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Overview
If she hadn't been absolutely desperate, Margaret McLoughlin never would have hired the very rogue who'd wronged her family to guide her through perilous bandit territory...and wouldn't now be standing face to face with the bare-chested scoundrel with the six-gun strapped to his muscular thigh and his insolent gaze hotly raking her body! But her mother was trapped in the legendary Copper Canyons, and Rafe Delgado was the only man alive who could get her safely out. So the gently-bred innocent would just have to ignore the sinful half-Spaniard's seductive charms, refuse to grant him even one kiss and just pray he never learned her shameful secret: that she burned for him with a fiery yearning only he could satisfy!
HE WAS READY FOR LOVE
Let the lady think he was leading her into Mexico for the money. Rafe didn't need any starchy schoolteacher asking a lot of dangerous questions...especially with the country on the brink of war. He'd take her where she wanted to go--and take care that she never discovered his other identity: as El Aguila, Mexican savior! But the deeper they ventured into treacherous territory, the more the hot-blooded, onetime revolutionary craved the azure-eyed enchantress's exquisite caress. Soon, he'd sweep her into his searing embrace and plunder her hidden treasures...with a passion that would make her his for the taking--now and forever!!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781516103171 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Lyrical Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 11/15/2016 |
| Series: | McLoughlin Trilogy , #3 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 448 |
| Sales rank: | 648,889 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Wild Sierra Rogue
By Martha Hix
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
Copyright © 1993 Martha HixAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5161-0317-1
CHAPTER 1
San Antonio, Texas October 1897 in the calm of afternoon.
Hell waited to pop. Somehow he knew it waited. While he bathed to get ready for the big blond stuff of his insatiable lusts, Rafael Delgado tried to shake the portentous unease settling heavier than his noon meal. Once before he'd had this feeling. When fate had turned on him. When the black of night and his own crimes had broken his spirit. When he'd quit being the Magnificent Eagle of Mexico.
You're nothing. Except for your appeal to women, you've lost it all. And now — something bad is going to happen.
Ridiculous.
Rafe snickered at foreboding, stepped from the copper tub, and rubbed a towel along his hard hairy thighs. "You gobbled down too much chicken-fried steak," he assured himself, "that's all."
He had no worries, if he kept the past buried. Burying old miseries had become a skill carefully honed, such as when he'd wielded a muleta in the bullring, in his younger days. Or as he now saw to the breeding of fatlings for those arenas of Mexico. Or as he caressed womanly curves.
The thought of such curves urged him into taking one more glance at his bedroom. Perfect. A lair. The bed fit for royalty, made with new satin sheets and scattered with petals from some of the last roses of the year. All it lacked? The delectable and delicious Mrs. Boyd.
Rafe favored females tall and fair. Looking up to women like Dolores Boyd did something good to him. One lucky hombre described Rafe, so why count fortune's teeth? "Hurry, beautiful Dolores. This is for you." He patted the front of his britches, wrestled with buttoning them, and sang. "Tonight, tonight, tonight. Your eyes of blue, your hair of gold, your ruby lips ... I will behold." Gazing from left to right and back again into the mirror hanging above his bureau, he combed his short-cropped hair away from his temples. "Yum, Do-lores. I will be true —"
Suddenly, the comb dropped. He scowled at his image, aggrieved and heartsick. Now he knew. Omen, thy name was reality. A gray hair poked through the raven-black ones.
"Look at you. Scarred and gray. Old. You're losing it, hombre." He plucked the offender from his scalp. "Ouch!"
Rubbing his head, he cursed any and everything that popped to mind. The strangest thought surfaced. He had a mental image of a McLoughlin triplet. Dark hair, blue eyes, and lips like cherry wine ...
Damn. Just what he needed. A reminder of yet another failure.
Determined to get a grip, he sucked in his stomach and tucked in his butt, before he took a side view. You still have what it takes to please the ladies.
No bull's horn, in Rafe's glory days, had ever gouged his flesh. His muscles remained superbly toned and distinct in relief, despite thirty-nine years of abuse. Darkened by outdoor work, along with a trickle of the stock of Moctezuma, his face wasn't a source of shame, even though the sun had begun to plough lines from the corners of his eyes. And, of course, a jagged scar cut into the right side of his mouth. Yet many a lover had enjoyed running her fingertip along this flaw. For such a lovely, he must tend his grooming, must make himself worthy.
The mirror reflected a woman entering the bedroom. He winked rakishly and blew a kiss to his cook, while he selected the pomade jar from amid the chaos of his toiletries.
"A visitor waits outside," Ida Frances Jones announced.
"She's early. See her in." Rafe glazed the left side of his head. "Is the champagne chilled?"
Rafe, not getting a reply, set the brilliantine on the bureau and wheeled around. Drying her hands with a dishtowel, the stout and motherly Ida Frances met his quizzing stare with flattened lips. Obviously the visitor wasn't the most recent apple of Rafe's eye.
He groaned.
"She told Ida Frances she's in a hurry for you," the cook said in third-person delivery. Solemn as the father of Mexican independence, the sainted Hidalgo, she steepled her fingertips beneath her chin. "Poor dear, so many ladies require so much of you."
True. Rumors ran rife hereabouts: he could serve many mistresses in a night's stand. Perhaps so. But with a few exceptions, he was a one-woman man — one woman at a time. For a week or two, sometimes a month. While he hated disappointing as much as one of his lady friends, Dolores took precedence. Hence, he queried with hesitation, "Which one is she?"
"A new one. Someone named McLoughlin sent her. Ida Frances believes she said Gil McLoughlin."
Rafe scowled again. Now he knew why he'd had a hunch of trouble. Neither fried meat nor a gray hair had been the cause. Trouble bore a Scottish surname. "Get rid of her!"
Simultaneous to his exclamation, two pointed ears and a tiny head popped from the nest of Rafe's house slipper. A pair of black eyes much too big for her face rounded at her master's shout; the small canine body, fawn in color, began to shake. One ear flopped inward. Frita yipped.
All the doting and adoring master, Rafe rushed over to scoop the elderly Frita into his palm. Her upper lip folding back in what he took for a smile, the Chihuahua dog sighed and leaned in to his fingers.
Idly noting that Ida Frances hadn't moved, Rafe cooed, "Forgive me, little confection, for disturbing your siesta. Ah, yes, kiss Papá. There's a good Frita. There's a good girl. Yes, my sugar. So forgiving of a mean old Papá. So pretty. So sweet." Such bad breath.
She raked the pad of his thumb with her tiny tongue. While he stroked her chest — he enjoyed stroking all sorts of female chests — she gazed up, worshipful.
"Papá's baby. Brought all the way from our home in Mexico, from Santa Alicia." Despite having earned a king's ransom for his prowess in the arena, Rafe and his pet left with the clothes on his back, the collar on her neck, and barely enough gold to secure title to this ranch.
"You should get yourself a wife and a houseful of babies. You would make a good father." To make him sound as sterling as Ida Frances found him, she added, "And husband."
He tucked the now placated Frita back in his shoe. "Ah, my darling cook, my devoted friend, I thank you. But a family would be cheated, having me at its head."
In a dozen ways he would cheat a wife, were he to take one. He wasn't the Anglo ideal of ice-cream socials and quiet evenings by the hearth, nor did he measure up to any respectable Hispanic standards. He wasn't sure what he was anymore.
Once, crowds parted when El Aguila Magnífico — the Magnificent Eagle, the greatest matador in the western hemisphere — strode among them. Once, respect came from his skill with the muleta and from his family name. Once, he'd been feared and revered for predatory deeds against that name. Once was nevermore. It had been eight long, trying years, since fate exiled him from the sweet bosom of his mother country.
Near the start of those years, Rafe had thought he'd found peace in the Lone Star State, yet betrayal — Forget it! Rafe asked, "Did she say what she wants? In particular."
"She, uh, didn't get specific." Ida Frances cleared her throat. "Oh, I forgot. She's daughter to Gil McLoughlin."
"Olga?" Time tripped. Disoriented, Rafe blurted, "Charity?"
Immediately, he knew without confirmation that these were wrong guesses. He slapped his hand on his chest, feigning an attack of ill health not too far from the truth, given that the last of the McLoughlin triplets — despite her resemblance to her exquisite sisters — was enough to turn even an iron stomach.
He said, "Don't tell me it's Margaret — La Bruja."
A question formed in the cook's broad face, asking why he referred to the broom, which meant the witch in Spanish. Ida Frances asked, "This fits her?"
"Right." His lip curled. "She's living proof beauty can be but skin deep."
"Beauty?" Ida Frances sounded baffled.
"Yes, she has the requisites. But I've always thought she's in dire need of a good —" He cleared his throat. "To my way of thinking, Margaret McLoughlin starches her drawers."
He reached for a flagon of men's cologne, then splashed a goodly portion on his cheeks and armpits. His hand froze. Was he primping for La Bruja? Quickly, he replaced the stopper.
Frita crawled out of his shoe, shook herself, then, tail drooping, toddled on rickety legs through the miniature trapdoor leading to the patio. A nature call, Rafe suspected as his cook asked, "Why does the lady's name sound familiar?"
"You've probably read about the McLoughlins in the Express or the Light. The broom's father is Secretary of State under McKinley" Rafe took a fresh shirt from a drawer and twisted the subject. "Have you heard of the Four Aces Ranch in Fredericksburg?"
"Ah, the Four Aces and McLoughlin. Now your cook makes a connection. The McLoughlins own it."
"Yes. But they live in Washington and Havana and Madrid. Or wherever else whim carries them."
"You know the family well?" he heard.
He shrugged into the shirt and buttoned it over the golden crucifix nestled on the dense mat of his chest. "You might say I know more than I want to."
"Tell Ida Frances more. Don't leave her guessing. You know she can't stand riddles."
Rafe strode to the bed, collecting his guitar from its corner perch as he went, and settled onto the coverlet to strum a few chords of "España Cañi" before leaving his explanations at a bare minimum. "In '89 the triplet Charity was charged with smuggling Texas silver into Mexico. I saved her good name. But she repaid me by telling Margaret about my 'misdeeds.' "
In turn the witch filled the most demure of the triplets with tales of his carnal excesses — all true, why try to deny? Actually, his debauchery roused the prudish Olga's interest, he recalled with a bittersweet smile converting to a scowl. Years had past since he'd thought of the Spanish countess of American descent. And that was just as well.
The cook bent a curious eye. "Ida Frances's worked for you since 1895, but she doesn't remember a mention of La Bruja."
"I haven't seen her in four or five years."
Regardless, some word had reached him. Talk of a lengthy stay in an obscure place. Such gossip usually led to rumors of a bastard birth, but Margaret McLoughlin, given her disposition, would turn off even the most desperate of hombres. She had to be a virgin.
"I know the McLoughlins from the Scotsman to his Hessian wife Lisette, and on to the oldest living McLoughlin, Maisie," Rafe said, getting back to his explanations. "It goes without saying I know the three daughters." Especially the Countess of Granada. "Have you read about the Wild Hawks of the West show? The triplet Charity stars in it."
"But what about the one you call Broom?"
He recalled what he knew and what he'd learned secondhand. "She's spoiled, useless as a house cat. When she should have learned flower arranging and the proper way to treat an hombre, she had her nose stuck in tomes." He paused, then embellished, "No doubt she studied witchery and spell-casting."
"I suppose a young lady from such an illustrious family can do as she pleases." The cook brushed a crumb from her apron. "Ida Frances never guessed you were close to such a family."
"I'm not. I've never dined at their table, nor called on the household, nor shared a cigar with the patriarch." He'd never even met the only son, Angus. "They have no use for this lowly Mexican bull breeder," Rafe said bitterly, stiffly. "Except for dirty work."
Loyal to the top of her braids, Ida Frances got one of those mama-cat looks protective women were so good at. "You are a fine and splendid man. The most exalted matador in all the world. No one should treat you with disrespect."
Rafe laughed. "It's been almost a decade since anyone tossed a rose into the ring for me."
"Ida Frances will send the visitor away."
"Wait. Don't ask me why — I don't know! — but I'll see her." Rafe rubbed his scarred mouth and glanced at the closed shutters leading to the patio. "Show her out there."
Aiming to get Margaret McLoughlin's goat, he would keep her waiting. He shucked his shirt, relaxed in the bed where he'd entertain Dolores, and set his fingers to "España Cañi" again.
Music, faint yet hauntingly moving, drifted from Rafael Delgado's residence of whitewashed adobe and red-tile roof.
Aggravated at everything and especially at the situation which jerked her from the brownstone in Manhattan she called home, Margaret McLoughlin followed the Eagle's fusby servant woman around the dwelling's perimeter. The strains of guitar grew louder as they approached the rear.
Margaret hadn't been asked in. It might have been nice, being spared the sun — she'd forgotten how sweltering a Texas afternoon in October could be. But no. The host hadn't invited her inside. A gracious gesture on his part might have shown some refinement. Amazingly, Rafe did have class and breeding in his lineage, but Margaret saw him as a throwback to a darker age, of a stripe most often seen on a wanted poster.
His domestic fiddled with a rusty hasp to open a weathered and creaking gate leading into a courtyard. The moon-faced woman cast a surly nod her way. "Mr. Delgado will be with you in a little bit."
Intent on getting the upper hand with Rafe — she figured he was the guitarist nearby — Margaret raised her voice. "Did you not give your employer my message? Tell him to be quick about it. I'm in a hurry."
"The great Eagle is a busy man," was the woman's contemptuous reply. She took her leave.
Could he have earned such loyalty? Margaret wondered, doubting it. Anyway, who gave a care? She had enough on her mind without mulling Rafael Delgado's character — he, whose greatest claims to fame were seducing vulnerable women and outwitting dumb animals.
She glanced in the music's direction, seeing closed shutters. She dreaded confronting Rafe. Always, she'd gotten the impression he saw the worst in Olga when he looked at Margaret. "Why worry?" she said sotto voce. "Any physical resemblance is now just in passing."
Weary from the arduous trip south, as well as from her general state of ill health, she searched for a place to sit down and make a few observations. She'd pictured his home being a veritable museum to his matador days, but there was nothing in sight relating to that faded renown. Amazing.
The patio of terra cotta tile was built in the courtyard manner, a small fountain in the center. Climbing rosebushes grew on a trio of trellises. Two hide-covered chairs circled a wrought iron table, but the setting didn't invite her invasion.
The table had been set with stemmed goblets, a bowl of fruit, and a bucket of champagne. Black silk material, probably some sort of thin robe, lay across the back of a chair. In front of it, a single rose rested atop a china plate. No doubt about it, the offing held seduction. Forced or otherwise.
Rafe never changed.
Just as she shook her head in disgust, something moved on the flagstones. Fawn-colored, small. A rat!
Margaret shrieked, backed away. The beastie quivered and quaked, began to cower. Heart beating twice as fast as the guitar tempo, Margaret murmured, "That's not a rat. It's a dog." Her father once described this breed indigenous to northern Mexico. "And you've scared the little thing half to death."
Yes, and don't you know Rafe got a thrill from your shriek. She crouched down to extend a hand. "Little doggie, can we be friends?"
The mite tottered forward. And, surprisingly, she crawled into the cup of Margaret's hand. "Why, you're old!"
Margaret scratched the muzzle gone white with age. She couldn't picture Rafe Delgado as master to an ancient canine, especially a tiny one. Brutes like Rafe tied in with beasts, such as Alsatians or wolfhounds. They kept piranhas in their fishbowls. They stood up to two-ton bulls. A delicate dog such as this commanded a gentle hand.
"Little one, I'm not going to start giving Rafe undue credit." Margaret stood and held his pet at her heart. "I've known him eight years. He's a degenerate and a satyr and a bum. And then there are his bizarre political activities. Or, were."
The one word best describing him was too awful and horrible even to whisper to a dog, though Margaret did shudder. Trying to get a look in the closed windows while pacing up and down the flagstones, she groused, "Where is he?"
Rafe didn't deign an appearance.
"I ought to abandon this project. If only I hadn't made Papa several promises." Margaret didn't renege on promises. "But if he knew the whole ugly truth, he wouldn't put so much faith in Rafe," she confided to the pint-sized dog now licking the cushion of her thumb. "I'd love to fill Papa's ears, but I promised Olga not to tell her awful secret. Which doesn't mean I am thrilled at asking for help. My father is convinced, you see, no one knows the Copper Canyon better than Rafe."
Margaret didn't dispute Rafe's knowledge of that area of the globe. Yet ... "Haring off to Mexico, especially with him, ranks one peg ahead of prancing nude through Central Park."
Hare off she must in these times of political intrigue. Both President McKinley and Gil McLoughlin, wishing to save the lives of American boys, stood firm against the popular hue and cry of "¡Cuba libre!" With Papa embroiled in affairs of state — and with communication impossible into a spa rumored to be the Fountain of Youth — the family business of collecting a vagabond Lisette had fallen to Margaret's reluctant shoulders.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Wild Sierra Rogue by Martha Hix. Copyright © 1993 Martha Hix. Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
PRAISE FOR LONE STAR LOVING,Title Page,
Dedication,
Part One - ... The Journey,
Part 2 - Eden Roc,
Epilogue,
Author's Note,
Copyright Page,
