When The Heart Beckons (34 page)

“Is the door locked?” Annabel whispered in
horror, unable to remember if she’d locked it or not. The notion of
being discovered here—like this—brought reality back in a sharp
breathless rush. She remembered the danger, the family downstairs
waiting for their help, the tremendous odds Cade faced in this
confrontation tonight, and she was afraid.

But Cade sprang off the bed and signaled for
her to respond to the knock.

“Yes?” she squeaked, her voice so breathless
it barely sounded like her.

“That you, Miss Brannigan?” To her relief,
it was Adelaide Rivers’s voice on the other side of the door. “I’ve
been looking for you all over.”

“Just a minute. I ... had a problem with my
gown.”

Annabel flew back into her dress and
struggled with the buttons. Cade tried to help her, but she waved
his fingers away. He grinned, looking amazingly younger and more
carefree than she’d ever seen him as he yanked on his shirt and
then strode behind the oriental screen.

Annabel rushed to the door.

“What is it, Adelaide? What’s the
matter?”

Heaven knew what the woman thought as she
peered at Annabel in the doorway. Her rheumy eyes were nevertheless
sharp with intelligence, and Annabel knew her face must be the
color of a plum.

But Adelaide Rivers was too upset to be
bothered wondering about her antics. That was apparent from her
next words.

“Trouble,” the old woman snapped, her
wrinkled skin the color of oatmeal beneath her weathered tan.
“Conchita is beside herself. We don’t know where Mr. Steele went
to. That danged supper is almost over, and we’re afraid something
has happened to him. But that’s not the worst of it. Tomas is
missing.”

Annabel stared at her with dread.
“Missing?”

“Our nearest neighbor, Dan Miller, said he
saw him right before supper scuffling with some older boys. One of
‘em is the son of Lowry’s foreman, Hank Ellis. I don’t like the
sound of this, not one bit.”

“There is probably a reasonable
explanation,” Annabel said quickly, wanting to comfort the woman,
though her own anxiety was mounting by the moment. “Or,” she had to
admit, meeting Adelaide’s crisp glance with a worried frown, “it
could be part of Lowry’s strategy to distract us and then instigate
his plan. I’ll meet you downstairs in just a moment, Adelaide, and
we’ll look for Tomas together. Maybe we can find Hank Ellis—or his
son—and ask him a few questions.”

“Hurry,” the old woman urged as she turned
toward the stairs. “I’ve a strong feeling things are going to go
from bad to worse real fast.”

So do I
, Annabel thought as she
closed the door. She ran into Cade’s arms as he stepped out from
behind the screen.

“Oh, Cade, what do you think has happened to
Tomas?”

“Damned if I know, but I don’t much like the
sound of it. I’m going to hunt for him. Wait a minute or two, and
then follow me downstairs.”

She nodded, her eyes huge and worried, and
suddenly, Cade cupped her face between his hands. “I love you,
Annabel.”

Even as he spoke, Cade was scarcely able to
believe he was speaking those words, but he was unable to stop
himself. Something inside of him, deep in his heart, had taken
over, and he couldn’t slow it down or stop it. “I don’t know if or
how things can work out between us, though,” he felt compelled to
warn. “I’m a McCallum,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Seems to me if I let things ... continue between us ... I’ll only
end up hurting you.”

“No, Cade, never that.” She touched gentle
fingers to his lips. Love poured through her, as pure and warm as
sweet wild honey. “I trust in you. I believe in you. Nothing you
could ever do would hurt me.”

He held her close for one more moment, and
then sighed against the fragrance of her hair. “We’ll see.”

It didn’t sound promising. She wanted to
clutch him to her and tell him that things
would
work out
between them, to make him pledge that he wouldn’t leave her, that
he would at least
try
to ... what? Marry her? Build a life
with her?

She ached for him to want that, but with a
flash of despair she knew he was a long way from committing to any
of those things.

He was already moving away from her. “I’d
better get downstairs. Is that derringer in your reticule?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t think of setting out
without it.”

She glanced over and saw her reticule still
lying on the floor where she’d dropped it. “Don’t worry about me,
just find Tomas—and take care of yourself.”

“If there’s one thing I’m good at,” he said
grimly, “it’s taking care of myself.”

“When this is over, I’m going to take care
of you,” she promised him, a smile trembling on her lips.

An unfamiliar emotion surged through him,
one he was afraid to put a name to. He wanted to crush her in his
arms, to kiss her until rose dawn painted the sky, to breathe in
the luscious lilac scent of her, and tell her that he wanted to
take care of
her
, but he instead forced himself to look at
her with iron detachment. “Don’t count on that, Annabel.”

Then he was gone, and Annabel paced back and
forth in an agony of trepidation. She picked up her reticule from
the floor and opened it, checking for the derringer. It was inside,
and loaded. She paused before the mirror and could only gulp in
dismay as she realized that Adelaide Rivers had seen her looking
like this, with her hair spilling wildly down her shoulders, and
her dress—though buttoned—looking as sadly wrinkled and disheveled
as a crumpled old washrag. She plopped the reticule on the bureau
and began hastily searching for the hairpins Cade had so cavalierly
plucked from her chignon. But as she knelt on the floor to retrieve
one that was lying on the Aubusson carpet, a sound at the window
made her freeze.

She jerked up, still on her knees, and
gasped as Red Cobb swung his legs into the room.

“Don’t scream, or I’ll have to shoot you,”
he warned, and before Annabel could even blink he had drawn his gun
and pointed it at her.

She staggered to her feet, trying to control
the terror pulsating through her.

“Don’t even think about reaching for that
there reticule of yours,” he added as she glanced frantically
toward the bureau, impossibly far away.

“What ... do you want?” she managed to ask
in a voice that sounded far calmer than she felt.

“What happened to your southern accent,
little Miss Investigator?”

She went still as stone. Red Cobb smiled
mockingly, his crystal blue eyes colder than snow. “You must admit
Miss Rainsford, that was a mean trick you played on me back in
Silver Junction,” he remarked with a smirk. He moved forward into
the room with easy, deliberate steps. “I didn’t much cotton to it.
So now,” he said in a flat, pleasant tone, that chilled her blood,
“I’m going to make you pay.”

T
he shed was dark
and stifling hot. Tomas couldn’t breathe.
Coward
, he
accused himself hatefully.
You are a fool and a coward. A
disgrace to your father’s memory
.

He had let himself be tricked. And now he
could not help
Señor
Steele to kill
Señor
Lowry.
Hot tears burned along his cheeks as he pushed again, fruitlessly,
at the bolted door of the shed. Why had he believed Jack Ellis and
the other boys? Why had he let them lead him into this trap?

Señor
Brett is right
, he
told himself as the tears fell faster and the air grew danker and
he wondered with a gulp if he would die in here before anyone ever
found him.
I am too young and too stupid to be of any
use
.

* * *

Brett slipped out of the kitchen door, past
Calvin Lowry’s Mexican cook and house servants. He could just make
out the outline of the shed beyond the vegetable garden. He stalked
toward it.

The boy who’d come and whispered in his ear
that he would find Tomas Rivers in that shed had long since
disappeared—Brett only hoped he was telling the truth. He needed a
drink desperately. Whiskey. A whole bottle would do just fine. But
something had kept him from consuming even a drop of Lowry’s red
wine or champagne or any other spirits. Maybe it was the wish,
after all, to survive. And maybe to be of help to someone else, be
it his brother, Annabel, or the Rivers family. Maybe part of him
was beginning to realize that it was time to stop running from his
problems and just face them head on.

The shed was locked when he reached it,
secured with a thick wooden bolt, which Brett threw back at
once.

“Tomas, are you in here?” His stomach was
knotted tight with fear for the boy as he swung the door open.

A small face with eyes that gleamed in the
dimness stared back at him.

“Tomas, are you all right?”

Slowly Tomas walked out of the pitch black
shed. “They tricked me,
señor
.” Tears throbbed in his
voice. “First we had a fight, and then they said they wanted to be
my friends, and they told me they would show me where a cat and her
kittens were sleeping, but ... they lied.”

His voice broke as the sobs rushed out.
Brett knelt down and enfolded the child in his arms.

“Hey, it’s all right, Tomas. Everyone gets
tricked now and then. They’re the ones who should feel ashamed, not
you.”

“But I believed them. I was a fool.”

“You’re not a fool. You just wanted to
believe it, so you did. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to
believe that people are good. Sometimes they really are, and you
just need to give them a chance.”

“Do you mean like
Señor
Steele?
Everyone always talks about him as if they are afraid of him, as if
he is someone terrible. But he is good, isn’t he? He’s your
brother, and he wants to help us.” A horrible thought struck him,
and Tomas clutched at Brett’s hand.

“Or is that a trick, too?” he whispered.

“No, Tomas.” Brett patted his shoulder.
“That’s sure no trick. My brother is a good man. He came all the
way across the whole Arizona territory to help us. So we’re not
going to let a couple of low-down sneaky boys get in our way, are
we? We have important work to do.”

“Do you ... trust me to help? Before you
said that I was too young and ...”

The boy’s voice trailed off. Brett winced
and at that moment he could have kicked himself. “I was wrong,
Tomas—I just plain wasn’t thinking straight when I told you that.
Too much tequila. That stuff is bad for the brain, you know what I
mean?”

Tomas shrugged.

“Well, take my word for it. My big brother
was right. You’re going to be a big help to us. But first, let me
figure something out. Why did those boys lock you in here? Just to
be mean?”

“No, when they were pushing me in they kept
telling me that
Señor
Ellis told them to do it. He thought
it would be a big joke. They said this more than once. I thought it
strange.”

“And that’s not all that’s strange.” Brett
rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “The boy who ran and told me where you
were also said that Hank Ellis had put his son Jack and the other
boys up to locking you in.”

They stared at each other as a jackrabbit
skittered across the vegetable garden. “Do you think someone wanted
you to get angry with
Señor
Ellis?” Tomas asked
slowly.

“Yep. And I know why. They want me to pick a
fight with him.”

“Why?”

“Because they think he can beat me if it
comes to shooting. And they want to ambush my brother while
everyone is watching Ellis and me.”

Tomas sucked in his breath. He wiped the
remaining tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Can
he?”

“Can he what?” Brett asked, distracted, as
he mulled the situation over, searching for a way to escape the
trap.

“Can he beat you if it comes to
shooting?”

“You never know,” Brett replied almost
cheerfully. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Tomas. It doesn’t pay to
underestimate a McCallum.”

And whether or not I’m one by blood, I
am one by training
, he told himself as he led the boy back
toward the rear of the hacienda. He had endured hours of target
practice and shooting lessons from both his father and the same
English hunt master who had taught Cade as a young man. Their
father had insisted on proficiency with firearms.
Maybe that’s
what’s kept me alive so far in these skirmishes with Lowry’s
men,
he reflected. But would it be enough to help him in a
one-on-one gunfight with Lowry’s foreman, Hank Ellis?
Time will
tell
, Brett decided with a scowl, but a vise of tension wound
itself around his gut.

Suddenly, a tall figure appeared silhouetted
against the door of the kitchen.

“
Señor
Steele!” Tomas bounded
forward. “I was tricked. And now they want to force
Señor
Brett into a fight and—”

“I know, Tomas. But it isn’t going to work.
None of it. I have a better plan.”

“See Tomas,” Brett said softly, nudging the
boy between the shoulders. “What did I tell you?” His glance met
Cade’s. “Never underestimate a McCallum.”

* * *

“You underestimated me, Miss Investigator.
That was real stupid of you.”

Annabel made no reply because she couldn’t
speak. Cobb’s red silk bandana made an all too effective gag, since
he had clenched it between her teeth and knotted it tightly behind
her head. Her hands were bound by heavy rope to the saddle horn
before her, and Red Cobb’s sweaty form, wedged behind her in the
saddle, pressed against her with uncomfortable intimacy. The night
wind rose screaming around her ears, filling them with a bleak wail
which echoed the silent wail within.

She wondered in terror where he was taking
her. Though she tried to keep track of where they were riding, it
soon became difficult, for Cobb rode fast and followed a trail of
numerous twists and turns. She had realized at first that they were
headed in the opposite direction from the Rivers ranch, but when
they’d descended through a zigzagging series of canyons she’d
become hopelessly confused. She only knew that back at the Lowry
hacienda, the people she cared about were embroiled in a
confrontation that would risk all their lives. And she, who was
needed to help, was riding farther and farther from the trouble
every minute.