Wild Sierra Rogue (4 page)

When she'd arrived at the Four Aces Ranch to rendezvous with her brother—who hadn't allowed anyone except for their mother to call him Angus in half a dozen years—she'd said to him, “It will be better if others see us as an engaged couple rather than siblings.” After the horrible hurt of Frederick von Nimzhausen and his thievery of her dissertation—as well as her naivete—so many years ago, she was touchy about attention. “I don't want men getting any ideas I'm available.”

“Yep, Sis, I understand. Why, those Meskin fellers, they'd woo even a nanny goat just for the fun of it.”

“You needn't put it that way, Tex.”

Be that as it may, then and now she knew attention would never come from Rafael Cuauhtémoc Delgado Aguilar, previously known as the Eagle of Mexico, late of Santa Alicia, State of Chihuahua. The world's greatest matador, once. Yet, as she traveled toward Mexico with the has-been, she gave the situation another thought. She could have been taking a certain pleasure in allowing him to think she'd landed a young and handsome and
adoring
swain for her very own.

The plan would fail before it began, if Tex didn't play his part to perfection.

“Tex . . . dearest, do fetch me a lemonade.”

He waved a hand of dismissal. “Naw. Ain't interested.”

“Don't say ain't. You've been spend—” Gracious,
shut up. You treat him as a vexing kid brother, and the whole world will think you're a fishwife or worse—a
sister. But the fact remained: Tex had been spending too much time with the cowboys at the family ranch in Fredericksburg; his English was atrocious and his charm nonexistent, both of which were unpardonable for the adult son of one of Texas's most prominent families.

 

 

Margaret fell to remembrances. It was a balmy morning, three weeks ago, in her brownstone. The little ones napping in their brass bassinets, the sounds of New Yorkers on Fifth Avenue filtering upward, and the lilt of her cook Bridget's singing brogue coming from the kitchen, Margaret had just finished reading an article in the
Times
about a twelve-week-old strike in the coal mines, being resolved with promises of eight-hour days and other concessions. She began to skim a story about the silver mines that honeycombed northern Mexico.

Then Maisie McLoughlin arrived.

Amazingly fit and hearty at ninety-eight, Margaret's great-grandmother carried a letter from Gil McLoughlin. After the import of it sunk in, Margaret wailed, “But I don't want to go to Mexico.”

“Me, I would be thinking a trip t' paradise a nice enough proposition. Did I tell ye aboot the time when Charity and I were taking the waters at Bad Homburg—”

“This was just before you got caught cheating Bismarck himself at the Wild West show, wasn't it?” Margaret couldn't help but interrupt.

“Let's no be talking aboot that, lass.” Maisie patted her shoulder. “I would be thinking Mexico of interest t' ye. Ye are a scholar in Spanish studies.”

“Mexico has nothing to do with Spain. Not anymore. Anyway, I've heard and read quite enough on the halls of Moctezuma. It's a political nightmare. A hotbed. The devil's own den.”

It was peopled by pitiable women, ragged children, and Latin males obsessed with advancing their love lives, or with deposing the country's first decent president, Porfirio Díaz. Or with both. None of which was any concern to Margaret McLoughlin.

She had her own situation to consider. “Maisie, I cannot leave my babies to Bridget's care. She's new. I barely know her. And from what I can tell, beyond her cooking skills, all she seems to know is some song about taking Kathleen back home.”

“Ye have me t' turn t', lass. I'll take care of wee Deniece.” Concern set into a century of facial gullies. “The lad, though, he might be too much for the strength of me.”

“Lunch!”

Both women turned to rosy-cheeked Bridget. Within a few minutes an acceptable working arrangement had been finalized, utilizing the Irish cook's brawn and Maisie McLoughlin's brain to handle Margaret's precious bundles from heaven.

She had vowed to make it back in record time.

Margaret yanked herself back to the present, peering out the train window.

Texas, miles and miles of Texas greeted her. Not a pretty sight, this part of the state. She glanced at Tex. The blonde did something. He grinned in her direction, his eyes giving every impression of a lovesick calf's. Where was Margaret's parasol when she needed it? Heck, even a broom handle would do.

 

 

The train rumbled down the tracks, well into the desert, skirting the muddy depths that divided two countries. In Mexico, they called it the Bravo. Over here it was the Rio Grande—the grand river.

Rafe tried to siesta, but Margaret's yammering at her hombre kept him as well as the other passengers owl-eyed. What a
bruja.
And to think he'd felt sorry for her this very morning. Of course, Rafe knew the problem. Jones and the blonde.

Natalie Nash, she called herself when Rafe had returned from the water closet and she asked him to have a seat beside her. He'd declined, for unexplainable reasons.

“Leave him alone,” Rafe growled as Margaret lit into Tex about picking his teeth with the point of his knife.

“I'll thank you to mind your own business, Rafe Delgado.”

He uncrossed his arms to thumb the brim of his Stetson up a notch on his brow. The heel of one hand propped on a knee, he leaned across the aisle. Taking in the disapproval in Margaret's skeletal face, he said, “You are my business.”

“I'd like to know how you came up with that,” she hissed.

“You hired me, and until we get to Tampico, take note. I give the orders and you follow them.
¿Comprende?”

“You are certainly toplofty for a hired hand.”

Tex smirked. Margaret thumped his ankle with the side of her buttoned shoes. And Rafe was on the verge of laughing. He had the craziest notion to kiss those rigid lips soft.

It couldn't be because she reminded him of Olga. No two identical triplets were ever less alike than Margaret and Olga, since Olga knew how to make a man of five-ten feel ten feet tall.

(Yes, but when the countess chose her born-to-the-purple husband over Rafe,
la condesa
cut him down to size.)

Answering Margaret's remark, he said mockingly, “Toplofty? Why, Miss Margaret McLoughlin, you're mighty insightful.” At her raised brow, he fell to a growl. “Remember this. Every outfit has a leader. And I'm the
toplofty
chief of this one.”

“Here, here,” said a man seated behind Rafe.

“Elwood, hush.”

Thereafter, the clickety-clack of the wheels gave forth the only sounds as everyone, goggle-eyed, watched and waited for either Rafe or Margaret to make the next move. Natalie Nash moved. She crossed her legs and raised her hems a couple of crucial inches. Tex cleared his throat.

Rafe, amazed his
cojónes
weren't responding to Natalie's open invitation, cast a glance to his right.
Damn you, hombre, why don't you pay attention to Margarita? Can't you tell you're embarrassing her?
Warning himself off her love life, Rafe demanded, “Jones, if you've got a problem with Margarita taking orders from another man, speak up.”

Tex, sturdy and built for hard work, or at least giving this impression, raised and shook his palms as well as his head. “No problem. But I never knew nobody to get Maggie to act meek.”

“You've met him now.”

Margaret swelled up like a toad. “Of all the nerve!”

“Bruja,
I've got enough nerve to fill this train.”

Tex picked up a newspaper and hid his face behind it.

Margaret looked ready to bawl in outrage. “To think I left my career and my two sweet little babies for this—”

“You've got children?” Rafe croaked, put off his course. The air got thin, quickly. Her mysterious stay at some nebulous place began to take a curdled form.

She blushed pink, to the roots of her dark hair. The expression gave her an almost girlish look, a certain vibrancy and vulnerability which touched a chord in a man long jaded by life, love, and the pursuit of both.

She mumbled, “They, um, they're . . . Deniece and Denephew—”

“They're cats,” Tex supplied from behind the San Antonio
Light.
“Persians. Spoiled, useless cats. They couldn't catch a mouse if you had one hooked to a fishing pole.”

Tex laughed. So did Elwood. Rafe did not join in. He had no desire to make sport of Margaret's soft spot. Besides, he'd left his own pet behind, so he knew a person could miss an animal's presence.
Frita,
mi niña,
I wish you were in my pocket right now, going home with me to Chihuahua.

“Let's . . .” Margaret, her blush deepening to sangria's scarlet, laced her gloved fingers. “Let's play the quiet game.”

Strangely pleased she wasn't someone's mother, Rafe wondered
where
she'd been during her mysterious absence. And he couldn't help feeling sorry for her. Frita might be important to him, but he had women to occupy his time. Less than fit, the bloom of youth gone, and betrothed to an hombre of roving eye, Margaret lived a life brightened by mere cats. He sensed, though, she didn't want his pity.

“I don't like playing games,” he said seriously. “Jones respects the chain of command. What about you? Do you agree I'm the
jefe?
Or do I leave the train at the next stop?”

Rafe got the impression she didn't require that he wait for the train to pull into Sanderson. And if the wheels cut him in half when he jumped, she'd shout for joy. Yet her answer held a meek quality. “All right. You give the orders.”

Her heart wasn't in the capitulation, Rafe knew. No matter. It would be before it was all said and done.
Holy Mother, is this what I even want, the bother of her?

Even though Margaret was eager to make a quick trip out of the journey to Eden Roc, she needed a break from a particular Latin male. Lady Luck smiled when afternoon waned. The train lurched to an unexpected and swaying stop, that sent hats and bandboxes flying and passengers squealing in fright.

Workmen left the caboose to check the problem, and a few minutes later the engineer sent word: the brakes couldn't be fixed until morning. Therefore, passengers would be accommodated in Alpine, at the Hotel Edelweiss. The locomotive, thankfully, had passed the city limits of the west Texas town.

“It's just a short walk to the hotel, folks.”

The passengers debarked. Tex, behaving for the first time today, offered an arm as Margaret marched toward the hotel. Dust clogged the air, and the stench of cattle was enough to curl even a daughter of Texas's toes, so she fanned her hand in front of her face and wished to heck she was back in the civility of New York City.

Something thumped and squeezed in her chest, when she recalled how Dean Ira Ayckbourn of Brandington College had reacted to her announcement of “business in Mexico.” The dean showed a paucity of patience, threatening her with those dreaded words, “If you aren't in the classroom on the morning of January third . . .”

The beady-eyed dean had no compassion whatsoever.

If the truth were known, though, Margaret's sour disposition had little to do with Brandington College or with homesickness. The cause pointed to that strawberry blonde and the Latin peacock who supported her dainty hand, while they swayed and promenaded toward the Edelweiss, chatting and chirping as they went. Vacuous magpies, they.

It was all Margaret could do not to make an appropriate face, the kind most often seen in a schoolyard. Rafe brought out the very worst in her, leaving her powerless to govern so much as a particle of wits. Even if her faculties were in place, though, she wouldn't have appreciated her hired man's neglect. But what good had it done, complaining to the rogue himself? Not a half hour earlier, Margaret had a private word with Rafe on the subject, and what did he do? Asked if she were jealous, patted her hip, and winked an amorous eye. Satyr!

The blonde swatted an area in the vicinity of Rafe's well-hewn biceps brachium. “Now, Mr. Delgado, aren't you the awfulest thing?”

It seemed a rhetorical query, though Margaret could have filled her ears. Meanwhile, her brother muttered an expletive.

“Hush. She's much too old for you, anyway,” Margaret whispered, now feeling the distance between train and hotel in her tightening chest and atrophied leg muscles.

“I wish you'd quit thinking of me as a kid, Maggie. I'm twenty-two, you know.”

“I know you're grown,” she replied, taking in puffs of hard-won oxygen. “Even if you haven't been acting it today. Anyway, that strumpet is my age if she's a day.” An exaggeration to be sure. Tex's age was more like it. Margaret then said, “She's not nearly as pretty as our sisters.”

“I'd argue with you on that, Sis.”

They reached the main section of town. A man wearing a garter on his arm burst from a saloon and pitched a bucket of slop to the street. Wagons, buckboards, and riders passed over the puddle. Women with bonnets on their heads and baskets on their arms strolled along the boardwalks and greeted acquaintances in pleasant exchanges, while their children played and their menfolk smoked and gabbed amongst themselves.

“A typical frontier town,” Margaret murmured to no one in particular.

“You'd know the West, Sis, since you spent a couple years in San Angelo.”

“That was as far west as I got.” Those were two interminable years under Dr. Woodward's care. Forcing a laugh, she went on. “I know for certain neither this town nor that hotel resembles anything in the Alps.”

“Guess I'll take your word for it. When I was across the seas last year, I didn't get no further east than Gay Paree.”

“Somehow, little brother, I cannot imagine you in Gay Paree.”

 

 

As the sun set over the hills, Margaret granted Alpine one thing. The tangerine and aquamarine sky was breathtaking. She made this observation a few minutes after registering, while staring out her second-floor window.

Her brother, having deserted his own room, had propped himself up in her bed, a forearm supporting his neck; three pillows, his back. “Maggie . . . I'm kinda worried about Mutti.”

Mutti—German for Mama. This was what Tex called their German mother, but Margaret preferred English and French name tags. She asked, “Why are you worried? If anyone can handle herself in a difficult situation, it's our mother. She did, you know, cook her way to Kansas while carrying triplets.”

“Yep. But that was near on thirty years ago. It's not like her to go off alone to that Eden Roc place. Do you think her dander's up over something?”

Worried all of a sudden, Margaret tugged the side of her lip between her teeth. “Now that you mention it, she's not one to take off alone to isolated places for long periods of time. Did I tell you Papa says she doesn't plan to return till after Easter?”

“You told me.” Tex's jaw jutted. “And I'm telling you, something stinks.”

By now Margaret was having a word with herself. One with her sibling seemed in order. “Let's not create our own problems. Our mother is just fine. We do have something to worry about, though. About Ra—”

“You've been pricklier than a porcupine here lately,” Texas observed, his interruption joined with a brotherly frown. “I know you ain't too happy about taking time to fetch me from the ranch and getting on with our trip into Old Mexico, but did I do something in partic'lar to set you off?”

“Oh, no, honey. No! Well, except for . . .” Her rebuke could wait. She left her post to walk to the bed. Tall and broad-shouldered, Tex was incredibly handsome, and until today, she'd thought he could do no wrong. She told him so.

“That's mighty nice of you to say, Sis. But you've still got an aggravated look in the set of your jaw. It's time you lightened up. It ain't good for you, being crabby. You know you were sick for so long—”

Unwilling to discuss her health, she said quickly, “I'll try to do better.” Tousling his flaxen-colored hair, she teased as well as complimented. “You know, Texie, except for your single-mindedness about the ladies, you are a fine young man.”

Her “ladies” perked him up, and his blue eyes danced. “Ain't she lovely, that Natalie?”

“Don't say ain't.” Margaret wasn't stupid enough to ask who Natalie might be. “Tex, Rafe is suspicious already. If you don't stop flirting with her, he'll get wise.”

“It was a dumb idea of yours, this engagement act.” A frown raked his face. “Anyhow, it gives me the shivers, Maggie, trying to act attentive toward my own sister.”

“I am more than weary of the charade myself. Today was awful in the extreme, thank you very much.” She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “But the ruse will serve purposes. No man will bother me, and—”

“I think you're making too much of that angle.” Tex picked an apple from the basket on the bedside table, then polished it on his trousers leg. “You're too skinny and old for most fellers.”

That hurt. Almost as deeply as it hurt when Rafe made fun. Rafe aside, it shouldn't bother her, Tex's remark. Getting her career off the ground mattered. Ever since she'd planned a future sans baby's breath and certain refrains from “Lohengrin,” Margaret had wanted to be judged on abilities, not looks.

Something good had resulted from her years of struggle for scholarly recognition—and from her fight for life. The curse of beauty plagued her no more. Yet she shot back, “There's always the odd bird who might get ideas. If you'll recall, I am identical to my two gorgeous triplet sisters.”
You don't resemble them, not anymore, and you're glad for it. Remember?
“I can't be all bad.” She finished on a weak note, “Can I?”

“You've got a nice face, Sis.” Tex cocked his head from one side to the other. “It's sort of comely . . . when you're not frowning. But you ought to eat more, put some weight on. Buy new clothes—none of them in brown. And do something with your hair.”

“I am what I am.”

“That ain't no reason not to try something different. Try that Gibson girl look.”

“Like Natalie?”

“Now that you mention her . . .” He grinned.

Margaret gritted her teeth, but the action turned to grinding when her brother surmised, “You might even get ole Rafe interested in you, if you was to gussy yourself up.”

“He
would be my last reason for making myself over.”

Tex took a big, crunching bite of the apple. Studying the core closely, he said, “I think you're wrong there, Maggie. I think ole Rafe is the reason you've been touchy as an old cook. I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut, it wouldn't take much for you to get downright silly over that feller.”

Margaret prayed this wasn't true. But what about in the beginning?

“Sis, I didn't mean no offense. Sis? What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything. I . . . I was thinking about the first time I laid eyes on Rafael Delgado.”

“Was he wearing his matador getup?” Tex sniggered, not paying any attention to her negative answer. “I bet he looked plumb silly, decked out in sequins and a mouse-ear cap.”

For the strangest reason, Margaret didn't like her brother making fun of Rafe. “That's enough.”

“Now, now, don't get testy. Testier.” Tex imparted one of his winning smiles. “I know the two of you don't have no use for each other, but tell me about when y'all first met, Maggie. You know Papa had shuffled me off to school, 'cause Charity had got herself in another fix. So, I don't know nothing, or very little, about what all went on.”

Margaret had spent a good bit of her growing-up years reading to Tex, or spinning “once upon a time” and ghost tales. Though an adult, he still wanted her storytelling. Never in all these years had she agreed to tell him anything about Rafe Delgado. Now, though, she felt the need to talk.

Why mention that the wild and impetuous Charity went on trial back in December of '89 for smuggling Texas silver across the Rio Grande? It was a tense, anxious time for the McLoughlin clan; no one could back her claim of innocence. They weren't without hope, though. If found, the Eagle might be able to save her from the gallows. Then, amazingly and on a technicality, Charity managed to get herself freed, but no one breathed easier, not with tarnish still on her halo.

“Papa had traveled to Chihuahua to find Rafe,” Margaret told Tex. “But he came back empty-handed. Imagine our joy when Rafe showed up and swore our sister knew nothing—until it was too late—about the smuggling ring she'd gotten involved in.”

“I know about that, Sis. Tell me what you thought when you first saw ole Rafe.”

Emotions—good and bad, indifferent and spirited-surged through her. She closed her eyes. And smiled. “Confident . . . defiant . . . invincible, Rafe strode forward. I suppose it was somewhat like when he used to enter the arena.” Her legs going weak, she sat down. “But he wasn't Rafael,
el matador
magnífico.
He was every bit the Mexican rebel. Bandoliers strapped his chest. Head to toe, he was dressed in black. Dust coated his leather vest and britches. His sombrero—it was silver-studded, I seem to recall. His spurs were pinging. His step was as confident as the look on his incredible face.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Not right away. Not until we had gathered at the hotel to celebrate Charity's vindication.” Margaret's chin trembled, but she chuckled dryly to cover her blatant show of emotion. “He just sort of glided across the room and halted in front of me. He lifted his fingertips to my jaw, and said, ‘I would steal you away to Chihuahua. Will you like that,
bella amorcito?'
”

Tex's eyes turned speculative. “I wonder if some o' that gliding and sweet-talking would work with Natalie?”

Margaret couldn't answer, so caught up in the past was she. Quite simply, Rafe took her breath away. She wasn't alone in this. His blatant masculinity, his raw virility had drawn women from all directions. Three ladies had swooned in Judge Osgood Peterson's courtroom. Maisie acted as if she were twenty instead of ninety. And Margaret—sensible, level-headed, studious Margaret—did her own swaying. Immediately, she started wondering about Chihuahua.

He might not have the sophistication of a Frederick von Nimzhausen, nor was he as tall as her kinsmen, nor was he handsome in the classical sense; but Rafe Delgado, on that day in December, seemed to have no flaws.

And now, during this Indian summer evening, Margaret laughed and rolled her eyes. “I wasn't too discriminating at the time.” Since, she hadn't given Chihuahua two thoughts.

“I'd say you're a majority of one, Maggie. 'Pears to me the ladies find him as pretty as a speckled pup.”

She laughed once more, this time at the comparison. “I grant he has a fascinating edge. He exudes something. Like some sort of love potion. Rather disgusting, in my opinion.”

Uninterested in Rafe's appeal to women, Tex said, “I wonder why he never went back to Old Mexico.”

Knowing the answer all too well—he wasn't one to leave a bird's nest on the ground!—she decided a change of subject was in order. “Tex, there is no such word as hisself.”

She reached for the pitcher and poured a glass of water, but she couldn't wash Rafe from her thoughts. All those years ago he'd shown no interest, not after his initial notice, even though she'd made herself available enough. What a ninny she'd been. She'd talked and acted like an idiot most of the time, saying and doing the wrong things over and over, only to start all over again.