Both men laughed as Madeline pulled away from the door and put two and two together. This man, Travis, was going to Mexico to kill a man called El Diablo. Surely, there is only one devil, she thought as she reached for the door again, for a plan was forming in her mind to get that man to take her with him so that she would have the honor of killing her husband herself.
Just as she was turning the knob, she saw the stranger pass the window and she recognized him as the one who had violated her last night and she remembered the kiss and the reason for her being here on the verge of committing him to jail. No matter, she knew that only she and Travis knew about what happened in the bathroom and she did not think that he would reveal his escapades to his friend. Maybe she would forgive him, after all, he had probably already forgotten about it anyway. But, she could never forget about it. The memory of his lips upon hers was far more pleasant, infuriating and embarrassing at the same time, to forget.
But, she had to find a way to convince him to include her in his quest. As she contemplated a way, she leaned closer to the door to listen again. But, just as she pressed her ear to it, the door was flung open and she was sucked forward and into the arms of the stranger.
“Well, look who we have here!” Travis said as he held her against his strong chest before he set her back on her feet.
“Do you two know each other?” Hayden asked as he rounded the desk to take Maddie’s hand.
Madeline dipped her head in embarrassment, hoping that Travis would not let the cat out of the bag, but was relieved when he gave his answer.
“We met last night, at the hotel,” Travis told him with neither mirth nor malice in his voice.
“I see,” Hayden said. Then, remembering the tale that his deputy had told him that he had heard from Bob Gander about a stranger who had riled Maddie up last night, he asked of her, “Wasn’t there some trouble there last night?”
She threw a glance at Travis, daring him to divulge everything and then she answered, “A little.”
Before she could explain in her own words what took place, Travis gave his own version, ending with the statement that riled her up all over again, “She was madder than a wet hen!”
Relieved that he had not told his friend the bathroom story but concentrated on what happened in the dining room, she let out a sigh, but hearing him refer to that incident when she was drenched and fuming caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand at attention. She opened her mouth to protest, but the wink that told that he would tell all if she complained made her stop short.
Cocking her head, she remembered that the bathroom incident was the very reason that she was here and she very nearly railed on him again. But, then, she knew that if she did, he would never agree to help her. She held her tongue and glared at him with vehement violet eyes.
Her heart skipped a beat when he flashed a smile at her and winked at her as if the secret between them was as precious to him as gold. Those straight white teeth and the twin dimples in his cheeks sure did look familiar to her, but she shook off the notion and fought the smile that threatened to pierce her own lips. She had to tear her eyes away from him, from that smile, from those lips. All of these splendid factors mischievously came together to distract her from her mission.
In their silent conversation, the two ignored Hayden until he interjected, “Yep, that’s what we call her, Maddie. She can sometimes seem madder than a wet hen, but she’s really a sweet little thing. Maddie, I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine. This is Travis Corbett.”
Without thinking, she stuck out her hand, the same hand that he had grabbed the night before and she smiled warmly, saying, “Nice to meet you.”
“Miss Maddie,” Travis said cordially as he took her small hand into his.
“Just Maddie,” she corrected allowing him to pump her hand a few times before trying to remove her hand from his.
As he had the night before, he stared at the wound on her arm, causing her to recoil in fear. She jerked her hand away and rubbed the scar while she turned away from him.
“What’s wrong, Maddie?” Hayden asked, putting himself between them to come to her defense.
“That’s exactly what he did last night,” she told him. “But it was more brutal then.”
“Brutal?” Hayden asked of his friend incredulously. Then he added, “You should know better than to mishandle a lady.”
“Mishandle? I didn’t hurt you!” Travis stepped around Hayden to look her square in the face.
“You did too, Mr. Corbett. You grabbed my hand as if you hadn’t seen a woman in years,” she argued, raising her face up to meet his.
Travis moved closer to her to reply, “For you information, Miss Maddie. I was trying to get a better look at it.”
“Well, why didn’t you ask me instead of jumping on it like a dog for a bone?”
Travis faltered a bit as her closeness caught him off guard. He could smell the lavender fragrance of her silky black hair. He could feel the heat of her body next to his. He could taste the sweetness of her breath, so close to his lips. He wanted to reach for her, to take her in his arms and cool the fire that blazed in his body. But his anger at her impulsive defenses made him quell that sudden urge and concentrate on the fury that replaced it. He pressed his lips tightly together both to calm himself and to keep him from pressing them against hers again. He whirled around, putting distance between them as he wiped his palm over his burning mouth.
He drew in a breath to cool his emotions, then he turned to her, his eyes as cold as steel as he seethed, “Look, all I wanted to do is get a good look at that scar. Where did you get it anyway?”
She wasn’t about to tell him what happened to her in the state of mind that she was in at the moment. Later, when she was calm and could talk to him without raising her voice, she would tell him about it and ask him to help her.
Before she could open her mouth to answer, Hayden told Travis, “She came out of the desert with it.”
“Hayden!” she scolded, her voice shrill with anger.
“The desert? What the hell were you doing in the desert?” Travis asked of her, his eyes wide.
Madeline shot Hayden a spiteful glare before she answered, “Well if you must know, I left my husband in Mexico and I had to get across the desert to do it.”
A jealous gleam crossed Travis’ face when he learned that she was married but it disappeared just as quickly and when she continued, “When my horse died, I had to walk the rest of the way.”
“So, how did you get that scar?” Travis demanded, tilting his head toward her.
Madeline glanced at Hayden, knowing that she had never told him the truth about how she had come to have such an angry scar on her arm. There was no way that she could talk them out of squeezing the truth out of her so she rubbed her wounded arm while she gathered the nerve to tell them. Then, she took a deep breath, her head bowed, her eyes fixed on that jagged line that shot up her arm like a flash of red lightning and she let the air out slowly before she told them the whole consequential story, including her plans to return to her former home and to kill her husband, and when she finished, they stood speechless in amazement and awe.
Hayden cleared his throat and stumbled over to her and, taking her hand into his, he pleaded, “Maddie, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I did tell Jake and Margaret. But, what could anyone do? Diego’s a very powerful man in Mexico. All he has to do is snap his fingers and herds of men are there to do his bidding. He would have killed me if I had returned and anyone who was with me. Besides, I’ve been afraid to go back.”
“What made you so brave now, Maddie” Travis asked, pausing before saying her name. Seeing her angry face in the light of day made him finally realize who this woman really was and how she came to be here in this small town on the border, fearful of the man whom she had finally found out to be a murdering bastard. But, he was not yet ready to reveal to her or his friend of his knowledge, for she must have a reason for changing he
r name.
“Who said I was brave? I only told you now because I knew you wouldn’t stop badgering me about it,” she started angrily. But, she softened her voice as she found the nerve to ask, “I was hoping that I would have some help when I go back, that is why I waited so long.” She looked to Hayden, who shook his head against her proposal. She continued as she stepped closer to Travis, looking up at him with pleading violet eyes and squeezing his shirt between her fists, “If I go alone, my husband will kill me. But, if you go with me…”
“Me?” Travis asked incredulously as he wrestled with her hands at his chest. “Why me?”
She let her hands drop and she lowered her head as she admitted, “I heard you tell Hayden that you were going there to kill him and about how he killed your wife. I would like to be there when he takes his last breath and, if you would allow me, I’d like to be the one to make that happen.”
“You listened to our conversation?” Travis asked angrily.
“I’m sorry. I tried not to, but you both were talking loud. I’m sorry,” she repeated before she continued, “Would you consider taking me with you?”
Travis narrowed his eyes at her apology, and his voice was harsh when he asked, “So, what happens after we kill your husband? You inherit his house? His money?”
“I get my son back. That’s all I want,” she said as she glared at him.
“You gave that killing bastard a son?” He spat as if she had committed murder herself.
“It was my duty as his wife,” she seethed, but her voice softened as she continued, “or so he told me every time he mounted me.”
Travis immediately felt sorry for the woman who turned away in embarrassment at having to tell him about her intimate, or not so intimate, relationship with her husband. He stepped closer to her to place a hand on her shoulder and she turned back to him and opened her mouth to speak.
“My reward for putting up with it was my adorable son,” she said proudly. “And if I could get him back, that would make me happy. And seeing my husband suffer for what he did to me would make me even happier.”
A picture of his daughter Hannah flashed into his mind and his heart softened at the thought of how much happiness his daughter gave him and without thinking, Travis said, “I’d like to see you happy.”
“It has been a long time,” she admitted as she looked down at the golden ring that she had not removed because of her commitment to her marriage and to keep the cowpokes from poking around on her.
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading with him as she asked in the most pleasant voice that she could find, “Will you help me?”
He looked into those deep-sea purple eyes and melted. But, coolly, he shrugged his shoulder and said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Please do,” she said, squeezing his arm to emphasize her beseeching.
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t know, Travis,” Hayden started, his voice filled with concern. “Would you want a woman going along with you?” He looked at Madeline and said defensively, “No offence, Maddie, but that’s an awful dangerous situation that you want to get into.”
Madeline looked at Hayden, quelling the anger that his statement had caused in her, but she took a deep breath and told them both, “I’m not as weak as you think I am. I lost my mother at a young age. I’ve watched my father die. I’ve married a murderer for a husband and lived to tell about it. I’ve crossed the desert by myself, on foot after I had to put my beloved horse out of his misery. Believe me, if it were only my husband that I had to contend with, I would find my way there myself and kill him myself. But, he has hundreds of men at his beck and call and I know that I am no match for all of them.” She turned to Travis again, this time, furrowing her brows in pleading miserably as she begged, “Please, you’re my only hope.”
Hayden shuffled his feet and then leaned his backside on his desk while folding his arms in front of him, saying, “Well, Travis. She does make a good case. And you won’t be going with only your two guns. She’s a hell of a good shot herself.”
Embarrassment at yesterday’s disappointing target practice, Madeline’s face flared with a red glow as she admitted, “I haven’t practiced in a long time. I can’t assure you that I am as good as I used to be.”
Travis put his hands on his hips, thinking about his dilemma. He rubbed his chin with his forefinger and thumb before he asked, “You want to show me this sharp shooting superiority?”
Madeline dipped her head and then a sparkle in her eye told him that she was willing to face embarrassment if it meant that he was willing to consider taking her with him. She nodded excitedly, clasping her hands together in glee as she said, “Follow me and you will see.”
Travis looked at Hayden, who raised a brow and then nodded reassuringly. He waved a hand in a gesture that told her to go forward and he would follow, he stepped out onto the boardwalk behind her with Hayden close at his heels. He had to adjust his long strides so that he did not overtake her or step on her flowing skirt while he tried to keep a few feet between them.
When she headed away from the livery stable, where most of the target practice took place, Hayden asked her, “Where are you going?”
Maddie never looked back as she told him, “To get my pistol.”
She flew through the foyer and then skipped up the stairs and to her room, spending only enough time to fish her pistol from her dresser drawer and then she was back down the stairs and throwing open the front door of the hotel without regard to who might be coming in from outside. The force of the door slammed into Travis’ hand, cracking the bones of his fingers.
“Dammit, woman, don’t you ever watch where you’re going?” he shouted as he rubbed his hand with the other one.
“Well, I didn’t expect you to follow me to my room,” she retorted, then, seeing his pain, her voice softened as she reached for his hand, “Let me see.”
He pulled it away and shoved it into his pocket and winced from the pain that the pocket inflicted as he growled, “It’s alright. Let’s get this over with.”
He slipped a silver Colt .45 from its holster and checked the load, and then he re-holstered it with finesse before he asked impatiently, “Well?”
Madeline hesitated as she watched in awe at his accomplished experience with a gun and it amazed her to see him handle them as if they were a part of his body. His anger brought her back to his attention and she nodded quickly before she lifted her lilac skirt and skipped down the stairs to the dirt road.
The trio walked around to the back of the hotel and picked out a handful of cans and bottles and then they walked to the back of the livery stable where there was a broken and unused corral. Travis lined the targets on the fence while the others waited a few hundred feet away.
As he returned to stand beside Maddie, he nodded at her to get ready to aim and fire. Nervously, she raised the pistol to eye-level, closed one eye and found a target in her sight. She checked her stance, as her brother had taught her many years ago and then blinked as her forefinger pulled the trigger. After the gun exploded, sending it’s bullet into the side of one of the cans, she secretly rejoiced that she had actually hit it. Then, she lowered her weapon and looked at Travis, her face filled with pride.
“Not bad,” he said, nodding his head. “Of course, you do know that we will be fighting more than one man and those men will be shooting at us.”
With a nod, she said matter-of-factly, “Yes, of course.”
“Well, then, you need to be able to shoot as many times as you can in one swift move,” he explained amiably as he checked his load on one pistol and then the other. He took a breath before he continued, “Now suppose you were up against five banditos, the cans being the bad guys, and they are all charging at you with guns a’blazin’. The one to your left is a fat ugly Mexican bast—cuss carrying a repeating rifle. The two next to him only have one pistol each, so they’ll be easier to take on. And the one in the middle, he’s the leader, the head honcho. He’s got a
shot gun, a pistol, a knife and a rifle slung across his back. The one on the far right has a machete and he’s fast as lightning. Now, you know you only have six bullets and only a few slug-dodging seconds to defend yourself. Now, tell me. What is the order that you would take them out?”
Dumbfounded, Madeline stared across the corral at the line of targets, trying to remember what each one stood for and how much firepower each was supposed to have. She pointed to the one in the middle and said, “I’d take the head honcho out first and then the repeating rifle, the two men with a pistol each and then Mr. Machete because even though he’s fast, he has to dodge my bullets to get to me.”
“Very good,” Travis said, impressed with her quick thinking and then he asked, “Do you think you can do it?”
Put on the spot, Madeline balked, shuffling her feet and toying with the butt of her pistol. She tried to raise it to ready herself for the fast-paced shooting that he expected her to perform, but she lowered it again in despair.
Seeing the worry in her eyes, Travis said to Hayden, who had been equally impressed with what she had said, “Will you go and get some more cans? I think we will be here awhile.”
After Hayden left them, Travis stepped behind her and his long arms encircled her, taking her hands into his and lifting her arms parallel to the ground as he said, his voice soft and encouraging, “If you keep both eyes open, you can see what’s going on around you. Try to concentrate on the middle target while still keeping an eye on the others. Give two good squeezes on the trigger and let’s see if you can drop more than one desperado.”
She could feel his strong chest against her back, his hot breath against her cheek but she had to concentrate on the task at hand in order to convince him that she was as good a shot as Hayden had said she was. She wriggled her feet apart to steady herself and she started to close one eye again, but she remembered his advice and she opened it and then glared at the menacing targets as if they were real enemies. With his encouraging whispers in her ear, she squeezed off the trigger three times.
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