Carol Finch - The Bounty Hunter and the Heiress

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked warily.

She cast him a drowsy smile. “Because I’m only half-awake. I’ll be my old self in a few minutes.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he murmured against her ear, causing a stream of unwanted tingles to trickle through her.

She ignored the taunt and the arousing sensation by focusing on the landscape outside the window. The stage route skirted the fissured mountain range, providing a scenic view of craggy precipices bracketed by rugged ridges and mesas. Some of the towering summits were snow-capped while others were a tumbling cascade of boulders. There were also peaks that stood like green-clad soldiers barricading the entrance to the wilderness. Colorful wildflowers between crests waved in the breeze, making Eva wish she had time for exploring.

She had made an excursion into the mountains two years earlier with Roger and Sadie Philbert. The invigorating climb and panoramic views had captivated her. Although the Philberts decided one strenuous adventure into the wilderness was enough for them, Eva had enjoyed the rugged beauty and the challenge.

The trip reminded her of the hikes she’d made with her father when she was a child. Hoping her sister would delight in the experience, Eva had hired a guide to take her and Lydia on a short jaunt the previous year. Lydia also decided that city life appealed to her more than roughing it in the mountains. She had announced that Eva would have to make her next excursion alone. And here Eva was, striking off to overtake that slimy weasel Gordon.

Her thoughts trailed off when George Knott shouted out that they were near the rest stop at the base of the looming cliff. She noticed Raven had come to alert attention and he was the first to step down from the coach. Like a great cat scanning the terrain, he searched for signs of trouble before pivoting to help her down.

Eva tried to control the baffling tingles she experienced when his hands encircled her waist. Erotic speculations ricocheted around her mind as her body brushed suggestively against his masculine contours.

“We’ll be here ’bout fifteen minutes to check the undercarriage. A brisk walk is usually a good idea to get circulation goin’ again,” George suggested in a slurred voice.

While two scraggly-looking attendants hunkered down to check the wheels, hubs and carriage sling, Raven grasped her hand and veered away from the other passengers, who stretched this way and that to work kinks from their necks and backs.

“You’re being extremely careful, I see,” she said as he zigzagged in and out of the pines and cottonwoods that lined the narrow creek.

“I don’t want you hurt because of me,” he insisted. “Besides, it makes me look bad if I can’t protect my own wife.” He halted abruptly then spun to face her. “I’ve been thinking it over for an hour and I’ve decided you should go home on the next stage that comes through here.”

She stared disparagingly at him. “Just because I’m pretending to be your wife, don’t think you can tell me what to do, Jo-Dan.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said and scowled.

“Don’t tell me to go home,” she countered. “I’m going to find that lowdown, good-for-nothing swindler and recover the horse and every red cent he stole from Lydia.”

“How many red cents are we talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She flicked her wrist dismissively. “It’s the principle of the matter.”

Raven barked a laugh. “You’re in the wrong neck of the woods to avenge your strong sense of fair play to your personal satisfaction. I can tell you from experience that life isn’t a damn bit fair. If you don’t believe it, ask the Cheyenne people whom Colonel Chivington massacred at Sand Creek in Colorado, and then suffered through George Custer’s ambush on the Washita River in Indian Territory.”

Eva grimaced at the thought of Raven’s family encountering such a disastrous fate. She remembered reading about the Sand Creek Massacre investigation. Her private tutor had described it as one of the most brutal and insensitive crimes in the country.

“Were you there?” she asked gently.

He nodded abruptly. “I was twelve years old when Chivington and his soldiers killed my mother, uncle and all of my cousins except one,” he said in a grim voice. “Blackowl and I survived by pretending to have drowned. We floated facedown in the stream until the soldiers passed. Then we came ashore to confiscate a horse. We headed for cover in the mountains and then took refuge with a band of Utes.”

“I lost my mother to illness when I was five and my father died when I was sixteen,” she confided. “But I cannot fathom how awful it would be to endure a cruel massacre that senselessly took your family from you.”

“It was hell,” Raven muttered as he stared at the towering precipices. “Two years later I located my father at the trading rendezvous near Pine Crest. He thought I had perished, too. In the meantime, he’d married a white women and settled into town life. Although I wasn’t accepted into polite society more readily than I am now, my father was determined to indoctrinate me into white culture.” He pulled a face. “It didn’t help that I inherited a racist stepbrother who made my life miserable. When my father died, I cleared out. At eighteen I hired on to ride shotgun for coaches and express trains before venturing out on my own.”

“But you never used your impressive skills to scout for renegades for the army,” she presumed.

“Hell no,” he grumbled. “Soldiers in uniforms bring back too many bitter memories. I’ll be damned if I’ll help them track runaway warriors from other tribes so they can herd them like cattle to those hated reservations.”

To say that Raven harbored hard feelings was an understatement. Not that she blamed him. She was still bitter about being used by Felix Winslow, who professed to love her until his dying day…and discarded her for another woman so fast it made her head spin. So who was she to pass judgment?

“Stay here.” Raven drew a peacemaker from his holster then pressed it into her hand. “Do you know how to use this?”

“Sort of,” she hedged.

“You can always use it as a club if you’re desperate,” he suggested before he slinked away.

“Where—?”

She compressed her lips when Raven disappeared into the bushes. She glanced around, wondering what his trained senses had seen or heard that she had missed. Then, in the near distance, she heard the thud of retreating hoof-beats. A moment later Raven appeared, swearing in what she presumed to be the Cheyenne language.

“Did you see who it was?” she asked as he approached.

“No. Which is all the more reason for you to wait at this station to catch the returning stage.”

“I made it perfectly clear that I’m not abandoning my mission,” she retorted sternly.

“How many more times do I have to win this argument?” he shot back. “Any association with me puts you in danger. How do you think you’re going to avenge your kid sister if you’re dead or worse?”

“What’s worse than dead?” she said, smirking.

“Don’t ask.” He clutched her hand to lead her down to the creek for another refreshing drink from a spring-fed stream.

Eva had the unmistakable feeling that Raven had seen the worst humankind could do to one another. In comparison to his exploits, she was hopelessly sheltered and naive. Nevertheless, her fierce sense of justice and her devotion to her sister refused to let her give up when the going got a mite tough. She would see this through, whether Raven approved or not—which he obviously didn’t.

“All right, how about a compromise,” Raven suggested as he reclaimed the pistol so she could sip water with her cupped hands. “You go home and I’ll track this Carter character after I’ve trained a dependable saddle horse. Give me two weeks to work with a green-broke mount then I’ll search for Carter.”