Shameless

by Rosanne Bittner

  “She’s a thief and a prisoner, and I have my orders to get her back to Texas soon. I’m not much concerned about her condition, Sheriff. She certainly isn’t going to die. She’ll be uncomfortable for a while, but I’ve seen her, and I say she’s well enough to travel.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I reckon she is. I just protect them and do my duty while they’re in my jail. Once I turn her over to you, it isn’t really my concern.” He walked over and handed out the keys again. “You got a horse for her to ride?”

  “I do. I think maybe because of the trouble around here, I should draw as little attention as possible when I take her out of here. Do me a favor and take the two horses tied out front around to the back of the building. I’ll stick to the alleys until we’re out of town.”

  “Whatever you say. The woman’s things are in her cell. Did you tell her earlier when to be ready?”

  “I did. I’ll go and get her.” Clay took a pair of handcuffs from his belt and headed up the stairs. When he approached Nina, he could see she had managed to brush her hair and pull on her boots. Everything seemed to be packed. She watched him anxiously as he unlocked the cell door.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “You look paler, Clay. And you are perspiring.”

  He smiled thinly. “I’ll be all right. But Stan Creighton won’t be walking or talking for the next few days.”

  Her heart swelled with love and pride. “How did you do it?”

  “No time now for talk. Let’s get out of here. I’m afraid I’ll have to put some handcuffs on you for now to make this look genuine.”

  She held out her wrists obediently. “I am sorry…for the way I look,” she told him. “They did not let me bathe…and I know my face is swollen.”

  Clay snapped on the cuffs. “Do you think any of that matters to me? Right now you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on.” He remembered the night he had cuffed her ankles, remembered how slender they were, remembered the sweet, delicious kiss and the fullness of her firm breast in his hand.

  A little wave of apprehension moved through Nina. After the suffering she had endured at the hands of Stan Creighton stirring up ugly memories, she could not help these little waves of fear. She remembered the kiss also, remembered the feel of Clay Youngblood’s big hand on her breast. He was a man, too, wanted the same things from a woman as any other man.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” he said quietly, catching her wary gaze. He checked the handcuffs to be sure they weren’t so tight that they hurt her, then squeezed her hands and leaned down to kiss her cheek lightly. “I’ll never hurt you, Nina.” He moved past her to pick up her things, and the wave of fear left her.

  “You will…have to hold my arm,” she told him as they headed for the stairs. “I am not sure I can do this by myself. I am very dizzy.”

  Clay reached down and grasped her arm as she went down ahead of him because of the narrow stairway. Nina breathed deeply of the still-warm but much fresher air below. To her it was the sweetest air she had ever breathed.

  “You mind your business now, Miss Juarez,” the sheriff told her as they walked into his office. “I expect the lieutenant here has told you what’s happening.”

  Nina managed a sneer, turning to glare at Clay. “He has told me.” She looked back at the sheriff. “So, you turn me over to the filthy gringo soldiers! They will have less mercy even than your stinking gringo judge!” Her pain and weakness made it difficult to be as firm as she would have liked, but the sheriff seemed impressed. The man looked at Clay.

  “I warned you. She’s a spitfire. You watch yourself, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ll do that. Did you take the horses around back like I asked?” The sheriff nodded, and Clay gave Nina a shove. “Let’s go.” They headed out a back door and into the alley behind the jail. “We’re going to try to get out of this town without drawing too much attention,” he told her loudly enough for the sheriff to hear. “You have a way of stirring things up, and I don’t care to have half the people here wanting my blood. You yell out to anyone and you’ll be hurting more than you already are, Miss Juarez. Now mount up.”

  Nina reached for her saddle horn and grimaced with pain as she managed to mount her beloved horse. Clay mounted his own steed and picked up the reins to Nina’s horse. He nodded to the sheriff and rode off, heading through back alleys to the outskirts of town, then riding out at a hard gallop.

  Nina grimaced with pain at the hard ride, but it was worth the pain to be free. Free! She was riding her black gelding again, out in the sunshine, riding away from Stan Creighton and her lonely, hot cell, riding to freedom, home to Mexico! Best of all, her handsome gringo soldier had come for her. Surely he truly did love her. Her joy far outweighed her pain. Again, Clay Youngblood had come into her life, this time perhaps to stay. Again, he had given her new hope, another chance at life, this time a life they hopefully would share together.

  Stan Creighton lay groaning from the injuries inflicted on him by the soldier whose name he did not know. A doctor worked frantically to stop the bleeding from Stan’s nose and mouth and to determine just how to set his badly broken jaw and cheekbones. Sheriff Sinclair watched with a frown. “Who the hell did this to you, Stan?”

  “He won’t be answering that question for a long time,” the doctor answered for him. “I’m going to have to wire his jaw shut. He’ll be eating nothing but liquids for a while, I’m afraid. Maybe he can write down on a piece of paper who did it.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Stan can’t read or write.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to wait a couple of weeks or longer then for an answer.”

  Stan let out a moan, unable to make his mouth work at all. Even if it could work, he had already decided he would obey what the nameless soldier had warned him to do. He would tell the authorities he never saw his attacker. A man who could do this was a man to be feared and obeyed.

  “In two weeks the man could be a good five hundred miles from here, if he has a good horse,” the sheriff grumbled. “This sure has been a strange day. First that soldier comes with orders to take Nina Juarez to Texas, and now this.”

  Stan looked at the man. Soldier? He realized it must be the same man who had beaten him. What the hell was the connection between the soldier and Nina? And why did the man care that Nina had been attacked? He couldn’t even speak to ask the soldier’s name. Pain tore through him again when the doctor fumbled at his jawbone to try to lock it in place. He thought for a moment he could have saved himself all of this if he had kept his hands off of that little Mexican bitch. If the soldier had taken her away, good riddance!

  The doctor fidgeted some more with his jaw, then a blessed unconsciousness engulfed him again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Let’s get these off of you.” Clay had dismounted and walked back to Nina’s horse, taking a key from his pants pocket to unlock the handcuffs. “I’m sorry I had to put them on at all.”

  “It is all right,” Nina answered quietly.

  “No it isn’t.” He quickly removed the cuffs, gently rubbing her wrists for a moment. “It must be difficult for you in your condition to have to ride so hard.”

  “It is worth it to get away from there.”

  Clay looked up at her, realizing the lonely terror she must have suffered. He reached up and took hold of her waist. “Get down and rest for a minute.”

  Nina obeyed, swinging her leg over her saddle and relishing the strength in his hands and arms as he lowered her, their eyes never parting. Before her feet touched the ground she moved her arms around his neck, and he gladly embraced her.

  “It’s over now, Nina. I’m taking you away from all of it, and I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again.” He felt her shiver, felt a wetness on his neck.

  “You could not…help what happened,” she told him in halting words. “I am the only one responsible. It is I who felt guilty…thinking how you suffered. If I had not been with them, you might never hav
e come looking for me and been shot.”

  He kissed her hair. “There’s nothing that can be done about any of it now. It’s over, and we’re both safe.”

  Nina looked up at him as he set her on her feet. She felt like a small child in his arms. So many emotions swam in her mind and heart: desire and fear, an ache to be a woman, but a dread of ugly memories. “When I saw you again, I knew for certain that I loved you,” she told him. “Once, if anyone had said I would fall in love with a gringo, I would have said they were crazy.” She put her hands to his chest. “I do not want you to go away from me again. I do not want to lose you again.”

  The words were like music to Clay’s ears. He put a big hand to the side of her face, pushing back some of her thick, lustrous hair, enjoying the feel of it in his hand. He leaned down, kissing her lightly, reminding himself he must be very careful with her. Even before being attacked by the deputy she had been so fragile, her memories so ugly. He pulled her close again, and she rested her head against his chest.

  “I’m never letting you out of my sight,” he told her. “And beginning right now, Nina, you are going to learn there is a gentle, patient side to a man. I don’t ever want you to look at me with fear in your eyes. I love you, and I want you to be my wife as soon as we get to Mexico.”

  She stiffened slightly, leaning back to look at him. “Your wife! You wish to marry me? Already you have decided this?”

  He grinned. “You’re a strong, determined woman, Nina, and you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I know that underneath all that cockiness lies a woman of gentleness, a woman who would love her man to the death. I intend to be that man.” He ran a finger over her lips, and deep inside something pulsed through her, a delightful desire she had never before experienced.

  Nina swallowed, lowering her eyes. What was it about those blue eyes of his that seemed to hypnotize her? Oh, yes, she loved him! She breathed in his masculine scent, wanting to remember always how he smelled, how it felt to be against him. If they should be caught and torn apart, she never wanted to forget this. She thought about how safe she had always felt in his arms. “Yo te quiero” she spoke softly.

  Clay relished the sound of the words. Nina Juarez loved him, and she was learning to trust. She had put away her facade of stubborn haughtiness and was showing him the vulnerable woman that he had always known lay inside. “Yo te quiero mucho” he answered.

  Nina smiled, realizing he knew at least a little Spanish.

  “Will you teach me to read and write English?” she asked, looking up at him. “And I can teach you more Spanish.”

  “That’s a fair exchange.” Their eyes held, and he leaned down to kiss her again. She put her fingers to his lips and pulled away slightly. “I would like to bathe, if we can find a stream.” She looked around. “I am afraid they will come for us,” she said then. “We can ride many miles yet before dark.”

  “Are you sure you have the strength?”

  She met his eyes again. “You are my strength, Clay. If it means being able to stay with you forever, I can do anything.”

  He grasped her shoulders. “I agree it’s probably best we get a few more miles between us and Santa Fe. We’ll follow the Gila River for a while, find a place to camp near it tonight so you can wash and change. I want you to get a good night’s rest. We have a lot of miles to cover to reach El Paso. We’ll stay near the Gila most of the way.”

  She frowned. “What about Indians?”

  Clay looked around with the sureness of a man who was accustomed to Indian country. “This time of year they’re more concerned with the buffalo hunt than anything else. It’s a chance we have to take.”

  “I am not afraid, not with you.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’m usually traveling with a regiment of soldiers. As one man, I’m not sure how much use I’d be, but I’ll do my best not to let anything happen to you, Nina.”

  “I know. We must go now. I am all right.” She turned to her horse, and Clay grasped her waist, helping her remount. He took hold of the reins and handed them to her.

  “He’s all yours now. You’re riding free again, Miss Juarez.”

  She smiled. “Gracias, mi querido.”

  Clay squeezed her hands around the reins, then turned to mount his own horse. He rode off at a gentle lope, and Nina rode up beside him, ignoring her pain, refusing to think about the ugliness she had suffered at the hands of Stan Creighton. She was free! She was with the handsome gringo Lieutenant Clay Youngblood, and for the first time since her mother was attacked, the thought of belonging to a man did not fill her with fear and dread.

  Nina sat by the fire, enjoying the feel of being clean and free and in love. She brushed her damp hair, and Clay watched from where he sat nearby, thinking he had not wanted a woman this badly in a very long time. He picked up a tin plate. “You ready to eat some of these magnificent beans? I’d rather give you meat, but I kind of hate to shoot a gun in these parts. The sound carries for miles in this country, and there’s a certain element out there I would just as soon didn’t know we’re here.”

  She smiled, loving him for making the fire and food while she bathed behind a screen of blankets. He could have easily come for her, had his way with her, but she felt no fear of being alone with him. “I will try, but I am not so hungry,” she answered. “I do not know if it is because of my injuries or because I am so much in love.”

  He smiled the smile that melted her heart. “There was a time when I never thought I’d hear words like that from you, of all people.”

  “There was a time when I never thought I would say them.”

  He scooped some beans onto a plate and added a piece of bread he had broken off from a loaf he had purchased earlier in Santa Fe. “When Captain Shelley told me the harsh words you had for me before you were taken away from Fort Fillmore, I knew you didn’t mean them.”

  “I did not want you to get into trouble.” She took the plate. Clay studied her face, so beautiful in spite of her bruises, so small and finely etched. Her virgin breasts filled out her red shirt with an enticing roundness, and the turquoise-and-silver belt she wore around her black cotton riding skirt accented her tiny waist. She shook back her hair and breathed deeply of the cool night air, and he thought that everything her people did had a passion to it. Surely making love to Nina Juarez would prove to be the most exciting experience of his life. He would open the hearth door and expose the fire in her soul. He ached for her.

  “Do you realize we have said we love each other and will marry, and yet we hardly know each other?” she asked. She bit off a piece of bread, and Clay fixed a plate of beans for himself.

  “So, what do you want to know?”

  She swallowed the bread. “You are done with the Army?”

  “I am. As a favor for my good service, my commander at Camp Verde prepared those extradition papers for me so I could get you out of jail. They’re completely illegal, but nobody’s going to know.” He frowned, putting on a look of mock anger. “Do you realize, Miss Juarez, that you have turned an honest, dedicated Army man into a liar and probably a fugitive? Here I am, turning you away from the outlaw life, and I’ve made myself an outlaw by doing it.”

  She smiled. “Sí. Now we must stay together. We will both be wanted.”

  Clay grinned. “Tell me about your parents, Nina, what life was like before the war. Don’t you have other family?”

  “Not close by. My mother’s brother lives in Mexico City with his family, and my father had two brothers who live even farther south. My family lived near the little town of Guerrero. We had a little farm, a few cattle.” She swallowed a spoonful of beans before going on. “We were poor, but happy. My parents were good people.” She set the plate down, sobering. “Emilio was good then, too, a happy boy.” She looked at Clay. “Do not be too angry with him, Clay. It has been hard for him. I think it is worse for a young boy to grow up without a father than for a young girl. He was so afraid after our parents were killed. He felt such a r
esponsibility for me, and he tried in his own way to be a man, long before he was ready to be one. Now he has ridden with vengeance and the outlaw way in his heart for so long that I am afraid he cannot change. If we can find him in El Paso, perhaps we can help him, take him to Mexico with us and start a new life.”

  Clay sipped some coffee. “Well, that’s where we’re going, with or without Emilio. I don’t want you doing any more foolish, dangerous things just because you feel sorry for him, Nina. I understand what you’re saying about how he ended up this way, but he is a man now, and he has to be responsible for what he does.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  They both sat quietly for a moment, the only sound being the ripple of the waters of the Gila. Clay had found a place to camp where the river was banked, which provided a ravinelike area where they could build a fire without its light being seen for miles across the red clay desert that stretched to the east. Scrubby brush and trees that grew along the Gila provided wood.

  “What about you?” Nina finally asked. “Do you have parents living in the United States?”

  Clay poked at his beans with his spoon. “I never knew my parents. They were killed in a freak accident when I was a baby. A huge tree fell on our house during a bad storm, killed them both but missed my bedroom. My parents were both the only children in their families, and their parents were dead, so I was taken to an orphanage. That was in Pennsylvania.”

  Clay set his plate down and gazed into the fire for a moment. Nina’s heart ached at the sudden look of pain in his eyes. “Be glad you had your parents as long as you did, Nina. At least you have memories of love and happiness, memories of faces, touches.” He sighed deeply. “There are no good memories from growing up in an orphanage, even when it’s nuns who raise you.”

  “Nuns? You are Catholic?”

  He shrugged. “I just happened to be put in a Catholic orphanage. My background is English and Scottish, so I’m sure my family must have been Protestant. At any rate, I guess I was Catholic by circumstance.” He sipped some more coffee. “I have a feeling the nuns thought that because I came from a Protestant background, I needed extra discipline. I was always preached at about what was right and wrong, and whenever I behaved in a rowdy manner, like most young boys do, I was soundly punished, usually with a strap or a paddle.” He grinned a little, but Nina sensed the bitterness beneath the grin. “I suppose I can thank them for instilling a sense of right and honesty in me.”