Page 31 of Whispers of Fortune (Golden State Treasure Book #1)

T HIRTY -O NE

Brody saw Josh stagger out of the woods, a trickle of blood running down from his temple.

Brody lurched to his feet.

“Stay where you are.”

He looked past Josh to a man holding a six-shooter, aimed right at Josh’s head. The man had his arm wrapped around Josh’s neck.

Ellie gasped. “Loyal, what are you doing?”

Loyal? Brody had heard that name before. Loyal Kelton. Josh told him that Zane had beaten Loyal into the ground. This man was Ellie’s former fiancé, the one who’d cheated on her and lied to her and betrayed her. What was he doing here?

“Give me that map.”

“The map?” Ellie clutched her throat.

Brody heard rather than saw the blankets at the edge of their camp shift silently. His brothers. Everything Brody cared about was right here. Ellie, Thayne, Lock... Was this man planning to kill them all?

“You’ve come here on a treasure hunt?” Ellie’s voice rang with scorn. “Really, this is what you’ve come to, Loyal? A thief now? Assaulting an honorable man, threatening a woman?”

Loyal laughed as a second man stepped out of the forest, also with a gun raised. This one was aimed at Brody.

“Come over here, Ellie.”

“No, stay back.” Brody took a step forward.

The stranger fired, and the bullet struck right in front of Brody’s feet and blasted dirt into his face. “Next bullet goes into her knee if you move again.”

Loyal said, “If you all want to live through this, Beth Ellen, you get over here right now.”

Ellie, her face washed white with terror in the firelight, gave Brody a look of such fear for his worthless hide, he had to fight not to throw himself between her and the gunmen. He’d’ve done it, gladly, if it would have saved her. But for right now, all it would do was get him killed. And with Josh being injured and barely conscious, and the boys ... were they cowering under their blankets?

Brody decided he had to bide his time. Pick the right moment. He had no gun, and no real skill for using one if he did have one.

Ellie took one shaking step at a time. She reached Loyal, with Josh standing, unsteady and dazed, between them.

Then Loyal slashed his gun butt viciously across Josh’s head. Brody watched the toughest of them collapse in an unconscious heap. Loyal leapt over Josh’s body and grabbed Ellie’s arm.

She shrieked as he twisted her arm behind her back. Now she stood facing Brody with a gun to her head. Loyal shifted his grip and wrapped an arm around her neck.

“Loyal, what are you doing?” Choking, Ellie grabbed at his forearm. “What’s the matter with you?”

“You can have whatever you want.” Brody saw the cruelty in Loyal’s eyes. He’d loved hitting Josh. The man wanted an excuse to hurt Ellie. “The map, just take it and go.”

Brody saw the map resting next to Lock’s blanket. It was a copy, but would Kelton know that? The same glance picked up that both blankets were lying flat on the ground. His sneaky little brothers were gone. Relieved that they at least might have gotten themselves out of harm’s way, he risked a bullet as he walked slowly over to the map and picked it up. He held the map out for Loyal.

“I promise you,” Brody said, “on my grandfather MacKenzie’s grave”—and since Grandpa hadn’t been buried, it wasn’t much of a promise—“we won’t do any more searching. Take the map and leave us. Please. If you find any treasure, it’s all yours.”

Brody hoped he sounded defeated when in truth he was boiling with anger at this brute and his partner. He had thought Loyal was a rich man. Hadn’t Josh told him that when he’d talked about Ellie being hurt? What made a man who was already rich turn to thieving and threatening murder? And all for a mysterious treasure that might not amount to a thing. Maybe the very word treasure was enough. Clearly it had been in Loyal’s case.

“Sonny, get the map.” Kelton kept Ellie in his grasp.

“No! Stay back.” Brody made a swift move and extended the map over the fire. “Let her go first. I’m not letting you touch this map while Ellie’s in danger. I’ll burn it. I can see in your eyes you want to drag her out of here, but you’ll lose your chance at the treasure if you do that. Even if you shoot me, my last act will be to drop the map into the flames.”

Loyal was dressed in a fine suit, although it was rumpled and stained. Sonny, his partner, wore rugged-looking western clothes. Tattered and faded. The clothes of an outlaw.

What else had Josh told him about Loyal? Brody racked his brain. Josh said Loyal’s father had cut ties with him. So maybe he wasn’t so rich now. That might be excuse enough for a dangerous, greedy man to hurt Josh, put his foul hands on Ellie, and threaten Brody at gunpoint. All for treasure.

“We’ll saddle up,” Brody went on. “We’ll head home and never search for the treasure again. Just let her go.”

Brody saw Josh stir. He lay just behind the two outlaws. Brody prayed Josh wouldn’t make any move that would set off gunfire.

“I won’t hand over the map until you do.” Brody saw Josh wobble and collapse again, too dazed to fight.

The outlaws’ eyes were riveted on the map and the licking flames only a few feet below it.

“I said let her go . Then I’ll give you what you want.”

Loyal’s eyes narrowed. He looked hungry with the need to hurt someone. Greedy with the need to get the map in his hands.

Sonny had a different look. A cold, calculating expression that told Brody he was more dangerous than Loyal. But if he killed them, he’d do it because he thought it would help him get away with his crimes, not out of a belly-deep pleasure in killing. Loyal was the one who’d take pleasure in doing harm to others.

Josh raised his head again, then dragged himself toward the edge of the clearing behind Kelton.

Brody, speaking louder to keep the men’s attention on him, said, “The treasure map is what you came here for, isn’t it? I’ll trade it gladly for our lives.”

Loyal exchanged a glance with Sonny. Brody trusted neither of them.

How could he protect Ellie? He prayed desperately for God’s divine intervention. And then Brody had an idea. A divine one.

Loyal relaxed his hold on Ellie and said, “Take her then and give me the map.”

Brody lowered the map closer to the fire. “All the way loose of her or the map burns.”

Loyal released Ellie with a shove.

“Get into the woods, Ellie, and hide.” Brody still held the map over the fire.

Loyal reached for her again, which only proved he couldn’t be trusted.

“No!” Brody lowered the map again. “Not until she’s in the woods where you can’t find her. Then you can have the map.”

Loyal didn’t seem to have noticed the boys were gone. Or maybe he hadn’t been watching the camp for long. Maybe he thought only Ellie, Josh, and Brody were here.

“I won’t leave you, Brody. He’ll kill you.” Ellie didn’t sound like herself. She sounded overly frightened. And since she was a level-headed woman who responded well in an emergency, Brody thought she might be planning something or trying to sound defeated to get Kelton to underestimate her.

“Ellie, go. Please just go. Hide in the woods. Let me do this.”

And by this he meant maybe die. He was asking her to let him sacrifice his life for hers. He’d do so willingly. As he thought it, and as his mind added the verse from the book of John, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” he realized he loved her.

Their eyes met across the flames, and he saw the same kind of love coming from her.

They’d been drawn to each other from the first. He knew he respected and admired her. He had certainly loved her as a neighbor and a friend. He’d known he was growing increasingly fond of her.

But love?

He didn’t even know what that meant. Not really. He’d’ve failed if he’d tried to define it. But what he felt right now, as he offered his life for hers, was love. A feeling that bloomed in his heart as bright and true as the flames that danced between them. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

“Please, Ellie.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she nodded, then quickly turned as if she had to tear herself away to leave him. She vanished into the woods. He heard the crunch of her footsteps for a few seconds, then nothing. His Ellie knew her way around in the woods.

“Give us that map right now or we shoot you dead.”

Brody didn’t so much as glance at Josh, but he was aware Josh was moving. He was much quieter than Ellie, and within seconds he was gone into the woods behind the two men.

Brody lifted his hand away from the fire and moved around it slowly. He gave everyone a chance to hide. Finally, not getting one step closer than necessary, he handed the map to Loyal and stepped back to put the fire between them again.

“Stand still.” Sonny lifted his gun, and Brody froze.

Loyal studied the map. “It looks real to me.”

Sonny took a second to study the paper. “Me too. We’ve got what we need.”

Sonny aimed his gun and shot Brody in the chest.

Brody slammed backward into the rock wall behind him and slid to the ground, only distantly aware of Sonny saying, “Let’s hunt down the woman. Hey, where’d the other man go?”

Kelton said, “We aren’t taking the time to hunt anyone down. Let’s get out of here.”

That was the last Brody heard as he tipped to his side and faded into darkness, wishing only that he’d told Ellie how much he loved her before he died.