Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 2

"No one who matters."

Without another word, he climbed into the rental car he'd driven down from San Antonio. When he started the engine and turned on the lights, he could see her. She was wearing only the light shirt she'd taken off last night, and her hair was loose, tangled in curling strands over it. His hands had done that. Chase sat in the darkness for a moment, just watching her, and then he put the car into gear, backing across the yard and then turning down the narrow road that separated the two McCullar houses.

MAC WAS ALREADY SITTING in his pickup when he got there. Chase knew if he had been a minute or two later, his brother would have done exactly what he'd threatened and gone without him. The door on the driver' ssi de of the truck was still open, and through the opening his brother watched him as he climbed out of the rental.

"I'd about given you up," Mac said. He was a big man, bigger than Chase, taller and broader. He had the clear blue McCullar eyes, but his hair was darker than his younger brother's, and the bold sweep of his mustache hid the sensitive curve of his upper lip.

Chase had always thought Mac looked exactly like a Texas sheriff ought to look, from the crown of his Stetson to the soles of his well-worn boots. If Chase had grown cynical in the pursuit of justice, Mac had seemingly been unaffected. But of course, the stakes here were not the same, the dealings not as dirty. At least not yet.

"I had a visitor," Chase said, closing the door of his Car.

"What kind of visitor?" Mac's voice was slightly amused, antic.i.p.ating, perhaps, some creative excuse for his brother's tardiness.

"Rio said to tell you pesos or bullets." Chase let his bitterness color the message, watching the slow impact of the words appear on his brother's face. "Rio ?"

"You do understand what it means?"

"Drug dealers. You take their bribes and you look the other way, or..." Mac shrugged.

"But I don't--" "Somebody offer you money, Mac?"

"h.e.l.l, somebody's always offering. You know that."

"Rio mixed up in what's going on?"

"Not to my knowledge," Mac said decisively. He turned in the seat, putting his foot on the gas pedal, but still he didn't close the door. Apparently thinking instead about what he'd been told, he looked down a second at the key he'd inserted into the ignition when he'd gotten into the truck to wait for Chase.

"Now, why in h.e.l.l--" Mac began to question, his fingers automatically turning the key.

The truck exploded, becoming nothing more than a brilliant fireball that shot flames and pieces of burning gla.s.s and metal into the star-studded darkness of the winter sky.

Chapter One.

Almost five years later Samantha Berkley set the last of the brown paper sacks into the back of the Jeep and pulled down the door. Heat rose around her in waves from the asphalt parking lot. It had hit her with almost-physical force from the moment she'd come out of the grocery store. Although she had grown up in this climate, the contrast between the frigid air-conditioning of the stores and the sweltering reality of August in south Texas was always a shock.

"Ready to head home, Cupcake?" Samantha said to the little girl who was sitting, eyes squinted against the glare, patiently waiting in the seat of the grocery cart she'd just unloaded.

It was the end of their Wednesday-in-town outing. Buying groceries was the last stop on the familiar itinerary that usually began with a trip to the library, included some shopping, lunch, and maybe even a movie if anything suitable for Mandy to see was playing. Samantha lifted the child out of the buggy, giving her time to untangle legs that were getting a little too long for the toddler seat.

"You're getting too big to ride in one of these, kiddo," Samantha said.

"All grown up." She couldn't resist dropping a quick kiss on the sun-warmed top of her daughter's head, right where the pink scalp showed through the precise part that separated two curling blond ponytails.

She set the little girl on her feet, holding her hand as she pushed the shopping cart over the b.u.mper lines of the return chute, which was conveniently next to their parking s.p.a.ce. Samantha then turned back to use the remote on her key ring to unlock the Jeep, opening the back pa.s.senger door for her daughter.

"You'll just have to get another baby," Amanda suggested as she clambered into the high seat.

"As if I didn't have enough to look after already," Samantha said, smiling. She pulled the shoulder harness of the seat belt across her daughter's small chest and began to secure the lock.

"Granddaddy Sam says we need us a daddy," Amanda offered.

Samantha's eyes flicked up from the seat-belt mechanism in surprise. Her daughter's sky-blue gaze was guileless.

Mandy was only repeating what she'd been told, Samantha knew. Except she also knew that Sam had counted on that repet.i.tion, his message being delivered by a messenger she wouldn't be rude to.

"What we really need," Samantha said, her voice only the slightest bit clipped, "is for Granddaddy Sam to mind his own business."

She closed the back door, a little harder than was absolutely necessary, and climbed into the driver's seat. It would take her about fifty minutes to get back to the house, and she knew that Sam's remark would needle her all the way home.

She took a deep breath, trying to block her automatic resentment. It didn't seem that her father would ever learn to stay out of her life, and because of Mandy, she could never totally break the ties that bound them all together, no matter how angry she got at his interference. Neither of them deserved that.

n tioner up full blast. Glancing in the rearview mirror in preparation for backing out of the parking s.p.a.ce, she met Mandy's eyes. For a moment it was as if time had been suspended. Or had flashed back a few years. The sensation happened only infrequently, but when it did, it was still enough to take her breath.

Maybe this time it had been precipitated by Sam's comment.

Or maybe it was simply a trick of the afternoon light.

She had long ago stopped trying to explain what happened at those moments. She had just learned to endure them and then get on with her life.

She smiled at the child, and raised a trembling hand to adjust a mirror that needed no adjustment. No one else ever drove her Jeep. She knew she was just trying to erase that momentary reflection of the past. And she also knew that was an impossibility.

SHE HAD CHOSEN THE shortest route home, using the maze of unpaved ranch roads that the Jeep had no trouble negotiating.

Mandy had dozed off, despite the roughness of the ride, and occasionally Samantha would glance in the mirror to check on the sleeping child, whose long lashes rested peacefully against rose-tinged cheeks. Despite the fact that she slathered sunscreen on them both every morning, by this time of the summer, their fair skin had begun to take on a tan. With its exposure to the sun, Mandy's small nose, a carbon copy of her own, had acquired a matching dusting of freckles.

At least she didn't inherit my hair, Samantha thought, enjoying the sight of the blond head nodding slightly with the motion of the car.

It was at that moment she became aware of another car on the narrow road, rapidly approaching behind them. Too rapidly, she decided, given the condition Of the caliche one-lane.

She thought about pulling off to the side and letting whoever was in such a hurry go around her, but before she could make that decision, the black car slowed, its speed now sedately matching her own. She watched it for a few minutes, green eyes flicking back and forth between the road ahead and the following sedan. Men. Four of them.

Two in the front seat and two in the rear.

There were very few houses on this road--a couple of turnoffs that led to small, isolated ranches before she reached the one that would take her home. She knew the families who lived on those spreads, and for some reason these men didn't look as if they might be the kind of visitors that would be welcomed there. She wondered briefly if she should call Sheriff Elkins's office, and then realized she had nothing to tell them. Nothing except there were some people on the road that she didn't recognize. Pretty small-town, she thought, smiling at her own xenophobia.

She had topped a rise, eyes still on the car behind her, before she realized there was a panel truck parked across the road directly ahead of her. She slammed on the brakes, hard, and the Jeep slewed sideways for several yards before it crashed into the side of the parked vehicle, and then bounced away, coming to rest almost aligned again in the direction she'd been traveling.

Despite the shock of the collision, her first thought was, of course, for Mandy. She turned to examine her daughter, who was apparently unharmed, her small body safely held in place by the shoulder harness. The child's eyes, still dazed by sleep, met hers and then moved past her mother's face to focus on something outside the window.

"You okay, Cupcake?" Samantha asked. Mandy nod-dod, her gaze still fastened on whatever had attracted her attention outside.

The driver's-side door opened, and when Samantha turned around in response, she understood the child's fascinated silence. In the seconds since the car had stopped moving, it had been surrounded by men holding guns--all of them pointing at the occupants of the damaged Jeep.

Even as her mind was beginning to register what was happening, the dark, mustached man who had opened the door reached across her to yank out the car phone. He stepped back, pushing the phone into the pocket of his pants, and then he motioned her out of the car with a silent, but unmistakable command, expressed with the long barrel of what appeared to be an old army-issue Colt.

A million thoughts flashed through Samantha's head.

Things she should have done. Bitter regret that she hadn't recognized what was happening sooner. Scenarios involving her taking some action to get them safely away. But at the back of them all, blocking all the panicked urgings that she ought to be doing something, loomed that one word. Safely. Keep Mandy safe. At least two of the guns were focused on her four-year-old daughter. Just don't do anything stupid that might get Mandy hurt.

"What do you want?" she asked. The question sounded remarkably normal, considering the fact that she couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs. Considering the fact that her heart was going like a jackhammer in her chest.

Considering.

"Get out of the car, please," the man who had opened the door said politely. Despite the gun, there was nothing frightening about his demeanor. He was a good-looking man. His calm eyes, set in the darkly handsome face, were somehow as rea.s.suring as his politeness. Until he added, "We don't want to have to hurt anyone."

Her Spanish was certainly good enough to understand that. To fasten her mind on it. To hope it was the truth.

"I have to unbuckle my seat belt," she said in the language he'd used. She couldn't afford to do anything that might set them off. No sudden moves. No surprises and nothing they might misinterpret. She couldn't afford any bullets flying around inside the Jeep with its precious cargo.

He nodded permission, and with trembling fingers Samantha released the lock of the belt and stepped outside.

The man had moved back only enough to allow her room to get out of the car.

"Hold out your hands, please," he ordered.

"What do you want?" she asked again. She had maybe twenty dollars on her. And her watch, which she knew was valuable because Sam had given it to her last Christmas. A gold wedding band. Not much, it seemed, to exchange for her daughter's safety, but maybe it would be enough. Please, G.o.d, she prayed, let it be enough.

Even as she was taking a silent inventory of her valuables, the realization was also beginning to grow in the back of her mind that this robbery had been carefully orchestrated.

The truck had been parked behind the rise in antic.i.p.ation of her approach. The car following her had timed its arrival perfectly. Pretty elaborate for a holdup.

"Your hands," he said again, gesturing with the gun.

"Palms together."

"I don't think---" "Now," he said.

"Do it now before I lose patience, Miss Kincald. Before I am forced to do something we will both regret."

Kincaid. Her mind registered the name even as she obeyed him, holding out her shaking hands. The sight of the silver duct tape was somehow more terrifying than anything that had happened so far. The other man who had been standing on the driver's side with them laid his shotgun on top of the Jeep and then proficiently wrapped the tape around her wrists. He cut it off the roll with a pocketknife, which he handled as casually as he had the gun.

Only her hands. He taped nothing else, and for some reason she was immensely relieved that he hadn't covered her eyes or her mouth.

The one who had done all the talking nodded again, but not, this time, to her or to the man who had wrapped her wrists. His eyes had moved to the men standing on the other side of the wrecked Jeep. She heard the car door open and couldn't keep from whirling around to see what they were doing.

"No," she begged, watching one of those men crawl into the back seat and begin to unfasten Mandy's seat belt.

It all right," the leader said.

"No one will be hurt, I promise you. Everything will be fine if you do exactly what you're told."

"What are you going to do?"

"You'll be sent information about what to do. Instructions will be sent to your father."

"My father?" Samantha repeated unbelievingly. By this' time, the man was lifting an unprotesting Mandy out of the back seat.

"What kind of information? What are you talking about?"

"For the ransom," he said simply.

"Information on how it should be paid. On how to recover your daughter."

For the first time she realized what was going on, and sickeningly, how foolish she had been. Kidnapping was a threat she had lived under most of her childhood, a threat her father had taken very seriously.

"Please don't do this," she begged.

"Anything you want. I'll give you anything you want, but don't take her.

Please, don't take my daughter." She had already begun to move toward the man carrying the sleepy child when the muzzle of the leader's revolver was placed against her throat.

"Don't do something foolish and make us have to hurt you or your daughter. Your father will pay the ransom whether you are dead or alive. If you make us kill you," he said reasonably, "all it will mean is that your daughter, when she's safely returned in a few days, will be forced to grow up without her mother. However, if you do exactly what you're told, I promise you that no one will be injured.

Neither you nor your daughter. Then, in only a few days you'll be reunited."

Mandy was watching her over the man's shoulder, her blue eyes beginning to widen as the distance grew between them. Or maybe widening at the sight of the gun pressed against Samantha's neck. Another of the men had moved to walk beside the one carrying Amanda, his shotgun pointing casually at one of the bobbing blond ponytails.

"Mama," Mandy called, hoping, Samantha knew, for rea.s.surance.

"It's okay, Mandy. Everything's okay," she said aloud, and then softly, urgently, to the mustached man beside her, "Please. I'll do anything you say. Just don't take her away from me." "We'll contact your father about the arrangements. No police. Do you understand? It's very important that there are no police involved. If you call in the authorities, I make no promises about the child's safety."

"Please don't do---" Samantha began again only to be cut off by a minute increase in the pressure of the gun that rested against her throat.

"I have a daughter myself, Miss Kincaid. I will see that no harm comes to the child. You have my personal guarantee.

My word. I shall care for her as if she were my own daughter. We have no desire to hurt a child. All we are interested in is your father's money. In the ransom. It is very much in our best interests, as in yours, that everything should go smoothly and that no one should be hurt. But there must be no interference from the authorities. Do you understand?"

Samantha nodded, watching a crying Mandy being loaded into the car that had followed her down the narrow twisting road.

"I am sorry that I must leave you out here alone. Do you know your way back to civilization?" His politeness was almost bizarre, given the situation.

"Yes," she whispered.

She wondered if she should tell him that she was no longer Samantha Kincaid. She could tell him that Sam wouldn't pay what they asked, but she couldn't be sure what effect that might have, and she also knew it wasn't true. Sam would pay any amount to recover his granddaughter.

While she stood there, hands taped and the kidnapper's gun pointed at her, the door of the black car that had followed her closed, shutting off the sound of Mandy's terrified sobs.

The big car began to back down the narrow road to a small turnaround, only a few hundred yards behind. All meticulously planned. In her stupid arrogance, she had walked right into the trap. Sam had tried to warn her when Mandy was born. A warning she'd ignored because she had believed that it was simply a ploy to exercise further control over their lives. And now... The man with the mustache walked to the front of her Jeep and, releasing the latch, held the hood open as he pumped a single bullet into the engine. Startled, she flinched away from the noise. Steam flared briefly into the dry air and then he dropped the hood.

He turned to look at her again, his dark face softening at the tears tracking unchecked down the pale, shocked translucence of her cheeks.

"As if she were my own," he said again.