Chapter 12
“Gee, Hunter, you could have put your pants on first,” Jeff said, shaking his head.
“There was no time,” Hunter said. He ducked a second before a bullet slammed into the wood where his head had just been. He tripped on his nightshirt and cursed under his breath.
He shot back, hitting a bandit in the side of the neck. The man went down in a pool of blood. Jeff was beside him, and together, they tried to get to the back door, but all the bandits were filing out of it and firing at them.
They crouched behind the water trough and returned fire. The noise was too much for Hunter and his hurt head. Every gunshot rang and reverberated until his head thumped and thundered like a storm. He felt sick and forced himself to keep shooting.
Where was Grace? Was she all right?
After a moment, there was silence.
Jeff peeked around their shelter and then stood up. “They’re gone,” he said. He walked over to the three men who were lying, unmoving, on the ground. He kicked their guns away from them anyway and waited for Hunter to catch up. He was still shaky on his legs, his head throbbing.
They entered the station together, guns at the ready.
Jeff swore and then Hunter turned and saw Robert on the floor, clutching his side.
“They took her,” he said through gritted teeth. “Hunter, they took Grace.”
Hunter’s world flipped upside down. He was running out into the open fields beyond the town before he even realized where he was or what he was doing.
There was nothing there, only dots on the horizon lit by the last rays of the setting sun that might be figures on horseback and might be his imagination.
Dizziness overcame him, and he fell to the ground. His cheeks were wet, and he realized that he was crying. They had taken Grace! Just when he’d found someone he loved, those blackguards had come and taken her.
Well, he wouldn’t stand for that. He was going to get her back. But first, he was going to get some pants.
“How is he?” Hunter asked Julie.
She looked very tired. Her face was pale, and she had dark rings under her eyes.
“Robert is stable,” she said. “And very lucky. An inch to the left, and he’d have lost his spleen.”
Jeff let out a loud breath and put his head in his hands. He and Hunter had been sitting in the waiting room in Julie’s surgery for what felt like most of the night. They weren’t alone. The room was packed with people.
Anita and Emily had been passing coffee mugs around. Ethan, Kevin, and a whole lot of the others had been going from house to house, making sure that none of the bandits were left in town. Michael, Andrew, and Lizzy had been out with lanterns and a small search party, looking for Grace.
Despite insisting that he had to be part of the search party, Hunter’s demands had fallen on deaf ears.
Julie had taken one look at him and told him he had to be in bed and that he’d only hold the search party back when he inevitably collapsed.
She’d settled for making him lie down in her waiting room when it was clear he wasn’t budging.
“They’ll find some sign of her,” Anita said as she took a seat beside Hunter. “You know they will. So, how about Kevin and I get you back home to bed?”
Kevin stood in front of him now, looking down at Hunter with concern on his face.
“Come on, Hunter, you’re no good to anyone broken and seeing double,” Kevin said.
“I’m not seeing double,” Hunter said testily.
“You need rest,” Julie retorted. “Go home, all of you. Get a couple of hours of sleep, and then I’m sure you’ll have some answers or clues or whatever you’re waiting for.”
Hunter stood and headed for the door. He could get home on his own; he didn’t need an escort, and yet he had one in the form of Kyle, Kevin, and Anita. They took him all the way up to his bed and would have tucked him in if he hadn’t kicked up a fuss.
“I can get in my bed on my own,” he said to Anita, taking his sheets back from her. “Thank you, but I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? I don’t know what I would do if Kevin had been taken,” Anita said, showing no sign of being annoyed with him, just worried and determined to help.
“We can’t imagine what you’re going through,” Kevin said kindly. “Grace is a special lady. She’s so kind and thoughtful.”
“She rearranged the whole storeroom and took stock of it all,” Anita said. “She also made a list of things we need to get—and all in no time at all. Anyone would think she had done this before.”
“She has,” Hunter said, sinking back against the pillow when it was clear they weren’t about to let him out of the bedroom to try and take up the search on his own. “Her mother was on some committee back home that managed the town store. She helped out.”
Anita chuckled and shook her head. “Of course she did. Well, I hope that El Aguila is prepared to have his whole compound turned upside down.”
“Why do you say that?” Hunter asked. Grace was supposed to be there sitting on the very bed he was sitting on, playing cards with him. She wasn’t supposed to be missing. What if they had shot her? What if she was dying and she needed him, and he was here in bed?
“For a timid person, Grace certainly gets her point across when she feels strongly about something,” Anita shrugged. “You don’t need to know her long to know that much.”
“She might have been shot and be lying in a ditch now somewhere, dying!” Hunter exclaimed.
Kevin shook his head. “Jeff said that Alberto told his rescuers not to harm her. He said they all listened to Alberto like he was in charge or something. They didn’t hurt her. Robert was quite adamant about that after you ran off in a panic.”
Hunter felt his face flush. “I was really worried. I still am.”
“Hey, I can stay the night,” Kyle said. “If it’ll make you feel better.”
“It’s not necessary,” Hunter said.
“Oh sure, because you’re not going to sneak out and try to find her alone, are you?” Kyle asked.
“I wouldn’t,” Kevin said with a shake of his head. “Andrew and the others will want to leave at dawn, and you’d be a fool to do something to get yourself counted out of the posse. So, think about it. What’s the smart move here?”
Hunter reluctantly conceded Kevin was right.
The smart move was to try and sleep and then get up and follow the trail in daylight.
There was no way that a group of at least twenty horses wouldn’t leave a mark on the land that would be easy to follow.
He could be there when they found her and brought Grace home.
“Okay,” he said.
Kyle grinned. “I’ll be down the hall with my door open.”
“Thanks, but I’m just going to sleep,” Hunter said.
Kevin and Anita left, and Hunter lay down and tried to close his eyes and sleep. He tossed and turned and thought sleep would never come … And that was when he finally dozed off.
Hunter was up just before dawn. Grace had spent a night in those blackguards’ clutches. Who knew what hardships and horrors she was enduring at their hands? He couldn’t spend another minute without searching for her.
Once dressed and armed with both a pistol and a shotgun, Hunter and Kyle went down the road to the farm, where the posse was meeting. Kevin had gotten the horses ready, and there was one for Hunter and Kyle each.
“Are you feeling up to this?” Andrew asked.
Hunter nodded. “My head’s clear and I feel fine.”
Andrew nodded. “All right, but if you feel like you can’t make it at any point, Kyle or Kevin can bring you home.”
“There’s no shame in knowing your limits,” Michael said, patting Hunter on the shoulder. “You took a nasty blow to the head.”
Hunter would rather claw his eyes out than admit he had limits when it came to Grace and her well-being. One way or another, he was going to be there when she was rescued.
“All right then,” Michael said. “We tracked the bandits last night across the fields to the east. They turned south, and that’s when we turned back. Their path is clear up to that point. So, we can make good time riding out.”
“We’d obviously have loved to have Robert on this hunt, but we’ve just got to keep him in our prayers,” Andrew said with a nod. “Are there any questions?”
No one had any, and they mounted the horses and soon were riding out.
It was a lovely day. The sun was bright, and the morning was cool.
Soon, however, the Texas summer heat kicked in, and Hunter began to wish that he was lying in the shade or maybe submerged in a pond.
The sun seemed to be baking his brain through his hat, hair, skin, and skull.
He drank sips of water from his water skin every time they stopped to check the direction the bandits had gone in.
But Hunter was made of stern stuff, and he might sway in his saddle a little, but he wasn’t about to keel over.
Of course, that reminded him of Grace’s penchant for fainting, which made him even more determined to find her sooner rather than later.
He knew by now that fainting was no sign of weakness in her.
He considered it a quirk of the woman he was now fully in love with, and he was determined to bring her home so they could spend many more happy years together, with plenty of fainting from Grace at moments of high excitement like when their first child broke an arm climbing a tree, for example.
Yes. He would find her. He would bring her home. And they would live happily ever after.
After riding out in an easterly direction for quite some time, they turned south. The sun climbed in the sky and the day got hotter and hotter. They stopped at a pond along the way, let the horses drink, and splashed water on themselves.
“We’ll have to go slowly in the heat,” Andrew said. “We don’t want to get to El Aguila’s camp too worn out for a fight.”
Hunter nodded. And they mounted their horses and set out again.
Hunter had never considered himself to be a vengeful person, and yet here he was wanting to hurt the man who had taken something so precious from him.