Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 14

His sigh must have been audible because Samantha looked up. There was moisture from the water hole de wed around her lips and chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and then used the same hand to push back the curls that had escaped from the braid she'd bound her hair into this morning, but she didn't say anything. She hadn't questioned him during the long hours they'd struggled on the course he'd chosen.

They both knew that the time the kidnappers had given them for the exchange had long since past, and they were no closer to getting the baby than they'd been when they set out from the Kincaid ranch. He was grateful for Samantha's restraint in not blaming him. He'd done enough of that himself.

"We need to drink all of this," he said.

"It may be the last fresh water we find for a while."

"There's always the cactus," she said.

"What do we do after we leave here?"

"We keep looking. There's got to be someone in this G.o.dforsaken wilderness."

"You said we might be as much as ten miles away."

They hadn't been that far, he thought, not when they'd wrecked, but apparently they'd been far enough. They would never make it ten miles, not in these conditions and not given the ruggedness of the country they were crossing.

And they both knew it.

"Maybe less," he said.

"Drink some more," he ordered, cutting off that useless speculation.

When they had finished off the water, they headed out again. He was trying to follow the mental image he had of the map he'd studied this morning. Asking directions back in Melchor Mfizquiz would have been risky, but he wished now that he had. At least he should have verified that the map he'd been following was correct. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.

They had seen or heard nothing of the rifleman since they'd left the ravine, and as they trudged upward through the long afternoon hours, other considerations took precedence over the danger he represented. They needed water and a relatively safe place to spend the approaching night.

His job, he thought. His responsibility.

When he spotted the cave, which from below appeared like a dark slit high on one of the rock faces, he knew it was better luck than he could have hoped for. The mountains that stretched down northern Mexico were honeycombed with caves cut into the limestone by the action of the runoffs. Some of them were majestic, multi room caverns.

The one they had stumbled upon was small, but roomy enough for the two of them. There was water left in a shallow depression in the floor at the back of the cave to rehydrate them and even enough to save for tomorrow morning. The cave itself would offer some shelter from the cooling temperatures of the mountain night and from whatever predators were out.

He debated about building a fire and then decided that they had come far enough that they should have lost any pursuit. The fire would offer protection from the night roamers, and if the light attracted human interest, the odds weren't great that the person who came to investigate would be the rifleman. It would be better to take the chance than to do without the warmth and protection of the fire.

There was enough dried plant material and deadfall on the ridge around the cave to provide a small but steady flame. As night fell around them, full of both familiar and unfamiliar noises, the small glow was more than worth tiayte wttson lZ while in terms of morale, despite the slight danger it might represent.

He hadn't seen any game although he knew there was a wide variety of wildlife in these mountains. Chase wasn't sure he would have fired his gun even if he had seen anything that might provide them with a meal. Hunger wouldn't be a problem for a while, and there was always the ubiquitous p.r.i.c.kly pear, which with the spines removed could be grilled over the fire. That wasn't a task he relished, and besides, they could live a long time without food as long as they could find water. So far, they had been lucky--mostly the luck of being in these mountains so soon after the rains.

Through the narrow opening of the cave Chase watched the stars pop out against the indigo backdrop of sky, their brilliance undiminished by any competing glow from the artificial lights of human habitation. As darkness fell, it was as if the two of them were the only people on earth, surrounded by the whispering night sounds.

He looked back into the interior of the cave. Samantha was sitting cross-legged before the fire, her hands lifted and working by feel, re plaiting the long braid that had loosened in the course of the day. The firelight touched her face with mystery, subtly highlighting the contours of its perfect bone structure.

She must have felt his gaze. She turned to face him, her eyes lifted in question. This was still not the time to tell her, he thought. Not before he had completed the job Sam Kincaid had hired him to do. Not before he had found her baby. But the words he wanted to say crowded his throat until it ached with the need to make it all right. To try to explain to her why he had done what he'd done nearly five years ago.

"Chase?" she questioned softly.

"What is it?"

"We probably need to take turns," he said, choosing to articulate those words instead of the ones that had echoed in his head since he'd faced the realization of his own mortality this morning.

"Sleep in s.h.i.+fts."

"Okay," she agreed, but her eyes were still searching his face.

"You want me to take the first watch?"

"I'll go first. I'll wake you."

Her hands had stilled.

"You think we'll be able to find them tomorrow?" she asked.

He had expected that kind of question all day, and been grateful that he hadn't had to answer it. He tried to decide exactly what he wanted to tell her about their chances. Finally, he took the coward's way.

"Probably," he said.

"Find them or the river. Eventually, if we keep traveling north, we'll hit the river," She nodded, and then her hands resumed the task she had started. He watched them moving through the curling strands and wanted to replace them with his own. He could picture his fingers, callused and dirty, touching the porcelain satin of her skin, brus.h.i.+ng over the small curve of her cheekbone as his thumb skimmed the arch of her brow. He swallowed against the force of that image and deliberately looked down into the heart of the fire, burning the picture off his inner eye with the heat of its flame.

"The man who shot out the tire, the man with the rifle," she said, and he looked back up.

"I've been thinking. It must have been the man you recognized. The man in the shop. If he recognized you, he'd know you were carrying money. He'd guess what you were down here to do."

"That's what I figure."

"It probably had nothing to do with Mandy. Just somebody who thought..." She hesitated.

"Who thought if he could get rid of me, he'd collect on a ransom that he hadn't worked for."

"The one thing that bothers me is how he could have known where we were heading."

"Maybe he followed us until the turnoff and then took another trail to get ahead of us. Maybe someone listened

in on my conversation with the kidnappers. Or maybe they talked too much and word leaked out."

"It seems to me that the more often you come down here, the more likely something like that is--running into someone who knows what you do."

"It's something I've considered," he agreed.

"The danger of too many people learning my face. A professional hazard," he added dismissively.

"Then ... each trip becomes more of a risk."

"Probably." He wasn't blind to the possibility of that happening. In the beginning the money had been so important it had overridden any other consideration. But now, things seemed to be changing, needing to be reevaluated.

"Have you thought about giving this up?" she asked.

"About doing something else with your life?"

The silence stretched. He couldn't tell her the things he had been thinking about during the last five days. Most of them involved her, and he knew she wouldn't want to hear them. More of his dreams. His fantasies.

"I sold my half of the ranch," he said.

"I don't think I can go back to law enforcement, and that has nothing to do with Sam's suggestion that it doesn't pay worth a d.a.m.n.

If I eliminate those two things, I guess I don't know how to do much else." Although his voice was self-mocking, he knew that what he had said was true. And a little frightening.

Where did he go from here?

"Why did you sell out, Chase? I know how much that ranch meant to you. Owning McCullar land. If anybody can understand what that meant," she said softly, "I guess Sam Kincaid's daughter can."

He thought about what to tell her, and while she waited for an explanation, the night sounds and the soft crackling of the fire enfolded them.

"I couldn't go back," he finally confessed.

"Not after what happened. I tried to convince Jenny to let Mac's half go, too, to move away, go on with her life, but she was determined to stay. She seemed to feel that she had to hold on to the McCullar legacy."

His laughter was softly ironic, and he knew Samantha would understand. The McCullar land wasn't like Sam's.

Despite its proximity to the Rio Grande, it was rocky and desolate, too add for farming, and a struggle even to ranch successfully.

"Maybe staying there was Jenny's way of holding to what she and Mac had."

"Maybe." He pushed another branch of shrub-oak deadfall into the fire, and again it was quiet for a long time except for the small noises the flames made as they caught in the dry wood.

"Do you ever go home anymore?" she asked. She had finished the braid, and her hands were resting in her lap.

He knew she was watching him. He could sense her gaze on his downturned face.

He shook his head, and when he looked up, it was into her eyes. They were filled with something that looked like compa.s.sion. Compa.s.sion that he knew he didn't deserve and couldn't deal with.

"Jenny told me that the people who bought my place have made a go of it." He offered the change of subject to move away from things that were too hard to talk about, to move on to something safer, less painful.

"That's probably more than I would have done."

"That's good. That they've succeeded."

"Neither Mac or I had kids. I guess it's good that somebody has the land who'll be able to pa.s.s it on to their own blood."

He realized only belatedly how strange that would sound coming from a man his age. Too final. Denying the possibility of ever having children. But Samantha didn't question what he'd said, and the fire-touched stillness of the night drifted back into the cave.

"You'd better get some sleep," he suggested after a long time, looking up at her again. She was still watching him, ayte wttson iz but she nodded and obediently lay down on her side, using her ann as a pillow. He looked out at the sky and allowed himself an indulgence he usually fought. He allowed himself to remember. And to savor the memories.

HE HADN'T HAD THE HEART to wake her even when it was time to change s.h.i.+fts. He had watched the fire burn down to a small glowing mound of embers, and the air in the cave had gradually chilled. He knew he had drifted off a couple of times as he leaned, eyes closed, against the wall.

He hadn't slept much the night before, sharing a bed with Samantha Kincaid after all these years, and the long day they had spent had been exhausting for him as well as for her.

Although he was aware of them, he didn't worry too much about his brief catnaps. The discomfort of his shoulder, painfully stiffening in the night air, woke him pretty regularly. He had decided the injury was no more serious than maybe a cracked collarbone and some bruising. The climb up the ravine hadn't exactly been what it needed, and it hurt like h.e.l.l when he moved, but everything was still functional, and that was all that mattered. Besides, the pain was proving to be a pretty good alarm clock.

Not that he thought standing guard was all that important.

He was fairly certain they had lost their pursuit. In the areas between the ridges they had struggled up, they had crossed too much open s.p.a.ce during the afternoon where they would have been easy targets. Nothing had happened, and he wouldn't have stopped for the night, wouldn't have chanced the fire, had he not been pretty confident that no one had been able to follow them.

He glanced over at Samantha, still asleep by the dying fire. She was huddled into a ball, knees drawn up, seeking warmth from her own body. He thought about venturing outside to find something else to add to the low fire. That was one option, one that he wasn't too eager to undertake.

It was dangerous terrain to be wandering around in the dark. He had resisted the thought of the other option for a long time, but watching Samantha huddled in the predawn chill was a pretty strong incentive to do something.

Finally he eased over to kneel beside her. He put his hand down on her arm and rubbed slowly up and down, trying to create some heat through the friction. Her eyes opened, the long lashes sweeping upward suddenly.

"It's so cold," she said, s.h.i.+vering slightly. Her eyelids fell back down, hiding the beseeching emerald eyes. He knew she hadn't really been awake. It hadn't been intentional because she couldn't know what he'd been thinking.

But still, it was all the invitation he needed.

He eased his body down behind hers, lying close against her back and resting his injured arm over her. She reacted to his warmth by curling into him like a cat, and gradually he felt her breathing settle back into the smooth, relaxed rhythm of deep sleep. Reacting naturally to that peaceful rhythm, despite the temptation of her body next to his, it didn't take long for him to join her.

SAMANTHA SUPPOSED SHE had been aware of the noise on some level for a while. It had just drifted into her dreams without bringing with it any sense of danger, any sense that it didn't belong. She opened her eyes. She was looking directly toward the fissure in the rock that led to the outside.

It was daylight. Just barely, she decided, judging by the milky quality of the light.

There was a man's arm across her body, she realized gradually. Chase's arm. Then she became aware of his body fitted against the back of hers. That was why she was so warm, why she had felt so secure. Only:..given the condition of his body, she probably shouldn't be feeling that secure.

Just a healthy adult male's biological response to morning, she told herself. Even as she thought it, she acknowledged that that had not been, however, what had happened yesterday.

ID 1.

That had been something entirely different. Something she still didn't understand. Because what she had seen in Chase McCullar's eyes yesterday, in the middle of somebody doing his best to kill him, was the same thing that had been there the night she had come to his ranch.

Considering the five years between those two events, the long years in which she had heard nothing from him, what had been in his eyes hadn't made much sense. Healthy adult male, she reminded herself. One-night stand. Maybe that was all that had ever been there. Maybe the rest she had just read in so long ago because she had wanted those emotions to be there so badly.

Even as she made that humiliating admission, which was not exactly a new one, she realized that awareness of Chase's body behind hers hadn't been what had awakened her. It had not even been the growing awareness of his arousal. Not even the memories. That hadn't been what she had been dreaming about--one of the few times when she'd managed some sleep that she hadn't dreamed about him since he'd reentered her life.

What had awakened her, she was gradually remembering, was the singing. Someone was singing. She could still hear it. The voice was clear and young. A child or ... a woman? She lay in the pleasant lethargy of just waking, listening, still feeling no sense of alarm.

"Chase," she whispered finally when she was forced to acknowledge that the singing was growing louder. Whoever was singing was coming nearer, and Chase needed to know that. He came awake with a start, instantly responding to her whisper.

"What's wrong?" he asked, His mouth was against her ear, the question loud enough only for her to hear, his lips near enough that she could feel his breath moving through her hair.

"Listen," she whispered.

They listened together, neither daring to breathe. The singing was definitely louder than when she had first heard it.

Almost silently, Chase disentangled himself from her body and tiptoed across the width of the cave. She watched him take the revolver out of its holster and position himself to one side of the narrow opening.

Suddenly the thin light that had been filtering into the cave was blocked. A boy stood in the opening. He was perhaps ten or twelve years old, judging by his stature. She couldn't see his face, only his silhouette backlighted by the morning sun.