Page 31 of A Dangerous Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #4)

I saac stood motionless, his eyes locked on the far-off horizon where Victor had disappeared.

Isaac!

Eli’s desperate plea echoed in his mind.

He turned at Clare’s frustrated cry. Her hands shook as she desperately tugged at the leather straps, trying to unhitch the horse from the wagon.

Bullet’s massive frame shuddered, and the horse exhaled with an agitated snort.

He should help her, but the adrenaline that had furiously pumped through his veins a moment ago had drained out, leaving him powerless.

It had happened again. Played out a little differently, but the result was still the same. He’d failed Eli.

Clare whirled around to face him. “Why are you just standing there?” she demanded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We have to get Eli back. We can’t let him take Eli.”

Isaac drew in a long breath, shoved his palms into his eye sockets. Red and black spots danced before his eyes. He dropped his arms to his sides. She wasn’t thinking straight.

“We can’t go after him,” he said. “Victor has at least four men with him. You said yourself, Quade’s men are in on this too. There are too many.”

She turned her back on him. But not before he saw the fire in her eyes and the resolute set of her jaw. This was the Clare who had fired on her own brother, who was angry and desperate to get Eli back.

He stepped toward her, needing to find a way to get through to her.

“Clare, if we go after Eli, Victor will try to kill us. Maybe his men will finish the job. Then who will be here for Ben?”

She ignored him, still fumbling with that strap. His eyes went to the gun she’d tucked in the back of her skirt waist. If only he could have taken the shot at Victor when he’d had it.

Suddenly her shoulders slumped. She let out a muffled sob that ripped his gut.

“Clare…”

Whirling, she rushed at him. “Stop standing there!” she railed. “Stop looking at me as if I’m out of my mind!” One fist beat against his chest. “I know you’ve lost trust in me. I don’t care. Help me get Eli back.”

“We need to go back to the main house,” he said. Victor had meant that threat against the family. Isaac was sure of that much.

“Do something!”

She was shattering, and there was nothing he could do to help her. He stood there, rigid and silent, and let her pound her fists against his heart.

She collapsed against him, forehead against his chest, sobs racking her slim body. He clasped her shoulders but couldn’t bear to hold her closer.

“I can’t. Clare…I can’t save him,” he choked out. He wasn’t her hero. He closed his eyes against the scene that played in his head. The street, the blood. This time it was Eli who lay unmoving.

You killed him.

“I should have known Victor would come here,” he said in a rough whisper.

And now his failure would put the whole family in danger. He should have stayed away—never come home. Never married Clare. He wasn’t like Drew or Ed. He wasn’t a man who could nurture and protect a family.

The sound of horses’ hooves drummed in the crisp air, and Drew and Ed eased into the clearing.

“We heard the shots!” Drew said as he reined in. “What happened?”

Clare turned from Isaac, arms around her middle, holding herself together. “Victor was here. He snatched Eli.”

Ed’s eyes flew to Isaac. His mouth was tight, but his eyes held compassion. Isaac cut his gaze away. He didn’t deserve it.

“Victor knows Ben’s at the main house,” Clare said.

Drew jerked. His horse sidestepped, reading his agitation.

“If we go after him now, we could catch him,” Clare pressed.

Isaac’s nerves stretched tighter with every word. She sent a beseeching look at Ed.

“We should make a stand from the house.” Drew addressed the words to Ed. “Wait for Nick to bring the marshal.” His worry centered on Kaitlyn and the kids.

“Clare’s right,” Ed said. “It will be dark soon. We know the land better than Victor does. We can catch him. The fewer men involved, the better.”

“We could be riding into an ambush,” Drew said.

Isaac listened while his brothers spoke as if he wasn’t there. Clare stared into the woods, looking small and lost. He couldn’t stand here and listen to their plans. Not when every plan was a bad one.

He strode to the wagon and finished unhitching Bullet, slipped on the bridle, and was in the saddle before his brothers realized what he was doing. Behind every movement were images of Cody’s blood pouring out in the dusty streets.

“You riding with us?” Ed asked.

“I want no part of this,” he said, his voice as icy as his heart felt.

He rode off into the growing darkness. He didn’t know where he was going—only knew he couldn’t stay.

Clare was determined to go after Eli. And Isaac couldn’t erase the scene that was playing over in his mind.

This time it was Clare lying in the street, blood flowing from her chest, emptying the life from her.

He closed his eyes against the thought of a world without Clare.

He’d tried to keep his heart guarded, but she’d snuck inside anyway.

He’d lost Eli. And now he was going to lose Clare too.

* * *

Clare watched Ben’s chest rise and fall under the quilt. He’d only just fallen asleep, and his eyelashes were clumped together from the tears he’d shed.

“What’s Pa gonna do to Eli?” he’d asked tearfully.

She didn’t have an answer.

Agitated, she rose from the side of his bed and slipped from his room, past the two brothers conferring over the map spread on the table, and into the kitchen.

Drew and Kaitlyn’s children had been sent to bed. It seemed wrong somehow for the household to still be going on with routine tasks without Eli here.

Everything felt wrong.

She needed something to do with her hands while she figured out the next plan for herself and Ben.

Run.

She’d felt the word with every heartbeat since Isaac had ridden off alone earlier.

Victor knew where she was.

Victor wanted his son back.

Victor would cut down anyone who stood in his way.

And Isaac wasn’t coming back.

Kaitlyn was at the counter, her back turned to the door. Rebekah stood at her side, neither of them paying a lick of attention to the detritus from the supper preparation that remained out on the counter and needed to be cleaned up.

Neither of them seemed to have registered that Clare had entered the room.

“—never seen Jo so frightened,” Kaitlyn murmured. “She was crying.”

Rebekah made a noise of reassurance.

Ben wasn’t the only one upset to learn that Eli had been taken. Both girls and David had expressed their emotions in different ways when Clare had ridden back to the main house with Ed and Drew.

“We all are,” Rebekah said now, voice low.

Clare must’ve made some movement, because both women glanced in her direction.

There was a beat of awkward silence.

“Can I—can I help clean up?” she asked.

Kaitlyn shook her head tightly, glancing away and out the window where it’d grown dark outside.

Rebekah’s face was somehow less open than when she’d been comforting Kaitlyn. The distinction was so slight, but it was there. Clare was an expert at reading folks, every minor detail of their expressions.

“We’ll get to it,” Rebekah said.

There was no hint of unkindness in her manner. It was more a hesitation.

A momentary hesitation that told Clare all she needed to know.

The two women held her responsible for bringing danger to their family.

She couldn’t blame them. Her breath locked in her chest as she remembered the moments when she’d been face-to-face with Isaac as Victor had threatened them. The moment she’d seen his doubt creep in.

After everything—every moment she’d tried to prove her trustworthiness, everything she’d told him that she’d never told anyone else, every tender moment they’d shared—when it had counted, he hadn’t trusted her.

Blood will tell.

She felt that same despair wash over her now.

“All right,” she said softly. “I—” She shrugged. She didn’t know what she’d meant to say, only that her throat was choked with tears. If she’d thought to find the family camaraderie she’d experienced over the past few weeks, she was sorely disappointed.

She blinked back tears as she retreated to the living room.

“Isabella must know about this scheme,” Ed argued as he stacked another rifle in the line of guns already on the dining room table.

Clare shivered as she passed by the brothers.

Ed and Drew barely glanced up, and when they did, their eyes were shadowed.

She took a seat on the sofa across the room, one where she could see the outline of Ben’s head, where he slept in David’s bed, through the cracked door.

Victor had taken Eli. Had hit him. Now she couldn’t bear to take her eyes off Ben.

She needed to make a plan—but she was all alone.

“Isabella is as upright as they come.” Drew sounded so reasonable, even as he counted bullets and put them into piles in one corner of the table. “She’d alert the marshal if she knew about this.”

Ed blew out a breath. “And implicate her own pa?” Ed asked skeptically.

Clare tuned out their conversation, couldn’t stop thinking about Victor. Boom. Tom. And the other men in the Barlow Gang, every one of them vicious and cruel.

“Keep Eli safe,” she prayed desperately.

“Quade’s been keeping a tight rope on her,” Drew said, and Ed nodded.

“I guess that new foreman has his thumb on her too.”

The dark beauty she and Isaac had met in town, Clare thought. The woman with the fear in her eyes.

“Right,” Drew said. Clare watched him open the rotating cylinder of the revolver she had taken from Isaac. He slid a bullet in the chamber. “That leaves, what? A dozen or so men?”

“Quade lost a few when that foreman hired on.” Ed threw the oil-soaked rag down on the table. “Telling, isn’t it? There are some men that even Quade’s long-standing hires aren’t willing to tolerate.”

Clare’s vision blurred, and the brothers’ voices faded.

She inched her hand into her skirt pocket and fingered the blasting cap she’d found weeks ago.

The stairs creaked with Kaitlyn’s careful steps.

She appeared at the landing, her face tight and drawn, worry lines around her eyes.

Clare hadn’t even realized she’d gone upstairs.

Had she drifted off? She couldn’t afford to sleep.

Drew pushed his chair back, rose, and met Kaitlyn at the landing. He took her hand and pulled her to the living room, but Clare heard their whispered conversation in the desperate quiet.

“Tillie is finally asleep again. The girl is terrified. I have to be honest. I am too.”

Drew’s arms engulfed Kaitlyn in a protective embrace. One that made Clare long for Isaac. She remembered how it felt to be held close by him, the safety she felt with his beating heart against hers. She wanted what Drew and Kaitlyn had.

She’d gone and fallen in love. Thought that she could overcome her past. But as soon as Victor had shown his face, Isaac had realized she was still a Barlow. That had to be the reason he’d left. There’d been no sign of him since.

Clare turned her gaze away from the loving couple, remembering the coldness that had come over Isaac when Victor had told his lies. Tears smarted her eyes.

“Don’t worry.” Ed glanced up from the table. “We’ll get Eli back.”

He looked confident and reassuring. She knew he thought she was afraid for Eli, for herself.

She cared deeply for this good, honest, and hard-working family. She didn’t deserve their protection or care. She was a Barlow.

Blood will tell.

Clare pressed her palms into her eyes, then dragged her hands down her face.

Isaac was right, they were going to get themselves killed.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but watching Drew’s tenderness toward Kaitlyn and Ed’s careful counting and re-counting of their ammunition, she saw it clear as day. They were no match for Victor’s gang.

And Isaac was already deeply wounded. He couldn’t lose one of his brothers. Clare would never forgive herself if she let that happen.

“I think I’ll try and get some sleep.” She stood, her legs trembling. “I’d like to bed down in the room with Ben, if you don’t mind. I can be right there if he needs anything.”

No one protested. A soft chorus of “goodnight” followed her into the bedroom.

Ben slept peacefully in the small room. She stepped close to the bed, watching his chest rise and fall.

Long, thick lashes rested against pink cheeks.

He’d been inconsolable earlier upon hearing Eli had been captured.

Oh, how she loved him. She leaned over and brushed a light kiss on his forehead.

She wouldn’t let Victor steal his happiness.

He was safe with the McGraws for now. She knew what she had to do.

It was dangerous, even foolhardy, but it might work.

She lay on the pallet in the thick darkness, fully dressed, and waited an hour or so until she was sure everyone had turned in for the night.

Time to move.

Clare rose from the pallet on the floor, careful not to rouse Ben.

Moving with the stealth ingrained in her, she slid the window open, climbed out, and closed it.

She raced to the barn and quickly saddled one of the horses.

She was already in the saddle when her eyes went to the tools hanging on the wall.

There. A small pair of wire cutters, perfect for the job.

She snagged them off the hook and rode out into the starry night.

She had one chance to save Eli.