The Marshal's Rebellious Bride (27 page)

“He’s going to Texas, right after the wedding.” She
gulped down the pain. “He never really intended to give up marshalling. He lied
to me.”

Brandy frowned. “I don’t… How do you know this?”

She glanced toward the Dusty Trails. “I overheard Taos
and Chase.”

She couldn’t stand to stay put another second. She
would go back to the ranch and then, if that lying marshal wasn’t there, she’d
ride out until she found him. She was going to take her gun with her. She was
going to shoot his lying head off.

Storming down the boardwalk, she ignored Brandy
calling after her to slow down, and refused to acknowledge anyone calling out
in concern to her. She ached from her head to her toes.
Especially
around the heart area.

Tyler came happily out of the general store, but lost
his smile when she barely even noticed him and began running down the
boardwalk. From well behind her, she heard him worriedly ask Brandy, “What’s
wrong? Why is she so upset?”

“Hold up, Whiskey,” Brandy called out.

She couldn’t. She didn’t want to stop and let them
catch up with her. She wanted to be alone right now. She ran faster until she
reached the front of the last building on the edge of town, Wright, Beverly
& Co. For just a second she hesitated to catch her breath, pleased that
there wasn’t any wagon or horse traffic to keep her from crossing Front Street
to get to the livery stable where they’d left the ranch wagon. Her brothers
could take care of getting her sister and Tyler back to the ranch.

Suddenly she tensed. She heard a heavy breath, smelled
something foul, and felt that twinge of unease again.
Stronger
this time.
Now she wished she’d waited for her sister, wished there was
street traffic.

A man’s muscled arm snaked around her waist before she
could move. How he’d come up behind her so fast she didn’t know. But he had
firm hold of her and pulled her roughly back against him. The air went out of
her in a loud whoosh. “Not so fast,
senorita
.”

In that instant she knew who had her: Rafe Marino.
Morgan had been worried about this man coming to town to harm his son, or kill
him. He’d warned her time and again to be careful. So had her brothers. As
always, she’d done as she wished. Now she just might pay with her life.

She struggled within his hold but he had amazing
strength. His stale breath nearly made her gag as he breathed down her neck.
Furious, she shouted, “Let go of me!” She grabbed at his constraining arm,
clawed at it.

He merely laughed and refused to release her. “A real
hell cat, aren’t you, little one? I like that in my women.”

She felt nauseous at being so close to this evil man.
She kicked her booted foot forward and then backward connecting with his shin.

He cursed her in Mexican and gripped her tighter,
nearly cutting off her breath.

She swayed and the world became fuzzy. “Let me go,”
she gasped.

“I just wanted me a little kiss. Now you’re going to
pay for being such a bitch.”

He went still, listening and then glanced down the
road seemingly pleased that no one had noticed them. “Yes, you’re going to pay.
The things I will do…”

“You’ll have to…kill me first.” It was getting harder
to talk, harder to keep from slumping in his arms.

Again he laughed. “That would be all right with me,
hell cat. It would not stop me from…”

Just when she was about to give up hope, she heard
movement coming up behind them. Too late she realized it had to be Brandy and
Tyler. She wanted to call out to stop them, but she couldn’t find the breath to
speak.

Brandy barreled up behind him and launched herself at
his back. “You let my sister go!” she screeched in his ear, arms wrapped
tightly around his neck.

He shook right and left in an attempt to fling Brandy
from his back, but she refused to be flung off. All the while his hold on
Whiskey remained strong.

“I will kill you both!” he raged, still shaking about.

Then Tyler, too, flew at him and pulled at Marino’s
arms holding her.

“You let her go!” Tyler shouted, terrified.

Her ribs hurt. She was almost on her last breath, but
she had to hang on and hope.
For her sake, for Brandy’s sake,
for Tyler’s sake.

Brandy tried to dig for his eyes and he lost all
control of his temper. In fury, he moved backward until he could smash her
against the wall of the building.

She cried out in pain yet somehow remained in place.

Whiskey tried to use her numbed fingers to tug at his
arm, but she might as well not have bothered. Her effort just made him madder.

He thrust his body backward once more, harder. This
time Brandy didn’t cry out. This time all Whiskey heard was a loud
Thunk
! Then Marino’s body shifted and Brandy landed in an
unconscious heap behind them.

Tyler had been tripped up by
Whiskey’s feet dragging along
.
He’d landed on his face, scrapped his cheek raw. Now he looked up dazed and
horrified.

She could barely think straight she was so light-headed.
But when her captor reached for his gun and she knew he was going to shoot
Tyler, somehow she managed to croak, “No! He’s just a boy!”

“Don’t rightly care.”

He tightened his hold again around her waist and she
sensed him looking more closely at Tyler. His voice lowered, darkened. “Ain’t
you
Rydell’s
son?”

Tyler’s eyes widened and he paled. He didn’t say a
word.

But the man lost interest in Tyler. He grabbed her
head and forced her to look at him. They studied each other for a second. He
was filthy dirty. Shoulder-length, scraggly black hair that hadn’t seen a
cleaning in a while blew in the breeze above the collar of his long-unwashed
red shirt. Beady, dark eyes focused on her.

Finally he snarled, “You’re the marshal’s woman, ain’t
you? Heard rumors about you. Red head with a spitfire temper.”

He sneered and drew his gun to hold it against her
head. “Unless you want me to put a bullet in that boy’s head,” he nodded toward
the crumpled body of her sister, “and in that twin of
yers
,
you’ll come with me. One bit of struggle out of you and they’re dead.
Understand me?”

Tears streamed down Tyler’s scratched and bleeding
face. He looked both horrified and helpless. Brandy
was
helpless. She didn’t want to think about what this man might
have in mind for her. All she knew was that she would do anything to save both
Tyler and Brandy.

She gasped, “Yes. I…I’ll go with you.”

“Good decision.”

Gun still held against the side of her head, he
dragged her with him to the far side of the building. His horse was tied to a
post and he picked her up with little trouble to toss her face down over the
saddle. Then he climbed up behind her and whipped his horse into movement. They
flew in a cloud of dust around the building and off away from town.

Chapter
Eleven

Morgan rode into town to find a large gathering of men
on horseback and people standing around someone evidently on the boardwalk. His
gut churned.
Trouble, big trouble.
He’d felt an urgent
unexplainable need to leave the men rounding up cattle and to get back to the
ranch. After learning from Manuel that Whiskey, Brandy and Tyler had gone into
town earlier, that urgent need to see Whiskey had grown even stronger. Dread
had filled him for the last couple of miles. He’d ridden Demon hard to get
here, and now…

“What’s going on?” he barked, driving his horse
closer, forcing aside some of the other riders.

No one answered, although several of the men he’d seen
around town before gave him cautious glances. What the hell was that about?

He pushed even closer. “What’s happening?” he demanded
again. His stomach tightened, with each second he sensed that some kind of
danger was increasing.

Wyatt stood on the far edges of the crowd with Bat and
Doc, too far away to have heard his questions over the mutterings of the crowd.
Whiskey’s two dancer friends were trying to see through the throng of people at
whoever was on the boardwalk.

From behind him one of the riders nervously said,
“It’s bad, Marshal Rydell.”

His heart nearly
stopped
as
he suddenly knew it had to be something to do with Whiskey. Something horrible
had happened to her.
God, don’t let her
be dead!

Trying not to think the worse, he wondered where was
Brandy? Where was Tyler? The man hadn’t mentioned of them. Frantic for answers,
he yelled out, “Where’s Brandy? Tyler?” He looked around in puzzlement. “Where
the hell are Taos? Keno? Chase?”

Almost in answer to his shout the crowd parted. Dr.
Peterson looked grim as he stepped back from Brandy, who sat propped up in
Chase’s arms. She appeared glassy-eyed and swayed slightly as his brother held
her.

He sighed with relief that it wasn’t Whiskey, and then
felt immediately guilty. It was bad enough that Brandy had somehow gotten injured.
Still, he tensed even more, not seeing Whiskey or Tyler.

Forcing his horse forward again, he asked warily,
“Will she be all right? What happened?”

The crowd grew silent, tension radiated from everyone
there. His gut knotted. This wasn’t the worst of whatever had happened, he
sensed that and braced himself for the answer.

Taos and Keno came walking through the
back side
of the crowd, from the alley. He’d only once
before seen such rage on Taos’s face. This had something to do with
Rafe
Marino. He was dead set certain of that.

Dr. Peterson helped Chase get Brandy to her feet, but
she swayed and would have collapsed if he hadn’t scooped her into his arms. He
held her gently and growled at Morgan, “You find that
sonofabitch
Marino. You cut out his damn heart.”

Tyler popped out from beside Camelia, who looked pale
as a ghost and had tears streaming down her face. She could barely speak yet
she managed to say, “He took her, Morgan. He took Whiskey.”

She crumpled into her father’s arms as he stood next
to her. “Oh, God, he took Whiskey!”

Whiskey’s
gone. Marino has her
. The words
tumbled through his mind but he had a hard time comprehending them. He sat
numbly atop Demon and watched his son make his way to him. Tyler’s face was
scratched and bleeding in a couple of places, like he’d fallen or been pushed.
It made him sick to think his son—the boy he loved so damn much—had
been anywhere near that murderous, outlaw bounty hunter.

Tyler looked up at him through tear-filled eyes.
“Brandy’s got a bad head bump. Doctor Peterson, he’s worried, but Chase swears
she’ll be all right.”

He sucked in a breath and tried to act so much older
than his young years. “I tried, Pa. I tried to protect ‘
em
.”
He swallowed hard, glanced at his dusty shoes and back up again. “He couldn’t
be stopped. He hurt Brandy.”

Morgan struggled with a rage as fierce as he saw on
the Wakefield brothers’ faces. Evidently Tyler thought he was angry with him,
blamed him, because he stepped quickly back. “I’m sorry, Pa. I tried. I failed.”

Taos and Keno moved protectively beside Tyler. Keno
said firmly, “You can’t blame the boy.”

What kind of man did they think he was? It hit him
even harder now just how much he’d hurt his son, continued to hurt him. He’d
have to deal with that later.

“Hell, I don’t blame Tyler! I’d
never
blame him,” he gritted out. “I blame myself. I should have
killed Marino long ago.” He sat so stiff his shoulders hurt. “I should
never
have brought such danger to your
family…to Brandy, to Whiskey.”

He cursed a blue streak and the crowd moved further
away. “I’ll bring him down this time or die trying.”

Tyler regained his courage to face his father and
inched closer again. “He took Whiskey. Said he’d kill me and Brandy
if’n
she didn’t go with him.” He shuddered, looked
defeated. “She said she’d go. She never even hesitated.”

She wouldn’t have. His woman protected animals nobody
else would want, her family…his son. She just might have given her life to keep
Tyler safe. He wanted to cry out his fury, his fear. But he held it tightly
within him.

“We’ll get him, Son. And we’ll bring her back.” There
were wanted posters out on Rafe Marino, dead or
alive
posters. He would bring him in dead. There was no other acceptable choice.
Maybe he wouldn’t bring the outlaw back at all; just let the vultures have at
him after he made sure the worthless bastard was dead.

“We’re all riding with you,” Wyatt said and drew his
attention as he strode up with Bat and Doc.

That was when Morgan looked up and realized the couple
dozen mounted men were ready to ride posse. But he knew from experience that too
many men riding together in fury could be more dangerous than helpful.