Desperate Hearts Read online

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Mr. Hardesty! This just come for you.”

  Tom Hardesty stopped, his hand outstretched toward the swinging doors of the Pine Cone Saloon. He turned around to see Edner Pomeroy hurry out of telegraph office holding a piece of paper high like a flag. He was a short, heavy man, and the sprint just about undid him.

  “Transcribed it myself,” Edner panted, catching up to Tom. He perspired with his effort and squinted against the hard-edged morning sun. He was a nervous, servile toady, the kind who begged to serve, the kind who pleased Tom enormously. Edner respected him.

  He plucked the telegram from Edner’s pudgy hand and unfolded it. He permitted a wide grin to spread across his face as he read the short message. A surge of victory raced through his veins. Well, maybe not victory just yet, but it was pretty damned close. At least it might satisfy Jory for the time being.

  “Good news, Mr. Hardesty?” the telegrapher asked, hovering eagerly.

  “You might say so.” Feeling magnanimous with his near triumph, Tom flipped a dime to the man. “Buy yourself a beer.”

  Edner stared at the dime in his hand as if it were a double eagle. “Thank you, Mr. Hardesty!” He looked ready to hug himself with joy. Tom laughed at the fool—if only Edner knew what he really thought of him. “Wait’ll I tell the wife!” He turned then and hurried back toward the office, and Tom dropped his gaze to the telegram again.

  TRACKED RANKIN AND WOMAN TO BAKER CITY STOP

  WILL WIRE AGAIN TOMORROW WHEN JOB IS FINISHED STOP

  SIGNED McINTYRE

  Hobie McIntyre had proved to be worth more than a manure pile, after all. Grinning again, Tom jammed the paper into his jacket pocket and pushed through the saloon doors. Luke Jory would probably frown on his right-hand man indulging so early in the day. But by God, if this didn’t call for a drink to celebrate, he didn’t know what did.

  “Whiskey over here, Pete,” he called to the bartender. He slouched against the bar and surveyed the room. There were a couple of people in the saloon and they eyed him warily as did the silent bartender, who poured the drink and backed away.

  He noticed their cautious regard, and he knew satisfaction. Yessir, now folks jumped when they saw Tom Hardesty, they were careful with their words when they spoke to him. After a lifetime of being written off as a lazy good-for-nothing by the people in this town, he’d given them something to chew on. By aligning himself with the Vigilance Union, he finally had everyone’s respect or fear. In his mind, the two were equal.

  He considered the amber liquid in the glass on the counter when a dark cloud dimmed his elation. Only Kyla didn’t fear or respect him, even after he had put it to her last fall in the barn. He knew if she were standing here right now she would still have the sass to spit in his face. And that fact tied a cold, angry knot in his gut. He knocked back the whiskey in one gulp.

  So she was still with Rankin. Grimly, he wondered if Miss-Touch-Me-Not was giving it to the bounty hunter. Huh, Jace Rankin had nothing on Tom. He knew the man’s reputation—unflinching, utterly without fear, he could make a man cower like a whipped dog just by looking at him.

  But Tom had a reputation of his own, and he’d see Rankin out of his way and Kyla on her knees before the month was over.

  * * *

  “We need to cross these mountains as soon as we can. I think it’s going to snow up here,” Jace called to Kyla. Stopped in the road, he let his gaze linger on her a moment, as if he could see through her clothes right down to her skin. Right into her heart.

  He had been critical and distant all day, as though everything she did suddenly displeased him. Maybe he was angry with her for making him leave her room last night. Or maybe he was disgusted to discover her lack of experience when he’d kissed her. Kyla knew very little about such matters, despite Tom Hardesty and her marriage to Hank.

  Whatever the reason, this morning Jace had been curt and impatient, speaking to her in one- and two-word sentences. Yet he had delayed their start until late morning, telling her she should rest up for the trip.

  “Will we make it out by dark?” she asked, nudging Juniper closer.

  He glanced at the lowering sky. “We’d better,” he muttered, then swung his horse around to take the lead.

  Not heartened by his answer, Kyla pulled her hat down tight and burrowed into the folds of her new coat, grateful for its warmth. Icy winds howled down from the northeast, spreading a blanket of ominous clouds over the late-afternoon sky.

  Although she and Jace had left Baker City long after sunup, the chill had not burned off, as he’d suggested it might. The day had been long and cold, and as they climbed higher into the Blue Mountains, it only grew worse. Her healing arm had begun to ache as soon as they reached the foothills, and now it felt heavy with dull pain. Beside the road, dead bunchgrass and sage snapped and tumbled along, too brittle to bend in the dry, cold wind. A sharp, bitter gust came up, bringing tears to her eyes, and Juniper danced sideways, complaining with a whinny.

  Kyla considered Jace as he rode ahead of her. He looked much the same as she supposed she did: hat pulled low on his head, coat collar turned up.

  Her butter-yellow dress and all its trappings were carefully repacked in their brown paper and tied behind her saddle with the rest of her gear. God knew when, or if, she’d be able to wear them. She was Kyle the farm boy again, now more reluctantly than ever.

  As she studied Jace’s straight back, she guessed that the chief distinction in their appearance was their size. Jace had shoulders much broader than hers. His arms were more muscled and far stronger. She had felt that when he held her against his hard body last night. Her skirts between them had done nothing to conceal it. Any of it. The memory sent a rush of heat up her neck that crept to her hairline.

  Things were not the same between them. She caught herself watching his profile, the way his hands flexed on the reins, the lines etched around his eyes. The powerful sensation of his kiss was branded on her memory. To her chagrin, everything about him that was male beckoned her. In the deepest part of her he’d roused an ancient, instinctive urge—far different from the fear and revulsion she had come to associate with the physical contact between a man and a woman.

  That urge meant nothing, she argued with herself. Those rhythms were present in every living creature on earth. She brushed at the tears that sprang to her irritated, wind-burned eyes. Simply because she had succumbed to a heated, indiscreet moment last night did not change her relationship with Jace, or make it into something it was not. Every time she let her imagination gallop loose to picture him sharing a life with her at the ranch, her logical side stepped in to squash the image. Jace Rankin was not a rancher. He was a bounty hunter.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn if he wanted to, her heart whispered.

  Right now, though, Jace wasn’t thinking of ranching or bounty hunting. Right now, he was worried about getting them out of the mountains and down to lower ground. He’d spent a lot of years out in the weather, and he would bet that a good-size storm was coming—one that he and Kyla were not equipped for. On the flatlands, it might not be so bad. In fact, it might not hit down there at all. Up here, though, snow could fall so fast and thick they might either lose their way amid these treacherous slopes, or become trapped.

  Keeping watch on the lead-gray sky, he pushed his gelding over the narrow mountain path. They had left Baker City too late in the day and Jace cursed himself for letting thoughts of Kyla interfere with his better judgment. That had never happened to him before. He’d meant to make things easier for her, to let her spend a little time in the comfort of the hotel before they set out to travel this rough country again. The urge to treat her more like a lady and less like a boy had been a mistake.

  Other men got distracted by women. They made fools of themselves, or let a female lead them around by the nose like a steer. Other men allowed lust or love to tangle up their thinking and make them all moony. Not him.

  But now a powe
rful need pulled at him, a swift current that flowed through his soul, and he resisted it. It was not love; he knew that it couldn’t be. But lust—he didn’t like the sound of that either. It seemed, well, too raw and coarse when he applied it to Kyla.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw her back there, plodding along on the dun. The lower half of her face was hidden by her turned-up collar. But her beautiful features were etched in his mind—her slim nose, the roundness of her cheekbones, her mouth that felt even softer and more lush than it looked.

  That round softness belied her courage, though. Whenever he stopped to think about what she had dared just to find him, he shook his head in amazement. It had taken more than plain stubbornness and a craving for revenge. Beautiful, smart, strong, with a tender heart lurking beneath—a man couldn’t ask for more in a mate.

  If he was looking for one—

  Another fierce gust of wind wailed down the pass, cutting through his duster down to his bones, and yanking his mind back to their immediate problem. It was then that he saw sleet swirling against the darker backdrop of blue-gray granite. The frozen ice pellets were as small as bird shot. Driven by the wind, the sleet peppered his face like grains of fire. And he knew that snow would follow shortly. He could smell it, taste it. It was coming. He and Kyla would need at least two more hours to work their way down to flat ground, and it would be close to dark by then.

  He turned to check on Kyla again, and saw her falling farther behind. Her head was down and for a moment he thought she was asleep. Then she lifted a hand to rub her wounded arm through her sleeve. Yeah, he thought, this cold would make it ache. He knew the feeling.

  “Stay close,” he called to her. She glanced up and nodded, urging Juniper on, but the horse balked whenever a wind blast crossed his path or stung him with sleet. Jace could see she was struggling with him. Although he was a fairly steady mount, every animal had its quirks and in this weather it probably wouldn’t take much to make him bolt. Jace surveyed the possibilities in that event, and they were not promising. On each side of the narrow road, sheer drop offs plunged to deep crevasses studded with spindly pines and sharp-edged rocks.

  They moved onward, their progress gradually slowing as the snowfall began. Time became an enemy with the weather. Without the sun, marking the hour became impossible. Knowing the time, though, wouldn’t tell him a lot beyond how much trouble they were in, and he’d already grasped that. They had to win the race against nightfall to the foothills on the other side of the ridge that still lay ahead, and that was his primary goal. He could see no farther than three or four feet ahead, and most landmarks vanished behind shrouds of white.

  Every couple of minutes, he sought Kyla behind him, but she and her horse formed a vague, bulky shadow that faded in and out of his line of sight. Then she disappeared completely.

  “Kyla! Are you there?” he yelled, turning in his saddle. The wind and snow smothered his words and threw them back at him. God, could she hear him? Was she there? He reined his horse and swung it around, listening, peering through the whiteness. Dread sat in his chest like a stone, heavy and suffocating. “Kyla, answer me, damn it!”

  “I’m here!” she called back, but her voice sounded for away. Finally she emerged from the wall of flakes. Her face was red with cold, and snow clung to her hair and collected in the folds of her coat. Silvery rivulets marked her cheeks where her tears had frozen. She looked like a lost waif.

  With a heavy exhale, Jace released the breath that he’d been holding. “Goddamn it to hell, woman! Try a little harder to stay with me, will you? And keep that horse on the road!” he barked. He had to shout at her to be heard over the gale, adding to the sharp edge that worry put in his tone.

  “I’m doing the best I can!” she snapped back, scrubbing impatiently at her frozen tears. “If that’s not good enough for you, then go on without me. I don’t want to be responsible for holding you back. We can find air own way. Juniper doesn’t like this weather any better than we do.”

  He could see that. The horse’s eyes rolled with wild panic and its fright was evident in every jerky movement. Jace sighed. “I’m sor—I didn’t mean—Look, I think we’re close to the ridge. Once we get there we’ll be on the downhill side. Just try to hold him in check a little longer. If you slip off the road in this snow I won’t know it.”

  “I’ve already thought of that, thank you,” she retorted.

  Feeling guilty, he nodded and turned his horse to resume the slow climb uphill. The storm continued to howl, gathering strength with each passing moment. Again and again, Jace glanced over his shoulder to see if Kyla was behind him, only to see her struggle with Juniper. He thought of suggesting that she dismount and lead the horse blindfolded, but that would slow their progress even more.

  Snow crusted on his own horse’s coat, and inside his boots, Jace’s feet were numb with cold. Knowing she was no better off, he wished he could offer more shelter to Kyla. But the best thing he could do right now was lead them down to safety.

  The ridge he sought seemed to keep moving out of their reach, and time lost all meaning. He had no means to judge the time of day, but he suspected that several hours had passed in this frozen hell.

  He shrugged deeper into his coat, trying to cover his face without blocking what little vision he had in the white wind. His thoughts turned morose. Damn it, he should have gone south to California as he’d originally planned. Living was easier there, he’d heard. Good weather, a big, wide-open state. A man could start over and leave his past behind. Jace could begin a new life in a place where no one knew who he was. Where people wouldn’t automatically fear him or challenge him.

  When this was all over, he’d go. Maybe he would find something there to fill the empty place in his soul that would remain when he and Kyla parted. . . .

  Another razor-sharp gust blasted him, forcing him to tighten his knees on his gelding’s ribs. At that moment he heard his name shrieked over the rocks and around the brush, high and thin, as though the wind mocked him and his thoughts. Spinning around, he turned just in time to see Juniper rearing wildly on his hind legs. Kyla scrambled to keep her seat but the angle was too sharp. She fell backward out of the saddle and tumbled to the edge of the narrow road, taking her gear along with her. It flew over the side of a deep ravine. Juniper, blowing great clouds of vapor, landed on all fours again and fled past Jace. Skidding on a curve, the dun vanished down the road ahead and probably into an abyss.

  His heart thundering in his throat, Jace jumped down and ran to Kyla, pulling his own horse along none too gently. She lay unmoving in the snow, looking like a heap of discarded clothes.

  Wrapping the reins around his gloved fist, he dropped to a crouch next to her and hurriedly brushed the snow out of her face. Her eyes were closed.

  “Kyla! Are you all right?” he asked.

  She moaned, then mumbled a few words he couldn’t understand.

  “Are you hurt?” he demanded again. He pulled off his glove and touched a hand to her forehead. It wouldn’t tell him a thing about her condition, but right now he couldn’t think of something better to do. He didn’t want to move her until he knew if she’d broken any bones. He’d once seen a man with busted ribs get his lung punctured that way.

  Kyla’s eyes fluttered open, and she saw Jace leaning over her. He looked like she felt—pale and scared. Behind him, his horse waited restively.

  She tried to speak but the fall had knocked the wind out of her. “My dress . . .” she uttered in a breathless whisper. She’d seen her pack sail past her face, end over end. She groped the front of her shirt, searching for her locket under the fabric. She felt the warm, hard metal trapped against her breastbone.

  Jace shook his head as if she were talking nonsense. “Can you move?” he asked.

  "Yes, I guess so," she said and struggled to sit up. A rock pressed into her back. Jace gripped her arm to help her.

  “Do you hurt anywhere?”

  Her entire being shook as though sh
e had palsy, and she was bruised, but nothing felt broken or sprained. “No. Where’s Juniper?”

  “He took off up that way,” he said, pointing toward the ridge. “You’ll have to ride with me, and we need to get going.”

  “But what about my horse? I can’t just leave him.”

  He shook his head and the concern in his expression solidified to grim resolve. “There’s nothing we can do about finding him, and you know it. We’ll be buried in snow if we don’t keep moving.”

  Yes, she knew he was right, but she was heartsick. She’d raised Juniper from a colt. It seemed that one by one, everything that mattered in her life was slipping away—the ranch, her horse, her identity, even her courage. She might get them back, but they might be gone forever. Or irrevocably changed.

  “My horse is gone. I lost my dress, and my gear.”

  He frowned impatiently. “Hell, I’ll get you another dress, if that’ll make you feel better,” he said, waving an arm at their surroundings. “But right now it’s not the most important thing we have to worry about.”

  She looked up at Jace’s strained white face, then dropped her gaze to her snow-dusted lap. No, of course it wasn’t the most important thing, but her sense of loss grew heavier, like a burden she could no longer carry. Her shoulders slumped and she suddenly felt too cold and tired to go on. How much could one person take?

  As if sensing her looming resignation, Jace gripped her shoulders in his strong hands. “Come on, Kyla, don’t you quit on me,” he ordered. “We’ve come too far to give up now.”

  “M-my arm hurts,” she fretted wearily. Hot tears sprang to her eyes, this time from utter despair. She hated to cry in front of anyone, especially Jace. He’d think she was just a weak, puling female. But in her misery she couldn’t stop herself, and she began sobbing in earnest. “And—and I’m so cold.”

  He studied her for a moment, his gaze touching her mouth, her eyes. Then he did the most astounding thing. He opened his duster and took her into his embrace, closing the edges of the coat around her. Pressing her cheek to the wall of his chest, he murmured, “I know you’re cold, honey, but we have to get out of here or we’ll freeze to death.”