The Outlaw and the Lady (7 page)

“Damn it!” Raven spat.

Angela sat up straighter in the saddle. He’d brought the horse to a halt at what she felt certain was the summit of a rise. In the past few days, he seemed to be stopping more frequently, glancing over his shoulder, growing increasingly tense with each mile they covered. “What is it?” she asked.

“One has broken away from the pack, and he has a very fast horse.”

“His horse only has the burden of one rider,” she pointed out unnecessarily. “Yours has two. You can’t possibly stay ahead. Leave me—”

“No!”

“How close is he?”

“An hour, perhaps less,” he bit out.

“Then leave me. For God’s sake, leave me. I’ll be all right for that short bit of time.”

“I don’t know this man who follows us.”

“Neither do I.” She fought back the tears of anger and frustration. She would not cry. God help her, she would not cry. “But I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to be near you.
I want to go home
. I’ll take my chances with the other man.”

He dismounted. She expected his hands to come around her waist. Instead she heard his
boots thundering over the ground and his spurs jangling as he paced, his anger evident with every stride.

Carefully, she swung her leg over the horse and worked her way to the ground. Never had she despised the darkness more because she could not judge his mood. Intense, angry, she knew. But was his anger directed at her or himself? She didn’t know how to play the hand. How to win what she so dearly wanted.

“Please,” she pleaded softly. “Please leave me here.”

The pacing came to an abrupt halt, the silence almost deafening.

“If I give you one of my guns, will you shoot at this man the way you shot at me?” he asked quietly, no emotion reflected in his voice.

Hope spiraled through her that freedom was imminent. “Yes, if he threatens me in any way, I won’t hesitate to squeeze the trigger.”

She heard the haunting hiss as his gun cleared the leather holster. When he took her hand, she realized that she was trembling. He folded her fingers around the handle of his gun.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll shoot you again?” she joked pitifully, so afraid she’d lose this opportunity if he realized how terrified she was to be left alone.

“I prefer a bullet to a hangman’s noose.”

“I won’t shoot you.”

“I know. Once was enough. Keep the gun hidden within the folds of your skirt until you know you can trust him. If you think you can’t, raise the
gun quickly…this high.” He lifted her hand. “And shoot. You’ll hit him in the chest. He is not a tall man.”

She nodded, her mouth suddenly as dry as the air in west Texas where Kit Montgomery lived. Raven slowly released her hand. She dropped the gun to her side, hiding it within the material of her skirt.

“If he tries to harm you, I will be too far away to hear your scream.” Regret laced his voice.

Until this moment, she hadn’t fully realized that it truly was concern for her welfare that had prevented him from leaving her behind earlier. She knew only the outer man and very little of the inner one. She was intimately familiar with his chest, his stomach, the inside of his thighs, and the arm that held her as she slept. She didn’t know what to make of this outlaw whose reputation seemed so inconsistent with his behavior. “He won’t hurt me. I’m sure of it.”

“Then remember me,
querida
.”

His mouth captured hers. Snaking one arm around her waist, he drew her up against his firm body while he plowed his other hand through the tangled mess of her hair, angling her head to better accommodate his desires. And she had no doubt that he desired her or that she should be afraid, afraid of all the incredible sensations and misgivings he stirred to life within her.

Never had she been kissed with such rapacious hunger. Never had a man’s mouth possessed hers as though he owned it. Never had a man poured so much molten passion into a kiss that she
thought she might melt at his feet. He plunged his tongue deeply, exploring intimately as though it was his undeniable right to do so.

Her mouth betraying her, she returned his kiss with a fervor that frightened her. She could blame it on the intimate moments when she’d slept within his arms or the long hours of riding when their bodies were pressed so close as to be almost one. But her yearning for his kiss went beyond the physical, to a heart as lonely as hers, to a soul as battered and bruised.

Abruptly, he drew away. She staggered backward, breathless and trembling. She heard his footsteps as he stomped to the horse, the creaking of the saddle as he mounted, the horse’s hooves pounding the earth as he rode off…

The silent echo of her heart calling him back…

S
till trembling with the lingering passion of Raven’s departure, Angela heard the horse and rider arrive. Had an hour passed already?

During that time, she had relived Raven’s bold, demanding kiss a thousand times, contemplating all the things she should have done: stomped on his foot, jerked her knee up and caught him in the groin, pleaded with him not to leave her.

How could she possibly harbor this intense longing for an outlaw, for a man who had abducted her in the dead of night? She blamed her unfathomable desire on hours of riding within his embrace, feeling the sting of his anger, the warmth of his concern, the hint of his teasing. As preposterous as it was, she wished she had known him before he’d turned to a life of crime.

“Where’s Raven?” a masculine voice demanded.

She heard the man dismount, and his horse snort.

“He…he left. Rode away. Hours ago.”

“He left you here alone?”

She nodded at his cautious inquiry. “Yes, so you can take me—”

“Did he grow tired of you warming his bed?”

She released a startled scream, the gun flying from her hand as he knocked her to the ground unmercifully. A sharp pain ricocheted through her skull, bright stars bursting through the darkness.

The man’s heaviness pressed down on her, threatening to crush her ribs. She bucked ineffectually, distantly aware of his hand creeping beneath her skirt, his thick fingers digging into her thigh as oblivion and blessed escape claimed her.

Her head thrumming with a dull ache, Angela awoke slowly, vaguely conscious of the tendrils of warmth sent out by the nearby crackling fire, acutely aware of the soft, damp cloth outlining slowly, ever so slowly, the curve of her cheek. She somehow knew with an undeniable certainty who was touching her with a gentleness that made her throat grow tight with emotions. “Lee?”

“
Sí
. I am here.”

She started to rise up on her elbows, only to have him press her down. “Lie still,” he ordered. “You hit your head on a rock.”

She settled back against the hard ground, an astonishing thought swirling through her hazy mind. “You came back.”

“I never left,
querida
.” With incredible tenderness, he trailed the cloth across her chin and along her throat. Then he gave the same exquisite attention to the other side of her face.

Her body ached in every conceivable place except the one where she had expected the most pain. “You never left,” she repeated softly.

“I did not expect him to move so quickly.” He traced his finger along her exposed collarbone. “He ripped your dress, but he accomplished nothing more.”

A wretched, dry sob escaped her as he assuaged her fears, terror at the thought of what the man might have done after oblivion had descended, events that mercifully she could not remember. Lee slid his hand beneath her head, lifted her slightly, and pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder, murmuring gently in Spanish, words she couldn’t comprehend, though they provided solace. She let the tears fall and curled her fingers around the opening to his shirt. “You knew he would attack me,” she said.

“I only knew he broke away from the pack of wolves. An avaricious man who wanted to share the bounty with no one. A man such as this is often greedy for other things.”

She squeezed her eyes shut to stay the tears. Dreading the answer, she dared to ask, “Did you kill him?”

“No, I crept up behind him and knocked him out with the butt of my gun. When we left, he was still breathing.”

She thought she detected disappointment in his voice, not so much because the man still lived, but because her question had wounded him. What did he expect her to think when he was wanted for murder? Gently he laid her down.

“When we left?” she repeated.

“We rode for a while, but when you would not wake up, I got worried.”

Worried
? In his concern for her welfare, he’d made her a pallet, used his poncho for a pillow, built a fire…a fire…crickets chirped. “It’s night! They’ll spot this fire.”

“Probably,” he answered, resignation laced through his voice. “But your hands were like ice. I was afraid you were dying. I did not want you to die cold.”

“Put out the fire.”

“You surprise me. I assumed you would welcome my capture.”

Until a few hours ago she would have, but now she was astonishingly aware of the difference between the men who followed and Raven. She had expected the outlaw to be uncouth, immoral, without a fiber of decency woven through the tapestry of his character. Instead, she was discovering that he was a labyrinth of contradictions. A man who failed to heed the law but still managed to appear chivalrous. “Now, I owe you.”

“Is that all there is to it,
querida
?”

Her breath hitched as he stroked his thumb
across her bottom lip, and she forced her tongue to stay behind her teeth when she desperately wanted to taste him again.

“Why didn’t you fight me when I kissed you?” he asked in a quiet seductive voice that sent shivers tingling along her spine and warmth curling in the pit of her stomach.

“I…” She swallowed hard, determined to lie so he would never know the intensity with which she desired him, a fervor that frightened with its unfamiliarity, but lured her with a promise of fulfillment. “I was afraid you might take offense and decide not to leave me.”

He leaned closer, and his chest pressed against her breast. Her entire body reacted quite differently than it had to the closeness of the man in the clearing. Where before she’d experienced revulsion, now profound desire swamped her.

He brushed his lips across the corner of her mouth. “So…if I were to kiss you now, you would fight?”

Closing her eyes, she wished she could gaze into his. Were they the brown of pecans or the black of rich soil? “I’d fight you,” she whispered with a breathless voice that belied her words, “but my head hurts.”

He pressed his mouth to her temple. “It is a shame we are far from home. Juanita could give you a potion for your head, and I would call your bluff.”

Her heart very nearly stilled. Like every word he spoke about home, this woman’s name had been surrounded by love. “Juanita?”

“My sister. She knows much about herbs.”

Unwarranted relief flooded her. So incredibly stupid. This man was a notorious outlaw. Kit Montgomery had spent his life searching for men such as this, to bring them to justice, to ensure that the people of Texas were safe. Even her father and Grayson Rhodes…years ago, they had stood beside Kit and survived a gunfight against a band of outlaws that had become legendary.

As for his threat to call her bluff, not even her father had ever been able to read her with the astute accuracy that Raven did. She didn’t want to contemplate the intimacy growing between them or the reason she welcomed it even though it terrified her. “Lee, put out the fire,” she repeated.

“Not until you have eaten.”

He retreated, and she mourned the loss of his touch, even though she knew danger resided within the desires swirling through her. “You’re risking capture.”

“They will find me anyway, my stomach is growling so loud.”

Sitting up, she moaned low as pain ricocheted across the base of her skull.

“Is it bad?” he asked.

She shook her head slightly.

“You never complain,” he said with amazement.

“I seem to recall voicing several objections—”

“That I took you in the dead of night,
sí
, but that you are hungry or cold or weary, no. You are a remarkable woman, Angela Bainbridge.”

As his footsteps faded in the distance, she
scooted back until she could lean against a tree. A remarkable woman? Hardly. Her head throbbed with an agony that made it difficult to hold the demons of her past failures at bay.

Fifteen years had passed, but she could see the moment as clearly as if it were yesterday. And the child they had entrusted to her keeping, Damon Montgomery. With his mother’s blond hair and his father’s pale blue eyes, eyes that had sparkled with merriment whenever they had played together.

She had been four years older, old enough to know better than to stray far, but he had been searching for the perfect hiding place. When the renegades had attacked, he’d been at their mercy.

Angela shuddered. No matter how tightly she closed her eyes, she couldn’t prevent the image from appearing. Fair-skinned Damon, trapped beneath the bronzed arm of a warrior as his horse galloped away.

Now, men just as treacherous were closing in on Lee, and she felt as helpless. She contemplated putting out the fire, but the stubborn man would probably only rebuild it. Based on the tales she’d heard, she’d expected him to behave as the man in the clearing had…ruthlessly, unmercifully. Yet at every turn, he’d failed to meet her expectations.

“I hope rabbit appeals to you,” he announced, interrupting her thoughts. His knees popped, and she envisioned him crouched before the fire, preparing the meal.

“I can’t believe you’re taking time to cook.”

“It won’t take long, and my horse can use the additional rest. It will be his last for a while.”

“You didn’t take that man’s horse?”

“They hang horse thieves.”

Her stomach tightened. “What difference does that make when you’ll probably hang anyway?”

“I would not like to see a noose slipped around your pretty neck if someone mistakenly thought you were the one who stole it.”

“How can you joke about it?”

“For a long time I have lived with the knowledge that I’ll hang. I do not welcome it, but that is the way of it.”

She heard the fire crackle, and a tantalizing aroma wafted toward her. Lee sat beside her, and she realized because of her, he had lost valuable time, had shortened the distance between himself and capture. In the beginning, as much as she’d hated being bound, she’d found satisfaction in the fact that he obviously thought she was capable of escaping. She had managed to slow him down, but now guilt pricked her conscience. He had not abandoned her even though she’d wanted to ensure his capture.

“Lee,” she said quietly, “I’m sorry that I asked you to leave me behind. I just wanted to go home so badly.”

He cradled her face with such tenderness that she almost wept again. “I know,
querida
. I am not angry with you, and I regret that I must return to my home before I take you to Fortune.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs. “What are you talking about? You told Alejandro that as soon as you lost sight of these men—”

“I know what I told him, but before the sun set,
long before I made camp, I spotted another group of riders.”

With her hope spiraling, she sat up straighter. “They could be men my father hired.”

“Possibly. Or if indeed your father contacted Montgomery, they might be Rangers. Either way, now I know that many are in pursuit, and I cannot take the time to return you until I know for certain that my brothers made it home safely.”

She sank against the tree, acknowledging his unasked question. “I’ll cooperate.”

“
Gracias
. Once I know all is well with them, I will return you to Fortune.”

He moved away from her and she listened to the sounds of him preparing a meal. Her mind drifted. She knew the first group of riders hadn’t been hired by her father; the man never would have attacked her. But the second group…if there was any chance at all that they were more interested in her than Lee…and yet she understood fully his need to check on his family. Her own family was constantly in her thoughts. Her parents would be frantic with worry. If only she could somehow let them know no harm had come to her…

She removed the deck from her pocket and searched for her favorite card, the two of hearts. Her father had won her mother’s hand in marriage with that card. Dare she leave it behind as a signal to ease their troubled hearts? Slipping it beneath the previous winter’s leaves, she could only hope that it would be found and the message understood.

She nearly leapt out of her skin when Lee set a plate on her lap. “Sometimes you move so quietly.”

“I am a man of many talents. Eat.”

Gingerly she searched for a strip of meat. She’d always been self-conscious eating in front of people, but from the beginning it hadn’t bothered her to eat while Lee watched. She assumed her need to survive was stronger than her aversion to embarrassment. She slipped the succulent meat into her mouth, and almost groaned from the pleasure of eating something besides jerky. “Why did you turn to a life of crime?”

Sensing his stillness, she could well imagine his dark eyes boring into her. “It is not so much a life of crime as it is one of revenge.”

“Against Vernon Shelby?”

“
Sí
.”

Slowly she chewed while contemplating what she knew. He had killed Vernon Shelby’s son. He signed his name to the bank robberies, always indicating that he was only taking Shelby’s money. But when questioned, Shelby had no idea who Lee Raven was or why he’d singled him out. “I overheard Kit and Spence talking once—”

“Who is Spence?” he interrupted.

“Uncle Kit’s son.”

“I thought his son had died.”

She set the plate aside, her appetite suddenly deserting her with the reminder of her failure to protect Kit’s firstborn, the initial heir to his family’s English estate. “Spence is his younger son.”

“You speak of him as though you care for him.”

Was Lee jealous? No man had ever expressed the slightest bit of envy where she’d been concerned. She suddenly understood why her sisters found it thrilling to have an abundance of gentlemen vying for their attention. “Spence is simply a good friend.”

“Has he ever kissed you?”

She laughed self-consciously. He
was
jealous. “No. He’s considerably younger than I am.”

“What has age got to do with anything?”

She could not believe she was in the middle of nowhere with an aching head and a curious outlaw. “Do you prefer older women?”

“I enjoy women of all ages. Do you prefer older men?”

She sighed. “I was the one asking questions.”