Liz Ireland (9 page)

“Paulie,” she said. “Paulie Johnson.”

He continued to stare at her for a moment longer and then opened his mouth. Paulie was prepared for anything—mostly a command to his men to kill her. Instead, nothing came out for a few moments. Just air. Then, slowly, a wheezing sound began, which soon turned into a raspy kind of laugh. Finally, he let out something that sounded as if it
were probably as close to a belly laugh as they were likely to hear from this man.

“Paulie Johnson!” he repeated, his “J” coming out as a “Ch” sound, so that it sounded as if her name were Paulie Chonson. “The girl sells whiskey.”

Paulie brightened. This was the second person in one day who put her name together with the Dry Wallow’s. She must be doing something right, businesswise. “That’s me!”

“I steal your liquor.”

She smiled wryly. “I know.”

He continued to eye her as if she were an odd kind of animal he’d never seen before. She looked over at Will, and for the first time in her life, she saw fear in his eyes. Fear and rage. He glanced between her and Night Bird, and she couldn’t tell who he was angrier with, Night Bird, or herself for talking to the outlaw.

Finally, after a breathless, interminable amount of time, Night Bird barked something to the men still standing around Paulie. As they scurried to do his bidding, he continued to give orders in choppy Spanish and gesticulate with his arms—commands his men seemed to understand well even if none of the hostages did.

Paulie knew that this was the moment. If they were going to be killed, this was the time. She glanced at Will once more, memorizing his face as if its every contour wasn’t already embedded permanently in her mind, then closed her eyes, hanging onto the image. She could have pinpointed the exact shade of brown of his eyes out of a whole palate of browns. She could have matched the texture of his hair strand by strand, and she’d only run her hands through it a few times in her life. And his lips…she would never forget those, or how warm and masterful they’d felt against hers. At least she’d experienced that before the end. And
when it came right down to it, she supposed she would rather die here, with Will Brockett, than as an old woman all alone in Possum Trot.

Suddenly, the earth beneath her seemed to quake as the Mexicans mounted their horses and shouted at each other. Then they were riding away, leaving their four hostages on the edges of the dying fire. In all the activity of the Mexicans breaking camp, Night Bird disappeared just as quickly as he had arrived.

The four of them sat in silence, listening to the retreating hoofbeats in stunned disbelief. Paulie could hardly swallow the fact that they had just had a run-in with the most notorious killer in the Southwest and were actually still living to tell the tale.

“Do you think they’ll be coming back?” she asked.

She, Trip, and Oat turned to Will in unison. He tilted his head to capture the last whispers of their captors’ horses’ hooves travelling back to them on the night breeze. “I don’t see why they would.”

“Maybe they just want to kill us in a sneak attack,” Trip suggested, not quite willing to accept their good fortune at face value.

“They already got us in a sneak attack,” Paulie reminded him. “You can’t get much more sneaky than ambushing us all at once and tying us up snugger than an old maid’s underwear.”

She and Will and Trip looked down at their bonds and considered their dilemma. The renegade might have left them alive, but how long would they remain that way if they weren’t able to free themselves?

“Damn!” Trip said, wriggling his wrists and ankles against the bonds. “They got these ropes tight.”

His words reminded her of the hemp biting into the soft flesh around her wrists. In fact, she was sore all over. If
she ever did get out of this mess and back to Possum Trot, she was going to fill up her tub and do nothing for an entire day but soak in hot water.

“What should we do, Will?” she asked, thinking that he surely would have devised a plan by now. Instead, he stared at her almost as coolly as Night Bird himself had.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

Will rolled his eyes up to the sky as if seeking patience from the stars above them. “You are the darnedest girl on this planet, Paulie Johnson! Don’t you have the sense God gave a gnat?”

“For your information, yes 1 do,” she said, refusing to start a screaming match at this juncture. “May I ask what brought on such an absurd question?” She couldn’t imagine what had gotten under his skin. His anger seemed to come out of nowhere.

He had to take a few breaths to hold in whatever demon had taken hold of him. “Your announcing to Night Bird that you were a girl, that’s what!” he said. “Why on earth would you say such a thing?”

If only she could have crossed her arms, she would have found it a lot easier to hold in her anger. “I am a girl, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Did you want to get yourself kidnapped?”

“You know what your trouble is, Will Brockett? You don’t listen to anyone. If you did, you would realize that not only did Night Bird
not
kidnap Mary Ann—just as I always suspected—he also was not going to kidnap me after he discovered I was a girl. I was in more danger as a boy.”

Will frowned. “You couldn’t be sure of that.”

“And I don’t think he was really going to take any of
us along with him. Why would he? Mr. Bird just wanted our money.”

“If you ask me, you were getting awfully cozy with the man there at the end.”

“When?” she asked. “When I started screaming my head off?”

Trip laughed. “That was a good move, Paulie.”

“That was real pain!” she corrected.

“It still probably saved your hide,” Will pointed out.

Maybe so, Paulie thought, though she wasn’t about to concede the argument. Will was just trying to make her look silly because he’d never wanted her following along. And now it galled him that she had been right the whole time. They had gone all the way to the Mexican border and risked their lives for no reason at all. Mary Ann and her gambler were probably as thick as thieves in San Antonio already, and now her so-called rescue party was stuck on the banks of the Rio Grande.

She lifted her chin. “If it makes you feel better to think so, then be my guest,” she said, unable to keep the smugness out of her tone.

He looked at her warily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You obviously don’t want to give me credit for anything,” she said coolly. “But don’t worry. It doesn’t bother me.”

Will looked hotter than the embers simmering in the fire. “Name one thing I should give you credit for and I will.”

That was easy. “You said that I shouldn’t have come along.”

“I still say that.”

“I haven’t been a hindrance,” she argued.

“You haven’t been a big help, either,” he said.

“Well if you’d listened to me in the first place, we wouldn’t even be in this mess!” she argued heatedly.

Will shook his head stubbornly. “All right, so I was wrong about Mary Ann’s whereabouts. But there was no way of knowing that for sure until we started hunting for her.”

“If you’d listened to me we would have started hunting in San Antonio, and might have found her by now.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

He was so infuriating! Even Trip was looking at Will as if he weren’t quite running on full steam. “You gotta admit, Will, she did say Mary Ann had gone chasin’ after that gambler fellow.”

Will shrugged. “Was I supposed to take the word of one girl?”

Paulie’s jaw dropped open. She couldn’t believe this was Will Brockett talking. Sure, he had always had a headstrong streak, but now it was almost as if he were being obtuse on purpose, trying to anger her. If so, it was working!

“Let me tell you, Will Brockett, if you don’t want to listen to what I have to say, I’ll be just as glad to save my breath.”

Will smiled. “Miracles do happen after all, then.”

She had sworn she wasn’t going to start shouting at him, but now she couldn’t help it. “For your information, I’d be just as happy right now to be warm and snug in my bed in Possum Trot, so if you don’t want me around, I’ll be happy to go back there! And furthermore—”

Her throat caught. She was surprised to discover that not only was she shouting, she was actually almost crying. She bit her lip to try to stem the flow of liquid to her eyes.

Will’s eyebrows rose on his forehead, and then he nodded curtly. “Fine. Just as soon as we get free, I’ll escort you back to Possum Trot.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she snapped, “I can find my own way.”

His tone gentled. “Then I’ll send Trip with you.”

Trip again! She had forgotten that this all started back when she’d been on her way to disabuse Will of the notion that she and Trip were sweet on each other. Now she couldn’t muster enough energy to care either way. If the whole world wanted to think she was in love with Trip Peabody, that was fine with her. Her days of tagging after Will were over. Completely over.

Trip looked worried at being included in this argument. “Where are you plannin’ on goin’, Will?”

Will stared at him as though his answer should have been obvious. “San Antonio.”

Paulie bit back a groan. “San Antonio!” she yelled. “What are you planning to do there?”

He glared at her. “What does it matter to you? You weren’t going to follow along, the last I heard.”

Trip looked from one to the other anxiously. “Of course we’ll follow you, Will. We’d follow you clear up to Canada, if that’s where you were headed.”

“Ha!” Paulie cried. “I wouldn’t follow Will ten feet—especially to chase some flibbertigibbet—”

“That’s a nice way to talk about your friend,” Will said.

Oat cleared his throat. “If’n we don’t get these ropes off, ain’t nobody gonna be followin’ anybody anywheres—‘cept maybe to an early grave.”

Paulie felt her cheeks heat from the battle and the embarrassment of being so presumptuous as to believe she would actually manage to live through this ordeal. Will and Trip looked equally abashed.

She couldn’t figure out how to get out of the ropes. Her wrists were bound so tightly that her fingertips were beginning to go numb, making her hands as good as useless.
And there were no implements around the camp that would be of any use to them. Still, she kept scanning the area with her eyes, trying carefully to avoid Will’s gaze as she glanced about her. She was only partially successful in this last endeavor. It seemed everywhere she looked, Will was looking there, too. And whenever his gaze met hers, her pulse would race just as it always did. Only now her excitement was tempered by a sharp stab of disappointment. He didn’t even want to be around her anymore. He couldn’t even wait until they were freed before he told her to go back to Possum Trot!

In an attempt to avoid him, she turned slightly—just in time to see a miraculous thing happen. There before her very eyes, Oat slipped his hands through the rope and freed himself.

“Jumpin’ Jiminy, Oat—you’re free!” she exclaimed.

He nodded curtly. “Figured I could do it”

“What are you, a magician?” she asked, trying to scoot over to him as fast as possible so he could free her now, too.

He shook his head. “That Mexican fellow went easy on me—I could feel give in the rope from the very beginning. So while he was tyin’ my hands, I tried to keep them separated a little.”

“You mean you could have wriggled free the whole time?”

“Most likely,” Oat agreed.

“Well, heck,” Trip said. “Why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t seem safe. As long as the man promised not to kill us, figured it was best just to stay tied up. If I’d tried to escape, that only would have made him mad, anyway.”

Within fifteen minutes, Oat had Paulie and the other two untied. It was such a relief to be free, Paulie found herself on the verge of tears again. For a moment she had thought
they were going to starve out in the wilderness, bound and helpless. But they were saved from that terrible fate, and they had Oat, of all people, to thank.

“I guess that leaves us our horses to round up,” Will said, standing and stretching.

He didn’t look at her, but he didn’t seem to be avoiding her, either. As if he didn’t care what she thought at all. Paulie still felt fitful and shaky from their argument How could he just toss her aside as if she were some troublesome pest? She couldn’t believe it—especially when she had been right concerning Mary Ann’s whereabouts. It just wasn’t like Will not to give credit where credit was due.

She was about to sail right past Will as if she didn’t have the time of day to give him when he hooked his hand around her arm and sent her spinning back around to face him. “Ouch!” she cried, surprised by how much her side could hurt from such a simple movement…and how a simple touch from Will could send her insides into .a flurry.

His eyes darkened. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t be able to ride tomorrow.”

“Yes I will,” she answered quickly, trying to pull her arm out of his grip.

Will held fast His gaze was so intent on her that she looked down at her feet. How could those brown eyes of his seem so callous one minute and so caring the next? “I wouldn’t want you trying to keep up with us just because you’ve got a point to make. There would be no shame in your going to Vinegaroon and staying at Judge Bean’s for a spell.”

His voice had softened, and would have sounded almost tender if she hadn’t known better. The only reason he wanted her to stay in Vinegaroon was to be rid of her. “I
want to get back to Possum Trot as soon as possible,” she said. “I can’t leave the saloon alone forever.”

She stubbed her toe into the dirt, as if that would tamp down the rising despair in her heart. She hadn’t even had to ask what Will intended to do next. He would go on searching for Mary Ann. Maybe forever if that’s how long it took to find her.

She looked up into his eyes. Behind him, the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, giving the sky a deepred glow. Will had never looked so dazzling to her as he did at that moment, still clutching her arm. She dreamed of him pulling her to his chest for another kiss. What a perfect moment that would have been—like something out of a book or a poem.