When The Heart Beckons (25 page)

“Who are you?” Brett called sharply, and
then, as he focused in on Annabel, his mouth fell open.

“
Annabel?
”

“Yes, Brett, it’s me,” she chimed out
happily, nearly breathless with excitement. “I’ve been searching
for you all over Arizona—I’ll explain it all, but first, here’s Roy
Steele, he’s been looking for you, too. We want to ...”

“Steele?”

“Yes, Roy Steele. He’s come to help you
...”

“Why?”

Annabel faltered at the wary suspicion in
Brett’s voice. He seemed so different, not at all like the
carefree, high-spirited friend who had sneaked into Gertie’s
kitchen with her in the middle of the night on more than one
occasion to raid the pantry. He seemed tense, high-strung, and very
ready to shoot Steele at the slightest provocation.

She went on quickly, “Put the gun down, for
heaven’s sake. What’s the matter with you? Steele owes you a favor,
and he heard you were in some trouble with Red Cobb and he wanted
to—”

“I’ve never met him before in my life.”

A dull roar pounded through Annabel’s ears.
She turned white. “
What?
” Sharply, she turned her head to
stare at Roy Steele. He hadn’t moved, but sat perfectly still and
at ease, his hat half hiding his face. To all appearances cool and
unperturbed, he silently watched the young man who was pointing the
rifle at his chest.

Brett’s eyes narrowed. He was sweating, his
blue and green plaid shirt sticking to his chest and arms, but for
all his uneasiness, he glared ferociously at the tall,
broad-shouldered rider, regarding him with angry suspicion.

“Annabel, ride over here to the other side
of these rocks. Get away from him—now.”

“But ...”

Suddenly, the truth hit her. Roy Steele had
lied to her, lied about knowing Brett, about Brett having done him
a good turn, about his reason for tracking Brett McCallum all over
two territories. And she had believed him, bought his phony story,
and practically escorted him right to Brett’s feet.

He was in cahoots with Red Cobb—he
wanted to kill Brett, too.

She whirled Sunrise about and fumbled for
the derringer in the pocket of her skirt. “Liar!” she gasped,
hardly able to speak for the agony surging through her, filling her
with blind, sickened rage. “Bastard! Everything you told me was a
stinking lie!”

“Get away from him, Annabel!” Brett shouted
again, but before she could move, Steele spoke in a quiet tone.

“Brett. It’s me.”

Brett froze as those three softly spoken
words seemed to echo and tumble through the wall of boulders. His
grip on the rifle slackened, and he almost dropped it.

He leaned forward, staring hard.

“
Cade?
” His skin turned ashen
beneath its bronze tan and stubble. A muscle twitched wildly in his
jaw. “No, no, it can’t be,” he muttered, half to himself. Then,
hope squeaking into his voice: “Is it? Cade—is it ...
you
?”

“Guilty as charged.”

Steele’s dark, brawny figure blurred before
Annabel’s eyes, then regained focus. She gave her head a dazed
shake, trying to take in what she’d just heard.

But Brett needed no more time to react. He
leaped down from the rock, tossed the rifle into the grass, and
threw himself toward the man on the horse.

At the same time, Steele slid out of the
saddle and opened his arms to his brother.

They embraced tight and hard. Annabel
watched in soundless incredulity as Brett wept, alternately shaking
and hugging the older brother whom he hadn’t seen in thirteen
years.

“How did this happen? How did you find me
... and you’ve hooked up with Annabel! I can’t believe this.”

“Well, your betrothed needed an escort and I
figured you needed someone to save your reckless hide.”

“Betrothed?”

If before, Annabel’s world had seemed to
blur and spin, now it stood still. Rooted in the saddle, the reins
clutched limply in suddenly frozen fingers, she felt her heart
sinking all the way down into her kneecaps. Brett threw her an
astonished and richly amused glance.

“Betrothed?” he repeated, grinning, and
shook his head. His very expression drove a stake into her heart.
“Annabel, have you been making up stories again?”

Roy—Cade—spun toward her. “Making up
stories?” he demanded. The words were bitten out in a deceptively
even tone that was as comforting as a cobra’s hiss. “Do you mean
that the two of you are not engaged to be married?”

Brett burst out laughing. Annabel twisted
her fingers in her mare’s mane, her eyes locked with Steele’s. “I
can explain ...”

But she never had the chance.

The silence of the valley was shattered by
gunfire. Shots blasted from the direction of the ranch house and
Brett spun toward the sound in alarm. “Damn it, I was supposed to
be on lookout!” He grabbed his rifle from the grass. “The bastards
sneaked up while I was ...”

But they never heard the rest of the
sentence because he clambered back atop the boulders as he spoke
and his voice was drowned out by the scrape of his boots and
additional gunshots.

“Shit, they’ve got the house
surrounded!”

With one lithe movement, Cade sprang back
into the saddle. “You have a horse?”

“Up here behind some trees ...” Brett was
already bounding out of sight.

More shots quickly followed, and shouts—and
Annabel heard the thunder of hoofbeats.

Cade McCallum threw her a look of pure ice.
“Stay here with the horses. Don’t move. I’m not finished with you
yet.”

And he spurred Dickens forward to a gallop,
disappearing past the boulders and around a bend before Annabel
could reply.

Annabel dismounted, her mind racing with all
the events which had unfolded so quickly: the discovery that Roy
Steele was really Cade McCallum,
his
discovery that she
had lied about being Brett’s fiancée, and—last but certainly not
least, the incredible pleasure of seeing Brett again, of hearing
his voice, witnessing that dear familiar smile.

And now, the two men whom she felt most
strongly about in the world were both riding headlong into some
terrible danger—and she was standing here with a bunch of
horses.

“Not on your life, Steele—er, McCallum!” she
fumed, and swiftly set to work tethering the pack horses to a
juniper tree, and then fishing in her pack for the heavy Colt
revolver she’d bought in Silver Junction. When she mounted Sunrise,
she gripped the Colt in one hand.

“You’re right about one thing, Cade
McCallum. This isn’t finished, not by a long shot. And I’ll be
damned if I let anything happen to you or Brett until I’ve had a
chance to deal with the both of you.”

She dug her knees into the mare’s sides and
the horse bolted forward. Annabel settled low in the saddle and
braced herself for what lay ahead.

* * *

“
Señora
Rivers, we can end this all today! Just
sign over the deed to the Lowry Cattle Company and there’ll be no
more trouble! You folks can live here, you can keep the ranch, the
horses and corrals, even graze a few dozen head of cattle. And
you’ll be left alone. You have Mr. Lowry’s word!”

Eight men on horseback circled the ranch
house, firing, as Annabel galloped up the road, trying to catch up
with Cade. One of the riders, wearing a green flannel shirt and
brown vest, who was obviously the spokesman, was shouting his
warnings as Cade charged up, his gun drawn.

The man in the brown vest whirled toward the
newcomer as the big bay horse bore down on him, and he fired.

But Cade got his shot off first and the man
toppled into the dirt. Cade swerved toward the barn, where three of
the riders were headed toward him.

Through the blur of horses, dust, men,
gunfire, and answering shots from inside the ranch house, Annabel
rode up and immediately saw Brett plunging into the fray on a pure
white stallion, but before she knew quite where to turn or what to
do, her heart turned over with terror, as she suddenly noticed
three riders heading full speed toward Cade, firing all the
while.

Instinct made her spur Sunrise forward.
Without thinking, she aimed her Colt.

She’d never fired at a man before, much less
at a man on horseback, but she had no time to wonder at her ability
to shoot true. Even as Cade’s shot sent the nearest rider
plummeting from his horse, the next rider took aim.

So did Annabel. Unhesitatingly, she squeezed
the Colt’s trigger.

The man screamed and toppled sideways from
the saddle. As Annabel watched in stunned fascination, his horse
galloped on, but the man lay sprawled in a bloody twitching heap
alongside the corrals.

Nausea rose within her. She reined in
Sunrise, her ears filled with a dull roar of shock, as she tried to
choke back the sickness inside her.

But then, from the corner of her eye, she
became aware that the third rider was now aiming his gun at her,
bearing down at an impossible speed, and reflexively she raised the
Colt again in a desperate attempt to fire first. But she was too
late. Before either she or the man could squeeze off a shot, Cade
McCallum killed him with one bullet through the heart.

The man was flung backwards off his horse,
another body among the many all about them thudding into the
blood-soaked dirt.

Dazed, Annabel stared around her. Above, the
sky was still a brilliant cobalt blue. The mountains still gleamed
in the distance. But there were six dead men on the ground. The
remaining two riders were hightailing it toward the mesas east of
the ranch. Cade was still in the saddle. So was Brett, and some
other men, who were talking to Brett, she realized, and concluded
numbly that they must work for Conchita Rivers.

Now that the fighting was over, she felt
ill. Her muscles felt cold and achy, and her temples throbbed. She
pushed back her sombrero with shaking fingers, and saw a
dark-haired woman in her thirties open the door of the ranch house
and step onto the porch. She held a shotgun.

“It’s all right, Conchita,” Brett called.
“They’re gone for now! Anyone hurt?”

But Annabel never heard her reply. She
closed her eyes and tried to brace herself in the saddle, so weak
she was struggling to keep from sliding off.

Suddenly, both Brett and Cade were beside
her. “What the hell were you doing out here? Trying to get yourself
killed?” Cade demanded, but before he could reach for her, Brett
stepped forward and put a hand to Annabel’s arm.

Gently he tugged her down from the saddle
and enclosed her in a hard embrace. “Annabel, Annabel. There now,
it’s all right.”

“Oh, Brett,” she whispered, raising wide,
distraught eyes to his face. “I’m sorry to be such a ninny, but ...
I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“Know something? Neither have I.” He gave a
hoarse laugh, and put his arms around her. “Go ahead and cry,
Annie,” he urged. “I don’t mind if you soak my shirt—it wouldn’t be
the first time.”

“I didn’t mean to ... I didn’t want to, but
he was going to shoot Steele ... that is, Cade, and ...”

“It’s all right.” Brett stroked her hair,
holding her tight. “Don’t question it—you had no choice. Annie, you
just saved my brother’s life.”

Annabel’s knees gave out, and Brett caught
her up in his arms. He started toward the ranch house, where the
dark-haired woman watched them both with a worried frown.

“Come inside,” she urged, and held open the
door.

Cade hadn’t moved, but stood beside Sunrise,
watching Brett and Annabel without expression.

“Cade, come on,” Brett called over his
shoulder as he glanced back from the door. “I want you to meet
Señora
Rivers. She’ll explain everything. Hurry, I don’t
know how long we have before they come back.”

Cade waited a moment longer after watching
his brother carry Annabel into the adobe ranch. Her arm had been
flung tightly around Brett’s neck. Her head had rested against his
chest, her eyes closed.

The image of this was seared in his mind
like a brand. He felt stunned, baffled, and hurt. What the hell was
he to believe? According to his brother, they weren’t betrothed. So
Annabel had lied to him about that. But from what he’d seen with
his own eyes, that could change at any moment. The closeness
between his brother and Miss Annabel Brannigan was apparent. It
struck him with the force of a tomahawk hurled straight through the
heart.

Annabel Brannigan adored Brett. She trusted
him completely. And that Brett cared deeply for her was as plain as
the blood running in crimson rivulets through the dust at Cade’s
feet.

So what the hell am I doing here? I don’t
belong here.

Staring at the open door of the ranch, Cade
wished he could just ride away and never look back, never have to
see Annabel clutching so tightly and trustingly to another man,
never have to know how completely her heart was given over to
someone else.

It hurt too damn much. In fact, knowing her
hurt too damn much. She made him want things, things he could never
have.

Ride, he thought, his chest tight with
pain. Head out and don’t stop until you can’t go another step,
until you’ve left her far behind and forgotten how beautiful she
is, how soft, how smart and headstrong, how good she smells, and
how her lips taste sweeter than Lily’s best elderberry wine
...

Ride!

But he couldn’t ride, he couldn’t run. He
had a job to do, and there was no leaving until it was finished.
Brett and Annabel were both in danger now, for in addition to the
threat from the Lowry Cattle Company, there was still Red Cobb to
be considered. Annabel’s wild-goose chase would not keep him at bay
for long. He could show up at any moment and he’d be mad as
hell.

Cade led Sunrise and Dickens into the
corral. Then he walked slowly toward the adobe building. He threw
one last keen glance around the isolated mesas surrounding the
ranch before forcing himself to go inside.