McCrory's Lady (6 page)

      
There had been a dance at a neighboring ranch that night and Edward was unable to squire her because of pressing business in the capital. She had been a petulant, spoiled child, disappointed and angry. After the whole house was asleep, she had sneaked out to meet Judd, who insisted she drink from the unmarked bottle he had brought. He said it was “cordial” but it tasted much stronger, enough to get her slightly tipsy.

      
Soon all her troubles were forgotten and she was giggling and letting him seduce her beneath the big sycamore by the river. He had been full of tender phrases and soft caresses then, praising her beautiful young body as he undressed her. It had hurt a bit when he actually did the deed, but not all that much. Judd had assured her it was always that way the first time for women. After all her romantic imaginings, Eden had been rather disappointed, although Judd seemed quite pleased with her. Perhaps in time it would get better. Judd said it would. After that night she had felt irrevocably bound to him.

      
She had begun to search her mind frantically for a way to break her engagement to poor Edward and to explain her feelings to her father. The trouble was, she did not understand her feelings herself. Everything seemed to be moving too fast. Mrs. Stanley announced the betrothal in the Prescott newspapers and arranged a huge party in Eden and Edward's honor without ever consulting her. That night after the engagement ball Judd Lazlo had asked her to run away and marry him.

      
Like the spoiled young girl she was, Eden had accepted, seeing no way out of an intolerable future. Now, poor bumbling, pompous Edward and even overbearing old Sophie seemed a heavenly alternative. If only she could turn back the clock.

      
But I can't do that
, she thought in misery as she rummaged through her saddlebags and pulled out pieces of her torn undergarments to use as rags for polishing Lazlo's boots. Just thinking of that first night on the trail to Tucson with him made her flinch. Within an hour of leaving the ranch, the runaway lovers met up with Max Haywood, who was leading a string of her father's best racers.

      
Haywood and Lazlo greeted each other like old friends, and the horrible realization of what she had done—what Judd had done to her—washed over Eden McCrory.

      
“This man stole from my father. Those are Crown Verde horses,” she had whispered in outrage to Judd.

      
He had only thrown back his head and laughed. “Well, so they are. Consider it your dowry, Miss High and Mighty Rich Girl. You owe me something for hanging around you like a damned lap dog the past weeks, panting after your skinny little body.”

      
Her voice had broken in pain and shock. “If you didn't want me, why didn't you just steal the horses and be damned?”

      
A sly smile had spread across his face. “We want these horses for more than their cash value. They're our change of mounts. You see, Your Highness, we're taking you to a little hidyhole we have in Mexico and we need to make sure your pa don't catch up to us before we get there.”

      
That was when she realized the full extent of her culpability. Not only had she broken her father's heart by running away, she was risking his very life as well. “That ring of grafters in Tucson—they hired you, didn't they?”

      
When he had only laughed and leaned over to grab her horse's reins, Eden had used the heavy leather to slash across his face, then wheeled her small, fleet mare around and ridden like the wind. But Judd's big gelding had overrun her in moments. From then on she was his prisoner, and that night he had raped her, while Haywood snickered from the darkness across the campfire.

      
She held the evidence of that first brutal assault in her hands now—the blouse and camisole he had torn off her body, now rags with which to polish his boots. Rage washed over her in a sickening rush, leaving her so shaken she felt nauseated. Methodically, Eden carried the boots and rags to the stream and knelt by a rotten log to scrub the mud from them. As she worked, she could feel Judd's and the other men's eyes on her back.

      
Father could be in San Luís by now, asking about me. I have to do something to warn him.
She knew about the sentries posted at the opening of the box canyon. As soon as Colin approached, the four gunmen around the campfire would lie in wait, using her as bait until Judd gave the order to spring the trap. He was the clever one, the planner.

      
Maybe if I could kill Judd... But she had already tried stabbing him with the cook's knife, even coshing him on the skull with a sharp rock. His far greater size and strength had doomed her puny efforts to failure. Just as she was finishing up the second boot, a big hairy centipede crawled from the hollowed-out interior of the log.

      
Eden stifled a scream and sat very still, watching the poisonous creature make its way toward her. Very slowly and carefully she lay one of Judd's boots down on its side, the open end toward the centipede. It was a common Southwestern ritual, even indoors, to shake out one's boots before putting them on as a precaution. Eden had grown up doing so and knew how deadly those pincer legs' venom could be when sunk into human flesh.

      
She held her breath while the centipede meandered its grotesque body around the edge of the boot. Would it climb in? Praying fervently, she watched out of the corner of her eye while she continued to work on the other boot.

      
“What in hell's taking you so long, Eden?” Lazlo yelled.

      
Just one more minute. Half a minute.
The centipede was crawling over the lip of the boot. “I'm almost finished, Judd.”
And so are you.

      
Men did not die quickly of centipede bites. The venom worked slowly and very painfully. Judd would probably kill her, but if the poison finished him before he could trap her father, it would be worth it. With trembling fingers she picked up the boot and walked slowly and carefully back across the camp to where Judd sat.

      
“Do you want me to put them on you?” she asked sarcastically.

      
He studied her patrician profile. He had lied when he told her she was skinny and washed out. She was the most beautiful female he had ever bedded. Real quality. And he hated her for it. She had been devastated by his betrayal at first, but then that streak of Scots steel he had recognized in Colin McCrory showed through in his daughter. Judd Lazlo had wanted to break her spirit, to utterly degrade and humiliate her. So far he had failed. Maybe once she saw her precious father's dead body she would snap. He hoped so.

      
“Give me the damn boots and get your ass over here to fetch me my supper,” he commanded roughly·

      
Eden set the boots on the ground in front of him and walked away, not daring to look back for fear of giving away her secret.

      
She had not taken half a dozen steps when a loud oath rent the air. Whirling around, Eden watched Judd roll on the ground, shrieking and cursing as he held his foot. One of the other men rushed over and stamped on the centipede with his booted foot, making certain it was smashed into the dust before he stopped.

      
His face chalk white, Lazlo glared at Eden with hate-filled green eyes, serpent eyes. “You did this, you bitch! I'll kill you...” Sweat was pouring off his face and his voice shook with fear and rage.

      
“You gotta get to a doc, Judd,” one of the men said. The others exchanged looks. This far out in the wilds of Sonora, the chances of Judd Lazlo surviving such a deep puncture wound was practically nil.

      
“Maybe some whiskey will help,” Haywood suggested, uncorking a bottle.

      
“You want we should kill her, boss?” a third man offered.

      
“No,” Lazlo rasped out, calming a bit now. He yanked the bandana from his neck and tied it around his ankle. An angry red set of punctures was already creating swelling on the instep of his right foot. “I'm riding to San Luís. They got a doctor there. You keep her here for me. I got real good plans about how I'll kill her myself. I learned a few tricks from the Apach.”

      
His snake eyes studied her with feverish intensity as he forced the boot onto his swollen foot, gritting his teeth against the pain. His shirt was soaking wet, plastered to his heavily muscled torso, and his wavy, thick, tan hair hung lankly, framing a face that looked like a death mask. He struggled to his feet and took the reins of the big gelding one of his men had saddled. “Tie her up. If I'm not back in five days, kill her—screw her to death. You all take turns until she's done for.”

      
With that he swung up onto his horse and hunched over the saddle horn as the big bay bore him toward the mouth of the canyon.

* * * *

      
The sun was setting, leaving great vivid slashes of magenta and gold against the western rim of the canyon. Colin took the field glasses from Wolf and scanned the opening to the canyon from their hidden vantage point on the far side of the heavily wooded rim. They had climbed all afternoon, following a twisting overgrown trail that Maggie guided them along.

      
“I see another one, over against that big boulder by the mesquite,” Colin said.

      
“We need to pick them off before we hit the camp,” Wolf replied, studying the terrain with the practiced eye of his Apache forebears.

      
“Quietly. No guns. If Lazlo hears anything, he might hurt Eden.” Colin's voice was grim.

      
Maggie, who they had all but ignored since reaching the crest of the ridge, had been busy taking the pins from her hair. Lustrous waves of auburn cascaded over her shoulders. “I can distract the one on this side of the canyon. You go after the other one.”

      
Colin looked at her as if she had said she would fly down to the valley floor. “You'll damn well stay here, out of the line of fire.”

      
Wolf, who had said little since they rode out of San Luís, studied the man and woman glaring at each other. Something had passed between them since last night. They had been friendly, obviously attracted to each other. Now they were openly antagonistic. The sexual tension had not been eradicated. It still radiated between them like the desert sun pounding on a stone mesa, but the easygoing bantering had been replaced by clipped sharp commands on Colin's part and a proud, quiet defiance on Maggie's.

      
“She would be able to approach the guard easier than we could. Being a woman, she can walk up to him out in the open and hold his attention while I cut across behind him. There's not much cover to let us get close enough to kill him without firing a shot.”

      
“He could yell to his friend across the other side of the pass,” Colin said.

      
Maggie just smiled. “Trust me. He won't want to share. I know men,” she said with the voice of experience as her eyes met Colin's.

      
“Yes, I guess you do,” Colin replied tightly.

      
In half an hour they were in place. Maggie stumbled out of the rocks, sobbing, her clothes disheveled and her hair flying. “Please,” she said softly to the armed bandit, “help me.”

      
“What the hell?” He looked around, then rushed toward her as she started to crumple to the ground. His hands trembled with excitement when he saw the pale golden skin of her throat where her blouse had been pulled open. The ripe curve of a breast beckoned him. He set his rifle down as he bent over her, looking into the most beautiful face he had ever seen.

      
Maggie was the last thing he saw before Wolf's blade slashed cleanly across his throat. He died with a few gurgling gasps.

      
“You move fast. I figured he'd at least have my blouse unbuttoned first,” she said as Blake threw the body face down behind the rocks.

      
He smiled chillingly. “It's my Apache blood. My mother was Cibeque. I lived with them until I was seven. Some things you never forget.”

      
“You've grown up white,” she said as they moved cautiously through the rocks to await Colin's signal that he had disposed of the other sentry.

      
“My pa came back for me. His white wife had died without giving him any children. My mother was dead. Killed in a smallpox epidemic.” He shrugged. “Hell, her band was decimated. They couldn't feed any of the children. The tribal elders let him have me. I guess he figured a half-breed son was better than no son at all. He sent me to school. Beat civilization into me...”

      
When he said no more, Maggie studied the harsh planes of his face. There was a terrible burning anger in Wolf Blake. “There's more, isn't there, but you don't want to talk about it.”

      
“No, ma'm. I don't.”

      
“If you ever do, I'm a real good listener, Wolf,” she said gently.

      
He smiled again, but this time his eyes smiled, too. “I appreciate the offer.”

      
Colin watched the two of them, talking in low, quiet voices. A wave of completely irrational jealousy swept over him and he cursed himself for a fool. The woman was a whore who enticed every man she met. What did he expect? Damned if he'd marry her. She had to have a price. Once Eden was safe, he'd meet it.

      
Wolf saw McCrory emerge from the shadows. Night was coming on. They would have to move fast to get in position before full dark. “You got the other one?” The look in the older man's eye was confirmation.