Chapter Seven #3
“I’m just tired, is all. Florentia and the others, they’re just as tired as I am.
” But she did as he said, clinging to his neck to steady herself as he strode determinedly along.
She tried not to notice the thick bands of muscle brushing against her breasts or the sinews in his neck that tightened at the touch of her hand.
He stopped at the edge of the woods and knelt beneath a secluded pine tree, its boughs a canopy of green above them. A few feet away, a small fire flickered in the quiet darkness, and under the tree, a bedroll had been unfurled. The don carefully placed her atop it.
“You must sleep for a while. You will be no use to anyone if you become ill.”
“What about the others?”
“Pedro will see they have a place to rest.”
“What about you? You’ve been working all day, too. Surely you’re just as tired as I am.”
He smiled, a flash of white reflected in the light of the fire. “As I said before, I am a man. It is different for me.”
Maybe it was, but she didn’t believe it.
He was stronger, perhaps more determined.
Whatever the case, as the moments ticked past and she lay on the bedroll, her eyelids grew heavy and she no longer cared.
Soon she fell asleep but during the night she grew fitful, tossing and turning, dreaming of her mother and the ravaging, ugly death from the cholera she had battled in the mine patch.
Then something warm curled around her, something solid and strong that laid her memories to rest, and finally she slept soundly.
In the morning she awoke to find herself nestled in the strong, solid arms of the don.
Carly hissed in a breath, her heart slamming hard against the wall of her chest. She tried to move, but her hair had come loose from its braid and was trapped under a broad, powerful shoulder.
One of his hard-muscled thighs rode high between her legs and her bottom pressed intimately into his groin.
Dear God! Her heartbeat quickened even more, began to trip loudly in her ears.
His breath fanned the back of her neck, moving tendrils of hair beside her ear.
The muscles in his thigh felt rock hard where they pressed so embarrassingly against her.
Carly squirmed, trying to free herself without waking him, trying to ignore the spiraling warmth in her stomach, the weakness that slid through her limbs.
“It would be better, querida,” he said softly, “if just now you did not move in quite such a manner.”
Carly went stock still. For the first time she noticed that he was aroused, that against her bottom, the hard male ridge of his desire throbbed with purpose at the front of his breeches. Naive though she might be, she knew what that purpose was.
“I-I … how did we … why are you…?”
“Hush. There is no need to be afraid. You were having trouble sleeping, that is all. Close your eyes now and go back to sleep. Morning will come soon enough.”
Carly swallowed hard, squeezing her eyelids shut as he adjusted himself to a less intimate position, but his arms remained locked around her. She tried to relax, to control the tension rippling through her body, but there was no way she could possibly go to sleep.
Not with him still holding her. Not with his beautiful mouth just inches away from her ear.
The Spaniard sighed and released his hold, then tossed back his blanket and gracefully rolled to his feet. “Perhaps you are right after all. In a few more minutes the sun will be cresting the horizon. There are others to consider, and work that must be done. I will make us some coffee.”
She shoved her sleep-tangled hair back from her face. “Thank you.” But her mouth was so dry the words stuck in her throat and she wasn’t sure he heard them.
They worked through the day and night for the next two days.
Two of Carly’s patients died, but the boy, Two Hawks, would live.
He was twelve years old, she learned from Lena, a handsome youth with high cheekbones and coarse, straight black hair.
He was a smiling boy, one the don seemed as taken with as she.
Carly would never forget the sight of the tall handsome Spaniard kneeling beside the boy, the lad’s head cradled in his lap as he held a bowl of broth against the boy’s parched lips.
Each night she had slept beside the don, not as close as before, but near enough she could have reached out and touched him.
He had been there each morning when she awakened, watching her with an oddly protective light in his eyes.
Yesterday he seemed edgy and began to grow distant.
Last night he hadn’t joined her until late in the evening.
This morning when she awakened, the Spaniard was already gone.
* * *
Ramon watched the girl walking through the camp toward the healer.
Her face looked pale, her clothes were dirty and wrinkled, her hair slightly mussed, and yet she did not complain.
For the past three days, she had worked ceaselessly, doing whatever was required of her, no matter how unpleasant the task.
She was nothing like the woman he had once believed her to be, selfish and uncaring, concerned only with money and the luxuries it could bring.
It made him feel even worse for treating her so badly.
It made him want her more than he ever had before, more than he had wanted a woman since Lily. Perhaps even more than that.
Sleeping beside her that first night, he had dreamed of being inside her, of burying himself in her soft, wet warmth, of forgetting his responsibilities to his people, his vow to his brother to see Rancho del Robles returned to the de la Guerra name.
He imagined instead making love to her, sampling her fiery passion, the hot desire that for a time would make him forget.
No more grieving for Andreas.
No more worry about discovery, about what he would do for his people when the money from the horses ran out.
At least Martinez and the rest of his men had returned to the stronghold safely.
The money from the horses would last a good long while but sooner or later it would be gone.
Without Andreas, raiding as El Dragón would be far more dangerous.
It wouldn’t take long to discover he was missing from his rancho whenever the raids were done, that he was the man behind them.
And there was the problem of the girl. He couldn’t let her go and yet he could not keep her. If he did, sooner or later, his willpower would weaken and he would take her to his bed.
Madre de Dios, he wished he knew what to do.
Ramon raked a hand through his wavy black hair then settled his flat-brimmed hat low over his forehead. He would think of something. He had to. He hoped he would think of it soon.