“There now.” He brushed snow from his expensive coat with the same fastidious care he’d always shown for his appearance. “Not quite what I’m accustomed to, but it will do for the night. By tomorrow, we’ll be far enough away we can travel more comfortably.”
The words penetrated slowly through the fog still clinging to her thoughts. Tomorrow. Travel. Away.
He was taking her somewhere. Back to Virginia City, probably. Back to that stage where drunk men leered and grabbed, where Vincent controlled every breath she took, every word she spoke.
Back to that contract.
Terror burned through the chemical haze, sharp enough to cut. She tried to push herself up from the chair, but her arms trembled and gave out under her weight. She slumped back, her vision blurring once more.
Rope appeared in Vincent’s hands—where had he gotten rope?—and he reached for her wrists. The sight flared another spike of panic through her chest, but her body refused to respond. Her muscles felt disconnected, useless, like they’d forgotten how to obey her commands.
“Now, now.” His fingers closed around her left wrist, cold even through her glove. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
She tried to pull away, but the movement was weak. Pathetic. He easily captured her other wrist and drew both arms behind the chair. The rope bit into her skin as he wrapped it around and around, securing her to the chair back with a powerful tug.
When he finished, he stepped back to examine his work, brushing dust from his hands like he’d just completed some mundane household task. “Much better. Can’t have you wandering off in the night, can we?”
She forced her eyes to focus on his face, fighting against the pull of whatever clouded her thoughts. She held his gaze. Did her best to let him see that she wasn’t broken yet, no matter what he’d done.
His smile widened, sharp and cold as a knife blade. “Still have some fight left in you I see. Good. The audiences prefer a performance with spirit.” He moved toward what looked like a rusty stove in the corner. “Though I must say, you’ve caused me considerable trouble. Running off like that. Making me chase you all the way to this godforsaken wilderness.”
Her throat ached with the need to speak, to scream, to tell him exactly what she thought of him and his theater and his cursed contract. But the words wouldn’t form properly. Her tongue was too thick and clumsy, and the few sounds she managed came out as weak rasps that barely carried across the small space.
“Save your strength.” Vincent knelt beside the stove, examining it with a critical eye. “You’ll need your voice in top condition soon enough. Though I suppose a few days of rest won’t hurt. Give that pretty throat of yours time to recover from all that screaming you did before I could properly sedate you.”
The memory flickered through the haze—the boarding house hallway, his hand clamping over her mouth, her muffled cries against his palm before that awful cloth pressed against her face. Had anyone heard her? Would anyone come looking?
James.
If only she’d never left the ranch. Never ran from the hard task of facing the past. Maybe James could still care for her given time.
But wishing changed nothing. She was here now, bound to this chair in a rotting cabin while Vincent prepared to drag her back into captivity.
CHAPTER 28
With every jolt of the wagon, James welcomed the pain.
It kept him sharp, kept the panic from swallowing him whole every time his mind conjured images of Rose in Vincent’s hands. He gripped the reins tighter, urging the team faster down the dark, rutted trail.
Somewhere ahead, Thomas and Robert rode horses borrowed from the livery, eating up the miles faster than this rumbling wagon could manage.
He’d sent them on because it made sense, because they could cover more ground, because a man with a broken leg had no business trying to ride astride through mountain wilderness in the dark. He’d already learned that lesson once.
But logic did nothing to ease the burning need to be the one who found her. To be the one who protected her.
To make up for standing in that barn like one of the support beams while she’d apologized for sins that weren’t hers to carry.
The well-traveled main trail stretched ahead in the moonlight, winding between snow-heavy pines that pressed close on either side. He scanned the darkness for any sign of his brothers returning, for any movement that might signal they’d caught up to Vincent.
Unless Vincent had turned off somewhere.
The thought made his chest tighten so hard he could barely breathe. Vincent could have taken any number of side trails branching off this main route—paths that wound deeper into the wilderness, leading to abandoned mining camps or forgotten homesteads where no one would hear a woman scream.
He forced the images away before they could take root. Vincent might not even have Rose at all.
All James could do was keep going and use every one of his senses to find clues. Anything that might lead him to her.
As the wagon rounded a cluster of boulders in the trail, he caught it—faint wood smoke on the icy breeze. He pulled the team to a stop and sat perfectly still, testing the wind. Not just his imagination. Definitely smoke. In the dark sky, he couldn’t see any sign of which direction it might be coming from.
