The Promise of Jenny Jones (38 page)

Angry and upset, she struck the bannister with her fist. She wished Uncle Ty would hurry up and come home. He wouldn't let Jenny leave them. Uncle Ty would be furious if Jenny left, she just knew it.

Covering her face, she scrubbed her palms against the tears burning her eyes. It was so hard to be a helpless kid. There was so much she didn't understand and couldn't control.

Please, please God. Don't take Jenny away from me too.

* * *

Jenny couldn't figure out what had happened between thetime Graciela left the kitchen and when she reappeared with reddened eyes and accusation pinching her expression.

"You got a burr up your tail?" she asked after they had ridden to Ty's house in heavy silence. "I don't remember you ever being this quiet for so long." She looped her mare's reins around the hitching post and watched Graciela do the same before she lifted down a picnic basket and carried it to the porch steps.

Graciela sat on the step above her. "Why are you wearing a gun and those pants?"

"I'm wearing a gun to humor your grandma. It was either wear a gun or bring along Jake or Grizzly Bill, and I didn't want to do that. I want today for just you and me." She pulled a chicken leg from the lunch basket and offered it, but Graciela shook her head. "Suit yourself. Anyway, the gun is just a precaution."

"I know why you're wearing pants again. You're getting ready to leave, and you're getting used to work trousers."

Jenny froze,then lowered the piece of chicken she'd brought to her mouth. She kept forgetting how bright Graciela was. Nothing got past the kid's sharp little eyes and mind. She had hoped to delay their private good-bye for a while yet, had hoped for one last lovely afternoon to remember before they got into fare-thee-wells.

Lowering her head, she wiped her fingers on a napkin. "The Sanderses aren't my kin, honey girl. I've imposed on their hospitality long enough. I've seen that you'll be loved and taken care of … I've waited the month I promised Ty." She raised her head and gazed into Graciela's swimming eyes. "Honey, I have to go now."

"Uncle Ty is going to come home and he's going to be really mad when you aren't here." Angry tears rolled down her face.

Jenny sucked in a deep breath before she answered. "I've tried to accept that Ty is dead even though a little part of me"—she touched her heart—"refused to believe it. But, honey, if Ty was alive, he would have sent word." It hurt so much to give up hope. That was the hardest part of it. The ache was constant, her sense of loss as fresh as daylight. "You and me … we're the only ones who thought he might make it, but that was just wishful thinking because we loved him. I think we've got to accept the worst."

The kid's tears drownedher, just fricking killed her to see and made her want to cry, too. She felt as if shewere strangling on salt and bile, and she wasn't prepared when Graciela jumped into her lap and wrapped her arms tightly around her neck. For a moment they teetered within a gasp of falling off the porch.

"If you have to go, then I'm going with you!"

"No, honey girl, you can't." Jesus Lord, this was driving a knife through her heart. She'd rather have relived Chulo's blade slicing her belly than have these little arms clinging around her neck and feel a child's sweet tears on her cheek. "These are your people. They love you, and you love them, too. You'll have a good life here."

"I'm your people! I love you, and you won't say it, but you love me, too, I know you do, Jenny! You have to take me with you. Who'll give you clean hankies? Who'll sew you up?" Her arms tightened, holding on. "Who'll teach me new words and new things? If you go, who'll teach me how to be like you?"

"Oh Graciela. God." She held on so tight that she feared she might hurt the child. When Graciela pushed back to peer in her eyes, she had to force herself to loosen her grip.

"Jenny! You're crying! Oh!"

They clung together and let the tearscome, sobbing until their eyes were dry, until all they could do was sit together in combined misery. Jenny adjusted Graciela's weight on her lap and rested her cheek against the kid's hair. She would never forget the fragrance of Graciela's hair and the weight of her small, warm body. That weight had started off mighty heavy; now she welcomed it. How was she going to live without this child? Losing Ty had already carved away half of her heart; she would leave the other half behind when she rode away tomorrow.

"I do love you, Graciela," she murmured hoarsely. "No, don't look at me. I have some things to say, and it'll go easier on me if you don't look while I'm saying them."

"I'll follow you when you go. You can't stop me."

"I don't want you to do that."

Marguarita? If you're listening, I beg you … please. Please, help us both.

"Honey girl, believe me. I've tried to think of some way that we could stay together, but there is none."

"You could marry my daddy."

She had considered this possibility herself. And had concluded that even if Robert accepted such a doomed proposal, it would end in disaster. She disliked him intensely for keeping himself a stranger to his daughter, felt contempt for his weakness, past and present. "Your mama is the only woman your daddy will ever love." Graciela would grow up motherless and mostly fatherless, and there wasn't a fricking thing she could do about it.

"But why can't you take me with you?"

She fought the hot lump threatening to strangle her. "Because I love you enough to give you the life your mama wanted for you. I don't want you growing up on the streets like I did. I want to know you're safe and happy and loved. I want to know that you're clean and eating good food and sleeping in a bed with a pillow. When I think of you, and Graciela I will think of you every day until I die, I want to think of you here. If you want to make me happy, then stay here with your daddy and your grandma Ellen, and be happy yourself."

"I can't—"

A shot exploded through the quiet sunny spring morning. Splinters flew from the post above Jenny's hat.

Before the slivers of wood hit the porch floor, Jenny had tossed Graciela over the railing and dived after her, drawing her pistol as she fell. Easing her head up, she peered through the porch rails, scanning the shrubs and underbrush. "Did you see anyone?"

Graciela peeked, then gasped and ducked down again. "It's Lois! And my cousinEmil, and I think I saw the Cortez brothers."

Jenny released a stream of silent cussing that would have curdled a preacher's eyes. Now she saw the forms slipping through the trees and brush, maybe six men, and she spotted a man who looked enough like Luis Barrancas that Graciela had to be right. It was Lois. Her first shocked thought was: It can't be. Followed by: Yes, it can. The bastard had followed them and found them inCalifornia.

She fanned a barrage of shots toward the trees and underbrush, her mind racing. Ty's place was too far from the Sanders ranch house to hope that anyone there would hear the shots. She could expect no assistance from that quarter. But without help, the outcome was predictable. She was outnumbered, outgunned.

"Kid, listen to me. We've got one chance." And it was probably a slim one. She squeezed off a shot, felt Graciela's wide, frightened eyes fixed on her face. "When I stand up and run toward that low rock wall, you run as fast as you can in the other direction, to the hitching post. Follow me so far?"

Graciela nodded. "You want me to ride back to the ranch."

"No,honey, that will take too long. Ride like hell for your grandpa Barrancas's place. You tell him these are his fricking relatives and his fricking problem, only say it nice, no cussing." A bullet tore through the brim of her hat, knocking it off her head before she ducked down, face-to-face with Graciela.

"What if Grandpa won't come?" Graciela asked anxiously.

She touched the kid's cheek. "If he's decided to accept you, he'll come. If he's still being a jackass, he won't. It's that simple." But Graciela would be safe. Ellen had told Jenny enough about Don Antonio Barrancas that Jenny believed him to be a man of pride and honor. Ellen had hinted that the hostilities between the families had originated with Cal Sanders, not Don Antonio. There was not a doubt in Jenny's mind that the cousins had to be here without Don Antonio's knowledge. "Use some of that charmyou're always telling me you have, or my butt is dead. Now give me a kiss for luck, and let's do it."

Graciela kissed her hard on the lips,then they looked at each other for a long minute.

"All right, on the count of three. One … two … go!"

Fanning her gun and running in a crouched zigzag, she dashed across the yard, bullets shaving weeds all around her, but somehow she made it to the stone fence with all her parts intact. She leaped over the stones,then dropped flat to the ground. Behind her, she heard Graciela's pony crashing through the underbrush and prayed there were no Barrancas cousins on that side of the house. If she had guessed right, that the cousins were here without Don Antonio's knowledge, she didn't think they would risk exposing themselves to being sighted from his hacienda. But who could tell what the crazy bastards might be thinking?

Rolling on her back, she reloaded, then flipped onto her stomach and got off a couple of shots, narrowing the odds against her by one Mexican, who fell out of the brush, twitched, then lay still. But she didn't celebrate.

This shoot-out was not going to end well. Not this time. Somehow it seemed fitting that her luck would run out here, as close to Ty as the ranch could offer.

A hail of bullets whizzed over the wall and she waited, wondering if the cousins were creeping up on her, hoping for a lull so she could lift her head and fire a few more shots.

She was on borrowed time anyway, she told herself, easing up for a peek over the wall. Ahead darted out from the corner of the house, ducked back. They had reached the house.

She should have died a couple of months ago in front of a firing squad. The time since then had been a gift and she silently thanked God for it. She had used her extra time well. She had known Ty and she had known Graciela; she had known love. She had kept her promise to Marguarita. Her house was in order, she had no future and no regrets, and she supposed she was as ready as a person ever was to meet her maker.

Firing steadily, she peered over the wall to see how close they were now. Then a fiery impact struck her shoulder and she flew backward with a gasp. Damn.

Touching her fingertips to her left shoulder, she felt the wetness, blinked at the blood on her hand. Grinding her teeth together, she hoped the bastards weren't cheering yet, because it was going to take more than one bullet to kill Jenny Jones. Crawling on elbows and stomach, she moved up to the wall again then eased onto her back to reload.

The firing was intense enough that she didn't hear the horse riding down on her, didn't see the man until he leaped down next to her as his horse jumped the stone wall. Rolling, he knocked the gun from her hand and was on top of her in one smooth motion.

"Why is it that every damned time I run into you, you're in the middle of a fight? What's wrong with you, woman?"

"Ty!" Her eyes flew open and she went limp, halting her effort to knee him in the groin. Struck dumb, she just stared at him. She couldn't believe it, but there he was, grinning down at her, his blazing blue-green eyes as beautiful and dangerous and full of Old Nick as she remembered. "Ty!"

Her arms flew around his neck and she dragged him down out of a rain of bullets, kissing him hard over and over and over. Then she stared at him again, made a fist, and punched him with her uninjured hand hard enough to lay him out in the dirt beside her.

"You no-good inconsiderate stinking piece of cow flop! You selfish unthinking bastard!" A bullet parted her hair before he gave his head a shake and jerked her down into his arms. "Haven't you ever heard of a fricking telegraph? Do you have any damned idea what you put us through? We thought you were fricking dead!"

"I told you I'd be home in a month. Do you think you're the only one who keeps a promise? And besides, I wanted to surprise you." Gently, he touched the bloodstain widening across her shoulder. "I swear, darlin'. Are we ever going to know each other when one of us isn't shot or cut?" His grin widened.

"We are outnumbered here, you idiot.There's two of us and four or five of them. What are you blathering about? We are going to die ." She covered his face with kisses. "Oh God, I'm so glad to see you!" Tears of joy blinded her. "Now haul your sorry butt up here and shoot some cousins, so at least we don't die in disgrace."

"Honey, you just stay right where you are, here in my arms because I had plenty of time to think and I've got some things to say to you. Help is right behind me, and you won't believe who's leading the posse."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a dozen riders galloped through the trees and brush. Ty pulled Jenny out of the path of Don Antonio's horse seconds before the black stallion flew over the stone wall, followed by a stream of riders and horses.

"He came," Jenny whispered, closing her eyes and slumping on Ty's chest. "He came for Graciela."

"You need to talk louder," Ty said, pulling her on top of him. But the gunfight was moving away from them now. Only an occasional stray bullet smacked into the stone wall.

Using a fat bottom stone on the wall as a pillow, he settled his head against it and gazed into her eyes. "I love you, Jenny Jones. Now hear me out and don't interrupt. I know you andme aren't the marrying kind, but we have to get over that and get married anyway."

She blinked down at him in amazement. "You're proposing marriage in the middle of a fricking gunfight? With me bleeding all over you? Ty Sanders, you left your brain back there in the Mexican desert."

But he loved her. Oh God, he loved her. He'd said the words. He loved her. And suddenly that was the only important thing in the world. If the gunfight was still going on, she didn't hear it. She heard only his voice, saw only his gorgeous tanned face. The only thing she felt was his hard body, tight and hot beneath hers.That, and the fierce pounding of her heart singing in her ears and mind. He loved her.