by Lisa Rae
Gabriel held Julianna so tight up against his hard body, that she had no choice but to feel his strong muscled chest, as it moved in and out with his every breath. She could feel the hot moist air from his breath on her ear and the back of her delicate neck, as Gabriel dared to breathe, while his heart raced faster than normal!
As much as Gabriel tried to convince himself otherwise, the fast pounding of his heartbeat was not due to the enraged posse that he knew would soon be looking for them, but from the intense heat that was growing in his loins from having her in his lap, and the alluring smell of her faint lilac perfume that drove him wild.
*
The Phantom outlaw gang managed to get away with all the gold money and a beautiful young woman. But two members of their gang were injured. Victor had been shot in the shoulder and was in a lot of pain, but he would make it. Sam, who had been gut shot, was having a hard time staying conscious enough to ride, with loosing so much blood. Gabriel was also unable to travel very fast riding double on his horse with Julianna in his lap. So all three horses were trailing back behind the rest of the outlaw gang.
Gabriel was far too deep in his own worried thoughts to really notice that he had slowed down considerably, once they were safely far enough away from the stagecoach. Having to improvise and kidnap this breathtakingly beautiful young lady was definitely not part of his well thought out plans. He had already seen that she was obviously from back East, undoubtedly spoiled, and use to getting her own way. He knew he was going to have a very hard time keeping the rest of the outlaw gang off of her. Which meant keeping her safe was going to be a full time job that he didn’t have time for. Nor a job he wanted. The last time he cared for a woman she ended up dead …
He would love to just stop, and let Julianna go now that the gang was safely away from the stagecoach, but Gabriel did not have that cold of a heart to do it. They were too far away from the stagecoach now, which had probably already gone on its way, to its next stop to report the robbery. So now Gabriel must carefully figure out how he will still be able to follow through with his well made plans, and take care of this spoiled brat at the same time. Unable to take the chance of telling her his dangerous secret, if he wasn’t careful, Gabriel may have to take his secret to his cold grave just to save her …
*
Slowly coming out of the shock from having been held with a Colt pistol to her beautiful head, then thrown on the back of a big horse and kidnapped; Julianna tried again to persuasively convince this handsomely strong man to let her go. “Sir, please let me go! I promise you, I won’t tell anyone about you and your outlaw gang.”
“You don’t know anything about our outlaw gang, or me, so what could you say?” Gabriel was quick to reply in irritation as kidnapping this beautiful young lady had put him in a sour mood.
“My father … he can pay you a whole lot more money than your men have stolen here today,” Julianna managed to say, as dust caught in her parched throat and she coughed.
Noticing her thirst, Gabriel took his muscular arm from around her narrow waist, and reached down for his canteen of water that always hung on the saddle horn of his saddle. He handed it to Julianna for her to drink as he said, “Lady, I did not kidnap you to trade for more money. I kidnapped you to keep my ass from being shot off back there by your dumb ass traveling companions.”
This annoyingly beautiful woman was already driving Gabriel nuts, and getting under his sinew tough skin in an irritating and yet arousing way, that kept his wandering mind on improper thoughts of her. Instead of what he should of been thinking about. He had hoped talking to her in such a manner would shut her up.
While he was instantly lost again in his own troubled thoughts, Julianna exclaimed, “How dare you use that kind of language in front of me!”
Gabriel quickly put his troubled thoughts to the back of his busy mind for now, as he let her have it. “Lady, let’s get this straight right now. You have been kidnapped, you will do as I say and no arguments, or I will let the rest of the gang fight over you and then do to you what they want. By then you will wish you had listened to me! I’m sure by now you have figured out how much they want to get their filthy hands on you. So you will do as I say, got it?” Gabriel fiercely stated more than asked, as he was getting extremely irritated with her now.
Julianna opened her mouth with the strong intent to protest, but the vivid thoughts of what those awful men obviously wanted to do to her, and the angered look in Gabriel’s smoldering slate blue eyes, told her all she needed to know right now. In defeat, she shut her mouth and nodded in agreement. Thinking that if she was going to be forced to bed down with any of these awful men, she felt she’d rather it be this ruggedly handsome man. Who has shown her some compassion, and hopefully would be kinder to her than the rest of the outlaw gang. Who she could tell were raised in a barn, and haven’t bathed in who knows how long.
Maybe it would have been better to have taken the chance at being shot at, than to have taken this annoying aristocratic lady hostage. A bullet wound wouldn’t be near as painful as her soft warm body, that he held so close to his, and was painfully distracting him from keeping his mind on his real job.
*
Sam, who had been gut shot by Pete, had passed out from the great loss of blood. He fell from his gray colored horse to the prickly pear cactus covered ground below. Gabriel saw him fall and knew Sam was but a few short breaths from being the Devil’s newest resident. As Gabriel stopped his big bay horse beside Sam, he said to him with no true sorrow, “Sorry partner, but you won’t be needing your horse anymore.”
After climbing down off his big stallion, Gabriel took a strong leather thong from his worn out saddlebags, and gently tied Julianna’s delicately gloved hands together. Gabriel then lifted Julianna from his tall stout horse, and set her onto Sam’s big gray gelding. He reached down to Sam’s body, and took Sam’s beat up old hat off his head. Smashing it down onto Julianna’s soft curls, so that she had something to protect her delicate white face from the hot bright rays of the sun. As he grabbed the leather reins to her gray horse, he climbed back onto his own horse and told her, “Don’t even think about trying to run away. You would never survive out here by yourself.”
Julianna angrily snapped at Gabriel in her better than thou attitude for being handled in such a way. “My father will find me and have you hanging at the end of a rope!”
“Lady, if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna hang you!” Gabriel angrily snapped this time, having lost all his patience with her.
Big wet tears, that had already welled up in the corners of Julianna’s emerald green eyes, now started to course down her rosy cream cheeks, but this time she did not say another word.
*
A couple long hours or so had passed in complete silence when Gabriel, having collected himself and calmed down, finally asked her, “What is your name?”
“Thought you didn’t want me to talk?” Julianna quickly snapped back with venom in her voice.
“Well, we are going to be shacked together for a long time, so I figured I should at least know your name?” For the first time, Gabriel replied with a grin, as she looked back at him now with fire in her eyes instead of tears.
“My name is Miss Julianna Whitaker. My friends call me Julie.” With the way she said it, she obviously implied he was not a friend of hers. Then as what he said sunk in … “And what do you mean, we are going to be shacked together for a long time?” She all but gasped.
Julianna barely had the words out of her beautiful mouth, when it registered in Gabriel’s head, and he quickly questioned her, “You wouldn’t by chance be related to the governor Bill Whitaker, would you?” Already Gabriel was starting to sweat profusely at that idea.
“Yes, William Whitaker is my father. I was traveling on my way to see him,” Julianna explained as she was wondering how he knew her father went by the first name of Bill, to people he was very close to?
Instantly, Gabriel started cussing a blue streak under
his breath. Words that Julianna had never heard before, and some she had learned from other young ladies at the finishing school her father had sent her to these last couple of years.
Gabriel had already thought it was going to be treacherous enough with the probability that a posse might come after them for kidnapping a young lady; being she’s the governor’s daughter, there will be much more than a angry posse searching for them. To start with, there would be a devoted loving father, whose military record spoke for its self. The governor would do everything in his power to bring a whole army after them!
Well, I’m just gonna have to work faster and go to plan B. That is as soon as I figure out what plan B is … Gabriel thought. Maybe having her as his captive, will help him after all.
They rode on again in complete silence for a while, when Julianna suddenly realized that she still did not know his name. She wondered if he would he even tell her if she asked him.
Juliana looked directly over at Gabriel riding beside her, as he lead her gelding by the leather reins. His dark skin was like tanned leather from many years of riding, and working out in the hot sun, sharp winds, freezing rain, sleet and snow. With the dark skin and long black hair, but blue eyes, she guessed that he was only part Native American.
His worn out Stetson, pulled down low to keep the bright sun out of his eyes, made the depths of those slate blue eyes even deeper and harder to read. Julianna noticed that a front lock of his long black hair had come loose from the eagle feathered leather thong, that he had used to tie his hair back with. She had a strong urge to reach over and gently move the loose strands of hair back out of his handsome chiseled face.
Just as Julianna started to raise her delicately gloved hand in the direction of his face, she quickly remembered her hands were tied together. As she realized what she was doing, her hand froze in place… But her roaming eyes had a mind of their own. They kept searching through the depths of Gabriel’s blue eyes. Wishing she could read his mind. Wondering if he felt …
Alright, get a grip! Julianna said to herself. This half-breed is a dangerous outlaw! He’s part of an outlaw gang that robs, kidnaps, and kills people. Yet she could not lower her steady gaze as his blue eyes held onto hers, causing her heart to skip a beat, actually a few beats. It felt like her heart had jumped up into her throat, voiding her of any possible words she may have wished to say.
Gabriel had already been intensely staring at Julianna, when she looked up at him. She had a beautiful hourglass waist that said the time was perfect for picking, and she also had other soft curves in all the right places. Long dark brunette hair, that she had put up in a fancy bun, now fell lose down her back, and the most hypnotizing emerald green eyes he had ever seen …
After a few intense seconds of staring into Julianna’s hypnotizing green eyes, Gabriel quickly looked away. Lost in his own thoughts, Gabriel could only imagine what Julianna’s father, William Whitaker, the governor of the Colorado territory, would do to him for having kidnapped his only daughter. Her virtue, whether anything did happen to her or not, would be badly soiled now. There’s no way he could give that back to her. No decent gentleman would want to marry Julianna, knowing she had spent many lonely nights with these outlaws and no chaperon, no matter how well Gabriel protected her from the rest of the gang… Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he could protect her from himself!
Julianna’s movements in her saddle brought Gabriel’s wandering mind back to the present … for the most part, as she tried to get comfortable in the saddle. When she again turned his way, and looked deeply into his guarded blue eyes, Gabriel felt as if she could see all the way into his tormented soul, and that made him very uncomfortable. No one in many years had been able to do that. Not since that time ten years ago …
Gabriel always made sure to keep his eyes guarded, not allowing anyone to see his true feelings. The pain that tormented him every day, and every night in his dreams, when he tried to sleep.
He could not tell Julianna the truth about himself, but he wanted her to always feel that she could trust him to protect her. That he had no intentions of harming her. Gabriel sensed that she wanted to say something to him, but yet she did not speak. He now feared he had been too harsh on her, thus she was now too scared to say anything. Still staring into her emerald eyes, he wandered if he should apologize for snapping at her earlier, and how could he now make her feel safe?
Chapter 2
As Gabriel and Julianna rode on in silence, a loud crack of thunder pulled them out of their own far away thoughts, as they looked up to the dark gray sky above the mountains ahead of them. A little chuckle escaped Julianna’s mouth, causing Gabriel to look at her with his eyebrow raised in question.
Julianna replied to his raised eyebrow, “I knew from the sunrise this morning that it was going to rain today, and I was worried I would ruin my beautiful dress if we had to get out of the stagecoach, and help push it through the soggy mud.”
“And why is that funny?” Gabriel asked in curiosity.
With a smirk on her face she said, “You’ve kidnapped me. Pushing the stagecoach in the mud now is the least of my concern, Mr… .?”
“My name is Gabriel,” he said with a big smile, as he couldn’t help envisioning the thought of her pushing a stagecoach in the mud. He also thought about how well she handled her new situation, and not even once complained. Maybe she had some sand to her after all.
“Jules, with that nasty storm heading our way, we need to catch up to the rest of the gang before dark. I’m sure you are probably sore from the long hours in the saddle, that you are not use to, but do you think you can stick it out and keep up with me?” Gabriel asked in earnest.
“Yes Gabe, I think I can,” Julianna replied wondering how they had got on a personal first name basis so quickly? She didn’t know this man well enough to be talking to him in such a way. All her friends called her Julie, but Gabriel had called her Jules, and she liked how it sounded coming from his lips.
The bright sun had fallen behind the snow capped mountains ahead, and the warm temperature was dropping fast as it normally does in a dry desert climate at nightfall. They had almost caught up to the outlaw gang when it started lightly raining on them from the dark clouds above. Julianna had taken her warm cloak off earlier that morning in the stagecoach when the sun had shined brightly on her, and now she did not have it to put on to keep warm.
Gabriel saw Julianna shiver in the cold rain, and reached behind himself to untie his duster from the back of his saddle, giving it to Julianna to put on. “What about you?” Julianna asked concerned.
“I’m used to this changing weather. I’ll be alright till we stop,” Gabriel said as he pulled his brown shirt collar and black bandana up around his neck, buttoning his collar. He handed Julianna the leather reins to her gray gelding. “Let’s make a run for it and catch up to the gang. They will be pulling off the trail soon to make camp, and we don’t want to pass them up.”
As they raced ahead on their horses, Julianna was thinking about how a nice hot bath and warm soft bed would feel right now, but no luck in that tonight or anytime soon for that matter. She had resigned herself to her fate, and was determined to make the best of it.
Tonight she knew she would be sleeping on the rock hard ground in the cold freezing rain. She wondered if Gabriel planned on sleeping with her for warmth … That thought scared her, but it also excited her! She couldn’t help think about how good his strong arm felt around her slim waist earlier today, when she was sitting in his lap. Her body pressed hard against his, and his hot moist breath on her ear and neck had drove her wild like nothing she’d ever felt before.
Gabriel and Julianna caught up to the rest of the outlaw gang as the gang was turning off the trail, heading deep into a grove of trees for some bit of shelter from the pouring rain.
The outlaw gang leader, Clayton, climbed off his black horse and said, “Boys, we’re only staying long enough to rest our tired horses and to eat. A posse won’t be too
far behind us, so we are going to take advantage of the pouring rain to wash out our horse’s tracks. That way they won’t know which way we have gone.”
Moans came from the rest of the outlaw gang who were tired, soaking wet, and hungry. Tate Buford, an outlaw that had been with the gang for six years, spoke out, “We probably wouldn’t be running from a posse right now, if Gabriel hadn’t taken that damn girl hostage! Victor badly needs to rest from his shoulder wound.”
“I’ll be alright. I’ll make it if someone will help me clean and wrap my shoulder. Then I’ll be good to go,” Victor said despairingly, then took a long swig from the whiskey bottle he had in his saddlebags, to lessen the pain in his shoulder.
Victor was exhausted and in a lot of pain from his bullet wound. But he knew they must keep going, and he didn’t want to be responsible for holding the gang back. He had been with the Phantom gang for ten years now, and it was the only family he had. The bullet had went all the way through his narrow shoulder, so he didn’t need to worry about digging a bullet out before gangrene set in. It could use stitches, but right now he just needed to keep it clean and wrapped to keep the infection out.
Silently, Gabriel was hoping Victor’s bullet wound would not get badly infected and kill him. Gabriel wanted that pleasure for himself. He had waited ten years, and didn’t want anything to take away from the torture he intended to inflict on Victor, when the time was right.
“Alex, you help Victor with his shoulder,” Clayton ordered.
Alexandra Baxter lost her husband in the war, leaving her penniless. She had eventually became a prospering Madam in a high dollar whore house in Denver, until she shot a prominent businessman for beating up one of her best girls. She’d been on the run ever since. As a young girl with no brothers, Alex was taught to shoot and hunt by her father, and she was a marksman with a rifle. A year ago the Phantom outlaw gang was looking to add another member, when the name ‘Alex’ was suggested to them by William Joseph Brown, known as B.J., who owned the Wolf’s Den Saloon in the red light district of Colorado City.
