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

by Joan Johnston

  He felt her whole body relax against him. Then the tears came in earnest. It was obvious she was fighting them, and he debated whether he ought to try to comfort her. But that sort of thing could be easily misconstrued, and he already had enough to answer to the captain for.

  The heartrending sound of a broken sob moved him to put his arms around her and, once he had done that, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to pull her into his embrace and murmur calming words in her ear. His body once again reacted in a totally male way to her femaleness.

  Burr had never had much use for prima donnas, and Lindsey Major certainly qualified as one. Unfortunately his body didn’t know a thing about her personality; it was reacting strictly to the primeval need of male for female. He tightened his hold, feeling the swell of her breasts against his muscular chest.

  Lindsey had thrown her arms around the Texas Ranger in relief, and they caught in the ponytail at his nape, which was surprisingly silky. She trembled at the feel of Burr’s lips, soft and soothing against her forehead as he crooned words of comfort. And she was aware, again, of the fact that he was attracted to her in a way that was totally inappropriate to the situation.

  Now that she was no longer in terror for her life, however, she realized with no little distress that his arousal had sparked an answering response from her. It was easiest to attribute her reaction to the Ranger as simple relief that he wasn’t one of the bad guys. It couldn’t possibly be more than that. She didn’t know this man and, judging from the looks of him, he wasn’t someone she would ever want to know. It would be best to defuse the situation as quickly as possible.

  “You can let me go now,” she said.

  “What?” Burr had been so caught up in the pleasure of what he was doing that he was slow to notice the governor’s daughter withdrawing from his embrace.

  He met her gaze and saw the tears were gone, replaced by an icy look of disdain. The governor’s daughter—a woman the newspapers had recently labeled an elusive ice princess because she was never seen twice with the same male escort—was back.

  Burr stepped away, grabbed Lindsey’s arm and, without looking back, dragged her toward his car.

  Naturally she resisted. “Where are you taking me?”

  Burr raised a brow at her commanding tone of voice. “Somewhere you’ll be safe.”

  “I demand that you take me home.”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible right now.”

  She dug in her heels, and he was forced to stop or hurt her. He didn’t want to be accused of using unnecessary force.

  “I insist you let me call my father right now and tell him I’m all right.”

  “Not here.” Anticipating her argument, he explained, “There’s still a chance one of Hector’s goons may show up.”

  She hesitated, evaluating what he had said. “All right, I’ll go with you. But we stop as soon as it’s safe, and I call my father. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Of course, her idea of when it might be safe to stop and his probably differed. But Burr didn’t think this was the time to bring that up.

  The Jaguar was the kind of car Lindsey expected a man like Burr to own. Racy. Fast. Dark. Dangerous. She wondered if he had been given the car as part of his cover and realized she was having trouble making the leap from “bad guy” to “good guy” where he was concerned. Burr simply didn’t look the part of guardian angel.

  Burr opened the passenger door, shoved Lindsey in less carefully this time, and slammed it behind her. He slid over the hood and got in on the other side. The engine started with a roar that became a purr as he pulled out of the garage. He slipped from the city street onto I-35 and accelerated.

  Lindsey blinked her eyes against the bright sunlight. The instant she realized Burr had gotten onto the interstate, her alarm returned. “Where are you going?”

  “I told you, somewhere Hector can’t find you.”

  Her eyes widened. “You never intended to let me make a phone call, did you?” She reached for the door handle.

  “Don’t even think about jumping out,” he said. “You’d end up seriously injured or dead. Trust me.”

  “Trust you? First you hit me, then you fall on me like a beast in rut and manhandle me like I was some criminal, and now you’re driving me God knows where and threatening me with dire consequences if I try to leave your august presence! Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”

  “I saved your life.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Well, there is that,” she conceded ruefully.

  “Look, I can’t take you anywhere near the governor’s mansion until I talk to my captain. Hector may have someone watching the place. I don’t want to be seen returning you home. In fact, I’ve got to find someplace to hide us both.”

  “Why do you have to hide?” Her eyes went wide with a sudden horrible thought. “You weren’t lying about being a Ranger, were you?”

  His lips curled in a bitter smile. “No, I’m a Ranger, all right. But there’s a slight problem nobody counted on.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hector is liable to be a bit perturbed when he finds out I killed his brother.”

  “His brother?”

  “Epifanio.”

  “Oh, no!”

  Lindsey bit her lip worriedly as Burr exited west onto U.S. 290 heading toward Fredericksburg and the hill country. A long, poignant silence developed as she watched the miles fly by. Her glance slid to the man driving the Jaguar. Maybe she simply hadn’t given him the right incentive to take her home.

  “I’m sure my father would reward you generously—with a great deal of money—if you would just take me home.”

  “Do you think you’re worth it?”

  She arched an aristocratic brow. “What do you mean?”

  “I know for a fact you were warned not to go out last night. Why did you?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You made it my business when you got yourself kidnapped.”

  “I had promised to attend the ball. I had to go.”

  “So you were just doing what spoiled little rich girls do, is that it?”

  “Spoiled—” Lindsey bit back her retort. She wasn’t going to argue with a man wearing a ponytail and a diamond earring. “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know what I read in the papers.”

  Lindsey laughed. “I suspected you were a fool. Now I’ve got proof.”

  He glanced sharply at her.

  “Anyone who believes what he reads in the papers—”

  “Is a fool?” he interrupted. “But then, I’ve had a chance to judge you for myself now. At least one thing they said is true. You’ve got the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. And from the looks of you, I’m inclined to believe there’s some truth in the rest of what I’ve read.”

  “You mean, that I’m spoiled rotten, the ‘very much indulged’ daughter of a very powerful man?” Lindsey said, her voice rife with indignation as she quoted a recent society news article.

  “If the panty hose fit…”

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her a thorough perusal with eyes that held their share of disapproval and disdain.

  Lindsey gave him a withering look of scorn. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  He snorted. “You can say that again.”

  She noticed with some alarm that he had turned off the highway onto a winding dirt road that was shaded by live oaks. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace private where I can use the phone.”

  “Remember, I want to talk to my father.”

  He brought the Jaguar to a stop in front of a small wooden cabin with a roofed porch and a stone chimney. The cabin was unpainted, and the split wood had been aged by wind and weather. There was a picture window in front, with a door to one side of it.

  “Get inside,” he said.

  Lindsey sat where she was.

  “Go on,” he said. “There’s no one here but us
.”

  Lindsey stayed where she was. “What is this place?”

  Burr exited the car, slid over the hood and opened her door. “Are you coming out of there on your own, or am I going to have to drag you out?”

  Lindsey dipped a bare foot out of the car. She winced when she encountered the small, sharp stones on the drive. Before she had taken two painful steps, Burr swept her up into his arms. She instinctively grabbed his shoulders. The muscles beneath the T-shirt were rock hard. Her eyes met his, questioning.

  “You don’t weigh as much as I thought you would.”

  She flushed at the insult buried in the compliment. She was five-ten in her stocking feet, and nobody had ever accused her of being skinny. Fortunately, he was easily six inches taller. He carried her up to the porch and set her down.

  She didn’t thank him. After all, it wasn’t her fault she didn’t have any shoes.

  Burr opened the door and gave her a nudge inside.

  Lindsey lifted her chin and, once she regained her balance, walked past him as regally as a queen. She thought she heard him grunt in disgust, but refused to give him the satisfaction of a response.

  She looked around the cabin, which was sparingly furnished. There was an old leather couch and a rawhide-covered chair in front of the stone fireplace. The hardwood floor was polished to a high sheen, but there were no rugs of any kind on it. Nor were there curtains on any of the windows.

  She could see the kitchen from the living room. It contained a small wooden table and two ladderback chairs. She suspected the other doorway led to the bedroom and bath. There wasn’t room for much else.

  She turned to face Burr with her hands folded in front of her. “Now what?”

  “Now I have to make some calls.”

  Lindsey looked around for a phone, but didn’t see one.

  “Not here,” he said. “I have to go into town.”

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

  “Wait here for me.”

  Lindsey swallowed her outrage and managed to say in a reasonable voice, “Why can’t I go with you?”

  “I can’t take the chance you’ll draw attention with those blue eyes of yours. You’ll be safer here.”

  “I can always wear sunglasses,” she snapped.

  “I don’t have a pair handy. Do you?”

  Obviously she didn’t.

  “You’ll be safer here,” he said.

  “Safer?” she asked in a sharp voice. “What if one of Hector’s men finds me here? I’m totally defenseless!”

  Burr snorted. “I wouldn’t say that. You didn’t do so badly at the hotel.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said with asperity. “I know what Hector had planned for me. I heard you talking through the door.” She paused and admitted, “I’m scared.”

  Burr’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to debate a moment before he spoke. “You’ve got nothing to fear if you stay here.”

  Lindsey looked at him, really looked at him. At the long hair. The earring. The twice-broken nose. The snake tattoo. “I repeat, I don’t see anything that leads me to believe I can trust you to have my best interests at heart.”

  “As someone recently told me, appearances can be deceiving.”

  “I won’t stay here alone,” she said. “The moment you’re gone, I’ll walk back to the road.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He moved amazingly fast, catching her arms and dragging them behind her. He found rope in the kitchen and tied her hands. He wasn’t precisely rough, but he yanked the clothesline cord tight around her wrists. He pushed her toward the open doorway that led to what turned out to be, as she had suspected, the bedroom.

  He picked her up and dumped her on the bed before tying her ankles together. “You should do all right here until I come back.”

  “How long is that going to be?” She felt humiliated and indignant, and both of those emotions were apparent in her voice.

  “Not long enough for you to work yourself free of those ropes,” he said, as though reading her mind. “Just lie still and be good. I’ll bring you back something to eat.”

  Lindsey suddenly realized she was famished. It had been almost twenty-four hours since her last meal. But she refused to be mollified by the bone he had thrown her. “My father will have your badge when he hears about how you’ve treated me. You’ll be writing parking tickets for the rest of your life!”

  “I’m sorry to have to do this,” he said as he tied a pillowcase around her mouth. “I don’t think there’s anybody around to hear you if you scream, but I can’t take the chance.”

  Then he was gone. She heard stones scattering as he left the driveway. She immediately tested her bonds, but they didn’t give. She began looking around the room to see what she might use to cut herself free. Then it dawned on her that he hadn’t tied her to the bed. There was nothing to keep her from just getting up and hopping away.

  BURR WAS WORRIED. He wondered whether it might not have been smarter to take the governor’s daughter home, after all. But he knew that wouldn’t have solved anything. Hector would just make some attempt on some other member of the family. No, this had to be solved while Hector still thought someone on his side had the woman.

  Burr was also angry with himself for not finding some other way to rescue “the bluest eyes in Texas” without having to kill Hector’s brother. But he hadn’t been given a choice. At least he had the girl—the woman, he corrected himself—to bargain with. And what a woman!

  Lindsey Major was the kind of woman he had always dreamed about, whenever he let himself dream. She was tall, with lush curves and soft skin. He knew about the soft skin because he’d had to touch her to tie her up. And he knew about the curves because he had picked her up and held her in his arms.

  Burr felt his body respond to the memory of how she had felt with her warm breasts nestled against his chest. He cursed under his breath. He might as well desire some image on a movie screen. He had about the same chance of intimacy with the governor’s blue-eyed daughter.

  He found a phone booth in the small town closest to the cabin. The town consisted of a gas station and a general store, which also contained a post office. People stopped here for gas or to get a soda on their way to hunt in the hill country, or on their way to go floating down the many streams in the area on an inflated inner tube. He hadn’t come here once in the eighteen months he had worked for Hector, and he was pretty sure there was no way Hector could trace him here.

  He called the governor’s mansion, knowing that was where the captain would be. It took a while for someone to acknowledge who he was and to get the captain on the phone.

  “I’ve been compromised,” Burr said.

  “Damn!” A pause and then, “Is she safe?”

  “I’ve got her.”

  “Where?”

  “At my cabin in the hill country.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had to kill Hector’s brother.”

  “Come on in, Burr. The game’s up.”

  Burr shook his head, then realized Captain Rogers couldn’t see him. “No, Captain. I haven’t spent the past eighteen months undercover with these bastards to have it all go down the drain now. I think I can still get Hector. But I need to do something with the governor’s daughter. Is there someplace I can drop her off?”

  There was a long pause, and Burr heard Captain Rogers discussing the situation with those around him.

  “You there, Burr?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want you to call Hector and tell him you’re willing to deal for the governor’s daughter.” Frank continued speaking, telling Burr the details of the plan he had worked out with the other law enforcement officials who had responded to the governor’s call for assistance.

  When Frank had finished, Burr said, “I don’t like it. I could manage better without the woman.”

  “She’s safe with you. We’ll take care of Hector.”

  “Hector’s
not going to deal unless he sees me in person,” Burr said.

  “You call him. Offer him the deal. Then sit tight with Miss Major.”

  “I think Miss Major would be happier if she went home.”

  “That’s not an option, Burr.”

  “But, sir—”

  “Don’t waste your breath arguing. The decision has been made. Miss Major stays with you.”

  Burr heard someone ask for the phone.

  “This is Governor Major. Who am I speaking to?”

  “This is Ranger Lieutenant Covington,” Burr replied.

  “How is my daughter?” the governor asked. “Is she all right?”

  Burr heard the emotion in the governor’s voice. He’s going to have my head, all right. Just like she said. “She’s fine, Governor.”

  “She’s not hurt?”

  “No, sir. She’s just as beautiful as the newspapers say. And just as contrary.” Burr swore under his breath. Why did I say that? I’m going to get my tail kicked all the way back to Austin for insubordination.

  He heard the governor chuckle. “That’s my girl, all right.” He gave a patent sigh of relief. “Thank you, Lieutenant Covington. Take care of her for me.”

  “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

  “You heard the governor, Burr,” the captain said. “I’ll get back to you when we’ve taken care of Hector. Until then, you take care of Miss Major.”

  “Yes, sir.” Burr waited for a click, then slammed the phone onto the hook. A moment later he picked it up again and began to dial.

  When Hector came on the line, Burr pricked him by asking, “Did you lose something?”

  “Where is she?” Hector demanded.

  “I’ve got her.”

  “What happened?”

  Burr said nothing.

  “I asked you what happened.”

  “They gave me no choice.”

  “The girl belongs to me. I want her.”

  “I want to make a deal, Hector.”

  “You bring her to me now, and I might let you live,” Hector said. “Otherwise, I’ll hunt you down. And kill you and the girl both.”

  Burr quickly gave Hector the terms Captain Rogers had outlined. When Hector arrived at the rendezvous site, there would be law enforcement officials of all kinds waiting to apprehend him.