Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family) (11 page)

“Papa,” Bandit said, “I don’t think—”

Romeros broke in, kicking Bandit under the table again. “What Tony means is it’s all been just too overwhelming. He needs time to get used to everything. It’s been such a shock for him.”

“And for us all!” The
señora
smiled. “But of course I must give a big fiesta at once to welcome our boy home!”

Señor Falcon reached over, took one of her hands in his. “Ah, my dear, the kind of fiesta we used to have often before. . . .” His voice trailed off and Bandit realized what lonely years, what agony this fine old couple had endured.

“But he’s back now, my darling,” the
Señora
whispered, “so we can forget all those unhappy times. It will be just like it was before—big crowds of people, laughter, - parties at the
hacienda
.”

The don looked at Bandit fondly. “And of course my old friend will come to the fiesta and bring his daughter. She’s away right now, but he’ll send for her. We’ve both waited a long time to announce this marriage.”

“Now wait just a darned minute,” Bandit began, “I—”

“He’s forgotten how beautiful the
señorita
is,” Romeros said pointedly, “I’m sure when Tony sees her, he’ll be eager to set the date with the priest.”

Bandit glared at him, then sank back in his chair. Damn that foreman! He had deliberately neglected to mention this complication. It had been Bandit’s experience in life that when someone kept trying to convince him a woman was beautiful, she turned out to be so homely her daddy would have to tie a pork chop around her neck to lure a hound to kiss her. But he’d shut up now until he could figure out what to do about it.

A maid came just then, bearing steaming trays of tortillas, fried beef, mangoes, and grapes. Bandit had never seen so much food. He dug in with gusto as the maid refilled his cup. The scent of exotic purple flowers from the vines overhead drifted to him over the savory smell of steak and eggs. So this was the way the rich lived—the very best of everything; fine china and silver, crisp white tablecloths, maids scurrying about. He could learn to like this very much!

Then he thought about the arranged marriage and frowned suddenly. Was part of the price of becoming Tony Falcon to spend the rest of his life married to some ugly, stupid
señorita
just because the old man had made some pledge of honor to his best friend? Well, they could forget about that!

Bandit glared at Romeros. This hadn’t been part of the deal; Romeros had-deliberately misled him. Now what could he do about it?

The girl’s face came to his mind, her face and the feel of her beneath his hard-driving body, the taste of her open, yielding lips.
Aimée
.
Beloved.
Mona Dulaney spoke a little French because she’d been raised in Louisiana, and she’d taught Bandit a few words. He glanced down at the little ring on his pinkie finger.
Amethyst
. No, he couldn’t forget her. Whatever it took, Bandit was determined he’d wed no other but the violet-eyed beauty from the stage station!

Breakfast over, Se
or Falcon instructed Romeros to take Bandit upstairs. “He needs a change of clothing. He can wear my brother Antonio’s until I can get my tailor and bootmaker out here to make him a whole new wardrobe.”

The old man looked Bandit up and down. “I’d say he and Antonio were about the same size and height. He peered anxiously at Bandit, ”Is that all right with you, son?”

Son
. How long had he waited for some man he respected to call him that? He didn’t even know who among his mother’s customers had fathered him, wasn’t even sure Lidah knew. They had never discussed it. But pretending was the next best thing. “Papá,” he said, getting up from his chair, “I’d be honored to wear my uncle’s things.”

The delicate
señora
held out a trembling hand, took Bandit’s. “I hate to let you out of my sight for even a few minutes. I’m afraid I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone.”

Without thinking, Bandit leaned over and kissed her lined forehead gently.
“No, Madre,”
he murmured, “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here forever.”

Would he? How he wished it could be so. He thought of the real son and felt guilty. He had no right to that man’s place in this family.

Señor Falcon smiled at his wife. “That’s right, Mama. Now you need to rest awhile. I’ll take you upstairs myself and we’ll plan the fiesta.”

Her face brightened. “Oh,
si
, the fiesta! There’s so much to be done. There are invitations to be sent—”

“That’s right, my dear.” Señor Falcon patted her shoulder. “There’s ever so much work, so much planning. Let Tony go with Romeros for a while and we’ll see him again at lunch.”

Romeros stood up, bowed to the old couple. “I will take very good care of Tony, show him around the ranch, try to catch him up on what’s happened while he’s been gone.”

“You are a good person,” the don said to the foreman. “I don’t know what we would have done without you all these years.”

Romeros shrugged. “I live but to serve the Falcon family, sir, now and forever.”

“Such loyalty!” the old lady said. “I think my dear husband was wrong. After his brother was killed and before we had a son of our own, the
señor
talked of adopting you, but then we decided to leave it all to charity.”

Romeros shook his head. “But aren’t you glad you didn’t? Now your son will have the Falcon’s Lair to pass on to his children. I’m only glad the true heir has been found so I can serve him faithfully after you two are finally gone.” He nodded toward the French doors. “Tony, I’ll show you to Antonio’s room.”

They said their good-byes and went inside.

Bandit felt a little dirty. “You laid it on a bit too thick, playing the trusted foreman,” he grumbled as he accompanied Romeros upstairs. “The old man looks a little too smart not to see through you. So they almost adopted you and then your hopes were dashed when they had a child of their own.”

“I would have stayed on and served the heir,” Romeros said as they went down the hall. “I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else but here. But even if there had been no son, I don’t think the old man would ever have adopted me.”

Bandit looked over at him as they walked. “Why not?”

Romeros sneered. “Señor Falcon is a great snob about bloodlines. He says you can judge both men and horses on bloodlines, on who their ancestors were. He says there’s no denying blood.”

Bandit laughed, trying not to think of his own hurtful past. “That’s ironic, isn’t it?” he said. “I don’t even know which drunken trail bum or gambler sired me.”

“I’d call that poetic justice.” Romeros grinned. “A mongrel
americano
is now heir to a blue-blooded, aristocratic family and the old man doesn’t know the difference.” Romeros stopped before a closed door.

Bandit looked over at him as he opened it, and suddenly realized how much Romeros hated the Falcons in spite of his avowals of loyalty and love. It was in his eyes, in his voice. Secretly the man had probably been delighted when the child had been kidnapped.

They entered a bedroom long closed up and musty.

The foreman opened a wardrobe, looked at the clothes. “He could have offered me some of these fine things, the handmade boots, but he never did.” He pulled out some of the clothing for Bandit’s appraisal.

Bandit looked around. “There’re no portraits of the brother or the little son anywhere in this whole house?”

“No.” Romeros shook his head. “Those made them both too sad so they’ve all been carried up to the attic. Someday, to satisfy your curiosity, I could take you up there—”

“Never mind,” Bandit said. “I’m superstitious about that sort of thing.”

Romeros pulled a pair of fine boots from the wardrobe, admired them. “Antonio had been dead a short time when I showed up here, on the run. . . .” His voice trailed off as he handed Bandit the boots. “Try these on. They haven’t been worn in more than a quarter of a century, but everything the Falcons owned was the very best so they should still be good.”

Bandit took off his own worn boots, slipped the others on. Romeros was right, they were of the finest quality and, surprisingly, they fit Bandit perfectly as did the expensive clothes Romeros pulled from the wardrobe.

Bandit stared at himself in the mirror. A shiver went up his back. There was something familiar about the touch of the fabric to his fingers, almost as if his big body remembered these clothes. He regarded himself in the mirror a long moment. “What do you think?”

Romeros looked disconcerted. “If I didn’t know you were just a Texas drifter, I’d take an oath on the Holy Mother’s head that you were really a Falcon.” He stared at Bandit. “I swear I’m even beginning to see a family resemblance.”

Bandit snorted with derision as he turned this way and that before the glass. “You can save that hogwash for the old couple, for the others who may doubt that I’m really the long-lost son.”

“Well, anyway, the blond hair and blue eyes make the resemblance close enough to fool people.”

“I told you, I don’t even know who my old man was.” Bandit grinned crookedly, “I can’t imagine Spanish nobility among her clients. Besides, her background was Czech. There’s where the light hair and eyes come from, not from a Castilian. No doubt my old man was one of those Bohunk farmers around Gun Powder having himself a little Saturday-night fun.”

Romeros stuck a match in his mouth, chewed thoughtfully. “Come on.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let me show you around the ranch you’re going to inherit someday.”

Bandit followed him down the hall and outside. “You say the don’s brother was killed?”

Romeros nodded. “Antonio was just a kid, probably not more than eighteen or so. He and his older brother had some kind of a fuss, or so the gossip goes. Don Enrique sent him off to become a cadet at the military academy in Mexico City.”

“You never met him?”

“No. He died before I came.” Romeros shrugged. “He was killed in September of forty-seven in the battle at Chapultepec castle. The old man found him on the battlefield, held him in his arms as Antonio died. Señor Falcon blamed himself for the trouble between them, whatever that was.”

Bandit looked at the other keenly as they walked toward the stable. “So you came along, thought you would take the brother’s place?”

Romeros’s eyes were cold, distant. “The Falcons were childless—no heirs. Who would expect them to have a son of their own so late in life?”

“That must have been a real blow to you.”

“Not such a bad one. I have a real good position here. Anyway, I wouldn’t have gotten anything. As you heard, before they had the son, they were planning on leaving it all to charity.” The foreman regarded Bandit closely. “I told you the old man was a snob about bloodlines, about background, so he never really considered adopting me. That’s why it’s so ironic that a saddle tramp like you is being welcomed into the family.”

Bandit bristled at the remark, decided to let it lay. He glanced up as they entered the barn. He had managed to hide the saddlebags containing the Fort Concho loot up in the loft under the hay. What he was going to do about that, he wasn’t sure. He thought about the trio of outlaws, wondered if they’d lost his trail, given up. That made him think of the girl again, and he fiddled with the tiny amethyst ring. Forget-me-not . . .

“You aren’t listening,” Romeros complained as they paused in front of the big
overo
pinto stallion’s stall.

“Of course I am,” Bandit lied, taking a deep breath of saddle soap and sweet hay. “What was it you said?”

“I said this horse is the old man’s pride and joy. Sort of ironic about him, too.”

The stallion whinnied softly and Bandit reached out, stroked the velvet nose. “Hey, boy. Glad to see me, are you?”

“He likes you.” Romeros sneered. “Maybe it’s blood calling to blood.”

Bandit stroked the horse’s ears. “What do you mean? If this is his favorite stallion, he must have the finest of pedigrees.”

“Hardly!” Romeros snorted. “The horse is a wild mustang the old man captured several years ago. No one knows what his bloodlines are.”

Bandit didn’t like Romeros’s pointed insult. “So what? Anyone can tell by the way he looks, by the way he moves, that he’s got fine bloodlines back there even if they’re not written on paper. He has the heart and soul of a thoroughbred, a champion, whether you know who his daddy is or not.”

“Is that a fact!” Romeros sneered. “Just remember, you are now Tony Falcon, and someday all this”—he made a sweep with his arm—“will be yours. Then I expect to be rewarded.”

“That may take a long time.” Bandit grinned crookedly. “Looks like the old man, at least, will be alive for many years. You’ll have a long wait before you get your hands in their money.”

“I’ve already waited a long time,” Romeros said. “I can wait some more.”

The days passed in happy confusion while the old
señora
planned her fiesta and sent out the invitations. Obviously it would be the biggest party northern Mexico had ever seen. Bandit fell into life on the ranch easily. His fondness for the old couple grew, and he felt as at home on the giant ranch as if he truly belonged there. Only four things bothered him as the days passed. More and more, he regretted ever having gotten mixed up with Romeros. And yet, there was no way Bandit could get rid of the man. He was bound to him because of the plot they shared.

Another thing on his mind was the army payroll. Mexico was a big place, and Bandit figured he’d covered his tracks fairly well. But the U.S. Army didn’t give up so easily. No doubt they were still looking for the leader of that gang and for the payroll, although they would have to go through diplomatic channels and the Mexican government to reclaim it.

The girl was the third thing. He thought about her often, planned how he was going to search high and low for her. Well, that would have to wait until after the big fiesta in his honor. He thought of the ugly fiancée who would come to that and of how he would go about breaking the engagement. One thing was sure, he didn’t intend to marry her, no matter how upset the Falcons got with him.

The fourth thing was the secret that he alone carried like a terrible weight on his shoulders. Sometimes he awakened with a start, dreaming he had been found out.

Amethyst checked the knots again in the darkness of her tiny room as she tied the end of the rope around her small waist. It had taken her several days to rip her bed sheets into long strips and tie them together. The first day, she’d been certain she didn’t belong at the convent of the Cloistered Sisters. After a week had passed, she’d been sure of it. A life of prayers and thin gruel was not for her. All anyone did around here was labor and pray. The uniforms were drab and ugly. The Mother Superior treated her with cold politeness because of her name.

No. Amethyst had decided she must escape or she would lose her sanity. Since she had so little time to herself, she didn’t get much of a chance to work on her rope. Waiting until all the lights were out at night, she lay on the bare, thin mattress and tore the sheets into strips.

Finally, her rope was ready. She waited until the middle of the night, to be sure everyone was asleep, before she hoisted herself out that second-story window onto her bedsheet rope. What she would do when she made her getaway, she wasn’t sure. Certainly she didn’t have any money, and if she went to any friends or relatives, they would tell her smugly that “Papa knew best” and would send her back to the convent.

Santa María
, she would worry about where to go, what to do, when she got on the ground outside the convent walls. Inwardly, she thought about the elegant Monique happily enthroned back at her papa’s ranch. Amethyst’s predicament was Monique’s fault. There’s no fool like an old fool, and Papa was dazzled by the elegant French beauty who, of course, wanted a free hand with his estate.

If only that damned Texan had helped her
. Amethyst thought about him as she blew out her candle, then tied the other end of the homemade rope to the bedstead. Sometimes at night she awakened, feeling his arms around her, his hot mouth on her nipples, perspiration creating a fine sheen over her body as she remembered their frenzied lovemaking.