Had Pace misunderstood where Serena was going? Then another possibility occurred. Pace could have lied to keep Matt from finding her.
Matt paid brief visits to a few more of Serena’s friends, using the excuse that he’d just gotten home and wanted to let her know he was back. But no one had seen her. Her buggy was not at the livery, where she should have left it.
Matt was beginning to believe Serena hadn’t come to Tucson at all. When he noticed the clouds building in the west, he headed for home. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Pace.
That Pace had lied to him was the only possibility Matt allowed himself to consider. If Pace hadn’t lied, that meant either Serena had lied to Pace, or something had happened to her. Matt couldn’t even consider either idea.
If she lied to Pace, then she had taken off for parts unknown. That would have been a little more likely if she’d been on horseback, but not in the buggy.
And if she really had intended to go to Sylvia’s, then why wasn’t she there?
No. Pace had lied.
By the time Matt stomped into the house just ahead of the storm, he was as furious as the black, roiling clouds outside.
He found Pace, Dani, and his father in the study. Ignoring his parents, Matt crossed to the sofa and lifted Pace by the front of his shirt. “All right, goddamn you, where is she?”
“Matt!” Travis and Dani cried in shock.
“What’s gotten into you?” Travis demanded.
“Watch your language,” Dani ordered. “And while you’re at it, put your brother down.”
Matt dropped Pace and leaned over him, fists clenched, jaw ticcing. “She’s not at the Ortegas’. Where is she?”
“Serena’s not at the Ortegas’?” Dani asked.
“How do you know?” Pace demanded.
“Because I just came from there. They weren’t expecting her, they haven’t seen her. You lied to me. Where is she?”
Pace sprung from the sofa and stood nose to nose with Matt. “I may be a lot of things, brother, but I’m not a liar. You ever call me that again, I’ll—”
“That’s enough. Both of you.” Travis came from behind his desk and stood before them. “Now, what’s all this about?”
While Matt explained where he’d been that morning looking for Serena, he watched Pace’s face. When he realized Pace had not been lying, Matt’s insides tied themselves into knots.
“Oh, my God,” Dani whispered.
Travis put his arm around her. “Now, don’t start worrying for nothing, love.”
“But she wouldn’t just run off, Travis. It’s not like her.”
“I don’t know,” Pace said thoughtfully. “As upset as she was.”
“Upset? About what?” Travis asked.
“Ask him,” Pace said, nodding at Matt with narrowed eyes.
Matt tossed Pace an irritated glance, then sighed.
“Matt?” Dani asked. “What happened? Why was she upset?”
“It was Joanna,” Matt said wearily, rubbing the back of his neck. “When Rena tucked her in the other night, Joanna called her…Mama.”
“Oh, no,” Dani moaned. “I was afraid something like this would happen. They’ve been so close, those two. Inseparable. I should have done something. I should have—”
“Hush, love,” Travis said, squeezing her arm. “There wasn’t anything you could have done short of shipping one of them off. The problem right now is to find Serena. We’ll take some men and head out at first light. Wherever she is, we’ll find her.”
Travis led Dani from the room, and Pace started to follow. He paused in the doorway and glanced back at Matt. “There’s more to this than you’re telling, isn’t there?”
“If there is, it’s none of your business.”
“I’ll make it my business if anything’s happened to my sister because of you.”
“Your sister? What the hell is she to me?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Chapter Thirteen
Caleb and Serena were three days out of Cos-codee when Caleb stopped unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon and jerked Serena from the saddle. He carried her off the trail into the deep woods and, without a word, gagged her and left her tied to a tree.
Serena wanted to demand he tell her what was happening, what he was doing, but she kept quiet. He was starting to make her more nervous than ever.
When they left Cos-codee, he’d been the nervous one. Nervous and irritable. But the farther they got from that place, the more relaxed and confident he’d become.
And he’d started touching her. Fingers through her hair, a knuckle brushing lightly across her cheek, hands that lingered too long on her waist when he lifted her down from the saddle. Little touches. Some made to look like accidents. But he grew bolder, more deliberate every day. He made her flesh crawl.
Then there were his eyes. At Tombstone they’d been laughing eyes, pleasant, full of gaiety. Bright, twinkling gray. When he’d first kidnapped her, they were cold and hard as granite. At Cos-codee, they were troubled and dark, like thunderclouds.
But now when he looked at her, his eyes were different. She’d never seen gray and thought of heat before. Yet whenever he turned his gaze on her, she saw hot gray. Hot, devouring, and…hungry.
Serena shuddered in the afternoon heat. When she had finally decided he wasn’t going to rape her, that’s when he started undressing her with his eyes. If she didn’t escape soon, he’d be doing it with his hands!
Footsteps crackled across gravel and dead leaves. Serena stiffened. He was coming back.
Looking excited and eager, Caleb bent beneath the low branches and squatted next to Serena. His hot gaze raked her from head to toe. One hand settled boldly on her thigh and squeezed slightly. It was all Serena could do to keep from shrieking and kicking, but she was determined to hide her fear and revulsion. She had to stay calm.
Don’t let him know he’s getting to you.
She did her best to present a demeanor of cool, haughty disinterest.
Caleb grinned, then winked, as if sharing a humorous secret. After giving her thigh a final squeeze, he removed her gag and worked on the knot that bound her to the tree.
“We’re almost there,” he said casually. “Bet you’ll be glad to get off that horse and under a roof for a while.”
“Almost where? What roof?” Serena demanded.
“Well, it’s not much of a roof, really, but it’ll do for now.”
“Where are we?” she knew, but she wondered if he did. It seemed foolish on his part to hide her only a day’s ride from the Arizona border.
At least, she thought they were a day’s ride from the border. When they had headed south from Cos-codee, they hit the down-Bavispe and followed it west past the Rio Agua Prieta junction to the up-Bavispe. Then they’d cut northwest and crossed another river. If Serena’s calculations were correct, that crossing was due south of Fronteras.
Unless she’d lost all sense of direction, they were now in the Cananea Hills, barely a day’s ride south of Naco Springs, which was on the border. Did Caleb know they were that close to Arizona? To her family?
Caleb tossed Serena back onto the horse, then grabbed her reins, mounted, and headed out at a walk. He didn’t tie her feet. Her hands, although tied together, were, for once, not tied to the saddle horn.
If only she had the reins! Or no reins at all! She could kick the horse and guide it with her knees. At least she’d have a chance at freedom.
But with the reins in his hand, it was useless. Even if he dropped them, she’d never be able to retrieve them with her hands tied. And she had no desire to attempt a run for it with those long reins trailing down between her mount’s hooves, tangling around his legs, tripping him. It was a long shot, at best, and the odds were stacked too high against her. She would have to wait for another chance.
Caleb led the way to a narrow, rocky stream bed. The August rains were late this year. The stream was only a small trickle of moisture
across the gravel.
The horses didn’t care for the small shifting rocks beneath their hooves, preferring instead the hard, dry banks on either side. But Caleb kept them in the streambed and headed north. He was, at last, apparently trying to hide their tracks.
Serena smiled to herself. He’d made no attempt to hide their tracks before. They’d left a trail a blind man could follow. This morning, in a fit of inspiration, he’d tried to wipe out the signs of their camp.
Serena had bitten her tongue to keep from laughing out loud. He’d kicked the rocks away that had circled the fire, then tossed two handfuls of dirt over the ashes, covering them haphazardly. Next, he’d picked up a loose, dead tree branch and scratched it around on the ground. An inexperienced child would still be able to tell where the fire had been and see the footprints and hoof marks beneath the scratches.
For a man so bent on revenge—murder, kidnapping, and Lord knew what else—he was remarkably naive about the signs he left of his passing.
Serena flinched inwardly. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing. Taking a hostage and covering his trail. No, he wasn’t an experienced, trail-hardened criminal. He was plenty competent at getting them where he wanted to go, but he certainly wasn’t used to hiding his tracks.
He wasn’t cut out for this kind of life. He wasn’t mean enough or hard enough or cold enough. He scared too easily at stories about vengeful Apaches. He was trying to avenge the honor of a dishonorable brother.
And he was going to get himself killed.
Serena flexed her fingers and stared at his back, her jaw hardening. She wouldn’t waste her sympathy on Caleb Miller Scott. He didn’t deserve it. He’d taken her from her home and family against her will, kept her tied hand and foot for two weeks, and he wanted to kill Matt. He deserved whatever happened to him.
The streambed they followed seemed to end as the ground rose before a sheer rock wall ahead. But Caleb led them through a narrow, slanted cut in the rock and into a small box canyon.
Scrub oak, cedars, and junipers dotted the canyon floor and clung precariously here and there along the vertical rock walls. The stream widened near its source—a spring-fed pool at the far end of the canyon. A half-dozen cottonwoods shaded the pool.
A dozen yards off stood a cabin. Barely. As they approached, Serena glanced around, searching out a potential hiding place should she happen to get loose. The canyon didn’t offer much in the way of opportunity, unless she could climb up to one of those ledges along the walls. The ledges were narrow, but a deep shadow now and then indicated the possibility of a cave or two. Or at least a crevice.
The cabin was made from discarded packing crates and looked like a pebble tossed against it would send it crashing. It was tiny, maybe eight by eight. No windows and only one door, but enough gaps where the pieces of crates didn’t meet to let in plenty of air. And rain. And scorpions, rats, snakes, or anything else that might want to walk, crawl, or slither in.
When Caleb took her inside, she was surprised to find a scarred, flimsy table, one intact chair and pieces of others, a tin pail, and most amazing of all, a small, rock-and-mud fireplace on the far wall. The shack also boasted at least a year’s worth of dust. Rat droppings covered every surface. Dead leaves and an occasional bone from some unfortunate animal littered the hardpacked dirt floor.
“It’s not exactly what you’re used to, I’m sure. But we’ll clean it up a bit and it’ll do.”
Do for what? Serena wondered. But she didn’t ask. She was too busy being relieved at having her hands at last untied. They were half numb and a little swollen. Her wrists would bear scars for months.
Caleb took another pull on the bottle of cheap, burning whiskey. He was drunk, and he knew it.
Drinking wasn’t something he normally did a lot. Neither was kidnapping beautiful young women. He and Ben had usually left that sort of thing to Abe.
Abe. The oldest brother. Firstborn.
Caleb took another drink, frowning at how little was left in the bottle, and remembered. He remembered Ma, with her face black and blue from Pa’s fists. Abe had worn his share of bruises, too, as had Ben and Caleb and Davy. But mostly it was Ma and Abe. Ben, Caleb, and Davy had been the lucky ones; Abe had protected them as much as possible from Pa. He’d taken more than a few beatings on himself to spare his younger brothers. And he’d been a grown man at the time.
The only thing that had kept Abe from fighting back was Ma. She’d have cried her eyes out if any of her boys had struck Pa. And Pa would have made damn sure Ma heard about it.
Everything changed that day the old man knocked her down and she hit her head on that rock. Abe was the one who’d found her, dead.
Abe had gone for Pa’s throat with both hands. Caleb could honestly say he and Ben wouldn’t have lifted a finger to interfere. They hadn’t, either, until three neighbor men rode up. It had taken all five—both brothers and the neighbors—to pull Abe off. By then, Pa wasn’t breathing.
Then one of the neighbors—Caleb couldn’t recall which one—mentioned going for the sheriff. Abe had lit out.
Damn shame he hadn’t stuck around. After he left, Ben led the neighbor’s to Ma’s body.
There wasn’t a one among those three men who hadn’t been on the receiving end of Pa’s foul temper at one time or another. Yet Ma, well, everybody had liked Ma. She’d nursed their wives and kids through every kind of sickness and injury.
The men decided then and there that they had never been to the Scott farm that day. They agreed to be deaf, dumb, and blind to what had happened to Pa.
Only trouble was, no sooner had they cleared out, than Ben discovered Pa wasn’t quite dead. The old bastard. He was supposed to be dead, damn him.
Ben brought the shotgun from the house. “I’ll finish him off.”
“No.” Caleb shook his head. “Too many questions.”
“You got a better idea?”
Caleb had grinned. “An unfortunate accident.”
The smell of coal oil tickled Caleb’s memory. The fire had devoured first the straw, then the dry old barn, and Pa along with it. God, what a blaze that had been. One of Caleb’s best. He got hard just thinking about it.
He shook his head and blinked away the memories. If he didn’t get ahold of himself, he’d start thinking about fires and end up burning down the damn shack just to see the blaze reach to the sky.
After that, they only kept track of Abe by rumor. He was out there somewhere thinking the law was on his tail for killing Pa. Yet the rumors they heard about Abe were bad. It seemed like killing Pa, like he thought he’d done, set something loose inside him. Something mean.
In the far corner of the cabin, Serena sighed and shifted beneath her thin blanket. Caleb knew she wasn’t asleep. He could see the reflection of the fire in the narrow slits of her eyes.
Lord, she was beautiful. Even after the way he’d treated her for the past weeks, keeping her tied up and all, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He shifted against the sudden tightening in his pants.
Goddammit, Abe, what have you got me into? I owe you so much. Ben and Davy and I all do. But was Serena telling the truth? Oh, I know you kidnapped that woman all those years ago, but did you come back later and kill her? Is that why you’re dead now? Is that why I’m here in this hovel, holding Serena against her will, hating her family but wanting her? Damn you, Abe!
And he did want her. He’d wanted her from the first time he’d seen her, standing in that damned saloon looking so prim and proper, asking about her brother.
But he’d never raped a woman before, and he knew if he was to have her, it would have to be rape.
Or would it? She’d been nice to him at Tombstone. She’d even said she liked him. Maybe, if he was nice to her now, she’d like him again.
He lowered the level of whiskey in the bottle another inch, then stared into the fire, letting the dancing flames soothe him. He’d never be able to let Serena go. Not after kidnapping her.
He knew, too, he’d never be able to kill her. Even if he hated her, he couldn’t kill her. And he sure as hell didn’t hate her.
He wanted her. And he wanted her to want him. They could go somewhere back East, where her Apache blood wouldn’t mean much, where nobody knew them. Maybe he could even take her to the farm. Ben would like her. Ben’s wife might appreciate having another woman around to help with the chores.
That was it! All he had to do was make her love him. He’d gotten his revenge on Matt Colton by making him think his sister was dead. He’d paid his debt to Abe. It was time to think of himself. And Serena.
One last pull, and the whiskey bottle was empty. It landed on the dirt floor with a muted thud. Even the crackling and hissing of the fire sounded muted as blood rushed to his groin and roared in his ears.
In his mind, he rose from the rickety chair with masculine grace and strode slowly to Serena’s side. He knelt next to her and ran a finger across her perfect cheek.
In reality, when he stood, his foot wrapped around the leg of the chair and he stumbled. He shook himself loose. The chair and table crashed to the floor.
Serena flinched. For one long second, her heart stopped. Then it pounded so hard it threatened to burst through the wall of her chest. He was coming! He’d left her alone for more than two weeks, but now he was coming.
With her hands tied over her head to a corner post of the shack, there was nothing she could do to stop him. She was utterly, terrifyingly, helpless. Fear left a metallic taste in her dry mouth. Her muscles knotted. Her breath refused to come.
Caleb’s large, dirty hand reached down and yanked the blanket from her. She wanted to cringe away, to scream and cry. But she didn’t. She refused to let him see her terror. She forced her eyes to meet his, but his were glazed, unfocused. He rubbed his crotch with one hand and ripped her shirt open with the other. Her flesh tried to shrink and disappear.
Caleb said nothing. He worked his mouth and rubbed his crotch and stared. Then he reached for her. Dirty, broken fingernails dug into the tender flesh of her breast.
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