“Oh, Riley, I love you,” she whispered against his shadowed cheek. “I love you.”
* * *
“Oh, Riley, I love you.”
The passionately spoken words had Riley slowly turning from the window in Abby’s hospital room, sure that he had imagined them.
“Abby?” he whispered, moving to her side and taking her hand in his.
At the sound of his voice she sighed, and a smile crept across her lips. When he enveloped her hand in his, she squeezed his fingers.
“I love you,” she murmured once more, and then she drifted back to sleep.
Tears tracked down Riley’s cheeks as he held her hand. She was back at last. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind now that Abby was coming back and she was coming back to him. Emotion clogged his throat as he gazed at her.
“I love you, too,” he whispered, daring for the first time to make the admission aloud.
And even though Abby might very well not have heard the words, they were as much of a commitment as any vows ever spoken in a church.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Soaking wet and exhilarated by the long-awaited gold strike, Abby and Riley were making their way to shore for a more intimate celebration when a gunshot rang out just over their heads. Riley immediately shoved Abby behind him as he scanned the area for signs of the shooter. She strained to see past him, but to her untrained eye they seemed to be completely alone. The grassy riverbank appeared deserted, but there was a stand of cottonwoods not far away she supposed could conceal someone.
Though there were no further shots, the tension in Riley’s shoulders didn’t ease. His expression, which only moments before had been carefree, had sobered instantly. His watchful gaze was alert to the slightest hint of movement. One hand instinctively went for his own gun, though Abby had her doubts it would fire in its soaking wet condition.
“Surely you don’t think...” she began, only to be cut off by his free hand clamping firmly over her mouth. His eyes, glittering with warning, silenced her even more effectively than his hand. Clearly he didn’t believe the shots had been accidentally close by.
They didn’t have to wait long for proof of that. Within seconds three men emerged from the nearby stand of trees. Abby recognized them at once. Higgins and his brothers. Judging from their expressions, she doubted they’d turned up just to pass the time of day.
“Well, well, well, if this ain’t the prettiest sight I’ve laid eyes on in quite a while,” Higgins said.
There was little doubt he was referring to Abby. His avid gaze never left her bare legs. Just before the shot had been fired, as they had emerged from the river, Riley had hastily covered the rest of her with his shirt. Now, though, the material of the shirt was soaked through and revealed almost as much as it concealed. Higgins stared as if he could see straight through it and was absolutely fascinated by what he saw.
Riley tensed, his gaze furious, but he managed somehow to keep his tongue in check. Abby was proud of him. She was sorely tempted to slug the man herself.
“How did you get out of jail?” Riley asked the trio, his tone deceptively lazy and only mildly curious. “I thought the sheriff had you locked up tight.”
“It’s amazing what can be accomplished with a little gold. The keys to those cells turn up in the most unlikely places,” Higgins said. He regarded Riley arrogantly. “The way I got it figured you owe me, Walker.”
“Now how on earth did you come to that conclusion?” Riley asked.
“First you go and interfere with my professional operations,” Higgins said. “That business out in the desert cost me a tidy sum in cash and jewels that would have set up me and the boys here for the winter. Now I’m out several gold pieces. That damned sheriff back in town put a real high price on our freedom.”
“A man in your line of work should count on occasional losses,” Riley suggested. “It’s all part of the cost of doing business, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t care for losing,” Higgins responded, taking a lazy survey of Abby as he spoke. “No, sir, I don’t much like losing anything.”
Abby wasn’t exactly wild about the direction of the conversation. Judging from the tense set of Riley’s jaw, he wasn’t crazy about it, either. With obvious reluctance, he plucked the gold nugget he’d just mined from his pocket and tossed it in Higgins’s direction. “That ought to cover what you paid the sheriff.”
The man was so intent on grabbing for the gold, his concentration on Riley wavered. In the space of an instant, Riley had the gun he’d kept hidden behind him trained straight on Higgins. Abby’s pulse leapt. To her way of thinking it was a rather foolhardy gesture given the odds. Higgins’s brothers didn’t strike her as geniuses but there was a total of three of them, all armed and all fit to be tied because of that stay in jail.
Riley, however, didn’t seem the least bit daunted by the balance of power. He had that gun aimed straight at Higgins’s head. “Tell your brothers to drop their weapons,” he ordered calmly, while Abby’s knees quaked.
Higgins had the audacity to laugh. “You pull that trigger, you’re a dead man,” he warned. “Red and Tommy aren’t real pleased with you as it is. Red’s leg is aching like the very devil where you plugged him a few days back. He’s been itching to get even. He was aiming to shoot you straight out while you and the little lady frolicked in the river, but I persuaded him to take aim face-to-face, like a man.”
“Some man,” Abby muttered under her breath.
The hand Riley had clamped around her wrist tightened, but beyond that his demeanor remained unchanged. He looked like a man totally
