Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family) (5 page)

“Sweet, don’t do that.” He gasped uncertainly. “Don’t I . . . I may not be able to stop the momentum once it starts building! A man’s just a man, after all!”

She was counting on that. Besides, she’d heard so much about this experience, the embarrassed laughter of new brides, faces hidden behind fans, usually accompanied discussions of that first time.

If she hadn’t been full of wine, she would never have dared to do what she was doing now, hanging in a man’s powerful arms, nuzzling his wide chest. Amethyst sank her small, white teeth into his nipple.

He swore, jerked away from her. “You little bobcat!”

But he didn’t put her down. She looked up at him, seeing the flush of color on his face, hearing his deep, aroused breathing.

And suddenly, she wanted to experience this great wondrous event of which she was so ignorant. “Make love to me, Bandit,” she whispered. “Oh, please make love to me!”

With a low groan, he laid her on the soft grass in the shadows, stripped off his shirt. “Are you sure, sweet? Are you sure?”

She slipped her lace drawers off, wriggled the purple dress down to her waist. “I’m sure,” she whispered tipsily.

He slipped out of his pants, knelt before her on his knees. For a split second, she was afraid, seeing the size and virility of his erection. But then he bent his head to kiss her breasts and she forgot everything but the way his warm hands explored the silken curves of her body, the heat of his mouth sucking at her taut nipples. “This is loco,” he gasped, but he didn’t move away. “I must be asleep and dreaming that a beautiful virgin is throwing herself at me wantonly.”

“It’s no dream.” Amethyst groaned, dug her nails into his rippling back muscles as she pulled him still closer, loving the sensation of his wet, hot mouth licking the perfumed cleft between her breasts all the way down to her navel.

“Take me, Bandit, take me!”

She felt him spread her thighs, try to force himself inside her, but she was too small for him. “I—I can’t, aimée. I’ll hurt you! My Lord, you really are a virgin, aren’t you? A virgin . . . my virgin!”

The wine made her head spin. She responded to his thrusting instinctively, as a primitive female. Arching herself up against his rhythmic thrust, she urged him still deeper, excitement building in her.

The barrier of her maidenhood seemed to excite him into a frenzy as he rammed against it. When it finally tore, he slipped his tongue deep into her mouth to muffle her cry. “Sweet . . . sweet . . .” he murmured, “I never meant to hurt you! Amethyst . . . aimée . . . beloved . . .” And then he rode her harder, faster.

She felt her body tense with her mounting excitement at the feel of his maleness forcing itself, laden with life-bearing seed, into her depths. So this was what it was like! She dug her nails into his broad back, locked her legs around him. Deep in her belly, she felt him throbbing as he lunged into her waiting softness.

And then he gasped, went rigid, and lay still. Amethyst felt too much terror to scream. He was dead! Of course he had died in her arms! The strain of making love to such an inexperienced girl had overtaxed his big heart! But as she tried to shift his weight to get out from under him, he stirred, sighed as he looked down into her face. She kept her eyes closed, still drunk and dizzy. She felt him slip her little ring off. “Sweet, you’re really something! I’m sorry I got so rough. No woman’s driven me that loco in a long time!”

She opened her eyes, saw him admiring her little ring, now on his own smallest finger. “Sweet, what is this little flower?

“Forget-me-not,” she murmured in a daze, “forget-me-not . . .” Amethyst started to ask for the ring back as he smiled that lopsided grin and raised himself on his elbow.

“Sorry about that. A real gentleman always supports half his weight on his elbows.” He reached to brush a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “Was it good for you, too?”

She realized abruptly that he was finished with her. Her excited pulse pounded in frustration and sudden fury. “You mean, that’s it!
Santa María!
Is that all there is to it? That’s love?”

She struggled out from under him, reached for her lace drawers.

He looked stunned. “What do you mean, ‘Is that all there is to it’? I don’t usually get complaints—”

“Then other women are more polite or are better liars than I am!” She pulled on her dainty underclothes with jerky gestures. “I keep hearing all this nonsense about fireworks and sky rockets going off! What lies!”

He looked embarrassed and stunned. “I was no good? You’re tellin’ me you were disappointed?”

“Disappointed!” She laughed in her rage. Amethyst was nearly sober now and her head ached. “If this is a sample, making love must be the most overrated activity since the game of croquet!”

“Okay, sweet, maybe it wasn’t so good the first time.” He grabbed her shoulders. “I’ll admit you drove me so loco, I hurried! I should have taken a little more time, been a little more—”

“Maybe it’s not you, maybe it’s just me,” She paused suddenly in pulling the purple silk back upon her shoulders. “Maybe I am a natural old maid; maybe I do have the disposition to be a cloistered sister!”

“A what?”

Amethyst frowned at the naked Texan. “You know, Texas, a nun.”

His mouth dropped open. The cocky male seemed to gasp for words. “What in blue blazes? You mean I’ve stolen a woman meant for Him?” He glanced up toward the sky.

“No, I’m not a nun . . . yet.” Amethyst finished straightening her clothes. “But if my future stepmother has her way, I may be stuck in a convent forever.” Weariness and disappointment suddenly overcame her and she started to weep. “At the very least, I wanted to find out what it is I might be missing for the rest of my life!”

He took her in his arms, kissed the tears off her cheeks. “Amethyst . . . aimée . . . I’m sorry I disappointed you,” he said softly. “I got pride. No woman ever left the Bandit’s arms feeling she’d been gyped.”

“Well, there’s always a first time, isn’t there?” She tried to pull out of his arms, slapping at his imprisoning hands furiously.

He held her arms at her sides, pulled her up against him, tried to kiss her. “The night’s not over yet!”

“Oh, yes it is, you—saddle tramp!” She tried to kick his shins as they struggled. “Here I thought if I let you make love to me, you might help me escape; let me have that horse!”

His face went hard, cold. He turned her loose so suddenly she stumbled backward against a tree. “Why, you elegant, high-class little tart! That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You’d use your body just like some cheap
puta
to bargain for whatever it is you want! And here I thought you were as smitten with me as I was with you!”

“Now, Texas . . .” She was reluctant to admit that for a couple of minutes when she was in his arms, she wouldn’t have traded places with a queen.

“Well, there’s some things a good whore could teach you!” he snarled, running his hands through his tawny hair. “The number one rule is get your payment first, it’s hard to collect after a man’s finished!”

“Bandit, believe me, that wasn’t the only reason—”

“Don’t lie to me, sweet.” His mouth was a grim line as he pulled on his clothes. “I should have known a pedigreed aristocrat like you wouldn’t really want a mongrel saddle bum like me. In some ways, you’re not so innocent after all!”

His anger frightened her. It was almost as if there was something else he struck out at, something bitter and sad in his own past. She thought about her desperate situation. “I do need you, Texas! If you’d help me get away, let me have that horse—”

“Hell no,
señorita!
You’ve paid a high price, I’ll admit, submitting to the kisses of an ignorant commoner. But you can’t have that pinto. I need him too badly myself!”

She watched him finish dressing, gather up his saddlebags. “You’re headed on south then?”

She should warn him, but she was too angry. Her precious virginity had been wasted on the wrong man, in a sudden burst of passion indulged in under a tree like a common slut.
Santa María!
It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last that too much wine had fogged a woman’s mind, made her open her thighs to a virile, eager male.

He took her elbow, nodded, “It don’t make me no never mind where I go. Reckon the area around Monterrey is a good place to stay for a few weeks. When things cool down, I’ll head back up to Texas.”

Of all the places he should avoid, the ranching country around Monterrey should be at the head of the list, Amethyst thought. She wondered suddenly if a sheriff or a U.S. Marshal was looking for him. Bandit certainly had some reason to be south of the border. Amethyst let him propel her across the courtyard toward the silent inn. “You know anyone in Monterrey?”

“No,” he said, “I’m just drifting, like always. Got no real places to call home.” He paused before the inn. “How in blue blazes did you get out of this place unseen?”

She gestured toward the open window, looked up at him uncertainly. She was cold sober and her head hurt. “I could go with you,” she whispered. “I know that area, I could help—”

“I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw that stallion.” He adjusted the heavy saddlebags on his shoulder. “You’re just like the rest of ’em—greedy, conniving. Besides, then your papa would have the Federales lookin’ for old Bandit and there’s enough people on my trail already!
Adiós, Aimée,
and don’t think it hasn’t been one hell of an adventure!”

Before she realized his intention, he took her in his arms, kissed her deeply, thoroughly. Then he wheeled and swaggered toward the barn.

“You saddle bum!” Her voice was a loud, hoarse whisper, “don’t think it was wonderful, ’cause it wasn’t!”

He didn’t even look back.

Damn him, she thought savagely as she climbed back through the window, damn that arrogant gunslinger! How dare he take her virginity and then deny her what she wanted!

She lay sleepless until dawn, moving restlessly, thinking of him sprawled asleep on the soft hay of the barn.
Aimée
. . .
beloved
. . .
Now where
would
a Texas cowboy learn to speak
French?

She twisted her hands together. Her ring! She felt her fingers frantically. That pistolero had gotten away with her ring! Damn him! Damn him anyway!

At dawn she still hadn’t figured out any way to get her ring back. Certainly she just couldn’t walk up and ask for it in broad daylight. Maybe she could catch him alone.

Mrs. Wentworth stirred and groaned. “I—I must have had a little too much wine. I don’t remember—”

“We finished the wine and went to bed right after dinner,” Amethyst lied, primly reaching for her hair brush. “And now I suppose it’s about time for the stage to be loading up again.”

While her chaperone ordered coffee sent to the room and readied the luggage, Amethyst poured some water so she might wash her face. The reflection that stared back up at her from the water had shadows under long-lashed, dusky lavender eyes and lips that seemed to swell from being kissed too fervently. She’d not only lost her virginity but her precious ring to that swaggering
americano
stud.

Mrs. Wentworth climbed into the stage and promptly closed her eyes, moaning about a headache. Amethyst got in, saw the
Texian
mounted up on the fine pinto stallion and starting south toward Monterrey. As the stage pulled away, he gave her a long, searching look that she could not quite understand, then mouthed these words:
Aimée
. . .
beloved.
As he touched the brim of his hat with two fingers, the ring flashed on his little finger.

She stared at his effrontery, open-mouthed. He was flaunting the ring! How dare he look at her so arrogantly, knowing she could do nothing about it! The Texan turned the big horse south.

Even then Amethyst almost called out a warning. But she reminded herself that he had coldly taken advantage of her innocence, had refused to help her. The pistolero deserves what he is going to get, she thought, watching through the window as the flashy pinto loped away south.

The Flying Eagle brand. That was a damned lie! She wondered how he had come by the fine horse; she had recognized it instantly, the brand, too.

Falcon’s Lair, the cattle empire of Señor Enrique Falcon, lay to the north of Monterrey and just west of her own Papa’s ranch. That blue-eyed pinto, surely his finest stud horse, had been stolen less than six months ago. Señor Falcon had not been in such a sorrowful rage since his only child had been kidnapped and murdered many years before.

Amethyst leaned back against the cushions, trying to feel smug satisfaction, but somehow-it eluded her. Bandit didn’t seem to know that he rode the most famous stud in the states of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. Or that Señor Falcon had offered a great reward for the return of the stolen horse—or the head of the man who had taken it!

Evening fell like soft layers of gray gauze across the abbey of the Cloistered Sisters as the stagecoach disgorged its two passengers out front.

Amethyst stood in the jumble of her baggage, watching the sour chaperone pull the bell cord as they waited at the gate before the grim, forbidding walls. Behind her, the stage pulled away with a clatter and the jingle of harness.

She had a sudden urge to run after the coach, shouting at it to wait. But she had no money, no destination in mind if she should get back on that stage. Besides the stout Mrs. Wentworth would only pull her off and scold her for her brashness.

Damn that Texan anyhow! He could have helped her instead of just stealing her ring and her innocence! And certainly the supposed ecstasy of lovemaking had been vastly overrated as far as Amethyst was concerned.

The sound of shuffling feet interrupted her thoughts. A bent old servant woman swung open the door.

Mrs. Wentworth motioned Amethyst to enter. “Tell the Mother Superior that Señorita Durango has arrived and seeks audience.”

The worn face wrinkled with scorn as the nun looked over the pile of baggage. “She’ll not be needing all that here, I can tell you, but I’ll send word you’ve arrived.”

While her chaperone dealt with the luggage, Amethyst found herself seated in a sparse, small room across from the Mother Superior. Had the woman ever been young? It was hard to tell with her form so swathed in the black habit, and her face so plain and pale. She jangled the big ring of keys hanging from her waist. “So you are Amethyst Durango! Any relation to one Luis Durango?”

Amethyst studied the lined face, the haunted eyes. The question puzzled her. “I—I don’t know. I think possibly he might be a brother to our distant cousin in the Texas hill country—Diego de Durango.”

“Aha! I thought so!” There was a glint in the woman’s eyes as she rattled her ring of keys, a note of triumph in her voice. And was that a hint of revenge . . . or madness in her expression?

Amethyst stared at the large portrait on the wall behind the Mother Superior. The girl in the painting was no older than Amethyst herself, very lovely and very innocent. She vaguely resembled the nun, although the artist had flattered his subject as paid artists do.

The old woman nodded. “
Si,
it is me, as I was many years ago in Spain . . . before I met Luis Durango, who painted that portrait.”

She had a sudden feeling that the man had seduced and shamed the innocent girl portrayed in the painting. “Sister, I have no idea where this is all leading. Certainly I have never met this distant relative of whom you speak—”

“Silence!” The Mother Superior’s voice cracked like a pistol shot as she stood, paced the bare stone floor. “You are as impudent and spirited as Mademoiselle Monique claimed in her letter! I took the veil because of Luis Durango; perhaps it is God’s justice that a Durango should finally come under my control!”

That really was a glint of madness in the haunted eyes. Amethyst felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. “But, Sister—”

“Silence, I said!” The older woman whirled on Amethyst. “I didn’t give you permission to speak! Here you will learn humility and obedience! That low-cut gown is disgraceful! It will only invite the lust of men. Tomorrow you will exchange it for a simple uniform.” She sniffed the air as if she could not believe her nose. “Is that perfume I smell?”

“Forget-me-not,” Amethyst explained. “Surely there’s nothing wrong with the delicate scent of the little wild violet—”

“It attracts the lustful notice of men!” the woman shouted at her. “Everything about you would attract men! But I will change all that! After months of prayer and penitence for your sinful urges, you will be glad to put aside the wicked world and thoughts of men, even as I did!”

Amethyst stood up. “I really don’t intend to stay that long,” she countered. “As soon as I convince Papa—”

“Oh, but unless he counters Mademoiselle Monique’s orders, you will see no one for some months! When that fine lady wrote me, sending such a generous donation for our order, she bemoaned your rebellious nature. Your future stepmother indicated that perhaps after months of prayer over your hostility, you might even consider taking the veil.”

“I think not,” Amethyst said coldly. Although the coming night was warm, she shivered. Tomorrow her last link with the outside, her chaperone, would leave on the stage that seldom came to this isolated place in the desert. After the woman’s departure, Amethyst might very well be held a prisoner here, never again to see the outside world. Did the Bishop know the Mother Superior here was as mad as a rabid dog? Evidently not or she would have been replaced.

The woman crossed the room, pulled the bell cord. “The old serving woman will take you to your room, provide you with proper clothing. You will observe silence at all times. We rise at four in the morning, meditate and pray until five, at which time we share a simple meal of plain gruel. At noon, there will be vegetables and more gruel.”

Amethyst knew better, but she was too ornery to pass up the remark. “Gruel!” she exclaimed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yum! I can hardly wait!”

For a moment, she thought the madwoman would strike her with the heavy ring of keys. “Young lady, you lack humility and you are sassy and impudent! But after a few months here, we’ll change all that. Your attitude will become a more pliant, prayerful one.” The Mother Superior smiled. “We’re in the business of miracles, you know!”

The bent old woman came for Amethyst, escorted her to a small, sparsely furnished cubicle.

Late into the night, Amethyst lay staring at the ceiling of the cell-like room. For the first time in her life, she was really scared. She had a feeling that any letters of entreaty to her papa would be intercepted, whereas the Mother Superior would write glowingly of Amethyst’s progress and happiness at the abbey.

The ambitious Monique wanted a free hand with the Durango ranch and fortune. It dawned on Amethyst as she restlessly tossed and turned that even she might finally be broken in spirit by that madwoman until, like her, she would wish refuge from the world and decide to stay at the abbey forever.

The only thing that could get her out right away was her marriage. And that wasn’t likely, since she’d been betrothed for all these years to a man she never expected to claim her. Indeed, Papa was such a man of honor that he’d refused to let other men pay her court because of the agreement he’d made when Amethyst was only a child.

The thought of a husband brought to mind the big
Texan’s
taking her in his arms in the shadows of the trees. With a shivery thrill, she remembered the feel of his hot lips sucking at her small, pink nipples. At the thought, her breasts seemed to swell with anticipation. Closing her eyes, she remembered his square, hard hands as she’d kissed the backs of his knuckles. They had tasted and smelled of sunburned earth and soap. Again she felt those callused palms stroking her satin skin in a rough caress, his tongue invading her mouth deeply as he’d dominated her small body with his virile power. The act had offered such promise, such excitement.

Amethyst frowned suddenly in the darkness, her violet eyes opening wide as she remembered the act itself. She couldn’t imagine why poets praised this act of passion. Certainly as far as she was concerned, love was a big disappointment. The pistolero had seemed to enjoy it, but not enough to be swayed into helping her. And that final indignity of stealing her small ring after taking her on the grass like a common servant! . . .

But of course, he was common—just a saddle tramp—while she was of the finest family. She could never have considered him seriously anyway. The man she had been betrothed to came from as blue-blooded a family as her own.

She touched her finger where she had worn the amethyst flower all these years and then ran that hand with great agitation and anger through her ebony tresses.
Santa María!
Bandit! Ah,
si
, he was only a
bandido,
a thief after all! She wondered what had become of him? Had the unsuspecting tejano been loco enough to ride that stallion right into the area from which it had been stolen six months ago?

At that very moment, Bandit was riding up to an isolated little cantina a few miles to the north of Monterrey. Guitar music and laughter floated through the cantina’s open windows.

A mug of beer would taste good, he thought, dismounting before the water trough, watering the pinto stallion. It was only as he led the horse over to the hitching rail before the cantina that he suddenly noticed the vaquero in the shadows, leaning against a post.

Bandit started, his hand going automatically to the Colt worn low and tied down under his left hand.

“Easy, hombre,” said the other in a voice that was almost a whisper. He slowly came out into the moonlight and Bandit noted he was slender and cadaverous, but handsome in a menacing sort of way, maybe part Indian. He took off his sombrero, ran his hand through black hair that glinted with streaks of silver.

Bandit sighed, shrugged. “Beg pardon,” he apologized in his Texas drawl. “Been on the prod too long, I reckon; find myself slappin’ leather at the slightest noise.”

The vaquero laughed softly, shifted the lucifer he chewed from one side of his mouth to the other. His eyes reflected the moonlight, and Bandit noted they were as black as the pits of hell and reflected back at him almost like mirrors behind which there was no soul. Without thinking, he brought his left hand to his vest, to finger the lucky coin that his mother had pressed into his palm as she’d died.

“Hombre,” said the stranger, “where did you get that horse?”

Bandit’s hand dropped to his gunbelt again. “What in blue blazes is it with this horse?” He thought of the lavender-eyed beauty again, felt her tiny ring encircling the smallest finger on his right hand. “Everyone is might curious about this stud. That’s the Flying Eagle brand of my folks from up near the Red River.”

“Is that a fact?” The vaquero shrugged easily as he came over to study the stallion up close. He wore no pistol, Bandit noted. “
Tejano,
you look familiar. I swear I’ve seen you some place before,” he said, “have you ever been below the border?”

“Never have.” Bandit shrugged, his hand still on the ivory-handled butt of his colt. “And you’re mighty nosy. Now if you’ll
perdône me
”—he gestured with his head toward the noise and music of the cantina—“I’m afixin’ to sample a little of the hospitality of the area, see if we’re
simpático
.”

The saddlebags, mustn’t forget to keep those saddlebags with him at all times.
Somehow sooner or later, he intended to return that army payroll. It was bad enough to have those three bank robbers searching for him; he didn’t want the whole United States Army after him, too!

But even as he swung around to unbuckle the saddlebags from the big horse, a crowd of drunken vaqueros stumbled through the swinging doors of the adobe cantina. They paused uncertainly, swaying on their feet and laughing. “Hey, Romeros,” one called to the black-haired man, “we miss you inside! We want to have a drink with our
caudillo
, our foreman.”

Romeros smiled, indicated Bandit with a nod of his head. “I was just coming in for some tequila, hombres, when I stopped to talk to this Texas pistolero.”

The half-dozen drunken men stumbled forward to surround the pair, frowning at Bandit. “
A tejano!
We don’t have much use for
tejanos!
We are pleased to let the Indians rip into their soft, southern underbelly!”

Bandit smiled back at them. Relations between Texas and Mexico had always been strained but the Mexican War waged a quarter of a century ago had created even more tension between that country and the United States. It was stupid to fight if he could use his charm to wriggle out of trouble like he’s so often done.
“Compadres”—
he grinned and made an open gesture—“I was thinking of buying everyone some
cerveza
.”

But even as he spoke, they crowded in close around him, jostling him, making it almost impossible to draw. Then a bearded one seemed to see the horse for the very first time. “Holy Mother of God! It is the horse!” he shouted in Spanish. “This
hombre
has the stallion!”

They were too close for him to draw. He’d have to bluff his way free of this crowd. “That’s the Flying Eagle brand from up near the Red,” he began, “and—”

“You lie!” Half a dozen voices shouted in drunken anger, the men so close now he smelled their sour mescal breath, the stench of sweating bodies. “That’s el
patrón’s
missing stud! The reward!” one shouted.

“No,
compadre,
you’re mistaken,” Bandit drawled. “That’s the Flyin’ Eagle brand—”

“Romeros!” another yelled, “you’re old Don Falcon’s foreman for many years now! Is that not the famous Falcon brand? Is that not the fine
overo
pinto stolen from
el
patrón
for which he has offered a reward?”

Before Romeros could answer, the mob shouted back.
“Sí!
Remember the reward for its return—or for the head of the man who stole it!”

Even as Bandit tried to back away from the drunken crowd to get himself room to maneuver, they crowded in, overpowering him as he went for his pistol.
What in the name of blue blazes have I ridden into?

He fought to get loose, hit one man on the chin. But he was grabbed again, his arms twisted behind his back as he cursed and struggled.

A man stuck his head through the swinging doors of the cantina. “Hey, hombres, what is all that noise about?”

One of those holding Bandit’s arms yelled back at the one in the doorway. “We have caught ourselves a horse thief to amuse us, and tomorrow, we claim the big reward!”

Immediately a crowd came out of the cantina. Curious, they gathered around the struggling cowboy. Bandit’s arms hurt from being twisted cruelly behind his back but he still fought and struggled, dragging those who held him out into the dustry street as he fought them.