She nodded as the truth dawned on her.
“Well, at that time of the month most men don’t want to touch the girls. So, they kind of have a little vacation. That’s when they come in here. I close by midnight, but the Mockingbird carries on full steam until sunrise. The girls come here to get away from the noise. Nora, the little dark one gets nightmares and likes to be held. Ruby, the tall redhead wants to learn to deal cards, and I teach her. The other two girls come to pray at the altar. They know they wouldn’t be welcome with decent folks at the church, and they make do with the picture of the Madonna here.”
“But you know how to be…gentle?” Eliza asked.
Joaquin smiled. “Yes. What I’m trying to explain is that the girls come here more for comfort than for anything else. Sometimes I take them to bed, when they want to be touched with kindness, but mostly we’re just friends.”
Eliza didn’t know what to say. She sat in the tub, docile and silent while Joaquin washed her hair, taking care not to hurt as he untangled the knots. When he was done, he walked away and returned carrying a jug of water. “Stand up and I’ll rinse off the soap.”
She obeyed and he poured a slow trickle over her. The rivulets ran along the contours of her body, reminding her of his feathery touch. Tonight, Eliza thought. After tonight, my body will no longer be innocent. It will be the body of a sinner, just like my mind has been the mind of a sinner for as long as I can remember.
A flash of rebellion flickered in her mind. At least I’m getting some pleasure out of this sinning, instead of starvation and beatings.
****
A fire crackled in the hearth. Eliza sat in front of the flames, drying her hair. She wore nothing but a blanket draped over her shoulders. After her bath, Joaquin had toweled the moisture from her skin, and then he’d occupied himself with shaving. When Eliza found herself alone with her thoughts, the dreamy feeling had faded, leaving only the fear knotting in the pit of her stomach.
She’d been a fool to think of tonight in casual terms.
Bedding down with a man was not like a kiss. It was not something you could ever take back. The line between decent women and fallen ones was narrow and absolute. After tonight, she could never cross back over that line again.
Behind her, water sloshed as Joaquin stood in the tub. She hadn’t offered to wash him, the way he’d washed her, but as she sat fanning her hair in the heat of the fire, she’d stolen glances at him.
His shoulders spanned broad. Dark whorls of hair covered the ridged contours of his chest. Now, as he stood to rinse, she saw the flat belly, the narrow hips and the corded muscles on his lean arms and legs. Last of all, her attention fell on the masculine part of him that she might have reason to fear the most. Suddenly, she wished he hadn’t told her the story of Manuela, how her husband had brought her terror on their wedding night.
He was so much stronger than her. If he wanted to hurt her, she had no weapons to fight him.
“What is it?” Joaquin asked, and Eliza realized she must have made an involuntary sound.
“I was thinking how badly you could hurt me if you wanted to,” she replied, startled by the blunt question into telling the truth.
He reached for the back of a chair where he’d draped a towel and quickly dried. Then he tossed away the towel and came to her with silent steps, like a graceful predator.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
He sank to his knees before her. Eliza clung to the blanket, her hands fisted beneath her chin, so that the thick wool shielded her like a tent. Joaquin didn’t try to pull the blanket away from her. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her, his lips warm and soft. As the heat of the kiss spread through her, the earlier dreamy sensations returned. Her hands moved of their own volition, reaching around his shoulders, joining behind his neck, and only when he gently tipped her backward to lie down on the floor, she realized that she’d invited him to join her in the shelter of the blanket.
“Don’t be afraid,” he told her, and then his mouth started a slow exploration of her body. He trailed kisses along her arms and down her sides to the flare of her hips. He rolled her over and kissed the arch of her spine. He found hidden places—the back of her knees, the dip of her waist, the swell of her buttocks—that caused an odd tug between her legs.
Moisture pooled and gathered there, and when he coaxed her to lie on her back again and inched one hand along the inside of her thighs, higher and higher, she gasped at the sensations that made her arch against the floor. Greedy and heavy, full and empty at the same time, she didn’t know how to satisfy the strange hunger that grew and flexed inside her.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me what it is that you’re making me want.”
Joaquin stretched out over her. His lips found her throat, her mouth, the shell of her ear. Crying out at the exquisite sensations, Eliza furrowed her fingers into his damp hair and brought him back to her mouth for another devouring kiss.
His weight pinned her to the floor, and she loved the heaviness of him. When Joaquin pushed up on one elbow, allowing cool air to flow between them, she cried out, a small urgent sound that demanded that he return.
With a low laugh, he reached down between her legs and stroked the slippery dampness that had gathered there, and his touch sent her into a mindless writhing of desire.
“Sweetheart, I’m going to hurt you now, but only a little,” he said as he rose above her.
In one smooth thrust, he entered her. Something inside her tore and broke, and although the pain centered there, between her legs, Eliza feared it was her heart breaking at the beauty of him, at the beauty of the sensations he was giving her.
“Are you all right?” Joaquin asked, poised above her, waiting.
“Teach me more,” she replied. “Teach me everything.”
He bent to press a quick, hungry kiss on her lips, and then he began to rock above her, sliding out, until she almost cried out in protest, then trusting back inside, filling her, making something tighten and throb deep in her center.
Soon, her own body picked up the same rhythm and started to echo it. Her hips rose up to meet him, then fell away again, twisting a little, like a dance that included some sideways steps. The ridged muscles of his chest rubbed at her tender breasts, and stroke by stroke, the pressure inside her grew. She knew that something would have to happen soon, because if it didn’t, if that tension didn’t find a release, she might not survive.
And then it happened. Like the snapping of a cord pulled too tight, a jolt of relief surged inside her. Not just once, but again and again, in great pulsing waves that carried her, the way a fallen leaf is carried by the spring floods when they roar through the empty riverbeds.
Above her, Joaquin let out a hoarse cry. Eliza had kept her eyes closed, had hidden her shyness behind the shield of blackness. Now her lids lifted, and she watched him bucking and bowing over her, his back arched, head held high. Even at the peak of his passion, he seemed to worry about hurting her, judging by the way he was bracing his weight on his arms.
Eliza wanted that weight. It had never crossed her mind that being trapped beneath a man’s body might make her feel safe and protected. As Joaquin came back to her, his chest heaving with panting breaths, a wicked thought broke the ebbing waves of pleasure that still echoed through her body.
Sinning surely paid, if these incredible sensations were the wages of sin.
Back to Contents
Chapter Seven
In the morning, Eliza came awake in degrees—first the languid aftermath of loving, then a sting of guilt for having become a fallen woman. Both paled to nothing when she realized that today she would say goodbye to life as she knew it. She would become a whore, at the beck and call of any man who could scrape together a few dollars to slam on the counter.
Suddenly, the life of fear and deceit with her father didn’t seem so bad after all. Even this past week, hiding behind shuttered windows, appeared tolerable in comparison.
&
nbsp; Beside her, Joaquin slept on his side, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other slung across her waist. How long would he let her stay before he asked her to leave? Until sunset? Lunchtime? Or would he want her gone as soon as he woke up?
Despair washed over Eliza. She wanted one perfect memory to cling to, and nothing could be allowed to ruin it. No regrets, no morning awkwardness. Gingerly, she eased from the shelter of Joaquin’s arm. He mumbled something, still half asleep.
“I’m just going to visit the privy,” she whispered back.
She tiptoed across the room to gather her discarded clothing. Then she went into the storeroom, got dressed, and stood on the cot to climb up to the window. Soundlessly, she slipped through. The drop to the ground on the other side of the wall made her think of Manuela.
It was almost sunrise.
She filled her lungs with the morning dew and leapt to her fate. The only damage she suffered was a scraped knee and a tear in her skirt. Taking another deep breath, Eliza set off toward the Mockingbird Saloon.
I refuse to cry, she told herself, but the tears that ran down her face made it a lie.
****
Something bothered Joaquin even before he awoke. He was cold. A sense of emptiness enveloped him. He rolled over on the blankets and reached for Eliza. For a few seconds, he groped the empty space. Then the last traces of sleep left him with a dismaying rush.
She was gone.
He leapt up and searched the room, moving around naked, prowling like a wild beast whose mate has been captured and taken away.
Why the hell had she left without even saying goodbye?
He caught his reflection in the mirror and the answer stared him there. A good-for-nothing rootless Mexican. His family might have been rich once, but he was nothing but a gambler and a drifter. When the restlessness struck again, an unlucky turn of cards might see him back on the road, living by his guns.
Peter Sorensen had seen it in him, and Eliza would have seen the same.
Reasoning out the situation didn’t ease Joaquin’s anger at her furtive departure. His gaze fell on the table at the corner where they’d sat for dinner. Well, hell, no one would sit there again. He grabbed the nearest chair by the back and smashed it to pieces against the earth floor. By the time the crackle of splintering wood had faded, he had nothing left but a pile of firewood, but although his fury had eased, the pain in his heart remained.
Why hadn’t Eliza asked to stay with him?
****
He would not trot off to the Mockingbird Saloon like some lovesick fool. Joaquin hammered the last nail to repair the broken door and glanced into the sky. Three hours to sunset. All day, he’d fought the urge to go after Eliza and haul her home.
As if she were a straying wife, a voice taunted inside his head. She damn well ought to be, he replied to the voice. She bedded down with me, gave herself to me. That’s as good as making a promise. She made no promise to you, you fool, the voice flung back.
The argument was giving him a headache. In disgust, Joaquin tossed the hammer into the wooden toolbox and carried everything inside. Five minutes later, he was back outdoors, staring into the sky.
Did Madame Jolie put whores to work on their first day? How long did he have to think about it, before it would be too late? Were men ogling Eliza even as he stood there, gazing into the sky, counting the minutes crawling by?
Speak of the devil. From the corner of his eye, Joaquin saw Madame Jolie making a stately procession toward The Watering Hole, replete with a parasol. The sun glinted in the purple silk of her gown and set fire to her auburn tresses. Joaquin had heard it told that like him, she came from a family that had once been wealthy. Her Chinese manservant hurried behind her, carrying a parcel, and Eliza made up the rear, dragging her steps in obvious reluctance.
Damn. Joaquin raked the back of his hand across his lips, wishing he’d downed more than just a few shots of whiskey. A man needed a belligerent mood to handle a convoy of women and a Chinaman.
“Mr. Pereira.” Madame Jolie came to halt in front of him and twirled her parasol. “Good afternoon to you.”
“State your business.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“This young lady wishes to find employment in my establishment.” Madame Jolie reached behind her and yanked Eliza forward by the arm, propelling her along, like a teacher might bundle a recalcitrant schoolgirl to the front of a class.
“So I hear.” Joaquin kept his face expressionless.
“I have explained to her it is a myth that men desire virgins,” Madame Jolie lectured in her phony French accent. “My clientele does not wish to fumble about with a woman who doesn’t know her business.”
“She’s not a virgin.”
The madam’s face puckered with distaste. “I do not wish to be vulgar, but the fact that the door is open does not guarantee there is anything of interest inside.”
Behind Madame Jolie, Eliza rolled her eyes. Joaquin controlled the urge to rush up to her and tell her not to worry.
“What is it you want?” he asked the tall woman in purple silk.
“One month of your time. You keep her. Teach her how to please a man. Then I can use her.”
The prospect of getting Eliza back pushed every rational thought out of Joaquin’s mind. His body snapped taut as he fought to hide his elation. “One month?” he echoed, brushing aside his surprise at the odd request.
“One month, and not a day before,” the madam confirmed. She nodded at the Chinaman, who stepped forward. “In exchange for your time, I have a gift for you. You may open it when the month is up, but not before.”
The Chinaman extended his arms. Joaquin couldn’t come up with anything to say, so he took the large bundle wrapped in thick layers of unbleached calico. Eliza swayed on her feet, muttering to herself, fidgeting in Madame Jolie’s grip, like a fish caught on a hook.
“Do we have a deal? Madame Jolie demanded to know.
Joaquin couldn’t suppress his smile, but he made it into a wry one. “I reckon we do.”
With a firm flick of her wrist, the madam sent Eliza tumbling forward. “I’m afraid she’s drunk. The amount of courage from the bottle she needed just to try on a working girl’s dress was the last straw. That and something she kept saying about the face of love. It is not the behavior of a professional to mention another man’s name in front of a paying customer.”
The woman’s voice was tart, but Joaquin detected a glimmer of amusement somewhere in the long tirade. He recalled that Nora and Ruby had once said something about Madame Jolie being exceedingly fond of practical jokes. Some kind of trick was being played on him now, he was sure of it. He didn’t care. Eliza was back with him.
“I reckon it might take more than a month to train her,” he hedged, planning ahead.
“One month, Mr. Pereira. Then you open your gift and send her where she belongs.”
“One month, and we’ll talk again.” Joaquin shoved his thumbs into his belt loops and stood firm. If the woman thought he’d give Eliza up a second time, there was more wrong with her than just a phony French accent.
“Agreed.” Madame Jolie navigated a roundabout turn like a frigate in full sail and set off toward the Mockingbird Saloon, the Chinaman in tow.
Joaquin crammed the parcel under one arm and used the other to haul the teetering Eliza to his side. She carried on ranting to herself in a rebellious tone.
“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked, unable to resist the endearment. As far as he was concerned, fate had just dealt him a trump card. Even the sun seemed to sparkle brighter in the sky.
“I said I never heard that you need to attend a course to learn to be a whore.”
“Oh, it’s a highly skilled profession,” he told her breezily. “You’ll find out.”
He ushered her inside. After pouring two cups of black coffee into her, Joaquin settled her on the cot in the store room. Then he locked up the cantina and went to see the carpenter about ordering a pull-out couch that
would make a sofa along the wall during the day and convert into a double bed at night. Luck really was on his side today. Even smashing up the table and chairs had worked out all right, since he needed the extra space for the couch.
****
Her temples pounded. The small window in the storeroom didn’t have shutters and sunlight stabbed her eyes. With a groan, Eliza rolled over and clutched her head in her hands. It surprised her to find that her skull appeared normal. The way it felt, she had expected the size of a beer barrel and the mushy texture of a watermelon.
“How’re you feeling?” Joaquin leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, looking disgustingly healthy.
“I must have died and gone to hell.”
“No.” He ambled closer and pulled off the blanket that covered her. “Just a hangover.”
“How did I get here?” She glanced around, clinging to the blanket, trying to snatch it back, feeling cold and rumpled in her thin calico dress. “I did leave, didn’t I?”
His brows drew together. “You left yesterday morning. Madame Jolie brought you back in the afternoon.”
“I remember.” A wave of nausea spun in her gut. “She said I’m not qualified.”
“You need training, that’s all.” Joaquin gave a final yank that won the tug-of-war over the blanket. Whistling an elaborate tune, he folded the square of wool away. “Time to get up,” he told her. “Alvira hasn’t come back from Bisbee. You can be the new cook.”
Eliza stared at him. Images of the night they’d spent together flickered in her mind, but her physical misery kept arousal at bay. Her father dying, the widow Redwood throwing her out, the townspeople hating her, Joaquin’s gentle loving, the rejection by Madame Jolie, everything mixed into a gaudy kaleidoscope in her head. She had feared that her life would turn into a living hell, but instead it had become lurid dream, like a bad circus act.
There was only one thing to do—cling to the soothing routine of familiar chores. With a sigh of relief, Eliza scampered up. She’d wash the horrible sour taste from her mouth, and then she’d occupy the kitchen.
Saints and Sinners Page 5