Texas Woman

into the saddle and settle Betsy before her. Sloan jerked herself away and glared at the boy, who smiled insolently back at her. As Ramon remounted, Sloan gathered the reins in her hands.

“Now, we ride!” Ignacio said, digging his spurs into his horse’s flanks.

Sloan tightened her hold on Betsy as her mount was caught up in the frantic race toward the live oak.

Short minutes later, Ignacio raised his hand to stop his small band of cutthroats and robbers. Sloan watched the frown form on the Englishman’s face when he saw her. She frowned, too, with the realization that she could easily identify him if she saw him again.

She quickly turned away from the Englishman’s scrutiny. She accepted Felipe’s help getting down from her horse but kept Betsy clutched in her arms.

“Felipe, you will guard the woman while I speak to the Englishman.” Ignacio didn’t wait to see if Felipe followed his order.

Sloan followed the bandido with her eyes as he walked the short distance to the Englishman. The next thing she heard was, “You fool! This meeting was to remain secret. Secret! Do you understand? Your brother’s life hangs in the balance. Alejandro will be here tomorrow night, as will the Hawk. You’ll ruin everything. Get rid of the woman, and do it now.”

“I cannot,” Ignacio replied.

“Why not?” the Englishman demanded.

There was silence, and Sloan knew the bandido was looking for a way to explain that the combined will of his band of cutthroats outweighed his own. “The woman says her father will pay a ransom for her safe return.”

“Bloody hell! You’ve jeopardized everything for a handful of reales? I’m paying you well for your help. If it’s not enough, I’ll find someone else to do the job. Get rid of the woman!”

“I will see what I can do,” Ignacio said at last.

Sloan had found a spot against a grounded limb of the live oak and settled down in the grass with Betsy in her lap. She had offered no threat to the bandidos since her capture, and she was certain that as far as they were concerned, she was nothing more than a helpless woman. She was sure they did not know she could speak their language-and that it might be just such knowledge that saved her life.

She listened carefully as Ignacio approached Felipe and spoke to him in Spanish.

“You heard the Englishman?”

“Who did not?” He turned and eyed Sloan, who focused her attention on the exhausted child in her arms. “Will the Englishman pay us for the ransom we will lose if we kill the woman?”

“We will be well paid for the work we do for him,” Ignacio said. “It is enough.”

“It is not enough for me,” Felipe replied curtly. “How will he know if we kill the woman or not? We will take her away and tell him we have done the deed. He will never know the difference.”

“I do not think-”

“You are an idiot! You never think,” Felipe interrupted. “She has not seen Alejandro, only the Englishman. I will take her away from this place. When you have finished your business and the Englishman is gone from here, we will send a message to her father and collect the ransom.”

Sloan held in her sigh of relief as Felipe walked away from her toward the other bandidos. It appeared the immediate danger was past. But she would keep her eyes and ears open-just in case things changed. She shifted Betsy into a more comfortable position in her arms. It was bound to be a long, long day.

Sloan didn’t see Ignacio’s eyes narrow or his nostrils flare in anger as he watched Felipe march away from him. She didn’t see him walk over to where Ramon was grooming his horse. Nor did she hear what Ignacio said in low tones to the boy whose features had been left distorted by disease.

“Ramon, you will go with Felipe. When you are well away from here with the woman, you will kill Felipe.”

The boy’s eyes flickered with the fiendish relish of a wolverine with its blood-rimmed jaws tearing at still-warm flesh. “And the woman?”

“You may use the woman if you wish, but when you are done with her, kill her.”

“And the nina?”

“Kill them both.”

Sloan had no explanation for her lightheartedness. After all, she wasn’t safe yet. She and Felipe and the boy called Ramon had left the other bandidos at noon and headed back in the direction from which they had come. Every step took her closer to home. Betsy was sleeping again, her breathing even. Sloan listened absently as Ramon argued with Felipe about the importance of not offending the Englishman.

“If not for the Englishman, Alejandro would be dead,” Ramon said.

“We could have rescued Alejandro ourselves,” Felipe retorted. “We had no need of the Englishman to save him from the hangman.”

“We would have been caught. Los Diablos Tejanos were watching for us. They knew we would come for him. The Englishman’s plan was best.”

Felipe snorted loudly through his nose. “Of course! If you do not consider that another bandido had to die in Alejandro’s place.”

“The Englishman did not kill Jorge,” Ramon insisted. “It was the Rangers who did the hanging.”

Sloan’s heart pounded in her chest like a Comanche war drum. She had naturally assumed when the name Alejandro had been mentioned earlier by the bandidos that it could not be the same man who had killed Tonio. But the conversation she had just overheard between Felipe and Ramon left her aghast. Surely it was not possible!

She had not waited in San Antonio to see Alejandro hanged, but Cruz had been there. Surely if Alejandro were still alive, Cruz would have said something to her. Besides, how could the bandidos have duped the Texas Rangers?

Sloan was so involved in her own thoughts that the gunshot at close range was a complete surprise. Her horse leaped sideways at the noise, and she had her hands full to keep Betsy from falling. When she had regained control of her mount, her eyes widened in horror.

Ramon had shot Felipe in the back! The bandido had fallen to the ground and lay in a widening pool of blood.

Ramon turned to Sloan, the gun still in his hand, his boyish face aged years by the lascivious glitter in his eyes. “Now, chiquita, we will see how much of a woman you are.”

Sloan had no time to indulge her sickened senses. She simply spurred her horse in a quick bid for escape.

Ramon’s hand darted quick as a rattlesnake’s fangs, catching the reins. Her horse shied at the pull on his mouth, and Sloan made a one-handed grab at Betsy, who started to fall.

It was too little too late. The child’s weight pulled Sloan off balance, and the sudden, unexpected scream that issued from Betsy’s mouth set the horse to bucking.

Sloan’s hands tightened in a death grip around Betsy, and she pulled herself into a tight protective ball around the child as the horse’s abrupt change of direction sent them both flying.

The last thing Sloan was aware of was the hard ground reaching up to meet her.

When Cruz saw Sloan riding toward him flanked by two disreputable-looking tejanos, his hand clenched into a fist around the reins, causing his bayo to sidestep. In the next instant Cruz heard a gunshot, saw the glint of sun off hot iron, and watched in disbelief as one of the two men fell sprawled on the ground.

The terrified scream that followed sent his stomach plummeting. He spurred his horse viciously as Sloan’s mount began to buck. By the time she hit the ground, his stallion had closed half the distance between them.

He pulled his rifle from its scabbard, his heart in his throat with fear that the tejano who had fired at the other man would turn his gun on Sloan.

Cruz didn’t offer the tejano mercy; he wouldn’t have offered a mad dog mercy. He raised his rifle and fired on the run. The bullet hit the tejano’s chest and shoved him backward off his horse, his hands outflung, his dying cry a sound of sheer terror and pain that reminded Cruz he was not a mad dog but a man.

Yet Cruz felt no pity, for at that instant he saw Sloan’s twisted body on the ground, curled around the little girl. A bellow of rage and pain erupted from his throat.

He was on the ground beside Sloan in a moment, unaware of his vaqueros, who had followed him down the hill. He gently turned Sloan over and tried to pry her fingers loose from the child, but he met with little success. He contented himself with searching Sloan’s body with his hands for signs of injury.

When he found no broken bones, he lifted her into his lap, along with the child in her arms, carefully cradling Sloan’s head on his shoulder. He felt savage and could easily have killed the tejano again. His lips brushed Sloan’s forehead before he laid his cheek next to hers.

She belonged to him. He felt no remorse for killing the man who had threatened her life.

Sloan’s first thought when she awoke was how protected she felt. She heard a voice murmuring and recognized it as Cruz’s. His rough-whiskered cheek felt good next to hers. Her eyes fluttered open to the sight of the pulse beating heavily at his throat beneath his ear.

She started as she remembered Betsy, but at the feel of the child lying in her arms, she relaxed. She looked down and Betsy met her gaze with solemn eyes.

Sloan smiled down at the little girl and said, “Everything is going to be fine now, Betsy.”

She looked up at Cruz, and saw that everything was not fine. Instead of the comforting look she had expected, she found the thunderous expression of an angry man.

“I told you to stay at the hacienda,” he said, his voice cold with fury. “If I had not arrived when I did-”

“I never asked you to come looking for me,” Sloan retorted, stung by his harsh welcome. “I don’t have to depend on any man-”

“I am not just any man,” Cruz snarled, his eyes blazing. “I am your husband!” He saw that Sloan was ready with another argument and cut her off. “Do not argue with me!”