Rio (14 page)

“If you marry him, you can buy out the stores,” Fern said with a grin. “Of course, the best one, the La Mode, has burned, but there’s lots of others.”

“Uh-huh,” Turquoise finally said. “I’m having second thoughts about marrying Edwin Forester.”

“Are you thinking about what a fit your guardian will throw?” Fern asked.

“That’s part of it.” Turquoise put on the finest lace lingerie she owned.

“What else?” Her plump friend seemed to be hanging on every word.

“I—I’m not sure.” She turned on Fern irritably. “I really don’t want to talk about it until I think it over.”

“But this is everything you dreamed of….”

“I know, but it’s complicated. Please, Fern”—she patted her friend by the shoulder—“I—I’ve got some thinking to do. A lot of things have happened and now I’m not sure what I think.”

Fern looked puzzled. “Okay.”

“I’ll tell you when I decide, all right?”

Fern sighed. “All right. I hope you know what you’re doing.” And she left the room.

No, she did not know what she was doing. She was beginning to feel she might be playing with blasting powder. Here she was, getting dressed to meet with a man who had declared his love and who wanted to shower her with luxuries. Her heart ought to be singing, but if it were, it was a sad song. She was angry with herself and not sure why.

It was almost dusk outside. Turquoise sprayed herself with forget-me-not perfume and put on the bright turquoise dress she had bought for the debutante ball. It might not have been appropriate for the ball, but it would be just right for elegant dining and dancing. Then with a heavy heart, she walked out into the living room. Fern was reading the children a story and got up, coming over. “The buggy is waiting for you outside.”

“Thank you, my dear friend.” She hugged Fern. “Don’t wait up. I’m not sure I’ll have an answer for you tonight.”

“Maybe I’d better pray for you,” Fern said.

“I think you might.” Turquoise smiled and went out the front door in a whirl of silk skirts.

She drove into town as night fell across Austin. On a street corner, a scruffy newsboy yelled, “Read all about it! Heroic Senator Saves Crowd!”

She reined in and called to the boy. “Please, I’d like a paper.”

“Hot off the press, miss. Just came out a few minutes ago.” The scruffy boy came over to the buggy and handed her a paper. She tossed him a dime. “Gee, thanks, miss.” He tipped his cap to her.

It was difficult to read the paper in the glow of the gas streetlights and she squinted to see the headline.

“Heroic Senator Saves Crowd. Senator Edwin Forester, scion of the well-known family, behaved in an exemplary fashion today as he stood off an escaped and dangerous bull at the stockyards. The lovely lady accompanying him fainted in the excitement and he had to help her to her feet after he ordered the vaqueros to take away the dangerous animal. Senator Forester is at the moment trying to pass a bill that will give the livestock raisers a better tax situation, and after today’s heroic action, no doubt …”

“No doubt he was a pompous fool.” Turquoise threw back her head and chuckled to herself. Of course only a handful of people would know the truth. Everyone else in Austin would believe the newspaper story. Well, when she met Edwin tonight, she wouldn’t mention the article.

Abruptly she wondered if Rio had seen this. He probably didn’t take the paper, so he needn’t know that he had been omitted from his own heroic tale. Not that he would care. He hadn’t taken on that bull for the senator or anyone else in the crowd, he had done it for her and her alone. She knew that from the way his penetrating gaze had glared back at her as he rode away.

At the very least, she ought to thank him profusely and apologize for Edwin’s abrupt rudeness. It wouldn’t take very long and Edwin would think she was being fashionably late.

She turned and drove toward Rio’s small spread.

She pulled up at the hitching post and little Tip began to bark. There was a dim light on in the crude adobe and for a moment, she wondered what she was doing here and if he
would harshly rebuff her. Perhaps she was a fool. She almost turned the buggy and drove away but about that time, Rio came out on the porch. He was naked to the waist and stood there silhouetted against the light, the crucifix gleaming in the moonlight. He had a rifle in one hand. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Turquoise Sanchez.”

“What do you want?” His voice was hostile.

“Can’t I at least get down?”

A long moment of silence while he seemed to think it over. Then he yelled at the spotted dog and Tip stopped barking. Rio laid his rifle in the porch swing and walked slowly out to the buggy. “Yes?”

She looked down into his dark eyes and saw the anger and the need there. “Can’t I at least come in?”

He shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. You are dressed fancy, senorita. I take it this is not for a trip to my humble ranch?”

She felt her face flush as she tied her reins over her dashboard. “You might at least help me down.”

“Excuse me, I forget my manners toward a lady.” He bowed and she was not sure if he was mocking her or not. Then he stepped up and held out his hands to her. Big, strong, honest hands, she thought, remembering Edwin’s fine, gentleman’s hands.

She let Rio lift her and his hands almost spanned her waist. He set her slowly on the ground but he did not turn her loose. His dark skin rippled over hard muscle and he smelled of smoke and horses and tequila.

His rugged face looked down into hers. “You are dressed very fine. Where do you go tonight?”

“None of your business,” she said, not looking at him. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“You want to lower yourself by coming into my small house, senorita?”

“Stop it,” she raged. “I am trying to be nice.”

He glared at her. “Ah, and do you come to offer the poor vaquero a reward, too? Maybe a few pesos for saving you and your companion from
el toro?
”

She started to turn away. “Damn it, now I’m not sure why I came. I certainly didn’t expect this kind of response.”

He caught her arm. “
Perdone.
I don’t know what to think. Senator Forester would not be pleased if his lady was seen at a Mexican bastard’s poor ranch after dark.”

She began to weep. “Must you treat me so cruelly? I came to apologize for his arrogant behavior and to thank you for saving my life.”

He didn’t let go. “And after you have apologized and thanked me, you can go with a clear conscience back to the senator, who is waiting with gold and diamonds to lure you into his bed?”

She looked up at him, in a rage. “He has been very honorable. He wants to marry me—”

“He wants you in his bed,” Rio growled and jerked her up against his broad chest. “I saw the look in his eyes, the hunger for you. Do you not think I feel the same hunger?”

Then before she could react, he pulled her to him so hard that she could not breathe, bent his head, and kissed her savagely.

For just a moment, she was helpless in his arms and then she began to fight him, but he did not let her go. Gradually the kiss deepened and she could deny her own need no longer. She clung to him, returning his kiss with all the banked fires within her. His mouth dominated hers and she surrendered, opening her lips while he thrust his tongue deep within, caressing the velvet of her mouth in a manner that said: you are mine, only mine, and I will take you and no other man will.

She moaned aloud and opened her lips still more, sucking his tongue deep into her throat, entwining her tongue with his and then letting him suck her tongue into his mouth.

His strong arms imprisoned her and yet it was her own need that would not let her struggle. He reached down and pulled the low-cut turquoise lace away from her bosom so he could enclose her breast with one big hand as if he owned it, and she could not object. She could only gasp at his touch on her nipple.

He whispered against her mouth. “The senator may buy you, but by damn, I’ll take you first and let him have my leavings.”

The time was now to object, to tear away from him and run for her buggy, but she did not want to run. She did not want to leave his embrace.

He pulled back and looked down at her with a question in his dark eyes. She hung arched over his arm in surrender and her eyes must have given him the answer he wanted. He swung her up into his arms, carrying her lightly as he strode through the night to where red oleanders dropped their perfumed blossoms near the hacienda and he laid her on the soft grass. He stood over her, breathing heavily, sweat gleaming on his dark, muscled frame. “You still have time to go,” he warned, “if you want to join the senator for dinner.”

She didn’t want the senator’s money or jewels, she wanted something much deeper, much more primitive. In surrender, she held her arms up to her conqueror.

He glared down at her. “If you stay, you know I will take that for which he is willing to offer you a kingdom.”

“I don’t care,” she breathed. “This is tonight, and tonight I only want to quell this hunger inside me that seems to be burning like a flame.”

He fell to his knees, looking down at her. “This is not the way it should be, taking you like the lowest whore out on the grass.”

“Would it be any better on satin sheets?” she whispered and looked up at him.

“Turquoise, you torture me, and you do it wantonly again and again,” he gasped and then reached down and ripped the front of her dress away. She lay there in the moonlight as he stared at her generous breasts, so pale in the dim light.

Her first impulse was to cover her nakedness with her hands, but she was hypnotized by the raw hunger in his dark eyes that seemed to caress her bare breasts, and she lay there, letting him look his fill.

He lay down next to her and then he stroked and caressed her breasts into peaks of desire and she could feel the pulsating hardness of his manhood against her thigh. She sensed he was right, remembering festivals where she knew vaqueros took girls out into the night for hours of hot rutting and yet she could not, would not, get up and leave.

Instead she whispered, “Teach me. I know nothing of this. Teach me and make me your own.”

He needed no further urging as he bent his head and kissed each breast, then flicked his tongue around the dark circle of her nipple until she was arching her back, wanting him to taste even more. Rio fastened his hot mouth on her breast and she felt the touch of his rugged face gently across her skin. She put both hands on each side of his dark head and pulled him down, urging—no, demanding—that he suck both her breasts until her nipples were swollen and aching.

She reached to touch his manhood and he gasped and pulsated against her hand. “Unbutton my pants,” he breathed. “Touch me, hold me, my dear one.”

And she needed no urging. She fumbled with his buttons as he continued to suck her breasts. His manhood came out, big and swollen, wet with his own need. She abruptly was reminded of watching the great stallions back at the ranch, rubbing against a mare in heat as she teased and fidgeted about while the stud’s maleness hung heavy and slamming against his belly as he danced before he grabbed the mare by the back of the neck with his teeth and reared up on her hindquarters, plunging into her again and again as they mated.

She stroked Rio’s manhood and he grew more agitated, kissing her face, her eyes, her lips. Then his hand reached under her skirt and pulled it up, tearing away her lace drawers so that his fingers could roam her, tease her until she was wet with desire. “I want you,” she gasped. “I need you!”

“I intend to take you,” he answered. “And if I have nothing but tonight, tomorrow the senator can have my leavings.”

“Is that all I am to you? A conquest?” she whispered against his lips.

He cursed. “I am under your spell and I will have your body tonight if it costs me my life!”

“Then take me and welcome.” She let her silken thighs fall apart and his fingers touched her, caressed her. She reached to touch his throbbing maleness and it was wet with his own desire.

He came over her, holding up most of his weight with his elbows. She could feel the tip of his manhood hard against her mound. He hesitated almost as if giving her one last chance to say no and roll out from under him, but she wanted this as badly as he did. “Now, my sweet one, I will make you mine in a way no man ever can again.”

They were like two wild mustangs in the moonlight as he plunged deep into her and muffled her cry with his kiss. And he began to ride her, deeply, slowly.

Her excitement grew with each hard stroke and her hands went around him, clawing his lithe back with her need to pull him closer, deeper. “More, more, and more!”

She was arching her back, meeting him thrust for thrust, her long, slim legs wrapped around his dark body so that he could not escape even if he wanted to. If this was love, no wonder people were willing to die for it, she thought. Nothing could feel any better than this: a man who desired her beyond reason, mating with her under an oleander bush while carmine petals dropped on them both and in the background, the moon shining bright and yellow across the new summer grass.

He came down hard into her again and her insides tried to clutch him, not wanting to lose him, but he pulled back and then came into her hard again. She tilted her hips up to meet him, flesh slapping hard against bare flesh, wanting
him deep, deep inside of her. She knew she was clawing his back with her need but she couldn’t stop herself and he rammed into her, faster and faster, while she moaned aloud with each thrust, wanting more and more and more. Her whole body seemed to be afire, and his thrusts only seemed to add fuel to her flame as she dug her nails into his hard hips, urging him deeper still.

Then abruptly, he gasped and came into her one more time and she could feel his throbbing maleness jerk and then begin to give up his seed. She tilted up so that she could take—no, demand—every single precious drop. The excitement built until she could stand it no more and she shuddered and her body arched against his for a long moment, and they clung together in the age-old embrace of mating.

She knew nothing for a long moment of blackness and then gradually she came back into this world. Rio was kissing her face and brushing her damp hair from her forehead. “Did I hurt you?”

“I don’t know, maybe a little, but I couldn’t stop.”

“I couldn’t either.” His voice was regretful and he sat up. “I’ve ruined you. You will hate me tomorrow.”

“No, I never will. Not after that.” She sat up and reached up to hold his dear face in both her hands.

He pulled away from her. “I am sorry I did this. I wanted you so much, I seemed to go loco.”

“I liked it. Do it again to me.” She reached out and brushed her lips across his bare chest.

“Don’t do that, Turquoise. It drives me wild. You should go home, clean up, and go to your senator. He need never know where you have been.”

“But I’d be so late.” She brushed her tongue across his nipple.

“Make up an excuse,” he gasped. “He’d believe anything
you tell him. You can still have that big house and all his money.”

“All I want at the moment is to be in your arms again,” she whispered against his chest. He cursed softly and pulled her to him, and they made passionate love again and again.

It was toward dawn that she awoke in his arms and smiled. She had never felt so beloved and safe as she did at this moment. She kissed the side of his face, and his dark eyes flickered open and he frowned. “I thought I had dreamed you here,” he whispered and kissed her again.

She took a deep breath, content and her need no longer burning like a prairie fire. “It’ll be dawn soon,” she noted.

At that he sighed and sat up. “I have behaved badly. Turquoise, you know I have nothing to offer you. You have sold your virginity too cheap. The senator would have given all he owned for it.”

“It is mine to give away and to the man I choose.” She shrugged.

“Look at you. Your dress is in shreds and you smell of me,” he said. “People will whisper and ridicule you if they find out.”

“You know, for the first time, I’m not sure I care what people think.” She yawned and pulled her shredded dress up on her white shoulders. “All of a sudden, I am not worried about people whispering about my background or my need for security and respectability. I feel so safe with you.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “I would kill to protect you,” he whispered. “You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded and laid her face against his bare chest so that he put his arms around her and held her close. She felt safe for the first time in her life, knowing this man would love and protect her because she was truly his woman.

Then he sighed. “But I know I am doing you an injustice by claiming you. The senator may have been looking for
you all night. He may have telegraphed your guardian or had the whole of the Austin police force out.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I’d better meet with him today.”

Rio nodded as he pulled her to her feet. “Yes, clean yourself up and go to him. It’s not too late for you to accept his proposal. I saw the way he looked at you. He’s so blindly in love with you, he’ll believe anything you tell him.”

She blinked. “Are you saying I should pretend that last night never happened, go ahead with my life and marry him?”

He stared into her eyes. “I told you last night I wanted you and then I lost my senses and took that which I could never hope to own. I have nothing to offer you except a small ranch. I cannot imagine you married to a poor va-quero who blacksmiths on the side to keep tortillas on the table.”

“So you don’t intend to make an honest woman of me?” She was growing angry now.

“Turquoise.” He made a helpless gesture. “You don’t understand—”

“I understand all right. Now that you have satisfied your lust rutting around on me all night like a stallion on a mare in heat, you are ready to toss me to him so you won’t have to bother with me anymore.” She began to cry.

He sighed heavily. “Cut it any way you like. I did not offer you anything except sex and you wanted it as badly as I did. Now go on with your ambitions and I’ll go back to my forge.”

She swung at him but he shied away and caught her hand, then he pulled her to him and kissed her as if he would never let her go. “Good-bye, senorita.
Vaya con Dios.
” Go with God.

“God damn you, you—you dirty Mexican. I hate you!” She pulled her torn turquoise dress up, trying to make it
less tattered. Then she stalked away, eyes blinded with tears. She swung up in her buggy, trying to rearrange her torn and wrinkled skirts as the sun began to peek over the eastern horizon. “You are a cad and a dirty bastard!” She snapped the whip at the dozing horse and the buggy took off at a fast clip.

Rio stared after her long after she was out of sight. So she hated him even though he adored her. He could not hold onto her because he did not meet her dreams and she would soon grow tired of living in poverty. However, he had last night to remember her by and maybe, many years from now when she was married to a rich man and had children and all the luxuries she desired, once in a while in the dead of night, she might remember this night, smile in the darkness, and think of him with kindness.

Turquoise was lucky enough to return to Fern’s ranch and get inside, hide the torn dress, and slip into her bed just before the ranch began to awaken. What was she to do? Now that she was away from Rio, she was uncertain again. He evidently had only wanted a quick romp and she had behaved like some drunken
puta,
a whore, humping in the grass with a vaquero. She was ashamed and humiliated, but when she remembered those moments in his arms, she knew she wanted to do it again and again. She tried to think of sleeping in Edwin’s arms, with his fine, soft hands on her body, and winced. But of course, if she married him, he would have that right. What was she to do?

She finally got up, cleaned up, and dressed, thankful that no one seemed to realize she had been gone all night. At breakfast, she only toyed with her eggs and finally said to Fern, “I think the children and I should go home on this afternoon’s train.”

“My word, I hoped you might change your mind,” Fern said.

The children moaned. “Aw, senorita, can’t we stay another day or two?”

“No.” She didn’t look anyone in the eye. “I think we have been gone long enough. Senor Trace will be missing us.”

Fern pursed her lips and gave her a searching look. “Well, if you insist. I was hoping you would stay around and help me plan my wedding.”

“Oh, I can come back for that,” Turquoise answered. Right now, she just wanted to escape and think things over. Yet she knew she owed Edwin an explanation and she dreaded that meeting.

So after breakfast, while Fern took all the children down to the barn to play in the hay, Turquoise dressed herself in a white dress of dotted Swiss, complete with a big lace hat and umbrella. Both the hat and her waist had a band of turquoise satin. She borrowed the buggy once again and with a sense of dread, drove herself out to the capitol. The building looked deserted, most of the legislators gone home now that this year’s session was over.