Sweet Silken Bondage (12 page)

More frightened than she'd ever been in her life,
Reina's hands were shaking as she pulled Poke's gun
from her pocket.

"Poke's gun. ..I'd forgotten!" Ruth's terrified gaze
met Reina's. "Do you know how to use it?"

"My father taught me when I was young," she answered.

"Have you ever shot anyone before?" Melissa asked,
her eyes wide with a mixture of respect and horror at
the thought.

"Well, no..." Reina hesitated, knowing there was a
big difference between shooting at a target and shooting
down a man. She wondered if she could really do it.
"But I have no intention of letting that man anywhere
near us again."

"You're right," Ruth agreed, fearing for their very
lives.

Reina peeked over the top of the rocks, hoping to get
a clear shot at Duke. The outlaw had chosen his hiding
place well, though, and she found it was impossible to
even come close. Knowing she had only a few bullets
left, Reina dropped back down beside Ruth and Melissa.

"No chance?"

Reina shook her head. "He's too well hidden. Maybe
if he moves, I can, but right now, there's no way."

Clutching Poke's gun tightly in both hands, she
leaned back against the sharp edges of the rocks and
waited. She thought of the old cowboy then and of his advice that it wouldn't be a sin to defend herself, and she
smiled slightly. He had been wounded defending them
of his own free will. No one had hired him to do the job.
No one had commanded that he risk his life for them,
and yet he had. Then, despite his own severe injury, his
thoughts had still been about their safety. He was truly a
gentle, generous man, and she hoped, if they managed
to get out of this, that he would be all right.

The protection Duke had sought behind the rocks
was so good that Clay couldn't get a direct shot at him.
Clay knew he had little hope of flushing the bandit out
from his current position, so he decided to move to a
better vantage point. To cover himself, he fired a salvo
in the desperado's general direction as he made a run
for a small grove of trees about thirty feet away across a
small clearing.

When it came to saving his own hide, Duke could be
a very patient, very vigilant man. He wasn't concerned
in the least about the women or the driver for to his way
of thinking they were unarmed. Instead, he was watching and waiting for the intruder to make a mistake.
Whenever he did, Duke was going to be ready.

The extended silence troubled Reina, and once
more, she tried to see what was going on. In the
distance, she caught sight of their unknown protector
trying to make a run across a small open area on the
ridge, and she cried out in horror as gunfire erupted
from where Duke was hiding. To her terror, the man
was struck by one of the outlaw's shots and fell. Reina
couldn't tell if he was still alive or not, and her grip
tightened on Poke's gun-their last line of defense
against the bloodthirsty Duke.

"What happened?" Ruth asked.

"Duke shot him." Reina admitted as she sat back
down beside her.

"No!"

The two women exchanged knowing looks, and
Reina felt ice encase her very soul. It would all be up to
her now...

"Well, it looks like things have worked out jes' fine,
don't they?" Duke called out confidently. He believed
they were all unarmed, and he was sure the intruder
was dead. Duke was a little troubled by the fact that his
friend, Vic, had been killed, but the prospect of keeping
all that gold for himself eased whatever grief he was
feeling.

Duke was gloating over his triumph as he stood up,
but he knew he had to change his plans a bit since he
was now working alone. He figured he'd still take the
nun with him, but first he'd have to tie up the others,
release the horses from the coach and get the loot.
Then, when he was sure he'd be making a clean getaway, he would get the hell out of there.

At his taunting words, Reina grew even more frightened. She knew her own shooting ability was their only
hope, but serious doubts ran through her mind. Could
she do it? Could she really shoot a man, even if it was in selfdefense?

"C'mon, ladies, I know where you're hidin'," Duke
chided Reina and Ruth a little angrily. "Get out here
where I can see you. You, too, driver! Step out from
behind the stage so I know just where you are!" When
none of them responded immediately, he became incensed. "I said get the hell out here! Now!"

"Damn!" Clay swore softly through gritted teeth as he
clutched his upper arm. Sweat beaded his brow, and he
closed his eyes for a moment as he fought for control
over the pain.

Clay had somehow managed to keep a tight grip on
his gun, and he was glad for at least that much. Despite
the agony that throbbed through him, he knew the
wound wasn't life-threatening. Even so, it was bleeding heavily and that in itself was a danger. Grabbing his
bandana from his back pocket with his good hand, he
tied it tightly around the wound to help stop the blood
flow. There was no telling what the outlaw might do
next, and he had to be ready.

Clay had stayed down since being shot, but the sound
of Duke calling out to the women jarred him to action.
He put his own pain from him and levered himself up
on his good arm. Fighting for control, Clay brought his
gun to bear. He would have a good shot at him as soon
as he took a step clear of his hiding place. Clay only
prayed that he would be accurate enough to take advantage of it.

"C'mon!" Duke snarled viciously again, waiting for
Reina and the others to show themselves. He was
almost ready to drag the women out, but he didn't trust
the driver with the rifle and Vic's gun lying there so
close by the stagecoach.

Reina could tell by the outlaw's tone of voice that the
time had come. She could delay no longer. She had to
make her move, and she had to do it now.

"All right..." she called out, standing up slowly and
keeping the gun hidden in the fold of her skirts. A
hurried glance around told Reina that she still didn't
have a decent shot at Duke and that worried her. She
knew she could hit a target, but she didn't trust her
marksmanship enough to try to hit the bandit where he
was standing. She had to draw him out into the open.

Reina walked slowly away from the protection of her
hiding place, and relief flooded through her when Duke
did the same. As he stepped clear of the rocky barrier
that had protected him, Reina knew she had to act.
Desperate to catch the overconfident desperado offguard, she moved quickly, raising the gun and firing
without hesitation. To her heart-stopping horror, the
shot went wide, missing Duke completely. He stood,
unscathed, staring at her in shocked rage.

"What the hell?" Duke roared at the discovery that the nun was armed with a gun and more than willing to
use it. "You got a gun?"

"Sister!" Ruth and Fred cried out, miserable in their
frustration at being unable to help her. They felt sure
that the end was near for all of them now.

Reina saw the cold-blooded, murderous glint appear
in Duke's eyes as he glared at her, and when he raised
his gun and took another step toward her, she knew she
had to shoot at him again or die; Once more, her finger
tightened on the trigger and the explosion of gunfire
deafened her.

As Duke had taken that fateful stride toward Reina,
he'd moved into Clay's range, and Clay fired. He
watched in satisfaction as the outlaw was dropped in his
tracks.

Ignoring the throbbing pain in his upper arm, Clay
got to his feet and ran back to his horse to mount up. He
knew he had to get down there and make sure that the
desperado was dead and that the women were all right.
Putting his heels to his steed's sides, he raced down the
incline to the stage.

Reina had squeezed off her shot at exactly the same
time Clay had fired, and she'd watched in horror as
Duke collapsed and lay unmoving in the dirt. When she
realized that he wasn't getting up again, all the tension
that had been sustaining her drained away. Her hands
dropped weakly to her sides, and the gun, suddenly too
heavy to hold, slipped from her trembling fingers.

Both Ruth and Melissa had shrieked as the sounds of
the gunplay erupted around them, but when they saw
that Reina was unhurt, they cried out in tearful joy.

"Sister! Thank God you're all right!" They ran to
embrace her in thankful excitement.

"But I...I didn't..." Reina stared at the dead
outlaw in disbelief, watching the growing stain of blood
that was spreading across the back of his shirt. She
realized in some confusion that she was not the one
who'd shot Duke at all. He had been shot From some where else... somewhere behind him. "I couldn't have
...I mustn't have..."

Fred hurried out to join them, dropping to his knees
beside Vic to make sure he was dead.

"Look!" Melissa's urgent cry drew their attention to
the rider coming down the hillside, heading in their
direction.

Fearing more trouble, Fred quickly snatched up his
earlier discarded rifle as he turned to face the unknown
man. Reina and Ruth, still standing close together,
turned to watch his approach, too.

Their savior was a big man, and Reina felt a shiver
run down her spine as she studied him from afar. He
was dressed all in black, from the shirt that stretched
tautly across the powerful width of his broad chest and
shoulders to the tight-fitting pants that clung to his
lean, muscular thighs. He wore his black Stetson pulled
down low over his forehead so that it shadowed his eyes,
effectively shielding them from her probing gaze, and
the rest of his features were equally hidden beneath a
slightly overgrown beard that was the same color as his
dark brown hair. He sat his horse easily, almost as if he'd
been born to the saddle, and he still held his gun at
readiness as he rode toward them. Reina thought the
man looked savagely dangerous; yet at the same time,
she realized that he had to be a good man or he wouldn't
have bothered to help them.

"He dead?" Clay called out brusquely to Fred, gesturing at Vic as he rode in. He did not look at the women
yet, but kept his gaze riveted on the outlaws. He knew
better than to trust the likes of Duke and Vic, and he
would not relax his guard until he was sure they were no
longer among the living.

"This one is," Fred answered.

"Good," his response was curt as he reined in close
beside Duke's inert form. His movements were slow and
deliberate as he dismounted and then knelt down beside
the outlaw and to check and see if he was still breathing.

"Is he...?" Reina finally managed to ask in a voice
that was tight with strangled emotions.

Clay heard the upset in the nun's voice, and he
hastened to reassure her as he turned the dead man over
for a better look at him. "Yes, Sister, he's good and
dead. But you don't have to worry. It wasn't your shot
that hit him. It was mine."

"Thank heaven..." she breathed.

"I'll go check on the other passenger," Fred said.

"There was another passenger?" Clay asked sharply,
glancing up at the driver as he started off.

"Yes, and he was wounded trying to fight these
murdering thieves off!" Ruth told him.

At the sound of "he," Clay knew the other passenger
wasn't Reina Alvarez and disappointment washed
through him.

"Sister," Ruth was saying, "I'll help Fred with Poke.
You rest for a few minutes. You look terribly pale."

"Thanks, Ruth..."

"Sir, thank you for your help," Ruth told Clay. "Without your intervention, they might have killed all of us."

"You're welcome, ma'am."

Ruth gave him a warm smile and then hurried away
with Melissa to aid Fred. When she'd moved off, Clay
glanced up at the nun for the first time just to see how
bad she really looked. Across the little distance that
separated them, Clay's gunmetal gray eyes met Reina's
dark, velvety brown ones, and he felt a shock wave
reverberate through him clear to the depths of his soul.
This was no old woman! he realized with great amazement. Why, this nun was young and very beautiful! The
discovery left him momentarily speechless. How could he
ever have thought she was old? Clay got slowly to his feet to
face her.

Reina, too, was jolted by the unexpected charge of
electrifying sensual recognition that exploded between
them as their gazes met and held. Her breath caught in
her throat, and time suddenly seemed suspended as she was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer animal force of
this man's magnetism. The sensation enthralled her
even as it left her puzzled and very discomfited.

Reina was not completely inexperienced where the
opposite sex was concerned. She was a born coquette
who loved to flirt. Yet, despite all the parties and balls
she'd attended and all the suitors who'd courted her, not
one of them had ever affected her the way this man had
with just a single look.

Reina wondered what it was about this stranger that
could disturb her so. Certainly, it wasn't just because he
was particularly good-looking. Lord knows, she'd had
dozens of handsomer, and definitely cleaner, men vying
for her affections. This man was no more than a saddle
tramp, a drifter of no obvious means, and yet his very
nearness set her senses to spinning. She was pondering
this perplexing thought as her dark eyes remained
locked with his, and it was only Ruth's vaguely heeded
call that restored her to sanity.

"Sister Mary Regina! Poke's still alive!"