Tracker’s Sin (5 page)

rose petal. He remembered a poem he’d read once where the author compared his love to a red, red rose. Ari was like that. A beautiful flower that

flourished no matter how much shit had been thrown at her. He might never know how much, but the Moraleses had started her healing, and being at Hel ’s

Eight would finish it. There was no judgment there, just acceptance. A lot of lost souls came to Hel ’s Eight and found peace. Ari would, too. She had a

sister and a niece to love her. A family waiting to claim her. Al Tracker had to do was get her there.

Looking into her terrified eyes, he remembered that silent scream that couldn’t find a voice, imprisoning her in a memory from which he

couldn’t save her. Tracker wanted to promise her that he’d hunt down the men who’d done this to her, and make them pay. But Caine had already made

that promise and Hel ’s Eight had already fulfil ed it. That left her with a stranger’s word on something she likely wouldn’t believe. Not that Tracker didn’t

think she wouldn’t appreciate knowing it someday. Just not today.

“Ma’am.” Where the hel was Vincente and his wife? “I don’t have the knife anymore. And my gun belt is clear over there by your feet.”

She blinked. For a heartbeat Tracker thought he saw sanity in Ari’s eyes. She licked her lips. Her gaze locked with his and then went to

the gun belt.

He read her intent before she dived, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch her before she got her hands around the pistol. If his reflexes had

been a hair slower, he wouldn’t have gotten there in time to stop her from blowing his brains out. He caught her hand, gun belt and al , letting their

momentum rol them over, taking as much of the force of the fal on his shoulder as he could.

“Let go. Those guns have a hair trigger.”

She sank her teeth into the back of his hand. He swore and held on. One wrong move and she’d kil them both.

“Dammit! Let go!” What she lacked in muscle she made up for in wiggle. It was al he could do to keep her finger off the trigger. He

pressed her down into the dirt, using more and more of his weight until she went limp beneath him.

“Ma’am?”

Ari didn’t respond. Tracker careful y removed the pistol and gun belt from her grip. She didn’t fight. He stood. She continued to lie in the

dirt at his feet.

He’d thought it odd that she didn’t have scars from her ordeal. She did. He’d only been able to see what was uncovered. And al it had

taken to bring them out was one fool, half-naked Indian reaching for his knife. Hel .

You’re ugly enough to scare a bad woman decent.

Once again his father had been proved right. The older Tracker got, the more he began to accept that the insults his dad had tossed out

in Tracker’s youth were actual y truths he’d been too stubborn to accept. The proof lay prostrate on the ground at his feet.

It wasn’t right that Ari lay in the dirt like trash thrown aside. Looking at her there, her skirt hiked around her thighs, her beautiful blond hair

a tangle around her shoulders, he grimaced. It was easier than it should be to imagine her time with the
Comancheros,
to envision the hel she’d been

through. They’d probably walked away from her, leaving her just like that when their lust was spent. Left her to rot in the devastation of her soul, this woman

who had been created to be cherished.

Tracker wasn’t any different from the
Comancheros.
Faced with Ari’s reaction, faced with his own demons, he wanted to walk away, too.

Instead, he found himself kneeling, slid ing his hand beneath her head, lifting her to his chest.

“It’s going to be al right, Ari. I promise.”

Her hair smel ed like sweet flowers and heaven, her skin like vanil a and spice. Innocence and passion, a hint of who she might have

been if she hadn’t been stolen, raped, sold. Looking toward the house, making sure no one watched, Tracker rested his forehead against hers.

“A lot of people have been looking for you a long time, little one.”

No one harder than him, for reasons he didn’t understand, except that he was driven. He took a napkin from where it had fal en and wiped

at the smudge of dirt on her cheek. It felt right to be the one caring for her. Goddammit, he was losing his mind. This was dangerous. She was dangerous.

It had to stop. Now.

“Goddammit, Vincente, I know you can hear me. Get out here.”

In Tracker’s experience, women in a swoon didn’t stay out long, and he didn’t want to trigger another bout of hysteria when she woke in

his arms, en route to the house. So he sat there and held her, and pretended that he could make it al right, while he gave her a minute or two to come

back to herself. After al she’d been through, she deserved that minute. And it was the only thing he could give her.

The screen door slammed. Vincente and a plump woman hurried out of the house. As soon as they reached Tracker’s side, Vincente

was apologizing and the woman was fussing. Tracker handed Ari over to Josefina and glared at her husband. “Why?”

“I did not think she would have such a reaction. She has been doing so wel lately.”

“She’s not your daughter.”

Vincente shook his head. “Our daughter died in childbirth. Our hearts were so empty, and then we found this one and it was another

chance.”

A second chance to love. Not many got them. “So you loved her so much you sent her out here to be scared out of her wits?”

“No. I know who you are, Ranger.” Vincente took the napkin, wetted it and handed it to his wife. “There was no danger to her.”

“Just to her sanity.”

“Yes, but we hoped…” The old man sighed. “She is such a good daughter, a good mother. It is only when the bad times haunt her that this

happens.”

Tracker’s breath caught. “Mother?”

“She was pregnant when we found her.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“It has not been easy.”

“She loves the child?”

“With al her heart.”

How the hel could Ari love a child who had to remind her of the hel she’d survived?

Josefina looked up as Ari moaned. “She’s waking. You should leave.”

“I can’t.”

“You must.”

Tracker looked at Ari. He’d promised to bring her home, no matter how he found her, sane or crazy. “Not without her.”

3

T
hey settled on a compromise. Tracker retreated to the barn, and the Moraleses took Ari to the house. He watched as she stumbled between them up

the path, clearly disoriented, yet trusting the older couple in a way that suggested they’d done this many times before. As they made their way to the back

door, Josefina kept her body between Ari and Tracker. She tossed wary looks over her shoulder at him as she shielded Ari protectively. What was more

interesting, though, were the glares she shot her husband. Obviously, the woman blamed Vincente for the incident, which reinforced Tracker’s own sense

of being set up. Shoving his hat on his head, he swore and closed the barn door. He hoped the old woman gave the old man hel and indigestion.

An hour later, Tracker sat on the bed in the smal but comfortable bedroom at the front of the barn, stil stewing. The old one owed him an

explanation. The vague excuse he’d tossed out at the washhouse wasn’t going to cut it. Tracker disliked being anyone’s pawn. He disliked people who

tried to manipulate him.

The Ari he’d met at the wash shed was the woman he’d been expecting to find—traumatized by her experiences, tortured by her

memories, rekindling her past in everyday events. A woman broken by tragedy. He’d thought he’d prepared himself for the reaction she might have to his

appearance. After al , her attackers had been men like him. Men who wore their violent history in their eyes, on their skin and in their dress. Men who kil ed

as easily as they laughed. Men who did what they wanted and to hel with the consequences. But Tracker could have avoided seeing that woman if

Vincente had handled the introduction differently. Why the hel had the old man forced the issue? Had he wanted Ari to fear Tracker?

He grabbed his pistol from his gun belt where it hung by the head of the bed. Grains of sand clung to the metal. Desi said there was a

difference between him and the
Comancheros,
and maybe there was. He wasn’t one to prey on the weak, but he’d done things in the name of revenge

that would scare her curly hair straight and take the look of respect from her eyes. Things that kept him taking bigger and more dangerous bounties,

because they took him to places where he was comfortable, places where there was no right and wrong, just a man’s ability to come out on top in a fight.

Tracker yanked his saddlebags toward him. He was very good at coming out on top.

Lately, the line between an outlaw and himself had been growing vague in his mind. As the years passed, kil ing had become easier in

some ways, yet harder in others. Tracker could stil pul the trigger, but it bothered him more that whenever such a deed was done, justified or not, he

couldn’t stop thinking about it. Right was right and wrong was wrong; that’s the way it was out here. The way it had always been. So why wasn’t he

comfortable settling with that anymore? Why did every bounty he took now involve a moral debate inside himself if it went sour? Why was it getting harder

to live with pul ing the trigger? Why was he now seeing the faces of the men he kil ed, reliving the battles at night when he should be sleeping? Shit.

Tracker was who he was. Better than he could have been, not as good as he should have been. He was an Ochoa. Outlaw, kil er, bounty hunter, Texas

Ranger.

He tugged his cleaning kit out of a saddlebag. The smel of gun oil blended with the scents of hay and cow as he opened the oiled leather

wrap. Al familiar, al comforting. He took another breath, seeking the edge that the familiar gave him against the anger seething inside.

Laying the cleaning rod aside along with the rags, he began disassembling the gun. It was a daily ritual and as soothing as the scents

around him. It was also necessary. Dirty guns misfired. Misfires on the other guy’s part were a good thing. Misfires on his end of the battle were deadbefore-his-time bad.

The outer barn door opened. He could tel from the sound of footsteps crossing the floor that the owner was smal . He could tel from the

swish of skirts that the owner of those footsteps was female. Josefina with his breakfast, no doubt.

“I’m in my room,” he cal ed out.

It was as natural as breathing to prop his rifle across his lap just in case. It was rare that a woman came to his room intent on murder, but

it had happened a time or two. Such occurrences tended to make a man wary. And he’d seen the anger in Josefina’s eyes. Clearly, she wasn’t ready to

give up her daughter, though apparently Vincente was. The why of that was a puzzle to be solved. As was how they knew Ari’s name. A woman with no

past would nave no name.

There was no response. Maybe Josefina didn’t speak English.
“Estoy en mi quarto.”

The footsteps halted just outside his door.

The hair on the back of his neck stirred. A tingle went down his spine. “You can come in. I’m decent.”

Metal rattled against china. Whoever was outside his door was nervous. He cocked the hammer on the rifle.

“Come in.”

The door swung open.

“Hel o.” The distinct Eastern tones gave away the identity of who stood in the door. Ari. Tracker tilted the rifle downward and slowly

replaced the hammer as shock ricocheted through him. He blew out a breath.

Ari stood in the doorway, a napkin-covered tray in her hand. She was the last person he expected to see. Tracker stood and leaned the

rifle against the wal . He took off his hat. “Hel o.”

The tray rattled. Ari licked her lips. Her gaze didn’t meet his, and her voice shook along with the tray. “I wanted to bring you your breakfast.

”

She was lying.

“Why?”

She blinked and licked her lips again. The plates again rattled on the tray. He took a step forward and removed his breakfast from her

grasp.

He smiled. “My stomach might cut my throat if a second breakfast lands on the ground.”

Her gaze flicked to his before retreating back to the floor. Shit, it was always a mistake to smile.

“I’m sorry.”

It was a common statement, expected even, considering what had happened. He hated hearing it from her. As he placed the tray on the

smal pine dresser to the right of the door, he took the opportunity to study Ari from the corner of his eye. She wore a pink calico-print skirt, with a white,

buttoned-down blouse. Nothing was out of place. Every button was buttoned; her shirt was evenly tucked inside the waistband. Her shoes were freshly

polished. It was almost as if, through impeccable grooming, she’d tried to erase the craziness of earlier. Hel , she’d even managed to tame the intriguing

wildness of her hair, corral ing it into a neat braid, coiled up in a tight bun anchored at the base of her neck.

A few rebel ious tendrils tickled her nape, bringing his eye to the long, elegant line of her throat and the daintiness of her ears. He didn’t

normal y notice a woman’s ears, but Ari’s were cute, with lobes that just begged to be nibbled. His gaze natural y traveled down the side of her neck,

fol owing a tempting path to the pulse beating in the hol ow of her throat. He wanted to sprinkle kisses along that path, touch that too-fast pulse with his

tongue, take her in his arms and promise her again that everything would be al right. Son of a bitch, what was it about the woman that made him think in

terms of suicidal acts? He wasn’t some sort of knight in shining armor. He was a fucking outlaw turned lawman. No better than he had to be in any