Twin of Fire Read online

  After they’d taken her, they’d blindfolded and gagged her and then ridden for what seemed like hours. Most of the time, she’d concentrated on keeping the hands of the cowboy who rode behind her in the saddle from running all over her body. He kept whispering that she “owed” him. For the life of her, Blair couldn’t remember having met the man before or having done anything to him.

  She moved all over the horse, as far as she could, to get away from him, and when the horse began to grow restless and prance, one of the other men ordered the man in the saddle with her to leave her alone, saying that she belonged to Frankie.

  That idea sent a shiver up Blair’s spine. Just who was Frankie and what did he want with her? She still had hopes that they needed her medical services but, because they hadn’t let her get her bag, she doubted it.

  When they’d removed the blindfold, she was standing in front of a rundown little shack, a porch with a fallen post on one end. Around her were six men, all small and stupid-looking like the one who’d taken her. There was a small corral to her right, and a few other outbuildings here and there. And everything was surrounded by high, sheer cliff walls. White rock kept them protected—and hidden—like a fort. At the moment, Blair couldn’t even see the entryway into the canyon, but realized it must be small enough that the cabin could block it from view.

  But she soon lost interest in her surroundings, because on the porch appeared Frankie, the Frenchwoman who was the love of her husband’s life. Hate, anger, and jealousy combined to make Blair speechless as she gaped up at this woman who was the leader of this two-bit band of semimorons.

  Someone pushed Blair into the shack: a dirty, dark little place with two rooms, one with a table and a few broken chairs, the other with a bed. Supplies were on the floor in the main room.

  For the first twenty-four hours, they’d been fairly lax in their guarding of Blair, but after four attempts to escape,—she’d almost succeeded in one of them—they’d tied her to the chair, and then ended by nailing it to the floor.

  Now, her wrists were raw from the rough rope and from pulling on it for long hours, and Frankie had decided that perhaps a little less food would help her stay in place and keep her from again trying to scale the rock wall that protected them.

  Blair wasn’t sure her mind was functioning properly. It seemed so long since she’d eaten or rested, and there was this horrid woman who was her husband’s lover. Part of her said that Leander had to be part of this, part of her said that Frankie had done it on her own, that she wanted to see Leander again. And if Lee saw her again, would he want Blair, or would he this time go with the woman whom Reed had called his one true love? Of course, Leander had left her on their wedding night to go to this woman. She had that kind of power over him. So who was to say that Leander wasn’t hiding behind the cabin somewhere, that he hadn’t arranged everything so that he and Frankie could be together?

  There were tears running down Blair’s face when Frankie came into the room, with the cowboy who’d abducted Blair in tow by his ear, as if she were his schoolteacher. There were bright red handprints on the boy’s face where he’d been slapped.

  “She is the one?” Frankie asked the boy. “You are the one who says he knows. Do you know or do you lie to me to settle an old debt?”

  “It’s her. I swear it is. Her husband tossed me in the dirt, and he’s worth millions.”

  Frankie, in disgust, pushed the boy away. “How stupid I was to send a boy to do a man’s job. You see this?” She held up a torn newspaper. “They are identical twins. One is married to a rich man, and one is…” She turned to glare at Blair, who was listening with wide-eyed interest. “And one is my dear, beloved Leander’s wife.”

  Blair was much too upset, hungry, tired, and too ready to believe what she thought to be true, to hear the sarcasm in the woman’s voice.

  “Get out of here,” the Frenchwoman shouted at the boy. “Let me think what’s to be done.”

  She might have thought faster if she’d known that at that moment a man was lying on his stomach on the rock above, his rifle aimed and ready, three more rifles at his side. And another man waited at the entrance to the hidden canyon to receive a signal from the man above.

  Chapter 21

  Blair was sure that her spirits had never been lower in her life. Maybe it was a combination of hunger, thirst, fear, everything combined, but it suddenly seemed that very few people in her life had ever really loved her. Her stepfather had always hated her, and in school, the only man who’d ever been interested in her had ended by jilting her, and now her husband was actually in love with another woman—and always had been. She didn’t actually believe that she could get him back. Back? She’d never had him to begin with.

  “I need to go to the outhouse,” she mumbled to Françoise at dawn, when the woman returned to the shack. Blair had waited as long as possible, because the last time she’d gone, Françoise had sent one of her outlaws to guard Blair, and then she’d caught the man peeping through a knothole.

  “I shall go with you this time,” the Frenchwoman said as she untied the knots on Blair’s wrists.

  When Blair stood, she was dizzy and began to sway on her feet. The lack of circulation in her body was making her extremities cold.

  “Come on,” the woman said, jerking Blair. “You didn’t look too tired when you were scaling that wall.”

  “That might have been what did it,” Blair said, as the woman caught her arm and half dragged her from the shack.

  The outhouse stood near the entryway into the box canyon, as if someone had planned to keep guard from inside that malodorous place. Blair went inside while Françoise stood outside, a rifle across her shoulder, keeping watch.

  Blair had no more than closed the door when she heard a muffled scream. With some curiosity, but also with a feeling of dread that something awful had happened, she leaned forward to look out the convenient knothole. The next moment, the door was rattled and, when it was found to be locked, she was knocked backward by the force of an enormous fist, knuckles wrapped, coming through the weathered boards of the door. Before she could straighten up and look for a weapon to protect herself, the sound of shooting came from outside.

  The hand that was coming through the door fumbled for and opened the latch. Blair poised herself to leap at the man who was trying to take her.

  When the door was opened, she jumped and landed against the big, hard form of Kane Taggert.

  “Stop that!” he ordered when she started beating him with her fists. “Come on, let’s get you two out of here. Another minute, and they’ll see that you’re missin’.”

  Blair quietened and glanced down at Françoise, tucked under Taggert’s left arm as if she were a sack of flour. “Is she hurt?”

  “Just a nick on the chin. She’ll wake up in a little while. Run for it.”

  Blair ran through the narrow opening, ducking the bullets that seemed to be coming from everywhere. Behind her was the big body of Kane and she wondered who it was shooting from the cliff above them. She prayed that it wasn’t Houston.

  Kane tossed Françoise’s unconscious body across the saddle of his horse. “I hadn’t figured on her. Get up there,” he said, as he picked Blair up and dropped her into the saddle behind the inert form of the Frenchwoman. “Tell Westfield that I’ll stay here a while and keep ‘em busy down there. The three of you head on up to the cabin and I’ll meet you there.” With that, he slapped the horse on the rump and started Blair up the hill.

  Blair hadn’t gone but a few feet when Lee jumped out from the trees and grabbed the horse’s reins. The grin he wore threatened to split his face. “I see you’re all right,” he said, as he put his hand on her leg and caressed it.

  “And so is she,” Blair said with all the haughtiness she could muster, as she gave him Kane’s message. “I’m sure you had Taggert rescue her for yourself.”

  Leander gave a groan and looked at the woman as if he’d just noticed her. “I hate to ask this, but is s