Promises Kept (34 page)

“Victoria, Mrs. Wellington sent me on alone. We can’t find the boys anywhere.”

Eyes going wide, Victoria asked, “What do you mean?” She had spent the night at Colt’s so she hadn’t seen the boys since yesterday.

“They were playing by the barn earlier, and when Mrs. Wellington went to call them in to get cleaned up to come over here, they were nowhere to be found. We spent over an hour looking for them before I came here.”

Fear gripped her. “The river?” she asked nervously. They had never learned to swim. If they went in that river they would surely drown.

“That’s the first place I went, but I saw no sign they were there,” he replied, trying to reassure her. He didn’t want to frighten her more than he had already, but if those boys drowned they might not turn up for a few days. He wasn’t about to say that to her.

“Maybe they fell asleep in the barn,” Victoria said.

Helen was in the doorway and overheard the conversation. “You know how boys are; they are probably off in a field somewhere. I can’t tell you how often I had to go in search of Colt and his brothers when they were young. They’d always turn up in the strangest places.” She hurried across the kitchen and pointed Victoria toward the sink and started working the pump. “Now wash your hands and go on to the farm to look for those boys. I can handle things here, and you won’t rest until you see them.”

“Helen, don’t tell Colt. I don’t want him getting on a horse and riding over there. I’m sure there is nothing to worry about.” Victoria’s words were as much for her own benefit as Helen’s.

“I’m not sure I can keep it from him, but I will try.” Helen didn’t know what she would say to him if he asked about Victoria’s absence at dinner.

“Tell him I will be back later,” Victoria said over her shoulder as she followed Bartholomew out the door.

As soon as Victoria and Bartholomew left, Helen found T. J. and told him what was going on so he could send some men from the ranch to help in the search.

Three hours passed and everyone returned to the house without the boys. Victoria was inconsolable. All reason told her the boys would not run off. A million scenarios passed through her mind, but she refused to allow herself to dwell on those thoughts. It was getting dark outside and the temperature was dropping, which worried her even more. Perhaps one of them was hurt and the other one didn’t want to leave him alone to find help. It was the longest night of her life. Before dawn broke Bartholomew drove her to town, thinking maybe someone found them and didn’t know where they belonged.

“What do you mean, the boys are missing?” Colt shouted at T. J.

“Bartholomew arrived before dinner last night and told Victoria that they couldn’t find them.”

Colt moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “Why didn’t Helen tell me? She told me last night that Victoria had decided to go home for a few hours. I thought she must have been tired and stayed there instead of coming back here for the night.”

“Victoria didn’t want you upset; she knew you would ride to the farm.”

“Darn right I would.”

“I sent Rance and Lane over to help search, and told them not to come back until they found them. Since they still haven’t come back, I thought I’d better tell you what’s going on.” T. J. didn’t want to deliver this news, considering everything else Colt was dealing with. But he sure didn’t want to face him if he found out everyone had kept something like this from him.

Colt pointed to a trunk in front of the window. “Would you pull out my holster?”

T. J. saw his gun belt on the bedpost. “One is hanging right there.”

“I need my other one,” Colt said. His entire right side was so sore he wasn’t sure he could shoot with his right hand. His other holster held two pistols, if he needed to use his left hand.

“You don’t need to be going anywhere,” T. J. said. “Doc says you are never going to mend if you don’t stay in that bed. I’ll send all the men we can spare to help search.” Watching Colt struggling into his pants, he knew his words were falling on deaf ears. “Hold on a dang minute, I’ll get the darn holster.” T. J. stalked to the trunk and shuffled through the contents. He found the holster at the bottom of the trunk and handed it to Colt. “Doc’s going to have a fit, not to mention Victoria,” he muttered.

Colt strapped the holster around his hips, and out of habit he checked the cylinders of each pistol to make sure they were loaded. He cleaned the pistols frequently, so he knew they were in good order. “Do you mind tying them down for me? I don’t think I can bend over that far since the doc tied these bandages so tight.”

T. J. bent to tie the leather thongs around Colt’s thighs. “Mind telling me how you are planning on riding a horse?”

“I’ll manage.” Bandit jumped off the bed, ready to follow Colt out the door. “You have to stay here, boy.” Colt had a feeling Wallace was involved in this somehow, and the time had come to have it out with him.

As they walked down the stairs side by side, T. J. said, “Razor’s out front. I’m going with you.”

Colt smiled. He should have figured that T. J. knew he would go. “I guess you’ve been around me too long.”

“Yep, and you ain’t getting any smarter.” He’d told Rex to get Colt’s horse saddled before he went to tell him about the boys. “Your head is harder than . . . than your old man’s.” That was the hardest thing T. J. could think of at the moment.

They were leaving the ranch when Lane came riding in.

“What are you doing back here? Did they find the boys?” T. J. asked.

“No, and now the woman is missing.”

“Victoria?” Colt asked, sure his heart skipped a beat.

“Yeah. Bartholomew took her to town to see if someone might have found the boys but didn’t know where they belonged. They were gone so long that Rance thought he should ride to town to see if they had problems. He found the buckboard on the road. Bartholomew was shot—he ain’t dead, but he’s in a real bad way. Rance took him to the farm and that Englishwoman is tending him since it was closer than going to town. Victoria was nowhere around. I rode to town to see if she was there, but it looks like they never made it. I sent the doc to the farm to do what he can for Bartholomew.”

“Let’s ride,” Colt said.

T. J. had the presence of mind to tell Lane to round up some men and meet them at Victoria’s farm.

“Why did you bring me here?” Victoria asked Hoyt Nelson when he reined in at Wallace’s ranch.

He pulled her off the saddle. “The boss told me to.”

Nothing was making sense to her. Nelson shot Bartholomew, and as she tried to help him, the gunslinger had forced her on his horse at gunpoint. “Why does Mr. Wallace want me here?”

“I guess he has his reasons. You’ll have to ask him.” He pushed her in the direction of the front porch. “Now walk.”

“Did he tell you to shoot Bartholomew?” she shrieked.

Hoyt didn’t respond. The front door opened and Wallace appeared. “Victoria, my dear, do come in.”

“I want to know why I am here,” she demanded. Pointing a shaking finger at Nelson, she said, “He shot Bartholomew!”

“Now you have all of them,” Hoyt said to Wallace.

Wallace took her by the wrist and pulled her inside. When they reached his office, he threw the door open and Victoria saw the twins sitting on the settee. They scrambled down and ran to her. Dropping to her knees, she held them to her and felt their thin bodies shaking uncontrollably. She kissed their tearstained cheeks. “It’s okay, I’m here. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.” She hoped they couldn’t tell how fearful she was. “Why did you run away from home?”

“We didn’t run away. That scary man with the fancy guns made us go with him,” Cade said.

“He pointed his gun at us,” Cody added.

Standing, she whirled around to confront Wallace. “Why are they here?”

Wallace didn’t respond, so she took the boys by the hand and said, “We’re leaving here right now.”

Wallace smirked at her. “I’m afraid not.” He pulled a pistol from his waistband, pointed it at her, and yelled for his housekeeper. When she appeared, he instructed, “Take these boys upstairs to a bedroom and don’t let them out until I tell you.”

The boys clung to Victoria. “We don’t have to, do we?”

Wallace pointed the pistol at Cody’s head, and Victoria saw in his cold eyes that he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. “Everything will be okay. I will be with you in a little while, so please go with the lady,” she said as calmly as she could.

They released Victoria and walked past Wallace. “Colt will come for us,” Cody said bravely. “He’s going to be our pa.”

Wallace laughed. “I’m afraid not.”

Cade agreed with his brother. “He will too! We asked God for him.”

“He said he would always protect us,” Cody added.

They turned around and looked at Victoria, their eyes wide with terror. “He will, won’t he?” Cody asked, his lips quivering.

Just as she started to reassure them, she noticed something she had not seen before. Her eyes slid to Wallace. Why hadn’t she noticed this before? Cade and Cody’s eyes were the same steel blue-gray as Wallace’s. They had the same white-blond hair, the same lanky, lean physiques.
No! It couldn’t be! Is this what Wallace wanted with them? Were the boys the reason he’d stayed in Abilene?

“He will, won’t he?” Cade repeated his brother’s question.

Victoria was afraid to respond; she didn’t want them to see her own doubt. “Go with the lady now. We’ll talk later.” Victoria gazed at the Mexican woman and saw pity in her eyes as she gently took Cade and Cody by the hand and led them from the room.

“So you think you are going to marry McBride?” After what Gage Hardy told him about Victoria, or Delilah, he didn’t think any man would want her. He wouldn’t marry her now that he knew about her past, but he had plans for her. He would force her to sign over her land to him. If she didn’t, he would make sure she never saw those boys again. Hardy made it clear she would do anything for those boys. It would be her choice. The boys would be leverage as long as he needed them to get what he wanted.

“No, I’m not marrying Mr. McBride,” Victoria responded as calmly as she could manage. She was frightened to death, but she had to remain strong for the boys. “Now what do you want with us? And why did that man shoot Bartholomew?”

Wallace walked toward her, grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. “Gage Hardy told me you worked at the Lucky Slipper in Abilene. I’ve been there plenty of times, but I don’t recall seeing you there. I thought you were the mother of those boys, but now I find out they are the offspring of another gal from that saloon. I knew Kitten and Ruby well, so who is their mother?” He didn’t really care who they belonged to; they were his ticket to get what he wanted.

He doesn’t know! He doesn’t know!
She was overcome with relief. He’d never really looked at the boys, and apparently Kitten never told him. She wondered why she hadn’t recognized the resemblance before now. The similarities were unmistakable. She needed to distract him from asking questions about their mother. “I didn’t . . . I cleaned and sewed for the girls at the saloon, nothing else.”

“Save the lies, Delilah. Is that your given name, or just the name you used at the Lucky Slipper? Hardy told me all about you. He seems to know you very well.”

“What do you want with me?”

Still holding her arm behind her, he wrapped his fingers around her neck with his free hand. “I think you know what I want. Land. That’s all that matters to me.”

She tried to push away from him, but he held her firm.

“I was going to ask you to marry me. Now I don’t have to marry you. I don’t want someone like you for a wife.” He spat, close to her face. “You are not worthy to be my wife, but you will stay here as long as I want. And you will sign over your land to me.”

“Take your hands off me!” she cried.

His eyes were cold and devoid of emotion. That had to be the reason she hadn’t noticed the resemblance to the boys—there was no life in his eyes. He was a monster. What had pushed him over the edge? Did his greed for land make his mind snap? “Haven’t you forgotten about Mrs. Wellington? She will alert the sheriff. They will come looking for me.”

He squeezed her neck, demonstrating his power to control her. “The sheriff?” He laughed. “I own the sheriff.”

She recalled Colt saying the same thing.
If only I had listened to him. What a fool I’ve been. How many people have been fooled by his good manners?

“If that old woman comes here, you will tell her you are going to marry me.”

“I won’t do that. Besides, she would never believe me.” She struggled against his hold until she heard the sound of cloth tearing. She looked down to see he had ripped her dress down the front. Thankfully, her camisole was still covering her.

“Don’t fight me. I will kill those boys, don’t think I won’t. I might even kill the old woman. I will get what I want, one way or the other.”

She was terrified, more so than that night back in Abilene when Gage Hardy attacked her. Gage Hardy had been nothing more than a drunk, but Wallace was worse. He was a man without conscience. “This is about land? You can’t mean you’ve done all of this for land?”

He fisted her camisole like he was going to rip it from her when a knock on the door stopped him. “What is it?” he bellowed.

A man replied, “The men are here.”

“Get them into the stable.” He shoved Victoria to a chair, walked to his desk and poured himself a brandy. “This is about my empire. It’s all going to be mine. These ranchers haven’t the intellect to run an empire. They don’t deserve this land.”

She didn’t think he would listen to reason, but she had to try. “Look at what you have here. It’s more than enough for one man.”

“It’s never enough. Land is power. A man is judged by what he owns, and the wife that he chooses to bear his offspring.” Leaning against his desk, he regarded her as he sipped his brandy. “I had chosen you to run my household and have my sons. Pity, you are so beautiful and you have learned the graces of a lady, yet you are nothing but a trollop.”