Texas Bride (12 page)

No, it was better that she’d kept her feelings to herself, she mused as she descended the steps to the empty saloon. Her affection, and the intimacy she’d shared with Jonah, was private and personal. She would keep it that way. As much as she might wish otherwise, what was between them was over. Done, Maddie told herself sensibly.

Starting now, her only purpose in life was to retrieve Chrissy and ensure nothing like this ever happened again.

Jonah watched Maddie’s whiskey-colored eyes widen in surprise when she veered from the saloon and saw him leaning against the hitching post in front of the hotel. A wry smile twitched his lips as a becoming blush suffused her face. No doubt she was instantly reminded of the intimacy between them. That made two of them.

“You’re still here?” Maddie said, astonished, as Jonah handed her the satchel she had left in her hotel room.

“Yup, so’s Boone. He’ll be along any moment. We’ve decided to come with you.”

Her hands stalled in the task of tying the satchel behind her saddle. Her gaze riveted on him. “But you said—”

“I know what I said,” he interrupted. “Changed my mind.”

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

When an impish grin slid across her lush mouth, Jonah nearly groaned aloud. The expression was exactly like the one he’d seen last night when he’d glanced down at her—while they were as close as two people could get.

His body hardened instantly at the provocative memory.

“This new development with Avery and your two friends aroused my suspicions,” Jonah informed her. “I’ve decided to check it out.”

Maddie nodded as she pulled herself onto the mare and settled her skirts modestly around her legs. She glanced sideways to see Boone approaching, and she tossed him a smile.

“Morning, paleface. Sleep well?” Boone asked.

When Maddie blushed seven shades of red, Boone’s perceptive gaze landed squarely on Jonah and locked there for a long moment. Feeling awkward and ill at ease, Jonah mounted up and headed west. He heard Boone’s amused chuckle following him down the street.

Damn, sharing intimate glances with Maddie was awkward enough without Boone knowing what had happened between them. Soon as he got his ornery Kiowa cousin alone he was going to lay down the law before Boone embarrassed Maddie. These newfound feelings of possessiveness and protectiveness wouldn’t permit him to let her suffer humiliation.

“See anything of Gibbs and Newton?” Jonah asked Boone a mile later.

“No, but then I was preoccupied for part of the evening,” Boone said, casting Jonah a wry glance. “I did see Selmon and Lewis this morning. They’d passed out in the alley behind one of the saloons. The only thing I could get out of either of them was that they’d gotten paid in whiskey money for their efforts to overtake Maddie. From what I saw they drank all their profit last night.”

“I will be tremendously relieved to deliver the ransom money,” Maddie insisted as she trotted toward home. “No one will be able to take it away from me now and I’ll have my sister home again.”

If she was lucky, Jonah thought bleakly. He’d been involved in several hostage exchange situations. Some of them had turned out badly. He hoped Maddie didn’t have to face another crushing blow. He could tell by the look that settled over her bewitching fea
tures that she had focused all her energy and thoughts on retrieving her sister. The closer they came to the ranch, the more determined her expression grew.

Two hours later, Jonah jerked his horse to a halt and let loose a string of oaths that startled Boone as much as Maddie. Jonah stared northwest to see a grand, two-story ranch house sitting near a spring-fed creek in a rugged canyon that formed a natural fortress. Holding pens for livestock lined the towering sandstone walls of the canyon.

It wasn’t just
any
canyon, damn it to hell.

Harsh memories bombarded Jonah as he stared into the distance and remembered the past with painful clarity. This was the place his Comanche clan had named Forbidden Canyon after the army had descended from all directions at once to invade their winter encampment. This was where his father had died and his mother had been mortally wounded. This was where Jonah’s life had changed forever.

Damn, didn’t it just figure that Bar G Ranch would turn out to be his worst nightmare?

“Jonah? What’s wrong?” Maddie asked when his expression turned to stone and he sat rigidly in the saddle, staring at her home as if it were the most distasteful, grotesque sight he’d ever clapped eyes on.

“Come on, Maddie,” Boone murmured as he grabbed her reins and towed her forward. “I have a feeling that Danhill just came face-to-face with the worst of his past.”

Maddie’s gaze flew back to Jonah in alarm. Oh, God, no! Jonah had reluctantly told her about the massacre that had taken his family from him. This was the place where his bitterness originated? The
place where he had been forced to bury his emotions to prevent them from overwhelming him? Sweet mercy! How many more times was she going to hurt him unintentionally?

When
she
looked at this valley she saw a green oasis filled with towering shade trees and an endless supply of clear spring water. But Jonah saw death, destruction and the brutal end of his childhood.

It had been the abrupt end to the only way of life he had known and understood.

Any whimsical hope that Jonah might come to care enough for her to stay died a quick death. If he refused to enter the valley, turned back and allowed Boone to take over she would understand completely.

Tears of guilt and regret blurred her vision as Boone led her across the lush valley, where cattle grazed on thick, verdant grasses, and eight-hundred-foot-high walls of stone formed a natural boundary behind the ranch house. The hired men waved their hats in welcome as Maddie rode past, but she could barely muster a smile of greeting. She felt compelled to reverse direction and wrap Jonah in her arms, offer sympathy and apology for bringing him to the place that must feel like the open jaws of hell to him.

No doubt, she had unintentionally associated herself with every tragedy and heartache he had suffered in the past.

Jonah stared into the distance, lost to painful memories, hearing the cries of his clan as the army thundered into camp, shooting at everything that moved—warriors, women, children, dogs and horses. In his mind’s eye he could see pandemonium breaking
loose, and watched as the glistening stream began to flow bloodred while his people crumbled beneath a ruthless barrage of gunfire.

To this day he still wondered why he had been spared, when so many of his clan had perished in this valley.

Jonah shifted uneasily in the saddle, closed his eyes and expelled a heavy sigh. Life, he decided, was one irony following closely on the heels of another. Forbidden Canyon was now the home of the forbidden woman he had come to know intimately the previous night. Her wealth and prosperity came at the sacrifice of Comanche blood. His family’s blood and his clan’s blood. This chasm was filled with unmarked graves of those who would forever be branded on his memory.

The impulse to reverse direction hounded Jonah as he stared at the looming canyon walls. But when his gaze instinctively shifted to Maddie’s silhouette in the distance, he realized that his need to resolve her problems was stronger than his need to avoid his unpleasant past.

He had come this far, faced the worst of his living nightmares, and he would see this situation with Maddie through to the end, he told himself determinedly. After all, that was more or less the motto of Texas Rangers. You face hell and death and you just kept on coming, he reminded himself as he reined his black gelding toward the palatial ranch house.

Jonah also reminded himself that if not for this one unique woman and this fierce attraction he had developed for her—against his better judgment, he
might add—he would not have set foot in Forbidden Canyon.

Maddie Garret was the reason—the
only
reason—he hadn’t turned around and ridden the other way.

“Ah,
¡caramba!
We were afraid you would never return!”

Maddie dragged her eyes from the brawny silhouette in the distance and glanced toward the house to see Rosita Perez, the housekeeper and cook, dashing toward her.

“What took you so long,
querida?
”

Maddie dismounted to find herself swallowed by Rosita’s enthusiastic hug. She clung to the stout Mexican woman who had become her substitute mother for the past twelve years.

“Carlos!” Rosita called to her husband. “Come pronto. Our Maddie is home at last!”

Maddie pivoted to see the Bar G’s foreman stride hurriedly from the barn. Although Carlos smiled in greeting as he approached, Maddie noticed the rigidity of his shoulders. His body language spelled more trouble. It was the same sense of foreboding she had experienced the day Carlos had found the ransom note and delivered it to her. Damnation, didn’t she have enough trouble already? What now?

“Good to have you back,
querida,
” Carlos murmured as he hugged her close to his chest. “You are well,
sí?
”

“I’m fine.” Maddie stepped away to make quick introductions to Kiowa Boone.

Boone nodded a greeting, then his gaze strayed to Jonah, who trotted toward them, wearing the bleakest
expression Maddie had ever seen on his handsome face. She was surprised he’d come at all. But then, she reminded herself, Jonah lived on hell’s fringe and faced constant danger. He was tough and enduring. Even facing the worst of all possible nightmares couldn’t deter this remarkable man.

“And this is Maddie’s husband,” Boone announced abruptly.

Carlos’s and Rosita’s dark eyes popped in stunned amazement as they gaped at Jonah.

If there was one thing you could say about Boone, Maddie mused, he delighted in making shocking comments and watching everyone react.

“Your
husband?
” Rosita crowed as she made another thorough assessment of Jonah, then stared at the gold band on Maddie’s finger. “When?”

Maddie’s attention was so focused on Jonah that she didn’t hear the housekeeper’s question. She simply stood there staring up at him, totally amazed that he hadn’t turned back.

“Come inside,
querida,
” Carlos insisted as he took her arm. “There is much we need to discuss.”

Maddie’s mind whirled with grim speculations as Rosita and Carlos bustled her into the house. Her emotions were already in a tailspin and her heart bled for Jonah. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face another tormenting blow, but as usual, she was left with little choice.

Jonah stared up at the grand home and gigantic barn that were butted up against the towering sandstone walls of the chasm, and wondered what the hell
he had done to deserve the emotional blow that had sent him reeling a few minutes earlier.

Fate, the cruel bastard, enjoyed kicking you while you were down—and never let you up.

Jonah tried to distance himself from the uneasy sensations and tormenting memories that hammered at him, and instead focus on Maddie’s problems. But it was damn near impossible when the distinct image of that day fifteen years ago kept hounding his every step, causing his skin to crawl with bitter revulsion.

He could tell by the apologetic expression on Maddie’s face that he had her pity and sympathy. That’s the last thing he wanted from her. Hell, he didn’t want anything from anyone at the moment. Didn’t want to be
here.
The impulse to mount his horse and ride hell-for-leather back to the Rio Grande nearly overwhelmed him again.

There were dozens of legitimate reasons to leave, he reminded himself. And only one reason to stay.

“Sit,
querida,
” the foreman requested, jostling Jonah from his troubled thoughts.

With dismal resignation, Jonah watched Maddie sink onto the elegant chair—one of many expensive furnishings in this opulent palace. There was no question now that her family was wealthy. The teasing nickname he’d given her truly did fit, he mused as he surveyed her majestic home.

Maddie quickly made introductions and then asked anxiously, “Has something else happened?”

“
Sí,
I’m afraid so,” Carlos replied. “We received another message this morning that the ransom must be delivered tonight instead of tomorrow.”

Jonah could tell by the Mexican’s grim countenance that there was more. “And?” he prodded.

Carlos swallowed audibly. “The ransom has gone up to eight thousand dollars.”

“Eight!” Maddie yelped in dismay. “I don’t have that much left after making several purchases and paying expenses.” Her wild gaze flew to Jonah.

“Boone and I will cover it,” he promised. Anything to wipe that stricken look from her face. He’d worn that same expression himself today and he sure as hell didn’t want to see it on Maddie.

“We will?” Boone choked out, incredulous.

“We can cover it,” Jonah said confidently as he shot the Kiowa a silencing glance.

Jonah would bet his entire savings that the mastermind had received the message that Maddie had acquired the funds. To make things difficult for her, he had jacked up the price, anticipating that she would still have to turn to Hanson to meet the payment. Jonah suspected that bastard had another trick up his sleeve, too, and he had a pretty good idea what it was going to be.

His thoughts trailed off when he heard a muffled sound in the hall. He stepped around the corner to see that one of the hired hands had skulked in unannounced. Jonah’s suspicious gaze homed in on the grimy, shaggy-haired cowboy who had taken it upon himself to carry their gear inside.

How convenient, Jonah mused cynically. He watched suspiciously as the cowboy flinched, realizing he had been spotted, and was forced to step into the room to explain himself. Jonah had the inescap
able feeling that Maddie had an informant right under her nose, and that he reported back to the ringleader.