Sun God (24 page)

His toes—within the soft moccasins—curling to the slope of Noche’s back, Luiz purposely relaxed all his muscles. He concentrated on his body becoming but an extension of the mighty stallion’s. They would no longer be two separate units. They would become one perfectly coordinated vessel of grace, power, and speed.

And when the transformation had taken place, it was unnecessary for Luiz to give Noche the command to move. Just as the man had become the stallion, the stallion had become the man. Noche nickered and immediately set off. He went into an easy lope, the symmetrical movement of his sleek powerful body totally harmonious with the sleek, powerful body of Luiz.

His raven hair blowing wildly about his head, the muscles in his bronzed legs and wide shoulders flexing like well-oiled springs, Luiz effortlessly kept his equilibrium, loving the sting of the wind on his face, the sense of the ground rushing by.

His deep laughter echoed across the dusty flats and rugged arroyos as the sheer joy of performing this old boyhood feat of derring-do brought back long-forgotten pleasure.

If horses could laugh, then the responsive beast beneath Luiz’s feet was surely laughing too, as together they went into a rapid, dusty gallop, speeding across the barren rangeland, racing headlong toward the gun-metal gray of the horizon.

And even as happy horse and laughing rider sped across the wild, untamed tablelands, Luiz was charting the course of Orilla’s future. Already the desert was beginning to bloom. Soon, in a few short weeks, tobasa grass would again cover the bare, crusty floor with a carpet of green. Newly bought cattle would graze contentedly and fatten. Trusted vaqueros would ride the far ranges. Orilla would again be as it was in its glory days and his promise would be fulfilled. A promise made to his father, Don Ramon—a promise to the dead.

It was all possible.

Now that the river again flowed.

Those were the thoughts filling the head of the laughing man standing atop the thundering stallion in the dawn light.

The thundering horse, not the laughing man, decided when it was time to end the sport. But the man instinctively knew—grinding flesh and bone beneath his moccasined feet telegraphed the message—that the frisky, playful stallion, hoping to catch his rider off guard, was contemplating an abrupt halt aimed at tossing Luiz head over heels.

Luiz was not to be deceived.

Continuing to laugh, he tried hard not to relay his own strategy to leap from the fun-loving stallion’s back just in the nick of time.

No longer thinking and moving as one being, man and beast had again become separate entities, and a competitive test of wills now existed between them. Each attempted to anticipate the other’s every intent.

Luiz was never quite certain who won. But seconds later he went careening over the stallion’s head, did a limber somersault on the hard ground, rolled immediately to his feet, and spun around.

Directly before him Noche was rearing triumphantly and whinnying loudly enough to be heard all the way to the hacienda. Luiz, standing with his legs braced apart, put his hands on his slim hips and cocked his head to one side.

Smiling, he looked up at the big horse and said, “What are you carrying on about? I knew it was coming.” He lifted his hands to brush at the dust and dried mesquite beans clinging to his bare chest.

Noche moved forward, nudged at Luiz’s chest, and made blowing, snorting gestures, as if to clean his master.

“No.” Luiz shoved his velvety muzzle away. “You don’t get off that easily, my friend. I want a bath and you are taking me to the river.”

Noche’s great head swung right back to Luiz’s bare belly and the steed acted as if he was going to bite the only man who had ever been atop him. Luiz knew he wouldn’t do it. He reached up and grabbed the mount’s coarse forelock. He gave it a hard yank and ordered, “The Puesta del Sol and be quick about it, or you’ll be sold to the U.S. cavalry at Fort Bliss before sunset.”

Minutes later Luiz was slicing naked through the cold, clear waters of Sunset River. An hour later, as the sun was beginning to peep over the earth’s curve, he was back at ranch headquarters.

After throwing a long leg over the horse’s back, he dropped to the ground and headed for the white stucco barn where he stabled Noche. Long abandoned, the stall and fenced lot around it was set apart from Orilla’s many other outbuildings. Luiz had selected it for that very reason. A man of privacy, he sought the same privacy for his prized stallion.

The big beast docilely followed the man into the stable and made soft sounds of gratitude when Luiz took a bucket down from a peg on the far wall and filled it with oats. There was not time to rub Noche down. They had played too long on the plain. Luiz had to hurry if he was to be dressed and back outdoors before the household awakened and his troops began to rouse.

Leaving the contented stallion to feast on his breakfast of oats, Luiz moved quickly toward the ranchhouse. Inside, he silently ascended the stairs of the sleeping hacienda. At the wide landing he turned west.

He stole into the master suite, automatically glancing at the bed. A skein of silky blond hair, a bare ivory shoulder, and a well-turned hip was all he saw of the woman slumbering there on her stomach. Curbing the desire to slide back into the bed and make love to her while she was still warm and drowsy with sleep, Luiz quickly dressed.

Amy didn’t rouse until he was leaving. She caught only a flash of the immaculate man with black hair, dark face, white shirt, military-beige trousers, and gleaming boots. Luiz opened the door and left, never knowing she had awakened.

Amy did not get up at once.

She reached for the worn cotton robe lying across the night table beside her, turned onto her back and draped the robe modestly over herself, still uncomfortable with her own nakedness. Her eyes on the ruffled silk canopy above, she stretched and yawned and silently acknowledged that sleeping bare
was
more comfortable.

Or would be, if not for the fact that she was obliged to share her bed with a naked stranger. A fierce, hot-blooded man whose strange habit of removing all covers and all pillows from the bed left her, each night, without even a top sheet to hide herself from his black, penetrating eyes.

“The river,” Amy murmured aloud, suddenly recalling yesterday’s trip to Puesta del Sol and the expression she’d seen in those hypnotic black eyes when El Capitán had placed her hand on the Sun Stone. “My God, the river is flowing again and it’s because … because …” Amy sat up straight, threw her legs over the bed’s edge, and forcefully shook her head. “No! It can’t—it can’t be. He had nothing to do with it. Nothing. I am being ridiculous!”

But Amy’s breath was short and a chill skipped up her spine. Her modesty temporarily forgotten, she dropped the robe, pushed her long tumbled hair behind her ears, and stared into space, seeing again the rushing waterfall, the rapidly flowing river.

And the tall commanding man with the gold medallion resting on his chest.

Amy shivered, then told herself it was because she was stark naked. Good Lord, Luiz Quintano was a mere man. Flesh and blood. Human. Incapable of performing miracles. Possessed of no supernatural powers, for heaven sake!

Or was he?

While the words Sun God kept repeating themselves over and over in her brain in an unsettling litany, Amy impatiently dressed, made up her bed, and hurried downstairs to find Magdelena.

So excited that she eagerly disregarded her own strict rule of never discussing anything personal with a servant, Amy breathlessly revealed to Magdelena everything that had happened the day before, leaving out nothing. She told of El Capitán driving her home from Sundown. Of seeing his troopers dredging out the old canals. Of the rushing waterfall, the swirling river. Of the captain placing her hand on the Sun Stone; of the unforgettable expression in his eyes.

And when, breathless, Amy had finished, she asked, “What do you make of it all, Mag? Have I imagined the whole thing? Is it possible the dried-up river is actually flowing again after all this time?”

The sturdy Mexican woman smiled and said, “How long, Amy, since the river dry up?”

Amy squinted her eyes and caught her bottom lip behind her top teeth, pondering for a moment. “I’m not sure, but it was years ago. Eight, maybe ten.”

Magdelena looked Amy straight in the eye. “The river dry up at exactly the time young Luiz leave Orilla.”

A crease appeared in the middle of Amy’s brow. Her lips fell open. For a moment she was speechless. Finally she laughed nervously and said, “You can’t actually believe …”

“
Sí
, I do believe,” Magdelena interrupted. “Luiz’s mother, the Aztec goddess Xochiquetzal, perform miracle and bless this ranch with water twenty-seven years ago. Then, when her son was cast off Orilla, she take the water away. Now he is back …” Her words trailed off and she lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

Amy gave no reply. Lost in thought, she turned and left Magdelena’s kitchen. She was still pensive later that morning while she went about scrubbing the floors in the hacienda’s wide downstairs corridor.

Long blond hair pinned atop her head and covered with a bandanna, and wearing an ancient, faded work dress, Amy was down on her hands and knees. A basin of water was beside her, a large, stiff-bristled brush in her right hand.

Vigorously she scoured away the tracked-in dirt from the smooth red bricks. Perspiration dotted her upper lip and wisps of wilted hair curled around her cheeks. She paused for a minute, wiped her damp face with the back of her hand, then sat back on her heels and undid the top buttons of her bodice.

Hot and tired from her labor, she sighed and went back to work, her thoughts still on the flowing river. Totally preoccupied, she had no idea anyone was within a mile of her.

El Capitán stood in the wide hall, not ten feet away. Temporarily blinded from coming in out of the brilliant sunlight, he hadn’t immediately seen her. He had stopped short when Amy sat back on her heels and unbuttoned her dress. When she went back down on all fours and began scrubbing the bricks, his face went rigid. It so rankled him to see her working like a servant, he bore determinedly down on her, a muscle jumping in his hard jaw.

Amy looked up just as he reached her. His hand shot out, wrapped tightly around her upper arm, and hauled her to her feet with such swift force, her head rocked on her shoulders.

Mouth agape, she found herself looking up into the dark, disapproving face of the clearly angry captain.

“Never,” he said through thinned lips, “are you to scrub floors.” He took the brush from her and dropped it. “Do not let me catch you at it again.”

Her own anger immediately flared. Amy snatched her arm from his firm grasp and said spitefully, “If you don’t want to catch me at it, then I’d suggest you stay out of the house!”

“You are
not
to do this—or any other menial work—again. Where are all the help?”

“The help?” Amy laughed at the absurdity of his question. “You’re looking at the help, Captain.”

“You have no servants?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve servants all over the place. So many they’re constantly underfoot, but I do so enjoy scrubbing floors.” She shook her head disgustedly and said, “Magdelena and old Fernando. That’s it. So if you’ll excuse me now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Would it have changed anything?” She gave him a wilting look and sank back down to her knees to pick up where she had left off.

“Get up,” he commanded.

“I have work to do.”

“I won’t allow it.”

“You have no choice,” she replied, going for the brush.

He coolly kicked it out of her reach. “I said get up.”

Fire flashed from Amy’s narrowed blue eyes. She looked up at him and hissed, “And I said no!” Then quickly went down on all fours and crawled toward the brush.

She didn’t get far.

An arm of steel went around her waist and she was scooped from the floor so swiftly she hardly realized what had happened. She found herself pressed back against his tall frame, trapped. Instinctively she struggled, kicking at him and clawing wildly at the muscular arm holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

“Be still now,” he said with that icy calm she had come to recognize as being far more dangerous than any sudden explosion of anger. “Be still.”

At once Amy gave up the battle, feeling the latent force of his masterful nature, the strength beneath the calm surface. She stood still and stiff in his embrace, fearing him, hating him. Hating herself for fearing him. It seemed to Amy they would stand there forever, he with his back against the wall, she forced to stand flush against him, so close that the gold Sun Stone on his chest was cutting into the flesh of her left shoulder.

Abruptly he released her.

Amy quickly stepped away, refusing to speak or to look at him. She held her breath until he pushed away from the wall, turned, and started down the long corridor. Only when she was certain he was actually leaving, that he was nearing the heavy front door, did she slowly turn around.

Glaring after him, she ground her teeth in angry frustration, then silently mouthed the words “I hate you.”

And then almost swallowed her tongue when El Capitán, as if he had read her mind, said over his shoulder, “And I’ve the scars on my back to prove it.”

My darling Linda and dearest Aunt Meg,

Your letters arrived this morning and I’ve read both over at least a dozen times.

It sounds as though the two of you are having a wonderful time; how I wish I was there with you.

The ballet and the opera in the same week! My goodness, Linda, I’m afraid you’ll never want to come home to Orilla.

Things are just as usual here. The weather is hot and dry, the big hacienda quiet and empty. The days are long and the nights are longer. I am so lonely I…

A
MY ABRUPTLY THREW DOWN
the quill pen and wadded the half-written letter up in her fist. Sighing loudly, she dropped it atop the desk and rose. She would try again later. She couldn’t bring herself to finish. Couldn’t make herself write one more lie.