The Moon and the Stars

by Constance O'Banyon

  It took a moment for her heartbeat to calm to a steady beat. Since she couldn’t speak, she nodded as she moved away from him. As she approached the door of the hotel, he was right behind her, blocking any escape attempt she might have made.

  “That was foolish,” he told her.

  “I had to try.”

  He opened the door for her and she went inside, so tired her legs felt like weights. A sleepy clerk handed them a key and pointed to the stairs, yawning. With a steadying hand on Caroline’s arm, Wade Renault directed her up the stairs and into a dark room.

  She stood swaying wearily while he lit a lamp; then she dropped down on the edge of the bed, wanting nothing more than to lay her head on the pillow.

  He helped her out of the slicker and draped it on the bed post while water pooled at her feet.

  “Your trousers and shirt still got wet. I will leave you so you can get out of them before you catch a chill. But,” he warned, “I will be just outside the door listening, so do not try anything.”

  She turned her back to him, angered by his tyrannical tone. “I won’t undress, and you can’t make me,” she stated forcefully, turning to see that he had already left, and her words had fallen on an empty room.

  She was cold and miserable, she admitted to herself. She undressed, glad that she had worn the petticoat. Even though it was damp, she would use it as a nightgown. She practically dove beneath the covers to get warm. Caroline was not about to call Wade. He could just stay out in the hallway all night, for all she cared. It occurred to her that she would be at his mercy here in this room alone with him. She could not see him molesting a woman: The image just did not fit with the behavior of the bounty hunter. In any case, Caroline was just too sleepy to worry about him.

  As her body sank into the lumpy mattress, her eyes closed. She did not hear Wade reenter the room and drape her damp clothes on the chair so they could dry.

  She was unaware of the moment he blew out the lamp and moved a chair in front of the door. He unbuckled his gun belt and let it slide to the floor. He sat down in the chair and rested the gun on his lap.

  He was a light sleeper, and he knew every time she moved. He heard her sigh in her sleep, and he watched the moon play across her beautiful face. How innocent she looked in sleep. He wondered why she had killed her husband when he would probably have given her the world for one of those smiles that had so captured Captain Dunning at the picnic.

  Wade’s head drifted backward to rest against the cushioned chair, and he closed his eyes. She might look like an angel, but there were horns on that pretty head. The old story of roses having thorns would fit her just right.

  Caroline was sleeping soundly when a hand lightly touched her shoulder. “Wake up, Mrs. Duncan.”

  In confusion, she blinked her eyes, disoriented for a moment, and then her eyes widened on Mr. Renault. Everything came rushing back to her at once, and she sat up so quickly the covers fell to her waist.

  “What do you want?”

  His gaze slid down her shoulders to her breasts, which pushed through the thin chemise. His heart slammed into his gut, and he quickly turned his back to her. His voice was low when he said, “Madame, I will be waiting for you outside the door. You need to get dressed. I left breakfast for you on the dresser. Eat quickly. I want to leave Uvalde before sunrise.”

  Caroline was shaking with horror. She had forgotten she had removed her clothing because it was wet. She clutched the cover up to her chin. Had he thought she was trying to entice him with her body? She was so horrified he might think that had been her plan, she didn’t have to be told twice to get dressed. This man had already seen more of her than she cared to share with him.

  Later, a single lamp lit the dimness of the lobby as he led her out of the hotel. No one was about.

  “Do not speak if we should meet anyone,” he warned, sliding his fingers through hers so it would appear that they were a married couple. Suddenly he stopped, glancing at her hand and frowning. He raised her hand toward the lamp and examined it carefully. “The cuffs have bruised your wrist. Why did you not say something?”

  “You put cuffs on people all the time. You must have noticed what they do to your prisoners,” she said angrily, jerking her hand from his grip.

  He reached for her hand again and led her closer to the lamplight, touching the red, raw streak. “Your skin is so soft. I never thought the cuffs would hurt you.” He looked into her eyes, and she could have sworn she saw contrition in his gaze. “I know you are sore from riding. I have liniment that you can rub on your body tonight when we stop. It would not hurt to rub some on your wrist as well.” His tone was deeper, his accent more pronounced than before. “When we get away from town, I will pad your wrist so the cuff will not cut into it.”

  “Why should you care?” she asked stingingly.

  His brow arched, and he gave her a hard look. “I always like to bring my prisoners in without bruises.”

  His words hit her full force. She was his prisoner.

  The blood-red sunrise found them riding in open country. Caroline remembered her old nurse once telling her that a red sky in the morning was an ill omen that something bad was about to happen. She had never been superstitious before now, but something bad had already happened to her. She wondered what Brace had told Mr. Renault about her, and how much money he had paid him to bring her back to Charleston.

  She had not yet lost hope—there was still a long way to go, and she might get a chance to escape before they reached Charleston. She wanted to go home, but on her own terms, and not cuffed by this man.

  Her little filly had spirit and, at Caroline’s urging, shied sideways and tossed her head in protest. Wade reined in his mount and waited for her to bring the horse under control.

  “I feel the need to remind you, madame, that you cannot outrun my horse, so save yourself the trouble.”

  She gave him a scathing glare and pulled against the handcuffs. “If I were a man—”

  “If you were a man,” he cut in, “it would be a pity.” She lapsed into silence as his laughter drifted back to her, and she mumbled under her breath, biting back an angry retort.

  The day had been sweltering, and Caroline pulled her hat low over her forehead, knowing she would be sunburned if not for the hat he insisted she wear. That angered her—in fact, everything about him angered her. Wade Renault never missed the slightest detail. He had seemed genuinely bothered by the bruise on her wrist, and that confused her. If he was as heartless as he appeared to be, why should he care?

  They had been riding all day, stopping only when necessary. Dusk fell just as they crossed the Frio River, and she was glad it was cooler. As they rode along the riverbank, Caroline could see nothing but dense thickets, and she wondered how they would ever maneuver through the thorn bushes.

  She fell behind Mr. Renault, and he guided them to a well-worn path that had been hidden by undergrowth.

  The sun was making its last splash across the western horizon, and it was not yet full dark when they rode out of a craggy limestone canyon that stretched out to a grassy plateau. Renault held up his hand for her to halt.

  “We will camp here for the night,” he said, dismounting.

  Caroline waited while he unlocked the handcuff from the saddle horn and clasped it around her other hand. She gritted her teeth as he lifted her from the saddle and set her on her feet.

  The first step she took was jarring. She could hardly walk without pain shooting through her thighs and legs. But she would sooner die than let him know how sore she was.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded, dropping to her knees, completely exhausted.

  “I thought you knew,” he said, leading the horses forward. “To Charleston, of course.”

  “I mean, are we going to travel all the way on horseback?”

  He studied her for a moment before he answered. “Of course not. I will make other arrangements once we get to San Antonio.”

  She stood, slowly
suppressing a groan of pain. She moved to the edge of a hillside, staring at the buttercups that were intermingled with sage bushes and cactus. The wilderness seemed so far-reaching it appeared to go on forever, and it felt as if she and Mr. Renault were the only people on earth.

  Too weary to stand any longer, she once more dropped to her knees. She could not remember ever being as tired as she was at that moment.

  As she sat there dazed, she watched Mr. Renault unsaddle and hobble his horse. She assessed him for the first time as a man and not an adversary. He did not wear the clothing she would have expected a bounty hunter to wear. She watched the way his green shirt molded to his shoulder muscles when he lifted the saddle from her horse and settled it on the ground. He carelessly tossed his hat on the saddle as he bent to hobble her horse. She liked the way his dark hair fell neatly across his broad brow. He wore black trousers and black boots, but not the Western boots that everyone in Texas seemed to prefer—his were English riding boots—and of course there was the gun belt slung low over his hips.

  His golden eyes were dangerous for any woman who became trapped by their intensity. She leaned back on her elbows, trying to imagine what his life might be like. But she had no notion of what a bounty hunter did when he wasn’t out hunting someone.

  She studied his profile and was once again struck by how handsome he was, though not in the traditional sense. His features were too ruggedly chiseled for classic male beauty. He turned to her and found her assessing him, and there was a questioning expression on his face. A woman would feel safe under his protection. Not her, of course, he would probably be the death of her. For all she knew, he might have a wife; no one knew much about his life, and he was not forthcoming with details.

  He walked toward her with long strides, his voice deepening several tones when he said, “If I take the cuffs off, you must give your word that you will make no attempt to escape.”

  She could not think straight, so she merely nodded her head.

  “And,” he stipulated, as he bent down and unlocked the cuffs, “I will leave them off tonight if you will promise not to try anything.”

  She glared at him. “I promise not to run away right now—I’m too tired to get very far anyway. But I already told you that I will most certainly escape if I get the chance.”

  He seemed not to hear her, but instead stared at the angry redness where the cuffs had cut into her skin—the one wrist was raw and nearly bleeding. “Why did you not tell me that the padding had fallen off?” He raised his gaze to hers.

  “Why should I? You have no pity for anyone or anything, and I would never lower myself to beg mercy from you,” she stated mutinously.

  He clamped his jaw tight and left her for a moment. When he returned, he handed her a bottle of liniment. “As I told you before, you will want to rub this on your body wherever you ache—it will help with the soreness. You should put some on your wrist as well.” He paused as if he did not know what else to say to her. “I am not in the habit of mistreating women.”

  “You just singled me out for that honor?”

  She glared at him as he walked away, and he turned back to her in time to see her fury. He actually smiled, which only made her angrier.

  “I will make camp just over there,” he told her, nodding to a glade of trees. “Come on over when you are ready. I am sure you must be hungry.”

  She watched him until he disappeared from sight, trying to decide if he was the cold-blooded killer she imagined him to be, or if he had a soft side and really cared that her wrist was hurt.

  The pain in her backside reminded her that she would have to take her trousers down to apply the liniment. After the deed was awkwardly accomplished, she followed the smell of bacon frying. She was hungry and willing to endure Wade Renault’s company as long as he gave her something to eat.

  After she had eaten her fill of bacon and beans, she watched him douse the campfire. Her gaze followed him when he spread a blanket beneath the tree. “Don’t think I’m going to lie beside you,” she said, coming to her knees and then standing up and holding her body stiff.

  “Madame, we are in perfect agreement on that,” he remarked as he unfurled a second blanket several paces from his, and smoothed it. “It has always been my habit to sleep alone.”

  She stared into the darkness and flinched when she heard an owl hoot in a nearby tree. “Are there very many wild animals out here?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “Of course. This is their habitat.” He unbuckled his gun belt and placed it beside his blanket. Then his hands went to the leg buckles on his chaps, and he slowly began to unbuckle them one by one. Erotic thoughts coursed through her mind. She became fascinated, wondering what pleasure those hands could stir alive in a woman if he so chose.

  She felt her face flush. There should be nothing intimate about the way a man removed his chaps, but he performed the deed in a manner that sent her heart slamming into her throat. He was the most masculine man she had ever known. It sounded trite, but he was like a work of art.

  Angry with herself, she looked away when he eased himself down on his blanket and stretched out his long frame.

  She heard him cock his rifle, and knew he had placed it close at hand. “You should not concern yourself about wild animals—I always hit what I shoot at.” He spoke without conceit, merely stating a fact.

  She reluctantly settled on the other blanket. “I just bet you do.”

  “If you are not sleepy, why do you not tell me about yourself, Madame Caroline Richmond Duncan?”

  “Lovely weather we’re having,” she said, unwilling to share any part of her personal life with him.

  “I know what you are doing, madame.” Amusement laced his voice. “You do not want to talk to me, so you resort to speaking about the weather.”

  She liked the sound of his clipped accent and found herself wanting to know more about him. “It isn’t that I have nothing to say,” she said, swinging her head in his direction and offering him her most haughty glance. “It’s more that I was taught if I was ever in the company of a person that I didn’t particularly want to converse with, I should mention the weather.”

  There was an amused twinkle in his eyes. “Anyone will concede that you are a properly brought up Southern lady.”

  “There are clouds in the distance,” she said in an uninterested way. “I hope it won’t rain again.”

  “So it is to be the weather.”

  She noticed the irritation in his tone and smiled to herself; it was the first time she’d penetrated that thick skin of his, and it felt good. “But then again,” she continued, “I could be wrong about the rain. The storm may very well pass us by altogether.”

  He laid his head on folded arms. “You just do not know when to stop, do you?”

  “You do not want to talk to me?”

  “Good night, Mrs. Duncan.”

  She wanted to throw something at him. “I certainly don’t wish you a good night.”

  “I hope you have one,” he said half to himself. “Otherwise I do not expect to get any sleep myself.”

  She said nothing, but her gaze swept him from head to foot. She had never known a man like him, but then, she had never before met a bounty hunter. He appeared to have fallen asleep; she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest.

  Caroline suddenly had the most outrageous fantasy: What would it feel like to lay her head against his chest and allow him to hold her? She wanted him to be her protector, not her captor. She was afraid of him, and yet there was a part of her that wanted to pour her heart out to him.

  Why was that?

  After a while, her eyes grew heavy and the ground grew harder. She had already moved her blanket once because a root was jabbing her in the back. Now she was even more uncomfortable, and she tossed and turned, trying to find a position in which she could fall asleep.

  She heard him mutter a soft oath and watched as he rolled to his feet. “Madame, will you settle down! You will not be fit to
travel in the morning if you do not get some sleep.”

  “I never slept on the ground before,” she answered tartly. “You may be a brute and accustomed to such sleeping conditions, but I am not.”

  He stalked down the hill and soon returned with an armload of grass, which he spread on the ground, then made a second trip and repeated the deed. “Move your blanket onto this padding and maybe then we can both get some sleep.”

  She ached all over, and now she was exhausted. Nothing in her life had prepared her to deal with a man like him. She moved her blanket as he had instructed, and he bent down beside her to help smooth it out.

  Just as he was about to move away, she heard the cry of a wolf and then several other answering howls. She dove at him, pressing her body tightly against his.

  “Will they come into camp?” she asked, looking up at him with fright in her eyes.

  He eased her away from him and stepped several paces backward as if he needed to put some distance between the two of them. “There is nothing for you to be concerned about.”

  “Those creatures sound very near,” she said, scooping up her blanket and moving closer to his. “Are you sure they won’t come near us?”

  “I told you not to worry.” He sounded frustrated. “Now, dammit, go to sleep. The wolves will not harm you, and neither will I.”

  She turned her face into the blanket. He said he would not harm her, but he already had. In making her a prisoner, he had degraded her, but the worst was yet to come. If she didn’t find a way to escape, she would soon be under Brace’s control. She could not let that happen. Brace would kill her without feeling any remorse.

  Her eyes fluttered shut, and she sighed. She would just sleep for a little while. Maybe an hour or so. . . .

  Chapter Nine

  The sun had just touched the eastern horizon and tinted the sky a deep pink. The nocturnal creatures of the wilderness had already sought their safe dens and burrows, whereas the daytime creatures were embarking on their never-ending quests for food. Caroline awoke slowly and stretched her arms over her head.