Ace didn’t immediately answer. Never a good sign. He swung down off his horse.
“Let me get my cup. We’ll talk about it over coffee.”
Fuck. Caden nodded and walked over to the fire on which the coffeepot swung suspended. Caden knew Ace well enough to know there was trouble. He had a habit of putting his hand on his gun when he was agitated, and right now that hand was firmly planted.
“What about Maddie?” he asked, using his gloves to shield his hand from the heat as he lifted the pot.
Ace held out his cup. “I was hoping to find her here.”
Caden paused midpour. “Why the hell would you expect to find her here?”
The camp was little more than a fire, a tent and a lot of dirt. It was no place for a woman.
Ace sighed and motioned for Caden to finish pouring. “Coffee.”
As soon as the cup was full, Ace brought it to his mouth. Caden had to wait for him to take two sips before he continued.
“She left the night you did, and knowing how she feels about you, we kind of thought she followed you.”
“Why would she follow me?” Caden’s mind had been racing with all the possibilities of what could have happened, where she could have gone.
“She and Bella had a talk, apparently.”
Caden wanted to close his eyes and groan. He set the pot back on the hook over the fire. Bella was a whole different woman than Maddie. All fire and bold spirit captured in a lushly curved body. Maddie admired her tremendously, had taken to emulating her. And Bella would have followed Sam. Shit. Had followed Sam. The ins and outs of that courtship were legend on Hell’s Eight, and not a week went by that some part of it wasn’t rehashed. Caden had a feeling he didn’t want to hear the rest.
“So Bella and Maddie talked, and from that you think she lit out after me in the middle of the night?” It was only half a question.
Ace nodded. “Her horse, Flower, is also missing.”
There was more. Caden could tell from the tone of Ace’s voice that there was more.
“And?”
Ace motioned with his cup. “You might want to sit down for this.”
The hell he did. Caden spread his feet apart and braced his shoulders. “I’m good. So the night I left, Maddie left, too, taking the horse with her.”
“And one of the tracking hounds.”
A hound? “Which one?”
“Worthless.”
“Hell, that one doesn’t even bay.” But Maddie had a fondness for him. She had a fondness for anything left out or underappreciated.
“Yeah, we thought that was pretty telling, too.”
“How so?”
“He’d be my choice if I wanted to follow someone but not be detected.”
Caden’s, too. “Tell me she took a gun.” The thought of Maddie being out there alone undefended was intolerable.
“I wish I could for sure, but unless you gave her one that nobody else knows about, she didn’t pack one.”
Caden shook his head. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. “That woman’s fear of guns is unreasonable, especially if she’s going to take off on her own. Did you check to see if she went into town?”
“First thing, but no one’s seen her. And there’s more.”
Of course there was.
Ace took another sip of his coffee. “This part’s not so good.”
“What’s not so good?”
Ace cocked a brow at him. “Sure you don’t want to sit down?”
“Just fucking tell me and quit stalling.”
Ace sighed and turned the cup in his hand before saying quietly, “The dog came back shot, Caden.”
“Fuck.” A cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach as Maddie’s name whipped through his mind. Maddie!
“Pretty much.” Ace set his cup on the ground.
“Who’d you put on her trail?” He didn’t doubt someone had gone after her. Maddie was Hell’s Eight. Had been since the moment she’d burst out of that hellhole of a whorehouse and asked Tracker for help.
“Tucker took a hound and backtracked along the trail.”
“Where was she heading?”
“Damned if Tucker could figure that out.” Ace took a coin out of his pocket and began to walk it over the backs of his fingers. “But if she was following you, that woman has no sense of direction.”
She didn’t. It’d taken her a week to learn her way back from the creek. “What did Tucker discover?”
“Not much. The trail was old and the ground not the best.”
“Which dog?”
“Boone, who else?”
Boone was the best. “Good.”
“Boone’s good, but there’s only so much he can do after rain and weather have their say. We did figure out that at some point midway between here and there it looks like she met up with someone. From there Tucker couldn’t follow the trail more than a mile east. Hell, he’s not even sure by that point whether it was her Boone was following.”
Someone. A nice way of saying Maddie met up with trouble. The knot in Caden’s stomach froze over. A woman alone out here was fair game for every piece of scum that decided he wanted her. “Where was it?”
Sam pointed north. “That row of hills between here and there. It looks like she went right instead of left.”
“Did anybody check the houses along that way?”
“Shit, Caden. You know there isn’t anything along that way. The Indians drove them all out.”
Caden nodded. That was true. As more troops were pulled East in preparation for the conflict there, the Indians were getting bolder. He knew exactly the spot that Ace was talking about. There were three ways to go off that peak. To the left toward San Antonio, down into the wilderness, and to the right toward the Culbart ranch and here. It was a good day’s ride from both.
“Has anybody gone to San Antonio looking for her?”
“Sam.”
“And?” As unreasonable as it was, Caden couldn’t kill the hope Sam had found something.
“He’s not back yet.”
“It’s possible she went to San Antonio. She wasn’t happy with me leaving.”
Ace looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Maybe.”
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.” Caden sighed. “What?”
“It’s more the nature of what Bella talked to her about what goes on between you that has Tucker convinced she followed you.”
“What did Bella tell her?” With Bella there was no telling.
“Bella told her to follow her heart, and we’re all pretty sure she’s infatuated with you.”
She was, and it was a measure of what a selfish bastard he was that he’d never discouraged that infatuation. Being loved by Maddie was...incredibly sweet. Hot and tender at the same time, and when she looked at him as if he was wrapped in icing... Fuck! He wasn’t a