“No,” he whispered, stilling her hips with his hands. “Don’t move.” He feathered kisses across her face. “Let it happen, angel. Be still and let it happen.”
He concentrated on her face, her gloriously begging eyes. He kissed them closed, then moved across her cheek, tracing the outline of her ear with his tongue, swirling inside it, feeling her tremble beneath him.
“Let it happen, angel.” He moved his lips to hers. Suddenly, his kisses turned wild, plunging deep again and again.
Beneath him he felt her pumping heart. Her ragged breath escaped in heated gasps against his mouth. She closed her lips over his tongue and suckled it in an impassioned rhythm that set her hips to moving.
Again he stilled them, gripping his own rampant passions with the greatest of difficulty. “Just let it happen,” he mumbled, his lips to her ear, his fingers to her breast. “Let it happen. Feel me inside you. Feel the throbbing. The hot and wonderful throbbing. Let it happen, angel.”
And then it did. He felt her tighten around him, squeezing him as though to squeeze the seeds of life from his body into hers. Her arms trembled against his back, before falling slack.
“Carson, I love you,” she whispered.
In that instant he withdrew himself. Her eyes flew open. She reached between them, clasped her hand around his throbbing flesh, wet now from her own passion, felt his release spray like teardrops into the palm of her hand.
“Why?…” she whispered. Her eyes begged him.
Still trembling from the exertion, Carson fell to his side and clasped her tightly against his chest, rocking her back and forth.
She struggled to look in his face. “Why?”
“I can’t let you…”
“But I love you.”
He stared long into her imploring eyes. Her words, intense, begged him to believe her.
“I love you. You’ve known it all along, haven’t you?”
He held his breath, staring at her, loving her.
“I do, Carson. I love you. I wanted to tell you back in Catorce, but we never had a chance after I realized it. You should have made me tell you that morning I made you tell me.”
In spite of it all, he grinned. “Run that by me one more time.”
“The morning I came to your room disguised as a maid. That’s why I came, to make you tell me you love me.”
He traced her lips with an index finger. “You didn’t make me tell you I love you. No woman can make a man say that. Not so he means it.”
“Now we have plenty of time,” she said. “I can tell you every day, a hundred times a day, for the rest of our lives.”
He stilled her delightfully scheming lips by burying them in the lee of his shoulder. What had he gotten himself into? What had he gotten her into? He had nothing to give a girl like Aurelia. And she had everything to lose. But how did he think he could ever live without her?
“When did you change your mind about us?” she asked at length. When he didn’t answer, she pulled her head away from his shoulder and looked into his troubled eyes. “You haven’t?” The words whispered like an ill wind from her lips. Anguish filled her heart.
He trailed his fingers across her forehead, brushed strands of hair from her face. “I have never felt as empty and lost as I did after you left Catorce,” he admitted. His warm brown eyes caressed her face. “But that didn’t convince me we could make a life together. We are so different…”
“No—”
“Shh, angel. It’s true. You were raised in mansions with servants at your beck and call. I haven’t even had a home since I grew to manhood. We cannot deny the problems that will create for us.”
Her spirits fell at his words. “You haven’t changed your mind.”
He kissed her so tenderly it brought tears to her eyes. “I can never leave you, Aurelia. I guess that hit me when I realized you could be carrying my child. You belong to me. Your children will be my children, too. I love you. I can never, never leave you.”
She took his face in her hands and brought his lips to hers. She kissed him as tenderly as he had kissed her. “We will work everything out, Carson, beginning with this: I am not staying in Guanajuato without you.”
He argued with her about that most of the way back to her relatives’ mansion. Afterwards, he realized that as in a lot of other things, Aurelia Mazón had been one step ahead of him.
Chapter Sixteen
Unwittingly, of course. When she vowed not to stay in Guanajuato without him, she had no way of knowing the uproar their day together had caused. They entered the mansion through the kitchen, only to have the cook announce their arrival to Tío Luís and Santos, who waited for them on the patio.
“So much for returning before siesta ends,” Aurelia whispered.
Her uncle overheard. “Siesta? How could we rest with you cavorting around town like a…like a?…” His eyes swept her rumpled peasant attire, then fastened on Carson. “Like some loose woman with this Norteamericano.” He spat the last word as if it were vile.
Carson bit back a caustic reply. “I apologize for causing you concern, señor. Aurelia has come to no harm.”
“That had better be the case.” Luís clamped his cigar between his teeth, once again scanning her costume with a menacing frown. “How dare you cheapen yourself like some…some common…”
Carson stepped toe to toe with the choleric man. “Be careful of the words you choose, señor.”
Santos placed a restraining hand on Carson’s shoulder. “Easy, compadre.”
“We were only enjoying the feria,” Aurelia hastened to say.
“The feria?” Again the livid man scorched the two late arrivers with both his eyes and his tongue. “That is not the way it looks.”
Aurelia straightened to her full height. “I don’t care how it looks, Tío. We—”
“Run along, Relie.” Santos nudged her toward the staircase. “Change for the charriada.”
“The charriada”? Luís questioned.
After another insistent nod from Santos, Aurelia turned toward the staircase with her uncle calling after her.
“Over my dead body will I allow you to ruin your good name this way. You will not go to the charriada.”
Aurelia gritted her teeth to keep from responding.
Santos released Carson’s shoulder. “You, too, compadre. Get into your riding clothes. I will wait down here with Tío.”
Luís was swiping his flushed forehead with a white linen handkerchief. He waved it toward Aurelia. “Thank heavens your aunt is dressing for dinner. If she saw you like this…”
“She won’t,” Aurelia assured him, hurrying now. The thought of Tía Guadalupe’s reaction to her rumpled disguise made her even more eager to dress and be gone from this house.
Luís continued to rage. “If Enrique were to hear of your behavior…”
His words brought Aurelia to a halt halfway up the grand staircase. She swirled to face her uncle by marriage. “Enrique! Find someone else to marry your precious Enrique, Tío.” Her voice echoed through the suddenly still air in the foyer below.
“Someone else?” The question dropped like a stone from Luís’s mouth. “Someone else to marry Enrique?” He stomped toward the staircase.
Carson reached for him. Santos shouldered his friend aside grabbing hold of the livid Luís. “Calm down, Uncle. Relie, go ahead. You, too, Jarrett. Now.”
“You are betrothed to Enrique,” Luís shouted.
“I am not.”
Reaching Aurelia, Carson nudged her up a step, while Luís roared below them.
“You will be.”
“I will not.”
“Yes, you will.”
Carson nudged her again, wanting instead to sweep her in his arms and carry her bodily up the stairs. Around them the air buzzed with tension. It reminded him of being inside that infernal mine—always expecting an explosion to go off.
“No, I won’t.” Aurelia was insisting.
“I will not stand by and let you do
this again,” Luís vowed. “You almost threw everything away in that chapel, but…but…” He sputtered, then regained momentum. “Domingo promised you to Enrique. He promised me…”
Somewhere along the way, Carson stopped hearing the argument and started listening to the words, and the words became terrifying.
“Your precious Enrique,” Aurelia mimicked. “You think the sun rises and sets with him. Well, it doesn’t. Not my sun, in any case—”
Carson grabbed her around the waist, stopping her words in mid sentence. He looked down at Santos. “Five minutes. Will you be ready to hit the trail?”
Santos nodded.
With giant leaps, Carson bounded up the stairs. He deposited Aurelia beside the door to her bedchamber. “Get dressed. When you return downstairs, apologize to your uncle.”
“Are you mad? I will do no such thing.”
“Angel,” his voice held a warning. “I will explain later, but for now trust me. You must make peace with him.” He planted a quick kiss on her quivering lips.
“How can I apologize for something I—?”
He chuckled. “Use your training. Pretend you are disguised as a dutiful niece.”
“You think it’s necessary?”
“I know it is,” he insisted. “Have María wait in your room. Tell her to pack and be ready to leave for Catorce before sunup.”
She tilted her chin.
“I will explain,” he repeated, wondering exactly what there was to explain. The pieces to the puzzle still didn’t fit, but at last they were beginning to fall into place.
In less than five minutes, he had removed the peasant clothing, replacing it with his own breeches, shirt, vest, and boots. Those boots had never felt so good.
Heading for the stairs, Carson removed his Texas Ranger badge from the inner lining of his vest and pinned it on the outside with trembling fingers. His mind whirred with images of ledger books, of the highly touted virtues of Enrique Villasur.
At the landing, he almost collided with Aurelia. Her costume surprised him enough to take his mind off their troubles for a moment. Instead of the riding skirt he had expected, she wore a red cotton dress, tiered in ruffles and bedecked with multicolored ribbons.
They could hear Luís Reinaldo still raving below. “What do you mean you are taking her back to Catorce in the morning? She is supposed to stay in Guanajuato and ride up for the wedding with her aunt and me.”
Carson guided her down the staircase, his fingers pressed lightly to her waist. “Don’t argue with him,” he whispered. “Apologize and let’s get out of here.”
Seeing her uncle’s still-livid face, she faltered. But Carson had a hand to her back, gently forcing her along, quieting her anger with the sense of reassurance she always felt with him beside her.
Crossing the floor, she took Tío Luís’s hand, startling him into momentary silence. “I’m sorry, Tío. You know how I have always had to fight a willful tongue.” She swallowed back the urge to spit in his face. “And actions,” she added. “I didn’t mean a bit of what I said. I was just angry not to have my way.”
He stared hard, his eyes searching hers.
Carson nudged her in the small of the back. “Papá always did spoil me,” she added. “You said so yourself.”
“Guadalupe was right,” he responded. “Domingo should have let you come to us long ago.”
“We must run along.” She tiptoed to plant a kiss on his damp cheek. “I promise not to bring dishonor to you, especially not at such an important time.”
His eyebrows came together.
“It will be good for your bid for the governor’s office, don’t you think? For some of the family to be seen at the charriada?”
Luís eyed Carson, who had stepped away from her, standing now near the outside door.
Santos motioned them toward the door. “I sent a servant for a carriage.” He turned back to his uncle. “Don’t worry, Tío. No one can question Aurelia’s right to go anywhere in the world with me.” Taking her by the shoulders, he guided her through the door. “I am an expert at keeping her out of trouble.”
A single “Hurrumph” resounded behind them as they headed for the carriage that stood ready to depart at the curb. The Reinaldo driver held the door.
Aurelia climbed into the coach and sat trembling like a poplar leaf.
Carson took the seat opposite her. When the carriage pulled away, he sank elbows to knees and buried his face in his hands.
She watched his arms tremble. The muscles across his back were so taut they also quivered.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “The day was worth every flutter of Tío’s double chin.”
He groaned into his hands, then looked up, meeting her eyes. “Hmm.” His eyes found the little gold ring hanging from a red ribbon around her neck. He grimaced.
“First Quiroz, now your uncle. One of these days I’m going to be in a position to kill the man who slanders you.”
“I don’t want you to fight for my honor,” she whispered. Taking his hands in her own, she held them against her knees. “Tell me what happened in there that caused you to take charge so magnificently.”
“What was it all about?” Santos echoed.
Carson leaned back against the seat. Slipping his hands from Aurelia’s, he stared into the depths of her eyes. “Your uncle mentioned the episode in the chapel. Did he mean either of the two times you told me about?”
“There were only two.”
“Then how did he know?”
The only sound inside the carriage was that of Santos and Aurelia gasping, almost in unison.
“Papá?” Santos whispered.
Aurelia shook her head. “The three of us and Pia and Zita are the only ones who know.”
“Besides the boys,” Carson reminded her.
“Kino and Joaquín would not have told. They couldn’t have, anyway. They didn’t know about—”
“—Quiroz,” Santos finished. “Quiroz damned sure knew. What does it mean? What did you find out in Catorce?”
“I’m not sure,” Carson told them. “Reinaldo mentioned your father promising him something…What?”
“Me,” Aurelia sighed. “Although I’m beginning to feel more like he sold me.”
Carson’s eyes caressed her face. “Don’t worry, angel. That deal is off.” Then he added, “Something is happening at the mine that doesn’t add up, but I hadn’t suspected Reinaldo.”
“You suspected Enrique, though?” Santos questioned.
He nodded.
“Couldn’t be the green-eyed monster acting up?”
Carson chuckled, still looking at Aurelia. “Me? Jealous of that lily-livered, egg-sucking coyote? Never.”
At the corral, both Santos and Aurelia tried to dissuade Carson from entering.
“We could head on to Catorce tonight,” Santos told him.
“No, we can’t rock the boat right now. We have to spend the night with your relatives. At least, the two of you do.”
“What about you?” Aurelia objected.
He chucked her under the chin. “I’ll bed down here with ol’ Sunfisher. He’s likely homesick for me, anyhow.”
“Sunfisher?” she questioned.
“You think it’s that serious?” Santos asked.
“Until we find out for sure, we had best assume it is.” He turned to Aurelia. “I want María to sleep in your room tonight. Tell her we are leaving bright and early. And be sure you lock your door.”
“Hey, remember me?” Santos pointed a finger to his own chest. “I’m her brother. I can take care of her.”
Carson grinned, but his words were serious. “I know, otherwise I wouldn’t let her return to that house. But hey, we’re here for a rodeo, and you haven’t met Sunfisher.” His pace picked up when they neared the stall.
“Sunfisher?” Aurelia skipped to keep up with the two long-legged men. “Your horse?”
“I told you Santos got my belongings back from the jailer. That included Sunfishe
r.”
“Don’t enter the charriada for me,” she pleaded.
He patted the nose of the great line-backed dun mustang, favoring Aurelia with a wry grin. “Come meet Sunfisher, angel.”
When she approached, he instructed his horse, “Say hello to my guardian angel, Sunfisher.”
The horse tossed his head up and down three times.
Delighted, Aurelia stroked her hand along his muzzle. “Hello, Sunfisher.” She kissed his nose, then turned to Carson.
“Don’t do this for me. You haven’t practiced, and you are still steaming from that fight with Tío Luís.”
“Maybe it’ll put a little steam in my performance,” he suggested. “As for practice, ol’ Sunfisher and I have bulldogged a few steers and saddled our share of broncs, haven’t we, feller?”
Again Sunfisher nodded his head.
Aurelia laughed. Carson stood beside her so serious and proud she wanted to kiss him. Since she couldn’t, she kissed his horse again.
While Carson buckled on his chaps, Santos saw to saddling Sunfisher. Aurelia hovered nearby, nervous. Up and down the aisle, charros donned the same sort of clothing—with a number of differences.
The rowels on the charros’ spurs were larger than Carson’s, the brims of their sombreros were wider than his Stetson, the legs of their calzoneras were tighter, after they buttoned down the belled bottoms, than his denims.
They wore tight-fitting jackets instead of loose vests, and their chaparreras, as well as their saddles and tack, were more elaborately adorned with silver than his own smaller Texas saddle and bat-winged chaps.
“All in all,” Carson told Aurelia, “I should have the advantage. Muscle and bone and not much else.”
She scrutinized his costume, then looked to the handsomely suited fellows she had pitted him against. Before he knew what she was up to, she took the ring from around her neck and tied it around his.
“I gave your bandanna to Antonio yesterday,” she reminded him.
He fingered the little gold ring and looked at her, his eyes caressing, teasing. “This ain’t apt to keep much dust outta my face.”
Silver Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Two Page 26
