Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (4 page)

He returned his attention to the pan of beans. “What is this request?”

“Clothes. In case you haven’t noticed, mine are ruined.”

One inky brow peaked. “I noticed.”

Though he commented no further, she read a million meanings into his momentary pause. Self-consciousness added to the heat the fire put in her cheeks. Damn his hide.

She wet her suddenly dry lips. “All I need is the loan of a shirt.”

He produced a spoon and stuck it in the pan, then stood and offered it to her.

Angel shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

She expected an argument. That’s not what she got. He sat the pan on the ground and walked to his saddlebags, slung over the top of the wall.

When he turned around, he held a pair of pants and a shirt in his hands. He tossed them to the ground beside her.

“Put those on.”

She picked up the shirt and clutched it against her too-exposed bosom. Under his watchful eyes, she stood and took a step toward the outer wall. “I—I’ll just step behind the wall and change.”

“Take the pants, too,” he said.

His edict stopped her dead. She felt as though he’d slammed a fist into her chest. Surely, only crushed ribs could prick her heart so painfully. The man had no idea what he asked her to do. If she put on those pants, the past two years would have been for nothing. She’d be right back where she was. Before New York. Before those torturous sessions at Miss Marvel’s Ladies Academy...before her father sent her away for being too unladylike.

At last, she sucked in a deep breath and stiffened her spine. “I don’t want to wear the pants.”

“There’s two hundred miles of rough country between here and Clayton Station. Put on the pants.”

Her chin tipped upward a notch. “If I refuse?”

“You’ll still wear them. One way or another.”

An image popped into her head of him stripping her down to her drawers and forcing the trousers up her legs. She had no doubt he’d do it.

A very unladylike grunt escaped her lips. Treating him to her most quelling glare—to which he seemed immune—she bent and snatched up the pants.

Angel stepped outside the enclosure, behind the concealment of the shoulder-high wall. Frustration ate at her. Separated from the fire, cold air washed over her, raising goosebumps. She chafed her arms and shivered. At this time of year, the temperature dipped drastically after sundown. Something to remember when she enacted her escape. Which, she vowed, would be
soon
.

After thinking about it, it only made sense. When she
did
escape, she would have to move quickly. It would be much easier in men’s clothing.

A faint ghost of a smug smile briefly touched her lips. Oh, yes. She would put on the pants—for now.

Sparing them one final look of disgust for good measure, she draped the wrinkled garments—brown trousers and a colorless muslin shirt—over the wall in front of her and started stripping.

The pants fit over her hips like a glove. She knew they would leave little to the imagination, but at least now she could ride astride.

On the other side of the wall, her captor had taken the pan of beans and moved away from the fire. Leisurely, he spooned them into his mouth. Though he didn’t look at her directly, she knew he watched her from the corner of his eye.

After a moment, he sat the pan on the ground and added more fuel to the fire. Sticks he’d gathered from the brush just before dark. A hiss and pop accompanied a shower of sparks shooting skyward.

She took a breath and asked the question that had been eating at her all evening. “How did you know I’d be on that stage?”

“You sent your father a message, telling him to expect your arrival.”

Evangeline clenched her jaw. If it was the last thing she did, she’d see to it that some loose-lipped telegrapher lost his job.

“How did this feud between my father and Horace get started?”

He tossed the last twig, the one he’d been using as a poker, into the flames and sat there a long moment, as if debating his answer.

“Lundy’s cattle were diseased. He ignored it. He just stood by and watched while they dropped. Your father put up the fence to keep Lundy’s cattle away from his herd.”

“How could Horace find fault with that?”

“He claims the fence kept his cattle from pasturing, that they starved. He wants payment for the entire herd.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She slipped the shirt on. “And this plan to hold me for ransom, or whatever he has in mind. How does he think he’ll be able to show his face after this? He’ll be done for in this country.”

“He’s done for anyway.” Rane sat back on his heels. “I think he plans to use the money to cut and run. His place is mortgaged to the hilt.”

The news that Horace Lundy was strapped financially came as no surprise. He and his wife had always spent money as though they dipped it up from the creek in buckets.

Along the border, the Lundys had been an enigma. When she was a child, Angel viewed them as some kind of displaced royalty. Especially Horace’s wife, Francine. The woman had conducted herself like a queen.

Rather than raising cattle, the Lundys held court at the Hacienda. The outrageous house they’d built squarely in the middle of a barren wasteland where only longhorns and rattlers thrived.

The Hacienda, itself, was about the only thing remaining of those glory days. In it had gone the finest furnishings and fixtures money could buy, all freighted in from the East Coast and even as far away as Europe. It was well known that Francine came from Boston’s upper crust and refused to live in anything but the style to which she’d always been accustomed.

After Francine’s short illness and subsequent death, the guests had stopped coming and the money had ceased to flow. About that time, Horace had started looking at his cattle venture in a more serious light. Naturally, everyone concluded that the Lundy affluence had been funneled in by Francine’s family back in Boston. When she died, the remittance was cut off.

Now, Horace had aimed his sights on a new source of revenue—her father. The very idea made her so mad she no longer noticed the cold air against her skin.

Clad in skin-tight pants and a loose shirt, Angel felt she’d taken a step backward in time. Guilt washed over her. She quickly forced it to the back of her mind. This was merely a detour. Once she was home again, she’d slip back into the fashionable dresses and new air of refinement with no problem. She hoped.

Angel walked back and forth along the wall several times, nearly jaunty with the freedom of being uncorseted.

“Finished yet?”

His question intruded like a dash of cold water. He expected her to return to the fire. She hesitated, feeling self-conscious, before stepping away from the concealment of the wall.

He merely watched her in silence with an unreadable expression in his dark gaze while she crossed the short distance and rejoined him.

The flames writhed before Angel’s eyes in a hypnotic dance. She smothered another yawn. She was exhausted, yet how could she even think of falling asleep? She ventured a glance at the bleary-eyed man reclining an arm’s length away. His eyes appeared closed.

“I never sleep,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “Remember that.” But his voice had grown gravelly since the last time he’d spoken.

Without moving, he reached out an arm and latched onto the bedroll he’d taken from the horse along with his saddlebags. He pitched it next to her.

Tomorrow, she promised herself. After she rested, she’d tackle the problem of escaping.

Chapter Three

Rane pried open his resistant eyes. Within those first seconds, panic flared inside him. He’d been asleep,
deeply
asleep, and something was wrong.

Though his body felt strangely lethargic, his heart slammed hard and fast, jolting him to full awareness.

His arms were full of clinging woman.

Angel lay twined in his embrace like a well-sated lover. Her ample breasts expanded against his chest with each breath she took. Softness and heat penetrated to his skin right through the layers of their shirts and the silken remnant of the chemise she wore.

One slender knee was drawn up and wedged tightly between his thighs. Pressed against his trouser buttons, her hands moved with her restless sleep as she tried to burrow deeper into his warmth.

He sucked in a long, shuddering breath and released it into the chill darkness. ¡
Mierda
! Her fumbling had turned him hard as stone.

How had she ended up in his arms? And why had her first touch not alerted him?

He lay still, reluctant to move. If he shifted, she might awaken or turn away. And he didn’t want that. Not just yet.

Damn fool, whispered a weak voice of reason.

Her blond head lay cradled against his shoulder, so close her tangled strands of hair nearly brushed his nose. A subtle, flowery smell still lingered. The purely female scent wafted through his senses like wisps of smoke. A siren call. He filled his lungs with her and wet his lips. If he pressed his mouth to her pale flesh, would she taste as sweet?

He glanced down and homed in on the lushness of her mouth. If he moved his arm, her head would tilt just so and bring her lips in line with his. So tempting.

He squeezed his eyes closed. Without the distraction of sight, his other senses heightened, making him acutely aware of every square inch where her body melded with his. Each breath she took trailed warm, moist fingers of sensation along his throat. He swallowed as a shiver raced over his skin.

Her breathing broke with a soft catch, and she murmured in her sleep. Had she felt his heart’s wild rhythm?

He held his breath. She would move now, or wake up.

Instead, she snuggled closer and pillowed her face against the hollow of his throat. Her hands delved deeper between them, exerting even more pressure against his straining fly. He gritted his teeth and clenched his stomach until it neared pain to keep from flexing to her touch.

His own hands twitched with the instinctive need to move and stroke the supple curves pressed against him like an invitation. He ached to arch against her. To surrender himself to the stroking she was giving him through his pants.
¡
Maldito
!
He burned with lust for a woman who wasn’t even aware of what she did.

He knew he played with fire. One so hot and consuming it threatened to burn to cinders the very heart of his resolve. His only salvation was to put some distance between them, the sooner the better.

Rane held his breath as, inch by inch, he lifted her head from his shoulder. Still, she didn’t awaken. He pulled the blanket higher and eased away.

Parted from her warmth, he shivered like a fever victim and sat back, staring at her in the darkness. His good sense told him she had no idea what she had done. But every nerve in his body still screamed with arousal.

Shaken, he rammed fingers back through his hair and expelled a quick breath. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

****

Angel clung to sleep, resisting the nudge against her shoulder. As long as she remained in that misty state between dreams and wakefulness, she could pretend she was still safe and comfortable, still lying in a crisp linen covered bed at her aunt’s townhouse in New York. Although she whimpered in protest, the nudge persisted until she could no longer ignore it.

She opened her eyes to the flicker of low flames casting dancing shadows over Mantorres’ face hovering above her. She lay stone still, until he moved away. She sat up, pulling the blanket with her and clutched it tightly around her huddled shoulders.

The moon had already set. The night sky resembled an oversized jeweler’s display, rich black velvet sprinkled with glittering diamonds.

Mantorres hunkered near the fire, pouring dark liquid from the pan—the same one he’d used to heat beans—into a battered tin mug.

Coffee. The bracing aroma teased Angel’s nose.

He shifted and extended the mug, handle first. “Morning,” he said. His voice sounded raspy, telling her he hadn’t been awake long himself.

Was he trying to be pleasant?

She looped a finger through the handle and took it from him, but said nothing. She wasn’t about to return his “morning” as though they were friendly campers looking forward to the day’s adventures. Though he hadn’t actually said “
good
morning,” it was implied. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing “good” about it. She was still his prisoner, still being taken somewhere she didn’t want to go.

Angel held the dented cup and savored the warmth stealing through her chilled fingers. After a moment, she chanced a sip. The grainy brew was bitter, stout enough to float a rock, and dropped straight to the pit of her empty stomach where it churned like black acid.

“We’ll be leaving as soon as it’s daylight.”

“Fine,” she said. “The sooner this is over with, the better.”

Setting the cup aside, she struggled to her feet. Soreness from the rough treatment she’d suffered the previous day had settled into her muscles. And sleeping in the open, with nothing but a thin blanket between her and the ground hadn’t helped matters. She hobbled to the opening in the adobe wall and continued walking toward the concealment of the thick brush beyond. He let her go, and she was relieved not to have to explain her need for privacy.