“Unfortunately, that would make it quite impossible for us to have the children I desire.”
Sloan flushed. “I won’t live with you.”
“Then we can come to no agreement.”
Once again, Sloan was forced to halt his departure. “Wait-”
“You agree, then?”
Sloan raked her mind for some way to put off the inevitable and came up with an idea. “I’ll agree to marry you. But I’ll live with you as your wife only after Alejandro Sanchez is brought to justice.”
Cruz grimaced in frustration. “My brother’s murderer may never be caught.”
“I know,” Sloan replied. “But that is my condition.” She said it with the same intractability he had used when he laid down his own demands.
“I agree to your suggestion,” Cruz said at last. “We will be married now, and I will take the child when it is born and raise it as my own. Ours will be a marriage in name only-until such time as Alejandro Sanchez shall be brought to justice.”
It was obvious to Sloan when she shook hands with Cruz to seal their bargain that he expected to find Alejandro within days. But her luck had held. Alejandro had remained elusive, and she had remained at Three Oaks.
Over the years, while Cruz had hunted diligently for the bandido, he had kept their bargain and raised her son as his own. Now, at long last, Cruz had found Alejandro. Now, at long last, the arrogant Spaniard would expect her to fulfill her part of their bargain.
For reasons she could never explain to him, Sloan knew she could not do it.
She jumped away from the adobe wall as Cruz’s voice startled her from her reverie.
“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“The law will avenge Tonio’s death,” she said.
“Only if Alejandro is still in jail when the time comes to hang him.”
A frisson of alarm skittered down Sloan’s spine. “You don’t seriously believe he can escape, do you? He’s tied hand and foot, and he’ll be guarded by Texas Rangers.”
“He is treacherous and cunning. He must be clever to have stayed free this long. And there are those who would help him escape.”
“But-”
Cruz thrust a restless hand through his thick black hair. “But, as you say, I am worrying needlessly. We will surely see him hang tomorrow.”
“I won’t be staying for the hanging,” Sloan admitted. “I dropped everything and left in the middle of the cotton harvest when I got your message that Alejandro had been caught. My responsibilities as overseer can’t wait. And I have enough nightmares to disturb my sleep without adding one more.”
“Do you still see Tonio’s face at night, Cebellina?”
Sloan whirled on Cruz, keeping her voice low to avoid drawing the attention of those who passed by them. “Don’t speak to me of Tonio. And don’t speak to me a name intended for a novia. I’m not your sweetheart, Cruz, and I never will be.”
With a strength and quickness Sloan knew he was capable of, but had never seen for herself, Cruz grabbed her by the waist and carried her the few steps to a nearby alley. He pressed her up against the adobe wall and held her there with the length of his hard, sinewy body.
Sloan saw a ferocity in Cruz’s blue eyes, a harshness in his aristocratic features, an intransigence in the jutting chin rent by a shallow cleft, that she hadn’t seen since the grim day they had sealed their bargain.
There was nothing of the daring Spanish cavalier in the face of the man who held her, only brute strength, iron will and the knowledge of unrequited love.
“What do you expect from me, Cebellina?” With a hand that trembled under the force of the control he exerted, he caressed a wayward strand of the sable hair that had fostered his nickname for her.
His gaze touched her heart-shaped face, her large, intelligent brown eyes topped by delicately arched brows, her short, straight nose, the angled cheekbones leading to her confident chin, and finally her full, inviting pink lips, the lower of which she held clasped between her teeth.
When he spoke again, his rumbling voice held the fervor of someone who has reached the limit of his patience and will not be denied. “I have waited to claim you until Tonio’s murderer could be brought to justice. For four long years I have waited!
“I have kept my part of the bargain we made when you came to me swollen with my brother’s child and asked for my help. I accepted Tonio’s son from your arms when he was born and took him to Rancho Dolorosa to raise him as my own.
“And though I was often tempted, I did not ask of you my soul’s desire. I did not take from you that for which my body hungered. I waited. And I hunted down my brother’s murderer.
“Now you must keep your part of the bargain. I want you for my wife, Cebellina. And I will have you. Whether you see my brother’s face in your dreams or not!”
His mouth came down to claim Sloan’s, his touch rough with need, his teeth breaking the skin of her lip so she tasted blood. His hands freely roamed her body, commanding a response from her.
Sloan felt the insidious tingling sensation begin deep inside her, felt her lips softening under his, felt her mouth open for his searching tongue that ravaged her, mimicking the movement of his hips against her belly. She felt the rush of passion, felt the desire for him, for the joining of their bodies, begin to well and grow within her, as unwelcome as a weevil in cotton.
She could not allow this. She would not let herself be used by any man again! She shoved against Cruz’s chest, but she managed only to break the contact between their mouths.
“Stop it,” she hissed. “Let me go!”
Her hand rose up between them to cover Cruz’s lips. When she felt the wetness on his lips, it caused a shiver of desire within her so fierce that she felt compelled to deny it in words. “I don’t want you. I’ll never want you. And you can’t want me. I was your brother’s puta. Your brother’s whore!”
Abruptly, Cruz released her. His blue eyes had become chips of ice. The veins stood out along his neck, and his hands were balled into tightly clenched fists. “Never, never call yourself whore. Do you understand me?”
Sloan flinched when he raised his hand, afraid he would strike her. But she stood her ground, waiting. She was Rip Stewart’s daughter. It would not be the first time she had been struck in anger. She was no coward; she would not run from him.
His fist unfurled like a tight bud that finally flowers, and his callused fingertips smoothed over her freckled cheekbone in a caress as surprisingly soft as a cactus blossom. “Do you hate me so much, Cebellina?”
“I don’t hate you at all.”
“Then why do you resist me?”
“I can never love you, Cruz. A true marriage between us would only cause unhappiness for us both.”
“I will be the judge of what will make me happy.”
“Will you also judge what will please me?”