The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (36 page)

She shook her head in amusement. "Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to try to talk to you."

"Me, too," he replied, showing her explicitly what he would rather she did with her mouth. With his hand to the back of her head, he drew her closer yet. She moaned a sigh of pleasure as he slanted his kiss first one way, then the other. Cupping her buttocks with his other hand, he lifted her against him so there could be no mistaking how much he wanted her. Then he broke the kiss, releasing a deep, shuddering sigh of control. "We'd better stop while we can."

"Or else?"

He grabbed the wheel and cut it sharply to the right. "Or else we might just run aground on this sandbar." It took a moment, but he avoided the obstacle neatly, then glanced over at her and shook his head. "You"—he pointed with his index finger—"go sit over there. Way over there, before I kill us both."

She grinned sheepishly, sinking to the deck and folding her arms around her knees. With a sigh, she asked, "What do you suggest we do?"

"Do?" His expression said he could think of any number of things.

"I mean, we seem to be running out of river." Indeed the Moctezuma was shrinking and growing more shallow by the mile.

"Well," he concluded, scanning the shoreline, "I think we can safely count out the possibility of elephants coming to our rescue."

"Hmm, yes. But I wouldn't count out farmers."

"What?"

"Over there." She pointed to a man dressed in peasant clothes, bent over his half-tilled field with an ancient hoe. The man seemed to see them at the same time. He lifted the oversized straw hat off his forehead and peered at the odd-looking boat.

Reese flashed Grace a rare smile that sent her stomach tumbling all over again, then turned his attention to guiding the boat to the shore.

It took only a few minutes to tie up to the sheltered cove bordered by mesquite, flowering yucca, and the ever-present cattails. After a brief discussion with the farmer, who enthusiastically agreed to watch after their boat for a fee—with the proviso that should Reese not return for it within three weeks, it would be the farmer's—the man directed them to Zimapan, a small village only a few miles inland. They left the old fellow counting and recounting the luck that had just befallen him.

To call Zimapan a village, Grace thought on first sighting, was overly generous. A collection of rudely constructed buildings surrounded the small, steepled church at the center of things carved out of simple
cantera
rock from a nearby quarry. The village boasted a working church bell, a small cantina, a livery/blacksmith shop, and what passed for a dry-goods supply.

Outlying farms were few and far between, and the only transportation they could scare up turned out to be a rickety two-wheeled gig and a mule, aptly named Maximo, who'd certainly seen better years.

The people, on the other hand, were clearly happy to see outsiders—even
gringos
who carried their only belongings on their backs. They offered a dozen helpful, and distinctly different, routes to the city of Querétaro along with the first hot meal they'd had in days—tortillas, soup, and something odd-looking, called
rellenos,
which burned the roof of Grace's mouth and made Reese laugh out loud.

Marta Gonzales smiled broadly at the sound. A shepherd's wife and mother of ten apprentice weavers, Señora Gonzales had generously insisted on cooking for the village's visitors. As her children watched them with wide-eyed curiosity, she tossed circles of tortilla dough expertly between her hands and let her husband, Juan, do the talking.

Grace watched the ease with which Reese conversed with these simple people, his fluency with the language and the friendliness he managed when he was not on his guard. She picked up enough words here and there to gather that their talk was predominantly political. Sentiment in Zimapan, Reese told her, leaned heavily in favor of the rebel cause. Juan's brother, Guillermo, fought beside Juarez, and Marta and her husband were hungry for word of the struggle. Reese told them what little he knew.

His casual mention of the
Americano
Jake Scully brought nods of recollection from several in the Gonzales family. Reese didn't press them too hard, especially when Juan mentioned another name—Dominguez. She'd never heard that name before, but Reese apparently had. She felt him go tense beside her.

A short time later, however, the conversation took a turn toward Reese and Grace. Though she understood little of what was being said, his eyes flashed to hers with the old heat when Marta made a sly comment directed at her. Nor did Grace understand the reply he gave her, but the implication was clear enough to make heat rise to her cheeks.

Grace leaned close to Reese. "What did she say?"

"She said you are built for making babies. And"—even Reese had the good grace to color then—"she said I should get to work."

Grace nearly choked on her tortilla. After a moment, she smiled up at him wickedly. "And did you tell her you already had?"

His humor faded and he regarded her soberly. "She thinks we're married."

"Did you tell her that?"

"I didn't have to," Reese replied, fully aware of the implications of that statement. It was difficult to hide the heat that leapt between them at the smallest look or touch. Harder still to rein in his compulsion to gaze at her when her attention turned elsewhere.

She tore off another bite of tortilla and threaded her arm through his teasingly. "Hmm. Is it so obvious that we're mad for each other?"

Smiling casually at Juan, who didn't understand a word of English, he sent her a look of warning. "Grace."

"Yes, dearest?"

His gaze took in the horde of Gonzales children surrounding them. "They're watching your every move."

"I know," she sighed a little wistfully, smiling at Marta, who turned back to make more of the flat bread rounds. The playful teasing went out of her voice. "Aren't they wonderful? Look at them, ten children, all of them smiling and happy, with so little. But apparently they have something more precious than money."

A muscle tensed in Reese's jaw as if he knew what was coming.

"They have each other," she said at last. "Isn't that nice?"

It was nearly noon by the time they finished their meal and getting too hot to cook. Marta and her husband Juan presented Grace with a colorful shawl woven on their own looms—for which they flatly refused payment—and a plentiful supply of tortillas and beans, then sent them on their way. Grace waved as they pulled away in the gig Reese had bought from them. She watched until the Gonzales children stopped chasing them, until they faded into the desert behind them.

Reese drove silently, his face impassive, his thoughts impenetrable. The heavy scent of creosote and sage mingled with the heated air. Grace watched the high desert speed by in a blur of yellows and greens. Her thoughts turned to Luke and Brew and all the things that might have been—and all the things that still might be. She said a prayer for them both, and another for her and Reese. Then, she did the only thing she could think of to keep from crying in earnest—she pulled out her notebook and began to write.

* * *

By the afternoon of the second day of brain-addling heat on the high desert, the rut-filled track to Querétaro had jolted their insides to mush and coated their outsides with a fine layer of dust. Reese had to admit, as he watched her sleep, that Grace hadn't complained once. In fact, he could hardly recall her complaining once since they'd started.
She's a scrapper,
he thought, with what must be at least a drop of Gaelic pluck in her. Admiration mingled with the less honorable emotions she stirred in him as he watched her.

What they'd shared the last few days had been beyond anything he could comprehend. It took merely a look or a touch to ignite the blaze inside him all over again. God in heaven, she was like a thirst he couldn't quench. He couldn't get enough of her, but he knew their time was nearly up. This game of theirs was over. Except, for him, it had never been a game. For him, it had been his last chance.

He took a deep breath before he woke her. She'd fallen asleep somehow, head tilted at an awkward angle against the rig's collapsible leather canopy. It had been a constant battle to tamp down the powerful urge to take her in his arms and tell her that he'd find a way to work it out for them. That maybe there was hope for them, and he'd been wrong.

But he wasn't. The more he turned the issue over in his mind—backward, forward, inside out—the more convinced he became that his conclusion was the only one that made sense. They were different as light and shadow. As incompatible as grease and flame. He was a poor Irish nobody, born to this life. She was a lady who deserved better than a man whose only talents were a fast gun and an uncanny knack for staying alive.

Aye, she deserved more. So much more. Yet, incredibly, she seemed to recognize no lack in him. It was that dogged faith of hers that had gotten him this far. He couldn't explain it, but she made him want more from himself than he ever had before. But even as he contemplated reform, he couldn't imagine how to begin, or even if he had it in him. He'd balanced on the edge of destruction for so long, it had seemed like living to him.

Until she came along.

He pulled the hack to a stop and gave her a gentle nudge. "Grace?"

She mumbled something in her sleep. Reese felt his stomach tighten. God, even coated in dust she was beautiful. He reined in the impulse to reach out and brush his fingers against her cheek.

"Grace."

"Hunhh?" She straightened abruptly in her seat and squinted at the brilliant swath of vermillion splashed across the sky.

"We'll stop here for the night."

"But it's not night yet," she argued, rubbing her eyes. "We can go farther."

"I think you've had enough for today. We'll reach the city tomorrow. We might as well be rested."

"Tomorrow?" Wrenched from sleep as she'd been, her uncensored expression seemed a mixture of hope and dread. "Can't we go tonight?"

He shook his head. "In less than an hour it will be dark. Besides, I have something I want to show you."

Helping her down from the carriage, he led her twenty feet away, around a thick hedge of desert willows, heavy with pale, orchid-like blooms, and a pair of fragrant smoke trees, enshrouded in lush purple blossoms. Grace looked at them in wonder. "Ohhh." She reached down to touch the beaded lavender bloom of a tamarisk bush. "It's lovely here."

"Wait," he told her. "It gets better." He pushed aside the bushes to reveal a scene that nearly rendered Grace speechless. A spring-fed pool of sparkling water lay hidden there amidst the rushes. The sunset cast the water in rippling golden light.

She nearly laughed aloud, dipping her hand in the cool water and sending a splash across the pool. "I think I've died and gone to heaven. How did you know it was here?"

"When you've traveled the desert as much as I have, you learn to recognize the signs. Feel like a bath?"

She grinned irrepressibly. "Is that a joke?"

"I'll take that as a yes." He glanced around the pond briefly. "Well, then, I'll... uh, give you some privacy."

Disappointment flashed in her blue eyes before she smiled brightly. "All right."

Withdrawing his knife from its sheath, he dug into the soil around a small bush, hacking out a piece of root. He tossed it to her. "Soap plant. Rub it between your hands. It works almost as well as the real thing."

She nodded and he disappeared through the hedge of bushes in the direction of the hack.

Setting the squishy root down on a sun-warmed rock, she swallowed hard, loosening the braid that fell over her shoulder. Reese was right to pull away, she told herself, unbuttoning the cuffs on her sleeves. After all, he'd spoken no words of love or tomorrow, nor had she asked for any. In truth, she had no idea of his feelings for her. There were moments when he looked at her so tenderly she imagined he must love her. And others when he held himself so apart from her, she wondered if he cared at all. Trying to read a man like Reese was like trying to interpret the expression of the Great Sphinx of Egypt. It had all been a fantasy, like a fairy tale without a happy ending.

She stripped off her top and undid the ties on her skirt, letting it fall to the ground. Tomorrow, they would reach Querétaro and Luke. Reese would put her and all of this behind him. If she was very, very lucky, so would she.

Rolling down her torn stockings, she laid them carefully beside her dress. With a furtive look around, she stripped off the rest of her underthings, corset, camisole, and pantalets, and laid them on the ground, too.

She waded into the cool spring with a sigh. The water closed over her hips, her breasts, her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she disappeared below the surface, swam a few strokes, relishing the silken whisper of the water against her bare skin.

As children, she and Luke had often gone swimming in the pond on their farm back in Virginia, often with only a few more clothes on than this. Those had been happy times—before their parents had been killed. After that, she and Luke had grown even closer. Except for Brew, Luke was all she had. The thought of losing him to Maximilian's firing squad sent a shaft of agony through her heart. She couldn't lose him. She wouldn't. Someday, she and Luke would swim in the pond in Front Royal again. She silently promised Luke that.