The Outlaw's Lady by Laurie Kingery

Author:Laurie Kingery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

They left the next morning at dawn. The bandits were in good spirits, after a night spent feasting and not having to sleep in the open, and Delgado’s mood was buoyant, too, since he had pocketed a handsome sum from Cordoba for the stolen livestock and the other plunder. Lupe seemed equally glad to be back on the trail, after kissing Cordoba goodbye and giving him a merry wave as she rode away.

“I’m surprised you can leave him so easily,” Tess said, after they’d ridden out of sight. “He seems a kind man.”

Lupe eyed her suspiciously. “Cordoba? Bah! He’s nice enough, all right, but he’s a dried-up old stick next to an hombre full of brío like Sandoval, here,” Lupe said, winking at Parrish, who was riding on Lupe’s other side. “I’ll settle down into the lap of luxury as Cordoba’s wife soon enough, but there’s no sense depriving myself of a stallion before I have to settle for an old gelding. We have some unfinished business, do we not, querido?” she said, fluttering her thick, black lashes at Parrish.

Parrish stared pointedly at Lupe’s heavy betrothal ring, winking in the light of the rising sun, then kneed his pinto forward until he was riding next to Delgado.

Lupe wasn’t the least abashed. “Men!” she said with a husky chuckle. “They get so jealous. But I’ll make it up to him,” she added, with a secretive smile.

Lupe thought that Sandoval was jealous, instead of disgusted at her? Tess was glad that she knew the truth about Sandoval’s feelings, and marveled that Lupe could deceive herself as well as she could Cordoba.

“In any case, Tess,” Lupe went on, “how could I tamely stay with Cordoba when I have a job to do? I’m here to chaperone you amid all these wild men.” She chuckled, then lowered her voice. “I’m also here to make sure you don’t try anything foolish, like escaping. Diego wants you, gringa, and what my brother wants, I’m going to see that he gets.”

Delgado, perhaps hearing his name mentioned, turned to look over his shoulder, and all the menace faded from Lupe’s sharp features. “And besides,” she went on, her tone merry again, “I haven’t had the chance to shoot anyone yet. That’s always the high point of going raiding for me.”

Lupe was baiting her, Tess knew, and struggled not to tighten her hands on the reins. “What will your betrothed say when you return to him without a wedding dress?” she asked. “There’s no seamstress in Santa Elena, is there?”

Lupe laughed again. “Of course not! But who says I’ll return without a wedding dress? Perhaps I’ll find one to steal.”

More than ever before, Tess understood why Parrish and the Rangers were determined to put an end to raiders like the Delgados—both of them. The cause had become hers, too.

Delgado decided to strike a little settlement just across the river from Reynosa that day, a place so small that it could hardly be called a town as yet, but big enough to boast a post office, a small general store, a cantina and a church.

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