Chapter 1
Being deaf has its advantages. Daisy Campbell had told her family that more than once since she lost her hearing, and some days, she even believed it.
Today was not one of those days.
Something was happening, and the silence, along with her growing unease, caused her heart to pound. The other two ladies in the stagecoach with her were screaming. Or she assumed they were by the looks on their faces. Their eyes were wide and filled with fear. Tears were rolling down the redhead's face, and both women had their mouths open wide.
The older brunette woman turned to stare out the window. Daisy glanced across the stagecoach to her escort, Clay Baxter. One look at him confirmed something was not right. His entire head was out the window, and the small lines between his eyes signaled his distress. About what, she did not know.
Anxiety about whatever was happening made her stomach clench tight. She grabbed handfuls of her skirts and held on, watching Clay while trying to steady her breathing.
Since the day her sisters, Rose and Violet, told her they’d enrolled her in a school for the deaf back east, anticipation and dread made her stomach cramp with pent-up nerves. How was she supposed to manage the world beyond Silver Falls, Montana, when she couldn’t even hear what was going on around her? Rose had assured her everything would be fine, telling her she let fear rule her life too often, and deep down, she knew her sister was right. But it didn’t mean her fear wasn’t warranted, and today proved it. The unexpected was a given, and even though she was a grown woman of nineteen, she felt so much younger most days. Not only did her disability steal the sound around her, but it also took her confidence and self-worth.
She knew she relied too heavily on others, which was why she needed to be at home, not in the middle of Montana territory, about to face something no one else on the stagecoach was looking forward to. The fear on their faces alone told her that much.
Clay reached across the distance between them and touched her hand. The nervous butterflies she felt around him returned in an instant, along with an electric spark that shot up the length of her arm. He jolted at the sensation as well. It was nothing more than static electricity because of the way she was scrunching the material of her dress and the dry air inside the stagecoach, but when their eyes met, her pounding heart felt as if it skipped a beat.
He was saying something to her. Learning to read lips over the last eleven years made it easy to understand most of what people said to her, but she was so distracted by her thoughts that it took several long moments to make out the words bandits and stagecoach. She filled in the blanks for the words she didn’t catch, and her breath caught as they sank in. The other ladies in the coach with them were crying now, but were no longer screaming.
Glancing out the window, she noticed the stagecoach was slowing down. A horse and rider rode past the coach a moment later. Leaning to one side, she got a glimpse of two more approaching on the right. Bandanas covered all of their faces, and she knew without a doubt they were about to be robbed.
Clay squeezed her hand to get her attention. “Don’t say a word and don’t take your eyes off me.”
She watched his lips form the words and pieced together what he was saying, nodding her head in understanding. Another glance out the window made her heart stutter. What would the bandits do to them?
Clay squeezed her hand again a moment later and said, “Look at nothing but me, Daisy.”
Staring at him helped block out some of the fear. How could it not when he was so pleasant to look at? He was tall with dark hair and blue eyes, and he made her heart flutter with nothing more than a glance. Her sister Violet teased her weekly, telling her Clay was sweet on her, and had she been a normal girl, she would have easily fallen for her sister's lies.
When the stagecoach came to a jolting stop, Clay gave her hand another squeeze. Their eyes locked, and she could have melted right there in her seat had she not seen the door of the coach open out of the corner of her eye. She stared at Clay, like he’d told her to do, instead of looking at the bandit she knew was at the door. Their eyes met and held, but in the next instant, someone grabbed her arm and yanked her from the stagecoach as if she weighed nothing at all.
Daisy hit the ground hard, her teeth jarring from the impact, while pain exploded throughout her body. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs, and her gasp for breath made her dizzy as she tried to suck in air. She lay dazed, staring at the turned ground from the many horse hooves churning it up for only a few seconds before Clay—and who she assumed was the man that jerked her from the coach—both hit the ground beside her.
The bandit's bandana had slid down to his chin. His pockmarked filthy face was red with anger, and Clay's well-placed punch to the man's face caused his nose to gush blood. The anger on Clay’s face as he lifted his fist and hit him again and again was clear. He yelled something at the man, but she couldn’t read his lips to see what he'd said.
The bandit's eyes rolled back into his head as he fell unconscious. Clay scrambled to her side and grabbed her by both arms, lifting her upper body from the ground. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Daisy blinked up at him before nodding. She’d caught her breath and inhaled a deep lungful as Clay helped her from the ground.
Three more bandits were pulling everyone from the coach in much the same way they'd removed her. The two stagecoach drivers were already on the ground, one lying so still she had to wonder if he wasn’t dead.
Her confusion about what was happening didn’t last long. One man turned to look at the bandit Clay had beaten unconscious before saying something to the others. Another man grabbed the redhead lady's arm and shoved her in their direction, and they were all made to stand in a single line. Even though Clay told her to look at nothing but him, she couldn’t take her eyes off the bandits. They were a rough-looking bunch. Dirty, with shaggy beards. They weren’t the type of men she’d ever speak to, let alone look at, had she run across them on the street.
One of them walked close to where she stood, and the stench coming from him made her nose wrinkle in displeasure. He stank of sweat, horses, and plain old filth. Clay grabbed her hand and drew her attention back to him. The look in his eyes told her he was worried. He squeezed her hand again and looked away, back to the bandits, and she did the same, watching as two of the men climbed to the top of the stagecoach and started rifling through everyone’s luggage.
They opened her trunk, the men dragging her dresses out and tossing them aside. A bandit with dirty blonde hair pulled her underthings from the trunk, holding them high above his head and waving them in the air as if they were a prize. Heat bloomed across her face, knowing Clay could see them. The bandits didn’t linger long on her things, tossing everything to the ground as if it were rubbish before upending the trunk. She could have saved them the trouble of searching her luggage by telling them there was nothing of value in it.
They checked the rest of the luggage, and once they’d taken everything from it they wanted, the men climbed to the ground and headed their way. Her heart stuttered as they approached. Clay’s hand squeezed her own before the bandits reached them. The man Clay had knocked out roused and sat up. His hardened gaze swung to them before he climbed to his feet. He wiped blood from his nose with the back of one hand and then stormed toward them. He grabbed Clay and shoved him back several steps before searching his pockets. They grabbed the other two ladies and searched them in much the same manner.
She knew she was next, and bile churned in her gut. When the remaining bandit turned her way, she swallowed the lump forming in her throat. He grabbed her reticule when he reached her, jerking it from her hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d still been holding it. The bandit who took it tossed it to one of the others before running his dark gaze over her body from head to toe.
Daisy backed up when he took a step toward her, ready to run, but he reached out and grabbed her by one arm before she could. “Get your hands off me!” she yelled, jerking in his grasp while trying to pull away with no luck. He grinned and turned her in his arms, plastering himself against her back. She stiffened. His fetid breath was foul as he lowered his head, his stubbled cheek brushing the side of her face.
His chest rumbled against her back, laughing, she assumed, and an instant later, she gasped when he palmed her breasts with both hands, squeezing and groping her inappropriately.
Daisy screamed, turning her head to look for Clay, and saw him fighting with the man in front of him. Tears leaked from her eyes as she watched the scene before her. The other two ladies were being handled in much the same way she was, and thankfully, her shock didn’t last long. She kicked back with one foot, the heel of her boot connecting with the man's shins, and tried to twist from his grasp. His hold was brutal, his fingers digging into her waist before he lowered his other arm, his dirty hand cupping her between her legs, touching her where no man had ever dared. She couldn’t even hear her own screams as she tried to break free of him. He pulled at her skirt, lifting it before she felt his filthy fingers graze her naked thigh.
The world fell away, her vision going black. Her body shook, fear causing her limbs to go cold before she screamed Clay’s name again. She twisted her body and got her arm up enough that she could blindly claw at his face. She fell to the ground a moment later. Scrambling away on hands and knees, she looked behind her when she plastered herself against the stagecoach wheel. It took only a second to realize why the bandit had let her go. Clay was on top of him, hitting him, fury etched into every line on his red, angry face.
