Sun God (42 page)

Baron, looking much older than his forty-one years, stepped onto the stone porch. His once-handsome face was pale and puffy, the riveting blue eyes dulled permanently from liquor and debauchery. Once a meticulous man, his worn clothes were frayed and dirty, and they hung loosely on his too-thin frame.

But that smile, aimed at winning the coldest of hearts, was still brilliant and firmly in place.

“Glad to see me, are you, little sister?” He reached for her, but Amy sidestepped him.

“You must be hot and tired, Baron,” she said, gesturing nervously. “Sit down here in the shade and I’ll bring you something cold to drink. How does that sound?”

Baron raised a blond eyebrow and remained on his feet. “Why would I want to stay out here when I can go inside where it’s cool?” He advanced on her. “Yep, I think I’ll go upstairs and take a bath, get some of the trail dirt off me.”

“Wait!” Amy said, blocking his way. “I … ah … can’t we visit awhile first and then—”

“What’s this, now?” His smile broadened and he shook his head accusingly. “You never had two words to say to me before. Why all this sisterly interest now?” He reached out and touched a long golden curl lying on Amy’s left shoulder. “Why, Amy, have you got yourself another hot-blooded Mexican stud to warm your bed while old Doug’s down in Mexico with Maximilian, playing soldier?”

“No, of course not. Don’t be—”

“I bet that’s it,” he interrupted. “I bet you’ve got some José or Carlos or Jesus putting it to you every night. What about it, little sister? Still humping the vaqueros?”

“Stop it, Baron! Don’t speak to me like that.”

“I’m going inside,” he told her casually. Amy, frantic, whirled about and rushed indoors ahead of him, trying to think what to do.

Hurriedly she crossed the brick-floored corridor, hoping to draw her brother into the
sala.
But when Baron paused just inside the front door and moved no farther, Amy looked first at him, then at what he was staring at.

At the top of the stairs stood a bare-chested Luiz Quintano, Colt .44 in his raised hand. Seeing the hatred flashing in his black eyes, Amy automatically shouted, “Dear God, no! Luiz, don’t, he’s my brother!”

Holding her breath, she watched as his bronzed arm slowly lowered. Immediately a shot rang out and a bright blossom of blood appeared on Luiz’s dark chest. Amy screamed in horror, but before she could move, a second shot was fired.

As if in a dream, Amy turned to see Baron Sullivan, a smoking revolver in his hand, crumple to the brick floor.

Magdelena, her face a mask of hatred, came calmly forward, still clutching the smoking gun. Unable to move, to think, Amy stood rooted to the spot, her heart pounding with fear and horror, while the Mexican servant who had never harmed anyone or anything moved purposely toward the dying blond man.

His blue eyes clouded with pain and shock, Baron, clutching his stomach, murmured, “Mag … Magdelena, honey. Why …?”

“Once I love you with all my heart,” she said, standing above, looking down at him. “Then you kill my baby, my Rosa. Now I kill you.” She slowly raised the gun.

“No!” Pedrico’s voice cut through the tension and penetrated. He threw open the front door, hurried inside, and tore the gun away from Magdelena. Sobbing, she collapsed against him.

Amy’s horrified gaze was on her brother. She watched, unmoving, as Baron Sullivan gasped his last breath. Amy did not go to him. She did not burst into tears. She did not experience so much as one fleeting second of sorrow.

“Luiz!” she screamed, and flew up the stairs.

Her high brow drawn in lines of worry, her body weak with exhaustion, Amy Sullivan Parnell sat at the bedside of the wounded Captain Luiz Quintano, refusing to allow anyone else to tend him.

It had been three days since the tragedy.

Amy had lived a lifetime in those three terrible days. An hour after the shooting, Doc Gonzales had arrived from Sundown to remove the bullet from Luiz’s chest. It had been touch and go for the next forty-eight hours. Finally, this morning, as the sun rose on another long, scorching Texas day, Luiz’s black eyes had opened and he had asked for water.

Now, as the sun was going down, Amy sat in the gloom and studied the dark, still face on the ivory pillow. His prominent cheekbones seemed more pronounced, as if already he had lost weight.

Brows knitting, Amy leaned closer. She peeled the ivory sheet down from his bandaged chest to his waist. She placed a gentle hand on his bare stomach. His belly was concave below his ribs. If he didn’t soon start taking nourishment, any remaining reserves of strength would ebb swiftly away.

Amy patted his sunken stomach as if he were a sickly child, and she shook her head in despair. She drew the sheet back up over his chest and shoulders and tiptoed from the room. Outside, she raced down the stairs, forgetting that she was tired.

In the kitchen she found Magdelena.

The Mexican servant, seated at the table, hands laced atop it, raised her graying head and looked up when Amy came hurrying in. It was the first time the two women had been alone since the catastrophe. Great tears sprang to Magdelena’s eyes and rolled down her fleshy cheeks.

Rising she said, “I kill your brother. I will leave Orilla. I will go tomorrow.”

“This is your home, I want you to stay,” Amy said, meaning it. Her tired arms opening wide, she stepped forward to comfort her lifelong friend.

Crying openly, Magdelena sobbed. “Can you ever forgive me for what I’ve done?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Amy soothed, patting her shaking back. “Put it from your mind and we will never speak of it again.”

“
Dios
, you are a good, kind woman,” Magdelena said gratefully. She pulled back to dab at her eyes with her apron.

“I am neither.” Amy blinked back her own tears. “Now I need your help. El Capitán must eat something soon or …”

“I fix strong beef broth for him already. Is warming on the stove. He is awake?”

“No, but I mean to wake him. I am going to feed him whether he’s hungry or not.”

Nodding, Magdelena said, “Dr. Gonzales said Luiz is lucky the bullet missed his heart. He will be okay, no?”

“I don’t know; I am worried, Mag. Doc Gonzales said this afternoon that Luiz is not coming around as he should. He said it’s as if Luiz isn’t fighting. As if he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.”

“You must make him care,” Magdelena said, and hurried to dish up the steaming broth.

Amy did make him care.

She woke him that evening and insisted he allow her to feed him a few spoonfuls of the nourishing broth. That simple act of human kindness was the beginning of a profound change between the pair.

It was during Luiz’s convalescence that cruelty was replaced with kindness. Lust with love. Revenge with regret.

For two long weeks Amy was never out of his sight for more than a few moments at a time. She did everything for him, refusing offered help from Magdelena and Pedrico. She fed him, she bathed him, she shaved him, she changed his bandages. She tended his every need and did so with kindness, patience, and good cheer.

In turn Luiz was the model patient. He worried about
her
health. He tried to persuade her to rest more, to leave him, to let him take care of himself. He thanked her genuinely for everything she did for him, no matter how small the favor.

Early one afternoon Amy saw the pain in his black eyes, though he said nothing. He never complained. It was more than she could bear to see him hurting. The doctor had left plenty of laudanum, but she could never persuade Luiz to take any. So she did what she had done more than once since he was wounded. She added a few drops to a cup of hot tea and made him drink it.

Within minutes he had gone to sleep, and he slept the long, hot afternoon through. Sleeping deeply, resting peacefully in a drug-induced slumber. Amy, in her usual chair beside his bed, watched him as a protective mother would watch her only child.

As she watched him, a tightness closed around her chest. He was so beautiful, so very beautiful. His face, turned toward her, was unlined and smooth and perfect, save for the white scar down his cheek. He looked like a young, innocent boy. Like the young, innocent boy she had adored a lifetime ago.

All at once the need to touch him was so great Amy slid from her chair. On her knees beside the bed, she slowly, carefully peeled the ivory sheet down to his waist. Being very careful not to disturb the bandaged wound, Amy placed an arm across him and laid her cheek directly atop the bare right side of his chest.

Sighing softly, she allowed her hands to lightly, lovingly clasp his naked ribs. Inhaling deeply of his cherished scent, she closed her eyes and murmured softly, “My darling, I’m sorry, so sorry. Everything bad that ever happened to you is my fault.”

Her eyes fluttered open, but her cheek remained pressed to his warm chest. Her lips formed his name against his smooth, bronzed flesh and she simply spoke his name over and over again. His name, not El Capitán’s. Not Luiz’s. But his real name. His only name as far as she was concerned.

Tonatiuh.

“Tonatiuh, my Tonatiuh,” she softly whispered. “Tonatiuh. Tonatiuh. Tonatiuh.” She sighed. “My love, my only love, my Tonatiuh. Tonatiuh, Tona—” Amy abruptly stopped speaking as a hand touched her, settling gently on the crown of her head. All the breath left her body as long, firm fingers entwined in her hair. She was afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to hope.

Amy slowly lifted her head and saw those magnificent black eyes swimming in tears. It touched her more deeply than anything that had gone before. She began to cry.

And she sobbed aloud when the tears spilled down his dark cheeks and he said, “Don’t cry, darling. Kiss me. Kiss me, Amy. Kiss your Tonatiuh hello.”

“M
Y LOVE.” AMY SOBBED
as he gently pulled her to him with his good arm.

His mouth covered hers in the first tender kiss they had shared since the days of their youth. Luiz tasted the salt of Amy’s tears and his heart kicked painfully against his wounded chest. Slowly, lovingly, he kissed all her tears away.

But new tears streamed down her flushed cheeks as their lips separated and Amy said, “I’ve hurt you so much. I’m sorry.”

“Shhh, sweetheart.” His hand cradled her head. “I’m the one who is sorry. I’ve been cruel. I’ve made you suffer, and for that I will never forgive myself.”

Both began to talk at once, anxious to assure the other that all was forgiven. Punctuating each rushed, broken sentence with eager, healing kisses, all that had been locked in their hearts poured out. Explanations were offered and accepted. Forgiveness was sought and extended. Love was confessed and embraced. Both cried unashamedly and their tears washed away the last bitter traces of misunderstanding and distrust.

Finally Amy laid her head on Luiz’s chest and sighed peacefully. And she said, “Please, my love, you must tell me of the night my brothers took you from Orilla. How did you survive? Who saved your life?”

Luiz smiled and brushed a kiss to her forehead. And he said, “The Sun Stone.”

Amy didn’t doubt him for a second. If her beloved Tonatiuh said the Sun Stone had saved him, then it had. “Go on,” she coaxed, eager to hear everything.

His voice low and even, Luiz said, “It was midnight when Baron and Lucas left me for dead in the deserts of northern Mexico. Baron hatefully threw the Sun Stone at me. It landed several feet from where I lay. Its brilliance drew me like a magnet. I crawled to it, knowing only that I had to reach it, to hold it in my hands.

“Finally I made it. I recall vividly my fingers closing around the golden disk. The next thing I remember was waking in a vast underground cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites and strange, unnatural limestone formations. The first sound I heard was the soft tinkling of bells. My vision was blurred, but when it cleared, I saw, seated on the stone floor beside me, my beautiful mother, the last princess of the Aztec.

“She wore a magnificent robe of scarlet silk and there were tiny gold bells sewn all around the skirt’s hem and around the edges of the long, loose sleeves. The golden bells tinkled with every move she made. She lifted her right hand and laid it to my cheek.

“And then the goddess Xochiquetzal spoke and her voice was rich, melodic. She said, ‘Tonatiuh, my only son, you are in the chamber called
El Pavika.
It is here that important rituals have been held for centuries. One is testing the bravery of our young boys who are left alone in the darkness.’

“She smiled then and lifted her elegant hand to brash her long black hair back from her face. ‘You, my son, my Tonatiuh, withstood a much worse test than darkness.’ The smile left her face and her eyes turned icy when she said, ‘The white man’s whip.’ At once her smile returned and she praised me. ‘And the gods tell me you never made a sound.’”

Luiz fell silent then, remembering that day. Amy hugged him tightly and, looking into his eyes, told him she was just as proud of him as the goddess Xochiquetzal. She vowed she would kiss those scars left by the whip until she wore them completely away with her adoring lips.

At that Luiz laughed, and Amy thought she had never heard anything quite so wonderful. Or seen anything quite so enchanting. His white teeth flashed and his black eyes twinkled and his hard facial features softened dramatically. He looked incredibly young and carefree. It caused her heart to sing.

“Woman,” he said, looking at Amy’s soft, lush mouth, “I can think of better places for your lips.”

“You are shameless,” she teased, and snuggled happily back down to his chest, lacing her hands and leaning her chin atop them so she could look at him. “Tell me more. Tell me about every minute of every day and night you were away from me.”

Luiz told of spending two years with his mother and her court. Then sailing abroad to learn of his Spanish heritage. Determined to keep nothing from her, he told of killing her brother, Lucas, in Paso del Norte. Self-defense, the judge had ruled. The long scar on his cheek was from Lucas’s slashing knife.

He looked into her eyes and saw no shock, no censure. She simply nodded and let her gaze caress the long white scar.