Desert Storm

by Ryan, Nan

  “But, Angie, you …”

  “My breakfast, please, Delores, I must hurry.”

  DESPITE THE CHIDING of Miss Emily and Delores, Angie, determined to appear older than her years, bought a large wardrobe of lavish, sophisticated gowns. Purposely choosing the richest, most costly fabrics and the most exclusive dressmakers, Angie was soon appearing each evening for dinner draped in extraordinarily bold and beautiful gowns and newly purchased jewels.

  The elite of San Antonio was shocked and fascinated by the beautiful, daring McClain widow. Although some of the older, more sedate ladies of the society set whispered indignantly behind their bejeweled hands about the fun-loving young widow, they, like all the others, waited eagerly each night for Angie and Miss Emily to arrive in their midst, if for no other reason than to see what the flamboyant blond beauty would be wearing.

  One night Angie would appear in a gunmetal-gray brocade with white chiffon trim and a set of rare black pearls around her creamy throat. The next, it might be brown chiffon with diamonds glittering on her wrist and at her earlobes, bold black satin and pearls, or pink velvet and rubies. Her new wardrobe was extensive, and she was never seen in the same stunning gown twice. Each new gown had one thing in common; all were the latest, most brazen style, brashly enhancing and displaying her curvaceous figure and creamy décolletage. When she and Miss Emily entered a restaurant, a theater or a gala party, all heads turned to look at Angie—to admire, to assess and to gape in appreciation or shock.

  Angie loved the attention. She swept into the opulent rooms as though she had done so all her life. She found, to her mild amazement, that when one cares little or nothing for the people one associates with, it is simple indeed to be at ease, to be charming, lively and entertaining. How natural and effortless it was to make the handsome, young gentlemen fall under her spell with just a brief smile, a lowering of her thick, dark lashes and a few clever words.

  Good-looking young men clamored for her attention. Rarely did she favor one with an acceptance to an invitation for dinner or an evening at the opera; she belonged to them all and they all belonged to her. She preferred to go out in the company of Miss Emily; to enjoy the constant male attention; to dance and flirt and laugh, and return to the hotel with the older woman. Holding the swains at arm’s length tended only to whet their healthy appetites and they found her indifference frustrating, but undeniably challenging to their male egos. Many young men lost sleep over the beautiful widow, while Angie promptly dismissed them all from her mind the minute they were out of her sight.

  The busy, wind-chilled autumn in San Antonio was one long, unending round of parties, wine suppers and visits to the theater. Angie’s life was fast-paced, pleasure-filled and carefree. She was active and occupied every waking moment. Leading such an interesting, varied, unexpectedly rich life, Angie was surprised that there was time left to ever think of the handsome, heartless Pecos McClain.

  But there was.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  IT WAS A BITTER COLD DAY in January. Angie awakened early. She lay in her bed looking idly up at the yellow canopy overhead. When she and Miss Emily had returned from San Antonio before Christmas, Angie had moved back into her old room on the ground floor. By doing so, she could almost pretend that the horror that was her wedding night had never taken place.

  Unfortunately, this room, too, held painful memories. Memories of the darkly handsome Pecos slipping into her bed on a sweltering summer night to take her virginity and her heart. Too clearly she could hear the small gold-and-pearl music box beside them on the bed. Too vividly she could recall the smoldering gray eyes looking down at her, the blistering kisses, the heated hands and the masterful male body.

  Angie sighed and rose from the bed. Half an hour later she stepped into Ángel’s stall. The mare’s eyes looked wild and she tossed her head from side to side, snorting nervously.

  “There, girl,” Angie soothed, patting the sleek golden neck. “How are you feeling? Hmm, are you all right, Ángel? You feel like taking me for a short ride?”

  Angie spoke in soft, soothing tones while she saddled the mare and led her out of the stable. Still, the horse was skittish and not herself. Angie looped the reins over the mare’s shiny neck, put a booted foot into the stirrup and swung up astride the nervous beast.

  “Let’s go, Ángel,” Angie murmured. She nudged with her trousered knees and gently slapped the reins from side to side. The gentle horse wanted no one on her back, not even her mistress. Her eyes wild, Ángel made shrill whinnying sounds and reared high in the air, her front feet flailing ferociously.

  Angie’s eyes were as wide and frightened as her mare’s. Caught unawares, she felt herself going over backward, destined for the cold, hard ground. Her feet left the stirrups and the reins were jerked from her hands. For a split second Angie managed to balance herself on the rearing horse. She started to scream as she felt herself falling.

  A pair of strong hands encircled her small waist and plucked her from the panicky horse, setting her on her feet in one swift movement. Her legs like putty, she stood swaying behind the well-built Mexican man now holding the reins, effectively calming her horse. Amazed, Angie watched the palomino respond to the low-spoken Spanish words and caressing hands of the man who’d saved her from disaster. When he turned, he was smiling warmly, his gold tooth drawing Angie’s attention.

  “Señora, Ángel says she is very sorry but she does not feel like a ride today.” Reno Sanchez winked at Angie. “I am Reno Sanchez. You remember me, no?”

  Angie recalled meeting the friendly Mexican at last summer’s courthouse dedication. He had been there in the general store with Pecos; the two were good friends.

  “Mr. Sanchez,” Angie said, smiling at him, her heart beginning to slow. “Thank you so much for … for saving me. Of course I remember you.”

  “Reno, señora. Call me Reno.” He took her elbow, guiding her back toward Ángel’s stable. With his other hand, he led the docile mare behind them.

  “I … I don’t know why Ángel acted up. She’s never done it before,”

  “Ah, she is with foal.” Reno’s dark eyes flashed. “Maybe she doesn’t feel so good today.”

  Inside the stall, Reno loosened the cinch beneath Ángel’s fat belly and pulled the saddle from her back. “Yes, of course.” Angie nodded. “It was foolish and uncaring of me to take her out when I knew she didn’t want to go.”

  Reno’s strong hands were sweeping over the swollen stomach of the palomino. “It’s all right. She is okay now. She will produce a great colt. Pecos told me he bred her to Diablo so he will have a young stallion to replace him.”

  At the mention of Pecos’s name, Angie felt her face grow warm and her stomach flip-flop. She was dying to ask this friendly man who was Pecos’s good friend if he’d heard from Pecos and if Pecos ever mentioned returning to Del Sol. “She will produce a good colt, I’m sure. Will Pecos come to take it back to Mexico? That’s where he is? Mexico?” She held her breath.

  “Sí. As far as I know he is working our mine in Buenaventura.” Reno turned from the horse. “I have not heard from Pecos in weeks.”

  “Your mine?”

  “We are partners, Pecos and me. We own the Lost Madre gold mine together.”

  “If you own a mine, Reno, why are you here at Del Sol? Why aren’t you with’Pecos?”

  Reno flushed. “Ah, we don’t have enough money yet. I stay here to make money and save. Later, I will—”

  “Are you sure you can trust Pe—your partner?”

  “Trust Pecos?” He laughed gleefully, “señora, I trust Pecos with anything I have!”

  “Reno, I don’t want to make you angry, but, well … that day I met you … you recall?”

  “In the general store in Marfa,” he said with a nod. “At the courthouse dedication, sí?”

  “Yes. As I recall, Pecos treated you … well, I thought he was terrible. He showed you very little respect.”

  “Oh, that is Pecos’s way.
He did not mean anything by it. He is a good man, a generous man.” Reno again took her elbow, turning her, to go back out of the corral. A brown forefinger going up to his mouth, he proudly pointed to the shiny gold tooth. “See this? Pecos bought it for me.”

  “That was … kind. How did you lose your tooth?”

  “Pecos knocked it out.”

  Angie was horrified. “You see! He’s a violent, uncaring man.”

  “No, señora, you are wrong. I’ve known Pecos a long time. He knocked my tooth out because I deserved it. He caught me cheating at poker and he hit me in the mouth. I told him I would never again cheat and he bought me a gold tooth. Pecos only fights when he …”

  “Speaking of fights, how did he get the scar on his …” Angie stopped speaking, flustered, and her eyes quickly dropped from Reno’s face. Unthinking, she had mentioned a scar she should never have seen. “That is … I … one day Pecos came into the courtyard with no shirt and I saw …” Angie felt her face flushing hotly. “He said he got it over a woman,” she hurried on.

  “Sí.” Reno’s eyes grew somber. “Pecos was cut from here—” he put a brown finger high on his jacket front “—all the way to here.” That finger trailed down his chest and stomach, and came to rest at his hip. Angie watched, nodding, and said nothing, all too aware of the length and width of the white satiny scar that marred the beautiful dark body.

  “Reno,” she ventured, “did some woman’s husband find …”

  “Ah, no, no, señora. The woman, she was my wife.”

  Angie’s mouth gaped open and she almost stumbled. “Your wife? But, I didn’t know you had a wife.”

  “I have no wife now. I lost her, and my son, to the fever in the summer of ’81.”

  “Reno, I’m so sorry.” Angie was touched. “That’s terrible.”

  He fell silent for a moment and then continued. “Back in ’79, the Mescalero Apaches were still wild and Victorio’s band came often to raid and kill, then run back to safety in Mexico. One day my wife, she took our son and rode to Cibolo Creek to bathe and play in the water. Two stragglers from Victorio’s band found her. They meant to rape and kill her, but Pecos was riding Diablo nearby and heard her screams. He killed both braves and he saved my wife and son, but he almost lost his life.” Reno’s dark eyes were deep, pensive. “He is a brave man, Pecos. A good man.”

  Angie listened, trying to imagine the heartless, selfish Pecos as a twenty-year-old, valiantly fighting off two wild Mescaleros to save the life of a Mexican woman and her young son. Dumbfounded, she blurted out, “But he led me to believe that …”

  Reno was smiling again. “Pecos will knock another tooth out of my big mouth if he knows I tell you this. He gets mad if I talk about it. It embarrasses him for anyone to know he is a hero.”

  “Hmm,” she mused, unable to reconcile the man she knew with the one Reno spoke of with such fondness and respect. She was so caught up with the subject of Pecos that she paid no attention to where they were going. Surprised, she looked up to see Pecos’s big black stallion, Diablo, poking his head over the tall corral.

  “Pecos is a generous man,” Reno when on. “He split Lost Madre mine with me because I gave him money for a poker game a long time ago in Paso del Norte. He won the Lost Madre and told me half is mine.” Reno threw the latch on the corral gate and motioned Angie inside.

  “Perhaps Pecos is a good man,” she said, and smiled at Reno.

  “The best, señora,” he said and stepped up to the big-eyed stallion. “And here is the best horse.” Diablo, seemingly unbothered by the cold, pricked up his ears when his name was called, and pranced proudly around before them, as though he knew they were speaking of him.

  Angie smiled, then shivered. Such a magnificent horse! So beautiful, so big, so intimidating. So like his master. Her eyes were riveted to the shiny black horse, and she laughed gaily when Reno called to Diablo and the creature turned his proud head, whinnied grandly and walked to them with an unhurried gait.

  “That’s right, Diablo,” she called breathlessly, “come to Angie. Come boy.”

  Diablo reached them, sniffed, tossed his long mane and finally lifted his velvet muzzle to her. She flashed a happy smile up at Reno, and putting her hand to the cold nose she stroked the hard, shiny flesh, speaking in soft, low tones. “You are really something, Diablo, do you know that? You are dark, menacing and beautiful.” Exactly like your master, she thought secretly.

  “No, no, Diablo is gentle. You want to ride him?” Reno said casually.

  Angie’s head snapped around and her mouth fell open. “He’d let me?”

  Reno chuckled. “Pecos or Diablo, which one do. you mean?”

  “Both, I suppose.”

  “Diablo would be delighted,” Reno hastily assured her. “I will not tell Pecos, if you don’t.” His dark eyes sparkled mischievously.

  “Oh, Reno, I’d so love to ride this big horse.” Angie felt her excitement and anticipation building as Reno went for the saddle. “Are you sure it will be all right?”

  “Angie, he needs the exercise. Do not worry.” He lifted the smooth leather saddle onto the horses’s back. “I take full responsibility if anything happens. Diablo is anxious to get out and run.”

  Angie gave no reply. She stepped closer to the tall black horse and put a warm hand on his sleek neck. Leaning close to his ear, she murmured, “You know, big boy, I’ll bet it’s a thrill to be up on your back.” She petted and rubbed her cheek to his. Raising her head, she looked directly into the big black eyes of the stallion. “How about it, Diablo? Will you let me ride you? I know no one’s ever been on your back but Pecos, but he’s not here. Wouldn’t you like to ride fast across the cold desert, just you and me?”

  Diablo snorted and tossed his head up and down. Angie shook hers in return. “I’ll take that for permission. You and I are going for a ride!”

  Reno waved to the very happy Angie as she and the big mount dropped below the slope of the horizon. Telling himself in rapid Spanish that the ride would be good for both of them, Reno turned and headed back toward the warmth of his adobe home. Before he reached his front steps, snowflakes began to fall on his dark head, melting rapidly.

  Angie rode into the snowstorm, feeling more alive than she had in weeks. The magnificent creature underneath her loped with great, powerful strides; it was thrilling to be atop him. Angie gave Diablo his head, trusting him. Mindless of the rapidly worsening weather, she was as eager as Diablo to eat up the cold ground, to ride far away from the ranch house and the cowboys, to fly across the cold silent land as though no one existed except her and the huge black horse.

  The snow was swirling around Angie’s head. She smiled and lifted her face, squealing like a young child, marveling at the beauty of the large crystal flakes quickly covering the cold, hard ground. Turning back never entered her mind. She loved the exhilaration and the feeling of freedom. Riding this vigorous, beautiful black beast, she could finally put aside pretense. Out here alone, where no one could read her expression or wonder at her mood, Angie could let herself think about the man she missed despite all that had happened.

  Pecos! Her love-filled heart shouted his name. Pecos. Pecos. Pecos. Her stomach knotted with longing. Refusing to remember all of the cruel things he’d said and done, Angie pretended. Her imagination drew her deep into a pleasant daydream. In this dream she was the adored wife of the handsome Pecos McClain. She had never been the wife of Barrett McClain. She and Pecos had met at a grand ball and he had fallen in love with her on sight, insisting boldly that she belonged to him. The courtship was brief; the ardor of her good-looking husband too fiery to wait. On the wedding night, he made love to her with such tenderness and passion, she swooned with the wonder of it. Each night after that he again made love to her, taking her to the heights of ecstasy, wrapping her in his long, protective arms afterward to sleep through the night.

  Angie was lost in her glorious, heartwarming daydream, unaware that the massive beast between her legs was
running faster and faster, sprinting headlong across the freezing, slippery ground. Too long penned up, the mighty stallion thundered wildly into the snow-covered foothills of the Davis Mountains, snorting and blowing, as lost in rapture as the young girl riding him.

  Angie’s lovely dream ended with the sound of bone snapping. It filled her ears and she screamed as the big, shocked brute went down, tossing her over his great head.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE NOON TRAIN CHUGGED into the Marfa station, its wheels slipping on the cold, wet tracks. Pecos McClain, his heavy coat turned up around his ears and his Stetson low on his forehead, stepped down onto the wooden platform. He headed directly to the First State Bank of Marfa on the town’s main street, a small valise in his gloved hand.

  Facing into the cold, howling wind, Pecos gritted his teeth. He’d come home to get a loan from Randolph Huff’s bank and he didn’t relish the few minutes he’d have to spend with the unpleasant bank president. Pecos had borrowed money from the Marfa bank many times, and although he always got the amount he requested, the short, stocky little man with his red cherubic cheeks and small piggish eyes usually clucked his tongue and chided Pecos as though he were a naughty, undeserving child. It rankled Pecos.

  He reached the glass front door of the little bank, took a deep breath and stepped inside the stuffy, too-warm lobby. His gray eyes immediately swung to the glass-enclosed corner office of Randolph Huff. The balding man sat behind his impressive oak desk with his hands folded, looking straight at Pecos. Pecos removed his Stetson and nodded.

  Randolph Huff rose grandly. Pecos crossed the lobby to his office.

  “Come in, my boy.” The bank president eyed the cold, tall Pecos, smiling bemusedly. “You look frozen, Pecos.”

  “Randolph,” Pecos acknowledged, extending his hand across the desk to the short, grinning man.

  “Take off your coat and have a seat.” Randolph Huff lowered himself back into his leather chair, studying Pecos. “What brings you to Marfa on such a cold, forbidding day?”