That settled, he had packed his gear and commenced to head out of town, only to be stopped by the captain, who wanted him to mop up a renegade outlaw down past Laredo.
“Some hotshot left over from that Juan Cortinas war a couple of years back,” the captain had said. “Since you’re headed for the border, anyhow.”
He wasn’t really headed for the border, he had considered telling the captain. His destination was the interior of Mexico, sans badge and Ranger credentials.
But he had not said as much, of course. And that little detour had taken the best part of six weeks, leaving him barely enough time to look into Santos’s troubles before the wedding.
A week later he had located Catorce and made camp back in the foothills of the Sierra Madres. Patiently awaiting daylight, at which time he intended to implement his rather hazy plan, he had been set upon by a group of hungry Federales who claimed he had robbed a train.
Robbed a train! Fortunately, his years riding herd on the Texas-Mexico border had perfected his Spanish to the point that he understood what the ruckus was about. His readiness with their language, however, fueled the suspicions of the Federales.
A gringo who spoke fluent Spanish. Instead of aiding his defense, that fact only added to his captors’ conviction that they had caught their train robber.
From there his life had taken a definite turn for the worse, although at the time he still figured he could pull off the double trick of locating Santos’s trouble and keeping himself alive. Especially after they locked him up in the Catorce jail.
Then they started talking about a lynch mob. Hollering was more like it. The shouts and threats that filtered through his cell window were hot enough to singe the hair off a horned toad.
Things had looked up briefly with the arrival of his one and only visitor. A lovely creature posing as a widow, bringing food and reassurances that, though he had trouble believing them, raised his spirits nonetheless.
Then had come the breakout, the threats of bodily harm against his benefactress, his guardian angel.
Some guardian angel. Dressed for seduction in peasant garb, his angel Aurelia turned out to be an outrageously passionate and passionately outrageous female whom, up until the time of their first kiss, he had thought of in terms of…cute. Her pixie face with those dancing black eyes and a mouth that stretched from ear to ear when she laughed, reminding him of a Comanche bow drawn for battle, would have made a big brother proud, not to mention her undaunted courage and sassy spirit.
After that kiss, however, cute did not come close to fitting his description for her. By the time she invited him to her bed, such as it was, in the cave behind the waterfall, he had known that if he didn’t get away from her posthaste, he would be one Ranger lost to the wiles of Mexico’s hidden treasures.
Although in that skimpy blouse and those rustling skirts, her treasures had been far from hidden, even before their encounter behind the waterfall.
Afterwards, he figured the worst was over. She had won. Hands down. He had never given thought to settling down, and he certainly would not have believed anyone had they claimed that when he did it would be with a cute little filly from south of the border.
But that morning in the cave changed everything. His outlook on life. His future plans.
Himself.
He tried to tell himself, as he told her, that the danger they were in, the difficulties they faced, kept them from thinking straight. Both of them.
He tried to convince himself it was the nights they had spent tramping through the mountains, the days he spent watching her sleep, so near yet so far away, that had fueled their fires of passion.
He tried to persuade himself to hold on to his senses, not to let himself be taken in by this outrageous female who had rescued him from the hangman’s noose, only to snare him in her angel wings.
But her kiss had carried him too close to heaven. Much too close. Her olive skin felt like silken clouds, her curly black hair like angel tresses. And when he claimed her innocence in that one fateful thrust, he made her his. His in body and soul. His forever.
Not that she was the first virgin he had ever bedded. She wasn’t. But she was different, and that one single act somehow made her his. As though it had been so from the beginning of time, that act confirmed the fact, tied her to him as with one of her petticoat ribbons.
As with a cord fashioned from frayed angel wings, they were tethered single-harness in his mind. She belonged to him. They belonged together.
Then she had revealed the next startling fact—that she had used their lovemaking as an experiment to drive away ghosts of the past.
Never mind that those ghosts were created in her service to him. Never mind she had not professed a desire for an attachment beyond helping each other escape those who pursued them.
Never mind the fact that she belonged to him; she didn’t know it. She didn’t want it. Numbed by this betrayal, he had finally rejected it.
He had seen through it, even if she hadn’t. Experiment, she might call it. Experiment it was not.
To hell with her experiment. To hell with her idea of shipping him back to Texas.
He had told her so, only to be hit with the most confounding revelation of all.
“Your sister, Relie?” Carson stared from the relieved eyes of his friend to the startled expression on the face of his angel.
“Relie?” He rolled the name off his tongue. “Why didn’t you tell me your name was Relie?”
“My name is Aurelia. Relie is a nickname.”
“Relie is a name I would have recognized,” he mumbled. “At least enough to question.”
As the exchange progressed, Santos hugged his sister, then dragged them both inside the house, where he inspected her thoroughly.
“You’re safe. Thank God for that. I prayed you were with Jarrett.”
At Santos’s intense perusal, Aurelia was suddenly very glad she had followed Carson’s advice to wear her corset and petticoats.
“Carson Jarrett,” she mused. “I should have questioned Carson. Santos has spoken of you often enough, except—”
Santos continued to talk, slapping his friend on the back, while Aurelia and Carson stared at each other, shaking their heads in amazement.
“Thank God for a friend like Carson Jarr—” Santos stopped in mid sentence. “Hey, don’t you two care that half of Mexico is out looking for you?”
Carson’s attention immediately transferred to his friend. “Fill us in. We laid up days, traveled nights to avoid the Federales.”
Santos slapped Carson on the back. “Then you are both ready for a good soft bed.”
Aurelia’s head jerked up. She caught Carson’s eye.
He cleared his throat. “Aurelia, lead the way.” He ran a hand through his unruly hair. “I should have suspected, her sticking to practically the same directions you gave me.”
“No matter.” Santos drew them inside the adobe mansion through a tiled foyer and into an indoor patio, with a burbling fountain and more colorful, flowering plants than Carson had ever seen in one place before. A maid brought orange juice and coffee at the clap of Santos’s hands.
“Hola, señorita,” she greeted Aurelia.
“Hello, Ana. This is Señor Jarrett.” She laughed into Carson’s face. “Señor Carson Jarrett.” The name trilled from her lips. She turned back to the maid. “Desayuno para los todos,” she ordered for all of them, then turned again to Carson. “You are ready for breakfast, aren’t you?”
He rubbed his stomach. “I could eat a bear.”
“Or a squirrel?” she teased. “You should see him in the field, Santos. For one meal he killed a squirrel with a slingshot he made himself. Another time he used my hairpins to make a fishhook, and we had a wonderful fish dinner.”
Santos laughed. “I’ve ridden a few trails with this hombre, Relie. He even saved my bacon a couple of times.”
“And you mine,” Carson answered in an absent-minded fashion. He drained the glass o
f orange juice, then leaned back in his chair, still studying Aurelia with a look of wonderment.
Aurelia absorbed the truth gradually, accompanied by the warmth of Carson’s attention, which he showered over her. Suddenly, she turned to Santos with a laugh. “Fortunately I saved him, sí? The best man for your wedding.”
Sí,” her brother agreed. “Fortunately you saved each other. Although you are both in more trouble than any ten people could handle.”
“I should have known,” Carson repeated, as though he had not heard Santos’s prediction of doom. He grinned at his friend. “I even told her so.” His eyes found Aurelia’s again. “Remember? I said I had only known one other person in my life as crazy as you? Well, it’s him.” He nodded toward Santos. “Your brother. Damn!”
“I’m not crazy,” she protested. “My scheme worked, didn’t it? I got you away from the Federales.”
Santos ruffled the mussed, dirty hair of his sister. “No, Jarrett, she isn’t crazy. Just an incurable romantic who keeps this family tied in knots.”
At the word romantic, they both blanched. Carson raised an eyebrow, as though to touch his hat for a point won. Aurelia felt her hand tremble, so she sat her coffee cup back in its saucer with a clatter.
Santos cleared his throat. Ana materialized carrying three platters of steaming huevos rancheros, which she set before them.
Aurelia stared at her plate, picked up a fork, and took a bite of the eggs smothered in tomatoes and chiles.
A heavy silence engulfed them as they began to eat, Aurelia with relish, Carson more slowly, confining his attention to the plate Ana set before him.
After they started on second helpings, Santos cleared his throat again. “Now that your stomachs are full, think you two can concentrate on the Federales?”
Carson glanced up. “Shoot.”
“They’ve been around,” Santos said. “Every day a troop rides in, inspects the area, then leaves. They’ll be back sometime today. You can count on it.”
“What about Quiroz?” Carson questioned.
Santos studied Aurelia, then looked back to Carson. His eyes held a warning Aurelia had difficulty interpreting. She finally decided it was concern. She noted the worry lines around his eyes. He had always been a wonderfully protective brother. Her spirits fell with the realization that she had caused him so much concern.
“I want him, too, damn it,” Santos was saying. “But we can’t go after him right now.”
“Why the hell not?” Carson turned to Aurelia. “Sorry, ang…ah…Aurelia.”
She smiled, absorbing the warmth in his eyes. “I got us all in a lot of trouble, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”
Santos shook his head. “There’s more to it than your scheme to escape Catorce.”
“You mean more than the train robberies?” Carson questioned.
“A lot more,” Santos acknowledged. “Accidents have been happening at a higher rate than usual.”
“Such as?”
“The usual sort,” Santos admitted. “Cave-ins, holes opening up, explosions…more than normal, though.”
“Didn’t you say you started using dynamite a few months back?”
Santos nodded.
“The men aren’t accustomed to it yet,” Carson suggested.
“It’s more than that. More than carelessness. We are losing silver between the mine and the mint.”
“How far apart are they?”
“About a league, maybe two,” Aurelia supplied. “That’s the reason Papá was able to obtain permission to establish a mint. I thought it solved everything.”
Santos shook his head. “No, things have not improved at all. If anything, they are worse.”
“How?” Carson questioned. “And what does Quiroz have to do with it?”
Santos shrugged. “The thefts are being implemented by someone inside. Someone with knowledge of when and how we ship silver bars to the mint. That’s why we put Quiroz in charge of that shipment of coins. Even though we had never lost coins, we figured if he was the one with his hand in the till, he wouldn’t be able to resist minted coins and we could nail him.” He glanced toward Aurelia.
“I know, don’t say it. I messed up everything.” She turned to Carson with a shrug. Would he think her a complete fool?
Carson held her gaze, steady, serious, no hint of jesting. “No, you didn’t.”
Santos cleared his throat.
“I mean,” Carson corrected, “you may have called his hand. Sent him packing.”
“Quiroz hasn’t missed a day at the mine.”
Both Aurelia and Carson stared at Santos, aghast. “Even after?…” Her question died on her lips.
“After what he did to Aurelia?” Carson demanded. “He dared show his face after that?”
“After what?” Santos asked. “From what Pia said, the chapel was so dark it would be his word against yours, Relie.”
“His reply to my message should prove something.”
“That you are a schemer, which everyone already knows. No one would believe Padre Quiroz, the mine superintendent with ten children to feed, would attack the mine owner’s daughter. And Quiroz would know the mine owner’s daughter would not risk ruining her reputation by reporting such an attack. He isn’t stupid.”
“That is definitely a matter of opinion,” Carson retorted.
Santos stared hard at his guest. Finally, Carson broke the gaze. “So, what do we do now?”
Santos started to rise. “First you two need to get some sleep. Then…”
Aurelia felt her cheeks flush. She knew Carson was looking at her—and Santos. She studied her brother, tilting her chin in challenge.
Santos settled back down. “Get some rest. We’ll leave for Catorce in the morning.”
“Catorce isn’t safe for Carson,” she objected.
“We’ll rig up a disguise.”
Carson chuckled. “Shouldn’t be hard. We have the mistress of disguises right here in the family.”
Aurelia perked up. “Sí, I can—”
“Leave the disguise to me.” Staring from one to the other, Santos’s eyes settled on Carson. “How ’bout we outfit you as a monk for the duration of your stay?”
“Not a monk,” Aurelia argued. “I can—”
Without taking his attention from Carson, Santos dismissed her with a curt, “Relie, run, see to your bath.”
She bristled. How dare he treat her like a child? She smiled at Carson. “I’ll have Ana prepare you a guest room.”
“Let me take care of Jarrett,” Santos countered, still holding Carson’s eye. “As you said, he’s my best man. Run along, Relie.”
Aurelia glared from one to the other. Carson shrugged. Santos remained stoic. Finally she rose, threw her napkin in her plate, and turned to the stairs. When her foot touched the bottom rung, she heard Santos growl at Carson.
“If you took advantage of my little sister, I’ll kill you. Compadre or not.”
Turning her head, she started to protest but caught Carson’s eye.
“Go ahead, angel.”
“Angel?” Santos fumed when they were alone.
“I didn’t know her name for a while,” Carson told him. “Wouldn’t you look on the woman who saved you from death by hanging as a guardian angel?”
“She isn’t a woman who saved you, damnit. She’s my sister and I am your friend. You had better not have—”
“Calm down, partner. I’m on your side. Your sister is…” He sighed. “Aurelia is special to me, too.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Carson thought before he answered. “You said it. She’s your sister.”
“A fact you had better not forget, damn you.”
For the remainder of the morning, Santos stuck to Carson’s side as though they grew together. If it hadn’t been so serious, he would have joked about it, Carson thought. But here in Mexico folks looked on a maiden’s virtue with even more sanctity than they did in the States. Santos had a right to be concerned;
Aurelia was his sister.
And Carson had heard stories about her from the time he first met Santos Mazón on the Texas frontier. That Santos set store by his little sister had been obvious from the indulgent manner in which the big man had always talked about her. Laughing at her schemes, appreciating her wit and inventiveness. His little sister, Relie.
Carson had pictured Relie as just that: a little girl. Younger, she might be. But unbeknownst to Santos Mazón, his little sister had grown up. And his best friend was fast on the road to falling in love with her.
Carson considered how best to inform his friend of this fact while he followed Santos around the compound. First Santos installed him in a room in the bunkhouse—separated by a good hundred meters from the bighouse. Santos did not, however, leave him alone to get some of the rest he had suggested earlier.
Instead, he escorted him to the kitchen, where he left Carson in the hands of the cook, an elderly woman they called Tita, with instructions to cut not only Carson’s hair but to shave off his mustache as well.
When he protested losing the mustache, Santos glared at the offending hair. “Every policeman on the Catorce force would recognize you the minute we set foot in town.”
Santos left, only to return to the kitchen bearing a suit of clothing, which he carried along as he escorted Carson to an adobe bathhouse built over the hot springs.
“This puts a whole new meaning on bathing in the river,” Carson quipped, letting the heated water ease tensions he had not known he felt.
He had lived so long on the trail that the aches and pains associated with the outdoors had become second nature to him. He rarely noticed them, except of a brisk morning when his knees creaked or in damp weather when his joints ached. Or as now when his feet hurt.
Instead of leaving his friend to bathe, Santos took a seat near the pool. Carson watched him fidget, scuffing his boot heels along the tiled surface, refusing to meet his Texan friend’s eye.
Carson tried again at conversation. “Beats the old San Saba River by a long shot.”
Santos grunted. “Yeah.”
After a good scrubbing, Carson dried off and put on the clothes Santos had brought. They fit to a tee, even though Santos was a hefty two or three sizes larger than his Texas friend.
Silver Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Two Page 11
