“Don’t worry. It won’t,” he said with a chuckle.
She left him to smooth things over with the stranger and headed upstairs for a much-needed bath.
Madeline went to her room and gathered the things that she needed for the bath and then went down the hallway to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She turned the handles on the tub and smiled as the pipes popped and groaned before giving up their possession of the water that finally gushed out of the spigot. As it filled the bathtub, she poured a few drops of lavender oil and some powdered soap to make the bubbles that she so enjoyed relaxing in. Then, she peeled off her clothes as the bubbles grew in the tub until they threatened to spill over the edge. She turned off the water and stepped into the tub with one foot and then the other, easing into the steamy liquid, breathing a tranquil sigh of relief, “Ahhhh.”
Looking down at the stranger, Jake wanted to twist his fingers around the man’s neck for treating Maddie that way. But, knowing that the stranger, who was probably mighty handy with those two pistols, would most certainly be the winner in that scuffle, he sidled closer to him and cleared his throat to say, “We don’t treat ladies like that in this town.”
The stranger pushed his black Stetson farther back onto his head and peered up at him, holding his fork midway to his mouth as he asked in a confused voice, “Like what?”
Sighing heavily to ward of the sudden surge of fear that the stranger somehow had instilled into him, Jake gained the courage to explain, “The way you pulled her down on the table like you just did and hurt her.”
The man at the table shook his head and said in an apologizing voice, “I didn’t mean to hurt her. It’s just that I’ve seen a scar like that before and I wanted a closer look at it.”
“Couldn’t you have asked her to see it?” Jake asked, almost angry now.
The stranger saw the irritation in the man’s face and he quickly apologized, “I’m sorry. I should have been more polite with her. I’m just not used to being around people, especially women.”
“Well,” Jake started as he leaned on the table with his palm inches from the man’s plate. “That’s no excuse. But, if you’re sorry, you can apologize to the lady the next time you see her.”
“I sure will,” the stranger said with a nod. “Now, is there any chance that I can get a room for the night?”
Changing his attitude, Jake put a smile on his face before he answered, “You sure can. And if you are finished with your plate, you can follow me over to the counter and we can get you set up with one.”
“Thanks,” the man said as he pushed his plate forward and then stood up to look down on Jake’s amazed face. “Is it possible to get a bath also?”
Jake turned toward the counter where the hotel information desk was stationed and motioned for the man to follow as he said, “Sure, the bathroom is right at the top of the stairs and around the corner. Your room will be three doors down. Number seven.”
The man nodded and touched his hat in response and then his face mirrored his confusion as he asked, “You have indoor plumbing here?”
“Yep,” Jake said with a nod. “The wife insisted on it when we built this hotel. She’s from the East and is used to the modern frills of the city.”
“I see,” the stranger said as he took the key that Jake offered him and then winked as if he understood the other man’s desire to fulfill his wife’s every whim.
Jake let the key drop into the man’s hands and shoved a book towards the stranger as he asked, “Would you like to register?”
“Is it required?” the stranger asked with one brow raised in question.
Jake cleared his throat and stammered, “We like to keep a record of our guests, so if you don’t mind…”
“Alright, for the record,” the man said as he took up the pen and wrote into the book and then shoved it back to him.
Jake turned the book around and read the name as he told the stranger, “I hope you have a pleasant stay, Mr. Corbett.”
He looked up to see the man’s back as he ascended the stairs and waved a hand into the air without looking back. Then, he placed the pen back into the holder and folded his hands in front of him. Well, now, he told himself. That wasn’t so bad.
Travis Corbett rounded the corner and passed the bathroom on the way to room number seven and when he unlocked the door, he peeked inside as if someone was waiting to ambush him on the other side. Satisfied that the room was empty, he stepped to the iron bed and sat down. He wriggled out of his vest and started to unbutton his shirt when his hand touched his shirt pocket, which caused him to pause. Slowly, he dipped two fingers into the pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and, as he began unfolding it and started to read it for the umpteenth time, his anger began to rise.
The letter was from a friend of his, a half-Mexican who had saved his life right after Melody was killed. Travis had been drowning his sorrows in a saloon down south of Houston, where he had stopped on his way to Mexico to kill the murdering bastard who’d taken his wife from him. The liquor had made him feel invincible and ready to take on any foe and his state of mind had made him unconcerned whether he won or lost, lived or died. And one angry gunslinger had been obliged to take him up on the offer of a shootout in the streets right then and there. Luckily for Travis, Tito Sanders had stepped between them and had talked the gunslinger out of it while talking some sense into Travis, who had been Hell-bent to take on Tito and the gunslinger, too. But, Tito had been patient and calm and he’d pulled the gunslinger aside and soon, the other man had left. He then had sat the drunken man down and finally had convinced Travis that the gunslinger had turned tail and run.
He spent the evening with his new friend and, soon, Tito had convinced Travis to become a Texas Ranger, for Tito, Travis found out later that evening, had been assigned to infiltrate a gang of marauders and it just so happened that his mission had been to become one of the members of a gang led by El Diablo, a Mexican who had killed many people and robbed many farms and ranches from Oklahoma to South America. It had taken him almost seven years to finally earn the man’s trust and to be accepted into his fold and he had promised that he’d let Travis know when he had finally become a trusted member. But, Travis was too impatient to wait, so he went out on his own to find the man who had murdered his wife and they parted company after only a few years of working together.
And, like the good friend that he was, Tito wrote to Travis and sent it to the last address that he’d known him to be to tell him of the latest information about El Diablo, their mutual nemesis. Unfortunately, Travis had left Raleigh, North Carolina and had made his way to Georgia and had eventually ended up back at his home in Galveston, Texas, where the letter finally caught up to him.
Unfolding the letter now, Travis remembered the day that he had received it. It had been the day that he and his daughter Hannah had gone into town to buy her a pony. She had just turned seven and he had promised that pony to her and by God, she never let him forget it. So, he’d taken her to the livery stable where a new shipment of horses had just arrived and she’d picked out the small paint that seemed to come right up to her when she’d stuck out her hand. He’d paid for the pony and had sent her off to the post office to check the mail while he’d walked over to the tannery to buy her a new saddle. She had returned with the letter and had danced around him excitedly waiting for him to open it and read it to her in hopes that it concerned her. But, he’d waved her away when he had read the first two lines.
On the hotel bed, he read these lines again, something that he had done so many times in the past two weeks. But this time, he read them aloud, “I hope that this letter finds you well. I am not so well, for El Diablo discovered who I am and has ravaged my home and left me and my family to die.”
Travis seethed with animosity toward the man who would hurt a family as kind and gentle as Tito’s. His friend had finally married and settled down in Del Rio, Texas so that they could be near his wife’s mother in Mexico. But, as the lette
r had stated, when El Diablo had found out that Tito was a ranger sent to spy on him, he had hit Tito’s home, brandishing hateful rage on the ranger and his family. Luckily, Tito’s wife had survived and the three children as well. It took Tito several months to recover from the gunshot wound that he had suffered, but as soon as he was well, he penned this letter to his friend, for he had overheard El Diablo tell his men to meet him back at his village. The letter went on to tell him the name of the village and that he would go across the border and ask some questions. The letter also stated that Tito planned to meet Travis in a camp just outside the village where El Diablo lived and plan their attack.
Travis refolded the letter and put it on the bedside table before he started unbuttoning his shirt again. Shrugging off the shirt, he draped it over a chair and then sat back down to remove his boots. When each one hit the floor, he wiggled his toes and let out a sigh of relief, “Ahhhhh!”
In his sock-feet, he padded out the door of his room and to the bathroom where he promised himself he would laze in the tub until his anger subsided or he drowned, whichever came first. He reached for the handle on the bathroom door, still preoccupied with his troubles and he stepped inside.
With her back leaning on the tub and her legs stretched out until her toes touched the other end, Madeline closed her eyes and let her mind drift. Back to Georgia, she traveled as she meditated in the calming foam that surrounded her. Back to the days when she rode free in the fields, through the orchards, and over the roads on her faithful gelding Star Dancer, she flew as if on gilded wings. Back to her home, her father, her childhood and all that made her happy.
But, without warning, her mind carried her to her wedding day, such that it was. She recalled the dress that she had picked out, the only white gown that she owned besides her riding habit. And the wedding vows that she had forced herself to repeat as she had avoided eye contact with Diego came to mind also. Slowly, her mind followed the events that took her from her marriage vows to the death of her father, a sad and lonely time for her, across the lower states on the journey to Mexico, to the joy of giving birth to her precious Benjamin, who had been named after her father, but christened the Mexican version of Benito by his father. Anger began to bring her out of her pleasant mood, so she shook her head and closed her eyes against the visions that suddenly appeared.
She held her breath and buckled her knees until she slipped beneath the bubbles and into the warmth that she knew would refresh her spirit again. And when she could hold her breath no longer, she bolted upward with a splash and sucked in the cold air that confronted her.
Opening her eyes, just as the door opened and a stranger stepped inside, she shrieked at the intruder, “How dare you!”
Seeing the woman’s naked body rise up from the tub like a dripping goddess of the sea, Travis could not help but feel the tug of admiration that assailed his own body. But, regaining his composure, he closed the door behind him and stepped toward the tub, never taking his eyes off of her as she reached for the towel that she had placed on a chair beside her. With one swift step, he snatched the towel and watched and waited to see what she would do next. With playful humor, he dropped the towel at his feet while she stood there, dumbfounded and confused, clutching her exposed breasts and then finally immersing herself into the half-melted bubbles to hide her nudity from him. His humor was stifled when she barked angrily at him again in a tone that he did not respect nor appreciate.
“I said ‘How dare you’! With all the audacity of a tomcat, you come barging in here like you own the place,” she spat, scrunching down in the tub.
His ire building, and without thinking, he strode to the tub and leaned over it, both of his hands resting on either side of her as he said calmly, “I do own it when I pay for it.”
“Well!” she said with a shrug of her slender white shoulders. “I never!”
“Never what?” he asked with a smirk, his humor returning with her anger. “Never had a man look at you naked?”
He leaned closer to her, his face inches from hers as he continued, “Never had a man kiss you?”
Without warning, he thrust his hands into the water and caught both of her elbows into his fists and then pulled her up to his bare chest and crushed his lips to hers in a searing, writhing, fist-flailing kiss as she fought diligently against him. Just as suddenly, he released his hold on her and let her plop back into the tub with a splash that sloshed water down his pants and onto his socks. Then, he reached into his pants’ pocket and pulled out a coin. With a cock of his head, he flipped the coin into the water saying, “I think that should cover it.”
He winked at her as she stared angrily up at him with her arms folded across her breasts and her knees brought up against her elbows and he added, “Two bits for the bath. The kiss was my treat.”
As he strode back toward the door, he reached for the knob, but paused and turned around to see her glaring at him with narrow violet eyes and he said, “You can thank me later.” He touched a finger to his forehead and added, “If you have a mind to.”
He stepped through the door and closed it behind him just as a vase crashed against it on the other side. He chuckled when he heard her scream words at him that he had never heard from a woman and then he went back to his room to wait for her to finish so that he could bathe in peace. He hoped, as he spread his long lean body on the bed and raised his elbows up to clasp his fingers behind his neck, that there was a lock on that bathroom door because if there was one, that little drenched damsel didn’t know how to use it.
“Damn you!” Madeline screamed again at the closed door as she stood up to get out of the tub. She had to climb all the way out and slosh to the other side of the bathroom in order to retrieve the towel that the stranger had dropped there and that irked her even more. She quickly dried herself off and shrugged into her robe and then ran to her room and locked the door behind her.
How dare that man waltz in there and take advantage of her while she was unclothed! How dare he kiss her without asking permission! How dare he force himself on her while she was in such a compromising position! Of all the audacity!
Her anger rising to a mountainous summit, she pulled in a breath of indignation and then let it out in an exasperated huff as she stomped to her wardrobe and pulled out a cotton dress, which she stepped into and then whipped it up to her shoulders. Without bothering to button the top buttons on the back, she wriggled her feet into a pair of slippers and tied a ribbon around her wet ringlets. Then, she threw open her door and stomped out of her room, intent upon marching over to the sheriff’s office and demanding that the stranger pay for what he did to her.
Just as she rounded the corner and was about to descend the steps, she realized that it was dark outside and that she should wait until morning to protest her violation. Dejected and fearful that her anger would not possess her as hotly as it did at that very moment, she turned on her heel and went back to her room to brood.
Bright and early the next morning, she carefully dressed and twisted her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck before she headed over to the sheriff’s office to register a complaint. Renewing her anger with the memory of that kiss, she stomped up the stairs and over the plank porch to reach for the doorknob. She stopped short, for she heard voices on the other side, so she paused to listen.
“You think you can go across the border and bring back Fernandez all by yourself?” she heard the sheriff ask inside.
“Yep. That’s what I aim to do.” Another voice answered.
“You know it’s out of my jurisdiction and I can’t help you,” the sheriff said.
To which the other voice answered, “I know.”
“You know, if the Mexican government catches you, you’ll rot in their prison.”
“I’ll make sure they won’t catch me.”
The sheriff chuckled before he asked, “And how do you suppose you’re going to go about this endeavor?”
Silence prevailed in the room on the other side o
f the door and Madeline craned her ear to hear the answer. She heard footsteps coming toward the door and she sidestepped away from it but the footsteps veered toward the window instead, so she inched back to the door and listened again. She pressed her ear against the door as she heard the strange voice say, “Well, it wouldn’t do you any good to know, Hayden. You said yourself that you can’t help me anyway.”
“I know, Travis. But, there are some things that a man can’t do alone and taking down El Diablo is one of them.”
“Travis,” Madeline whispered, pulling her head away from the door. “Where have I heard that name before?”
She craned her neck again and heard the one called Travis answer, “I’ve got a friend who is meeting me there. You remember Tito, don’t you?”
“Sure do,” Hayden said. “Mighty fine fellow. But, just the two of you?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Hayden,” Travis said as she left the window and stood near the desk where his friend sat. “It will be personal. For the both of us. You remember what the man did to my Melody?” He paused for an affirmative nod and waved away the apology that he knew would come from his friend for not being there when it happened. “I know. I wish I had been there too. I’d have strangled that bastard right then and there. Well, you see, El Diablo tried to do the same thing to Tito’s family. But he was there to defend them. He was shot, of course, but he recovered and now he’s hell-bent to help me make the bastard pay for it.”
“El Diablo,” Madeline breathed, still listening to the conversation. “That is what I secretly call my husband!” Thinking back, she wondered where she had come up with that name for him, for she didn’t recall coming up with the name by herself, but pushing that question aside, she trained her attention to the door once again.
“How long do you think it will take for you to go down there and take care of business?” Hayden asked of his friend.
“Oh, I think about three weeks. I’m hoping to get there in time for Cinco de Mayo celebration. I’m planning on bringing a few fireworks of my own to the party.”
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