Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family) (43 page)

Mona wanted to pull away from his cold fingers, but she feared to anger him. “Drunk, probably. Or praying. She’s suddenly rediscovered her faith.”

He laughed. “And if you return to New Orleans, just how do an aging whore and a drunken old madam intend to support themselves? You value is going down every day because of your age, Mona, and nobody but you cares about Wentworth. In a couple more years, you’ll end up working the cheapest cribs, the lowest dives of the waterfront.”

What he said was true. And Mona owed a lot to Mrs. Wentworth, who had nursed her through a long bout with yellow fever. What would become of the older woman and of Mona herself as the years passed? The security, the respectability of being the Señora Durango was irresistible to her. “You low-down bastard. You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

“
Sí
.” His cold hand stroked the rise of her breasts. “You’ll look good in widow’s weeds, Mona.”

“Suppose Bandit comes back?” She swallowed hard, remembering him and the taste of his kiss under the trees as he’d said good-bye.

“I’m hoping Falcon is about to see me in a new light. However, if that stupid cowboy returns, I have enough on him to blackmail him, too. When the old man is gone, I’ll still get my hands on Falcon’s Lair through his counterfeit son. I’ll control both fortunes.”

Her heart pounded with apprehension as his fingers traced a cold trail down her warm skin. “And after that?”

He grinned, threw away the match. “The Texan is too hard to deal with. Didn’t you tell me his mother committed suicide? Maybe he’ll become too despondent to live.”

“No, you don’t! ” She shook her head. “Romeros, you go too far when you threaten Bandit. You are the most cruel hombre I’ve ever known!”

“You should have known my father,” he answered softly, pulling her to him. “I feel a need for a woman.”

She tried to break away. “In the barn? Like the most common
puta?
No! I had enough of you, Romeros, when you threatened Bandit! I intend to tell what I know, no matter what happens to me!”

She struggled to twist out of his hands, but he roughly jerked her to him, pushed down the front of her dress. Even as she fought, his cold hand squeezed her breast. He kissed her, his wet mouth coming down on hers, so hard his teeth cut her lip. She tasted blood as she endeavored to break free.

“Don’t fight me,
puta!
I need a common whore tonight, and that means you!” He lifted her off the barn floor with one hand while his other tore away the front of her green silk bodice, ripped her lace camisole.

“You rotten bastard!” she raged, striking him about the face, beating him on the chest as he dragged her across the barn to a pile of hay. “Let me go! Someone will be looking for me!”

“Everyone’s gone on the search except for a few servants, and they won’t come out here in the dark. Fight me,
puta!
It makes it more enjoyable!” He forced her down in the hay, tearing at her delicate batiste undergarments, his mouth hot and moist on her bare nipples.

“No, Romeros, no! ” She writhed under him. “Must you humiliate me like this?”

“I had a good teacher! ” he panted, tearing at her clothes. “You don’t know what real humiliation is! You never met my father!”

She fought to get away from him. “Someone will come upon us! I hear horses coming!”

“That’s an old trick, Mona. I would have thought you could think up something more original! Beg me! Humble yourself and beg!”

She tasted the salt of her own tears as she struggled.
Did she really hear horses approaching or was it only her imagination?

“You
puta
,” Romeros panted, striking her across the face. “You damned
puta!
”

Then, abruptly, two horses drew up before the barn.
Romeros jerked up.

Two silhouetted figures swung down off the horses, and one shadow loomed large in the moonlight. “What in blue blazes is going on in there?”

Bandit
. Mona’s heart leaped and she managed to get to her feet while the foreman stared in stunned surprise. “Bandit! Oh, thank God you’ve come!” She tried to break free, to run toward the tall, broad-shouldered form framed in the doorway, but Romeros grabbed her, reached into his boot. She felt sharp steel against her back.

Romeros said, “Texan, I’ve got my knife in her back. Now throw down your gun belt or I’ll slit her throat like I did with that tattoo artist in Monterrey!”

Bandit stared at the foreman, the words slowly sinking in. He felt sick enough to vomit. “What did you say?”

Romeros laughed as he stood silhouetted in the moonlight inside the shadowy barn, holding Mona in front of him. The light glinted off the stiletto. “You heard me, cowboy. I had to kill him. He’d recognized the Falcon brand, was going to blackmail us! Now drop that gun belt! No, better still, toss it over that fence!”

Bandit hesitated. If he could just get one clear shot without endangering Mona . . .

“Do it, damn you!”

Numbly Bandit obeyed, throwing the gun belt over the fence into the seemingly empty pen next to the barn. He heard Amethyst gasp behind him, glanced back at her horrified, sunburned face. “Romeros,” Bandit said, “you killed that poor little man?”

Romeros took a couple of steps, dragging Mona with him. “It isn’t the first murder I’ve committed! I’ve gone to greath lengths, and I’m not going to give up when I almost have all that I want within my grasp!” His eyes looked crazed in the moonlight.

Bandit held out an imploring hand. “Let her go, Romeros, then we’ll talk–”

“You think I’m loco, don’t you? I’m not crazy, I’m just ambitious! Power and money, that’s what’s important; that’s what my father always said.”

“Just let her go and we’ll talk,” Bandit said soothingly, but Romeros laughed, moved closer, dragging the sobbing woman.

“I’ve spent twenty-five years trying to become one of the Falcons! First I tried to take the place of the dead brother, and just when I thought I’d succeeded, the Falcons had an heir of their own! Well, I got rid of that brat, all right, but they still didn’t make me their heir!”

A chill went through Bandit as the facts came startlingly clear. “You did it! You kidnapped little Tony Falcon!”

“Sure. But the ransom got bungled, I could hardly pick up the money with the old man insisting I accompany him to trap the kidnappers.”

Bandit looked around without moving his head. Was there any weapon he could use? A saddle gun on his horse, but that was behind him and Amethyst couldn’t make a move without attracting the foreman’s attention and endangering Mona. “You never intended to return Tony. You planned to kill him from the first.”

Romeros shrugged. “The boy knew me. He would have told his father. I didn’t kill him myself, I sent him up to an old trapper in the Indian Territory to hold until I was sure I got the money. But I gave him orders to kill the brat. I couldn’t take a chance that he’d ever come back and tell.”

Bandit heard Amethyst’s shocked intake of breath, Romeros’s labored breathing.
What the hell was he going to do to disarm this loco hombre?

“You, Texan, you’ve caused trouble from the first,” the foreman raged, waving the knife. “I’m going to kill all of you! Then I’ll put the knife in your hand, Texan, blame it on you!”

Bandit judged the distance between them. “You won’t get away with it.”

Romeros laughed. “Is that a fact? Who’s to stop me? All the vaqueros from both ranches are combing the countryside. I’m a hero, you know that, Texan? They think I tried to stop you two from being carried off by the Comancheros. I’ll tell them you were a Comanchero, that you came back to rob the ranches while all the cowboys were gone!”

Bandit edged a little closer. Romeros was only a few feet away now, standing just inside the barn door. He heard Amethyst’s breathing behind him, prayed she wouldn’t make any sudden move, try to do anything desperate. “Give me the knife, Romeros.” He held out his hand, advanced slowly.

When Bandit was almost within arm’s reach, the foreman suddenly shoved Mona to one side, and crouched facing Bandit, the blade gleaming in the moonlight. “I’m gonna give you the knife, you cocky bastard! And I’ll be a hero again when I tell everyone how you came back, went loco, stabbed the two women—how I managed to kill you after a hard struggle!” He laughed. “Who knows? Old Falcon might make me his heir yet!”

Bandit slowly backed away. If he could ever reach his horse and the saddle gun . . .

He saw Romeros’s knife hand come up, swiftly as a rattler’s strike, heard Mona scream, “Look out, Bandit!”

He dodged, knowing he’d moved too late, expecting the pain. But in that split second, Mona threw herself between them. She cried out as the knife caught her in the side, burying itself in the green silk. Then she fell, even as Bandit charged in, grappled with the foreman.

“You sonovabitch ! You’ve killed her!” He slammed his fist into the gaunt face, and Romeros stumbled backward into the barn.

Bandit ran after him, his fury out of control. The foreman grabbed a shovel, swung.

Ducking, Bandit heard steel strike a post. The impact knocked the shovel from Romeros’s hands. He grabbed the foreman, struck him again and again.

The sounds of the blows were dull, muted, like the slam of a fist into a side of beef. Yet Bandit’s knuckles stung from the blows.

Romeros swung, caught Bandit in the jaw, stunning him. He fell. Then the foreman turned and ran into the shadowy part of the barn.

Dizzily, Bandit scrambled to his feet, listening for movement in the darkness. Behind him, he heard Amethyst weeping as she knelt to gather Mona into her arms.

Heavy breathing. Bandit turned toward the sound. Sweat made his shirt cling to his muscular body. Dust from the hay coated his face in a gritty film. “Romeros? Come out! You can’t get away with this!”

He had only a split second to react as Romeros suddenly came at him out of the shadows, moonlight glinting off the prongs of a pitchfork. Bandit threw up his right arm instinctively and one of the prongs pierced his shirt sleeve, stung as it tore his flesh. In pain, he managed to pull away, grappled with the man, both their hands on the handle of the pitchfork as they struggled. Bandit’s blood dripped warm and red down the handle as they fought for it.

But hurt as he was, Romeros wrestled it away from him, came charging at him, blind with fury. Bandit sidestepped, and the pitchfork buried itself in the barn wall, vibrated there.

“You bastard!” Bandit grabbed the foreman, hit him once, twice. Romeros stumbled backward out the barn door, into the moonlight. The movement startled both horses and they bolted a few hundred yards, then stopped like well-trained mounts, their reins dragging the ground.

Both men paused, knowing the saddle guns were out of their reach now. Bandit grabbed Romeros, hit hard, sending him stumbling toward the corral. “I wish I’d never got mixed up with you! You rotten sonovabitch! But it’s not too late to do the right thing!”

Romeros stumbled backward toward the dark corral, sobbing and cursing, blood running down his gaunt face. And then he seemed to think of Bandit’s pistol. He turned, scrambling over the fence.

Bandit ran toward him, his pulse pounding. If Romeros got to that gun before he could stop him . . . But the foreman was already over the fence, looking around wildly in the darkness.

In spite of his wounded arm, Bandit climbed to the top of the corral, squinting to see where the pistol might have landed. But Romeros had already found it.

Light reflected off the barrel as Romeros drew it slowly from its holster. “And now, Texan, you get pœtic justice! I’m gonna blow you off that fence with your own damned gun!”

Bandit heard a sound in the darkness of the corral, a sound like the jangling of keys. And then the big bull stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight.

Romeros heard the sound, too. Puzzled, he turned around. Only a few feet away stood the
toro
he had always dreamed of meeting in the arena, yet had been too afraid to face. He did not feel like a brave matador doing fancy cape work. He could only stand and stare.

For a split second as the bull pawed the ground and shook its head, he saw the burned face of the henna-haired girl looking up at him, heard her dying prediction:

Satin will come for you. You will hear his chains rattle as he comes to drag you down to hell. . . . .

The bull. El Satanás Negro. The black Satan. It snorted, pawing the ground, twitching its tail, the moonlight gleaming on its sharp horns.

Romeros jerked the pistol up with a shaking hand, fired, missed, tried to fire again, but the beast was almost on him. With a scream, he dropped the gun, ran for the fence. Then he stumbled, grabbing wildly at the air. He felt its hot breath, smelled its fetid scent. He rolled over on his back, throwing up his hands to protect his face, screaming with fear as sharp hooves crushed his flesh, as a half-ton of vengeance attacked.

“Look out!” Bandit had shouted the warning automatically from his perch. Even as the man had fired, turned, and run, he’d known Romeros would never make it to safety. The bull caught him, knocked him down, trampled him under its sharp hooves, then threw him up in the air and impaled him on its horns. For a split second, the animal paused, its head up, the man impaled on the scarlet horns screaming and struggling. The shrieks of pain almost drowned out the jangling of the chain, the bull’s snorting. Then El Satanás Negro threw the man down, trampled the still body again.

Finally, the giant beast sniffed the prone form. Seemingly satisfied that it had at last extracted revenge, the bull turned, walked across the corral to the hay rack, and commenced munching quietly.

Bandit climbed down the fence, favoring his throbbing arm, and went over to the prone man. Keeping one eye on the bull, he knelt beside Romeros. The bull eyed him as placidly as an old milk cow.

Romeros was dead. With a sigh, Bandit picked up his gun and gun belt, then climbed back over the fence. He strapped on his gun, walked to where Amethyst cradled Mona in her arms.

Amethyst looked up at him, tears in her eyes, as he knelt at the redhead’s other side. Somewhere over the ridge, Amethyst heard the thundering of hooves. Horses were approaching.