Mustang Annie (19 page)

Chapter 24

H
ands on his hips, Brett paced the ground. “What a tangled mess.” This whole thing was getting more complicated by the moment.

The only reason Ike might want Annie was if he knew she was Mustang Annie. How had Ike discovered they'd be in the canyon, though? Brett had been very careful not to reveal Annie's involvement with the outfit, much less their direction. Now that he thought on it, it did seem odd for Ike to have shown up in Sage Flat at the same time as he had.

Rafe. He was the only one with grudge enough against Brett to alert Ike where to find them.

“When Savage heard the rumors of me hiring a female mustanger, he put two and two together,” Brett said. “He's got two reasons to want her. One, she threatens his position and his life, and two, she escaped his wrath.”

“Savage don't like being played for a fool.”

“So he figures on catching the stallion to catch her. But there's one thing he didn't count on—Annie not going after the bait.”

“Uh, Ace?” Dogie interrupted. “She is now.”

Brett leaped to his feet and raced to the rim. Even without the scope, he could make out the familiar figure skulking around the perimeter of the pen, her blonde hair rippling in the sunshine.

So that was why she'd been so adamant that he not go after the stallion.

She'd planned on stealing it herself.

Betrayal clubbed into his chest with bruising force. He didn't want to believe it. Closing his eyes, Brett finally had to face the fact that any feelings from the night they'd spent together belonged to him and him alone.

Still, he couldn't just sit back and let her walk into a trap. He didn't know how many lies she'd told or how many times he'd been conned by her, but one truth he couldn't deny—Savage had used her brutally, and he couldn't bear the thought of her going through that ordeal again.

“I've got to stop her.” Brett headed for the ridge of rock marking the downward trail.

Wade Henry turned him around with a gnarled hand to his arm. “Think about this—if you go racing down there half-cocked, what's gonna happen to Annie?”

“I'm not just going to let Savage catch her.”

“We might already be too late,” Flap Jack notified them in a grave tone. “Savage is riding in now, and he brought company.”

Three additional men had joined the unit. Brett didn't recognize the two driving the buckboard wagon stacked to the hilt with crates, but the third horseman he'd have known anywhere. Rafe.

Three against six. Best to go for the leader, then the rest would fall out. Thinking quickly, Brett asked, “Flap Jack, did you happen to bring along your cards?”

“Never leave home without 'em.”

Brett pocketed the deck, then started issuing orders. “First thing we want to do is get Annie out of there. I'll go down and create some sort of a diversion before he sees her. Meanwhile, Henry, I want you to come in from the north. Flap Jack, come in from the south.”

“What about me?” Dogie said.

“Take Fortune. Ride into Tascosa, find Jesse Justiss, and tell him to bring his ass back here fast. No one else, just Jesse. Think you can handle that?”

“Sure thing, Ace.”

He rested his hands on the boy's shoulders and gave him a stern look. “And when this is over, you and I are going to have a little discussion.”

 

Leaving Chance tied a safe distance from the corral, Annie kept low as she made her way along the sagging fence to the gate closest to the stable door. A flatbed wagon pulled up and commanded the guards' attention. It was now or never.

Her sole focus on getting in and out before being caught, she didn't hear the approach of footsteps until it was too late.

“I knew you'd come for him.”

Annie's hand froze on the latch of the gate. Her heart went solid in her breast, and every drop of blood in her body sank to her feet.

That voice had haunted her for four years, lying in the back of her memory like the shadow of a beast.

She turned slowly. The shadow detached itself from a tall cottonwood and the face of her worst nightmare appeared in the pre-dusk glow.

“How did you find me?”

“Haven't you learned by now that you can't escape the long arm of the law?” His mouth slanted in a smile that turned her stomach. “Actually, you can thank your friend Corrigan.”

Brett? He wouldn't have told Ike where to find her.

“Never could keep your hands off the dark studs, could you Annie? Where is Corrigan, anyway?”

Annie refused to answer, afraid if he discovered Corrigan was roosting just above them, he'd send his men after Brett.

Instinct had her searching for an avenue of escape. In front of her, men crowded around the buckboard, indifferent to her plight. Behind her, the canyon wall loomed; to her left, the pasture, and to her right, a grove of cottonwoods.

“I wouldn't try it,” Savage warned.

Gripping her hair tightly in his thick fist, he prodded her into the stables and gave her a shove. Annie stumbled but she reined in her panic, knowing she couldn't let him get her riled or she'd make a mistake.

Think, Annie.

She had her revolver in her boot. Did she risk shooting him and drawing the attention of his men?

Something else. Something quiet. Her knife!

Annie wasn't sure how much damage it would do to his thick skin, but if she caught him unawares she could jump on his back—slice his throat. . . .

“Oh, this place brings back memories, don't it?” He stood in the warped doorway, hands braced on either side of him against the frame. She kept the bile down her throat and her eyes on his back as she worked the knife out of her pocket. She could barely make out the stocky shape of one of the Indians inspecting the contents of a crate. “Looks like Ole Quanah is gonna be right pleased with the goods that stallion bought him. Poor bastards don't even realize all the guns in the world aren't gonna help them. But what can you expect from a bunch of dumb savages?”

Fury rose inside Annie, and without thinking, she went after Ike with teeth bared. For such a large man, he was exceedingly swift. He spun around, seized her by the wrist and flung her to the ground like a pesky fly. The knife skidded across the floor and landed beneath an old work table. He picked it up, then dragged the blade down his thumb with a smile.

Breathing rapidly, Annie realized too late that her attack had only incited the animal in him. She scrambled to her feet with a sense of déjà vu. Now she'd have to take her chances with the revolver. She could only hope his mass would muffle the sound. If not . . . she could always use the second bullet on herself.

“Ohh, sweet Annie, you just never learn, do you?” His fingers lightly grazed her jaw and she shied away from his touch. “What other weapons you got hiding under there?”

Annie fought for all she was worth as he roughly searched her. Her resistance only delighted him, but she could not let him find her revolver—

“Ah, what's this?”

She almost wept when he pocketed the Smith and Wesson. As her whole body went limp, he laughed a graveling, bottled sound. “Oh, Annie,
Annie
—you've become quite the little outlaw, haven't you?” His smell choked her, his body crushed her to the wall.

Without her weapons, Annie knew her only chance of coming out of this alive was to feign surrender and catch him unprepared. So when his hand glided down her throat, she forced herself not to cringe. She nearly lost her lunch, though, when his tongue paved a slimy path down her neck. Eyes closed, stomach churning, she inched down the wall . . .

“Looks like I'm interrupting something.”

Her attention snapped to the doorway, where Brett strode boldly in. Annie nearly wilted with relief before fear soared inside as, in her mind's eye, she saw history repeat itself.

“Beg pardon.” He tipped his hat. “Just wanted to thank you for catching my horse.”

Annie could hardly believe her eyes when Brett started back for the door. He planned on
leaving
her? With Ike? Not doing anything to help her?

The incredulity must have struck Savage, too. “You must think I'm a real chump to fall for this act. I've seen the way you look at her.”

“Her? She does look damn good—for a dead woman. But like you tried to warn me, Savage, once a thief, always a thief.”

Brett swaggered toward Annie. Unlike Sekoda, who had let anger rule his actions, he remained dangerously cool and calm. When he drew his finger down her cheek, it was all she could do not to melt against him.

“She's very good at what she does, though. She woos you, wins your trust. Then the minute you turn your back, she sinks a blade into it.”

At first Annie thought it part of some performance. But the cold glint in his eyes and the bitter note in his tone told her this was no act. He thought she'd been trying to steal the stallion. Her heart plummeted and to her shame, her eyes stung. She wanted to cry out, “How could you think I'd betray you?” She'd bared her soul to him. She'd shared her body with him.

She'd lost her heart to him.

But she kept silent, afraid if Savage learned how much Brett had come to mean to her, he'd kill him just to make her pay again.

“So, if you don't mind. . . .” Brett tapped two fingers to his hat. “I'll just take my horse and be on my way.”

She watched as he backed out the door, still unable to believe he'd not even try to help her.

Savage slapped his palm against the door, hindering Brett's exit. “You aren't taking that horse nowhere.”

“The thousand dollars I paid her for his capture says I will.”

Annie perked up, alerted that this
was
some sort of a ploy: no fee had ever reached her hands.

“But Annie didn't catch it,” Savage sneered.

Brett pointed out. “Neither did you.”

“I made my own arrangements for his capture,” Savage thrust out his chest as if to intimidate Brett with the badge pinned to his vest. “And if you try taking that horse, I'll string you from the nearest tree.”

“Well, it seems you and I are at a standstill, Sheriff. We both claim possession of the same unmarked horse. In my mind, there's only one way to settle this.” He reached inside his vest pocket.

In a the blink of an eye, Savage had the Colt drawn from his low-slung holster, cocked, and aimed at Corrigan.

With a flat smile, Brett extracted a worn deck of playing cards and held them up between his thumb and forefinger.

The sheriff's face turned a murky shade of embarrassed red, then he lowered the pistol to his side. Annie mentally timed how long it would take her to snatch it from his grip, only to realize that he was watching her.

“Care to make a wager?” Brett asked, removing the sleeve and ruffling the pack.

“What kind of wager?” Ike demanded.

“Five-card stud. Winner gets everything he deserves. And if you want to make the stakes more interesting, you could throw in the woman. I don't have much need for her, but she did have her . . . uses.”

The deliberate journey his gaze took should have been as insulting as the remark. Instead, to Annie's shame, it coaxed a warmth low and deep in her middle. The fact that she could still respond to him humiliated her more than what Savage had done.

While Brett dragged the work table into the center of the floor and set up the game, Annie kept her eyes on Savage, unwilling to miss a chance to snatch his revolver out of its holster. At one point he turned his back toward her, but just as Annie leaned forward and her fingers closed over the handle, Brett caught her eye. An almost imperceptible shake of his head made her release the weapon. They just couldn't risk bringing on the rest of the men.

After the longest fifteen minutes, Brett smiled and splayed his cards. “Well, lookee there, Savage. Three aces.”

Ike stared at the hand. Then a slow, nasty sneer pulled at his mouth. “You're good, Corrigan, but your aces don't beat my pretty ladies.” He spread four stone-face queens atop the table.

Brett gaped at the cards for a moment. Then he leaped up from the stool. “You pulled that diamond from your sleeve!” His rage sounded so genuine that she almost believed the performance.

At least . . . she
hoped
it was a performance . . .

“You callin' me a cheat?” Savage asked in a threatening tone.

“Damn right,” Brett shot back.

In one swift motion, the table flipped over; cards went flying everywhere. Ike trampled them beneath his feet he charged toward Brett and slammed head-first into his stomach. Both men crashed through the doorway, onto the dirt outside.

Savage's men instantly congregated, drawn by the entertainment of a good fight.

Brett got in a couple good blows as they rolled in the dirt, but within minutes, Savage clearly had Brett overpowered. The fingers pressing into Brett's windpipe turned his face purple.

Annie snapped. She'd lost one man because she'd been submissive—she'd not lose another.

Spotting an old rope near the eave post, she fashioned it into a lasso; at the same time, Brett gained a surge of strength and shoved the three-hundred-pound man off him. Brett gasped and grabbed his throat while Savage staggered backward, only to have his own men push him back in the circle. Just as he reached back toward his holster, Annie's lariat looped around the nose of the revolver. With a yank of the rope she wrenched it from his hand, and in a movement that would have made Joe Flick proud, Annie had Savage's own weapon pressed against his temple.

Around them, the air went suddenly still.

“I've never killed a man before, but believe me, it would give me great pleasure to make you the first.”

Sweat ran down Savage's face. She knew he was itching to knock her out of the way. She almost dared him to, because one slip of her trigger finger and his brains would be splattered from here to hell and back.