Bed of Roses (13 page)

That she could grieve over his loss of memory when she had so many troubles of her own touched Sawyer very deeply. A while passed before he spoke again. “What happened to your father?” he asked gently.

Zafiro slipped out of his embrace and turned to face the stream. For a long moment she watched the moonlight spill over the water like glitter pouring down from the sky. “A very horrible man shot and killed him.”
Luis.
His very name caused her to shudder, but she would not tell Sawyer about him. What was the use? Sawyer was leaving.

Her boots digging into the soft sand of the creek bank, she spun away from the water and trudged toward the path in the woods. “I will look for my chickens by myself,” she said when she heard Sawyer’s footsteps behind her. “You want to leave, and I will not ask you to stay.”

As he followed her out of the woods and into the yard, he tried to feel relieved that she’d accepted his decision to leave. But worry pestered him like an itch he couldn’t reach. “Zafiro—”

“You do not have to be my warrior in shining steel,” she said, stopping and turning to face him. “Go now. I will pray that you find your memories and much happiness, Sawyer.”

The squeak in her voice and the glimmer of desperation in her wide eyes seemed to reach out to him as if with hands and fingers, for he could almost feel the trembling caress of her despair.

Shoving his fingers through his hair, he turned, walked a few feet away from her, and saw something shining within the mass of red roses.

The sword.

He retrieved the great weapon. Its fine hilt felt cold and hard in his hands.

Was it really the sign he’d required of heaven?

He didn’t know. But something—whether it was a damn set of infuriating coincidences, his own maddening conscience, or the power of a higher being—something had brought him here in the first place and taken him back when he’d tried to leave. No bewildering or painful emotion he possessed disputed that fact.

Holding the sword out in front of his chest, he turned the blade and watched moonbeams frost the steel with silver.

Finally, at last long, someone is here to make sure that no harm comes to us.

As he held the sword, Zafiro’s statement came back to him.

She didn’t understand. Didn’t know.

It wasn’t that he
wouldn’t
keep her and her charges from harm.

He
couldn’t.
If he tried, he’d fail. Some deep-down horrible place inside him knew that he would.

But hidden away from the world as Zafiro and her companions were, what harm could come to them anyway? he asked himself. The two most dangerous beings around the place were Jengibre and Maclovio, neither of whom posed any real threat to Zafiro or the rest of her charges.

Still holding the sword out in front of his chest, Sawyer deliberated. Maybe he could make a few chivalrous repairs around the place, he mused. And perhaps he could get Zafiro some livestock from somewhere and teach her to breed the animals so she and her charges would always have fresh meat.

Yes, he could do those things. And then she could take care of herself. Herself and her gang.

Maybe he could be her knight in shining armor after all.

Smiling as broadly as a man could with a realization that he was probably going to regret his actions and a leg that felt as if it were about to fall off, he faced Zafiro again, held the sword against his chest, and bowed.

“Sir Sawyer Donovan, milady. Your knight in shining armor.”

Chapter Six

A
fter a full week’s worth of
rest, Tia’s doctoring, and several hearty meals of venison—thanks to Mariposa’s deer-hunting skills—Sawyer’s physical condition was much improved. Despite Tia’s insistence that he was much too young to tackle heavy chores, he began preparations for all the many repairs needed around La Escondida.

He found an array of tools in the barn, all of which Ciro and the men had once used to build the hideaway. Some of the instruments were too old to be of use, but most of them needed but a bit of cleaning and sharpening.

Still, he could use a few new things, namely a big sack of nails. He knew he could probably find the things he needed in one of the nearby villages, but with no money and nothing with which to barter, he stood no chance of obtaining new tools.

If only Zafiro would consent to sell her sapphire, he thought. The money from the sale would not only buy the things that would facilitate making the repairs, but a great deal of other needed items as well.

But if Zafiro had wanted to sell the sapphire she’d have done so a long time ago. He would make do with the tools he’d found in the barn and think no more about it.

The first thing he did was fell trees. He found the task exceedingly difficult. Not only had he not yet recovered the wholeness of his strength, but the old outlaws would not stay out of the forest. The men welcomed a chance to break their monotonous routines and help with the work, but when one towering oak almost fell on Lorenzo, Sawyer refused to continue his work until Zafiro had locked the men in the cabin.

“You could give them
some
little job to do, Sawyer.”

“Keeping them out of the woods is for their own good.”

Zafiro was far from finished with the conversation, but first she took a moment to admire her handsome adversary. Standing in the woods beside Sawyer as he stripped leaves and bark from a long, thick branch, she watched cords of muscle bulge and relax in his arms and coil beneath the skin on his chest like big, thick snakes. Not even the scars left by his injuries detracted from the magnificence of his body.

Cool though the forest was, she warmed as if standing in the blistering sun. “Do you know something, Sawyer? Watching you work without your shirt on makes me feel very hot. And I do not understand why.”

He snapped up his head so quickly that a sharp pain ripped down his neck. “I thought you said Azucar told you about lovemaking.”

“Lovemaking?” She leaned her head toward her shoulder. “What does lovemaking have to do with my feeling so hot?”

Apparently, Azucar hadn’t gone into much detail about what desire felt like, Sawyer thought. The old soiled dove had probably skipped explaining that important part and plunged right into the physical aspects of the act itself.

So Zafiro didn’t know as much as she thought she did.

Sawyer almost smiled. “Those warm feelings of yours have everything to do with lovemaking, Zafiro.”

His voice had changed, she noticed. Had gone from a normal sound to a deep and husky sort of tone that made her feel as though he were touching her.

Caressing her bare skin.

She felt even hotter then and unbuttoned a few buttons on her blouse to cool herself off. “I… I will have to remember to ask Azucar about this hot feeling. She will know.”

“I could tell you,” Sawyer offered. “Better yet, I could show you.” His gaze dipped down to her chest. Now that she’d unfastened a few of her buttons, he could see the soft swells of her breasts.

“Sawyer, you are looking at my—”

“I know.”

“Stop it.”

He didn’t stop it. “You didn’t mind when I did it before.”

“But today you are making me feel so hot that I can hardly breathe.”

She wasn’t exaggerating, he knew. Her chest was fairly heaving, and each time she drew in a breath the opening of her bodice stretched open even wider, revealing yet more of her charms.

Sawyer’s own breathing became a bit labored.

He wondered if she would let him kiss her. Wondered if she’d allow him to touch her.

He wondered if there was anyone else around who might see what he was about to do, and began scanning the area for any would-be voyeurs.

“I locked the men in the cabin, just as you told me to do, Sawyer,” Zafiro said when she saw him looking around the woods. “But you know, there are many things they could help you do if you would only let them.”

Her announcement thoroughly dampened his heated thoughts and feelings. Damn those three old men! Even when they weren’t around they got in his way!

He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. “That tree would have driven Lorenzo into the ground like a mallet hammering a nail into butter. And what about Pedro’s so-called help? He could barely lift the ax in the first place, but when he finally managed to swing it toward the tree, he almost cut Maclovio in half. I need their help like I need a hole in the head, Zafiro, so keep them in the cabin while I’m working. Keep Azucar away too, for that matter. A man can’t get much done while being ravished.”

“Muy bien,
” she flared, taking a seat on the tree trunk and casting him a good, hard glare. “Fine. But you are trying to do a lot of work for just one man.”

“I need this exercise, Zafiro. I don’t want any help, got that? I want to do everything by myself because while I was lying in bed for all that time, I got weak.”

“All right! Do every single little thing by yourself! But do not show me your tears when you have gone up the stream without a boat.”

He stared at her, wondering why in the world she even attempted to use expressions that were not at all familiar to her. “I won’t come crying to you when I’m up a creek without a paddle. But I won’t be up a creek without a paddle, because even though the work I’ve stayed here to do for you is a lot, it isn’t impossible. Dealing with your three men is.”

His last statement made her wonder if the time to talk to him again about helping her men with their forgotten skills had come. Irritated and impatient with them as he was now, he wouldn’t laugh as he’d done the first time she’d broached the subject.

He’d shout. He might even leave, especially since he believed that he was staying only until he’d finished the repairs around La Escondida—a belief he’d made clear to her on numerous occasions since the night he’d agreed to stay.

It wasn’t that she didn’t deeply appreciate his willingness to rebuild La Escondida. But broken fences, a shabby woodshed, a rickety barn, and a missing porch step were not going to kill anyone.

She had to tell him about Luis. Had to somehow convince him to practice fighting skills with her men.

“Sawyer, about my men…”

“Yeah?” He watched her carefully, not caring for the look of hesitancy on her face. She was up to something, he realized. Something that was going to irritate the hell out of him. “What about your men?”

“Well,” she began, then gave him what she hoped was a pretty smile, “they might be across the mountain, but—”

“Over the hill.”

She wasn’t about to argue with him. Not when she had such a monumental favor to ask of him. “Over the hill? Yes, that is how it goes. You are right, and I was wrong.”

Her quick admission of her error deepened his suspicion that she was up to no good. “Zafiro, what exactly are you getting at? I already know your men are old.”

“Old, yes, but just because ice is all over the fire does not mean the roof’s cold. I mean…well, what I mean is that under their wrinkles they are still on fire.”

“There may be snow on the roof, but inside the fire’s still burning?”

“Yes, and my men still have much fire inside. Well, maybe not fire, but they still have embers that can be fanned into flames.”

A long while passed before Sawyer finally understood what she was talking about. “You still want me to work with your men, don’t you? Turn them back into the skilled, able-bodied outlaws they used to be.”

When she nodded and gave him another of her pretty smiles, he shook his head and gave her one of his terrible frowns. “No.”

“Sawyer, let me explain why I need you to—”

“I don’t care why! My answer is no!”

“But you do not under—”

“No, no, no, no, and no! I mean it, Zafiro. I only stayed to patch up this crumbling castle of yours.”

“You are the filth of the world!”

‘'Or the scum of the earth. Take your pick. But either way I don’t want anything to do with those three bumbling bandits.”

“All right!” With that, Zafiro stormed out of the woods and marched straight into the cabin, slamming the door behind her.

And long hours later, when nighttime fell and Sawyer entered the cabin and trudged wearily toward his own room, too weary to even nibble at the supper Tia had prepared for him, he saw light seeping out from beneath Zafiro’s door.

He stopped in front of the door and thought he heard a sniffling sound. Was she weeping? And if she was, had she been crying all day, ever since he yelled at her in the woods?

He told himself to ignore her sad little sounds. Told himself that women always cried when they didn’t get their way.

Told himself he didn’t care if she cried all damn night. He’d been working since dawn and was too tired and sore to bother with female tears.

He told himself to open the door. And so he wrapped his hand around the knob.

But what if she was indecent? What if she was naked?

So what if she was? She’d seen him naked before, many times.

She’d seen
him
naked, but he’d never seen
her
naked. He told himself that fair was fair.

The wooden portal creaked softly as he swung it into the room. And there on the bed, with an array of miniature paintings spread all around her, sat Zafiro.

Sawyer sucked in a breath so deep that his lungs ached.

She wasn’t naked, but she might as well have been. Her wisp of a gown was so sheer, so delicate, that it made Sawyer think of a pretty blush upon a soft cheek.

He could see straight through the pale pink gown. Could see the dark roundness of her nipples and the dusky shadow between her breasts. And her extraordinary sapphire blazed there too, its fiery beauty highlighting the perfect breasts upon which it shone.

“I…” he said, still staring at her breasts, “I guess you’re trying to breast—I mean rest.
Rest!”
He drove his fingers through his hair, damning her breasts and his own slip of the tongue.

He was acting like some adolescent confronting his first glimpse of female sensuality. “I guess you’re trying to
rest.
I’ll go, so you—”