THE OUTLAW BRIDE Read online

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  Contents:

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  © 1999

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  Chapter 1

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  Quinn, Texas, 1881

  Esmeralda Maria Conchita Montoya glared at the smug banker across his desk. "This is not right," she said, all too aware of the odds against her. She was a woman, she was a Mexican, and her accent was as touched by her heritage as was the color of her skin. And this banker was a Brand. Allen Brand, whose entire outlaw family was now squatting on Esmeralda's land. "My father was tricked. The ranch rightfully belongs to me."

  The banker, handsome and dressed in clothing so new it practically gleamed, checked his pocket watch as if he were bored. He irritated her, looking so suave and elegant and well-bred, not a hair out of place, when she knew perfectly well he was little more than scum.

  All the Brands were scum.

  "It's all perfectly legal, little lady," he drawled. "Right there in front of you in black and white." He glanced down at the stack of papers he'd placed in front of her, tapped them with a forefinger for emphasis, then lifted his brows and his gaze as one. "You can read, can't you?"

  "Sí. I can read. It is all very clear, in black and white, as you say. Your bank made a loan to my father. You gave him three years to pay. There are still six months left."

  "My bank made a loan to your father, and that ranch was his collateral. You do know what collateral is?" She only narrowed her eyes on him. He went on. "And it does say, on page two of this agreement, that I have the right to demand the full amount should your father be unable to meet his quarterly obligations to this bank."

  "You gave him your word that would not happen. He told me so himself."

  The man shrugged, leaning back in his leather chair, arms folded behind his head. "Maybe he lied."

  Esmeralda rose from her chair as if she'd been shot out of it. Palms flat on the gleaming surface of the desk, she leaned towards him. "My father never lied in his life."

  Allen Brand's brows rose again. He sat straighter in his chair, and she had the satisfaction of seeing the slightest hint of alarm flash in his eyes. He straightened his bolo tie, cleared his throat. "Nonetheless, I'm only bound by what is written in that contract, and there is no promise not to foreclose in there. Only my right to do so, should he be late in meeting his obligation. He did miss his last payment, after all."

  "Because his cattle were rustled on the way to market—by your two outlaw brothers and their gang of cutthroats!"

  Again the banker shrugged. "That's no fault of mine."

  She pounded a fist on his desk so hard that the ornate kerosene lamp that sat there seemed to jump. "Do you think I am stupid, Señor Brand? Eh? You put them up to it. It gave you the excuse you needed to steal my father's land from him!"

  Brand's gaze dipped to the lower left drawer. She'd noticed it move in that direction several times before, and was sharp enough to realize he likely kept a gun in there. If he reached for it, she would slit his throat before he could thumb the hammer back.

  "I did not steal anything." His well-manicured, callus-free hand inched closer to that drawer. Esmeralda's own hand—smaller, but quicker, she thought—moved lightly over her skirts, and underneath them she felt the hardness of the blade she wore strapped to her thigh.

  "I took possession by legal means, and if your father were here, he would tell you so," Allen Brand went on. "But since he saw fit to go into hiding somewhere, sending his little girl to tend to his affairs—"

  "My father is dead." She stated it flatly, stepping away from the desk and turning her back on the man, refusing to let him see her pain. But she was not stupid enough to lose sight of him, even then, lest she feel the burn of a coward's bullet in her back just as her father had. Instead, she paced to the window, as if to look outside. In the thick glass, she kept his reflection in plain sight. She almost hoped he would go for the gun. Her fingers itched to close around the hilt of her blade as she drove it into his gut.

  But that would be wrong. With a free hand, she caressed the pendant she wore, and thought of her father and all the things he had taught her. Long ago, when she'd been a young girl, she'd told him she was in love for the first time with a boy she'd known all her life. Eldon Brand. This banker's youngest brother.

  Luis Montoya had just nodded thoughtfully, silent for a long moment, and then he said, "This you must remember, little one. There is nothing more important than family." She could almost hear his voice again now. "For a woman to love a man, she must love his family, too. And they must love her. For a woman marries not just the man, but his family, as well."

  She remembered nodding slowly. "Sí, this I know. You have told me this before."

  "He comes from a bad family, little one," her father told her seriously. "Once, there was a chance the Brand children would grow up well. But when their parents died, that chance died with them. They did not stick together, but scattered, and most of them—all of them, I fear—went bad. No family." He shook his head slowly, sadly.

  Imagine her beloved father feeling sorry for the bastards who had killed him. Imagine her having ever been attracted to one of them. She shook off the memory, tried to focus on the present. She'd been away from home for a long time, but nothing looked so very different.

  The dusty streets of Quinn were busy. Women in long skirts and bonnets carried baskets or tugged children to and fro. Buggies and buckboards passed slowly, raising dust clouds in their wake. A man sat in a chair outside the saloon across the way, his feet propped up on the boardwalk's rail.

  "I … didn't know your father had died," the banker said, and for once she thought there might be the ring of truth in his words. Again she fingered the pendant she wore: a small quartz crystal, cut into the shape of a skull by unknown hands, centuries ago. It had been in her family for many, many generations. Some claimed it had magical powers—that it was supposed to restore balance to mankind, to restore its holder to her proper place in the scheme of things. It had been given to her by her father, just before he died.

  "Surely your brothers Waylon and Blake told you that one of their filthy gang shot my father when he tried to stop them from stealing his cattle, no?" She turned slowly to study his face.

  "I'd heard he was wounded."

  She nodded. "Sí. Wounded. He sent for me. Pedro, Father's most trusted hand, took the fastest horse from our stables and came for me in Mexico. Pedro told me what you and your family had done, and he brought me back home, where I should have been all along. I held my father's hand as he lay dying of blood poisoning, Señor Brand."

  Allen Brand braced one hand on the back of his chair, his head lowering slightly. "I'm sorry for your loss, Esmeralda."

  "Are you?"

  "Of course I am. For heaven's sakes, I've known you since we were both knee-high to a yearling calf. But surely you can see this is over now. Your father is gone, and any claim he may have thought he had to the ranch is gone with him. You'd best forget about all of this and go back home to Mexico."

  She shook her head. "You have known me so long, and yet you know me so little. I was only visiting my aunt in Mexico. My home is on my father's ranch, where I was born and raised, Allen Brand. He may be gone, but rest assured I am here. And I am staying here until I avenge my father's murder and reclaim what is rightfully mine."

  He locked eyes with her. She did not flinch, and it was he who looked away first. "You've been away a long time, Esmeralda. Years. Your father sent you south for your own good, you know."

  "Sí. I had no mother to help him raise me. He wanted me to have the finer things, to learn to be a lady, to learn manners and wear dresses."

  Allen nodded slowly. "And it l
ooks as if those lessons took. You've grown into a beautiful young woman."

  "He also sent me away so that I would be beyond the reach of men like you and your brothers," she told him. "Do not be fooled by these frilly skirts, Allen Brand. I have not changed so much from the girl who could outrun you, outride you, and outfight you."

  He sighed, lifting a brow and tilting his head. "Maybe you haven't changed all that much, Esmeralda, but things around here have. You don't even know what you're up against."

  "Oh, I know exactly what I'm up against. A liar and a thief. The only difference between you and your outlaw brothers is that you wear a fancy suit, and a quill pen is your weapon. If you refuse to give the land back to me now, I will go to the sheriff and ask him to place Waylon and Blake Brand under arrest for the murder of my father."

  Allen Brand smiled very slowly. "The sheriff's office is right where it always was," he said, nodding toward the window that faced the street. "You go right ahead and file those charges."

  "Do you think I will not do it?"

  "I don't care what you do. I've tried to be kind to you, Esmeralda, for old times' sake, but you won't listen to a thing I tell you. So do what you will. Now, if you don't mind, I have a business to run." He strode across the office, opened the door. "Run along, like a good girl."

  "You will be sorry for this, Allen Brand!" She stomped out and slammed the door behind her, marching through the bank and cussing in Spanish all the way. She'd worn her best dress, bought new boots, even captured her wild, unruly mass of black curls beneath a fancy French bonnet. She had thought that if she'd looked like a lady, the way her aunt had taught her, she might be treated with a scrap of respect, perhaps even taken seriously. Instead, she'd been treated like a minor nuisance. But what did she expect from a thieving Brand? They were all alike. They didn't care about the black-velvet piping that lined the edges of her cropped jacket, or the white blouse with its frilly collar underneath.

  She stepped from the boardwalk down into the rutted edge of the street, only to jump back again as she was nearly run down by a careening wagon. "Gol'dern Mexican whore! Watch where you're goin'!" the driver shouted, shaking his fist at her.

  She shook her own fist and shrieked back at him in her native tongue. Only to go silent when she felt eyes on her. Every person in town had stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at her vulgar display. And their expressions said what they thought of her. She'd barely been back in town two full days, and already most of the residents knew of her mission. To take her land back from the Brands. Why they all were against her from that moment on, was beyond her. She eyed them all, spat on the ground, picked up her skirts and petticoats, and stomped across the street. There she mounted the boardwalk again and strode right up to the sheriff's office. But the moment she flung the door open, she understood the banker's arrogance.

  For yet another Brand sat at this desk. His scuffed boots were propped up on the dull, worn wood, and there was a silver star pinned to his chest. The giant, hulking, snake-eyed firstborn of them all, Garrison Brand.

  "Well now, if it isn't that Mexican spitfire I hear has come to town for revenge." His boots clomped to the floor, and he sat straighter in his chair. "No luck at the bank. I take it, Esmeralda? So what brings you to my office?"

  Her throat suddenly dry, she rasped, "Y-your … office?"

  "That's right." He tapped his badge and rose to his full height. Then he walked around the desk to stand close to her, look down at her. He made her feel like an ant on the floor, and he knew it. "We Brands have done all right for ourselves, Esmeralda. We own Quinn, Texas. So you may as well scoot your bronze hide back to the other side of the Rio Grande, honey. You got no business here."

  She backed away a single step, but kept her eyes on his, nodding slowly. "Sí, I understand it now. One brother is the swindling banker, and the other is the sheriff. Two are outlaws, free to run wild without any fear of the law. What are the youngest two Brands doing, Garrison? Do they serve as judge and jury of this town, eh?"

  Garrison smiled slowly. He would have been a handsome man, if not for the evil in his eyes. "Why did you come here, Esmeralda?"

  "Oh, I think you know why. I come here to charge your brothers with murder. My father's murder."

  He lifted a brow. "Ol' Montoya died, did he? About time, I'd say."

  "I do not care what you think! My father is dead, my land is stolen, and your brothers belong in jail. If you think you can frighten me into giving up, you are wrong, Garrison Brand."

  "If you don't give up, little lady, the only person landing behind bars is gonna be you. An' if you think one person in this town will take your part against a Brand—any Brand—you're dead wrong."

  She clenched her teeth, drew a breath through her nose, and felt her nostrils flare as she blew it out again. "Quinn is not the only town in Texas with a lawman. Believe me, Garrison Brand, I will find one—an honest one—and see you all in prison for what you've done."

  Garrison lowered his head, shook it slowly. "Get out of my town, Esmeralda. By sundown."

  "And if I don't?"

  He glared at her, but said nothing. Esmeralda turned and walked away.

  She went back to the boarding house where she'd rented a room last night—for, only hours after she and Pedro had buried her father, an army of thugs in the employ of Allen Brand had arrived with guns drawn to order her off the property. Pedro had apologized, but then he'd fled in fear. She had been given no choice but to comply.

  It galled her that her father lay buried on the land those Brands now claimed as their own. She hadn't told them where he rested, though, for fear they would desecrate his grave out of sheer meanness.

  At the boarding house, Esmeralda found her satchel sitting on the front step, her belongings packed inside. Frowning, she pounded on the door.

  Mrs. Tremont opened it, saw her and scowled. "I'm sorry, Miss Montoya, but I cannot tolerate your kind here. This is a decent establishment. Had I known you were runnin' about town casting aspersions on its finest residents, I'd never have let you through the door."

  Esmeralda eyed the woman without blinking. "Tell me the truth, Señorita Tremont. Do not stand here and lie to my face."

  The older woman blinked, averting her eyes.

  "You fear them. Everyone in Quinn fears them. Yet you let them continue to run roughshod over you, over the law, over the entire town."

  "Hush!" The woman glanced up and down the street nervously. Her voice lower, she said, "Allen Brand holds the mortgage on this place, young lady. If I cross him, I could lose everything."

  "I see."

  The older woman looked ashamed. "I wish I could help you. It's a shame what happened to your father, but it wasn't my fault. Why should I risk everything I have for…" Her voice trailed off.

  "For a Mexican?" Esmeralda asked. "My father used to say the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of trouble, do nothing. You are a coward, Mrs. Tremont. Quinn has become a town of cowards."

  "How dare you!"

  "Kindly return my money. I paid you for a full week in advance."

  The woman sniffed. "Really? Do you think the sheriff would believe you?" She slammed the door in Esmeralda's face.

  Her father also used to say one could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Perhaps she should try to remember that phrase.

  Clutching her satchel, Esmeralda battled tears of outrage. To hell with them all. She would go to El Paso. She still had a gold eagle in her pouch. She would find a judge there, or a lawyer, or perhaps even a U.S. Marshal. And then she would come back, and she would bring the Brands to ruin. Every last one of them.

  Slogging tiredly along the boardwalk, she knew it would be a full hour before the next stage came through, and she had yet to eat today. She started to go into the town's only eatery, but the owner closed the door before she could even step through, and she heard the bolt being slid home. So the Brands had made the rounds, it seemed. They'd warned the en
tire town not to dare associate with her. A small chill raced up her spine. The sooner she could shake the dust of Quinn from her pinching, button-up boots, the better. She had not intended to put herself completely at the mercy of a band of outlaws, but that was precisely what she had done. She was not safe here. No wonder her father had refused to let her come back home, even when she'd begged. No wonder.

  She kept walking, no longer as confident. As she passed the bat-wing doors of the saloon, the raucous laughter from inside billowed out. Someone called "Mexican whore!" as she passed, and she went cold inside, quickening her steps.

  Then the doors slammed open, and boot heels slapped the boardwalk behind her. She whirled in time to see the youngest of the Brands, Eldon, tall and lanky, hat tipped at a cocky angle, bearing down on her. "Goin' somewhere, Esmeralda?"

  She said nothing, just backed away. He used to be so different. Funny, but always mean. Always. He was as handsome as ever. Dark eyes like velvet, a strong jaw, hair the color of russet. Yes, she saw through it all now. She saw the evil inside.

  He smiled and kept coming. "Oh, come on now. You can't come to town, run all over spreading lies about my family, and then leave without even saying hello. Can you?"

  "Leave me alone, Eldon. Your family has won. I am leaving."

  "Oh, I don't think I should let you go just yet. Not until you've learned to respect your betters, at least." He lunged forward. She backed away, but he caught her all the same. Dropping her satchel, Esmeralda pounded his chest, but Eldon Brand was strong, and in no time at all he had her slung over his broad shoulder and was striding away with her toward his waiting horse. Her bonnet fell from her head, and her hair spilled free.

  "Let me go!" She beat his back with her fists, infuriated to hear drunken laughter coming from the saloon. "Help me! Help me, someone!"

  Jenny Brand stood in the bat-wing doors, shaking her head. She wore a glittering, scandalously low-cut dress of brightest red, and had painted her face. "When you finish, little brother, don't forget you still owe me for that bottle!" she called.