Deep In The Heart Of Texas. Linda Warren
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fake pleasantries were over. Time to deal with the real reason they were here.
“I wouldn’t,” he called, his rifle leveled on Spikes. “Unless you feel this is your lucky day.”
Spikes’s eyes rolled with a warning. “I figure you know something and before I let you ruin this, I’ll see you in hell.”
“Thanks for the invitation, Spikes, but I’ve already been there, and I don’t intend to go back. Now get off my land.”
Spikes wheeled his horse around with an angry movement. “I should’ve killed you years ago, Hermit.”
He didn’t answer but waited until they rode into the woods again.
Bandit lay on the porch, his face on his paws. “Watch ’em, boy,” he said, and backed into the cabin.
HE STOPPED SHORT as he entered the room. The woman held the gun with both hands, pointing it directly at him. She trembled so severely the gun wavered in every direction.
“They’ve left,” he said, propping his rifle against the wall. “Put the gun down.”
“I…I can’t,” Her voice cracked.
He moved closer and pried the weapon out of her fingers. She buried her face in her hands and started to cry.
Ignoring her tears, he walked to the window to check that Spikes and his companion were indeed gone. They weren’t. He could see them through the trees. Dammit, they weren’t leaving.
“I…I heard him say my father was offering a reward for my safe return,” she said with a sniffle.
“Just bait to get me to admit you were inside the cabin,” he told her.
“They’re the men who kidnapped me, aren’t they?” she asked in a weak voice.
“That’d be my guess.”
“But why?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “They work for my father, but I hardly know them.”
In fact, Spikes had worked for her father for years. He ran the ranch with an iron hand, exactly as her father wanted. The only time she saw the man was when she went riding. He saddled her horse and was invariably pleasant, but she’d never liked the way he looked at her. She couldn’t explain it, but his eyes always seemed to settle on her breasts or her legs, never on her face.
“For money, and lots of it.”
Miranda jumped as the hermit’s words penetrated her troubled thoughts.
A tense pause followed. Then he looked at her. “You’re Clyde Maddox’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she answered warily, not missing the venom in his voice. “You don’t like my father,” she ventured.
“No,” he answered as he yanked off his hat and coat and hung them on a peg on the wall.
The shoulder holster caught Miranda’s eye. It was something like a policeman or a detective would wear. For the first time she wondered who this man was and where he’d come from. Things her father had said about the hermit drifted through her mind. Clyde called him a nuisance and a few other choice words that had burned her ears. He tripped the wolf and coyote traps set by the ranch hands, freed some of her father’s prize horses to roam free in the hills and, worst of all, hunted on Maddox land.
The hermit had a way of getting on her father’s bad side, but Miranda felt there was more between them than the little she knew.
“Why do you dislike my father?” she found herself asking.
He spared her a dark glance. “Because he’s powerful and ruthless, and he’s used every underhanded trick he knows to force me off my land.”
Miranda’s eyes grew wide. “I can’t believe that!”
“I don’t care what you believe,” he said angrily. “Right now my goal is to get you out of my cabin and out of my life.”
“But…but…” she sputtered, suddenly fearful that he intended to kick her out and let Spikes have her. She swallowed hard, not sure what she should say—or ask.
Before she could find the right words, the hermit spoke. “I’m just wondering if this is a ploy of your father’s to run me off this land for good. Getting me arrested for kidnapping could be the ace up his sleeve.”
Miranda folded her arms around her waist to still the trembling. “My father wouldn’t do that to me,” she said defiantly. “He wouldn’t have his men put me in that room. He wouldn’t! He wouldn’t, not to get back at you or anyone.”
He gazed out the window. Spikes was still there. Was he waiting for someone? Or was he waiting for the Maddox woman? The hermit had to weigh his odds and he had to decide if this was a real kidnapping or a trap for him. He remembered the way the woman had been when he’d found her—drugged, fatigued and frightened. Even Clyde Maddox wouldn’t do that to his own daughter.
“Are they still out there?” she asked in a hesitant voice.
“Yeah, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be leaving anytime soon.”
“What do you think they’ll do?”
He paused for a second, then answered, “They’ll wait until dark, then come in and try to kill me and take you.”
Miranda closed her eyes, trying to pretend she was having a terrible dream, but she couldn’t pretend anymore. She had to face the horror that had become her life. How could she manage that? Since her earliest childhood, there had been people to do things for her. Now there was no one but herself. And the hermit.
“Once it gets dark, you can slip out the back door and start your trek home,” he said.
Dark? Trek? Was he out of his mind? She could barely find her way to the back door, and he wanted her to tromp over miles of thick woods with Spikes on her heels. Somehow she had to persuade him to help her, because Spikes had a healthy respect for the hermit—a respect better known as fear. She’d heard it in his voice.
Biting her lip, she stared at the hermit. His dark hair had a slight natural curl as it rested on his shoulders, which were broad and strong. His cheekbones were high and defined. He wasn’t as old as she’d thought. When her father had cursed him, she’d assumed he was a man in his sixties, but studying him now, she could see he probably wasn’t even forty. Why was a man of that age living the life of a hermit?
Quickly pushing the question aside, she sought a way to reach him. “You said you’d hide me,” she reminded him in her sweetest voice, hoping for a positive reaction.
There wasn’t one.
A low grumble left his throat. “I have, and that’s all I intend to do. In a little while you’ll be on your own.”
She leapt to her feet. “If you send me out into those woods alone, you might as well take your gun and shoot me.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he warned, his eyes like dark thunder-clouds.
Miranda shivered at the viciousness in his voice. She dropped back into the chair and began to weep, a defense mechanism she had learned as a child. It was guaranteed to work on the various men in her life, but it wasn’t having any effect on the hermit.
“Dry up those tears. I’ve had about enough of you, your father and his men.”
As he said the words, an idea formed in Miranda’s head. There might be a way to convince him. She wiped her eyes, then rubbed her hands on her jeans. “If you get me home, I promise you won’t be bothered by my father or his men anymore.”
He blinked, unable to believe his ears. Did she actually think he needed her help? He could take care of Maddox and Spikes without her interference.
“I can make it happen.” Her voice drummed on, full of confidence. “My father has