A warmth rose into her cheeks. “I’ll tell them,” she said softly. Something was squeezing inside her, pressing against her heart. For the first time she realized part of her didn’t want to leave. She looked up at Ramon and he must have sensed what she was feeling for his eyes turned smoky and dark. Bending forward, he slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her toward him. Hismouth came down over hers, moving with fiery heat and an odd sort of tenderness.
She found herself reaching out for him, sliding her arms around his neck and kissing him back. Tears stung her eyes as his lips touched her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, then he returned to kissing her lips. A last hard kiss and he broke away.
“Stay on the trail,” he said gruffly. “In two hours time you will reach the boundary of the ranch. Take the fork to the right and you will come to the ranch house.” He whirled the big black stallion. “Vaya con Dios, querida.El Dragón will not forget you.” And then he was gone.
Carly’s hands clenched on the reins. Her insides were shaking, and her heart felt crushed inside her breast. Tears burned her eyes and began to slide down her cheeks.
“God go with you, Ramon,” she whispered to his tall retreating figure as the big, black stallion picked its way back up the trail. She watched him until he disappeared. Even then she didn’t ride out, just sat on the stout bay horse feeling heartsick and lonely when she should have been feeling elated.
Eventually she turned the bay and rode off down the trail toward her uncle’s hacienda. She would see him again, she told herself, not that it would make any difference. Don Ramon would visit the rancho as he had done before. And he would play the gentleman. But it was El Dragón, the handsome Spaniard who had carried her away, that she would remember in her dreams.
***
From a ridge high above, Ramon watched Carly ride off down the trail. He followed at a distance until she reached the boundary to Rancho del Robles then turned away. He felt tired and strangely empty, as if someone had blown out a candle, leaving him alone in a darkened room.
Perhaps he was worried that the girl would break her word, but he didn’t really think so. A bond had grown between them, an odd sort of kinship that had nothing to do with the desire he felt for her. It had happened the moment he had stepped into the clearing, the instant he had set for himself the task of protecting her. The bond had strengthened the moment he had seen she was equally willing to fight for him.
And if he was wrong?
Unconsciously he shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t really matter. He couldn’t keep her and he would not hurt her again. If she betrayed him, so be it. His life had been a full one, ripe with the company of beautiful women, the pleasures of the flesh, the taste of fine wines, dancing, and song. His only regret would be in failing his people. They needed him. His mother and his aunt Teresa needed him. And he wanted Rancho del Robles returned to the de la Guerra name.
Perhaps he had been a fool, and yet he would not change his course of action. Time would tell if the woman would keep her word.
Ramon rode back toward the compound. He would let Pedro and the others know he was safe, what he had done with the girl, and then he would return to Rancho Las Almas. In the days ahead, perhaps he would ride to Monterey. There was a girl there, Catarina Micheltorena, a direct descendant of the former governor of Alta California. She had just turned seventeen, not as old as he would have liked, but she was beautiful, and pure Castilian Spanish. She was the kind of woman who would obey his every command and bring him a host of fine strong sons. Her father believed the two of them would suit and he was eager for the marriage.
Ramon thought of Carly. Of her courage and determination, of her innocence and womanly curves. He thought of the way shehad felt in his arms, and a hollow ache rose into his chest. He nudged the stallion into a gallop.
For the first time in a long time, he realized just how lonely he was.
***
“Now, Caralee, my dear, let’s go over this again.”
Carly sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’ve told you what happened a dozen times, Uncle Fletcher. I was blindfolded the night of the raid and again when the men moved their camp. I was lucky I was able to escape, that I happened on a trail that led in the right direction, that some old Indian pointed me toward Rancho del Robles. I didn’t see anything that might help you find them, I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
They were seated in his study, on the brown leather sofa in front of the hearth. It was still warm outside, a late September day, so the fire wasn’t lit. Instead it blazed in her uncle’s green eyes.
A man named Jeremy Layton sat across from them, the sheriff from San Juan Bautista. “What I can’t understand, Miss McConnell, is why he didn’t try to ransom you sooner. Why did he wait so long?” The sheriff was a man in his forties, lean and blond and rawboned, with a dark-tanned, slightly weathered face.
“I-I don’t know. I think he wanted my uncle to worry. I gather he doesn’t like him very much.” It was harder to lie than she had thought, the story growing more complex with every telling.
“None of those greasers like me.” Her uncle’s thick hand balled into a fist. “They resent the fact they lost the war. They were too weak to keep their land, now they’re taking it out on any American who happens to get in their way.” He turned a hard look on Carly. “Tell me again what this bastard looked like.”
Carly shuddered, thinking of Villegas, the villain she had mentally dubbed El Dragón. The ugly bandit looked as little like Ramon de la Guerra as any man she could think of. And conveniently he was dead. She rubbed her temples. She was beginning to get a headache.
“As I said, he was a big, burly man with a long, black, curling mustache. He had an eyetooth that was missing and one that was gold.”
After the first stunned acceptance of her return home, after a hard, brief hug and concern for her physical welfare, her uncle had begun his endless round of questions.
“Sound like anyone you know, Sheriff Layton?” he asked.
“Not offhand, but when I get back to town, I’ll go through that stack of wanted posters sitting on my desk. Could be I missed something.” The sheriff had been away on business when Carly first returned. He’d only arrived at the rancho just that morning, four days after she’d gotten back home.
Four days. It felt like four weeks.
“Tell us again about the horses they stole,” her uncle pressed. “You say you think he sold them?”
“Yes. I heard one of the men talking, saying that the money should last them quite a while.” He was determined she had seen something that would help them find the outlaws, and the more determined he was, the more determined Carly was she would not break her word.