by Pam Crooks
Jeb buried his face in her hair and emitted one very male, very satisfied groan.
Elena smiled and kissed the hollow of his throat.
They lay together, still clasped in the rosy glow of what had happened between them for what seemed an eternity. Or maybe it was only a few minutes. It didn’t matter, and when Jeb finally rolled off her, she snuggled into him, her breasts against his chest, her legs tangled with his.
“I could sure use a cigarette right about now,” he muttered.
“Where are they?”
“Pocket of my shirt. Inside.”
“So why don’t you get one?” She smiled, having a good idea why he didn’t.
“Can’t move just yet.”
“Hmm.” She circled one of his dark nipples with her fingertip. “Nicky’s still sleeping. We were lucky he didn’t wake up.”
“Lots of parents make love while their kids sleep.”
Parents.
A series of images loomed in her mind. Jeb and her as Nicky’s father and mother. The three of them a happy little family. Night after night of making love while Nicky slept.
She sobered. Jeb meant nothing by it. He was definitely not a family man.
Some of that rosy glow dulled, and she felt chilled from her nakedness. She sat up, drew her knees up to her chest.
“When will Simon come back?” she asked.
“Not soon enough,” he said. He eased away from her, handed her her clothes, then reached for his Levi’s. “You’d best get dressed again, Elena. It’d be a mite embarrassing for both of us if de la Vega showed up about now.”
She draped her skirt over her lap, slipped her arms into the sleeves of her blouse and began buttoning. Jeb rose, pulled on his Levi’s and fastened them.
“You don’t want to be here, do you?” she asked.
“With you, yes. Just waiting around for trouble? No.” His grim glance scanned the trees beyond Simon’s adobe. “We’re sitting ducks, Elena. I don’t have enough ammunition to fight off de la Vega if he shows up. Never mind the lack of manpower.”
“Then why are we?”
His brow arched. “Why are we here? Because you took a bullet last night, that’s why. You have to rest from it.”
“I no longer have that bullet, remember? You took it out of me. And I was feeling well enough to make love to you just now, wasn’t I?”
He frowned. “It’s a long, hard ride back to the States. You need time to heal.”
“How much time?” she demanded.
“Tomorrow. At least.”
“I’m fine today. We can head out now.”
He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I’ll not hear of it.”
“It’s my bullet wound, Jeb. And I’m telling you I feel well enough. The farther we can get away from Ramon, and the sooner we do it, the better for all of us. Especially Nicky.”
Jeb looked tempted. Elena stood, fastened her skirt and made his decision for him.
“I’ll pack up our things. You get the horses ready,” she said firmly.
She’d have to take another dose of elixir. As Jeb said, the journey would be hard on the wound, but she could endure the discomfort. It’d only be for a short while. Until she got to San Antonio. To Pop.
Jeb took her arm. “Elena.”
She understood his troubled expression, the uncertainty that warred in his dark eyes. She, too, knew the risks of leaving, that they only had a few hours left together.
“Elena, listen to me,” he said, his voice rough. He pulled her toward him.
But she would never know what he intended to say. Or do. A noise jerked him to full alertness, and he whirled toward the direction of it.
A wagon lumbered in the distance, beyond the tree line, on a trail Elena didn’t even know existed. She could only catch a glimpse of it, but its shape was unmistakable.
Jeb swore. Vehemently.
And Elena knew that the shipment of rifles Ramon de la Vega was waiting for had arrived.
Chapter Seventeen
“I have to stop that wagon,” Jeb said.
“Oh, God, no,” Elena gasped. “It’s too dangerous.”
“If de la Vega gets those guns—”
He broke into a sprint back to the adobe. Inside, he grabbed a shirt, his boots, pulled them on. Elena followed him in, the blanket dragging behind her.
“Jeb, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes. I do.”
Didn’t she understand there was no else? That, right now, he alone had the ability to intercept numerous crates jam-packed with weapons that would ultimately kill innocent lives on both sides of the border?
“Let’s ride away from here,” she pleaded. “We’ll find Lieutenant Colonel Kingston if Simon hasn’t already. We’ll tell him what we saw and where.”
“No.” Jeb rose, slapped on his gun belt and notched it snug to his hips.
“He’ll send his men,” Elena said. “They’ll be more prepared than you. You’re only one person, Jeb! Ramon won’t have a chance against the Army.”
“We’re just outside his camp, Elena. The rifles will be in his hands in an hour. Two at most. There’s no damn time to wait for the Army.”
“He’ll kill you in the blink of an eye.” Her breathing quickened into frantic pants.
“Not if I kill him first.” He snatched his hat, his gloves.
“Jeb, please don’t go.”
He steeled himself against her fear, against the quaver in her voice, against his own worries for her and Nicky’s safety while he was gone.
“Don’t leave the adobe, y’hear me? Not for any reason,” he ordered. “Stay away from the windows. Get your things together and be ready to ride on a minute’s notice.”
She swallowed hard. Nodded.
“I’m leaving you a gun.” He set a Colt revolver on the table and added a knife to go with it. “Use ’em.”
She made a sound of alarm but said nothing more. He strode toward her. The adrenaline coursed through him, fast and furious, but he held it in check, stealing a few precious seconds to take her into his arms.
“I told you last night, Elena,” he rumbled into the hair at her temple. “Just take care of Nicky. I’ll do the rest.”
Suddenly she pushed him away. Her nostrils flared. “You thrive on this, don’t you, Jeb? The killing and fighting. It’s all you know.”
He stiffened with a swift intake of breath. He refused to remind her it was men like him who kept Americans like her alive. Free and safe. He stepped back and left her alone with her son so that he could do what he had to do.
What he did best.
Jeb crouched in the shadows of the trees and stared at the buckboard wagon’s driver. The shock of recognition slammed into him like a fist to his gut.
What the hell?
The team strained under its load, even heavier to haul uphill. Uneven ground didn’t help any, but she slapped the reins again and again in a futile effort to urge the exhausted horses faster.
Margarete Bell had her hands full. The flush in her cheeks didn’t come from the thick layer of rouge Jeb remembered her wearing that hot afternoon in her father’s mercantile, but from the exertion of keeping a firm hold on the team’s leathers. Her fancy curls weren’t so fancy anymore, either, and she didn’t look bored.
Desperate, though. Yeah, definitely that.
She hadn’t spotted him yet, and Jeb let her draw closer before he made his move. He couldn’t fathom what she was doing way out here in Mexican hill country, and by herself to boot. Did her father have an inkling of where she was? Or why?
The why intrigued Jeb most. The rig was ordinary. Beat-up some. The manufacturer must’ve made hundreds just like it, but Jeb had one hell of a strong suspicion it was the same rig the Apache had driven the day he was doing business with Henry Bell in the alley.
What possible connection could Margarete have with the Apache? With the load he hauled? And as heavy as it was…
She had to be bringing the rifle
s de la Vega expected. She had to be. Why else would she be this close to his camp?
Jeb rose from his crouched position and stepped out from the cover of the trees. He lifted his Winchester to his shoulder. Margarete needed to know he meant business, that if she was hauling rifles as he suspected she was, then she was committing a serious offense against her country.
“Pull up, Margarete,” Jeb ordered. “You’ve gone far enough.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and dropped the reins to fumble for the revolver in her lap.
He cocked his rifle. The sound cracked in the air between them. “Don’t even think it.”
The team blew noisily and dragged to a shuddering halt. Sweat gleamed on their backs.
Margarete stared at Jeb. Her eyes widened. “It’s you!”
“That’s right. Drop the gun.”
“What are you doing out here?” she demanded. She swept a quick glance around her. “Where’s your wife?”
She still kept hold of her revolver in an awkward two-handed grip. Jeb figured firing a gun wasn’t something she was accustomed to. Still, a nervous woman was a dangerous one, and he didn’t trust her an inch.
“Drop it, I said.” He took one step closer. Two. “Just so we can have a talk without either one of us getting hurt.”
Her glance dropped to his rifle, aimed at her chest. “What do you want to talk to me about? I got just as much right to be here as you do.”
“Now that depends, doesn’t it?” She was stalling, and Jeb was fast losing patience from it. He halted, only a few yards from where she sat. “Rights and motives are two different things.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
A moment passed.
“Margarete,” he said, his voice a low warning.
Her small mouth thinned. She tossed the gun to the ground in a petulant huff. “There. You have my only way of defending myself against varmints like you. Are you satisfied? Now let me be on my way.”
“Not just yet. Get down. I have a strong curiosity what a pretty girl like you might be doing out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Her fingers lifted self-consciously to the curls drooping around her face. “I’m doing some business is all. For my pa.”
“That so?” Jeb drawled. “He know you’re doing it for him?”
“Sure he does.”
She was lying. And she still hadn’t gotten down from the wagon. Jeb reached up, grasped her elbow hard enough that she knew he had no tolerance for her disobedience. She scrambled for footing, but managed to get herself to the ground well enough. She glared at him.
“Stand over there,” he snapped, pointing with his rifle to a spot close enough that he could keep an eye on her. “Don’t run off, either. All these trees make it real easy to lose your bearings. You’d just get yourself lost. Might be days before anyone could find you. That is, if anyone bothered looking.”
She swallowed at the slur but said nothing. Her eyes jumped from Jeb to the wagon bed and back to him again.
Whatever was in there, she was damned apprehensive about him seeing it. Jeb took a step backward, keeping his rifle trained on her.
A tarp covered the contents. He flung back a corner with his free hand. His glance skimmed over the wooden crates inside, then collided with a pair of eyes blinking up at him.
Jeb breathed a startled oath. The last thing he’d expected to see was a human being inside.
The Apache lay on his back, wedged between the side of the wagon and one of the crates. He’d been bound, gagged and, judging from the dried blood snaking across his forehead, he hadn’t seen any of it coming.
“What did you hit him with, Margarete?” Jeb demanded, tugging the bandanna from the man’s mouth and eyeing the goose egg he sported. “You could’ve killed him.”
“A rock,” she said, defensive. “I wanted him to take me with him. He refused. I didn’t have a choice.”
“She followed me to my camp outside Piedras Negras.” The Apache grunted from the effort of maneuvering himself out of the wagon. His tattered Army uniform carried the dust from his ride. “She wanted to see de la Vega again.”
“Again?” Jeb asked sharply, helping him.
“Claims they’re in love.”
Questions raged inside Jeb’s head about her relationship with the revolutionary. He checked the Apache for any hidden weapons, found none, then helped him stand next to her, where he could keep an eye on them both. Again working one-handed, he used his knife to pry open one of the crates.
Inside, rifles gleamed side by side like sardines in a can. Brand new Savage lever-action weapons fresh from a military warehouse. Stolen by one man. Paid for by another.
Jeb whistled, long and low between his teeth. Hell of a lot of money sitting there in that wagon. And one hell of a crime had put them there.
He turned toward his captives. “All right, you two. Start talking.”
Margarete’s eyes narrowed stubbornly. “We don’t have to tell you anything.”
His lips formed a hard smile. “If I don’t know what you’re up to, I can’t let you go, can I?”
She glanced uncertainly at the Apache. He glanced at her. His black eyes centered mutinously on Jeb. “What’s it worth to you?”
“Depends.”
“You take a cut of the profits. You let us go. Deal?”
“Can’t agree until I know where those profits are coming from.”
The Apache hissed a frustrated breath. Again he glanced at Margarete.
“He knows more than he’s letting on, what with him being this close to Ramon and all,” she said sullenly.
“Shut up, Margarete!” the Apache snapped.
“Well, it’s true, ain’t it?” She turned a hostile glare onto Jeb. “I met Ramon last year when he came through Carrizo Springs, all right? He needed a supplier for guns. He figured my pa could find him one.”
“Go on.”
“Pa didn’t want to get involved. Not at first, but I talked him into it. I knew how much Ramon needed them.” Margarete’s chin lifted. “He’s going to be a very powerful man in Mexico someday. He’s handsome and exciting and we’re going to get married.”
“Married?” Jeb snorted in disbelief. “When was the last time he saw you?”
Her chin hiked higher. “I don’t—a while, maybe.”
“Months, Margarete. He don’t care nothing about you except for the guns your pa can sell to him,” the Apache snarled.
“That’s not so!”
“I kept telling her that when she followed me to my camp,” he said to Jeb. “She wouldn’t listen. Stubborn brat was hell-bent on seeing him again.”
Disgust rolled through Jeb. Sympathy, too, for the foolish dreams the girl hung on to.
“Ever occur to you de la Vega might be using you to do business with your father?” he asked.
“He’s not! Ramon knows how much I hate Carrizo Springs. I’ve lived in that one-horse town all my life! He can take me places I ain’t never been before.”
“You got that right. Like a women’s prison.” Jeb made no effort to sugarcoat the repercussions of the girl’s illusions. She needed to know she’d have to pay the price for them. He turned to the Apache. “So how do you fit into all this?”
The Apache shifted. “Nothing you need to know.”
“All right.” Jeb nodded, agreeable. “I’ll do your talking for you. I’m figuring Henry Bell is the middle man for this deal. He works with lots of suppliers. His mercantile is the perfect front. No one’s likely to suspect.”
Except Roy Marsh, now that Jeb thought of it. The old man had had his suspicions from the beginning. He’d be disappointed to learn the mercantile he’d opened and seen successful had been involved in an illicit weapons deal against the United States.
“You’ve been in the Army. A scout, maybe. You know Corporal Martin and Sergeant Bender. Between the three of you, you make connections with a gunrunner somewhere
,” Jeb went on. “He’s paying you to take these weapons to Carrizo Springs.” Jeb recalled the ruts in the road, the money changing hands in the alley outside Bell’s Mercantile. “And Henry’s paying you to take them to de la Vega.”
“You’re getting paid twice?” Margarete demanded, eyes wide.
“Had twice the risk, too,” Jeb added, his suspicions confirmed.
“So now you’re going to play lawman,” the Apache taunted.
Jeb’s lip curled. “Justice will be served.”
“Name your price, Mr. Carson,” Margarete said, for the first time looking plenty nervous. “Whatever it costs to let us go.”
“Not a chance.”
“We’ve got the money, I swear it.” She glanced at the Apache, then at Jeb, her panic growing. “Please, Mr. Carson. Ramon has been waiting a long time. He needs these rifles to help his people.”
“He’ll kill with those rifles, too,” Jeb shot back. “He’ll use them to rape and pillage to feed his need to revolt against his government.”
“No!”
“And you’re a damned fool to get in with the likes of him, Margarete. You’re in way over your damned fool head.”
She jerked back, as if Jeb had struck her with the palm of his hand instead of the sharpness of his words. “No!”
“Carson’s right,” the Apache sneered. “De la Vega don’t have time for you.”
“You’re lying! Both of you are!”
“Think it through,” Jeb said. “While you’re at it, think of your pa, too. Think how he’ll feel when he finds out you’ve run off to Mexico to take up with a wild band of rebels.”
Her bosom heaved. “I’m a fully grown woman. I can make my own decisions on what I do.”