The Outlaw and the Lady (24 page)

When the last died, he reached for her. An explosion ripped past his ear. He spun around.

Shelby stood in the doorway, gun drawn, eyes dancing as wildly as the flames. “Drop the knife or I’ll kill her!”

Doing as ordered, Lee began to slowly move away from Angela. “Let her go, Shelby. She has nothing to do with this.”

He ducked as debris fell. Shelby fired. Angela screamed. Lee jerked his gaze to her. She sat up, breathing heavily. He could see no blood.

The heat was growing unbearable, the wall of flames closing in. He turned his attention back to Shelby. “Let her go. She is nothing to you.”

Shelby’s smile grew. “But she’s everything to you, isn’t she, Rodriguez? Beg me. Drop to your knees and beg me like my son must have begged for mercy.”

The bile rose in Lee’s throat, his chest tightened. He’d never in his life begged for anything or anyone. He went down on his knees and lifted his gaze to Shelby. “I’m begging you, let her go.” His voice grated like fine wood rubbed over sandpaper. “She is blind. Let me get her out of here, and I give you my word that I’ll put the noose around my neck myself.”

A gunshot tore through the air. As though incredibly surprised, Shelby looked down at the bright red splotch blossoming on his shirt. Then he crumpled to the ground.

Lee turned to Angela. Her hand shaking un
controllably, she still held the gun. “Is he dead?” she rasped.

He pried the gun from her fingers and lifted her into his arms. With the flames nipping at him, Angela clinging to him, he rushed forward, burst outside, staggered forward, and dropped to his knees on the ground.

“Angela!” her father cried.

As gently as he could, Lee laid her on the ground. “Angela,” he rasped.

“I’m all right.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she pressed her trembling hand to her mouth. “I had to kill him.”

“I know.” He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead as her father struggled to the ground and took her in his arms.

Before anyone could stop him, he rushed back into the burning house.

“T
hat was the damnedest, stupidest thing I’ve ever seen!” Montgomery yelled. “What in the bloody hell did you think you were doing?”

Leaning against the hanging tree, Lee watched the sun bathe the earth in a brilliant hue of orange and gold. Apparently, Shelby’s assassins, the best bounty hunters money could buy, had easily been subdued by Montgomery’s group. A few of Shelby’s hired guns were wounded, but no one had died, not even Shelby. Lee shook his head.

“I did not think there was enough blood for it to be a fatal wound. I know what it is to kill a man, to wonder every day if I could have done something differently. If I had left him, Angela would never have believed that she was not the one responsible for his death. Guilt is a terrible
thing. It eats a man up from the inside out until nothing is left, until he becomes hollow and is only a shell of what he might have been. It would have destroyed her.”

As though sensing that he had more to say, Montgomery held his silence. Lee dropped his gaze, studying the ground beneath his feet.

“That night when they came, my sister stood on the porch, her deep brown eyes big and round, her white nightgown in sharp contrast to the black night. She was twelve and Floyd Shelby took her. By the time I found them, he had already stolen her innocence, her childhood. But still I fought him. It felt so good to put my fist into his face. But I only hit him once.

“I had been shot. I was weak. And when he punched me in the side where I was wounded, my blood flowed—so damned much blood. He kept driving his fist into me. When I could not get up anymore, he went back to Juanita.

“He had removed his gun belt earlier. I saw his pistol beneath the tree. I wrapped my fingers around it, aimed at the back of his head, and squeezed the trigger.” He lifted his gaze to Montgomery’s and held it. “If I could have crawled, I would have for the satisfaction of looking in his eyes when I killed him. But I did not have the strength.”

“And he almost died,” Christine said quietly.

Montgomery turned and Lee glanced over his shoulder. Smiling softly, Christine stepped closer, rubbed his arm, and looked at Montgomery. “I found them. Floyd was dead. Damon was uncon
scious beneath the tree. And Juanita. Poor Juanita. If you ask her about that night, all she can tell you is that there were one thousand six hundred and forty-seven stars in the sky. She counted them while she lay there with the animal that my father called son.”

She sighed and pressed her head against Lee’s shoulder. “I helped Juanita nurse her brothers back to health, and then we hatched our crazy plan. We were so young, Captain Montgomery. Young, scared, and hurting. The only ones we trusted were each other. The sheriff had given my father carte blanche to do what he would. So as wrong as it might have been, we took the law into our own hands. We dug a grave for those who had died and one for Damon. Made markers. And decided that whatever money my father earned from this land, we would steal and put to good use to make up for all the bad that had been done. In their memory we’ve built a church, an orphanage, and two schools.”

“You told Damon where the money was?” Montgomery asked.

She nodded. “My father, like his son, thought women have but one purpose in life. He had no qualms about discussing how much money he was placing in which bank while in my presence. Thinking that I didn’t have the wherewithal to pay any attention to such matters. I would tell Damon, and he would take out the money to the penny. I think that’s what made my father angriest. Lee Raven knew the amount down to the
penny.” She moved away from Damon and held out her hands. “If I have to go to prison for my part in our scheme, I will.”

“No, you won’t,” Lee said. “It was my plan. I alone am responsible for what we did.”

She rolled her eyes. “Damon—”

He held up a finger. “You have a son. He needs his mother to raise him, not an old spinster aunt.”

“You have a son, Miss Shelby?” Montgomery asked.

Christine’s face blossomed. “It’s not Shelby, Captain. It’s Rodriguez. Two weeks before my father attacked, Ramon and I got married with his family in attendance. He wanted me to tell my father, but I was afraid my father might…get angry. I seriously underestimated his wrath.

“When he regains consciousness, I think I’ll break the news to him that he killed my husband, not my lover. And yes, Captain, I have a beautiful son with his father’s dark eyes and hair. He lives with my mother’s sister—although recently Damon convinced me that my son needed to be living with me. That’s the reason I was here. To say good-bye to Ramon. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but it’s time I left the past behind. If I can find a lawman who isn’t afraid of my father’s reputation or influence and is willing to arrest him, I’m eager to testify against him in court.”

“Mrs. Rodriguez, I arrested your father the minute he drew his first breath after Damon carried him out of the house.”

Kneeling beside the grave, Angela slowly outlined the letters carved into the wooden marker. Damon.

What a strange set of events she’d set into play because of an innocent midnight stroll. She must have walked those streets of Fortune a thousand times with nothing of consequence happening. Yet somehow on that night that now seemed ages ago, fate had intervened and her path had crossed that of a man who had once been a boy whom she loved.

She had loved the child’s smiles, his laughter, and his innocence.

She loved even more the man’s smiles, laughter, and passion. Not only the passion he aroused in her with the touch of his lips or the skimming of his fingers, but his determination to repay the love of a family who had adopted him.

He didn’t seem to realize that love collected no debts. That family extracted no payments. Because for a while, he had possessed neither love nor family. Because she had failed to protect him when he was a child.

Had she managed to save him now?

She heard the approach of his familiar footsteps, the beloved popping of his knees. Her heart constricted until it wept for what she might have had with Lee Raven, but would never have with Damon Montgomery.

She had found him, and in so doing, she had lost him.

“Angela, are you all right?”

She wasn’t certain if she’d ever be all right
again. She desperately wanted his arms around her. She forced herself to nod. “How is Shelby?”

“He will live.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “A part of me wishes he wouldn’t, and another part is relieved. Even though I knew you’d killed Floyd Shelby, understood why…I didn’t truly comprehend how difficult it must have been for a boy of fifteen…tonight, when your knife thudded to the floor, when I knew that you had completely surrendered to him, could feel his hatred, realized he was going to kill you…a part of me died. I remembered where I’d heard your guns fall earlier, close to me. My fingers were cold when I picked one up. I concentrated on the location of his voice…even though I knew I had no choice, I never expected it to be so damned hard to squeeze the trigger.”

A sob broke free, and he drew her into his embrace, rocking her gently, whispering comforting words in Spanish.

“You told me once that you begged for nothing, for no one.”

“But I would beg for you. I would die for you, Angela.”

She tilted her face back. “I want you to live for me.”

She heard him swallow hard before he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I told Montgomery why I killed Floyd. I do not know if it will make a difference in my destiny…” With his thumb he wiped away a fallen tear. “But for you,
querida
, I will do anything. You have but to ask.”

More tears surfaced. “Forgive me. Forgive me for losing you when you were a child.”

He skimmed his knuckles across her cheek. “There is nothing to forgive.”

“But what you’ve endured—”

“Angela,” he interrupted softly. “Do you not remember our picnic? You told me then that Montgomery’s son was named Damon, and I thought just for a fleeting moment, what if I had been that boy? And what if after I died, you found out?”

“Is that the reason you shared stories from your youth?” she asked, remembering the love he’d woven through the tales.

“I wanted you to know all my warm memories.”

“But so much of your life has been filled with ugliness—”

“No, Angela. Most of it has consisted of beautiful moments that always shine more brightly than the darkest of days. For a while, I think I forgot. I got lost in the darkness, but then I stumbled across an angel whose smile lit up my heart. I love you,
querida
.”

His mouth blanketed hers not with the urgency of the past, but with hope for the future. Slowly, leisurely, as though he had all the time in the world, he kissed her. She sank against him, relishing the sturdiness of his arms and the firm muscles that rippled as he deepened the kiss. She wanted to stay here forever, surrounded by his love.

But a warm wetness intruded as it soaked
through her dress. She pulled back. “What in the world is that?”

“I started bleeding again.”

“You’re wounded?” she asked, horrified. “Did I shoot you?” Had the bullet passed through him to get to Shelby?

“I do not know who shot me, but it was before I got to the house.”

“You need to treat it.”

“It is only a little thing.”

“You have to tend it.”

“I would rather tend to you,” he said, and she heard the laughter in his voice.

“Lee—” She stopped and sat back on her heels. “I don’t know what to call you.”

“I think,” he said quietly, “that Lee Raven rushed into the flames to rescue you. But Damon Montgomery carried you out.”

They were putting their prisoners on their horses when Damon heard the rumble of wheels. A wagon bounced over the uneven ground. He narrowed his gaze trying to get a better look at the man and woman sitting on the bench seat. He could see a man in the back of the wagon and a small boy clutching the side.

“Who is it?” Montgomery asked.

“My family.” With long strides, he started walking toward them. “Alejandro! Roberto! It’s Jorge!”

Alejandro and Roberto hurried to catch up with him.

“What is he doing here?” Alejandro asked.

“Juanita is with him?” Roberto whispered.

Jorge brought the wagon to a halt. Eduardo helped Miguel clamber out and the boy hit the ground running. “Lee! Lee!”

Damon scooped him up and held him above his head. “Miguel, what are you doing here?”

“Jorge has a magnificent plan! I get to be Lee Raven!”

Shaking his head, Damon lowered him to the ground and crouched in front of him. “I don’t think so, Miguel. I think you are Miguel Rodriguez, and that is who you should be.”

As though he’d already forgotten Jorge’s magnificent plan, he broke free of Damon’s hold and rushed forward. “
Señorita
!”

Angela smiled sweetly and knelt in the grass. “Miguel.”

He wound his arms around her neck, and she hugged him tightly.

“You did not say
adiós
,” he chastised at her breach of etiquette.

Leaning back, she ruffled his hair. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

“Is it your birthday yet?”

Her smile blossomed. “No, but maybe we can find another reason to have a
piñata
.”

Damon’s chest tightened with how incredibly lovely she looked sitting there with a child on her lap discussing all the different times when a
piñata
might be appropriate.

“I suppose we could have a
piñata
at a wedding,” Alejandro murmured.

“
Sí
,” he acknowledged. “We could.” Damon turned on his heel and strode to the wagon. He smiled warmly at his sister and held up his arms. “Juanita.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “I was afraid you would be dead.”

He lifted her off the wagon, and rocked her gently while she wept.

“I was so afraid,” she whispered.

“Shh. You do not have to be afraid.”

“Angela told me how scared she had been of the dark, and I thought that perhaps she could teach me not to be frightened of the truth.” Sniffling, she shuddered before leaning back and wiping the tears from her eyes. “I want to tell them.”

He cradled her face. “You do not have to tell them, Juanita.”

More tears surfaced. “I do not want you to hang.”

“I seriously doubt he’s going to hang, Miss Rodriguez,” Montgomery said.

Gazing past him, she opened her mouth slightly. Damon stepped aside. “Juanita, this is my father.” The word reverberated through him as he looked at Montgomery. It was the first time he’d acknowledged the man as such in his presence. The affirmation in his father’s eyes made him wonder why he’d waited. “He is a just man, a fair man. You can trust him.”

His father extended his hand toward Juanita.
“Take a walk with me, Miss Rodriguez, and I shall tell you the story of a little boy who became a man I’m proud and honored to call ‘son.’”

Damon watched as she tentatively placed her hand within the larger one. His father smiled warmly before escorting her toward what remained of the house. This fire had completely destroyed it.

“He is your father?” Jorge asked.

Damon turned to his younger brother. “
Sí
.”

“How did that happen?”

“Jorge,” Alejandro began, “I think it is time we talked to you about women.”

Jorge’s cheeks flamed red. “That part I know. But the rest of this—”

“Is a long story,” Damon assured him. “But first we must talk to you about your magnificent plan. To tell Miguel he could be Lee Raven…what were you thinking?”

“That was not my magnificent plan. It was Miguel’s.”

“Then what was
your
plan?” Alejandro asked.

Appearing embarrassed, Jorge twisted on the seat and pointed back. “It was Eduardo’s plan.”

Eduardo smiled. “I overheard Angela tell Juanita that a slow journey was better than no journey. So we decided to come home, slowly.”

“How would that save Damon?” Roberto asked.

“We were going to chop down the hanging tree.”