Desert Dreams (21 page)

"Kill him,
amigo
," Jose urged.

Rafe's
hand flexed on
the knife. The boy's entire body shivered with fear. The one person in the
world whom El
Alacran
cared for was under his knife.

His vision blurred and Annie's face floated before his eyes.
She believed in him. She saw something in him that no one else had seen for a
very long time. What would she think if he did this? If he killed a boy in cold
blood?

He imagined the expression in her eyes when she looked at
him, when she finally understood what he was, a man without conscience,
an
animal. Damn her for trying to make him something he
wasn't.

He pulled the boy up to his full height and lifted the knife.

"Do it quickly,
amigo
," Jose urged.

"No! Please!" the boy begged, his eyes bulging, his
Adam's apple rising and falling as he struggled to swallow.

Rafe's
hand began to
sweat. His heart pounded violently in his chest. He would be justified.
Christina would be avenged. An eye for an eye, an innocent life for an innocent
life. The urge to kill pounded in his temples, coursed through his veins.

At last the time had come for sweet vengeance. He waited for
the feeling of triumph and euphoria to wash over him. It didn't come.

Wasn't that how all this had started? If he killed Carlos
Delgado to avenge Christina's death, would he be any better than El
Alacran
? Where would it end?

Annie's words returned to him.
“I know what kind of man you are.
You're the kind of who would hold me and comfort me yesterday in the middle of
a scene that must have brought back your worst memories.”

With an anguished bellow, he flung the knife to the ground so
that the blade stuck in the sand.

"Take him," Rafe ordered, shoving the boy toward
Jose. "I won't have his blood on my hands too."

"I was right,
amigo
, you are going soft. What do
you want me to do with them?"

Rafe couldn't think clearly. He could hardly speak. His
breath came in gasps as he struggled to regain control.

"Just get him out of my sight," Rafe said.
"I'll decide what to do with both of them tomorrow. I want them alive,
amigo
.
Comprende
?"

"Si,
just as I thought. You are going soft."

***

Anne stood at the edge of the street behind a hitching post
where she could get a good view of the horse races down the long, dusty street
between the buildings. The tables had been cleared away after the fiesta, and
now everyone lined the streets, many placing bets on whichever horse they
thought to be the best.

Handsome young men in silver-studded finery lined up across
the street on their spirited horses for each race, which would take them
through the plaza, around the buildings in a wide circle, and back into the
plaza for the finish.

When it began she clapped her hands and shouted for the
winners along with the crowd, but as the riders returned after the last race,
she began to search the sea of faces for Rafe.

She hadn't seen him since he'd gone to set up camp, and she
was getting concerned. It shouldn't have taken him so long, unless he'd run
into trouble.

Maybe he'd decided not to come back. Always when he was out
of her sight there was that fear, though she knew he couldn't get the gold
without her. But now she beginning to think he didn’t wanted the gold at all.
There was something else driving him, something dark and disturbing.

Last night, when he'd told her about his nightmare, they had
stepped across an invisible threshold. There could be no turning back. She
sensed he had revealed more to her in a few moments than he had to anyone in a
very long time—maybe ever.

He was so closed up inside, so guarded. In spite of her
resolve not to become involved in other people's problems, in spite of the fact
that Rafe Montalvo was the last man who could give her what she wanted, the
last man she should care about, she was determined to break through that hard
exterior of his. She wanted to know what caused the flashes of pain she'd seen
in his eyes from time to time, what drove him to kill for a living. She wished he
would just come back....

She searched the crowd again, but he was nowhere to be seen.

***

Rafe stood at the bar in the small cantina, a glass of
tequila in his hand, his elbows resting on the rough-hewn surface.

How much would he have to drink to forget about Annie, to
dull the pain that was becoming his constant companion?

Lifting the glass, he tossed its contents down his throat,
then poured another from the bottle that the bartender had left in front of
him. He was nearly halfway to the bottom of the bottle and still too damned
sober.

It was his curse to have an unusually high tolerance for
alcohol. When he'd been a young man in the army, it had come in handy. It was
amazing what you could find out when everyone around you was drunk and you
weren’t.

He pictured the faces of the men he'd known at Fort Bliss,
his friends. He hadn't thought of them in years.

Why now? They hadn't been a part of his life since the day
he'd fallen from grace. There was hardly a man among them who would sit down
and have a drink with him today.

He tossed down another shot of tequila. As he lowered his
head, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror behind the bar and
scowled.

"Rafael Sebastian Holden y Montalvo," he murmured,
raising his empty glass in a mock toast. "Fallen angel." He laughed,
bitterly.

For a fleeting moment, he thought he recognized the man in
the mirror, thought he saw something that reminded him of the young West Point
graduate who had returned to the West to right every wrong and personally see
to it that justice triumphed.

Then he turned away with a sneer. Justice? Men like El
Alacran
were beyond justice. Survival of the fittest, that
was the law of the desert, and the only justice he'd ever found had come at the
end of a gun—or a knife.

He still couldn't believe Carlos Delgado had been under his
knife that very day, and still lived. The perfect vengeance for Christina's
life, and he had not taken it.

Closing his eyes, he relished the vision of El
Alacran's
face as it would look when his beloved cousin's
severed head was delivered to him. It would be a sight worth seeing—but somehow
Rafe just didn't have the stomach for killing a kid, even if the blood of the
Scorpion flowed in his veins. Jose was right, he was definitely going soft, and
it would cost him.

He pushed away from the bar and stumbled toward the door.
From outside, he could hear the sounds of laughter and cheering and music, and
his mood grew even darker.

Annie was out there somewhere. She deserved to be happy. She
shouldn't be here with a man like him, a man who could barely control his lust
and wasn't accustomed to being required to do so. He didn't know how much more
of her nearness he could take.

He tried to remind himself she was a pawn in a deadly game,
but the words didn't ring true any longer. She had a name, she had a face he
would never forget, and she had a body he wanted to know intimately.

Annie, Annie, why did you have to
get mixed up in this mess? Why didn't you just stay in Louisiana or Mississippi
where you'd be safe?

He pushed open the cantina door and stepped outside. As soon
as his eyes adjusted to the waning sunlight, he began searching for the one
face that could make him forget the horrors of the past, at least for a moment
or two.

She was standing on the edge of the crowd, clapping and
cheering with the rest of them, her face glowing with joy as he'd never seen
it. His treacherous heart leapt into his throat as he made his way slowly
toward the only ray of hope in his dismal existence—toward Annie.

Chapter 14

The sun began to fade,
sending long
gold and red streamers across the sky in its wake. The horses were tethered and
lanterns lighted in the trees. Several men carried benches to the middle of the
plaza and set them down to form a square. A small band gathered at one end and
began to tune their instruments.

The women removed their mantillas and formed a line, while
the men made a row behind them. For a fleeting instant, Anne imagined that Rafe
was one of those young men, so innocent, so carefree. But that was absurd.
There was too much darkness in Rafe, and she doubted he had ever been innocent.
She couldn't imagine those eyes ever reflecting anything but pain.

A discordant blast from the band turned slowly into a sweet,
haunting melody. The men and women stood watching as the groom led his bride in
the first waltz.

Anne wrapped her shawl more closely around her, and watched
the newly married couple glide gracefully around the makeshift dance floor,
seemingly unaware of anyone but each other. She couldn't help the sigh of
longing that escaped her parted lips.

Longing for what, she wasn't quite sure. She'd spent most of
her life convinced that men were nothing but trouble and misery and that women
were profoundly better off without them. Still, something about the way the
happy couple moved together, looking at each other with such devotion and
adoration, struck a yearning in the depths of her soul. What would it be like
to be loved like that? Completely? Unselfishly?

She searched the crowd for Rafe Montalvo. He stood across the
square, leaning against a rail of the corral, talking with a group of men. A
shiver trembled up her spine as he glanced up and his gaze locked with hers.

Anger pricked her when she tried to imagine where he must
have been—probably inside the cantina. But something in his face, even from
this distance, sent a chill of apprehension and excitement down her spine.

As the first dance ended, a wild cry went up from the
spectators, and the plaza erupted in applause. A feverish fandango burst
quickly from the band. The two lines of men and women joined in the dancing
with a wild abandon that took her breath away. The rhythm and pulse of the
music flowed into Anne until she was clapping and tapping her foot with the
other spectators.

Panic seized her when she gazed across the plaza to find that
Rafe wasn't where he should have been. She looked around, but he was nowhere to
be found. Some of her joy evaporated. Suddenly all she wanted was peace and
quiet and Rafe by her side.

The frenzied tempo of the music gave way to a placid waltz,
but Anne hardly noticed. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. She was
strangely breathless, as if she, too, had been dancing. She didn't have to turn
to know he had come to stand beside her. She could feel his presence as surely
as if he'd reached out and touched her. She turned slowly to look at him.

Without a word, he reached out, wrapped an arm around her
waist, and pulled her into the square. His eyes never left hers. Their hands joined,
her small one inside his large one, as they moved around the clearing to the
rhythm of the music.

How could a man of such violence dance with such skill and
grace? He held her close against him, guiding her gracefully over the
hard-packed ground. The flickering lantern light accentuated the planes of his
face and made his dark hair appear even darker, but his gray eyes glowed as he
looked down at her, and her pulse quickened.

Cut off from the rest of the world by his arms and his
muscular body, she closed her eyes, surrendering to the sweetly haunting music.
He held her gently, as if she were something precious. And when she gazed up
into his eyes again, they had lost their cold remoteness and burned instead
with a fire that spoke of hunger and need.

The heat of his body reached out to her, engulfing her in
warmth and strength. She clung to him, pressing her body fully against his,
willing herself to forget for just a while that he was a gunfighter, a man who
could never give her what she wanted. Right now, he was everything she needed.

He whispered her name, the sound like a soft, caressing
breeze on a hot summer's night. His chin rested against the top of her head,
and she laid her cheek against his chest. His heart beat strong and fierce
against her temple. She knew in that instant that she never wanted to be
without him, even for a single day. The realization terrified her because she
also knew that eventually he would leave.

Oblivious to everything around them, they continued to sway
together long after the music died away. The band began another fandango, and
the dancers started to whirl around them.

"The waltz is over," he murmured, the sound
rumbling in his chest. He held her away from him, and she tipped her head back
to gaze into his eyes.

"Yes."

The noise and the crowd receded. He reached out to tilt her
face toward his. She knew he was going to kiss her before his lips gently
touched hers.

A groan passed his lips and shuddered through her body. She grasped
his shirt and pulled herself closer to him.

Rafe backed away from her as she leaned toward him. Taking
her by the hand, he led her through the dancers and out of the square, into the
shadows where the lights could not follow.

They reached the edge of the river where Rafe had set up
camp, and she surprised him by wrapping her arms around him and tilting her
head up, offering her lips to hm. He pulled her into the circle of his arms and
kissed her, his mouth traveling down the column of her throat, even as he
tugged her shirtwaist out of her breeches.

Slowly, slowly, he told himself, fighting the urgency of his
own desire. This was Annie, not some whore, not a faceless body he could use
for his own pleasure with no regard for her.
Don't
frighten her. Don't hurt her.
But the blood pounded in his veins with
relentless power, threatening to blot out everything but his own need.

His hand moved up under her blouse, closing around a soft,
firm breast. She gasped at the contact, gazing up at him with lips slightly
parted, her eyes dark with passion. A familiar hardness began to build between
his legs, and a groan rumbled up from his belly as he kissed the hollow of her
neck.

Straining against him, she returned his kiss with a hunger
that coursed through his painfully aroused body. He lifted her shirt. She
shivered but did not protest until he ran a calloused thumb over a sweet,
swollen nub. Then she cried out in shock and jerked away.

She watched the rise and fall of his chest as he struggled
for breath, marveling that she had elicited such an acutely physical reaction
in him. Slowly, he moved toward her, as if he feared he might startle her into
flight. Her heart drummed in her chest with such force that she could scarcely
breathe, but she didn't back away. There was an inevitability about what was
happening between them, as if it had always been meant to be.

He didn't touch her except to undo the buttons that ran down
the front of her blouse. When he had unfastened the last one, he pushed the
garment open and slid it down her arms. He had removed it before she reacted,
folding her arms over her breasts, turning her face away from him, suddenly
shy, suddenly afraid of the fire in those pale glowing eyes.

She was torn between incompatible urges: to press herself
against him and to keep her nakedness hidden from him. She hadn't known it
would be like this, this complete giving of herself to someone else. And while
it frightened her to her core, her body cried out for his touch.

"Let me see you, Annie," he whispered against her
ear.

She didn't resist when he took her wrists and drew them
gently apart. She felt the heat of his gaze as he looked at her as no man ever
had before. Pulling her chemise over her head, he dropped it to the ground.
Warm hands encircled her flesh and calloused thumbs caressed her sensitive,
nipples sending a flash of something like pain plunging downward, across her
belly, between her thighs.

"So soft," he murmured. "So sweet."

Now it was Anne’s turn. She wanted to see him, too, to touch
that rock hard chest she’d felt through his shirt. Her fingers fumbled on the
buttons, but finally the last one yielded. She did as he had—pushing the
garment down his arms, letting it float to the ground behind him. She touched
him, the soft skin over hard muscle,
the
dark hair
that ran down the center of his chest and disappeared inside his breeches.

She trailed her hand down over those coarse hairs until he
gasped and grabbed her hand.

He twisted his other hand in her hair and gently pulled her
head back. She gazed into his eyes, into the barren wasteland that was his
soul. The desolation tore at her heart and took her breath away. She wanted to
take away the pain, the darkness.

She lifted her lips to his, her kiss like a whisper, her soft
curves molding to the contours of his lean body. He held her more tightly,
drinking her essence like a starving man. He lifted her in his arms, carried
her a short distance to the river, and laid her down gently in the scant grass
that grew along the bank.

Fear rippled through her as she thought of the creatures that
must call this place home—insects, snakes, spiders. But the urgency of her
desire overrode everything else when he knelt beside her.

She knew he was naked, even though she averted her gaze in embarrassment.
Was it too late?

His mouth captured hers again, and she forgot her fear. His
tongue traced her lips while his hands worked to divest her of her last
garment.

Her world was filled with him. He stretched out beside her,
supporting his body with one hand while his other hand stroked her breasts,
moving down her belly and across her hips, his touch feather light. She moaned
as sensations pulsated through her, and her body yearned for fulfillment.

She gasped as his fingers found the triangle of downy hair
that grew at the juncture of her thighs and moved downward into the recesses of
her core. She nearly cried out at the savage thrill that leaped through her
tingling body. His eyes bored into hers while his fingers explored, arousing a
response that terrified her with its intensity.

"Stop!" she finally cried.

He continued touching her, caressing her. "Did I hurt
you?"

She couldn't answer. An unfamiliar spasm ripped through her
being, leaving her speechless, mindless. She could hear herself moaning, but
she couldn't stop until her body reached an apex of sensation.

He shifted his weight, and she felt the pressure of his knees
coaxing her legs apart. He lowered himself between her thighs.

Her flesh encircled him as he eased inside her, slowly,
gently, even though a raw insistence urged him to take her quickly and end the
unbearable agony. But he was determined to be patient, to give as much pleasure
as he received.

It was then he encountered the barrier, the thin but
insistent membrane, and he went still. He'd known it would be there, though he
had nearly forgotten in his frenzied need. The thought shot through him like a
hot wind that this was the one pure thing in his wretched existence, and he was
about to defile it.

He couldn't stop. He needed her as he had never needed anyone
or anything in his life. His body convulsed with a blinding hunger as he fought
the urge to thrust into her, to break through that barrier, to feel the
sweetness of something untouched, something pure. He needed to feel connected
to her, if only for a short while. He almost believed—hoped—that she could
redeem him.

"Oh, God, Annie, I can't give you anything," he
managed to choke out, hating himself for what he was doing. He was everything dark
and vile. She was everything bright and beautiful. He had no right to touch
her, to want her so desperately.

She answered him by wrapping her arms around his shoulders,
pulling herself up to him so that her soft breasts brushed his hard chest and
her lips fitted themselves to his. He moaned deep in his throat as a shudder
ripped through him. The urgency to be inside her consumed him. His breath
hissed between his teeth. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, blood
rushing through his body to his groin.

She clung to him as he pushed her back down to the grass, a
war raging inside his rigid body between the insistence of his need and his
desire to be gentle, to cause as little pain as possible.

Why, Annie, why? He kept asking silently, even as he made that
irrevocable thrust. She cried out sharply, and he willed himself to absorb her
pain.

She had gone rigid, lying beneath him, trembling in reaction.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, smoothing the hair from her brow with a
trembling hand, fighting the burning need to move, to thrust deeper inside her,
to feel her flesh tight and soft around him.

She had known there would be pain, but what she hadn't
expected was the absolute invasion of her body and her soul. He surrounded her,
absorbed her, as she absorbed him. She wanted to know what he felt, what he
thought when he looked down at her, their bodies locked together,
his
flesh inside hers. In his eyes, she saw pain, her pain,
and she wanted to reassure him that she would not break.