Bed of Roses (42 page)

She decided early in her career to write the sort of books she wanted to read. Her determination earned her a slot on the
Publishers Weekly
bestseller list and the Romance Writer's of America Honor Roll. She's been a RITA finalist, won the
Romantic Times’
“Lifetime Achievement Award” and “Career Achievement Award,” a Reviewers’ Choice Award for “Historical Romance Fantasy” and a “Best Love and Laughter” Award.

Rebecca currently lives in North Carolina with her menagerie of beloved pets, still believes in magic, and still relies on the “pixie voices in her head” to inspire her as she works on a brand new book.

Visit Rebecca’s website
http://www.rebeccapaisley.net

Join Rebecca on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/RebeccaPaisleyAuthor

Amber House Books by Rebecca Paisley

The Barefoot Bride

US and Worldwide

UK

Australia

Diamonds and Dreams

US and Worldwide

UK

Australia

A Basket of Wishes

US and Worldwide

UK

Australia

Heartstrings

US and Worldwide

UK

Australia

Bed of Roses

US and Worldwide

UK

Australia

Coming Soon

Moonlight and Magic (May 2015)

A Prince To Call My Own (June 2015)

Happily Forever After (July 2015)

Moonlight and Magic
by Rebecca Paisley

Sneak Peek

What should a would-be enchantress do with her very own “knight in shining armor”?

Chimera’s bumbling attempts at witchcraft had only succeeded in conjuring up a reputation for lunacy. But when she sets a “werewolf trap”, she finally snares the one thing she’s been praying for—a handsome “knight” who can protect her from the ruthless land baron who has been lusting after her property.

It has not been a good day for Sterling Montoya. He had awakened next to a naked, screeching stranger, been chased across hostile Apache territory by her shotgun-toting father and had become the reluctant guardian for a newborn babe… And now he was the prisoner of a beautiful, but batty, would-be sorceress—a stunning, Shakespeare-spouting enchantress whose passionate touch promises Sterling heaven…until he realizes that whenever she’s around, all hell breaks loose.

Can Sterling break the tender spell Chimera casts over his hungry heart or will he discover her love is the one enchantment too magical to resist?

Chapter One

E
ve invented troublemaking in the
garden of Eden, and her daughters had been perfecting the art for centuries, Sterling thought as he urged his galloping stallion toward the thick grove of pinon trees ahead. Just beyond the trees were the foothills of the Dragoon Mountains. If he could reach them he could lose the posse following him. He didn’t much like being smack in the middle of Chiricahua Apache territory, but if he had to choose between fierce Indians and that overripe, scheming woman he’d found clinging to him in bed that morning, he’d choose the lesser of the two evils—the Indians.

Once in the dark thicket, he dodged low branches and skillfully guided his horse through the maze of pinons. He felt sure he would soon lose his hunters, but when he heard the men enter the forest, he whispered a string of profanities. The trees were too thick to race through, and any noise he made would alert the posse to his whereabouts. Damning all females, he halted his stallion and bade him remain still and quiet in the cool shadows.

“We can’t go any further, Otis,” he heard a man say.

“The hell we can’t!” another man, whom Sterling assumed was Otis, insisted vehemently. “That hot-blooded buck ruined my daughter, and dammit, there’s gonna be a weddin’!”

“There’s gonna be a
funeral
if we don’t get outta here,” a third ventured. “We were crazy to follow that young fella this far into Cochise kingdom.”

“Yeah, Otis,” still another said. “We been chasin’ that Mexican for almost five hours already, and we ain’t caught him. I ain’t never seen a man ride like he does, and I ain’t never seen a horse as smart as that stallion neither. I swear that animal reads his master’s mind.”

“I was in the street this mornin’ when I heard the fella whistle from his room,” one man said. “That horse come flyin’ out from nowhere, and when he heard his master holler somethin’ in Spanish, he stopped right under that window. And when I saw the fella jump out and land right on the horse’s back…well, I had to grab the hitchin’ post to keep from fallin’ down.”

“He’s led us on a merry chase, that’s for sure, but wadin’ in quicksand over hell would be safer than followin’ him into the foothills,” the first man warned. “Cochise—”

“But—”

“Otis, if a nice little chitchat with them Apache is what you got a hankerin’ for, stay,” another man cut in. “But we’re leavin’. Martha throws herself at anything that wears pants, and I reckon when she set eyes on that handsome young buck, she’d have done anything to get him.”

“Now see here!” Otis yelled. “My sweet, innocent Martha—”

“Maybe he was tellin’ the truth when he told you he’d never seen her before,” one of the men ventured. “With looks like he’s got, what the hell would he set his sights on Martha for? It ain’t that Martha’s ugly, Otis, but she ain’t no young thing. That fella could have lured any one of the younger gals into his bed.”

“Yeah, Otis,” another agreed. “It’s real fatherly of you to try and get him for her, but it’s likely Martha snuck into his room, got nekkid, joined him in bed, and then started hollerin’ just like that fella swore she done. She’s desperate for a man, Otis. And when females get desperate, even them Mexicans start lookin’ good to ’em.”

“Especially one who looks like that one,” another added.

“If you all believe that ruttin’ bastard’s lies, then why’d you join up with me in chasin’ him?” Otis demanded.

“It’s Sunday, Otis,” one man explained. “And what man’s missis ain’t gonna drag him to hear that visitin’ Reverend Fire and Brimstone carry on and on? A manhunt’s a helluva lot more eye-openin’. And catchin’ a man who rides like that young fella does…it was a challenge too great to resist. But we’ve gotta turn back now. Cochise’ll probably get him anyway. He don’t stand no chance out here, and—”

The sharp crack of a brittle twig broke off all conversation. There was a moment of silence, then one man whispered, “It’s that young fella…or Cochise.”

Sterling’s tense body relaxed when he heard his hunters’ horses thunder out of the woods.
“
Pendejos
,”
he cursed to his stallion. “Martha, they said her name was. All of a sudden there she was, Gus, lying beside me and wearing nothing but her wrinkled skin.
Que cabrona!
I didn’t even have time to figure out what she was doing before her father burst into the room, shotgun in hand.

“If you hadn’t come so quick, Gus, I’d be a married man by now. Tied down forever to some conniving female.” Anger boiled. He yanked his hat off and swabbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Dammit, Gus,” he swore, and began leading the stallion deeper into the forest. “How many times has this happened since we left
las monjitas
,
the good sisters?”

Gus whickered.

“Ha! Don’t let those nuns fool you, Gus. Kind as they are, beneath those black and white penguin costumes they’re all female, and they’re no less manipulative than women who wear necklaces instead of rosary beads.”

Yes, the sisters had their own special wiles, he recalled, and they’d used them to get him to rebuild almost every confounded building at the orphanage before he’d finally escaped.

Then he’d come into intimate contact with the lay women.
Their
wiles were infinitely more agreeable than the sober sisters’, nor did they want him for the back-breaking work for which the nuns needed him. Their interest was of a completely different nature. But it didn’t matter who or what they were,
all
women brought trouble.

And the problems he had with them had started early in his life. Along with his first real whisker had also appeared his uncommon effect upon the fair sex. As he’d approached full manhood, his unusual appeal grew stronger, right along with his body, and in the ten years he’d been away from the orphanage it had become a rare magic.

But though he adored women and enjoyed indulging in the pleasurable benefits of his sensual sorcery—giving as well as receiving—his magic was often a curse too.

“The young girls scheme to get me to the altar, Gus,” he fumed, and swatted a branch. “The more experienced women scheme to get me into their beds. The elderly matrons scheme by spoiling me to death, which, of course, works to shame me into giving them what they want. And Gus, they
all
want something.”

He reined his horse to a halt, sighed, and dragged his fingers through his hair. He attracted women, but he knew full well it was only his sensual magic that inspired their fascination. It so bewitched them, they didn’t bother with what lay beneath his outer charm. And they didn’t bother to show him what lay beneath
their
outer charms either.

It made him feel empty. Oh, he was a master at hiding the emptiness, and though no one else suspected its existence, he couldn’t hide it from himself. It was as if there was a big, hungry void inside him, and it sometimes made him feel as though he was nothing more than a worker of sensual magic.

And unless he reached Tucson it would always be so, he reminded himself, and urged Gus into a smart trot. He had vital business with a certain woman there, and the thought of her lifted his spirits. He had every hope
she’d
be different than other women. Initially, she would fall for his magic, of course, and he had every intention of being as charming as he knew how. But after she’d succumbed to it, she’d see the emptiness that lay beneath it. She was the one person who could fill it, his last and only hope.

He’d spent almost eighteen years in the orphanage dreaming of his fantasy about her. Then he’d left and spent ten more years chasing it, looking for her, never finding either. He’d given up after that and returned to the orphanage to visit Father Tom, the American priest who’d helped raise him.

Father Tom had put the key to the dream into his hands. The fantasy he’d been seeking his entire life, the woman he’d dreamed of finding one day, was in Tucson. Father Tom had actually
seen
her there. He, Sterling, was on his way there now, and dammit, nothing, no one was going to prevent him from getting there! “Tucson, boy,” he told his horse. “Get me there, and do it fast. As fast—”

A sound came from ahead, stopping his words. He knew it wasn’t the posse; it was long gone. He listened intently, his every nerve tense, while he waited to hear the noise again. When he did, he realized it was a human voice.

Even worse, it was a female voice. He remembered the kind of morning he’d already had because of a woman, and every instinct roared for him to turn and leave right then and there. He reined Gus to the right, fully intending to disappear before the woman in the woods saw him, liked him, and tried to make him stay.

But before she saw him, he saw her.

She was an Indian, and because of his location he knew her to be Chiricahua Apache. She caught sight of him and staggered toward him. He dismounted immediately, his annoyance at women forgotten in the face of her obvious suffering.

She was doubled over, bleeding profusely from a chest wound, each step she took apparently causing her tremendous pain. When Sterling reached her, she collapsed in his arms. Gently, he laid her on the ground, his eyes widening with consternation.

“Oh, hell! You’re pregnant!” He sat back on his haunches and drew his hands away from her. “Who did this to you?” He touched the stab wound near her left breast. “Who did this?”

She didn’t answer. He knew she couldn’t understand him. But he didn’t really need an answer. White men had done this horrible thing. Cochise had been plaguing this area around the Chiricahua and Dragoon Mountains forever,
or
so it seemed. It stood to reason that white men had attacked and left this girl for dead out of revenge for whatever Cochise had recently done. Many settlers frequently resorted to this sort of vengeful violence. Sterling was sickened by it all.

“Vamanos,
”
he whispered down to her. “Somehow we’ve got to find a doctor who hates human suffering worse than he does Apaches.” He began to pick her up, but she groaned and clawed at his arms, her eyes beseeching him to leave her on the ground. “I’m only trying to help you, miss. A doctor—”

Her actions silenced him. His open mouth popped closed when she gripped her belly and bore down. “No!” he shouted. “Dammit, lady, if you don’t stop pushing like that, you’re going to send your baby sailing over the mountaintops!”

His own statement made him gasp. Baby? Here? Now?

This was not happening! He rose and turned to leave. He’d never delivered anything newborn and damned if he was going to start learning with a
human
.
He started back toward Gus. He’d heard Indian women knew how to do this sort of thing by themselves and didn’t need men around, which suited him just fine.