Lifestyles of the Witch & Famous (20 page)

Molly fell into step beside her while André heaved a dramatic sigh and tagged along on their heels, grumbling exotic invectives under his breath.

“Speaking of Tyler…” Molly’s stomach knotted at the thought. “Just how, um…angry do you think he’ll be?”

“Knowing Ty,
very
. Anger is the one emotion he does well.” Carlotta’s laughter mixed with the whispering of the weeds. “But don’t worry about it. He puts on a good loud show, but his bark is worse than his bite.”

Molly wished she could believe that, wished she had the slightest reason to trust the man, but he hadn’t given her any yet. More like the opposite. He must have been angry that she’d flown here in the first place – in his private jet, no less, and without an invitation. He was certainly angry over their contract. And now she’d thwarted him again.

With three strikes against her, she was probably “out.” The male ego could take only so much, and Tyler’s ego was king-sized. He hated to lose, and she kept beating him at his own games. It would be too much to hope that he’d want her around after tonight. Not that she wanted him either, of course. She was only thinking of the boys.

And maybe if she kept telling herself that, she’d believe it.

Eventually.

Heartache and headache hit simultaneously. She suppressed a groan as she hustled to match Carlotta’s brisk pace over the rugged ground. The woman walked like a pro. Nothing slowed her, not even that patch of prickly pear cactus Molly almost stumbled into.

Damn, maybe I should watch where I’m going?

Easier said than done when she was
thinking
about where she was going. The dugout first – a gut-wrenching thought. Stevie had better be there and unhurt, or someone would get a large dose of instant Karma.

What goes around, comes around.

And in this case,
she
would be what “came around.”

Where she went afterward… That involved the boys, too, and was just as gut-wrenching to consider. Tyler had never wanted her to have custody. He’d yielded only because he wanted something else more. Her. But if he’d changed his mind on that…

They were back to square one, weren’t they? He’d threatened once already to send her packing. Given her actions tonight, he could conceivably pack her off to prison.

Would he stoop so low?

He’d been shameless enough to use children as a bargaining chip, hadn’t he? An Eagle Scout, he wasn’t (regardless of his skill with knots). And if he wanted to keep her away from the kids, incarceration would sure do the trick. If the law would cooperate. Who knew the legalities at work here. Was it still theft if you stole something to pay a kidnapping ransom? Sorta put a whole new slant on “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” didn’t it?

A high warbling howl suddenly rose out of the night. Other howls answered it, filling the air, spectral voices weaving together in haunting harmonies.

Molly stopped dead in her tracks, pulling the others to a halt with her.

Carlotta cocked her head, entranced, her eyes glowing in the moonlight. “Listen. A coyote chorus. I’d forgotten how beautiful they sound.”

“Beautiful?” André shuddered. “They sound like the cries of the damned.”

You’re both right, Molly thought. The chorus was beautiful, yes. Also eerie. Music to prickle one’s back hairs. A
warning
was what it sounded like. As she stood scanning the prairie and listening, new voices joined the song, sharp and shrill, freezing the blood in her veins to ice.

The baying of hounds.

“
Ai dios mio
!” Carlotta slapped the heels of her hands against her head. “So much for our stealth. They’ve released the dogs! What are those idiots thinking?”

Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Molly by the arm. “Look.” She pointed and spoke quickly. “You see that line of mesquite trees up ahead? There’s a gully, a dried creek bed, right behind them, and on the opposite bank is the dugout. You’ll have to find it yourself, after all.”

“Why? What are you going to do?” Molly turned with the question, but Carlotta had already taken off at a trot back the way they’d just come.

“I’m going to shoo those mutts back to their kennel!” she called over her shoulder. “They know me, so I’m the only one of us who has a chance of stopping them.”

Chance?
Which meant what? That there was also a chance she couldn’t stop them, a chance they might rip her to shreds?

Good Goddess…

“Do not worry. She has knives hidden all over her,” André said, but he looked pretty darned worried himself.

He glanced from Molly to Carlotta’s retreating figure and back again, a man racked between desire to play the protector for one woman and just plain desire for the other. Too bad he couldn’t take a photo of himself. If the expression of emotion was what he sought, his own expression right then was an artistic goldmine, a bittersweet portrait of pain.

André D’Leon was obviously head over hot pink boot heels in love, and Molly knew it wasn’t with her. The lady he wanted no longer believed in romantic love, only passion, and that for a limited duration. Hence, the pain. Poor André.

“Go on, go with her.” She gestured for him to follow Carlotta. “I’ll be fine on my own. Really.”

Hell, he can’t come all the way to the dugout with me anyway.

André hesitated, the evident victim of an internal tug-of-war. His native chivalry, flamboyant but very sincere, pulled him in two directions. But since he couldn’t split himself down the middle, and Molly was urging him away, he finally gave in to his deeper desire. Flinging the flashlights aside, he charged after the woman he loved.

“I will see that Carlotta makes it safely to the house, then return to help you!” he promised.

Please, no.
The man sounded like a full cavalry as he crashed through the brush.

Molly watched for an anxious instant, then spun about and raced toward the trees while all hell broke loose behind her. André wasn’t the only one flattening weeds back there. The noise of barks and shouts nipped at her heels, spurring her into a reckless speed over unfamiliar terrain.

“Molly! Watch out—”

“
Ai dios mio—
”

“Monsieur James, I shall thank you to get off of my woman— Arrgh! The beast bit me!”

Which beast? Tyler?

Sound did carry out here, didn’t it? If she could hear the commotion, maybe so could the kidnapper? A terrifying maybe.

Goddess, no…

Stevie! She
had
to reach him in time—

Heart pounding, ears ringing with yelps and confusion, Molly barged through the thorny mesquites – and almost broke her neck falling into the gully, which appeared sooner than she’d anticipated.
Gasp!
She lay on the bottom, blurry and stunned, fighting to hang on to consciousness. A hard battle, but brief.

She lost.

Chapter 13

Tyler picked himself up off the prairie, pulling Carlotta with him. He’d just tackled her, thinking she was Molly. Thinking he was shielding her from three out-of-control canines. Out of control because they’d scented the woman who’d cuddled and coddled them as puppies. They hadn’t been attacking, just bounding forward to greet her. The three furry stooges, they looked like now, staring at her with adoring eyes and big doggy grins, while the two security guards who’d rashly unleashed them hung back, looking equally foolish.

Tyler stared, too, but not nearly so happily as the hounds. Well, hell, she and Molly
were
about the same size, plus she was dressed the way Wilson had said Molly was, and with that scarf covering Carlotta’s signature red hair…

“I didn’t expect to find
you
here,” he sputtered.

“Obviously.” She threw him a glare sharper than her daggers. “Tyler, you
are
an idiot.”

Um, yeah, he was beginning to realize that. With the realization came a horrible sick feeling – sick, cold, leaden – a weighty mental chaos that anchored him in place. Something was wrong with this picture. Very wrong.

André said something lethal sounding in what might have been Lithuanian. Who knew? He stood glowering and dripping blood from a hand wound. One of the dogs had bitten him when he’d tried to throw himself between them and Carlotta.

“They must have thought you were threatening me,” she fussed at him, apparently answering whatever he’d just said. “André,
why
didn’t you stay with Molly?”

“And leave you to face bloodthirsty beasts alone? Never!”

“But I told you these dogs know me. They can be dangerous, yes, but not to
me
.”

“How could I be sure of that?” he blustered.

“Look at you!” She whipped off her scarf and wrapped it around his wound. “You almost lost a hand, and you could have lost your life!”

“My life? Pah!” He spat on the ground. “What is my life worth without you? Carlotta
cherie
, you
are
my life!”

Wow, the guy had it bad. Even Tyler was impressed.

So was Carlotta, and she was hard to impress, too.

“Oh, André…” She blinked back sudden tears. “What am I to do with you?”

“Marry me?” he suggested. “You know I have never asked anyone before. You know that I adore you. Only you. And I warn you, Carlotta, I am not going to stop. We D’Leons burn hot, but we burn a long time.
Always
will my heart be yours.” He pressed a hand over the organ in question – his wounded hand, a bloody reminder. He was playing the injury for all it was worth.

“Be my wife,
cherie
, and let me love you forever!”

Carlotta swayed slightly, looking dizzy, almost ready to swoon.

André grinned. He’d found her weak spot, and knew it. The seemingly jaded Carlotta was, at her core, a hopeless romantic – it’s just that over the years the emphasis had shifted to the hopeless part. Faced with such an open declaration now, what could she say?

“
Ai dios mio
…”

Not exactly a yes, but definitely not a no.

Half sobbing, half laughing, she fell into his arms. André winked at Tyler over her shoulder.

“You see, Monsieur James,
that
is how to win a woman. Tell her you love her, and prove it by being willing to die for her.”

With continental flair, he kissed Carlotta until her knees buckled. But Tyler was long gone by then, bolting through the bramble on a beeline for the dugout, leaving dogs, guards, and multilingual lovers in the dust – signaling them all to stay behind, and they’d damn well better obey. There’d been too much noise and confusion already.
Too dangerous.
The godawful reality had finally hit home.

“André, why didn’t you stay with Molly?”
Carlotta had demanded.

Of course. The simple fact she and André were out here at all must mean they’d been trying to help Molly. But Carlotta would never be part of a kidnapping con game – Tyler had known her too long and too well to think that. She could’ve given Molly the combination to his safe though, and showed her the route to the dugout. Which meant Molly wasn’t part of the game either. She could have learned about it from reading the fax, he supposed; he’d hidden it fast, but not that fast.

Put it all together and it meant he’d been wrong, wrong,
wrong
. Again. There was no “game,” period. He had a
real
kidnapping on his hands. Maybe two… Molly hadn’t stolen the diamonds for herself. She was trying to pay the goddamned ransom! Trying to get herself kidnapped.

Or worse.

Shit!

He sped forward, racing time, determined to do whatever it took to save her.
Anything.
André wasn’t the only man willing to die for the woman he loved, goddamn it.

Love?

Did he?

The inner question skidded him up short before the line of mesquites. Tyler hadn’t known much love in his life. How could he be sure what it felt like?

Hell, he knew
loss
well enough – knew now that just the thought of losing Molly filled him with icy dread.

Quickly but cautiously – quietly – he picked his way through the trees and hunkered down at the ragged edge of the gully, staring across it and down a slope at a long low mound on the opposite bank. A drunken rectangle of roughhewn boards capped by a crumbling sod roof. The silent dugout. Too silent. From his higher vantage point, he could see and scrutinize the entire squat dwelling and all around it.

While he crouched motionless, in growing anxiety – scouting the area with eyes and ears, watching and listening for any signs of life – a soft moan filtered up from the bottom of the gully. Tyler glanced downward and felt his blood freeze.