A Bride for Dry Creek Read online

  “It’s not how I meant to say hello again,” Flint said as he untied the bandanna. And it was true. What he’d say when he met Francis again had gone from being a torture to a favorite game with him over the years. None of his fantasies of the moment had involved her looking at him with eyes wide with fear.

  “Don’t pretend you ever meant to see me again.” Francis spit the words out when the gag was finally gone. Her voice was rusty and bitter even to her own ears. “Not that it matters,” she quickly lied. “I—”

  Francis stopped. She almost wished she had the gag in her mouth.

  “That was a long time ago,” Francis finally managed.

  “Yes, it was,” Flint agreed as he finished unraveling the cord he’d used to tie Francis’s hands behind her. It might seem like a long time ago to her. To him it was yesterday.

  “Cold night out,” Flint added conversationally as he stuffed the cord into his pocket. He needed to move their words to neutral territory. Her wrists had been as smooth as marble. “Is it always this cold around here in February?”

  “It used to be,” Francis answered. She’d felt Flint’s fingertips on the skin of her wrists just at the top of her mittens. His fingers were ice cold. For the first time, she realized the mittens on her hands must have been the only ones he had. “Folks say, though, that the winters lately have been mild.”

  “That’s right, you don’t live here anymore, do you?” Flint asked as he put his hand on Francis’s lower leg. He felt her stiffen. “Easy. Just going to try and unravel you here without scaring Honey.”

  Flint let his hand stay on Francis’s leg until both his hand and that section of her leg were warm. He let his hand massage that little bit of leg ever so slightly so it wouldn’t stiffen up. “Don’t want to make you pull the muscle in that leg any more than it looks like you’ve already done.”

  Flint had to stop his hand before it betrayed him. Francis was wearing real nylon stockings. The ones like they used to make. A man’s hands slid over them like they were cream. If Flint were a betting man, he would bet nylon like this didn’t come from panty hose, either. No, she was wearing the old-fashioned kind of nylons with a garter belt.

  This knowledge turned him first hot then cold. A woman only wore those kind of stockings for one reason.

  “You won’t be dancing any time soon,” he offered with deceptive mildness as he pressed his hands against his thighs to warm them enough to continue. “So I suppose that boyfriend of yours will just have to be patient.”

  “He has been,” Francis said confidently. “Thank you for reminding me.”

  Francis thought of Sam Goodman. He might not make her blood race, but he didn’t make it turn to ice, either. He was a good, steady man. A man she’d be proud to call her boyfriend. Maybe even her husband. She almost wished she’d encouraged him more when he’d called last week and offered to come for a visit.

  Flint pressed his lips together. He should have thought about the boyfriend before he took off with Francis like he had. It had already occurred to him that he could have simply returned her to the good people of Dry Creek. Instead of heading for the horse, he could have headed for the light streaming out the open barn door and simply placed her inside. If it had been anyone but Francis, he would have.

  But Francis addled his brain. All he could think of was keeping her safe, and he didn’t trust anyone else—not even some fancy boyfriend who made her want to dress in garters and sequins—to get her far enough away from the rustlers. He had to make sure she was safe or to take a bullet for her if something happened and those two kidnappers got spooked.

  Still, a boyfriend could pose problems. “I suppose he’ll be wondering where you are,” Flint worried aloud as he slowly turned the saddle to allow Francis’s leg to tip toward him.

  Francis stared in dismay. Flint was helping her untangle herself, but he was obviously positioning her so that she would slide off the back of the horse and into his arms.

  “I can walk,” Francis said abruptly.

  “You’d have better luck flying at the moment,” Flint said as he put a hand on each of her hips and braced himself. “Put your arms around my neck and I’ll swing you around.”

  “I don’t think—” Francis began. Flint’s hands swept past her hips and wrapped themselves around her waist. She took a quick, involuntary breath. Surely he could feel her heart pounding inside her body. The material on this wretched dress the girls had talked her into wearing was not at all good for this sort of thing. It was much too thin. She could feel the heat from Flint’s hands as he cradled her waist.

  “You don’t need to think—just move with me,” Flint directed. He couldn’t take much more of this.

  It must be the cold that made his hands even more sensitive than usual. He not only felt every ridge of beaded sequin on the dress, he felt every move of her muscles beneath the palm of his hands. He knew she was trying to pull herself away from him. That she was struggling to move her leg without his help. The knowledge didn’t do much for a man’s confidence. He remembered the days when she used to want him to hold her.

  “You’re going to scare the horse,” Flint cautioned softly. Beneath the sequins, the dress felt like liquid silk. Flint had all he could do to stop his hands from caressing Francis instead of merely holding her firm so he could lift her off the horse.

  “Where’d you get the horse, anyway?” Francis forced her mind to start working. Everything has a place, she reminded herself. If she could only find the place of everything, this whole nightmare would come aright. She could make sense and order out of this whole madness if she worked at solving one piece of the puzzle and then went on to the next piece. She’d start with the horse.

  “A small farm outside of Billings,” Flint answered. His hands spanned Francis’s rib cage. He could feel her heart pounding. “They rent horses.”

  “Why would you rent a horse?” Francis persisted. One question at a time. It helped her focus and forget about the hands around her. “You don’t live around here. They must usually rent to ranchers.”

  Flint stopped. He could hardly say he needed a horse to rescue her. She’d never believe that. Then he remembered he didn’t need an answer. “That’s classified information. Government.” Flint had her circled, and there was no reason to stall. “Move with me on the count of three.”

  All thought of the horse—and its order—fled Francis’s mind.

  “One. Two.” Flint braced himself. “Three.”

  When Flint pulled, his hands slid from the middle of Francis’s rib cage to the top. He almost stopped. But Honey was beginning to tap-dance around again, and he had to follow through.

  Francis gasped. The man’s hands were moving upward from her rib cage. There was nothing for it but to put her arms around his neck and swing forward.

  “Atta girl,” Flint murmured. Even he didn’t know if he was talking to Francis or the horse. And it didn’t matter. He had Francis once again in his arms. Well, maybe not in his arms, but she was swinging from his neck. That had to count for something.

  Francis winced. Her leg was swinging off the horse along with the rest of her body, and her leg was protesting. But she gritted her teeth. “Let me down.”

  Flint went from ice to fire in a heartbeat. He’d been without a jacket after he gave it to Francis, and his chest was cold. But the minute Francis swung against him, his whole insides flamed. His jacket had only been draped over her, and now it fell back to her shoulders. He felt the cool smoothness of her bare arms wrapped around his neck and the swell of her breasts pressed against his shirt.

  “I can’t let you down.” Flint ground the words out. “You can’t walk through a snowdrift in those heels.”

  “I can walk barefoot.”

  “Not with that leg,” Flint shifted Francis’s weight so his neck didn’t carry her. Instead, he had his arms around her properly this time. There were no bad guys here. He could carry her like a gentleman. “Besides, you’d get frostbite.”

/>   Francis didn’t argue. She simply couldn’t think of anything to say. She had been swiveled, swept up in his arms and now rested on Flint’s shoulder with a view of his chin. This was not the way anything was supposed to go. She was supposed to be forgetting him. “You nicked your chin the night of the prom, too.”

  “Huh?”

  “When you shaved—the night of the prom, you nicked your chin. Almost in the same place.”

  “I was nervous.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You didn’t look nervous,” Flint said softly. He had tied Honey to a branch and was carrying Francis out of the pine grove. “You were cool as a cucumber.”

  “I hadn’t been able to eat all day.”

  “You were perfect,” Flint said simply. He was walking toward the small wood frame house. “Everybody is hungry at those things, anyway. You think there’ll be food and it turns out to be pickled mushrooms or something with toothpicks in it.”

  Flint stopped. He was halfway to the house, and he knew someone had been here recently besides himself and Honey. A faint smell was coming from the house—the smell of cigars. He’d only known one man to ever smoke that particular brand.

  “I’m going to set you down and check out the house,” Flint whispered. It could be a trap. The cigars weren’t a secret. “Be quiet.”

  Francis shivered, and not from the cold. Even in a whisper, Flint’s voice sounded deadly serious. For the first time, she was truly afraid. And, for the first time, it occurred to her that if it were known by now that she was kidnapped—and it surely would be known once Jess checked around the barn—then someone would be out to rescue her. And if they intended to rescue her, they would also be out to hurt—maybe even kill—Flint.

  The very thought of it turned her to ice. She could cheerfully strangle Flint herself. But seeing him hurt—really hurt—was something else again.

  Think, Francis, think, she told herself as Flint slid her out of his arms to a dry space near a pine tree. The shade of the tree made the night darker here than anywhere. Even the light of the moon did not reflect off her sequins when she was sitting here. She could no longer see his face. He was a black shadow who crouched beside her.

  “Be careful,” she whispered at his back as he turned to leave. The words sounded futile to her ears. And then she saw his black silhouette as he drew a gun from somewhere. He must have had a gun in the saddlebag. Or maybe he had a shoulder holster.

  Francis didn’t want to be responsible for Flint being hurt. But anyone who was here to rescue her would think nothing of shooting Flint. Think, Francis, think. There had to be a solution. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for the gunfire to begin.

  That’s it, she thought victoriously. She knew she could think of a solution. It just needed an orderly mind. If there were no kidnapping, there would be no need for any shooting.

  Francis forced herself to stand. Her one leg wobbled, but it would have to do. She took a step forward, praying whoever was inside that wooden house would have sense enough to recognize her voice.

  “Flint, darling,” she called in what she hoped was a gay and flirtatious voice. She was out of practice, but even if her voice wasn’t seductive she knew it was loud enough to be heard through the thickest walls. “I thought you said there was a bed inside this old house for us to use.”

  There, she thought in satisfaction, that should quell any questions about a kidnapping. It would, of course, raise all sorts of other questions, but she could deal with that later. She wondered who of the many Dry Creek men had come to her rescue.

  Flint froze. Only years of training stopped him from turning around to stare at Francis. The deep easy chuckle that rumbled through the walls of the house confirmed his suspicions about who had smoked the cigars. The cigars could be duplicated. The chuckle never. It was safe to turn around.

  Flint could only see the silhouette of Francis, but it was enough. He walked toward her and said the only thing he could think to say. “I told you to keep quiet. That could have been anyone inside.”

  “I didn’t want you to be shot on my account,” Francis whispered airily as she limped toward him. “If you just let me go now, there’ll be no kidnapping.”

  “There never was a kidnapping. This was a rescue.”

  “A rescue?” Francis turned the word over in her mouth and spoke low enough so that whoever was inside the house could not hear. “Don’t you think that’s going a bit far? I don’t think anyone would believe it’s a rescue— I think we better stick with the seduction story.”

  Flint shook his head. No wonder being a hero was so difficult these days.

  “Not that they’ll believe the seduction story, either.” Francis continued to whisper. Her leg was painful, but she found it easier to limp than to stand. “I must look a sight by now.”

  The deep darkness of the night that had gathered around the pine trees lifted as Francis moved toward him. “I wonder which of the men from Dry Creek knew enough to drive out here and wait for us. Pretty quick thinking.”

  Flint held his breath. In the night, he could look at Francis and not worry about the naked desire she would see in his eyes any other time. His jacket had fallen off her shoulders under the tree, and her arms and neck gleamed white even in the midnight darkness. The sequins of that red dress glittered as she moved, showing every curve in her slender body. She was beautiful.

  “It’s not one of the men from Dry Creek,” Flint said softly. “It’s my boss.”

  Francis stopped. She’d never thought—never even considered. And she should have—there’s an order to everything, she reminded herself blindly. One needed to know the place of everything. And a kidnapping, she noted dully, required a motive and, in this case, a boss.

  Francis stared unmoving at the weatherbeaten deserted house that used to belong to Flint’s grandmother. The white paint had peeled off the frame years ago, leaving a chipped grayness that blended into the darkness. Gaping black holes marked where the glass had broken out of the windows.

  “He must think I’m a fool,” Francis whispered stiffly.

  Francis looked so fragile, Flint moved slowly toward her. She looked like a bird, perched for flight even with her sprained leg muscle.

  “No, I’m sure he doesn’t think that at all,” he said softly.

  When he reached Francis, Flint picked her up again. This time he cradled her in his arms properly, as he had wanted to each time he’d picked her up tonight. For the first time, she didn’t resist him. That should thrill his heart, Flint thought. But it didn’t. He knew Francis wasn’t warming toward him. She’d just given up.

  “And that bit about the bed.” Francis continued to fret. “I’m a middle-aged woman. He must think I’m a featherbrain—especially because he knows why you have me out here.”

  “He does, does he?” Flint asked quietly. It came as somewhat of a surprise to him that he’d rather have Francis kicking his shin with her pointed high heels than to have her lying still in his arms feeling foolish after having done something so brave.

  The angle wasn’t perfect for what he needed to do, but Flint found that if he bent his knee and slowly lowered Francis until she was securely perched on the knee, he could crane his neck and do what he needed to do.

  He bent his head down and kissed her. He knew his lips were cold and chapped by now. He knew that the quick indrawn breath he heard from Francis was shock rather than passion. But he also knew that they both needed this kiss more than they needed the air they were breathing.

  Flint took his time. He’d waited twenty years for this kiss and, planned or not, he needed to take his time. He felt the stiffness leave Francis’s lips and he felt them move against him like they used to. He and his Francis were home again.

  “Thank you.” Francis was the first one to breathe after the kiss ended. Her pulse was beating fast, but she willed it to slow. “At least now your boss won’t think I’m delusional—he’ll think you at least tried to seduce me. Middle-aged or not.” F
rancis stopped speaking to peer into the darkness of the broken windows. “He is watching, isn’t he?”

  For the first time since he’d bent down on one knee, Flint felt the bone-chilling cold of the snow beneath him. He might be home again, but Francis wasn’t. “You think the kiss was for my boss’s benefit?”

  “Of course. And I appreciate it. I really do.”

  Flint only grunted. He must be losing his touch. He went back and picked up his jacket to wrap around Francis.

  Chapter Three

  “There’s trouble in Dry Creek.” The words came out of the other man’s mouth the moment Flint kicked open the door to the abandoned house and, still holding Francis, stepped inside. “Kidnapping.”

  “I know,” Francis said stiffly. She was glad she’d have the chance to show she wasn’t a ninny. “That’s me.”

  “Not unless you got here in the back of a cattle truck, it’s not,” the other man said mildly, a lit cigar in his mouth and a cell phone in his hand. The only light in the room was a small flashlight the man must have laid on the table recently. The flashlight gave a glow to the rather large room and showed some bookcases and a few wooden chairs scattered around the table.

  “Well, surely there’s no point in kidnapping more than me.”

  “It appears they have some woman named Sylvia Bannister and then Garth Elkton.”

  “Oh, no.” Francis half twisted herself out of Flint’s arms. “I’ll need to go help them.”

  “You can’t go.” Flint finished carrying her over to one of the chairs and gently sat her down.

  “That’s right. I’m a prisoner.”

  “You’re not a prisoner,” Flint said impatiently and then turned to the older man. “It better be me that goes. I’ve gotten a little acquainted with the guys responsible for this. Might have picked up a tip or two.”

  While Flint was talking, he was rummaging through a backpack resting on another chair. He pulled out an ammunitions cartridge and put it in the pocket of a dry jacket that was wrapped around the back of the chair. Then he pulled out a pair of leather gloves.