“I do not understand.”
“He showed up a few days ago on the trail. We’ve shared a few meals but nothing’s permanent.”
“It seems permanent to me.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
She nodded. She took another step, not toward Kell, but apparently he thought she was taking liberties. He lunged. Sam jumped forward. He was too late. With a rapid spate of something in Spanish, Isabella cracked the dog across the nose. He yelped and dropped back. Hands on hips, she glared at the dog. “No more out of you.”
Sam shook his head. If that didn’t beat all. “I think he likes you.”
Isabella bent down and worked her arm under the wagon. “Why do you say this?”
“Because the last man who tried that got his throat ripped out.”
She didn’t even blink, just scrounged deeper. “Then it is good we have reached an understanding.”
Sam supposed it was. The view she was unwittingly giving him of her rear was also good. So much so she had to repeat herself when she needed his help. Bracing her palm on the bed, she said, “You must lift the wagon again. I cannot get my bag out.”
Her bag. The wagon. Shit. He couldn’t afford to be this distracted. “Got it.”
In a matter of seconds she had the small satchel out. She’d packed light. Too light to plan on having more than one change of clothes. Too light to have any resource once she arrived at her destination. “Who’d you say you were running from?”
“I did not say I was running.”
He reached down and helped her to her feet. The top of her head came to the center of his chest. She just seemed bigger. “But you are. And a little thing like you needs all the help she can get.”
“I am not little.”
“Petite then.” He tugged her toward Breeze, who was patiently waiting. Kell fell into step beside them.
“I am not this petite either.”
“You’re taking two steps to my one,” he pointed out.
“You are a giant.”
He took her satchel and hooked it over the saddle horn, hiding a grin. Her height, or lack thereof, was obviously a sore spot, “How about tiny? Can you live with tiny?”
“No.”
Her nails dug into his wrists just atop his gloves, the gloves he resented because they kept him from feeling the softness of her skin.
“Wait. We have to bury them.”
“Duchess, whoever did this is probably still around. That being the case, we don’t have time to dig holes.”
Her lips flattened. “You must.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“I owe them.”
“I thought the padre arranged the deal.”
“But I was to provide money.”
For all her high manners she didn’t look like she had two coins to rub together. “Did you have any?”
“No.”
She said it as if those four men would have traveled anywhere with something as sweet as her without taking their payment out of her hide. “They would have been ticked when they found out.”
“Yes.”
“You’d have probably ended up on your back working the cost off.”
She didn’t look shocked. “It was a possibility.”
A woman would have to be seven kinds of desperate to take off with those odds staring down at her. She headed toward the front of the wagon where there was a gap between the ground and the sides. He grabbed her arm, pulling her up short.
“What the hell kind of trouble are you in?”
She looked at him with big brown eyes that were the color of warm chocolate. Eyes that forgave him ahead of time for the desertion she expected. “Tejala wants me as his intended.”
“Interesting phrasing. I take it you are not in agreement?”
“No.”
From what Sam knew of Tejala, Isabella’s objections would mean nothing. “So what are you going to do after you reach San Antonio?”
“That is not your concern.”
She was right. It wasn’t. She likely wasn’t even a Texas citizen. He could walk away and no one would hold him accountable. Tension arced between them, extending from his shoulder down his arm to his grip. Beneath his hand, her muscles jerked, sending the tension right back. She was a strange mix of courage and desperation. Innocence and sass. A smart man would leave her and her problems to her people to sort out. She licked her lips again, the gesture leaving the bottom one invitingly wet and pink. Vulnerable.
He swung up on Breeze. “Maybe not, but I’ve decided to make it mine.”
And maybe her right along with it.
Chapter 2
The woman was as infuriating as all get-out. Sass, spit and fire with an autocratic manner that was bred into her bones, she didn’t shake an idea once she had hold of it. And the only idea she had her teeth sunk into right now was that San Antonio was her safe haven. She was determined to get there, by herself if Sam wouldn’t take her. On the hard-used nag they’d come upon about a half mile from the massacre. As if he’d let that happen. The woman would be raped or dead within minutes of striking out. But she didn’t see it that way.
“There are laws against capturing a woman against her will,” Isabella pointed out in that logical tone in which she’d been presenting all her arguments for the last few hours.
Sam glanced over his shoulder to where she rode just behind. “You don’t say.”
“Yes.” She kicked her horse, an animal who wore its hard life in the scars on his hide, to force it to catch up. “I believe it is a hang by the neck offense.”
“Damn. Guess I’m in trouble then.” He motioned to the horse with his cigarette when she kicked it again. “You’re hurting him for no reason. He’s got bad knees. It pains him just to walk.”
His opinion of her went up a notch when she immediately stopped kicking and started petting and crooning to the animal. It took a nosedive when she stopped the animal and dismounted. It was more of a slide and tumble than a dismount, but since she landed on her feet, he’d call it that.
“What are you doing now?”
She pushed the too-big hat back from where it flopped over her face. “Walking.”
Kell growled. She cut him a glare. He didn’t stop growling but he did sit with a look at Sam that clearly said he expected him to handle the crazy woman so they could be on their way.
“If I thought the horse couldn’t carry you, I would have shot him when you brought him forward.”
She gasped. “You would not shoot Sweet Pea!”
If that didn’t add insult to injury. “You named the poor thing Sweet Pea?”
She bristled and patted the black’s shoulder. “It is a good name. He is very sweet.”
“Well, being sweet isn’t something a man wants shouted to all and sundry, so you might want to not call him that in front of the other horses.”
For a split second she looked concerned and he wanted to smile, but then she caught on with a shake of her head.
“You