Raven and the Cowboy: A Loveswept Historical Romance (24 page)

Now she had somebody to share her uncertainties with, someone who made her feel protected. And she let go the last of her reservations and leaned against him openly, with no pretense of having too much wine, or too much fear.

“Did something happen while I was gone?” he asked.

She answered him honestly. “I missed you.”

He swallowed hard, obviously at a loss for words. “You look very beautiful in the afternoon light. I didn’t expect such a welcome.”

She didn’t answer. Instead she leaned against him, the warmth of his body bringing heat to the coolness of hers. They felt so good together.

“Nothing happened?” His voice was tight with emotion.

“Nothing happened,” she echoed. Except something inside her had changed. He’d been gone and she’d been afraid. Now he was back and everything felt secure again. “Are you hungry?”

“Hungry? God, yes, I’m hungry. My stomach and my backbone are having a duel.”

“Then let’s eat.” She slid her arm around his waist and adapted her steps to his as they walked back to the cabin.

The sun dropped lower in the sky until it fell beyond the ridge and a soft gray bank of shadows swooped across the narrow valley where the cabin was. Tiny night birds
darted across the sky in search of insects, and in the distance they heard the mournful sound of a coyote.

“Something smells good.” Tucker was reluctant to speak for fear that he’d break the peaceful mood they shared.

“Salt pork and biscuits,” she said, “and coffee.”

“No juice of the red berry?”

“No juice of the red berry.” She smiled. “I’m saving that for a special occasion.”

“What, to celebrate finding the treasure?”

Tucker’s words were meant to be a continuation of the jubilant spirit of the evening. Instead they seemed to have the opposite effect. Raven tensed for a moment, then made an obvious attempt to throw off whatever bothered her.

“When we find the treasure, we’ll invoke the spirits to join in the celebration,” she said. “And you know what happens when a bunch of celebrating spirits get stirred up.”

“No, what happens?”

“You never believed in fairies?” Raven asked as she started laying out the food.

“No. There was an old slave on the plantation who cast spells for the others, but so far as I knew, the only thing that happened was that she got fat from taking part of their food allotment and they went hungry.”

“Well, my father was Irish and he believed in the Little People, leprechauns. He thought they were caretakers to the Irish. And my mother’s people believe that every part of nature has a spiritual guide to oversee our lives. What do you believe?”

Tucker tried to answer Raven very carefully and with as much honesty as he could. “Raven, until I met you, I believed only in what I could see and touch and feel. Now I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a mermaid
in Luce’s pool. But I’m still having trouble thinking that there are spirits who control our lives.”

“Control isn’t the right word.” She tore the bread into pieces and laid it on the tin plates Tucker had bought back in San Felipe. “It’s more that they know what will happen and they give us their wisdom, if we ask.”

“Do you think they’d tell us where the treasure is if we ask?”

Raven poured the coffee and sat down. “I think they already have, Tucker. After we eat, maybe we can examine the carrying bag and the pan with the markings. The answer is there, if we can find it.”

“And if we can’t?”

Raven broke open her bread and slapped the salt pork inside. “Then we will have failed.”

“Would that be the end of everything?”

She thought for a long minute. “I don’t know. If we fail, it will be because we lost our sense of purpose.”

“Did it ever occur to you that we could fail because we aren’t supposed to succeed?”

Raven nodded. “Yes, but I don’t believe that. We’ve come too far. The treasure is close by, I sense it, and we’ll find it if we open our minds and our hearts.”

Tucker ate the food and thought about what she’d said. If he opened his heart any further, it would shatter into a thousand pieces and he’d lose it entirely. His heart already knew how he felt about Raven. It was his mind that he was having trouble convincing.

After they finished the meal, Raven brought her mother’s carrying bag with the symbols painted on it, and Tucker got the tin pan he’d marked with holes that traced the design on Luce’s head.

On closer examination Tucker could see that the pinpricks of light on the pan matched the half triangles on the carrying bag. “These have to be mountain peaks,”
Tucker said. “But what about these odd lines between? They aren’t parallel, so they aren’t trails.”

“They’re wavy, almost like rainbows, or waves,” Raven observed.

“That’s it,” Tucker exclaimed. “They’re waves. Water.”

The sun had set and they were examining the drawings by the light of the fire. When Tucker held the tin pan in front of the fire, the design shone like stars leading ancient travelers.

“ ‘Follow the water,’ Luce said,” Raven commented.

Tucker studied the design. “We thought that was only to find his burial place.”

Raven nodded. “But the burial site was important for more than that. As keeper of the treasure, Luce had to be placed in the proper spot at the base of the sacred mountain.”

“You can see the wavy lines above the cabin, and this circle here must be the pool.”

“I think you’re right. And if we travel in that direction, we’ll be walking toward the odd formation of peaks I saw.”

“But what about the butterfly? It doesn’t seem to fit with the rest.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was just part of my mother’s totem. Each person has their own symbols, and they are private,” Raven said.

Tucker folded the bag and put it inside the saddlebags along with the tin plate. “Tomorrow we’ll go back to Luce’s grave and we’ll start from there. We’ll follow the water.”

“Speaking of water,” Raven said, “we have some dishes to wash before we go to bed. Will you go to the pool with me?”

“Will the spirits get me if I don’t?” he asked with an easy laugh and began to gather their plates.

Raven picked up the skillet and the coffeepot. “Maybe not, but you’ll be in trouble with me if you don’t. And believe me, Mr. Farrell, that’s a lot worse.”

“Ah, Mrs. Farrell. We’ve only been married a few days and you’re already turning into a shrew. What am I going to do with you?”

“I think you’re just going to have to seal my lips, husband.”

She stopped and turned toward him, her lips slightly parted, her warm breath lightly feathering his chin.

“I knew that I chose a smart woman.” Then he kissed her.

Tucker’s kiss was so light, she could barely feel his lips. With both hands full, neither Raven nor Tucker could touch the other, but Raven could feel her body reach out to him. Her fierce response staggered her. Excitement bubbled up her veins, sharpening her senses and making her pulse race.

Then, almost before it had begun, the kiss ended and they stood looking at each other like two young fools, grinning, balancing on the narrow edge of longing. Raven thought about her fears for their relationship, for the continuation of their mission, and knew that what they felt when they touched was too powerful to put aside. Whatever happened now, the mission and her feelings were all part of the same.

“Well, Mrs. Farrell, your lips are better than the sweetest red berries.”

“And your kiss is more potent than Señor Hildalgo’s wine.”

“And if we don’t get to that pool, we’re going to scorch the food left in these dishes,” Tucker said and swung around to find the path upward.

He didn’t whistle this time, but Raven didn’t need to hear his pleasure to know it was there. His quick steps spoke louder than words, as did the rapidity with which the dishes were scoured and laid on the rocky ledge to dry.

“Now, about that waking dream from our last visit to the pool and that one when we danced beneath the trellis at the fiesta,” Tucker said wickedly. “Do you suppose we could doze off again?”

There was no rock between them this time, no chanting or distant drums. The only sound in Raven’s mind was the pounding of her heart.

“Do you think the spirits are watching?” Tucker asked in a tight low voice.

“Of course.”

“Do you think they mind that I kissed you?”

She grinned. “You’ve kissed me before. Were there rock slides?”

“No”

“Lightning strikes?”

“No.”

“Hordes of locusts or birds attacking?”

“No.”

“Then I think they were very pleased.”

“Then I believe I’ll do it again.”

The stars twinkled. The stream plunged down from the hole in the rocks overhead and fell into the pool. A soft night breeze wrapped around them as Tucker kissed her.

The mountain seemed to sigh, and showed its approval in every physical way that nature could have designed. Silver moonlight drenched the rocks, casting a shimmering dreamlike quality to the night. The melody of the water filled the night around them like a hundred hearts beating in unison. And somewhere in the distance,
Tucker heard a kind of murmur, like a chorus whispering some repetitive musical cord.

The sound reached within him and loosened the last of his defenses, turning his insides into melted honey that licked his skin with heat and made every nuance of the night intensify.

Raven’s lips were soft and warm; her body pressed against him, setting off a shivery motion. Beneath her buckskin he could feel her breasts tighten and harden. Her body was alive with response, her breathing fast and light.

“You take my breath away,” he whispered.

“And you charge through all my restraints as if I had none, as if this were meant to be.” Closing her eyes, she let her body experience the feel of him against her, strong and hard, vibrating with energy.

A dam of emotion broke inside her, allowing all her held-back fears and desires to run free. She felt flooded with fire, and suddenly her dress was gone and he was running his rough hands over her bare body. She let out a deep, long moan in her throat.

There was a sense of panic and overwhelming awe, and for a moment, she pulled back. But Tucker wouldn’t let her retreat, not this time. He moved his lips down her face and to the hollow at the base of her neck, his fingers plying her breast and her bottom as if she were clay being molded into a sculpture and he were the artist creating the masterpiece.

She was gasping now for breath, tearing at his shirt, seeking the touch of his bare skin beneath her palms. Hot, then cold, she moaned helplessly. Her fingertips searched his chest, moving downward to his belt.

Then the belt was gone, along with his boots and his trousers. Softly Tucker whispered her name, making the word sound reverent, pure, his fingers plowing through the
heavy mass of her hair, separating it, combing it across her shoulders and down her back. He brought a handful of it to his lips, brushing it across his chest and nipples.

His mouth devoured hers while her hands, wild now in their own exploration, ran rampant over his body. She could feel his heart beating, feel his breath hot upon her hair, feel his erection throbbing against her.

Then he lifted her and carried her to a mossy area beside the water. Whispering her name over and over, he laid her down and came down beside her.

“You’re so sweet and wild,” he said. “I feel the print of your lips across my body as if I’ve been branded in fire.”

“You have, my golden mountain lion. I’ve put my mark on you for all time.”

“Now it’s my turn to brand you.” His kisses continued to rain across her with sweet potency. The trail of fire swirled along the cords of her neck, across her breasts, and down her stomach to her navel and below, where the vortex of sensation was sending swirls of heat spiraling outward.

“Oh, Tucker,” she cried out, “it aches. Why does it ache so much?”

“It’s a need as old as time,” he whispered. “Let yourself give in to it, let it wash over you.”

“But I’ll explode.”

“That’s the wonder of it, sweetheart. When it’s right, in spite of all life’s trouble and pain, we get rewarded with something that nobody and nothing can take from us.”

Then he was over her, the hair on his chest brushing her breasts with fire, his heavy arousal throbbing against her thigh, his leg thrown across her.

In the moonlight, she could see his eyes, shimmering like smooth stones beneath crystal-clear water. Her hands were tugging at him, feeling the sinewy muscle in his arms
and back, drawing him closer. Like a sleek statue, he rose above her, waiting for some kind of distant signal, holding himself back until she was about to die of want.

She moaned helplessly, whispering his name, asking, pleading, needing. Her voice caught in her throat, held by such tightness that she felt as if she would die.

“Raven, my sweet, you’ve never been with a man before.”

“No.”

“The first time, there is pain.”

“Pain always leads the way to joy, else how do we know the pleasure?”

And then he was poised between her legs, probing, stroking until, just at the moment she was ready to scream, he plunged inside her, bringing a strangled cry of shock. Pain quickly turned into pleasure and she met him thrust for thrust. Savagely they moved together, his hands clasping her shoulders, her nails raking his back. Consumed by fire that raged higher and higher, she buried her face into his shoulder, crying out in pure animal ecstasy.