The Mercenary's Kiss

by Pam Crooks

“Sí.” Simon shrugged. “They will not find it so unusual that I am there, even this time of night.” He handed Elena the reins to her horse. “The men will let Ramon begin first. They will wait until he invites them to ride with him. It is then, Elena, you must make your move. To do so sooner will only insult him. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her attention drawn yet again toward the tiny spot of red that was her son, still sitting on the blanket. No longer playing with his toys, he was engrossed, instead, with the horses that had always fascinated him. The men brought them from their corral, saddled and ready to ride.

  The time was at hand.

  Jeb turned to her.

  “Elena,” he began.

  She heard the rasp of unease in his rough whisper, his reluctance to involve her in their plan. Yet no one knew better than she the risks to her son if she failed.

  Quickly she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Shh. This is our own little war against Ramon, Jeb. How can we not fight?”

  Something flickered in his dark eyes. His fingers caught hers and squeezed, as if he willed his protection to her in that one touch. Then, abruptly, he released her.

  “Wait for my signal. Both of you. When I give it, get the hell out of the camp. I’ll cover you.” He hooked his knapsack over his shoulder and reached for the reins of his horse. “Any questions?”

  “None.” Elena shook her head, though her heart pounded ferociously inside her. Her success in the coming minutes would either bring Nicky back into her arms—or keep him out of them forever.

  If she didn’t despise Ramon de la Vega so much, Elena might have thought him a handsome man. Charismatic, white teeth gleaming in a broad smile as he charmed his audience with his fancy riding tricks, she had to admit he possessed a natural agility on the back of a horse.

  She had parted from Jeb and Simon only moments ago, each off to prepare for their part in her plan. She crouched in the shadows on the fringes of the camp and watched Ramon ride down the fire-illuminated corridor. He stood in the saddle at full gallop, balanced on both feet and twirling a rope in each hand. He commanded the attention of his people, and gloried in the praise they gave him. His grace and ability couldn’t be denied, she supposed. She had to give him that much.

  After he finished his stunt, Ramon rode toward the center of the corridor, swept off his sombrero and bowed with a grand flourish. Firelight touched the wavy hair hanging long and thick to his shoulders. Again, his white teeth gleamed in a broad smile as he reveled in the applause.

  He turned, said something to the men clustered at the end of the line, and several mounted up.

  There it was. The invitation to his men to join him, just as Simon predicted.

  Elena drew in a deep breath. She mounted up, too.

  A dozen yards away, Jeb hovered in the dark shadows. Not even she could see him, but she knew he was there. Watching. Giving her enough time to assess the situation, call the shots as needed, but ruthlessly prepared to help her if something went wrong.

  Nothing would.

  Elena urged the mare out of the shadows. The men were boisterous from their tequila and intent on the rider currently heading down the corridor; no one questioned her approach as she took her place at the end of the line. And why would they? She was dressed in a black shirt and snug-fitting pants, conchos marching down the outside seams, and looked no different than they did.

  One revolutionary, then another, took his turn. Well into their spirits, they performed their stunts with a garish lack of finesse and an abundance of humor. Others took the event more seriously, but no one tried to outperform Ramon. Their respect for—or perhaps their fear of—their leader would never allow them to do so.

  Finally there was no one left in front of her. Armando waved his bottle of tequila. “Go, amigo. Let us see if you are as good as Ramon, eh?”

  Elena lifted her hand and feigned a drunken wave. It was not her intention to outcompete anyone. If she tried, she would only draw attention to herself. She merely needed a way to get closer to Nicky and formulate a plan to snatch him right out from under everyone’s nose.

  A simple set of cartwheels would allow her to do that. They’d be easy to manage around the sombrero, and she wouldn’t have to concentrate on speed. More important, she’d done them so many times she could perform blindfolded.

  The mare broke into an easy run. Elena grasped the saddle horn and one of the handholds, stood in her right stirrup, leaned back and kicked her legs up into the air, straight and spread-eagled. She hit the ground, twisted and rolled over to the other side the same way, then dropped back into the seat.

  She pushed the sombrero tighter onto her head, barely hearing the raucous cheers. Her glance caught Simon as she rode by him, meandering closer to Doña Pia and Nicky.

  Elena reached the end of the corridor, slowed the mare and turned her around. She stole another glance at her son as she galloped back down to the other side, giving a repeat performance of the cartwheels. He hadn’t noticed her, but then she looked like any of the other men. Clearly he found Simon’s eccentric appearance more interesting.

  “You are very good, amigo,” Ramon called out as Elena rode past him into the throng of horses and men. She pretended not to hear. “Why have I not noticed it before?” He raised up in the stirrups, strained to see her beyond the sea of sombreroed heads.

  Her heart pounding, she continued to ignore him and rode deep into the mass of bodies clustered at the end of the corridor.

  “Ramon! It is time for Correr al Gallo!”

  The revolutionary’s attention swiveled between Elena and Armando’s call. He apparently dismissed his curiosity about her as not important enough to pursue. He broke into a broad smile and spurred his horse back into the lane.

  Relief poured through Elena. Thank God, Armando had distracted him.

  There was great excitement for what was to come next. Elena recognized Correr al Gallo, one of the oldest displays of riding skills first devised by Spanish vaqueros who had raced past partially buried chickens and plucked them from the ground in a grand swoop. Not a particularly appealing trick, to be sure, but one the revolutionaries seemed to relish.

  Elena held back, watched them ride hard toward their squawking quarry, then lean low from the saddle to grab one and hold it high in victory. She had done pickup tricks, too, innumerable times, using handkerchiefs and hats and paper bags filled with sand.

  But never a little boy…

  The decision slammed into her with a jolt. She’d have to use a different technique than the Mexicans, of course. And ride considerably slower.

  But it would work.

  It had to. She had only one chance. One single, heart-stopping chance. If she failed, Ramon would know who she was. He would know Jeb was here, too.

  He would know everything.

  She couldn’t fail.

  She took her place in the line. She needed a practice run first. There was too much at stake to misjudge her ability to grab Nicky. One misstep by her horse, a miscalculation of speed, Doña Pia…

  So much could go wrong.

  Nothing would. Nothing would. Nothing would.

  Her ears filled with the drunken whoops of the men who cheered their comrades on. The scents of burning torches and sweating male bodies surrounded her, but Elena was aware only of Nicky, still sitting on his blanket, close to Doña Pia.

  Too close. Why did she have to be so damned close?

  The mare broke into an easy canter. Not too fast. Not too slow. Elena held her in line with a white-knuckled grip on the reins.

  She passed a squawking chicken. Its plight held Nicky transfixed, his wide eyes following each whooping revolutionary as they raced by him. His head swiveled toward Elena, coming up next…

  She rode by a second chicken, sat sideways in the saddle and removed her left foot from the stirrup, then replaced it with her right. Grabbing the handholds again, she squatted, her knee pressed against the mare’s side.

  A third chicken went by.
She pushed her knee under the stirrup leather that would help keep her braced against her horse. She let go of the saddle horn, extended her left leg straight and stretched out her left arm.

  Hanging this low, she could touch the ground.

  She could grab Nicky.

  The fourth chicken passed through her range of vision. The sombrero brim fluttered in the breeze, bumped against the mare’s hindquarters and went askew. She hastily righted it again.

  Elena’s gaze lifted, and met Nicky’s. Time stopped. A lightning bolt of recognition seemed to pass through him, that intangible bond between a child and his mother forged from birth, powerful and instantaneous. Feeling it, knowing it, incited a flash of emotion in Elena.

  A fifth chicken flared up before her, jerking her attention, and she automatically reached out to grab it.

  She missed.

  The mood of her audience abruptly shifted. The Mexicans booed their disapproval at her error with arrogant jeers. Elena grasped the saddle horn, heaved herself up and sideways back into the saddle.

  At the end of the corridor, the mare turned and, unable to stop herself, Elena again sought out Nicky. He pushed himself to a standing position, his black eyes wide and riveted on her. His mouth moved, formed the word ma-ma-ma.

  “Compadre!”

  The bark in Ramon’s voice jerked Elena’s glance away from her son with a start. The crowd fell deathly still. Ramon rode toward her from the opposite end of the corridor.

  “How is it that one who does such beautiful cartwheels over his horse cannot pick up a single chicken when he rides slow enough that even an old woman can do it, eh?” he taunted.

  He drew closer. No one spoke. Moved.

  “But you found my son more interesting than the chicken. He distracted you, did he not? What is it about him that fascinates you?”

  Her blood ran cold. He knew who she was. Any minute, dear God, any second, they would take Nicky away so that she’d never see him again.

  “Take off the sombrero, compadre.”

  The low-voiced command hissed with menace. Ramon removed the revolver from his holster, reined his horse to a stop and pointed the barrel right at her.

  “Do not make me kill you in front of our son, Elena,” he taunted softly.

  Our son.

  Hatred exploded inside her at the intimacy his words implied. A loathing, swift and deep, shattered her fear of what he might do and inflamed her need to take Nicky away from him.

  Suddenly an object dropped from the air. Glass shattered. Smoke appeared and began to billow and swirl like a cloud of black magic.

  Jeb. Oh, God. It was Jeb, creating the diversion she needed, when she needed it most. The women screamed. The revolutionaries scrambled for their weapons, their dark eyes clawing the hills for the source of the attack.

  Ramon’s lips curled back in a savage epithet and he raised his revolver toward her, his finger on the trigger.

  Elena whipped off the sombrero and flung it at him with a sharp snap from her wrist. His arms came up to deflect it, and his shot went wild.

  She jerked hard on the reins, turning the mare back toward Nicky and dropping back down to the side. In the chaos, everything moved split-second fast. Or was it slow motion? She couldn’t tell, couldn’t think, her mind focused only on the red fabric of her son’s shirt.

  On him stepping off the blanket toward her, his arms outstretched.

  On Doña Pia coming out of her chair with a cry of protest.

  On Simon, hurtling his twisted, old body against her, knocking her facedown into the dirt.

  Hanging by the stirrup low to the ground, Elena scooped Nicky up against her with one arm. She might never know the strength it took to take his weight and heave them both up and back into the saddle, to kick free of the stirrup that held her and properly reseat herself all in one swift motion.

  It wasn’t important. Only that she managed it. That she had Nicky back with her again.

  Another object dropped from the sky. More glass shattered. An earsplitting string of rat-tat-tats followed—the firecrackers Jeb had lit, sounding like an army of snipers hidden in the trees, shooting into the camp, and the chaos increased tenfold.

  The Mexicans fired in the direction of the firecrackers, seeming to forget Elena in their fierce determination to ward off the unseen foe. Smoke billowed throughout the camp. Men coughed and choked, their eyes watering from the sting, their confusion blatant and unchecked.

  Then, behind her, a shot exploded, and the burn of it sliced through Elena’s body.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jeb lit another fuse, drew his arm back and hurled a clay canister containing a combustible mixture of cane sugar and saltpeter into Ramon de la Vega’s camp. It was his last smoke bomb, and he grabbed his knapsack. Damn it, Elena was in trouble. He had to move fast.

  He should never have agreed to her harebrained scheme. What could he have been thinking, letting her go into the revolutionaries’ camp alone? He leapt onto his horse and unsheathed his Winchester. Fear pummeled through him that he wouldn’t reach her soon enough. She was unarmed. In no position to defend herself. And de la Vega was on to her.

  She was going to make her move for Nicky. Any minute now. When she did, all hell would break loose.

  He rode hard through the trees, ignored the branches and leaves slapping against him. He had to get to her. He had to get her and her baby the hell out of that camp.

  Within the perimeters, the smoke billowed and built. Jeb kept track of her through the trees as he raced, watched her throw the sombrero at de la Vega, heard his shot go wild. She bolted from the corridor and between the fiery torches, grabbed her son while hanging on to the side of her horse. Jeb caught up with her as she headed up the hill, barely seated in the saddle again.

  “Go, Elena! Hurry!” he yelled.

  She twisted toward him. Blond hair slipped from the pins and onto her shoulders. If there’d been a shred of doubt among the revolutionaries that she was Nicky’s mother, all that hair would be proof enough she was.

  “Jeb!” she gasped.

  “Go!” He made a savage gesture to keep riding, and she obeyed, spurring the mare into a run until the receding hoofbeats assured him she’d get away safely.

  He pulled up, shot a glance back toward the camp. He caught a glimpse of Simon, making his escape, running as fast as his wiry legs could take him to the burro tethered somewhere in the trees.

  One of the rebels burst through the haze of smoke, and Jeb lifted the Winchester to his shoulder, took aim and fired. The Mexican screamed and fell from his horse. Another appeared, and Jeb fired again, sending him to the same fate as the first.

  Adrenaline pumped through him, the lure of a hard fight. He could taste it, the lure. The danger. The anticipation of hard-won victory or impending death.

  He turned his horse and left it all behind. This time, the battle would have to wait. He had Elena to think of. Elena and her baby. It was more important he’d given her and Simon the precious seconds they needed to flee into the night.

  He charged up the hill. And then Elena was there, waiting for him, in a small clearing a fair distance from de la Vega’s camp. Safe—but not for long. The mountain would be crawling with revolutionaries hell-bent on vengeance anytime now. They had to keep moving.

  “Give me the boy,” Jeb said, and reached for Nicky. He had enough to do worrying about Elena keeping up with him without having to worry about her baby, too. He’d feel better with Nicky in the saddle with him.

  Elena was breathing fast, shallow. She’d been through a hell of a scare, he knew. Yet she hesitated relinquishing her son, as if now that she’d finally gotten him back, she couldn’t let him go.

  “Give him to me,” Jeb said again, and pulled the little body from her arms. He had no time to give her assurances. Nicky would be as safe with him as with her. She’d just have to trust him on that. “Let’s go.”

  They took off again, their destination Simon’s home. Simon had been emphati
c they go there first, claiming it was even more secluded than the grotto, farther away from de la Vega’s camp and closer to the road that would take them back to the village of San Ignatius.

  Jeb and Elena had agreed to the plan. It would be their last stop before they headed back to the United States. Their final opportunity to regroup after their escape from the revolutionaries.

  Jeb found the adobe structure easily enough. There was still no sign of Simon, but the burro wouldn’t have the speed of a horse. Simon knew these hills inside and out. He’d lived in them all his life. Jeb would give him a little more time to get here.

  He sheathed the rifle, hefted Nicky to his hip and dismounted. He couldn’t recall holding a one-year old before. Had he ever? Nicky seemed to know what to do, though, and hung on with a fistful of Jeb’s shirt. He stared up at Jeb curiously, and though Jeb was a stranger to him, he didn’t fuss. Considering all he’d been through this past week, Jeb wouldn’t blame him if he did.

  He strode toward Elena, still in the saddle. She glanced down at him and eased out a careful breath.

  “I might need some help getting down,” she said.

  He frowned at that but lifted his free arm to take her elbow. She slid a foot into the stirrup, swung out of the saddle—and would have collapsed right to the ground if Jeb hadn’t caught her.

  Alarm shot through him. “Jesus, Elena. Are you all right?”

  “I think so,” she managed. “Well, maybe not.”

  He had his hands full holding both of them. He shifted Elena to better take her weight against him and felt a damp stickiness on her shirt.

  “You’re bleeding.” He gaped at the dark stain on his palm. She’d taken a hit during her escape and hadn’t bothered to tell him.

  “I’m all right, Jeb,” she said. “I’m a little shaky is all. Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Few minutes, hell. Won’t be long and you’ll be feeling worse than shaky,” he growled. “Come on. Can you walk?”

  “Of course I can walk,” she said, but she slid her arm around his waist and leaned into him, her eyes full of her son. “I want to hold Nicky.”