Raven and the Cowboy: A Loveswept Historical Romance (21 page)

The only truthful thing he’d said was that having another gun along would have been an advantage. But one last look at the man belied that idea. Mr. Small was a writer, not a fighter. He wasn’t armed and Tucker doubted he’d ever fired anything more dangerous than a slingshot.

Quickly Tucker closed the study door and started up the steps. But he hadn’t counted on Rosalita, whose voice
he could hear beyond Raven’s door. She was insisting that Raven get undressed and into bed. Raven was arguing but Tucker could see that she’d have to comply. He only hoped that she didn’t take long.

He listened to the low lyrical sound of her voice. She seemed so different tonight, nothing at all like the serious spirit woman she’d been on the trail. He liked this woman who laughed and wanted to dance the fandango. He suspected that he was seeing a side of her that no one else had ever known. That made him unexpectedly happy. If only they had the time to stop and enjoy that new Raven. But that couldn’t happen—yet.

“Get undressed, Raven,” he whispered.

“If that’s what you want,” he imagined her saying in return.

But Tucker couldn’t lurk around in the corridor waiting for Rosalita to leave. That would be awkward. He’d check out the party with an eye to making their escape unobserved.

Señor Hildalgo intercepted Tucker as he entered the courtyard. “I think you ought to know that there is a great deal of interest in an old miner who took part in a poker game a few days ago.”

“I heard about it,” Tucker said casually. “There must be many tales like that circulating about.”

“Of course. And there are many lost treasures in the hills. But once such a treasure is found, not many people have the means to dispose of it discreetly. I do.”

The gauntlet was thrown, the challenge issued. Tucker considered his options. First the reporter, now the banker. “If there was such a treasure, and it was found, a man like you would be an asset to the finder.”

“Then we understand each other?” the banker asked.

“I think we do,” Tucker said, then turned away and disappeared on the pretense of having another glass of
wine. For the next half hour, he mingled with the guests, making certain that those present knew that Raven was already in bed and that they would be leaving late in the morning to view local lands for sale.

Then he slipped to the stables, where he staked out a carriage and a horse drawn up to the outer ring of conveyances. Traveling by buggy would be slower, but unharnessing the carriage or separating and saddling horses might draw attention.

Satisfied that their means of escape was set, he stole around the wall to the outer staircase leading up to the balcony overlooking the courtyard. Once he reached Raven’s darkened room, he found it a simple matter to enter from the outside.

“Where have you been?” She slid her arms around his neck and lifted her lips for a kiss. “I got undressed as you wanted.”

Christ! She’d heard his whisper.

Rosalita might have convinced Raven to don her nightdress, but she wasn’t wearing it now.

“I’ve been toasting our new partnership with Mr. Small,” he stammered. “Where are your clothes?”

“I don’t know. Did you satisfy Mr. Small’s questions?”

Tucker opened his mouth to answer and groaned instead as she placed one of his hands on her bottom and pulled the other around her waist.

“Let’s just say he’s feeling very good about things. Raven—”

“Tucker, I’m feeling very good too,” she whispered. “Or I will be when you stop being so—” she laughed lightly, “stiff, and kiss me back.” She didn’t know how to flirt; she’d never had any reason to before.

But tonight she wanted Tucker to see her as a woman.

“Kiss me, Tucker, please?”

Tucker groaned. “Raven, there is no way a man could
touch you and not be completely and totally aroused. But we can’t do this now. We have to go.”

“Go?” she said in disbelief. “You mean leave tonight—now?”

“Yes. Mr. Small won’t sleep forever. Our trustworthy banker is entirely too interested in the possibility of lost treasure. I don’t think we should stay here any longer. We have everything we need. Plus, we have the element of surprise.”

“Are you sure?” she asked in a voice filled with disappointment. “Couldn’t we wait, just a little while? I thought …”

“I know what you thought, and yes, I’m sure. The celebration will continue all night. We’ll never have a better time to escape than while the fiesta is in full force.”

Raven, pleasantly tipsy on wine and desire, knew that what he said made sense. She understood the logic in Tucker’s thinking, but the logical side of her nature seemed to have disappeared. Tonight she was a woman possessed. She had found the man she wanted. She’d never imagined that she would feel like this, never even wished for it. But it had come like a hot storm and encircled her, filling her mind with physical yearnings, destroying her control. She was lost, caught up in the moment, for one night putting her own desire above her mission.

“Please, Tucker. Before we go, just one kiss—one kiss.”

“Raven, please,” Tucker growled. “There’s just so much a man can take. Remember your promise to Flying Cloud.”

Flying Cloud
. Raven felt a curtain of ice fall over her. Stunned by her behavior, she pulled away, a small part of her hurt by Tucker’s inability to understand how much she needed him to comfort and hold her, the other
ashamed of her loss of purpose. For once she hadn’t wanted him to be her strong and wise protector. She’d wanted him as a woman wants a man. And she was just beginning to understand that kind of power.

But he was right. She had given herself to a greater cause. She had no choice, she’d let him go, but first—

She kissed him one last time, a punishing, hard kiss that told him what he’d missed, what might not be offered again.

For just a moment, Tucker allowed himself to give in. He returned her kiss, tightening his arm around her waist possessively, pulling her against him. It was time he showed her that he could feel and return her desire. That she couldn’t shut off his feelings as she did her own. That when the time came, they’d face this fire between them and there would be no going back.

His fingers tore through her hair, savagely pulling her head closer, capturing her mouth, delving inside the hot sweetness with his tongue. His hand cupped her breast, tweaking her nipple as he pressed his stiff manhood against her, finding the crease between her legs where he most wanted to be.

At first she gave as good as she got, using her own hands to explore, sliding lower until she found the object of her search. His neck muscles strained beneath one hand as the other encircled him intimately.

“Raven!”

“Yes?”

“Stop that, now!”

“Of course.” She let him go and, using every ounce of her self-control, stepped away. “You see, Tucker Farrell, we are bound together, all parts of us, for now. This I know, though I do not yet understand all that it means. But we will dance to the music of the spirits. Sooner or later you’ll understand.”

She turned away and pulled on her buckskin dress, leaving her colorful fiesta clothes behind. “I’m know I’m not Mrs. Tucker Farrell and I never will be. No matter how much I’ve let myself pretend tonight, there is no place in my life for love.”

Raven the spirit woman was back.

It was Tucker who was confused and uncertain.

Love? Where in hell had that come from? He didn’t know anything about love, didn’t want to, refused to consider that possibility. Even the word scared him silly. He was a man who’d been given a responsibility that offered the means to realize a long-forgotten dream. Love didn’t, couldn’t, enter into it. Love guaranteed failure.

He’d see that this woman found her treasure, for which he’d be rewarded. Then he’d go to Oregon and find the life he’d turned his back on so many years ago.

And Raven? What lay in store for her? Would she follow her dream alone?

That thought lay heavy on his heart, along with unexpected pain.

Shame—and guilt, that’s what Raven felt as they slipped through the darkness past the open gate and toward the carriages beyond.

For one night she’d put herself and her feelings above her sworn oath, something she’d never thought she’d do. Her people were depending on her, and she’d almost allowed herself to be caught up in her desire for this man.

Tucker had never faltered.

She’d been the one to fail.

The cougar and the raven were two different species; they didn’t belong together. She was a spirit woman, charged with the future of the Arapaho people. Tucker was a drifter with no past and no future. Why he’d been chosen to accompany her, she couldn’t know. But she did know that in some way she had been tested.

Once they reached the carriage, she climbed in, ignoring Tucker’s caution to be quiet. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to, so deep had she sunk in her misery. At every turn they’d encountered danger, possible failure, ever relentless enemies ready to take what she was
charged to find. And at every turn, Tucker had found a way to free them and move them closer to her objective.

Tucker was the strength; she was the vision. But she’d become a willow in the wind, unstable, fragile. How could the Grandfather have chosen her? Swift Hand, though still finding his way, was stronger. Even he understood the power of their quest and the spirit world that commanded it.

“You know that what you are experiencing is desire, and it is the most powerful emotion on earth,” Tucker finally said.

She didn’t answer.

“Few people ever truly understand what it is for two bodies to be perfectly in tune with each other. Women sometimes give their love to a man who doesn’t appreciate the gift.”

“I don’t wish to discuss it,” she said. “It was the wine. It won’t happen again.”

“It wasn’t the wine, Raven, and under other circumstances I would have taken what you offered and given you what you need.”

“I said, I don’t wish to discuss it.”

“All right, but it is still there and it’s not going to go away.”

Something about her stern countenance worried him. What she might have felt back at the fiesta was gone. The passion of her kisses in their room might never have been. The woman riding beside him as they reached the outskirts of San Felipe seemed to have turned to stone.

Still dressed in his black Spanish clothing, Tucker climbed down from the carriage and helped Raven dismount. He released the horse and watched as it wandered off and began to graze on the thick prairie grass nearby. On foot they slowly made their way into the square and quietly across the darkened plaza toward the livery stable.
A few coins to the proprietor was the best Tucker could do to ensure his silence. It wouldn’t last long, but at least they’d have a head start on anyone asking after them.

Gathering their newly purchased supplies, Tucker packed them on a skittish Yank and Onawa. They would have been better served with a burro, but there was none to be had. Soon they were traveling down the same road they’d watched the bandits ride out on when they arrived.

Raven would have asked about his plans, but she’d made up her mind that Tucker’s instincts were trustworthy. He understood many practical things that she did not. As much as she would have liked to go on alone, she understood that was not meant to be.

“Do you intend to remain silent for the rest of our journey?” he finally asked.

“No. Do you think it is wise to talk when we might be heard?”

“If anybody listening doesn’t hear our horses, they won’t hear our conversation.”

“All right, then, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”

Tucker wanted to shake her, to arouse some emotion in her, to bring back the woman he’d traveled with up to now. But he had no choice but to wait for her to get past what had happened and her reaction to it. They’d both been loners for too long. Sooner or later they had to become a team again, or their mission was doomed to failure.

Perhaps that was to be their fate. If the treasure was never found, there would be no saving the Arapaho. There would be no land in Oregon. But there would be no parting either.

What did he really want?