The Tracker (7 page)

“That’ll leave us defenseless!” Hugh looked worried.

Nick fired his pistol again, nicking Hugh’s ear. “Die now or later. It makes no difference to me. But I will have your guns.”

Their eyes wide with fear, they scrambled to their horses and pulled the rifles from their holsters. Fat Pete set his on the ground immediately, but Hugh whirled around, raising his rifle.

Nick fired, hitting Hugh in the hand. The miner’s rifle dropped to the dirt and he clutched his bleeding hand.

Ellie winced. She moved a step further away from Nick.

Hugh quickly laid his rifle in the dirt next to Fat Pete’s. He clutched his wounded hand to his chest. “There, you got it. Now don’t shoot no more!”

“Get on your horses and ride,” Nick ordered. “If I see either of you again, I won’t be so generous. I will kill you.”

Neither argued. Fat Pete helped Hugh up on his horse and then mounted his. They rode off without a backward glance.

Nick kept his gaze on the riders, but he was aware that Ellie stared with horror. He’d cultivated and encouraged the legends about himself because he’d wanted people to be afraid of him. Fear made his job easier.

But seeing Ellie’s naked apprehension troubled him deeply.

“Is what they said true?” she asked.

“Enough of it.”

“You aren’t a marshal.”

“No.”

A wrinkle furrowed her brow. “How do I know you’re not working with Frank?”

“You don’t.”

L
ATER THAT EVENING
as Ellie folded Rose’s freshly laundered clothes, she mentally cataloged what she needed to take when she and Rose left.

There wasn’t much, of course. A bottle, a few cans of milk, three baby gowns and the twenty dollars she’d earned these last few months. She owned the dress she wore and a store-bought one Annie had given her. She’d never worn the blue calico because it had just seemed too fancy for her, but she’d cherished the gift nonetheless.

In truth, there wasn’t much she and Rose truly needed. As long as they had each other, they’d manage.

Nick’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I would never hurt you.”

Ellie started and looked up. He stood by the stove, a cup of coffee in his hand. He stared at her. Self-consciously she wondered what had caught his attention and then she realized she’d been sorting the laundry—a pile to keep and a pile to leave behind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked away but could still feel his gaze on her. Color flooded her cheeks as she put the piles into one stack and carried them to the chest by her bed. Absently she smoothed the wrinkles from the clothes Rose would never wear again.

Nick set his cup down. Lantern light flickered on the hard planes of his face. “I am the best hunter there is, Ellie.”

“Why should I care about that?”

“Because you are planning to leave.” His voice was smooth, unemotional and lethal.

Guilt and fear gnawed at her as she moved to the oven to pull out a loaf of freshly baked bread. She didn’t mean to leave Annie, but Fat Pete had called him “The Tracker” and Rose had to come first.

In such a rush to pretend nothing was wrong, she didn’t double fold her hot mitt. The scorching pan burned through to her fingers. She hissed and dropped the pan on the cook top.

Nick dampened a cloth with cool water and limped toward her.

She blew on her fingertips. “That’s ridiculous. How far would I get with a baby?”

He wrapped the wet cloth around her fingers. “You made it here all the way from Butte. I didn’t
find you sooner because I underestimated you. I won’t misjudge your determination again.”

The pain in her fingertips coupled with frustration and fear brought sudden hot tears to her eyes. “I’ve told you, I don’t have the gold. Good Lord, if I did have that kind of money, do you think that I’d be in a coach station working twelve hours a day?”

He turned her hand over. Her fingertips were red. Gently he held her hand above the washbasin and poured water from a pitcher over it. The throbbing in her fingers eased. She tried to pull her hand away but he held tight. “You are smart. I won’t deny that.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means you are patient. Perhaps you are waiting for Frank and people like me to forget about the money.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s been my experience that people don’t
forget
about twenty thousand dollars. I saw a man shot in cold blood once for fifty cents. You can bet if I had the money I’d have bought a ticket to someplace very, very far from Montana.”

He absorbed what she said. “You have always lived in Montana. It makes sense you wouldn’t stray too far from it.”

His hand was warm, callused. “The only thing Montana has given me is long days filled with hard work.”

“Better to stay with the devil you know than the devil you don’t know,” he said softly. “It is hard to leave one’s home.”

She pulled her hand away, not liking the way her heart hammered in her chest when he touched her. “If I had twenty thousand dollars, I’d find it in me to leave.”

He stared at her as if he were trying to read her thoughts. “Yes, I believe that you would.”

The baby fussed and Ellie moved away from him, grateful for the reprieve. She picked the child up, savoring the soft scent of her skin. Rose calmed her nerves. Ellie warmed a bottle she’d already made up and teased the baby’s lips open with the nipple. The gentle scent of milk wafted around her.

Nick folded his arms over his chest. His face held as much expression as a wall of granite. “How old are you, Ellie?”

“Nineteen, I think, this past spring.”

He frowned. “You’re not sure?”

“Adeline didn’t bother with records when one of her girls gave birth.”

“Your mother worked at the Silver Slipper, as well?” He sounded surprised.

“Ma arrived at the Silver Slipper two years before I was born, but she’d worked a dozen different saloons in Montana since she was twelve.”

“How old were you when she died?”

“Six.”

“And Miss Adeline kept you?”

“I didn’t have any family and Miss Adeline thought I’d be of help in the kitchens.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

She sighed. “I thought about it enough, but I didn’t know where I’d go. At the Silver Slipper, I knew I’d at least be able to get a good meal and have a bed to sleep in each night.” She pulled the bottle from Rose’s mouth and checked to see how much she’d eaten. “And there was an old man I worked with in the kitchen, Chin Lo. We got on well and in his way he looked after me. As I got older, I talked to him about the both of us leaving, but he said he was too old to start over. So I stayed with him. He died about five months ago.”

“What do you mean, he looked after you?”

“If a customer got out of hand with me, Chin Lo would slip him something to make him sick or sleep.”

“Did you love him?”

“I don’t know. I suppose.”

Nick was silent for a moment. “When did you move to the upstairs work?”

Ellie laid Rose on her shoulder and patted her back. Everyone assumed Ellie was a whore. There’d
been a time when she’d watch the proper ladies in town and try to copy their speech and the way they walked. But no matter how much she’d tried to be like a lady, no one thought any better of her. “
When
doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I suppose not.”

She could have told him that she’d never worked the upstairs rooms. Lord knew the money was better. But his assumption made her mad. She didn’t feel as though she had to justify anything to Nick.

Ellie had decided when she was a young girl to guard that part of her that was only hers to give. Women had so little and it pained her to see them sell their souls for a couple of bits.

Nick sat in the chair by the stove, easing the pressure on his leg. He didn’t say anything to her for the next half hour as she finished the baby’s feeding. She wrapped up the last of her evening chores and locked the front door as she did every night. Leaving didn’t mean she’d shirk today’s chores. She’d give Annie her due until the moment she left.

She laid Rose in the cradle in the main room. Nick rose and walked to his room. As she stood, she didn’t notice Nick approach with the handcuffs until it was too late. He clicked a cuff closed over her wrist.

Before she could speak, the second bracelet clinked closed—around Nick’s wrist.

She jerked at the handcuff. “What have you done?”

There was triumph in his eyes but no satisfaction. “I won’t get much sleep if I’m worried about you running. Now I don’t have to worry.”

She twisted the cuff. “I never said I was going to run.”

“You didn’t have to.” His voice was whisper soft. “I just knew.”

“You can’t do this to me.”

He shrugged. “I believe that I have.”

Panic welled inside her at the thought of lying beside him in bed all night. “No!”

Her outburst startled the baby and Rose began to cry. Automatically, Ellie reached for her, but she found her right wrist immobile.

“I can’t care for my daughter if I’m shackled to you!”

His gaze pinned her. “We will have to work together, I suppose.”

The baby continued to wail.

“But what about my chores during the day? And my visits to the necessary?”

“We will be shackled only for the nights. In the day, I can watch you.”

“No, no, no.”

“The baby needs you,” he said.

His complete control only stoked her temper. She pulled her fist back, ready to hit him square in the jaw.

Nick’s reflexes were too fast for her. He caught her hand easily. “Do not try that again, Ellie.”

The glint of steel in his eyes sent a chill down her spine. “I should have let you die.”

Sadness and regret flickered in his eyes. “Pick up the baby. She needs her mother.”

Swallowing, Ellie reached for her child. Nick moved with her, giving the chain the slack she needed. His hard shoulder brushed hers and she could feel his warm breath on her neck.

As she rubbed the baby’s back, she prayed for the courage to get her child out of this mess safe and sound. Finally, Rose’s eyes drifted shut and she fell back to sleep.

“She will sleep the night through, I think,” Nick said. “That is good. We will need the rest.”

Ellie faced Nick. “It’s not practical for us to spend all night sitting up.”

“We won’t. We will lie in the bed together.”

“But the bed isn’t big enough for the two of us. I could accidentally kick you in my sleep and reopen your wound.”

“I run a greater risk of injury chasing you through the night on horseback than sleeping with you.”

Her cheeks flushed with anger. “Don’t bet on it.”

N
ICK DECIDED
Ellie had more spirit in her than many of the soldiers he’d served with in the army and the outlaws he’d tracked. He understood her desperation and he’d liked to have accommodated her. But he could not afford to lose her now.

She probably didn’t know where the money was. A practical woman, she would have used the money to get as far away from Montana as she could if she’d had the means.

It pleased him that she didn’t have anything to do with the money. He wanted to believe she was an innocent in all this—that she’d never lied to him. She had pride and honor and he admired that.

But Frank Palmer didn’t know that. He’d never believe that the gold’s location had most likely died with Jade. Frank would believe that Ellie knew where it was. And soon he would come.

“I am tired,” he said truthfully.

She glanced from his face to the bedroom door. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

He lifted his wrist shackled to her. “You don’t have much of a choice, do you?”

“I’m not going.”

He reached for the baby. “She’ll want to sleep with her ma.”

Ellie brushed his hands aside and picked the baby up.

He picked up the cradle with his free arm, held out his arm and nodded toward the door. When she didn’t budge, he took her arm in his and half dragged, half pushed her to the bedroom.

She stumbled over the threshold. He set the cradle down and she laid the baby in it. She faced him as if ready to fight, but he saw the panic in her eyes. “What if I need to go to the outhouse?”

“I’ll go with you.”

She looked mortified. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

“This is awful!”

They could argue all night. Nick sat on the bed, forcing Ellie to sit. She tried to remain on the edge, her feet planted on the ground, but as he scooted toward the center, she had no choice but to follow.

The small mattress, stuffed with hay, was lumpy. Its size forced them to lie on their sides—she facing the outside, he spooned behind her, his manacled arm resting on her rounded hip. His weight mashed the bedding down and she slid back into him.

Her tight bottom pressed against him, reminding him that he’d been on the trail far too long. Her hair
was the color of fire, yet as soft as butter. It brushed his cheek. He imagined it caught the sunlight and curled when it was freshly washed.

Nick sighed. He was taking himself down a dangerous path. Ellie was a job and nothing more. A tumble between the sheets would be pleasant—real pleasant—but the complications later wouldn’t be.

Her breathing was quick and her body tight with tension. “I warn you, Mr. Nick Baron, if you try anything, I will bite and kick you.”

He had no doubt she could be quite a hellcat. “I’m too tired and too sore to try much of anything, Ellie. Get some sleep.”

She drummed her fingers on the mattress. “You’ve lied to me before.”

His lips were close to her ear. “As I remember, you’d just shot me and I was bleeding to death.”

“So we are back to that again.”

He sighed. “Go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.”

She tried to wiggle away but only managed to bump her bottom against his manhood. Sleep wouldn’t find him anytime soon, either. “Try.”

They lay in the dark for a good while before Ellie’s breathing slowed. Despite her best efforts, her body was beyond exhaustion. She drifted off to sleep.

But sleep didn’t come easily for him. Nick propped his head on his hand and then pushed a stray curl off her face. Pale moonlight streamed through the window above their heads, highlighting her red curls.

So young.

Nick guessed Ellie hadn’t worked Miss Adeline’s upstairs rooms long. Her eyes didn’t possess the hardened glint of the experienced whores who’d been sitting in the parlor when he’d arrived at the Silver Slipper looking for Frank.

Many of the women at the brothel had been attractive. Adeline had a reputation for hiring the prettiest girls. But he’d not been drawn to the women in the seductive silk dresses. It was the fluff of calico that had bumped into him by the back door that had stirred his imagination these last months on the trail.

He couldn’t shake Ellie from his thoughts.

And he couldn’t say why.

Some might have called her plain, with her wild red hair and the ringlets that framed her face. Her eyes seemed to swallow her face. Her lips, so full and red, added a seductive quality that he found very intriguing. He’d wanted to know what those lips tasted like. He still did.

Her delicate skin had yet to be marked by the sun, years of drinking or too much tobacco. But those days would come. In her profession, thirty was old.

She flinched each time he touched her. No doubt, her experiences at the Silver Slipper hadn’t been pleasant. He thought of other men kissing those lips and felt a flash of temper.

Nick captured a strand of her hair between his fingers. Silk. She tried to keep the curls bound at the back of her neck, but they had a life of their own. They wouldn’t be subdued.