Stay With Me (32 page)

“What’s he going to think when he comes to
town and you’re gone?”

He’d think he was right about Sarah One. “He
won’t waste time thinking about it,” she said. “He’s got the
ranch.”

“A ranch doesn’t keep a man warm at
night.”

She thought about his strong hands, his firm
thighs, his tender lips. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to
chase away the image. “He’ll probably be glad I’m gone,” she
said.

Suzanne snorted. “Don’t be a fool, Sarah.
John Beckett had the eyes of a wanting man every time he looked at
you. He’s going to go crazy when he finds out that you sneaked out
in the middle of the night.”

John woke up when Morton started growling.
Silently, he rolled out of bed and walked across the room, grabbing
his rifle off the wall on his way. With just the tip of his finger,
he edged the curtain aside.

Fog swept across the valley, obscuring his
view. John listened. Horses approached. Two riders, he thought,
working their horses hard, not even trying to be quiet. He opened
the window and stuck the barrel of his rifle out.

“Quiet, Morton,” he ordered, his voice low.
The dog paced nervously in front of the door.

The pounding of hoofs ceased. The animals
were close enough that he could hear their labored breathing but he
still couldn’t see a thing. He put his finger on the trigger.

When he heard the footsteps, he pushed his
gun out another inch. “That’s far enough. I don’t want to have to
shoot you.”

“Christ, don’t do that.”

Fred
? “Fred, what’s going on?”

“You’re not going to believe it,” Fred said,
just as he came into full view, not more than three feet from the
front door. “Let us in. We don’t have time to waste.”

John blinked his eyes. George, the loner from
the saloon, followed Fred. What the hell was going on?

He strode over to the door and whipped it
open. “This better be good,” he said. He put his gun down, struck a
match, and lit a lantern. He held it up, looking at the two men. It
was the pure look of panic in Fred’s eyes that scared him.

“What’s wrong?” John asked. “Are the
children—”

“They’re fine,” Fred said.

“What then?” John resisted the urge to shake
his friend. “Why are you with—”

“We need to get going,” George interrupted,
nodding at the door.

Christ, he’d been wanting to rip something
apart with his bare hands ever since he’d been dragged away from
Sarah’s nearly naked body. It might as well be George’s face. “What
the hell are you doing here?” John asked.

The man didn’t answer.

John turned toward Fred. “What’s he doing
here?”

George took a step forward. “My name is
George Tyler. I’m the sheriff of Bluemont, North Dakota.” The man
rubbed a hand across his chin. “My wife,” he said, his voice
softer, “was killed. Murdered. Almost six months ago. A neighbor
saw three men riding away and described them. Still, it took me
four months to track down the first one.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I didn’t have to. He was already dying. Had
consumption. Before he died, he told me about the two other men.
Guess he thought confession might help the soul. Anyway, he knew
one of them. Mitchell Dority. He said Dority…he said the bastard
forced himself on my wife before he killed her.”

John felt his anger slip away, replaced by an
overwhelming sadness for the women who had suffered. And the
husband who still suffered.

“I started tracking Dority. He managed to
keep one step ahead of me. I asked around and it didn’t take long
to learn that he and Deputy Lewis had joined up to cheat the
Indians.”

“Lewis?” John asked, hardly able to believe
it. No wonder the man had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear toward
Suzanne’s injuries. “Lewis is the third man?”

“No. I don’t think so. The man I’m tracking
is very thin, very blond, not much over thirty. I knew if I stuck
close to Lewis, I’d get Dority. I intended to give Dority the
chance to lead me to the third man.”

“Then what?”

“Then I plan to kill them both.”

John didn’t doubt it one bit. George Tyler
said it without emotion, without fear.

“I’d met Sheriff Armstrong years ago,” George
said. “I asked him to leave town, hoping that Lewis would get brave
and careless. He was happy to do it. He doesn’t think much of
Lewis.”

“No one does,” Fred said.

“Well, I made sure that Lewis didn’t have any
reason to think much of me. In fact, I made sure he thought I’d go
along with most any scheme. Just two days ago, Lewis and Dority
approached me about taking liquor out to the reservation.”

John felt the muscles in his stomach tighten
up. “Dority is back in Cedarbrook?”

“Yes.”

John looked at Fred. “We’ve got to warn Sarah
and Suzanne.”

“It’s too late,” George said.

John whirled toward the man. “What do you
mean it’s too late.”

Fred put a hand on his arm. “You’re not going
to like it, John.”

John shook him off. “I need to see Sarah,” he
said, picking up his rifle.

“Pack for a long ride,” George said.

“What?”

“Sarah and Suzanne left town earlier
tonight,” George said.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know why,” Fred said. “I do know
how. Deputy Lewis drove them.”

“Lewis? I don’t understand.”

“John,” Fred said, staring somewhere over
John’s head, “your mother asked him to.”

John felt the tightness spread from his gut
to his chest, like a wall of burning fire. “What’s my mother got to
do with this?”

“I don’t know,” George said. “I do know what
I heard Lewis tell Dority.”

“What?” John demanded.

“I saw Lewis drive his rig back to town about
an hour ago. I was about to approach when Dority emerged from the
darkness. I got close enough to overhear. Lewis told him that your
mother had asked him to drive the women to Morgansville. Dority
said something about finishing what he’d started and he rode out of
town a half hour later.”

John reached for his coat and hat, his mind
whirling. He’d underestimated his mother and now Sarah could pay
the price.

“We need to get to Dority before he gets to
the women,” George said.

John reached for a box of bullets. “I’ll kill
the bastard myself if he touches Sarah.”

“Get your horse,” Fred said, opening the
door. “We’re going to need to ride hard.”

***

Sarah woke up when the chamber pot skidded
across the wooden floor. It hit the far wall with a thump. She
turned over in bed and the moonlight shining in the window offered
just enough light that she could see Mitchell Dority standing over
Suzanne’s bed.

“Well, well. Looks like my lucky night,”
Dority said. He reached down and splayed his hand across Suzanne’s
neck, effectively pinning her to the bed. He stared at Sarah. “Two
for the price of one.”

Sarah scrambled to sit up. Dority laughed, an
ugly wicked sneer. “Don’t bother,” he said. “I like my women on
their backs.”

Sarah knew she’d die first. “Help. Help us,”
she screamed.

“Scream all you want,” Dority said. “There
ain’t nobody else staying in this place. I checked the guest
register. Right before I took my pleasure with that sweet little
thing sitting behind the desk.”

“You bastard,” Sarah cried. “She was just a
girl.”

Dority stood up, reached over, and slapped
her so hard her head bounced off the headboard.

“Sarah.” Suzanne tried to climb out of bed
but Dority whirled, pulled a knife from his belt, and pressed the
blade against her throat.

“Get up,” he said to Sarah. “Come over
here.”

She didn’t move.

“Do it or I’ll slit her throat.”

Sarah pushed her legs over the side of the
bed. She took five steps.

Dority grabbed the sheet off Suzanne’s bed
and with the flick on his wrist, sliced it three times. He threw it
at Sarah. “Rip it,” he said.

Her hands shook so badly that she could
barely hold the material.

“Do it,” he yelled. He pressed the knife into
Suzanne’s throat.

Sarah ripped. When she had three strips,
Dority motioned her towards the bed. “Tie her hands and feet. Tie
them tight.”

Sarah took a step forward. If she could get
close enough to knock the knife out of his hand, they might have a
chance. “Give me your wrists, Suzanne,” she said. When Suzanne held
out her arms, Sarah squeezed one hand before wrapping the sheet
around.

“Tighter,” Dority said, pushing the knife
against Suzanne’s throat. Sarah saw a thin line of fresh blood. She
pulled the sheet tight and knotted it.

“Now her feet,” Dority ordered.

When Sarah finished, Dority grabbed the
remaining cloth, sliced a section off, wadded it up, and stuck it
in Suzanne mouth. She gagged.

“She’s choking,” Sarah cried.

Dority laughed. He leaned close to Suzanne’s
face. “I should have killed you when I had the chance. Now, you lay
back and watch while I have some fun with your friend.”

***

John rode his horse like he’d never ridden
him before, crashing through the dense fog, sometimes barely able
to see fifty feet ahead. He gave his horse plenty of rein, trusting
in the animal’s surefootedness. After an hour, the stifling white
fog dissipated and the trio continued on, through the still, black
night, lit only by a few stars and a quarter moon. Their horses
flew across the rough ground, as if the animals, too, somehow
realized that seconds counted and caution was a luxury they could
ill afford.

John tried to stay focused. He couldn’t think
about Dority, couldn’t let himself wonder at the damage and pain a
man like Dority could cause. He certainly couldn’t let himself
remember how poor Suzanne’s face had looked and how much worse it
might have been had Sarah, foolish, sweet Sarah, not rushed in and
saved her friend.

So he thought about Sarah’s face. Her pretty
skin, the light freckles on her pert little nose, the deep, clear
blue of her eyes, and the sexy dimple next to her mouth. He thought
about the softness of her hands, the hands that had washed his
naked body. He thought about the silkiness of her hair when he’d
run his hands through it, and he thought about the sweetness of her
lips when he’d kissed her.

He could see her at the saloon, her hands
flying over the piano keys, a smiling dancing in her eyes. And as
clear as if she sat in front of him, he could remember the pure joy
on her face the day he’d taken her up in the mountains.

The day he’d realized he loved her.

He kicked his horse, urging the animal on. If
Dority had touched her, had caused her even a moment of pain or
anguish, he would pay.

“There’s the hotel,” George said.

It was the first word any of the men had
spoken for three hours.

“That’s Dority’s rig,” Fred said.

John was out of his saddle before his horse
had fully stopped. He took the two hotel steps in one leap and
threw open the door.

He smelled the blood before he saw it.

George pushed past him and leaned over the
counter. “Christ,” he said.

Fred and John looked. A girl, no more than
eighteen, naked from the waist down, blood smeared on the inside of
her thighs, lay on her back, her eyes closed. George moved around
the end of the counter and squatted down. He placed two fingers
against the pulse in her neck.

“Is she dead?” Fred asked.

“No.” George gently touched her face, turning
her head to the side. “She’s got a hell of a bump on her head.
Probably knocked her out.”

“Before or after?” Fred asked, his voice
thick with disgust.

“I don’t know,” George said.

“We’ve got to find Sarah,” John said, already
moving. He didn’t get more than two steps before he heard her
scream.

“Upstairs,” he said, taking off at a dead
run. He made it halfway before he heard another half-scream and
then the dull thud of weight hitting the floor.

He took the last eight steps, Fred and George
on his heels, then kicked open the door. He saw Suzanne first, her
ankles and wrists bound, lying on the bed. She looked scared to
death but otherwise unharmed.

Then he saw Sarah. She lay on the floor, five
feet away from Dority, her body, dressed in white undergarments,
curled up into a ball. Dority stood over her, a knife in his
hand.

“I’ve got Dority,” George said, his gun
pointed right at the man’s heart.

Dority stood perfectly still, his mouth
hanging open, like he couldn’t believe he’d been caught.

“Sarah?” John cried, praying that he wasn’t
too late, that she wasn’t dead.

And then, miracle of miracles, she lifted her
head, turned her face to him and gave him a wobbly smile.

He crossed the room, knelt down and gathered
her in his arms. She buried her face into his chest. She felt warm
and alive and he thought his heart might burst. Wrapping his arms
around her, he rested his chin on her head, and breathed in the
sweet scent of her hair.

“Oh, Sarah,” he said. “Oh, sweetheart. Are
you hurt? Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head but her body began to
tremble. He could feel the moistness from her tears on his shirt.
Not sure what else to do, he patted her back. He looked over at
Fred. His friend had untied Suzanne and now he sat on the bed with
Suzanne in his lap. Together, the two of them rocked back and
forth, back and forth.

“It’s over, Sarah,” John said. “I won’t let
him hurt you. Ever again. Come on, sweetheart. Look at me.”

He pulled back and cupped her face. That’s
when he saw the red welt on her cheek, the unmistakable mark of an
angry man’s palm against soft skin. He reeled away from her and
raised his gun toward Dority. “You son of a bitch. I’m going
to—”