Desert Dreams (9 page)

"I have been through hell, Mr. Montalvo!" Her voice
rose in the silence. "Or at least I thought I had been through hell until
today. Today I found out exactly what hell is."

He smiled cynically at that naive statement. Looking at her
angry countenance and the slight trembling of her lower lip, he felt a little
sorry for her. She hadn't known what she was getting into when she struck out
on this adventure. His gut clenched at the thought of what might have happened.

"No, you didn't," he said quietly, suddenly unable
to meet her angry gaze.

"How would you know?"

He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire, fighting to
subdue the demons of memory. "Because I've
been
to hell, lady," he said in soft, measured tones, "and this
ain't
it. So why don't you just tell me what Luis Demas
told you in San Antonio."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She took
a bite of beans, unable to hold his gaze.

"You've got two choices. Play dumb and I'll leave you
here to fend for yourself. Level with me and I might agree to help you."

"I never asked for your help. Never!"

"You need it now. You know it and I know it."

"Well, if you know so much already, why should I tell
you anything?"

He smiled in spite of his anger. "You're a natural born
bluffer, aren't you?" He noticed the angry tilt of her chin but continued
undeterred. "You're not about to admit to anything until you know what I
know. But you'd better understand this. Your time is running out."

He dumped what was left of the beans in the fire, then tossed
the bean pot aside as he stood and walked toward his horse.

"Wait!"

Her threadbare voice reached out to him, tugging at his soul.
She had mistaken his actions. She'd believed he was leaving now. He turned to
face her as he reached his horse, his heart aching at the defeat in her eyes, even
though he knew he would use her misinterpretation to his benefit.

"Gold." She whispered the word, but it was
unmistakable.

"Where?"

"I won't tell you. I'll take you there, but I won't tell
you where it is."

Damn her stubbornness. He should just show her how easily he
could make her tell him what he wanted to know. So why didn't he? Maybe he was
just as much a fool as she was. He picked up his bedroll where he'd dropped it
earlier.

"Get some sleep," he said harshly.

"Then you'll help me?"

"Help you? Yeah, since you're hell bent on getting
yourself killed—or worse—I'll help you." He threw his bedroll on the
ground beside the fire and kicked it out until it lay flat.

“But sooner or later, you’re going to have to tell me where
we’re going.”

Chapter 5

Felipe Delgado, known
to allies and
enemies alike as El
Alacran
, sat at a table in a
cantina in San Tomas, Texas, with a weeping mulatto girl of perhaps sixteen on
his knee. His left arm encircled her slim waist. With his right hand he lifted
a glass from the table beside him and tossed down a shot of tequila, then
poured himself another and downed it as well.

They had crossed the Rio Grande in broad daylight, riding
into the sleepy little town before sundown, forty
bandidos
—Mexicans, Americans, Indians—loaded
down with weapons, sunlight glinting off silver studs and the weapons they
fired into the air.

The citizens, an equal mixture of Mexican and Anglo, had run
for safety, knowing there was none to be found. It was not the first time
bandidos
from across the
border had vented their savagery upon San Tomas.

The sounds of sporadic gunfire, women screaming, and men
laughing reached El
Alacran
from the street outside,
and his lips curved into a cruel smile. There had been nothing in this stinking
town to warrant his interest, not enough gold to fill a single saddlebag, not
enough jewelry and silver to fill even one wagon. It would have been a complete
waste, if not for the women.

He laughed, squeezing the girl on his lap tighter, enjoying
the smell of her fear and the feel of her squirming body against his groin.

She was probably a virgin.

He plunged a hand inside her loose peasant blouse and closed
his fingers over a soft young breast, eliciting a cry from her. His mind reeled
from the tequila and from the exhilaration of today's violence. His body pulsed
with anticipation.

Still, he remained lucid enough to think of his options. If
she were a virgin, he could demand a high price for her on the other side of
the border. But his body quickened when he imagined how tight she would be, how
she would scream and fight when he took her, and he knew he would not be
delivering a virgin to
Piedras
Negras
,
not this one anyway.

He wrapped his right hand in the girl's dark hair, pulling
her head down to him, capturing her lips in a brutal kiss. He ignored her
flailing hands, which pummeled and clawed at his shoulders and arms, laughing
deep in his throat at the excitement her ineffectual efforts aroused in him.

The door to the cantina opened and closed behind him, but he
didn't bother to turn and look. His men were positioned outside. No one who
posed a danger to him could get past them.

But when he heard a chair scrape away from the table where he
sat, he glanced past the struggling girl to see Diego Munoz turn the chair
around and straddle it.

El
Alacran
released the girl's
head. She tried to escape him but he held her easily, controlling her with one
arm while he poured another drink and waited for his most trusted man to speak.

"Luis finally showed up in San Antonio," Munoz told
him.

El
Alacran's
chiseled features
shifted almost imperceptibly at the announcement, but he held his silence.
Munoz dropped his gaze, so El
Alacran
knew there was
more.

Munoz took a deep breath and resumed, "Luis is dead,
jefe
."

"Dead?" El
Alacran
bellowed,
his deep baritone voice ricocheting off the stone walls of the cantina.

"He was shot by vigilantes."

"
Perdicion
!"
El
Alacran
swore. "How did this happen?"

Munoz shrugged. "I do not know. We watched him all night.
He got away from us only for a moment."

"And did you get close to him? Did he talk?"

"No
and
si
jefe
. I did not get close to him, but he did talk,
only not to me. There was a woman."

"What woman?" El
Alacran
banged his fist on the table, nearly upsetting the bottle of tequila.

"I do not know. I'd never seen her before—a
gringa
with pale hair.
She ran out in the middle of the street. I saw Luis talking to her just before
he died. There was a man with her: Rafael Montalvo."

For a moment, El
Alacran
sat
stone-faced, then he began to laugh mirthlessly. "So, my old friend
Rafael. It seems we are destined to meet again."

"That's not all,
jefe
."
Munoz swallowed convulsively. He was obviously prolonging the moment when he
would have to impart whatever information he still possessed.

"Out with it," the
comanchero
growled.

"Valdez, he's dead too. Montalvo shot him near
Castroville a few days ago."

El
Alacran's
smile faded, his
expression darkened.

Perdicion
!
He is killing
off my men one by one, the bastard!"

Valdez's death had nothing to do with Luis Demas. Valdez's
death was part of another matter between him and Montalvo, a matter he had
considered long settled. He hadn't seen Rafael in five long years and had begun
to believe that his adversary must have gone east to fight in the gringo war.
But then he had reappeared on the border and started systematically going after
all the men who had ridden with him five years ago.

It had to stop, and soon. But right now he had more urgent
matters on his mind.

El
Alacran
rose from the chair,
still holding the terrified girl by the waist. She renewed her struggles with
the same results as before. She was no match for him, and he had no intention
of releasing her.

"What do you want me to do?" Munoz asked.

"Rest!" El
Alacran
said,
his voice booming in the small barroom. "You've earned a little enjoyment,
my friend. Then tomorrow you can take three men and return to San Antonio.
Bring them to me—both of them—alive. I leave tomorrow for Chihuahua. And take
Carlos with you. It's about time he grew up a little."

Munoz watched as El
Alacran
dragged
the girl through a door to the left of the bar. The nervous bartender scurried
over to the table with a fresh bottle of tequila and a clean glass. Munoz
gladly accepted both.

He had fared much better with El
Alacran
than he had dared to hope. But for all his surface calm, the chief was close to
exploding with rage at that moment.

He heard the girl scream from the adjoining room, followed by
the bandit's merciless laugh. Lucky for him, El
Alacran
had another object for his fury tonight.

Munoz opened the tequila bottle and poured a glassful, which
he drank in two gulps. Tomorrow he would make the long ride back to San
Antonio. He'd have to take El
Alacran's
little
cousin. When would El
Alacran
accept the fact that
Carlos Delgado didn't have what it took to be a
comanchero
?
The
niño
nearly
fainted at the sight of blood.

Well, he would worry about that tomorrow. Tonight he was
determined to enjoy himself. And with that decision made, he grabbed the
tequila bottle by the neck and sauntered out of the cantina, intent on finding
some suitable outlet for his own frustration.

* * * * *

The first thing Anne felt the next morning when she woke up
was pain. It started at the top of her head and spread down her body to her
feet. Her muscles and bones ached every time she tried to move, but she managed
to get to her feet.

She stood on legs that threatened to give way beneath her and
gazed around, sighing in despair.

Even though the morning was still young, the sun on her face
was uncomfortably hot, and she held a hand to her brow to shield it as she
surveyed the horizon for any sign of
him
.

He’d saved her life yesterday, she’d be a fool not to admit
it. But now what was she going to do? She’d lost nearly everything she owned.

The weight of her running bag hooked inside her skirt soothed
her. Now that she had no reason to pretend to be a boy, she couldn’t bear to
wear that scratchy shirt and suffocating coat. She thought about wearing the trousers
with her softer shirtwaist. They afforded her so much more freedom of movement
than a skirt, it had been a revelation.

But after losing almost everything she owned, she needed to
keep what little she had left close to her, in her running bag. What little
money she’d been able to gather after the accident, along with a few of her
most prized possessions, were in that running bag. But other than that she was
destitute. She certainly didn't have enough money to make it all the way to
Concepción, Mexico—wherever that was.

She was alive, thanks to Rafe Montalvo. Why? If someone had
to rescue her from her own foolishness, why did it have to be him?

And yet, in those desperate hours when death seemed certain,
he was the one she'd hoped would find her. As crazy as it seemed, he was the
only person in her life right now that she trusted. And she really didn’t trust
him, not entirely. But there was no doubt he could protect her from anything
that threatened her.

The only question was who would protect her from him?

He was following her. If she'd thought so before, she was
certain of it now. He'd admitted it last night, hadn't he? Or had that been a
dream?

Last night was not much more than a blur. She remembered
waking to find herself propped up next to a fire. He must have found her where
she'd passed out beside the road and given her water. He'd also removed her
clothes while she was unconscious. A shudder ran through her body at the
thought of being that vulnerable, that helpless. The very idea of him touching
her clothing, touching
her
turned her breathing shallow and sent hot
color to her cheeks.

           
He was dangerous and detestable and yet her gaze searched for him.

           
She took a ragged breath. What if he came back? How could she trust him? All
she knew about him was that he killed people for a living, he was following
her—and he had saved her life. If not for him, she'd be dead right now.

A chill ran up her spine. The only thing standing between her
and death was a coldblooded killer, a coldblooded killer whose dark magnetism
and lean, muscled body caused a stir in hers that she struggled to deny.

She groaned. There were other parts of last night she
remembered as well. It hadn't been a dream. She'd admitted that she knew where
the gold was, and he'd agreed to help her find it. Had she made an alliance
with the devil himself?

Which would be worse, she wondered, to be stranded in the
middle of nowhere with a man like Rafe Montalvo or to be stranded alone?

The answer was simple. She needed him. And she cursed the
feeling of relief that washed over her in the next moment when she caught sight
of him in the distance, riding toward her. Relief and something else that
caused her heart to pound in her chest and set her body trembling.

The closer he came, the more her pulse increased until she
had to look away, had to think of something else. She tried to brace herself
for the moment when he would pull his horse to a stop and swing his long,
muscled leg over the animal's back, the moment when he would stand before her
again and look at her with those eyes that seemed to see all the way to her
soul.

This is ridiculous.

She tried to curb her reaction, but the only thing she could
do to counter it was look away, find something else to focus on rather than
watching him draw near. She let the aroma of brewing coffee draw her to the
fire, but she could hear his horse's hoof beats now, even though she refused to
look up.

She found a clean tin cup on the ground near the fire. When
she lifted the pot by its handle, a searing heat scorched her hand and she
screamed and dropped it. Coffee went everywhere—down the front of her
shirtwaist, on her hands and arms.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she grasped her hand, blowing on
her reddened fingers.

"Are you all right?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rafe Montalvo pull his
horse to a halt and leap from the saddle. He rushed toward her, and the pain
and frustration inside her burned her soul as the coffeepot had burned her
fingers.

"No, I am not all right!" She took a step back, her
heart pounding with irrational anger and a mixture of emotions she tried to
deny. She wanted to cry from the pain in her fingers and the confusion in her
heart.

"Let me see." His soft voice reached out to her,
making her shiver.

"No!" She whirled away. "Why can't you leave
me alone? I don't want your help."

"If you don't do something about that burn, it'll
blister."