Deep Trouble (18 page)

“Gabe! Shannon!” The parson’s voice jabbed Gabe like a redhot branding iron.

Shannon jumped sideways and toppled backward. Gabe grabbed her before she fell off the rock they sat on. Good thing they weren’t on the edge of a cliff or she’d have plunged right over.

She rubbed on her lips and then clamped both hands in her lap. Between falling and being saved, somehow she was still on his lap. Her chin quivered. She looked up at Gabe. Their eyes locked.

The parson hollered again.

“You go on back,” she whispered. “I’ll come in, in a few minutes, from a different direction.”

“We don’t need to sneak around.” Gabe touched the lovely little dent in her chin, which led his eyes to look at her lips. “I refuse to pretend like I’m ashamed of my actions.”

Which she most certainly should be if she had no interest in staying with him.

“If we show up together, with your lips shiny and swollen and my hair rumpled…” He could still feel her fingers sinking deep into his hair. He noticed hers was out of its braid. Then he looked down and saw the leather thong she used to tie it back, twisted in his fingers.

She followed his gaze and snatched her hair tie away from him. “What? If we show up… what?”

“The parson’s gonna go right back to that shotgun wedding he almost carried out a few days ago. Is that what you want?” Gabe looked at her.

She refused to look back. Instead, with unsteady hands, she braided her hair and tied it together at the ends.

“Is it, Shannon? Are you going to waste your life on your ma’s society and your pa’s treasure hunt? Or are you gonna be a big, grown-up girl and live the life you want?”

Her chin came up. “Meaning staying here with you is the life I want? We don’t know each other well enough for me to make a decision like that.”

Hozho called this time, coming their way.

Gabe eased her off his lap to stand on her own two feet. Then he slid off the rock and landed so close to her she stepped back, but he grabbed her before she could put any space between them. “I know you, Shannon. I know exactly what’s going on in your mixed-up head. You’re searching for a treasure you don’t even want. You’re living your life for your pa and ma and maybe Bucky. Everyone but for God and for yourself.”

“Well, you may think you’ve got me all figured out, but I don’t know you, Gabe. I’m not so foolish as to think I know a man I’ve only met a few days ago.”

“Then I suggest you keep your kisses to yourself from now on, Miss Dysart. Because your behavior with a man who’s a
stranger
to you is nothing short of sinful.” Gabe turned before he said something even more stupid, though what could be more stupid than calling a woman sinful and warning her that he very much wanted to kiss again but that she’d better keep her kisses to herself?

He stalked off in a direction that would bring him into the camp from the east, while Shannon could approach from the south. Behaving just exactly like a sneak, like a man who was ashamed of his actions.

He’d put a couple of big rocks between himself and that maddening woman when he heard Hozho say, “There you are. Why didn’t you answer me when I called?”

“Just enjoying the sunrise. I’m sorry I was slow to call out.”

The two voices faded as they headed for camp. Gabe kept walking until he’d gotten his temper under control. When he calmed down, he remembered how Shannon felt in his arms, and it was either stay mad or fall completely in love with her.

He found to his dismay that he might be capable of doing both.

“They went into the
Grand Canyon?”
Abe’s hands came up as if he was going for the Navajo man’s throat.

Pa grabbed him. Tyra was one beat slower, but she had Abe’s other arm.

“Why?
What fool notion made my baby brother ride into the Grand Canyon?”

The smiling Navajo, who called himself Doba, had quite a tale to tell, and he seemed to fear nothing, not even a whipcord-lean, heavily muscled rancher with a bad temper and a clenched fist.

Doba Kinlichee kept talking fearlessly as he told his story of midnight riders, gunfire, cave dwellings, treacherous canyons, and lost cities. A confident man, and Tyra had to admire it.

“A map sent her to the west of the trail when anyone else would have told you to go south,” Doba went on. “I’ll point you in that direction. You’ll probably meet them coming back. There’s no way into the canyon in that direction.”

“Sure there is.” A man, tanned until he was brown and so skinny he looked like skin draped over bone, stood from the watering hole.

Tyra hadn’t paid him much mind. Mr. Kinlichee had come out to meet them, and he’d had enough to say to keep her attention riveted right on him.

“You know a way into the canyon, Hance?”

“Yep, been scouting it for a while now. I found me a trail, I did, right down off the edge of the world. Hard one to get along on. Steep, my oh my, it’s shore enough steep. But it can be done. Only trail on the whole east side of the canyon that goes to the bottom. The next one is all the way south at the Supai village. And I’m the only one who knows about it.” Hance wore a fringed buckskin jacket and a floppy brimmed hat. He had a beard and moustache as wild as this country and eyes sharper than a rattlesnake.

Tyra took his measure and believed what he was saying.

“And is there truly a city down in the canyon?” Doba asked.

“An old one, abandoned. I can lead you to it.” The man’s brow furrowed and his sharp eyes got a little shifty. “For a price.”

Abe relaxed enough, so Tyra dared to release him.

“I’d be glad to hire you to guide us to this abandoned city,” Buck said as he came up beside her, his arms crossed.

Kinlichee interrupted the business arrangements. “You oughta know, there were varmints on their trail. Bad men. We laid a false trail, so hopefully they’ll ride all the way to the canyon where it goes down by the Supai village. Most folks don’t know of any way into the canyon straight west.”

“Including me.” The Navajo man scowled at the man who offered to guide them. “Why haven’t you told me of your trail into the canyon?”

Hance shrugged, his eyes wily. “Found a way down is all. Man’s got a right to make some money off his hard work. If someone wants to go down there on my trail, they can pay for the privilege.”

“How much?” Buck asked.

Buck was no cowpoke. But this was about money, and suddenly Tyra could see that the city man did know a few things. Like how to make a deal.

Hance named a price that nearly closed Tyra’s throat.

Buck made a counteroffer.

She glared at him. He was dickering over Shannon Dysart’s
life
, and that was his right, but he was also trying to save money on
Gabe’s
and that made her mad.

Then Hance came down a few dollars and Buck came up. They’d worked it all out before Tyra could glare a hole in Buck Shaw.

“We’re in a hurry. Can we leave now?” Buck’s question was smooth. His gaze was calm, almost lighthearted. It was the right way to handle Hance. Nothing like Tyra’s chosen method, similar to Abe’s with Kinlichee—go for the man’s throat until he helped them.

“Yep, reckon we might as well get on our way.” Hance turned toward his horse and ambled over. Before he’d turned away, Tyra saw the gleam in his eyes. The man was thrilled with the deal he’d made. She suspected, though the man was greedy, he wasn’t evil. Just a businessman who’d made the best deal of his life.

“Good.” Buck still sounded smooth. “We can get a few hours down the trail before sunset.” He swung up onto his horse smoothly enough.

There was no denying that Buck rode a beauty of a mare, a thoroughbred, sleek and tall with strong muscles. The horse was pure black except for a white blaze on her face and four white socks. She’d make a fantastic colt teamed with the stallion her pa had back on the ranch.

The horses ridden by his men were excellent horseflesh, too. The horses of a rich man. And from the sound of some of the talk, they all belonged to Buck. They’d moved tirelessly all day, too. So even though they looked pampered, they were well exercised. Buck showed good sense in taking these horses on this journey.

But they were heading into rugged land. The kind of land better suited to a tough, little mountain-bred mustang. Tyra hoped the thoroughbreds came through.

The horses were watered and ready to go, and they had a good supply of food still from Flagstaff, so they headed out.

As they left the little settlement, Buck rode up beside Tyra. “Tell me more about Gabe. Is Shannon in good hands?”

“For a man who’s worried about his woman, you drove a real hard bargain with Hance.” Tyra tried to glare at him, but truth was he’d handled Hance real well.

“I’ve known men like Captain John Hance before.” Buck smiled. “He wouldn’t have respected me if I hadn’t bartered with him.”

Tyra knew men like that, too. “He got the best of you, you know. You’re paying him about twice what this trip is worth.”

“That’s because I
didn’t
drive a hard bargain over Shannon.” Buck looked ahead. Hance was well in the lead. “I talked with Doba a bit more about those men on their trail. He told me they left Shannon to die about a day’s ride to the east of here. Your friend Gabe found her and brought her into Doba’s settlement. He said she convinced a few people to follow her to the Grand Canyon. She had a map that leads to a city of gold. Doba doesn’t believe a word of it, and neither do I, but the important thing seems to be that Shannon believes it. She’s been working over her father’s notes for a long time to the exclusion of everything else.” There was a touch of something sad in his voice.

“Including you?”

The man smiled, and Tyra had a very hard time not looking at his shining blue eyes and his amazingly white teeth. “Sure, including me. But that’s just Shannon. I understand how important her father was to her.”

“Are you in love with her?” Flinching, Tyra wished someone would come and gag her. She hadn’t meant to ask that.

“Shannon is—” Buck fumbled for an answer. “I—I don’t know.”

Hance picked up the pace, and they began trotting toward the setting sun.

“You said she was your friend.” Tyra’s horse was comfortable on the easy trail, and she gave all her attention to Buck. He was a good-looking man, no denying it. Shame his hands were bleeding where he should have had calluses, and he was sunburned when he should have been darkly tanned. Shame, real shame.

It occurred to Shannon that they had the same coloring. Dark hair, blue eyes. If he hadn’t been such a greenhorn, they’d have been a good match. She shook her head to dislodge that ridiculous thought.

“Shannon and I grew up together. Our main connection is our mothers. Both of us spent a good part of our childhoods hiding from them.” Buck smiled again, but his words didn’t strike Tyra as particularly funny. “And, since they visited each other almost daily, Shannon and I often had the opportunity to hide from them together.”

“Hide from them? How? Where?”

“We both lived in big mansions in St. Louis, just a few doors from each other.”

“Mansions, really?” Tyra thought of the cabin she shared with her pa. It was big, but there’d been a lot of them.

“Oh, sure.” Buck shrugged and looked a little sheepish. “We were raised on how important our families are. I am a Shaw. My mother is a Chatillon. Shannon is a Fontaine and even more importantly an Astor.”

“Never heard of none of those families.”

That earned her a smile from Buck. “I’m glad to hear it.”

She added, “I thought her name was Dysart.”

“It is, but her mother wasn’t overly fond of her father and tended to ignore that part of the family, even though obviously Shannon is half Dysart and the connection to the Astors is distant.”

“But Shannon is living her whole life to follow in her father’s footsteps. Her ma might not like the Dysarts, but Shannon seems to.”

Buck nodded. His mind seemed distant.

“Why didn’t you come out here with Shannon?” Tyra wanted to figure out just what the connection was between Buck and Shannon. She wanted it something fierce. She saw no spark in Buck’s eyes when he talked of her, no romance. But Buck’s presence here said more clearly than words that Shannon was important to him.

“She didn’t ask me. And I thought it was a stupid idea. I’ve had things really comfortable back home. The notion of coming west was appalling.”

“What is it you do back east that’s more important than taking care of your friend?”

“Do?” Buck furrowed his brow as if the word made no sense.

“Yes?”

“Uh, do?” Buck stumbled over the question and fell silent. “A job?”

“Job?”

“Yes, a job. That thing people have so they make money, so they can eat and keep a roof over their heads.”

She might have imagined it because he was sunburned, but she thought there was a faint flush to his cheeks, like he had the grace to be embarrassed for not recognizing the word
job
. It wasn’t as if she’d started speaking Navajo. “My pa is a rancher. I help him on the range, and my ma is dead, so I do a lot of the work inside. I cook and clean, haul water, and garden. Do you drive a wagon? Run some store back in the city? Help run the railroad? What?”