“Good reasons, Miss Randall.Now you just hang on.”
Shea didn’t know how she stayed so still, except she was too frightened to do anything else.
It seemed she had been riding behind Ben Smith for hours.She had no idea where they were, even if she could escape.
Think!Dear God, think!
His gun.He wore a gun on his hip, as did every man she’d seen in Casey Springs.If she could reach down and grab it …
And then what?She had no idea how to fire one.
She tried to contain the shudder that ran through her.She wouldn’t show him she was afraid.But why did he want her?Where was he taking her?She could think of only one reason, and yet he didn’t seem the type for rape.
Good reasons, he’d said.
What kind of good reasons?
Her father.Ben Smith had heard her say Jack Randall was her father.
According to everything she’d heard in Denver and Casey Springs, he was a respected man, a good man who’d given money to build a school and church.Everyone seemed to like him.
Money then?Ransom?The clerk at the ticket office had said there were outlaws in this area.
Her throat tightened.Why had she been such a fool?Why had she accepted this too-convenient offer?
Because she’d been so expectant.So eager.So stubbornly determined to get to the Circle R Ranch.
And now she would bring trouble to the man she’d wanted to impress.If that was what Ben Smith had in mind.Or was it something uglier?
She suddenly didn’t want to touch the man in front of her.Her hands started to slide from around his waist.
“Put them back.”The voice was rough.“Clasp them together.And don’t even think about the gun.”
Or else …
The unsaid words hung between them.
“You won’t like being tied.”
Her hands clasped around him.This way, with her hands free, she still had a chance to escape.
She didn’t know how long they continued to ride.She ached all over now, her muscles sore from riding on the backbone of his horse, her body stiff with tension.
They finally came to a stop, and she let go of him, expecting another order, but none came.
He lifted her down to the ground, and she reached for the blindfold, frantically tearing it off, just as two men came out of a log cabin.
“What the hell?”she heard the tall one say in a deep, harsh voice.
Her eyes were riveted on him.It was a familiar face, one she could never forget.It was the face she had studied in the newspaper clipping.
He was older.Harder.But undeniably he was the man who had betrayed his country and stolen from it.
The man her father had sent to prison.
It was the face of Rafferty Tyler!
Fear had been building in Shea for the past few hours.Now that fear turned to terror, something she’d never felt before.Her already unsteady legs threatened to give way, and she found her hand going to the saddle for support.
