Free The Hopechest Bride by Kasey Michaels Page A

told you needed my help.” Meredith looked to Martha, who nodded, and then she stepped closer to the bed. “We’re taking care of Joe, Jr. and Teddy, Patsy. We always will.”
    â€œI know. I could hate you more if you weren’t so damned good. But it isn’t enough. I’m never going to get out of here, Merry. Not this time. So you have to help me. Before my mind goes, before these damn drugs they’re forcing on me make me forget. You have to find my Jewel.”
    â€œYour— What do you mean, Patsy?”
    â€œJewel! Not a what. A who. My daughter, Merry. The one that bastard Ellis Mayfair stole from me. That was my only mistake, you know,” she went on,the cunning look back in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have killed him until he told me where he’d taken her. I’ve looked, Merry. I’ve spent a fortune, looking for her. She’s out there, I know it.”
    â€œAnd you named her Jewel?” Meredith asked, stepping even closer, placing her hand in her sister’s. “But that was so long ago, Patsy. If whoever you hired couldn’t find her in all this time—”
    Patsy’s knuckles turned white as she gripped Meredith’s hand, so that Dave stepped forward, ready to assist. “Idiots! I hired idiots! You and Joe have more money than God, Merry. You can find her. You have to find her. I’ll give you a month, Merry. A month, or next time I’ll slice deeper. I mean it, Merry, I’ll slice clear through to the bone.” Her lips drew back over her teeth. “You slice lengthwise, Meredith, down the arm to open the artery, not across the wrist. I know how. I know how, and I’ll do it. These idiots can’t stop me.”
    Dave pried Patsy’s fingers loose and Martha turned Meredith by touching her shoulders, then led her out of the room.
    â€œDoes she mean it, Martha?” Meredith asked as they rode the elevator back to the lobby. “Will she really kill herself next time?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what I believe, Meredith,” Martha told her quietly. “It’s what you believe, and what you can live with.”
    Meredith gave an abrupt shake of her head. “We’regoing to find her, Martha. We’re going to find Patsy’s daughter. I don’t know how, but we’re going to do it. We have to!”

Six
    E mily had pulled her rain poncho from her backpack when the wind picked up, even though the sound of the thin plastic, slapped hard by that wind, always set Molly to dancing, her ears flicking as she objected to the strange noise.
    She pulled up the hood overtop her Stetson as the wind got worse, coming at her from the rear, nearly pushing her forward in the saddle. The sky was getting darker, too soon to be losing the light, and as she neared her hill—her private hill—the branches of the trees around her whipped in the air. The long grass was bent nearly sideways, and one small, dead branch had come flying past her, heavily catching her on the left shoulder.
    Then the rain came. Slashing, stinging, cold as hell. The sky lit with lightning, boomed with thunder, and a near waterfall kept running off the brim of her Stetson, then blowing into her eyes. She could barely see, barely navigate, and she put most of her faith in Molly’s surefooted judgment and the mare’s memory of their destination.
    For the last one hundred or more yards of the way, Emily had to dismount, lead Molly uphill through the scrub and rocks, beneath the blowing trees. But the cave was up there, large enough for both her and Molly, dark and damp, but blessedly dry and out of the wind and rain.
    She slipped off her backpack and grabbed the flashlight from the outside ring that held it at the ready, the strong light cutting through the teeming rain as she searched out the well-hidden mouth of the cave.
    There. There it was. The opening was nearly obscured by the growth of grass, and almost