Then he kissed her again.
This time she managed to resist the spell he wove. Barely. The only thing keeping her from falling was the knowledge that their actions were being observed.
“Think he’d come up for air, wouldn’t you?” asked another voice, different from the first.
“I don’t know, Kid. If it were me, I’d be in danger of burying myself in that bosom and smothering to death. You know I’m partial to a nice set of tits.”
Mari stiffened, then buried her head against Luke’s chest. Luke went completely still, a sense of menace radiating from his body. His right hand released its grip on her hip and slid to his own thigh, resting on his gun belt.
Holy Moses. A lump rose in Mari’s throat. She didn’t like the insult either, but considering the circumstances, it certainly wasn’t a shooting offense.
She gripped his arm in warning. He ignored her.
Yet, he didn’t turn around.
He doesn‘t want these men to see his face. It wasn‘t a woman at all. It’s these men. Who are they?
Luke cleared his throat, then spoke in a raspy tone. “I’d appreciate it if you fellas would excuse me and the lady.”
“I’m sure you would,” the one called Kid replied.
“Sounds to me like he’s wantin’ to stick it to her real bad. Go ahead, Virgil. I don’t mind watchin’.”
Mari knew the instant he made up his mind to act, because his hard, taut body suddenly went fluid. Loose.
He’s going to shoot them!
Reacting instinctively, she wrenched herself away from Luke and advanced upon the strangers in full harpy mode. “How dare you speak that way! Why, I’ve never been so insulted in all my life. Your mothers would be so ashamed of you. Virgil? Escort me away from these villains.”
She took hold of his arm and attempted to propel him forward. She’d have had better luck moving a mountain. “Virgil,” she said again, stressing the name.
Still, he didn’t move.
“Virgil Beaudine! There’s a time and a place for everything and this isn’t it.”
After a long moment’s pause, he rasped, “Yes, dear.”
Mari’s knees went weak with relief. She tucked her arm firmly around his and attempted to lead the way back toward their seats. Instead, keeping his head turned away from the men, he led her back the way they’d come.
Once inside the car, he found an empty seat, shoved her into it and said, “Don’t move.”
“Wait!” She clutched his sleeve. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“Sit. Stay. Hush.” He pulled free of her and turned, headed for the door.
Sit? Stay? Hush? What am I, a cocker spaniel?
Never one to submit to such autocratic demands, she started to rise, but an unexpected lurch in the motion knocked her back into her seat. Brakes screeched and the train began to slow. Mari glanced out the window. No town. No station. Why were they stopping?
Before she could reason it out, Luke was back at her side, his expression grim, his manner rushed. “C’mon,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“You just told me to sit and stay.”
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Me? You’re calling medifficult?”
He didn’t speak again until they’d once again exited the car onto the vestibule. Then he looked her dead in the eye and said, “They’re robbing the train. They’ll kill me if they get a good look at me, and since they’ve seen us together, they’ll probably kill you, too.”
“Kill me?”
“After they rape you.”
Despite the fact she’d been acting as silly as her younger sister, Mari wasn’t stupid. “Where shall we hide?”
Luke slipped the guard chain from its mooring then pointed off toward a section of high grass. “There.”
“We’re jumping from the train?”
“Leave your knees soft when you land, then roll. Once you have control, get up and run like hell.”
Mari watched the ground roll by and her stomach churned. “All right. It’s all right. I’ve jumped from a train before. Of course I was a child then. A limber child. I—”
He put both hands on her rear end and lifted her, sent her sailing from the train. Mari hit the ground hard, bottom first, then she rolled like a tumbleweed across the rocky dirt. Stones skinned her hands and one elbow. Something sharp pierced her skin. But when she finally came to a stop, a quick survey of arms and legs confirmed she’d escaped relatively unscathed.
Scrambling to her feet, fearful of hearing a gunshot at any moment, Mari darted toward the shelter of the waist-high grass. Luke caught up to her, grabbed her arm and forced her to run faster. They spilled into the grass, snapped the stems of a half dozen sunflowers, then lay flat against the ground. “Keep your head down,” Luke warned.
“I intend to.”
She attempted to observe the developments by watching him, but he proved impossible to read. He lay still as a stone, moving nothing but his eyes. Long minutes dragged by.
Finally, Mari could stand no more. “What’s happening?” she whispered. “Who are these people?”
He waited a long moment before responding. “Train’s stopped. Had to have been a prearranged rendezvous. Their horses must be on the other side. I can’t see ‘em from here.”
“How long does it usually take to rob a train?”
“Depends.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but he remained frustratingly silent. When this was all over, they needed to have a talk about his infuriating lack of communication. Finally, she lost control of her patience. She carefully, cautiously, lifted her head.
Well, she didn’t see anyone with a gun pointed in her direction. In fact, she didn’t see anyone at all. Not outside the train, anyway. Everything appeared normal, but then a bend in the track leading away from them prevented her from seeing the locomotive, coal car or the first two passenger cars.
“Lie still,” Luke said. “I’ll be right back.”
Keeping low to the ground, he rose. He moved parallel to the railcars, making his way forward with silent, deliberate grace that made Mari think of a mountain lion stalking his prey. Even under difficult circumstances like this, she couldn’t help but notice that Luke Garrett truly was a magnificent animal.
He kissed like a dream.
Oh, stop it, Mari silently chastised herself. He’s an outlaw. That kiss was nothing more than a diversion, a way for him to hide. She should forget it.
She knew she’d never forget it.
“Fine. But think about it later,” she murmured, her breath sending seeds from a dandelion pod flying. Somehow, it didn’t feel seemly to worry about a simple kiss during a train robbery.
Except that kiss wasn’t at all simple.
Luke reached the bend in the track, then suddenly, he abandoned his attempt at stealth and stood. He took three long strides toward the train, then glanced her way and motioned her to join him.
As she began to move, an ominous sound to her left caught her notice, and she glanced in that direction. And froze.
The snake lay coiled atop a large flat rock. It was tan in color, with dark diamond-shaped patches running from its broad, flat, arrow-shaped head down its back to its tail. Its rattle-tipped tail.
Dear Lord.
Mari’s mouth went as dry as the dirt beneath her, and her blood ran cold. Instinct told her to remain totally still as she tried desperately to recall anything she’d ever learned about diamondback rattlesnakes.
She’d helped Emma take her class to a rattlesnake “milking” demonstration at the Texas Spring Palace about a week before the fire last spring. According to the lecturer, diamondbacks were large, fearless and aggressive snakes that were apt to stand their ground and fight rather than retreat from a threat.
I’m no threat.
A bite wasn’t always fatal, either. With prompt and proper treatment, many victims of a rattlesnake bite will live.<
br />
And I could get prompt, proper treatment here in the middle of a train robbery in the middle of nowhere.
They eat rats and rabbits. Whole.
I’m too big to digest.
The snake’s tail began to vibrate, the rattle buzzed. Oh, dear Lord. Mari wanted to scramble back, to rise and run away. She wanted to scream. Instead, she lay quiet and still but for the pounding of her pulse. She’d wait him out. Maybe he’d get tired of holding his head up like that. Maybe he’d just slither away. Maybe—
The train whistle blew just as the crack of a gunshot sounded. Before Mari’s eyes, the snake’s head separated from its body, stinging blood and gore. While the head was still in the air, Luke shouted. “Get away. It can still bite.”
The rattlesnake’s head landed with its mouth open, its fangs extended, mere inches from her face.
Mari’s world went black.
LUKE WAS in a world-class temper.
Here he was afoot in the middle of nowhere, an unconscious woman slung over his shoulder, trying to run down a wagon filled with pigs so he wouldn’t have to walk ten miles or farther to the nearest town. Meanwhile, his mortal enemy rode safely out of Luke’s clutches in the relative comfort of a Texas & Pacific passenger railcar.
All in all, it had been one blue-ribbon lousy day.
And it wasn’t over yet.
The weight on his shoulder shifted as Mari awakened from her faint. “What..?” she said, starting to struggle. “Put me down. Oh, wait. That snake. Maybe you should carry me back to the train. Could we shift position, though?”
Giving in to his temper, Luke gave her butt a swat. “Be still,” he said over her gasp of offense. “The train left without us.”
“It left?” she said with a squeak.
“We gotta catch that wagon.”
“Wagon? What wagon?”
She wiggled and squirmed like a sand bass on a hook, forcing him to slow. Deciding it’d be faster to put her down, Luke set her on her feet then pointed toward a cloud of dust a couple hundred yards away. “That wagon. The one we’ve got to run and catch up with if we don’t want to walk to Trickling Springs.”
Mari looked toward the empty train track. “Walk. We can’t walk. I’m not walking.” Shuddering, she added, “That was a rattlesnake.”
“I noticed.”
“The robbers.” Wide-eyed, she glanced up at Luke. “What about the train robbers? Where did they go?”
Luke scowled and started walking in long, angry strides after the wagon. “They didn’t get off.”
She hurried after him. “They robbed a train, then stayed on it?”
“They didn’t rob the train,” Luke responded, breaking into a slow run.
“What?”
Damn, this was humiliating. Luke seldom felt like a fool, and he didn’t wear the sensation well. “Better get a move on. I figure it’s at least ten miles to town.”
He gave it half a minute then checked over his shoulder. He couldn’t help but appreciate the delicious amount of leg she displayed as she hefted her skirts knee-high and started after him. Though he was tempted to pick up his speed and maintain a distance that made discussion impossible, he didn’t have the heart to make this any more difficult for her than it already was. He couldn’t forget the look on her face as she stared down that diamondback. The girl had grit. He respected that.
“Luke Garrett! What do you mean they didn’t rob the train?” she called out.
But she also had a damned sharp tongue. Well, hell. Luke halted, whirled around and spit his words like bullets. “The train stopped because the pig wagon was stuck on the tracks. The wagon moved. The train left.” He shrugged.
Mari stopping running. She braced her hands on her hips. “So you were wrong? We went through all this for nothing? I risked my life for nothing?”
“You didn’t risk your life,” he said, resuming his long-legged lope.
She put on a burst of speed and came around in front of him. “No? I jumped from a moving train. I was a hairbreadth away from being bitten by a viper. All because you made a mistake and told me I was in danger from a bunch of train robbers! What kind of an outlaw are you that you can’t tell when a train is being robbed?”
Her sapphire eyes flashed, and her cheeks flushed rosy. Luke was glad to see the color back in her complexion. He didn’t feel near as guilty now. So he gave her a wink, then said, “Hey, you got a damn fine kiss out of it.”
She gasped, glared, then whirled around and increased her pace. Luke eyed her pumping legs, matched her stride, and his mood went almost mellow.
When they drew within hailing distance of the wagon, he increased his speed and ran around her. “Howdy, sir,” Luke called. When the driver, a weathered man of around sixty, turned to look, Luke jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward Mari and continued, “My wife and I are in a speck of trouble. Would you be of some help to us?”
“Whoa there,” the driver called as he reined in his horses. In the back of the wagon, a pair of hogs snorted and snuffled. “Where did you come from, stranger?”
Mari caught up with Luke as he began to spin his yarn. “I’m afraid we stepped off the train when it stopped. The little lady here was feeling a bit green around the gills from all the swaying.” He put his arm around Mari’s waist, gave her a squeeze and a smile, ignoring the way she stiffened at his touch. “Caught us by surprise when the train took off rolling again. My little darling was busy puking her guts up, so we couldn’t run to catch it. She’s carryin’, you see.”
“Congratulations,” the driver said.
“Thank you. We’re hoping for a boy. We’re the Beaudines. I’m Virgil and this here is Ethel. We’re hoping you’d be so kind as to give us a ride into Trickling Springs.”
The fellow tipped back his hat. “That’s a problem, young man. I’m late gettin’ where I’m goin’ ‘cause of my wagon gettin’ hung up on the railroad tracks. I’ve gotta get home by sundown ‘cause today’s my wife’s birthday, and these hogs are her gift. Now, y’all are welcome to ride along with me. I’m Dennis Hill. My wife and I have a cotton farm a short piece from here. Y’all can stay the night at the farm, and I’ll carry you into town tomorrow.”
“But the train,” Mari said, casting Luke an anxious look. “It’s stopping for dinner. We could catch up with it. We must catch up with it. My bags are on that train!”
Luke frowned and scratched the back of his head. “Now, Ethel, you do have a point. Sir, I’d be happy to pay you a good wage for the ride tonight. You could buy the missus some little purdy to go along with her hogs. And allow me to mention what fine hogs they are, too.”
Now it was the farmer’s turn to frown. He pursed his lips, scratched his full beard, then shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. Can’t rightly do that. I forgot her birthday entirely last year, and she’ll be hotter than a pot of boiling collards if I don’t get my hogs home tonight. Y’all come on and climb up into the wagon. The wife will be pleased to have company. We’ll get you into town in plenty of time to catch tomorrow’s train.”
Mari opened her mouth as though to protest, then obviously thought better of it She flashed Hill a grateful smile, then stepped up into the wagon and settled broadly into the seat “Oh, my. There’s not much room. It looks like you’ll have to ride in back with the rest of the pigs, Virgil.”
Good try, sugar.
“That’s all right.” He stepped up into the wagon, scooped her up, then sat and settled her into his lap. “I don’t mind you sitting on me, even if you have put on some weight with the young’un and all.”
She sat stiff as a new rawhide rope, and her elbow jabbed him hard in the breadbasket. Damn, but he liked her starch, not to mention that yellow-rose scent that clung to her skin despite her recent brush with dirt, dust and death. “Besides, you smell a lot better than the hogs.”
She retaliated by “accidentally” kicking his shin. Grinning, Luke relaxed against the backboard and prepared to enjoy the ride.
HILLS
IDE FARM was a pretty place snuggled up against the banks of the Brazos River. Post oak and cedar dotted the gently rolling hills, and in the fields, fluffy white cotton dotted the ground like snowballs.
The farmhouse had been around awhile. Built in the traditional dogtrot style, the original house consisted of two log rooms with a central connecting passageway, a porch at either side, and a chimney at both ends. “What a pretty place,” Mari told the farmer.
“It’s a hodgepodge,” he replied, although his voice brimmed with pride. “My father built the original cabin, and we’ve added on over the years. My Penny is right proud of her new kitchen and dining room. If you like it, Mrs. Beaudine, it’d be a kindness for you to mention it to her.”
Because he wanted to keep his wife’s gift a secret until the appropriate time, he pulled the wagon into the barn and they approached the house on foot. Glancing through a window, Mari spied Penny Hill at the stove in her kitchen with a wooden spoon in hand stirring, judging by the smell, a pot of beans. At first glance, Mari thought she appeared to be younger than her husband by at least ten years.
Dennis Hill waved them onto the porch, then opened the door and asked, “How’s the birthday girl?”
“You remembered!” Her smile bloomed and delight filled her eyes as she turned around. Then, seeing strangers at the doorway of her home, she paused. Delight shifted to curiosity. “Why, hello.”
“Come on in, folks,” Dennis said, waving them inside. “Penny, this here’s Mr. and Mrs. Beaudine. They had a travel mishap on account of the missus is in the family way. They’re gonna stay with us tonight, then I’m gonna carry them to town tomorrow in time to catch the southbound train.”
Luke took off his hat and ushered Mari inside. “We’re sorry to impose on your celebration, ma’am.”
“Oh, company is never an imposition. In fact, this is a delightful surprise. Welcome to our home.”
The farmer’s wife offered Mari the opportunity to freshen up, and upon hearing the details according to Luke the Liar about their “travel mishap,” offered “Ethel” a clean dress to wear.
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