by Pam Crooks
“Do not return to me until the wagon is found!” he called after them. He turned back to Jeb. “Now give me my son.”
“Go to hell,” he said.
A muffled thud sounded from inside the adobe. Elena screamed. Jeb spun to bolt in after her, but the door burst open first. She emerged with a revolver pressed to her temple, Nicky clinging with both arms around her neck. Her gaze dropped to Margarete, and she paled.
De la Vega nodded in satisfaction. “Good job, Diego. You have been quick to capture my son for me.”
“Sí,” the man said, and grinned wide.
She held Nicky tighter against her. “I’ll never let you take him again. You’ll have to kill me first.”
De la Vega made a sound of impatience and lifted his rifle. “Bring him to me, Diego.”
De la Vega had never intended to let Elena live, Jeb knew, even if she complied with his demand. She’d stolen her son back from him once. Any fool would know she would attempt to do it again.
“Ramon, let the child stay with his mother,” Armando said firmly. “We will soon have the guns. They are enough for now.”
“You say that because it is not your son in the woman’s arms.” He glared at Elena. “Give him to me.”
“What kind of a life can you offer him?” Armando demanded. “You have much work to do yet for Mexico. You will be too busy to watch him grow up.”
“Silencio!”
“He is a baby. Leave him with his mother.” Armando clamped a hand over the rifle barrel. De la Vega tried to wrest his weapon free, and lightning quick, Jeb pulled the trigger once, twice. Both men toppled off their horses. Jeb twisted, rammed the butt of the Winchester into the third rebel’s belly. He doubled over, and Jeb hit him again. He crumpled and didn’t move.
Clutching Nicky against her, Elena fell into Jeb’s arms, and he held them both hard. She closed her eyes and choked on a sob. “Oh, Jeb.”
Suddenly, behind him, a horse thundered off, and Jeb whirled. De la Vega was hunched over his saddle and weaving in the seat, badly wounded but getting away.
Jeb swore viciously.
“Let’s get out of here,” Elena said, bosom heaving.
He released her. “No.”
“Ramon’s hurt. We can leave.”
He fished more bullets from his pocket, reloaded the Winchester’s chamber. “That wagonload of guns is still out there, Elena. I can’t let de la Vega take them. You know that.”
“It’s not your responsibility right now. You’re outmanned. There’s no way you can—”
“I have to try.”
“You may as well stand before a firing squad!”
Her tears were nearly his undoing, but he held on tight to his resolve. It was in his blood to fight. He knew no other way to win.
He cupped the back of her head, brought her roughly against him, kissed her hard. He had no time for tenderness or for assurances. She had to know what he had to do. She needed to understand it. Accept it.
“I love you, Elena.” Funny he’d never said the words before. Ever. But they slipped from his tongue now, for her, like butter. “I love you.”
“Oh, Jeb,” she breathed. “I—”
The ground shimmied from a new round of hoofbeats, and Jeb’s blood ran cold. The horses were close. Damn close. And they weren’t coming from the hills.
From around the side of the adobe, Simon appeared. Lieutenant Colonel Kingston. A whole regiment of the United States Army.
And Creed, leading them all.
Jeb stared, stunned.
“Heard you got yourself in some trouble again, compadre,” Creed said, pulling up. “Need some help?”
He should have been in California with his family, away from this, another battle on foreign soil. Jeb was damned glad he wasn’t.
“Guess I do,” he said.
“Mount up, then. Time’s ticking.”
“It sure as hell is.” Jeb walked, then sprinted toward his horse, the adrenaline building with every step.
“What would you have us do, Mr. Carson?” the lieutenant colonel asked, following. “Your call.”
It seemed a lifetime since Jeb had spoken to the officer in that Laredo saloon. Damned if fate didn’t have a way of changing a man’s life. He glanced at Elena. For the better, too.
“Stay with the lady and her son,” Jeb ordered. “They’ve been through a lot. Whatever she wants, see that she gets it.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left final orders to tend to Armando’s body, Margarete’s medical needs and Diego’s capture, then climbed into the saddle. He took the reins in his hands. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“De la Vega can’t get those guns, Mr. Carson,” Kingston said. “President McKinley is most worried about the threat of the revolution.”
“I know.”
“Stopping that arms shipment would be quite a coup for you and for the United States. An honor, sir.”
“An honor.” Jeb saw it as nothing of the sort, merely a job that needed to be done for his country. “We’ll see.”
Creed was waiting, but Jeb held back, burdened with a sudden reluctance to leave Elena. She seemed overwhelmed with the soldiers, the horses, and all the activity around her. He wanted to stay, reassure her that she was safe, that from here on out, her life would be a hell of a lot easier for her and her son.
Her glance lifted, met his. A sudden shot of yearning went through him. A wish that things were different. That no wars needed to be fought, no battles won.
But, of course, they had to be. They would always have to be. Winning them were what made the United States the nation it was.
And him the man he was.
Somber in the knowledge, the harsh truth of it, he rode to Creed’s side, and together they headed into the Mexican hills, Lieutenant Colonel Kingston’s men right behind them.
Elena watched him go, and a part of her died.
She might never see him again. Alive.
She clung to Nicky, her little rock in a world suddenly gone shaky and uncertain. Two soldiers carried Margarete, whimpering, away on a stretcher. Armando lay on the ground, covered with a tarp. And the rebel, Diego, his jaw broken, was being guarded by an armed soldier.
Violence. Death.
How could Jeb survive it? Thrive on it?
She didn’t belong here any more than she belonged on the moon. She wanted no part of any war, no matter how urgent the fight had become.
She wanted peace. Security. She wanted to go to San Antonio. She wanted to see Pop.
But most of all, she wanted Jeb.
She could never have him. Their lives were too different.
Tears stung the back of her eyes, and she blinked them away. It wouldn’t do to have these men seeing her weakness, not when they were so brave, so strong, so resilient.
“Ma’am?”
Elena scrambled for composure. A tall, barrel-chested officer approached her, sympathy in his expression.
“Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Kingston, ma’am. Is there anything I can get for you?”
“For me?” she asked, taken aback that a man as important looking as he would offer to do anything of the sort.
“Yes.” A small smile played on his lips. “Mr. Carson has left me explicit instructions to see to your every need.”
She swallowed hard against a welling of emotion. “There is one thing,” she said. “Yes. One thing I need.”
He inclined his head. “Just name it.”
“An escort, please. To San Antonio. I’d like to leave now, if you don’t mind. As soon as it can be arranged.”
“San Antonio? Now?” The officer cleared his throat. “I’m not sure this is, er, quite what Mr. Carson had in mind.”
“I assure you he’ll understand. We’ve talked of it, many times.”
“It’ll be dark in a few hours.”
“I’m prepared to ride all night.”
He stared for long moments in the direction Jeb had left, as if he hoped Jeb�
�s sudden reappearance would give the approval the officer wanted. He sighed. “All right. I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He strode away. Elena dropped a kiss against Nicky’s dark curls and fought tears. “We’re going for a ride, sweetheart. We’re going home.”
Jeb and Creed tracked the revolutionary and his men to the brush where they hid like snakes in the grass. Jeb lifted an arm, signaled, and Kingston’s men fanned out, surrounding the area, their weapons drawn and ready.
De la Vega didn’t have a chance.
“You want to wait him out?” Creed asked in a low voice.
“No,” Jeb said.
Night would fall in minutes. Once it did, their chances of capturing the Mexicans deteriorated dramatically. He was impatient to get back to Elena. He didn’t have time to wait for de la Vega or anyone else to make their move.
Creed scrutinized the perimeter of the thicket, dense with mesquite. “Broke my share of brush when I was a kid rounding up cattle too stubborn to come out on their own. Hard work getting through it. Dangerous, too.”
“De la Vega would have the advantage.”
“They’d see us before we saw them.”
De la Vega and his men were as lawless as they were proud. They had to be routed out of the brush and captured before they could escape. Jeb made his decision.
“We’ll burn ’em out,” he said.
Creed nodded. “It’ll work.”
“Send some men out to light the fires. The rest of us will cover them,” Jeb ordered, and Creed rode off.
It wasn’t long before the brush began smoking. Jeb raised his Winchester to his shoulder and waited. In the deepening dusk, the soldiers waited, too.
Suddenly the revolutionaries burst through the brush with earsplitting yells and barking weapons. The attack was unexpectedly reckless and frenzied, throwing the soldiers on the defensive as the Mexicans rode right toward the line. It was as if their lives meant nothing, as if…
As if the attack was a diversion for their leader’s escape.
Jeb twisted and found de la Vega doubled over in the saddle and breaking out of the thicket just beyond the range of fire. Jeb snarled a curse. He kicked his mount in pursuit.
He caught up in minutes. De la Vega had lost a lot of blood. How he managed to stay in the saddle was beyond Jeb, but it alluded to the man’s desperation to get away. And if he did anything, anything, Jeb had to keep him from returning to his camp where he would use the innocent women and children there as a shield against the Army’s attack.
“Give up, de la Vega,” Jeb yelled, riding even with the other horse.
Teeth bared, de la Vega swung his arm outward with his revolver leveled and cocked.
But Jeb was ready for him.
He leapt from the saddle, threw his body into the revolutionary and toppled them both to the ground. De la Vega grunted from the fall, and his gun skittered out of sight. They scuffled like schoolboys in the dirt until, breathing hard, Jeb loomed on his knees over the other man. De la Vega glared up at him, black eyes spitting with hate.
“Give up,” Jeb grated again. “It’s over, y’hear me?”
“You will never stop my revolution, Carson!”
“We’ve got your guns. Your men are being killed by the Army. Give yourself up while you’re still alive, damn it!”
As if he rebelled against every grain of truth in the words, de la Vega roared and bucked, throwing Jeb onto his back. A knife blade flashed in the Mexican’s bloody hand, and Jeb’s fingers locked over de la Vega’s wrist to prevent its descent.
If Jeb’s strength faltered, if his muscles gave way, the knife would plunge into his heart, and the Mexican would win. He would escape, after all. He would find a way to buy more guns and kill more innocents. He would take Nicky, too, all in the name of his revolution.
In the far recesses of his mind, Jeb became aware that the distant gunfire had ended, that horses thundered closer. A single shot rang out. The Mexican jerked, then fell lifeless on top of him.
Ramon de la Vega had finally lost.
Chapter Nineteen
Jeb kicked open the door to Simon’s adobe. The interior was pitch-dark. Cold. Abandoned.
She’d left him.
The knowledge infuriated him, left him hurting with a pain so raw and searing he could barely breathe.
Did she care so little for him she couldn’t wait to get away? That as soon as she got what she wanted—her son and a way home—she took off as soon as his back was turned?
She hadn’t waited.
He never thought it would hurt so much.
“You going to stand in the dark and feel sorry for yourself?” Creed demanded from somewhere behind him. “Or are you going to light a lamp and give me a hand here?”
The words taunted him. Creed was damned perceptive; he would know Elena had left for Texas, would understand why. Would probably even agree with her about it, considering Jeb’s brand of living.
A soldier was leaning on Creed, one arm around his shoulder for support. He’d taken a fall off his horse, and Jeb had a bone or two to set for him. The man had saved his life. It was the least Jeb could do.
He hadn’t even known the soldier had followed him when Jeb took off after de la Vega. But he came galloping through the trees and fired when Jeb needed him the most. The man’s sense of timing had been uncanny.
“Let’s lay him on the bed,” he said.
Jeb took one side, Creed the other, and they helped him hobble cross the dark room. The straw in the mattress crackled, and he leaned back against the pillow with a low moan.
Jeb found a lamp and lit the wick. Seeing de la Vega’s blood on his hands, Jeb washed up and reached for a towel, folded neatly on the table. Next to it stood several bottles of Doc Charlie’s Miraculous Herbal Compound. Thoughts of Elena flooded through him all over again.
She knew he’d need them, if not for himself, then for his men. It moved him that she would even think of it, when she was in such a damned hurry to get out of Mexico.
“She leave you a present?” Creed asked, watching him.
Their skepticism of the medicine back in the woodlands near the Nueces had been mutual. Quackery, he’d thought then. A scam to bilk honest citizens of their money.
Not anymore.
“Stuff’s damn good.” Jeb tossed him a bottle, his glance skimming the man sprawled on the bed. Blood had seeped through the bandage wrapped low around his head, and he held his left arm gingerly against him. His right knee was swollen within the trousers of his Army uniform. “Give him a double dose, will you? He’ll need it when I set that bone.”
“You’re sure?” Creed asked, staring at the label.
“Positive.”
Creed grunted, and he gave the soldier the required amount. Jeb found the wooden kit containing his medical instruments, then sat on the edge of the mattress.
“I’m going to slit your pant leg so I can have a look at that knee, soldier,” he said. The scissors snipped through the fabric, worked their way upward. “We’ll have to convince Kingston to issue you new trousers, won’t we?”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
His scissors stilled. The hair rose on the back of Jeb’s neck.
That voice.
His gaze flew to the man’s face. It’d been six years since Jeb had breathed the same air as his father, but they fell away as if it’d been only yesterday. He bolted off the bed and swung toward Creed.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” he demanded.
“Not at all, compadre.”
“He was under strict orders not to let you know of my presence in the regiment. All the men were,” the General said.
Jeb glared at Creed. His friend would pay dearly for the deception. “Why?”
The General answered before Creed could. “Because I wanted to see you.”
“And you went along with it,” Jeb said, still glaring at Creed.
“He had no cho
ice,” the General said.
“And I saw no harm in it,” added Creed.
Jeb’s nostrils flared. Of anyone, Creed knew best the contempt Jeb had long held for his father. The pain of his betrayal.
“I heard you were leaving the War Department,” the General went on to Jeb’s back. “There was something I needed to discuss with you before you did.”
“I suppose you told him I was heading to California, too,” Jeb accused.
“He has his informants,” Creed said smoothly. “He knows as much about us as we do. I didn’t need to tell him a damn thing.”
Yes, Jeb thought bitterly. Kingston had alluded to as much, back in Laredo. General William Carson was too shrewd to be uninformed about anything—or anyone. Especially his son.
“But I didn’t know about de la Vega taking the baby until Creed sent word from San Antonio the next day,” the General said. “Told me you took off with the mother to get him back.”
“We met at Fort Duncan. Figured you’d need some help,” Creed explained. “After we crossed the Rio Grande, we met Simon. He told us about the guns and led us here.”
Creed had set aside his plans to return to his family for Jeb’s sake. Elena and Nicky’s, too. Some of his irritation faded.
“Now. You going to talk to him directly?” Creed set his hands on hips. “Or are you going to stand there with your back to him and talk through me instead?”
Jeb hated it when Creed was so damned reasonable. And when it came to his father, Jeb never felt reasonable.
He allowed his pride to slip a little and turned. Below the bandage, eyes as dark as his own watched him. The General’s skin was a shade pale from his injuries, his hair grayer at the temples, but his expression was as stern and brooding as ever.
Or was it?
The faint furrow in his brow revealed—Jeb strove to define it—apprehension? Concern? Worry?
Of Jeb’s reaction to seeing him again?
Well, hell. Imagine that. The General was human, after all.
Jeb couldn’t remember him being apprehensive about anything. Ever. The man had always been made of stone, always so sure of himself and the others around him, always right.