Miracle Jones (32 page)

Racing back to the front of the shop, she nearly ran her inebriated uncle down.
Exasperated, she grabbed him by the collar to make sure he stayed on his feet.

“Miracle, my girl,” Uncle Horace declared in delight.

Miracle glowered at him impatiently.
“How long have you been at the Half Moon?”

“A while.” He propped himself against the wall as Miracle searched through her key ring for the shop key.
“Made a few sales, I did.
You wait.
Tomorr – tomorrow,” he announced on a hiccup.
“Won’t be able to leave the store – so many customers.”

Biting her lip, Miracle thrust open the door.
She could be behind Jace and Harrison in ten minutes if all went well.
“I’ve got to talk to you about Blue,” she said a bit desperately.

“Blue?”

Uncle Horace staggered inside the shop.
A second later he pitched face first against the wood stove.

“Uncle Horace!” Miracle screamed, rushing to him.
Heart in her throat, she rolled him over.
A cut on his forehead streamed blood, and the side of his face blistered as she watched.

All thoughts of pursuit disappeared as Miracle grabbed a clean cotton rag and dabbed at his cut.
“Damn you,” she choked out, scared and impatient.
She couldn’t leave him to lie here unattended.
She would have to forgo following Harrison and Jace.

“Curse and rot your rum-soaked soul!” she muttered.

¤   ¤   ¤

The horse Jace had given Harrison was fresh, spirited, and half wild.
Harrison’s arms ached from the effort of keeping the young stallion in line, but he was too determined to succeed in his quest to do more than bark out his resentment once or twice to Jace.

Jace was on a gentler mount, but the gelding was swift and strong.
Now Harrison wished he hadn’t goaded Jace into coming.
He should have waited for Raynor.
The sheriff was a man who could be depended upon.

“How come you took the box from Kelsey?” Jace demanded again.

“Because I knew it was Miracle’s,” he answered tautly, straining his arms as he yanked the bit from the stallion’s teeth once more.

“If it was Miracle’s, then the thieving little breed stole it from Kelsey.
That box is Kelsey’s!”

“Shut up, Jace.
Just shut up.”

“She may be your mistress, Danner, but she’s half-Indian, and that makes her barely half-human.”

That did it.
Harrison shifted violently in his seat, glaring at Jace with a cold fury that would have made a far bolder man shake in his boots.
“Say another word and I’ll shoot you, Jace.
I swear I will.”

Fear crawled along Jace’s nerves, but as soon as Harrison turned away, he couldn’t resist adding, “I always thought you were the only Danner worth his salt, but you’re as hot-headed as Tremaine, and apparently as lust driven as Jesse.”

“Well, you’d know all about lust, wouldn’t you, Jace?
You’ve got more mistresses than one man should be able to service,” Harrison growled as the stallion, seeking to throw Harrison from the saddle, shimmied sideways and tore violently to the open ridge ahead.

Jace was rather surprised by Harrison’s assessment.
And he’d been so careful, too.
“Well, I draw the line at breeds,” he muttered under his breath, although if they started looking as delectable as Miracle Jones, he might just have to change his mind.

¤   ¤   ¤

Brody swallowed, but there was no spit left inside his mouth.
The chief didn’t look happy at all.
In fact, he looked damn near furious.
Inhaling a shallow breath, he felt shooting pains around his ribs.
Hell, he was lucky the vicious bastard hadn’t pierced a lung.

“What did you bring her here for?”

Brody looked at the woman, her eyes wide with fear.
She was bound and gagged and ready, but for some reason the chief wasn’t interested.
“I thought you wanted her.”

“Fool!” He spat.
“You were seen!”

“Don’t nobody knows who I is, ‘cep’n mebbe Garrett, but he ain’t shown no interest in –”

“What about Miracle Jones?” he snapped harshly.
“She knows about you.
She remembers.
And she heard you tonight and was heading straight for the sheriff!”

“I don’t know no Miracle,” Brody answered, sweating.

It was the wrong answer.
Through horror-filled eyes Brody watched as the gun was pulled from a holster.
He looked down the hollow barrel.
“You lied to me,” was the last thing he heard.

He was dead before the report stopped echoing through the hills.

¤   ¤   ¤

“Did you hear that?” Jace asked, reining in his mount next to Harrison’s lathered stallion.
The beast shied sideways and rolled his eyes, his sides heaving.
Jace wisely moved his gelding a few steps away.

Harrison didn’t answer.
It wasn’t necessary.
A man would have to be stone deaf not to hear the blasts of gunfire in these quiet fog-shrouded woods.

They stood at the edge of a crossroads, where a narrow flattened track veered off from the main road to Malone.
“They didn’t go that way,” Jace said, jerking his head in the direction of the side road.
“They have to be further ahead.”

“That gunshot was from the hills.”

“Well, there’s nothing out there but rocks and a few scraggly firs.
No cover of any kind.
They’da been spotted by now if they were hiding out there.”

“There’re enough maple trees still with leaves to hide them,” Harrison argued.
“And this fog’s certainly helpful.”

“But there’s no way out.
The river’ll stop them to the east.”

Harrison sighed.
“They haven’t been found along this stretch to Malone for months.
There’s got to be a reason.
I say this is it.”

“And you Danners know everything, don’t you?”

Harrison’s thin patience snapped.
“Shut up and help, or go back to Rock Springs.”

“I want to know why you think Miracle had Kelsey’s tin box first, since you obviously don’t think she stole it,” Jace demanded.

“God, I don’t have time for this.” Harrison wheeled his horse onto the narrow track, running him lightly now, saving the reserves of the stallion’s strength as best he could.

Jace followed behind, grumbling.
“You think she just
found
it?”

“Keep your mind on what we’re doing, Garrett, and maybe you’ll stay alive!”

“Why don’t you want to answer my questions, goddammit?”

Harrison swore a string of epithets.
“All right, I’ll tell you what I think.
I think your father took the box from Kelsey.
God knows why.
I think it was because he was too stingy with his money to buy Miracle’s mother a real gift.
Or maybe the box was just handy.
Maybe he was using it to carry something.
It doesn’t matter now, but he damned well gave that box to Miracle’s mother so that she would give it to Miracle.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jace bellowed.

“Keep your voice down or I’ll choke you to silence.
I swear I will.
I’m telling you: Miracle Jones is your half-sister.”

Jace gasped, blinked several times, then laughed.
“Is that the tale she’s spinning you?
A woman lifts her skirts for you and you’ll believe anything!”

Harrison had never fully understood Tremaine’s total aversion to Jace until this very moment.
Sure, Jace was a snake, but he had one or two decent qualities, too.
At least, that was what Harrison had always thought.
But he suffered a quick change of heart.
Right now, with Brody somewhere ahead of them, attempting to do God knew what to the woman he’d kidnapped, Jace’s pettiness made him want to break his neck.

“Shut up,” Harrison commanded tightly.

“After we catch up to this miserable cur, I’m going to demand some answers from your half-breed mistress,” Jace vowed.

“If you don’t get your head blown off first,” Harrison snapped.

Slapping the reins against the stallion’s side, Harrison released a little tension on the lines and the animal surged forward with breathtaking, reckless speed.
He also moved sideways and half reared, but Harrison held onto him with steel control.

The track of road turned into a leaf-scattered tunnel between scrubby trees.
Had it been light, Jace would have been right; no one could hide out here.
But in the darkness and with the fog lying over the underbrush like a soft, gray blanket, there could be any number of Brody’s henchmen lying in wait.

Jace drew up to Harrison’s flank, mercifully silent for once.
He pulled his rifle from his scabbard.
Harrison placed his hand on the barrel, pushing it down.
Jace glared at him.

“I’m afraid you might hit me,” Harrison told him dryly.

“You know I’m a good shot.”

“I know Kelsey is.”

Jace opened his mouth to argue when an explosion of gunfire sounded behind them.
Hot pain seared through Harrison’s upper arm, and he rolled instinctively from his horse.
The animal screamed and bolted straight for the hills, stirrups thumping wildly.

“What the –!” Jace cried in fright, jumping from his own mount.
The gelding, loose and trembling with fear, turned in a tight circle, heading back the way they’d come.

“Get down!” Harrison hissed through his teeth.

Jace hit the dirt a second before a second rifle shot blasted through the hills.

“He shot me!” Jace screamed in surprise.
“He shot me!”

“Jace…?
Jace!”

Harrison’s only answer was deathly silence.

¤   ¤   ¤

Harrison counted his heart beats as he lay on his stomach, his nose pressed to the ground, the scent of rotting leaves filling his senses.
His ears strained.
They were wild shots, he guessed.
No one could see in this fog.

But they’d been damn lucky shots, too.

Harrison grimaced, revising his opinion.
Their quarry had found them.
Jace, damn him, had drawn Harrison into conversation and had given their enemy the advantage.
Was Brody still out there?
Waiting for a sign of life?

And was Jace even alive…?

Minutes stretched.
Harrison tensed at the sound of soft footsteps creeping through the underbrush.
The fog was thick enough now for someone to walk within a foot of where they lay and not find them.

The Colt was digging into his hip.
Silently, Harrison moved his hand down to where he’d stuffed the gun in his pocket, his fingers sliding around the butt.
If those footsteps came nearer, he’d shoot first and ask questions later.

The tattoo of dozens of hoofbeats sounded to the southwest.
Raynor, Harrison realized.
Brody heard, too.
The footsteps crept stealthily away.

Lifting the Colt, Harrison aimed in the direction of the footsteps.
The blast made his ears ring.
Loud, excited voices sounded behind him.
If he hadn’t hit Brody, at least he’d summoned help.

¤   ¤   ¤

Miracle sat in the darkness of the shop, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her gaze fixed out the window at the unearthly fog that made the building next to hers a ghostly outline.
But she could see the faint light from the jail.
If Raynor returned, she would know it.
And every time she heard the rattle and squeak of wagon wheels, she jumped up and cracked open the door, hoping it was the sheriff.

And Harrison.

She was sick with worry.
Blue had threatened to kill Harrison, and she believed he would.
She hadn’t trusted Gil from the moment he appeared in her shop.
Knowing he was Blue made her trust him even less.

There was a loud grunt from upstairs.
Glancing behind her, Miracle frowned.
She was so furious with Uncle Horace she could scarcely see straight!
He was the reason she’d been forced to wait here.
She’d taken care of his cut and burn, and now he was sleeping off the damage he’d wrought at the Half Moon.

Cracking open the shop’s front door, she heard nothing but the incredible deadened silence created by the fog.
There was no sound or sign of Harrison, Jace Garrett, or Sheriff Raynor.
Tamping down her anxiety, she dashed upstairs to check on Uncle Horace.
He was lying on his back in his bed, stripped to his long red underwear, snoring blissfully away, oblivious to the bandage Miracle had strapped around his chin or the salve she’d slathered on his face.