Cherished (28 page)

Juliana swallowed, feeling weak. “When ...
how long have we been here?”

“Two days.”

“Two days!” Shocked, Juliana stared at him in
disbelief, as if he were making up a tale to tease her.

“I recall my sister reading a storybook
once—my grandfather had sent all the way to Boston for it. All
about a girl named Sleeping Beauty. That’s all I could think of
while you were lying there—you looked just like the girl in those
pictures.” A grin lightened his face. “But as I recall,
she
was sweet and obedient, and didn’t spend every day of
her life getting into trouble.”

She was lost in the deep sea of his eyes as
he smiled at her and it took a moment for his words to penetrate.
But when they did, she looked at him.

“
You
have a sister?” she blurted
out.

Immediately she regretted her words, for the
smile vanished, the familiar shuttered expression came over his
face once again, and he drew back from her a full step. Secrets.
This man was full of secrets, and he had no intention of sharing
any of them with her. As if to illustrate the point, he spun about
and stalked to the window.

“This discussion isn’t about me, it’s about
you. You’re going to have to give me some answers, Miss
Montgomery.”

His muscular frame seemed to fill every
corner of the one-room dwelling. Beyond him, through the cabin’s
only window, a tiny slit in the chink of the log walls, she caught
a glimpse of hazy emerald mountains and open sky.
The most
beautiful spot on earth,
he had said. She longed to see it.
After being in that jailhouse she needed open space. But she was
his prisoner once again. Weariness washed over her. She had hoped
... What had she hoped? It was too foolish even to explore.

“I’ve already told you all I know.” She
rubbed a hand across her eyes. “You didn’t believe my side of the
story before ...”

“It’s time I listened a little better.”

Her hand dropped. She stared at him,
bewildered. But it was hard to see; her eyelids felt heavy and
thick.

He must have seen the exhaustion in her face.
“Later, when you’re feeling better,” Cole said, “you’ll tell me
again. Everything. And maybe we can figure out why you and those
damned brothers of yours are so important to Line McCray.”

Line McCray. The name was familiar, but the
dizziness seeping over her again made it difficult to concentrate.
She closed her eyes. “I want to know some things too ...”

“Sleep first. Then we’ll talk.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Sleep first.”

He hadn’t changed. That same air of command,
so infuriating, so ... comforting. At least it was right now. She
didn’t feel capable of dealing with anything at all at the moment.
Cotton wool clogged her brain, her body was still tender and sore,
and the light-headedness drifting over her in waves made it
impossible for her to argue ... for now.

Juliana opened her eyes once and saw Cole
standing over her. There was a strange expression in his eyes. He
didn’t look one bit dangerous for once. He looked ... anxious?
About her? She was hallucinating, that was it. Cole Rawdon hated
her. Yet he had returned for her, injured as he was, he had
fought—killed—to get her away from those men.

She brought herself up short. It wasn’t as if
he truly cared that she had suffered. He felt responsible, that was
all, because he had left her at the mercy of savages. Decent of him
to feel this regret, but he would have felt the same for anyone
whom he had left vulnerable to attack. Even a liar and a thief who
was wanted in Denver for a two-thousand-dollar reward.

“Where did you bring me?” Her voice was
subdued, weary. “Where are we going from here?”

“We’re not going anywhere until I’m sure
McCray’s men have lost the trail. And until I’ve got a handle on
what’s going on here. So sleep.”

“But—”

“Later.” He sounded irritated. “Get some rest
or I’ll have to knock you over the head with a frying pan.”

“This place doesn’t have a frying pan,” she
murmured.

It didn’t seem to have much of anything, but
it was shelter. Shelter from Knife Jackson and his friends, from
Lucius Dane and that horrible Plattsville jail. Cole was going to
listen to her, give her a chance.

She wanted to talk, to figure everything out,
but somehow the knowledge that he was there watching over her made
every limb in her body go slack, and she relaxed. Her troubled mind
stilled. Her breathing slowed and she let the cascade of weariness
pour over her in great, gentle waves.

Juliana slept until the sun set.

When she awoke she was alone in the cabin
once more. Daylight had fled, replaced by a soft, blue-gray dusk.
She heard a bubbling sound, and smelled something delicious. Soup.
No, a stew. Great plumes of fragrant steam sailed up from the huge
pot over the fireplace. Juliana’s stomach grumbled noisily.

She managed to sit up and peer around the
cabin without too much discomfort this time. Immediately she
noticed the man’s clothes folded across one of the cane chairs,
along with a pair of boots.

Maybe not the latest Paris fashion, but they
sure beat the saddle blanket. Wincing only slightly, she put on the
yellow and blue plaid shirt and dark trousers, then grimaced at
their huge size. She had to roll up the sleeves of the shirt and
tie the hem in a knot at her waist to keep it from dwarfing her.
The trousers were even worse; in addition to rolling up the cuffs,
she had to fashion a belt from a bit of rope she discovered in the
wood box in order to keep the pants from falling down around her
knees. She frowned as she stuffed old dishrags into the boots to
approximate a near fit. It irked her to know she must make a
comical sight, but the delicious aroma wafting from the stew pot
distracted her. Examining the cupboard at close range, she found
that the cabin was better stocked than she had imagined. By the
time Cole Rawdon walked in the door, she had a pot of beans heating
on the stove, biscuits warming inside it, and the table set for a
meal. The stove had given her some trouble at first, but she’d
finally managed to light it after several unsuccessful tries had
finally spurred her to kick it with all her might. That had done
the trick.

“It’s not fancy, but it’s the best meal I’ve
ever eaten,” Juliana declared between mouthfuls of the venison
stew. “Where have you been anyway? I thought you were standing
guard. That’s why I slept so well.” She broke off, embarrassed. He
pretended not to see the pink flush that blossomed on her
cheeks.

“I’m asking the questions around here,
remember?”

But there was a teasing gentleness in his
voice that she hadn’t heard before. Looking up quickly, Juliana saw
him studying her. Embarrassed, she tried to smooth her hair.

Loose, wild, it glinted in the light of the
kerosene lantern he had removed from the wood box, fascinating him.
His old plaid shirt was ridiculously large on her, he observed, his
chest tight, and so were the trousers, but their bulk only
emphasized her femininity. She looked adorable. More fetching than
the pictures of Sleeping Beauty in Caitlin’s storybook. More
fetching than any woman he’d ever seen.

Cole knew himself to be in unfamiliar
territory here—dangerous territory. Best to stick to business, he
reminded himself in alarm. That meant to stop looking at her, stop
thinking about her. Sticking to questions and answers, facts,
information. Yet when she leaned over him with the soup ladle,
spooning more stew into his bowl, and her hair accidentally brushed
his cheek, he felt a tightening in his loins.

Dangerous, that’s what she was. She could
blast a man’s resolve to smithereens more effectively than any
dynamite he’d ever come across. Just his luck that the woman wanted
in Denver hadn’t been some tub-bellied cow with a leathery face and
dirty fingernails instead of this porcelain-skinned hellion who
could alternately rile or entrance him with a single word or
gesture.

“Maybe you ought to tell me exactly what
happened between you and this John Breen.” He set down his cup of
coffee and regarded her in the growing shadows that spilled in
through the window slit. “The whole story this time, angel.”

So she told him. Leaning forward across the
table, her always expressive face flushed and animated even more
than usual, the words spilling out one over another, she told him
how she had come west to find her brothers, how her uncle had
arranged the marriage to John Breen without her knowledge, how she
had disliked Breen from the very first moment.

“So you ran away? All alone?”

His stupefaction made her mouth tighten with
defiance. “Well, not all alone. I had Columbine. The horse I stole
from John Breen,” she explained, and added quickly, “If you think
I’m sorry about that, or I deserve to go to jail for it, you’re
wrong! I only took her because there was no other way, and I wasn’t
about to be sacrificed for any man, however much
he
might
desire it. I control my own destiny—or at least I did, until you
came along. But I never stole five thousand dollars. John Breen
made that up so he could trick men like you into bringing me back.
You never would have bothered with a mere horse thief, would
you?”

Cole didn’t answer. She had a point. His
blood was boiling. Fury, cold and deep as the thrust of honed
steel, pierced through his chest until he could hardly breathe.
He’d been used. Used to capture and torment a woman who had just
wanted her freedom, used to satisfy another man’s selfish will.
Years ago he’d sworn never to be used by any human being ever
again—and now this bastard Breen had framed Juliana Montgomery, put
every bounty hunter west of the Missouri on her trail by dangling
that filthy two-thousand-dollar reward for her capture, and in so
doing had snared him into this ugly, private game of vengeance.

Why hadn’t he listened to her in the first
place?

Because Jess Burrows and Liza White had
soured him on believing in anyone ever again. Because even his own
father had betrayed his family’s trust, because his years in the
orphanage had taught him that cruelty ran deep in human beings, and
that appearances were always deceiving.

Excuses. He had plenty of those. But it
didn’t change the ugly part he had played in this.

Now he was in it deeper than ever—they both
were—and it wouldn’t be over for her until this mess with the
Montgomery gang was settled, McCray was out of the picture, and
this confounded tycoon John Breen was dealt with. He swore savagely
to himself that when this was over, Juliana Montgomery would be
free to do as she pleased. But not until then.

Cole didn’t pull any punches. “You’re in
danger,” he told her, eyes narrowed. “Until we figure out what
McCray is up to and why he wants your brothers so badly, you’ve got
to stay hidden. Can you think of anything that was said when they
were roughing you up, anything that might give us a hunch what kind
of burr is under Mc-Cray’s saddle?”

Chin on fist, Juliana stared straight ahead,
concentrating. It was hard to summon up the memories of that night
without shuddering, hard to recall the angry torrent of
questions—and fists—without feeling fear knot in her throat. But
then she nodded suddenly, nearly jumping from her chair with
excitement.

“They asked me if Wade was planning to rob a
freight payroll ... the Henshaw freight payroll, if I’m not
mistaken.”

“That payroll will be coming through north of
Plattsville in four days time. If the Montgomery gang does plan to
waylay it, and we can figure out where they plan to stage the
holdup, we might catch up with those brothers of yours yet.”

“Why are you so interested in helping me find
them all of a sudden?”

Juliana couldn’t hide the suspicion edging
her voice, or the worry that knit her brows together. If he thought
she would do
anything
to help him capture Wade and Tommy
and then turn them in for a reward, he was dead wrong. She would
fight him every step of the way. But Cole sent her an exasperated
look.

“Settle down, Juliana. I’m not your enemy
anymore, McCray is. He’s opened fire on both of us, as far as I’m
concerned, and what I want to know is why.”

“Do you know this Line McCray?”

“We’ve met.” Hard lights glinted in his eyes.
“I don’t think much of him, but he’s been mighty successful. Owns
some valuable property in southeastern Arizona and down in New
Mexico. Now,” Cole said, swinging away from the window to pace
restlessly about the room, “it seems he’s taken over Plattsville
lock, stock, and barrel.”

Juliana recalled what she had learned from
Henny, and told Cole about it, trying to put the pieces together.
“So McCray forced Henny to sell him the hotel after her husband
died—or rather, was killed,” she said slowly while Cole frowned
down at her in silence, “and when her son objected to his tactics,
he died too.” She jumped up from the chair, distraught once more as
she recalled the scene in the jail. “And Sheriff Dane was
threatening her other little boy, Cole, as sure as I’m standing
here. He had the poor woman terrified of even peeking at him
sideways.”

She wheeled about and marched up and down the
small width of the cabin, her oversize boots scraping the floor. “I
wouldn’t believe one word that awful man uttered,” she exclaimed
furiously. “If Dane claims Wade shot Hank Rivers in the back, the
truth is that he probably did it himself—so he could take over the
sheriff’s job or ... or because McCray wanted him to ...”

In spite of the seriousness of the situation,
Cole couldn’t help but grin at the sight of her all worked up and
stalking the cabin floor furiously. “You’d make a pretty good
Pinkerton detective,” he commented. “I think you’re right.”

Silence. He did?

“You do?” For a moment she thought the
beating she had endured had affected her hearing. This man who had
never done anything but argue with her and order her around—he was
actually agreeing with her about something?