Chapter Twelve

Clay drove around for hours. Thinking. Remembering. Hurting. An unmerciful weight had settled on his chest, making merely breathing unbearable.

By the time he got back to Josie’s cabin, he felt more excitement about being Ivy’s father than anger toward Josie for keeping his daughter from him.

He understood why she’d done what she had. Understood the part he’d played. The confusion. The misunderstanding. And he blamed himself more than Josie.

But it didn’t make it any easier.

He parked a little way from the cabin. No lights shone inside, not that he’d expected to see any. It was late. Josie and Ivy would be asleep.

He slid down in the front seat, pulled his Stetson down over his eyes and tried to sleep, craving some release from his thoughts. Worse, his feelings. Feelings of love so strong that he thought his heart would burst.

Ivy was his daughter.

And Josie? He didn’t want to think about that right now. Couldn’t.

Sleep came in fitful spurts, filled with haunting images, the interludes in between packed with waking panic.

His dreams were always the same. Josie riding up to his campfire on Diablo.

Only this time something was horribly wrong.

Just before daylight, he jerked awake, heart pounding, drenched in sweat, his mind suddenly clear. He knew how Josie had done it! He knew how she’d gotten the security plans to steal the jewels.

He flung open the pickup door and raced down the hill to the cabin, not caring about the hour, not caring about anything but confronting Josie. If he thought she’d dropped a bombshell on him yesterday, wait until today. And just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse.

He pounded on the front door, waiting in the cool shadow of the porch. The moon sneaked toward the dark western horizon as if hoping to avoid the sun that now rimmed the mountain crest to the east. The early-morning darkness felt damp and cool and quiet.

He pounded again, needing desperately to break that eerie silence, to make sense of what had happened two years ago.

Still no answer. She was probably expecting him and had no intention of answering the door. Or she’d taken off. But her truck was still parked in the yard.

He tried the door, surprised to find it unlocked. He frowned as he turned the knob and the door fell open and he stepped in.

He felt something under his boot soles. His heart took off at a gallop as he flipped on the living room light. On the floor were wood shavings from where the front door had been jimmied open.

His pulse pounded in his ears at a deafening tempo, his heart a thunder in his chest as he took the stairs two at a time.

A muted night-light gleamed from the empty bathroom. He swung to his left and into Josie’s bedroom.

The light was on, the covers thrown back on the bed, the pillow balled near the edge, a hollow space still in the sheets where she’d been. But the bed was empty.

He swung around and raced across the hall into Ivy’s room, flinging open the door, his gaze leaping to the crib. The first morning light bled in through the window. Even from the doorway he could see that the crib was empty.

A groan. His gaze swung to the dark corner of the room and the figure crumpled there.

He reached her in two strides, dropping beside her, his fingers going to her throat for a pulse, a prayer echoing in his head. “Please, God, please.”

He felt a pulse. Strong. Strong like Josie.

She stirred, her eyelids flickering. Her lips moved but no sound came out.

Tears burned his eyes. He took a ragged breath. “Don’t try to talk. I’m here. Everything is going to be all right,” he whispered as he brushed the fine blond hair back from her face and felt the lump and the dried blood.

Her eyes jerked open. She blinked up at him, all that blue filled with confusion and pain. “Ivy.” The word was only a whisper.

He felt his heart take off again. “Isn’t she with Mildred?”

“No!” Josie tried to get up.

He held her down, a lump the size of Texas lodging in his throat as he looked over at the empty crib. “She was here?”

Josie nodded, tears coursing down her cheeks. “He took her.”

“Who, Josie? Who took her?”

She began to cry, huge gut-wrenching sobs. “I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, Clay,” she said, trying to get up again. “I have to find Ivy.”

He fought to breathe. “We’ll find her, Josie. Just lie still for a moment, please.”

The phone rang.

He stared down at her for an instant. “Stay here.”

He charged into the bedroom, half-falling, half-sliding, and jerked up the phone. “Yes. Hello.”

“It’s Charley, Charley Brainard. Sorry to call at this hour, but I can’t seem to find Mildred. It’s just odd. All the lights are on, her car’s here and her knitting is in the middle of the floor. I thought maybe something had happened over there, some reason she might have left in a hurry without her car?”

Clay felt the floor drop from under him. “No, we haven’t seen her. But I’ll let you know if I do.”

He’d barely hung up the phone when it rang again.

A deadly silence filled the line, one he could barely hear over the frantic beat of his heart.

“Jackson.” The voice was electronic, unrecognizable. “I have your daughter.”

Clay could hear Ivy crying in the background and someone trying to soothe her. “If you hurt a hair on her head—”

“You are in no position to threaten me,” the voice snapped. “Listen carefully. I have Ivy and her baby-sitter.”

Mildred?

“If you ever want to see Ivy again you will tell no one. No police. Don’t underestimate me.” Ivy’s crying grew louder, and he realized that the voice on the other end of the line had moved closer to the toddler.

“Ivy. Let me talk to her.” To his surprise the caller put the phone next to Ivy’s mouth and ear. “Ivy?” The crying slowed. “Ivy. Ivy, honey.” She stopped crying but still whimpered. He could see her in his mind’s eye, her face red and tear-stained, her cupid’s bow lips thrust out, eyes wide. His eyes. “Listen, sweetheart.” His voice broke. “It’s going to be all right. Can you hear me. It’s…”

“Clay.” He heard a sound behind him and turned to see Josie stumble into the room.

“Your mommy is here.”

He handed the phone to Josie but stayed beside her so he could hear.

“Ivy? Ivy, darling.”

He closed his eyes at the sound of Ivy’s sweet voice. Then the electronic voice came back on.

“Jackson?”

He could hear Mildred in the background. She sounded scared but was trying to comfort Ivy.

“I’m here,” he snapped, as angry as he was afraid. “Who are you? What the hell do you want?” How do you know Ivy is my child?

“I want the jewels,” the eerie, unreal voice said. “Josie has them.”

Clay looked over at her. She had the jewels. Just as he’d suspected. And now someone had kidnapped their daughter for those damned rocks. He gritted his teeth, his gaze boring into her.

She shook her head, her eyes wild as she covered the phone. “I don’t have the jewels,” she whispered frantically. “You have to believe me, Clay. You of all people.”

He stared at her, blinded by his anger, by his need to protect his child. Their child. Josie wouldn’t lie about this, not with her daughter’s life at stake.

The electronic voice was saying, “I’ll call back with instructions for the trade tonight. If you—”

“Just a minute,” he interrupted. “What makes you think Josie has the jewels?”

Silence. He feared the caller had hung up.

“The jewels had better still be in her great-grandmother’s rodeo saddle where they were. And don’t try to tell me that she doesn’t have it. She’d never part with that saddle.” Static. “Get the jewels and wait for my call. If you tell anyone, especially the police, you will never see your daughter again. Is that understood?”

Clay’s gaze was still locked on Josie. His chest tightened. “Yes, I understand perfectly.”

“One more thing.” The electronically disguised voice set his nerves on edge. “You are to bring Josie O’Malley with you. No argument.”

Clay felt a blade of pure ice sink into his heart. “Josie will be there.”

“Do I have to remind you what will happen to the kid if you and Josie don’t come alone?”

“No.”

“Good. And don’t forget the jewels or try to pull anything.”

Who had taken Ivy? Someone who knew him. Knew Josie. Knew them both well. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn that Odell Burton had come back from the grave.

“You’ll get your jewels,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just don’t hurt my daughter. Or I’ll kill you.”

The line went dead.

“Oh God, Clay,” she cried as she watched him hang up the phone. Her baby had been kidnapped. By some monster who thought she had the jewels in her great-grandmother’s saddle?

She tried to hold back the hysteria, the irrational need to just sit and cry or scream and beat the wall with her fists. She had to keep her head. She had to help her baby.

Clay hadn’t moved. He stood, his eyes closed, his hands clenched into fists at his side, his face twisted in pain.

“Clay?” She reached for him, needing him to tell her that it was going to be all right, that they would get Ivy back, that he’d help her.

But when his eyes opened, she saw that it was much more than pain that burned in the darkness. Much more than anger.

“I know how Odell got the security plans,” he said, his voice as hollow and strange as the man’s on the phone.

Her heart stopped and it took all she could do to will it to keep beating. She’d lost everything. Clay would never believe her now. Not that he would have two years ago.

“It isn’t what you’re thinking.”

He raised a brow. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.”

“You think I betrayed you that night by the creek in Texas.”

“Didn’t you? Didn’t you seduce me for my keys so you could get the security plans for Odell? That was the real reason you made love to me, why you came down to the creek, wasn’t it? The damned jewels.”

She opened her mouth but no words came out. Weakness seeped through her limbs. Not now. Don’t let this be happening now. Her head ached.

But nothing like her heart. Ivy. Oh, Ivy. They had to find Ivy. They had to get her back.

She needed Clay to help her find their daughter. But he didn’t trust her. He thought she’d seduced him for the security plans. That she’d endangered their child for the jewels. Or for Odell. Did he think she’d lied about that, too?

She looked at him, wanting to scream and cry and beat his chest to make him see that they had to trust each other. Now. For Ivy’s sake.

Somehow she found the words. “I didn’t know anything about Odell’s plans to steal the jewels. That night when Diablo came back riderless, I rode Diablo because I was worried about you.” She didn’t tell him that she’d come to his ranch, looking for him. Dressed in a yellow sundress, feeling foolish and sexy and ready to do anything to get him to notice that she wasn’t a kid anymore.

He said nothing. His gaze was unforgiving.

“I didn’t just want you that night. I was in love with you. I had been for years.”

He flinched, his gaze darker, harder. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“When I crossed the creek, I saw you, sitting with your back against the trunk of that live oak. I saw something in your eyes. Or at least I believed I did. Heartache. And desire for me. I thought I recognized it because of my own.”

She hoped he’d say something. But still he remained motionless, rigid with anger.

“I made love to you because I wanted you and I thought you wanted me, too. It was so incredible. I thought it had changed everything.” She looked up and saw impatience in his gaze.

“I had fallen asleep in your arms,” she continued, realizing that if he didn’t believe this much, he sure as the devil wasn’t going to believe the rest. “I woke near daylight to see Odell. He had something in his hand. I started to wake you, but he stopped me by holding up your keys, then slowly putting them back in our pile of clothing and leaving. I didn’t know that he’d already taken the keys, made a copy of the security plans and was returning them when I caught him.”

“He just happened to know I wouldn’t be wearing my jeans that night beside the creek?” Clay said. “You expect me to believe that? How did he know where to find me?”

“He told me after the robbery that he’d followed you,” she snapped, her nerves taut. “He’d planned to get the keys from you, one way or the other. My showing up just gave him a less confrontational way. This way he could hurt us both.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She willed herself not to cry. She had to think of Ivy. Getting Ivy back. If Clay didn’t believe her, then there was nothing she could do about that. There never had been.

He said nothing, but some of the anger seemed to dim in his gaze.

“It wasn’t until after the robbery, before you caught Odell and me fighting outside my barn, that he told me what he’d done. How he’d implicated me in the robbery.”

“Why would he do that?” Clay asked.

She looked at him and saw that he really didn’t seem to understand the relationship the three of them had had.

“He wanted to hurt me, the way he felt I’d hurt him by making love with you,” she said. “Unlike you, he knew I was a virgin and he knew why. He knew that you were the only one I wanted. He saw me losing my breakfast by the barn and guessed that I was pregnant with your baby. He knew you’d never believe me about the keys. He was determined that you wouldn’t win.” She let out a laugh that was so close to a sob her eyes filled with tears. “He thought you wanted to win me. He didn’t know it had all been for nothing.”

Clay looked away, battered by an onslaught of conflicting emotions. “So you ran?”

“I only thought of my baby. Our baby. I was determined to protect her. At all costs. I was afraid of what Odell would do. He swore he’d hurt her.”

“But then Odell was killed,” Clay pointed out. “You could have returned to Texas. You could have told me the truth.”

“I didn’t hear about Odell’s death until a few months ago. I’d been planning to come back to Texas as soon as I had the money. I’d made a promise on my great-grandmother’s memory that I would go back and try to make things right.”

Clay didn’t know what to think. She’d thought she loved him? His heart desperately wanted to believe she’d seduced him for any other reason than the jewels.

And that she hadn’t told him the truth to protect Ivy.

If only he’d known about the baby. About Odell’s threat. Maybe this wouldn’t be happening now. What would Odell have done if Josie hadn’t run? Would he have hurt her or her baby to keep Ivy from being born? Or would he have gotten the jewels out of the saddle, gotten caught, and this would have all been over?

“Let’s get your great-grandmother’s saddle,” he said, not wanting to think let alone talk about that night right now.

But when he looked over at her, he saw her eyes widen. He felt a chill race over him. “Where is the saddle, Josie?”

“Oh, God, Clay. It’s not here.”

He felt his veins turn to ice. “What do you mean, it’s not here? The kidnapper was sure you’d never part with it.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Under normal circumstances.

You asked how I was able to make it, pregnant and alone with no money. I pawned the saddle. It was the only thing I had of any value.”

He felt light-headed. The room seemed to spin. He pulled her to him, hanging on for dear life. “You lost it!”

“No,” she cried. “I just can’t get my hands on it quickly. The pawn shop is in Bozeman and I don’t have enough money saved yet.”

He let go of her. “Money is the least of our problems. I’ll pay to get it back. Let’s just hope the jewels are still inside.”

“How did they get there?” she cried.

“I thought if anyone would know, it would be you,” he said coldly. “Get dressed. We can have a doctor check your head where you were hit. Then we’ll be waiting at that pawnshop the moment it opens.”

 

SHE FELT AS IF SHE MIGHT fly into a million pieces. She hurriedly pulled on her clothes, her head aching, her heart pounding, fear making her weak and sick and crazy.

Clay drove them out of the ranch and headed toward Bozeman, thirty miles to the east. The sun shone blindingly bright in a cloudless blue sky. It should have been raining and dark and cold, the way it was in her heart.

But part of her held on to a small thread of hope. Maybe Clay didn’t believe her, but he was helping her. She’d never needed him more than she did now, but she could feel the wall between them. They’d never trusted each other. Nothing seemed to have changed. Except now Clay knew that Ivy was his daughter. And he blamed her because a kidnapper had her. Had taken her for some jewels she hadn’t known were hidden in her great-grandmother’s saddle.

“Clay, please talk to me. Say something.”

“Let’s just get the jewels. Then we can talk about what to do.”

 

DUST COATED the pawnshop’s windows, making it appear dark inside. Clay parked the truck on the side of the building. A bell tinkled over the door as they walked in. The place was a clutter of once-valued things that had been turned into ready cash. He just hoped the saddle was still here.

Josie pulled out her claim stub and handed it over the dirty counter to a tall, thin man with a bad complexion. He studied it for a moment.

“I want to pick up my saddle,” she said nervously.

Clay could almost hear the thumping of her heart over his. Almost.

The man nodded and disappeared through a curtain into the back of the shop. Clay waited anxiously for him to return.

The clock on the wall ticked off the minutes.

The place was hot and smelled of too many people and their things.

When the man finally pushed through the curtain with the saddle under one arm, Clay could have kissed him.

Clay slapped a half-dozen bills down on the glass counter. “Will that cover it?”

The man looked up, studying Clay from under hooded eyes. “Got any identification?” he asked Josie.

She dug in her bag and showed him her Texas driver’s license.

Slowly he picked up the money from the counter, counted it and put it into the till. Then he lifted the saddle, bypassing Clay to hand it to Josie.

She hugged it to her, tears welling in her eyes, and Clay followed her out the door.

“I should never have pawned it,” she said as they walked to the truck.

He opened the door for her and hurried around to slide behind the wheel.

“You did what you had to do to survive. Your great-grandmother would have understood. She would have been proud of you, Josie.”

He heard her crying softly as she held the saddle in her arms as if she held her daughter.

As he drove out of Bozeman, he watched his rearview mirror. But no one seemed to be following them. He could hear Josie working at the saddle.

“Are they in there?” His voice broke.

A sob burst from her, then the tearful words, “They’re here. Oh, thank God, they’re here.”

He let out a small sigh of relief. They had a long way to go. But at least now they had the damned jewels. And to think at one time, he thought once he found the jewels it would be over for good. How wrong he’d been.

 

JOSIE STARED AT THE PILE of sparkling jewels, hating them, hating Odell. “I’m scared, Clay.”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then she looked over at him. His gaze shifted from the road to her. The cold, hard darkness she’d seen in his eyes was suddenly gone. He looked as scared as she did.

He loves Ivy, too.

With tears in his eyes, he pulled her over to him. She snuggled into him, desperately needing his warmth, his strength, desperately needing him. The father of her baby.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of him, surrounded by his strong arms, protected. In his arms, she believed they would get Ivy back safely. In his arms, she believed they could conquer anything.

They reached the cabin with plenty of time to spare but hurried inside to wait for the call.

“The night Raymond died, I thought he’d whispered ‘Odell did it.’ But with Odell dead—” She looked over at him. “Raymond must have said ‘Odell hid it.’ The bag of jewels. I saw Odell coming out of my barn six weeks after the robbery. He said he’d been looking for me, but at the time, I thought he seemed…odd.”

“That’s probably when he put the jewels in the saddle.”

“He just hadn’t expected me to leave Texas like I did. He must have told Raymond where he’d hidden them before his death.” She hesitated. “Clay, with both Raymond and Odell dead, then who has Ivy?”

Someone who knew where Odell had hidden the jewels. Someone who knew Clay. Knew her. Someone with a grudge against them.

He shook his head. “Someone Raymond or Odell told.”

She nodded, but she could tell he was as scared as she was. The worst part was that they had no idea just who they were dealing with. Or what lengths he would go to. Why didn’t the kidnapper call?

When the phone rang, they both jumped.

It took them both a minute of confusion to realize it was Clay’s cell phone that was ringing.

“Jackson?” the voice demanded.

Clay shook his head at Josie to let her know it wasn’t the kidnapper. “Judge Branson.” His chest felt like someone had dropped a piano on it.

“We just got the DNA tests back. I’d put a rush on them for you.” The judge let out a sigh. “The lab already had a sample of Odell’s DNA from an earlier arrest. Jackson, that body in the grave—”

He knew. He’d known the moment he’d heard Judge Branson’s voice on the other end of the line.

“We don’t know who the hell it is, but it’s not Odell Burton.”