Spring Bride

“There,” she said, “I have finished preparing the beef. Now…” Her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, señorita, what has happened to you? You are crying!”

Kyra swiped her hair back from her forehead and tried to smile.

“I’m not crying.”

“You are! Ay, caramba, I will kill the Señor with my bare hands for making you so unhappy!”

“Really,” Kyra sobbed, “I’m not crying. It’s the onions.”

“It is the chili peppers! I should have realized that your skin is not accustomed to their heat.” Dolores yanked open the freezer door, took out a bucket of ice cubes, and dumped them into the sink. “Quickly, señorita. Plunge your hands into the ice.”

“But I haven’t even touched the chilies yet. Dolores, really-”

“By the bones of my ancestors, what is going on here?”

Antonio’s angry roar filled the kitchen. Dolores turned to him, her face harsh with anger.

“The Señorita has hurt herself, and you are to blame.”

“Me? I am to blame because she is incompetent?”

Antonio’s angry words ground to a halt. He felt as if a fist had reached into his chest and were crushing his heart.

Kyra’s beautiful face was wet and swollen with tears; she was leaning over the sink, her hands buried in ice, sobbing as if she were in agony.

God in heaven, what had happened? What had his anger and his damnable pride done to her?

He crossed the room in a couple of swift strides, pushed Dolores out of the way, and clasped Kyra’s shoulders.

“What is it, querida?” Gently, he took her hands and lifted them from the ice, girding himself for a gusher of cnmson blood or the sight of raw, burned flesh. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it rushed from his lungs in relief. Kyra’s hands were as they’d always been feminine, graceful, the fingers long and graceful, the nails a pale, delicate pink.

Antonio clasped those hands in his and drew her to him.

“Kyra,” he said urgently ”Querida, where are you injured?”

Tears flowed down her face. “I’m not,” she sobbed.

His face darkened. “How can you go on being so damnably stubborn at a moment like this? Dolores! Tell me what happened!”

Dolores made a helpless gesture. “She was helping me prepare dinnei.”

“Did she cut herself? I see no blood.”

“The chilies burned her. And the onions—”

Antonio’s jaw knotted. “She scalded herself! Where? Madre de Dios, Dolores, where is the injury?”

“Dammit,” Kyra said furiously, “you’re doing it again! I’m perfectly capable of being part of this conversation, Antonio, and I’m trying to tell you, I’m not burned or cut or anything else.”

“Then why are you weeping?”

“I’m not weeping! It’s these miserable onions. They’ve made my eyes tear. Is that so hard to understand?”

Antonio went very still. “Let me understand this,” he said in crisp English. “You are crying your heart out over a cutting board filled with vegetables?”

Her chin came up. ”You try slicing and dicing for a while, Your Lordship!”

He could feel the adrenaline still pumping furiously through his veins. Damn this woman! Did it never occur to her to speak up and say she was in trouble? How dare she be so haughty and impertinent when he was trying to help?

His mouth twitched. And how could she have the brass to be so outrageous when her small, straight nose was pink and damp, when her beautiful silver eyes were glittering with tears?

His mouth twitched again, and Kyra gave him a look as cold as the cubes in the sink.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Antonio said quickly. “Nothing is funny.”

“Good. Because I want to get back to work before you decide to add time to my sentence to make up for this little interruption!”

Antonio sighed. “Forgive me for imposing Señorita Landon on you, Dolores. I should have known better.”

“Yes,” Dolores said. “You should have. Of all things, to treat a woman with such discourtesy…”

The housekeeper was still grumbling as Antonio led a protesting Kyra through the sliding doors and out to the patio.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Where I can keep my eye on you.”

She glared up at him as he maneuvered her down the patio steps and through the garden. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid I’m going to sue you?”

“I made a mistake,” he said calmly. “I should have assessed your skills before turning you loose in my house.”

“I have no skills, remember? You said so yourself.”

“Perhaps I was mistaken.”

“Hah! The great Antonio Rodrigo Cordoba del Rey, mistaken? I didn’t think that was possible.”

Antonio pushed open a wooden door and shoved Kyra ahead of him. Familiar smells—horse, leather and hay—filled her nostrils.

“Keep your voice down,” he said coldly. “You will frighten my horses.”

“Well, isn’t that sweet? You don’t want your horses to be upset.”

“That is correct. Arabians have delicate dispositions.”

“You should have told me you had horses,” Kyra snapped, wrenching free of his hand.

“Why?” He smiled nastily. “You are not here to spend a holiday on horseback.”

“I know something about horses, that’s why!”

“I have no use for the pastimes of the wealthy, Kyra. My animals are not t

rained for dressage.”

Kyra’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it interesting how you talk about the rich as if you weren’t one of them?”

“It is true,” he said stiffly. “I have wealth. But I was not born to it.”

“Oh. And that, of course, makes all the difference?”

His jaw tightened at the sarcasm in her voice. “We are talking about you,” he said, his tone icy, “not me. Tell me what you can do to earn your keep without injuring yourself.”

“I can work with your horses. I can groom them, muck out your stalls—”

“I employ men to do that. Surely you know how to do something else.”

“What?” she demanded. “Something useful? You said it yourself, Antonio. I don’t know a damned thing that’s useful, unless you need somebody who knows whether it’s better to serve a cabernet or a Pinot Noir with beef Wellington!”

She was angrier than Antonio had ever seen her. Two spots of color had crept into her cheeks; her eyes glittered like bright silver ice after a winter rain.

Suddenly, a hunger so fierce it frightened him seized his heart. He had to get out of here, he had to get outside where there was air to breathe, where Kyra’s proximity, her softness and her femininity, wouldn’t drive him insane as they seemed to be doing now.

How could a woman with tearstained eyes, a woman dressed in a shirt and shorts heaven only knew how many sizes too big, look so beautiful? So desperately, incredibly desirable?

“You are in my way,” he said brusquely, and shouldered past her.

Kyra was right on his heels.

“What’s the matter, Antonio? Are you starting to think you ended up with a bad bargain?” She sidestepped around him, danced backward down the aisle as she kept up her taunting tirade. “I could have told you that you wouldn’t find any use for an overbred, underedcuated, absolutely useless—”

Antonio reached out, grabbed her, and shook her hard.

“Shut up,” he said furiously, “just shut the hell…”

With a desperate groan, his mouth fell on hers

Kyra’s reaction was instinctive. She jerked back, or tried to. But Antonio’s arms swept around her, crushing her to him.

“This is what you are best suited to,” he said fiercely. “You belong in my arms and in my bed, and you know it.”