Once a Hero Read online

  Well, she took his breath away. Especially since she stood holding his spare gun, cocked and aimed at him.

  Chapter Two

  Slim. Taller than he had guessed. Younger than he thought, with midnight-black hair that held an unruly curl and blue eyes so dark they were nearly as black as brows arched over them.

  “That’s a hell of a thank you,” he finally said, motioning with his rifle at the gun she held on him.

  And held steady, too, he noted.

  “You figure to use that on me?”

  He tilted his head, sizing up the quality of her clothing, boots and belt, despite the tears and dirt that marred them. Her silence unnerved him.

  “Those two could go for help. Might think about that before you shoot me.”

  “Do you believe I will not?”

  A faint accent caught his ear. He gazed at her face. There was a bruise on her high cheekbone. Kee’s grip on his rifle showed the knuckles almost white. He reached out without thought to touch her, but she backed away.

  “It’s all right,” he said softly, understanding her fear. “You’re safe now. I wouldn’t hurt you. I’ve never hurt a woman in my life. Those men—”

  “They are cowards. You did well to chase them off.”

  “They accused you of stealing something from them.”

  “No.”

  He waited patiently, despite the small voice of caution urging him to get away from this place. He expected more to the denial, some explanation as to why they had been chasing her.

  Young she might be, but he sensed that the silence growing between them bothered him more than it did her.

  He saw there was a feline cast to her features. The chin a little pointed, eyes with a slight, intriguing slant. Eyes that directed a hard gaze at him.

  Kee had the answer to his earlier silent question. Not a bit of doubt about it.

  She’d shoot.

  “We can’t wait around here.”

  “We?”

  He had been introduced to a few highfalutin women back East, and once to a duchess. Not even she managed that raised brow and imperious tone to one word.

  Patience flew by him. And he wasn’t about to call it back.

  “Look, lady. I saved your life down there. You don’t feel like thanking me, fine. You need my spare gun, that’s fine, too. Take it with my blessing. But, lady, I’m riding out of here. Now.”

  A flush tinted her olive skin that owed its color more to heritage than the sun. Her slim, straight nose spoiled the hard, arrogant look. The tip titled upward just a bit. But that mouth…it was worth a second look, a whole lot of second looks. Full and wide, ripe for smiling, ripe for kissing.

  Belatedly, and none too soon, he noted how she shifted her weight and remembered the wound.

  “You caught a bullet. Let me tend that for you.” He couldn’t help but glance toward her hips. Slim as a boy’s but the slight curve showed off a waist he could span with his hands.

  “A graze. I barely feel it.”

  Kee set his teeth. Obstinate, contrary woman!

  He touched his fingers to his hat brim. “It’s been…hell, not a pleasure, ma’am. Ain’t sure what it’s been, but it’s over. I’m leaving.”

  The sun was full up, the heat already making itself felt. Kee didn’t wait to see what she’d do or say. He walked by, heading down the canyon toward his horses.

  “What will you do with their horses and guns?”

  “Leave them.” He didn’t pause or turn around.

  “You cannot leave them there. What if they come back?”

  “Now you’re talking to me, lady? I really don’t care if they do. You’re a mighty ungrateful woman to my way of thinking. You’ve got my gun, and I know you will use it.”

  “You are angry with me.”

  Kee shouted back. “Damn right I am.”

  “I do not know you.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll leave it that way. This is one gent who’s making tracks out of here. Alone,” he added with a perverse pleasure.

  “I am Isabel Dolores Rosalinda del Cuervo.”

  The way she said her name, as if it should mean something to him, forced Kee to stop and face her.

  The wind caught her hair sending the unruly curls into a wilder tangle. Kee could almost see the capital T for trouble branded in the middle of that slim body.

  “You’ve got yourself a fine-sounding pedigree, lady. Pardon me if I don’t scrape and bow.”

  “I could shoot you.”

  “You sure could.” And with that said, he turned his back and kept walking.

  “Wait! Who are you?”

  He muttered something Isabel couldn’t hear. She limped after him. Holding his own gun on him had been wrong. He could not begin to understand how frightened she was. But he had rescued her. She could not allow him to ride away. She needed him.

  The wind whipped her hair around her face and she reached up to contain the thick mass, wincing as she pulled on the bullet graze.

  The horses nickered as he neared them, all but the one he had ridden. That one snorted.

  She heard the murmur of his voice but not the words as he rubbed the animals’ noses or scratched between their ears. Kind to animals, kind to women. Her grandmother’s words. Dear abuela, I miss you so. Help me now to know what to do.

  She had been through too much, fought too long, and through it all had been alone. Trust did not come easily.

  Not even for a man whose eyes and hair were the melted shades of her favorite chocolate.

  She had only minutes more to make up her mind about the man who moved with the fluid grace of a born vaquero. She could think of no higher praise than that of the finest riders in Mexico or this vast, desolate territory of Arizona.

  He did not have the vaquero’s flowery gallantry. His less than gentlemanly behavior was her own fault.

  And he did not appear to know her name.

  Isabel bit her lower lip. She had few, very few facts with which to judge this man. A skilled rider, an excellent shot, handy with the knife he wore. Her quick search of his saddlebags produced the gun she took, two beautifully handmade shirts, a pair of pants and a simple silver buckle with the initial K set in the open-worked oval.

  No clue to who he was. He could be married; someone had made those shirts.

  He is brave, Isabel. Do not forget what he has done for you.

  And if she could forget those terror-filled hours.

  She rubbed her arms, and realized she still had his gun. What should she do?

  He had stripped the saddle and was rubbing his horse with a bunch of dry grass, already done while she tried to decide. The horse’s hide was still dark with sweat from his hard ride. With an ease she envied, he lifted the heavy saddle in place, every move as smooth as the fit of his dark gray shirt.

  His stance emphasized the strength of his long legs and the slimness of his hips. Muscles rippled across his chest. There was a confident set to his shoulders, to the whole of his rangy body.

  The profile spoke of power and strength. He wasn’t a handsome man. The features appeared too rugged for true masculine beauty in a face bronzed by sun and wind. The slightly square cut of his chin suggested a stubborn streak. His full lower lip suggested other things that she did not dare think about, for he was mounted, tying the lead rope to his saddle.

  “Your horses,” she said, “I have never seen such mares. The confirmation and coloring of such young-blooded stock is a thing of beauty.”

  Kee looked down at her. He shoved his hat back on his head. Where he found the small store of sympathy and patience from he didn’t know, but he used it now.

  “Look, at any other time I’d let you stand and admire these mares all you want. Maybe you’re in shock over what happened to you. C’mon over here and I’ll help you mount behind me. We really need to leave here.”

  His strong, callused hand was held out toward her. Isabel hesitated and then with a shrug, stepped closer to him.

  “W
here are you going?”

  “Wherever you’d like,” he promised rashly. Damn! Double damn! What got into him? He never made promises. Never!

  The fingers she held up were long and slim, the skin smooth, the wrist delicately boned.

  Kee took a firm grip, kicked his boot free for her to use the stirrup to help her mount.

  But when she tried stretching her leg, she cried out and pulled free.

  “I told you to let me look at that wound.” Kee was down and lifting her to his saddle before the words were out.

  “Scoot back. I’ll need more room than you.”

  “I noticed,” she murmured, biting her lip against the pain.

  Kee didn’t miss the blanching of her skin. The words It served her right were hanging on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed them.

  Neck-reining Outlaw to walk out, Kee thought he should have put her in front of him. Between her slender arms wrapped around his waist, the press of her body against his back and the heat of her breath sliding through his shirt, he was in for one hell of a long ride.

  And not the kind he’d been looking forward to.

  Like Uncle Ty said, trouble came with a scent all its own. And once Ty had been on intimate terms with trouble. Kee remembered those words when Ty defended his need to ride out when and where it pleased him. Trouble with a scent as elusive as water in the desert. Or the smell like a storm gathering, wicked and wild, striking out of nowhere.

  Or the kind of trouble that drifted into a man’s senses on the fragrance of a woman.

  Kee figured the lady with the fancy name and capital T carried all three kinds of trouble for him.

  At the canyon’s mouth he was surprised to find the horses still standing, the guns on the ground.

  He gathered up the reins, thought about leaving the guns, quickly decided against it.

  “Painful as it is for you to move, you’ll be more comfortable on your own horse.” Kee didn’t give her time to nay or yea him. He swept her up and very gently set her into the saddle.

  “You do not believe one of these is truly my horse?”

  “No, ma’am. I sure don’t. Yours would have a mess of fancy trappings to go along with the fancy name.” Kee kept a sharp lookout while he looped both holsters around her saddle’s pommel. He set the rifle in the boot, then grabbed the reins of the other horse. He led the animal back to the end of his own string, and secured him to the packhorse. He checked the spare rifle, saw it was fully loaded and carried it back to his own saddle.

  “Their boots, you will not leave them.”

  He glared at her. Took himself a deep breath, and huffed the air out. He tried telling himself that the lady was accustomed to giving orders, and what’s more, having them obeyed. He lived with women like that. And while it rubbed every bit of him the wrong way to be subservient to anyone, he merely nodded, told himself to be charitable to the contrary, obstinate woman. He shoved the boots into her saddlebags, smiled and touched his hat before he mounted.

  This was one piece of baggage he was going to ditch at the first ranch, or town he came to.

  Instead of taking the trail down to the canyon, Kee headed Outlaw toward the rim, letting the mustang pick his own way.

  “Wait,” Isabel called out. “We must go back to where my camp is.”

  “That’s asking for trouble if those hombres have anyone else waiting for them.”

  “They were alone.”

  “We’re still heading out this way.” Kee’s voice was hard with a finality that brooked no more argument.

  Outlaw topped the rim and it was a breathtaking piece of country spread out before him. A blue bowl of sky with pillow-soft white clouds, sun-gilded mountaintops and deep, shadowed canyons. Off in the distance a thin ribbon of blue river. A pair of red-tailed hawks floated high above.

  At any other time Kee would have sat and thought about the next mountain he hadn’t climbed, the next canyon to be explored. He had a slight sense of all the places he hadn’t yet been, but surprisingly, his companion’s silence began to grate on his nerves.

  He wondered what she was scheming.

  From the softness of her hands, her imperious manner and her name, he guessed pure hidalgo blood ran in her veins. But if that were true, he knew no Spanish nobleman worthy of the name would allow a woman of his family to travel without a heavily armed escort.

  And a duenna.

  In his considered opinion, Señorita del Cuervo was in dire need of a chaperon.

  Preferably one with a good stiff hairbrush. Lord knew he had comforted his nieces when their mischief making proved too much for the household.

  As Outlaw chose a way down the loose scree, Kee thought about Reina. At twelve, Ty and Dixie’s eldest didn’t care much for rules. The Kincaid princess from her birth, she had run away once or twice when a spanking was looming.

  Run away…

  Maybe that’s what his Spanish lady had done.

  Or maybe…

  He yanked on the reins, causing Outlaw to slide. He managed to hang on, but jerked around to look at the woman.

  “You running from a husband?”

  “Do you look for a reward?”

  “What kind of an answer is that? Did I say any damn thing about a reward? Did I?”

  The tumbled boulders made for treacherous footing and Kee had to pay attention. He’d wait. Once they were down on level ground, he’d have his answers or he wasn’t going another foot.

  The lady was fast going beyond contrary, obstinate female all the way to mule. After a moment he amended that. She’d gone straight to a stone wall.

  Once off the rim, Kee headed for the towering cottonwood he spied from above. He had guessed there would be water, and while he wished for a wider and deeper stream, this one would do.

  He led the horses in and rode upstream a ways, then headed downstream without leaving the water. He tossed the lead rope to Isabel, who, he absently noted, caught it with a deft hand. He rode farther down, came out of the stream on one side, made tracks along the bank, then once more entered the stream.

  When he rode up to her, she handed over the lead rope.

  “Do you believe what you have done will hide our trail?” she asked.

  “Not for long. Not if one of them can track, but it’ll sure confuse the hell out of them. You wanted to go back to your camp. Where is it?”

  “I am uncertain. When I ran this morning it was still dark. My only thought was to get away from those men.”

  Kee took a hard look at the towering walls around them. “South should be Phoenix and the Superstition Mountains. Over east we’d cross the Salt River and hit the Sierra Ancha. I don’t think you or anyone could cross that in the dark. The trails are rugged, box canyons and high walls that are nearly impossible.” Kee led off, heading downstream, keeping to the center. “Did you notice anything about the place where you camped?”

  “There was a stream.”

  “Lots of those around. I was thinking more of a landmark. We need something to point the way.” He thought of the Sierra Ancha’s ancient cliff dwellings. If she had a guide crazy enough to take her into that wildness, she would have seen them. Or maybe the man would have told her a few stories about Devil’s Chasm or Aztec Peak.

  “You never said if you were traveling with anyone. Come to think of it, you haven’t said much about anything.” He neck-reined Outlaw up the bank where a thick stand of cottonwoods were just leafing.

  Kee made sure she had followed him. He sat a few moments, staring at her, not backing down beneath that very direct gaze of hers.

  “You know something, lady—”

  “I told you my name.”

  “So you did, and truthfully, that’s really about all you’ve told me. Oh, I forgot. You denied stealing anything from those two hombres. Right? Or did I miss something?”

  She looked away first, and Kee was struck again by the delicacy of her profile. But he wasn’t going on until she told him more.

  “You should know
that I’ve heard some tall tales. If you’re sitting there contemplating telling me one, better make it good. If I don’t like what I hear, I’m riding on. Alone. Despite—”

  “Despite your promise to me?” She glanced at him, and found his implacable expression unnerving. “I—I came here to find something.” She heard the underlying note of resignation and could do nothing about it. For in truth he was asking her to trust him, and she had no choice. To a point. But there was no need for him to know that.

  “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “What I seek men will kill for.”

  “Hold it right there, lady. Tell me no more. You’re hunting gold, right?”

  She was hurt by his scoffing tone, more by the look in his eyes.

  Her chin lifted and she fixed a cold, hard stare on his face. “What if I am?”

  “You and every other damn fool. Oh, I’m not saying there isn’t any gold in these mountains, there is. But you, a woman alone—”

  “I have a map.”

  “Right. And the man that sold it to you was dying or something. I don’t believe my luck. I just don’t believe it. I wish you luck.” He nudged the mustang out from under the trees.

  “Wait! You do not let me finish.” Calm. Be calm, she warned herself. “The map I have is very old. I knew the man who made it. My grandfather. From the time he was a boy he had come with others to work the mine in these mountains. The last time, he had hurt his leg and felt something was wrong. He urged the others to leave. They would not listen to him. He took the gold he had mined and left them.”

  Isabel took a deep breath and released it. She searched his face for a sign that he was listening, and more, believing her. Better she should try to read the bark on the tree.

  “Later,” she continued, “he heard most of the others were killed by the Apache. Two escaped. They met with a man. A Dutchman. Some say that he killed the two after they told him about the mine.”

  “Jacob Walz,” Kee said, shaking his head. “You know, I thought my luck was bad. Lady, just forget about this map. More men have been killed hunting that mine than anyone really knows. Any map you have is worthless.”

  “That is not true!” She heard the desperation in her voice, could feel it in every nerve of her body. “Why do you say this? You cannot know. My grandfather—”