The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (30 page)

"Gone," Tom replied, casually sucking one end of a leg of crab. "Elena said she left three hours ago with a score of
Hermanas Sagradas de la Iglesia de Santa Maria.
That's the Holy Sisters of Saint—"

"I know what that means!" Reese exploded.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot, you
habla
a little
Español,
don't you? Well, anyway, it seems they're headed toward the little town of Panuco with supplies for the padres there."

"In all my livelong life," Reese muttered.
"Nuns?
She's gone off with nuns?"

"It would appear so." The engine coughed and shook, then resumed its
ka-thunk-ka-thunk-thunk-
ing rhythm.

Reese started to rake one greasy hand through his hair, but thought better of it and clenched it at his side instead. "Why would she do that?"

Tom flicked the vanquished crab leg out over the river. A dozen seabirds swarmed noisily on the scrap before it could hit the water. "As I recall, you'd washed your hands of her. I suppose she's going after her brother alone. I told you she wouldn't give up easily."

"I didn't—I mean, I wasn't—ahh, I told you to take care of her," he accused at last.

"No," Tom replied, "you asked me to take her home. Apparently, she didn't want to go just yet. She's a grown woman, Reese, with a mind of her own."

"Oh, now that's the understatement of the bloody century. What about the old man?"

Tom grinned. "He's feeling much better this morning. Those herbs, Elena's touch, and a good rest may just turn the tide for him."

Reese nodded thoughtfully, staring upriver. It pleased him to hear about Brew. He'd actually grown fond of the old codger. "Three hours. What took you so long in getting me?"

"Long?" Tom crossed his arms over his considerable chest. "I've been lookin' for you for in every seedy cantina in Tampico for nearly two hours,
amigo
, since I came back to Elena's and found Grace gone. The last place I expected to find you was playing doctor to some... some—what the heck is that thing, anyway?"

Reese sent him a narrow-eyed sneer. "It's the thing of the future, Tom. A steam-powered sloop."

The privateer stared at him for a pregnant moment, then threw his head back and laughed, a full, rich sound that grated heavily on Reese's already frayed nerves. For a moment, he considered wrapping his wrench around his old friend's neck.

"Steam? On a boat?" Tom managed in between fits of laughter. "You aren't serious. You mean that thing really runs?"

"It will."

Tom whooped again and, dropping his hands on his knees, he doubled over in glee. The motley bunch of customers at the cantina patio above began to stare.

Waving one helpless hand like a flag of surrender, Tom gasped. "Don't tell me. You won it in a card game."

"Not exactly."

"No? Some poor bastard owed you money and you took it off his hands?"

Reese dragged a clenched fist along his stubbled jaw. "No."

"Well, thank God you've still got some sense. I mean, hoo-hooo-ee, at least you didn't lose any money in the de—" He stopped short, finally taking in Reese's expression. "No. You didn't."

Reese gazed off down the river, counting slowly to ten.

"You didn't...
pay
for it, did you?"

"Tom, did anyone ever tell you that you can be a real pain in the—"

Tom dissolved into laughter again, this time collapsing on the grassy bank beside the piling.

"—ass," Reese finished, leaning back over the engine.

"I'm sorry," Tom sputtered at last, trying and failing to pull a serious expression. "I mean, it's not the
Rogue,"
he said referring to Reese's old revenue cutter, "but it does have a certain charm." He chuckled. "Listen, can I, uh, help?"

"No," Reese shot back without looking up.

"You know," Tom chortled, "I do have a knack with these things. Engines, that is. If it really is a—"

Reese shot him a silencing glare.

Tom tried to contain himself. "Have you tried tightening the—?"

"Yes."

"And the—?"

"I've tried every bloody screw and fastening on the blasted engine!" Reese snapped.

Tom nodded thoughtfully. Then, hopping the distance from shore to deck, he walked casually up to the ornery engine and stared down at it. "I've seen this before. It's tricky, but sometimes, there's only one solution." With a swift kick just below the output valve, he demonstrated.

The sputtering engine coughed, then, inconceivably, fell into a purring
putt-a-putt, putt-a-putt
rhythm.

With an expression of utter disbelief, Reese turned to Tom. "There is a God," he murmured.

Tom grinned. "It's all in the technique, my friend."

Reese reached over to the rope securing the craft to the piling and released it.

"Hey!" Tom cried, watching the boat edge away from the shoreline.

"Stay or go," Reese suggested. "I thank you kindly for your expertise, but I've got a lady to catch."

Tom shook Reese's hand with a firmness that spoke of their friendship. Stepping up on the rail, he looked back at Reese. "Hey, what about the money you gave me to take 'em home?"

"Give it to Brew to hold. If we don't make it back, tell him to use it."

Tom nodded. "You'll be back. You're too blasted ornery to die. Besides, it's a match made in heaven," he observed wryly. "An Irish-Catholic cynic and a beautiful, muleheaded dreamer. Personally, I don't see how it can miss." He leapt to shore with the grace of a born sailor.

Reese scowled after him. "Who said anything about a match?" he shouted as the boat pulled away. "I'm just trying to keep her clumsy little behind out of trouble."

Tom laughed and shouted, "Keep tellin' yourself that, Donovan! Someday, if you're very unlucky, you might even believe it."

Chapter 16

Lorna Lee gripped the heaving flanks of the stallion with her knees as it plunged across the scrub prairie at breakneck speed. Leaning closer to the animal's neck, she urged him on, heedless of peril and the harsh wind strafing her face. Only one thought drove her now—the life of the innocent soldier whose destiny she held in her hands. It was up to her now to save him, her and the intrepid band of gypsies who rode behind her.

It would, however, have given her considerably more pleasure if it were Dead-Eye Donovan eating the dust swirling in her wake instead.

With a careless laugh, she leaned harder into the ride. Lorna Lee Goodnight was above such petty, quid pro quo vengeance. She would put Dead-Eye behind her and never look back. It wasn't the first time she'd been a fool for love, but she swore it would be the only time...

Grace chewed on the end of her charcoal pencil. "The last time?" she murmured, as the burro she was riding bobbed down the dirt road. "The final time?" She put pencil to paper again and scratched out the last sentence.
"—she swore it would never happen again.
" She ground the final period into the journal with a grand flourish that didn't really make her feel any better—it simply broke the point off her pencil.

She swore aloud.

Four wimpled, winged, holy heads turned toward her with a collective gasp of shock, startling Grace's burro out of its plodding stupor.

It brayed loudly and gave an unexpected crow-hop sideways.

Too late, she clutched for the forgotten reins. "Whoa, boy! Whoo-oaaahh!" she cried, as she went sailing off the rear end of the beast.

She landed with a thud in the dusty road, inches from the edge of the Panuco, but well out of the way of the burro's thrashing hooves. Grace knew this not because she could see its retreat—her hat had fallen over her eyes—but because she could hear its
hee-yaw-
ing growing fainter as it disappeared down the road.

"Madre de Dios!"
she heard one of the sisters cry—Sister Jorge, the one with the high, incomprehensible voice who fired off Spanish at an alarming rate, but spoke nary a word of English.

Sprawled flat on her back in the road, Grace waited for her head to stop spinning. Then, pushing the wide-brimmed straw hat off her face, she slowly sat up. Sister Jorge was still wringing her hands and prattling on in Spanish while two others, Sister Maria Ignacia and Sister Paulo, hovered over Grace with worried expressions. Farther down the road, Miguel, their bandoliered escort, stopped, staring at her from beneath the brim of his hat. But even the deep shadow it cast couldn't conceal the look of amusement in his expression.

Grace sighed. She had no one to blame but herself for getting thrown. Swearing in front of holy sisters! She'd definitely been around Reese Donovan too long.

"I'm very sorry," she said as Sister Paulo extended her a hand up. "I deserved to be thrown off that mule."

"Burro," Sister Maria Ignacia said with an amused smile. "You are no hurt?"

"Only my pride," she replied, brushing the dust off her dress. It billowed into the hot, muggy air in great clouds. She bent to retrieve her journal.

"Ah,
bueno, bueno,"
Sister Paulo said, nodding to the others. The wings on her extraordinary headpiece bobbed up and down with a life of their own. They made her look something like a heron, ready to take flight. The sisters were from a small convent in Spain—that much she'd gotten from them—and were heading for a mission to the east of here, in Panuco. It was thanks to Elena that she'd found someone to travel with at all, but she suspected that Miguel was one of the
liberales
Elena had referred to.

Sister Jorge gestured agitatedly toward the cloud of dust disappearing far in the distance.

Miguel glanced at the retreating burro, then gestured that he would retrieve it. He spurred his horse down the road after the escapee.

Sister Maria Ignacia guided Grace to a large rock.
"Pues,
we must hold this occasion to rest now," she managed in broken English. She fired off orders to the other sisters who obligingly dismounted from their own burros. Dipping a handkerchief into the edge of the river, Sister Maria Ignacia squeezed it out and handed it to Grace, gesturing delicately to Grace's nose.

Obligingly, Grace wiped the dirt from her face, enjoying the coolness of the cloth. It was beastly hot, and the sun beat down on them incessantly. The countryside had gradually grown more and more arid the farther they strayed from the coast. The Panuco River ran like a snake of green across the land. Insects buzzed at the shoreline and made themselves at home on every exposed inch of damp skin. She swatted the bugs away, fanning herself with the damp hanky. Her bottom ached, her head hurt, and she wondered if she'd ever walk completely upright again.

Only one day out of Tampico and already she missed Brew terribly. He'd given her his blessing, knowing it was useless to try to stop her. Oh, how she wished he were standing right here right now, arguing about some silly thing like he always did. She'd throw her arms around him, bury her face against his shoulder, and have a good, old-fashioned cry. But the best she could hope for was that he'd continue to grow stronger under Elena's care, that she'd see him once again when this was over. She had to believe that.

The other sisters chatted in the shade of a willowy palm a few rods down the road. Sister Maria Ignacia, who sat eating a dried date nearby, spoke a little English, but Grace found herself wishing for some real conversation. The stimulating kind she'd always had with—

She slammed her eyes shut. She would
not
think of Reese. Better to put him from her mind completely. That chapter of her life was closed; Reese was simply a minor character in the grand scheme of things. Why, already, she told herself, his face was fading from her memory—were his eyes blue or green?—and his voice... well, she could hardly remember that at all.

"Grace," came a distant call, barely audible above the faint whir of an engine.

She glanced in the direction Miguel had left in. She could barely make him out, towing the recalcitrant burro behind him.

"Grace!"

A little closer now, the shout brought up the heads of the sisters, who seemed to be watching something on the river. Following the sound of the engine, Grace turned to see an odd-looking boat chugging toward them parallel to the shoreline. There was a lone man aboard, silhouetted by the midday sun.