Stronger Than Passion (22 page)

He reached a hand into his hair, raking rough fingers through it and messing it up worse than it already was. He lay back on the bed, next to her but not touching. He let out a disgusted sigh.

A little whiskey. A lot of whiskey. Whiskey and jealousy. Mix the two together and there went control - out the window, replaced by rage and lust. He would’ve thought by now that he could exercise a little calm thinking, no matter the circumstances and the provocation. He was wrong. Christina had driven him crazy, Crazy with outrage at the idea of her alone with the Frenchman - and crazy with sheer desire at the sight of her defying him there in the dark, so cold on the outside but only too warm within. He had known it from the first - known that her frosty airs were all merely a big lie, that she was as passionate-natured as he was. And he had proven it. Only it was too bad that he had found it out for truth now.

His one bag was packed and waiting by the door.

He had already said his goodbyes to his aunt. Hager knew he was leaving and would inform the other servants.

All that was left was for him to get dressed, and go.

He eased out of the bed and pulled on a set of rough-looking clothes in what little light remained before the lamp sputtered out. He went to the porcelain basin and splashed cold water on his face, getting a look at himself in the mirror - and realizing that he was only too familiar with what he saw. The unshaven, ruthless face of a reprobate. Certainly not the future Duke of Westbrook; certainly not a gentleman. Usually the thought amused him. There was no humor in him now.

He went back to the bed and put out the lamp. He looked down. In the pale pre-dawn light Christina was milk-skinned and languorous, as distracting a picture as any he had ever seen. It would be so easy to slip back in bed, and hold her again, so easy to forget about Mexico for a while more, to stay here and take care of the demanding urge he felt growing once again in his pants. It would be a simple matter to push away the thought of Santa Anna, and all the killing and the fighting, and the danger to Julian and Rowan and everybody else, and remain in bed with Christina for hours yet. So simple . . . but it couldn’t be done. It was time to go, and take responsibility for some of the future casualties himself.

He pulled a sheet and then a blanket over her body, covering her shoulders. He bent down and kissed the back of her exposed neck. Then he turned, picked up his bag, unlocked the door and opened it. He closed it behind him, gently. He went down the stairs and out the front door. He began
the short walk to the quay without once looking back.

He didn’t see the man standing in the side yard, muffled in a dark cloak and leaning against a tree. The man was smiling, and he continued to smile as he stepped into the open - in full view of the upstairs bedroom windows.

The early-morning fog finally drifted away, and beams of warm sunlight shot dazzling sparks off the blue-green water. But the passengers lined along the deck of the steamship
Holiday Rose
spared no thoughts on appreciating the gorgeous day. Every eye and every mind focused on the long-awaited sight of the flat shores of Texas.

Christina and Penny were careful to stay back, as far away from the other boisterous passengers as possible. They had learned early on in the voyage that the men traveling to this part of the world were all adventurous and rowdy, whether soldiers or tradesmen; and any unaccompanied female on deck was fair game for their attentions.

Manzanal was occupied with the ship’s captain, trying once again to discover anything potentially useful to Mexico - such as the complete contents of the cargo in the hold, or the destination of every American on board the ship; and was out of their way. Christina had believed his pushy attempts to befriend the captain to be shallow. But the man apparently tolerated Manzanal, because Manzanal spent a great deal of time with the captain and his officers. Time spent, such as now, away from her.

And she was grateful for every minute Manzanal was not hovering over her.

Her small amount of luggage was now packed, as were Penny’s and angel’s. It was time to go, and she was as anxious to leave this ship as she had been to board it in New Orleans. Her home was still many days away by the arduous overland route through Texas, into Mexico, where they would find a ship to take them on to Vera Cruz; and even though she had a suspicion she was going to regret every difficult mile, she was almost desperate to begin. The idle hours on board the ship had left her with little to do but think; and she would rather be doing anything but that. Anything, including riding across the dangerous, uneven countryside, and sleeping on it at night. Including facing hostile Indians and American soldiers. Including fighting off Manzanal, whom she knew was only biding his time until they were comparatively alone before trying to seduce her. Anything was better than thinking.

Except dreaming, which was sometimes worse.

The quicker she made it home, the better. In the lulling atmosphere of her hacienda she could forget. With the resumption of her standing and her duties as Patrona, she could pretend everything was the same . . . that she had never been away. That she had never known Michael Brett. That she had never changed.

The town of Corpus Christi was easy to make out now, a small assortment of wood and adobe buildings bursting with activity. Ships and boats of all sizes were moored off-shore, and the
Holiday Rose
dropped her anchor a respectable distance out. As a cheer rang out at the splash of the anchor, Christina and Penny went below to their cabin.

Christina intended to be among the first to depart.

*

There was no use for concealment now; he had been spotted, he was sure of it. Not making any attempts to muffle the noise, he scrambled back up the steep canyon side, dislodging dirt and rocks to fall on the heads of his pursuers below. He heard a filthy Mexican invective. Somebody must have received his inadvertent little gifts.

He made it to the top wall before any of the six men who were after him. He dived behind a big lump of a boulder, pulled his pistol from its holster, primed it, and waited.

A dark head emerged over the rim of the cliff. It turned from side to side, and then a hand holding a gun presented itself. The man was about to hoist himself up onto the higher ground when Michael shot. The bullet struck the surprised Mexican in the center of his chest, toppling him backwards. His scream mingled with those of his startled compatriots, still clinging to the canyon side.

Michael got up and ran, crouched over to another mound of rocks a few yards distant. In the moonlight, he saw clearly, and all of his senses focused on what was about to happen next. He expected they would fan out, all five of them that remained, and leap up and over the edge at the same time, rushing him. His strategy was to pick them off one-by-one. Before they got him.

It wasn’t supposed to have gone this way. He had intended to find the Mexican guerilla camp and ascertain, if he could, that it was the one that had been giving Taylor so much trouble. But then one of the Mexicans had left the small campfire after finishing his dinner, and Michael had been unable to resist following him. He just meant to knock the man out and search him before heading back to Monterey. It was an impulse; and one way or another, Michael always came to regret an impulse. Sure enough, even with a Bowie knife at his throat, the man had let out a calculated shout. Michael had been forced to kill him then, and to run, because the entire hardened guerilla band was after him.

They were up and over the canyon edge in several well-spaced dark blurs of movement. Michael fired both of his pistols, his shots managing to strike two men. He flanked back again, presenting a running target to those Mexicans who dropped to the ground and tried to line him up in their sights. He made it to a clump of trees. His horse was tied up a half mile distant - if he could only get that far . . .

A bullet hurtled by, then another. He dodged from tree to tree, counting on the darkness to save him from the bullets, at least, of these well-armed guerillas. But there were three of them, and they weren’t stupid. They spread out, guns put away, to run him down. They taunted him, in a Mexican-Indian dialect that he unfortunately understood. They called out in gleeful, sadistic detail what they were going to do to him when he finally dropped, and it was not pleasant. He could jog for miles. But he couldn’t sprint a whole lot longer. If he couldn’t get to his horse, he would grow winded soon, and slow down, and they would be on him with their knives. All because he had made a stupid mistake!

He was about to run out of the trees and onto a bare patch of land. On the opposite side of that stretch he had tethered his stallion. Once out in the open, they could close in on him . . . but what choice did he have? He would at least try to make it to the horse. He had left his rifle there, and it was loaded.

He burst out of the cover of the trees into the moonlight. One Mexican emerged behind him to the right, another to the left, another directly behind. They whooped and yelled, enjoying the sport of the chase now they were sure of victory and revenge. Out of the corner of one eye, Michael saw the moonlight glint off the long blade that one of them held poised now, ready to throw . . .

A gunshot sounded from close by. The man with the knife dropped to the ground. His compadres stopped in confusion, looking at Michael, at each other, and then in dawning dismay at the group of unsavory-looking men who were just riding up - led by a tall Indian on a big dark horse, holding a rifle pointed at them.

*

“I won’t say I couldn’t have handled them myself. You saw how close I was to my horse -”

“I saw that man about to throw his knife into your back, hermano.”

“So did I. I would’ve ducked.” Michael grinned, his face streaked with sweat and dirt.

Julian resisted the urge to slap him around, as he would have done in the early days when Michael was no more than a green boy and had committed something reckless and idiotic that he’d had no business doing. In those days, before and after the death of Julian’s stepfather, Michael would follow Julian into Comanche territory and perpetrate an endless number of disastrous events. Disasters which Julian had had to smooth over and which could have easily been avoided, if Michael were only someone else. They’d fought each other frequently then. Or, rather, Julian had punished Michael, in the way of a big brother. Until Michael had learned to fight back with Comanche skill.

“You still haven’t informed me why you left Monterey alone, and set off to track this dangerous band of Mexican shit without even - ”

“Juli, Juli.” He held up a hand to silence his friend “I knew I could find them, but I could do it faster and quieter alone. The matter was urgent enough for me to try, at least. These men have managed to intercept three carriers, kill two scouting parties and disrupt the supply line from Camargo. General Taylor was at his wit’s end yesterday - you were nowhere to be found, and the Rangers have been after these guerillas for a week without any luck. So, I decided I would locate this camp. But I had no intentions of even capturing one of them, much less killing anyone. Things just got out of hand.”

Julian grimaced. “I can see that. Exactly how long have you been at Monterey?”

“A week.” Michael drained his glass of locally-made tequila and picked up another tortilla. He used it to scoop a pile of beans from the pan on the edge of the fire. Julian’s troop didn’t have
any eating utensils, or plates. Or a cook. They bought their food from villagers, and this was what they normally got. Tortillas and beans. “Come into town with me tomorrow, and I’ll buy you a steak. I’ll even get you a bed to sleep in.”

“Did they make you a General?” Julian asked, leaning back on an elbow away from the fire’s heat, in the darkness.

“They haven’t made me anything. I was offered a commission, but I declined. I don’t want to be regular army. So I’m simply a volunteer - with staff privileges. I report either to Taylor or directly to Polk.”

“Why not ride with me?” Julian’s voice was bland. It might be safer, he thought of adding, but didn’t.

“If you need me, I will.” Michael stared at Julian’s impassive face, and found it unreadable, as usual. “I hear you’re doing some interesting things.”

“Nothing decisive yet, not as long as Taylor rots here and Santa Anna holds court at San Luis Potosi, gathering more men and persuading the Catholic church to pay for arms. My unit will be more effective once Santa Anna starts to move.”

“Yet, I’m sure your little group must be at least as annoying to Santa Anna as these idiots have been to Taylor.”

Julian’s mouth crooked. “If he knew our names, I feel sure there would be a large price on our heads. But we can’t get as close enough to him as I’d like.” Julian paused, and his dark face hardened. “We steal his mail, we kill his scouts . . . unfortunately, we can’t kill him. And guerilla tactics won’t win this war.”

Michael sat thinking, his expression containing the same absorbed bitterness that had been on Julian’s a moment ago. “If we could separate him somehow, after a battle, maybe . . .”

Julian shook his head and leaned forward. “Drop it for now. We can’t do anything about killing him until the armies start to move. However . . .”

Michael turned frustrated eyes on his cousin. “Well?”

“I do know one way to hurt him, where he’ll feel it like a gunshot.” He lowered his voice. “How would you like to steal some silver?”