His past has haunted him for a lifetime…but one woman could be his salvation

Gunslinger Caden Miller’s compadres are becoming a bit too domesticated for his liking. So he’s off to Kansas territory to carve out a living and a space of his own—alone, just the way he likes it.

Maddie O’Hare has been drawn to Caden ever since she escaped to the Hell’s Eight compound from the brothel where she was born and raised. And she’s not ready to let him go so easily…until she’s captured by his new neighbors.

When Caden discovers that Maddie is being held by a rival at a nearby ranch, his plan to rescue her backfires, and he finds himself the groom in what’s literally a shotgun wedding. As shocked as Caden is by the bizarre turn of events, Maddie’s grateful kiss holds a fiery promise that’s far more unexpected. But with old enemies catching up with him, Caden and Maddie will face a danger that tests their passion—and will either bind them together forever or break them apart for good.

Selected Praise for Sarah McCarty’s Hell’s Eight series

“McCarty is a sparse, minimalistic writer, with a great ear for dialogue. She’s a passionate observer of history, and manages to deftly and accurately weave her spicy stories through with important facts and issues of the epoch she invokes. She’s also good at capturing that intangible magnetism surrounding dangerous, rugged men…I’m hooked.”

—USATODAY.com

“If you like your historicals packed with emotion, excitement and heat, you can never go wrong with a book by Sarah McCarty.”

—Romance Junkies

“It’s so great to see that Ms. McCarty is able to truly take these eight men and give them such vastly different stories and vastly different heroines, all of whom allow us to see different aspects of what life was really like for Western Frontier women be it good, horrific, or simply unfortunate.”

—Romance Books Forum

“Sarah McCarty’s series is an exciting blend of raw masculinity, spunky, feisty heroines and the wild living in the Old West…with spicy, hot love scenes. Ms. McCarty gave us small peeks into each member of the Hell’s Eight and I’m looking forward to reading the other men’s stories.”

—Erotica Romance Writers

“What really sets McCarty’s stories apart from simple erotica is the complexity of her characters and conflicts…definitely spicy, but a great love story, too.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Readers who enjoy erotic romance but haven’t found an author who can combine it with a historical setting may discover a new auto-buy author…I have.”

—All About Romance

Caden's Vow

Sarah McCarty

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the real-life inspiration for Caden:

Q, may your happily-ever-after waltz up and give you an ever-so-ladylike bite on the butt soon. It couldn’t happen to a nicer man. Or a more deserving one. As I’m sure all the ladies who enjoy Caden’s Vow will agree.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER ONE

HELL’S EIGHT WAS doing Tia proud. Caden Miller looked around at the normally peaceful garden Tia had started and Tucker’s wife, Sally Mae, now helped maintain, at all the people crammed into its well-tended confines to celebrate Tia and Ed’s wedding, and couldn’t help a smile. Ten years ago he wouldn’t have given a snowball’s chance in hell that Caine could pull off his dream. But like the others, where Caine had led, Caden had followed. And Caine’s drive to succeed was evident in the sturdy outbuildings, the assortment of equally sound houses and the contentment reflected in the faces of those in attendance. The men of Hell’s Eight weren’t just content; they were flourishing. They were settling down, marrying, having children, sinking their roots deep into the east Texas soil. Of the original eight, only he, Ace and Luke remained footloose and fancy-free. Something that should have pleased him but instead had him feeling a pang of...envy? Shit. Since when did he feel envy for something he didn’t even want? He wasn’t a settling man. He’d always been as restless as his father before him. As all the Hell’s Eight used to be.

Glancing around the garden, at the tables laden with food, at the couples standing side by side, the contented smiles where he was used to seeing hardness and purpose, Caden again felt that strange tightness in his gut. Hell’s Eight was changing. The reckless rage that had driven them for so many years had smoothed into something just as durable but...calmer. Caden rolled his shoulders. He didn’t like calm, but it seemed to be settling all right with Hell’s Eight’s most notorious members. Shadow, Tracker and Tucker, three of the most feared men in the territory, known for reckless deeds that were as dark as their looks, were hovering over their wives, every bit the doting husbands. Caine and Sam, wild men known for getting the job done no matter what, were looking as confident as rich bankers—that is, if one discounted the subtle tension in their muscles and the alertness in their gaze that spoke of men accustomed to surviving by their wits. Not to mention the guns strapped to their thighs and the knives tucked into their belts. Shit, they were all going soft, and if he stayed here, so would he.

Caden sighed and took a drink of the fancy champagne Desi had ordered all the way from Chicago for Tia and Ed’s wedding. It tasted like cat piss to him, but what did he know of the finer things? He was the son of an Irish nomad, a dreamer. A man who’d sworn his pot of gold was just over the next horizon, around the next bend. Caden had a brief mental flash of his father’s face. Rigid with determination as he’d told Caden to hide when the Mexican army had raged into their town. He’d been seven going on eight, anticipating the gun his father had promised him for his birthday two days hence. He hadn’t wanted to hide. He’d wanted to fight, but his father hadn’t given him any choice. He’d shoved him into the hidey-hole under the kitchen floor, and on a gruff “Remember who you are, son,” he’d replaced the planks above him and left him in the dark. Those were the last words his father had ever spoken to him. His mother he hadn’t found until...after. She’d been at the mercantile when the army came.

Caden took another swallow of the champagne, wishing it were something stronger. There were times when a man just needed something to drown out the noise of the past, but champagne wasn’t whiskey, and the memories kept coming. He’d lain beneath the floorboards for what seemed hours, listening to the shouts and screams, wincing at the gunshots, straining to hear his father’s voice, feeling helpless and scared until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

By the time he’d climbed out of the hole, the battle was over. He’d never forget the smell that struck him as he’d stood—gunpowder, smoke and...blood—nor the carnage that spread out beyond his front door. Bodies of friends and neighbors littered the road like trash left by the wind, changing the street from familiar to macabre. He’d found his father’s body lying in the doorway of the still-burning mercantile, his head caved in on the right side, blood pooled around his shoulders. His father’s legs had been on fire as Caden had dragged his body into the street. The stench of burning flesh fused indelibly into his memory that day as he’d beaten out the fire consuming his father’s body with his bare hands. He hadn’t felt the pain, hadn’t felt anything. And when he’d looked up and seen Sam, his expression had reflected the blankness that Caden felt. And then he’d learned what Sam already knew. Everything that had made up their lives was gone. The town. Their parents. Their childhood.

The only survivors of the massacre were the eight friends. By agreement, none had buried their own parents. They’d thought it would help. It hadn’t. And, also by agreement, they’d vowed revenge. Extracting justice one by one as they grew up, earning the label of Hell’s Eight along the way. Caden didn’t know what would have become of them if Tia hadn’t caught them that day, starving, stealing that pie, and taken them under her wing. They sure as shit wouldn’t have become Texas Rangers. Tia was one in a million. Strength and softness mixed in one. If he ever met another woman like her, he’d marry her in a minute.

Fingers slid over his forearm. He didn’t need to look down to know who it was who touched him with such compassion and gentleness. Maddie. Poor abused Maddie. Born to a whore. Raised in a whorehouse. Used by men all her life until Tracker had brought her home after one of his failed searches for Ari. Maddie was as fleeting as sunshine, here one minute, gone the next, retreating into fantasy as fast as she snapped out of it. Her fingers tightened slightly on his arm. He smiled down at her automatically. Despite the harshness of her past, there was something about Maddie that remained untouched, that drew a man to smile. That enticing illusion of innocence probably had made her a damn good whore.

Caden regretted the thought as soon as Maddie smiled back at him with complete trust, her dark green eyes picking up the deeper green of leaves of the pear tree, her wavy red hair dragging the sunlight with it as tendrils escaped her bun and blew across her cheeks. Freckles sprinkled like pale kisses across the bridge of her nose. And her smile...that sweet, gentle smile that captured the hope of the world added to his guilt. So trusting when she had no reason to trust anyone, least of all him. Fey, his da would have called Maddie. One of the special ones that bridged the space between this world and the magical one.

“Tia looks like a queen, doesn’t she?” Maddie said in a soft voice that eased a man’s tension. For all her differences, Caden had always found Maddie a very restful soul.

“Yeah, she does.” He was happy for Tia and Ed. It’d taken Ed seven years to convince Tia he wasn’t going anywhere. And Tia, well, she deserved the best of everything. Not just because she’d taken eight ragtag boys and raised them into men, but because of who she was. She stood next to her husband, petite and elegantly plump in her golden silk gown, her graying black hair pulled back into a sedate bun, her white, gold and black lace mantilla draped artfully around her face. He felt that familiar twinge of unease that came with the thought of settling.

Voices rose and fell around him, taking on an unreal quality, and the moment froze with sudden clarity. They were all settling down. Caine had his Desi. Tucker had Sally Mae. Sam with his Bella. Tracker had Ari, and Shadow had his Fei. The wild boys of the plains were becoming the builders of the future. Hell’s Eight had been Caden’s focus for as long as he could remember, but looking around the ranch he’d helped build, Caden had that ever-increasing sense of “wrong.” His feet itched and his nerve endings crawled impatiently beneath his skin. He’d been a part of Hell’s Eight for twenty-two years, but he didn’t feel as if he belonged here anymore.

“Are you worried Tia won’t love you anymore now that she has Ed?” Maddie teased, her fingers sliding between his and squeezing. It was a totally inappropriate gesture. Yet it completely soothed his unease. Caden tugged at his hand. Maddie didn’t let go.

Shit. The woman made it easy to take advantage of her. Her sweet nature and the fact that more often than not she was in her make-believe world where nothing bad could touch her made her an easy target. Everyone wished she was stronger, but disappearing into her own mind was Maddie’s defense against what’d happened to her in her life. Caden thought they should just let her be. It was a hard world, harder if you were brought up in a whorehouse. Harder still if you had the sweet personality of a child. Too many men had taken advantage of the optimistic woman in Maddie. He didn’t want to be one of them. This time he tugged his hand free. “I’m not worried, Maddie mine.”

The endearment just slipped out. She blinked up at him. “If I’m yours, why do you need to lie to me?”

How was he supposed to answer that? Across the garden, he smiled at Tia and Ed before lifting his glass in a silent toast. Tia smiled back, but Caden could tell from the tension at the edge of her mouth that she knew he was leaving. He hated to ruin her day, but he was who he was. A Miller didn’t let grass grow under his feet. He pursued rather than settled. He took another sip of the champagne, wishing even more that it was whiskey. “Habit, I guess.”

“You don’t lie to anyone else.”

Everyone else could handle the truth. Maddie continued to stare up at him, her fingertips resting on his forearm, as if the pressure took his measure. The way she stared at him so steadily made him uneasy, as if she really was fey and really did see more than others.

“I’m leaving, Maddie.”

She blinked slowly. He had the oddest impression she’d just gasped.

“When will you be back?”

He traced his finger over the curl spilling down her temple. It was always too easy to touch Maddie. “I don’t know.”

“Where will you go?”

“So many questions.”

“You don’t want to answer?”

Maddie could be surprisingly blunt.

With a sigh he admitted, “No.”

Cocking her head to the side, her gaze never leaving his, she took another step in until the blue gingham skirts of her brand-new dress brushed his boots. She frowned as her fingers trailed down to his wrist. “You’re upset.”

From across the garden, he saw Tia note the familiarity with a frown of her own. Caden shrugged. They could lecture Maddie all they wanted about proper behavior, but it wouldn’t make a difference. She listened, she truly did, but in the end Maddie was Maddie. Open sunshine and optimism covering a lifetime of hurt. Her conduct was as volatile as her grasp on reality. While he’d never seen Maddie actually proposition a man, she often gave the impression she was propositional. And that was a shame, because she had a heart of gold and deserved to be treasured.

Faint strains of music blended with the hum of conversation. Four of Sam’s vaqueros strummed their guitars. The hum of conversation rose as everyone wandered to the grassy center where ribbons and bunches of cut flowers fluttered in the breeze, defining the dance area. Tia had declared May to be the perfect month for a wedding, and Caden had to agree. The day was beautiful, the weather perfect, and the bride and groom happy. There wasn’t a fly in the ointment. As Caden watched, Ed took Tia’s hand and brought it to his lips with a courtly bow Caden would have sworn the former cowhand could never have pulled off. When Tia smiled at her husband, her expression full of love, the last of Caden’s uncertainty slipped away. He could leave cleanly now. Tia was happy and safe. The last of his debts were paid. The sense of excitement he’d expected failed to come.

“Don’t be sad,” Maddie said, her fingertips smoothing over the inside of his wrist.

“Millers don’t get sad.”

“I can feel—”

“I think there’s some cake left, Maddie,” Caine interrupted, coming up beside them, a whiskey glass in each hand and a gentle tone to his normally hard drawl. Everyone at Hell’s Eight used a gentle note with Maddie. A body couldn’t help it. She had that way of wild things about her that made you think one wrong move and she’d either dart to the right or leave looking for a hiding spot. Plain and simple, harsh words shattered Maddie’s fragile hold on reality. “You might want to think about getting some before Tucker’s sweet tooth takes hold.”

Maddie let go of his arm and turned toward the cake table. Sure enough, Tucker was moving toward it.

“He’s like a horde of locusts devouring all in their path,” she muttered.

The comparison made Caden smile. Tucker was a deliberate man, deadly when he chose to be, but he did like his sweets.

As if hearing his thoughts, Caine offered, “He does like his cake.”

So did Maddie. Brought up as she had been, she’d never had a sweet before fourteen and only that one which she’d stolen. Since she’d come to Hell’s Eight, she’d been making up for lost time. Not content with just sampling what Tia baked, she was learning to create her own confections. When he’d asked her why, she’d said in a moment of total clarity that if she knew how to make what she needed, she’d never be needing again. He didn’t like to think of her being without. He’d asked Tia to up the monthly order of baking supplies. No one had complained after Maddie proved she could turn anything she baked to bliss. She never ate what she baked, though. That he couldn’t figure out. And she wouldn’t say why. Which just deepened the puzzle of what made the apparently simple Maddie so complex.

Maddie glared at Caine, her eyes snapping with the knowledge that he was laughing at her. “That doesn’t mean it’s all his.”

No, it didn’t. “Tia did declare the cake fair game after the first serving.”

She bit her lip, revealing white teeth and the slight gap between the top front two. She always tried to hide that gap. Personally he thought it too appealing in a far too sexual way. Maddie wavered, clearly torn between the two things she wanted. Caden took pity on her. Maddie wanted that cake, and right now he needed to give her one last thing because it might be a while before he saw her again. By the time he came back, she might be more grounded in this world. Maybe even married. He resisted the urge to stroke his fingers over the freckles sprinkling across her cheekbones.

Caden put his champagne glass on the potting table beside him. “Go get your cake, Maddie.”

Still she hesitated, looking up at Caden with those leaf-green eyes, her fear in her gaze. “You won’t leave before I get back?”

“No.” He’d be leaving tonight, though. It was time for him to go.

“Best hurry,” Caine prodded.

Maddie frowned at Caine. She looked like a kitten challenging a cougar as she ordered, “You won’t tell him bad stories? He doesn’t sleep well when you do, and he needs his rest.”

Shit, she made him sound downright feeble. Something that wasn’t lost on Caine if the smile tugging at his lips was anything to go by.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Caden turned Maddie toward the crowd gathered at the cake table. “Go, Maddie, before there’s none left.”

She did, lifting her skirts and showing an indecent amount of ankle in her haste to beat Tucker to the cake. She had pretty ankles.

“I’m not even going to ask how she knows how you sleep,” Caine stated with an arch of his brow.

And he wasn’t going to tell. Caden folded his arms across his chest. “I haven’t been messing with her.”

Caine dismissed the challenge with a wave of his hand. Whiskey sloshed in the cut-crystal glass he held. Caden remembered when they used to drink it straight out of the bottle. “Hell, I know that, but that woman has a powerful affection for you.”

“She’s like a child.”

“Maybe when she first got here. But have you noticed lately she’s more here than there?”

“She’s healing.”

“Desi says she’s forgetting.”

Caden took one of the glasses from Caine. “How the hell does a woman forget being forced to serve men from childhood?”

“A woman who knows how to escape into make-believe?” Caine made a slashing motion with his free hand. “How the hell do I know?”

“Then, why are you bringing it up?”

“Because Sally Mae told Desi that I should.”

Of course she had. Caden sighed and swirled the whiskey in the glass. “Life was a hell of a lot easier before we had women cluttering up the place.”

Caine’s whole expression softened as he looked over at his wife. Blonde and petite, her curly hair temporarily confined in a knot, Desi was the love of Caine’s hard life and he was hers. If ever two people fit together like pieces of a puzzle, it was Desi and Caine.

“I happen to like the clutter,” Caine drawled.

Caden bet he did, but the Miller men didn’t have that kind of heart luck. They were treasure hunters, adventurers, trailblazers. Caden took a sip of whiskey. The only thing the Millers brought women was loneliness and disappointment. “I know.”

“You really going to try to salvage that gold mine of Fei’s?” Caine asked.

Caden swallowed the whiskey, savoring the burn. That was more like it. Enough whiskey could cauterize any wound. “Yup.”

“Sam said Fei blew it to hell and gone.”

Caden shrugged. There were ways around that. “Just presents more of a challenge.”

“A hell of a challenge for one man.”

Caden smiled and took another sip. “Since when did Hell’s Eight shy away from a challenge?”

“Never.” Caine swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Is that what has your feet itching? No more challenges for you here?”

There were plenty of challenges at Hell’s Eight. Just because they’d staked their claim didn’t mean there wasn’t someone who was going to try to take it.

His father’s face flashed into his mind. Frozen in time. Remember who you are...

He’d done his duty by the Hell’s Eight and Tia. But now it was time to do right by his family.

“More like a promise I’ve got to keep.”

“What promise?” Caine asked.

“Nothing that involves you.”

“If it involves you,” Caine countered, “it involves Hell’s Eight.”

Caine’s loyalty to those he considered family was all encompassing. Caden drained the glass and set it beside the delicate champagne flute. Such elegance where before there had been none. He turned away. “Not this time.”

“The hell you say.”

He met Caine’s gaze squarely. “I do.”

“At least let Ace or Luke go with you.”

Caden could see Maddie scooping up her piece of cake. Saw her smile at Tucker shyly as he pretended to grab for it. Inside, something twisted, revealing a touch of...anger? He pushed the feeling aside.

“You can’t spare the hands.”

“We can spare what you need,” Caine said.

Caden knew the state of the ranch as well as anyone. Knew the threats against it. They’d just expanded. Every man was necessary. And now with the cavalry being pulled back East to deal with the discord there between North and South, they had to add the renewed threat of Indian attacks to the mix. “Too many people would draw attention.”

“Two is hardly too many,” Sam cut in, coming up beside them, a whiskey glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Behind him was Ace. “Hell, it won’t even get the job done. Remember, I saw the place after Fei blew it up. The woman is thorough.”

Caden knew he’d eventually need help, a lot of it likely, but right now, he didn’t want it. “I need to do this on my own.”

“Because of that promise you made your da?” Ace asked, his dark hair flopping over his brow, giving him the look of a devil-may-care no-account. Until you looked a little lower and saw his eyes. No one that had any ability to take a man’s measure could mistake the coldness and purpose that shadowed his light brown eyes. Ace could cut a man’s throat with the same aplomb with which he could perform those card tricks he liked to show off. And with a smile on his face. Not that Ace enjoyed killing, but if it was necessary, he didn’t have any qualms about settling a score. Caden sighed, noting Tracker and Shadow making their way over, too. This had all the makings of a well-intentioned ambush. Shit.

“Did someone send out an invite I missed?”

Sam smiled. “Nah. This is more of an impromptu party.”

“What promise did you make to your da?” Caine asked, with that tenacity that marked everything he did.

“Nothing.” Caden glared at Ace. Of all the Hell’s Eight, he was closest to Ace, which had resulted in a drunken confession about his father many years ago that should never have been made. Ace merely shook his head.

“Don’t get your tail in a twist. You’re a grown man. You get to be as foolish as you want.”

“The hell he does.”

“Let it go, Caine,” Caden ordered.

“The hell I will.”

Sam leaned in and poured more whiskey into Caine’s already quarter-full glass. “Drink that.”

“Shit, if I drink that, I’ll be drunk.”

Sam shrugged and offered Ace the bottle, before saying, “At least you’ll have an excuse for spouting nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. That gold mine is in the middle of Indian country, and Culbart isn’t going to be any help if anything goes wrong out there.”

That was true. The mine wasn’t the only thing Fei had blown to hell and gone. When Fei’s father had sold her cousin Lin to Culbart, Fei had taken matters into her own hands. A lot of dynamite had been blown to rescue Lin. Which meant the only white man close enough to come to Caden’s aid at the mine wasn’t going to be feeling that friendly toward a Hell’s Eight man. Caden mentally shrugged. He’d faced tougher odds.

“Culbart’s a hard-ass, but no one has ever accused him of being stupid,” Ace said. “If Hell’s Eight calls for help, he’ll be there. He can’t afford to be that friendless with that ranch of his smack-dab in the middle of Indian country and tensions rising the way they are.”

“Besides, I thought some of the problems with Culbart stemmed from the fact the man thought Lin was being kidnapped?” Caden asked.

“He’s got a point, Caine,” Ace offered. “Like the man or not, truth is Lin came to no harm in Culbart’s care, and any man worth his salt would go after a woman stolen from his care, even if it was one of us who did the stealing.”

Caine frowned and took a large swallow from his glass. His green eyes narrowed. “The man still has an ax to grind. He lost good men in that ‘misunderstanding.’”

“It would have been easier if Fei had bargained a bit before up and taking off with her cousin,” Sam interjected wryly. “Might have saved on the grinding.”

“Culbart didn’t leave her much choice,” Caine drawled, taking another sip. “He’d lost good money in the deal. Holding on to Fei was his best chance of getting it back.”

Ace shook his head. “Or so he thought. Fei did a good job covering her pa had gone bat-shit crazy. You can’t totally blame Culbart.”

Caine cocked a brow at Ace. “You sound as though you like the bastard.”

Ace shrugged. “I do. He’s tough as nails, but he’s got a strong sense of right and wrong.” He took a drink of whiskey. “Not to mention an interesting sense of humor.”

“When the hell did you ever see his sense of humor?” Caden snapped, impatience rubbing his temper raw. He wanted to go, not sit here and discuss Culbart’s good qualities.

“When Caine here sent me to set Culbart straight.”

“You were supposed to intimidate him,” Caine countered.

“I decided to socialize first.”

Caden shook his head. Leave it to Ace to turn an enemy into an ally.

“I wouldn’t say he’s a friend,” Ace continued, “but he’s not hostile.”

Caden straightened. He was doing this, and to hell with Culbart and to hell with argument. If that ruffled feathers along the way, then too bad. “Well, if Culbart still has an ax to grind, let him grind it.”

“Goddamn it, Caden,” Caine snarled. “Why do you have to do this now when we’re spread so thin?”

Because he did. Turning on his heel, Caden walked away, not answering, pushing past Shadow and Tracker, ignoring the surprised lift of Tucker’s brow. As he reached the garden gate, he heard Caine say, “Would someone tell me about this promise?”

“It’s personal, not important,” Ace responded with a blatant lie for which Caden would owe him.

“It’s important enough that the man who never breaks promises is breaking one to keep it.”

Ace swore, “Shit.”

Maddie. Caine was talking about Maddie. Caden had promised her he wouldn’t leave the party before she got back. Caden saw her out of the corner of his eye, standing slightly apart from the others, smiling and watching the dancers, looking as pretty and as inviting as sunshine after a storm. Saw Luke head her way, and swore. She’d get over it. He shoved the gate open and kept walking. As the gate slammed closed behind him, he heard her call his name, the surprise and disappointment nipping at his feet in a tone he’d heard his mother use too many times.

Fuck.

He was his father after all.

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS LEAVING. Maddie stood, tucked half behind a flowering pear tree, looking at the buds amid the leaves, feeling her hopes fade even as the trees blossomed. New pears that she’d come to think would signal a new beginning for her. In a few months those small, nondescript bulges would be fruit. She’d planned on picking that fruit for Caden, but he was leaving. Leaving her. Leaving Hell’s Eight. Without even a goodbye. To her, at least.

Just like everybody else she’d ever cared about. The man she’d thought was her father. Her mother. Her friends. They’d all left. And she’d stayed, just as she was staying here because she always hoped things would get better. Ever since she’d made the decision to take Tracker up on his offer to come to Hell’s Eight, she’d been clinging to some sort of hope. Hope that life for her could be better. That she could be loved. That she’d have a husband. A home. Children.

And yet here she was, standing among strangers, treating them like friends, mooning over a man who couldn’t see her as woman or whore. Watching him say his goodbyes to others, bracing herself for his absence, for the awful not knowing if he was alive or dead for weeks on end. She shivered, the cold, sick feeling digging into her stomach. She loved Caden so. But beyond a smile whenever she came into his presence and an occasional offhand endearment that meant nothing, he didn’t know she was alive. But that didn’t change the fact he was her heart and he was leaving. Or that she hated it.

The protest started at the edges of her mind, subtle yet insistent, gathering strength like a storm chasing across the plains, gaining volume as it got closer. The howl dissolved to voices from her past, some kind, most of them cruel, telling her what to do, how to do it, as if her pain was nothing. As if she was nothing. The urge to slip away deeper into the foliage until she disappeared clawed at her nerves.

She dug her nails into her forearms, letting the pain drive back the cacophony. Caden was a strong man. He respected strong women. All the women of Hell’s Eight were strong. Sally Mae with her pacifist beliefs, healing ways and defiance of convention. Desi with her fiery spirit. Ari with her gentleness that belied an inner strength that didn’t ever let her quit. Bella who was just pure life. Fei with her purpose and drive. Those were the type of women that Caden admired. That was the kind of woman she needed to be.

She looked over to where Tia stood beside her Ed, the mantilla on her head fluttering in the breeze, catching the smile in her eyes. Tia, who’d lost her husband and her children, and yet had taken on eight young boys, wild boys, hate-filled boys, and turned them into men to be admired. Why hadn’t God sent her a Tia?

She licked her lips and looked to where Caden had disappeared. Maybe the good Lord hadn’t sent her a Tia when she was a child sobbing into her pillow at night, but He’d given her an escape. But now He was taking that away, and she couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t coincidence that as her escape into fantasy stopped being effective, her love for Caden grew. She was meant to come to Hell’s Eight. She truly believed that God sent her here. But she didn’t believe he sent her here to be alone. He sent her here for Caden. For though he was restless and distant, part of the whole yet somehow apart from it, he was a man who needed love, who needed gentleness, and she’d waited her whole life to give her love to someone. It didn’t matter if he recognized it or gave it back. She’d waited her whole life for someone to love. And now he was leaving.

She shook her head. She couldn’t let it just happen. She heard a noise beside her. She looked up. Bella stood there, for once without her handsome blond, blue-eyed Sam, her belly rounded with child, her smile full of that life that gave Sam purpose. Maddie had spent a lot of time studying what attracted these men to these women and what kept them moving. And for Sam it was Bella’s spirit that he cherished.

“You hide again, Maddie.” It was both an accusation and a question, spoken in Bella’s melodic accent that made music of her words. Even the exasperated ones.

Maddie shrugged. “I’m watching to see what needs to be done.”

Bella shook her head. “There is only one thing you watch, my friend.”

As always, Bella’s use of the term “friend” made her jump inside. Maddie had never had a real friend. She’d been kept alive after her birth for a purpose. For a long time she’d dreamed it had been to be loved, but as the years passed, the truth had become clear, and she’d learned to stop smiling at others and to stop believing. Though the women of Hell’s Eight were kind to her, she never felt comfortable with their caring. She was a whore. She might have run from her life, but all the offers of friendship in the world couldn’t remove the stain. It was easy to pretend that wasn’t true, protected here at Hell’s Eight. Here the world couldn’t touch her, but someday she’d have to leave. And when she did she wanted to be just like Bella. Confident. Sassy. Always ready with a quick response. Never hiding.

But she wasn’t like Bella. Not yet. She didn’t have fire. She didn’t have family. She didn’t have beliefs. She’d been a child lost and now she was a woman lost, but she was going to find her way. The padre said God didn’t put people on this earth with no purpose, which meant she had a purpose, too. When he’d first said it, it’d been a unique idea she couldn’t understand. But over time she couldn’t forget it, and slowly it had grown on her and taken root. Until now, finding a purpose was her purpose.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bella smiled and glanced over to the gate Caden had just passed through. “It is easy to see where your heart lies.”

Maddie licked her lip, feeling that stab of fear deep inside. To love something was to lose it, to cause its death. Instinct had her reaching for make-believe, but she couldn’t find that hazy place where real and imagination blended as easily as they used to. Ari said it was a good thing. Maddie wasn’t sure.

“Hearts and flowers are so pretty at weddings.” The slip into nonsense was only half-faked. It was always so much easier to act as nothing when you felt like nothing.

Bella sighed and folded her arms under her ample chest, resting them on her belly. “You will try this nonsense with others. I know you are not loca.”

Maddie wished she knew that. “Are you so sure?”

Bella shook her head. “There is more to you than nonsense, Maddie.”

Maddie blinked. No one had ever said that to her before.

“I am sweet thighs and soft breasts and pleasure for a man.” She’d heard that so much it was rote.

Bella snorted. “You’re passion and temper, and when you find your feet, the only man that will find pleasure with you is the one that you choose.”

“You think I’ll get to choose?”

Bella, always so insightful, always so blunt, touched her hand, causing Maddie to jump again because no one ever touched her. Touching was bad, painful, death. “Sí.”

She pulled her hand away, immediately feeling bad. She liked Bella. Bella just smiled.

“You are Hell’s Eight now, Maddie. You are not nothing.”

“Tracker just brought me here.”

Bella smiled and looked at the big man talking to Ed. The wind caught his hair, exposing the deep scar on his cheek. “Something brought us all here.”

To Maddie, Tracker was a scary man with that scar down his face and those big muscles and that dark skin, but to Ari he was her sun and moon, which just proved gentleness lived everywhere. Maddie clung to that. Caden wasn’t as big as Tracker, but his hands were strong enough to bruise, break bones.

Bella grunted and put her hand to her stomach. “I swear if this child doesn’t stop kicking me I’m going to let his daddy raise him.”

Maddie looked at Bella. “You carry a girl.”

“How do you know?” It was uniquely Bella that she didn’t dismiss the thought, just asked if Maddie was sure.

It would be tactless to say she’d seen so many pregnant women over the course of her eighteen years in a whorehouse that she knew how a woman carried. So Maddie just shrugged instead and said, “Some things a woman just knows.”

Bella’s brows lifted, and she made an eloquent motion of her hands. “See? Ya está. When you don’t stop to think about how you are going to be received, you say what is on your mind.”

“A woman should be seen and not heard.”

Bella snorted. “Idiots should be seen and not heard.”

Maddie couldn’t help but flinch any more than Bella could help her immediate apologetic touch on her hand. Bella was always touching. It didn’t bother Maddie so much anymore.

“I am sorry, Maddie. You know I do not think you are an idiot.”

So many did, though. Her glance cut to the path Caden had taken. Bella’s gaze followed hers but she didn’t let go of her hand this time, just gripped it tighter when Maddie tugged.

“Maddie?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe the truth I always tell?”

Maddie nodded, used to Bella’s grammar. It was actually pretty the way she spoke, clear yet a little off-kilter, like a unique music played beneath the words.

“I believe you.” She tugged at her hand again. Bella gripped tighter.

“Do you believe that I would never do anything to hurt you?”

She nodded again.

“Do you believe I am not conventional?”

Maddie nodded. “I believe all that you tell me. You are a good person. You would never lie.”

Bella snorted. “Good people lie all the time. So do I. I would to save someone I love, but I would not lie to someone I love for no reason.”

Maddie understood that. “Yes.”

Bella shook her head. “I will speak plainly now, in words I want you to hear.”

Maddie grabbed a branch of the tree and braced herself. Only bad things started that way.

Bella took a step around until she faced her, her stomach touching the folds of Maddie’s skirt. Maddie wanted to run and hide, but it didn’t really matter what she wanted. Bella was determined to have her say, and she could see Sam searching for his wife. Soon he would be here. Maddie preferred not to deal too closely with the men of Hell’s Eight. It wasn’t that they were bad men; they were just men, and men made her uncomfortable.

“I’m listening.”

“Forgive me my plain speaking, but you are in love with Caden.”

Maddie flinched, clenching the branch in her hand, the leaves tearing and sending a slightly fruity scent into the air. “A man like that isn’t for me.”

Bella snorted. “He’s a man like any other who needs a woman to love him.”

“He has his pick of women.”

“And you could have your pick of men.”

Maddie shook her head. Only the naive believed that. “I am used goods, fit for the bed and nothing else. No man would want me.”

Bella’s nails dug into her wrist. “You will not speak such words again to me. You are my friend. You were there for that time Sam went away and my dreams were bad. You sat with me and made me tea. You run around this place like you are nothing, doing everything, supporting everyone, making sure that Sally Mae had what she needed for the wedding, organizing, finagling—”

“I am good at trading,” Maddie interrupted.

“Trading, then. But everything you do supports those that you love. You are a strong force in the background making everything possible. You have changed so much here at Hell’s Eight since you have come and yet you see none of this. You see yourself as nothing, as bed sport only.”

Maddie looked away. Bella’s finger under her chin yanked her face back.

“If you want Caden, this thinking needs to stop. You need to believe in who you are. You need to believe in the strength that kept you alive all these years. You need to believe in that part of you that makes you the one woman he smiles at whenever you are near.”

Maddie hated the hope that sprang to life in her chest, hated it yet clung to it.

“You don’t know—”

Bella shook her head. “No. I do not know anything for sure, but I know when you are around Caden you smile, and I know when Caden is around you he smiles. This does not determine the end, but to me it seems a good beginning.”

She could see Caine and Ace arguing, she assumed about Caden. No doubt Caine didn’t want him to leave. Caine thought he had a lot of power over the men, but her Caden was a stubborn man, and she understood more than Caine that Caden was also a man who needed to make his own way.

“What would you have me do? A knight doesn’t look for a princess among the garbage.”

“My Sam had no use for me when he first met me.”

That Maddie couldn’t believe. “You are Sam’s princess in the tower.”

“I was Sam’s pain in the—” Bella smiled and tapped her behind, leaving the word unsaid. “He thought I was too good for him, that he would only bring me trauma in my life. He denied our love, our attraction and our potential for joy.”

“But you’re together.”

“Yes. We are. But I had to chase that man across half the state and I had to fight for him.”

“You can’t make someone love you. Sally Mae told me this.”

“And Sally Mae is right. But you can stop someone from running away from the way they feel long enough for the truth of their feelings to catch up to them.”

Who did Bella think she was, preaching such hope to the hopeless? She had no right. “Maybe I’m just too stupid to understand such a thing.”

Bella let go of her hand and took a step back. “Maybe you are too stupid to be with a man like Caden, who has everything except the softness he needs. And maybe you are too stupid to know what is right and wrong and how it should be between a man and a woman. And maybe you are just too stupid for a lot of things because you foolishly believe all the wrong people told you.” Bella made a slashing motion with her hand. “But I do not think so. I have seen how you have changed. How you have grown, so when I tell you this, know that I am speaking to Maddie the woman who has become part of Hell’s Eight, not Maddie who sees herself of no value. It is time for you to leave here.” She motioned toward the gate. “Time for you to follow your heart.”

“Why?”

Bella’s expression softened. “Because if you want Caden, Maddie, then you need to do whatever it takes to make him see you and what could be. Something big. And no one can do it for you.”

She turned on her heel.

Maddie stood where she was anchored by her grip on the tree and the weight of the preposterous idea Bella had put forth. “Wait.”

Bella shook her head and raised her hand. “No. It is time for you to make up your mind who you will be.”

Maddie had the insane urge to chase after Bella, to have her tell her what to do, but what was the point? Bella was right. She had decided herself it was time she stopped being a child.

Caden was leaving as if it was nothing to anyone. The man never understood he was missed when he left. Or maybe he didn’t care. Sometimes it was hard to know. Follow her heart, Bella had advised. Did she have the courage to do something that big?

Caden had told her that he wouldn’t leave without seeing her. The anger that hit her was strong. The determination just as strong. She was done being left behind. Every day when she got up, life happened to her. Tomorrow, she was going to happen to her life.

* * *

MADDIE’S TREASURES WERE packed into a saddlebag along with two changes of clothes before dawn even touched the sky. Caden had left an hour earlier. She’d heard the back-porch step creak as he’d slipped out. Saw the light in the barn. It was time for her to go now, too. Sneaking down the back stairs, she ducked out the same door as Caden, but she avoided the third board on the steps. While no one would protest Caden’s departure, hers would be sure to cause a fuss. Her redbone hound whined and lifted his head. She smiled and made a motion of her hand. He came over immediately. She fed him a piece of meat left over from supper. He wolfed it down and, when another wasn’t forthcoming, drooped his head until the loose folds all but obscured his eyes. He had the look of his father, Boone, but was the despair of Tucker’s pack. Worthless, he’d been named, because while he could track like his father, he wouldn’t bay.

The day Tucker had cut him from the litter, she’d cried for him. When she’d heard his name, that had been the final straw. She’d taken the dog as hers, expecting a protest. No one had said a word. He’d become her “porch hound,” as Tucker called him. She’d tried to change the dog’s name, but he refused to respond to anything else, which just went to prove everything had a meaning to someone, and she had to respect his preference.

It still made her nervous having a friend, even if it was a dog, but there was no going back. Worthless had claimed her as much as she’d claimed him. So far they’d been friends. Tonight, he was going to become her partner. She hoped. Tapping her hip, she beckoned Worthless to her side.

The note and IOU she’d written crinkled in her pocket. Flower was a sweet little mare that Tucker had trained for her. She had a gentle way about her and not a mean bone in her body. Maddie trusted her as she trusted no human. No matter how valuable the horse was, Maddie couldn’t choose another. And not only because her riding skills weren’t that good. She needed things around her right now in which she had faith. She might have decided to happen to her life, but that didn’t mean she had any confidence she could pull it off.

Flower nickered as Maddie approached her stall. She opened the door, her hands shaking. She patted the mare’s neck and took a breath. The only other time she’d taken her destiny into her own hands was when she’d bolted after Tracker out the door of that whorehouse. She still didn’t know what had made her do it, but once done, there’d been no going back. She’d been prepared to beg the big man, but he’d turned and looked at her, appearing so dark and alien she’d almost reconsidered, then with a nod he’d held out his hand. She’d taken it full of fear, only to find beneath that harsh exterior was a good man.

He’d been looking for his Ari then, sympathy for her plight no doubt driving him to collect discarded women along the way. Tracker had brought her home to Hell’s Eight the way he brought many others. Giving them a place to heal. Most had left after a month or two. Moving on. She’d stayed. She hadn’t had any other place to go and she’d been afraid to start over. Or so she’d thought. Truth was, she’d just been slow to be ready.

She looked beyond the open stable door to the fading night beyond. But that was all changing. “We’re going adventuring, Flower.”

She snubbed the little horse to the hitching post and fetched her tack. Worthless flopped by the post. “Caden thinks he can just break a promise to me, but he can’t,” she told the hound. He rolled his big brown eyes at her.

Thanks to Caden’s relentless instruction, she made short work of saddling and bridling the little mare. At the time she’d wanted to curse him, but now, when time was critical, she appreciated every tedious lesson. She couldn’t afford to let Caden get too far ahead of her. She took the IOU out of her pocket and stuck it on a nail jutting out of the post. Stealing a horse was a hanging offense. She wanted to be sure the Hell’s Eight knew she was only borrowing Flower. Over the IOU she put the note she’d written to Tia and Bella. It was short and to the point. A thank-you and a simple I’ve decided to live my life. As an afterthought she’d added, Please, don’t worry. She hoped she’d spelled everything right.

It was a novel thought that someone would worry about her. She smiled. Taking control of her life was working. She now had friends.

Looping the leash around Worthless’s neck, she tied the other end around the saddle horn. His silent tracking was going to work for her. The last thing she needed was for Caden to know she was following until they were too far out for him to send her back.

She took one last look around. Here she was safe. Beyond the door, her life waited. For a minute she hesitated. Worthless whined and stood. She nodded. “You’re right. It’s time to go.”

She swung up into the saddle, her skirt settling around the pants Caden had purchased for her when he’d noticed how she’d been sore after that first time riding. She hadn’t had pantaloons and she’d been too embarrassed to tell anybody. She’d fretted for days he’d tell and she’d be embarrassed. So much had embarrassed her back then. Gathering up the reins, she sighed. She’d felt so lacking amid the confidence of the Hell’s Eight women. But that had been her own silliness, as Bella would put it.

Then, a few days after that first riding lesson, Caden had handed her a box and told her to open it in private. Her first thoughts had been shameful. Thinking he’d bought her scandalous womanly things, and it had been with great trepidation she’d placed the box on her bed. When she’d opened it, she’d cried. Stupid, silly tears. He’d bought her ugly man-pants to wear under her skirts. Made of soft wool and thick enough so her thighs wouldn’t chafe. She’d lost her heart to him right then, though it took her weeks to identify what that skip of a beat had meant.

She loved those damn pants. Loved that damn man. And now she was planning on loving her damn life. So much had changed around her in the past year. So much had changed within her. She’d gone from a scared child who hid in make-believe to a woman who was learning to live. It was exciting. It was energizing. It was as scary as all get-out. Patting Flower on the shoulder and smiling at the eagerly waiting Worthless, Maddie urged the mare forward. Worthless fell in beside.

“Ready or not, here we come.”

CHAPTER THREE

MADDIE’S SENSE OF adventure took a rapid downhill spiral. It wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be to follow Caden’s trail. Worthless would first pick up and then lose the scent. And frankly, she couldn’t tell the difference. Flower didn’t always want to go where Worthless went, she couldn’t see what she was doing, and that damn breeze rustling the leaves kept whispering in her ears little words of warning. Go back. Go back. But she was tired of going back, so she plunged on, letting her mind drift so worry wouldn’t eat her alive, trusting Worth to get her where she needed to go.

Flower stumbled, tossing Maddie about in the saddle. She grabbed the horn. The mare tossed her head and took two steps back. Worthless whined at the end of the leash as he was pulled off the scent. Lifting her head, she saw immediately why the horse stopped. An overgrown, impenetrable bramble thicket was just sitting there where she needed to go. Darn! She’d have to go around.

The dog whined again, straining toward the thicket as she tugged on the leash.

“We don’t have a choice,” she snapped at the animal. She immediately regretted the harshness. It wasn’t Worth’s fault that she was confused. She just hadn’t expected everything to look so similar in the dark. She had no idea where she was. Flower tossed her head again. No doubt she wanted to be safely home in her stall. Maddie had a sense of day coming, but not much sun got through the thickness of the trees. Worth whined again, straining to the left. There was a slight hole in the thicket there, but it certainly wasn’t big enough for the horse. Wrapping the leash around her wrist, she pulled him back. She sat deeper in the saddle and looked around. In all directions, she saw trees. If she didn’t know better, she’d say the same tree just repeated itself. She didn’t even know if she could find her way home from here. She had no choice but to go forward. She’d just have to take the chance that she could find the trail again. And the discouraging thought came to her that if she and her horse couldn’t pass through here, neither could Caden, which only left one question: What exactly had the dog been following?

“You were supposed to follow Caden,” she told Worth. He looked up at her, tongue lolling, panting slightly. No doubt he was thirsty. She was, too. The mare nickered. Poor Flower was probably thirstier than them all. Maddie reached for her canteen only to discover it gone. It’d fallen off somewhere along the way. Tears burned behind her eyelids. She took another breath, closing her eyes as the panic started deep within. She was lost with no water. Going back was no more possible than going forward. Her great adventure was a disaster. She should have just stayed at Hell’s Eight.

The buzzing started at the edges of her mind. Holding her breath, she reached for her calm place, picturing in her mind the pond at her home outside of Carson City. It was so easy to summon the image this time, to imagine she felt the breeze upon her face. In the summer it was so pretty with the shade of the trees spreading out over the water and the clover sprinkling the shore like a smile. The breeze off the water felt so good on those hot summer days. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and imagined until she could feel the sun on her face, smell the damp earth, hear the soft rustle of the summer breeze through the trees, feel it caress her face and shoulders.

She did love summer days. There was something so hopeful about them that made a body feel as light as a feather. There was nothing she loved more than sitting by her pond, and if she were lucky, with a book to read. She did love to read, and Mrs. Cabel, the schoolteacher, occasionally allowed her to take a book from her library so long as she treated it with respect. She always treated those books with respect. They were her treat, her escape into another world.

But something was wrong. This time of day, the shade was always on the right side of the pond, providing a more comfortable place to sit. It’d be the perfect place for a picnic. She guided Flower to the right. The dog whined and went along. She crossed the rocky surface of the stream. The horse stumbled, jostling her. She shook her head, chuckling. She always tripped over that big stone in the middle. It was so easy to lose track of time here on the sunny side of the pond. In her mind’s eye she reached her spot, smoothed her skirts as she sat on the blanket, leaned back against the tree and just let the cares of the day fade away. She loved it here by the pond.

Pain in her calf snapped her eyes open. She grabbed at her leg. Worthless was on his hind legs, clawing at her skirts. Flower tossed her head and sidestepped. Reality slapped her in the face as she looked ahead. It was not the scene at the pond but a sheer drop-off that faced her. Thirty feet down she could see a river cutting through the ravine. The mare tossed her head and took a step back. Maddie grabbed the horn.

Dear God. She’d almost driven them over the cliff. Dragging her eyes away from the drop, she looked around. She didn’t recognize where she was. She didn’t recognize where she was going. Didn’t know how long she’d been drifting in her mind. Long enough for the sun to come up and the woods to change to clearing, but that didn’t tell her much.

“Where did you bring us?” she asked Worthless. He sat down and flopped his wrinkles at her. Some help he was. She backed Flower away from the edge. “At least it’s pretty.”

And it was. Hell’s Eight was up high on the cliffs where it was sparse and the environment was harsh, but down here things had a lusher feel. More like home. There weren’t so many sharp edges to the landscape. It rolled more than cut and grass grew around rocks and summer flowers sprouted along hillsides and leaves filtered sunlight. It would be a wonderful place to stop and picnic if she weren’t lost.

“What are we going to do?” she asked the hound. He stood on his hind legs and pawed at her foot. Leather creaked as she leaned down and petted his head. Worthless wagged his tail, his expression blissful as she scratched behind his ear. Clearly, he shared none of her concern. And why would he? He was used to hunting with Hell’s Eight. For sure Tracker wouldn’t be lost. Neither would Caden, Tucker or Caine. They knew this country like the back of their hands, whereas she... She sighed. She only knew how to create pictures in her mind.

She made a note of another one of her needs. She truly needed to learn how to find her way around the wilderness. The next time she brought it up with the men, she wouldn’t be fobbed off with a ruffle of her hair and the statement that there was no need, the way Sam had done. Hell’s Eight’s protection or not, she needed her own skills.

She didn’t want to be watched out for. Protectors came and went. She’d had a lot of protectors over the years. Protectors had a way of losing interest, and when they did, she was always alone again and left to her own devices. At that point her choice was to rely on herself or to find another. With no skills to sustain her, there really was no choice. But she didn’t want a protector anymore. She just wanted herself. She wanted to be like the men of Hell’s Eight, like the women of Hell’s Eight. She wanted to be able to look trouble in the eye and knock its teeth out.

She flexed her fingers, made a fist and tried to imagine what the face of trouble would look like, but it always came at her in so many different forms it was hard to pick just one to punch. Like now, trouble tended to be a sneaky bastard. She was lost. Her current trouble was as simple and as complex as that. She tried to remember all she’d heard about Fei’s mine. The stories were wild and exciting on one level, like something out of a storybook. But it hadn’t been a fairy tale. Shadow had lived it with Fei. When Maddie listened to them tell the story, all she could think of was the expression of confidence in Fei’s face as she talked about how she’d handled things. Maddie wanted to be that confident. She wanted people to look at her and know that she could handle things. She wanted Caden to look at her like that. She wanted to know it herself.

She remembered the talk about the climb, how hard it was to get up the side of the cliff to the mine, which meant it was high. Her options in trails that were rideable were either to go back the way she came, to travel along the right side of the mountain or to take the steep drop down.

With her heart in her throat, she turned the mare to the path along the side of the mountain. The sun was rising on her right, clearing the mountain. She didn’t know if that was good or bad, wrong or right. She didn’t even know if that was east or west. How could she be so ignorant about such important details? Of course, growing up in town, it was never important which way the sun came up. On Hell’s Eight she’d never been left alone; always someone guarded her. Another form of protection that had not served her.

She urged Flower forward. The one thing she hated about being “here” so much was the uncertainty of the emotions that always ate at her. In her make-believe world, it was calm. It was peaceful. There were never any wild swings of emotion. No fear. No hate. No pain. No sadness. Just calm summer days by the pond or maybe an evening at a social where she’d dance with handsome gentlemen who treated her with respect and thought she was lovely. She shook her head. Sometimes she wondered if she’d known going with Tracker had meant that she would be “here” so much and what being “here” meant if she wouldn’t have done it. She shook her head again as the birds sang in her ear and the horse’s hooves clopped along the path. Maybe not. Her make-believe world hadn’t been as satisfying even back then, and it’d been harder and harder to hold on to her peaceful feeling. Maybe losing the ability to pretend would have happened anyway and instead of being safe at Hell’s Eight, she would have just been in...

She sighed as the path turned around the hill. It’d been so much easier as a child to pretend. So much easier to shirk the responsibility of living. Until the day when a customer had stabbed her friend Hilda. Maddie moaned in her mind, remembering the horror of the blood, of putting her hands over the wounds, of trying to stop the pulsing flow, her only friend’s blood gushing over her hands in a steady stream. No matter which wounds she covered, no matter how quickly she covered them, she couldn’t stop the blood. All she could do was sit there and listen to Hilda gasp and groan as her life was ripped from her by an act of senseless violence, while around them the brothel girls and their customers went about their business. All because Hilda hadn’t undressed fast enough. Maddie bit her lip as sobs welled as fresh today as they were back then. Hilda had deserved better. It’d been so unfair. So wrong. Long after Hilda had stopped breathing, Maddie had been trying to clean up the blood, as if cleaning up the evidence would bring her back. But there’d been no bringing her back, no forgetting the words Hilda had whispered to her. I was going to...

It’d been a game they played. When they got enough money, they were going to buy a house. When they met a nice man, they were going to have a home and children. When they saved enough, they were going to travel the world and live high. And Hilda hadn’t gotten to do anything except spread her legs for the dirty men who paid the money.

I was going to.

Maddie had closed her eyes, those words hanging in her heart. It’d been in that spilt second that Tracker had come into the saloon, and in that split second she’d found the courage to jump on his offer. And now here she was, in the middle of nowhere on an adventure chasing her life and completely lost. Somehow her escape wasn’t turning out the way she wanted. But then again, it wasn’t as if she’d gotten any of it right.

At first she’d thought Hell’s Eight would be everything she needed—a nice house, cleaning, cooking, baking but no bedding. She really didn’t like bedding and no one there expected her to. And at first living there had been nice, really nice, but somehow it hadn’t been enough. In the past couple months, she’d been consumed with the same restlessness she so often sensed in Caden. A need for...just something. She needed more than safety. She needed her own dreams. Her own life.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t even see the riders coming at her around the corner until she almost ran into them. Flower tossed her head, whapping Maddie on the chin. Stars shot between her eyes. Four riders pulled up in front of her, two abreast on the trail. Flower stepped back a quick two steps. Maddie would have taken six. They were a hard-looking bunch. Their clothes were dirty from the trail, whiskers sprouted on their cheeks, and they all had guns strapped to their thighs, but they weren’t unfamiliar. She didn’t know who they were, but they didn’t look any different from any of the saddle bums who’d frequented the Red Velvet Slipper looking for companionship. The look they were casting over her didn’t feel any different, either. It was the type of look men gave her when they came into the saloon parlor, hot and hungry, seeing her as a body, not a person, wanting her as a vessel, not a companion. Her stomach heaved the way it always did, and her mind rebelled the way it always did, but the pretend wouldn’t come. And she was left staring at them and the reality of what was likely about to happen.

“Well, what do we have here?” the older man on the right asked, pushing his hat back and folding his hands across the saddle horn.

She fumbled for a smile and turned Flower. “I’ll just move over here and let you pass.”

He laughed and nudged his horse forward, cutting her off. Worthless snarled.

“Best you hush that dog up before I shoot it.”

Again, Maddie wished she’d had the forethought to steal a gun she knew how to work. The two men in back pulled their guns from their holsters. The rifle in the saddle scabbard looked good, but she’d only ever fired it once. And this close it wouldn’t do much good.

“Hush, Worth.”

As discreetly as possible, she untied Worthless from the saddle horn.

“Are you alone out here?” the leader asked.

What to answer? Holding on to her smile, she managed to say, “I got a late start.”

It sounded like a lie even to her own ears. She wasn’t surprised when the men didn’t lower their guns.

“You saying you’re alone out here?”

“I have Flower and Worth, and I should catch up to my friend soon.”

The men exchanged a look between them. Clearly, she was much better at fooling herself than others, which was a sad thing.

“Does your friend know you’re coming?”

She smiled brightly at them. “I imagine he’s expecting me momentarily.”

“Honey, we’ve been riding on this path for an hour and a half and haven’t seen a soul.”

“You wouldn’t if he didn’t want you to.” That was the truth. Caden was like a wolf in the night, slipping in and out of the shadows, being seen only when he wanted to be seen but always dangerous except when he was with her. She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, holding on to the strength of the memory of the brush of his fingers.

“And who is this friend you’re trying to catch up with?”

She licked her lips. Flower, sensing her tension, shifted her feet. Seconds seemed like hours as Maddie debated her options.

“Don’t lie, girl. Just tell the truth.”

Habit made her answer to the snap in that voice. “Caden Miller.”

Another look exchanged between the men. “Caden Miller of Hell’s Eight?”

She nodded.

“You think Caden Miller of Hell’s Eight is here?”

She nodded again. At least they knew Caden’s name. There might be some protection in that.

“Shit. Come here, girl. Let me have a look at you.”

There wasn’t any choice but to go forward. She kneed Flower in a gentle urge. The little horse walked sedately forward, showing none of the trepidation that she had. Why didn’t anyone but her see the danger here?

As if on cue, Worthless growled, low and deep in a way that said he meant business. The leader pointed his gun. She had to do something. It was easy and natural to slip back into the role of coquette. Shameful, even, the ease with which she did it. Dropping her shoulders, tilting her head to the side, leaning just that little bit forward, Maddie angled the horse between the dog and the man.

“Here, now. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

“He’s not going to do any, either.”

“But you might.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “How’s that?”

“Flower here isn’t used to guns.” She flipped her braid back over her shoulder and trailed her fingers across the top of her chest. “If you just go firing shots randomly, I might end up thrown, maybe even—” she ran a hand down her thigh “—breaking a leg.”

The transition from weary to interest was subtle, but she could see it in the set of the men’s shoulders, the tip of their chins, the relaxing of their hands on the reins.

The man in the back with the faded brown hat spat and said, “Would be a shame to break such pretty legs, boss.”

As she suspected, the older man was the leader. His clothes were of better quality, and his face sported less stubble, as if he took more frequent care of his appearance. With a press of her knee, she shifted Flower’s direction, putting herself closer to him. This was the man she had to influence.

His eyes traveled from the top of her head down to her waist and then back up, stopping at her breasts. Men always liked her breasts. She hated them. Fingers clawing, pinching; mouths slobbering. But there were advantages to having big breasts.

“You’re lying, girl.”

Yes, she was, but not in the way he thought. He brought his horse forward. The gelding towered over her little mare. He towered over her. He rode all around, checking her gear from front to back.

“That horse doesn’t bear the Hell’s Eight brand.”

No, she didn’t. Because Maddie wouldn’t let her be hurt that way. Caine had fussed. Tucker had pointed out the reasons. Even Shadow had tried to tell her that it was okay, that it was necessary. Only Caden had understood. Flower was hers. She wasn’t bringing her pain.

She smiled wider, showing her dimples. Men loved her dimples. Sure enough, the man’s eyes dropped to her mouth.

“I rode up for the wedding celebration.”

“Rode up, hmm? Hell’s Eight’s a day and a half away from any town.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t ride up alone.”

“But you’re riding out alone.”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t what I expected.”

“I hear they aren’t too particular about the company they keep.”

She was used to men hating others because of the color of their skin. It was always a cause for a fight in a whorehouse. The proprietors learned quickly to separate out the Indians, otherwise they’d be replacing the furniture every day. Maddie wasn’t sure the violence really had anything to do with the color of the skin. Men just seemed to like to fight. Any excuse would do. Skin color was just the easiest one.

She nodded. “A girl’s got to have her standards.”

One of the other men snorted. He was wearing the same dirty, dusty brown shirt and pants as the others. The only thing that distinguished him was his blond hair. “No way in hell the men of Hell’s Eight let a pretty little thing like this slip out.”

“I heard all of them were married up anyway.”

“Not all of them and they’ve been hiring help.” She shuddered delicately, feeding their assumptions. “Not a lot of single women up there.”

“You think the married ones would let a whore in their midst, boss?”

She raised her brows at the man. “Are you calling me a liar, sir?”

She didn’t know what she’d do if he said yes. She wasn’t used to confronting people head-on. She thought of Bella and her fire and added for good measure, “Because if you are...”

“If I am, what?”

So much for Bella’s inner fire. She couldn’t copy that.

“Then I would have to tell you, you’re wrong.” She put her hand to her chest, drawing the man’s gaze back to her best assets. The feel of her cotton dress was a shock when she’d been expecting skin. It was hard to flaunt your attributes when you were covered to the chin, but Tia had insisted nice girls didn’t wear low-cut dresses. It had been useless trying to explain to Tia that she wasn’t a nice girl, and while rape was something to be avoided, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. But Tia was Tia and she always got her way.

After Maddie’d gotten used to thinking of herself as unavailable, she’d loved her dresses. The material was cool and comfortable, and while men smiled at her, none had touched her. None had tried to corner her when their wives weren’t looking. No one treated her with anything but respect. And even better, women didn’t pull away when she came close. She’d started to form friendships. As a result, she’d begun to think of her coming to Hell’s Eight as a new beginning, a wiping clean of her past. She’d kept herself pure. Felt good about it, even. Having a choice made her feel so...strong, in a unique way she’d never had.

But it had been just another illusion like so many others. As, predicably, the men leered at her, Caden’s face flashed in her mind. She saw his frown as she smiled back, and her heart sank. He wouldn’t want her if these men touched her. The knowledge was a stab through her heart. Around the edges of her consciousness, the opportunity to escape presented itself. Worth whined. She shook her head. She couldn’t give in. Worth was Hell’s Eight. He would die for her. She was Hell’s Eight. She couldn’t abandon him. She checked to make sure Flower was still between the man and her dog. She was. “May I ask your name, sir?”

“Who I am’s not important. Who are you?”

She tossed her head again, wishing her hair was free so it could flow about her shoulders. Men loved her hair almost as much as they loved her breasts. “They call me Ginger,” she said, giving them her saloon name.

His eyes went to her hair. “Your spirit as fiery as your hair?”

She smiled the smile she knew he expected from her, the one she’d been taught to give, the one that came too easily for the proper woman she’d been training to be.

“So I’ve been told.”

“Hell’s Eight owes us, boss. We lost our last woman because of them.”

Last woman? That sounded ominous.

“True enough.” The boss stared at her a moment. “She’s got more meat on her bones than the last one.”

“I gotta say I like the idea of a sporting woman better than I do a virgin.”

The boss snapped, “The woman never said she was a virgin. Would never have brought her home had she mentioned that.”

What kind of men were these?

“I say we keep her,” the man in the back said.

She kept her eyes on the leader. The others could say all they wanted, but until this man spoke, nothing was going to be in stone. She knew it. So did they, which was why they were angling so hard.

The leader looked at her.

“You really a working girl? Because I don’t want no misunderstandings this time round.”

The answer lodged in her throat as the reality of where she was sank in around her. Once a whore, always a whore. She’d heard that so many times. She’d stopped believing it when Tracker had taken her away and the acceptance of Hell’s Eight had settled around her. But just ten hours away from Hell’s Eight, she was back to where she’d started.

“Yes.” It was hard to get the word out.

“The men’s humor would sure improve with a woman around the place.”

The guy in the faded brown hat offered, “Morale has been down. Comanche’s got everyone working double time.”

“How much do you charge?” the boss asked.

“For what?” she stalled.

“I’ve got a camp of ten men who need satisfying.”

“Around the clock?”

“You get Sundays off and from sundown to sunup. Other than that, the men come in, and you’d be available.”

“And who would I be working for?”

“Frank Culbart of the Fallen C here.” He made a token touch of his finger to his hat. She didn’t get the impression that he was being disrespectful but that he was just rather gruff.

Culbart? Dear God. These were the men who’d purchased Fei’s cousin and held her captive! “I don’t cook and clean,” she said.

“Girl, you’ll pretty much do what I want.”

She raised her chin, thinking of Tia. “I’m a working woman, sir, not a slave. I’ll expect a decent wage.”

“I yank you off that horse you’re whatever the hell I say you are, so you best take what you get before you find yourself in a position you don’t want to be in.”

She didn’t want to be here at all. She wanted to be with Caden.

One of the men rode forward and grabbed Flower’s reins, slipping them over the horse’s head, and pulled Flower forward.

“We’ll leave the dog here.”

“He won’t stay.”

He pulled his gun out. “Then I’ll shoot him.”

“No! ”

“Don’t you be telling me what I will or will not do.”

She yanked at the reins, panic gathering in her stomach. Worth snarled and charged the man holding Flower’s reins.

With a calm that she couldn’t fathom, Culbart pulled the trigger. Worth howled and fell, whimpering before lying still.

“No!”

Culbart took aim again. Kicking Flower forward, Maddie grabbed for that gun before he could fire again. Culbart swore.

“Goddamn it! Hold her, Dickens.”

She screamed when somebody’s arm went around her waist and yanked her off her mare, hating the laughter that flowed around her, mean, vicious chuckles that declared their superiority. She clawed at her captor’s hands, but her nails raked harmlessly over his gloves. Before she could get her bearings, she was thrown around. She automatically splayed her hands, but she didn’t hit the ground; instead, her stomach hit the saddle, and the slap on her ass was hard enough to arch her back.

“Calm down. The dog’s already dead,” Dickens ordered.

She didn’t want to calm down. Caden! The scream came from her heart. The ground spun as the man wheeled his horse.

“We keeping her, boss?” someone asked.

“We’ll see how she works out.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Nobody’ll miss a whore.”

The truth of that sat like ice on her soul.

CHAPTER FOUR

UNDER THE BEST of circumstances, mining was back-breaking work. Under these circumstances—one man trying to discreetly salvage a mine that had been blown to smithereens—it was brutal. Caden sighed and tied the rope to another boulder, hooked the harness around his shoulders and dragged the stone away from the hole, muscles straining with the exertion. The job would have been easier with help, or with equipment, and he knew he was going to have to break down, eventually, and get both. But right now he needed to establish his hunch as true. He had a pretty accurate description of the layout of the tunnels from Fei, but the reality was the explosion had collapsed everything. Even part of the mountain had caved in. When Fei decided to blow something up, she did a thorough job.

It was hopeless to think he could restore the natural caverns that had formed the basis for the original mine, but Caden was banking on the explosion having freed up a lot of that gold embedded in the rock walls. His plan was to dig and sift until he had what he needed to set up a full operation. Fei had given the mine a lyrical name in her native Chinese. When asked, she explained it meant “fresh start.” He grunted as the boulder caught and jerked him back. Fei had found a new start for her life here with Shadow. Now it was going to give him one, but instead of love, he’d take cash. Cash was power. Cash was the future.

He hauled the rock to a preexisting pile. Fei had kept the mine secret. He wanted to maintain that secrecy, at least until he had something to claim. Too much disturbance of the surrounding area would draw curious eyes, so he was working slowly and steadily and just dreaming of a less laborious process. When he got the rock to the edge of the pile, he dropped the rope from his shoulders, flexing them against the stiffness and pain. It would have been easier if the secondary mine exit had survived. But it hadn’t. Nothing had. Except Fei’s hopes and dreams and her belief that spirits of good fortune rested here. Being half-Chinese, Fei had a lot of strange beliefs, but when you boiled it down, they weren’t any more fanciful than his da’s belief in the wee folk.

He glanced around the barren rock-strewn area. The impression was the opposite of hope. “If you could see your way to sharing, I’d be mighty grateful.”

He didn’t know who he was talking to, Fei’s spirits or his da’s wee folk. In the end it didn’t matter as long as someone listened. As he stood there, the midmorning sun beat down on him like a fist. The hot, humid air pressed in on him, a bead of sweat rolled down his spine. Damn, it was hot for June. Felt more like August. Taking off his hat and wiping his forearm across his brow, Caden looked to the southwest where storm clouds gathered low on the horizon. It was late in the year for tornadoes, but that didn’t mean one wouldn’t come calling. Shit.

The breeze kicked up and blew dust across the site. Another chill went down his spine, and the knowledge that something was wrong settled in his bones. Walking over to the side of the clearing, he picked up his rifle, checked to make sure it was loaded and the barrel clean before he cocked it and looked around. Nothing moved except the leaves on the trees and the birds in the sky. Everything appeared normal. It was only the hairs on the back of his neck that said differently.

He climbed to the top of the rise, his tired leg muscles protesting the effort. Standing on an outcrop of rock, he covered his eyes with his hand and looked around, slowly and methodically scanning for any signs of movement. Any sudden flight of birds. Anything to explain the lifting of hairs on his nape. He saw nothing, which didn’t mean he was in the clear. He sighed and rested his rifle in the crook of his arm and checked again. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt a threat before he saw it. As far as the eye could see, there were only trees, sun and the sparkle of light off the river below. Whatever it was, it wasn’t close.

He half slid, half walked back down the hill, jumping off the small ledge near the bottom before setting his rifle back against the stone ledge. He’d already taken precautions, booby-trapping the trails coming in. Whatever trouble was coming, it wasn’t going to interfere with today’s work. More’s the pity.

Putting his hands on his hips, Caden stretched his back, groaning as the muscles unknotted. He looked at the opening again. Two days’ work and he’d managed to go in about two feet. Not exactly an impressive pace. As a matter of fact, it’d be discouraging but for the incentive. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the piece of inconspicuous rock he’d found yesterday. It looked like any other rock until he turned it over and saw the veins of gold running through it. Disturbing the mountain might have changed where the gold was, but the gold was still there and—Caden closed his fist around the rock—it was going to be his.

He looked heavenward. “Soon enough, Da, the Millers are going to be worth something.”

It wouldn’t make up for much, but at least one Miller was going to fulfill his vow. A swirl of wind blew dust and leaves up around his feet. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled again. The hilt of his knife settled into his palm with familiar comfort. Either his da approved of his plan or trouble was walking in tandem with that breeze. Since he wasn’t a man given to fancy, he was banking on the latter. Whether that trouble meant claim jumpers or Indians, he didn’t particularly care. Whatever it was, it was welcome to come try to take this mine. While Millers might have trouble finding their pot of gold, they didn’t give it up once it was theirs.

Grabbing his canteen, he took a drink of the tepid water, his pleasure in the day’s work fading under the new tension. He put the cork back in the canteen and hung it up on the shady side of the outcrop of rock. He paused as he hung it, seeing the cuts and bruises crisscrossing the back of his hand. It’d been a long time since he’d worked like this. Not since the early days of Hell’s Eight when they were building rather than sustaining. It felt good to work again, to do something with his hands, to do something for himself. Hell’s Eight had been Caine’s baby. This was his, and he had the deed to prove it locked up in the vault at Hell’s Eight. The work might be backbreaking, but whatever the results, they were his. And he needed to get back to it. If trouble was coming, it would get here in its own time. He pulled his hat down over his eyes against the bright sun. In the meantime, he had a load of rock to move, a ton of dirt to sift through and a future to build.

* * *

TROUBLE DIDN’T COME the way he thought it would or from the source he expected. It came in the form of Ace riding up the path a week later on his big black stallion, his shirt torn, his jaw set, wearing a sense of urgency that only those who knew him well could detect. Caden knew Ace very well. Caden set down his sifting pan and took off his gloves.

“Afternoon, Ace.”

Ace pulled up his horse. “Did you have to booby-trap every damn bend in the trail?”

“Seemed appropriate at the time,” Caden drawled.

Ace plucked at his torn sleeve. “That second branch you had following the first on that switchback is a nice innovation.”

“Thank you.” Caden pushed his hat back. “What brings you here, Ace?”

“Maddie.”

Caden sighed. “I know she’s got a soft spot for me, but I’m not coming back just to keep her peaceful if she’s gone loco again.”

In her first few months at Hell’s Eight, Maddie had often slipped away, either going into a blind stupor or raging fit. Turned out he’d been the only one who could settle her down. All it had taken was a hug. He didn’t know why no one understood that. Maddie just needed to feel safe so all her sweetness could flourish. Her face flashed in his mind. Big green eyes, freckles, upturned nose and a mouth that would turn a saint sinner when she smiled and showed those dimples. Damn, he missed her smile. The way she’d touch his arm when she thought he was upset. The calm she brought him. His cock stirred. The passion she incited. That passion was the reason he’d been staying away from Hell’s Eight more and more of late. Maddie had had enough men lusting after her in her life. She didn’t need someone like him joining the queue.

“I wish it were that simple,” Ace said on a sigh.

That sense of something being wrong started howling. Caden froze. “What about Maddie?”

Ace didn’t immediately answer. Never a good sign. He swung down off his horse.

“Let me get my cup. We’ll talk about it over coffee.”

Fuck. Caden nodded and walked over to the fire on which the coffeepot swung suspended. Caden knew Ace well enough to know there was trouble. He had a habit of putting his hand on his gun when he was agitated, and right now that hand was firmly planted.

“What about Maddie?” he asked, using his gloves to shield his hand from the heat as he lifted the pot.

Ace held out his cup. “I was hoping to find her here.”

Caden paused midpour. “Why the hell would you expect to find her here?”

The camp was little more than a fire, a tent and a lot of dirt. It was no place for a woman.

Ace sighed and motioned for Caden to finish pouring. “Coffee.”

As soon as the cup was full, Ace brought it to his mouth. Caden had to wait for him to take two sips before he continued.

“She left the night you did, and knowing how she feels about you, we kind of thought she followed you.”

“Why would she follow me?” Caden’s mind had been racing with all the possibilities of what could have happened, where she could have gone.

“She and Bella had a talk, apparently.”

Caden wanted to close his eyes and groan. He set the pot back on the hook over the fire. Bella was a whole different woman than Maddie. All fire and bold spirit captured in a lushly curved body. Maddie admired her tremendously, had taken to emulating her. And Bella would have followed Sam. Shit. Had followed Sam. The ins and outs of that courtship were legend on Hell’s Eight, and not a week went by that some part of it wasn’t rehashed. Caden had a feeling he didn’t want to hear the rest.

“So Bella and Maddie talked, and from that you think she lit out after me in the middle of the night?” It was only half a question.

Ace nodded. “Her horse, Flower, is also missing.”

There was more. Caden could tell from the tone of Ace’s voice that there was more.

“And?”

Ace motioned with his cup. “You might want to sit down for this.”

The hell he did. Caden spread his feet apart and braced his shoulders. “I’m good. So the night I left, Maddie left, too, taking the horse with her.”

“And one of the tracking hounds.”

A hound? “Which one?”

“Worthless.”

“Hell, that one doesn’t even bay.” But Maddie had a fondness for him. She had a fondness for anything left out or underappreciated.

“Yeah, we thought that was pretty telling, too.”

“How so?”

“He’d be my choice if I wanted to follow someone but not be detected.”

Caden’s, too. “Tell me she took a gun.” The thought of Maddie being out there alone undefended was intolerable.

“I wish I could for sure, but unless you gave her one that nobody else knows about, she didn’t pack one.”

Caden shook his head. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. “That woman’s fear of guns is unreasonable, especially if she’s going to take off on her own. Did you check to see if she went into town?”

“First thing, but no one’s seen her. And there’s more.”

Of course there was.

Ace took another sip of his coffee. “This part’s not so good.”

“What’s not so good?”

Ace cocked a brow at him. “Sure you don’t want to sit down?”

“Just fucking tell me and quit stalling.”

Ace sighed and turned the cup in his hand before saying quietly, “The dog came back shot, Caden.”

“Fuck.” A cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach as Maddie’s name whipped through his mind. Maddie!

“Pretty much.” Ace set his cup on the ground.

“Who’d you put on her trail?” He didn’t doubt someone had gone after her. Maddie was Hell’s Eight. Had been since the moment she’d burst out of that hellhole of a whorehouse and asked Tracker for help.

“Tucker took a hound and backtracked along the trail.”

“Where was she heading?”

“Damned if Tucker could figure that out.” Ace took a coin out of his pocket and began to walk it over the backs of his fingers. “But if she was following you, that woman has no sense of direction.”

She didn’t. It’d taken her a week to learn her way back from the creek. “What did Tucker discover?”

“Not much. The trail was old and the ground not the best.”

“Which dog?”

“Boone, who else?”

Boone was the best. “Good.”

“Boone’s good, but there’s only so much he can do after rain and weather have their say. We did figure out that at some point midway between here and there it looks like she met up with someone. From there Tucker couldn’t follow the trail more than a mile east. Hell, he’s not even sure by that point whether it was her Boone was following.”

Someone. A nice way of saying Maddie met up with trouble. The knot in Caden’s stomach froze over. A woman alone out here was fair game for every piece of scum that decided he wanted her. “Where was it?”

Sam pointed north. “That row of hills between here and there. It looks like she went right instead of left.”

“Did anybody check the houses along that way?”

“Shit, Caden. You know there isn’t anything along that way. The Indians drove them all out.”

Caden nodded. That was true. As more troops were pulled East in preparation for the conflict there, the Indians were getting bolder. He knew exactly the spot that Ace was talking about. There were three ways to go off that peak. To the left toward San Antonio, down into the wilderness, and to the right toward the Culbart ranch and here. It was a good day’s ride from both.

“Has anybody gone to San Antonio looking for her?”

“Sam.”

“And?” As unreasonable as it was, Caden couldn’t kill the hope Sam had found something.

“He’s not back yet.”

“It’s possible she went to San Antonio. She wasn’t happy with me leaving.”

Ace looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Maybe.”

“There’s more.”

“Of course there is.” Caden sighed. “What?”

“It’s more the nature of what Bella talked to her about what goes on between you that has Tucker convinced she followed you.”

“What did Bella tell her?” With Bella there was no telling.

“Bella told her to follow her heart, and we’re all pretty sure she’s infatuated with you.”

She was, and it was a measure of what a selfish bastard he was that he’d never discouraged that infatuation. Being loved by Maddie was...incredibly sweet. Hot and tender at the same time, and when she looked at him as if he was wrapped in icing... Fuck! He wasn’t a total bastard. He’d never encouraged her but...his cock throbbed. He’d thought about it once or twice.

Shit. Caden walked over to the grassy patch where Jester was tethered. “You say she left the night I did?”

Ace stood. “Yeah.”

He grabbed his gear. “And you think she got lost and ran into trouble.”

“Pretty much.”

Which made it his fault. He tossed the saddle and blanket onto Jester’s back, giving it a tug back to settle it. He’d promised to say goodbye and he hadn’t. Maddie was fragile. He should have had more care. Something like that would have thrown her. “How long has the dog been back?”

“About a week and a half.”

Which meant she’d run into trouble immediately.

Ace took Caden’s saddlebag and started stuffing essentials into the pockets. “You going after her?”

Caden looked up. “Hell, yeah.”

Ace nodded and kicked dirt over the fire to put it out.

“What are you doing?” Caden asked.

“Keeping you company.” He slung the saddlebags over his shoulder. His hand dropped to the butt of his revolver. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Caden. I have since the minute we discovered she was gone.”

“What kind of bad feeling?”

Caden didn’t want to hear Ace thought she was dead.

“I don’t know.” He handed Caden the saddlebags and bedroll. “But it’s not good.”

“Well, it’s not going to be more than we can handle.” Caden tied the bedroll and bags to the saddle, grabbed his rifle and slid it into the scabbard tied to the left side. “Maddie’s been hurt enough.”

“Agreed.”

Caden swung up onto Jester. “So let’s go get her back.”

He refused to believe she was dead.

“And if we find she’s been hurt?” Ace asked.

“We bring her home.” Caden smiled as rage poured through his gut in an icy torrent at the thought of anyone touching his Maddie. Thunder rumbled in the distance. “And then we bury the bastards who hurt her.”

Ace tipped his hat and backed his horse around in a tight circle. “I’m good with that.”

* * *

BECAUSE THEY LEFT late in the morning, it took them a day and a half to get to the spot where Maddie had met up with someone. There were still remnants of hoofprints on the hard-packed earth thanks to the ground being soft when the confrontation had occurred. It had dried up since then, leaving plenty of signs there’d been others, but no path that led anywhere because of the rocky nature of the surrounding area.

“Nothing.” Caden squatted beside the footprints, tracing them with his finger, looking for any identifying mark, anything that would give him a clue.

“That’s what Tucker said,” Ace drawled from farther out, where he circled looking for signs.

There was no better tracker than Tucker. No better scent hound than Boone. Caden knew Tucker had searched the area thoroughly, and if Tucker couldn’t track from here then Caden couldn’t, either. But he had to look. He had to try. Maddie was gone. He couldn’t grasp the thought. Couldn’t stand the possibility that it was real.

“Fucking hell.” Nothing. Grabbing a handful of dirt, he threw it and stood. Why hadn’t Maddie stayed where she was safe? “Which way did Tucker say they went?”

Ace pointed down.

“Into the wilderness?” That didn’t make sense. There was nothing that way except emptiness and hostiles.

Ace shrugged. “He said Boone lost the trail about a mile down that way.”

It didn’t make sense, unless they were just pulling off to rape her. The icy knot in Caden’s stomach swelled, choking off his voice as he imagined Maddie being held down and abused. Maddie, who was kindness and hope. Who’d already endured so much. He swung back up on his horse. Ace followed, the way he always did, a silent, deadly companion. It was hard to get to know Ace. He kept so much of himself inside, but if there was a battle, he was there, and if there was trouble—like now—he was ready.

The path was rough. Rough enough even Rage, Ace’s horse, protested. Negotiating the terrain would have been hard for Maddie’s little horse, Flower, who had never traveled along anything more difficult than a meadow.

As if reading his mind, Ace asked, “Would that mare of hers be able to make this?”

“She might not have had a choice.”

“True enough.”

* * *

FEAR TANGLED WITH RAGE as Caden broke through a copse of trees and emerged in a clearing. The clearing was a small oasis in the middle of the darker woods. Cool and inviting and, most important, hidden. It would be simple to rape a woman here in peace. Gritting his teeth against the images in his head, Caden swung down.

Hold on, Maddie.

It was easier to see the disturbance in the soil here caused by many hooves. Harder to sort them out as one smeared into another.

“Is this where Tucker lost them?”

Ace looked around. “Looks like what he described.”

Caden crisscrossed the clearing, step by step. Tucker had already decoded what was in the dirt, but what he needed was a clue, something to give him an idea of who had Maddie.

He was on his third pass over the small clearing when Ace called his name.

“Caden?”

“What?”

“If there was anything to find, we’d have found it by now.”

Caden shook his head. “Keep looking.”

“For what?”

“Anything.” There had to be something here, something to show where Maddie was, but if there wasn’t, he’d simply search house by house, town by town, until he found her or someone who knew where she was. And then there’d be hell to pay.

He pictured her face with her big eyes, rosebud mouth and that smattering of freckles across her cheeks. Kisses of the fairy folk, he’d say. He looked around the little glen, the sunlight filtering through the leaves in small rays, giving it almost a magical feel, and whispered, “If she is one of you, give me a goddamn sign as to who has her.”

He waited in vain for a clap of thunder, a whisper in his mind, a touch on his shoulder. His da always said the wee folk were particular, but then, as he turned, out of the corner of his eye he saw a gleam of metal. It took him four steps to get there. Four steps in which he thought he must be losing his mind, but when he got to that spot, the shine didn’t go away. It grew stronger until he was standing on top of it, and then he couldn’t see it anymore, covered as it was by a low-growing fern. He squatted.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know yet.” He moved the fern aside, and there, camouflaged against the rock, was a button. He picked it up. He felt more than heard Ace arrive at his side. The man was as light as a cat on its feet. He held the button up.

“Hard to see as it was against the rock.”

Ace nodded.

The button had a unique design. Almost a cross but not quite.

“A button,” Ace said, his disappointment as strong as Caden’s should have been.

“Yeah.” Caden whispered a thank-you to the fate, God or whomever had brought him to that button.

Caden stood. Ace cocked his head and observed his face.

“Except you recognize it, don’t you?”

“It’s got a distinct pattern.”

He closed his fingers around it, his mind consumed with all the reasons a man’s button would pop off his shirt. None of them were good.

He ran his thumb over the raised design. “It’s the Culbart brand, a lopsided cross.”

“Culbart has her?”

“So it would seem.” Culbart was a bear of a man. Rough around the edges. Not known for his soft ways with anything, let alone women. His crew was rougher still. And he had Maddie.

“That button could have fallen off for a wide variety of reasons,” Ace pointed out with an utter lack of conviction.

That was true, but in his gut Caden knew what that button meant.

He dropped the button in his pocket and swung up into the saddle. He spun Jester in a circle and kneed him back up the trail.

“But there’s only one that matters to me.”

CHAPTER FIVE

LYING LOW ON a hill above the Culbart spread, Caden surveyed the goings-on below. He’d liked to have seen chaos, but for the day and a half he’d been observing, Caden hadn’t seen anything that he wouldn’t have seen at Hell’s Eight. Animals were tended on schedule, guards were rotated through shifts and buildings were maintained. What he hadn’t seen were any signs of Maddie, but Caden knew Culbart had her. Had had her for two weeks doing Lord knew what to her.

Caden tried to remember what Fei had said her cousin Lin had endured when her father had sold her to Culbart to pay a debt. He couldn’t remember much. Fei had been sketchy on those details. Not surprisingly. There were things a good woman didn’t want revealed. Besides, whatever had happened to Fei’s cousin wasn’t particularly relevant because a man approached a woman of good family differently than he did a known whore. Whether the woman had been sold or not, virginity had value. Hell, women had value in general, but if Culbart and his crew saw Maddie as a whore...

Caden closed his fist around the spyglass and ground his teeth. If they treated her like that, he’d gut them and skin them and leave them out as buzzard bait. Maddie might not have had a good beginning, but she was better than anyone down deep where it mattered, and he’d made her a promise when she came to Hell’s Eight. He promised her she’d never have to serve a man again unless she lay down by her choice. He remembered the disturbance of footprints in the dirt, the isolation of her location. The popped button. The blood in the dirt from the dog. Fuck. Nothing about her being with Culbart was her choice.

Putting the spyglass back to his eye, Caden surveyed the Fallen C. He had to give Culbart credit. He might be a son of a bitch with some questionable morals when it came to women, but he ran his ranch with an iron hand. The evidence was in the well-kept buildings, the tidy outhouses, the numerous corrals and the condition of his animals. Probably the only thing that kept him from giving Hell’s Eight a run for its money when it came to stocking the cavalry was the fact that the Fallen C was smack-dab in the middle of Indian country. The man didn’t just have to battle wolves and drought. A tribe could decide anytime that he was trespassing on their land, and with the unrest in the East over separation, fewer and fewer cavalry were being sent to protect the West. In the coming years, Culbart would be lucky if he got out of this with his scalp intact. Of course, that was always supposing Caden left anything for the Indians to scalp. Caden popped his elbows on the ground and continued his surveillance. He needed to know the routine to get Maddie out of there.

It was early morning and the men of the Fallen C were going about their usual business. Men were going in and out of the bunkhouse, heading up to the cookhouse for breakfast. For the day and a half that Caden had been surveying the place, he hadn’t seen any sign of Maddie, but her little horse, Flower, was in the corral and not looking too happy with that stallion next door. Caden sighed again. Obviously from the stallion’s behavior, the mare was coming into heat, which complicated things because another promise Caden had made Maddie was that Flower would also not have to lay down with any man unless she wanted to, and from the looks of things, that stallion was about to take that corral fence down.

“That’s a mighty big sigh,” Ace said.

“Looks like we’re going to have a romance to break up, too.”

“You see Maddie with one of the cowmen?”

“Nah. I haven’t seen her yet, though I imagine they’d be keeping her under lock and key.”

“Maybe. So what romance are we breaking up?”

“That stallion and Flower.”

To his credit, Ace didn’t bat an eyelash. One of the things that Caden enjoyed about Ace was that the man was unflappable.

He took the spyglass from Caden and trained it on the corrals.

“Nice-looking stud. Might be worth letting it happen.”

“I promised Maddie her mare would be safe.”

Ace lowered the glass and raised a brow at him. “You promised a woman her horse wouldn’t be...deflowered?”

Caden grabbed the glass. “Maddie’s sensitive on the subject.”

“Uh-huh.”

It was a ludicrous request and he’d been stupid to make the promise. Knowing it didn’t mean Caden wanted it shoved in his face. “Shut up, Ace.”

“Didn’t say a word.”

“Good.”

“If you’re planning on ending a romance, though,” Ace drawled, “then you’d better get over there soon.”

“Yeah. That’d occurred to me.”

“Got a plan?”

“Besides ride in and take her?”

“How about something better than suicide?”

“Not yet.” The ranch was well guarded with men who wore their guns in a way that said they knew how to use them. Short of walking up and knocking on the door, he couldn’t think of anything.

“We’ve been here two days,” Ace pointed out. “We haven’t seen a sign of her.”

“I know.”

“You think she’s still here?”

“I do.”

“Based on what?”

Caden put the spyglass in his pocket. “Based on my gut and the fact that Culbart hasn’t come out of that house for more than two minutes in two days.”

“I had that thought myself.”

Caden nodded and crawled back off the edge. “The only thing keeping me from charging in is the fact that Culbart doesn’t have the look of a satisfied man.”

Ace smiled. “You think he’s finding Maddie’s flights of fancy a bit draining?”

Caden stood, brushing off his pants. “For his sake, I sure as hell hope so.”

“How are you intending on getting her out of there? Storming the place isn’t exactly our best bet.”

“Yeah, I’ve come to that conclusion.”

Of course, Ace had to pin him down that first day to keep him from charging in, but now that he was a little calmer, he could see the foolishness of that plan.

“So what are you going to do?”

“First, we’re going to break up that romance.”

“Steal the horse?”

“Uh-uh. It’s not stealing if it’s ours to begin with.”

“Gonna be tough to prove to a judge if Culbart put his brand on Flower.”

“Let him be so stupid as to take me to court.”

“That man has a fierce temper and strong will. Rumors are, nobody crosses him and gets away with it. Reminds me a lot of Caine.”

“Caine doesn’t hold women prisoner.”

“We don’t know that Culbart is, either,” Ace pointed out with that reasonable side that grated on Caden’s nerves.

“Maddie’s the second woman he’s taken against her will.” He shifted his hat on his head.

“To be fair, Lin’s uncle sold her.”

“Doesn’t mean she didn’t say no.”

“True enough, but I got the impression she wasn’t raped.”

“Only because Fei slipped Culbart saltpeter.” Every man who heard that story cringed on the telling.

Ace chuckled. “She’s a resourceful bit of a thing.”

She was, but Maddie didn’t have Fei looking out for her. She just had him. “She is that.”

“Not to keep grating on your sense of vengeance without reason,” Ace drawled, walking that coin over his knuckles the way he did when he was thinking, “but Maddie’s been here two weeks, and Culbart’s not looking like the cat that ate the canary. Are you really so sure that he’s forcing her?”

Caden spun around and swung, his fist connecting with Ace’s jaw. The man stumbled back four steps before he landed on his ass. Instead of coming up swinging the way Caden wanted, he sat there and rubbed his face.

“You imply she’s a whore again and you won’t get up for a week,” Caden snarled.

Ace wiped the blood from his hand on his pants. “The only one who jumped to that conclusion is you. I meant she might be a welcome guest. Women are scarce out here, and Maddie is pretty enough for Culbart to overlook her past.”

“Maddie’s beautiful.”

Ace cocked a brow at him. “All the more reason for Culbart to be thinking marriage. A man building a spread like this will want someone to pass it on to.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Culbart’ll probably arrange that for her.”

“Like hell.”

Caden held out his hand to Ace. The other man didn’t take it.

“Feel better now?” Ace asked.

No, he didn’t feel better.

“You get up and take a swing back, and I’ll let you know.”

“I’m not fighting you, Caden. We both know I’d win anyway.”

“Like hell.”

“You’ve had too much coffee, too little sleep and too little food.”

“Whereas you’ve slept.”

Ace shrugged and took his hand, getting to his feet. “I always sleep. Best way to be ready for a fight. But yes, I’ve got my head straight on my shoulders and we’re about even matched in the best of conditions. You,” he said pointedly, “are not at your best.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re damn irritating?”

Ace smiled, revealing even white teeth and a charm the ladies appreciated. “Nobody whose opinion mattered.”

“What do you think we’re going to do?”

“Culbart isn’t an idiot.”

“No, he’s not.”

“You’re going to have to do something.”

“I could just walk up to the front door. Say hello.”

“There’s a slight chance he’ll shoot you down before you get halfway across the yard.”

“Why? He won’t like the set of my hat?”

“He won’t like the fact that you’re Hell’s Eight. Don’t forget what Fei did to his men.”

“There’s always a chance he doesn’t know that Fei married up with Shadow.”

“A very faint chance.”

Yeah. News did travel fast. “Well, one way or the other, I’ve got to get into that house.”

“I could go.”

“Why you?”

“I’m more even-tempered.”

“Somehow I don’t see Culbart appreciating your even temper.”

“You think he’s going to appreciate you swinging?”

“I think I’m going to want you with that rifle up here on the hill covering my ass in case I have to break out of there fast.”

“So you’re using the excuse that I’m a better distance shot.”

“You’re always bragging on the skill. About time you proved it.”

“This isn’t much of a plan, you know.”

Caden nodded. “We have to know if she’s there.”

“True enough.”

Ace reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a derringer. Caden looked at him.

“You been chewing on locoweed?”

Ace handed the weapon to him. Caden took it reluctantly. A derringer was a woman’s gun or, worse, a cardsharp’s.

“They’re gonna search you for weapons, but they aren’t going to expect you to be hiding something this small.”

“And where would you have me put it?”

Ace looked up. “Under your hat. I don’t know, down your pants. Stick it wherever the hell you want. Just stick it somewhere you can reach it quickly in case things go bad. You’re not going to do Maddie any good if you’re dead.”

That was true enough. Caden took the gun. He debated putting it under his hat, but really, that wasn’t a secure option. Instead, he slid it up his sleeve and tied the wristband tighter.

“What time you plan on going over?”

“No time like the present.”

It was early in the day. Everybody was there. There’d be less suspicion.

“If we waited until later, the hands would be out.”

“If we waited until later, they’d be more gun happy. I want them to feel safe. For now.”

“I don’t like this plan.”

“I don’t like it, either, but you got another option?”

“I still think I should go in.”

“And I still say no.”

Maddie was his responsibility. And she’d waited long enough for him.

* * *

CADEN HADN’T EXPECTED to be able to just walk right up to the door, so he wasn’t surprised when within a quarter mile of the ranch he was met by two men on horseback, guns drawn. Culbart wasn’t a fool and these were dangerous times.

“Stranger,” the older man with the graying beard greeted him.

Caden nodded back. “Mornin’.”

“What brings you around these parts?”

Caden took the measure of the men, their hard eyes, their dirty appearance and the way their fingers rested on the triggers of their well-tended guns. Culbart didn’t hire fools.

“Business.”

“What kind of business could you have way out here?”

Caden smiled. “Nothing I care to talk about with you.”

The other man with him, not a youngster but clearly younger, maybe even family because he had the same muddy-colored eyes and the same set to his narrow mouth, spat.

“Well, if you want to get any farther than six feet under right now, I suggest you be telling us the nature of your business.”

“I came to talk to Culbart about a filly.” He figured it was a safe gambit. Everyone knew Culbart aimed to beat out Hell’s Eight as a breeder of horses.

The younger man rode around until he could see the brand on Jester’s side.

“Since when do Hell’s Eight go searching for fillies?”

“Since we’re always on the lookout for new breeding stock. Can’t improve the herd without it.”

It was the truth. The older man grunted. “What’s your name, stranger?”

“Caden Miller.”

Only by a blink of an eye and a tightening of his hand on the trigger did either man give any indication his name meant anything. Caden made note of the response. Only hired guns had that instinctive shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later attitude.

With a motion of the gun barrel, the older man indicated to go forward.

“I can find my own way. No need to give up your post.”

“You let us worry about the guard here. You just worry about keeping your hands clear of those guns.”

From that Caden deduced, they were done with their shift, and their replacements were in position. Another thing to note. Culbart’s men weren’t slipshod when it came to switching the guard. That was going to complicate things.

Nobody attempted to make conversation on the ride up to the ranch. Caden didn’t, either. Silence worked for him. It gave him time to study the lay of the land, looking for potential dangers, spots to hide and whatever he might need to utilize on the escape. There was no telling what condition Maddie would be in. He had to prepare for any eventuality. His index finger pulled on an imaginary trigger. If she was hurt at all, they were all going to die. Maddie was Hell’s Eight. More than that, she was his friend.

Caden was the center of attention when they rode into the ranch. He wasn’t surprised. He doubted the Fallen C got many visitors. The remoteness of the location, plus the hostiles around, pretty much guaranteed that. Under the watchful eyes of his guards, he swung down from Jester. Cutting a glance at his guards, he mentioned too casually, “I expect to be leaving with all that I came with.”

The younger man spat to the side. “I’d worry more about leaving with your life.”

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