by Pam Crooks
Watching Quinn in his victory, Hannah realized how little she knew about him. He’d been accused of murdering his brother’s wife. Glory, he was capable of it. She’d seen the violence in him at the penitentiary the night he escaped. He’d been brimming with rage, had acted the savage from a festering desperation and hate.
And yet . . ..
And yet she’d seen the civilized side to him, too. He hadn’t abused her when there’d been every chance. Instead, he’d seen to it she was warm and dry, with food in her belly and clean clothes on her back. He’d kept her as safe as he could with the turn their lives had taken.
The towering walls around her heart weakened, softening her initial impression of him. Something in his past had shaped him to the man he was, had hinted at honor, had honed his skills as a horseman.
And had branded him a man accused of murder.
But was he truly guilty of it?
He spied her from across the corral. Their gazes connected for a single charged moment before he left the group of bandeleros. He removed the Stetson and batted it against his thigh, loosening the dust that had collected along the brim.
“Bravo, Senor Landry,” Sophia called out. “You have made Tomas very happy just now.”
His dark glance lighted on her. “It would’ve been a helluva shame to let that horse go, Sophia.”
Her reply dimmed in Hannah’s ears. Quinn returned the hat to his head; he drew closer to the fence, then reached up to clasp her waist and swing her to the ground.
She clutched his shoulders in surprise and discovered solid muscle beneath her palms. Her body leaned into his to keep her balance.
“You’ve roped horses before,” she said breathlessly, quietly, steading herself against him.
“A few times.”
Her brows rose at his flippant reply. She knew his mastery over the animals went far beyond that, but with Sophia near, she said nothing more.
Quinn hooked his arm lazily over her shoulder. His intent, certainly, was to play the part of an attentive husband, yet Hannah stood rigid beneath the weight of it, for she found the gesture unnecessarily possessive. Far too bold.
And much too pleasing.
“Something went wrong with the gruello stallion, Senor Landry,” Sophia said. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “One of the riders was out of position when the horse bolted,” he said, accusing no one.
But Tomas spoke heatedly with Julio Cortez. The leader’s hand slashed through the air in his outrage. Cortez accepted the tongue-lashing, but his fleshy cheeks quivered with the effort of holding back his excuses.
Sophia’s scrutiny slashed across her cousin.
“Julio!” she said with a snarl of disgust. “His carelessness almost cost Tomas the entire herd.”
“Everything happened fast,” Quinn said. “Any one of us could have slipped up.”
Sophia didn’t seem to hear. The dangerous thrust of her jaw indicated she longed to give Cortez a thrashing of her own.
At Tomas’ terse gesture, Cortez stalked away from the corral, hurling Quinn an ugly stare as he passed.
Tomas joined them and slipped a hand onto Sophia’s waist, pulling her close. She gazed up at him, and her expression mellowed.
“Tomas will be able to use the wild mustangs to start a herd for us. They will be broken to saddle, then sold to horse trainers for a handsome price,” she said.
“Senor Landry has proven his skill with horses. Perhaps he will help us tame them, eh, Sophia?” Flashing her a conspiratorial smile, his fury with Cortez seemed to dissipate at the prospect.
“I didn’t intend to stick around long enough, Tomas,” Quinn said evenly. “You’ll have to find someone else to break them.”
The bandelero laughed heartily. He clearly took no offense at Quinn’s blunt refusal. “The gringo speaks his mind. He is not afraid of us.” Though he spoke to his wife, his attention settled on Quinn, and his mirth faded. “If the herd had escaped, we might never have found them again. Gracias, senor.”
Quinn lifted a shoulder in a dismissive gesture. “Might have to call the favor back on you sometime, Tomas.”
A guarded light stole into the black eyes. The Mexican made no promises.
“You have worked hard all day, mi querido,” Sophia said, touching her husband’s cheek. “You must be hungry. Hannah, surely supper is ready by now. Miguel will need your help in serving the men.”
Hannah stiffened at her condescending manner, and she strove for the humility she needed to obey the order without complaint.
“I’ll walk her back,” Quinn said, his shadowed expression daring the Huertas to deny him.
But Tomas merely nodded. “We will join you soon.”
Quinn directed her from the corral, his arm still looped around her.
“Everything go okay today?” he asked.
“Well enough,” she shrugged. “Under the circumstances.”
“We left early this morning. Before dawn.” He regarded her with a trace of amusement. “You were sleeping pretty sound. I didn’t want to wake you.”
She remembered her chagrin at discovering him gone, at not knowing where he was or when he’d return. Was she getting too accustomed to being with him?
Was she liking it too much?
“You’re not beholden to me for your every action, Quinn,” she said, fearing the truth of her thoughts and rebelling against it. “Leastways, not until we’re riding toward Amarillo again.”
“Not beholden to you?” His arm slid from her shoulders. He halted and turned her around to face him. An impending storm brewed in his dark eyes. “We’re beholden to each other, Hannah. I kept telling myself you were safe with Sophia, that Cortez was with me and couldn’t harm you. But that didn’t stop me from worrying about you all day.”
And she’d worried about him. Minute after minute. Hour after hour.
“I’ll survive, with or without you,” she declared, needing to hear herself say it. To believe it.
“Don’t quarrel with me, Hannah.” The roughly spoken words coaxed for a truce between them. “I don’t have much time with you--.”
Before she could puzzle over his statement, his head lifted.
“Ssh.” Quinn touched a finger to his mouth and pulled her into the deepening shade of a grove of cottonwood trees. His glance narrowed on the lean-to stable located a short distance beyond the cantina.
Julio Cortez withdrew a bottle of tequila from inside his coat. He halted, swayed, and pressed the bottle to his mouth. Liquid dribbled down his unshaven chin, and he dragged his sleeve across his lips to wipe it away.
Beside the stable, Tomas had parked Fenwick’s carriage for safekeeping. Cortez attempted to climb into the rig, but his foot slipped and he fell between the driver’s seat and the floor, wedged like a pig in a poke. He wriggled his paunchy frame free and staggered back to the ground.
He held the black metal box in his hand. A swift list of its contents formed in Hannah’s brain.
“Our money,” she whispered, and took an involuntary step forward.
“Let it go,” Quinn said, holding her back.
But she couldn’t let it go so easily, not when the coins and bills Fenwick had left behind would help them get to Amarillo.
And help her return to the convent.
Cortez fumbled with the lock, but it refused to yield. He went back to the stable and came out with a crowbar in his big hand. He worked the tool on the lock, his sun-brown face twisted from the difficulty of the job.
Finally, the lid popped open. Muttering an exclamation in Mex, the outlaw snatched the flask of whiskey inside and held it up to the sun, as if to convince himself its contents were real. He stuffed the bottle inside his coat with the tequila and did the same with the gold-plated box of matches. Picking up the laudanum, he squinted at the tiny letters on the label with an uncomprehending expression and flung the container to the ground.
“Ee-yah!” he cried.
Hannah knew he had, at
last, discovered the money. He groped inside the box, then tossed it aside with one hand while he gripped the bills and coins in the other. Her heart plummeted.
He began to count the loot, his attention absorbed with stuffing the coins and bills into a small drawstring pouch before tucking it away in his coat.
Quinn stepped from the trees, his hand low on Hannah’s spine.
“He’s heading toward the cantina,” he muttered, watching Cortez shuffle away. “Let’s get you back to the kitchen before Huerta sends the entire band out looking for us.”
Hannah’s gaze remained riveted to the empty black box. They’d been wise not to confront Cortez over its contents. She’d long ago learned there was nothing worse than a liquored up outlaw with money hiding in his pocket.
But Hannah couldn’t forget it. She couldn’t survive being meek and obedient, as Quinn expected, as Mother Superior had so often encouraged. Not now, amongst these ruthless men who took what they wanted at their whim. And even if Quinn could find his way amongst them, thinking little of the loot Cortez had stolen, Hannah was different.
She wanted the money back. Every cent.
Revolvers and rifles, ammunition belts and Bowie knives heaped a table just inside the door. Enough for the whole army, it seemed. Huerta had demanded all weaponry be deposited there during the meal, a celebration of the successful roundup of the mustangs and the impending birth of his child.
With Hannah’s help, Miguel prepared huge portions of roasted chilies, wild turkey and fried potatoes, tortillas and refried beans. Tequila flowed freely. The outlaws’ boisterous laughter abounded while they consumed the fare with relish.
Afterward, Hannah gathered their empty plates while the men leaned back in their chairs to enjoy a leisurely smoke. She carried the dishes back to the kitchen for washing, dumping the final load into a tub of soapy water.
She blew out a tense breath and tucked a curl behind her ear. Her gaze slid to Quinn, seated near the front of the cantina. She’d not yet taken the time to eat her own meal, and she longed to take her place beside him at the table he shared with Tomas, Sophia and Ramon.
But there would be time to eat later. She had another purpose in mind. And the time had come to see it through.
Cortez sulked in a shadowed corner of the cantina. He slathered a tortilla with the last of the beans on his plate. Hannah took the coffee pot from the stove burner and went to him.
His bloodshot eyes followed her approach. He stuffed the chunk of tortilla into his mouth, chewed slowly and swallowed.
“I’ll take your plate to the kitchen for you, Julio,” Hannah said. The bandelero made her flesh crawl. She strove to keep her tone even and pleasant.
He pushed it toward her.
“Coffee?” She indicated the pot in her hand.
“Senor Landry does not appreciate you for saving his life,” he said in a slurred voice.
Hannah schooled her features to hide a flicker of alarm.
“Why do you say that?” she asked and poured the hot brew into his cup.
“He ignores you. He thinks only of his place of honor with Sophia and Tomas.”
“Really?”
Quinn’s gaze had hardly left her throughout the meal, she knew. He’d discreetly voiced his concern for her; there’d been no question he’d wanted her to stop working and eat with him.
It had been Hannah’s decision to refuse, to bide her time until now. This moment.
“Si. He does not act like a loving husband.” Cortez’s lip curled. “He does not make you act like a loving wife.”
The blood faltered in her veins. She feared he saw through their sham of a marriage. Equally troubling, she suspected Quinn had taken Cortez’s exalted place with the Huertas, that Cortez’s negligence in herding the mustangs had cost him the privilege.
That Cortez was jealous. Deep in his gut.
Hannah kept her expression cool. “It’s true. My husband has little time for me of late.” She lowered her lashes, baiting him further. “Perhaps you know how it is when a wife wants her husband’s attention?”
The fat mouth curved. From under the table, his beefy hand found her knee and slid slowly up her thigh.
“Si, Senora. I do,” he murmured.
It took every inch of Hannah’s willpower not to shrink back and keep the con game going.
To win at it.
“Senor Landry is a fool.” Cortez rose drunkenly from his chair, his grimy hand finding her waist and gripping hard. Her fingers tightened over the coffee pot’s handle. “We shall teach him a lesson, eh, Senora? You and me.”
He reeked of stale tequila, of last night’s garlic, of horses and manure and his own unwashed body. He flung an arm around her and yanked her against him.
Hannah fought to quell the nausea roiling in her stomach. She squirmed against him, angling her face sharply to avoid his wet lips on hers.
Panic bubbled inside her. This, this, was the evil she’d wanted to escape in her past, men like Cortez whose hearts were as black as their souls, who’d forced her to flee to the sanctuary of Mother Superior’s convent to be rid of them forever.
She’d underestimated Cortez’s strength and her vulnerability in his grizzly-bear grasp. The coffee pot clattered to the floor, splattered her skirt and his pant legs with hot liquid. She slipped her hands between them, pushed against his burly chest with all the strength she owned.
She must have screamed in the struggle. In the far reaches of her consciousness, she heard chair legs scraping and men shouting. Cortez persisted, ignoring them all in his intent to sink his teeth into her skin and rake his tongue over her flesh.
Desperation drove Hannah to the knife she kept at her waist, the one Quinn had given her to protect herself. Her fingers clutched the handle and she swung out. The blade sliced across the fleshy cheek, and a stream of bright crimson appeared.
Only then did Cortez release her. He howled in surprise, in pain, and lunged for Hannah again, but this time, a blurred maze of mustached faces and muscular bodies appeared in her vision, keeping him away.
Hannah choked on a sob and dropped the bloody knife to the floor. She turned and fled from the cantina.
The door to their room no sooner slammed shut when Quinn flung it open again.
“Hannah. Christ, Hannah, are you hurt?” he demanded hoarsely.
He found her hunched over in the darkened room, her arms crossed over her breasts. She heaved in long, ragged breaths.
“Hannah, sweetheart.” The sight of her cut through him. He reached for her, bundled her against him, tight to the wall of his chest.
She trembled violently. He closed his eyes, fed the rage inside him.
“Cortez won’t get near you again. I swear it.” Raw and jagged, the words tore from his throat. Her body was stiff, her arms huddled between them, her forehead pressed to the hollow of his neck. “I should have been more careful. I should have watched him closer. Damn him to hell.”
His hands slid along her spine, stroked her, soothed her. Whispering her name over and over, he gave her time to compose herself while he brought his own thundering pulse under control. She shifted beneath his embrace and rested her cheek on his shoulder with a quavering sigh.
“I could kill him, Hannah.” Savage images of what might have been tortured him, stirred the fear and fury brewing within him. If she’d been alone, if he hadn’t been there to rip Cortez from her . . ..
“No, Quinn.” She made a sound of despair and pushed away from him.
“He’ll pay for this.”
“It--it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely.” She sat wearily on the bed, the mattress sagging a bit with her weight.
“I saw him groping you. He would have raped you if he had the chance.”
She speared an unsteady hand though the auburn curls at her temple. “I provoked him.”
Quinn’s glance sharpened over her. “Provoked him?”
“For this.” Sighing again, she tossed a small object toward him. Quinn snared
it from mid-air and stared at the drawstring pouch in his palm.
“Fenwick’s money,” he said, stunned.
“Yes.”
“Cortez kept it stashed inside his coat. How the hell did you get it?”
“I picked his pocket. Obviously.” Her tone carried no triumph, only a grim and miserable resignation.
“You picked his pockets for this?” He gaped at her. “You’re a damned fool!”
“Maybe.” Her eyes lifted to the ceiling, as if she sought forgiveness from her Maker. “I told myself I’d never steal again. I vowed it. But there was no other way.”
All the old suspicions about her flooded back, real and more intense than ever. Suddenly impatient with her, with himself for being duped by her skill, he yanked a match from the dresser and lit the lantern. A muted glow bathed the room. He turned back to her, setting his hands on his hips.
“You’ve got some explaining to do, woman,” he said, his low voice ominous in the scattered shadows.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Is your name really Hannah Benning?”
“Yes. And I never lied to you about being a novitiate in the monastery. It’s all true.”
“You know how to make widdies and throw locks.”
“Yes.” Her glance never wavered.
“What else can you do?”
A long moment passed.
“I can blow a bank safe,” she said at last, her mouth pursed into a remorseful pout. “I can sneak-thieve by day or housebreak by night. I can make my own skeleton keys or bar-keys. And I can engrave my own counterfeit plates.” Her chin tilted a notch, as if she relived her entire past in these few minutes. “But I swear I’ll never pass boodle again. Ever.”
Quinn’s jaw dropped. His brain fought to comprehend all she told him.
“Now you know,” she said, not looking at him.
“You’re lying.”
From the pocket of her skirt, she pulled out Fenwick’s flask of whiskey, stolen from Cortez, too. “Would you like a drink? It might help you get over the shock of what I’ve just told you.”
She spoke with utmost seriousness. He snatched the bottle with a muttered oath, took a swig and decided she was telling the truth.