Rico (The Rock Creek Six Book 3)

by Lori Handeland

  They made quite a pair—her full of scorn and him so unsure.

  “All I know is there’s never been anyone like you. I’ve never felt what I did right here, right now, and I don’t want this to be all there is.”

  “Cheri, what else is there?”

  “I don’t know any more than you do. But I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing but time. Why don’t we find out?”

  She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. But Rico wasn’t going to let her go until he discovered what “this” was. If the right woman had saved Reese and Sullivan, maybe Lily could save him. Perhaps he could even save her.

  “What happens if we discover there’s nothing more than this?”

  “Then we become friends.”

  Her gaze narrowed.

  “Or not.”

  “If either one of us wants out,” Lily murmured, “we say so.”

  He nodded.

  “No lies, no disappearing in the night. I hate that.”

  Rico wondered who had disappeared in the night and if Lily might have believed in love before he had. “All right.”

  “Before dawn each day, we return to our own rooms.”

  “Why?”

  “Carrie.”

  What a horrible guardian he was for Lily to have to remind him of the child. “Si.”

  “I think we have another hour before dawn. Care to seal this bargain?”

  In one quick movement, he rolled her onto her back. “We might have just enough time.”

  Chapter 13

  “Just enough,” Lily whispered as Rico slipped out of her room—an interesting observation from a woman for whom sex had always been way too much.

  She pulled the pillow on which he’d rested his head over her face. The scent of Rico made her remember every inch she had kissed, every move that he’d made.

  He had not been bragging about the things he was good at. Too bad for him that he could not bottle and sell the feeling she had now. He would be a millionaire.

  Lily sat up. The thought of Rico touching anyone else as he’d touched her last night, of his murmuring Spanish nonsense to another or looking into some stranger’s eyes with the intensity he’d looked into hers, made Lily contemplate murder.

  But he would never do that, would he? What they had was different from what they’d had with anyone else.

  Now she sounded like her mother, and that would not do. The minute a woman started to believe she was special, that she was necessary, that she was loved, disaster lay not far behind.

  Naked, Lily strode to the mirror and stared at the stranger reflected there—swollen lips, dark circles beneath her eyes from a night without sleep, beard scrapes across her chin and neck.

  Though she’d rather wear something bright and pretty to match the mood she could not shake no matter how her dour conscience muttered, instead she’d be wearing her ugly, high-necked black gown. She didn’t plan to let the world know what had happened last night. For the moment, it would remain between her and Rico alone.

  She’d like to go to sleep, and on any other day following a night like the last she would. But this morning Lily had a battle to wage.

  After washing, then dressing, she pulled a covered box from beneath her bed. Air holes punched in the top and the sides should have given her surprise adequate fresh air. Lily checked, anyway.

  “Ah, Monsieur Lezard, you slept better than me, I see. Now it’s time for you to do that favor we discussed at the river yesterday, oui? Later, I will take you home.”

  Lily picked up her prize, then slipped out the door and across the hall.

  * * *

  Carrie awoke slowly. She'd slept through the night again. Maybe her nightmares were gone.

  The way she woke up crying embarrassed her, though no one ever heard. Even when she shivered and shook and cried some more beneath the covers, she never ran to Rico or Johnny. She didn’t want either one of them to know what a complete baby she was. But sometimes even Carrie had to admit that she was only nine and she missed her mama.

  Though her daddy was dead from the war, her mama was out there somewhere. Sometimes Carrie thought that was worse than her being dead. Because Daddy hadn’t left her on purpose, but Mama had.

  Carrie sighed, shifted, and considered going back to sleep. However, when something that wasn’t her moved as well, her eyes snapped open; she stared into the darkest, deadest gaze she’d ever seen. The creature blinked. Carrie did not. Though her heart had given one painful thump at first sight, Carrie wasn’t any more afraid of lizards than she was of snakes.

  “Nice try, cherie.” Carrie palmed the lizard, and sat up. So that was the way Lily wanted to play this—trick upon trick until one of them surrendered.

  Why hadn’t Lily tattled to Rico about the snake or the vinegar? Carrie couldn’t figure Lily out. But she would.

  The lizard was kind of cute, which gave Carrie an idea. Lily didn’t know who she was dealing with.

  At breakfast a few hours later, Carrie ate flapjacks while her new pet rode her shoulder.

  Yvonne had taken one look at the green-brown creature and snapped, “Out.”

  Carrie merely shook her head and kept eating. She’d already had a few run-ins with Yvonne over washing behind her ears and such. Carrie had discovered that if she ignored Yvonne, she went away.

  Yvonne went away this morning, too, but she returned with Rico, who smiled far too happily for a man who looked as though he hadn’t slept at all. His smile dissolved like sugar in water at the sight of Carrie and her friend. “What is that?”

  “Gizzard.” Carrie stuffed her mouth with flapjacks.

  “Looks like a lizard.”

  She swallowed. “Gizzard, my new pet lizard.” Rico opened his mouth. Nothing came out, so he snapped it shut again. Then Lily showed up.

  The silly smile Rico had worn when he’d come into the kitchen reappeared when he looked at Lily, who started smiling that way, too. Carrie half-expected them to hold hands and sing.

  “Shit.” Carrie knew what smiles like those meant. “You had sex, didn’t ya?”

  Rico winced, but at least he quit smiling like the village idiot. “Chica, you will stop swearing. And you will tell me where you got that—that—that—”

  “Gizzard, the lizard.”

  Carrie expected Lily to be horrified that she had made a pet of her trick. Instead, Lily gazed at her with an expression Carrie had rarely seen on anyone’s face—almost as if Lily thought she was something special.

  “Take the creature right back where it came from,” Rico ordered.

  “But...Lily gave it to me.”

  Lily choked. Carrie grinned. Gotcha.

  If Lily denied it, she’d be lying. If she admitted she’d put the lizard on Carrie while she slept, Carrie didn’t think Rico would find it funny.

  “Is that true?” he asked.

  Carrie held her breath. Even though Lily’s agreement would make this particular battle a draw, Carrie would get to keep Gizzard. She’d grown quite fond of him.

  Carrie tried to look as disinterested in the outcome of the conversation as Gizzard was in her flapjacks. When Lily said, “Oui, I gave her the creature,” Carrie wasn’t sure if she’d succeeded or not.

  “What for?”

  “Every girl needs a pet.” She strolled over to Rico and murmured, “I have you.”

  The expression on Rico’s face annoyed Carrie to no end. Men were such fools when it came to women. Or at least that’s what her granddad had always said whenever he discussed her mother and his only son.

  Carrie had to do something about that woman. As Rico and Lily whispered and cooed, Carrie’s busy brain thought back on everything she’d overheard in the days she’d been lurking about the saloon.

  “You’ve only got him because he let you, Lily.”

  “Excusez-moi?”

  That Frenchie crap was getting on her nerves. “Before Cash and Nate left, they made a bet on you and Rico.”

  “Carrie,�
� Rico warned. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

  Lily had stopped touching him and started looking at her, so Carrie kept talking. “Cash said Rico could get you into bed in a week, but Nate said it would take three.”

  “What did Rico say?” Lily’s voice was cool enough to make Carrie kind of nervous. But she’d never been one to give up when she wanted something, and she wanted Lily away from Rico.

  “He said they should give him a month so he’d have a fair chance.”

  “A month?” She turned to Rico. “I’m flattered. I bet it never took you that long before.”

  He looked lost, confused, and Carrie wanted to take her hateful words back. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him.

  “Lily,” he began, but she put up her hand.

  Carrie waited for the screaming and the shouting, maybe even some kicking and punching. Instead, Lily put a finger to Rico’s lips. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about them. I don’t care about before. I don’t care what brought you to me. I only care that you came.”

  He took her hand from his mouth but held on to her fingers. “It wasn’t like it sounds.”

  “I don’t care if it was.”

  The wonder on his face caught at Carrie’s heart. Rico needed someone to believe good of him no matter what. Carrie did, but her belief didn’t seem to be enough. Now Lily believed the best of him, too, and for some reason, that made Carrie hate her a whole lot less.

  * * *

  Rico didn't understand what had just happened. Any other woman, upon learning of such a bet, would have screamed, thrown things, resorted to physical violence. At the very least, fired him, kicked him out, never spoken to him again. It would not have mattered how many times he tried to explain that he had not made the bet, that for once he had only been there while others behaved like children.

  But Lily had touched his lips and said she did not care. Rico wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

  “Outside?”

  “That is the usual place for such an activity.”

  “I thought you’d want to...” She glanced upstairs.

  The longing on her face soothed his panicky stomach. She still wanted him.

  Even gowned in the horrible black dress, Lily was the most fascinating woman Rico had ever known. Perhaps because beneath that nun’s habit lay the body of a temptress. When she let down her tightly wrapped hair, the mass curled seductively, and when she whispered his name as she came apart in his arms, he felt as if he’d finally found a home.

  But more than a night in her bed, more than a hundred nights, the gift of her trust was the most precious gift of all. No one trusted Rico. Or if they did, they were soon sorry.

  She kissed his cheek. He could do nothing but stare at her in wonder. “Upstairs?”

  For a moment, he considered racing her to bed. He would sink into her softness, lose himself again and again, revel in the woman who was making him believe that perhaps he could love, after all.

  “Not right now. Let’s walk and talk.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “That merely makes two of us.” He held out his arm. She placed her hand into the crook, and together they went onto the boardwalk. The church bell began to ring, signaling the end of the service.

  “That sound brings back memories,” he said.

  “You go to church often?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You are right. I do not go. Not because I do not believe but because of the man who is the preacher here.”

  Reverend Maurice Clancy stepped from the church. Since Lily and Rico were the only people on the boardwalk, his gaze shot to them, and his scowl dispensed disapproval over them both.

  Rico couldn’t resist. He swept off his hat and bowed to the minister. Clancy straightened as if a red-hot branding iron had poked him in the butt. Then he turned his back.

  “Not an openhearted man,” Lily observed.

  “I wouldn’t say that. He has a reputation for being open to a whole lot of hearts.”

  “The reverend?”

  Rico shrugged. “Gossip. He’s married now.”

  Clancy’s new, young wife emerged from the church ahead of the congregation. There was something strange about Sylvia. She looked like no minister’s wife Rico had ever seen, and she didn’t behave like one, either—keeping to herself rather than befriending the women of the community, doing neither charity work nor visiting the sick. Sylvia and Clancy made quite a pair.

  Sylvia knew Jed from way back, though how, she wouldn’t say, and Jed wasn’t talking. Despite that connection, she avoided Eden with the same fervor that she avoided every other woman in Rock Creek. Even Clancy’s daughter, Jo, had hightailed it out of town so fast, everyone wondered.

  Whenever Jed was here, Sylvia found some excuse to see him alone. He wondered if she knew Jed was back and how long it would take before she waylaid him. Clancy had never liked any of the six—for a man of God he liked very little—but Rico figured he might soon like Jed least of all.

  “Why does the church bell bring back memories?” Lily asked.

  Rico stepped off the boardwalk, and helped Lily down after him. They continued their stroll toward the hills that cradled the river.

  “I’m sure someone’s told you why we came to Rock Creek.”

  “Yvonne mentioned it.”

  “She wasn’t here.”

  “The six of you seem to have become the local legend.”

  “Just did our job. We used to keep a lookout in the tower. Up there you can see for miles. When El Diablo came, whoever was up there rang the bell.”

  “Then the rest of you came running.”

  “It is what we do.”

  They reached the top of the hill. In the tiny valley, Rico had once rescued Carrie from a cougar. He could not come to this place without remembering the terror he had felt when he’d raced the big cat for possession of the child. Reese had saved them both that day with a single shot from his gun.

  Each man had saved the others many times, but they never kept score of the past or owed one another anything but loyalty in the here and now.

  “If one of you rang the proverbial bell tomorrow, would Cash and Nate come running?”

  He hadn’t thought of that. He tried not to think of Nate and Cash at all, because then the guilt set in.

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  “They would come.”

  “For the others, yes, they would.”

  “You think that if you were in trouble they’d ignore the bell?”

  “I can take care of myself. I do not need to ring any bell.”

  Even as he said it, sadness washed over him. The six of them had been together for ten years. They had come together to face hell. They had gone there and returned several times. Nothing had ever come between them until now. Because of him.

  “So you need no one? What an ego.”

  “Big as Texas,” Rico agreed.

  She came into his arms somewhat clumsily, as if she were not used to fond embraces. Rico wanted to teach her so much, almost as much as he wanted to learn from her. Her cheek against his chest, he pressed his lips to her hair. “Why the ugly dress today?”

  “To hide the marks from last night.”

  He held her away from him so he could see her face. “I hurt you? I marked you? Idiota.” He hit himself in the forehead with the flat of his hand.

  She snatched his wrist before he could do it again. “Stop that. You didn’t hurt me.”

  “You are certain?”

  “I think I’d know.” Her cheeks colored, and she looked at her feet.

  Sometimes the combination of self-reliant woman of the world and this innocent girl who knew little of pleasure made Rico go hot and heavy with want when he least expected it.

  “I like the marks. They remind me of you.”

  His heart rolled over. Women said all sorts of nons
ense to get him into their bed, even crazier things to keep him there. But no one had ever said anything so sweet, or so tempting, as that.

  Rico lifted Lily’s chin, and his mouth captured hers. With a soft cry, she fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled him closer. Their lips parted; their tongues mated. Her teeth scraped along his lip; then she laved the slight hurt. His body screamed to take her right there on the hill, so he pulled his mouth away before he waited too long and was unable to listen to any whisper of reason that might remain.

  Eyes closed, her mouth followed his on the retreat, hands reaching for his face to bring him back. He caught her fingers in his own and kissed them until she opened her eyes and blushed.

  “Don’t be embarrassed for wanting me,” he said. “I want you ten times more than you could ever imagine.”

  “It’s not the same. When people talk, it will be about me and not you.”

  “No one will talk. I will make certain of it.”

  “You have that much power?”

  “I have the power of our past, what we did for this place. I will use it to protect you if I must.”

  “Life is safe in Rock Creek because of what you did.”

  “What all of us did.”

  “Maybe you’ll never need to ring the bell. Maybe you’ll be safe here, too.”

  “Do not worry about me, Lily.”

  “It was because of me that they left.”

  “They left because Cash has problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “No one knows. One of the bonds of our friendship is that we do not ask about our pasts. We’ve all got our secrets.”

  “Do you?”

  In an effort to erase the frown between her eyes, he answered lightly. “As many as you, Lilita.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” she muttered.

  “You have secrets?”

  “Doesn’t every woman?”

  Rico had never stayed with a woman more than a day or two and rarely cared enough to learn more than their name. But he wanted to know everything about Lily—from the day she’d been born until the day her booted foot hit the dust of Rock Creek.

  Yet old habits died hard. If he asked about her past, she would ask about his. While he would gladly die for her, he could not bring himself to tell her the truth he had never shared with another living soul.