Rainbows and Rapture (50 page)

“I never have, either.”

“I reckon we jist come right out and say it.”

He felt hollow. The fullness she’d brought to him was emptying now, never to be filled again. It was agony, this moment. Saying good-bye to the woman he loved more with each breath he took.

“Good-bye, Russia Valentine.” He reached out, sliding his hand across her cheek.

She did likewise, running her finger down his pale and jagged scar. “Good-bye, Santiago Zamora.”

Unable to stop himself, he pulled her into his arms, embracing her tightly. “Be happy,” he whispered.

She breathed deeply of his scent. Of sunshine and steel. Worn leather, horseflesh, and virility. She’d never forget the wonderful way he smelled. “You, too,” she murmured, her arms going around him, her fingers spreading over the thick muscles in his back. “Live happily ever after, Santiago.”

His arms dropped from around her. After one last, long look into her incredible blue-green eyes, he headed for the door.

In the next second, he was gone.

Only when she could no longer hear his footsteps in the hallway did Russia allow herself to do what she’d refused to do in front of him.

She lay down on her wedding gown and sobbed, her tears washing over the gold.

* * *

Santiago gave Quetzalcoatl his head, allowing the stallion to wander in whatever direction he wanted. He didn’t care where the horse went and gave the steed no guidance. Quetzalcoatl drifted slowly, aimlessly.

They traveled for the rest of the day and clear through the night. When morning arrived, Santiago gave his mount only a short rest before continuing. Before he realized it, nighttime had fallen over him again.

Millions of stars glittered down at him. It was now as it had been before. He was alone. Completely alone, just as he’d been before he met Russia.

He reined Quetzalcoatl to a halt and dismounted, his feet sinking into a bed of mesquite saplings. He looked down at them, remembering the day he’d told Russia how the trees had been planted here. Remembering the day he’d caught her mare for her.

Remembering every single second of the time he’d spent with her.

He gripped the saddle hard, as if he could crush it. His hands whitened with exertion. Through narrowed eyes he saw the stains beneath his nails.

He ripped his gaze away from them. As he did, he spied the bag Russia had given him before he’d left. Fingers trembling, he reached for it, holding it next to his chest for a long while before finally pulling open the rawhide drawstring that held it closed.

He pulled a book out of it. Russia’s fairy tales. All the breath left his body. The
book
… Russia’s sole treasure. The possession that meant more to her than anything she’d ever had.

And she’d given it to him.

A tear splashed upon it. Another followed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wept. He didn’t care. No one could see him. No one witnessed his anguish. He was alone. It would always be so.

The burlap bag dropped from his shaking hands. After a moment, he realized it had fallen heavily. As if there was something more inside it. He bent to pick it up. Its weight told him there was, indeed, something else within it. With his thumbs, he tried to discern what it was. He couldn’t.

His heart in his throat, he opened the bag wide and peered inside. He still couldn’t understand what was in it. Slowly, he slipped his hand through the opening, his fingers touching something small and hard. Taking hold of it, he pulled it out and held it up toward the light of the moon and the millions of stars.

The night light filtered around the shape of a hand. Not his own, but another one. A small, delicate one.

It was a cookie. A cookie shaped like a hand.

When I find my Prince Charmin’, Santiago? Well, I’ll make him those hand cookies I done tole you about. I won’t never make ‘emfer another man. Jist him, only him. I’ll put ever’ bit o’ love I got into them cookies, and when he eats ‘emthey’ll be the sweetest things he ever put in his mouth. I’ll live happily ever after with him.

His tear-filled eyes widened. He was too stunned to breathe. Tide after tide of unmitigated astonishment crashed over him.

Russia. These were her hand cookies. She hadn’t made them for Ben.

She’d made them for
him.

“Santa Maria
,
Quetzalcoatl!” he shouted at his horse. “She—she doesn’t love Ben! She loves
me!
She—”

He broke off abruptly, panic exploding inside him.
Friday.
Today was Friday. Mother of God, he’d left Russia with the man she was to marry tomorrow!
Tomorrow!

He was back in the saddle before he even thought to mount. His keen gaze swept across his surroundings. In only a moment he’d judged his location. His hand on Quetzalcoatl’s shoulder, he sent the stallion into a thundering gallop.

He had a wedding to stop.

A princess to claim.

A terrible sense of foreboding swept through Santiago as Quetzalcoatl raced into Whispering Oaks.

It was Saturday, midafternoon, and the town was void of people. The streets were empty.

Empty but beautifully decorated. Every available post, door, and porch boasted ribbons and streamers. Pots of freshly cut flowers lined the street that began at the church and ended at the steps leading into the hotel. And on those steps lay a white runner. Rose petals were scattered upon it.

Dread pumping steadily through his veins, Santiago halted Quetzalcoatl in front of the hotel, flew out of the saddle, and raced into the building. The very first thing he saw upon entering was a stream of white lace cascading down a large table in the middle of the lobby. Upon it sat a cake. A huge, seven-tiered wedding cake embellished with pink sugar roses.

His dread turned to cold fear; his body seemed frozen with it.

The hotel owner, fiddling with a flower arrangement on the registration desk, looked up and smiled broadly. “Come back, did you, Mr. Zamora?”

“Russia,” Santiago panted. “Where—”

“Why, they’re all over at the church-house!” the man replied. “It’s where folks go when they want to get married, y’know. Ceremony started about a half hour ago. I reckon Miss Valentine and ole Ben are jist about wedded up by now. They—”

Santiago spun on his heel, ran out of the hotel, and bounded down the steps, having every intention of leaping back into the saddle.

But the saddle was otherwise occupied. Nehemiah sat upon it, a dead garden snake in his mouth. With all speed, Santiago tucked the cat and the deceased reptile into his saddlebag and mounted. Frantically, he turned the stallion toward the church, situated at the end of the street.

The horse galloped to the church, rearing before it when his master pulled on the reins. Santiago saw that the church doors were open. From within, a voice came. His blood congealed as he listened.

“If anyone knows just cause why this man and woman cannot be joined in holy matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their—”

“Russia!” Santiago screamed.
“Santa Maria, no!”
Mindless of everything except stopping the wedding, he urged Quetzalcoatl up the steps of the church and rode him straight into the sanctuary.

A collective gasp rose as the ebony stallion pranced up the aisle. The minister fainted. Ben paled.

Russia dropped her bouquet. Her hands shaking, she clutched at the satin skirts of her wedding gown and spun around. The sight that met her eyes dazzled through her.

Santiago. Astride his stallion. Guns gleaming. Hair flowing. Santiago.

He stopped Quetzalcoatl beside her. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

Her gaze swept up to him, her heart thrashing when she looked into those obsidian-black eyes. They bore into her as if seeking her very soul. Slowly, she raised her hand to the place on her chest where she figured her soul was, vaguely remembering that this was exactly what she’d done the day he’d first pinned her with those eyes, those glittering eyes.

“Russia!” he yelled, his shout echoing throughout the church. “I asked you what you’re doing!”

“Gittin’—gittin’ married.” She groped for more words, but couldn’t find any.

He saw tears sparkling on the tips of her long lashes.
Santa Maria,
how those tears affected him. He would never give her cause to weep again. Not ever. “Once upon a time, I asked you if you thought you could wave your magic wand over me and make everything better. Do you remember that, Russia?”

She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“You did it.”

She tried to understand the full implication of what he was saying to her.

Santiago saw the bewilderment in her eyes. “You’re not marrying Ben, Russia.”

Ben gasped and took Russia’s arm. His thin body shook like a reed in the throes of a strong wind. “Santiago, what right do you—”

“What right?” Santiago repeated. He slipped his hand into the burlap sack attached to his saddle and withdrew a hand cookie. “This,” he began, holding the cookie in front of Ben’s eyes, “gives me every right in the world.”

Ben stared at the cookie, unable to comprehend what it had to do with stopping the wedding. “But—”

“Russia,” Santiago pressed, ignoring Ben.

She heard his question in the sound of her name and answered it. “Yes,” she answered softly, tears still glimmering in her eyes. “Yes!”

With one fluid and powerful motion, Santiago leaned down, wrapped his arm around her waist, and lifted her into the saddle. “You ought to be thanking me, Ben,” he told the pallid groom. “She’d have eaten you out of house and home, provided she didn’t burn it down first. And her singing… God, you’d have been deaf within mere weeks. And her cat would have slept in your hat every night.
Santa Maria,
Ben, I’m saving you from a lifetime of pure, unadulterated aggravation.”

With those parting words, Santiago urged Quetzalcoatl back down the aisle. Her emotions spinning, Russia looked over her shoulder. What she saw relieved her guilt at leaving Ben stranded at the altar.

He wasn’t stranded. Cherry, the bright-eyed and sweet waitress from Mama Melly’s restaurant, was standing by his side. She held his hands in her own, and her expression was one of pure devotion. Russia knew then that Cherry loved Ben. She suspected also that Ben would soon succumb to Cherry’s affections.

With that in mind, she turned her attention back to Santiago. A million questions played on her lips, but she asked none of them. All that mattered right now was that she was with him again. For how long she didn’t know, but she’d make the very most of that time. Wrapping her arms around him, she breathed deeply of his wonderful scent and listened intently to the soothing sound of his heartbeat. The heartbeat of the man she loved.

Once in the street, Santiago searched for Little Miss Muffet and soon spied her tied in front of Lotty’s mercantile. He wasted no time in going for her.

People poured out of the church just in time to see the ebony stallion gallop out of town, a black mare in tow. They watched in stunned silence as the infamous Santiago Zamora departed with the girl he’d come to claim. White satin swirled about his black clothing. Red-gold tresses flowed all around him.

And a long alabaster wedding veil swept behind him.

* * *

Santiago didn’t slow Quetzalcoatl until Whispering Oaks was miles behind them. When he finally did pull on the reins, the mellow colors of dusk glimmered in the sky.

He dismounted, his boots lost in a mass of black-eyed Susans. Gently, reverently, he lifted his treasure from the saddle. His princess, Russia Valentine.

Love igniting every part of her, Russia raised her hand, her finger trailing slowly down the jagged scar on his cheek. “Why’d y’come back, Santiago?”

He bent, burying his face in her soft, clove-scented hair. The words he’d never told her burst from his lips. “Because I love you.” Straightening, he pulled her closer, smoothing whisper-soft kisses upon the slight splattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose.
“Santa Maria
,
Russia Valentine, I love you.”

The words seeped into her, filling her to the very brim with warmth, joy, and deep astonishment. She turned her face up to him.

Tenderly, and with all the love he felt for her, he slanted his mouth across hers, knowing again her sweetness. “Princess,” he murmured, his lips still clinging to hers. “My lady. Marry me, Russia. Marry me,
paloma.”

The longing to accept was the strongest thing she’d felt in her whole life.

Santiago saw uncertainty flash through her incredible blue-green eyes. “Russia,” he entreated softly. “Please—”

“The cookies.” He stared down at her. “You made them for me. Was I wrong to think you’d made them for me because you love me?” He couldn’t move while he waited for her answer.

“No, Santiago. You wasn’t wrong.”

Relief soared through him. “Dear God, Russia, why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me leave you in Whispering Oaks with Ben? Why—”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “What I was,” she began. “Nothin’ in the world can change it. What I had to
do
…
with my body. Santiago, you tole me you wanted a lady. A proper lady. How could I tell you I loved you when I knowed I weren’t nothin’ a’tall like the lady o’ your dreams?”

He took her hand from his mouth. “But you made the cookies. You knew I’d understand what they meant.”

She nodded. “Some part o’ me— Even though I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, somethin’ inside me wanted you to know that I loved you. But I never believed you’d come back fer me.”

He held her closely for a long while. “I was wrong, Russia. I saw the woman on the outside. But it’s inside…it’s what’s inside that makes a lady, a decent lady. Beneath the soiled dove dwells an angel with a heart of gold. Russia, you’re the most decent woman I’ve ever known. You touch a part of me that I forgot existed.”

“But I—” She broke off, her heart beating wildly. “Santiago,” she murmured achingly, “what about—I cain’t have children. I—I cain’t never give you none. You said you wanted—”