“About time,” he mumbled.
He’d acted surly all morning and even refused the meager breakfast of canned tomatoes she’d offered. There was little else left in their packs.
“You might be a little happier about it,” she said.
His dark head snapped up. “Happy? The moment we cross the border, then I’ll be happy.”
So, he planned to take her into Mexico. She tucked the information away. Not that it mattered any longer.
He relaxed against the bedrolls stacked behind his back, lifted the nearly empty bottle of whiskey in his hand and poured a swallow into his mouth. She’d gotten used to the sight of him drinking. He’d nearly worked his way through the second bottle.
Breathing hard, he swiped the back of a hand over the stiff blue-black whiskers on his chin. One thing she regretted. She’d never get the opportunity to see him clean-shaven.
“Anyway,” she said, “I’m glad the infection is gone. For a while, I thought you were a goner.”
Though his chest continued to rise and fall, she sensed a stillness settle over him. He turned his head and looked directly at her for the first time since she’d sat next to his makeshift bed. Grazing over her lips, his dark gaze narrowed, then lifted to her eyes and locked.
“Would you have cared?”
The low, husky tone of his voice sent a warning hum along her nerve endings. It was a loaded question, or so it seemed to her. How could she answer? Of course, I would have cared. Flippant. Off-handed. Nothing more than common human decency, the same as she would feel toward any poor suffering soul.
No, that was a lie. If it had been Jed Wiley lying there burning with fever, she would have ridden away with barely a backward glance. Her feelings for Rane ran far deeper than common kindness. She did care. Too much. And each time she found herself thinking about him, her purpose grew hopelessly tangled with other intangible desires.
Especially when she remembered the things she’d already experienced because of him. With him. During idle moments when her mind wandered, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from reliving certain events, over and over. Like the passionate kiss they’d shared on the side of the ridge. Lying next to him each night, holding him safe. And other things. Dreams, mostly, of an erotic nature that went beyond anything she’d ever imagined.
Was this his plan? To seduce her to the point of willingness? To prey on her sympathy and basic feminine instincts until she followed him without a fight? Raw heat jolted through her. Well, she’d be damned if she’d give him that satisfaction!
She’d already formed her decision during the night. Clenching her jaw, she shoved to her feet and glared down at him. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said with all the coldness she could muster.
Without bothering to wait for his reaction, she snatched up a pair of canteens and stalked to the stream. With each step, she nurtured her anger, fed it. Oh, yes. Anger would make this so much easier. She uncapped the canteens and soused them both beneath the clear water.
“Angel?”
She concentrated on the gurgle of bubbles as the canteens filled and shut out the sound of his voice behind her.
“What are you doing?”
She clamped her lips. No. She wouldn’t answer him. She capped the brimming vessels, slung the straps around her shoulder and stood. Without looking at him, she continued along the floor of the ravine.
The paint mare was rested, and she’d made sure both horses had been well fed on the abundant grama grass in the area. She dropped the canteens into the dirt, snatched up a saddle blanket and slung it across the little mare’s back.
“Angel!”
She squeezed her eyes closed and refused to turn around. Hefting the saddle in both hands, she lifted it in place and started fastening straps, working as fast as she could. The bridle came last.
Both bedrolls were tucked behind Rane’s back. No matter, she’d just have to survive without that small comfort. She wasn’t about to walk back there and attempt to take one of them out from under him.
On the ground where the saddle had lain, the gleam of metal winked at her. The revolver she’d taken from his saddlebags their first night in the ravine. She’d almost forgotten that she’d hidden it under the saddle. Now, she had need of the gun again.
She bent down and wrapped her hand around the walnut grip. Boots crunched on the ground behind her. Then, the sound ceased.
Her heart beat so wildly she heard it in the sudden silence. Steeling herself, she straightened and turned.
Rane had walked within ten feet of her and stopped. His dark brows ruched over the bridge of his nose, his expression tacitly questioning. He spread his hands wide and that devilish smirk appeared on his lips. “Was it something I said?”
He dared to mock her! She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “It’s everything you’ve said, and everything you’ve done.”
He wasn’t looking at her face. His attention focused somewhere lower.
Angel glanced down. When she’d turned, she’d lifted the gun in her hand without even realizing. Now, the lethal weapon pointed directly at him. She didn’t lower it.
“Where are you going, Angel?”
He spoke softly, as he might to a child who’d accidentally picked up a loaded gun.
“Home,” she replied with conviction. “I’m going home, Rane.”
His gaze lifted, and the hard as flint expression she had come to recognize settled in his eyes. “I can’t let you do that.”
Angel tried hard to mask the dread surging through her. “You can’t stop me this time.”
Again, his dark eyes flickered over the Colt in her hand. “Do you intend to shoot me? If so, it might be easier if you cock the gun.”
Was he daring her? Or trying to distract her? Perhaps both. Her pounding heart sped even more and echoed in her ears. Did she dare call his bluff?
Deliberately, she lifted her other trembling hand to the wooden butt to steady it. She moved her thumb over the hammer and slowly levered it back. One click. Two. It seemed a long way, but it only brought the gun to half cock.
Ticklish sweat seeped between her breasts. Her hands felt wet, slippery. She exerted more pressure, hoping, praying her thumb didn’t slip off the oily mechanism and let it discharge.
Another sickening double click and the gun was fully cocked.
Call and raise, Rane.
With grim satisfaction, she watched him, gauging his reaction. The maddening smirk was still on his lips. He took a step forward.
Rather than retreat, she lifted the gun higher and locked her elbows. “Stay back or, I swear, I’ll shoot.”
He shook his head as he dared another step. “No. I don’t think you will. If you wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be standing here now.”
“I started to leave you that first night.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Because she was afraid he would die. Because she couldn’t bear the thought of him lying there, suffering and alone. Because she simply couldn’t bring herself to leave him...
“I stayed with you. Took care of you. You owe it to me to let me go.”
He canted his head, as if considering her words. “I thought you understood. There are men out there looking for you. Hard men. Men without conscience, who simply take what they want. You’re asking me to throw you to the wolves.”
“I can make it through.”
“No. When we leave here, we go together.”
He moved toward her again, another slow, measured step. She whimpered, knowing he wouldn’t stop. He would never stop, not until he accomplished what he’d set out to do. Or until he was dead.
Her finger twitched against the trigger. The instinctive reaction frightened her so badly sick panic flooded her stomach. She wanted to drop the gun, but couldn’t force herself to release her death grip on the accursed thing.
He stood right in front of her, so close the end of the gun barrel prodded the center of his chest. She stared at the blackened h
ole and the long-dried blood on his soiled shirt. The thought of inflicting yet another, even more serious, wound on his beautiful body nearly buckled her knees.
“Please,” she whispered. Only now she didn’t know which she pleaded for, him to let her go, or for him to stop scaring her to death with his own mad disregard for the weapon in her hands.
The hardness still glittered in his eyes. “It’s your play, Angel. Either give over, or shoot. I’m not stepping aside.”
He meant it. Defeat drained the rigid tension from her body. She suddenly felt like a pure fool, trying to beat him at his own game. Who was she trying to kid?
His hand lifted and wrapped around the gun barrel. She allowed him to pull it from her hands.
“I should turn you over my knee,” he said.
That brought her hackles back up. “You might try.”
He tilted the gun skyward and levered the hammer down to its normal position in one precise motion. “Never point a gun unless you’re willing to pull the trigger.”
“Now you’re beginning to sound like my father.”
“Perhaps you should have listened to him.”
“Perhaps in future I shall.” She stalked past him and headed back to camp, wondering if she’d made a mistake after all in not pulling the trigger.
Chapter Eight
True to his statement, when they crossed the Rio Grande, Rane’s foul mood dissipated. With good reason. Though Mexico differed little from West Texas, Angel knew no one looked for her here.
He had outmaneuvered them all. Lundy’s guns for hire. Even any men her father may have dispatched to find her.
After crossing the river, they continued due west for several hours. Then he headed south and paralleled the border, yet stayed well away from it. Several times she spotted a village in the distance, but he avoided even those primitive havens.
He no longer wanted or needed her help. His wound had closed and the debilitating fever that had laid him low had left him along with the infection. Though the injury continued to limit movement in his left arm, the stubborn, relentless man kept to the trail as though nothing at all had happened.
After two days of steady riding, Angel knew they were nearing the end of their journey. Even though the territory was unfamiliar, she felt each mile taking them ever closer to Clayton Station. Evidently, Rane intended to slip in through the back door with no one the wiser.
Her anxiety escalated when he veered west once more and struck a faint trail, long unused and nearly overgrown with seedling piñon pine and juniper. The region abounded in prickly pear and thorny clumps of black looking creosote bushes. Yucca and agave choked the rocky hillsides. Brilliant splashes of scarlet Indian paintbrush and vivid yellow mustard bordered the trail. Where was he taking her?
In the distance, hazy mountain peaks hid the lowering sun. The trail led them into a shallow basin where a line of willows marked a stream. Next to the stream, nearly hidden in a small grove of cottonwoods, stood a solitary thatch-roofed adobe. A thin, white column of smoke curled upward from the chimney. When they neared the dwelling, he halted and waited until she rode up beside him.
A gaunt Mexican sat with his head on his knees, sound asleep in the adobe’s open doorway.
Rane pinned a critical gaze on the man and dropped quietly to the ground. “Stay put,” he ordered.
Angel remained in the saddle while Rane slipped up to the man on cat’s feet.
“Benito, alerta!”
The man’s head popped up from his knees, hitting the door facing in the process. His eyes rounded when he saw Rane standing over him. “Señor Mantorres!” Awkwardly, he propped a crutch under his right arm and scrambled to his feet.
“Where is Carmella?”
Benito’s expression went blank.
“I am here, Señor.”
Rane turned. Angel shifted on the saddle to follow the movement.
A woman emerged from the willows near the stream, carrying a brimming bucket of water.
Who were these people?
The smile of welcome the woman bestowed on Rane sent burning resentment crawling over Angel’s skin. This Carmella was a mature beauty with dark, flashing eyes and glossy raven hair swinging freely about her shoulders. Her scant peasant garb accentuated a stunning figure.
Angel grew uncomfortably conscious of her own wretched state. Constant wind had whipped her hair into a tangled mess, and she was covered in dried horse lather, blood, sweat, and gritty dust. The manly garb she’d worn for the past eight days and nights showed off more than she liked of her figure, but did nothing to enhance her femininity.
The woman stopped walking and lowered her bucket to the ground when Rane neared her. They fell into animated conversation. The occasional word Angel overheard was spoken in Spanish. She gathered more from their body language.
Carmella appeared distressed about the gunshot wound Rane had suffered. From the frequent glances darted in her direction, Angel concluded that she was their main topic.
When the two finally broke apart, Rane headed for the adobe with the water bucket in hand. The woman turned and approached Angel with quick steps.
“Please, come in, Señorita Clayton. I will try to make you comfortable after your long journey.”
Comfort. Did it still exist? She dismounted wearily and stood facing the woman over the seat of the saddle. They looked to be very nearly the same height.
The woman smiled at her reassuringly. “I am Carmella Reyes.” She gestured toward the little man still standing outside the door. “That is Benito, my husband.”
Married. The knowledge filled Angel with a vague sense of relief. “I don’t suppose there’s any need to introduce myself,” she said. “You already know who I am.”
“Sí.” The woman beamed. “We have been expecting you for days.”
Angel dropped her reins to the ground and followed Carmella to the tiny dwelling. The adobe’s interior consisted of one long room. Neat, but crude. The floor was hard-packed dirt. A table and two backless benches standing before an open fire pit took up half the space. The other half had been relegated to sleeping quarters and storage. The entire abode was smaller than the parlor in the big, white house on the Flying C where Angel had grown up.
A modest fire blazed on the hearth and a delicious aroma wafted from a big, blackened pot stationed on iron feet within the flames. Angel’s mouth watered at the prospect of a real meal.
While Carmella opened a leather trunk stationed at the foot of a bed that was nothing more than a few boards nailed together to form a frame, her husband continued to hover in the doorway. Rane stood before the hearth with one hand braced against the thick mantle and stared into the fire, as though deep in thought.
Angel leaned against the cool earthen wall with nothing but questions parading through her mind. Who were these people? What were they to Rane? More importantly, how did they figure into his plans?
Carmella bustled across the room with her gaily-colored skirts swishing about her legs, her arms laden with a stack of clothing. She deposited the garments on the table and moved on, into the kitchen work area.
Angel’s attention snagged on the clothing. A man’s brown shirt and a pair of soft buckskin breeches. The wheat colored cloth she saw peeking from between, she suspected, was a pair of drawers. The clothing looked like things that Rane would wear. She certainly couldn’t picture Carmella’s gaunt husband, whose garments hung on him like loose feed sacks, wearing those breeches.
Carmella returned with a razor and strop and laid them on the table as well. “Benito, why are you still standing there?” She lifted both hands and waved them in a shooing motion. “¡Vámonos! Atender los caballos!”
Angel glanced at Benito in time to see his eyes narrow with unmistakable resentment, all aimed at the back of Rane’s head. Jealousy or out-and-out hatred? Probably a little of both. A troubling picture began to take shape in her mind.
Rane dropped his hand from the mantle and turned. “I’ll help with
the horses,” he said. He picked up the clothes and razor and followed Benito outside.
Carmella watched them, then turned to Angel, planted her hands at her hips, and expelled a relieved breath. Then, she smiled and seemed to take in Angel’s measure with knowing dark eyes. “I would guess that you would very much like a bath. Sí?”
“Oh, sí,” Angel replied without hesitation.
****
Despite having to pull her knees nearly to her chest in order to fit in the wooden tub, warm water and soap felt better than Angel could ever remember them feeling. Her hair was thoroughly clean again and scented with some wonderful homemade wildflower extract Carmella had added to the rinse water.
The atmosphere inside the adobe felt close and warm. Carmella had strung blankets from a rope stretched across the room, dividing the sleeping area from the kitchen to provide some privacy.
Except for her cramped position, if she closed her eyes, Angel could almost imagine she was still in her aunt’s New York townhouse, being attended by her maid. While she soaked, Carmella sat on a stool behind her and worked a comb through her tangled hair.
“It’s very nice of you to do this,” Angel said. “Gracias. I appreciate you making me welcome in your home.”
Carmella chuckled softly. “Is nothing. It is my job.”
Angel winced at a hard tug against her scalp as Carmella applied the comb. “Your job?”
“Sí. Señor Rane is my patrón. This is his home.”
Angel had thought there was nothing more she might learn about him that would surprise her. She’d been wrong.
“I only take care of it for him,” Carmella continued. “And sometimes, I take care of him.”
Angel didn’t much care for the sound of that. What kind of care would a man like Rane require?
The comb slowed. “He does not come here much. It is a sad place for him. But sometimes, he is tired, he needs to rest. So he comes here to be alone.”
Carmella’s soft voice betrayed a note of melancholy. A sad place, she’d said. Angel took in the surrounding adobe walls, barren, stark and colorless. She looked at the coarse bed and imagined Rane lying upon it, staring up at the darkened rafters, alone and hiding out from the world. Humble lodgings for a man who rode a magnificent stallion and had the bearing of a lord. Yet, he said the money Lundy offered for her capture was not what he sought.
Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) Page 9
