Theresa Michaels

by The Merry Widows Sarah

  The noise suddenly stopped. There was only Gabriel, sobbing in his brother’s arms.

  Sarah stepped forward to the very edge of the drop. The fire had been scattered over the sandy floor. Wood still burned.

  “Rio?” The cavern’s walls threw her cry back at her. An aching, desperate sound that would not stop. She kept calling him. Her voice rose with panic when he didn’t answer her.

  Lucas and Gabriel were suddenly beside her. Both boys’ faces were pale with shock, two pairs of dark eyes moist with tears.

  “Where? Where is he?” she screamed, then pushed them aside.

  Rio came up from the floor slowly, using the stone wall at his back for support. His breathing was harsh, almost too loud in the sudden silence. He stared down at his knife, then shifted his gaze to the body wounded by bullets, but dead by his hand.

  “Rio?”

  Tears blocked her throat. She watched him, praying silently, pleading and screaming for him to come to her. She saw his staggered first step and fought herself not to go to him. She knew, without knowing, that he had to do this on his own.

  She could only wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sarah saw that her agony of waiting was shared by his sons. They crowded close to her as Rio made his way to them. Lucas bent forward, arms extended to help his father climb up to where they stood.

  Rio looked back, then stared at his sons. His hand shook as he reached out and touched first Lucas’s shoulder, then Gabriel’s.

  The scattered fire still burned. In the wavering light, she saw Rio’s eyes, dark, bottomless, glimmering.

  She felt his hand touch her cheek, his thumb brush her lips. The horrors of the day faded in a sudden, dizzying rush of love and desire for this one man above all others.

  “Sarah.” Rio swayed where he stood. Lucas came to support him. Gabriel clung to Sarah.

  She started to walk, willing weak knees to hold her upright, but Rio stopped her.

  “Wait. If I died this day…” His voice broke. He flung his head back, gulping for air. Lucas had slipped an arm around his father’s waist and urged him to walk on, but once more Rio hung back.

  “No, son. I need to speak.”

  “Later, Rio,” Sarah pleaded. “You’re hurt and this place—”

  “No, Sarah. Here it must be. My sons know my love for them. The threat to their lives is gone. But it is to you I say these words, Sarah. It is you who must know that had I died this day, I would have died loving you.”

  Sarah stared at him. Her breath caught for the moment. She wasn’t fully aware of turning her lips into the bruised palm of his hand. She could not hold the aching intensity of his gaze as a sweetly heated healing balm flowed through her heart and her body. Tears flowed, too, but neither she nor Rio made a move to stop them. They were healing, too.

  With vision still blurred by tears, she took in the faces of the young boys and the man before her. It was hard for her to speak. When she finally did so, she hoped Rio fully understood the importance of the few words.

  “Let’s go home.”

  It was a weary group that reached the house before the rain came. A gentle, misting rain that Rio called female rain, so unlike the unleashed storm’s fury akin to a man’s rage.

  Sarah found wisdom in the Indian naming of the rain, for it was sky tears, tears of release like her own.

  She made nó apology, nor could she stop crying for more than minutes at a time. She had only to see a new bruise on Gabriel or clean a scrape on Lucas to begin anew.

  Rio asked that she tend the boys first. He headed for the barn. She knew it was pointless to argue with him, but burying the animals could wait. While the boys ate a little, she brewed tea to help them sleep.

  Neither boy wanted to make up a bed upstairs, so she replenished the fire and waited until they were almost asleep before she left the parlor. Their silence bothered her. Too much violence in their young lives, but then she thought of Lucas’s words as she tucked the quilt around him. “It’s finally over.” And Gabriel, tight against his side, whispered, “We are safe now.”

  Rio was waiting in the kitchen.

  “There were thanks to be given, Sarah,” he explained. “And I wanted some cleansing before you touched me.”

  And touch him she did, not only to salve small cuts, or stitch larger ones, but to reassure herself that he was here, that the words he had spoken were not idle, but from his heart.

  She was on her knees beside his chair, having cut through the pants to clean the wound on his thigh. Sarah worked quickly, feeling the power of his muscles and the sleek texture of his skin that drew forth the desire to hold him safe. But when she looked up, she saw another desire fill his eyes. One that found an answering chord within her.

  “Sarah, what I said this morning…a lifetime ago, I did not wish to hurt you.”

  “I know that. I won’t lie to you. What you said did hurt me. But I understood why. You needed to push me away. You were going to leave, weren’t you?”

  He could not look away from her. The answer to her question was revealed in his eyes before he spoke.

  “Yes. I planned to leave.”

  “You said the threat is gone, but I sense that you haven’t changed your plans. You still intend to go. And that, despite telling me that you loved me.”

  It was not a question, but he responded as if she had asked him one.

  “I did not make promises, Sarah. How can you think I would stay after what happened? Did nothing of what I told you make you understand? I am a half-breed by white man’s law. I cannot own land. I am not to have claim to whatever my labor brings to me. How can you believe that I would love you and ask you to risk—”

  “But you haven’t asked me, Rio.”

  “And I will not.”

  He pushed back the chair, standing with an effort but moving behind the chair. He gripped its back with hands that showed white knuckles and glowered at where she still knelt on the floor.

  Sarah took a deep breath and released it before she stood up. She set her workbasket with its salve and linen strips on the table. She tucked the scissors beneath the linen, buying herself a little time. She knew whatever she said to him now mattered more than any other words.

  “Sarah, you see how it has to be for us. There cannot—”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth. If you did not want me, did not tell me that you would have died today loving me, I could let you go.

  “But you can’t take back what you did say. You can’t take back the physical loving we shared no matter what ugly words you used to hurt me. I said I understood, Rio. I meant that.

  “When I said for us to come home, I meant that, too. I want you to stay. Does it matter so much that the property is in my name? The only thing that matters is what is between us. If you can’t see that, can’t believe it, then nothing more I can say will make it happen. You know what I feel. If I need to say the words, I will.”

  She moved then, coming to his side, forcing his hands free and holding them with her own. She lifted each of his hands to her lips and kissed not the hand but the rope-burned wrists.

  “Rio, we have shared ourselves—heart, mind and body. If that is the kind of love you can walk away from and be at peace with, then I will not stand in your way. Take the horses and your sons and leave me.”

  She held her eyes steady and direct on his. “But if that sharing meant to you what it does to me, then stay. Love me, help me build a home, a place for our family, a refuge from those who will never understand that a man and woman who love know that strength is built from that love. No one can ever destroy it. No man or woman can come between it. Two, not one alone.”

  Sarah made no attempt to pull away from his hands now holding hers. She saw the struggle in his eyes, open and clear to her as never before. She willed him to agree, but knew that nothing would be so simple for this man to whom she had given her heart. He would think, he would worry and argue with her and himself, so she had
to pray that in the end love would win.

  “Sarah…Sarah…” The murmur of her name came between kisses scattered over her face. His lips were gentle at first meeting hers, but they had been through so much this day that life required a more potent celebration.

  Need to hold and touch brought the desire to lose themselves in passion.

  Sarah ached with the need to love him, to comfort him. A lonely man struggling to survive, just as she had been alone, and lonely, struggling to survive.

  She lifted her arms to his shoulders, drawing closer to his warmth. His sleek, bare skin against her clothed body brought erotic sensations alive.

  And the hunger he had shown her.

  “Sarah, lovely, lovely Sarah, I am not good for you.”

  “Hush. You are all that is good for me.” Passion made her bold. She pressed a kiss to the skin over his heart.

  Rio brushed her black hair back from her face. His hands cupped her cheeks and tilted her head back. The air around them stilled and he gazed into her eyes, searching them before he spoke.

  “You are the most giving woman I have known. You offer all that you are, and yet find more to give. You make me want to take and take from you, Sarah, and in return offer you all the man I can be.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers, kissing the tip of her nose.

  “I have only to look at you to see the passion that waits for me. You do not know what that does to a man to know that his woman is as helpless as he is to stop the need that burns within.

  “And when I touch you,” he whispered over her parted lips, tasting, cherishing a brief kiss, “you come to me with all the woman you are, with nothing of you held away from me.”

  “And I need you to kiss me. Now, Rio.” A softly worded demand, but a demand nonetheless, for hunger was a fever in her blood. His mouth crushed hers, and she delved into the swirl of pleasure that his hungry kiss offered for endless minutes.

  When he drew his head back, his breathing harsh, she closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath and released it. Her lashes lifted slowly, her eyes searching his, finding his gaze dark, intense, almost fierce. She could not hide her need from him. Her mouth molded to his, opening to the slow stroke of his tongue. The taste of him filled her, melded with her own, and became one taste to share.

  Rio sensed it, too. His mind and body were so attuned to Sarah’s, he drank her love and his muchneeded gentleness from her lips. But he sensed, too, an underlying tension as a result of the day’s terror.

  He held her tight, as if he could bring her inside himself and thereby protect her from any harm. He felt every tremor of her body. He stroked her, almost petting her as if she were a wild creature he sought to soothe and tame. He silently cursed the violence he had dragged into her life.

  He kissed her again and again, whispering his need of her. Slowly he felt the tension seeping from her body. He caressed her arms, fingers massaging knots that kept her muscles tense. She moaned, her body restless against his. He kept up the litany of meaningless sounds as he lifted her into his arms.

  “Rio?”

  “You are safe now, Sarah. I am taking you upstairs.”

  “And staying with me?” She pressed a kiss to his chin. Beneath her knees and across her shoulders she felt the strength of his arms.

  “And I am staying with you.”

  She ignored the feeling that he wanted to add to that. She knew she didn’t want to hear him declare a time limit She had meant what she told him. He was free to go. She was not about to beg him, no matter how right she believed she was. They could make a good home here. She understood his dream, it was close to her own.

  “I don’t think you should carry me, Rio. Your wounds will open.”

  “I will carry you.”

  And that, she thought, was that. The man had a stubborn streak. Hadn’t she noticed the squared cut of his chin from the first? Didn’t she warn herself not to argue?

  Ah, well, a small skirmish’s victory to him. She had a larger battle to be won. She draped her arms around his neck and snuggled her head on his shoulder. She felt his lips on her hair and sensed a smile on his mouth as he climbed the stairs.

  When they reached her room, he set her on her feet. Sarah blinked when he lit the lamp and turned it low. The light made her feel shy with him. She didn’t know why, but it did. About to tell him so, she stopped herself when he turned around to face her.

  There was a fierce hunger in his eyes, a look seemingly more intense because of the shadows. She reacted with a small tremor and a curl of heat that spread through her body.

  Rio reached out, grasping her shoulders. He pulled her close and kissed her with a quick, hard meeting of lips that betrayed the tension he had hidden so well.

  “By all the Irish saints, and every god of the Apache, Sarah, I swear I had never been so glad to see you and Lucas, and at the same time, wanted to shout you both out of there.”

  With her arms wrapped around his waist, she leaned her cheek against his bare chest. “I think I know exactly how you felt. I was never so afraid in my life. But it’s over and I don’t want to think about it now.”

  His hands tightened painfully on her arms. He could not rid himself of the memory of the danger she had put herself in to save him.

  “Stop it, Rio. You know it’s over. Don’t let the memory of what happened—”

  “You are right, Sarah. Wise and strong. And now—”

  “Now, you want to hold me, and kiss me and want me as much as I want you.”

  She suited action to words and drew his head down until his mouth hovered above hers. She kissed him with a fierce desperation that spoke more truly than words how deep her fear of the day’s events had penetrated.

  But passion had awakened, and passion left no room for fear.

  Rio caressed her hip, his hands sure as they opened the tie to her robe. With his palms flat against the upper curves of her breasts he parted the cloth, watching her as she watched his hands slide the material off her shoulders into a puddle at her bare feet.

  “Now you, Sarah.”

  She needed no coaxing as she moved to the buttons holding the ragged pants, nor did her hands tremble with the emotions that stirred awake. She wasn’t at all shy to touch his flesh, palms lightly skimming his sides, his slim hips, powerful thighs. But her hands shook as she curved them to cup his erect flesh, hot and satin smooth, telling her more potently than kisses or words how aroused he was, and how much he wanted her.

  And when Rio felt the tremors that shook her, he drew her closer. He caressed her from her bare nape down her slender back to the slight flare of her hips. He repeated the touching a second time, less gentle, deliberately arousing her and himself as their bodies pressed tight.

  Their lips met. The stroke of his tongue heavy, deeper. He held her hips, finding a cradle for his swollen flesh, feeling the heat from her breasts pressed against his chest.

  Sarah broke the kiss. She stepped back and drew him with her toward her bed, into deeper shadow. The air was cool on her bare flesh, quickly warmed by his touch, by a brief kiss and the heated murmurs of lovers still learning the other’s desire and need.

  She felt the press of the mattress on the backs of her legs and sat down, ready to roll closer to the wall and make room for Rio.

  He surprised her, holding her still as he went to his knees before her. A touch and her legs parted to make a space for him. His warm lips scattered kisses over her breasts, his hands cradling her lower back.

  A string of tiny love bites made her cry out. She grasped his shoulders, restless now that she knew what would come, what they could share.

  “Rio…Rio,” she whispered, her voice broken. She felt both strong and vulnerable to him.

  “Do not ask me to stop, Sarah. I cannot. I see and feel your need as my own.”

  “Yes.” A mere murmur, all she was capable of, for she did know that the same need clamored in his blood, in every taut nerve of his body.

  “Lovely, love
ly Sarah,” he said in a passion-rich voice, dark with promise. His head lowered and his heated lips claimed first one taut peak then the other.

  Sarah’s fingertips bit into his shoulders. His gentle suckling tightened every nerve in her body.

  “I awoke with the taste of you on my lips. A sweet and spiced, heated fire, Sarah. A fire that burned for me, with me. I carry the memory of your crying my name in need. Will you cry my name again?”

  Sarah closed her eyes, unable to answer him. She never knew a man would think such things, much less speak aloud of them. But this was Rio, a man apart from any other she had known.

  And his name was cried from her lips as her hands raced over his body. Deep inside she felt the sensual pull that had drawn her to him. His heated mouth bathed her flesh until she believed she was afire. A fire that burned for him, with him. A hungry fire that demanded his flesh be joined with hers.

  Each touch of his lips, each gentle tracery of his hands drove a fever to new heights. She was lying back, naked, open to him. For a moment there was fear, dispelled by his intimate touch. All but disappearing as his mouth trailed his own brand of fire down across the taut skin of her belly.

  She fought the instinctive need to protect that most feminine core. His hands slid from her hips to her thighs, gentle caresses soothing the momentary tension that gripped her.

  Sarah tunneled her hands through his long hair, uncertain of what he meant to do. And she heard his voice whispering, a dark passionate voice, words she did not understand. It was the tone, and the touch of his mouth that made her think of praise and sweet cherishing. All brought pleasure to her, and she knew she would deny him nothing that he asked of her.

  Rio was caught in learning new tastes of this woman who gave so much. Skin warm and sweet like cream, heat and trembling and the fire that waited his claiming.

  His hunger for her grew with every touch, every kiss. He longed to be gentle, to be a tender lover, but the small cries, the restless moves of her body all urged him to hurry.