Hud sighed heavily as he rolled to his side on the pallet. He opened his eyes to see blinding light slanting into the mouth of the cavern. Scrubbing his hand over his face, he bemoaned the hours he’d lain awake in the middle of the night, trying to convince himself not to disturb Bri’s sleep, even if depriving himself had tormented him beyond measure.
He levered onto his elbow to glance toward the corner where he’d left Bri sleeping peacefully. He wasn’t alarmed when he noticed her empty pallet. No doubt, she’d awakened and had walked down to the pool to bathe. Rising, he plucked up his shirt then shrugged it on. He walked outside to retrieve the leather vest he had draped over a scrub bush to dry out.
When he looked over the ledge, he didn’t see Bri at the pool. “Where the hell is that woman?” he asked himself.
He strode around the corner of the rock wall to see that she had taken the sorrel gelding. Frowning, Hud retraced his footsteps to the cave. The first thing he saw was the bank notes that were tangled in his bedroll. He scowled as he scooped them up. When he remembered Bri saying that she’d pay him for services rendered, he scowled again.
The next thing he noticed was that her satchels were missing. He swore furiously when he recalled that she had asked him about the location of Ranger camp, the length of time to reach it and identifying landmarks along the way.
“Damn her ornery hide!” he roared. His voice echoed around the cave and bombarded him from everywhere at once.
Bri hadn’t made idle chitchat; she’d been getting directions so she could leave without him! Stomping mad, Hud jerked up the two bedrolls and grabbed his gear. That infuriating female must have decided to make him look bad by arriving in camp ahead of him. When he caught up with her this time he would strangle her for this stunt.
Even if she was capable of taking reasonably good care of herself, this was no Sunday stroll in the park. If she encountered trouble, he’d never forgive her and Winston Price would not only have Hud plugged full of holes, but his head would also be roasting on a spit over a blazing campfire.
Hud’s footsteps stalled when another thought occurred to him. Maybe she had been too ashamed to face him in broad daylight after their two wildly intimate encounters. Or perhaps leaving money behind and sneaking off without him was her way of assuring him that she had no expectations or any real sentiment for him. She had been quick to insist that their trysts came with no strings attached, he reminded himself. Although he knew damn well that was for the best, it still stung his pride that she dismissed him so easily.
Mumbling oaths to the tormenting vision hovering above him, he saddled Rambler then stared into the distance. Even though he should be greatly relieved that Bri didn’t appear to be a clingy, sentimental female it still annoyed him that he felt the same way he had as a child—discarded and rejected and left behind as if he was unworthy of affection.
He kept reminding himself that Gabrielle Price was considered royalty in the eyes of the elite family hierarchy of Texas. He, on the other hand, was just an unwanted kid from the backstreets who’d gained respect and recognition because he’d learned how to fight with every weapon he could lay his hands on.
Hell, he knew he was a worse mismatch for Bri than that haughty politician. But she still didn’t have to toss money at him then trot on her merry way.
Growling in frustration—and not knowing how much of a head start Bri had on him—Hud cantered Rambler westward. He kept expecting to spot Bri in the distance, but winding canyons and deep ravines hindered his view. Damnation, she might’ve become lost in the labyrinth of chasms and gullies. Roving bandits might’ve overtaken her.
It’s what she deserved, of course, but even his spiteful anger couldn’t override his concern for her welfare.
“This is the second time you’ve left me behind,” Hud muttered at the beguiling image floating in his mind.
He’d fretted about Bri’s whereabouts and safety when he thought she’d been kidnapped from The Flat. If she didn’t stop riding off without him, he’d tie her to her horse and bid her a hearty good riddance when he delivered her to her father.
How was it possible, he wondered, that he could become so completely lost in that spirited woman one moment and so eager to choke the life out of her the next?
“Damn good thing you have more sense than to fall in love with that firebrand,” he congratulated himself. “She has too much independent spirit for any man to handle. Hats off to any fool who tries! Not me, of course, but some other fool!”
Two hours later, Hud frowned warily when he saw four riders approaching from the west. His apprehension doubled when he recognized Commander Price, Major Ketter and two fellow Rangers—Marcus Yeager and Floyd Lambert.
“Where the devil is Gabrielle?” Price demanded without preamble. “Didn’t she make the journey from Austin?”
“You haven’t crossed paths with her this morning?” Hud questioned the question.
The commander’s brows swooped down in a sharp V. “What are you talking about? She’s supposed to be with you. I expected you yesterday afternoon. We became concerned and came looking for you. Did you get caught in the storm?”
“Yes.” Hud glanced every which way, trying to figure out how he and the Ranger scout patrol could’ve missed Bri. The only explanation that came to mind spelled trouble. Damn it, where was she?
“Well, what?” Commander Price barked sharply. “Confound it, Hud, what happened?”
“We were caught in a flash flood and I rescued her from high water—”
“Dear God!” Price howled in dismay.
“But we found shelter in the cave where Speck and I weathered the blizzard last winter.” Now for the difficult part, thought Hud. He was going to look like every kind of fool when he finished his explanation. “When I woke up this morning Bri was gone.”
“Bri?” Price’s face scrunched up in a disapproving frown.
Hud shifted awkwardly in the saddle. “She insisted that I call her Bri rather than Mizz Price,” he said hastily. “I assumed that she walked down to the pool to bathe before we rode off this morning. Naturally, I didn’t want to disturb her and I kept waiting for her to return to the cave.”
Hud noticed that Ketter and the other two Rangers were biting back grins. They were probably thanking their lucky stars that they hadn’t been sent to escort the commander’s daughter and somehow misplaced her. Hell’s bells, Hud didn’t have a single blemish on his service record—until now. Gabrielle Price had turned his world on its ear and made him look like a bungling tool.
“After I gathered our gear and walked uphill to saddle the horses I found her sorrel gelding gone.” Hud inwardly winced when the commander glared murderously at him. “I don’t have to tell you how strong-minded and independent your daughter is, sir.”
“No, you don’t. But thank you so much for bringing it to my attention,” Price growled sarcastically.
“She kept insisting for two days that she could reach the camp without my assistance. When I described the man who killed Speck, she realized she had seen him in The Flat. She encouraged me to reverse direction and track him down. I thought maybe she left without me this morning, hoping I’d go looking for Mad Joe Jarvis.”
“We didn’t cross paths with Bri,” Price muttered as he twisted in the saddle to scan the canyons that dropped off the wide mesa to the north.
“As for Mad Joe Jarvis, word came down the pike that he was killed by the same marauding Indians who tried to attack a theater caravan,” Major Ketter reported.
Hud jerked upright. “Jarvis is dead? Who verified it?”
“Lieutenant Davis from Fort Griffin. He said he encountered Pete Spaulding while he was escorting the theater troupe north.”
“Pete Spaulding!” Hud howled. “That’s Joe’s cohort.”
“So I’ve been told,” Price remarked. “But the army lieutenant wasn’t aware of that. He didn’t know until after the fact that the men were on the Rangers’ Most Wanted list. He was simply relaying information about the raiding party to the two Ranger scouts he encountered when he turned the caravan over to the military escort from Fort Elliot. Davis and his men spotted another raiding party and decided to drive them north to the state border.”
Hud’s head was spinning like a windmill. Joe Jarvis was dead? The manhunt to avenge Speck’s senseless murder was over? Lieutenant Davis was chasing Comanche renegades so he hadn’t delivered the message to Marshal Long that Bri had been found?
“Where was Pete Spaulding headed?” Hud wanted to know. “We still need to apprehend him and question him about the extent of his involvement in Speck’s death.”
“Lieutenant Davis said Spaulding spent the night with the caravan then headed west,” Major Ketter reported.
“Did Davis give a description of Spaulding?” Hud asked.
“No, I’m afraid not,” Ketter replied. “The Rangers I talked to two days ago were simply glad that one of their own men had been avenged, even if Indian raiders delivered the death blow.”
Commander Price waved his arms in expansive gestures. “I don’t wish to sound insensitive about the loss of your close friend and compatriot, Stone. But my immediate concern is locating Bri.”
“We didn’t notice the tracks of any riders,” Major Ketter declared. “Do you think Mizz Price might have simply drifted off course?”
Hud shook his head. “She asked me about interesting landmarks between here and Angel Mesa. I mentioned the sandstone Alter of the Gods and the Trio of Comanche Spires.” He swiveled in the saddle to glance back in the direction he had come. “I pushed Rambler to the limits, hoping to overtake Bri. I can’t imagine how I could have overlooked her.”
“Why not?” Price snorted caustically. “You managed to lose her first thing this morning, didn’t you?”
This is what happens when you let a beguiling, spirited, infuriating woman distract you, Hud reminded himself sourly. He looked the fool because he’d behaved like a fool. He had no excuse except that he’d allowed fierce physical attraction to overshadow his common sense. If Commander Price didn’t dishonorably discharge him on the spot, he’d be surprised.
Despite Price’s disdainful glare, Hud reversed direction and trotted east. Unease settled over him with each passing minute. Hud was greatly troubled to learn that Pete Spaulding had crossed paths with the theater troupe and had ridden west. The outlaw might have figured out that Bri had been traveling with the troupe. Hell, the boys might have unwittingly alerted him that Bri had joined the caravan. If she was right in speculating that the two thugs trashed her room…
Another eerie sensation skittered down Hud’s spine. He had presumed Bri had left him behind, either because she felt self-conscious about facing him the morning after or because she’d wanted to play a mischievous trick on him. While he was feeling rejected, insulted and outraged someone might have abducted her.
Damn it to hell, he hadn’t bothered to check for suspicious tracks in the area. No, he’d been too sensitive and too emotionally involved to react rationally. He’d simply assumed that she’d performed a vanishing act and he’d charged off to overtake her before she reached camp alone and made him look like the incompetent idiot he was turning out to be.
And it’s no one’s fault but my own, he reminded himself harshly. I wasn’t there to guard Speck’s back, and now Bri might be in terrible danger, too.
The tormenting thought urged Hud to nudge Rambler in the flanks, while the other men fell in line behind him. I’m going to find Bri, he vowed resolutely. And she had better not be in the same condition I found Speck.
He couldn’t bear to lose them both in the same month. That was more anguish than he could tolerate.
Bri regained consciousness to find herself draped over her horse. Her hands were bound around the sorrel’s neck and her feet were lashed to the stirrups. Her splitting headache throbbed in rhythm with her pulse and made her nauseous. Worse, Joe Jarvis was leading her horse east, not west.
Without alerting Jarvis that she had roused, Bri surveyed her surroundings discreetly. She had no clue where Jarvis was taking her, but he wasn’t following the same path Hud had used. Hud knew the shortcuts through canyon country like the back of his hand, but Jarvis was avoiding the deep canyons—which took more time.
Bri berated herself for being caught by this murdering bastard. Ordinarily she paid close attention to her surroundings. This morning she had been wrestling with myriad emotions and conflicting feelings toward Hud. She had been hopelessly distracted and preoccupied.
Now it didn’t matter that Hud had moved his pallet as far away from her as he could get or that her affection for him was one-sided. She had fallen into the hands of a known killer and her future—or lack thereof—was grim.
When Jarvis glanced over to check on her, Bri kept her head down so he couldn’t see her eyes. He huffed out an agitated breath then veered north. Thirty minutes later Bri noticed the adobe ranch house that served as a stagecoach station. The sign over the door boasted a small general store alongside the café to feed passengers. A large barn, surrounded with corrals, sat a short distance away. The pens were filled with horses, sheep and a few head of cattle.
Bri presumed Jarvis planned to parallel the east-west stage route that followed the Mountain Fork of the Brazos River. He might be planning to stock up on supplies at one of the station houses along the way to wherever the blazes he was taking her.
When Jarvis halted in a clump of cottonwood trees near the river and tied up her sorrel, she remained perfectly still. Since she was hanging over her horse like a rag doll, he didn’t pay much attention to her. Leaving her behind, Jarvis trotted his horse toward the squatty stage station.
Bri sprang into action the instant Jarvis was out of sight. She stretched out as far as she could, hoping to unhook her bound arms from the horse’s neck. The contrary mount tossed his head, making it difficult for her to get loose. Finally, she managed to get him to hold his head down long enough for her to raise her arms. Even though her hands were tied in front of her, she managed to unwrap the reins that Jarvis secured to a tree branch.
Casting apprehensive glances at the station, she tried to untie her bound wrists with her teeth. She had to abort the attempt when Jarvis sauntered from the station, carrying two bottles of whiskey, hardtack and canned food.
Gouging her horse, Bri thundered away from the concealment of the winding river channel and commenced screaming at the top of her lungs as she blazed past the stagecoach station. Her cry for help startled the sheep and cattle. She hoped the choir of alarmed livestock didn’t drown her out completely. She held the hope that the stationmaster would become concerned and notify the guard and driver on the next incoming stage.
Anything to call attention to her plight and encourage someone to search for her!
Bri grunted uncomfortably when the sorrel jumped a ditch while she was looking over her shoulder, watching Jarvis clamber onto his horse. Hot-tempered and ruthless as he was, he began firing his six-shooter at her immediately. Bri reined her horse back to the river, hoping to use saplings and underbrush as protection from the rapid-fire gunshots.
Although she didn’t know how far she was from The Flat and the soldiers stationed at Fort Griffin, she decided that riding east was her best bet. At least now she could see the rutted trail that coaches and wagons used to cross the High Plains. If she headed west, she might become lost in the labyrinth of canyons.
“Come back here,” Jarvis bellowed then punctuated his demand by blasting away at her with his rifle.
Bri didn’t look back to calculate how much head start she had on that scraggly-haired brute. She concentrated on guiding her horse down the muddy slope of the riverbank and crossing at a shallow point so Jarvis couldn’t follow her tracks easily. She needed to buy some time so she could stop to work loose the knotted ropes around her wrists and ankles.
She gasped in alarm when the sorrel slipped sideways in the mud as he came ashore downstream. Fortunately, he didn’t lose his footing completely and fall on top of her. The sorrel couldn’t eject her from the saddle because her feet were anchored to the stirrups, she reminded herself. As the horse floundered, Bri shifted her weight in the saddle and encouraged him to lunge up the steep slope to reach level ground.
She spared a glance over her shoulder before she urged the gelding into his fastest gait. She was relieved that she saw nothing of Jarvis for the next few minutes. She’d be delighted to no end if he slipped in the mud, banged his greasy head against a tree trunk and knocked himself out. With any luck, he’d pitch sideways and drown in midstream, too.
“Damn the luck,” she mumbled when she saw a flash of color among the trees that skirted the river. Jarvis had picked up the tracks where her horse had faltered and now he was firing wildly at her again. The furious criminal showed no signs of abandoning the chase.
Bri doubted her sorrel could keep the frantic pace all the way to the next stage station so she veered back to the river channel to let the gelding catch his breath. Her skull throbbed painfully, compliments of the two blows Jarvis had delivered to the back of her head. However, she had no time to rest because Jarvis was hot on her heels.
“This is where we camped last night after the storm.” Hud directed his four companions’ attention to the winding path that led to the cave. “There should be tracks around here to tell us something about Bri’s disappearance.”
“They already have told us something.” Winston Price flashed Hud the evil eye. “You were careless.”
No matter how many snide remarks Winston hurled at him, Hud couldn’t have felt worse than he did already. He’d broken two of his hard-and-fast rules—never presume anything and never become emotionally involved in an assignment.
While Marc and Floyd combed the area, looking for clues, Winston rode his horse alongside Hud’s. “I trust that you remembered that Bri is my daughter and that she is an engaged woman,” he said with a pointed stare.
“I assure you, Commander, I am very aware of who she is.”
Nevertheless, it hadn’t stopped him from yielding to forbidden temptation, but he’d never forgotten. Except during two encounters with incredible ecstasy when he couldn’t think past his wild desperation for Bri.
“However, you need to know that Bri called off her engagement after she walked in on Powell, who was in bed with an actress from the theater troupe.”
Winston gaped at him then muttered a foul oath to Powell’s name. Hud silently seconded it.
“There are other complications I didn’t mention in front of everyone else,” Hud explained solemnly. “Also, Bri rescued three young boys from the back alleys—”
“Not that again,” Winston groaned. “I suppose it’s because I disapproved of her odd friendship with that urchin in Houston. She wanted to bring him home and hire him to work on the estate, but her mother pitched a conniption fit and, for once, I sided with Anna.”
That pretty much said what Winston and Anna Price would think of Hud if they knew his background. Not that he’d dare to express an interest in Bri. Hell, he’d tried not to like her, impossible as that turned out to be. But Hud was sensible enough to know he had no future with Bri. Her family wouldn’t approve of him any more than Benji Dunlop.
“Bri gathered up the boys and rode off with the theater group. She arranged with the owners to give the youngsters a new start. However, she didn’t consult me first,” Hud added.
Winston frowned, puzzled. “Why the devil not? You were sent to escort her to me.”
Hud shifted uneasily in the saddle. “I made it perfectly clear at our first meeting that I thought this was a foolhardy cross-country trip and that my services could be put to better use on the manhunt.”
Hud expected the commander to rant and rave furiously. Instead, he blew out his breath. “You never challenge Bri. She can’t resist a dare, Captain. You might as well have waved a red flag in her face.”
“I found that out the hard way,” Hud mumbled. “But most disturbing of all is that when Bri left the evening before I planned to escort her to camp, someone ransacked her room.”
“Good God!” Winston hooted, owl-eyed. “What do you think they wanted with Bri?”
“We can only speculate. But when I described the man responsible for Speck’s death, Bri claimed that she had encountered Jarvis and Spaulding in the hotel hallway. We wondered if they might’ve conspired to rob or kidnap her.”
“Well, hell,” he said, scowling. “I guess it was a stroke of luck that she left town when she did.” He stared intently at Hud. “Is it possible that, after Jarvis died, Spaulding learned where Bri was headed and captured her for ransom?”
“It is a possibility,” Hud agreed grimly.
“Commander! Over here!”
Hud jerked up his head when Major Ketter called out unexpectedly, then gestured for them to trot over to the buffalo wallow that was surrounded by trees and underbrush.
“Hoofprints,” Marcus Yeager, the thickset Ranger who was five years Hud’s junior, pointed out.
Floyd Lambert, the rail-thin Ranger, squatted down on his haunches. “Do these belong to Mizz Price’s horse?” He looked up at Hud with somber brown eyes.
Hud dismounted to survey the prints then bolted back to his feet. “This is the same horse, the one with a cracked hoof, that I tracked through the alley the morning after Bri’s room was ransacked and she disappeared from The Flat.”
“What!” Major Ketter crowed. “Damn it, you left out a few important details. You should have—”
Winston flapped his arms to silence the major. “Hud briefed me on the incident. Much as I hate to say it, part of this is Bri’s fault. She was trying to save the less fortunate again and it might have gotten her into trouble.”
“There are more prints on the south side of the wallow,” Marc pointed out.
Hud took a quick look. “These tracks belong to Bri’s sorrel gelding…”
His voice fizzled out when he saw signs of a struggle, then noticed the pocket watch in the grass. Hud knew Bri would never willingly discard the treasured keepsake. Cursing himself up one side and down the other, he tucked away the watch then bounded into the saddle. He followed the prints northeast. The knowledge that Bri had fallen into dangerous hands and the outlaw was miles ahead tormented him to no end.
All because sensitive emotions clouded your thinking at the worst of all possible moments, he criticized himself. Lord, how could he have been so careless, so negligent? If his mistakes—and he’d been making a lot of them lately—cost Bri her life, Hud would never forgive himself.
“I have the inescapable feeling that Pete Spaulding caught up with Bri this morning,” Hud predicted in a grim tone. “My guess is that he plans to hold her for ransom.”
All four men cursed sourly as they mounted their horses to follow Hud. He didn’t look back to see how many accusing stares drilled into his back. He picked up the trail of one horse following closely behind another, indicating Bri had been led away unwillingly. Damn it, if he’d made a thorough search for Bri this morning he would’ve known foul play was involved. He was personally responsible for her plight and that knowledge tortured him every step of the way.
Bri slowed the laboring sorrel as she zigzagged through the trees skirting the river. Jarvis was still on her trail. He paced his horse so he could continue to stay close enough to keep her in his sights without pushing his mount and risk losing track of her altogether.
Casting another apprehensive glance over her shoulder, she halted long enough to grant her horse a much-needed drink. Meanwhile, she grabbed her canteen and sipped freely. Then she stared into the distance, noting that another crude stage station lay a mile ahead.
Although there was no sign of an arriving coach, Bri hoped to warn the proprietor and seek refuge in the station. At the very least, she might be able to get someone to untie her from the saddle.
She stared in frustration at the rope that bound her feet. If she took time to free her hands and feet herself, Jarvis would be within shooting distance. Bri nudged the sorrel and climbed the embankment. She picked up her pace, hoping to reach the station well ahead of Jarvis.
“Help! A killer is chasing me!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
The moment she commenced shouting for assistance the report of Jarvis’s rifle overrode her. He intended to scare off anyone who tried to come to her rescue. Bri ducked away from the whizzing bullets then muttered in disappointment when she saw a little girl toddling across the yard. The child’s mother dashed out to scoop her up then ducked inside.
Bri couldn’t bring down Jarvis’s wrath on the family who ran the stage station. She’d never forgive herself if someone were hurt because of her. Given no choice, Bri reined back to the river to make sure no stray gunshots hit the family huddling inside the house.
Another shot rang out when she was twenty yards from the protection of the trees. She gasped when searing pain blazed down her left arm. Since her wrists were bound together, she couldn’t clamp her hand around the seeping wound to stem the flow of blood. The best she could do was pause briefly to press her arm against a tree truck.
The red stain spread over her shirtsleeve and the coppery scent filled her nostrils. Bri desperately needed to rest and eat, but that was impossible with Jarvis barking at her heels like the hound from hell that he was.
If she could get loose she might be able to send her horse racing off as a decoy then double back to overtake Jarvis. But she was virtually helpless with her bound hands and feet and a painful wound on her arm.
Bri gave the sorrel his head while she used her teeth to attempt to untie the rope on her wrists. She heard Jarvis’s horse thrashing through the underbrush behind her, but she forced herself to focus on the task of getting loose. The seeping wound and lack of nourishment were making her light-headed. It required fierce determination to tug at the ropes.
“You might as well give up, you troublesome minx,” Jarvis shouted. “Nobody is gonna help you. I’ll shoot anyone who tries. You’re my ticket to a new life and I ain’t backin’ off. It’s too damn bad you sneaked off that night in town when I came to get you. I could’ve saved myself a lot of time.”
In other words, he was planning to ransom her, she realized as she struggled with the rope. She’d like to strangle whoever had given away her identity while she was in The Flat. It could have been Eaton, Hud or the stagecoach depot agent who had mentioned her name in passing. The information could have been overheard and unwittingly fallen into the wrong hands. Bri had tried to keep a low profile and she couldn’t imagine how she could have been recognized when she made herself inconspicuous in her drab gray dress, shawl and bonnet.
No matter what, she wouldn’t make it easy for Jarvis to collect his money, she vowed. The worthless scoundrel was going to earn every blasted penny trying to capture her.
Bri sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward when she finally managed to untie the rope with her teeth. With her hands free she leaned over to untie her right foot. The report of Jarvis’s rifle broke the silence. The bullet whistled past the place where her head had been a second earlier.
The sorrel bolted when the gunshot nicked his ear.
“Whoa!” Bri shouted when the frightened horse reared up then lunged off, splattering water around them as he raced through the stream.
Bri worked furiously to loosen her foot from the stirrup while her horse unintentionally dowsed her with water.
“Come back here, damn it!” Jarvis fired off another shot.
He missed, thank God.
Bri freed her right foot then made a wild grab for the derringer and knife she had stashed in her satchels after her bath the previous night. No matter what else happened she would have concealed weapons strapped to her legs. Even if the derringer had clogged during her fall into the floodwaters, it was still a good deterrent if she had to bluff her way through a confrontation. But she decided to keep Hud’s spare pistol in her saddlebag. If she tucked it in her waistband and Jarvis somehow managed to overtake her he’d check her person for other weapons. The pistol wasn’t much use to her against a long-range rifle anyway.
Bri grunted uncomfortably when the sorrel scrabbled up the steep riverbank while she was jackknifed sideways, trying to free her left ankle. Finally, she managed to loosen her foot from the rope then sat upright in the saddle. Pain shot down her left arm and dizziness circled like a vulture. Determinedly, she took control of the sorrel and urged him onto level ground so he could run for all he was worth, for as long as he could.
She didn’t look back again, not even when Jarvis fired off two more wild shots. She clamped hold of her injured arm and told herself that she would apply an improvised tourniquet the first chance she got. Right now, she needed to place more distance between herself and the trigger-happy lunatic who was trying to shoot her out of the saddle.