The Wedding Ransom Read online

  Rafe grabbed a banana for himself and tossed one to Maggie. Slamming the lid of the treasure chest shut, he propped a hip on it, peeled his fruit, and said, “Now, tell me about this Mr. Andrew Montgomery.”

  “I’d prefer not to speak of him.”

  “Too bad, Sugar. I hired on to this adventure for a cut of the spoils. Since there’s not going to be any of those, I reckon the least you owe me is a few answers. Who is he? The name halfway rings a bell with me.”

  Maggie shrugged as she broke the end off her banana. Why not tell him? She didn’t see how it would hurt anything. Besides, Malone was crafty enough. Maybe he’d see a way out of this mess. “Andrew Montgomery is my grandfathers’ worst enemy. They go way back. I remember meeting him once years ago in Barbados when I was little more than a child. My grandfathers bodily threw him out of our house. Over time they have cussed and discussed Montgomery at such length that I feel like I know him well.”

  “He is a pirate, too?”

  “Yes. From what I remember, Montgomery is a younger son of an English earl who was on his way to the Indies when pirates attacked his ship. The Englishman chose to join the ranks of the marauders and eventually ended up a crew member on the Mystique. “

  “Another pirate ship?”

  “My Papa Ben was her captain.”

  “I see.” Rafe thumped his hand against the treasure chest. “So he helped to capture the spoils we expected to find?”

  “I guess he must have. I’ve never asked.” Maggie took a bite of her fruit, then made a face. Food never did taste good when she was nervous. “I know that his shipmates—Lucky, Gus, and Snake—liked him and welcomed him into their group. I remember Snake calling him a bold adventurer.”

  “He’s said the same thing about me.”

  “No wonder he keeps threatening to kill you.”

  Rafe tossed away his banana peel and reached for a hunk of dried beef. “So, this Montgomery made a good pirate?”

  “My grandfathers taught him everything they knew. I want to say he was fifteen years or so younger than they, and I do remember the trip to India was his first sea voyage. He must have had a lot of learning to do.”

  “I’d imagine one would need to learn fast, too.”

  Maggie nodded. “I think he did. Papa Gus said he’d embraced the pirate’s life and shown all the signs of becoming a leader.”

  “So, did he? What happened? Did he challenge Ben for his ship or something?”

  Maggie stared into the cenote. “Perhaps. They wouldn’t tell me. All I know is that something happened to drive a wedge between him and my grandfathers. They became the bitterest of enemies, and over the years, Montgomery has intruded into our lives from time to time.”

  “How is that?”

  “Well, he settled in Texas after we did, for one thing.”

  Rafe perked up at that. “Galveston? I think Republic Shipping has a Montgomery at the helm.”

  “No.” Maggie shook her head. “Not Galveston. East Texas. He’s a cotton planter.”

  “Triumph Plantation. Southeast of Nacogdoches.” Rafe snapped his fingers. “Of course. I knew I’d heard the name. I once robbed guests on the way to a party at his place, if I remember correctly. I even think he may have been a guest of the Prescotts a time or two. Luke has become somewhat prominent socially in the past couple of years. Honor is trying to talk him into running for Congress.”

  Rafe folded his arms. “The owner of Triumph Plantation a retired pirate. Don’t that just beat all.”

  “Not so retired,” Maggie replied with a grimace. She gestured toward the chest. “Obviously, he hasn’t given up stealing.”

  Following that sad observation, conversation lagged. Rafe polished off another banana and a pair of mangoes. Maggie set her snack aside. She could feel him looking at her, but she wasn’t in the mood to deal with bicker or banter or anything else. Barlow Hill kept coming to mind. She might never eat again.

  Finally her grandfathers returned and went to work on the rock above. It took almost two hours of labor with the makeshift sledgehammer and a tree-trunk lever to enlarge the hole enough to accommodate Rafe’s shoulders. Once Papa Snake declared the opening wide enough, Papa Gus tied a rope around a nearby tree and called for Maggie to climb up.

  “Have them pull you out,” Rafe scoffed. “You can’t climb that rope. That’s a good fifteen feet, woman.”

  Maggie didn’t bother to argue, just wrapped her hands and feet around the hemp and began to shimmy upward. When she’d made it halfway up, he observed, “Well, I reckon a girl learns a few useful skills while living on a pirate ship.”

  At the top the papas lifted her out, and Maggie squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden glare of sunlight. Rafe made it out of the cave without incident, and they fell in line behind Gus for the hike back to the Buccaneer’s Bliss.

  “First time I ever went home from a robbery empty-handed,” Rafe observed.

  Maggie could almost feel his gaze on her backside as he added, “But then again, maybe not.”

  Chapter 9

  Lake Bliss, Republic of Texas

  On the first night back at the hotel, Rafe turned away from the kitchen window and studied the grim faces of those seated around the table, ostensibly playing cards. Rafe had never seen such a hangdog group of men in all his born days. Not that he didn’t understand. If someone had swiped his secret cache of stolen plunder, he’d have been down in the mouth, too.

  Rafe had a stash of goods—weapons mostly—collected during his robber days that his amnesty agreement with the Texas Rangers had allowed him to keep when he went legal. He called the collection his old-age fund and accessed it only upon rare occasions. Coincidentally, Rafe’s hiding place for his treasure was also a cave—a good strong Texas cave, that is—and ever since they’d boarded the Buccaneer’s Bliss for the return trip home, Rafe had been itching to go check on his stash. It would be just his luck that Andrew Montgomery had branched out and robbed caverns all over the world.

  This evening, however, his cache wasn’t on his mind nearly as much as the pirates’ treasure. And the particular treasure he was thinking of wasn’t the missing gold and jewels. Rafe had Maggie on his mind.

  Not that such a state was anything new. She’d been a bother in that regard even before he met her, but ever since they’d boarded the Buccaneer’s Bliss for the sail home he couldn’t get her out of his head. He was worried about her. He’d caught her in a smile only once, and that was when she’d spotted Ben and Lucky on Hotel Bliss’s front porch. She hardly spoke, certainly never laughed, and had spent the majority of the trip lying in her bunk trying to hold down her food. According to Gus, it was her first-ever case of seasickness. Rafe wondered if heartsick wasn’t closer to the mark.

  All that was enough to cause him concern, but what had happened half an hour ago made him downright frantic. Maggie had accepted an invitation to walk out with Barlow Hill after supper. “The bastard,” he grumbled.

  “Bastard is too good a name for Andrew Montgomery,” Lucky observed. He banged his fist on the table and rattled the glasses. “We should have killed him years ago.”

  “I wasn’t referring to Montgomery.” Rafe pushed aside a gingham window curtain to gaze once again at the empty garden path. Why was this walk taking so long? “I was talking about Barlow Hill.”

  “The maggot.”

  “The louse.”

  “The chigger.”

  “The tick.”

  Rafe glanced back over his shoulder and shot them a glare. “Why would she agree to walk out with him, anyway? She detests the man. And if we are all agreed about his character, why did we allow her to go off with him?”

  Gus took a long draw on his ale, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He tipped his chair back on its two hind legs. “Did you say ‘allow,’ Malone? In relation to our Maggie? The Caribbean sun must have baked your brain.”

  “This business with Montgomery has tangled up all our thinking,” Lucky said, s
cratching at the scar around his neck. “I for one never guessed he’d up and steal our treasure. Not since we gave him his cut when we kicked him off our ship. Drew has mixed business with personal. We always told him not to do that.”

  Gus laughed sourly. “Isn’t that what started our problems to begin with, him doing something we told him not to do?”

  Ben’s voice joined the discussion for the first time since Snake reported the theft upon their arrival at Lake Bliss. “We have choices to make, Malone, and it’s best that Mary Margaret not be included in the discussion. That is why I made no attempt to dissuade her from accompanying that idiot this evening. Rest assured that Mary Margaret is safe. We taught her well. She can handle the likes of him.”

  Rafe wasn’t so certain. She’d had a look about her when she left. He wouldn’t go so far as to call it scared—if he’d thought that he would never have let her go—but something about Hill didn’t sit well with Maggie. That much was as obvious as the wrinkles in the buccaneers’ brows.

  “What choices are you talking about, Cap’n?” Lucky asked.

  “I see three possibilities.” Ben shuffled the deck of cards, then lay the top one, the four of spades, on the table. “One, we accept defeat and leave Lake Bliss.”

  “That ain’t never gonna happen,” Gus said with a scowl. “Maggie needs the water. I won’t have her in pain, boys.” Lucky and Snake nodded their heads fiercely in agreement.

  “Two,” Ben continued, placing a second card, the jack of clubs, beside the first. “We could tell Mary Margaret the truth.”

  “Now what the hell good would that do?” Lucky shoved to his feet. “It’d hurt her heart and in many ways that’s as bad as her joints paining her.”

  “It’s what Montgomery wants,” Ben said flatly, thumbing the edges of the card deck. “I know the man, and the note he left made it obvious. Telling her the truth is definitely one way to ensure Mary Margaret’s future access to Lake Bliss water.”

  Gus sipped noisily at his ale. “She pestered me for answers all the way home. Even sick like she was.” He set his glass down hard. “I’m not against telling her. You all know I’ve thought for years that we should let her make her own decisions.”

  Snake drummed his fingers on the table. “Well, I don’t like it. Not one little bit. The lass doesn’t need to make her own decisions because she has us. She’s always had us. We have been there for her.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lucky warned. “Let’s not forget we are not alone here. We shouldn’t be talking about this in front of Malone.”

  Ben sighed. “Sit down, Lucky, and give me your attention. I want you all to pay attention. We must speak of it in front of Malone.” He drew a third card from the deck and lay it beside the others.

  The ace of diamonds drew Rafe’s gaze like a bloodstain.

  Ben made eye contact with each of the pirates in turn. He didn’t look at Rafe. “I believe I mentioned three choices? Well, Malone here is that third option.”

  That piece of news got Rafe’s undivided attention. He cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I don’t remember dropping my name into any hat.”

  Ben still didn’t spare him a glance. “Andrew left the note to taunt us. He has kept the gold and jewels; we can be certain of it. Malone here could help us get it back.”

  Rafe started shaking his head even before Ben had finished his sentence. “I told you from the git-go that I wouldn’t steal anything from anybody inside Texas’s borders. Shoot, I won’t hardly borrow.”

  Finally, Ben’s clear blue eyes met Rafe’s. “We won’t require you to commit the actual theft. That is our duty and our pleasure. What we will need from you is a little reconnaissance. I’ll leave the details to you, although I might suggest you use your position as owner of the Lone Star Ranch to gain entry to the plantation.”

  Frustration propelled Rafe across the room. He placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Watch what my mouth is getting ready to say, you old sea dogs. I. Won’t. Do. It. Any participation on my part could be termed conspiracy, and that’s enough to get me hanged.”

  He shuddered as a memory flashed in his mind. The stench of rotting corpses from the San Jacinto battlefield. The rough scrape of rope around his neck. The blow of the horse beneath him. The hate burning in his brother’s eyes as he barked out the order. The confidence glowing in Luke’s.

  “I gave my word. I’m sorry you lost your treasure, but I can’t do anything about it. Besides, it’s time for me to head home and check up on things there. You need to find another way to keep Hotel Bliss. Find someone else to help you.”

  His voice seemed to echo in the sudden silence. Then, from behind him came Maggie’s voice. “We will. Don’t doubt it. We don’t need you.”

  The woman’s tone could freeze beef still on the hoof. Grimacing, Rafe turned to see Maggie standing in the doorway, her head held high, her eyes flashing. All that time he’d been on the lookout for her, and of course she showed up the minute his back was turned. Contrary female. She returned angry enough to spit, too, by the look of it. He wondered how much of it was Hill and how much of it was what she’d overheard him say. “Look, Maggie—”

  “I don’t care to look. Neither do I care to listen. My family and I have private matters to discuss, so if you’ll excuse us, please?”

  Now she was making him mad. “Snooty doesn’t become you.”

  “Neither does cowardice look good on you, Malone.”

  Rafe narrowed his eyes and took an inadvertent step toward her as Ben cautioned, “Mary Margaret…”

  She folded her arms and tipped her chin even higher.

  “If you were a man I’d take that as a challenge,” Rafe snapped.

  “My sex has little—”

  “Don’t be using that word in mixed company, young lady.” Snake jumped to his feet. “Malone, get on out of here. Our lass is right. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. So leave us be; we have plans to make.”

  Rafe wanted to protest. He wasn’t against them at all. But he couldn’t break his agreement with the rangers; he wouldn’t break his word to Luke.

  Fine. Let ‘em think what they wanted. He didn’t care. If Maggie thought so little of him after what the two of them went through in that tunnel from hell, then she wasn’t worth his time or trouble.

  But why did that idea make his chest hurt?

  “Sure,” he said, ignoring the ache. “I thought I’d give my muscles a soak in the bathhouse, anyway. The mud down there doesn’t sling around like it does up here.” He swaggered toward the doorway where Maggie continued to stand. Upon reaching her, he stopped. Although she held her ground, her eyes grew wary.

  Rafe smiled blandly and reached for his hat hanging on a peg behind her. His arm brushed her breast. He heard her quick, indrawn breath and imagined the grinding of her teeth. Placing his hat on his head, he tipped it. “Evening, Miss St. John.”

  She gave her head a toss and her braid went flying. “Good-bye, Malone.”

  He walked outside and the door slammed behind him. He did not proceed to the bathhouse, however. As he strolled past Maggie, he’d seen something that changed his mind, something that left him seething and made him want to eavesdrop on the pirates’ plans.

  Maggie St. John—curse her fickle soul—had returned from her walk with a love bite on her neck.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  With her hand resting against the door she’d just slammed, Maggie tried to ignore the pressure pushing at the back of her eyes. Exhaustion, she told herself. That’s why she was on the verge of crying. The trip back home had sapped all her energy. To top it off, circumstances had forced her to cap her return with arm-to-arm combat with a buffoon who thought to blackmail her into marriage. That’s what was wrong with her.

  Her mood had nothing at all to do with Rafe Malone.

  She crossed the room to the table and sank into a chair beside Papa Lucky. He reached over and clasped her hand. At his comforting touch, Maggie’
s temper deflated. She silently admitted something she’d long known. The saddest lies were those a person told herself.

  “I thought he cared,” she said softly.

  Gus dragged his gaze from the direction of the window. “I think he does, Maggins. We all have a private demon or two, and I have the notion we just ran into Rafe Malone’s.”

  As Maggie considered that idea, her hurt solidified into a slow, low-burning anger. “Why do you think that, Papa Gus? What did he tell you?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  Maggie sniffed. She wasn’t certain she believed Gus. He wasn’t above twisting facts around if he thought it best. Rafe may well have confided in him, and Maggie found she didn’t care for that idea at all. He’d certainly never confided in her. But then, no one ever confided in her.

  I’m tired of that. She was an adult. She deserved to be treated as such. Considering what she’d just gone through with sucker-fish-lips Barlow Hill, she believed she’d earned it.

  Taking care to keep her neck hidden—no sense sending her grandfathers off on a tangent—she drew herself up, glared at her grandfathers, and said, “So, Papas, is Andrew Montgomery your private demon? Considering I’m fixing to lose my home due to this feud between you, I think it’s high time I learned what started it. Who wants to tell the tale?”

  Gus studied the froth on his ale and didn’t speak. Snake stared up at the ceiling, Lucky at the floor. Ben Scovall contemplated his granddaughter. Abruptly he tossed the entire deck of cards onto the table. “You heard her, boys. What do you think? Choice number two?”

  “How about number four?” Snake piped up. “It’s one you forgot to mention. I say we kill Montgomery.”

  “Yeah.” Lucky flexed his fist. “My hand is itching to swing my blade at that scoundrel’s gullet.”

  Ben slapped the table with both palms. “And would that solve our problem or create a bigger one? The reason why we didn’t kill him years ago still exists.”

  All four men looked at Maggie. Her stomach took a dive. “What? Why are you staring at me like that? What is this about numbers two and four? What aren’t you telling me?”