Touch the Wind

by Janet Dailey

  “You’ve what?” Sheila asked.

  “This overcrowded border town is no place for a honeymoon.” His gaze flicked to the hotel window, where the morning turmoil of traffic and people filtered through the panes. “My pampered wife deserves a more exotic locale.”

  When his brown eyes glanced back to her, Sheila could tell he wasn’t the least bit interested in what she wanted. Brad was the one who had decided that Juárez was not good enough for him. Juárez was for the tourists, and Acapulco was the resort spot for the moneyed class. And Brad had elevated himself to that group by marrying her.

  “I don’t care about going to Acapulco,” she said tersely.

  “You are forgetting, my love—whither thou goest, I will go,” he quoted mockingly. “Come on. It’s going to be a long drive. You get up and get packed while I go check us out of this dump.”

  “There is nothing wrong with this hotel,” Sheila insisted, but Brad was already walking to the door.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He laughed at her, his hand poised on the doorknob. “I want to give you a real honeymoon. So don’t argue.”

  With my money, Sheila thought as he stepped into the hallway. A bubble of hysterical laughter welled in her throat. She choked it back and threw off the bedcovers to rise.

  In the bathroom, Sheila washed quickly. She took no pains with her makeup, applying brown mascara to the curling sweep of her lashes and a dusty-rose shade of gloss to her lips. A quick brushing to rid her streaked hair of its tangles, and she was finished. The bathroom mirror showed that the minimum of makeup did not lessen her natural beauty.

  Emerging from the bathroom, she searched through her suitcase for clothes, wanting to be dressed before Brad returned. As quickly as her throbbing muscles would allow, she pulled on a pair of panties and stepped into brown slacks. The door opened and Brad walked in, eyeing the soft curves of her figure.

  His interest waned in a surge of impatience. “You aren’t even dressed yet,” he accused.

  With a toss of her head, Sheila faced him, a brassiere in her hand, her fingers curling into a lacy white cup. “Brad, we don’t have time for a honeymoon now. We both have classes to get back to, and you have your job.”

  “We have all the time in the world,” he insisted.

  Sheila frowned. “But what about college? Your degree?”

  “Who needs it? There isn’t anything those professors can teach me. Besides, it’s not what you know—it’s who you know and how much money you’ve got.” He patted the bulge in his trousers pocket. “And we have enough to live like royalty here in Mexico.”

  Her mouth opened, although Sheila didn’t know why she was surprised by his statement. There had been a lot of clues. She had just not been as willing to see them as her parents had.

  “That money won’t last forever,” Sheila reminded him stiffly. “Sooner or later, it’s going to run out, even in Mexico.”

  Lazy, strolling strides carried Brad to stand in front of her. “It will last us easily until you receive your inheritance. You’ll be twenty-one in a few months.”

  “Do you think I’m just going to hand it over to you?” The cat-gold flecks in her eyes flamed brightly.

  Brad seemed to find her display of anger amusing. “We’re married. What’s yours is mine. And what’s mine is mine, too,” he joked.

  But Sheila didn’t find it laughable. All her glorious plans for their future were disintegrating one by one. She was beginning to realize that they had always been “her” plans. Brad had simply endorsed them, probably because he knew it was what she wanted to hear.

  “Don’t you have any ambition?” There was a sarcastic curl to her lip even as her chin trembled.

  “It’s going to be a full-time occupation being married to you.” He fingered the strap of the bra in her hand, his eyes touching her breasts as they returned to regard her face. “For a while, at least.”

  “Then what?” Sheila challenged.

  I’m sure your father can find me a position that will be suitable employment for his son-in-law.” Brad smiled complacently.

  “Something that pays very well but doesn’t take up too much of your time,” she concluded, widening her eyes with false innocence.

  “That’s the idea exactly.” He grinned. “But that’s later. Right now we are off to Acapulco for some lazy days on the beach.” Brad wound his finger around the bra strap and pulled it from her hand. “You won’t be needing this,” he declared, holding it out of reach.

  “Give that back to me.” Sheila refused to try to grab for it.

  “It’s going to be a long, boring drive today.” He tossed the bra into her suitcase and closed it. “I’m going to want a little diversion from time to time. And I know my bride will want it, too.”

  Sheila shuddered away from the abrasive touch of his fingers. His hand hovered in the air as he gave her a long, level look.

  “There’s no need to be shy. We’re married. Come back here. I don’t have the time to be patient with you now as I was last night.”

  “You were patient last night?” She breathed tightly.

  “More patient than I am now. You like the caveman technique, anyway.” His hand closed over her breast, fondling it briefly before Sheila stepped away. Brad chuckled. “You can put your blouse on now. I’ll pack the suitcases while you get your things from the bathroom.”

  Numbed by the unveiling of the true Brad Townsend, Sheila did as she was told. When she emerged from the bathroom, Brad was ready to leave. With a hand at her elbow, he hurried her down the hallway to an exit door.

  “Aren’t we going to have breakfast, or at least coffee?” Sheila tried to slow her steps as he pushed her toward the door.

  His gaze disdainfully swept around him. “No, I want to get out of this place. We’ll stop somewhere later on.”

  There was no one in the small parking lot of the hotel. Sheila climbed into the passenger seat of her blue Thunderbird while Brad stowed their cases on the rear seat. When he slid behind the wheel, he leaned over to kiss her. Sheila turned her head at the last second and he kissed the corner of her mouth, instead.

  “Still hung up about displaying affection in public?” he taunted her. “We’ll see if we can’t free you of some of your inhibitions during our drive.” He winked and started the motor.

  While Brad drove the car through the city traffic of Juárez, Sheila huddled in the seat corner nearest the door. Tired and dispirited, she felt trapped by fate. The cream-yellow silk of her blouse was cool to her naked flesh, a physical reminder of the type of man Brad was.

  The outskirts of Juárez, with their squalid, hilltop shanties, were soon behind them. A road crew repairing some minor damage to the highway forced Brad to slow the car temporarily. Then they were speeding along.

  With each rotation of the wheel, the certainty grew within Sheila that she had made a terrible mistake. She would arrange for an annulment, a divorce, anything that would bring this farcical marriage to an end.

  The decision made, an exhaustion that was both mental and physical began to overpower Sheila. Soon she was drifting off to sleep, lulled by the steady rhythm of the engine and the turning of the tires. It was a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  Hours and miles sped by before the uncomfortableness of the car seat began to prick Sheila awake. Her neck was stiff and sore and her head was bouncing against the backrest.

  Rubbing the crook in her neck, Sheila slowly opened her eyes. With difficulty, she focused her gaze on the countryside. It resembled the west Texas landscape in many respects, but the looming range of the Sierra Madre Mountains in front of them confirmed they were in Mexico.

  They were no longer traveling on the modern highway. A rutted dirt track stretched through the bush before them, the rough road jolting them. Sheila glanced at Brad in confusion.

  “Where are we?” Her throat was parched and cottony, thickening her voice to a husky sound.

  The set of his jaw was grim and angry. He couldn’t spare a gl
ance from the uneven track to look at her. “We are supposed to be on a shortcut through the mountains to the west coast, but I don’t think the stupid Mexican who told me about it knew what he was talking about.”

  “It’s quite impossible that you could have taken the wrong turn,” Sheila remarked with dry sarcasm.

  His gaze slashed to her for a brief second and the steering wheel was nearly wrenched from his hands as a front tire bounced into a pothole.

  “This is probably his idea of a good road, but it’s going to ruin this car,” Brad muttered.

  It was nice of him to be concerned, Sheila thought cynically, considering it was her car that he was driving. But she kept silent. There was a chill in the air. She looked again to the fabled mountains and guessed that the higher elevation had caused the temperature to drop. Suppressing a shiver, she hugged her arms around her.

  “It’s getting cold. Can’t you turn the heater on?”

  “It isn’t working,” Brad snapped.

  “Somewhere there is heat because the warning light on the dashboard is lit,” Sheila observed caustically. “Is that steam rising from the hood?”

  Brad barked out a string of savage imprecations. Stopping the car and leaving the motor running, he charged out, slamming the door. Steam billowed into the air when he raised the hood.

  With the same volatile impatience that had marked his departure, he returned to the driver’s seat and angrily switched off the motor. He sat there for a charged minute, his hands clenching the wheel.

  “Damn!” He pounded his fist against the wheel.

  “What’s wrong?” Sheila was deriving a peculiar kind of satisfaction from his frustrated rage.

  “A broken water hose,” Brad growled.

  “Can you fix it?” Her eyes were rounded and blinkingly innocent of any deliberate provocation. He abhorred manual labor.

  His face was livid with fury. “Oh, sure, I always carry around spare parts.”

  “I didn’t know.” She shrugged. “I just thought that you might have foreseen the possibility of a breakdown and planned for it.”

  “Just shut up, Sheila,” he snarled.

  “What are we going to do now? Sit here and wait for someone to come along? This is such a well-traveled road that—”

  With the swiftness of a striking cobra, his hand encircled her throat, choking off the rest of her words. The handsome face was mottled with rage as he brought it close to hers.

  “Don’t open your mouth again until I tell you,” he ordered. His fingers slightly tightened their grip, causing Sheila to gasp for air.

  Sheila managed a short nod of understanding, breathing deeply when the strangling pressure was removed. Tears of pain smarted her eyes. Sheila turned her head to the side window, wiping away the traces of tears with her fingertips.

  “You certainly can’t take a joke, can you?” She choked out the retort, but Brad didn’t respond.

  A dust-devil whirled beside the car and danced into the brush. Sheila followed its flight into the emptiness of the land. It seemed a wilderness.

  Dust was whipped into a hazy cloud by a gust of wind. Her gaze sharpened as she detected movement in the haze. The air cleared slowly to reveal horses and riders. In the obscuring thickness of the brush, it was hard to tell how many there were, a half dozen, maybe more.

  Sheila didn’t alert Brad to the presence of the riders until the small band spotted the stalled car and stopped to stare curiously. A blue Thunderbird in the middle of nowhere was not a common sight.

  “Brad, someone is out there,” she said finally.

  “What?” He leaned toward her. “Where?”

  “There.” Sheila pointed, plagued by a fear she couldn’t explain. “On horseback. Do you see them?”

  “Yes, I see them,” he answered.

  “Who do you suppose they are?” She continued to watch them, finding it strange that they hadn’t ridden forward to investigate.

  “Mexican cowboys, by the looks of them,” Brad concluded. “I’ve heard there are a lot of ranches in this area. It’s supposed to be cattle country.”

  A frown of uncertainty knitted her eyebrows. “Yes, that could be.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to take any chances.”

  He leaned over the seat back and opened his travel-worn suitcase. Sheila glanced over her shoulder to see what he was doing. Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the snub-nosed revolver he took from beneath a pile of clothes.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  Brad ignored the question. He checked to make sure the gun was loaded before tucking it into the waistband of his slacks and buttoning his jacket closed.

  As he opened his door, he ordered, “You stay in the car.”

  Her gaze returned swiftly to the band of riders, approaching the car at a sedate walk. When Brad stepped out, one of the riders separated from the others to ride forward.

  “Hello!” Brad called to him, walking around to the raised hood.

  “Buenos días, señor,” the man returned. He stopped his horse and dismounted, his bulky shape concealed by a dirty, brightly striped poncho.

  “Do you speak English?” Brad asked.

  “No hablo inglés.” The man shook his head sadly.

  “Look”—Brad breathed in deeply and released an irritated sigh—“my car has broken down.” He motioned the man to come to the front of the car. “See? The water hose is busted.”

  The man said something in Spanish that sounded suitably sympathetic to Brad’s problem. He was shrugging his helplessness when he moved away from the hood.

  The other riders had clustered around the man’s horse, watching the proceedings. Sheila counted eight of them, nine including the man talking to Brad. She couldn’t shake the eerie sensation that sent chills down her spine. It was as if some primitive part of her had caught the scent of danger. Ignoring Brad’s command, she stepped out of the car.

  “The car won’t run until it’s fixed. What I need—” Brad stopped at the sound of the car door shutting and glared at Sheila. “Get back in the car.”

  Her gaze never left the riders. “I’m staying here.”

  It was a motley group of men. A powdering of dust dulled their clothes, an assortment of ponchos and pants. Their horses were small and narrow-chested, nondescript compared with the powerfully muscled quarter horses common in Sheila’s home state.

  Combining pantomime with an attempt at sign language, Brad endeavored to communicate with the Mexican. Sheila was aware of his action out of the corner of her eye.

  “Is there a town or village close by where I can have the car fixed?” Brad said the words slowly, acting them out when he could. “I must find someone to fix the car —repair it so it will run again. Comprendez?”

  The man listened and watched him earnestly, but in the end he shook his head regretfully and lifted his hands. “No entiendo, señor”

  Brad muttered an aside to Sheila. “Why can’t these damned Mexicans learn how to speak English?” He started all over again. “Is there someone out there somewhere who can fix the car?”

  Sheila’s gaze traveled warily over the group of riders, always being drawn back to one man, although on the surface there was nothing about him to distinguish him from the others. Wearing a dust-covered, Western-crowned hat with a wide brim, he was slouched in the saddle, a gloved hand resting on the protruding horn. Yet Sheila sensed an animal alertness behind the indolent pose.

  Like the others, there was a shadowy darkness to his cheeks and jaw to indicate he hadn’t shaved recently. It gave him an unkempt, and vaguely disreputable, appearance. But this one man did not have the broad flatness to his face that hinted at the Mexican-Indian extraction of the other riders. His features were angular and lean. And the obsidian dark eyes staring back at Sheila were hard and cold.

  “Damn it! There has to be a mechanic somewhere around here!” Brad’s patience snapped at his inability to communicate successfully with the Mexican.

/>   “Mecánico? Si, si.” The man nodded in sudden understanding and followed with a spate of Mexican as he pointed back the way they had come.

  “Now we are getting somewhere,” Brad murmured grimly.

  A puff of wind blew shimmering strands of brown-gold hair across Sheila’s face. She reached up to tuck them behind her ear, unaware that the action stretched the silken material of her blouse across her breasts. Her gaze was compelled to return again to the dark rider.

  “Will you ride your horse to where the mechanic is and bring him back?” Brad pantomimed the question. “I’ll pay you for your trouble. Pay you—have you got that? Pesos. Many pesos. Don’t tell me you don’t know what pesos are?” he added cynically.

  “Pesos? Si, si.” The man assured him of his understanding and waited.

  “How much do you want?” Brad asked, reaching into his trousers pocket. “Fifty pesos?”

  As he pulled out the wad of bills Sheila had given him, she went cold all over. She wanted to scream at.

  Brad for his stupidity in showing the man all that money, but nothing could get past the lump of fear in her throat The Mexican laughed with undisguised delight, revealing chipped, yellowed teeth, and said something to the others.

  She couldn’t believe that Brad didn’t feel the subtle change in the atmosphere—that charged feeling in the air that precedes a violent storm. Sheila faced the riders, her eyes darting to the faint smiles appearing at their compatriot’s announcement Only the one compelling rider seemed untouched by the news. Every muscle in her body was tensed for flight.

  “Fifty pesos isn’t enough, huh?” Brad muttered beneath his breath, “Greedy bastard.” And he began peeling off more bills. “How about a hundred pesos? Would that persuade you?”

  Sheila wanted to laugh hysterically at Brad. His singleminded desire to show how wealthy he was made him blind to the situation, and she couldn’t force the words through her mouth to warn him. The whole scene was building toward a climax, and she was powerless to stop it.

  The Mexican’s left hand emerged from the folds of his poncho and reached toward the money. “I’ve found your price, have I?” Brad declared and started to separate some of the bills from the rest.