by Pam Crooks
“No,” the gringo said sharply. “I’m not. Not like you think.”
“De la Vega will punish us if he finds out we talked to him,” she said as if the stranger had never spoken. She gave Berto’s arm a panicked shake. “Can you not see that, Berto? After what happened here last night?”
“Alita! Enough!” he said.
He loved his wife dearly, but she was prone to dramatics. Besides, he did not like to air his troubles to the gringo and the old woman. What would they care of a brawl that took place in his cantina, anyway?
“Did what happened have anything to do with that pile of broken tables and chairs over there?” the dark-eyed gringo taunted.
Berto’s glance jumped to the corner of the cantina where he had been working most of the day. Clearly, he had misjudged the stranger. He was not as aloof as he appeared.
Berto gave in. He hugged Alita to his side, comforting her.
“Sí, señor,” he said. “They were here. Yesterday. De la Vega’s men.”
“De la Vega with them?”
Berto hesitated to reply. He could not be too careful. Or too trusting. In that regard, Alita was right.
“But you want Armando, eh?” he hedged.
“Sí.”
“Why?”
The gringo touched the woman with his eyes. “Like I said, she’s looking for him.” He shrugged. “She has her reasons.”
“A relative?”
“In a roundabout way,” he murmured.
“But Armando is not expecting her.”
“No.”
“So he would be surprised if she found him, eh?”
The gringo’s mouth curved. “If you’re worried I’ll reveal you as my source of information, don’t be.”
“Certainly you see my situation, señor. If I tell you where I believe Armando might be, Ramon is sure to be with him. He will not be happy to have unexpected visitors to his camp.”
The gringo considered Berto for a long moment. Finally he shrugged. “You’re right. He won’t.” He rose with a scrape of the chair legs across the floor. “If I would’ve known you were so afraid of him, I wouldn’t have bothered you. Just thought you could give my friend here a little help, that’s all.”
Berto stiffened at the slur, given so smoothly he almost missed its sting. But a man did not like to be told he was weak, not with his wife beside him to hear the words.
“They are desperadoes,” he said in his own defense. His arm swept outward, indicating the pile of battered furniture in the corner. “They do not care who they hurt or what they destroy, even when they do not drink tequila.”
“You’re right about that, too.”
If only the gringo would have argued with him.
Berto’s glance took in the old woman, hunched and feeble inside the threadbare rebozo. Again compassion stirred inside him. She did not look as if she had the strength to ride another mile.
She wanted to find the revolutionary named Armando. He guessed she would not stop looking until she succeeded. What business was it of his what she did? Or why?
His resistance crumpled. Alita was watching him. As if she sensed his apprehension and understood it, she lifted her shoulder in a shrug, then lowered her eyes. Forty years of marriage told him she was thinking of the old woman, too. She would not be too angry if he revealed what he knew to the gringo, after all.
“Whenever Ramon returns to Mexico with Armando and his men, they hide out in the hills. That way.” He pointed out the cantina’s window, toward the west. “There is a small cemetery. When you see it, turn south. You will find their camp nearby.”
“You’re sure?”
The gringo’s tone sounded sharp. It was not easy for this one to trust everything he heard, Berto guessed.
“Sí. Very sure. I have seen their camp myself. When they are not there, of course.”
“Much obliged, señor.”
The dark-eyed stranger pulled a bill from his pocket and tossed it onto the table, the cost of their meal and a generous propina included. The amount compelled him to impart one more piece of information, in case they were interested.
“Ramon had a baby with him,” he said. “He and Armando sat at this same table and fed the little one his supper.”
A tiny sound escaped from beneath the folds of the rebozo, the first real one the old woman had made since she arrived. She dipped her head and pressed her fingers to her mouth.
Berto feared he had said something to upset her, but the dark-haired stranger merely thanked him again, then helped her out the door and onto her burro.
“Do not look so worried, Berto,” Alita said softly, patting his arm after they left. “She is not upset. I think you have told her just what she wanted to know.”
Chapter Ten
Their fabricated story could not be avoided. Elena regretted obtaining the information on Nicky’s whereabouts under less-than-honest pretenses, but Jeb had done what he could.
And he had done it well.
The day the rebels had kidnapped Nicky in the woodlands near the Nueces, only the one named Armando had expressed concern for Elena, and for that reason she remembered him. But she’d been skeptical Jeb’s ploy to seek information on him would yield the information they needed on Ramon.
Thank God, he’d been right. He believed by disguising Elena and asking about Armando’s whereabouts, they would raise less suspicion. The cantina’s owners would be more inclined to talk about one of Ramon’s men rather than Ramon himself. Jeb had been careful to make no mention of Nicky. It’d been sheer luck that Berto even spoke of him.
Sheer, perfect luck.
Regardless, it’d been a risk. Elena worried Armando had parted ways with the band at some point during their return to Mexico. She feared she and Jeb would be sent on a wild-goose chase, that her disguise would fail and Berto and his wife would guess who she really was.
So many things could have gone wrong.
Nothing had.
After they returned the burro to his rightful owner, they had hurried toward the hills and the cemetery that would be their landmark. A rutted path led them straight to it.
“Looks like we turn south from here,” Jeb said, reining to a stop.
“Yes.” She pulled up beside him.
But they both lingered, their attention snared by the rows of simple crosses that comprised the burial ground, each one bearing a name painstakingly carved into the wood, some more recent than others. The grass had been mowed back. Pots of blooming flowers brightened the graves.
With the shade provided by oak and pine trees, the cemetery had a serenity about it. Peaceful and cool.
“Seems out of place, doesn’t it?” Jeb said, thoughtfully scanning the perimeter.
“Yes.” Amid the wilds of the Mexican countryside, the burial grounds offered a form of carefully tended civilization honoring loved ones. “Someone spends a great deal of time here, don’t they?”
“Whoever it is, he’s nowhere around.” Jeb took the reins again. “Let’s keep moving. All these trees will make it too dark to ride soon.”
They turned southward. The horses’ hooves crunched over fallen acorns and dried pine needles as they climbed higher, deeper into the hills. Elena concentrated on keeping her bearings and dodging the branches of more varieties of oak trees than she could name. The air turned cooler, dryer. The woodlands grew thicker, the terrain rougher. Just when she began to despair at Berto’s directions, that they’d been led on a wild-goose chase after all, the trees parted into a cozy, sprawling valley, and Jeb whistled, long and low.
Ramon de la Vega’s hideout.
Plain wooden cabins had been erected in no apparent order and gave the valley the look of a tiny village. Smoke curled from chimneys, and the faint scent of roasted chilies hung in the air.
Elena stared. Several women worked together grinding corn—wives, most likely, of the men who kept families. Dogs slept deep, warmed by the fire and oblivious to the activity around them. On the fringes of t
he encampment, a remuda of horses grazed, and a passel of barefoot children chased each other in a game of tag.
But it was the men she studied the hardest. She counted a dozen rebels sprawled around campfires smoking cigars and drinking tequila. All wore ammunition belts and broad-brimmed sombreros. All were relaxed. And none of them knew they’d been discovered.
“I want to get a better look,” she said, dismounting. “I don’t see Nicky, do you?”
“No.” Jeb swung down from his horse.
“I don’t see Ramon, either. Or Armando.”
Which could mean there were even more of the rebels inside the cabins. How many did they number? And was their leader among them?
Jeb and Elena left the horses and crept from tree to tree in a zigzag pattern that brought them as close as they dared to the hideout. There were probably guards posted somewhere, and she was grateful for the shadows that gave them the advantage.
Here, deeper in the valley, the smells of cooking food were stronger, voices less muffled. The firelight illuminated faces, glinted off bullets and revolvers in holsters.
But Nicky was nowhere to be seen.
Her heart pounded in a growing conviction the cantina’s owner had been mistaken. But how could he be wrong about a little boy eating his supper with Ramon and Armando?
What if Berto had seen through their ruse and lied?
Jeb touched her shoulder and pointed, scattering Elena’s thoughts. Tall, lean, dressed all in black, a Mexican emerged from the shadowy interior of one of the cabins. He paused on the step, inhaled deep on a cheroot. From beneath the crown of his sombrero, thick, wavy hair fell to his shoulders.
Oh, God. There he was. Ramon de la Vega, chest crisscrossed with ammunition belts, a holster slung low on his hips. The blood skipped in her veins at how heavily armed he was, how arrogant he looked. How cold. This was the man who had ruthlessly killed innocent people for his revolution. Whose ideals overrode all else and allowed for no compassion for those who carried a different view.
The man who had stolen a little boy from his mother’s arms without a thought to anyone but himself.
An elderly woman followed him out. Plump, gray haired and smiling, she carried a baby in her arms, his chubby body so achingly familiar, so heartwrenching precious that Elena’s feet propelled her forward to snatch him into her own.
But Jeb yanked her back with one arm tight around her shoulders. His hand clamped over her mouth to stifle the cry of Nicky’s name in her throat.
“No, Elena,” he whispered against her temple. “Not now.”
Her breath came in frustrated pants, her eyes riveted on her son. She didn’t fight Jeb, even with all the anguish crashing through her. They were powerless to take Nicky from these men. To do so now, without a carefully orchestrated plan, would result in a disaster that could keep him from her forever.
But soon. Hours, if she could manage it.
The woman held Nicky toward Ramon. He tossed aside the cheroot; with both hands free, he hefted Nicky playfully into the air, his little arms and legs wiggling, his laughter reaching Elena clear across the camp. Her chest squeezed in horror at the sound.
Laughter?
Didn’t he miss her at all? Did he have to laugh as if he’d already forgotten her?
Ramon kissed Nicky’s cheek, then handed him back to the woman. She cuddled him against her ample bosom and took him into the cabin, closing the door behind them. Looking proud and disgustingly satisfied, Ramon found another cheroot and lit it, as if nothing unusual had happened.
The sight revolted Elena. Damn him for acting so—so fatherly! And the woman. Who was she? How dare she kiss and hug Nicky! How dare any of them so much as even touch him!
Nicky didn’t belong to them. Nicky belonged to her!
“Come on, Elena.” Jeb’s low voice pierced through the bitterness roiling through her. “Let’s get out of here.”
He took her hand and pulled her up the hill, leading the way to their horses when she was so blinded by fury she could barely think for herself. Her feet leapt over the rocky ground, instinctively dodged the dried twigs that could snap and betray their presence. At last, the horses loomed. Jeb turned, hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her roughly against him.
“Did you see how they acted with Nicky?” she demanded into his shoulder, her feelings wounded and in dire need of soothing.
“I saw.”
“Fondling him like he was one of them.” She huffed a breath of outrage, circled her arms around Jeb’s waist. Her world was rocking; she needed to hang on to him. Just for a few minutes.
“Hard for you to see that, I know.” Jeb’s hand moved down her spine, then up again.
“They don’t care where he came from. They think they can just take over his life. As if I never even existed.”
“I know, Elena.”
“Who do they think they are, anyway?”
“They figure they’ve got rights to him.”
“Well, they don’t.” She rejected the notion, would always reject it, no matter what. “Pop and I are his family. No one else.”
“Elena.”
Jeb sounded troubled, but her lip curled, her pique surging strong.
“What does Ramon know about being a father to my baby?” she fumed.
“He’s had to learn fast. Looks like he’s had help doing it, too.”
The memory of the gray-haired woman, of Ramon and Nicky together played again in her brain. She shuddered from another burst of ire. “What I would give to wipe that self-satisfied smirk right off Ramon’s face.”
“By the time this is all finished, we’ll do more than that.”
The words rumbled out of Jeb’s chest. Barely veiled revenge. After what Ramon put them through, the man deserved all he got.
“Ramon made Nicky laugh. Did you hear him?” she asked, fighting a pout.
Jeb’s arms tightened. “Yes.”
“I can’t believe Nicky would even do it.”
“What? Laugh?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a baby, sweet. He doesn’t think like adults do.”
“He should be thinking of me. I’m his mother.”
“Would you rather hear him cry?”
Her eyes closed. No, never that.
“Want to know what I think?” Jeb asked.
He calmed her unsteady world. The heat of his body soaked into her. Heat and the soothing sensation of his hand moving up and down her back, over and over again.
“Yes,” she murmured. She’d learned to value his opinion. To trust it.
“Things could be a hell of a lot worse,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning for as much as de la Vega is being a real pain in the ass, he’s taking good care of your son.”
She sighed, long and loud, into Jeb’s shirt. She didn’t want to admit it. Ramon was taking good care of Nicky, she supposed. The gray-haired woman, too. They both were.
Kisses and hugs by strangers were far more preferable than…the alternative. She swallowed down a healthy dose of humility and acknowledged it.
But she refused to accept it.
She lifted her head. The gathering darkness shadowed Jeb’s grim features. His scent surrounded her—an alluring blend of wind, sweat, tobacco—and a masculinity that sent an unexpected trill of excitement stirring in her belly.
She felt protected with him. As if his presence formed a shield against all that could go wrong for her and her baby.
“What now?” she asked. The pique had dwindled. She could think again. “Where do we go from here?”
Jeb’s hand lifted, tucked windblown strands of hair behind her ear.
“We wait,” he said.
“For how long?”
“Long enough for us to watch, learn their routine. See who goes out, who comes in. And when.”
“And then we can take Nicky back.”
He brought her against him again, rested his chin on the top of her head. “When it�
�s safe.”
“Safe, yes.” They could do nothing to jeopardize Nicky’s life. Nothing. “But how long, Jeb? One day? Two?”
When could she hold him again? He was so close. Knowing he was in one of those cabins in that valley was a torture no mother should have to endure.
“When I say the time is right.”
Elena pushed away. “Jeb.”
“I know you’re hurting to get him back, Elena,” he said. “But it’s best to leave him where he’s at. He’s being cared for, and he’s happy enough. Until you and I can get him away from de la Vega, you’re going to have to let him be.”
Her world began rocking again. “I don’t want him with them any longer than necessary.”
“Neither do I.”
She set her hands on her hips, frustration growing in leaps and bounds. “We can get him tonight. When everyone is sleeping.”
“No. We can’t.”
“We know which cabin he’s in.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“We know who’s with him. An old woman who—”
“No, we don’t know who’s with him. That’s the whole point, Elena. Could be de la Vega himself—”
Suddenly he stilled.
He’d heard something. Elena listened with him.
Someone, something, was out there. In the dark. Between the trees.
Her heart began a slow, heavy pound. Jeb’s hand moved for the Colt at his hip, his long arm sweeping her behind him for protection. A faint light appeared, and Elena blinked in surprise. Unabashed, the glow grew steadily brighter, its scope larger.
Jeb swore under his breath.
A little Mexican man stepped out from behind the girth of a blue oak, not unlike a wraith shrouded in a ghostly dream. He walked straight toward them, a lantern in his hand.
“Put away your weapon, señor. I am not one of them,” he said.
He kept walking closer, showing no fear. Elena marveled at his confidence that Jeb wouldn’t shoot. Or perhaps he didn’t understand the possibility of it. But Jeb just let him come as close as he wanted, his only movement being his finger caressing the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest provocation.