Chapter
4

“Finish eating. You can get some rest, and then we’ll get you back to Rawhide first thing in the morning.” Rafe wasn’t listening to her. He was too busy giving orders.

Julia decided it was time he found out she wasn’t going to obey. “No. I can’t go to Rawhide. Absolutely not. I have to go home . . . now.” She clenched her fist, fought down her temper. Stay calm. Reason with him. Make him understand.

“If I’m out all night, Audra will be crazy with worry.” Julia’s voice broke, and she jammed her fingers into her hair and pulled it, hoping the pain would distract herself from the panic and stupid crying. She breathed through the tears that were cutting off her voice until she got control of herself. All she and her family had been through since they left Houston in the spring, and Julia had held up well, mainly because Audra needed her to be strong.

Rafe just stared at her. Honestly, that long, quiet look helped get her tears under control better than if he’d been nice.

Which he wasn’t. Yippee.

It was obvious he was waiting to issue some new order.

“What?” She might as well let him go ahead.

“We’ve been talking in circles, Julia. First it’s your pa, then there’s a baby. You live in Rawhide, you have to go home, you can’t go to Rawhide. The town where you say your pa has a store is twenty miles from here, yet you say you live a half mile from the cavern. None of these things match up, Jules. And who in the world is Audra? Is she the baby?”

Julia glared at Rafe. She had explained her situation very carefully, several times. She inhaled slowly. “Can you sit down, please, and listen to me for a few minutes. I will say this one more time and try to make it clear.”

Rafe’s eyes flickered to Ethan, who stood in the doorway off to Julia’s right. Rafe was on her left, so she couldn’t quite see what passed between them.

Probably confusion. The Kincaid brothers seemed to be easily confused.

“We live outside of town. A long way. Our cabin is about a half mile from the cavern.”

“No, it’s not.”

Rafe didn’t sit, and Julia really wished he would so they could pretend like they were having a normal conversation, which might help keep her from screaming when she thought of how worried Audra must be by now. And this was Saturday night. Father would be home. That should have been a good thing; it was better than if Audra was alone. But Father had a knack for making everything worse.

Julia gritted her teeth. “Yes, it is. It’s a very steep trail, and I discovered the cavern while hiking. I’ve walked that trail many times. I know how far I walked.”

“There’s a fast-moving creek right over the crest of that mountain. There’s no way across. You have to go around, so it’s a lot longer than half a mile.”

“I have a way across.”

Rafe frowned and exchanged another look with Ethan. He stepped toward her and took her head in his hands to have a closer look at her temple. “Do you think you were unconscious long? A head injury might explain why you’re a bit addled.”

She shoved his hands away and snapped, “Just be quiet and listen.” She fought her way back to calm. “My father didn’t want us living in town. He said it was dangerous. So he found a place outside of town and he only comes home on Saturday nights when the general store is closed.”

“The general store is owned by a man I know well. Your father owns a saloon.”

Julia threw her hands wide. “Whatever he owns, we live a half mile from that cavern.”

“Your pa leaves you alone out there?” Rafe scowled.

“Yes, with Audra, my stepmother. I’ve got a baby sister named Maggie and there’s a baby on the way. In the afternoons, when Maggie sleeps, Audra lays down for a while. The floorboards creak and the door scrapes when I open it, so I can either sit motionless for two or three hours every afternoon or I can go out for a walk. I’ve had an interest in geological history for most of my life. So when I found the cavern, of course I explored. And I found a fossil.”

“And a fossil is . . . ?” Rafe arched a brow and waited.

“Bones. I found old fish bones.”

“You found fish bones. Someone probably left the scraps from their meal behind.” Rafe sounded as if he were talking to a five-year-old. Or maybe he had the mental age of five; she wasn’t sure.

“Not scraps. These are fossils.”

Rafe’s expression was the very height of skepticism.

Julia forged on. “I went for a walk today, as usual, but I . . .” She rubbed her head. “That man scared me. I doused my light because it gave away where I was. I ran. I must have hit my head and been unconscious for a while, but since I was unconscious, I’m really not all that sure how long I lay there. All I know is when I woke up it was pitch-dark. I tried to find my way to the entrance, and I did find the ledge; it had to be the right spot. I climbed it, but I couldn’t find my rope, and with no sunlight there was no way to see if I was in the right place.” She remembered something else. “I left my lantern down there. I need to get my lantern back.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t splash kerosene and set yourself on fire,” Ethan said from behind her.

She really wished Ethan would move closer to Rafe so she could keep an eye on both of them. “Well, yes, now that you mention it, I am very lucky.” Julia rolled her eyes at the man’s imagination. “Of course I’m lucky any number of other things didn’t happen. I was quiet for a long time because I was afraid of that man. But finally I couldn’t stand being trapped any longer and I called out for help, and . . . and you . . . you were there. You answered. You saved me.” Her voice broke, and she launched herself into Rafe’s arms again. “Please, Rafe. Poor Audra. I’ve got to get home.”

“It’s full dark.” His arms came around her waist, and the strength of them was so wonderful she got ahold of her upset. “It’ll be all night getting you home.”

“No, I can tell you don’t believe me.” She pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes and spoke softly, persuasively, using small words with few syllables. “But I’ll show you the way.” She tried to sound coaxing. Maybe if she offered him a cookie. “I do have a trail. How else could I have gotten there? You don’t think I hiked twenty miles, do you?”

“So, you’ve found some treacherous mountain trail that fords that deep, fast-moving water and you want to go home that way in the dark?”

“Yes!” Julia smiled and gave him a quick encouraging pat on the shoulder. He’d finally started to act like a reasonable, intelligent man.

“No.”

She’d fallen into the hands of a complete idiot. She let go of the idiot and sat back down. “I can’t stay out overnight. My father might kill himself searching for me.”

Julia doubted that very much, but she thought it might appeal to Rafe’s heroic nature. He really was heroic. A hero didn’t have to be a genius after all.

“We’ll go at first light.”

He really was bossy, too.

“I know your family will be frantic.” Rafe picked up one of her hands, and Julia noticed for the first time that she had several bleeding fingernails. Then she forgot about her nails as his touch reminded her of his kiss, though she was sure now that he’d only kissed her to turn her attention from her hysterics.

It had certainly worked. And then he’d asked her if she was sixty years old, in a voice that sounded slightly sickened. And she’d slapped him.

If she had it to do over again, she’d slap him twice. Of course she hadn’t been able to see him, either. What if he’d been sixty? She controlled a shudder of disgust.

Standing, she gave him one more chance. “Please, will you help me? Help me get back to my father. Now—tonight. I know it’s a lot to ask. We can talk about going back down into that cavern later.”

“You’re not going down there.” Ethan’s voice turned Julia, so she finally got a better look at Rafe’s brother.

She’d been crying when she’d seen him before. As a rule she never cried. But she’d had an extremely trying day.

Ethan looked like Rafe in general ways. He was an inch or two above six feet, and so was Rafe. They both had broad shoulders and narrow hips. Rafe had close-cropped dark hair. Ethan’s was lighter brown and too long, the ends bleached by the sun. His eyes were different, bright blue where Rafe’s were the color of the blue sky seen through a cold fog.

Ethan straightened from where he slouched in the doorway, and she tried to judge his reasons for being so adamant against that cavern. Fear or stubbornness—or maybe wisdom.

“I can see you won’t come along.” Julia turned back to Rafe. “For now, I need to get home. Please. The way I walked isn’t so steep. We can handle it in the dark. I know the path very well.”

“How do you get across the creek?”

“There are rocks.”

“I know that creek, and I’ve never seen any rocks.”

“Maybe there was a landslide. I don’t know. But they seem solid and they stick up above the water and that’s how I walk across. I see no reason we can’t make it.”

Since Ethan wasn’t willing, she didn’t even bother to look at him. “Please, Rafe.”

His eyes held steady. Cool eyes. Strong. Almost cruel. Finally he looked over at Ethan. “I’m going to help her get home, and I’ll help her find what she wants in that cave.”

“No, Rafe.” Ethan’s voice had enough upset in it to earn him a look from Julia. His hands were fisted, his voice flashed with anger, but in his eyes she saw fear.

“When you left,” Rafe said, “I quit going down. I saw what it had cost me. I’ve never been back.”

“You were out there today or you wouldn’t have found her.”

Julia gasped to think of what would have become of her if Rafe hadn’t heard her cries. She’d been afraid to call out for help because the man in the dark might come. Then she’d been seized by a terrible fear and screamed for help regardless of the danger. She was near madness by the time Rafe arrived.

Rafe moved up beside her, rested a strong hand on the small of her back, and turned to Ethan. “When I got your wire saying you were coming, I rode out there.”

“Why!” Ethan took a step forward, his jaw a tight line of anger.

“I just needed to go one last time.”

Silence reigned in the kitchen. No one moved. Finally Rafe added, “It was the last time. And I didn’t plan to go down. I just . . . I . . . Well, sometimes I go out there. That cavern, I go there and I remember that it cost me my whole family.”

“That cavern is dangerous. She doesn’t understand what she’s asking.”

“I’ve been down there a dozen times,” Julia protested.

“Then, you’re a fool!” Ethan’s blue eyes snapped with fire. The air crackled with tension.

“For tonight, let’s just get her home. We can talk about the cavern later.” Rafe’s words sounded as if they came from deep inside, from a place full of grief and love.

Ethan looked away. “Sure, fine. Go help her. Go down in the cave if you want.” Ethan shoved his hands in his back pockets and went back to slouching in the doorway. “I’ll stay. Awhile.”

Rafe was silent. He studied his brother as if trying to decipher what Ethan meant by awhile.

“Let’s get you home.” Rafe turned to look at her for a change.

So grateful her knees wobbled, Julia did her best not to lean all her weight against him. She was far too used to standing alone. “Thank you.”

Rafe looked at his brother. “Do you want to ride to Julia’s cabin with us? I don’t like taking off and leaving you alone when you’re just back.”

Ethan hesitated for so long, Julia thought he’d refuse. “I’ll ride along,” he said.

Audra clutched Maggie to her chest as she waited for Wendell. “Please, God, please help him find her. Protect her.”

Her arms trembled as they held her daughter. The little girl whimpered, and Audra realized she was holding too tight.

“Shhh, baby girl. Shhh, Maggie.”

She heard footsteps and listened to the foul, sinful words pouring from her husband’s mouth. She was a woman of faith. How had she ended up married to such a man?

A stupid question.

Her father had arranged it. He’d as good as sold her to Wendell to pay off debts. She looked down at her daughter and wondered if her father owed more money. Audra had a little sister, Carolyn. Would her father sell Carolyn to some brute? There was a baby brother, Isaac. He might not be such a commodity as a girl, but he might already be learning to behave in the image of her father.

Thinking of the fate of her little sister and brother back in Houston almost started her to squeezing Maggie again.

From the words Wendell muttered between the cussing, she knew Julia wasn’t with him. He shouldn’t have come back without her. Furious with her husband for being angry and cursing the Lord when anyone with a lick of sense would be asking for God’s help, Audra straightened her usually limp backbone until it was rigid.

She’d been a dutiful wife, as the Bible laid down. But there came a time when obeying a man so steeped in sin was a sin unto itself.

Well, no more. No more would she stand idly while her husband was evil and her children were in danger and her dearest friend, Julia, was missing.

Her days of letting any man control her life were over.

Her father and Wendell had done a poor job of it. She was taking charge.

“Things are going to change in this household.” She spoke the words as a vow to God. The changes would start as soon as her husband stepped back inside that door.

She’d always believed a woman must go along with things. But that was before she’d met Julia and seen how brave and smart a woman could be.

Julia was stronger, smarter, and more independent than any woman Audra had ever known.

Audra was changing right now to be like Julia.