Too late for regrets. The devil himself had dealt this hand. Rane didn’t have the option of tossing in his cards. He had to play it through.
He braced his back against the rock and put his feet under him. A wave of dizziness staggered him back a step. He sat on the rock and waited while the scenery around him, which had turned out of kilter, righted again.
No more whiskey. Dull, sluggish reflexes were the last things he needed. “Time to go,” he said.
Angel’s head snapped up, surprise on her face. “Now?” She looked at the horizon. “There’s not much daylight left.”
“This waterhole’s not safe.”
The furrow was back in her brow. She stood, suddenly tense. The apprehension he saw in her face was more like it. After what happened earlier, maybe she wouldn’t be so eager to call out the next time they crossed paths with strangers. Maybe she was beginning to realize he truly was the lesser of two evils.
Angel plundered the dead men’s packs, but found little more than starvation rations. A few strips of dried meat, canned tomatoes, and yet another bottle of whiskey.
While she filled canteens, Rane pulled loose cinch straps and bridles. The exertion had fresh sweat popping out on his body. Each jar sent new shocks of pain shooting through his shoulder. Dizziness rolled over him in waves. He set the extra pair of horses free. Besides having water, dried looking clumps of grama grass dotted the area. The horses would survive until someone found them.
Rane only wished he could feel as certain about the fate that awaited him and Angel. By the time he climbed into his own saddle, fighting to stay upright and oriented was all he could manage.
This physical weakness worried him because he knew there were more two-bit guns, like Buck and Arch, out there watching and waiting to make their play to take Angel away from him.
When the next challenge came, would he be ready?
****
The narrow stream running through the center of the gully gleamed like a silver snake in the moonlight. Angel waited while Rane angled his horse down the side of the steep cutbank and attained the level, sandy bottom. Then she followed, trusting the horse to find its way down the crumbling earthen bank. Looping her reins, she slid wearily from the saddle and allowed her horse to amble to the water.
The moon rode high in the sky, casting every rock and cactus into sharp relief. All evening they had ridden due west, toward a line of low-lying hills in the distance.
How far were they from the border? Though they had ridden straight at them all evening, the distant hills didn’t appear any closer. The fact that Rane had steered them west, rather than southwest, since leaving the ill-fated waterhole bothered her. She figured he was trying to avoid any chance meetings, but the course he’d set didn’t take her any closer to home.
All evening she’d followed behind him, conscious of the droop and sway of his broad shoulders. He sat his saddle like a boneless heap, a drastic change from the masterful rider he’d been earlier that day. Blood loss had weakened him, and she could only imagine how excruciating the jarring ride must have been.
His knees dipped when he touched solid ground. Unsteady, he held onto the saddle.
The clothes on Angel’s body still felt damp with sweat. Chill night air sent a shiver trickling over her skin.
“Do we camp here?” she asked.
“Yes. We’ll move on in the morning.”
His voice sounded weak and breathy. She doubted he would be able to go any farther, not until he rested and healed a bit. Would a few hours sleep be enough?
The brown and white paint horse still sucked up water from the stream. Angel unlashed the saddlebags and bedroll and tossed them onto the sandbank, away from the water. Her arms felt weighted. She wanted nothing more than to stretch out between the thin covers and close her eyes.
“What about the horses?” Under normal circumstances, she would never leave a horse saddled for such a long period. To do so was nothing short of cruel. But these weren’t normal circumstances. “Should I pull off the saddles?”
He didn’t answer.
Angel turned. The big black stood several yards away and Rane no longer clung to the saddle. A quick glance showed her he wasn’t hunkered beside the stream. She skirted the stallion’s hindquarters, taking care to stay out of hoof-striking range, until she reached the off side. She nearly stumbled right over Rane’s prone body, lying facedown on the sand.
Chapter Seven
Rane lay in the deep shadows nearly beneath the stallion’s hoofs. The sight halted Angel so quickly she nearly tripped on her own momentum. For each second he didn’t move her pulse accelerated a frantic beat.
The black shifted nervously. She’d always heard a horse would avoid stepping on a fallen rider, but this was no time to test the theory.
Moving quickly, she wrapped her hand around the horse’s cheek strap. The big brute tossed his head and tried to shy away from her. “Whoa, boy. Easy. You know me,” she crooned.
With a firm grip, she led him to a scrubby bush growing from the side of the gully and secured his reins to a branch.
Hurrying back to Rane, Angel dropped to her knees. He lay so still. Was he unconscious, or was he... Her heart rioted. No, he couldn’t be dead.
Breath rasped from his parted lips.
A relieved whimper lodged in her throat. She laid her hand against his back. Heat scalded her palm right through his shirt. Fever. He was burning up with it.
Dread swirled through her mind like a black fog. She wrapped both hands around his uninjured shoulder and turned him to his back.
“Rane. Can you hear me?”
His inky lashes fluttered. He curled in on himself and clutched his arms against his chest. “C-cold.” His teeth chattered so that she barely understood him.
Infection. One dire reality conjured others: gangrene, blood poisoning, amputation. Death. She had to help him. But she wasn’t sure how to go about it. Bed. Quilts. A hot warming pan. Those were the usual treatments for chills. She and Rane were far from those comforts. Could she make do with what they had?
She left him lying on the damp sand near the water’s edge and gathered both their bedrolls. One pad and blanket she spread right against the base of the gully wall. The other she laid aside to cover him. She chose a spot where a thick cluster of creosote bushes grew from the top of the bank and leaned inward, forming a living canopy. It would help keep off the falling dew. She only hoped a snake or some other creature didn’t choose the leaning brush as an access down into the ravine.
When she returned to him, Rane still lay with his arms clutched against his chest. She leaned down and placed cool fingers against his feverish cheek.
“Rane. Listen to me. You have to stand.”
His lashes flickered again, and she found herself looking into his glazed, moon-silvered eyes. If he saw her, he gave no sign.
“Can you stand up?”
His lids drifted closed again. Still, he didn’t respond. Seconds passed, and she started to shake him when he rallied. Dropping his arms from his chest, he levered himself halfway up on his elbows. She slipped her arm across his back and braced him.
Angel’s breath labored as she struggled to pull Rane upright. For a man who was always so agile on his feet, he’d suddenly turned into a load of dead weight.
She propped him up with her hands to steady him, then wrapped her arm around his waist and steered him to the waiting pallet.
His chest rose and fell in a faster cadence by the time he lay flat on his back on the bedding. Skimming down his length, Angel’s attention caught on the bulky gunbelt strapped around his hips. According to the dime novels, men such as he often “doctored” their weapons by filing the firing mechanism to a hair trigger. If he rolled onto the gun in his sleep, would it discharge?
Why risk it? She knelt beside him and worked loose the knot in the slender leather string tied just above his knee. The heavy buckle lay snug against his trousers, nestled just above the rounded bulge that
betrayed his manhood. She reached for it, and his hand clamped over hers with surprising strength.
“No.”
Her gaze jumped to his face. Through the narrowed slits of his eyes, he watched her.
“I just want to move it. How can you rest with a gun wedged under your hip?”
“Much better than I could without it.”
She sat back on her heels. “Fine. Keep it.”
Slowly, his long fingers relaxed and fell away from hers. He looked like he’d fallen asleep. She waited another moment, then pulled the cover to his chin and stood.
While she settled the horses for the night, a plan began to take shape in her mind. Here was the opportunity she’d waited for. All she had to do was get on the mare and ride away.
They must be close to the border. If she continued due west, she’d find the Rio Grande. Once she made it to the river, she felt certain she could elude capture. The many cutbanks and more abundant vegetation would provide cover to hide her. All she had to do was follow the river south, until she reached Clayton Station and home.
It was a sound plan. But each time she glanced at Rane’s still form lying beneath the bedroll padding, pressure gathered in a tighter grip around her heart.
How could she leave him? He was defenseless, maybe even dying.
For several long minutes, Angel stood perfectly still beneath the moonlight. She closed her eyes, drawing in deep, cleansing breaths and listened to the horses’ soft snuffles, the constant chirp of crickets in the surrounding brush. A few feet away, the whispered rush of the stream. The loneliness of this wild, remote place bore down on her like tangible grief carried in the low moan of the wind.
With purpose, she turned and walked to the saddlebags slung behind the saddle on the stallion’s back, speaking softly all the while so the rank creature wouldn’t spook. She knew exactly what she was looking for. Lifting the flap on the right hand bag, she dipped inside and pulled out Buck Sweeney’s six-shooter.
When she lifted it free, the sheer weight of the weapon dropped her hand to hip level. It had been a long time since she’d held a gun but, like riding, the knowledge had been ingrained during her youth. Her fingers trembled against the cold metal when she opened the loading gate and checked the cylinder. Four bullets and one spent cartridge. It would do.
Rane lay as she’d left him, still shivering beneath the cover. Angel sat on the sand and placed the revolver next to her, prepared to keep a vigil through the long night.
After only a few minutes of inactivity, the chill air penetrated her thin shirt. She wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees and hugged them to her chest. A fire would have been welcome, but the flames and smoke would serve as a beacon to anyone out there. Better to shiver in the dark.
Once more, she reached over and laid fingertips against Rane’s exposed cheek. The fever still raged. He gave off more heat than a pot-bellied stove.
She stared at his dark head and bit her lip. She’d never known anyone like him. Was he brave, or simply too arrogant to believe in his own mortality?
He was a hard man, sometimes deadly. This was the image he cultivated. Still, at times she’d seen glimpses of...what? Softness? No. Goodness? Perhaps. He’d become a mass of contradictions. Brutality and gentleness. Ugliness and beauty. Inconsistencies that threw her into turmoil.
For reasons she didn’t fully understand, he’d chosen to stand between her and an army of money-hungry ruffians. He claimed to have his own purpose. But what could possibly be worth such a price?
Finally, giving in to the lure of the man and his heat, Angel lifted the cover and slipped in next to him.
Lying there shivering, he seemed so harmless. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer. Like a child in need of comfort, his dark head came to rest against her chest. He moaned softly and slid his arm across her waist. She snuggled closer, pulled the thin blankets over his shoulder, and tucked them against his back. For several moments, he continued to tremble at regular intervals, chilling from the fever raging through his blood.
After a while, he stilled and Angel knew he’d fallen into a deeper sleep.
His face, completely relaxed and pillowed against her breast, fascinated her. So perfect and yet so overwhelmingly male. His too-hot breath saturated the front of her shirt, scalding and moist against her skin.
Since Rane had imposed himself on her life, she seemed to grow more sentient with each passing day. Her senses had never been so keen. Had she ever before experienced such stormy and tearing emotions? Had her heart ever beat so wildly?
Impulsively, she pulled her hand from beneath the covers and lifted it to his face. Gently, she raked the hair back from his temple, letting her fingers glide into the silken mass. The tendrils at the nape of his neck felt thicker, coarser. Like the man, a blending of textures that enticed her to explore and savor.
Resting her cheek against his head, she continued to hold him and felt a strange sense of contentment. Of rightness.
Exhaustion pulled her to the blurry edges of sleep, to that place where dreams merge with reality. She saw her father, right down to the worry etched into his weathered face. “Oh, Pa. I did what you wanted. Look at me! I look like Mama now.”
Instead of giving her a smile or greeting, he shook his head. “You’re still driving me to drink,” he said. Then he turned from her, pulling away, farther and farther.
A sob lodged in Angel’s throat, choking off her denial. She’d done what he wanted, turned herself into a lady.
Then the dream faded and the gauzy light grew harsh. It glared, nearly blinding, and she completely lost sight of her father. She looked down and saw instead the grit and blood smeared on the manly trousers she wore.
****
Rane floated somewhere between heaven and hell.
Hammers pounded at his temples from the inside. For a moment he thought the pain ripping through him resulted from a belly full of bad whiskey. Had he spent the night drinking and carousing? To further the notion, a female body lay pressed so close not even air penetrated between them. How had they ended up like this? He sure as hell couldn’t remember.
Stifling heat drenched him in sweat. By slow degrees, he registered the fact that he was fully dressed, right down to his holstered Colt, and several layers of blankets covered him. He started to move and throw off the suffocating load of wool, until a stab lanced through his shoulder. The pain stopped him dead and sucked away his breath.
For several minutes he lay still, drawing in careful breaths, until the agony eased. He forced his eyes open. A rumble rolled through the empty pit of his stomach. He raked his tongue over his teeth and wished he had a drink to wash the stale dryness from his mouth.
Slowly, awareness leached through his senses. He realized he lay on the ground, not in a bed. The first gray light of morning was seeping into a ravine rather than a bedroom.
Right against him, Angel slept with her tempting little butt spooned to the front of his body. They fit together perfectly. Maybe a little too perfectly. Evidently, he was growing accustomed to sleeping next to her, to having her body cupped so intimately to his.
His arm rested atop the side of her trim waist and curved possessively across her stomach. Wedged beneath her, his hand had gone numb. He tried to move it, then changed his mind.
Her breast overflowed his splayed fingers. He sucked in a ragged breath and held it. Closing his eyes, he tried willing the sensation back into his rogue digits.
Deliberately, he slid his hand upward. The cotton shirt separating her skin from his touch frustrated him. Gently, he savored the firm, yet pliant feel of her flesh through the cloth. His strokes grew bolder as he applied soft friction to her sensitive tip. He was rewarded when her nipple hardened and thrust into the center of his palm.
Instinct, he knew. But her reaction gave him a measure of satisfaction and deepened his breathing.
She stirred slightly, and he stilled. Arching her back, she pressed herself more fully into him and mo
aned. The soft sound reminded him of a cat’s contented purr. He wanted to moan right with her.
No slack remained in the front of his trousers. Her sweet, firm buttocks, his own body, and the heavy gunbelt buckle trapped his expanding bulge on every side. All combined, the exquisite pressure was nearly more than he could bear.
He gritted his teeth.
Lifting his head scant inches, he used his chin to rake aside her heavy braid and expose her pale throat. Even in the gray, muddied light, he could see the steady throb of her pulse. He lowered his lips to the spot and covered her with his mouth.
The heavy rhythm of her heart trembled against the sensitive inner sides of his lips. Her taste filled his mouth. Salt and sweetness. The texture of warm velvet. No trace remained of the floral fragrance she had worn. Nothing but pure female bombarded his senses. The primal male within him reared his head and roared to life. The savage urge to claim her had him strung so tightly, he thought his skin would burst.
Another kittenish moan ended on a sigh. Hot anticipation surged through him like a heady slug of hundred proof liquor.
He lifted his head higher and ventured a peek at her face. Disappointment washed over him. The damned woman was still sound asleep!
Heaving a frustrated breath, he stopped stroking her. Willpower. Where was it when he needed it? Summoning his last shreds, he removed his arm and carefully rolled to his back.
A chill crept over his exposed skin and the white fog of his breath surprised him. Hell, he was burning up. He shoved fingers into the rumpled hair over his forehead and sucked in a long, cold breath.
“¡Sangre de Cristo!” he muttered. “I should have been a priest!”
****
Angel carefully peeled the scrap of linen away from Rane’s wound. The skin looked puckered and red, but there was no trace of the infection she’d drained several times during the past two days. The depth of her relief, which made her want to cry and shout at the same time, surprised her.
She sat back on her heels. “Your wound is healing.”
Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) Page 8
