Desert Dreams (8 page)

No water, no shelter. The road was her only chance.

She had to make it to the road. She squinted and shook her
head, but the dizziness persisted.

"Well, I'll just have to walk fast, that's all,"
she said aloud, gasping for breath. She ran her dry tongue over parched lips,
grimacing at the acrid taste of road dust.

"I'd rather die walking than sitting here waiting."
And with that, she struggled to her feet and headed south toward the road.

* * * * *

Rafe steered his horse off the road, following the path the
wagon had taken. He could tell by the tracks that the horses had bolted and
headed across country. A knot of dread formed in his gut and he tried not to
speculate what might have happened to the driver as he came across pieces of
debris: clothing, splintered wood. He remembered her courage in San Antonio,
the way she’d stood up to those rough teamsters on the street, and the thought
of finding her body twisted and broken because of a wagon spill was something
he refused to contemplate.

He dismounted at sight of a canteen. Picking it up, he shook
it and the water inside sloshed around. Wherever she was, she was out of water.
If she was alive, it wouldn't be for long.

Damn. It was beginning to look as if she might have survived
the wreck, but if she'd been out here without water for long, she was probably
sick or dead.

Something in the distance caught his eye as he started to
mount his horse: an abandoned wagon. He reeled from the images that sight
stirred in his mind: blank eyes staring at him, a sky full of buzzards....

He shook his head to clear it, his chest rising and falling
with the force of his ragged breathing.

This was Texas, not Mexico. The woman he sought now was a
stranger, a stranger who was stupid enough to strike out on her own.

He wiped the sweat from his face with his kerchief and swung
up in the saddle, sending his horse galloping toward the wreckage.

How she had managed to keep the wagon from rolling over and
crushing her, he couldn't imagine. Where could she have gone?

Dismounting again, he walked slowly around the wagon, looking
for signs that would tell him what he hoped for: that she had unhitched the
horses, mounted one, and ridden back toward the road. What he found made his
blood run cold.

The horses had taken off to the north. It was obvious from their
tracks that they were still harnessed together. Wherever the girl was, she was
on foot.

He surveyed the horizon in all directions, desperate to find
her. What if he was too late?

Too late.

The thought sent his mind catapulting backward through the
years, back to Mexico and another woman. He'd been too late then, too late and
too careless. He'd allowed himself to fall into a carefully laid trap. Since
that hideous day, he'd learned much about the wilderness, about survival, but
he hadn't learned to cope with the kind of gut-wrenching fear he felt right
now.

He forced his mind back to the present. It couldn't happen
again. He wouldn't let it. He'd find her if it was the last thing he did.

A set of small booted footprints that led away from the wagon
drew his attention. She'd been running, the idiotic woman. Damn. What was she
doing out here alone? She didn't even know enough not to expend that kind of
energy in this heat, where just standing still sapped a man of all his
strength.

He had gone to the hotel looking for her around noon, intent
on reasoning with her. She couldn't handle a job like this—taking a million
dollars in gold from Lucifer himself. He'd hoped to convince her with logic.
But when he'd described her to the hotel clerk, he'd been told she'd checked
out that morning.

She had no transportation, so the next logical stop in his
search had been the blacksmith’s shop where he’d met with grudging cooperation.
Seems the blacksmith was more concerned about her being out on the road alone
than he was with her being in the company of the likes of him.

“She’s heading for Eagle Pass,” the smithy had told him.
“That’s all I know.”

Rafe suspected he knew more than that, but he didn’t have
time to wrangle the information from the stubborn old man. He had what he
needed for the time being-enough information to track her down.

Even with all the delays he'd encountered, Rafe had been able
to set out a little past noon. If she'd started out mid-morning, as he
suspected, she would have reached this point about three hours ago. And three
hours was a long time to be in this heat without water.

He mounted again and followed the footprints. At least she'd
had the sense to head south toward the road. Maybe she'd been picked up by a
cotton caravan on its way to Eagle Pass. Maybe she'd crossed paths with outlaws
or
comancheros
.

Stop it!
He'd go mad if he didn't stop thinking about
the past. It was the heat, the emptiness, the buzzard circling slowly overhead
in the distance....

His heart froze in sudden realization. Driven by fear, he
spurred his horse into a gallop, heading straight toward the buzzard, dreading
what he might find when he reached whatever the carrion bird had in its sights.
He almost prayed, something he hadn't done since that other day so long ago.

She lay there beside a mesquite tree, so still, so quiet. He
leaped from his galloping horse and ran to her. She didn't react when he lifted
her head. Her face was beet red from a vicious sunburn.

A soft moan escaped her parched lips. He ran back to his
horse, and returned with a canteen.

"Ma'am, ma'am!" he called, lifting her head again.
"Do you hear me?"

She winced and groaned but didn't open her eyes. He held the
canteen to her lips and tilted it slightly.

"Drink," he commanded, gently but firmly.

She swallowed the liquid and wanted more, but her stomach
couldn't take it. Her eyes opened. When she looked up at him, he recognized the
signs of dehydration in her dull, cloudy pupils. She wouldn't have lasted much
longer.

"Papa," she murmured. "Papa, why didn't you
come?"

Picking her up, he carried her to his horse. He managed to
mount with her in his arms and turned his horse to the west, hoping the water
hole he had seen on his last trip through this way was still drinkable. At
least there would be shade and a good place to set up camp.

"I thought you weren't coming, Papa," she murmured
against his chest. He resisted the urge to comfort her, to smooth the damp hair
from her face and soothe the crease of pain on her forehead.

"Please don't ever leave me like that again," she
pleaded in a childish voice. "I'll be good, I promise."

Nudging his horse into a walk, he held her closer against
him. He told himself it was to keep her from falling, but something in her
helplessness and her determination touched a part of his heart he'd thought
long dead.

Swallowing convulsively, he tried to remember that she was a
complication and nothing more.

* * * * *

The sun had been down an hour before the girl stirred, sat
up, and looked around in confusion. Rafe said nothing, just continued stirring
the beans in the pot over the fire. Her eyes bore a hole in him. She didn't
seem exactly happy to wake up and find she'd been rescued by him. He couldn't
say he blamed her, but still it annoyed him. He could have left her there to
die on the side of the road. He could have done a lot worse.

He ladled a plateful of beans and took them to her with long,
impatient strides.

"It was me or the buzzard," he told her.
"Sometimes you have to take what you can get."

She sat where he'd propped her against his saddle, her hair
in disarray around her shoulders, her clothes covered with a thin coat of Texas
dust. She gazed up at him and the plate he held out to her without
comprehension.

"Maybe you would have preferred the buzzard," he
said. At least she was alive. Now she was about to tell him everything he
wanted to know about Luis Demas and a million dollars in gold, whether she knew
it or not.

Finally she moved, dropping her gaze to the plate he pushed
toward her, crossing her arms over her chest, and turning away.

For a long moment, he studied her delicate profile, her soft
skin marred by the ravages of the sun. Her arms folded beneath her breasts
caused her chemise to gape open, drawing his gaze to the hint of creamy white
flesh beneath. He swallowed hard and used annoyance to control his body's
reaction.

"Here, eat this." He held the plate of beans out to
her again, but she continued to ignore him. "This might not be up to your
usual standards, but you have got to eat something. If you refuse, I'll have to
feed you myself."

She jerked her head around, glaring at him. When her first
attempt at speech yielded nothing but a hoarse croaking sound, she cleared her
throat and tried again. "You wouldn't."

"Do you really want to find out?"

She still refused to take the plate. "What are you doing
here?"

He held out the plate silently, determined not to speak until
she took it. Finally, she accepted the food with an angry sigh.

"You're welcome." He walked across the small camp and
taking the bean pot from the fire, sat across from her, using the wooden
stirring spoon to eat directly from the pot.

"You've been following me since San Antonio," she
said.

Rafe blew on a spoonful of beans to cool it and watched her
as he ate. The warm glow of the fire reflected in her eyes and seemed to set
her pale silver-blonde curls ablaze. Even in the dark, he could see the redness
of her skin. She would suffer in the morning.

"It's a good thing for you I
was
following you," he finally replied. "You know, in some
countries if someone saves your life, you become their slave forever."

"Why are you following me?"

His gaze slid down her neck to her breasts beneath the stark
white fabric of her chemise. He'd removed the ridiculous coat and large man’s shirt
she’d been wearing so she could get air. He'd even mopped her heated face and
chest with his wet kerchief. The chemise was still damp and clung to her in a
way that made his blood grow warm.

Even if there hadn't been a million dollars in gold and El
Alacran's
scalp to consider, she would have been worth
chasing into the wilderness. Whether he would have done so or not was another
matter, but there were a lot of reasons why a man would pursue a woman like
her.

"Eat," he ordered again, returning his attention to
his own dinner, struggling to forget the glimpse of her inviting skin, the
firmness of the flesh beneath her gaping bodice. "We'll fight later."

"I'd rather fight now."

He looked at her across the fire once again, and once again
his eyes dropped to the damp material stretched across her breasts. She pulled
the blanket he'd wrapped around her closer together in front. When his gaze
lifted to hers, she met it squarely.

"I couldn't take advantage of your condition like that,
ma'am," he said. "You're far too weak to put up a good fight. Now
eat."

"I want to know why. What are your intentions?"

Ignoring her, he took another bite of beans. She was
regaining her strength. Maybe she'd be able to travel in the morning after all.

For a while there he hadn't been sure. She'd been pretty far
gone when he'd found her that afternoon, but he'd managed to get enough water
down her so that the suppleness had returned to her skin. Now she was strong
enough to wage a verbal battle with him.

Did she have any idea how lucky she was? She was still
glaring at him, waiting for him to respond to her challenge, but he wasn't
going to speak another word until she started eating. She knew it, too.
Finally, she gave up and began digging the spoon into the beans and shoving
them into her mouth.

"Are you always so stubborn?" he asked with an
involuntary grin.

"Yes."

"Well, it almost got you killed this time. What the hell
were you thinking, setting out alone like that?"

She took another bite of beans and swallowed them before
answering. "I've got to get to Eagle Pass."

"Why?"

"My mother is sick," she murmured, refusing to meet
his gaze.

He grinned at her crookedly. "The first rule of lying is
that the lie has to be at least halfway believable."

She threw her plate down with a loud, angry crash. "You
don't have to tell me about lying. I've been lied to by the best of them."

"Have you now?" Her voice was becoming more and
more shrill. He hoped she wasn't going to get hysterical.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Patronizing. Like you think I've never had a problem
greater than a—a torn stocking"

"I know, you've been through a war. You're a seasoned
veteran, aren't you?"