by Martha Hix
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PRAISE FOR LONE STAR LOVING
“A RIP-ROARING READ!”—Kathe Robin, Romantic Times
“FANTASTIC!! EQUALLY AS GREAT AS . . . CARESS OF
FIRE.”
—Marty McDermott, Rendezvous
“SEXY AND FUNNY. ANOTHER HOT HIX HIT!”
—Evelyn Rogers, author of DESERT HEAT
PRAISE FOR CARESS OF FIRE
“ALL THE EMOTIONS YOU CAN IMAGINE PLUS A
GOOD DOSE OF EARTHY SEXUALITY MAKE THIS
SPECTACULAR READING.”
—Rendezvous
“MARTHA HIX ALWAYS SHOWS HER TALENT FOR
WRITING WESTERNS, AND CARESS OF FIRE IS NO
EXCEPTION. I LOOK FORWARD TO THE REST OF
THE MCLOUGHLIN CLAN SERIES.”
—Inside Romance
HIS WICKED, WICKED WAYS
“Will you have your wicked way with me?” murmured Rafe. “Right here, right now . . . in my bed.”
She laughed at his cockiness. Many names described this rugged man before her, few of them beautiful. Liar, lover, betrayer. Matador, revolutionist. Murderer. She ought to run screaming. Ought to.
It might be crazy and foolish, but Margaret wanted her wicked way with him, wanted it with every fiber of her being. Just don’t trust him. Don’t trust anything he says or does.
He took Margaret’s hand, leading her to the massive bed. Bringing her hands behind his waist, his lips to her brow, he let his warm breath caress her skin as he asked, “Will a simple siesta be enough for you?”
She shivered, enthralled. Bending back from the waist, she watched his reaction as she replied, “Rest is my last desire. You are my first.”
THE FIERY PASSION, EARTHY SENSUALITY,
AND THRILLING ADVENTURES OF
THE MCLOUGHLIN CLAN
CAN BE FOUND IN THESE OTHER MARTHA
HIX TITLES,
PUBLISHED BY ZEBRA BOOKS:
Now Available:
BOOK I, CARESS OF FIRE
by Martha Hix
Lisette Keller was determined to leave Texas and pursue her dream of opening a milliner shop in Chicago—but first she had to find a way to get there! If she could persuade handsome rancher Gil McLoughlin to hire her as a cook on his cattle drive to Abilene, she’d be well on her way. To Gil, a cattle drive was no place for any woman! But the headstrong rancher was soon not only agreeing to take her on as cook, but also vowing to take her in his powerful embrace. The long hard Chisholm Trail lay ahead, with many a starry night beneath the Texas sky, and Gil meant to savor Lisette’s sensuous beauty and velvety kisses . . . all the way to Kansas!
BOOK II, LONE STAR LOVING
by Martha Hix
Charity McLoughlin had gotten herself into another mess. Her wealthy family had disowned her, her purse was empty—and worst of all, she’d been tricked into smuggling Texas silver into Mexico. Now the law was after her. She wasn’t sure whether being abducted by a ruggedly handsome stranger who called himself Hawk meant her fortunes were looking up or down. The one thing she didn’t doubt was the fiery attraction she felt for this hard-muscled man. Perhaps she wouldn’t try to get away just yet. Instead, maybe for just one night, she would surrender to the raging desires that his slightest touch stirred in her . . .
MARTHA HIX
WILD SIERRA ROGUE
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR LONE STAR LOVING
Title Page
Dedication
Part One - . . . The Journey
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Part 2 - Eden Roc
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Copyright Page
For Roy’s girls . . .
Tina, Jackie, Stacy, Tiffany
and—ohmagosh!—our very own triplets
Part One
. . . The Journey
They followed in the footsteps
of those
before them—
Columbus . . . De Léon . . . Quixote
One
San Antonio, Texas
October 1897
in the calm of afternoon.
Hell waited to pop. Somehow he knew it waited. While he bathed to get ready for the big blond stuff of his insatiable lusts, Rafael Delgado tried to shake the portentous unease settling heavier than his noon meal. Once before he’d had this feeling. When fate had turned on him. When the black of night and his own crimes had broken his spirit. When he’d quit being the Magnificent Eagle of Mexico.
You’re nothing. Except for your appeal to women, you’ve lost it all. And now—something bad is going to happen.
Ridiculous.
Rafe snickered at foreboding, stepped from the copper tub, and rubbed a towel along his hard hairy thighs. “You gobbled down too much chicken-fried steak,” he assured himself, “that’s all.”
He had no worries, if he kept the past buried. Burying old miseries had become a skill carefully honed, such as when he’d wielded a muleta in the bullring, in his younger days. Or as he now saw to the breeding of fatlings for those arenas of Mexico. Or as he caressed womanly curves.
The thought of such curves urged him into taking one more glance at his bedroom. Perfect. A lair. The bed fit for royalty, made with new satin sheets and scattered with petals from some of the last roses of the year. All it lacked? The delectable and delicious Mrs. Boyd.
Rafe favored females tall and fair. Looking up to women like Dolores Boyd did something good to him. One lucky hombre described Rafe, so why count fortune’s teeth? “Hurry, beautiful Dolores. This is for you.” He patted the front of his britches, wrestled with buttoning them, and sang. “Tonight, tonight, tonight. Your eyes of blue, your hair of gold, your ruby lips . . . I will behold.” Gazing from left to right and back again into the mirror hanging above his bureau, he combed his short-cropped hair away from his temples. “Yum, Do-lores. I will be true—”
Suddenly, the comb dropped. He scowled at his image, aggrieved and heartsick. Now he knew. Omen, thy name was reality. A gray hair poked through the raven-black ones.
“Look at you. Scarred and gray. Old. You’re losing it, hombre.” He plucked the offender from his scalp. “Ouch!”
Rubbing his head, he cursed any and everything that popped to mind. The strangest thought surfaced. He had a mental image of a McLoughlin triplet. Dark hair, blue eyes, and lips like cherry wine . . .
Damn. Just what he needed. A reminder of yet another failure.
Determined to get a grip, he sucked in his stomach and tucked in his butt, before he took a side view. You
still have what it takes to please the ladies.
No bull’s horn, in Rafe’s glory days, had ever gouged his flesh. His muscles remained superbly toned and distinct in relief, despite thirty-nine years of abuse. Darkened by outdoor work, along with a trickle of the stock of Moctezuma, his face wasn’t a source of shame, even though the sun had begun to plough lines from the corners of his eyes. And, of course, a jagged scar cut into the right side of his mouth. Yet many a lover had enjoyed running her fingertip along this flaw. For such a lovely, he must tend his grooming, must make himself worthy.
The mirror reflected a woman entering the bedroom. He winked rakishly and blew a kiss to his cook, while he selected the pomade jar from amid the chaos of his toiletries.
“A visitor waits outside,” Ida Frances Jones announced.
“She’s early. See her in.” Rafe glazed the left side of his head. “Is the champagne chilled?”
Rafe, not getting a reply, set the brilliantine on the bureau and wheeled around. Drying her hands with a dishtowel, the stout and motherly Ida Frances met his quizzing stare with flattened lips. Obviously the visitor wasn’t the most recent apple of Rafe’s eye.
He groaned.
“She told Ida Frances she’s in a hurry for you,” the cook said in third-person delivery. Solemn as the father of Mexican independence, the sainted Hidalgo, she steepled her fingertips beneath her chin. “Poor dear, so many ladies require so much of you.”
True. Rumors ran rife hereabouts: he could serve many mistresses in a night’s stand. Perhaps so. But with a few exceptions, he was a one-woman man—one woman at a time. For a week or two, sometimes a month. While he hated disappointing as much as one of his lady friends, Dolores took precedence. Hence, he queried with hesitation, “Which one is she?”
“A new one. Someone named McLoughlin sent her. Ida Frances believes she said Gil McLoughlin.”
Rafe scowled again. Now he knew why he’d had a hunch of trouble. Neither fried meat nor a gray hair had been the cause. Trouble bore a Scottish surname. “Get rid of her!”
Simultaneous to his exclamation, two pointed ears and a tiny head popped from the nest of Rafe’s house slipper. A pair of black eyes much too big for her face rounded at her master’s shout; the small canine body, fawn in color, began to shake. One ear flopped inward. Frita yipped.
All the doting and adoring master, Rafe rushed over to scoop the elderly Frita into his palm. Her upper lip folding back in what he took for a smile, the Chihuahua dog sighed and leaned in to his fingers.
Idly noting that Ida Frances hadn’t moved, Rafe cooed, “Forgive me, little confection, for disturbing your siesta. Ah, yes, kiss Papá. There’s a good Frita. There’s a good girl. Yes, my sugar. So forgiving of a mean old Papá. So pretty. So sweet.” Such bad breath.
She raked the pad of his thumb with her tiny tongue. While he stroked her chest—he enjoyed stroking all sorts of female chests—she gazed up, worshipful.
“Papá’s baby. Brought all the way from our home in Mexico, from Santa Alicia.” Despite having earned a king’s ransom for his prowess in the arena, Rafe and his pet left with the clothes on his back, the collar on her neck, and barely enough gold to secure title to this ranch.
“You should get yourself a wife and a houseful of babies. You would make a good father.” To make him sound as sterling as Ida Frances found him, she added, “And husband.”
He tucked the now placated Frita back in his shoe. “Ah, my darling cook, my devoted friend, I thank you. But a family would be cheated, having me at its head.”
In a dozen ways he would cheat a wife, were he to take one. He wasn’t the Anglo ideal of ice-cream socials and quiet evenings by the hearth, nor did he measure up to any respectable Hispanic standards. He wasn’t sure what he was anymore.
Once, crowds parted when El Aguila Magnífico—the Magnificent Eagle, the greatest matador in the western hemisphere—strode among them. Once, respect came from his skill with the muleta and from his family name. Once, he’d been feared and revered for predatory deeds against that name. Once was nevermore. It had been eight long, trying years, since fate exiled him from the sweet bosom of his mother country.
Near the start of those years, Rafe had thought he’d found peace in the Lone Star State, yet betrayal —Forget it! Rafe asked, “Did she say what she wants? In particular.”
“She, uh, didn’t get specific.” Ida Frances cleared her throat. “Oh, I forgot. She’s daughter to Gil McLoughlin.”
“Olga?” Time tripped. Disoriented, Rafe blurted, “Charity?”
Immediately, he knew without confirmation that these were wrong guesses. He slapped his hand on his chest, feigning an attack of ill health not too far from the truth, given that the last of the McLoughlin triplets —despite her resemblance to her exquisite sisters—was enough to turn even an iron stomach.
He said, “Don’t tell me it’s Margaret —La Bruja.”
A question formed in the cook’s broad face, asking why he referred to the broom, which meant the witch in Spanish. Ida Frances asked, “This fits her?”
“Right.” His lip curled. “She’s living proof beauty can be but skin deep.”
“Beauty?” Ida Frances sounded baffled.
“Yes, she has the requisites. But I’ve always thought she’s in dire need of a good—” He cleared his throat. “To my way of thinking, Margaret McLoughlin starches her drawers.”
He reached for a flagon of men’s cologne, then splashed a goodly portion on his cheeks and armpits. His hand froze. Was he primping for La Bruja? Quickly, he replaced the stopper.
Frita crawled out of his shoe, shook herself, then, tail drooping, toddled on rickety legs through the miniature trapdoor leading to the patio. A nature call, Rafe suspected as his cook asked, “Why does the lady’s name sound familiar?”
“You’ve probably read about the McLoughlins in the Express or the Light. The broom’s father is Secretary of State under McKinley” Rafe took a fresh shirt from a drawer and twisted the subject. “Have you heard of the Four Aces Ranch in Fredericksburg?”
“Ah, the Four Aces and McLoughlin. Now your cook makes a connection. The McLoughlins own it.”
“Yes. But they live in Washington and Havana and Madrid. Or wherever else whim carries them.”
“You know the family well?” he heard.
He shrugged into the shirt and buttoned it over the golden crucifix nestled on the dense mat of his chest. “You might say I know more than I want to.”
“Tell Ida Frances more. Don’t leave her guessing. You know she can’t stand riddles.”
Rafe strode to the bed, collecting his guitar from its corner perch as he went, and settled onto the coverlet to strum a few chords of “España Cañi” before leaving his explanations at a bare minimum. “In ’89 the triplet Charity was charged with smuggling Texas silver into Mexico. I saved her good name. But she repaid me by telling Margaret about my ‘misdeeds.’ ”
In turn the witch filled the most demure of the triplets with tales of his carnal excesses—all true, why try to deny? Actually, his debauchery roused the prudish Olga’s interest, he recalled with a bittersweet smile converting to a scowl. Years had past since he’d thought of the Spanish countess of American descent. And that was just as well.
The cook bent a curious eye. “Ida Frances’s worked for you since 1895, but she doesn’t remember a mention of La Bruja.”
“I haven’t seen her in four or five years.”
Regardless, some word had reached him. Talk of a lengthy stay in an obscure place. Such gossip usually led to rumors of a bastard birth, but Margaret McLoughlin, given her disposition, would turn off even the most desperate of hombres. She had to be a virgin.
“I know the McLoughlins from the Scotsman to his Hessian wife Lisette, and on to the oldest living McLoughlin, Maisie,” Rafe said, getting back to his explanations. “It goes without saying I know the three daughters.” Especially the Countess of Granada. “Have you read about the Wild Hawks of the West
show? The triplet Charity stars in it.”
“But what about the one you call Broom?”
He recalled what he knew and what he’d learned secondhand. “She’s spoiled, useless as a house cat. When she should have learned flower arranging and the proper way to treat an hombre, she had her nose stuck in tomes.” He paused, then embellished, “No doubt she studied witchery and spell-casting.”
“I suppose a young lady from such an illustrious family can do as she pleases.” The cook brushed a crumb from her apron. “Ida Frances never guessed you were close to such a family.”
“I’m not. I’ve never dined at their table, nor called on the household, nor shared a cigar with the patriarch.” He’d never even met the only son, Angus. “They have no use for this lowly Mexican bull breeder,” Rafe said bitterly, stiffly. “Except for dirty work.”
Loyal to the top of her braids, Ida Frances got one of those mama-cat looks protective women were so good at. “You are a fine and splendid man. The most exalted matador in all the world. No one should treat you with disrespect.”
Rafe laughed. “It’s been almost a decade since anyone tossed a rose into the ring for me.”
“Ida Frances will send the visitor away.”
“Wait. Don’t ask me why—I don’t know!—but I’ll see her.” Rafe rubbed his scarred mouth and glanced at the closed shutters leading to the patio. “Show her out there.”
Aiming to get Margaret McLoughlin’s goat, he would keep her waiting. He shucked his shirt, relaxed in the bed where he’d entertain Dolores, and set his fingers to “España Cañi” again.
Music, faint yet hauntingly moving, drifted from Rafael Delgado’s residence of whitewashed adobe and red-tile roof.
Aggravated at everything and especially at the situation which jerked her from the brownstone in Manhattan she called home, Margaret McLoughlin followed the Eagle’s fusby servant woman around the dwelling’s perimeter. The strains of guitar grew louder as they approached the rear.