The Temptress Read online

  Pilar lay beside her and looked as surprised to see Chris.

  The man removed her gag. “What are you doing here?” she managed to gasp. “What is this?”

  “Cut the noise,” the big man said. The other captor was tall and thin. “We don’t want to hear you. You want some water or not?”

  Greedily, Chris’s shaky hands took the dirty tin mug the man offered.

  “Who are you?” she asked the man. “What do you want?”

  “You want the ropes on you again?”

  Chris started to reply but she felt Pilar’s hand on her arm. Looking at the dark woman, she saw Pilar shake her head slightly. Chris turned away but she said nothing more. Minutes later, the big man hauled Chris to her feet and tossed her into the saddle.

  “I don’t like talkative women,” he said into her ear. “You keep your mouth shut and we’ll get along fine. You open it and I’ll have to shut it. You understand?”

  She saw him throw the hood on the ground but she didn’t twist around to look at him; she was too busy trying to keep her seat on the horse and to avoid the man’s hands that were beginning to creep over her body.

  “Chris and I are leaving in less than an hour,” Tynan said to Asher, his mouth in a straight line, his eyes angry.

  “Wait a minute, I want to talk to you.”

  “I don’t have time,” Tynan said, starting to walk away. “You can come with us or not, your choice.”

  Asher caught his arm. “I want to know what happened last night. Where were you two all night? And what do you mean by shooting so close to my head? I ought to—”

  “What, Prescott? You ought to what?”

  Asher took a step backward. “Look, I’m in this as much as you are. Mathison hired you to take me to Chris, and you were to help me win her for my wife. So far all you’ve done is keep her to yourself. And now you spend the night with her doing only God knows what.”

  “That’s right, only God knows because I’m sure as hell not going to tell you. Now I’ll tell you again: Chris and I are leaving in one hour and you can go or stay, it’s up to you.”

  “I’ll be there,” Asher said, “don’t you worry about that.”

  With anger on his face, Asher made his way back up the stairs to the room he shared with Chris. Damn! but that man could be highhanded. He was a good man to have on a trail but there were times when he overstepped himself.

  He tried to regain his composure before he went to Chris. He’d hated locking her inside, but he knew it was the only way he could keep her from doing something stupid.

  Very quietly, he unlocked the door to the bedroom. She’d damn well better marry him after all she’d put him through—and all he’d done in an attempt to please her. Right away, he saw that she wasn’t there. His first thought was that she’d climbed out the window, but one glance out there, at the impossibly small ledge, showed him that she couldn’t have gone out that way.

  He didn’t even think about his argument or his anger with Tynan, but he ran down the stairs, out through the garden and to the little cottage where Tynan was staying. The dark man was removing tools from a shed at the back of the cottage.

  “She’s gone. I was afraid she’d do something stupid so I locked her in the room, but she got out. She was really worried about that kid.”

  Even as Asher was talking, Tynan was pushing past him and heading for the house, stopping only long enough to strap on his gun. He took the stairs two at a time.

  “I wish she wouldn’t do things like this,” Asher was saying. “It’s bad enough that she spends the entire night with a—” He broke off as he realized what he was saying. Tynan was now examining the window ledge. “Do you see anything? How could she have gone out there?”

  “Believe me, she could have. There’s been a ladder here recently, the paint’s scraped.” He walked back toward the bed, looking at the covers thoughtfully. The sheets were torn off the bed, the spread was on the floor. “Where’s Hamilton?”

  “I’m not sure. I think he’s upstairs. Do you think he’s seen Chris? I would imagine that she’s the last person he’d want to see.” He was following Ty out the door. “Did she tell you what she overheard, that Hamilton was going to kill his nephew? Not that I believed her, I mean, I just came along on this so I could pretend to be her husband. I think a man should take advantage of what he can.”

  Tynan stopped on the staircase. “If you keep flapping your gums, I’m going to apply some force to that spot.” He turned on his heel and started up again.

  Owen Hamilton was sitting in his office looking over papers on his desk. Tynan shut the door behind him, locked it, then very calmly walked to the window and tossed the key to the ground below.

  Asher plastered his back to the door and held his breath but Owen just looked up with eyebrows raised. “To what do I owe this little charade? Have the aphids been too much for you?”

  “Where is she?” Tynan asked in a low, husky voice.

  “I have no idea who you mean,” Owen answered, a study in unconcern as he shuffled the papers on his desk. “If you think that wife of yours and I—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence because Ty grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up across the desk. “I want to know where she is and I don’t want to play games. Either you tell me right now or you start losing parts of your body, bit by slow bit.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Chris!” Asher said. “I mean, Diana. Where is she? She isn’t in her room where I left her.”

  “Who’s Chris?” Owen asked.

  Tynan slapped the man across the face. “I don’t know how much you know but I suspect it’s a great deal. I’ve already turned that extra set of books of yours over to an accountant friend of mine. I think he’ll find out how much you’ve stolen from that nephew of yours.”

  “Books, what books?”

  Tynan hit him again, this time making the corner of his mouth bleed. “I’m tired of your lies. I didn’t much care what you did within your own family but that little girl is my responsibility and I want to know where she is.”

  “Who is she? Diana Eskridge was killed.”

  Ty’s grip on his throat tightened. “By you, no doubt, but I’ll leave that up to the law. Where is Chris?”

  When Hamilton didn’t answer, Ty struck him again, then drew his gun and held it to the man’s head. “What do you want to lose first? A hand or a foot? I think I can keep you from bleeding to death long enough for you to answer me. Now, one last time, where is she?”

  “Dysan took her.”

  Tynan was obviously surprised by this, so much so that his grip on Hamilton lessened. “What does Dysan want with her?”

  “I don’t know. He came here because of a cousin of his”—Owen’s eyes shifted to one side—“and he decided he wanted the woman pretending to be Diana.” He looked back at Tynan. “He had your wife taken too.”

  “Pilar?” Ty asked. “Who is this man?”

  Ty’s grip had relaxed so much that Owen was able to pull away and begin rubbing his bruised throat while applying a handkerchief to his bleeding mouth. “He’s somebody you don’t want to deal with. I don’t know much about him. He’s very mysterious about where he lives, who he is or anything else about himself. He comes here once a year and buys lumber and horses from me, then disappears. I’ve never dared ask him much about himself.”

  “Yet he took Chris,” Asher said. “Do you think he plans to hold her for ransom?”

  “Ransom?” Hamilton exploded. “Who is she?”

  “Del Mathison’s daughter,” Tynan said under his breath.

  “Oh Lord,” Owen gasped and sat down heavily in the chair. “I thought she was a two-bit actress trying to get what she could.” He looked at Ty. “How did you find my other books?”

  Tynan didn’t bother answering him. “I want to know all there is to tell about Dysan. I want to know where to find him.”

  “I told you that I know nothing. He just app