Cherished (13 page)

“Broke it up?” Juliana demanded, puzzled.

Kelly indicated the boarded-up windows. “Did
a good bit of damage they did. Fighting, you see. Over a woman.
Never saw so many broken bones in one place, except when I was in
the hospital during the war.”

“Were they hurt?” Juliana had visions of Wade
and Tommy lying in pain on this very floor, soaked in their own
blood. But Kelly’s next words allayed the fear that had seized her
heart.

“Those two? Not more’n a scratch between ‘em.
They’ve got the devil’s own luck, they do. Rode out of here right
as rain and bless their scoundrel hearts, paid me right generous
for the damages.”

Excitement flooded through her. She was going
to find them after all. “Mr. Kelly, where were they headed when
they left here? Do you think they’re coming back?”

“Oh, they’ll be back sure as certain, but
who’s to say when, me dear? Those boys show up maybe twice, three
times a year. They’ve found it’s not healthy to stay in one place,
if you know what I mean.”

She realized what he was hinting at, no doubt
trying to spare her feelings about their outlaw status. But Juliana
saw no need to sidestep the truth. “You mean because they’re wanted
men and must keep two steps ahead of the law, don’t you, Mr.
Kelly?” she said, facing him with lifted chin. “Well, that doesn’t
matter to me. I must find them. So please ...” She gazed directly
and appealingly into his eyes and, reaching out impulsively,
touched his sleeve. “Please try to recall where they might have
gone. I’m certain they must have mentioned something about what
direction they were headed ...”

The touch of this heavenly creature’s hand
upon his arm was having a dizzying effect on the giant bartender.
His cheeks grew even redder with pleasure, and his blue eyes danced
as he grinned down at the girl. Then something popped in his brain,
and he chuckled and snapped his fingers. “Cooper Creek—that’s where
they were headed!” he exclaimed. “it’s not more’n sixty miles from
here ...”

“Last call for the stage!” the driver’s voice
yelled from the street outside, and Juliana jumped.

“Thank you, Mr. Kelly,” she cried, and
whirled toward the door, but as she started forward three men
surged up from the table near the center of the room and quickly
moved to block her path.

“Hold on a moment, Miss ... Montgomery, ain’t
it?”

The man who grabbed her wrist was weed-thin
and bony, but she felt the sinewy strength beneath his spare frame.
He wore a patched red shirt and dusty breeches tucked into boots
that were caked with mud. His narrow dirt-streaked face looked as
if it hadn’t been washed or shaved in days. His companions were
worse, if that was possible, Juliana thought in disgust, as she
stared into the unsavory faces of the riders she had observed from
the dining room window.

“Let me go,” she ordered, as firmly as she
could. It was all she could do to keep the alarm from her voice as
she tried to pull her wrist free. “Step aside, if you please.”

“Not so fast, lady.” The man tightened his
grip. “Not till you answer the question. Your name’s Montgomery?
First name ... somethin’ fancy ...”

“Julie sumpin, Cash,” the tall,
stringy-haired one piped in, grinning toothlessly at her.

“That’s it.” Cash nodded. Studying Juliana,
he licked his lips. “That you, honey?”

“What if it is?” Juliana felt panic rising
inside her. How did these men know her name? Through the one good
window she saw the stagecoach driver climb into his seat. “Wait,
Mr. Fitzsimmons! I’m coming ...” she called out, but the third man,
an apelike, shaggy-haired fellow with coal-black eyes and a jutting
chin, and breath that smelled like pig droppings, shook his head as
he leaned toward her, so close his nose nearly touched hers.

“No, ma’am. You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he
crowed. “ ‘Cept back to Denver with Cash and Luke and me. Nothin’
personal, you understand. We’re just doin’ our job. Takin’ you
in—alive, just like the notice said.”

“What are you talking about? What notice?”
Juliana had been trying in vain to break free of Cash’s grip all
this time, but now she froze, as a sudden dread swept over her in
one great burst. “What ... are you talking about?”

“The Wanted poster. This one.” Pig Breath
pulled a handful of torn, crumpled papers from the pocket of his
grease-stained duster. “Let’s see. Here it is.”

He unfolded one page from the others and
dangled it in the air before her. “See? The law in Denver wants you
back real bad.” He clucked his tongue at her mockingly. “Horse
thievin’ is serious business in these parts, ma’am. So’s stealin.’
You shoulda known better.”

Juliana felt as if he had punched her in the
stomach. She stared at the notice in sickened horror, trying to
take in what was happening. The words were printed in large, bold
type. Her name, a description. She was wanted for horse theft and
robbery—there was a reward of two thousand dollars for her capture.
She blinked, staring incredulously at the paper before her. Her
body began to tremble.

No, it couldn’t be. She felt a pounding in
her head. But through the explosion of panic, she knew she had to
try to stay calm, to think.

“You’re lawmen?” she managed to ask.

They burst into loud guffaws. “Not exactly.”
The thin man—the one called Cash—answered her, still squeezing her
wrist. “We’re bounty hunters, honey.”

She twisted about to stare at the bartender,
watching the scene in grim silence. “Mr. Kelly, there’s been a
mistake. Please tell these men to let me go. I must get on the
stage ...”

Kelly’s expression was troubled. He was a
hardened man and had lived many years alone in Cedar Gulch, minding
his own business with cheerful good sense and a strict policy of
never sticking his neck out. But something about this young woman
and her situation affected him. She didn’t look like any damned
horse thief he’d ever seen, but then ... it really was none of his
business. Still, pity made him say in a forced, jovial tone, “Lads,
it’s too hot for bothering about business today. Tell you what.
Drinks are on the house. Why not let the little lassie go and—”

In an instant, Luke Curry had his Colt
trained on the huge bartender. “Two thousand dollars can buy a hell
of a lot of drinks, and lots of other things mister,” he hissed.
“So don’t think of interfering. We’re taking the little lady
back.”

“Damn right,” Cash echoed, and suddenly
yanked Juliana toward the door. As she glanced back in frantic
appeal to the bartender, he shook his head in regret. Luke Curry
kept his gun trained on him all the while that Cash and Bo dragged
her from the saloon. Kelly scowled, but kept his hands flat on top
of the bar. These hombres were of a type he knew well. Vicious
coyotes, more animal than human. They’d just as soon kill a man as
look at him. He’d have liked to help the girl, but he’d be digging
his own grave if he interfered.

Outside, Cash dragged Juliana toward his
horse. When the stagecoach driver, seeing her struggle, called out
sharply to them, Luke Curry waved the Wanted poster at him. “You
don’t want no one like this on your coach,” he called. “We’re
takin’ this gal back for her trial.” He pointed his Colt in a
businesslike fashion at the driver, a grin splitting his face when
several of the passengers screamed. “You folks had best be on your
way,” he sang out.

The driver glared, spat a wad of tobacco
juice into the dirt, then flapped the reins. As the horses bounded
away, and the stagecoach disappeared in a haze of dust, Juliana saw
her last hope of rescue die.

She felt cold and hot all at once. Terror
gripped her in a deathly vise. These men were savage, filthy
brutes. How would she make it back to Denver alive? Even if she
did, she thought on a wave of despair, what awaited her there? John
Breen’s fury. He must have been livid to have put up such a
bounty—and to have claimed she stole from him. Would he send her to
jail? Or force her to marry him? She trembled at the thought of
being handed over to him, of being completely at his mercy.

Suddenly, as Cash released her arm for an
instant to untether his horse, she saw her chance and grabbed it.
She bolted past him quick as a jackrabbit. Lifting her skirts in
one hand, she fled down the deserted boardwalk with every ounce of
speed she could muster.

Behind her she heard Cash shout. “Put that
thing away, Bo! The poster said ‘alive,’ dammit. Surely we kin
catch a little girl like that without havin’ to shoot her in the
back.”

Juliana’s feet pounded the boardwalk as she
spun around a corner and headed toward a group of ramshackle
buildings up ahead. Her reticule flew off her wrist and went
sailing into the dust, but she never paused. Her breath was coming
in short, painful gasps as she ran ever faster. She stumbled once,
regained her balance, and ran on, wanting to scream for help but
knowing there was no one to help her, no one who would lift a
finger against the bounty hunters, no one who cared.

A sudden gust of wind sent dust flying in her
face, blinding and choking her, but she ran on, not knowing where
she was going, only that she had to get away from those men, that
she would rather die than be caught. With a little sob she
staggered forward, her chest heaving, her eyes smarting, the clamor
of their pursuit drumming in her ears.

Glancing back over her shoulder for one
precious second, she saw all three men closing in on her, their
faces purple with anger. Cash whirled a rope, sent it sailing out
toward her, and with a scream, she dodged desperately to her right.
The loop skimmed past her and fell harmlessly in the dust, but as
she hurled herself sideways, Juliana tripped over a rock in the
dust and went sprawling.

Wildly, with a low weeping deep in her
throat, she scrambled to her feet and plunged forward once more
straight into a wall of solid rock.

Then with a gasp she realized that it was not
a wall of rock after all. It was a man’s broad, solid chest, hard
and immovable as granite. Before she could draw back, she felt
powerful hands seize her arms and hold her fast.

Tears lined her eyelashes as she raised her
head to stare into his face. The sun beat down into her eyes and
she could barely see him, but from what she could see, she knew one
thing. She would find no mercy here.

Cole Rawdon held her immobile before him. His
face was a mask of ice.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words
would come. Gulping, she tried again. Her knees were weak as
pudding, but this time she managed a whisper. “Please. Oh,
please.”

At that her knees gave out and she would have
fallen if not for his arm swooping about her waist.

For the second time, Cole Rawdon stared down
at this girl who had a habit of collapsing in his arms, and he
swore silently at a fate that seemed destined to mock him. His
attention left her flushed, terrified face and the tumble of pale
hair that had come unbound from its chignon, and riveted itself on
the three men coming up behind her.

Cole Rawdon studied them with cool detachment
as the girl twisted about in fright. He had a firm hold of her
wrist, otherwise he knew she would have bolted. He could feel her
pulse racing like a runaway train engine beneath his thumb. He
sensed, even more than he saw, the panic coursing through her.

“Howdy, Cash,” Rawdon drawled after a long,
taut moment when the sun seemed to blaze even more fiercely down
upon his head. “What seems to be the trouble?”

Cash Hogan skidded to a halt and swore under
his breath. Rawdon. Damn it all to hell. Why did it have to be
Rawdon?

Cash made sure the grin he flashed was at
least outwardly friendly. Maybe if he was smart—and careful—they
could work this thing out without a fight.

Behind Cash, Bo and Luke waited in uneasy
silence, tugging at their neckerchiefs, squinting at the
black-garbed man in their path.

“Uh, you’ve got our prisoner there, Rawdon,”
Cash chuckled nervously. “ ‘Preciate it if you’d give her
back.”

“It doesn’t look much like she’s your
prisoner, Cash. Matter of fact, it seems to me she’s my
prisoner.”

Juliana trembled. For just a moment, she had
thought Cole Rawdon might help her. How stupid could she be, she
chided herself as a tear slipped down her cheek. This man, like the
others, was a bounty hunter. He was after her too. Dread clawed at
her heart, for something told her he was even more dangerous than
the others. Despite the hot sun, a chill spread through her,
turning her skin clammy, her blood to ice.

“Yours? Hell, no, she
ain’t
.” Bo
started forward, but Luke, stringy hair dangling in his eyes,
grabbed Bo’s arm.

“Well, she ain’t,” Bo hissed furiously at his
brother, then clamped his lips shut when he saw the deadly purpose
in Cole Rawdon’s face.

“Let’s be reasonable about this, Rawdon,”
Cash went on, a wheedling note entering his voice. He pushed his
hat back on his head. “We got her first. Caught her right back
there in the saloon. The bartender will tell you that. Fair’s fair,
ain’t it? Why don’t you jest hand her back over to me, and the boys
and I’ll buy you a drink?”

“Go to hell.”

Juliana held her breath, unable to believe
that Cole Rawdon could speak with such arrogance to the three men
facing him. They were dangerous and they were greedy and angry to
boot—such a combination boded ill for anyone who got in their way.
Yet this man with the iron grip on her wrist seemed totally
unafraid, even contemptuous, and he must know he was enraging them.
Luke’s face had turned blood red, and Bo had gotten a dark, weasely
shine in his eyes, which Juliana guessed meant he was ready to kill
Rawdon on the spot.

Even Cash, who probably had more brains than
the other two put together, now looked as though his anger was
getting the better of him. “Not very sociable, are you, Rawdon?” he
growled, and Juliana saw the muscles clench in his neck.