Her Bodyguard (37 page)

Mari feared she knew what that plan might be. After all, last time, Finn Murphy intended rape.

I won’t let it happen, she told herself. She’d stopped him once before, hadn’t she? She could do it again. She would stop him again. Or die trying.

Except she didn’t want to die. She had too much to live for now.

Mari gathered her thoughts. Had he searched her pockets? Maybe the two on the outside of her skirt, but not the hidden one in the seam, she’d bet. What was in there? Anything to use as a weapon? A handkerchief. A stubby pencil. Emma’s necklace.

Emma’s necklace! She’d never made it to the jewelry store, so she still had Emma’s necklace.

In that fact, Mari found comfort. The necklaces were special, magical. The necklaces were good luck. Somehow, having it would help her. She knew it in her heart.

Moving as quietly as possible, making the best of her limited mobility, Mari searched the wagon bed for a sharp edge, anything she could use to cut the rope binding her hands. Nothing. Desperate, she did manage to work free one of the ever-present safety pins fastened to her hem. With the pin in hand, she continued to search, her concentration so focused on her task that at first she didn’t notice the slowing of the wagon.

“Here it is,” Rory said, blowing a relieved sigh. “The turnoff to the old place. I haven’t been out here for years. I was half afraid I wouldn’t remember the way. Sure hope your men found their way here all right. If our getaway horses aren’t here, we’ll be up the creek.”

“They’ll be here,” Murphy said.

“Look, Finn. There’s that big old flat rock Janna liked to picnic on. That’s a good place to leave Mari. Since we got clean away, we don’t need a hostage anymore.”

“Just drive on to the old place, Rory.”

“But—”

“Drive.”

The menace in his voice caused Mari’s pulse to race. Whatever he had planned for her, it would happen at the old place. No way would she work free of her bindings before they arrived. All she had for a weapon was her mind and a safety pin. Not much better than last time. But she’d survived then. She’d survive now.

Less than five minutes later, Rory hollered, “Whoa, there, fellas. Whoa.”

The wagon rolled to a stop and Mari braced herself.

“You want to check on the horses?” Rory asked. “I’ll see to Maribeth.”

“I don’t think so.” Evil glee hung in the outlaw’s voice. “The little lady is all mine.”

Mari went stiff when Finn Murphy grabbed her feet and pulled her out from beneath the burlap bags covering her face and body to the end of the wagon. For just a second, Mari saw the beauty of a multitude of stars against an inky sky, then he hoisted her over his shoulder and she saw nothing but shadows on the ground.

Rory exclaimed, “Wait a minute, Finn! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, Miss McBride knows what I’m doing. Don’t ya, darlin’?” He swatted her hard on the rear. “We have old business to finish.”

Mari struggled. With her hands secured, the pin was of little help. When she realized Murphy was enjoying her wiggling, she went still as a possum.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” Murphy said. “Before I’m done, you’re gonna wish you’d died out there by the pond that day.”

He stepped across a threshold of some sort. Mari heard a match flare and lantern glass rattle. A wick caught and a soft yellow glow illuminated the room. “I had my men lay in a few supplies. They outta be around here somewhere. Yep, there it is. That’s the important one.” He tossed her onto a bed and laughed maniacally. “It’s the cactus I ordered.”

Inside, Mari trembled, but she was determined not to show fear.

Murphy rubbed his crotch. Again and again. Then he frowned and stroked it harder. “Goddamned bitch. You’re gonna pay for what you did to me. I’m taking my manhood back, right here, right now!”

“No!” Rory Callahan stood in the doorway, a Colt revolver aimed at Murphy. The hand holding the gun visibly trembled, but his eyes glowed with angry determination. “This wasn’t the deal, Finn. You’re not gonna hurt her.”

“Put the gun down, kid. You’re not gonna shoot me.”

“I don’t want to shoot you. Finn, you’re my brother. You’re family, but I can’t let you do this. She’s Kat’s sister. I won’t allow you to hurt her.”

Finn Murphy slowly looked around. “Do you honestly think you can stop me? You? Jesus, Rory. You’re dumber than dirt. Always have been.”

Moving like lightning, Murphy drew his gun and shot Rory Callahan low in the torso.

Mari gasped in horror as Rory clutched his belly and dropped to his knees. Murphy advanced on him, snarling. “I used you to get out of jail, you stupid shit. Not to hunt down Kimball and find some goddamned pirate treasure.” He turned his head and spit on the floor.

“You’ve killed me,” Rory said, disbelief in both tone and expression, even as he fell the rest of the way to the floor. “Finn, we’re
family
.”

Murphy glared down at Rory in disgust. “You brought it on yourself, Rory. You brought it on yourself.” He turned his back on the man he had shot, and focused his attention once again on Mari. “Well, shit. Now it stinks like death in here. I don’t like that smell. I’m not gonna be able…shit.”

Murphy shoved his gun back into his holster. “Not what I had planned,” he grumbled. “Not what I had planned at all.”

His own family. He murdered a member of his own family. He’s mad. True terror, sharp as a razor, sliced through Mari
.

The villain stood for a moment, thinking. Tears spilled from Mari’s eyes at Rory’s final words. “Tell Kat…I’m sorry,” he said. “Tell her the…the…treasure…baby…find Kimball. He has the cross.”

Murphy muttered a curse, then once again hoisted Mari over his shoulder. He stepped over Rory’s prone body and stomped away from the dilapidated house. Gagged and unable to speak, Mari lifted her head and locked her gaze on Rory’s.
God’s peace be with you, she silently said.

Lying in the doorway bleeding to death, Luke’s half-brother smiled.

Murphy toted her into the trees, out of sight of the house, mumbling as he went. “Goddamned fool. Why’d he make me do that? Stupid shit. Ruined my fun with you. Ruined my revenge. Pecker damned well better work next time I try to use it, or I swear I’ll dig him up and shoot him again.”

He carried her for what seemed like hours but what was probably less than ten minutes. She still had the safety pin clutched in her fist. She hoped she had the chance to use it against him somehow.

“At least I’ll have my revenge on Luke,” Murphy grumbled. “He’ll never find your body, and it’ll plague him the rest of his life. That’s a lot better than killing you outright for him to find. I’m gonna enjoy thinkin’ about it when I’m living down there in Bolivia. I’ll get me some tequila and a good cigar and one of them Spanish gals. That’ll heal me. It doesn’t have to be you.”

Abruptly, Murphy stopped. “Here we are. Down you go, bitch.”

As he bent forward to shift her weight over his head, Mari made her move. She twisted her body violently, throwing him off balance. She gouged him with the sharp pin and he screamed. She’d gotten his eye.

“Aargh!” he hollered, grabbing at her. His hand ripped her dress. She felt the seam tear and the necklace spill from the hidden pocket. Then he was pushing her, shoving her forward. “Die, bitch. Fall down that hole and die. Hope you take good and long to do it, too. No one’s ever gonna find you.”

The solid ground beneath her feet gave way and Mari fell down, down, down into pitch-black darkness. She hit hard and once more, the world went black.

LUKE’S HEART leaped when he spied the lantern light burning at the old homestead. Had he guessed right? Please, God. Let him have guessed right. He’d lost the trail with the sunlight and had gambled on where they might have gone. It made a crazy sort of sense for Murphy to bring Mari here to Luke’s childhood home to perpetrate his undoubtedly evil attentions on her. It was scene-setting that would appeal to a man like Finn Murphy.

McBride had agreed with the idea to press on to the homestead, and he rode with Luke, silent, his visage grim.

“I think that’s the house,” Luke told him. “See the light?”

“Off to the north? Four, five hundred yards?”

“Yeah. My sister still owns the land. Shouldn’t be anyone there unless squatters have set up house.”

“How do you want to play it? Shall we go in afoot? Ride right in? What do you think is best?”

Luke reviewed what he knew about Finn Murphy. Considered the surprise Rory had thrown him today. “I don’t think we have a minute to lose, but if we can surprise them, Mari is bound to be better off.”

“Afoot, then.”

A hundred yards out, Luke lifted his hand, signaling Trace to stop. They tethered their horses to an oak tree, then each man grabbed a rifle from his saddle. Luke strapped a bowie knife around his thigh and he wore a pair of revolvers on his gun belt. Trace had a pistol strapped on his right hip.

Luke looked at Trace and nodded once. Silently and steadily, they moved toward the light.
Hold on, Mari. We’re almost there. Hold on
.

As they reached the top of a rise overlooking the cabin below, Luke dropped low and gestured for Trace to do the same. They crab-walked the last few feet, then just as Luke lifted his face to peer down upon the cabin, a gunshot split the night.

A man screamed.

Luke leaped to his feet and started running, Trace following right behind him. He spied Finn Murphy lying face down on the ground, but he didn’t so much as pause.

Rory sat propped in the doorway, a bloodstain the size of a dinner plate on his shirt. Smoke rose from the barrel of the gun beside him. Moonlight and blood loss had turned his complexion an unearthly white.
Rory!

Luke’s heart thundered as he looked past his brother into the house. The empty house. “Mari. Where’s Mari, Rory?”

A single tear spilled from Rory’s eye and trailed down his cheek. “He got me good. Sorry, Luke. Sorry about Mari. Sorry I couldn’t save her.”

Luke grabbed him by each shoulder, supported him, willed his own vitality and strength into his brother’s body. Grief and panic had a stranglehold around his neck and he worked to force the words, “Where is she, Rory! Where is she?”

But it was too late. His brother couldn’t answer. Rory Callahan had died.

TWO FULL days following the jailbreak, the citizens of Fort Worth couldn’t stop talking about the McBride family’s bad luck. In the
Daily Democrat
, the story of the jailbreak and the principal players’ connections to the McBrides ran beneath die headline The Bad Luck Brides. What stirred the gossips the most, however, wasn’t the elements of scandal, sex or even pirate treasure. What kept the people of Fort Worth shaking their heads in disbelief was the way the family reacted to Maribeth’s tragic demise.

They continued to plan the wedding.

It boggled the mind. Wilhemina Peters claimed that collectively, the family had finally had one too many crosses to bear. The butter had done slipped off their noodles.

While the McBride men searched the old Garrett homestead for Maribeth, or, as most everyone agreed, Maribeth’s body, the McBride women flitted around town finalizing wedding arrangements. Really, did Jenny McBride honestly believe that she’d need a pair of white turtledoves come a week from Saturday? Did Emma seriously think it mattered whether the special order white kid leather slippers to match the bridesmaids’ gowns arrived on time? And the food—what in the world would they do with barbecue for four hundred?

The townspeople talked about Luke, too. Volunteers from town who helped in the search returned at the end of a long, fruitless day speaking of Luke Garrett’s fierce determination to find the woman he loved. They said he seldom rested, barely slept, and grew vicious when anyone dared to suggest that Mari McBride might not be found alive. He was a wounded animal, one man said. Frantic. Ferocious. Grieving.

When the searchers awoke to a hard, cleansing rain on the third day, Luke went a little crazy. He disappeared inside the old homestead cabin and quickly fired off five shots of his gun. Trace gave him a few minutes, then opened the cabin door.

“Garrett?”

Luke stood staring at an old iron stove and the tin coffee pot atop it now plugged full of holes. “Murphy had a real taste for a good cup of coffee.”

“We’ll find her, Garrett.”

“Yeah.” Luke waited a beat, then said, “My men say I could can track a minnow through a swamp. I lost his trail in the rocks, McBride. Most important search of my life, and I might as well be sorting sewing thread spools in a general store. Now the rain…” His voice cracked. “What the hell kind of bodyguard am I?”

“Goddammit, Garrett. Don’t you dare give up!”

Taken aback by the other man’s vehemence, Luke’s eyes widened.

“You want to waste more time cursing, crying and shooting stoves, go right ahead. But remember this much, boyo. Mari didn’t give up on Kat. If this situation were reversed, Mari wouldn’t give up on you, either. Now, you’ve had your little pity party, so go find my daughter!”

Fury erupted inside Luke like a volcano and spewed out into his words. “You hardheaded old coyote. I haven’t given up on anything and damn you for suggesting I have. I love her, and by God, I’ll find her!”

“Good. Then go do it!”

“I will! I’m going!” Luke shoved his gun back into its holster and glared at Trace McBride.

Trace shoved his hands into his pockets and glared right back at Luke. Seconds later, when they’d both calmed down, he said,

“We should look at the rain as a good thing. I’ve been fretting she might not have water, and now that worry is done. She’s a strong girl. A smart girl. She’ll figure a way to keep alive until we find her. I know it in my bones. Now, let’s get after it.”

Luke nodded, then followed Trace McBride from the cabin, his determination renewed. Before they split up, each to return to his assigned section of the search grid they’d established, Trace paused. “You really love my girl, don’t you, Garrett?”

“Yes, sir. She’s my heart.”

Trace rubbed his hand over his three-day beard. “I understand, son. I understand. You know, you’ll never be good enough for her.”