TheSurrenderofLacyMorgan (26 page)

* * * * *

Quinn worked his way through the trees, carrying the quails
he’d killed in one hand, his rifle in the other. He’d been surprised to find
them so easily this far into the mountains, but looked forward to eating fresh
meat for dinner.

Suddenly the hairs on his neck rose. He stopped in his
tracks to listen over the beating of his pulse in his ears.

Nothing. Even the birds were silent.

Something was definitely wrong. Careful where he stepped, he
eased forward to study the area ahead, looking for anything out of place. A few
steps more and he saw it, head high on the bark of an aspen—a dark rusty spot
with lines dripping toward the ground. He touched his fingers to it, even
though he already knew.

Sticky. Blood.

Whose?

The spot was too high to be Lacy’s.

Dakota’s?

He thrust the thought from his mind and bent to study the
ground and underbrush at the base of the tree.

Two sets of bootprints.

One set belonged to Dakota. He always marked his boot with a
crescent shape near the toe. Said it was so Cap could always trail him.

Who the hell owned the other set of prints? Not Lacy. Her
feet weren’t that big.

He moved toward the outcropping. The stranger’s tracks
headed to where they’d camped. Drag marks went in the same direction and
appeared to be stained with dried blood.

Anger and fear filled him. Someone had injured his brother
and gone after his woman. Hopefully, Dakota was crawling after him, not being
dragged by his attacker.

His rifle at the ready, he worked his way closer, trying not
to tip his hand to whoever might be lying in wait in the camp. He’d need to
assess the situation before he made his move. He didn’t want Dakota or Lacy
caught in the crossfire when he killed the son-of-a-bitch who’d attacked them.

Firelight flickered in the gray mist just beyond the trees.

He remained in the shadows and gave the whippoorwill call Cap
had taught him as a kid.

A moment later it was returned with the call of a hawk. The
signal that it was safe to approach. If it hadn’t been he’d have heard the
sparrow instead or nothing.

Dakota was alive.

Relief poured through him. He stepped out of the trees,
letting his eyes adjust to the light and trying to locate Dakota and Lacy.

Movement to his left caught his attention. Dakota sat, his
back against the stone wall, blood dripping down his face from a gash to his
forehead. Lacy was nowhere in sight.

“Dammit, Dakota. What happened?” he asked, dropping the
quails near the supplies. He grabbed a canteen and a cloth, then hurried to his
partner’s side. “And where the hell’s Lacy?”

“He took her,” Dakota said, his eyes clenched shut. “Jumped
me in the forest.”

“I saw. Looks like he slammed your head into a tree.”

“Didn’t expect him to be in the branches.” He drank some of
the water, then handed the canteen back. “Not sure how long I was out. Was
seeing stars for a bit. Crawled here in time to see the bastard disarm Lacy and
force her back up the trail.”

“Disarm her? We didn’t leave her any weapons,” he said,
soaking the cloth and wiping at the gash.

Dakota hissed and grabbed the cloth. “Let me. My head hurts
enough without your help.” He pressed it to his injury. “Lacy had her Colt, but
laid it down when the polecat threatened to kill me.”

“Her Colt?” Quinn looked around and saw it lying between the
supplies and fire.
Damn.
He’d forgotten about the gun after he’d taken
it that first night.

“You need to get to her before he hurts her, Quinn.”

“You gonna be okay?” He stood and reloaded his rifle.

“Yep, just can’t stand without getting dizzy is all. Should
pass in a while.” He opened one eye to squint up at him. “Quinn, she knows him.
One of Devil’s men.”

“Figured as much.”

“She didn’t want to go.” Dakota closed his eyes and leaned
his head back against the stone. “Only went to save my life. Bastard said if
she missed, he’d slit my throat. Like I’d let him that close again. She doesn’t
like to think people could get hurt because of her. Doesn’t understand her
worth.”

“I know. Once this is all over, I’ll make her understand. I
gotta go after her.” Quinn squeezed his brother’s shoulder.

“I’ll have those birds cooking by the time you bring her
back.”

There was nothing else to say. Lacy depended on them to save
her and that’s what he’d do. The other man was already dead.

Quinn slipped out of the cave-like structure, picking up
Lacy’s and her captor’s tracks, once again the hunter.

Chapter Thirteen

Lacy gripped her skirt in her fists as she climbed back up
the trail she’d traveled two days before, her boots slipping in the mud every
few steps and her anger rising on the others.

“He’ll come after us.”

“Nah. I bashed his head real good aginst that tree.”

“That was your mistake, Maddocks. You hurt the wrong one.”

“Don’t matter which one, Lacy-loo. Ain’t no man gonna come
after a whore like you. Not after he’s had his fill.” He let out a cackle. “And
I’d say they’s had more’n their fill of you.”

Disgust rolled over her, and a little trepidation. What if
he was right and Quinn didn’t think she was worth the effort? She might not be,
but Dakota was.

“You’re right. He won’t come after me. But you made the
mistake when you didn’t kill both of them first. He’ll be after you for hurting
his brother. He believes in vengeance.”

“I’ll be finished with you and long gone by the time he
figures out where I took you. Keep climbing.” He pointed her off the trail,
into the trees and away from the river.

Now he had her worried. Was Quinn as good a tracker as
Dakota? What if he wasn’t? Would he miss where they veered off the trail? She
needed to make the trail more obvious. Careful not to alert him to her actions,
she ripped a piece of her skirt with one hand.

Her boot slipped. She grabbed on to a tree to keep from
sliding back into the disgusting man. When she let go of the tree, she left the
material snagged in the bark.

“You know Devil wants me back in one piece.”

“When I get what I want from you, I’ll disappear. The devil
can take Devil.” He cackled again at his own humor.

One thing was for certain, Maddocks meant to kill her after
he raped her. She couldn’t just wait for Quinn to rescue her. She needed to
figure a way out of this on her own. If she could slow Maddocks down, distract
him long enough to think of a way to disarm him, she might have a chance of
surviving.

“You’re after the money, aren’t you?” she asked, grabbing
another branch to pull herself up the slippery slope, leaving it broken when
she released it.

“That’s why the boss sent me to get you. He’s been stewin’
’bout you hidin’ it all winter. He’s been digging like a crazed man. Dug so
many holes in the valley it looks like a minefield. I figure you took it or hid
it outside the valley.”

“I don’t have it with me.”

“Figured as much, or those two hombres’d be spendin’ it in
some big city, not fuckin’ yer brains out on a cold hard trail back to the
valley.”

He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back, slamming his
lips on hers in a wet, sloppy kiss and managing to shove his tongue in her
surprised mouth. He released her lips and leered over her once more. “Oh yeah,
Lacy-loo. I’m gonna enjoy findin’ out where ya hid that money.”

Tears threatened to spill. She fought back the bile in her
throat and the urge to wipe the kiss away with her arm. She had to make him
want to keep her alive. Antagonizing him wouldn’t do it.

“It’s over this way.” Maddocks dragged her by the hair into
a clearing marked by the charred remains of trees and brush. Lightning strikes
often caused fires in the mountains, leaving behind patches of land like this
one. Several trees had fallen in such a way as to make a natural lean-to.
Apparently, after spying on them the other day at the river, Maddocks had
stumbled on this spot to wait out the weather.

Suddenly he pushed her away from him. She stumbled and fell
to her hands and knees. Pain shot through them.

“Now tell me where ya hid that Army payroll.”

If she gave him that information she wouldn’t live five more
minutes. Despite the lust in his eyes, she knew he craved the money as much as
if not more than her body. He’d always been one of the more greedy members of
Devil’s gang.

She struggled to her feet in the muddy soil. Her hands
scraped and dirty, she used her skirt to wipe off the blood oozing out of the
cuts, then put a little smile on her lips. “You’re in an awful, hurry,
Maddocks. Now that you’ve got me alone I thought you’d want to do more than
just get the money’s location from me.”

He licked his fat lips and dropped his free hand down to rub
his crotch.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

You want to survive? You need him to focus on something
other than killing you.

Then she heard Quinn’s voice in her head.
“You’re not
pleasing him, you’re pleasing me.”

She forced her fingers to the buttons on her shirt and slipped
one loose. “Now that you’ve rescued me from those two men, I’d really like to
show you my appreciation.”

“Rescued ya? Ya mean ya weren’t goin’ with ’em willingly?”
He paused, his hand sliding into his pants to grope his cock openly. “More, let
me see more.”

“No. They caught me and were taking me back to Devil. They’d
heard there was a reward for me.” She loosened another two buttons, slipping
the shirt off her shoulders, small dots of her own blood staining the opening.
“They didn’t know about what I did with the money.”

“Go on, take it off.”

Keeping the smile on her face, she opened the remaining
buttons and pulled the shirt off, laying it on a fallen tree beside her. Then
she ran her hands up her ribs to cup her breasts, nearly pushing them out of the
camisole. “Is this what you want to do, Maddocks? Squeeze and play with my
breasts?”

He took a hobbled step forward, lowering the gun to the
side. “Push ’em out, girl. Let me see those tits.”

Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she reached for the
ribbon on her camisole.

A little closer. Come just a little closer.

* * * * *

Quinn followed the tracks back up the trail paralleling the
river, Lacy’s smaller prints in front of the stranger’s deeper ones. From the
looks of it, she’d had some trouble getting traction in the mud. The tension in
his chest tightened a little more knowing she willingly put herself in jeopardy
to protect Dakota. She was probably scared to death.

Suddenly the prints stopped.

Damn, the bastard had forced her off the trail.

Retracing his steps to where their last prints were in the
mud, Quinn searched for some sign of the direction they’d gone.

Nothing.

Had he missed something?

He listened for any sound.

Nothing but the river churning and flowing nearby.

He carefully maneuvered his way through the brush on one
side of the trail then the other. Panic started to set in. Then he saw it.

A tiny strip of blue material hanging from tree bark, the
same color as Lacy’s skirt. He grabbed it as if it were a magic talisman and
slipped it in his pocket.

“Good girl,” he whispered. “Hang in there a little longer. I
promise I’ll find you.”

Working his way up the tree-covered mountain slope, he
watched for breaks in the saplings and underbrush where she’d marked her trail,
as if she trusted him to come after her.

He’d failed Cap and now Dakota. He would not fail Lacy too.

A few more yards and light penetrated the dense foliage
around him. He heard voices coming from up ahead and slowed his pace.

He eased closer and knelt to peer between two low-hanging
evergreen branches.

The hefty stranger’s back was to him. From this angle he
could only see his right hand holding a pistol. Lacy stood in front of him,
opening her shirt.

“They didn’t know about what I did with the money,” she
said.

Money? From the bank robbery? What the hell was she talking
about?

The man said something.

Lacy pulled off her shirt then cupped her breasts as if
offering them to the other man.

“Is this what you want to do, Maddocks? Squeeze and play
with my breasts?”

What the hell was she doing? Offering to be raped?

The man hobbled forward. Finally Quinn could see his other
hand. It was thrust down his pants then, more importantly, he lowered his gun
hand, aiming the pistol away from Lacy.

Smart girl!

Quinn focused his gaze back on Lacy.

Careful not to alert the outlaw, he eased out from behind
the branches.

Keep him distracted, Lacy. Long enough for me to get
closer.

Just inside the shadows, he laid his rifle against a tree,
then palmed his Colt as he moved forward. From this angle he couldn’t get a
clear shot without possibly hitting Lacy. Every step moved him closer and to
the side.

Lower lip tucked between her teeth, a sure sign she was
scared, Lacy reached for the ribbon on her top. The same one he’d made her open
days before.

Anger surged through him. She wasn’t stripping for her
pleasure, not like she had by the river. No, this man was forcing her out of
fear, but she was willing to use her only weapon against the man—her luscious
body.

Two more steps.

She raised her eyes to him. They were round with surprise
and…was that relief?

Her reaction was a mistake.

“What?” Maddocks lurched forward. Grabbing Lacy by the arm,
he pulled her in front of him. Then he turned, raised his pistol and fired.

“Quinn!” Lacy screamed.

He ducked to the ground as the bullet zinged past him to
splinter into a tree. His focus completely on the other man, he rolled behind a
log and leveled his gun at the bastard’s head, but didn’t squeeze the trigger.
The coward held Lacy in front of him like a shield. “Let her go and I might let
you live.”