He listened to the low lyrical sound of her voice. She seemed so different tonight, nothing at all like the serious spirit woman she’d been on the trail. He liked this woman who laughed and wanted to dance the fandango. He suspected that he was seeing a side of her that no one else had ever known. That made him unexpectedly happy. If only they had the time to stop and enjoy that new Raven. But that couldn’t happen—yet.
“Get undressed, Raven,” he whispered.
“If that’s what you want,” he imagined her saying in return.
But Tucker couldn’t lurk around in the corridor waiting for Rosalita to leave. That would be awkward. He’d check out the party with an eye to making their escape unobserved.
Señor Hildalgo intercepted Tucker as he entered the courtyard. “I think you ought to know that there is a great deal of interest in an old miner who took part in a poker game a few days ago.”
“I heard about it,” Tucker said casually. “There must be many tales like that circulating about.”
“Of course. And there are many lost treasures in the hills. But once such a treasure is found, not many people have the means to dispose of it discreetly. I do.”
The gauntlet was thrown, the challenge issued. Tucker considered his options. First the reporter, now the banker. “If there was such a treasure, and it was found, a man like you would be an asset to the finder.”
“Then we understand each other?” the banker asked.
“I think we do,” Tucker said, then turned away and disappeared on the pretense of having another glass of wine. For the next half hour, he mingled with the guests, making certain that those present knew that Raven was already in bed and that they would be leaving late in the morning to view local lands for sale.
Then he slipped to the stables, where he staked out a carriage and a horse drawn up to the outer ring of conveyances. Traveling by buggy would be slower, but unharnessing the carriage or separating and saddling horses might draw attention.
Satisfied that their means of escape was set, he stole around the wall to the outer staircase leading up to the balcony overlooking the courtyard. Once he reached Raven’s darkened room, he found it a simple matter to enter from the outside.
“Where have you been?” She slid her arms around his neck and lifted her lips for a kiss. “I got undressed as you wanted.”
Christ! She’d heard his whisper.
Rosalita might have convinced Raven to don her nightdress, but she wasn’t wearing it now.
“I’ve been toasting our new partnership with Mr. Small,” he stammered. “Where are your clothes?”
“I don’t know. Did you satisfy Mr. Small’s questions?”
Tucker opened his mouth to answer and groaned instead as she placed one of his hands on her bottom and pulled the other around her waist.
“Let’s just say he’s feeling very good about things. Raven—”
“Tucker, I’m feeling very good too,” she whispered. “Or I will be when you stop being so—” she laughed lightly, “stiff, and kiss me back.” She didn’t know how to flirt; she’d never had any reason to before.
But tonight she wanted Tucker to see her as a woman.
“Kiss me, Tucker, please?”
Tucker groaned. “Raven, there is no way a man could touch you and not be completely and totally aroused. But we can’t do this now. We have to go.”
“Go?” she said in disbelief. “You mean leave tonight—now?”
“Yes. Mr. Small won’t sleep forever. Our trustworthy banker is entirely too interested in the possibility of lost treasure. I don’t think we should stay here any longer. We have everything we need. Plus, we have the element of surprise.”
“Are you sure?” she asked in a voice filled with disappointment. “Couldn’t we wait, just a little while? I thought …”
“I know what you thought, and yes, I’m sure. The celebration will continue all night. We’ll never have a better time to escape than while the fiesta is in full force.”
Raven, pleasantly tipsy on wine and desire, knew that what he said made sense. She understood the logic in Tucker’s thinking, but the logical side of her nature seemed to have disappeared. Tonight she was a woman possessed. She had found the man she wanted. She’d never imagined that she would feel like this, never even wished for it. But it had come like a hot storm and encircled her, filling her mind with physical yearnings, destroying her control. She was lost, caught up in the moment, for one night putting her own desire above her mission.
“Please, Tucker. Before we go, just one kiss—one kiss.”
“Raven, please,” Tucker growled. “There’s just so much a man can take. Remember your promise to Flying Cloud.”
Flying Cloud. Raven felt a curtain of ice fall over her. Stunned by her behavior, she pulled away, a small part of her hurt by Tucker’s inability to understand how much she needed him to comfort and hold her, the other ashamed of her loss of purpose. For once she hadn’t wanted him to be her strong and wise protector. She’d wanted him as a woman wants a man. And she was just beginning to understand that kind of power.
But he was right. She had given herself to a greater cause. She had no choice, she’d let him go, but first—
She kissed him one last time, a punishing, hard kiss that told him what he’d missed, what might not be offered again.
For just a moment, Tucker allowed himself to give in. He returned her kiss, tightening his arm around her waist possessively, pulling her against him. It was time he showed her that he could feel and return her desire. That she couldn’t shut off his feelings as she did her own. That when the time came, they’d face this fire between them and there would be no going back.
His fingers tore through her hair, savagely pulling her head closer, capturing her mouth, delving inside the hot sweetness with his tongue. His hand cupped her breast, tweaking her nipple as he pressed his stiff manhood against her, finding the crease between her legs where he most wanted to be.
At first she gave as good as she got, using her own hands to explore, sliding lower until she found the object of her search. His neck muscles strained beneath one hand as the other encircled him intimately.
“Raven!”
“Yes?”
“Stop that, now!”
“Of course.” She let him go and, using every ounce of her self-control, stepped away. “You see, Tucker Farrell, we are bound together, all parts of us, for now. This I know, though I do not yet understand all that it means. But we will dance to the music of the spirits. Sooner or later you’ll understand.”
She turned away and pulled on her buckskin dress, leaving her colorful fiesta clothes behind. “I’m know I’m not Mrs. Tucker Farrell and I never will be. No matter how much I’ve let myself pretend tonight, there is no place in my life for love.”
Raven the spirit woman was back.
It was Tucker who was confused and uncertain.
Love? Where in hell had that come from? He didn’t know anything about love, didn’t want to, refused to consider that possibility. Even the word scared him silly. He was a man who’d been given a responsibility that offered the means to realize a long-forgotten dream. Love didn’t, couldn’t, enter into it. Love guaranteed failure.
He’d see that this woman found her treasure, for which he’d be rewarded. Then he’d go to Oregon and find the life he’d turned his back on so many years ago.
And Raven? What lay in store for her? Would she follow her dream alone?
That thought lay heavy on his heart, along with unexpected pain.
13
Shame—and guilt, that’s what Raven felt as they slipped through the darkness past the open gate and toward the carriages beyond.
For one night she’d put herself and her feelings above her sworn oath, something she’d never thought she’d do. Her people were depending on her, and she’d almost allowed herself to be caught up in her desire for this man.
Tucker had never faltered.
She’d been the one to
fail.
The cougar and the raven were two different species; they didn’t belong together. She was a spirit woman, charged with the future of the Arapaho people. Tucker was a drifter with no past and no future. Why he’d been chosen to accompany her, she couldn’t know. But she did know that in some way she had been tested.
Once they reached the carriage, she climbed in, ignoring Tucker’s caution to be quiet. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to, so deep had she sunk in her misery. At every turn they’d encountered danger, possible failure, ever relentless enemies ready to take what she was charged to find. And at every turn, Tucker had found a way to free them and move them closer to her objective.
Tucker was the strength; she was the vision. But she’d become a willow in the wind, unstable, fragile. How could the Grandfather have chosen her? Swift Hand, though still finding his way, was stronger. Even he understood the power of their quest and the spirit world that commanded it.
“You know that what you are experiencing is desire, and it is the most powerful emotion on earth,” Tucker finally said.
She didn’t answer.
“Few people ever truly understand what it is for two bodies to be perfectly in tune with each other. Women sometimes give their love to a man who doesn’t appreciate the gift.”
“I don’t wish to discuss it,” she said. “It was the wine. It won’t happen again.”
“It wasn’t the wine, Raven, and under other circumstances I would have taken what you offered and given you what you need.”
“I said, I don’t wish to discuss it.”
“All right, but it is still there and it’s not going to go away.”
Something about her stern countenance worried him. What she might have felt back at the fiesta was gone. The passion of her kisses in their room might never have been. The woman riding beside him as they reached the outskirts of San Felipe seemed to have turned to stone.
Still dressed in his black Spanish clothing, Tucker climbed down from the carriage and helped Raven dismount. He released the horse and watched as it wandered off and began to graze on the thick prairie grass nearby. On foot they slowly made their way into the square and quietly across the darkened plaza toward the livery stable. A few coins to the proprietor was the best Tucker could do to ensure his silence. It wouldn’t last long, but at least they’d have a head start on anyone asking after them.
Gathering their newly purchased supplies, Tucker packed them on a skittish Yank and Onawa. They would have been better served with a burro, but there was none to be had. Soon they were traveling down the same road they’d watched the bandits ride out on when they arrived.
Raven would have asked about his plans, but she’d made up her mind that Tucker’s instincts were trustworthy. He understood many practical things that she did not. As much as she would have liked to go on alone, she understood that was not meant to be.
“Do you intend to remain silent for the rest of our journey?” he finally asked.
“No. Do you think it is wise to talk when we might be heard?”
“If anybody listening doesn’t hear our horses, they won’t hear our conversation.”
“All right, then, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”
Tucker wanted to shake her, to arouse some emotion in her, to bring back the woman he’d traveled with up to now. But he had no choice but to wait for her to get past what had happened and her reaction to it. They’d both been loners for too long. Sooner or later they had to become a team again, or their mission was doomed to failure.
Perhaps that was to be their fate. If the treasure was never found, there would be no saving the Arapaho. There would be no land in Oregon. But there would be no parting either.
What did he really want?
Your daughter is very lovely, Señor Hildalgo,” Porfiro observed. “She will make a very good marriage, no?”
“That is not what you are here to talk about. Are you prepared to follow Señora and Señor Farrell when they leave?”
“Si. By morning I will have my men just beyond the walls of the courtyard.”
“Not too close. We don’t want them to know you’re behind them. I think it will be much easier to let them lead you to the mine.”
“You are sure about the gold and the jewel? People have searched for the Lost Spanish Treasure for hundreds of years without finding it.”
“I’m sure that both the gold and the ruby are at least two hundred years old. The setting for the jewel is Spanish, and the design is Old World. Yes. I believe we have found it.”
Señor Hildalgo leaned back in his desk chair and gave a deep, satisfied sigh. He had considered sending for Porfiro a long time before. Already a wealthy man, he had visions of building an empire here where the territory of New Mexico and old Mexico joined. Soon more Americans would come, and if he owned the land, he would be as well-to-do as the father of the man his daughter would marry. He cut a sharp eye toward the Mexican bandit.
“You know, of course,” the banker said, “if you get any idea of taking this all yourself, you’ll lose all claim to your family’s land.”
“Si. I understand. We will split the treasure. You will buy all the land and I will return a portion of my treasure to you for the land that once belonged to my family.”
“Fine. We are agreed.”
There was a moment of silence before the two men returned to the courtyard.
On the couch Lawrence Small kept very still. He didn’t think that Tucker and Raven had any idea that the banker was about to try to cheat them. Of the three, Lawrence much preferred taking his chances on the big American and his wife to Señor Hildalgo. But what to do?
The newspaperman lay there contemplating the situation until he decided that he had to warn them. Perhaps if they appreciated his actions, they’d take him along. That was exactly what he wanted. To go on a treasure hunt himself.
He could see the story now, splashed across the New York City streets. Son of wealthy publisher finds long-lost Spanish treasure.
Once he was certain that his host had left the room, Lawrence stole quietly into the hall and up the stairs. Outside the Farrells’ room, he knocked. Lightly at first, then more firmly.
“Mr. Farrell, open the door. It’s very important that I speak with you.”
Nothing.
He moved to the next door and tried the knob. The door opened easily to reveal an empty room, maid’s quarters, he’d guess. Slipping inside, Lawrence closed the door behind him. Odd, the door between the rooms was locked. Next he tried the balcony, stepping out into the shadows. He moved silently down to the Farrells’ room. That door opened easily.
Empty.
There were no sleeping forms in the beds, no portmanteaus or cases. No clothing left behind.
They were gone.
For a moment Lawrence was puzzled. Then he understood. It had been an elaborate hoax. Tucker Farrell had obviously drugged him with the wine to prevent his interference. Señor Hildalgo and a Mexican called Porfiro were planning to follow them the next day when they’d announced they were going to look at land. Obviously the Farrells had drummed up the injured ankle and the early retirement so that they could leave during the fiesta.
“Rats!”
Lawrence considered his situation. Maybe if he hurried, he could still catch up with the pair, warn them, and ask them to take him along.
But first he made up the bed to look as if someone were sleeping there. With a little finagling, he discovered the door to the balcony could be latched from the inside, then closed, leaving the room locked.
He’d found out before they came that they’d left their supplies at the livery stable. It made sense that they would reclaim them. Now all he had to do follow them, rent a horse, and find someone who could tell him which way they’d gone.
Borrowing a buggy wasn’t theft, if he let the horse go at the edge of the small town. Lawrence watched the horse return the same way he’d come, then walked the rest of the way to the
livery stable.
“Hello?”
The stable was dark. Nobody answered.
“I said, hello inside. I need to rent a conveyance.”
A curse followed, then a thump, and the door opened. “Who be you?”
“I’m Lawrence Small. I’m a newspaperman and I’d like some information.”
The door slammed. “Come back when I’m open.”
“No, please, I’m willing to pay. I need a mount.”
“Only got one sorry horse. He’s an ornery old cuss, belonged to a priest till he had to sell him to pay for food for his flock of sinners.”
Half an hour later, Lawrence was riding a bony horse and heading out of town, in the same direction he’d been told that an American and his lady friend had gone earlier. It had cost Lawrence a large portion of his funds, but he was certain that the proprietor of the stable wouldn’t tell anyone else what he’d learned.
Now if he could just get the horse to cooperate.
Suddenly the stubborn animal began a determined trot off the main trail in another direction.
Lawrence yelled and pulled on the reins. But the horse kept going, and Lawrence, holding on for dear life, went along.
So much for fame and fortune. He’d been tricked. He would be lucky to save his life.
As the trail narrowed and began to climb toward the mountains, Yank began to fight Tucker’s control. The night, already cloudy, darkened even more. Black racing clouds fled across the sky in pursuit of the moon, shrouding it momentarily, then releasing it as a moaning wind hurled itself down the canyon.
In the face of danger, Tucker urged Yank forward. They needed to make as much progress as possible before they were missed. Even then, those in pursuit would know the direction they’d taken and be on their trail. He wished he had a better idea of where the treasure was, if there was a treasure. He wished there were another way other than returning to Luce’s cabin.
Raven and the Cowboy: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 16
