The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (27 page)

Her heart thudded as Tom and his men linked the ship to the docks with the heavy hemp ropes coiled on the deck.

Mexico, at last.

They were close to Luke now. So close she could almost imagine him there, waiting for them on the docks, looking as he had the last time she saw him. Well, not exactly that way. He would be smiling, not frowning. And there would be forgiveness in his eyes, not accusation. He'd be dressed in military blue, his too-long brown hair lifting in the heated breeze that blew off the Gulf. He'd be waiting to lecture her on the foolhardiness of coming down here, when he hadn't really needed rescuing at all. He'd make her laugh as he always did at her worries.

Still, he'd never made her feel unimportant or silly about her dreams to write books. For that alone, she loved him. But there were a thousand other reasons as well, all of which seemed so far away just now.

Absently, she searched the faces waiting there on the wooden docks, as if she really believed he'd be there. Of course, he wasn't. He was languishing in some awful place three hundred-odd miles away. At least, she prayed he was still there.

Her gaze fell instead on the flesh-and-blood man who'd occupied the remainder of her thoughts for days now: Reese Donovan. He stood rigid as the ship's rail he held, watching the men tether the boat. He could well have been one of them, for he looked like a pirate with his black hair brushing his shoulders and his face set in a scowl worthy of the most fearsome buccaneer. His white shirt clung to his chest in the sultry heat, sleeves rolled to the elbows to expose thick, tanned forearms dusted with dark hair.

It made her dizzy to watch the sinewy muscle flex as he gripped the rail. In that moment, he reminded her of a caged cat who, tired of pacing, had resigned himself to watching, waiting for his moment of freedom.

They hadn't spoken since he'd left her standing alone last night. In fact, he'd done everything in his power to avoid her altogether. She'd swallowed the lump of hurt that caused. As she lay alone in the captain's small, private cabin last night—which Tom Newcastle had gallantly given over to her during the trip—she could think of little else but the kiss she and Reese had shared on deck. When she managed to sleep, he haunted her dreams.

There, he was a hero who wore black, a fallen angel with the hope of redemption in his eyes, contradiction and simplicity—that was Reese Donovan. In reality, he was a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out in her mind. But in her dreams, she never doubted that he was the champion she'd been looking for.

"Miss Turner?"

A voice beside her brought Grace from her troubled thoughts. It was Timothy Kelly, a young sailor who'd been kind to her on this trip. Worry creased his smooth brow.

"Hello, Mr. Kelly. Is something wrong?"

"It's Mr. McDodd, ma'am."

"Brew?"

"Yes'm. He, uh, sent me to tell you he was gonna be a few more minutes. He's packin' up his things."

Grace frowned. She'd seen little of Brew the last few days. Claiming fatigue, he'd taken to eating his meals in the hold below, which he shared with several of the crew members. She hadn't argued, knowing the trip from Pair-a-Dice had been a terrible strain on him.

"Is he all right?" she asked. "It's almost time to disembark."

Timothy glanced at the deck, seemingly battling with his conscience. "No, ma'am," he said at last, reaching a decision. "No, ma'am, he ain't. He's sick. Real sick. He made me swear not to tell you. He didn't want to upset you, but I don't reckon that's right."

Real fear swept through her like a cold wind. "Swear not to tell me what, Mr. Kelly? Is it his cough?" She started toward the stairwell, but Kelly caught her by the arm. Grace gave him a wide-eyed look of panic. "I know he's been feeling poorly since we left Bagdad, well, actually since we left Virginia, but he swore it was just a cold he couldn't shake—at least that's what he told me—but once we got aboard, he claimed it was the salty air that—"

"Ma'am, I ain't no sawbones," Kelly said, "but I never seen no salty air that could make a man cough up blood."

Blood.
She was past Kelly and running to the wooden stairway leading down to the lower deck before he could even reply. Terror clutched at her throat and stole her breath.
Oh, Brew. Brew! How could you have tried to hide this from me?

The handle seemed to freeze in her hand as she swung open the door leading to the crew's quarters. There, sprawled unconscious on the floor of the cutter, with a bloodstained handkerchief in his limp hand, lay Brew.

Grace swayed against the door frame, then did the only thing she could think of.

She screamed for Reese.

* * *

"Pare aqui señor, por favor,"
Tom Newcastle told the driver of the
carreta
as they approached the small, run-down house at the edge of the river. Brew stirred as the wagoner pulled up, and Grace lay a calming hand on the older man's arm. From a distance, the dwelling had looked innocuous enough. Paint peeled from the porch railing, and shutters—locked tight against the incessant sun—appeared like gap-toothed smiles with several slats missing.

It wasn't that, however, that caught Grace's eye and sent a ripple of unease through her. It was the bleached chicken feathers and odd-shaped stones tied to strings that dangled from a piece of driftwood there beneath the porch rafters. The constant breeze rattled through them with a hollow sound, but it wasn't until the wagon was directly in front of the house that she saw the sound came not from stones, but from the bones of, no doubt, that very same chicken that had donated its feathers to the cause.

A woman appeared at the doorway. Grace didn't know what she expected—perhaps an old crone with skin the color of walnuts and more wrinkles than Grace's travel-weary gown. But the handsome figure in the doorway held herself with an almost regal bearing. Her smoke-colored eyes matched the thick mane of once-black hair that still brushed the back of her skirts. A colorful woven shawl was draped around the shoulders of her white, gathered blouse. On her wrists, dozens of silver bangles tinkled musically as she moved. Oddest of all was the small monkey curled on her shoulder, who eyed the occupants of the wagon with head-tilting curiosity, then curled up under the woman's shawl and peeked at them.

From her place beside Brew and Reese, Grace cast an uncertain look at Tom, who sat beside the driver on the narrow bench seat. From behind his black eye-patch, he smiled reassuringly back at her, winking his good eye. She frowned, wondering if he meant that as a comforting gesture, because it did little to appease her apprehension. Tom had told them he knew of a doctor who would help Brew—a woman.

They called her a
curandera
—a healer. Her methods were unorthodox, he admitted, but he'd seen them work. To Grace the woman looked more gypsy than doctor, but there seemed to be no choice. Consumption was the word Reese used: an ugly, final word, but one she could hardly deny any longer. Where Brew's life was concerned, she was willing to try anything. Squeezing Brew's hand, she looked down at him. He suddenly looked old. Tired.
Please, God,
she prayed,
I'm not ready to lose him. Not Brew, too.

Tom hopped out of the wagon and embraced the old woman familiarly. The monkey leaped onto Tom's shoulder and he scratched its neck as he turned back to the wagon.

"Señora Maria Elena Vasquez de Adregon,
mis amigos,
Reese Donovan, Señorita Grace Turner,
y
Brewster McDodd,
el enfermo
—the sick one."

"It's a pleasure to—" Grace began.

The older woman's gaze darted to the wagon and the man lying within. She went pale as she moved closer.
"Que le paso?"

Tom explained Brew's condition to her in Spanish, all the while scratching the monkey, who sniffed at his ear.

"Ahh,
sí,"
she murmured. Curiously, the woman looked visibly shaken as she stroked the old man's heated forehead gently. "Bring him inside."

It took a moment for Grace to realize that Señora Adregon had spoken in perfect English. Through the bead-draped doorway the men carried Brew, who was awake but weak. They settled him on a narrow pallet beside a pair of open double doors that led to a lush portico, while Grace instructed them to be careful with him.

The house consisted of only one room, this one, but several screens divided the space into separate areas. Except for the whitewashed walls, which stood bare and clean, there was hardly a spot in the room that wasn't occupied by bric-a-brac. But it wasn't the sort of bric-a-brac one might find on Miss Beauregard's sitting room shelf. Señora Adregon's trinkets were exotic and looked vaguely medical in origin. Her floors were covered with tightly woven rugs, like the red-and-black one draped over the divan.

Despite the heat outside, a fire burned low in the wide stone fireplace. A black pot full of odd-smelling herbs hung simmering over the small blaze. Grace resisted the temptation to pinch her nostrils together from the smell. Brew was past resisting any kind of help, but Grace wondered if the cure might not kill him first.

The
curandera
knelt beside Brew, murmuring something in Spanish, all the while stroking the hair back from his sweaty brow. Brew opened his eyes and looked up at her. A flash of disbelief crossed his expression and he blinked twice.

"Elena?"

"Sí,"
she murmured with a gentle smile.

His face went even paler, if that were possible, and he rolled his eyes heavenward. "Oh, Lordy." He groaned. "I'm dead, ain't I? That's it, ain't it?"

She touched his brow again, forcing him to look up. "No,
mi amigo viejo.
It is I."

His brow puckered with a frown. "But... how—?"

"Shhh-hh.
Silencio.
Rest. I will take care of you now."

"Elena." Brew sighed, his gaze roaming over her face. "I don't believe it. Seein' you now, I could die a happy man."

Her eyebrows lowered with censure. "Once you had more faith in me than that."

A cough rattled through him. "Once I thought I'd find you again."

"Have you not?"

"It was fifteen years 'fore I stopped lookin' fer you."

"I knew one day you would come."

He swallowed hard. "You been down here all this time?"

"For many years now."

"What's it been? Thirty years?"

"Treinta y dos.
Thirty-two."

Brew smiled, his eyes filled with emotion. "You ain't hardly aged a day, Elena."

The woman laughed with a musical sound. "The years do not leave us untouched,
mi corazon,
except, I see, for your silver tongue." She glanced at Grace. "Your daughter?"

"I do consider her so."

Grace bit her lip, holding back tears at the tender look Brew sent her. In all the years she'd known him, Brew had never mentioned that he had once been in love. But clearly he had and so had the woman he'd spent half a lifetime searching for.

Grace glanced at Reese and found him watching her with a strange, almost wistful look. The moment their eyes met, however, he directed his gaze out the door.

Elena smiled at her and gestured graciously at the small room.
"Mi casa es su casa!
My house is yours."

"Thank you," Grace murmured.

With a final squeeze to Brew's hand, Elena got to her feet. "You must rest now. There is much for me to do. We will talk later."

As Elena moved to the pot over the fire, Brew gestured for Reese to come closer. "I need to talk to you." His voice was weak as Reese bent over him. "Alone."

Reese glanced at Grace tightly. He did his best to hide what she glimpsed in his eyes, what she'd seen there for days now. He looked ready to bolt. And there wasn't a thing she could do to stop him. She frowned and tightened her fingers around Brew's. "You should save your strength. Besides, when have you ever kept secrets from me? Except"—she glanced at Elena—"this one."

Brew coughed again, touching the handkerchief to his mouth. "Elena wasn't a secret. She was just part of my past. Never thought I'd see her again."

"Oh, Brew."

"Leave us, Grace," he managed at last. "I ain't got the strength to argue."

"We won't be long," Reese said quietly.

"Don't upset him," she warned, getting to her feet.

Reese watched as she disappeared out the door with Tom. Pulling a three-legged stool up, he settled next to Brew's pallet.

"I'm a lucky man, Donovan," he said, closing his eyes. "A lucky man. Any man fool enough to let love go the first time rarely gets a second chance."

Reese didn't reply. He just watched him, waiting.

"And I reckon my second chance has been cut short some."

"How long have you known you had consumption?" Reese asked.

"A doctor told me six months ago."

"You didn't tell Grace, did you?"

Brew shook his head. "I couldn't—" he coughed—"couldn't tell her. She thinks I'm gonna live forever."

"Old man," Reese said, "you coulda lived a lot longer if you hadn't come on this fool trip."

"It may be a fool trip in your eyes, son, but it ain't none such to me. Luke an' Grace ain't my family, but they're like my own kin. Their momma and daddy died in a carriage accident eight years ago and left 'em with no one to look after 'em but me. Figgered I was the unluckiest man alive to get saddled with two youngsters, but I was wrong. Come to love them like they was my own."