The Wedding Ransom (21 page)

Maggie was embarrassed. That had to be it. And such an emotion wouldn’t sit well on the shoulders of a strong woman like her.

Rafe could have kicked himself. He should have waited until they were alone to approach her. Maggie would have dealt better with the normal morning—after awkwardness without an audience of overprotective grandfathers.

He looped his thumbs around his belt loops and sighed, wondering if heading back to the hotel now would improve matters or only make them worse. While he pondered the problem, Gus meandered up beside him and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Maggie seems happy enough this morning.”

Rafe almost tripped over his own feet at that. He looked around to make certain they weren’t being overheard, then gestured toward the woman currently chastising the bushy-tailed squirrel who had dared to dart across her path. “This is happy?”

“This is normal. Yesterday’s revelations were hard for her to swallow, and temper helps to get them down. She’s not heartbroken, though. In fact, she may just be stronger than ever. I reckon we have you to thank for that.”

Rafe didn’t quite know how to answer him. This was the closest he’d ever come to having a father thank him for taking his daughter’s virginity. “Uh, my pleasure.”

Gus wrenched his eyes closed. “I don’t want the details, Malone. This isn’t easy for me, you know.”

Rafe hadn’t been sure. This entire situation was as strange as a sidesaddle on a sow. “What about the others? Do they…?”

Gus’s mouth lifted in a sneer. “You weren’t gelded right after breakfast, were you?”

They didn’t know. Rafe breathed a little easier as the band of tension surrounding his lungs released. Not that he was afraid of the pirates or anything like that. He simply wished to avoid any unpleasantness. Maggie didn’t need it, and come to think of it, neither did he.

Up ahead, Snake drew his knife and with one fast slash hacked off the limb of a dogwood blocking his shot. Rafe sucked in a breath. Maybe the pirates worried him just a little, after all. He cleared his throat. “Has she said anything today about what she learned last night? About Montgomery, I mean?”

Gus slowly shook his head. “Not a word. We’ve talked about it among us, though. Ben is convinced she’ll go to Andrew at Triumph. Maybe not immediately, but soon. We have less than two months until Hill’s deadline to buy the hotel. She’ll want to save Lake Bliss for our sakes. We just want to be sure it’s available for her. Hill is a squirrelly son of a flounder, and we don’t trust him not to deny Maggie’s access to Bliss water just for the halibut.”

Rafe was momentarily distracted by the combination of animal and fish in the old salt’s speech. Just for the halibut? A light dawned.
Just for the hell of it. Oh
. “Do you think Montgomery will provide the funds needed to meet Hill’s price?”

“Yeah,” Gus said, his lips twisting in a bittersweet grin. “Drew visited us not long after we settled at Lake Bliss. Tried to take her away from us. That’s when we told him about her illness. Judging by his reaction, I feel certain he’ll protect her now. He’ll give her enough of the treasure to buy back Hotel Bliss and secure her access to the water.”

“What did he do?”

“This, among other things,” Gus said, pointing to the scar on his face. “He decided to quit the fight to make her leave Bliss so that she could have the treatment she needed. But before he left, he swore he’d make us pay. He promised us that someday he’d cause us to lose what we valued most of all. When we told Maggie the truth, well, I reckon Drew got his wish. We hurt her bad.”

“It’s true you hurt Maggie, but you didn’t lose her. She has forgiven you. She wouldn’t play golf with you otherwise.”

The pirate’s tired expression crinkled into a smile. “Yeah, you’re right about that, Malone. She’s some kind of woman, isn’t she?”

Damn right she was. And Gus only knew the half of it. Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you really believe that if Montgomery steps in and saves the day he’ll try to keep y’all separated?”

Gus’s smile faded. He cleared his throat and nodded. “One thing about Andrew: when he gives his word, he keeps it. The two of you are alike that way.”

Not caring for the comparison, Rafe scowled and asked a question that had occurred to him last night while Maggie was sleeping. “About Montgomery. Could he and Hill be partners in this scheme to take Hotel Bliss away from you?”

“I never even thought of that.” Gus’s gray eyes went hard as steel as he considered the question. “I don’t know, Malone. Drew has a mean streak in him, for certain, but a plan like this would have taken years to set up. You should have seen what Maggie went through trying to fight our case in the courts. Poor thing wore herself down and had the worst spell she’s had in years. To think Andrew would cause his own flesh and blood so much hurt, well, it’s hard for a man to fathom.”

Rafe scowled. “He didn’t care about hurting her when he left her on a beach, now did he?”

“That was different. He couldn’t think straight. Abigail hurt him so badly, and the two—Maggie and she—were all tied up together in his mind.”

“Are you defending what he did? I can’t believe you, Gus. I thought you hated Montgomery.”

“I do. I did. Well, clam it.” He yanked a bandanna from his pocket and dragged it across his perspiring face. “I don’t know what I think except that matters aren’t always black and white. Sometimes a man has to massage the gray with his brain a bit before he can figure out what’s right and what’s not.”

With the idea of a connection between Montgomery and Hill rumbling around Rafe’s mind, Rafe asked, “Is Montgomery the type of man who would want his daughter to marry water barrel scum like Barlow Hill?”

Gus drew up short and speared him with a look. “What kind of nonsense is that?”

“Never mind.” Rafe had a hunch that telling the pirates about Hill’s nefarious plan might put a plow to a field best left untilled. Knowing Maggie, if she’d kept the information to herself this long, she had good reason. Rafe wanted to know about that and a whole lot more. Awkwardness or no, the time had come for him to share a little conversation with the lady.

He got his chance one shot later when she sliced her ball off into the woods. Casually he joined her in the search, and when they were both beyond the pirates’ sight, he cornered her against a cottonwood. He hadn’t intended to kiss her first off, but now that her lips were so handy, he couldn’t help himself. “Good morning, Mary-mine,” he said, his thumb stroking her face before his mouth claimed hers.

She tasted sweet as honeysuckle nectar, and for a moment Rafe forgot the questions he wanted to ask. When he finally broke the kiss, a sensual haze clouded her normally crystalline eyes. Rafe grinned and she blinked. As her eyes cleared her complexion pinkened like a dogwood in spring.

“I’m not yours,” she said snippily.

“You were last night.”

Maggie’s blush deepened. He kissed her again, and when she melted against him, Rafe briefly considered laying her down on the forest floor and taking the matter further. But recalling the proximity of her guardian pirates, he decided on a more prudent course of action. Firmly, he set her away from him. “I have some questions. We need to talk.”

She pressed her fingers against her lips and closed her eyes. “Why do I let you do this to me?”

“I think we do it to each other,” he replied. Catching hold of her hand, he lifted her knuckles to his mouth for a kiss. “It’s the same for me, honey. I ask myself the same blasted question.”

“Questions. I don’t want to answer questions. I don’t want to talk. I need to find my ball.” She kicked at a heap of leaves.

“Maggie, I know you’re probably feeling shy about last night, but—”

“I’m not feeling shy about last night,” she interrupted.

“Awkward, then.”

“Not awkward, either. I’m fine. Last night was fine.”

Fine? The best sex of his entire life was just fine for her?
Rafe folded his arms and stared at her, his mouth hanging open.
Well, hell!
“Are you sure?” he asked, giving her another chance.

“Positive!”

That just got all over him. “Fine, then. Fine yourself.” Rafe gave a nearby clump of brush a good kick. Searching for the golf ball, of course.

Maggie, too, turned back to the task at hand, and the next few moments passed in tense silence as they searched the forest floor.

But Rafe couldn’t leave it at “fine.” Once he’d calmed down a bit, he spoke up. “All right, Maggie. If you’re not feeling bashful, how come you have a burr under your blanket?”

“I don’t have a burr under my blanket.”

“Yes, you do.” He halted and braced his hands on his hips. “I can tell. What’s the problem, Maggie? Go ahead and run it by me. Maybe I can help.”

It was the wrong choice of words for him to use.

“Help?” Her gaze filled with scorn. Bitterness dripped like venom in her words. “Gentleman Rafe Malone help us? Ha!” Twigs cracked beneath the violence of her steps as she rushed away from him.

Rafe muttered a curse and hurried after her. Reaching out, he caught hold of her arm and drew her up short. “Now wait just a minute. What did I do to deserve that?”

“Nothing.” She gazed at him through angry, tearful eyes. “That’s exactly it, Malone. It’s what you said you’d do. Nothing. It would be so easy for you to get our treasure for us. You have all the right skills. I don’t believe for a moment that you’d be careless enough to get caught at it. You’re too good. But you refuse to help us, so now I must figure out another way.” She jerked from his hold, lifted her chin, and abandoned her search for the ball, hurrying back to the meadow and her grandfathers.

Rafe grabbed at a small cottonwood branch, stripping it of its leaves, scowling as he watched her flee. Wasn’t that just like a woman? She sharpened her tongue on his hide, then went running back to her daddies before he could so much as spit.

Her attitude pricked his pride. She all but ignored what had happened between them last night, and it stuck in his craw. He damn well knew he’d pleased her—a number of times, in fact. She’d given him her virginity, then left his bed with nary a howdy-do. Women weren’t supposed to act that way. They were supposed to cling and moon on about love.

Instead, Maggie St. John dismissed him entirely and took to worrying about the Barlow Hill/Hotel Bliss/Andrew Montgomery trouble. When he finally chased her down, all she did was blush a little and chew him out for refusing to put his neck in a noose by stealing for her.

Damn, that woman was something else. She hadn’t even given him a chance to tell her about his old-age fund. He’d had an idea how to help, but did she give him the chance to tell her? No. She yammered at him like a fishwife. “Well, you can just stew in your own juices a tad bit longer, Mad Maggie. Serves you right.”

Rafe gave a pinecone at his feet a good strong kick, then turned on his heel with the intention of returning to the hotel. Maggie’s scream stopped him in his tracks.

“Papa!”

T
he air echoed with Maggie’s cry as she watched Papa Snake clutch at his chest and collapse. The grimace of pain plowing deep furrows in her grandfather’s pasty complexion filled her heart with terror. Her own hands mimicked his actions when his meaty fingers curled into fists.

Fear fueled her movements as she rushed to his side and was joined by her other papas, each of them reaching for the flask tucked away in vest or trouser pockets. Down on her knees, she lifted his head into her lap.

Ben squatted beside her, lifting the small bottle filled with Bliss water to Snake’s pale lips. “Get a good sip,” he said, his voice controlled as he tipped the container.

Snake drank, then coughed, then took a second drink.

Maggie pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, and with shaking hands dabbed at the sweat on his brow. His skin was clammy, his breathing shallow. It made her so very afraid.

“What’s wrong, Snake?” Lucky fanned the downed man’s face with his hat. “Did you get hold of a bad slice of bacon or something?”

“Gotta horse sitting on my chest,” he panted out in reply.

It must be his heart, Maggie realized.
Oh, dear Lord, no.
She spied the foreign look of fear in her Papa Snake’s eyes, and her own heart began to ache. Trembling with nerves and at a loss on how else to help him, she said, “Take some more water, Papa.” Then she started to pray.

“We better move back and give him some air,” Gus said.

Snake breathed a weak curse. “Hurts. Hurts bad.”

Tears stung at Maggie’s eyes, and she blinked hard, trying desperately to prevent them from falling. Snake hated it when she cried.

“What’s wrong?” Rafe’s voice cut across the pasture and Maggie lifted her head, gazing at him as though he were a lifeline. He ran toward them, his long arms and legs eating up the distance with gratifying speed.

Maggie remained silent while Gus repeated what had happened. Ben and Lucky appeared hesitant and uncertain. They glanced from Rafe to their fallen comrade, then back to Rafe once again.

“What do we do?” Ben asked, his voice tight.

Emotion squeezed Maggie’s insides. This had never happened before. In emergencies, Papa Ben was captain of the family ship. Her papas always had the answers; they always led the way. This reversal of roles frightened Maggie even more.

Rafe knelt beside Snake, and with a gentleness in his expression new to Maggie, he laid his fingertips against her papa’s neck and felt for a pulse. “Well, you’ll be glad to know you’re not dead yet, Snake MacKenzie. Your heart’s still ticking.”

“But somebody put my chest in a vise.”

Rafe smiled gently. “Have you had spells like this before?”

“Yeah…couple of…times.”

Maggie rolled back in shock. This was the first she’d heard of it.

“What did you do to get to feeling better?”

“Bliss water. Rest.”

Ben cleared his throat. “We’ve dosed him good with water, Malone. I don’t know what else…”

“Let’s take him home.” Rafe slipped one arm beneath Snake MacKenzie’s shoulders, the other beneath his thighs, and hoisted the old man into his arms. Standing, he said, “Hang on there, Snake. I’ll try to make this as smooth and as quick a trip as possible.”