The Barefoot Bride (54 page)

The triplets waited expectantly for the man in their house to vanish, Archibald shook his head in his hands, and Sterling, after a moment's bewilderment, began to understand. "You—you think you're a
witch!"
he said, and snickered. "Before the clock goes ding-ding?"

Chimera lowered her arms. "It has to rhyme. If it doesn't rhyme, it won't work."

"Well, it rhymed just fine, but as you can see, I'm still here. And not only that, but you don't even have a clock to
go
ding-ding!" Sterling chortled and then held his side when his deep laughter generated a sharp pain. He grabbed a chair and sat down. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts."

Chimera noticed the dark bruise on his left side, but ignored the compassion she felt for him. First she had to make sure he was the man the spirits had sent. "Look, be honest with me, mister," she said, and picked up the whimpering baby. "Are you a criminal, or are you my hero?"

"What hero? Why do you keep calling me—"

"Because I need a hero, and you're supposed to be him!" She raised her eyes to the ceiling. "What did I ever do to deserve this, O mystical spirits? I try. Truly I try, yet look who you send me for a hero!" She looked back at Sterling.

He was smiling broadly, his grin revealing even, white teeth that gleamed in striking contrast to his dark skin and midnight hair. His face was a strong one, his cheekbones sharply defined with deep hollows beneath them, his jaw square and rugged. And his eyes... like molten silver they were. Silver eyes. How strange. How nice. How fathomless they seemed.

She wasn't too familiar with men, but she suspected that the man who was smiling at her, his grin slow and easy, was handsome. Yes, she decided, the corners of her own mouth turning up just a bit, he was probably considered very handsome. Maybe her spell had worked better than she thought.

"If I were a criminal, I'd lie and say yes, I'm your—uh...
hero,"
Sterling said merrily. "And if I'm your hero, I'd be truthful and confirm that I am, indeed, who you want me to be. So how are you going to know the difference?"

"'Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.' Aristotle," she said firmly.

"Far be it from me to even pretend to have the boundless knowledge that you do," Sterling began, forcing down his laughter, "but I'd think Aristotle was referring to
known
liars. You've no such proof about me, so the question remains as to how you will know whether or not I'm telling the truth."

He was right, she realized, her mind working furiously. Quickly, she handed the baby to Archibald and went back to her pantry, taking down a small flask. "Truth potion!" she declared proudly. "I've never used it before, and now's the perfect time to see if it works! Snig, Snag, and Snug are the best fibbers to try it out on, but I can't ever hold them long enough to pour it down their lying throats." She took a tin cup from a shelf, poured a bit of the liquid into it, and handed it to Sterling.

He looked down at the murky mess and smiled again. "But how are you
really
going to know if it works? I could still lie, and if your potion doesn't work, how will you know?"

She looked at him blankly. "Well... oh, golly darn! Just what the devil do
you
know about witchcraft?"

He noticed that the brown of her eyes darkened with her ire. Like the whiskey from which it borrowed its color, her gaze was potent. A man could become drunk just staring back into it. Having her in his arms might prove to be quite pleasurable.
"Golly darn?
Madam, you should refrain from using such offensive language around children. And as for witchcraft, I know as much about it as you do—nothing."

She gasped with outrage. "I'll have you know that—"

Sterling slammed the cup of potion onto the table. It sloshed onto his hand. He glanced down at the pea-green liquid, and disgust shuddered through him. "I'm not going to hurt any of you. If I had planned on doing that, I'd already have done it."

She looked at him skeptically.

"When you handed me that knife in the woods, couldn't I have stabbed you right then and there? Or couldn't I have shot all of you the second I walked into this room?" He stood and took the infant from Archibald. "Now, did you feed my baby yet, or not?"

Chimera took one short moment to deliberate. Surely a dangerous outlaw wouldn't be so gentle and concerned about a newborn baby. Relief washed over her. The man was her knight. And although he seemed an unlikely one, her magic, the spell that had brought him here, would make everything turn out the way it was supposed to. She had no doubt about it. Faith. She had to keep faith.

That decided, she turned from him and set to work preparing a formula made of cow's milk, herb tea, and fresh sugar from a little pot on the table. Then she took one of Archibald's just-boiled socks and filled it with clean cornmeal.

"The meal will keep the milk from coming out too fast," she explained, and pushed Sterling back into the chair. She poured some of the concoction into the sock and, holding the tip of it over the baby's mouth, she gently touched it to the infant's lips.

But the baby continued to scream, kicking Sterling's forearms with her tiny feet. "She's not going to eat!" he yelled, his voice barely rising above the infant's wailing. "And why would she? I wouldn't want my supper in a sock either—not even if it
is
a nourishing one! Can't we use a spoon?"

Chimera's shoulders slumped. "If we did, it would take a week to get one feeding into her." She stared down at the hungry little girl, her mind spinning with possible solutions to the problem. "Do you know what I'm thinking?"

Sterling looked up at her and saw the gleam in her up-tilted brown eyes. "I'm not sure I
want
to know what you're thinking. You believe in werewolves and gnomes, you think you're a witch, but your spells don't work, you're raising monster children—"

"And you got caught in a werewolf trap, were helpless to defend yourself against three small boys, and are suffering an injured rib! I suppose you think yourself more capable than I?"

Sterling stood and glared down at her. "You're crazy! At least
my
feet are on the ground!"

His looming above her made her feel like a dwarf, but she returned his glare with fury. "You weren't on your feet when I met you! You were dangling and spinning from a tree! A tree, may I remind you, that you fell out of!"

"I wouldn't have had to fall out of it, if you hadn't set out snares for creatures that only exist in fairy—"

"Chimera?" Archibald interrupted timidly. "The baby is awfully hungry."

Both Sterling and Chimera looked back at the howling infant, who was still pummeling Sterling's arms with her flailing feet. "Sit back down," Chimera ordered brusquely. When Sterling obeyed, she stepped behind him and hung the sock over his shoulder so that it fell to his chest.

"Now
what are you doing?" he asked, and sighed.

Again, Chimera let the toe of the sock brush the baby's lips. "I read that babies are born with these special senses," she explained when the baby began to quiet a bit. "They look for something soft and warm when they're ready to eat. By hanging this sock over your shoulder and letting it drop to your chest, I'm hoping she'll think you have a big, cushiony breast there. She might turn toward it and—"

"Breast?" Sterling let his head drop back so he could see her behind him. "Me? With breasts? Lady, the only thing this baby is going to find on me is a flat, hairy nipple!"

Chimera looked at his smooth, tanned chest. "You have hardly any hair at all on your chest. She probably won't even notice what little you have."

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've—" He jerked out of the chair again. "Look, Miss Abracadabra, I delivered this baby, buried her mother, rode for hours with her cradled in my arms, tried to keep her as warm and comfortable as possible, and sacrificed my only kerchief—which she promptly soiled—so she could have a damn diaper. I even sang a stupid lullaby to her! I've done everything I could think of for her, but the one thing I refuse to do is
nurse
her!" He handed her the squalling infant.

"Oh, botheration with you!" She tossed the sock to him and sat in the chair he'd vacated. After laying the baby in her lap, she began to unbutton her blouse. Unaware of Sterling's wide-eyed stare, she said, "Get behind me and put the sock over my shoulder."

He didn't move.

She looked up at him and saw him gaping at her breast, the top of which was now partly revealed. Her eyebrow slanted. "Contrary to what you might think, mister, breasts were not made for the pleasure of men. They were made to feed babies! Now get behind me with that sock!"

Mesmerized by the lushness of her bare skin, it was a moment before Sterling snapped out of his daze and noticed the triplets and Archibald were all waiting for him to obey their mistress. His whisker-studded cheeks flamed when he realized he'd been caught doing something children should not have been allowed to see. "Don't the four of you have something to do?" he growled. "Like go troll hunting, perhaps?"

The children looked at each other and then went to the fire where a pot of rabbit stew awaited them. Clearing his throat awkwardly, Sterling went behind Chimera and dangled the sock over her shoulder, achingly aware of the soft swells of flesh, and the dark, enticing valley between. He listened as she cooed to the baby in soft tones, and after just a moment more of crying, the infant grasped the sock between her tiny lips and began to suck greedily, Chimera's breast a warm, comforting pillow next to her tearstained cheek.

While she ate, Sterling dribbled more of the milk formula into the open end of the sock. He continued until the baby fell asleep with a contented sigh.

"Light the lamp," Chimera whispered, and rose to put the baby to bed.

She'd already disappeared into another room before Sterling understood it was dark. Nighttime had fallen, and he hadn't even realized it. He looked around and saw that the triplets had fallen asleep on the tattered rug in front of the dying fire. The boy, Archibald, was snoring softly on the cot in the corner. It would be just him and Chimera. Alone. In a dim room. Out in the middle of nowhere.

With her beautiful breasts.

She returned then. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Uh, what other sorts of breasts—I mean,
beasts
do you have around here besides werewolves?"

She frowned. "You may have guns, but you forget that I, too, have effective weapons." She looked down at the slumbering triplets. "I've but to say the word, and they'll come at you so fast, you'll—"

"I'm no threat to you, Chimera."

The sound of her name slipping from his generously shaped lips sent a gentle tremor of pleasure rippling through her veins. His voice, now that she was paying attention to it, was deep and melodic. "How did you know my name?"

Sterling smiled a crooked smile and settled into a chair. "Oh, did I forget to mention it? I'm a warlock, and my specialty is reading minds." He laughed, then grimaced when his side began to throb again.

Chimera took down a small pot of salve from a shelf and returned to Sterling. She knelt before him. "I'd wrap up your chest, but I don't think you have a cracked rib at all," she ventured. Hesitantly, she touched the ointment to one of the many scratches that crisscrossed his torso. As she slid the salve upon his dark, smooth chest, her fingers came alive with the sensations of the contrasts she felt. His skin was pliant but beneath it was rock-hard muscle. Soft and hard. The contrast of opposites made her hand tremble and her heart skip a beat. "If it were really broken it would be swollen, and it's not. I'm sure it's only... a bad bruise."

"Possibly."

His silvery voice wafted down to her and caused that tingle to wind through her again. Her fingers still quivering, she finished her task and was glad when he didn't speak again. Quickly, she inspected her work, then went to throw more logs on the fire.

Sterling watched her and realized she wasn't thinking straight. The warmth of the summer night had already made the room stuffy and hot. "If you continue stoking that fire, we'll have to sleep outside to keep from melting."

Melting, she repeated silently. She stared dreamily into the flames. Melting, melting. In his arms.

She gasped at her train of thought. Spinning on her heel, she faced him fully and pointed her finger at him. "What in the world do you think you're doing to me? I didn't ask the spirits for a lover, I asked for a hero! You behave yourself, you hear me?"

Sterling was taken aback, for at that very moment he was, indeed, contemplating the pleasure she would soon offer him. He grinned both at her perceptiveness and the fact that she demanded he behave himself. He couldn't think of a single woman who'd ever made such a demand on him.

But he didn't worry; he knew he was having an effect on her. It was all in the slight tremor of her voice, the bright sheen in her eyes, her invisible, inaudible response to him that he could both see and hear clearly.

His mischievous smile brought Chimera more of those knee-weakening emotions. She turned away and tended the fire again. "What were you doing in the woods this afternoon? Whose baby is that, and why do you have her? Where are you from? What's your name? You do know you're staying here, don't you?" She kept her back to him as she asked the questions tumbling through her mind and lips.

Sterling allowed himself to enjoy the view of her tiny waist and gently rounded hips for a moment before he answered. He tried to dislike the clashing combination of her crimson skirt and bright orange blouse, but for some strange reason, the two colors seemed to suit each other and the odd girl who wore them. "Resting, an Apache Indian woman's, because the mother died, south of here, Sterling, and that's my own decision."

Chimera put down her fire poker and turned toward him. "Sterling," she repeated. "What's your last name? Silver?"

He tossed her another smile. "Montoya."

"Spanish. Are you a Mexican?"

"Half. Half Mexican and half Irish."