Hounded by a fierce sense of urgency, Hud pushed himself and Rambler to the limits. The sturdy black gelding possessed the kind of stamina the other horses couldn’t match so Hud forged ahead of the pack, hoping to overtake Jarvis and rescue Bri by nightfall.
He knew that age and fearful concern for Bri was wearing on Winston Price. Hud had specifically asked Major Ketter to lag behind, in case the rescue brigade happened onto a gruesome scene. The bleak prospect of Mad Joe Jarvis’s intentions for Bri had Hud swearing one blue streak after another. He had to find her before disaster stuck.
This was his best chance, he told himself. Jarvis probably wasn’t planning to travel at night. He’d have other things on his mind. Things that Hud didn’t want Bri to endure—but were a very real possibility.
When Hud picked up the scent of smoke in the air, he noticed a campfire flickering in the gathering darkness near the river. Anticipation rose inside him, though he reminded himself that anyone—military troops, freighters, outlaws or bounty hunters—could be camped beside the river.
He glanced over his shoulder at the silhouettes of the Ranger patrol trailing a half mile behind him then quickened his pace once again. A few minutes later, he dismounted and tied Rambler to a tree. Pistol drawn, he moved silently on foot toward the campfire.
Hud pricked his ears when he overheard voices in the distance. He crept closer, praying for all he was worth that it was Bri and her captor and that he wasn’t too late to save her from hellish torment. Sure enough, there she was, tied to a tree while Jarvis towered over her. Her hands were bound behind her back and he could see bloodstains on her shirtsleeve. Apparently, the injury wasn’t life-threatening because she was staring defiantly at Jarvis.
“It’s about time you learned what purpose a woman serves,” Jarvis mumbled drunkenly, “and I’m gonna be the one who teaches you.”
“I’m not serving anyone’s purpose, especially yours until you bathe,” Bri snapped back. “After all, I should get something enjoyable out of this. And I damn well intend to.”
Despite his concern, a smile quirked his lips. He really had to hand it to that fiery female. She was a warrior and refused to be intimidated, even if she was scared to death. And if she had any sense she was scared, because Mad Joe Jarvis was as dangerous and heartless as they came.
Hud stuffed his pistol in his holster and inched quietly toward the campsite. He wanted to drop that murdering bastard in his tracks, but he needed a better angle. If his aim was off the mark and he missed Jarvis, he might shoot Bri accidentally.
“I don’t give a damn what you git and don’t git,” Jarvis snorted hatefully. “I’m takin’ what I want and that’s that.”
Drunk though Jarvis was, he swooped down to untie Bri from the tree then dragged her across the ground by her boot heels. She wormed and squirmed and kicked until he released her left leg then she slammed her heel into his hip.
It demanded all the self-control Hud could muster to hold his position. Forced to watch and wait for the right moment to strike was one of the most difficult challenges he’d ever undertaken. His fierce need to protect Bri and to vent his fury on the man who had killed Speck tormented the living hell out of him. But Hud didn’t have a clear shot and he couldn’t reach Bri quickly—without making a racket in the underbrush.
When Jarvis tried to tie Bri’s left ankle to another tree and force her flat on her back she lashed out with her leg and caught him squarely in the crotch. He howled like a dying coyote and dropped to his knees. Snarling, he lunged forward to strike her across the cheek and she yelped in pain.
Much as Hud hated to admit it, he found himself thanking Benji, who’d trained Bri to be resourceful when it came to self-defense. Hud wished he’d had that much influence on Bri, but at least she was putting up a fight that distracted Jarvis so Hud could sneak up to overtake him.
While Jarvis huffed and puffed for breath, Hud came to his feet. He wanted to take Jarvis apart with his bare hands for mistreating Bri. Growling viciously, he plowed through the underbrush while Jarvis rocked forward in an attempt to stand. Bri recoiled her legs, and then struck out with her feet, catching Jarvis on the chin and sending him somersaulting backward into the campfire. While he screamed bloody murder and rolled on the ground to smother the flames on his shirt, Bri bounded up to snap-kick Jarvis upside the head.
Hud skidded to a halt to watch Bri in action. She brought Jarvis under control single-handedly. As much as he wanted his turn at the murdering thug, he stayed where he was so he wouldn’t distract her while she vented her fury on Jarvis.
Again, Hud begrudgingly thanked Benji for teaching Bri hand-to-hand combat maneuvers. She lashed out with her feet, elbows and bound fists then retreated before Jarvis could lay a hand on her. It was impressive really. She was agile and quick on her feet and she made Jarvis look like a bungling fool…until the rascal managed to grab his discarded gun.
Bri glared angrily at Jarvis, who grinned victoriously as he sat up and held her at gunpoint. This time, however, Hud was in a better position to fire his weapon without endangering Bri. His six-shooter cleared leather with practiced ease and his shot sent Jarvis’s pistol flipping through the air and out of his reach.
Jarvis yelped when blood spurted from the wound on his hand. Bri made certain he felt every ounce of pain by kicking his injured fingers for good measure. She was still pelting his hand with the toe of her boot when Hud strode up to her.
“You want me to untie your hands so you can scratch his eyes out?” Hud asked, noting Jarvis had slumped into a stupor.
When she finally focused on him, he noticed she still had murder in her eyes and several bruises on her face. She was so intent on taking out her fury on Jarvis that Hud wondered if she registered that he had arrived on the scene.
“Bri?” he prompted as he reached around to untie her wrists. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
He could see that she wasn’t. Emotion was ripping through her like a tornado. Her upper arm was wrapped in a makeshift tourniquet and the wound needed attention. Her hair was wet. So were her clothes. She was quivering with fury.
“No, I’m not okay,” she muttered, her teeth clenched, her breasts heaving. “I want to kill him.”
“We all do,” Hud assured her as he cupped her face in his hands. “Everything is going to be fine now. Look at me. Take a deep breath, Bri.”
Although it was completely inappropriate to kiss her, given that Commander Price could arrive at any moment. Given that Bri had paid him for last night’s love lessons. Given that he was still steamed about that, even if he had discovered later that she hadn’t left camp of her own accord. Nevertheless, the overwhelming need to kiss her consumed him and he gave in to it wholeheartedly.
At first Bri didn’t respond to his gentle kiss. It was as if she was still trapped in a furious red haze of anger. Emotions and survival instincts were still spurting through her, making her body vibrate. However, little by little, she melted beneath his kiss. Then she arched toward him and he wrapped her protectively in his arms. He held on tight to compensate for the hellish day he’d spent worrying about her and berating himself for letting this happen to her.
A quiet moan rose from her throat and he sighed in relief when she looped her arms over his shoulders. For the first time since sunrise, the fear and apprehension that tormented him mercilessly drained away. Raw need and volatile emotion billowed between them. Hud instinctively fit her lush body against his and deepened the kiss, his tongue fencing with hers as they shared the same panting breath.
“I was worried as hell about you,” he murmured when he finally marshaled the willpower to break their kiss.
“I was a little worried myself,” she said shakily.
Bri shook her head, as if to clear her dazed thoughts. Then she looked down to see that she still had her foot on Jarvis’s throat and that he’d finally passed out.
When Hud stepped back to examine her arm, she brushed his hands away. “I’m fine.”
What she really wanted to do was to hurl herself back into Hud’s arms and remain there all night—and the rest of her life. But she doubted Hud wanted a simpering female clinging possessively to him. She wanted to earn his admiration and respect, not draw his pity by bawling her head off and decomposing before his eyes.
“You are not fine,” Hud contradicted. “You’ve had a really bad day. I don’t know why you can’t admit it.”
He didn’t know the half of it. She’d been starved and terrorized and she was exhausted, but there were things Jarvis had told her that Hud needed to know. “Listen, Joe said—”
“Bri! Thank God!”
She half turned to see her father dashing through the underbrush in his eagerness to reach her. She groaned when he scooped her up in his arms and squeezed her overzealously. Every injury, throbbing pain and sore muscle complained when he practically hugged the stuffing out of her.
“You might want to ease off, Commander,” Hud advised. “One look at your daughter testifies that she’s had a horrendous day and looks the worse for wear.”
“No thanks to you, Captain,” her father muttered in a resentful tone as he reared back to inspect Bri closely.
He brushed his fingertips lightly over her bruised chin and cheek then stared at her injured arm in concern. Then he focused his furious glare on Jarvis, who was still out cold and lay on the ground like a displaced doormat.
“That murderer is going to pay for abusing my daughter,” he growled vindictively.
“You’ve got that right,” Hud affirmed. “I know a few Comanche torture techniques that I plan to practice on him.”
“I get first crack at him,” her father demanded. “I outrank you, Stone.”
“Don’t pull rank on him, Papa,” Bri protested. “Hud lost a longtime friend and companion. I am only scuffed up a bit.”
When Hud cast her an appreciative smile for siding with him, Bri returned his grin. When she heard the rustling of underbrush again she glanced left to see three men scurrying toward her. She wasn’t sure what her father and the Rangers were doing here, but she was glad they were.
“I went the wrong direction this morning,” Hud said in answer to her unspoken question. “I thought you had ridden off alone to reach Ranger camp. It was two hours before I realized my mistake. I’m sorry.”
She predicted that Hud had been furious with her…until he realized that she hadn’t left the cave on her own accord.
“I was worried about you after that damaging storm blew through,” her father remarked as he plucked leaves from her tangled hair. “So we rode east, hoping to locate you and the captain.”
“Bri, this is Major John Ketter,” Hud introduced the bowlegged Ranger, who tipped his hat politely to her.
“This is Marcus Yeager and Floyd Lambert,” he said, gesturing toward the younger men.
Bri smiled a greeting at the men, who seemed a mite bashful around her.
“This is Joe Jarvis,” he muttered as he glared at the man who was sprawled, unconscious, as his feet. “He shot Speck in the back and, as you can see, he’s been abusive to Bri.”
“Jarvis didn’t confess to the killing.” Bri finished what she’d started to say earlier as she rubbed the raw skin on her wrists. “He admitted he killed Pete Spaulding, who didn’t have the stomach for murder and became a risk to Jarvis.”
She watched Hud’s expression turn to granite as he swooped down to grab Jarvis by the nape of his shirt. No one said a word or tried to interfere when Hud placed Jarvis in shackles then dragged him away. Whatever Hud had planned for the murdering outlaw was long overdo—as far as she and everyone else on hand was concerned.
“Your father was really worried about you, Mizz Price,” Major Ketter confided.
Her father smiled affectionately as he retrieved his pipe and lit it. “If you’d like to freshen up while we fetch the horses and put together a meal, go ahead, hon. Just don’t wander too far away.”
Bri nodded, grateful for a warm meal and the opportunity to bathe and change clothes. Retrieving her satchel from her horse, she strode off in the direction Hud had taken. In the moonlight, she saw Hud toss Jarvis into the shallows of the stream and dunk him repeatedly until he regained consciousness.
Jarvis gasped and sputtered but Hud was relentless in forcing the outlaw’s head underwater until he panicked and squealed. Only when Jarvis begged for mercy did Hud haul him ashore and bind his shackled hands and feet with rope.
“You killed the closest thing you had to a friend,” Hud growled as he got right in Jarvis’s peaked face. “And you shot the closest thing I had to family.”
Even at a distance, Bri saw the flicker of recognition in Jarvis’s facial expression. It wasn’t a confession but it was a telling reaction.
“I’ll be downstream while the men prepare supper,” she informed Hud as she walked past him.
He didn’t glance in her direction, just continued to glare daggers at Jarvis.
Bri walked off, leaving Hud to vent his fury on Jarvis, who definitely deserved slow death by torture. She would have to make a point to learn a few techniques because she intended to apply them to Eaton Powell. Just wait until she got her hands on that devious side-winder politician!
Scowling, Hud stared at Jarvis, who was too drunk to remain awake for more than a few seconds at a time. He bound up Jarvis good and tight to a tree then left him to sleep off his recent bout with whiskey.
Hud was far from feeling vindicated just because Jarvis was in custody. Yet, as much as he wanted to wring a confession from Jarvis, his compulsive need to be with Bri demanded that he follow her. He’d spent a maddening day trying to catch up to her and make sure she was safe. It didn’t seem to matter that her father was upstream, rustling up a meal for his daughter and that three other men were nearby. He needed to be with Bri and he needed to be with her now.
“You’re fighting an uphill battle and you’re a hopeless cause,” he criticized himself as he trailed after her.
How could he need to be with her more than he needed revenge for Speck? he asked himself. There were a hundred and one good reasons to leave Bri to herself and to rejoin his fellow Rangers. Every reason was rational and sensible, but none of them prevented him from running the risk of being discovered alone with Bri. Not even the possibility of facing her father’s outrage and wrath.
Which said a hell of a lot about the intensity of his forbidden feelings for her. Too much in fact.
His footsteps stalled when he saw Bri swimming in midstream. Moonbeams sparkled around her like diamonds on the rippling water. The tempting scene drew him ever closer. Nothing seemed as important as holding her in his arms and assuring himself that his carelessness hadn’t caused her excessive pain and irreparable harm.
He heard Bri gasp and saw her cover herself when she noticed him standing on the riverbank. He stared straight at her as he doffed his shirt and vest.
“If you don’t want me to join you then say so now.” He unbuckled his holsters and let them drop at his feet. “I’ll turn and walk away if that’s what you want. But my need to be with you is driving me crazy, Bri.”
When she met his gaze directly, the remembered heat of the passion they ignited in each other flared to life.
“I thought you’d never get here,” she told him with an impish grin. “It certainly took you long enough.”
He smiled rakishly as he made fast work of shedding his boots and breeches. For this moment in time, it didn’t matter that he had been aggravated at her this morning and terrified all the livelong day that his neglect might cost her life. Despite every obstacle between them, despite good judgment, obsessive desire drew them together and held them fast.
That and scads of other tender emotions that Hud refused to delve into too deeply, for fear that he might not want to face the real reason he couldn’t keep his distance from Bri.
“What about Jarvis?” she asked.
He walked toward her, oblivious to the cool water swirling around him. “He’ll keep. Right now all I need is to be with you.”
Hud slid his arms around her hips and drew her voluptuous body against his. He savored the mind-boggling pleasure that sent the world and all its troubles drifting away in a fog. He kissed Bri, as if it had been weeks instead of minutes since he had tasted the honeyed softness of her lips and inhaled her enticing scent.
His hands moved on their own accord, rediscovering every silky inch of her shapely body, offering pleasure to soothe away her aches and pains. He laid her over his arm, letting her float on the water, watching her red-gold hair drift around her beguiling features. Mesmerized, he grazed his lips over the pebbled peaks of her breasts. Her soft moan echoed around them as he flicked his tongue at her then suckled her nipple lightly. He caressed her repeatedly, unable to get enough of touching her. He relished the quiet moans of pleasure that he drew from her as she arched toward his kisses and caresses and whispered his name like a chant.
Bewitched, bedazzled by the kaleidoscope of emotions she stirred inside him, he kissed her again. He touched her intimately then inhaled her tantalizing scent and got lost in the haze of heady pleasure swirling around him. He smiled in satisfaction when she playfully accused him of withholding what she wanted more than she wanted her next breath.
“Come here,” she demanded raggedly. “I need you now and you damn well know it.”
He came to her then and glided her legs around his hips. Bri surrendered the instant she felt his hard arousal pressing intimately against her. She desperately needed him to erase from her mind the horrors of the day. She needed him to remind her how gentle and caring he could be, where Jarvis was rough and abusive.
It didn’t matter that Hud had hurt her feelings by moving his pallet away from her the previous night so she wouldn’t throw herself shamelessly at him a third time. It didn’t matter that passion for the sake of passion brought him to her tonight. She wanted him under any circumstance and pride be damned.
It thrilled her that he’d come to join her, despite the risk of discovery. He wanted her—badly—and she craved all the wild, reckless pleasure she knew awaited her in his brawny arms. She ached to share whatever Hud could offer, even if it didn’t include his heart. She had his passion for the moment and it was enough.
When he surged toward her, filling her, driving urgently against her, she arched eagerly into him. She rocked against him, wanting to hold him deep inside her, to feel that white-hot crescendo building until it exploded over her like a volcanic eruption.
She could feel the rapturous intensity of their union expanding in all directions. Desire billowed and burned through every fiber of her being. Her breath broke when rippling spasms of ecstasy consumed her. She gasped and clutched Hud to her, absorbing him into her, quivering helplessly around him. She bit back a wild cry that ached to fly free and held on for dear life as pleasure roiled through her, leaving no part of her body and soul untouched.
Bri looked up into his shadowed face, watching his golden eyes flare, watching his jaw clench as he thrust against her one last time to satisfy the same mindless need that rippled through her. Clasping her hands on the sides of his face, she kissed him—hard, hungrily. She wanted to convey what was in her heart without expressing the words he didn’t want to hear. If she made him uncomfortable with a confession of affection, he’d put a mental and physical distance between them again, as he’d done at the cavern.
She kissed him with all that she was, all that she felt for him as she shivered in the riveting pleasure that cascaded over her. She heard Hud groan, felt him clutch her tightly to him as he shuddered in helpless release.
When he tucked his head against her shoulder and nuzzled her neck, she smiled in supreme satisfaction. She doubted that Hudson Stone, hard-hearted, rough-and-tough Ranger that he was, would ever come to love her as deeply as she loved him, but there was no question that he desired her as desperately as she desired him. She had that, at least.
“I must be out of my mind,” he mumbled as his sensuous lips skimmed over the pulsating column of her throat and his hands glided possessively over her hips.
“Why’s that?” she asked as she snuggled up to him.
“Your father might catch us together. And my fellow Rangers might figure out that I’m hopelessly addicted to you. But none of that matters right now. Holding a gun to my head wouldn’t have kept me away from you tonight.”
The comment pleased her immensely. However, the remark also prompted her to ease away to bathe and dress quickly. After all, her father was one hundred yards upstream visiting with three other Rangers. Which proved that she couldn’t keep her hands off Hud, either.
“Wait,” he whispered before she could swim away. “Let me see your arm.”
Bri waited while he gently inspected the wound. “It’s only a scratch,” she assured him.
“Nevertheless, we will treat it when we return to camp,” he insisted before he let her go.
She watched him wade ashore, knowing this would be the last time she would share the incredible passion and soul-deep intimacy she’d discovered with him. Hud would transport Jarvis to jail to await trial and then return to his battalion. She would ride to The Flat to confront Powell with his treachery—if he was still in town. More than likely, he’d headed south to lounge in his lap of luxury—the devious cad.
The thought of never seeing Hud again left a hollow ache in the pit of her belly and a hole the size of Texas in her heart.
“Something wrong?” he asked perceptively.
Bri glanced up to watch him fasten his breeches. Yes, something was wrong. She had become too attached to this brawny Ranger in such a short time that it amazed and tormented her. “I’m fine,” she lied convincingly.
Damn it, of all the men who had courted her money and her family connections these past few years, she had fallen recklessly in love with a man who needed no more than the temporary pleasure of passion before getting on with his life.
The disheartening thought made her gnash her teeth. Damn it, she wanted to matter to him—a lot.
“You’re in pain,” he diagnosed.
“Yes,” she muttered. Her feminine pride was smarting like nobody’s business.
“I’ll go into camp first and I’ll tend to your arm as soon as you arrive,” he insisted.
“You can’t cure heart trouble,” she mumbled.
“Pardon?” He arched a curious brow as he picked up his holsters and strapped them around his lean hips.
“Nothing. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Bri watched him walk away and told herself this was good practice for his final fare-thee-well in the morning. She tried to convince herself that nursing her grudge toward Eaton Powell would distract her from suffering the hurt of one-sided love. But she knew Captain Hudson Stone was going to be a hard man to forget. Impossible, in fact.
“Where’s Jarvis? Or rather, what condition did you leave him in?” Major Ketter asked the moment Hud returned to camp.
All three men glanced expectantly at him.
“He blacked out.” Hud ambled over to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Torturing Jarvis while he’s drunk isn’t any fun. I’ll take my fury out on his hangover, bright and early in the morning.”
Marcus Yeager strode over to grab Hud’s hand and placed a tarnished badge in his palm. “I found this in Jarvis’s saddlebags,” he said somberly. “I thought you’d like to have it.”
Hud brushed his fingers affectionately over Speck’s badge—one that he’d hammered from a Spanish coin. Now he understood Bri’s sentimental attachment to Benji’s pocket watch because he felt the same connection to Speck’s badge. Fierce emotion hit Hud like a tidal wave. He was tempted to storm back to Jarvis and pulverize him, even if he was too drunk to remember Hud beating the living hell out of him.
“We also found several hundred dollars of bank notes,” Floyd Lambert added. “How much money did the station manager say had been stolen before you found Speck?”
“Only forty dollars,” Hud recalled.
“There’s a helluva lot more than that tied to Jarvis’s horse,” Major Ketter confirmed. “I wonder where it came from.”
Frowning pensively, Hud sipped his coffee, and then stared with remorse at the badge. He also tried to pretend that he hadn’t been with Bri, whose astounding passion practically turned the river to steam and had definitely fried his brain.
Hud felt like a damn schoolboy. He was afraid to look Commander Price in the eye for more than ten seconds, for fear the father of the woman he had ravished for the third time in two days could tell by looking at him what he’d been doing—and with whom.
Damn, what had he been thinking? Hud asked himself incredulously. He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. He’d wanted to be as intimately close to Bri as he could get and he hadn’t had enough willpower to deny himself, no matter who could have seen them together and what consequences might await him.
“Did you see anything of Bri?” Winston questioned anxiously.
He’d seen a lot of her, but he wasn’t about to tell Winston that! “She walked past me while I was trying to rouse Jarvis. She said she was going downstream to bathe.”
“I hope she’s all right,” Winston said worriedly. “She’s resilient and spirited but she’s had a harrowing day.”
“I’m fine, Papa,” Bri declared as she emerged from the darkness to pass a reassuring smile around camp. She rolled up her shirtsleeve as she walked over to Hud. “Do you have some poultice…?” Her voice trailed off when she noticed the badge in his hand. “Speck’s?”
Hud nodded. “Marc found it. Circumstantial evidence at best, but it does connect the two of them.”
“Jarvis didn’t admit to you that he shot your friend?” she asked gently.
“No, he passed out before I could get a confession.”
“There’s always tomorrow,” she said confidently. “Deprive him of whiskey and that obnoxious drunk might tell you what you want to know. He has a serious addiction.”
“Let me tend your arm, sweetheart,” Winston insisted as he strode over to fish into his saddlebag. “Are you feeling better after your bath?”
Hud cast her a discreet glance and noted the enigmatic sparkle in those luminous indigo eyes. No one else could interpret that certain glimmer, but Hud knew exactly what she meant when she said, “My bath was amazingly invigorating and I’m more relaxed than I’ve been all day.”
“Good to hear.” Winston led her closer to the campfire to shed light on her injury. “Maybe you can have another bath before we ride off in the morning.”
“I’d like that,” she said with a cryptic smile.
Hud bit back a grin. He’d like that, too. One last phenomenal tryst to tide him over for, oh, say, the next fifty years. He’d give all of his tomorrows to spend a few more hours with Bri in breathless ecstasy.
To his dismay, the other men demanded Bri’s attention during supper. Hud was left to eat in silence. When Winston insisted on a detailed report of her ordeal, Hud held his breath. He wondered how she would explain what happened this morning when he lost track of her. Thankfully, her story coincided with his explanation that she had gone down to the pool to bathe then ambled to the buffalo wallow, where Jarvis had launched his surprise attack and she had no opportunity to alert Hud.
Bri had covered for him and he was grateful. However, he still didn’t know if she had originally planned to head west without him after she’d paid him for her first experiment with passion. She hadn’t said and he hadn’t asked. Of course, he’d been too busy lusting after her this evening to get around to asking questions.
Hud ate his meal and told himself that he’d return the money she’d tossed at him, first thing tomorrow morning. For now, he sat back and watched Winston Price dote on his daughter while she practically charmed the pants off Hud’s fellow Rangers.
She had charmed the pants off him—literally—the past few days and made him relish every wild, reckless, uncontrollable moment.
The erotic thought made Hud grin. He looked the other way so the Rangers wouldn’t notice that he was smiling for no reason the present conversation could possibly explain.