Moonlight and Magic

by Rebecca Paisley

  His hair, blacker than the night, fell in waves to his shoulders, the light of the candle playing in it. It touched his skin, his smooth skin, his brown and wonderful skin. Skin that was soft upon hers. “Sterling,” she said again, and looked at his arms. They hung at rest by his side, but she saw their strength, even in his hands, which were lying beside his thighs. What glorious things those hands had done—and would do—to her.

  He took a step toward her. She sat, her throat dry with anticipation. He placed his foot by her side. She looked at it, then looked up at him. He said nothing, but she read the sensual command in his smoky eyes and removed his boots.

  He stepped away from her again and reached for the fastening at the top of his breeches. She saw his fingers curl around it, and gasped when it came undone. A shiver ravaged through her when he slowly, so very purposefully, pulled the opening apart.

  “Sterling,” she whispered, and heard his name echo throughout the room for many moments before finally fading.

  She stared at the sable hair at the vee of his breeches. It was blacker than anything she’d ever seen. She tried to wet her lips and failed.

  He stood unmoving before her. Dangerous, yet gentle, she thought. Hard but soft. Black and tan, he was, and silver, too. He was many things, this man.

  His hands met at the buckle on his bullet-studded gun belt, which hung low over his hips. He inched out the bit of metal that held it closed and the belt came free. He held it out, his Colts dangling from it, then dropped it.

  The sudden thump made her start. His guns lay at his feet, weapons he knew exactly how to use. The bullets, bullets he’d made himself, caught the candlelight and shone with a dull luster. She quivered and brought her gaze up to meet his, realizing again the danger he presented. His eyes, silver, narrowed and sparkling, seemed to pin her to the blanket. She could find no will to escape them. His sharp jaw, clenched, moved slightly, rhythmically. His lips were parted, and so absolute was the silence in the room, she heard his slow breaths.

  His sudden movement made her heart flutter wildly. His hands were at his sides now, and rolling down the waistband of his breeches. The fabric curled beneath his palms. He was revealing the rest, she thought, aching. His brown hips became visible. More of the black triangle between his legs. Yes, she told him silently. Yes, show me. Show me.

  His breeches were halfway down his hips, stopping just short of what she yearned to see. He moved his hands from his sides and brought them to the front, dipping them inside his breeches. She saw his thumbs disappear into the black mat of hair. He held himself. Cupped that which she was so desperate to see. It was in his hands, and she knew it to be warm, smooth, hard.

  There seemed to be no air in the room. Hot. Everything was hot. She clutched at her throat though she never took her gaze from his hands. Anticipation, deep and almost painful, welled within her, nearly tearing her asunder.

  He thrust his hands more deeply into his breeches, but his dark and intimate secret was still hidden from her eyes. “Sterling,” she pleaded, He was the only thing that mattered. Sterling, his hands, his breeches, and the sensual mystery he’d yet to reveal to her.

  She was sure a thousand eternities were passing in the few seconds it took him to slide the breeches down further. He removed his hands.

  She saw him. Stared at the splendor of him and felt a desire so deep, she knew not where it began. He wanted her, and his need for her was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  He pushed his breeches down his firm, hard thighs, his solid calves before he stepped out of them and kicked them away. They landed over one of her hands. They were still warm from the heat of his body.

  She lifted her gaze to him again. Every wondrous part of him was hers for the viewing, the admiring...the wanting. He was a man of sinew and satin; of graceful might, velvet virility. Oh, yes, a potent harmony of opposites made up this man, and she wanted all of him.

  She held out her arms. He came into them, and she felt the heated expanse of his skin upon hers. The hard hotness covered her. Desperation drove her to pull him onto her, on top of her. His body was a burden she wanted to bear, a weight she wanted to crush her.

  Her eyes fluttered closed when he pressed down and was suddenly inside her. His hard length plundered her deeply, withdrew, and entered her again, bringing her desire to the highest peak passion could offer.

  She the delicate flower, he the mighty thunderstorm. She thirsted for him, he fed her. She drank him in and knew ecstasy.

  “Chimera.” Her name came from him on a shaking whisper. His body shook violently. His muscles felt like smooth, silk-covered rocks pressing into her body. She held him tightly and felt the pleasure sweep through him.

  “Sterling,” she whispered in response.

  “Never,” he gasped, “has it been like that.” He eased from atop her. Her hair clung to his chest like thick strands of black and precious silk.

  She curled into the shelter of his body and knew profound contentment when he did not resist her. “The flower, the storm,” she said sleepily. “I love you, Sterling. I love you with everything that makes me who I am. And what I am, Sterling, is a woman who would die before betraying your trust.”

  Her last words came to him on the barest hint of a whisper, and he knew she’d fallen asleep. He allowed her to lay in his arms for a few more moments before quietly and carefully rising.

  He ambled to the window, the breeze blowing his hair off his shoulders. Thousands of thoughts ran through his mind. Brianna. Would she accept him as her son? Would she tell him it had been a terrible mistake to leave him in the orphanage and that she’d missed him all these years? Would she have a good reason for not having returned for him?

  Dios mio, would she love him?

  At the question, he turned and looked at Chimera, the girl he’d almost believed would give him everything he’d never had. His eyes stung; his throat ached. It was a moment before he got hold of the urge to go and sweep her into his arms.

  “This night has changed nothing,” he whispered vehemently. “The feelings I have for you are like bad habits—hard to break. But I will break them, Chimera. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will forget you.”

  His quiet vow delivered, he turned back to the window and spent a long, troubled night there.

  “Brianna?” the stable owner repeated, and closed his fist around the money Sterling had given him.

  Sterling watched the last of his and Chimera’s funds disappear into the man’s pocket. Now he had no money with which to buy Chimera breakfast. He knew she was hungry, but he’d promised the stable owner the sum and couldn’t go back on his word.

  He glanced at Chimera. Damn her for making him feel so worried over her empty stomach. She hadn’t uttered a word of complaint, but her complacency irritated him. Why couldn’t she just go on and whine about her hunger like any other woman would do? Not only didn’t she whine, she was sure they’d get breakfast. What the hell did she think? That it would fall out of the sky? Her and her damn faith!

  He turned his attention back to the stable owner. “Yes, Brianna,” he said impatiently. “About fifty years old or so. Silver eyes—” He tried to remember what else Father Tom had told him concerning Brianna’s description. “A tall woman with a slender build. Black hair. Probably has an Irish brogue.”

  “Oh, that’d be Malcolm Chase’s wife,” the man said, and picked up a pitchfork. “Malcolm’s spread’s about a forty-minute ride from town. Him and his son, Garrett, run it.”

  Sterling’s eyes widened. Father Tom hadn’t said anything about Brianna being married. And was Garrett her son? If so, Sterling had a stepbrother. The possibility astonished him. “Tell me how to get to the ranch.”

  The man laughed and threw of load of soiled straw into a wheelbarrow. “You’re talkin’ to Dink Webster, the man with the biggest livery stable in town, mister. And nobody gives Dink Webster no orders, hear? I ain’t gotta tell you nothin’. ’Course I might be persuaded to tell you i
f you let more of your money ask me.”

  Sterling yanked out his Colt. “This asks louder.”

  Dink’s eyes bulged. The gun had appeared in the Mexican’s hands so quickly, Dink had seen nothing but a blur. And a man who could draw a gun that fast knew exactly how to use it too. “N-north,” he stammered. “F-forty minutes north.”

  “Mount, Chimera,” Sterling instructed, and backed out of the stable. “Now.”

  She followed him out, mounted Pegasus, then glared at Dink. “How dare you ask for more money in exchange for information. You’re a very greedy man, Dink Webster. ‘Greed is a cursed vice: Offer a man enough gold, and he will part with his own small hoard of food, however great his hunger.’ Lucan. As greedy as you are, you’ll probably starve to death. You’ll—”

  “Callete!” Sterling demanded. “Shut up, Chimera!”

  “Senor!”

  He turned to see the Mexican woman he’d met yesterday running toward him. When she arrived, she pressed a hot loaf of crusty bread into his hands, then ran away again before he could say a word to her. He looked down at the bread, realized it was breakfast, and stuffed the proof of Chimera’s faith into his saddlebag. “Get that hairy camel moving, Chimera,” he growled, and mounted Gus.

  She turned up her nose at Dink before urging Pegasus into a lumbering canter. Sterling followed on Gus, choking on the dust Pegasus stirred up. They rode out of town as fast as the stubborn camel consented to go. Once out in the open, the Santa Catalinas rising before them, they slowed their mounts and traveled at a more leisurely pace through the giant saguaros, cholla, prickly pear, and creosote that peppered their way.

  The desert marigolds, lupines, and poppies were in bloom, and their brilliant colors helped Chimera relax a bit. The prospect of Sterling’s meeting with Brianna had put her on edge all morning. She accepted the bread Sterling handed to her and noticed it was more than half. “Sterling—”

  “Eat it.” He passed her a full canteen of water.

  She ate. But it was more than food that filled her when she’d finished. Anxiousness did too. With each step Gus and Pegasus took, Brianna was closer. Sweet heaven, what was the woman going to say to Sterling? Chimera knew in her heart that the reunion was necessary, but she ached for him anyway.

  “Sterling,” she said, noticing a tremble in her voice, “after you meet...Once you’ve met and spoken to your mother, what—Have you decided what—”

  “What I’ll do with you?” he finished for her. “No, I haven’t decided. I might leave you here in the desert, I might choose to keep you as my plaything until I tire of you, or I might show mercy and take you back to the Apaches. Rut whatever my decision, Chimera, you will not change it. Don’t even try.”

  She would so try, she argued defiantly, silently. Bending, she examined Pegasus’s saddle without really seeing it. “And you? What will you do? Sterling, what if Brianna...Have you given any thought at all to the possibility that she might ask you to leave?” It was the gentlest way she could think of to express the more than likely possibility that Brianna would spurn him.

  He stiffened. “If she asks me to leave, as you so delicately put it, then I’ll leave. You don’t really think I’d stay where I’m not wanted, do you?” He saw a dot in the distance. He squinted to see it better, and felt his stomach knot when he knew what it was.

  The Chase ranch. He reined in Gus and stared at his mother’s home.

  “I’ve waited for this for almost my whole life,” he said quietly. “The dream is before me now. It’s so real I can touch it.”

  She knew he was talking to himself, not her, and tried in vain to decipher the emotion in his voice. She herself was filled with so many feelings, they seemed to be a thick tangle inside her. She felt worried for Sterling and fearful of what Brianna might say. She felt intense dislike for the woman she’d never met. She felt anxious, afraid, and hostile.

  But she felt a thread of hope too. Faith came. And she felt her love for Sterling. Faith, hope, and love. She clung fervently to the three weapons because they were the only ones she had. Sterling was gold, she reminded herself. He was gold, and he would survive the fire.

  She followed him until they passed through the whitewashed gates of his mother’s home.

  “If ’tis Malcolm yer wantin’ to see, he’s gone.”

  Sterling stared at the woman hanging the wash on the line. Brianna. His mother. He opened his mouth to speak but he couldn’t find his voice. His heart was pounding so violently, he felt his chest would soon explode.

  Brianna took another shirt from the basket of damp laundry. “Did ye not hear me?” she snapped. “Malcolm—”

  “I didn’t come to see your husband,” Sterling managed to tell her. She was a beautiful woman, he thought. He had her high cheekbones. And her eyes. Dios mio, her eyes were exactly like his.

  “Garrett isn’t here either.”

  “I didn’t come to see him.”

  “What the divil do ye want then? Can ye not see I’m busy?”

  “I’ve come to see you,” Sterling said. “I’ve been waiting for almost thirty years to see you.”

  Brianna squinted in the strong sunlight and raised her hand to shield her eyes. “Thirty years? Do I know ye?”

  “Is there somewhere we can talk more comfortably?” Sterling asked her. “Somewhere shady?”

  Brianna slipped her hand into the pocket of her apron and withdrew a small pistol. “Tell me who ye are and what business ye’ve got with me. ’Tisn’t shade you need for that, only yer tongue.”

  Sterling dismounted and walked toward her. She backed away and lifted her pistol higher. He stopped. She was trying to escape him, just as she had thirty years ago. Animosity glittered in her silver eyes. He couldn’t help wondering if those same eyes had shone with animosity toward him thirty years ago. The pit of his belly began to ache.

  “Don’t ye come closer,” she warned him. “Just move to the side a bit, out from the glare o’ the sun.”

  He moved to the right so the sun no longer shone on his back. Reaching up, he grasped the rim of his black hat. Slowly, he removed it.

  Brianna gasped. Her pistol fell to the dust. “Mother of God!”

  “Do you recognize me?” Sterling asked, his every nerve taut. He watched as her horror-stricken gaze touched each of his features. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “Who—who are ye?” she whispered, her hand clutching her slim throat.

  Sterling felt Chimera’s presence behind him and knew she’d dismounted and come to give him silent support, but he wanted none of it. He stepped away, and, drawing himself up to his lull height, he stared hard at Brianna. “My name is Sterling Montoya. I grew up in an orphanage in Sonora. My father’s name was Salvador. My mother—her name is Brianna.”

  Brianna staggered to the post that held up her laundry line and grasped it tightly. “No,” she choked. “No! ’Tisn’t true! Away with ye! ’Tis nothin’ but a liar ye are!”

  He walked toward her. The ache in his belly became a pain so all-consuming, it nearly made him stagger. Brianna was not going to give him everything he’d never had. She was going to give him nothing.

  Fury rose to mingle with the pain. “Look at my eyes, Mother. They should look familiar to you. You see them every time you look into a minor. You can’t deny I am your son!”

  “Why—” She groped for words, failed.

  “Why did I come here?” he finished for her. “But why wouldn’t I come? Do you think orphans ever cease wondering about their parents? Did you really believe I wouldn’t try to find you, that you’d never see me again?”

  “Yes!” she hissed, her face contorting into a mask of fury. “Ye’ve no right! Begone, ye son of a bastard!”

  Sterling’s senses reeled with shock at the full extent of her hatred. But nothing could keep him from pursuing his dream, however bitter it now was, to the end. There was one thing she could give him—the information she had about his heritage. He took a step forward, stopping when he fel
t Chimera’s slender hand touch the back of his shoulder. “Son of a bastard,” he repeated, the words tasting rancid in his mouth. “Is that part of my family history? Was my father a bastard? Tell me!”

  “’Tis a fine nerve ye’ve got comin’ here to find me! Leave! I niver want to see yer face again!” She scrambled for her fallen pistol.

  Before she could reach it, Sterling kicked it clear across the yard. “So you would shoot me, Mother?”

  She clutched the post again, breathing raggedly. “Faith, ye’ve got to leave before Malcolm returns! He knows naught about ye! Go! Go before—”

  “I’ll go when you tell me what I want to know.”

  “But Malcolm!” Brianna screeched. “He’ll kill ye if he sees ye on his land!”

  Sterling’s jaw tightened. “This is the first motherly concern I’ve ever received,” he said sarcastically, ignoring the pain that wrenched his body. “I’m profoundly touched.”

  “Ye don’t understand! Malcolm hates Mexicans! He lost three brothers in the war with Mexico, and would like naught better than to rid the world o’ every Mexican who exists. Garrett feels the same, and—”

  “I don’t give a blasted damn what your precious Malcolm and Garrett think of Mexicans, Brianna. I’m not leaving until you tell me what I want to know. Tell me about Salvador Montoya!”

  “Salvador! Holy Mary, if Malcolm finds out about Salvador—Please! Ye must leave!” She swayed and crumpled to the ground.

  Sterling frowned. Fury and frustration coursed through him. He yanked her to her feet. “So you never told your husband you had a child? A child who was born before Garrett?”

  “How could he not know the truth?” she exploded, and jerked away from him. “Ye were a big baby! Aye, such pain ye gave me when ye were born! Ye left me belly crossed with marks that have niver gone away, damn ye!”

  His eyes narrowed. “I begin to understand. Malcolm knows you had a child, but he knows nothing of the man who sired me. If he knew the father of your child was a Mexican, he would hate you. Even after years of marriage to you, he would cast you out for deceiving him. At the very least, he might beat you. Is that your fear? Is that why you want so desperately for me to leave before the man and his son return?”