JADE STAR by Catherine Coulter

‘Yes,’Wilkes said. ‘That’s what I told you.’ ‘Then why?’

He felt the agony in his belly growing more insistent, more unrestrained, and was unable for the moment to answer her. The pain was the reality.

Her voice thin and high, Jules said, ‘You’re old enough to be my father! Do you want a daughter? Are you so twisted that – ?’

He tightened his arm about her waist, cutting off her breath. ‘Shut up,’ he said. He laughed humorlessly and said to himself, ‘Hell, what I need is your damned husband.’ His laughter trickled away. No one could help him, cure him. He was tired now, and worried. And he felt so old, so damnably used up, so finished. No! He shook his head and forced his mind into clear channels. He

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would handle Hawkins and Grabbler. The scum wanted the money he’d promised them more than a woman.

He watched the sun disappear in a ball of vivid red. He’d always been in awe of sunsets over the ocean. They were like a short burst of the most awesome Chinese fireworks. Never to see them again … He felt Juliana sag against him and breathed a sigh of relief.

‘It’s almost as if he wants us to track him,’ said Josh, a black man Brent had grown up with at his father’s plantation, Wakehurst. He straightened, his eyes on Brent. ‘We saw Miz Saint’s mare – ‘

‘Which means he’s carrying her on his horse and that will slow him down,’ Brent finished, shading his eyes toward the sun that was glowing fiercely over the ocean.

‘That’s not the point,’ Josh said.

‘No, it isn’t. I’m afraid I do know what the point is. Not only does he want Jules, he also wants Saint. Revenge, I suppose, since Saint saved her from him. Stole her, I guess, is Wilkes’s reasoning.’

But why did he wait until Byrony had gone into labor to take her? Did he believe Saint would leave her and come after his wife? No,

he added mentally, Wilkes just wanted enough time. And, it seemed, he wanted Saint to be in a damnable position. The cruel bastard. ‘We’ve only got another hour of light,’he said abruptly, and dug his heels into his stallion’s sides.

But they hadn’t found her when night hit. It was dark as pitch, only a sliver of moon, clouds obscuring the stars. They couldn’t track any more until morning.

Brent didn’t know what to do. He was faced with the most painful decision of his life.

‘I’m sorry, Brent,’Josh said, laying his huge black hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Real sorry. But you can’t go back, not now. Four hours there, four hours back. You’d be exhausted, and Missis Saint needs a functioning man, not a piece of dead meat.’

Brent gave josh a twisted smile. Then he closed his eyes, praying toward the cloudstrewn heavens, praying that his wife was all right, that Jules wasn’t being savaged at this moment, praying that life would somehow become normal again.

‘We need to build a fire,’ Brent said. ‘It’ll be colder than a dead stone before long.’

The cave was damp and chill despite the smoking fire in front of her. Jules drew her legs closer, kept her head down.

‘She’s a purty little thing,’ said Hawkins. ‘Lookee there, she knows I’m talkin’ about her. She quivered all over.’

Hawkins chuckled and emptied his tin cup of the remains of his coffee.

‘It’s time for you to spell Grabbler,’ said Wilkes. ‘Take him something to eat while you’re at it.’

He felt better. The opium always dulled the pain, for a while at least. He’d not taken too much to dull his mind.

‘You gonna fuck the little gal while we’re gone?’

‘Get out, Hawkins,’Wilkes said.

‘Looks awful cold, she does,’Hawkins said. ‘A nice big man atween her legs would warm her up.’

Jameson Wilkes looked Hawkins square in the face. God, he was a vill ainous-1 o o king creature, his gaunt face covered with a thick black beard, hiding, Wilkes knew, a puckered, ugly scar that ran the full length of his cheek. ‘You want her or the money?’ He forced himself to shrug. ‘It’s up to you.You don’t get both. And you know, don’t you, my friend, that the money isn’t with me.’