Touch the Wind (25 page)

“He was trying to rape me and I fought with him. I got hold of his knife and stabbed him. That’s when he hit me. When you came, I thought it was him coming back to finish what he had started. That’s why I tried to stab you with the knife—because I thought it was him and I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him!” she repeated again on a rising bubble of hysteria.

“Who?” His fingers dug savagely into her shoulders, shaking her hard. “Who did this to you? Who?”

Her momentary hysteria was replaced by anger. Sheila hurled the name of her attacker at Ráfaga. “Juan!” she cried out, spitting the venom of her hatred.

His response was just as explosive. “Liar!!” He shoved her away from him. The violent force of his action sent her reeling backward against the wall.

A moment ago Sheila had been all-loving; now she was all-hating. “If you don’t believe me, go ask him yourself!” she hissed. “You’ll find stab wounds in his back—three of them!”

His face was like chiseled granite, hard and unyielding.
His dark eyes were like blackened chips of ice, raking her with their bleak anger, cutting to the bone.

“You will make your accusation to his face.” His mouth was a cruel, thin line.

“Gladly!” Sheila breathed hotly.

Ráfaga turned sharply on his heel, anger holding his erect carriage rigid as he walked into the main room. Shaking, Sheila stumbled into the bedroom. Her toe caught the edge of the blanket lying on the floor.

She picked it up and wrapped it around her, suddenly feeling very cold. She wanted to lie down on the bed and die, but she could hear Ráfaga’s voice snapping orders to the guard. With her head held high, Sheila walked into the main room.

The lamp was lit, casting an eerie glow over the room. Ráfaga was standing with his back to the fireplace, his hands clasped behind him. His legs were slightly apart in a stance that very much indicated he was lord of all he surveyed.

Sheila remembered the way she had thrown herself into his arms and brazenly invited his kisses. Of all the men from whom to seek comfort and understanding, he was the last she should have chosen. There wasn’t a compassionate bone in his heartless body.

He gave her a long, hard look. Defensively, Sheila tilted her chin a fraction of an inch higher, meeting his look with coldness. His harsh gaze slid to her cheek. Sheila guessed that the skin was already discolored, as well as swollen. It was beginning to ache worse now, a painful throb that pulsed through her head, making her feel slightly sick.

There was a knock at the door. Ráfaga curtly called out his permission to enter. A violent shudder quaked through Sheila. She turned as the door opened, unable to look at the repulsive face of her attacker. Lowering her gaze to the floor, she listened to the brief exchange in Spanish.

“It is the
señora
who wishes to say something to you,” Ráfaga announced in a deadly calm tone.

Her head jerked to glare at him, hating the disbelieving
taunt in his dark eyes. Sheila forced herself to turn toward the door, steeling her jumping nerves to carry out this ugly scene. First she saw Laredo, his blue eyes narrowing briefly as he noticed the bruise on her cheek. Holding herself rigid, she looked at the man Laredo held by the arm.

A sleepily confused pair of dark eyes stared back at her, questioning and uncertain. It was Juan, the man who had been her constant companion these last three days. He and Laredo were the only people who came close to being her friends. Her dismay at discovering why Ráfaga had been so certain she was lying robbed her of speech.

Distantly, Sheila heard an order given in Spanish. A grim frown creased Laredo’s forehead as he released Juan’s arm and stepped behind him to lift his shirt. He glanced back at Ráfaga and shook his head. Then Sheila was conscious of Ráfaga looming beside her.

“There are no wounds,
señora
.” Behind his ice-coated words, she heard the biting accusation that she was a liar and worse.

Her speechlessness disintegrated in a burst of fury. He was too quick to condemn her.

“I didn’t mean
him!”
Sheila raged, her head pounding as if there were a thousand demons inside. “I meant the murdering bastard who killed my husband—the one you gave me to so briefly and then took back! He obviously decided it was time you stopped having the sole use of my body and shared the prize with him! Laredo knows which fat, slobbering beast I mean!”

With her fury spent, she began sobbing uncontrollably. Sheila twisted her away from Ráfaga, her shoulders hunching in shame and degradation. Hot tears streamed from her eyes, burning her cheeks as she wept freely and openly. Her knees threatened to buckle and she swayed unsteadily. Strong fingers reached out to grip her shoulders.

“Don’t touch me!” Sheila recoiled wildly, her voice hoarse and broken with racking sobs. “Pig! Animal!” She was hysterical.

Swearing savagely in Spanish, Ráfaga issued clipped orders. In a matter of seconds, her struggling, sobbing body was pushed into another pair of arms. Something hard touched her lips and Sheila twisted away from it. The object followed persistently.

“Come on, Sheila,” Laredo coaxed firmly. “Drink this.” Still she fought him, weeping uncontrollably. “Snap out of it!”

He grabbed a handful of hair and twisted her head back, forcibly pouring some liquid between her lips. It burned her throat like fire. Coughing and choking, Sheila pushed the bottle away from her mouth and Laredo didn’t force it back.

As the burning subsided, Sheila could breathe without feeling that her lungs were on fire. The dose of liquor had stopped her hysteria and reduced her sobs to dry, hiccuping sounds. She leaned her weary head against Laredo’s shoulder, grateful for the support of his arm around her.

Her tear-moistened lashes opened slowly, her gaze drawn to the unyielding coldness of Ráfaga’s eyes. Sheila had to endure his freezing regard for only a second before the door opened to divert his attention.

This time Sheila had cause to shudder. Two men were dragging and carrying a third man into the room. A wave of revulsion filled her at the sight of him. He was shirtless, his stout, naked torso exposed. Despite his fatness, Sheila knew his muscles were not flaccid. A crude bandage was wrapped around his broad waist, the material stained scarlet with his own blood.

Ráfaga could not doubt her now, Sheila thought as her embittered gaze slid to him. His features were drawn in ruthless, cruel lines, coldly remote. The lamplight caught the gleam of something metallic in his hand. Sheila glanced down to see a knife in his hand, Juan’s knife, the knife she had used to stab him. Ráfaga took a slow, menacing step toward the man being held.

The look in his eyes struck cold terror in her heart. Ráfaga was going to kill him. She knew it. Sheila even
wanted to see Ortega die, yet some part of her recoiled from what was happening.

When Ráfaga took the second step, Brad’s murderer must have realized his intention and began babbling in Spanish. His voice was almost whining. Sheila glanced at Ráfaga, expecting to see contempt etched in his hard features. He was standing rigidly in place, his shoulders stiffened. A muscle was twitching in his jaw.

There was a subtle change in the atmosphere. Sheila felt the attention of the others in the room shift to her. Her gaze swerved upward to Laredo’s face. He was looking at her, searching her features with a mixture of skepticism and grimness. A cold chill raced down her spine.

“What’s the matter?” she asked warily. “What’s he saying about me?” Sheila demanded a translation.

Laredo eyed her for a minute before he spoke. “He said he was on guard outside and you came to the door, motioning for him to come in. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but it was nighttime and he thought there might be something wrong.”

Sheila began shaking her head, moving away from the arm around her shoulders. “No!” she denied vehemently.

“He said you began talking to him,” Laredo continued. “He didn’t understand what you were saying, but he thought you wanted to leave the canyon and that you wanted him to help you. When he refused, you came closer to him and let the blanket fall to the floor. Then you put your arms around him and he lost his head. That’s when you grabbed his knife and stabbed him. He said he had been tricked and that you would have run away if he hadn’t struck you.”

“It isn’t true!” she protested strongly.

“He swears by the Holy Virgin it is,” Laredo replied flatly.

“It isn’t true!” Sheila turned to Ráfaga. Unconsciously, she crossed the space that separated them. “It isn’t true!” she repeated.

It was imperative that Ráfaga believe her. But he
was so distant, like a bronze statue regarding her with sightless eyes. She knew both he and Laredo were remembering the time she had tried to enlist Laredo’s aid in escaping. Clutching the blanket with one hand, Sheila moved closer to him, curving an arm around the muscles of his waist.

“Not a word of what he told you is true!” Her voice was husky with emotion. “He came to our room while I was sleeping. He tried to force himself on me. Why do you think I begged you to hold me and kiss me?”

Something flickered in his eyes, a smouldering light that warmed Sheila. His arm instinctively circled her back to draw her to his muscular frame. The blanket slipped from one shoulder and his hand settled on the bareness of her skin, a half-caress. Then Juan, her attacker, spoke again and Sheila felt the warmth withdraw from Ráfaga’s touch.

“What did he say?” Sheila pressed closer to Ráfaga, trying to breach the barrier he had suddenly erected.

“He said you wound around him like a serpent, too.” His voice was flat and unemotional, but his fingers dug punishingly into her shoulder. “He said you bewitched him the way you are trying to bewitch me.”

“Oh!” It was a stifled cry of protest. Sheila tried to twist out of his arms, but Ráfaga held her fast.

“You do not bewitch me,” he said lowly, “nor do you escape from me.” Retaining his grip on her, Ráfaga spoke rapidly in Spanish to the others.

Sheila stopped struggling. She lacked the strength to fight him, and it would have been useless, anyway. When Ráfaga finished, the two men holding Juan released him. Her attacker’s reaction was a mixture of relief and fear. Everyone, including Laredo, quietly left the house.

Her head was bowed, a wet mist clouding her eyes. “You let him go,” Sheila accused in a voice low with pain.

“He disobeyed an order. For that he will be punished,” Ráfaga stated.

“And me?” she retorted bitterly. “Am I to be punished because I was almost raped?”

He exhaled an impatient, angry breath and abruptly let her go. “It is late.”

“I’m not tired.” But her voice sounded very tired. “And I’m certainly not going to bed with you!”

“Sheila—” he began angrily.

“Earlier it was ‘
señora.
’ Now it’s Sheila,” she interrupted with bitter sarcasm. “Why? Because you want me to lie in bed with you! Well, you can go to hell!” She was visibly trembling.

“I have been away for three days wondering if you would be here when I returned.” His nostrils were flared in anger. “Now I am back and it is still hell. But you are still mine. You will lie with me—here or in the bedroom. It makes no difference.”

“Don’t you dare come near me!” Sheila hissed. She was breathing deeply, frightened by the hard, ruthless look to his face.

His mouth twisted in a cold smile. With calm deliberation, he began stripping, shedding his clothes and seeming to discard the cloak of civilization along with them. Sheila’s heart pounded madly, half in fear and half in response to the sudden gnawing tightness in her stomach. His body gleamed in the lamplight like hard, polished bronze. When he stood before her, she shook her head in mute protest to what he demanded.

“Lay the blanket on the floor,” Ráfaga ordered.

No, no, no!
Sheila was screaming inside, but she felt her hands unwrapping the blanket from around her. There her compliance stopped and the blanket slipped from her hands into a heap on the floor. His dark eyes began an insolent appraisal, traveling from head to toe and back.

His hand reached out to grip the curve of her waist and draw her unresisting body against the hard contours of his. With his right hand, he cupped the back of her neck and forced her head up to his lips.

It was a hard, brutal kiss, filled with anger. Shocked by the absence of any fiery passion, Sheila tried to resist,
but his arms were iron-strong and unrelenting. She couldn’t escape the bruising menace of his mouth.

With a dangerous and cruel sensuality, he parted her lips. Her breasts were crushed against the wall of his chest. The male hands on her back were arching her hips to him, quivering down her backbone. Then he was pressing her backward and down until the hard floor was beneath her shoulder blades.

Afterward Ráfaga carried her to the bedroom. Bruised and slightly battered by his animal possession, Sheila didn’t make a sound as he put her on the bed. She was unaware of the hurt, wounded look in her eyes, but Ráfaga studied it as he gazed down at her.

Turning, he walked to the dresser and lit the lamp. Sheila lifted a protective hand to her eyes, shielding them and her face from the light. She heard his footsteps as he left the room. He returned within seconds to cover her nakedness with the blanket she had dropped in the main room.

“Why is all this water on the floor?” It was a demand and a question.

The savage intimacy ending only minutes ago made it difficult for Sheila to assimilate his question. She frowned, trying to collect her wits.

“It’s—it’s from bathing,” she said, finally remembering. Her troubled eyes saw him pick up the pitcher by the basin. “It’s empty. I used it all.”

“Why?” Ráfaga demanded with a Satanic lift of one dark brow.

“For obvious reasons.” Sheila ran a shaking hand through her hair in agitation and she shuddered as she remembered the very urgent reason. “I felt dirty, contaminated from—from
him
,” she said, unable to refer directly to her attacker. “I had to wash—to scrub away filthy traces of him, but I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like. My God, you don’t even believe me!” There was a trembling catch in her voice as she hurled the last sentence at him.