Jenny drew back and her eyes narrowed. "You're really something. You must have been dancing in your boots when you learned that Marguarita Barrancas was dead."
"I wasn't happy to hear that she'd died," he said after a minute. "But I wasn't sorry either. She tore our family apart." Anger tightened his jaw. "My father was never the same after Robert marrieda Barrancas . From then on he treated Robert with the same contempt as he treated me. He started drinking, letting the land and the ranch go to hell. Robert spent the next six years hatinghimself for not having the guts to defy the old man. My mother was caught in the middle of it."
"It was Robert who caused the trouble in your family, not Marguarita." Jenny sneered. "If Robert had kept his parts in his pants, there wouldn't have been a problem." Leaning forward again, she jabbed a finger against his chest. "I'll bet there wasn't a night went by during the six years Marguarita waited that she didn't wish she'd said no when your brother mentioned he had a hankering. Huh! That's not going to happen to me."
Stretching out, she settled her head on the saddle,then flounced onto her side, presenting her back to him. "I'm through talking. I'm going to get some sleep."
If that wasn't just like a woman, Ty thought, angrily staring down at her. She had to have the last damned word. Lying back down, he crossed his arms on his chest and glared up at the horse blanket.
After a time, he concluded they had made some progress. The obstacle preventing a mutual hankering from ending satisfactorily had been defined. Now a solution could be considered. Meanwhile, he would begin the wooing process. That decision made him think of Mrs. McGowan, and he smiled.
Mrs. McGowan had taken him into her bed when he was sixteen and randy as a stallion. The farrier's wife had taught him wondrous things, things his feverish young imagination hadn't yet dared to dream. In retrospect, everything he knew about pleasing a woman had come from Alice McGowan, and she had given him some of the best advice he'd ever received.
"Treat all women like theywas fine ladies,"Alicehad advised before he dragged her down between the sheets. "Treat every woman like she was the last woman on earth and you was one of the million men trying to get her."
Considering the state he'd been in at the time, it was nothing short of miraculous that he remembered her advice. But he did, and he'd put it to good use over the years.
Yessir, Jenny Jones didn't know it yet, but she was going to surrender. Idly, he wondered if she knew the word capitulate .
* * *
All her life Jenny had wanted things she didn't or couldn't have. Usually she shrugged and got past the wanting. But this time fate was playing the trickster.
Destiny had thrown her together with a hard-eyed, hard-muscled, good-looking cowboy, the very sight of whom tied her innards in hot knots. If that wasn't enough torture, fortune's imps had given him a powerful hankering for her,then upped the ante by inflicting her with a mighty hankering for him.
The mutual hankering secretly thrilled her and pissed her off at the same time because she couldn't follow through on it.
She'd have to have grits for brains to risk a pregnancy by a man who announced first off that he was a user. It wasn't that she was angling for marriage. Hell, she was no more marriage material than he was. No way would she ever expect or even hope that the son of a prosperous rancher would choose an uneducated, crude, and rude mule skinner for a wife. That wasn't the problem.
She would have dropped her trousers in an eye blink if she could have known for absolute positive certain that she wouldn't turn up pregnant.
Worrying how she was going to support and raise Graciela was enough to keep herawake nights. Adding another kid would finish her. And before the three of them starved or froze to death, Jenny would have fallen through all the stages of degradation that it was possible for a woman to experience.
She didn't deserve that, and she didn't want Graciela and a new kid to witness it happening to her.
Thinking about the horror and misery of watching two kids starve because she couldn't find work made her so mad that she rolled over and kicked Ty.
Instantly he came out of a doze and glared at her. "What the hell was that for?" Leaning forward, he rubbed his shin.
"I keep telling everybody that I'm not the mother type! But you all seem to think I can work miracles and pull food out of the fricking thin air! Well, I'm not going to be used, and I'm not going to prostitute myself or beg in the streets. And no kid of mine is going to starve in front of my eyes. Do you hear me?" She made a fist and hit him on the shoulder. "I don't even like you."
If she'd had the full use of both arms, she would have built another lean-to and moved her saddle. The heat squashed any idea of giving it a try. The best she could do waslie back down and move as far from him as she could.
A minute passed,then she heard him stretch out again.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?"
"Shut up!" She stared at the saddle horn. "Why the hell did you say that?"
"Well, it's true," he said in a lazy voice. "I'm just making an observation. You have beautiful eyes, beautiful breasts,beautiful hips."
Oh God. The hankering feeling came over her strong. No man had ever said such words to her. And she had a weakness for pretty words. The feverish heat curling in her stomach suggested she also had a weakness for handsome cowboys. Crud on a crust.
"Wake me when it's time for supper," she said, in a strange husky voice.
To warn off the hankering, she tried to imagine herself holding a squalling infant with her red hair and the cowboy's blue-green eyes. The image was amusing, horrifying, frightening, and … something else that made her stomach roll over and dissolve into mush.
Groaning in disgust, she turned her face into the crook of her arm. If Graciela didn't get her killed or ruin her life, Ty Sanders would.
CHAPTER 11
C ontrary to expectations, the Mexicans did not break camp and move on. When Jenny checked through Ty's spyglass, the two men appeared to be arguing. Judging by their gestures, it appeared one wanted to leave the campsite while the other remained indecisive. There was still no sign of the missing men. Graciela, thank God, seemed unharmed.
Because it worried Jenny and Ty that the missing two men had not returned by sunset, they decided to wait until dawn to make their move. The delay would provide the absent cousins the greatest opportunity to reappear, and would give Jenny and Ty the greatest assurance that the missing men would not suddenly arrive in the midst of their attack.
The night passed slowly, with little conversation. Finally, to Jenny's relief, the time arrived to shake the drowsiness from their heads, mount, and ride across the dark desert.
A hundred yards from the Mexican's camp, they tethered their horses, then Jenny moved stealthily to the left and Ty silently circled the camp from the right. They came together again near a stunted cactus not far from where they had left their horses.
"There's no outlying guard," Jenny reported in a whisper, her lips nearly touching Ty's ear. His muscles were taut, communicating his readiness for the fight to come. She shared his edginess. She, too, resonated with the need to release the tension of having spent so many feverishly speculative hours alone with him. The pressure of unrequited hankering jangled her nerves and unsettled her thoughts. The way she figured it, a righteous fight would do them both good and clear the air.
Ty cupped her chin in his palm and turned her head to position his mouth near her earlobe. A flow of warm breath and whispered words made her thighs tense.
"I think the missing men are dead. Looks like two fresh graves about twenty yards from the fire."
Now it was again her turn. When she moved her head to whisper a reply, her lips grazed his chin and her breasts pressed lightly against his upper arm. "If they're dead, then our odds just improved."
Pulling back, he glared into her eyes. "What are you doing? You're going to get our butts killed."
Frowning, she peered through the darkness. "What
the hell are you talking about?"
"You know damned well what I'm talking about. These."
His hand moved up between them and he cupped one breast, lifting the rounded weight in his palm. His unexpected touch exploded through her body like an invisible beam that instantly dissolved her bones.
The strength shot out of her legs, and Jenny dropped hard to her knees, which placed her at eye level with his thighs. She stared straight at his crotch. It was a damned fine crotch in her opinion, impressive, really, but right now she was too amazed to devote much thought to a crotch that had occupied her mind for most of the day.
At this moment, the impact of Ty's warm hand cupping her breast rocked her mind like a small earthquake. She flat would not have believed that a man's casual caress could drop her to her knees. Of course, no man had actually caressed her before. Based on her experience, men grabbed, mauled, pummeled, and kneaded. They didn't gently cup, stroke, or caress.
"Je-zus," she whispered, as he knelt down beside her.
"What's wrong? Is it your arm? Something with your legs?"
"Don't touch my breast again, or I'll kick you in the groin," she whispered angrily. Gripping his hand, she pulled herself to her feet,then shook off his fingers as if his touch were lethal.
"Then don't go rubbing up against me like you did," he snapped, speaking an inch from her lips. "Not when we're about to start a fight. You have lousy timing." He spread his hands and released an exasperated sound between his teeth. "All the damned day and all night, I've been waiting and hoping you'd show some interest. And when do you do it? Two minutes before we're going to go in and risk getting ourselves killed—goddammit, Jenny."
A rush of heat flushed her face. "I wasn't rubbing on you! I was only leaning close to whisper in your fricking ear." Defensive, she instantly forgot the thrill of pressing against him. "Are we going to do this, or are we going to stand here arguing until the sun comes up?"
They stood boot tip to boot tip, hat brim to hat brim, scowling at each other in the darkness of predawn, fighting a powerful backwash of hankering.
"One of the men is sitting up, asleep in front of the fire," Ty whispered, frowning down at her mouth. "The other one is wrapped in a bedroll, sleeping on this side."
"Graciela's in the middle," Jenny added. His gaze was narrow and cool, but his body radiated enough heat to scorch a woman's hide. She was positive that his hard eyes burned an imprint on her lips. Swallowing, she thought about stepping backward, but her legs wouldn't move away from him. "We have to figure the kid is going to get in theway, that she's going to try to protect her fricking cousins."
"How's your arm?" A light touch brushed her shoulder. "Are you going to be able to use it?"
"It's sore, but it won't be a problem." At least this time she didn't humiliate herself by falling to her knees when he touched her. "I'll take the cousin in the bedroll, and I'll grab the kid. You take the cousin dozing by the fire. He's the one most likely to give us trouble."
They stared into each other's eyes. "I'd like to kiss you for luck," Ty said finally.
"Oh God, don't do it." She placed both palms on his chest and gave him a push. "You saw what a touch did to me. So don't go trying for a kiss. Turn your butt around, and let's get this fight over with." Even the thought of kissing him made her stomach lurch into a long hot roll. Her legs had that boneless feeling again. "Damn it, Sanders. You've been tormenting me for hours with teasing remarks," she whispered fiercely, getting angry. "I'm telling you for the last time … stop it ."
"What about you? For the first time in my life, I'm going into a fight with an erection! That kind of distraction can get a man killed."
"See how you are?" she demanded, leaning into him, her eyes flashing. "There you go with more suggestive remarks."
He swore softly, staring at the front of her poncho like he could see through it, then he pulled out his gun. "You've got me so worked up I can hardly think straight. Christ! Wait for my signal. We'll strike at the same time."
She couldn't help it. She strained through the darkness, trying to see if he really did have an erection. When he noticed where she was looking, he groaned and shook his head. Another rush of color heated her cheeks.
"Well, you could have been lying," she snapped. But she was pleased to notice that he was not. In fact, she felt wildly flattered and slightly astounded that he was in the same agitated state of arousal as she was. Flipping open her pistol, she ran her thumb over the chamber, double-checking the load of bullets. "Forget hankering and start thinking about that cousin dozing by the fire. Let's go."
"Concentrate. Focus," he hissed before he ran a hot finger down her throat. An instant later he had faded into the shadows.
She tried to concentrate on the matter at hand, but her thoughts kept flipping around erections and kisses and touches and feverish speculation about a hard-eyed cowboy's body and intentions. She would have sworn that her throat burned along the line he'd drawn with his fingertip.
"Well crud on a crust." After giving her head a vigorousshake , she dropped into a crouch and moved up toward the embers glowing in the cousins' fire pit, darting from one clump of low cover to the next. She promised firmly that she would not jeopardize this action by getting stuck on distracting memories of his hand curving around her breast.
Before she managed completely to thrust the recollection out of her mind, she found herself inside the campsite, practically on top of the sleeping cousin. Glancing up, she saw Ty rise behind the cousin dozing before the fire. His hand clapped over the man's mouth and he dragged him backward.
The noise of the scuffle between Ty and the first cousin was slight but enough that when she gazed down at the man in the bedroll, his eyes flicked open, instantly alert. An explosion ripped through his blankets. If she hadn't dived to the side when she saw his eyes, the son of a bitch would have plugged her. Rolling up on her knees, she fanned the hammer of her pistol and fired. To make sure she'd hit hermark, she jerked back his blanket, tossed his gun into the darkness, then slapped a hand on his throat and checked for a pulse.
"Good riddance."
The force of a small body flying out of the darkness knocked her on her back in the dirt. Swearing, teeth bared, she freed her arm and jammed the barrel of her pistol into … Graciela's ribs. "Kid! Damn it, I almost shot you."
Struggling to sit up, she tried to shove Graciela aside, but Graciela wouldn't budge. A full minute elapsed before she understood the kid was not fighting her. Graciela had wrapped her arms around Jenny's neck, and she clung like paint on a fence, sobbing and babbling hysterically. After a hasty check to reassureherself that Graciela was unharmed, Jenny felt like babbling herself. Getting the kid back in one piece made her almost feel like weeping.
Ty loomed out of the darkness, grimly satisfied, shoving his gun into his holster. Jenny met his glance, returned his hard-eyed nod,then turned her attention to the kid.
"Kid! Kid, slow down. I can't understand a word you're saying."
Graciela pulled back an inch and rubbed both hands against wet eyes. "My fricking cousins tried to kill me!" Jenny didn't grab her fast enough to prevent her from shifting to look at the dead cousin in his bedroll. But the kid didn't flinch. The tears rolling down her cheeks were not for the dead cousins.
Turning back to Jenny, she talked a hundred words a minute, waving her arms, her eyes huge. "They turned snakes loose on me!" A shudder of remembered horror trembled down her body. "Snakes this big!" Her arms flew open wide. "Then Carlos tried to choke me, but Favre wouldn't let him, and they got into a fight and killed each other. And I was so scared and so afraid you wouldn't come, but I knew you would, but you didn't, and I thought they'd kill me for fricking sure!"
She threw herself into Jenny's arms, sobbing again, clinging like a burr. Jenny waved her hands in the air, then patted Graciela's back awkwardly, amazed by how deep down, damned good it felt to have the kid's little warm body in her arms. "It's finished now," she murmured over and over. "I'm he
re and you're safe. No one's going to hurt you."
When she glanced up, Ty was standing over her, fists on his hips, scowling.
"What?" she asked, frowning up athim.
"Did you hear what my niece said?"
"She said she finally believes that her rotten cousins were trying to kill her, just like I've been telling her all along." She didn't understand his angry expression.
"She said her 'fricking' cousins were trying to kill her for 'fricking' sure."
"Well, thank God they didn't get the job done. It sounds like they tried, the bastards. Did you hear what she said? The sons of bitches turned snakes loose on her. Snakes!"
"Jenny, my niece said 'fricking.'" He stared at her, then cast a meaningful glance at Graciela's heaving back.
"Graciela, you've got to stop crying now." Jenny tried to peel the kid off her chest. "You got my bad arm caught between us, and it's hurting like hell."
Reluctantly, Graciela released her grip and edged backward a step. She cast anxious glances between Jenny and Ty. "Are they all dead?"
"Those men aren't going to hurt you ever again," Ty said gently. Kneeling, he sat back on his heels and studied the kid's face. "Are you all right?"
This time the kid flung herself on the cowboy's neck and burst into fresh sobs, interspersed with an incoherent story involving snakes as long and thick as a fence rail. Ty looked as surprised as Jenny had when Graciela had jumped into her arms, then he did the same thing she had done. He held Graciela's sobbing body, awkwardly patted her back, and murmured soothing sounds deep in his throat.
"I was so scared of the fricking snakes! One of them tried to crawl up my leg, and—"
"Honey, wait. Listen a minute." Ty eased her away from his shoulder so he could gaze into her eyes. "Nice little ladies don't say words like fricking."
The Promise of Jenny Jones Page 17
