Temporarily hooking the horse’s reins around the spokes of the wagon wheel, he decided to check on Hope before he led the horse to the river.
Pushing the canvas curtain aside, he entered the wagon. The wooden joints groaned as the floorboard accepted his weight, the wagon imperceptibly swaying as he moved toward the mattress. With the small interior steeped in shadows, it was impossible to tell whether she was asleep on the bed or not.
Drake’s ears told him what his eyes did not. There was no soft rush of breathing to counter the frog croaking in the river, no shifting of the mattress to absorb the sound of his footsteps.
Like a man walking to the gallows, he approached the mattress. His fists were gripped tightly by his sides as his eyes focused on the shadow-encased bed.
Empty.
Drake tried not to notice the way his heart constricted with each frantic beat. Tried not to, but did.
“Hope?” he called desperately. He hadn’t expected an answer, and he didn’t get one.
Turning on his heel he walked from the wagon. His breath lodged painfully in his throat as he scanned the dirt. A winter spent with Dakota Indians had taught him how to decipher prints better than most trackers. He used that knowledge now—reading the ground as though his life depended on it. And it did.
Hope’s footsteps were easy to spot, as were his own. It was the third set—a man’s footprints—and those of a horse, that made his blood run cold and his hands clench into iron fists. She’d been gone no more than a couple of hours. The prints were too fresh for it to be longer.
“Dammit!” he growled as he thrust himself to his feet.
As though the horse could feel his agitation, the black mustang danced to the right as Drake passed it and entered the wagon. Two minutes later he emerged with a sack of supplies. Tearing the dead rabbits off the saddle horn, he attached the sack to it, then, with a feral growl, spun toward the fidgety horse. He didn’t notice that his palms were laced with sweat until he grabbed the reins. Only then did the magnitude of what was happening hit him like a brick being thrust in his stomach.
Hope had been kidnapped, and Drake had an uncanny feeling he knew who’d taken her. Where and why was another story.
His mind whirled with unanswered questions as Drake swung into the saddle. His former weariness was gone, replaced by stark terror. Digging his heel into the mustang’s flanks, he set the horse in motion. It bolted forward, and Drake leaned closer to the sinewy back to give his mount speed.
The air whipped at his face, the ragged ends of his hair stung his cheeks and brow. He loosened his grip on the reins, giving the horse its head.
She’s alive! his mind screamed over and over, in time to the stallion’s pounding treads. He wasn’t sure if he was stating a fact or stating a prayer.
Fear, unlike any he had known before, gripped his heart in cold, tight fingers as he rode hard into the night, fast in the direction the hoofprints had led.
Hope sat erect in the saddle, willing her tired, aching body not to slump against the scrawny chest at her back. Try though she did to ignore him, she could feel the man there. Her nostrils stung with the odor of his perspiration and her ears echoed with each rush of his breath. His body moving in rhythm with the horse’s gentle canter was as real as the black drizzle that fell from the midnight sky.
Her once clean clothes were now streaked with dirt from her feeble struggle at the riverbank. The rain plastered the shirt to her body. The shoulder seam had ripped during the scuffle and was now torn and frayed, the delicate skin beneath exposed to the cold, damp air. Three buttons at the collar had popped free, leaving the rapid pulse at her throat equally as bare.
“Almost there, sweet thing.”
The man’s voice from over her shoulder made Hope stiffen. She hadn’t been able to get a good look at him at the river, and since then she hadn’t dared to try. Still, there was something in his tone that struck a familiar chord within her. Something in his condescending manner made her think the man hadn’t stumbled upon her by accident.
“Where’s ‘there’?” she asked suddenly, her accent thickening as her tongue tripped over the question.
The man chuckled, and the mirthless sound curled up her spine. “You’ll see soon enough.”
The rain started to fall faster, causing the man to kick the horse to a quicke
r pace. Hope was forced to grip the slippery saddle horn with both knees and dig her knees deep in the horse’s side to keep her from sliding off. Rain trickled down her cheeks in cool rivulets, slipping down her throat and pooling in the hollow between her breasts. She shivered, lowering her head to the moist air that whipped her cheeks as she leaned closer to the horse’s back.
Her backside brushed against the man’s thigh, and she immediately sat forward again. The quiver of revulsion that coursed through her was as tangible as the rain soaking through her clothes.
In the distance, the shape of a small, deserted way station could be distinguished from the shadows. She squinted in that direction, her spirits momentarily soaring at the thought of a clean floor and a warm fire.
No lights glowed in the shack’s windows. The darkness of the structure made it appear more than a little foreboding. It seemed to rise up out of the night from nowhere.
The man guided the horse beneath the dilapidated lean-to propped against the side wall. Close up, the shack appeared to be in an even greater state of disrepair.
At the man’s nudge, Hope dismounted. Her feet slipped in the mud, and she had to quickly grab for the saddle horn to avoid falling into the mulch. All thoughts of running for freedom were swiftly cast aside as the man dropped with a thump at her side.
As at the river, the barrel of his gun was pressed hard against her waist. It was a sure means of squelching any further thoughts of escape.