The Texas Ranger's Daughter

Chapter Two

Laurie tried to draw up her knees to her chest, but her corset and bustle prevented her, so she inclined to the side, legs tucked under her skirt with one elbow resting on the log behind her as she watched. Time seemed to slow as Larson swung a bone-crushing fist at Boon’s head and missed. Boon, smaller and faster, ducked, then landed a blow to Larson’s ribs before spinning away as the older man bellowed. Another swing and another miss. This time Boon used his elbow to strike the back of Larson’s head.

Both men were dirty fighters, but Boon was faster and stayed out of the man’s reach. If Larson got his hands on him, Laurie felt certain Boon would be finished. The bigger man made a grab for his opponent and Boon used the heel of his hand against his rival’s nose. The crunch made Laurie gag. His broken nose gushed blood down his indigo denim shirt and greasy brown vest. A moment later, Larson’s left eye swelled shut and the big man began to stagger. He drew his gun. The men ceased cheering and dived for cover at the exact moment Boon lunged at Larson’s legs, using his body like a rolling barrel to take the man down.

Laurie didn’t know when it happened but she found herself rooting for Boon, clearly the underdog. What was the matter with her? She should hope they all killed each other and left her in peace.

Boon sprang to his feet and used his boot heel to crush Larson’s shooting hand, still clutching the pistol. The downed man howled like a feral animal as his fingers crunched. Boon retrieved the gun from the ground.

He aimed it at Larson. The man stopped screaming and cradled his mangled hand to his chest. Boon cocked the trigger.

The clearing now fell so silent, Laurie could hear the burning logs crackle and pop in the fire.

George Hammer rose and stepped forward. The men parted as he approached. He glanced coldly at Larson, lying like a defeated gladiator in the ring. Laurie recalled this was his pick and shivered. Hammer turned his head and narrowed his eyes on Boon. The younger outlaw was so still, he seemed carved of marble, but he still aimed the gun at Larson’s big ugly bleeding nose.

Boon did not look to their leader, but seemed to be waiting for something.

“Finish him,” growled Hammer.

There was no hesitation. Boon squeezed the trigger. The shot exploded as Laurie screamed. Larson twitched as the bullet passed through his forehead and then he went still, his feet lolling in opposite directions as his injured hand slipped to the ground.

Her cry and the pistol shot rang in her ears as her mind tried to reconcile such savagery.

Hammer clapped Boon on the shoulder. Boon lowered Larson’s smoking pistol.

“Glad to have you back, Boon.” He turned toward the men. “Larson pulled his pistols. If Boon hadn’t shot him, I woulda.”

Boon slid Larson’s gun behind the buckle of his belt. “Who’s next?”

The men shifted restlessly. Larson was the biggest among them and Boon had taken him down without suffering a scratch. The others were right to take his guns, but even without them, he’d bested their top man.

Laurie glanced about the rough-looking men. They eyed her with lust, but none stepped out to face Boon. Laurie’s stomach rolled as she realized they didn’t have to. Boon had not won her. He’d just won her first. If they were patient they’d still have their turn. No need to get shot over a woman.

Hammer wrapped an arm about Boon’s shoulder. “He’s one of us, boys.”

Was he? Laurie eyed the young man. Despite the dust and stubble there was something about him that was different than the others, but perhaps this was only her mind grasping for any slim thread of hope. Then she remembered the slap and how Boon had deflected it, protecting her from harm. She watched Boon, trying to see inside his soul.

Hammer went on, as if presenting him to a family gathering, the prodigal son, returning to the flock of thieves.

“I said so the first time I laid eyes on you. Bad Boon, one of us again. Welcome home, son.”

The men nodded their approval, accepting the will of their leader, all except Larson, of course. Laurie ventured a glance at the murdered man and was immediately sorry as her stomach heaved.

“Thanks.” Boon’s eyes narrowed and swept the gang, pausing to meet each man’s cold stare. “Good to be back.”

Hammer slapped him on the shoulder. “She’s all yours. Have at her.”

Boon didn’t move.

“Well?” said Hammer.

“Not in front of them.” He pointed at the others.

Hammer scowled. “What? You too shy to let them see your pecker?”

Boon said nothing.

“Maybe I’ll just give her to Cal.”

“I won.”

Hammer glared. Boon didn’t blink. Laurie found she suddenly couldn’t breathe. Their leader might just as soon shoot the newest member of his group as back down. The men stood watchful, waiting for the drama to play out.

Hammer broke into a grin and then gave a laugh. “All right then, boy. Drag her off in the dark and give her a poke, but don’t take too long, else I’ll send the boys for their turn.”

Boon came for her then, his gaze cold and dead, walking fast as if this were some burden he did not savor. She made a poor attempt at evasion and he snatched her up, dragging her to her feet as the others laughed and jeered.

She expected to see lust in his eyes, but instead he captured her gaze with one laced with what looked like regret. Laurie felt unreasonable hope welling again. What was wrong with her? He was an outlaw. She’d just watched him kill a man. To save her, echoed her mind. Was that the reason?

Boon laced his fingers into her long hair, now a tangled mess of pins and tendrils, what remained of the neat bun she had fashioned at her nape yesterday morning.

He drew her forward until her breasts pressed flush against the hard contours of his chest. At that intimate contact she sucked in a breath, shocked by the rush of pleasure such pressure stirred. Her eyes flashed to him, taking in the hard angles of his jaw and the eyes that seemed feral orange in the firelight.

Then he angled her head and she realized that he meant to kiss her before them all. His mouth slanted over hers. His lips were firm and his tongue hot and wet as it slid inside her mouth. She tried to struggle, but he held her firm. Her skin flashed feverish in an instant as a tremor shook her. He deepened the kiss. She moved her tongue along his, feeling the warm velvet of his mouth, tasting the sweetness of him. She leaned forward, pressing against him.

The men whistled and shouted. Laurie came back to herself with a jolt. To her horror she felt the insistent pulse of desire beating at the juncture of her legs.

Laurie tried to break free. His muscles tensed as he resisted, but then allowed her to draw back. He stared down at her with a look that was part lust and part astonishment, as if he could not comprehend her reaction any more than she could.

She whimpered as humiliation scorched her cheeks. How could she do something so low? She closed her eyes against the shame, like a child trying to disappear in plain sight. Had he not held her upper arm, she would have collapsed, for her knees now refused to hold her.

How could she be aroused by this ruthless murderer?

She struggled, but could no more escape him than a trussed turkey could escape the axe, once its head was set upon the block. As George Hammer had predicted, she had now become the show.

This is what she had feared, every waking minute since that terrible day. Laurie fought her own shame as much as the hold of the outlaw.

She had tried to act as a proper woman, but it was just that—an act. Boon’s kiss had revealed the truth. She was wanton and wicked and low, just as she feared. Had her father seen it despite her attempt to hide the truth? Had he known she was unworthy of his love? Was it her fault all along that he left them?

Laurie staggered as her knees gave way, but Boon prevented her from falling, tugging her back against him. His brow now lifted in speculation. Clearly he had not anticipated an eager partner. Laurie struggled vainly in the iron grip of the outlaw and finally let her head sink to her chest as she went still and silent. She continued to tremble as if she stood in the snow, instead of beside a fire under a warm September sky.

“Anyone pokes his nose in before I’m finished with her and I’ll shoot it off.”

The men glared but remained by the fire as he dragged her away. She stumbled along beside him. Behind them she heard George Hammer.

“Boon’s young, boys. But young men are quick. He’ll only be a minute. Where’s that bottle? Cal, pass it around. Freet, Furlong, drag off the body. Throw him in the canyon for the buzzards.”

Boon tugged her along, but was clearly not happy with her pace because he paused long enough to lift her into his arms before breaking into a dead run.

Laurie screamed and heard the men laughing and jeering. The night was moonless and dark as black velvet. She could see nothing as she bounced in his arms, now fearing they might fall and break their necks.

His voice rumbled through her body as he spoke. “Stop or I’ll leave you behind.”

What did he mean by that?

Laurie’s mind dwelled again on how Boon had pulled her from the blow that George Hammer had aimed at her cheek with such finesse that the man had not even recognized what Boon had done. Her gut told her to do as he said. Still, she’d been wrong before, so wrong. Wrong about Anton, wrong about the outlaw at the station who pretended to be one of her father’s men.

Laurie considered her options and decided one outlaw was better than many. One outlaw could not watch her day and night, and she might still escape.

She went limp, lying trustingly as a newborn lamb in his arms. She did not think they would get far afoot and already feared what would happen when they were caught. George Hammer had a well-earned reputation for mercilessness. One would have to be a fool not to fear him and completely insane to cross him. She looked up at the man who carried her. Which was he?

“Where are we going?”

“Quiet,” he huffed and spun her up and over his shoulder as if he had some special gift for tossing young ladies about as if they were sacks of feed.

Her new position caused his shoulder to buffet her abdomen with each running stride, sending her corset stays digging into her flesh. She could scarcely draw a breath and the blood drained to her head, making it pound until she felt dizzy enough to faint.

Just as suddenly as they had begun, he stopped, grabbing her unceremoniously by the waistband of her new lavender overskirt and tugging her to her feet.

The soft nicker told her that there was a horse nearby.

“You planned this?” she asked.

He did not answer, but left her to move in the direction of the horses. She saw them now, two large dark outlines against the canyon wall. He checked the saddle girth and the leather buckle holding the saddlebags tied across the horse’s rump.

She stepped closer and saw a leather rifle scabbard tied beneath the saddle flap. The butt end of the rifle gleamed in the starlight.

There, looped over the saddle horn, was a leather cartridge belt, loaded with bullets. The twin holsters held two pistols.

Boon donned the cartridge belt, strapping it low on his hips and tying the holsters to each thigh. He stowed Larson’s pistol in the boot not holding his knife. Then he turned to her and she took a step away, but not quickly enough, for he captured her about the waist.

“Up!” he said and hoisted her, then plunked her down upon the saddle, heedless of the tangle of her skirts or the complete impropriety of a woman sitting a saddle in such a fashion. An instant later, he was mounted behind her, spurring their horse. The hoofbeats told her that the second horse was strung to the saddle behind the first.

“Is this a rescue?”

“Sentry hears you, we’re done.”

Laurie closed her mouth as she looked around in the dark. She didn’t speak again.

He made a growling sound in his throat and then wrapped his arms about her. “Hold on.”

He gripped the reins, as Laurie held the saddle horn with both hands.

He had killed a man to free her. Did he want her singularly or was there a slim chance that this madness was a rescue?

They did not take off at a gallop as she would have liked, but at a steady walk along the road Laurie had traveled in the buckboard when she arrived. The night was so black that she could not see two feet before them and wondered how the horses made their way.

The journey was slow, torturously slow. Laurie strained her ears for the sound of pursuit. Boon’s big body encircled hers. He wrapped one arm about her waist and dragged her into the pocket made by his chest and thighs and hunched so her corset stays impaled the soft flesh beneath her breasts.

He was warm and smelled of sweat and leather. Her chin fit under his jaw and occasionally his stubbly face scratched against her hair, further tangling the bird’s nest it had become. She sat stiff with tension, trembling and breathing as quickly as she could, given the constraints of his grip and her corset.

“Shouldn’t we go faster?”

“Horse breaks a leg and we’re caught. Plus a walking horse is quiet. You can’t hear the hoofbeats from up there.” He motioned to the cliffs above them.

“I can’t see,” she whispered.

“Neither can the sentry, but the horses can.

Now be still.”

She clamped her lips down on the dozens of questions she wished to ask. Who was he? Had her father sent him? What were his intentions? Would they make it?

When they reached the canyon floor the sky opened up above them and the starlight glowed weakly. Rocks now loomed like outlaws hunched to spring out. They passed a scrubby piñon pine on an outcropping that so resembled a man she nearly screamed a warning.

They turned left, heading south.

“We came from that direction,” she whispered.

“And that’s the way they’ll expect us to go. Box canyons and narrow draws this way. But I got little choice.”

Behind them came the sound of gunfire.

Chapter Three

Bullets pinged off the sheer rock face of the canyon behind them.

“Firing blind in the draw, hoping to hit us,” whispered Boon.

The horses set off at a trot that flowed into a lope. She craned her neck, seeing the flash of pistol fire as the sound of the riders grew louder.

Boon left the road. The horse carrying them stumbled, but recovered its footing. They slowed to a walk again and then stopped. Boon slid off the dark horse, dragging her along.

“Damned dress shines like a bedsheet.”

Laurie glanced down to see it was so. The white pleated lace at her cuffs and the pale fitted lavender bodice with matching overskirt seemed to glow from within. Only the dark blue-violet fabric of her underskirt, visible below the hem of her lavender draping, vanished in the near darkness. He pushed her back between two rocks, holding the reins of both horses in one hand and her waist with the other, using his body to block hers.

She cowered behind him, clutching his vest and burying her face in the warm leather. Laurie remained motionless as the rocks, listening as the sound of hoofbeats grew closer. Gradually, the shout of riders grew more distant and the gunfire ceased.

Boon drew her out of the narrow gap. “They’ll figure out which way we went pretty quick and be back again. Got an hour maybe to get ahead of them. None of them can see to track and they won’t know which canyon we ducked into so we got a better than average chance of losing them in the dark.” He lifted her bound hands and retrieved the knife from his boot, then sliced the ropes that had held her since her capture. She rubbed the imprints left by the cord upon her wrists with her gloved hand and flexed her numb fingers as needles of pain returned with the blood.

He turned his back, rummaging in his saddlebags. Laurie took the opportunity to run, but hindered by the restriction of the formfitting overskirt at her hips, she only reached the second horse when she heard a curse.

He was on her in an instant, capturing her about the waist, hoisting her off her feet and tucking her under his arm. Then he walked back from the horses with her draped across his hip like a naughty child.

“Ain’t you got no sense? I’ll tie you again.” He set her on her feet and held her by the shoulders.

Even in the weak light of the stars she could make out his brow sunk low over his pale eyes as he scowled at her.

“Let me go.”

“They’ll catch you quicker than a treed possum. You got to mind me or we both die. Now, take off that getup.”

Laurie gasped, then inched back as he advanced. Her bustle bumped into the rock face. She tried to wedge herself into the narrow gap beyond his reach. He captured her wrist easily and dragged her out. Had he done all this just to do to her what the others would have done?

“Take it off,” he hissed.

“I won’t,” she said.

Behind them, retreating now, she could hear the men shouting Boon’s name.

“They’ll see you and they’ll catch us,” he said, as he glanced back in the direction of the riders. She had a chance then to draw his pistols and shoot him in the belly. She reached and then stopped, her fingers inches from the handle.

The riders would hear the shot and come back. What chance would she have then?

The answer was simple—none. She didn’t trust Boon, but she couldn’t shoot him. Laurie withdrew her hands, letting him live for now, hoping it wasn’t another mistake. She glanced at his boot knife as he turned back to face her. She knew how to use a knife, but had never used one on a man.

Laurie stood mute now, pressed against the rock face.

He fumbled with the top button of her blouse.

She slapped at his hand, wishing she had shot him when she had the opportunity.

“Then you do it. I’ll get the clothes.”

Laurie stilled. Clothes? What was he talking about? She stood before him as he turned his back again and retrieved something from his saddlebags, then shoved it at her.

“They’re boys’ duds. Hurry up now.”

She clutched the offering. He meant for her to change, to increase their chances of escape. Laurie felt the air rush from her lungs and suddenly she could breathe again. Thank God she hadn’t shot him.

She unfolded the bundle. Denim dungarees and a dark linsey-woolsey shirt and no underthings. She hadn’t worn such garments since she was a girl, riding with her father back in San Antonio.

“Turn around,” she ordered.

He did. Laurie blinked in astonishment. With a speed born of panic, she removed her dirty white cotton gloves and unfastened her jacket with trembling fingers, drawing off the basque bodice and dropping it without hesitation. Next she released the waistband of her fitted topskirts, followed by the darker underskirt, kicking them aside. The very latest thing, according to Peterson’s Ladies National Magazine, the newer slimmer style was now a liability she could not afford. She had created the outfit, top to bottom, to impress her father with how much she had changed, at least on the outside. But the yards of fabric and lace were not worth dying for. She dropped the petticoats, then the half crinoline that helped support the skirt’s draperies and the cascade of fabric of her topskirt’s train. A yank released the bow fastening the horsehair bustle that had come by rail from New Hampshire.

“What’s taking so long?”

The man obviously knew nothing about women’s attire, thought Laurie as she unfastened the lace ruffle at her throat and released the buttons of her white blouse.

“Just a minute.”

Dressed now in only her bustle, thigh-length chemise, bloomers, stockings and boots, she tried to draw on the pants but her bloomers hiked up and wadded about her waist and she could not manage to drag the Levi’s over her hips.

“Hurry up,” he whispered.

She pressed her lips together and tugged harder. Forced to abandon the effort, she considered riding in her bloomers, but that was out of the question. All women’s bloomers were split from front to back to allow her to relieve herself without removing any of her under things or outer skirts. She blushed to think of how she once wore britches and dragged them down whenever and wherever she needed. Her mother had been quite right to object to her boyish ways. But now if she rode in this outfit, the fabric would gap if she straddled a horse and her bloomers were white as the flag of surrender.

“Laurie,” Boon urged.

She began again, removing her bloomers. The trousers were tight and stiff, but she now managed to tug them on, thanks to her corset. She tucked the long chemise into the trousers. Laurie collected her gloves and stuffed them in her front pocket before hunching into the shirt. The coarse fabric brushed against her bare shoulders. She felt him staring and stilled.

Laurie glanced up and caught his eye. He looked at her with the intent gaze of a starving man. She tugged the flaps of the boys’ shirt together and only then realized they did not quite cover her breasts.

“Turn around,” she ordered again.

This time he shook his head in refusal. There was a new tension in him as if he was held in place by some invisible tether. Laurie’s heartbeat accelerated as she recognized that she now faced a different kind of danger, the kind that came from showing a man her naked body.

“They’ll be back in a moment,” she warned, but she was not sure he heard her.

He stepped forward, reaching, his fingertips brushing the full round curve of the exposed tops of her breasts. She gasped and spun away, clutching her hands across her cleavage.

“I shall scream.” It was an idle threat. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, because to scream was to draw more danger than she faced now.

But her words seemed to rouse him, for he blinked and then shook his head as if waking from a trance. He stooped to snatch up her discarded garments while Laurie tried frantically to button the shirt. She managed to get it fastened about her torso, thanks to the corset cinching her middle, but the tight fit squeezed her breasts together so they bulged at the gap in a most lurid manner.

She stared down at her white flesh, thrusting up in an open invitation, and gasped in despair. The action caused her breasts to strain against the buttons that imprisoned them. Were it not a sturdily constructed boys’ shirt, she felt sure the tension would have split the seams.

Boon returned to the horses, stuffing her clothing into his saddlebags as she covered herself with her open hands, searching wildly for some other means to conceal her bosom from his view.

Boon turned. His arms dropped to his sides and his shoulders sank as if she had somehow defeated him.

“You must think I’m made of stone,” he whispered.

She would have liked to point out that he was the one who chose these items for her.

“They don’t fit.”

“Because they told me you were a girl.”

Who had told him? The hope surged, blending with the terror to steal her breath once more. Had he come just for her? Who was he? Who had sent him?

He had her wrist now, and then captured her leg, heaving her back up on the horse without a word. The dungarees stretched tight against her bottom and she feared the seam would fail. She’d never worn any garment that rubbed so intimately against her most private places. A moment later the saddle shifted under his weight as he drew up behind her.

“You’re no girl,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning her neck. He made it sound like a condemnation.