The Accidental Bridegroom

by Ann Major

  Her golden hair that was still tangled from their love making encircled her angelic face like a golden halo. Rafe couldn’t look at her without remembering how soft and passionate she’d been in his arms such a short while ago. He couldn’t bear the sight of her wanton loveliness, nor that of Maurice’s arm around her slim shoulders. Because even though she’d sold him to these devils who would murder him the first chance they got, Rafe couldn’t entirely turn off his own unwanted proprietary feelings toward her.

  “Capitan Guillen.”

  The uniformed thugs’ rifles shifted. Their boot heels clicked together. The passionate show of military salutes that swept the room were so farcelike, they disgusted Rafe.

  “Buenos dias,” grated a smug, self-important voice.

  Rafe looked up and he felt even sicker when Carlos Guillen swaggered through the door. Guillen glared at him with the cold glittering eyes of a viper preparing to strike cornered prey, and Rafe knew for sure that he was going to die.

  And he was afraid to die.

  “Las esposas, the handcuffs,” the captain said in that gravelly tone, chucking Rafe’s handcuffs and the key onto the coffee table in front of Cathy so hard she jumped. The sight of the handcuffs so innocently resting on that cold marble burned into Rafe’s brain. Guillen strutted about, studying the handcuffs and then Rafe, savoring this magnificent hour that had put an insignificant police captain on center stage.

  Guillen’s black eyes fixed on Rafe again as the captain took a long thin cigar out of a carved leather pouch. Guillen turned it over in his palm, the gesture oddly delicate and refined for a man whose nature was brutish. The captain lit his cigar slowly, calmly. Leaning back against the door with a self-satisfied air, the sadistic bastard ordered Pita to bring him a bottle of tequila. Pita, whose lack of love for this particular breed of macho Mexican male had kept her single for forty-two years, shuffled sulkily out of the room.

  In a heavy accent Guillen said in forceful English, as if he were proud of his command of the language, “I have been looking forward to this moment, gringo, ever since you took my brother. Why you come back to Mexico?”

  Cathy cried out. “No! You have the wrong man.”

  Just for a second, Rafe allowed himself to look at the betraying witch who had cast him into hell for the second time.

  “Shut up,” he snarled. “You should be happy. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

  She stared at him with those big, black eyes, looking stunned and white-faced and miserably hurt.

  And so treacherously beautiful Rafe winced from the sheer pain of her golden loveliness.

  “No,” she whispered in a strangled tone.

  “The last thing I want now is more of your lies.”

  The dull look of pain that flashed across her pale face made Rafe’s insides clench. Her mere presence was a torment. Never in all his life had he felt so gut-wrenchingly furious at a woman or so hurt by one at the same time. He had loved her; she had borne his child.

  He had risked his life to come to her. He had made love to her, forgiven her and asked her to marry him. And she had gone from the warmth of his bed and handed him over to these cold-eyed killers who would finish him off as easily as a gang of vicious boys might squash a bug or pour gasoline on a cat and strike a match. He didn’t delude himself into believing that he would get anything close to a fair trial. Not with Calderon paying Guillen to finish him off.

  If Cathy defended him now, it was only because she lacked the stomach to face what she’d done.

  Despair pressed down on him. Rafe felt terrified and alone in this corrupt enemy camp, where his civil rights could be bought from these cops by Calderon as casually and cheaply as lottery tickets from a street vendor. The danger Rafe was in was all her fault, and the knowledge of her betrayal lay as heavy as a stone in his heart.

  She would pay. If he lived through this, if it was the last thing he ever did, she would pay.

  “It wasn’t me who took your brother, Guillen,” Rafe hissed through gritted teeth. “Not that I didn’t applaud the act.”

  “Las esposas. They are your trademark, no? Your friends, the Houston police, they keeled my brother. I loved heem.”

  “Hernando Guillen was found guilty and executed for murder.”

  Guillen patted his bulging shoulder holster. “As you will be, amigo.”

  “There is no death penalty in Mexico. What do you plan to do, shoot me in the back on the way to Mata-mores?”

  “Mexico do not kill the criminals. So the family must take care of its own honor. A bullet is too easy. I have waited long time for this pleasure of playing with you the way bullfighter plays with a bull. You will die slow. Muy despacio, mi amigo,” Guillen said, savoring this last delicious thought in his mother tongue. He inhaled deeply from his thin cigar and blew out a long thread of smoke. An inch of ash trembled and fell to the Aubusson carpet, scorching it.

  And the acrid smoke and thick smell of singed wool swirling around Rafe made him cough as if they were the stench of hell. His eyes and nose stung.

  For years, Rafe had thrived on facing danger, on the challenges and risks that forced him to pit his courage and skills and strengths against terrible foes.

  Mike had warned him he had a death wish that it would catch up to him someday.

  “Armi,” Cathy pleaded desperately. “Help him. Do something.”

  “Hasn’t he done enough, Cathy?” Rafe demanded cynically.

  Armi threw up his hands in a gesture of mock helplessness. “Steele is in the hands of the law now—where he belongs.”

  “But you promised me,” Cathy began.

  So the witch had cut a deal. Rafe clenched his teeth so hard that a muscle ached painfully along the side of his bruised jaw where one of Guillen’s thugs had clubbed him awake with a rifle butt.

  Carlos Guillen smiled cruelly. “Señorita, your ‘friend,’ Señor Steele, is wanted in my country for many crimes. Yesterday, he wreck a bus and injure many peoples.” “That jalopy rammed me. I damn near died. You know damn well nobody but me was hurt.”

  “He molest your novio, señorita, an important French tourist in our country. But that is nothing compared to what he did to my brother Hernando.”

  Suddenly, there were childish whoops of excitement from the hall. Pita gave a little cry as the door she was waddling through while carrying a heavy tray slammed carelessly into her broad back. Pita and her tray went flying forward. Sadie and Juanito bumped into her, yelling as they raced past her.

  Guillen glanced toward the commotion at the door in annoyance just as Pita’s huge tray teetered. A tequila bottle and a dozen glasses slid the length of Pita’s silver tray, catching on the thick polished lip. Everyone held his breath as Pita struggled to right the tray.

  There was a horrified silence as the bottle and glasses shattered onto the floor. Even the children froze.

  “Lo sientio, señores,” Pita said, kneeling to pick up broken slivers of crystal from the pool of golden tequila.

  “Lo siento, Pita,” Sadie murmured guiltily. “Fue un accidente.” I am sorry. It was an accident.

  “Pita, leave that mess. Just get those two out of here before they do something worse,” Armi snarled.

  Sadie ran into her mother’s protective arms and defiantly plopped her fluorescent skull down. Then she saw the handcuffs.

  “Esposas,” she whispered, thrilled as she picked them up along with the key. The long sleeve of her witch’s costume kept falling over her wrist as she struggled to lock and unlock the handcuffs. Her pockets, bulging with beeswax candles, kept banging into the table as she worked busily.

  “Put those down and leave, Sadie,” Armi commanded again in Spanish.

  Sadie, who had gotten the hang of the handcuffs, frowned in deep concentration as she snapped and un-snapped them.

  “Sadie!” Armi yelled.

  Sadie’s mouth thinned. She looked up stubbornly, perhaps to assess the risk of staying where she was a minute longer, and wh
en she did, she saw Rafe. After that, a team of wild stallions couldn’t have dragged her out of the room.

  Her blue eyes fastened on Rafe’s face in breathless awe. “Juanito,” she whispered, beckoning him to come to her.

  “I told you I saw his ghost!” he murmured, equally awestruck, hanging back.

  In a trancelike state, still holding the open handcuffs, Sadie moved toward Rafe. Then, remembering her skull, she whirled dramatically, her black skirts flying, and grabbed the gaudy thing from the table. She dashed forward and placed it eagerly at Rafe’s feet as if in homage.

  And as the golden-haired waif looked up the length of his battered boots and filthy jeans with an expression of adoration, Rafe fell in love with her instantly despite his dire circumstances.

  “Did you smell my marigolds?” she whispered softly, in the most beautiful English he had ever heard a six-year-old use, “’cause I made a path of ’em so you could find me.

  “I’m not dead,” he muttered softly. Then he looked up at Guillen. “Not yet, anyway. But I did come to see you.”

  Sadie’s gaze followed Rafe’s, lingering on the men with the drawn guns. “Do they want to hurt you?”

  “Sadie!” Armi thundered.

  “No, Abuelito!” Little Grandfather! “I won’t let you hurt him,” Sadie cried, climbing into Rafe’s lap and throwing her arms around her father protectively. “Mommy, make the bad men go away.”

  “Hijita!”

  Cathy inched slowly toward her daughter. “You have to go, Sadie.”

  “No!” the child yelled frantically, clutching her father.

  When Cathy took her child’s hand and tugged, the handcuffs clattered to the table. Cathy knelt down to pick them up. Quick as a flash, Sadie snatched them. In the next second, the little girl snapped one cuff around her slim mother’s wrist, and in the next, Sadie locked the other around Rafe’s.

  Rafe jerked viciously against the steel cuff like a maddened beast, pulling Cathy against his body—hard. Caught off-balance, she grabbed his shoulders to balance herself. Her fingers dug into his flesh.

  He froze when he felt her warm hands fumbling all over his body, when he caught the sweet lavender scent of her and realized he was shackled to this treacherous lying creature and had to endure the exquisite torture of her nearness.

  “For God’s sake, get your hands off me!” he growled.

  She cringed and quickly tried to push herself away, but the handcuffs caught painfully and held their wrists together. Helplessly, she twisted at the metal vise.

  As Rafe watched Cathy struggle, he saw a tear sparkle at one corner of her eye. “Darling,” she whispered frantically to their daughter. “Please—you have to let us go.”

  “Give me the key,” Rafe commanded Sadie in a hard, impatient voice.

  But Sadie just giggled and backed away. “No! ’Cause Mommy might lose you again.”

  Before anybody could force the child to obey, the imp sprang toward the door.

  Rafe pulled against the cuff again; Cathy yanked at it with equal desperation. But all they accomplished was to touch each other in ways they didn’t want to and to bruise their wrists painfully again.

  Rafe stared down at the handcuffs that bound his dark hand to Cathy’s paler one. He felt the melting heat of her. Then his cool gaze rose slowly to Cathy’s white, terrified face. He was both drawn and repelled by her fragile loveliness. The very air between them seemed charged with a thick, heavy hostility.

  From the doorway, Sadie grinned. “Me voy, Abuelito!” I’m going, Little Grandfather! she proclaimed obediently.

  “She still has the key,” Cathy whispered.

  “Get her!” Guillen screamed in the same instant.

  Juanito chased after Sadie and slammed the door behind them. A key turned and shot the bolt.

  Half a dozen officers began pounding on the locked door, but before they could force it, the floor beneath their feet trembled ever so slightly.

  Then there was a crackling burst of noise outside.

  High above them the mountain exploded.

  The house shuddered violently.

  “Dios! This is not a baby earthquake!” Pita screamed.

  Village guard dogs howled in terror from their crumbling rooftops. Burros shifted and snickered wildly. Roosters crowed. Above this cacophony of terrified animal noises came the more ominous rumble of the mountain high above them as a solid cliff face broke apart.

  Rafe felt the skull teeter back and forth between his ankles. He jumped up, and through the tall windows he saw massive boulders tumbling down the mountain. Huts were rupturing and collapsing across the street as the earth under them and above them broke apart.

  There was a horrible smell. And he realized it was gas. Somewhere a gas line had broken.

  When he tried to run, Cathy’s weight held him back like a granite block.

  “Move,” he yelled as she uttered a deep moan of terror. He yanked her up, wishing he could hate her. Instead, he felt horrible that she might get hurt. “Move, unless you want to stay here and die.”

  She read the wild look in his eye and went even whiter. “Sadie,” she whispered, half choking as gas filled the room. “We have to save Sadie.”

  “We’ll save her,” he said in a gentler tone.

  Then the house began to undulate. Plaster rained from the ceiling as the heavy, wrought-iron chandelier above them rattled dangerously. Rafe grabbed Cathy and pulled her out from under it right before it crashed with a resounding thud onto the sofa and carpet.

  The rumbling grew as loud as a hurricane tearing a forest apart or a violent surf wrecking a giant ship against a reef. The house began to shake upon its foundations. There were horrifying creakings, grindings and rasping sounds as walls and rafters broke apart, sagging inward. The odor of gas grew thicker.

  Some of the Mexican officers raced out onto the balcony. Others sank to their knees and began praying passionately to the Virgin.

  In the center of this storm, Guillen alone was cold-eyed and calm. With a deadly glance toward Rafe, he methodically unsnapped his holster. Just as his hand closed over his gun, Rafe lunged at him. Dragging Cathy with him, he shot his fist into Guillen’s jaw. As the Mexican captain reeled backward, Cathy seized his gun. She was about to toss it away, but Rafe grabbed it from her, switched off the safety and jacked a bullet into the chamber. As Guillen got up, Rafe grinned coldly and aimed at his heart.

  “Don’t kill him,” Cathy screamed.

  Rafe glared back at her. “You would have let him murder me in cold blood.”

  “No… And I don’t want you to be a killer—like him.” Her soft face was tear-streaked; her gentle voice begged him to be merciful as she tugged at his handcuff.

  Finally, he let the gun fall. Then Cathy and he were staggering toward the hall door that sagged half-open. Armi’s face contorted when Rafe stopped just long enough to grab him by his thick throat and ram a fist through his jaw hard.

  As Armi staggered heavily, Rafe pulled Cathy out into the hall. He was so furiously intent on escape, he hardly noticed that she hadn’t resisted when he’d fought Guillen or Armi. Nor did Rafe note that he didn’t have to drag her, that she came willingly, as if she were as eager to elude his pursuers as he.

  When they stumbled outside, the earth was still shuddering and the scene nightmarish. People were screaming in the cobblestoned streets, and the church bells clanged in a senseless frenzy. Orange flames leaped from a broken gas line and spread to a row of low houses. There was a horrible smell of burning rubber and chemicals and living flesh.

  Cathy pulled at his cuff, pointing at Sadie and Juanito, who had scaled the white wall and were climbing straight up the rocky precipice toward the mines. Guillen ran out onto the balcony. His eyes glowed like coals from hell as he raised a rifle and took careful aim at them.

  Rafe yanked Cathy to the ground even before he heard the flat pop of Guillen’s rifle. Cathy screamed in true terror when the bullet ricocheted inches from her face
and she saw the children disappear into the abandoned mine.

  The earth stopped moving when she and Rafe got to the wall. Black smoke billowed around them, screening them from Guillen so he couldn’t get another clear shot as Rafe helped her over the wall. Only a few boulders were tumbling down the mountain as Rafe and Cathy clambered clumsily up over rocks, cacti and gnarled trees to the scarred face of the cliff where the ancient mine bore pierced the ridge.

  They had to reach the children and get them out of the mine and somewhere safe.

  Down below, Guillen, who was not handcuffed to a woman, made it easily over the wall and climbed up rapidly after them. Right behind him were three of his men.

  There was nowhere to go but higher, up the sheer rock face after the children.

  Cacti and rocks tore their skin, their clothes. Cathy was panting as Rafe lifted her into the carved black hole.

  The minute they were inside the mountain, the earth convulsed again.

  Only a thousand times worse than before.

  There was a hideous rupture high above the mine. Then a terrible rumble as if the whole mountain were flying apart. The walls of the mine vibrated noisily.

  “Sadie?” Cathy screamed as everything seemed to tilt sharply.

  But the children, who had gone deeper into the mine, did not answer.

  Cathy began to sob in terror. Her dark eyes were blurred by her tears, her delicate features distraught and ashen.

  The mountain roared louder. Were they about to be buried alive?

  “Rafe—”

  Their eyes met.

  Without thinking, she flung herself into his arms.

  His response was just as automatic. Slowly, his arms wrapped around her, gently folding her into the hard comfort of his massive body. And as he held her, he dragged her farther inside the roughly hacked walls and away from the entrance.