Midnight Rider (15 page)

Then it struck her.
Miranda.

Miranda Aguilar wanted her gone from the camp.

The girl had come to the don's house that first day to make it clear that she was his woman. She wouldn't have come if she hadn't seen Carly as some sort of threat. Would Miranda be willing to help her?

Carly had learned how to ride, at least a little. The don hadn't taught her; he had left the day after their return from the Indian village. Ruiz and Sanchez had been giving her lessons. Both were fine horsemen and very good teachers, patient yet firm, determined now that they had undertaken the task to see she rode as well as any highborn Spanish woman.

They had been teaching her to sit astride, but they promised that if Don Ramon would find her a sidesaddle, they would teach her to ride that way, too. She wanted to. She knew it would please her uncle that she could ride like a fashionable lady.

For now it was enough that she could manage a horse well enough to get away.

If she could convince Miranda to help her.

Carly dressed with care that morning, brushing her hair till it shined with coppery fire, pulling it up with a pretty shell comb so that it fell seductively over one shoulder. She drew the top of her blouse down as far as she could, exposing the tops of her breasts, then made her way to Miranda's cabin and lightly knocked on the door.

Footsteps sounded, the door swung open, and the dark-haired girl stepped out on the porch. Surprise flared in her eyes for a moment, then they narrowed in dislike.

“Don Ramon is not here,” she said, staring down her slender nose with contempt.

Carly just smiled. “
Buenos dias,
Miranda. A pleasant day, is it not?”

“Go away. I told you Ramon is not here.”

“I didn't come to see Ramon,” Carly said, purposely using the more intimate address. “I came to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought there might be something you could do for me … in exchange for something that I can do for you.”

Miranda eyed her coldly, then tossed back her mane of shiny black hair and motioned for her to come in. The cabin was small, only two rooms, but the earthen floor was swept so clean it looked polished, and freshly laundered curtains hung at the window sill. Carly could smell the woman's sweet perfume.

“What makes you believe there is anything you can do for me?” Miranda said.

Carly tried not to think of how pretty she was, how lithe and graceful, that Ramon slept in her bed. Instead she concentrated on convincing the woman that
she
was the one Ramon preferred. “Perhaps there isn't. Then again, perhaps you would be more than happy to see me gone from here. If that is the case, then maybe we can do business.”

Miranda's eyes wandered over Carly's breasts, assessing their size and shape. “Ramon wants you here. Why should I disobey him?”

They stood next to a rustic table and chairs but Miranda didn't offer her a seat. “That is exactly the reason—because Ramon wants me here. Or perhaps he simply wants me.”

“He does not want you,
puta.
Why should he? Already, he has me.”

“If that is so, then why did he kiss me?”

Her chin jutted up, her eyes growing dark with anger but not surprise. She knew something had happened between them. The women in the cart must have guessed. Perhaps they even believed that was why the don had left the stronghold.

“Ramon is a man,” Miranda said. “It is a man's desire to rut with any woman willing to please him.”

Carly smiled and shrugged her shoulders, then turned toward the door as if to leave. “Well, if you don't mind sharing him…”

“If you were to go, Ramon would not be safe. You would turn him over to the authorities.”

Carly turned to face her, leaned forward and rested her palms on the battered wooden table. “Not if we were to strike a bargain. Give me your word you'll help me escape and I'll give you mine not to turn Ramon in.”

“You are a
gringa.
How could I trust you?”

“You're the don's woman. How could I trust you? You might send me in the wrong direction. You might have someone lying in wait to murder me on the trail. We will have to trust each other if we are to succeed.”

Miranda chewed her lip and Carly's heart began to throb with hope inside her chest. Both of them would be taking a risk. Would the woman keep her word? The dangers Carly had mentioned were more than real. She would have to be careful, find some way to protect herself, once she was safely away.

As for herself, she would say anything to escape this place. She refused to consider whether or not she would keep her silence once she reached her home.

“I will let you know tonight,” Miranda said. “Leave your window open. At midnight, I will tell you what I have decided.”

Carly left the cabin afraid to hope, yet feeling for the first time as if there might be a chance. The woman clearly despised her, but Carly didn't believe she was capable of murder. She might send her off the wrong way, hoping Carly would die in the mountains, but most likely she would simply say no.

Miranda was worried for Ramon and rightly so. Carly thought that if she were his woman, she would do anything to protect him. Then again, if he really belonged to her, she might do anything to keep him from turning to another woman.

That thought was disturbing. Ramon de la Guerra was an outlaw, perhaps even a murderer as her uncle had said. She would have to turn him in—wouldn't she? She felt uneasy to think of breaking her word.

Pleading a headache, Carly ate with Pedro and Florentia then went to her bedroom early, only to wind up pacing the floor of her small room. At midnight, just as Miranda had promised, soft feminine footfalls sounded in the dirt beneath her bedroom window.

“Senorita McConnell?”

“I'm here, Miranda.” She stood beside the open portal, but didn't pull back the thin muslin curtains.

“Tomorrow at dawn, there is a wagon leaving to pick up supplies in San Juan Bautista. A vaquero named Francisco Villegas will be driving. He will do anything for a little bit of gold. I have paid him to take you down the mountain. When he nears your uncle's ranch, he will show you which way to go.”

Carly closed her eyes, excitement racing through her. “I understand.”

“You must be in the back of the wagon before the sun comes up. It will be sitting not far from this window.”

“I'll be there.”

“Do I have your word Ramon will be safe?”

Carly took a deep steadying breath. “You have my word.”

“If you are lying, if you tell anyone it was I who helped you, I promise I will kill you. Do you hear me?”

Carly wet her lips. “Yes.”

Gravel crunched beneath the window as the woman walked away, and Carly released a slow breath of air. She had no idea what would happen, nor what she would do once she escaped the compound. But events were set in motion. She meant to see them through.

Hours passed. Pulling the blankets off her bed, she fashioned a makeshift bedroll, stuffing the shawl the don had given her inside along with a second skirt and blouse Florentia had provided and a partially burned white tallow candle. The two-foot-long candleholder was made of heavy wrought iron. It would serve well as a weapon. She'd been hoarding food for the past two days. She rolled it up in the coarse linen towel beside the water pitcher on the dresser and tucked it in with the rest of the supplies.

Plaiting her hair into a single thick braid, she tied it with a piece of string and lay down on the bed to sleep. Instead she tossed and turned and stared up at the ceiling, praying she was doing the right thing.

At four o'clock, she gave up. She scribbled a note to Florentia, telling her not to make breakfast, that she had left at dawn with some of the women to bathe and wash her clothes in the stream. She would eat something later with Tomasina.

Anything to delay them.

It was colder than she had imagined so she took out the shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders, then pulled on her sandals and climbed out the window, makeshift bedroll in hand.

There was no one near the wagon. She climbed in the back and pulled the canvas tarpaulin over her head. Every minute dragged, turned into long, nerve-wracking hours. Finally she heard voices and the jangling of harnesses as a team of horses was hitched into their traces. The wagon creaked beneath the heavy weight of the man who climbed up on the rough wooden seat. Francisco Villegas, Miranda had said.

It was still cold outside, but a trickle of perspiration ran between her breasts. Her palms were damp, and her heart beat fiercely. As the wagon picked up speed, she slid the long wrought-iron candle stand out from inside the bedroll and hid it beneath the bundle. Then she waited, ignoring the pounding her bones were taking against the hard rough wood as they bumped along the dusty road.

For the first time it occurred to her the wagon hadn't turned toward the entrance to the compound, but rolled off in the other direction. It also dawned on her that a wagon couldn't make the steep descent down the mountain on the trail that she had traveled up.

There must be another entrance to Llano Mirada. Don Ramon had lied.

Some of her uncertainty in leaving slipped away. She couldn't trust Ramon de la Guerra, no matter how charming he pretended to be. She had trusted him before and she had wound up as his prisoner. He had promised she would be safe from his advances and then he had kissed her savagely, fondled her breasts, and perhaps meant to take even more liberties than that. Leaving—by whatever means she could—was the only choice she had.

The tarpaulin rustled, lifted at the front near the wagon seat. “Stay down and be silent,” a gruff voice said. “There are guards along the trail. None of them must see you.”

Carly just nodded, and the canvas fell back into place, but the image she had seen of the big, burly man with the shiny gold tooth who was driving the wagon remained.

Her fears returned full force and nothing she could think of made them go away.

*   *   *

Wearing a worried frown, Pedro Sanchez pulled the cinch tight on his saddle and swung himself aboard his dappled gray stallion. In the doorway of the lean-to, Florentia wrung her chubby hands.

“Where could she have gone?” she said. “None of the guards saw her leave.” It was almost ten in the morning. They hadn't begun the search until nine, when the housekeeper had spotted Tomasina heading toward the stream to wash her clothes. Neither she nor any of the women had seen Carly.

“There is only one way she could have left,” Pedro said grimly. “In the wagon with Cisco Villegas. He has been restless lately, eager for more spoils or a chance to spend his share of the money from the horses.”

Florentia made the sign of the cross over her large plump bosom. “
Madre de Dios.
Cisco is the worst of the lot. The girl would be safer with a mountain lion.”

A commotion outside the corral drew Pedro's attention. He glanced up to see Ramon de la Guerra riding toward him, astride a tall bay horse.

Relief rolled through him, mingled with regret for his failure to keep the little
gringa
safe. “I am glad to see you, Don Ramon.”

“What is it, Pedro? I can see by your face that something is wrong.”

Pedro sighed wearily. “The girl is missing. Villegas is the only one who could have taken her.” Ramon's face went pale beneath his dark skin. “Ruiz and I are going after them. I am sorry, my friend, to have failed you, but I will see she is returned.”

For a moment, Ramon said nothing, but the lines of his face looked harsh and his eyes were dark wells of anger. “The blame is not yours. I wanted her to have some measure of freedom. You could not have known Villegas would take advantage.” He shoved his hat back off his head and it slid down his back, dangling from his throat by a thin braided strap. He raked a hand through his wavy, black hair. “The
bastardo
means to sell her. How long have they been gone?”

“It was his turn to go in for supplies. He left with the wagon at dawn.”

Ramon swung down from his tired horse, handed the reins to Ruiz Domingo who had just walked up, and prepared to ride with Sanchez. “Saddle Viento,” Ramon said to him. “Do it quickly.”

“
Si,
Don Ramon.”

He turned to Sanchez. “You have supplies in your saddlebags?” he asked.

“
Si.
Enough for at least three days.”

“I will need them.”

“I will have Florentia bring more, if you are coming with us.”

Ramon shook his head. “I am riding alone. I can make better time by myself. Besides, this is between Villegas and me.”

Pedro wanted to argue, to remind him what a dangerous man Cisco was, but he did not argue. He had seen the don look this implacable only one other time—the night his brother had died. The night he had taken the girl.

“I will need my weapons,” Ramon said.

“I will get them for you.” By the time Pedro returned to the corral, Viento was waiting saddled and ready, a bedroll tied behind the cantle,
bolas
filled with supplies, and a heavy Sharp's rifle shoved into the sheath near the horse's flanks.

Accepting the brace of pistols Pedro carried, Ramon swung aboard the big black horse. “If I am not back in three days time, take some of the men and head for Nogales. Find the girl and kill Villegas—for it is certain that he has killed me.”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Carly winced at the hard jolt her body took as the horse stepped into a hole. They'd been riding for hours, no longer in the wagon but mounted now on the horses that had pulled it. For the first half of the morning, she'd stayed hidden beneath the tarp. Each time she lifted it, Villegas warned her to get back under cover. Then he pulled the wagon beneath the trees and begun to unhitch the team.