The Outlaw and the Lady Read Free Page B

that he necessarily had to be Mexican to speak so fluently.
    The man he called Alejandro responded in kind. She identified his voice as belonging to the man who’d originally questioned Raven’s actions outside the bank. Alejandro’s voice carried no shadows, and she recognized the tone of familial love reverberating between them. Their apparent teasing banter made absolutely no sense to her, was contrary to her perception of desperadoes.
    “Enough already!” she shouted, slashing her hand through the air. “You’ve made your point.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me you were blind?” he demanded.
    She dropped the pitiful bundle of twigs she’d gathered, planted her hands on her hips, and leaned forward slightly. “I tried, you idiot! But then you shoved that filthy piece of cloth—”
    “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa, señorita . I gifted you with my favorite bandanna. I do not think you know who you are insulting.”
    “Lee Raven.”
    Silence, thick and heavy, permeated the air and she wondered if she’d been too brazen. To the disappointment of the few men who had deemed her worth courting, however briefly, docility had never been one of her character traits.
    “Then you must know, señorita ,” he said silkily, “that it would behoove you to behave.”
    “It would behoove you to let me go. My father is an extremely influential man.”
    “Alejandro guessed that much. Perhaps your father would be willing to pay a handsome ransom to have you returned unharmed.”
    “What he will do,” she said in a curt voice as though she were talking to someone who had nothing under his hat but hair, “is contact Captain Christian Montgomery of the Texas Rangers and have your head delivered to him on a silver platter.”
    “Kit Montgomery?” he asked mockingly. “Your father knows Kit Montgomery?”
    “Yes. They’re extremely close friends.”
    “Alejandro, her father knows the famous Kit Montgomery. Can you believe this?”
    “Which means you’ve stepped into a pile of cow dung,” Alejandro said.
    She bit back her smile of satisfaction at the man’s adequate description of the situation. Kit Montgomery’s legends were indeed rooted in fact, which meant this outlaw’s days of freedom were numbered.
    “I don’t think so,” Raven said. “He is in west Texas. We are in south central Texas. We are safe.”
    “The hell you are. My father will send him a telegram, and Captain Montgomery won’t hesitate to come.”
    Not only because he was her father’s best friend, but because he, too, had experienced the anguish of losing a child. The grief rolled through her with the reminder, and she forced back the memory of her failure to protect his son.
    She couldn’t dwell on the past now. She had to focus on the present if she intended to play well this hand she’d unexpectedly been dealt. “He can track down a whisper in a strong wind.”
    “I’m shaking in my boots,” he said caustically.
    “I know. I can feel the ground trembling.”
    “But you cannot see me shaking,” he said in a seductive voice, his breath skimming along her cheek. She resisted the urge to recoil at the intimate contact. She would not grant him the satisfaction of intimidating her.
    “Your eyes are so expressive that for a moment I almost thought I was mistaken.”
    She wanted to slap his face, but she feared she might have already pushed her boundaries with this man to their limit. “You’re right. I have absolutely no earthly idea what you look like. Therefore you have no reason to keep me.”
    This was a small lie. Based upon where her head had hit his chest when he’d first grabbed her, she knew he was an inch or so taller than her father. Remembering the way his arms had come around her on the horse, cradling her protectively, she knew he had broad shoulders. A washboard stomach. Iron thighs. Gentle hands. His hands had surprised her when he’d lifted her off the horse as though he truly worried that he might hurt her, and she could