Cherished (35 page)

He had made her promise she would stay in the
cabin. So that she would be safe. But she had broken her promise,
and Gray Feather had carried her off, and ...

And Cole would surely think her dead—or
nearly so, for the obvious conclusion he would draw when he
returned and found the cabin empty would be that Knife Jackson and
his companions had found her.

She had to go back. Dear Lord, she had to go
back.

But she didn’t even know if he would be
there. He could be looking for her; he could run smack into Knife
and the others while trying to find her. And they would kill him.
Deep down in her heart she knew that if they caught him again, they
would kill him. She had the most horrible feeling that he might
already be dead.

A faintness came over her. She fought it
back, her face white as parchment. She darted from the cabin before
any of the men realized what she was doing, running out into the
midnight-blue darkness in blind panic.

“Juliana, what the hell has got into you?
Where do you think you’re going?” Wade pounded after her and
grabbed her arm as she peered frantically about in the starlit
darkness.

“I need a horse. And a guide. Gray Feather
...”

“You’re not going anywhere. Are you loco?”
Tommy tried to catch her as she yanked her arm free of Wade’s grip
and started to move away from them both.

“Oh, no, you don’t! You’ll kill yourself here
in the dark.” He caught up with her and was starting to pull her
toward him when a shot rang out, knocking his hat off his head.

“Let her go.”

The deadly threat in the voice that rang like
cold steel through the night made the hairs on Juliana’s neck stand
on end. But she recognized that voice, and a sudden rush of
exhilaration and relief flooded through her.

“Cole! Cole, I’m all right,” she gasped.
“Don’t shoot!” She hurled herself like a shield in front of her
brothers. “It’s Wade and Tommy!”

There was a tiny sound of brush rustling
somewhere on Stick Mountain, and then a shadow emerged from the
deeper shadows of the rocks, a shadow that detached itself from its
cover and moved toward them. Faintly lit as the night was by the
glow of a thousand burning stars, Juliana recognized Cole’s tall,
muscular frame, the shape of his hat, the strong, tense line of his
jaw as he stopped in front of her.

“Thank God!” she cried on a little sob of
happiness, and threw herself into his arms. But the next moment she
gasped as he gripped her shoulders hard and held her at arm’s
length away from him.

“So you’re safe, after all.”

His voice was odd. Cold. Hard. The way it
used to sound when she first met him, when he always thought the
worst of her.

“Cole, I’m truly sorry. I forgot all about
everything else—we were celebrating—isn’t it wonderful? Wade and
Tommy found
me
—at least, Gray Feather did, and there was
so much to talk about. You must come inside and have some wine and
let me introduce you ...”

Her voice faded away. She was beginning to be
able to discern his face in the darkness now and what she saw
frightened her. His expression was as deadly and formidable as when
he had faced down Cash Hogan, Luke, and Bo. The glitter in his eyes
turned her blood to ice, and she felt her knees trembling as his
harsh gaze swept over her with no visible sign of emotion, then
shifted to study Wade and Tommy, just behind her, fixing each of
them in turn with that hardened detachment.

“Take your hands off my sister.” Turning, she
saw that Wade had his gun drawn. So did Tommy. In the ivory-frosted
darkness that shrouded the trees, tipping everything with an eerie
faint silver light she realized that Yancy, Gray Feather, Skunk,
and Gil were all fanned out in a semicircle, their guns drawn and
pointed at Cole.

“Back away from her, Rawdon.” She scarcely
recognized Tommy’s voice. Her handsome, roguish brother sounded
every bit as hard and dangerous as Wade, even as Cole Rawdon
himself.

“And then throw your guns down nice and
easy,” Wade added crisply as he stepped forward and with one hand
jerked Juliana back, out of Rawdon’s grasp.

Cole let her go, his lips curled in a snarl.
He never shifted a muscle.

“Wade, Tommy, no!” She shook herself free,
turning to them with her arms spread in a gesture of appeal. In the
seafoam-green gown, with starlight shimmering on her pale hair, she
did look like an angel, or a mermaid swept from the depths of the
sea, a delicate figure of unearthly beauty, whose lovely face was
marred only by an expression of distress. “Put your guns away! Cole
isn’t here to harm me. He’s been helping me. He saved me from Line
McCray’s men in Plattsville. In fact he’s saved my life more times
than I can count. Put your guns away, damn you. Now.”

And then she flung herself in front of Cole
as a slender, lovely shield against all the men lined up against
him. “Do as I say, or I’ll leave with him this minute and never
come back.”

“Juliana, whatever he’s told you or done for
you—or made you think he’s done for you, it’s a trick.” Wade spoke
quickly, never removing his alert gaze from his adversary’s face.
“Rawdon’s a bounty hunter. He’s only after the reward—the one on
your head and on ours.”

“Go inside and let us deal with him.” His
voice flat and cold, Tommy sounded nothing like himself. “He’s lied
to you, Juliana—that’s plain. We’ll sort it out later, but first,
for Pete’s sake, get in the cabin and leave him to us.”

“So that you can all kill each other? I don’t
think I will.”

Staring angrily at her brothers and the men
behind them, and then spinning about to see Cole’s hard face in the
darkness behind her, she felt the bubble of wrath inside her
explode. “Men! You’re all alike! You think violence is the answer
to everything, don’t you? Well, the men who killed Mama and Papa
and left them lying in their own blood thought that way too. And
look where it left us! Maybe none of us would be on this
godforsaken mountain right now, Wade, if it hadn’t been for that.
Maybe we’d all still be back home in Independence, eating Sunday
dinner with Mama and Papa. I’ve been running away from violence
ever since. But I’ve seen enough of it in the past few months to
last me a lifetime. I’m sick of it, do you hear me? Sick to death
of shootings and beatings and threats.”

Her voice broke, and as he listened to her a
shock ran down Cole’s spine. So that was what had spooked her, made
her faint at the sight of a dead man, made her wish to avoid even
killing a damned bear. Her parents, like his, had been murdered. It
was a grim fact they had in common. Poor kid. He suddenly felt some
of the red-hot fury seeping out of him. Something ached between his
temples. Pity. Or maybe just tension, raw and ugly. He’d been loco
ever since he’d come back to the cabin and found her gone. He’d
assumed that Knife had her, and the panic that had roared through
him, ripping at his heart and guts, had been worse than anything
anyone had ever done to him. Driven by a flailing desperation, he’d
searched for her for hours, until down by the stream he’d finally
found that damned comb she’d wound into her hair this morning. He’d
felt like someone was tearing his insides out then. The tracks had
been almost impossible to follow, and he’d lost the trail twice,
but he’d hooked onto it at last. To find her here, safe with her
brothers, pretty as a seashell in this fancy dress, not even
thinking twice about him—or what he had suffered when she
disappeared. Cole felt a gut-wrenching pain. No longer from anxiety
or fear for her safety. Something else. Something he couldn’t
define. All he knew was that she didn’t need him anymore. She had
quickly forgotten him—as soon as she found these brothers of hers.
It hurt more than he cared to think about. But he wasn’t going to
cause a bloodbath over it. Even though it seemed those brothers of
hers would like nothing better than to blow his head off.

Juliana
, he was about to say.
Settle down. I’ll have a few necessary words with your
brothers, clear a few things up—and then go on my way
.

But she rushed on, never giving him the
chance.

“Throw down your guns, every single one of
you,” she ordered, her breath coming quickly in the cool night air.
“And do it right now. Because if any one of you gets shot or
hurt—I’ll ... I’ll ... I’ll jump right off this mountain, I swear I
will!”

As if to illustrate her words, she took a
step into the perilous darkness toward the uncertain ledges beyond,
but Cole’s strong arms reached out and seized her around the waist.
“I already pulled you back from one precipice, angel. Don’t tempt
fate by dangling yourself over another.”

She was stunned to hear that the harsh edge
was gone from his voice; it was lighter, amused almost, and his
arms around her waist were tight and reassuring.

“Wildcat,” he whispered in her ear, and then
said to Wade, “maybe we should call a truce until we can straighten
a few things out. It strikes me that we might be on the same side
on this one.”

“I don’t trust him, Wade,” Tommy blurted
out.

“Tommy!” Juliana cried in exasperation, but
her eldest brother interrupted.

“Our little sister is no fool, Tommy. We’ll
give Rawdon a chance.” He slipped his gun back into its holster.
“Everybody inside. We’re going to talk.”

Cole held on to her as the others edged
cautiously toward the cabin. “Tell me one thing. They found the
cabin?” He had thought it safe, virtually undetectable to anyone
not raised on Fire Mesa. Her answer confirmed what he had
suspected.

“N-no. I went down to the stream for a
bath.”

Slate-blue eyes pierced her with a look that
chilled her heart. “I see.”

“Cole ...”

“So much for promises.”

He released her, stepped past her as though
she were nothing but a tree or a rock, and went inside the
Montgomery gang’s cabin.

Two hours later Wade Montgomery glanced
somberly at the blue-eyed bounty hunter leaning against the pine
table and said, “Rawdon, it appears that my brother and I owe you
one big apology.”

He thought:
The poor bastard hasn’t taken
his eyes off Juliana for more than an instant. He’s in love with
her
. Strange that he should see that right off, Wade thought.
But then he was unusually perceptive about people, tending to see
what went on beneath the facade they put up every day, sensing
their secrets, their lies, piercing right through the outward layer
of civility to the real core beneath. When it came to Rawdon,
though, he was stunned by what he saw. It had never occurred to
him, during all the years he’d heard of the infamous Cole Rawdon,
that when he finally met the most dreaded bounty hunter in the
southwest territories, he’d see not a cold, relentless hunter
(although from outward appearances, Rawdon was indeed that) but a
strong man wrestling in the throes of love. Never having been in
love, Wade thought such a fate nearly as fatal as dying, but he
quickly reminded himself it was Juliana whom Rawdon loved, and that
made him one lucky hombre—if she returned his feelings. Wade
reckoned, from the way she’d rushed to his defense earlier, and in
the way her eyes lit up whenever he said something—hell, whenever
the fellow drew a breath—that she did. If Juliana wanted him, he
decided with typical Montgomery determination, she would have him,
even if Rawdon had to be tied up and lassoed like a bawling calf
till she got him to the altar. Somehow or other, Wade didn’t think
it would come to that. With Juliana looking so damned beautiful she
might have stepped right out of heaven’s gate, he couldn’t imagine
Rawdon resisting her for long—so long as Tommy kept his mouth shut
and stayed out of it.

Juliana, when she heard her brother’s words,
let out a sigh of relief.

Peace. Maybe there would be peace between
Cole, Wade, and Tommy yet. The expression on Cole’s face wasn’t
exactly warm and friendly, but it wasn’t nearly as coldly
unnerving, as implacably set as it had been when he’d first
appeared outside the cabin.

Not that she could blame him for being
furious. Her heart trembled when she thought of her own role in
what had happened today. It was her own fault, for she sensed that
it was concern for her that had made him so fiercely angry. He must
have been very, very worried. Out of his mind, almost. Maybe old
superstitions didn’t always hold true after all, she told herself
with a flicker of hope.
He loves me not.
What did an old
daisy know?

She found herself smiling a little to
herself, and just at that moment Cole’s gaze touched hers. He
seemed to be taking in everything: her softly pinned curls falling
artlessly around her shoulders, the gown that emphasized her long
neck and hugged her curves. His eyes narrowed, and it seemed to her
that their expression, deep within those blazing depths, became
suddenly more intense, yet he allowed nothing more to show in his
face. Still, she had come to realize that he was a master at
concealing his emotions. Like a gambler, he played his hand close.
Maybe he felt more toward her than she’d thought, maybe even more
than he would admit to himself. Hadn’t he come to her rescue time
and again? Hadn’t he found her even tonight despite Gray Feather’s
skill at covering his tracks? She thought of the scar on his face.
He’d endured that, and a beating, and had still come for her in
Plattsville. He’d fought and killed to get her out of that jail.
He’d come back to Fire Mesa, with all its gruesome memories, to
bring her to a place where she would be safe.

And she had repaid him by running off the
moment his back was turned, disappearing with Gray Feather and
forgetting all about him.

Sitting there, with Wade beside her once more
on the sofa, she felt a stab of remorse so powerful, it made her
head hurt. She had to speak to Cole. Alone. And without delay.