Connal

“Okay. Have fun,” she called back. It was a joke between them, because Jack Berry kept books that would have confounded a lawyer. It was almost estimated tax time, and Jack was the ranch’s only bookkeeper. They should have hired somebody more qualified, but Jack was elderly and couldn’t do outside work. Her father had a soft heart. Rather than see the old man on welfare, Ben had hired him to keep the books. Which meant, unfortunately, that Ben had to do most of the figuring over again at tax time. His soft heart was one reason the ranch was in the hole. He didn’t really have a business head like his own father had possessed. Without C.C.’s subtle guidance, the ranch would have gone on the auction block three years ago. It still might.

C.C. She frowned, turning toward the back door. She was worried about him. He hadn’t seemed too drunk when she’d gone to check on him earlier, and that was unusual. His yearly binges were formidable. She’d better give him another look, before her father thought to check him out at midnight.

The bunkhouse was filling up. There were three men in it, now, the newest temporary hands. But C.C. wasn’t there.

“He was pretty tight-lipped about where he was going, Miss Mathews,” one of the men volunteered. “But I’d guess he was headed into Juárez from the direction he took.”

“Oh, boy,” she sighed. “Did he take the pickup or his own car?”

“His own car—that old Ford.”

“Thanks.”

It was a good thing she drove, she thought angrily. One of these days she’d be gone, and who’d take care of that wild-eyed cowboy then? The thought depressed her. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding somebody to do that, not with his looks. And there was always Edie.

She turned off on the road that led to the border. The official at the border remembered the big white Ford—there hadn’t been a lot of traffic across, since it was a weekday night. She thanked him, went across and drove around until she found the white Ford parked with characteristic haphazardness in a parking space. She pulled in beside it and got out.

Fortunately she hadn’t taken time to change. She was wearing jeans and a checked shirt with a pullover sweater and boots, just the outfit for walking around at night. She was a little nervous because she didn’t like going places alone after dark. Especially the kind of place she was sure C.C. was going to be in. Too, she was worried in case her father came home and needed to ask her anything. Her closed bedroom door might fool him into thinking she was just asleep, but if he saw the pickup missing, he might get suspicious. She didn’t want him to fire C.C. He liked the man, but if C.C. didn’t tell him why he was drinking—and C.C. wouldn’t—then her father was very likely to let him go anyway.

There was a bar not a block away from where she parked. She had a feeling that C.C. was in it, but when she looked inside, there were mostly Mexican men and only one or two young Americans. She walked the streets, peeking into bars, and almost got picked up once. Finally, miserable and worried, she turned and started back to the truck. On the way, she glanced into that first bar again—and there he was, leaning back in a chair at a corner table.

She walked in and went back to the corner table.

“Oh…” C.C. let out a word that he normally wouldn’t have. He was cold and dangerous looking now, not the easily handled man of a few hours ago. She knew that her old tactics wouldn’t work this time.

“Hi,” she said gently.

“If you’re here to drag me back, forget it,” he drawled, glaring at her from bloodshot eyes. There was a half-empty tequila bottle on the table and an empty glass beside it. “I won’t go.”

“It’s hot in here,” she remarked, feeling her way. “Some air might help you.”

He laughed drunkenly. “Think so? Suppose I pass out, tomboy. Will you throw me over your shoulder and carry me home?”

That hurt. He made her out to be some female Amazon. Perhaps that was how he thought of her—as just one of the boys. But she smiled. “I might try,” she agreed.

He studied her with disinterested brevity. “Still in jeans. Always wearing something manly. Do you have legs, tomboy? Do you even have breasts—?”

“I’ll bet you can’t walk to the car by yourself,” she cut him off, trying not to blush, because his voice carried and one or two of the patrons were openly staring their way.

He stopped what he was saying to scowl at her. “The hell I can’t,” he replied belligerently.

“Prove it,” she challenged. “Let’s see you get there without falling flat on your face.”

He muttered something rough and got to his feet, swaying a little. He took out a twenty-dollar bill and tossed it onto the bar, his hat cocked arrogantly over one eye, his tall, lithe body slightly stooped. “Keep the change,” he told the man.

Pepi congratulated herself silently on her strategy as he weaved out onto the street. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead hesitantly.

“Hot,” he murmured. He shook his head, his breath coming hard and heavy. He turned to look at Pepi, frowning slightly. “I thought we were going for a walk.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Come here, then, sweet girl,” he coaxed, holding out his arm. “I can’t let you get lost, can I?”

It was the liquor talking, and she knew it. But it was so sweet to have his arm around her shoulder, his head bent to hers, his breath against her forehead. Even the scent of the tequila wasn’t that unpleasant.

“So sweet,” he said heavily, walking her away from the car, not toward it. “I don’t want to go home. Let’s just walk the night away.”

“C.C., it’s dangerous in this part of the city,” she began softly.

“My name…is Connal,” he said abruptly.

That was faintly shocking, to know that he had a real name. She smiled. “It’s nice. I like it.”

“Yours is Penelope Marie,” he laughed roughly. “Penelope Marie Mathews.”

“Yes.” She hadn’t known that he knew her full name. It was flattering.

“Suppose we change it to Tremayne?” he asked, hesitating. “Sure, why not? You’re always looking after me, Penelope Marie Mathews, so why don’t you marry me and do the thing right?” While she was absorbing the shock, he looked around weavingly. “Aha, sure, there’s one of those all-night chapels. Come on.”

“C.C., we can’t…!”

He blinked at her horrified expression. “Sure we can. Come on, honey, we don’t have to have any papers or anything. And it’s all legal.”

She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t let him do this, she thought, panicking. When he sobered up and found out, he’d kill her. Not only that, she wasn’t sure if a Mexican marriage was binding; she didn’t know what the law was.

“Listen, now,” she began.

“If you won’t marry me,” he threatened with drunken cunning, “I’ll shoot up a bar and get us landed in jail. Right now, Pepi. This minute. I mean it.”

Obviously he did. She gave in. Surely nobody in his right mind would marry them with him in that visibly drunken condition. So she went along with him, worried to death about how she was going to get him home. But she knew that he owned a Beretta and had a permit for it, and she couldn’t be sure that he didn’t have it on him. God forbid that he should shoot somebody!

He dragged her into the wedding chapel. Unfortunately the Mexican who married them spoke little English, and Pepi’s halting Spanish was inadequate to explain what was going on. C.C., she recalled, spoke the language fluently. He broke in on her stumbling explanation and rattled off something that made the little man grin. The Mexican went away and came back with a Bible and two women. He launched into rapid-fire Spanish, cueing first Pepi and then C.C. to say si and then he said something else, grinned, and then a terrified Pepi was being hugged and kissed by the women. C.C. scrawled his signature on a paper and rattled off some more Spanish while the little man wrote a few other things on the paper.

“That’s all there is to it.” C.C. grinned at Pepi. “Here. All nice and legal. Give me a kiss, wife.”

He held out the paper, took a deep breath, and slid to the floor of the chapel.

The next few minutes were hectic. Pepi finally managed to convey to the Mexican family that she had to get him to the car. They brought in a couple of really mean-looking young men who lifted C.C. like a sack of feed and carried him out to the parking lot. Pepi had him put in the pickup truck. She handed the boys two dollar bills, which was all she had, and tried to thank them. They waved away the money, grinning, when they noticed the beat-up, dented condition of the old ranch pickup. Kindred spirits, she thought warmly. Poor people always helped each other. She thanked them again, stuck the paper in her pocket, and started the truck.

She made it to the ranch in good time. Her father’s Jeep was still gone, thank God. She backed the pickup next to the bunkhouse, where it wasn’t visible from the house, and knocked on the door.

Bud, the new hand she’d spoken to earlier, answered the knock. Apparently the men had been asleep.

“I need a favor,” she whispered. “I’ve got C.C. in the truck. Will you toss him on his bunk for me, before my dad sees him?”

Bud’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve got the boss in there? What’s wrong with him?”

She swallowed. “Tequila.”

“Whew,” Bud whistled. “Never thought of him as a drinking man.”

“He isn’t, usually,” she said, reluctant to go into anything more. “This was an unfortunate thing. Can you do it? He’s heavy.”

“Sure I can, Miss Mathews.” He followed her out in his stocking feet, leaving the bunkhouse door open. “I’ll try not to wake the other men. They’re all dead tired, anyway. I doubt they’d hear it thunder.”

“Heavens, I hope not,” she said miserably. “If my dad sees him like this, his life’s over.”

“Your dad don’t like alcohol, I guess,” Bud remarked.

“You said it.”

She opened the pickup door. C.C. was leaning against it, sound asleep and snoring. Bud caught him halfway to the ground and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. C.C. didn’t even break stride; he kept right on snoring.

“Thanks a lot, Bud,” Pepi grinned.

“My pleasure, Miss. Good night.”

She climbed into the pickup, parked it at the back of the house, and rushed upstairs to bed. Her father would be none the wiser, thank God.

She undressed to get into her gown, and a piece of paper fell to the floor. She unfolded it, and found her name and that of Connal Cade Tremayne on it along with some Spanish words and an official-looking signature. It didn’t take much guesswork to realize that it was a marriage license. She sat down, gazing at it. Well, it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, thank God. But she wasn’t about to throw it away. In days to come, she could dream about what it could have meant if it had been the real thing. If C.C. had married her, wanted her, loved her. She sighed.

She put the license in her drawer and she lay down on the bed. Poor man, perhaps his ghosts would let him rest for a while now. She wondered how much of tonight he was going to remember, and hoped he wouldn’t be too furious at her for going to get him or for leaving his dilapidated old Ford in Juárez. But with any luck, the old car would be fine, and he could get somebody to go with him to get it when he sobered up. Anyway, he ought to be grateful that she went after him, she assured herself. With winter coming on, it might be hard to get a new job. She didn’t want to lose him. Even worshiping him from afar was better than never seeing him again. Or was it?

* * *

The next morning, she woke up with a start as a hard knock sounded on her door.

“What is it?” she asked on a yawn.

“You know damned good and well what it is!”

That was C.C. She sat up just as he threw open the door and walked in. Her gown was transparent and low-cut, and he got a quick but thorough look at her almost bare breasts before she could jerk the sheet up to her throat.

“C.C.!” she burst out. “What in heaven’s name are you doing!”

“Where is it?” he demanded, his eyes coldly furious.

She blinked. “You’ll have to excuse me, I don’t read minds.”

“Don’t be cute,” he returned. He was looking at her as if he hated her. “I remember everything. I’m not making that kind of mistake with you, Pepi Mathews. I may have to put up with being mothered by you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll stay married to you when I’m cold sober. The marriage license, where is it?”

It was a golden opportunity. To save his pride. To save her flimsy relationship with him. To spare herself the embarrassment of why she’d let him force her into the ceremony. Steady, girl, she told herself. The marriage wasn’t legal in this country, she was reasonably sure of that, so there would be no harm done if she convinced him it had never happened.

“What marriage license?” she asked with a perfectly straight face and carefully surprised eyes.

Her response threw him. He hesitated, just for an instant. “I was in Mexico. In Juárez, in a bar. You came to get me… We got married.”

Her eyes widened like saucers. “We did what?”

He was scowling by now. He fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “I was sure,” he said slowly. “We went to this little chapel and the ceremony was all in Spanish… There was a paper of some kind.”

“The only paper was the twenty-dollar bill you gave the bartender,” she mused. “And if it hadn’t been for Bud whats-his-name helping me get you to bed last night, you wouldn’t still be working here. You know how Dad feels about booze. You were really tying one on.”

He stared at the cigarette, then at her, intently. “I couldn’t have imagined all that,” he said finally.

“You imagined a lot of things last night,” she laughed, making a joke out of it. “For one, that you were a Texas ranger on the trail of some desperado. Then you were a snake hunter, and you wanted to go out into the desert and hunt rattlers. Oh, I got you home in the nick of time,” she added, lying through her teeth with a very convincing grin.

He relaxed a little. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have been a handful.”

“You were. But, no harm done,” she told him. “Yet,” she added, indicating the sheet under her chin. “If my father finds you up here, things could get sticky pretty fast.”

“Don’t be absurd,” he replied, frowning as if the insinuation disturbed him. “You’re only a little tomboy, not a vamp.”

Just what he’d said last night, in fact, along with a few other references that had set off her temper. But she couldn’t let on.

“All the same, if you and Dad want breakfast, you’d better leave. And your car is still in Juárez, by the way.”

“Amazing that it made it that far,” he murmured dryly. “Okay. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time. Do I still get breakfast?”

She relaxed, too, grateful that she didn’t have to lie anymore. “Yes.”

He spared her one last scowling glance. “Pepi, you’ve got to stop mothering me.”

“This was the last time,” she promised, and meant it.

His broad shoulders rose and fell halfheartedly. “Sure.” He paused at the open door with his back to her. “Thanks,” he said gruffly.

“You’d have done it for me,” she said simply.

He started to turn, thought better of it, and went out, closing the door behind him.

Pepi collapsed on the pillow with a heartfelt sigh. She’d gotten away with it! Now all she had to do was find out just how much trouble she was in legally with that sham marriage.

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