11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

I t was midmorning the next day, and Junior and Isa stood hidden at a curve in the road, their animals tethered several yards back. It was the perfect spot for an ambush.

They waited quietly for the two riders and four horses to ride by, and Isa found it difficult to keep her mind from pulling back like a lodestone to The Kiss. It had been easier the day and night before to keep the focus on following tracks and planning their next moves. She and Junior currently stood propped against a hundred-year-old live oak without speaking, a pair of blond heads patiently waiting for the sound of hoofbeats.

Isa watched Junior from beneath her brows as he opened and closed the chambers of his two Colts, ensuring his holsters were clear and smooth on the draw. In profile, his red lips pouted in luscious curves. His beauty enraged her. How trite to desire a man so sensual and beautiful. Would that she could feel such attraction to David, who would have welcomed her attentions with open arms. But to want a man whom every woman desired? It was a dangerous, unstable thing. And want him she did. That was what she would lie awake pondering in the dark and cold, wedged deeply within her bedroll. Isa wanted him the way she'd wanted material things as a child, the way she wanted freedom as a woman. If she were a primordial man and Junior a woman, she'd drag him off, screaming, by his ankle to her cave.

"Something funny?" he asked without looking at her.

"I'm thinking of our kiss," Isa admitted.

Junior's hands stopped their restless movements over his guns. "Why are you thinking about it? I thought it wasn't any good." His bandana was loose today, barely hanging on by its knot, and her gaze dragged from the rope-burn scar to the dark gold lashes framing his hooded eyes.

"It wasn't the worst." She reclined against the tree, motionless. When he looked up at her, she stopped breathing. The little smile on her lips fell away, and his eyes followed the movement. The way they went slumberous sucked all the oxygen from her lungs.

"So you're a liar."

"When it suits me." It was a whisper because all the air had vanished. He had taken it.

Junior's fingers flexed around the gun, then carefully slid it into its holster. Propping a forearm above her head, he turned his body and blocked the view of the road behind him. All she saw was him, golden, stubbled, blue-eyed Junior. She swallowed dryly.

Lids low, he drew his fingertips up the line of her traitorous throat. "What if I just—" He broke off, gritting straight, white teeth. His hand encased her throat, gently squeezing.

Eyes narrowed, breath coming fast, she said, "I'd laugh."

"What if you couldn't laugh?"

"I could. I would laugh, then I'd shoot you."

"Hm." The noise was deep in his throat. He lowered his arm, its sleeve dragging along rough tree bark by her ear until his other hand joined its brother. Warm, rough calluses enveloped her throat, thumbs pushing beneath her chin, elongating her neck. "As much as I want to throttle you sometimes, I don't think I could do it."

"Why not?" Hypnotized by his actions, she dug her fingers into the tree behind her so she didn't touch him and break the spell. "Are you afraid you'd feel bad?"

"Don't know if I'd go that far." Junior's belt buckle pressed against her navel, sandwiching her body between him and the tree. "I'd miss you a helluva lot, though."

All the clever witticisms stowed away in her mind for ready use evaporated. She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd recited the Lord's Prayer in Latin.

Hoofbeats in the far distance brought both their heads up.

"They're coming." He separated from her and handed her the shotgun leaning against the tree. "Get ready."

Their plan was simple: Isa would walk further up the road with the shotgun, and when the men got close, she would aim and shoot the dirt in front of the lead horse, spooking it. Junior would then come out of the woods at the bend, his Colts drawn. Isa's heart raced excitedly when two men appeared up the road. One man rode Champion with Mirage in tow, and the second, who looked suspiciously like Jonesie, was on a travel-worn nag. Their pace was hurried, as if they'd sensed someone on their tail. The black mare was acting up, tugging on her lead rope and attempting to take a bite out of the second man—it was Jonesie!—any time his horse got too close.

Isa saw the two men's mouths moving but was too far away to hear. The taller man on Champion yanked the cantankerous Arabian's lead rope in warning, and Jonesie pulled his pistol out. The scarred man aimed the six-shooter at the white blaze on Mirage's forehead, pretending to shoot. His nose was swollen, and both his eyes were black.

Lips thinned in concentration, Isa aimed and shot the dirt a yard away from Champion's feet. Clumps of earth exploded over the men and animals, and the report of the double-barrel shotgun made Mirage scream, eyes rolling and nostrils flaring wide. Jonesie's horse reared. He toppled onto the dirt at his horse's feet, reins still firmly in his fist. Head pulled awkwardly down and to the side, his horse followed and stepped on Jonesie's leg; the man screamed and released the reins.

Junior stepped out of the woods at the bend, aiming his Colts at the men's head. "Hands where I can see 'em."

The taller of the two men stopped trying to control Mirage and immediately did as he was told. Jonesie, however, released the leg he was cradling to reach for his empty holster—his gun had fallen out several feet away.

Junior caught the movement and shot the ground between the scarred man's feet. "You're ugly and stupid, aren't you?" he called out, calm and unaffected. "Pull that stunt again, and I'll have my partner shoot you directly in the eastern side of your head. We can bring you in dead or alive. What'll it be?"

They kept their hands raised.

"Izzy," Junior hollered, guns still trained on them. "Bring that shotgun over here and let them get a good look at both barrels while I hog-tie them."

Itching to get in on the action, Isa strode out, rope looped around her shoulders, muzzle trained on Jonesie and ready to blast holes into him with buckshot. Mirage, calmer now, nickered when she saw the tall young woman. "It appears you stole my horse," Isa said conversationally to Jonesie. "That's a hanging offense."

Jonesie sneered. "Goddamned horse broke my nose. I shoulda just killed it."

Isa imagined his nose crushing under the force of a violently swung equine head.

Good girl, Mirage.

To him, she said, "Serves you right. Stealing is wrong."

"Don't talk to him," Junior snapped. Training his gun on the first man, Junior drew the pistol from the lanky fellow's holster and pulled the newly unarmed man down to the dirt. Unraveling the rope from Isa's shoulders, Junior holstered his gun and got to work on the first man, who grunted and swore at the pressure of the rope's knot.

"Why not? You did."

"Not another word." Junior finished tying the man and maneuvered him facedown across Champion's saddle. The thief's hat fell off, blood pooling at his balding pate. The dapple-gray gelding turned to nose at Junior's shirt affectionately. When it was Jonesie's turn, Junior's eyes hardened. "Your turn."

Blackened eyes squinty with hatred, Jonesie cursed something awful, blistering their ears with insults and imprecations.

"Izzy, you have a handkerchief?" Junior tugged roughly on the knots binding the smaller man's limbs.

She scoffed incredulously. "What? No."

"Damn. Here, use this. Stuff it in his mouth and tie it off—don't let him bite you. Might be rabid." Junior pulled his dirty brown bandana from his neck and tossed it to her.

She looked at it, fingers squeezing involuntarily. Isa didn't want anything of Junior's near that humgruffin's mouth. It was too good for him.

"Izzy!"

"Don't harangue me," she groused, wrapping the bandana around the spitting man's mouth and yanking it into a knot with unnecessary roughness. "Be quiet, you fool. Don't you know everything you say can be held up in a court of law? This is a Texas Ranger you stole horses from."

Jonesie froze, his brown teeth bared behind lips peeled back tightly from the bandana. The second man seemed to hold his breath from his precarious perch on Champion. "I thought," the latter said haltingly, "you was a bounty hunter."

Junior's habile fingers stuttered around Jonesie's ankles before completing the complicated knot in two hard tugs.

"More fool you," Isa snorted, shotgun muzzle trained once more on the finally silent man at Junior's feet.

"Stop talkin'," he hissed, eyes shooting arrows at her.

Her brows rose. "Alright, don't get your skirts in a twist."

But Junior had turned his back to her. With a mighty grunt, he hefted the smaller man onto Jonesie's skittish horse's back. The outlaw, hands tied behind his back and ankles trussed up similarly, gave a groan that sounded like he was close to bringing up his breakfast.

"Shouldn't have drunk yourself stupid last night," Junior said unsympathetically. To Isa, he ordered, "Go get the horses and gear."

"Yes, sir!" She mock-saluted him, earning a satisfyingly hot glare.

As she jogged away, she heard the taller thief whisper, "She your sister or somethin'?"

"Hell no," Junior barked. "Now shut your yap."

Glancing behind her, Isa caught the moment Mirage adroitly snatched Junior's hat from his head.

ISA SOAKED IN the hotel's hip bath, physically boneless with exhaustion and mentally alert with elation. They had their horses back!

Junior had turned the two horse thieves over to Bryan's police department—a far more impressive establishment than Navasota's sheriff's office—and the helpful deputy had found a wanted poster with Jonesie's name and description. The scar-faced man had racked up enough offenses to be worth two hundred and fifty dollars alive, and it had taken every bit of Isa's control not to jump for joy at the prospect of splitting the reward with Junior.

That anticipation had deflated when the deputy had refused to hand the reward money over without first confirming the transaction with the sheriff…who wasn't available until the next morning. She supposed a night in Bryan wasn't much of an imposition. For the past two nights, she had slept in her own grit. Every time she had licked her lips, she tasted road dirt and salt. The cool front from the storm had frittered away, and it had been uncomfortably warm again by high noon. Sweat had trickled in dark, dusty trails down their temples.

With the money from selling the livery mare, Junior had bought them supper, ordered two rooms at a respectable hotel (under aliases), and spent extra on a bath for her. Even filthier than she, he'd visited a bathhouse because "it's cheaper" and claimed he needed more tobacco and rolling paper.

The bathwater, foggy from the bar of soap she'd scrubbed with, was tepid. Standing, Isa began the long, arduous process of washing her hair, using scented soap to lather a healthy amount of suds into the itchy roots. An eternity later, her matted knots squeaky clean, Isa climbed from the tub and stretched the kinks from her aching back. After donning her night wrapper, she wreathed her hair in a thin towel and padded barefoot to the plainly made bed in the center of the room. It wasn't as lovingly kept as their first hostel room, but it had the appropriate furniture. She plopped dramatically on the bed with a sigh— and hopped right back up again. The scent of something long-decayed perfumed the air around the mattress.

What the devil is that stench?

Isa ripped the bedclothes off with both hands: quilt, sheets, and pillows. In the center of the mattress was a dark-brown stain, yellow at its edges.

"Jumping Jehoshaphat, someone committed a murder on my bed!" she exclaimed. Then, she trotted to her bedroom wall and pounded a fist against it. A crudely constructed cross vibrated on its nail above. "Junior! Get over here if you please!"

Something heavy dropped to the floor on the other side of the wall, followed by running feet. Junior was already trying the knob before she could get the key into the hole.

"What is it?" he asked, his .45 drawn. He must have been readying for bed. His wrinkled—but clean—work shirt was unbuttoned. Isa's eyes couldn't resist a quick perusal of the sliver of his exposed chest. The top button of his denim jeans was undone.

Clearing her throat, she gestured to the bed. "Look. Someone died in my bed, and the hotel had the cheek to cover it up with bedclothes."

Junior wiped strands of hair, damp from the bathhouse, from his eyes, lowered his gun, and tiredly strode to the bed. He poked the dark stain with the muzzle of his pistol. "What in Sam Hill…"

"I don't know. All I know is I'm not sleeping on that. It's like there would be another person sleeping with me." She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and grimaced.

"I don't think that's blood." Lips twitching, he shot a devilish look at her.

"Oh, foul ."

"Let's tell the landlady to give you another room."