“And your husband would have allowed that? Why did you marry him if that’s the kind of man he is?”
“I didn’t have much say in it,” she said. “My mother and father—Allyce and Jack Ahern—lived on my grandfather’s farm in Kentucky. I was born there. My father practically ran the farm and Grandfather treated him like a son. He even deeded him half the farm to keep him in Kentucky. After the war, things were tough; it was hard to hold on to what we had. Then gold fever struck. Word came back about a strike in the
Black Hills in South Dakota. My father was determined to make a quick fortune and help put Foxtail Hall back on the map. Mother stayed behind with me. He wanted a year to see if he could strike it rich. Only, he never came back. Oh, we got a letter now and then, from one place or another. Finally they stopped. We feared the worst. Mama died from a fever, but I really think it was a broken heart, and then it was just me and Grandfather. About six months ago I got a letter. Surprisingly, it was from my father. He said he’d hired on at the Lazy C doing odd jobs—mending fences, building corrals, and the like, but he was sick, and didn’t know how long he could last at cowpunching. Said he was too old to be a wrangler any longer. I wanted my father home, so I came west to find him and bring him back to Kentucky.”
“Did you find him?”
“Granddad didn’t want me to come, but he knew he couldn’t stop me. I finally found Dad, but he wasn’t the same man who left Kentucky when I was a child. He was friends, after a fashion, with Jared’s father, William. That’s how he landed at the Lazy C after he left the Black Hills. Enough people were striking it rich; I think Old Man Comstock believed there was a lot of gold. After his first claim panned out, William loaned my father money to continue looking. One claim after another was a bust, however, which left Dad owing a lot of money. Foolishly, he made a grand gesture of signing over his half of the farm in Kentucky as payment. Jared’s father, from what I learned, never intended to claim it—he wasn’t even sure my father still had the right to sign it away, since he’d been gone so long. He
just kept the paper to save my father’s pride. But then William died and, well, Jared isn’t the man his father was…” Her voice trailed off, and she once more stared into the fire.
The anger Trace had felt toward Diablo’s treatment was eclipsed by a different fury. In his travels he’d heard many such stories as Mae’s, of families destroyed by the war, losing farms to carpetbaggers and taxes; there was no end to men like Jared Comstock, taking what ever they could and at what ever cost, honor be damned. That didn’t make such stories any easier to hear.
Mae looked worn down. Defeat twisted the corners of her small mouth.
“You don’t have to go on—” he started to suggest. Somehow he’d help her get back to Kentucky.
“No,” she murmured. “You wanted to hear this, and I’d best get it said while I’ve mustered the courage. The day I arrived at the Outpost, I was directed to the Lazy C, where I found my father reeling drunk, being abused, and held up to ridicule. There’s no law hereabouts. Everyone is beholden to Jared. He owns the Outpost and everyone in it. I walked straight into a trap. When I arrived, Jared told Father he’d cancel the debt and give him back the deed to the farm in exchange for me. When I refused, he said he’d put my father out of his misery right in front of me and take me anyway.”
“And so you
married
him?” Trace asked through stiff lips.
“At gunpoint, yes. Only, the gun wasn’t pointed at me; it was aimed at my father. Jared sent Morgan into town for a preacher. Once the marriage was performed, he tore up my father’s markers, gave him the deed to
the farm and his wages, and turned him loose. But he was found the next morning, shot to death behind the saloon. The deed to the farm was gone, along with all the money Jared had given him.”
“You think Jared Comstock killed him?” Trace asked.
“No, not Jared. He never left the ranch that night. But Will Morgan did.”
Trace shook his head. “When did all this happen, Mae?”
“A month, I think. I’ve lost track of time. It’s been one big nightmare for me. I just want to go home to Kentucky. At first I tried to find the deed. I didn’t want Jared to get his hands on Foxtail Hall. But then the situation became too dangerous. I had to get away.”
“I asked about the name Ahern in town. Nobody seemed to know it.”
She uttered a humorless laugh. “They know the name, all right. Everybody knew Jack Ahern. They just won’t admit to it. Those who still have a conscience at the Outpost are too afraid of Jared to risk getting involved.” Her poignant brown eyes fixed him. “Now you’ve heard my story. I think it’s time for you to tell me—how do you fit into all this, Trace Ord?”
Trace answered her question with one of his own. “Is Jared Comstock a horse rustler?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him. He does as he pleases. They’re driving horses in all the time, but I can’t say for certain from where. I’m not allowed near anything to do with his business. I’ve spent near a month locked in my room trying to avoid…” She bit her lip and flushed scarlet. “Why do you ask?”
Trace drew a ragged breath. For a moment he couldn’t
speak. There was no doubt that she was sincere. His work, however, depended upon anonymity. He never disclosed his position, or his personal affairs, easily. He hadn’t with Preacher, and he hesitated now with Mae. He usually trusted his instincts, but they were clouded by what he was beginning to feel for this girl. He wrestled with that for a good length of time before he spoke.
“Can you trust me, Mae?” he asked.
She hurled back at him, “I can’t trust anybody out here!”
Trace sighed, taking her hand in his. “I can’t say I blame you for that, after all you’ve told me. And with me shooting you—after you stole my horse, mind—we got off to a rocky start. Still, when I caught Diablo he was wild. It took me a long time—a couple cracked ribs and a broken wrist—but he finally trusted me. So I’ll just have to earn your trust, too. I’m putting my life on the line telling you this, but…I’m a renegade rider. Do you know what that is?”
“No,” she said.
“A renegade rider is a wrangler who goes about rounding up horses that have strayed or been rustled from their owners,” he explained. “Right now, I’m working for two ranchers up north, who are pretty sure that I’m going to find a large part of their stock on the Lazy C. That’s why I was in such an all-fired hurry to get there. It’s why I tried to hire on, and why Preacher is out there now, hoping to dig up enough proof for me to send for those ranchers and the marshal.”
Mae’s eyes were wide as saucers.
“I’m a damn good wrangler,” Trace went on. “I wouldn’t have had one bit of trouble proving myself to
Comstock, one on one. That foreman, Will Morgan, jinxed it after he and I got off on the wrong foot. Some people are like that—they rub each other the wrong way before the first words are even spoke, and no fixing it.”
He sighed and added, “I didn’t want Preacher tagging along, but he convinced me that it would look less suspicious: a drifter and a tagalong cook. I figured Comstock would take me and turn him away. I never dreamed he’d send me packing and keep Preacher. I’m worried about that old codger. He’s no match for the bunch you’re describing. When I met him, the old fool was set on trying his hand at mining in Death Valley. I don’t want his death on my hands. Already have too many on my conscience. No room for another.”
“You’ve got to get him out of there,” Mae said. “That place is a nest of rattlesnakes.”
Trace nodded. “I’ll figure something. Right now, it’s you we’ve got to deal with.”
“Our tracks!” she realized with a lurch. “Jared will follow them. He’ll find us! He’s an excellent tracker. We’re boxed in here!”
“There’s no moon tonight. No one’ll be doing any tracking ’til morning.” He broke several low-hanging branches off a nearby cedar and lashed them together with a strip of rawhide from his pack. “I can cover our trail with this”—he exhibited his handiwork—“by retracing our steps and then dragging this along behind Duchess. It’s an old Indian trick I learned from the Navajos. But to do that, I’ve got to leave you here alone with Diablo. Can I trust you? Can I have your word that you won’t run off again while I’m gone?”
“If you’re so worried, why don’t you just drag that thing behind Diablo? Use him instead,” she snapped.
Trace rose and picked up the cup holding the horse’s ointment. “Diablo needs care. Also, I might miss a few. Duchess’s tracks could belong to almost any horse on the range. Diablo’s hooves and shoes are marked, and Comstock surely knows that. If you take him out of this grove and run again, you might as well leave Comstock a map right to you. I don’t think you want that. Now, I’ll help you get back to Kentucky, Mae, but you’ve got to trust me for that to happen.”
She tried to smile, but he saw her chin tremble a bit. “I suppose I don’t have any choice, Trace Ord.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. Can you handle a Winchester?” he asked, holding out the rifle. “I won’t be long. Try not to shoot me when I come back.”
Finally she managed a small smile. “Not even once?”
S
hivering
more from fright than cold, Mae Comstock sat clutching the Winchester. Except for the occasional snap and crackle of the fire, there was no sound. No breeze stirred the trees in the grove around her. No woodland creatures spoke. The only other noise was the ragged rhythm of her heart, ticking off the minutes, reminding her of her grandfather’s clock back home.
Would Trace Ord come back? Was he wrong; had Jared and his riders already picked up their trail despite the darkness? She grimaced. She hadn’t told Trace everything. Now she almost wished that she had. But his eyes, piercing her with their hawklike sharpness, had been so dark and strange as she told her tale, how could she? If what she said had already produced such seething rage, what might the rest do? Murder, more than likely, and there’d been enough of that, Lord knew.
A renegade rider? She hadn’t known what that was until he explained. She’d heard Jared Comstock make reference to renegade riders as men more dangerous than the law, however, to be avoided at all cost. And anything Comstock deemed a threat was likely to be Mae’s
ally. Trace had certainly acted like a gentleman tonight. Now that she knew he wasn’t one of her husband’s kind, the burden on her heart lightened. She’d prayed it was so, but she’d been confused ever since Trace turned his back and walked away from the Lazy C without his stallion. Had she finally met an honorable man in this damnable territory—one that her grandfather would welcome onto the front porch of the old Southern manor? Dared she hope? It was only a glimmer, but it was all she had and she clung to it the way she gripped the Winchester. It was more than she’d had for over a month.
There was no mistaking the shambles his closeness made of her poise. Her thoughts reeled back to the most recent occasion, his strong arm encircling her waist, holding her before him. And he’d plucked her from Diablo’s back as though she were as light as a broom straw. She relived the pounding of his heart against her, recalled his raw male scent.
Mae pressed her fingers to her lips as she recalled the hardness of his muscular, corded body, the blistering heat radiating from his chest as he pinned her to the ground. Heat caused by the exertion of riding her down…and by something more. He
wanted
her. She had felt it, especially when she’d lain underneath him on the ground, helpless against the need evident in his lean length. There had been no mistaking the thick pressure of his arousal against her thigh through their clothing.
And yet he hadn’t hurt her. Somehow she’d known he wouldn’t—not the way Jared would have, or Will Morgan, or Bill Coulter. This man was different. But
he was angry at her, and he had every right to be. She’d done him wrong, done his poor horse wrong. Maybe that was what instantly fixed him as a different breed of man. Jared used horses simply as a means to get richer. In contrast, Trace cared about Diablo. She’d seen the pain in his eyes, seen him care for the horse, speak with soothing tones to the terrified animal. She couldn’t imagine Jared doing the same.
Maybe she wouldn’t run tonight. Diablo was safe in Trace’s care; perhaps she would be, too. Though she was terrified of staying, terrified of trusting the unsettling emotions Trace Ord had awakened in her, she was far more afraid of Jared. She hoped the two didn’t run into each other tonight.
As the minutes ticked by, doubt crept in whether Trace would return. Mae waited, waited what seemed an eternity. Finally her decision was rewarded. Trace reappeared, moving with the stealth of an Indian, his tall, lean shadow materializing before her eyes. She lurched to her feet. Her grip tightened on the Winchester but then relaxed as her breath was siphoned off on a sigh of relief. She said, “I didn’t…I mean, I wasn’t…I…I was afraid—”
“That I wouldn’t come back?” he laughed. “Did you think I was just going to ride off and leave you here with my horse?”
“I…was afraid you might be wrong.” She faltered. “That Jared would come after me tonight, that is, and that…”
“Don’t tell me you were worried about me?” he chided. Was that a twinkle in his eye?
There was absolutely no use trying to have a reasonable
conversation with the man! “Well, how would I know what happened if you didn’t come back?” she snapped.
“You can give me that now,” he said, reaching for his rifle.
“Oh!” she cried, almost dropping it. As she gave it over, she winced. The wound in her shoulder was still tender.
“Pain?” he asked, his eyes narrowed.
“A little,” she confessed. There was no use in lying. “It’s nothing to bother over. I’ll mend.”
“Uh-huh. Well, maybe you better let me have a look,” he suggested. “That tussle we just had didn’t do it much good, I’ll wager.”
“It’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’m just stiff from sitting here so long with that rifle.”
Trace stared for a long moment, clearly making up his mind if he should pursue the issue. Mae held her breath. She couldn’t meet his eyes. A rush of hot blood raced into her cheeks and she didn’t need a mirror to prove that they were aflame; they always reddened when she was embarrassed. Like now, when all she could think was Dear God, he’s seen me naked to the waist!
“Have it your way,” he said at last. “I’ve covered our tracks. We should move on, get you to Kentucky…but we can’t. Not ’til I see about Preacher. I can’t just disappear and leave him in the middle of that nest of rattlers.”
She moaned. “They’ll find us! I know they will! You don’t know Jared, he—”
“And you don’t know me,” Trace interrupted. “If Jared Comstock finds us, he’s a dead man, plain and simple.
Is that clear enough for you? The minute I saw him ride in on Diablo at the Lazy C—spurring him raw, lashing him with his quirt—I promised Preacher I’d one day give him a dose of that blacksnake he wears on his saddle. That was before you told me your tale. The man deserves a horsewhipping for what he did to my horse. He deserves facing down and killing for the hell he’s put
you
through. I’m a hard man, Mae. War and its aftermath made me that way. I’ll kill if I have to—have killed before, and likely will again. Understand?”
Mae lowered her head and nodded.
“I’m glad.” Trace removed his hat and knocked it against his thigh. “We’re safe here. No one can find this place, and I’ve made sure nothing will lead anyone back here. Nobody’s going to find us. Tomorrow, I’ll climb the ridge and keep a lookout for Preacher. With luck he’ll have some information on Comstock rustling horses, and I can bring in the law.”
“And what if he doesn’t come?” Mae asked. “Or what if someone follows him?”
“Don’t be crossing bridges that aren’t built,” was Trace’s reply. “Once word gets out that you’ve run off—and on my horse again, no less—he’ll come along right quick. I’d stake my life on that. Why did you take Diablo, by the way? Comstock’s got a whole corral full of horses.”
“I didn’t return to the Lazy C of my own free will,” she defended. “They
dragged
me back. You said you saw the tracks. I was desperate to get away again before…” She bit back words she dared not speak. Not yet. “Jared and the riders were arguing in the bunkhouse. I couldn’t hear about what,” she said instead. “I
saw my chance and fled. I took Diablo because I couldn’t bear to see him abused anymore. I owed it to him to get him away from Jared.”
Trace’s expression hardened. She didn’t blame him for his anger, but she’d been desperate when she first stole him. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Yet she regretted that the mustang was hurt. Tears swam in her eyes. Trace’s handsome face blurred before them.
“Horses have more sense than humans,” she said, through a terrible constriction in her throat.
Trace gave a soft laugh. “You won’t get any argument from me.”
Mae blinked back her tears, felt compelled to add, “Diablo hated Jared from the start. He tried to trample him when they caught up with me, and Jared beat him with that whip of his. It was my fault he fell into Jared’s hands. I couldn’t leave him there…”
“How did you explain the horse?” Trace asked, heading over to his pack. “When Comstock first caught you.”
“I told him the truth,” Mae said. “Well, as close to the truth as I dared. That I stole him from someone’s camp and got shot in the process, but it was just a graze that I’d doctored myself.”
“And he believed that?” Trace was unfolding a blanket. He glanced up.
Mae nodded, avoiding his gaze, those eagle eyes, so deep-set and penetrating. They seemed to see right into her soul. Into her lies.
Shaking his head, Trace pressed, “You’re sure he believed? All of it?”
“I don’t think he believed that I took your shirt from the stockroom he keeps for his riders, but there was no way for him to prove that I didn’t.” Mae hesitated, then shook her head. “Jared wouldn’t know one work shirt from another. I’ve never seen him wearing one. His riders do the work, and he struts around like the lord of the manor.”
Trace nodded. After a moment he said, “You could have done anything: given him a description, set him on me to get him off your back. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I knew you’d track that horse. Or I hoped. I hoped that sooner or later you’d find him. I
wanted
you to find him, and I thought that if I told the truth and our stories were the same, you might get Diablo back without getting killed, and I might not…Jared might not…” Mae couldn’t stand to see Trace’s expression, and before she even thought she spun on her heel, prepared to flee. A moment later she was in his arms.
“Easy,” he commanded. His eyes roamed her face, but his thoughts were unreadable. “You’re like a wild mustang,” he murmured, “ready to bolt and run, mane flying. But running never solved anything. At some point you have to turn and make your stand. In the army you learn to pick the best place to fight. In life…well, it’s not much different. I’m your high ground, woman. I’m the best you’ve got.”
Her heart pounded against her ribs and she couldn’t breathe right. “There’s no one else,” she whispered.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “I’m all there is. But I’ll do right by you.”
She didn’t resist the strong hands that molded her to
him, nor did she shrug off the gentle fingers that brushed tendrils of hair from her face. She stood staring into his eyes, eyes gleaming with firelight and hooded with desire, and after a long, breathless moment he lowered his mouth over hers. The kiss was gentle, nothing more than a light brush of their lips, as if Trace feared doing more. Molten warmth bubbled up through Mae, burning her with desire. Still, Trace held back, giving her a chance to tell him to stop. She didn’t want him to stop.
Pulling back, Trace paused, before the hint of a smile shaped his mouth. He looked younger, not the hard renegade rider that had shot her. Then the grin widened and he pulled Mae close. This time he tasted her deeply, igniting a blistering surge through her belly and thighs.
Her breath caught in a soft moan as his hands roamed the curve of her waist and down over her jean-covered hips. How tall he was, and yet how perfectly they fit together. There was no mistaking the pressure of his manhood thick and hard against her belly. It was a hardness that should have flagged danger, and would have done with any other man…but not this man. Somehow she knew Trace Ord would never harm her.
Their embrace lasted only seconds, but to Mae it seemed an eternity—a searing, throbbing, white-hot eternity, that left her weak and trembling. When their lips parted, hers followed his, and he tangled his hand in her hair and pressed her face to his heaving chest. Mae was surprised that beneath her hot cheek his heart beat out a ragged rhythm, and his breath came short. Then he groaned, lowering his lips to the top of her head, and groaned again as her hands fisted in the back of his shirt.
It was a long moment that they stood thus, as though one meant to absorb the other. When Trace finally broke the magical silence, his voice was husky and deep with a desire that resonated through Mae’s body like thunder, though he spoke in a whisper.
“I’ve got to finish what I set out to do,” he said, releasing her. It was not an apology or an explanation but a statement of fact, a statement of who this man was. He did not need to elaborate; Mae understood. Still, he went on. “I gave my word, and I won’t go back on it. A man’s word is the measure of his worth. There are two ranchers counting on me to get their horses back. I can’t be clouding my mind with what’s happening between us.”
“So, what are you going to do?” Mae wasn’t ready for the raw emotion he’d ignited in her soul. His scent was all over her, filling her nostrils, tampering with her senses and equilibrium. Stepping back, she sat on a fallen log, distancing herself from the force of him.
“There’s a herd of wild mustangs in that canyon where you…where we met,” he said. He ran a hand through his chestnut hair, clearly confounded. “I
was
going to cut one out of the herd and use him for bait to get myself hired on at the Lazy C. I figured once they saw my skills with taming horses, they’d give me a shot. Given the man’s attitude now, hell has a better chance of freezing over than Jared Comstock hiring me on…”
“I’ve spoiled your plans,” Mae despaired. She vaulted off the log, her guilt getting the better of her. “Take me back!” she blurted. “You’re resourceful. Hide Diablo somewhere and tell him you found me wandering in
the desert. I’ll say the horse threw me and ran off. He has no idea that horse is yours. I’ll play my part, and once you tell him about the herd he’ll take you on, Trace! He will. He won’t be able to resist those horses. If you promise to get him those…”
She trailed off when she saw Trace’s expression. He stared, his jaw muscle ticking. His eyes flashed in the firelight. Mae took a step back, but he bridged the distance in one giant stride, grabbed her arms in iron fists, and shook her gently. “You are never going back to the Lazy C, you got that?” he seethed through clenched teeth. “Never, Mae! And when I’m done with what I set out to do, I’m going to face Jared Comstock down for what he’s done to you and yours. You have to know that.”
“I owe you!” she argued. “I never meant—”