He felt like a heel the second the words left his mouth. The woman must be scared out of her wits. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dead bodies, facing down a stranger twice her size and all she had to wield as defense was a peck of attitude.
And he was trying to undermine that.
“I had yet to join them.”
It was his turn to blink.
“That’s not your stuff tossed about?”
She shook her head. “They were going to sell it.”
“But you were joining up with them?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you join them in town?”
“My joining was a secret.”
“A secret? As in you were running off with one of these yahoos?”
She looked hopeful. “Would you believe that?”
He didn’t even have to think about it as he reholstered his revolver. “No.”
She sighed. “I did not think so.”
The silence stretched. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t be thinking up a lie to spin me would you?”
“Isabella.”
“What?”
“My name, it is Isabella.”
It was a very pretty name and when her lips shaped around the syllables, it made a man think of other things that sexy little mouth could ease around. His cock, which had been twitching ever since she’d backed out from under the wagon, filled in a low pleasurable ache. She ran her tongue over the full curves in a nervous betrayal. She was more worried than she was letting on.
“Nice to meet you, Isabella. Now, what’s the real truth?”
“I was supposed to meet up with them.”
He looked around. They were a good four miles out of town. He crossed the few feet to where the pistol lay and picked it up. “Why am I still not finding that any more believable the second time around?”
“Perhaps you are a man of suspicion?”
He was that. A check of the chamber revealed two bullets. He glanced over. “You weren’t planning on putting up much of a fight.”
“I grabbed the pistola when I heard you come.”
He looked up the slight rise. It was possible she’d heard him coming. “Next time grab some bullets, too.”
Isabella eyed the gun in his hand with an ill-disguised hunger. “I will remember.”
He just bet she would. “You’re planning on there being a next time?”
“I need to get to San Antonio. There is much trouble between here and there.”
She had that right. Pretty much certain death for a woman alone. Tucking the gun into the back of his waistband, he moved onto the bodies. “You got family there?”
“No.”
The first man had nothing of value. He let him roll back to the dirt. “What’s the draw then?”
“I have heard it is pretty.”
“Are you expecting me to believe you hooked up with these four because you thought San Antonio was pretty?”
She shrugged. “It is the truth.”
Maybe part of it. “A gently reared woman would have to be pretty desperate to join a bunch like this.”
“What makes you think I am gently reared?”
Sam shook his head. As if he didn’t know when quality and innocence was looking at him. “Come clean. You weren’t planning on traveling alone with these men.”
“I was.”
“Why?”
“I had no choice.”
At least that made sense though the why needed exploring. “You do now.”
She blinked. “I am not traveling with you.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You were eager enough to go with them.”
“They were not dangerous.”
Interesting she felt he was. “I think about a mile out you’d have changed your mind on that.”
About a mile out the men would have had the clothes stripped from her body and that sexy mouth too full to scream.
“You do not know that.”
“True.” He checked the next body. “They might not have waited to leave the campsite before raping you.”
Those full lips pressed into a flat line. “I do not believe that.”
“Then you’re a poor judge of character.”
There wasn’t anything left on any of the bodies worth scavenging except for a broad-brimmed hat. He grabbed it. The woman might need it. Skin that creamy wouldn’t hold up well under the sun.
“The padre made them promise to give me safe passage.”
He shook his head, rolling the third man onto his back, glancing up at her smothered gag as congealed blood slid off. “And that’s all it took for you to leap trustingly into their arms?”
She pressed her hands to her lips a second before answering, “A man would not break a promise to a padre. It would mean his soul.”
Sam straightened. “I’d be willing to bet these men lost their souls long ago.”
“You will not say such things.” The fingers of her right hand clenched in the fabric of her skirt. “They lost their lives because of me.”
“You weren’t even here.”
She shook her head. “It is still because of me.” Her gaze met his. There was no mistaking the anguish in the depths. “If you force me to go with you, you will lose yours, too.”
He’d heard that before. “What makes you think I’m so easy to kill?”
“Easy or hard, when he finds you, you will still be dead.”
“He?”
Her lips clamped closed.
“You might as well tell me.”
“You do not need to know.”
He liked the way she spoke, the syllables coming together in a melodic flow, the accents falling in the wrong places in such a way that made a song out of normally harsh words.
“Since we’ll be traveling together, I’d like to know who’s going to be on my tail.”
“I will not allow it.”
“You don’t have a say.”
“Yes. I do.”
Because she thought he couldn’t figure it out. There was only one man in this territory powerful enough to be labeled he. When Sam combined that with the fact that San Antonio was the first large town outside Tejala’s territory, it wasn’t hard to figure out who had her running scared.
He reached for her arm. She stepped back. “I cannot let you be hurt.”
Damn, what happened to thinking he was dangerous?
“Anybody ever tell you you have strange notions?”
From the way she immediately drew her pride around her like a shield, he’d say yes.
“That does not