Desperate Hearts (23 page)

“
Good news, Mr. Hardesty?”
the telegrapher asked, hovering eagerly.

“
You might say so.” Feeling
magnanimous with his near triumph, Tom flipped a dime to the man.
“Buy yourself a beer.”

Edner stared at the dime in his hand as if
it were a double eagle. “Thank you, Mr. Hardesty!” He looked ready
to hug himself with joy. Tom laughed at the fool—if only Edner knew
what he really thought of him. “Wait’ll I tell the wife!” He turned
then and hurried back toward the office, and Tom dropped his gaze
to the telegram again.

TRACKED RANKIN AND WOMAN TO BAKER CITY
STOP

WILL WIRE AGAIN TOMORROW WHEN JOB IS
FINISHED STOP

SIGNED McINTYRE

Hobie McIntyre had proved to be worth more
than a manure pile, after all. Grinning again, Tom jammed the paper
into his jacket pocket and pushed through the saloon doors. Luke
Jory would probably frown on his right-hand man indulging so early
in the day. But by God, if this didn’t call for a drink to
celebrate, he didn’t know what did.

“
Whiskey over here, Pete,”
he called to the bartender. He slouched against the bar and
surveyed the room. There were a couple of people in the saloon and
they eyed him warily as did the silent bartender, who poured the
drink and backed away.

He noticed their cautious regard, and he
knew satisfaction. Yessir, now folks jumped when they saw Tom
Hardesty, they were careful with their words when they spoke to
him. After a lifetime of being written off as a lazy
good-for-nothing by the people in this town, he’d given them
something to chew on. By aligning himself with the Vigilance Union,
he finally had everyone’s respect or fear. In his mind, the two
were equal.

He considered the amber liquid in the glass
on the counter when a dark cloud dimmed his elation. Only Kyla
didn’t fear or respect him, even after he had put it to her last
fall in the barn. He knew if she were standing here right now she
would still have the sass to spit in his face. And that fact tied a
cold, angry knot in his gut. He knocked back the whiskey in one
gulp.

So she was still with Rankin. Grimly, he
wondered if Miss-Touch-Me-Not was giving it to the bounty hunter.
Huh, Jace Rankin had nothing on Tom. He knew the man’s
reputation—unflinching, utterly without fear, he could make a man
cower like a whipped dog just by looking at him.

But Tom had a reputation of his own, and
he’d see Rankin out of his way and Kyla on her knees before the
month was over.

* * *

“
We need to cross these
mountains as soon as we can. I think it’s going to snow up here,”
Jace called to Kyla. Stopped in the road, he let his gaze linger on
her a moment, as if he could see through her clothes right down to
her skin. Right into her heart.

He had been critical and distant all day, as
though everything she did suddenly displeased him. Maybe he was
angry with her for making him leave her room last night. Or maybe
he was disgusted to discover her lack of experience when he’d
kissed her. Kyla knew very little about such matters, despite Tom
Hardesty and her marriage to Hank.

Whatever the reason, this morning Jace had
been curt and impatient, speaking to her in one- and two-word
sentences. Yet he had delayed their start until late morning,
telling her she should rest up for the trip.

“
Will we make it out by
dark?” she asked, nudging Juniper closer.

He glanced at the lowering sky. “We’d
better,” he muttered, then swung his horse around to take the
lead.

Not heartened by his answer, Kyla pulled her
hat down tight and burrowed into the folds of her new coat,
grateful for its warmth. Icy winds howled down from the northeast,
spreading a blanket of ominous clouds over the late-afternoon
sky.

Although she and Jace had left Baker City
long after sunup, the chill had not burned off, as he’d suggested
it might. The day had been long and cold, and as they climbed
higher into the Blue Mountains, it only grew worse. Her healing arm
had begun to ache as soon as they reached the foothills, and now it
felt heavy with dull pain. Beside the road, dead bunchgrass and
sage snapped and tumbled along, too brittle to bend in the dry,
cold wind. A sharp, bitter gust came up, bringing tears to her
eyes, and Juniper danced sideways, complaining with a whinny.

Kyla considered Jace as he rode ahead of
her. He looked much the same as she supposed she did: hat pulled
low on his head, coat collar turned up.

Her butter-yellow dress and all its
trappings were carefully repacked in their brown paper and tied
behind her saddle with the rest of her gear. God knew when, or if,
she’d be able to wear them. She was Kyle the farm boy again, now
more reluctantly than ever.

As she studied Jace’s straight back, she
guessed that the chief distinction in their appearance was their
size. Jace had shoulders much broader than hers. His arms were more
muscled and far stronger. She had felt that when he held her
against his hard body last night. Her skirts between them had done
nothing to conceal it. Any of it. The memory sent a rush of heat up
her neck that crept to her hairline.

Things were not the same between them. She
caught herself watching his profile, the way his hands flexed on
the reins, the lines etched around his eyes. The powerful sensation
of his kiss was branded on her memory. To her chagrin, everything
about him that was male beckoned her. In the deepest part of her
he’d roused an ancient, instinctive urge—far different from the
fear and revulsion she had come to associate with the physical
contact between a man and a woman.

That urge meant nothing, she argued with
herself. Those rhythms were present in every living creature on
earth. She brushed at the tears that sprang to her irritated,
wind-burned eyes. Simply because she had succumbed to a heated,
indiscreet moment last night did not change her relationship with
Jace, or make it into something it was not. Every time she let her
imagination gallop loose to picture him sharing a life with her at
the ranch, her logical side stepped in to squash the image. Jace
Rankin was not a rancher. He was a bounty hunter.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn if he
wanted to, her heart whispered.

Right now, though, Jace wasn’t thinking of
ranching or bounty hunting. Right now, he was worried about getting
them out of the mountains and down to lower ground. He’d spent a
lot of years out in the weather, and he would bet that a good-size
storm was coming—one that he and Kyla were not equipped for. On the
flatlands, it might not be so bad. In fact, it might not hit down
there at all. Up here, though, snow could fall so fast and thick
they might either lose their way amid these treacherous slopes, or
become trapped.

Keeping watch on the lead-gray sky, he
pushed his gelding over the narrow mountain path. They had left
Baker City too late in the day and Jace cursed himself for letting
thoughts of Kyla interfere with his better judgment. That had never
happened to him before. He’d meant to make things easier for her,
to let her spend a little time in the comfort of the hotel before
they set out to travel this rough country again. The urge to treat
her more like a lady and less like a boy had been a mistake.

Other men got distracted by women. They made
fools of themselves, or let a female lead them around by the nose
like a steer. Other men allowed lust or love to tangle up their
thinking and make them all moony. Not him.

But now a powerful need pulled at him, a
swift current that flowed through his soul, and he resisted it. It
was not love; he knew that it couldn’t be. But lust—he didn’t like
the sound of that either. It seemed, well, too raw and coarse when
he applied it to Kyla.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw her
back there, plodding along on the dun. The lower half of her face
was hidden by her turned-up collar. But her beautiful features were
etched in his mind—her slim nose, the roundness of her cheekbones,
her mouth that felt even softer and more lush than it looked.

That round softness belied her courage,
though. Whenever he stopped to think about what she had dared just
to find him, he shook his head in amazement. It had taken more than
plain stubbornness and a craving for revenge. Beautiful, smart,
strong, with a tender heart lurking beneath—a man couldn’t ask for
more in a mate.

If he was looking for one—

Another fierce gust of wind wailed down the
pass, cutting through his duster down to his bones, and yanking his
mind back to their immediate problem. It was then that he saw sleet
swirling against the darker backdrop of blue-gray granite. The
frozen ice pellets were as small as bird shot. Driven by the wind,
the sleet peppered his face like grains of fire. And he knew that
snow would follow shortly. He could smell it, taste it. It was
coming. He and Kyla would need at least two more hours to work
their way down to flat ground, and it would be close to dark by
then.

He turned to check on Kyla again, and saw
her falling farther behind. Her head was down and for a moment he
thought she was asleep. Then she lifted a hand to rub her wounded
arm through her sleeve. Yeah, he thought, this cold would make it
ache. He knew the feeling.

“
Stay close,” he called to
her. She glanced up and nodded, urging Juniper on, but the horse
balked whenever a wind blast crossed his path or stung him with
sleet. Jace could see she was struggling with him. Although he was
a fairly steady mount, every animal had its quirks and in this
weather it probably wouldn’t take much to make him bolt. Jace
surveyed the possibilities in that event, and they were not
promising. On each side of the narrow road, sheer drop offs plunged
to deep crevasses studded with spindly pines and sharp-edged
rocks.

They moved onward, their progress gradually
slowing as the snowfall began. Time became an enemy with the
weather. Without the sun, marking the hour became impossible.
Knowing the time, though, wouldn’t tell him a lot beyond how much
trouble they were in, and he’d already grasped that. They had to
win the race against nightfall to the foothills on the other side
of the ridge that still lay ahead, and that was his primary goal.
He could see no farther than three or four feet ahead, and most
landmarks vanished behind shrouds of white.

Every couple of minutes, he sought Kyla
behind him, but she and her horse formed a vague, bulky shadow that
faded in and out of his line of sight. Then she disappeared
completely.

“
Kyla! Are you there?” he
yelled, turning in his saddle. The wind and snow smothered his
words and threw them back at him. God, could she hear him? Was she
there? He reined his horse and swung it around, listening, peering
through the whiteness. Dread sat in his chest like a stone, heavy
and suffocating. “Kyla, answer me, damn it!”

“
I’m here!” she called
back, but her voice sounded for away. Finally she emerged from the
wall of flakes. Her face was red with cold, and snow clung to her
hair and collected in the folds of her coat. Silvery rivulets
marked her cheeks where her tears had frozen. She looked like a
lost waif.

With a heavy exhale, Jace released the
breath that he’d been holding. “Goddamn it to hell, woman! Try a
little harder to stay with me, will you? And keep that horse on the
road!” he barked. He had to shout at her to be heard over the gale,
adding to the sharp edge that worry put in his tone.

“
I’m doing the best I can!”
she snapped back, scrubbing impatiently at her frozen tears. “If
that’s not good enough for you, then go on without me. I don’t want
to be responsible for holding you back. We can find air own way.
Juniper doesn’t like this weather any better than we
do.”

He could see that. The horse’s eyes rolled
with wild panic and its fright was evident in every jerky movement.
Jace sighed. “I’m sor—I didn’t mean—Look, I think we’re close to
the ridge. Once we get there we’ll be on the downhill side. Just
try to hold him in check a little longer. If you slip off the road
in this snow I won’t know it.”

“
I’ve already thought of
that, thank you,” she retorted.

Feeling guilty, he nodded and turned his
horse to resume the slow climb uphill. The storm continued to howl,
gathering strength with each passing moment. Again and again, Jace
glanced over his shoulder to see if Kyla was behind him, only to
see her struggle with Juniper. He thought of suggesting that she
dismount and lead the horse blindfolded, but that would slow their
progress even more.

Snow crusted on his own horse’s coat, and
inside his boots, Jace’s feet were numb with cold. Knowing she was
no better off, he wished he could offer more shelter to Kyla. But
the best thing he could do right now was lead them down to
safety.

The ridge he sought seemed to keep moving
out of their reach, and time lost all meaning. He had no means to
judge the time of day, but he suspected that several hours had
passed in this frozen hell.

He shrugged deeper into his coat, trying to
cover his face without blocking what little vision he had in the
white wind. His thoughts turned morose. Damn it, he should have
gone south to California as he’d originally planned. Living was
easier there, he’d heard. Good weather, a big, wide-open state. A
man could start over and leave his past behind. Jace could begin a
new life in a place where no one knew who he was. Where people
wouldn’t automatically fear him or challenge him.

When this was all over, he’d go. Maybe he
would find something there to fill the empty place in his soul that
would remain when he and Kyla parted. . . .

Another razor-sharp gust blasted him,
forcing him to tighten his knees on his gelding’s ribs. At that
moment he heard his name shrieked over the rocks and around the
brush, high and thin, as though the wind mocked him and his
thoughts. Spinning around, he turned just in time to see Juniper
rearing wildly on his hind legs. Kyla scrambled to keep her seat
but the angle was too sharp. She fell backward out of the saddle
and tumbled to the edge of the narrow road, taking her gear along
with her. It flew over the side of a deep ravine. Juniper, blowing
great clouds of vapor, landed on all fours again and fled past
Jace. Skidding on a curve, the dun vanished down the road ahead and
probably into an abyss.