any signs of Maddie, but Caden knew Culbart had her. Had had her for two weeks doing Lord knew what to her.
Caden tried to remember what Fei had said her cousin Lin had endured when her father had sold her to Culbart to pay a debt. He couldn’t remember much. Fei had been sketchy on those details. Not surprisingly. There were things a good woman didn’t want revealed. Besides, whatever had happened to Fei’s cousin wasn’t particularly relevant because a man approached a woman of good family differently than he did a known whore. Whether the woman had been sold or not, virginity had value. Hell, women had value in general, but if Culbart and his crew saw Maddie as a whore...
Caden closed his fist around the spyglass and ground his teeth. If they treated her like that, he’d gut them and skin them and leave them out as buzzard bait. Maddie might not have had a good beginning, but she was better than anyone down deep where it mattered, and he’d made her a promise when she came to Hell’s Eight. He promised her she’d never have to serve a man again unless she lay down by her choice. He remembered the disturbance of footprints in the dirt, the isolation of her location. The popped button. The blood in the dirt from the dog. Fuck. Nothing about her being with Culbart was her choice.
Putting the spyglass back to his eye, Caden surveyed the Fallen C. He had to give Culbart credit. He might be a son of a bitch with some questionable morals when it came to women, but he ran his ranch with an iron hand. The evidence was in the well-kept buildings, the tidy outhouses, the numerous corrals and the condition of his animals. Probably the only thing that kept him from giving Hell’s Eight a run for its money when it came to stocking the cavalry was the fact that the Fallen C was smack-dab in the middle of Indian country. The man didn’t just have to battle wolves and drought. A tribe could decide anytime that he was trespassing on their land, and with the unrest in the East over separation, fewer and fewer cavalry were being sent to protect the West. In the coming years, Culbart would be lucky if he got out of this with his scalp intact. Of course, that was always supposing Caden left anything for the Indians to scalp. Caden popped his elbows on the ground and continued his surveillance. He needed to know the routine to get Maddie out of there.
It was early morning and the men of the Fallen C were going about their usual business. Men were going in and out of the bunkhouse, heading up to the cookhouse for breakfast. For the day and a half that Caden had been surveying the place, he hadn’t seen any sign of Maddie, but her little horse, Flower, was in the corral and not looking too happy with that stallion next door. Caden sighed again. Obviously from the stallion’s behavior, the mare was coming into heat, which complicated things because another promise Caden had made Maddie was that Flower would also not have to lay down with any man unless she wanted to, and from the looks of things, that stallion was about to take that corral fence down.
“That’s a mighty big sigh,” Ace said.
“Looks like we’re going to have a romance to break up, too.”
“You see Maddie with one of the cowmen?”
“Nah. I haven’t seen her yet, though I imagine they’d be keeping her under lock and key.”
“Maybe. So what romance are we breaking up?”
“That stallion and Flower.”
To his credit, Ace didn’t bat an eyelash. One of the things that Caden enjoyed about Ace was that the man was unflappable.
He took the spyglass from Caden and trained it on the corrals.
“Nice-looking stud. Might be worth letting it happen.”
“I promised Maddie her mare would be safe.”
Ace lowered the glass and raised a brow at him. “You promised a woman her horse wouldn’t be...deflowered?”
Caden grabbed the glass. “Maddie’s sensitive on the subject.”
“Uh-huh.”
It was a ludicrous request and he’d been stupid to make the promise. Knowing it didn’t mean Caden wanted it shoved in his face. “Shut up, Ace.”
“Didn’t say a word.”
“Good.”
“If you’re planning on ending a romance, though,” Ace drawled, “then you’d better get over there soon.”
“Yeah. That’d occurred to me.”
“Got a plan?”
“Besides ride in and take her?”
“How about something better than suicide?”
“Not yet.” The ranch was well guarded with men who wore their guns in a way that said they knew how to use them. Short of walking up and knocking on the door, he couldn’t think of anything.
“We’ve been here two days,” Ace pointed out. “We haven’t seen a sign of her.”
“I know.”
“You think she’s still here?”
“I do.”
“Based on what?”
Caden put the spyglass in his pocket. “Based on my gut and the fact that Culbart hasn’t come out of that house for more than two minutes in two days.”
“I had that thought myself.”
Caden nodded and crawled back off the edge. “The only thing keeping me from charging in is the fact that Culbart doesn’t have the look of a satisfied man.”
Ace smiled. “You think he’s finding Maddie’s flights of fancy a bit draining?”
Caden stood, brushing off his pants. “For his sake, I sure as hell hope so.”
“How are you intending on getting her out of there? Storming the place isn’t exactly our best bet.”
“Yeah, I’ve come to that conclusion.”
Of course, Ace had to pin him down that first day to keep him from charging in, but now that he was a little calmer, he could see the foolishness of that plan.
“So what are you going to do?”
“First, we’re going to break up that romance.”
“Steal the horse?”
“Uh-uh. It’s not stealing if it’s ours to begin with.”
“Gonna be tough to prove to a judge if Culbart put his brand on Flower.”
“Let him be so stupid as to take me to court.”
“That man has a fierce temper and strong will. Rumors are, nobody crosses him and gets away with it. Reminds me a lot of Caine.”
“Caine doesn’t hold women prisoner.”
“We don’t know that Culbart is, either,” Ace pointed out with that reasonable side that grated on Caden’s nerves.
“Maddie’s the second woman he’s taken against her will.” He shifted his hat on his head.
“To be fair, Lin’s uncle sold her.”
“Doesn’t mean she didn’t say no.”
“True enough, but I got the impression she wasn’t raped.”
“Only because Fei slipped Culbart saltpeter.” Every man who heard that story cringed on the telling.
Ace chuckled. “She’s a resourceful bit of a thing.”
She was, but Maddie didn’t have Fei looking out for her. She just had him. “She is that.”
“Not to keep grating on your sense of vengeance without reason,” Ace drawled, walking that coin over his knuckles the way he did when he was thinking, “but Maddie’s been here two weeks, and Culbart’s not looking like the cat that ate the canary. Are you really so sure that he’s forcing her?”
Caden spun around