Had Haven learned anything from the old woman about the watch? He worked his mind into a frustrated and alarmed lather, but stopped when two of the girls exited the tent, and made their way to another ten feet away.
What is going on?
Tensing to rise and follow the girls, he halted when two gray-haired men stepped from the tent and into the clearing. They each held well-worn, yet lovingly maintained violins. The wooden body of each was scuffed with use, but polished to a shine. Both men wore scarves of bright colors wrapped around their waists, black caps on their heads, and black boots. One ofthe men stepped to the outer edge of the firelight and began to play. His companion stepped beside him and played the same note, synchronizing his violin in preparation.
The first violinist changed chords, and their single note became a melody, a melody that became the foundation on which a new harmony was born, one so dissonant it shouldn’t have married so beautifully with the first echoing notes that were now changing.
His heartbeat quickened in his chest. Something about the music caught him, stalling the breath in his lungs, forcing him to focus on the lilting, fervent tones as they beat at his soul. The music was a hauntingappassionatohanging in the air, enticing the listener to wait for the next chord, the next explosion of energy, the next teasing shift. As the dual violinists played, the music increased in tempo, driving the harmony to higher planes, creating layers of tone and theme that pleased the ear despite the stringent turbulence woven through the song. The violins dueled, fighting a symphonic battle with bow and string and human pulse.
The instruments played, and the people filtered from tents, converging on the circle of light and music around the brightly burning bonfire. A group of young men and women gathered, including the two remaining girls from the tent where Haven had been closeted away for the last four hours.
Intent and eager to see her, he gasped when she appeared.
He swallowed. Then he thanked God he survived the sudden pounding beats of his heart.
She wore the costume of a Rom maiden; long flowing skirt, white peasant blouse, and a wide purple sash around her waist. She’d freed her hair from the elaborate coiffure, and her face was bright, smiling. Excitement and anxiety brought out the brilliance of her eyes.
Awe speared him. She was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen, and she wasn’t even wearing the typical accoutrements ofTonladies. Utterly common, and yet breathtaking. In less time than it took his own aunt to ready herself for a ball, Haven had taken something as simple as a skirt, a sash, and a peasant blouse, and turned into a siren who undid him from the inside out.
He forced his lungs to inhale, and smelled the first aromas of a fire. His gaze met hers over the orange and yellow blaze, and he wondered if the growing fire wasn’t actually burning withinhim.
She approached the group around the circle and linked arms with two of the young girls who’d spirited her away earlier, smiling and laughing as they made their way to three stools.
Another of the maidens rushed toward them before they could sit, with a look of excited mischief that brightened her face. With a few words murmured to her friends, the group of four, including Haven, leaped into the large circle beside the fire where the two fiddlers played.
Haven’s expression was wary, but her tense body hungered for movement.
He recalled the woman from his dream, and his breath caught.
Haven.
She’d tortured and teased, and promised him things he believed impossible at the time. But he knew differently. He’d experienced those pleasures with her.
Another man appeared carrying a guitar. He played a staccato tone that easily harmonized with the lively intertwining melodies of the violins. A larger man with a long, heavy stick joined them, and beat the staff against a large-bellied drum in a steady beat. The music carried through the fire, into the camp beyond the circle, and into his blood. The sweet, melodic voices of the violins lingered as the thrum of the guitar made him tense in response, and the beating of the stick against the deer skinmatched the thudding of his heart. The flamenco music carried him away, and something deep and nameless pulled at him, calling him totake her....
He didn’t blink, and he was glad he hadn’t, because when she stepped from the edge of the circle to join the others already pacing and stomping within the firelight, his whole world stopped.
Haven knewshe should just sit down, put her hands in her lap, and spectate like a good little nineteenth-century lady. But she couldn’t; the music compelled and enticed. They’d dangled a tempting lure before her, and she couldn’t stop her hand from closing around it. Her bare foot stepped into the well-trodden circle, and she felt the beat of the music right through the earth. It pulsed. It thrummed. It was a heartbeat; like the very ground came alive, just as she had. The marriage of violins and guitar seduced her, and she couldn’t stop her feet from moving.
First one foot, then the other.
Dance. Stomp. Sway. She moved to the music like a flame to the whims of a breath. She couldn’t help but let out a whoop of elation, and the others within the circle followed her outburst. Laughter and shouts of merriment carried from the outer rim of the fire’s light. Twisting, writhing, pounding the ground, clapping her hands, swinging her arms, twirling, spinning, laughing, and whooping. She’d never experienced anything like it. She moved outside her body. She danced, letting every care and sorrow loose. Now, she was just a passionate woman who hungered for the touch of one man. Logan.
She caught his gaze over the blaze, and the ground beneath her shifted. His eyes burned with desire so hot, it scorched along her flesh. Her heaving breaths of exertion turned to gasps of anticipation. He looked like he could jump through the fire and devour her where she stood.
She was quite eager to be ravished.
Come and get me.
A slow, evocative smile spread across her face. Her eyebrow lifted in challenge, her hand reached toward him, her fingers curled in, and she invited him to come closer. He made to rise, but he caught himself, his hands flexing, his jaw clinching, his whole countenance boiling with thrilling lust. She felt delicious, truly mesmerizing. She was passion personified, and she knew he was helpless against her.
She continued to dance, moving to the hypnotic beat, letting the heat of the fire, and the heat of his gaze, fuel her motions.
She washis every fantasy brought to life. Watching her dance, peering through the glow of the flames, was an experience much like the first time she’d danced for him through a veil of mist. A dream, a reality, everything he could ever want in a woman. She had beauty, allure, and she hungered for him just as he hungered for her.
If she didn’t stop soon, he didn’t know what he’d do, but he knew the good people of the Roma camp would be shocked, if not a little entertained.
As the strains of the music began to fade, her movements slowed, and he could see her coming down from wherever she’d been transported. Sheens of sweat glimmered along her neckand the tops of her breasts, her hair framed her in sexy disarray, and her face flushed a decadent deep pink.
