Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (49 page)

      
He sounded so sincere, yet a prickle of anger niggled at the edge of her mind. “You wouldn't reject me if he had raped me?” The question seemed to ask itself.

      
“I love you, Deborah. Nothing can ever change that, certainly not what a madman like Enrique Flores might have done to you. I only prayed that he hadn't hurt you.” His eyes riveted hers and she knew he spoke the truth.
      
When he reached out and enfolded her in his arms once more, her exhaustion won out. She collapsed against him, forcing back the ugly images of violence and reminding herself,
This is Rafael, my husband, who loves me.

      
The next morning they left Hays and Caldwell to pursue Woll's mauled and retreating army. Deborah's long ordeal in Flores's bumping supply cart was still taking its toll on her aching body. Hays had gifted her with a horse captured from the Mexican army, and as they rode she watched her husband. He was still splendidly handsome despite the scars, but to her, the hard looking buckskin clad figure who wore guns and knives as if they were appendages of his body seemed alien and frightening. Unable to repress it, she replayed the gruesome fight with Flores in her mind, again and again.

      
Each time they stopped to rest the horses, she checked the bandages she had placed around the deep knife slashes on Rafael's arm and chest. Although she had assisted Dr. Weidermann and seen far more serious wounds, none affected her the way her husband's did. She had witnessed how he got them and now saw the careless way he dismissed them.
I learned he could kill back in New Orleans, but now it seems so much easier, so much a part of his nature...

      
Rafe, too, was exhausted and pensive. His head throbbed abominably and he was still plagued by double vision now and then. What distressed him far more was the reserve he felt in Deborah. When he first had found her in that wagon and freed her, she had cried and clung to him, overjoyed that he was not dead as Flores had told her. But after he killed the comanchero, she had become fearful and withdrawn. Recalling the blood lust that had driven him to maim Flores in such a ghastly way, he cringed, realizing how barbaric it must have appeared.

      
When they arrived at the boardinghouse, it was nearly midnight. Deborah went inside while Rafe stabled the horses and rubbed them down. Sadie and Adam were both awake and overjoyed with the outcome of Deborah's harrowing adventure.

      
“I knew my papa would save my mama!” Adam proclaimed the following day to every boarder and servant he could pull aside and recount the adventure.

      
Exhausted and in emotional turmoil, Rafe and Deborah spent their first night back in San Antonio sleeping together but not making love. Early that next morning, Rafe announced his plans.

      
“I’m going to start gathering what supplies I can find—what Woll's damn army left—so we can start for Renacimiento within the week.”

      
What was to be done about the boardinghouse they did not discuss, although it preyed on both their minds. Rafe feared asking her to sell it outright and Deborah feared he might simply dispose of it himself, as the law allowed he could do. Like two wary fencers, they circled each other, avoiding any direct confrontation.

      
When Rafe came in that evening and found Deborah had done nothing about packing her belongings, he knew he must settle the issue quickly.

      
“Poring over account books isn't getting your trunks packed, Deborah. Adam's done a creditable job packing his toys and other treasures.” He stood in the door to the office, watching her as she dropped her pencil with a nervous start.

      
“I have lots of work to catch up on, Rafael. Adam can have fun with games,” she added waspishly.

      
“Packing to move isn't a game, wife,” he replied with an edge to his voice. “You still don't want to go with me, do you?” Hurt and anger reflected in his voice.

      
Deborah stood up and paced over to the window. “I—I don't know. Honestly, Rafael, I don't know what I want. Adam is overjoyed. Everything is so simple when you're six years old. When I was his age I thought my father could do anything this side of raise the dead. But now, for me—for us...we need more time.” She turned to him with a pleading look.

      
In a couple of panther like strides he crossed the room and took her hands in his. “Moon Flower, I've searched for you for six years. We've wasted enough of our lives apart. I want us together from now on.”

      
“Together on your terms, Rafael—at your ranch,” she replied, pulling free.

      
“Dammit, I've poured my life's blood into making Renacimiento for you, for our children. I can't be away from it any longer. I have a job to do.”

      
“And I suppose I don't! Did it ever occur to you, in your limitless male vanity, that I poured my life's blood into this boardinghouse?”

      
“So you want me to sell the ranch and become a town man?”

      
“You used to be pretty good at being a town man, as I recall,” she said bitterly.

      
Rafe swore beneath his breath. “I'm not that man anymore, Deborah, and I don't want my son to grow up that way either—coddled and soft. You're overprotecting him! He's never even been on a horse, for Christ's sake!” He was shouting now.

      
“He's only six years old, for Christ's sake!” she shrieked back.

      
“Texians ride as soon as they walk—if they have a father to see to it.” He added coldly, “And make no mistake, wife, I will see to it.”

      
After dinner that evening, Rafe walked alone in the backyard to smoke a cigar and gather his thoughts. He had promised himself that he would be patient and conciliatory, then again had let her goad him into losing his temper.
Time enough when we're home to win her trust. Now I'll settle for something she has a lot less control over—her passion.
He ground out his cigar and headed upstairs.

      
Deborah sat brushing her hair. Adam lay asleep next door and she had a few moments alone to relax. But as she pulled the brush through her gleaming curls, she could not help but listen for familiar footfalls down the hall.

      
All too soon, the bedroom door opened and Rafael strode in, closing it quietly behind him. He leaned against the door, watching her for a moment.

      
The room was filled with an expectant silence. She could feel his hot black eyes burning her back. When she raised her eyes to look into the mirror, they caught his in a bold, unhurried perusal. She felt the heat of a flush as it rose to her cheeks.

      
“Still too fair to conceal your feelings,” he said in a low, silky voice as he glided across the floor to stand behind her chair and run his fingertips lightly across her collarbone and up her throat to her face.

      
She felt her pulse race beneath his delicate caress and knew that he felt it, too.
Why fight it?
a small voice inside her whispered. Despite the inevitable outcome, Deborah did fight the hypnotic pull of his presence.

      
Feeling her resistance, Rafe backed off and walked casually over to the bed where he sat down and pulled off his boots and hose. Then he stood and unbuttoned his blue cotton shirt, peeling it off his shoulders with a lithe twist. Standing bare chested and barefooted in the middle of the room, he looked at her frozen figure. “Time all good little wives were in bed, Moon Flower,” he said with a low chuckle.

      
“Your wounds need tending,” she said, ignoring his provocative remark. She walked purposefully over to the small table by the bed and began to uncork a bottle of disinfectant.

      
He reached out a long, muscled arm and stopped her. “I've had worse. They're only scratches.” He tightened his grip on her wrist and pulled her into his embrace.

      
“Tell me, Rafael, does each scar on your body represent a man you've killed?” She felt him stiffen and regretted blurting out the question.

      
“No, I've killed lots of men without being bloodied, as a matter of fact,” he replied coldly. “Now Flores will be between us as well as everything else in the past,” he said bitterly, releasing her and turning away to pace to the window.

      
She stood helplessly for a moment, feeling a sudden void when he released her. Watching the stiff set of his shoulders and back, she knew how much she had hurt him. Hesitantly, Deborah padded over to stand behind him and put one slim hand on his back. Tipping her head against his shoulder, she murmured low, “You killed Flores to save me. You risked your life. I'm sorry, Rafael.” As she whispered the words, she reached for his arm and gently caressed the long, reddish cut across it, newly scabbed over and beginning to heal. “Let me care for your injuries, please?”

      
Taking a deep breath, he released it with a sigh and turned to look at her. “Tend my wounds, if you must, wife,” he said with a lopsided grin.

      
Deborah trembled as she stripped off the linens from his chest wound. Still an angry red furrow across his hard pectoral muscles, it stood out even through the thick black mat of hair. His heart thudded evenly beneath her deft fingers as she calmed herself and applied an antiseptic, then healing salve, When she reached around him to wrap the fresh bandage, her robe gaped open and he could see the outline of her breasts through her sheer night rail. His heartbeat speeded up and she felt it. Standing back to tie the bandage, she followed his hot gaze and quickly pulled her robe closed. She felt the chuckle rumbling in his chest before she could hear it.

      
Ever so slowly, he raised his arm to let her inspect the healing cut. Just as she daubed a bit of salve on it, he reached his hand over to slip her silk robe off one pale golden shoulder. Before she could do more than gasp, he had the other shoulder bared as well. “Beautiful,” was all he said as he feasted on the two tautening nipples, clearly visible through the pale aqua gauze. In reflex her hands pressed against his hard chest. She could feel the lean muscles ripple and flex through the thick black hair.

      
He pulled her into his embrace, one arm holding her slim waist while the other untied the sash on her robe. She helped him slip it off and it fell unheeded to the floor. Dutifully, she raised her arms as he pulled her nigh trail over her head and then dropped it on top of the robe.

      
Standing back to admire her sleek nakedness in the flickering candlelight, he whispered, “You are a silver goddess.”

      
Mesmerized, she reached out to him, letting him guide her fingers to the waistband of his breeches. “I undressed you. Your turn,” he commanded gently. With her eager assistance, he slipped the fitted trousers over his narrow hips effortlessly and kicked them away. “Let me love you, Deborah,” he whispered, pulling her with him to recline across the big bed.

      
Her mind reeled from a myriad of exquisite sensations as Rafe softly kissed, licked and nibbled down her body, pausing to suckle her breasts and trace swirling patterns on the insides of her quivering thighs. Deborah was drowning in desire, pulling his warm hard flesh closer, running her nails up and down his back, massaging her palms over the bunched muscles in his shoulders and chest. As they rolled back and forth across the bed, she bucked instinctively against him. Pulling her hand from his hair, he drew it down between them to grasp his engorged shaft, pulsing with life.

      
She made an incoherent whimper and arched up, opening to receive him as he thrust into her. Concentrating on holding back to bring her pleasure first, he moved slowly, drowning in her warm, wet flesh. Gradually, she tightened her knees around his waist and met him thrust for thrust, then stiffened and gasped in blinding ecstasy.

      
Feeling the tremors that shook her slender body, Rafe increased the tempo of his steady stroking, swelling and exploding in one final, glorious burst, buried deeply inside her. Then he gasped out, “Oh, Moon Flower, you're safe with me. I'll never let anyone hurt you again. Stay with me forever.”

* * * *

      
“Forever is a long time,” Deborah mused the following afternoon as she sat in the bedroom surrounded by boxes and trunks. She had spent the day packing. Soon she would make the long trek north to Renacimiento.
But how can I just pull up my roots—leave all my friends here?
She thought of Sadie and Chester, old Racine Schwartz, Doc Weidermann.

      
But most of all she thought of Charlee. Deborah would have to go to Bluebonnet and say good-bye to her. Next to Obedience, she knew she would miss Charlee most of all. At least she and Jim would be good for each other, she thought, trying to find something redeemable in the chaos of their lives. As if she had conjured up her friend, she heard Charlee's voice down the hall, interspersed with Adam's giggling.

      
“Hello,” Charlee said, looking at the clutter of Deborah's packing.

      
As they embraced, Deborah exclaimed, “Oh, Charlee, I'm so glad to see you! So much has happened I scarcely know where to begin.”

      
After sending Adam downstairs for cookies and milk, she unburdened all the past day's events since Rafael had delivered Charlee back to Bluebonnet. Painfully, she confessed her confused feelings about her husband, finishing her narrative by saying simply, “I am married and under the law I have certain obligations from which I can no longer hide.”

      
Charlee placed a protective arm around Deborah's shoulders and said firmly, “Wherever you go, I just want you to understand that I'm your friend and I'll always be here to help you any way I can. We can write, maybe even visit from time to time.”