by Sharon Ihle
Still laughing as she and J.R. strode up beside Gant, Rayna said, “Oh, how I wish you could have seen your brother convincing Hans that he could replace him. He even spoke to him in a German accent. He was absolutely priceless.”
“I’ll just bet he was,” Gant said briskly. “What did Hans have to say about the act?”
J.R., who never missed so much as a hint of anger from any Gantry, hung his head. “Hans is willing to try a practice with me and Zoltaire the first thing in the morning. Then we’ll see.”
Rayna poked Gant in the shoulder. “How about a little congratulations? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“It’s what J.R. wanted. Thanks for helping out.”
Then he strode off toward the fire ring.
Rayna’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She turned to J.R. and said, “What the devil was that all about? I thought he’d be happy about what we accomplished.”
Shrugging, J.R. said, “Dunno for sure. Gant’s a little touchy about some things. You for one.”
Then he took off after his brother, leaving Rayna to ponder the situation. She couldn’t imagine what she’d done to set him off, or why he seemed so angry, but she was not going to stand around and brood about it. Besides, she was still a little worried about Maria. Leaving the Gantry brothers to themselves and their problems, Rayna started for the gangplank.
From over near the fire, Anna Mae called to her. “Rayna. You’re not leaving, are you? You promised to show us how to dance one of your Gypsy dances, remember?”
Rayna shook her head, in no mood to partake in the celebration, much less lead it, but the others joined in, pleading with her to stay.
“Please, Rayna?” Colleen begged. “There’s no audience out here. It’s just us. Come on and show us some real Gypsy dancing.”
The men, Marco and Melvin in particular, hooted and whistled their encouragement. Then Sam strolled over to where Rayna stood.
“Here,” he said, winking broadly as he handed her a tin cup. “Take a sip or two of this. You’ll lose your shyness.”
Shy? That would be the day. “All right. I’ll dance if you want me to, but give me a minute to prepare, and make sure to tell the band to warm up their fiddles. I don’t want to hear any trumpets or bugles.”
Then she downed the contents of the cup, a double shot of moonshine, handed the empty tin to Sam, and headed for the cover of a nearby oak tree.
Rayna shuddered as the alcohol raced through her system, and then released her hair from the long braid and fluffed it out to its lavish fullness. After she adjusted her clothing, she closed her eyes and waited for the fiddles to call to her. When their mournful strains reached her ears, Rayna began whirling like a dervish, her fingers clicking in place of her usual castanets, and then she spun out from behind the tree and into the center of the circle the troupe had formed.
As she danced, Rayna gradually forgot her concerns and let the music carry her away on its wild, barbaric rhythm. Her movements bore testament to the overt sensuality of the true Gypsy dance, and before long, she realized that she was no longer alone. Anna Mae had joined her in the center of the ring, her movements jerky and awkward as she tried to imitate Rayna’s spinning body. Soon they were joined by Colleen, the twins, and finally, even by most of the men.
Brought out of her usual concentration with the flurry all around her, Rayna gradually slipped off to the edge of the ring, and then out of the circle altogether. She stood with hands on hips, catching her breath, and laughed as she watched the others perfecting their Gypsy moves. Then she realized that Gant was not among the revelers.
She glanced around the immediate area and beyond to the trees. There, several feet back, she saw him standing among the shadows. His eyes were on her, singeing her. Was he thinking of the night that she’d danced for him, and him alone?
Warmed by the thought and the exertions of her dancing, buoyed by the moonshine as well, Rayna started in Gant’s direction, quietly slipping away from the crowd unnoticed.
Gant’s knuckles were white where he clung to a low-lying branch, and his breathing was labored. He’d no more than calmed himself down, realized that he was thinking irrationally where Rayna and J.R. were concerned, when she’d begun dancing. Now here he stood, a half-crazed fool who was ready to tear every man in the troupe to pieces. It wasn’t just her dancing or the fact that other men were watching that set him aflame either.
He’d been enjoying the display along with everyone else until Rayna began to spin, her wild undulating body flipping her skirt above her knees. That’s when it occurred to Gant that he’d seen so sign of her pantalettes. At the thought, at the very image of Rayna dancing in front of the others the way she had for him, naked beneath her skirt, raw desire and raging anger collided, erupting in his gut in a fiery explosion. He staggered backwards away from the crowd and over by the trees, desperate to get himself under control, but it was no use. Gant was a man captured as no man had been captured before, filled with a frantic kind of desire that should have been cooled by his anger. Should have been, but wasn’t.
Then he saw Rayna heading his way, leaving the ring of fire and heading unwittingly into an inferno. Suddenly she was upon him, eyes flashing with triumph.
“Why are you hiding over here?” she asked breezily. “Why aren’t you dancing with the rest of us?”
Gant struggled to show her a calm, rational man, but at the sight of her something primal and territorial rose up in him, an emotion much too potent to be simple jealousy.
He could feel himself snapping as he said, “How could you dance like that in front of everyone?”
“They asked me to dance. Does that bother you?”
“What bothers me is the way you exposed yourself.”
“Exposed myself? What are you talking about?”
Gant filled his fist with a fold of her skirt and shook it. “You don’t think you’re exposing yourself when you dance in front of men and women, even some children, without so much as a stitch beneath your skirt?”
If Gant hadn’t looked so angry, Rayna would probably have laughed out loud. As it was, she had enough sense to realize that he’d worked himself into a lather over nothing. Touched by what she saw as a burst of possessiveness, sure that he cared more for her than he let on, she put him out of his misery.
Raising her skirt to just above mid-thigh, Rayna showed him her rolled up pantalettes.
“A small glimpse of bare legs is part of Gypsy dancing,” she explained. “I have done nothing to be ashamed of.”
Not entirely placated, he said, “Maybe there’s no shame in dancing that way where you come from, but to me and probably everyone else, you looked like you were naked under your skirt. Don’t do it again.”
With any other man or at any other time, Rayna would have come back spitting, clawing, and fighting in her own defense. Because of what she saw in Gant’s eyes, confusion, lust, a little jealousy, she offered him a gentle smile.
“I can’t help my movements when I dance,” she explained. “They’re not meant to tease, or even to arouse. I dance with my soul, for my soul, and no one else matters. That is who and what I am.”
“Yeah? Well this is who and what I am.”
Gant dragged her into his arms then, taking his anger and frustrations out in a hard searing kiss. Then just as quickly, he tore his mouth from hers and set her away.
Rayna drew the back of her hand against her lips, thinking for one moment of using it to slap Gant’s cheek. Then she reminded herself of the dance she’d done for him in private, and understood how he might have confused that performance with the one tonight. To confirm that opinion, she let her gaze fall and immediately spotted the prominent ridge straining against the front of Gant’s Levis. Chuckling softly to herself, she impulsively dragged her fingernail along the length of that ridge.
“My goodness,” she whispered huskily. “How long have you been thinking that I had nothing on under my skirt?”
Gant sucked in his breat
h. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. With a muttered oath, he tore Rayna’s hand away from his body. Then, keeping her wrist in his iron grip, he jerked her up hard against his hips.
Rayna laughed, a dark, velvety purr. “Apparently you have been thinking those thoughts for a very long time, too long, I think. Maybe we should go back to the ship now, to the dressing room, or maybe your cabin.”
“No.”
“No?
“Here.” His expression darkened. “Now.”
She glanced around. “Now? Wouldn’t we be better off on the ship?”
“No. You are not going to have everything your way.”
Then, before she could even blink, much less object, Gant lifted Rayna off of her feet and scooped her into his arms. Without another word, he stormed off toward the dense stand of oaks and beyond to the shadows.
Then they were lost to the forest, the heavy mist, and their own unquenchable passions.
Twelve
The following morning, Gant sat hunched in a front row seat at the arena and watched as Hans instructed J.R. on how to handle a full grown African lion.
“No, you idiot.” Hans shouted far louder than necessary. “Never offer any lion a treat with your fingers. He will bite them off. Put za meat on za stick like this.”
Gant sighed and shook his head. If it had been him in the ring with the German, he’d have buried his fist in the bastard’s face long before now, puffing the other eye shut. If J.R. wanted the job badly enough to put up with such abuse, then so be it.
“Yes,” Hans went on, grudgingly praising his replacement. “That is better. Now come here.”
J.R. didn’t move fast enough.
“I said, come here, idiot.”
Gant drew in a sharp breath. Enough was enough. He thought about joining them and maybe having a little talk with Hans about basic decency, but then worried that J.R. would suffer all the more for his interference. As he weighed the idea Gant saw Maria slip into the arena. She glanced around, settled her gaze on him, and then started in his direction.
Suddenly uneasy, Gant slid down in his chair. The tiny woman’s stride, although comedic and duck-like, was purposeful. She moved as if she were on some great mission, the female equivalent to the judge who’d found him guilty as charged.
Gant sat up with a start. Had Maria been watching from the ship last night? Could she have seen him drag her daughter off into the forest? If that was the case, there wasn’t much he could say or do to defend himself. After all, he hadn’t given Rayna much choice last night. Then again, she hadn’t required a hell of a lot of coaxing either. Still, she might have said something to Maria. Who knew what went on in the mind of a woman?
Before Rayna, Gant had never even known a woman he’d bedded long enough to worry about entanglements or consequences. As those dark blue eyes bore down on him, Gant had a feeling he was about to break some new ground. And that Maria was wielding the shovel.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice raspy as she crawled up on the chair beside Gant.
“Morning, ma’am.” He tipped his hat, and then removed it. “Missed you at breakfast. Did you ever get anything to eat?”
She patted her tummy. “I’ve been a little sick lately, probably got hold of something bad.”
“Maybe you ought to tell Hans about it,” he suggested. “He does a lot of the doctoring around here.”
“I shall be fine,” Maria insisted. She scooted to the edge of her chair then, closer to Gant. “How is your brother’s lesson coming? Has he been able to control the lion?”
Gant shrugged, that feeling of uneasiness moving right on over to genuine concern. He glanced at Maria, wondering why she disturbed him so. It wasn’t her words or even the way she said them, but the look in her eyes that alarmed him. She seemed dazed, a little off balance, and even stranger, hysterically cheerful.
He slid lower in his chair. “J.R. is doing all right so far. He’s got a lot to learn.”
“Ah, that is good.” Maria patted the back of Gant’s hand, and then got down to business. “Not so good are some things I’ve noticed between you and my Rayna. You are very fond of her, no?”
Here it comes. She means to take that shovel and bury him. Gant straightened his spine. “I, ah, yes, ma’am. I guess you might say that I’m fond of her. I think Rayna is a real special lady.”
“Special, yes,” Maria repeated. “She is even more special than you might know. Rayna is gifted.”
“Yes, ma’am, truly gifted.”
The minute the words left his mouth, Gant quickly averted his gaze. He cursed himself for making such an impulsive reply, and hoped to hell that Maria hadn’t realized they were talking about two distinctly different things. Apparently there was something in his response she didn’t like, because when she continued, her voice was as sharp as the tip of Rayna’s dagger.
“You seem to know my daughter well. If you know her even half as well as you think you do, then you’ll understand why you cannot see her anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Gant asked, confused. “We work together every day and take our meals at the same time.”
“What I’m saying,” Maria said. “Is that I expect you to stop courting her.”
“Courting her, ma’am?”
Gant twisted the brim of his hat. Is that what he’d been doing and he didn’t even know it? From what little he knew about such matters, courting was a prelude to marriage and babies, two occurrences that were not options for him now, or ever. With a sense of horror, it dawned on Gant that Maria might have come to see him to insist that he do right by Rayna and offer to marry her.
He quickly said, “I’m not courting her, I swear.”
Maria tapped his wrist. “Then you will stop?”
Gant sighed. “I don’t know exactly what you want me to stop.”
“This,” she said, reminding him of the calm before the storm. “Stop making the hanky panky with my daughter, or I swear, you will suffer as you’ve never suffered before.”
Gant’s mouth fell opened. His hat, the brim misshapen by now, dropped to the floor between his boots. “Ma’am?”
“The hanky panky,” she explained, cooler than a mint julep. “Do not attempt to bed my Rayna again.”
Gant’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he sought enough moisture to swallow. He glanced around the arena, frantic to find someone, anyone to help him out of this incredibly uncomfortable conversation. Only Hans and J.R. were in sight, neither of whom could have helped even if they weren’t busy with Zoltaire.
“Do you agree to this?” Maria persisted.
“I, ah, good Lord, ma’am.” Gant wiped the sweat from his brow. “I may not know much about proper behavior, but it doesn’t seem to me that you and I should even be discussing this.”
“Do not presume to know what is proper for me, Gaje. I am Romanae.” She said it proudly, her chin held high.
“I know, ma’am. Rayna has told me. Does she know you’re here telling me all of this?”
“Rayna knows everything she needs to know. We Gypsies live by our own laws and rules, no matter where our temporary homes might be. I will tell you this much---“ She leaned in close to Gant. “We do not consider what goes on between a man and a woman, sex, as a dirty thing that must be whispered about behind closed doors.”
“Good Lord, ma’am. Must you go on this way?”
“Yes, I must to make sure you understand.”
Horrifying Gant even more, she picked up the thread of what she’d been saying before as easily as if she’d been sewing.
“Sex is as natural as eating. I am telling you to find your sex with someone else.”
“Oh, hell.”
Groaning inwardly, Gant slid back down in his chair. How could this tiny woman have asked such a thing of him? Gant didn’t even talk to other men that way. And what the hell was he supposed to say now? Tell the strange little woman that, sure, ma’am—I’ll just go see if Anna Mae Gunther wants to give me a tumble? Damn.
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Maria, who was watching the Gaje’s inner struggle, added another inducement. “I ask this of you with a mother’s heart. You will agree?”
Gant took a quick look at the bold woman, and then dropped his gaze to his lap. She was absolutely serious. What was he supposed to say? If he agreed to her terms, it would mean the end of nights like the one he and Rayna had just shared, the end to something that seemed even more important than sex. If he said no, what could the tiny woman possibly do about it? Bite his kneecap? He gave her another sideways glance. Just what had she meant when she’d threatened that he would suffer as he’d never suffered before? He decided to find out.