Elizabeth Lane (24 page)

Donovan froze, his mind churning. Spade had not seen him. It might be possible to take him from behind and-But what was he thinking? There were too many innocent lives involved in such a risk. A wild shot could hit one of the children. Or the sound of a scuffle could summon the murderous Cherokee upstairs in a flash, and there would be terrible reprisals.

As he hesitated, Spade turned and saw him. His fat, dullish face smiled in the red darkness as he raised the pistol and thumbed back the hammer.

Donovan backed off slowly, hands open to show that he meant no harm. Spade’s crooked teeth glinted as he replaced the gun on his lap. His odd, high-pitched giggle echoed off the walls.

Sweating lightly, Donovan slipped into Sarah’s room. She was fast asleep on the bed, her face camelia pale in the faint light, as clean boned as a small boy’s below the thatch of tousled hair. Her outflung arms were bare and painfully thin, but where the light fell across her body, the low-cut gown revealed the still-seductive swell of her breasts.

Donovan’s throat tightened at the sight of her. Sarah didn’t deserve to be here, he reminded himself. It was his own accursed meddling that had brought her to this. That she had risen above the danger with so much grace and courage was a tribute to the woman she was, and had always been.

Sarah had struggled to build a life for herself here in Miner’s Gulch, a life of caring for others. In his blind pride, he had snatched that life away from her. Whatever else the future held, he carried a sacred obligation to restore what he had destroyed.

Aching with tenderness, Donovan stood beside the bed and gazed down at her beautiful, sleeping face. “I’m going to get you out of here, Sarah,” he vowed in an emotion-choked whisper. “Whatever I have to do, whatever it costs me, I’m going to give you back your life.”

Sarah stirred in the darkness, whimpered softly and settled back into slumber. Fumbling at the foot of the bed, Donovan found the folded satin comforter that lay there and spread it lightly over her, from her bare shoulders to her slippered toes. Gently his hands worked the emerald satin shoes from her feet and placed them side by side on the carpet.

“Sleep, love,” he whispered. “Sleep and be safe.”

He bent close to brush a kiss on her rumpled curls, then turned and walked softly from the room.

“N
o!”

Sarah writhed on the bed as the nightmare swept over her. Flames leaping in the darkness. The splintering door. Rough hands bruising her flesh, jerking her screaming body downward over the hard, sharp edge of each wooden step, then dragging her by the wrists through the cold muddy slime of the alley. MacIntyre’s livid face. The nauseating stench of molten tar…

The dream had tortured her so many times that it had taken on a familiar pattern. But this time it was more than a dream. Every detail was etched to razor-sharp clarity. Sarah could observe all that was going on, almost as if she were watching herself in a play. And yet it was happening
to
her. The jarring physical agony was real. The gutwrenching fear was real. The rage and loathing that emanated from the little group of men burned to the core of her soul.

“No, please—”

They were dragging her toward the fire now, almost wrenching her arms from their sockets as they swung her in a sickening arc to crumple in a rain puddle at MacIntyre’s feet.

MacIntyre’s boots were caked with mud and with manure from the livery stable, and for one horrible instant, Sarah was afraid he would trample on her face. Instead, his
brutish fist seized the knot of her hair, ripping it upward with a force that threatened to twist her head from her body. A knife blade flashed in the firelight. Sarah screamed, again and again….

Here the nightmare had always faded, leaving her sweat soaked and gasping in the darkness. This time, however, the dream did not stop. Like a runaway train, it plunged ahead to crash with shattering force through the protective barriers of Sarah’s memory.

She felt the knife hacking away her hair, lock by lock, releasing her weight as it slashed each taut strand. Rough fingers clawed at her muddy shirtwaist, snapping the buttons from their anchoring threads, yanking at the sleeves until there was nothing left of them. Hands—she did not even know whose—clutched her breasts through the thin muslin chemise, fondling and squeezing as she screamed.

Other hands ripped away her skirt, her petticoats. Fingers probed, jabbed and clutched between her thighs. The air reeked with lust and seethed with the odor of boiling tar as she kicked, struggled and pleaded. She heard MacIntyre swearing as he stirred the sooty kettle. She glimpsed someone’s blackened fingers fumbling with a belt buckle….

“No—for the love of heaven—”

A shot, then—yes, she remembered clearly now—the shot, ringing out in the darkness. The whinny of a horse and the jingle of a harness. A wagon thundering up the street, and a voice-
Donovan’s voice.

Sarah stirred in her sleep. A sweet peace settled over her as, in the dream, he caught her up and lifted her in his strong arms. Yes—how could she not have known it was Donovan who’d saved her? She remembered all of it now-how his gentle hands had undressed her, bathing her bruised and muddy limbs, tucking her tenderly into the bed. She remembered how his arms had cradled her in the
steam tent, how his body had warmed her when she shivered with fever in the cold night.

How could she have forgotten?

She lay still now, drifting silkily between sleep and wakefulness as the memory sang inside her. She had felt so alone, forsaken by everyone except the women above Smitty’s saloon. But it was all right now. Donovan had been there. He had cared for her with loving tenderness, and no matter what happened now-”Miss Sarah!”

The tiny voice, piping in Sarah’s ear, awakened her like a shot. Her eyes blinked open to see Katy standing next to the bed, tugging anxiously at a corner of the coverlet.

Sarah’s heart froze with sudden fear.

“What is it?” she whispered, reaching out to pull the little girl onto the bed beside her.

“I’m scared, Miss Sarah!” Katy burrowed into the hollow of Sarah’s arms, her body trembling like a baby rabbit’s. “It’s dark, and I don’t like it here. I don’t like those bad men. And I don’t like the way you’re acting. It isn’t nice!”

“Oh, Katy!” Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes as she pressed der cheek to the soft tangle of curls. “I’m scared, too, sweetheart,” she whispered. “But we all have to be brave until we can get you and the others out of here.”

“Then why don’t you be nice to us?” Katy pushed away to gaze up at Sarah with round, clear eyes. “Don’t you like us anymore?”

“Of course I do. It’s just that for now, I have to pretend to be someone else, someone who can’t be nice to you. Do you think you can—” Sarah broke off as the full implication of Katy’s presence dawned in her sleep-dulled mind. “Katy! How did you get out of the room? Where are the other children?”

“Asleep. Everybody was asleep but me. I crawled under Mr. Spade’s legs and came looking for you.” Katy blinked
in the darkness like a little owl. “What’s the matter, Miss Sarah?”

“Shh! I’ve got to figure out a way to get you out of here!” Sarah’s mind lurched to a frantic gallop. The stairs, if the back door was unlocked and unguarded—but no, Cherokee would have seen to it that no one could escape that way. She would have to think of something else.

The window—yes, there would be people outside in the street. She could use a sheet to lower Katy down to them, then go back for as many of the others as she could smuggle out before Spade awakened.

Cold fear gripped her throat as she considered what might happen if she were caught. Dooley would take reprisals—on her, certainly, maybe even on Faye, Zoe or George, as well.

Or on the remaining children.

Or on Donovan.

For the space of a breath Sarah almost lost heart. But no, as Donovan’s niece, Katy was in more danger than any of the others. Surely Donovan would choose to take the risk.

“Go over by the window, Katy,” she whispered into the danger-charged darkness. “Wait and be still.”

As the little girl tiptoed to the far corner of the room, Sarah flung back the coverlet and began stripping the top sheet from the bed. She moved with speed and stealth, her heart pounding so violently that she was almost afraid someone might hear it. Her hands folded the sheet cornerwise, stretching it to achieve the most length. Then she knotted one end into a child-size sling.

Behind the threadbare velvet curtain the window was broken, its sash and frame shattered in Sarah’s effort to warn the children away from the saloon. Her fingers groped along the edge, feeling for shards of broken glass that could cut Katy as she scrambled through.

In the street below, people milled in small, tense clusters or slumped dejectedly on the stoops of nearby buildings. Katy would be all right, Sarah reassured herself. The second-floor
window was not dangerously high. Someone would surely see the little girl and assist her the rest of the way to the ground.

“Come on,” Sarah whispered to Katy. “I’ll help you into the sling, then I’ll lower you out the window. Here, let’s make sure it’s going to work. That’s a good girl!”

Katy submitted bravely to the sling. When Sarah hefted her off the floor in it, she dangled in midair with a confident little smile. But climbing out the window was an entirely different matter. When Sarah tried to lift her over the sill, Katy grabbed her neck and clung for dear life.

“I can’t do it, Miss Sarah! It’s too far! I’ll fall!”

“Try, Katy!” Sarah whispered frantically. “All you have to do is hold tight to the sheet! Do that, and I promise you’ll be fine! Let go of me, now…that’s my brave girl!”

By now people in the street had spotted the movement in the window. Sarah’s heart sank as a voice bawled out of the darkness.

“Look! Somebody’s up there! They’re tryin’ to get out!”

Katy’s arms locked around Sarah’s neck as the noisy crowd swarmed beneath them. “I’m scared,” she whispered, pressing her face into the hollow of Sarah’s neck. “What if nobody catches me?”

“You’ll be all right, love,” Sarah whispered. “Please believe me. All you have to do is—”

“Hold it right there, Miz Lyddie!”

Spade stood outlined in the bedroom doorway, his pistol cocked and leveled. Sick with fear now, Sarah gathered Katy tight against her. There might still be a chance to fling the child out the window. But it was only a chance, and the dangers were fearful. If no one caught her, Katy could be badly hurt, even killed. And if Spade chose to fire his pistol…No, Sarah concluded, the risks were too great. She could move fast, but not fast enough to outmaneuver a bullet that might hit Katy.

“’Pears to me you think more of them kids than you let on,” Spade drawled nasally.

“Let her go, Spade!” Sarah whispered, clasping Katy close. “Let them all go! I’ll give you money, gold, anything.” Rash promises, from one who had nothing to give, Sarah knew. But she had reached the edge of desperation.

Spade probed a nostril with his index finger. “Uh-huh. An’ Dooley’d shoot me dead for sure. C’mon.” He stepped to one side of the doorway and motioned with the pistol barrel for her to follow. “Looks like I got to keep you corralled with the others.”

Still carrying Katy, Sarah let him usher her down the hall into Faye’s room, where three of the children—the boys-lay tangled on the bed like a litter of sleeping pups. George had stretched out on the rug with a spare pillow and blanket. Faye, drawn and haggard in the darkness, sat in her carved cherrywood rocker with little Molly Sue Gordon sprawled in slumber across her lap. Her eyes met Sarah’s in anguished sympathy, but she did not speak.

Sarah found a space at the side of the bed and settled herself cross-legged on the floor. Katy had begun to cry softly as the fear settled in, pooling wet tears along the hollow of Sarah’s collarbone. Sarah cradled the little girl close, crooning a whispered lullaby as she savored the sweetness of a child in her arms. Dear, spunky little Katy. The daughter of her truest friend. The precious niece of the man she would love forever.

To save Katy and the others, she would give her life without hesitation.

As the small, sob-racked body relaxed in sleep, Sarah closed her eyes and, for the first time since waking, allowed herself to think about Donovan.

He had said he loved her—loved
her,
and not the laughing ghost of Lydia Taggart. Once his words would have made her heart soar. Now she could only reflect that he had spoken them too late. The odds that they would both come through this ordeal alive were too grim to contemplate. Her dream of happiness would die, as her dreams always died.
It was part of her punishment, the price she paid for her wickedness.

They had no promise of a future, she and Donovan. Their only time was the bleak and dangerous present, their only happiness the few morsels they could snatch here and now from the jaws of darkness.

Katy was sleeping soundly by now. Her russet head lolled in the curve of Sarah’s shoulder. Her warm breath was as sweet as new hay, as innocent as springtime.

Outside, it had begun to storm again. Rain battered the roof overhead as Sarah leaned against the side of the bed and tried to make herself comfortable. She would not sleep again, she knew. Time was too short. Life was too dear.

Donovan had been playing five-card stud with Dooley and Cherokee when the commotion started in the street outside. Acting on reflex, he’d bolted out of his chair, only to be halted by the sound of Dooley cocking his lever-action Spencer.

“Siddown, Cole, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The big man kept the rifle leveled at Donovan until he resumed his seat, then nodded brusquely at Cherokee. “Go on upstairs and make sure everything’s under control. We’ll hold the game.”

Dooley fiddled with his cards as the half-breed glided up the stairs. “I’ve learned not to ask Cherokee what’s goin’ on,” he said. “Sneaky little bastard can’t tell me nothin’ nohow. Can’t even write it down, ‘cause he don’t know how to write, and he don’t like makin’ signs with his hands.”

“Have you thought any more about what I said?” Donovan asked, pressing the subject while he had the chance.

“About them claims? Hell, I don’t know. It sounds pretty damned complicated to me. Safest thing would be for me to ride outa here soon as them fool townies deliver the horses and vittles, with a couple of them kids tied across the saddle ‘case anybody gets too close.”

Donovan leaned back in his chair, struggling to appear detached and uncaring. “Like I say, the kids are liable to die on you. I won’t.”

“And kids won’t shoot me in the back or turn me over to the law. No dice there, Cole. But…” He chewed his lower lip while Donovan held his breath. “I don’t suppose it’d hurt to look around for them claim papers. If you find ‘em, maybe we can deal. If not, there ain’t no sense even talkin’ about it.”

“I’ll need Lydia to help me look.”

“Fine. Get her. But we finish the game first. I don’t want my quiet friend gettin’ suspicious.”

Donovan glanced up to see Cherokee moving back down the stairs. He picked up his cards again, pretending to peruse his hand as the half-breed slid back into his chair.

“Everything all right up there?” Dooley asked him.

Cherokee nodded, his face as expressionless as a hatter’s dummy. One brown finger nudged two chips to the center of the table. From outside, a roll of thunder echoed through the thin plank walls of the saloon.

“Damned rain,” Dooley muttered. “Leastwise, it oughta quiet down them fools in the street. Maybe slow up the posse, too. But the mud’ll make for hard goin’ and easy trackin’ when we ride outa here.” He glanced impatiently from the clock to the door. “Hells bells, them supplies ought to be here by now! What happened to that damn fool whore we sent outside?”

Only the rain answered him, its rhythmic dirge drumming through the windowless walls. The dampness that seeped through the cracks was gloomy and cold. Donovan suppressed a shiver as he watched Cherokee shuffle the cards. The dark gunman’s movements were swifter than sight, his small, thin hands wasting no motion. His eyes were as bland and unblinking as a snake’s. Where were his vulnerable spots? Donovan wondered. Every man had at least one—an unsteady hand, a bad eye, a temper that
eclipsed good judgment. But apart from Cherokee’s lack of speech, no weakness showed itself.

Fathoming Dooley was easier. He was a bully, given to excesses of rage and intemperance. A man who craved
ac
ceptance, even from his enemies. There had to be a way to play one man off the other, Donovan calculated. With the women and children as hostages and no weapon of his own, it was his only chance of beating them.