When The Heart Beckons (42 page)

“You have ten seconds, Derrickson, to tell
me where my father is,” Cade said as he drew out his Colt and aimed
it at Derrickson’s trembling chest.

“One ...”

“I have no idea ...”

“Two ...”

“He went on a business trip ...”

“Three ...”

“... out of town ...”

“Four ...”

“And I haven’t heard from him in days now
...”

“Five ...”

“Really, Master Brett this is most
irregular. Have you and your brother both lost your minds?”

“Six ... and seven.”

Annabel grabbed Derrickson’s arm. “We know
you’re working with Boxer and we know you’ve betrayed Mr.
McCallum—I suggest you tell us the truth immediately or he
will
shoot you.”

“Eight.” Cade said calmly.

“Good heavens!”

Cade’s eyes were like marble, his hands
terrifyingly steady as he clicked the safety on the gun.
“Nine.”

“He’s in the stables!”

Cade lowered the gun. Annabel pushed
Derrickson down into a chair. “Alone?” she demanded.

“No ... no ... Bartholomew is with him,
guarding him you might say, and ... Mr. Stevenson.”

“Everett Stevenson?”

“We caught him snooping around, looking for
Mr. McCallum, after I told him that Mr. McCallum had been called
out of town on business. Mr. Johnson said we had to take care of
him, too, but ... I don’t like it,” he burst out miserably. His
lower lip shook and he clutched the arms of the chair. “I never
wanted things to go this far ... I said from the beginning that the
use of violence was against my principles, but they wouldn’t listen
to me and ...”

“Who else is out there?” Brett leaned down
and glared into his face. “Boxer?”

“You mean Mr. Johnson.” Derrickson nodded,
and then swallowed hard. “He’s expected any moment. He is planning
to finish the matter tonight as a matter of fact ...”

“Finish the matter?” Brett asked
sharply.

It was Cade who answered, as Derrickson just
stared back in hopeless fear. “By that you mean that he is planning
to kill our father, don’t you, Derrickson?”

“Well ... in a ... word ... yes.”

Annabel was already racing for the door.

“You stinking little bastard,” Brett said in
a low tone. His fist shot out and slammed into Derrickson’s jaw.
The man crumpled onto the floor without even a whimper.

“Annabel—wait!” Cade sprinted after her, but
she was already tearing out the front door, racing through the
darkness toward the stable even as the gunshot rang through the
darkness.

R
oss McCallum
jackknifed himself toward Boxer and the gun with every ounce of
strength left in his body. He hit the man dead on, just as Boxer
fired.

Then everything happened in a blinding,
confusing flash—Boxer’s aim went wide, the bullet slammed into the
stable wall, and Everett Stevenson threw himself sideways on the
bench.

Boxer fell backward, the gun clattering from
his grasp as McCallum went down on top of him. “You idiot!” Boxer
shouted. “This is one fight you can’t hope to win, and I’m going to
make damned sure you suffer for it!”

He had no difficulty in pushing off the
larger man, whose wrists and ankles were still bound together—in an
instant, he was up, kicking McCallum repeatedly as the older man
tried to roll and twist away.

Stevenson dove off the bench and into the
fray, trying to knock Johnson off balance, while at the same time,
Bartholomew pulled a second smaller pistol from his pocket and
brandished it at the skirmishers. “Stop!” he shouted. “Lie still or
I’ll shoot you both!”

Suddenly the stable door opened and Annabel
burst in. She had no memory of running across the long velvet lawn
or of darting through the gardens, no exact realization of how she
reached the stables. She only knew that her ears rang with the
words:
too late ...
.
We’re too late
.

Then rage choked her as she saw the tall,
brown-haired man kicking Ross McCallum as he lay bound and writhing
on the floor.

Without thinking, she jumped forward and
shoved the man away with all her might. “Don’t you dare touch him
again! Or I’ll let them kill you right here where you stand!”

“What the hell ... who the devil ...”

And then as if by magic, or perhaps some
dark conjuring of the devil himself, another figure appeared behind
her, and then another, only these were no magical illusions or
spirits, they were tall hardy men, armed and competent, with dark
hair and lean bronzed faces filled with unspeakable rage. A
terrible grimness flashed in those dark faces as they surveyed the
brutal scene before them—their gazes sweeping swiftly from the two
men lying bound on the floor to the well-dressed man standing over
them.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cade said with furious
calm as he stared into Frank Boxer’s astonished face. “I’m going to
kill you regardless.” And he lunged past Annabel and seized Boxer
by his fancy silk lapels, holding him for a split second before his
right fist slammed with punishing force into the other man’s
face.

Brett dove at Bartholomew, who was trying to
aim the pistol.

“I don’t think, so, you toad-eating son of a
bitch.” Brett had no difficulty in wrenching the gun from his
hapless opponent, and then he landed a solid left hook to
Bartholomew’s jaw.

Annabel was already kneeling beside the two
men on the floor, her fingers working frantically but uselessly at
their bonds.

“Damn these ropes ... I can’t ... Mr.
McCallum, Mr. Stevenson, are you all right? I’m trying to unknot
them, but ...”

At that, moment, Cade’s next punch sent
Boxer sprawling facedown. He landed only a few feet from Ross
McCallum and lay there stunned for a moment. But suddenly, before
Annabel could do more than blink, he somehow lunged forward to
where she knelt beside the two men.

There was a knife in his hand.

He grabbed Annabel by the hair and yanked
her toward him, up and over McCallum’s prone form. The keen blade
of the knife grazed her throat.

“Don’t move—anyone! If you so much as
quiver, I’ll slit this little lady’s throat like a gobbler.”

Red light flared before Annabel’s eyes as
she crouched there, unable to move, unable to breathe. There was a
ringing in her ears—terror, she realized. From the corner of her
eye she saw Cade go very still and white, and Brett froze with
Bartholomew in a headlock.

“That’s right.” Boxer laughed, a cruel, flat
sound that seemed to fill every dark corner of the hushed stable.
“Now stay where you are. The lady and I are leaving. If you don’t
follow me, I’ll let her go.”

This can’t be happening
, Annabel
thought as she felt herself dragged up and toward the door. Boxer
had let go of her hair; now he had an arm locked around her throat
and the knife was pressed to her cheek. “It would be a shame to
carve up such a pretty face,” Boxer snarled as they backed toward
the door. “You McCallums always did have a taste for fine-looking
women. Maybe I’ll seduce this one too,” he taunted with a vicious
little laugh. “When we get where we’re going.”

Then they were outside in the warm, starlit
night, and he was dragging her toward the carriage that waited in
the shadows.

“Let me go,” she gasped, as his arm dug into
her throat. “You’ll ... make faster time ... without me ...”

“Shut up!” He opened the carriage door with
his free hand, while the driver looked on in obvious panic, having
no doubt heard the gunfire and the fracas within. But apparently,
Annabel realized dimly, he was too frightened of his employer to
bolt without him.

“Go, you idiot!” Boxer shouted at the
driver, and at the same moment, he hurled Annabel away from him and
leaped inside the carriage.

In the frantic confusion of the next few
moments, Annabel scarcely knew what happened. But somehow, as the
carriage plunged forward toward the gated driveway and the street,
Cade was at her side, lifting her from the ground, crushing her to
him.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was scared but ... Cade,
where are you going?”

“Stay there!” was all he replied, a shout
over his shoulder, but she knew the answer already as he began to
run toward the street.

Then she was surrounded by Brett, Ross
McCallum, and Everett Stevenson, and the night was full of loud
voices and questions. Brett had Bartholomew in tow, too, and once
he saw that Annabel was unhurt, he began to drag his prisoner back
to the house.

“Come on. Let’s get inside. We’ll get some
rope for this hombre while we wait for Cade to get back. Don’t
worry, Annabel,” he added, throwing her an encouraging smile, “you
know that if anyone can catch him, Cade can.”

She nodded, but the fear was still there, a
living, breathing thing in her heart as the battered weary group
made its way to the looming house beyond.

Annabel was too stunned by all that had
happened to be able to think beyond one thing: Cade was out there
in the night chasing after a madman, a vicious, revenge-crazed
madman.
He should let him go ... he should be here, with his
father, his brother, and me.

But she also knew that Cade McCallum would
not be able to rest until he had caught up with the man who had
brought so much misery to everyone he loved.

The house felt large and warm and
comforting, especially after Brett lit a fire in the main parlor,
turned up all the lamps, and banished Bartholomew and Derrickson,
hastily tied up, into the study, and then locked the door. Ross
McCallum, looking gaunt and weary after his ordeal, but every bit
as sharp-eyed as ever, poured brandy for each of them from a
crystal decanter.

“My dear, did that ruffian hurt you?” he
asked as she sank down on the striped damask sofa and gratefully
accepted the brandy he offered her.

“No.” She gave her head a tiny shake as he
took a seat beside her and thirstily drained his own glass. Then he
studied her over the rim, and Annabel knew she could not disguise
the fear that was leaving her sick and cold.

“I can only pray he doesn’t hurt Cade,” she
whispered.

Ross McCallum set the glass down on the
inlaid table before him. He glanced at Brett, who was pacing back
and forth before the mantel, and spoke in a low, hoarse voice quite
unlike his usual boom. “After thinking I’d never see either of my
sons again, I’ve just gotten both of them back. Annabel Brannigan,
don’t you worry. I don’t think the Good Lord is going to take
either of my boys away again before we’ve even had a chance for a
proper reunion.”

Brett came over and knelt beside his father.
“I owe you an apology, Father. None of this ever would have
happened if I hadn’t run away. Derrickson destroyed my letter, but
if I’d stayed and talked to you ...”

“Don’t.” The older McCallum laid his large
hand on his son’s head. “I’ve made enough mistakes for an entire
clan of McCallums,” he said heavily. “If there’re any apologies to
be made, they should come from me.”

Everett Stevenson cleared his throat. “Sir,
I’m going to bring the authorities in to take charge of those
scoundrels in the other room and to write up a report of all these
shenanigans. But first, I’d like to offer my congratulations to my
private investigator. Miss Brannigan, you’ve done a bang-up job.
You’ll have to tell us how you found this young man and figured out
what was going on back here from halfway across the country—and how
you made it back here in the nick of time to save my life and Mr.
McCallum’s.”

“I’ll tell you all of it, Mr. Stevenson.”
She regarded him somberly, aware that her knees were trembling
beneath her navy traveling skirt. Brett, hearing the quaver in her
voice, flicked her another bracing smile. She tried to smile back
but her lips felt stiff as wax, and she could think of nothing but
that madman, the knife, and Cade.

“It’s a long story but I’ll tell you every
detail as soon as Cade McCallum walks back through that door and I
know that he is safe.”

* * *

Cade had reached the gate and watched in
frustration as the carriage careened up the wide deserted street
and jolted around the corner. He ran after it, and reached the
corner in time to see it heading east down Whitecliff Street.

Damn
, he thought, glancing wildly
from one direction to the next. Not another vehicle in sight. And
if he went back to the stable for one of his father’s horses, he’d
lose sight of the carriage for certain. He started to run again,
toward Whitecliff, but as he tore up the street with long, furious
strides his hopes of being able to keep the carriage in sight until
he could find something, anything to give chase began to dwindle
...

There
. A horse and wagon coming
toward him, trotting leisurely down the middle of the dark road
just ahead. Cade sprang toward it, a dusky figure in the blackness,
murkily illuminated by the white swarming stars above.

“Whoa! Whoa, there!”

He sprang forward as the startled driver
pulled his workhorse to a halt. “I need this horse and this wagon.
There’ll be a reward for you when I bring it back. Quick, man!”

“But—”

“No time to argue.” Cade had vaulted up
before the driver could do more than gape at him. He grabbed the
man by the collar and hauled him out of the wagon, then picked up
the reins. Ignoring the man’s outraged protests, he wheeled the big
black horse about and flicked the whip to him.

The night closed down around him as he urged
the horse forward, faster and faster past street lamps and
shuttered houses. Up ahead he could just make out the rear of
Boxer’s carriage. Cade gritted his teeth. He couldn’t lose the
bastard now.

“C’mon, boy. Go!”

At last, galloping down a side street lined
with shops and brick office buildings, the big black horse began to
gain on the carriage ahead. But only slightly. Sweat glistened on
Cade’s face as he urged the horse faster. Suddenly, ahead, a
peddler’s cart veered from a side street directly into the
carriage’s path.