Heart on the Line

  When the handles emerged, she fit them between her bound wrists. Drawing her hands closer to her body with bent elbows, she pressed the handles into her ribs as her fingernails clawed at the blades to separate them.

  She’d just started to pry them apart when a sound at the door announced Lockhart’s return. Heart pounding, Grace dropped to her knees and grabbed at her pooling skirt to cover her hands and the shears.

  Lockhart strode through the doorway, his arm crooked around Amos’s neck. He dragged the semi-conscious man into the barn and pulled the door closed behind them.

  “See what I found, Grace? Your loyal lapdog. So kind of him to pay a visit.” Lockhart threw Amos to the floor.

  Grace cried out.

  Amos braced his arms beneath him and lifted his head, his gaze locking on hers. “Grace? Are you—?”

  The click of a hammer being cocked cut off the rest of his question. Lockhart, his expression having lost all trace of humor and gentility, snarled as he grabbed Amos by the collar and jerked him up onto his knees. Then he pressed the barrel of his pistol against Amos’s skull.

  Lockhart’s cold eyes bored into her. “Ready to talk now, Grace?”

  Her heart lurched. “Please. He has nothing to do with this. Let him go!”

  She knew he wouldn’t, but she had to do something to gain herself time. To get the shears open and slice through the bindings.

  “I don’t think so.” Lockhart glared at her. “Tell me what I want to know, Grace. Now. Or Bledsoe dies.”

  Grace fidgeted, digging her hands deeper into the cover of her skirt, praying Lockhart would mistake her movements for agitation and fear when what she was really doing was hooking the curved pruning blade she’d managed to open around the inside of her ropes.

  “How will you explain a dead telegraph operator to Miss Gladstone?” Grace challenged. “She’s sure to come running when the gun goes off. Executing an unarmed man isn’t exactly the action of an honorable Pinkerton detective. She’ll know she’s been duped.”

  Lockhart narrowed his eyes. “Irene will believe whatever I tell her to believe.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Grace sawed the blade in tiny motions against the hemp. Please, God. Please help me get free.

  Lockhart shrugged. “Then I’ll kill her. The old man, too. And you’ll have three deaths on your hands.”

  “Not on your hands, Grace.” Amos’s voice, so unexpected and so calm, drew her gaze to his. “He’s the one responsible. No matter what happens, nothing is your fault.”

  She heard the meaning behind his words, the forgiveness freely given. He wasn’t begging her to tell her secrets and spare him. He knew as well as she did that as soon as Lockhart had the information he wanted, they were both as good as dead. Amos wasn’t thinking of himself at all. He was thinking of her. Letting her know that if he died at Lockhart’s hands, he had no regrets and laid no blame at her feet.

  Grace stilled, her entire focus on the man who had crept into her heart. The one who could not be any more a hero than he was at that moment. “I love you, Amos.”

  His lips curved in the sweetest smile she’d ever seen. “I love y—”

  “Shut up,” Lockhart growled and kicked Amos in the gut with enough force to double the smaller man over.

  “Stop it!” Grace screamed.

  Lockhart pressed a knee between Amos’s shoulder blades and jammed his gun against the back of Amos’s head. “Tell me where the books are, Grace, or I’ll shoot Bledsoe and cut the answers out of you piece by piece.”

  “If you kill him, I’ll never tell you.” She leaned forward against her restraint, the leather digging into her chest. “No matter what you do to me. But if you let him go, I give you my word that I’ll tell you where they are.”

  “Grace, no,” Amos groaned, straining against Lockhart’s weight, but the larger man restrained him with ease.

  Lockhart looked from one prisoner to the other. Grace could practically see the thoughts running through his mind. He knew what she’d endured already. Knew her mental fortitude. He also knew he was running out of time. If he didn’t get the answers he sought tonight, his best window of opportunity to retrieve the books without fully exposing himself would be lost. He might very well follow through on his threat to gather his compatriots and storm Harper’s Station, but that would take time. Time that would allow Malachi to bring in reinforcements of his own.

  On the other hand, letting Amos go meant running the risk of the telegraph operator fetching Sheriff Tabor. Lockhart would have to abandon the security of the Gladstone farm. Would he take the risk, or would he give up on the books, kill them all, and make his escape?

  32

  Grace stared at Lockhart, daring him to take her offer.

  He rubbed his jaw, scowled, then cursed. “All right. I’ll let Bledsoe go. But on my terms.” He removed his knee from the center of Amos’s back, then grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet. “There’s a clearing half a mile east of here,” Lockhart said with a wave of his gun. “Far enough away to muffle any necessary gunshots.”

  He shoved Amos forward, pointed his gun at his back, and marched him toward Grace.

  Bending forward to shield her hands, Grace slipped the shears from her lap to beneath her knees, praying her captor’s view was sufficiently obstructed by his prisoner.

  Amos caught the action, though, and met her gaze. His eyes burned like blue fire, his jaw set. I’m not leaving you with him, his face all but shouted.

  She lifted her chin and stared back. You must.

  A muscle ticked in Amos’s cheek and his eyes blazed, but he nodded. Just a tiny dip of his chin, yet it conveyed everything Grace needed. He would escape and protect the ladies of Harper’s Station.

  “On your feet, Grace,” Lockhart barked. “You’re gonna fetch my horse.”

  “Hard to do when I’m strapped to the wall,” she sassed as she struggled to get her feet under her while keeping a grip on the fabric of her skirt to camouflage her hands. She hadn’t had time to saw through all the rope, but it had definitely frayed. Whether it was frayed enough to allow her to break free was yet to be determined, but she couldn’t afford Lockhart suspecting anything amiss.

  Unable to use her arms for balance, Grace rose awkwardly, nearly tumbling sideways. Amos took hold of her shoulders, steadying her. Grace smiled her thanks until Lockhart leaned around Amos and knocked his arms away. Grace glared at him.

  Lockhart shrugged. “Consider me your chaperone, darlin’. Rest assured there’ll be no hanky-panky on my watch.”

  “I’m so relieved,” Grace said, sarcasm dripping from her tongue as thick as molasses from a spoon. She turned to present her back to the men. Someone would have to loosen the leather strap.

  “Unbuckle it, Bledsoe. But only the strap, mind you. The lady’s clothes must stay where they are.”

  Grace wanted to slam her fist into Lockhart’s mouth. Not that it would help matters. It probably wouldn’t even dent a tooth, not with him being so tall and her being so wrung out. But the thought buoyed her flagging spirits. This was a war, after all, and it was time to fight.

  Once Amos released her from the strap, Grace circled her shoulders and stretched her elbows wide, reminding her arms how to move. Amos’s hands lingered at her waist, squeezing gently, instilling hope. It would have been a lovely moment had Lockhart not snatched her arm and jerked her away.

  “Fetch my horse. Last stall.”

  She glowered at her captor, then met Amos’s gaze as she walked past. How she wished they had more time. There was so much she wanted to say to him, so much of life she wanted to share with him. She wanted to meet his sister and his mother, play with his nephew, and perhaps even give young Harry a cousin or two to boss around during family outings.

  She even wanted to learn how to ride that ridiculous velocipede. She’d seen pictures of bicycles fashioned for two riders. She and Amos could cycle together on the same machine. Laughing, causing havoc in the streets. It would
be paradise.

  Lockhart’s fist crashed into Amos’s jaw. Amos’s head snapped sideways, his spectacles skewed across the bridge of his nose. Grace gasped.

  “Move faster, girlie,” Lockhart ordered, “or next time I’ll use my knife instead of my fist.”

  Grace blinked away the shards of paradise lost and dashed deeper into the barn, searching out the last stall. Lockhart’s gelding lifted his head from the feedbox as she approached. All his tack remained in place—saddle, bridle, pack. All she had to do was tighten the cinch to make him ready. Her captor obviously preferred keeping his getaway options open. He might be cocky, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Well, she wasn’t stupid either. Nor was she helpless. And if everything went according to plan, she just might live long enough to make the future she’d envisioned with Amos a reality.

  Grace unnotched the buckle on the cinch, then did her best to tighten the strap despite the awkwardness of bound hands. Once satisfied with the result, Grace took hold of the brown gelding’s reins and led him from the stall. The clop of his hooves echoed dully in the barn as they struck the packed dirt floor, but Grace barely registered the sound. She was too concerned about the frayed edges poking up around the center of her wrists. Her work with the cinch had frayed the rope further, and with her arms exposed as she led the horse, there was no way to hide the evidence. Would Lockhart notice?

  She stole a glance at her captor. Holding Amos at gunpoint, he was ordering his prisoner to open the barn door. Which meant his back was turned to her. Thank God. With Lockhart’s focus on Amos and the increasing shadows as dusk darkened, she just might make it. Grace clasped her palms together around the reins to keep from putting any undue pressure on the weakened rope and strode forward, careful to keep on Lockhart’s right so her body would impede his view of her arms.

  Amos slid the door open, and Lockhart pushed him through the opening. A dark spot at Lockhart’s back caught Grace’s notice for the first time. A second pistol was tucked into the waistband of his trousers. It must be Amos’s weapon, confiscated after that deluded woman bonked him over the head. That made two pistols, at least one knife, and the rifle in the saddle boot. Against a single-shot derringer with a short range and a woman whose arms were so exhausted from hook-hanging that she couldn’t hold them chest-high without trembling.

  Yet David needed only one stone to fell Goliath.

  Odds didn’t matter when God fought at one’s side.

  Guide my hand as you did David’s, Lord. I can’t succeed without you.

  It took fifteen minutes of tromping over uneven ground to reach the clearing and another five for Lockhart to decide on the perfect centralized position to make his stand.

  A three-quarter moon shone in the charcoal sky, and cricket song filled the night air. The wind cut through Grace’s wet hair and clothing until she shivered so severely that she lost her grip on the gelding’s reins. Not that it mattered. Lockhart had stopped. Unable to wrap her arms around herself for warmth, Grace settled for hunching her shoulders and turning her back to the wind.

  “Come here, Grace.” Lockhart jerked his head forward, signaling her to approach on Amos’s side.

  She obeyed, eying the gun pointed at Amos’s head and Lockhart’s punishing grip on his arm. Her heart throbbed.

  This was it. In a few minutes Amos would either be free or dead. Her too, though that outcome was secondary.

  “Do you see that scraggly mesquite about eighty yards to the north?” Lockhart tipped his head that direction.

  Grace eyed the shadowy outline of a short, gnarled tree not too far away. “Yes.”

  “I figure with the low visibility, that’s about the extent of my range for hitting a moving target.” Lockhart tapped the pistol barrel against the side of Amos’s head, making him wince and duck away. “In a minute, I’m going to let Bledsoe go, and he’s going to walk in a straight line to that tree. You have until he gets there to tell me where the books are. If you don’t, I shoot him.” He met her gaze, his voice menacing. “And we all know how good a shot I am.”

  Grace swallowed, desperately fighting off images of her father bleeding in the street.

  “What happens to Grace after she tells you what you want to know?” Amos demanded, his voice strong and sure despite the threat of death hanging over his head.

  Lockhart shrugged. “I’ll have no more need of her. She’ll be free to find her way back to the main road or to a homestead nearby. Probably won’t find much of a welcome at the Gladstone place, but there are others around who might be more sympathetic to her plight.”

  Grace didn’t believe a word coming out of Lockhart’s mouth, and judging by his clenched jaw, Amos didn’t either. Nevertheless, it was essential Amos went along with the plan.

  She stepped close to his side, drinking in his warmth as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about me,” she urged. “I’ll be fine.”

  He stared hard at her.

  She stared back. “I need you to go, Amos. Please.”

  His fingers tapped against her arm. At first she simply absorbed the comfort, but then she realized it was code. I’ll come back for you.

  She wanted to return the message, to tell him again that she loved him, but her hands were pinned between them, and Lockhart was too impatient to give her the chance. He yanked Amos away from her and shoved him forward.

  “You heard the lady, Bledsoe. She needs you to go.”

  Amos stumbled a few steps, then turned to look at Grace. She nodded and mouthed the word, Go.

  Lockhart was less subtle. “Get a move on,” he ordered as he planted a boot on Amos’s rear and pushed. “I don’t got all night.”

  Amos found his balance, favored Grace with one final, incredibly fierce gaze, then pivoted forward and started walking toward the tree.

  Grace watched him go. Each step he took farther away filled her heart with hope. This would work. It had to work.

  When Amos reached the halfway point, Lockhart chanced a quick glance at her before refocusing his attention on his quarry. “Where are the books, Grace?”

  Not yet. Amos was still within range. She needed to make sure he put as much distance between himself and Lockhart as possible.

  Amos halved the remaining distance.

  “Grace?” Lockhart’s voice hardened, demanding she give him what he sought.

  She held her tongue.

  Ten steps from the tree.

  Eight.

  “I’m going to count to three, and if you haven’t held up your end of the bargain, I’ll shoot him.” His gaze remained fixed on Amos.

  Grace backed up a few paces. Started testing the strength of the rope at her wrists.

  Five steps from the tree.

  “One . . .” Lockhart counted.

  Grace paced back another stride, twisting her hands. The right one was nearly free.

  “Two . . .”

  “The bank,” she blurted as Amos’s silhouette blended with that of the tree. He was out of pistol range. “The books are locked in the vault at the bank.”

  “Thank you, my dear.” In a seamless motion, Lockhart holstered his pistol, spun toward his horse, and slid the rifle free of the boot. He’d just doubled his range by changing weapons.

  “Run, Amos!” Grace screamed as she wrenched her hand free of the binding.

  As Lockhart took aim, Grace hitched up her skirts and pulled her derringer.

  She didn’t look for Amos. Didn’t worry about her shivering, trembling arms. This close to her target, it wouldn’t matter.

  Holding the tiny pocket pistol with two hands, Grace disengaged the safety and raised the barrel.

  The two shots concussed almost simultaneously.

  Grace didn’t wait to see where hers had hit. Nor did she search for Amos, even though her heart yearned to know his fate. With Lockhart’s howl of pain echoing in her ears, she did the only thing she could. She used the last of her depleted energy to mount Lockhart’s horse, leaned low
over the saddle, and raced for the road as a volley of gunshots exploded behind her.

  33

  Run, Amos!”

  At Grace’s shout, Amos dodged sharply right. But instead of running as instinct and the woman he loved demanded, he lunged for the mesquite that stood a mere two steps away. Its twisted trunk and curving limbs might be thinner than his own frame, but they offered more cover than the knee-high scrub brush dotting the rest of the prairie landscape.

  Even as he leapt behind the gnarled tree, a gunshot boomed. Then echoed. A second shot?

  The question pierced Amos’s brain at the same moment a bullet pierced his sleeve.

  Amos hissed and spun to his left, planting his good shoulder against the tree trunk and making himself as thin a target as possible. An animal-like roar, deep and angry, blasted across the clearing.

  Lockhart.

  Grace must have gotten free and retrieved her derringer. Thank God!

  Another shot rang out. Then two more. Amos sucked in a breath and tensed for impact, his eyes squeezed shut, but no bullets peppered the tree. No lead ripped through his skin. Amos’s eyes popped open. The shooting wasn’t aimed at him.

  Grace!

  No longer concerned with his own protection, Amos ducked beneath the mesquite’s low-hanging branches and stared back across the clearing. Lockhart lay sprawled on the ground, firing his repeating rifle one-handed. He’d tucked the butt of the rifle into the crease between his legs and waist to hold it steady as he shot.

  At a woman on horseback.

  Grace leaned low over the horse’s neck. The too-long stirrups flapped against the animal’s sides, keeping the beast racing at top speed. Amos’s breath caught. As dark as it was, her mount could lose its footing and crumple. Grace could break her neck.

  But if she slowed, one of Lockhart’s bullets would take her down.

  Ride, Grace, he silently urged. Ride.

  A movement caught Amos’s eye, drawing his attention away from Grace. Lockhart was pivoting toward him, working the lever of his repeater.

  Time to go.

  Amos dodged around to the back side of the tree again and sprinted cross-country, keeping the tree between himself and Lockhart to make the gunman’s shot as difficult as possible. Unfortunately, that meant running in the opposite direction from Grace, but he’d veer east to search for the road as soon as he put adequate distance between himself and Lockhart’s rifle.