Shocked, Paul could only stare. Lord only knew what Colby would do. Paul had a sinking feeling she might throw a punch at the stranger and Paul couldn’t see himself winning a fistfight with the man when he was forced to defend his sister. He could see the stranger was the type of male who would hit sparks off of Colby.
The chestnut was acting like a lamb now and when Rafael stepped back to give her room, Colby expertly put the horse through its paces. His dark features a mask of indifference, Rafael circled Colby’s waist with one arm, lifting her bodily from the saddle. He was enormously strong and he practically tossed her to the ground.
Ginny clutched at Paul, gasping aloud. How dare he do such a thing! Appalled, she glanced at the woman watching with an air of annoyance and feigned boredom from the pickup. To humiliate Colby like that!
The moment the arm spanned her waist, Colby felt an unexpected connection. A heat from him seeped through the pores of her skin and spread throughout her bloodstream. Color stained Colby’s face as she pulled free of his hold. Her chin went up, emerald eyes sparkling dangerously. “Thank you, Mr. . . . ?” Her voice was velvet with exaggerated patience. She knew very well this had to be the
other
obnoxious De La Cruz brother. Who else? This was what she needed tonight. More misery!
He bowed slightly from the waist, a curiously courtly gesture. “De La Cruz. Rafael De La Cruz at your service. I believe you met my brother Nicolas and, of course, Juan and Julio Chevez. You, undoubtedly, are Colby Jansen.”
Taking the hat Paul handed to her, she slapped it against her leg to remove the dust. Her eyes slid over Rafael’s imposing figure once, then returned to his broad shoulders before she seemed to dismiss him. “To what do we owe this honor?” Even Paul had to wince at the honey dripping sarcastically in her voice. “I thought your brother and I covered everything needed in our last
friendly
discussion.”
His ice-cold black eyes moved broodingly over her face, rested on her lush mouth, on the thin trickle of blood at the corner of her lips. His gut clenched hotly, and for a moment desire flared in his eyes. “Did you think we would give up so easily?” His voice whispered over her skin, soft, hypnotic, mesmerizing. Colby actually felt him touching her, his fingertips trailing over her skin so that little flames seemed to dance through her, yet his hands were at his sides.
She shook off the effects of his voice and eyes by concentrating on the woman in the cab of the pickup. “Is your lady friend ill?”
At her words the woman lifted her head and glared at Colby. She pushed open the door of the cab and shifted so she could carefully turn on the seat, showing off long legs in spiked heels. She was a tall willowy blonde with white skin and perfect makeup. In her cool lavender dress she looked like a fashion model. She didn’t bother to hide the contempt she felt as she approached, her eyes sliding over Colby, taking in her faded dusty jeans, torn shirt, dirt-streaked face, and wild braided hair.
Colby, all too aware of the contrast in their appearances, the scars on her hands and arms from bites and wicked hooves, lifted a hand to her unruly hair. Before she could attempt to tidy it Rafael caught her wrist, easily pulling her arm down, his expression harsh. Electricity arced between them, jumping from his skin to hers and back again. That slow burn was back, heating, thickening her blood. For a moment their eyes locked, clashed, a terrible sexual hunger leaping between them, devouring them. Colby’s chin went up in that familiar challenging way her brother and sister recognized. She pulled her hand away from him, not liking the way her body seemed to have a mind of its own around him.
“Louise Everett,” the woman introduced herself, laying a possessive hand on Rafael’s forearm. “You know my brother, Sean, and his wife, Joclyn. The De La Cruzes, their servants, and I are all staying on Sean’s ranch.” She made it sound as if she had arrived with the De La Cruz family. “When they heard Rafael and I were coming over to see you they asked me to deliver a message to you.” She stared for a moment disdainfully at the dirt on Colby’s forehead. “Joclyn would like
her daughter to have riding lessons.” She examined her long fingernails for damage. “Although it looks to me as if that horse has thrown you more than once. I want my dreadfully crippled little niece learning from someone qualified, someone competent.”
Paul’s deep breath was audible. Colby was a professional. The best. Her reputation for training horses was known throughout the States. He wanted the snobs gone before he lost his temper and did something foolish. He took an aggressive step forward, his hands curling into fists. He didn’t care if De La Cruz was a dangerous man and could beat him to a bloody pulp, no one was going to put Colby in such a position and get away with it, not as long as he was around. And that crack about the De La Cruzes’ servants—the woman meant the Chevez brothers. Paul was a Chevez, so was Ginny. Did that mean if the family succeeded in taking them to Brazil, they would be servants instead of ranch owners? Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Ginny. She was glaring as angrily as he was.
“There’s been some mistake.” Colby’s voice was, if anything, softer than usual. She crossed to the thermos of lemonade more, Paul was certain, to keep from punching De La Cruz than anything else. She had that look in her eyes Paul knew very well. “I don’t give riding lessons, Ms. Everett. I don’t have time for anything like that.” Her green eyes slashed at Rafael’s hard features. “Evidently Mr. De La Cruz has so many
servants
running his ranch for him he’s forgotten what hard work actually entails.”
Crippled little niece.
The words echoed in her mind so that she wanted to clap her hands over her ears and drown out the sound, the image of the poor child obviously unloved by her aunt.
Rafael’s icy black eyes seemed to smolder but the rugged features remained impassive. He moved then,
glided,
a ripple of muscle and sinew, no more. She blinked and he was beside Colby, crowding her close, leaning down to remove the thin trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth with a brush of his thumb. Her heart jumped at his touch. Her body actually ached for his. It was damned maddening and Colby wanted it to stop. She recognized that he would be dominant sexually. It was bred into his very blood and bones. He would demand
everything from his woman,
own
her, possess her, until there would be no going back—ever. And she hated that she was so susceptible to his dark sensuality when she prided herself on independence.
“Louise misunderstood the message,” he said softly, his black eyes unblinking on Colby’s face. Burning. Devouring.
Hungry.
He seemed to be looking right into her soul. She had the uncomfortable feeling he might actually be reading her thoughts. She watched as he raised his hand to his mouth and touched the pad of his thumb to his tongue almost as if he was savoring the taste of her.
Her entire body clenched. She found herself staring almost helplessly at him. The idea should have repelled her, but he was sinfully sexy, and she was mesmerized by him, the way he moved, the way his eyes were so hungry as his gaze drifted over her face. He had the ability to make a woman feel as if she was the
only
woman on earth. The only one he saw. He also made her feel as if he would take her, throw her over his shoulder and stride off with her if she defied him. It was unsettling—and, God help her, exhilarating.
“Colby.” Ginny caught at her sister’s hand, suddenly afraid for her. The stranger was looking at her older sister as if she belonged to him, as if he might be a wicked sorcerer bent on casting a spell on her.
Colby shook off the sexual web Rafael was weaving, silently cursing. This man was truly dangerous. He would
own
a woman, make her a sexual slave with no thought but to please him. He was an erotic temptation no woman could ever afford to succumb to. They had sent the first brother to order her to turn over the ranch and the children to the Chevez family and when that didn’t work, they obviously sent the first string in to deal with her. She lifted her chin in challenge. “What message exactly were you supposed to deliver?”
“Joclyn would appreciate you meeting her later this evening at the saloon.” The voice was so beautiful she ached to hear more. She forced her hands to stay at her sides instead of pressing them to her ears. “I believe she wanted to do you the courtesy of speaking to you herself.”
Colby found herself clutching at Ginny’s hand for solace.
Rafael De La Cruz was capable of casting spells, a dark sorcerer weaving black magic, and she was highly susceptible. She wanted him gone before she fell into the depths of his black eyes. He was leaning so close to her she could smell his masculine scent. Outdoors. Sexual. Definitely male. “It seems to be very important to her.”
“I’m very busy this time of year,” Colby said a little desperately. She couldn’t look away from him, not for a moment. His eyes were so hungry, so needy, so demanding. And damn him, her body actually ached for his.
Crippled little niece.
She couldn’t let the image go.
“Then I will have to stay and convince you,” he said, his accent very much in evidence. Everything in him, every cell, his heart and soul, his brain, even the buried demon roared at him to chain her to his side. He could do it, just take her. There was no one capable of stopping him. He was used to nothing, no one opposing his will. Certainly not a little slip of a woman. A human woman.
“Eight o’clock then,” she said impatiently, trying not to look as frightened as she felt. No one had ever made her feel as confused and edgy as he did. There was something possessive in his eyes, something that seemed to claim her. She had never been truly afraid of anyone before. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work.” He was the enemy. Closely associated with a family who hadn’t wanted her or her mother. Someone who would consider her brother and sister servants in a land they knew nothing of. She had to remember that. She had to remember how hard their father had fought to give his children a legacy of their own. Rafael De La Cruz had that Latin charm she’d heard so much about but had never experienced. The man was lethal. Deliberately Colby looked at Louise. She was obviously drowsy and purring like a domesticated cat. She looked very much as if the two had just made love. Louise was stroking his arm and looking up at him with a singularly rapt expression on her face, one that turned Colby’s stomach.
Rafael gestured imperiously toward the pickup, and Louise sent him a smile, her face lighting up at his attention, and she obediently went to the truck. The motion set Colby’s teeth on
edge.
Why didn’t you just snap your fingers?
The De La Cruz brothers had a way of acting as if women were inferior to them and it irritated the hell out of her. That wasn’t altogether true. It was more like
every
man or woman, every human being on earth, was considered inferior to them.
Rafael turned his head and looked at her almost as if he could read her thoughts. For a moment she froze, almost afraid to move. She had never seen eyes so hard or cold. If his eyes were a mirror to his soul, this man was truly a monster. He made no move to follow Louise; instead his gaze swept over Colby’s slender figure, his merciless features devoid of expression. “Why do you persist in this nonsense? This is work for a man, not one such as you. It is obvious you have spent most of the afternoon on the ground.”
“It’s none of your business, De La Cruz.” Colby’s pretense at good manners was thrown to the wind. Colby had no idea why she felt so threatened but she had the impression she was caught in the crosshairs of a powerful scope.
“I believe that is one of my horses you are breaking. How did you get him?” He asked it softly, as if he could not be bothered becoming disturbed by their disagreement.
“Like a thief in the night I crept into your corrals and made off with a number of them,” she mocked sarcastically. “Try not to be more of a jerk than you can help. Juan Chevez sent over sixteen head. It must have been a conscience thing.”
“The Chevez family has suffered greatly over this misunderstanding,” he replied patiently. “They wish for nothing more than to heal the breach in their family. As I consider their family a part of mine and under my protection, it is of equal importance to me.” His black gaze didn’t blink once as it bored into her green eyes. She felt
hunted.
More than once she’d had to track cougar after her horses, and they had looked at her with just that same focused stare.
“Go back to Brazil, Mr. De La Cruz, and take your family with you. That will go a long way toward healing the breach.”
His teeth flashed, very white, his smile wolfish. For no reason at all it made Colby shiver. She went to move away from him, to give herself breathing room, a delicate feminine retreat, but he glided with her like a jungle cat stalking prey. His hand curled around the nape of her neck, his fingers almost
gentle, yet she felt his immense strength, knew she couldn’t break his grip, knew he could snap her neck in an instant if he chose. A shiver of apprehension raced down her spine. She stilled beneath his hand, her gaze jumping to his face. His black eyes were suddenly hungry, a dark intense hunger that robbed her of her breath while he stared almost fascinated at her pulse.
Why had she thought his eyes flat and hard and icy cold? Now they were burning with so much emotion, alive with need and hunger and an intensity that scorched her all the way to her very soul.
You are not going to get away from me, pequena. No matter how far you run, no matter how much you fight, none of it will matter.
The words shimmered in her mind, shimmered between them, yet Colby had no idea whether they were real or not. He hadn’t spoken; he was only looking at her with his smoldering black eyes.
She paled visibly, suddenly very, very afraid. Of herself. Of him. Of the dark promise of passion in his eloquent eyes.
“You aren’t welcome here, De La Cruz,” Paul burst out, his face bright red beneath his tan. He took a step toward the larger man, his fists clenched, but Ginny caught at his arm and held on to him like a pit bull. “Let go of my sister right now.”