The Outlaw and the Lady (14 page)

A
ngela grew dizzy as Miguel, with his small hands pressed against her knees, encouraged her to go round and round. She wore a bandanna over her eyes because no one trusted her blindness completely. She couldn’t explain why that fact made her happy, perhaps because the action made her seem like everyone else.

Although Lee had not spoken to her for the remainder of the day except to bark out that it was time to celebrate Miguel’s birthday, she knew he stood nearby, could feel the heat of his gaze on her.

She stumbled and laughed. “I think that’s enough, Miguel. I’ll never find the
piñata
now.”

Miguel giggled. Someone thrust a pole into her hand. Before the person could retreat, she bopped him on the head. Miguel guffawed. She so loved
his trills of delight. She would miss him when she left, and she knew that moment was coming sooner than she wanted, probably tomorrow.

She listened intently for the wind whispering across what Juanita had described as brightly colored streamers dangling from a clay pot. Angela had no plans to hit the
piñata
hard. She would leave the thrill of actually cracking it open to Miguel, but she did want to tap it just to prove that she was an equal at this child’s game. She swung out and sliced the pole through the air…at nothing. She regained her balance and dignity.

“You moved it up!” she yelled. She’d heard hemp scraping across bark.

“Of course,
señorita
,” Jorge said. “That is the way the game is played.”

She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath, determined to move more quickly. A few swipes and stumbles later, she was breathing heavily and losing whatever semblance of patience she might have had. She clenched her teeth and swung the stick as quickly as she could with all her might—and it came to a dead halt as she hit an immovable object.

“Your turn is over, Angela,” Lee said in a low voice just before he snatched the pole from her. “Miguel, it is time for you.” Lee unwound the bandanna from her head.

“She was funny to watch,” Miguel said.

Lee took her arm and led her aside. “Stand out of harm’s way,” he ordered.

As soon as she supposed she was in a safe
place, he released her. “Tomorrow, we leave for Fortune. Tonight you will sleep with Juanita.”

His plans should have had her jumping with joy instead of feeling a keen sense of loss. “How long do you intend to remain angry with me?” she demanded.

“How can you accuse me of being angry when I am granting your wishes?”

“I know you, Lee.”

“You know nothing.”

“You’ve avoided me for most of the day,” she pointed out quietly.

“I had chores to do.”

“Liar.”

“Don’t aggravate me, Angela,” he said in a tightly controlled voice.

Angela, not
querida
. He was definitely upset with her.

“Where is it? Where is it?” Miguel cried out.

“Lee, I’m not going to tell anyone what I’ve learned about you or your family.”

“I know that.”

“Then why remain upset with me?”

He sighed deeply. “Because you made me realize that I have put my family in danger with my selfishness and my quest for revenge. I must find a way to change that.”

“Are you going to give Shelby back his money?”

“Never.” She heard his scorn explode in the single word. “I must simply remove myself from them and continue my quest alone.”

Thwack!

“I hit it!” Miguel cried.

“Hit it again, Miguel,” Alejandro yelled.

Thwack! Thwack!

“Good job!” Alejandro said.

And she wondered if before her arrival, Lee would have been the one shouting encouragement, and she suddenly realized that he wasn’t only withdrawing himself from her, but from his family.

For as long as he could remember, Lee had loved these people who sat beneath the stars with him. He had always foolishly thought that when he was captured, he alone would pay and that they would be left in peace.

Youth, fury, and pain had blinded him to the truth. Angela saw more clearly than he did. He had thought to keep his family with him for as long as he could. Now, he realized that he needed to separate himself from them and ensure that no one suspected them—ever. Otherwise, he risked betraying the generous hearts of his parents.

“Lee, play us a song,” Juanita said softly, breaking into his thoughts.

He smiled warmly at her. She so seldom asked for anything that he could deny her nothing. He would have tonight with his family, surround himself with their love, share his own…a night to remember that he would carry with him always.

He took the guitar that she offered him. Their mother had taught them all to play, but there was little doubt that Lee’s voice was the most melodi
ous. He strummed his fingers over the strings before singing Juanita’s favorite song.

Angela wasn’t surprised that Lee sang beautifully. She was surprised that he’d chosen such a sad song: “Red River Valley.” Yet, she could almost hear him saying farewell himself as his voice carried the words into the night.

She sensed an underlying current among the older brothers, as though they all recognized that a change was hovering just beyond the horizon. She was certain Juanita was unaware of it. Juanita seemed in a way separate from them. As far as Angela could tell, Juanita never ventured far from the house. And of course, Miguel was still wrapped in the innocence of a child.

If only she could convince Lee to seek out Kit Montgomery. She was certain Kit would listen to his tale. She didn’t think Lee could get away without any punishment at all, but a few years in prison would be better than a noose around his neck. She shuddered with the thought and shoved it out of her mind.

She wanted to enjoy what she was certain was going to be her last night here. They had celebrated Miguel’s birthday. He’d broken his
piñata
. Her time with the notorious outlaw was coming to a close.

Swaying gently, she became immersed in Lee’s rich voice. She heard no trace of his accent as he sang and wondered again if maybe his accent was fake, designed to throw her off. But this was his family…or was it? Perhaps they’d hired someone…the thoughts began swirling so fast
that she became as dizzy as she had earlier when Miguel had spun her around. Something was off, but what?

Lee’s voice drifted into silence, the final chords hummed on the breeze, and her suspicions faded.

“Dance with me,
querida
,” Lee ordered, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.

Her heart leapt into her throat. “What? I can’t dance.”

“Play something fast, Alejandro,” Lee said as he drew her body flush against his.

She shook her head vigorously. “I can’t dance.”

“If there is one truth I know, it is that you can do anything.”

Alejandro strummed the guitar, the chords rippled through the air, and Angela tightened her hold on Lee, her left hand digging into his shoulder while the fingers on her right hand clutched his, his thighs brushing against hers as he guided her through the rapid steps of the dance.

If she could see, Lee thought, their gazes would be locked. Her face was angled back slightly so it appeared she was looking at him while he was unable to stop watching her. Her body moved in rhythm to his, as though they were one—exactly as he’d envisioned it. With each beat of the music, the warmth from her body seeped more deeply into his.

With grace, she glided through the movements as though she knew how he would turn, how he would twist, before he did. Only once did he push her away from him and spin her under his arm before bringing her back to the place
where he had the irrational thought that she truly belonged—with him.

He slowed his steps, no longer following the rhythm of the music, but listening instead to the insistent murmuring of his heart. He tightened his hold on her while his gaze slowly moved over her face, noting her slightly open mouth, her wondrous eyes, the delicate features that masked a determination he admired.

The music stopped and only then did he realize that he had stopped dancing long before. He watched her chest heaving with her rapid breaths, breaths not created by movement, but by anticipation. Her tongue darted out and touched her upper lip. God help him, he wanted to lift her into his arms, carry her to his bed, and make her his, completely and absolutely.

Instead, he released her. She staggered back. Within the torches’ glow, he saw the confusion and disappointment fill her eyes.

“The party is over,” he snapped. Then he strode away from the house, away from his family, away from the only woman who possessed the power to destroy him.

Sitting on the bed, braiding her hair, Angela listened as Juanita helped Miguel recite his prayers. Calming him after his successful busting of the
piñata
had been a challenge, one Juanita had handled with incredible patience.

Angela would miss them, would long for the moments when she was wrapped in the arms of a
man who never seemed to view her blindness as a shortcoming.

They had danced. Never in her life had any man, not even her father, swept her onto a dance floor and guided her movements with his body’s subtle directions: the nudge of a knee, the closing of his fingers around hers, his chest brushing against her breasts. Her nipples had tightened with the first stroke and sent desire coiling deep within her. She grew warm just remembering his breath quickening, not from the speed of their actions, but from the intimacy of their contact. For a time, it had seemed as though they were one, inseparable. His heat had become hers. His motions had carried her toward ecstasy. Had her eyes reflected her wanton craving for his touch?

They must have, for surely that was the reason he’d left abruptly. He’d been wise to banish her to Juanita’s bed for the night because she’d been acutely aware of the passion shimmering between them, like the desert sun creating walls of heat, and just like that sun, destroying all that it touched.

Did he fear his destruction as much as she did? Did he desire her with the intensity that she did him?

“Goodnight, Miz Angela.”

Angela snapped to the present. She crossed the short expanse to Miguel’s bed. Zoning in on where his voice had traveled from, she knelt, touched the pillow, and detected his nearby warmth. He was already lying down. She
combed her fingers through his hair. “Did you have a good birthday?”

“
Sí
. I will break the
piñata
at
your
birthday,” he said with such eagerness that she loathed disappointing him.

“My birthday isn’t for a while yet.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-four.”

“Juanita, how old are you?” he asked.

“Seventeen.”

Startled, Angela stopped brushing her fingers through Miguel’s hair. She’d touched Juanita’s face, knew she was young. But to be seventeen and so isolated. This life seemed almost cruel.

“When is your birthday? I will break your
piñata
,” Miguel assured Juanita.

“My birthday is not for many, many months. Now, go to sleep and break
piñatas
in your dreams,” Juanita ordered him gently.

Angela bent down and kissed his forehead. “Have pleasant dreams, little one.”

He rolled over, and she waited, listening for shallow, even breathing that meant he’d drifted off to sleep. The mattress moaned slightly as Juanita climbed into bed. Slowly, Angela rose to her feet and returned to the bed. She slipped beneath the covers.

“It is good that you are sleeping here tonight,” Juanita whispered. “It is not right for a man to have a woman in his bed if he is not married to her.”

“We only slept,” she said quietly, surprised by
the stab of disappointment that the truth caused. If he had welcomed her into his bed tonight, she couldn’t be certain that all she would have done was sleep. He stirred something deep within her, something more compelling than desire. “Juanita, when Lee and I danced, was he smiling?”

“No. I have never seen him look as he did tonight,” Juanita said, her voice low, as though she feared she was imparting a secret.

“Angry?”

“Oh, no. I have seen Lee angry. Tonight it was like he was under a spell.”

Angela shifted on the mattress. “What do you mean?”

“While you danced, he never took his eyes off you. He watched you as though you were the light in his darkness.”

She was just beginning to understand how bleak that blackness might be. He had told her that Juanita had been twelve the night Shelby attacked. Now she was seventeen. Five years had passed, yet Miguel was only now turning four.

Turning onto her side, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her fist to her mouth to stop herself from asking Juanita how it was possible that her mother had given birth to Miguel after she died.

He was lost, so lost, stumbling in the darkness, searching for home…warmth, security, love…but they remained beyond reach. Perhaps he didn’t deserve them.

Shaking, cold…blood, too damned much blood. Screams, cries…tears. An explosion. The loss of all his dreams.

Angela jerked awake, the heartrending wail that had ripped into her dreams still shimmering expectantly in the air like lightning streaking across the sky to forewarn the clap of thunder.

“What in God’s name was that?” she whispered, not daring to breathe.

“Lee…dreaming,” Juanita mumbled.

Dreaming
? That terrified howl had come from someone trapped in the throes of a nightmare, a cry she’d made often enough after Damon had been taken. Years had passed before the nightmares had lessened and eventually succumbed to oblivion.

Angela scrambled out of bed and crossed over to Miguel’s bed. The child still slept peacefully. Were Lee’s cries in the night so common that everyone was accustomed to them and simply slept on?

Quietly she crept into the hallway. Somewhere a bed moaned. Someone stirred. Then silence, thick, heavy, unnatural…as though at any moment it would give way to something terrifying.