“He knew when you were inside the house so what makes you think he didn’t know when you were in the upstairs room?”
Ty didn’t look back at her but kept searching the room, inspecting the ceiling which looked as if it were always wet, and the floor which was nothing but hardened mud.
“Dysan said he’d sent out a hundred men to stop anyone from finding us, so how did you get here?”
“Your father’s money was a powerful incentive. It got me through clouds of gunfire.”
Chris leaned against the damp wall, flexing her sore ankles. “All right, maybe I was rude and I apologize. I thank you for trying to rescue me and I’m sorry that I’m going to cause your…that I’m going to cause whatever will happen to us.”
He turned back to her. “I think that finding out that you’re Mathison’s daughter will curtail whatever Dysan planned. Now, I suggest that you sit down and get what rest you can because, come morning, I think he’ll take us out of here.”
Chris sat down on the floor and was silent for a moment. “You could have gotten away in there. You could have overtaken those two men. Why didn’t you?”
Tynan stretched out with his back against the door, his eyes half closed. “Maybe, maybe not. Why don’t you get some sleep now? You might need to do some running in the morning.”
Chris couldn’t sleep, but she was quiet as she sat and watched Tynan across from her. Since that awful night in the cabin, she’d done her best not to think of him, not to remember what he looked like, how he smelled, how he’d touched her, but now, with him so near, it was impossible not to recall every bit of it.
And with the pleasant memories came his words: he only wanted to get her back to her father, that all she was to
him was a possibility of a pardon, that she was just one of hundreds of women he’d bedded, no more, no less. Chris remembered with shame the way she’d tried to talk him into marriage. In the flickering darkness, she could feel her face turning red. How childish she’d been, how immature.
And how childish she was acting now, she thought. She kept thinking that he’d betrayed her when the truth was, he’d been more than honest with her, never had he insinuated that he wanted any more from her than a job and a good time.
As she watched him, he opened his eyes and looked at her, and for a moment, Chris almost threw herself into his arms. Whatever she felt for him was not returned and she’d better get used to that fact. He didn’t love her and she was going to stop loving him—even if it killed her.
“Would you like to see what I found?” she asked.
He gave a nod, but said nothing, just sat there looking at her with hot eyes.
Probably thinks that since we’ve made love once, we will again. Not on your life, cowboy! she thought.
Turning away from him, she unbuttoned her blouse and withdrew a long narrow belt of what looked to be silver links. “It’s mine,” she said, caressing the belt and taking her time before handing it to him.
“It’s worn out and it looks old. Where was it? In your carpet bag?”
“No, of course not,” she said, taking it back. “I found it here, when I was looking through Dysan’s things. He had several treasures in a little cabinet. I think he found them in the sea—salvage. But I knew right away that this was mine so I took it.”
Tynan looked at her in confusion for a moment. “You mean that you’ve never seen this thing before but you think it’s yours?”
She looked up at him with a stubborn expression on her face.
“Is this your second sight again?” he said and there was laughter in his voice.
Chris merely kept her jaw set and put the belt back into her blouse.
“What is the thing anyway?”
“I think I’ll get some sleep now,” Chris said with her nose in the air.
“I didn’t mean—” Ty began but he stopped himself. “You want to hear why I have on new clothes again?” he said after a moment.
Chris tried to control her curiosity but couldn’t. She was a reporter to the tip of her toes and she was not capable of resisting a story. Reluctantly, she nodded.
He started with entering Red’s place secretly and then went on to tell of the men waiting outside for him. He told of his reluctance to wear the sideshow man’s white leather outfit, and of at last agreeing.
Chris listened with held breath, in awe of what he wasn’t telling her: of how difficult it had been to get to her. She didn’t laugh until he started telling her about Chanry and how the man had loved the suit.
“But won’t the men chase him when he’s wearing the white suit, and won’t they think they’re chasing you?”