Lone Star Loving (8 page)

“Key? What key?”

“Don't act the innocent, it doesn't fit you.”

To his amazement, she merely smiled at him. Advancing on her, he molded his fingers around an imaginary form. “Charity McLoughlin, I'm going to wring your neck for handcuffing those poor dumb horses together.”

He looked like he'd eaten bullets for breakfast.

“You might as well have cut those horses' throats. They'll die like that.” Hawk stood, wrists raised to do battle, while his dark eyes fired at her from the creek bank. “Damn you to whatever hell you fear.”

His words hurt her more than his fists ever could.

Charity plopped down in the water. A jagged rock caught her in the posterior. She wanted to scream. And not from the sharp pain, either. Dismayed over yet another harebrained scheme gone awry and chagrined at being recaptured, she muttered her own “Damn.”

Before dawn, it had seemed a good idea, shackling the team together to keep Hawk from driving the buckboard after her. In the dark, and fearing what might befall her before dawn, she'd been in a dither to get away. But now, in the light of midday and the harsh glare of her captor's eyes, she realized the stupidity of her actions.

She might have known an Indian wouldn't track someone by wagon. And she should have realized that leaving horseflesh stranded on the prairie was just as murderous as Hawk had charged. She would never have done such a thing had she been thinking straight.

Was there any silver lining to this cloud? None she could see. Well, maybe one.

Despite his being a kidnapper, and in spite of his claim to be capable of any savagery, and belying the look of fury in his aquiline face, Hawk, she felt, was a decent sort of fellow. The previous night he had instilled trust in her, to the point that she'd had second thoughts about escaping. His greedy bid for Papa's money just hadn't seemed that important under the stars, and she'd gotten the impression that his mind could be changed. Shortly thereafter, when he had roused her from sleep with his delving fingers . . .

Well, last night was last night.

“Get out of that water,” he demanded.

“No, thank you.”

“Get out and get dressed.” The glint in his eyes became even more feral as Hawk marched toward her.
“Now!”

Charity gulped and huddled. “Don't touch me,” she squeaked when he swooped down and plucked her, like a wren of broken wing, from the stream. “Vulture, get your claws off me!”

“Be informed–vultures feast on hellcats.”

She fell to her back as he thrust her upon the bank. “You . . . you promised not to kill me.”

“All promises are off.”

Towering above her, Hawk planted a long, buckskin-clad leg at each side of her waist. Her eyes made the lengthy journey from his spread calves past the knife strapped to his thigh. The breechclout billowed from his waist, giving her a very shadowed view of the arch difference between a man and a woman. She supposed he'd be considered well-endowed, even if she had nothing to gauge her opinion, never having seen a man's equipment before. She trembled, and it wasn't from the threat of bodily harm.

“Gotten an eyeful, you wanton hussy?” he taunted, leaning to cut off the paltry view.

Her line of sight traveled upward, seizing on bronzed skin and silver before settling on his unforgiving face. My, Hawk was a handsome predator.

“Is this where you scalp me?” she asked quietly.

“I ought to.” He jabbed a finger in her direction. “But I don't want any reminder of
you
cluttering up my lodge.”

Gads, she couldn't even get a man to scalp her.
I guess I really, really ought to think about reforming
. On that thought, she laughed.

“You think it's funny, leaving dumb animals–”

“I'm not laughing about what I did. I'm laughing at myself.” She rubbed her eyes with one hand. “I'm thinking I should be left at the nearest lunatic asylum.”

Palms on his knees, Hawk angled downward. The silver pendant as well as his black hair swung in the air. “What makes you think you'll live long enough to see so much as a proper building?”

“You said you wouldn't scalp me.”

“I said nothing about not wringing your neck.”

She lifted a brow at Hawk's enraged expression and stole another look at the perfection of his brawny chest and muscled, veined arms. “I know you're a bit angry, but must you hover so?”

“Shut up.” The order hissed past his clamped teeth.

Her eyes flitted along the sculpted lines of his taut lips. Something hot blazed through her. Her thoughts surprised her.
I want him to kiss me; I want all his fury to abandon itself to passion
. She wanted to be ravaged, right here at creekside.

When she had bathed, she must have scrubbed away whatever was left of her brain.

There was but one thing to do. Get a grip on reason. Back in Sam's hovel, Hawk had warned her of his savagery. While she doubted he'd make good on his threat, she decided she'd best play it safe.

Her voice softer than usual, she asked, “Would you still want to wring my neck . . . if I were to say I was sorry?”

“Try me.”

“I'm sorry.”

He straightened, then hoisted himself away from her. From a distance of a yard or so, he faced the stream and said, “You're an abomination of a woman.”

“I ... I never claimed to be otherwise.” She gulped, then rolled to her bare feet. “Last night, though, you said nice things about me.”

“Lies to get between your legs.”

You're fibbing
. “I am sorry about the horses. I would
not
have hurt horseflesh deliberately.” She coerced a smile as he faced her anew, and saw some of his anger vanishing. “I bet my virginity you've done something to make it easier on the team.”

His lips the thinnest she had ever seen them, he reached for her valise and tossed it at her feet. “Get dressed. And give me the key. We've got to rescue the horses.”

She hurried. Abandoning the wet calico dress, she pulled a gingham one over her head, then pushed her feet into last year's velvet slippers. Finger-combing her hair, she chewed her lip. “Uh, Hawk, there's a problem. You see, I, uh, um, well, I've l-lost the key. Actually, I threw it away.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he fumed.

 

 

By late afternoon there was still no trace of the missing item. A dozen times, as they combed the trail she had taken that morning, Hawk impressed upon her the importance of remembering where she had tossed the key over her shoulder. A dozen times Charity had hefted her shoulders in uncertainty.

His eyes to the ground, and within a quarter mile of the beleaguered team, Hawk still searched the dried grasses. He sidestepped prickly pears and scrub brush; he disturbed jackrabbits, armadillos, and a nest of rattlesnakes. The key, he didn't find.

“We've missed it, Hawk. It was hours after dawn that I threw it away. And I was certainly well past this area.”

He muttered some kind of something, probably another Indian curse word. Dusting his hands, he said in English, “I give up. We'd better get back, before dark falls.”

He stomped onward; she followed, trying to match his long strides. When they reached the campsite Charity ground to a halt and brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

Hawk wheeled around once more. “What's–You're
laughing?
You featherbrain, don't you have an ounce of shame?”

“I ... I guess not.”

Not able to contain herself any longer, Charity laughed long and hard. The horses sure were a sight. No better than nags, the two were shackled together, one's foreleg to the other's hind leg. They leaned in to each other. The piebald's tail whisked across its partner's forelocks. The gray's mouth twisted comically, then curled back to display a pink tongue and overlong yellow teeth receded from black gums; it had a woebegone expression in its eyes, a look that beat any puppy's for pitiful—and, why, adorable.

Her line of sight shifted. Indeed, as she had suspected, a pile of dried grass and buckets of water were set below each horse's muzzle. “I guess I'm not in danger of losing my virginity.”

“You got that right. Very right.”

“Well, I know you're a bit peeved,” she said, ignoring his harsh tone. She hadn't expected him to be courtly about the day's events, for heaven's sake. But . . . “You know, Hawk, you really are something. I'd say . . . gallant.”

He looked at her as if she had gone daft. “Gallant?”

“Yes.” As she stepped closer, an armadillo rushed across her toes, and she jumped nervously. “I'm glad you found me. I was scared alone.”

“You didn't look all that scared in your bath.”

“I had to do something to keep myself occupied until you showed up.”

Doing another about-face, he said, “Now is not a good time to butter up to me, Charity McLoughlin.”

All right, her timing was poor. They could talk later. And shame beset Charity again. How were they going to get the handcuffs off the horses?

“You got a hairpin in that valise of yours?” Hawk asked.

She did not, so he tried to come up with another method of picking the lock. A quill from the headdress he had stored in the buckboard snapped in the cylinder, as did a stick. A fork proved no use. Neither did the ax, since each time Hawk meant to swing it between the chains, the gray bucked and chaos erupted.

“Shoot the chains apart.”

“And tempt true chaos? Think again, Charity McLoughlin. I'm not a sharpshooter, I'm a law–I'm a
law-abiding
man.” He talked as fast as a snake-oil salesman. “A somewhat law-abiding man, except for the ransom deal.”

She got the impression he'd stumbled over the word “law.” It almost sounded as if he were starting to say lawyer. Of all the crazy things! Hawk was no officer of the courts. In her scattered brain, she must have been looking to mix him up with the heroic Fierce Hawk, whose aim could probably sharpen a knife's edge from a distance of thirty feet.

Hawk, a forefinger roofing his upper lip, stomped back and forth in front of the gray; she observed, “I'm surprised you can't shoot. Guess you make up for it with tomahawks and”–she eyed the weapon strapped to his thigh–“knives.”

“Exactly.”

Suddenly a shot rang out, startling them both.

It came from the rise to their left.

The gray horse reared and screamed, catching pistol fire in the side, then fell against the piebald. Hawk, his knife raised, rushed in the sniper's direction. Charity ran for cover. Another shot rang out. Crimson exploded into the air as the piebald horse took fire in its head.

A man, pistol leveled, stepped into sight.

“My God,” Blyer said after Hawk's knife caught his hat and set it flying to the ground, “you've been abducted by an Indian!” He aimed his pistol. “I will avenge your honor, dear one!”

Charity screamed, “No! Don't shoot.”

Another shot rang out, striking Hawk in the shoulder and stopping his direct charge. Hawk clutched his wound.

Charity was grabbed from behind. The stench of chilies and body odor surrounded her; she was hauled back against a bulky form.
“Hola.”

She recognized the voice and the smell. Rufino Saldino. Senor Grande of Nuevo Laredo. Manager of the Pappagallo whorehouse. Now obviously in cahoots with Ian Blyer.

Disgust coursing through her, Charity shivered. She hadn't thought of either cur in days. How naive she'd been to think she'd seen the last of them.

Grande's meaty hand clenched her upper arm as he shoved her in Ian's direction.

“Let her go,” Hawk shouted, marching toward them.

“You don't give the orders, Injun.” Ian brandished the revolver. “Take one more step, and I will shoot again!”

Hawk stopped in his tracks.

Ian's mouth formed itself into a tight smile as he held out an arm to Charity. “Dear one, thank God, I've rescued you. Do come to me.”

Charity sized up the situation. Here was her chance to get free of Hawk. Yet it was all she could do not to laugh at the farce her life had become. The Indian would rend her pride by ransoming her to Papa; Ian betrayed both God and the devil.

She glanced at Hawk. From the look in his eyes, she knew he didn't trust her not to fly to Ian. Charity stood right where she was.

“Fräulein.”

Stooped over her sewing, Maria Sara quit treadling the Singer to eye Charity's cousin. Karl Keller, a sturdy cattleman of twenty-seven, filled the solarium's doorway. The last rays of afternoon sun filtered through the room's many windows to highlight the man's gold hair, combed neatly behind his ears.

And they were nice ears, she noticed, neither too large nor too small against a face square in dimensions. Sunshine also emphasized the flush on Karl's cheekbones. Maria Sara got the disturbing feeling, as she had the first time she'd met him at the McLoughlin estate, that she'd seen him somewhere before.

Turning his tan Stetson around in his hands, Karl shuffled his booted feet. “Oma said I should take you to town.”

Oma. Maria Sara had learned the word meant “grandmother” in the predominate language of this part of Texas. It seemed everyone save for Angus called Maisie McLoughlin the German equivalent of grandmother. Maria Sara had also taken to calling the
vieja
that particular term of endearment.

But what was the take-you-to-town contract? Apparently Oma was up to her matchmaking tricks again. Even from a distance. Yesterday, the old woman had departed the Four Aces in a carriage fit for an empress, her destination a rendezvous in Uvalde with Charity and the Indian called Fierce Hawk.

“Are you ready?” asked the
alemán
rancher.

Maria Sara snipped a thread from a taffeta skirt. “It's too late in the day for such a journey, Senor Keller.”

The room fell silent, the only sound being that of a mockingbird outside the solarium. Until Maria Sara heard a swallowing. A very human swallowing.

“Oma said I must take you to town. Tonight.” While he'd been born in Texas, Karl Keller's accent paid homage to the Kellers's German fatherland. “We must honor Oma's wishes.”

Maria Sara eyed his face, which reddened to a deeper shade of scarlet. His Adam's apple bobbed. She knew him to be shy. It must have taken a huge effort on his part to go this far with Oma's schemes. Touching. But how could she put a stop to his efforts without hurting the man? She needed the fire of such men as Ianito and his brief successor, El Aguila.
Don't think about either one.

“Senor Keller–”

“Most folks call me Karl.”

“Karl, I am quite busy.” She pressed her palm on her handiwork. “Oma expects her new wardrobe to be completed before she returns from Uvalde, and I must not drag my feet.”

“Ja.
I understand.” On the toe of his boot, he turned toward the door. Yet he didn't quit. One hand moving to the top of the door facing him, he stood firm. Stammering, he said, “There is a dance this evening at the Vereinskirche. Oma said you must dance.”

Pushing the sewing chair back, Maria Sara got to her feet and stepped toward the blond giant. She had to look up at him, way up. Strangely, surprisingly, it felt good to look up to so much strength. Karl Keller abounded with it.

Yet . . .

She knew well the hurt that man could bring woman.

“I'm not interested in dancing,
gracias.
And, besides, I have a son to take care of.”

“Graciella watches over the boy.”

Her blush matched Karl's, hers in shame. How easy it had become to accept the trappings of wealth such as she had known at her girlhood home in Vera Cruz. Yes, the servant Graciella had taken charge of Jaime, and Maria Sara felt perhaps too grateful for the respite. Too often she viewed the child in the light of his father, and this, she knew, was both monstrous and regrettable. A child shouldn't pay for his father's sins.

She bent her head. How could a mother at the same time both love and hate the child of her body?

“Fraülein Maria Sara, will you dance with me tonight?”

Her eyes traveled up to Karl's open gaze. “Until your cousin Charity reaches here and I know she is all right, I cannot think of merrymaking. Another time, perchance.”

“Another time,” Karl echoed.

He exited the solarium, and Maria Sara suddenly felt bereft. Karl Keller was not only appealing, he seemed solid as a rock. He didn't drink liquor, nor did he behave crudely. He didn't dip snuff, like so many of the Four Aces cowboys did. Furthermore, he was no mere cowhand. Karl owned a nearby farm-turned-ranch, which he had bought from his lame father who lived in San Antonio in retirement. His toil with land and cattle could only be described as diligent. Yet it was obvious he had no fire in his loins.

Besides, she was living at the Four Aces primarily to sew frocks for Oma, not to have affairs with McLoughlin kin. While she'd been hunting for a lover or two, a voice from the past echoed in her mind. It was as if Sister Estrella of the convent school were saying, “Decent men are for decent women, like Charity!”

 

 

Charity and Hawk could have been better.

Now, as the half moon hovered high in the sky and the campfire Senor Grande had made lit up the night, Charity stole a glance at Hawk. He, too, had his hands tied behind him. He, too, sat on the hard ground with one shoulder resting against a wagon wheel.

Ian's shot had but grazed Hawk's other shoulder, and the bleeding had stopped an hour ago. Charity knew he had to be in pain, though his stoic expression revealed nothing. She felt awful.

Her eyes turned to the carcasses of the horses. Her heart ached. Thankfully, the team's suffering had been short-lived. And they were still alive, she and Hawk; Charity was glad for that.

Ian, a wine bottle stolen from the buckboard tucked under his arm, ranted at Grande, “I cannot believe that she wouldn't be overjoyed that I've rescued her. She chose a dirty Indian over the handsomest man in Texas!”

“Maybe, señor, he have a long tongue and he know how to use it.”

Ian whirled around, pointing a finger first at Charity, then at Hawk. “Is that true? Has he soiled you?”

She shook her head. “No. Never.”

Yet Ian rushed forth to kick Hawk's side. Not so much as a sigh passed the Indian's throat, much less a yowl of pain. He imparted a withering look at his tormentor, nonetheless.

Ian hastened to Charity. Standing over her, he brushed the side of his hair with the heel of his hand. “You had better be telling the truth,” he sneered, “or I will kill you, dearest. As soon as your father's fortune is in my control.”

“You'd really have a hard time keeping your mitts on Papa's money if my blood stains them.”

His brows furrowed; he laughed in a way that made her wonder what she had ever seen in the man. “What's come over me?” he said deliriously. “How could I even think . . . ? You would've scratched his eyes out, were he to try to touch you. You would never choose a red bastard over me.”

“I'd choose the devil over you, Ian Blyer.”

“How dare you say that!”

His hand arced through the air, finding its target, Charity's cheek. Pain exploded in her face; she saw Hawk struggling to come to her rescue. Surprisingly quick of motion in spite of his cumbersome form, Grande charged Hawk and held him back with a booted foot pressing into his wound. Blood oozed over the toe of the
mexicano
's boot.

“Look at me, Charity,” Ian demanded.

Spittle seeped from the corners of his mouth. She saw her former fiance as nothing but absurd and ridiculous, a caricature of the man she'd given up everything to follow. Never had she seen him act so strangely–his behavior was positively lunatic!
Gads, what did I ever see in him, above his handsome veneer and Papa's disapproval?

Granted, he could be dashing and attractive in a sandy-haired, gay-blade sort of way; and, granted, he could be charming at times, but her most foolish mistake in judgment in all the years of her life had been falling for this cock of the walk now behaving as cuckoo as the wooden bird in Mutti's hall clock.

Charity stole a glance at Hawk, who was eyeing Grande with a coolness of composure. If one were to disregard that business of kidnapping and ransom, there was nothing insane about her feelings for the Indian.

“Look at me, dear one!” Ian planted his hands on his knees and leaned toward her, his wine-scented breath no treat. “You are mine, Charity McLoughlin. And I will train your nasty tongue to serve rather than taunt.”

It was all she could do not to laugh.