Two men were dragging an unconscious Jasper into the cabin. His hands were tied behind his back, and a handkerchief had been tied around his mouth.
“Jasper!”
She started toward him, but the leader of the gang, the dark-haired man who’d objected to Jasper’s presence, pointed his gun at her. “You get back to tending that meal. I’ve still got half a mind to kill you, but so long as you’re useful, I might let you live.”
Emma Jane tried swallowing the lump in her throat, but it remained lodged in place. How had Jasper come to be here? Her heart sank and turned over in her stomach as she realized that he’d probably come after her, putting himself in danger in the process.
The men dropped Jasper on the dirt floor, his body thudding on the ground. A trail of dried blood had clotted down the side of his face. For a moment, Emma Jane’s breath caught. But then his chest rose and fell slightly. It was enough to let her take a breath, but not enough to ease the tightness in her chest.
“He’s injured,” Emma Jane said quietly but not moving. “Supper should be ready soon. Let me tend to him.”
“He’ll be fine. Just a knock on the head.” Ray, one of the men who’d kidnapped her, nudged his partner. “Might have been a little harder than we intended, but we got the job done.”
“What job?” Their leader walked over and smacked Ray on the side of the head. “Seems to me every job I give you gets messed up. You were supposed to go into town to take care of Nancy. You come back with her.”
He pointed at Emma Jane, giving her a dark look. “I do not need another woman in this place.”
As if to remind them of her existence, the other woman began coughing again. When Emma Jane had arrived, the woman had been coughing up a storm, delirious with fever. She’d felt so bad for the poor woman and had been doing what she could to make her more comfortable.
The woman also had a small baby boy, now sleeping inside an old crate near the fire. When Emma Jane had arrived, the baby was nestled in with his mother. With the woman’s raging fever, Emma Jane worried that the baby might get sick. She’d put together a makeshift bottle from odds and ends she’d found in the cabin, and one of the men, Mack, had given her some goat’s milk. Not the best solution, Emma Jane knew, but with the way the baby had gobbled up the milk, she’d probably saved the baby’s life. Already color was returning to the baby’s cheeks, and he had stopped whimpering. Mack commented that it was the first time the baby had quieted in days.
Emma Jane went to the fire to stir the soup. Tasting it, she deemed it fit to eat. Perhaps if the men had a little food in their bellies, they wouldn’t be so cantankerous. Which meant that maybe they wouldn’t be so eager with their guns.
A nearby shelf held some bowls, and as Emma Jane dished out the soup, the men continued arguing.
“I told you, she was there when I did it. I didn’t want her talking. I’d have shot her then, but Jimmy said killing a Jackson was a bad idea.”
“And you didn’t think to check for witnesses before doing it?” The leader blew out an irate breath as Emma Jane handed him a bowl.
“You didn’t put anything in this, did you?”
He eyed her warily, and for a moment, Emma Jane wished she had put poison in the soup. Of course, she had no idea what she could have used as one. It wasn’t as though there were bottles labeled Poison lying around.
“No.” She handed another bowl to the one called Jimmy. After all, she owed him her life. Were it not for him, Ray would have killed her.
“Prove it. Take a bite out of my bowl.”
Emma Jane did as he asked, looking him in the eye as she took a spoonful of his soup.
Satisfied, the man grunted and waved her away. “As I was saying, Ray, you’re a disgrace. I gave you a simple job, and you fouled that up. But that doesn’t explain how you ended up bringing him here.”
Ray pointed at Jimmy. “Ask him. He’s the one who had that idea, too.”
Jimmy set down his soup. “Same reason we grabbed the girl. There’s no way we’d get away with killing a Jackson. We went back to clean up our tracks, and he had started tracking us. Figured it was easier to knock him out and take him prisoner than it was to spend the rest of our lives running. You kill someone with that much money and power, there’s no way you’ll ever stop running, even if you do make it to Mexico.”
“I’m not afraid of no Jackson,” Ray declared.
“You should be.” Jimmy stood, then pointed at Jasper. “We might have the law around here handled, but his father has the money to buy more law than we can. I know a guy who tried robbing him once. Trust me when I say that you cross a man as powerful as Jackson, you’ll wish you were dead.”
His answer seemed to satisfy the leader, who stood. “We’ll continue this conversation outside. No need for big ears to learn the rest of our plan.”
He looked pointedly at Emma Jane, but she didn’t care. If the men left the cabin, she could tend to Jasper’s wounds.
Before she could reach Jasper, the baby let out a small cry. Emma Jane picked him up, noting immediately that he was wet. A good sign, considering how
