Theresa Michaels

by The Merry Widows Sarah

  “Hot water,” he whispered to his son, heading straight for the parlor. He knelt on the quilt, carefully removed the slicker and tossed it aside.

  It was then that her injury was discovered. Rio didn’t find it. Gabriel did.

  “She is bleeding, Father.”

  Rio’s gaze followed the boy’s shaking finger that pointed to the lump of broken skin on the back of Sarah’s head.

  “Father, is she…she…”

  The note of terror in his child’s voice snatched Rio’s attention from Sarah. “Sarah’s alive. I’ll show you.” He took hold of the boy’s trembling hand and set it palm down over Sarah’s lips.

  “They have come again. They want to hurt her like they did to Mother.”

  He gathered his son to him. “No, Gabriel. I won’t let them hurt any of you ever again.” He closed his eyes for a moment, hugging his son. Silently Rio cursed the animals that still hunted them, still brought nightmares and fear into their lives.

  “I need your help, Gabriel. Sarah needs all of us to take care of her.” He pulled back, his hands coming to rest on the boy’s small shoulders. “Can you do this for me?”

  The boy nodded, but his eyes darted to the still form of Sarah. He bit his lower lip and blinked rapidly, ashamed to feel tears.

  “Go to Sarah’s room. Bring her nightgown and robe. Socks, too, if you can find them. We must get her warm.”

  Gabriel nodded again, but this time he moved off to do his father’s bidding.

  Rio gently turned Sarah’s head to the side so there was no pressure on the wound. It was then that he saw how filthy his hands were. The heat of the fire became painful as it penetrated his cold body. He forced himself to his feet, unwilling to taint Sarah with the blood on his hands.

  He grabbed the clean borrowed shirt and pants and headed for the kitchen.

  Lucas sat at the table, the rifle before him. He turned when he heard his father. “Sarah?”

  “She will be all right. Go stay with her. I need to clean up.”

  Within minutes, Rio had stripped and, using the harsh lye soap and cold well water, he washed the grime from himself. Once dressed he checked on the water Lucas had heating. It was barely warm. He searched the pantry, gathering what he needed. All the while he kept his thoughts from the body outside.

  Sarah came first.

  Rio had just set his clothing to soak when Gabriel summoned him. Sarah was moaning.

  Carrying a basin of warm water, the salve and linens he’d found, Rio entered the parlor. He sent his sons from the room to wait for him in the kitchen.

  “I will keep watch,” Lucas said, then took his brother by the hand.

  And Rio, remembering what his son had said about needing him, looked up. “I depend upon you, Lucas.”

  “And me, Father? Me, too?”

  “And you. Go on.”

  “Sarah,” he whispered when they were gone. “Can you hear me?” He didn’t wait for a reply that might be a long time coming. He washed her face, noting that his hands were trembling. There was no avoiding what had to be done. His sons could not do it.

  Her flesh was so cold to his touch. She was soaked to the skin. Wounded.

  All valid reasons for him to strip her quickly.

  But Rio could not rid himself of the thought that the very private Sarah would hate him undressing her.

  He tugged off her boots, rubbing her chilled feet between his hands. His thoughts turned back to the first night he had broken into her home.

  He had ignored his own chilled flesh after chasing her through the storm. He saw himself once more standing in her room, denying her the right to wear the very pants he was sliding down the long, shapely length of her legs.

  He fumbled with the tie of her drawers, feeling again the way her pride and strength seemed to come against him.

  And the hot flare of desire that had made him so angry. With her. Although he had known she had done nothing to provoke it.

  He hurried now to remove her shirt and camisole.

  And for a moment he once more feasted on the slim, wild beauty of Sarah, before he covered her with a warmed blanket

  He had threatened her. Mocked her. All the while he had fought the heat of his blood, the betraying body that forcefully reminded him how long he had been without a woman.

  He had finally turned away from her. Away from his own needs.

  But then he had not tasted the passion of Sarah’s kiss. Had not really cared what happened to her.

  And now…

  With a ruthless shove, Rio closed that mental door. He wasn’t ready to think about what she meant to him now, or to his sons.

  A slow fever rose inside him at the allure of firelight and shadows shifting over her pale golden body. The breath caught in his throat as he gathered the folds of her nightgown and gently slipped it over her head. He smoothed the cloth over her arms, breathing in the sweet and spicy scent that touched all her clothing. A scent very much like Sarah herself.

  He caught hold of the faded blue ribbon ties that would draw the cotton together over the shadowed valley of her breasts. The whisper of his name jerked him from his thoughts.

  “Hush, Sarah. You are safe.” He avoided looking at her face. In his effort to hurry, his fingers were made clumsy by her every breath that lifted her breasts to touch his hands.

  “Tell me.” It was all she could say. She moistened her lips. The firelight picked out the tight set of his mouth, his still-damp hair. The shadows licked at his face, proud features of a man not easy to know. A sea of nausea lapped her insides. She could not focus any longer with the pounding in her head growing stronger.

  She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his hands on her body. The slide of the blanket that covered her. His gentle tugs to pull her nightgown down. His gentle handling brought moisture to her eyes, and she blinked it away. There was no way to deny the warmth that stole into her from every place his hands touched. Through the wave of pain in her head she realized she didn’t want to try.

  What had happened? She remembered going to the woodshed. Had she fallen?

  “Please?” Her voice held a pitiful sound. She groped for and found his hand as he resettled the blanket over her. Sarah held him tight, entwining her fingers with his. His hand was a comforting anchor while the room spun around her.

  “Tell…me. Now.” She struggled to convey her overpowering need to know. Something had happened. Every sense attuned to this one man, every sense that she trusted told her so. Something terrible. She did not question it. She knew.

  “First a sip of tea.” He cradled the back of her neck in one hand and with the other brought the cup of cooled liquid to her lips. “Good thing you have all those little crocks labeled. You must have the grandfather of all headaches.” Her eyes were closed, but he could feel her looking at him, judging him. He kept his tone soft as she drained the cup in steady sips and, when she was done, he carefully lowered her head.

  He replaced the soiled pad of cloth with a fresh one dipped and wrung of cold water. “You have a bump and a cut, but the bleeding’s stopped.” Fingers shaking with the barely controlled rage that she had been caught up in the violence of his life brushed back her hair.

  “Rio.”

  He backed away until he knelt beside her. She wouldn’t release his hand. And he told her.

  Sarah heard his stark sketch of events told in a deadened voice. She squeezed his hand tighter.

  In the silence that followed, she opened her eyes. It was an effort to focus on him. He knelt beside her, his head bent, the length of his hair obscuring his face. His shoulders curved inward as if he were beaten.

  A bright flare of fury obliterated pain and the nausea for Sarah. And with it came the realization that Rio was ashamed of telling her. No shame for what he had done to protect them all, but just for telling her.

  Once more she found herself unable to question the rightness of knowing it to be true.

  “How do I thank you for my life?”

/>   “Your life? If I was not here there’d be no threat to you.”

  “Rio, you did what you had to. I can’t thank you enough. Lucas? Gabriel? Are they—”

  “In the kitchen. Worried about you.”

  Without raising his head, he lifted their joined hands to his lips.

  “Sarah, I—”

  “Would you hold me?” Head pounding, body aching from her ordeal, she managed a half turn and braced her body on one elbow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She would swear that she saw him flinch. His head came up slowly. Sarah held her gaze steady on him.

  He stared at her as if he had not heard her, or he could not believe what she had asked of him.

  But there was something else in his own searching gaze that seemed to touch upon each feature of her face. She didn’t know what he was looking for. She only knew the need to feel his strong arms around her.

  And then, from their joined hands, Sarah felt his pain race up her arm into her heart.

  “You did not hear me? I told you I killed a man,” he said in a rigidly controlled voice. He held up his hand and then lifted their joined ones. “With these.”

  She knew what he wanted from her, and she was just as determined not to give it to him. There was pain in her head, but it had not clouded her thinking. She could not condemn him for taking the life of a man who had destroyed his life. He really didn’t need her to do it. He was punishing himself.

  “I heard you,” she whispered. “Now, would you hold me?”

  Touching her at all was a mistake. She was warm, slender and supple, seemingly lit with the same fire that burned in his veins.

  Her fingers tangled in his hair. He felt her thigh trembling against his own as he drew her up and held her closer. She turned her face to his, her black eyes and her parted lips invited more.

  She knew what had killed the joy in him. But she found herself wanting to give it back. She longed to take his grief and rage, and yes, even the dark despair akin to her own. She knew what he felt—alone, stunned from having love torn away.

  “Sarah.”

  The intensity in his voice matched the intensity of his eyes. Those eyes that darkened as his lashes swept down, hiding them. His kiss had a bittersweet taste. She wondered briefly if he felt he was betraying the memory of the wife he still grieved. Because she leaned into his body, she felt the tension vibrating through muscle and bone. Almost, she thought, like the rope holding a green-broke horse, too tightly drawn, fairly humming with the strain.

  Against this was the very gentle way his lips touched hers, the feeling of safety and of tenderness as his hand stroked her cheek, turning her face, tilting it up and taking more of what she could offer him now.

  But Sarah took comfort from him, too. She couldn’t remember a time when she had not had to be the strong one. Hunger was tempered by tenderness with every deepening moment of being held, of kissing him.

  Rio caught his breath and shuddered. It nearly killed him to let her go. He had tasted her passion, but the past few minutes he knew another Sarah, one who kissed with a gentle giving that was a balm of peace spreading inside him.

  He looked into her eyes and discovered within this woman a heart flame that could burn away the coldest winter night, the darkest corner of despair in a man’s soul.

  But with the tender concern in her eyes, he felt some deeper, unnamed emotion reaching out from her to wrap around him.

  Rio used a great deal of care to nestle her cheek against his chest and wrap his arms around her. Without hesitation, without a word spoken, she accepted what he could give of himself.

  Sarah closed her eyes. She felt soothed by the stroke of his hand up and down her back. And inside her, there was an easing of the small, empty ache that had been so much a part of her. She did not understand why it should be so, why this man could bring some warm balm to that empty place, but silently whispered a prayer of thanks that it had happened.

  The strength of his hand was like the strength of the man himself—tempered with gentleness. She found her thoughts drifting to things both Mary and Catherine had confided about their husbands. Both Rafe and Greg were strong men, but they also had a gentle side.

  Catherine’s wish came back to her, that she too would find love with a stranger who entered this house. She sighed and snuggled closer as she inhaled the clean, fresh scent of rain and the maleness that was Rio’s alone. She couldn’t remember ever cuddling like this with Judd. Not even when he courted her. She had thought herself wise not to spend too much time alone with him. Hindsight showed she’d been as foolish as a man who judged a horse by its harness.

  She waited for the anger to come whenever thoughts of Judd entered her mind. But it wasn’t there. For the first time that she could remember, at most she felt a mild annoyance that she thought of him at all.

  The herbal tea Rio had made of Mary’s sleeping mix was beginning to work. The warmth of the fire, the heat of Rio’s body and the tea combined to lull her. And that unnamed emotion that stirred shadowlike in her mind? She couldn’t put a name to it, couldn’t bring it forth to examine.

  With another deeper sigh issuing forth, Sarah laid this flight of fancy directly on the blow she had received. It could be nothing else.

  Their quiet calm was broken by a whisper of concern from the doorway. Lucas wanted to know if she was all right.

  There was no hurried breaking apart “Come and see,” Rio invited, then slowly withdrew his arms.

  As he nudged Sarah to lie down again, he heard Lucas call out to his brother. For the last few moments of privacy, he found himself clenching his fingers around a loose fistful of her hair. He didn’t want to release the silky mass but had to.

  Rio leaned closer to her. Without knowing why he did it, he brushed his lips over her temple.

  “Sarah, I need to go.”

  Her fingertips touched his lips. “I know what you need to do.” Her vision was blurry again, then cleared. Something akin to pain passed over his features. With the tip of one finger she shaped his lips. “Stay safe,” she murmured.

  He didn’t know what waited out there for him, even as she understood he had no choice but to go. Once she had stood armed with holstered gun and rifle and declared to Rafe McCade that she was ready to protect her home and the women who lived there against any man who dared think he’d found easy pickings.

  Now she had to depend on Rio. She didn’t have the strength to toss a teacup.

  He moved to stand when Sarah’s eyes flared wide. She grabbed his arm. “The gun. I forgot.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t wear the gun belt when I work with the horses. In the barn near the front. I left it hanging beneath an old jacket.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I forgot. You get it. If you leave the rifle for Lucas you’ll have nothing else.”

  “All right. Just calm down. Come on, Sarah, you need rest.”

  She whispered something, lost to both of them, and then he was gone.

  Hours later Sarah woke from a fretful doze. For a few minutes she did not know where she was, then it all came rushing back. She gingerly turned her head to the side and saw that Gabriel slept beside her. Lucas was on the settee with his head flung back, the rifle cradled in his arms, but he too was soundly asleep.

  She winced as she turned her head. Her fingers probed the wound, sticky with salve, and then the lump above it. The hard pounding had dulled to an ache, but she was relieved that the nausea was gone. Silently she blessed Mary and her potions.

  Darting her gaze toward Lucas and the rifle he held, she remembered that Rio had left him to guard them. She ought to take the weapon from him so he could rest more comfortably but quickly decided against it. Touching him might waken him and if Lucas was frightened, he could fire the rifle.

  But where was Rio?

  The question was no sooner thought than faint sounds from the kitchen trickled into her consciousness.

  She waited a few moments. But this night there
was no sense of alarm that a stranger was in her house.

  Rio was back. A glance showed only darkness beyond the lace curtains. If he was back, it meant he hadn’t found the other two killers.

  Sarah found getting up an effort. She felt weak and a little dizzy. More so when she managed to add a few small logs to the fire without waking up the boys. The licking flames brightened the room, and she saw her robe tossed over one of the side chairs. She slipped it on, grateful for the added warmth as she left the parlor.

  There was grit beneath her bare feet despite all the efforts to keep the floor clean. Cool drafts snaked through the hallway and chilled her.

  The coal-oil fixture shed only a feeble light in the kitchen. As she came to the doorway and stopped, the light above caught the sheen of Rio’s knife on the table. He stood off to the side.

  He was drenched. His hair was plastered to his head, beads of water dripped off the ends. Heavy with rain, his clothes clung to his body.

  “Something dry, Sarah.”

  It wasn’t a request. She spun around too fast and had to cling to the doorway a moment before she hurried back to get his clothes and a blanket. He had to be chilled to the bone.

  She was back in minutes, and forced herself not to utter a sound.

  Rio had stripped off his shirt, his moccasins, and had unbuttoned the front of his pants. He stood near the dry sink pumping water. His olive skin shimmered from wetness, his back and shoulders bunched and knotted as he forced his soaked pants down.

  Sarah was assaulted with such a sharp bite of desire that white knuckles showed where she held the cloth. And as the longing rose hot, she felt vulnerable.

  She must have made some sound, for he glanced over his shoulder at her. His gaze held hers for what seemed long minutes. Those eyes, dark and penetrating, probed for all her secrets.

  She swallowed, and then forced herself to take a few steps closer to him. She handed over his borrowed shirt and pants. The blanket fell from her fingers.

  “I—” She couldn’t speak. He reached for her, and she fled.