Touch the Wind (35 page)

Sheila felt her heart would burst with joy. She had waited so long to hear those words, and she had given up hope that he would ever say them, that he would ever feel the love for her he had just professed.

“I love you.” It was almost a vow that she uttered softly.

Ráfaga smiled, with his mouth and his eyes. “Soon the baby will begin to swell your belly.” His hand moved to her stomach, his fingers spreading over it, igniting a fire within Sheila. “When it does, I will look at you and feel that same surge of desire,
querida.
I will never stop wanting you or loving you.” His voice became deeper and huskier as his hand slid beneath her blouse to mold itself around the fullness of her breasts. “Think of the countless hours I will spend watching our child suckle at your breast. Do you now understand the happiness I knew when I realized you were with child?”

“Yes.” She laughed with breathless joy, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Yes, I do.”

“And you will consent to letting the priest marry us?”

“Yes.” Sheila nodded.

His dark brows drew together in a frown. “I regret that I cannot offer you the legality of a government ceremony, but my name is too well known to—”

“I know. I don’t mind,” she insisted.

Ráfaga breathed in deeply, pain flickering in his eyes. “I have no right to ask you to share this life with me. I can offer you so little, and you give me so much.”

“All I want is your love. I have had all the rest. It wouldn’t mean anything without you. I know that. You must believe it.”

“I only know that I cannot let you go,” he declared, roughly crushing her against him as his mouth descended to accept the invitation of her lips.

Three days later the golden light of dawn was spreading across the sky. Ráfaga’s hands were gently cupping Sheila’s face. His dark gaze shifted beyond her to Laredo, already in the saddle and holding the reins to her horse.

“It is time to leave,
amado,”
he told her quietly.

“Please, Ráfaga, come with us now.” Sheila asked him to change his mind.

“No.” He shook his head, smiling to lessen the hardness of his tone. “It is a long ride. You will need to rest at least a day when you get there, and I cannot risk being that long in a place where I could be ecognized—unless,” Ráfaga teased mock’ngly, “you wish to visit me in jail.”

“No, of course not.” Sheila lowered her head, but she hated being separated from him, even for a few days.

“I will leave tomorrow.” He lifted her chin with his thumb. “The next time you see me, we will stand before the priest.” His mouth closed over hers in a hard, brief kiss before he firmly guided Sheila to the bay and helped her into the saddle. His hand rested on her thigh as he looked at Laredo. “Remember,” Ráfaga told him crisply, “go directly to Father Ramirez.
Speak to no one else. He knows me and will find a place for you to stay that is safe.”

Laredo nodded his understanding and handed the bay’s reins to Sheila. “I’ll take care of her, Ráfaga.”

Her eyes were filling with tears as Sheila looked down at Ráfaga. His mouth had thinned into a grim line, but the darkness in his gaze held the smouldering light of his love. Her lips parted to protest again that she didn’t want to go without him.

His hand came down hard on the bay’s rump. The horse jumped forward in alrm. Sheila checked its flight for an instant, then urged it forward. In seconds, Laredo was riding beside her.

Passing the spring-fed pool, they took the narrow, rocky trail up the north face of the canyon. Single file, they rode with Sheila leading the way up the long, winding trail through a corridor of trees and rocks. Once the sun crested the eastern ridge, the morning blazed with light.

The bay was lunging up the last steep slope of the trail when Sheila heard the rifle shot. She reined the bay in sharply at the top and saw Laredo’s head jerk toward the sound. He spurred his horse to the top and dismounted, ignoring Sheila as he ran to a rocky overlook.

“What is it?” She joined him on the ledge.

The clear mountain air carried indistinguishable shouts of alarm. “My God, it’s a patrol,” Laredo muttered.

A large band of uniformed riders was galloping across the meadow in the direction of the adobe houses. The canyon hideout had been discovered. Her heart leaped into her throat. Ráfaga was down there. Pivoting, Sheila ran back to the bay. But Laredo was there, grabbing a bridle strap to stop her.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he demanded, holding the bay’s tossing head.

“Ráfaga’s down there. I have to go to him.”

“Do you think I don’t want to?” Laredo snapped. “He knows we’re out of danger, that we’re safe. All he
has to worry about is getting himself out of there. If he can’t, then I can damned sure break him out of any prison they put him in. This is no time to be melodramatic.”

She recognized the logic of his argument, but she wasn’t ruled by logic. Digging her heels into the bay’s flanks, she whipped the horse with the reins. The bay dragged Laredo for two feet before he was forced to let go and the horse charged back down the trail it had just climbed.

Within seconds Sheila heard the clattering of Laredo’s horse behind her. At a wide spot in the trail, he forced his horse alongside hers.

“You can’t stop me!” she blazed.

“I realize that!” he flashed angrily. “I know I’m a damned fool, but I promised Ráfaga I’d take care of you, and I could never face him if I let you go down there alone.”

He spurred his horse into the lead. Above the scrambling of horses’ hooves could be heard the sound of gunfire in the canyon below. Ráfaga and his men were putting up a fight.

Their reckless descent brought them down the trail in a third of the time. At the pool, Laredo made a pointing gesture in the direction of the adobe house. where they had left Ráfaga. The majority of the gunfire was coming from the cluster of houses to the west, but there was the sound of shots being fired near the lone house.

Laredo broke from the trees ahead of Sheila. Immediately a volley of shots exploded around him. Instinct made Sheila stop the bay as she saw him jerk convulsively, sawing on the reins. His chestnut horse was thrown off balance and fell. Laredo stayed on the ground after his horse scrambled to its feet, trotting back into the trees where Sheila waited. She was swinging a leg out of the saddle when she heard Laredo call to her.

“Get out of here!” His voice was riddled with pain. Sheila dismounted, wanting to go to Laredo and
knowing if she stepped out of the trees, she would be forsaking their protection. She grabbed at the trailing reins of his chestnut.

“You can’t help me,” Laredo told her, grunting with the effort to speak. “I can’t move, so get out of here!”

With a sob of anguish, she knew he was right. Her gaze swung to the thatched roof of the house. Sheila turned and mounted the chestnut, leading the bay. She worked her way through the trees away from Laredo to the other side of the adobe house. Ráfaga was trapped inside it.

The clearing from the trees to the house seemed dangerously wide. She had to cross it to reach the house and Ráfaga. Sheila hesitated, then jammed her heels into the chestnut. The bay raced alongside as she whipped the chestnut across the clearing to the temporary protection of the east side of the house.

The patrol had struck first at the cluster of houses. The main force was only just beginning to extend its foray to the isolated adobe building. A rifle barrel glinted from a window at her approach, and Sheila reined in beside it.

“Ráfaga!”

Immediately he appeared in the windowframe. His eyes narrowed angrily at the sight of her, his features hardened and ruthless.

“What are you doing here?” he muttered savagely.

“I had to come back. Hurry!” Sheila urged, but he was already swinging out the window.

“Where is Laredo?” He had a foot in the stirrup and was mounting the bay when he asked the question.

“He’s down,” she answered simply and saw his mouth tighten.

“We do not have a chance in the meadow. We will try to get into the trees.”

Bullets whined around them as they raced the horses back the way Sheila had come. There was no time to dwell on her fear. Sheila simply knew she was afraid. They reached the trees untouched and Ráfaga turned the bay toward the pool and the narrow trail up the
north face of the canyon. Almost too late they saw a handful of uniformed riders approaching through the trees, blocking their way.

Without hesitating a second, Ráfaga pivoted the bay. Sheila guessed Ráfaga’s alternate plan was to stay within the trees until they reached the east wall, then break for the main trail out of the canyon.

A shout from one of the uniformed riders revealed they had been spotted. To attain speed was next to impossible in the trees, with low-hanging branches whipping at their faces, trying to unseat them.

“Sheila.” Ráfaga was behind her. She looked over her shoulder, bending low on the chestnut’s neck. “We must try to cross the meadow now before they cut us off.”

Her sweeping gaze saw another fragment of the patrol approaching from the meadow side. Pursued from behind and threatened from the side, she knew he was right and nodded her agreement. The narrow canyon suddenly seemed very wide and the sloping trail very far away.

The chestnut burst from the trees ahead of the bay and maintained its lead for a few strides. Both horses were flattened to the ground, running all out, but the bay began inching away. Ráfaga checked the bay’s pace to keep the distance between them from widening more.

The riders were bearing down, the angle lessening as Sheila and Ráfaga neared the center of the meadow. Sheila realized there was a slim chance that the bay’s speed might enable Ráfaga to make it, but not if he continued to hold back the horse to stay with her. Her decision was made without thinking, purely on the instinct of survival.

“I can’t make it!” she shouted to Ráfaga. “Go on without me!”

“No!”

But Sheila was already hauling on the reins of the heavy-mouthed chestnut, turning its head away as Ráfaga tried unsuccessfully to grab for the reins. Aware that Ráfaga
was slowing the bay to come back for her, Sheila guided the chestnut directly toward the intercepting patrol.

She began waving her arm and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Help me! I’m an American!” She repeated it over and over again, nearly sobbing as she prayed for Ráfaga to ride on.

The patrol slowed as she galloped the chestnut toward their center. She brought her horse to a plunging halt in front of them. The lead rider made an assessing sweep of her, his attention stopping briefly on the golden color of her hair.

A pointing gesture of his hand separated the majority of the patrol from the rest, sending them after Ráfaga. Finally, Sheila looked behind her and saw the bay racing for the trail. She knew then that she had gained him the time to make it.

Shaking, Sheila tried to dismount, more or less falling from the saddle. Her legs buckling, she went to her knees, relief sobbing from her throat.

A voice made an inquiry in Spanish, but she was too addled to make the translation. It was repeated in accented English.

“Are you all right,
señora?
” The voice was calm, yet very crisp.

Tears matted her lashes together. She wiped them away as she swallowed back the sobs in gasping breaths. At first Sheila was too weak from reaction to reply.

Finally, her nod was accompanied by a shaky, “Yes, I’m all right.”

A pair of polished military boots was within her vision, standing near her. Saddle leather creaked close by as a horse stamped restlessly and snorted. Distantly, Sheila could hear the sounds of other activity in the canyon.

“You are Señora Sheila Townsend from Texas?” The accented voice asked for confirmation.

Lifting her head, Sheila held her wind-tangled hair away from her cheek, eyeing the uniformed officer warily. “Yes, I am Sheila Townsend,” she admitted.

The man was of medium height, with a hawk nose and piercing brown eyes. “You are the daughter of Señor Elliot Rogers?” At her nod, his thin mouth curved into a polite smile. “We have been looking for you for a very long time,
señora
—since we found your husband’s body in the car.” With a slight bow and an extension of his gloved hand to help Sheila to her feet, he added, “Please, I am Capitán Ramon Echeverria.”

Accepting his assistance, Sheila rose to face the officer. He was watching her alertly, sharply curious and speculating. She was still trembling and shaky inside. It was difficult to contain her resentment toward the officer who had led the raid against Ráfaga.

“How—how did you find me?” Her voice quivered, coming out husky and low as she removed her hand from his grasp.

Again he offered her that thin smile that was polite and nothing more. “As I said, we have been looking for you since we found your husband,
señora
. At first, there were many rumors that you were being held captive by the men who shot your husband. Then there was nothing, as if the mountains had swallowed you up. A few weeks ago a routine patrol was in the vicinity and heard a gunshot. When they went to investigate, they believed they saw a blonde-haired woman with a small group of riders. We have had scouts combing the area since then. That is how we located the canyon,” he explained.

“I see,” she murmured, then shuddered inwardly that her foolish attempt to escape had led to this.

The Mexican officer’s gaze flicked briefly to the sloping trail out of the canyon before returning its piercing attention to Sheila. “It is unfortunate that the man was able to escape when you rode to us. He was the leader of this band, was he not?”

“. . . Yes.” Sheila hesitated only a second before making the admission, but it was enough to intensify the officer’s look.

“His name?” he prompted.

“I don’t know his name,” she answered quickly. This time it was too quickly.

A dark brow arched immediately. “This is not Riáfaga’s band?”

Sheila argued swiftly with herself, debating whether to lie or tell the truth, but there was too much chance of being caught in a lie.

“Yes, that is what they called him, but I don’t know his name,” she admitted tightly. “I heard him referred to only as Ráfaga, nothing else.”