by Janet Dailey
Her tear-moistened lashes opened slowly, her gaze drawn to the unyielding coldness of Ráfaga’s eyes. Sheila had to endure his freezing regard for only a second before the door opened to divert his attention.
This time Sheila had cause to shudder. Two men were dragging and carrying a third man into the room. A wave of revulsion filled her at the sight of him. He was shirtless, his stout, naked torso exposed. Despite his fatness, Sheila knew his muscles were not flaccid. A crude bandage was wrapped around his broad waist, the material stained scarlet with his own blood.
Ráfaga could not doubt her now, Sheila thought as her embittered gaze slid to him. His features were drawn in ruthless, cruel lines, coldly remote. The lamplight caught the gleam of something metallic in his hand. Sheila glanced down to see a knife in his hand, Juan’s knife, the knife she had used to stab him. Ráfaga took a slow, menacing step toward the man being held.
The look in his eyes struck cold terror in her heart. Ráfaga was going to kill him. She knew it. Sheila even wanted to see Ortega die, yet some part of her recoiled from what was happening.
When Ráfaga took the second step, Brad’s murderer must have realized his intention and began babbling in Spanish. His voice was almost whining. Sheila glanced at Ráfaga, expecting to see contempt etched in his hard features. He was standing rigidly in place, his shoulders stiffened. A muscle was twitching in his jaw.
There was a subtle change in the atmosphere. Sheila felt the attention of the others in the room shift to her. Her gaze swerved upward to Laredo’s face. He was looking at her, searching her features with a mixture of skepticism and grimness. A cold chill raced down her spine.
“What’s the matter?” she asked warily. “What’s he saying about me?” Sheila demanded a translation.
Laredo eyed her for a minute before he spoke. “He said he was on guard outside and you came to the door, motioning for him to come in. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but it was nighttime and he thought there might be something wrong.”
Sheila began shaking her head, moving away from the arm around her shoulders. “No!” she denied vehemently.
“He said you began talking to him,” Laredo continued. “He didn’t understand what you were saying, but he thought you wanted to leave the canyon and that you wanted him to help you. When he refused, you came closer to him and let the blanket fall to the floor. Then you put your arms around him and he lost his head. That’s when you grabbed his knife and stabbed him. He said he had been tricked and that you would have run away if he hadn’t struck you.”
“It isn’t true!” she protested strongly.
“He swears by the Holy Virgin it is,” Laredo replied flatly.
“It isn’t true!” Sheila turned to Ráfaga. Unconsciously, she crossed the space that separated them. “It isn’t true!” she repeated.
It was imperative that Ráfaga believe her. But he was so distant, like a bronze statue regarding her with sightless eyes. She knew both he and Laredo were remembering the time she had tried to enlist Laredo’s aid in escaping. Clutching the blanket with one hand, Sheila moved closer to him, curving an arm around the muscles of his waist.
“Not a word of what he told you is true!” Her voice was husky with emotion. “He came to our room while I was sleeping. He tried to force himself on me. Why do you think I begged you to hold me and kiss me?”
Something flickered in his eyes, a smouldering light that warmed Sheila. His arm instinctively circled her back to draw her to his muscular frame. The blanket slipped from one shoulder and his hand settled on the bareness of her skin, a half-caress. Then Juan, her attacker, spoke again and Sheila felt the warmth withdraw from Ráfaga’s touch.
“What did he say?” Sheila pressed closer to Ráfaga, trying to breach the barrier he had suddenly erected.
“He said you wound around him like a serpent, too.” His voice was flat and unemotional, but his fingers dug punishingly into her shoulder. “He said you bewitched him the way you are trying to bewitch me.”
“Oh!” It was a stifled cry of protest. Sheila tried to twist out of his arms, but Ráfaga held her fast.
“You do not bewitch me,” he said lowly, “nor do you escape from me.” Retaining his grip on her, Ráfaga spoke rapidly in Spanish to the others.
Sheila stopped struggling. She lacked the strength to fight him, and it would have been useless, anyway. When Ráfaga finished, the two men holding Juan released him. Her attacker’s reaction was a mixture of relief and fear. Everyone, including Laredo, quietly left the house.
Her head was bowed, a wet mist clouding her eyes. “You let him go,” Sheila accused in a voice low with pain.
“He disobeyed an order. For that he will be punished,” Ráfaga stated.
“And me?” she retorted bitterly. “Am I to be punished because I was almost raped?”
He exhaled an impatient, angry breath and abruptly let her go. “It is late.”
“I’m not tired.” But her voice sounded very tired. “And I’m certainly not going to bed with you!”
“Sheila—” he began angrily.
“Earlier it was ‘señora.’ Now it’s Sheila,” she interrupted with bitter sarcasm. “Why? Because you want me to lie in bed with you! Well, you can go to hell!” She was visibly trembling.
“I have been away for three days wondering if you would be here when I returned.” His nostrils were flared in anger. “Now I am back and it is still hell. But you are still mine. You will lie with me—here or in the bedroom. It makes no difference.”
“Don’t you dare come near me!” Sheila hissed. She was breathing deeply, frightened by the hard, ruthless look to his face.
His mouth twisted in a cold smile. With calm deliberation, he began stripping, shedding his clothes and seeming to discard the cloak of civilization along with them. Sheila’s heart pounded madly, half in fear and half in response to the sudden gnawing tightness in her stomach. His body gleamed in the lamplight like hard, polished bronze. When he stood before her, she shook her head in mute protest to what he demanded.
“Lay the blanket on the floor,” Ráfaga ordered.
No, no, no! Sheila was screaming inside, but she felt her hands unwrapping the blanket from around her. There her compliance stopped and the blanket slipped from her hands into a heap on the floor. His dark eyes began an insolent appraisal, traveling from head to toe and back.
His hand reached out to grip the curve of her waist and draw her unresisting body against the hard contours of his. With his right hand, he cupped the back of her neck and forced her head up to his lips.
It was a hard, brutal kiss, filled with anger. Shocked by the absence of any fiery passion, Sheila tried to resist, but his arms were iron-strong and unrelenting. She couldn’t escape the bruising menace of his mouth.
With a dangerous and cruel sensuality, he parted her lips. Her breasts were crushed against the wall of his chest. The male hands on her back were arching her hips to him, quivering down her backbone. Then he was pressing her backward and down until the hard floor was beneath her shoulder blades.
Afterward Ráfaga carried her to the bedroom. Bruised and slightly battered by his animal possession, Sheila didn’t make a sound as he put her on the bed. She was unaware of the hurt, wounded look in her eyes, but Ráfaga studied it as he gazed down at her.
Turning, he walked to the dresser and lit the lamp. Sheila lifted a protective hand to her eyes, shielding them and her face from the light. She heard his footsteps as he left the room. He returned within seconds to cover her nakedness with the blanket she had dropped in the main room.
“Why is all this water on the floor?” It was a demand and a question.
The savage intimacy ending only minutes ago made it difficult for Sheila to assimilate his question. She frowned, trying to collect her wits.
“It’s—it’s from bathing,” she said, finally remembering. Her troubled eyes saw him pick up the pitcher by the basin. “It’s empty. I used it all.”
“Why
?” Ráfaga demanded with a Satanic lift of one dark brow.
“For obvious reasons.” Sheila ran a shaking hand through her hair in agitation and she shuddered as she remembered the very urgent reason. “I felt dirty, contaminated from—from him,” she said, unable to refer directly to her attacker. “I had to wash—to scrub away filthy traces of him, but I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like. My God, you don’t even believe me!” There was a trembling catch in her voice as she hurled the last sentence at him.
Turning her face to the wall, Sheila jammed a fist against her mouth, trying to swallow the unbearable lump in her throat. Again she heard Ráfaga approaching the bed and she closed her eyes tight.
“Here,” he said.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was offering his saddlebags to her. She stared at them coldly, tears burning the backs of her eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
He tossed the bags on the bed beside her, then walked to the dresser. “I bought you some clothes since you were so reluctant to wear any castoffs of Elena’s.”
Sheila didn’t quite believe him and unfastened the flaps to dump the contents of the saddlebags onto the bed. She stared at the clothes that tumbled out: a pair of Levi’s, a skirt, and at least one other pair of slacks, as well as several blouses. Her stunned fingers singled out a cranberry-colored silk blouse for closer inspection.
“I thought the color would complement your fairness,” Ráfaga said quietly. Sheila turned to him, finding herself lost in the compelling darkness of his eyes.
Even though he was across the room from her, she could feel the dominating force of his presence. Sheila broke free of his gaze.
“Where did you get them?” She glanced at the clothes on the bed, a corner of her mouth lifting with wry bitterness. “Don’t tell me you raided a store?”
“I bought them at a store.” His voice underlined the verb.
“Why?” Sheila challenged.
“Because, as you have pointed out many times, you needed clothes.”
“Is this some sort of appeasement for holding me a prisoner here? Because, if it is, it won’t work,” she snapped. “What you would really prefer is that I have no clothes at all. That way whenever you felt a surge of lust, you could take me without wasting the time to strip off my clothes.” With a sweep of her hand, she pushed the clothes to the floor. “I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you.” Sarcasm filled her voice.
“You are refusing them?” Ráfaga impaled her on his spearing gaze.
Her amber eyes flashed with sparks of anger. “Maybe I should throw them in your face so you’ll be certain of my message.” Sheila saw the thinning of his mouth. “Don’t pretend you were trying to be thoughtful; if you were, you would let me go instead of holding me here!”
He turned his back to her, his hand doubled into a fist on the dresser top. “You hate it very much here, do you not?” It was a flat, unemotional statement.
“Hate?” She laughed a bitter, throaty laugh. “How odd that you should choose that word, considering that five minutes ago you didn’t make love to me—you made ‘hate’ to me!”
“Sí,” Ráfaga admitted, pivoting to walk slowly to the bed. “I took you in anger a moment ago.” He loomed above her like a bronze god.
“Why?” Sheila felt the chill of his coldness. “Did you want to finish what Juan started? The only thing I was trying to escape from was him. The very day you left I saw him and I knew he would be waiting out there for me if I tried to get away. I thought I would be safe from him if I did as you said, staying in the house or going out only with the other Juan. I thought your word could protect me, but it didn’t. When I think of the way I fell into your arms when you returned, it makes me sick. I’m not even safe with you. You proved that when you called me a liar and raped me!”
The mattress shifted beneath his weight. Sheila tried to roll away from him, but he caught her wrists and spreadeagled her arms above her head. Pinned, she stopped struggling as she waited for him to make use of his advantage.
“I believe you when you say Juan tried to rape you,” he said grimly. “I believe you stole his knife and stabbed him to defend your honor.”
“Then, why?” Sheila cried her confusion. “Why did you listen to him?”
“Because I think you may have invited him into the house,” he answered. “You had to know tonight was your last chance of escaping before I returned. And I know you would make an empty promise of your body to any man who helped you. You have done it before with Laredo.” Sheila groaned and turned her head away. “I think you asked him, believing you could control him, only to discover you could not.”
“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t!” she protested, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.
“Not a moment ago, you said you wanted to be free,” Ráfaga reminded her coldly, “that you wanted to escape. You admitted what I already knew. Perhaps there was truth in each of your stories. I could not kill him for wanting you, or I would have to kill myself, because I, too, feel the desire to possess you.”
The moist warmth of his breath was against her cheek. Sheila stiffened at the tantalizing brush of his mouth over her lips. His weight was settling on top of her. She twisted her head away from his light, exploring kiss.
“Don’t” she protested, aching. The blanket scratched the nakedness of her flesh as it was trapped between their bodies.
“That is one reason why there was no gentleness in my heart when I took you.” His voice was muffled by her hair, its anger directed at himself. “The other reason was that I knew Juan Ortega was right when he said you had bewitched me. For three days you haunted my vision, lioness. At night, it was the remembered feel of your softness beside me.”
His teeth nibbled at her earlobe, sending shivers over her skin. This was the seductive mastery Sheila remembered, this velvet over steel. She was being commanded again to take part in the lovemaking, to receive satisfaction, as well as give it.
“You have bewitched me, lioness,” he murmured again against her mouth, a roughness still in his tone, “into wanting you. It is only right that I make you want me.”
Chapter 17
An unnatural silence filled the house. Standing at the front window, Sheila glanced over her shoulder. She frowned as she realized Consuelo had left without her usual smiling “buenos días.” This unnerving silence must have affected her, too, Sheila decided.
Her fingers touched the buttoned front of her blouse. Dispassionately, Ráfaga had ordered her to wear the clothes he had brought her. It was the last thing Sheila could remember him saying directly to her.
His marked indifference this morning and this noon made a mockery of his attention to her last night. Sexually, she must have bewitched him, but he certainly wasn’t under her spell in any other way.
In some ways it seemed to Sheila as if the reverse were true. She wavered between love and hate whenever he was around, like a barometer trapped between two conflicting fronts. She wondered how much longer these two emotions could war with each other before one of them came out a victor.
The sound of horses’ hooves turned Sheila’s attention out the window. Juan rode into view, leading her roan mare, Arriba, and Ráfaga’s bay. The back of her neck prickled in warning. Sheila pivoted to find Ráfaga standing in the middle of the room, his entrance made with animal silence. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot of longing as she met his hooded look, impassive and aloof.
“Juan is here with the horses.” She tried to sound natural and calm. “I presume we’re going for a ride.” It came out brittle and challenging.
“No.”
“Then, why—” She started to look out the window again.
“It is time for the punishment of Juan Ortega. The midday sun is hot and it is a long walk to the place. I thought you would prefer to ride,” Ráfaga stated. A sardonic glint flickered in his eyes as he added, “Do you wish to see his punishment?”
“I—” Sheila hesitated. S
he wasn’t certain exactly how she felt, except that she wanted to erase all memory of Juan’s attack from her mind.
“You were anxious enough last night to drive a knife into his back and later to have me kill him for you. Has your stomach become weak with the rising of the sun?”
Sheila read between the lines. Ráfaga was accusing her of having a guilty conscience, of having invited Juan into the house without being prepared to face the consequences. He was suggesting that in the harsh light of day, she might feel equally to blame for what happened because of her supposed invitation.
“No, it hasn’t,” she snapped angrily. “I shall enjoy seeing him punished.”
There was a slight inclination of his dark head in arrogant acceptance of her decision. “The horses are outside.”
Sheila stalked past him to the door. A silent and solemn-faced Juan handed her the mare’s reins. Ráfaga’s fingers touched her elbow to assist her in mounting. She pulled away, disdainfully rejecting his offer.
Astride the saddle, her smouldering eyes saw Juan’s gaze fix on the purpling mark along her jaw. She had seen the disfiguring bruise in the mirror and knew how ugly it looked.
“La señora is all right?” Juan asked with gentle concern.
“I’m fine.” But her response was much sharper than she had intended.
As she clamped her teeth shut tightly, a twinge of pain shot along her jaw. Reining the mare around, Sheila guided the animal toward the distant cluster of houses.
She knew their destination—that hollowed piece of ground beyond the corral. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Ráfaga move his bay up to ride beside her, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence with a word or a look.
There wasn’t a sign of life as they rode by the adobe buildings. When they neared the hollow, Sheila discovered why. Every man, woman, and child living in the canyon was at the hollow. Despite the crowd, there was little talking. Only the younger children were playing, the ones who didn’t know what was about to happen.
