As the dust settled, Dawson got his first good look at the rustler.

He blinked. The rustler had lost his hat exposing a head of curly blond hair. A pair of big Montana sky blue eyes glared up at him from a face that left no doubt.

A woman rustler?

“You have to let me go,” she snapped as the roar of the stampeding cattle died off in the distance.

“So you can finish stealing my cattle? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t understand.”

“The hell I don’t. Where are they taking the cattle?”

She tested her left shoulder and grimaced.

“I think you’ll survive,” he said sarcastically.

She shot him a dirty look. “You could have killed me.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Even after I saved you?” She narrowed those eyes at him like a gun.

“I beg your pardon?” He couldn’t believe this woman.

“Do you think those cattle just happened to turn on their own?” She raised her chin as she said it, her gaze full of challenge. “I saved your life. Now you owe me.”

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling author BJ DANIELS wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out, received a four-and-a-half-star review from RT Book Reviews and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue for that year. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and many nominations and awards for best book.

Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

To contact her, write to BJ Daniels, PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA, or e-mail her at bjdaniels@mtintouch.net. Check out her website at www.bjdaniels.com.

Rustled

BJ Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

This book is for a good friend and fellow writer who is

a huge fan of cowboys. My hat’s off to Joanna Wayne,

the woman who keeps those cowboys down in Texas

finding the loves of their lives.

Chapter One

Dawson Chisholm reined in his horse to look back at the ranch buildings in the distance. This was his favorite view of the Chisholm Cattle Company. He’d always felt a sense of pride and respect for the ranching empire his father had built.

Today, though, he felt the weight of responsibility on his shoulders for the ranch and feared for his father—and the future. Someone wanted to destroy not only what Hoyt Chisholm had built, but Hoyt himself.

“I’m going to ride up into the high country and check the cattle on summer range,” he’d told his five brothers. They knew him well enough to realize that as the oldest brother he needed some time alone after everything that had happened.

They’d been at the main house sitting around the kitchen table this morning, avoiding the dining room since their father had been arrested for murder and their stepmother, Emma, had taken off to parts unknown.

The house had felt too empty, so they had all moved back in even though they had their own houses on the huge ranch. When their father’s new bride, Emma, had come to the house two months ago, she’d required them all to show up freshly showered and changed for supper every evening.

No one questioned Emma’s new rules, which included no swearing in the house and bowing their heads in prayer before supper. In the weeks since she and Hoyt had wed, she’d made a lot of changes at Chisholm Cattle Company.

That was until the body of Hoyt’s third wife turned up and he’d been arrested.

Dawson still couldn’t believe it. There was no way his father was a murderer. Unfortunately, given the evidence against him and his wealth, the judge had denied bail and Hoyt was now sitting in jail in Whitehorse awaiting trial.

Emma … Well, she’d packed up and skipped town with only a short note saying she couldn’t do this. It had broken their father’s heart. Hoyt Chisholm had looked older than his fifty-six years when Dawson had visited him yesterday evening. He’d taken the news about Emma even worse than Dawson had thought he would.

“Emma wouldn’t just leave,” his father had argued. Emma had been nothing like his father’s other wives. Redheaded with a fiery temper, plump and annoyingly cheerful. Her stepsons hadn’t wanted to like her. But she’d won them all over and their father clearly adored her.

“She left a note, said she couldn’t do this and packed up all her stuff and was gone when we got home,” Dawson said, unable to hide his own anger—and not just at Emma. His father had gone off to a cattleman’s meeting in Denver two months ago and, after a quick stop in Vegas, had come back with a wife. Why was his father surprised the woman would leave, under the circumstances?

“Listen to me,” Hoyt said, leaning forward behind the thick piece of bulletproof glass as he spoke into the phone provided for inmates to talk to visitors. “Emma wouldn’t leave. You have to find her.”

Dawson didn’t need this. He and his brothers were having a hard enough time running the ranch without their father. He had a lot more important things to do than find his father’s fourth wife.

But, he had to admit grudgingly, he’d liked Emma and maybe that was why he was so angry with her for bailing on their father.

“Where would you suggest I look? Is there family I can call? Friends? Is she even from Denver?” When his father didn’t answer any of the questions, he said, “You really don’t know anything about her, do you?”

“I know she wouldn’t leave me,” Hoyt had snapped.

Dawson sighed now, took one last look at the ranch and spurred his horse into the thick cool darkness of the pines. The ride up from the main house had taken most of the day. The big blue sky overhead was tinted pink to the west where the sun had dipped behind the Bear Paw Mountains.

He breathed in the sweet scent of pine. Since he was a boy, he’d always come to the high country when life got to be too much down on the prairie. Having five brothers, all of them adopted by Hoyt years ago, not even a ranch as large as this one felt big enough sometimes.

“I need one of you to see if you can find Emma,” he’d told his brothers before he’d ridden out.

“Dad just doesn’t want to believe that she deserted him,” Marshall had said. “What’s the point in finding her? She won’t come back.”

“I’ll go,” Zane had said, speaking up. When they all looked at him as if he was crazy, he said, “Dad loves her. He has enough problems without worrying about Emma. I’ll see if I can find her. Did he give you any place to start?”

“All we know is that he met her in Denver,” Dawson had said. “I suppose you could start there.”

None of them had any hope that Zane would find her. Even less hope that if he did, she would come back and stand by their father’s side during his trial.

Dawson couldn’t really blame Emma when he thought about it. Rumors had circled around Chisholm Cattle Company for years after Hoyt’s first wife, Laura, had drowned on a Fork Peck Reservoir boating trip.

The rumors only got worse after his second wife, Tasha, had been killed on a runaway horse. When his third wife, Krystal, had disappeared, never to be seen again, people who knew him were convinced Hoyt Chisholm had the worst luck with wives. Others weren’t so sure.

There was at least one person—an insurance investigator—who suspected that Hoyt Chisholm had not only murdered all three wives, but would also do the same with his latest, Emma.

Dawson knew better. Hoyt was his father, the man who had adopted three motherless boys—Colton, Logan and Zane when the triplets’ mother had died in childbirth, father unknown. He’d adopted Dawson, Tanner and Marshall when their mother had abandoned them, father also unknown.

Hoyt probably would have adopted even more children who needed homes if it hadn’t been for the trouble with his wives.

Dawson, the oldest, was three when his father married his second wife, Tasha. They had been married only a short time before her death. He was five when Krystal came into their lives. She’d stayed an even shorter time. He doubted his brothers, who were all a few years younger, remembered any of them.

After that their father had raised them alone. All six of them now ranged from twenty-six to thirty-three. And then Hoyt Chisholm had met Emma.

A new wife had spurred all that old talk about Hoyt’s other wives and brought former insurance investigator Aggie Wells back into their lives—until she’d gone missing. That was when their father’s third wife’s body had turned up. Aggie was still missing.

Dawson felt the temperature begin to drop up here in the mountains. He loved this ride from the sagebrush and prairie to the rocky mountain range, the towering pines and rush of snow-fed creeks. He’d been raised on a horse and felt as at home there as he did in the high country.

At heart he was a cattleman, he thought as he heard the comforting sound of cows lowing just over the ridge. There was nothing like that sound or seeing the herd scattered across a wide meadow.

He stopped a short way into the meadow and leaned on his saddle horn to admire the black cattle against the summer-green meadow. Chisholm Cattle Company raised the finest Black Angus beef there was—and lots of them.

At that moment he realized what a loner he was. Before Emma had left, he’d noticed that she’d seemed intent on seeing each of her stepsons settle down with the perfect woman. He shook his head at the thought. Was there a woman alive who could understand his need to ride up here and camp out for a few days with only cows as company?

He laughed at the thought, remembering some of the women he’d dated. Even hard-core country girls weren’t all that up for roughin’ it. He thought of the one woman he’d known who might have and quickly pushed the painful thought away.

A cold breeze stirred the deep shadows that had settled into the pine boughs. He glanced across the meadow to the spot where he usually camped and saw something move in the trees.

A hawk burst from a high branch. The cattle began to moo loudly and move restlessly in the bowl-like meadow. Something was spooking them. A mountain lion? A grizzly?

Dawson stared into the trees across the meadow and started to pull his rifle from the scabbard on his saddle, thinking it had to be a large predator for the cattle to get this nervous.

The first rider came out of the trees at a gallop. Dawson pulled his rifle as the rustler came into view and fired a shot into the air as warning before taking aim to fire another. The cattle began to scatter.

A second rustler appeared, then another and another broke from the pines; shots rang out across the grazing land as the rustlers tried to circle the now stampeding cattle.

Dawson realized the cattle were headed right for him—and so was one of the riders.

Chapter Two

With the stampeding cattle headed directly at him, Dawson realized there was nowhere to go to get away from them, and it was too late to try to outrun the herd. He was about to be caught in the middle of the stampede.

He reined his horse around in time to see one of the rustlers turn the herd at the last moment—and just enough that he was able to get out of the way. The cattle thundered past in a cloud of dust—the rustler with them.

Dawson sheathed his rifle, spurred his horse and took off after him. The rider was moving fast, bent over the horse and riding as if his life depended on it. It did, because Dawson was gaining on him. Just a few more yards …

Riding up behind him, Dawson dived off his horse, tackling the rustler. Both of them hit the ground at the edge of the thundering herd of cattle and rolled into the tall grass. Dust boiled up around them as they came to a stop at the base of a large pine tree, Dawson coming out on top.

As the dust settled, he got his first good look at the rustler. He blinked. A pair of big Montana-sky-blue eyes glared up at him from a face framed in blond curls.

A woman rustler?

“You have to let me go,” she hollered as the roar of the stampeding cattle died off in the distance.

“So you can finish stealing my cattle? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t understand.”

“The hell I don’t.” He looked over his shoulder to see the last of the rustlers and cattle disappear through a gap in the trees. The rustlers had scattered the herd, but would still be able to cut out at least a hundred head.

He jerked the woman to her feet. “Where are they taking the cattle?”

She tested her left shoulder and grimaced, then she reached down to pick up her battered Western straw hat from the dirt.

“I think you’ll survive,” he said sarcastically.

She shot him a dirty look. “You could have killed me.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Even after I saved you?” She narrowed those eyes at him.

“I beg your pardon?” He couldn’t believe this woman.

“Do you think those cattle just happened to turn on their own?” She raised her chin as she said it, her gaze full of challenge. “I saved your life. Now you owe me. Let me go.”

He laughed as he knocked the dust from his Stetson and settled it back on his head. “The only place you’re going is to jail.”

“That would be a mistake,” she said meeting his gaze. Her eyes were a heartbreaking blue in a face that could stop traffic with its surprising beauty. She looked too sweet and innocent to be a rustler.

“What the hell are you doing rustling my cattle?” he demanded, although he’d bet it had something to do with a man. It usually did.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said, and glanced toward where the cattle had disappeared through a wide spot in the trees.

“Try me.”

Something came into her eyes, a subtle look that warned him. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. She reached for the gun strapped to her hip, hidden under her long barn jacket.

He grabbed the weapon before she could, his eyes narrowing as he assessed her. So much for sweet and innocent.

She wasn’t just a woman whose boyfriend had talked her into some crazy stunt of rustling up a hundred head of cattle. The woman was armed and he’d already seen the way she could ride.

“How many others are there?” he demanded, grabbing a fistful of her jacket. “I think you’d better start talking before I tear into you.”

She smiled. “I’m not sure you want to do that.”

“Why is that?”

“You might not like the outcome.”

He laughed again. He had a good ten inches on her and seventy pounds. She wasn’t serious, was she?

Apparently she was, because before he could react, she punched him.

The blow caught him by surprise, breaking his hold on her and allowing her to take off running toward her horse, which had stopped a few dozen yards away.

Dawson went after her, bringing her down in the tall grass. She tried to fight him off, but he was onto her tricks this time and pinned her to the ground. He was suddenly aware of the soft curves.

“You have to listen to me.” She ground out the words from between her gritted teeth. “You have to let me go. If you don’t, they will come back for me and they will kill you. There are too many of them for you to fight off alone. You won’t stand a chance and I don’t want your blood on my hands.”

“I’m touched by your concern for me. Especially after you just tried to pull a gun on me.”

“I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

“You don’t mind if I don’t take your word on that, since you just punched me.”

“You gave me no choice.”

“Well, I’m giving you a choice now. Tell me how many of them there are.”

She struggled under him for a few moments, then gave up and sighed. “Seven. How are those for odds?”

Not good. He’d heard about a large rustling ring that had been operating down in Wyoming and had only recently moved into southeastern Montana. He assumed it must be the same band of rustlers. Apparently they had now moved into north central Montana.

“When they realize I’m not with them, they will be back for me,” she said.

Once the rustlers had the cattle settled wherever they planned to keep them for the night, they would come looking for this woman, sure as hell—if they didn’t notice her missing sooner.

He wondered how badly they would want to find her and how long they would look when they didn’t. He figured only one or two of them would return. The others would stay with the cattle. That at least would even the odds.

Also it would be dark soon. It got dark fast up here in the mountains. He had to make sure the band of rustlers didn’t find them until he decided what to do.

Eventually he’d have to deal with the possibly that all of them might come back for her, depending on her relationship to this gang. Holding off seven of them wouldn’t be easy. Especially with this woman to worry about. What was he going to do with her?

“Look, we don’t have much time before they realize I’m not with them.”

She had a point. He hauled her to her feet and walked her the rest of the way to his horse. Reaching into his saddlebag, he pulled out a length of rope.

“You can’t tie me up.”

“What would you suggest I do with you?”

“You work for Chisholm, right?” She took his silence for yes. “You really want to die for a hundred head of his cattle?”

He pulled her hands behind her back and began to tie her wrists together.

“You’re making a huge mistake,” she said.

“It won’t be my first.”

She was watching the edge of the trees where the last of the cattle and rustlers had disappeared. He could feel the tension running through her. She knew they would be coming back for her. He thought about his first impression—that some man had talked her into this.

“So who is he?” Dawson asked as he finished binding her wrists and turned her around to face him. “This cowboy who talked you into becoming a rustler?”

Her expression changed and her gaze shifted away, making him pretty sure he’d pegged this one right. But, hell, given what he’d seen of her, she could be the leader of this group. Still, he thought it was more likely that some man was involved.

“What did he promise you?” he asked when she said nothing. “Adventure? Money? A chance to go to prison?”

“Rustlers seldom go to prison, because they are seldom caught,” she snapped, sounding angry.

“Well, I caught you,” he said, just as angry, since she was right. Convictions of cattle thieves were rare to nonexistent and with cattle going for a thousand dollars a head and times being tough, the rustlers had gotten smarter. With open range where there were no fences to worry about and back roads poorly patrolled, all a thief needed was a horse, maybe a good cattle dog and a semitrailer. There was always a crooked cattle buyer for a quick sale, and they could walk away with some good money after very little work on their part.

These rustlers, though, were going for the big reward, rustling a hundred head at least. From what Dawson had seen so far, they knew exactly what they were doing. Just like this woman.

She cocked her head at him. “You caught me, but how are you going to keep me when the others come back?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.” He dragged her over to her horse. “Let me help you up,” he said and, before she could protest, hoisted her up into her saddle. Taking her reins, he headed for his horse. “You try anything and you’ll be on the ground again in a heartbeat. I don’t think you want that, do you?”

She glared at him before looking again toward the opening in the trees as if she expected the other rustlers to come riding in at any moment.

Dawson knew what would happen if the rustlers caught them out in the open. He had to get her to the other side of the large meadow, to a place he’d found when he was a boy, a place where he could hide her and make sure she didn’t warn her partners in crime.

He swung up onto his horse and, leading hers, headed across the meadow. He needed to get them both out of sight until he could decide what to do with her—and how to get his cattle back.

“If you let me go, I can keep them from coming back,” she said. “You have my word.”

“Your word, huh? Like that is worth anything.”

She let out an unladylike curse as he led her and her horse across the meadow. “I’m just trying to save your sorry neck.”

He glanced back at her. “And I’m just going after my cattle.”

“Your cattle? Don’t you mean your boss’s cattle?”

“I’m one of those Chisholms who you think can afford to lose a hundred and twenty-five head of cattle without even noticing it.”

“You’re a Chisholm?”

He could tell she liked it better when she thought he was just one of the hired hands. “Dawson Chisholm, and you are …?”

“Everyone calls me Jinx.”

He chuckled. “I can see why.”

EMMA CHISHOLM WOKE WITH a terrible headache. She lay perfectly still and didn’t dare open her eyes. There was a pounding at her temples and she felt sick to her stomach.

She inched her hand across the bed, hoping Hoyt was still lying next to her and hadn’t gotten up early and gone to work already. Maybe if he got her something for her headache before she tried to get up—

The bed was empty. With a jolt she opened her eyes. Two thoughts hit her at once. She wasn’t in her bed at the main house of Chisholm Cattle Company ranch and it wasn’t morning.

Through the boards that had been nailed haphazardly over the only window in the room, she could see daylight, but from the angle of the shadows it appeared to be afternoon.

Emma struggled to sit up, taking in the unfamiliar small room with its paint-peeling faded walls, the mattress resting on the scarred wood floor, the tiny closet with two buckets, one full of water, and the tray near the door with a sandwich in plastic wrap, an apple and a thermos.

As her memory came back, she was suddenly aware of the cold air coming in through a broken pane at the window. She hugged herself for a moment before getting to her feet.

Her head swam and she had to drop back to her hands and knees. Crawling over to the tray, she opened the thermos. Coffee, and it was still hot. She poured herself some into the plastic cup it came with. Her fingers trembled as she took a sip and considered the situation she found herself in. It wasn’t the first time she’d been drugged and locked in a room alone.

But it was the first time her captor had been a woman. Emma took another sip of the hot coffee to chase away the chill. She’d thought she’d been ready for Aggie Wells. She’d known the woman would come for her, but she’d underestimated Aggie.

When the former insurance investigator had disappeared a few weeks ago, Emma had been so certain Aggie was trying to make it appear that Hoyt had done something to her. But when Emma had recently come home from town and smelled the woman’s perfume in the main house at the ranch, she’d known Aggie was alive.

She had wondered how Aggie had known that everyone was out of the house. That’s when she’d found the listening devices Aggie had apparently installed in the house and she’d known that with Hoyt in jail and his six boys busy working on the ranch, it was only a matter of time before Aggie would come for her.

Emma remembered sitting in the kitchen after Hoyt was arrested, waiting to see what Aggie had planned next. She’d been sure that the woman’s plan had been to frame Hoyt for the murder of his third wife—and then take advantage of Emma being alone at the ranch to what? Kill her?

Emma hadn’t known, but she’d been armed and thought she was ready when Aggie suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Everything after that was still fuzzy. She drank more of the coffee, feeling a little better, unwrapped the sandwich—a ham and cheese—and took a bite before moving back over to the window and peering out a small hole the size of a fist between the boards.

Where was she? In some abandoned farmhouse near Whitehorse, Emma was fairly sure. The landscape looked familiar and she didn’t think Aggie had driven far after she’d drugged her.

So what did Aggie have planned for her?

She thought about the first time she’d met the former insurance investigator at the bar at Sleeping Buffalo Resort north of town. She’d been surprised that Aggie was about her own age, early fifties, a tall, slim woman with an aura of intelligence and energy. Emma remembered thinking she was the kind of woman she could have been friends with—under other circumstances.

Aggie had told her that night about her suspicions that Hoyt Chisholm had killed his other three wives. Emma hadn’t believed it. Still didn’t, even though evidence had been found along with his third wife’s remains that linked him to her murder.

She’d been all the more convinced of her husband’s innocence when she’d realized that Aggie had faked her own disappearance to make Hoyt look guilty of yet another murder.

At a sound on the other side of the only door, Emma turned and braced herself. She didn’t think Aggie planned to kill her—at least not yet. Otherwise, why bother to bring her here?

A dead bolt scraped in the lock, the knob turned and, as the door swung inward, Emma saw Aggie Wells framed in the doorway. She was holding a handgun in a way that made it clear she knew how to use it.

She laughed, because even if the woman had been unarmed, Emma wasn’t up to launching any kind of attack.

“You’re in a good mood,” Aggie said. “But then you are annoyingly cheerful most of the time, aren’t you? It is one of the things I hate about you.”

“You mean there are other things you hate about me?” Emma said, pretending to be crushed.

“I hate that you’re married to Hoyt Chisholm.”

Now they were getting somewhere, Emma thought as she watched the woman come into the room. For some time, she had suspected that the reason Aggie was so obsessed about Hoyt’s case was that she’d fallen in love with the man. Emma could understand how that might have happened. Look how quickly Emma herself had fallen for him.

“You should eat,” Aggie said, sliding the tray toward her.

Emma sat down, reached for the thermos and started to pour herself another cup of coffee but stopped, the cup and thermos held in midair.

Aggie chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s not drugged.”

She finished pouring the rest of the coffee into the plastic cup, thinking it was too late anyway if the coffee was drugged. She returned the stopper to the thermos and sat back against the wall as she took a drink. The coffee made her feel a little better and she needed to start thinking straight.

The only way she could get herself out of this was if she was very careful with this crazy woman, who she suspected was also a killer.

Aggie had caught her off guard at the main house at the ranch this morning. It had been just this morning, hadn’t it? She thought so. She’d been expecting her. She’d even gotten a small pistol out of Hoyt’s gun safe.

But then Aggie had appeared in the kitchen doorway and said, “I think it’s time I told you the truth.”

Emma had held the gun on her as Aggie had sat down across the table from her. “You framed my husband.”

“I did much worse than that.” Aggie had looked at Emma’s coffee cup sitting on the table next to a small plate with cake crumbs on it. “I’ll tell you everything, Emma. You deserve to know the truth. Is there any coffee?”

Emma thought she’d been watching Aggie the entire time she went to get another cup and the rest of the coffee in the pot. But that must have been when Aggie put the drug into her half-empty coffee cup.

Aggie had begun talking. Emma had listened, getting more drowsy by the moment and having a hard time making sense of what the woman was saying. It wasn’t until she’d dropped her coffee cup that she realized she’d been drugged. She’d grabbed for the gun, but her movements had been too slow by then and Aggie had been much quicker.

She remembered Aggie walking her out to an old pickup and buckling her in. Emma couldn’t be sure how far they had gone when Aggie got her out and up the stairs into the old farmhouse. That’s the last she remembered until waking up thinking it was morning.

“What now?” Emma asked as she picked up the sandwich and took a bite.

“We wait,” Aggie said.

“What for?”

Aggie merely smiled and turned to leave.

“You realize my family will be looking for me,” Emma said.

“I wouldn’t count on that. You left a note that said you couldn’t deal with all of this.”

“Hoyt won’t believe it,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

“Oh, I think he will. Along with the note, everything you brought into the marriage is gone from the house. If they bothered to check, which I don’t think they will, they’d find that you bought a used pickup the day after Hoyt was arrested. The title is in the name of Emma Chisholm.”

ZANE HAD NO IDEA HOW to find Emma. He started his search in Denver because that was where his father had met her. He flew into the mile-high city on the last flight out of Billings.

The cattleman’s meeting had been held at one of the large hotels downtown. He had booked a room, feeling as if he was searching for a needle in a haystack. Armed with a photo of Emma taken at the ranch, he began with employees at the hotel.

“You a cop or a bill collector?” one of the clerks behind the main desk asked him.

“She’s my stepmother,” he said truthfully. “She’s gone missing.”

“And you think she’s hiding out here at the hotel?”

“No, but I think she stayed here the beginning of May.” Zane leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I didn’t want to get into this, but … she met my father here, they eloped days later to Vegas and now she’s disappeared and I haven’t a clue how to find her.”

“What about your father? He doesn’t know how to find her either?”

“Seems they saw no reason to share their pasts or much else.”

The clerk didn’t look as if he believed a word of it.

“I just need to make sure she’s all right,” he said. “My father is worried about her.” He laid a fifty-dollar bill on the counter, his hand covering all but the important parts of it. “Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.”

“I didn’t work here then, but I could take a look and see if she was registered back in May,” the clerk said, smoothly cupping the fifty in his palm as Zane removed his hand. He tapped on the computer keyboard.

“It would have been under Emma McDougal.”

The clerk skimmed the computer screen. “Nope. Sorry. No Emma McDougal registered as a guest here in the month of May. Or April, for that matter.”

Now all Zane had to go on was what little had been on the marriage license he’d found in his father’s safe. Apparently Emma had been born in Caliente Junction, California, fifty-three years ago. He’d looked on the internet. Caliente Junction was now nothing more than a wide spot in the road. Even if someone still lived there, which looked doubtful from what he’d seen, what were the chances anyone there would even remember her or her family?

Zane went to his room and called home to tell his brothers where he was headed in the morning.

“Where the hell is Caliente Junction?” Marshall asked.

“Apparently out in the desert near the Salton Sea. I don’t think there is a town there—if there ever was—from what I can tell. Just a few buildings on a two-lane road. What’s going on there?”

“Just working. Dawson is still up in the mountains,” his brother said. “You know him, he heads for high ground the moment there’s trouble at the ranch. Nothing new there. Let us know what you find out about Emma. Dad keeps harping on us to find her.”

Zane hung up and booked a flight into Palm Springs, California, for the next morning as he considered Caliente Junction on his laptop screen. He had a bad feeling his father wasn’t going to like what he found out about his new bride.

JINX CLARKE RODE ALONG just feet from Dawson Chisholm, frantically trying to decide what to do. Her options were limited given that her hands were tied behind her and he was holding her horse’s reins. One false move and, as he said, she’d be hitting the dirt again. Her left shoulder hurt as it was from her recent fall, thanks to him. She wasn’t looking forward to being thrown to the ground again.

But she knew that at any moment Rafe could come riding out of the trees with all but a couple of his men with him. If he noticed she wasn’t with them, he would hightail it back for her. More than likely, though, he wouldn’t know they’d lost her until they got the cattle down to the first corral.

Which meant it would be some time before anyone would realize she was missing. But Rafe would come back. Even if he came alone, Dawson Chisholm was a dead man.

Jinx studied him as he led her across the wide meadow, trying to decide how much to tell him. The cattleman had coal-black hair and the darkest eyes she’d ever seen. She guessed he had some Native American in him. He was also handsome as sin—not that she would admit to noticing.

What worried her was why he’d shown up when he had. Either his timing was just his bad luck or it was no coincidence. It had been her idea to hit the Chisholm Cattle Company, because she’d thought it was big enough that they wouldn’t be coming across anyone. But now she wondered if Rafe hadn’t gone along with it too easily.

“So what’s your real name?” Dawson asked, glancing back at her again. “I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Jinx is all you get, Chisholm,” she said.

He shook his head as if she was the most contrary woman he’d ever known. Clearly he hadn’t known many women, if that was the case. “The sheriff will get your name out of you.”

Jinx groaned. If he thought he could scare her with threats of the sheriff, he was sadly mistaken. She was far more worried about the killers she’d been riding with—and the dark-haired cattleman who had her tied and bound.

“I didn’t check to see if you had some sort of identification on you,” he was saying. “We might be able to settle this a whole lot quicker than waiting for the sheriff.”

“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to carry identification on me?” she snapped.

“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe anything you say? At this point, you don’t have a lot of credibility with me.”

Neither did he with her. “How is it you just happened to show up when we were about to rustle your cattle, Chisholm?”

“Just luck, I guess,” he said without turning to look at her.

She saw that they had reached the other side of the meadow and he was now leading her horse through the trees and up the mountainside to an outcropping of rocks. Did he think he could hold off seven men from there?

“These men I’m riding with are dangerous. When they come back for me—”

“What makes you so sure they’ll be back for you?” he asked. “I’m surprised they even let a woman ride with them to begin with. A woman would be a liability. Especially one named Jinx.”

Her temper flared from the insult. “I can ride with the best of men.”

He chuckled. “I noticed. But I would imagine it took more than that to get into a group of men like this one.”

She knew what he was insinuating and wished she could kick him where it would hurt the most. It hadn’t been easy getting in with the rustling ring. She’d had to lie, cheat and steal. Fortunately that was as far as she’d had to go once she caught Rafe’s attention at a bar down in Big Timber.

Rafe wasn’t the ringleader. He got his orders from someone else. But he was the one the others listened to. He’d put up a fight for her. The other rustlers riding with him hadn’t wanted a woman along, so she’d had to prove herself in their eyes. It wasn’t enough that she could ride a horse and shoot. She had to have something they needed—information. She’d given them Chisholm Cattle Company.

Jinx grimaced at the realization that she was the one who was responsible if Dawson Chisholm got killed—and the way things were going there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Unless there was a chance Dawson was working with Rafe. That would explain why he was here. She wouldn’t let herself worry about that right now. She had to keep her eye on her goal. Nothing could stop her. Not Rafe and all his men or this good-looking cattleman. When she got what she’d wanted, it would have all been worth it.

But as she stared at the determined set of Chisholm’s broad shoulders, she wondered how high the price was going to get before this was over.

Chapter Three

Emma finished the sandwich. Her mind had been racing since Aggie left her alone in the small room of the abandoned old farmhouse. She’d listened, wondering if the woman was also staying here in this house. Where else could she be staying with every law enforcement officer in the state looking for her?

Glancing toward the window, Emma considered using the tray the next time Aggie left it to try to pry off the boards. It would be no easy task, since someone—probably Aggie—had nailed them on with large nails that would be hard to remove even with a claw hammer.

Not to mention what Emma would do after that. It was a two-story house. Was she going to throw out the mattress, then throw herself after it?

Thinking of ways to escape was better than considering why Aggie had left her alive. What was she waiting for?

Emma’s first guess would have been Hoyt making bail. Once he was out, if Emma ended up dead, that would pretty much seal his fate. Somehow Aggie would plant evidence, as she had with Hoyt’s third wife’s body, to make him look guilty of her death, as well.

But Hoyt hadn’t been able to make bail. Did Aggie have something planned to get him out?

And what was her motive for any of this? If Aggie had fallen in love with Hoyt, as Emma speculated, then why send him to prison for murder? It didn’t make any sense unless … With a start, she realized why. What if they weren’t dealing with a sane woman? Stalking Hoyt to the point where she’d lost her job certainly made Aggie look more than a little crazy.

From what Emma had been able to find out, Aggie had become obsessed with the insurance investigation into the death of Laura Chisholm, Hoyt’s first wife. It had been ruled an accidental drowning, but since the body was never found …

When Hoyt’s second wife had died, that must have been enough to make Aggie reopen the first wife’s case.

So was that the problem? She was dealing with an insane woman bent on proving Hoyt was a killer—no matter the cost?

Her head still ached from the drugs and she was glad Aggie hadn’t seen fit to drug her again. Which meant there were no other houses nearby, no chance of anyone just happening by, no one to hear her calling for help. So she would save her breath. Not that she was a screamer anyway.

Emma had learned early in life to accept things the way they were, good or bad. Wasn’t that why she hadn’t wanted to know Hoyt’s past—because she hadn’t wanted to tell him about her own?

THE CAVE WAS ON THE SIDE of the mountain, but few if any people knew about it. Dawson had found it on one of his trips up to the summer range when he was a boy. He’d been following a buck deer that had disappeared near the entrance. He’d almost missed seeing the opening for the overgrown brush. He’d put some of the brush back after he’d explored the cave, wanting to keep it a secret even from his brothers.

As he led the horses up into a stand of pines below the hidden cave entrance, he kept his eyes and ears alert for any sign of the rustlers. The sun had dipped behind the trees, forming deep shadows beneath them. The air had turned colder, as it did up here in the mountains.

“This is a mistake,” Jinx said as he hauled her off the horse.

“You’re the one who made the mistake when you decided to rustle my cattle.”

She sighed deeply. “If you let me go, I will lead them away from you. I can tell them my horse stepped into a hole and I got thrown.” She cocked her head at him. “I look like I got thrown to the ground, don’t I?”

He glanced at her dusty clothing. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek, her hat was crooked from where she’d hastily put it back on her head and her short curly blond hair had a twig in it. He removed the twig and tossed it over his shoulder.

“They’ll come for me tonight. You can’t hold off seven of them.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Isn’t your life worth more than cattle?” she demanded.

“This isn’t about money. Or even cattle. It’s about defending what is yours.”

She raised an eyebrow and glanced at his left hand. “Who was she?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The woman you lost to someone else.”

Dawson turned his back to her as he ground tied the horses.

“It must have been serious. High school sweetheart? Fiancée? Wife?” She let out a low laugh. “You didn’t fight for her and you’ve regretted it ever since. So now you’re damned sure going to fight for your cattle because of it. Is that it?”

He turned to face her. “You make a better rustler than a psychotherapist. Come on,” he said, picking up his saddlebags. “I’m hungry and want to get something to eat before your friends come back. If they come back for you. Either way, I’m going after my cattle in the morning at first light.”

JINX STARED AT HIS BACKSIDE as he started up the hill. Damn this cocky rancher. He acted as if he’d completely forgotten about her, but she wasn’t fooled. This long, tall cowboy was aware of her every move, she thought as she started after him. She had no choice right now.

He could deny it all he wanted, but she was sure he’d lost some woman, a woman who’d hurt him badly. Because of it, he’d be happy to tackle her to the ground again. In fact, he’d take some pleasure in it.

She knew better than to try to make a run for it with her hands tied behind her and it getting dark. She’d be lucky if she didn’t run into a tree and kill herself.

No, she had to wait, bide her time. Chisholm would make a mistake and she would get away. She had to. She’d come too far to let anyone stop her now. There had to be a way to get around this cocky cowboy—after all, he was a man.

And, oh, what a man, she thought as she studied him. Broad shoulders, slim hips, long denim-clad legs. Not to mention his face. Chiseled strong features, those dark, bottomless eyes and the way his lips quirked up on one side when he looked at her.

She wondered about the woman who’d broken his heart and made him the way he was. She must have been a beauty, probably some city girl who would have eventually left him anyway.

Jinx hated her stab of resentment at the thought of the kind of woman a man like Dawson Chisholm would have fallen for. She swore under her breath. How different she and that woman would have been.

She turned her thoughts to how to get away from him. She’d do whatever she had to because she couldn’t let this man stop her. One way or another, she was going to get what she’d promised her father on the day she buried him.

Telling Chisholm the truth was out of the question. She couldn’t chance it. It bothered her that he didn’t seem worried about fighting off seven rustlers, and made her suspicious that he knew he wouldn’t have to because he was in on this and was now waiting, like her, for Rafe to return.

The only thing that Jinx did believe about Chisholm was that he was angry about a woman riding with the rustlers. If he was in cahoots with Rafe, she had a feeling he planned to have it out with the rustler.

Either way, she was in trouble. Rafe liked to think of himself as the leader of the rustlers, but she knew better. And Chisholm must, too. If he demanded Rafe get rid of her, then Rafe would buckle like a bad saddle under the weight.

A sudden shiver of fear quaked through her as she had another thought. What if somehow they’d found out who she really was? She’d seen how surprised Dawson Chisholm had been when he’d tackled her. He hadn’t expected her to be riding with the others. Or had he?

If he already knew, then that would explain why Chisholm had shown up when he had. He’d come up here to make sure she was stopped.

Unless she could stop Chisholm first.

EMMA CURLED UP on the mattress on the floor and pulled the blankets Aggie had thoughtfully provided over her. She could hear Aggie moving around somewhere in the house. She still felt woozy from the drug she’d been given.

At the sound of footfalls on the stairs, Emma sat up, holding the blankets to her chin as if they would protect her, and waited. The door opened. Aggie stood silhouetted in the doorway.

“You awake?”

“Yes,” Emma said. “Not that the accommodations aren’t delightful.”

Aggie stepped into the room, closed the door and stood against it. Emma could barely see her in the dim light that came through the hole between the boards over the window.

“I like you,” Aggie said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s good.” She figured she knew what was coming next.

“But I can’t let you go back to the house and Hoyt.”

“Why is that?” Emma asked.

Aggie let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve told you. It’s too dangerous.”

“We both know that Hoyt is not a killer.”

To her surprise Aggie said, “You could be right.”

Was the woman merely trying to pacify her?

“Aggie, if you turn yourself in—”

She let out a laugh. “I haven’t done anything.”

Emma would beg to differ. “You abducted me, drugged me and are holding me prisoner.”

“For your own good.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “And who are you protecting me from, Aggie?” When she didn’t answer, Emma said, “Hoyt didn’t kill anyone.”

She heard Aggie slide down to sit on the floor and thought about trying to overpower her. But she knew that by the time she threw off the blankets and got up and launched herself at the woman, Aggie would be ready for her. Aggie was armed, probably with the same gun she’d been carrying earlier, and Emma wasn’t in the mood for a suicide mission.

Also a part of her hoped that Aggie was finally going to tell her the truth.

“Do you know why I was such a good insurance investigator?” Aggie asked, seemingly out of the blue. She didn’t wait for Emma to answer. “I studied everything about the people involved, and not just the surviving spouse. I wanted to know the deceased as intimately as if that person was alive.”

“You’re saying you got to know Hoyt’s other wives?” Emma said. She had wondered what they had really been like. Nothing like herself, she would bet. They were probably tall, willowy and beautiful, not to mention young.

“I’m not sure Hoyt knew Laura as well as I have come to know her,” Aggie said. “I could say the same for his two other wives, as well. But Laura …” She sighed. “She was like you, apparently totally enamored by Hoyt. At first. But I’m sure you’ve heard about how close the emotions are between love and hate.”

“If you’re telling me she grew to hate him, I don’t believe you. I can’t imagine anything Hoyt could have done that would have—”

“She believed he’d fathered his first three sons.”

“I don’t believe it. A simple DNA test would prove—”

“There wasn’t DNA testing yet when Laura died.”

“But there is now. And anyway, if he was the biological father to those boys, Hoyt would have admitted it.”

“Why do you keep defending him?”

“Because I love him.” She waited for Aggie to admit her own feelings for Hoyt. She heard the woman get to her feet again and quickly said, “I think you fell for him, as well.” She didn’t add that she thought Aggie had killed his other wives because she was jealous.

“I’ll admit your husband is …charming. But historically, he is also dangerous to be around.”

Not half as dangerous as you are, Emma thought. “So you’re just trying to protect me,” she said as she heard Aggie open the door to leave.

Aggie chuckled but didn’t respond.

Emma lay back down on the mattress and pulled the blankets over her, but she couldn’t fight off the chill Aggie had left in the room.

DAWSON HEARD JINX behind him. She was as surefooted as an expensive filly as she climbed up to the cave. He told himself that he could almost hear the wheels in her head turning. She would try to get away when the rustlers came back for her. Or at the very least, give away their location—if he let her. He was already outnumbered. He’d have to find a way to even the odds.

As he moved a piece of dried brush away from the entrance to the cave, he heard her come up beside him. He turned on his flashlight and shone it into the cavern. To his relief it wasn’t occupied by any animals.

“Ladies first,” he said with more gallantry than he felt.

She smirked at that as she bent to step through the small opening. Once inside, she stood to her full height of about five-seven.

Dawson stepped past her, going around a corner in the cave to the hidden cavern room. As he lit the kerosene lantern he’d left there on one of his trips to the high country, she followed him.

In the golden light he studied her, wondering what she’d try next. The one thing he knew for sure, there was plenty of fight left in this woman. He’d have to watch her closely or suffer the consequences.

“What now, Chisholm?” she asked as she glanced around. He could see that she’d been surprised by the size of the cave, surprised that he’d furnished it over the years with not only a lantern but with a cot, a collapsible table and stool, a few pots and pans and a Coleman stove.

“Sit down over here and take a load off,” he said, opening the folding stool he used when he came up here.

“Take a load off, Chisholm?” she asked with amusement. She was slim, curved in all the right places, and she knew it.

“So to speak,” he amended.

He didn’t go far from the cave, not trusting her, but he had to take care of their horses. When he returned with some firewood, he found her sitting where he’d left her, which surprised him. But he didn’t doubt she’d taken a look around for something to cut the rope binding her wrists behind her. Before he’d left he’d been smart enough to make sure there was nothing sharp she could use.

The way the cave was structured, the opening turned just inside, which meant that light from the stove or a fire couldn’t be seen from the meadow. The cave was ventilated through a crack at the back that opened to fresh air on the cliff above them, so the smoke from a fire would draft upward high on the cliffs, on the same principle as a fireplace in a home.

If and when the rustlers returned for Jinx they might catch a whiff of smoke, but they would never be able to find the cave. He doubted they would even smell the smoke if they stayed down in the meadow.

He made a small fire at the back of the cave near the vent and close to Jinx. It would be getting cold once the sun went down. Then he started the Coleman stove and dug some food out of his saddlebag.

This cave had been a retreat for years, his own private sanctuary in the high country. A part of him resented that he’d had to bring her here, resented it even more when she asked, “So you come up here and play house by yourself a lot?”

He shot her a warning look before concentrating again on his cooking. He figured she was right about the other rustlers coming back to look for her—but not for a while, he thought. They’d have to secure the cattle. It would take a while for them to even realize they’d lost her after all that confusion earlier.

Dawson suspected that the main reason they would come back for her was that they wouldn’t trust her. At least one of them, the boyfriend, would have another motive.

But given all that, he felt they were relatively safe in the cave, at least for the time being. He’d hidden the horses around the side of the mountain and covered the opening to the cave again with the dried brush. Even if they were found, the cave was high enough on the mountainside that he could hold them off for a long time. He hadn’t brought an arsenal, but he always had extra ammunition.

“Dawson,” she said, using his first name in a way that reminded him of melted honey and put him on guard. He’d been expecting her to make some kind of move and shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d chosen this one.

“I don’t want to see you get killed,” she said, sweet enough to give him a toothache. “Maybe there is some way we can work this out so we both get what we want.”

“I guess that depends on what you want,” he said, not turning around. He heard her get up and come toward him and was glad he’d tied her hands behind her back. Otherwise he’d be worried about getting his head bashed in.

“All I need is for you to let me go.”

“How would that get me back my cattle?” he asked, playing along.

“Well,” she said softly right behind him. “If you just untie me …”

JINX LOWERED HERSELF to the cave floor next to him. He glanced over at her, eyes narrowing a little as she repeated his first name, her voice dripping with sugar. She saw the male spark in his eye as she moved closer. How sad that men were so much alike, she thought, a little disappointed in this one. She thought he was too smart to let himself be seduced by her.

She hated that she’d had to resort to such distasteful behavior, but too much was at stake. If she had to use her feminine wiles, she would.

“Yes?” He was close enough that she caught his very masculine scent.

She moved so her thigh brushed his. “Why don’t we be honest with each other?”

“Why don’t we?” He pressed his thigh against hers. His leg felt warm, even through his jeans. His dark eyes locked with hers. She felt a shiver that she quickly squelched. His eyes were golden like a big cat in the firelight. He really was magnificent.

It was the intellect in that gaze that gave her pause. She saw challenge in his eyes as well as a warning. This was a man you didn’t want to fool with.

“Tell me what you’re really doing up here,” she said, not about to break eye contact first. He might be dangerous, but then again, he didn’t realize the kind of woman he’d crossed paths with either.

“Checking my cattle, just like I told you.”

He was either telling the truth or he was a damned good liar.

She reminded herself that he could just be playing along. If he knew who she was and what she was doing on his land … “Can’t you please untie me?”

“No.”

“You really think I’m going to get away?”

He smiled. “If I give you half a chance, yes.” He turned back to his cooking.

“There wasn’t another reason you just happened to come up here?” she asked quickly.

He turned off the stove and gave her his full attention. She found herself holding her breath. There was something about this man that scared her—especially the way he made her heart pound when he was this near, his gaze so intent on her that she feared he could see into her soul.

“As a matter of fact, there was another reason.”

She expected him to finally tell her that he knew who she was. That she was the reason he was here.

“I wanted to spend a few days up in this country because I enjoy it. I thought I’d be alone. But since I’m not …” He was taunting her. Her feminine wiles were wasted on this man. “So, Jinx, what exactly are you offering?”

“If you think I’m going to sleep with you, you’re going to be disappointed,” she snapped and slid away from him.

He laughed. “Hell, I’m already disappointed. I thought we were being honest with each other.”

“I should just let them kill you,” Jinx grumbled, trying to get to her feet. With her hands tied behind her, it was a struggle.

Dawson rose abruptly, grabbed her waist and lifted her to her feet. His dark gaze bored into hers. “Now that we’re being honest, no more games. Seduction might have worked on your rustler boyfriend, but quite frankly you aren’t very good at it and anyway, you’re not my type.”

She swore as she tried to kick him in the groin. He’d obviously expected it, because he stepped to the side, grabbing her as she lost her balance and started to fall to the cave floor.

“Enough foreplay,” he growled as he hauled her back over to the stool and pushed her down on it. Leaning over her, his gaze fired with anger as he said, “I’m getting my cattle back and you’re going to jail, and if your boyfriend comes after you, he’s going to get himself killed.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.