Читать книгу Honor-Bound Lawman - Danica Favorite - Страница 14

Chapter Two

Riding on a horse with Owen, leaving her boardinghouse, made Laura feel more like a coward than she ever had. She’d finally learned to stand up to James, and here she was, running from him. Worse, she hadn’t even felt like she’d had a choice but to go with Owen. How had she become so helpless again?

“You could have at least let me say goodbye to my friends,” she said, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice. “And what about my boardinghouse?”

Owen had only given her enough time to pack a bag. Even then, he’d stood above her, telling her what she could and couldn’t bring. While the rational part of her reminded herself that he was a lawman who knew what he was doing, the woman who had made so many strides in becoming independent resented his interference.

Funny how just hours ago, she’d been entertaining the foolish thought that he might have had some personal interest in her. Maybe she wasn’t a good judge of character, but she at least knew the signs of a bully. She’d been married to the worst of them, so for Owen to be so forceful with her, perhaps it was just as well that he’d never given her any indication that their relationship was anything more than professional. She wouldn’t risk getting her heart involved with a man who showed such obvious signs of needing to have power and be in control. At least that was one area where Laura could remain strong.

“I told you, Will has arranged for some of the ladies at church to help out with the boardinghouse.”

“How would he have had time to do that already? James only escaped this morning.”

“We agreed when he sent me to get you, that he would talk to his wife, Mary, and she would rally the ladies. I have no reason to doubt his word.”

Owen made a sound with his mouth that Laura had never heard before. But his horse seemed to understand what it meant because it sped up.

Laura clung tighter to Owen’s back, hating the impropriety of riding double with a man, but knowing it was the only option. Though it seemed inconceivable that a woman of her age couldn’t ride a horse, she’d never had a reason to ride until now. She’d always had carriages, and her parents had thought riding too dangerous a pursuit for young ladies.

And at this speed, Laura could see why.

“Do we have to go so fast?”

This time, the noise Owen made before speaking was one Laura knew all too well. Let him be irritated. Hadn’t he been irritating her?

“As a matter of fact, we do. I’m deliberately taking a convoluted route to our destination so that if anyone has been following us, or tries tracking us, they’ll be lost for sure. However, we have a lot of ground to cover if we are going to make it there by dark.”

It had been the most he had said to her in a while. She should have been grateful for the information, and in the past, it would have been enough. But now that Laura had taken control of her own life, it seemed foolish to blindly trust this man, even though she’d done so before.

“When are you going to tell me where we’re going? You said at the house you couldn’t tell me because you didn’t want anyone who might be eavesdropping to overhear. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Surely you can tell me now.”

Owen made another annoyed noise. This seemed to be how their conversations had gone since he showed up on her doorstep. Him needing to be in control, and her no longer living a life where she was pushed around all the time.

“What happened to the woman who used to trust me?”

“She grew up. Learned to take charge of her own life. And now she resents the fact that you’ve swooped in, taken over and coerced her from her home and are making her go somewhere without revealing the destination.”

Owen let out a long sigh. “I wouldn’t have had to coerce, as you say, if you’d just listened to reason.”

His condescending tone rattled something in her. She didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that. “Funny, James used to say the same thing.”

The reminder killed any remnants of those schoolgirl dreams she might have once had of Owen. He wasn’t the man she thought he was, and now that she knew she didn’t need a man, she wasn’t interested in one like him. How had she been so blind?

He pulled back on the reins and asked the horse to stop. Owen got off the horse, then helped Laura to the ground, giving her a glare.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Owen pointed in the direction from which they’d come. “Town’s that way. I promised I’d protect you and that I would never let James hurt you again. But it seems to me that you are determined to let that man kill you. And now you want to compare me to him? Fine. I can act like James. He’d have no problem letting a woman fend for herself in the middle of nowhere. You want to be free so bad? Have at it.”

He turned on his heel and walked over to his saddlebags, where he untied the canteen, then took a long drink out of it. When he finished, he walked to the front of the horse, poured a bit of water into his hands, and stuck it under the horse’s mouth so he could drink.

Owen appeared to be completely oblivious to Laura. She looked in the direction he’d indicated, remembering how long it had taken them to get this far. On foot, there was no way she’d get back to town by nightfall. Even if James wasn’t potentially out there, the danger she faced as a woman alone made such a choice impossible.

“I just don’t know why you can’t tell me where we’re going.”

“And I don’t know why you have to argue with me about every little thing when I’m trying to save your life.”

His tone hurt. Even more so, the thought that he would abandon her in the middle of nowhere. Was this the man she’d once had a slight tendre for? “Would you really let me leave?”

Owen held the canteen out to her. “If you have to ask that question, then I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.”

She stared at him for a moment before taking the canteen. Owen kicked at the dirt, making another irritated noise. “Sorry, threatening to leave you wasn’t the brightest idea. I let my frustration get the best of me. I just thought that after all the time we spent together, you’d know what kind of man I am. I need you to trust me enough to go when I tell you to go and not spend so much time arguing with me about it.”

Knowing it was a burst of temper didn’t make Laura feel any better, even if he had apologized for it. He was so different from the kind man who’d cared for her in her time of need. How could she have not seen this side of him before?

Letting out a long sigh, Owen took off his hat and mopped his sweaty brow. “No, I wouldn’t leave you here. I’m just extremely frustrated, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“You could try talking to me and explaining what’s going on.”

“I never had to before. We had to get out of there fast.” Owen looked back in the direction of town. “I just hope we got out fast enough.”

More things he hadn’t explained. “We’ve been riding for at least an hour now. Plenty of time to tell me what’s going on.”

“Possibly,” Owen said. “But I’ve been busy thinking about what we’re going to do. Figuring out the best route to get you to our destination so that any trackers who try to come after us won’t be able to find us.”

He went over to his saddlebags and pulled out some cloths. Laura watched as he tied the cloths around the horse’s hooves one by one.

“What are you doing?”

“Now that we’ve gone a ways out of town and taken a break, I’m making sure that from this point on it will be even more difficult to track us. They might be able to track us here, and ascertain that we took a few moments to rest, but they won’t be able to figure out where we’ve gone after this.”

He turned to look at her and grinned. “I was once known as a very good tracker. One of the best. I’m pretty confident we can evade anyone who might be following us.”

“You think James would hire a tracker?” Laura looked in the direction they’d just come from, staring out at the vast expanse of brush rock and a few scraggly trees. Most of the good trees had been cut down for wood—either to be used in the mines or to build houses. Some of it probably had been claimed for firewood. But as Laura looked around the area, it seemed as though she and Owen were the only two people for miles.

“I wouldn’t put it past him. That’s why all the secrecy. As far as anyone knows, I am no longer a lawman. In fact, when Will goes back to the sheriff’s office, he’s going to tell everyone that I wasn’t willing to help him.”

So many questions ran through Laura’s head. She didn’t even know where to begin. “Where will Will tell everyone I’ve gone?”

“He’s going to tell a variety of stories, depending on who asks,” Owen said, brushing off his hands. “He isn’t sure who he can trust right now. James had to have had help from someone with a connection to the law. Though Will hates lying, we decided it would be best to use it as a means of figuring out who we can and can’t trust.”

Laura wasn’t sure what to say. She’d always assumed that because a man was with the law, he was honest. Certainly, all of her dealings with Will and Owen, and the rest of the men they worked with, had all been very positive. But she could see where Owen’s words might be true. After all, back in Denver, James had bribed many a man supposed to uphold the law. She wouldn’t be surprised if that were what he was doing now. Though the trustees to her fortune had blocked James from accessing most of her money, James had still managed to steal a significant amount from her accounts. Not to mention the valuables he’d taken and sold. She didn’t know how much money James had hidden away, but she knew he had means. Unfortunately, that put a lot more questions in Laura’s mind.

“What kind of help would he have from the inside?”

Owen shrugged. “Could be any number of things. There’s no way he could have escaped from prison without help. We just can’t figure out who would’ve helped him, considering he killed two of the guards.”

Laura’s stomach knotted. It was one thing to know her ex-husband was a convicted murderer; it was another to know that he was still killing people. Especially since he’d threatened so many times to do the same to her. When she’d initially heard reports that he’d escaped, she hadn’t been so worried because most of his threats to kill people had been nothing but bluster. His mistress was the first person he’d killed. But now, knowing he’d killed again, the way Owen was concerned about the situation and the extreme measures he’d been taking to protect her, she was starting to get scared.

But she wasn’t sure she was ready to admit that to Owen.

“Feel free to walk a bit and stretch your legs. We’ve still got a long ways to go,” Owen said, turning to tend his horse. He seemed to ignore her as he adjusted some straps on the saddle.

It was nice to walk, but it was also good to have some distance from Owen. Especially because the longer she had to think about the situation with James, and saw how Owen was acting, the more she realized that Owen was probably right. It wasn’t like Owen to overreact, so for him to be this concerned...

But it felt almost like she was giving up all her hard-won strength to admit that she was afraid.

Being with this new version of Owen, it seemed like she was losing herself again to another man who didn’t give a whit what was important to her. If it meant staying safe, he’d get her cooperation. But this time, he wouldn’t get her heart.

“Drag your feet a little as you head back,” Owen said.

Laura nodded and did as he asked her. It wasn’t such a big deal to follow his instructions, and in hindsight, she probably had been a little too stubborn. But it was hard, after spending so many years doing everything everyone else pulled her to do without question, then finding a way to be strong and herself. Now, she questioned everything, and it was weird to fall back into that old pattern. Especially because it seemed only to corroborate Owen’s belief that Laura was so easily moldable. Though his opinion shouldn’t matter so much to her, what she wanted most was for him to see her as the strong woman she’d become. The strong woman he’d helped make her. Maybe it was foolish to care so much about what Owen thought, but she did.

Owen didn’t look at her when she approached. “Let’s get going. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to do it in. I did what I could to cover up our tracks and lay a false trail, and I’m hoping it’s enough.”

He was hiding something, Laura was sure of it. He might not be forthcoming with information such as where they were going, but she would find out all of the information about James and his escape. She might have been willing to let others take care of everything in the past, but not anymore. Laura Booth was in charge of her own future, and she would be a part of whatever it took to save her life.

* * *

Owen wished he had something better to share with Laura. However, his time protecting her before had told him that as much as she said she could handle information, she was too easily scared to do it well. It seemed like at every piece of negative information about James—what he was doing, what he was capable of and any time he threatened to kill her—Laura had turned into a cowering shell of a woman. She’d been afraid of her own shadow. Yes, he taught her how to shoot a gun. But did he trust that in a moment of danger, she would use it? Absolutely not.

He breathed in the scent of her. Fresh, like a spring day. It almost masked the smell of leather on sweaty horse. Riding on the same horse, with her behind him, Owen was almost too aware of her femininity. Laura Booth was a beautiful woman. Even now, riding hard to avoid detection, it was difficult to forget. But forget he must. Owen had a job to do, and he couldn’t let a pretty face distract him.

“It seems as though we’re riding closer to town,” Laura said.

“We are, in a way. I wanted them to think we’re headed in a different direction. But once we get to the river, we’ll turn and head the right way.”

“You’re going to an awful lot of trouble.”

Owen sighed. She just couldn’t let it rest. “I told you—you’re in real danger.”

It had been a risk, going the way they’d gone and then backtracking, but the trail Owen had laid would keep pursuers from guessing his real intentions. As they drew near the cutoff that would take him to the river, Owen slowed Troy’s pace.

“Now be quiet,” he told her, lowering his voice. “Though it’s not likely, we could potentially run into other people here. I don’t want anyone to overhear us. Please, if you want to live, you’ve got to cooperate.”

He could feel her bristle at his words. The trouble with being in such close quarters was that it was difficult to hide one’s true emotions. Owen supposed that after all those years of being pushed around by James, and now knowing the freedom of making her own decisions, it was probably difficult to have to obey someone again. But the situation was different. According to their sources at the prison, James had told the guard who lived to give Laura the message that she was next.

But Owen couldn’t bring himself to tell her that.

The graphic details of James’s threat had made Owen sick to his stomach. Laura used to have nightmares about all the times James had threatened to kill her. She’d wake up screaming and thrashing so loud that it would take a long time to calm her. It seemed like Laura was finally getting settled in her new life, feeling comfortable and safe. How could Owen take that away from her?

True, it was James’s doing, but somehow by telling Laura, it made Owen complicit in the damage.

They made their way through the area Owen feared might be occupied. He stayed among scraggly trees, particularly as they drew closer to the water. There was no sign of people, but that could be misleading because if someone who didn’t want to be found had heard them coming, that person would be in hiding. Owen scanned the area, looking for signs that anyone had been here recently. He found none.

He brought the horse to a stop in a protected area that he’d often used in the past.

“We can rest here for a few minutes if you like,” he told Laura, his voice thicker than he’d intended. “I need to make a few adjustments to the horse. The bushes over yonder are a good place for privacy.”

Owen indicated a place his sister often used when they came through.

“I thought we were in a hurry. Why are we stopping again?”

The woman was going to be the death of him. Hadn’t he just told her why they were stopping? It was going to feel like a very long time in hiding if Laura kept questioning everything he said and did. Hopefully, Will and his crew would apprehend James soon. Much more of this and Owen might find himself going crazy.

“I’ve got some things I need to do. Part of the plan to mislead the trackers.”

He dismounted, then helped Laura off the horse. Ignoring her still-questioning gaze, Owen began removing the cloth he’d placed around his horse’s hooves. While he was working on the front hooves, Owen used his knife to remove the excess metal around the sides of the horseshoes. If anyone picked up his tracks here, they would assume it was a different horse because the prints wouldn’t match.

Yes, this was costing them precious time, at least in the short run. But hopefully, it would send James and his men on a wild goose chase, searching for Laura in all the wrong places.

When Owen got to the back hooves, Laura knelt beside him. “Can I help?”

Some of the irritation he’d been feeling washed away. One of the things he’d liked about Laura was that she always wanted to help. There were some women he’d had to protect who expected him to wait on them hand and foot. Not Laura. She’d done what she could herself and asked him to teach her the things she couldn’t.

“Thanks, but I’m almost done. Go ahead and get yourself a drink or take care of your needs. The water here is clear and fresh.”

Owen moved to the last hoof and finished the job. He picked up the scrapings to leave no sign of his handiwork. As he stood, he stretched, allowing some of the stiffness to leave his bones. He’d been riding hard most of the day, and it would be another hour to his ranch. Usually, it wasn’t such a hard ride. But he’d like to get Laura there and settled before it grew dark.

He led Troy to the river, allowing his horse to drink. The water here branched off into a small pool where animals could drink, and children could play. Owen smiled as he realized that it would soon be warm enough for the girls to splash in the water. This high up, the water was always bitter cold. But it never seemed to stop the children from playing in it.

Laura came out from behind the brush, holding a ragdoll. “Look what I found,” she said, smiling. “This looks like the perfect place for a picnic. I can imagine some family stopping here. I wonder if there’s a way to find out who the doll belongs to.”

As she got closer, Owen recognized the doll.

“I believe that’s Beatrice. She belongs to my daughter Anna, who lost it some time ago. Anna will be grateful that you found it.”

Laura’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said, taking the doll. “I have two daughters. Anna and Emma. They’re twins. You’ll meet them soon.”

“Am I going to your home then?”

Owen took a deep breath. He hadn’t yet told Laura where they were going. A fact he should have rectified long ago, but she’d been irritating him so much that he’d preferred to stay silent rather than snap at her as he’d been doing. It seemed like they’d been communicating poorly this whole time, and Owen had learned over the years that it was better to say nothing than to have to keep apologizing for saying the wrong thing.

“Yes. My ranch.”

“If it’s your ranch, won’t James figure out that I’m there?”

“Only my closest friends know it’s mine. Belonged to an uncle who recently passed away. People don’t know we were related. It’s the last place James will look for you.”

Laura hesitated, and for a moment she looked like she was going to argue with him again.

“He’s not going to find you there.”

She nodded slowly, like she didn’t quite believe him, but had finally figured out the futility of putting up a fuss.

“Why couldn’t you have just told me that?”

“I told you why I couldn’t. Besides, if anyone figures out where we’re going, it doesn’t just put you in danger, but my family, as well.”

Laura gave him a haughty look, reminding him of their very different backgrounds. “Then I’m surprised you are even bothering to take me there at all.”

“It’s the safest place for you right now. I just told you James won’t be able to figure out that you’re there. But for the sake of my family, I have to be extra careful.”

Laura gave a tiny nod, then asked in a quiet voice, “Why didn’t you ever tell me you had children?”

She was hurt, he could tell, and nothing he said would make it better. It shouldn’t matter to him that he’d hurt her feelings, but for some strange reason, it did.

“In my line of work, only my closest friends know about my family. They didn’t sign up for this business, and it’s not fair to put their lives in jeopardy.”

“Oh.” She looked wounded, like he’d hurt her more deeply than just bruised feelings. She’d been acting like that a lot—like their relationship had been something more, something deeper. That was the trouble with being in close quarters with a victim. They often read more into the situation than it was. Which was why getting too close to a victim was dangerous. People mistook the emotions of the circumstances for something lasting and real. But once the danger passed, so, too, did the feelings, and that’s when the real harm happened. Owen knew all about that firsthand.

Which was why he intentionally kept others at a distance. Especially someone attractive as Laura.

“It’s hard for me to trust,” Owen said, giving her a regretful look. “My family is everything to me, and I can’t put them at risk. You don’t know the kind of people who would hurt them if given a chance.”

Owen turned away and brought his attention back to his horse, making sure everything was properly tightened. Yes, bringing Laura to his home was a risk, but they didn’t have any other options. All of the men Will trusted had families in town. It’d be too easy to figure out that Laura was with them. With Owen out of the law business and out of sight, his ranch was the perfect place to hide Laura.

Will used to tell him that he was overprotective of his family. But after everything Owen had been through, he felt like he was entitled to be a little heavy-handed when it came to protecting them. Especially his girls.

“I don’t want to put anyone out,” Laura said, shifting awkwardly. “Your wife won’t mind?”

One of the reasons Owen didn’t like talking about his family. A brief explanation would only give him sympathy he didn’t want or need. But the longer explanation was even worse.

“My wife is dead. My sister, Lena, lives with us and helps me with the girls. Having you come here was partially her idea.”

Will had suggested it. In front of Lena. Who’d gotten extremely excited at the prospect of having another woman around for a while. With Lena on Will’s side, Owen couldn’t say no.

“I’ll try not to be a bother. Please tell Lena that I’m happy to help with any chores. I don’t want to inconvenience her.”

Owen grinned. “I wouldn’t worry about Lena. You’ll get along just fine.”

Being around Lena might be good for Laura. His sister was the finest woman he knew. Not that there was anything wrong with Laura, but she could draw on Lena’s strength as she went through this situation with James. Waiting for a trial had been hard enough on Laura, but waiting for a madman to come after her would be worse.

As Owen scanned the area around them, he felt confident that they hadn’t been followed and that no one was around. But that could change at any time.

“We’d best be on our way,” he told Laura. “We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover before we reach safety.”

He helped her onto the horse; then he tucked Beatrice into his saddlebag. The girls had been mad he’d gone into town without them, but this would ease their disappointment.

However, judging from the still-put-out expression on Laura’s face, dealing with her frustrations over the situation was going to be a lot more difficult.