The Texan

by Joan Johnston

  “With a little more time—” Ridgeway protested.

  “The longer we stand here talking to you, the colder the trail is getting,” Owen pointed out. “Have you made all the arrangements I requested?”

  “There’s a pickup waiting out front with a horse trailer attached. The safety equipment is in the pickup, and you’ve got the best two mounts I could find on short notice.”

  “Then we’re out of here,” Owen said.

  Bay saw the anger flicker in Ridgeway’s dark eyes, as he considered his alternatives. She waited with bated breath to see whether he would take the steps necessary to keep her at the airport.

  Ridgeway put a hand on Owen’s shoulder and said, “You be careful out there. I wouldn’t want to have to face Clay and tell him that anything happened to you on my watch.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Owen said.

  Ridgeway’s glance slid to Bay as he said to Owen, “Watch your back.”

  Bay sympathized more than ever with her brother. She hated the way it felt to be suspected of wrongdoing when she was completely innocent. She turned her back on Ridgeway and headed for the door. A moment later, Owen joined her.

  “You seemed pretty sure of yourself back there,” he said, as he threw his backpack into the bed of the pickup, which was filled with the promised equipment.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Bay had stopped to admire the two chestnut quarter horses in the Sooner trailer, one with a white blaze and the other with four white socks. As she lifted her own backpack over the side of the black, heavy-duty Dodge pickup, Owen took it out of her hands and set it beside the one-man tent and sleeping bag the FBI had provided for him.

  “I could have done that,” she said.

  “Sure you could. But my daddy taught me a gentleman always helps a lady.”

  Bay was so startled at what he’d said, and the chagrined way he’d said it, that she laughed. “Oh, my God. Chauvinism is alive and well—”

  “We call it chivalry, or Southern courtesy, ma’am,” he said. She realized he was heading around the truck to open the door for her.

  She stepped in front of him and said, “It’s going to be a long trip if you refuse to let me pull my weight. I can get my own door, Mr. Blackthorne.”

  For a minute, she thought he was going to make an issue of it. Then he touched the brim of his hat, shot her a rakish grin that turned her insides to mush, and said, “Whatever you say, Mizz Creed.”

  She was so flustered, she took a half step backward, slid into the seat when he opened the door for her after all, and said, “My friends call me Bay.”

  Bay flushed as she realized what she’d said. As he came around the hood and got in, she said, “That is—I mean—You know what I mean!”

  He belted himself into the driver’s seat and started the engine, before he turned to her and said, “My friends call me Owe. You can call me Owen.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Oh. You. Blackthorne, you.”

  He laughed and put the truck in gear.

  • • •

  OWEN WAS BECOMING MORE AND MORE CERTAIN THAT HE was on a wild-goose chase. Bay had remained vague about exactly where her brother was in the Big Bend, and no matter how many questions he asked, he couldn’t pin her down to an exact location.

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked.

  “Luke’s motorcycle was found in the Basin at the foot of the Chisos Mountains,” he said, as they continued south on U.S. 385 from Marathon, “which is also where Hank’s body was found. We’ll start looking for him there. Unless you have a better suggestion.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe they took Hank as far as possible from where they’re really hiding those mines and then shot him? That they might have put Hank’s body and my brother’s motorcycle where they did simply to lead you astray?”

  “Of course it’s a possibility. Why do you bring it up? Do you have information that suggests we should start looking somewhere else?”

  She made a face and asked, “How far is it from the Basin to the Rio Grande Village?”

  “Once you’re inside the park, you head one direction to reach the Basin and the opposite direction to get to the Village. They’re about thirty-five miles apart. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering.”

  He watched as Bay chewed worriedly on her glistening lower lip and found himself wondering how much she really knew … and how her mouth would taste. He focused his eyes back on the narrow two-lane road when he realized she’d caught him staring. Not that he would have run into anything. There wasn’t much but cactus, creosote, and roadrunners for the next forty desolate miles.

  “I want to check for any tracks your brother might have left near his motorcycle before it rains, and they’re gone,” Owen said.

  “Wouldn’t it have been better to bring along a couple of bloodhounds, if you’re planning to track him down like an animal?”

  “Don’t need dogs,” Owen said.

  “You’re that good?”

  Owen shrugged. “I usually find what I’m looking for.”

  Both Park Rangers and FBI agents guarded Panther Junction, the entrance to the Big Bend. They’d been expecting Owen, and once he provided identification, they waved him through. Fortunately, the Big Bend National Park was so remote that it had fewer visitors in a year than someplace like Yosemite in California had in a single week, so it was easy to keep an eye on who was coming and going.

  The powers that be had decided it would cause more problems if they closed the park—and had to explain why to the newspapers and the public—than if they left it open and guarded the main roads in and out.

  The danger of creating panic in metropolitan Texas cities—with its consequent human and economic repercussions—seemed greater than the remote risk that some tourist would run into the hijackers, who were well hidden. In fact, despite constant satellite surveillance and aerial radar heat imaging, no sign of them had been found.

  Once they were inside the park Bay asked, “Isn’t there a store at the Rio Grande Village?”

  “What is it you need?”

  “Chocolate.”

  “It’s a hundred degrees in the shade,” he said. “Chocolate is going to melt.”

  “Well, actually, it isn’t chocolate I need. It’s something else. I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  “What?”

  “Tampax.”

  He eyed her sideways. “Why didn’t you bring some from home? Or pick some up at the Safeway?”

  She flushed. “I didn’t think of it. Not that it’s any of your business, but my periods aren’t regular.”

  He made a disgusted sound. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to bring you along.”

  When the fork in the road came, Owen made the turn east toward the Rio Grande Village.

  As they headed south, the vegetation changed, and the grass disappeared, replaced by tall stalks of ocotillo and spiny masses of lechuguilla. Mexico’s high Sierra del Carmen Mountains rose majestically ahead of them in the distance, and as the sun headed downward, the cliffs took on the rosy hue for which they were named.

  “I want to drive back to the Basin before dark,” Owen said. “That’s where I have the best chance of picking up a trail.” He turned to her and asked, “Do you really have any idea where your brother is? Or did you just say that so I’d bring you along?”

  She eyed him sideways. “When I’m sure there’s no possibility you can leave me behind, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  There wasn’t much to the Village, just a campground and picnic sites, the store, laundry and shower facilities, a service station, and trailer facilities. Bay jumped out of the truck when they arrived and ran inside.

  Owen checked out the campground. He figured Luke might have come here for supplies, and since there were so few tourists, a stranger on a Harley would have gotten noticed. But no one in the campgrounds remembered seeing anyone on a motorcycle.

  Owen kept remembering how crazy Luke had been a
cting at the Armadillo Bar. How desperate he was to find a way to send Clay to jail. No. To death row.

  Was it possible the kid had stolen the mines so he could pin the theft on Clay? Implausible, but possible. Could Luke Creed have shot Hank? Between his training as a weekend warrior and growing up on a ranch in Texas, it was a sure bet he knew how to use a gun to kill. But was he clever enough to have outwitted Hank? Probably not. Unless Hank had let himself get distracted by thoughts of his wife and unborn baby.

  Owen’s stomach churned. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if the kid pulled a gun on him—and he had to shoot him down in front of his sister. Damn! He wished he’d left Bayleigh Creed at home.

  Owen saw a couple of Mexican kids hanging around outside the Village store and figured it might be worth his while to question them. Before he could approach them, Bay came out of the store carrying a handful of candy bars and headed straight for them.

  She laid a Snickers on the palm of the tallest boy. When she added a Baby Ruth, the kid began talking a mile a minute. The instant he saw Owen coming he ran, along with his pals.

  Owen’s instincts told him to go after the kid, but Bay stepped in front of him and smiled. That warm, appealing smile hit him like a fist somewhere in his solar plexus and left him speechless, with his mouth bone dry and his body hard as a rock.

  By the time he’d recovered his senses, the kid was long gone. “What did the kid tell you?” he asked irritably.

  “What makes you think he told me anything?” Bay said as she crossed past him.

  “Why’d you give him the candy bars?” Owen persisted.

  She shot him an anxious look from beneath a Stetson she’d pulled low on her forehead—as much to keep down the sprinkling of freckles that dotted her nose and cheeks, he guessed, as to protect her eyes from the sun. “He saw my brother use the phone here,” she admitted.

  “Why did you let him get away?” Owen demanded. “Maybe he knew—”

  “He saw Luke late last night,” she said, meeting his gaze. “And he wasn’t anywhere near the Basin.”

  “Where was he?”

  Bay shook her head. “I’m not telling you anything until I’m sure—”

  “Right. I hear you.” Owen realized from the stubborn thrust of her chin that she wasn’t going to give in. He had a better chance of following a fresh trail than an old one. It made more sense to start here than in the Basin. “Let’s ride while there’s still daylight.”

  Owen unloaded the horses, and they each saddled up, distributing everything they had to take along between the bedroll behind the saddle and the saddlebags.

  Two hours later, when Bay stopped on the rocky trail and pulled out a map for the sixth time, Owen finally lost his patience. “Where is it we’re supposed to be headed?”

  “The Dead Horse Mountains,” she replied calmly.

  “The Dead Horse Mountains are a big place. Where, exactly?”

  “I’m not quite sure.”

  Owen pulled his horse to a stop. “We’ve been riding for two hours, and you’re not sure where we’re going?”

  “Oh, I’m sure we’re headed in the right direction,” she said. “I’m just not sure which of these trails to take.”

  She held the map out to him and pointed to a junction where the Strawhouse and Telephone Canyon Trails intersected. “My brother is somewhere in here.” She paused and added in an almost inaudible voice, “I think.”

  Owen bit back an oath. He’d been raised not to swear around ladies, but as she’d pointed out, it was going to be a long trip if he had to mind his manners when the goddamned woman was going to be so provoking. “I knew this was going to be a total waste of time. I should have—”

  “That Mexican boy I spoke with—his name is Manny—said that while Luke was talking on the pay phone at the village, some men dressed in ‘army clothes’ grabbed him—” Her voice caught, and her eyes welled with tears. “Grabbed him and pushed him into a pickup.”

  “Aw, damn,” Owen said.

  “Manny said he saw those same men at the trailhead for the Strawhouse Trail later on last night,” she said in a choked voice. “Doesn’t it stand to reason my brother must be in here somewhere?”

  “What makes you think he isn’t lying dead in the Basin, where the Park Rangers found his motorcycle?” Owen said.

  He watched her eyes darken from sky blue to lavender, as she fought back tears. “Manny said his family’s traveled those trails for generations.”

  “Smuggling, most likely,” Owen interjected.

  “Anyway,” Bay continued, glaring him into silence, “he admitted he went back after dark to see if the men were still there—whether they’d left anything behind in their pickup, which they’d parked at the trailhead, that he might use—”

  “You mean steal,” Owen interrupted.

  “What’s important,” Bay said with asperity, “is that he saw my brother—alive.”

  He watched her struggle to control the wobble in her chin before she spoke again. “I think the men who took my brother parked his Harley in the Basin to lead everyone in the opposite direction from where they’re actually holding him.”

  “Why would they keep him alive, when they killed Hank?” Owen demanded.

  Bay met his gaze with dark violet eyes and said, “You’re forgetting what my brother did in the National Guard. He knows how to arm and detonate those VX mines.”

  Chapter 6

  LAUREN CREED HAD MADE THE TRIP FROM the kitchen door of Three Oaks to the stable so many times over the past eighteen months, she could have found her way in the dark. So it didn’t matter that she was blinded by tears. There was work to be done. A stallion and a mare to be put together in a way that would allow them to mate without one sexually excited animal injuring the other.

  Blackjack’s championship stallion Smart Little Doc pranced in an adjoining corral to her own quarter horse mare Sugar Pep. Ren could see the bay mare was restless, trotting back and forth along the fence, her tail up in response to Smart Little Doc’s urgent neighs and high-spirited crowhops.

  As Ren reached the corral, she swiped surreptitiously at her tears before she turned to the cowhand she’d left to watch over the two animals. “What do you think, Slim? Is it about time to put them together?”

  “Sugar Pep is ready, Boss. That big old boy still seems a mite excitable, though.”

  Ren watched the championship cutting horse lower his head and kick up his heels, showing off for the mare. Then he reared and pawed the air, his neigh challenging any and all comers to a battle for dominance. “I’ll take it from here, Slim,” she said, dismissing the cowboy.

  Slim handed over the lariat he’d kept ready, in case either of the horses needed to be lassoed and subdued. “Here you go, Boss.”

  Ren still felt odd whenever one of the hands addressed her as “Boss.” For all her married life, her husband had run Three Oaks without any help from her. It wasn’t that she hadn’t offered to share the load. But Jesse had said the most important job in the world was taking care of their family. And that responsibility was hers.

  Unfortunately, there hadn’t been enough housework in the world to keep her mind off the mistake she’d made, the consequences of which she’d lived with every day. Ren had loved Jesse Creed when she’d married him, pregnant with his child. But she’d been desperately in love with Jackson Blackthorne.

  Ren had met Blackjack quite by accident, on a hot July day when she was barely seventeen. She hadn’t been able to persuade Jesse to sneak away from riding the fenceline with his daddy and go swimming with her, so she’d gone alone. She’d ridden off to one of the deep, quiet spots along Bitter Creek that was shaded by a broad, leafy cottonwood.

  Ren hadn’t brought along a swimsuit, so she’d stripped down to her plain white bra and bikini panties and waded in. The deep pond of water that had formed at a bend in the creek had been icy cold and wonderful, and she’d put her head back and closed her eyes and floated in the dappled sh
ade. When she’d heard galloping hoofbeats, she’d smiled, thinking Jesse had decided to join her.

  Ren could feel his heated gaze on her and wondered why he didn’t say anything, then realized that in all likelihood he could see her dark nipples through her wet cotton bra. A quiver ran through her, as she felt his gaze caressing her. “Come on in,” she invited in a husky voice, her eyes still closed. “The water’s fine.”

  She smiled as she heard the snaps pop on his Western shirt, the rattle of his belt being unbuckled, and the sound of him hopping one-footed as he pulled his boots off, before she finally heard the brush of denim sliding down his legs.

  She waited for the splash, but realized when she felt the gentle ripple of waves that he hadn’t whooped and done a cannonball as she’d expected. He’d come into the water silently. She imagined him with water covering him to his waist, and her lips curved into a Madonna-like smile, as she waited for him to come and kiss her. That, too, was a tradition, one she felt sure he’d observe. But he was taking too long.

  “Kiss me,” she murmured, floating in the water with her eyes closed, as though suspended on clouds in the sky.

  One of his arms slid under her shoulders to support her, and she felt his warm breath on her cheek as he leaned over her. His lips barely teased her own before he withdrew.

  Oh, she wanted more. So much more. And she told him so. “More, please.”

  His mouth returned to hers, unbearably soft, incredibly gentle. Jesse had never been so tender, and she felt a place inside her open and flower with love. She lay quiescent, her eyes too heavy-lidded with pleasure to open, and only his arm to support her as she floated languorously in the water. “Oh, that was lovely. Again.”

  His mouth returned, hungrier, and his tongue probed the seam of her lips. She opened to let him in and realized that he tasted … different … but in a good way. His tongue slid to the frenulum behind her upper lip and teased, something he’d never done before, and she gasped at the pleasure of it. He retreated, and his lips caressed the edges of her mouth and then her cheeks and eyelids with tiny, reverent kisses. She felt exalted. Worshiped.