Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family)

by Georgina Gentry

  “Texas,” she said, “I . . . I love you. I don’t give a damn about your past, about your ancestry. Do you hear me? Why don’t we keep up this pretense? Unless Tony Falcon shows up someday unexpectedly, you could getaway with this masquerade forever.”

  Bandit’s face was a cold mask. “That’s the least of my worries, Aimée. I’ve decided I can’t live with myself anymore. Even a no-good saddlebum can have a little honor, act like a man.”

  There was something frightening about his face.

  “Texas? What is it? What do you intend to do?”

  “I’m going to take you home, sweet. And then I’ve got to do something about a rattlesnake nesting at Falcon’s Lair.”

  She hadn’t the least idea what he was talking about, but the hard anger on his face frightened her so that she dared not ask.

  The trip back to her father’s ranch seemed twice as long because of Bandit’s moody silence. The flip, cocky pistolero who had charmed her was gone, replaced by a solemn man who seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. As they rode up on a rise overlooking the Durango barn, the sun had just set, the place looked deserted. They reined in.

  Bandit said, “In less than thirty minutes, you’ll be safe at home, sweet, and you can forget this nightmare–forget about me.”

  “Just like that!” Her anger flared up. “Texas, don’t you have any explanation? You’ve hardly said anything on this whole trip back.”

  He looked at her, spurred his horse forward. “I reckon it’s all been said, Amethyst. Let’s ride on in.”

  Mona stood in the library of the big, deserted house staring at the note the servant had just handed her.

  Meet me in the barn. We must talk.

  She looked after the departing servant, considered running after her to get a description of the sender, then shook her head. The servant couldn’t read, she knew that. But asking questions might lead to gossip, and that she didn’t need. Should she send Mrs. Wentworth? Mona frowned. Her dour friend was drunk and despondent again. Mona would have to make her own decision.

  Bandit. It must be from Bandit. He had sneaked back somehow and wanted her help. Maybe he wanted her togo back to Texas with him. Mona smiled. She would go anywhere, do anything, for the jaunty pistolero with the cocky grin.

  She primped in the lamp-lit mirror a moment. Expensive green silk, she thought with satisfaction. Mona Dulaney, you’re a real lady at last!

  Making sure she wasn’t seen by the servant girl, she sneaked through the dusk toward the barn. Both ranches were almost deserted, all the vaqueros and old Durango himself having gone out to search for the missing pair.

  Lifting her skirts, she ran through the growing darkness, past the pen near the barn door where Durango had recently placed that old fighting bull he’d saved from the arena. The great creature raised its big head and snorted, the short length of chain dangling from its nose ring jingling like keys.

  Mona started at the sound, stared at the bull’s sharp horns gleaming in the moonlight, at its coat black as the depths of hell. She shivered as she ran past that pen, and the animal moved to the back of the corral, fading into invisibility in the darkness. It seemed harmless enough from what everyone said, but she never planned to take a chance on venturing into its pen.

  Mona paused at the barn door, moonlight filtering through the opening, through the cracks in the weathered wood. She took a deep breath, drawing in the smells of hay and leather. “Bandit? Bandit, are you in here?”

  Abruptly, a tall, lean man stepped out from behind a bale of hay, throwing a black shadow across her that made her jump.

  “So”—Romeros’s teeth gleamed in a feral smile—“you gave no thought to me. You hoped it was the Texan.”

  She bit her lip, trying to mask her disappointment. “What are you doing here? I thought all the vaqueros were off looking for them.”

  He came closer, chewing on a match. “I was too banged up to go, thanks to that damned cowboy. And of course, old Falcon is too frail. He’s home by the library fire, awaiting word.”

  She flinched as he reached out, touched her hair. “I hate hair the color of fire,” he said softly. “Later, I want you to dye it very black.”

  “Señor Durango likes it red.”

  He smiled without mirth, stroking her hair. “I said I want it dark.”

  Suddenly she realized why, and could not contain her jealousy. “It’s because of Amethyst, isn’t it? You’re in love with her, just like Bandit!”

  He took the match from his mouth, glared at Mona. “I don’t like hair the color of fire,” he whispered in a tone that frightened her. “And sí, I’ve always wanted her.”

  She turned away. “Knowing Bandit, I don’t think he’d allow that. From the bruises on your face, I’d say you’ve found out what he’s like when he’s mad.”

  Romeros shrugged. “I underestimated him. No matter.”

  She felt helpless frustration at his cold remark. “If I had realized what I was getting into, realized you’d stoop to murder when we first hatched this plot—”

  “Oh, come now, Mona, don’t go getting soft on me.”

  “I . . . I’ve come to like old Durango. He treats me like a real lady.”

  He laughed, put the match back in his mouth, put one hand on her shoulder. “Is that a fact! And you only a cheap whore after all.”

  She winced at the epithet, tried to pull away from his hand, but he tightened his grip. “You’re hurting me.”

  “I like to hurt women. It makes sex more exciting. You can play the high-class, elegant lady around old naive Durango, but I know what you really are, what all women are at heart.”

  Tears came to her eyes. Because of his blackmail, there was no way out. The murder meant she must keep her mouth shut. “You’re rotten, you know that? Why did you send the note? Do you know what’s happened to Bandit?”

  His clammy hand stroked her shoulder, her neck. “You, the druggist’s daughter, gave me information that helped me poison the one person who stood in the way of your being Señora Durango, and you call me rotten?”

  “I mentioned it when I saw you chewing a match. I had no idea you’d use the knowledge to—”

  “But after I did, you didn’t tell anyone.” His fingers tightened. “Admit it, Mona. All you could think of was being the richseñora of this ranch. Who would believe you were innocent if I implicated you? I came to tell you I think you can forget about that Texan and the girl ever returning.”

  Bandit had run away with the girl. She closed her eyes against the pain of the idea, shrank from the stroking hand. “So now what happens?” she asked dully. “I marry Durango and continue to be your mistress?”

  “Sí, it appears I’ll have to settle for that. I’ve spent a quarter of a century trying to get my hands on the Falcon fortune. If you only knew what lengths I went to, but all in vain. If you marry old Durango, and he gets killed or dies, then you could marry anyone you chose. Your choice, of course, will be me, and I will control the Durango fortune through you.”

  She whirled on him. “No! I won’t be a party to any more murders! I’ll take Mrs. Wentworth and go back to New Orleans!”

  Her turning around had moved his hand from her neck to her throat. His fingers shifted to stroke the swell of her breasts in the low-cut dress. “Where is our old whorehouse madam tonight?”

  Mona wanted to pull away from his cold fingers, but she feared to anger him. “Drunk, probably. Or praying. She’s suddenly rediscovered her faith.”

  He laughed. “And if you return to New Orleans, just how do an aging whore and a drunken old madam intend to support themselves? You value is going down every day because of your age, Mona, and nobody but you cares about Wentworth. In a couple more years, you’ll end up working the cheapest cribs, the lowest dives of the waterfront.”

  What he said was true. And Mona owed a lot to Mrs. Wentworth, who had nursed her through a long bout with yellow fever. What would become of the older woman and of Mona hersel
f as the years passed? The security, the respectability of being the Señora Durango was irresistible to her. “You low-down bastard. You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

  “Sí.” His cold hand stroked the rise of her breasts. “You’ll look good in widow’s weeds, Mona.”

  “Suppose Bandit comes back?” She swallowed hard, remembering him and the taste of his kiss under the trees as he’d said good-bye.

  “I’m hoping Falcon is about to see me in a new light. However, if that stupid cowboy returns, I have enough on him to blackmail him, too. When the old man is gone, I’ll still get my hands on Falcon’s Lair through his counterfeit son. I’ll control both fortunes.”

  Her heart pounded with apprehension as his fingers traced a cold trail down her warm skin. “And after that?”

  He grinned, threw away the match. “The Texan is too hard to deal with. Didn’t you tell me his mother committed suicide? Maybe he’ll become too despondent to live.”

  “No, you don’t! ” She shook her head. “Romeros, you go too far when you threaten Bandit. You are the most cruel hombre I’ve ever known!”

  “You should have known my father,” he answered softly, pulling her to him. “I feel a need for a woman.”

  She tried to break away. “In the barn? Like the most common puta? No! I had enough of you, Romeros, when you threatened Bandit! I intend to tell what I know, no matter what happens to me!”

  She struggled to twist out of his hands, but he roughly jerked her to him, pushed down the front of her dress. Even as she fought, his cold hand squeezed her breast. He kissed her, his wet mouth coming down on hers, so hard his teeth cut her lip. She tasted blood as she endeavored to break free.

  “Don’t fight me, puta! I need a common whore tonight, and that means you!” He lifted her off the barn floor with one hand while his other tore away the front of her green silk bodice, ripped her lace camisole.

  “You rotten bastard!” she raged, striking him about the face, beating him on the chest as he dragged her across the barn to a pile of hay. “Let me go! Someone will be looking for me!”

  “Everyone’s gone on the search except for a few servants, and they won’t come out here in the dark. Fight me, puta! It makes it more enjoyable!” He forced her down in the hay, tearing at her delicate batiste undergarments, his mouth hot and moist on her bare nipples.

  “No, Romeros, no! ” She writhed under him. “Must you humiliate me like this?”

  “I had a good teacher! ” he panted, tearing at her clothes. “You don’t know what real humiliation is! You never met my father!”

  She fought to get away from him. “Someone will come upon us! I hear horses coming!”

  “That’s an old trick, Mona. I would have thought you could think up something more original! Beg me! Humble yourself and beg!”

  She tasted the salt of her own tears as she struggled. Did she really hear horses approaching or was it only her imagination?

  “You puta,” Romeros panted, striking her across the face. “You damned puta!”

  Then, abruptly, two horses drew up before the barn. Romeros jerked up.

  Two silhouetted figures swung down off the horses, and one shadow loomed large in the moonlight. “What in blue blazes is going on in there?”

  Bandit. Mona’s heart leaped and she managed to get to her feet while the foreman stared in stunned surprise. “Bandit! Oh, thank God you’ve come!” She tried to break free, to run toward the tall, broad-shouldered form framed in the doorway, but Romeros grabbed her, reached into his boot. She felt sharp steel against her back.

  Romeros said, “Texan, I’ve got my knife in her back. Now throw down your gun belt or I’ll slit her throat like I did with that tattoo artist in Monterrey!”

  Bandit stared at the foreman, the words slowly sinking in. He felt sick enough to vomit. “What did you say?”

  Romeros laughed as he stood silhouetted in the moonlight inside the shadowy barn, holding Mona in front of him. The light glinted off the stiletto. “You heard me, cowboy. I had to kill him. He’d recognized the Falcon brand, was going to blackmail us! Now drop that gun belt! No, better still, toss it over that fence!”

  Bandit hesitated. If he could just get one clear shot without endangering Mona . . .

  “Do it, damn you!”

  Numbly Bandit obeyed, throwing the gun belt over the fence into the seemingly empty pen next to the barn. He heard Amethyst gasp behind him, glanced back at her horrified, sunburned face. “Romeros,” Bandit said, “you killed that poor little man?”

  Romeros took a couple of steps, dragging Mona with him. “It isn’t the first murder I’ve committed! I’ve gone to greath lengths, and I’m not going to give up when I almost have all that I want within my grasp!” His eyes looked crazed in the moonlight.

  Bandit held out an imploring hand. “Let her go, Romeros, then we’ll talk–”

  “You think I’m loco, don’t you? I’m not crazy, I’m just ambitious! Power and money, that’s what’s important; that’s what my father always said.”

  “Just let her go and we’ll talk,” Bandit said soothingly, but Romeros laughed, moved closer, dragging the sobbing woman.

  “I’ve spent twenty-five years trying to become one of the Falcons! First I tried to take the place of the dead brother, and just when I thought I’d succeeded, the Falcons had an heir of their own! Well, I got rid of that brat, all right, but they still didn’t make me their heir!”

  A chill went through Bandit as the facts came startlingly clear. “You did it! You kidnapped little Tony Falcon!”

  “Sure. But the ransom got bungled, I could hardly pick up the money with the old man insisting I accompany him to trap the kidnappers.”

  Bandit looked around without moving his head. Was there any weapon he could use? A saddle gun on his horse, but that was behind him and Amethyst couldn’t make a move without attracting the foreman’s attention and endangering Mona. “You never intended to return Tony. You planned to kill him from the first.”

  Romeros shrugged. “The boy knew me. He would have told his father. I didn’t kill him myself, I sent him up to an old trapper in the Indian Territory to hold until I was sure I got the money. But I gave him orders to kill the brat. I couldn’t take a chance that he’d ever come back and tell.”

  Bandit heard Amethyst’s shocked intake of breath, Romeros’s labored breathing. What the hell was he going to do to disarm this loco hombre?

  “You, Texan, you’ve caused trouble from the first,” the foreman raged, waving the knife. “I’m going to kill all of you! Then I’ll put the knife in your hand, Texan, blame it on you!”

  Bandit judged the distance between them. “You won’t get away with it.”

  Romeros laughed. “Is that a fact? Who’s to stop me? All the vaqueros from both ranches are combing the countryside. I’m a hero, you know that, Texan? They think I tried to stop you two from being carried off by the Comancheros. I’ll tell them you were a Comanchero, that you came back to rob the ranches while all the cowboys were gone!”

  Bandit edged a little closer. Romeros was only a few feet away now, standing just inside the barn door. He heard Amethyst’s breathing behind him, prayed she wouldn’t make any sudden move, try to do anything desperate. “Give me the knife, Romeros.” He held out his hand, advanced slowly.

  When Bandit was almost within arm’s reach, the foreman suddenly shoved Mona to one side, and crouched facing Bandit, the blade gleaming in the moonlight. “I’m gonna give you the knife, you cocky bastard! And I’ll be a hero again when I tell everyone how you came back, went loco, stabbed the two women—how I managed to kill you after a hard struggle!” He laughed. “Who knows? Old Falcon might make me his heir yet!”

  Bandit slowly backed away. If he could ever reach his horse and the saddle gun . . .

  He saw Romeros’s knife hand come up, swiftly as a rattler’s strike, heard Mona scream, “Look out, Bandit!”

  He dodged, knowing he’d moved too late, expecting
the pain. But in that split second, Mona threw herself between them. She cried out as the knife caught her in the side, burying itself in the green silk. Then she fell, even as Bandit charged in, grappled with the foreman.

  “You sonovabitch ! You’ve killed her!” He slammed his fist into the gaunt face, and Romeros stumbled backward into the barn.

  Bandit ran after him, his fury out of control. The foreman grabbed a shovel, swung.

  Ducking, Bandit heard steel strike a post. The impact knocked the shovel from Romeros’s hands. He grabbed the foreman, struck him again and again.

  The sounds of the blows were dull, muted, like the slam of a fist into a side of beef. Yet Bandit’s knuckles stung from the blows.

  Romeros swung, caught Bandit in the jaw, stunning him. He fell. Then the foreman turned and ran into the shadowy part of the barn.

  Dizzily, Bandit scrambled to his feet, listening for movement in the darkness. Behind him, he heard Amethyst weeping as she knelt to gather Mona into her arms.

  Heavy breathing. Bandit turned toward the sound. Sweat made his shirt cling to his muscular body. Dust from the hay coated his face in a gritty film. “Romeros? Come out! You can’t get away with this!”

  He had only a split second to react as Romeros suddenly came at him out of the shadows, moonlight glinting off the prongs of a pitchfork. Bandit threw up his right arm instinctively and one of the prongs pierced his shirt sleeve, stung as it tore his flesh. In pain, he managed to pull away, grappled with the man, both their hands on the handle of the pitchfork as they struggled. Bandit’s blood dripped warm and red down the handle as they fought for it.

  But hurt as he was, Romeros wrestled it away from him, came charging at him, blind with fury. Bandit sidestepped, and the pitchfork buried itself in the barn wall, vibrated there.

  “You bastard!” Bandit grabbed the foreman, hit him once, twice. Romeros stumbled backward out the barn door, into the moonlight. The movement startled both horses and they bolted a few hundred yards, then stopped like well-trained mounts, their reins dragging the ground.