Cooking was something she was qualified to do.
****
Joaquin couldn’t believe how easily everything in his life had fallen into place. It was as if Eliza had been a big broom that swept away all his guilt and doubt. Why had he tried to fight his attraction for her earlier? He recalled his thoughts when the Sorensen brothers rode out to Tucson looking for wives. He’d thought he wanted an uncomplicated life alone.
Well, there was nothing less complicated than a man wanting a woman and getting her.
He had a month. If he convinced Eliza to stay, he’d deal with Madam Jolie when the time came.
“What are these?” A young horse wrangler, the first lunchtime customer, held up a crisp golden circle he’d picked up from a bowl on the table.
“They are oatmeal cookies. My woman bakes them.” The pleasure of speaking the words rolled over Joaquin.
The wrangler stuffed the cookie into his mouth. “Good,” he said between chewing and swallowing. “Do you sell them to take away?”
“I’ll ask.” Joaquin crossed the floor to the kitchen door. Her cheeks blooming with a rosy blush, Eliza stood stirring a pot on the stove. Behind her, another batch of cookies cooled on the rack.
“Someone wants to buy your cookies to take away,” he told her. “Do you want to sell?”
Her eyes rounded with wonder. “I can decide?”
He nodded, watching her. A gambler observes and learns, and he intended to put that skill to good use with Eliza. He figured she’d always been told what to do. She had never been allowed any say in her own life, had always had to obey or be punished.
“I’ll sell.” A worried notch appeared between her brows. “If you think it’s all right.”
“I think whatever you decide is all right,” he said softly. “How about the price?”
“A dozen for two bits?” she ventured.
He nodded. “Sounds fair. We can work out the cost of ingredients later and make sure.”
Eyes shining, Eliza hurried to test the cooling cookies. A clenching sensation filled Joaquin’s chest as he saw the shy smile that eased the anxiety on her face. She needed a purpose, a sense of accomplishment, and some measure of independence. In addition to helping her feel safe, those were the ties that would bind her to him, would make her realize that the best place for her was by his side.
****
Joaquin allowed Eliza to hide in the kitchen all day, letting her get used to the hard ring of masculine voices that filled the cantina when groups of cowboys strolled in. She chopped and stirred and cooked and dished out meals on dented tin plates. He collected the portions and carried them to the tables.
He told himself it was to allow her time to adjust, but in truth he didn’t feel ready to let other men see her yet. Not until he’d slept with her again, made her his one more time, secured his claim of ownership.
“You look tired,” he told her at sunset. “Go to sleep.”
He checked on her a little later, when the rush had thinned, and found her asleep beneath the blankets on the cot in the storeroom. Too tired to undress and get into a nightgown, she’d settled down in her thin calico dress. He’d have to buy more clothes for her. The gowns in silk and satin and velvet that his mother used to wear fluttered in his mind. For the first time in years, he yearned for what he’d lost, yearned to be able to share those things with Eliza.
Banishing away the memories, Joaquin returned to stand behind the counter at the bar.
The last customers left before ten, and he was rinsing the empty glasses in a steel bucket when he heard the anguished cry from the back. He rushed into the store room. Eliza was thrashing on the bed, the blankets twisted around her. Reaching her side, Joaquin fell to his knees. He called out her name and clasped her shoulders to stop her frantic shaking.
Her eyes snapped open. Terror burned in their pale green depth.
“Blood,” she rasped out. “I dreamt that I hit my father, and there was blood everywhere. It kept rising and rising, until the whole room was full of blood. It came to my knees, and then to my neck, and I knew that soon I’d drown in it.”
“Hush.” He smoothed the damp strands from her brow. “It’s over now.”
She looked up at him, her face furrowed with distress. “I don’t miss him, and that adds to my burden of guilt. I wish I could say something good about him, but I can’t. He never loved me. My mother died when I was born, and I used to think that he disliked me because he blamed me for her death, but that’s not true. He never loved her either. He never loved anyone but himself.”
“Don’t think about him.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “Go back to sleep. You need the rest. I’ll watch over you.”
Eliza darted her gaze around the small room, only lit by the glow of the oil lamp that filtered through the open doorway. It almost appeared as if she hadn’t heard him speak.
“My mother left a little money when she died,” she continued. “But he got through that soon. He wasn’t just inept at business, he was lazy and deceitful. But he was handsome, and he could be charming when he wanted to. He got people to invest in his schemes, and when the money ran out, we had to leave, often in the dead of the night. Chicago, Denver, Santa Fe. Always moving on, keeping one step ahead of the law.”
“How did you end up in Lone Gulch?”
She looked at him, as if returning to reality. “We needed somewhere remote to hide. This is the most remote town we could find.”
“I’m glad you came.” He rearranged the blankets around her. Exhaustion lined her face, and Joaquin decided that talking should wait until morning. “Go to sleep now.”
“What happened to your parents?” she asked. “Are they alive?”
“Yes.” His lips curved into a rueful smile. “And at this very moment, my father is probably sitting at his desk, writing letters in flickering candlelight.”
“Does he write to you?”
“No. He writes to his lawyer. To the Committee on Private Land Claims. To the Congress. To the Governor. To the President. Anyone he can think of. But not me, his only child.”
Eliza pushed up to her elbows. “Why?”
Joaquin hesitated. He didn’t want to talk about it, but it would be good for Eliza to occupy her mind with something other than her own troubles.
“My grandfather had a land grant from the Spanish crown,” he began, shifting on the hard earth floor to ease the strain on his knees. “My father inherited the Rancho. More than a hundred square kilometers by the ocean, near Monterey in California. During the war between Mexico and the United States, raiders burned down the house. I was two years old. My mother was praying when the fire broke out. She grabbed the painting of the Madonna and snatched me from my bed, and then she hurried outside. My father was at the stables with a mare about to foal. My mother was barefoot, wearing only her nightgown. My father had his clothes. Everything else burned down.”
“But they lived.”
“Yes. Although I sometimes think they would have preferred to have died. The horses and cattle survived. My father was going to sell enough livestock to rebuild the house, but then the war ended, and he had to prove his claim to the land. Instead of rebuilding, my parents moved into an old bunkhouse and spent the money on lawyer’s fees. Since then, they’ve been through one court hearing after another. Although the peace treaty was meant to honor the land grants, it is almost impossible to prove a claim. The process has been going on for more than twenty years now. My father has turned into an old man. He sold his livestock to fund the legal battle. They still live in the bunkhouse. As long as I can remember, it has been ‘when we get patents to the land’. When I turned sixteen, I walked out. I couldn’t live in the past, a past that I couldn’t even remember. My father hasn’t forgiven me for not joining him in the fight to restore the family fortune.”
Eliza’s lips moved as she searched for the right words. “If you had a fortune, you wouldn’t be here with me now,” she said finally. “You’d be courting o
ne of the high-born Mexican girls in Tucson.”
He bent to kiss her. “If I had to choose between you and a fortune, I’d choose you.” He leaned over her, cradling her cheek in his palm. “Go to sleep now. You’ll need to regain your strength, now that I’m counting on you to do the cooking.”
Pleasure at being needed shone in her eyes, just as he’d intended. “I won’t let you down,” she assured him. Then she closed her eyes and curled down more comfortably on the cot.
Joaquin waited until her breathing grew even and her body relaxed beneath the blankets. As he rose and tiptoed out of the store room, an odd sense of peace filled him. He’d opened the doors to his past, but very little bitterness had flooded through.
The lost fortune and broken family ties didn’t cut as deep, now that he had a future with Eliza to look forward to.
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Chapter Eight
Five minutes past midnight on their second day together at The Watering Hole, Joaquin bolted the front door.
“Is it always this busy?” Eliza asked. Wispy curls fluttered around her flushed face, and a small smudge of flour decorated the tip of her nose.
“No. Crews are gathering for the spring roundup, which keeps us busy. Then, in the summer, cattle drives need to be catered for. There’s another roundup in the fall. The winters are quiet. I hear there used to be wagon trains, but now most settlers use the railroad further north.”
“I thought it would be noisier, and the men would be rowdier.”
“That type goes to the Silver Dollar. We mainly get family men, and God-fearing men. Food is the main attraction here.” Pausing, he contemplated her. “Although I guess that when the word goes round, a fair few cowpokes are going to come by just to take a look at you. Is it all right if I tell everyone that you’re my woman?”
“Am I?” she asked.
“I reckon you are.” Her caught her around the waist and pulled her close. Now would be a good time to tell her that she could forget about the Mockingbird Saloon, but he worried that Eliza would perceive it as an order, and he wanted her to have a sense of freedom. He decided that the discussion could wait.
Instead of talking, he kissed her. A soft, lingering kiss. Not full of passion, like their first kiss had been, but a kiss to celebrate the end of a shared working day. As Eliza reached up and curled her hands over his shoulders, everything in life seemed to make sense. Inside him, an urgency rose, and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue inside, tasting her—oatmeal cookies and the coffee she’d been drinking to shake off the last traces of yesterday’s hangover.
“You did really well in the kitchen,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’m proud of you.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me.” She pulled back to look at him, then came close again and stood on tiptoe. The small shift of position fitted his erection more snugly into the notch at the top of her thighs, and he wondered if the move had been accidental. “Cooking is what I already know how to do well.” She rubbed herself against him. “But you are meant to teach me other things.”
Not accidental. Lust rose inside him. “I thought you’d be too tired. We don’t have to open for breakfast. We could wait for your lesson until morning.”
“Did Alvira cook breakfast?”
Joaquin nodded. One half of him said a prayer of thanks that Alvira had failed to return from Bisbee, the other half prayed that no harm had come to the woman. “Alvira just offered one choice for breakfast, eggs and bacon and coffee.”
“That’s easy to cook on the griddle,” Eliza said. “I’ll do breakfast too.”
“Good.” He nuzzled her neck, breathing in her scent. “Why do you smell so nice?”
A chuckle shook her. “It must be the perfume Madame Jolie’s girls dabbed on me. They said I smelled of horses. Must be from sleeping at the livery stable.”
“You had a bath.”
“You must have missed a bit.”
“I missed nothing.” He took her mouth again. His hands found her breasts. The small sound of pleasure that she made went right into his groin. “I’ve ordered a bigger bed,” he mumbled between kisses. “Until it comes, do you want to sleep on a bedroll on the floor, or try to fit on the cot?”
“On the floor.”
Fire burned inside him now. With urgent efficiency, Joaquin spread the blankets over the floor. When he was done, he started to undress. “Sorry,” he said, husky and low. “Tonight it will have to be quick. I can’t wait.”
It must be because of the fear of losing her when she’d gone to the Mockingbird, he reasoned. He quivered like a stallion about to mount a mare. He wanted to brand her, reinforce his claim. Every night, he thought. Until the month is out, I want her every night.
Standing stark naked in the middle of the room, he noticed that Eliza showed a marked reluctance to join him.
“What is it?” he asked. Worry unfurled in his gut. If she wanted him to go slow, have another dreamy night of gentle loving, he’d have to give her that. He’d give her whatever she needed.
“The girls were talking at the saloon.” Bright splotches of color burned on her cheeks. “They said there is something men ask for more than anything else. And yet…” She inhaled a deep breath and let it out again. “I can’t imagine anyone actually doing it.”
“What it is?” he asked. He reached out and ran the back of his knuckles across her cheek. “You can tell me anything.”
She came closer and whispered into his ear. His whole body clenched, in hope and anticipation and a wild surge of wanting. “Yes.” His voice was hoarse. “Men do like that. And women are willing to give it to them.”
“I want to try.” Eliza laid the flat of her plan over the ridged muscles on his chest and pushed. “Lie down.”
Joaquin did as he was told. Blood pounded in his ears. His lungs labored to draw in air. “Take your clothes off first,” he pleaded. “I want to see your breasts. And let your hair down. I want to see your hair tumbling over me.”
Slowly, Eliza kicked off her shoes and removed her dress and the fragile undergarments. She was far too thin. Tenderness flowed like a current over him as he saw her sharp bones. “You have bruises on your legs,” he pointed out. “How did that happen?”
She looked down. “They’re old, almost faded. My father used to beat me with a stick.”
Fierce anger shook him. “He is dead. He’ll never hurt you again.”
Her eyes closed. Pain and regret flickered over her face. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“You ought to have. He was a cruel man. He is gone now. Don’t think of him.”
She nodded. A tiny ray of mischief eased the worried look on her face. “I learned to wear lots of petticoats to soften the blows. He never caught on.”
“That’s the spirit.” He reached up for her. She laced her fingers into his, and slowly, he pulled her down to kneel beside him. “You don’t have to…” he mumbled, feeling awkward now, yet shaking with need.
“I want to.” Her hands settled on him, started tracing the contours of his shoulders. A little clumsy in her inexperience, she cracked his heart wide open. Her fingers tangled in the crisp hairs on his chest, then ventured downward.
“Please,” he said roughly. “If you want to do it, can you hurry? Before I lose my mind?”
With a low laugh, she bent over him. Her hair cascaded across his loins, just as he had imagined. His eyes closed. When the exquisite heat of her mouth enveloped him, his head fell back. A hoarse cry burst from his throat. Tentative at first, then finding the courage to experiment with her lips and tongue, she drove him to the brink of sanity in seconds.
“Eliza.” He groaned out her name. “I’m going to…if you don’t want to...you’ll need to…”
Either she didn’t understand his meaning, or she didn’t care. Pleasure ripped through him as with deep, violent gusts he spilled his seed into her mouth.
“Eliza,” he whispered. “Eliza.”
When the
tremors subsided, Joaquin opened his eyes. Eliza sat back on her haunches beside him, looking smug. “I didn’t believe what Nora and Ruby told me, but I can believe it now,” she informed him.
“What did you…?” He gestured at her mouth.
“Why, I swallowed it.” A new confidence danced in her eyes. “I’m too thin, you now. I need all the nourishment I can get.”
“Did you truly not mind? I mean, would you do it again, if I asked?”
She grinned at him. “I’d do it again, even if you told me not to. It was like…” Her brow furrowed as she sought for the right comparison. “Have you ever ridden a wild horse?”
“Many times, and I have the broken bones to prove it.”
“It was like getting on wild horse, and suddenly realizing you can ride it. Like taming something fierce and powerful and having all that strength at your command.” As she spoke, Eliza began to drag her fingertips along his body, following the muscled ridges of his chest, then his biceps, and slowly proceeding down to his steely thighs.
With a groan, Joaquin found himself becoming aroused again.
“Come here.” He reached for her. When she lay beside him, he touched and stroked her, but only enough to ensure her readiness. Then he rolled over, until she lay beneath him. Nudging her legs apart with one knee, he poised himself above her. “Do you want it fierce and powerful?” he asked in a husky tone.
She nodded.
He pushed inside her in one swift thrust and waited for her to react, to welcome him. Her legs rose to coil around his hips. She clung to his shoulders. Her body tightened, holding him in, wanting him. He took her with a hammering rhythm that mirrored the pounding of his heart. When she cried out his name and clenched around him in pulsing waves, his own release burst inside him, so potent that he felt as if he’d died and come back to life again.
Joaquin fell down and rolled onto his side, still holding Eliza in his arms. He wondered if she had considered the possibility that they would make a baby. No, he decided. She was too innocent. He hoped she wouldn’t blame him if it happened.
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