Wild Sierra Rogue (10 page)

 

 

Rafe was getting the better of her. It was a pastime for him—like a game of solitaire, just something to kill time—his attentions. Yet Margaret had difficulty keeping him in the proper perspective, for this was a night of a thousand sighs.

Every time she looked at him, she sighed.

Under a cap of starlight, in the cloak of evocative music and two dozen posters featuring
El Aguila Magnífico,
they dined in the open-air courtyard, off-side to a cage of parrots. At first it seemed as if the eatery's business was slow, but Margaret learned that Carmelita, assuming lovers were in her midst and in honor of the adored
El Aguila,
had rejected all comers for dinner. Except for the supposed lovers.

A waiter, the epitome of discretion, served a main course of baked
cabrito,
young goat. With the meat came Spanish rice, refried beans, a piquant tomato-onion-and-cilantro relish called
pico de gallo
plus piles of corn tortillas. They washed down this repast with glass after glass of chilled sangria. And all the while the music played . . .

Attentive as Don Juan in the flesh, Rafe stared into Margaret's eyes. “Mexico becomes you.”

She sighed. “Th-thank you.”

She lowered her gaze to comb his broad chest, and she had a mirthful thought. What would it be like to study for an advanced degree in the difference between a golden cross and the texture of pitch-black chest hair?

Some nagging, shrill little voice—her conscience—kept shouting at her. Why couldn't she find the wherewithal to get down to business? Her baby brother was somewhere in this foreign city, probably scared for his sister—while she wasn't moving so much as a hair to put him at ease. Half-dressed—decked out in revealing soft cottons and negligible foundations—she ate and drank . . . and ignored shrill little voices.

Contemplating that intriguing scar at the corner of Rafe's mouth, she spilled a goodly amount of sangria.

“Something wrong?” Rafe inquired and sopped up the mess.

“Wrong . . . wrong . . . something wrong? Chirp.” A green wing flapped. “Chirp.
Besame culo.”

Margaret and Rafe both laughed at the bird's profanity. “I don't imagine he knows what part of his anatomy he's proposing we kiss,” she said, faking a casual air. “But he, she, it is a beautiful bird.”

Fingers warm, callused, smoothed across her cheek. Rafe's gaze didn't waver from Margaret. “Yes, a beautiful bird.”

She swallowed. Such a glib tongue had he, even to woo a nanny goat . . . or perhaps a colorless and lovelorn imitation of the beautiful and serene Lady Hapsburg.
How does he feel about her, after all these years?
To cover her discomfiture, Margaret said, “About my brother, shouldn't we pay up and get on to meet him? I'm sure he's lonely, and—”

“Margarita, lonely? A young hombre in a town like Juarez? Tex is not lonely.”

Recalling those tarts who'd issued catcalls to Rafe, Margaret took a quick look around to make certain no one could eavesdrop. They were alone, save for the occupied musicians. “Tex may be an adult, but he's green, Rafe. Green as grass. I shudder to think of him being corrupted by women of the night.”

Rafe threw back his head, laughing in his easy fashion. “Silly sweet, you are too old for such innocence. Hombres his age are already corrupted.”

“You can't know that for sure.” Margaret blushed. “Anyway, I don't think of him along such lines. He's my kid brother, he's in my care, and I don't want anything to happen to him. This is a vulgar city, so I think we should take our leave.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Right. No. And don't worry about the jades of Juarez amusing your young lion.” Rafe winked. “Your brother swears he's glad for the delay, and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. Understand, he wishes to meet the train in El Paso tomorrow. Need I say he seeks Miss Nash?”

“Well, I think we should go by the hotel and make certain he's all right.”

“He is all right.”

“You're playing an evil game with me, Rafe, and I want you to stop it at once. Now. Where can I find Tex?”

“I'll tell you. Later.”

“Oooh, you can be exasperating.” She squared her shoulders. “On the train you told me you don't enjoy games, yet you are playing me for a mouse in the cat's paw.”

“If you'll remember, I qualified my remark. In affairs of the heart, I love a challenge.”

Affairs of the heart—bah! It was tempting, the urge to argue, but it would be futile. She figured he, a master in the tournament of amusements, loved nothing more than contests of any sort, and he was better at them than she.

Resting her chin on laced fingers, she eyed the musicians. “I can't peg the music. It isn't quite the sound of the mariachi.”
It's too lush, too sensual, too provocative. Too much in the wild style of Rafe.
“It's somewhat akin to the flamenco of the gypsies, yet it doesn't mimic the sounds of Spain, not precisely, although it does have a flavor of the bolero. Would you agree this has North Africa—black and Moorish Africa—and the melange that is the Americas to it?”

Rafe bent across the table to trace his finger down her cheek . . . and she trembled. “Must you always figure everything out? Can't you ever let anything be, and live for the moment?”

She studied him, trying to assess the name of this new game. Recreation for an idle hand, perhaps? Rather than answer, she said, “Help me, Rafe. You're a musician. What is this music?”

“How do you know I'm a musician?”

“Don't . . . don't be absurd. It's well known that you are a guitarist.”
Olga told me so.

He hooked an ankle with one of hers, and his palm smoothed over her shoulder, before his thumb flicked her breast ever so lightly, ever so exciting. “Tell me what you know about me.”

Her heart pounded when his thumb made another foray at her breast. “Y-you're a dangerous man,” she managed to answer.
What do you mean to do with me?

“I am not dangerous. I am a simple Mexican bull breeder.”

“And the pope is just a Catholic.”

Rafe chuckled and relaxed back in his chair, bringing the wine goblet to his infinitely kissable lips, and the look that he gave her was one that pulled—pulled? No! Yanked—her into the flare of his incendiary gaze. “You are the dangerous one,
querida.
Brave, unwilling to give in. That's where your beauty lies, in your spirit.”

“Of course. And Yorkshire shoats lay golden eggs. If you're not dangerous, explain about your uncle. Or explain
all this.”
She gestured around the restaurant. “A businesswoman turns away clientele, and that same woman lights candles to thank Mexico's patron saint for your return. Carmelita says you gave up the bullring for a more noble cause. Did she tell the truth?”

“She did. The
suerte de matár
began to sicken me with its violence. I likened it to the violence and brutality wreaked upon the luckless of this country.”

“You amaze me.”

“Is that good or bad?” he asked, and leaned forward to trace his fingertip along her jaw.

“Good,” she answered, not certain whether she meant his history or his touch, for her face tingled where he stoked. “You must have been an impressive rebel in your heyday, Rafe.”

His chest puffing, he smoothed his hair back. “I was.”

“I'd like to hear all about it.”

“Let's not discuss bygone days.”

“Let's do. I'm thinking—”

“Shhh.” He took her hand in his. “Quit thinking, little witch. You overtax your brain with all your suppositions and theories.” His knee settled against hers. “Dance with me.”

Gracious, his was a tempting offer, but Margaret was no vision of suppleness and form on the dance floor. In fact, Frederick the Crumb, after leading her in a polka at the German Club in San Antonio, had made snide allusions to Hugo's Quasimodo gamboling on the
Ile de la Cité.
“I don't dance.”

With his thumb Rafe wiped a line of condensation down from his glass. “At all?”

“Not to this. It is much too vigorous for me.”

“You have been in Spain. Did you not dance the flamenco,
querida?”

“The flamenco is for gypsies.”

“Let yourself be a
gitana
tonight.” His lips twitched as he studied each of her features in turn. In a voice soft, quiet, attentive, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Thinking of golden earrings and the flaring skirts of gypsy dancers, she took a sip of the icy sangria. She wasn't prepared to make a fool of herself, but the idea of spinning around the dance floor did have its charms. “I'm quite recovered, thank you. My long nap was what the doctor ordered.”

“That is good. For you
will
dance with me.”

The drums went rap, tap, rap . . . deep and low. Rafe stood, offered a hand that she waved away.

“Do you deny me because you haven't settled your mind about this music?” Not giving her time for a reply, he said, “It is the sound of a place you should know well. It is the sound of Cuba. Have you not been there?”

“No.” The McLoughlin interests were wide in Spain's misbehaving child in the Caribbean. Plus, Papa and Mama owned a sugar plantation and rum distillery outside Havana. They used to visit the island frequently. And Cuba was the center of her father's political crisis, but . . . “No, I haven't.”

“I'm surprised. But Cuba is far away. And tonight. . . we shall dance.”

“I said no.”

Unlike the merchants of this city, Rafe understood the word no. He moved a couple of footsteps toward the musicians, presenting his back and centering his attention on the bandstand. One wide shoulder stirred, in time with the music. The stark white of his shirt, the blood red sash at his waist, those tight black britches—this attire seemed perfect for a lithe body such as his. But what was he about? Did he intend to dance for her?

She watched, mesmerized, as his body moved ever so lightly to the primitive beat, then made a half turn. In profile, a lock of hair having fallen to his brow, he squinted at the stars before dropping his chin as if in thought. One foot tapped in rhythm, and he became as one with the music. Lithe of motion, hypnotic in effect, he must have looked like this when he'd lured the
toros
to him.

He lifted and swung his chin, extending a hand in silent invitation. She didn't move. “Come to me,
querida.”

Something invisible pulled her, something such as a moth to the flame. On her feet Margaret went into the Eagle's arms—and they were warm, strong, encircling. Yet she remained jumpy. “I have two left feet. I don't know what to do.”

“Just follow my lead,” was his creamy reply. “Dancing is an expression of letting go one's reserve. Soar with me,
paloma.”

Unable to argue giving over control—not particularly wanting it at this point, for she had tumbled headlong into dementia—she let him twine his fingers with hers. Gyrating his hips and lifting their joined hands high, he threw back his head and emitted a groan as earthy as the music. She stepped closer, and when she did, she felt the heat of his body, the raw power of it, the invitation of a journeyman lover.

Rafe's gaze never leaving her, he released Margaret's fingers and began to dance around her, his muscled form moving expertly, erotically. “Follow your desires,
amorcito.
Do as your feelings demand.”

Her weight rocked from one foot to the other. As if they had minds of their own, her feet vibrated in step with the sounds. Her nervousness vanished as the mood of the evening enveloped her.

Utterly agile, ever nimble, Rafe inched closer, his chest touching hers. Excitement flashed through her. Drunk on the dance, on him, she rolled her shoulder to his. “This must be what it feels like to fly,” she murmured thickly.

“Sí, sí, mi paloma.”
The tip of his tongue touched her earlobe. “Fly high,
paloma.
Fly free.”

He was taunting her, daring her, beseeching her. She loved it. Suddenly the music switched rhythms, but neither she nor Rafe missed a step, and her body curved to his. He growled deep in his throat, and ground his hips against her pelvis. The difference between them, the feel of their heated bodies in contact . . . oh, my! All of a sudden one of his arms braced her waist, the opposite hand twining with her fingers anew. Around and around he twirled her, their toes tapping, their fingers snapping, their hearts beating fast. In tune with each other.

“
‘España Cañi,'
” she murmured when he whirled her around.

“Sí, querida. ‘España Cañi.'
The procession for the bullfighters.”

She had heard this song in Ronda, a town built high on an olive-dotted precipice in the Sierra Nevadas of Andalusia. It was a village famed for its bullring, and home to the late Francisco Romero, the first matador of great fame. In Ronda, as well as when Rafe had played these strains on his guitar, she'd never known this clarion call to blood sport could also become a song of seduction. Not until now. The song lured her, pulled her to Rafe—to his eyes and lips and body movements. She trembled, her flesh heated to the scorching point, as he made love to her without ever touching her intimately.

The trumpet lifted. The musicians brought the music to a crescendo, and began to gather and pack their instruments. And Rafe pulled Margaret even closer.