The Wedding Ransom (16 page)

Maggie’s heart thundered. A smile waited to explode across her face. The lid slowly rose.

And Rafe spat a vile curse while Maggie gazed down upon the contents of the chest in shock.

The coffer was empty. No gold, no jewels, no riches of any kind. The only item inside was a folded sheet of paper.

Maggie swayed on her feet as Rafe reached down and lifted the note from the bottom of the box. She clutched his arm to steady herself as he read aloud. “You stole my treasure. Now I’ve returned the favor.”

Rafe shot a look at Maggie. “Who the hell is Andrew Montgomery?”

The name hit her like a fist and she reeled backward from the blow. “No,” she said softly. “Dear God, no. It can’t be. Not Andrew Montgomery.” She glanced wildly around the cavern. “He can’t have done this. The treasure must be here. Not him.”

A bellow sounded from above, and Maggie gazed upward to see Papa Gus’s face hovering over the opening in the roof.

“Maggie St. John! I should have known you’d follow him. Of all the stupid…”

Gus’s face was shoved aside by Snake’s. “I can’t believe you followed him. That’s it, lass. When we get back to Lake Bliss, you’ll be punished. Confined to your room. I don’t care how old you are. It scares me spitless—”

“It’s gone, Papa,” Maggie interrupted, her voice hollow. “The treasure isn’t here.”

A shocked silence preceeded Gus’s word. “What?”

The placement of the chest inside the cavern made it invisible to eyes spying from above. Frustrated and angry and filled with fear, Maggie grabbed hold of one end of the trunk and tugged it into her grandfather’s line of sight. Words exploded from her mouth. “It’s empty, Papa! He’s robbed us. He’s stolen Hotel Bliss.”

At that the fire drained out of her, leaving her weak. Rafe wrapped a supportive arm around her waist as her knees buckled. “We found a note,” he said. “I put it in the bag.”

The dangling rope slithered upward like a snake, and Maggie waited for the imminent eruption. To her surprise, she heard only quiet—a long, ugly silence.

Rafe stood with his legs spread, his hands braced upon his hips as he stared up at the hole in the roof, obviously awaiting the grandfathers’ reaction. As the seconds ticked by, he turned his head and looked at her, arching a brow in silent inquiry.

Maggie couldn’t have spoken past the lump in her throat even if she’d known what to say.

When finally a face reappeared above them, it was a solemn and subdued Snake who said, “If we hurry we can set sail for Texas this evening.”

Rafe appeared baffled. “Just like that? Your treasure is stolen and that’s all you’ve got to say? I’m due an explanation, don’t you think? You had promised me a cut of the take, after all.”

“We will make it up to you somehow, Malone,” Snake replied in a voice devoid of emotion. “First priority needs to be getting our lass back to safety.”

Rafe looked as if he wanted to argue, but changed his mind. “You’re right. We need to get Maggie out of this place, but we have a bit of a problem in that regard. We’re down to one breathing tube and sharing it would be an unneccesary danger. Since y’all no longer need to keep this chamber hidden, why don’t you enlarge the hole and let us climb out.”

Snake and Gus discussed the matter briefly and agreed that under the circumstances, they wouldn’t worry themselves about any potential Mayan curses. Rafe and the grandfathers then spent the next few minutes debating the best way to go about chipping away at the hole. Maggie lost herself in thought.

No treasure meant no way to buy the hotel. No way to buy the hotel meant she might have to deal with Barlow Hill’s other offer. The marriage offer.

Maggie sank to the ground and buried her head in her hands. They stood to lose the hotel. They were on the verge of being denied access to Lake Bliss water. What would happen to her grandfathers then? Ben’s breathing trouble and Lucky’s pain from his old shoulder wound. Gus’s aching joints. Her own rheumatism. And what would Ben do without his garden to occupy his time? She hated to imagine it.

She loathed the idea of marrying Barlow Hill.

Rafe’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “No, Snake, I don’t think black powder is necessary. You can lash a rock to a tree limb for a sledgehammer. Once you’ve cracked the rock a bit, you can use a tree trunk as a lever and break it from the bottom up. It shouldn’t be impossible. The ground isn’t solid rock or there wouldn’t be a hole to begin with.”

“I guess we’ll try it your way, Malone,” Gus declared. “We can always go after the powder later if we find we need it. I don’t fancy tangling with the locals today, anyway. The way our luck has been running, we’d end up with even more trouble on our hands.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think Lucky stowed away on the boat,” Snake grumbled. “We might as well get to it, though. This may take us awhile. Do you need anything before we go?”

“How about some food? I worked up a powerful hunger this morning, and I’m pretty sure your granddaughter did, too.”

Maggie shot him a suspicious look that he returned with an innocent smile. A couple of minutes later the papas lowered a bag filled with fruit and some of Papa Snake’s special mesquite-smoked beef strips. They told Maggie good-bye, warned Malone to keep his hands to himself at the risk of losing them, and headed out to collect their tools.

Rafe grabbed a banana for himself and tossed one to Maggie. Slamming the lid of the treasure chest shut, he propped a hip on it, peeled his fruit, and said, “Now, tell me about this Mr. Andrew Montgomery.”

“I’d prefer not to speak of him.”

“Too bad, Sugar. I hired on to this adventure for a cut of the spoils. Since there’s not going to be any of those, I reckon the least you owe me is a few answers. Who is he? The name halfway rings a bell with me.”

Maggie shrugged as she broke the end off her banana. Why not tell him? She didn’t see how it would hurt anything. Besides, Malone was crafty enough. Maybe he’d see a way out of this mess. “Andrew Montgomery is my grandfathers’ worst enemy. They go way back. I remember meeting him once years ago in Barbados when I was little more than a child. My grandfathers bodily threw him out of our house. Over time they have cussed and discussed Montgomery at such length that I feel like I know him well.”

“He is a pirate, too?”

“Yes. From what I remember, Montgomery is a younger son of an English earl who was on his way to the Indies when pirates attacked his ship. The Englishman chose to join the ranks of the marauders and eventually ended up a crew member on the Mystique. “

“Another pirate ship?”

“My Papa Ben was her captain.”

“I see.” Rafe thumped his hand against the treasure chest. “So he helped to capture the spoils we expected to find?”

“I guess he must have. I’ve never asked.” Maggie took a bite of her fruit, then made a face. Food never did taste good when she was nervous. “I know that his shipmates—Lucky, Gus, and Snake—liked him and welcomed him into their group. I remember Snake calling him a bold adventurer.”

“He’s said the same thing about me.”

“No wonder he keeps threatening to kill you.”

Rafe tossed away his banana peel and reached for a hunk of dried beef. “So, this Montgomery made a good pirate?”

“My grandfathers taught him everything they knew. I want to say he was fifteen years or so younger than they, and I do remember the trip to India was his first sea voyage. He must have had a lot of learning to do.”

“I’d imagine one would need to learn fast, too.”

Maggie nodded. “I think he did. Papa Gus said he’d embraced the pirate’s life and shown all the signs of becoming a leader.”

“So, did he? What happened? Did he challenge Ben for his ship or something?”

Maggie stared into the cenote. “Perhaps. They wouldn’t tell me. All I know is that something happened to drive a wedge between him and my grandfathers. They became the bitterest of enemies, and over the years, Montgomery has intruded into our lives from time to time.”

“How is that?”

“Well, he settled in Texas after we did, for one thing.”

Rafe perked up at that. “Galveston? I think Republic Shipping has a Montgomery at the helm.”

“No.” Maggie shook her head. “Not Galveston. East Texas. He’s a cotton planter.”

“Triumph Plantation. Southeast of Nacogdoches.” Rafe snapped his fingers. “Of course. I knew I’d heard the name. I once robbed guests on the way to a party at his place, if I remember correctly. I even think he may have been a guest of the Prescotts a time or two. Luke has become somewhat prominent socially in the past couple of years. Honor is trying to talk him into running for Congress.”

Rafe folded his arms. “The owner of Triumph Plantation a retired pirate. Don’t that just beat all.”

“Not so retired,” Maggie replied with a grimace. She gestured toward the chest. “Obviously, he hasn’t given up stealing.”

Following that sad observation, conversation lagged. Rafe polished off another banana and a pair of mangoes. Maggie set her snack aside. She could feel him looking at her, but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with bicker or banter or anything else. Barlow Hill kept coming to mind. She might never eat again.

Finally her grandfathers returned and went to work on the rock above. It took almost two hours of labor with the makeshift sledgehammer and a tree-trunk lever to enlarge the hole enough to accommodate Rafe’s shoulders. Once Papa Snake declared the opening wide enough, Papa Gus tied a rope around a nearby tree and called for Maggie to climb up.

“Have them pull you out,” Rafe scoffed. “You can’t climb that rope. That’s a good fifteen feet, woman.”

Maggie didn’t bother to argue, just wrapped her hands and feet around the hemp and began to shimmy upward. When she’d made it halfway up, he observed, “Well, I reckon a girl learns a few useful skills while living on a pirate ship.”

At the top the papas lifted her out, and Maggie squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden glare of sunlight. Rafe made it out of the cave without incident, and they fell in line behind Gus for the hike back to the
Buccaneer’s Bliss
.

“First time I ever went home from a robbery empty-handed,” Rafe observed.

Maggie could almost feel his gaze on her backside as he added, “But then again, maybe not.”

Lake Bliss, Republic of Texas

O
n the first night back at the hotel, Rafe turned away from the kitchen window and studied the grim faces of those seated around the table, ostensibly playing cards. Rafe had never seen such a hangdog group of men in all his born days. Not that he didn’t understand. If someone had swiped his secret cache of stolen plunder, he’d have been down in the mouth, too.

Rafe had a stash of goods—weapons mostly—collected during his robber days that his amnesty agreement with the Texas Rangers had allowed him to keep when he went legal. He called the collection his old-age fund and accessed it only upon rare occasions. Coincidentally, Rafe’s hiding place for his treasure was also a cave—a good strong Texas cave, that is—and ever since they’d boarded the
Buccaneer’s Bliss
for the return trip home, Rafe had been itching to go check on his stash. It would be just his luck that Andrew Montgomery had branched out and robbed caverns all over the world.

This evening, however, his cache wasn’t on his mind nearly as much as the pirates’ treasure. And the particular treasure he was thinking of wasn’t the missing gold and jewels. Rafe had Maggie on his mind.

Not that such a state was anything new. She’d been a bother in that regard even before he met her, but ever since they’d boarded the
Buccaneer’s Bliss
for the sail home he couldn’t get her out of his head. He was worried about her. He’d caught her in a smile only once, and that was when she’d spotted Ben and Lucky on Hotel Bliss’s front porch. She hardly spoke, certainly never laughed, and had spent the majority of the trip lying in her bunk trying to hold down her food. According to Gus, it was her first-ever case of seasickness. Rafe wondered if heartsick wasn’t closer to the mark.

All that was enough to cause him concern, but what had happened half an hour ago made him downright frantic. Maggie had accepted an invitation to walk out with Barlow Hill after supper. “The bastard,” he grumbled.

“Bastard is too good a name for Andrew Montgomery,” Lucky observed. He banged his fist on the table and rattled the glasses. “We should have killed him years ago.”

“I wasn’t referring to Montgomery.” Rafe pushed aside a gingham window curtain to gaze once again at the empty garden path. Why was this walk taking so long? “I was talking about Barlow Hill.”

“The maggot.”

“The louse.”

“The chigger.”

“The tick.”

Rafe glanced back over his shoulder and shot them a glare. “Why would she agree to walk out with him, anyway? She detests the man. And if we are all agreed about his character, why did we allow her to go off with him?”

Gus took a long draw on his ale, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He tipped his chair back on its two hind legs. “Did you say ‘allow,’ Malone? In relation to our Maggie? The Caribbean sun must have baked your brain.”

“This business with Montgomery has tangled up all our thinking,” Lucky said, scratching at the scar around his neck. “I for one never guessed he’d up and steal our treasure. Not since we gave him his cut when we kicked him off our ship. Drew has mixed business with personal. We always told him not to do that.”

Gus laughed sourly. “Isn’t that what started our problems to begin with, him doing something we told him not to do?”

Ben’s voice joined the discussion for the first time since Snake reported the theft upon their arrival at Lake Bliss. “We have choices to make, Malone, and it’s best that Mary Margaret not be included in the discussion. That is why I made no attempt to dissuade her from accompanying that idiot this evening. Rest assured that Mary Margaret is safe. We taught her well. She can handle the likes of him.”

Rafe wasn’t so certain. She’d had a look about her when she left. He wouldn’t go so far as to call it scared—if he’d thought that he would never have let her go—but something about Hill didn’t sit well with Maggie. That much was as obvious as the wrinkles in the buccaneers’ brows.