A match sizzled.
A lantern glowed.
Through the yellow light Miracle glimpsed two of the men’s faces, wavering evilly in the uncertain illumination.
They stared back equally curiously at her.
“Sweet Jesus,” the one with the bushy eyebrows exclaimed.
Miracle had no way of knowing that her Indian heritage was clearly visible in that moment.
Her black hair hung long and straight to her waist.
Her eyes, a soft, slumberous blue, were hooded by the encroaching night, hiding their color.
High cheekbones rose above smooth, full lips.
Pride and determination shown from the thrust of her small chin.
“A goddamned Injun, Jeb,” he said on a whistle.
“And she’s a beauty.”
“Lemme see.”
Miracle’s head was jerked cruelly around until she thought her neck would snap.
Jeb, the man who’d captured her, stared down at her through small, lecherous eyes.
Miracle’s heart lurched, and she shrank back.
“By God!
She’s the best so far.
Look at them eyes!”
“Better get her on the horse,” the man who had not spoken yet said in a gruff voice.
“We don’t got time to lose.
Too bad the chief’s not around.
He’d like this ‘un for himself, but we gotta make some money.”
“The hell with him,” Jeb growled, yanking Miracle closer.
The gun barrel swiveled from Miracle to his two companions.
“This little girl’s mine.”
Miracle’s right arm was pressed hard against Jeb’s side.
She was sick with fear for Uncle Horace and consumed with anger for these three filthy outlaws.
If she could just wiggle one hand free…
The other two men bristled.
“Let her go, Jeb,” said the man with the bushy eyebrows, his hand touching briefly on the gun at his hip.
“They’re waitin’ at the barn, and I’m not givin’ up no hundred dollars – or maybe more.”
“I want her first.” Jeb was insistent.
“They doan’ expect us yet.”
Miracle kept the fear out of her face.
She wasn’t so much of an innocent to misunderstand.
Jeb wanted to use her for his own lustful pleasure.
Instantly she decided she was safer with Bushy Eyebrows and his gruff-voiced companion.
She had no idea what her fate might be with the people waiting at the barn, but she preferred chancing it to being left to Jeb’s mercy.
“She comes the way she is.
If’n she’s a virgin, she’s worth that much more.” Bushy Eyebrows strode forward to wrest Miracle from Jeb.
“She’s Injun,” Jeb sputtered.
“She ain’t no virgin.”
Then everything happened at once.
Jeb’s arm lifted.
Bushy Eyebrows lunged at him.
Jeb’s gun clicked and fired, stinging Miracle’s nostrils with acrid smoke.
Bushy Eyebrows collapsed in utter silence at Miracle’s feet.
Blood pooled in the dust.
There was a moment of surreal calm.
Then Miracle yanked herself free and ran for the wagon.
A cry of fear and anger filled her lungs, never uttered.
Her chest felt like bursting.
A bellow of rage sounded behind her.
Footsteps pounded.
She was on the bottom step when hard arms grabbed her.
Kicking and spitting, she fought with all her might.
She’d kill them all, she would!
Miserable, stinking outlaws.
Blast them to hell!
“Goddamn…” Jeb growled, slamming his gun against her head.
Lights exploded against her skull.
Her legs crumpled beneath her.
Black oblivion swam upward, and Miracle knew no more.
¤ ¤ ¤
Harrison Danner balanced on the back two legs of his chair, his Stetson pulled low over his eyes.
He could have been asleep for all anyone knew, but the truth was his mind was on both the cards in his hands and the events about to transpire tomorrow morning.
His own wedding.
To Kelsey Garrett.
And that would make Jace Garrett his brother-in-law.
“Your card, Danner,” Jace pointed out.
Harrison lifted the brim of his hat with one finger, squinting against the thin cigar smoke wafting from Garrett’s cheroot.
He grimaced distastefully.
Jace was a rattler, smooth and sleek and cold, with a nasty way of making noise.
The Garretts had too much money and too much clout.
Harrison could scarcely believe Kelsey was one of them.
Jace sighed.
“I’m not much for poker, but since this is the night before your wedding…” He shook his head dolefully, his hands clutched tightly around his cards.
He wanted his sister to wed a Danner about as much as Harrison wanted to marry a Garrett.
Bad blood existed between the two families for as long as Harrison could remember.
It hadn’t helped when Harrison’s sister, Lexie, had scorned Jace’s offer of marriage and accepted Tremaine’s instead.
Ten years had passed, and since then Jace had taken a wife.
But Jace had never forgiven Lexie, or any of the other Danners, for stomping on Garrett pride.
It had been an unforgivable mistake.
Harrison’s marriage to Kelsey had been arranged more to keep the peace than because the prospective bride and groom were wildly in love.
But at least he liked Kelsey.
She was one of the two women in the world Harrison actually trusted.
He’d learned
that
lesson the hard way.
Isabella Weatherby had been an excellent teacher.
He frowned.
At one time, when he’d been green and newly starting his practice, Isabella had seemed like an angel, the woman of his dreams.
He’d been in love with her in the worst way.
But then the truth about her affairs with other men had come to light.
It was Harrison’s brother, Jesse, in fact, who’d told him the truth.
“Don’t trust women,” Jesse warned.
“Ever.
Isabella’s been sleeping around.”
“With you?” Harrison asked coldly, stung by Jesse’s harsh words.
His younger brother’s reputation was notorious.
Jesse’s blue eyes narrowed.
“No.
But not for lack of interest on her part…”
Three weeks later Jesse disappeared from Rock Springs, leaving in his wake a string of broken hearts and several juicy scandals that had kept the collective tongues of the Ladies Aid Society wagging to this day.
Shortly thereafter Isabella’s roving eye had returned to Harrison.
But Harrison had taken Jesse’s advice to heart.
He’d stopped seeing her.
And she’d married someone else within the month.
Now Harrison flicked a glance at his own cards.
Dismal.
The other players at the table were showing only casual interest in the proceedings – a lie, considering the current stakes.
The simple bachelor party which had begun at the Half Moon Saloon and was somehow finishing in this deserted barn had turned into a rousing card game complete with whores and rotgut liquor.
Harrison, who suspected Garrett cheated, decided to end the evening once and for all by flirting with lady luck.
“I’ll take two,” he drawled, dropping two cards from his hand.
Garrett chuckled.
“You Danner boys aren’t too smart.
You expect to beat me, playing like that?
Didn’t anyone tell you it’s better to bluff?”
Harrison merely smiled, then stared in amazement at the two cards just dealt him.
His gaze darted questioningly to the steel-eyed dealer.
There was the faintest glimmer in the man’s return gaze.
Jace Garrett wasn’t the only man cheating at this table, it appeared.
“So, what’re you going to do, Jace?” Harrison asked.
Jace shouted with laughter.
“Your ploy’s too late.
I already know you’ve got shit in that hand.”
“Here y’are, Mr.
Danner,” a sultry voice said at Harrison’s elbow, pressing another glass of whiskey into his hand.
He drank without thinking, enjoying the moment.
Jace Garrett might be about to become his brother-in-law, but Harrison wasn’t above twisting the knife a bit.
“Ya want one, too?” the whore-turned-barmaid asked, sliding a seductive hand down Jace’s arm.
She glanced over her shoulder to someone by the door, then back to Jace.
Jace nodded curtly, too interested in the game to pay attention.
A glass of amber liquid was slid smoothly in front of him, and the woman melted away.
There was something strange in that, Harrison thought, but, like Jace, at this point his attention was solely on the game.
He grew aware that Jace’s image was beginning to waver in front of his eyes.
His mind seemed to spin and fragment.
Focusing, he said a bit drunkenly, “I’m sure glad Lexie found out what an ass you are.
You wanna card, or not?”
“I call.” Jace’s mood changed abruptly, and his lip curled.
“Lexie would rather get between the sheets with her brother than a real man.”
Harrison lunged forward for Jace’s throat but was pulled roughly back into his chair by several other burly men.
Jace would never forgive Tremaine for stealing Lexie.
He would rather poison people’s minds into thinking they were half-brother and -sister, a necessary lie they’d even once believed themselves, rather than admit to being thrown over for his arch enemy.
It didn’t matter that Lexie and Tremaine were step-brother and -sister, only related through marriage.
Jace hated Tremaine with a seething passion and continually stoked the embers of discontent.
Not even Harrison’s wedding to his sister would change that.
His thoughts obviously on the same path, Jace muttered, “Kelsey’s only marrying you because Warfield got tired of waiting for her to make up her mind.
Now she doesn’t want to be an old maid.
I’d stop ‘er if I could.”
“Would you?
You’ve been slobbering over Danner land for years, hoping to get your hands on some.
Bet you think you can get some now.”
Jace glowered.
“The girls is ready,” a gruff voice said, hazily, somewhere to the right of Harrison’s shoulder.
Harrison turned his head and nearly fell forward onto the table.
“Show me what you got,” demanded Jace, slicing through the fogginess of Harrison’s mind.
“Three aces.” Harrison tossed down his cards.
He had an impression of Jace Garrett leaping to his feet, roaring in outrage.
“It’s a cheat!” he snarled.
“The man’s a card cheat!”
Harrison grinned lopsidedly, a little surprised at the effect of the liquor.
“Does that mean you can’t cover your bet?”
There was a murmur of laughter, but most of the men tried to hide their expressions.
Jason Garrett was a man of power in Rock Springs.
He owned more than half the city.
No one wanted to make an enemy of him.
No one, that was, but a Danner.
“I’ll cover it,” Jace slashed out.
“I’ll pay you tomorrow.”
“Oh, no.
Now,” Harrison insisted.
Tension mounted.
Some of the men glanced around anxiously.
Harrison, who had bottled up his emotions for far too long, took the greatest pleasure in seeing Jason Garrett squirm.
“The girls is
ready,”
the gruff voice repeated intensely.
“What girls?” Harrison asked.
No one answered.
Several of the men at nearby tables opened their wallets.
“The whores,” Jace spat dismissively.
He was no more interested in them than Harrison was.
His mind was on his money.
“There’s more’n whores here.”
It was the gruff voice again, and Harrison focused on him with an effort.
He was dirty and his teeth weren’t good and there were bits of food caught in his beard.
His tongue wetted his lower lip.
“Whad d’you mean?” Jace slurred.
“I got a pretty one.
Young.
Looks like a virgin, shore enough.
She’s upstairs, trussed up ‘cause she’s a spitfire.”
“You mean you’re holding a woman here against her will?” Harrison asked carefully, disbelievingly.
His tongue felt thick and strange.
Just how many drinks had he consumed?
He couldn’t rightly remember.
“I’ll take her.” Another male voice jumped in quickly.
The man was already licking his thumb, peeling off a healthy stack of bills from an even healthier pile.
Garrett’s mouth dropped open.
He struggled to his feet, swaying.
“Wait just a damn minute!
You can’t hold some woman here against her will.”