Texas Woman

Chapter 1

REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

1844

“I SEE YOU’VE TAKEN YOUR BROTHER’S WHORE for your woman, Don Cruz. Is she as hot-blooded as Antonio boasted she was?”

“Keep your tongue to yourself or I’ll cut it out, Alejandro.”

Sloan Stewart blanched at the malicious words that had been spoken by the grizzle-faced Mexican bandido bound hand and foot in the stinking San Antonio jail cell, and the equally savage retort from the tall, lean Castilian Spaniard who stood rigidly at her side. Humiliation drew the skin tight over her cheekbones as she restrained the bitter denial that sought voice. Yet what could she say in her defense?

She could not deny that she had been Antonio Guerrero’s lover. In fact, she had borne Tonio’s bastard son. Nor could she deny that Tonio’s elder brother Cruz desired her, and had sought-without success so far-to possess her. But it was a hideous thing to hear her relationship with the two brothers put in such contemptible terms.

She laid a hand on Cruz’s arm and felt the corded muscles of a feral animal tighten and form beneath the layers of fashionable cloth.

A narrow strip of sunlight flashed off the wide silver-and-turquoise bracelet Alejandro wore on his right wrist, drawing Sloan’s attention once more to the man before them. “Are you sure this bandido is the same man who murdered Tonio four years ago?” she asked Cruz.

“The same.”

“Antonio Guerrero was a traitor and a fool!” Alejandro snarled. “If I had not shot him, the Texas Rangers would have hung him for plotting with the Mexican government to overthrow the Republic.”

“You are going to hang, Alejandro. If not for murdering my brother, then for stealing my cattle and my horses and for raping the women of my pueblo,” Cruz said.

The bandido’s hostile eyes glittered in the darkened cell. “I admit to nothing-except that I enjoy the first tearing thrust into virgin flesh.” He eyed Sloan and added, “You are not, it seems, nearly so fastidious, Don Cruz.”

“Enough!” Cruz said from between clenched teeth.

Sloan unconsciously backed away from the bandido’s malevolent stare until she felt Cruz’s implacable strength behind her. She straightened her shoulders and said with outward calm, “I’m ready to leave. I’ve seen all I need to see.”

Alejandro nodded his head in mock obeisance to her. “Adiós, puta. Until we meet again.”

Sloan recoiled from the cruel smile on Alejandro’s sharp-boned face. His pitiless eyes undressed her, exposing the full breasts with dusky nipples he would pinch and fondle, the slender waist and wide, child-bearing hips he would mount, the triangle of dark curls at the juncture of slim, strong legs that would grip his hairy thighs.

She closed her eyes to shut out his visual rape of her, but the sound of Alejandro’s low, grating laugh forced them open again. She shivered as his eyes insolently skimmed her body one last time.

“I will not be here long enough to hang,” he promised. “I will escape, as I escaped from the Rangers four years ago. And when I do, I will see for myself whether Antonio spoke the truth about his whore.”

Sloan didn’t wait to hear Cruz’s response to the bandido’s taunt. She left the dank room of tiny cells filled with frontier riffraff, murderers and thieves and walked outside onto San Antonio ’s dusty central square. She squinted her eyes against the sun’s midday glare and leaned her hand against the rough brown adobe building, fighting the dizziness that overtook her.

She inhaled a deep breath of air to clear her nostrils of the stench of the jail. The smells outside were equally pungent, but not so offensive-frijoles cooking, a freshly laid pattern of horse dung, tiny wild roses climbing the adobe jail wall, and overlaying it all, the tangy smell of sweat from humans and horses.

Sloan froze as a rigid-backed Spanish woman passed by, tugging along a dark-haired little boy dressed in short pants. For an instant Sloan thought it was Cruz’s mother Doña Lucia with Cisco-Sloan’s now three-year-old son.

But it wasn’t.

Sloan slumped back against the adobe wall, fearful her legs wouldn’t support her, as memories of Tonio, of her pregnancy, and of the birth of her son came flooding back.

It was hard to remember why she had first been attracted to Antonio Guerrero, but she supposed it must have been his smile. It was charming and rakish and tilted up at one corner more than the other. Or it might have been his dark eyes sparkling with devilry that had captured her heart. But it was his voice to which she had succumbed, a voice that was low and smooth and coaxing in a way she hadn’t been able to resist.

She had felt foolish when she realized she had fallen in love with Tonio. As the future heir to Three Oaks, she had been trained by Rip Stewart to make calm, rational decisions, and there was nothing the least bit calm or rational about falling head over heels in love. Especially when she had been raised from birth to understand that her destiny lay with Three Oaks-not as the wife of the younger son of a Spanish don.

She didn’t dare admit her feelings to her father, for fear he’d think her clabber-headed. So she had kept her thoughts to herself. And made some terrible mistakes.

Sloan picked at a callus on the palm of her hand. Tonio hadn’t liked her hands, she remembered. She held them out in front of her and looked at them. Raising cotton was dirty work. Her fingernails were broken to the quick, and not a little grimy. Calluses adorned her fingertips and the palms of her hands. They were small hands, but there was nothing dainty about them, she thought with a grimace.

Yet she had full breasts and hips, a shape a man might admire if he could ever see beyond the planter’s clothes she usually wore. Sloan glanced at her dusty Wellington boots, at her stained osnaburg trousers, at the visible ring of sweat at her armpits on the gingham shirt she wore, at the unraveling threads on the second button of her waistcoat, which had been nearly yanked off when it got caught on the cotton gin. Her lips curved in a rueful, self-deprecating grin. Right now she looked a mess!

She hadn’t been near a mirror this morning, but she could imagine her face also showed signs of her hurried journey from Three Oaks to San Antonio. Her one vanity, her waist-length sable-brown hair, was tied at her nape in a single tail with a piece of crumpled ribbon that had once been pale yellow.

There was nothing about her normal working-day appearance to entice a man as handsome as Antonio Guerrero to fall in love with her. She should have realized from the beginning that he’d had other reasons for what he had said and done.

Sloan felt her stomach roil with the disgust she felt every time she thought of how the man she had loved had so coldly and calculatedly used that love to get from her what he had wanted.

She would have done anything for him. He had used her to further his sordid plot with the Mexican government to invade Texas, giving her secret messages to carry to his cohorts. She had done his bidding without questioning him, because she had loved and trusted him. How gullible she had been! How stupid!

It was hard to remember the initial joy she had felt at finding out she was pregnant with Tonio’s child. Hard to remember the hours when she had pressed her hands against her belly and thought with wonder of their child growing within her. She should have realized something was wrong when Tonio did not immediately offer to marry her when she told him she was pregnant.

“We must wait, chiquita,” he had said. “There will be time enough to marry and give the child a name.”

Of course, he had never intended to marry her. It had been devastating to discover he was a traitor, that he had been murdered by one of his own men, Alejandro Sanchez, and that she must somehow bear all on her own the sorrow of his death, the shock of his betrayal and the shame of being pregnant and unwed.

It had not taken long for sorrow and shock and shame to become hate and anger and resolution. She had thought it out, weighing every detail, and made the only rational decision possible: She would not keep Tonio’s child.

She was bitter and angry for what Tonio had done. She did not think she could love the child of such a man, or even maintain indifference to it. She was afraid she would blame the child for the sins of the father, and she feared the hateful emotions she felt whenever she thought of Tonio and the bastard child she was to bear him.

To spare the innocent child, she had sought out Tonio’s elder brother, Cruz, and they had come to an agreement.

Sloan sighed and shook her head. She still could not believe she had acted as she had. She could only blame her actions on the turbulent emotions she had felt at the time. She could vividly recall the disbelieving look on Cruz’s face when she told him what she wanted to do.

“You will give away your own child?” he had exclaimed in horror.

“It would bring back too many memories to keep Tonio’s baby,” she had replied.

“Surely in time the memories will fade,” he had said, “and you will want your son or daughter-”

“I will never forget Tonio. Or what he-”

“You loved him, then,” Cruz had said, his voice harsh.

“I did,” she admitted. “More than my life,” she finished in a whisper. That was what had made his betrayal so painful. It did not occur to her that Cruz would not realize her love for his brother had died with Tonio.

She had watched Cruz’s lips flatten to a thin line, watched him frown as he came to his decision.

“Very well. I will take the child. But he must have a name.”

“You may call him whatever you wish,” she said, in a rush to have it all done and over.

“My brother’s son must have his name.”

“If you wish to call the child Antonio-”

“You misunderstand me,” Cruz interrupted brusquely. “My family possesses a noble Spanish heritage. My brother’s child must bear the Guerrero name.”

Sloan had not imagined how difficult it was going to be to go through with her plan. She swallowed over the painful lump in her throat and said, “If you wish to adopt the child as your own, I will agree.”

“That is not at all my intention,” Cruz said.

She felt the warm touch of Cruz’s fingers as he lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.

His blue eyes were dark with some emotion she refused to acknowledge. He could not feel that way about her, not when she had been his brother’s woman. What she could not accept, she ignored.

His gaze held hers captive as he said, “My brother’s child will bear the Guerrero name because you will be my wife.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she blurted, pulling away from him.

“Not at all,” he countered. “If you wish me to take the child and raise it as my own, you will marry me.”

“That’s blackmail! I won’t do it.”

“Then find another solution to your problem, Señorita Sloan.”

The tall Spaniard had already turned on his booted heel before she found her voice. “Wait! There must be some way we can work this out.”

He pivoted back to her, determination etched in his features. “I have stated my condition for taking the child.”

His arrogance infuriated her, and she clasped her hands to keep herself from attacking him. She held her anger in check, knowing that however satisfying it would be to feel the skin of his cheek under her palm, it would be a useless gesture. She had nowhere else to turn.

“All right,” she said. “I will marry you.”

Before his triumphant smile had a chance to form fully, she continued, “But it will be a marriage in name only. I will not live with you.”

“That is hardly a proper marriage, señorita.”

She snorted. “I don’t care a worm’s worth about a proper marriage. I’m trying to find a way to compromise with you.”

“As my wife, you will live with me,” Cruz announced in a commanding voice.

“If I marry you, I’ll live at Three Oaks,” she retorted.

“Unfortunately, that would make it quite impossible for us to have the children I desire.”

Sloan flushed. “I won’t live with you.”

“Then we can come to no agreement.”

Once again, Sloan was forced to halt his departure. “Wait-”

“You agree, then?”

Sloan raked her mind for some way to put off the inevitable and came up with an idea. “I’ll agree to marry you. But I’ll live with you as your wife only after Alejandro Sanchez is brought to justice.”

Cruz grimaced in frustration. “My brother’s murderer may never be caught.”

“I know,” Sloan replied. “But that is my condition.” She said it with the same intractability he had used when he laid down his own demands.

“I agree to your suggestion,” Cruz said at last. “We will be married now, and I will take the child when it is born and raise it as my own. Ours will be a marriage in name only-until such time as Alejandro Sanchez shall be brought to justice.”

It was obvious to Sloan when she shook hands with Cruz to seal their bargain that he expected to find Alejandro within days. But her luck had held. Alejandro had remained elusive, and she had remained at Three Oaks.

Over the years, while Cruz had hunted diligently for the bandido, he had kept their bargain and raised her son as his own. Now, at long last, Cruz had found Alejandro. Now, at long last, the arrogant Spaniard would expect her to fulfill her part of their bargain.

For reasons she could never explain to him, Sloan knew she could not do it.

She jumped away from the adobe wall as Cruz’s voice startled her from her reverie.

“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“The law will avenge Tonio’s death,” she said.

“Only if Alejandro is still in jail when the time comes to hang him.”

A frisson of alarm skittered down Sloan’s spine. “You don’t seriously believe he can escape, do you? He’s tied hand and foot, and he’ll be guarded by Texas Rangers.”

“He is treacherous and cunning. He must be clever to have stayed free this long. And there are those who would help him escape.”

“But-”

Cruz thrust a restless hand through his thick black hair. “But, as you say, I am worrying needlessly. We will surely see him hang tomorrow.”

“I won’t be staying for the hanging,” Sloan admitted. “I dropped everything and left in the middle of the cotton harvest when I got your message that Alejandro had been caught. My responsibilities as overseer can’t wait. And I have enough nightmares to disturb my sleep without adding one more.”

“Do you still see Tonio’s face at night, Cebellina?”

Sloan whirled on Cruz, keeping her voice low to avoid drawing the attention of those who passed by them. “Don’t speak to me of Tonio. And don’t speak to me a name intended for a novia. I’m not your sweetheart, Cruz, and I never will be.”

With a strength and quickness Sloan knew he was capable of, but had never seen for herself, Cruz grabbed her by the waist and carried her the few steps to a nearby alley. He pressed her up against the adobe wall and held her there with the length of his hard, sinewy body.

Sloan saw a ferocity in Cruz’s blue eyes, a harshness in his aristocratic features, an intransigence in the jutting chin rent by a shallow cleft, that she hadn’t seen since the grim day they had sealed their bargain.

There was nothing of the daring Spanish cavalier in the face of the man who held her, only brute strength, iron will and the knowledge of unrequited love.

“What do you expect from me, Cebellina?” With a hand that trembled under the force of the control he exerted, he caressed a wayward strand of the sable hair that had fostered his nickname for her.

His gaze touched her heart-shaped face, her large, intelligent brown eyes topped by delicately arched brows, her short, straight nose, the angled cheekbones leading to her confident chin, and finally her full, inviting pink lips, the lower of which she held clasped between her teeth.

When he spoke again, his rumbling voice held the fervor of someone who has reached the limit of his patience and will not be denied. “I have waited to claim you until Tonio’s murderer could be brought to justice. For four long years I have waited!

“I have kept my part of the bargain we made when you came to me swollen with my brother’s child and asked for my help. I accepted Tonio’s son from your arms when he was born and took him to Rancho Dolorosa to raise him as my own.

“And though I was often tempted, I did not ask of you my soul’s desire. I did not take from you that for which my body hungered. I waited. And I hunted down my brother’s murderer.

“Now you must keep your part of the bargain. I want you for my wife, Cebellina. And I will have you. Whether you see my brother’s face in your dreams or not!”

His mouth came down to claim Sloan’s, his touch rough with need, his teeth breaking the skin of her lip so she tasted blood. His hands freely roamed her body, commanding a response from her.

Sloan felt the insidious tingling sensation begin deep inside her, felt her lips softening under his, felt her mouth open for his searching tongue that ravaged her, mimicking the movement of his hips against her belly. She felt the rush of passion, felt the desire for him, for the joining of their bodies, begin to well and grow within her, as unwelcome as a weevil in cotton.

She could not allow this. She would not let herself be used by any man again! She shoved against Cruz’s chest, but she managed only to break the contact between their mouths.

“Stop it,” she hissed. “Let me go!”

Her hand rose up between them to cover Cruz’s lips. When she felt the wetness on his lips, it caused a shiver of desire within her so fierce that she felt compelled to deny it in words. “I don’t want you. I’ll never want you. And you can’t want me. I was your brother’s puta. Your brother’s whore!”

Abruptly, Cruz released her. His blue eyes had become chips of ice. The veins stood out along his neck, and his hands were balled into tightly clenched fists. “Never, never call yourself whore. Do you understand me?”

Sloan flinched when he raised his hand, afraid he would strike her. But she stood her ground, waiting. She was Rip Stewart’s daughter. It would not be the first time she had been struck in anger. She was no coward; she would not run from him.

His fist unfurled like a tight bud that finally flowers, and his callused fingertips smoothed over her freckled cheekbone in a caress as surprisingly soft as a cactus blossom. “Do you hate me so much, Cebellina?”

“I don’t hate you at all.”

“Then why do you resist me?”

“I can never love you, Cruz. A true marriage between us would only cause unhappiness for us both.”

“I will be the judge of what will make me happy.”

“Will you also judge what will please me?”

“Only tell me what I can do to please you and it shall be done. What do you want, Cebellina?”

“I don’t want or need a husband.”

His mouth tightened and a flush rose across his cheekbones. “Nevertheless, when Alejandro hangs, you will fulfill our bargain and become my wife.”

“I’m going home to Three Oaks, Cruz.”

“Go. But know this: When my brother’s murder is avenged at last, I will come for you.”

“Let me pass. I want to go to Ranger headquarters before I leave.”

“Is there some problem at Three Oaks?” Cruz asked.

“I only want to thank Luke Summers for his part in capturing Alejandro,” she replied, annoyed at his assumption that their bargain gave him the right to know about her affairs.

Cruz’s eyes narrowed. It was said that Luke Summers drew women like a Texas marsh drew mallards. It took Cruz no time at all to make up his mind what he should do. “I’ll come with you.”

Sloan started to object, then shrugged. “I can’t very well stop you.”

Cruz stepped away from her, and she had never been so aware of his great height or her own more feminine stature. She slipped past him and out of the alley into the warm September sunshine.

Her heart was racing, and she took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself before she headed purposefully toward the adobe building where she knew she would find the young Texas Ranger lieutenant. Cruz followed, a shadow by her side.

The shutters on the windows of Ranger headquarters had been closed to keep the interior cool. Sloan had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the dimness before she saw Luke sitting on the edge of a spur-scarred wooden desk. He kept a well-worn lariat circling two inches above the dirt floor with no more effort than the gentle flick of his wrist.

She had first met Luke Summers when he had come to provide protection against the Comanches who had once threatened Three Oaks.

Although you couldn’t tell it to look at him, slouched against the desk as he was, Luke was tall and rangy. His dark brown hair was streaked with blond from the year he had spent at hard labor in a Mexican prison after he had been captured at the Battle of Mier. He had high cheekbones and a narrow nose over a wide, full mouth.

His eyes were hazel, but she had seen them look green or gold at various times, depending on his mood. She guessed he was about her age, twenty-two or -three, but his eyes bespoke a life filled with some unutterable sadness.

With another flick of his wrist, Luke collected the lariat in his hand. As he shaped the rope in small, even loops, he said, “Howdy, Sloan. What’s troubling you?”

He was also far too perceptive for her peace of mind. “Nothing worth mentioning,” she said, slanting a glance at Cruz. “Before I leave town, I wanted to thank you for your help in capturing Alejandro Sanchez.”

“You’re leaving? The hanging’s not until tomorrow.”

“I know. I don’t plan to stick around for it. Anyway, thanks.”

“Just doing my job.” Luke stood up and gestured toward the ladder-back chair across from the desk. “You want to set a spell, Sloan?”

“No, I need to get started home. I don’t want to leave Rip alone too long.”

“I thought your father was completely recovered from his stroke,” Luke said.

“Oh, he is,” Sloan was quick to reassure him. “Except for having to use a cane to get around, he’s back to being his same ornery self. But he pushes himself too hard. If I’m not there, he’s liable to do more than he should. Why don’t you come for a visit and see for yourself how well he’s recovered?”

“I just may do that when Captain Hays returns and I’m not tied to this desk taking care of Ranger business. Are you traveling back to Three Oaks by yourself?”

“I came by myself,” Sloan said, as though that answered his question.

“But you are not riding back alone,” Cruz said.

Sloan’s eyes narrowed.

Luke looked from Sloan to Cruz and back again. “Between Comanches, bandidos and immigrants anxious to stake a claim before Texas gets herself annexed by the Union, the Republic isn’t the safest place to travel these days. Maybe you ought to let me send some Rangers along for the ride.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Luke gauged Cruz’s temper and said, “Josey and Frank are shoving down some vittles at Ferguson ’s Hotel, but I know they’d enjoy the ride. Shall I give them a holler?”

“No,” Sloan said.

“Yes,” Cruz said.

Sloan stood toe to toe with Cruz and poked her finger against his unyielding chest to emphasize her speech. “I don’t need anyone to follow me home. I take care of myself. Do you understand?” She pivoted on her heel and marched out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

Luke fought the smile that threatened. “I’ll send Josey and Frank after her.”

“Be sure you do.”

Cruz slipped off his boots and settled onto the soft feather bed in Ferguson ’s Hotel. He lit a cheroot and let the sweet smell of tobacco swirl around him as he waited for dawn. One step at a time, he was slowly but surely clearing the devastation left upon his brother’s death-a woman despoiled, a son orphaned, a country betrayed. Each deserved something beyond the legacy of selfishness and greed that Antonio had bequeathed them.

Cruz had to admit that taking Sloan Stewart as his wife was proving to be more of a challenge than he had expected.

He had not ever thought he would marry again after watching his very young wife Valeria die during childbirth. His parents had arranged the match, and he had not objected because Valeria was comely and compliant and he had wanted a home and children of his own.

Before long he had discovered his pretty wife was obedient because she had no thoughts of her own. He had ceased to feel any fond emotion for her long before she had died shrieking with the agony of birthing their still-born son.

At her death, guilt smote him that he had made her short life less happy than it could have been. He had sworn he would never marry again until he found a woman who could engage both his heart and mind.

That had not proved a simple feat. Indeed, he had turned away many offers of marriage to the daughters of neighboring rancheros over the past ten years.

Then, in the course of one brief conversation with Sloan Stewart, he had found what he had been seeking. She possessed a mind and a will that challenged his own. He had looked deep into her large, liquid-brown eyes and discovered an inner fire that burned far more brightly than in any other woman he had ever known. At last, he had found the woman he would spend the rest of his life loving.

It had been a shattering experience to discover that the woman he wanted to make his wife had already given her heart-and her body-to his brother. God help him, he had envied Tonio.

And when he had seen Sloan’s pain upon learning of Tonio’s betrayal, he had hated his brother for the cruel theft of her innocence.

Over the years, he had come to understand that the spirit he so admired in Sloan also kept her at arm’s distance. He did not understand her need for independence or her desire to play the man’s part or her rejection of his offer of a husband’s protection.

But he had convinced himself that once he and Sloan were living together as husband and wife, once she was carrying his child, those issues would resolve themselves. Soon, that belief would be put to the test.

Dawn came on slow, tired feet, dragging the huge Texas sun behind it. Cruz felt the weight of the day as he left the hotel and walked toward the dusty central square. This would be a day of endings… and a day of beginnings.

Two men were flogged in the plaza before Alejandro’s turn came to meet the hangman. Two Texas Rangers escorted the bandido to the raised platform and secured the black bag in place over his head with the hangman’s noose. The bright Texas sun glinted off Alejandro’s silver-and-turquoise bracelet as his hands were tied behind his back.

The bandido’s bold threats of escape had come to naught, Cruz thought. This morning he would die.

Cruz scarcely noticed when Luke came to stand beside him. He heard the murmured incantations of the priest at the gallows and, a moment later, the abrupt crack of the trapdoor as it dropped open, leaving Alejandro kicking his legs frantically against the pull of the noose.

Cruz felt the bile rising in his throat. The bandido took a long time to die. The smell of urine pinched Cruz’s nostrils, and the thought of Alejandro’s grizzled face beneath the mask, his tongue purple and swollen, his eyes white-rimmed with fear, nearly made him gag. At last the bandido stopped fighting, and the smell of death rose up to suffocate Cruz.

“Let us leave this place,” he said to Luke.

Cruz headed for the stable where he had left his powerful bayo stallion. The palomino whickered when he saw Cruz and sidestepped impatiently. Cruz quickly bridled him and led him from the stall.

Luke reached out to run his hand along the palomino’s flank. “He’s a beauty.”

“Yes, he is.” Cruz grabbed a striped wool blanket and slung it on the palomino’s back, then added a black leather saddle that was beautifully inlaid with silver and edged with tiny silver trinkets that jingled when he rode.

“You seem in a godawful hurry,” Luke noted.

“I am.” Cruz led the bayo out of the stable and mounted him in a single agile move. Once mounted, he fit the high-cantled saddle as though he had been born in it. He pulled his flat-brimmed black hat down low to shade his eyes, then met Luke’s solemn, hazel-eyed stare. “Hasta luego, mi amigo.”

“Hey! Where you headed?” Luke shouted as Cruz spurred the bayo into a distance-eating lope.

Cruz called back over his shoulder, “I am going to collect on a bargain.”