The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Cowboys of Chance Creek) (20 page)

Her hands began to tremble and Fila fought not to drop the stirring spoon she’d taken up again. He was right. There was very little she could do against a grown man who was determined to hurt her. But she had to try. Here the law was on her side, at least. If she could stop this man—if she could conquer him—the law would back her up in a way it would never do in Afghanistan.

In a flash she picked up the pot of steaming soup, whirled around and threw it at him. The man leaped sideways, knocking his chair to the floor. The soup spattered his clothes, the pot bounced off the table, but missed him.

He was on her in an instant, wrenching her arms behind her back and clutching both her wrists in one hand. He tore a tea towel to shreds with his teeth, wrapped a strip around her wrists and bound them tightly. Fila fought back, balling her hands into fists as he tied them—straining hard to make sure there’d be some slack in the ties when she relaxed them later. When he threw her to the floor, her forehead hit the tiles and pain blossomed around her temple. She curled into a ball, bracing for whatever happened next.

“Guess I’ll have to cook for myself.” The man began to clatter around the kitchen and pantry, rummaging through the shelves until he found what he wanted. Fila didn’t fool herself into thinking she was safe. She’d had her chance and she’d blown it. Now there’d be hell to pay.

If he could
just inch a little farther to the right. Ned groaned with the exertion. Just like the stranger said, he was as weak as a baby and it hurt to think, let alone to breathe. There was nothing he could do about what was going on in the kitchen. All he could do was arm himself and hope the stranger came close enough at some point for him to do some damage.

He heard Fila’s shriek just as his hand finally closed around a piece of firewood. This wasn’t one of the large split logs that he couldn’t have hefted right now if he tried. It was a section of a branch about a foot and a half long and two inches thick. Heavy as a club. He tucked it under his blankets wishing he had his hunting rifle, or better yet—his pistol. That man was going to hurt Fila. It was only a matter of how much.

He heard a struggle in the kitchen and then something heavy dropped to the floor. He could picture in his mind’s eye what had happened. Fila had concocted some scheme or other. The stranger had foiled it. Had overpowered her and probably tied her hands. That thump had been her body crashing down. From the sounds of things, the man had decided to eat his dinner anyway. That gave Ned a little time. He scanned the room for other weapons, found none. His fingers closed around the length of wood again.
Come on
, he thought at the stranger.
Come close. Let me give you exactly what you deserve.

The heavy meal
seemed to mellow the stranger out slightly. He sat at the table and picked his teeth, his feet stuck out at angles. “Damn, woman. I’m almost too tired to fuck you.”

Fila lay on her side facing the man, her wrists tied behind her. A tear slid down her cheek, but she continued to twist her hands, making use of the slack in the fabric. Add to that the natural stretch in the strip of towel and she was close to getting free again. But then what? If she got loose he’d just hit her again. Why hadn’t she waited until she was closer to the man before throwing the soup? Why had she botched her best chance? She knew what he meant to do. Raping her was only half of it. Neither she nor Ned would be alive to see the morning.

Maybe it was just Fate catching up to her. She should have been dead ten years ago when the Taliban shot her parents. She’d been living on borrowed time ever since. But Ned was a young man—he had his whole life ahead of him. He had family who loved him, friends, a ranch. He couldn’t die like this. Not at the hands of this man.

She shifted to cover the movement of her arms and watched the puppy bound up to the man and put its paws up on his lap.

“What do you think, Dell? Is it time for us to have some fun?”

The puppy simply gamboled around. It was far too young for him to have trained it. The knot around her wrist loosened slightly and she quickly pulled the end out of it and felt the whole wrapping shift. Blood returned to her hands, making her fingers tingle. Fila wanted to tear her bindings free once and for all, but decided to wait. Her only chance lay in surprising her captor. And doing a better job of it than she’d done last time.

“Let’s go check on your friend before we get this party started.”

Rough hands gripped her arms and yanked her upright. She kept her wrists carefully together, her fingers holding her bindings tight. Her head spun and a warm trickle slid down her cheek as she found her feet. Blood. The man shoved her ahead of him through the archway into the living room where Ned lay senseless on the floor in front of the woodstove where she’d left him. She was grateful he was unconscious. The less he knew about what transpired, the better, since there was nothing he could do to stop the man.

“Maybe he’s dead already.” The man sounded disappointed. “What’s wrong with him anyway?”

“Pneumonia. It’s highly contagious.” She wished the illness would jump bodies and strike the man dead right now.

He nudged Ned with the toe of his boot. “Hey, buddy. You awake?”

Stay silent, Fila prayed, but he didn’t. Ned groaned and shifted. Whispered something.

“What’s that?”

Ned said it again, but Fila couldn’t make out his words. The man shoved her onto the sofa where she flopped like a ragdoll. She kicked and heaved herself until she was sitting upright in time to see the stranger kneel down and bend over Ned’s body. Her fingers worked at the ties until she was completely free of them.

“Asshole!” Ned said at the same time he whipped a length of wood out from under his covers, and came up on one elbow to bash the man over the head with it. The man seized his arm and the club few across the room, nearly striking the puppy, who had settled down with a sigh a moment earlier. It leaped to its feet and barked as the man punched Ned in the face. Ned howled in pain. Fila saw her chance. She leapt from the couch and snatched the log up off the floor, the puppy dancing all around her. It barked and yipped and scrambled right up and over Ned’s prone body. The stranger swore at it, batted it away. Taking advantage of his distraction, Fila lifted the club over her head and smashed it down on the man’s skull. Raised it again and swung it like a baseball bat to knock him off of Ned’s legs. She raised it again. Brought it down. Each time it hit him with a satisfying smack. Each time the man shuddered, struggled to rise and sank down again when the log connected with his head.

She pulled up a fourth time and slammed it down. That was for her parents, shot dead before her eyes. Lifted it and swung it down. That was for her years of loneliness. Up and down. For the times she’d been beaten. Up, down. For the times she’d feared for her life. Up. Down. For the years she’d lost. Up—

“Fila. Fila!” Ned croaked, eyes wide, propped on his elbows, fighting for breath. “You’ll kill him!” The puppy stood crouched behind him barking again and again.

She turned on them wild-eyed. Did he think she cared? They’d never shown her mercy. None of them. And he expected it of her? She lifted the club again.

“Fila—look at me!”

She missed, swinging around at the last second.

He held out a hand to her, gasping in pain, but refusing to lie back down. One look at his burning eyes and pleading expression and she came back to herself. She took in the man puddled at her feet. The bulk of him wrapped in a ball like a child. He was unmoving. Covered in blood.

Blood she’d shed.

Fila dropped the club. Swayed. The puppy whined but stayed by Ned’s side.

“Fila.” Ned tried to move to her, but couldn’t. He lay panting, tangled in the blankets she’d covered him with earlier. “It’s okay, honey. You’re okay.” He lurched to a sitting position, his breathing rough, his words even rougher. “Come here.”

She shook her head, the enormity of what she’d done overwhelming her. She’d nearly killed a man. Maybe she had.

“Fila. It isn’t over yet. He could wake up again.”

She stared at Ned, barely comprehending his words. Wake up? The man wasn’t even breathing.

Was he?

She inched forward, hardly daring to breathe herself. Placed her fingers in front of the man’s face. His breath feathered over them. Shallow, but definitely there.

He was still alive and if he woke—when he woke—he’d want to kill them more than he had before.

She glanced at the branch she’d dropped.

“No,” Ned said. “That way isn’t for you. Find the rope you used to tie me to the post.”

After a long moment she did what he said. Ned was right—she wasn’t a killer.

But the thread that separated her from one was as thin as gossamer.

‡
Chapter 24

H
e was dying.

Ned could feel the pneumonia taking hold deep in his lungs in a way that left him coughing and gasping to breathe. Chances were he’d make it through another day or two—long enough for someone to rescue them—but he was getting close to a line that once crossed would be hard to come back from. If delirium took him again, Fila would be alone with a murderer. From the look of the bloody gash on the back of the man’s head, he wasn’t the only one walking side by side with death in this cabin.

He didn’t say so to Fila, but he knew she knew it too. For the thousandth time he cursed his stupidity for ever bringing her here. The idea that he could protect her—help her—seemed truly laughable. He’d become a shell of himself. Weak, hurt, sick—dying. And Fila had been put through the wringer again.

The worst of it was he’d been nothing but a burden to her. Fila—scared, traumatized kidnap victim—had had to save his life. Several times now. She’d probably hate him for bringing her here. She’d probably run away as fast as she could the minute they made it back to Chance Creek.

If they ever made it to Chance Creek. Maybe he’d just die and save her the trouble of having to run.

He coughed long and hard, the searing pain in his lungs almost worse than the pain in his leg. This is what he’d come to. The sum of his worth. He was helpless. Useless.

Good for nothing.

“Tie him up tight,” he said to Fila. “Use all the rope you have.” The puppy licked his hand and he tried to pet it. “Good dog,” he told it. It licked him again.

Fila took his advice and trussed the stranger to the pillar up like a pig on a spit.

Now all they could do was wait. Half a night lay ahead of them, then a full day and another night before they could begin to look for a rescue. He prayed to God for the first time in years that his family would question his absence—especially given Fila was with him.

The adrenaline that had enabled him to move and speak was fast leaving his system, rendering him aching and struggling to breathe once more. He closed his eyes just for a moment.

And slipped into sleep.

She’d beaten a
man within an inch of his life.

She’d become the very kind of monster she’d fled from Afghanistan to escape.

What would her Taliban captors think now? Is this what they’d wanted all along? To turn her into a killer and set her loose among her own people?

As the seconds ticked by, the house was silent except for Ned’s labored breathing and the softer inhalations and exhalations of the killer tied to the post near the kitchen. She wanted to drag him outside and leave him in the dark and cold to die, but then she’d truly be a monster and there’d be no coming home after that.

All she’d wanted to do was protect Ned. When the man had leaned over him, fist raised, her vision had blurred and her mind had sharpened to a single point. He had to die. She’d acted on that impulse, saved her friend, but nearly taken a life.

What kind of woman was she?

She knelt next to Ned and smoothed his blond hair away from his handsome face, trying to remember who she’d been before she went to Afghanistan.

Before they’d twisted her into this caricature of a woman she was today.

Once upon a time she’d loved to sing. She had no training, other than the school choir, but she sang all the time—in her bedroom along to the songs on the radio, at school with her friends, in the shower, when she walked in the neighborhood.

She’d rarely sung in the last ten years. And then only to whisper the Afghan songs along with the others, so as not to draw attention to herself.

The old Fila sang. The new Fila was silent.

She had once loved bright colors, too—oranges and pinks and lime greens that set off her dark hair to perfection. She’d dressed like a peacock, her mother used to say, but she could get away with it in a manner her friends couldn’t. Dressed in faded castoffs and a covering burka in the village, she’d wanted merely to blend in. Now she chose practical clothes. Muted clothes.

The old Fila gloried in color. The new Fila preferred beige.

Most of all, once she had loved life in all its permutations. She loved people, dogs, cats, lizards. She loved catching fireflies and letting them go. She chased butterflies, watched birds through binoculars. Her curiosity about the living world made her days a bright parade.