Love Inspired Historical June 2014 Bundle: Lone Star Heiress\The Lawman's Oklahoma Sweetheart\The Gentleman's Bride Search\Family on the Range (41 page)

“A hostage is fine leverage against your enemy,” McGraw declared in a superior tone. “When it's a pretty one, well, I always find that just makes the time a little easier to pass. Veer down by the river for a spell so we can hide our tracks. Then head over to that hut past the river bend. We'll be fine holed up in there for the day.” He shifted in his saddle. “Need to rest my leg a spell anyways.”

“How bad you hurt?” Wellington asked.

“Don't you worry none about my leg,” McGraw replied, but Katrine noticed the strain in his voice. “Nothing a little nursing by a pretty lady can't fix up.”

“How will those Chaucer boys and that foreign fellow know we've got their sisters? Don't they think we're back with Reeves and Strafford?”

“Wellington, some days you don't show a lick of sense. They've long figured out we're gone. When they come to find their women gone, they'll know who took 'em.” He gave a dark laugh. “They just won't know
where
.” His hand reached around to finger the lace at Katrine's cuff. “Maybe we'll send them a hint or two, just to keep things interesting.”

Katrine yanked her hand away from McGraw's grasp, only to have him hold her more tightly against him. One thought settled quietly in her brain, dark and still as a graveyard:
He tried to kill me once. He'll do it again. Father God, do not let him succeed.

Chapter Eighteen

“C
lint! Lars!” Gideon's voice rose above a thunder of hooves sounding behind them. “Hold up!”

“Changed your mind about needing to see Evelyn?” Clint teased, only to drop his smile when he saw the panic on Gideon's face.

“It's McGraw. And Wellington. They're gone.”

“I didn't figure they were wounded that badly.” McGraw had a pretty bad gash in his leg, but it didn't look like the kind of thing to kill him. Alice had tended to the wound, besides.

“No, they're
gone!
One minute the four of them were slumped together, out cold, the next time I turned around Reid was running around yelling. I don't know how that pair of snakes did it, but those two made off.” He gave the next two words the gravity they deserved: “With horses.”

For one leaden moment, silence filled the air while each of the three men envisioned the possible outcomes of McGraw's escape. Then, as if all of them had come to the same conclusion, they set off at a gallop toward Elijah's cabin and the infirmary.

Clint knew it was too late before he was even onto the property. The infirmary door swung open in the night wind, a chair lay toppled over just outside the door. Lars said something in Danish that needed no translation—his tone matched the slam of dread in Clint's chest.

“He's got her.” The very thing he'd tried so hard to prevent.

“And Evelyn,” Gideon added with alarm. “Evelyn was with Katrine.”

“I don't think he'll hurt them,” Clint said with a certainty he didn't truly feel. His mind recalled the lecherous way McGraw had eyed Katrine. The private was smart enough to know possession of the two women gave him enormous leverage. He'd play that to the hilt, given his fondness for cat-and-mouse games. Still, he didn't need their deaths to take his revenge—a man of his moral lack could harm good women in other ways. Clint battled to keep the rage boiling in his chest under enough control to let him think clearly. He stared at the open door. They'd taken no care to cover their tracks. “He wants us to know he has them.”

“If he so much as touches one hair on Evelyn's head...” Gideon ground out through his teeth as they swung down off their horses to survey the scene.

Clint dreaded the question, but it had to be asked. “Lars, do you know where Winona is?”

Relief flooded the Dane's blue eyes. “She told me she would gather Dakota and wait for me at the Gilberts'.”

Clint ran his hands down his face, calculating who was where and could offer what help. “That's good.”

“McGraw does not know her...” Lars struggled for the right way to say it “...value to me. She may be useful.”

Gideon looked a bit puzzled, but now was certainly not the time to go into specifics of that nature. “No,” Clint replied, “best keep her safe and out of this. Elijah and Alice are a bit behind us, right?”

Gideon began reloading his rifle, his tinderbox of a temper about to get the best of him. But Clint knew dealing with McGraw—especially now that the stakes were so high—would take strategy, not gunpowder. If he was heading anywhere close to an ammunition stash the size of one Lars had seen, McGraw could not be outgunned. He had to be out-thought. “Hold on there, Gideon.”

“That lout's got Evelyn!” Gideon nearly shouted.

Clint could empathize—his insides were shouting for Katrine with every slam of his pulse. “I know. I know. But
think,
Gideon. We've got to try to think ahead of him. We've got to try to figure out where he's taking her.” He turned to Lars, who had already begun to scan the scene like the master tracker Clint knew him to be. “What do you see?”

Lars had grabbed the lantern still burning in the infirmary and was inspecting the ground beside the building's front porch. “Two horses.” He went a few steps farther. “Blood.”

“Blood?” Gideon surged forward to the dark splatters illuminated by the lantern.

Clint came up behind his brother and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “That's good news. McGraw was injured, remember? If he's still bleeding, he's in bad shape.”
Don't let it be Katrine's,
Clint found himself praying, feeling as if no one but God Himself could keep her safe for the next hour.
Or Evelyn's blood, either. Think, Thornton. Be a sheriff
.

Casting his eyes through the open door into the infirmary, Clint saw that the room was still in an orderly state. “They didn't think to take supplies from the infirmary, so they'll need food, water and medicine. Lars, you discovered some of their caches. Which ones are closest?”

Lars closed his eyes in thought, and Clint turned to see Elijah on horseback and Alice in the wagon coming up the way. They were expecting a joyful reunion, not another dose of trouble. It took Lije all of three seconds to read his brothers' expressions. “No.” His word was almost a moan as he swung down off his saddle.

“McGraw's got Katrine and Evelyn,” Gideon snarled. “Somehow that snake slithered right out from under those Chaucer noses and he's got them. Him and Wellington.”

“But they were both injured. McGraw especially.” Alice came down off the wagon to grasp her husband's arm. “I'm sorry I stitched him up at all. But it was a bad wound, Clint. If he's running off like that, the stitches will never hold.”

“He's still bleeding,” Lars said, pointing to the red spots on the ground. “And badly enough to not venture far. I think they would go to the shack downriver from Gideon's. Or the cave up over the ridge to the southwest beyond where our cabin was.”

“Where your cabin will
still be,
” Clint corrected, although it didn't seem a detail worth worrying about at the moment. Still, the thought of those windows without Katrine's face peering out of them made him want to pummel McGraw with his bare hands.

“Why are we standing here?” Gideon growled, pacing. “Every moment we wait they get farther away!”

Lars gave Clint a steady look. “It must be one of those places. The others have only ammunition, not food and shelter, right?”

“Only ammunition?” Gideon cut in. “You said they were well armed. They're going to where they've got
more?
”

Clint grabbed Gideon's shoulder. “Look at me.” He held his brother's gaze until the wild rage steeled to a hard, determined focus. “Do you care how many guns they have?”

“No,” Gideon said.

Clint would have ridden straight into a cavalry with a dozen cannons to save Katrine. “Neither do I. We
will
get them back. We will.” He felt his resolve settle down into that rock-solid place that made him the lawman he was. It was now an indisputable fact: the sun would not go down on this day until he gazed into the blue of Katrine's eyes.

“Lije, you ride southwest with Lars. Gideon, you and I will take the spot downstream.” He handed Alice the keys to his sheriff's office. “Alice, run into town and wake Daniel O'Grady. Send him over to the Chaucers with the handcuffs from my office. I want those last two locked up in a cell as fast as we can. Tell Dan to scare them up a bit on the way—maybe they'll rat out their partners who left them to hang.”

“We'll need more than the four of us,” Elijah cautioned. “If they're desperate enough to try this, they'll be desperate enough to try anything.”

“What are you saying?” Clint's impatience was starting to match Gideon's.

“The Chaucers will help you. Evelyn's their kin.”

“The Chaucers are the ones who let McGraw get away in the first place!” Gideon barked.

“You don't know that,” Elijah argued.

Clint had to admit Lije was right. “Even if it's so, that'll make them all the more willing to hunt McGraw and Wellington down. Swing by the Chaucer place and fill them in. Take one with you and send the other two downstream to us.”

“Chaucers and Thorntons working together,” Alice said as Elijah helped her up into the wagon. “Never thought I'd see the day.”

“Well, God is mighty fond of surprises,” Clint replied, bringing a stunned stare from Lije. “I hope He's mighty fond of justice, too. Let's go!”

* * *

“There now,” Private Wellington said with a civility Katrine did not at all feel. “Ain't that homey?” He had spread a thin blanket across a pallet on the floor of the ramshackle structure and handed a tin of canned meat each to Katrine and Evelyn.

Evelyn frowned at the
Property of the United States Cavalry
stamp on the tin. “You steal food from the government?”

“Those rations are necessary provisions for our well-being,” McGraw said as he took another healthy swig from a whiskey bottle Katrine also imagined he would classify as “necessary for his well-being.” He'd broken into the crate of liquor first thing upon pushing into the shack and hadn't let up yet. It didn't take Alice's nursing skills to see he was in a great deal of pain. He grimaced with every movement and a sheen of sweat covered his face and arms. A wet blotch of purple stained his dark blue pants.

McGraw followed her gaze, and subsequently nodded at Evelyn. “You finish off that ham and then you'll tend to my leg.”

Evelyn's chin rose. “I'll do no such thing.”

McGraw slammed the bottle down on the table where he sat with his leg propped on one rickety chair. “I'd advise you to drop your contentious Chaucer ways if you have a mind to live until sundown.”

“I'm no nurse.” Evelyn's reply was more defiant than Katrine thought wise.
Clint, come save us! He will only grow more mean as the pain goes on. Lars, find us!

“You got a boy, don't you? I ain't never met a mother didn't know how to bind up a wound. That box over there has a medical kit inside, and if you know what's good for you you'll put it to good use.”

Wellington, as if it would help matters, turned the little tin key that peeled the top off the tin of ham and handed it to Evelyn. He'd done the same for Katrine, and terrible as the rations tasted, she was too hungry to refuse what might be her last meal for hours if not days. Wellington waited a minute or two as Katrine choked down the last of the awful, salty ham. “You,” he said, pointing to Katrine, “come with me to fetch some water from the river.”

“Don't leave me alone with him,” Evelyn cried out.

Her alarm only brought a snicker from McGraw. “Don't you worry your little head over that, missy. I've no eye for dark eyes and hair.” He turned to Katrine, and she saw McGraw eye her with the same barely concealed appetite she'd seen at the mercantile that one day. “I like 'em with yellow locks.”

His gaze was so hungry that Katrine gladly followed Private Wellington out of the shack just to be away from it. She had always thought that the murderer from her younger years was the most evil man she had ever met, but McGraw was more awful still. Grabbing a pair of buckets, Wellington led them down a small path toward an offshoot of the Cimarron River. At least she hoped it was the Cimarron River—she'd lost all sense of direction in the wild ride to this camp.

Katrine looked up at the thin pale sky, trying to find the sun behind a blanket of gray clouds. She prayed that God would stave off the rain so as not to wash away the tracks, as Lars had always said. It had become clear that their only hope of safety was if Lars or Clint were able to track them to wherever it was McGraw had taken them.

Where am I?
She peered at the tree line as she walked, scanned the landscape for anything that looked familiar. She hadn't even the sun to work out the direction they'd ridden. Nothing she could see proved any help at all. Katrine tried to not let her rising panic get the best of her wits, for they seemed to be all she had to help herself now.
Find the drafty corner and start kicking.
She could almost hear Clint whisper the words in her ear.

Wellington let out a groan of pain as he leaned into the river to fill his bucket. He seemed less evil than McGraw—a soft man merely following orders. Perhaps he was the weak corner in all this danger and she could make some headway with him.

“You are hurt?” she asked, pointing to where the private clutched his side.

“Don't you worry about that. I'll be fine.”

He clearly wasn't, but she was unsure how far to push the subject. She tried to imagine how Clint had talked the soldiers away from her cabin. “Getting alongside them,” he'd called it. Could she get alongside Wellington? “Why do you follow him?” Katrine kept her voice light as she bent over to fill her own bucket.

“What kind of fool question is that?”

“He has no honor, no loyalty. Not to you. Not to anyone.” With the hand that wasn't holding the bucket, Katrine worked the pale blue ribbon from her braid, bunching it up in one fist.

“You just shut your yappin', missy. I'm of my own mind here. I know where my reward is and where it isn't.”

“I do not see reward here.” Behind her back, Katrine began winding the ribbon around a branch at the top of a nearby bush.

When Wellington slammed his bucket down, spilling water over his feet, Katrine startled, but kept herself between Wellington and her ribbon so he could not see. “You hush up!” he barked, and she knew she'd hit a nerve. “Look what you made me do! Now, you go refill that bucket for me, you loudmouthed foreigner woman.” He tugged a second black kerchief from his pocket, using it to mop up his wet boots. Katrine went down to the water's edge and, as she filled the bucket, piled three small stones one on top of the other. It was the way Lars marked his trails. Katrine held a vision of Lars and Clint riding through the growing light, working their way toward her, guns drawn and eyes relentless in their search for clues.
Find me,
she called out in her mind, not caring how futile the gesture was.
I'm kicking. Come save me
.