Chasing Rainbows (44 page)

Annie was dimly aware of her bed creaking and groaning beneath them and her curtains fluttering in the cool breeze. The faint, rosy hue of dawn began to fill the sky outside her window. She must have slept; perhaps exhaustion simply overcame her. When she woke, the sky was blue, and she was snuggled cozily within Jake’s arms, her back pressed against his chest.

He kissed the nape of her neck and ran his hands lightly over her ribs. He cupped her breasts gently in his hands, then traced his fingers down her belly. “I want you to give me your word on something, Annie,” he murmured softly into her ear.

She snuggled up tightly against him, pressing her bottom against his hips, greedy for more of his touch. “What?” she asked drowsily.

“Promise me you’ll stay on the hotel grounds today.”

Sleepy and confused, she rolled over and studied his face. “Why?”

“Just swear it, Annie.”

It was an odd request, but obviously one that was important to him. She mentally went over her schedule for the day. There was gardening to be done, washing, the fence to mend, the stove to clean, and she had her interview with VanEste. All of which would keep her tied down on the grounds for at least the next twenty-four hours. “All right,” she said.

“You swear it?”

“Yes.”

A look of immense relief immediately softened his features.

Her brows drew together in a worried frown. “Jake, if something’s wrong, tell me what it is.”

“Nothing’s wrong, darlin’,” he replied, lightly stroking her back as he pulled her against him. “Everything’s going to be fine. It’s going to be just fine.”

She drifted back to sleep and the next time she woke, Jake was gone. A cold, empty stillness filled her bedchamber. She would have thought the previous night had all been a dream if not for the scent of Jake’s skin that clung to her sheets. She rolled over and clutched his pillow against her chest, feeling drained, saddened, and exhilarated all at once. As she remembered last night’s lovemaking, a thrill of trembling anticipation began to burn within her belly.

It wasn’t over between them. Not yet. Not by a long shot.

Jake rode to the appointed ambush with Walter Pogue and his men. The sky that December morning was cold and brooding, and the air tasted like snow. It was funeral weather, Jake thought. All the colors of death. The clouds were black, the sky gray, and the trees brown and skeletal, like life itself had withered away. Even the mountains looked purple and hunched over, as though shielding themselves from a blow.

The lawmen Jake accompanied rode silently, their faces grim and determined. They arrived at Drifter’s Gap in the early morning hours, long before the payroll stage was due to pull through. The land was quiet and serene, filled with a deep winter stillness. They traveled into the dense, bushy hills above the gap, dismounted, and ground tied their horses. Pulling their rifles from their scabbards, they took their positions.

Then they waited.

It was the longest wait of Jake’s life. The hours passed with interminable slowness. His nerves felt raw and exposed. Every time a squirrel moved in a branch overhead, or a horse stomped its foot and whinnied, or one of Walter’s men swirled the water in his canteen, Jake’s heart leapt to his throat. This was worse than any battle he had ever faced during the war. Then he had only been concerned about his own life, or the lives of the men around him. Now it was Annie’s life that could be in jeopardy, and that was an entirely different matter.

Finally, at the appointed hour, the payroll stage lumbered into view. Jake released his breath in a rush. Walter must have been wrong — in the hours they had been waiting, he had seen no sign of the Mundys. But even as that thought occurred to him, six riders charged out from behind a dense cropping of rocks as the stage rolled past.

Six.

There were five men in the gang… and Outlaw Annie. But she wouldn’t be riding with the gang — even Walter acknowledged that she had never actually taken part in the Mundy Gang holdups. She might take care of the gang and pass on information, but never had she been party to an actual robbery.

Until now, Jake thought, dread lodging tightly in his belly.

For even as those arguments played through his mind, reality was inescapable. His gaze flew to one particular rider, a rider who was a bit smaller than the others. A rider whose golden brown hair flew halfway down her back as she rode.

Annie.

Goddamn her
, Jake thought, biting back his shock and his fury. She had given him her word that she would stay on the hotel grounds, but obviously she had lied to him once again.

His mind shifted, moving past the flurry of raw emotion that poured through him. He forced himself to focus on a rapid-fire search of his alternatives. The fact that she was part of the gang, that his own neck was on the line — none of it mattered. He couldn’t watch Annie die like this. God help him, he might have sent her into the trap, but he couldn’t watch her die. He had to warn her somehow, to get her away from the gang and the stage before the shooting erupted. He raised his rifle to fire off a warning shot, but he was too late.

The driver cracked his whip and urged his team into a frenzied gallop. The stage roared beneath them. The Mundy Gang, hard on the heels of the stage, rode directly into the trap Walter and his men had set for them. The road narrowed, allowing only enough room for the six riders to ride two abreast. Once they were neatly penned in, the deputies opened fire. A fusillade of bullets showered down on them.

There was no shout of warning, no chance for surrender, no mercy. The Mundy Gang had been caught in the act, and few would grieve if they were taken in dead rather than alive.

The riders’ cries of terror and panic filled the air. The front two tumbled from their horses. The remaining four jerked hard on their reins, blood gaping from their wounds. They frantically jostled against one another, trying to turn their frenzied mounts around within the narrow confines of the road. Annie, Jake saw, was still alive, fighting to control her mount.

He surged to his feet. “That’s enough, godammit!” he shouted to the other deputies. “Hold your fire, we’ll bring them in alive!”

Beside him, Walter Pogue raised his arm, then abruptly dropped it.

“You son of a bitch!” Jake screamed as a second explosion of bullets filled the air.

He jerked his gaze back to the outlaws only to watch in horror as Annie’s slight frame was lifted off the saddle under the impact of the hot lead. Her body jerked sideways, performed a lifeless half twist in midair, then plummeted to the ground.

“No.”

The single word was torn from Jake’s throat in an instant of horrified, impotent rage and anguish. Realizing he still had his rifle clutched tightly in his hands, he threw it to the ground and scrambled down the steep bank ahead of Walter and his men. His heart hammered against his chest as he raced across the ravine to the spot where Annie had fallen.

As he ran, a fervent prayer echoed through his mind. Please, God, he whispered urgently, don’t let her die. Don’t let Annie die. He skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees beside her.

She lay facedown in the dirt. A pool of blood seeped out from her body, spreading wider and wider with each passing second. With shaking hands, Jake reached out and turned her over, pulling her gently into his arms. He cradled her against him, murmuring soft, soothing sounds that he knew instinctively went unheard. Her head lolled back against his chest. Her body was heavy and limp, unresisting to his touch. Her arms fell numbly to her side and her golden-brown hair tumbled across her face like a curtain of silk. Moving with infinite care, Jake reverently brushed her hair aside so he could see her face.

His heart slammed against his ribs.

The woman stared up at the sky, her eyes wide and unseeing, vacant with death.

Jake lowered her to the ground and let out a deep, ragged breath. Beside him, Sheriff Walter Pogue placed his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jake. We didn’t have any other choice. You know that.”

Jake took another deep breath, then came slowly to his feet. He slammed his fist into Walt’s jaw with every ounce of fury and strength he possessed, knocking the lawman flat on his back. Then he strode away without a single word, ignoring the shouts and threats of the deputies behind him. He picked up his rifle, grabbed Weed’s reins, and leapt onto his back, riding away at a full gallop.

As he rode, an image of the woman’s eyes filled his mind, blinding him to all else around him.

Her lifeless, empty, soft blue eyes.

The woman was not Annie.

She left the hotel with Peyton VanEste shortly after their interview. He had requested a tour of the property, and she had reluctantly agreed. The tour would take even more out of her busy day, but she couldn’t deny that it was a good idea. As VanEste had said, the publicity garnered by the article would likely be excellent, and the surrounding lands were simply too beautiful not to be included in the story.

They rode across the flat plains and toward the base of the San Juan mountain range, where her property ended. To her surprise, Peyton VanEste rode reasonably well for an Easterner. He had been both amiable and polite, jotting down nearly every word she said in the little note pad of his. He scanned the horizon, as though mentally taking note of the rugged magnificence of the land.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Annie asked, a hint of pride in her voice.

“That it is.” He pointed to a series of low-lying hills that rose up against the base of the mountains. “What’s over there?”

“Abandoned mines, mostly,” she replied with a shrug. “I think they were all played out years ago.”

“Let’s take a look, shall we? It might just add a bit of color to the story.” He smiled and sent her a dramatic wink, urging his horse forward.

Annie hesitated, watching him ride away. As long as they stayed within the hotel grounds, she wasn’t breaking her word to Jake. Then again, what harm would it do to simply poke around a few deserted mines? She and VanEste would be back long before dark, and besides, Jake had ridden out without so much as a word of goodbye. Although it was perhaps childish of her to interpret that as a personal slight, his sudden disappearance had bothered her nonetheless. With that in mind, she spurred Dulcie on and quickly caught up to VanEste.

They dismounted and tied their horses, wandering around the abandoned sight on foot. The sky was low and brooding, thick with the promise of imminent snow. As Annie surveyed the dark, gaping mine shafts and squalid cabins, an icy shiver ran up her spine.

“Something wrong?” VanEste inquired.

“It seems so sad, doesn’t it?” she replied hesitantly. “Think of all the people who came here, searching for wealth and happiness, only to find nothing but dirt and sweat and pain. What an awful end to their dreams.”

VanEste shrugged. “They knew what they were getting into.”

“I suppose.”

“There’s a price to pay for everything. Anyone who tells you differently, who claims not to have known what he got involved in, is lying. Men may deny their own greed when fate turns against them, but whatever befalls a man in this life is his own doing, no one else’s. There are no innocents, Annie.”

“That’s a rather harsh view, isn’t it?”

“Just realistic. Take the Mundy Gang, for instance. Do you truly believe Pete Mundy didn’t know there was a risk involved every time he set off to rob a train or a stage? Of course he knew. To him, however, the promise of easy wealth and fame was worth the risk.” He glanced at her and raised a brow. “You look surprised, my dear. Didn’t Pete ever tell you that I interviewed him over a year ago?”

Annie’s heart skipped a beat as a wary note of warning took root in her mind. “No,” she replied cautiously, “he didn’t.”

“Funny,” VanEste mused, “I would have thought he would have bragged of it to everyone. Then again, perhaps the two of you simply weren’t as close as I imagined. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter any longer, now that Pete and the rest of the gang are dead.”

An icy knot of dread lodged in her stomach. Until that point, her insistence that the boys were dead had been met with outright doubt and disbelief. Yet VanEste seemed to be as confident as she was that that was the case.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” he asked. He smiled pleasantly and lifted his shoulders in an easy shrug. “Who do you suppose had them killed?”

Annie shot a quick glance beyond his shoulder, judging the distance between her and Dulcie. If she took off in a flat-out run, she might just make it.

VanEste lifted a gun from his coat pocket and pointed it directly at her chest. “I wouldn’t try it, my dear.”

Annie swallowed hard. She thought of her own set of revolvers, which she had lately gotten out of the habit of wearing. They were waiting for her back at the hotel, neatly tucked away in her nightstand drawer.

“What do you want from me, VanEste?” she asked, edging slightly away from him.

“Why, I want the money, of course. The twenty-five thousand from the stage robbery. The money that’s been missing since Pete died. It’s my money, after all. Who do you think planned all those robberies for Pete?” He glanced at her feet and frowned. “Oh, and Annie?”

“What?” She edged away from him again.

He pulled back the hammer of his gun. “Take another step and I’ll kill you.”

She froze in place, her eyes locked on his. She searched her mind frantically for something to say, for some stalling tactic she could use until she was able to think clearly. “Why did you do it? If Pete and the boys were pulling the jobs for you, why did you have them killed?”

“Greed,” he answered simply, then clarified, “Pete’s, of course, not mine. He was anxious to impress some little slut of a barmaid he claimed to have fallen in love with, so he wanted more money. He had some preposterous idea that since the gang was taking all the risk, they deserved more than fifty percent of the take.” He shook his head, making a clucking sound with his tongue. “Can you imagine that, Annie? I created the Mundy Gang, I made them who they were, and he wanted more money.”