Frontier Woman (12 page)

She only had to wait out the performances of three more vaqueros and a half-breed Comanche to see whether she had won. Two of the vaqueros were quickly dumped by their mustangs. The third stayed aboard, but barely, leaving only the half-breed Comanche as any competition. Cricket tensed as she awaited this last ride. She was sure that so far she was winning. Creed would soon see she was not a competitor to be sneered at. She chanced a glance at the Ranger, and he smiled sardonically. She quickly looked back at the arena, appalled to be caught looking at him.

The vaqueros hadn’t welcomed the breed’s company, so he’d stood at the edge of the corral, near Creed. When his turn came, the half-breed glided out to the center of the arena and spoke into the horse’s ear before throwing himself onto the animal’s back in a single fluid move.

Cricket had never seen a more graceful man. Once on the bronc, the half-breed seemed molded to the animal. His sinewy strength was evident in the easy curve of his body as the animal plunged and pitched in an effort to rid itself of its burden. Cricket watched in horror as the mustang reared over backward, attempting to crush the Indian. But when the mustang clambered to its feet, the half-breed slipped onto its back, and stayed there through sunfish and crowhop. When the beast tried to scrape the Comanche off by skimming the edge of the corral, the Comanche simply lifted his leg over the horse’s withers, then righted his balance for the stiff-legged leap that followed that vicious move.

When the death-dealing animal tried for the third time to savagely unseat its rider, Cricket realized the vaqueros had put the half-breed on an outlaw, fully expecting the Indian to be maimed or killed. But the half-breed Comanche was not to be denied. He rode the wild-eyed bronc to a standstill. When the brutish animal stood head down, defeated, at the end of the ride, the Comanche slipped off its back and waited patiently for the decision from the three Mexican judges.

Cricket knew the half-breed had beaten her. It was crushing to think she’d come so close and then lost. She glanced at Creed, who watched the half-breed with the hint of a smile on his face. She hated Creed for gloating. Her ride had been damn good. She couldn’t help it if the half-breed had been better. Cricket turned bitterly toward the judges, waiting for the winners to be announced. They announced the third-prize winner first, and Cricket’s head snapped around in surprise as the half-breed Comanche strolled forward to receive his purse. Second prize went to Juan Carlos’s head vaquero.

Cricket should have been glad when she heard her name announced as winner of the first-prize purse, because she had wanted to win today more than ever before. But although she’d been given the prize, she knew she hadn’t been the best. So she accepted the winner’s purse and stalked right past Creed, not stopping until she stood before the half-breed Comanche.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Long Quiet.”

She handed the purse to the half-breed. “This belongs to you.”

The corners of his mouth tipped in a smile, but quickly straightened again. “Judges not say I win.”

“The judges were wrong. Your ride was the best, and you should have won.”

The Indian gave her back the purse. “Not take prize from woman. Keep money. Give to your man.” The Indian pointed behind Cricket, and she turned to find Creed standing there.

“Not take it from a . . . ?
My man!
” Cricket sputtered. “Of all the ungrateful—”

“That’s enough, Cricket. A man has his pride,” Creed said.

Cricket turned the heat of her pent-up anger and confusion on Creed. “All I’m trying to do is make things right. I wasn’t the best, he was. He should take the prize.” She turned back around, only to find the half-breed had disappeared.

“He’s gone. At least I proved to you that I could ride,” she muttered.

“Now I suppose you’ll prove you can drink up your winnings like the other vaqueros.”

Cricket’s head snapped up at Creed’s taunt. “I would if I felt like it.”

“Over my dead body,” he dared.

Cricket never could resist a dare.

“Watch me!” She shoved him aside and marched toward the cantina.

“I think I can find better things to do with my time,” he called after her. Creed watched her go in mounting frustration. He couldn’t believe he’d just spent the length of her ride on the mustang worrying about her. She was as unpredictable, as mulish, as infuriating as the day he’d met her, and he didn’t see any hope that she was going to change anytime soon. But, God, he had to admire the way she’d broken that Roman-nosed dun.

Creed pursed his lips thoughtfully. If he wasn’t careful his admiration for her was going to get out of hand. No brat in buckskins was going to get under his skin. He approached the sloe-eyed Mexican girl who’d been sending unspoken invitations all afternoon, and when she smiled coyly at him, he pulled her into the shelter of his arm. Then he followed Cricket to the cantina.

Cricket heard the woman giggle behind her but refused to look. However, before she reached the cantina, Creed passed her with a full-bosomed
chica
, dressed in a ruffled peasant blouse and skirt, tucked under his arm. He whispered something in the girl’s ear that made her giggle again. They disappeared beyond the swinging cantina door ahead of Cricket, who’d stopped outside trying to sort through the jumbled emotions running riot through her.

How had she let herself get talked into drinking at the cantina? She only drank for one reason, at one time during the month, and that time was thankfully over for a while. Still, she didn’t want Creed to think he’d won his point. And she certainly wasn’t going to turn tail and run just because he was inside with some sloe-eyed Mexican girl. She was made of sterner stuff. Jarrett Creed could flatten his lips in disapproval all he wanted. It wasn’t going to bother her. And he sure as shooting wasn’t going to tell her what to do.

Cricket straightened her shoulders and shoved her way through the cantina door.

Chapter 8

THE TWO BROTHERS STOOD IN THE SHADOWS OF the moonlit veranda, their heads bent toward one another as though to share quiet words. In the distance, a lone guitarist strummed a melancholy melody, a halting refrain unlike the crisp, lively tunes of the strolling violinists who’d entertained at the
fandango
earlier in the day. Cruz reached out to place a hand on Tonio’s shoulder, but it was jerked out of his reach. The physical hostility evidenced by that withdrawal was echoed in the harsh words that followed.

“I’ll see the girl if I like. It’s none of your business!”

“Tonio, you know there’s no hope of a marriage between you and Sloan Stewart. Even if Señor Stewart would allow it, she’s totally unacceptable to Mamá. It can only lead to hurt for both you and the girl if you continue to meet with her,” Cruz warned.

“She loves me, you know.”

“How can she love you when you hate her family?”

“We don’t talk about her family.” Tonio smirked as he added, “We’re too busy doing other things with our mouths.”

Cruz breathed deeply to curb the curt response on his tongue.

“She’ll do anything for me,” Tonio boasted, “and I’ve asked for quite a lot. She’s learned much about how to please me. . . .”

Cruz felt a growing irritation at his brother’s remarks. The young man defamed a beautiful woman who loved him. He treated her love casually and derided her willingness to please him in all things. Cruz wondered at his desire to protect the young lady he’d met for the first time today. He slowly but surely gathered in his protective feelings like a struggling calf at the end of a
reata
. Obviously, Sloan Stewart knew what she was doing. Rip’s daughters were notorious even in the Spanish community for their cold-blooded self-sufficiency. Oh, yes. His concern was definitely wasted on the dark-haired woman with the huge brown eyes.

“If she’s accommodating, that’s all the more reason not to cause trouble for her,” Cruz said, venting his irritation. “Be careful who you antagonize. Rip Stewart would be a formidable enemy. And be discreet. There will be other eyes watching than mine. Today I asked the Texas Ranger Jarrett Creed to help us find out who’s inciting these raids.”

Tonio spat his distaste on the ground. “Why did you do that? We don’t need that
Diablo Tejano
to fight our battles for us.”

“Does that mean your own search has borne fruit at last? Have you discovered the source of our troubles?” Cruz demanded. “Tell me the raids will stop, and I’ll call off the Ranger.”

Even though his pride stung at Cruz’s censure, Tonio held his tongue. There were more necks than his own to be hung in a noose if the wrong ears heard what he could tell. He reminded himself that Cruz would thank him when it was all over and the Guerrero family held positions of power in Texas. Soon they would no longer need to bow their heads to the Anglo-Texans who ruled them now. Still, he chafed under his brother’s criticism.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset about those raids,” Tonio replied petulantly.

“Those bandidos are killing people and stealing stock.”

“We’ve lost only a few horses. Otherwise, they haven’t bothered us, only a few mixed-breed mestizos and some of those two-faced Mexican jackals who fought on the side of the Texans at San Jacinto.”

Cruz shook his head in disbelief. His younger brother’s narrow vision distressed him. When would Tonio learn that whatever hurt the growing Texas community hurt them, as well? He saw the delicate hand of his mamá in Tonio’s warped view of what the future promised. Lucia Guerrero wasn’t willing to admit that the hope for a return to the royal Spanish reign in Texas was over and done.

Cruz had spent too much time fighting alongside Texans against General Santa Anna to hold any illusions about their possessive attitude toward Texas. He was all too painfully aware that he faced a new world with new masters. The Spanish who owned land in Texas would either have to learn to live beside the Texans, or be trodden down by the Rip Stewarts who would gladly march over them, waving the Texas flag in their muddy faces.

“You will cooperate with the Ranger,” Cruz said. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from the Stewart girl.”

“I hear you,
mi hermano mayor
. I even understand you,” Tonio added. “But I am afraid, big brother, I cannot obey you.”

“Why not?”

“I would not piss on a
Diablo Tejano
to save him if he were on fire.” Tonio paused and smiled. “And I want the girl. To take such a woman makes me feel . . . powerful.”

Tonio sauntered away toward the front door of the hacienda, leaving Cruz alone to finish smoking his cheroot, the red tip glowing in the darkness.

Jarrett Creed slipped away unnoticed from the dark shadows at the side of the house. Attending Juan Carlos’s
fandango
had proved to be most informative, despite the fact he hadn’t caught Sloan Stewart and Antonio Guerrero alone together. In fact, the only time Creed actually saw them in the same place at the same time, other than in the receiving line, was when Antonio helped Sloan into her carriage and sent her on her way home.

Creed had construed Antonio’s gesture merely as the courtesy of a host, but after the conversation he’d just overheard, he knew it probably had been far more than that. The intimate relationship between Sloan and Antonio gave Creed the missing piece of the puzzle as to
why
Rip Stewart’s daughter might be involved with the rebels. Antonio’s comment— “She’ll do anything for me”—bothered Creed. Had Sloan even been willing to betray her country?

Creed headed for the cantina, wondering if Cricket would still be there. She’d toasted him with a smile on her face when he’d left earlier with the sloe-eyed Mexican girl. She was probably drunk as a skunk by now, and heaven only knew what trouble she’d caused at the cantina. He’d hoped Rip might take her home but had seen him leave without Cricket shortly after the dancing had begun in earnest. Sloan’s departure had come several hours later, but Cricket hadn’t been with her, either.

Creed had his answer when he reached the end of the street where the cantina was located. Cricket’s pinto stallion, which had been tied to the back of the black carriage on the trip to the Guerrero hacienda, stood tied now to the hitching rail in front of the drinking establishment. As he stood watching, Cricket staggered from the cantina. She was apparently so drunk that the two Mexicans with her had to hold her upright.

“Damn it, Brava. That’s the most stubborn woman I ever met. Where does she think she’s going now?”

Creed set out for the cantina as fast as his legs could carry him.

Cricket hadn’t spent the evening thinking much at all. She’d passed far beyond that rational state and was very close to a drunken stupor. In the past, the only times she’d ever been drunk she’d also been in pain. Right now she felt different. Almost . . . euphoric. She’d enjoyed playing monte, which the vaqueros preferred to poker. In the past hour she’d won about half of the second-prize purse from Juan Carlos’s head vaquero, whose name, she’d discovered, was Enrique Vasquez. “But call me Riqui,” he’d said. She’d won even more from the other three players at the table.

“Aiiii, señorita, you win again,” Riqui cried, his mouth turned downward as Cricket revealed her cards.

Cricket gave the leather-faced vaquero a cheery smile. She’d compared him to the only men she knew well—her father’s slaves. His dark, kind eyes and polite deference throughout the evening had reminded her of Jim, while his bushy brows and constant smile were very like those on August. But his narrow black mustache was unique. It made him look like a bandido, and maybe that hint of danger was what appealed so much to her. He probably wasn’t much older than Jarrett Creed, but the Texas wilderness had suffered his presence less kindly. Cricket thought him a very nice person and would have liked to get to know him better.

She had no such pleasant associations for the other three men at the table. Paco worked for the Guerreros, but his face and his behavior both reflected the hard life he’d lived. His visage was seamed in lines of fatigue, and he was curt and unfriendly almost to the point of surliness. Oscar and Clemencio worked together, but Cricket didn’t know exactly what kind of work they did. If she hadn’t been so drunk, she might have wondered more about the anomaly of their fine clothes and fresh young faces in this poor, hardworking village. They’d gotten progressively less friendly as they lost to her at monte, but they didn’t cheat, so she had little cause for complaint.

Suddenly, the room began to spin, and Cricket placed her elbows firmly on the table to keep her balance. She waited for the dizziness to pass, but it persisted. Cricket gave in gracefully to the alcoholic oblivion that threatened. This she understood. It dawned on her, abruptly, that she wasn’t at Three Oaks. She couldn’t give in to the weariness that pulled at her. She had to get herself home first. Bother!

“Are you going to deal, señorita, or sit and look at the cards?”

Clemencio’s irritated voice pierced Cricket’s veil of insensibility. “I’m passing the deal to Riqui. I’m going home.”

“You can’t leave now. You’ve got a pile of my money in front of you,” Clemencio protested.

“I’m done for tonight. Maybe next time.”

Cricket rose unsteadily, missing the look that passed between Oscar and Clemencio. She made it all the way to the door of the cantina before she felt a presence behind her. She stiffened. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but a premonition of danger that made her pause. She glanced over her shoulder, then smiled with delighted surprise.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Riqui Vasquez returned Cricket’s bright smile, his crooked teeth suddenly appearing below the bushy mustache.

“
Sí
, señorita. I thought perhaps you needed an escort home.”

Cricket let her relief out in a small chuckle. How silly for her to think there was any danger for her in this tiny Mexican village. After all, she was Rip Stewart’s daughter. That title alone guaranteed her safety. Not that she needed any help.

“Thank you, señor, but my horse knows the way home. I’ll be fine.”

By now, they had exited the cantina and stood in the moonlight near the hitching rail. Cricket tucked her winnings into her saddlebag, but the vaquero put a hand on her arm before she could untie Valor. Cricket stared for a moment in disbelief at the dark brown hand with its blunt, dirty nails. The touch was a breach of etiquette the vaquero would never have considered were she a proper plantation owner’s daughter. Of course, she admitted, no lady she knew would spend the evening playing monte in a cantina.

The hand tightened until Riqui had a firm hold on her arm. When he began to pull her toward the alley next to the cantina, Cricket was too surprised to resist, and too disappointed. She’d liked Riqui so well. He’d seemed like such a nice man, and might have made a good friend. Well, she shouldn’t have any problem putting him in his place. Thanks to Jarrett Creed, she’d had some recent practice in curbing the unwanted advances of an aggressive male.

What Cricket hadn’t anticipated was the total lack of coordination she possessed as a result of the whiskey she’d drunk. Whenever she’d imbibed in the past, she’d been safe at home. So when she reached for her knife to end her evening with Riqui, he was there ahead of her. When she attacked with her knee, he turned aside, and she hit only the hard muscles of his thigh. It never occurred to Cricket to scream. She took care of herself. She didn’t need help from anybody.

By now, the vaquero held her shoulders in both hands and had pressed her back against the adobe wall of the cantina, using his body weight to hold her still. She could smell the liquor on his breath and realized he must be more drunk than he’d appeared to be.

“Don’t fight me,
chiquita
,” he purred. “I’ll make you feel good.”

But it wasn’t in Cricket’s nature to give up. She lifted her moccasined foot and came down hard on the vaquero’s little toe.

Riqui’s yelp was followed quickly by an angry curse. “
Puta!
You’ll pay for that!” He slammed Cricket hard against the adobe wall, knocking the breath from her, and very nearly making her lose consciousness.

Riqui’s once-kind eyes glittered with malicious intent. The facade had disappeared, and what she faced was a hard man who looked every bit as mean as his bandido mustache. Deep in her drunken depths, Cricket shuddered with something very like fear. She wished Jarrett Creed were here to help her.

In the next instant, it appeared her prayer had been answered, for Riqui Vasquez sank like a stone before her, as though he’d been clubbed. As indeed he had, but not by Jarrett Creed.

“We meet again, señorita.”

Cricket blinked twice, but Oscar and Clemencio were still there. She hadn’t imagined them.

“Th . . . thank you for rescuing me,” she stuttered.

“Our pleasure,” Oscar said. “And now, señorita, we’ll take the money you won tonight, and whatever else you might have to give.”

The greater meaning of Oscar’s speech was not lost on Cricket. She had, it appeared, been ushered out of the frying pan and into the fire. Two against one was not her idea of fair play, and she was ready to accept reinforcements, but there were none to be had in the dark alley. “I put the money in my saddlebag. My horse is tied up in front of the cantina.”