Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (36 page)

      
Breakfast was not quite the usual pandemonium, because all but the oldest of the male boarders had been involved in fighting the Mexican invaders and had either fled or had been captured. Only three men were at table that morning: crusty old Racine Schwartz; Otis Bierbaum, a German tanner; and Hiram Lucas, a young Quaker who did not hold with fighting. When Rafe came down, he would be joining them as well.

      
As Charlee and Sadie prepared the meal, Deborah did not appear, which was most uncharacteristic of her. Of course, Adam was not about either, but then he had been allowed to stay up well past his bed time last night. Just as she was beating up the last batch of biscuits, Charlee heard Adam's burbling laughter erupt down the hall, intermingled with a warm baritone chuckle.

      
Rafe entered the room carrying his son, as naturally at ease greeting the boarders as if he had lived there all his life. If they were at all surprised or shocked at the sudden resurrection of Deborah's husband, none appeared to show it. Rafe sat Adam in his special chair at the corner of the long table and assumed his place at the head.

      
When Deborah entered, she pointedly ignored her husband's usurpation of her place as proprietor of the establishment and helped Charlee and Sadie serve the food, then sat demurely beside Adam, across from Rafe.

      
Charlee spent most of the meal chatting with the boarders, explaining her absence from Kensington's and describing her duties at Bluebonnet in vague terms. She did not mention Jim Slade, and no one was so impolite as to bring up his name, although she was certain everyone had heard the gossip about the fight at Pearson's dance and about her kidnapping and rescue.

      
After breakfast, Charlee began to help clear the dishes, but Teresa, the new maid, arrived breathlessly and began to assist Sadie. Then Deborah said, “Charlee, let Teresa do that. You've helped enough already. Anyway, Rafael wants you to be ready to ride in less than an hour, so you'd better get back into your boy's disguise.”

      
Deborah's face revealed much about the previous night to Charlee's discerning eye. Deborah's skin was faintly flushed, her eyes lustrous and heavy lidded.
Passion-sated. God, is that how I looked to everyone at Bluebonnet after I'd been with Slade?
she wondered.

      
After bidding a hasty good-bye to Deborah and Adam, Rafe and Charlee slipped out of the boardinghouse. When they passed the sentry at the end of Robles Street, Rafe turned to her and spoke for the first time. “Now where is this paragon of a horse you left obediently awaiting your call?”

      
Charlee bristled, then saw the honest good humor dancing in his black eyes. “Patchwork is down in the arroyo past those willows. She'll wait, I know. I trained her myself and left her in a well-hidden spot with plenty of grass and water. She knows how to be quiet.”

      
He grunted in approval as they headed toward the arroyo, then watched in admiration as Charlee leaped off the livery horse she had ridden from town and flew to the pretty little paint, who nosed her joyously and then stood still while the slip of a girl jumped effortlessly onto her back.

      
They left the rented horse tied securely in the copse for Rafe to reclaim on his way back to town, then rode for several minutes without talking.

      
As the silence lengthened with the miles, Charlee covertly studied the forbidding stranger who was Deborah's husband. His profile was classically handsome; but there was something dangerous, uncivilized in his mien, as if the Creole elegance was masking terrible violence, perhaps pain. Had Deborah's flight caused the hurt? Charlee dismissed the idea almost immediately. Women grieved over men, not men over women. Any fool knew that.

      
As if privy to her thoughts, the Creole finally spoke, startling her from her reverie. “You don't much like me, do you, Miss McAllister?” There was a mocking glint to his eyes that gave his face a hard look.

      
“I don't know you, Mr. Flamenco,” she answered cautiously, struggling to remember how Deborah pronounced the Spanish name.

      
“It's Fleming now, but call me Rafe. Everyone in Texas does. That doesn't answer my question, but I'll answer it for you. I've, ah, sensed your...shall we call it reserve toward me ever since we met.”

      
“How'd you expect a body to treat someone raised from the dead?” she snapped, suddenly peevish at all men and their unreasonable demands.

      
He nodded, a gesture of concession. “I suppose it was a bit of a shock, especially to someone as close to Deborah as you are. I've heard about how she took you in, sort of remade you into the belle of San Antonio.” His piercing dark eyes locked squarely with her level green ones.

      
Looking self-consciously down at her hoydenish boy's disguise, Charlee broke the spell of his gaze and said, “I scarcely look like the belle of anything now, but you're right, I do owe Deborah. And I don't want to see her hurt,” she added, daring again to face the liquid depths of his eyes.

      
“Neither do I,” he replied gravely. “That's why I want to get her out of the city as quickly as I can. She's been raising hell, bringing food and medicine to the prisoners, complaining about the way they're treated. She's made a few enemies.”

      
“Surely, aiding the men held prisoner in the Maverick house isn't seditious. I'd think General Woll would be glad of help feeding and caring for them.”

      
He sighed patiently. “General Woll is honorable enough, more than enough for a foreign mercenary; but he's got some irregulars in his command who aren't exactly bound by the rules of conventional warfare,” he finished bitterly.

      
Remembering that she had believed him to be just such a partisan raider, she colored in mortification. “She's been threatened?”

      
He continued, unaware or unconcerned about her embarrassment. “Yes. It's complicated because of me, I'm afraid. Flores might not have come after her if he hadn't found out she's my wife. Or maybe he would. He's always been a jackal.”

      
What were Deborah and Adam caught up in? “You sound like you know this fellow from a ways back,” she said, with fear beginning to gnaw at her vitals.

      
“Captain Enrique Flores, now of the Rio Grande Defenders, was late a spy and raider of General Canalizo's from Matamores. He and I tangled up near Nacogdoches a while back. Let's just say I bear him a grudge,” he finished darkly.

      
“And he'll take it out on Deborah and Adam because they're your family?”

      
“I need to get them away, but I'm being watched. As soon as Flores is scheduled to go out on a scout, I'll see Woll and request permission to take my family out of. San Antonio. He's a reasonable man and has already reprimanded Flores for harassing Deborah once. I hope he'll let me leave with them. The problem is taking them somewhere they'll be safe from Flores and his band of cutthroats.”

      
“Bluebonnet,” Charlee supplied.

      
“Bluebonnet,” he agreed. “Once I know she's out of his reach, I'll deal with Enrique myself.”

      
The absolute coldness of his voice sent shivers down her spine. She almost felt sorry for the raider as she watched the deadly-looking man at her side eye the countryside around them with a frontiersman's instinctual wariness. She was afraid of him, but she was also intrigued by him. After all, he was married to her best friend. “You don't act like any planter or Creole gentleman I ever heard of,” Charlee said tentatively, daring to pry into his life.

      
He shrugged. “It's been so long ago I scarcely remember that life. I was a spoiled young fool, rich, bored...” He let his voice fade. After a few moments of silence, he said, “When I lost Deborah, I finally took a look at myself and the people around me. I didn't like what I saw. But I was still restless. Once my ties to my family in New Orleans were broken, I was rootless. My grandfather left me the deed to some land in Texas, a rancho. When Joe and I got there it was nothing but a rockpile overrun by Indians and wild mustangs.” He smiled was twisted in bitter remembrance. “I went to work for the first time in my life. Ruined my hands for playing the piano.”

      
But not for shooting a gun
, Charlee thought grimly to herself. Aloud she said, “So, you're a different man from the one Deborah married. Should that make things better between you, or even worse?”

      
When he looked at her, Charlee expected to see another thunderous flash of anger but was surprised to see the clear etching of pain instead.

      
“I don't know,” he said quietly. “Just what did she say last night? She did tell you she ran off, pregnant and alone?”

      
“Yes,” Charlee answered uncertainly. “Little else, only that you disagreed over what your marriage should be like. She hurts a lot, though. I could always sense that, even when I thought she was a widow. Whatever the trouble is, be good to her, Rafe. She deserves kindness, for all the good turns she's done other folks.”

      
As if he were struggling against some inner agony so intense he dare not reveal it, he nodded, his expression drawn and taut. Did all men mask their finer feelings so? Did Slade?

* * * *

      
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Carver. Fancy your arriving just when I had need of speaking with you.” Vincente Cordova's black eyes sparkled with irony. Obviously, he was waiting for her in the shade of the giant cypress outside the milliner's shop.

      
“What do you want?” she queried, nervously scanning the indolent crew of men and dogs sleeping in the midday heat in the park. She might visit with General Woll and other pro-Mexican leaders in the community now, but raiders connected with the Comanche were still people with whom she did not deem it safe to associate openly.

      
He smiled as if reading her mind, then took her arm in a proprietary manner and steered her around the corner. “The drunks will tell no one of our meeting, have no fear.”

      
Shaking free of his grip, Tomasina forced herself to show none of the disquieting emotion he evoked in her. “What do you want with me? You cannot possibly be reassigned to your former duties so soon.”

      
He shrugged carelessly. “Word straight from the general himself. We march on the twentieth for the Rio Grande. Once I report to the garrison commander, I will be returning to Texas and my other duties. I need the gold now. With the army of occupation withdrawing, it will be awkward to return for it later.”

      
Tomasina paled and grasped the wall behind her for support. It felt hot and scratchy through her gloves. “What do you mean, after the army withdraws?” She could hear the sick, sinking sensation in her voice.

      
“You did not expect General Woll to hold San Antonio indefinitely, surely? The Texians are amassing volunteers right now. If we stay here in this trap, they will do to us what our illustrious president did to them a scant six years ago,” he said in grim humor.

      
Tomasina's shock gave way to furious, sparkling anger. Was there no end to the perfidy of men! Only a few evenings ago she had dined with the general, who had revealed nothing about leaving. “Apparently this was the plan all along, these were the orders—to leave if any resistance was shown by Texas riffraff?”

      
“There are too many of them, not enough of us now,” he said in an infuriatingly rational voice. “A thousand men cannot fight five times that many. Someday, perhaps, when they are not so well led, when we can raise a full army to take all the major cities. Until then, I obey orders and seek out my Comanche friends. They'll keep the Texas militia busy, or at least, very distracted.” His smile was blinding.

      
Her mind spun wildly as she groped for some way to stall him. “Well, you surely cannot come home with me now and just carry it out. If I am to be left here to the mercies of those Texian pigs, I must maintain appearances as James Slade's betrothed. The night before you are to leave, at midnight, enter by the garden gate, which I will leave unlocked. I will meet you in the cellar.”

      
“Good. Until the nineteenth.” He was gone, vanished into the deep shade at the end of the alley before she realized she stood alone.

      
And she did stand alone, never more alone in her life. Ashley was dead and Slade would not marry her. She realized now that Kennedy as well as Cordova had known of Woll's orders to retreat. The army, her glorious liberating army, was deserting her.

      
I will be damned to hell if I leave all that English gold for filthy savages,
she swore to herself.
Let Cordova fight his petty war, sniping at the Texian swine in skirmishes, holding nothing, proving nothing. I will take the gold, and curse them all, English, Texian and Mexican!

      
Quickly, she went home. It would not take her long to pack her belongings; by tomorrow night she could slip out by bribing a sentry and be long gone before Cordova suspected anything. She hated leaving so many valuable things, the ranch, gifts Jake Carver had lavished on her; but she would have enough English gold for a new start. Her cousin Elmira in Mexico City was in for a surprise visit.

* * * *

      
It had been a hellish ten days, Slade thought grimly as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. Tossing the thick mane of gold hair off his forehead, he replaced his hat and nudged Polvo to catch up with Lee, who was riding several lengths ahead of him.