Wild Sierra Rogue

by Martha Hix

  In his prime, handsome, mustachioed—and having been forced into celibacy for the past four months—he reached for the beloved American female who slept on the next pillow, her flannel nightgown buttoned to her chin. “Wake up, my darling,” he murmured timidly, fearing rejection. Only with her was he timorous. “Will you permit me to touch you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Sick.” Following a practiced path, she jumped out of bed and dashed for the slop jar that waited nearby, emptying her stomach, but not before tying a dressing gown around her growing middle. Ever modest, even after twelve years of marriage, she didn’t allow her husband to glimpse anything that might be construed as nude or nearly so. But he was accustomed to her delicate sensibilities.

  He said, “The babe . . . I’m sorry my son makes you sick.”

  Her fingers gathering a wad of nightgown beneath her throat, she leveled her eyes straight at him. “Are you staring at me?” She blushed. “If you are, please don’t. You know it makes me uncomfortable.”

  “No, I’m not staring at you,” he lied, taking his fill of sable-dark hair and an oval face more exquisite than any work of art displayed in the Prado Museum of Madrid.

  He looked at the small mound of her stomach, knowing she hated the idea of bearing another child, almost as much as she disliked being touched by his gaze. Or his hands. But he loved her, which was almost enough to make a fulfilling marriage. He felt certain that once the new babe came, she’d forget the last one.

  And he worried. Did she know the truth about that infant?

  Surely not.

  And he had more crucial concerns. They were waylaid here in the wilds of Mexico. Getting out wouldn’t be easy. In the interim, he had agents to supervise. “We should have stayed in Mexico City, where you were properly attended by physicians.”

  But no. She had insisted on visiting her mother. He had, as usual, humored her, because he had much, much to make up for. If she knew the extent of his corruption, he would lose her, and the mere concept racked him with shivers. “My dearest wife, we should leave—”

  Olga’s shaking hand brushed dark, dark hair away from her temple, before groping for the thick spectacles that no longer helped her eyesight. “Please leave me be, Leonardo. Be assured I don’t wish to hurt your feelings. But I just want to be alone.”

  “Is it too much for a husband to ask the comfort of his wife’s arms?”

  She turned away. “Must you be indelicate?”

  His patience snapped. The Spanish nobleman, cousin to kings, threw the covers aside and jerked on his unmentionables. Always, he’d done all the trying in their marriage. She’d never been able to return his love, nor would she verily try to fake the tiniest shred of affection. She ought to try harder. After all, hadn’t he taken her back after her perfidia in Texas?

  You think me a tonto—a fool as blind as you! Not for a moment had he believed her story of rape, and still didn’t, even after all these years. It would serve his countess right if he accepted the Swedish massaging woman’s invitations. Or perhaps he should visit the whorehouse in the village of Areponapuchi.

  But what would that prove?

  Except for one cardinal sin committed upon his wife’s first child—for which he would regret for an eternity—Leonardo de Hapsburg y Borbón, Count of Granada, deserved better than what he was getting.

  “Back to bed, Olga,” he ordered, engaging a new tactic. “¡Andele!”

  “It’s time to get dressed. I feel it in the warmth in the air, and—”

  “Back to bed.” He advanced on his cowering wife.

  Tapping her toe impatiently, Margaret stood beside the buckboard while the wagoner loaded her baggage for the quick trip between El Paso and its sister city of Juarez. Tex walked toward her; he was alone, the majority of the train passengers having departed the platform several minutes ago.

  Where was Rafe?

  Did he procrastinate as punishment for their tiff over money? Surely not. Rafe didn’t know the word punctual, much less ascribe to the principle, that was all. An inner voice asked, “So you’re now the authority on Rafael Delgado?”

  She wasn’t. And she didn’t know what to make of him, indeed, but she was becoming more and more certain that Olga had lied.

  At that moment Margaret saw him. His Stetson sat at a rakish angle; his wide shoulders accentuated the narrowness of hips supporting a gun belt. The power of his thighs outlined by the jaunty yet infinitely controlled lift to his step, he headed in her direction. She started toward him, meaning to impart a piece of her mind about his tarrying. But he stopped short. He took a backward step.

  Something’s wrong.

  Margaret followed his line of sight, glancing to the right and seeing a cluster of men. Three of them circled a nattily dressed gentleman emitting the aura of money and lots of it. As for his companions, well, except for the de-rigueur-for-Texas holsters buckled at their ready, they didn’t look menacing; and they seemed to be chatting amiably in Spanish, so why was Rafe continuing to move to the rear?

  Feinting to the left, he ducked between two railroad cars, disappearing from sight. Where the heck was he going? Surely he wasn’t—He wouldn’t—Why, that rascal.

  He was ditching her!

  She turned to Tex, who yammered with the driver. “Take charge of my steamers,” she ordered, and plucked a derringer from the reticule that she tossed into the buckboard. “Get them to the station in Juarez. I’ll meet you there.”

  “But, Maggie—”

  “Don’t argue, Angus Jones McLoughlin.” Pistol in her right hand, she waved it. “Get gone to Juarez, and now!”

  She picked up her skirts, damning the bulk of them, and ran after the artful dodger The quartet of men moved in her direction, the gentleman asking if he could offer assistance, but she’d have none of that. This was between her and Rafe.

  As if he were within hearing, she muttered, “Who do you think you are? You didn’t win the argument. And I won’t have you cheating.”

  She’d show him that he couldn’t dash off, McLoughlin money in his bank account, and not pay the price. Up ahead she saw him crossing another set of tracks, heading south, for the river, it appeared. Slowing her pace, she aimed and fired. Naturally, he was out of range. And he didn’t look back. He kept running.

  So did she.

  And she was surprised she could run this fast—she couldn’t recall the last time she’d had the strength to run. Envisioning McLoughlin money collecting interest in his bank account had a powerfully stimulating effect, she decided. Self-congratulations vanished quickly, when her legs began to wobble and her chest to clamp. Trying to suck air in, she slowed but didn’t stop.

  Rafe descended an incline, kicking up dust as he went.

  She gathered puny strength. “Stop!” she shouted from the hilltop and pointed the derringer. Less than a stone’s throw separated them. “Stop, or I’ll shoot again.”

  He stopped, turned. Even though she felt faint, she could see him shaking his head in disbelief. Whether it was from getting caught—or from the ridiculous picture she must have made, her traveling suit in disarray and her hair falling into her eyes—or from any idiot knowing she couldn’t fire this derringer again without reloading, she had no idea.

  “Madre de Dios, am I glad it’s you.” Arms going akimbo, he called, “Come on down here. And hurry.”

  “Rogue! You’d deceive me, would act as if I’ve shown up merely for teas and crumpets.” It was time to show him the person now in charge. In his language, el jefe. “You get back up here, Rafe Delgado.” Doggone it, could he hear her squeaking voice? “Right this instant.”

  “Can’t. Gotta run.” He jerked his head in the train’s direction, frantically motioning her downward. “They’re after me. And it didn’t help, your calling attention with gunfire. Let’s go, cariño. Now.”

  Well, what could she do but obey? Already he was on the run again. She followed, needing to clutch her aching side, but unable to, else she would be forced to stop.
He ground to a halt behind a dilapidated shack, scattering a couple of nested Rhode Island Red hens. When she faced Rafe, Margaret lifted her gun arm. Maybe he won’t notice it’s a single-shot weapon.

  “Dios, put that damned useless thing away. You and pointed objects. I swear I’m going to break you of pointing them at me, I swear I will.”

  “You dare to speak of my habits, when you have just tried to run out on your duties?” Don’t faint. Whatever you do, don’t faint. She leaned against the shack’s wall, thankful for its support. She jabbed the barrel flat to his washboard-hard belly.

  His click of tongue and sigh of exasperation accompanied a grin laden with sensuality, all of which took away the anxious look in his shadowed, bruised face. “If that derringer were loaded, bruja, you could do my women a great disservice, should your forefinger get a little itchy.”

  Concern jumping into his gaze, he asked, “You’re pale. Are you all right?”

  As she nodded a reply, Rafe took the derringer from her clammy grip, stuffed it behind his gun belt. “Margarita, you’re wrong about me. I wasn’t running out on you. Did you see those men up there? The one in charge is my Uncle Arturo. He means to have me shot. I won’t be a sitting duck for bullets.”

  Shot? Bullets? The respectable Arturo Delgado would fall to such violence against a relative? All this seemed to be coming at her in ebbs and surges of clarity, as if she were in some supernatural warp of movement. With her head pounding, her stomach roiling, and with her lungs gone immobile, she couldn’t think straight. “You . . . you’d b-better explain.”

  “Later.” Rafe grabbed her arm. “Right now, we’ve got to get away from here.”

  Unable to show the bossiness that had propelled her to him, she coughed. Deeply. “Where—we—g-going?”

  “Mexico, of course.” Rafe stopped dragging her along. “What’s the matter with you? I thought so. You are sick. Aw, hell. Aw, chinga!”

  He caught her as she fell unconscious.

  It was probably no more than a quarter hour before Margaret came to, and when she did, she was resting on a patch of bald earth under the shade of a weathered shed, her head in Rafe’s lap. A ripe odor assailed her; it wasn’t Rafe. She heard the rush of water from the river that served as a dividing point between two nations. “Which side are we on?”

  “The Mexican.”

  “How did we get here?” she asked weakly, and noticed that the bottoms of his britches’ legs were damp.

  “I carried you. And, gringa, you are heavier than you look,” he added with a tease in his tone. He brushed a wayward hair from her temple and held a tin cup—where the devil had he found a cup of potable water?—to her lips. As she downed the refreshing drink, he inquired, “Feeling better?” At her confirmation, he brushed a leaf from her cheek. “You scared the hell out of me. Why didn’t you tell me you’re sick?”

  “I’m not!”

  Cantankerous about her health, she jerked her head from its cozy cradle and dusted her sleeves as, a tad recovered, she sat up. It was then that she got her first good look at the land of the Eagle and Serpent. “Good God.”

  Mexico was no garden of temporal delights.

  First of all, the shed turned out to be an outhouse. The sun-baked dirt surrounding it was littered with garbage, a horribly thin mongrel competing with a couple of equally thin hens for the scraps. Two buzzards lurked in a sick excuse for a mesquite tree. And from next to the skeleton of an old donkey cart, a trio of curious, grimy Indian tykes—the boy picking his nose—watched Rafe and Margaret.

  Her heart went out to the children. “You’d think their mother would at least keep them clean. Poor little things.”

  “They look healthy enough,” Rafe said, affront in his tone as well as in his face.

  Margaret started to take another sip from the cup. “Heavenly days, where did you get this?” And who guaranteed it was potable? Revolted, Margaret whispered, “Whatever got into my mother that she would love this wretched country?”

  “For a learned woman you can sure say some stupid things. Surely you don’t imagine Eden Roc as anything like a peasant’s meager abode.”

  “Cleanliness is a cheap commodity.” Margaret, who had designed an elaborate water works at the Four Aces Ranch, envisioned several improvements that could be made right here. “I’ve heard—and now I’ve seen!—your country lacks even the basics of sanitation.”

  Rafe dusted the brim of his Stetson. “Wretched it may be, but it’s got lovely parts, just like any other place. Likewise, poverty isn’t confined to Mexico. It’s all over the United States, too. The McLoughlins just haven’t seen it.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were so touchy. Believe me, I meant no personal insult.”

  “ ‘Sorry’ has surely worked its way into your vocabulary.”

  “Don’t get testy.” She got to her feet, and sympathies limited to the urchins, she waved at them, then ordered Rafe, “We’ve got to find my brother. Let’s go.”

  The sun warmed her head and shoulders as she marched down a path leading to a dirt road; she didn’t feel too wonderful, but another fainting spell wasn’t imminent. Before long, the driver of a hay wagon offered a ride downtown, which she accepted; Rafe caught up with her. He helped her aboard, then hopped up himself. They bounced along for a mile or so with no conversation between them. Rafe rested a wrist on his bent knees, stuck a piece of hay between his teeth. As if overwarm, he rolled up one shirt sleeve, then another. Margaret couldn’t help but notice the sheer masculinity of his arms and hands. Over and above the coarse black hairs and the network of raised veins, they showed strength as well as calluses.

  She started to comment on those calluses, to mention that he must have taken a large part of the workaday responsibility on his ranch, but he spoke from profile. “Margarita, ever since you showed up at my vacáda, I’ve been wondering about your health. You’re just not as . . . robust as you used to be. What happened, querida? What is wrong with you?”

  “What about your uncle? I wish you’d tell me why he wants you shot. I think you owe me, as your employer, an explanation.”

  “I asked first. What’s wrong with you?”

  She took a quick glance at Rafe. The bruise on his jaw had turned black. One thumb hooked behind his gun belt, he had a worried look to him. When he repeated his question, she said, “You ran my legs off, that’s what is the matter. Ladies do not exert themselves—it’s bad form.”

  “No, Margarita. There’s something more here. So stop being defensive and tell me.” He bent his index finger and nudged her gaze to his. Understanding and compassion softened the silver irises of his eyes, along with the aristocratic planes of his face. “Margarita,” he said in little more than a whisper, “I used to have a sister. Like you, María Carmen wasn’t strong.”

  “What do you mean, used to have? Is she dead?”

  His nod was subtle as he crossed himself.

  “I . . . I’m sorry, Rafe. Sincerely I am.” Twice she patted his knee in a gesture of commiseration. “I lost a brother, but we were small children at the time, so I can’t promise I know what you’re going through, but . . .” A panicked feeling set in, as she tried to imagine what it would be like to lose her sisters or Tex. “It must have been awful for you.”

  Not even for brotherly grief would Rafe be put off his interrogation; he took her hand and forced her to face him. “You’re consumptive, aren’t you?”

  “I am not! Never. No. Not me.” The sky fell. The earth imploded. Margaret fought hard to escape the truth that was herself. “I’m never sick.”

  Shying from his scrutiny, hating that he could see through her, she squeezed her eyes closed and let her chin fall to her wizened chest. It had been a long, long time since her last night sweat and bloody cough. A whole year had passed since she was released from the sanatorium. A whole year. And yet . . .

  “Lord, help me, you were right, Rafe.”

  Despising her cadaverous body, yet not totally ungrateful tha
t it hadn’t completely quit on her, she buried her face in her bony hands and gave way to self-pity. Sometimes, like now, she found herself plain scared. Would she have the strength to meet the challenges of her goals and ambitions?

  “We’d better find a doctor,” Rafe said.

  “No, no. The doctors swear I’m over it.” She surrendered to self-pity and the shame of her illness. “But it’s still obvious. I’ll never be myself again. Oh, God.”

  “Enough of that talk. We’re headed for a fountain of miracles, remember?”

  “If only I had my mother’s faith in the place . . .”

  “Put your faith in it. You’re going to be fine. Fine.” He rubbed her temple with the pads of two fingers, brushing his thumb on her forehead. His touch felt as gentle as a mother with her newborn. “Margarita, querida, don’t be ashamed of being sick.”

  “What do you know, Rafael Delgado? You haven’t had people run from you, lest they breathe your contaminated air. Me and my kind, we are virtual lepers.”

  He chuckled, winked. “Well, sweet of my heart, I’ve had some experience along those lines. You McLoughlins haven’t been much on my breathing your rarified air.”

  Heartened that he hadn’t shown pity—surprised he was so wrong about her family—she gaped at Rafael Delgado. Who was this dark, tender man? For years she’d been certain of his ignoble ways and lack of sensitivity, or at least she would have sworn so. Could it be she’d spent years suffering under misconceptions?

  Not quite ready to believe she’d been so very, very wrong, she confined her comments to absolutes. “Don’t want you to breathe their air? Wherever did you get such a ridiculous idea? Every time I see Charity, she goes on and on about you—as if you were the greatest man in the world, besides her husband and our papa, that is.”

  “I am the greatest man in the world. At least at rescuing McLoughlin women.”

  Margaret rolled her eyes. “My parents think you hung the moon. My great-grandmother—do you remember Maisie McLoughlin? She thinks you’re, well, she thinks highly of you.”