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Bates plucked the rifle from where it leaned beside the bed. The wooden stock was polished to a gleam, the black barrel neatly oiled. He swung the weapon over his shoulder alongside the rucksack.

“Let’s get moving,” he announced.

“Are you sure the firearm is strictly necessary?” Ellie demanded, eyeing the gun with distaste.

“This is a Winchester lever-action repeater,” Bates protested, obviously offended. “It’s the best-made gun in the world. Hell yes, it’s necessary.”

“I see,” Ellie said, quickly sensing that the presence of the gun was not a battle she would win. “And is there anything I can carry?”

“Everything else we need is with theMary Lee,” he replied.

“Who is Mary Lee?” Ellie asked.

“My boat.”

Bates blew out the lamp and strode toward the French doors that led to the veranda.

“We are going out through the garden?” Ellie blurted as she stumbled into motion after him.

“Where else would we go?” Bates replied. “I gotta steal you some trousers.”

?

Twelve

The trousers belongedto Óscar. Adam found them hanging on the clothesline behind the Linares family’s rooms, just where he’d expected them to be. He tossed them at Mrs. Eleanora Nitherscott-Watby.

Heading off into the bush with her was almost certainly a bad idea. Adam wasn’t sure he’d ever met someone who had ‘trouble’ stamped across her quite as boldly as Mrs. Nitherscott-Watby. Still, if getting tied up and forced to jump off a balcony hadn’t been enough to dissuade her from her purpose, Adam wasn’t sure what would. If he didn’t help her, she was going to go looking for someone else who would—and probably get herself killed.

Her map and the stone trinket she was carrying were also a damned sight more intriguing than staking out another land grant boundary.

The lowlife from the veranda was another complication. The thought of the red marks on the woman’s wrists still made Adam’s fists itch.

To say that Adam didn’t have much patience for the kind of guy who’d do that to a woman was something of an understatement. Adam had only refrained from beating the daylights out of that lizard-eyed creep because doing so would probably have landed the woman in even more trouble.

He told himself those were the only reasons he’d agreed to her crazy offer as he stepped up onto the overturned wheelbarrow by Diego’s shed.

“We can’t just steal somebody’s clothes,” the woman hissed at him.

“Diego’ll put it on my tab,” Adam assured her as he hopped easily onto the shed roof.

“But how will Mr. Linares know you were the one who took them?” she demanded.

“He’s known me for a while now. He’ll figure it out. You coming?”

Adam could tell she didn’t love his answer by the stubborn set of her mouth, but she kept whatever she was thinking to herself. Lifting up her skirts, she stepped onto the wheelbarrow, climbing from there to join him on the roof.

She slipped a bit on the tiles. Adam caught her. She fit against him nicely.

He set that thought firmly aside and jumped down to the far side of the fence.

“Hold on and I’ll—” he began.

He cut himself off as she pushed from the roof and landed neatly beside him, brushing off her skirt.

“Never mind,” he finished lamely as he adjusted the weight of his Winchester. “This way.”

Adam led her through a familiar maze of garden gates and alleys to the docks that lined the mouth of the river. He kept his eyes carefully peeled for hercompetition. There was no sign of the guy, who must still be looking for her somewhere else.