Comanche Moon (30 page)

“Señora, señora, do not allow that man to compromise you by publicly accosting you—oh
Madré Díos!”
Judith’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t turn around!” Faintly puzzled, Deborah half-turned, and dropped her glass of lemonade when she saw Zack Banning striding toward her across the hotel lobby. It splattered with a loud crash and sent sticky liquid over her dress and that of Tía Dolores, who was mumbling something in Spanish that sounded like a prayer. Deborah stood up.

“I want to talk to you,” Zack said without preamble, and took her by the arm to lead her to a window alcove framed with potted plants and faded draperies. He turned so that he stood with his back to the light streaming in from the windows, facing the room.

“You’re not in jail,” Deborah said, then felt foolish for stating the obvious.

His mouth quirked. “No, I’m not. It was a fair fight. Macklin swore to it.” She stood, afraid to look at him yet aching to memorize every line of his face. Tension vibrated in the air between them, a different kind of tension than that which she’d become accustomed to in the last weeks. This was sexual, a strong, driving attraction that made her pulses race and her throat tighten and her heart pound so hard she felt she would shatter with the force of it. Zack had to notice; he had to feel it. She couldn’t be the only one affected.

Deborah cleared her throat with an effort. She was aware of Judith’s hostile glare and Tía Dolores moaning in her chair and gazing at them helplessly.

“What do you want, Zack?”

“I want you to be careful.” The blunt warning startled her. She thought of herself in danger only in connection with him. Was that what he meant?

Apparently her confusion showed on her face, because he growled,

“There’s liable to be trouble—shooting kind of trouble—and I want you to guard yourself.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Deborah’s confusion was being rapidly replaced by irritation. He was so abrupt, and if anyone should be warned of trouble, surely it should be him. Hadn’t he just shot a man?

“Deborah, take this at face value. I don’t mean anything other than there’s going to be trouble between Don Francisco and Diamond before too long. You’re liable to get caught in the crossfire. Do you understand?” His voice was rough, quick, as if he wanted to say what he’d come to say and leave. She had no intention of letting him get away that easy.

“No, I don’t understand. Why should they have trouble?”

“Diamond wants the Velazquez lands. I’m sure of it. He’s made Don Francisco an offer, but it was refused. He’s liable to try something else next.” She stared at him incredulously. “And you’re working for a man like that?”

“Can you think of a better way to find out what he’s doing?” Zack snapped impatiently. “I don’t think he’d want to spread his intentions around unless they’re good, and I can promise you, they’re not.”

“So you do make promises after all,” Deborah heard herself say, then froze. That was not at all what she’d intended. She’d had no intentions of letting him know how he’d hurt her.

He looked surprised, then his eyes narrowed, dark and hot and blue, shadowed by his lashes.

“On occasion,” he drawled. His gaze dropped, and in spite of the sunlight behind him, she saw the way his eyes lingered on her mouth. “If half of Sirocco wasn’t watching right now,” he husked, “I’d kiss you silly.” Deborah didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t have taken much kissing to get her to silly, she decided. She was almost giddy now just at the thought of it.

Zack hesitated, and for one, heart-stopping moment, she thought he intended to throw common sense and caution to the wind and kiss her, but he didn’t. Instead, he said softly, “Braden drew first. I just want you to know that.” “Yes. I know.”

He slid a palm down her arm to her wrist, then turned her and walked her back to the chair next to Tía Dolores as if they were at a dance and he was returning her to her chaperon.

“Ladies,” he said, his gaze flicking to Judith for an instant before moving back to Deborah. “I hope you have a more peaceful afternoon.” With that bit of mocking gallantry, he was gone, back out the double doors of the hotel and into the hot sunshine before anyone else could speak.

Deborah felt both her cousin and Tía Dolores looking at her, but did not offer a comment. She was afraid her voice would crack, or that she would burst into unrestrained tears.

Silly. She was a fool. If he wanted her, he would have said so. He would seek her out, not give oblique warnings whenever he chanced to run into her.

Not once since her return had he sought her out for himself. Not once.

She was a fool to think he ever would.

But she couldn’t help hoping he would come for her.

Chapter 19

In the week since the gunfight in Sirocco, Deborah had found herself more closely watched than before. She hadn’t thought it possible, but apparently, it was. The continued surveillance precipitated a disagreement between her and Don Francisco, and she had not emerged the victor.

Restless, angry, and frightened, Deborah prowled the small adobe-walled patio off her bedroom and watched the moon rise in the eastern sky. It hung, a silver ball in the dark sky, silvering the ground around her. Her nightgown swayed gently in the soft breeze that made the heat more bearable, and she breathed deeply of sweet-scented blossoms.

Night-blooming flowers looked like small white moons against the dark backdrop of foliage clinging to adobe walls.

Deborah plucked one of the blossoms and tucked it into her hair over her ear, gazing into the night. She could hear the low moan of cattle, and in the distance, the laughter of the ranch hands, or
vaqueros
Don Francisco employed. Lately, he had hired men from Mexico, men who wore crossed bandoliers and carried guns and made her think of Dexter Diamond’s hired gunmen. She and Don Francisco had quarreled over that.

“Do not presume to tell me what to do, woman,” he’d snapped when she said it was only inviting trouble to hire men who would fight too easily. “I will not risk the land that my family has had for generations. There have been too many risks already.” Deborah had stared at him, at his slender, wiry build and darkly handsome features. “Why don’t you marry and secure your claim, if that’s what you’re worried about?”

“I hired Mister Macklin to secure my claim for me, but even he will be useless against loaded weapons.” A sneer warped his mouth as he glared at her. “You know, that if you think to escape me by marrying another, I will see that you suffer for it.”

“Please explain that remark, Don Francisco.”

“It is simple—Señor Diamond made an offer of marriage for you. I refused, of course. He wants what you will bring to the marriage, not you. But he will never have one rock of Velazquez land, not one! Not if I have to lock you up for the rest of your life.” He’d sounded so fiercely determined, that Deborah had not bothered to point out what was obvious to her—she did not want to marry Dexter Diamond. Don Francisco’s threat to lock her up sounded too much like a warning, and Deborah retreated into silence.

Now, she paced and fretted. Life was growing more intolerable by the day. Judith was too withdrawn, and Tía Dolores too upset by her brother’s fury at her for allowing Zack Banning to confront Deborah in the hotel lobby, for either of them to listen to her fears. So Deborah worried alone.

Or as alone as she could be, when an armed guard stood outside even the walls of her patio. To guard her? Or to keep her prisoner? She suspected the latter. Someone always seemed to be outside her hallway door, and there was the soft scurrying of feet at night. She also heard it during the day each time she left Tía Dolores’s side.

She was becoming accustomed to the furtive noises.

Perhaps that was why she didn’t hear the noise of a man climbing over the adobe walls of her patio. There was a scrape, a rustle of leaves, then a soft
plop,
and when she turned with a gasp, her eyes widened.

A man was outlined against the white adobe wall laced with vines, his silhouette large and familiar.

“Hawk,” she whispered, and he reached her side in two graceful strides.

“Zack,” he muttered, glancing warily around the patio. He looked back at her, his gaze raking over her nightgown. “Nice. Do you wear that often?” She swallowed. “Every night.” He looked up at her face, and a faint smile curled his mouth. “Sounds inviting.”

“Where is your invitation for tonight?” she asked tightly, remembering her resolve to resist him.

“Right here.” He stepped forward before she could react and pulled her to him, crushing her lips beneath his. His mouth was hot, the invasion of his tongue swift and sensual, and she yielded. Deborah welcomed the penetration by opening wider for him, curling her tongue around his. She felt him tense, heard his muffled groan, then he pulled away.

“This is too crazy even for us,” he said softly, and moved to stand in the shadows. “Go put out the lamp in your room.” She trembled with indecision, and he must have sensed it. “I need to talk to you, Deborah.”

When the lamp was doused, she turned and felt him beside her, his arms moving around her in a warm, comforting embrace. His gunbelt pressed into her side, and he shifted.

“What are you doing here?” she murmured. “I mean, how did you get in?” His breath stirred the top of her hair. “It’s easy for a man who knows how. Don Francisco’s guards are not as vigilant as he thinks.” 

“Did you—”

“Kill them?” he finished when she hesitated. “No. It would attract too much attention.”

“Then what—?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he cut her off, his arms tightening around her waist as he lifted her up and against him. “I don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t want to waste what I do have.” Her heart was beating rapidly, and her breath came in short drags of air.

“You came to tell me something?”

“Yeah. You and your cousin need to go back home. Get out of here.”

“Go home?” Dazed as much by his proximity as by his words, Deborah shook her head. “We can’t.”

“You have to. It’s dangerous for you here. Go back to wherever it is you came from.” He gave her arm a quick shake. “You can do that, can’t you?”

“No, we can’t.” Her words stuck, and she had to force them out.

“My . . . my father doesn’t want us back.” There was a moment of tense silence, and she felt the muscles in his arms contract. “Damn.”

“Zack, what’s the matter? Why do you sound so worried?”

“Because I am. All hell’s going to break loose around here soon, and I want you where you can’t be hurt.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Maybe I should,” he said when she shivered. His hands stroked down her back, fingers spread wide, the heels of his palms massaging her. “You need to get your cousin and get away from here.”

“Just where do we go?” she drew back to demand. “I have no money of my own, just what Don Francisco has allotted. All my assets are on paper. My entire life is ruled by him.”

“And your cousin?”

“I have more than she does.” Zack swore softly beneath his breath, then shifted so that the moonlight fell across his face. “Would you let me take you somewhere for safety?”

“Back to your father’s village?”

“No. That’s more dangerous than here. Mackenzie has run them down pretty close.” He raked a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture, and moonlight streaming through the open patio door silvered his features with a softening glow.

When he said, “I’ll take you to my mother,” she gasped with surprise.

“Your
mother
?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know . . . I mean, I assumed she must be dead. You never mentioned her.”

His mouth twisted slightly. “We didn’t do much talking before you left.

My mother is alive, but I haven’t seen her since I was fourteen.” Deborah studied his face, the opaque eyes, the slash of his mouth, and the corded muscles in his throat. She felt his tension, and began to understand his feelings, if not the details.

“I see.”

His eyes flicked to her and paused. “There’s not time now, but I’ll explain later. Give me a day or two, and I’ll come back for you. Tell your cousin, and be ready.”

Deborah shook her head. “Judith won’t go.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not certain, but I know it has to do with our capture and you.

You’re part of it, whether you ever hurt her or not.”

“Then you’ll have to go alone.”

“I can’t leave Judith.”

“Dammit, Deborah,” he snarled, “I don’t intend to let you get hurt.”

“Zack, please—tell me what’s got you so concerned. I don’t understand.

And I can’t guard against shadows.” He led her to the wide bed, and sat her down on the mattress so that he could see her face. Hatless, in his black shirt, pants, and knee-high moccasins, he looked dark and forbidding in the shadows. Deborah couldn’t suppress another shiver.

Kneeling, he took her hands in his and looked up at her. “Don Francisco’s attorney may be smart in legal matters, but he’s made Diamond so damn mad he can’t see straight. He intends to use some pretty basic tactics, and I know Don Francisco will figure it out pretty quick. There will be some shooting before it’s over with.”

“And you? Are you still going to fight on Diamond’s side?”

“For right now. Look,” he said when she tried to jerk away, anger edging his voice, “I told you that it’s the only way I can keep current on what Diamond intends to do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when your bullets are flying.”

“Don’t,” he said sharply, the one word reminding her of how often he’d said the same thing in Comanche.
Keta.

He rose to his feet in a fluid motion that made her shrink away, and he saw her movement and frowned. “You can’t still be scared of me.”

“No,” she said, pride lifting her chin. “I just don’t know what your true intentions are. I don’t see or hear from you, and then you just show up here in the middle of the night like a thief, and tell me I have to leave. What am I supposed to think?”

“You’re supposed to have enough sense to know that if I showed up here in daylight, Don Francisco would tack my hide to a wall with bullets.”