Madre de Dios.“Sanchez!” he called out, and Pedro came running. “See to the girl.” The words came out thick and strained as something squeezed painfully inside him. It mixed with the grief, stirring it up in agonizing waves, making it hard to think. “You should have said something,” he told the woman darkly. “I would have seen you had something to wear for shoes.”
She spit into the dirt at his feet. “There is nothing I want from you. Do you hear me? Nothing!”
She was everything he hated—he had discovered that the instant he had met her. She was grasping, hedonistic, spoiled, and self-centered.
Everything he once was himself.
Walking away, his head pounding viciously, he reached into thebolsahanging behind his saddle and drew out a bottle of strongaguardiente.He pulled the cork and took a long, mind-numbing drink. He didn’t take more than one. He did not dare. He knew if he did he would not stop. He would climb into the bottle, drink until he couldn’t feel the pain.
Behind him Pedro led the girl to the stream, knelt and helped her bathe her bloody feet. A few minutes later, one of the men approached, carrying a soft pair of knee-high moccasins. The vaquero said something to the girl and though he couldn’t hear it, Ramon was certain what it was.
Because as much as he hated to admit it, as much as he wished it weren’t the truth, the same grudging respect his men had begun to feel for the woman had begun to blossom inside himself.
***
Every noise in the darkness seemed magnified a thousand times. Carly wasn’t used to being out of doors. Her uncle had warned her not to go far from the house alone. The woods, he said, were dangerously overrun with wild animals: mountain lions, poisonous rattlesnakes, huge sharp-horned wild bulls, feral pigs, and worse of all, giant man-eating grizzly bears. Even now she could hear something growling in the darkness not far from camp. A second night creature howled its vicious intent just down the hill.
Carly shivered to think of it. Even if she could escape, which there seemed little hope of, she didn’t know her way back home,and the animals would be prowling, just waiting to tear her in two.
And yet an even greater peril lay just a few yards across the camp.
He was stretched out on his bedroll, his black flat-brimmed hat tilted forward over his eyes. He had only just returned to the clearing, having gone off alone into the forest while the others made camp. He hadn’t returned until after the men had all gone to sleep, then sat in front of the fire and stared silently into the flames. Sanchez had awakened and gone to the Spaniard’s side, but he refused the meal the old vaquero had tried to coax him to eat.
As exhausted as Carly was, as frightened, as resentful of the Spaniard’s brutal treatment, some small part of her felt sorry for him. She’d had a sister once, a little girl named Mary, four years younger than she was. Mary had died of a fever when Carly was nine years old. She remembered her mother weeping, remembered the terrible, hollow ache she had felt that couldn’t be filled, the bitterness and sorrow of losing Mary. She could easily imagine the pain the don suffered from the loss of his brother.
Carly leaned her head against the tree and closed her eyes. She had eaten the chunk of roasted meat Sanchez had brought her and accepted the blanket he gave her even as he bound one of her ankles to the tree. Snuggling deeper into the blanket’s warmth, she willed herself not to think of the don, not to think of her tired, aching muscles, scrapped shins, cut feet, or the darkening bruise on her cheek. Instead, she thought of her uncle, willing him to come, certain that he would, and finally she slid into a heavy trancelike sleep.
She awoke before dawn, to the nicker of horses and the slap of leather as the men saddled up and prepared to break camp. The young vaquero named Ruiz brought her breakfast: warmed-up tortillas, some leftover meat, and a tin cup of steaming hot coffee that tasted better than any she could ever remember drinking. She still wasn’t hungry, though she forced herself to eat, and felt even more tired than she had the night before, every bone aching, every muscle sore. Her feet were blistered, scraped, and cut; her arms and legs were scratched, her lips dry and chaffed.
She heard the old vaquero pleading her case to the don, but just as before he blindly turned away.
At least she was still alive. There had been no rape, as she had feared, and except for the don, so far no one had been cruel to her. By now her uncle and his men would be hard in pursuit and she was certain he would find her.
“It is time to leave, senorita.” The words broke into her thoughts as the Spaniard strode up beside her. His features looked stark, barren. Faint purple smudges appeared beneath his cold dark eyes. He was ruthless, callous, unfeeling.
She felt a shot of loathing. “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
A grim smile curved his lips. “We travel far into the mountains. To Llano Mirada, a place that is sometimes my home.”
“My uncle will find you wherever you go. He won’t rest until he hunts you down like the animal you are.”
“Better men have tried. All of them have failed. Your uncle will be no different.”
“What do you want of me? What do you intend to do?”
His dark eyes raked her, bold, sensuous, unforgiving. “That remains to be seen, senorita.” He dropped the braided leather loop around her wrists and drew it snug, then led her to his horse and gracefully swung into the saddle. “In the meantime, we must leave.”
Anger seethed through her. And bitterness and hatred. Ignoring her ragged state of dress, her tumbled hair, and the over-sized moccasins on her feet, she flashed him a cool, cultivated smile, as haughty as she could muster. “I’m ready when you are, Senor El Dragón.”
The don’s face went taut and a muscle ticked in his cheek. Carly felt a jolt of satisfaction. He had meant to humble her, to see her whine and beg. He had been certain he could break her.
But each time she looked at his tall broad-shouldered figure sitting astride his night-black horse, each time she noticed the arrogant tilt of his head, she thought of the other handsome man. The one she had dreamed about, the man who had given her the rose. Ruthlessly, she forced herself to remember the dark-skinned fantasy man whose smile had charmed her and made butterflies swirl in her stomach.
The man who had been laughing at her all the while, playing her for a fool.
The stallion tossed its head and started up the trail, and Carly set out behind it. Ignoring her aching muscles, cuts, scrapes, and bruises, she fixed her eyes on the Spaniard’s broad back and forced one moccasined foot in front of the other. Sanchez followed, along with the rest of the men.
By noon the sun was a fiery ball above their heads, beating down with relentless determination. The woven leather rope chafed her wrists and the blue embroidered robe weighed her down with every step. She stumbled and would have fallen if the don had not slowed. The trail was a long steep incline, sapping her strength along with her will. Her legs felt wobbly and her mouth was dry. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on.
