Page 26 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
“All right! My eyes are closed. Say the damned prayers.”
“Our Father, who art in heaven…”
Jenny heard a soft click and opened one eye, then she sprang to her feet in astonishment. The cowboy from Verde Flores stepped into their room, nudged the door shut, then aimed a Colt at Jenny’s chest. Her mouth fell open in disbelief.
“Unbuckle your gun belt. Slide it across the floor.”
Graciela screamed, then scrambled up on the bed and pressed herself to the wall. Her eyes widened in fear.
“What the hell?” Jenny tried to sort it out. The cowboy? Here? Moving slowly in case he had an eager trigger finger, she lifted the hem of the poncho and reached beneath it to unbuckle her belt. “If this is a robbery…” But somehow she didn’t think it was.
“You have a lot of explaining to do. Now drop the gun belt and slide it over here, or I’ll shoot. Don’t think I won’t. Until I hear your story, I’m assuming the worst. Give me the gun.”
The ice in his blue-green eyes told her that he meant it about shooting her. Reluctantly, she slid the gun and belt across the floor.
“How did you find us?” Her mind couldn’t make the leap from meeting him at the Verde Flores depot to seeing him here. But clearly meeting him again was no accident. Her gut told her that he’d followed them, but she couldn’t think why he would.
“I spotted you both out of the train window.”
“Why are you so interested in us?” Jenny demanded.
But the cowboy was staring past her shoulder at Graciela. So that was it. “You filthy pervert!” Jenny’s teeth pulled back in a snarl, and she lunged for him, catching him by surprise. Her head slammed into his belly like a battering ram, and the air ran out of him in a rush. When he doubled over, she brought her head up. The collision of head and forehead was harder on him than on her, and she knocked the Colt out of his hand.
Before she could snatch up his gun or her own, he grabbed her and they fell to the floor, rolling, hitting, and punching each other.
The fight was fair as fights went, and they were evenly matched. If Jenny hadn’t jerked away to avoid a punch and banged her head hard on the side of the tub, she might have beaten him. But the head bang dazed her for a second, and that was all he needed to pin her.
For two long minutes, he sat on her, holding her wrists to the floor and they both panted hard, sucking in air. A hot trickle leaked from Jenny’s cracked lip; his bloody nose dripped on her poncho.
“Jesus,” he said, finally, staring down at her. “That’s the first time I ever fought a woman.” He stared at her bloody lip in disbelief. Then he stood and jerked Jenny off the floor. He slammed her down in a chair and pulled a length of thin rope from his belt.
“Graciela! Run!” Damned if she would make it easy for him. She twisted and thrashed and tried to break free.
He jerked her back hard and tied her wrists together. “Stay where you are, Graciela,” he warned.
It wasn’t that the kid chose to obey the cowboy over her, Jenny understood that. The kid was terrified. She cowered against the wall watching with huge eyes, too frightened even to cry.
The cowboy tied Jenny’s ankles to the chair legs and looped a piece of rope around her chest and the back rails for good measure. Stepping backward to inspect his work, he wiped the blood from his nose, glaring down at her. He swore and shook his head.
“Don’t you touch her!” Jenny warned, speaking through her teeth. Her gaze was as frozen as his. “I swear to you. If you harm that child, I’ll hunt you down if it takes the rest of my life, and you won’t die fast, you piece of scum.”
“If I…?” His mouth twisted in revulsion. “I’m not going to… my God! My name is Ty Sanders. Robert Sanders is my brother. I’m Graciela’s uncle, for Christ’s sake.”
Jenny stared. Suddenly she saw the resemblance, the same blue-green eyes as Graciela’s, the same wide mouth. Her mind raced backward, replaying Marguarita’s story. Robert Sanders had not gone to Mexico with Marguarita; he had remained in California to ensure that his inheritance did not go to a younger brother. It struck her that the cowboy might be telling the truth.
After checking again to make certain that Jenny was securely restrained, he walked to the bed and stood by the edge of the mattress. “So you’re Robert’s daughter.”
Jenny tried to read his expression, but she couldn’t determine how he felt about his brother’s daughter. The shortage of emotion suggested that he wasn’t exactly overjoyed to meet his niece, and he didn’t even know yet what a pain in the butt she was.
“I’m your uncle Ty. Your daddy is my brother,” he said in a voice distinctly lacking enthusiasm. “I guess your name is Graciela.”
“Don’t talk to him!” Even if he was who he said he was, Jenny didn’t trust his attitude.
The cowboy considered her, then he walked over and stuffed Graciela’s napkin into her mouth before he returned to the bed.
“Your daddy sent me down here to find you and your mother and take you both back to California. He wants you to live with him.”
Graciela was still pressed to the wall, but she was listening, not paying any attention to Jenny’s rolling eyes or the noises she made behind the napkin.
