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Suddenly Maddie felt weaker and more vulnerable than ever.
She heard nothing, saw nothing except how Lucky held his arms out. Her feet moved before she had time to think, and when solid, strong arms wrapped around her, she collapsed against him. Tears stung her eyes, but she wouldn’t cry. Not now. Instead, she hugged him tighter.
Lucky seemed to flinch as he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she answered, slowly unwinding her arms from his waist to step back. A new bout of torment rushed forth. “What happened to you?” she questioned, gently cupping his face. His eyes were swollen and bruised, distorting his handsomeness. She took another step back to examine the rest of him. “Who did this?” she demanded. “Who beat you?”
“It was Alan Ridge and his men,” Abe, who’d climbed out of the boat and stood nearby, said. “Broke a couple of his ribs, too.”
The glare on Lucky’s face said he hadn’t wanted her to know that, and frustration, along with a plethora of other things, engulfed Maddie. She started to tremble. It was coming true—her nightmares were coming true. “He’s here.”
“Where?”
“Upriver,” she whispered.
“Tim’s chasing him,” Albert said. He then began reciting the names of the men with Tim.
“Which way did they go?” Lucky asked.
“Into the brush,” Jack said. “He tried to steal Maddie and kill me. Homer, too.”
“Maddie shot him,” Albert said. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”
Albert went on to tell the story in a no-nonsense way, and though Maddie was grateful for that, her attention was on Lucky and the one hand he held against his ribs. If she’d known Mad Dog had done this to him she’d have aimed for his heart, not his leg.
When the questions and answers were done, Lucky glanced down at her before he instructed, “You heard the lady. Set up guards around the perimeter, and the rest of you get back to work.” He then twisted her toward the tent, but she heard him whisper to Albert, “I’ll be right back.”
She dug her toes into the ground and spun. “You aren’t going after him.”
He didn’t answer, but his silence said more than words could have.
“You aren’t going after Mad Dog,” she repeated.
Lucky frowned. “Mad Dog?”
“Yes,” she answered staunchly. “Mad Dog Rodriquez. He changed his name to Alan Ridge, but that’s all that’s changed about him. And you aren’t going after him. Not with broken ribs.”
Though he still held his rib cage with one hand, a hard glint appeared in his eyes. “You know him?”
Conscious of the change taking place in Lucky and the men casting curious gazes their way, Maddie lowered her voice. “Yes, I know him. Or knew him.” Searching for something to make him understand he couldn’t go looking for Mad Dog, she added, “And I didn’t spend all summer finding enough gold to save your family’s shipyard just to have him kill you.”
“Enough money to what?”
His tone was colder than the wind had been last night. She hadn’t meant to let that slip. Unable to take it back, she explained, “Jack told me. But I figured it was something like that, why you’d want gold when you already had money. Why Trig would want gold, too. Why he made such a deal for it.”
“Trig? Deal?” Fear of Ridge harming her resided in Cole’s thoughts, along with a great deal of pride in how she’d taken control of the men, and now a strong bout of anger flared along with everything else. He grabbed her arm.
She refused to move. “Yes, Trig. He gets fifty percent of my gold if I don’t deliver you to him, safe and sound. I’m not about to lose fifty percent of my gold.”
“I’m sure you’re not,” Cole growled, tugging hard enough so she was forced to move.
“Looks as if the lady doesn’t want to go with you.”
Cole pivoted, and let his gaze roam up and down Roman Carmichael. The man stood a foot or two ahead of the rest of the horde once again gathered together. If he didn’t know the men as well as he did, he’d expect to see pitchforks and torches. “I thought I told all of you to go to work,” Cole said, putting himself between Maddie and the crowd.
Jack finagled his way closer, shoving broad shoulders aside. “Tell them it’s a lie, Cole.”
“What’s a lie?”
“Elwood’s claiming you and Maddie aren’t married,” Jack said.
