Child Bride (17 page)

Chase jumped out of the car, leaving her there to contemplate the situation. She decided to give them both some distance and let things cool down. But a short time later, as she was letting herself out of the car, she was startled to see a dozen men on horseback come galloping out of the nearby hills. They were headed straight for the cabin, and the moonlight illuminated a silver badge on the chest of the lead rider. A pack of search-and-rescue dogs preceded the horses.

The thunder of horses’ hooves brought Chase out of the cabin and down to the Bronco. “Looks like a manhunt,” he said, signaling for Annie to stay inside the car and duck down. He retrieved his shotgun from the backseat and waited for the men as they rode up, their horses blowing and snorting.

“Saddle up, Beaudine,” one of the men shouted. “We’ve got a jailbird on the run.”

“Who is it?” asked Chase, addressing his question to the county sheriff, the man leading the group and wearing the badge. Most of the other men in the posse were either law enforcement or ranchers and members of the local Cattlemen’s Association. Chase recognized several of the latter, including the foreman from the McAffrey ranch.

“Bad Luck Jack,” the sheriff said, quieting his dancing horse with a pat. “Don’t know how in hell he did it, but he made a break from one of my deputies’ patrol cars. My man got waylaid on a burglary call while he was transporting Jack to the courthouse. When he got back to the car, the prisoner was gone.”

“Seems like Jack’s luck has changed.” Chase’s voice was suffused with irony as he thought about the times he himself had tracked down and apprehended Jack. The cattle rustler had a reputation for being as incorrigible as he was inept. “Got any idea where he’s headed?”

The lawman tipped back his Stetson and scratched his forehead. “We lost his trail around Big Wash Canyon. Appears he might be heading for the state line, maybe thinking to cross the Canadian border by way of Montana. Thought you might like to get in on this, since you were the last one to bring him in.”

Chase would have liked nothing better than to get in on it. Finally something he understood: riding horses and tracking down bad guys. The pungent smell of excited horseflesh and sweaty leather was permeating his senses. But manhunts often took days, and he couldn’t leave Annie alone that long. No telling what his houseguest from hell would do with several days to kill! No one in the county would be safe.

“Sorry—not this time,” he told the sheriff. “Got some things to take care of. But you hound dogs don’t need me. You’ll get your man.”

“Have it your way,” the lawman said, signaling to his men. “But you’ll be missing all the fun. Let’s go!” As all twelve started off, Chase followed their progress with his gaze. He would like to have been riding with them, but it was more than that. He couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong with the strategy they had mapped out.

Inside the cab Annie waited for the sound of the horses’ hooves to recede before she raised her head. “Are they gone?”

“Long gone,” Chase said. “Come on out.”

By the time she’d slid over to the door on his side, he’d opened it for her and was offering a hand to help her out. But she could see by the distant look in his eyes that his mind was somewhere else. “What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve just got this feeling Jack’s given those guys the slip. The last time I tracked him, I found him holed up in an old mine shack by the Cripple Creek Warm Springs. I’ve got a funny feeling he’s gone back there again.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Wish I knew.” He shook his head. “Nah, it’s only a hunch ... unless he has something buried up there.”

“Hunches are important,” Annie said. “Maybe you ought to check it out.”

“And leave you here? Alone? I don’t think so, Missy.”

Annie felt a small stirring of relief at the almost affectionate way he’d referred to her. Well, maybe affectionate was too optimistic a word, but at least he hadn’t sounded angry. “If you’re really concerned about leaving me here, that’s easily solved. You could take me with you.”

As Chase regarded her askance, she hastened to add, “But only if you think it’s important to bring Bad Luck Jack back to justice. I know you’re the one who put him in jail, and it must be frustrating that he’s broken out, especially when you’ve got this hunch about where he is.”

He considered her skeptically. “Take you along?”

“Just so you wouldn’t have to worry about where I was and what I was doing. I wouldn’t get involved, of course. I’d stay completely out of your way. I wouldn’t even talk if you didn’t want me to. Not a word.”

He flipped up his Stetson and combed a hand through the exposed dark hair, thinking hard and looking as if his thought processes pained him greatly. Finally he swung around and headed for the corral.

“Chase? Where are you going?”

“To saddle up the horses. Get yourself a sleeping bag out of the back of the Bronco and throw enough food and supplies together for both of us for a couple of days.”

Annie closed her eyes and said a quick prayer of thanks. This is it, she thought. My miracle.

A
MAJESTIC BOWER
of blue oaks vaulted into the Wyoming night, blotting out the canopy of stars and filtering pale moonlight through their leafy arms. Where the trees thickened, the effect was a gloomy darkness, relieved only by hints of indigo.

After an hour on horseback Chase had allowed the nocturnal serenity to work its magic, tempering his mood a bit. He still wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision to bring Annie along, but it beat worrying about what she might be doing on her own. Chase didn’t want her alone in the cabin with an escaped convict on the loose. There was always the possibility that Bad Luck Jack might decide to pay a visit to the man who’d put him in jail.

The wind rose gently, creating a soft soughing in the trees. Lulled by the murmurous sounds. Chase found himself wondering how Annie was doing behind him. She’d been quiet the entire trip. He glanced over his shoulder. “Are you okay back there?”

“Yes,” she said, as though surprised he’d asked. “I’m fine.” A smile crept into her serious expression, and he realized how unused she was to consideration of any kind from him. It took damn little to please someone who had nothing, Chase thought.

And then realized he was thinking in platitudes, just as she did.

A moment later something made him glance back again, and as he did, he caught a mirrorlike flash of another woman, younger, almost a girl, her eyes wide with terror, her mouth twisted in a scream. The image was gone before he could discern any more details, but he knew who it was. Annie Wells, at sixteen.

He fought to bring her back, to remember—anything at all—but his mind jerked him to the present as mercilessly as it had dragged him into the past. With dizzying suddenness he found himself staring at a woman on horseback, at the Annie Wells he knew now. The moonlight was dancing in her hair; the night was casting shadows across her features, but he could see the confusion in her eyes as she urged her horse forward.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, riding up to him.

“No, I just thought I remembered something—”

“About me?”

The eagerness in her voice tugged at him, but he was feeling unsettled by what he’d seen, and he didn’t want her probing further. “No, it was something else—someone else.”

“Oh.” There was a world of disappointment in that one hurt word. She let her horse drop back, and Chase had to forcibly remind himself to stay silent. The need to explain, to be of comfort in some way, was stronger than he cared to admit. As they continued their ride, a silence fell between them, accentuated by the occasional eerie cries of a pack of coyotes in the distance.

It was another half hour before they reached their destination. Chase tied the horses in a nearby grove of aspens and left Shadow to watch them while he set up camp on a bluff above the mine shack. The site he chose had an unobstructed view of the weathered structure and enough natural rock formations to protect him and Annie from the wind and weather.

The mine shack appeared deserted, but Chase’s hunch about Jack grew even stronger as he settled himself against his rolled-up sleeping bag to take the first watch. Lying a few feet away on her own bag, Annie stared up at an inky sky, thick with twinkling stars.

She was so preternaturally quiet. Chase found himself glancing at her occasionally, and every time he did, his curiosity grew about the flashback he’d had of the terrified young girl. His former partners hadn’t been able to tell him anything about the incident because they hadn’t been there when he’d found her. Annie herself was the only one who knew the details.

He rested a hand on his thigh, feeling the ridges of the knife scar through the heavy denim of his jeans. “Tell me about Costa Brava,” he said quietly.

Annie turned to look at him. “What do you want to know?”

“Where I found you. How I got this wound ... everything.”

Annie pushed herself to a sitting position on arms that were suddenly weak and shaky. She’d told him most of the story that first day in his cabin, but she’d been frightened and desperate to convince him who she was. He’d resisted everything she’d said then. Now it seemed he might be ready to listen.

“I’d be dead if it weren’t for you,” she admitted. She fought to keep her voice steady as she described how the convent had been under attack, bombed by
insurgentes.
She’d been hiding in the chapel when one of the rebels discovered her and raised his rifle to kill her. The man had her in his sights when suddenly the weapon was torn from his hands by Chase’s bullwhip.

“He pulled a knife,” she explained, describing the vicious battle that ended with the
insurgente
dead and Chase stabbed. Fortunately the wound was to his leg, and Annie knew enough medicine to apply a crude tourniquet and stem the bleeding.

Chase stopped her suddenly, his forehead ribbed with concentration as he took up where she’d left off, recounting how they traveled hours to another village to find the priest, but by that time infection had already set in. “My leg was festering,” he said, looking at her for corroboration. “There was inflammation, swelling, pus—”

“You do remember then?” Annie’s breath rushed out as she waited for his answer.

“I don’t know how much I’m remembering on my own and how much of it is mixed up with what you’ve already told me, but it feels like something I actually experienced. And the flashes I’ve had, they must be recall.”

“Do you remember the fever setting in? The delirium?” If he remembered that, then surely he would remember the way she’d had to hold him to ease his convulsive shaking. Would he remember that she’d saved his life?

He shook his head slowly. “No ... I don’t know.”

Disappointment swept her.
It’s all right,
she told herself. He remembers some of it. In time he’ll remember it all.

He looked up, still frowning intently. “You’ve told me about the rest of it—the marriage ceremony, the car wreck while we were heading for the border. I know it was the nuns who got you out of prison and gave you sanctuary. But you didn’t tell me how you finally got out of the country.”

“That was the nuns’ doing too. They tried to find a way to help me prove my citizenship, but it got too dangerous. The country was constantly on the brink of civil war. The consulate was under siege, and foreigners, Americans in particular, were at risk. But the sisters were nothing if not resourceful. They hid me in the van of a truck that shipped cocoa, one of the country’s major exports.” She managed a smile. “It was a nightmare. Between secret police, guerrillas, and border guards, I was nearly caught several times. But, well, here I am.”

“So you are,” he agreed softly. “Must have been some kind of hell.” He was silent a moment, and then his shoulders jerked with a self-deprecating sound, gallows laughter. “And I thought I had a rough childhood.”

Annie was surprised at the bitter edge to his voice. “I guess we all do, don’t we? One way or another. Growing up isn’t easy.” She recalled some of Chase’s remarks about his father. He’d been delirious when he’d made them, and Annie had assumed he was having nightmares induced by the fever, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Your father was an alcoholic, wasn’t he?”

Chase fixed his eyes on the mine shack, as though weighing the wisdom of summoning up old ghosts. Annie remained quiet, determined to respect his privacy this time.

“Both of them drank,” he said at last. “My mother too. I guess she figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. My old man was a mean drunk, and every time she complained, he’d knock her around. Pretty soon, she stopped complaining. After that I never saw her without a glass of booze in her hand.”

“It must have been hard, having to watch that.”

“Hard—yeah, that’s one way of putting it. I did what I could to stop them, but all it got me was their undivided wrath. When they weren’t beating on each other, they ganged up on me. Some days I didn’t know if I was a kid or a punching bag. I finally took off at twelve, lived on the streets until I turned eighteen and joined the marines.”

There was something harsh and terribly lonely etched into his profile. His jaw muscles moved with some painful memory, then tightened, locking it off. As he stared, unseeing, at the shack, Annie thought about the price he’d paid for his survival. She’d had some crushing experiences, but at least there’d been people around her who cared. He hadn’t even had that. He’d had to face it all alone.

Now, as she studied him, one memory stuck out in her mind. He’d been delirious, ranting about his father. “Don’t kill her, you bastard,” he’d screamed, babbling an incoherent story about pulling his father off his mother during one of their fights. His mother had turned on her own ten-year-old son and attacked him for interfering. She’d beaten Chase with a broom handle, cracking three of his ribs.

At the time Annie hadn’t been able to imagine family members inflicting that kind of pain on each other. Now she realized the story must have been true. Her throat constricted as she stared at Chase.
What kind of suffering had he been subjected to?
She drew in a shallow breath and held it, sensing the pain that would come when she exhaled. She wanted to say something, to bring him some comfort, but all she could think about was her own self-centered behavior. More than anything, she regretted the way she’d invaded his life and his privacy. She’d had precious little regard for anything but her own needs. She’d never once considered his feelings. Now she understood why he’d been so angry when she’d tried to turn his cabin into something resembling a home. The only association he had with homes, with family, was pain.