She swallowed, then scooted off the horse. “I understand.”
No, running away was not an option. Especially given that Slade had one hand on Nugget, and the other held a gun.
“I’ll just go behind those bushes.” She stared at him, daring him to argue.
“What happened to your hair?”
Annabelle reached up, realizing that with all the pins she’d taken out, it was starting to look a mess. She couldn’t afford for Slade to look too closely or start wondering about the missing pins.
“I told you, all the jostling is rather uncomfortable. I keep trying to push my hair back up out of my face, but it’s not as though any of you are taking care to make this an easy ride.”
The gleam in Slade’s eyes made her realize that he was enjoying every moment of tormenting her. The more miserable she said she was, the more he enjoyed it.
“We don’t cater to prissy spoiled brats here. Guess you’ll have to make do.”
She gave him the kind of haughty look she knew he expected from her. Though she was learning to be more than the child everyone thought her, now was not the time to prove she’d changed. The old Annabelle was exactly what Slade needed to see.
“When my father finds out—”
“We’ll be halfway to Mexico with the silver.” He leaned forward and ran a finger down her cheek. “And I haven’t decided if I’ll kill you first, or keep you around for entertainment for a while, and then sell you. Pretty golden hair like yours will fetch a mighty fine price.”
Slade rolled one of her curls around his finger, then gave it a sharp yank. Had he pulled any harder, she was sure she’d have a bald spot. It took every amount of energy not to kick him in the shins.
She brushed past him and headed into the bushes. She relieved herself as quickly as she could, then took three of her hairpins and fashioned them into an A. Maybe that would help anyone looking for her.
Now to find a place to leave it unobserved by the bandits, but in such a way that anyone looking for her would spot the clue.
As she walked back to the horses, every bandit’s eye was on her. At least they weren’t underestimating her abilities to try to escape. Because she would. With Nugget.
She spied a rock, that if she could just get the hairpins on it, would hopefully put them in view of anyone coming from the direction of the camp.
“Ouch!” Annabelle pretended to stumble on her way to the horse. She scooted toward the rock, pretending to try to right herself. Then, because it was so close, Annabelle went and sat on the rock, making a show of examining the foot she’d injured the day before.
“I do hope it’s not worse.” She glared at Slade. “It’s the same ankle I hurt yesterday. I should have listened to Gertie about keeping off it longer. Then maybe you wouldn’t have been able to kidnap us. We’d be safe in the cabin right now.”
Annabelle started to cry, thinking she’d have to fake the tears, but as they flowed readily, she realized what a mess everything was. Her words were supposed to have been a ploy, to distract the men from noticing her setting the pins for someone to discover them. But they were true.
Slade strode toward her, his face filled with disgust.
“Even if you’d stayed at the cabin, we’d still have gotten you. Probably easier and without a fuss. You think your pa or Gertie would have objected to me taking you two for a ride?”
His confidence made her realize just how he’d fooled them all. If Slade had come to the cabin and offered to take her for a ride, she and everyone else would have agreed.
“Then why kidnap us?” She stared at him defiantly as he hauled her to her feet.
He grinned. “Because it’s more fun this way.”
With great ease, Slade picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt your foot any more, would we?”
How had she not seen what a bully Slade was?
Slade handed her to Tom, who helped hoist her back onto the saddle.
“No more delays,” Slade said as he tugged again on one of her loose tendrils.
Another hairpin clattered to the ground, and she couldn’t help but hope that was the first one her rescuers found. It would serve Slade right for his meanness to be the instrument of his downfall.
* * *
When Joseph and Wes arrived at Gertie’s, the rain had stopped, but the place was in an uproar.
“What’s going on?” he asked Gertie.
“Annabelle and Nugget are missing,” she said, looking over at Frank. “They were picking flowers, then the storm hit. I just don’t know where they could be.”
Polly slammed a pot to the ground. “I’ll tell you where they are. She’s run off with Tom, despite all of her protests about not being the sort to dig her claws into someone else’s man.”
He couldn’t believe that Polly’s petty jealousy was keeping everyone from looking for Annabelle. “That isn’t what happened.” Joseph glared at her, then turned to Frank.
“There’s a lot Wes and I need to catch you up on. But we’ll have to do that as we look for Annabelle and Nugget. Slade has them, and—”
“No, he doesn’t.” Polly stood and squared off with him. “I saw her ride off with Tom. Nugget wasn’t with them. He had his arms around her, and I can assure you, she was not upset about it.”
He stepped aside and addressed Frank. “Tom must be working with Slade. When we were on the ridge, Slade tried to kill me. He stole my pa’s Bible out of my saddlebag. I believe it holds the clue to the location of the silver.”
The doubt on Frank’s face, along with Polly’s screeching in the background made it almost impossible to believe they’d get Annabelle back safely.
“It’s true,” Wes
