Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance)

by Matthews, Devon

  Chapter Six

  Angel froze, afraid to move, afraid to even breathe too deeply.

  Buck Sweeney held his cocked pistol at waist level and shifted to a hipshot stance. The oily smile on his face beamed confidence. “Make one move toward that Peacemaker, greaser, and you’ll be makin’ yer peace with the big jefe up yonder.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Rane slowly lift his hands and hold them palms outward.

  “Just don’t get spooked, gringo.” Rane’s accent had grown thicker. He gave the “r” an extra tumble before he rolled the insulting word off his tongue.

  Buck flashed a mouthful of teeth as discolored and sturdy as a mule’s, the beast Angel had always associated with him. “Afternoon, Miz ‘Vangeline.” He didn’t take his eyes off Rane for an instant.

  Angel swallowed and drew in a shaky breath. “What are you doing here, Buck?”

  “Why, lookin’ for you, naturally.” To Rane, he added, “Right handy of you to bring her to us.”

  “Yeah, you made it almost too easy,” Buck’s companion said. “The two of you was makin’ enough noise over here to wake the dead. Too bad for you, your brains fell in your pecker, boy.” The man threw back his head and cackled like a hen that had just dropped an egg.

  “Shut up, Arch,” Buck ordered.

  They intended to kill Rane. The reality exploded in Angel’s mind with a blinding, white flash. It churned like sickness in her stomach and nearly buckled her knees. Her heart kicked in so hard she felt the vibration clear to her boots.

  She no longer cared who Buck and his partner worked for. Somehow, she had to stop them.

  Buck flitted a glance in her direction. “Walk over there and get his gun,” he said, waggling the business end of his six-shooter in Rane’s direction. “Bring it here to me.”

  Angel didn’t move. “What do you intend to do with him?”

  Buck bridled, as if the question surprised him. “Well, what would you like fer me to do?”

  “Let him go.”

  Buck plastered a frown on his unpleasant mug. “That might not be too healthy.”

  Arch cackled again.

  “Shut the hell up!” Buck snapped. He gnashed his big teeth. “I swear to God, Arch, that laugh of yourn would peel the hide off a wooden Injun.” He motioned with the pistol once more. “Go on. Get his gun.”

  Moving with deliberate slowness, Angel turned and stepped directly between Rane and the two pistols aimed at his chest. She doubted Buck and his crony would risk a shot while she stood in the line of fire. After all, she wouldn’t be worth much to them dead.

  Even so, knowing where their guns now aimed, her back muscles knotted with tension.

  The transformation she saw in Rane sent icy shivers racing up and down her spine. The wind played with a sable strand of hair that had fallen across his forehead. The elflock gently lifted, moved, a soft contrast against his features that now looked as though they had been sculpted from cold stone.

  The absence of expression in his eyes ran her blood cold. They had gone flat and black, until no spark of warmth or emotion remained. The eyes of a deadly predator. Just as they had looked the first time she’d seen him.

  Beneath his bronzed skin, a blue vein pulsed at his temple. She looked closely at his uplifted hands, trying to detect if they trembled, if the angry pounding of his blood set up a vibration.

  They were as steady as a dead man’s.

  He had the ability to mask his anger and control it. She’d never known anyone with such iron discipline. Would it give him the needed edge?

  She halted before him, mere inches away. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do.”

  “What’s the holdup?” Buck demanded.

  Rane didn’t move so much as an eyelash. Looking beyond her shoulder, he kept watching the two men behind her. “Don’t touch my gun,” he said softly.

  “What should I do?”

  “Start walking. Walk away from me, but don’t get behind me. If this goes badly, take the horses and make a run for it. Ride straight south, you’ll find the stage road.”

  “No more talkin’ over there,” Buck yelled. “Get his gun and get the hell over here!”

  “I have a score to settle first,” Angel called over her shoulder.

  With that, she reached up and clutched the front of his shirt, wrapping it in her fist until it threatened to rip. Rane dared a fleeting glance at her face and found her blue eyes luminous with unshed tears. She was trembling, frightened, her breath heaving in and out of her chest in quick pants. Then she seemed to draw herself up and said, “Damn you! Don’t you dare let them kill you!”

  “Go,” he ordered.

  She released him and stepped aside. Rane listened to the sound of her footsteps, retreating, slow at first, then faster and faster, crunching on the gravelly sand.

  “Hey, what the hell! Come back here!” Buck yelled.

  Both men watched her, puzzled, and looked like they might run after her at any second. And it was just the distraction Rane had hoped for. He held his breath and waited for their reaction. He was gambling with her life that the bastards wouldn’t shoot her. They wanted her for the bounty. But if he was wrong...

  He dropped his hands. “Buck!”

  Buck turned, bringing his gun in line for the shot. His face twisted, bracing for the repercussion.

  Rane snaked the Colt from his holster and fired.

  A dark spot appeared on Buck’s forehead, snapping his head back. He dropped straight down on the rockslide like a hewn tree.

  Arch was backing up the slope, slipping, shooting wild as he went.

  A slap against Rane’s shoulder nearly spun him off balance. Hot wetness spurted across the left side of his face. He righted quickly and fired a second shot and a third with sixteen inches of flame igniting from the end of his gun barrel.

  Arch clapped a hand over his chest and dropped to his knees. He hung there for seconds, reeling, then fell to his side on the rocky slide.

  Echoes of gunshots rolled across the land like reverberating thunder. Then, there was silence and all that remained was the acrid stench of burnt powder. Rane had fired three shots, all in a space of five seconds.

  “You all right?” He called out the question to Angel without taking his eyes from Arch’s prone body.

  “Yes.”

  She was safe. Still on guard, he approached Arch, walking right past Buck without a glance. The man had a bullet hole in his forehead and posed no further threat.

  Crouching at Arch’s side, he pulled the man’s hand from his chest. A plate-sized splotch of blood had bloomed on the front of his shirt. Rane placed his fingers against his throat, feeling for a pulse, and found none.

  He stood, resigned, and shoved the Peacemaker down into his holster.

  Angel waited in the distance, clutching her arms against her stomach. He motioned her forward and stepped out to meet her halfway. Only then did he allow himself to let down his guard, to feel again.

  He ran his tongue across his lower lip and tasted the coppery taint of blood. His blood. White-hot talons dug into his shoulder with each movement. He clamped his teeth, fighting nausea. He’d been shot.

  ****

  Angel knelt in the cool mud at the edge of the waterhole and dipped up handfuls, splashing her feverish face with the blessed wetness. She hung there a moment and stared at her rippled reflection, at the image of a woman who seemed a stranger, and clenched her trembling hands into fists against her thighs.

  God, help me. I can’t do this.

  Behind her, Rane rummaged through the saddle packs slung across the backs of the horses that had belonged to Buck and Arch. Using his right hand, while his left hung useless at his side, he discarded one item after another, as if he searched for something in particular.

  “¡Salud!”

  Evidently, he’d found it. Angel looked over her shoulder. A whiskey bottle dangled from his hand. He moved away from the horses, found a spot
next to a fallen slab of stone and eased to a sitting position on the ground.

  Angel sat back, away from the lapping water, and picked up the white petticoat she’d worn on the stage. He’d kept it. For the past two days it had been stuffed inside his saddlebag. She ran her hand over the fine linen, wrinkled now, and remembered the day she’d stepped onto the train platform in New York. An educated society belle. It seemed long ago. Tears welled in her eyes as she gripped the garment between her hands and ripped.

  Gunfighter. The epithet repeated, over and over, in her mind. Except for the wound on his body, the events of less than an hour ago—the fact that he’d killed two men—had left no outward mark.

  He’s used to it. It has no meaning to him.

  She still marveled at the feat she’d witnessed on the far side of the ridge. His blurring speed and deadly aim. The daring deeds of quick-draw artists such as Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickok had gained popularity in the dime novels back east in recent months. Out of curiosity, she’d read a few of them. The books all made the gunplay sound very noble and romantic. But she’d just seen the harsh reality.

  The memory of his caress plagued her. How could the touch of his hands thrill her so when they were capable of ending a life with such dispassion?

  “You ready?” he called.

  Angel swiped at the tears brimming on her eyelashes and gathered the torn strips of linen in her arms. She stood and turned, and nearly stumbled back into the pool. He had removed his shirt and tossed it over the stone he used as a backrest. Dark blood smeared his chest and oozed bright red from the wound high on his left side.

  She swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

  His dark, pain-filled eyes bored into her. “You’re a strong woman, Angel. Don’t go soft on me now.”

  No, she wouldn’t go soft. She was still a long way from home. And God only knew what she might have to endure before she got there. Shoving aside her instinctive revulsion, she crossed the distance and knelt beside him on the sand.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  He closed his eyes. An ashen pallor lay like gray dust on his tanned skin. Lifting his hand, he scrubbed away the beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Then, he nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Angel pulled in a breath, held it, and very slowly lifted her hand and inserted the tip of her index finger between the blackened edges of the bullet hole beneath his collarbone.

  He hissed through his teeth.

  She stopped.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She pressed deeper, sinking her finger in his pulsing flesh nearly to her knuckle, until she touched the flattened lead fragment that had done the damage.

  Rane lifted the bottle of whiskey nested in the sand between his sprawled legs and poured a copious drink down his throat. He swallowed and sucked in a harsh breath. “Can you feel it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Try to move it.”

  A new rush of sweat erupted on Angel’s skin. She closed her eyes for a moment, willing back the returning wave of sickness that rolled through her stomach.

  She backed off by scant fractions, until her fingernail scraped lead. Bearing down, she tried to loosen the embedded slug. It didn’t budge.

  She pulled away from him and sat back on her heels. “I think it’s lodged in the bone.”

  For several beats of silence, he stared into space, his jaw bunching and unclenching. Rivulets of sweat seeped down his naked torso, mixing with the blood that continued to leak from his wound. Her probing had started a fresh flow.

  She folded a strip of petticoat and attempted to staunch the bleeding.

  He flinched away. “Don’t waste good cloth. We’re not finished yet.”

  Dread sped Angel’s heart. “What do you mean?”

  In answer, he leaned forward, hitched up his trouser leg and slipped his hand inside the haft of his boot. Secreted within, a slender sheath sewn into the leather held the knife she’d seen him use on occasion. He pulled it free and sat back. Deftly, he flipped the knife and caught the flat edge of the blade. He extended the handle to her. “I want you to dig it out.”

  Angel stared at the lethally honed steel gleaming in the sunlight. She recoiled and shook her head. “No. I won’t do it.”

  “There’s no one else,” he said evenly.

  Then she made the mistake of looking into his eyes. Into the dark, fathomless depths that always threatened to draw her in with promises beyond her understanding.

  For one fleeting instant, he allowed her a glimpse of his pain. A sympathetic ache gripped her. He was entrusting her with his life.

  With her heart rising like a wild, fluttering bird in her throat, Angel took the knife from his hand. She looked at the blade. It was much too wide. She would have to cut him more to get to the bullet.

  “I’m not a doctor, Rane. What if I cut an artery? You’ll bleed to death.”

  “Bleeding to death would be easy compared to what will happen if the slug doesn’t come out.” He gave her a wan smile. “You may have inherited your mother’s beauty, Angel, but I know for a fact you have your father’s nerve.” He handed her the bottle of whiskey. “Here. Douse the blade and just get it over with.”

  While she worked, Angel tried not to look at him. Tried not to notice that his hand curled into a white-knuckled fist bearing down on the sand. Tried not to see the corded tendons standing out in his neck or the way his flat stomach caved and jerked each time she applied pressure with the knife. But through it all, he didn’t utter a sound.

  Fresh blood streamed down his breast. It oozed over the knife blade and dripped from her hands, which had grown slick with it. The raw smell filled her nostrils until she could almost taste it. At last, the flattened lead loosened and slid down the blade on a red tide and dropped to the sand.

  Angel withdrew the knife and sat back, breathing hard. Blessedly, all the tension had drained from Rane’s body. With a wobbly hand, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took a fortifying swallow. “Gracias, mi ángel.”

  She padded the wound with linen and bound it as best she could to stop the bleeding. But it was an awkward binding since the bullet had struck midway between his neck and arm, just under the collarbone.

  Then she washed him with cool water from the pool, trying to ignore his small moans of pleasure. A glance at the half-empty whiskey bottle confirmed her suspicion that he was a little drunk.

  His shirt was ruined, but there was no help for it. It was all they had. She helped him slip his arms into the sleeves and buttoned it for him. As quietly as possible, she sneaked away, into the concealment of the rocks. Away from his sight, she fell to her hands and knees and retched.

  ****

  Rane sat propped in the shade, feeling whiskey-mellow, with his hat tipped low over his forehead. Watching Angel as she stood beside the waterhole, finger-combing her long, silver-blond hair almost made him forget about the dull throb that radiated from shoulder to fingertips with each beat of his heart.

  Though her movements were quick and efficient, she looked relaxed. Her brow had smoothed from the constant worry furrow she had worn earlier. She lifted her arms and gathered the hair at the crown of her head, fashioning a braid, stretching the shirt taut against the graceful arch of her back.

  Through the dingy muslin, the glaring sunlight behind her clearly defined the size and shape of her breasts. He slowly balled and unclenched his fingers. Pure imagination nestled her silken flesh within his palms. He pulled in a long, deliberate breath and held it, prolonging the muzzy warmth slowly seeping through his veins.

  She shifted, and his attention lowered to her slender, curving hips. To her rounded little bottom straining against the seat of the trousers he’d forced her to wear.

  He smiled and settled lower against the rock, shuttering his gaze until her image blurred. In his mind’s eye, she turned and looked at him, curving her full lips in a seductive simper. With slow, tantalizing steps, she crossed the space that separated them and straddled his l
ap with her long legs. Leaning forward, she pressed her palms against the front of his trousers. He held his breath and waited. With deft, practiced fingers she flipped open his first button.

  Rane heard himself groan and opened his eyes. Beside the pool, Angel squatted on her heels as she filled a canteen. And she watched him.

  “Are you all right?”

  ¡Mierda! He must have actually groaned aloud. And how did he answer? No, he was not all right. He was in pain. Not only did his shoulder hurt like a sonofabitch, his little fantasy had turned him so hard, he was afraid he would shatter if he moved.

  “I’m fine,” he croaked.

  She went back to filling the canteen.

  Arch had been right. He’d let his brains fall down in his pecker.

  Earlier, on the other side of the ridge he’d lost focus. Her passionate response to him had ignited something so powerful and all consuming he’d let Buck and Arch walk right up and get the drop on him. Lack of control had never been a problem before. Never. So, why now?

  He wanted her, that’s why. He wanted her so badly, he was growing accustomed to the perpetual ache in his balls.

  And he could have had her, right there on the side of the ridge—if Buck and Arch hadn’t intruded. Problem was, the thought of taking her in the heat of anger didn’t sit well.

  Angel was one hell of a woman. Today, his admiration for her had made the leap up to respect.

  He wanted her, with a slow, sizzling burn that had been robbing his sleep at night. But he wanted her willing.

  Each time their eyes met or they touched, flames ignited in his groin. He knew the lure of forbidden fruit and figured one hot, sweaty bout of sex would cure what ailed him. But he would never force her.

  Keeping her with him against her will was another matter. There was no going back now. He was still her only hope of reaching Clayton Station safe and whole. She was still his best bet for wringing what he wanted out of Lundy. But each time he thought about turning her over to that bastard, his conscience gnawed at him like a starving dog on a marrowy bone.