Chapter Nine

Brody groaned and cursed the pounding in his head and the dryness in his mouth. He was lying on a hard wooden floor inside a sealed wagon. The walls and roof of the wagon were solid wood instead of canvas, making any idea of escape vanish from his mind.

The wagon was lurching and bouncing and each movement sent waves of pain throughout his body. He could hear the sounds of hooves on either side as well as some behind it. The wagon was clearly surrounded on all sides.

"Elizabeth..." he croaked out through his raspy, dry throat. His sat up quickly, ignoring the pain and dizziness he felt and looked around the dark interior. He saw her lying on her stomach on the wooden floor. Her eyes were closed and she had a lump above her temple and dried blood on her face.

"God, let her be okay." he whispered and he crawled across the bouncing wagon. He gently smoothed some blond strands of loose hair from her face, "Elizabeth, wake up."

Brody let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when she groaned and shifted. She didn't awaken but at least now he knew she was responsive.

The pain in his arm reminded him that he'd been shot. He looked down at the blood covering his shirt and rolled his sleeve up. The wound was far enough to the side of his arm that it had missed the bones and any major arteries or veins. It was little more than a flesh wound despite being a through and through, and the bleeding had already slowed to nothing more than a slow oozing.

Brody reached in his pocket, unsurprised to find that his gun belt and revolver were gone. He was sure the kidnappers had taken it, thinking that that would make him helpless.

He smiled at their ignorance.

Brody pulled his bandana from his pocket and, using his uninjured arm and his teeth, he tied it around his wounded arm.

He turned his attention back to Elizabeth and gave her a shake, "Wake up, Elizabeth. It's time to get up now." He had no idea how long they'd been unconscious without food and water. Judging by how dry and cracked his lips were it had been a day or longer. "Elizabeth, wake up." he said more sternly as he shoved her harder.

She moaned and her eyelids fluttered open, "Brody, you're alive!" she exclaimed and before he knew what she was going to do, she had jumped up to her knees and was throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tight. Shock was the first thing he felt. How long had it been since he'd been hugged? His mother had hugged him that summer morning nine years ago just before the union soldiers had come through and......

He shook his head to clear those thoughts and instead focused on the warm, soft body pressed so closely to his. Elizabeth was beautiful. She was strong. She was independent and she was stubborn. But there was something else in her. A vulnerability that she would probably deny but that was plain for him to see. She needed someone to protect her. Her father didn't have her best interests at heart, Anita wasn't on her side and Brody didn't trust Braxton as far as he could throw the oak tree of a man. He had seen Braxton and Anita having secret rendezvous under the oak tree. It was also clear to Brody that Grant only wanted Elizabeth for one thing and that was the ranch.

Brody didn't know the four men that had kidnapped them but he knew it had to have something to do with the chaos that had been going on at home. Either Grant or Braxton had sent these men for Elizabeth and the only logical man was Braxton. Grant wanted to marry her so he wouldn't want her gone but what did Braxton stand to gain by her disappearance? Brody thought back to Elizabeth saying that her father had made plans to leave the ranch to someone else if Elizabeth didn't marry Grant and he had a sinking feeling that he knew just who that someone was. And he had an even worse feeling that Anita had helped that someone lead Elizabeth into this trap.

Elizabeth pulled away and swooned as her head swam. She raised her hand to her temple as Brody grabbed her arm to steady her.

"Where are we?" she asked.

Brody shrugged, "In a wagon I guess."

She rolled her eyes, "How long have we been in here?"

"A day.. Longer maybe."

"I'm glad you're with me....I was scared Brody," she admitted with a shiver. "I was scared about what those men were going to do to me...I couldn't stand it if.... If a man did that to me again."

Brody had been digging through his pockets searching for his cigarettes and matches but at her words he froze and his eyes flew to her face. A protective rage filled him. Her eyes had taken on a haunted look as she stared at the wooden wall of the wagon.

"Again?"

"Huh?" she asked, raising her hand back up to her swollen temple and wincing.

"You said again." If there was one thing Brody couldn't tolerate it was a man taking a woman against her will. Just the thought of that had memories of his mother and his sister's screams coming back into his mind... The sound of tearing fabric as the union soldiers had ripped their dresses from their bodies while Brody and his brother Jacob had hidden beneath the floorboards with their two toddler sisters.

Elizabeth bit her lip and shook her head. Why had she just said that to him? She supposed maybe the lump on her head had rattled her brain a little more than she had thought.

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did." Brody assured her.

"How is your arm?" Elizabeth asked, wanting to turn his attention to something other than her.

Brody looked down at the black bandana tied around his arm and shrugged, "It's fine."

He saw her bite her dry, cracked lip and he vowed that he'd do for her what he couldn't do for his mother and sisters. No man would touch her against her will as long as he had a say in the matter.

"Are you sure it's okay? You've lost a lot of blood." Elizabeth said as she looked at his blood stained shirt and the drying puddle of blood on the wagon floor.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"How can you be sure...?"

"Shut-up," he snapped and Elizabeth's nostrils flared angrily but she did as he said. The man really needed to learn to have better manners. The wagon came to a stop with a jolt that sent Elizabeth flying across the wagon and Brody caught her just before her head struck the wall and he held her as they listened to the men talking outside.

"What are we going to do with them?"

"Leave them here inside the wagon."

"But that man paid us to kill that girl."

"Look, I'm a thief and a kidnapper but I sure as hell ain't no murderer. Besides they're nearly two days hard riding away from the ranch, easily a week on foot and they'll never get out of that wagon. They'll roast alive in there and die just the way he wanted."

"That man in there wasn't a part of the deal... What the hell was he doing out there with her?"

"How the hell should I know? I'm glad he was though because this gun and belt are nice."

"I want me a piece of that woman. She was a good looking little number."

"You do what you want, we're leaving."

"I'll stay with him. I'd like a turn too... Course we may have to put a bullet in that man's head. I don't think he'd take too kindly to us touching his woman."

"See you all around then. I'm taking their guns and holsters back to that bastard and telling him they're dead."

"Me too."

"They're as good as dead."

Brody listened closely to the sound of the team of horses being removed from the wagon and then the wagon pitched downward as the tongue fell to the ground. He braced his legs to keep himself and Elizabeth from falling backward.

"Brody, what are we going to do?" Elizabeth asked, her voice full of fear. Her father had been right. She'd lived a life of privilege and hadn't realized that things like this could really happen to her. Kidnapping, murder... these were all new to her.

"Didn't I tell you to shut-up?" Brody whispered harshly. He heard two people walking toward the back of the wagon as the sound of horses running faded into the distance. He shoved Elizabeth down on the wooden floor and his stern look told her that he expected her to stay there. Then he moved toward the back door of the wagon and he pulled a short, but very sharp looking knife from his boot.

A knife?! He was going to go after two men who had guns with nothing but a little bitty knife?

Brody waited, crouched, his heart racing with adrenaline and anticipation. The door opened and he launched himself at the man standing there. It was the big man. The one that had knocked him out in the field.

Elizabeth watched in horror as Brody grabbed the big mans wrist with his wounded arm and fought to keep the gun the big man was holding pointed in the air instead of at him or her. Elizabeth couldn't believe the strength Brody had. This man had to weigh at least one hundred pounds of solid muscle more than him but neither man was gaining nor losing ground as they stayed locked in a battle of sheer willpower.

Suddenly Brody swung his left hand up and Elizabeth heard a sickening, wet, thud as he stuck his knife deep into the big mans temple and just like that the mans body went limp as the other man began firing shots into the wagon.

"Stay down, Elizabeth!" Brody yelled over the sound of gunfire.

He used the big man as a shield and grabbed his gun from his dead hand. He couldn't see the second man around the big man's body but he could hear the gun shots being fired and sinking into the big man's flesh.

He raised his hand and fired a single shot, aiming about a foot to the left of where he guessed the gun was and smiled when he heard the wet sound of bullet meeting flesh and then the gurgling sound of the second man's lungs filling with blood.

He tossed the big man off of him and out of the wagon, his body landing with a thud on the dirt. Brody looked back at Elizabeth, saw her pale and shaking with shock but unharmed and then he jumped to the ground. He stuck big man's pistol into the waistband of his pants, it still had five shots left in it that they might end up needing.

He looked around but the horses were gone, spooked off by the gun shots, and with them they'd taken the saddlebags with all the ammunition, water and food these men might have had. He looked around the dry, grassy land surrounding them and then up at the blazing sun that was beating down on the back of his neck.

"Thomas was right... You're a real life tough guy. I've never seen anything like that," Elizabeth's voice said from behind him.

"I was lucky. And so were you that you didn't get shot. Ain't got nothing to do with being tough."

Elizabeth didn't argue but inside she knew he was wrong. There wasn't another man alive that she knew that could fight off two men with a lump on his head and a hole in his arm. Especially when one of those men was as big as a tree and he couldn't even see the other but somehow had managed to send a bullet straight into his heart and lungs.

"What do we do now?" she asked and Brody could tell she was afraid. He felt her moving closer to him and he froze when he felt her breasts press against his arm. "These dead people make me uncomfortable." Brody cleared his throat and moved away from her, "Why? They're dead, they can't hurt ya." he replied as he walked back over to the big guy and pulled his knife from his temple. He wiped the knife clean on big guys shirt and slid it back inside his boot. He made his way to the smaller man and went through his pockets finding them empty. He threw the man over his shoulder and put him and the big guy into the wagon before shutting the door.

"Who is their boss and why does he want me dead?" Elizabeth asked out loud.

Brody shrugged, "That's not important right now. Right now we gotta get to walking and find us some water."

Elizabeth nodded and followed in his footsteps as he started walking across the dusty, grass covered ground. Her mind was racing, her head was pounding, her stomach was growling and her mouth and lips were so dry that they hurt, but she didn't say anything because she remembered Brody saying that complaining was one of the only things that women were good for and she'd be damned before she showed him he was right.

Who was Brody Atkinson? He was tough, deadly and clearly a little cold inside because he hadn't even batted an eye over killing two men. Elizabeth knew that killing those men had been unavoidable but shouldn't a man act a little upset when he took another man's life? That wasn't all there was too Brody though. Sometimes those intense eyes were warm when they looked at her and sometimes he was funny and joking. Other times his short temper and lack of manners were startling. He was like five different men rolled into one and his multiple personalities kept her confused and intrigued. One thing was clear.... He knew how to handle himself out here and with him she might just make it home alive.