Cherished (26 page)

“Maybe I do,” Juliana managed to whisper. She
moistened her lips with her tongue, nervous at this dangerous game,
but her unconscious gesture served as the catalyst for the uncouth
sheriff’s desire. Before she even realized it, he snatched her out
of the chair and into his arms. Juliana cried out. Then he planted
his lips on hers and began to kiss her, and her next cry was
muffled against tobacco-reeking lips. The next instant, he grabbed
her breast and squeezed hard.

Juliana bit back the scream in her throat.
She forced herself to stay perfectly still. Willing herself with
every ounce of her strength, she allowed that long, greedy kiss to
go on and on, while Dane fondled her painfully, then ever so slowly
she draped her arms about his neck, let them slide languorously
downward toward his hips, and ...

Oh, how she wanted just to lunge for that
gun—but she forced herself to move with sensuous deliberation. She
felt wet and slimy from his kiss, and both her nipples hurt from
being pinched. He was pressing her back against the desk—in another
moment she’d be lying atop it, with him over her. She squirmed
sideways, resisting being forced backward. She wanted to kick him
as she had kicked John Breen, but first she had to get the
gun....

Her hand slid lower.

“Why, Sheriff,” she whispered, to distract
him, and giggled. She felt the pistol against her palm, cold and
hard. What was it Cole Rawdon had said? Don’t draw a gun on a man
unless you’re prepared to use it. Well, she would if she had to,
but she was getting to be a better actress by the moment. She’d
bluff if she could, fire if she had to, and then retch all over
this damned office if need be. But Juliana was praying it wouldn’t
come to killing. Though she hadn’t been able to bluff Cole Rawdon,
she was sure she could convince Lucius Dane she was a trigger-happy
outlaw who wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

She had it. Her hand tingled with a sudden
surge of power. Suddenly, she kicked Lucius Dane, just as she had
kicked John Breen. She kicked him so hard, he screamed. At the same
time, she whipped the gun from his holster and jumped back. Dane
shrieked twice more, and slumped to the floor, clutching at his
injured anatomy.

Juliana clicked off the safety as she’d seen
Cole do. Aside from the primrose color in her cheeks, she looked
perfectly calm.

“I hope you can walk, Sheriff, but if you
can’t, you’ll have to crawl. Quick, into the cell.”

He was gaping stupidly up at her, his face a
mixture of raw pain and incredulity. “You ... sneakin’, lyin’
bitch,” he rasped. “I’ll fix you good for this ...”

Juliana kept the gun trained on him with one
hand, copying Cole’s nonchalant pose. Her heart was thudding like a
runaway train, but outwardly she schooled her expression into one
of flawless composure. “My brothers—the Montgomery gang—taught me
to shoot, Sheriff. I can blow your head off at fifty feet.” Her
tone hardened. “At this range, I wouldn’t miss if I wanted to. And
I assure you, I don’t want to. Now I’m going to count to five. If
you’re not in that cell by then, you’re going to your Maker, and I
hope you’re prepared to answer for the death of Henny’s boy Bob.
Say your prayers, Sheriff. One ... two ...”

His face contorted with pain, the lawman half
staggered, half crawled toward the cell.

“Three ... four ...”

“For cryin’ out loud, I’m doing the best I
can!” he gasped, sweat breaking out on his face.

“Five,” Juliana announced as he collapsed
into the cell. She swung the door shut and it clicked home. She
quickly turned the key, then flung the ring to which it was
attached across the room. It landed with a shrill jangle beneath
the windowsill.

“You’ll swing for this, missy!” Dane called
after her as she dashed toward the door. “By all that’s holy, I
swear I’ll hang you by your toes!”

“You’ll have to catch me first,” Juliana
retorted over her shoulder. She opened the door, began to spring
out into the cool Arizona rain, then stopped short, her heart
lurching into her throat.

Three men in heavy coats, silk bandannas, and
Stetsons blocked her path.

“Miss Montgomery?” Knife Jackson inquired,
smirking as he pushed her back inside.

“Guess we got here just in time,” his
companion remarked. Despite the blood pounding in her temples,
Juliana recognized him from the street that morning. The third man
had been there, too, watching with dark-eyed hostility when Cole
brought her into the sheriff’s office. The smallest of the three,
with a scar below his right eye, he spoke next, shooting an amused
glance at Lucius Dane in the cell. “The boss’ll be real sore with
you, Dane. You almost let this little filly slip away.”

Terror slashed through Juliana.

Then, before she could move, Knife Jackson
reached out huge fingers and grasped her by the throat.

“We’ve got some questions for you, Miss
Montgomery,” he said in an amiable tone. His fingers started to
squeeze.

“And if you answer them real nice and
polite,” he went on, his smile widening into a grin, “we just might
let you live to see the morning.”

The questions came at her faster than pistol
shots.

“Where are the Montgomery brothers hiding
out?”

“What does Rawdon want from Mr.
McCray?”

“Where’d the Montgomery gang stash the
gold from the Sanders mine?”

“What’s Rawdon’s interest in Fire Mesa?”

“Is Wade Montgomery planning to rob the
Renshaw freight payroll?”

“Is Tommy Montgomery still in
Arizona?”

“How much is Rawdon planning to bid for
Fire Mesa?”

Bruises covered her arms and neck. Her lip
bled, dripping down to stain the frayed bodice of her gown.

Knife Jackson’s face loomed above her like a
nightmare, smirking, snarling. His eyes—tar-black, monstrously
cold, savage—glittered with the pleasure of inflicting pain.

Juliana knew she’d never forget those eyes.
She’d see them forever after in her nightmares. If she survived
...

The other two held her. Knife did the
beating.

After a while, she couldn’t even scream. She
whimpered when Knife knocked her to the floor with the back of his
hand. The room crashed in on her. So much pain. Blinding lights
exploded behind her eyes. A clamorous pounding slammed through her
ears, ringing again and again. Juliana heard Knife’s voice as if
from very far away.

“Answer me this time. If you say you don’t
know again, I swear I’ll take the bowie knife to you and cut your
face so that your own mother won’t recognize it.
What is Rawdon
after?”

Rawdon. Through the salt of her own blood and
the tears on her lips, through the agony crashing through her head
and body, she saw a cool, handsome face, smelled his clean
pine-and-leather scent, felt his lips on hers. The hard floor faded
away. The boots of the men standing over her blurred.

Rawdon.

“Yeah, Rawdon.”

Knife Jackson’s fetid breath rushed into her
face as he grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. The
glint of his knife shone in one hand as Juliana stared at him
through pain-dazed eyes.

“What is Rawdon after, damn you?”

Juliana struggled to draw breath through the
pain in her ribs. Her cut lip bled anew as she formed the
words.

“If I knew,” she whispered, fear making her
teeth chatter, “I wouldn’t tell ... you.”

The knife streaked toward her.

Juliana passed out.

* * *

Cole came awake to find something wet and
sticky soaking his face, neck, and shirt. He forced his eyes open,
despite the pincer-needles of pain that pierced them. When he
lifted his head, groaning, he saw the ruby stream winding its way
across the sawdust floor. Blood. His own blood. He was lying in
it.

Where? Through the torture of bruised ribs
and muscles, memory oozed back. His mind was still groggy with
whatever evil concoction Fred had put into his whiskey, and it hurt
when he blinked, but at least he remembered what had happened to
him. Or at least some of it. Fred. The saloon girl. His drink.

He tried to get up and flopped back down into
the red, sticky puddle.

His hands were tied behind his back. His
ankles were bound together tightly by rawhide. Fred had done a
damned good job.

Cole gritted his teeth. Sheer determination
got him to his knees. Everything hurt like hell, but he managed to
stay upright and to glance around the room. It was bare except for
a filthy cot against the far wall, an old chest of drawers so
scarred and chipped it might splinter into a million pieces if you
kicked it, and a three-legged cane chair in the corner. A pair of
half-burned-down candles flickered in tarnished sconces on the wall
over the cot, casting the only light in the room. Breathing hard,
Cole noted the window was covered by a burlap shade, which
prevented him from seeing outside. Was it night? Day? How long had
he been here?

Suddenly the room, which had been spinning
slightly, straightened. Everything came into sharper focus, hurting
his eyes. At that moment he remembered Juliana and what Fred had
said about her just before he’d passed out.

He struggled with his bonds, swearing in
frustration because there was no slack, no room to twist free. But
there had to be a way. He had to cut these ropes, to get out of
here.

Once again Cole surveyed the room, this time
with Cheyenne thoroughness. The words of Sun Eagle came back to
him: “See with the eyes of a hawk, my friend, not a man. The mouse
always hides beneath the snow.”

And that was when he saw it—what he had not
even paid attention to before—the cracked pitcher atop the chest of
drawers, and beside the pitcher, two glasses and a bottle of
whiskey.

Squinting against the pain, Cole started
slowly and torturously to jackknife himself across the room.

It seemed to take hours. Sweat poured down
his face, mingling with the blood. From outside the room came the
raucous noises of the saloon, shrill shouts, laughter, off-key
piano music. Inside there was only the buzz of flies and the sound
of his own breathing. Cole concentrated all his energy on getting
to that chest. When he reached it, he slammed his body into it with
all the strength left in his muscles. It took three tries before
the bottle and pitcher toppled over and smashed onto the sawdust
floor.

He worked as quickly as he could, taking one
of the shards of splintered glass between his fingers, working it
against the rawhide. Again and again he sawed at the rope, trying
not to think of Juliana, of what Knife was doing to her, and then,
just as he felt the cords of the rope beginning to fray, just a
little, he heard it—the sound of boots outside the door.

Something tightened inside him. An instant
later, the door swung open and Fred stared at him as he sprawled
before the bureau, surrounded by shattered glass.

The bartender flushed with anger as he met
the other man’s stony face and realized what he was trying to do.
Despite Rawdon’s bruises and the blood smearing his face, he looked
as cold and arrogant as ever, making Fred want to stomp those
handsome features right into the ground. He wiped his hands on his
stained and crumpled apron, and a wide grin stretched from one ear
to the other.

“Still thirsty, Rawdon?” The door slammed
behind him with a resounding thud. “And here I thought you’d had
enough liquor for one day.”

Cole watched him stoop to pick up a
glittering shard of glass, study its deadly edges in the murky
light, then straighten, the shard clenched in his hand like a
dagger. Blood pounded in Cole’s temples. He’d faced death many
times, and here it was again. Always before, he had managed to
cheat it. This time he wasn’t sure he would.

Fred advanced upon him, grinning.

“I was kinda hoping to repay you for your
hospitality,” Cole drawled, straining desperately at his bonds. He
couldn’t break them, though he flexed every muscle in his body. His
face strained with effort, blue eyes fiercely glittering.

“Too bad, Rawdon. You ain’t repaying me for
anythin’. You ain’t gonna do nothin’ but bleed.”

Fred’s laughter exploded in his ears as the
bartender lunged at him again.

* * *

Knife Jackson paced around the sheriff’s
office with seething impatience, his temper deteriorating by the
moment. It was taking forever for the girl to come around. Didn’t
do no good to cut her when she couldn’t feel it, couldn’t know the
pain, the fear. He’d have to wait.

Knife hated waiting.

“If she don’t come to soon, we’ll have to
bring her with us. Can’t stay here all night—jails make me nervous,
even if I’m on the right side of the cell.” His scowl was answered
by chuckles from the other two men, kneeling beside Juliana. Their
faces shone with sweat in the weak light of the kerosene lamp that
broke up the shadows in the filthy office, They’d already dumped
cold water on the woman, and slapped her cheeks, all to no avail.
She was out cold.

“Carmen’s waiting for me back at Delinda’s,”
the scar-faced one muttered. He wiped his palms on his trousers.
“Mebbe we should finish this business there.”

“So long as we finish it before morning,”
Knife growled. “Mr. M doesn’t like delays. If we don’t catch up to
the Montgomerys soon, there’ll be hell to pay for sure.”

“How ‘bout lettin’ me out now, Knife?” Lucius
Dane’s wheedling plea was met by silence from all three men. No one
seemed the least inclined to release him from the cell.

“I kin bring her round,” Dane cajoled.
“Quick-like, too. Smelling salts, that’s what you’ll need.”

Knife spun about to smile at him, showing
cracked yellow teeth. “Why, that’s a good idea, Dane.” He stared at
the other two men. “Why didn’t we think of that?”