Theresa Michaels

by The Merry Widows Sarah

  She reached for his hand. His fingers closed tightly around hers.

  “You do understand, don’t you, Rio? He needs you now more than ever. Gabriel does, too. The love of those boys…oh, there’s nothing…” Her voice broke, then she rallied. “There’s nothing to compare to the love of a child. They are so giving.”

  Rio looked down at their joined hands. “And you, do you give your love without condition?”

  Sarah thought of things in her life that she loved. Her home, the horses, her small family. But they weren’t really hers. Mary had Rafe and the children. Catherine and Greg and his sister with her large family. They weren’t here with her. There was no special someone in her life to love.

  Her gaze was drawn to their joined hands. He probed too deeply with his questions.

  “I know the answer,” he said after a few moments. He studied her face when she looked up at him. A slight frown creased his brow. “Why did I not see their need?”

  Confused, Sarah stared at him. “Are you asking me, or yourself?”

  “Both, it seems.”

  Sarah lifted her other hand to his cheek. “If you care enough to change, that is all that will matter to your sons.”

  He drew her hand to his lips. “You are a wise woman, and a most forgiving one, Sarah.”

  There was that feeling again. He’d have every secret she harbored if she allowed him any closer. He’d leave, and he could easily take her heart with him. She had to protect herself. But her gentle tug wouldn’t move him to release her.

  “Don’t say anymore. Please,” she added.

  He lowered his mouth to hers. A gentle taking. Sarah could have pulled back. She didn’t And the warnings were ignored as his lips roamed over her face.

  “You taste of the goodness in your heart,” he murmured. “I desire you.” His voice grew dark and husky. “I taste the wanting inside you, too. You no more wish to feel this than I do.”

  His mouth settled on hers with a touch of anger. Sarah tasted his and her own. His tongue probed deep as he pulled her closer. She offered no resistance. Strong, practical Sarah would return soon enough. She stole what she wanted, what she needed from him.

  Her fingers combed through the long length of his hair, then wandered down to the muscles of his shoulders and back. She wanted his strength.

  He slipped both hands upward to cup her breasts. He wished there was no cloth between them. Not that he needed to touch her skin to know it was soft and warm, like her kiss. He heard her moan as his thumbs brushed her nipples. This was a madness he could not stop. He wanted nothing else but to have her. Passion drove him as it never had before.

  He fought the temptation to pull her to the floor and take her. Swift and fierce. Hot and deep. Then this gnawing desire would leave him. His blood would cool, his thoughts become his own again. That was what he needed. Not her.

  He pulled away abruptly and stared down at her. Her breathing was as quick as his own. Passion clouded her lovely dark eyes. He gripped her shoulders.

  “I will not lie to you. This wanting…no, this need for you is a feeling I do not like.”

  “I’m not innocent, Rio. I tasted the anger of your kiss. You’re not alone. I don’t want you.”

  “No lies, iszáń.”

  This time there was no harshness attached to the Apache word. If anything, his voice caressed it.

  Sarah held her gaze steady. “No lies. I am what you called me, a woman. Not a girl. I know what it is to want and not have. You’re in no danger from me. I won’t provoke you.”

  “And if I came to your room?”

  Sarah stepped away from him, thankful that he let her go. “I don’t know what I would do. I hope you will not force me to make that choice.”

  “Will there be force, Sarah? Will there be a choice?”

  He looked away from her. Outside, the lightning flared nearby. Rumbles of thunder followed. He wanted to be outside in the storm. It could not be worse than the one that raged through him.

  “You should know I would not be a gentle lover with you.”

  There was no reply she could make. She already knew that. Did she want him? Sarah left the kitchen. She was afraid her choice had been taken from her.

  Hours later Sarah carried Gabriel’s smile and Lucas’s drawing up to her room. She had stood by through the awkward meeting between Rio and his sons, but at least Lucas was reassured that his father found value in his skill.

  He’d told the boy he had the sharp eyes of an eagle to see so clearly and so deeply and capture her face. She had requested the drawing, and before Lucas answered, Rio offered it as a gift. Sarah knew she walked a delicate line between them, but she wanted the boy to answer. When he did, she was sorry she insisted.

  “Keep it. It is as he says. A gift.”

  Sarah instantly looked at Rio’s face. She couldn’t miss the hurt in his eyes. He says…not my father.

  She fretted over the terrible thing that stood between them. How much more could she pry? Should she even try? She felt saddened to know how much alike they were and how far apart they stood with their guarded emotions. Thankfully Gabriel acted as a loving bridge between them.

  With her door closed and the lamp lit, she stood for a few moments, searching for a place to put the drawing. She rejected hiding it in a drawer.

  Vanity had nothing to do with her final decision. She wedged the edges into the corner of the mirror’s frame.

  She needed the reminder that she was still young, still a woman, one with needs. She traced the suggestion of a single braid lying over the line of her shoulder, then touched Lucas’s drawing of her lips.

  Was this the woman Rio saw? Was she the one he had kissed. Did the loneliness show in her gaze?

  And the hunger?

  “You should know I would not be a gentle lover with you.”

  “Who asked you to be?” she whispered.

  Annoyed with herself, she rubbed her hands over her face.

  Too many questions. She needed a long stretch of time when she could forget the dreams of the past.

  Rio would not be a gentle lover. He would not be a patient one, either.

  And what did she truly want?

  “To be whole again,” she murmured, then turned her back on the’ drawing.

  Through a restless night’s sleep, questions nagged her.

  What had Rio seen when he looked at her?

  Were her secrets safe?

  For the next two days there was an uneasy, tense truce in the house. It lasted that long because she made every effort not to be alone with Rio.

  Gabriel helped her. Unwittingly, true. He attached himself to her from the moment she set her foot on the last stair.

  Theirs was an isolated world. Water stood kneedeep from the front yard to the road.

  Sarah worried about her friends in town. But they had the advantage of being near other neighbors.

  As much as she was beginning to hate the continuous deluge of rain for the confinement to house and barn, she prayed that it would keep on, for Rio and his sons were safe here.

  She knew he worried, as she did, that those three men were out there…waiting.

  But where? How close had they followed Rio before they lost him in the storm?

  But Sarah couldn’t dwell on this threat. She had other problems to deal with. The boys, busy while doing chores, were showing signs of restlessness as only boys can. They squabbled, and they fought. Due to their lack of clothes to change, going outside was limited to necessity.

  Sarah improvised a game of marbles using dried peas. Most didn’t roll smoothly, but that provided balance between Gabriel’s enthusiastic shooting and Lucas’s uncanny skill once she had taught them the game. Broken twigs from the kindling pile gave them a supply for the game of jackstraws.

  Once more Lucas, with his quick eye and hand, excelled.

  Sarah found a way to separate them. They were running low on foodstuffs. She had been lavish in her meals and most of the smoked meat was g
one. She asked Gabriel if he would like to help her take stock of what was left in the pantry.

  Sarah thought having him count the canned goods and the jars of the garden’s bounty would help him feel important, and work on his addition.

  He insisted on climbing up onto the chair while she held the lantern. But after one shelf was inventoried, Gabriel stopped and looked down at her.

  “Are you old?” he asked, his eyes intense.

  Sarah’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “I should not ask?”

  “No. I mean, it’s all right to ask me.”

  “Are you old?”

  “I imagine I’m old to you.”

  “Are you old enough to be a mother?”

  Sarah almost dropped the lantern. She started to shake. She stared straight ahead but couldn’t focus on one thing.

  Not this. Dear Lord, have mercy. Not this.

  “I made you angry with me.”

  “Oh, no, Gabriel. I couldn’t be angry with you.” She forced a smile to wooden lips. She found a way to work around the pain. Like his father, and Lucas, this little boy’s need touched her heart. And this, despite all her warnings to herself.

  “I guess I am old enough.” Sarah raised her free hand to his arm. Touching him like this wasn’t enough. She could see he was crying out to be loved, to be hugged. She set the lantern aside.

  “You miss your mother very much, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” he whispered, placing his hand over his heart, “I hurt in here.”

  Sarah cupped his face. “I know. I lost my mother when I was a little girL The pain will go away, Gabriel. I can promise you that. But not the good memories you have of her.”

  “Did…did someone bad kill your mother, too?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter how she died. She was gone and I thought I was alone, but I still had my father. Just like you do. And my cousin Mary. She and I were very close. Just like you have Lucas.”

  He bent his head so that his forehead touched hers. “Sometimes Lucas does not like me. But he is my brother. I still wish I had a mother. I did not want to be like the other boys in the mission school. They did not believe me that I had a father. They told me if I had a father I would not be there.”

  Sarah lowered her hands until she could hug him. After a few moments, Gabriel pulled back. His small hand brushed across her cheek.

  “Do your tears fall for me?”

  “And for me,” she answered as honestly as she could. “Sometimes it’s good to cry. And you must not remember what anyone said about your father. You’re all together now. That’s what is important.”

  “But I still wish—”

  “No, Gabriel. Don’t. Please. You do understand that I can’t be your mother. No one can take her special place. I will be your friend.”

  “A special friend? Varlebena?”

  “A very special one,” she whispered. “What does the word mean?”

  “It is an Apache word that means forever.”

  Sarah swallowed hard. She forced herself to smile.

  “Yes. Varlebena friends.”

  Gabriel’s hug was hard and tight, and her own no less. She blinked rapidly to stop the tears as the ache inside her lessened. There was, just as she told Rio, something healing about a child’s love. She wouldn’t think about the coming day when he could be gone with his father and his brother. She would only take each day’s sharing and treasure it.

  Later, after Sarah had set the kitchen to rights, she was surprised by Lucas’s request that she join them in the parlor.

  “In a few minutes, Lucas. I was just about to make a cup of tea.”

  Sarah turned as the boy left. She had tried to give Rio some privacy with his sons at night. This was the first time they had asked for her company.

  She didn’t want to speculate why.

  She couldn’t push aside the reason that came to mind.

  Rio was leaving.

  Before the thought settled she left the room.

  Both doors to the parlor were open. The room was cozily warm with the fire blazing. Lucas lay on his stomach, legs swinging back and forth, his chin propped on his hands. Her gaze went to Rio, who sat to the side with Gabriel on his lap. She didn’t miss her rifle leaning against the wall, near the wood box and within Rio’s reach.

  The firelight cast its burnished glow over one side of Rio’s face, and left the other side in shadow. But she could make out the deepened lines of tension.

  “Sarah, come sit with us,” Gabriel said. “We left room for you on the quilt. Father is going to tell us a story about the Mountain People. They have spirits that can heal.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing it.” Her fingers curled over the edge of the door frame. “I was making tea. Would anyone like a cup?”

  The boys refused. Rio watched her. Had the quaver in her voice given away her unspoken fear? From the way Rio looked at her, she had to wonder if her thoughts were evident.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes,” she called out, and hastily retreated to the kitchen.

  The wind and rain had died down, but she felt the cold drafts of the night seeping through the door and window.

  Sarah impatiently paced, waiting for the water to boil. She saw that the wood box needed replenishing. Two more passes in front of the stove and still the kettle wasn’t steaming.

  She hadn’t been outside all day. Before she thought about it, she snatched her slicker from the hook and slipped it on. The moment she opened the back door, the cold air made her shiver. But she did not have far to go.

  The light from the coal-oil fixture streamed from the doorway and the window. It was enough to guide her steps to the woodshed where the light ended abruptly. She bent over, one hand extended as she felt for the kindling pile.

  She had four or five pieces of wood cradled in her arm when she was overcome with a gooseflesh-raising chill. The hair on her nape rose. Sarah spun around.

  “Who’s there?”

  She searched the area at the edge of the light, sensing something out of place. There was no movement, no shadows that didn’t belong.

  But her every instinct denied what her eyes were seeing. She looked around again. There to the left…was that…

  Sarah never completed the thought.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rio glanced toward the parlor doorway. He had to wonder if Sarah had changed her mind. She’d been gone far longer than the few minutes needed to make a cup of tea.

  Gabriel squirmed on his lap, giving voice to his thoughts about what was keeping her.

  A burst of green sap threw a shower of sparks upward in the fireplace, then it was quiet again.

  And in that quiet they all heard the whistling of the kettle.

  Rio released a mounting tension he hadn’t been aware of. She would be coming soon. For the past two days he had maintained his distance from her, but not without a cost to himself. Even when she was out of sight, she remained constant in his mind.

  The hair on his nape rose as the noise from the kitchen continued without break. Surely she heard it. Surely she had poured the water for her tea.

  Rio lifted Gabriel from his lap and rose in a controlled rush. He didn’t want to alarm his sons. Not when he had no true cause for alarm. Being hunted had finely honed his instincts. He wasn’t about to question them. Something was wrong.

  “Stay with your brother,” he whispered. He glanced at the loaded rifle within his easy reach.

  “Don’t either one of you leave here.” His hand caught hold of the rifle’s barrel, and he started for the door.

  Behind him, Gabriel made a garbled sound. He looked over his shoulder to see that Lucas had his hand over his brother’s mouth, while he pulled him toward the darker corner of the room. Rio nodded to see that the fireplace’s poker was in Lucas’s hand.

  He stood in the parlor’s doorway. The water in the kettle hit a violent boil. The metal pot rocked with a clatter, and the whistling sent out its hurried
call. He knew then that Sarah was not in the kitchen. She had not passed the doorway. He had been watching too closely for her to have slipped upstairs.

  Outside then.

  But why? What could have drawn her to leave the house?

  Rio could not stop himself from looking back into the parlor. He did not see either of his sons. And their safety was the most important thing in his life.

  He was torn. His sons. Sarah.

  She needed him.

  He knew it on a deep, gut-wrenching level as if she had called his name.

  And that could only mean one thing.

  Somehow, despite the storm that had washed out any tracks, they had found him.

  He tensed, muscles tightening as he started toward the lighted kitchen. So much warmth, so much truth, and such new, fierce desire had been found within those walls.

  He sensed the room was empty. No sound reached him but for the rattle of the almost-dry kettle.

  And that in itself was a cry for help.

  Sarah!

  His gaze swept over the darkened area near the front door, and then tried probing the darkness beyond it.

  If those three men had discovered him here, they had Sarah.

  With every screaming nerve ending he wanted to reject his own logical conclusion.

  But enough time had passed for her to return from every reason that would have drawn her from the house in the first place.

  She had not cried out.

  He was certain he would have heard her. Or maybe he told himself that, because he wanted—no, needed—to believe it.

  Rio inched his way toward the front door, his back pressed against the wall, his grip knuckle-white on the rifle.

  He called upon every Apache god to be merciful. Nothing must happen to Sarah. Not like…

  He had to shut out thoughts of the violence these men not only were capable of, but relished.

  Rio slid back the latch. Holding the rifle with one hand, he turned the knob to ease the door open just enough for him to slip outside.