Midnight Rider (25 page)

“Ramon…?” she whispered.

He eased her onto her back and came up over her, their bodies still deeply joined. “I will not take you again if you are sore.”

She smiled into his handsome dark face. “I feel wonderful.”

He nodded. “Good. I am in need of you again. I have been too long without a woman.”

A flicker of hurt rolled through her. He had made her feel so special, so cared for. But he would have been the same with someone else. Carly blinked against the sudden sting of tears at the back of her throat.

It was only that he needed a woman.

And now he had a wife.

Then Ramon was kissing her again, beginning to move inside her, and the sadness slipped away. In seconds she was writhing beneath him, gripping his shoulders, crying out in passion. Again she reached the sweet place he had taken her before, then Ramon's hard body shuddered and stilled.

He moved off her, pulled her against him, cocooning her in his warmth, his long dark fingers sliding gently through her hair.

“Ramon?”

“Go to sleep, Cara. The day has been a long one and tomorrow you will be sore.”

She flushed a little at that. For the first time it occurred to her exactly what they had done and how boldly she had behaved. She wanted to ask if he was pleased, but his eyes were closed and he seemed to be thinking of something else. Perhaps men were always that way after they made love. She knew so little about it.

Carly closed her eyes, but she couldn't fall asleep. Instead she listened to the rain and the wind and tried not to think of all that had happened. Still, again and again, her thoughts returned to the wedding she had forced, the unwanted bride she was—and that her husband was an outlaw, a man whose life was in constant peril.

Lying in the darkness, she wondered what Ramon was thinking, but she didn't dare disturb him. She had caused him enough grief already.

Curling against his side, she finally drifted to sleep.

In the morning when she awakened, she found Ramon had gone.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

Ramon turned the big bay stallion toward Llano Mirada. He was riding up out of the valley, moving deeper into the low rolling hills. A bright sun shone overhead, drying the rain-drenched earth. A small herd of deer, a buck and six does, grazed in the meadow, and a golden eagle soared above the trees, its brown-speckled feathers gilded by the sun's warming rays.

He had left the house at dawn, driven by a desperate need to escape. He needed the fresh, cold air of the mountains to clear his head and help him understand what had happened.

He rubbed a hand over his night's growth of beard, lifted his hat, then settled it lower across his forehead. He should have stayed at Las Almas. He should have faced his obligations, his newly acquired responsibilities as a husband. Instead he had left his bride a short, impersonal note and ridden off into the hills.

He'd had to do it. He'd had to escape his disgust at himself for the way he had behaved. In the cold light of dawn, he'd been forced to face the truth of what had happened the night of the
fandango
and in the long days since.

For the second time since he had known Caralee McConnell, the anger he directed at her should have been directed at himself.

Ramon swore bitterly. The fact was, Carly hadn't forced him to marry her. There wasn't a woman on this earth who could do that if he didn't want her. He had lied to himself, just as he had before.

That night in the barn, when she had looked at him so pleadingly, silently begging for his help, it had taken all his will not to pound Vincent Bannister into the hard dirt floor and carry her away with him. Her clever scheme had been his salvation. In the next few minutes, God only knew what he might have done.

At the time he'd been so confused by his emotions that his anger had surfaced in defense. It had ridden him hard for the next three days, been riding him still when he had gone last night to her room.

But the bitter truth was he wanted Caralee McConnell. So much he had broken the vows he had made. He had ignored his pledge to his family and the men who depended on him. Worse than that, now that he had taken her to his bed, he wanted her more than ever. Despite the fact she was Fletcher Austin's niece. Despite the fact she was an Anglo.

He urged the bay horse over a ridge, leaving the muddy trail behind, but his mind remained on Carly and the overwhelming desire he felt for her. His brother had wanted her too. So badly he had gotten himself killed.

It wasn't Carly's fault. Nothing that had happened since the day he had met her had really been her fault, yet he wondered how his aunt and his mother would feel if they discovered she was the woman who had sounded the alarm the night of the raid. He prayed they wouldn't find out.

He thought of the way he had taunted her at the wedding, thought of the cruel things he had said to her last night, and guilt welled up inside him, so strong it made the sweat break out on his forehead. He had treated her badly, had let his uncertainties drive him to say things, do things he didn't really mean.

Yet in a way he'd had no choice. He couldn't afford to feel the things she made him feel, couldn't understand his driving need to protect her. He didn't like the jealousy he experienced when a man simply looked in her direction, the warmth he felt inside whenever she was near.

Ramon reined up on the crest of a hill and looked back over the valley. Las Almas was long out of sight, but he still could see the western boundary of the twenty thousand acres of Rancho del Robles. Land that should have been his. Land he had sworn to regain for his family—the de la Guerra grant that now belonged to Fletcher Austin, his Anglo wife's only living relative.

He should have stayed, he thought again, wondering what she would think when she discovered he had left her the day after their wedding. At least he had taken her gently. Deep down he knew that no matter how he raged, no matter what he threatened, he would have done that all along.

He recalled her fiery passion, the incredible desire she aroused in him, hotter than he had ever felt for a woman. Not even Lily could make his blood heat up the way his little wife could. Yet he'd let her believe she was just like any other woman he had taken to his bed.

It wasn't the truth. He wanted her with a need that bordered on obsession, but he didn't dare let her know. She was a
gringa.
They thought differently of marriage than Spanish women. Cuckolding a husband meant nothing; sleeping with a dozen different men meant nothing. They took their pleasure wherever they could find it.

In Spain, he had moved in the circles frequented by the traveling rich, mostly Americans, English, and French. That was where he met Lily, at a close friend's villa in Seville. At first he'd been enthralled with Lily. In the next few years, he bedded a dozen more just like her.

Perhaps Caralee would be different. He prayed it was so, but he couldn't be sure.

In many ways he trusted her, but not with the keys to his heart.

He kicked the stallion into a gallop, flinging clumps of damp earth out behind the animal's hooves. There were matters he needed to attend in the stronghold and a few days away from Carly would give him time to regain control. Until his return, Sanchez and the vaqueros would keep her safe. In three days time, his mother and aunt would return from their visit with his cousins, and she would no longer be alone.

Ramon ignored a twinge of regret at the loss of three full days in the arms of his fiery little bride.

*   *   *

He'd left her a note on the mantel. It said he had business in the stronghold, but Carly knew better. Last night Ramon had taken her because he had needed a woman, but she had failed to please him. In fact, she had driven him away.

Her chest felt tight and a hard lump rose in her throat. She paced the floor of the warm, cozy
sala,
hardly aware of the dark carved overhead beams or the crackle of the low-burning fire in the big rock fireplace. Paintings of Ramon's father and mother, his aunt and his brother, hung on the whitewashed adobe walls; and white lace doilies draped over the back of the sofa and brightened the dark oak tables. Carly barely noticed. She was too caught up in her guilt and her terrible sense of failure.

Pedro Sanchez had come to her earlier that morning. He wanted her to know she would be safe while Ramon was away. The vaqueros had been instructed to watch after her, he said. Ramon had spoken to them before he left that morning. Blue was there to cook and clean; surely Carly would be fine until her husband returned from the stronghold.

Surely she would be fine.

But she didn't feel fine at all.

Thinking of the beautiful woman waiting for Ramon at Llano Mirada, Carly felt sick to her stomach. If only she'd had a little more time, she could have learned how to please him.

She wanted that, Carly realized, she wanted to please Ramon more than anything else in the world.

She wanted to—because she was in love with him.

A jagged pain knifed through her as she sank down on the horsehair sofa. Why hadn't she seen it? How could she have hidden the truth from herself for so long? She was in love with Ramon, had been since the night he had saved her from Villegas, perhaps even before that.

Maybe she had loved him from the moment she had opened her eyes and seen him praying at the side of her bed.

And if she loved him, perhaps that was the reason she had forced the marriage. At the time, she hadn't considered it. She'd been certain it was necessary, her only way out of a bad situation. But maybe deep down, in a place she refused to acknowledge, she wanted Ramon so much she was willing to do anything to get him. If that was the case, she was no better than Vincent Bannister. Carly's heart wrenched at the thought.

Three days passed. At first she was embarrassed. Ramon had left right after their wedding night, and Pedro, the vaqueros, and everyone else at Las Almas knew it. She occupied the hours wandering through the house, then thankfully made a new friend out in the barn—little Bajito, the tiny brown and white spotted dog that had perched on Rey del Sol's back the day of the horse race.

The dog slept in one of the stalls near his big palomino friend, but he loved to play, and Carly had lured him outside easily for a game of fetch the stick. After that, she had come to the barn every day, carrying a bite of sugar for Rey and some scraps from supper for Bajito.

Then one day as she was sitting on the floor of the barn playing tug-of-war with the scruffy little mutt, Carly clutching one end of a rag while Bajito clung to the other, she overheard a group of vaqueros speaking outside the window of one of the stalls.

Pancho Fernandez, one of the Las Almas vaqueros, had been at del Robles the night of the
fandango.
He had heard what happened in the barn, how Don Ramon had been trapped into marriage, and carried the tale to the men. Ramon didn't really want her, he said. That was the reason he had left her alone.

Carly's throat closed up. It was the truth, but it hurt to hear him say it.

“I do not believe it,” another man said as she started to creep away before any of them could see her. “What sane man would not want her, eh? Besides, I have seen the way he looks at her. There is something in his eyes I have never seen there before.”

Hearing those words, a tiny ray of hope began to glow inside her, a spark that had been all but snuffed out. Perhaps she could learn to please him, somehow win his love. The hope continued to grow, brightening a little every day. Surprisingly, it strengthened when his aunt and mother returned, amazed to find Ramon had gone.

“He—he had to leave on business,” Carly stammered, the color high in her cheeks. “I'm certain he'll be back as soon as he can.”

His mother frowned, but his frail maiden aunt smiled brightly. “Do not worry,
niña.
My nephew is new at being a husband. He chafes a little at the bit, but in time, he will come around.”

Carly's heart swelled with gratitude at the older woman's kind words. Over the next few days, they spoke often, though his mother practically ignored her. Tia Teresa had a way of sweeping aside the barriers between them. She reminded Carly of her grandmother, an Irish woman who had lived with the McConnell family in the mine patch, a woman of courage and warmth. Carly had loved everything about her, the stories she told of the grueling journey from her homeland, the feel of her gnarled old hands as they gently braided her hair, even the hint of Irish whiskey that occasionally clung to her breath.

Granny McConnell was gone now, but in a few short days she felt nearly that close to Tia Teresa, a closeness she hadn't shared with a woman since her mother died.

“Are you busy, Tia?” Carly approached the frail old woman late one evening, after Mother de la Guerra had gone to bed. The older woman was sitting in the
sala
embroidering, her veined hands working with a skill that denied her years. Carly had come in from outside in the kitchen, where she'd been helping Blue with the supper dishes.

She didn't have to help. In fact, Ramon's mother frowned at the notion of a de la Guerra woman doing such menial tasks, but Blue was old, and Carly didn't mind. Keeping busy helped distract her.

Tia Teresa set aside her embroidery, resting it carefully beside her on the couch. “What is it,
niña?
You are worried about Ramon, no?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” She worried about him every day, prayed that he and his men hadn't gone off on some dangerous mission. “But that isn't what I wanted to ask you about.”

“No? Then what is it?”

A spot of warmth crept into her cheeks. “It's about the night we were married. I-It's rather embarrassing, but I…” She took a breath to fortify her courage. “You see I didn't know exactly what to do. Ramon was…”
magnificent, incredible, wonderful.
“At any rate, I think I might have done something wrong, something to displease him.”