “If you don’t, Hoyt will kill the boys,” he stated flatly.

  His face and words were devoid of any feeling, and deep down she knew he would carry out his threat. She took the pen and signed her name.

  “One of the men said McBride is riding in. I thought his wound made it impossible to ride. If it is him, we will go to the door together and you will tell him we are getting married. You better sound convincing or you can say good-bye to those brats.”

  As long as the boys were being held by that gunslinger, she would have to do what he wanted. She had to think of a way to get the boys away from him.