Authors: Siara Brandt
Jesse had not yet come face to face with Thrall. Orders always came through someone else. So far, he had been given only the minimum of information. He already knew that Thrall was masquerading as Brent Marsten. Sara Cade had told him that.
A man they called Banan was keeping a close eye on him, acting, Jesse knew, on Thrall’s orders. Thrall didn’t fully trust him. Maybe he didn’t completely trust anyone.
Jesse didn’t like Banan. He was a coldblooded killer. The worst kind. He didn’t have a conscience. Jesse had listened to him brag about the rancher’s daughter he had once kidnapped and he longed to put his fist through Banan’s leering face. For now, however, he had to play along. Jesse had no doubt Banan would put a bullet in his back at a word from Thrall.
Jesse cursed softly as he examined his horse’s foot. He used the tip of his knife blade to pry at a small stone wedged tightly in the frog.
“After what happened to Bishop, a man ought to think twice before goin’ up agin’ Thrall,” he heard Banan say.
Jesse wondered if the man was just making conversation, or if it was a thinly-veiled warning. Banan could be long winded when the mood struck him. Most of it was bragging and he was worse when he was drinking. He had been drinking all day.
“That’s how Bishop got himself killed,” Banan went on. “It was on account of that Cade woman. Was the kid made Bishop so soft-hearted.”
“Kid, huh?” Jesse muttered as if only half interested as he examined his horse’s hoof. He wanted the man to go on talking.
“Thrall might be a mean sonofabitch, but he’s smart. He’s made us all plenty of money. He’s got a trap set up right now that is slicker’n a greased hog.”
“Yeah?” Jesse breathed as the stone came loose and dropped to the ground. Jesse set the horse’s foot down.
As Jesse listened, he realized Banan was now talking about Pierce.
“Thrall’s wanted him out of the way for a while now.”
“Why’s that?” Jesse questioned.
Banan shrugged. “That ain’t for us to know. Thrall’s been on a rampage ever since that woman he calls his sister crossed him. He plans to get Champlin. As for the woman, let’s just say she won’t be crossing him again. And if Thrall wants to kill that kid from the Circle I, then you can bet on it, that’s what he’ll do. But it’s the Parrish girl that’s on his mind more’n anything else.”
Jesse turned to face the man. He stood rigid, motionless.
“He plans to capture the girl, too.”
Beneath the shadow of the brim of his hat there was a new tightness in Jesse’s jaw. With a nonchalance that he was not even close to feeling, he asked, “Why does Thrall want the girl?”
A lecherous sneer appeared on the man’s face. “If you’ve seen her, you know why. I wouldn’t mind having a go at her myself. But Thrall wants her. Even if he has to take her unwilling. The women from the Circle I left this morning to catch the train. There will be a surprise waiting for them on their way back.” Banan jerked his head toward the other men. “We’ll have to rustle if we are going to meet up with the others.”
Once more the rope was jerked tight. Hetty cried out in pain and stumbled forward.
One of the men looked back over his shoulder. “She still has some fight in her,”
“With her back arched and spittin’,” another laughed.
“At least she can’t claw at me anymore,” said the man nearest her as he touched his fingers gingerly to the long red marks down the side of his face.
The hopelessness of her situation was fully impressed upon Hetty, but at least Emma had gotten
away. She had that to be thankful for. And she learned that they hadn’t found Pierce either.
She was forced to mount one of the horses. The man who had bound her wrists leaped into the saddle behind her. Leaning close, he whispered something that made her grow pale as they headed into the timber.
They pushed forward into the dead white mist for hours. It was a grueling ride. Hetty shivered from the dampness and the chill seeping through her clothing almost as much as from the closeness of the man behind her.
Darkness had fallen by the time they came to a tumble-down shack that seemed to spring from the forest itself. Hetty’s hands were still tied as she was lifted from the horse. When the horse was secured to a post, she was led to the front door of the cabin. The door was opened and she was pushed through it. The man leading her kept a hand clamped tightly above her elbow as he steered her forward.
Inside the cabin several men were playing cards at a wooden table upon which there were poker chips and whiskey bottles. The men stopped their play and stared at Hetty. Though every head had turned, nobody spoke a word.
“That her?” one of the men finally asked.
“That’s her,” came the reply.
The men boldly looked her up and down. The man who had ridden behind her pulled her hard to his side. She was exhausted, cold and frightened, but she stiffened, resisting him. Outrage flared in her eyes.
He laughed under his breath and said, “Still fighting me, eh? You’ll learn to obey soon enough.”
She glared up at him. “An easy enough thing to say for a man who has to tie a woman up to get her to stay by his side.”
He laughed at her defiance. The other men laughed, too.
“Truth is,” the man said as he looked down at her. “I seen you in town once, and I’m telling you that you’re a damned fine-looking woman. Too pretty to forget. So pretty that I forgot my manners. M
aybe you could teach me some- ” he paused, his voice full of insinuation. “Manners.”
The other men watched her like a hungry pack of wolves watching its prey. Something new had come into the men’s eyes.
The man’s hand lifted to stroke the curls falling over her shoulder. She could not completely will her fear away but she also felt a surge of cold rage behind the fear. Rage at the lewd suggestions she had been forced to endure for hours, and now this brute’s intimate touch.
“Take your hands off of me,” she hissed under her breath.
His eyes narrowed as he gave her a hard, speculative look. He must have been losing patience with her because his smile was a little more brittle this time. Maybe he wanted to look like he was in control in front of the other men. He grabbed a fistful of her hair. “I think maybe some whiskey will get you in a more sociable mood.”
He poured a generous glassful, tightened his hold on the back of her hair and ruthlessly tilted her head back. When she would not drink, he jerked her hair sharply. “I said drink.”
Hetty sputtered and tried to resist, but in the end she had no choice but to swallow the whiskey forced down her throat. It burned with the heat of a prairie fire.
She coughed, half choking. “You’re no better- than a wild animal.”
“That’s me, darlin’. And you’re about to find out just how wild I can be.” His smile was devoid of humor and merciless as he brought the glass to her mouth once more. And then again.
At first Hetty thought she was going to be sick. But after a little while her stomach settled. She even found that the whiskey helped to warm her some.
“I reckon you’ve had enough to tame you down some,” she heard. “At least you look a little more agreeable,” the man said as he removed the rope from her wrists.
Agreeable? Hetty thought defiantly. She would never be that.
Her head was spinning now. This could not be happening, she told herself. Yet it was happening. She was the prisoner of outlaws who had already shown how brutal they could be. She couldn’t give rein to her imagination. If she
did . . .
“Better remember she belongs to Thrall,” she heard one of the men say.
That seemed to sober everyone up. Thrall. Marsten. The same. The man behind Sara’s kidnapping. The man who had beaten Amiline. The same one who had had John Forbes shot. The man behind all of it.
“Messin’ with her will only get you full of lead. Remember what happened to Bishop?”
The man at her side was silent, but he still had a possessive hold on her. She heard a loud groaning creak as the door opened behind her. She felt a surge of cold night air that made her shiver all over again.
Through the whiskey haze she realized that something had happened to change the mood in the room. She was still held by the man beside her. His hard grip on her arm had not loosened. But his manner had undergone some subtle transformation. It seemed that every muscle in his body had tensed. He lifted the whiskey bottle in his hand and drank long and deeply. The bottle lowered slowly, but his eyes remained fixed on something behind her.
Hetty turned to see what held his attention so intently. Her lips parted in a surprised gasp. In the doorway, dark and silent, and watching her, stood Jesse McLaren.
She watched him walk into the room. Casually. As if he belonged there. He did belong there, she reminded herself. He was an outlaw. Just like the rest of these men. The cold fact of his outlawry hit her as it had never hit her before.
Even knowing what he was, she was amazed by his cold composure, his unaffected nonchalance, the utter lack of emotion as his gaze ran over her.
“Thought you were supposed to be riding with Banan tonight,” one of the men at the table asked him.
“Change of plans,” Jesse replied.
“What are you doing here?” another man asked.
“For one, collecting what belongs to me.” Jesse voice was cold and deliberate. He was not looking at her now.
“And what would that be?” the man beside her asked.
“The girl,” Jesse replied. “I already have my brand on her.”
A dead silence gripped the room while Hetty looked up slowly from beneath her lashes.
“Don’t I, honey?”
The other men turned their faces to look at her.
The whiskey was hitting her hard now. It took Hetty a few moments to make sense of what Jesse was saying. Jesse, the man she had kissed. More than once. She was still having trouble separating the Jesse she knew with this hardened outlaw.
“A man’s not supposed to kiss and tell- ” Jesse held her gaze. “But . . . ” He let his words trail off suggestively. One corner of his mouth tightened. The smile, if that’s what you could call it, did not reach his eyes.
Even through her whiskey haze, Hetty was stunned when he dragged what had happened between them out before these uncouth ruffians. The fury of indignation that she had felt before was nothing to the indignation she felt now.
“She’s still a little mad at me,” Jesse went on. “Women always get touchy when you love, then leave ‘em. Lately I’ve been too busy for foolin’ with her. But she’s mine all the same.”
Fooling with her?
In a moment he had cheapened all that they had shared. And he was talking about her as if she were a piece of property. A possession. As if she had no say in the matter.
If looks could kill, Jesse thought to himself, he would be a dead man right now. He walked forward and stood before Hetty. He had no choice but to play it through.
“I reckon she liked it well enough,” he drawled, looking down at her. He didn’t take his eyes off her face. “And I expect she’ll come around. She fought me the last time, too- ”
He didn’t finish. Hetty’s palm caught him hard across the cheek. It was no light blow. It had the driving force of her outrage behind it.
“I guess you don’t know that Thrall gave us orders to fetch her here,” one of the men informed Jesse.
“I don’t give a damn about orders,” Jesse replied calmly.
The other men exchanged glances. “Thrall wants her,” one of them said. “He means to have her.” He shifted his gaze to the man still holding Hetty’s arm. “You mess with her, Dolan, and it looks like you got more than one fight on your hands.”
Hetty felt the man’s hesitation. His hand loosened. He wavered, uncertain as he thought it over. And then amazingly he backed down. He took two steps away from her, apparently deciding that fighting over something that wasn’t his in the first place could possibly get him killed. Especially if it meant fighting Thrall
and
Jesse McLaren.
“She ain’t worth dyin’ over,” he said, holding up his hands and taking another step backward. “I reckon Thrall can fight his own battle over the hellcat.”
“I hope you know what you’re up agin’,” one of the other men said to Jesse as he picked up his cards. “Guess you don’t know Thrall. He’s like a grizzly when he’s crossed. But you’ll be learnin’ that soon enough.”