The Wedding Ransom Read online

  “It’s time,” Ben said, squaring his shoulders. “She’s a woman full-grown, boys. She should be part of this decision. We’ve raised her to be strong and sensible and secure in our love. She can handle this. She’s our Mary Margaret.”

  Their Mary Margaret didn’t care for the sound of that at all. She watched in wary anticipation as the papas hemmed and hawed, but finally all agreed with a nod. No one appeared too happy.

  Now that the moment was upon her, Maggie was half-tempted to run from the kitchen and hide in her bedroom. Obviously, she wasn’t going to like whatever news her grandfathers had for her. Maybe she didn’t want to be an adult after all—not if it meant scenes like this one and the debacle with Barlow Hill.

  A pregnant silence filled the kitchen, broken only by the nervous tap of Papa Snake’s boot and the faint but doleful croak of a bullfrog from down by the lake. Maggie glanced toward the window. The frog sounded the way she felt. Maybe they should sing a duet.

  “Mary Margaret,” Ben said, his tone solemn but gentle. “How much of your early life do you remember?”

  Maggie’s head jerked around. The question surprised her. She’d expected unpleasant news about the hotel, perhaps a connection between Hill and Montgomery. “Do you mean before I came to live with you?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugged. “Very little at all. I have vague recollections of a lemon-scented house, but my first clear memory is of when I first met you all on the beach. I remember being so afraid.”

  Snake chuckled. “We were pretty scared ourselves.”

  Maggie folded her arms, bracing herself for Papa Ben to continue. Instead, Gus spoke up. “Let me tell it, Ben. I was there at the beginning with him.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Gus took hold of Maggie’s hand and lifted it to his lips for a kiss, then said, “We sailed the waters of the West Indies at the time. Montgomery and I were headed for a grog shop in Charlotte Amalie when we first met up with Lady Abigail Summers. Andrew took one look at the woman and was lost. A right beautiful woman she was, fresh off the boat from England and on the island to visit friends for the winter.”

  Lucky slowly shook his head. “Had the prettiest singing voice, too. Remember?”

  “What I remember,” Ben replied, “is that she was no more immune to Montgomery than he was to her. They seduced one another by week’s end. We saw little of Andrew that entire summer. He didn’t sail with us once.”

  Gus squeezed Maggie’s hand. “He fell in love with her, Maggie. Fell hard. I think he’d have done anything for her—even return to his family in England.”

  “Fool boy,” Snake said, shaking his head sadly. “He’d a warrant for piracy on his head by then, but he’d have done it anyway. If she’d so much as wriggled her little finger he’d have gone back and tried to finagle his way out of the charges against him. Andrew always was good at finagling.”

  The other papas nodded their heads in agreement as Gus continued the tale. “But as it turned out, Lady Abigail wasn’t prepared to trade her manor life to be a pirate’s woman, and when time came for her to return to England, she broke it off with Andrew and sailed away without looking back. The boy went a little wild then.”

  “He went a lot wild,” Lucky interjected.

  “He grew mean and bitter—especially toward women—and took up with some unsavory characters. And that’s saying a lot coming from men such as ourselves.” Gus paused in his story and sipped his drink in contemplative silence.

  Maggie’s hands curled into fists. She sensed he’d been leading up to something, and she would bet he’d now reached that “something” part of the story. She wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him, telling him to spit it out. She wanted to run from the kitchen before he could speak, but she waited too long.

  “Five years later Abigail returned to Charlotte Amalie. She demanded to speak with Andrew, but he refused to have anything to do with her. She tracked him down on Saint John Island. We were there with him that afternoon. I’ll never forget it. A battle royal as violent as any I’d witnessed at sea. He refused to have anything to do with her. Or with…” Gus dragged a hand across his mouth, contorting the scar on his cheek, and tried again. “Or with…”

  When Gus didn’t continue, Ben cleared his throat and did the dirty work. “Or with the four-year-old girl she claimed was Andrew’s daughter.”

  Maggie gasped as her grandfather pressed on. “It seems that Lady Abigail delayed her return home. She extended her holiday long enough to give birth to a pirate’s child. She hired a caretaker for the infant, then returned to England and soon married. Years later, upon receiving notice that the nanny had died and desperate to keep her daughter’s existence secret from her husband, Abigail decided it was Andrew’s turn to support the child.”

  “You told me my parents were dead.” Cold invaded Maggie’s bones as betrayal hit her. “You lied!”

  “It wasn’t a total lie. We learned Abigail died within a year of leaving you with us.”

  “With him,” Maggie protested, her thoughts a boiling mixture of confusion, anger, and grief. “She left me with him because she didn’t want me. Only, he didn’t want me, either.”

  “Not you, darlin’,” Lucky said earnestly. “Abigail. He had closed himself off from her entirely. When she came to him that day it was as if she no longer existed. And because he didn’t see her, he didn’t see her leave. And he refused to see that she left you.”

  “They abandoned me, both of them.” Maggie found it difficult to breathe as her mind opened to that long-ago day on one of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Old emotions hit her like new—pain, loss, and anguish—as the memory long suppressed overtook her. “She wore a dress the same blue as the sky,” she finally said in a little voice. “He shouted at her. He shouted at you. You fought. I remember that. He knocked Papa Gus to the sand.”

  A chill shivered down her spine as her voice cracked. “They both walked away. They both left me!”

  Snake surged to his feet. He braced his hands on his hips and leaned toward her. “Don’t cry, lass. Don’t you dare cry over them. Yes, they left you. But we didn’t. We took you and we fed you and we loved you. We didn’t leave you then and we never will.”

  Lucky’s hands balled into fists. “Andrew gave up his rights that day on the beach on Saint John Island,” he declared. “He can’t have you now. I’ll kill him first. I’ll kill him and that idiot who stole our hotel if I have to. You’re not going to go live with Montgomery. You’re not!”

  Maggie reared back as Papa Lucky’s statement registered. “Is that what this is all about? He wants me to live with him? Why would he want me now when he hasn’t wanted me all my life?”

  Snake sat down, Gus snapped his jaw shut, and Lucky closed his eyes in a pain-filled grimace. Ben’s eyes shied away from hers, and she knew then it must be bad. Silence descended on the room like a bitter cold storm as she waited for someone to answer.

  Finally Ben drew a deep breath and exhaled it in a sigh. “That’s not exactly true, Mary Margaret. Andrew tried to change his mind, but we wouldn’t let him. We wanted to keep you.”

  “Keep me?” she squeaked. Her emotions were in a tumble. “What do you mean ‘keep me’? What was I to you, a puppy?”

  “No,” he snapped back in an unusual display of temper. “You were our daughter.”

  Maggie slumped in her seat and shut her eyes. But she couldn’t shut out her thoughts. They darted to and fro, trying to make sense of the details of what she had been told. “You said he tried to change his mind. Does that mean he decided he wanted to be my father after all?”

  “Yes.”

  Her chest felt heavy. It took concentrated effort to fill her lungs with air. “When?”

  “It’s been a while,” Gus said.

  “How long is a while?”

  The pirates shared a frown. Lucky cleared his throat and said, “Oh, twelve or fourteen.”

  “Months?”

  “Years.�
��

  Years. She shuddered. Maggie gazed at each of her grandfathers in turn. Ben appeared stoic as always; Snake looked angry. Lucky nervously flicked his sapphire earring with a finger. And Gus, her dear sweet Gus, watched her with suspiciously damp eyes. “But I was still a girl then. I needed a father.”

  “Why?” Snake banged his mug on the table, his voice trembling with emotion. “You had us.”

  “Yes,” she cried. “But I could have had all of you.”

  “No, you couldn’t.” Ben’s gaze narrowed, his expression hardened. Cold fury sharpened his voice as he added, “He wouldn’t have allowed it, Maggie. Those were his terms.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ah, Maggie.” Gus raked his hand through thinning white hair. “He intended to take you away from us permanently. He wasn’t going to let us see you at all, and of course, we wouldn’t stand for that.”

  “So you told me they were dead? That I was an orphan?” Betrayal cut through her like a knife. “You lied to me all my life?”

  Silence fell hard and complete. It was as if the world had ground to a halt. Maybe it had.

  Maggie knocked over her chair as she shoved to her feet, a storm of emotion ripping through her. Battering. Bruising. Somewhere deep inside she understood their motives. Somewhere in her heart she felt their love.

  But right now she needed escape, and for the first time in forever, she had nowhere to turn, no one to turn to. When Gus reached for her she backed away. It hurt him, she could tell, but at this moment, Maggie had no room for anyone’s wounds but her own.

  Never in her life had she ever felt such ache as what now squeezed her heart. This hurt was different from the pain of rheumatism or the broken toe or any other physical ailments she’d dealt with during her life. This was like nothing she’d ever known before, and it overwhelmed her.

  Her parents had abandoned her. Her papas whom she had trusted all her life had lied to her all her life.

  And Rafe Malone was going home.

  Tears overflowed as she turned and ran out into the night.

  Standing outside in the shadows beside the kitchen’s open window, Rafe stood motionless as he watched Gus Thomas trudge toward him. Despite the forgiving moonlight, the buccaneer had never looked so old.

  “I saw you through the window,” Gus said tiredly. “You heard?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go to her, Malone. It’s time. She’s all grown up now. She needs someone other than her papas to help her through this. I think you are the man she needs. She may not know it yet, but you mean something to her. I can tell. You take care of Maggie. Take care of our little girl.” He walked away then, off into the forest, shoulders stooped and feet shuffling.

  Rafe tugged his gaze away from the departing pirate and glanced toward the hotel. Indecision seldom bothered him, but when he saw the light flickering in Maggie’s bedroom window he didn’t know whether to rope or ride. Was Gus right? Did she need him, or would his showing up at her door only make her feel worse? The last thing he wanted was to hurt her more when she was hurting this much already.

  He’d eavesdropped, of course. Rafe never liked dangling questions, so he’d never considered walking away without divining the particulars about Ben Scovall’s curious second choice. Now he almost wished he had. How could Scovall ever think access to the god-awful tasting Lake Bliss water could ever be worth that look on Maggie’s face or the anguish in her voice?

  Although he didn’t make a conscious decision, Rafe’s feet carried him toward the hotel and the light shining like a beacon in the night.

  With the pirates all elsewhere, the hotel remained unusually quiet. The creak of a stair step beneath his feet sounded loud as a gunshot to Rafe, and the tinny notes of a music box waltz coming from Barlow Hill’s suite blared like a brass quartet. In truth, he was surprised he could hear them at all over the pounding of his pulse. Rafe was as nervous as a tongue-tied attorney.

  Briefly, he considered a detour by Hill’s room to work off some of the tension. That damned love bite. It would feel good to smash his fist into Hill’s fleshy jaw. First, though, he needed to check on Maggie.

  At her bedroom door he paused, sensing he was about to wade into emotional depths deep enough to drown him. Think of it as just one more adventure, he told himself. Lifting a hand, he rapped his knuckles against the door.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Maggie? It’s Rafe. Open the door, Sugar.” When she still didn’t reply, he turned the knob and pushed the door open. “Maggie?” he repeated, taking a step inside.

  The room was empty. She’d left her lamp burning, but Maggie was nowhere in sight.

  The lighted lamp provided a clear signal of her state of mind. During his stay at Hotel Bliss, he’d noticed Maggie’s frugality with the hotel’s resources. She would never leave a lamp burning in an unoccupied room under ordinary circumstances. But then, these circumstances were far from ordinary.

  Bet she went to the bathhouse. Hesitating only long enough to extinguish the lamp, Rafe exited Maggie’s bedroom and headed for the baths.

  The moon shone brightly in the starlit sky, clearly illuminating the path down to the lake. The bathhouses rose along the shore, shadowed retreats for weary bodies and heavy hearts. Eyeing the buildings, Rafe rolled his shoulders. Maggie had a good idea. For all his doubts about the curative powers of Lake Bliss water, he couldn’t deny the mud baths’ soothing qualities. After a day spent mostly on horseback, he wouldn’t mind a wet dirt dip himself.

  The hinges on the door of the ladies’ house creaked loudly as Rafe stepped inside. He peered into the shadows. “Maggie?”

  Again, no answer. The bathhouse was deserted. Well, shoot. Where could she be? He hadn’t been that much behind her. She couldn’t have gone too far. Exiting the building, Rafe retraced his steps toward the hotel, stopping at the halfway point along the path.

  Something didn’t feel right. Something about the night seemed strange, off-kilter.

  He concentrated with all his senses. Listening, he heard the whisper of wind through the trees and the far-off howl of a coyote. He sniffed the air for lingering traces of her scent, but found only the sulfur smell of the lake. He looked inside himself, using his knowledge of her in an attempt to figure out where else she might have gone.

  If she was in Hill’s suite he’d wring her neck.

  He dashed for the hotel and hurried up the stairs to Hill’s room. Rafe didn’t bother to knock. Throwing open the door, he marched inside. Empty. He glanced toward the second doorway. The bedroom. His mouth flattened into a grim smile as he stepped in that direction.

  The sight that met him both disgusted and relieved. Hill lay spread-eagle atop his sheets, snoring. Naked as the day he was born. Ugly as a fresh-whelped hound dog. But alone, thank God.

  Rafe left the suite a lot more quietly than he had arrived. And a lot more frightened. Maggie was in trouble. He knew it. He needed to check the stable, the carriage shed, and the smokehouse, but first he needed to get his gun.

  He climbed a second flight of stairs to the third floor and made his way toward the last room at the far end of the hall. Fishing his key from his pocket, he inserted it into the lock and stepped inside. Without bothering with a light, he walked toward the bed where he knew he’d find his gun belt looped over a post.

  As he reached for the leather, he realized he wasn’t alone. He knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew. “Maggie.”

  A chimney lamp rattled. A match flared. “Where have you been, Malone?”

  The wick caught fire, and a golden glow drifted over the room like warm honey. Maggie St. John sat propped against his pillows, his sheet caught against her chest, her shoulders bare and taunting him. “Good Lord, woman. What in the name of Texas do you think you are doing?”

  Her eyes glittered up at him, sad and sorrowful. She held her head cocked to one side, her chin at a proud, defiant angle. Had Rafe been less aware of her, he’d have missed the wobble in her voice a
s she said, “I’m here to hold you to your word, Malone. You, me, Texas, and a bed.”

  Maggie was running on instinct rather than thought. A wildness pulsed through her blood tonight, hot and fast and reckless. She furiously ignored the whisper of caution sounding in her brain.

  She held her breath as Rafe absorbed the significance of her statement. He couldn’t turn her away, not now. She couldn’t bear it.

  Maggie was lost. Adrift. Like never before, she needed a sense of belonging. Intuition told her Rafe Malone could give her that, if only for tonight, and feminine inspiration had driven her to his bed. Now, watching him, witnessing the protest taking form on his features, that instinct instructed her to act and forestall his objection.

  Boldly she released the sheet.

  “Ah, hell, Maggie.” Rafe dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and groaned. “You could tempt a saint to sin.”

  “But you’re no saint, are you, Malone?”

  He looked at her then, a heated, hungry glance that spoke volumes. Nervousness clutched at her stomach, but she doggedly ignored it. Scooting over in the bed, she made room for him.

  Rafe eyed the expanse of sheet, then dragged a hand across his face. “No, I’m not a saint, but I’m not a bastard, either. You’re wrong, Maggie. You don’t need to hold me to my word. You just need to be held.”

  “But I want to make love,” she pleaded.

  “I understand the feeling, believe me,” he said with half a groan. “But that’s not why you came here, whether you know it or not. You need a hug, Maggie St. John. A good hug.”

  Her name on his lips distracted her. “There never was a William and Catherine St. John. They made it up. They chose St. John because it all happened on a Saint John beach.”

  “Maybe.” He flipped open the trunk at the foot of the bed and rummaged through its contents. The scent of sandalwood rose on the air, and Maggie unconsciously leaned toward it.

  “What does it matter?” Rafe continued. “You are who you are no matter what your name. That’s something I always liked about this country of ours, you know. Many a man came to Texas for health reasons—that throat disease threat. If a fellow needed a change of climate due to that particular affliction, he stood a good chance of recovering as soon as he crossed the Sabine. The trip usually cost his name, but all he had to do was pick a new one and go on. And look at what these men built, Maggie. An independent republic. Those men can be proud of who they are no matter what name they wore before they ran afoul of throat disease.”