Page 43 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
“I have a place on the ranch. Three hundred acres my father cut out a few years ago. I run cattle, try to prevent old man Barrancas’s men from stealing them. You could say we’ve been stealing each other’s stock for twenty years.” He’d tried his hand at other professions, but he always returned to the ranch. The land was in his blood. “You ever worked on a ranch?”
“Once, for about a year. The food was good. The pay was lousy. I suppose it’s a satisfying life if you own the land.”
“How about you? You ever been married?”
“Me? Oh hell no.” Her laugh sounded rusty as if she didn’t use it much. “I haven’t had jobs that inspire romantic leanings. Cussing at mules, skinning carcasses, you get the drift.” Yawning, she glanced toward her bedroll. “I’m like you. I never met a man that I didn’t want to shoot after about three days.” Standing, she adjusted the sling around her arm before bending forward to flex the stiffness out of her shoulders.
“Does your arm hurt?”
Incredulity widened her eyes. “What the hell do you think? Of course it hurts. Hurts like the devil.”
Then she tilted her head and gazed up at the night sky. For several minutes she didn’t speak. “Graciela is all right… isn’t she?” she asked in a whisper, her eyes fixed on a distant star. “Make me believe they haven’t killed her yet.”
The raw anguish thinning her voice surprised him. This was the first flash of vulnerability and uncertainty that he’d glimpsed. For some reason seeing a vulnerable Jenny Jones made his chest tighten painfully. He cleared his throat and said what she needed to hear.
“Graciela hasn’t been harmed,” he stated firmly. “No one’s going to kill her. We’re going to get her back.”
“I know we will.” Turning her back to him, she faced the desert and the tall cacti standing guard like spiny sentinels. Her shoulders dropped, pulling her chin down.
“The kid asked Jorje not to kill me,” she said in a low wondering voice, gazing down at her boots. “You heard her. I didn’t imagine it.” She stood in silence for a full minute, then she swore softly and kicked a rock toward a clump of scrub oak before she stalked toward her bedroll.
Ty cradled his coffee cup and studied the flames dying in the fire pit. He would have sworn that Jenny’s only connection to his niece was her promise to Marguarita. Now he wondered. A minute ago she’d revealed a glimpse of something deeper that made him suspect he’d misjudged her.
“Sanders?”
Raising his head, he frowned toward her bedroll. “What is it?”
“I’ve got nothing to offer a man, and you’ve got nothing to offer a woman. So don’t get any ideas about acting on that hankering. I’ve got my Colt in my blankets. You make a move in my direction, and I’ll shoot your butt.”
Indignation ruffled his brow. “Well, for God’s sake. Do you really think I have so little conscience that I’d jump a woman with a shot-up arm?”
After a long silence, she called to him out of the darkness. “You just stay on your side of the fire.”
Realization smoothed the anger from his forehead, and he laughed. She was thinking about him, thinking about those hankering feelings. Grinning, he gazed toward the saddle she used as a pillow.
“Darlin’, when I’m ready to satisfy this hankering… you’ll beg me to crawl in your bedroll. That’s a promise.”
Sputtering sounds of outrage erupted from her blankets, and she sat up. “That will frickingneverhappen!” she shouted furiously.
“Yeah. It will,” he said softly. Smiling, he tossed the last of his coffee on the ground, then walked to his bedroll and kicked it open.
Whoever broke her had broke her wrong.
He was going to fix that. And she was going to enjoy the experience as much as he planned to. Thinking about it made his groin ache with anticipation.
Chapter Ten
Joy and confusion alternated like twin beacons blinking across Graciela’s expression. She was going home. Home to Aunt Tete and her own room and the comforts of the hacienda and the servants who staffed it, home to a secure life she understood.
But her mother would not be there. Home would never again be the place she had known. A shine of tears dampened her eyes.
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she sat in front of the campfire, shivering slightly as the sun sank behind the Sierras and the evening chill crept over the desert. Idly she watched Cousin Tito remove a tightly woven sack from a strap on his saddle and carry it toward the fire. At once her thoughts focused. Her neck prickled, and she sat up straight when she realized something moved inside the sack.
“Have you eaten snake before?” Tito asked, grinning at her. Eyes fixed on the sack, Graciela slowly rose to her feet. Nothing on earth frightened her more than snakes.
Holding the sack by his side, Tito swept a hard glance over Jorje, Carlos, and Favre, and abruptly Graciela became sharply aware of a strange unnerving tension that she had vaguely sensed all day. Now the tension leaped into her as well. Eyes wide, mouth dry, she tried to move backward a step as Tito knelt beside her and placed the sack on the ground, but her trembling legs would not obey.
“I’ll release one of the snakes,” Tito explained, smiling at her with a strange expression. “I’ll club it. Then we’ll skin it and roast it over the fire. The meat is white and juicy. You’ll think you’re eating chicken.”
