Wild Sierra Rogue (33 page)

It was all she could do not to giggle. “You've been a bad, bad boy, having me tied up like this. When I get loose, I'm going to give you the spanking you so richly deserve.”

He beamed. “Yolanda. You sound just like Yolanda.”

Like a lad digging into a bowl of cherries, Arturo delved into untying the leather straps. Within thirty seconds Margaret had crowned him with the cognac decanter, rendered him insensate, and was rushing on tiptoes up the hallway. Just as she reached the last turn, she pulled up short.

“Rafe!”

She flew into his arms.

Behind him she caught sight of a clothed Father Xzobal. To his left, Sean Moynihan. And Pancho Villa. Pancho Villa! Plus his man Javier. The Villanista Pedro? Missing.

This was no time for a reunion or for questions about how Rafe and his brother had gotten free, or about how these men had come to help out. Rafe took her hand, and hopping along with his best effort, they burst into the red room where Pilar had been gagged already.

The contingent made a fast exit.

Pedro wasn't missing, she learned after they had gotten away from Areponapuchi. He would catch up with them, Rafe explained and rubbed his sore head. The group made camp near Eden Roc.

Pancho Villa had much to say, mainly to Margaret. Ready to raid the Santa Alicia, he'd followed Rafe's path to Eden Roc. One of the cooks had stopped her packing to send Villa to Areponapuchi. At the cemetery Villa and his men found a half-dazed Rafe, the Arturianos preparing to carry him to Casa Pilar.

Hipólito ran from the cemetery, Rafe said. Never to be seen again.

“I tossed the Eagle a gun,” said Villa, “and he came out of his daze.” The walrus mustache lifted in a smile. “The Magnificent Eagle shot the three criminals dead.”

He put her beliefs to rest that Rafe wouldn't defend himself.

Villa carried on with the story. By the time they reached Pilar's house of whoredom, Xzobal had gotten free of Helga, who, he said, had done nothing more than touch his leg after the Arturianos had strung him up.

“She was reeling from the shock of seeing Lord Hapsburg drawn and quartered,” Xzobal explained.

While Rafe serenaded the group with a guitar borrowed from Javier, Pedro returned. He brought news that Arturo's wound was superficial. Already,
El Grandero Rico
had started back for Santa Alicia, his remaining Arturianos in attendance.

Rafe, naturally, vowed to follow them. He and Pancho Villa made expansive plans to bring the Santa Alicia mine down. Actually, Villa wanted nothing more than the money in the office safe; he'd leave the do-gooder part to Rafe, Xzobal, and Sean.

“Why did you leave Arturo at Casa Pilar?” Margaret asked Rafe by the crackling and popping campfire, when the others had scattered for various and sundry chores and privacies. “Rafe, if you wanted your revenge, why didn't you take it before we left?”

“I had to get you out of there.”

“Why? If your favorite playpen is good enough for you, why wouldn't it be good enough for me?”

A muscle in his jaw went rigid. “Pilar's establishment is not my favorite playpen.”

“I do believe the madam begs to differ.”

A thunderous look passing across his face, Rafe replied, “If you were looking for a man without a few sins to his name, you picked the wrong hombre. If you're looking for me to apologize for my past, you're in trouble. I can't change it. I won't make excuses for it. And that's that.”

That's that. One of her hardheaded father's favorite expressions.

Later, she heard him say to Villa,
et al,
“Too bad we're fettered by the need for rest. I'm burning to ride on to the Santa Alicia mine.”

Seeing another man of zeal—her father—Margaret questioned a lot of things. She turned away and moved to the area where she and Rafe would sleep tonight. She spread a saddle blanket on the ground. She kept hearing Pilar call Rafe “master stud.” She kept remembering how she'd smiled upon hearing of her brother-in-law's brutal death. She kept thinking about all the awful things that could happen when they sabotaged the Santa Alicia silver mine.

And she cried. Cried for herself and for Rafe. And for their baby.

She took her own advice. She refused to discuss her feelings. It wasn't until they neared the village of San Antonio that the rumblings of her true nature reverberated.

The Delgado band planned to spend one night at Rancho Gato, the gate of which stood no more than two miles from San Antonio. Margaret decided,
Once we reach the Fuentes ranch, I'm going to call Rafe aside. We are going to get our house in order.

Rafe and Margaret, along with their followers, descended to the base of the Sierra Madres and reached Rancho Gato on a crisp January afternoon. The rancher and his wife greeted the returned visitors warmly. Vicente and Esther Vasquez welcomed Margaret with special warmth.

Without so much as a backward glance at Rafe, Margaret tucked Caballo in the crook of one arm, locked the other one with Esther's, and made for the adobe ranch house.

Margarita had been quiet, much too quiet since leaving Areponapuchi five nights ago, and her actions had Rafe concerned. Even her usual enthusiasm in lovemaking had been lacking.

He sighed as he led Diablo into the stable and unsaddled the fitful stallion. Something had to be wrong with Margarita—something very wrong—for her not to talk. It had to be more than jealousy over Casa Pilar.

Going in to their love affair, Margaret had known he was immoral and likely to stay that way.
Stay
that way? He'd never cuckold her. Never. But how was she to know that?

Damn.

He glanced at Xzobal, who was running a currycomb through his mount's mane. Rafe had the urge to say something to his brother, something on the order of, “I think Margarita has changed her mind about me.” But Xzobal had enough worries without piling Rafe's on top.

Rafe patted Diablo's rump, then stepped to the adjacent stall. “Are you gonna be all right,
muchacho?”

Xzobal rubbed his palm down the side of his britches. With the Federales still looking for him, he wore the clothes of a common vaquero. He turned to Rafe, and the fatigue of a thousand years dulled his brown eyes.

“You're not going back to the church, are you?” Rafe said.

“But I am. With more dedication than ever before. I'm going to join a monastery.”

“You're going to be a
mock?
Have you lost your mind? You joined the priesthood just to please your father, you don't have a true calling.”

“Not so.” Xzobal gave a dry laugh. “If I didn't have a calling, I would have swept Natalie away the first time she flirted with me.”

“Seems to me your heels got round. And quick. So don't hand me that line.” Rafe saw he was getting nowhere. “Think on this. Those places would bore a mouse, much less an hombre who's sampled a tasty morsel like that Natalie.”

Scowling now, Xzobal yanked the currycomb down the gelding's neck, receiving a bite on his forearm for his roughness.

As the victim yelped and rubbed his abused flesh, Rafe smirked knowingly. “You're joshing me with that monk business. There hasn't been a monastery in Mexico for thirty-odd years.”

“They still have them in Spain. And that's where I'm going.”

Rafe grimaced, blew a stream of breath out his rigid mouth, and shook his head. “You'll live to regret taking off for there. You wait and see. It won't be anytime 'til you have such a craving for a mouthful of tit and a handful of hot woman, you'll be scaling the monastery walls.”

Xzobal said nothing.

One last bit had to be said. “If you're leaving, fine. But you're not going until after you marry me and 'Rita.”

“Who says we're going to be married?” came a feminine voice.

'Rita.

Rafe spun around.

She stood barefooted in the door of the stable, sunlight shooting through the dark hair that lay thick and wavy over her shoulders. Esther Vasquez must have loaned her some clothes, for Margarita wore a red skirt and a white peasant blouse, the drawstringed collar of the latter settling just below her shoulders. As usual, she looked sensational. Except for her expression.

“Xzobal,” Rafe demanded, “leave us.”

He did. Margarita entered the stable, stopped at Diablo's stall. When Rafe tried to take her in his arms, she backed away. Again they surfaced, his fears about her intentions.

She spoke. “I want you to back off this vendetta against Arturo.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Arturo isn't a totally unreasonable man. If you put your heart into it, I think you can reason with him. Actually, all you need to do is set forth
demands
, and he'll listen to you.”

Was he hearing right? Margarita—Margarita the warrior-woman!—had turned coat? “He's duped you.”

“I don't think so. I believe I understand him quite well. And after talking with him, I better understand myself. I realized that I was enjoying violence. Having a blood thirst scares me witless.”

“You aren't obligated to go with us on the raid. Stay here 'til I return for you.”

She shook her head. “What I'm trying to say is, I don't want you to jeopardize your life. You must give up this revenge bunk. I want us to leave for Texas at first light. If you want to marry me”—she plumbed her spine—“you'll have to accept that our home will be New York City.”

His ears weren't working right. Or this was a dream that would fade when he awoke. But it wasn't a nightmare. And there was nothing wrong with his hearing. “Your terms are unacceptable.”

“Then you and I are finished.”

“Bullshit.” His words gritted past his clenched teeth. “We've come all this way, fought so many odds, and you want us to retreat like cowed curs? Unacceptable.”

“I find it unacceptable, the idea of a husband who's used for target practice.”

Struck dumb by all she'd thrown at him, he tried to understand her reasoning. All this time, he'd believed her steady and true to their shared ideals. Obviously their ideals weren't shared. Had her promises been empty, too? “What is it you're wanting?” he asked sourly. “A rose garden?”

“Never a rose garden.”

“A cottage in the glen? Quiet evenings, hearth-side. A passel of babies?”

She flinched. “We . . . we both agreed we wanted children. A while back you didn't think they were an impossibility. Have you changed your mind?”

“I want to father your children. But not
now.
We're on the eve of our greatest triumph.”

Shaking with frustration, she shouted, “Triumph? Better call it tragedy. Don't you realize you could get killed in that mine!”

“Diablo could kick me right now, and I could die from it. We have no life guarantees.”

“Oooh.” Her hands made fists that she pounded against Rafe's chest. “Rafael Delgado, damn you to hell! You're too much like my father.”

“How so?” He closed his fingers around her fists, holding them to his heart.

“He always made my mother second in his priorities. She deserved better than her constant hoping against hope that he'd wise up.”

“He wised up.”

“It took him almost thirty years to do it. You and I, we've lost the dew of youth, save for that which Eden Roc gave us. We don't have thirty years to waste.”

Her arguments were getting to him. But if he went along with her, what would happen? He saw himself as what he would be: an hombre who'd done nothing to honor his sainted cousin.

He had to make Margarita understand. “I love you,
mi corazón.
I love you more than the stars in the heavens or the air that we breathe. You are the song in my heart. You are the light of my life. You've given me hope and happiness, and a reason to look forward to growing old. In return I will give you anything you want, anywhere you want it. You'll have it all . . . except for one thing. I won't surrender my principles.” Blood surged in his ears. “Thirty years or thirty minutes or for whatever life I've got left, I have to live with my conscience—and do penance for my sins. I refuse to abandon my mission until the people of the Santa Alicia know a better life.”

Tears welled and her chin trembled. “You thrive on violence.”

“Not so.” Trying to appease, he said, “ 'Rita,
mi dulce
, once Arturo is routed, we'll have the rest of our lives for children and picket fences. I promise.”

She yanked her hand from his heart, and backed away, almost stumbling. She grabbed hold of a support post. Taking a restorative breath, she stood to her full height. “You've forgotten something. You're forty years old. Already, you're old enough to be a grandfather, yet you aren't ready to be a father? Fine. That's your prerogative. But I'm not getting any younger. I want children. Your children. If you go face off with the Arturianos at the mine, you'll never see being a father.”

He glared at her.

“You don't stand a chance”—she batted at a tear—“because there's a place in your heart that still beats for your uncle. Do you know why you can't kill him? Because you haven't quit loving him! Unless one of you gives in, though, you'll be carried out of that damned hole in the ground! Because his hired guns damned sure don't have any love for you.”

“Are you through?”

“If I can't have you the way I want you, I might as well go back to my Persians.”

He stomped around her, quitting the stable. Given his limp, she didn't have any trouble catching up, which she did, not twenty feet outside the stable. He ordered her off. She stopped.

He took another ten steps, then halted when she shouted to him, “I'm not through with you!”

Wheeling around, he started toward her but she withdrew. The distance separating them might as well have been a continent in length, when she said, “You would cut down your uncle in the chivalrous name of honor, yet it wasn't his bullet that struck Hernándo Delgado.”

A bullet couldn't hurt any worse than the sting in Rafe's chest. At that moment he hated Margaret McLoughlin. It was too bad she'd ever left those damned cats, because she damned sure didn't belong in Mexico.

Loathing in his tone, he said, “Congratulations. You've finally done what you set out to do, years ago. You've cut my nuts.”

 

 

She'd made a mess of trying to reason with Rafe. He hated her, and she couldn't blame him. All she'd wanted was to open his eyes! No matter what she did, he wouldn't accept her apologies.

Not an hour after their pitched battle, he had collected his brother, the bandit Pancho Villa, and the rest of their party, and they had ridden away from Rancho Gato. Rafe, without a backward glance.

She knew his plans, and they scared her. Tomorrow, as soon as they could fetch the guns and ammunition Villa had stockpiled at his house in Santa Eulalia, Rafe and his partners would stand and deliver at the Delgado silver mine.

On second thought, Margaret decided she should have told Rafe about the baby. If he knew fatherhood wasn't just a concept—On third thought, she was glad she hadn't. She and their child didn't need him, if he had to be coerced into staying with them.

This was the longest night of Margaret's life.

She rolled and tossed and trembled. Then she cackled like an idiot at the irony of the situation. They had begun in San Antonio. And their love affair had ended in another San Antonio. Two towns a world apart. Just like Margaret and Rafe were worlds apart.

She did no more laughing, not when she drew mental images of all the terrible things that could happen to Rafe. Along with all these gruesome scenarios, she had terrible stomach cramps. The reason became apparent when she left the bed where she had spent that sleepless night. Her flow had begun.

Damn.

Double damn.

She wouldn't even have a child to remember Rafe by.

It was tempting, the urge to take to her borrowed bed and cry her eyes out. After all, she'd wanted Rafe to want her more than anything in the world. “It's better this way,” she told herself. “He could be killed today, and where would I be?”

Rafe—killed!

Today.

And he would die with her hateful remarks ringing in his ears.

The trouble with issuing an ultimatum, Margaret had to live with the negative results. Going back to her cats held little appeal.
Oh, Lord, what am I going to do without Rafe?
She'd lived all these years without him, but the prospects of the future . . . Her stomach pulled into knots having nothing to do with monthly flow.

Wait a minute.

Without a baby, there was no reason why she couldn't ride after him.

Esther Vasquez, as she cooked breakfast and Margaret worked as assistant, took on the voice of her conscience. “But,
amiga,
you said you are sickened by the violence you've seen in Mexico.”

“Leonardo was an awful man. A philanderer and a rapist and a murderer. He deserved to suffer.” Margaret mixed tomatoes to chiles and onions to make
salsa
. “Rafe is a wonderful man.”

“Sí.”
Esther tossed a tortilla on the hot griddle. “The Eagle is a special man. But he is human. If he gave you another chance, could you accept him as he is? A rogue with a string of lovers.”

Margaret stirred the
salsa
. Could she accept him? The romantic part of her heart said yes. The practical part of her brain had a positive thought: So what if he'd done this and that with who-knew-what, no telling how many times. Considering his mastery at lovemaking, she ought to be glad he was no green fumbler.

“I wouldn't want him if I could change him,” she answered. “He wouldn't be appealing if he were timid and meek, or if I could henpeck him. I fell in love with Rafe for Rafe. He's brave and courageous and determined. And not bad-looking, either.”

“Very true.”

“Excuse me, Esther. I'm going to my man.”

“What if he won't take you back?”

Anxiety spiraled. “I—I . . . I don't know if he'll forgive me. If he'll allow me, I'll stand by him through thick and thin, through revolution and times of peace, no matter the price.”