Mary Connealy - [Kincaid Brides 03]

by Over the Edge

  It was time to finish things with the Kincaid men.

  In recent years, Jasper had lived one step away from all the crime done in his name, with a nice sheen of respectability. But he hadn’t started there. He’d clawed his way to the top, and he had all the skills he’d been using hired guns for. He’d lived off the land, too, after his pa had thrown him out. True, it was land in the swamps of Louisiana, but Jasper knew how to rough it. He knew how to move quietly and not leave a trail. He knew how to watch someone and pick his moment.

  It was time to brush the dust off all those skills.

  The trail to the money led straight through Gilliland’s wife and daughter. And now Jasper had seen a new Kincaid woman. She’d shot it out in a stagecoach holdup, so she was tough. But she was a woman, and she’d had the stagecoach driver and the man riding shotgun fighting at her side, so Jasper didn’t take that too seriously.

  And what he’d heard about her husband told Jasper that Seth Kincaid was the weak link. A crazy man, some said. If anyone would tell Jasper where that money was, it would be Seth Kincaid. And his new wife might just be the way to get to Seth.

  Jasper had Bea’s promise that she’d come along, to keep Jasper on the straight and narrow path. He woke her up, and while she dressed, he saddled their horses. As he worked in their small barn, he fumed over everything belonging to Bea. The house, the land, the stupid chickens, the clothes on Jasper’s back. All paid for by her.

  A man had no pride if he had no money, and Jasper had a fortune waiting for him. He planned to finish with the Kincaids, get his money, and then he’d live the life Bea wanted. Later, he’d prove up on the promises he’d made before God.

  Right now, though, Jasper had a fortune to find. And to do that, he needed to find Seth Kincaid.

  Chapter

  16

  “We’ve got to get that shack up.” Rafe stood up from the breakfast table. The lantern was still burning. They’d roused early. “I want the women to stay here. We can’t take a bunch of babies to the building site.”

  His wife had her own ideas. “There’s a south wind blowing this morning, Rafe. That always brings in warm weather. We’ll ride along with you, and if we need to get the young ones inside, the women can ride over to our cabin. It’s not far. Besides, I’d like to see what you’ve got planned for where our old cabin stands.”

  While Rafe and Julia bickered, Seth noticed Callie pulling a coat on and wrapping a blanket around Connor. It looked like she was going.

  He sidled over to her, moving slowly, not wanting to draw Rafe’s attention. “Why are you going? You can’t chop down trees with a baby on your back.”

  Callie hoisted Connor in her arms. She seemed to be back at full strength now. “First of all, Kincaid, don’t ever tell me what I can’t do. I can do anything I put my mind to.”

  “So you want to chop down trees?” Seth figured he’d have his hands full stopping her.

  “No, I said first of all. If I wanted to, I’d do it. Second, I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’m sure I can trust you.” Her black eyes flashed. Her hair hung in a thick braid over her shoulder. She was so dark, she almost looked like an Indian. Maybe some Apache blood flowed in her veins. Seth wondered how he could ask that. He had a feeling he ought to know.

  After flipping a few questions around in his head, he finally decided he was safe asking, “What was your name before we got married?”

  The anger in her eyes made his gut twist in fear. Through clenched teeth she said, “Stone. My father and mother were born in America, but my grandparents were all from Italy. Their name was Pietra, which means stone. They changed it to embrace their new country. Is that what you want to know? Why don’t you just ask me questions straight out?”

  Seth winced. “Because you’re kinda scary.”

  Callie rolled her eyes and began tucking Connor into his carrier.

  “Is Callie Italian, too?”

  “My full name is Calandra, my grandmother’s name. But no one calls me that.”

  “Calandra Pietra. Wow, I don’t think I can be blamed for forgetting that.”

  “My name is Callie Kincaid. You think you can remember that, cowboy?”

  Seth decided that if he couldn’t, he’d keep it to himself.

  Julia and Audra were bundling Maggie and Lily. So Julia must have won her argument with Rafe. Seth really needed to ask Julia how she did that.

  The day warmed as they rode to the Gilliland cabin. The first thing Seth noticed was that the roof had collapsed on one corner. Seth shuddered to think what would have become of Julia and Audra if the Kincaids hadn’t found them.

  “Heath.” Rafe jabbed a finger at the woods surrounding the ramshackle cabin. “Can you chop down a tree?”

  Heath’s eyes narrowed and he jerked his chin down once. “Better’n you, I reckon.”

  “Good. You and Ethan start chopping. Seth and I will get this cabin knocked down and see if there’s anything we can reuse. Most of it looks fit for kindling.”

  “I’d be glad to help you tear this place down.” Julia swung off her horse. The weather had warmed with the rising sun, although it was still a chilly day to have the children outside. Julia stalked up to the front door of the tumbled-down cabin, lifted her foot, and slammed it hard against the door. The leather hinges snapped and the door fell inward with a crack of splintered wood. A puff of dirt billowed up from it and blew into Julia’s face.

  Seth had a moment of sympathy for Wendell Gilliland. He’d been dead only a few months, yet it was pretty obvious that his daughter wasn’t grieving.

  “You can take over now, Rafe.” Julia turned, dusting her hands off, as if the rest of her wasn’t coated in dirt. “It’s cold enough, the children shouldn’t stay out. Audra, let’s take them to my cabin and leave this shack to the men. Callie, you come along with us.”

  “I’m going to stay here and keep an eye on my husband, Julia.”

  “Well, hand over Connor, then. We should get him out of the wind.”

  Julia and Audra rode off with all the children in tow.

  Ethan slung an axe over his shoulder, and Heath followed him into the woods, leading two horses to drag the logs.

  Beyond the back of the house was a wall of rock that rose up and then dropped away to a rushing stream that formed the western border of the Kincaid Ranch. Julia and Audra had inherited the cabin and the land under it and brought it into the fold when they married into the family.

  Just past the stream was a pit that led to the cavern where Seth had nearly died when he was a child. Seth had run wild in that cavern all his life after the accident. His desperate love for the cavern bothered his family, yet Seth felt more alive down there than he did aboveground.

  He slid his hand into a pocket and pulled out his little flat tin of matches. Rafe had foisted the tin on him when he’d come home from the war and told him to never go anywhere without it.

  Even now, Seth itched to go explore the cavern. He’d learned it well. He’d left part of himself behind down there after the accident. The thought haunted him that he’d sold his soul to the devil to save his life.

  “What are you staring at, cowboy?” Callie drew his attention, and he realized he was staring at the rise behind the Gilliland cabin, as if he could see through it and across the stream and down into the cave entrance, into the belly of the earth.

  “You’ve never seen the cavern, have you?” His heart lifted to think of showing it to her.

  “What cavern?”

  That startled Seth. “You mean I never talked about it?”

  “I reckon not.”

  “You said I had nightmares, right?”

  “Terrible dreams. I could hardly wake you up.” The ring of an axe broke the silence. A second axe began hewing at a tree.

  “And did I yell for my brothers?”

  Callie nodded. “That’s when I first learned their names. When you woke up, I asked you who Rafe and Ethan were. And you were always yelling that you
were burning. Well, not always. You talked about the gunshots, too. And other things—explosions, battles. It was all the war.”

  “No, not all. Didn’t I tell you about that cavern at all?”

  “No.”

  Seth spent time every day thinking about that cavern. If he’d never told Callie about it, then he really was out of his head, and she didn’t know him well enough to marry him. “When I was a kid, I had an accident in that cavern. I got burned.”

  Callie slid her hand to his neck just under his collar, touching his scars. “These are left from that? What happened?”

  He loved her touching him. He had a flash of a memory of her rubbing his back. Or no, maybe bandaging his back. He was lying on his stomach, and he looked back to see her touching him, leaning over him. He felt her soft hair spilling onto his back. Loose. Surely a nurse kept her hair tied back. And she’d smiled down at him. He knew the moment was a true memory and not some dream. And the way she touched him, the way she smiled, this had to be after they were married. It sure better have been, considering where the memory took his thoughts. Oh, he could well imagine wanting to marry her bad.

  “There was a fire.” A blaze seemed to leap higher than his head and he stepped back.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Callie’s voice pulled him back from the waking nightmare. He fought down the memory.

  “Nothing, just don’t want to talk about the fire is all. Did I tell you the scars came from the war?”

  “No, but . . . well, the doc said they were old, fully healed. But the war had been going on awhile. I thought it was an injury from an earlier battle. You never said.”

  Seth saw her looking at his neck. He touched her chin, and she lifted her gaze away from the ugly injury. It covered his back, his left arm. He had scars on his neck and even up in his hair. “Did you see all of them?”

  Nodding, she said, “We had to take your shirt off to tend your bullet wounds.”

  Flinching at the thought, Seth asked, “And you still agreed to marry me? Even after you saw how ugly I am.”

  “You’re not ugly.” Callie caressed his scarred neck.

  Seth leaned closer, enjoying her kindness.

  “You’re loco as a snakebit hoot owl, but not ugly.”

  Deflated, Seth turned to work. “I might as well get to tearing down that cabin.”

  She patted him on the back as if he were ten years old and she was sending him off to his chores.

  Seth stalked over to the cabin, grabbed a likely piece of timber, and began ripping the log walls apart with his bare hands. Rafe had tools and they might need his heavy hammer and the saw, but for now the cabin was falling apart without a lot of effort.

  They had most of the walls down, and Ethan and Heath had dragged in some good-sized logs and were back to their chopping when Rafe called for a break. He got the canteen and pulled off his gloves to take a long drink, then passed it on.

  “Remember, Wendell Gilliland is supposed to have a fortune hidden somewhere,” Rafe said. “Be on the lookout for it.”

  “A fortune?” Callie crossed her arms to stare at the cabin. “He had a fortune and he lived here?”

  “Yep,” Rafe said, staring at what was left of the shack. “He stole it back in Houston and ran for the West under a false name.”

  “So he stole money and no one can find it?” Callie looked at the derelict cabin.

  “We’ve hunted but found no sign of it. So whether he gambled it away or hid it where we can’t find it, we just don’t know. But the man he stole it from sent outlaws after us twice to get his money back.”

  “Will he send more men?” Callie asked.

  “We’re on the lookout.” Rafe studied the shack. “But it’s been three months. And the men who came after us told the sheriff who’d sent them, so he’s a wanted man now. On the run, most likely. Too busy to cause us trouble.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His name’s Jasper Henry, from Houston,” Seth said.

  “He’s shaming my state.” Callie’s jaw clenched.

  “I broke my leg when we were attacked the last time,” Seth said. “Your letter came the day that happened. Rafe and Ethan took turns riding out to search for you. But there’re a whole lotta trails from Denver, and we weren’t sure where to look. I’d just gotten well enough to do the hunting when I found you.” Seth was real glad he’d been the one to find her, to see how she’d fought for her life in the stagecoach robbery.

  “So we’re watching close,” Rafe said. “A man needs to be ready for trouble in the Rockies, anyway.”

  A loud crack in the woods and the crash and snap of a falling tree told them Ethan was doing his part of the work. Before the crashing stopped, another tree fell. Heath was keeping up.

  “We need to get busy.” Rafe pulled on his leather gloves. “Ethan’ll be done with the logs before we’re close to ready to start building.”

  The cabin had come down fast. Seth grabbed another log. It was so narrow it had no business being part of a wall.

  Chapter

  17

  “Callie, how much do you know about Seth’s cavern?”

  Julia had shown up at noon with food for them all. They wolfed down the meal and went straight back to work. Julia stopped Callie before she could join them.

  “He told me about it today for the first time. Is it around here?” Callie had to admit she was curious about what had gone on with Seth to leave him so scarred. “Plenty of caves in a mountain range.”

  Julia looked left and right and whispered, “Follow me. I’ll show you the entrance.”

  Callie would’ve preferred to keep tearing at the cabin, but she still ached from her shootout, and a little break wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.

  Seth and Rafe were busy. Ethan and Heath had gone back to cutting down trees. Callie let Julia drag her along behind what was left of the cabin. They reached a steep trail that led down to a stream.

  “We don’t have time to ford that,” Callie said. “Let’s get back to work.”

  “It won’t take long, I promise.” Julia headed down into a dark gully that sent a chill up Callie’s spine. What if there was a rainstorm? The steep walls edging this stream would fill up fast.

  Julia went on fearlessly, so Callie tagged along, moving quickly.

  When they’d climbed the other side, Julia went straight for a black hole in the ground and dropped to her knees beside it.

  Following her, Callie peered down into a bottomless pit and took two quick steps back. “What is that?”

  “It’s a cavern.”

  Callie went to her knees, feeling a little less likely to go plunging in, and stretched out to look down into the pitch-black. “Seth likes it down there?”

  Julia reared back to sit on her heels. “I do, too. It’s the most beautiful place.”

  Callie looked skeptical. “How can you tell? It’s pretty dark.”

  “I don’t suppose you can draw a picture, can you?”

  Strange question. “I’ve always had a knack for drawing.”

  With a thrilled gasp, Julia grabbed Callie by the wrist. “Can you really? Are you telling the truth?”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Callie asked with a scowl.

  Instead of a shootout, Julia threw her arms around Callie and gave her about the biggest hug of her life.

  Then Julia let go and began clawing in one of her pockets. She brought out a folded-up piece of paper and a pencil.

  “Take this and listen to me. Draw what I tell you.”

  “What? We need to get back to the cabin.”

  “Just do it.”

  Callie jumped and took the paper.

  “This is really important.”

  Callie suspected her idea of what was important was real different from Julia’s. But right now, it seemed sketching out a quick picture would get Callie back to work faster than trying to escape from her overly excited sister-in-law.

  “At the bottom of this cavern
entrance is a room about twenty feet tall and about the same distance around.”

  Callie shook her head. “And you think that’s more important than building a cabin?”

  Julia tapped impatiently on the paper. “Draw it. And make it small; there’s a lot more.”

  With a defeated sigh Callie began following orders, adding tunnels and rooms here and there. Julia oversaw it all, and before they were done, they had about five sheets of paper covered front and back.

  “There’s really a cave this big down there?” Callie had her doubts, but she couldn’t figure out why Julia would make it up.

  “Yes, and this is just the general outline. It doesn’t begin to show the stalactites and stalagmites and the fossils.” Julia seemed to be getting breathless.

  Callie looked between Julia and the hole to make sure that if Julia fainted from excitement, she wouldn’t fall to her death.

  A steady pounding of axes and falling trees set the work the family was doing to a rugged kind of music.

  “We need to get back,” Callie said.

  Julia’s jaw looked rigid enough to crack. “I want Seth to see this. He knows that cavern better than anyone. He says he’ll show me around, and he has a few times, but not nearly enough. He always has something to do that keeps him away. Herding cattle or building a fence or damming up a stream, some stupid job.”

  “Sounds like he’s trying to run a ranch, Julia.” Callie folded the paper.

  “Wait!” Julia grabbed the map.

  Callie was running slap out of patience. “What now?”

  Julia looked from the map to Callie to the cavern entrance. Finally she nodded, frowning. “Tonight we can show this to Seth.”

  “Why does Seth know the cavern better than anyone else?”

  “We can talk about it tonight. You can stay at my cabin and we can work on this map some more.” Julia smiled. She really was a fanatic about the cavern.

  “Can we go back now?” Callie was tired of sitting around drawing when there was work to be done.