Lena shook her head, her straight black bangs shifting across her narrow forehead. “The white men, for years they have wished us dead. You are different. We will not forget.” She turned to Carly. “May you walk with God, little Wah-suh-wi.”
Carly smiled. “Thank you, Lena. Take care of Two Hawks, will you?”
“He will be running like a deer and into mischief again before the new moon rises.”
Ramon smiled at the women. Working together, Lena and Carly had grown close. She, too, had befriended the boy. Ramon was also fond of Two Hawks. Each time he had come to the village, the boy had raced up to greet him. His fondest desire, hesaid, was to become a great vaquero. He begged Ramon to teach him, to take him to Las Almas where he could learn the skills of the Spanish horsemen.
Always Ramon had said no.
He had too many mouths to feed as it was; he didn’t need another. And yet he felt sorry for the boy. The life stretching before him was dismal at best. But a vaquero was a master horseman. He had his pride to see him through and if he was lucky, he could find work.
Carly looked up at him and he reached for her hand.
“What did she call you?” he asked as he led her toward the cart and the three other women.
“Wah-suh-wi. It is the Indian name she has given me.”
“What does it mean?”
“Sunflower.” She glanced away, looking a little embarrassed. “She says when I smile it’s as bright as the morning sun.”
Ramon felt something tug gently inside him. “And so it is,” he said softly. “Exactly like the sun.”
Her cheeks turned pink and her lips curved prettily. She glanced away, then down at the toes of her sandals. “They want us to return, Ramon.” She looked up into his face. “They want us to feast with them. They want to thank us for our help.”
“You would like that,chica?” But her excited look told him that she would. He liked that about her, the zest for life she nurtured inside her. The joy in living that was so much a part of his own people, but was often missing in the Americans he had known.
As his words sank in, her smile slid away and the light seemed to fade from her eyes. “Mostly I would like to go home. If you won’t let me leave, then yes, I would like to return.”
Ramon touched her cheek. It felt as soft as the breast of a dove. Her color heightened to a creamy pink that reminded him of roses. He thought of the night she had slept in his arms andhis body went instantly hard. His heartbeat quickened, making his groin start to throb.
Damning himself—and her—he turned away. “If that is your wish,” he said more harshly than he intended, “how could I not agree?”
Carly said nothing, but her smile was long gone and with it a little of the sun. She turned to Florentia who stood beside the two-wheeled cart the women had arrived in.
“Are we ready to leave?” Carly asked the housekeeper.
“Si,Senorita McConnell.” The beefy woman motioned for her to join the others, while Ramon took Viento’s reins and swung up into his saddle. “I am more than ready to go. I am looking forward to a night in my own bed.”
“Strangely enough, I’ll be glad to get back, too,” Carly said. “If for no other reason than to wash these dirty clothes.” She started to climb up in the wagon, lifting her grimy yellow skirt out of the way, and unconsciously displayed a trim bit of ankle. Ramon clamped his jaw as a second shot of heat rolled through him. Riding forward, he bent down and slid an arm around her waist, tightened his grasp and hauled her up on his lap.
“The cart is too crowded. You will ride home with me.”
She stiffened against him, but he didn’t care. If she was going to make him want her every hour of the day, he was suddenly determined she should suffer that same fate as well.
“You do not like to ride Viento?” he whispered in her ear, purposely brushing the small, shell-like rim with his lips.
She stiffened even more, and inside his snug-fitting breeches so did he. He cursed himself but he didn’t let her go.
“I like Viento very much.” She shifted to get comfortable where he held her pinned across his thighs. “It’s you, senor, at times I find unbearable.”
“Ah. Then I will have to remedy that.” Reining the horse away from the others, he rode off into a copse of trees.
“Where are you going? What are you…?” Her voice trailed off as his hand moved upward, barely brushing the underside of a breast. It was rounded and full, womanly in a way that made him ache to cup it. His fingers itched to shape it, to urge the nipple into a throbbing peak. He wondered if it would be small and tight or large and round, wondered at the exact shade of pink it might be, and heard himself groan. When he pressed his lips against the fluttery pulse at the nape of her neck, tasting the smooth white skin, a shaft of desire knifed through him.
“D-Don Ramon…?” There was a hesitancy in her voice that hadn’t been there before… and something else, something he recognized only too well for his own desire mounted with every heartbeat.
“Si,Cara,” he whispered softly. “I am here. Do you still wish to know what it is that I want?” Reining the stallion to a halt behind an outcropping of boulders, he turned her in his arms. Her eyes had gone wide and her cheeks were flushed. Tilting her head back, he ran a finger across her soft bottom lip, bent his head, and captured her mouth in a ravaging kiss.
