chapter Five
“A few ground rules before I untie you,” Dawson said quietly. “You try anything and I’ll hog-tie you and leave you in this cave for the sheriff. And from here on out, I don’t want anything but the truth coming from those pretty lips of yours. Where are my cattle?”
She started to speak, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“I’m warning you. Don’t lie to me. And I want to know what you meant about us being on the same side.”
Jinx met his gaze in the ambient glow of the flashlight. “There is something I need from you first, Chisholm.”
He shook his head, looking amused. “Apparently you haven’t noticed that you aren’t in the best of bargaining positions right now.”
Dawson saw the indecision in her expression. She didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her.
She met his gaze. Tears shone in those big blue eyes. “I was only riding with the rustlers so I could get to the head of the rustling ring.”
Dawson dropped to his haunches in front of her. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Under normal circumstances, I really wouldn’t give a damn one way or the other,” she snapped. Her eyes glittered with a sobering rage and, against his better judgment, he did believe her.
“Vengeance? Don’t tell me this is because he stole your cattle.”
“He killed my father.”
Dawson frowned. “Your father?”
“The Wyoming ranch manager who was trampled in the stampede. Now do you understand why you have to let me go before it’s too late?”
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, softening his words at the pain he saw in her pretty face. “But it’s already too late.”
She shook her head, clearly refusing to believe him. “Rafe came back for me. If I can catch up to him—”
“Jinx,” he said, locking eyes with her. “Do you really think he could ever trust you? No matter what story you came up with, he’s going to suspect you. Why didn’t you tell me this from the get-go?”
“I would have, but I thought you might be involved. You definitely are coldhearted enough when it comes to your cattle.”
He tried not to be insulted. “So you planned to single-handedly take down the rustling ring.”
“I still do. Unless you want to help me.”
He shook his head. “You’re right. I’m coldhearted when it comes to what’s mine. You want to get yourself killed, that’s your business. I just want my cattle back.”
“What about justice?” she demanded.
“Like you said, rustlers seldom get caught, and if they do, they hardly ever get any jail time.”
“They killed my father.”
Dawson nodded. “It’s going to be hard to prove murder even if you can tie someone to the head of the rustling ring.”
“I’m not worried about proving anything in a court of law.” She lifted her chin, that defiant look back in her eyes. “All I need is a few minutes alone with the ringleader.”
“Have you ever killed someone in cold blood?” he asked.
She looked away after a moment.
“That’s what I thought.” He shook his head as he got to his feet again. “But if you’re determined to get yourself killed…”
As he started to walk away, she said, “I’ll help you get your cattle back. I know where they took them.”
The rendezvous point Rafe had mentioned? He stopped, lowered his head, struggling with his own good sense. He’d seen the passion in her eyes. He knew what it felt like to want to avenge a wrong, especially when it was against someone you loved. There was nothing he would have liked more than saving his own father.
He turned slowly.
“You just have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Dawson shook his head. “Let me get this straight. You rode with these rustlers, helping them hit other ranches?”
“This is my first.”
“And you have no idea who is behind this rustling ring?”
“I had to gain their trust.”
“Just as you’re trying to gain mine now,” he said with a smile. “Sorry, but I’m not going to let you jeopardize my life and my cattle so you can get yourself killed as part of some crazy revenge scheme.”
“I told you. I’ll help you get your cattle back, since that’s all you care about,” she said. “But don’t try to stop me from going after what I want. It’s a win-win situation.”
He no longer had to ask himself how far this woman would go to get what she wanted.
“Chisholm—”
“I don’t think you heard me. That cowboy who came after you tonight already suspects you, okay? You think they’re going to believe any story you tell them? Hell, they might just shoot you outright the moment they see you.”
“I’m willing to take that chance. Well?”
She was as stubborn as he was. He shook his head, angry that she would risk her life. “Let the law handle this. They’ll catch these guys.”
“Will they? I doubt it. And I know they won’t get the person behind the rustlers.”
“You don’t think Rafe won’t spill his guts when he gets arrested? Come on, Jinx, your father wouldn’t want you doing this.”
“You didn’t know my father. You don’t know me, for that matter.”
He nodded, but he did know her. She reminded him of himself.
“At least I’m risking my life for something I believe in. You’re risking yours for cattle, the dumbest animals on earth,” she said. “So? Do you want your cattle back or not?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, studying her for a long moment. “It’s your funeral.”
“We have a deal then, Chisholm.”
His gaze met hers and held it. Maybe she was a better poker player than he thought, because he was betting his life on the hand she was playing right now.
“Where are my cattle?” he asked as he began to untie her. “And where is the rendezvous point everyone is supposed to meet if something goes wrong?”
AS IT GOT LATE AND THINGS slowed down, Zane talked to a few more of the employees at the hotel. They all said the same thing about Emma McDougal.
“A delightful woman, always cheerful.” That was the Emma he’d known at the ranch.
“We are so happy for her. You could tell that the two of them were in love.” Zane had to agree from what he’d seen of his father and Emma together.
“Did she ever mention if she had family around here?” he asked each of them and got the same sad shake of the head.
“I think she might have had a family, maybe lost a husband or even a husband and a child. I sensed that about her,” one woman from housecleaning told him. “I know she used to talk to her father on the phone. They seemed close.”
“Any idea where he lived?” No. “A name?”
“I think I heard her call him Poppy.”
As for employment records, Zane was told he would have to wait until the morning and talk to their supervisor. Initially, he was surprised that his father hadn’t mentioned Emma had worked at the hotel. But then he realized his father wouldn’t have found that little tidbit of information important. He probably also knew it might bias his sons if they’d known that from the beginning.
Zane was ashamed that was the case. He was realizing more and more that his father was a better man than he or his brothers were.
“Did she ever mention Caliente Junction, California?” he asked. No. “How about where she was from?” No.
“She never talked about the past.”
But everyone had made up a past for Emma, a painful one filled with loss and regret.
He got the same answers from the bartender at closing. “Why does her past matter so much to you?” the young man asked as he wiped down the bar. The place was empty. The man and woman at the bar hadn’t even made it until last call for alcohol. Both had been gone when Zane returned to talk to the bartender again.
“Her past is the only way I have of trying to find her,” he said.
The bartender looked skeptical. “You’re sure you aren’t just trying to dig up some dirt on her?”
Zane couldn’t deny he’d been worried when his father had rushed into marriage with a woman he clearly knew nothing about. “I like Emma,” he said truthfully. “We all do. I just want to find her.” That last part might not have been completely true.
If Emma had left his father of her own accord, then he was going to have to tell his father, and he doubted any dirt in Emma’s past would be more heartbreaking than her deserting him.
JINX TOLD DAWSON about the rustlers’ plan to reach the first corral on the way out of the mountains and bed down the cattle for a night.
The cattle would be tired. If they didn’t get them water, food and rest, the rustlers would lose them. Some would fall behind, and without support to pick up the stragglers, they would be left to die.
He swore under his breath at the thought. “So they are stopping at an old abandoned corral down the mountain for the rest of the night, then moving the cattle farther down tomorrow?”
She nodded. “They had planned to move the herd tomorrow on down to the next abandoned homestead. There’s a large corral there for their horses.”
“Then the next day, they push them on to the county road and the semitrucks waiting for them,” Dawson said. “Where is this rendezvous spot?”
“If any of us got lost or anything happened, we’d meet at one of the corrals.”
He nodded. But with her missing, he wondered if the rustlers wouldn’t change their plans, try to move things up. They could move the cattle only so far each day without losing most of the herd.
“You realize that once I take my cattle back, your life will be in even more danger,” Dawson said as they sat around the small fire he’d built. He’d made them coffee and they now sat next to each other, both staring into the flames. “There will be hell to pay and who do you think they are going to blame?”
“You just worry about getting your cattle back,” she said without looking at him. “I can convince Rafe to let me tell his boss what happened,” she said into the stony silence.
Dawson shook his head. “You and Rafe are that close?”
She let out an irritated sigh. “If you’re asking if Rafe and I are lovers, the answer is no. I did what I had to do to get in with the rustlers, but there are lines I won’t cross.”
He glanced over at her, wondering if when she’d tried to seduce him earlier she would have crossed that line. He thought there was probably a better chance of finding himself with a gun barrel stuck in his ribs.
“This quest for justice, it won’t bring your father back.”
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing if it was your father,” she said. “My father was a lot like you, determined not to let them take cattle that didn’t even belong to him. It cost him his life.”
Dawson rose and walked to the cave entrance. The fire had burned down to embers again, making the back of the cave glow warm with light and heat. But where he’d gone was dark. Starlight bathed the meadow in a shimmering silver.
He heard her come up behind him and tensed for a moment but didn’t turn. In that instant, he knew she would have to overpower him. It was the only way he was going to let her go back to the rustlers.
She joined him in the cave opening, the two of them silhouetted against the night. He could make out a sliver of moon over the trees, the pines etched black against cobalt-blue. The air was crisp and fresh and he couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so aware of a woman. The night seemed alive with an electric current that made everything about it more intense.
As he looked over at Jinx, he wondered what it would have been like to have met under other circumstances. She met his gaze. A shudder moved through him and it took all his strength not to pull her into his arms.
“You should try to get a couple hours of sleep,” he said as he turned to go back into the cave.
JINX LET OUT THE BREATH she’d been holding. Just moments before, she’d felt a connection to this man…. She shook her head, telling herself that she’d only imagined it. All Chisholm cared about were his damned cattle.
She followed him back into the cave. He seemed almost angry as he tossed her his bedroll. “We leave before daybreak, so you should get some rest. We are definitely going to need the element of surprise.”
“I don’t want to take your bedroll,” she said and held it out to him. He didn’t take it. Instead he asked, “So it was just you and your dad?”
Was he testing her? Was it possible he still didn’t believe her story? She was too tired to care. She spread the bedroll out in front of the fire and sat down on it, leaning back against the cave wall. “My mother died when I was a baby.”
Kindness filled his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He sat down next to her. “You’ve had a lot of death to deal with.” He leaned back and she saw exhaustion and something more in his eyes.
She’d heard about his father being arrested for murdering one of his wives. The story had made all the major papers because of who Hoyt Chisholm was. His arrest was one of the reasons she’d talked the rustlers into hitting Chisholm Cattle Company.
“I was fine with just my dad,” she said. “I was raised on the ranch, started riding on my own as soon as I could sit a saddle. That life gets in your blood.”
“Doesn’t it, though,” he agreed.
“What about you, Chisholm?”
He smiled. “You already know my story. You got it when you researched my family ranch to steal our cattle.”
She didn’t deny it, but she was sorry that he’d figured out the part she’d played in all this. Was this any better than him thinking she’d slept with Rafe to get her spot with the rustlers?
Jinx knew his story. With no father in the picture, he and his brothers had been adopted by Hoyt Chisholm. The triplets, Colton, Logan and Zane, had also gotten lucky—Hoyt later adopted them after their mother died in childbirth. All had been young and had needed a home where they wouldn’t be separated. Hoyt Chisholm had provided it.
“At least you had your brothers. I was an only child. I did have a great-aunt who used to visit once in a while, though.” She laughed softly at the memory. “If anyone influenced my life’s decisions, it was Auntie Rose,” she said, still smiling at the memories. “She was a rebel, a true outlaw, and she taught me everything I know about surviving in a man’s world.”
Chisholm shot her an amused look. “You obviously learned well.”
Did she sense conflict in him? He’d said all he wanted were his cattle, but she wondered if he was having a hard time letting the rustlers get away—even when she assured him she wasn’t going to let that happen.
“About the morning,” she said.
“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
She just didn’t want to get him killed—and she feared she couldn’t prevent it if he went after his cattle. “It’s your funeral,” she said, giving his own words back to him.
He said nothing, but when she looked over at him, she saw his dark eyes lit with amusement and his full sensual mouth turned up in a smile.
The kiss was so unexpected, Jinx gasped. One moment he was smiling at her and the next his lips were on hers. It couldn’t have lasted more than an instant, but she felt herself melt into it, drawn to a desire that didn’t take her completely by surprise. She’d felt the sparks between them at the front of the cave. Now she knew without a doubt that she hadn’t imagined any of it.
He jerked back, looking as surprised as she felt. The next moment he was on his feet. But for that instant she’d seen the chink in his armor—she’d glimpsed the man behind the mule-headed, arrogant cowboy. Her heart beat a little faster because of it.
She said nothing as she watched him pick up his saddle and pour himself the last of the coffee before he headed back toward the cave entrance.
Did he expect Rafe to come back? Or was he just keeping his distance from her?