Out of Control (2 page)

“Get your hands off of me.”

He loosened his grip but didn't let go all the way because she had a ways to fall—about twenty feet straight down. Then he'd have to climb back down there and start this all over again.

She slapped him.

Which stung, and not just his cheek. After all, he'd considered doing the same thing to her—for medicinal reasons. Life and death, really. But he'd refrained. She should have given him the same benefit of the doubt.

“I think I'm ready to climb now.” She sounded much calmer. Deadly calm.

Rafe remembered a long time ago—how long had he been kissing her, anyway?—when getting out of the cavern was his main concern. Now he wasn't in such a big hurry. But he didn't want to get slapped again, either.

“Great. You've calmed down. Let's go.” As if getting himself slapped had been his plan all along.

He herded her toward the ladder. He'd dealt with enough kicking, snorting cattle and horses to have the knack.

He heard the chain rattle, so he figured she was obeying him. He was really looking forward to some light—even the dim light of the moon would be a big improvement.

And he was hoping for the best.

“This is a ladder?” She sounded confused. Young and beautiful and confused.

“Here.” Rafe took her hands and closed them around the chains, hoping she didn't attack. “Feel how it's two long chains with short ones between? It sags, so it all seems to hang down, but get your hands on the edges and your foot on the chain hooking the sides together, it's a ladder rung.”

“Where are the rungs?”

He crouched and, going by touch, found the chain and guided her foot—a very young foot as far as Rafe could judge—to the lowest step, which dangled about two feet above the ledge. She groped with her other foot for the next step up without his guidance. She was thinking clearly. The kiss had done the trick, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

And he guessed he had a hand-shaped red mark on his face to prove it.

He touched her foot on the second rung to make sure she'd found it. The way she trembled and fumbled for the rung, he knew he had to help her take each step. He didn't dare let her climb all the way alone. Considering the age of this ladder, he should. But he saw her falling—very vividly, considering he couldn't see her. He stayed below her so they weren't both on a rung at the same time, but the sides of the ladder were bearing double weight.

Rafe had no choice, so he followed her, guiding each foot. Rung by rung they climbed up.

As they climbed, he didn't look up, partly because there was a little bit of moonlight now, and he was afraid he'd see right up her skirt, but also—and this was actually the bigger part—because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to help but enjoy the view.

Her movements changed. He heard her fingers fumbling for a grip on stone. Judging by the light and his increased ability to see—staring straight forward—he knew she'd reached the top. He kept going, proud of himself for the way his eyes stayed fastened on the ladder. Ashamed of himself for having a fight on his hands to manage that behavior.

Then he gained the top and rolled off that ladder and out of that scowling cave mouth. “Every time I get out of that pit I feel like I've escaped from a wolf pack nipping at my heels.”

Or monsters. Or his worst nightmares.

Finally, lying on his back on the ground, he looked at the woman. The moon was out and he could see her well enough.

Not sixty.

Not even close.

Young and beautiful, for a fact, right down to her feet.

She was a barely grown woman. Her wild and curly hair washed blue in the moonlight. There was a remnant of a braid, but more hair had escaped than remained. Even in the dim light he could see her eyes were so wide with fear that all thoughts of skirts and ladders and wolves vanished in the face of her upset.

She had a black line from her temple, along her ear, and down the length of her long, graceful neck. The line spread into a black circle on her calico blouse that had to be blood. She wore a darker riding skirt. All the color was washed out to shades of blue and black in the moonlight. There was dirt under her fingernails. The woman was a mess.

How had she gotten down there?

He didn't ask because it wasn't really a good time. But he wondered how long he had to wait on that information.

They both scrambled to their feet and faced each other. There was so much gratitude and relief that he saw all the way to her soul and felt as if she saw to his, a very warm look beaming heat on his cold soul.

But mostly he just saw fear, eyes wild with fear. For a second he could see white all the way around.

Once, long ago, his horse had taken an unfortunate fall into a saguaro. His stallion still got a look similar to this lady's when they got too near a cactus.

And that was the only way this woman resembled his horse.

“Thank you.” She breathed deeply once, twice; then she threw herself at him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and knocked him over backward. For a terrifying second he thought he was going over the edge into the cavern. But his back landed on solid ground. She cut off his air, and though he was glad for the gratitude, he missed breathing.

Then he felt her woman's weight on him and decided breathing was overrated. He remembered the kiss of just a few minutes ago. Remembered it fondly and slid his arms around her waist . . . just as she started to cry.

That took the fun out of it.

Ma had cried a lot. In fact, looking back, that's almost all he remembered about his ma.

A fair-to-middling cook who cried a lot.

They could have carved it into her tombstone.

He'd been left all these years with the strange feeling that his mother had cried herself to death.

It had terrified him then, and it was worse now.

And being terrified didn't suit him, so he took action. “Let's go.”

He stood, helping her up. He glared at that cave for a second and then, with her still clinging to his neck, dragged the ladder up and left it lying on the ground beside her rope. He'd have to come back and stick it under the rock when he was all done with his rescuing. He sort of dragged her little clinging, crying, young and beautiful self along as he stepped well away from that gaping hole.

Dragging her was slowing him down. He swung her up in his arms and hurried toward his horse.

The fiery chestnut had never been ridden double, so Rafe wasn't sure how things would go. The woman seemed bent on draining all the salt and water from her body through her eyeballs. Rafe adjusted her so he held her in one arm and mounted up, then settled her on his lap. His stallion skittered sideways, but Rafe controlled him and aimed the horse toward the ranch and they set out at a fast walk.

“We'll gallop as soon as the horse adjusts to the double weight.”

The only response he got was a sniffle.

“What's your name?”

She cried harder. Rolling his eyes toward heaven, Rafe said, “As soon as I get down the steepest part of this mountain, the trail is level and clear of stones so we can speed up. Then I'll gallop for a while, so hold on tight.”

She had the grip of a cranky Apache warrior. Only it felt real nice.

He'd lost her!

He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. Frustrated to have missed his chance. He slipped back into the black depths of the cavern.

How had she been so quiet for so long? He'd even had his friend climb the rope and pull it up to trap her.

“I shouldn't have played with her, toyed with her.” He listened to his voice echo off the walls. As if he were down here with a dozen people, all agreeing with him. “Scaring her was fun.”

The others agreed.

“I loved it when she ran.”

In the pitch-darkness he'd been able to hear her terror. And he'd known that soon, soon he'd have her and she was the key to the treasure he wanted. Then suddenly he'd lost her. He'd searched for hours, but she never gave herself away. Her silence had been total.

But then he'd heard her screaming and had come fast, but the man had gotten to her first.

“Who was that who rescued her?”

The hoofbeats faded as he fumed.

“But she loves it down here. She'll be back.” He shouted that and listened to it echo. “Then I'll have what I want!” His laughter echoed back from the world of friends who surrounded him.

Friends?

No, only one friend. It was time to get him to come out.

Rafe spurred his horse to a ground-eating gallop and enjoyed her arms around him way more than was wise.

He figured a woman only had so much water to spare, so he let her cry and hoped she'd run dry soon. The tears finally slowed, and though afraid he'd set off more tears, Rafe cautiously repeated the most obvious question.

“What's your name?”

Pulling away from him, she looked as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Like maybe it had just occurred to her that she didn't know him at all.

He fetched a kerchief out of his hip pocket in case she had a speck of salt water left.

“What's yours?” It wasn't an answer, but at least she hadn't said
ladder
.

“I'm Rafe Kincaid.”

With a gasp she caught his left forearm. “I've heard of the Kincaid Ranch. I'm Julia.”

“Julia what?”

Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “I need to get home. My family will be frantic. They don't even know where I went, and I was down there a long time. A long, long time. A long, long, long time.” Her voice broke, and she buried her face against his chest again. Her arms went around his waist, and she held on as if she were still dangling over a deep hole.

That hole. That dark, brutally beautiful hole in the ground. He knew so exactly how she felt that he could have cried, too—if he was a weakling who wanted to act like a little girl.

He slid his left arm around her waist, while his right arm supported her quivering back and steered his stallion. He found a talent for doing all of that at once.

Every protective instinct in his body and soul, and that was a considerable amount, roared to life. “We'll get you home. I promise. I'm almost to my place. I'll get you something to eat and make sure you're all right, and then I'll take you home.”

The location of which was still unknown because Rafe had never gotten that information from her. He hadn't gotten her last name, either.

Based on the crying, he doubted he'd get it anytime soon.

Her arms tightened. As long as she had a good grip, Rafe kicked his horse into a faster gallop. As they raced across the rugged ground, he savored how alive and precious she felt in his arms.

He'd saved her. He'd found someone in that hole and saved her life.

He closed his eyes and let that knowledge pour over the terrible cold place where his soul should have been. It wasn't enough—saving her didn't penetrate it, but it warmed the edges a bit.

The ice had been there ever since he'd felt the crushing weight of that cavern all those years ago when he'd failed his brothers.

And he'd clung to that cold all these years, glad of it, because while it was there he could never be that terrified and weak and out of control again.

This woman, Julia, so vital, so vulnerable, had arms so warm that, for the first time in nearly a dozen years, he was tempted to let go of his icy control. But what if, after so much time, the cold shattered and all that he'd frozen away—his guilt and fear and shame—was too much for a man to bear. Worse yet, what if he thawed and found he was empty inside? His soul as black as that cavern.

He galloped for the ranch. Just as the cabin came in sight, Julia sat bolt upright.

“I have to go home.” In the darkness he could see her eyes were red from crying. Her lips trembled.

“We're almost home.” Rafe kept his horse moving. He needed to think clearly, and for some reason he couldn't seem to do that. A fact he blamed completely on her sitting on his lap.

“No,
my
home.” She clutched the front of his shirt and got a chunk of skin. “I haven't been thinking clearly. I was so upset.”

“Of course you're upset. I'll get you something to eat, get you cleaned up. And first thing in the morning we'll—”

“No, now. I have to go home now.”

Rafe looked at the moon already high in the sky. “We can't go tonight.”

“My family will be frantic.” Julia bit her bottom lip. Rafe urged his horse forward, hoping he could get her in the house while she was busy nagging at him to do something else. He couldn't ride his horse double the whole twenty miles to Rawhide. Especially if one of the riders was a weeping woman who seemed to solve all her problems by grabbing hold of him. He needed to get her away from him before she spent too much longer in his arms. Not wise to get used to it.

Julia squared her shoulders and held his gaze. “I'm Julia Gilliland. My father, Wendell Gilliland, owns the general store in Rawhide.”

He was almost surprised enough to quit galloping in a direction she didn't want to go. But not quite.

“I was just in Rawhide, in the general store. The man who owns it isn't named Gilliland.”

“Yes he is. Father has always run a store.”

“The owner of the store is Hymie Herne. He's owned it for years.”

“There must be two stores.”

“Nope, no new stores in town. Except . . .” Rafe paused. “There is a new little saloon. It's a dump. A shack that was abandoned and boarded up. The man who runs it—someone said his name. Uhhh . . . John . . . Gill. That's it.” Rafe paused again.
Gill? Gilliland?
“A short skinny man. Bald. He favored his right arm like he'd hurt it recently.”

“My father's middle name is John.” Her pretty lips curved down into a frown. “He's got a really ugly curved scar on the back of his right hand. But it's an old injury—there was nothing wrong with his arm when he was last home.”

“Maybe he got hurt since then.” Rafe rubbed his own ugly scar. John Gill had come into the general store while he'd been there, and Hymie had introduced them. He'd noticed John, or Wendell, or whoever the guy was, had a scar—it was hard to miss. “That's him. But he calls himself by a different name.”

“Why would he do that?”

Good question.

Rafe had been in town for supplies, and he'd also gotten that letter from Ethan. He'd just given a list to Hymie when John or Wendell had come in, his temper steaming like the stinking cigar he had clamped in his teeth, and shoved past Rafe and demanded to go first. Hymie had told him to hold his horses, and Rafe had thought John might throw a fist. But then the man had flinched and grabbed his arm as if it hurt.

Though it didn't suit Rafe to be pushed around, he told Hymie to go ahead with the new customer, since Rafe had other business in town.

Later, Hymie had told Rafe about the new saloonkeeper in town and pointed out the tumbled-down shack that didn't look to be big enough for a whiskey bottle, let alone customers. Though Hymie said a man could get a poker game there anytime of the day or night.

But nowhere in the talk of John Gill had there been any mention of a daughter. And Julia had said
family
. So was there a mother, and other children? Rawhide wasn't that big. Rafe hadn't seen the slightest sign of any women. And he'd eaten at the diner and talked with several other men. He'd heard about neighboring ranches, cattle prices, who was sick, rumors of gold and silver strikes, who was gone from the area, and who was new to town. What he'd never heard was talk of a woman.

Wendell was an ugly little man with an attitude to match. But this was a hard land so Rafe had some patience with hard men. Rafe's pa had been a man as harsh and wild as these mountains in winter. Rafe was a hard man, too. He prided himself on it.

Throw in the way John or Wendell had cradled his arm to his chest. With all of that, Rafe had still come away with a real poor impression of Wendell “John Gill” Gilliland. And none of that explained the unknown family.

“We'll get you to your pa first thing in the morning. It's a long rugged ride to Rawhide and we can't make it across that trail in the dark. But first thing—”

“What trail?”

“The trail to town.”

“But I don't want to go to town. I want to go home.”

Rafe fell silent. “You live in Rawhide.”

“No, I don't. In fact, if I hadn't been so upset, I'd have realized where we were riding and I'd have stopped you. I live about half an hour's walk from that cavern.”

“No you don't.”

Julia's brow furrowed over her puffy eyes. “I know where I live, Rafe.”

“But there's nothing up there and your pa owns the saloon in Rawhide.”

“The general store.”

“Whatever he owns”—absolutely
not
the general store—“it's in Rawhide. Why would he live twenty miles out of town?”

“It's not twenty miles. It's about five. And we live out there because Pa doesn't think it's safe in town. He says Rawhide is a rough place.”

“True, it is. But how can he protect you out there? And how'd you get all the way to that cavern if you live fifteen miles away from it?”

“I don't. It's about a half-mile walk, mostly uphill, but I enjoy rock climbing. And I need to get out of the house while the baby is napping.”

“Baby?”

Julia suddenly clutched Rafe's arm. “And once I found the cavern . . .” Her hand trembled on his wrist. Then she leaned closer as if to whisper a secret. “It's so beautiful down there, and . . . and I found fossils.”

“Fossils?” Rafe had been down there and he'd seen a lot of pretty rock formations, but . . . “I don't remember any fossils.” Of course, he wasn't real clear on what a fossil was.

Rafe thought some more about what she'd said. “A half-mile walk home, you say?” Since Rafe had just taken her on a long ride away from the cavern, that was bad news. Just past the cavern were a cliff and an impassable rushing stream; on this side was all Kincaid property, so that still didn't explain where she lived. “Why didn't you say something? Why'd you have me ride all the way to my place?”

Not that he really minded having a beautiful woman in his arms for miles and miles and miles.

Julia's brows lowered, and even in the starlight Rafe could see fire in her eyes. “I was very upset.”

Which was no more than the pure honest truth.

“I'd been down there a long time. I'm not usually given to nerves, but I've never mentioned that cavern to anyone, so I figured they'd have no idea where to look for me.”

Rafe had made the same mistake . . . when he was a kid. “You should've had more sense. If your pa”—and the baby, she'd definitely mentioned a baby—“had known where you'd gone, he'd've been able to come fetch you home.”

“The baby and Audra take a long nap in the afternoon. I've been taking hikes ever since we moved here. And when I found that cavern, I got a long rope and went down in it.”

Now there was an Audra?

“Reckless.”

Julia shrugged. “We've been out here since early in the spring. I've had a lot of time to hike. I found that cave opening, dropped a pebble in, and heard it hit bottom. Then I got a rope and lowered a lantern in so I was sure the floor was down there. The lantern lit the cave up enough I could see some stalactites and stalagmites.”

“Stag-what? You found a herd of deer down there?” Rafe shook his head. “Not likely.”

“I studied rock formations and fossils back East and this is a real find. I subscribe to a scientific journal and I hope to write a paper on this cavern.” Julia leaned closer, looked quickly left and right—which was silly since there was clearly no one else around. “I've been trying to get published in that journal for years. Now I've found such a lovely cave. And the fossils . . .” She gasped and got what could only be described as a look of wonder on her face. “Fish.”

“Fish?”

She nodded her head. “We've got to go back. I need to study it more carefully.”

“Go back where?”

“To the cavern.” She leaned closer, which Rafe found mighty pleasant. “There was someone down there. I got scared.”

Everything pleasant fled. “Someone else was down there?”

Julia's face fell into a frown. “I guess that means it wasn't you, right?”

“I never go in that place.”
Not anymore.
“I wouldn't have gone today if I didn't need to save you.”

“Well, someone was down there.” She gingerly touched her temple, coated with dried blood. “I was startled. Well, honestly, I was terrified. I doused my lantern and ran to hide from him. I must have bumped my head. I can't go down there alone again.” Then she perked up and smiled at him. “I know. You could go with me. We'll use your chain ladder.”

Then she jerked upright as if he'd stuck her with a pin. “You've got to take me home.”

“I did. We're home.” Rafe pulled his horse to a halt in the yard of Kincaid Ranch. “Steele!”

Rafe didn't need to yell. Steele was already ambling out of the barn. Rafe tossed his reins to Steele and swung down with Julia still in his arms.

Steele arched his bushy gray brows at the sight of a woman in Rafe's arms, but he didn't say a word. That was one of the things Rafe liked best about his foreman.