Until the Day Breaks (California Rising Book 1) (12 page)

Gathering a pair of lovely undergarments and the simplest dress in the pile, a brown woolen one, along with the towel and soap, she rushed from the room and down the stairs as quietly as possible, praying she didn’t encounter him on the way. The last thing she wanted was his company at the creek. After their last episode, she didn’t trust him one bit.

The stream was cold but crystal clear and deep enough in the middle to submerge herself completely. She was a good swimmer, so she didn’t worry about slipping on a rock or being swept away by the current. What made her nervous was how fast darkness fell upon the land. She tried not to think about wolves or other large animals like bears. Scrubbing her body vigorously, she realized she’d not had a bath in a fresh stream in far too long. She even washed her hair, though now there would be no way to hide her visit to the water. In New England, when weather permitted, she and her grandmother bathed in a nearby stream. As a child, she loved those bath outings and savored the chilly water, even though gooseflesh covered her body and she shivered as she left the water.

Upon returning to the rocky bank, she dried herself as best she could, wrapping her hair in the towel before donning the silky undergarments and then the gown, which was soft and warm and clung to her frame in an appealing way.

Pulling on her boy’s boots, she scooped up the stable boy’s clothes as darkness closed in fast. The night air carried a distinct chill. Maybe winter was not finished with California yet. The screech of an owl startled her so badly she let out a small scream. Roman appeared from behind a tree and joined her. She was so taken aback she couldn’t speak for a moment. The lengthening shadows made it impossible to read the expression on his face.

“Were you spying on me?” she finally managed.

“I was protecting you.”

“You invaded my privacy.”

“Your privacy means nothing to me. It’s your life I care about.”

Angry and embarrassed, she yanked the towel from her damp, tangled hair. “My modesty matters much to me, as you well know.”

“Modesty can kill in California.”

“Do not your aunt and sisters bathe by themselves down here?”

“They don’t bathe at night, nor do they bathe alone.” He snatched the towel from her hands.

She shoved the soap at him too. “You should have made your presence known, as any gentleman would have.”

“You should not have left the hacienda by yourself, as any lady wouldn’t have.”

“How did you know when I left the hacienda?”

“I followed you.”

Heat flooded her. He’d watched her bathe. She was horrified. Dropping the stable boy’s clothes, she slapped his face. The sound of her hand connecting with his cheek rent the still of the night.

He didn’t react to the blow at all. She may as well have hit a stone wall, his cheek felt that unyielding.

“You watched the whole time!” It was not a question, but a furious accusation. Her voice shook with indignation.

“What has happened to my gentle little dove? Is not anger a sin,
pequeña
?”

She scooped up the boy’s clothes, and rushed ahead of him, running to the hacienda to escape him. Tears streaked her cheeks, though she was mad as a wet hen. She felt like a wet hen. Her damp hair drenched the back of her dress. A chill filled her that she couldn’t shake. Chickens squawked in the oak branches when she raced into the yard. Startled by their flurry, she swallowed another frightened cry and hurried into his house, shivering uncontrollably.

At first, he was furious when he saw her rushing away from the hacienda, endangering herself out there alone, but then he was so captivated by what unfolded at the creek, he couldn’t bring himself to announce his presence. Now he regretted what he’d seen. He couldn’t get the image of Rachel naked and all too beautiful out of his head, and it fueled his desire to have her and be done with it. What was wrong with her? Did she have no regard for her life? He’d never met a woman so fearless of the wilderness. Maybe it was her East Coast upbringing. Maybe wild animals and untamed men weren’t a problem in New England. But he doubted that. Most men could become untamed given the right circumstances.

He walked several loops around the house to cool off, checking the windows and plank doors for security. A black cat raced out of the Roses of Castile. The cat ran across the path right in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. He resisted superstition, but the vision of the devil in the painting rose in his mind. A fresh wave of anger hit him that she insisted on running off alone into the woods. He would put a stop to that here. If she insisted on baths in the creek, she could wash herself with him there. Better yet, they could bathe together. He made several more jaunts around the house to get a grip on his emotions. Never had a woman inflamed him this way. She was like a fever in his blood. A sickness he couldn’t shake.

The aroma of roasted meat wafted to him as he walked through the hacienda door. Heading for the dining room, he found the table set for two, the food already there, looking delicious. Several servants waited for him. The Indian women smiled with pleasure upon his arrival. He was popular with the servants, especially the women.

“Don Roman, you are ready to eat now?” the older servant inquired.

“Si,”
he said. “I will return shortly with the señorita.”

He went in search of Rachel. She wasn’t in his room. His mother’s trunk was closed. Except for being pulled away from the wall, it appeared never to have been disturbed. The room appeared untouched, with everything in order. The other upstairs bedrooms were empty and in order as well.

In the
sala,
he found her sitting in a chair, reading her Bible by candlelight. The servants always lit the candle lanterns throughout the hacienda just after sundown. A damp golden braid draped over her shoulder. He missed her hair tumbling in waves down her back as it had all day. Or wet and slicked back, clinging to her shoulders like a golden veil after she’d submerged herself in the stream.

“You must be hungry,” he said from the entryway, reining in his thoughts as he looked her over. She was lovely in his mother’s dress. Something inside him softened.

She didn’t glance up from her reading.

“The servants have prepared our meal. Come and eat with me.”

She ignored him, continuing to read. He watched her, his regret rising. She brought out the best and the worst in him. He sighed, wishing for the ease between them that had been there earlier today.

“We must get something straight between us.” She rose from the chair, snapping her Bible closed and clutching the book to her chest. “We are not married. The liberties you take with me are sinful.” Color stained her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell, constrained by the bodice of his mother’s dress, highlighting her slender figure and the gentle swell of her bosom. The gown was too short for her, and she still wore the stable boy’s boots.

Again, he deeply regretted surrendering to Sarita’s seduction at Rancho El Rio Lobo
.
The deep scratches on his back causing blood to seep through his shirt were also from Sarita’s nails, not entirely his uncle’s beating. When Rachel mentioned the blood on his shirt today on their ride home, he felt shame. And shame again now as she accused him of sinfulness with her. She had no idea what sinfulness really was between a man and a woman.

After giving in to Sarita, he’d felt sickened. He’d ordered her to return to her gringo husband, and then he lay there on the bunk in El Rio Lobo’s outbuilding thinking only of Rachel. It was then he decided he’d take her to his home. By law, she was his now. He didn’t trust Sarita or her evil-eyed
dueña
. Nor did he trust Rachel’s father. He wasn’t about to abandon her to the likes of the lot of them. Nor was he used to feeling ashamed of his actions. Nothing had bothered his conscience in a long time. And nothing had so stirred his heart as this woman holding a Bible before him now. With everything inside him, he longed to protect her, but perhaps the real protection she needed was from him.

“Say something,” she demanded.

“Read to me.”

“Read what?”

“What you were reading when I interrupted you.”

She opened the Bible, flipping through a handful of pages before settling on the verse. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

“Read more.”

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

“My heart is not pure,” he admitted, feeling chastised by a God he couldn’t see and couldn’t feel.

She closed the Bible. “Only the blood of Christ can purify a heart. No matter how great or small our sins may be, his blood makes us clean.”

“What sins do you have?” He couldn’t help but smile thinking about her sins. What could she do to make God angry?

She bowed her head and would not answer him.

“Please tell me how you could possibly sin,
pequeña
.”

“You.”

She spoke so softly he wasn’t sure he heard her correctly.

“You,” she said louder. “I have sinned with you.”

How he wanted to take her in his arms, comfort her, but he didn’t dare. In his home, she was under his authority. He vowed to treat her with the utmost respect, like a guest. Guests were treated like kings and queens in California.

He noticed the shimmer of tears in her eyes. She was such a gentle spirit, another quality that reminded him of his mother. “Do I grieve you?”

“What I feel with you grieves me.” When she blinked, tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Do I repulse you then?” His heart pounded in his ears, waiting for her answer.

“You do not repulse me,” she admitted.

“Do I please you?” He put his hand on his chest, willing his heart to stop racing.

Their gazes locked and held. She broke the trance between them by looking down at the Bible in her arms. “Lust is a sin,” she said, not meeting his eyes any longer.

“Then my sin knows no bounds.”

She reached out a hand to him. “Pray with me.”

He didn’t move any closer, didn’t take the hand she offered. Now that he was certain she felt passion for him too, he didn’t know how he’d resist not pressing his affections upon her while they were alone in this house.

When he didn’t move toward her, she came to him. “Pray with me,” she beseeched again, her eyes awash with tears.

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, feeling her delicate hand nestle trustingly into his calloused palm.

“God, you know our weaknesses. You know without you we are consumed by our own desires. You know aside from your grace, we cannot resist temptation. Protect us from the evil one. Send your mighty angels to shelter us. Do not let evil overcome us, Lord, but let your perfect will be done in our lives. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”

Roman opened his eyes. Her eyes shone brightly, and she smiled. He longed to explain to her the turmoil raging inside him. How he couldn’t control his lust or his anger or his longing for the Americans to leave his homeland. But not her. He didn’t want her to leave. Yet he dreamed of California being free. Free from Mexico. Free from the United States. Freely ruled by the
gente de razón.
How could she understand all this? How could she understand the anger that sometimes overcame him? How could she understand that he’d killed men and had his share of women? And he wanted her for his woman. Oh, how he wanted her.

She smiled up at him, her sweet innocence his undoing.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, swallowing something that felt very close to fear—an emotion he wasn’t accustomed to at all.

Her stomach grumbled in response. They both laughed. Neither had eaten more than a few bites of the dried meat today on the trail. He realized he was hungry too.

“Come, you have never tasted such food as Lupe cooks.” He offered his arm to her, and they left the room together.

When Sarita discovered Roman gone from El Rio Lobo, along with Rachel, she fasted and prayed, but Tohic was not answering her petitions these days. Perhaps because she was still angry that he’d shown her Roman’s death through the bitter oak leaves in the creek last year, and so she had married the gringo
.
Then Roman returned to California very much alive. Sometimes Tohic toyed with people this way. His spirits of mischief and mayhem loved to tangle people’s lives, but never had Tohic done this with her before. She was his chosen vessel. Perhaps Tohic was jealous of her love for Roman. Certainly, Tohic knew her allegiance was sworn to him and him alone. Roman was but a man, and though she hungered for Roman more than any other man, only Tohic could satisfy her soul.

She had belonged to him since he saved her from death years ago. The fever had taken a number of lives in California that year after the sailors brought it ashore. That was the winter both her mother and Roman’s mother died, along with many others. The padre had already given Sarita, just a young girl at the time, the last rites, and everyone accepted she would die—except Chula.

In the dead of night, when everyone else was sleeping away their sorrow, her dueña had prepared the chamber for Tohic to come. Circling Sarita’s bed with candles, woodpecker feathers, and tiny woven baskets made especially in Tohic’s honor, Chula had cut herself, draining her own blood into the tiny baskets as an offering to Tohic. Life blood for a life. Then she chanted until the room grew very cold, very still, very mysterious.

Staring at the closed portal of the room, Chula had stiffened all of a sudden, her eyes rolling back in her head till only the whites showed in the flickering candlelight.

Burning with fever, watching Chula from her sickbed, Sarita had felt an intense rush of fear, followed by cold, like air from a grave. Something otherworldly and of great power had entered the room.

“He is here,” Chula whispered, and her eyes rolled back into place. “He has come to heal you,
mi hija
.” Chula had never had children of her own and treated Sarita like a beloved daughter.

“So I won’t die?” Sarita asked weakly. She could barely speak and felt her life ebbing away as surely as the trees were shedding their leaves with winter’s arrival.