Pam Crooks - The Mercenary's Kiss

Her hair had fallen loose from its ribbon. He brushed the long, golden strands from her cheek and noted its satin texture, the warmth and softness of her skin. The delicate bone structure of her face.

Even bruised and bleeding, she was a beauty.

She whimpered again and shifted a little against him. Her lashes fluttered, as if she tried to open her eyes but couldn’t.

“Easy,” he said in a low voice. “You’re going to be all right.”

Her eyes flew open. She struggled to focus on him. He’d been knocked out a time or two himself and knew how she clawed her way out of the blackness. Suddenly she gasped and pushed away from him.

A wildness filled her expression. She twisted back and forth, searching, her features frantic. “Nicky! Where’s my baby? Nicky!”

Baby?

He exchanged a quick glance with Creed, then reached out to touch her, to calm her, but she flinched violently, and he drew back.

“There’s no baby here,” he said carefully.

She stared at him. She made a sound of anguish, of unadulterated grief, and the depth of it cut right through him.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” She wavered on the edge of hysteria.

“They kidnapped him?” Jeb asked, stunned.

She nodded, her fist pressed to her mouth.

“Christ.”

“Elena, honey,” a hoarse voice rasped.

She swung toward the man lying on the ground. She scrambled to his side and buried her face in his chest. “Pop, he’s gone.”

The man shook with a silent sob. “I know, honey.” His trembling fingers speared into her hair, holding her to him. “God help us, they took him.”

Her head came up again. The wild look in her face had returned. “We have to find him. We have to go now.”

“Lennie—”

“Come on, Pop.” She tugged on his suit coat. “You have to sit up. I’ll get the horses, and we’ll go after him.”

Jeb rose and walked toward her.

“He’s not going anywhere,” he said quietly. Firmly. He squatted beside her. “He’s hurt too bad.”

Eyes as green as leaves in the jungle seemed to stare right through him. As if Jeb had never spoken, she turned away and appealed to her father again.

“I can’t leave you here,” she said, her tone growing more desperate. “You have to come with me, Pop. We have to find Nicky.”

He moaned. “Lennie, honey. I—” He swallowed. “I can’t go with you. I—I need a doctor, and—and—”

“We’ll get you a doctor,” she said, the hysteria creeping in on her. “After we find Nicky. I mean, we have to find him first and—”

“I might not make it, Lennie. I’m hurtin’ bad.”

“You will make it!” She drew back suddenly. “The elixir.”

She darted to the wagon and disappeared inside. Jeb could hear her scavenging through the contents, and just when he thought she might need some help finding whatever she was looking for, she appeared, wielding a wooden crate.

She dropped it on the ground and knelt beside her father. Working quickly, she wrenched the top open, snatched one of the brown bottles and whisked off the cap.

“My elixir,” Pop wheezed, watching her as if his life depended on it. “Yes, give me some.”

She slipped her arm behind his neck to help him sit up. “Take a double dose, Pop. It’ll help you feel better.”

He drank the stuff right out of the container.

Skeptical, Jeb took a bottle from the case and scanned the label proclaiming the amazing benefits of Doc Charlie’s Miraculous Herbal Compound.

“Medicine,” Creed said as he read one, too, and pursed his lips.

Quackery was more like it, but Jeb kept the thought to himself. He’d never put much faith in patent medicines or the men who sold them—scam artists who preyed on ailing citizens who’d give away their hard-earned money for the promise of good health and a clear mind.

He tossed the bottle aside. But if this man and his daughter believed in the herbal compound, damned if he would tell them otherwise.

A trickle of the coffee-colored liquid slipped from the corner of Pop’s mouth, and he ran his sleeve across his chin to wipe it away. He exhaled a slow breath and eased back down on the ground.

“Thank you, Elena,” he whispered.

She recapped the bottle. “I’ll get the horses. I’ll be right back. We’ve lost too much time already.”

Jeb had heard enough. His arm snaked out to grasp her wrist, keeping her right where she was. Her startled expression made Jeb wonder if she even comprehended he and Creed were there.

“You can’t take your father with you,” he said slowly, succinctly. She yanked against Jeb’s hold on her, but he held her fast. “You can’t go, either. You’re bleeding, and you—”

“Let go of me,” she snapped.

“You need a doctor, just like he does.”

“Let go of me!”

Again she strained against him, and Jeb marveled at her strength after everything she’d endured.

But he was still a hell of a lot stronger than she was. And he wasn’t letting her go anywhere just yet.

“Ma’am, he’s right,” Creed said. “You need some medical attention before you—”

“They have my son,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Yes,” Creed said. “And we’re real sorry about that. But the fact is, you’re hurt bad. Both of you are.”

Creed was the pragmatic one. Diplomatic and even-tempered most of the time. But impatience shot through Jeb. He cut right to the chase.

“You have any idea who you’re up against?” he demanded.

Her nostrils flared. “Yes! I do!”

“Those men are dangerous.”

“They took my son, damn you!”

“They kill for the sport of it.”

“I don’t care who they are or what they’ll do. I want him back.”

Jeb clenched his jaw. Of course, she did. What kind of mother would she be if she didn’t? He had to try a different tactic, convince her she couldn’t go off half-cocked on the revolutionaries’ trail.

“They’re long gone by now,” he said. “Headed for the border, most likely. You think you’re going to find them by yourself?”

Green eyes flashed. “If it’s the last thing I do.”

“You need some help,” Creed said. “Surely you know that.”

Creed spoke the words Jeb rebelled against saying. Or thinking. An image of San Antonio slid into his brain. The train waiting there. California and all his newfound plans.

“My father and I will go after Nicky,” she said defiantly.

A brilliant, flickering flame appeared over those plans….

“Like hell you will.” Jeb released her.

She rubbed her wrist. “I’m not leaving Pop behind.”

Her father peered up at her. Some of the color had fused back into his cheeks. From the elixir? Or from hope?

“Maybe these gentlemen will help us,” he said.

She turned to Jeb. If she thought he looked nothing like a helpful gentleman, she didn’t say it.

But her contemptuous look confirmed it.

“They could get us to San Antonio,” Pop went on. “We can contact the authorities when we get there.”

“No.” She returned the bottles of elixir to their crate in jerky movements. “It’ll take too long to arrange a search party. Tomorrow at the earliest. I won’t consider it.”

“Elena.”

“I’m not going to San Antonio. I’m going after Nicky. And I can’t leave you behind, so you’re going to have to come with me, do you hear?”

The shrill tone of her voice revealed the panic billowing inside her. Jeb steeled himself against it.

“Are you going to set your father’s leg before you go?” he asked softly.

Her glance darted to the twisted limb.

“He can’t ride a horse with a bullet wound. And that bullet needs to come out. All the blood he’s lost will make him too weak to even stay in the saddle.”