“I have kept my part of the bargain we made when you came to me swollen with my brother’s child and asked for my help. I accepted Tonio’s son from your arms when he was born and took him to Rancho Dolorosa to raise him as my own.
“And though I was often tempted, I did not ask of you my soul’s desire. I did not take from you that for which my body hungered. I waited. And I hunted down my brother’s murderer.
“Now you must keep your part of the bargain. I want you for my wife, Cebellina. And I will have you. Whether you see my brother’s face in your dreams or not!”
His mouth came down to claim Sloan’s, his touch rough with need, his teeth breaking the skin of her lip so she tasted blood. His hands freely roamed her body, commanding a response from her.
Sloan felt the insidious tingling sensation begin deep inside her, felt her lips softening under his, felt her mouth open for his searching tongue that ravaged her, mimicking the movement of his hips against her belly. She felt the rush of passion, felt the desire for him, for the joining of their bodies, begin to well and grow within her, as unwelcome as a weevil in cotton.
She could not allow this. She would not let herself be used by any man again! She shoved against Cruz’s chest, but she managed only to break the contact between their mouths.
“Stop it,” she hissed. “Let me go!”
Her hand rose up between them to cover Cruz’s lips. When she felt the wetness on his lips, it caused a shiver of desire within her so fierce that she felt compelled to deny it in words. “I don’t want you. I’ll never want you. And you can’t want me. I was your brother’s puta. Your brother’s whore!”
Abruptly, Cruz released her. His blue eyes had become chips of ice. The veins stood out along his neck, and his hands were balled into tightly clenched fists. “Never, never call yourself whore. Do you understand me?”
Sloan flinched when he raised his hand, afraid he would strike her. But she stood her ground, waiting. She was Rip Stewart’s daughter. It would not be the first time she had been struck in anger. She was no coward; she would not run from him.
His fist unfurled like a tight bud that finally flowers, and his callused fingertips smoothed over her freckled cheekbone in a caress as surprisingly soft as a cactus blossom. “Do you hate me so much, Cebellina?”
“I don’t hate you at all.”
“Then why do you resist me?”
“I can never love you, Cruz. A true marriage between us would only cause unhappiness for us both.”
“I will be the judge of what will make me happy.”
“Will you also judge what will please me?”
“Only tell me what I can do to please you and it shall be done. What do you want, Cebellina?”
“I don’t want or need a husband.”
His mouth tightened and a flush rose across his cheekbones. “Nevertheless, when Alejandro hangs, you will fulfill our bargain and become my wife.”
“I’m going home to Three Oaks, Cruz.”
“Go. But know this: When my brother’s murder is avenged at last, I will come for you.”
“Let me pass. I want to go to Ranger headquarters before I leave.”
“Is there some problem at Three Oaks?” Cruz asked.
“I only want to thank Luke Summers for his part in capturing Alejandro,” she replied, annoyed at his assumption that their bargain gave him the right to know about her affairs.
Cruz’s eyes narrowed. It was said that Luke Summers drew women like a Texas marsh drew mallards. It took Cruz no time at all to make up his mind what he should do. “I’ll come with you.”
Sloan started to object, then shrugged. “I can’t very well stop you.”
Cruz stepped away from her, and she had never been so aware of his great height or her own more feminine stature. She slipped past him and out of the alley into the warm September sunshine.
Her heart was racing, and she took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself before she headed purposefully toward the adobe building where she knew she would find the young Texas Ranger lieutenant. Cruz followed, a shadow by her side.
The shutters on the windows of Ranger headquarters had been closed to keep the interior cool. Sloan had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the dimness before she saw Luke sitting on the edge of a spur-scarred wooden desk. He kept a well-worn lariat circling two inches above the dirt floor with no more effort than the gentle flick of his wrist.
She had first met Luke Summers when he had come to provide protection against the Comanches who had once threatened Three Oaks.
Although you couldn’t tell it to look at him, slouched against the desk as he was, Luke was tall and rangy. His dark brown hair was streaked with blond from the year he had spent at hard labor in a Mexican prison after he had been captured at the Battle of Mier. He had high cheekbones and a narrow nose over a wide, full mouth.
His eyes were hazel, but she had seen them look green or gold at various times, depending on his mood. She guessed he was about her age, twenty-two or -three, but his eyes bespoke a life filled with some unutterable sadness.
With another flick of his wrist, Luke collected the lariat in his hand. As he shaped the rope in small, even loops, he said, “Howdy, Sloan. What’s troubling you?”
He was also far too perceptive for her peace of mind. “Nothing worth mentioning,” she said, slanting a glance at Cruz. “Before I leave town, I wanted to thank you for your help in capturing Alejandro Sanchez.”
“You’re leaving? The hanging’s not until tomorrow.”
“I know. I don’t plan to stick around for it. Anyway, thanks.”
“Just doing my job.” Luke stood up and gestured toward the ladder-back chair across from the desk. “You want to set a spell, Sloan?”
“No, I need to get started home. I don’t want to leave Rip alone too long.”
“I thought your father was completely recovered from his stroke,” Luke said.
“Oh, he is,” Sloan was quick to reassure him. “Except for having to use a cane to get around, he’s back to being his same ornery self. But he pushes himself too hard. If I’m not there, he’s liable to do more than he should. Why don’t you come for a visit and see for yourself how well he’s recovered?”
“I just may do that when Captain Hays returns and I’m not tied to this desk taking care of Ranger business. Are you traveling back to Three Oaks by yourself?”
“I came by myself,” Sloan said, as though that answered his question.
“But you are not riding back alone,” Cruz said.
Sloan’s eyes narrowed.
Luke looked from Sloan to Cruz and back again. “Between Comanches, bandidos and immigrants anxious to stake a claim before Texas gets herself annexed by the Union, the Republic isn’t the safest place to travel these days. Maybe you ought to let me send some Rangers along for the ride.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Luke gauged Cruz’s temper and said, “Josey and Frank are shoving down some vittles at Ferguson ’s Hotel, but I know they’d enjoy the ride. Shall I give them a holler?”
“No,” Sloan said.
“Yes,” Cruz said.
Sloan stood toe to toe with Cruz and poked her finger against his unyielding chest to emphasize her speech. “I don’t need anyone to follow me home. I take care of myself. Do you understand?” She pivoted on her heel and marched out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Luke fought the smile that threatened. “I’ll send Josey and Frank after her.”
“Be sure you do.”
Cruz slipped off his boots and settled onto the soft feather bed in Ferguson ’s Hotel. He lit a cheroot and let the sweet smell of tobacco swirl around him as he waited for dawn. One step at a time, he was slowly but surely clearing the devastation left upon his brother’s death-a woman despoiled, a son orphaned, a country betrayed. Each deserved something beyond the legacy of selfishness and greed that Antonio had bequeathed them.
Cruz had to admit that takin
g Sloan Stewart as his wife was proving to be more of a challenge than he had expected.
He had not ever thought he would marry again after watching his very young wife Valeria die during childbirth. His parents had arranged the match, and he had not objected because Valeria was comely and compliant and he had wanted a home and children of his own.
Before long he had discovered his pretty wife was obedient because she had no thoughts of her own. He had ceased to feel any fond emotion for her long before she had died shrieking with the agony of birthing their still-born son.
At her death, guilt smote him that he had made her short life less happy than it could have been. He had sworn he would never marry again until he found a woman who could engage both his heart and mind.
That had not proved a simple feat. Indeed, he had turned away many offers of marriage to the daughters of neighboring rancheros over the past ten years.
Then, in the course of one brief conversation with Sloan Stewart, he had found what he had been seeking. She possessed a mind and a will that challenged his own. He had looked deep into her large, liquid-brown eyes and discovered an inner fire that burned far more brightly than in any other woman he had ever known. At last, he had found the woman he would spend the rest of his life loving.
It had been a shattering experience to discover that the woman he wanted to make his wife had already given her heart-and her body-to his brother. God help him, he had envied Tonio.
And when he had seen Sloan’s pain upon learning of Tonio’s betrayal, he had hated his brother for the cruel theft of her innocence.
Over the years, he had come to understand that the spirit he so admired in Sloan also kept her at arm’s distance. He did not understand her need for independence or her desire to play the man’s part or her rejection of his offer of a husband’s protection.
But he had convinced himself that once he and Sloan were living together as husband and wife, once she was carrying his child, those issues would resolve themselves. Soon, that belief would be put to the test.
Dawn came on slow, tired feet, dragging the huge Texas sun behind it. Cruz felt the weight of the day as he left the hotel and walked toward the dusty central square. This would be a day of endings… and a day of beginnings.
Two men were flogged in the plaza before Alejandro’s turn came to meet the hangman. Two Texas Rangers escorted the bandido to the raised platform and secured the black bag in place over his head with the hangman’s noose. The bright Texas sun glinted off Alejandro’s silver-and-turquoise bracelet as his hands were tied behind his back.
The bandido’s bold threats of escape had come to naught, Cruz thought. This morning he would die.
Cruz scarcely noticed when Luke came to stand beside him. He heard the murmured incantations of the priest at the gallows and, a moment later, the abrupt crack of the trapdoor as it dropped open, leaving Alejandro kicking his legs frantically against the pull of the noose.
Cruz felt the bile rising in his throat. The bandido took a long time to die. The smell of urine pinched Cruz’s nostrils, and the thought of Alejandro’s grizzled face beneath the mask, his tongue purple and swollen, his eyes white-rimmed with fear, nearly made him gag. At last the bandido stopped fighting, and the smell of death rose up to suffocate Cruz.
“Let us leave this place,” he said to Luke.
Cruz headed for the stable where he had left his powerful bayo stallion. The palomino whickered when he saw Cruz and sidestepped impatiently. Cruz quickly bridled him and led him from the stall.
Luke reached out to run his hand along the palomino’s flank. “He’s a beauty.”
“Yes, he is.” Cruz grabbed a striped wool blanket and slung it on the palomino’s back, then added a black leather saddle that was beautifully inlaid with silver and edged with tiny silver trinkets that jingled when he rode.
“You seem in a godawful hurry,” Luke noted.
“I am.” Cruz led the bayo out of the stable and mounted him in a single agile move. Once mounted, he fit the high-cantled saddle as though he had been born in it. He pulled his flat-brimmed black hat down low to shade his eyes, then met Luke’s solemn, hazel-eyed stare. “Hasta luego, mi amigo.”
“Hey! Where you headed?” Luke shouted as Cruz spurred the bayo into a distance-eating lope.
Cruz called back over his shoulder, “I am going to collect on a bargain.”
Chapter 2
“I HAVE COME FOR MY WIFE.”
Rip Stewart leaned back in his rocker on the front porch of Three Oaks until the floorboards creaked. His flinty gray eyes never left the tall, proud Spaniard who stood spread-legged, fists on hips, confronting him. Cruz Guerrero wasn’t a man to be crossed. “And who might that be?” Rip inquired.
“Your daughter Sloan.”
Rip threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. “You want to back up and try that again?”
“You did not mistake me. I have come to take Sloan to Rancho Dolorosa as my wife.”
Rip’s auburn hair, tinged now with silver, fell in careless hanks over his brow as he shook his head in disbelief. “There’s been some mistake here, son. Sloan didn’t say anything to me this morning about going anywhere with you-not as your wife or otherwise.
“I’ll admit I made plans with your father before he died to have you marry my youngest girl Cricket. But my eldest daughter Sloan was never part of the bargain. Besides, Juan Carlos called off the deal himself when Cricket ran off and married that Texas Ranger Jarrett Creed. What’s this all about?”
“Sloan has agreed to come live at Rancho Dolorosa.”
“Like hell she has! Sloan’s hip-deep in cotton right now, and that’s where she’s going to stay. She’s already taken off on one wild goose chase this week without a word of explanation, and that’s enough. Come back when the cotton’s been baled and sent down the Brazos to Galveston, and maybe she’ll have time to see you.”
Cruz’s dominating stance remained as unyielding as granite. “She will come home with me today.”
“You care to tell me what makes you so all-fired sure of that?”
“Perhaps it would be best to explain when Sloan is here to answer your questions.”
“Perhaps it would be best to explain right now,” Rip said, all humor gone from his voice.
Cruz met Rip’s stern gaze with icy blue eyes that revealed nothing.
Rip cursed the stroke that had made it awkward for him to rise from his chair with any kind of grace. He wanted to give this young pup his comeuppance. But the stroke had happened, and while Rip could stand with the aid of his oak cane, he chose instead to rely on his imposing physical presence and his sober stare to force the younger man to yield.
The two men faced one another in unspoken challenge, neither backing down.
“Where is she?” Cruz demanded.
For a moment it appeared Rip wouldn’t answer. Finally, he said, “Where you might expect my overseer to be. She’s out in the cotton fields, making sure the snatching gets done in good time. She’ll be back along about sundown.” Rip squinted into the lowering ball of golden fire along the horizon. “It may be a while yet.”
“I will wait.”
Rip shook his head again. The man had spleen, all right. He had to admit his curiosity was aroused. Why was Cruz Guerrero making such an outrageous claim? When Sloan arrived, the fur was sure to fly. He looked forward to the coming confrontation between this bullheaded man and his strong-willed daughter. “If you’re determined to wait, you might as well find yourself a seat.”
Cruz looked from the weathered wooden swing that hung on ropes from the porch ceiling, to the rocker that sat next to Rip’s. Then he settled himself on the highest of the three porch steps, his long legs stretched out before him. He braced his back against the round pillar that supported the upper-gallery porch.
His gaze narrowed as he sought out Sloan on horseback in the distant cotton fields. If she was out there, she was too far away to be seen with the naked eye. Cruz took a thi
n cheroot from a pocket in his jacket and lit it, then leaned back to wait.
The only sounds were the creaking of Rip’s rocker, the buzz of flies, and the faint harmony of Negro voices that drifted to them on the warm September breeze.
Rip wasn’t uncomfortable with the silence, but he had been isolated from his friends during the months he had spent recuperating from his stroke and yearned for the give and take of conversation.
“How was your trip to Spain this past summer?” he asked, smoothly sidestepping the issue of Sloan.
Cruz pulled his rapt attention from the fields and turned to the older man. “I accomplished what I set out to do. I have copies of the royal Spanish decree granting land in Texas to the Guerrero family. Rancho Dolorosa’s claim cannot be challenged now if Texas is annexed by the United States.”
“It’ll be annexed, all right. Don’t you ever doubt it. We’ve got men in Washington right now convincing legislators it’s the right thing to do.”
“They have not been very successful so far.”
“The American Senate will be voting again soon, and they won’t make the same mistake they did in June. Next time they’ll ask Texas to become a state of the Union. They have too much to gain and nothing to lose if they do.”
“I thought you stood against annexation-that you favored Texas remaining an independent Republic,” Cruz said.
Rip harrumphed, uneasy with being caught in any change of opinion, especially one as monumental as this. “I’m entitled to have a change of heart.”
“That must mean you think Texas has something to gain from statehood.”
“We get federal troops to control those murdering Comanches,” Rip spat, “and the protection of the United States against those Mexican bastards who keep testing our southern border!”
Rip felt renewed fury at the memory of how his middle daughter Bay had been stolen by marauding Comanches. She had spent three long years living in a Quohadi village as a Comanche war chief’s prize possession before she had been rescued by Long Quiet, the half-breed Comanche who had become her husband.
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