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Buster tossed his head and snorted impatiently. Tracker agreed. It was time to leave. He swung up into the saddle.
Shadow stopped him. “Tracker?”
He gathered up the reins. Buster pranced with impatience. “What?”
“You don’t have to go.”
He blinked. “I gave my word.” For the longest time the Ochoa word hadn’t been worth shit, but now it stood strong. He wasn’t going to be the one who dragged it back into the dirt.
“Desi will understand.”
“I doubt it. She loves her sister.”
“She also loves you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
Shadow adjusted his hat against the glare of the morning sun. “What is it with finding Arianna, Tracker?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You told me once that you had a feeling she’d be the end of you.”
“I was drunk.” The dreams had been getting stronger lately, coming nightly, yanking him from a sound sleep with a sense of urgency and doom. He’d tossed back the whiskey in an attempt to escape them.
“You never drink, but when the last one wasn’t Arianna, you went on a two-day bender.”
“I’d been a month on the trail with five women who did nothing but argue. I was just cutting loose.”
“You hate drink and what it does to a man.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not as foolish as the next when I get off the trail.”
“Bull.”
He didn’t need this from his brother. Not now. “Let it go, Shadow.”
“Not if finding Ari means I lose you.” Shadow’s horse shifted with the tension in the man.
“There’s no ‘if’ about it. I’m going to find her.”
“And if it means your death?”
He’d made his peace with that possibility a year ago. It wasn’t that hard. The pain in Desi’s face as she spoke of the last time she’d seen her sister, the agony in her voice as she’d exposed her guilt, the hopelessness as she’d begged Caine to help her…Like Caine, he’d do anything to remove that pain from her. Despite all that she’d been through, Desi was the purest soul Tracker had ever seen. An angel with blond hair and blue eyes. An angel who had seemed so familiar the first time he saw her that he’d thought he recognized her, until he’d gotten closer. So close, his instincts had whispered, but not the one.
And then she’d revealed the existence of her twin, and that sinking sense had come with the loss of inviolability. Then the dreams had started. Arianna called to him in those dreams, begged him for help. And he could help her; he knew that as well as he knew saving her would destroy him. He imagined Desi’s face when her sister came home. Going out a hero wasn’t a bad way to go. He met Shadow’s gaze and held it. He didn’t want to leave any doubt that he went to his end with peace in his heart. “Then I’m making the trade.”
Shadow shook his head. The breeze that raised the long, silken hair that lay on Tracker’s back barely disturbed his brother’s. “I’m not.”
Tracker couldn’t help that. “Your destiny lies elsewhere.”
It was a shot in the dark, but the twitch of Shadow’s eyelids revealed what he’d suspected. His brother had demons of his own to wrestle with in the dark of night, when there were no distractions.
“Promise me you’ll watch your back.”
Tracker nodded. “As well as you watch yours.”
“That will be damn good.”
“Understood.”
Shadow wheeled his horse to the west and nudged him into a canter. As one, man and horse blended seamlessly into an easy rhythm. Tracker watched until his brother grew small in the distance before turning Buster south and urging him into his own ground-eating lope. His destiny waited.
His destiny rested in a little run-down adobe house about a mile out of the town of Esperanza. Evidence of past prosperity was all around the property. A barn big enough to house several horses stood just off to the right. Several corrals surrounding the structure were in various states of collapse. Only the fences near the house were maintained. The home itself clearly had been built for a family, and remnants of happier times remained in the faded red paint on the shutters. However, the only people Tracker had seen coming and going from the house since he’d arrived last night were a stooped, elderly Hispanic man, a small elderly woman, presumably his wife, and a blond woman Tracker had seen only from the back, through the window. By the lack of hoofprints around the exterior, he was pretty sure those were all the residents.
He trained his spyglass on the window again, hoping for a better look at the blond woman. All he saw was the back of a wooden chair, a cup on a table and the edge of a black iron stove. Impatience, a foreign emotion, gnawed at his calm. He wanted—no, needed—to see the young woman who lived there. His gut said it was Ari. He needed it to be Ari. He was sick of the dreams, sick of the apprehension, sick of the fairy tales his imagination wove around her. The woman had lost her family to murderers, her virginity to Comancheros, and probably her sanity to God knew what else. Whatever he found, Ari wouldn’t be a woman who tiptoed into his dreams at the end of nightmares, held out her hand in invitation and looked at him with softness. He’d be lucky if she still had a thread of sanity.
He shifted his position slightly. There wasn’t much cover around the house, which was good from a defense standpoint, but was hell on his knees, as it forced him to crouch. There was only so much cover sagebrush could provide a man his size. And only so much strain his twice-busted legs could take without screaming a protest. He forced the growing discomfort from his mind and resumed his surveillance. He needed to know if the woman was a guest or a prisoner. It wasn’t uncommon for women to be sold as slaves this far from the law. And it wouldn’t be a surprise, based on what she’d been through, if Ari saw that as a step up.
Movement to the left caught his eye. He turned the spyglass on the back door. The old man stepped down into the yard, steadying himself on the doorjamb a few seconds before straightening his spine and heading toward the barn, where the milk cow was housed. An aged hound strode alongside. It was clear to Tracker that the old man was ill, but didn’t want the other residents of the house to know. Tracker made a note of the routine and added it to his mental list. From what he could see, it wasn’t a violent household. He’d crept close enough to the house last night to hear some conversation. He’d caught only a bit, revolving around the care of the rosebush out front, before the hound had caught his scent and growled a warning. That fragment of conversation had been enough to give Tracker a hint of her voice. Soft and sweet, with Eastern overtones. It was hard to tell through the walls, but he thought there was a strong similarity to Desi’s voice.
He shook his head and pulled his hat lower against the morning sun. If he were hunting any other woman, the information he had now would have been enough for him to act. But this was too important, too personal for reasons he couldn’t begin to define. For this identification, he needed absolute certainty.
Movement in the window drew his spyglass back around. Disappointment cut like a knife when all he saw was the salt-and-pepper bun pinned atop the old woman’s head. But then she moved on and the younger woman came into view. From the back she looked just like Desi. She had the same delicate stature, same hesitant yet challenging way of standing, as if she needed just the slightest encouragement and she could take on the world. More importantly, she had the same blond hair that fell in a riot of curls down her back.
His fingers tightened on the spyglass. Turn around. Turn around.
As if she heard him, she did, turning until he had a clear view of her face.
“Son of a bitch.”
He’d known Ari was Desi’s twin, but somehow he just hadn’t been prepared for the impact. Ari had the same big blue eyes set in a round face above a surprisingly lush, red mouth. She even had the same stubborn chin. If the two were side by side, a body would be hard put to tell the difference. He squinted and pulled his hat brim lower, blocking more of the sun’s rays. With further study, he discerned some differences. Desi was small and dainty, but as she’d said, her sister was even more delicate. Maybe Ari wasn’t as tall or maybe she was a smidgen fuller in the cheeks. Or maybe it was just her spirit that had that delicacy. It was hard to tell anything from this distance. But one thing was sure, Ari didn’t have the look of a woman who’d been to hell and back. As he watched, she laughed, tossing her head, sending curls bouncing over her shoulders. Tracker slowly lowered the spyglass, the image of that smile lingering.
Shit.
He took a breath as the ramifications rocked through him. It really was Ari and she really was alive. More than that, she seemed happy. The latter defied reason.
There were eleven of them. And with me gone, there was just her.
Desi’s description of the last time she’d seen her sister whispered through his head the way it often did, bringing the fury that came from knowing how easy it would be for just one man to force a woman of Desi’s build down in the dirt. How much pain just one man could inflict on such a delicate woman until she gave up all hope and just did what she was told. When he multiplied that misery by eleven, the rage near drove him insane. He couldn’t imagine what it’d done to Ari—but not leave a scar at all? That he couldn’t fathom.
A bird burst out of the large bush set between the house and the barn. It wasn’t the old man who’d startled it; he was still in the barn. The hairs on the back of Tracker’s neck rose. The town of Esperanza was expanding wildly because of the rumor of gold in the area, and in the way of growing towns, the disreputable element was growing the fastest. It wasn’t hard to figure out why someone lurked in the bushes near this particular house. Blond women in this part of the country were a rarity. Delicate blond women with the face of an angel were a prize. No telling what kind of scum had come creeping around. Looked as if Tracker had arrived just in time to be useful.
He glanced at the house again. The shutters that hung alongside the windows were solid except for the small gun slits cut into them. Obviously, at some point in the past, the residents had had to fight for their survival. But whatever habits they’d once practiced had now fallen to the wayside. Now, the front door was propped open to catch the morning breeze. The man of the house had left his gun behind when he went to the barn. Clearly, the residents had become complacent, at a time when they should be vigilant.
Tracker raised the spyglass again. He could just make out the figure of a man hiding behind the small wash shed. Tracker estimated the distance. More than a hundred yards and not a lick of cover between him and the intruder. That eliminated the hope of a silent attack. He reached for his rifle. There was more than one way to skin a cat. A quick scan of the surrounding area didn’t reveal any other signs of intruders. So there was just one. Tracker carefully drew his rifle forward as he watched, keeping it low so the sun wouldn’t glint off the dull metal barrel and warn his quarry. He wet his pinkie and held it up. Not much wind today. The shot would be easy.
The intruder moved forward. Tracker trained his glass on the man, swore and then relaxed. Son of a bitch. He was nothing more than a boy. Dark skinned, with shaggily cut black hair and the tan-colored wool clothes of a Mexican. The youth had to have a powerful crush if he’d risk getting caught spying on a white woman. Even here at the edges of the state, there were white men who would kill him for the offense.
The lad wouldn’t care about that, though, if he was in love. A boy in love had no sense and no control. Tracker remembered back to his youth, his first ill-fated crush. The only thing that had mattered was getting a moment with the woman of his dreams.
The boy needed manners cracked into his skull, but not killing. Tracker propped the rifle across his knees.
It was no surprise when Ari came out of the house dressed in a nightgown and wrapper, carrying a pitcher. The boy had to be waiting for something. Tracker set his teeth as the sun shone through the layers of cotton and revealed the fine turn of her calves. The adobe house wasn’t so isolated that a woman could go about undressed. His woman sure as hell wouldn’t, especially in a robe that clung so enticingly to the soft thrust of her unconfined breasts.
His cock stirred in his pants as the material pulled tight across her slender hips for a moment. Her ass was surprisingly full for such a delicate woman. He did enjoy a woman’s ass, and Ari’s was a work of art. As fast as the thought entered his head, Tracker pushed it aside. A woman like Ari wasn’t for him. He knew it and the world knew it, and if he dared to forget, someone would put a bullet between his eyes as a reminder.
Ari went to the well behind the house. She primed the pump with a cup of water from the bucket sitting on the side, and then worked the handle until the water flowed steadily, standing back a bit so it wouldn’t splash. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or resentful of that. Wet cotton got temptingly see-through. Ari filled the pitcher with water, stood as if listening for something, and headed back toward the house twice as fast as she’d left. What had she heard that put that pep in her step?
The back door slammed shut behind her. The boy glanced at the barn and then the house, and then took off at a run, looking back over his shoulder several times. Tracker knew just how he felt. He’d have liked a longer look at those pretty calves, the soft thrust of her breasts against the robe. He cursed as the seam of his pants cut into his cock. He was too old to be responding like a randy kid.
He inched backward on his stomach until he had the shelter of a small rise between himself and the house, and then he stood. A soft whistle brought Buster trotting over. Tracker packed up his gear, anticipation nudging him to hurry. He wanted to swat at it the way he’d swat a fly. He was a man of calm, a man of patience. He could wait days for the chance of a shot, ignoring cramped muscles, bug bites and weather. Why was it that he couldn’t wait five minutes to ride down to that little ranch?
He slid his rifle into the scabbard, then paused before mounting up. He touched the letter in his pocket, the one Desi had written. He’d promised her he’d bring Ari home.
Everyone had assumed Arianne would be grateful to leave whatever hell she was living in for the chance to be with her sister, but she looked settled here. She might not want to leave the older couple to travel across the state. Whatever had happened since the Comancheros had sold her, she’d clearly found a measure of peace here. People could be funny about peace. They rarely wanted to leave it.
The letter rustled under his fingers. A promise was a promise. If he had to bring Ari kicking and screaming to Hell’s Eight, he would. She wasn’t safe here. The attack on Sally Mae had made it clear that Desi and Ari’s enemies were still hunting her, and if he’d found her, they could, too. Swinging up into the saddle, he steered Buster toward the ranch. Leaving wasn’t an option, so he needed a legitimate reason to stay while he checked the lay of the land. Word in town was the old man was looking for help fixing the place up.
Tracker patted Buster’s neck. “Guess we’ll go see a man about a job.”
Chapter Two
The old man was sharper than Tracker had expected. He took one look at him outside the barn door and grabbed up a pitchfork.
“Que quieres aquí?”
Tracker halted just inside the door, keeping a safe distance between the tines of that fork and his midsection while his eyes adjusted to the change in light. The last thing he wanted was to hurt an old man who’d taken in Ari and given her peace.
He answered in English. “A job. Word in town is you’ve got one available.”
The old man squinted and looked him over from head to toe. Tracker knew what he saw. The scar on his face alone gave people pause. Coming hard off the trail, dressed in black, his hair long and the scar advertising his way of life like a red flag, he looked like what he was: trouble.
The man didn’t lower the pitchfork. “I am looking for a handyman.”
“I’m handy.”
The old man’s gaze went to the guns on his hips. “With a hammer.”
Tracker didn’t bother to smile. It made people nervous when he smiled. “I’m good with that, too.”
“I do not need here the kind of trouble a pistolero brings.”
Tracker’s eyes had adjusted to the interior. There was no one else lurking about as far as he could tell, and the hairs on the back of his neck weren’t standing on end in warning. That was about as much of a guarantee as he ever got. He relaxed, pushing his hat back from his forehead. “Is that so?”
The old man showed no sign of relaxing in turn. “That is so.”
“From what I saw last night in town, it seems to me a man with a pretty young woman on the property could use all the help he can get. With a hammer and other things.”
The old-timer took a step forward, the tines dipping to align with Tracker’s gut. “You will stay away from mi hija.”
Daughter? He called Ari his daughter? That was going to complicate things. “Don’t have any intention of getting close. That kind of trouble I don’t need.”
It wasn’t precisely a lie. He was only going to get as close as it took to spirit Ari safely back to Hell’s Eight.
The old man lowered the pitchfork slightly. “No, you don’t.” He jerked his head toward town. “They would string you up by your cajones.”
Interesting. “And who would they be?”
“Los gringos who came to town last winter.”
“There weren’t any gringos in town last night.”
The old man spat. “They come. They go. But when they come it is muy malo.”
Likely a gang of outlaws who were intent on making the town of Esperanza their refuge. “Not the neighborly sort, huh?”
The old one stood the pitchfork on the ground. “No.”
The cow mooed restlessly, clearly unhappy with having her morning milking interrupted.
“Then I reckon a handyman who’s also handy with a gun might be useful.” Tracker held out his hand. “Tracker Ochoa.”
Not by a twitch of an eyelash did the old man show any sign he recognized the name. Tracker wasn’t surprised. Esperanza was very close to the Mexican border. Not much worry a Texas Ranger’s rep would carry this far.
“Vincente Morales.”
Vincente’s hand was callused and worn from years of work. His grip was lighter than Tracker expected. As soon as he felt swollen knuckles that indicated arthritis he lessened his own grip. Vincente leaned the pitchfork against the outside of the stall.
“This getting old, it is not for a coward.”
“You looked pretty damn intimidating wielding that pitchfork.” Tracker took a step forward and indicated the cow. “Mind if I finish this up?”
“I would be grateful.”
Tracker readjusted the stool near the animal. “She got any preferences?”
“No. Abuelita is a good cow.”
Tracker set his hat down and leaned his forehead against the animal’s side. It’d been a long time since he’d milked a cow. He hated the damn things, but he couldn’t sit by and watch an old man with pained hands struggle with the chore. It took only three seconds to figure out that there were some things a man didn’t forget, no matter how hard he tried. Milking a cow was one of them.
Two tugs and the milk hit the bucket in a hard stream. The old hound moaned and looked hopeful. Tracker smiled and squirted in the dog’s direction. His aim was a bit off but the hound compensated, licking the milk off his whiskers with slow swipes of his big tongue. Vincente chuckled.
Tracker caught his eye. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“No. He can no longer hunt rabbits. It is one of his few pleasures.”
“A body’s got to have his pleasures.”
