He nodded. “I see. Then perhaps that is from … your father’s spurs?”
So he wanted to play cat and mouse? Her gaze unwavering, Jacey simply replied, “No.”
He raised a bushy white eyebrow and allowed himself the barest of smiles. “Tell me, Señorita Lawless, what really brings you to Cielo Azul?”
Up to her elbows in the poker game of her life, Jacey considered her answer. And decided to stick with what she knew best—hedging and sass. “What brings me here? Why, your grandson and my horse, as near as I can recall. Remember me? I was the one yesterday with her hands tied to the pommel. Which, like locking me in my room, was some of your grandson’s handiwork. Because he finds me so enchanting.”
Don Rafael’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise he showed no sign of anger or impatience. “Ahh, yes. Now I remember. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Knowing he didn’t expect an answer to that, Jacey looked around the room, crowded as it was with huge paintings in dark, swirling colors of grand-looking Spanish men and women. Calderon ancestors, no doubt. Grandmother Ardis’s tiny little portrait would be all but lost here. Which wasn’t very far from how Jacey felt. “This is some spread you’ve got here, Mr. Calderon.”
He nodded his head in acknowledgment, apparently choosing to accept her words as a compliment. “Yes. Generations of my family have built upon this land over the past three hundred years. One day, it will all be my grandson’s.”
Jacey riveted her attention on the frightening old man. Those last words of his sounded like a threat. She didn’t say a word. And the silence stretched out between them.
Finally, the old don shrugged in a very smooth, aristocratic manner. “I understand, señorita, that I have you to thank for Zant’s … capitulation?”
Jacey had a glimmering of a notion about what that word meant. Frowning, giving nothing away, she asked, “How so?”
Her opponent leaned forward in his seat, as if readying himself to spring for her. His voice vibrated with warning. “You tell me, Señorita … Lawless.”
Jacey narrowed her eyes and sat forward in her own chair. “Look, Mr. Calderon, you and I both know I’m being held here against my will. And for some reason that has to do with you sending hired guns after me and my sisters. It seems funny to me that your guns showed up on the same day my folks were killed. So let’s cut through the horsecrap and say what we mean.”
Well, that hadn’t taken long. So much for heeding Blue’s words of caution. And Papa’s.
Don Rafael matched her glare for glare and then abruptly sat back in his chair. His big hands clutched clawlike at the leather-padded armrests. “As you wish, Miss Lawless. But I’m afraid you’ll find you never should’ve opened that particular door.”
At that moment, a loud and fearful babbling in Spanish out in the terra-cotta-tiled foyer, accompanied by the sounds of a breakable something hitting the floor and shattering, grabbed the two combatants’ attention. Jacey came to her feet, as did Don Rafael. She turned with him to face the room’s square portal. Wide-eyed, her heart pounding, her hands clutching at her full skirt, she started when a frantic Manuel ran past, his face a mask of terror. He didn’t bother to slow down long enough to explain.
The little man had no more than passed from view before the mesquite-wood front door banged open with the force of a lightning bolt and struck the thick wall behind it. Terrified, Jacey drew in a deep breath and held it. A second of absolute silence passed. Then the boot-scuffing and spur-jangling sounds of someone’s purposeful and unerring approach, each long stride bringing him closer and closer, assaulted Jacey’s already overwrought nerves. Whoever this was, he wasn’t bringing good news. Not with a walk like that.
He turned the corner and stopped, standing framed in the entry. Jacey’s heart flopped over in her chest. Zant. Tall, powerful, exuding danger, he stood with his booted feet apart, his arms held loosely at his sides. A sudden wind gust blowing down the hallway, allowed in by the open front door, billowed his black duster, like raven’s wings, around him. The ankle-length coat then settled obediently over his denim-covered legs. From under the forbidding brim on his equally black Stetson, he focused his gleaming eyes on her. She could only blink at him. His gaze then slipped to Don Rafael. And back to her.
Jacey felt herself shrivel under his intense scrutiny. His square-jawed, handsome face, bronzed by sun and wind, only accentuated his deep frown. He stood immobile in his gunfighter’s pose. The unbuttoned front of his duster allowed a glimpse of the firepower holstered at his hip and tied to his muscled thigh. Firepower he wouldn’t hesitate to use.
He finally opened his mouth to speak. In a voice husky with warning, he gritted out, “Am I in time for supper?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Was he in time for supper! Maybe she hadn’t heard him right. But apparently she had because Don Rafael became suddenly animated, raising his hand in fond and laughing greeting to his grandson.
“Zant! You’re back so soon? Were the señoritas in Santa Cruz not to your liking?”
Is everyone but me plumb loco?
“Can’t say that they were.” As he stepped farther into the room, Zant shed his duster and threw it casually onto a nearby horsehair sofa. Next he untied his holster’s leather thong from around his thigh, unbuckled his gunbelt, and sent his weapon the way of his duster. His Stetson followed. He then ran a hand through his unruly black hair as he acknowledged Jacey’s watching presence with only a passing glance that she couldn’t read.
He turned and spoke to his grandfather. “We didn’t expect you home so early this evening, Don Rafael.”
“Apparently not,” the don acknowledged archly, looking from Zant to Jacey and back. “But you’re just in time. Miss Lawless and I were having a lively conversation about what brings her here.”
Zant jerked his head around to her so fast Jacey figured he’d have a neckache come tomorrow. “Were you now?”
She swallowed, tried to smile … couldn’t hold it … gave up. “Yes, we were. We were just getting ready to cut through the horsecrap.”
“The horse—What?”
Don Rafael jumped in. “The, uh, horsecrap, as Miss Lawless so delicately phrased it. She tells me her parents have been killed. And she seems to think I have men tracking her and her sisters. I was about to assure her that she is mistaken.”
Looking her right in the eye, his expression unyielding, Zant spoke levelly. “As I can also assure her. Let me remind you, Miss Lawless, that you are a guest in this house. My house. My grandfather’s house. We will not take it kindly should you accuse either of us of plots or treachery against you and your family. Do you understand?”
Stung, embarrassed, angry, even though she knew full well the true warning behind Zant’s words, Jacey just could not see herself sitting down to a meal with these two right now. Holding her skirt up out of her way, she started across the room. “I understand. And I’m hoping you two gentlemen will excuse me if I just don’t feel like breaking bread with you this evening.”
Stopping even with Zant, she looked up at him. “Providing guests are allowed a tray up in their rooms, could you please see that one’s sent to me?”
Not giving him time to answer, and hoping her message sank in, Jacey stepped around him and left the room, in much the same temper as Zant had entered it. When she’d stomped her way to the foyer, she gingerly stepped around the shards of a pottery vase littering the tiles, and then slammed, with all her might, the wide-open front door.
Only slightly mollified by that bit of violence, she attacked the stairs. Damn all these winding, curving steps. She’d be huffing and puffing by the time she got to the top, what with this danged corset and such binding her. Sure enough, when she reached the landing, she had to hold on to the ornately carved, polished-wood newel post a moment. She fanned her face with her hand until she caught her breath.
Then, frowning all the way to her toes, she set off again. Down the shadowed and quiet hallway that would take her to her room. Approaching her
door, she saw Paco standing in front of it. As impassive as ever. He turned at her approach. If he was surprised to see her back so soon, it never showed on his face. Neither did any other emotion. Ever. And that really irritated her, too.
Stopping in front of her giant guard, Jacey craned her neck back to look into his face. “You’re just as bad as the rest of them. Get the hell out of my way.”
Paco apparently knew what was being asked of him. He nodded, replied, “Sí, señorita,” and opened the door, holding the knob as she swept past him. Once she was inside and turned to face him, he wordlessly closed the door behind himself. And locked it.
Jacey gritted her teeth and scrunched her taffeta skirt in her fists. She made a screeching noise at the door. Could she not get a fight from anyone here? She needed to … needed to—she looked around the room—needed to throw something. Or break something. She sighted on the four-poster bed. Or choke something. Letting go of her abused skirt, she made claws of her hands and advanced on the post nearest to her. The wooden furniture never saw her coming. Jacey grabbed and choked the life out of it.
Jerking herself around more than she did the stalwart post, she took out all her pent-up rage on it. Her curled hair bounced around her shoulders, her arm muscles cramped, her face hurt from her taut grimace. She kicked at the footboard, too late remembering she had on sissy slippers and not her boots.
Yelping in pain, she loosed her victim/post and hopped one-footed around to the bed’s side. Throwing herself on it, she pulled and yanked and tugged the yards of skirt up around her thighs so she could get at her throbbing toes … and froze when she saw what was on the bed with her, just beyond her feet.
A silver spur with one rowel missing.
Her anger fled, chased away by the swell of shock and triumph that tumbled over her in hot waves. She stared at the spur, but couldn’t bring herself to reach for it. Not yet. Slowly, movement returned to her limbs. She let go of her skirt, absently tugged the dress’s cap sleeves back up onto her shoulders, and looked around her room, as if the armoire or bureau or vanity had an explanation for her.
Who could’ve been in here during the less than thirty minutes that she’d been downstairs? A broad, swarthy face popped into her mind. Paco! Whoever came in would have to go through him first. Not touching the spur, not sure yet if it was placed here as a threat or a helpful clue, Jacey scooted off the bed and fled for the door. She rapped on it, calling out, “Paco? Paco? Open this door! I have to talk to you. Open up—”
Paco opened the door with a suddenness that threw Jacey into the wall behind her. Obviously he’d unlocked it during her tirade. Stepping into the room, the huge Mexican looked right and left, not seeing her. Jacey closed the door behind him. Paco jerked around, his pistol in his hand. The noisy end of the weapon pointed to her heart.
Wide-eyed with alarm, Jacey threw her hands up. And waited in a cold sweat for him to realize it was her. He finally did and relaxed, reholstering his gun. Much to Jacey’s relief. Crossing his massive arms over his barrel chest, standing with his booted feet apart, Paco raised an eyebrow at her. “Sí, señorita. ¿Qué pasa?”
Jacey bit at her lip and worked her mouth, trying to think of how to phrase her question in simple words and gestures. “Um … Paco—nice big man I wish could understand English. Uh, who”—she hooted like an owl—“who has been in”—she stabbed her finger at the floor—“in my room?” She whirled that same finger in broad circles to indicate the room at large.
Through it all, Paco frowned at her, followed her gestures, and finally commented, “¿Qué?”
Jacey straightened up, her arms at her side. “Kay? Who’s Kay?”
Paco shrugged his shoulders. “No entiendo, señorita.”
Jacey just shook her head. “Boy, me neither … whatever you said.” Then inspiration struck her. She held her hands up to Paco. “Wait. I’ll show you.” With that she pattered to the bed, reached across it, and grabbed up the spur, abandoning her earlier reluctance to touch it. She turned and held it up to him, pointing at it with her left hand. “This. Who brought it in here?”
Paco looked from her to the spur and back to her. “¿Qué?”
Jacey gritted her teeth. “Well, then, just who the hell is Kay?”
The room’s door began slowly opening. Paco put a finger to his lips and noiselessly drew his gun. Jacey didn’t move or breathe. The door pushed open. Zant stood framed in the door opening, a covered tray in one hand, his Colt revolver in the other. Armed and ready, he and Paco faced each other, trading surprised looks. Jacey slumped in relief and ran to Zant, tugging on his gun arm in her excitement.
“Look, Zant, look what was on my bed. Paco says someone named Kay put it there.” She held the spur about two inches from his face. “Who’s Kay?”
His eyes all but crossing, Zant pulled his head back, like a turtle retreating into its shell. “Whoa, Jacey. Wait a minute. Let me…” He reholstered his gun and held the tray out to Paco, who promptly relieved him of the burden. The big guard stepped back, holding the tray in one hand, his gun in his other.
“Zant, listen to me.” Jacey spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he were a slightly slow child. “This spur was on my bed. This is the spur, Zant. Look—one rowel is missing.” She held the spur up to the pendant on her chain, fitting them together. The rowel’s jagged edges fit the spur perfectly. She exhaled sharply and stared at Zant. “I knew it. This is the one. Now, who’s Kay?”
Zant stared more at the spur in her hand than he did her. He frowned and lifted his gaze to her face. “I don’t know any Kay.”
Jacey firmed her lips in frustration. “Paco does. Ask him.”
Jacey turned to Paco with Zant, and listened as he strung together a bunch of Spanish words. Paco nodded, set the tray on top of the bureau, shook his head, and said one or two words back. They both then turned to Jacey. Her gaze flitted from one male face to the other. “So? Who’s Kay?”
“Nobody. He said ‘qué,’ Q-U-E. It’s Spanish for ‘what.’”
Jacey slumped. She thunked the all-important spur into Zant’s hands as if it were no more than a used hanky. “Then who did put it here?”
Zant turned the spur of contention over and over in his hands, his expression hardening. “This is my father’s.” He then looked up at Jacey. “Paco says no one but you has been in here.”
“Not even Conchita?”
“Not since she was in here earlier helping you bathe and dress.”
Jacey’s mind raced with further possibilities. “Couldn’t someone have thrown a rope over the balcony railing and climbed up and put the spur in here and then climbed back down without Paco ever knowing?”
“Probably. But climb up the balcony on a rope? With all the guards out there, I’d think one of them would have noticed something.” Even as he spoke, Zant paced over to the balcony doors and tested them. He turned back to her. “They’re locked. From the inside.”
Then that meant … A sudden fright sent Jacey skittering away from the bed. Safely across the room from it, she turned and spoke to Zant in whispers as she pointed at the four-poster. “Maybe someone’s still in here.”
Zant frowned at the innocent-looking bed. He then laid the spur on the bureau next to Jacey’s covered supper tray. Drawing his gun, and using due caution, he approached it from the far side. He signaled for Paco to go quietly to the near side.
Across the room, Jacey watched wide-eyed and dry-mouthed. She licked at her lips, feeling the tension coil in her belly when Zant, through signals, indicated to Paco that on his finger-raised count of three, they were going to jerk the floor-length coverings up. Paco nodded his understanding.
When they were in place, Zant began his count. On three, they jerked the covers up, yelled in Spanish, and poked their guns under the bed. Starting at the sudden noise, even though she knew it was coming, Jacey drew back.
To her utter surprise, a screeching child shot out from the end of the bed, scrambled to his feet, and in a flash of wh
ite—before Paco could get to his lumbering feet, before Zant could do more than pop up from his side of the bed, before Jacey could register what exactly was happening—he flew past her and out the open door. His running footsteps receded down the hallway.
Jacey’s astonishment opened her mouth and widened her eyes. She pointed to the doorway and stared at Zant. “That was a boy. A little boy.”
Impatiently, Zant holstered his revolver and hurried around to the door. “I saw him. Dammit, Jacey, why didn’t you grab him?”
“Grab him? How could I? He took out of here like a whirling dust devil.”
Zant gave her a look and then peered out into the hallway, listening. A cry of surprise sounded from downstairs. But at the same time, the front door slammed. For the third time that evening.
Zant headed for the closed balcony doors. As he passed Paco, he issued some terse orders in Spanish. Paco nodded and left the room. Zant opened the double doors, stepped outside and peered right and left. He then grasped the railing and called out, “Jacey, look at this.”
She was right behind him. He pointed to a knotted length of rope that was tied to the wrought iron and dropped over the side. “It appears you were right—at least partly. However that kid got in, he intended to leave this way.” Using a handover-hand grip, he hauled in the rope, allowing it to coil on the balcony’s floor. “Long enough to reach the ground.”
Jacey stared at the rope and shook her head slowly. Who could be behind all this? With Zant, she then looked and listened to the sounds carried on the air. “Can you see anyone?”
He shook his head, jutting his chin toward the armed men patrolling the high adobe walls, which were lit at intervals with flaring torches. “Just them. And they won’t see anything, either. Trust me.”
With that, Zant ran a hand through his hair and turned back into the room. He began looking into drawers and opening armoire doors. “I’m sorry I jumped on you. I was closer to him than you were. If I couldn’t grab him, how could you?”
Jacey silently acknowledged his apology as she watched him turning things over and pacing about the room. “What are you looking for?”
Jacey's Reckless Heart Page 29
