The Girl with the Golden Gun

by Ann Major

  To her horror, her eyes began to sting.

  She swallowed three times and silently counted backward from ten. She’d never live it down if she cried in front of him right now.

  “There! I see a truck,” he hollered, shielding his eyes as he looked past her. “Six minutes was all it took.”

  “You bet five.”

  “Lucky for you, you didn’t take my bet.”

  “Lucky me,” she whispered.

  Shanghai stepped into the middle of the road and held out his thumb. “Maybe you should get out here with me and hike your skirt or something.”

  “What?”

  “You said your feet hurt. You want a ride, don’t you? Or do you prefer to stand out here all day in that black widow outfit giving me hell?”

  A black, three-quarter-ton Dodge pickup pulling a trailer overloaded with hay was barreling toward them as Mia stepped into the road. She pulled the shawl off her hair and fluffed it about her shoulders. Then she held out her thumb, too.

  When she pulled a sleeve off her shoulder, the driver slammed on his brakes so hard he skidded off the road, into a clump of prickly pear, coming to a stop as bits of the unlucky shrub blew about in whorls of dust.

  She started coughing, and the driver started hollering.

  “Well, I’ll be danged. I cain’t believe it—Shanghai Knight! Everybody in ten counties is searching for you and I hit the jackpot. What in tarnation are you two doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “We’d sure be obliged for a ride, mister. The little lady’s feet are killin’ her.”

  “Get in then!” The man beamed at Mia. “Bless your heart, ma’am.” His white smile was pleasant even though he was missing a front tooth.

  “Lionel Williams,” he said, extending a beefy hand.

  “Howdy, Lionel.”

  Mia nodded and smiled as the men shook hands. Then Lionel leaned across the cab and opened the door.

  “I seen you ride, Shanghai. Lots of times. I’m a great big fan.”

  “Thanks.”

  Shanghai hung back and helped Mia climb up into the truck. Then she felt his gaze on her butt, and her skin heated.

  “And you must be that Kemble gal I read about, who everybody gave up for dead?”

  Mia was about to nod when he said, “What was it like—hanging out with the drug lord?”

  When she froze, Shanghai put both hands on her butt and gave her such a shove, she fell into the middle seat.

  “Did you know they’ve got at least a hundred posses out looking for you two? The Border Patrol is stoppin’ ever single car at the border. All the big bridges are backed up for miles. It’s a real international incident. Made the national news even.”

  “We swam the Rio Grande,” Shanghai said. “Then we walked.”

  “You’re kidding. We’re close to twenty miles from the border.”

  “No wonder my feet hurt.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I cain’t wait to tell Cathy. That’s my wife. She’s always complainin’ ’cause she don’t get enough excitement on the ranch. My cell don’t work out here too good, or I’d call her right now. We’ll call your folks at the Golden Spurs, too, just as soon as we git to Two Nails.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Not far. I reckon no more than thirty miles.”

  Mia felt herself begin to relax. It was wonderful being in a truck—driving north, away from Mexico.

  “Two Nails Ranch?” Shanghai asked a few minutes later.

  Lionel nodded.

  “You know Stewart Lowrey?”

  “Grew up with him. Rode a few bulls with him when we were kids. He was good. Not as good as you, though. He’s got him a place five miles down the road from Two Nails. He’s doin’ good.”

  Mia watched the road, saying nothing, just feeling glad she wasn’t walking. When the men on either side of her fell silent, Lionel flipped the radio on to his favorite station, which naturally was Country and Western.

  As the truck lurched along the deserted road lined with prickly pear and yucca, singers whined about lost love. Mia wished he’d change stations. Not that she said so. But the familiar laments began to make her long again for a certain impossible man’s love.

  “Somethin’ sure smells good,” Shanghai said as he and Mia tromped into Lionel’s kitchen. “Homemade biscuits, I bet.”

  The small dark woman with black hair and glasses looked up from the pot she was stirring and smiled at Mia. “You bet right, mister.”

  “There’s no better smell on earth,” Shanghai said. “I always wished I had a mama to make biscuits for me.”

  “That’s certainly what my Lionel thinks. I make them for him every day. Maybe you should get married.”

  Shanghai glanced at Mia. His stricken expression was somehow so compelling, her throat tightened. Maybe he wasn’t quite as set against her as she’d thought.

  His idle comment about his mama spurred memories. The gossip in Spur County had been that Shanghai’s mama had run off because his daddy had been so mean to her. Cole had told her that after their mother had left, Old Man Knight had been so mean to Shanghai he’d finally run off, too.

  Mr. Knight had seemed easygoing in public, and apparently he’d been nicer to Cole after Shanghai left. Maybe because he’d learned his lesson from having teamed up with her father to drive Shanghai away.

  Mrs. Williams’s gingham apron and wisps of her raven hair were smeared with flour. There was even a dab of the white stuff on her nose. Mountain “oysters” were sizzling in a frying pan beside a pot of simmering pinto beans. A rolling pin lay on her countertop on a pile of raw dough and flour.

  “You must be Cathy,” Shanghai said, his deep voice as gentle as the one he used to use with Mia when she’d been a kid.

  More memories tugged at Mia’s heart. When she’d been five, a big rat had bitten her in the attic. When she’d told Shanghai, he’d tattled to her daddy. As a result, she’d been forced to get rabies shots. Shanghai had probably saved her life again, but she’d hated the shots and had gotten spitting mad at him.

  When she was over the shots, he’d sought her out one day with a present. She’d been thrilled by the silver ribbon and paper, of course. Inside she’d found a toy horse and a cowgirl. She’d loved them. She still had them.

  The screen door slammed. “Cathy—you’re never going to believe who…”

  Lionel gave his wife a big bear hug and then introduced everybody quickly. “So, the whole state of Texas is looking for this pair, and I find them. Meet Shanghai and Mia.”

  “Howdy. Welcome.”

  “They’ve got to call people to pick them up,” Lionel said.

  “You must be starved.” Cathy’s brown eyes filled with concern.

  “No,” Mia began. “We don’t want to trouble…”

  “We are for a fact, ma’am,” Shanghai said.

  “Then we’ll have lunch first—before you call all those folks. It’s not quite ready. And Mia, you look to be about my size. Why don’t I lend you some clean jeans and a shirt. You could send them back to me when you get home. You could have a bath, too.”

  “I really…”

  “Follow me.” Cathy paused. “Oh, and Lionel, why don’t you lend Shanghai a razor, so his friends will recognize him?”

  “Do I look that fierce?”

  “Pretty fierce.”

  “You’re too kind, ma’am,” Shanghai said, again in that deep, gentle tone that turned Mia’s insides to mush.

  Damn his hide for making her feel tenderness. She wanted to be furious at him for the rest of her life.

  Mia felt wonderful to be so clean and to be wearing normal ranch attire—jeans and a checkered blouse. She’d put her shining hair up in a ponytail, too.

  They ate in the kitchen as if they were family. Shanghai gobbled down more biscuits than Mia would have believed possible for one man to eat, and all the time he talked constantly of their adventures, much to the amusement of their gracious hosts.

&nbs
p; It was infuriating to know he had so much talk in him—for other people. From time to time, he would glance at Mia across the table and smile, as if inviting her to add something, but she was too annoyed since he’d taken charge of the conversation. Still, as she listened, she kept thinking about what had happened at the cabin.

  Soon Shanghai would make those calls to the Golden Spurs. Strangely she was no longer in a hurry to get home. It was pleasant being in this kitchen with the Williamses. Pleasant being with Shanghai in such normal surroundings with them as a buffer.

  They weren’t rich, but they seemed happily married. What would it be like to have a real husband? To spend the rest of her life with the man she loved? To know he loved her back and that he wanted her for more than sex?

  The next time Shanghai looked at her, a lump formed in Mia’s throat.

  Would he disappear from her life as he always had before? She wished she still felt as angry at him as she had earlier. Anger was a protection of sorts. Too bad it never lasted—at least as far as he was concerned.

  If he vanished again, this time she would have to find a way to put him out of her mind and heart forever.

  But how? Every time she stared into Vanilla’s eyes, she would find him there.

  Fifteen

  From the pulsating darkness of the prison, Tavio stared through the bars and fixed his unwavering black gaze on the slim girl standing across the street. Not that she noticed or even looked up. Because of Mia Kemble, he was a nobody now.

  He clenched the bars, his hands tight as claws. Angelita probably never gave him a thought.

  It galled him that she had escaped and he was still locked up, that Chito was hurt, maybe dying. Tavio sweated all the time as if he had a fever. His crack-laced cigarettes and booze were in short supply in this hellhole.

  His flesh was burning up. His nerves felt as taut as guitar strings. Surely he’d go mad if he didn’t get out of here.

  Because of Angelita, Octavio Morales was the laughingstock of Mexico. She had escaped, and here he was, caged like a wild beast with rats and other vermin. Her friends had broken her out and shot his right-hand man.

  Where were his good friends now, those who had taken his money and gold watches and his stolen trucks for so long? Why didn’t any of them visit him in prison? Why didn’t they show respect? His grip tightened on the bars. He could do with a little respect.

  “Be patient, Tavio. When things cool down, we help you,” Guillermo had said on the phone yesterday.

  Guillermo! That bastard! He was famous in all the newspapers for his surprise raid on the compound. The press was making him out to be a hero.

  Little did they know. Guillermo was a corrupt, ball-less bastard who fantasized he was a tough guy. He fed this fantasy by watching gangster movies constantly and by hanging out with Tavio, pretending he was as tough as he was.

  Tavio lived for the day he could strangle Guillermo with his bare hands.

  Tavio squinted until the girl’s face blurred. He could almost imagine she was Angelita.

  He remembered Angelita’s red hair, her long legs, her white creamy skin. She’d felt like warm satin. Dios, he’d wanted her. He should have raped her—again and again. Maybe now he wouldn’t still burn for her. Maybe none of this would have happened.

  Fury gripped him in a vise. For more than a minute, his chest was so tight, he couldn’t breathe.

  He’d tried so hard to please his father. Then his father had thrown him out like he was so much rotting basura. He’d tried to please Angelita, and what had she done—the same.

  Like Guillermo, she deserved to die.

  But more slowly.

  First he would teach her a lesson she would never forget. When he thought about what he would do to her, he got hard, and his face dripped with even more perspiration.

  He would rape her. When he was done, he would give her to Chito, if he survived, and watch while Chito and his men played with her. When they finished, he would personally break every bone in her body, stroking her hair and her face after each bone shattered.

  Then he would throw her out in a dirty street like so much basura. He would kiss her one last time and whisper, “Think of me while you die.”

  But first he had to get out.

  Sixteen

  The wind off the bay was blowing so hard the six flags of Texas, which flew along the familiar, red roofline of the Golden Spurs headquarters, stood straight out, like soldiers at attention.

  Wolf was flying the helicopter and Shanghai sat beside him as they hovered above the house. Thus, Mia had the back seat all to herself. The flight from the border had been relaxing thus far, but as she stared down at the three-story, white stucco house and saw all the trucks and cars, she froze.

  “Looks like you’ve drawn a full house down there!” Shanghai yelled above the roar of the rotors. Grinning at her, he turned back around.

  At the thought of facing the hordes of people, new fears mushroomed inside her, but before they could get a grip, a powerful gust slammed the helicopter, causing it to plummet at a sharp angle straight for the ground. As the big oak trees and rocky earth rushed up to meet her, Mia forgot to breathe.

  Wolf screamed something unintelligible at Shanghai. Surely she was about to die. Surely instead of Mother and her baby, the last things she would see were the palm fronds blowing crazily and the men and women racing away from the whirls of white caliche dust the helicopter was kicking up. Mia gripped the edges of her seat and held on for dear life.

  Biting back a scream, she tore her gaze from the rapidly approaching ground and stared at Shanghai’s solid, broad back. He was looking down, too, but other than a slight frown, he didn’t seem the least bit unnerved. Wolf was fiddling with the controls and talking over the radio without the slightest hint of alarm.

  At the last moment Wolf leveled the helicopter and landed it so gently, every butterfly in her stomach stilled. She didn’t realize they were on the ground until she saw her mother running toward her with outstretched arms.

  Wolf cut the engine. As the rotors stopped, Shanghai unsnapped his seat belt and turned around to check on her again.

  “You okay?”

  Breathless, she managed a quick nod.

  “You’re white as a sheet darlin’. You want me to pinch your cheeks?”

  She stuck out her tongue.

  “Smile. You’re the belle of the ball, darlin’.”

  “I just want to be home. Inside the house with my mother and my little girl…and Daddy.”

  At the mention of her father, Shanghai’s gaze narrowed. Then he jumped onto the ground before she could say anything else. Taking her hand, he helped her out. Instantly she was torn from his arms and embraced by her mother, who hugged her and petted her cheeks and then embraced her again with a ferocious, maternal zeal.

  “I was so scared when I heard about the hit man in the prison,” Joanne said when she was able to speak.

  “Me, too.”

  “And then for a day and a half we heard nothing.”

  “Where’s Vanilla?” Mia whispered, feeling nervous as she scanned all the faces for a little girl’s.

  “Since the press is here, I left her inside with Sy’rai. They’re playing with blocks in the nursery. I didn’t think—”

  “Good. It’s going to be confusing enough when a brand-new person with so much invested in her shows up.”

  “You’re her mother. She’ll feel your love.”

  When Mia saw people pointing cameras at her in the distance, she covered her face with her hands. “Who are all those people?”

  “Pack journalism, Terence calls it,” her mother said without explaining her connection to Terence. “They’re like wolves wanting to feed the gossip mongers, but they sell themselves as newsmen.”

  Her mother took her hand. “The press is allowed only to photograph today…and from a distance. There won’t be any interviews. They can’t come up close, either.”

  Joanne smiled at the clump of reporter
s, who stood near the buildings that housed the offices. Then she led Mia over to Lizzy and Cole and Walker and Hawk, who were standing in the deep shade of an oak tree near the antique dinner bell on the front lawn. One by one, Mia embraced them all, hugging each of them as if she’d never let them go. There were tears and whispers of love on all sides. When Mia finally let go of Walker, who had wet eyes, she began searching the crowd of relatives who stood nearer the house for her father.

  “Where’s Daddy?” she asked. But her question was ignored.

  Uncle B.B. was standing beside his beautiful, fashionable wife, Aunt Mona, who was still as gorgeous as she’d been as a girl. Mia’s flamboyant Aunt Nannette was talking to her son, Bobby Joe, while batting her false lashes at a handsome, young cowboy.

  Where was Sam, Bobby Joe’s older brother and her favorite cousin?

  Jim Jones, the top lawyer for the ranch, and Leo Storm, the ranch’s CEO, stood apart from the family, their backs to each other. They wore dark suits and were talking rapidly on their cell phones. No doubt both their conversations had to do with the chaos her rescue had caused the ranch. No doubt, her return from the grave was both a PR and legal nightmare for them.

  After all, the Golden Spurs was more than a ranch. It was an immense global agribusiness corporation with interests in the thoroughbred horse industry, the oil and gas industry, recreational game hunting, farming, and, last but not least, cattle ranching.

  But Daddy? Still searching for him, Mia breathed in the smell of grass and the sea as the wind whipped her hair, for the bay was less than ten miles away. She looked up at the tall house. For a second the realization that she was home and surrounded by family, that she was free, calmed her.

  Even with so many people gathered to celebrate her homecoming, the ranch seemed as quiet and vast as she remembered. She couldn’t wait for the excitement to die down, so she could live here peacefully again and raise her daughter and work with her horses. Against a distant fence line, deer nibbled at green grasses. Nearer a herd of pedigreed red cattle grazed lazily in the afternoon sun.

  Daddy? Where was he? Didn’t he care that she was home?

  When she didn’t find him, a strange desperation built inside her until suddenly she felt unbearably afraid. Where was he? All these months, she’d half expected him to tear into Tavio’s compound with his six-shooters raised and an army of cowboys and rescue her. Was he rejecting her again?