Midnight Fire

by Linda Ladd

  "Oh, yes," Chase said, glancing at her. He had forgotten her, the idiot! "This is the muchacha I telegraphed you about. Senorita Carlisle Kincaid. She'll be our guest for a time. Carlisle, allow me to present Senor Esteban Rivera."

  Esteban swept off his wide tan sombrero and bowed from the waist. He was unusually tall for a Mexican and dressed in a loose white shirt and travel-stained riding breeches. A red scarf was tied around his neck, and he wore both a pistol and a long hunting knife hanging from his belt.

  "My pleasure, senorita," he said in heavily accented English. "I am pleased you honor us with your lovely presence. My woman, Conchita, will be your maid. She is lonely at the rancho."

  Thank goodness, a gentleman! Carlisle thought gratefully. And there would be a woman to talk to! Her spirits revived considerably, and she gave Esteban Rivera her most winsome smile.

  "Senor Rivera, I am most pleased to make your acquaintance. It's refreshing to find I will be traveling with a gentleman, at last."

  Esteban looked surprised and glanced at Chase, whose face, as usual, showed no trace of emotion. Carlisle really didn't care. She'd had her fill of Chase Lancaster. She'd cultivate the friendship of Esteban Rivera and his wife, and Chase could go to blazes!

  4

  Across from the docks, a small, whitewashed cantina lay quiet in the morning sun. While Esteban courteously led Carlisle to a small table there, Chase disappeared upstairs without a word of explanation, carrying the worn brown leather saddlebag that Esteban had handed him out on the street.

  Carlisle wondered where he was going. It wouldn't surprise her one bit if he was escaping through a back door, leaving her stranded in a foreign land with a handful of men she'd never seen before.

  "Chaso has made you very angry, no?" Esteban asked softly. Carlisle turned her attention away from the upper balcony and surveyed her companion with some surprise.

  In spite of his rugged face, Esteban Rivera wore an expression of complete tranquility. So intelligent were his dark eyes and so gentle his smile that Carlisle felt easy in his presence. He seemed the sort of man who'd know the answer to any question she might ask and offer wise counsel on any problem. Both of his hands lay on the table, his fingers long and slender, almost delicate. Somehow she knew they could be very good friends, she and Esteban.

  "Sí," she agreed. "We don't care for each other very much."

  "I am surprised. Chase likes women, especially the pretty ones. You are the most beautiful senorita I have ever seen. I must paint you while you're at the hacienda."

  "You're an artist?" Carlisle smiled as his black eyes roamed over her features.

  "Sí. It is my destiny. And you have the face of an angel, with hair like fire."

  Carlisle had heard compliments before. But Esteban was not flirting with her. He was examining her face with serious objectivity, as if she were some unique sunset he wanted to capture on canvas.

  "I'm flattered, Senor Rivera. But I must say I don't feel particularly worthy of your attention. I'm not yet used to your hot Mexican sun."

  Esteban's regard drifted down her expensive white organdie outfit, his eyes lingering on the long, tight sleeves and high, lace-edged neckline. "Our muchachas do not wear so many clothes, especially the gitanos, who are gypsies like my wife, Conchita. Soon we will join her people and she will give you better clothes to wear." His gentle smile spread over his face, lighting his splendid eyes. "Conchita is wild and hot-tempered, but she treats me like I am king."

  Carlisle nodded, wishing she were already wearing Conchita's clothes. Even in the deep shade of the patio, she felt constrained and overheated in the clinging white dress. It was one of her best, a design by Charles Worth, which Gray had given her for a graduation gift. Now she realized she should have listened to Chase when he'd warned her about its unsuitability for traveling. But she'd wanted to look her best while saying good-bye to Javier.

  Besides, she hadn't expected them to leave for the hacienda immediately. She'd expected at least one night in a hotel where she could bathe and refresh herself after the sea voyage. She felt sticky and cross, but she decided not to voice her discomfort and irritation, because she liked Esteban.

  An Indian girl wearing a cotton print skirt and low-necked white blouse glided up to their table, balancing a wooden tray containing a pitcher of cool orangeade, which Esteban called naranjada, and a plate of flat corn cakes he called tortillas. Carlisle sipped the sweet juice but lowered her cup as Chase reappeared on the stair. He'd changed into riding clothes like those Esteban and the others wore—dark brown suede breeches, fringed down the sides and flared at the bottom to fit over his boots, and a loose-fitting white shirt.

  Carlisle stared at the black leather holsters strapped low on each of his hard-muscled thighs. The ivory-handled Colt revolvers rode near his fingertips, and he looked big and menacing with his hard tanned face and intense blue eyes. When he gazed at her, she felt a shiver fan out across the nape of her neck.

  "You ready, Esteban? We have a long way to go tonight."

  His attention returned to Carlisle and instinctively, she knew that whatever he said would be mocking.

  "That is, if you're ready, ma'am?"

  Even Esteban appeared to notice the sarcastic drawl, and he looked searchingly at Chase. Hot and angry, Carlisle spoke sharply.

  "Perhaps I would have liked to freshen up and change into something more comfortable, Mr. Lancaster."

  "Why, Senorita Kincaid, you chose your traveling apparel yourself, after I told you it wasn't suitable. Now I'm afraid we just don't have the time to sit around and let you sort through your trunks. We aren't traveling through downtown Chicago, you know. Here, in the wilds of Mexico, we have to make use of daylight, because the Comanches ride at night."

  "Comanches!" Carlisle echoed, forgetting her ire. For some reason, the thought of encountering Indians while in Mexico hadn't occurred to her. Stone had told her the fierce red men rode in plundering bands on the western plains. But surely not here in Mexico, a civilized country!

  "Yes, ma'am," Chase said with exaggerated patience. "Savage Indians. With red skin and scalping knives and everything. Guess you don't see many back in Illinois, do you?"

  She was grateful when Esteban spoke up, though he earned a frown from Chase for his trouble. "Do not worry, senorita. The Comanches do not attack carriages surrounded by so many armed vaqueros. And the guerrilleros hide in their rebel holes in the mountains like cowardly swine. You'll be safe with us."

  At the mention of rebels, Carlisle's interest sharpened. So did Chase's, for he drew up a chair and spoke in a lower voice. "Has there been trouble anywhere here in the north since I've been gone?"

  Carlisle pretended disinterest as she sipped her orange juice, but she listened eagerly, half surprised they spoke so freely in front of her. Javier was right. They didn't suspect her.

  "Sí, amigo, and many rumors of revolución," Esteban said. "Trouble is not far away, I think. Many guerrilleros are congregating in the sierra, and there have been attacks. They blew up a trestle near El Paso del Norte and a bank in Chihuahua."

  "Damn," Chase muttered, his face growing harder. "In New Orleans, I heard rumors of a plot to return Santa Anna to power."

  Every muscle in Carlisle's body went stiff, and her palms grew sweaty as she put her mug back on the table. Nerves jittering, she wet her lips. Suddenly she wasn't so sure she would be very good at spying. Perversely, her heart hammered with excitement.

  "What's the matter with you?" Chase asked her suddenly.

  Carlisle jumped guiltily. Dear God, am I that transparent? she thought as Chase's eyes narrowed.

  "Nothing's the matter," she replied. "Except first you tell me to hurry, then you sit around chatting as if we have all day."

  "Sorry, ma'am, don't know what I was thinking of," Chase said, scraping back his chair, amusement glinting in his eyes.

  Ignoring him, Carlisle rose, glad he walked on ahead. She smiled at Esteban as he bowed slightly, then took his
arm and allowed him to lead her outside to where the carriage awaited them in front of the cantina.

  By mid-afternoon of the same day, Carlisle wished she were back in the quiet, shade-dappled cantina, sipping the cold naranjada. The carriage in which she rode was well sprung and as comfortable as such a conveyance could be under a broiling hot sun. For hours they'd traveled up the Rio Grande River, then headed southwest across a dry, desolate plain toward the distant foothills of the Sierra Madre.

  She rode alone inside the coach, wilted by the heat and nearly choking on the dust kicked up by the rolling wheels. It swirled inside the open windows to coat the black leather seats like talcum powder. Already her lovely white dress was dingy from the horrid reddish dust and stuck to her like a wet bedsheet. She longed to tear off all the layers of undergarments, but she knew such immodesty was impossible, not while traveling with a group of men. She did resort to unbuttoning her bodice as far as was decent. She lifted her clinging skirt and waved it up and down, trying to cool her stocking-clad legs.

  She thought of the cool ocean breezes that had teased her hair as she stood on the promenade deck with Javier and Arantxa. They'd laughed together as a school of dolphins leapt and played alongside the starboard bow. Javier and Arantxa had sailed on down the east coast of Mexico to Veracruz, and Carlisle could have been with them, if it weren't for Chase Lancaster. Rage against her hateful host rose inside her as she was jounced up and down and from side to side in the careening carriage. Why were they going so fast? They weren't escaping a fire, for heaven's sake!

  Carlisle was simmering with anger by the time Chase edged his black stallion alongside her window.

  "How's it going?" He peered in at her, insolently eyeing her uncovered legs, which were propped in unladylike fashion on the opposite seat.

  "How do you think it's going?" she snapped, hastily pulling down her skirt. "It's like being roasted in a slow oven in here, and there's dust all over me! Just look at my gown! It's ruined!"

  Chase grinned at her display of wrath, running his gaze over her flushed face and disheveled hair. Carlisle folded her arms over her chest and clamped her jaw shut, wishing she could lock him up inside the hot, dusty prison he expected her to endure. She watched him unhook a metal canteen from his saddle horn and hand it through the window. Carlisle took it, ignoring him as she uncorked it and drank thirstily. The water was tepid, but at the moment, it tasted better than vintage champagne.

  "Do you know how to ride?" Chase asked a moment later when she returned the canteen.

  "No."

  Chase frowned at her sullen answer and glanced at the yards of dingy white organdie filling the carriage seat.

  "Oh, hell, strip off some of those bulky petticoats and I'll take you up on my horse with me. I'm scouting ahead for an arroyo where we can get some water. But make it quick. I don't have all day."

  "Ride? With you? What makes you think I'd ever consider that?"

  "Suit yourself, then." Chase shrugged carelessly. He pulled the reins, jerking his mount away, and Carlisle immediately regretted her impulsive rejection.

  "Wait!" she called out the window as his stallion began to drop back. "I'm sorry! I do want to go with you!"

  He spurred ahead and flashed her a lazy grin. "At your service, ma'am. But like I said, you'll have to shed all those underthings. The dress itself probably weighs a ton."

  "All right," she agreed, not particularly adverse to ridding herself of layers of silk and cotton insulation. She waited for him to look away, but he continued to ride alongside the carriage, watching her through the window.

  "I'd like some privacy," she said tartly.

  "I won't peek, I promise," he answered with just enough scorn to make Carlisle flush.

  She jerked down the tasseled window shade and began to wriggle out of her heavy petticoats. When only three lay heaped on, the floorboards, she was amazed at how much cooler she felt.

  "What the devil's taking you so long?" Chase's voice growled from the other side of the shade. "I'm eating dust out here!"

  Good, she thought as she released the shade. "Do you really think it's proper for me to ride with you? I mean, when I'm not fully dressed."

  Chase shook his head, his exasperated look making Carlisle feel silly.

  "Since when have you worried about propriety? I saw a lot more of you the day you were hanging on the trellis with your skirt hiked up to your waist."

  "Only because you were so ungentlemanly that you stood there staring up at me, even after I'd asked you to leave!"

  Chase grimaced, obviously annoyed, judging by the restless way he raked his fingers through his gilt-edged hair. Even after such a short acquaintance, she was beginning to recognize signs of his anger.

  "Look, Carlisle, if you want to ride with me, fine. If not, say so, and I'll be on my way."

  Carlisle hesitated, but one brief glance around the small, dusty carriage convinced her. "How will I get on the horse with you?"

  "Stand up and take hold of my neck," he ordered, unlatching the door.

  Carlisle obeyed, gasping as his arm folded around her waist, lifting her sideways and in front of him as if she weighed nothing.

  "Straddle the saddle. It'll be more comfortable."

  Carlisle was scandalized at his casual suggestion. Even though, she'd never learned to ride, she knew that proper ladies never sat astride a horse. The fact that Chase, a man, had suggested it made her feel wicked and wanton. She swung her leg over the horse's neck, then took hold of the saddle horn with both hands.

  Her breath caught as Chase promptly pulled her back against his chest, holding his left hand against her midriff while he controlled the spirited stallion with his right. It was, beyond a doubt, the greatest degree of intimacy she'd ever experienced with a man, and as his muscular thighs hugged her, her face reddened with embarrassment.

  "Must you hold me so tightly?"

  "I must, if you don't want to end up in the dirt." He tightened his grip, spurring the horse forward with a touch of his heels. Carlisle hung on to the saddle horn as they surged ahead of the outriders.

  They galloped in front of the coach toward a thick copse of straggly trees in the distance. Carlisle looked around the barren plain stretching out toward the mountains, its flat ocher expanse dotted by odd-shaped cacti and low, scrubby bushes she'd never seen before. They rode fast, kicking up a pillar of dust behind them, and the wind engendered by the wild ride whipped some of the pins from Carlisle's hair, until the coils of heavy golden-red tresses began to loosen and flow down her back and over Chase's arms. Carlisle laughed aloud, just because it felt good!

  "So you like riding, do you?"

  Chase's mouth spoke against her temple. His lips touched her skin, and to Carlisle's chagrin, goose bumps rippled over her flesh from head to foot. What was she thinking of, she wondered in sudden dismay, to have agreed to go off alone with him in the middle of nowhere? Hadn't Arantxa and Javier told her how dangerous and unprincipled he was? Hadn't she sensed it herself, from the very beginning?

  After a while, they reached a verdant growth of thick, bending willow trees that lined the edges of a small stream, and Chase slowed his horse to walk through blessedly cool shade. He reined up at the water's edge, lowering. Carlisle to the ground, and then swung off the horse himself. Carlisle stood aside as he led the lathered animal to drink. Uneasy, she glanced around at the dense thicket of mesquite and huge maguey plants which lined both sides of the creek.

  "Do you think Indians might be about?" she asked hesitantly.

  "No, not here."

  He hadn't looked at her or given her much attention, so she knelt on the bank of the stream. Dipping her handkerchief into the water, she bathed her face and throat.

  "Why don't you take off your shoes and wade? Or take a bath if you want. I'll stand guard."

  Carlisle turned in surprise, expecting to see a mocking expression on his face. She was startled to see he was smiling with, for once, no hint of derision in his eyes. Sta
nding there, he looked unbelievably handsome, one hand on his hip, the other idly holding the reins of his horse.

  "You know I can't do that." She looked longingly at the cold water, pooling in dark blue depths at the center of the creek.

  "Can't you swim?"

  "Of course. When I was little, my brothers taught me at our lake house."

  "Then go ahead. I promise I won't tell a soul."

  He was teasing her now, so Carlisle smiled.

  "Well, maybe I'll wade for a minute, but I'm not taking off any more of my clothes."

  Chase pulled his rifle out of the fringed leather scabbard tied to his saddle, then squatted on the sand, casually holding the gun in the crook of his right arm.

  Carlisle sat down, took off her small white pumps, then glanced at him. He was grinning, challengingly, and she raised one finely arched brow, then untied her black ribbon garter. Without looking at him again, she quickly unrolled her sheer white stockings and slipped them off her toes. She stood, bunched up her skirts, and waded to her knees in the clear water.

  Finally, she gave in to her desire, rolling up her sleeves and hitching the bulky organdie skirt into her waistband. She bathed the dust from her face and arms, acutely aware that Chase still hunkered down close by, his eyes following her every movement. She felt compelled to look at him. He was no longer smiling; his gaze rested on her with the quelling intensity that always made Carlisle's throat tighten—his look was one of desire, she knew it instinctively, though no one had ever looked at her in quite the same way.

  Her heart sped. They were all alone. Esteban and the others were far behind. Would Chase take advantage of her? What would it be like to lie with a man like him and let him touch her with his hands, his lips? She stared back, her eyes locked on his, mesmerized, afraid to move as a force, as tangible as a rope, held them. Suddenly, he stood, turning away from her to adjust the bridle.