Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (44 page)

      
“Now, greaser, say your prayers,” he growled, nursing the reddening furrow across his left arm.

      
Phillips lunged at Lee, intent on grappling him into a killing bear hug. At the last second, when the bigger man almost had him in his clutches, Lee twisted to the left, colliding with the girl. Having lost her scissors, she swung with her reticule, landing a surprisingly solid blow for one so slight—against Lee's temple, narrowly missing Phillips.

      
“Get the hell away before you kill us both!” he yelled, toppling her roughly backward as he simultaneously dodged his opponent.

      
Lee moved away, shaking his head to clear it. He'd better end this fast before the damblasted girl killed one of them! He wasn't at all sure who, him or the American!

      
“Even for a Yankee, you're a clumsy bastard,” he said conversationally, taunting the red-faced seaman who was advancing on him with murder in his eyes.

      
Lee danced backward to the edge of the pier, then waited until Phillips took another powerful swipe. At the last second, when the big man's momentum had carried him forward, Lee sidestepped and stuck out his booted foot to trip Phillips, catapulting him into the choppy cold water below the pier.

      
“I think we'd better collect your belongings and leave before he gets out of the water, or we'll both be in trouble,” Lee said, rubbing the laceration on his arm gingerly. “The next time a man attempts to rescue you, have the good grace not to stab him or brain him, will you?” He reached down and picked up her trunk from the end of the gangplank, then strode toward town with her scurrying behind.

      
“Of all the ungrateful things to say! Phillips is twice your size. If I hadn't distracted him, he'd have killed you,” she sputtered.

      
Lee cocked one eyebrow at her. “I'd have managed, Miss Fleming,” he replied stiffly.

      
The girl looked at him suspiciously with large gold-coin eyes, widened in confusion. “Why do you call me Miss Fleming? Our name is Flamenco.”

      
“Not in Texas it isn't. Here the owner of Renacimiento calls himself Rafe Fleming, if he is your papa as you claim,” Lee said.

      
“He certainly is my father, and he's expecting me,” she replied in affront, fairly skipping to keep up with his longer stride.

      
“Then why isn't he here? A girl shouldn't be traveling alone,” Lee replied, not slowing for fear the enraged brute swimming for the nearest piling might yet catch up with them.

      
“Well...I wasn't supposed to arrive until next Tuesday. But I just couldn't stay another week in New Orleans! Joline was supposed to come with me, but I had to escape without my stepfather Francois finding out, so I left her behind.” Once the breathless confession began, she couldn't seem to stop herself.

      
Scanning the buildings stretched along the flat, open expanse of the beach, Lee chose what looked to be a good hotel and headed toward it. “I never knew Rafe Fleming had a daughter, but then I never knew Deborah Kensington had a husband either,” he added with a chuckle. “What's your name?”

      
“Melanie Marie Fla-Fleming.” Obviously the new name stuck on her tongue.

      
“You sound French. Was your mother a Creole?” For all her education and expensive clothing, something wasn't right about Melanie Fleming.

      
“My family is mostly of French descent. We've lived in New Orleans for generations, but I was raised by my Grandmere in St. Louis,” the girl replied uneasily.

      
“Fleming scarcely seems old enough to have a daughter your age—how old are you?” Her features were delicate and cameo-perfect, her curves only budding, but definitely visible. A mysterious child-woman, indeed.

      
“I'll be thirteen in a few months,” she said with bravado.

      
“How many months?” he shot back.

      
“Nine,” she sighed, looking up at his chiseled, handsome face. “Are you a cowboy?” she asked, wanting to change the subject. “How do you know my father?”

      
“Yes, I'm a vaquero for the Slade ranch, Bluebonnet, outside of San Antonio. And I never met your father, exactly. But I know Deborah and Adam...you do know about them?” He looked at her in puzzlement. What a strange tangle this was becoming.

      
“I know of papa's Yankee wife and my half-brother, yes,” she answered stiffly.

      
Again a ripple of unease washed over him, but he ignored it as they entered the hotel. The lobby was crowded and he prayed they could secure rooms.

* * * *

      
Soaking in a hot tub of sudsy water, Lee reviewed the day's incredible events.
Not even dinner time and I'm exhausted,
he groaned to himself. Small wonder he was tired. After settling Melanie Fleming in a room, he'd located Morgan-Kollar Ltd. and found out the horses were expected on a ship due in from Mobile tomorrow morning. He could take them and leave but for the girl. Her father wasn't due in Galveston to collect her until Tuesday.

      
That wretched Phillips had stormed into the hotel like a Gulf hurricane later that afternoon demanding his money, which Lee had paid. Now if he were to recover it, he must wait for Rafe Fleming. That meant cooling his heels in Galveston for five days, during which time he couldn't even do the recreational things he'd planned earlier because he now had a twelve-year-old child hung like a millstone around his neck.

      
He sighed in frustration, damning his perverse luck and the spoiled, sullen adolescent who was even now probably waiting for him to squire her to dinner. Muttering, he crawled from the tub and began to towel off, then swore when her scissors' wound stung anew.

      
The elegantly clad young man dressed in black wool pants and short fitted jacket studded with silver, wearing a snowy linen shirt and blue silk waistband, presented quite a different picture to Melanie than he had in casual cowhands' clothing. How handsome he was!

      
Why did I decide at the last moment to dress so formally and pay the maid extra to press my good clothes? I'll send that child to bed early and then go to one of the places down on the waterfront.
Lee answered his own question determinedly as he offered her his arm, wincing when she pressed on the wound she had inflicted.

      
Seeing him flinch, Melanie said, “Oh, does it hurt? I am terribly sorry about missing him and hitting you.”

      
Lee grunted, then smiled at her piquant little face in spite of himself. “Just so I have your assurance you aren't carrying any more scissors, hatpins, or other lethal weapons.”

      
A tiny bubble of laughter erupted from her lips as she shook her head. For the first time, Lee noticed the obvious care she had taken with her appearance. Her gleaming jet hair was piled in high, saucy curls atop her head, spilling down her back, a rather adult hairstyle for a twelve-year-old, but enchanting. Her dress, although girlishly modest with a high neckline and frilly ribbons down the front, was a soft rose color that set off her pale golden complexion to perfection. One day she would be a real beauty. But that day was years away.

      
Clearing his head of such distractions, Lee signaled a waiter as they approached the hotel dining room. The place was scarcely elegant, but it did afford a splendid view of the harbor, and the food smelled significantly better than it had at the hotel in Houston City.

      
By the end of the first course, it was obvious to Lee that he had made an error in dressing up to squire her to dinner. She was infatuated with him, chattering and giggling, attempting to flirt coyly as she gazed adoringly at him with those big golden eyes. She'd be a real Creole belle someday, and have a string of suitors swarming around like bees at a honey tree. He was certain with a man as formidable as Rafe Fleming for a father, she doubtless would be married by the time she was seventeen. Just thinking of that made him eat faster.

      
Soon, he would see her safely ensconced in her room. Then, he could head for the waterfront and some real fun. With an inward sigh, he considered the next five days, warding off her girlish flirtations, while keeping her out of harm's way at the same time. He was beginning to believe some of Charlee's penchant for disaster had rubbed off on him.

      
The next day, Lee was sure of it. After a late, exhausting and expensive night at the best brothel in Galveston, he slept in. After he cut himself twice shaving and buttoned his shirt wrong on the first try, he finally succeeded in getting dressed in spite of his pounding head. When he knocked on Melanie's door, a maid who was straightening the room opened it and informed him Miss Fleming had left hours earlier.

      
The waiter in the dining room verified that, assuring Lee that his young charge had gone for a walk down the beach after her breakfast. Alone! Unescorted! Finding out the direction she had taken, Lee stomped after her, stomach growling, head buzzing, disposition snarling. He found her sitting innocently on one of the small docks at the far end of the beach, talking to an old black fisherman mending nets.

      
“You can't just wander around without a chaperone, least of all on a public beach in a rough port city in Texas!” he hissed at her as he fairly dragged her toward the hotel.

      
“My chaperone is back in New Orleans, and I had no one to accompany me. You were indisposed, or so the clerk told me, from a very late night in town,” she said in pouting accusation. “Oh, drat, I have sand in my slippers. They'll be ruined.”

      
“You should have considered that before you set out to stroll down the beach,” he replied over-sweetly, trying a new tack of reason as his headache abated in the clear salt air.

      
An afternoon of escorting a young lady with boundless energy quickly brought the headache back. That night he thought about having her dinner sent to her room and going out by himself. The next evening, he wanted to lock her in her room and go to sleep early himself. Would Tuesday never arrive?

      
Saturday he feared Sunday might never arrive, at least for the two of them, after a second brush with death. It all began innocently enough as Melanie was chattering about her Grandmere in St. Louis. They had just eaten a splendid lunch, and at her instigation were walking down the beach to view some of the shipwrecked boats that were now used as dwellings. She had worn more sensible shoes, but carried a most impractical lacy parasol.

      
“How did those big hulks get washed all the way up the beach?” Melanie questioned in awe as they looked at what had once been a large sloop, now converted into a cottage by an immigrant family.

      
Lee laughed. “I've heard about Texas winds back inland ever since I was a boy. Will Slade used to say it took one man to saddle a horse in Virginia, but two in Texas because of the wind. Here on the gulf they have terrible hurricane winds, Texas-sized for sure.”

      
“Oh, pooh,” she replied dismissively. “We have hurricanes in New Orleans, too, but I never saw a whole ship washed up into the market!”

      
“I suspect New Orleans is a bit farther inland and not situated on quite such a flat stretch of sand as Galveston Island,” Lee explained with the condescension an eighteen-year-old reserves for children.

      
Just then their debate was cut short by some noise from down the beach. Four burly seamen in rough work clothes were gathered at the end of one pier. Wanting to get the child away before something dangerous befell her, Lee took her arm to steer her in the opposite direction.

      
Before he could do more than turn around, Melanie looked past his shoulder at the melee, seeing a lone figure push his way free of his captors and sprint toward them. He wore buckskin pants, a roughly cut calico shirt, moccasins on his feet, and large brass loops in his ears. His austere copper features and straight black hair further proclaimed him an Indian, although Melanie could not recognize what tribe.

      
Before the man got but a few yards, two of the younger toughs tackled him and brought him to ground. The other two quickly caught up. When the Indian was hauled up roughly, the biggest of the sailors hit him squarely in the midsection while his two companions held his arm immobile.

      
“Stop them, Lee! Oh, they'll kill the poor fellow!” Melanie cried, her small face red with fear and anger.

      
He barely managed to grab a fistful of shiny black curls and pull her back before she could take off brandishing her ridiculous parasol. “Be still, you little idiot! Whatever they do to that half-breed Krank is none of our business. Now let's get out of here.”

      
She squirmed furiously in his grip, slippery as a little eel. “Ooh, let me go! They're beating him to death. If you're a coward, I'm not!”

      
With that, she jammed the sharp point of the parasol into his knee with bone-splintering impact, then slipped free when the stabbing pain caused him to lose his grip on her for an instant. She was off like a shot up the beach and into the thick of the battle, screeching and stabbing with her weapon. The seamen dropped the now unconscious Karankawa in amazement when she lit into them.

      
Having a whole new respect for her weapon, Lee limped after her, thankful he had learned his lesson that first day on the waterfront. He never left the hotel without carrying a gun.

      
“Lookee here, an Injun lover. Honey, what you doin' tryin' to save a worthless Krank...if he warn't a drunkard, he'd eat you fer breakfast,” one of the sailors said as he grabbed her parasol while his friends subdued the flailing girl.