Kid Calhoun (23 page)

Wat Rankin watched with a smile on his face as Kid Calhoun left the Town House Saloon. If she followed Whiskey long enough she would walk right into the trap he had set for her. Imagine the Kid being female! Wat still couldn’t believe Booth had been able to practice such a deceit on the gang.

When the Ranger had started talking about Booth Calhoun’s “niece” helping him find the stolen gold, Wat had become suspicious. He had watched the Chandler house, and sure enough, the Kid had left in the middle of the night. Wat hadn’t been far behind.

He had been hoping the Kid would lead him straight to the valley. Instead the Ranger had interfered, and they had ended up back in Santa Fe. Well, Jake Kearney had had his chance. Now it was Wat’s turn.

Rankin had gathered up what was left of Booth’s gang and worked out a plan to capture the Kid. Anabeth Calhoun had become a thorn in his side that needed to be removed—as soon as he had tortured the location of the valley out of her.

Wat figured Treasure Valley was the most logical place for Booth to hide Sam’s gold. And he was convinced the Kid knew where in the valley the gold was
hidden. He planned to make very sure that Anabeth Calhoun told what she knew before she died.

In fact, the trap Wat had laid for Anabeth worked very well. Her mind was still on Jake, not on the dangers of the trail where it should have been. She had no one to blame but herself for getting caught. She was crossing a dry creek bed not two miles south of Santa Fe when a lasso settled around her shoulders. An instant later she was yanked from the saddle and landed hard in the dust. Her hat came off and her hair spilled down around her.

She heard the shocked intake of air and the foul curses that revealed the astonishment of the men who had captured her when they realized she was female.

“You were right again,” Snake said to Wat. “Who’d have thought we had a girl ridin’ with us!”

Rough hands grabbed her by the arms and yanked her to her feet. She stood facing the man she had sworn to kill, knowing that the chances were good that she would be the one who didn’t leave this place alive.

Wat lifted a handful of Anabeth’s hair and let it slide through his fingers. “Very pretty.”

“To kill a woman, it is a bad thing,” Solano said.

Even Wat had to admit that Solano had a point. Women were so scarce in the West that they were protected among both honest and dishonest circles alike. Anyone who harmed a woman would likely be hunted down and killed himself. Unless there was no one around to complain.

Who knew Anabeth Calhoun was here? She had come after them wearing men’s clothes and toting a pair of six-guns. For that matter, who knew this woman was a woman? The answer was Jake Kearney. It was plain Wat would have to take care of the Ranger, as well.

Anabeth shuddered as Wat fingered her hair. She
shrank from his smooth-fingered touch as he caressed the pearl handles of Booth’s revolvers before removing them from the holsters at her sides.

Finally, Wat loosened the rope that had been used to snatch Anabeth from her mount and began recoiling it. “Hold her,” he ordered Snake.

Snake’s hands gripped Anabeth’s shoulder painfully. “Why you been followin’ us?” Snake demanded.

“I saw you kill Booth!” Anabeth spat. “All of you!” She kicked out and caught Snake in the knee. He swore and let go of her, grabbing his injured knee instead.

Anabeth ran. She was fast, but bullets were faster. The gunshot whizzing past her ear was a warning.

“The next one won’t miss,” Wat said in a perfectly calm voice.

Anabeth came to a screeching halt. It was the voice that stopped her. The fact she was female wasn’t going to save her from the likes of Wat Rankin. He didn’t have a conscience to be bothered. And dead was dead. If she wanted a chance for the revenge she had come so far to get, she had to stay alive.

“Well, a female with brains,” Wat said. “That is a surprise.”

Anabeth glared at him.

“Come here,” Wat commanded.

Anabeth’s footsteps dragged as she returned to stand before the outlaw. She flinched when he grabbed her jaw, but met his strange yellow eyes without turning away.

“Where’s the gold?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“She’s lyin’!” Snake said.

Wat’s fingers tightened on her face. “Well, Kid?”

Anabeth lowered her gaze. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“I don’t think you are.” Wat’s hand tightened until Anabeth cried out.

Her eyelids flickered up, revealing the hate and rage she felt toward the outlaw who was responsible for her uncle’s death. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”

“Then I’ll ask you something you do know. Where’s that valley?”

“I’ll never tell,” she retorted.

“Oh, I think maybe with a little persuasion you might even be willing to take us there.”

“Never!”

Wat’s hand slipped down from Anabeth’s jaw to her throat and squeezed. She choked as she tried to draw breath, but couldn’t. Her hands grappled with his wrist, trying to pull it free. Not until things began to go black, did Wat’s grip loosen. Anabeth gasped and heaved a lifesaving breath of air.

“I think maybe you’ll talk,” Wat said with a leering smile. “Because there are other types of persuasion, you know, if plain old violence doesn’t work.”

Anabeth searched the faces of the other outlaws, looking for compassion, but found none. On the Mexican’s face she saw disapproval of her treatment, but also fear of Wat Rankin that far outweighed it. Teague was too dumb to think for himself. He would do what he was told. In the eyes of Whiskey and Snake she saw lust and a primitive animal excitement. It would only take a nod from Rankin to release the savages within.

“Maybe I do know something,” Anabeth admitted at last.

Wat smiled broadly. “I’m a reasonable man,” he said. “Let’s sit down and talk business.”

Anabeth shuddered as Wat put an arm around her shoulder and led her back toward a camp that had been set up near the main waterhole along the trail.
Stupid men, she thought. This was the first place Jake would think to come looking for her. He would come looking for her, wouldn’t he?

Yes, he would. First, because he would be angry that she had gotten away from him. Second, because he believed she would eventually lead him to Sam Chandler’s gold. And third, because there was unfinished personal business between them that had begun when they exchanged that stunning kiss in Claire’s parlor.

Anabeth had a feeling Jake was going to be pretty damned mad by the time he found her. Only Jake wouldn’t figure to take out his fury on a puny female. Anabeth smiled inwardly. Wat Rankin and his gang had better look out!

Jake lay back on the pillow with an arm behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Every so often he took a drag on the cigarette Sierra had rolled and offered to him after they had finished having sex. He scratched around the pink edges of the gunshot wound on his thigh, which itched where it was healing.

The sweat hadn’t dried on his body from the physical exertion of the act, but he felt the need for a woman again. The problem was, he didn’t want the woman lying beside him. She had satisfied the desires of his body, but not the needs of his soul.

In the past, whenever Jake had needed a woman, he had found a willing one and taken what he wanted. Not that he hadn’t given pleasure in return. Jake wasn’t so selfish as that. This time he had sought out a woman to fulfill his need, but his body refused to be satisfied with the intense physical release he had found. It wanted something more. He wanted something more.

Anabeth Calhoun
.

There, he had admitted it. He wanted her and only her. There was a fire in his body that sought out an answering flame. An ache in his soul that sought out an answering solace. As much as he wished it were not true, the only woman who could satisfy the burning within him was an enticing young female locked into a second-story room in a boardinghouse on the other side of town.

Jake frowned when he thought of any woman having that sort of power over him—over his happiness. Hadn’t he learned his lesson from his mother? He might want Anabeth Calhoun like hell, but that didn’t mean he had to succumb to her allure. The sooner he said good-bye to her, the better.

He looked down and realized his body had hardened at just the thought of her, the blood pumping through his shaft, engorging it painfully.

“Hell and the devil.”

“You say something, Jake?”

Jake stubbed out his cigarette in a tray on the bedside table, then sat up and began pulling on his jeans. Sierra rolled over in bed to admire the play of sinewy muscles in his back. She reached out a hand to touch him, but let it drop when he stood and moved away from her.

Sierra sat up, letting the covers slide down to her waist, exposing a lush female figure still covered with a faint sheen of perspiration from the lovemaking just past.

“You seem in a godawful hurry, Jake. I must be losing my touch.”

Jake threw a wry glance over his shoulder. “Just remembered something I’ve got to do.” He pulled some bills out of his pocket without counting them.

Before he could lay them on the bedside table Sierra said, “Save your money. The pleasure was all mine.”

Jake met her gaze and saw the pride there—and the regret. “Thanks, Sierra. I …”

How could he explain his desire to leave this room as quickly as possible. His urgent need to see the lithe young woman who had been the bane of his existence since the moment he had first met her. “It’s not you, Sierra. I just—”

Sierra smiled and at the same time pulled the sheets up to conceal her body from a gaze that no longer found it the least bit tantalizing. “Don’t worry, Jake. I don’t have the kind of feelings that can be hurt anymore.”

“Dammit, Sierra, I—”

“She must be some kind of woman to tie you up in knots like this. Who is she?”

“A spoiled brat! A troublemaking whelp! I don’t know why I bother with her.”

She must be some kind of woman to tie you up in knots like this
. The sentence replayed in Jake’s head. Sam had warned him he would one day meet such a woman. He hadn’t believed it. Dammit, he
refused
to believe it.

“She means
nothing
to me,” Jake muttered.

“Sounds like you’ve got it bad,” Sierra said.

“I don’t need her kind of trouble.”

“Don’t you?”

Jake felt his groin tighten at the mere thought of doing with Anabeth what he had just done with Sierra.

Sierra saw the blatant evidence of Jake’s desire and laughed. “Don’t try to fool yourself, Jake. You want her like a house afire.”

“She’s just a kid,” Jake muttered.

“Thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Nineteen.”

Sierra’s brows rose significantly.

“So maybe she’s not a kid, exactly,” Jake said. “But she’s as innocent as a day-old babe.”

“There has to be a first time for every woman.”

“Not with me!”

“Is she asking for forever?”

“She isn’t asking for anything!”

Sierra’s smile was wistful. “But she’s going to get it, isn’t she, Jake. Oh, to be young and innocent again and to have a man like you walk into my life.” She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “She’s a very lucky lady.”

“She’s a pain in the ass.”

Sierra laughed. “Get out of here and go see her.”

Jake bit his lip on the insincere protest he was about to make, stomped his feet down into his boots, buttoned up his shirt, yanked on his buckskin jacket, and left without another word. He thought he heard Sierra sigh as he closed the door behind himself.

Jake didn’t exactly hurry back to the boardinghouse, but he didn’t make any detours either. He stopped to see Eulalie in the kitchen to get the key to the upstairs room where he had left the Kid, then headed up the stairs, two at a time.

He called to Anabeth as he unlocked the door and shoved it open—to find the room empty.

“Kid? You in here?” His eyes quickly searched the room, but there was nowhere for her to hide. He crossed to the window and looked out—then up. There was a thread from his flannel shirt caught on the edge of the windowsill and another on the edge of the roof.

“Damn her to hell!” Jake came down the stairs three at a time. “Eulalie!” he roared. “She’s flown the coop again!”

Eulalie came to the kitchen door kneading a handful of bread dough. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone! When did you last see her?”

“Not since you left early this afternoon. I went by the room once and knocked, but she didn’t answer, so I figured she was asleep. You say she’s gone? I swear I didn’t let her out, Jake.”

“She went out the window.”

“Where would she go?”

Jake was afraid he knew the answer to that question. It made his gut tighten with fear for the imp of Satan who had tied him up in knots—and threatened to steal both his heart and his soul.

He stopped long enough to pick up his saddlebags and say good-bye to Eulalie.

“You leaving already?”

“I have to find her. Don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Take care of yourself, Jake.” She grinned and said, “Bring her back when you can stay longer.”

Jake gave the old woman a quick hug, mindful of the yeasty dough in her hands, and hurried out the back door.

Whatever doubts Jake might have had as to whether Anabeth had left Santa Fe were settled when he got to the livery and found her dun missing. It took him a while to find the mustang’s tracks outside of town, but once he did, he kicked his buckskin into a lope. Shortly thereafter, Dog joined him.

When Jake reached the spot where Anabeth had been taken by the outlaws, he deciphered the signs as though Anabeth had left a letter behind to tell him what had happened. Jake didn’t like what he read. It left him feeling cold inside, with a need to kill.

The gang had waited here. Anabeth had come off the dun and hit the ground in a heap. He looked for blood, but thanked God when he didn’t find any. She had tried to run but had turned around and come back. The gang had camped by the waterhole and eaten a meal. After the heat of the day, they had
headed south, back the way Jake and Anabeth had come.