what Sam and the rest of them had deduced, the whole family had been slated to be murdered on their trip west, but the killers had gotten greedy when they’d seen the girls. Instead of killing them, the attackers had sold them to Comancheros. Both girls had suffered horribly. Desi’s suffering had ended when Caine had found her standing all but naked in a creek, fighting four men with that hellion spirit. But Ari’s suffering probably continued.
No one knew if Ari had survived, but Desi’s gut said she had, and that was enough for Hell’s Eight. They each carried a letter that contained a promise to bring Ari home to her sister. And no member of Hell’s Eight ever went back on a promise. None of the men really expected to find Ari breathing, except maybe Tracker. Perhaps it was because he was a twin himself and understood that strange connection between close siblings that surpassed logic. Or maybe, he admitted only to himself, it was because of something else, something deeper. But he knew Ari was alive, and he knew he would find her. The only thing in question was whether he would find her in time. Inside him a clock ticked, and lately the tick was becoming louder, as if time was running out.
He glanced south again. Ari was waiting and she needed him. He wouldn’t listen to anything inside that said more than that. But he still didn’t want Shadow anywhere around what his gut said was going to be his end.
“We can’t afford to wait for Luke, Caden and Ace to hit the rendezvous points and pick up their messages. If the woman in Cavato is Ari, you need to get there before she’s sold or stolen again.”
“Yeah.” Shadow’s face set in that blank way that said he was accepting what he couldn’t change. “And if she’s not Ari?”
Tracker patted Buster’s flank. “I’ll do what I think best.”
“Tia said if we bring home another mouth to feed who can’t cook, we’re not getting another biscuit for the rest of our lives.”
Tracker grunted. “Then we teach them to cook on the way to Hell’s Eight.”
Shadow snorted and picked up his horse’s reins from where they dangled to the ground. “Says the man who’s always ducking the women trailing behind him.”
Tracker looped the reins of his roan around the horn of his saddle. Buster lost a bit of his lazy slump. There was nothing the horse loved more than covering ground, and since he had a stride as smooth as butter, there was nothing Tracker loved more than riding him. “I don’t want their gratitude.”
It made him uncomfortable, made him feel like a liar. He wasn’t a hero. There just wasn’t much else a man could do when a woman looked at him with hope fading from her eyes as she realized he was there to save someone else, not just give her something on which to hang that hope. A ride to a safe place. A chance to start over. Not all took it, but some did. And those who did he brought home to Hell’s Eight. From there they did what they wanted. Went home to family, went off to new beginnings or stayed under the group’s protection. Something Shadow knew, because he’d brought just as many women to Hell’s Eight as Tracker had. The difference was that the women didn’t imagine themselves in love with Shadow. Tracker wished he knew the secret of keeping them at arm’s length. He was getting damn tired of being the butt of jokes.
Leather creaked as Shadow swung up into the saddle. “You might as well enjoy it, since you can’t escape it.”
“No.” He wasn’t a ladies’ man and never had been.
“Women have touched us for less clear reasons.”
“Yeah.” He recalled the way Desi looked at Caine. The way Sally Mae looked at Tucker. The only greed in either woman’s eyes was that of a woman in love who wanted her man. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been looked at with love. Any softness he’d received in his life, he’d paid for. He was damn tired of paying. He was getting damn tired of a lot of things.
Buster tossed his head and snorted impatiently. Tracker agreed. It was time to leave. He swung up into the saddle.
Shadow stopped him. “Tracker?”
He gathered up the reins. Buster pranced with impatience. “What?”
“You don’t have to go.”
He blinked. “I gave my word.” For the longest time the Ochoa word hadn’t been worth shit, but now it stood strong. He wasn’t going to be the one who dragged it back into the dirt.
“Desi will understand.”
“I doubt it. She loves her sister.”
“She also loves you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
Shadow adjusted his hat against the glare of the morning sun. “What is it with finding Arianna, Tracker?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You told me once that you had a feeling she’d be the end of you.”
“I was drunk.” The dreams had been getting stronger lately, coming nightly, yanking him from a sound sleep with a sense of urgency and doom. He’d tossed back the whiskey in an attempt to escape them.
“You never drink, but when the last one wasn’t Arianna, you went on a two-day bender.”
“I’d been a month on the trail with five women who did nothing but argue. I was just cutting loose.”
“You hate drink and what it does to a man.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not as foolish as the next when I get off the trail.”
“Bull.”
He didn’t need this from his brother. Not now. “Let it go, Shadow.”
“Not if finding Ari means I lose you.” Shadow’s horse shifted with the tension in the man.
“There’s no ‘if’ about it. I’m going to find her.”
“And if it means your death?”
He’d made his peace with that possibility a year ago. It wasn’t that hard. The pain in Desi’s face as she spoke of the last time she’d seen her sister, the agony in her voice as she’d exposed her guilt, the hopelessness as she’d begged Caine to help her…Like Caine, he’d do anything to remove that pain from her. Despite all that she’d been through, Desi was the purest soul Tracker had ever seen. An angel with blond hair and blue eyes. An angel who had seemed so familiar the first time he saw her that he’d thought he recognized her, until he’d gotten closer. So close, his instincts had whispered, but not the one.
And then she’d revealed the existence of her twin, and that sinking sense had come with the loss of inviolability. Then the dreams had started. Arianna called to him in those dreams, begged him for help. And he could help her; he knew that as well as he knew saving her would destroy him. He imagined Desi’s face when her sister came home. Going out a hero wasn’t a bad way to go. He met Shadow’s gaze and held it. He didn’t want to leave any doubt that he went to his end with peace in his heart. “Then I’m making the trade.”
Shadow shook his head. The breeze that raised the long, silken hair that lay on Tracker’s back barely disturbed his brother’s. “I’m
