Texas Brides: The Rancher and the Runaway Bride & The Bluest Eyes in Texas

by Joan Johnston

  Lindsey got a quick glance at what appeared to be a coiled black snake tattooed on Burr’s arm as he grabbed Epifanio and spun him around. She felt herself pulled free of Epifanio’s grasp and flung past him. She hit the wall hard and, momentarily stunned, slid down in a heap.

  “I told you to leave her alone.”

  Dazed, she watched Burr confront Epifanio. He was easily as tall as the Mexican, but lean where the other man was barrel-shaped. His hair was as shiny black as a raven’s wing and clubbed into a tail at his nape. He wore tight black jeans and black cowboy boots.

  Burr was all sinew and bone. And clearly dangerous. His spread-legged stance was challenging, his balled fists intimidating. A muscle worked where his jaw was clenched. His eyes were a brown so deep it was almost black. There was no compassion in those beautiful dark eyes, just cold-blooded menace.

  “Stay out of this, Burr,” Epifanio warned. “The woman is mine.”

  “She belongs to Hector. He’ll have your hide if you keep up with what you’re doing. Let her be, Epifanio.”

  Epifanio’s eyes narrowed. His lips flattened. “Get outta my way, Burr.”

  Burr didn’t move an inch.

  A switchblade appeared in Epifanio’s hand. Lindsey flinched when she heard the snick as he flipped the blade from its sheath.

  “Move outta my way, Burr.”

  Burr shook his head, a slight, almost imperceptible movement.

  Epifanio lunged with the knife, intent on catching Burr by surprise. Burr caught the wrist of the hand that held the switchblade just as it reached his body, turning it aside so the knife skimmed across his chest instead of plunging into it. Lindsey gasped when she saw the streak of red left by the blade.

  It dawned on Lindsey that she could escape while the two men were locked in mortal combat. She inched backward toward the door but found it impossible to take her eyes from the drama unfolding before her. It seemed unlikely that Burr would win. He was outmatched in size and strength by the other man. Given that scenario, it was imperative that she escape if she could.

  She scrambled toward the door on her hands and knees, forcing herself to ignore the fact that Burr was probably going to die for coming to her rescue. He was a villain, just like the others. If Epifanio didn’t kill him, he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison for kidnapping her.

  Lindsey pulled herself upright using the doorknob. She had opened the door a mere inch when someone grabbed her, and a flat male palm forced the door shut.

  She made a guttural sound deep in her throat that was part outrage, part fear. She turned with her fingers arched into claws aimed at her captor’s face, then realized it was Burr who had hold of her. She searched quickly for Epifanio and saw him lying on the floor, the switchblade imbedded in his chest.

  Her hand froze in midair, and her stomach revolted at the sight of the dead man. Her eyes shot to Burr’s face, which gave no evidence of any feeling whatsoever—neither revulsion nor remorse—for what he had done.

  She swallowed back the bile burning her throat. “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “The hell if I know,” he muttered viciously. “We’d damn well better get out of here. Keep your mouth shut when we’re in the hall.” He opened the door and started to drag her through it.

  Lindsey was too terrified to cooperate with her savior—an unshaven man in a black T-shirt and jeans, a man with a pierced ear and a ponytail and a snake tattoo, simply didn’t fit her image of a knight in shining armor. “Let me go,” she pleaded. “I won’t tell them anything about you.”

  “Look, Blue Eyes—” As Burr spoke, there was a shout from the other room.

  It was Tex.

  “Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Tex took one look at Epifanio’s body, and a gun appeared in his hand from a holster that had apparently been hidden inside his denim jacket. He aimed it in Burr’s—and therefore Lindsey’s—direction.

  “You sonofabitch!” he hissed.

  Lindsey squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of the deadly gun bore, waiting for the sound of shots. But there was only one deafening blast, close to her ear. Her eyes flashed open.

  Tex lay in the doorway, a pool of blood spreading on the beige carpet around his body.

  She turned to stare, horrified, at Burr, who was holding a .38 snub-nosed revolver in his hand. While she watched, he returned the small, deadly weapon to his boot.

  Lindsey had been in such a constant state of terror for the past few minutes that her body quivered from excess adrenaline. She felt dizzy, and she wanted desperately to give in to the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted even more to live. And she knew that if she fainted now, she might never see daylight again. Her eyes sought out Burr’s, wondering what the chances were that he would let her go.

  “You’re in shock,” he said matter-of-factly. He manhandled her over to the couch, forced her to sit, and shoved her head down between her knees. When she tried to rise, he ordered, “Stay there!”

  He peered out into the hall, looking to see if anyone was curious or stupid enough to personally investigate the shot. “We don’t have much time. Someone has probably called the authorities about that gunshot.”

  Lindsey closed her eyes to avoid seeing the two bodies and breathed deeply, trying to regain her equilibrium. She heard Burr pacing the carpet and muttering to himself. He picked up the phone receiver and dropped it back into the cradle.

  “Damn! Damn it to hell!”

  She sat up and stared at the furious man standing spread-legged across from her with his hands on his hips.

  “I guess I don’t have any choice,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Go where?” Lindsey demanded in her most imperious voice.

  “Look, Blue Eyes. When I say ‘jump’ you say ‘how high?’

  Have you got that?” He grabbed a black leather jacket off one of the chairs and slipped his arms into it.

  “If you let me go,” Lindsey said, “I’ll tell my father you saved me from those two men.”

  “Hell, if I let you go, Hector will just snatch you back up again. Or shoot you or your father or some other member of your family. He means business. You don’t have any choice. You’re coming with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Damn it, just do what you’re told!” He grabbed her arm and yanked her up off the couch.

  Lindsey tried to jerk herself free, but ended up nearly wrenching her arm from the socket. She saw the direction Burr’s eyes took as she slammed into him and looked down to see what he found so fascinating. Which was when she realized the extent of the damage to her bodice. The merry widow was far more concealing than many bathing suits she had worn, but it was an undergarment. It did its job well, forcing her generous breasts upward so that a great deal of flesh was mounded above the two white cups.

  Burr swore. “You’re not going anywhere like that without attracting more attention than I want.” He pulled off his jacket and handed it to her. “Put that on.”

  She looked down the full-length taffeta skirt all the way to where her toes curled into the thick carpet. “I don’t think your jacket is going to completely solve the problem.” It was warm, though, and smelled, surprisingly, of a very male aftershave.

  Burr pursed his lips as he observed her bare feet. “I suppose you’re right. Guess we’ll have to use the stairs down to the garage in the basement.”

  She started to take the jacket off, and he said curtly, Keep it.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to protest, just grabbed her hand and headed for the door. He stopped at the portal and turned to her. “If you scream, I’ll have to knock you out. Do you understand?”

  Lindsey nodded. She had no doubt he would do as he promised. Her mind was racing, trying to think of some way she could escape him. But no one appeared in the stairwell, and she knew he would catch her if she tried to flee. They had nearly reached the g
arage in the basement. Lindsey knew she was running out of time. She had to take the chance that someone would hear her and come to her rescue.

  She took a deep breath and screamed.

  “Damn you, lady! I warned you!”

  Lindsey saw the fist coming, felt her teeth snap when flesh connected with flesh, felt her legs begin to crumple under her. She was stunned, but not unconscious, so she heard Burr swear again as he caught her in his arms, threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and moved stealthily into the garage.

  Chapter 2

  BURR WAS FURIOUS at the way things had turned out. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. He had hoped to let the situation play out naturally. But Tex and Epifanio had gotten the bright idea to rape the governor’s daughter. He couldn’t let that happen, so he had interfered.

  And blown eighteen months of undercover work as a member of the Texas Mafia.

  He damned all spoiled little rich girls, like Miss Lindsey Major, who believed they were immune to the rules that applied to everybody else, who considered themselves too far above the vermin that roamed the dark alleys of the world to ever be threatened by them. She had been told that Hector Martinez was planning something. Burr had risked a great deal to make the anonymous phone call to the governor’s mansion himself. She had answered the phone, so he knew she had been made aware of the danger. And damned if she hadn’t ignored his warning and gone out to that charity ball after all!

  She had cavalierly dismissed the security man at the end of the walk, instead of having him escort her to the front door of the mansion—where she had been snatched and dragged back into the concealing forsythia bushes before she could get inside.

  But he had to admire her spunk. No tears from Miss Lindsey Major, just clawed fists and fight. Unfortunately, she had complicated things by screaming when he had warned her to be quiet. God only knew what repercussions there would be when word got out that he had hit her.

  Hell, he hadn’t wanted to take the job in the first place, but the captain of the Rangers had convinced him that someone had to do it. The last Texas Ranger they had sent undercover, Burr’s best friend, Lieutenant Larry Williams, had been found dead in his car trunk. Burr was a natural to take Larry’s place, the captain had said, because he had grown up in the gangs in Houston along with Larry, and he knew the rackets. He had the snake tattoo from his youth and understood the lingo. A pierced ear and long hair and a black leather jacket had completed his disguise. No one with the Texas Mafia had suspected Burr Covington was actually a lieutenant in the Texas Rangers.

  He had been really close to nailing Hector Martinez for the murder of his friend, but all that effort was down the john now. It was some comfort to know he would be able to convict Hector of kidnapping the governor’s daughter. But they would have to catch Hector first, and that was going to be more difficult than it sounded. Hector had more underground hiding places than a rattlesnake.

  Burr wasn’t sure what to do now. He had been hoping against hope that he could continue his role undercover. But after what he had done to Epifanio and Tex, and with the governor’s daughter in his custody, there wasn’t much chance of that. He needed to get in touch with Captain Rogers and find out what he was supposed to do with the woman. With any luck, it would be a simple matter of tucking her away somewhere safe until they either caught Hector or the Turk’s death sentence was carried out.

  Burr set the governor’s daughter down on the passenger side of a black Jaguar with black leather seats. The car happened to be his own, but it fit the image he had been portraying, so he had used it. He saw the woman was regaining consciousness, so he gave her cheek a little slap.

  “Wake up,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  He might as well tell her who he was, Burr figured. That way she was more liable to cooperate. Although, even that wasn’t a guarantee. A woman used to ordering people around, a woman used to having her own way, wasn’t going to like taking orders. Only, Burr was determined to stay in control of the situation, even if she was the governor’s daughter and had the damnedest blue eyes he had ever seen. Not to mention a few other hard-to-ignore assets.

  His gaze slid to the opening in his jacket, where her breasts rose as she heaved in a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. He had an uncontrollable urge—which he carefully controlled—to put his mouth against her flesh to see if it was as delectable as it looked.

  He heard her gasp and lifted his gaze to meet hers. Damn, but her eyes were beautiful! They were wide-set and heavily lashed and large enough for a man to get lost in. He could see why they said she had the bluest eyes in Texas. Except, they weren’t blue, really. More a sort of lilac color. But definitely unique and absolutely dazzling.

  Now he noticed that the rest of her features were rather ordinary. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth wide and full. Her chin jutted slightly, but he figured that was probably because she made a habit of leading with it. She was always going to attract male attention with her lush figure, and her mane of golden hair was indeed a crowning glory.

  It was said she used those eyes of hers to put a man on his knees and get her own way. Well, those baby blues weren’t going to work on him.

  All the same, he felt a jolt of guilty shame when she accused him of wrongdoing with her eyes and followed that with the outraged statement, “You hit me!”

  With an effort, he managed a shrug. “It was your own damn fault. I warned you not to scream.”

  He watched as she pulled the jacket closed. So. She had caught him looking at her. She must be wondering what his intentions were. Hell, he wouldn’t mind having her under him in bed. What man wouldn’t? But he knew better than to think he could have what he wanted. She was the governor’s daughter. He was a man who had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks.

  He bent down on one knee beside the open door and realized with an inward sigh that she had brought him to his knees, after all. “Look, Blue Eyes—Miss Major—we have to talk.”

  She swallowed hard but said nothing.

  He was uncomfortable kneeling beside the door, and there was always the chance she would get it into her head to scream again. He stood and closed the car door and started around the front of the Jaguar to the driver’s side.

  Before he had gotten halfway around the car, she shoved open her door and ran, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Burr caught her before she had gone twenty feet, tackling her like a football player, the two of them rolling over and over until they were stopped by a concrete abutment in a dark corner of the garage. He came to rest lying on top of her, uncomfortably aware of the feminine shape beneath him. His body reacted instantly, instinctively.

  Burr was embarrassed and unable to stop the slow flush that climbed his throat. His body had responded like some randy teenager’s to the feel of her flesh between his thighs, rather than like the rational, professional, thirty-six-year-old Texas Ranger he was. Hell, he was probably going to have to answer to the captain for that, too.

  Lindsey recognized the hardness pressing against her abdomen and felt a renewed terror at her predicament. Worse, Burr’s weight kept her from taking a breath, which she desperately needed since the fall had knocked the wind from her.

  She knew frustration when she saw it. Her father rarely lost his temper, though he could become dangerously angry. Burr’s dark eyes burned now with that same controlled fury.

  “Damn you. I ought to…” He didn’t finish his threat. His eyes searched the garage, looking for whoever might have heard her scream.

  Her mouth worked as she gasped, “Please…Please. I…can’t breathe.”

  He eased his weight onto his arms, but held her captive with his lower body—his aroused lower body. “That was a stupid thing to do, Blue Eyes.”

  She noticed he had given up the deferential Miss Major.

  She felt a surge of hope when she saw a couple come out of the elevator and start toward their car.

  “Don’t make a so
und,” Burr hissed in her ear.

  Lindsey opened her mouth to scream.

  And Burr covered it with his.

  There was nothing sensuous about his kiss. It was brutal, intended to keep her silent until the couple was gone. She bucked with all her strength at the same time she tried to bite him.

  His mouth flattened, but he didn’t otherwise respond to the pain she knew she must be causing him with her teeth. His hips pressed her down, so she felt the roughness of the concrete against her legs and back where her gown was rucked up.

  She heard a car starting and the squeal of rubber on cement as it drove away. She closed her eyes so Burr wouldn’t see the defeat she felt. A moment later he caught both her hands in one of his, while his other hand replaced his mouth to silence her.

  “Look at me,” he demanded. He used his hold on her to force her face toward him when she didn’t respond and repeated, “Look at me!”

  Lindsey opened her eyes and looked at him defiantly.

  “In a moment I’m going to let you go. If you scream, I will knock you out—all the way out. Blink those pretty blue eyes of yours if you understand.”

  She blinked her eyes once, slowly.

  He removed his hand, then stared at her, daring her to scream.

  Burr watched in consternation as tears welled in the bluest eyes in Texas. They made her eyes luminescent and, he decided, even more attractive. He was aroused again—or still. And she was obviously terrified of him because of it. He quickly levered himself off her and reached down to help her up. She refused his hand, stumbling to her feet.

  Burr was just about to start explaining things when she ran again. He quickly caught her, shoving her up against the concrete wall. He stapled her hands flat on either side of her head against the rough surface and snapped, “Damn it, I’m a Texas Ranger! I’ve been working undercover. You’re safe. Do you hear me? You’re safe!”

  “A Texas Ranger?”

  Burr nodded curtly.