Bed of Roses (6 page)

“An old woman tried to kiss and lay an egg on you?” Zafiro frowned. Perhaps Sawyer’s fever had made him delirious, she guessed, and people often spoke secrets when raving with fever. Maybe Sawyer would say something that would help her understand who he was. “Tell me more, Sawyer Donovan. Go ahead. Let the peas flow out.”

He blinked several times, but couldn’t quite keep his eyes open. “Peas…”

“Yes. You are American. You know the expression. Let the peas flow out. Tell me everything.”

He couldn’t for the life of him understand why she was chattering about flowing peas. Dammit, if only he wasn’t so groggy!

“Sawyer, tell me your brain.”

Somehow, finally, he surmised that she was trying to tell him to speak his mind. “A slingshot,” he replied, voicing whatever thought came to him. “A boy called Francisco. Red. The toothless hag wore red. But it wasn’t…it wasn’t in an ark. He was born in a manger.”

Listening to his mumbling, Zafiro realized he had, indeed, met and listened to the ramblings of Tia, Azucar, and Pedro. “What else, Sawyer? Did anyone else say anything to you?”

His eyes still closed, Sawyer continued to relate whatever thoughts entered his mind. “Blood. She saved the fish hooks. So much blood in the house with the…with the white curtains.”

Dazed as he remained, Zafiro didn’t miss the torment in his voice. “Blood?” Was he recalling a terrible memory, something the nuns believed he wanted to forget? “Blood in the house? Was it your house?”

“He rode standing up. Jaime’s gone. Well-known and feared in two lands.”

Zafiro made no reply; cold dread sat in her belly like a lump of ice. “Who, Sawyer?” she finally whispered. “Who…who is well-known and feared in two lands?”
God, please do not let him say what I think he is going to say!

Sawyer opened his eyes and saw her eyes staring down at him. Jewels, he thought. Blue as the heart of a flame, the color of those pretty eyes. “Gang,” he mumbled. “The Quintana Gang.”

Zafiro’s heart lurched as if someone had prodded it with a poker. A gamut of emotions twisted inside her.

Shock.

Fear.

Anger.

And finally resolution.

He knew. Sawyer knew who they all were, and now there was only one thing she could do.

Santa
Maria.

She would have to kill him.

Chapter Three

“H
is fever is finally breaking, chiquita
,” Tia announced. “When he awakens he is going to be able to talk to us. He will still be tired, but he will speak to us normally instead of ranting like he did when he had the fever.”

From the threshold of Sawyer’s room Zafiro watched Sawyer move his legs and arms. Sweat poured off his face, shoulders, and chest as though he’d only just emerged from a bath.

His health was returning just when she would take his life.

But when would she do it? she asked herself for the hundredth time. Her decision to kill him was already four days old. But the first day she’d been too busy with a second attempt to build a chicken coop. She still hadn’t completed the task, and in her opinion one couldn’t commit a slaying when one hadn’t finished one’s chores. The day after that she’d gone to the convent to advise the nuns about Sawyer’s encounter with Mariposa and also to have them borrow Rudolfo’s gun again. Of course, she hadn’t told them why she needed the gun. Telling a group of nuns that she would soon be a murderess just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do.

When she’d returned to La Escondida from the convent, she’d seen to all the chores. After having climbed up and down the mountain and then toiled for hours, she’d been too weary to carry off an assassination.

Yesterday had been Sunday. Taking a life on the Lord’s day was something she refused to even consider. And today…well, today she hadn’t found a second of time for the killing. Tia hadn’t left Sawyer’s room since daybreak, and Zafiro was not going to perform his execution in front of the dear woman who believed him to be her son.

Another dilemma also plagued her. What manner of death would she choose for him? The decision deserved much careful thought.

She had the gun, yes, but what was the most comfortable way to die?

“Now that I know he is out of danger, I go to rest, Zafiro,” Tia said. Stifling a yawn, she swept her hair out of her eyes, then tried to swat Jengibre off the bed, to no avail. The chicken merely positioned herself more comfortably within the nest of sheets.

Tia let the hen be. “Zafiro, you will watch Francisco for a few hours and make sure he sleeps peacefully?”

Zafiro couldn’t imagine a more peaceful sleep than death.
“Si,
Tia. I will do what I must to give him a long, long rest. Please go sleep now.”

When Tia was gone Zafiro fidgeted with her skirt for a while, then paced around the room, her heart skipping beats every time she concentrated on what she was about to do. Finally, she stopped in front of the window and gazed out at the peaks of the Sierras.

“Forgive me, Grandfather,” she whispered to the mental image she had of him. “I know you never killed. Not once, and neither did Maclovio, Lorenzo, Pedro, or my father. But there was always another way for you and the men. Some way to avoid spilling blood. For me there is no other way. I must kill this man because I can think of no other way to protect our people.”

Her head bowed low, she left the room, but returned shortly and laid an array of items on the floor near Sawyer’s bed. As she closed and locked the door, tears burned her eyes.

Santa
Maria,
she was about to destroy a life. Slaughter a young, healthy, and vitally handsome man who should have at least fifty more years ahead of him.

This day, this beautiful, sunny morning, would be his last.

Drying her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, she sniffled and tried to summon the courage she would need to send Sawyer to his Maker.

“This chicken laid an egg in my bed.”

The sudden sound of his voice caused her to shriek with surprise and whirl to face him. “You scared me!” Taking deep breaths to try to slow her pounding heart, she saw him watching her intently.

Had he heard her speak to her grandfather about the killing? “How long have you been awake?”

Sawyer tried to shrug, but his shoulder injury wouldn’t let him. Still, he felt better and he realized he was no longer sick with fever.

In fact, he was hungry. “I woke up a few seconds ago when I heard your sniffling. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”

His apology made her feel worse. He was nice, she mused. Just as the nuns said he was.

It would sure be a lot easier to kill him if he were rude and cruel.

“You’re the girl from the convent. Why were you crying?”

“My tears have no business with you, Sawyer Donovan. And do not be nice to me.”

He frowned. If her voice had been any sharper she could have sliced steel with it. “Don’t be nice to you?”

“That is right. Do not be nice to me.”

Her command didn’t make a bit of sense to him, but he complied. “All right. Get the hell out of my room to do all your damn crying, woman, and get this blasted chicken out of my bed.”

She stared at him, unable to believe what she’d heard him say.
“What?”

“You said for me not to be nice to you.” Grimacing, he touched the thick white bandage on his shoulder. “And considering the way I feel, it’s a hell of a lot easier to be mean than it is to be nice.”

“You are in my house, and you dare to be mean with me?” She marched toward the bed, stopping a few feet away. “I do not think you have enough pickles in your barrel.”

“Pickles?”

“Your barrel needs more pickles?” Zafiro rephrased the question. Oh, how did that expression go? “You are crazy.”

Finally, he understood. “I’m one pickle short of a barrel.”

“Yes, that is what I said. Now, do not be mean with me in my own house.”

“You don’t want me to be nice, and I didn’t ask you to bring me here, got that? The last thing I remember is being attacked by a cougar, so it must have been your own decision to bring me into your home and—”

“If you had not chased me from the convent, none of this would have hap—”

“I thought you’d stolen—”

“Well, I did not steal anything—”

“How was I supposed to know—”

“Basta!
Enough! I will not listen to you say one more word!”

Her shouting quieted him, but not because her anger intimidated him. Actually, he couldn’t have cared less how mad she was.

It was his preference to study her in silence that induced him to cease arguing with her.

And study her he did.

Standing in the middle of the sparsely furnished room, she rocked back and forth on her heels. Her ebony hair flowed down her body like melted midnight, the ends of those thick tresses curling around her gently rounded hips. Her breasts strained against her white blouse. They weren’t overly large, but her shirt appeared to be too small for her.

“You are staring at my breasts.”

Her immodest statement made him smile. “Sorry.”

“You cannot help it. Azucar said that men like to do that, so I think that it is a liking you were born with. Men also like to touch and taste women’s breasts. I know everything there is to know about lovemaking.”

“Oh, really?” The conversation seemed highly improper, but if it didn’t bother her, he certainly wasn’t going to let it bother him. “What else do you know?”

“Everything Azucar told me.”

“I see. So who is this authority on lovemaking, your beau? Husband?”

Zafiro raised one eyebrow. “Azucar is a woman. A very experienced woman. Her name means ‘sugar’ in Spanish. I do not think there is anyone in the whole world who knows as much about lovemaking as Azucar, but it would take me too long to tell you all the things she has explained to me.”

Sawyer decided that if Azucar—with all her experience—was as beautiful as this dark-haired girl, he’d like to meet her. “I’ll be in this bed for a long time. You could tell me a little bit, couldn’t you?”

“You will not be in the bed for much longer.” He’d soon be in his grave, she thought.

She had to tell him. He had every right to know his fate. Drawing herself up to her full height she prayed he wouldn’t notice how her knees were shaking. “You are going to die.”

He smiled again. “I have to admit that I’ve had better days, but I don’t think I’m going to die.”

“You are.” Pretending there was something in her eye, Zafiro quickly wiped away another tear.

Santa
Maria,
she had to get hold of herself! She was her charges’ sole protection, and who was more important, after all? This stranger, Sawyer Donovan, who had never done a thing for her? Or her people, who had taken care of her since her mother left her in their care when she was a newborn?

“You are going to die, Sawyer Donovan. I want you to die, and for that I am very sorry.”

Her admission stunned him into a long moment of silence. “If you wanted me to die why did you bring me here and sew me up? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just leave me on the mountain and let that cougar and the vultures—”

“I did not sew you up. Tia did.”

Sawyer decided that Tia was the plump woman with the motherly demeanor. “She might have sewn me up, but you did your share, too.”

“That was before. Things have changed. Your life, it does not have the value of a pile of peas now because—”

“Peas.” Hadn’t he heard her mention peas before? “What is it with you and peas? I remember you saying something about them… I don’t know. A few days ago, I guess. Something about letting the peas flow.”

“Yes, that is what I said. To let the peas flow means to tell what you are hiding.”

“Spill the beans.
Beans.”

“Peas, beans, or even radishes…What does it matter? A vegetable is a vegetable—”

“And the expression you just tried to use is not
worth a hill of beans.
My life is not worth a hill of beans.”

“It means the same…”

“Maybe. But the way you said it didn’t make sense.”

She bristled. “Do you make funny with me?”

He ignored her irritation. “No, I am not making fun of you. Who are you, anyway?”

She ignored his question. “A cat died from being curious, you know.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

She nodded. “Whose cat was it?”

“What?”

“Whose cat—”

“No one’s cat. It’s only a saying.”

She couldn’t understand why anyone would make up an expression about a cat who didn’t even exist, but she had more important things to do than try to untangle such twisted logic.

She had to put Sawyer to death. Her heart skipping beats again and her palms so wet with perspiration that she could not even dry them in the folds of her skirt, she walked nearer to the bed and pointed to the various articles she’d arranged on the floor.

Sawyer looked down and saw a knife, a long piece of rope, a bucket of water, and a gun.

“Choose your death, Sawyer Donovan. I can shoot you, stab you, hang you, or drown you. Or,” she added, spying his pillow and slipping it out from under his head, “I could suffocate you. It is your death. You choose.”

Her announcement shocked him. “You… You’re going to kill me? Why?”

“Because you know who we are.” Visions of Sawyer leading Luis to La Escondida filled her mind, causing her to shudder inwardly. Even the possibility of Sawyer turning her men in to the law horrified her.

She bent and picked up the knife, a long, rust-covered dagger with a handle cocooned in old spider webs.

Sawyer eyed the knife. What with his injuries, could he stop her if she lunged at him in the next moment?

God. Beautiful though the woman was, she was deranged. His apprehension deepened. “Look,” he said, his gaze moving back and forth from her eyes to the ancient blade in her hands, “I have no idea who you are, so—”

“You try to blind me with fleece.” Zafiro tapped the flat side of the knife on her palm. “You
do
know who we are, because Maclovio opened the sack and the cat jumped out.”

“Maclovio?”