Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (18 page)

She arched, strained against him as sensation flowed, built, pooled until she was whimpering for him.

His voice deepened to a sensual growl. “I’ve thought of nothing but touching you again.” He found the hem of her skirt and slipped his hand underneath.

“I want to touch you, too,” she confessed.

Without missing a beat, he captured her wrist and carried it down to the front of his breeches, cupping her fingers around the hard ridge of flesh straining the front of his buckskins. She sucked in a gasp and held it when he arched into her hand. His touch aroused feelings she still didn’t fully understand. Suddenly she was avid to feel him, skin to skin. She wanted him in her hand.

As though he knew her thoughts, he whispered, “Unbutton me.”

With an efficiency gained from unfastening countless rows of tedious buttons on her own garments, Angel loosed him from his tight prison and delivered him into her palm. Her last deliberate thought was of slick velvet and unyielding steel and how unlikely that the two should complement each other so perfectly.

Then she thought not at all as she yielded to sensation. For the moment, all worries ceased to exist. There was only Rane, touching her, loving her, branding her soul with a fiery passion she knew she’d never feel again.

****

Rane crouched on all fours at the edge of the brush and studied the rim of the gorge before him. From below, the Rio Bravo sounded different than he remembered, louder, rushing. The unprecedented amount of rain that had fallen during the past twenty-four hours had undoubtedly put it on the rise. Another stroke of bad luck.

A trickle of sweat crept down the center of his chest and dripped from his belly. He lifted a hand and flattened his shirt against his skin, absorbing the ticklish moisture. He’d waited until the sun climbed straight overhead before approaching the river. Better to suffer the heat than the disadvantage of having the glare in his eyes. There was no one in sight.

Rane stood and walked to the edge of the gorge. Below, the river ran swollen and muddy, littered with the debris of tree limbs. The narrow strands of sand that normally lined the base of the gorge had disappeared beneath turbulent water.

Silently, he cursed the untimely storms that had dumped this deluge on them. Crossing now would be a risky undertaking, but they had no choice.

He lifted his arm and waved a signal. Angel, leading their two horses, stepped from a shadowy copse of scrub trees and started toward him. He skimmed down her slender, yet blatantly female curves, clad once more in the brown trousers and coarse shirt she’d worn on the trail. Just after sunup, the sight of her pulling the manly garb from her saddlebags and sliding the trousers over her long, creamy legs was a vision that would forever be emblazoned in his memory.

She led the horses nearer, and her eyes widened when she got her first look at the water. "I don’t ever remember the river looking like this." The underlying quaver in her voice echoed his misgivings. "Exactly where are we?"

He pointed downriver. “Do you see that hazy looking patch of sky in the distance?”

She followed his direction. “Yes, I see it.”

“Clayton Station is the source of that smoke haze.”

Mention of home, being near enough to practically see it, put a smile of pure happiness on her lips. Suddenly, he wished he had done something to make her smile like that.

Again, he pointed downriver. “See that bend?”

She nodded, a frown of concentration growing on her lovely face.

“Just beyond that is the bridge.”

Expectation leapt to her eyes.

“But we can’t cross there,” he quickly added. “It will be guarded.” He turned and looked down at the roiling water once more. “We have to cross here. It’s the only other way down and out of the gorge for miles that I know of.”

Angel pulled in a deep breath and moved closer to the edge of the rim. Her gaze swept the narrow switchback path leading down the steep bank beneath them. Then she looked to the opposite bank, where the path picked up again at the edge of the water and led out of the canyon.

She handed over the stallion’s reins.

“You ready?” he asked.

She nodded.

Rane started down the path, taking slow, careful steps. Leading Pago, he watched the plodding hooves of both horses in case one of them should make a wrong step. In only a moment, the shadow of the gorge closed over them. He stopped when the path disappeared beneath the swirling tide of floodwater.

Angel clutched the mare’s reins with both hands, staring with frightened eyes at the foaming rills rushing past at dizzying speed.

“Mount up,” he told her.

She swallowed. “I have a last minute confession.” She blurted out the rest quickly. “I’m not very comfortable around water because I don’t know how to swim. So, if I fall off, I’m afraid you’ll have to rescue me from drowning.”

He chuckled, which he knew she didn’t appreciate, judging from the way her brows dipped. “You’re not going to drown, and you’re not going to fall off. When you get into deep water, just give the mare her head and she’ll swim to the other side.”

Rane climbed into the saddle and ran a soothing hand along the stallion’s thickly muscled neck, and then stepped him down to the hidden strand. The water hurtled past, only inches below his stirrups. He looked back.

Angel sat on her horse just above the water line.

“Come on!”

She hauled in a deep breath, then kneed the horse forward.

Satisfied she would follow, Rane angled the horse’s head upstream, aiming for the path ascending the opposite side of the gorge. He urged the stallion into deeper water.

When the icy current reached the tops of Rane’s boots and began to fill them, he knew the flood was even worse than he’d anticipated. A foaming eddy shoved against the stallion’s broad side, then spewed over Rane’s knees. The swirling wetness crept higher still, dousing the sensitive skin between his thighs with a cold shock.

The instant Pago’s hooves left the river bottom, Rane knew he had completely underestimated the power of the flood. With the horse afloat, the current pushed them downstream. With each passing second, their escape path receded farther into the distance. They’d missed the mark. His heart sank as he realized he’d led them right into a trap of nature’s own making.

As if they weren’t in enough difficulty, someone yelled, “Look! There they are!”

Bullets sprayed the water near the stallion’s haunches. Seated in the saddle above water line, they presented easy targets. Like clay carnival ducks, lined up for destruction.

Rane twisted to look behind him. The mare was close. Angel clung to the saddle horn with both hands, her eyes round with fear.

“Jump!” he yelled.

“No!” she screamed back at him.

“I said jump!”

She looked frozen. The death grip she had on the saddle horn blanched her knuckles white. She had no intention of letting go.

He had to get her off the horse. But to do that, he had to reach her. Reversing position, he lifted his feet to the saddle beneath him and leap-frogged from the stallion’s back.

His off-balance dive landed him against the mare’s rump. And he felt himself sliding off. In desperation, he lunged upward, wrapped his arm around Angel’s waist, and raked her from her seat and into the water with him.

For brief seconds they hung there, lodged against the mare’s flank while Angel thrashed and screamed louder than the roar of the river.

The mare, wild-eyed with terror, plunged and kicked, trying to put some distance between itself and the screaming woman. The rushing torrent captured them immediately and sent them hurtling downriver.

Holding Angel in a tight grip, Rane fought to keep them from being swept under. Each time she opened her mouth in a scream, the muddy water sluiced over their heads and she was reduced to a fit of choking and spitting instead.

Always a strong swimmer, Rane had never attempted to hold onto another thrashing body like now as he tried to keep Angel afloat. Her instinctive fear only worsened matters as she slashed out, trying to keep her head above the water.

Only minutes into the maelstrom, his muscles burned with an intensity that required all his willpower just to hold her. They weren’t even halfway across. He anchored her waist with his left arm, with the other he sliced at the water, trying to take them closer to the eastern side of the gorge. Something rammed him from behind, slamming into his back with a sharp pain that quickly faded to numbness. Meanwhile, the overpowering current took them, like two tangled pieces of driftwood, along with the flood.

Rane scanned the bank, trying to get his bearings. The path had disappeared, and with it, all hope of escape. His thoughts turned to survival, for it had come down to that.

The current raced around the bend, taking them with it. Through a muddy haze, Rane saw the bridge looming ahead. He dashed a hand across his eyes. Four men stood at the rail, armed with rifles.

Their only hope was to stay in the water and let it carry them out of harm’s way.

A man on the bridge gestured and shouted, “Look! There they are!”

Shots rang out.

The imminent threat sent new strength surging through Rane’s limbs. Altering his hold, he clutched Angel to his chest and brought his face level with hers. Her skin had paled, her breath labored, and she held her mouth clamped shut to keep out the noxious water.

“I’m going to take us under,” he told her, his breath heaving from his own exertions.

Her eyes on him grew frantic.

“When I tell you, take a deep breath and hold it.”

She shook her head and tried to pull away. He held her tighter.

Seconds later, the shadow of the bridge closed over them.

“Now!” he ordered.

He gave her no choice. She sucked in a gasping breath and held it, just before he pulled her into the depths.

Rane’s eyes were open, but he saw only darkness, cold and suffocating. Then, they must have passed beyond the bridge, because light streamed through the muddy silt. He paddled, no longer fighting the current. Debris battered at them, sticks resembling ghastly snakes. Repeated sounds pressed in on his ears like muffled detonations of thunder. Something streaked past his arm, inflicting a sting and leaving bubbles in its wake.

The stupid bastards were still shooting at them!

Angel began to struggle again. Rane twisted about until they were nose to nose. Her cheeks were puffed to capacity and her long silver hair floated sideways, undulating with the current. In eerie liquid slow motion, she shook her head, then lifted her hand and pressed it hard over her mouth and nose.

Rane’s own lungs burned with the need to expel the air he held. His throat worked convulsively, and he knew it was only a matter of seconds before he would have to give in to the irresistible urge. Hot pain shot up the back of his neck and burrowed into the base of his skull.

He gave a savage kick that sent them shooting upward. Their heads broke the surface at once. He sucked in welcome air. From nowhere, pain slapped the back of his head. Through a dim haze, he felt something graze his shoulder and glide away. He shoved against the large tree branch to keep it from bobbing up and striking him again.

In that split second, the river seized Angel and hurled her away from him.

She kicked and thrashed, trying to stay afloat. He swam, trying desperately to close the gap separating them, until something snaked out and landed beside him on the water.

A rope.

Along the gorge, men swarmed down the rocks like a horde of ants. The one holding the rope stood on a narrow ledge just above the waterline, gathering it in for another cast.

Voices raised in excitement echoed between the canyon walls. Others raced along the rim, hurrying to get ahead of them as they drifted downriver. Several of Horace Lundy’s henchmen, equipped with ropes, took up scattered positions along the face of the water-carved wall.

The man on the ledge swung out his loop. Rane held his breath as it whirled higher and faster. Then it flew straight at him. The noose snaked across the water. Rane’s heart sank when he saw Angel yanked halfway out of the water. The bastard had snagged her, and he was still too far away to be of any help.

A cheer invaded the gorge.

Rane watched Angel being pulled from the river, helpless to stop it, then sucked in a quick breath and dove once more.

Clinging to the rope like a lifeline, Angel heard someone yell, “Damn it, don’t let him get away!”

“We got the woman!”

“Lundy wants Mantorres, too! Either captured or dead. It don’t matter which. But he don’t want him to get away!”

Her captor dragged Angel from the water and pulled her onto the ledge where he stood. The worst part of it was, she couldn’t lift a hand to stop him. All she could do was submit, feeling as though the very life had been sucked from her body by the battering river water.

“You just set still and don’t move,” the roper told her.

Along the gorge, the others stood silent and watchful. Ropes whistled softly as they swung them round and round, waiting for Rane Mantorres to reappear amid the churning waters.