Midnight (28 page)

Read Midnight Online

Authors: Ellen Connor

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Romance, #Fantasy

BOOK: Midnight
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“Why? I already told you—I’m not changing my mind on this. I know what I know.”
“You’re a stubborn pain in the ass.” He downed his wine and listened to the music for a while, watching Jolene and Brick open the dancing.
“So I’ve been told.” But her tone held no rancor. Between the joy of the newborn and the mellow feeling from the wine, the world didn’t seem half bad today.
This wasn’t a festival like Burning Night, just a simple dance. Celebrations mattered because they brought a community together. Singer came in with bread and honey, carrying trays to the men. Rio tried to hold her in conversation, but the girl grinned at him and slipped away. Rosa wasn’t sure if she was playing hard to get or she wasn’t interested. For a young one, Singer had a pretty solid poker face.
“I didn’t realize there would be rules and restrictions.”
She glanced over at him, brow cocked.
“¿Qué?”
“Us. But I figured out pretty quick you don’t want anyone to know. I’m not supposed to touch you in front of other people or act like I know you better than they do. Because nobody gets close, right?”
“It comes with the territory,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t get a private life.”
“I understand.”
“
Dios
, be happy today. You did an amazing thing. Focus on that.” She grinned at him and pitched her voice beneath the drums. “And so we have sex on the side. It’s fun and we have a safe place to stay. Good food to eat. Isn’t that what matters?”
“Yeah. Pretty lucky.”
Rosa knocked back the rest of her wine and bounced to her feet. With a flash of a smile in farewell, she spun into the music and beckoned to Ex. At fiestas like this, she always danced with him and Rio, the two males she knew wouldn’t entertain ideas about taking her home. Ex joined her; he was a good dancer, even with a healing wound in his shoulder. This was a social occasion, not a romantic one, and she needed to prove she was still
la jefa
, still the same. New bravo sworn in. Manuel lost. A baby born. Things would settle down soon, if Falco would just back off a bit. Otherwise she had to act.
Rosa preferred the samba, so she cued the musicians. Ex took her hand and wrapped the other around her waist. They were used to dancing together, so she executed the steps without thinking. He spun her into the turns. She loved the rhythm and the speed. On that night she didn’t worry about what the bravos thought of her dancing. They had achieved Valle’s greatest victory, and she wanted to celebrate.
“Good news today,” Ex said.
“
Sí
, the best.”
“I heard Tilly screaming all the way down in the workshop.”
Rosa laughed as they twirled. “If you had to do what she did, you’d be screaming too.”
“I’m glad I’m a man.”
The dance ended and she called to Rio, “
Oye, mano!
Show me what you got.”
It was a calculated move to determine whether he’d forgiven her for Manuel. If Rio danced with her, while wearing the black armband, none of the others could hold it against her. After a brief hesitation, the boy came to her side and they danced the cha-cha. The little
taberna
was bright and warm, and soon she needed some more wine.
Chris was gone when she looked around for him again.
He must not like to dance.
Much later, she sought him out in the caves. He made love to her with fierce passion and aching tenderness. This time she was on top, and the pleasure was even more overwhelming.
That became their pattern. She went to him at night; they whispered and kissed and loved, but by day, he was just another bravo. That was how it had to be.
Over the course of the next month, Valle remained quiet. Everyone smiled a little wider. The fact that Tilly didn’t die or develop an infection gave a lot of women courage. The bravos were distracted by the new arrivals. More than one man offered to help out in the infirmary. Rosa laughed when Viv drove them away by threatening buckshot and watered beer.
But little by little, the freed captives recovered. They were tentative and terrified at first, but soon they found places to help out, wherever they felt safe. To Rosa’s amusement, Allison took refuge in Ex’s workshop and would hardly let the guy out of her sight.
Such slow assimilation made Rosa happy. She knew how it felt to be treated as a possession. And in her outrage, she vowed never to let anyone hurt the women again.
Despite the apparent calm, she also sensed tension in town, bubbling below the surface. She feared the peace couldn’t last. Falco still wanted his status changed, and it just wasn’t going to happen.
Even before Chris showed up, I wasn’t interested. And now—
Well, now she was sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet her lover. A little ridiculous, but Valle couldn’t handle an internal dustup. The town needed time to recover, take stock of its position, and plan some raids. Successful ones, this time. Once Rosa increased the ammo stores and dealt with the likes of Peltz, her position would be stronger.
Maybe at some point in the future, she would feel secure enough to reveal her relationship with Chris.
Maybe.
Slipping out of town, Rosa marveled a little at the fact that she
had
a lover. She never could have imagined seeking out a man for conversation, for physical pleasure or comfort, but things were different with Chris. She had been sure when she first met him that a guy with his hardened attitude would destroy everything she’d built. But even
la jefa
could read a man wrong. He’d slipped right into her life in the best of ways. Now she couldn’t imagine being without him. In anticipation, she pulled the tie from her hair and shook it free, knowing how much he loved it.
She crept along the rocky path and into the cave, where he was waiting. The lamplight gave the space a warm, inviting air, and she dropped to his bedroll beside him. He had a book on his lap but wasn’t reading. Instead he looked upset. She ran through her head all the possible troubles and came up with a list too long to do any good.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, touching him on the arm.
Chris pulled away, hands folded in his lap. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This. The hiding. I thought I could play along, but it turns out I don’t enjoy being your dirty little secret.”
“You know my reasons—”
“I know what you
say
are your reasons. Frankly I’m not sure it matters as much as you think.”
“What do you want from me, Cristián?” She rubbed his shoulder lightly, trying to ease his tension.
“Cut it out.”
Rosa raised a brow.
“¿Qué?”
“You’re not getting around me. Yeah, you turn me on by loosening your hair and saying my name, but it’s not enough anymore. Rosa, it’s been
weeks
.” He paused. “I want everything.”
Mierda.
She didn’t need this after a long day of dealing with people’s fears and complaints, trying to make sure the whole world was happy. This was the one place where she could come and be herself. Now that wasn’t enough for him. Rosa didn’t think she had anything else to give.
Yet she didn’t withdraw from him. That took some doing, given her emotional state. Instead she touched his hair, his cheek, and he turned his face against her palm.
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “You decide how we’re together.”
“Just like you have, all along. Fair’s fair. Isn’t it my turn?”
“Except for not giving me a say.”
“Did you give me a say in
this
?” He shook his head, seeming not angry but weary. “No. You dictated the terms and I wanted you enough to accept them.”
“But you don’t now.” That stung. She dropped her hand from him then and curled it with the other in her lap.
Damn you, Cristián, why do this? It’s good, isn’t it? It’s working.
“Every day I want you more. But I don’t want to be the man you have to hide. I want to be the one standing by your side. Do you really think it doesn’t bother me when you’ll dance with anyone but me?”
That honestly surprised her. “Not true. I don’t dance with Falco.”
“Ex, then.”
“He’s not a threat. I don’t think he even sees me as a woman.”
“Trust me, all men do, whether they act on it or not. You’re beautiful.”
She smiled, though doubtless he didn’t mean to praise her right then. “I think maybe you’re biased,
amorcito
. You see me differently.”
“None of that changes what I said.”
“That you want me to stop coming to you unless I’m ready to make some big announcement? About how you’re sleeping with me? It’s nobody’s business!”
He shrugged. “You’ve made all the choices so far. You can make this one too.”
“So that’s it, then?”
“It is if you’re saying no.”
“What if I’m saying ‘not right now’?”
“Then I guess we can have this conversation again, whenever ‘right now’ finally ends. Because I’m not going to change my mind.”
The hard clench of his jaw and the stiff distance in his posture told Rosa that he meant it. Their sweet interlude was over. Without speaking, she pushed to her feet and stepped out of the cave, leaving the light behind.
TWENTY-EIGHT
 
Oh, you’ve really done it up good, Welsh.
Chris flopped down on his bunk in the room above the general store. A cloud of dust puffed up from the shabby mattress, circling in a chink of sunlight. He hadn’t been back to the cave since the argument with Rosa. That little hollow of rock already held too many memories.
Not that he could escape the stubborn woman. She was all over the town, of course, leading with her special blend of sex appeal, personal indebtedness, and iron dogma. Chris’s path intersected with hers a dozen times a day. He made his rounds, still checking the eight new arrivals for progress regarding nutrition and a few infected cuts that had yet to clear up. And of course he visited Tilly and her sevenweek-old baby girl, Esperanza.
Esperanza
. Spanish for hope.
He knew Rosa was pleased with the choice—not only symbolic, but something to honor the town’s distinctly Latin flavor. But would she admit as much? Even to him? Nope.
He peeled off his sweaty shirt, rolled onto his stomach, and hugged the flat pillow, willing sleep. It was only the middle of the afternoon, but activity in Valle screeched to a halt when the sun shone so brightly as to become an enemy. Too hot to move.
Sleep wouldn’t offer a reprieve from Rosa either. She followed him into the unconscious as well. After so many prophetic dreams that couldn’t be explained, Chris had started believing in their power. It went against every scientific leaning, but he couldn’t reconcile what had happened with any other conclusion. He had dreamed the dust pirates on foot, the girls in the truck, and then, of course, he’d shared that erotic dream with Rosa.
But now his dreams were just plain infuriating.
Night after night, there was Rosa. The familiar ones were recreations of the hours they’d made love together—just wisps of impressions that left him gasping and hard. The ones he’d started to think of as prophetic were clearer, sharper, heartbreaking. He saw Rosa sitting on a stool in her bedroom, naked except for a lightweight cotton robe she’d left untied. She was braiding her hair over one shoulder. In another she looked about six months pregnant, and she was staring across the desert, wearing a long sundress that pressed against her swollen stomach when the wind blew. She was smiling in both.
Chris slammed a fist into his pillow with a groan. If those were prophecies, he’d eat his boots. She was as closed to him now as when he’d first arrived. Cold. Stone-faced. Completely stuck on this idea of having her sexual itches scratched while stashing him away in a cave.
He stuck to his guns. All or nothing. So they’d circled each other in a weeks-long stalemate.
After a fitful rest during which he never made it down deep enough to dream, Chris gave up on the idea of sleep. He pushed off the mattress and washed with water from a metal bucket. All the while he steeled himself for the evening to come. He’d decided, after the argument, that he would not hide. Rosa would see him every night. Walking with sixteen-gauge nails under the skin of his soles would be a more pleasant way to spend his time, but he wanted her to remember what she was missing. Comfort. Intimacy. Breathless release.
But that meant seeing her and not having her, watching as she cast her spell on the worshipful bravos. Each night she walked away, returning to her casita.
At least she went home alone.
That he’d been reduced to seeing such a thing as a victory made him surly. He dressed with staccato movements and quickly ran a comb through his hair.
Although Valle quieted down for the afternoon, everyone pushed outdoors once the sun dipped down. Chris spotted Allison and Ex closing up the forge for the night, which made him smile softly. Another odd couple. A change specialty, which seemed to make the whole damn hell seem worthwhile. Allison offered a shy little wave.

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