Cain got into the Jag, pulled out of the parking space, and drove back up the hill. Bart and another man. Bart was a damned good shot. He remembered the two of them practicing out in the desert around their mining claims. Most likely, he was the sniper. Probably been the guy who had shot him on the ranch.
Absently, he rubbed his shoulder. His wound was healing. He had full range of motion, but his shoulder still ached off and on.
His jaw hardened. Bart had wanted him dead. Now he had Jenny, the leverage he needed to get a second crack at him.
He thought of his Jenny at the mercy of a man like Barton Harwell. Bart had been rough-and-tumble back in their mining days, loved nothing better than a drunken night and a good barroom brawl. Only thing better was a few hours with a woman. Any woman. Didn’t matter much to Bart.
Cain’s stomach knotted. What would he do to Jenny? Bart wanted payback. What better way than to hurt the woman Cain loved.
The notion hit him hard. He loved Jenny Spencer, and Bart Harwell meant to hurt her.
The answer was simple. Cain was going to find Jenny and bring her home. He was going to find Bart Harwell, and when he did, Cain was going to kill him.
* * *
Jenny had no idea how much time had passed. For several seconds, she didn’t move, just lay there, trying to figure out where she was, fighting to remember what had happened. The ground was rough dirt beneath her, and she realized her wrists were bound behind her back. When she opened her eyes, there was nothing to see but all-consuming darkness.
Her heart jerked and started pounding. She told herself to stay calm, try to figure things out, give her eyes time to adjust. Hearing no footsteps or the sound of voices around her, she slowly sat up. More seconds passed before her head stopped spinning and her pupils dilated enough that she could see a patch of gray light about twenty feet away.
She was in a tunnel, she realized with a jolt of fear. There were eighty-eight miles of tunnels beneath Jerome, and she was in one of them. Or a tunnel somewhere else.
Oh, dear God! How would anyone find her?
The faint patch of gray had to be the last hint of daylight shining through the entrance. She had to get out of there before full night set in and she couldn’t see at all.
Think! You’ve seen a hundred movies where the heroine is kidnapped. Cain isn’t here this time. You have to help yourself!
His handsome, beloved face appeared in her mind, but Jenny forced down the image. Cain had no idea where she was. She had to get away before whoever had taken her returned.
Rising to her feet, she managed to link her fingers together behind her back, then she stretched her rope binding enough to bend down and step through the circle she had made.
The stiff rope cut into her wrists and made her shoulders burn, but it worked!
She let out a sigh of relief and ignored the pain she had caused in her shoulders. At least her hands were now bound in front of her. She moved, searching the area around her, felt the rough wall of the tunnel off to one side and one of the timbers shoring up the tunnel. Using the wall to guide her, she headed toward the fading gray light.
She had almost reached the entrance when she heard men’s voices near the tunnel opening. Two people, she figured, as she hurriedly made her way back to the place they had left her. Lying back down, she curled up on her side against the wall so they wouldn’t notice her hands, and pretended to still be asleep. It was so dark she might have a chance to fool them, even with the lantern each man carried.
She prayed they would ignore her a little longer, prayed that Cain would come for her.
Knowing without a doubt that he would.
Jenny prayed that when he got there, it wouldn’t already be too late.
* * *
Cain was studying the US topographical map of the Clarksdale, Arizona, quadrant when Nick rapped at the door to the suite. Cain strode across the living room to let him in.
“How’s Will?” Cain asked as he led Nick back to the study, where the map was spread open on a table near the corner.
“Critical condition is all the hospital would tell me on the phone. He’s still alive. That’s something.”
“Dammit!” He slammed a hand down on the table. “I was trying to get to Jenny when it happened. I was just a few minutes too late.”
“If you’d been with her, you’d likely be the one in critical—or you would be dead.”
“Or maybe Bart would have missed his shot, and I would have killed the sonofabitch before he could hurt her.”
One of Nick’s black eyebrows went up, but he made no comment. Cain went back to reading the map, and Nick’s gaze followed.
