THE OUTLAW BRIDE Page 6

  Like a family of her own. Were they truly what they seemed? Could they be?

  Esmeralda found it difficult to believe. They were descended from the crudest men she had ever known. Blood will tell, her father used to say. And their blood was Brand blood. Bad blood. The Brands were an evil breed, and that, at least, was not in question. She'd suffered enough to be certain of it. It was difficult to see this bunch the way they were trying to make her see them—as decent, caring folk.

  Yet … it was equally difficult to see them as evil. Especially with this little one in their midst, so obviously happy and well-loved. She stroked the boy's hair, smiling and nodding as he talked on and on. He barely drew a breath between tales, so replying was unnecessary.

  She supposed there was a slight chance that these newfangled Brands truly were different from their forebears. No matter, though. Even if they were as kind as they seemed, it didn't change the facts. They were living on her land. This sprawling place they called the Texas Brand—it belonged to her. Somehow, some way, she must get it back. She owed it to her father, and her mother, who were buried in this ground. She could do it here, now, in this time … or she could try to find a way to return to her own world and accomplish the deed there. But either way, her goal remained the same.

  And she sensed that it would be far easier to battle these twentieth-century Brands than to try to fight their low-life ancestors—men who would kill her as soon as look at her. Far easier.

  Before she began, she would have to learn. She must be able to exist in this world before she could do battle in it. And she would.

  "I think he's asleep," a deep voice said softly.

  She turned her head to see Elliot Brand standing in the doorway, watching her. She'd been absently stroking the small child's silken hair, lost in thought, but comforted somehow by the act. "Sí, he talked himself out, I suppose." She got to her feet, reached for the lamp beside the bed, then paused with her hand in midair.

  "I'll get it." Elliot came in, leaning past her to touch a button on the lamp's base. "You just turn this. See?"

  She nodded, and he turned the tiny knob, plunging the room into darkness, except for a small glow near the floor beside the bed. It gave a minuscule amount of light … enough to see by, though. "That's his night-light," Elliot said, following her curious gaze. "So if he needs to get up he doesn't get hurt fumbling around in the dark."

  "And so he will not be afraid," she added.

  She saw the dark silhouette of Elliot's head, backlit by the child's night light, move in a nodding motion. "Come on." He took her elbow, cupping his palm around it, and led her toward the door, then through it into the hallway. And again she felt something warm where he touched her. A pulsing feeling of intense awareness. It could not be attraction. For how could she feel attraction for a man who looked so much like the one who'd attacked her? Ah, but she could. And she knew it. Perhaps all too well. For a time she'd believed herself in love with this man's evil ancestor. Eldon … darkly handsome, whipcord lean, strong and powerful.

  But despite his outer beauty, the man inside had been as ugly as the devil himself. Heartless and cruel. Because of her weakness toward him, she'd suffered far more than she should have from his cruelty. Even when she'd long since realized he was no good, even when she'd told herself that her youthful longings had been misguided and foolish, she'd still felt something stir inside her when Eldon Brand had come around.

  It had broken her heart to drive a blade through his.

  This man, this Elliot, could be his twin, so the feelings he stirred to life in the pit of her belly made some kind of twisted sense, she supposed. But she must fight them, must not let her heart soften toward this man as it had toward the other one. She had no wish to suffer that way again.

  Only she could grant him the power to touch her. To hurt her.

  "You … um … can use the guest room," Elliot was saying. "It used to be my sister's room … Jessi, you remember?"

  "Sí."

  He kept speaking, his hand still on her elbow, as he led her down the hall. "She still uses it when she stays over, but mostly it's for visitors now." He stopped outside a door. "It's, um … right next to my room. So if you need anything…" He shrugged, not finishing.

  She did need something; his help. She needed him to teach her the ways of this century, for there was no one else who knew the truth about her or would even believe her if she told them. She needed him. Therefore, she had to be kind to him—even while keeping her heart cold and removed. Safe. She had to use this man.

  Esmeralda realized she'd made a grave mistake in telling him her feelings about the Texas Brand—that it was rightfully hers and that she intended to take it back. She should have thought before she'd said those things to him, but as usual, the words had spewed from her lips, driven by a gust of emotion. She would have to careful with him. If he turned on her, she would be lost and alone in a world she knew nothing about.

  Reaching past her, Elliot opened the bedroom door. "Chelsea left some more clothes in there for you. A nightgown and such."

  "I … thank you. She is very kind."

  "Yeah, she is."

  She didn't go into the bedroom, just stood outside the door, waiting. No doubt he would make a lewd suggestion soon. She had never met a man who didn't. Especially one in such a position of control over her. He all but held her life in his hands. Surely he would expect compensation. And while many white men would mind their manners around women of their own kind, few had any compunction when it came to a Mexican. She would give him what he demanded. She would see he was well-pleasured. And he would, perhaps, be less likely to turn her out in the morning.

  "Well," Elliot said. "Good night, then."

  She frowned at him, tilting her head to one side. "You mean … you aren't coming in?"

  He got an odd smile for a moment, lowering his head, shaking it. "I think my brother and his wife already have their imaginations working overtime. I don't want to give them any more ideas."

  She was completely confused. "I thought … you would expect…"

  He looked up slowly, searching her face, slowly understanding her meaning. She had to look away, but he was suddenly gripping her shoulders. Not hard, just enough so she couldn't turn from him completely. "Expect what, Esmeralda?"

  She shrugged. "Compensation," she said. "For your trouble."

  "You mean … you mean sex, don't you? You thought I was going to try to…"

  She shrugged. "When a white man does a favor for a Mexican woman, he usually expects to be … repaid."

  "No," he said sternly. "Not around here. Not in this time. Esmeralda, things have changed. You understand? You don't just sleep with someone because they did you a favor. For God's sake, is that the way your life was back then?"

  She lowered her head quickly, swallowing hard. "Only when I lived in Texas. It is why my father sent me back to Mexico. But as soon as I returned, it was the same. The men … your people … knew they could get away with it. I was nothing to them but a Mexican whore, to be used as they pleased." Lifting her head, meeting his eyes, she saw the horror in them. "And now you think the same of me, eh?"

  "No!" His voice came out loud, but he hushed it and hurried on. "No, Esmeralda, I don't think that at all. My God, you poor thing."

  She widened her eyes. "Do not let yourself believe it mattered to me, Elliot Brand. No man ever touched my soul. No man ever could." It was a lie, of course. One man had.

  He tilted his head to one side. "That tough, are you?"

  "Sí." She said it with a firm nod. "I am strong. My skin is like rawhide."

  He shook his head slowly.

  "You don't believe me? You think I curled up on the floor and wept over it?"

  "No. I think it bothered you so little that you knifed the last son of a bitch who tried it."

  She looked away, gave a careless shrug. "He needed killing."

  "They all did." Elliot's hand came to her chin, tipped it up so he could stare stra
ight into her eyes. "It's not like that anymore. It doesn't matter if you're male or female, Mexican or Chinese, Esmeralda, if any man puts his hands on you against your will today, he'll go to prison for it." His lips thinned. "If he lives long enough to stand trial."

  She lifted her brows and tried to tell herself this was not real. He was not real. He couldn't be.

  "We treat women with respect nowadays. Especially in Texas. Especially in this family. You understand?"

  She nodded slowly. "Sí."

  He stared at her, as if trying to determine whether she really did understand what he was telling her. "And you don't owe me anything," he added.

  She only shrugged. She did, actually. She owed him for saving her life, for letting her stay here. But she supposed he owed her more. Her home. Her ranch. Her heritage.

  "So you can sleep soundly. No one's going to be paying you any visits in the middle of the night."

  She nodded, searching her mind for words. But all that came out was, "I will never sleep, all the same. There is too much … too much to think about. So much to learn."

  He sighed. "Must be pretty overwhelming." Then he seemed to think for a moment. "Tell you what," he said at length. "If you're still awake after everyone else is asleep, I'll take you downstairs and show you how things work. Explain everything in this house that's new or strange to you. Okay?"

  She smiled in spite of herself. "I would like that very much."

  Elliot nodded. "Agreed, then. Try to get some rest in the meantime. I'll come back for you in a couple of hours."

  "All right." Nodding, she stepped into the bedroom that was to be hers, found the switch on the wall and turned on the lights.

  "You're getting to be a pro already," Elliot muttered, then he turned and went to his own room.

  Elliot sat in the dark. Esmeralda reminded him of Wes, the way Wes used to be, before he found Taylor and his heritage and his calling. A bundle of anger, all wrapped up tight inside, and building, always building. Things had happened to her. Bad things. Unfair things. But she acted like they were nothing. Said she was tough. So tough she would have taken him to bed tonight if he'd demanded it. He could imagine what that would have been like. Her lying as still as a stone, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling, feeling nothing. What man would want a woman if he had to have her like that?

  But Esmeralda wasn't tough at all. Elliot could see right through her. She was hurting. Elliot knew that kind of pain. He'd seen it before. In Ben, and in Adam. In Wes. And he knew, just as he'd known with each of his brothers, that if Esmeralda didn't let that pain out, it was going to eat her up inside. Destroy her soul. Leave nothing behind but an empty shell. Add to that the confusion of being yanked out of her world, away from everything she knew and understood, and plunked down at the end of the twentieth century … Elliot figured it would be a miracle if she avoided some kind of explosion or breakdown or whatever happened when a person as volatile as Esmeralda was pushed beyond her endurance.

  Maybe he could help her avoid that. Maybe… Hell, if anyone could, it ought to be him. Cool, calm Elliot Brand, the guy who went through life utterly unruffled. He was her opposite. If she was fire, he was water. Cool, soothing, calm water.

  He sat alone in his room for a couple of hours, trying to figure out how he could get through to her. But he couldn't seem to find that cool, calm guy he knew himself to be. Something inside him was all off-kilter. He felt jittery, nervous … as if he was walking on unstable ground, as bits of it were crumbling away from beneath his boots.

  Two hours later, Elliot crept to Esmeralda's bedroom, and for some reason his heart was pounding and his hands shaking as he reached for the doorknob. He paused, licked his lips, took a breath. What the hell was he so wrought up about? It wasn't like him. Totally unfamiliar territory to him, in fact, and he decided he didn't like it. He reached for calm, found something vaguely like it, and figured it would have to do. He turned the doorknob, thinking there was no sense knocking first. If she was asleep, it would be mean of him to wake her. He opened the door slowly, peered inside. Hell.

  She was lying on the bed, turned onto one side, facing him. The blankets came up as far as her hips, and ended there, in a wrinkled bundle of blue and white. His gaze slid slowly upward from there, and he didn't know if he intended that or not. It just sort of happened. She wore a pretty white nightgown, with pearl buttons up the front, and a thin edging of lace at the V-neck. No sleeves to speak of. Her hair spread out beneath her, cushioning her cheek on the pillow, covering her shoulder in a teasing, peek-a-boo game. And her dark eyes, when he finally got around to focusing on them, were wide open and staring straight into his. For just a second he forgot that he was cool and calm and unflappable. For just a moment he felt a rush of confused excitement. Something that made his skin prickle and his spine tingle and his stomach churn.

  Then he bit his lip, gave himself a mental shake. "You … um … ready?"

  "Sí." She flung the covers back and got to her feet all in one graceful motion. Her legs were bare from just below the knees, where the nightgown ended, down. Her bare feet were tiny. And sexy.

  Sexy? Since when were feet sexy? Elliot didn't even think feet were capable of being sexy. What the hell was wrong with him?

  She came forward, toward the doorway where he stood. And he muttered something really intelligent like, "Don't you, um … want a robe or something?"

  She frowned at him, gave her head a shake. "It is very warm here, Elliot. No, I am fine as I am."

  The word "fine," he thought, was an understatement. But he wasn't going to argue. There was nothing wrong with the nightgown, unless you counted the fact that he could see her shape silhouetted underneath it every time she walked past any source of light. But nothing real. Just shadows. Tempting, curvy shadows that made him wish he could see more. Then made him wish he would stop thinking such uncharacteristic thoughts.

  He guided her down the stairs into the darkened parlor. The only light was that of a thin crescent moon coming through the wide windows, so he took her hand so she wouldn't trip in the darkness. She let him hold it without objection. Even turned hers and linked her fingers through his. Soft and small, her hand. Warm, strong in spite of its size.

  He swallowed hard and took her into the kitchen, and only then did he turn on a light. She blinked in the sudden brightness, shook her head. "I will never get used to that."

  "Yeah, you will," Elliot said. "You want to sit down? I can make you a cup of tea or something…"

  "No, no. I am too eager to learn. There is so much…" Already she was walking to the refrigerator, opening the door. "This is … like an icebox, no?"

  "Yes, it's called a refrigerator. Keeps food cold." He joined her there as she repeated the word slowly. Closing the door, he opened the smaller one on top. "This part's the freezer. Keeps things even colder."

  "Ahh." She examined the small freezer, closed the door, and then eyed the apparatus on the outside of the door. Lifting a hand, she touched it before Elliot could tell her not to, and small ice chunks clattered out to land at her feet. She jumped backward with a small squeak of alarm. The motion put her back flat against Elliot's chest, and his hands closed on her bare, smooth shoulders automatically. He closed his eyes and tried not to groan out loud.

  "It's okay, it's okay," he said, to himself as much as to her. "No harm done." Releasing his hold on her with no small twinge of regret, he bent to scoop up the ice, then dumped it into the sink. "That's just an ice maker. For … like on a hot day, when you want a really cold drink." She frowned at him, so he got a glass from the cupboard and demonstrated, first filling it with ice, then with tap water. "See? Instant ice water."

  She was still frowning. "It seems … wasteful. Why would anyone need their water so cold?"

  Elliot shrugged. "Well, I don't know. It's just … the way it's done. Nowadays, I mean."

  "Hmmph."

  He didn't think she much approved of his wasteful society. He supposed wasting ice for such tri
vial things as cold drinks must seem to her like the height of foolishness. Ice must have been a precious commodity where she came from. But she was already moving on, examining the range, the oven, the microwave, as Elliot followed her and tried his best to explain how each item worked. They spent an hour in the kitchen, as she tried things out, practiced with the microwave, learned to read a digital clock.

  By the time they moved to the parlor it was past 1:00 a.m., and he wondered why he wasn't bleary-eyed by now. But he couldn't remember a time when he'd been more wide awake. It was her, he realized. Her curiosity, her innocence, her energy. The way she got so excited over the smallest things. It was contagious, and volatile, and maybe a little bit addictive.

  And probably why he'd been losing his grip on calm and balance and sanity from the first moment he'd set eyes on her.

  In the parlor, she approached the television set with wide, wary eyes.

  "This is the most amazing of all," she said, eyeing the dark, silent box.

  "Yeah. It is. You want to know what's even more amazing?" She looked at him, dark brows raised. "How it works. Come here, I want to show you something."

  He took her arm and led her through the house to the front door, and through it onto the porch. The breeze was chilly, and it blew her nightgown around her legs. He was still in his jeans. "Are you cold? I can get you a jacket if—"

  "I am fine. Show me this wonder."

  He nodded, but for just a moment his eyes were caught and held by hers. The way the stars were reflected in their ebony depths mesmerized him. And he almost swayed closer to her, before he caught himself and pulled back. He cleared his throat. "This is gonna be a little hard to follow."

  "I do not imagine I will understand it, even when you explain it to me."