Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Texas Ranger's DaughterHaunted by the Earl's TouchThe Last De Burgh

by Jenna Kernan

  When they reached the canyon floor the sky opened up above them and the starlight glowed weakly. Rocks now loomed like outlaws hunched to spring out. They passed a scrubby piñon pine on an outcropping that so resembled a man she nearly screamed a warning.

  They turned left, heading south.

  “We came from that direction,” she whispered.

  “And that’s the way they’ll expect us to go. Box canyons and narrow draws this way. But I got little choice.”

  Behind them came the sound of gunfire.

  Chapter Three

  Bullets pinged off the sheer rock face of the canyon behind them.

  “Firing blind in the draw, hoping to hit us,” whispered Boon.

  The horses set off at a trot that flowed into a lope. She craned her neck, seeing the flash of pistol fire as the sound of the riders grew louder.

  Boon left the road. The horse carrying them stumbled, but recovered its footing. They slowed to a walk again and then stopped. Boon slid off the dark horse, dragging her along.

  “Damned dress shines like a bedsheet.”

  Laurie glanced down to see it was so. The white pleated lace at her cuffs and the pale fitted lavender bodice with matching overskirt seemed to glow from within. Only the dark blue-violet fabric of her underskirt, visible below the hem of her lavender draping, vanished in the near darkness. He pushed her back between two rocks, holding the reins of both horses in one hand and her waist with the other, using his body to block hers.

  She cowered behind him, clutching his vest and burying her face in the warm leather. Laurie remained motionless as the rocks, listening as the sound of hoofbeats grew closer. Gradually, the shout of riders grew more distant and the gunfire ceased.

  Boon drew her out of the narrow gap. “They’ll figure out which way we went pretty quick and be back again. Got an hour maybe to get ahead of them. None of them can see to track and they won’t know which canyon we ducked into so we got a better than average chance of losing them in the dark.” He lifted her bound hands and retrieved the knife from his boot, then sliced the ropes that had held her since her capture. She rubbed the imprints left by the cord upon her wrists with her gloved hand and flexed her numb fingers as needles of pain returned with the blood.

  He turned his back, rummaging in his saddlebags. Laurie took the opportunity to run, but hindered by the restriction of the formfitting overskirt at her hips, she only reached the second horse when she heard a curse.

  He was on her in an instant, capturing her about the waist, hoisting her off her feet and tucking her under his arm. Then he walked back from the horses with her draped across his hip like a naughty child.

  “Ain’t you got no sense? I’ll tie you again.” He set her on her feet and held her by the shoulders.

  Even in the weak light of the stars she could make out his brow sunk low over his pale eyes as he scowled at her.

  “Let me go.”

  “They’ll catch you quicker than a treed possum. You got to mind me or we both die. Now, take off that getup.”

  Laurie gasped, then inched back as he advanced. Her bustle bumped into the rock face. She tried to wedge herself into the narrow gap beyond his reach. He captured her wrist easily and dragged her out. Had he done all this just to do to her what the others would have done?

  “Take it off,” he hissed.

  “I won’t,” she said.

  Behind them, retreating now, she could hear the men shouting Boon’s name.

  “They’ll see you and they’ll catch us,” he said, as he glanced back in the direction of the riders. She had a chance then to draw his pistols and shoot him in the belly. She reached and then stopped, her fingers inches from the handle.

  The riders would hear the shot and come back. What chance would she have then?

  The answer was simple—none. She didn’t trust Boon, but she couldn’t shoot him. Laurie withdrew her hands, letting him live for now, hoping it wasn’t another mistake. She glanced at his boot knife as he turned back to face her. She knew how to use a knife, but had never used one on a man.

  Laurie stood mute now, pressed against the rock face.

  He fumbled with the top button of her blouse.

  She slapped at his hand, wishing she had shot him when she had the opportunity.

  “Then you do it. I’ll get the clothes.”

  Laurie stilled. Clothes? What was he talking about? She stood before him as he turned his back again and retrieved something from his saddlebags, then shoved it at her.

  “They’re boys’ duds. Hurry up now.”

  She clutched the offering. He meant for her to change, to increase their chances of escape. Laurie felt the air rush from her lungs and suddenly she could breathe again. Thank God she hadn’t shot him.

  She unfolded the bundle. Denim dungarees and a dark linsey-woolsey shirt and no underthings. She hadn’t worn such garments since she was a girl, riding with her father back in San Antonio.

  “Turn around,” she ordered.

  He did. Laurie blinked in astonishment. With a speed born of panic, she removed her dirty white cotton gloves and unfastened her jacket with trembling fingers, drawing off the basque bodice and dropping it without hesitation. Next she released the waistband of her fitted topskirts, followed by the darker underskirt, kicking them aside. The very latest thing, according to Peterson’s Ladies National Magazine, the newer slimmer style was now a liability she could not afford. She had created the outfit, top to bottom, to impress her father with how much she had changed, at least on the outside. But the yards of fabric and lace were not worth dying for. She dropped the petticoats, then the half crinoline that helped support the skirt’s draperies and the cascade of fabric of her topskirt’s train. A yank released the bow fastening the horsehair bustle that had come by rail from New Hampshire.

  “What’s taking so long?”

  The man obviously knew nothing about women’s attire, thought Laurie as she unfastened the lace ruffle at her throat and released the buttons of her white blouse.

  “Just a minute.”

  Dressed now in only her bustle, thigh-length chemise, bloomers, stockings and boots, she tried to draw on the pants but her bloomers hiked up and wadded about her waist and she could not manage to drag the Levi’s over her hips.

  “Hurry up,” he whispered.

  She pressed her lips together and tugged harder. Forced to abandon the effort, she considered riding in her bloomers, but that was out of the question. All women’s bloomers were split from front to back to allow her to relieve herself without removing any of her under things or outer skirts. She blushed to think of how she once wore britches and dragged them down whenever and wherever she needed. Her mother had been quite right to object to her boyish ways. But now if she rode in this outfit, the fabric would gap if she straddled a horse and her bloomers were white as the flag of surrender.

  “Laurie,” Boon urged.

  She began again, removing her bloomers. The trousers were tight and stiff, but she now managed to tug them on, thanks to her corset. She tucked the long chemise into the trousers. Laurie collected her gloves and stuffed them in her front pocket before hunching into the shirt. The coarse fabric brushed against her bare shoulders. She felt him staring and stilled.

  Laurie glanced up and caught his eye. He looked at her with the intent gaze of a starving man. She tugged the flaps of the boys’ shirt together and only then realized they did not quite cover her breasts.

  “Turn around,” she ordered again.

  This time he shook his head in refusal. There was a new tension in him as if he was held in place by some invisible tether. Laurie’s heartbeat accelerated as she recognized that she now faced a different kind of danger, the kind that came from showing a man her naked body.

  “They’ll be back in a moment,�
� she warned, but she was not sure he heard her.

  He stepped forward, reaching, his fingertips brushing the full round curve of the exposed tops of her breasts. She gasped and spun away, clutching her hands across her cleavage.

  “I shall scream.” It was an idle threat. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, because to scream was to draw more danger than she faced now.

  But her words seemed to rouse him, for he blinked and then shook his head as if waking from a trance. He stooped to snatch up her discarded garments while Laurie tried frantically to button the shirt. She managed to get it fastened about her torso, thanks to the corset cinching her middle, but the tight fit squeezed her breasts together so they bulged at the gap in a most lurid manner.

  She stared down at her white flesh, thrusting up in an open invitation, and gasped in despair. The action caused her breasts to strain against the buttons that imprisoned them. Were it not a sturdily constructed boys’ shirt, she felt sure the tension would have split the seams.

  Boon returned to the horses, stuffing her clothing into his saddlebags as she covered herself with her open hands, searching wildly for some other means to conceal her bosom from his view.

  Boon turned. His arms dropped to his sides and his shoulders sank as if she had somehow defeated him.

  “You must think I’m made of stone,” he whispered.

  She would have liked to point out that he was the one who chose these items for her.

  “They don’t fit.”

  “Because they told me you were a girl.”

  Who had told him? The hope surged, blending with the terror to steal her breath once more. Had he come just for her? Who was he? Who had sent him?

  He had her wrist now, and then captured her leg, heaving her back up on the horse without a word. The dungarees stretched tight against her bottom and she feared the seam would fail. She’d never worn any garment that rubbed so intimately against her most private places. A moment later the saddle shifted under his weight as he drew up behind her.

  “You’re no girl,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning her neck. He made it sound like a condemnation.

  She felt his legs pressing the horse’s sides, and they set off again, into the canyons, away from the riders and into the night.

  * * *

  Boon pulled Laurie flush against him. He didn’t need to, but he figured if he was going to get a bullet in his back over this gal, he might just as well have the benefits of holding on to her.

  He gave the horse its head, letting it pick its way along the rough trail left by the mule deer. The horse walked briskly along, but he kept them just shy of a trot. The gelding’s night vision was far superior to his, but he didn’t want his mount stepping into a hole and breaking a leg.

  “What is your Christian name, Mr. Boon?” Laurie’s whispered question sounded like a gunshot in the stillness of the night.

  His lip curled in response. He wasn’t like most folks with a first and last name. He had only one.

  “It’s just Boon.”

  He could feel the tension in her. What was she thinking? That he didn’t want her to know his full name? If he had a last name he’d surely tell her. But he did not have one and that was all.

  “I see,” she whispered. But she didn’t, couldn’t, not without knowing where he’d come from and damned if he’d tell her that.

  He turned his thoughts back to the danger they faced. The men chasing them were all drunk and they couldn’t see in the dark any better than he could. Best to go easy until the moon rose, saving the horses, and then slap leather. That gave him the rest of the night with Laurie in his arms. It was the kind of temptation he never expected to face, having been told he was retrieving a girl.

  Boon snuggled her against him, wondering who she was.

  Why hadn’t the captain told him that the girl he was rescuing was a full-grown woman? Maybe he didn’t figure he owed Boon any explanation after saving his life.

  When the captain took him in, Boon had thought he’d been given a second chance. Now he wasn’t certain. He’d been summoned to the rooms of John Bender, the division head of the Texas Rangers. Bender and his partner, Sam Coats, had argued over whether to send him for Laurie. The captain believed in him, knew he was the best man for the job, but Coats had been against it, claiming you couldn’t reform an outlaw any more than you could reform a rattlesnake. That comment had stuck to him like a cocklebur ever since. Hammer had said the same. He’s one of us, boys.

  Two men different as fire and water and both thought they knew him. Maybe they did. Were they right? Would he always be a rattlesnake, dangerous and unpredictable?

  His head sank and he breathed deep of the sweet scent of Laurie’s hair. Soap and lavender powder, he realized, on skin soft as a baby bunny.

  Why had he let himself believe that this job was his chance to earn the captain’s respect? He still thought so, or he would have ridden the other way the minute he’d left the captain. That made him worse than a fool.

  Behind him the gunfire changed direction. Laurie stiffened as he cocked his head.

  “They’ve taken the road toward the river,” he whispered, as he had figured.

  Laurie’s breathing gradually returned to normal. He stared straight down past the waterfall of dark hair that curled across her shoulder and to her substantial bosom. He blew out a breath. One look at Laurie heated his blood and made his skin tingle as if he stood naked in the pouring rain. He tried to keep his eyes on the horse’s ears as they swiveled to listen to the sounds of the night, but his mind kept throwing images of Laurie in her corset trying to button that shirt. This little gal was a temptation, the kind he’d avoided since leaving the Blue Belle.

  Laurie was not what he had expected, not at all. She was all woman and a proper one at that. Her prim little coat and skirts, the upsweep of black hair that had once likely been a modest bun, and the white cotton gloves all made her seem like a lady who had been well cared for. Nothing like any woman he’d ever known.

  So why had she kissed him like that?

  He recalled her as he had first seen her, sitting still and watchful beside the fire, the orange flames glinting off her dark hair, giving it a red cast. She’d held her gloved hands together as if in prayer, when they were actually bound. Her stillness radiated tension and her face had pinched with worry. Her generous mouth had tipped down at the corners and her dark flashing eyes had been watchful as any cornered animal searching for escape. She’d nearly reached his horse. That showed the kind of fight she’d need if they were to get out of here. All that fit together, a brave lady captured by outlaws. What didn’t fit was that kiss. In that kiss he’d experienced what she had hidden, a raw sensuality about her that burned hotter than a blacksmith’s forge.

  It didn’t fit. That kiss, her fancy duds all bustles and lace. Who was she, the captain’s woman? He was surprised at the whirlwind of anger that thought stirred.

  Boon compared that first glance to the sight of her, half-dressed, lithe and winsome, standing in that cleft in the red rock struggling with the shirt he’d provided, her shoulders pale as starlight.

  He wished he could look at her again, all of her this time. And he wanted to see her face in the sunlight. For now he pictured Laurie in his mind as he breathed in her scent. Her eyes were too widely set for her small oval face, he decided, too dark and too large. Both top and bottom lips were full and ripe, the top shaped like a bow and the bottom had the slightest depression at the center. He wanted to rub his thumb over that bottom lip and see her mouth open for him. Might have been a trick of the light, but her skin seemed flawless and he knew her teeth were white and straight. She was a beauty by any standard. Leave it to the Hammer to want to destroy such a woman. It made him sick.

  Her face surely would be temptation enough, but Laurie had curves, full hips, a round tight backside and a
full bosom, made more generous by the silly corset that pinched her middle and looked like it might break her in half like a matchstick.

  He glanced back into the dark, seeing nothing but the glint of starlight on rock. With luck, Hammer’s men wouldn’t see their tracks until morning; by then they’d be over the rock and have a fighting chance of making the stage station where the captain would be waiting with his men.

  Boon pushed the horse to a faster walk, increasing the distance between them and capture. Soon it would be light and they could ride like blue blazes. Until then the dark would hide them. The motion of the saddle rocked his hips into Laurie’s bottom. He winced and shifted as his body reacted to having a beautiful woman in his arms.

  Surely Captain Bender had known it would, but had sent him anyway.

  Should he tell Laurie that the captain had sent him, ask what she was to him? But what if he didn’t like the answer?

  Fighting for her, killing for her had given him funny ideas—wrong ideas—like the notion that he had some claim over her and the feeling that he didn’t want Laurie needing anybody but him. He didn’t want to share her or give her over to a man old enough to be her father. What did Bender want with someone as young and sweet as Laurie? Boon knew Laurie was too good for the likes of him, but maybe she was too good for Bender, too. But Bender didn’t know where to find the Hammer. Only Boon knew that. And while it was true that the Rangers could easily take the outlaws’ camp, to do so would have cost Laurie her life.

  Boon had gotten her out alive. Did she owe him for that? He knew that under normal circumstances she’d cross the street rather than have anything to do with someone like him. But fate had put her in his hands.

  He looked at her fingers, now swathed in stained white gloves as they rested, delicate as flower petals on the saddle horn. She had high-class clothes, high-class speech and the look of someone who’d been loved and cared for her whole life.

  For the course of this journey she was his. If the captain didn’t like it, he should have sent one of his goddamned perfect Texas Rangers instead of a low-down murdering outlaw.