The Wildest Heart

“Is that all you have to say?” But he released me, and stood glowering down at me.

“You were mistaken if you thought I turned your offer down because of some secret passion I cherish for your half brother. I do not think I am capable of loving any man strongly enough to give up everything for him and be content to be his slave and bear his children. In fact I would choose not to marry at all if I could, but if I must, then it will be only to a man who would not ask such things of me.”

I managed a faint smile at his chagrined expression and added firmly: “You must not imagine that I am not appreciative of your concern for my future happiness, but when you think carefully about it I’m sure you’ll realize what a disobedient wife I would make to any man!”

I could not be sure, for a few tense moments, whether Julio would accept my words or not. He stepped deliberately closer to me, until I could feel the heat of his body, and put a hand under my chin.

I refused to cringe, forcing myself to meet his darkly frowning gaze.

“It is true. I do not think you would be a submissive wife. You would make a better warrior, like the sister of Victorio, who fights as well as any of our young men.” His lips stretched in an unwilling smile and he said gruffly, “So—it seems you will remain my sister after all. And I am not to be the brother who saves your life.”

“Saves my life? What do you mean?” I frowned at him. He shook his head and moved casually to the great earthenware crock that was always kept full of cold, clear water for drinking.

“How fierce you can look, nidee. I can see that you have never learned proper respect in the presence of men!” His mood seemed to have changed like lightning from anger and resentment to light teasing, as he dipped up water and drank it.

“Julio!”

He shrugged carelessly. “It was only a dream my grandfather had. But the dreams of a shaman are never without some deeper significance. Perhaps it will be Ramon who saves your life someday, and you will marry him. He dreamed of a white bird pursued by hawks, who flew blindly into a hunter’s net. Two of the hawks were clever enough to understand it was a trap and soared away, looking for other prey. But the other dropped down like an arrow from the sky and slashed at the hunter’s face with his sharp beak and talons until he was blinded, and the white bird was free again and flew away under the shadow of the hawk’s wings.”

“What a horrible dream! And if I were a bird I

’m sure I’d be a hawk instead of a silly, frightened dove.”

But he only gave me a sardonic look, and went away as quietly as he had come, without another word to me. To tell the truth, the scene that had taken place between us had left me more shaken than I wanted to admit, and I was relieved to see Julio leave at last.

I went back to chopping meat into tiny cubes in a thoughtful frame of mind, still hearing the echo of Julio’s voice beating against my ears.

“My mother… my bastard brother… they are lovers, or have you deliberately made yourself blind?”

This, then, was the reason for Luz’s unhappiness, for the veiled resentment that both Julio and Ramon felt. And Elena herself, who was the center, the manipulator of all their lives. I thought I was beginning to know her, but I realized that I knew only as much as she permitted me to know. She exercised a subtle fascination, a subtle power and it seemed as if only Todd Shannon had been impervious to it.

Todd—his name came into my mind with a jolt. How long since I had thought of Todd? Had I deliberately tried to shut him out of my mind because I was afraid to think of him? If only I had listened to Todd, if only I had paid some attention to all of Mark’s warnings! Unbidden came the memory of Todd crushing me in his arms until I was breathless, kissing my angry protests into silence. What was I doing here, in the middle of enough violence and dark intrigue to fill the pages of a volume of Greek or Roman tragedy?

Twenty-Three

It was hot in the kitchen, and I could feel the perspiration pouring down my back and between my breasts. I pushed a strand of damp hair off my forehead with the back of one hand impatiently, wishing that my fingers were not so slippery and my mind so active… and then it happened.

The knife slipped. All I can recall now is feeling a sharp, stinging sensation, and then I heard the knife clatter down onto the table, and I was staring down stupidly at my fingers as if they did not belong to me, and at the blood that spurted from the deep cut across two of them. I knew that I ought to do something about it. I could not stand here bleeding all over the meat I had been cutting up for dinner and the table and the floor. I suppose it was a combination of shock and annoyance at myself for having been so clumsy that held me there as if I had been paralyzed, disinterestedly watching the gushing of my own blood.

Suddenly the door was kicked open and I looked up in a daze, and saw the one person I had least wanted or expected to see.

“Luz? Where in hell is everyone?”

The doorway was low enough to make him duck his head when he came in, narrow enough so that he seemed to block out the bright sunlight that had streamed in for a moment, almost blinding me with its sudden brilliance.

I was dressed as Luz usually dressed and I think that during those first few moments, until his eyes became used to the dimness, he mistook me for Luz. “There are times when I think everyone around here goes a little crazy! Where’s Ramon? And what in hell did you say to Julio to make him look so grim? I had to shoot one of the horses.” He turned away to the water crock and began to drink thirstily out of the dipper, grumbling all the while. “Of course it had to be the one I was riding, and then I had to walk all the way back here in the broiling sun. And Julio—you’d think he’d stop and give me a ride back, but no, he gave me a sullen answer instead and wouldn’t stop. Why are you standin’ there just staring at me, for God’s sake?”

And then, over the rim of the tin dipper I saw his eyes widen very slightly, the green flecks coming alive in them when he recognized me at last as he turned back to face me.

“Rowena? To find you in the kitchen…”

I think I must already have been rather light-headed from loss of blood, for I began to back away from the look of surprise in his face, and felt suddenly weak, so that I almost fell and had to clutch at the table for support. I felt the sticky warmth of my own blood through the folds of my skirt, and then with an angry exclamation, he was there, clearing the room in a single stride.

He caught my wrist, and I cried out.

“Jesus Christ! What were you trying to do? Stand there and watch yourself bleed to death? If you can’t chop meat without cutting your fingers off… come over here.”

He dragged me across the room with him by the wrist. Sheer weakness made me fall against him when he stopped, tearing the red bandanna from around his neck and dipping it into the water crock with no regard for hygiene or cleanliness.