Comanche Moon

by Anita Mills

  “I’m sorry.”

  It took all she had to hold out her hand. “Then I guess it’s good-bye and Godspeed, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t touch her. “Yes.”

  “Just to wrap everything up neatly for you, I suppose I should give you an Indian divorce,” she decided. “You can take your damned horse.”

  “I’ve still got Hannibal.”

  “No. I don’t want anything around to remind me of you, Clay. Do you hear that? I don’t want anything around to remind me of you.”

  Gathering the hem of her long nightgown, she turned and ran back into the house. And once back in her bed, she drew herself into a ball and began shaking convulsively. Her breath came in great sobs, and the tears poured forth until there were no more. She felt sick all the way to her soul. Finally, when she exhausted herself, she rolled onto her side, where she stuffed her knuckles into her mouth to fight back the sobs.

  Calmer now, she tried to think. She didn’t even belong here anymore. In fact, she hated the Ybarra now. And once she found someone to run it for her, she was going back to Boston. She was going to put half a continent between her and Clay McAlester and hope it was enough.

  It had been three weeks since Clay left her—three of the longest weeks of Amanda’s life. And now she was faced with a new dilemma, one that almost made her bitterness complete. She couldn’t even go back to her Aunt Kate’s house now, and she couldn’t stay at Ybarra-Ross either. Before long everyone was going to know her for the sinner she was.

  There was going to be a child—Clay McAlester’s child. When the realization first hit her, she’d actually thought of telling him. But she didn’t want him like that—she didn’t want him to marry her out of some obligation. And she wasn’t at all sure he would, anyway. No, he was the last person on earth she wanted to know about it. She was just going to have to make her plans herself and live with them.

  Maybe later, when she felt it move, it would mean something to her. But right now, she still felt empty, almost devoid of any emotion. For a moment she let her imagination stray, wondering if it would look like him. Somehow she didn’t think she could bear that. She didn’t want to have to look into the child’s face and be reminded every day of what a total fool he’d made of her.

  “You’re mighty quiet tonight,” Hap chided her.

  “Am I?” She forced a smile, then closed the book she wasn’t reading. “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be. I reckon you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll get Sandoval, one way or the other. It just takes more time when he’s got to cross the Rio Grande.”

  “He’s not coming back here,” she said simply.

  “If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put any money on that.”

  “Yes—well, he told me to my face he wasn’t.”

  “A man says a lot of things he doesn’t mean to a woman,” Hap observed. “He’s like a big fish—it just takes patience to bring him in.”

  “I’m not a fisherman, Captain. And I don’t care anymore.”

  “God’s truth?”

  “God’s truth.”

  All too aware that he was watching her closely, she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, then leaned to place the book on a table. Standing up, she walked to stare out the deep-set window. He’d never spoken of her crawling into bed with him. In fact, there was nothing in his manner to indicate he even remembered it. But she knew it had to be there, somewhere beneath the surface, waiting to ambush her.

  “If I was to believe that, I’d start hoping,” he said finally.

  For a moment she didn’t follow him. “Believe what?” she asked, turning around.

  “That you aren’t pining for Clay.”

  “Pining isn’t the word I’d choose, Captain,” she murmured dryly. “Right now I’d just like to kill him.”

  To him, it seemed as though every one of his thirty-eight years mocked him, telling him he was too old for her, that she’d laugh at him if he asked her. “I guess he’s got to be as old as me to want to settle down,” he said cautiously.

  “I don’t want to talk about Clay McAlester.”

  “Well, I was sort of talking about me.” He looked up. “I figure I’m about done rangerin’, what with the leg and all.” He was going to bungle everything, and he knew it, but he had to try. “I got a little money put aside—four thousand dollars—and I was fixing to buy myself a place, maybe run a few cattle on it. Nothing like the Ybarra, of course.”

  “Clay said you wanted to be a farmer.”

  “If the leg don’t heal better, I won’t be pushing any plows. And,” he added significantly, “I thought we weren’t talking about him.”

  “We aren’t.”

  “Good. Glad to get that behind me.” He’d got himself cornered now, and he was going to play hell getting out of it. “What I was wanting to say is that I admire you—have since that day at Stockton when Nate Hill died. Oh, I know it’s pretty damned presumptuous to even think it, but I figure a man’s got to put his mouth where his thoughts are if he’s ever going to get what he wants.”

  It dawned on her where he was going. “Captain Walker,” she asked incredulously, “is this a proposal?”

  He could save face and deny it, but then he’d never know. “Well, I was doing my damnedest to make it one,” he allowed sheepishly. “Oh, I know I’m not a young, handsome fellow—that you can do a helluva lot better than a half-lame saddle tramp like me, but if you could bring yourself to take me, I’d try my damnedest to make you happy.” Afraid if he stopped, she’d jump in and turn him down, he went on, pointing out, “And I know four thousand dollars ain’t much to a lady like yourself, but it’s my life savings, and I’d turn it over to you here and now, Amanda. I’ll even sign papers saying I don’t want your money, that it ought to go to the kids if we’re lucky enough to have any.” He took a deep breath, then dared to meet her eyes. “That’s about it, I guess. Oh, and for what it’s worth, I’ve fancied myself in love with you ever since I laid eyes on you.”

  “I see.” She fought the urge to cry. “And it doesn’t make any difference about Clay? It doesn’t make any difference that I made a fool of myself the night I crawled into bed with you?”

  “No. I was just wishing it was me you were looking for, that’s all.”

  “And you know about everything, don’t you?”

  “Reckon I can guess, anyway. A man like me’d be proud to have a woman like you, even if he was second choice.”

  “What if … what if I can’t get over him?” she choked out.

  “Oh, I know it ain’t going to be easy forgetting him.”

  “No … no, it isn’t.” She sucked in her breath, releasing it slowly, striving for calm. “It’ll be harder than you know, Hap.”

  “I’m willing to make the effort.”

  The warmth in his eyes cut her like a knife, forcing her to look away. “I’m going to have his child,” she admitted baldly.

  She could hear his breath catch, and then there was a long, painful silence. “I see,” he said.

  It was as though the dam holding her tears burst, letting them spill down her cheeks. “Why don’t you just tell me I’m no better than those cantina whores?” she cried. “Why don’t you tell me I’m so worthless that he threw me away? Go ahead—say it!”

  “I’ve got a lot of love to give, Amanda,” he answered quietly. “I’ve been storing it up a long time.” Rising, he hobbled to stand in front of her. “I reckon I can love Clay’s kid.” His arms enveloped her awkwardly, drawing her against his chest. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ll learn nothing worth having comes easy,” he said softly.

  “No … no, it doesn’t,” she whispered, letting him hold her.

  He kissed her then with a surprising gentleness. As his mustache brushed against her lip, she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she felt something. But she didn’t. She was too empt
y, too vacant inside. Except for the baby. And she knew if she married him, she’d be cheating him terribly. He stepped back, dropping his hands. “I reckon that’s my answer, isn’t it?”

  All she could do was nod.

  “I was afraid of that. I guess we’re just both fools, huh?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry … so very sorry, Hap. It would be so wrong of me to let you do it. You’d come to feel cheated someday.”

  “I can make him marry you, Amanda, if that’s what you want.”

  “No. I don’t even want him to know about it.”

  He digested that, frowning. “All right, then, but what are you going to do if you don’t take one of us?”

  “I’m going back to Boston.”

  “Your kinfolk going to accept this?”

  “I’m not going to ask them to … not for a while, anyway, not until I get used to the notion myself. Maybe not then. I don’t know. Right now, I can’t look Aunt Kate or Uncle Charles in the face.” She shook her head wearily. “I’ve thought and thought, Hap, and I can’t stay here.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of running into ’em?”

  “Boston’s a big place. No, I’m going to take a room somewhere, and maybe pretend I’m a widow until the baby comes. Then I guess I’ll decide where I go from there. Maybe the two of us will go abroad.” She looked up at him, and her mouth twisted into a lopsided smile. “I’m rich—remember? I can hide behind my money.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I guess you can. Well, just remember if you need a name for your late husband, you can use mine. All you’ve got to do is call yourself Mrs. Horace Walker.” His eyes met hers for a moment, then he grinned. “Ain’t any wonder folks call me Hap, is it? I got that from my ma, who always said I was a happy kid. Clay don’t even know about the Horace.”

  “I couldn’t use your name.”

  “Why not? It ain’t likely any other female’s going to want it.”

  “Well, I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Folks’ll know you didn’t make it up—nobody in his right mind would take the name Horace if he had a choice in it.” He hobbled over to where she’d laid her book down. Picking it up, he studied the title. “Shakespeare, huh? You done with it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Reckon I’ll take it to bed with me. Be kinda nice to be able to spout some of this back at Clay the next time he starts quoting stuff to me.”

  As his hand touched the door, she blurted out, “You aren’t going to tell him, are you? Promise me you won’t.”

  He stopped. “No. I figure that’s up to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  As the door closed behind him, she sank to the chair behind her father’s big desk. She’d probably been foolish turning him down. There was no question in her mind that he’d have made a good, solid husband. But there’d always be Clay McAlester between them, and that was no way to make a marriage. Besides, if she’d married Hap, Clay would be sure to know about the child. Sooner or later, he’d know. And then it would be like a boil, festering, poisoning all of them. No, she had to get away.

  She opened the drawer and took out a pencil. Wetting the nub, she wrote on a blank sheet of paper—Horace Walker; Mrs. Horace Walker. He was right—it had a certain ring of truth to it. And even if he married someone else, there’d be no one in Boston to know it.

  He was hot and tired, and dust clung to the sweaty stubble on his face, but he’d finally found Ramon Sandoval. It had been a month of discreet inquiries, and the trail had led them zigzagging across the length and breadth of Mexico, but he and Romero, working separately, then together, had managed to find him. And Alessandro Sandoval was there also.

  Now he was ready to move in and take them both if he had to. While Romero snatched a nap on the hard, pebble-strewn ground, Clay sat, his back against a rock, cleaning his shotgun, his mind on Amanda. He’d been thinking about her a lot ever since he left the Ybarra. No, it was more than a lot—she was in his thoughts all the time, haunting his dreams, plaguing his waking hours, tearing at him with every breath he took.

  Long before he hit the Rio Grande on his way down, he’d done a lot of thinking, and he knew he’d been a fool to ever believe that he could forget her. And he knew too that he couldn’t stand it if she married Hap—or anybody else for that matter. Maybe the realization had come too late, but once he got Sandoval, he was going to ride hell for leather back to her, and he was going to grovel at her feet, if that was what it took to win her back. And if by some act of God’s mercy, she was brought to forgive him, he was going to marry her, even if he had to convert to Catholicism to do it. And then he was going to do his damnedest to see that she never regretted loving him.

  He might not have John Ross’s money or Isabella Ybarra’s aristocratic breeding, but he was a hard worker, and if given half a chance, he was determined to make her proud of him.

  It had taken him weeks to write the letter of his life to her, but he’d finally posted it in Durango. In it, he’d tried to explain how overwhelmed he’d been by the ranch, how he’d felt she would come to regret trying to take him into her world, how he’d felt there wasn’t any place for him there. He’d poured his heart out in that letter, and now he could only hope she’d forgive him. That she’d understand how afraid he’d been of being tamed, of changing his whole way of life for her. That it had been hard giving up his past. Well, he’d written it, and by the time he got back, she’d have it.

  When he saw her, he’d look in her face and have his answer. And for the first time in his adult life, he was afraid, not of taking a bullet not of dying alone, but of losing the only woman he’d ever want for his wife. What was it that Henry IV of France had said? That Paris was worth a Mass. He understood that now. Amanda Ross was worth his freedom.

  He flexed tired shoulders, then glanced at Rios. Poor Romero. He was a lot like Amanda in that he didn’t like living off the land. But where she’d been pretty game about it, Rios wasn’t. From the outset he’d announced he didn’t eat raw meat of any kind, nor would he take rattlesnake, no matter how it was cooked. He’d even balked at the armadillo, saying if God had wanted man to eat such things, he wouldn’t have given it a coat of armor. Instead, he starved himself between towns, then gorged himself when he hit the cantinas.

  He reached over and slapped Romero’s rump. The young ranger rolled over and came up with his gun. “Oh, it’s you,” he mumbled.

  “I made some coffee.”

  Rios glared at him. “I don’t want any.”

  “It’ll put hair on your chest.”

  “The hard way.” Suit yourself.

  Romero passed a weary hand over his face, then yawned. “I could have slept all day.” Then he glanced down, seeing the scorpion crawling up his pants leg. He grabbed the pan of coffee and dashed it over his leg, nearly scalding it. The scorpion’s tail twitched, then fell into the dirt, where it jerked around in a circle before dying. “At least the stuff’s good for something,” he muttered. “Maybe you could sell it for poison or weed killer.”

  “I figured we go down for Sandoval about siesta time,” Clay explained, ignoring the barbs.

  Romero looked down at the hacienda below. “How many do you figure there are?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Maybe not to you, but I’d like to have an idea.”

  “They know we’re after them, anyway, so the only surprise we’ve got is the time.” Reaching for his spyglass, Clay adjusted it, then trained it on the house. “Yeah, they’re there, all right. The fancy boy’s Ramon—and if I had to guess, I’d say that’s Alessandro standing behind him,” he said, handing the glass over.

  Rios fanned it over the whole area, counting. “Looks like the two of them and five others that we can see.”

  “There’ll be some in the house.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Romero exhaled his resignation. “That only makes the odds four or five to one, huh?”

  “Easy pickings,
as Hap would say it.”

  “I’m not Hap,” the younger man pointed out. “I’m just wondering how we get them out of there without putting the whole country on our tails. If it was up to me, I’d take my Sharps and just shoot ’em from here, then make a run for it.”

  “It’s not—and I want Ramon to know what’s happening to him. I want him to know it’s because of what he did to Amanda.” “If you want to kill him, I’ll tell Hap he drew on you,” Rios offered.

  “If we get the drop on the old man, the rest of ’em won’t put up much of a fight. But to make sure, I want you to tell ’em in Spanish that I don’t have any quarrel with them—that all I want are the Sandovals.”

  “All I can say is I’ll be damned glad when I cross the Rio Grande.”

  “This is your country, remember?”

  “Not since ’36. I was born in Texas.”

  “You complain a whole lot more than Amanda Ross.”

  “I guess I don’t love you,” Romero countered, lying back down. “Wake me up when you’re ready. Until then I don’t want to think about it.”

  Nothing was stirring except for the flies. They were everywhere. That was the thing about flies—if there was anything to eat, they’d find it. Clay swatted one that landed on his arm, then he leaned over to shake Rios.

  “Come on—let’s go. As near as I can tell from the glass, there aren’t many in the house—the Sandovals and a couple of women, I think. The others are in the bunkhouse behind.”

  “Huh?” Rios passed a hand over his eyes, then squinted up at the sun. “Yeah, I guess it’s time,” he agreed.

  Clay handed him a canteen. “Splash your face—you’ll feel better.”

  “God, but I’m tired.”

  “Three days and you’ll be across the border.”

  “Five days and you’ll be at the Ybarra.”

  “Uh-huh.” Clay picked up the shotgun and started for the paint mare.

  “You’re going to give up your badge, aren’t you?” Romero murmured behind him.

  “Yeah. I figure I’ve had all the luck I’m going to have, and it’s time to move over and let somebody like you have my moccasins.”