Tag, You're It! (21 page)

"Isn't it?"

"Put. This. On."

"I'm perfectly covered," she said.

"And leaving nothing to the imagination."

From behind them, Franky made a wolf whistle.

Alex laughed, but when she spoke again her voice had an edge to it. "The imagination is highly overrated. I prefer the straightforward approach."

"What you see is what you get?"

"More like what you see is what there is."

"But keep your hands off? That's a game, too, one of the oldest."

Alex plucked her shirt out of his hand and replaced it in her back pocket. "I took my shirt off because I'm hot. You're the one who's making this into something else."

"You ought to be a damn politician," Tag muttered.

"I spent my childhood in Boston society, followed by eighteen months on the pageant circuit. I am a politician."

She clambered onto a pile of rocks and stood there, one hand on her hip, the other shading her eyes. If she was tryto piss him off it was working. Then she dropped her arms, and something about the tension in her body spelled excitement. Not the kind of excitement he'd been feeling since she took off her shirt. But the look on her face when she turned around made him forget about sex—okay, not entirely, but at the least the boil cooled back to a simmer.

She beckoned him, and he climbed up behind her. There wasn't much room; he had to plaster himself against her in order not to fall, looking over her shoulder so he could follow the direction of her pointing finger. The fact that she didn't object, that she'd completely forgotten their argument, was pretty compelling.

"There, do you see it?" she asked him.

"What is it?" Mick wanted to know.

"That rock formation at the head of the valley," Alex said.

"It looks like—"

"
La
Cruz de Piedra
. Cross of Stone." She scrambled down, covering the last five hundred yards at a near-run.

Tag was about a second behind, the two of them stopping at the end of a cross with three short arms and one long one, each about two feet wide, measuring about twenty-five feet in total length. It was made up of all different types and textures of rock, some smooth from being carried out of the mountains in a long, dried-up stream, others rough.

"This has to be man-made," Tag said.

Alex was already moving rocks. "Definitely," she said, adding when Mick and Franky arrived, "don't just stand there and watch. Either the treasure is under these rocks or we can rule out this site."

The possibility of downtime, one way or another, was all the incentive Franky needed. He and Mick began to heave rocks, forgetting they were supposed to be adversaries. Once they got about half the cross dismantled, Tag and Mick set to work digging. It only took a couple more hours to decide there was nothing there—and work off the gold fever. They stood there in silence a moment, night falling, dejection setting in.

"This doesn't make any sense," Alex said, slapping at a mosquito. "Why would Juan make this cross for no reason?"

"He had a reason," Tag said. "But it doesn't necessarily follow that he buried gold here. The Spanish were rampantly Catholic. This could be nothing more than a profession of faith."

Alex swung around and stared at him. Mick joined her in her consternation.

Franky had a one-track mind. "Does that mean we can go back to town?"

"We can go back to camp, at least."

They headed back down the valley, Mick and Franky lagging behind, not caring if they were in on the conversation.

"There are four more sites marked on the map," Tag said quietly.

"It's not Denver," Alex said. "Even if Juan would have hidden the treasure that close to a settlement, we'd never find it after all the growth around the city since 1859. Same goes for Casteel."

"Was the town that big then?"

"Probably not, but it was a big enough settlement to make it dicey for him to hide anything there without someone stumbling across him. And it would have been found by now anyway. Nobody knows where Juan lived, exactly, but he spent a lot of time in Casteel. There have been more holes dug around that town than there are in Franky's head."

She said that loud enough to carry back.

"Hey," Franky yelled, "why you gotta say things like that?"

"Gosh, I don't know, you kidnapped me?"

"You ain't the only one been inconvenienced, you know."

"Inconvenienced?" She stopped and turned around, planting her hands on her hips. "That's what you call this?"

"Everybody's tired," Mick said. "Let's get back to camp, have something to eat, get some sleep."

"I don't get to sleep," Franky grumbled, "that's a inconvenience."

"Listening to you whine is an inconvenience," Alex said. "You not getting to sleep is poetic justice."

Franky opened his mouth, but the next sound they heard was a gunshot.

ANOTHER SHOT RIPPED THROUGH THE STILLNESS, rolling through the hills like thunder. Tag and Alex ducked behind a handy rock. Mick and Franky hit the ground about thirty feet away, behind a rock of their own.

"Which way did it come from?" Mick asked.

"No telling, the way it echoed," Tag said.

It was big country, big enough to lose the entire population of Denver. Tag hadn't realized that until they got out there, the landscape rolling off into the distance like a rumcloth, no matter which way you looked. A whole army could be hiding in the hills around them and they'd never know.

Even if he hadn't known that most of the other treasure hunters had stuck closer to Casteel or gone in a different direction, it seemed impossible that someone had stumbled upon them by chance. But not improbable that someone would have tracked them on purpose.

Another shot rang out. The sound bounced around like before, but it was easier to pinpoint now that they were ready for it.

"1 think it came from up ahead," Alex said.

"Between us and camp."

"Yeah. I didn't hear the bullet hit anywhere nearby, and I'd imagine whoever's out there is a pretty good shot. Probably a signal."

Probably for Dussaud, Tag thought. Alex proved to be right about their aim. Tag was wrong about their identity.

"Hallo," a man called out.

Alex's expression changed, starting with an eye roll and ending with a heavy sigh.

"You know who that is?"

"Yeah. So do you. Rusty Hale."

Tag thought about it a minute, then repeated her eye roll. "Your cowboy in town? The one you think got Jackass drunk?"

"Sounds like him. And knowing Rusty, he's not alone." Alex waved an arm. "Rusty?" she called out.

"Alex. Hoo-eeee," he yelled back, "I told you boys it was Alex Scott, alive and well and looking for the Lost Spaniard."

She gave Tag one last I-told-you-so look and got to her feet. Tag joined her.

Mick and Franky stayed behind their rock, but Tag heard the distinctive sound of a gun cocking, coming from that general direction. He and Alex shouldn't have been the ones in those particular crosshairs, but the spot between Tag's shoulder blades started to tingle. You never could tell with Franky.

He glanced at Alex. "Damned if we do, damned if we don't."

"You do love those pithy sayings, don't you?"

"It seems to sum up the situation pretty well."

"But it doesn't make me feel any better."

"Friends of yours?" Mick asked, still behind his rock.

"Not really," Alex said.

"Then I suggest you move it or lose it."

"Now there's a saying I can get behind." Alex edged off to one side, giving Mick and Franky a clear shot.

That wasn't enough for Tag. He hooked a finger in the waistband of her jeans and towed her backward, so they were behind their kidnappers—who were suddenly their protectors, much as he hated to admit it.

"Say something to him," Mick told Alex.

"No."

"Say something, dammit."

"Promise you won't shoot him."

Mick didn't make any promises, he didn't look at her, but his shoulders slumped for a second before he squared them. Tag knew just how he felt.

"I'm not gonna shoot him. I just want him to know he's got some competition."

"Competition for him is a guy who can stay on a really mean bull longer than he can."

"Fine, so I want him to know I have a gun. I'm not planon using it on him."
Unless he makes me
. Mick didn't finish the sentence, but they all knew how it ended. Including Rusty.

Alex called out to him. He walked toward her, rifle carefully held out to one side. When Mick and Franky stood up from behind their rock, his step faltered, but only for a moment.

"Hired muscle?"

"Something like that," Alex said.

Rusty's smile lost a bit of its charm. "Sorry about the noise," he said. "I was just taking potshots at lizards, y'know, keeping in practice."

"You were signaling to your buddies," Tag said.

Rusty made to spread his hands in an "aw-shucks" manner. Mick and Franky didn't like the fact that he was still holding a rifle when he did it.

"Whoa," he said when two pistols were leveled at him. "I'm not here to cause any trouble."

"What about your friends?" Mick asked.

Rusty tried a smile, gave it up when it didn't work on the "hired muscle."

"Come on out, fellas," he said.

Three men appeared out of the rocks behind Rusty, who wasn't the least embarrassed by his own scheming." 'Course now that we stumbled across you folks," he said, "you won't mind if we tag along."

"I mind," Franky said.

"Seems to me Alex is in charge here," Rusty said.

"We're in charge," Tag corrected. "I mind if you tag along. Alex?"

She hesitated.

"I know what you're thinking," Tag said under his breath, "but do you really want these guys having a shoot-out with us in the middle, unarmed?"

She flashed him a resentful look, but she made the only decision she could. "I thought I made myself clear in town a few days ago," she said to Rusty.

"You sure about that, Alex? You might be thankful for our help some of these days. We ain't the only ones shadowing you."

"How many?" Tag asked.

"Don't know. At least four."

"How long?"

Rusty lifted a shoulder. "They were here when we got here, just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. We figured they were waiting on something, and that something was probably you."

Tag exchanged a look with Mick.

Rusty didn't miss it. "We'd be glad to hook up with you, provide a little additional… insurance."

"We've got all the insurance we need," Mick said. "It would be in your best interest to move along."

"Well, now, it's a free country—"

"Not always," Mick said. "Think about how high a price you want to pay before you get too close next time."

"JESUS, IT'S A FREAKING PARADE," FRANKY SAID.

They'd broken camp that morning at daybreak and set off for the next site marked on Juan's map. Every now and then Rusty and his pals appeared at the top of a hill at the same time Alex, Tag, Mick, and Franky topped a hill. Ground distance-wise they were about a mile ahead. As the crow flies they were within rifle range. It was making them all edgy, but Franky had proven himself particularly susceptible to edgy. And when he was edgy he talked. A lot.

That gave Alex ideas.

"By tomorrow this place will be crawling with hicks like that."

"Let 'em come," Mick said. "What do we care?"

He had a point, Alex thought. Rusty and his friends weren't so bad as shadows went. If it had been Junior and his goons trailing them, the gunfire probably wouldn't have been a wake-up call so much as a get-dead call.

If they found the treasure it might come down to that anyway. Rusty and company were only hanging back to see if the Lost Spaniard got found. If they found the Lost Spaniard Mick and Franky weren't going to let them keep it. The smart thing would be to run like hell and let the guys with the guns shoot it out, winner take all. But it was her sweat, and Tag's, that would have made it possible; the idea of having it stolen out from under them ticked her off. There had to be a way to prevent it.

She would have loved to discuss the problem with Tag, but they couldn't exactly make plans with their kidnappers listening in. Even if he hadn't made that clear, she'd have figured out that much for herself. What puzzled her was the way he was acting. And if she was completely honest with herself, it was the "nothing personal" that stuck in her craw.

What did Tag care if Mick and Franky knew they were closer than partners? Hell, what would Mick and Franky care if they knew she'd slept with Tag? It wouldn't make a difference in their search for the Lost Spaniard, right?

She was missing something. Something important. And it wasn't just the strange and troubling symbiosis between Tag and Mick, the way they seemed to silently concur when there was a decision to be made. There was a subtext riding below the surface of every happenstance and every conversation that had taken place since she'd met Tag Donovan.

And now he was watching his words and guarding his expressions, and she wasn't quite sure how to get through to him.

Mick and Franky were another story, or at least Franky was. They were definitely keeping secrets, and she hadn't missed the way Mick stepped in every time Franky started to lose it. Or Tag did—another mystery that kept her mind spinning and her stomach churning.

What she felt for Tag… She'd fought it, but there was no getting around the fact that she had feelings for him. And she'd taken enough college psychology to know she was using sarcasm and bitchiness to try to push him away because she was afraid. He'd destroyed her defenses so quickly, wormed his way into her heart so deeply that she didn't know what she would do if she discovered he'd been lying to her. And considering how their relationship had started, and how it had progressed so far, she figured there was a better than even chance that he was.

If she had any sense she'd cooperate and keep her eyes and ears closed. But she couldn't allow fear to blind her to the truth. She'd lived through Bennet Harper, she could live through Tag Donovan if she had to. Letting a man, any man, destroy her again wasn't an option. Neither was passivity.

The sooner they searched the last two sites the sooner this thing would be over, she told herself. She could get back to her life without having lost more than a couple of weeks. And there, she thought, was a lie worthy of Tag Donovan. There was no going back to her old life after this. With or without him.

They'd moved due east this time. The Rockies were still a beautiful, very dominant backdrop to the scenery, but they were moving farther into the foothills. There were fewer patches of bare rock and more wild grasses and spring flowers. And there were fewer obvious landmarks.

The area was far from flat, the land stretching away like a big wrinkled carpet as far as the eye could see. They reined in at the top of a hill and stared out at the landscape, all having the same thought—or at least three of them were. Franky was gazing at the sky, looking like he was contemthe meaning of life. Or sleeping with his eyes open. The rest of them were coming down from the previous day's high and realizing just how daunting and impossible the search really was.

"So what now?" Tag asked.

"This is going to be a challenge," Alex said dryly.

"And the last one was a piece of cake?" Mick said.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he'd rather abandon the search, but she had a feeling he'd say yes, and she wanted to give this a fair shot before they up and quit. Otherwise she'd wonder for the rest of her life if they were inches from the treasure and had allowed themselves to be intimidated by poor odds.

"I guess we spread out and see what we can find."

"Don't spread out permanently," Mick warned, his hand on his shoulder holster.

Alex didn't entirely buy the threat, but when bullets were involved there wasn't a lot of margin for error. Besides which, Franky had a gun, too, and Franky wasn't what you'd call a stable personality. That was enough to keep her on the obedient side of the line. As long as it suited her purposes.

They spread out a little and rode forward, watching the ground for anything likely. This time it was Franky who stumbled across the place, literally. His mare caught a hoof and went down to her front knees, pitching Franky over her head. He started cussing and yelling; they all went racing over and found him on his ass in the dirt, his mare grazing serenely about fifteen yards away.

"Stupid horse tripped," he said, giving his mare a look that had Jackass sidling over to stand in front of her.

"Anything broken?" Alex asked hopefully.

"No, but my ass hurts." Franky gingerly got to his feet and patted himself down, hissing in a breath and bringing his right palm about an inch from his face. "And I got a sliver."

Mick rolled his eyes, but Alex jumped off Jackass and hunkered down a couple of feet from Franky.

"I think this is something," she said, brushing carefully at the dirt with her fingers.

"This decayed log?" Tag asked, squatting down beside her.

She met his gaze, nodded. He flashed that easy grin of his, and her heart lurched. But it was more than her heart, it went deeper. Just for a second she felt like they were together, a couple, on the same wavelength. And then the stupid filter fell off, the picture snapped back into focus, and he was just a guy who was in her life until… until he wasn't anymore. She could either obsess about it or take it as it came.

"I don't think it's just a decayed log," Alex said, getting to her feet and pacing the length of it, half stooped over so that when another decayed log intersected it at a right angle she saw it. By the time she was done, she'd paced a square roughly fifty feet on a side that brought her back to where Tag was standing.