Stronger Than Passion (2 page)

“Yes?” she called.

The door burst open, and Maria Juana, Christina's maid and dresser of five years, thrust inside the room - moving with a haste unlike her usual complacent pace.

“Patrona,” she gasped, her dark eyes wide. “You will not believe it!”

“What?” Christina demanded, anxiety sharpening her tone, all traces of dreaminess faded from her face.

“Old Prudencio has found a man in the banana groves! A Gringo! With a bullet wound, which has almost killed him but not quite. Prudencio and his two sons took the man into their house. He wants you to come and tell him what to do!”

Maria Juana's fat hands moved urgently in the air as she talked, and Christina read in her eyes the fear that would soon spread throughout the entire estate: a Gringo, a Yanqui, on their land! Alive or dead, it didn't matter. The real question was whether the man was alone, which seemed almost impossible these days; or had the invading American Army - which they were all terrified of - already progressed this deeply into Mexico? Were soldiers even now marching through Jalapa, only a short distance away, coming here to pillage and burn?

It was plain Maria Juana thought so, and probably soon so would every servant in the hacienda and beyond. Christina's mind clicked instantly to duty. She knew she must scotch the beginning of a panic
-
even if the Norté Americanos were actually on her doorstep, and she was harboring one of them on her estate!

She arose and looked down on short Maria Juana, keeping her expression calm and her own greenish eyes steady. “How does Prudencio know that this man is really a Yanqui? Did he speak?”

“I don't know, Señora. Prudencio said that
-
“”Never mind, I'll find out myself. And I want you to keep quiet about this until I return.”

“It's too late for that,” Maria Juana said darkly.

“Then go to the kitchen and make sure that no one is frightened enough to run away. Tell everyone that I said the man is probably no more a Gringo than you are!”

“Si, Patrona.”

“Juana, wait! Send for Josepha, with her medicines. And prepare a cot, in the kitchen pantry. We'll try to heal this man, whoever he is.” And keep him safely in the pantry, whose thick door could be easily bolted; just in case he did turn out to be a Yanqui . . . and her country's enemy.

Mexico had not always been Christina de Sainz's country. As she rode across the verdant lands of the Hacienda de los Flores Rojas, hers now after the death of her husband Felipe del Rivera two years ago, she took for granted the rich color and the brisk clean air of her surroundings, as well as the beauty of the Sierra Madrés, rising nearby. Yet, when she had first come here, only five years ago, an orphaned, convent-reared bride from Spain, she had found all of Mexico -
and particularly this area
—
lush and lovely, and exhilarating. The land had seemed both reckless and mysterious then, conveying the promise of happiness to an eighteen-year-old raised in rigidity and formality. If that promise had proven ambiguous over time, the beauty surrounding the hacienda still existed; even if pushed to the recesses of a mind overloaded with other things.

Christina dismounted before the adobe hut which was Prudencio's home, on the edge of the banana grove. The old handyman met her on the stoop, self-importance stiffening his bent frame so that he almost stood as tall as she.

“Patrona, at last! Santa Maria, I have not known what to do with this Yanqui, who bleeds all over my floor!”

For the first time a real pity filled Christina for the unseen wounded man. Helpless and hurting, possibly dying, surely the man could be spared at least a modicum of concern, even if he was an invader!

But as she entered the dim two-room hut and focused on the body sprawled on the floor, fully dressed even to his blood-soaked shirt, somehow helplessness no longer figured into her disarrayed thoughts. The man might be dying, but he was an intimidating specimen nonetheless
—
stretching the entire length of one wall.

She approached him cautiously, throwing back the shawl-like reboza that covered her head and wrinkling her nose in involuntary recoil from the mingled smells of chilies, sweat and blood which permeated the close space. Prudencio followed her, crouching down near the unconscious man.

“He is a big Gringo, Patrona,” Prudencio said helpfully.

“Yes.” Indeed, the man must be tall when he stood upright, and he was broad across the shoulders, too. And although he was dark - hair and beard stubble and skin tone
—
he didn't have the look of Mexican or Indian ancestry. “He does not wear an American Army uniform,” she noticed, her relief sharp.

“No, but his clothes are surely foreign made. Look at his boots, Señora.”

“English,” she murmured. She had traveled with Felipe to England before arriving in Mexico, and knew an expensive pair of London-made boots when she saw them. “Did he have a horse?”

“Si, Patrona - a big black gelding, found grazing near where the man lay. My son took him to the stables. He was still saddled and equipped, so this man probably fell off him. The Americano has lost a large amount of blood.”

Christina stared down at the man, lying so still, his wound casually staunched with rags, his breathing light. She knelt down, and touched his forehead gently. Hot; the fever had him now, and would kill him if he did not receive care soon. She withdrew her hand.

“Prudencio, go outside and wait for the wagon which follows me. It will take this man to the hacienda.” Her gaze returned to the man - undoubtedly American or European. As she looked at him, something inside her shifted, sensing danger or turmoil, or something even more indefinable. Something which might disturb her precise world.

Prudencio suddenly spoke from the doorway. “Patrona, please take his guns with you when you go -
if he recovers he will ask for them.”

“Guns?” she repeated.

“Si. I took them off him and his horse, along with his knife, and put them there, on the table. They are very fine guns - I have never seen their kind before! They must surely be American.”

Christina stepped to the wooden table. On it rested two darkly glowing pistols, an equally well-kept rifle, and a large sheathed knife. Staring at the weapons, once again the feeling washed over her that an immense trouble had entered her staid and organized life, an invasion of sorts, just as volatile as that of the feared and anticipated American Army. And she didn't want it, this disruption of the peace she had taken refuge in these past two years of mourning!

Or did she?

Glancing down once more at the supine body of the supposed Yanqui, she recalled her restless daydreams in the study a short time earlier. She had been thinking of change then, hadn't she? Of parties, and balls and dancing partners, perhaps; all things she had not even realized she had missed these past years. Her fantasies had taken her no further than that. If she yearned for anything more, that yearning was unformulated and free-floating still, unrecognizable and elusive. Yet it certainly bore no possible relation to a half-dead stranger, whom she must nurse back to health and perhaps hold a prisoner of war at the same time!

The rattle of harness signaled the arrival of the transport wagon and two of her strongest grooms. Prudencio was outside, hailing the men and reveling in the unaccustomed excitement. Christina realized she had forgotten to ask him if the wounded man had ever spoken. No matter
—
she would do her best to insure he survived to speak with her himself. She glanced at him once more, a shiver rippling her skin, reminding her the August morning breeze held a chill . . . although, oddly enough there seemed to be no wind.

* * *

He awoke to the smell of woman. It was an unmistakable musky-sweet scent he was all too familiar with. The odor was strong, so she must be close; damn close.

“Now, Señor,” a voice softly purred, “you must open your lips for me. Open them for Dorotea.” Something cold and metallic clicked against his teeth. His lips parted. Liquid, warm and beefy, washed inside his dry mouth, awakening taste buds in a way that hurt. He swallowed. His reward was a caress on his brow from a cool hand.

“That was good, Señor, very good; you have pleased me. Now please me again.”

Once more the spoon returned; he swallowed. Once again, the sensuous pat on the head.

Wanting to know more, he blinked, his eyes attempting to coordinate the signals his still-sleepy brain happened to be sending. It worked; something was focusing. A pair of long-lashed brown eyes, widening in surprise . . . the fall of black hair to one side of a pretty face. His gaze narrowed and dropped. Yes, two inspirational breasts, just peeking out of the loose-necked red blouse. Maybe if she leaned a. little closer -

“Señor! You are awake!” Her gasp and sudden jerky movement spilled some of the beef broth onto the pallet beside his head. “Madré de Dios!” Her hand shot down with a cloth. He turned his cheek so that it rested against her hand, stilling it; his lips were just able to graze the smooth skin. He grinned up at her, two deep clefts appearing through his beard on either side of his mouth.

She gasped again, but this time nothing spilled. “Oh Señor,” she murmured, her eyes heavy-lidded.

“Sweetheart,” he said, his voice sounding as though it had just remembered how to talk. Her hand crept to his forehead, smoothing back the hair that fell in disarray.

“How can I help you, Senor?” she asked softly.

“First,” he said in Spanish, with a little more strength, “you can tell me where the hell I am.”

Christina knew that it was her duty to visit the wounded man in the pantry, now that he was fully conscious. Yet she managed to put it off until late in the evening. Although hourly reports kept her informed of the progress he was making (good, despite his weakness, if her housekeeper could be believed), and she had overseen the thankfully easy operation to remove the ball in his shoulder, it was still her obligation to greet him personally, discover his identity and take some form of action. It would be only too easy to ignore the locked kitchen pantry and its occupant, and continue her regulated existence as though there were no half-dead renegade Yanqui within miles to disrupt it.

Why she should feel almost fear speaking to this man, when she was not given to fright of this kind, was unfathomable; particularly, she thought with wry amusement, in light of this morning's idle dreams of a more interesting life. Yet, suddenly, her own calm and orderly routine of days following days appealed as it never had before. Why, indeed, she thought in retrospect, should she desire to be anywhere else but here, a virtual paradise of fruit trees and flowers, where she ruled her own domain like a medieval princess? Why should she wish to do anything else but care for her tenants and her land? That this man had become some kind of threat to her bland but pleasant style of living was another uneasy sense she refused to analyze.

But he would be off her hands in a few days, thank God. She had written to her forceful father-in-law, the Condé de Castillo, sending one letter to his hacienda near Puebla and another one to his town home in Mexico City. One or the other of her notes would find him, and he would come to take charge of the Norte Americano. She hoped it would be soon.

She called for Maria Juana to accompany her to the Yanqui's sickroom, fully aware that the inclusion of a chaperone was just a trifle cowardly.

*

He dozed, and his dreams were a dangerous place to dwell; filled with gunfire and bandits, blood and the screams of horses. Of course, waking wasn't much of an improvement, he'd discovered earlier. It had been an unpleasant shock to find himself in so much pain, and to remember his carelessness in walking into an ambush had caused it. It had been an absurd shock to know he was bolted inside a kitchen pantry on the estate of a patriotic Mexican woman
—
the woman he had come to Mexico to find! And who, no doubt, according to the winsome Dorotea, intended to toss him over to the authorities once he was nursed back to health. And all because she believed him to be an American!

Or did the Señora have other, more specific, information about him? Had she somehow been warned to expect that an American was coming to spy on her, to learn more of her relationship with Santa Anna? Did his incarceration mean she was guilty of some sort of plotting - or merely of overzealousness?

He knew he must be careful in his dealings with the Señora, whatever the answer. In the meantime, he was hurting and sore over his entire body, and so tired he could scarcely concentrate on anything at the moment; including a way out of this ridiculous situation.

The faint click of the bolt on the door brought him out of a half-sleep, wondering if it was the pretty, informative Senorita come to feed him again. He hoped so; there was a lot more he wanted to know before someone smarter than she was caught on to her flirtatious ways, and forbid her to visit him.

But instead of the smiling Dorotea, a different female walked in, accompanied by an older woman who held the door open and carried a lantern, brightening the small space lit by a solitary candle.

The younger female approached the low bed, and he feigned sleep, cracking his eyelids to study her, as he would any adversary.

There was no doubt she was his captor. Although much younger than he would have guessed, she held herself so rigid with disgust at his presence that she could be no one else. She was tall, and even though simply attired in a dark, high-necked dress, the haughty tilt of her chin indicated her as the Patrona. And Santa Anna's mistress?