The Texas Ranger's Daughter

Behind them came the sound of gunfire.

Chapter Three

Bullets pinged off the sheer rock face of the canyon behind them.

“Firing blind in the draw, hoping to hit us,” whispered Boon.

The horses set off at a trot that flowed into a lope. She craned her neck, seeing the flash of pistol fire as the sound of the riders grew louder.

Boon left the road. The horse carrying them stumbled, but recovered its footing. They slowed to a walk again and then stopped. Boon slid off the dark horse, dragging her along.

“Damned dress shines like a bedsheet.”

Laurie glanced down to see it was so. The white pleated lace at her cuffs and the pale fitted lavender bodice with matching overskirt seemed to glow from within. Only the dark blue-violet fabric of her underskirt, visible below the hem of her lavender draping, vanished in the near darkness. He pushed her back between two rocks, holding the reins of both horses in one hand and her waist with the other, using his body to block hers.

She cowered behind him, clutching his vest and burying her face in the warm leather. Laurie remained motionless as the rocks, listening as the sound of hoofbeats grew closer. Gradually, the shout of riders grew more distant and the gunfire ceased.

Boon drew her out of the narrow gap. “They’ll figure out which way we went pretty quick and be back again. Got an hour maybe to get ahead of them. None of them can see to track and they won’t know which canyon we ducked into so we got a better than average chance of losing them in the dark.” He lifted her bound hands and retrieved the knife from his boot, then sliced the ropes that had held her since her capture. She rubbed the imprints left by the cord upon her wrists with her gloved hand and flexed her numb fingers as needles of pain returned with the blood.

He turned his back, rummaging in his saddlebags. Laurie took the opportunity to run, but hindered by the restriction of the formfitting overskirt at her hips, she only reached the second horse when she heard a curse.

He was on her in an instant, capturing her about the waist, hoisting her off her feet and tucking her under his arm. Then he walked back from the horses with her draped across his hip like a naughty child.

“Ain’t you got no sense? I’ll tie you again.” He set her on her feet and held her by the shoulders.

Even in the weak light of the stars she could make out his brow sunk low over his pale eyes as he scowled at her.

“Let me go.”

“They’ll catch you quicker than a treed possum. You got to mind me or we both die. Now, take off that getup.”

Laurie gasped, then inched back as he advanced. Her bustle bumped into the rock face. She tried to wedge herself into the narrow gap beyond his reach. He captured her wrist easily and dragged her out. Had he done all this just to do to her what the others would have done?

“Take it off,” he hissed.

“I won’t,” she said.

Behind them, retreating now, she could hear the men shouting Boon’s name.

“They’ll see you and they’ll catch us,” he said, as he glanced back in the direction of the riders. She had a chance then to draw his pistols and shoot him in the belly. She reached and then stopped, her fingers inches from the handle.

The riders would hear the shot and come back. What chance would she have then?

The answer was simple—none. She didn’t trust Boon, but she couldn’t shoot him. Laurie withdrew her hands, letting him live for now, hoping it wasn’t another mistake. She glanced at his boot knife as he turned back to face her. She knew how to use a knife, but had never used one on a man.

Laurie stood mute now, pressed against the rock face.

He fumbled with the top button of her blouse.

She slapped at his hand, wishing she had shot him when she had the opportunity.

“Then you do it. I’ll get the clothes.”

Laurie stilled. Clothes? What was he talking about? She stood before him as he turned his back again and retrieved something from his saddlebags, then shoved it at her.

“They’re boys’ duds. Hurry up now.”

She clutched the offering. He meant for her to change, to increase their chances of escape. Laurie felt the air rush from her lungs and suddenly she could breathe again. Thank God she hadn’t shot him.

She unfolded the bundle. Denim dungarees and a dark linsey-woolsey shirt and no underthings. She hadn’t worn such garments since she was a girl, riding with her father back in San Antonio.

“Turn around,” she ordered.

He did. Laurie blinked in astonishment. With a speed born of panic, she removed her dirty white cotton gloves and unfastened her jacket with trembling fingers, drawing off the basque bodice and dropping it without hesitation. Next she released the waistband of her fitted topskirts, followed by the darker underskirt, kicking them aside. The very latest thing, according to Peterson’s Ladies National Magazine, the newer slimmer style was now a liability she could not afford. She had created the outfit, top to bottom, to impress her father with how much she had changed, at least on the outside. But the yards of fabric and lace were not worth dying for. She dropped the petticoats, then the half crinoline that helped support the skirt’s draperies and the cascade of fabric of her topskirt’s train. A yank released the bow fastening the horsehair bustle that had come by rail from New Hampshire.

“What’s taking so long?”

The man obviously knew nothing about women’s attire, thought Laurie as she unfastened the lace ruffle at her throat and released the buttons of her white blouse.

“Just a minute.”

Dressed now in only her bustle, thigh-length chemise, bloomers, stockings and boots, she tried to draw on the pants but her bloomers hiked up and wadded about her waist and she could not manage to drag the Levi’s over her hips.

“Hurry up,” he whispered.

She pressed her lips together and tugged harder. Forced to abandon the effort, she considered riding in her bloomers, but that was out of the question. All women’s bloomers were split from front to back to allow her to relieve herself without removing any of her under things or outer skirts. She blushed to think of how she once wore britches and dragged them down whenever and wherever she needed. Her mother had been quite right to object to her boyish ways. But now if she rode in this outfit, the fabric would gap if she straddled a horse and her bloomers were white as the flag of surrender.

“Laurie,” Boon urged.

She began again, removing her bloomers. The trousers were tight and stiff, but she now managed to tug them on, thanks to her corset. She tucked the long chemise into the trousers. Laurie collected her gloves and stuffed them in her front pocket before hunching into the shirt. The coarse fabric brushed against her bare shoulders. She felt him staring and stilled.

Laurie glanced up and caught his eye. He looked at her with the intent gaze of a starving man. She tugged the flaps of the boys’ shirt together and only then realized they did not quite cover her breasts.

“Turn around,” she ordered again.

This time he shook his head in refusal. There was a new tension in him as if he was held in place by some invisible tether. Laurie’s heartbeat accelerated as she recognized that she now faced a different kind of danger, the kind that came from showing a man her naked body.

“They’ll be back in a moment,” she warned, but she was not sure he heard her.

He stepped forward, reaching, his fingertips brushing the full round curve of the exposed tops of her breasts. She gasped and spun away, clutching her hands across her cleavage.

“I shall scream.” It was an idle threat. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, because to scream was to draw more danger than she faced now.

But her words seemed to rouse him, for he blinked and then shook his head as if waking from a trance. He stooped to snatch up her discarded garments while Laurie tried frantically to button the shirt. She managed to get it fastened about her torso, thanks to the corset cinching her middle, but the tight fit squeezed her breasts together so they bulged at the gap in a most lurid manner.

She stared down at her white flesh, thrusting up in an open invitation, and gasped in despair. The action caused her breasts to strain against the buttons that imprisoned them. Were it not a sturdily constructed boys’ shirt, she felt sure the tension would have split the seams.

Boon returned to the horses, stuffing her clothing into his saddlebags as she covered herself with her open hands, searching wildly for some other means to conceal her bosom from his view.