Tides of Passion

by Sara Orwig

  “Look, Lianna—”

  “You’re losing time arguing. I’ll follow. There’s no way to stop me unless you take me back to Mendoza yourself.”

  “San Martín will send me back with you! He won’t allow a woman.”

  “He doesn’t need to know. At a distance, my appearance is deceptive, and I’ll trail at the end. No one except those with us now will know there’s a woman present.”

  “I can send Fletcher with you.”

  “You need every man you have,” she countered, meeting each argument he presented.

  “I’ll have to carry you across those peaks!”

  “No, you won’t. I won’t be a burden,” she promised.

  “I can’t take the time to fight with you. We don’t have the equipment to cross the mountains. We need to catch up with San Martín.”

  “Then why are we standing here?”

  Josh whirled his horse around and rode away. After the first startled second, Lianna shook the reins and urged her horse after him. When they reached the others, she rode behind the cluster of men, who merely nodded or murmured a brief greeting. Josh, however, didn’t glance her way again.

  As they climbed steadily, winding up the mountain on a rough and narrow trail, she felt Josh’s smoldering anger. Not once since he had turned to ride away had he looked back to see if she were following.

  Chilling thoughts tormented her. She knew that when they fought their way back to Santiago, Josh would kill the Count of Marcheno. Josh’s hatred, his deadly thirst for revenge, would always stand between them. Could she fully accept a man who would take another’s life cold-bloodedly? And of course there was Edwin. He waited for her, but she would have to tell him about her love for Josh. Gradually they reached a terrifying height. Lianna closed her eyes as the horses slowly walked along a ledge beside a great abyss. She could only concentrate on steadying her horse now.

  The wind howled and whistled across the vast space, while great Andean condors with their black wings spread soared and dipped between the peaks, hovering, as if waiting for a rider or horse to slip over the ridge and tumble hundreds of feet below. Above them on the mountains, snow drifted and patches of ice glistened in the sunlight. Lianna clung to the horse and kept her eyes on Josh’s squared shoulders. Twice, when they followed a hazardous trail along a winding, narrow ledge, he turned to gaze impassively at her. She tried to meet his cool stare with one equally composed.

  Late in the day they reached a slab of rock where there was barely room for the horses on a sloping ledge that was only a few feet wide. To their left was a straight wall of rock, to their right a drop hundreds of feet to snow-covered rocks. While wind howled and lashed them, Lianna leaned forward over the horse’s neck and clung tightly, closing her eyes. Her horse stumbled. She gasped as a hoof struck a rock and sent it plummeting over the side. She watched it tumble down the mountain, ricocheting off slabs of granite, then barreling down the sharp incline. As they slowly wound up the mountain, the sheer rock beside them changed to a snow-covered slope, while the ledge remained as narrow as before. Several times Josh glanced at her.

  Ahead, Fletcher’s horse whinnied, the sound echoing across the ridge. Within seconds there was a sharp crack from above, then a rumbling began. Snow and ice broke loose and cascaded down, gaining speed. “Go!” Josh yelled.

  Lianna gasped as she looked up at an avalanche rushing toward her.

  “Lianna!”

  Snow pelted Lianna, small chunks and sprays of fine flakes, while she urged her horse forward, feeling it lengthen its stride.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, terrified as snow struck her. She tried to keep from thinking about the open space to her right, but her palms were damp inside her gloves and she trembled when she felt the horse give a lunge forward.

  Lianna opened her eyes to see the narrow ledge fan out to a safer width. The men had halted to look back.

  Behind, tons of rock and snow slid downward with the roar of continual booming thunder. When it stopped, Lianna let out her breath, shivering as she looked at the place they had just crossed. The ledge she had ridden on was gone; only a slope of mountainside buried beneath glistening snow was left.

  Without a word, the men turned to ride ahead, leaving Lianna and Josh. He sat quietly, watching her with a strange smile hovering on his features. “You haven’t lost your bravery.”

  “I was terrified.”

  “So was everyone else.”

  “Even you?”

  “Of course.” He grinned and flicked his reins, moving his horse beside hers. His hat brim tilted low and almost hid his eyes. “I’ll always admire you, Lianna. Sometimes I want to shake you, but I still admire you.”

  “Am I supposed to say thank you?” she questioned, suddenly aware that the others had continued across the mountain and were lost to view. The wind blew with an eerie moan and whipped over them in cold gusts, blowing sprays of snow against them.

  “Look, we’re on top of the world.”

  She surveyed the panoramic view around them—jagged peaks, low clouds, blinding snow, and the sun an orange ball of fire about to disappear behind peaks to the west. But her gaze returned to Josh’s brilliant green eyes, whose golden flecks sparkled.

  He swung a leg over his horse and dropped to the ground. Pushing his hat to the back of his head, he took the reins from her hands and dropped them. “Get down, Lianna.”

  Despite the icy blasts of wind, Lianna felt a warm flush stain her cheeks. She looked into his determined eyes and hesitated.

  “I said come down here.”

  “How well you wear arrogance, Josh! We’ll lose the others…”

  When he reached up and pulled her down, her pounding heart drowned out the howl of the wind. His arms banded around her. “This is a special place, a special moment. We’ll be part of history.” With each word his voice grew thicker, until its raspy sound soothed her nerves. “We’ll always remember this.”

  He leaned down; his lips touched hers briefly, and a wild need burst between them. The force of the avalanche she had witnessed paled when compared with the sweeping passion that now filled her. She clung to his broad shoulders as if she could hold him forever. She wanted him desperately—and loved him completely.

  While the wind buffeted them, its wintry blasts unfelt, Josh held her to him. He wanted to push her down in the snow and take her there, to make her accept his life and stay with him no matter what he did. He shouldn’t have allowed her to journey with them, yet this morning, against all wisdom, he had yielded.

  He groaned deeply but the sound was muffled by their eager kisses. He knew she mistook his agony for passion. Time and again he wanted to tell her he would give up the sea and anything else she asked if she would remain his wife, but he couldn’t. He kissed her hungrily, wanting to run his fingers through her hair, feel her warmth pressed to him.

  When he moved his lips away and gazed at her, their ragged breathing filled the silence. Snowflakes drifted down, swirling lightly. She lifted her chin in a way that wrenched his heart. What went through her mind? “You’re in my blood,” he whispered. “I don’t think I’ll ever be free…”

  “You know I love you, Josh.”

  “Yet you won’t be my wife unless I settle down. You want to tame me. I can’t live that way, Lianna.”

  Lianna winced and turned to look for her horse. Why wouldn’t he give up pirating if he loved her? Was it his compelling need to possess everything around him? Or pure lust? She asked, “Josh, why do you have a lion’s head on so many belongings?”

  A strange look of hurt surfaced, then quickly vanished. “I had nothing for so long. I suppose I wanted to feel that some things in the world are absolutely mine.”

  She looked at him intently, seeing more than she had ever seen before, realizing they both had had so little love in their lives. And she was about to toss aside her one great love because he wouldn’t meet her demands. She frowned, feeling the wind lash her as her thoughts raged over the problem. So
me of Josh would be better than none, but when they returned to Santiago, could she live with his deliberate slaying of Quita’s husband?

  His face was a dark scowl as he swung her into the saddle. “We have to catch up with the others.”

  As he mounted swiftly and rode ahead, she looked at his broad back, his hat tilted back on his head. If he pulled her down again to take her, she would not resist him! She reined the horse and glanced back at the spot where they had just stood and kissed. It was the top of the world, a place where few would ever travel, kisses she would always remember, a moment swept by tides of passion that had changed her because she had reached a decision—she wanted her pirate husband under any circumstances!

  Catching up with the men, Josh rode ahead as Lianna rode behind in silence. She grew colder by the hour, but lost in her thoughts, she was barely aware of it. All her life she had yearned for love, discovering it first in Edwin, and then fully in Josh.

  Perhaps if she stopped seeking, and merely gave herself totally to Josh, who had grown up in a household as barren of love as her own—perhaps someday he would abandon his wild, dangerous way of life. And whether he did or not, she would have his love and she could offer hers in return.

  Lost in thought, she disregarded the snowflakes that pelted her face. She was his wife, she loved him—and she intended to stay with him forever!

  As if he sensed her thoughts, Josh wheeled his horse around and rode back to her. “Are you all right?”

  Nodding, she wrapped the warm woolen shawl around her neck and over the lower part of her face. She was suddenly heated by her determination to yield to Josh’s wishes, to return his love regardless of whether he went to sea or stayed by her side. And as for the Count of Marcheno—her mind was a blank. She would try to persuade Josh to forget his revenge; beyond that she refused to speculate. Josh rode ahead quietly, and she stared at his back. Tonight she intended to tell him of her love!

  The chill began to penetrate her clothing, until she ached for a warm fire and shelter. When they found a gentle slope, Josh called a halt.

  Nearby, a sheer rock wall thrust up out of the mountain, forming a small cave with a ledge jutting out a few feet in front. Josh and Fletcher climbed over the rocks, disappearing inside the cave. Within minutes they came down to join the others.

  “You’ll sleep up there in the shelter, Lianna,” Josh said, pointing to the cave. “It’s not large enough for all of us.”

  While the men pitched the tents and built a fire from sticks and firewood carried by one of the mules, Lianna began to work alongside Collo, acutely conscious of Josh’s presence. When she saw Fletcher crawl inside a tent and he didn’t reappear, she asked Josh about him.

  “He has soroche, mountain sickness. If you feel ill, tell me.” He grinned. “The cure may be worse than the illness.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Garlic and onions. Fletcher’s chewing on them—which, thank heaven, neither you nor I have needed yet.”

  As he walked away, she went back to helping cook ground charqui, jerked beef, peppers, and cornmeal, which they boiled in iron pots. When they sat down to eat in a circle around a roaring fire, Fletcher, whose normally tan skin was ashy gray, joined them but ate little. While they ate, Josh said, “In Mendoza, I talked to Agustín Padilla, one of San Martín’s men who was too ill to go. We should catch up with them tomorrow, because we can travel faster.”

  “Did Padilla tell you the plans?” Fletcher asked.

  “Yes.” Josh picked up a stick and drew a long line in the snow. “Here are the Andes. General Juan de Las Heras will take a division and the heavy artillery and go through Uspallata Pass.” He drew another line at a right angle to the first.

  “General Miguel Salas, San Martín, and O’Higgins, with two divisions, will go farther north.”

  As Josh etched a third groove in the snow, Lianna looked at his head bent over the lines. Orange flames highlighted his cheekbones and wide forehead. Dark lashes fringed his cheeks as he looked down. What a complicated man he was—charming yet sensual, kind yet bent on revenge. Could he be bound by an emotion stronger than hate?

  His green eyes shifted to hers, and she blushed. He paused, frowning slightly as he focused on her. He had the most unsettling way of discerning her thoughts. She looked down at her hands, and Josh went on with his explanation.

  “San Martín, O’Higgins, and Salas will take this route, Paso de Los Patos. San Martín has his squadron of grenadiers.”

  “Dios!” Collo said. “The highest points in the cordillera.”

  “How can they get over the two highest, least-traveled passes?” Fletcher asked. “We had a damned difficult time today on lower peaks.”

  “Only time will determine if it’s possible,” Josh said quietly. “They’ve copied the Incas’ methods and have made rope bridges. Fray Beltrán, who’s now an artillery commander, has made fifty thousand horseshoes for horses and mules from the pampas. Just as we’re doing, they’re carrying everything—fodder, grain, firewood, blankets, twenty-five thousand pounds of jerked beef, hundreds of swords, cannon, two thousand cannonballs, salt, corn.”

  “With that many men and animals, we should catch up with them soon,” Collo said.

  “I hope we’ll be with them tomorrow,” Josh replied.

  “I pray this time we succeed in gaining independence,” Collo said as he flung another small log on the fire. “We’ve tried before and failed. Chile should be free.”

  “Freedom is a valuable thing,” Josh said, and Lianna turned to look into eyes which reflected dancing orange flames from the fire. “Come, Lianna,” he said as he stood, “I’ll see you to bed. We rise early in the morning.”

  Her heart thudded in anticipation, and she moved eagerly away from the fire.

  Gathering an armload of firewood and handing Lianna a torch to carry, Josh led the way, their boots crunching as they left the men and climbed the rocks up to the cave. Once inside, Josh stacked the wood carefully and ignited it with the torch he took from her hands.

  “I brought hides up earlier.”

  She stepped into a space that was large enough for the two of them and spread the soft brown guanaco hides which lay on the smooth rock floor of the cave.

  Outside the mouth of the cave, the wood began to catch and burn, crackling in the silence. Its fiery blaze created a screen of privacy and gave a rosy glow to the inside of the cave.

  But the warmth from the fire was not what heated Lianna’s blood. She pulled off her boots and looked up as Josh ducked his head and entered. He stood a few feet away, his long legs planted apart, his hat pushed to the back of his head with brown locks of hair escaping. The air between them was tense, filled with unspoken words.

  “I’ll join the men now. This may be our last night before we reach the army.”

  “Josh, when the battles are over, can you ever forget the Marchenos?”

  “I’ve explained my feelings to you. It’s a constant hurt. I owe revenge to Phillip, to Terrence, to all those men.”

  She shook her head. “If it were the other way around, would you want Phillip to sacrifice everything to take another’s life? Quita carries their baby.”

  He drew a sharp breath, but the hardness of his jaw was proof of his resolve. “I can’t help what eats on my soul!”

  “No matter how steeped in hate you are…” She paused and held her breath. “I love you and I want to remain your wife whether you’re a pirate or not.”

  He inhaled deeply and his chest expanded. “And what about Edwin Stafford?”

  She pulled off her hat and shook her head, her hair tumbling down. “I don’t love Edwin. I love only you.”

  “I shouldn’t have forced you into marriage, Lianna. You may be too young to know what you want. And I’ve crossed swords once with Edwin over you. I imagine we’ll cross swords again.”

  She hadn’t thought of Edwin fighting Josh for her, and she knew Edwin wouldn’t, once she told him of her love for Josh. She pulled o
ff her coat and reached up to untie the laces of her shirt. When she pushed the neck open, Josh drew in his breath.

  The fire outlined Josh’s frame; his shadow loomed gigantic on the walls of rock. Desire flamed in the depths of his eyes.

  “You said Luisa wasn’t your mistress. Why not?”

  His chest expanded and each word came out with effort. “You came between us each time I was with her.”

  Relief and joy were as solid as the rocks of the cave. Watching him, she tugged her shirt down over one shoulder, baring her creamy flesh. A blush heated her cheeks, yet it was the only way she could give to him totally. He waited. She could see his chest rise and fall rapidly, then grow rigid as she slipped off the other shoulder of the shirt and dropped it around her waist.

  The crackling fire faded to nothing, dwindled by the roaring in Josh’s ears. Her words pounded in him: “I love you.” Had she truly forgotten Edwin Stafford? Josh wanted to take her, and to keep her forever, to believe her without question. He stood, feeling the hot surge in his loins as she pushed off the shirt, then slipped away her cambric chemise.

  He clenched his fists with restraint as desire burned in him. Then, remembering her shyness, he began to comprehend the depth of her actions as she slowly undressed before him, her blue eyes never leaving his. Lianna began to unfasten her breeches. With each garment that fell away came the clear message of the love she wanted to give. And Josh felt as if he were finally becoming whole, finding all he needed and all he had longed for through the years. She was lovely, the only woman he wanted, and she had known so little love in her life, he wanted to make it all up to her.

  Moving forward, coming to stand before her, his fingers reaching out to finish the task, his breath ragged, he looked into her eyes. “You’re sure?” he asked hoarsely.

  Standing on tiptoe, Lianna raised her mouth and met his lips, trying to show him that she loved him without qualification.

  His coat fell open, and she reached up to push his hat off his head—to run her fingers in his hair and drink in the taste, the smell, the feel of the man whom she loved. Love which she wanted to bestow until he was bound by it.