A Little Time in Texas (7 page)

He grasped a fistful of her hair and forced her to face him. “I want you. If this is all the time we’ll ever have together, I want it. I want to remember you like this—”

Angel looked up into his eyes and realized she wanted him as much as he wanted her. But it wasn’t only herself she had to think about. If she had a child…Dallas’s world might accept and forgive. Her world would not.

She begged for understanding with her eyes. At last she realized she would have to say the words. “I can’t.”

Dallas released her and lurched to his feet. He stood with his back to her, legs spread, balled fists on his hips.

Angel saw the tension in his shoulders. She stood shakily and brushed the grass from her clothes, not sure what she could, or should, say.

“Dallas?”

He whirled and she gasped at the rigid set of his jaw, the way his eyes still glittered green and gold with desire. His chest heaved. Every muscle was taut as though he were straining against a tether. She watched him visibly rein the raw passion that had him drawn tight as a bowstring.

His struggle intensified her own yearning. “Dallas?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he warned. “Or you’re liable to get what you’re asking for.”

Angel lowered her lids to hide the need she didn’t seem to be able to control, the flare of desire that made her feel weak in the knees. When she looked up again his face was a mask behind which his feelings were shuttered.

They had coffee and breakfast and took care of their personal needs without another word spoken. Even so, it was not an unpleasant silence. It was not wrong for Dallas to desire her, or for her to feel desire in return, Angel thought. If only the circumstances were different, what had happened between them would have been a prelude to something deeper, something permanent.

But the circumstances were different. Which made any relationship between them quite impossible.

Dallas lifted the backpack onto his shoulders, looked up to find the sun and asked, “South?”

“Southeast,” Angel replied.

It was dusk by the time they reached the outskirts of San Antonio. They had talked on and off over the afternoon about what Dallas could expect to see. Still, he was enthralled to encounter the first
jacales
—wooden-sided huts—and adobe
buildings. He marveled at the old Spanish missions that in 1992 provided tourist attractions in San Antonio. And, of course, he felt the same tightness in his chest he felt every time he stepped inside the dim, shadowy interior of the Alamo.

It was strange to realize the layout of the roads was already set in 1864. Later they would simply be paved and these adobe and wood buildings replaced with brick and stone. The muddy San Antonio River that ran through the city would one day become another tourist attraction, the River Walk.

Dallas stared until his eyes glazed. It was all here, everything that would one day be sprawling San Antonio. Only now it was confined to a small area of adobe and wood-frame homes and a central square where cows and horses and even chickens could be seen on the streets.

Quaint.

Dallas felt the silly smile on his face, but didn’t fight it. San Antonio looked like a movie set for a B Western, right down to the American cowboys and Spanish vaqueros in buckskin chaps. He could hear the twangy sound of a Spanish guitar coming from the open door of a white-washed adobe cantina.

“What do you think?” Angel asked.

His grin broadened. “I feel like Alice in Won
derland, like I’ve stepped into a hole and everything’s wacky.”

“Wacky?”

“Strange. Weird. Unbelievable.”

Angel grinned back. “I know the feeling.”

They laughed together. The smiles hadn’t left their faces when someone bumped into Dallas from behind.

“Look where you’re going!” a rough voice growled.

Dallas didn’t have time to turn around before he was shoved out of the way. He might have let the insult pass, except the drunken cowboy also shoved Angel. She lost her balance and would have fallen except Dallas caught her. Even that might not have been a disaster, only her hat fell off, and her white gold hair fell to her waist.

“Heeeey,” the drunken man slurred. “Tha’sa woman.”

The drunken man was still weaving in front of them, a leer on his face, when he was joined by several of his friends.

It took a moment for Dallas to realize they were the same gang of cowboys who had confronted Angel at the cave.

Angel realized the danger of the situation at the same time he did. She had already started backing away when one of the more sober members of the
group said, “That’s him. That’s them. That’s the low-down dirty dog who stole the girl from us at the cave.”

“I thought we’d blown them to smithereens,” one said.

“Guess not!” another hooted.

“Shut up!” one of the more sober ones said. “You want to get us in trouble with the law?”

They shushed each other with fingers to lips until they broke out laughing, and their attention once again focused on the man and woman before them.

“She’s even purtier than I remember,” one said.

Dallas shoved Angel behind him and faced the six men. “You boys better move along.”

One of them laughed. “Hell, no. We ain’t movin’ unless the little señorita comes along.”

“She stays with me,” Dallas said. His voice would have cut glass.

The cowboys were too drunk to care.

Dallas was already considering how best to disable the closest man when a deep voice behind him said. “That’s all, boys. Game’s over.”

Dallas glanced over his shoulder and saw not the man behind him, but the badge—which consisted of the same cinqo peso coin with a star cut into it that the Texas Rangers still wear in 1992.

The cowboys shoved each other in the ribs and backed off. A few moments later they were gone.

Dallas turned to greet the gray-haired lawman.

“You folks new in town?” the Texas Ranger asked.

“Just got in,” Dallas admitted. He noticed the Ranger eyeing his revolver and realized it was a model from the late 1870s. It wouldn’t be issued for another ten years at least.

“Unusual firearm you have there,” the Ranger said.

Dallas put his hand on the butt of the gun, but he didn’t offer to remove it from the holster. “It’s a special issue.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” the Ranger asked.

Dallas debated the wisdom of handing over the gun, but had faith in the Ranger to treat him fairly, even if he found the gun suspicious. Besides, he felt a certain affinity for the man since he was also a Texas Ranger. Dallas handed the gun over, butt first.

The Ranger looked it over, admiration clear in his eyes. “This is a nice weapon. Who’d you say made it?”

“I didn’t.”

The Ranger didn’t ask again. Instead he said, “You here for the hanging?” His eyes slid to the
gallows that had been constructed on the town square.

Dallas nodded. “Didn’t know if I’d make it in time.”

“First thing tomorrow morning,” the Ranger said.

Dallas and Angel exchanged grave looks. “We’ll be there,” Dallas said. He saw Angel shiver as she gazed at the hangman’s noose that was already set in place.

The Ranger handed Dallas his Colt and he slid it into the holster. “You looking for a place to spend the night?” the Ranger asked.

“Could be.”

“Mrs. Mortensen’s boarding house is down the street. Good food and clean beds. No lice.” The Ranger tipped his hat to Angel and said, “So long, ma’am. You folks be careful now.”

The Ranger sauntered away down the boardwalk, past a mercantile store, the blacksmith, the saddler and the bank. He finally settled into a rocking chair on the shaded veranda in front of the adobe jail.

Dallas released a breath of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Everything that had just happened seemed like something from a movie script.

“Shall we go find the boarding house?” he asked Angel.

She shrugged. “We might as well.”

The boarding house, as it turned out, was right across the street from the jail. It was a two-story wood-frame building with Victorian furniture, feather ticking in the mattresses and a pitcher and washbowl on the table beside the four-poster bed. The necessary was out back. Baths and a barber could be found down the street.

Dallas’s mouth gaped when Mrs. Mortensen asked for payment in advance, and he realized he had nothing that vaguely resembled the money used in 1864.

Angel promptly sat down and removed her left boot. She grinned at Dallas as she revealed a secret compartment in the heel that contained a wad of Confederate bills.

“I’ve been saving it for an emergency,” she explained.

Dallas just shook his head and allowed Mrs. Mortensen to show them to their rooms.

“I’ll meet you later and we can go downstairs together for supper,” Angel said. Then she disappeared into her room.

Dallas wondered if Angel had felt as disoriented in the future as he did in the past. He decided her culture shock must have been worse
than his. At least he knew what to expect in the past. She’d had no inkling of what the future held in store. He kept telling himself this was only temporary. There was a portal somewhere that would take him back to the life he had left behind.

But he worried about how he would find it when the time came.

It was after dark when Angel finally knocked on his door. He opened it to find her dressed in a full-length skirt and pin-striped white blouse.

She blushed and stammered, “Mrs. Mortensen loaned these to me. They belonged to her daughter.”

Dallas was stunned by how right Angel looked in the old-fashioned clothing. Even though the lace-edged blouse covered her to the neck and wrists, and the flounced skirt concealed her all the way to the ankles, he didn’t think he’d ever been more entranced by a woman.

Angel had put her hair up into a kind of bun, but wisps of hair escaped around her ears and at her neck. Dallas had the urge to thread his fingers in it and set it free. He swallowed back the desire he felt. She was off-limits. He could look, but not touch.

And that made him ache ten times worse.

“Let’s go,” he said. His voice was harsh with the need he felt.

Angel sent a glance upward under lowered lashes, but it was enough to recognize the approval in Dallas’s eyes. Approval and something else…desire. She felt regret for what could never be. If only…If wishes were wings, pigs could fly. Angel took the arm Dallas offered and let him escort her downstairs.

They were eating steak and fried potatoes in the common dining room of the boarding house when they heard the explosion.

“Sounds like the bank’s being robbed again!” Mrs. Mortensen cried. “That’s how they did it last time. Blew up the safe and—”

Dallas was already up and headed for the door. Only, it wasn’t the bank. The roof of the jail across the street was on fire. In the light of the flames, Dallas saw what he supposed was the Texas Ranger he had met earlier in the day lying facedown on the ground. Apparently the explosion had knocked him out.

There was a ragged hole in the jail wall beneath the barred window. Dallas saw shadowy figures struggling to get the iron bars off the window of the jail. A rope had been slung around the window and tied to the horn of a saddle. A man on horseback was urging the animal to pull. Suddenly, the window came loose, and several men helped free the prisoner.

“That’s Jake Dillon!” Angel cried. “He’s escaping.”

Dallas acted instinctively to stop the jailbreak. His gun was already out of the holster as he raced across the street. “Texas Ranger!” he shouted. “Stay where you are and put your hands up!”

As he approached, Dallas recognized the men as the same ones who had held Angel at bay. That explained why they’d had dynamite on hand to blow up the cave opening! He should have known, should have suspected.

“Get moving!” one of the men shouted at Jake. “I’ll take care of the Ranger.” He turned and fired his revolver at Dallas.

Instincts honed by years of danger caused Dallas to drop to the ground even as he fired back at the other man.

The cowboy cried out and clutched his chest.

“He got Slim!” one of the outlaws shouted.

Angel gasped when she saw Dallas go down at the same time the outlaw fired. She ran into the street just as the outlaws were mounting their horses. The few pins in her hair didn’t survive the jouncing and the mass of gold streamed down her back, highlighted by the fire.

“It’s the girl!” one outlaw shouted.

“Grab her!” another yelled.

It was all over in a matter of seconds. One of
the outlaws leaned down and circled Angel under the arms, hauling her up and throwing her facedown over the front of his horse.

Dallas took careful aim at the escaping prisoner and fired. It was apparent from the hue and cry of the band of outlaws that his bullet had found its mark.

“Jake’s bought it!”

“Damn that Ranger’s hide!”

They were milling in a circle, unsure whether to come back to seek revenge, or make good their escape with the girl. Dallas took advantage of their indecision, stole the nearest horse from the hitching rail and galloped directly into the tightly knit band of outlaws, causing their horses to shy and rear.

It was dark and he had grabbed Angel from the outlaw’s horse and was riding out of town before the outlaws fully realized what had happened. Furious at the Ranger’s interference, they kicked their horses into pursuit.

Dallas slowed just long enough to settle Angel behind him on the wiry mustang, then urged his mount back to a run. He put two hard miles between him and the band of outlaws before he slowed the winded gelding to a trot and then a walk.

“Horse needs a breather,” he said curtly.

“Dallas, I—”

“What the hell were you doing out in the street!” he demanded.

“Checking to see if you were dead!” she retorted.

“You could have been killed!”

“I wasn’t!”

“What the hell am I going to do with you now?” he demanded.

“Let me off here. I can manage fine on my own,” she said.

Angel had already slid off the rump of the mustang, and Dallas quickly joined her on the ground. He grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “How can I go back to the future knowing you’re not safe here?”