The Promise of Jenny Jones (23 page)

"Well, thank God they didn't get the job done. It sounds like they tried, the bastards. Did you hear what she said? The sons of bitches turned snakes loose on her. Snakes!"

"Jenny, my niece said 'fricking.'" He stared at her, then cast a meaningful glance at Graciela's heaving back.

"Graciela, you've got to stop crying now." Jenny tried to peel the kid off her chest. "You got my bad arm caught between us, and it's hurting like hell."

Reluctantly, Graciela released her grip and edged backward a step. She cast anxious glances between Jenny and Ty. "Are they all dead?"

"Those men aren't going to hurt you ever again," Ty said gently. Kneeling, he sat back on his heels and studied the kid's face. "Are you all right?"

This time the kid flung herself on the cowboy's neck and burst into fresh sobs, interspersed with an incoherent story involving snakes as long and thick as a fence rail. Ty looked as surprised as Jenny had when Graciela had jumped into her arms, then he did the same thing she had done. He held Graciela's sobbing body, awkwardly patted her back, and murmured soothing sounds deep in his throat.

"I was so scared of the fricking snakes! One of them tried to crawl up my leg, and—"

"Honey, wait. Listen a minute." Ty eased her away from his shoulder so he could gaze into her eyes. "Nice little ladies don't say words like fricking."

So that's what he was irked about. Pulling to her feet, Jenny knocked the dust off her hat,then settled it on her head.

Graciela looked at Ty, then at Jenny. "Jenny says fricking all the time."

Now they both looked at her. Jenny glared back.

"You know your mama wouldn't want you to say words like that," Ty said. Lifting a hand, he tucked a strand of loose hair behind Graciela's ear. "And I know your father and your grandma Ellen sure wouldn't want to hear a pretty young lady cuss and say bad words." He paused and sent Jenny a scathing stare. "I'll bet Jenny doesn't want you to say fricking either."

Sucking in her cheeks, Jenny tilted her head and gazed up at the sky. The stars were fading, but not Marguarita's star. Marguarita's star was always the last to go. A cold, steady beam glared down at her.

Okay, Marguarita , Jenny thought, so she's starting to talk like me. What did you expect? You knew I wasn't any fancy-talking bluestocking when you chose me. Mule skinners are famous for cussing; it goes with the job. This isn't my fault.

Yes it was. Marguarita knew it. She knew it too.

"Jenny?" Ty called to her in a voice stiff with righteous indignation. He had her pinned in a corner. No way was he going to let her squirm out of this.

Jenny lowered a scowl to the kid. "He's right. Don't say fricking anymore. Next time I hear you cuss, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap. You hear me?"

Graciela's chin lifted, and her eyes flashed blue-green outrage. "That's not fair. You say it."

Ty grinned, watching her shift her weight from boot to boot.

Red dots flamed on her cheeks, and she kicked dirt at the embers in the Mexicans' campfire. She narrowed her eyes to slits and hissed at Ty. "You think you're so superior and self-righteous. Well take a look around you, cowboy." She flung out her good arm. "We got two dead cousins here. Are you worried about your precious niece looking at two dead and bloody bodies? No, you're all worked up like some prissy preacher because she used a cussword. Maybe your frick—" She slid a frown toward the triumph spreading over Graciela's smug expression. "Maybe your stupid priorities aren't where they should be. Even I know kids shouldn't be sharing a campfire with two dead bodies."

She had him there, all right. One look at the color in his face told her so. He came to his feet like a shot and spun Graciela so she faced away from the dead cousin in the bedroll.

"All right. This isn't the best situation. But listen and hear me good. You are never in your life going to find a man less like a prissy preacher," he snarled. "If my niece wasn't here, I'd show you the kind of man you're dealing with."

The smoldering stare he swept over her body shot a hot shiver straight to Jenny's toes. My God, he was a fabulous man. As hard as a railroad spike. She couldn't believe that a man like this had developed a hankering for her.

Almost dizzy with pleasure, she swaggered toward Graciela and clasped her arm. "Time to go, kid. Let's ride."

The kid gazed up at her with teary, reddened eyes, and Jenny guessed she hadn't slept more than an hour since the cousins snatched her. "Are we going to bury Jorje and Tito?"

Jenny considered. "You think we should?"

"Hell no," Ty snarled.

"I didn't ask you." She looked down at Graciela. "It's your call. But before you decide, I have two words to say. Snakes. Choking."

Ty strode forward. "You can't ask a child to make that kind of decision. It's too much responsibility."

"No it isn't." She tapped a finger on top of the kid's head. "What's it going to be?"

Graciela lifted her chin, squared her little shoulders, and walked toward the horses.

"Wrong horses," Jenny called. "Ours are over there." Graciela spun and marched back toward her. As she passed, Jenny gave her shoulder an approving pat. "Good choice."

"You say fricking." Graciela glared,then continued toward the horses.

Jenny frowned. This was going to be a problem. Glancing up at the pale sky, she imagined she spotted Marguarita's star still gazing down at her. If it was possible for a star to look pissed, this star did.

All right. I've lost the kid a couple of times. I'm sorry about that. But I've got her back, haven't I? She narrowed her eyes on the sky and thrust out her chin. Now, about this cussing. I am what I am. You can't expect me to change my ways just to please a kid. Hell, you must have said fricking a time ortwo, didn't you?

She couldn't imagine it. No cussword had ever tainted Marguarita's lovely ladylike lips. And Marguarita would have dropped into a swoon at the sound of a cussword scorching her small daughter's tongue.

A heavy sigh whistled up from deep in Jenny's chest, and she smacked a fist against her thigh. She just hated being responsible for a kid. It changed everything. And problems kept popping up like dogs in aprairie village.

When she reached the horses, Ty had already mounted, holding Graciela on the saddle in front of him. "If we set a good pace, we'll reach the railroad in time to flag down the next northbound."

"And if we miss it?" she asked sourly, shading her eyes against the glare of dawn.

He shrugged. "Then we hole up in the nearest village and catch the morning train."

"Someone back in that village will have let Luis and Chulo know that the dead cousins snatched the kid."

"Possibly. But they won't know that we have her back."

He was right again. She hated that too.

* * *

If they'd been traveling without a child, they would have reached the railroad tracks with time to spare before the northbound came whistling through. But Graciela slowed their pace.

When it became obvious they had missed the train, Ty dropped back beside Jenny's mare. He tilted his hat brim toward a smoky haze rising in the distance. "Must be a village up there. I say we find a place for the night. Agreed?"

Her gaze fixed on Graciela's flushed face, and she nodded. "The kid could use a bath, a decent meal, and a good night's sleep."

"So could I," he said, flexing his shoulder muscles. He and Graciela were pasted together by sweat. He was mildly surprised by how fatiguing it was to ride for hours with her leaning against his chest. "How are you feeling?" he asked her.

"Sad," his niece answered in a small voice.

He didn't know what to say to that. Adults were not as frank about expressing feelings as he'd discovered his niece was. Pulling his scarf off his neck, he wiped perspiration and dust from his face, searching for a comment.

"I'm sorry you're sad," he said finally. When that didn't seem adequate, he added, "I can see how you would be." People she'd trusted and loved were dying all around her.

"Uncle Ty?" she asked in that same small voice. "Do you love me?" Shifting on the saddle, she turned huge blue-green eyes to study his face.

"Well," he said uncomfortably, staring into a sober gaze so like his own. Frantically, he searched his conscience, weighing truth against a glib equivocation. When he cut a glance toward Jenny, she was watching with a smirk on her lips.

In the end, there was only one possible answer. Any other reply would have been unnecessarily cruel.

"Yes, I do," he said, the words sticking to the roof of his mouth. This was the answer Robert would have wanted.

"Could you say it?" she asked after a hesitation, tears brimming between her lashes.

Oh God. He drew a breath, ground his teeth together,then mumbled, "I love you." If Jenny uttered one word, made a single choking noise, he'd kick her off her horse and ride off without her. When he shot a scowl in her direction, she was gazing straight ahead, sucking in her cheeks. But she wasn't laughing, and she didn't make a sound.

"I love you, too, Uncle Ty." Graciela kissed his jaw,then nestled back against his chest.

His grip tightened on the reins and he stared at a point in space, trying to figure out what had just happened.

He wasn't a man who frequented places where children were likely to be. Consequently, his exposure to children had been severely limited, and that's how he'd preferred it. When he did encounter children, he generally ignored them, irritated by the noise they made, their interruptions, the difficulty of trying to converse with undeveloped minds.

Therefore, he was totally unprepared for the unaccustomed emotions aroused by one trusting declaration and one innocent kiss.

Frowning, he reminded himself that Graciela Sanders was half-Barrancas. She was the living proof of his brother's folly, his brother's lack of judgment. A mistake. Ty's original plan had been to fetch Marguarita and her child, deposit them on Robert's doorstep, and from that moment encounter them only at a distance and at infrequent family gatherings. He had been unable to imagine any circumstance under which he would willingly share the same roomwith a Barrancas.

Suddenly he could.

And that was disturbing. He couldn't sort out how he felt about this abrupt and mystifying change. When he became aware that Jenny had spoken, he blinked and turned his head. "Are you talking to me?" He thought she'd muttered something that sounded like "ungrateful snot," but that didn't make sense, so he must have heard wrong.

"I said let me do the talking. You're such a rude bastard that if you inquire about a room, we'll spend the night sleeping in cactus spines."

He gave her a tight-lipped smile, recalled his wooing campaign,then replied in English rather than Spanish. "I'll leave the arrangements in your capable hands, darlin'. No one could resist your dulcet charm."

Out came her dictionary and the rifling of pages. And then a suspicious frown. "Do you mean to say dulcet or was that a mistake?"

"Honey, you're the sweetest thing this side of theRio Grande." A grin twitched his lips, and he felt better. Mrs. McGowan's advice had been smack on target. If nothing else, he'd just knocked Miss Jenny Jones off-balance and left her reeling with the confusion he read in her eyes.

She checked the dictionary entry again,then shoved it back into her pocket. Her face flickered through a half dozen emotions as she struggled to glue the word dulcet on herself. Ty almost laughed, guessing that she didn't find the fit too comfortable.

Graciela shifted against his chest. "Jenny is not sweet and she is not charming."

"You speak English?" he asked, blinking at the top of her head.

"My mama taught me," she said proudly. "So I would be ready when my papa came for us."

"What a smart little girl you are."

"Yes I am."

"Smart enough to recognize horsesh—" Jenny paused and swallowed. "To recognize nonsense when she hears it. Dulcet, my butt." Touching her heels to the mare's flanks, she galloped away from them, leaving Ty and Graciela to eat the dust kicked up by her horse's hooves.

By the time Ty's gelding walked into the sun-baked little village, Jenny's horse was tied in front of a sod-roofed shack, and she'd already arranged for food and a washtub.

As he dismounted and lifted Graciela to the ground, he examined a few of the brown faces drawn by curiosity to watch him. He couldn't visualize any of them offering a room if he'd been the one asking.

"Buenos tardes," he said, forcing his lips into a curve.

A chorus of smiles and greetings returned his salutation.

Son of a bitch. Maybe Jenny was right. Maybe he was a rude bastard. On the other hand, it was also possible that these people didn't deserve his courtesy. Very likely someone from this village was already riding toward Verde Flores to inform Luis and Chulo that a gringo couple had ridden in with a Mexican child.

Jenny was unpacking her saddlebags when he and Graciela entered the one-room shack. The furnishings were primitive but included three hammocks, a rough-hewn table, and several stools. Privacy and shelter from the sun improved Ty's spirits immediately.

"Senor Armijo is going to hang a red rag on the pole near the tracks. The morning train will stop when the engineer sees the signal. That's taken care of." Jenny's gaze dropped to Graciela. "We'll have bathwater in a few minutes and something to eat. Afterward, you need to rest and get some sleep."

"It's still light out. It isn't even night yet."

"A few days ago you were sick enough that I wondered if you were going to make it. And you look like you haven't slept since then. You can hardly keep your eyes open. You need some sleep."

As far as Jenny was concerned, the matter was settled even though Graciela stamped her feet and continued to argue. Jenny ignored her.

"It would help if you'd see to the horses," she said to Ty. "So do it."

Dropping his saddlebags next to hers, he narrowed his eyes. "Let's get something straight right here, right now. You want something from me, you ask. You don't order."

Flipping back the hem of her poncho, she placed her hands on her hips and leaned forward. Her lips pulled back from her teeth. "It would be fricking dulcet of you if you'd condescend to unsaddle our horses, water and feed them. Would you please turn your butt around and go do it?"