Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 17

"Samantha," Chase warned, his voice very quiet. She couldn't tell what was in his tone. Probably fury. But she couldn't let the kidnapper walk away. She couldn't be this close and then-"No what, Miss Kincaid?" the man said, turning back to face them.

"Just ... no. Please, don't go. I'll get you the money. I'll bring the rest of it back down here. You have my word, but I need to have Mandy now. I need to take her home. She's just a little girl. She's bound to be frightened. She's never been away from home for this long before, and ... with strangers, people she doesn't know and trust around her, she'll be afraid. You said you have a daughter."

The last was a plea, a reminder, perhaps, of how he would feel.

"You have to give me Mandy. I can't go back without her."

"You're suggesting that I should give you Amanda, and you will return with the rest of the ransom."

"Yes," she said.

"I swear to you."

"I'll bring it," Chase interrupted, perhaps recognizing defeat now that Samantha had made the offer.

She knew he would be angry with her, but she couldn't help it. He was just going to let the man walk away, and she couldn't have allowed that to happen.

"You give us the baby now," Chase continued.

"You tell me when and where, somewhere close to the border this time, no more of this wilderness run-aroundmand I'll personally deliver the rest of the money to you."

"And you, too, will give your word? On your honor, Mr.

McCullar?"

There was a subtle challenge in the question, and she prayed Chase would agree. Anything to get Mandy back.

Promise him anything he wanted. She would see to it when they got home that the money was delivered. She just needed to get Mandy and get out of here before something else happened. Chase had warned her. If they didn't do it right the first time, they might not get a second chance.

"My word of honor," Chase agreed quietly, and she closed her eyes in relief.

"Perhaps it's lucky for us all that you, too, have a certain reputation, Mr. McCullar," the kidnapper said.

"Another man of honor." Then he turned to his right, to the direction in which he had been heading when Samantha stopped him, and he nodded.

Chapter Nine.

It took a few seconds for Chase to figure it out. Maybe because what happened next had been so far from what he'd been expecting. Maybe because they had lied to him from the beginning. And now, of course, he understood why.

He hadn't ever had that much to do with kids--not enough to know how to judge their ages, but the little girl who stepped uncertainly into the narrow, dusty street and then began running toward them, her face full of joy, wasn't a baby. That much was certain. When he did the math in his head, he figured she must be four years old. At least close to that.

That calculation had come later. Even in the shadowed street where she appeared, there wasn't much doubt in his mind who Amanda was. Her eyes, wide with delight now at the sight of her mother, were blue--that clear, pale fa.r.s.eeing blue of her Scots heritage. Her hair was fairer than Chase's, but his had been that color when he was little, that same towheaded blondness that would darken to wheat with age.

He could see a lot of Samantha there, too, of course. The delicate shaping of her nose, even the same dusting of freckles across it. The elegance of the bone structure that would become more p.r.o.nounced, and more beautiful, as she grew up. And the translucent clarity of her skin.

But the strong McCullar genes marked this child as surely as they had always marked him and Mac. No one could ever doubt they were brothers or doubt they were their father's sons. That same heritage marked this little girl as surely as it had shown up so surprisingly in Rio's dark features, despite the strength and purity of his mother's criollo bloodlines.

The little girl running toward them was his. A McCullar.

His blood. His daughter. There wasn't any doubt in his mind, but suddenly there was a hole in his gut. At least it felt that way. Like somebody had cut out the center of his body and left it empty, standing open to the cold, howling winds of shock and loss.

He couldn't even make himself watch as Samantha knelt to catch the small body that hurtled into her arms. He didn't listen to the sounds of their soft crying or to anything they said to each other. It wasn't that the vacuum that had surrounded him when he first saw Samantha again had reformed.

It wasn't just shock. What he was feeling was' anger Sick fury. He had a daughter, a little girl who looked like Samantha, and he hadn't even known. They hadn't told him. The d.a.m.n arrogant Kincaids hadn't intended that he should ever know.

Not good enough echoed over and over in his head as all the pieces that had been so puzzling about this kidnapping began to fall into place. Samantha's claim that there were no pictures of the baby. Their certainty that this wasn't about her husband trying to get custody.

"Believe me," Samantha had said, "Amanda's father isn't interested."

She was wrong about that. He would have been interested, Chase thought. He d.a.m.n sure would have been interested in his own child. If he had only known... If he had been told. Five long years. All of them lost. Wasted. So d.a.m.n much time out of her life was just ... gone. Time out of his life. Time they should have known each other, have spent together. Time that couldn't ever be made up, a loss that couldn't ever be fixed.

"Would you bring me the money, Mr. McCullar?" the kidnapper asked, the words breaking into Chase's anger and desolation, into his sense of loss, and the realization that something infinitely precious had been stolen from him.

That was his job--just delivering the money. That was all SamanthaKincaid had wanted him for, he thought. Not to be a father to thelittle gift they'd created together. That realization also howledthrough the cold, empty place where his heart used to be.

He reached down for the handle of the suitcase and found that his handwas shaking. He couldn't seem to see the bag because his vision wasblurred. He knew the case was there, somewhere just in front of him,lying in the dust of the street where he'd kicked it.

He closed his eyes, willing his brain to start functioning.

He would have time for emotion later. Now he had to get them both outof here, he told himself He had to get them both home safely. This wa.s.still dangerous territory, and he still had a job to do for SamKincaid. The job he'd been hired to do. The hired help.

He finally found the handle, groping for it almost like a blind man. He picked up the bag and began to walk toward the man with the mustache, trying not to think about Samantha and the little girl kneeling together behind him. Still excluding him.

"You tell me when and where you want the rest. Somewhere where nothingcan interfere," he said to the kidnapper as he handed over thesuitcase. The man's dark eyes were full of what looked like sympathy.Compa.s.sion maybe, Chase thought. Like Samantha's had been. Only hedidn't need or want their d.a.m.n compa.s.sion. He never had.

Not from any of them.

"Acufia," the kidnapper suggested.

"Sat.u.r.day. Have a late dinner at Crosby's."

"Somebody's going to show up this time?" Chase asked.

The mustache moved again, and there was a flash of very white teeth beneath it.

"It's so hard to get good help these days," he said, echoing that frequent above-the-border complaint.

"What went wrong?"

"Too many gringos," he said mockingly, and then the smile widened.

"Kincaid's messenger should have been prominently out of place. Instead..." He shrugged.

"Tourists," Chase said.

"Too many tourists there for the sale that day."

"My messenger approached three different people," he said, amus.e.m.e.nt still coloring his voice.

"None of them knew anything about a ransom. The last time he tried to approach someone, the couple was praying. Obviously, he explained to me, he couldn't conduct a criminal activity in a church. He grew frustrated, and then he grew frightened that someone would call his activities to the attention of the authorities, so ... he left." The kidnapper's voice mocked his helper's scruples.

"He wasn't the only one who was frustrated."

"My apologies. I will meet you personally on Sat.u.r.day.

You have my word, Nothing will go wrong."

"You're the one who called the hotel?"

"Of course. Things seemed to be falling apart. I couldn't take a chance on that. When my courier returned and explained what had happened, I made him describe the people who had been in town that day. I recognized you from his description. I suppose I should have known who Kincaid would send."

Another indication that what Samantha had suggested was true. Too many people now knew what he did down here. Too dangerous.

"Someone else recognized me," he said.

"Someone who tried to stop us from reaching you. He took the other part of Sam's money."

"Then it was not a matter of difficulty in raising the ransom."

"No, you were right about that, of course. Sam Kincaid is a man ofhonor. A man of his word."The man with the mustache nodded."I'd like to know who shot at us," Chase said. He could see the surprise in the dark eyes.

"I know you had nothing to do with that, but... Whoever it was tried to

kill us, and he didn't care about the possible consequences to ... thechild. He endangered all of us, and I'd like to know his name.""I don't know who shot at you, Mr. McCullar.""Maybe you could find out," Chase suggested. That request was what he'd been working up to. Apparently this man had connections in this

part of the country. It was worth a shot.The man's face didn't change. The pleasant smile had already faded atthe mention of the attempted murder, and he seemed to be consideringwhat Chase had asked of him.

"I'll see what I can do," he said finally."I can ask some questions, talk to some people who might know.""That's all I'm asking. I need a name.""It seems to be important to you. Revenge?""A little girl's life was at stake. He didn't give a d.a.m.n about putting her in danger. I'd just like to know his name."

The dark eyes held his, and then the man with the mustache and the beautiful smile nodded.

"I, too, have a daughter," he said softly.

Then he cleared whatever emotion had been in his voice and pointed to

the wall of the canyon beyond the end of the deserted town."The border is due north, perhaps less than three miles on the otherside of that ridge. The miners had a trail across it. That shouldmake it easier for the three of you. There's a ferry two milesdownriver that will take you across. You can be back in the States in a few hours tomorrow, even having to carry the child. I've left provisions for you in the last building."

He turned and, the silver chains on his heels softly jingling,

disappeared between the two buildings where Amanda had been waiting for his permission to join her mother. There would have been someone else waiting with her, Chase knew, but it didn't matter. The dealing was over.

The negotiation. He had finished the business that had sent him into Mexico. Amanda was safe.

But he still had some unfinished business, Chase thought.

There was a whole h.e.l.l of a lot of unfinished business between him and Samantha Kincaid, and he knew that finishing it was probably going to be the most painful thing he'd ever done in his life.

SAMANTHA HAD WATCHED Chase give the Mexican the money. She had held Mandy's small, warm body safe against her heart and had seen him hand over the ransom to the kidnapper. That had been the easy part, she thought, watching the man with the mustache disappear. And now... When Chase turned, she felt the tears well. His face was ravaged. She couldn't read any anger, although that had been what she'd antic.i.p.ated. She had already acknowledged that he would have a right to be angry. She and Sam had tricked him. They had used him and played him for a fool all along, but until this moment she hadn't realized what this would do to him.

Nearly five years ago he had taken her virginity and then had never called her again. He had treated her like a one-night stand, and through all those years she had held on to her bitterness over that as her due. Now, for the first time, she realized that in doing what she had done, she had denied Chase the right to know his daughter. Denied him the right to the endless delight that having this little girl had been to her and even to Sam.

As angry as she had been with her father, as resentful as she had been over his continued interference in her life, she had never even considered doing to Sam what she had done to Chase. And only now, now that it was far too late to do anything to rectify that terrible mistake, did she realize exactly the extent of the wrong she had done him.

He walked back to where they were, but he didn't say anything. He just stood there, looking down at the two of them.

"Chase," she said softly, trying to think of something that might make a difference. There was nothing. No explanation or excuse for what she had done. Losing her daughter, even for a few days, had made her realize what he must be feeling fight now.

Mandy was so like him. Too many times she had pushed that recognition aside, banishing any remembrance of Chase McCullar because she had been hurt by his indifference to what had happened between them. But what she had done wasn't right. There was no justification for denying this man, any man, the fight to know he had fathered a child. There was no excuse she could make.