chapter Four
Zane was too anxious to just sit around in his hotel room. He’d booked a flight to Palm Springs for the morning, but there was nothing more he could do today.
As he rode down in the elevator to the lobby, he noticed a woman going into the bar. She was probably in her forties, alone and wearing something provocative.
He was instantly reminded that his father had met Emma here in this hotel. What had she been doing here if she hadn’t been a guest? As he stepped into the darkness of the bar, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust before he saw the woman who had gotten him thinking.
She had taken a stool at the bar and was now leaning toward the young male bartender, giving him a glimpse of her cleavage and asking him what he would suggest.
“I can make you a nice mango margarita,” he said.
She smiled. “That sounds nice.”
Zane took a stool down the bar from the woman.
“I’ll be right with you,” the bartender called to him.
Looking around, he saw that the bar was fairly empty, but then again by bar time standards, it was early. There was a couple at a table toward the back, two businessmen at another table and a lone fiftysomething man at the other end of the bar who had noticed the woman. She was hard to miss.
This was a scene Zane had seen played out many times before. Pretty soon the man would offer to buy the woman another mango margarita. She’d accept. He would move down the bar and strike up a conversation with her before taking the stool next to her.
Is this how his father had met Emma, Zane wondered with disgust. Had she been trolling the hotel bar?
He had a hard time believing that, given what little time he’d spent around Emma. But that was the problem. None of them actually knew Emma. That had become clear the moment he’d started looking for her. It could be that she was one of those women who kept reinventing themselves.
The bartender came down the bar, set a cocktail napkin in front of him and asked, “What can I get you?”
“A bottle of beer,” Zane said. “Something local would be great.”
“Dark or light?”
“Dark.”
The bartender returned with a bottle of dark beer and set it down along with a frosted glass.
“Maybe you can help me,” Zane said. He saw the bartender tense. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“This woman,” he explained as he pulled out the snapshot of Emma taken at the ranch.
The bartender glanced at the photo. Zane could tell he was ready to say he’d never seen the woman before, but something stopped him. He picked up the photo.
“What about her?” he asked.
“So she used to come in a lot?”
The bartender laughed and glanced down the bar, apparently catching Zane’s drift. The lone drinker had skipped part of the script and had moved right in, pulling up a stool next to the woman.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” the bartender said. “Emma McDougal worked here at the hotel, at the front desk. As far as I know, she didn’t drink.” He tossed the photo back at Zane. “She’s a nice woman. Everyone liked her. We were happy for her when we heard she’d fallen in love and gotten married. Is there any reason we shouldn’t be happy for her?”
“I don’t know. She’s disappeared.”
The bartender looked concerned. “And you’re looking for her because…?”
“She’s married to my father. He’s worried about her, convinced she wouldn’t just take off.”
“No, she wouldn’t. Unless she was forced to for some reason.” The bartender glared at Zane. “Was there some reason?”
“My father adores her.”
“Then you’d better find Emma, because I have a bad feeling she’s in trouble,” he said as the man down the bar ordered another mango margarita for his companion.
JINX HID HER EMBARRASSMENT under her anger at herself for pulling such a stunt. She should have known better than to try to seduce the arrogant bastard, but she was desperate. She had to get away from him. As she watched him calmly go back to his cooking, she was all the more convinced he was toying with her. But was it because he knew who she was and why she was here?
Or because he thought her just another rustler and he was just another rancher about to lose his cattle and his life?
Well, if that was the case, then there was nothing she could do about it. She had tried to warn him. Now the smug cattleman was on his own.
She swore under her breath as she saw him tilt his head as if listening. Rafe would come looking for her, she was sure of that. The man he worked for wouldn’t like there being any loose ends. The rustlers had already killed at least one rancher who got in their way on the orders of whoever was leading this gang. Even if she’d been thrown from her horse and broken her neck, Rafe would have to make sure she was dead so he could report back to his boss.
Chisholm moved around the corner of the cave to look out the entrance. She knew he was looking toward the trees where the cattle and rustlers had disappeared. Getting up, she stepped around the corner of the cave so she could see out.
A dusky gray light had fallen over the meadow, giving it an eerie feel. It was deceptive. She thought she saw ghostlike riders coming out of the mist only to have them evaporate before her eyes.
A darkness had settled in the pines even though it would still be light for several hours. She was surprised Rafe hadn’t come back. Was it possible he hadn’t realized yet that she was missing? Or was he too busy making sure the cattle were taken care of first?
Her being missing would spook all of them. Maybe they would decide to drive the cattle farther than planned.
She shifted her focus to Dawson Chisholm. What was he planning to do with her? She hated to think.
As he started to turn back in her direction, she quickly moved to her stool and sat down again, her mind racing. She had to find a way to hook back up with the rustlers before they became more suspicious of her.
Dawson went back to minding the meal he was making. She felt her stomach growl. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and the bacon he was frying smelled wonderful. Her stomach growled loudly and she saw him smile to himself as if he’d heard.
“Apparently it’s a good thing you decided to ride up here when you did,” she said as she watched him cook. He was making some kind of dough and now dropped it into the sizzling fat. Fry bread. She groaned inwardly as the smell filled the cave.
“Apparently it was. I’d heard about a band of rustlers operating near the Montana border down by Wyoming, but I didn’t realize they’d worked their way this far north.” So he had heard. Had he also heard about the man who’d been killed down in Wyoming, his house burned to the ground by the rustlers?
“So how exactly did you pick my ranch?” he asked pointedly.
“What makes you think I had anything to do with the decision?”
He smiled. “I guess it’s just my suspicious nature.”
“Kind of like mine. Out of all the ranches around Whitehorse, you somehow knew yours would be hit next by rustlers? Maybe you knew before I did.”
He laughed. “If you’re insinuating that I’m somehow connected to the rustlers you’re riding with—”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Chisholm Cattle Company is family owned. Six brothers, right? All adopted.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Wouldn’t be unusual for one of the brothers to feel he was owed more than he was getting.”
He chuckled. “You’ll play any card, won’t you? This tactic isn’t going to work any better than the others you’ve tried.” He turned the bread from the small pan onto the two strips of bacon he’d fried and folded the bread into a sandwich. He started to take a bite, but stopped as he glanced at her.
“Hungry?” he asked, even though he knew darned well that she was.
“No,” she snapped, but her stomach growled loudly again, giving her away.
He laughed, pushed himself up and walked over to look down at her. He wiped the dust from a corner of the table and set down the sandwich. Then he untied her wrists, freeing one hand and tying the other to her leg.
“You really are the least trusting man I’ve ever met,” she said as he put the sandwich into her free hand.
“Let’s not forget that you and I only met because you were rustling my cattle.”
She cocked her head at him. “You wouldn’t have trusted me even if we’d met at church, and you know it.”
His gaze met hers and held it for a long moment. “You might be right about that.”
As he walked back to the Coleman, out of the corner of his eye he watched Jinx take a bite of the sandwich. She moaned with pleasure and licked her fingers as some of the bacon grease tried to get away.
Dawson smiled, liking her more than he had, definitely more than he wanted to, as he started more fry bread for himself. The atmosphere in the cave seemed to have warmed considerably.
“Thank you,” she said when she’d finished eating, licking her fingers before wiping her hand on her jeans.
“You’re welcome.” They sat around the cave in silence as he cooked and ate. He watched her, still afraid she would try to get away, but she seemed to have realized there was no way he was going to let that happen.
The crackling flames flickered, sending long shadows over the cave walls. The scent of the pine trees mixed with the smell of bacon and fried bread. The air had cooled outside the cave. Tonight would be cold. This high in the mountains was always cold at night even in the summer months.
He let the fire die down to hot embers as he considered the best way to get his cattle back. Making the long ride out to the ranch for help was out of the question. By then, the cattle and the rustlers would be gone.
He had no way to contact the ranch, since even if he carried a cell phone, it wouldn’t have worked up here. Cells phones worked within only about ten miles of Whitehorse. After that, you were on your own.
Glancing over at Jinx, he knew she was his biggest problem. His every instinct told him not to trust her an inch. This was no small rustling operation, which meant there was a lot of money involved and whoever was behind it knew way too much about the ranchers—and cattle—they were going after. That worried him.
The rustlers he’d known hadn’t been organized. They’d acted more on impulse, often after a few beers at the bar. But then, he’d never seen as large a gang as this one. Definitely not one with a woman riding along.
He remembered how much she’d known about the Chisholm ranch and his family. It galled him that anyone would hit Chisholm Cattle Company. He was more interested in getting his cattle back than trying to get justice, but just the fact that they’d hit his ranch made him dig his heels in. He wanted these bastards caught—including whoever was behind them.
He didn’t doubt there was someone who was the brains of the band of rustlers who stayed behind the scenes, the man with the crooked cattle buyer contacts who financed the semitrucks and trailers needed for an operation this big.
But how was he going to get his cattle back, catch the rustlers and keep this woman from getting away?
He studied Jinx, wondering if she had realized yet that he planned to get his cattle back—even if it meant using her to do it.
IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME Dawson heard a sound outside the cave and moved quickly to Jinx’s side.
“Jinx!” The word echoed faintly across the meadow. Just as she’d predicted, at least one of the rustlers had come back for her.
“Listen,” she whispered as she glanced frantically toward the dark entrance of the cave. “We’re on the same side. I can help you.”
“On the same side?” Dawson chuckled as he quickly reached into his pocket for his bandanna. “Sorry, but I have to do this,” he said as he used the bandanna for a gag, then tied her wrists and ankles with a length of the rope, securing it to his saddle. “If you try to get anyone’s attention outside this cave, I will do a lot more than gag you. Understood?”
With her hands tied behind her and her ankles bound she might still be able to move, but she wouldn’t get far dragging the saddle before he came back.
She glared at him, those blue eyes flaming with heat, as he picked up his rifle and headed for the mouth of the cave.
The night was clear and cold at this altitude. He slipped from the cave, looking back to make sure no light escaped. It appeared pitch-black inside the opening. The brush hid even that from the meadow. Assured that no one could find the cave without knowing where it was, he made his way down the mountainside, keeping to the blackness of the trees.
The rider had stopped in the middle of the meadow and now sat on his horse, shining his flashlight into the darkness at the edges of the trees. Could he smell the smoke in the air? Dawson didn’t think so. At least, he was counting on that.
“Jinx!” the man called again, then seemed to sit listening.
Dawson had stopped behind a tree and now stood stone still, waiting for the rider to make a sound before he moved closer. He knew that if he shot the rustler, the sound alone might bring the others, depending on how far they’d driven the cattle. If this man didn’t return tonight, Dawson didn’t doubt that they would come looking for him.
As much as Dawson hated rustlers and put them right up there with horse thieves, he didn’t like the idea of killing anyone. He’d just as soon let the law handle him. The problem was how to get his cattle back without getting rid of the rustler. Short of shooting someone, he wasn’t sure how to do that.
He thought about what Jinx had said right before he gagged her. “We’re on the same side.” What did that mean? Or had it just been another ploy?
Shoving thoughts of Jinx to the back burner, he concentrated on the problem at hand. One of the rustlers had come back for her. The boyfriend? He thought about her earlier attempt at seduction and wondered just what she’d had to do to get into the rustling ring. That was another thought he didn’t want to dwell on too closely—and definitely not right now.
The woman was nothing if not determined. He liked her spunk. The fact that she was cute as hell didn’t hurt.
He reminded himself that she’d been trying to steal his cattle—and that if this was the same band of rustlers, which he suspected it had to be, then she and the others had already killed a ranch manager down in Wyoming who’d tried to stop them.
They’d burned down his house after trampling him in the stampeding cattle, which told Dawson that these rustlers were after more than cattle and the money they could get for them. They wanted to terrorize people they felt had more than they did and would take everything—including their lives.
With one rustler hog-tied in the cave and her boyfriend back for her, Dawson had to decide what to do. He didn’t doubt for a moment that the man would kill him if he got the chance. But even if Dawson could capture him without it involving gunfire and bringing the other rustlers hightailing it back here, what would he do with him?
No way could he keep track of two prisoners and still go after his cattle. And while he might enjoy leaving them both tied up either in the cave or to a couple of trees, he couldn’t be sure they would still be there by the time the sheriff was notified and could get up here to collect them. Not to mention that a grizzly bear or wolves would probably get them both before then.
He wondered if he would have felt this way if one of the rustlers hadn’t been a woman and swore under his breath at the thought. The last thing he wanted to do was cut Jinx any slack, since she was one of them.
The contrast between the black trees and the starlit sky was enough that after a moment his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The meadow seemed bathed in a faint eerie light. As he hunkered in the trees, he could make out the cowboy on the horse moving slowly across the open space to the spot where the man had probably last seen Jinx. The rustler was searching the ground, but there was no way he could track her—or Dawson—not with the meadow all torn up from the stampeding cattle.
“Jinx!” the man called again. “Jinx?”
How long would this man look for her before he assumed she’d just taken off? Or gotten lost? Or was lying dead somewhere after being crushed by the cattle? Would he come back in the daylight to look for her? Or cut his losses and put all his efforts into getting the stolen cattle to a spot where they could be loaded onto a semitrailer and transported to wherever he planned to sell them?
The rustler kept looking, riding around the perimeter of the meadow. It made Dawson wonder again about the cowboy’s relationship with the woman tied up in the cave. Jinx was a pretty young thing, the kind of woman who could definitely get her spurs into a man and take him for a wild ride.
But any man with a lick of sense could see that no man could get a lasso on a woman like her that would hold.
“Jinx!” the rustler called. “If you can hear me, try to be at the rendezvous spot in the morning.” He finished riding in a wide circle around the meadow, his flashlight flickering in and out of the trees, then finally going out.
Dawson held his breath, listening, knowing the rustler was listening, as well. Then the rider began to move again through the meadow as if reluctant to leave, heading back the way he’d come. He stopped at the edge of the trees, called out one more time for her, then rode into the darkness of the forest and disappeared.
Hunkered down in the trees, Dawson stayed where he was for a few minutes to make sure the rustler was gone. Then he worked his way back toward the cave and the woman he hoped was still there waiting for him, because he wanted some answers.
SHERIFF MCCALL CRAWFORD kicked off her boots, plopped down next to her husband and put her feet up. It had been a long day and she was thankful to be home. As she settled in, she looked around the room. She loved the house her husband had built for them and this sitting room was her favorite.
A cool breeze scented with summer came in the open windows. She smiled over at Luke. He looked as if he’d had a rough day, as well.
“Any news?” he asked as he glanced over at her.
She shook her head. “Hoyt Chisholm wanted to see me earlier. Apparently Emma’s left him. He swears Aggie Wells did something to her.”
“Aggie Wells? The missing woman?”
McCall nodded. “I feel sorry for him, but I don’t blame Emma for leaving him. If I’d been her, I would have hightailed it out of there the moment I heard about his third wife’s body being found and his bolo tie being discovered at the scene.”
“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
“You think he’s innocent?” she asked her husband.
Luke sighed and leaned his head back against the couch cushion. “Admittedly, the evidence against him looks pretty bad.”
“There’s something about the missing Aggie Wells that is bothering you, isn’t there?” she said, sitting up and turning to face him.
He smiled and reached out to caress her cheek. “Isn’t it bothering you?”
“Yes! When Emma told me she’d smelled Aggie’s perfume at the house, of course I didn’t believe her. But this afternoon I got a letter from her. She had apparently mailed it before she left town. She claims Aggie bugged the main house at the ranch. She told me to check the fire alarms and even drew me a picture where I could find them.”
“And?” Luke asked with interest.
“And I called the house. Emma is gone, just like Hoyt said. The sons are all staying there, but none of them were back at the house yet. I’m going out there tomorrow and see if there is anything to her story. But what if Emma is telling the truth?”
“You think Aggie kidnapped her?”
“I don’t know what to think. Emma is convinced Aggie is behind her own disappearance. Hoyt believes Emma is in danger. If you’d seen his face…”
Her husband pulled her into his arms. “You can’t do anything about this until morning. What motive would Aggie have for kidnapping Emma?”
“Maybe she just wants to get rid of her so she can have Hoyt.”
“Then why has she gone to so much trouble to make him appear guilty of his other wives’ deaths?” her logical husband asked.
McCall groaned. “That’s the part I can’t figure. Maybe Aggie doesn’t know herself what she wants out of this.”
“That I find hard to believe. If she went to the trouble of staging her own disappearance and kidnapping Emma, then she has a plan, you can bet on that.”
JINX HAD NO WAY OF TELLING how long Chisholm had been gone. The fire had burned down to only glowing embers. When she looked toward the cave entrance all she saw was darkness. The quiet inside the cave was deafening. It fooled with her sense of time passing.
She’d known Rafe would come back for her. She hadn’t been surprised when she’d heard him calling her name. He’d come, she knew, not because he had any real affection for her. He hadn’t had a choice. The others didn’t trust her. They’d been suspicious of her from the beginning and hadn’t wanted her to ride with them.
But Rafe was their leader, though definitely not the brains behind the rustling operation. No, he was more the brawn, a tough ranch hand who’d done some time in the Wyoming pen. The others could push him only so far and she thought they knew it. Her disappearing would make them even more suspicious of her and question Rafe’s judgment as well as his position.
Rafe would be worried that they were right. He wouldn’t trust her after this. Not unless she could convince him that she’d been captured and had gotten away.
She struggled to free her bonds, giving up when she realized Dawson had made sure she wasn’t going anywhere. She froze, listening for a gunshot that would tell her which way the wind was going to blow, so to speak. There was still the chance that Dawson Chisholm was the ringleader and had gone down to meet Rafe and that they would both be coming back up here to decide what to do with her.
Why didn’t she believe that scenario any longer? Because Chisholm had been nice to her? Because she’d shared his food? Because she was attracted to him and, on a few scarce moments, liked him?
She cursed herself for telling him she was on his side. She’d taken a gamble based on nothing more than desperation. Normally she depended on her intuition, but with Chisholm she couldn’t trust it.
Now he was out there with Rafe and she hadn’t a clue what might be happening. Were the two of them at this moment discussing what to do with her? Or was Chisholm about to get himself killed? The thought sent an arrow of panic through her. Did he really think he stood a chance against a man like Rafe Tillman?
Another dire thought came on the heels of the first. She could die in this cave. If Chisholm didn’t come back, Rafe would never find her and with her bound and gagged up here—
Jinx started at a sound at the entrance of the cave. She knew someone had entered, but it was too dark to see a thing in that direction. She sensed movement, heard the grate of boot soles on the cave floor approaching her and closed her eyes, bracing herself for the worst.
A moment later she felt a hand touch her arm and let out a startled cry, muted by the gag.
“I’m going to remove your gag,” Chisholm whispered next to her. “Don’t try to scream or call for help. Your boyfriend is gone.”
She opened her eyes, blinked. He was little more than a shadow in the dying firelight. He snapped on a flashlight and laid it on the cave floor, then removed her gag.
She licked her dry lips. “He’s not my boyfriend.” She hated that her voice broke, that she sounded as frightened as she felt.
Chisholm smiled at that.
What had happened outside the cave? She hadn’t heard a shot, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t killed Rafe. Or that the two weren’t in cahoots. Her heart began to pound harder as she looked past him, expecting to see Rafe in the cave entrance. “Where is Rafe?” she finally managed to ask.
“Rafe, huh?” Chisholm said. “So that’s your boyfriend’s name.”
“I told you, he isn’t my boyfriend.”
He started to untie her ankles, but stopped. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his fingers brush her tender flesh. His touch was gentle, his fingertips cool and calloused.
She hadn’t noticed how calloused his hands were before, and now it took her by surprise. Dawson wasn’t one of those ranchers who drove around town in his new truck while someone else worked the place.
Jinx hated that this man had gotten to her. She didn’t want to see him get killed, and yet how was she going to keep that from happening when he was determined to go after the rustlers and get his cattle back?