Rio: Man of Destiny
Page 19
But Rio only had eyes for Paloma, who stood and walked toward him. Dressed in a short, simple black dress with long sleeves and wearing her great-grandmother’s brooch at her throat, Paloma’s hair gleamed in the braided coronet secured by antique hat pins.
Her blue eyes sparkled as Rio’s gaze moved down her elegant, swaying body to her long, long legs. He almost drooled, but for his pride managed a tight, cool smile. “That’s some getup. So this is what you’ve been doing. I like it”
She patted his cheek; her look was steamy, flirty and shot a jolt of pure desire at his midsection. “You can do better than that, dear.”
Enjoying Paloma’s playful mood, he took a circle of rope from the wall and the crowd moved back as he began to swirl it around in front of him. He hopped into the circle and back out. “Why don’t you come outside and we’ll talk about it?”
Paloma kicked off her high heels. This time she hopped into the circle of swirling rope, bending her head as Rio’s hand passed over it. “Pueblo gave me the longest curl of wood ever whittled here by the spit and whittlers. It’s a real treasure. I’m putting it in a place of honor.”
Rio swirled the rope over her, tightening it around her waist and drawing her to him. Against her lips, he whispered, “Come outside. There’s something I want you to see. It was Boone’s mother’s and now it’s yours.”
Upon seeing the one-horse shay, black fringes running across the gleaming leather top, Paloma squealed with delight and threw herself at Rio, kissing him all over his face. Feeling a little light-headed and deliriously happy, Rio lifted her up onto the seat and prepared to climb up beside her. She pushed him back to stand beside the shay. “Show me how this works, beloved,” she said, taking the reins in her hands.
Beloved. Labeled by an old-fashioned endearment from the woman he loved, Rio looked up at her, stunned. Paloma was a woman who said exactly what she meant. He was her beloved. He thought he heard the cheery chime of wedding bells and the patter of little feet. He felt as if sunlight had just lifted him off the ground and found a silly, proud grin on his face. She ducked her head down to kiss him, and the playful little flick of her tongue sent another jolt of desire to his lower midsection. Taking care, he showed her how to thread the reins through her slender hands. “Like this. Boone’s mother used to race this, they say. She was a fine-looking woman, just like you. Tall and blue-eyed, and when she put her mind to it, she could do anything.”
“Mmm. I’ll be right back. I can do this. Just put the reins through my fingers like this. I can do this...I can do this. It’s so beautiful. Thank you, Rio-beloved,” Paloma said. She kissed him again before flicking the reins to Mai-Ling.
“That lady can do anything she wants. She could drive chariots. She made me this fine new shirt out of my mother’s feed sacks,” Pueblo said as Paloma’s shay soared out of sight. “She’s a sweet thing. You oughtn’t to be living in sin with her, though. She’s a good girl, Rio, and it ain’t right not to have your wedding ring on her finger. Shame on you, boy. Now come inside where I can tell you about the longest curl ever made here by Shorty Sackett.”
“I’m giving her time,” Rio said, defending his honor. “Did you hear her call me ‘beloved’?”
“Your rambling days are over, boy.” Pueblo squinted up at Rio. “You young studs need to take lessons from us oldtimers. You’ve been giving her chickens and cows and such. Give her something she doesn’t have to pluck, pick up eggs from or milk. Do I have to educate you?”
“She’s coming!” Forty-five minutes later, Cindi yelled from the loading platform. “She learned how to drive it!”
Dressed in Boone’s mother’s blue-and-white lace dress, Paloma drove the shay to the loading platform. The blue ribbon in her hair matched the dress. With the reins expertly threaded through her gloved hands, she looked up at Rio and smiled shyly. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“You’re taking my breath away, lady.”
“Oh, I intend to leave you breathless.” She moved aside as he slid into the shay’s seat next to her. She handed him the reins. “Stop staring at me as though you’ve just discovered ice cream. I’m ready to many you now. Kallista wants a church wedding. So do I. Do you? Rio? Stop looking at me like that.”
There in the middle of Jasmine’s main street in the shadow of the shay’s fringes, Rio took her in his arms. He kissed the woman who had his heart, as he intended to for the rest of his life.
Epilogue
As October winds hurled flaming aspen leaves against Boone’s old log cabin, the morning after their wedding, Rio awoke slowly and happily to his wife’s early-morning play. He pretended to be asleep as she walked her fingers up his chest. Lying naked and tangled against him, beneath the heavy quilts, Paloma’s body was warm and silky soft. Rio fought to feign sleep, though he wanted to gather her close to him. “Oh, Rio...someone needs to get up and put more firewood into the stove. That’s what husbands are for,” she singsonged against his ear.
“Hey!” He tugged Paloma to lie on top of him after she burrowed beneath the quilts to gently bite his nipple.
“Gotcha,” she purred, smiling down at him. His new bride delighted in surprising him and Rio reveled in her new freedom.
“Call me ‘beloved’ again,” he ordered, filling his hands with her hair, draping it around him, so sleek and feminine.
“No more bad dreams, Rio?” she asked, serious now, as she traced his eyebrows. In the flickering light from the old woodstove, Paloma’s blue eyes searched his face as her slender hands cradled his face. A woman who had discovered her strengths, she gave comfort and love easily now.
He eased her hair back from her face and tugged her down for a tender kiss. She snuggled up to him. “None. You fill my life, sweetheart. Are you happy?”
“You know I am. You’ve given me so much, and I have a family I adore. I know who I am and I know that Boone was my grandfather. He left me such a beautiful letter, telling me how much he loved me.”
“My blue-eyed bride... When I saw you in your great-grandmother’s wedding dress yesterday, I felt so proud of you, walking straight toward me, your head high.”
“There you were, with your brothers beside you, and I knew that I had everything a woman could or would need—as you looked at me, so proud and strong, as if you’d always be there. And I knew you would. You’ve always been there for me. Even when we argue. But I know how difficult it was for you to wait while I sorted out my life.”
“I took my vows that first night here in this cabin, but seeing you in that wedding dress, coming to me as my bride, my wife...I’ll never forget that, either. Do you miss it—the traveling and the concerts?” He was prepared to wait forever for her to be happy.
“Not a bit. I’m having too much fun tormenting you. And then there’s my chickens, and our puppy, and all that wonderful furniture to refinish. I can’t believe I’m this happy. Sometimes I think I’m going to wake up and discover all this—you loving me—is a dream.”
“This is real, Paloma. We’re married and we have a whole life ahead of us.” He turned her beneath him, the old bed creaking. “I only married you because you can make my mother’s apple pie.”
Paloma treated Rio to one of her new expressions, a very feminine pout. “You made me wait. Living at Else’s those two months before the wedding did teach me a lot about midnight rendezvous, however.”
Rio lifted an eyebrow and dragged his thumb softly across her lips, his body responding immediately. “You deserved a courting time. I wanted my best girl to have everything due her and you knew it.”
“Well, I did enjoy that part,” she purred, snuggling close to him and holding out her slender fingers to view her new plain gold wedding band.
Rio lifted his larger hand to fit it against her palm, his matching ring gleaming. “Call me ‘beloved,”’ he whispered, and she did.
Bestselling author Cait London
continues her riveting, deeply moving miniseries
The Blaylocks with Ri
o’s younger brother.
Don’t miss Tyrell’s story, Typical Male,
available in December 1999,
from Silhouette Desire.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5833-4
RIO: MAN OF DESTINY
Copyright © 1999 by Lois Kleinsasser
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