Bed of Roses (19 page)

“Forget about my hair,” she told him, silently scolding herself for not realizing earlier that the thorny “hairpins” were not conducive to lovemaking. “Just lose yourself in the burning pools of my eyes.”

Frowning so hard that his entire face ached, Sawyer stared at her eyes. They were black, as if she’d been the loser in a fistfight. “There’s black stuff all over—”

“Dramatically lined, buck,” she explained. “Just the way you like them, that is right?”

Soot, he thought. The stuff on her eyes looked just like soot.

He stared at the crimson circles on her cheeks, the smeared scarlet stain on her mouth.

And he smelled her too. His nose crinkled. He’d smelled that god-awful smell before, but what was it?

He had no time to think. He only had time to feel. And he felt pain.

“God Almighty, Zafiro!” he shouted when her teeth sank into his nipple.

“You scream with pleasure, don’t you, buck?” she slurred, her mouth full of his nipple. “You like what I do.”

“Having my nipple chewed off?” he yelled, pulling her head away from his chest.

“You would rather chew on mine?” Quickly, she freed her breast and pressed the soft globe over his mouth. “Open your lips, buck.”

Shocked by what he was hearing, Sawyer tried to protest, but couldn’t because her breast was smashed against his mouth. He couldn’t breathe either, because her breast was also smashed against his nose.

With one smooth and powerful motion he rolled her off his chest and started to stand.

Zafiro pulled him back down into the hay. “I…” Frantically, she dug into her bodice again and yanked out the piece of paper. “I have been hoping and waiting for you to come to me,” she read aloud, “because I knew you would be built like a stallion and that you would have strength enough to last an entire night.”

Sawyer bolted to his feet. “What the hell is this all about, Zafiro?”

“I—”

“What have you done to your face and hair?”

“I—”

“And for God’s sake, what is that stench you’re wearing?”

She couldn’t understand why he was so angry. Hadn’t she done everything Azucar had described?

A failure. That’s what she was. A total failure at seduction.

“Lard!”
Sawyer yelled suddenly. “That’s what I smell. Rotten lard!”

She rose from the hay mound and pulled several strands of the dried grass from her hair. “I was trying to give you a good time between the sheets, Sawyer.”

“A good time—”

“Between the sheets.”

“This is a damn barn!”

His shouting further deflated her spirits. “I wanted to seduce you.”

“By bathing in rotten lard, rubbing red grease on your face, and smearing ashes on your eyes?” he blasted. “By wearing a damn rose garden in your hair and trying to nip my nipple off?”

His questions made her feel beyond silly. Beyond stupid.

Beyond mortified.

She raced to the barn doors, yanked the bar off, and dashed outside.

Sawyer set off after her, but stopped abruptly when he smelled smoke. Several candles had toppled over, their flames swiftly igniting the straw-strewn floor.

Smoke stinging his nostrils and throat, Sawyer grabbed Pancha and Rayo’s water troughs out of their stalls and threw the water over the flames. He did the same with Mister’s water, then, with an old, dusty blanket, he beat at the rest of the blaze until he extinguished the fire.

Covered with sweat, the black residue of the smoke, and the reeking grease that Zafiro had been wearing on her face, he led the animals out of the barn and tied them to a tree in the yard. Later, when all the smoke had dissipated, he would return them to their stalls.

Tired, hungry, and filthy as he was after a long afternoon of work and then an evening of beating out a fire, he was in no mood to confront Zafiro over her ludicrous attempt at seduction. What the hell had gotten into the woman anyway? If she’d wanted him to bed her, all she had to do was tell him and he’d—

His train of thought changed suddenly.

If she’d wanted him to bed her…

Still standing beside Pancha, Rayo, and Mister, Sawyer looked into the distant darkness, and smiled.

Maybe he’d been too hard on Zafiro. Sure, her efforts to rouse his attention had been absurd, but after all, she didn’t know much about men. Only what Azucar had told her.

Only what Azucar had told her.

Full comprehension dawned on Sawyer then. Azucar. The ancient lady of the evening had had a hand in the seduction that Zafiro had attempted to pull off tonight. The way Zafiro had walked, talked… The skintight scarlet gown… All the face paint and the sexy words…

Tools of a whore.

He still didn’t understand why Zafiro smelled like rancid grease, but he felt sure there was a rational explanation for that too.

She’d tried to be beautiful and desirable for him, and he’d embarrassed and hurt her.

Somehow, someway, he had to make amends.

And when she’d accepted his apology, when he’d made her feel better about her sensuous but mangled endeavors, he’d welcome her invitation for a good time between the sheets.

It was the very least he could do after having hurt her feelings.

S
awyer found Zafiro at the
stream. He’d known he would. Had known she’d run to the water to wash off the face paint and the rotten lard and also to find a bit of peace in the moonlit glade.

She knelt in a shallow area of the creek, the water lapping beneath her chin. She was naked. He knew she was because she didn’t wear any underwear and he saw the red dress hanging off a tree branch.

He waited to see if she’d look at him. When she didn’t, he realized she hadn’t heard him arrive. Still at the edge of the woods, he hunched down near the ground and watched her through a cluster of tall bramble.

She stood.

A proud and naked Mexican goddess, he thought. Her hair, blacker than the night sky, reflected moonlight and water glimmers, and it spilled over her bare, brown shoulders and breasts in wet waves that clung to her smooth skin like shadows with substance.

He couldn’t remember ever having beheld a more perfect woman. The flawless shape of her breasts…her gently rounded hips…her small, firm bottom…and her long, lean legs…

The way she moved through the stream…with her supple arms dangling by her sides and her slender fingers trailing through the sparkling water…

She was so lissome. Like a swan. Moving through the water, but showing no means of propulsion, as if by graceful magic. Sawyer knew she was undoubtedly the loveliest woman he had ever known. No memory loss he sustained disputed that fact, for nothing, no trauma could erase such impeccable beauty from his mind.

She’d set out to seduce him tonight. She’d failed in the barn.

Now, at the stream, she’d definitely succeeded.

With the red rose he’d picked for her pinched between his fingers, he eased out from behind the brush and, his gaze still stroking her exquisite form, he started toward the creek, uncaring that his boots crackled through the leaves and broke brittle twigs as he walked.

He wanted Zafiro to know he was there.

But it wasn’t Zafiro who greeted him when he neared the water. As soon as he felt a pair of small, bony hands clutch at his bottom, he realized that Zafiro hadn’t been alone at the stream.

“Lover!” Azucar cried, her fingers moving firmly over the cheeks of his behind. “You are hoping for a kiss beneath the moonlight, yes?”

He spun in the sand and grabbed her gnarled hands. “I don’t have any gold!”

Slight though she was, Azucar managed to slip one hand from his grasp. Instantly, she reached for and fondled his crotch. “It is a shame that you are such a poor man, but I am a generous woman. I will give you a kiss for free, and if you are a good kisser I will also let you feel my big, soft breasts.”

Twisting his hips to the side, Sawyer moved his groin away from her hand. “Zafiro!”

“Yes?” Still in the water, Zafiro watched as Sawyer struggled to keep Azucar from pawing him. So he wanted her help with Azucar, did he? Expected her to come to his aid after the way he’d humiliated her in the barn, did he?

Ha!

“Is something the matter, Sawyer?” she asked, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.

“Tell her to stop!” Sawyer snatched Azucar’s hand again, whereupon she leaned into him and began licking his bare chest. She then wrapped her leg around his calf, clinging to him like a skinny vine around a tree trunk.

Sawyer longed to throw her off, but hesitated to use his strength against her. Old and frail as she was, he might hurt her.

He continued to hold her hands still, but groaned loudly when she pushed her hips into his leg. “Dammit, Zafiro,
do
something!”

Calmly, Zafiro waded out of the water, pulled her gown off the tree branch, and slipped into the dress. “I am sure you want your privacy. What you are about to do—your kiss with Azucar and your feel of her breasts—well, it is not something that should be done in front of an audience. Isn’t that right, Azucar?”

“That is right,
chiquita
. Go to the cabin now so that Sawyer and I can have our fun.”

“No!” Sawyer gritted his teeth. Zafiro was leaving him at the mercy of the old, toothless strumpet out of pure spite! Because she was still upset with him over what happened in the barn! “Zafiro—”

“Have a nice time, Sawyer. You too, Azucar.” Chin tilted and shoulders back, Zafiro plucked the rose from Sawyer’s fingers. Leaving him to his fate, she marched into the woods toward the cabin.

“Kiss me now, lover,” Azucar cooed. She raised her head from his chest and pursed her lips.

The sight made Sawyer think of a prune. “Uh…listen, Azucar,” he said, his mind filling with possible lies he could tell her. “Let’s go to my bedroom for our kiss. I… You… Mosquitoes,” he blurted. “They’re swarming all over me, and I…well, I can’t enjoy our kiss with mosquitoes biting me.”

She unwrapped her leg from around his calf and smiled up at him. “All right, my anxious stallion.”

As soon as she turned and started toward the woods, Sawyer shot past her, having every intention of locking himself in his room as soon as he reached the cabin. Then, when everyone was asleep, he’d settle things with Zafiro.

“Sawyer!” Azucar called.

Sawyer continued to run. Just as he reached the edge of the glade, Maclovio stepped out of the woods.

“What did you do to Azucar?” the outlaw slurred.

It happened so swiftly, so unexpectedly, that Sawyer had not a second to react. Maclovio’s fist smashed into his face, casting him straight to the ground and knocking every bit of air from his lungs.

For a long moment he lay on the ground with his eyes closed. Finally, when his lungs began to burn, he opened his mouth to suck in more air and almost choked when a foul-smelling, horrible-tasting liquid flowed over his tongue and down his throat.

“Francisco, you are a very bad boy,” Tia scolded. She squatted beside him with a spoon and bottle of castor oil in her hand. “Your supper is cold, and now I find you playing down here at the stream in the dark! I have been looking everywhere for you!”

His face aching and his stomach pitching, Sawyer sat up and rubbed his throbbing cheekbone. “Get away from me,” he growled. “Every one of you get the hell away—”

“Sawyer!” Pedro exclaimed as he exited the woods, followed by Lorenzo, who held Jengibre in his arms. “I see you are ready to be baptized, my brother! Come into the River Galilee with me and I will wash away your sins.”

Dear God, Sawyer thought. They were
all
here.
Every single one
of the lunatics! And they were all crowded around him: Tia and her castor oil; Maclovio and his fist; Pedro and his baptismal plans; Azucar and her prune lips; and Lorenzo with the carnivorous Jengibre.

Sawyer almost wished he
was
the little boy called Francisco. If that were so he could lay down his head and cry without the slightest bit of shame.

Slowly, he got off the ground. He was surrounded, completely encircled by five deranged people and a cantankerous chicken. “Move,” he said, his gaze meeting each of theirs in turn. “Now.”

“Sow?” Lorenzo said, shaking his head. “No, we do not have a sow. We have only a horse, a cow, a burro, a cougar, and some chickens. Here, you can hold Jengibre.” Before Sawyer could object, Lorenzo thrust the hen toward him. Startled, Jengibre released a piercing screech, then pecked at Sawyer’s chest.

“Dammit to hell!”
Sawyer roared, throwing the frenzied fowl away.

Jengibre floated to the ground, but was by no means finished with her attack. Again and again she flew off the sand, continuing to peck at Sawyer’s chest and belly as if his torso were covered with a bucketful of chicken feed.

Maclovio merely folded his arms across his chest and watched the scene. But Tia, Azucar, Pedro, and Lorenzo all tried to help Sawyer grab the frenzied bird, the old people surging forward and Sawyer staggering backward.

Toward the stream.

“Oh, he is ready, brethren!” Pedro shouted. “Brother Sawyer has neared the stream and is ready for his baptism!” He pushed Sawyer straight into the shallow water at the edge. Joyously, he then sat on Sawyer’s stomach. “I baptize you in the name of the—”

“Get off me, you crazy—”

“Lazy?” Lorenzo asked, seated on the shore and watching the baptism. “We are not lazy, Sawyer. We have wanted to help you with all the work around La Escondida, but you have only given us string and kindling. Myself, I could open any locks that you might need open, and—”

“—Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” Pedro finished smoothly. He tottered off Sawyer’s stomach and lifted his arms toward heaven. “Rise now, Sawyer Donovan. Your many sins are forgiven. From this day forward, you are a new man.”

A new man, Sawyer thought, lying in the shallow water and staring up at the star-filled sky. After being bitten, pawed, beaten, and pecked, he felt more like an old man than a new one.

Wearily, he turned onto his stomach and dragged himself farther into the stream. Knowing the old people wouldn’t follow, he swam across the creek, then waded to the shore on the other side.