Heather Graham (18 page)

Out of commission, as it were.

To give him more time? Time for what?

Sleep claimed her. There could be no answer to the questions. Not that night.

M
ARTINE DIDN’T EXPECT TO
find Kane next to her when the sun woke her in the morning. She didn’t.

But she was surprised to find a note on his pillow. “Please believe in me,” it read. “I love you.”

She smiled slightly and closed her eyes, trying to decide if she was an idiot, completely daft or—or if her instincts were right. Kane did love her, and he would talk to her as soon as he could.

She groaned aloud. How could she be right when her truck was parked out front with a fortune in it that she had never known existed before she had discovered Kane’s map? How could she be right when she had actually seen him holding Lisa, promising that he would do something for her, soothing her tears?

The phone started ringing then. Martine cast her arm over her eyes, assuming that Sonia would be in the house and would answer it. Apparently Sonia wasn’t in the house, for the phone kept ringing. Martine fumbled a hand over the nightstand until she found the extension to answer the shrilling summons.

“Hello?”

There was silence for a moment and then a man’s voice—a voice that could still send chills of distaste to her stomach to bind it in knots.

“It’s Ken Lander, Martine. Mrs. Montgomery, that is,” he said caustically.

She didn’t say anything. “Don’t hang up on me, Martine!” he said quickly, obviously having a certain amount of ESP since that was exactly what she had been about to do.

“You see, Martine, I can tell you a few things you probably want to know by now about that Mr. Western Macho you decided to marry.”

“There’s nothing you could say that I’d want to hear,” Martine replied. But she couldn’t keep a certain hesitance out of her voice. Ken did sound as if he knew something. And at this point she had such a nagging sense of desperation to get at the truth. …But not from a man who has almost raped her!

“Ah, so all is not ecstasy in paradise, eh?” Ken said slyly. “Want to meet me somewhere?”

“No,” she said with more conviction. “I know everything about Kane that I need to know,” she said sweetly. “I love him. That’s good enough for me. Good-bye.”

“Where is he right now, Martine? Do you know that? I’ll bet you don’t. But if you’ve a mind to find out, try the old wooden house on Grayfeather Road.”

She didn’t get a chance to hang up on Ken. He hung up on her.

In lieu of having Ken to hear her, Martine told the phone a few things about him. Then she crawled out of bed, showered, and decided she wouldn’t get anywhere with her thoughts until she had a cup of coffee and something to eat. She’d slept through dinner the night before and crawled through the caves instead of having lunch.

Coffee was easy enough. Someone had already made it and left it on the stove. She tried to cook a few eggs and discovered she was so distracted she burned them.

Heating up the chili seemed her best bet even if chili didn’t tend to find a place on many breakfast menus.

By the time she had eaten and pondered through a second cup of coffee, a spasm of panic hit her. If Ken was right and Kane was out on Grayfeather Road somewhere, he had probably taken the truck—the truck that was her hiding place for the gold.

She leaped up from the table and raced to the window, knocking her chair over and almost ripping the curtain from its rod. Then she heaved a sigh of relief so great that it made her dizzy. The truck was still in the drive.

But after in vast relief she had leaned against the sink for a moment, she frowned and turned back to the window.

The truck was in the drive, and Thor was in the left pasture, rolling around in the dirt at the moment and making a dusty mess of himself. Cheyenne was out there too. In fact, between the left and right pastures, she could account for all the horses except three; the geldings always used by Sonia, Bill, and Jim when they were moving the herd.

She gnawed nervously on her thumbnail for a moment, then threw her hands into the air. There was no help for it. She knew damned well she was going to take a drive down Grayfeather Road.

Seconds later she was in the truck. “I know I’m crazy now!” she told herself aloud. “Driving down dirt roads with a fortune of gold stuck in an old truck.”

But crazy or not, she was doing it.

Grayfeather Road was about five miles from her ranch, fronting property that was reservation land belonging to the Apache. Martine knew the Indians’ land fairly well; she had grown up and gone to school with many her own age, made a number of fairly good friends, and did business with them now. Almost everyone in hard cattle land like this did business together. Whites and Indians alike were clannish around here; their land was the common factor.

But she couldn’t remember an old wooden house out on Grayfeather. When she turned the corner onto the road, she pulled off onto the embankment for a moment and narrowed her eyes to try to recall. At last she let out a little cry of triumph, certain that the house was behind a small scattering of tall pines.

She drove slowly until she reached the pines, then pulled the truck off the road and into their shelter. She could see the house. It was an old Victorian structure, set up on a sloping hill. Martine got out of the truck and started gnawing at her thumbnail again.

There was a snazzy little Ferrari parked in front of the house, and Martine had seen the car before. She knew she had. Ferraris were hard to miss in these parts.

The Ferrari had been parked at Joe Devlin’s the night they had gone for dinner. It had to be Lisa’s.

Then, even as she stared up at the house, she inhaled sharply and stepped back into the trees. The front door opened, and Kane and Lisa stepped out.

Lisa appeared upset; Kane threw his arms up in the air, stared at the sky, and murmured something. Then he pulled his hat down over his forehead and slipped a comforting arm around her shoulder and led her slowly to the Ferrari.

Martine watched them, slinking as far back into the trees as she could. Kane was driving, and he must have been in a frustrated mood. The Ferrari sped down the drive and onto the road.

Martine felt plunged into confusion and misery once again. Oh, God, how she wanted to trust Kane! And just this morning—despite the damning evidence of the map and the gold—she had convinced herself that she did.

And now …

She felt sick and dizzy. She planted her hands on the knees of her worn jeans for a moment and bent over for strength. Then she straightened and started walking up to the old wooden house on the hill.

It wasn’t a long walk. Soon she was climbing the two steps to the porch and walking across the weathered wood. The front door was slightly ajar. She swallowed a little nervously and peered inside. It seemed very dark inside, muted and musty. The furniture was as period as the house. There was an old piano, well polished and gleaming even in the darkness. Wing-back overstuffed chairs sat before a fireplace, and an old sofa was in the center of the room.

“Can I help you, miss?”

The words were softly, laboriously spoken in a cracked and husky voice. Martine started, realizing that in the dimness she hadn’t seen the old woman sitting in a rocker in the far corner of the room.

Very nervously—and more than a little shamefully—she stepped into the entryway. “I didn’t mean to pry,” she said apologetically, and then paused. Blinking against the shadows of the house, she saw that the woman was very old. She looked to be near a hundred, with bronzed skin, creased and leathered by the years. But her hair was still very dark, with no touch of gray to it. It was long and braided into two plaits. So dark …As dark as the eyes that looked into hers, ancient with their sadness yet somehow wise. She was Apache, Martine knew. And Martine thought the woman carried all the dignity and pride and beauty of her tribe within those dark, haunting eyes.

“You may come in,” the woman said.

“Thank you—” Martine began.

But she never finished. She issued a little scream as a hand fell on her shoulder, the fingers tightening like steel vises. She didn’t need to turn then to know it was Kane; she knew his subtle masculine scent, and she knew the tense feel of his body behind hers.

“She doesn’t need to come in, Nan. This is Martine, my wife, who seems to have a real problem with minding other people’s business,” he said, his voice taut with controlled fury and displeasure.

“Kane.” The old woman protested, lifting a hand.

“Nan, I’m very, very sorry. I’ll get her out of here now,” he said gruffly.

And he meant it. He shoved Martine around and prodded her firmly out the door, then closed it sharply behind him. She stared at him, trying to find the lover she had known during the night.

That man was gone. She didn’t know this Kane. His face was as dark and tense as a stormy sky. His eyes met hers with a merciless blaze.

“Nothing ever means anything to you, does it, Martine? You just have to stick your nose everywhere and you don’t care who you hurt. Well, I’m sorry, this is one time when I don’t give a damn what you think about me.” His lips were compressed tightly as he grabbed her arm and dragged her forcefully from the porch. Panicked and furious, Martine tried to break his hold but she couldn’t.

“Dammit, let go of me, Kane!” She lashed out at him. How in hell had he gotten back there? she wondered. The red Ferrari was gone. “Kane, let go of me! If you don’t want me to care about what’s going on, that’s fine. I won’t dream of coming near you again. But so help me, you’ll get out of my house and off my ranch!”

His expression didn’t alter one bit, but then it was like stone, and stone didn’t soften or change. He just kept walking, dragging her so that she tripped to keep up. “Surprised to see me, Martine, you sneaking, conniving little bitch! You should have hidden the truck, then I wouldn’t have known you were here. You’re a hell of a spy.” He grated out the words, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. “I’ll be damned if I do understand why you married me! Unless it
was
to spend your days playing spy!”

They had reached the truck, but his grip was still like steel, his face like the furious clouds of a storm. Martine didn’t care.

“Me? You are the most arrogant bastard I’ve ever met in my life. Lying, cheating, conniving! How dare you question me? You married me for the gold. For the
gold
!”

At least she’d caught his attention. But she wasn’t glad that she had. She suddenly found herself with her back pressed to the truck, his arms imprisoning her there. “What do you know about the gold?” he demanded.

She fought hard to raise her chin, narrow her eyes, and spit out her answer with contempt. “I found your map.”

He laughed dryly and bitterly. “Ah, yes. Ms. Spy. I should have known you would have torn everything apart until you found it.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Mr. Montgomery.” She tried to speak coolly. “You’ve got one more day to find the gold for you and your precious Lisa. Today. I don’t give a damn about it. You can bring out a whole search party while I ride into town. Nothing behind your back, Kane. Not like the treatment I receive. I’m telling you flat out that I’m filing for a divorce and I want you out of the house by tonight.”

He moved away from her. “Get into the truck.”

“I will not,” she replied, realizing that he meant to get in with her.

“Yes, you will,” he said curtly. “Where are the keys?” She stood stubbornly mute, desperately wondering if she had pushed him too far, if he was more ruthless than she had ever been willing to believe.

He smiled slightly. “Give me the keys, Martine. Unless, of course, you prefer me to find them myself. I will, you know.”

She hesitated for a moment, both defiant and frightened. But she knew that he meant what he was saying, and she certainly didn’t want the indignity of a search.

“Why?”

“You’ve got two seconds to hand them over, Martine.”

She reached into her pocket and handed him the keys. “Get in,” he repeated.

“No.”

She found herself hoisted into the truck. Seconds later he was speeding along the road.

“Kane, you’re going to have to let me out of this truck sometime,” she drawled at last with all the cool disdain she could muster. “
Kane
! Just let me out! You can go search for your stinking gold. …” Her voice trailed away as she remembered that the “stinking gold” was in the truck.

He turned, flashing her a smile with no humor or warmth. “I am going to go search for the gold. So are you.”

“What?”

His eyes returned to the road. “You’re so determined to know what’s going on, I’m going to let you find out. But you see, I can’t—not unless I can find the gold. So we’ll go together.”

Martine swallowed nervously. “I told you, I don’t care what’s going on. I just want out of it.”

“You’re my wife,” he said softly.

“No, never really!” She said challengingly. “All you wanted was the ranch. Well, according to the law, my property is yours. You’ve got your rights.”

He smiled again, interrupting her. “Rights, huh? There are only very certain and specific rights I ever wanted from you, Martine: those usually given freely with love, tenderness, devotion—and trust. Well, I don’t suppose I can beat the fact that I love you into you. And right now I’m so mad I’m not sure I care. But, beloved spouse, you are going to spend some time with me treasure hunting. Anyone who has snooped around with such dogged determination as yours deserves to be in for the finale.”

“I’m not going with you!” Martine yelled.

He smiled again—the hard smile that chilled her to the bone. “You’re coming with me.”

She held her silence for a moment, certain by his course that he meant to go by the ranch house first. With any luck someone would be around to save her.

But no one was. Kane made sure that no one would be around later, either, by writing out a note that explained they were going to camp out for a few days.

And he didn’t let her go for an instant. He was in a rare, rare temper. His anger was controlled—not once did he hurt her—but not once did he let her go as he moved through the house, collecting clothing, blankets, water, and foodstuffs.