Cherished (40 page)

“We’d better be heading back.”

“Fine with me!” Juliana snapped.

She jerked her hand away from Cole’s, swept
past him with all the hauteur of a royal princess, and sailed out
the door with a low-voiced farewell to Josie.

She was so angry, she could scarcely breathe.
She didn’t catch the amused glance Josie shot Wade as Cole stalked
after her, didn’t hear the girl whisper, “What’s that all
about?”

She didn’t see her brother shake his head
with rueful resignation, “Love or hate, I’ll wager. You tell me
which one.”

All during the ride back to the cabin,
Juliana forced herself to look straight ahead. She refused to
glance at either Wade or Cole. Instead, she fixed in her mind the
image of Gil Keedy and reached a decision. She would make herself
fall in love with Gil—beginning tonight. Josie Larson was unsure of
her emotions, and besides she still had Tommy—so she wouldn’t be
crushed to bits at losing Gil. He was a fine man, a brave man, one
who had already traveled hundreds of miles to locate her brothers
in an effort to help her. Surely that deserved some reward. And she
was not going to pursue Gil only to make Cole jealous, she told
herself. That was the last thing she would ever do. She thought
such tricks immature and beneath her, weapons of a desperate
woman.

That was the last thing she was—desperate.
She didn’t need any man, much less Cole Rawdon. In fact, she told
herself as she recognized the juncture in the trail that led to the
cabin and spurred her horse ahead of her companions for the last
stretch, he was the very last man with whom she would ever consider
a permanent alliance.

She had a bath in an old washtub Skunk filled
for her in the back room, with heated water from the stove and a
cake of lilac soap Josie had given her. She washed her hair
vigorously and brushed it until it shone in a pale cloud that
drifted about her shoulders. She dressed for dinner in the yellow
organdy gown Wade and Tommy had given her. She primped and arranged
and adjusted, adding hair combs, pins, earbobs, then tying and
retying her sash. She made herself as beautiful as she knew how to
do.

She made up her mind that by the time she
finished with him, Cole Rawdon would be
begging
for her
attention. But she would not give it to him. No matter what.

Then she sighed, called herself a pathetic
liar, and finally faced the truth. She sailed out to the main room
of the cabin with the single-minded purpose of bringing that man to
his knees.

If you don’t tell me where Juliana Montgomery
is right now, I’m going to blow your damned head off.”

Line McCray stared in incredulity at the
tall, elegant man with the strange yellow-tan eyes who had just
burst into the parlour of Belle Mallory’s boardinghouse in
Plattsville and pointed a double-barreled Winchester at his head.
Three men in long dusters and muddy boots, brandishing their
pistols as if they meant business, had charged in with him,
effectively getting the drop on Knife Jackson, who didn’t even have
time to reach for his gun, much less draw it. Belle Mallory bit
back a scream, then stayed frozen beside McCray on the velvet
sofa.

McCray could do nothing but gulp for a moment
as he stared down the barrel of that gun. Then he recovered his
voice—and his temper.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he
bellowed in the manner of men accustomed to inspiring fear in
others.

John Breen shot the whiskey glass out of his
hand.

“I asked you a question, McCray.” Breen’s
voice could have cut through rock. “If you want to live long enough
to appreciate the charms of that lady there ever again, you’ll
answer it. Pronto.”

“I never heard of this Juli—”

Breen’s next shot struck McCray in the
shoulder.

He fell back against the red velvet sofa,
blood spurting out all over Belle, the cushions and the floor. She
bit her lip but said nothing, shifting away from McCray and the
blood dripping from his wound and turning a flinty gaze to the man
with the gun.

McCray was sweating now, his pale gray eyes
bulging from an ashen face. He clapped a hand to his wounded
shoulder, trying to ignore the pain burning through it. The
stranger had winged him; next time he might not be so lucky. The
handsome, sun-browned face of the man with the rifle was so set and
determined, so filled with deadly purpose, that McCray was
convinced there would be no reasoning with him, no putting him off,
or stalling until Knife figured out a way to make a move.

“All right, you son of a bitch,” McCray
rasped. “I’ll tell you what I know. But it isn’t much....”

“Start talking. Where is she?”

And so John Breen listened, the Winchester
pointed directly at McCray’s head, while the other man poured out a
tale of frustration and failed effort. McCray explained how the
Montgomery gang had been robbing him blind, how he was certain they
would continue to do so until they were caught and thrown in
jail—or, better yet, hanged as they deserved. And the girl, Juliana
Montgomery, she had been a lucky stroke, an opportunity that had
somehow slipped through their fingers. Sheriff Dane had hoped she
could lead them to the gang, but then that bounty hunter, Rawdon,
had run off with her before they could question her. And no, McCray
admitted with pure aggravation seeping from every pore, they didn’t
have the smallest idea where she, Rawdon, or the Montgomery gang
were hiding out.

But his men were searching. They were combing
the area and it was only a matter of time ...

Breen’s fingers relaxed on the rifle trigger.
McCray’s words corroborated what Lucius Dane had already testified
to in hopes of receiving the two-thousand-dollar reward. Breen had
warned the sheriff that he’d get his money only if the information
actually led him to the girl. But John Breen felt in his bones that
he was close. A banked excitement flickered within him. As he
studied the stocky gray-haired man before him, noting the receding
hairline, the gray mustache, the heavy jowls, his own lips twisted
in faint contempt. He’d heard of Line McCray from time to time, and
what he knew about the man didn’t impress him overmuch. McCray was
doing the kinds of things
he
had done on his way up—but
doing them poorly. Breen judged him stupid and shortsighted. Didn’t
he know that a man had to move secretly, applying pressure only
behind the scenes in his acquisitions? Preserving one’s name and
reputation was crucial, or else when a man finally achieved the
wealth and power he wanted, no one worth knowing would ever
associate with him or think of doing business with him. Keep the
gunplay, the coercion, the underhanded tactics to a minimum, and
always as secret as possible—then kill anyone who could link you to
them. That’s how you built an empire and a name men respected.
McCray might have money, and he had a degree of power in small
towns like Plattsville, but if he wanted to be an important man in
America, to achieve a position where he could really influence
things—could buy men, elections, and companies the way most men
bought a sack of grain—he had at least to
appear
honest.

Lack of respectability, that was McCray’s
problem. Breen dismissed him with scorn. Breen didn’t give a damn
about McCray—all he wanted was Juliana. He had a feeling, though,
as McCray talked, that in order to get her back, he’d have to join
forces, at least temporarily, with this man. McCray had an outfit
here that was well trained and knew the territory. He also knew
something about this bounty hunter, Cole Rawdon, whom they were
apparently up against. Rawdon was hanging on to the girl for some
reason Breen couldn’t fathom. His actions were strange. First he’d
brought her in to jail, then he’d killed two men to get her out.
Why? It was loco. Maybe he wanted to hike up the reward. Greedy
bastard, Breen thought, half admiringly. Or, he reflected as he
kept the rifle trained on McCray, maybe Rawdon was using Juliana as
a way to get accepted by the Montgomery gang, figuring if he joined
forces with them against McCray and robbed enough freight payrolls
and gold shipments, he’d pile up more money than any bounty would
bring.

Hell, Breen didn’t care what his motives
were. All he wanted was Juliana Montgomery. McCray wanted her
too—as a tool for locating her brothers. Well, working together
they would find both Juliana and the Montgomery gang. Whichever
they located first could be forced to lead them to the other; then
he and McCray would each have what they wanted.

When McCray stopped talking, a little silence
fell on the parlour, except for the clock ticking on the mantel.
Belle Mallory didn’t move, neither did McCray or Knife Jackson.
Then Breen nodded.

“All right, your story makes sense to me.
You’re not going to die just yet after all, McCray.”

Knife Jackson, held all this time to silence
by the fact that Bart Mueller had a Colt revolver pointed at his
heart, could contain himself no longer. “Now tell us who you are
and what you want,” he snarled. His black eyes glinted with rage.
“Nobody busts in on Mr. McCray like this—you hear me? No one.”

Breen’s gaze was nailed to the sweat on
McCray’s face. “You may have heard of me, McCray,” he said quietly.
“John Breen.”

McCray sagged back against the sofa cushions
once more, as if he had been struck by another bullet. He gaped for
a full minute at the tall, wide-shouldered man before him.
John
Breen
. Breen was a legend. He was McCray’s idol, the man he
had tried to emulate in building his fortune. He himself had
amassed a fair bundle of prosperity, but John Breen—why, he was the
master of a kingly empire. Above all, he was a man McCray had
always dreamed of someday doing business with, and that alone would
mark the pinnacle of his achievements.

But Knife Jackson was spoiling
everything.

“I don’t care who the hell you say you are,”
Knife spat, his fingers flexing open and shut convulsively as he
resisted the suicidal impulse to go for his gun. His scarred,
pockmarked face looked hideous in the glare of the afternoon
sunlight spilling past Belle Mallory’s parted velvet curtains. His
tar-black eyes shone malevolently as he stared in turn at Breen and
each of his three men. “Put your gawdamned guns away and let me get
a doctor for Mr. McCray or—”

“Shut up, Knife,” McCray bit out. He raised
himself unsteadily to his feet. Blood still gushed from his wound
and his face was abnormally pale, but he held out his good hand
with a smile pasted on his face. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Breen, a
real pleasure. If I’d known who you were, all this unpleasantness
could have been avoided. I’m only too happy to assist you in any
way that I can, sir.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.”

“I understand there’s a bounty out on the
Montgomery girl.” McCray’s knees buckled, and he recovered his
balance and his composure with visible effort. “That’s all I know,
Mr. Breen, but does that by any chance have something to do with
why you want her?”

“My reasons are none of your damn business,
McCray.” But Breen lowered the rifle. He smoothed his mustache,
glancing about the garish, overfurnished parlour with a scornful
eye.

“I’m hoping to buy a ranch in these parts,”
McCray informed him quickly. Suddenly the velvet curtains and
overstuffed sofa and chairs, the gilt-framed paintings and flocked
wallpaper, even the sweetly perfumed air of the two-story
boardinghouse, which before he had thought elegant and fashionable,
now seemed cheap, ridiculous. “This ranch I’m buying—it’s a
magnificent place—soon as I can set the deal with the current
owner, I’ll be moving in,” McCray assured him. “In the meantime,
I’ve taken up temporary residence here—of course, I’ve rented out
the entire house for my men,” he bragged. He glanced over at the
blood-spattered woman sitting like a tainted statue on the edge of
the sofa. Belle Mallory had been through fire and flood in her
life, and she knew she could get past an encounter with a
Winchester, if she didn’t make any stupid moves.

“Belle, don’t just sit there,” McCray said
impatiently. “Where are your manners, woman? Get some whiskey—or
maybe brandy—for our guest. Mr. Breen is a very important man.”

“Line, it seems to me the first thing
you’d
want is a doctor ...” she remarked quietly, getting
to her feet after Breen’s nod of approval.

“Don’t need one. This is nothing but a flesh
wound. He barely nicked me.” McCray gave a slight, forced laugh.
“Good shot, by the way, Mr. Breen.”

Breen didn’t bother to reply. Line McCray and
his bootlicking ways, his ambition and nauseating conceit, were of
no interest to him—except as they helped him track down Juliana.
“Bart,” he said suddenly, with a glance at his foreman, “why don’t
you and the boys show this fellow”—he jerked his thumb toward
Knife—“over to the Ten Gallon and buy him a drink. And don’t come
back or let anyone in here until I say so. Mr. McCray and I have
business to discuss—alone.”

To the woman, waiting stony-eyed for orders,
he said politely enough, “You can bring that brandy in here right
away. Along with some bandages and liniment for Mr. McCray’s
shoulder. Can’t have him bleeding to death before he’s served his
purpose, now can I, ma’am?”

He turned to McCray when they were alone and
regarded the stocky gray-haired man through glinting topaz eyes.
“We’re going to go through every detail again, McCray, down to the
color of Wade Montgomery’s hat. And then I’m going to figure out a
way for you to catch this pesky band of thieves.”

“I appreciate your help, Mr. Breen, I truly
do. And let me just assure you now that whatever I can do to repay
you ...”

“Oh, you will repay me, McCray. Believe me,
you will.”

From the cold-as-a-coffin smile on Breen’s
face, Line McCray had no doubt of the truth behind his words.