The Outlaw and the Lady (9 page)

A
ngela ran her swollen tongue over her cracked lips. The unmerciful sun beat down with a vengeance. She was grateful for the shade Lee’s hat provided. They seldom galloped now, but simply plodded along over unforgiving terrain. She had lost count of the number of days and nights they’d been together. She had to focus all her effort on remaining in the saddle when she desperately wanted to lie down on the ground and sleep until she was an old woman.

He shoved the canteen into her hands.

“Drink. Once. Hold the water in your mouth for a while before swallowing,” he ordered in a voice that sounded like sand brushed over rocks.

She welcomed the drops of moisture coating her tongue, knowing she didn’t have the luxury of coating her lips. She handed the canteen back
to him and heard him put it away. She swallowed. “I didn’t hear you drink.”

“I’m not thirsty,” he rasped.

“Lee, you have to drink some water.”

“It is not a hard thing to do without when you have grown accustomed to it,” he said.

“I’m very sorry.”

With his palm, he tenderly cupped her cheek. “I have told you before, you have nothing to apologize for. You are courageous,
querida.
You make me wish…”

“What do you wish?”

“For things that can never be. If I do not see the riders today, tomorrow we’ll head home and toward fresh water.”

Home. His home, not hers, although now she had absolutely no fear. She knew as surely as she knew the moment twilight arrived that he would return her to her family.

He was not a soft man, yet he gave her moments of softness. She sensed he’d been shaped more by the one night he’d watched the murder of his family than all the years that had come before. What would his life be like now if no one had killed those he loved? She had a thousand questions to ask him, and a throat that hurt with each word spoken. The time would come, soon, when she would gain the answers she sought.

A lightning bolt quickly zigzagged across the midnight sky. A slow smile eased over Lee’s face as some of the tension that had been mounting for days left him. Thunder resounded.

“We’re in luck,
querida
. A storm.”

“I can smell the rain.”

“It will be here soon.”

He urged his horse into a gallop. With any luck, he could cover some distance before the first raindrop fell, and the drops that followed would wash away his passing.

Because he had grown accustomed to being with Angela he had a difficult time imagining riding alone. He knew a time would come when again he would, but he did not welcome it. He wondered about the men who had passed through her life. Although she claimed to have no one waiting for her, surely many men had courted her.

A raindrop splattered on his thigh. Another hit his hand. Lightning burst through the blackened clouds, thunder boomed, and a torrential rain deluged them. Lee slowed the horse to a walk, swept his hat from his head, and removed hers. “Enjoy the rain,
querida
.”

She tilted her face up, her head nestled within the crook of his shoulder as though it had been specifically created with her in mind. It amazed him whenever he studied her, which he did with increasing frequency, to realize that every aspect of her complemented him. Where she was soft, he was hard. Where she was curved, he was flat.

For no more than a heartbeat, a sheet of lightning illuminated her features and he committed each one to memory. The rain hitting her face, her lips spread slightly apart, her tongue darting out to capture the water, the droplets clinging to her eyelashes like tiny pearls.

The freckles over her nose tugged at his heart, made her seem younger, innocent. But she was no child. She was a woman who had fought, beguiled, and shot him. She had slept in his arms, touched the loneliness in his heart with soft words, and impressed him with her courage.

All his life, he’d thought he was incredibly strong, and now he was learning that he was humbly weak. Where she was concerned, he seemed to have no willpower, no strength to resist the enticing temptation she offered.

Skimming his thumb along her cheek, cooled by the rain, he gathered the fine dew of moisture that remained. The heat of her breath warmed his hand. Like a desperate man he slowly lowered his mouth to hers, not with the heated passion that had burned through him before—that had done nothing to sate his desires—but with a patience born of needing one moment in his life where time stood still.

The rain eased up just enough that the gentle patter mingling with the humming of the slight wind became a melody. Her lips yielded to his. With one arm, he drew her more closely into the curve of his body, while his other palm rested against her cheek, his thumb continuing to stroke the velvety softness. Where before he had thrust his tongue into her mouth, now he entered slowly, relishing each passage of the journey, the various textures, the burning recesses that were in direct contrast to her cool cheek. He didn’t know if the sigh he heard had come from her or
the wind, but he deepened the kiss, and her responding moan shimmered through him clear down to his boots.

What had been merely a spark suddenly ignited into an inferno. He pressed her more firmly against his chest, their drenched clothes absorbing the heat from their bodies until he felt as though they wore nothing at all. He could feel her nipple hardening and straining against the fabric of her dress flattened against his chest.

Lowering his hand, he cupped the firm mound of her breast, his fingers kneading, reshaping, but none of his actions altered her perfection. A guttural growl reverberated through his throat, his breathing grew harsh and rapid. He tore his mouth from hers, bent her slightly, closed his lips around the sweetest bud, and suckled gently through the cloth. She almost came off his lap, whimpering, digging her fingers into his shoulder. He lifted his gaze as lightning revealed a woman entranced, and need shot through him with heart-pounding force.

God help him, he wanted her, wanted her as he’d never wanted anything in his life.

A crack of thunder that resounded around him like the retort of a rifle brought his senses reeling back. As much as he wanted her, he couldn’t have her. Not tonight, not ever. For what woman would desire a man who had dug his own grave and knew that he must soon lie in it?

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he eased her back into the safety of his shoulder.

“Lee?” Her voice quivered, her body trembled.

“Shh,” he whispered, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. “I should not have done that.”

Her agreement was only silence and a clutching of his shirt as she bowed her head.

He kicked his horse into a lope, toward Mexico and home, fearing he had waited too late to return her to her family, not certain where he would find the strength or the willingness to remove her from his life.

Angela felt as though tender bruises covered every inch of her weary body. Heat had blasted her for more days than she cared to count. Sweat had dried on sweat. She had never in her entire life been so incredibly miserable, physically or mentally.

The kiss Lee had bestowed on her in the rain haunted her, the sensations he had stirred to life continued to brew. She had wanted his mouth on her then, she wanted it now. Yet she knew desires were a danger to them and had to be banked, abandoned, forgotten.

She heard horses trotting in the distance. She smelled a pleasant aroma that made her mouth water and her stomach tighten.

The tension in Lee’s body seemed to drain away. “We’re nearly home,
querida
,” he said quietly. “It is late, almost everyone will be in bed, and I don’t want to disturb them, so we must be very quiet.”

The thought of sleeping in a bed almost made her weep. “I can be as quiet as a mouse.”

He brought his horse to a halt. She heard footsteps on planked flooring. A porch.

“Keeping watch, Alejandro?” he asked.

“I thought you planned to take the woman home first,” Alejandro said, displeasure evident in his voice.

“We ran into some trouble and I wanted to make sure you were all right.” Lee dismounted, then helped her climb off the horse.

“What sort of trouble?” Alejandro asked.

Lee placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her forward. “There was more than one group…step up,
querida
…of riders…step up. I was afraid you might have run into an ambush.”

“We saw no one.”

“Good. Then they must have all been following us. See to the comfort of my horse while I show Angela where she can sleep.” With his hand still on her back, he prodded her gently. “Come,
querida
, welcome to our humble abode.”

The hinges moaned as he opened the door. Angela ran her hand quickly across wood. She had expected adobe. Inside the doorway, a rug muffled her passing.

She heard Lee pick up a lamp as he led her across a large room. Her feet hit wood and then another rug. Wood again. The echo of her footsteps changed, indicating the walls were closer together. A hallway. Snoring.

“Eduardo snores,” Lee whispered.

“Eduardo?” He had yet another brother.

“
Sí
. You will meet him tomorrow.”

He led her into a room. “You can sleep in here.”

Her fingers skimmed the carved post of a bed. She sank onto the mattress. Heaven. She ran her hand over the quilt, noting the stitching, the design, varying scraps of cloth joined together to create a whole. She gave into temptation and curled onto her side. Lee’s scent rose up from the pillow and wafted around her. Her eyelids immediately grew heavy, her mind dull. As sleep overcame her, she had a vague notion that Lee had slept here before.

Lee sauntered to the last stall in the barn, where he found Alejandro brushing Lee’s horse like a man possessed. He leaned against the beam and crossed his arms over his chest. “You are scraping off his hide.”

Alejandro took only a second to glare at him before returning his attention to the animal. “I cannot believe you brought the woman here.”

“Her name is Angela.”

“And because of her, you will hang. How long do you think it will take her to figure out who you are?”

“She is blind.”

“Then that makes two of you.”

Alejandro’s retort stung Lee’s pride. He’d always put his family first. Perhaps, Alejandro was right and this time he hadn’t. “I know I cannot have her.”

“But that does not stop you from wanting her.”

Lee clenched his teeth, refusing to acknowledge his brother’s comment, wondering if his desire for Angela was apparent or if Alejandro was only guessing.

Alejandro stopped brushing and met his gaze. “Ramon knew he could not have Christine Shelby, but he did not have the strength to deny her and look what his love cost us.”

“No!” Lee stepped into the stall. He refused to accept that his oldest brother and the woman he had loved were responsible for the tragedy that had befallen the family. Shelby’s hatred and greed had guided his actions. “You cannot blame Ramon—”

“All I know is that Shelby made idle threats until he discovered Ramon and Christine by the river. Why do you think he hanged Ramon instead of you or me?”

With a weary sigh, Lee plowed his fingers through his hair. Sometimes, it was impossible to carry on a conversation with Alejandro.

“When was the last time you slept?” Alejandro asked quietly.

Lee forced a corner of his mouth to curl into a mock smile. “I slept here and there.”

Alejandro shook his head. “You would not let yourself sleep because you would not want her to hear your screams.”

Lee never knew if they were the cries of a frightened child or a terrified man. “A man attacked her.”

Just as Lee knew it would, all the anger drained from Alejandro. “What?”

“A man broke away from the pack of wolves following us. Since Angela thought her father had sent him, I let her wait for his arrival, but he was one of Shelby’s men. I knocked him out before he did much harm.”

“You should have killed him.”

“One man’s death on my conscience is enough, Alejandro.”

“You had no choice where his death was concerned.”

Lee nodded, not wanting to remember the horror of that night, but it was always there, skulking in the shadows of his memory, waiting for someone to cast the light upon it. Alejandro was skilled at doing just that, determined to remind him that he had been given no choice…but a part of him wondered, always wondered.

“Try to get some sleep,” Alejandro ordered before turning back to the horse, stroking the brush over the animal’s flank with a bit more gentleness.

“Once I have rested, I will take her home.”

“See that you do, brother. Her presence here threatens all of us.”

When he was a boy, Lee had learned the value of quietly creeping toward his prey. He could never remember who had taught him or why he’d determined that his very existence depended on silence, but it was a skill that he put into practice when the mood suited him…as it did now. Like smoke on a gentle soughing wind, he crept across his sister’s room and eased onto the mattress.

With a touch as light as a butterfly landing on a petal, he brushed Juanita’s dark strands away from her lovely face. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

“It’s Lee,” he whispered softly, not wanting to alarm her. She frightened so easily.

She bolted upright and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. “You’re home.”

He wanted desperately to hug her in return, as he had when they were children, but he understood too well her aversion to being held, so he kept his arms at his sides, unthreatening. He would give his life to return to her the innocence she’d lost that fateful night.

She leaned back slightly. “Do you want me to cook you something to eat?”

“No. I’m tired, but I wanted to see you before I went to bed.”

“I was very worried when Alejandro returned without you. He said you had to take a woman home…he made no sense.”

He could well imagine that Alejandro had been vague, trying not to worry her. They all sought to protect her, and now he wondered if their solicitude was causing more harm than good. “Her name is Angela. She is here.”