by Pam Crooks
He set his plate down, too, then began drawing lines in the dirt. “This is the Nueces. This is Laredo and San Antonio.” He made a pair of X’s in the dirt. “We’re here, heading west. And Eagle Pass is here.” He glanced up at her. “I figure de la Vega will lead his men to the border the fastest way he can. But there are a dozen of them, and their horses need water. They’ll stick to the Nueces as much as possible.”
Elena frowned, her attention riveted to the crude map. “They could turn south at any point along the river. How would we know where?”
“There’s a village not far from here.” The end of the stick tapped the dirt. “Carrizo Springs. Did de la Vega take anything with him? Clothes? Supplies for the boy?”
“No.” Elena bit her lip. “Nothing.” No diapers. No milk. Not even a single cracker for Nicky.
Jeb eyed her valise, bulging from everything she’d packed for her son. He nodded and tossed the stick aside. “Could be they’ll stop there for what they need.”
“Maybe.” A glimmer of hope formed.
“Could be, too, someone’s seen them in the area. We’ll go into the village, ask questions.”
The hope doubled. She pressed a hand to her chest to contain it. “All right.”
“But we’re not going anywhere until you clean your plate.”
There he was, nagging her to eat again. Elena took a good-size bite of fish just to appease him. After swallowing a second, she stood up.
“I’m full, really.” Upon noticing his own meal was almost finished, she met his disapproving glower headon. “I just had the tortilla and beans you gave me last night. Do you want this? I’m going to throw it away if you don’t.”
Elena had no intention of discarding perfectly edible food, not when it could be easily wrapped and saved for later, but she suspected Jeb’s appetite hadn’t been satisfied yet. Before he could refuse, she slid what remained on her plate onto his. “Eat fast, Jeb. I’m going to start cleaning up.”
“Bossy, aren’t you?” he muttered, but shoveled a forkful into his mouth.
“Just impatient to get moving.” She took the cooled skillet in one hand, her empty plate in the other, and headed toward the river. Kneeling at the bank, she scrubbed the dishes with sand, then rinsed them.
“You want any more coffee?” Jeb asked, approaching her with the pot. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves, and she noted how tanned his skin was.
She shook her head and reached for a towel. “One cup is all I usually have in the morning.”
“Most days, I can’t get enough of the stuff.” He emptied the last of the brew into his cup, then set about washing the pot and his plate.
Covertly Elena watched him work, taken, in spite of herself, with the way his hands moved. He had lean fingers, blunt tipped and long. Thick veins corded his forearms. For the second time that morning, she thought of how strong, how warm, those arms had been. And how comforting they’d felt when he had held her last night.
When he had held her. Her pulse dipped, and she jerked her glance away. Grim reality rolled into her. She should never have let him do it. If she hadn’t broken down, if she had retained control of her emotions, the embrace never would’ve happened.
Nor would she be thinking of it now. Again.
It had been infinitely worse after her attack. Men she didn’t know…shadows and darkness…
They’d left her terrified. Ramon de la Vega had done that to her.
She had lived through a hell filled with panic and fear after he raped her. Inch by inch over the past two years, she had managed to claw herself out. But sometimes, when she least expected it….
“You okay, Elena?” Jeb asked, frowning.
A long moment passed before she allowed herself to speak. “Of course,” she said and rose. “I’ll make sure the fire is banked. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll leave.”
She forced herself to walk at an even stride back to camp. She couldn’t think about Jeb or how he made her feel. To dwell on him would distract her from finding Nicky, and she refused to allow anything to do that.
After dousing the fire, Elena found the tack Jeb had hooked on a tree trunk. The horses were hobbled side by side, and she stepped between them to drape the reins over her mare’s back. She held the horse’s head with one hand while she slipped the bit into the mouth with the other, all the while keenly aware Jeb had returned to camp.
Too aware.
The clank of metal against metal revealed he’d packed the dishes with the rest of his gear. She forced herself not to listen to him moving about. She concentrated instead on slipping the bridle over the mare’s head, adjusting the headpiece around the ears, buckling the throatlatch, tasks she could do as much by feel as by sight, having done it a thousand times over throughout her life. Now, however, she gave the job her full attention, as if it were the first time.
“Elena.”
The low sound of Jeb’s voice, the unexpected feel of his fingers on her chin, startled her. She pivoted, and his nearness startled her even more.
He stilled, then drew his hand away slowly. “Easy,” he said. “Just want to check those stitches of yours. That’s all.”
Elena hadn’t given them a single thought all morning. She was foolish to be so skittish. Or was she?
His eyes—dark, shadowed, long-lashed—watched her. A rough beard stubbled his cheeks. If she had thought him dangerous last night, seeing him now, in the light of the morning, convinced her of it.
He was capable of great violence. She felt it in him, the power he kept coiled inside until he allowed it to be unleashed. But he didn’t move, as if he waited for her permission to do so.
Somehow that reassured her.
He seemed to sense when her apprehension crumbled, and his hand moved to lift the hair on her temple. His head tilted in perusal.
“Looks good,” he said. “Better than I expected.”
“My father’s elixir,” she said, not moving, not looking at him.
“The secrets of the ancients.”
“Yes.” She heard his sarcasm and ignored it.
Her hair settled back into place, but he didn’t move away. For a wild, irrational moment, neither did she.
Jeb’s scent surrounded her. The vibrancy of his maleness. Refusing to be swayed by it, she stepped around him and began saddling her horse.
The rain that had threatened the night before never materialized, but instead left a blanket of humidity that hung thick and heavy over the state of Texas.
Jeb lifted his hat, swiped his arm across his forehead. The oppressiveness reminded him of northern Africa, when he spent a brief stint in the Sahara. There he had learned to live in the heat. Survive in it. Enough days of sweat and blazing sun forced a man to cope or die trying. He donned the hat again, tugged the brim to its usual place low over his forehead and glanced over at Elena.
She didn’t complain, but he knew the heat was getting to her. Perspiration dampened her blouse to her back; her cheeks were flushed pink. She wore a scarf over her head, but the thin fabric did nothing to protect her face from the wind or sun. She needed a real hat—one as broad brimmed as his. When they reached Carrizo Springs, he intended to buy her one.
She dabbed a handkerchief to the open vee of her blouse. She’d undone a couple of buttons to catch what little breeze they had, but she dabbed gingerly as if she hurt somewhere, had for a couple hours now, and that concerned him.
“You okay?” he asked finally.
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t believe her. “You want to stop again? There’s a small stand of trees—”
“No, no. Thank you, but let’s keep riding. The village isn’t that far.”
“It’s far enough if you’re sick.”
She glanced at him then. “I’m not sick.”
“You’re sure about that?”
It seemed to Jeb her cheeks grew a little pinker. She turned her head, avoiding his scrutiny.
“My son is still nursing,” she said. “He
’s been weaning himself so he doesn’t nurse often, but he always does at night, and—” she lifted a shoulder helplessly “—I’m feeling a little—”
“Full,” Jeb said, and pursed his lips.
“Yes.”
He didn’t have an inkling how she’d go about rectifying the situation. No baby. No suckling. How the hell was she supposed to get her milk out?
Infection could set in. Mastitis. It happened in animals all the time.
He’d always considered himself a problem solver. Put him in a difficult situation and he’d find a way out. But with Elena…
Maybe he should get her to a doctor. Find a midwife or something. Another female would know what to do.
“Your father’s elixir,” he said, the thought coming to him like a thunderbolt. “Would that help?”
God knows she believed in the stuff. A cure-all for everything, or so it seemed. But the startled way she looked at him revealed that the idea wasn’t as helpful as he hoped.
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I’m not sick.”
“Yet.” She worried him. “What do you want me to do?”
“You?”
She looked so taken aback at his question, amusement rolled through him. He suppressed the burgeoning fantasy of how he’d find a cure for milk-swollen breasts. Or that she’d interpreted his offer as such.
“Yeah, me,” he said.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. Her chin lifted. “I just need some hot packs is all. Perhaps when we get to Carrizo Springs, we could spare a few minutes—”
“You’ll get them.”
She actually looked relieved. Did she think he’d deny her?
Annoyed, he scanned the horizon and discerned the shapes of miniature rooftops. The village was just ahead. If Elena felt compelled to delay going after her son for even a little while, she must be feeling damned uncomfortable.
He frowned. Because of the delay, she’d be more anxious than ever to find him. But to do that, Jeb needed information, information he hoped someone in Carrizo Springs would provide.
Chapter Six
Just as when he arrived in Laredo a couple of days earlier, the changes that had taken place while he was out of the country amazed Jeb. Carrizo Springs had flourished from a village into a little town, complete with a courthouse, a couple of churches and a small business district. More people, too. He could slip in with Elena without drawing too much attention.
He gestured to pull up in front of a grocery store. Next to that, a druggist had set up shop. Between the two, he’d find her some help for her delicate condition.
Jeb dismounted, tied the reins to a hitching post. He didn’t bother to hide his curiosity from all that transpired around him; instead, his gaze floated lazily, just as anyone’s would. But beneath the cool facade, he studied anything that moved. If someone was watching for them, someone like Ramon de la Vega, he couldn’t see it.
He grasped Elena’s waist and swung her from the saddle. He didn’t step away once she was on the ground, but used his body as a shield, keeping her between him and her horse—and hidden from speculative stares.
“Let me do the talking when we get inside,” he murmured, noticing for the first time how long her lashes were, how thick and golden. “Do anything I tell you to, y’hear?”
Those lashes lowered. He wondered if his closeness flustered her. She pulled off her scarf and shook her hair free.
“Sure. But within reason, of course.” She finger-combed the long strands, caught the wind-tossed tendrils. “Where are we going?”
“The grocery store first. The druggist, only if we have to. And I’m not going to tell you to do anything unless I have a damn good reason for it. So you’d better do it.”
Her eyes lifted, met his. He sensed her impatience, the desperation that never left her.
“One more thing,” he said. He studied her face, the fine structure of her bones, the smoothness of her skin. “Stop being so skittish. Act like we know each other…well.”
The pulse in her throat leapt. “Like I said, Jeb. Within reason.”
His lips thinned, but he slid his hand to the small of her back. He wasn’t going to argue the issue, not here, not now, but she’d have to accept they were going to do things his way—or not at all.
At his touch her muscles tensed, but he didn’t give her a chance to move away from him. He nudged her toward the boardwalk and through the mercantile. The door swung closed behind them.
He paused a moment to allow their vision to adjust. The dim interior was a welcome respite from the day’s heat and bright sun. Pungent scents surrounded them—onions, chilies, pickles, garlic. One corner of the store contained dry goods, another hardware. A glass-covered case carried an assortment of pistols, revolvers and rifles. Next to it, a showcase for perfume and jewelry. The place carried just about anything people around these parts could want.
A cross-looking storekeeper stood behind the counter, his attention absorbed by the shoppers who stood in line, waiting for their purchases to be tallied. At Jeb and Elena’s arrival, he glanced up with a scowl, then turned and yanked back a curtain leading to the back room.
“Margarete!” he yelled. “Customer!” He fixed his frown on Jeb again. “She’ll be right with you.”
Jeb acknowledged him with a curt nod. “No hurry.”
“Hell, that girl don’t know how to hurry. She’s lazy as they come.” His scowl deepened, but he returned to the numbers scribbled on the pad in front of him.
Elena turned toward Jeb with a sniff. “His manners certainly need polishing, don’t they?”
“Forget him,” Jeb muttered. He strolled to a table stacked with women’s straw hats and chose one with a wide pink ribbon and chin cord. “Try this on.” He put it on her head, pulled the cord snug under her chin. Bending a little at the knees, he squatted down to her level and considered the fit.
“How does it look?” she asked.
Her hair flowed from beneath the crown and tumbled over her shoulders, hair that was rich and golden and so shiny he had a sudden curiosity of how the strands would feel sliding between his fingers. He almost regretted having to buy the hat and cover up all that hair.
“Looks good,” he said, and straightened.
Yeah. Elena looked real good in the thing.
“It’s nice.” She found a mirror and contemplated her reflection.
“It’s necessary.”
“Do you want to buy it?” A young girl of about seventeen years of age walked toward them from the direction of the back room, her arm extended to take the hat from Elena.
She was pretty enough, Jeb thought, her chocolate-brown hair done up with fancy curls around her face, but given the paint job she’d done on her lips and cheeks, she had to work at it.
“Yes,” he said.
“But we don’t even know what it costs, Jeb,” Elena said in quiet protest, removing the contrivance from her head and looking for a price. “I didn’t bring much money with me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “You need one. And I’m buying.” He turned back to the girl, Margarete. “The lady isn’t feeling well. If you could help her, I’d be much obliged.”
Margarete eyed Elena suspiciously. “What’s the matter with her?”
“My baby—”
“She lost him,” Jeb interrupted. He didn’t want Elena revealing too much information. If Margarete thought her son had died, that was fine with him. “And she’s got too much milk.”
The girl eyed her with uncertainty and a notable lack of sympathy. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”
It was all Jeb could do to keep his irritation in check. “She knows what needs to be done. Just help her do it.”
“If you could boil a little water and find some cotton towels for me, I’d be most grateful,” Elena said quickly. “I’ll pay you for your trouble.”
The girl’s glance bounced between them. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “We have a room you c
an use. Follow me.”
The storekeeper was busy measuring a bolt of cloth. Margarete led them behind the counter and through the curtain to the back room, living quarters, it appeared, for him and his family. Jeb wasn’t ready to relinquish Elena to the girl’s care until he knew for certain Elena would be properly tended to, and he slipped behind the curtain with them.
Margarete opened a door. A barely made bed sat along one wall; on the other, a cluttered bureau and washstand.
“This is my room,” she said, and indicated a chair for Elena to use. “I’ll go to the kitchen and get what you need.”
“Thank you,” Elena said.
The door closed behind her. Elena suddenly whirled toward him.
“I did not lose my son,” she hissed, thumping a finger against Jeb’s chest with every word. “He was taken from me, and I will get him back as soon as I possibly can.”
Jeb had never seen her so riled. He pressed a thumb to her lips. “Quiet,” he said. “These walls are thin.”
She pushed his hand away. Her eyes welled with tears. “She thinks Nicky died. He’s not dead. I’d know it if he was. I’d feel it.”
“So let the girl think otherwise.”
“Why?” Elena demanded, blinking furiously. “What does it matter what she thinks?”
Jeb blew out a breath. He was making a mess of things and had to scramble to right them. “It’s not uncommon for a baby to die. But having one kidnapped is fodder for gossip. I don’t want folks talking about us now, or after we leave. Ramon de la Vega could catch wind of it.”
She bit her lip and glanced away. Gripping her chin, Jeb forced her to face him again. “Understand?”
A long moment passed.
“Yes,” she said.
He wondered if she truly did. His hand fell away. “If de la Vega knows he’s being chased by me—by us—he could hole up somewhere so deep it’d be years before we found him.”
She paled. “Years?”
“Mexico is full of mountains. And it’s a hell of a big country. He’s got followers who’ll protect him. He’ll disappear, for his son’s sake.”