Texas Woman

Chapter 20

WHEN THE DOCTOR FINALLY ARRIVED, SLOAN kept vigil with him until they were certain the baby was all right and there was no danger Tomasita would miscarry.

Luke asked to see Tomasita again, but was refused with the explanation that Tomasita was very tired and anything that might upset her, including a visit from him, wasn’t good for her right now.

When the worst of the danger was past, Sloan walked downstairs to the parlor and found Luke and Cruz sitting on opposite sides of the room. She could have cut the tension in the room with a knife.

Cruz clenched a burning cheroot between his bared teeth. Luke gripped a glass of Rip’s Irish whiskey in his white-knuckled hands. It looked as though they had been fighting. A vivid bruise marred Luke’s cheekbone, and Cruz had a cut lip.

“Tomasita and the baby are going to be fine,” she announced from the doorway.

“Thank God.” Luke bowed his head over his hands, which clutched the whiskey glass beneath his widespread knees.

She walked over to Cruz and touched his lip where it bled. He flinched away. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you coming to bed now?”

“Not right away. Luke and I have some more talking to do.”

“Are you sure it’s talking and not fighting you have in mind?” Sloan demanded, her voice sharp. “It’s not going to help Tomasita if the two of you kill each other.”

Cruz sighed. “You are right. Come here, Cebellina. I need to feel you in my arms.”

Sloan went to him and allowed herself to be pulled down onto his lap and comforted. He whispered in her ear, “I promise Luke’s handsome face will look as good tomorrow as it does tonight. Go to bed, querida. I will join you when I can.”

Sloan kissed him on the mouth gently in deference to his split lip. “Good night, Cruz. Good night, Luke.”

She left the parlor and started up the stairs, but changed her mind and silently walked back down and out the front door. A lot had happened in the past few weeks, and she needed to be alone to think.

Sloan had always considered herself brave, but she thought maybe she was about to make the most courageous decision of her life. The decision not only to love Cruz, but to trust his love to be constant no matter what challenges they faced over the years to come.

Once outside, she headed for the stables, where she lit a lantern and began saddling a horse.

“Who’s that?”

Sloan realized she must have woken August, who had a room at the back of the stable. “It’s me, Sloan.”

“Miz Sloan? What you be doin’ up this time o’ the night?”

“It won’t be long before the sun is up. I thought I’d take a ride. I’ll be back before morning light.”

“Weather don’t look so good.”

“At least the rain is done. There’s nothing left of the storm but a little wind.”

“That Texas wind ain’t nothin’. It’s somethin’, all right. You be careful.”

Sloan led her horse outside and held tight to the reins when it skittered nervously away from a leaf blowing in the wind. “Hold still, you critter,” she said. She stepped into the saddle and kicked her mount into an easy lope. There were traces of light, enough to create shadows that made her horse hard to handle.

“Easy, boy,” she murmured. “Easy. Nothing but shadows, boy. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Just like her fears. Only shadows. Nothing to be afraid of. She felt stronger, surer of her choice. There were no guarantees. You took what life gave you and you made the best of it. And life with Cruz could be the very best. She knew it.

Sloan had kept her horse at a lope for half an hour when she saw a campfire in the distance. She was curious because the fire was so close to the house. Anyone crossing Three Oaks could have asked for, and received, the hospitality of the house. Whoever it was must have spent a hard night between the wind and the rain. She kicked her horse, thinking the least she could do was offer the travelers a hot breakfast.

It was also possible that whoever sat by that campfire hadn’t sought shelter at the house because he had known he wouldn’t be welcome. And so, before Sloan got much closer, she stopped to check that the twin Patterson Colts in her saddle holsters were loaded and angled her horse around so she approached the camp from behind.

Sloan could hardly believe her eyes when she saw the rotund figure sitting on a rock before the campfire. The Englishman! He must have planned a rendezvous with Cruz.

She had already turned her horse to flee when someone grabbed the reins and pulled her down out of the saddle. Her scream was cut off by a rough, hard hand across her mouth.

“The effort is wasted, chiquita,” Alejandro said. “There is no one to hear you but me.”

Cruz stared unseeing into the scattered coals in the fireplace. He had finally given Luke permission to court Tomasita, but not before he had vented his anger at the Ranger. Luke had left a few moments ago to sit at Tomasita’s bedside. It was nearly dawn and long past time he joined his wife in bed.

Moments later, Cruz frowned as he stared at a bed that hadn’t been slept in. He turned and walked down the hall to Tomasita’s room, knocked, and when Luke answered the door, asked, “Is Sloan in there?”

“No. Isn’t she in bed?”

“No.”

“Did you check the other bedrooms?”

“Not yet.” Cruz checked what had been Cricket’s bedroom and found Cisco sleeping soundly. He walked down the hall and hesitated before knocking on Rip’s door. When there was no answer, he carefully opened the door and found Rip asleep-and alone.

Cruz hurried back downstairs. Sloan wouldn’t be in the downstairs bedroom with Angelique, but he quickly checked the other rooms without finding any sign of her.

He left the house and headed for the barn. There, August gave him news that made his heart skip a beat.

“She come to get her horse ’fore daybreak. Said she’d be back by mornin’.”

Cruz heard a robin singing cheerfully outside the barn as he saddled his bayo. The storm had spent its fury overnight, and the sun was shining brightly. He and Sloan should be starting the new day together. Where was she? Why wasn’t she back yet?

Her trail was easy to follow, and he felt a cold chill when he saw which way she had headed. His stomach was knotted by the time he reached the campfire, where the Englishman waited for him.

“Where is she?” Cruz demanded.

“Where is who?”

Cruz was off his horse and had the Englishman by his fancy neckcloth in two seconds flat. “My wife!”

“Easy, man, easy,” Sir Giles soothed. “She’s being well taken care of.”

“Where is she?”

“Alejandro has her,” Sir Giles gasped through a half-crushed windpipe. “You’re choking me.”

Cruz released his hold enough so that Sir Giles could talk. “Where is Alejandro?”

“He’s gone to his hideout. I don’t know where it is.”

Cruz tightened his hold again, nearly cutting off the Englishman’s air.

“I’m telling the truth. I don’t know where he is,” Sir Giles croaked.

Cruz let go of his hold on the man, and the Englishman dropped into an untidy heap on the ground.

“You had better pray that I find her soon, and that I find her untouched. Because if I do not, I will be back for you. I suggest you get out of Texas. It is not a healthy place for you anymore.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Sir Giles said as Cruz remounted his bayo.

“Oh?”

“What about the evidence I have against your wife?”

“Do whatever you want with it. It was never any good anyway.” With that enigmatic statement, Cruz spurred his stallion in the direction of the tracks that led away from the Englishman’s camp.

As soon as Cruz was gone, Sir Giles Chapman picked himself up, scowling at the irreparable damage done by the mud that now stained his bright yellow trousers.

Things were not working out exactly as he had figured. He didn’t trust Alejandro, and he believed Cruz’s threat. He had better get to Alejandro’s hideout as quickly as possible and make sure that nothing happened to that crazy Spaniard’s wife.

Sloan was frightened. She was tied hand and foot, and that sense of helplessness alone was enough to curdle her blood. To make things worse, ever since they had arrived, Alejandro had been drinking steadily.

The small adobe house to which Alejandro had brought her was the same one in which he had murdered Tonio. Four years later, the door still hung on one leather hinge, the open windows lay bare, and flies buzzed around them. She sat on the dirt floor in a corner of the room and watched as Alejandro leaned back in a rickety chair and stuck his feet up on the wind-and-weather-scarred table. He tipped a bottle of beer up and drained another swallow. He smiled beneath his bushy moustache and his eyes narrowed as his cheeks rounded.

Sloan shivered at the gruesomeness of his drunken features.

From the lascivious glances being thrown her way, it was plain he was thinking about fulfilling the promise he had made in the stinking San Antonio jail cell so many months before. She reminded herself she was Rip’s daughter. She was brave; she was strong; she was no coward. But that didn’t stop her stomach from churning.

“Tell me, puta, does your blood run hot every time Tonio’s brother touches you?”

She heard the chair legs hit the floor and Alejandro’s spurs scrape off the table. A moment later, he stuck a dirty hand under her chin and shoved her head upward. His breath smelled of sour chili and Mexican beer.

Her dark brown eyes flashed with hate and contempt. “Pendejo!”

He hit her with his fist and knocked her into a sideways sprawl. Then he grabbed the front of her shirt with both hands and yanked, sending buttons popping in all directions as he tore the shredded garment off her shoulders.

His hands grabbed her breasts through her chemise and kneaded them roughly as his weight came down on top of her. He tried to shove her legs apart with his knee and realized, through his drunken stupor, that her ankles were tied together.

“Chingada!” He rolled off her clumsily and onto his knees. He pulled a knife from the sheath at his waist and slipped it through the knots that held her feet.

The instant she was free, Sloan kicked Alejandro in the groin as hard as she could.

He hissed in breathless agony and pitched over in a heap on the floor.

She had trouble getting to her feet because she had been tied up for so long, but she knew that she didn’t have much time before the bandido recovered. She grabbed the knife from the floor and cut her hands free. When she finally managed to stand up, she slipped the knife into her belt, feeling hope rise in her breast that she would actually escape.

She spared one more glance at Alejandro, then turned to the door-only to find her way to freedom blocked.

“Going somewhere?” Sir Giles waved Sloan backward from the door with the pistol in his hand.

He looked from the growing bruise on Sloan’s cheekbone to the Mexican bandido writhing on the floor and said, “I told you to leave the woman alone. Now, get up off the floor. Don Cruz has already come looking for her. I want her kept in a safe place where he won’t be able to find her.”

“It is too late for that.” Cruz snaked an arm around Sir Giles’s throat and put his Colt revolver to the Englishman’s temple.

“Cruz!” Sloan cried in relief.

“Move over here, Sloan.”

Sloan had started toward Cruz when Alejandro reached out and tripped her. As she fell, he caught her in front of him and rolled so there was no way Cruz could shoot at him without taking the chance of hitting Sloan.

Alejandro made it to his feet in a surprisingly agile move, rising with Sloan as a shield, her arms bound by his grasp around her waist. He had grabbed his pistol and held it at Sloan’s temple in a mirror image of Cruz’s hold on the Englishman.

Alejandro grinned slyly. “So, Don Cruz, it is a standoff, no? Except, I do not care if you kill the Englishman.”

Sloan watched the whites appear in Sir Giles’s eyes as the Englishman said, “I am worth a lot more money to you alive, Alejandro, than dead. Don’t forget that.”

“What is money compared to revenge?” Alejandro said. “This man put me in a stinking jail cell. This man would have hanged me.” As he tightened his grip on Sloan, his hold on her hair pulled her head back at an awkward angle. “And this woman would have unmanned me. No, I think I will have my revenge now. There will be time enough later to think of money.”

Alejandro turned his head and shouted out the window, “Ignacio! Tomás!”

“They are indisposed,” Cruz said, his lips twisting sardonically.

“Chingada!” Alejandro quickly regained his composure. “That makes no difference. Move out of the doorway and let me pass, or I will kill your woman now.”

Sloan watched a transformation occur as Cruz’s eyes darkened. His hackles rose and his body tensed like a wolf ready to spring. She felt Alejandro’s arm tensing and knew that in a moment he would shoot the Englishman-and then kill Cruz.

She lifted her hand far enough to reach Alejandro’s knife where she had put it in her belt, and in the same motion stabbed him in the thigh as hard as she could.

When Alejandro shrieked, she threw herself onto the ground and was met there by the Englishman, whom Cruz had also shoved out of his way. There was the deafening roar of two gunshots occurring almost simultaneously, a grunt of pain, a bitter laugh, and then silence.

Sloan lifted her head to search for Cruz and saw him slumped against the wall, his eyes closed, the side of his shirt covered with blood. She whirled to find Alejandro slumped against the opposite wall-his eyes glassy with pain, and then vacant, the life gone.

She was too stunned to move.

“Nooooooo.” The wail of pain and grief wrenched itself from deep inside her. She beat her fisted hands futilely upon the dirt floor. “Not again… not again…”

She was inconsolable, and so she fought the consoling hands on her shoulders-until the sound of the reassuring voice found its way through to her consciousness.

“… it is all right, Cebellina. I am fine. It is only a small wound.”

Her head came up off the ground and she scrambled to her feet, her hands pulling at his shirt where he had been shot. “How badly are you hurt? I have to do something to stop the bleeding. Sit down. Sit down!” She shoved him into the rickety chair at the table and he pulled her down into his lap, capturing her hands to keep them still and cutting off her protests with his mouth on hers.

Sloan couldn’t get enough of him, the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of him. She tore her mouth away to say, “I love you, Cruz. I love you. I love you.”

Then he was kissing her again, his heart as full of her as his body was starved for her.

The sound of the Englishman clearing his throat brutally interrupted them. “This is all quite fascinating,” he said, “but haven’t you forgotten something?”

They both turned to find Sir Giles standing with a pistol aimed at them.

Cruz held Sloan still in his lap when she tried to jump up. “I have not forgotten anything, Sir Giles. You are free to return to England at any time. But I would suggest you make it soon.”

Sir Giles narrowed his eyes in confusion. “I’m the one holding the gun, Hawk. I will give the orders.”

Cruz raised his voice only slightly and called, “Luke! Creed! Long Quiet!”

Instantly, three tall, forbidding men bearing Colt revolvers appeared to stand guard at the windows and door to the adobe house. Beside Luke stood Beaufort LeFevre.

“My friends promised to leave Alejandro to me,” Cruz said. “But I will be happy to accept their assistance in dealing with you. I suggest you drop your gun, Sir Giles.”

“I still have the papers your brother left-”

“I’m an agent for the Texas government, Sir Giles. Of course my wife is not a traitor.”

Sloan gasped and stiffened in Cruz’s arms.

Luke grinned as he met Sloan’s astonished look.

Sir Giles sputtered, “But you gave me information-”

“-that the Texas government wanted you to have. Matters have reached the point now where there is no more need for me to play the Hawk. Now that Texas will soon be annexed, we do not need to worry about the threat of war with Mexico anymore.”

“I am sure President Jones will explain everything to your government,” Beaufort added from his position beside Luke. “You should be receiving orders to return home directly.”

“Mexico will fight annexation. There will be war,” Sir Giles warned. “And Britain-”

Cruz raised a hand to cut off the Englishman. “Britain had better think twice before getting involved. You can tell your superiors that Texas will have the entire might of the American nation behind her in any hostilities that might arise. Mexico will not just be fighting Texans next time-she will be fighting the entire United States Army.

“You are not welcome here any longer, Sir Giles. You had best go back to England.”

Sir Giles Chapman was, after all, a diplomat and not a soldier. He turned his pistol butt-first and handed it to Cruz. He bowed slightly to Creed and Long Quiet where they stood at the windows, in graceful acknowledgment of his defeat, before he turned and walked out the door past Luke and Beaufort LeFevre.

“I guess I’ll be taking my leave of Texas, too,” Beaufort said. “My work here is done.” He turned to Luke and added, “I’ll be taking Angelique with me. I can see there’s nothing here for her.”

“Good-bye, sir,” Luke said, shaking Beaufort’s hand. “Your daughter is a beautiful woman. I’m sure she’ll find the right man for her someday.”

Beaufort arched a disbelieving brow, but in true diplomatic fashion agreed, “I’m sure you’re right. You can count us gone within the week.”

Sloan tried again to leave Cruz’s lap, and this time, after he had covered her with his shirt, he let her go. Shoulders back, she stalked away from him and out the door of the adobe house past her two grinning brothers-in-law and her smiling half brother without looking back.

She had not gotten far when Cruz caught up to her and turned her around to face him. “Do not run away from me, Cebellina. Not now. There is no reason for it.”

“You don’t call deceiving me a good reason?” Sloan said.

“I had no choice,” he said, his voice low and insistent. “I wanted to tell you a hundred times, but I was under strict orders of secrecy.”

“Oh, Cruz…” Sloan’s stoic facade crumpled and she threw herself into his arms. “I’m so sorry I doubted you. I’m so sorry I believed the worst of you. I’m so sorry I compared you to Tonio!”

“I am not my brother, Cebellina. I will never betray you. I love you more than my own life.”

He pulled her into his arms, but grunted in pain when she squeezed the place where he had been nicked by Alejandro’s bullet.

“We have to get you home,” she said. “We have to take care of your wound.”

Cruz sighed. “And where is home? Will you help me rebuild Dolorosa?”

“Of course I’ll-”

Sloan was cut off by Luke’s appearance at her elbow. He was shifting from foot to foot, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “What is it?” she asked. “Did something happen to Tomasita while I was gone?”

“No, no, she’s fine,” Luke said. “But I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

Sloan held her breath waiting for the ax to fall.

“It’s Rip. The doctor checked him after he looked at Tomasita. Rip’s cold is more than a cold. It’s pneumonia. And it doesn’t look good.”

Sloan was worried by Luke’s news and filled the ride back from Alejandro’s hideout with talk to help keep her mind off what she would find when she arrived at Three Oaks.

“Did Cricket come with you?” she asked Creed.

Cricket’s handsome husband, who had been Luke’s boss before he left the Texas Rangers to take his place at Lion’s Dare, flashed her a grin and met her gaze with chagrined amusement in his topaz eyes. “I couldn’t keep her home.”

“But she must be-”

“-ready to deliver any second. I know. She wanted to be here to help,” Creed said. “We brought Jesse along so you could see how much she’s grown. She’s nearly two now.”

“Did Bay come, too?” Sloan asked Long Quiet.

“I could not keep her home,” he said with a grin that matched Creed’s.

“Did you bring Whipp? It must be getting close to his first birthday.”

Long Quiet’s gray eyes softened, and there was nothing of the fierce savage in the half-breed’s voice as he said, “He will be a year old when the moon is next full.”

Sloan dropped back to ride beside Luke. She slowed her horse until they were far enough behind the other riders that they would not be overheard. “Did you know Cruz was working for the Texas government as the Hawk?”

“Sure did.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Brothers can’t tell their sisters everything,” he said with a grin.

“I guess not.” Her expression sobered as she asked, “How is Tomasita? Is she feeling any better?”

“A little.”

Sloan saw the guilt in Luke’s face. “It was an accident, Luke. Tomasita and the baby are both fine.”

“If I’d just taken no for an answer, neither Tomasita nor the baby would have been in any danger in the first place. But the ladies don’t say no to Luke Summers. They never have. Not until now, when it really matters.”

He turned bleak eyes to Sloan. “I love her. I think I’ve loved her all along. I just couldn’t admit it to myself. When I think of spending my life without her, it’s a cold, lonely future I see.”

“So ask her to marry you.”

“I’ve already done that. She said no.”

“Did you tell her you love her?”

There was a long pause before Luke answered, “No.”

Sloan snorted in exasperation. “No wonder she said no! The woman’s crazy in love with you, Luke, but she has her pride, too. She isn’t about to let you marry her out of pity, and until you declare your real feelings, that’s all your offer can mean to her.”

“She might have loved me once. But after everything that’s happened-”

“That’s enough of that! When we get back to Three Oaks, we’re going directly to Tomasita’s room, and I’m not leaving until I hear those three words come out of your mouth. Then if Tomasita says no, you can moan and groan and I’ll be more than glad to hold your hand in sympathy.”

Sloan spurred her horse to catch up to Cruz at the head of the column of riders. “I just realized I haven’t thanked you for saving my life,” she said.

Cruz smiled. “My pleasure, Cebellina. But tell me, why did you go riding off in the middle of the night in the first place?”

Sloan ducked her head so he couldn’t see her eyes. “I wanted to be alone to think.”

He arched a brow but didn’t ask the obvious question. Perhaps it was because he didn’t ask that she offered to share her thoughts.

“I wanted to think about us. About our marriage. About our future together.”

“I can see why those thoughts might keep you awake,” he said with a teasing grin. “They have kept me up many a night, I must admit.”

It was the easy grin of a man who knows his love is returned, who knows that whatever doubts existed in the past no longer exist.

“Did you always believe we would end up together?” she asked suddenly.

“Life with you is never a certain thing, Cebellina. That is why I am so looking forward to it.”

“Stop your horse,” she said.

He pulled his bayo to a halt.

Sloan grasped his neck with her hand and pulled his head down so she could kiss him on the mouth. His lips were hard at first, then gradually softened as the kiss deepened. The feeling she was being watched eventually caused Sloan to break the kiss. She opened her eyes to discover four grinning faces surrounding her and Cruz.

“Can’t we get a little privacy here?” she asked.

“Sure, Sloan,” Creed said, kneeing his mount past her.

“You bet,” Long Quiet answered.

“Far be it from me to interrupt the course of true love,” Luke said.

“Pardon me, madam,” Beaufort LeFevre said, tipping his hat as he rode past.

When they were alone again, Cruz said, “May I ask what inspired you to kiss me here in the middle of the trail?”

“Do I need a reason to show you how much I love you?”

“Do you love me? The forever, enduring kind of love?”

“I think so,” she said, her expression troubled. “That’s what I thought about on my ride-whether love is forever, and enduring. I think that no matter what tried to tear us apart now, my love for you would endure. But I can’t see the future.”

This time it was Cruz’s mouth that captured Sloan’s. It was a kiss of possession, a kiss that said, I will love you forever-no matter what.

“Nothing can tear us apart,” he said, his voice hoarse with feeling, “so long as we are determined to be together.”