Would sheeverfind it?
She stood and picked up a canteen she’d found in the house. The water inside was growing warm, but it did what it needed to. She had just gone after the shovel when something rustled nearby. Lina froze, not daring to move. The rustling came again, and her heart thumped so hard she was certain that whatever was making that noise could hear it. It could be anything—a bear, a wildcat, a man.
As silently as possible, Lina dropped to her knees and began to crawl toward a stand of aspen. The spindly trees wouldn’t provide much cover, but the boulders on this side of the road were too far away. She’d recognized this spot the moment she’d approached it on Red. It was only a little ways from where her stage had been held up.
Reaching the aspen, she stood up slowly behind the trees, forcing herself to breathe as normally as possible as she dug her dirt-encrusted nails into the tree’s trunk. She scanned the area, looking for anything out of place and desperately wishing for the pistol she’d left in her saddlebag.
Seeing nothing at all, Lina had just begun to relax when a hand shot around her face and clamped itself over her mouth. Her scream died off against the dirty gloves. Frantically, she twisted her head to see who was behind her.
A man with a pockmarked face stared down at her.
And right behind him stood three other men she recognized—and one dog she did not.
Chapter Sixteen
THE RIDE UP TO HORSETHIEFPass seemed to take four times as long as it usually did. Every step that Rabbit took felt plodding, and Hawk’s anxiety for Lina ratcheted up another notch with each passing moment. He was alone as he climbed the road up into the mountains once he passed the prospectors by the creek. Before he’d left town, he paid the stable boy to find Garland, Jackson, or any of his men and tell them where Hawk was headed. With any luck, they’d be only a few minutes behind him if he ran into trouble.
As he rounded the bend into the Pass, he repeated the same prayer he’d said over and over on the way up—Please let her be alone. Please keep her unharmed.
He couldn’t spare an extra thought to untangle his feelings for Lina from the lies she’d told. He’d deal with that later, once he ensured her safety. It didn’t matter what subterfuge she’d enacted toward him—he wasn’t certain he could take it if any harm had befallen her.
A low rumble of voices came from up ahead, past another bend in the road where, Hawk remembered, the shootout with Grayson and his men had occurred last year. He dismounted, tied Rabbit to a tree hidden back behind a few of its scraggly fellows, and moved forward.
He kept to the edge of the boulders until he reached the outcropping that blocked his view of where the road curved away. Pressed to the edge of the rock, he peered around. And there, just beyond the boulders where Grayson and several of his men had died, was the motley gang of men who’d grabbed Lina in Mad Dog Gulch.
For a split second, he thought Lina might not be among them. But then he spotted Red off across the road. And a few moments later, a shift in stance by one of the men revealed Lina herself, who by all appearances, sat tied to an aspen.
Anger boiled below Hawk’s calm demeanor. He couldn’t see her expression from this distance, but he could imagine how she felt—frightened, helpless, and likely a good dose of angry. But at least she appeared unhurt.
His best course of action was to wait for his men to arrive, provided they came quickly enough. Hawk reined in the urge to march over there and demand Lina’s release. He didn’t know how these men would react, and he hadn’t much of an advantage alone.
And so he remained where he was, hidden up against the outcropping, pistol at the ready, and eyes taking in the scene before him. All was well until something pressed itself to his knee. Stifling a surprised shout, Hawk jumped back and looked down.
There, with its tongue hanging out, stood a large black dog.
“Ssh, good boy,” Hawk said under his breath. “Good—”
