Pondering her, he realized he really knew very little about her.
And he realized he wanted to know more. “How old are you?”
“I am twenty-five. You? Cuantos años tienes?”
He figured she was asking him how old he was. “I don’t know.”
“You cannot remember.”
He sat up in the bed and thrust his fingers through his hair. “I… It’s strange. I can remember some things, but…but not others.”
When he ceased speaking she wondered if talking about his memory loss still bothered him. The possibility hurt her a bit, for she’d certainly been open with him tonight. “You do not have to talk about it if you do not want to, Sawyer.”
He started to tell her that she was damn right that he didn’t have to talk about it if he didn’t want to, but stopped himself when he realized that she’d made her statement in a voice as soft and gentle as a child’s sigh.
What the hell. He decided to talk to her. “Well, I understood everything you said about towns, so I’ve probably been to many of them. And not only since I lost my memory either. I remember—I don’t know. I remember being in a mercantile when I was young. I remember dipping my hand into a candy jar like the one you described. I grabbed out a jawbreaker almost as big as my fist, and it took me almost two weeks to lick and suck it down small enough so that I could finally bite and chew it.”
He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, summoning whatever other memories his anguished mind sheltered. “I remember a horse too, but I don’t remember whose it was. He was a very unusual-looking horse. A white gelding with streaks of black in his mane and tail and a solid stripe of black that ran down the full length of the front of his left foreleg. I guess he sticks out in my memory because his markings were so strange.”
Zafiro tried to imagine the horse he described. “He does sound unusual. I do not think I have ever seen a horse like that. Do you remember anything else?”
“Lots of things, but none of them tells me anything about who I am or where I’m from.” He concentrated for a moment. “For instance, I remember sleeping with a puppy. She was female. I know she was really ugly, but I can’t recall what she looked like. All I know for sure was that she was a hideous-looking animal, and her name was Pretty Girl. And I remember making her a collar out of the reins of some old bridles. I made it too big for her so she’d grow into it. It was made of braided leather strips tied together, and Pretty Girl…well, she wore the collar as if she knew it somehow helped her live up to her name.
“I remember insignificant things like that,” he said, “but I can’t remember how old I am.”
Zafiro’s heart felt so swollen with emotion that it seemed to have swept into her throat. She reached out and patted Sawyer’s thigh. “You look like you are around thirty. Maybe thirty-one or thirty-two.”
“That old?” God, her hand felt good on his leg.
“That is very young compared to the men I am used to being with.” Santa Maria, his leg muscles felt good beneath her palm.
Trying to read her thoughts and knowing full well he was reading them correctly, Sawyer smiled. She liked touching him. “Was one of the little towns you visited called Whistle Canyon?” He picked up the iron box in which she’d put her miniature paintings of all the women.
“No, I never went to Whistle Canyon. The gang robbed the bank there though. Not once, but three times, and they were never caught. That box was once full of money.”
“What did the gang do with all the money they stole? You didn’t have any dresses. You didn’t live in a home that had to be furnished and kept up. You had only your horses and yourselves to feed. So what happened to all the money?”
“We bought what we needed to survive. Things like food, sturdy clothing, tack for the horses. Grandfather gave the rest away.”
Her announcement stunned him. “He gave it away? Then why’d he even bother stealing so much in the first place?”
“Poor people needed it. We met a lot of very poor people while we traveled, Sawyer, and do you know that it was the poor who helped us more often than the rich? They gave us whatever we needed. The rich people, they usually told us to be on our way, even when all we asked for was water for our horses.”
Thinking about what she’d said, Sawyer realized that although the men in the Quintana Gang were criminals, they were benevolent ones. “Like Robin Hood and his Merry Men.”
“Robin Hood and his Merry Men?” Zafiro tried to remember if she’d heard of the gang, but could think of no instance when her grandfather had mentioned the men. “I was with my grandfather and his men for many years, but I do not think we ever met Robin Hood and his Merry Men.”
Smiling, Sawyer recalled that she’d never been to school. “None of you ever met him, Zafiro. Robin Hood lived a long time ago. He was this thief who lived in Sherwood Forest with his men.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “I think you must have gone to school when you were little, Sawyer. You know many things.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Or it could be that I just heard the story about Robin Hood somewhere.”
“His men were happy men.”
“What? Oh. Yeah, I guess they were happy. Anyway, I think the forest they lived in is somewhere in England. Robin Hood used to rob from the rich people and give money and jewels and stuff like that to poor people.”
Zafiro took a moment to deliberate upon the story he’d told her. “Yes, Grandfather was like Robin Hood. Lorenzo, Pedro, and Maclovio were too. Maclovio once gave his horse away. He loved that horse as if it were human, but he gave it to a young boy who did not have a horse. And I remember one time when the gang had just stolen several sacks of gold from a train. Grandfather pocketed what he thought we would need for a while and said we would give the rest to a man in a town called Candelaria. Years before, a man there had given the gang food and shelter on a stormy night, and Grandfather never forgot him. But before we arrived in Candelaria the Night Master found us.”
She’d spoken her last statement with such awe in her voice that Sawyer was instantly intrigued. “The Night Master?”
“Night Master was the only thief in the whole world who was more skillful than the Quintana Gang. I was fifteen when I first saw him, and I remember him well. He rode a horse as black as sin. And everything he wore—his breeches, gloves, boots, and mask—was just as black. I remember his black satin cloak the best. Its big, round buttons shone like white fire, and Grandfather said that nothing in the world could shine like those buttons—except diamonds.
“Diamonds,” she whispered, rubbing her eyes with her fist. “Shortly before Night Master became known, a royal lady from another country had been visiting in Texas. While she was traveling in her carriage, a masked highwayman attacked her soldiers. He attacked so suddenly and made such noise with his guns that the soldiers’ horses reacted violently. Before the soldiers could calm their mounts, the highwayman had slipped the jewelry from the royal lady’s neck and ridden into the night!”
Sawyer noticed that while she told him the story she’d stopped caressing his thigh. Obviously, she was enthralled with her tale about the Night Master. More so than she was with his leg. “Sounds like something right out of a book of fairy tales to me. Kind of fanciful, don’t you think, the mysterious, black-garbed highwayman?”
“What?”
“That Night Master guy was probably no more than some petty pickpocket. Someone told a story about him, and then the tale grew more and more elaborate with each telling. The story’s just too fantastic, Zafiro. Too romantic to be true.” He moved his leg a bit to remind her to keep caressing it.
“The story is true, Sawyer, and there is more.” She began caressing his leg muscles again. “The next time the masked highwayman struck, his cloak glittered with diamonds. He struck again and again and again, each of his midnight holdups more daring and successful than the last. People soon started calling him the Night Master, and rumors went around that the diamonds on hi
s cloak came from the necklace he stole from the royal lady.”
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “This story is getting more farfetched by the second.”
“Sawyer—”
“All right, all right.” Biting back a smile, Sawyer affected a dramatic tone of voice. “And then, one dark and stormy night, the romantic and fanciful Night Master stole from the Quintana Gang, too. Mounted upon his magical horse—who could probably fly—and wielding his trusty sword, he—”
“I am not going to finish telling you about our meeting with Night Master if you do not stop—”
“Sorry.”
“As I said,” Zafiro continued, stifling a yawn, “our gang stole gold from the train, and then they rode over the border into Mexico, where Azucar and Tia and I were waiting for them. From there we were to ride to Candelaria, but only minutes after the gang arrived, Night Master came. He rode straight into our camp…directly into the light of the campfire, showing no fear. The men, they drew their guns, but Night Master was faster. He shot their guns from their hands. Not even Pedro, who was like magic with a gun, could stop him. Night Master then demanded our gold. While watching him, I counted twenty-five diamonds sewn down the length of his cloak.”
Sawyer swore he saw twin stars dancing in her eyes. He rolled his own eyes again. “And then Night Master smiled, and his smile was like a flash of bright white in the dark shadows of midnight. He threw back his head and laughed too, and the sound of his laughter sent shivers down everyone’s spines.”
“You are right. He did smile at me. Smiled and told me that because my eyes were so pretty, he would never again take from the Quintana Gang.”
Sawyer didn’t miss her breathy little sigh. “I think you have pretty eyes, too.”
She seemed not to hear him, he noticed. Or if she did, she obviously wasn’t as pleased with his flattery as she’d been with Night Master’s. “You have a nice smile too, Zafiro.”
“Later,” Zafiro went on with her story, “while we sat around the campfire, Grandfather laughed and said that being robbed by Night Master had been an honor. He told us that none of us should forget it, not ever, because Night Master was just as his name implied—a master of the night, and his story would one day be a legend.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“What?” She gave another great yawn.
“About your smile.”
“What?”
He saw that her eyes watered with sleepiness. “Never mind. Lie down.”
When he got off the bed, she crawled into it and drew the covers up to her chin. “Night Master died.”
“Poor guy.”
“He was last seen here in Mexico. He shot down a group of men near a village. Witnesses say one of the men shot back at him before escaping. Night Master disappeared then. That was about six months ago. No one ever saw him again, and the people who watched what had happened said he’d been shot and that he’d died of his wounds. The nuns learned of his death from a few vaqueros who stopped at the convent. They told me about it when they heard.”
“But his legend lives on.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. “You can look at the paintings in the box if you want to.”
“Why would I want to see paintings of women I don’t even know?”
She rolled to her side. “One of them might be my mother.”
“Your mother. I see.” One of them was her mother?
Deeply curious now, he retrieved the iron box, lifted the lid, and looked at the painted faces. All of the women were fair-skinned and blue-eyed.
That explained the color of Zafiro’s eyes. “Zafiro, how’d you get all these little paintings, and why do you think one of these women might be your—” He stopped speaking when he saw she was fast asleep.
He laid the box at the end of her bed and watched her for a while. Lamplight flickered over her face, highlighting her beauty, emphasizing the beautiful golden brown of her skin. The light also sparkled through her hair, which lay spread over her pillow. Her raven-black hair…the stark whiteness of her pillow…
The striking contrast of colors compelled Sawyer to reach down and hold one lock of her hair. So black that it almost appeared blue, the glossy tress felt thick and soft in his hand, like a ribbon of heavy ebony satin.
She made a small mewling noise in her sleep, and then another. Sawyer listened, deciding the little moans sounded contented rather than sad.
He wondered if the diamond-studded Night Master filled her sleep-induced fantasies.
Or maybe she’d found her blue-eyed mother in her dream.
Could be that she was dreaming about living in a little town, wearing pretty dresses and swinging in swings.
Or perhaps she was receiving her first kiss.
Her first kiss.
He fell into deep thought. She was twenty-five, he recalled. And she’d never had a beau. Had never enjoyed a courtship with a man closer to her age.
Sawyer couldn’t remember if he’d ever enjoyed a courtship either, but his situation was drastically different from Zafiro’s. He wasn’t stuck here at La Escondida the way she was. When he left the mountain hideaway he could find a woman to court and marry if he so chose.
But such things were not going to happen for Zafiro. She’d spend the next ten or fifteen years hidden away here in the Sierras, and when all her dependents were buried she’d probably live the rest of her life at the convent with the nuns. She’d have nowhere else to go, no other friends or family to keep her company.
Maybe she’d even join the holy order and become a nun.
A perfect rose that budded, bloomed, and withered away without anyone ever beholding its beauty, he thought. Such was the life she would lead.
What a waste.
Thoughts of her tragic fate still lingering in his mind, Sawyer gazed at her mouth. Her lips were parted slightly, like two pink petals about to open and blossom. They shone, probably because she’d licked them before falling asleep.
They sure did look soft, he thought. Sweet like sugar too, and her breath more than likely still smelled like the lemon tea she’d been drinking when he’d come into her room.
Pink petals. Sugar. Lemon.
What man could resist sampling an exquisite combination like that?
Especially when no other man had ever sampled it.
He bent over her, and when his hair fell over her graceful shoulder, he waited to see if she would awaken.
But she only sighed again, a warm breath that still held a faint scent of lemon. Sawyer could barely wait to feel her petal softness and taste the sugar sweetness of her lips.
Closing his eyes, he pressed a kiss to her mouth, a kiss so light and airy that she didn’t move as much as an eyelash.
But although the kiss might not have affected her, the sensuous encounter left Sawyer so thoroughly drugged with desire that it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms and steal a passionate, more penetrating kiss.
Passionate? More penetrating? He took a deep, shuddering breath, unable to even imagine what a more passionate, more penetrating kiss would do to him.
Quietly, he left her room and started for his own. But he stopped before he reached his door, stopped and looked down the dim corridor, down toward Zafiro’s room.
He was tired, but not too tired.
Sore, but not too sore.
Downstairs he went, and then outside into the yard. Bright moonlight spilled down upon the small pile of boards he’d fashioned during the day.
Moonlight bright enough to work by.
And so he worked. And worked. All night.
And when Zafiro woke up the next morning and stepped out into the yard, the first thing she saw was a swing hanging from a tree, a single red rose lying on its seat.
Chapter Seven
“It is such a wonderful swing, Sawyer!” Standing in the cool shadows of the forest, Zafiro grasped his upper arm, giving it a little shake in an effort to gain his attention.
“So you’ve said.
About a million times since you found it.” He examined the thick oak trunk into which he’d driven wooden wedges. The wedges would split the huge trunk into pieces that he would split again and again. “You know, this one oak tree is going to give me enough wood to replace every fence on La Escondida, including Coraje’s paddock. I might even have enough left to—”
“I am talking about the swing you made for me.”
“Yeah, you’ve been swinging in it all day. I guess that means you like it, huh?”
“I do, but I have realized that the swing means something. Something that has made me very happy.”
Sawyer nodded absently, too preoccupied with his tree to concentrate on much else. “And you know what the best thing is about this oak, Zafiro? I don’t have to season it. Not for fences, I don’t. I can use it green, and that’s going to save me a lot of time and—”
“I think that the swing also means that you have changed, Sawyer. That you feel nicer toward me.”
“Uh-huh. Pretty good work, don’t you think, Mariposa?” He hunkered down and rubbed the purring cat’s ears.
“Sawyer, I am talking to you, but I think a post hears better than you!”
Finally, he looked up at Zafiro. “I am not as deaf as a post. I heard every word you said.”
“So when will you help my men learn to shoot and ride again?”
“Shoot and ride…” He frowned. “I didn’t hear you say anything about—”
“Because you were not listening. If you had been listening you would have realized that I was just about to tell you what the swing means to me. You see, Sawyer, I think that when you made the swing for me, it meant that you have put away the ax with my men. You will practice their lost skills with them.”
Slowly, Sawyer rose from the ground. “Just because I made you a swing, you think that in regards to your men I’ve buried the hatchet?”
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