Emilio backed away. “Never! I will not live with a man who my sister looks to more proudly than her own brother, a man who thinks he is better than I and who thinks he can order me around like a child. I am my own man!” He shook his head. “How could you do this, Nina, after what happened, right here in this house! You have become a traitor!”
“It is as Clay said,” she answered. “The war is over, Emilio!”
“Not for me! I will not forget sitting in the corner of this room listening to my mother’s screams while blue-eyed gringos in uniforms like the one your husband once wore raped her in her own bed! I will not forget hearing my father outside begging for his life!”
“That’s enough, Emilio,” Clay said then, seeing Nina begin to shake from the cruel words. “Get out, now! Get out before I shoot you myself!”
The young man turned, his hand on his gun. He glanced at the rifle Clay held, reminding himself that this man was once a very able soldier. He could probably sling that rifle up and fire it before he could get his pistol out of its holster. He smiled then in a sneer. “I will go,” he said, “for the time being. But part of this place belongs to me, by right! Perhaps I will see the authorities about it.”
“Do whatever you want. If they say I owe you money, then fine, I’ll pay it. But for now it’s in my name, mine and Nina’s, so take your men and your stolen horses and get off my property!”
Emilio’s eyes moved over him scathingly. He glanced once more at Nina, but she had turned away. He stormed out, slamming the door.
Clay went to the door, opened it again to call out to Julio. “Let them go, Julio. But I want them followed until they’re off Youngblood land. Get my horse ready. I’m going out myself. Keep an eye on the barns and corrals.” He turned back inside, setting his rifle aside and walking on bare feet into the bedroom to pick up a pair of pants. Nina came to the doorway.
“Do not go!”
“I think I’d better. Your brother and I are going to come to some painful terms, I’m afraid. I don’t trust him, Nina.”
“I am so sorry.”
He buttoned his pants, then hesitated. He sighed deeply, walking closer and grasping her shoulders gently. “I told you once to quit apologizing for things that you can’t help. This is one of them. I’m sorry for you that Emilio had to bring up bad memories. You’ve struggled so long to put them behind you. He just wants you to go back to your old way of thinking and turn on me, Nina, that’s all.”
“I know.” She rested her head against his chest. “Do you think he will stay away and not come back?”
“I don’t know. He thinks we’ve kicked him off his own property, and he’s drunk again. Who’s to say?”
“I do not understand him anymore. I used to be able to talk to him. He used to do things to try to please me. He was never cruel like this.”
“Whiskey can do strange things to a man. What really angers me is that he’s come here and upset you at a time when you need to be free of worry.”
They heard horses riding out then, heard Emilio let out a warlike yelp. Nina cringed, feeling sick inside. What a strange twist things had taken. Now she clung to a gringo for love and safety and she was afraid of her own brother. “I am glad right now that Madre y Padre are not here to see what has happened to their son,” she told Clay.
He held her a moment longer, then gently pushed her away to finish dressing. Nina sadly watched him go out. It hurt deeply to think that if it came to a confrontation between her brother and Clay, she would have to pray that Clay would be the man who won.
Clay watched her dance. His beautiful wife was a wild spirit tonight, and he saw her with the eyes of a stranger, a gringo who hungered for the fiery young Mexican woman whose ruffled skirt whirled wide and colorful when she made her fast turns, showing off her slender legs. She stopped and swayed her hips seductively to the enchanting guitar music, her dark eyes on Clay. She raised her arms, clicking her fingers, her short blouse exposing part of her flat belly.
Other men watched, but Clay did not mind, as long as they remembered she belonged to him alone. He was proud of her beauty. He had never seen her dance this way. They had come to Guerrero for supplies and had stayed for a summer festival. Tonight the townspeople were holding a grand fiesta, with piñatas for the children, lots of music and singing of Spanish songs, crafts for sale, and all the food a man could eat.
Clay had grown to love these people. They were mostly happy, good-natured people who accepted him as one of them now, for he had married one of their own. Nina reached out for him, and Clay bashfully joined her while the others laughed and made playfully suggestive remarks. He put a hand to her waist and tried to move with her, but his wife had a way of gyrating and swaying that went beyond anything he could do. He had already learned in their bed that she had a rhythm that drove a man wild, and now she was doing it here. She tossed her dark mane of hair, bringing it over her eyes, flipping it back again, her velvety shoulders showing bare where her elastic top had been drawn down over them. Just beneath that top lay full, ripe breasts, and Clay was not sure how long he could keep watching her without his desire growing to painful levels. To his utter relief the music finally stopped. People who had been watching laughed and clapped when Nina fell against her husband, out of breath. Clay led her away from the crowd.
“You seem awfully happy tonight,” he told her. “I hate to spoil your fun, but we had better head home.”
Nina laughed as they walked toward the wagon they had brought to carry home supplies. “I know. It is getting late. It just feels good to have most of our work behind us.” She was trying to find an excuse for her happiness, for she wanted to keep it a secret a while longer yet that she might be pregnant. She didn’t want to say “might be” to Clay. She wanted to be sure, and she had not gone quite long enough yet without her time of month to be certain. But this was the longest so far. Clay had let her spend the summer being what she called a “lazy woman,” and they had made love almost every night, sometimes even during the day when he came home to eat lunch. Clay was doing everything he could to help her get pregnant, and she smiled at the thought of how she teased him about how hard he was “working” to have a child. “I know it is difficult for you to have to make love so often,” she would joke.
“Don’t tell me we have to do it again,” he would complain teasingly in reply. But Nina knew that each time was as good and pleasing to him as it was to her. Now if she could tell him the wonderful news, his joy would know no bounds.
Nina took a shawl from the wagon seat and drew it around her shoulders, and both of them climbed into the wagon. Clay turned to check the supplies they had bought, including the hot peppers Nina loved.
“Oh, give me one!” she told him, reaching back for a vine of peppers. Clay broke one off, frowning when he handed it to her. He picked up the reins. “How in hell you can eat those things I’ll never understand,” he told her.
“They make me hot on the inside, see?” She took a bite. “That is why I am always so hot for you, mi guapo hombre.” She nibbled at his neck, and Clay snapped the reins.
“I’d better hurry up and get you home or I’ll find myself stopping in the middle of the road to make love to you,” Clay told her. Nina laughed and finished the pepper as though it were a piece of sweet candy. She grasped his arm then, clinging to him and resting her head against his shoulder.
“It is a nice night,” she said with a sigh. “Warm and clear.” They drove on in silence for a few minutes. “When will we go to the coast, mi quiero?”
“Soon. A week or so, I think. I’m not sure you should make the trip, though.”
She pouted. “And why not? I cannot be away from you for so long, Clay.”
“We made an agreement, Nina. You are to get complete rest for a while longer yet. There won’t be anything restful about a trip to the coast with a herd of horses. What if I happen to finally get you pregnant before we leave, and then after all that riding you lose the baby? How would you feel?�
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She thought about what he said, realizing it made sense. She was tempted to tell him then and there she thought she was with child, but he would only worry more while he was gone; and maybe he would be angry that she had considered going when she might already finally be pregnant. Still, she hated the thought of her beloved going away. They had not been apart since the day he came to rescue her from jail in Santa Fe. The thought of his going so far away frightened her.
“I’ll be gone a month at the most,” he was saying. “And there are plenty of men around to watch over you, not that you always need watching over. You’re as good with a gun as any of them.”
She rubbed her face against his strong arm. “I will be so lonely,” she said quietly. “I am always afraid that if you go far away, you will never come back.”
“Now why wouldn’t I come back?”
“I do not know. Maybe you would decide to go back to your own country. I know that you miss it.”
“I love it here now, Nina. With Santa Anna gone and the new government supporting private ownership of land, I can buy up even more. I just hope this liberal government stays in power. That’s the only trouble with Mexico—confusing politics and changing leadership. Every time you turn around, this country is having another revolution.”
“What if it happens again, and we lose our land?”
“Then we’ll take our horses and as many belongings as we can carry and head for California. It ought to be safe there for us by then. Or maybe we’d sell all the horses and go east, maybe across the Gulf to Florida. You’d like it there, too, I think. I’ve never been there myself, but it’s supposed to have a warm climate all year round. We’d be safe at any of those places. No one would know you’re an escaped cautrero, or that I’m the one who helped you get away.”
“You do not worry, do you?”
“No time for worrying. As long as we can be together, that’s all that matters. Nothing else is nearly as important.”
“What about the war you think your country will have over slavery? You are a soldier at heart, mi querido. And you are from the land of the north where people think that slavery is wrong. When there is a revolution within a country, feelings run very strong. I know this from living in Mexico. Would you not feel obliged to go back and fight for your Union?”
Clay drove on in silence for several seconds. “I don’t know right now, Nina. I only know that I love you and I love the ranch. A war might never happen, and even if it does, by then we would have made the ranch even bigger and will probably have a couple of little ones. I couldn’t leave all that.”
She clung to his arm the rest of the way home, praying there would never be a war in his country. Clay pulled the wagon up in front of the house, asking one of the night guards to put it in the barn. “We’ll take out the supplies in the morning. It’s too dark tonight, and I’m too tired. Take care of the horses, too, will you Hugo?”
The man nodded. “Sí, patrón. I will brush them down good.”
“Gracias,” Clay answered, lifting Nina down from the wagon. They went inside the house, and as soon as he closed the door Clay whisked her up into his arms. She let out a little scream, and her shawl fell to the floor. “What are you doing, mi querido?”
“You know damn well that dance drove me crazy. That’s the longest the drive from town has ever seemed to me, you little witch.”
She sobered, thinking at first he was angry about the seductive dance. He threw her on the bed, then removed his hat, boots, and gunbelt. She scooted farther onto the bed as he climbed on it with her, his blue eyes shining with desire. To her relief he finally smiled. “Do you realize the pain you caused me, dancing in front of me like that? I didn’t know you could dance that way.” He leaned down and kissed at the tops of her breasts.
Nina felt her blood run hot, happy that she had learned to enjoy the ecstasy of pleasing a man. Her own dark eyes were glassy with desire. “I wanted to make you want me. I danced only for you, mi esposo.”
He pulled her ruffled top down to her waist, exposing her breasts, then leaned closer, taking a ripe nipple into his mouth and tasting it gently. How delicious she was! He moved his lips over her neck, licking at her, intent on drawing out her deepest desires. He met her mouth then in a warm kiss, realizing she did not know that her talk of a possible war in the States had worried him. His loyalties would be torn, but he belonged here now. Mexico had become home.
“I want you, Nina,” he whispered, licking at her lips. “I want to enjoy all of you as much as I can, before I go to the coast. I’ll miss you so much.”
Nina breathed deeply, reaching her arms over her head and letting him move over her. He stripped off her clothes, and she closed her eyes when he bent to kiss her belly, his lips moving lower, nudging at secret places so that she wanted to open herself to him and be bold and daring. She would dance again tonight, to Clay Youngblood’s music, Clay Youngblood’s rhythm.
In the distant hills Emilio made camp with several young Mexican horse thieves he had gathered into his own gang. He felt important now. He had reached one of his goals, to be the man in charge, to be the one the others looked to as their patrón. He had money in his pockets, money he had made from stolen horses, and more money he had stolen from a bank in Texas.
Now they were back in Mexico, hiding out from the law. It seemed that the Texas Rangers were becoming a bigger problem now even than soldiers. It was becoming an exciting challenge to go into Texas and raid and rob while avoiding the long arm of the Rangers.
He rose from the campfire, looking out toward the old homestead, which Nina now shared with her gringo husband. It still angered him that she and Clay had made him leave two months ago. He was sure that if he could just get Nina away from there for a while, away from Clay, back under his own control, he could convince her how wrong she had been to marry the man.
“In two days we will make another raid,” he told his friends in Spanish. “That big ranch over there, my sister shares it with a gringo husband, but that land is still partly mine. That means the horses that are on it are also mine.” He grinned, thinking what a fool he would make of Clay Youngblood when he stole some of his horses right out from under his nose. Maybe if he made enough trouble for the man, he would give up and go home to the North where he belonged. He turned to the others, who waited expectantly. “We will steal some of those horses, wreck some of the buildings and crops. We will also steal my sister away from there and make many problems for the American.”
“Why not just kill him?” one of them asked.
Emilio turned his attention back to the tiny light he could see across the wide stretch of land below. It would be coming from one of the windows of the house, he realized. “I would like to,” he answered. “But the fact remains he is my sister’s husband. For now we will just give him much trouble. Maybe he will leave. He is just using my sister for a while anyway. He will abandon her one day. If he does not give up and get off my land, perhaps one day I will have to kill him.”
He reached down and picked up a bottle of whiskey, taking another swallow.
Chapter Twenty-two
Nina woke up to shouts, and when she glanced out the bedroom window, the night sky seemed to glow red. Instant alarm made her heart pound. She jumped out of bed, pulling on a robe, then hurried into the main room, flinging open the front door to see Clay’s newest and biggest barn in flames. “Oh, no!” she gasped. Every man who worked the ranch was running and shouting, some trying to get horses out, others forming a bucket brigade. Nina started outside to help, but someone barred her way and pushed her back inside the house, kicking the door shut. A dimly lit lantern on the kitchen table showed his face. “Emilio!” Nina exclaimed.
Her brother, his eyes bloodshot and full of hatred, waved a rifle. “Where is he?”
Nina’s eyes widened, and her heart filled with grief at what had happened to him. “You would…kill him?” Anger took over then, humiliation at the thought that this man was her brother. �
�How could you do this to me, your own sister!” she seethed. “You set the fire, didn’t you?”
“I had to get in here, draw their attention to something else. Now where is your husband? I will not kill him. I only want to keep him from following us.”
Nina stiffened, looking him over as though he were trash. “By hurting him! Thank God he is gone to the coast to sell some horses! You have failed again in your mission, my thieving, murdering brother!”
“Shut up and pack your things! I have not failed! I came here to destroy what the gringo has built, and to take the horses, my horses, because they are on my land! And I have come to take my sister away with me!”
His dark eyes blazed, and Nina backed away. “I am going nowhere with you!”
He set the rifle aside, and as soon as he did so Nina headed for the door. Emilio grabbed her, turning her and holding both her wrists tightly. “You will come with me, or I swear I will have my men burn down every shed, every barn, all your crops! What horses we cannot steal, we will shoot, along with Julio and the other men! Is that what you want? We can do it, Nina! Or you can save all this your gringo husband has built and come with me! This is all he wants anyway! He has used you to build his dream, don’t you see that?” He let go of her, giving her a light shove. “You make the choice. Come with us or we will destroy everything your soldier man has built up here!”
She was so furious that tears came to her eyes. That made her even more angry, for she still hated crying. She held his eyes boldly. “Why would you want me to come with you?”
“So that I can make you see how wrong you are! You belong with your own kind, Nina, and deep inside you love the life we used to lead together. You do not belong here, settling down like an old woman! You should be riding free, going on raids with us, being your own woman and not some man’s puppet!”
“You want me along only because you need me to help you the way I used to help you! You want me to sweet-talk the men you plan to rob and kill! I am through with that life, Emilio! I love Clay. I love it here, and I want to settle like an old woman! I am going to have a baby, Emilio. I do not think I would get far flirting with men when I have a big belly!”
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