“Do you have a place to stay in Gonzales?” the priest asked.
“We will find something,” Cruz said.
“May I offer my humble dwelling for your comfort?”
“We would not want to intrude—”
“It is no intrusion,” Father Delgado assured Cruz. “I promised to sit with the family of Señora Santiago for a while, so you are welcome to use my home to refresh yourselves before the wedding. And I will be perfectly comfortable on the small cot I keep at the mission. I will have no need of my bed here tonight.”
“Then, yes, we would be glad to stay,” Cruz said.
“Are you hungry?” the priest asked.
Cruz looked to Sloan, who admitted, “A little.”
“I’m hungry,” Betsy volunteered loudly.
Sloan smiled and reached over to embrace the little girl, which meant putting her arms around Cruz as well. She felt the muscles of his arms bunch under his wool shirt, and she turned her face up to find his eyes hooded with need.
She forced her gaze back to Betsy’s face. “We’ll have to get you something to eat,” she murmured to the child.
Sloan’s thoughts weren’t on food, however, but on hunger of a different sort altogether.
The sound of Father Delgado clearing his throat brought Sloan upright. She shook her head slightly as though to clear it.
“I am afraid the fare I have is simple, but it is nourishing,” Father Delgado said. “You will find pinto beans cooking out back on the fire and corn tortillas and a bit of
cabrito
in the cupboard over there.” He gestured across the table.
“
Cabrito?
” Sloan whispered to Cruz.
“Roasted goat,” Cruz whispered back.
Sloan just had time to straighten the wrinkle of disgust on her nose before the priest turned back and said, “Eat, take time to prepare yourselves, and meet me in the church when it comes full dark.”
Shortly after the priest left, a young Mexican girl arrived with some clothing for Sloan.
“Father Delgado’s wedding gift to you,” the girl said.
Sloan could not imagine how or where the priest had so quickly obtained the garments, but she was grateful she would not have to be married wearing pants and boots.
She went into the back bedroom and, with Betsy’s help, dressed herself for her wedding. She first put on the white embroidered
camisa,
with its lace trim along the square neck and the short, gathered sleeves. Then she added the matching white cotton skirt with its colorful embroidered border of tiny pink roses and trailing green vines along the bottom hem. A set of ivory combs held her hair back from her face, which was then framed by a delicate white lace mantilla. Simple leather sandals adorned her feet.
Since the night was cool, Father Delgado had also provided a triangular shawl with the same beautiful pattern of pink roses and vines embroidered on it. The long fringe on the shawl felt silky against her arms when she wrapped herself in it.
Sloan stayed as long as she could in the bedroom, but the hour until dark passed with all the speed and raging turmoil of a prairie fire. At last she stepped past the striped curtain into the front room to greet Cruz.
“Isn’t she bee-you-ti-ful?” Betsy said from her hiding place behind Sloan’s skirt.
“Very beautiful,” Cruz agreed with a smile. Sloan’s eyes were the warmest brown he had ever seen, her lips soft and berry-red. The simple peasant wedding blouse framed her smooth shoulders, leaving her throat bare and exposing the racing pulse beneath her ear. The skirt emphasized her narrow waist and womanly hips and exposed her slim ankles. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to smooth the blouse off her shoulders and skim the skirt down her supple legs. He forced himself to patience. Soon she would be his wife in fact as well as name and he could do with her as he wished.
He brought his hand out from behind his back and handed Sloan a small bouquet of wildflowers. “I thought you might like to carry these.”
As their fingers touched, a bolt of desire streaked through Sloan. She quickly accepted the flowers and brought them up to her face to hide her growing blush of pleasure. She inhaled the pungent sweetness, meeting Cruz’s gaze over the top of the bouquet.
His eyes were hooded with desire, his nostrils flared, as if to catch the scent of the wild blossoms—or the scent of her.
Betsy broke the thread of tension growing between them when she demanded, “Is it time to go yet?”
Cruz reached out and lifted the little girl into his arms. “
Sí, niña
.” He turned to Sloan and asked, “Shall we go?”
“I suppose so,” she replied, unable to keep the nervousness from her voice.
Now that the moment of truth was upon her, Sloan realized the enormity of the step she was about to take. When she entered the candlelit Spanish adobe mission with Cruz at her side, her heart was in her throat. She had been baptized Catholic at her mother’s insistence, then raised Protestant by Rip after her mother’s death.
She knew little of the Latin ritual that was to come, only that its very strangeness lent it potency in her mind. She followed Cruz’s lead, dipping into the font of holy water after him, crossing herself when he did, even bending her knee in a mirror of his genuflection.
They walked slowly down the aisle of the church to the altar, where an imposing wooden cross bearing the carved figure of an agonizingly crucified Jesus drew her eye. As he had promised, Father Delgado was waiting for them.
Attempts to seat Betsy elsewhere were met with quite vocal resistance, and so the three of them, Cruz, Sloan, and Betsy, knelt on the velvet padded bench before the altar.
Sloan folded her hands with the flowers between them and rested them along the wooden rail, then bowed her head as the priest began to drone his Latin refrain.
She dipped her nose into the flowers to counter the overwhelming odor of incense that reminded her of the painful confrontation she’d had with Doña Lucia at Tonio’s bier.
She heard Cruz murmuring a response in Latin, but let her eyes drift to the flickering candles along either side of the altar.
The candles mesmerized her, sending her back to a night long ago, when she and Cricket and Bay were children. There had been a bad thunderstorm, and Cricket and Bay had come racing to her room to huddle under the covers with her until the worst of it had passed. She had lit a candle and with that single bit of illumination they had waited out the storm together. They had talked of their dreams for the future.
“I’m going to spend my whole life doing exactly what I want,” Cricket had said.
“What’s that?” Sloan asked.
“Having fun!” Cricket replied with a laugh.
“I’m going to meet a handsome man who’ll carry me away on his magnificent black stallion,” Bay said, her violet eyes dreamy.
“Who would want a tall, skinny thing like you?” Cricket teased.
“The man I love will simply die for a woman with violet eyes and flaming red hair,” Bay said with great dignity. “The rest of me won’t matter.”
Cricket broke into hysterical guffaws, and Sloan smiled.
“It’s your turn, Sloan,” Bay said.
“I’m going to make Three Oaks the biggest and best cotton plantation there ever was.”
“That’s not a dream, Sloan,” Cricket objected. “A dream is supposed to be what you would do if you could have anything you want. Tell us something that doesn’t have to do with Three Oaks.”
Sloan had remained silent for a moment and then said, “I would be married in a beautiful white gown in a church where every planter from up and down the Brazos had gathered to watch and admire me.”
“What does your husband look like?” Cricket asked.
“Let’s see. He has blue eyes—”
“—filled with love for you,” Bay interrupted, violet eyes still dreamy.
“How did you know?” Sloan said with a grin. “And a mouth so kissable I’ll be tempted to—”
When Cruz touched her hand, Sloan jumped, torn abruptly from her daze. She looked up and found a well of wanting in his deep blue eyes. His lips were full and inviting. She slowly leaned toward him and then caught herself.
The dreams of a child were only that, she told herself firmly. Dreams. This was a very different reality.
Cruz gestured with his head toward the priest, and she looked up into the benevolent bearded face that was all of the elderly man that showed, shrouded as he was in his robes. The priest spoke to her in Latin, but the words meant nothing. She turned back to Cruz, her eyes questioning.
“You must make your vows now,” he said. “Father Delgado is asking if you will consent to take me as your husband.”
For a moment it was all Sloan could do not to rise and flee the church. She gripped her hands more tightly together around the bouquet of vivid wildflowers and asked, “What do I have to say?”
“He will tell you the words. Repeat them after him.”
And so, in a language she didn’t understand, Sloan repeated the words that bound her to Cruz, body and soul.
After he stopped speaking, Father Delgado made the sign of the cross and Cruz leaned over to brush his lips against Sloan’s.
“Are we done yet?” Betsy asked.
“We are done,” Father Delgado said with a smile. “And I must say you were a very good girl through it all.”
“Sloan promised she would give me some
buñuelos
if I was good,” Betsy said.
“It’s almost bedtime for you,” Sloan said.
“I’m not tired,” Betsy chirruped. “I want to eat my
buñuelos
now. I can go to bed anytime.”
Cruz laughed ruefully. Bed was exactly where he wanted to be right now, and not because he was tired, either. Betsy’s presence complicated matters. But in Texas one learned to adapt.
Father Delgado walked back to his adobe house with them to join in a celebratory cup of wine and to make sure Betsy got her
buñuelos
. The priest seemed totally unaware of Cruz’s impatience to bid him farewell. Having found a new ear, the priest readily told several of his favorite stories.
The evening passed quickly and eventually Sloan laid Betsy down in the big bed in the back room to sleep.
She and Cruz visited a little longer with Father Delgado before a yawn from Sloan caused the priest to say, “You are tired, señorita—no, no. Now it is Señora Guerrero. Forgive me. I was selfishly enjoying the conversation without any thought for—”
“I was enjoying it too, Father, but it has been a long day.” Sloan rose from the hard bench at the table and surreptitiously rubbed her bottom to bring some feeling back into it. She caught Cruz’s amused gaze.
They shared a secret smile before Cruz turned to Father Delgado and said, “I am ready to ask that favor of which we spoke earlier.”
“Certainly, my son. I will watch the child for you. Do not worry about her. Not at all. I will have everything well in hand.”
“
Gracias, Padre
.” Cruz slipped his arm around Sloan’s waist and headed her toward the door without giving her a chance to object.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Sloan hissed as they reached the darkness beyond the doorway. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”
“There is already someone in your bed.”
“So I’ll join her.”
“On our wedding night?” Cruz asked, his brows raised.
“It’s just one night.”
“A very special night, Cebellina. One night above all others.”
“I don’t see what makes it so special.”
“This.”
Sloan felt Cruz’s hand curve possessively around her waist, drawing her to a halt, while his fingertips tipped her chin up for the briefest brush of his lips against hers.
“And this.”
His lips came down again, this time with fierce possession, branding her as his own. Sloan didn’t know what to do with her hands. She had the urge to touch him, yet his only contact with her was the hand at her waist and the urgent press of his lips against hers. He turned his head, and his mouth left hers to caress her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, and then her lips again.
Cruz heard the moan in his wife’s throat and slanted his mouth onto hers, his tongue teasing her lips apart. Her mouth was warm and sweet . . . and willing. But no more than that.
It wasn’t enough.
He wanted her to feel the same wild, insatiable need he felt. When the time came that they joined their bodies at last as man and wife, he wanted her to desire him as she had never desired another man . . . as she had never desired his brother.
Sloan felt a sense of desolation as Cruz eased his mouth away. She shivered as he traced her damp lower lip with his thumb.
“Come with me, Cebellina.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where we can be alone.”
He reached his hand out to her, and she took it. He led her to the edge of town and beyond, to a grassy valley. It was clear this was where he had come for the wildflowers, for they abounded here, their faces folded to the moonlight.
She realized now that he had planned to bring her here all along, for he quickly retrieved a rolled-up blanket that had been tucked in the hollow of a gnarled live oak and spread it across the dewy ground. He took her hand and helped her sit down on the square of striped wool, and then he joined her.
They faced one another, filling their senses with each other.
“You are even more beautiful in the moonlight.” Cruz gently cupped her face with his hand.
Sloan leaned into his palm, wanting his gentleness. It was a light touch, the touch of a man dealing with innocence rather than experience. For that, Sloan thanked him from the bottom of her heart.
“Four years is a long time,” she murmured. “A lifetime.”
“Take all the time you need,” he said, his voice warm and a little husky.
“Father Delgado—”
“Father Delgado does not expect us back before dawn.”
She smiled, and he let his fingers trace the line of her curving lips. His branding touch made Sloan ache with need. With every caress, every kiss, he claimed her for his own. She learned the texture of his lips—hard and then so, so soft—and savored the flavor of his mouth—tobacco and wine and something distinctly Cruz.
She was hardly aware that Cruz had coaxed her down so she was lying beneath him. His hand found her collarbone and traced it, then slipped down to the swell of her breast above her
camisa
. He untied the bow that held the gathered blouse and loosened the cloth. She could see it surprised him to find she was wearing nothing underneath.