Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (13 page)

“It is not for me to judge. He is my
patrón
.”

“So, you won’t help me.”

“No. He warned me you would ask.”

She should have known Rane’s own people weren’t likely to help her get away from him. But hearing the words loosed an unexpected rush of anger—at him.

Carmella started in briskly with the comb once more. “You have beautiful hair.”

The tugs against her scalp, while gentle enough, betrayed impatience. Angel figured the compliment signaled a change of subject. Perhaps Carmella was fearful of divulging too much. Therefore, Angel was surprised when the woman leaned forward and whispered, “Do not be afraid, Señorita. I know Señor Rane. He will not let anyone harm you.”

****

Angel sat on the side of the bed, clean, groomed, and dressed in the clothes Carmella had given her. A deep blue skirt and white camisole blouse with a drawstring closure at the front that left the neckline scooped well below her collarbones. Underneath, she wore a pair of plain cotton drawers and nothing else, which made her feel strangely unfettered, but more exposed than Rane’s trousers ever had.

It was the outfit of a Mexican peasant. Judging by the intricate floral embroidery sewn into the front of the blouse, Angel suspected Carmella had given her the best she owned.

She still hadn’t eaten and the savory aroma that filled the air from the other side of the room had her clutching her stomach to quiet its rumbling. She knew she should stand up and go join the others at the table. But the hushed conversation taking place just beyond the hanging blankets stopped her.

Though she only caught an occasional word, she heard Lundy’s name mentioned. She also heard the words “two days” spoken several times. Was that when Rane planned to make his trade—her for whatever he hoped to get from Lundy? Her heart sank lower. How could he? How could he intend to carry through with his scheme after all they’d been through?

The sounds from the other side of the room changed. Evidently, the discussion had ended. Angel pricked her ears, but heard nothing other than the soft shuffle of footsteps and a dull thump, as if something had been dropped.

Carmella’s face appeared between the blankets. She no longer smiled. “Remember what I tell you, Señorita.
Vaya con Dios
.” Then the edge of the blanket fell back into place, and she was gone.

Curiosity brought Angel from her seat on the bed. She walked to the blankets and parted them.

Rane stood alone at the open doorway, looking out with one hip cocked in a relaxed pose. The buckskin breeches hugged his long rider’s legs and accentuated the pleasing shape of his tightly muscled buttocks. One arm was lifted above his head, his forearm braced against the door facing. Around him, the day’s last rays of light spilled onto the earthen floor and illuminated half the table behind him.

“Where have they gone?”

Leisurely, he lowered his arm and turned. Her breath lodged in her chest. She’d finally gotten her wish. He’d shaved his whiskers. Now, a beguiling stranger faced her.

She stared at him. She couldn’t help it. The bewhiskered scoundrel she’d grown accustomed to had disappeared and in his place stood a devastatingly rakish devil. Swept back from his face, his long, freshly washed hair gleamed like wet, black coal. The pale, off-center scar in his chin was evident once more, an intriguing fault in an otherwise flawless countenance. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

His dark gaze narrowed. “Something wrong?”

She didn’t know whether to smile at him, or burst out laughing like a lunatic at the absurd joke fate had played on her. “I was just thinking. It’s amazing what a little soap and water can accomplish.”

“Yes.” The word hissed between his perfect, white teeth. “Amazing.”

The dark heat in his eyes seemed to scorch her. Now that she was dressed in feminine clothing, his brazen inspection of her person filled her with self-consciousness. She clenched her hands at her sides to keep from crossing her arms over her chest, from turning away, from ordering him to stop looking at her as though he’d never seen her before.

She swallowed the thickness that gathered in her throat and pulled in a deep breath. “I asked you. Where have Carmella and her husband gone?”

“I sent them on an errand,” he replied.

“And would that errand be to deliver a message to Horace Lundy?”

A muscle ticked in his bronzed jaw. “Yes.”

She stared at him a long moment with disappointment and anger welling like caustic poison. Deep down, she’d known he wouldn’t relent. He’d already proven that. He’d told her what he planned from the very beginning.

“I don’t know what it is you hope to gain by all this. I’m sure you won’t tell me, any more than Carmella would. I just hope whatever it is, it’s worth ruining my life for.”

“I haven’t ruined your life. I’ve saved it.”

“No. It started out that way, but you’ve proven you’re no different from Jed Wiley. Or Buck Sweeney. You’re using me, just the same as they would have.”

He shook his head. “Not the same.”

“My father won’t see it any differently, Rane. To him, you’ll be the man who kidnapped his daughter and turned her over to his enemy. It doesn’t have to be that way. You could take me to my father instead.”

“No, no,
no!
” He glared at her. “Stop talking! Nothing you say will change my mind.”

She clamped her lips and glared right back at him. Oh, God, how she wanted to hate him. But, she couldn’t, damn it! No matter what he said or did, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him.

Strangely enough, during all the time they’d been together, she’d never seen him come so close to losing his temper and raising his voice as he had now.

He must have realized it, too, for he dragged in a long breath and released it slowly. In his usual calm tone, he said, “Sit down and eat.”

She didn’t move.

“Sit!” he ordered.

Moving as slowly as possible, Angel pulled out a bench and seated herself at the table.

Rane crossed the room in four long strides, took a bowl from a shelf and thumped it down in front of her. He ladled stew from the big pot standing in the center of the table. Angel’s mouth watered. A pan of cornbread was shoved in her direction. He tossed down a spoon, and then sat down heavily on the opposite bench.

Angel stared into his stormy eyes. He stared back.

She broke off a chunk of cornbread, picked up her spoon and started eating.

He lifted a slender cigar from the breast pocket sewn into his shirt and thrust it between his teeth. Raking a Lucifer along the table edge, he cupped the flame as though they sat in a high gale and puffed the cigar to life.

A flick of his wrist sent the match flying into the hearth. She observed each movement, fascinated by his natural, fluid grace. Then he planted his elbows on the table and continued watching her in silence.

She didn’t care. They’d shared too many meals together on the trail for her to feel awkward about eating in front of him.

“Carmella’s a good cook,” she remarked in hopes of drawing him into normal conversation again.

One dark brow twitched, but he said nothing.

“She’s also very pretty,” Angel continued. “Has her husband always been crippled?”

A thoughtful frown drew Rane’s brows together. “No,” he said after a moment. “Benito was not always a cripple. Once he was head
vaquero
at a
rancho
just outside the City of Mexico.”

The way he pronounced “Meh-hee-co” forced a smile to Angel’s lips. “What happened?”

“A horse fell on him.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “How did they end up here with you?”

He shrugged. “We were friends. I hired them to stay here. When I’m here, Carmella cooks, sees that I have decent clothes to wear.”

An unfamiliar sensation wiggled into the pit of Angel’s stomach. “She seems very devoted to you.”

“She’s grateful.” His cigar had gone out. He gave it a look of disgust and tossed it into the fireplace. “I hired her to keep her from working in the fields or being forced into service in a bordello. What else could she do? She has to earn money for both of them now. Benito will no longer even try.”

Rane picked a breadcrumb from the pan and thrust it into his mouth. “One day, she will leave him,” he predicted.

Angel’s heart lurched. He sounded so sure. Why would he want Carmella to leave her husband? Only one reason she could think of.

“You have feelings for her?” Her voice sounded barely above a whisper.

“I told you, she’s a friend. A good woman. She deserves better than Benito. She works while he does nothing but eat and sleep. And he steals her money to buy whiskey.”

Angel glanced down at the pretty, embroidered camisa and suffered a pang of guilt. Carmella, evidently, had very little, yet she’d freely offered her best to make Angel feel comfortable. She made a mental note. If, or rather when, she made it home again, she’d see to it that Carmella Reyes was amply repaid for her act of kindness.

“She pities him,” Rane continued, “and he doesn’t deserve her sympathy.”

“Have you never considered that she might stay with him because she loves him?” Angel asked softly.

His brows beetled as if the idea was a novel one. “How could she still love him?”

Angel stared into her nearly empty bowl and raked the tip of the spoon through the gravy congealing on the bottom. She blew out a breath. “Well. From what I’ve seen, when it comes to matters of the heart, I don’t think we have much choice about who we love or don’t love.”

He sat very still for a moment, and then huffed a short breath that plainly showed he mocked her theory.

“We all choose,” he said. “Each step we take. Each thing we do. We choose. The weak make easy choices, and that’s what separates them from the strong. You and I must have had different experiences, Angel, because from what I’ve seen,
that’s
the lesson I’ve learned.”

He stood and returned to the open doorway, staring out at the gathering darkness with his hands thrust down in his pants pockets.

Watching him, Angel’s heart ached. She’d been lonely her entire life. But she couldn’t imagine the depths of loneliness he must have endured that had turned him into such a cynic.

****

Rane dropped his bedroll just inside the door. On the only bed, Angel was already asleep. Damned woman. Their “dinner” conversation still rankled. How could she champion Benito when she knew nothing about him?

The accident that had affected Benito’s legs had also shriveled his soul. The injury had not only changed his body, it seemed to have touched his mind as well. There was darkness in him now that peeked out at times. It manifested in lies and petty thievery. In cruel words to the woman who took care of him when no other would have bothered.

No, Benito had gone beyond pity. Rane felt only contempt for him now because he spat on and defiled the one thing he had left that made his life worth living. His wife.

Rane straddled the bench before the hearth and sighed heavily in the stillness. After pulling off his long-shanked boots, he dropped them in a heap on the floor.

As though drawn, he shifted on the bench. The lamp glow reached across the room and shimmered softly down the length of a long strand of Angel’s silver-blond hair spread across the dark blanket.

Angel. Strong, defiant, and fiery. Admirable qualities. But he knew another side of her as well. The gentle, caring side. The tender, feminine side that made him want to burrow in with her and never come out. Dangerous thoughts, but impossible to push aside completely.

She had accused him of ruining her life. Her words kept plucking at his already ragged conscience. Soon she would know the truth. He had no intention of turning her over to Lundy now, but he still meant to use her to entice the man to meet him face to face.

He still meant to use her...

¡
Christo
!
Maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn’t all that different from Jed Wiley or Buck Sweeney. He shook his head, rejecting the notion. No, not the same thing, and soon she would see this for herself.

All he wanted from Lundy was the truth, to hear the bastard speak the words, even if he had to choke them from him with his own hands. This, she would never understand.

On the other side of the room, she murmured softly and turned beneath the blanket. Rane didn’t realize he’d curled his hands into fists, until he glanced down and saw them pressed against the tabletop. The urge to walk across the room and slip into bed beside her put a hard knot in his stomach. If he did, she probably wouldn’t notice. He knew from experience she could sleep through... well,
almost
anything.

Chapter Nine

The black stallion raced through the night, so smooth and swift it must have sprouted wings on its hooves. Angel clung with desperation to the flailing mane of the great beast. The wind keened in her ears like all the tortured souls of hell. Voices taunted her with soft mocking laughter, and then faded to tormented moans. The sounds washed over her on the breath of the unnatural wind, burning her nostrils with smoke and sulfur, warning her, “Go back....”