chapter Two
With the stampeding cattle headed directly at him, Dawson realized there was nowhere to go to get away from them, and it was too late to try to outrun the herd. He was about to be caught in the middle of the stampede.
He reined his horse around in time to see one of the rustlers turn the herd at the last moment—and just enough that he was able to get out of the way. The cattle thundered past in a cloud of dust—the rustler with them.
Dawson sheathed his rifle, spurred his horse and took off after him. The rider was moving fast, bent over the horse and riding as if his life depended on it. It did, because Dawson was gaining on him. Just a few more yards…
Riding up behind him, Dawson dived off his horse, tackling the rustler. Both of them hit the ground at the edge of the thundering herd of cattle and rolled into the tall grass. Dust boiled up around them as they came to a stop at the base of a large pine tree, Dawson coming out on top.
As the dust settled, he got his first good look at the rustler. He blinked. A pair of big Montana-sky-blue eyes glared up at him from a face framed in blond curls.
A woman rustler?
“You have to let me go,” she hollered as the roar of the stampeding cattle died off in the distance.
“So you can finish stealing my cattle? I don’t think so.”
“You don’t understand.”
“The hell I don’t.” He looked over his shoulder to see the last of the rustlers and cattle disappear through a gap in the trees. The rustlers had scattered the herd, but would still be able to cut out at least a hundred head.
He jerked the woman to her feet. “Where are they taking the cattle?”
She tested her left shoulder and grimaced, then she reached down to pick up her battered Western straw hat from the dirt.
“I think you’ll survive,” he said sarcastically.
She shot him a dirty look. “You could have killed me.”
“It crossed my mind.”
“Even after I saved you?” She narrowed those eyes at him.
“I beg your pardon?” He couldn’t believe this woman.
“Do you think those cattle just happened to turn on their own?” She raised her chin as she said it, her gaze full of challenge. “I saved your life. Now you owe me. Let me go.”
He laughed as he knocked the dust from his Stetson and settled it back on his head. “The only place you’re going is to jail.”
“That would be a mistake,” she said meeting his gaze. Her eyes were a heartbreaking blue in a face that could stop traffic with its surprising beauty. She looked too sweet and innocent to be a rustler.
“What the hell are you doing rustling my cattle?” he demanded, although he’d bet it had something to do with a man. It usually did.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said, and glanced toward where the cattle had disappeared through a wide spot in the trees.
“Try me.”
Something came into her eyes, a subtle look that warned him. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. She reached for the gun strapped to her hip, hidden under her long barn jacket.
He grabbed the weapon before she could, his eyes narrowing as he assessed her. So much for sweet and innocent.
She wasn’t just a woman whose boyfriend had talked her into some crazy stunt of rustling up a hundred head of cattle. The woman was armed and he’d already seen the way she could ride.
“How many others are there?” he demanded, grabbing a fistful of her jacket. “I think you’d better start talking before I tear into you.”
She smiled. “I’m not sure you want to do that.”
“Why is that?”
“You might not like the outcome.”
He laughed again. He had a good ten inches on her and seventy pounds. She wasn’t serious, was she?
Apparently she was, because before he could react, she punched him.
The blow caught him by surprise, breaking his hold on her and allowing her to take off running toward her horse, which had stopped a few dozen yards away.
Dawson went after her, bringing her down in the tall grass. She tried to fight him off, but he was onto her tricks this time and pinned her to the ground. He was suddenly aware of the soft curves.
“You have to listen to me.” She ground out the words from between her gritted teeth. “You have to let me go. If you don’t, they will come back for me and they will kill you. There are too many of them for you to fight off alone. You won’t stand a chance and I don’t want your blood on my hands.”
“I’m touched by your concern for me. Especially after you just tried to pull a gun on me.”
“I wasn’t going to shoot you.”
“You don’t mind if I don’t take your word on that, since you just punched me.”
“You gave me no choice.”
“Well, I’m giving you a choice now. Tell me how many of them there are.”
She struggled under him for a few moments, then gave up and sighed. “Seven. How are those for odds?”
Not good. He’d heard about a large rustling ring that had been operating down in Wyoming and had only recently moved into southeastern Montana. He assumed it must be the same band of rustlers. Apparently they had now moved into north central Montana.
“When they realize I’m not with them, they will be back for me,” she said.
Once the rustlers had the cattle settled wherever they planned to keep them for the night, they would come looking for this woman, sure as hell—if they didn’t notice her missing sooner.
He wondered how badly they would want to find her and how long they would look when they didn’t. He figured only one or two of them would return. The others would stay with the cattle. That at least would even the odds.
Also it would be dark soon. It got dark fast up here in the mountains. He had to make sure the band of rustlers didn’t find them until he decided what to do.
Eventually he’d have to deal with the possibly that all of them might come back for her, depending on her relationship to this gang. Holding off seven of them wouldn’t be easy. Especially with this woman to worry about. What was he going to do with her?
“Look, we don’t have much time before they realize I’m not with them.”
She had a point. He hauled her to her feet and walked her the rest of the way to his horse. Reaching into his saddlebag, he pulled out a length of rope.
“You can’t tie me up.”
“What would you suggest I do with you?”
“You work for Chisholm, right?” She took his silence for yes. “You really want to die for a hundred head of his cattle?”
He pulled her hands behind her back and began to tie her wrists together.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” she said.
“It won’t be my first.”
She was watching the edge of the trees where the last of the cattle and rustlers had disappeared. He could feel the tension running through her. She knew they would be coming back for her. He thought about his first impression—that some man had talked her into this.
“So who is he?” Dawson asked as he finished binding her wrists and turned her around to face him. “This cowboy who talked you into becoming a rustler?”
Her expression changed and her gaze shifted away, making him pretty sure he’d pegged this one right. But, hell, given what he’d seen of her, she could be the leader of this group. Still, he thought it was more likely that some man was involved.
“What did he promise you?” he asked when she said nothing. “Adventure? Money? A chance to go to prison?”
“Rustlers seldom go to prison, because they are seldom caught,” she snapped, sounding angry.
“Well, I caught you,” he said, just as angry, since she was right. Convictions of cattle thieves were rare to nonexistent and with cattle going for a thousand dollars a head and times being tough, the rustlers had gotten smarter. With open range where there were no fences to worry about and back roads poorly patrolled, all a thief needed was a horse, maybe a good cattle dog and a semitrailer. There was always a crooked cattle buyer for a quick sale, and they could walk away with some good money after very little work on their part.
These rustlers, though, were going for the big reward, rustling a hundred head at least. From what Dawson had seen so far, they knew exactly what they were doing. Just like this woman.
She cocked her head at him. “You caught me, but how are you going to keep me when the others come back?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.” He dragged her over to her horse. “Let me help you up,” he said and, before she could protest, hoisted her up into her saddle. Taking her reins, he headed for his horse. “You try anything and you’ll be on the ground again in a heartbeat. I don’t think you want that, do you?”
She glared at him before looking again toward the opening in the trees as if she expected the other rustlers to come riding in at any moment.
Dawson knew what would happen if the rustlers caught them out in the open. He had to get her to the other side of the large meadow, to a place he’d found when he was a boy, a place where he could hide her and make sure she didn’t warn her partners in crime.
He swung up onto his horse and, leading hers, headed across the meadow. He needed to get them both out of sight until he could decide what to do with her—and how to get his cattle back.
“If you let me go, I can keep them from coming back,” she said. “You have my word.”
“Your word, huh? Like that is worth anything.”
She let out an unladylike curse as he led her and her horse across the meadow. “I’m just trying to save your sorry neck.”
He glanced back at her. “And I’m just going after my cattle.”
“Your cattle? Don’t you mean your boss’s cattle?”
“I’m one of those Chisholms who you think can afford to lose a hundred and twenty-five head of cattle without even noticing it.”
“You’re a Chisholm?”
He could tell she liked it better when she thought he was just one of the hired hands. “Dawson Chisholm, and you are…?”
“Everyone calls me Jinx.”
He chuckled. “I can see why.”
EMMA CHISHOLM WOKE WITH a terrible headache. She lay perfectly still and didn’t dare open her eyes. There was a pounding at her temples and she felt sick to her stomach.
She inched her hand across the bed, hoping Hoyt was still lying next to her and hadn’t gotten up early and gone to work already. Maybe if he got her something for her headache before she tried to get up—
The bed was empty. With a jolt she opened her eyes. Two thoughts hit her at once. She wasn’t in her bed at the main house of Chisholm Cattle Company ranch and it wasn’t morning.
Through the boards that had been nailed haphazardly over the only window in the room, she could see daylight, but from the angle of the shadows it appeared to be afternoon.
Emma struggled to sit up, taking in the unfamiliar small room with its paint-peeling faded walls, the mattress resting on the scarred wood floor, the tiny closet with two buckets, one full of water, and the tray near the door with a sandwich in plastic wrap, an apple and a thermos.
As her memory came back, she was suddenly aware of the cold air coming in through a broken pane at the window. She hugged herself for a moment before getting to her feet.
Her head swam and she had to drop back to her hands and knees. Crawling over to the tray, she opened the thermos. Coffee, and it was still hot. She poured herself some into the plastic cup it came with. Her fingers trembled as she took a sip and considered the situation she found herself in. It wasn’t the first time she’d been drugged and locked in a room alone.
But it was the first time her captor had been a woman. Emma took another sip of the hot coffee to chase away the chill. She’d thought she’d been ready for Aggie Wells. She’d known the woman would come for her, but she’d underestimated Aggie.
When the former insurance investigator had disappeared a few weeks ago, Emma had been so certain Aggie was trying to make it appear that Hoyt had done something to her. But when Emma had recently come home from town and smelled the woman’s perfume in the main house at the ranch, she’d known Aggie was alive.
She had wondered how Aggie had known that everyone was out of the house. That’s when she’d found the listening devices Aggie had apparently installed in the house and she’d known that with Hoyt in jail and his six boys busy working on the ranch, it was only a matter of time before Aggie would come for her.
Emma remembered sitting in the kitchen after Hoyt was arrested, waiting to see what Aggie had planned next. She’d been sure that the woman’s plan had been to frame Hoyt for the murder of his third wife—and then take advantage of Emma being alone at the ranch to what? Kill her?
Emma hadn’t known, but she’d been armed and thought she was ready when Aggie suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Everything after that was still fuzzy. She drank more of the coffee, feeling a little better, unwrapped the sandwich—a ham and cheese—and took a bite before moving back over to the window and peering out a small hole the size of a fist between the boards.
Where was she? In some abandoned farmhouse near Whitehorse, Emma was fairly sure. The landscape looked familiar and she didn’t think Aggie had driven far after she’d drugged her.
So what did Aggie have planned for her?
She thought about the first time she’d met the former insurance investigator at the bar at Sleeping Buffalo Resort north of town. She’d been surprised that Aggie was about her own age, early fifties, a tall, slim woman with an aura of intelligence and energy. Emma remembered thinking she was the kind of woman she could have been friends with—under other circumstances.
Aggie had told her that night about her suspicions that Hoyt Chisholm had killed his other three wives. Emma hadn’t believed it. Still didn’t, even though evidence had been found along with his third wife’s remains that linked him to her murder.
She’d been all the more convinced of her husband’s innocence when she’d realized that Aggie had faked her own disappearance to make Hoyt look guilty of yet another murder.
At a sound on the other side of the only door, Emma turned and braced herself. She didn’t think Aggie planned to kill her—at least not yet. Otherwise, why bother to bring her here?
A dead bolt scraped in the lock, the knob turned and, as the door swung inward, Emma saw Aggie Wells framed in the doorway. She was holding a handgun in a way that made it clear she knew how to use it.
She laughed, because even if the woman had been unarmed, Emma wasn’t up to launching any kind of attack.
“You’re in a good mood,” Aggie said. “But then you are annoyingly cheerful most of the time, aren’t you? It is one of the things I hate about you.”
“You mean there are other things you hate about me?” Emma said, pretending to be crushed.
“I hate that you’re married to Hoyt Chisholm.”
Now they were getting somewhere, Emma thought as she watched the woman come into the room. For some time, she had suspected that the reason Aggie was so obsessed about Hoyt’s case was that she’d fallen in love with the man. Emma could understand how that might have happened. Look how quickly Emma herself had fallen for him.
“You should eat,” Aggie said, sliding the tray toward her.
Emma sat down, reached for the thermos and started to pour herself another cup of coffee but stopped, the cup and thermos held in midair.
Aggie chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s not drugged.”
She finished pouring the rest of the coffee into the plastic cup, thinking it was too late anyway if the coffee was drugged. She returned the stopper to the thermos and sat back against the wall as she took a drink. The coffee made her feel a little better and she needed to start thinking straight.
The only way she could get herself out of this was if she was very careful with this crazy woman, who she suspected was also a killer.
Aggie had caught her off guard at the main house at the ranch this morning. It had been just this morning, hadn’t it? She thought so. She’d been expecting her. She’d even gotten a small pistol out of Hoyt’s gun safe.
But then Aggie had appeared in the kitchen doorway and said, “I think it’s time I told you the truth.”
Emma had held the gun on her as Aggie had sat down across the table from her. “You framed my husband.”
“I did much worse than that.” Aggie had looked at Emma’s coffee cup sitting on the table next to a small plate with cake crumbs on it. “I’ll tell you everything, Emma. You deserve to know the truth. Is there any coffee?”
Emma thought she’d been watching Aggie the entire time she went to get another cup and the rest of the coffee in the pot. But that must have been when Aggie put the drug into her half-empty coffee cup.
Aggie had begun talking. Emma had listened, getting more drowsy by the moment and having a hard time making sense of what the woman was saying. It wasn’t until she’d dropped her coffee cup that she realized she’d been drugged. She’d grabbed for the gun, but her movements had been too slow by then and Aggie had been much quicker.
She remembered Aggie walking her out to an old pickup and buckling her in. Emma couldn’t be sure how far they had gone when Aggie got her out and up the stairs into the old farmhouse. That’s the last she remembered until waking up thinking it was morning.
“What now?” Emma asked as she picked up the sandwich and took a bite.
“We wait,” Aggie said.
“What for?”
Aggie merely smiled and turned to leave.
“You realize my family will be looking for me,” Emma said.
“I wouldn’t count on that. You left a note that said you couldn’t deal with all of this.”
“Hoyt won’t believe it,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
“Oh, I think he will. Along with the note, everything you brought into the marriage is gone from the house. If they bothered to check, which I don’t think they will, they’d find that you bought a used pickup the day after Hoyt was arrested. The title is in the name of Emma Chisholm.”
ZANE HAD NO IDEA HOW to find Emma. He started his search in Denver because that was where his father had met her. He flew into the mile-high city on the last flight out of Billings.
The cattleman’s meeting had been held at one of the large hotels downtown. He had booked a room, feeling as if he was searching for a needle in a haystack. Armed with a photo of Emma taken at the ranch, he began with employees at the hotel.
“You a cop or a bill collector?” one of the clerks behind the main desk asked him.
“She’s my stepmother,” he said truthfully. “She’s gone missing.”
“And you think she’s hiding out here at the hotel?”
“No, but I think she stayed here the beginning of May.” Zane leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I didn’t want to get into this, but…she met my father here, they eloped days later to Vegas and now she’s disappeared and I haven’t a clue how to find her.”
“What about your father? He doesn’t know how to find her either?”
“Seems they saw no reason to share their pasts or much else.”
The clerk didn’t look as if he believed a word of it. “I just need to make sure she’s all right,” he said. “My father is worried about her.” He laid a fifty-dollar bill on the counter, his hand covering all but the important parts of it. “Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.”
“I didn’t work here then, but I could take a look and see if she was registered back in May,” the clerk said, smoothly cupping the fifty in his palm as Zane removed his hand. He tapped on the computer keyboard.
“It would have been under Emma McDougal.”
The clerk skimmed the computer screen. “Nope. Sorry. No Emma McDougal registered as a guest here in the month of May. Or April, for that matter.”
Now all Zane had to go on was what little had been on the marriage license he’d found in his father’s safe. Apparently Emma had been born in Caliente Junction, California, fifty-three years ago. He’d looked on the internet. Caliente Junction was now nothing more than a wide spot in the road. Even if someone still lived there, which looked doubtful from what he’d seen, what were the chances anyone there would even remember her or her family?
Zane went to his room and called home to tell his brothers where he was headed in the morning.
“Where the hell is Caliente Junction?” Marshall asked.
“Apparently out in the desert near the Salton Sea. I don’t think there is a town there—if there ever was—from what I can tell. Just a few buildings on a two-lane road. What’s going on there?”
“Just working. Dawson is still up in the mountains,” his brother said. “You know him, he heads for high ground the moment there’s trouble at the ranch. Nothing new there. Let us know what you find out about Emma. Dad keeps harping on us to find her.”
Zane hung up and booked a flight into Palm Springs, California, for the next morning as he considered Caliente Junction on his laptop screen. He had a bad feeling his father wasn’t going to like what he found out about his new bride.
JINX CLARKE RODE ALONG just feet from Dawson Chisholm, frantically trying to decide what to do. Her options were limited given that her hands were tied behind her and he was holding her horse’s reins. One false move and, as he said, she’d be hitting the dirt again. Her left shoulder hurt as it was from her recent fall, thanks to him. She wasn’t looking forward to being thrown to the ground again.
But she knew that at any moment Rafe could come riding out of the trees with all but a couple of his men with him. If he noticed she wasn’t with them, he would hightail it back for her. More than likely, though, he wouldn’t know they’d lost her until they got the cattle down to the first corral.
Which meant it would be some time before anyone would realize she was missing. But Rafe would come back. Even if he came alone, Dawson Chisholm was a dead man.
Jinx studied him as he led her across the wide meadow, trying to decide how much to tell him. The cattleman had coal-black hair and the darkest eyes she’d ever seen. She guessed he had some Native American in him. He was also handsome as sin—not that she would admit to noticing.
What worried her was why he’d shown up when he had. Either his timing was just his bad luck or it was no coincidence. It had been her idea to hit the Chisholm Cattle Company, because she’d thought it was big enough that they wouldn’t be coming across anyone. But now she wondered if Rafe hadn’t gone along with it too easily.
“So what’s your real name?” Dawson asked, glancing back at her again. “I like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Jinx is all you get, Chisholm,” she said.
He shook his head as if she was the most contrary woman he’d ever known. Clearly he hadn’t known many women, if that was the case. “The sheriff will get your name out of you.”
Jinx groaned. If he thought he could scare her with threats of the sheriff, he was sadly mistaken. She was far more worried about the killers she’d been riding with—and the dark-haired cattleman who had her tied and bound.
“I didn’t check to see if you had some sort of identification on you,” he was saying. “We might be able to settle this a whole lot quicker than waiting for the sheriff.”
“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to carry identification on me?” she snapped.
“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe anything you say? At this point, you don’t have a lot of credibility with me.”
Neither did he with her. “How is it you just happened to show up when we were about to rustle your cattle, Chisholm?”
“Just luck, I guess,” he said without turning to look at her.
She saw that they had reached the other side of the meadow and he was now leading her horse through the trees and up the mountainside to an outcropping of rocks. Did he think he could hold off seven men from there?
“These men I’m riding with are dangerous. When they come back for me—”
“What makes you so sure they’ll be back for you?” he asked. “I’m surprised they even let a woman ride with them to begin with. A woman would be a liability. Especially one named Jinx.”
Her temper flared from the insult. “I can ride with the best of men.”
He chuckled. “I noticed. But I would imagine it took more than that to get into a group of men like this one.”
She knew what he was insinuating and wished she could kick him where it would hurt the most. It hadn’t been easy getting in with the rustling ring. She’d had to lie, cheat and steal. Fortunately that was as far as she’d had to go once she caught Rafe’s attention at a bar down in Big Timber.
Rafe wasn’t the ringleader. He got his orders from someone else. But he was the one the others listened to. He’d put up a fight for her. The other rustlers riding with him hadn’t wanted a woman along, so she’d had to prove herself in their eyes. It wasn’t enough that she could ride a horse and shoot. She had to have something they needed—information. She’d given them Chisholm Cattle Company.
Jinx grimaced at the realization that she was the one who was responsible if Dawson Chisholm got killed—and the way things were going there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Unless there was a chance Dawson was working with Rafe. That would explain why he was here. She wouldn’t let herself worry about that right now. She had to keep her eye on her goal. Nothing could stop her. Not Rafe and all his men or this good-looking cattleman. When she got what she’d wanted, it would have all been worth it.
But as she stared at the determined set of Chisholm’s broad shoulders, she wondered how high the price was going to get before this was over.