Page 19 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

“How did you find us?” Her mind couldn’t make the leap from meeting him at the Verde Flores depot to seeing him here. But clearly meeting him again was no accident. Her gut told her that he’d followed them, but she couldn’t think why he would.

“I spotted you both out of the train window.”

“Why are you so interested in us?” Jenny demanded.

But the cowboy was staring past her shoulder at Graciela.

So that was it. “You filthy pervert!” Jenny’s teeth pulled back in a snarl, and she lunged for him, catching him by surprise.

Her head slammed into his belly like a battering ram, and the air ran out of him in a rush.

When he doubled over, she brought her head up.

The collision of head and forehead was harder on him than on her, and she knocked the Colt out of his hand.

Before she could snatch up his gun or her own, he grabbed her and they fell to the floor, rolling, hitting, and punching each other.

The fight was fair as fights went, and they were evenly matched. If Jenny hadn’t jerked away to avoid a punch and banged her head hard on the side of the tub, she might have beaten him. But the head bang dazed her for a second, and that was all he needed to pin her.

For two long minutes, he sat on her, holding her wrists to the floor and they both panted hard, sucking in air. A hot trickle leaked from Jenny’s cracked lip; his bloody nose dripped on her poncho.

“Jesus,” he said, finally, staring down at her. “That’s the first time I ever fought a woman.” He stared at her bloody lip in disbelief. Then he stood and jerked Jenny off the floor. He slammed her down in a chair and pulled a length of thin rope from his belt.

“Graciela! Run!” Damned if she would make it easy for him. She twisted and thrashed and tried to break free.

He jerked her back hard and tied her wrists together. “Stay where you are, Graciela,” he warned.

It wasn’t that the kid chose to obey the cowboy over her, Jenny understood that. The kid was terrified. She cowered against the wall watching with huge eyes, too frightened even to cry.

The cowboy tied Jenny’s ankles to the chair legs and looped a piece of rope around her chest and the back rails for good measure. Stepping backward to inspect his work, he wiped the blood from his nose, glaring down at her. He swore and shook his head.

“Don’t you touch her!” Jenny warned, speaking through her teeth. Her gaze was as frozen as his. “I swear to you. If you harm that child, I’ll hunt you down if it takes the rest of my life, and you won’t die fast, you piece of scum.”

“If I…?” His mouth twisted in revulsion. “I’m not going to… my God! My name is Ty Sanders. Robert Sanders is my brother. I’m Graciela’s uncle, for Christ’s sake.”

Jenny stared. Suddenly she saw the resemblance, the same blue-green eyes as Graciela’s, the same wide mouth.

Her mind raced backward, replaying Marguarita’s story.

Robert Sanders had not gone to Mexico with Marguarita; he had remained in California to ensure that his inheritance did not go to a younger brother.

It struck her that the cowboy might be telling the truth.

After checking again to make certain that Jenny was securely restrained, he walked to the bed and stood by the edge of the mattress. “So you’re Robert’s daughter.”

Jenny tried to read his expression, but she couldn’t determine how he felt about his brother’s daughter. The shortage of emotion suggested that he wasn’t exactly overjoyed to meet his niece, and he didn’t even know yet what a pain in the butt she was.

“I’m your uncle Ty. Your daddy is my brother,” he said in a voice distinctly lacking enthusiasm. “I guess your name is Graciela.”

“Don’t talk to him!” Even if he was who he said he was, Jenny didn’t trust his attitude.

The cowboy considered her, then he walked over and stuffed Graciela’s napkin into her mouth before he returned to the bed.

“Your daddy sent me down here to find you and your mother and take you both back to California. He wants you to live with him.”

Graciela was still pressed to the wall, but she was listening, not paying any attention to Jenny’s rolling eyes or the noises she made behind the napkin.

“You know my daddy?” Graciela asked shyly.

“I’ve known your daddy all of my life.” The cowboy wasn’t cold to Graciela, but he wasn’t particularly warm either. “I knew your mother, too, years ago. And I know your grandfather, Don Antonio.”

Jenny stopped her futile struggle against the ropes to listen. Either the cowboy had done some research, or he was who he said he was. In either case, intuition told her that he was here reluctantly. He might indeed be Graciela’s uncle, but he had no feeling for the kid.

“My mama is dead,” Graciela confided in a whisper, tears brimming in her eyes.

“I heard about it when I went to fetch you at Dona Theodora’s.”

Graciela wiped away the tears and continued to stare at the cowboy.

To Jenny’s horror, she spied the beginnings of trust. Jenny renewed a furious struggle against the ropes that bound her to the chair.

The minute Sanders had mentioned going to the no-name village to fetch Graciela, she understood his intention.

“You know my aunt Tete too?”

The cowboy smiled. “I met your aunt Tete years ago when she was visiting your grandpa Antonio. She and your mother were riding in their carriage and a wheel came off. I stopped to help, and your aunt Tete found fault with everything I did. She had a big fan, you know?” Graciela didn’t move her eyes from the cowboy’s face.

“And she kept hitting me with it on the shoulder, right here. And she’d say, ‘ Con permisso, Senor, but you are doing that all wrong.’ ”

Nodding and smiling, Graciela slid down the wall and sat on the bed, staring at the cowboy in fascination.

Realizing how easily the cowboy had charmed the kid made Jenny choke.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said to Graciela. “I’m going to take you to your daddy and your grandmother Ellen.”

“I want to go home to Aunt Tete,” Graciela said in a whisper. Singing the same tune she’d sung for Jenny.

“Your home is in California now.” He studied the kid’s expression. “But maybe you and your daddy can visit your aunt Tete or she can visit you. Going to California doesn’t mean that you won’t see your aunt again.”

Jenny couldn’t believe how easily he swept aside the kid’s protest. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

She had only to glance at the kid’s face to know Sanders had given her the perfect reassurance.

The kid’s face told her something else. With a sinking heart she realized that Graciela was going to go with the cowboy without a peep of a struggle, without a shred of regret, or a twinge of gratitude for what Jenny had gone through so far. The snot.

“All right, here’s what I want you to do. You get dressed, all right? I need to talk to—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Her name is Jenny Jones. She killed my mama.”

Jenny squeezed her eyes shut and let her head drop forward. Damn it. She should have belted the kid when she had the chance.

“That’s what I need to find out. As soon as Jenny and I have finished talking, we’ll leave.”

Graciela didn’t hesitate. The disloyal, ungrateful little brat jumped off the bed and scampered to the bureau, removing the change of clothing Maria had packed for her.

As modest as a full-grown lady, she stepped behind the dressing screen, and in a minute her nightgown flew past the side of the screen.

The cowboy removed the napkin from Jenny’s mouth and sat down at the table, shoving Graciela’s supper plate away from him. “Who the hell are you? And how did you get my niece?”

Jenny told him the whole story, starting with killing the bastard who had attacked her and ending with leaving Marguarita standing in her cell and Jenny hightailing it away from the compound dressed as a priest. She didn’t spare any details.

Ty Sanders didn’t interrupt, he listened quietly and watched her with cool eyes. “If you agreed to take my niece to her father, then what the hell are you doing in Durango?”

Jenny’s lip curled in exasperation. “My primary concern was to get away from the cousins. How long did you hang around the Verde Flores depot waiting for them to wake up?”

“There are a lot of stops between here and Verde Flores. Why didn’t you turn around and head north?”

“And risk having Chulo and Luis jump me again in Verde Flores?” Jenny snapped. “Untie me.”

“Not a chance.” The cowboy looked toward the bed, where Graciela had returned after getting dressed. The instant her head touched the pillow, she had fallen asleep. He was silent for several minutes. “I’m inclined to believe your story.”

“Listen, you son of a bitch. I don’t ever lie. That’s why Marguarita trusted me, a stranger, to take her daughter to California. That’s why she asked me to raise the kid if your weak-spined brother couldn’t or wouldn’t.”

The cowboy narrowed his eyes. “Looks like you bought your life cheap, Jenny Jones, because you don’t have to take Graciela to California after all, and there’s no chance that you’ll be raising her.”

“Yeah, well that isn’t how Marguarita saw it.

” She yanked on the ropes, then gave it up.

“Marguarita didn’t say hand the kid to an uncle if one shows up.

And she didn’t say that you or any other family member could raise the kid if Robert couldn’t or wouldn’t.

She told me to take the kid to California, and she told me to raise her if it was necessary.

” Leaning forward, she stared into his eyes, meeting glare for glare.

“And that’s how it’s going to be. I promised.

So, I’m not handing her over to you. I’m the one who’s taking her to California. ”

He leaned forward, too, until their noses almost bumped. “No, you aren’t. As of right now, you have no claim on my niece. Tomorrow you can go back to wherever you came from.”