“Which means he’s carrying her on his horse and that will slow him down,” Brent finished, shading his eyes toward the sun that was glowing fiercely over the ocean.
“That’s not the point,” Josh said.
“No, it isn’t. I’m afraid I do know what the point is. Not only does he want Jules, he also wants Saint. Revenge, I suppose, since Saint saved her from him. Stole her, I guess, is Wilkes’s reasoning.”
But why did he wait until Byrony had gone into labor to take her? Did he believe Saint would leave her and come after his wife? No, he added mentally, Wilkes just wanted enough time. And, it seemed, he wanted Saint to be in a damnable position. The cruel bastard. “We’ve only got another hour of light,” he said abruptly, and dug his heels into his stallion’s sides.
But they hadn’t found her when night hit. It was dark as pitch, only a sliver of moon, clouds obscuring the stars. They couldn’t track any more until morning.
Brent didn’t know what to do. He was faced with the most painful decision of his life.
“I’m sorry, Brent,” Josh said, laying his huge black hand on his friend’s arm. “Real sorry. But you can’t go back, now now. Four hours there, four hours back. You’d be exhausted, and Missis Saint needs a functioning man, not a piece of dead meat.”
Brent gave Josh a twisted smile. Then he closed his eyes, praying toward the cloud-strewn heavens, praying that his wife was all right, that Jules wasn’t being savaged at this moment, praying that life would somehow become normal again.
“We need to build a fire,” Brent said. “It’ll be colder than a dead stone before long.”
The cave was damp and chill despite the smoking fire in front of her. Jules drew her legs closer, kept her head down.
“She’s a purty little thing,” said Hawkins. “Lookee there, she knows I’m talkin’ about her. She quivered all over.”
Hawkins chuckled and emptied his tin cup of the remains of his coffee.
“It’s time for you to spell Grabbler,” said Wilkes. “Take him something to eat while you’re at it.”
He felt better. The opium always dulled the pain, for a while at least. He’d not taken too much to dull his mind.
“You gonna fuck the little gal while we’re gone?”
“Get out, Hawkins,” Wilkes said.
“Looks awful cold, she does,” Hawkins said. “A nice big man atween her legs would warm her up.”
Jameson Wilkes looked Hawkins square in the face. God, he was a villainous-looking creature, his gaunt face covered with a thick black beard, hiding, Wilkes knew, a puckered, ugly scar that ran the full length of his cheek. “You want her or the money?” He forced himself to shrug. “It’s up to you. You don’t get both. And you know, don’t you, my friend, that the money isn’t with me.”
Jules felt her blood run cold at Wilkes’s emotionless voice. She kept her eyes on the cave floor. The dirt was soft and very black, she thought vaguely. She tried not to think of Byrony in agony, tried not to think of Michael and Brent.
“Hell,” Hawkins muttered finally, the toe of his dirty boot kicking at the fire’s embers, “a man can always get hisself some tail.”
“Tell Grabbler the same thing,” Wilkes said coldly. “With what you two will earn, you’ll be able to buy all the whores you want.”
There was no more talk until Hawkins had left the cave. Wilkes said calmly to Jules, “A pity, my dear, that I can’t offer you a bath—or a bed, for that matter. I do apologize. I don’t believe, however, that we will have to remain here much longer. Since it’s dark, we’ll be staying here the night. I suggest you get some sleep.”
Spend the long night with this man and those other two villains? “Why are we remaining here at all?”
Wilkes studied her pale face in the soft glow of the fire. Her riding hat was long gone, and her beautiful hair was in riotous curls and tangles over her shoulders and down her back. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
He was proud of her cold voice because he knew how afraid she was.
“I don’t think you need to know that just yet,” he said. No, he thought, if he told her, she’d become a wild thing, he knew.
“What are you going to do to me?”
He laughed softly. “Not fuck you, my dear, as Hawkins so crudely phrased it. Not yet, in any case. Not until we’re away from here and safe.”
Safe! “Not ever,” Jules said. “No, not ever.”
“I know,” he said easily. “Your huge husband would kill me, is that right?”