Hernando Heat

Chapter Fourteen

Katie kept her gaze firmly focused out the window at the landscape passing just beyond the tracks. Every clack of the wheels ripped another piece from her heart and threatened to send her upset stomach over the cliff. She’d felt horribly nauseous all day long.

Something else she could blame on the Dorchesters.

She should have known she’d never find happiness. She should have known that the Dorchesters would win.

She wouldn’t cry. She swore she’d never give them the satisfaction of shedding another tear in front of them.

And Heaven help Junior if he thought he was going to consummate their sham of a wedding after it happened. She’d geld him before he could even get both legs out of his trousers.

“Well, Katherine. A few more hours, and we’ll be home.”

She didn’t turn to her once and soon-to-be-again father-in-law. “It’s not my home. It never will be. You’ll see to that, no doubt.”

Senior settled his bulk into the seat across from her. She didn’t look at him even when he grabbed her knee through her skirt and painfully squeezed. “You’re right about that,” he growled in a dangerous tone. “You’ll be lucky if you see your first anniversary if you keep this up.”

She finally turned to him, knowing her expression looked as deadly as his. “If I’m lucky, I won’t.”

“I could easily arrange that,” he grumbled in a low voice before heaving his body out of his seat and trundling himself down the aisle.

She returned her gaze to the window. “Just try it,” she whispered. “Just try it and see.”

Secretly, she hoped Mase and Joe would swoop in and rescue her, no matter how improbable she knew that scenario would be. Besides, she couldn’t sully their reputation. Wouldn’t let Senior and Junior have the satisfaction of ruining her men.

And in her heart, they were still “her men.” They always would be.

That thought nearly started her crying. She choked back her tears and steeled herself for the lonely days to come.

Joe sat at the table and stared at the note as Mason read. “She wouldn’t leave willingly,” Joe insisted. “I don’t give a damn what this note says, there’s no way you can convince me she would ever willingly leave us. She was finally happy for the first time since Paul died. She told us so.”

Mason handed the note back to Joe and started pacing the kitchen. “What in blue blazes is going on?”

Joe looked up at his cousin. “I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let Junior steal the woman I love from me twice in one life. She’ll have to look us in the face and tell us she meant what she said in this note.” He balled it up and tossed it across the kitchen before standing and heading for his bedroom.

He strode down the hall, pausing at the door to what used to be Katie’s room. “Hey, Mase.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

Mason joined him in the doorway. “What?” Mason looked into the room.

“Now I know for sure she didn’t leave willingly. I don’t care what that blasted note says. Dorchester forced her to write it.”

“Why?”

Joe pointed. “What do you see?”

“Son of a bitch.”

Paul’s picture and the clock still sat in their places on the shelf. “There is no way she would ever willingly leave those behind,” Joe insisted as he turned to Mason. “Not if she was leaving of her own volition. You know that as well as I do.”

“You think they kidnapped her?” Mason asked.

Joe grimly nodded. “I think they forced her to write that note. Either at gunpoint or by some other threat.” He met Mason’s gaze. “Maybe threatened us somehow to make her do it, and you know how protective of us she is. Otherwise, she would have put up one hell of a fight.”

For the first time since discovering Katie’s departure, Mason smiled. “I’ll be damned. I bet that’s it. She would do that. She’s so blasted worried about people talking bad about us.” He slammed his fist against the doorway. “One of these days, we’ll get it through that thick, pretty skull of hers that we could care less what people think about us, and that we can take care of ourselves and her just fine.”

Joe headed for his bedroom, where he stored his guns. “Exactly. So you know what I plan to do?”

Mason turned toward his bedroom to get his own weapons. “You’ll have to keep up with me as we chase down that damned train.”

The men raced down the drive a scant fifteen minutes later. Mason had saddled fresh horses while Joe readied their guns and ammunition. They knew there was no time to waste, that they’d have to ride like the Devil himself to catch the train.

“Any idea when the train pulls out of Dade City?” Joe called out to Mason, who rode ahead of him.

“No,” Mason yelled over his shoulder. “I know they have to stop there for mail, passengers, and water. So at least an hour. It’s usually due into the station by five, I think.”

Joe knew they wouldn’t make it. “I know where we can get some fresh horses there. We’ll be chasing this damn train halfway to Tampa.”

The ride into Dade City felt like forever. Sure enough, the train had already pulled out by the time they reached the depot. Fortunately, they’d only missed it by an hour, meaning they had a chance to catch it.

The sun lay low in the sky to the west when they jumped on their fresh mounts and took off after the train, following the railbed. Mason had Sherriff Birch telegraphed from Dade City to let him know what was going on and to ask him to telegraph ahead to Zephyrhills to alert the station and sheriff there to stop the train.

The sun lay low in the sky, golden shafts of light stabbing through the pines along the railbed. Neither man talked. Joe didn’t hear the sound of the horses’ hooves pounding into the dirt, their sharp breaths as they spurred them into a full gallop, or the creaking of saddle leather and jingle of bridles.

All he heard in his mind was the sharp report his gun would make while putting a bullet through Junior and Senior’s heads.

After another twenty minutes of riding, they caught sight of the train ahead of them. Joe screamed in triumph and dug his heels into his lathered steed’s side. The game animal responded with a snort and another burst of speed that took him past Mason. He heard Mason whooping behind him, using his reins to slap his horse’s withers to keep up.

In another minute, they’d gained on the train. Relentless, they charged alongside, catching up and gaining ground, passing several stock and cargo cars before passing the five passenger cars. They didn’t bother trying to look in the windows as they passed, their goal the locomotive at the head of the metal beast.

Joe pulled alongside the train and drew his pistol as he screamed at the engineer.

“Pull the brake!”

The soot-covered fireman looked up, startled, and reached for a rifle in a rack against the back window when Mason also rode up and pointed at the deputy star pinned to his shirt. “Stop this goddamned train right now! You’ve got a kidnapped woman on board!”

The engineer and fireman looked at each other and shrugged. The engineer reached over and threw the brake while the fireman blew off the boiler.

Katie heard but ignored the mild commotion on the other side of the train. One minor consideration she was glad for, she didn’t have to sit on the hotter western side of the train with the sun beating in on her through the window.

She heard Junior and Senior remark about whatever was going on. When the train lurched and began to slow, Senior sent Junior up front to check it out. When the train finally came to a stop, Katie briefly considered jumping from her seat and bolting for the rear of the car. She entertained fleeing into the woods and evading the Dorchesters, maybe to find her way back to Brooksville.

Then Senior’s meaty hand cruelly clamped down on her shoulder. “You wait here. If I have to hunt you down, no one will ever see you again.”

She didn’t look away from the window, but managed a soft, chilly tone despite her fear. “If you don’t take your hand off me, Mr. Dorchester, you will wake up with a bloody stump.”

Katie didn’t believe it when he released her as if she were a hot coal. “Watch your tongue with me,” he growled low enough no one else could hear. “You might awaken one morning without any teeth.” She didn’t breathe a trembling sigh of relief until she heard his heavy, lumbering stride head toward the front of the car.

She closed her eyes and struggled against the tears threatening once again to flow. She wouldn’t cry in front of them.

She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

“There’s at least two men, the Dorchesters, with a woman. You see ’em?” Mason yelled over the sound of the steam blowing off.

The engineer shook his head. “I don’t pay no attention to the passengers. That’s the conductor’s job.”

“Where’s your conductor?”

The engineer spit a mouthful of tobacco juice out of the cab, but away from the two mounted men. “In the caboose. Where the hell else you think he’s at?”

Mason and Joe whirled their mounts around and were starting toward the rear of the train when the conductor, an older and overweight man, jumped down from the caboose and started waddling toward them, his face red with outrage.

“Who the hell do you two think you are?” he puffed.

Mason pointed at his badge. “Brooksville deputy. I’m searching for Miz Katherine Dorchester. She’s most likely with two men, Dorchester Junior and Senior.”

“And she ain’t here willingly,” Joe chimed in. “I can damn sure guarantee you that. They forced her to go with them.”

The conductor’s eyes widened. “She done been kidnapped?” His expression turned angry. “That explains why she looked so sad and upset. I knew there’s a problem from the get-go, but you know how them Dorchesters are, you don’t cross—”

Mason waved the rest of the conductor’s comments away. “Where the hell are they?”

“Coach three, about three quarters of the way back, if I recall.”

Joe jumped down from his horse. “Which car is that?”

The conductor waddled forward, taking the lead. “This way.”

Joe and Mason exchanged a murderous glance as Mason dismounted. With their guns drawn, they followed the conductor toward the front of the train.

Katie couldn’t believe her ears when she heard two familiar voices arguing with some of Dorchester’s men at the front of the car. She stood and caught sight of Mason, who drew his gun.

Dorchester’s men raised their hands. “Joe, go find her,” Mason ordered.

“You won’t get away with this!” Senior bellowed.

“What, you mean rescuing the woman we love?” Mason said.

Junior snorted, but didn’t lower his hands. “Woman? You mean whore, don’t you?”

Joe decked him, sending him to the floor before he pushed his way through the throng and down the aisle to her. With a sob, she fell into his arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart, we’ve got you.”

“He threatened to ruin you both, or even kill you if I didn’t do it!”

“We know. Where’s your bag?” She pointed at the carpetbag in the rack above her. He grabbed it then grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him.

“Is he going to arrest them?” she asked.

Joe shook his head. “There’s too many of them. We just want to get you safely out of here and back home.”

Senior glared at her as she passed. “You leave this train, you’re as good as dead.”

She looked at him and, without thinking, shot her foot out, catching him squarely in the balls. Dorchester’s face turned purple as he clutched his crotch before crumpling to the floor.

Then she leaned over and spit on him. “If I ever see you again, it’ll be a bullet I put between your eyes instead of buckshot in your ass, you son of a bitch.”

Mason kept them covered as they raced through the exit, backing away from Dorchester’s men as Joe helped Katie down off the train. Mason put her bag on his horse as Joe mounted and swung her up behind him. Together again, they raced north toward Dade City and away from the train.

Behind them, she heard Senior bellow, “You’ll live to regret this, Katherine!”

She shivered and successfully managed to keep her upset stomach in check, but clutched Joe’s waist even more tightly. She’d never let go of her men again, no matter what the threat.

It was late that night, with a cup of hot tea laced with whiskey in her to help soothe her stomach, that she told the full tale to Sheriff Birch at their kitchen table. Several armed deputies stood around, looking murderous as she related the tale and the threats, leaving out the specifics dealing with her men.

Sheriff Birch scratched at his chin. “Seems like an awfully big risk for Dorchester to take just over a piece of property. I don’t know why he’d do that.”

Joe looked at Mason, who nodded. “Sheriff, you know why.” He looked at Katie and gripped her hands in his, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Time for the truth, sweetheart.” He looked at all the gathered men, then back to the Sheriff. “Mason and I know you figured us out, Sheriff.” He took a deep breath. “Dorchester had his men spying on the three of us. They saw that Katie is…involved with both Mason and me.”

He sent a defiant glare to the deputies, most of whom looked shocked. “Let me set something straight right now. Katie is marrying me, only because the law won’t allow her to marry both of us. We love her, and neither of us will ever walk away from her. We ain’t gonna hide who we are, either. If people think badly of us, that’s their problem, not ours. Dorchester used threats that he would ruin Mason and myself, as well as threats to have us killed, to force Katie to recant the story and withdraw the charges. Now, what’s worse? A man who will stoop to murder out of greed, or three people who truly love each other who aren’t hurting anyone else?”

The deputies shifted nervously and looked at each other. Ben Ainsley spoke up. “I, for one, want to be the first to congratulate the three of you. Ain’t my business what you do, as long as no one’s being forced to do it. There’ll be a new scandal to take y’all’s place soon enough. I’d rather see Junior sitting behind bars next to his father than to waste time gossipin’.”

The other deputies considered that for a moment before nodding in agreement.

Sheriff Birch smiled. “That’s settled then. Let’s go get us a posse.” Mason started to join them when the sheriff turned, holding up a staying hand. “I’m ordering you to stay here and guard her. At least until we have those two bastards safely sitting in jail.”

Mason smiled as he turned to Joe. “So when do you want to hold the wedding?”

He laughed as he pulled Katie to him. “How about first thing in the morning?”

The sheriff smiled. “Make it tomorrow afternoon. I want to be there.”

“Yes, sir,” Katie said as she stared first at Joe, then at Mason. “Tomorrow afternoon it is.”