Deep In The Heart Of Texas. Linda Warren

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СКАЧАТЬ two men rode up to a gap that led to a primitive road, the only way out, the route he used when he went for supplies. They talked for several minutes, obviously still debating whether to ride in and face him. Everyone in the county had heard the rumors about him. He’d heard them himself. He was reputed to be mean, vicious and trigger-happy.

      He hoped the men remembered those wild tales. To his disappointment they opened the gap and rode through. The woman inside must be very important to them. They wouldn’t risk their lives by riding onto his property otherwise.

      As they rode nearer, he focused on the first man. Del Spikes, Clyde Maddox’s ranch foreman. A thin man with a long face and a sour expression, Spikes was a man he had encountered many times over the years. Mainly Spikes harassed him or warned him to stay off Maddox land.

      He didn’t recognize the other man, but felt sure he had to be one of Maddox’s employees. A portly man with a round face and dirty blond hair, he held back, letting Spikes take the lead.

      About fifty yards from the cabin, the hermit slowly lowered the rifle and fired at the ground in front of the horses. The horses nervously jumped away, and the men had a hard time handling them.

      “Get off my land,” he yelled.

      Bandit stood by him, growling.

      “Quiet, boy,” he whispered.

      Spikes reined in his horse. “I want to talk to you, Hermit.”

      “Got nothing to say to you, Spikes.”

      “This is important. Five minutes is all I’m asking.”

      He wanted them off his property as fast as possible, but to get rid of them he was going to have to give a little. Besides, what did Spikes and his pal have to do with the woman? That curiosity bothered him. He shouldn’t be curious.

      “Five minutes, Spikes. That’s all you have.”

      Spikes rode closer. “Clyde Maddox’s daughter has been kidnapped, and he’s offering a big reward for her safe return.”

      Clyde Maddox’s daughter? Was that the woman inside his cabin? No, it couldn’t be. Not Clyde Maddox’s daughter. For a split second he wondered why that possibility disturbed him.

      He had never met Clyde Maddox but disliked him intensely. Maddox had tried to get him off his two hundred acres by barring the road, tampering with his water supply and sending Spikes and his henchmen to threaten him, but nothing had worked. He’d fought back and outsmarted Maddox at every turn. Now he was sheltering Maddox’s daughter from men who worked for him. What was going on?

      “What’s that got to do with me?” he asked, and kept his eyes on Spikes and on the other man’s hands.

      “Just wanna know if you’ve seen anything.”

      “Out here in the middle of nowhere?” Obviously Spikes wanted to find out if he’d discovered the room and set the woman free. There was no one else who could’ve done it, but Spikes wasn’t about to accuse him because Spikes didn’t want to incriminate himself.

      “We’re looking everywhere,” Spikes said.

      “Well, you’re looking in the wrong place,” the hermit told him. “I haven’t seen a woman in so long I couldn’t even draw you a picture.”

      The other man laughed crudely.

      Spikes spit chewing tobacco on the ground. “Yeah, what would you do with a woman, huh, Hermit?”

      “Your five minutes are up,” he said, getting tired of the nonsense.

      The grin left Spikes’s face and his hand went to the rifle resting across his saddle.

      The fake pleasantries were over. Time to deal with the real reason they were here.

      “I wouldn’t,” he called, his rifle leveled on Spikes. “Unless you feel this is your lucky day.”

      Spikes’s eyes rolled with a warning. “I figure you know something and before I let you ruin this, I’ll see you in hell.”

      “Thanks for the invitation, Spikes, but I’ve already been there, and I don’t intend to go back. Now get off my land.”

      Spikes wheeled his horse around with an angry movement. “I should’ve killed you years ago, Hermit.”

      He didn’t answer but waited until they rode into the woods again.

      Bandit lay on the porch, his face on his paws. “Watch ’em, boy,” he said, and backed into the cabin.

      HE STOPPED SHORT as he entered the room. The woman held the gun with both hands, pointing it directly at him. She trembled so severely the gun wavered in every direction.

      “They’ve left,” he said, propping his rifle against the wall. “Put the gun down.”

      “I…I can’t,” Her voice cracked.

      He moved closer and pried the weapon out of her fingers. She buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

      Ignoring her tears, he walked to the window to check that Spikes and his companion were indeed gone. They weren’t. He could see them through the trees. Dammit, they weren’t leaving.

      “I…I heard him say my father was offering a reward for my safe return,” she said with a sniffle.

      “Just bait to get me to admit you were inside the cabin,” he told her.

      “They’re the men who kidnapped me, aren’t they?” she asked in a weak voice.

      “That’d be my guess.”

      “But why?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “They work for my father, but I hardly know them.”

      In fact, Spikes had worked for her father for years. He ran the ranch with an iron hand, exactly as her father wanted. The only time she saw the man was when she went riding. He saddled her horse and was invariably pleasant, but she’d never liked the way he looked at her. She couldn’t explain it, but his eyes always seemed to settle on her breasts or her legs, never on her face.

      “For money, and lots of it.”

      Miranda jumped as the hermit’s words penetrated her troubled thoughts.

      A tense pause followed. Then he looked at her. “You’re Clyde Maddox’s daughter, aren’t you?”

      “Yes,” she answered warily, not missing the venom in his voice. “You don’t like my father,” she ventured.

      “No,” he answered as he yanked off his hat and coat and hung them on a peg on the wall.

      The shoulder holster caught Miranda’s eye. It was something like a policeman or a detective would wear. For the first time she wondered who this man was and where he’d come from. Things her father had said about the hermit drifted through her mind. Clyde called him a nuisance and a few other choice words that had burned her ears. He tripped the wolf and coyote traps set by the ranch hands, СКАЧАТЬ