After they’d taken her, they’d blindfolded and gagged her and then ridden for what seemed like hours. Most of the time, she’d concentrated on keeping the hands of the cowboy who rode behind her in the saddle from running all over her body. He kept whispering that she “owed” him. For the life of her, Blair couldn’t remember having met the man before or having done anything to him.
She moved all over the horse, as far as she could, to get away from him, and when the horse began to grow restless and prance, one of the other men ordered the man in the saddle with her to leave her alone, saying that she belonged to Frankie.
That idea sent a shiver up Blair’s spine. Just who was Frankie and what did he want with her? She still had hopes that they needed her medical services but, because they hadn’t let her get her bag, she doubted it.
When they’d removed the blindfold, she was standing in front of a rundown little shack, a porch with a fallen post on one end. Around her were six men, all small and stupid-looking like the one who’d taken her. There was a small corral to her right, and a few other outbuildings here and there. And everything was surrounded by high, sheer cliff walls. White rock kept them protected—and hidden—like a fort. At the moment, Blair couldn’t even see the entryway into the canyon, but realized it must be small enough that the cabin could block it from view.
But she soon lost interest in her surroundings, because on the porch appeared Frankie, the Frenchwoman who was the love of her husband’s life. Hate, anger, and jealousy combined to make Blair speechless as she gaped up at this woman who was the leader of this two-bit band of semimorons.
Someone pushed Blair into the shack: a dirty, dark little place with two rooms, one with a table and a few broken chairs, the other with a bed. Supplies were on the floor in the main room.
For the first twenty-four hours, they’d been fairly lax in their guarding of Blair, but after four attempts to escape,—she’d almost succeeded in one of them—they’d tied her to the chair, and then ended by nailing it to the floor.
Now, her wrists were raw from the rough rope and from pulling on it for long hours, and Frankie had decided that perhaps a little less food would help her stay in place and keep her from again trying to scale the rock wall that protected them.
Blair wasn’t sure her mind was functioning properly. It seemed so long since she’d eaten or rested, and there was this horrid woman who was her husband’s lover. Part of her said that Leander had to be part of this, part of her said that Frankie had done it on her own, that she wanted to see Leander again. And if Lee saw her again, would he want Blair, or would he this time go with the woman whom Reed had called his one true love? Of course, Leander had left her on their wedding night to go to this woman. She had that kind of power over him. So who was to say that Leander wasn’t hiding behind the cabin somewhere, that he hadn’t arranged everything so that he and Frankie could be together?
There were tears running down Blair’s face when Frankie came into the room, with the cowboy who’d abducted Blair in tow by his ear, as if she were his schoolteacher. There were bright red handprints on the boy’s face where he’d been slapped.
“She is the one?” Frankie asked the boy. “You are the one who says he knows. Do you know or do you lie to me to settle an old debt?”
“It’s her. I swear it is. Her husband tossed me in the dirt, and he’s worth millions.”
Frankie, in disgust, pushed the boy away. “How stupid I was to send a boy to do a man’s job. You see this?” She held up a torn newspaper. “They are identical twins. One is married to a rich man, and one is…” She turned to glare at Blair, who was listening with wide-eyed interest. “And one is my dear, beloved Leander’s wife.”
Blair was much too upset, hungry, tired, and too ready to believe what she thought to be true, to hear the sarcasm in the woman’s voice.
“Get out of here,” the Frenchwoman shouted at the boy. “Let me think what’s to be done.”
She might have thought faster if she’d known that at that moment a man was lying on his stomach on the rock above, his rifle aimed and ready, three more rifles at his side. And another man waited at the entrance to the hidden canyon to receive a signal from the man above.
Chapter 21
Blair was sure that her spirits had never been lower in her life. Maybe it was a combination of hunger, thirst, fear, everything combined, but it suddenly seemed that very few people in her life had ever really loved her. Her stepfather had always hated her, and in school, the only man who’d ever been interested in her had ended by jilting her, and now her husband was actually in love with another woman—and always had been. She didn’t actually believe that she could get him back. Back? She’d never had him to begin with.
“I need to go to the outhouse,” she mumbled to Françoise at dawn, when the woman returned to the shack. Blair had waited as long as possible, because the last time she’d gone, Françoise had sent one of her outlaws to guard Blair, and then she’d caught the man peeping through a knothole.
“I shall go with you this time,” the Frenchwoman said as she untied the knots on Blair’s wrists.
When Blair stood, she was dizzy and began to sway on her feet. The lack of circulation in her body was making her extremities cold.
“Come on,” the woman said, jerking Blair. “You didn’t look too tired when you were scaling that wall.”
“That might have been what did it,” Blair said, as the woman caught her arm and half dragged her from the shack.
The outhouse stood near the entryway into the box canyon, as if someone had planned to keep guard from inside that malodorous place. Blair went inside while Françoise stood outside, a rifle across her shoulder, keeping watch.
Blair had no more than closed the door when she heard a muffled scream. With some curiosity, but also with a feeling of dread that something awful had happened, she leaned forward to look out the convenient knothole. The next moment, the door was rattled and, when it was found to be locked, she was knocked backward by the force of an enormous fist, knuckles wrapped, coming through the weathered boards of the door. Before she could straighten up and look for a weapon to protect herself, the sound of shooting came from outside.
The hand that was coming through the door fumbled for and opened the latch. Blair poised herself to leap at the man who was trying to take her.
When the door was opened, she jumped and landed against the big, hard form of Kane Taggert.
“Stop that!” he ordered when she started beating him with her fists. “Come on, let’s get you two out of here. Another minute, and they’ll see that you’re missin’.”
Blair quietened and glanced down at Françoise, tucked under Taggert’s left arm as if she were a sack of flour. “Is she hurt?”
“Just a nick on the chin. She’ll wake up in a little while. Run for it.”
Blair ran through the narrow opening, ducking the bullets that seemed to be coming from everywhere. Behind her was the big body of Kane and she wondered who it was shooting from the cliff above them. She prayed that it wasn’t Houston.
Kane tossed Françoise’s unconscious body across the saddle of his horse. “I hadn’t figured on her. Get up there,” he said, as he picked Blair up and dropped her into the saddle behind the inert form of the Frenchwoman. “Tell Westfield that I’ll stay here a while and keep ‘em busy down there. The three of you head on up to the cabin and I’ll meet you there.” With that, he slapped the horse on the rump and started Blair up the hill.
Blair hadn’t gone but a few feet when Lee jumped out from the trees and grabbed the horse’s reins. The grin he wore threatened to split his face. “I see you’re all right,” he said, as he put his hand on her leg and caressed it.
“And so is she,” Blair said with all the haughtiness she could muster, as she gave him Kane’s message. “I’m sure you had Taggert rescue her for yourself.”
Leander gave a groan and looked at the woman as if he’d just noticed her. “I hate to ask this, but is s
he the Frenchwoman who is the leader of the gang that kidnapped you?”
“I’m sure you know who she is as well as anyone. Tell me, did you arrange for me to be taken?”
Lee swung up on his horse. “No, but I may arrange for something lethal to happen to my father. Let’s not waste any more time. Taggert says there’s a cabin hidden up in the mountains. We’ll stay there while he gets the sheriff and a posse. Let’s go—and stop giving me death looks!”
Blair tried her best to maneuver the big horse up the mountainside to follow Lee, but it wasn’t easy. Françoise began to wake and moan, and when her movements caused the horse to shy, Lee stopped and looked back at the women. With a sigh of exasperation, he glanced at Blair’s face, then away. He pulled the Frenchwoman onto his horse in front of him, and told her that if she knew what was good for her, she’d be quiet.
Blair turned her nose up in the air and moved away from them both.
Kane caught up with them by taking a shortcut up a steep bit of rock that the horses couldn’t travel and met them before they’d gone very far.
Lee dismounted but stayed close to his horse—and to Françoise. “What’s going on?”
“They’re after us,” Kane said, as he drank from a canteen. “My guess is that they’ll stay around until they get her back.” He nodded his head toward Françoise. “I don’t think they’re much without her.” Kane looked at the woman who was sitting on the horse with her spine straight. “I think you’d better watch her. She’s pretty smart.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Lee said. “I think they’ll look for us south, on the way back to Chandler. We’ll be safe enough, but you’ll have them on your tail. Why the hell did you take her, anyway? She’ll be more trouble than she’s worth.”
Kane stoppered the canteen and shrugged his big shoulders. “I was behind her and, at first, I thought she was some other woman they’d captured. Then she turned around, and I saw that she was carryin’ a rifle so I clipped her one on the chin. It occurred to me that she might be useful.”
“Makes sense, but I don’t relish trying to take care of her until you get back. I wouldn’t mind a dozen men, but two women?”
Kane put his hand on Leander’s shoulder. “I don’t envy you one bit. I’ll see you in a few hours, Westfield. Good luck.” He helped Blair from his horse and mounted and was down the mountain, out of sight, in minutes.
“Why aren’t we going with him?” Blair asked.
“We didn’t know how they’d treated you, so it was decided that you and I’d stay higher up on the mountain in a cabin while Taggert went to get the sheriff.” Lee’s eyes lit up and he took a step toward her. “I thought maybe we’d have some time to ourselves, just the two of us.”
Both of them seemed to have forgotten the presence of Françoise, although Lee still firmly held the reins to the horse on which she sat. The terrain around them was much too steep and wild to try to escape.
The Frenchwoman slid off the horse and put herself between Blair and Leander, who were moving toward each other as surely as magnets.
“Oh, Leander, my chérie, my darling,” she said, putting her arms around him and plastering her body against his. “You must tell her the truth. We cannot keep what we feel for each other a lie any longer. Tell her that you want only me, and that this was all planned by you. Tell her.”
Blair turned on her heel and started down the mountainside.
Leander had the dual problem of trying to untangle himself from the dark woman’s grasp and of keeping his jealous wife from running into the outlaws who were looking for them. He couldn’t release the Frenchwoman, so he held onto her wrist, and the horse, and started chasing Blair.
“Darling,” Françoise said, as Lee pulled her along, “you’re hurting me. Let her go. You know she never meant anything to you. She knows the truth.”
With every word, Blair blindly hurried faster down the steep slope.
Lee stopped long enough to turn back to Françoise. “I’ve never hit a woman, but you are tempting me. Blair,” he called, “you can’t keep running. There are men with guns looking for us.”
Françoise sat down on the solid rock that was the mountainside, put her face in her hands and began to cry. “How can you say such things to me? How can you forget our nights in Paris together? What about Venice? And Florence? Remember the moonlight in Florence?”
“I’ve never been to Florence,” Lee said, as he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up; then, when she wouldn’t walk, he tossed her over his shoulder and went skidding down the mountain after Blair, catching her by the back of her skirt. Thanks to the expert tailoring of J. Cantrell and Sons, the fabric held. He kept pulling, as Blair did, and finally, he sat on the rocky surface and pulled her into his lap.
It occurred to him that he was a ridiculous sight, with one woman draped over his shoulder, bottom end up, and another one held on his outstretched leg. When Françoise started to move, he smacked her on her rump. “You stay out of this.”
“Whenever you touch me there, I obey you,” Françoise said in a purring voice.
Blair started to get up, but Lee held her.
“Blair,” he began, but she wouldn’t look at him. “I have never seen this woman before today. I did not meet her in Paris. I have never been in love with anyone except you, and I married you because I fell in love with you.”
“Love?” Blair said, turning to look at him. “You never said that before.”
“I have, but you never listened. You were too busy telling me that I was in love with Houston. I didn’t love her, and I certainly never loved this…this…” He looked at the ample rear end that was beginning to strain his shoulder. He shrugged her off, but kept her wrist in his grasp.
Blair was starting to lean toward Lee. Maybe he was telling her the truth. She did so want to believe him.
“You lie very well, Leander,” Françoise said. “I never knew that about you. Of course, then, you and I only knew one another one way.” She leaned toward him. “But such a way. Ooh là là.”
Blair tried to get out of Lee’s lap, but he held her firmly, and with one look at his wife’s face, he gave a heavy sigh and took the wrists of both women and led them up the mountain.
Blair followed him but only reluctantly. It was a long, hard climb. They had to walk across an area that was covered with fallen trees, repeatedly stepping high up and over. The air was getting thinner as they travelled upward, and it was more difficult to get the oxygen needed to counteract the exertion of the climb.
All the while, Lee kept his hold on Françoise and every time he tried to help Blair, she pushed his hand away.
The cabin was between two steep-sided ridges, hidden so well that they walked past it twice before they saw it, and then they came upon it suddenly, as if it had just appeared out of nowhere.
There wasn’t much land in front of the cabin, as the mountainside fell away sharply, but outside was a breathtaking view. The grass was ankle deep and was interspersed with three colors of daisies and clumps of wild roses.
The floor of the forest was soft with hundreds of years’ worth of decayed vegetation and so their passage had been silent.
Lee didn’t say a word as he motioned for Blair to watch Françoise while he checked the cabin to make sure it was empty. And when he was sure that it was safe, he motioned for the women to enter.
It was an ordinary little cabin: two rooms and a little loft over the door, filthy from years of being invaded by animals and negligent men, but it was obviously a private place, and that was what they wanted.
Blair watched without much interest as Lee tied Françoise to a post in the cabin, giving her freedom to move somewhat and not gagging her.
He had a bandanna in his hand, ready to cover her mouth, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to use it. “I don’t think your men will find us here. I’ll be outside listening, and if I hear anything, I’ll put this on you.”
“Chérie, you aren’t going to keep up this cha
rade, are you? She knows about us. She told me everything.”
“I’ll bet she did,” Lee said, tightening the ropes. “She told you enough that you can continue this lie. What’s in it for you?”
Françoise just looked at him.
When Blair looked up at the two of them, they were staring deeply into one another’s eyes.
Lee turned back as if to say something to Blair, but he seemed to change his mind when he saw her expression. He picked up his rifle. “I’ll be outside if you need me. There’s food in the saddlebags.”
With that, he left the women alone.
Slowly, Blair began to remove what food there was in the saddlebags that Lee’d thrown on the old table near the post where Françoise was tied. There was a fireplace in the cabin, but heaven only knew when the chimney had been cleaned last and, besides, they didn’t need smoke to advertise their whereabouts.
While Blair put cheese and ham on bread and ate, Françoise talked, never letting up in her declarations of what she and Leander had meant to each other.
“He’ll come back to me, you know,” Françoise said. “He always does. No matter how hard he’s tried to leave me, he couldn’t. He’ll forgive me for whatever I’ve done, and this time he’ll join me. We’ll ride together, love together. We’ll—.”
Blair grabbed a sandwich and a canteen and left the cabin.
Chapter 22
Lee was some distance from the cabin and so well concealed that Blair didn’t see him until he called to her.
“What’s happened?” Lee asked, as he took the sandwich from her and managed to caress her wrist at the same time.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, jerking her arm away as if he’d tried to hurt her.
Lee’s expression changed to anger. “I’ve had about all of this I can take. Why don’t you believe me when I say that I’ve never met her before? Why do you believe her over me, your husband?”
“Because your father told me about her. Why shouldn’t I believe him?”