Page 76 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
I did you wrong, and I apologize. I thought you were an idiot to give yourself to Robert and risk catching a baby. I figured you got what you deserved for being so stupid. I thought I was better than you because I had more sense than to ever do such a damned fool thing.
Well, I was dead wrong. I didn’t know how it could be between men and women, Marguarita. If Robert made you feel like Ty made me feel tonight, I can see why you’d risk everything to be with him. I’m sorry I judged so harshly. I didn’t know.
She started toward the bed, then returned to the window and Marguarita’s star.
Marguarita? I hope Robert licked you all over. It’s just the damnest thing! I’d hate to think you became an angel without first getting licked all over. It’s probably not proper to talk about this, but I think you would have liked the licking a lot.
She yawned and stretched.Good night, my friend. Tomorrow night I’ll talk to you from El Paso. From there we start the final leg of the journey.
As she climbed into bed, she wished she hadn’t mentioned that last part. Curling protectively around Graciela’s small body, she inhaled the clean sweet scent of the child’s hair, and smiled at the sound of a light baritone snore emanating from the other bed.
She wished it could be like this forever. The three of them together. Suddenly her stomach cramped and her throat closed, and she felt a sting of sadness behind her eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
Even if the train ran late, which was likely, they would arrive at the rail terminal in El Paso Del Norte before supper. “We’ll cross the Rio Grande and find a hotel in El Paso on the American side,” Ty explained to Graciela. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll board the Southern Pacific bound for San Francisco. And we’ll be home in about a week.”
While he answered the next hundred questions from his niece, he gazed at Jenny, who sat across from him and Graciela. Her head rested against the window, and she dozed despite the heat and noise inside the car. Pride and amusement softened the look he swept over her molded traveling jacket. He liked seeing evidence that he’d plumb worn her out last night. Except she’d worn him out too. He wouldn’t say no when it was his turn to catch an hour or two of shut-eye.
God almighty, but she was a magnificent woman. He enjoyed just watching her sleep. And last night she had been everything he had hoped she would be and more. Passionate, enthusiastic, uninhibited, and eager to give back what she learned. He’d never had a woman with a body as superb as hers, lush, curvacious, taut, well muscled, and built for endurance. And responsive? Remembering her wild abandon made his groin tighten painfully. He had to figure out how they could be together again tonight.
“Uncle Ty?” Frowning, Graciela tugged at the pocket of his waistcoat. “You aren’t listening.”
“You’re telling me about your friend, Cordelia.”
“Consuelo!”
He couldn’t hire just anyone to stay with his niece while he trysted with Jenny. The problem was finding someone on short notice, then establishing reliability. That he should be pondering such a dilemma impressed him as frustrating, exasperating, amusing, and there was another feeling he couldn’t quite identify. Something warm and protective, something that touched him inside whenever he observed the trust in Graciela’s gaze.
Oddly, he suddenly recalled a saying of his mother’s. “A boy becomes a man the day he holds his first child in his arms.” It took a child to make a man, he thought, frowning down at Graciela. And a woman, a very special woman.
Strange new ideas were still prodding his emotions two hours later when all hell broke loose.
He felt the explosion beneath his feet a second before the blast of dynamite roared through his ears. The train wheels locked, the cars clashed together, and Jenny was flung from her seat to his, coming awake with panic in her eyes. Screams sounded around them. People, animals, boxes, and baskets flew through the inside of the car.
Trying to hold Jenny and Graciela as the car shuddered and rocked up on one set of wheels, Ty ground his teeth and swore viciously. Clouds of grey-and-white steam billowed up past the window, but not before he spotted horses and riders. When Jenny’s fingers dug into his thighs, he knew she, too, had spotted Luis Barrancas through the glass and steam.
Up ahead, the engine ran off the ruined track and plunged down the track bed, plowing into sand and cacti before crashing on its side. The following car twisted and toppled, forcing the next car to the opposite side of the track bed. When the hellish din diminished and the cars lurched to a stop, Ty thanked happenstance that they had boarded toward the rear. The car they were in tilted high on one side, but it hadn’t fallen.
Pushing Jenny aside, he found his saddlebags and ripped open the pocket. “Here.” He thrust a pistol into her hands and a pouch full of cartridges. She shoved her hat out of her eyes and loaded the gun with steady hands, her mouth grim.
“We need horses,” she snapped.
He nodded. It didn’t surprise him that she tracked his thoughts as if he’d spoken aloud. “Stay here,” he said to Graciela, who pushed up her hat brim, then stared around them with frightened eyes and a white face.
“Wait until we come for you,” Jenny finished. She struggled to stand, kicked a terrified chicken out of her way. “Let’s go.”
As if they’d discussed it, she turned toward the back door of the car, leaving him to run through the debris-laden aisle toward the front. As he burst onto the crazily canted platform between twisted cars, he heard her first shots and saw a rider go down. Rolling steam made his eyes water, but offered some cover. Unfortunately it obscured the Barrancas cousins as well.
Jumping to the ground, he ran through hissing white billows, firing at forms looming out of the steam. Three men on this side. He winged one, sent one to hell, and the other wheeled, then spurred toward the back of the train.
Spinning, Ty climbed back onto the platform, crossed to the other side, and vaulted down. In the midst of spiraling dust and gusts of steam, he spotted Jenny, fighting to hold the reins of a dun and a black horse while firing at a rider bearing down on her. Hot steam scalded his eyes as he ran up beside her, fanning his pistol. The rider veered and dropped, his boot catching in the stirrup. The horse raced toward the desert, dragging the man.
“We told you to stay inside!”
By the time he turned, Jenny was tossing Graciela up on the dun, struggling with her skirts to mount behind the child. When she threw the reins of the black to Ty, he caught them, jumped in the saddle, and shouted, “Ride!”
They were a mile from the wreck before he noticed two significant events. Graciela had disobeyed and left the train, but she had brought his saddlebags; he recognized them hanging across the dun mare.
