“Yep.”
“You look older,” Grace said before she thought better of it. “I mean…I thought…just a little older.” Would he be terribly insulted?
“It’s the light,” Becket said, saving her from rambling on and trying to explain herself.
Grace smiled. She could barely see her own hand in front of her face, but for a moment she imagined that Dillon Becket was smiling, too.
“So my father saved your life, and ten years later he asks you to repay him by taking care of me?”
“Yep.”
She felt a weight in her chest, unexpected and inexplicable. Her father had forced her upon a man who she was certain, if she understood Dillon Becket at all, couldn’t possibly refuse. “It’s very gallant of you, Becket, to take me on.”
“I’m not a gallant man, honey, but I do pay my debts.” His voice seemed a bit gruffer than it should have been, and Grace knew, at that moment, that she was as unwanted here as she’d been all her life.
“I won’t be a burden to you, Becket,” she said, and her voice was suddenly cold, distant. “It will just take a little time to sort through the situation.”
He didn’t respond. Didn’t tell her that she wasn’t a burden, or that everything would work itself out. He was ominously quiet for several minutes, as the softened rain beat against the coach.
“Go to sleep, Grace,” he said gruffly. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
The moment Grace fell asleep, he knew it. Her breathing slowed, became deep and even, and the dark form beside him relaxed. Within minutes she was pressed against him, her head on his shoulder.
He could have returned her to her corner, probably with enough ease that she wouldn’t awake, but he didn’t. He rather liked the softness and warmth of her body against his.
This was the baby. Grace’s observation about her father had been astute. Turning back to save his life had been out of character for Colonel Cavanaugh, but Dillon couldn’t deny that the old man had done it. After all, once he’d healed and returned to his unit, Cavanaugh had taken a special interest in him. Perhaps even the colonel had been puzzled by whatever force had driven him to risk his life for a green private.
That was the reason Dillon had heard about the baby. The baby who had come and taken Colonel Cavanaugh’s beloved wife’s life. The baby who was in England with Cavanaugh’s elderly aunt. The colonel had spoken about his wife’s death with such heartbreak that Dillon had never questioned the fact that the baby was indeed a baby.
But Grace had been eleven years old when Colonel Cavanaugh had sent her to England. Eleven years old. Not a baby, but nearly a young lady.
What had her childhood been like? What kind of father is a man who thinks of his child as a baby eleven years after her birth? Dillon couldn’t recall a single time the colonel had referred to his daughter as Grace, or my little girl, or anything other than the baby.
Billy said Grace didn’t like to be touched, and Dillon had to agree. He’d purposely taken her hand on that morning in Clanton, and he’d felt what Billy had noticed. Grace stiffened almost imperceptibly and released his hand as soon as her feet touched the ground.
But when she slept she came to him. Searching for the touch she’d been denied all her life, and had come to fear? Maybe she didn’t fear it at all, but craved it. Maybe that was why she gravitated to him when she slept.
Dillon leaned back and shifted Grace so that her head was against his chest. She murmured in her sleep, and pressed her face against his cotton shirt.
If Billy hadn’t been snoring just a couple of feet away, and if Grace wasn’t Colonel Cavanaugh’s baby…if the path Dillon had set for himself had had any leeway in it at all…if she didn’t say his name as if she were spitting out something gamy…he would teach her what it was like to be touched in all the right places. He had an unshakable feeling that Grace would fit him properly. Perfectly, in fact.
But he couldn’t afford an entanglement of that sort. Not with a woman like Grace. If he bedded her she would expect him to marry her, and he couldn’t do that. Not even, he told himself, if he had any such inclination. Which he most certainly did not.
So he scowled and placed a restraining hand at her back, simply to keep her from slipping to the floor—he told himself—and he closed his eyes. And he knew, with bitter certainty, that he would dream of bubble baths and bluebonnet eyes.
The rain had ruined the trail, leaving a morass of mud where a perfectly good road had been the day before. Becket swore at the mud as if it would make a difference, and waded in the sticky stuff until he was covered to his knees with splashed muck.
Grace surveyed the scene from the open carriage door. She’d been mortified to wake against Dillon Becket’s chest, and to find Billy watching the two of them with a satisfied expression on his still-sleepy face. Fortunately Becket seemed as determined to ignore the awkward situation as she was.
And now, mortified again, she had to relieve herself. There was no way off the conveyance but through the mud, and she didn’t want to ask either Billy or Becket for assistance.
Becket glanced up and stared at her as if he’d only just noticed her there. Then he slopped toward her angrily. He looked positively frightful this morning, as though he hadn’t slept at all, or if he had, as if his dreams had been horrid. She didn’t dare ask him.
He stopped directly in front of her, and without a word lifted her from the carriage, flung her indelicately over his shoulder, and carried her to the other side of the road. There the ground was rocky, with scrubby patches of grass that kept it from becoming the mess the road had become. Grace looked away from Becket and the muddy road. There were a couple of rather large bushes not too far away, and that was all that was available, as far as cover was concerned.
Becket turned back to the carriage, ignoring her predicament, and Grace made her way to the only semblance of privacy she could see.
When she emerged from behind the bushes, she screamed. Dillon Becket was tossing her trunks to the side of the road. He looked none too pleased as he dumped one piece of her baggage after another into the mud, where they landed with a sickening splat.
Becket lifted his head when she screamed, turning a tired and determined face to her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She didn’t even think about where her path would take her as she stepped onto the muddy road. She sank down in mud to her ankles, as she looked up at her guardian.
“Sorry, honey,” he said in a voice that held no remorse. “This is all making the carriage too heavy to make it down the trail. It’s gotta go.” He tossed another, smaller trunk to the ground.
“Everything I own is in those trunks!”
“If there’s anything valuable in these things, get it out now,” Becket instructed without a hint of concern. “If we pull out onto the road with this weight on top we’ll be up to the hub in no time.”
Grace glanced down at the mess she was standing in, at the mud her hem touched. She was nearly up to the hub herself. “Can’t I keep just two or three trunks?”
Becket ran his fingers through tousled hair, pushing it straight back. It made his face look more severe, sharper. “Two,” he snapped. “You may choose two trunks from what’s left up here.” He looked down at the trunks by the side of the road. He obviously had no desire to drag the muddy trunks back atop the carriage.
“That Saratoga trunk,” Grace said, pointing beyond Becket. “And the small tan one with the red strap. And the other tan bag with the blue strap,” she added quickly. “Please.”
Dillon quickly and unceremoniously unloaded all but the three selected bags. He tried not to look at Grace’s face as she forlornly watched each piece drop to the ground. He told himself again and again that there was nothing to be done for it. No woman needed so many clothes anyway. Not even Grace Cavanaugh.
But she looked so somber as she watched her belongings collect beside the road. He wished he could tell her that he would replace everything. But
he could replace nothing. The yellow dress she wore, the dress that was brushing the mud as she tried futilely to lift the skirt just enough out of the sludge that surrounded her, was evidently the simplest gown she owned. And it was clearly an expensive, well-made piece of clothing. Finer than anything he could give her.
“You’re ruining your dress,” he said gruffly. “And your white boots. Damn white boots,” he muttered under his breath.
Grace glanced down at the hem of her gown briefly, and when she lifted her face to him again her frown deepened. “Well, I had planned to burn it upon arrival at your ranch. Surely after five days of wear it won’t be fit to save. But now…” She looked wistfully at the pile of bags and trunks at the edge of the road. “I suppose I will have to find a way to salvage it.”
She picked her way to the coach, graceful even as she battled the muck and stepped inside, unassisted.
Progress was slowed considerably due to the condition of the road. The carriage lurched on a regular basis as the wheels hit pockets of muddy water, and Grace had to hold on to the seat to keep from being thrown to the floor. The sun did come out, though, and warmed the coach considerably. The bright sun did nothing to improve Dillon Becket’s mood, apparently. She heard him cursing at the horse and the road and, she assumed, at her.
It was not quite midday when she heard that swearing increase, and this time Billy chimed in. His curses were much milder in nature—a couple of drats and a darn—but they were delivered every bit as intensely as Becket’s vile obscenities. That alone was enough to make Grace look out the window.
At first count she estimated half a dozen riders were bearing down on them, appearing with no warning from behind a large outcrop at the side of the trail. One rider gave a bone-chilling yell as he pointed his rifle at the driver’s seat of the carriage. A pistol was fired into the air as the vehicle was pulled to an abrupt halt, tossing Grace onto the floor.
“Good morning, señor.”
Grace pulled herself off the floor and peeked out the window. A single rider approached the carriage while his companions sat their horses a short distance away, their rifles and pistols trained on Becket and Billy. “If you would please dismount?” He waved a slender hand and smiled incongruously.
He was, Grace decided, the leader of the group. He was taller than the others. Mexicans, she decided as she eyed the group without being seen. They all had black hair and dark skin, and several of them wore colorful serapes. But not the leader. He was dressed all in black, and almost formally. His flat-brimmed hat was trimmed with a band of silver conchos, and he sported a thin mustache rather than the bushy abominations his companions preferred.
Billy remained in the driver’s seat while Becket jumped to the ground. Without a word of instruction from the leader, one of the Mexicans took Becket’s pistol from its holster, and though Grace couldn’t see Billy, she assumed another of the bandits was disarming him as well.
She moved away from the window, and slid her carpetbag as far under the seat as it would go.
“Your valuables, señor,” the leader instructed in a calm voice.
Grace remained on the floor, slinking lower inch by inch. Maybe they wouldn’t bother her. Maybe they would take Becket’s money and then let them go.
There was not much chance of that, she reasoned, but she remained still and quiet, hoping they would overlook her. Becket was arguing, blast him! Didn’t he know that these bandits would shoot him if he didn’t shut his contentious mouth? She took a deep breath and released it slowly, readying herself for the confrontation that was surely to come.
The door of the carriage was thrown open, and a short, squat Mexican with sweat-dampened hair and grimy fingers grabbed Grace’s wrist and yanked her through the carriage door. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself face-to-face with the leader, her wrist still gripped by the unsavory bandit.
She kept her head down, but cut her eyes to the side. Billy was still on the driver’s seat, and the man who had taken Becket’s pistol held that weapon to Billy’s head. At least they seemed calm, these thieves. Perhaps if she could remain calm, no one would be harmed.
Becket was standing a few feet away from her, his fists clenched at his sides. He was flanked on either side by grinning bandits, and one of them had a rifle pointed nonchalantly at Becket’s side.
“Ah,” the leader said as he lifted Grace’s face gently, firm fingers on her chin. He smiled wickedly, revealing straight, white teeth. “A treasure more valuable than all your gold, señor.”
Becket didn’t move, but he glared at the bandit who still held her wrist. “Get your hands off of her.”
The heavy air was filled with the almost musical ring of more than one hammer being cocked.
But the leader stopped the violent intentions of his companions by dropping the hand that had touched Grace’s chin, and waving his fellow thief away. “You may release her, Paco.”
As soon as Paco had released his grip on Grace’s wrist, the leader took Grace’s hand and bent over it, as courtly as any prince.
“You are brighter than the sunshine, señorita,” he said as he lifted his face to grin at her, his black eyes twinkling. Amazingly Grace felt no fear. Even this man could be handled, as all men could. He was, although a thief with a villainous band of men behind him, much more akin to the nobility she was accustomed to than Dillon Becket was or ever would be.
“You are a…a highwayman?” Grace asked in a small, breathy voice. The handsome bandit continued to hold her hand, but his touch was light, unlike the grasping sweatiness of the swarthy Paco.
“Sí,” he agreed, obviously pleased to be called a highwayman rather than a bandit or a thief. “And these are my men.” He waved a hand to indicate the less-than-reputable-looking band of compatriots that surrounded him, but he never took his eyes off of her.
One of those men climbed atop the carriage and opened one of Grace’s trunks, rifling through it with his dirty hands. Grace watched the man with mounting dismay, and then turned to the bandit who still held her hand.
“You’re not going to take my clothes and things, are you?” There was an almost pitiful quality to her voice as she looked-up at the dark bandit with her eyes purposely wide and innocent.
“Is there nothing of value in those trunks?” he asked.
Grace shook her head. “No. Just my clothes. I did have several trunks, but Becket here tossed most of them on the side of the road.” She cocked her head and looked at the ground. “What’s in those trunks is all I have left in the world.”
The leader ordered the bandit from the carriage top with a sharp command delivered in Spanish. Becket finally stepped forward, ignoring the thieves who held their weapons pointed at his back.
“You can let go of her,” he snapped. “I’ve given you all my money, and she doesn’t have anything you want, so—”
“I disagree,” the bandit leader said, turning to face Becket for half a second, then returning his dark eyes to her. “Come with me, querida. I will dress you in silk and lavish you with gold and jewels. Leave this gringo, and ride with me.”
Grace couldn’t breathe. Surely he wouldn’t…but of course he could, if he wished. If this man decided to throw her over his horse and ride away with her there would be nothing she could do. Dillon Becket would probably be happy to be rid of her. Billy might try to stop the bandit, and might get himself killed in the process.
In spite of it all, Grace maintained a cool facade, and actually smiled at the bandit. It was up to her to end this.
“That’s very kind of you, and most flattering.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Becket step forward. One of the bandits who had been right behind him the whole time wrapped a strong arm around Becket’s neck and yanked him backward with a sharp jerk.
“But I couldn’t possibly go with you. For one thing, I can’t ride a horse.” She tried to sound apologetic, but just a little. “And my father, who recently passed away, has given me into the care of this man. I
must respect my father’s last wish.”
“This Becket is not your husband?”
“Good heavens, no,” Grace assured him, a touch of horror in her voice.
The bandit didn’t look horribly disappointed. “My sympathies, señorita, on the loss of your father. Although I must say I question his judgment in leaving you in the hands of such a man as this.”
Grace had to bite her tongue to keep from agreeing with the thief.
He leaned closer, and spoke so softly that only the two of them could hear his words. “I would know your name, beautiful one, so that when I am lonely, and I close my eyes and see your face, I can whisper that name.” His voice was silky, and soothing in an odd way. Grace had learned to dismiss sweet words that meant nothing.
“Grace Cavanaugh,” she whispered back, not certain if it was wise to answer his question truthfully or not. But the bandit was a hypnotic man, smooth and handsome, with those marvelous flashing black eyes. And what could it hurt? She’d surely never see him again.
Her eyes dropped away from his and fell on the wide silver bracelet at his wrist. It was studded with turquoise, and caught the sun on its bright surface.
“What a beautiful bracelet,” she muttered. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
The bandit grinned widely, and released Grace’s hand at last. He removed the bracelet and slipped in onto her own wrist. “A gift, my beautiful Grace. Perhaps you will not forget Renzo so quickly now.”
Grace curtsied slightly. “You’re a most generous highwayman, Renzo.”
She ignored Becket, who was apparently about to choke as he tried to pull away from the bandit who held him.
Renzo ordered Becket’s pistol and Billy’s rifle left several yards from the carriage. He let them know that the only reason he did this was so that Grace would be properly protected for the remainder of the trip.
The bandits disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, rounding the big rock formation and vanishing in a heartbeat.
No Angel's Grace Page 6
