Wild Sierra Rogue

by Martha Hix

  “Crude?” All innocence, Rafe rounded his eyes. “I was just wondering if Jones will be able to make you a living.”

  Liar. You know exactly what you meant. And it was dirty. “My living is not your concern.”

  Rafe nodded. “I’ll just shut my trap.” A moment passed. “Just one more thing. Did your papá—never mind.”

  A middle-aged couple left their seats, moved down the aisle to sit behind him. Tex started back toward Margaret, but before he arrived, Rafe leaned to whisper, “Did your papá buy that hombre for you? If so, I think ole Gil got cheated.”

  Ooh, to slap that smug grin off his face . . . !

  She wanted to go home.

  She yearned to return to the life only just begun. Thanks to her gender, then to the loss of health, professional recognition had long eluded her. Come January, though, she would begin a professorship at Brandington College, New York City; this being her first year in the classroom, she needed to make preparations. And her babies—

  Tears burned the back of Margaret’s eyes.

  Save your tears for something you have control over, she ordered herself.

  Tex took his place opposite her. Her heart racing for a reason she pegged on the nerves of lying—not to mention being subjected to Rafe’s bullying—she asked Tex with fake sweetness, “Dearest, may I interest you in a game of checkers?”

  A moment passed before she repeated her question. Tex paid no attention, but Rafe certainly did. This in mind, she unpacked her knitting and tried to disregard the insult wreaked upon her pride by Angus Jones McLoughlin’s neglect of duty.

  When she’d arrived at the Four Aces Ranch to rendezvous with her brother—who hadn’t allowed anyone except for their mother to call him Angus in half a dozen years—she’d said to him, “It will be better if others see us as an engaged couple rather than siblings.” After the horrible hurt of Frederick von Nimzhausen and his thievery of her dissertation—as well as her naivete—so many years ago, she was touchy about attention. “I don’t want men getting any ideas I’m available.”

  “Yep, Sis, I understand. Why, those Meskin fellers, they’d woo even a nanny goat just for the fun of it.”

  “You needn’t put it that way, Tex.”

  Be that as it may, then and now she knew attention would never come from Rafael Cuauhtémoc Delgado Aguilar, previously known as the Eagle of Mexico, late of Santa Alicia, State of Chihuahua. The world’s greatest matador, once. Yet, as she traveled toward Mexico with the has-been, she gave the situation another thought. She could have been taking a certain pleasure in allowing him to think she’d landed a young and handsome and adoring swain for her very own.

  The plan would fail before it began, if Tex didn’t play his part to perfection.

  “Tex . . . dearest, do fetch me a lemonade.”

  He waved a hand of dismissal. “Naw. Ain’t interested.”

  “Don’t say ain’t. You’ve been spend—” Gracious, shut up. You treat him as a vexing kid brother, and the whole world will think you’re a fishwife or worse—a sister. But the fact remained: Tex had been spending too much time with the cowboys at the family ranch in Fredericksburg; his English was atrocious and his charm nonexistent, both of which were unpardonable for the adult son of one of Texas’s most prominent families.

  Margaret fell to remembrances. It was a balmy morning, three weeks ago, in her brownstone. The little ones napping in their brass bassinets, the sounds of New Yorkers on Fifth Avenue filtering upward, and the lilt of her cook Bridget’s singing brogue coming from the kitchen, Margaret had just finished reading an article in the Times about a twelve-week-old strike in the coal mines, being resolved with promises of eight-hour days and other concessions. She began to skim a story about the silver mines that honeycombed northern Mexico.

  Then Maisie McLoughlin arrived.

  Amazingly fit and hearty at ninety-eight, Margaret’s great-grandmother carried a letter from Gil McLoughlin. After the import of it sunk in, Margaret wailed, “But I don’t want to go to Mexico.”

  “Me, I would be thinking a trip t’ paradise a nice enough proposition. Did I tell ye aboot the time when Charity and I were taking the waters at Bad Homburg—”

  “This was just before you got caught cheating Bismarck himself at the Wild West show, wasn’t it?” Margaret couldn’t help but interrupt.

  “Let’s no be talking aboot that, lass.” Maisie patted her shoulder. “I would be thinking Mexico of interest t’ ye. Ye are a scholar in Spanish studies.”

  “Mexico has nothing to do with Spain. Not anymore. Anyway, I’ve heard and read quite enough on the halls of Moctezuma. It’s a political nightmare. A hotbed. The devil’s own den.”

  It was peopled by pitiable women, ragged children, and Latin males obsessed with advancing their love lives, or with deposing the country’s first decent president, Porfirio Díaz. Or with both. None of which was any concern to Margaret McLoughlin.

  She had her own situation to consider. “Maisie, I cannot leave my babies to Bridget’s care. She’s new. I barely know her. And from what I can tell, beyond her cooking skills, all she seems to know is some song about taking Kathleen back home.”

  “Ye have me t’ turn t’, lass. I’ll take care of wee Deniece.” Concern set into a century of facial gullies. “The lad, though, he might be too much for the strength of me.”

  “Lunch!”

  Both women turned to rosy-cheeked Bridget. Within a few minutes an acceptable working arrangement had been finalized, utilizing the Irish cook’s brawn and Maisie McLoughlin’s brain to handle Margaret’s precious bundles from heaven.

  She had vowed to make it back in record time.

  Margaret yanked herself back to the present, peering out the train window.

  Texas, miles and miles of Texas greeted her. Not a pretty sight, this part of the state. She glanced at Tex. The blonde did something. He grinned in her direction, his eyes giving every impression of a lovesick calf’s. Where was Margaret’s parasol when she needed it? Heck, even a broom handle would do.

  The train rumbled down the tracks, well into the desert, skirting the muddy depths that divided two countries. In Mexico, they called it the Bravo. Over here it was the Rio Grande—the grand river.

  Rafe tried to siesta, but Margaret’s yammering at her hombre kept him as well as the other passengers owl-eyed. What a bruja. And to think he’d felt sorry for her this very morning. Of course, Rafe knew the problem. Jones and the blonde.

  Natalie Nash, she called herself when Rafe had returned from the water closet and she asked him to have a seat beside her. He’d declined, for unexplainable reasons.

  “Leave him alone,” Rafe growled as Margaret lit into Tex about picking his teeth with the point of his knife.

  “I’ll thank you to mind your own business, Rafe Delgado.”

  He uncrossed his arms to thumb the brim of his Stetson up a notch on his brow. The heel of one hand propped on a knee, he leaned across the aisle. Taking in the disapproval in Margaret’s skeletal face, he said, “You are my business.”

  “I’d like to know how you came up with that,” she hissed.

  “You hired me, and until we get to Tampico, take note. I give the orders and you follow them. ¿Comprende?”

  “You are certainly toplofty for a hired hand.”

  Tex smirked. Margaret thumped his ankle with the side of her buttoned shoes. And Rafe was on the verge of laughing. He had the craziest notion to kiss those rigid lips soft.

  It couldn’t be because she reminded him of Olga. No two identical triplets were ever less alike than Margaret and Olga, since Olga knew how to make a man of five-ten feel ten feet tall.

  (Yes, but when the countess chose her born-to-the-purple husband over Rafe, la condesa cut him down to size.)

  Answering Margaret’s remark, he said mockingly, “Toplofty? Why, Miss Margaret McLoughlin, you’re mighty insightful.” At her raised brow, he fell to a growl. “Remember this. Every outfit has a leader. And I’m the top
lofty chief of this one.”

  “Here, here,” said a man seated behind Rafe.

  “Elwood, hush.”

  Thereafter, the clickety-clack of the wheels gave forth the only sounds as everyone, goggle-eyed, watched and waited for either Rafe or Margaret to make the next move. Natalie Nash moved. She crossed her legs and raised her hems a couple of crucial inches. Tex cleared his throat.

  Rafe, amazed his cojónes weren’t responding to Natalie’s open invitation, cast a glance to his right. Damn you, hombre, why don’t you pay attention to Margarita? Can’t you tell you’re embarrassing her? Warning himself off her love life, Rafe demanded, “Jones, if you’ve got a problem with Margarita taking orders from another man, speak up.”

  Tex, sturdy and built for hard work, or at least giving this impression, raised and shook his palms as well as his head. “No problem. But I never knew nobody to get Maggie to act meek.”

  “You’ve met him now.”

  Margaret swelled up like a toad. “Of all the nerve!”

  “Bruja, I’ve got enough nerve to fill this train.”

  Tex picked up a newspaper and hid his face behind it.

  Margaret looked ready to bawl in outrage. “To think I left my career and my two sweet little babies for this—”

  “You’ve got children?” Rafe croaked, put off his course. The air got thin, quickly. Her mysterious stay at some nebulous place began to take a curdled form.

  She blushed pink, to the roots of her dark hair. The expression gave her an almost girlish look, a certain vibrancy and vulnerability which touched a chord in a man long jaded by life, love, and the pursuit of both.

  She mumbled, “They, um, they’re . . . Deniece and Denephew—”

  “They’re cats,” Tex supplied from behind the San Antonio Light. “Persians. Spoiled, useless cats. They couldn’t catch a mouse if you had one hooked to a fishing pole.”

  Tex laughed. So did Elwood. Rafe did not join in. He had no desire to make sport of Margaret’s soft spot. Besides, he’d left his own pet behind, so he knew a person could miss an animal’s presence. Frita, mi niña, I wish you were in my pocket right now, going home with me to Chihuahua.

  “Let’s . . .” Margaret, her blush deepening to sangria’s scarlet, laced her gloved fingers. “Let’s play the quiet game.”

  Strangely pleased she wasn’t someone’s mother, Rafe wondered where she’d been during her mysterious absence. And he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Frita might be important to him, but he had women to occupy his time. Less than fit, the bloom of youth gone, and betrothed to an hombre of roving eye, Margaret lived a life brightened by mere cats. He sensed, though, she didn’t want his pity.

  “I don’t like playing games,” he said seriously. “Jones respects the chain of command. What about you? Do you agree I’m the jefe? Or do I leave the train at the next stop?”

  Rafe got the impression she didn’t require that he wait for the train to pull into Sanderson. And if the wheels cut him in half when he jumped, she’d shout for joy. Yet her answer held a meek quality. “All right. You give the orders.”

  Her heart wasn’t in the capitulation, Rafe knew. No matter. It would be before it was all said and done. Holy Mother, is this what I even want, the bother of her?

  Four

  Even though Margaret was eager to make a quick trip out of the journey to Eden Roc, she needed a break from a particular Latin male. Lady Luck smiled when afternoon waned. The train lurched to an unexpected and swaying stop, that sent hats and bandboxes flying and passengers squealing in fright.

  Workmen left the caboose to check the problem, and a few minutes later the engineer sent word: the brakes couldn’t be fixed until morning. Therefore, passengers would be accommodated in Alpine, at the Hotel Edelweiss. The locomotive, thankfully, had passed the city limits of the west Texas town.

  “It’s just a short walk to the hotel, folks.”

  The passengers debarked. Tex, behaving for the first time today, offered an arm as Margaret marched toward the hotel. Dust clogged the air, and the stench of cattle was enough to curl even a daughter of Texas’s toes, so she fanned her hand in front of her face and wished to heck she was back in the civility of New York City.

  Something thumped and squeezed in her chest, when she recalled how Dean Ira Ayckbourn of Brandington College had reacted to her announcement of “business in Mexico.” The dean showed a paucity of patience, threatening her with those dreaded words, “If you aren’t in the classroom on the morning of January third . . .”

  The beady-eyed dean had no compassion whatsoever.

  If the truth were known, though, Margaret’s sour disposition had little to do with Brandington College or with homesickness. The cause pointed to that strawberry blonde and the Latin peacock who supported her dainty hand, while they swayed and promenaded toward the Edelweiss, chatting and chirping as they went. Vacuous magpies, they.

  It was all Margaret could do not to make an appropriate face, the kind most often seen in a schoolyard. Rafe brought out the very worst in her, leaving her powerless to govern so much as a particle of wits. Even if her faculties were in place, though, she wouldn’t have appreciated her hired man’s neglect. But what good had it done, complaining to the rogue himself? Not a half hour earlier, Margaret had a private word with Rafe on the subject, and what did he do? Asked if she were jealous, patted her hip, and winked an amorous eye. Satyr!

  The blonde swatted an area in the vicinity of Rafe’s well-hewn biceps brachium. “Now, Mr. Delgado, aren’t you the awfulest thing?”

  It seemed a rhetorical query, though Margaret could have filled her ears. Meanwhile, her brother muttered an expletive.

  “Hush. She’s much too old for you, anyway,” Margaret whispered, now feeling the distance between train and hotel in her tightening chest and atrophied leg muscles.

  “I wish you’d quit thinking of me as a kid, Maggie. I’m twenty-two, you know.”

  “I know you’re grown,” she replied, taking in puffs of hard-won oxygen. “Even if you haven’t been acting it today. Anyway, that strumpet is my age if she’s a day.” An exaggeration to be sure. Tex’s age was more like it. Margaret then said, “She’s not nearly as pretty as our sisters.”

  “I’d argue with you on that, Sis.”

  They reached the main section of town. A man wearing a garter on his arm burst from a saloon and pitched a bucket of slop to the street. Wagons, buckboards, and riders passed over the puddle. Women with bonnets on their heads and baskets on their arms strolled along the boardwalks and greeted acquaintances in pleasant exchanges, while their children played and their menfolk smoked and gabbed amongst themselves.

  “A typical frontier town,” Margaret murmured to no one in particular.

  “You’d know the West, Sis, since you spent a couple years in San Angelo.”

  “That was as far west as I got.” Those were two interminable years under Dr. Woodward’s care. Forcing a laugh, she went on. “I know for certain neither this town nor that hotel resembles anything in the Alps.”

  “Guess I’ll take your word for it. When I was across the seas last year, I didn’t get no further east than Gay Paree.”

  “Somehow, little brother, I cannot imagine you in Gay Paree.”

  As the sun set over the hills, Margaret granted Alpine one thing. The tangerine and aquamarine sky was breathtaking. She made this observation a few minutes after registering, while staring out her second-floor window.

  Her brother, having deserted his own room, had propped himself up in her bed, a forearm supporting his neck; three pillows, his back. “Maggie . . . I’m kinda worried about Mutti.”

  Mutti—German for Mama. This was what Tex called their German mother, but Margaret preferred English and French name tags. She asked, “Why are you worried? If anyone can handle herself in a difficult situation, it’s our mother. She did, you know, cook her way to Kansas while carrying triplets.”

  “Yep. But that was near on thirty years ago. I
t’s not like her to go off alone to that Eden Roc place. Do you think her dander’s up over something?”

  Worried all of a sudden, Margaret tugged the side of her lip between her teeth. “Now that you mention it, she’s not one to take off alone to isolated places for long periods of time. Did I tell you Papa says she doesn’t plan to return till after Easter?”

  “You told me.” Tex’s jaw jutted. “And I’m telling you, something stinks.”

  By now Margaret was having a word with herself. One with her sibling seemed in order. “Let’s not create our own problems. Our mother is just fine. We do have something to worry about, though. About Ra—”

  “You’ve been pricklier than a porcupine here lately,” Texas observed, his interruption joined with a brotherly frown. “I know you ain’t too happy about taking time to fetch me from the ranch and getting on with our trip into Old Mexico, but did I do something in partic’lar to set you off?”

  “Oh, no, honey. No! Well, except for . . .” Her rebuke could wait. She left her post to walk to the bed. Tall and broad-shouldered, Tex was incredibly handsome, and until today, she’d thought he could do no wrong. She told him so.

  “That’s mighty nice of you to say, Sis. But you’ve still got an aggravated look in the set of your jaw. It’s time you lightened up. It ain’t good for you, being crabby. You know you were sick for so long—”

  Unwilling to discuss her health, she said quickly, “I’ll try to do better.” Tousling his flaxen-colored hair, she teased as well as complimented. “You know, Texie, except for your single-mindedness about the ladies, you are a fine young man.”

  Her “ladies” perked him up, and his blue eyes danced. “Ain’t she lovely, that Natalie?”

  “Don’t say ain’t.” Margaret wasn’t stupid enough to ask who Natalie might be. “Tex, Rafe is suspicious already. If you don’t stop flirting with her, he’ll get wise.”

  “It was a dumb idea of yours, this engagement act.” A frown raked his face. “Anyhow, it gives me the shivers, Maggie, trying to act attentive toward my own sister.”