by Bobbi Smith
"Fine," Clay agreed. He sat down and leaned back against the wheel of the stage, closing his eyes for a minute as he fought for control. The gentle touch of the nun's hand on his arm had wreaked havoc on him, and he was glad she was leaving him alone for a minute. She was too pretty, and there was something about her that stirred feelings within him he didn't want to deal with.
"Ruth, Mr. Cordell has been wounded, too. Is there anything I can use to wrap his arm?" Reina asked as she hurried to the door of the stage.
"Yes, Sister," the other woman answered from where she and Fred were busily tending to Poke. "Here..." She held out some strips of cloth she'd torn from a petticoat Melissa had retrieved from their suitcase.
"Thanks." She took them, got a canteen of water and started back to Clay.
"Do you need any help?" Ruth asked, since they had done just about all they could for Poke under the circumstances.
"No, I'll be fine," Reina was startled to find herself discouraging the other woman's help. She had no time for interest in men right now, and even if she did, she surely wouldn't have chosen one like this. Why in the world did she want to be alone with him?
Clay saw her coming. "I can take those and fix it up myself."
"It's no problem, Mr. Cordell," Reina refused. "After all, you did save our lives. It was most unselfish of you, and this is the least I can do to pay you back for your bravery."
"You were the brave one, Sister," Clay told her, watching her every move as she knelt down beside him. It amazed him that she showed no concern over getting her white habit dirty. She seemed only intent on helping him. This generosity of spirit was something he was not accustomed to in women. "Not everyone could have stood up to those men the way you did."
"But you were the one who really saved us. If you hadn't managed to come along when you did, well, who knows what would have happened?" Reina pointed out.
Clay listened to her praise and felt even more guilty. His motives hadn't been unselfish at all. He'd had a reason for being there, and a reason for wanting to save the stage from attack. Reina Alvarez.
"I'll have to tear your shirt so I can see what we've got here," Reina told him.
"Why don't I just take it off? That'd probably be the easiest way," he offered, removing the bandana from his arm and then unbuttoning the shirt. That done, he started to strip it off. Until that moment, Clay hadn't realized how bad his arm really felt. He paled a bit and paused in mid-effort.
"Here, Mr. Cordell. Let me help you..." Reina had seen his color go slightly ashen and knew he had to be in pain. She tried to remain very business-like and detached as she slipped the garment from his broad shoulders. But when she accidentally touched the hot, hard width of his hair-roughened chest in the process, a surge of excitement shot through Reina unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. She looked up in surprise and once again her eyes met his. Reina colored deeply as Clay gave her a questioning look.
"Sister?" he asked, concerned.
"Can you finish?" she mumbled nervously, quickly diverting her gaze downward away from his. She discovered immediately that she'd made an even bigger mistake for she found herself staring pointblank at his deliriously muscle-sculpted chest. Knowing she couldn't move away without revealing the crazy feelings that were tormenting her, Reina remained as calm as possible as she waited for him to finish removing the shirt.
"Sure," Clay answered, realizing that Sister Mary Regina was probably unused to seeing men's bodies. It troubled him that he'd caused her embarrassment again. Still, being so close to her, he couldn't deny that he was physically attracted to her. It was an attraction, though, he wouldn't act upon. She was a very special woman. He respected her and would not hurt her in any way. "There, all done."
"Thanks. I was afraid that I might hurt you trying to get it off your arm," she lied smoothly as she began to check the gunshot wound.
"You wouldn't have hurt me," he said softly, his words washing over her in a velvet caress.
Reina paused in her actions. "How can you be so sure?"
"Because I don't think you've ever hurt anyone in your entire life," Clay's voice was suddenly low and deep and slightly husky for he was speaking straight from his heart.
Reina shivered in spite of the heat. "I hope your faith in me is justified."
"It is," Clay responded.
Reina hadn't meant to look up at him again. She'd meant to concentrate only on doctoring his arm, but somehow she found herself almost compelled to glance up. Reina realized instantly that she'd made a serious tactical error as his probing, innately sensual, stormygray gaze caught and held hers.
Dazedly, Reina found herself thinking that he had absolutely the most beautiful eyes she'd ever seen. She was held enraptured, a captive of his mesmerizing masculinity. This time she couldn't bring herself to break off the contact, and her heart pounded wildly in her breast as the moment seemed to stretch on indefinitely.
Clay, too, was trapped by the flaring tension between them. She was a woman pledged to God, a woman who devoted her life to helping others, and yet he was sure she was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen. There was no deceit in her manner, no cunning in her soul. Her dark eyes, gazing up at him so trustingly, held him spellbound, and he found himself beguiled by her innocence and gentle openness. Suddenly, Clay wanted more than anything to take her in his arms and kiss the soft sweetness of her mouth.
The blatant, hot desire that surged through him at the imagined embrace, surprised Clay and left him feeling deeply shamed. He grew angry with himself for not being able to control his lusty thoughts. Sister Mary Regina was a woman who spurned worldly goods and carnal behavior, not some whore he could enjoy for an hour and leave without a second thought. She deserved his complete respect and consideration, not his heated musings. He was contrite, and he searched, for something to say to break the taut silence that stretched between them.
"How's it look, Sister?" He almost didn't recognize his own voice for it sounded hoarsely disconnected, as if it belonged to someone else.
For an instant, Reina wanted to smile dreamily and tell him that his eyes looked fine, that he had the most gorgeous gray eyes she'd ever seen in her life and that she wanted to spend hours gazing into them. Only his use of "Sister" broke the mood and kept her from forgetting who she was and what she was doing here.
Inwardly, Reina raged at her own stupidity. She stiffened her resolve and turned her full attention to his arm. She was pleased to find that the bullet had passed completely through.
"You're in luck," she told him when she found her voice. "It looks clean. The bullet went through."
"Good. Listen, there's a flask of whiskey in my saddlebags," Clay said, thinking he could certainly use a stiff drink to help ease not only the pain from his arm, but his lecherous yearnings as well.
"Of course, we can use that to sterilize it."
"I wasn't thinking of wasting all of it on the wound, Sister." He grinned at her.
The smile, meant solely for her, left Reina flustered, and she quickly got up. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking... I'm sure your arm must be hurting you terribly."
Reina hurried to his horse to get the whiskey. She dug through the packed saddlebags and finally got a hand on the slim flask that was practically buried at the bottom. When she pulled it out, though, something else came loose with it and dropped to the ground at her feet.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, embarrassed by her clumsiness. The object looked to be a small, framed picture of some kind, and she bent to pick it up from where it had fallen in the dust.
Reina had had no intention of prying into his personal effects. She had merely planned to put the picture back without comment. But when she found herself staring down at the small portrait of herself her father had commissioned two years before, her heart almost skidded to a halt.
All vestiges of color drained from Reina's face as she stared at her own likeness. She was sure she looked as shocked as she was feeling, and she was glad that she
had her back to Clay.
Clay Cordell had a picture of her! There was only one way he could have come into possession of her picture, and that was through her father. Fear shook Reina to her very depths. She swallowed convulsively against the sudden, paralyzing tightness in her throat and fought to keep her hands from shaking uncontrollably. Dear Lord! What was she going to do now? This man was after her!
Reina strove for control. She couldn't panic, she just couldn't! Obviously, Cordell hadn't recognized her. Surely, if he had, he would have said something. She'd come too far to let anything stop her now. Drawing a deep breath, she stuffed the picture back into the saddlebag and tied it shut.
"The woman in the picture is very beautiful," Reina complimented herself as she turned back to Clay, a tight rein held on her runaway emotions. She carefully schooled her features into an expression of only mild interest. Relief swept through her when she found that he hadn't even been watching her, but had leaned back against the wheel again and closed his eyes. Thank heaven he hadn 't seen how upset I got! she thought.
"Yes, she is," Clay answered flatly. Reina Alvarez. Just the thought of her sent a shaft of white-hot fury through him. If it hadn't been for that spoiled little witch and her equally arrogant father, he wouldn't be out here in the middle of nowhere, winged in the arm. Instead, he and Dev would have collected their reward for Denton by now and been happily on their way. Damn her, anyway!
Reina waited expectantly for him to say more, and she grew irritated when he didn't offer any other information. She was desperate to find out exactly what was going on.
"Is she your fiancee?" Reina asked, forcing herself to act as though nothing unusual had happened as she walked back to him with the flask.
"No," he answered, taking the whiskey when she offered it. "As a matter of fact, Sister, I've never met the woman." Clay wasn't sure if that was a blessing or not as he opened the whiskey and took a deep swig. The burning warmth of it spread through him like a healing balm.
"Why do you have her picture with you then?" Reina tried to come across as just being curious without sounding avid or hungry for details. She didn't want him to suspect her of more than just a passing interest.
"I'm a bounty hunter," he explained. "The girl ran away from home, and her father hired me to bring her back. He gave me the picture to help me identify her when I find her."
"I see." Reina was thrilled that her father hadn't had a newer portrait of her, but she couldn't understand why he hadn't come after her himself. The fact that he'd hired a bounty hunter to track her down, frightened her. She'd never imagined he would resort to anything like this! "Where do you think she's gone?"
"I'm not sure any more," Clay answered. He was glad that he'd been around to save the people on the stage, but it annoyed him to have wasted so much precious time on what had turned out to be nothing but a wild goose chase.
"Any more?" Reina prodded as she knelt down beside him again and poured some water on one of the rags. She began to gently scrub the gore from his arm as she waited for his answer.
"I started looking for her in Monterey, and all indica tions were that she was on this stage. Obviously, I was wrong." His error in judgment troubled him. He'd thought it would be relatively easy to find the girl. He'd thought it would be over quickly. Now, he was discovering that it wasn't going to be as simple as he'd first imagined. Reina Alvarez was obviously much smarter than either he or her father had given her credit for.
"There were only the five of us on the stage." Reina kept her face averted from his as she continued to cleanse the injury. The attraction she'd felt for him had changed to unholy terror now, for she was afraid he might suddenly recognize her. She prayed desperately that her disguise would hold up under this close scrutiny.
Clay grunted in frustrated acknowledgement. "No one else got on or off?"
"No.
His expression was grim as he reflected on what he had to do next. He had to head for Louisiana and hope against hope that Alvarez's daughter had gone to her friends there as her father had suggested she might. It tore at Clay to think that Dev was going to be stuck in jail for an even longer period of time, but he knew there was nothing else he could do. He had to head back East as soon as he could.
"What will you do next?" Reina asked in a tone that sounded only like she was making small talk to distract him from his pain.
"I've been hired to do a job, and I'll do it. I'll keep searching until I find her." Clay vowed, not revealing anything more as he took another drink.
His words chilled her, and she was suddenly more nervous than she had been before. "You sound like a very determined man."
"I am."
"I'll pray for you, sir," Reina told him seriously. l'll pray that you never, ever, get any closer to fndingReina Alvarez than you are right now!
"Thank you, Sister. I need all the help I can get."
"Maybe you're having so much difficulty, Mr. Cordell, because the young woman doesn't want to be found. Maybe she had a good reason for leaving as she did," she subtly defended herself.
"Not this one," Clay answered firmly, without the slightest measure of sympathy or hesitation in his voice. "She's a willful, pampered spoiled brat. She's nothing but a troublemaker."
Reina stiffened imperceptibly at the insult. She wondered how he would feel if he was being forced into a marriage with a woman he couldn't stand. "Really," she replied coolly. "I thought you hadn't met her."
"I haven't, but I know her type of woman. They aren't interested in anyone but themselves," he said.
At his arrogant pronouncement, it took all of Reina's will power not to scrub extra hard on his arm. "Well, I hope everything works out."
"So do I," he agreed. "How's my arm look?"
"It's a relatively clean wound. The bullet passed on through. I'll have you fixed up here in a minute, and you can be on your way," she encouraged, eager to be rid of him.
He nodded and took another quick drink before handing her the flask. "Go ahead and pour some of this on it."
Reina did as she was told, dousing the open wound liberally with the sterilizing whiskey, and she was almost ashamed of how pleased she felt when Clay's jaw tensed against the searing pain. "Sorry..." she murmured, biting down on her lip to keep from smiling. It served him right, she thought meanly.
"Thanks, Sister," he said through gritted teeth. "It had to be done. Just tie it up tight now, and I'll be fine."
Reina could hardly wait until he was gone, and she made quick work of bandaging his arm. When Ruth and Fred climbed out of the stage, she was glad for the distraction.
"We're ready to roll now," Fred announced.
"We're done here, too," Reina said as she finished tying the cloth around his arm.
"Since it's so late, Cordell, why don't you ride with us to the waystation?" Fred invited Clay along. "The least we can do for you is get you a hot meal and a bed for the night."
To Reina's horrified dismay, Clay accepted the offer.
"Sounds good. Thanks," he replied, painfully pulling his shirt back on.
Reina was anxious to stay as far away from him as possible, so she hurriedly got into the stage to devote herself to nursing Poke. Ruth and Melissa joined her there, while Fred retrieved the gold. The two men then loaded the outlaws' bodies onto their horses and tied the mounts to the back of the stage. Clay hitched his horse there, too, and then climbed up to ride on top with Fred.
The last five miles to the waystation seemed endless to Reina. Poke did not regain consciousness, and so she had nothing to distract her from her fears. She hoped the stop would be large enough to give them their own room so she could avoid further contact with Cordell. She knew better than to count on it, though, for the other stations they'd stayed at on the previous nights had been nothing more than one-room cabins that the stationmaster had partitioned off with a blanket to give the women some privacy.
If that turned out to be the case again, Reina wondered how she was going to avoid the boun
ty hunter without being obvious, until they parted company the following morning. She was still worrying about it when just after sundown they drew to a stop before the small station.
It was over an hour later that they all sat around the big rough-hewn table in the waystation. Fred, with Clay's help, had taken care of all that needed to be done, and they were relaxing there now, discussing the holdup and waiting for Hanley, the middle-aged, balding, rather portly station master to finish preparing the dinner. Poke had regained consciousness shortly after their arrival, and he seemed to be doing well. Hanley had given him his own bed there in the single-room cabin, and the old cowboy was sitting up now, propped against the wall eagerly listening to all the details of the day's happenings.
"So you held 'em off, did ya, Sister?" Poke questioned with something akin to delight and pride in her achievement.
"Yes, but it was thanks to your quick thinking and Mr. Cordell's timely arrival that we're all fine tonight," she demurred.
"Did ya have to use the gun?" he asked avidly.
"Yes," Reina admitted reluctantly. "I'm afraid I was forced to shoot, but it wasn't my marksmanship that saved us. It was Mr. Cordell's."
The old cowboy eyed Clay respectfully. "Then I thank you for saving our lives, Cordell. Those were some mean hombres."
"That they were," Clay agreed, glancing over at Reina. "But Sister Mary Regina deserves more credit than she's willing to take. She's the one who drew the last outlaw out in the open. If she hadn't, I would never have gotten off a clean shot at him."
"She's one special lady," Poke told him knowingly as he regarded her. There was no mistaking the fondness he had for her in his expression.
"She certainly is," Clay agreed, letting the full potency of his silver-eyed gaze rest upon her. Ever since that afternoon when her innocent touch had stirred him so deeply, he'd been battling with himself. Clay had never been so powerfully attracted to any woman before, and the fact that she was unattainable made it even more difficult for him. Watching her now, he thought of how lovely she looked even after the long arduous day they'd just passed. He thought of the spunk and spirit she'd shown facing down the bandits as she'd defended herself and the others, and he knew she was one extraordinary woman.
