[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
I did not think she would have such a reaction. She has been doing so well lately.
She s not your daughter.
Vincente shook his head. Our daughter died in childbirth. Our hearts were so empty, and then we found this one and it was another
chance.
A second chance to love. Not many got them. So you loved her so much you sent her out here to be scared out of her wits?
No. I know who you are, Ranger. Vincente took the napkin, wetted it and handed it to his wife. There was no danger to her.
Just to her sanity.
Yes, but we hoped& The old man sighed. She is such a good daughter, a good mother. It is only when the bad times haunt her that this
happens.
Tracker s breath caught. Mother?
She was pregnant when we found her.
Son of a bitch.
It has not been easy.
She loves the child?
With all her heart.
How the hell could Ari love a child who had to remind her of the hell she d survived?
Josefina looked up as Ari moaned. She s waking. You should leave.
I can t.
You must.
Tracker looked at Ari. He d promised to bring her home, no matter how he found her, sane or crazy. Not without her.
3
They settled on a compromise. Tracker retreated to the barn, and the Moraleses took Ari to the house. He watched as she stumbled between them up
the path, clearly disoriented, yet trusting the older couple in a way that suggested they d done this many times before. As they made their way to the back
door, Josefina kept her body between Ari and Tracker. She tossed wary looks over her shoulder at him as she shielded Ari protectively. What was more
interesting, though, were the glares she shot her husband. Obviously, the woman blamed Vincente for the incident, which reinforced Tracker s own sense
of being set up. Shoving his hat on his head, he swore and closed the barn door. He hoped the old woman gave the old man hell and indigestion.
An hour later, Tracker sat on the bed in the small but comfortable bedroom at the front of the barn, still stewing. The old one owed him an
explanation. The vague excuse he d tossed out at the washhouse wasn t going to cut it. Tracker disliked being anyone s pawn. He disliked people who
tried to manipulate him.
The Ari he d met at the wash shed was the woman he d been expecting to find traumatized by her experiences, tortured by her
memories, rekindling her past in everyday events. A woman broken by tragedy. He d thought he d prepared himself for the reaction she might have to his
appearance. After all, her attackers had been men like him. Men who wore their violent history in their eyes, on their skin and in their dress. Men who killed
as easily as they laughed. Men who did what they wanted and to hell with the consequences. But Tracker could have avoided seeing that woman if
Vincente had handled the introduction differently. Why the hell had the old man forced the issue? Had he wanted Ari to fear Tracker?
He grabbed his pistol from his gun belt where it hung by the head of the bed. Grains of sand clung to the metal. Desi said there was a
difference between him and the Comancheros, and maybe there was. He wasn t one to prey on the weak, but he d done things in the name of revenge
that would scare her curly hair straight and take the look of respect from her eyes. Things that kept him taking bigger and more dangerous bounties,
because they took him to places where he was comfortable, places where there was no right and wrong, just a man s ability to come out on top in a fight.
Tracker yanked his saddlebags toward him. He was very good at coming out on top.
Lately, the line between an outlaw and himself had been growing vague in his mind. As the years passed, killing had become easier in
some ways, yet harder in others. Tracker could still pull the trigger, but it bothered him more that whenever such a deed was done, justified or not, he
couldn t stop thinking about it. Right was right and wrong was wrong; that s the way it was out here. The way it had always been. So why wasn t he
comfortable settling with that anymore? Why did every bounty he took now involve a moral debate inside himself if it went sour? Why was it getting harder
to live with pulling the trigger? Why was he now seeing the faces of the men he killed, reliving the battles at night when he should be sleeping? Shit.
Tracker was who he was. Better than he could have been, not as good as he should have been. He was an Ochoa. Outlaw, killer, bounty hunter, Texas
Ranger.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]