Night-blooming flowers looked like small white moons against the dark backdrop of foliage clinging to adobe walls.
Deborah plucked one of the blossoms and tucked it into her hair over her ear, gazing into the night. She could hear the low moan of cattle, and in the distance, the laughter of the ranch hands, or vaqueros Don Francisco employed. Lately, he had hired men from Mexico, men who wore crossed bandoliers and carried guns and made her think of Dexter Diamond’s hired gunmen. She and Don Francisco had quarreled over that.
“Do not presume to tell me what to do, woman,” he’d snapped when she said it was only inviting trouble to hire men who would fight too easily. “I will not risk the land that my family has had for generations. There have been too many risks already.” Deborah had stared at him, at his slender, wiry build and darkly handsome features. “Why don’t you marry and secure your claim, if that’s what you’re worried about?”
“I hired Mister Macklin to secure my claim for me, but even he will be useless against loaded weapons.” A sneer warped his mouth as he glared at her. “You know, that if you think to escape me by marrying another, I will see that you suffer for it.”
“Please explain that remark, Don Francisco.”
“It is simple—Señor Diamond made an offer of marriage for you. I refused, of course. He wants what you will bring to the marriage, not you. But he will never have one rock of Velazquez land, not one! Not if I have to lock you up for the rest of your life.” He’d sounded so fiercely determined, that Deborah had not bothered to point out what was obvious to her—she did not want to marry Dexter Diamond. Don Francisco’s threat to lock her up sounded too much like a warning, and Deborah retreated into silence.
Now, she paced and fretted. Life was growing more intolerable by the day. Judith was too withdrawn, and Tía Dolores too upset by her brother’s fury at her for allowing Zack Banning to confront Deborah in the hotel lobby, for either of them to listen to her fears. So Deborah worried alone.
Or as alone as she could be, when an armed guard stood outside even the walls of her patio. To guard her? Or to keep her prisoner? She suspected the latter. Someone always seemed to be outside her hallway door, and there was the soft scurrying of feet at night. She also heard it during the day each time she left Tía Dolores’s side.
She was becoming accustomed to the furtive noises.
Perhaps that was why she didn’t hear the noise of a man climbing over the adobe walls of her patio. There was a scrape, a rustle of leaves, then a soft plop, and when she turned with a gasp, her eyes widened.
A man was outlined against the white adobe wall laced with vines, his silhouette large and familiar.
“Hawk,” she whispered, and he reached her side in two graceful strides.
“Zack,” he muttered, glancing warily around the patio. He looked back at her, his gaze raking over her nightgown. “Nice. Do you wear that often?” She swallowed. “Every night.” He looked up at her face, and a faint smile curled his mouth. “Sounds inviting.”
“Where is your invitation for tonight?” she asked tightly, remembering her resolve to resist him.
“Right here.” He stepped forward before she could react and pulled her to him, crushing her lips beneath his. His mouth was hot, the invasion of his tongue swift and sensual, and she yielded. Deborah welcomed the penetration by opening wider for him, curling her tongue around his. She felt him tense, heard his muffled groan, then he pulled away.
“This is too crazy even for us,” he said softly, and moved to stand in the shadows. “Go put out the lamp in your room.” She trembled with indecision, and he must have sensed it. “I need to talk to you, Deborah.”
When the lamp was doused, she turned and felt him beside her, his arms moving around her in a warm, comforting embrace. His gunbelt pressed into her side, and he shifted.
“What are you doing here?” she murmured. “I mean, how did you get in?” His breath stirred the top of her hair. “It’s easy for a man who knows how. Don Francisco’s guards are not as vigilant as he thinks.”
“Did you—”
“Kill them?” he finished when she hesitated. “No. It would attract too much attention.”
“Then what—?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he cut her off, his arms tightening around her waist as he lifted her up and against him. “I don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t want to waste what I do have.” Her heart was beating rapidly, and her breath came in short drags of air.
“You came to tell me something?”
“Yeah. You and your cousin need to go back home. Get out of here.”
“Go home?” Dazed as much by his proximity as by his words, Deborah shook her head. “We can’t.”
“You have to. It’s dangerous for you here. Go back to wherever it is you came from.” He gave her arm a quick shake. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“No, we can’t.” Her words stuck, and she had to force them out.
“My . . . my father doesn’t want us back.” There was a moment of tense silence, and she felt the muscles in his arms contract. “Damn.”
“Zack, what’s the matter? Why do you sound so worried?”
“Because I am. All hell’s going to break loose around here soon, and I want you where you can’t be hurt.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Maybe I should,” he said when she shivered. His hands stroked down her back, fingers spread wide, the heels of his palms massaging her. “You need to get your cousin and get away from here.”
“Just where do we go?” she drew back to demand. “I have no money of my own, just what Don Francisco has allotted. All my assets are on paper. My entire life is ruled by him.”
“And your cousin?”
“I have more than she does.” Zack swore softly beneath his breath, then shifted so that the moonlight fell across his face. “Would you let me take you somewhere for safety?”
“Back to your father’s village?”
“No. That’s more dangerous than here. Mackenzie has run them down pretty close.” He raked a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture, and moonlight streaming through the open patio door silvered his features with a softening glow.
When he said, “I’ll take you to my mother,” she gasped with surprise.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know . . . I mean, I assumed she must be dead. You never mentioned her.”
His mouth twisted slightly. “We didn’t do much talking before you left.
My mother is alive, but I haven’t seen her since I was fourteen.” Deborah studied his face, the opaque eyes, the slash of his mouth, and the corded muscles in his throat. She felt his tension, and began to understand his feelings, if not the details.
“I see.”
His eyes flicked to her and paused. “There’s not time now, but I’ll explain later. Give me a day or two, and I’ll come back for you. Tell your cousin, and be ready.”
Deborah shook her head. “Judith won’t go.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not certain, but I know it has to do with our capture and you.
You’re part of it, whether you ever hurt her or not.”
“Then you’ll have to go alone.”
“I can’t leave Judith.”
“Dammit, Deborah,” he snarled, “I don’t intend to let you get hurt.”
“Zack, please—tell me what’s got you so concerned. I don’t understand.
And I can’t guard against shadows.” He led her to the wide bed, and sat her down on the mattress so that he could see her face. Hatless, in his black shirt, pants, and knee-high moccasins, he looked dark and forbidding in the shadows. Deborah couldn’t suppress another shiver.
Kneeling, he took her hands in his and looked up at her. “Don Francisco’s attorney may be smart in legal matters, but he’s made Diamond so damn mad he can’t see straight. He intends to use some pretty basic tactics, and I know Don Francisco will figure
it out pretty quick. There will be some shooting before it’s over with.”
“And you? Are you still going to fight on Diamond’s side?”
“For right now. Look,” he said when she tried to jerk away, anger edging his voice, “I told you that it’s the only way I can keep current on what Diamond intends to do.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when your bullets are flying.”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, the one word reminding her of how often he’d said the same thing in Comanche. Keta.
He rose to his feet in a fluid motion that made her shrink away, and he saw her movement and frowned. “You can’t still be scared of me.”
“No,” she said, pride lifting her chin. “I just don’t know what your true intentions are. I don’t see or hear from you, and then you just show up here in the middle of the night like a thief, and tell me I have to leave. What am I supposed to think?”
“You’re supposed to have enough sense to know that if I showed up here in daylight, Don Francisco would tack my hide to a wall with bullets.”
Irritation made his voice rough. “Why would I bother, if I didn’t want to keep you safe?”
“That’s a good question. Why are you bothering?” When he didn’t say anything, Deborah gave an angry shrug to hide her pain. “I wish I knew why I allow you to do this to me, but I don’t.” She felt his stare, glimpsed his quick, impatient step away.
“I should leave here and not bother with you again.”
“I suppose you should,” she returned coolly, despite the burn of pain in her throat.
Turning back to her, he was a lethal silhouette of anger as he took the one step back to the bed and grabbed her, his hands hard on her wrists.
“Just once,” he ground out, “it would be nice to hear how you really feel.
You make me so damn mad, always prim and proper and cool, even when your eyes say the opposite of what your mouth is trying to tell me.”
“And just what do my eyes say?” she shot back. “That you aren’t exactly honest with your feelings, maybe?”
“Dammit.” This time when he kissed her, he wasn’t soft or tender. His lips were hard, almost hurtful, but there was a driving intensity that made Deborah lean into him and seek out that wildness. Despite her pain, despite her anger, she felt a certain satisfaction in being able to provoke Zack to passion. It seemed only fair that he should feel the same hot need he made her feel.
When his hands spread over her back, Deborah’s arms rose to wind around his neck, and she pressed closer to him. She could feel the thunder of his heart against her breasts, hear his ragged breathing when he lifted his mouth from hers and stared down at her in the shadows.
“You make me do the craziest things,” he muttered in a low, rough voice. He shifted to hold her breast in his palm, his thumb raking across her nipple and making it tighten. A hot jolt shot through her at his touch. When his mouth came down over her breast, wetting her gown and making her grab his hair to hold his head still, she shivered with the intensity.
It was obvious to her that he wasn’t the only one doing crazy things. If she had any sense, she would insist that he leave immediately before someone found him in her room. It would be a complete catastrophe for both of them if he was caught there.
But it was hard to think of that—hard to think of anything but what his hands and mouth were doing. All her self-discipline vanished at his touch.
The lessons she’d learned as a child and a young woman, the strictures that had ruled her life for so long, had blown away with the west wind when she’d met this man. He violated every principle she had, yet she surrendered to him easily. There had to be something wrong, but it was difficult to remember what.
“Someone might come,” she finally found the strength to murmur when his hands were inside her gown and stroking her bare skin. “We need to stop before it’s too late.”
“Too late for who?” His voice was rough and guttural, and she shuddered when he captured her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and rolled it gently.
His mouth was so hot, yet she was shivering. With his hands on her breasts and his lips moving to take her mouth again, she was fast losing any control she still had. Her hands dug into the muscles of his arms, and she dragged her lips away.
“You’ve got to stop . . .”
“I will. I will.”
The coiling fire deep in her belly made her squirm, and her hips brushed against his, her gown catching on the buckle of his gunbelt. He made another rough sound and moved to pull her up against him, tucking her between his legs and hard against his rigid body.
Then he was backing her across the room until she felt the bed at her knees, and his body leaned so that his weight pushed her back and down. The mattress sagged beneath her, feathers and quilt cushioning her as he stood between her legs.
Somehow, Zack had his hand beneath her nightgown and his palm was cupping the mount between her thighs. The touch was hot and alarming and enticing, and she didn’t know whether to push him away or surrender all. It seemed as if she always surrendered when she knew she should resist, and part of her wondered why she was so weak where he was concerned.
Then it didn’t matter anymore, because he was unbuckling his gunbelt and unbuttoning his pants, and there was not time for anything else but an ease to the driving urgency she felt. He kissed her fiercely while he undid his buttons, and then he was pulling her up with his hands on her hips, fitting her to him. When he slid into her she gasped, arching up to take him, her legs lifting. There was something primitive and arousing about him taking her like this, with her on the bed and him standing between her legs.
Beyond him, moonlight poured in through the open door. A full moon.
A Comanche moon, he’d once told her. It seemed fitting that he should come to her like this on a night when even the moon heralded his presence.
He stood with feet apart and braced, looking down at her, the moonlight behind him and his outline blurred with silver. It was almost as if she was dreaming it again, as if he were an impossible god, a pagan symbol of the intangibles in life.
Bending, he kissed her again, hot, sweet and wild; they were both breathing raggedly, soft pants for air laced with steamy sensuality. The summer night pressed down outside, and the cool light of the moon washed them as Zack took from her and gave to her, all of him.
He shuddered, absorbed her shattering cry with his mouth, then relaxed his big body across hers. He leaned there, braced with one hand on the mattress and one foot still on the floor.
Finally he lifted his head to gaze down at her, and she felt it. Opening her eyes, she smiled as she traced a finger over the erotic outline of his mouth. He bit the tip gently, then took her hand and turned it over, kissing her palm.
Propped up on one hand and a knee, he curled his fingers over her hand and said, “I’ll come back for you.”
“I can’t go.”
An oath ripped from him, but it was more resigned than vicious. He pushed up and away from her, then stood. As he buttoned his pants and reached for the gunbelt he’d laid within easy reach on the mattress, he eyed her carefully as she sat up and smoothed her nightgown down around her bare legs.
“Deborah, I know you are loyal to your cousin. I admire that. But it won’t do her any good if you both die. Let her make her own choice, but don’t let her make yours.”
“You don’t understand,” she began, but his steady stare stopped her.
“It’s not understanding that’s needed now. It’s caution. Don’t take risks because of some misguided notion of loyalty.”
“Misguided?” Deborah stared at him uneasily. “Judith is my cousin.”
“And old enough to make her own choices.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t risk your life for someone you care about,” Deborah said with a trace of bitterness, though she saw the truth in what he said. She turned her face away, chewing on her lower lip with anxiety.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Her head jerked back around at his soft words. It was the closest he’d ever come to admitting he cared. Zack was tucking his shirttail into the waistband of his pants, and he looked up at her as coolly as if he had not just set her world in a whirl.
“Yes,” she whispered. “You’re here.”
“Then listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
He crouched down in front of her, taking her bare feet in his hands.
“Give me two days. I’ll come back like I did tonight. Be ready. Take only what’s necessary.”
“What if—” She paused and licked suddenly dry lips. “What if something goes wrong?”
“Send me a message.”
A shaky laugh erupted from her. “I don’t think Don Francisco will allow me to just send over a man with a note for you, Zack!”
“Then I’ll be here.”
Deborah toyed with an eggshell thin cup of strong coffee and tried to avoid Don Francisco’s irate gaze. The meals had been awkward enough since Macklin had arrived; now, with the news that Dexter Diamond had filed a claim against Velazquez lands in Sirocco, they were positively tense.
That must have been what Zack had meant.
As soon as Don Francisco had discovered it, he had ordered his men to post lines of armed riders along every road leading anywhere near the rancho.
Then he had dammed up the river that flowed from Velazquez lands to the Double D, cutting off Dexter Diamond’s most plentiful supply of water.
With the summer sun drying up shallow water holes, Double D cattle would soon die of thirst. Battle lines had been drawn and a challenge issued. Now the place looked more like an armed military camp than a functioning cattle ranch.
“If there is a confrontation, Don Francisco,” Jeremiah Macklin was saying, “I suggest you allow the authorities to handle it. Mr. Diamond cannot win. This is only an aggravation tactic.”
“And we are more aggravating, no?” Don Francisco asked smoothly. He smiled, and the flickering light made the smile look positively evil. A heavy, silver-branched candelabrum graced the center of the long table. Elegant wax tapers shed light across the table in wavering patterns as servants served the meal. Macklin frowned. “I cannot condone illegal actions, Don Francisco.
Comanche Moon Page 24