“Senorita McConnell,” he said without the slightest hint of warmth, “how good of you to join us.” The lines of his face looked stark, and grimmer than she had ever seen them. His sensuous lips were flattened into a thin, harsh line. Cold brown eyes bored into her, fathomless and unreadable, so dark they looked almost black.
An icy dread swept through her. One look in those chilling dark eyes and she knew she had never been farther from safety in her life.
“You … you’re not … you’re not…”
“Don Ramon Martinez y Barranca de la Guerra,” he said with a slight, mocking bow. “At your service, senorita.” The flash of his straight white teeth looked almost feral. “Or perhaps you prefer El Dragón.”
Carly swayed on her feet, fear knifing through her, so sharp it felt like a blade. She might have fallen if his long, dark hand hadn’t reached out to steady her, his fingers biting like talons into the flesh of her upper arm. Carly wrenched herself free.
For a moment she couldn’t speak, just stared at him as if she was seeing him for the very first time. With shaking hands, her wrists still bound, she drew her pale blue robe more closely around her. Fear warred with fury. She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye.
“El Dragón…” she repeated, her voice ringing with contempt. “Such a charming imposter… I never would have guessed.” She hoisted her chin a notch. “I actually believed you were a true Spanish noble, a man to be admired. The truth is you’re nothing but a thief and a murderer.”
His lips twisted harshly. “And you, senorita, are the woman responsible for the suffering and death of my men.”
Carly stiffened. The edge of fear flickered its warning. It was foolish to bait him and yet she could not resist. He had made a fool of her, made a fool of them all.
“Youare the one responsible, Don Ramon. You and your stealing, your raiding, and murder. I did nothing but warn my uncle’s men. I only tried to stop you—and I would do it again!”
Black rage swept his features, turning his dark eyes to onyx and making him look like the vicious man he was. Around him the men did not stir, just glared at her with the same stark hatred she saw in the eyes of the don. The blow came swift and hard, a brutal slap that stung her cheek and sent her spinning into the dirt. He looked enormous towering above her, his body rigid with fury, his hands balled into fists.
She closed her eyes, preparing herself for the beating to come, steeling herself for the pain that was certain to follow. Instead when she opened her eyes, she saw him turn away. An older man stepped forward, reached down and cut the rope that still circled her ankles.
He spoke rapid, angry Spanish to the don, words she tried to understand but couldn’t with her stomach churning and her head spinning as it was.
He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “I am Sanchez,” he said, gentleness taking the edge from his voice. He was lean and hard, like the rest of the men, but age and a life spent out of doors had weathered his features, furrowing deep, craggy canyons in his face. “You must try to understand, senorita. Don Ramon is not an unkind man.”
“He’s a monster.” A shaky hand came up to the harsh red mark on her cheek.
“He is merely a man—one who for the moment does not think clearly. He is too caught up in his grief.”
“Grief? I don’t understand what you mean.” For an instant she thought he might not tell her, the way his shrewd old eyes continued to study her face.
He sighed and suddenly he looked even older. “In the raid last night Don Ramon’s younger brother, Andreas, was killed. The don loved him very much. He would have given his own life to protect him. That was something he was not allowed to do.”
Carly saw the pain that was etched in the old man’s face. “Dear God.” For an instant her heart went out to him, went out to them both. Then she caught herself and reined in her concern. “His brother was an outlaw. They both are. What did the don expect? Shooting was probably too good for him.”
“He was a man trying to save his home, his way of life. Perhaps one day you will understand.”
Carly shivered in the damp morning air. She would never understand men like these. Men who robbed and killed. Men without scruples or mercy.
“In time he will return to himself,” the old vaquero said. “In the meantime, you must do nothing to anger him.”
Carly looked over the old man’s shoulder to see Don Ramon speaking to one of his men. He was a bandit, a murderer—and he blamed her for the death of his brother. An icy chill slid down her spine. It was followed by a pang of regret, a feeling of loss forthe handsome Spanish don she had been so attracted to, a man who had never existed.
She stared at the tall, virile Spaniard, trying to fit the hard man he was into the charming man he had seemed, trying to imagine the kind of man he was inside. She had no idea what he meant to do, what cruelties he might have in store for her, but in that moment it didn’t matter—Carly was determined to survive them.
He had made a fool of her once. He would not do it again.
Besides, if she could hold on long enough, her uncle would have time to find her. She didn’t doubt that he would come. Fletcher Austin was every bit as hard-edged and determined as the man who called himself El Dragón.
That thought gave her a shot of strength and a tighter grip on her fear. Gathering her pale blue robe together against the cold, she backed into the shadows, and sank down in her place beneath the tree. She had faced hardship and cruelty before. Losing her sister and her father had been hard, working in the mine patch from dawn till dusk beside her mother had been hard, watching her mother die a slow, agonizing death had been even harder, but she had survived it, and she would survive this, too.
As the minutes wore on, her courage grew. By the time they were ready to leave, it wasn’t Caralee McConnell, late of Mrs. Stuart’s Fashionable School for Young Ladies, who awaited her captor’s torment. It was Carly McConnell, Pennsylvania coal miner’s daughter. A woman whose strength of will quite possibly equaled that of the don.
***
“This thing you have done—taking the woman—it can only come to grief.” Pedro Sanchez stood in front of Ramon, his flat-brimmed hat clutched in a weathered, age-spotted hand.