Cherish Read online

  He looped his arms around the girl and rested his cheek on her hair. He liked the way her curls caught on his whiskers, the ends so soft they reminded him of frayed silk. He also liked the way she felt in his arms—as if she’d been measured to fit. He closed his eyes, cautiously circling the feeling of aching warmth that spread through him. He had felt it before in the arroyo, wasn’t sure he wanted to feel it now, but didn’t seem able to push it away.

  “You got a name, sweet face?” he asked huskily.

  Her breath caught and she stiffened, her fist knotting on his shirt. “Becca,” she said with a wet-sounding catch.

  “Ah…Becca.” Race moved his cheek, more to feel the texture of her curls against his bewhiskered jaw than to seek a more comfortable resting spot. Becca. He liked the ring of that. It suited her, somehow.

  “Rebecca,” she repeated, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

  He liked Becca better. “I’m Race Spencer.” As he spoke, he cracked open one eye. “And just in case you’ve heard the name and the tall tales that go with it, don’t believe most of ’em. I ain’t but half-mean and only a quarter ornery. The rest of me is a damned fine fellow.”

  He moved his hand up her slender back and curled it over her shoulder. She shrank into herself, trying to escape his touch. She moved her head, her cheek coming to rest on his shirt as she fastened a swimming blue gaze on him—bruised, distrusting eyes, the pupils large, the frost-tipped lashes that lined them spiked with wetness from her tears.

  “Please, Mr. Spencer,” she whispered tremulously, “don’t toy with me. I’m begging you, please, just—end it.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You ain’t heard but about half of what I said, have you? And you’ve decided not to believe that part.”

  The shifting shadows in her eyes answered that question for him.

  “I’m tellin’ you, I had nothin’ to do with the killin’ yesterday. I wasn’t nowhere around.”

  “Give me one reason why I should believe you,” she demanded shakily.

  “Why would I lie?”

  “We both know the answer to that!” Fresh tears flooded into her eyes, sparkling like morning dew shot through with sunlight. “Well, think again. I’m not that lacking in intelligence. You hope to trick me—pretend to be my friend, gain my confidence. Well, it won’t work. I refuse to cooperate. Not in any fashion. If you hope to lay hands on it, you’ll do so with no help from me. I’ll go to my grave first.”

  If she was talking about what he thought she was talking about, it’d be a cold day in hell when he needed help to get the job done. Her cooperation was another matter entirely, but that was one of those things that a man said best with his actions. “I ain’t got no plans, immediate or otherwise, to lay my hands on nothin’,” he assured her, “so rest easy in your mind.”

  “If only I could. But I was there. I saw what went on, heard what went on. I know very well what you want from me, and what you’ll do to me if I give it to you.” Her voice quavered, and she paused to gulp, the sound making a hollow plunk at the base of her throat. “My mother chose to die rather than surrender, and I can do no less!”

  Race glanced around, located his knife, and moved her off his lap onto the tangle of quilts. “You don’t happen to harken from Missouri, do you?” At her blank look, he chuckled. “To convince a Missourian of anything, you gotta show ’em. I reckon that’s what I’m gonna have to do with you. Sooner or later, you’ll start to see I’m tellin’ the truth.”

  He could see that she wanted to believe him, perhaps desperately, but for reasons he couldn’t figure, she refused to let herself. He holstered his Colt and returned the gun belt to his waist, buckling the leather with practiced ease. As he lifted each knee to tie the thongs that anchored the holsters to his thighs, she watched him with blatant wariness. He smiled as he threaded the knife scabbard onto his trouser belt. Retrieving his Stetson from where it rested on the floor, he settled it on his head.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry enough to eat the south end of a northbound mule, and that coffee out there on the fire is callin’ my name.” He pushed to his feet, pretending not to notice the way she shrank back. “I’m gonna go eat, then I’ll bring you a plate.” Nodding toward an empty Arbuckle can on the floor, he said, “That’s the best I got to offer by way of a chamber pot. If you need anything else, don’t be shy about hollerin’.” He fell silent for a moment, then rubbed beside his nose, a habit of his when he felt tense. “While I’m gone, I’ve got a thought for you to ponder.”

  She looked up at him expectantly, her luminous eyes making him feel guilty as hell for what he was about to say. He could see no way around it, though.

  “That thought is this. Why would I go to so much fuss tryin’ to make you trust me, if all I had in mind was to do you meanness?” Leaving that question hanging, he moved to the rear of the wagon in two easy steps. As he swung a leg out over the gate, he hesitated to look back at her. “Just you think about that. All else aside, and whether you believe what I told you or not, you gotta see that me tryin’ to trick you just plain don’t make sense. I ain’t pointin’ this out as a threat—don’t think that for a minute—but however which way you look at it, darlin’, I don’t need tricks.” He slowly took her measure. “If I had it in mind to do what you’re thinkin’, I’d just do it. In case you ain’t noticed, I got you outflanked, nine ways to hell.”

  Chapter 4

  Back to the wall, Rebecca sat with her knees drawn to her chest, her arms locked around her shins. Outflanked, nine ways to hell. The words circled endlessly in her mind. And they were true. So horribly true. Race Spencer did have her outflanked. She was powerless against him, and whether he wanted to admit it or not, his trying to trick her made perfect sense. He wanted the church money, and he needed her to trust him so she would lead him to it.

  Money, the root of all evil, the Bible proclaimed, one of the few things the Good Book said that she could testify was true. Terribly true, Rebecca thought, swallowing the sob that tore at her throat. That church money was the reason her parents and everyone else she loved had been slaughtered.

  Did Race Spencer truly believe she was that naive? All those honeyed words and his deceitful air of concern. Playing tricks with those ugly six-shooters while he mouthed lies. He’d known all along that the stupid gun wouldn’t work.

  He obviously hoped to make her believe he was her friend so she would tell him where the cash was hidden. Well, he could think again. She knew very well what he and his cohorts would do to her once they got the information they needed. Oh, yes, she knew. She’d seen them execute their handiwork with her own eyes.

  Hugging her bent knees, she struggled to stop shaking, but much as she had upon first awakening, she felt oddly separated from her body, its functions defying her control. Her teeth chattered maddeningly, the jarring clacks sending vibrations through the roof of her mouth and into her sinus cavities with so much force her face actually ached. There was also a squeaky noise trailing up her throat, part moan, part whimper, and try as she might, she couldn’t squelch it. A pathetic, weak sound, like that of a mewling child in the clutches of unreasoning terror.

  Only she wasn’t unreasoning. Nor was she a child. And it was infuriating to feel that she was behaving like one. Quivering and whimpering. All her life, she’d prided herself on being a strong person. What had happened to her? Overnight, it seemed, her usually stable personality had fallen apart. It made her aware that she was far more vulnerable than she wanted to be, or had ever believed she might be.

  Irritation flared within her when she felt tears streaming down her cheeks. She swiped at her eyes with hands so tremulous she could barely direct her fingers. The invested effort proved futile. A fresh onslaught spilled over her lashes, making icy trails on her skin and gathering in chilly pools in the creases at each side of her mouth. She bunched her hands into tight fists, infuriated with herself. She had to do something. Anything but just huddle ther
e, cowering and shaking.

  First of all, she needed to formulate a plan. An escape was the first thing that sprang to her mind. Getting out of there, and putting as much distance as possible between herself and those men. But first she had to clothe herself. Only in what? She ran her gaze over the wagon.

  To her surprise, she spotted a heap of what looked like clothing in one corner, black dresses and gray undergarments. There was even a hairbrush lying on top of the pile. Race Spencer must have collected some of the clothing that had been tossed from the trunks in the arroyo, things that had once belonged to other women in her caravan. Though it seemed unfeeling to borrow clothing from the dead, she couldn’t very well parade around in a nightgown. Needs must, Mama used to say. And she desperately needed a dress and shoes. Never yet having borne a babe, she wasn’t as full-figured as most of the women in her party had been, but considering the company she was presently keeping, a loose garment would be a godsend.

  The thought brought her to her feet. Being held here against her will was nightmare enough without having to face those animals half-clothed.

  The instant Rebecca stood, her legs, so suddenly released from the tight circle of her arms, began to jerk, the spasms so violent she couldn’t direct her steps. Once, a long time ago, she’d seen a man similarly afflicted. He had been walking along a city street, his arms and legs going every which way, like a loosely jointed marionette controlled by a prankster.

  Merciful heaven, what’s wrong with me?

  Feeling as if she might fly apart unless she curled back into a ball, Rebecca sank to the floor next to the pile of clothing, hugged her waist, and bent forward over her knees. As she clutched herself, a horrible thought occurred to her. What if this never stopped? Her memory of the killings had ended in blackness. Could she have fallen, possibly striking her head? Had she somehow sustained a brain injury?

  Even as the thought settled in, the spasmodic jerking abated a bit, becoming instead a convulsive shivering. She rocked back and forth on her knees, her eyes tightly closed, her jaws clenched to stop the chattering of her teeth. Disjointed prayers formed in her mind, coming to her unbidden, the result of a lifetime of training and habit.

  An awful hopelessness filled her, for the solace she’d found in prayer as recently as yesterday evaded her now. Never once in her memory had she doubted the Almighty’s existence. But now, in a twinkling, her faith was gone, stripped from her, like paint from a wall. The only conviction left to her was a haunting disbelief.

  After all, if there was a God, where had He been when her parents called His name and begged Him to deliver them? Busy having high tea with His angels, perhaps?

  In a terribly vivid tableau, she kept seeing her father, his Bible held before him as if it were a holy shield. That image, stamped indelibly upon her mind, now seemed representative to her of nothing but a clever hoax that dated back nearly two thousand years. Papa had believed in God with his whole heart, and he’d rigidly patterned his life after the tenets of his faith, placing utter trust in the heavenly Father to protect him and his loved ones. But in the end, his God had proved to be a monstrous chimera, a being created by and born in the needful imaginings of men.

  And where did that leave her? Her mother and father were dead. The only people she knew and loved who were still alive were in New Mexico. Perhaps in actual physical distance, Santa Fe wasn’t all that far away, but between here and there stretched a brutal, hostile land, over which she would never be able to travel alone.

  Forcing her eyes open, Rebecca stared at the clothing. The uppermost dress resembled one that had been her mother’s. With quivering fingers, she lifted the garment to examine the bodice, and sure enough, the tiny rent her mother had so carefully mended was there on the front placket, between the second and third button.

  Pain lanced through Rebecca. Ma. Pressing the dress to her face, she breathed of her mother’s lingering scent. For an instant, she could almost imagine that her mother’s arms were around her. Only, of course, they weren’t and never would be again. With the acceptance of that came the reality of her loss and a sense of loneliness that cut so deep it seemed to settle in her very bones.

  Contrary to Race’s assumption, the men in camp were not busy with morning chores when he emerged from the wagon. Instead, several of them were milling around the girl’s wagon like spectators hoping to buy tickets to a curtained-off circus act. Others were hunkered around the fire in a loose circle, some smoking roll-your-owns or sipping coffee from dented tin cups, others enjoying chews of tobacco and spitting with incredibly accurate aim at respective spots in the fire pit.

  Not wishing to speak with any of them right then or deal with their questions about Rebecca, Race decided to forgo a cup of coffee and struck off across the rolling grassland. The morning wind plastered his shirt to his body and whipped under the brim of his Stetson to trail his hair into his eyes. He ignored the sting, concentrating instead on the scents that wafted up to him from the sun-kissed earth. Grass, sage, saltbush. He dragged in several deep breaths to clear his head and calm down.

  Please, Mr. Spencer, don’t toy with me. Just end it. Those words kept circling in his mind. He could almost hear the girl’s voice, quavery with terror, and each time, he felt sick. To be that frightened…Fear in any measure was never fun. He’d been there a few times. But to feel so vulnerable and defenseless that you actually pleaded for it to end? He couldn’t imagine that.

  On a rise not far from camp, Race drew to a stop. Booted feet braced wide apart, he rested his hands on his hips as he contemplated the horizon. Please, Mr. Spencer. An awful, choking sensation grabbed him by the throat. He’d done all he could to reassure her. Yet, somehow, it didn’t seem like enough, and he felt badly for walking off and leaving her when she was so afraid. There had to be something more he could do—something he might say. But what? Convinced as she was that he and his men had been involved in the killings yesterday, she was so terrified in his presence that he doubted she could think straight.

  Sighing, Race turned to gaze back toward camp. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, there was one more way he might try to ease her fears. The wind buffeted the canvas of her wagon. He pictured her, flinching each time the cloth snapped, fearful that he or one of his men was about to enter her wagon. It was anyone’s guess what she imagined they might do to her, the only certainty being that her thoughts weren’t pretty. After the horrors she’d witnessed in the arroyo yesterday, how could they be?

  He couldn’t leave things as they were. Granted, she would eventually come to realize he and his men were innocent of any wrongdoing and that they would never harm her. But what of the time between now and then? For Rebecca, it would seem like an eternity.

  Scarcely aware that he had reached a decision, Race headed back toward camp.

  After getting dressed with the slapdash speed of an actress changing costumes backstage, Rebecca huddled at the front left corner of the wagon bed, her shoulders wedged tight against the walls. She didn’t really feel safe there, but at least the barrier of wood guarded her back and no one could sneak up on her.

  Arms hugging her ankles, the folds of her mother’s skirt carefully arranged to cover all but the toes of her black shoes, she sat with her chin resting on her raised knees, her gaze fixed on the back opening of the wagon. What in heaven’s name was she going to do? The memories from yesterday that flashed through her mind were too awful to contemplate. She would never submit to a monster of Race Spencer’s ilk. Never. She would die first.

  In her mind’s eye, she pictured every lethal, dangerous inch of him. Incredibly tall, with a loose-jointed, muscular build. Broad shoulders that rippled with strength, stretching the black cloth of his shirt taut. Arms that had locked around her like tempered steel and powerful thighs sheathed in black denim so snug it hugged them like a second skin.

  Outflanked, nine ways to hell. He’d smirked when he told her that. She’d never forget how she’d felt while looking into his eyes, impenetrabl
e yet piercing, and so dark a coffee-brown they were nearly black. When he’d skimmed his gaze over her before leaving the wagon, she had felt naked and vulnerable, her skin burning as if he’d actually touched her.

  Panic rushed at her. She pressed her mouth hard against her knee to stifle any sound that might slip up her throat. Had it been Race Spencer who had so brutally abused her mother and shot her father yesterday? She’d thought never to forget the face of that man, but for reasons beyond her, she was unable to call it up. Strange, that. Everything else that had happened in the arroyo was tormenting in its vividness. But the faces of the outlaws were a blur. It could have been Spencer…or any one of a hundred other filthy, unshaven individuals. She simply couldn’t say. It seemed to her the man had been wearing tan clothing, not black. But Spencer might have been wearing a tan duster or, for that matter, could have changed outfits.

  She knew one thing; he had the look of a killer. Those dark eyes, slicing into her, yet seeming to twinkle with laughter, as if her terror of him was amusing. Those sun-burnished features, every plane and angle so harshly cut that they might have been chiseled from granite. That full yet firm mouth that never quite curved into a complete smile, tugging up at only one corner, the twist of his lips pressing a deep crease into one leathery cheek.

  Oh, yes. He had a merciless look about him, make no mistake. The kind of man who knew what he wanted and could be brutal in the taking.

  Unfortunately for her, what Race Spencer wanted now was that money.

  The wagon gave a sudden lurch. Rebecca nearly parted company with her skin when Spencer’s dark face suddenly appeared above the tailgate. Using only one hand, he swung up on the backboard and climbed inside.