Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) (27 page)

Turning his attention to more immediate concerns, he bent and picked up a thick amber bottle. Using his teeth, he pulled the cork and spat it to the ground. The reek of cheap, rotgut whiskey assaulted his nostrils. He held his breath and poured a liberal dousing down the front of his clothing. Fumes wafted upward, engulfing him. Going for broke, he tilted the bottle to his lips until he had a mouthful. He swished and swallowed. Primed for the taste of it, he repeated the process and swallowed a second drink.

Keeping a tight grip around the neck of the bottle, he crept through the dark alley. At the end, he stopped and studied the scene before him. The sleeping guard. Wolf and his cousins. The exact location of the key attached to the soldier’s belt.

The street was still deserted.
¡Gracias a Dios!
He pulled in a long breath and released it, then relaxed his spine and rolled his shoulders forward in a pronounced slump. Allowing no time for second thoughts, he staggered forward into the street and the revealing moonlight. Keeping his head down, he aimed for the walkway on the opposite side.

At the corner of the cantina, he paused a moment to get his bearings. Straight ahead the soldier’s legs all but blocked the path. Grating snores sawed from his bulky chest. Rane glanced at Wolf and received a barely perceptible nod. Time to carry on with his little playact.

Raising the bottle to his lips, Rane lumbered forward and caught the toe of his boot under the guard’s leg. The soldier roused instantly and tried to leap up. Rane never gave him the chance as he collapsed and fell on the man. The soldier’s head connected with a dull thud against the adobe wall and all the starch drained out of him.

Rane snatched the key and snapped the string attaching it to the guard’s belt. Shedding all pretense of drunkenness, he scrambled to the edge of the walk and dropped to the ground next to Wolf.

“I’d say this makes us even,” he said as he unlocked Wolf’s cuffs.

Wolf shrugged. “For now, but who’s keeping count? There’s always tomorrow,
hermano
.”

“No tomorrow,” Rane said. “Take these youngsters and head into Mexico. Don’t show your faces around here again.”

“What about you? You’re not going with us?”

“No. I still have unfinished business. But we’ll meet again. This I promise.”

****

Angel strained her ears, listening for any sound other than the normal chirp and trill of the insects and small creatures in the trees surrounding her. She was still near enough to town if a fracas broke out at the cantina she would hear it. Thus far, she’d heard nothing. The absence of gunshots and shouting didn’t reassure her. Worry for Rane twisted her stomach into knots.

A branch snapped. Angel clapped a hand over her heart and whirled toward the noise. The limbs of a pine undulated just before the black stallion stepped from the blinding darkness with Rane bent low over its neck. Relief weakened her knees. He no longer wore the broken sombrero and a dark shirt had replaced the crude sackcloth.

She emerged from her hidden bower. “What happened?”

He layered his hands on the saddle horn in front of him and eased forward. “There was a mishap in town a few moments ago. A drunken villager stumbled over the guard stationed in front of the cantina. In the confusion, the handcuff keys went missing.”

Remembering his disguise, she didn’t even have to guess the drunken villager’s identity. “A risky plan, indeed,” she said and smiled in spite herself.

“But it worked. Wolf and his cousins are across the border and headed west.”

“Congratulations,” she murmured. She walked to her horse and pulled herself onto its back. She took up the reins and pointed the mare toward the road.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home.”

“You can’t go that way. When the soldiers discover their prisoners are missing, they’ll start beating the brush looking for them. You’ll be seen on the road.”

“Then how am I supposed to get home?”

“Follow me.”

For the better part of an hour, he led them over obscure game trails. Darkness slowed their progress. Sheltering branches overhead offered only an occasional glimpse of the glowing moon. They rode in silence, the horses’ footfalls eerily cushioned by past seasons of rotting leaves.

Rane halted his horse at the edge of a stand of cottonwoods. She urged her mount in next to him. Across the distant, open ground, the two-story white house—her home—stood out like a beacon amid blue-black surroundings.

“This is as far as I go,” Rane said softly. “I’ll stay here and watch, until you reach the house.”

And safety.

Though he didn’t say the words, she plainly heard them. She knew she should kick her horse into motion and ride away into the clearing. Yet, she hesitated while the knot in her stomach twisted tighter. As always, so many things remained unspoken between them. Things she longed to tell him, yet dared not put into words for fear they would drive him completely away.

It was insanity. They had no future together. She had nothing more of him than these rare snatches of time. Though she loved him with all her heart, nothing at all had changed. Stolen moments were all she would ever have of him.

“Rane?”

She sensed his hesitation. Had he picked up on her mood? Finally, he pulled his gaze from the open view and looked at her with a fierce scowl on his handsome face. He expected her to go.

Leaving just then was the last thing Angel wanted. Something primal and all consuming had her in its grip. Before she could change her mind, she reached out and softly cupped his unyielding jaw. Not waiting for him to react, she leaned over and brushed her lips against his. One miniscule part of her mind screamed in protest at what she was doing. The rest of her gloried at the tremor of response that ran through his body. She knew she still affected him on some basic level. At least that, too, remained unchanged.

He lifted his hand and enfolded the back of her neck, tilting her head to better fuse his mouth to hers. He took command of the kiss with a groan of hard fought surrender. Pressing deep, he parted her lips and delved inside with a hunger that told her he was just as starved for the taste of her as she was for him. The faint flavor of whiskey still lingered and mingled with his own unique woodsy spice.

He backed off slightly, though he didn’t fully relinquish her lips. Still touching, lightly brushing, he asked, “Why?”

“I’ve missed you...” she murmured against his mouth, “...want you.”

He pulled back and searched her face, as if looking for some piece of understanding that still eluded him.

The sidestepping stallion separated them. Rane dismounted and tied his reins to a branch. He moved to the side of her horse and held up his arms. Angel lifted her leg over the mare’s back and gladly slid into his embrace.

He pulled her tight against him and bent his head to hers once more. She ran her hands over his strong shoulders, up the back of his neck, clinging, unable to get enough of the feel of him. Then he lifted her and carried her away from the horses, into the cover of the trees. He stood her on her feet while he hastily stripped off his shirt and spread it over the spongy, moldering ground cover.

She sat on his makeshift bed and peeled off her denims while he made fast work of the buttons on her shirt, exposing the whiteness of her breasts to the dappled moonlight. He stroked her with his hands, his mouth hot and urgent, as he laid her back on the cushioned earth.

When they came together, the intensity of their mating—untamed with need—lifted her so high she never again wanted to drift down. The feeling both frightened and exhilarated her.

She had no idea how much time had passed. An hour? Two? The moon had dipped lower through the tree trunks. A breeze ruffled the highest branches and created the mock sound of a rushing stream. Nearby, the stallion whickered softly. Rane’s arm lay across her, just beneath her breasts, and with each rising breath, the crisp dark hairs tickled her skin.

She felt content, blissfully peaceful. She turned her head, wondering if he’d fallen asleep. Moonlight shimmered in the darkness of his eyes. She started to speak, “I think it’s time—,” until he pressed a fingertip to her lips and silenced her.

He lifted to one elbow and replaced the pressure against her lips with his mouth. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to pure sensation again. Surprised that she could feel anything at all so soon after their wild lovemaking.

He primed her with long, languid kisses—her throat, her breasts, then lower to her belly—until she tingled with renewed awareness. His lips were an exquisite, dragging friction. A slight scrape of teeth. The gentle lave of his tongue. When he moved lower and lovingly nuzzled the tender insides of her thighs, she couldn’t have stopped him if she’d wanted to.

Like a master of seduction, he unerringly found her swollen bud and quickly lifted her so close to the pinnacle, she strained toward him, panting, moaning. Just when she started to tumble into the blinding heights, he buried himself deep inside her and rode them both over the edge of no return.

Rane held himself rigid above her while wave after wave of shatteringly sweet aftershocks rocked through him. Sex had never been anything more than a pleasant interlude, the twining of two willing bodies, a blinding instant of release. But since the first time with Angel, he’d known it would never again be the same for him.

His heart welled with unaccustomed tenderness when she was near. Fierce possessiveness he couldn’t control. And this. This most of all. The giving and sharing of pleasure beyond the scope of anything he’d imagined.

Earlier, when she’d turned to him again, his resolve had shattered at her touch, his beliefs tossed to the winds.

She was meant for Keegan. Even Rane could see the way the wind blew in Roy Clayton’s house. Yet here she was, in
his
arms, making love with
him.

Why?

****

Staying low, Angel slipped from post to post along the fencerow. Each time she stopped, she studied the open ground between the back of the house and surrounding outbuildings. Her guards were nowhere in sight. Nothing at all moved around the compound.

Either everyone had gone, or they were all sound asleep—neither of which she trusted for a moment. The windows in the house were all dark. She prayed her father still slept, unaware of her absence. If she could make it to her room, she was home free.

With her heart throbbing in her throat, she reached the back of the house and stepped onto the wide, roofed porch. Crossing to the kitchen door, she palmed the key from her pocket and started to insert it into the lock.

A board creaked. She froze. Another creak betrayed a heavy footstep. Still holding the key, she enclosed it in her fist and clutched it against her heaving chest. Then she turned around.

Against the backdrop of darkness, the silhouette of a man stood at the edge of the porch. His arms lifted, bringing his hands to the front of his body. The scratch of a match broke the tense stillness and sulfur flared in front of his face. Angel’s heart lurched when Will Keegan revealed himself and stepped toward her.

He allowed the match to burn for several seconds before waving it out and tossing it off the edge of the porch. Long enough to show her the hard glint in his pale eyes and the angry slash of his mouth.

“Interestin’ outfit you got on, Angel.” The words sounded strangely devoid of emotion. And she realized he’d dropped the formality of her surname. “Where you been?”

Her shock at being caught quickly shifted to anger. “None of your business,” she said.

When he started toward her again, she suddenly remembered, earlier that very day her father had given this man permission to control her.
Control her.
Her mind rioted. How far would he go to attempt it? She knew she didn’t want to find out.

Near blind panic, she threw herself against the door. Before she could unlock it, he caught her hand and wrested the key from her fingers. Furious, she turned on him, which was a mistake.

With no effort at all, he pushed her against the house, then caught her wrists and pinned them to the boards above her head.

“Let go of me!” She jerked her arms, trying to break his hold. When that had no effect, she kicked out at his legs.

With a guttural grunt, he crowded closer and trapped the lower half of her body with his.

Shock raced through her. If he would manhandle her this way, what else was he capable of doing?

His angry breath heaved against the side of her face. He smelled of trail dust and day-old sweat. “You’ve been with him!” He hissed the accusation into her face.

Goosebumps chased over Angel’s skin. “Who?”

“That gunfighter. Mantorres. I can smell him all over you, sweetheart. You reek of greaser, just like any two-bit border whore.”

She clamped her teeth against the rage burning through her blood. If she could free her hands, she’d slap him into next week or at least attempt it. “Turn me loose right now, you bastard, or I swear I’ll scream my head off.”

“What kind of fool do you take me for? You’re not gonna scream.” A pale streak appeared within the dark contours of his face, and she knew he was smiling. “If you do, you’ll have to explain what you’re doin’ out here runnin’ around in the middle of the night dressed like a man.”