Her feet slowed, her chest filling with pain. She tried to recall where she was, that she couldn’t cry on a public street, but the tears gathered anyway. And then her wrist was caught and she was jerked to the side, and her first thought was, Not yet, he hasn’t deserted me just yet. But a hand clamping over her mouth and a sharp prick on her neck swiftly changed that notion.
“Yer lucky the boss wants ta see ya first, gal, or I’d slit yer throat right now. Make any funny moves an’ I’ll hafta disappoint ’im.”
She understood the warning. She just wasn’t sure she cared to heed it. Why wait? Why suffer the Englishman’s abuse before she died, when she could see the matter ended then and there?
Besides the man who held her against him with no more than a hand over her mouth and a knife at her throat, there was one other she could see. He was pressed against the side of the building at its corner, his hand stuck inside his heavy coat. She didn’t doubt it concealed a gun, since he could be seen from the street. She had been dragged back somewhat, so she was less likely to be seen in the shade between the two buildings, not unless someone passed by this narrow alleyway as she had done.
She didn’t understand why they just stood there. Surely they had horses waiting behind the buildings to take her away. All they were doing was giving her time to decide she wouldn’t go with them. If she didn’t get her throat slit immediately, she might be able to fight free, or at least to scream.
She was just about to kick backward when the other man said, “He’s comin’, Dewane.”
Who was? Not Colt. He should still be at the train getting his horse, or even on his way home already. But she knew it was Colt, and knew they wouldn’t be waiting on him unless they meant to kill him. Panic immobilized her, stole her warmth and color. And then he was there, coming around the corner, and brought up short by a gun shoved in his face.
“Don’t even breathe,” he was told.
Colt didn’t, because the rage came up to nearly choke him. How stupid could he get, not to wonder why the duchess had suddenly changed direction to duck between two buildings? He thought she was just trying to lose him, but that was no excuse. One look at her revealed she was so frightened she was even crying. That did it, brought on his killing instinct as nothing else could. Neither of these two bastards was going to walk away if he could help it.
“Ya can relax, Clint. He ain’t gonna do nuthin’ long’s I got this purdy neck in jeppaardy. Ain’t that right, Injun Thunder?” Dewane chuckled. “Don’ ’member me, do ya? ’Spect ya’ve outdrawn so many men, ya cain’t keep track, huh?”
“Owen, isn’t it?”
“Well, now, I’m purely flattered. An’ the shoe’s on t’other foot now, ain’t it? Betcha thought ya’d pulled one over on us, didn’ ya, takin’ off with the li’l lady? Butcha see, ol’ Miles, he tol’ us whar the gal was aheadin’. Weren’ no need ta go follerin’ after a breed when we could jes’ sit tight here an’ wait.”
“So the Englishman’s here in town?”
“Ya oughta be askin’ how pissed off he is, not whar he is, since the one don’ matter, but t’other shore do.”
Clint was the one to laugh at that, since he hadn’t been with them then, but had heard all about their last encounter with the girl. Dewane didn’t share his humor at that point, though. He had been there.
“He like ta kill us all chasin’ after Angel, only ta find he done give ’er back,” Dewane continued. “An’ then he were even more mad when my stupid brother an’ Saunders caught gold fever in Colirada an’ snuck off fer the goldfields.” He grinned now. “Ya can bet yer last few breaths he’ll be seein’ she pays fer every aggervation he’s ever knowed. Ya ready ta pay fer yer part in it?”
“My part?”
“Think we don’ know it were yer gun holdin’ us off, Thunder?”
“That is your Injun name, ain’t it?” Clint was bold enough to ask. “You got something else goes with it, best spit it out now.” And then he snickered. “We wanna make sure we got your whole name for the grave marker.”
“The first name’s White,” Colt replied calmly.
“White Thunder,” Dewane sneered. “Figures.”
“How’s that?” Clint wanted to know. “It ain’t as fancy as Mad Dog or Crazy Horse.”
“Yer fergettin’ he’s a breed, dummy,” Dewane said with some disgust. “It’s fer his white half.”
“No, it’s for the lightning that strikes with the thunder,” Colt said quietly as he drew and put a bullet right in the center of Dewane’s forehead.
Clint was staring in shock, forgetting he even had his gun drawn. The duchess started screaming when she went down with Dewane, and that was when Clint looked at Colt—and received the bullet reserved for him. He got off a shot in reflex, but it hit the dirt only moments before he did.
Colt made sure he was dead—there was no doubt about Owen—before he helped Jocelyn to her feet. She immediately took a swing at him, which he just narrowly sidestepped. Her fury he couldn’t avoid, though.
“You could have killed me! He could have killed me!”
He caught her second swing and yanked her tightly into his arms. “It’s over, Duchess,” he said gently. “And I don’t shoot unless I know exactly what I’m going to hit.”
He felt the shudder pass through her before she sagged against him. “I think I’ve seen one too many bodies drop around me lately. Take me away from here, Colt.”
There was nothing he would have liked better, but as he watched the townsfolk running toward them to investigate the gunshots, he knew it’d have to wait. Among the crowd was Deputy Smith, whom fortunately he knew, so at least they wouldn’t be detained too long answering questions.
“I’ll take you out to the Rocky Valley as soon as I get this mess explained, Duchess. I’ll come back to see if any of your guard got here ahead of us, but as long as the Englishman might be about too—and who knows what new men he’s had a chance to hire, like that Clint—you’ll be safer at the ranch.”
She didn’t give him an argument. All that mattered was that he wasn’t deserting her just yet.
Chapter Forty-four
The first thing the woman said to him was, “Unless he’s changed gender, Colt, that isn’t Billy you’ve brought home.” And then he was embraced, and looked over, and finally frowned at. “I never thought it’d take this long. Couldn’t you find the peabrain?”
Jocelyn did no more than stand back and listen to the brief explanation Colt offered, then the barrage of questions he answered. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him talk so much, certainly not at one time. Of course she didn’t doubt for a minute that the black-haired beauty with the magnificent turquoise eyes was his sister Jessie, the one who’d named him, the one who’d taught him English—there was no doubt of that either, listening to the two of them talk.
She eventually got introduced, but, typical of Colt, he just called her Duchess. She wondered if he even remembered her name by now, but she didn’t bother to correct his sister when she assumed Duchess was her name.
Then she met Jessie’s husband, Chase, a simply gorgeous man with eyes so dark they appeared black. Although Jessie didn’t look more than twenty-one, she had to be a bit older than that with a seven-year-old son the image of his father, a five-year-old daughter, and another boy who was only four, beautiful children who gave Jocelyn a tight feeling in her chest when she watched them crawl all over their “Uncle Colt.”
Having arrived at the Rocky Valley Ranch shortly after dark, Jocelyn excused herself early to allow Colt a private reunion with his family. In the morning, however, she found out that he had gone back to town last night. And when she joined his sister in the dining room of the large ranch house, it was to be met with a certain amount of hostility.
“What’d you do to my brother?” were the very first words said to her.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t take that haughty tone with me, Duchess, and don’t pretend you don’t know wha
t I mean. The Colt who came home last night wasn’t the same one who left here all those months ago to find Billy.”
It dawned on Jocelyn that here, at last, she might learn something about Colt Thunder. She saw Jessie Summers’ hostility for what it was, upset and concern over someone she loved, so Jocelyn didn’t take offense, didn’t even acknowledge it.
“Just how was he when he left here?” she ventured.
“Happy, content, and it took me a helluva long time to manage that. Here he can be himself, and let me tell you, Duchess, a more generous, thoughtful man you’ll never meet. But last night, hell, he was reserved, he was on edge, he was closed up tight, and damned if he didn’t light out of here just as soon as you went to bed. Now I want to know what’s going on!”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the vaguest notion. The only Colt I’ve known is the abrupt, surly fellow I first met when he saved my life. No, I take that back. He was more…relaxed, shall we say, this past week—up until yesterday, that is.”
“And what happened yesterday?”
“We arrived in Cheyenne, of course, and he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Unfortunately, my enemy had an alternate plan in mind, which is why I’m here, and perhaps that is why he seemed different to you. He hasn’t been able to divorce himself from my association yet.”
“Divorce himself?” Jessie chuckled. “You’ve got a real fancy way with words, Duchess. Next time my husband decides to disagree with me, I think I’ll divorce myself from the argument.”
“A wise decision, if he’s anything like Colt.” Jocelyn joined in her humor.
“Colt argue? Since when?”
“Since forever, or so I thought. Are you saying that isn’t usual?”
“It sure isn’t. There aren’t many folks who’d care to argue with him, if you know what I mean. When I do, he just sits back quietly until I run out of steam, then says something to make me laugh.”
Jocelyn shook her head, bemused. “I can’t believe we’re talking about the same man.”
“Neither can I, Duchess.”
“Would you mind calling me Jocelyn?”
“What, is Duchess just a nickname Colt calls you?”
“You could say that,” Jocelyn hedged, not wanting to explain when she had something more important to find out. “I’ve often wondered what could account for the bitterness I’ve sensed in Colt so often. Perhaps you could shed some light on this.”
“Are you kidding? It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Folks won’t accept him as he is.”
“But you said he was happy here, content even.”
“That’s here on the ranch. He’s well known and liked in Cheyenne too, but every once in a while he still draws trouble there from strangers. It’ll be a helluva long time, maybe not even in his lifetime, before folks can look at him and not see an Indian, one they feel naturally obliged to hate.”
“But that’s his own fault with the way he dresses to flaunt his heritage!” Jocelyn protested, her temper pricked by the unfairness of it all. “Doesn’t he realize how little he actually resembles an Indian? If he cut his hair—”
“He tried that,” Jessie interrupted sharply, some of her own bitterness showing through. “Do you want to know what it got him, looking like a white? It got one of my neighbors so riled when he found out the truth that he set his men on Colt, had him tied to a hitching rail, and ordered him whipped to death.”
“Oh, God,” Jocelyn whispered, closing her eyes as if she were in pain.
“There wasn’t much skin left to stitch together,” Jessie went on relentlessly as the memories came back to her. “There wasn’t much flesh left either, after more than a hundred lashes. But do you know, he was still standing when we got there to put a stop to it. And they hadn’t worked even one scream out of him either, though they tried hard enough, the bastards. Of course, we thought we’d lose him when he ran a fever for nearly three weeks. And it was a good eight months before he really got all his strength back. But what they did to him is not a pretty sight.”
“I know,” Jocelyn said in a small voice.
“You know? How’d that happen? He never lets anyone see his back.”
“I’m afraid I came upon him by surprise.”
“Oh,” Jessie said, ashamed of what she’d started thinking. “You must have been—shocked.”
“That doesn’t half describe what I felt. I was very nearly sick.”
“His back’s not that disgusting,” Jessie protested.
Jocelyn blinked. “Of course it isn’t. I was sickened that someone could do that to him. I couldn’t understand it then, and I still don’t. That neighbor of yours had to have been a madman. That is the only thing that could explain such a heinous act of violence.”
“Oh, he was sane enough. And he even felt he was justified. Colt was courting his lily-white daughter, you see, and he’d let him. That was all the reason he needed to do what he did, because Colt had dared to want his slut of a daughter. And do you know, she stood there and watched it all without saying a word.” Then Jessie frowned, seeing Jocelyn’s expression. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all that. I just get so furious every time I remember it.”
“Yes, I understand.”
But Jocelyn understood even more than that. She now knew why Colt disliked white women so much, and she felt utterly defeated.
“What was all that ‘your gracing’ about?” Jessie asked her husband as they stood watching Jocelyn ride away with the six-man escort that had come for her.
“I think the duchess is actually a real duchess.”
“Well, if that don’t beat all.” Jessie grinned. “My brother doesn’t aspire too high, does he?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chase frowned at her.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the way he kept looking at her last night. I expected to see smoke rise up from the sofa she was sitting on.”
“Christ, Jessie, you’re not thinking of matchmaking, are you? She’s an English noblewoman.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “Are you saying my brother isn’t good enough?”
“Of course not,” he said in exasperation. “All I’m saying is nobility marries nobility.”
“She’s already done that,” Jessie snorted. “Seems to me she could marry whoever she wants to now.”
“And you think she wants to marry Colt?”
A smug smile curled her lips. “I saw the way she was looking at him, too, last night. And you should have heard her talk about him this morning. I won’t have to do any matchmaking, honey. Whatever’s between them two is already there.”
“You sound mighty pleased about that.”
“I am. She’s nice, but more than that, I think she can heal the scars on his soul.”
“Scars on his soul? Christ, woman, where do you come up with such idioms?”
“Are you making fun of me, Chase Summers?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Her eyes sharpened on his innocent expression before she humphed. “Good, because if you do, I’ll just have to divorce myself from your presence.”
“You’ll what?” he shouted after her, only to hear her laughter as she disappeared inside the house.
Chapter Forty-five
“You know, Chase, time’s a-wasting. Winter will be gone before you know it, and then they’ll have missed the opportunity to laze the cold days away, snuggled up in front of a fire like this.”
“Who will?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. His wife had been able to talk of little else lately.
“Colt and his duchess. I really ought to do something about it.”
“I thought you agreed they could find their own way.”
“Well, I didn’t know they were both going to be so pigheaded stubborn about it. She’s been over at the Callan spread for three weeks now. She’s got the place all fixed up. Furnishings have been coming in every day from the East. She’s even got a new stable built.”
“And you haven’
t told her yet whose place she bought?”
“She’d already spent so much money on it before I found out, I didn’t have the heart to tell her. But I suppose that could be one reason why Colt won’t go over there.”
“Honey, if she was interested, don’t you think she would have come up with an excuse or two to visit us here, where she might run into him? That she hasn’t ought to tell you something.”
“Only that she’s stubborn—and maybe needs a little encouragement. He didn’t even tell her good-bye, you know. The last she saw of him was that night he brought her here. And she was still under the impression then that he was glad to be rid of her.”
“Maybe he is.”
Jessie snorted. “If you ask me, he’s laboring under the same impression.”
“Laboring? I see you’ve been to visit the duchess again.”
Jessie grinned to herself, running her fingernails down his bare chest under the fur cover. She didn’t always take the bait when he teased her.
“You’re just looking to get something pinched, aren’t you?”
Since he knew she wasn’t mad—the difference was easy to discern after all these years—he pulled her half on top of him and suggested lazily, “If you’ll kiss it to make it better afterward, you can pinch me anywhere you like.”
“I figured you wouldn’t mind too much.” But when her hand drifted down between his legs, he went tense, making her giggle. “What’s the matter, honey? Don’t you trust your sweet wife?”
“Sweet, hell,” he grumbled at her own teasing. “Sometimes I think you’re still as wild and untamed as you were the day I met you.”
Her head turned slightly so she could twirl her tongue around his nipple. Soft turquoise eyes peeked up at him for his reaction.
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