Again he didn’t answer for a while. When he did, it was with a joke. “On the run? Where did you pick up a technical term like that? Oh, I forgot, you are a robber of trains.”
“I learned it the same place you learned to speak Spanish,” she retorted.
“You’ve been to Texas?” he asked.
Texas, she thought. A clue. Not nearly enough to piece together the story of this man, but a beginning.
“No, I have never been to Texas, but we’re discussing your sordid past, not mine.”
“What makes you so sure I have one?”
“I can tell.”
He laughed. “In Texas we do a lot of running—from Indians and the like.”
They didn’t talk after that. He went to sleep soon, leaving her awake to marvel that he could sleep so soundly yet so quietly, as though he was preserving all his energy for the tasks ahead.
She thought about that. The tasks ahead of them. The difficulties behind them. Strange, she thought, but the Federales didn’t worry her, even though she knew they were all around and were not likely to give up their search.
Somehow she knew Carson would keep her safe, out of harm’s way. How she knew this, she couldn’t decide. But she did, and the resulting security lulled her into a state of near sleep where her brain began to work, the state where her best schemes were hatched.
Her most imaginative ones, anyway.
At last she slept, a pleased smile on her face.
By the time she awakened near dusk, her plan was laid. Aurelia lay still in the dim cave, pondering it. The plan wasn’t exactly laid. The fact that she would persuade Carson to make love to her was the only certain part of it.
How to proceed left her in a quandary. It should be precipitated casually, almost by accident, like when she had interrupted his shaving and he’d kissed her. But how?
The only thing she had managed, past making the decision, was to remove most of her armor. While the day before she had merely loosened her stays to sleep, this time after Carson went to sleep, she removed her corset, then her bloomers and petticoats, so that now she lay clad in only her low-cut blouse and ragged black skirt.
Once the thought flitted through her mind that she should not force a seduction. Quickly, she stifled it. Since Carson’s kiss had erased a good measure of her distress over the ordeal with Nuncio Quiroz, she knew making love to him would set her right.
It wasn’t as if she had anything to lose by it, she reasoned. That bastard Quiroz had already taken her virginity. Now she had only bad dreams to erase.
And Carson could do that. She knew he could.
They had slept far back in the cave to escape the moisture from the waterfall. Peering now toward the light at the mouth of the cave, Aurelia could barely make out his form where he stood perched on his heels, staring past the water. Finally, he tossed something aside and stood up.
She inhaled and held her breath. Should she call to him?
When he turned toward the back of the cave, she quickly rolled to her side and closed her eyes.
“Aurelia,” he called softly.
She lay still. He came closer, yet stopped at a distance.
“Wake up,” he called again. “It’s getting on to dark. Time to hit the trail.”
Suddenly, she knew if she was going to do it, she must act now. “Carson?” She sat up, facing him.
“Hmm?”
“Will you come here…and kiss me?”
She watched him stiffen.
“Please?”
He took another step, hesitating. “Get on up, now,” he told her, his voice husky.
She sat still, wondering what she would do if he refused. “Please.”
He took another step, knelt on one knee, and bent to place a quick, chaste kiss on her lips.
Before he could rise, Aurelia reached around his neck and pulled his face to hers. As their lips met, he tumbled off balance, caught a hand on the other side of her shoulders, and groaned.
His lips covered hers. When she responded, her own lips trembled. Excitement coursed down her spine. Her arms tightened around his neck. His lips stroked hers.
Then he drew back. “We’d best get—”
She pulled him forward. “Please.”
This time he led the way, his hands positioned about her face, his thumbs stroking her temples, his lips caressing hers. She opened her lips to his passion, felt his shoulders quiver beneath her fingers. She pulled him closer.
“Angel?” His voice objected, but his body settled into a more secure position. He drew her closer. Separated only by the thin cotton blouse and his shirt, her breasts nestled seductively into his chest. She could tell by the way his hands hesitated on her back that he was startled by her missing corset.
Her body came to life beneath his exploring lips and tongue and hands. She clutched at his back, her hands grasping great chunks of his shirt. She felt his muscles bunch at her touch.
Suddenly, his hands were inside her blouse, massaging her back with fiery strokes. They moved around her body and tugged her blouse over her arms. Before she knew it, the garment was crumpled about her waist, her breasts exposed. With exquisite gentleness, his hand cupped a bare breast, caressing it, sending sublime pleasure rippling down her body. His lips left hers, his tongue trailing down her cheek. He kissed her neck, nuzzling his face into it, then ran his tongue around her ear.
She trembled in his arms, pulling him closer, holding him tighter.
Then as suddenly as he had begun, he stopped. He pulled their faces apart, trying to lift her blouse to cover her nakedness.
“No,” she whimpered into his lips, feeling herself weak, abandoned.
“We must stop now, angel, before I can’t.”
“Don’t stop. Please.”
With a heavy sigh, he pulled her to his chest. His rough shirt teased her sensitive nipples. She clung to him.
“Don’t you want to make love to me?” she whispered.
His arms tightened. “Wanting has nothing to do with it.”
“Yes, it does. I want it, too.”
She felt him shake his head against her hair. “If I gave in, it would be taking advantage of you.”
“It would not,” she urged. “I want you to…I mean, I want to make love to you.” Her hands caressed his shoulders.
“Angel, you don’t know what you’re saying. Folks don’t think straight when they’re facing trouble. If I let myself take advantage of the situation, you would never forgive me.”
She pulled her head back. Staring into his eyes, she almost swooned. The fire she saw there, the want, combined with the heat of his hands on her bare back, idly running up and down her spine, his fingers dipping beneath the waistband of her skirt, sent waves of desire pulsating through her. “Don’t you understand anything?” she whispered. “There won’t be a never. Right now is all we have.” Anxiety gripped her.
“Don’t you understand?” she repeated. “By morning we will arrive…we will be with my family. One of them will take you to safety. I will never see you again.”
The words raced from her throat, whispered from her lips. “This is our only chance. Don’t you want to make love to me?”
“Want to? I’ve wanted to for days, but…”
“Then do it. Please.” Her lips covered his, and within moments she had kissed away his apprehensions, rekindled the flame of passion. “Please,” she mumbled into his mouth.
Within moments his lips were on her breast, tugging, teasing, exciting, while he unbuttoned her skirt and pulled it over her legs.
He grinned at her nakedness. “Have I been set up, ma’am?”
She laughed, hugging his face to her chest. “Do you mind?”
“Do I mind?” He stroked her body, her belly, her thighs, her innermost secrets. At times his touch was so gentle she felt as if she were being kissed by the clouds. His caressing hands lifted her spirits higher, ever higher, until she seemed to soar above her troubles, like an eagle in flight, sweeping near t
he sun, dipping to the mountaintops, rising and falling as though riding the waves on a sea of fire.
“Do I mind?” he whispered into her lips. His hand left her to remove his own clothing, then he stretched closer, body to body. Taking one of her hands in his, he guided her downward, clutching her fingers around him.
“Mind?” He eased himself between her legs. He was firm and hot and she was moist and eager, and he thrust once deeply, joining them as with a shaft of the very sun itself.
Searing pain flashed through her lower body. She arched her back, tensed, tightening in an attempt to drive the pain from her body.
“Angel?” His voice, full of fear, accused. “You told me?…”
Clenching her teeth, she fought the pain that slashed through her.
“You said he…that man in the chapel…you said he raped?…”
“He did.”
His face touched hers, his lips brushed her cheek. Slowly, he shook his head. “No, he didn’t. No…” His voice faltered. “No one entered your body before me.”
He kissed her lips tenderly. “I’m the first.”
“But I…”
“If he had, he would have broken the barrier. I broke it. That’s what hurt. If I had known, I would have gone slow…gentle.”
His words made no sense. She had felt the horrid body of that man against hers. Now, though, with Carson embedded deeply within her, she knew she had never experienced this before. The pain began to subside, and in its place she felt a swelling of awe. Or pride. Or something truly wonderful. Exciting.
Exhilarating.
It had worked. Exactly as she had known it would. When Carson spoke, she barely heard his words, and when he began to move inside her, she lifted her hips, answering his thrusts with thrusts of her own.
Seeking. Answering.
Searching. Finding.
She felt as though she were standing on a precipice watching the sun rise…gradually…until at last it burst in all its glory over the horizon, showering the world with light.
Glorious light.
“Oh, Carson,” she cried. He covered her lips before she could say more.
Finally, he rolled over and pulled her on top of him. “I’m sorry it hurt, angel. It won’t ever hurt again. Next time—”
“There won’t be a next time.” Her throat tightened over the words.
Propping himself on one elbow, he kissed her lips, then tugged at a strand of her hair. “Want to bet?”
They dressed, ate the remaining fish, and at dark moved out following the North Star, as they had the previous nights.
But unlike previous nights, he held her hand in his, walking close, occasionally stopping to place a tender kiss on her lips. She was filled with happiness. More happiness than she had ever experienced.
Her experiment had worked. Although she had expected it would, given the success of that first kiss, Aurelia was filled with wonder at the exhilarating feelings the experience had left her with. Por Santa Cecilia, she sighed. That dreadful ordeal with Nuncio Quiroz was over.
When she said as much to Carson, he stooped to peer into her face in the moonlight.
“What?”
“It worked exactly as I knew it would,” she explained. “The first time you kissed me erased the memory of his lips as though by magic. I knew if you made love to me, it would do the same to that other dreadful memory.”
“You mean to say”—he jerked his head back toward the cave—“that was an experiment?”
“What’s the matter? It worked, didn’t it?”
Abruptly, he dropped her hand and started off up the trail. The rest of the night they traveled in morose silence. When she tried to start a conversation, Carson ignored her, not replying with so much as a grunt.
The country was broken, rising ever higher and higher. They wound around, taking animal trails. By the way he kept searching right and left and behind them, she knew he had not forgotten the Federales.
As he had forgotten her. Whatever had brought on his attitude, she didn’t like it. It left her feeling guilty about something, but she wasn’t sure what. Rarely had she experienced guilt, even when a scheme failed. A fact that made his reaction even more confusing. Her scheme had worked beautifully. And he had enjoyed it, too. He couldn’t deny that.
When she asked him, he stared hard at her, then continued on his way. As though she were not even along, she thought.
Near daylight they approached one of the rare villages they had seen on the trip. This one was near the ranch. She headed for the main street, but he stopped her.
“We’d best go around. Which way?”
“No one here is a threat,” she told him.
“You can’t be sure. If you go through that town, you’re apt to get yourself caught. And if you get caught, they’ll catch me, too. I don’t hanker to hang for one of your schemes.”
“Don’t worry,” she retorted. “I won’t let you hang. We are almost…there.”
A few leagues north of the village, she peered through the brush. “We should see the house from that hill over there.”
He held her back, the first time he had intentionally touched her during the long night. “Is this a place the Federales would know to search for you?”
She considered his question, then nodded with a heavy sigh. Why hadn’t she thought of such a thing? What if the ranch was encircled by Federales? “Nuncio Quiroz, too.”
“Who?”
She stared at him through the growing light. “The man in the chapel.”
She saw his jaws clench. Suddenly, she was very sorry she had aggravated him. No matter what else he was, he had been gentle and kind to her. He made her feel good…wonderful…in a way no one ever had before.
Lifting a hand, she touched his cheek and felt his jaw clench again beneath her touch. His eyes searched hers. Serious, demanding. What were they saying? What were they asking of her?
“Please, laugh,” she whispered. “I love it when you laugh.”
For the longest time they stood gazing at each other. He didn’t laugh, but finally that wry grin creased his lips. Reaching up, he took her hand in his.
“Come on. You say the house is over that rise?”
A hundred meters farther, he suddenly pulled her to her knees. “Don’t go outlining yourself against the sky. Get down.”
Below them the compound of Rancho Mazón stretched in all directions—the bighouse in the center, surrounded by outbuildings of first one nature then another.
“Which one is your house?”
Aurelia frowned, then realized he thought they were looking at a village. “The center.”
From his sharp intake of breath, she gathered he had figured things out.
“How many guards?”
“One back. One front. Usually.” She pointed to the north. “We can go in there, behind the hot springs.”
“Nobody down there is going to string me up to the nearest tree?”
“I promise.”
At length, he crawled off to the side and stood up under cover of a stand of mesquites. “I didn’t see any sign of Federales, but we had best keep to cover. Don’t talk.”
She trailed behind him, step by step, his hand still holding hers. When they reached the guest buildings beside the springs, she relaxed. “We’re safe now.”
Without warning, he pulled her behind the building, framing her with his arms on either side of her head, her back to the building, and kissed her, deep, hard, passionately.
Lifting his lips a fraction, he whispered into her enraptured face, “Thank you for rescuing me, angel. I owe you my life, I know that.” He kissed her again, tenderly this time, lighting fires, stirring passions. “But I don’t owe you my body. That I give freely or not at all. The next time we make love, it will be just that—making love, not conducting an experiment. Do you understand?”
“But I told you—”
“To hell with what you told me. Now, let’s get this over with so we can get back to business�
��our business.”
Aurelia did not for a minute believe he meant what he said. Actually, she didn’t know what he meant. But he filled her with a sense of goodness she wanted to savor forever…to savor and to share. Was this the feeling Pia talked about?
“Come on. I’ll wake my brother, Santos. He will know how to help us.”
Carson stopped dead in his tracks. “Your brother Santos?” He stared around the enormous compound. His eyes widened in a wild expression of disbelief.
She pulled on his hand. “Come on.”
“Santos Mazón?” His voice echoed his incredulity.
She stared at him, wondering what he was saying, how he knew.
A door slammed at the bighouse. Bootsteps stomped toward them.
“Santos!” Aurelia ran to her brother. He swept her off her feet, gathering her to his chest in one arm without breaking stride.
Stopping in front of Carson, he thrust out his free hand.
“Carson Jarrett, you old leather pounder! How the hell did you get yourself snared in one of Relie’s schemes?”
Chapter Seven
Carson Jarrett prided himself on his ability to retain control of any given situation, whether he faced bandits along the Texas and Mexico border, Indians on the western frontier, or the antics of his passel of brothers back in Tennessee.
Those who knew him credited him with having the coolest hand to grip a six-shooter, the steadiest nerves when facing an outlaw, and the most composure of any Ranger on the force in quelling a riot—all the while retaining his wry wit about him.
He tended to agree with them. Or had. Until he crossed the border, his Ranger badge hidden inside the lining of his vest, to search for the root of the trouble facing his longtime friend, Santos Mazón, at his mine in Real de Catorce.
Reflecting on it, Carson realized things had begun to fall apart back in August, soon after he decided to embark on this mission of goodwill. Before leaving Austin, he had received word from his sister-in-law, Ellie, that his brother Benjamin was missing; Ellie needed help. His promise to Santos having been made months back, along with his acceptance to serve in Santos’s wedding, Carson dispatched a wire to another brother, Kale, asking him to look in on Ellie and Benjamin.
Silver Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Two Page 10
