This Fierce Splendor (40 page)

The evening air was cool on her hot cheeks and she inhaled deeply, breathing in the pungent scent of creosote and chili peppers drying on the rawhide awning of the house next door. Light was streaming through the windows and doors of the small stucco buildings surrounding the square, and she could hear
the sound of a guitar echoing through the empty streets from the direction of the cantina. She heard the door close behind her. “It’s much cooler out here, isn’t it?” she asked quickly. “I like Father Leon. It seems impossible that anyone would want to hurt him. He has the—”

“What’s wrong?” Dominic interrupted.

“What could be wrong?” she asked, moving away from him. “It’s quite pleasant here. I’m glad we had the opportunity to stop and sleep in a room with four walls around us.”

“There’s something wrong. I know you well enough now to understand when you’re upset about something.” He hesitated. “Were you afraid I was going to let the priest talk me into sharing your bed?”

Heat rained through her every vein. “No. You had the opportunity to force yourself on me any number of times in the last weeks. What difference would it make if we did share a bed?”

The same difference as the straw that broke the camel’s back, he wanted to tell her. He should never have stopped here, but he had wanted to let her rest. She had been so damn brave and uncomplaining that he had felt guilty as hell at pushing her as he had these last two weeks. Yet how could he explain that if he hadn’t been too exhausted to crave nothing but rest, he would have been within her, his promise forgotten, everything forgotten but the tightness, the heat of her.

He shuddered. Damn, he shouldn’t have let himself remember how sweet she had felt around him. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’ll be here to get you right after dawn.”

“No, I’ll meet you at the corral.” He was leaving her. He would cross the square to that cantina, where there would be music and hetaeras and all the pleasures he knew so well. “I can find my way.”

“Whatever you wish. You’d better go back inside now and get to bed.”

Back to Father Leon and the small ascetic room where she would sleep alone tonight. Dominic would
not sleep alone. The anger and hurt she was feeling suddenly flared hotly. She had been debating whether to accept Rafael’s gift, but now it was decided. Any man who had the insensitivity to indulge himself with hetaeras while his wife was just across the square did not deserve any consideration. “Good night, Dominic.” The edge to the words was sharp enough to whittle wood.

Dominic hesitated. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Oh, yes, I’m perfectly splendid. Go on to your cantina.” Why had she thought she might appeal to him as those other women did? He couldn’t wait to leave her and go rushing to the eager arms of some black-eyed señorita.

He stood stock-still for a moment, then he shrugged and started across the square.

She watched until Dominic disappeared into the cantina before returning to the house. She carefully banished the look of anger from her face, assuming a cheerful smile as she went in to join Father Leon.

“A mule?” There was a lethal softness to Dominic’s tone. “You actually bought a mule?”

“No, I told you, he was a gift,” Elspeth said. She swung into the saddle of the mare. “I don’t know why you’re upset. He’s much bigger than those poor little burros and should be able to carry a great deal more.”

“Give him back,” Dominic said curtly. “No mules.”

“I can’t give him back. I promised Rafael I would take him with us.”

“Give him back.” Dominic had enunciated every word with deliberate precision.

“You’re being most unreasonable,” she said sweetly. “And behaving atrociously, but I’ll forgive you. I know you must be feeling bad. You look quite ill.”

“I have a headache.”

She nodded solicitously. “You really shouldn’t drink so much. Look at the trouble it’s caused you. The last time you overindulged, you ended up with a bride.” She patted the mare’s neck. “Now, come along
and stop arguing. It would be stupid to refuse a valuable gift like Azuquita.”

“Azuquita,” Dominic repeated blankly. “Someone named that monster Little Sugar?”

The mule he was looking at was a good seventeen hands high, black as the bottom of a well, with a face full of sin. A tiny gold loop earring pierced the top of his right ear. Azuquita stared back at Dominic with a blandness that caused the hair on Dominic’s nape to bristle.

“Well, Rafael actually called him Sweetness,” Elspeth said. “Isn’t that a good sign he has a lovely nature? I put the saddlebags on him myself and I found him very gentle.”

“He’s trying to fool you into thinking that. Then when you least expect it, he’ll pounce. I know mules.”

“I’m sure every mule isn’t the same. You’ve merely had an unfortunate experience.”

“We’re not taking that mule.”

The smile on Elspeth’s lips wavered. “Of course we are. Rafael was most upset. Indino gave the mule to Rafael and the child loves Azuquita. But it seems the boy’s father drinks too much.” She inclined her head at Dominic. “You should sympathize with that failing. Anyway, when he overindulges he develops a violent dislike for Azuquita and beats him. He even threatened to shoot the poor mule the next time it annoyed him.”

Dominic smiled sardonically. “I don’t suppose you inquired what Sweetness had done to annoy him?”

“I’m sure it was something trifling. What could the animal have possibly done to deserve slaughter?”

“What indeed.” Dominic said, his gaze on the mule.

Azuquita’s lips suddenly pulled back to reveal yellow-white teeth.

“My God, the damn mule is grinning at me,” Dominic whispered.

“I told you he was good-tempered.”

“If I remember my scriptures, Lucifer seemed that way too—before the fall.” He shook his head. “No, Elspeth.”

Her smile vanished. “I didn’t ask your permission to bring him. I won’t have that animal brutalized or Rafael frightened or upset. I will care for him myself and you need have nothing to do with him.” She grabbed the lead reins of the mule. “Come along, Azuquita.” Elspeth’s mare trotted out of the corral with the mule ambling docilely at her heels.

“Elspeth, there’s no way that you can have nothing to do with a mule on the trail,” he called after her. “They haunt you; they do things that drive you insane.”

“Nonsense.” She didn’t look back.

Dominic began to curse beneath his breath as he mounted his horse. The imprecations involved Elspeth’s soft heart, the mare and the donkey that had begot the mule, and the black entity that was Azuquita itself.

The first day the mule behaved surprisingly well, clipping along at a brisk pace as they turned east and began to negotiate the foothills of the Sierra Madres.

The second day Dominic’s watchful regard registered an imperceptible slowing as boredom began to fester. On the third day Little Sugar began to turn sour. Not toward Elspeth. He behaved with admirable obedience with her. It was with Dominic he attempted to lighten his boredom.

It began with a light, almost playful nip whenever Dominic came within reach, then he began crowding Dominic’s horse into an occasional tree or the wall of a cliff. Dominic countered by moving the mule from behind Elspeth in the column and placing him with the burros bringing up the rear.

On the fourth day Azuquita gnawed at the girth of the burro next to him until the saddlebag fell off his back. Since Dominic didn’t discover it for some time, it took two hours to backtrack and retrieve the saddlebag and another hour to mend the girth. Dominic moved the mule back to his former place behind Elspeth.

On the fifth night a raucous bray woke Dominic in the middle of the night and he opened his eyes to see Azuquita’s hindquarters descending on his face!

“What the hell?” He had time to roll only a few inches before he received the mule’s bushy tail in his face. “You ornery eunuch.” He brushed the tail from his face. “You loco fiend from hell. You evil son of a—” He broke off as he heard Elspeth’s choked laughter. She was sitting up in her blankets across the fire, laughing helplessly. “This is
not
funny.”

“I know. It’s very serious.” She immediately began laughing again. “He could have smothered you with his tail.”

Dominic sat up and moved gingerly away from the mule, now sitting placidly and ignoring them, warming his broad backside in front of the fire. “He also could have crushed my skull if I hadn’t moved fast.”

“I think he was just being playful.” Elspeth wiped her eyes on the corner of the blanket. “He did warn you. That bray would have raised Lazarus.”

“Playful! He’s trying to murder me.”

“How did he get free?”

Dominic motioned to the gnawed and shredded rope dangling around Azuquita’s neck. “I don’t mind him breaking loose, but why the hell couldn’t he have run away?”

Elspeth grinned. “He likes you.”

Dominic gazed at her as if she had gone mad.

“No, I believe he really does like you,” she insisted. “He only tolerates me, but I think he regards you as a true challenge.”

“He tried to knock me off a cliff yesterday, tonight he tried to smother me. I hate to think what he has in mind for me tomorrow.”

Elspeth’s smile faded. “I have a confession to make. One of the reasons I brought Sweetness along was that I was a little annoyed with you.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter. I admit I found Azuquita’s pranks very amusing, but I realize now it wasn’t fair of me to burden you with him.” She lowered her gaze to the fire. “Perhaps we could find someone to leave Azuquita with until we return.”

“The only people in these hills are bandits and their
women. If we gave Sweetness to them, I don’t know if we’d get out of the hills alive.”

Elspeth’s hand reached up to comb through her loosened hair, causing the material of her blouse to tauten over the soft swell of her breasts. Dominic was suddenly conscious of her grace, her supple litheness. He felt a stirring heat and tried to blot it out before it could become the painful desire he had lived with for so long.

Azuquita turned his head and looked at them as if he had understood every word they had spoken. The son of a bitch probably had, Dominic thought crossly, he wouldn’t put it past the hybrid warlock.

The torment of lust had lessened, Dominic realized with a jolt of shock. It had not disappeared entirely, he was still conscious of a nagging ache within him, but his annoyance with Sweetness had at least made him think of something else beside Elspeth. Now that he thought about it, for the past five days the mule had kept his mind so occupied, he hadn’t had the opportunity to think of anything else.

An ironic smile flitted across his lips at the thought of how disappointed Azuquita would be if he realized his downright ugliness was acting in Dominic’s best interest.

“Why are you smiling?” Elspeth asked, puzzled.

“I was just thinking that bringing Azuquita wasn’t such a bad idea.”

She looked relieved. “You’re not upset about it any longer? Sweetness
is
very strong. I surely hope his behavior will improve once he gets to know you.”

The mule’s lips pulled back from his yellow-white teeth.

Dominic smiled back at him, mirroring the same toothy menace. “We’ll see if your hope pans out.” He got to his feet and grabbed hold of the shredded rope. Sweetness immediately tried to bury his teeth in Dominic’s hand. “I think I’ll be the one to take care of him from now on. As you say, we have to get to know each other.”

Elspeth blinked. “If you’re sure that’s what you wish.”

Dominic tugged at the rope. Azuquita didn’t move. “On your feet, my little sugar.” His tone was almost affectionate. “It’s back to the other animals with you. You’ve done enough damage for one night.”

It took him thirty minutes to get Azuquita off his haunches and tethered with the other animals. By that time Dominic was annoyed and exhausted enough almost to forget the silken warmth of Elspeth waiting for him only a few yards across the fire, and he fell asleep in minutes.

It was two days later that the heat that had followed them from Killara into Mexico appeared to be on the verge of breaking. Blue-black clouds rolled across the western horizon and in the afternoon the wind carried with it the bite of cool moisture.

Elspeth took a deep breath, letting the pungent dampness flow through her. “Doesn’t it feel like a blessing? It rains frequently in Edinburgh, but I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated it. I feel as if my bones are made of sand. Do you think the storm will come this way?”

“Yes.” Dominic swung off his horse, with practiced agility dodged Azuquita’s attempt to step on his boot, and grabbed the mule’s lead rope. “And we don’t have much time to build a shelter.”

“We’re stopping now? We still have a few hours before sunset.”

“The storm’s close enough. I like my comfort and I don’t have any intention of sleeping in the rain.” He was leading the stallion and mule into a pine grove at the side of the trail.

“What are you going to do?”

“Build a lean-to. I saw some ocotillo shrubs about a quarter of a mile back.”

Ocotillo. She hadn’t the faintest idea which bush he was talking about, but the word had a lovely musical sound. “How can I help?”

“Unsaddle the animals and tether them to a tree
that has a lot of protective foliage.” He reached into his saddlebags and drew out a pair of heavy leather gloves and a sheath containing a hunting knife. “I’ll be right back.”

He was back in twenty minutes carrying a huge armload of narrow greenish-brown sticks from three to four feet in length.

“Ocotillo?” she asked.

He nodded. “You lay them close together and they form a pretty good roof for a lean-to. Pine branches are better for the supports though.”

“Can we have a fire?”

He didn’t look up. “A small one.”

By the time the shelter was built, the grove was beginning to be inundated with the eerie golden light that sometimes precedes the darkness of a storm. The two gnarled support branches were nearly five feet tall; once the blankets were spread and a fire built, the tiny enclosure was reasonably cozy.

The wind was swaying the tops of the tall pines and the golden light was disappearing. Now there was only a still purple gloom reflected from the storm clouds overhead. Elspeth’s head lifted, and she experienced a tiny thrill of excitement as if she, too, were mirroring the tempest about to be unleashed. The cool breeze lifted her hair from her forehead and she could smell the heady scent of rain, grass, and rich earth.