Untamed Fire Read online

  “But I want your help.”

  His tone was sickly sweet, and Gaby found him repulsive.

  “I do not serve anyone but Dona Maria,” she said, pulling away from him, as he edged closer and closer.

  “No one?” he asked sarcastically.

  “No one!” The powerful voice cut through the air so sharply that Ignacio instantly released her.

  “Don Rafael, I was but seeking help from a servant.”

  Gaby turned and her breath caught. Rafael looked so handsome, so powerful, and so angry.

  “I require assistance,” Ignacio explained, raising his chin and drawing his shoulders back in an attempt to intimidate, only to have the fearful tremor in his voice betray him.

  “Gaby is not a servant.”

  Ignacio chuckled snidely. “Really then what—”

  Rafael warned him before another word could leave his foolish mouth. “Be careful, Senor Galvez. It is best to think before you speak or else you may find yourself in a position that is detrimental to your well-being.”

  Gaby bit at her lower lip to hold back the giggle that threatened to escape as she watched Ignacio’s hands shake when he tugged at his vest.

  “I think I hear Dona Isabel calling me.”

  “I didn’t hear her. Did you, Gaby?” Rafael asked, further tormenting the man.

  Gaby shook her head, afraid to speak, afraid if she let go of her lip she would erupt with laughter.

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure she’s calling. I must see what she wants,” he said, taking a wide step around Rafael.

  Gaby burst into laughter as soon as he was out of sight. “You put the fear of God into him.”

  “And rightfully so, he had no business having his hands upon you.” Rafael’s expression softened and he looked at Gaby with a pleasing smile. “You look beautiful.”

  Gaby spun slowly around holding her skirt out. “Your mother had new outfits made for this night.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your dress... I meant you. You shine; your eyes, your lips, your smile, they burst with the fullness of life.”

  She favored his compliment. It soothed her and made her feel as though he could possibly—really possibly—love her. “Thank you,” she whispered with a shyness that was unusual for her.

  Her strange response struck an overpowering protective cord in him. He reached out to draw her to him only to stop when he heard voices and remembered that they stood in the hallway for all to see.

  He dropped his arm to his side. “Go,” he ordered reluctantly.

  Gaby hesitated a moment as if she thought to speak, then decided against it, turned and walked away. She stopped suddenly and returned to his side. She searched the hall to make certain no one was about, then, without thinking, as if it was the most natural thing to do, she placed her hand on his chest.

  “Rafael, may I come to your room later tonight?”

  He was stunned by her request. His heart thundered in his chest, and he was certain she could see it hammering against his shirt and jacket. “Yes. Yes, come to my room,” he answered quickly.

  She dazzled him with her smile and patted his chest. “Thank you.”

  He shook his head as he watched her walk away. Her hips swayed in a sensual rhythm that belonged to her and her alone and already her one sandal had broken free of its tie. She was outrageous, unpredictable, and she belonged to him. His earlier frown returned. He wanted to strangle Ignacio when he saw his hands on her. He had been concerned with her condition all day, but she appeared well enough each time he had seen her. The scratches didn’t look nearly as bad as they had first appeared. He wondered about her backside and smiled. He’d find out for himself tonight.

  He walked toward the courtyard and his waiting guests.

  The honored and invited guests were having a wonderful time. Dona Isabel was the center of attention for the majority of the evening.

  Torches lit the courtyard, music filled the air, and food was plentiful. Gaby could easily attest to that since she had spent most of the evening carrying the trays back and forth, keeping the tables brimming over with Lupe’s delicious dishes.

  At first she had made a point of seeing if Dona Maria needed her, but after only a short time, she realized Senor Serra was making certain that Dona Maria had everything she needed. So Gaby continued helping Lupe.

  She was standing behind the table, clearing the empty dishes, making room for the full ones when she caught Don Felipe’s eyes. They were staring at her and it wasn’t her face they were focused on. They were riveted to her chest. She tried to ignore him, moving this way and that, but every time she did he would move so he could focus on her chest.

  It was most unnerving, and Gaby became even more upset as he approached the table.

  “May I help you?” she asked, hoping to force his eyes off her chest.

  He didn’t answer. He just stared, his eyes growing wider and wider.

  “Can I get you something?” she tried again.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked softly.

  Gaby followed his eyes and realized he had not been staring at her chest. It was the cross he was interested in.

  “A gift,” was all she could think of to say.

  “Where? From whom?” His voice grew louder.

  “It was a long time ago,” she lied, remembering her promise to the padre.

  “Where did you get it?” he shouted.

  The courtyard grew quiet. Dona Isabel walked over to her husband. Rafael joined her.

  “Felipe, whateve—” Dona Isabel never finished. Her eyes followed her husband’s pointing finger and she gasped, grabbing her chest. “My God!”

  “Where?” Don Felipe repeated more calmly.

  “What seems to be the problem, Don Felipe?” Rafael asked, worried over the couple’s pale complexions.

  “Instruct your servant to tell me where she obtained that cross,” Don Felipe said sternly.

  Gaby grabbed hold of the cross, fearful that they meant to take it away from her.

  “Is how she came by the cross that important?” Rafael asked.

  “Very important,” Don Felipe said.

  Rafael turned his attention on Gaby as did everyone else. “Gaby, where did you get that cross?”

  Gaby couldn’t and wouldn’t betray her promise to the padre. “I cannot say. I promised Padre Manuel.”

  “Padre Manuel gave it to you?” Rafael asked confused as to why a priest would give such an obviously expensive gold cross to a peasant girl.

  “Rafael,” Dona Isabel said softly. “That is the Galvez family cross. It disappeared the night Annabelle and Calida were kidnapped.”

  Rafael felt a chill crawl up his spine. “Gaby, this is important. You must tell me.”

  “I promised.”

  Rafael realized a promise to a padre was unbreakable, but there had to be a way. “Gaby,” he began slowly, hoping he was making the right decision. “Padre Manuel told you about how you were left at the mission gates when you were only a baby, didn’t he?”

  “How did you know?” she asked, surprised.

  “Padre Jose explained it to me. Was the cross left in the basket with you?”

  “Yes, that is what Padre Manuel told me,” she said, relieved Rafael had known the secret and that she had not betrayed the padre’s trust.

  “Did he remark that the cross belonged to your real parents?” Rafael questioned, thinking that this couldn’t be happening, not after all these years.

  She nodded. “I’m not sure if he was certain, or he hadn’t wanted me to know, but he implied that the cross was part of my heritage.”

  Dona Isabel moaned and leaned against her husband for support.

  Rafael called out for Padre Jose, and the priest hurried forward. “Padre, have you ever seen this cross before?”

  Padre Jose looked at it and shook his head. “No, I have never seen it, but I was told of its existence. It is as beautiful as Padre Manuel told me it was.”

  “What did he
tell you about it?” Rafael asked, wanting, yet almost fearing, to hear the answer.

  “Padre Manuel told me that the cross was in the basket with the twin girls when they were found. It belonged to their parents. How he knew, I don’t know, but he insisted the cross was the only part of their heritage they would receive.”

  Gaby was confused. The padre spoke of twin girls, but Padre Manuel had never told her of this. He had spoken as if she was the only babe in the basket.

  “The other baby girl that was in the basket, what happened to her?” Don Felipe demanded.

  “As I told Don Rafael, she moved with her family to the San Jose Mission years ago,” Padre Jose explained.

  “Santos Dios,” Dona Isabel cried and buried her face in her husband’s shirt.

  Don Felipe wrapped his arm around his distraught wife and offered words of comfort before directing his next remark to Rafael. “It is obvious who the twin girls are.”

  “The matter must be investigated further before any conclusions can be made,” Rafael said, trying to remain calm and in control while realizing what the revelation could mean. Gaby could actually be the twin he had been betrothed to, or her sister.

  “What more evidence could there be?” Felipe argued. “Twin girls were left at the mission along with the Galvez family cross. Look at Gaby, how she smiles. It is a mirror image of my smile. I wondered when I first saw her why she seemed so familiar. It’s obvious now, she’s my daughter.”

  Gaby took a step back and stared wide-eyed at the crazy man.

  Rafael shook his head and ran his hand over his mouth and chin in exasperation. “Don Felipe, that isn’t proof enough.”

  “I’ve sent for Padre Pablo as you asked, Don Rafael,” Padre Jose said. “He would know more about this. He was here at the mission with Padre Manuel when the twin girls were left.”

  “When is he expected?” Felipe demanded.

  “Within the next week or two,” the padre assured him.

  “Good, and since I firmly believe Gaby to one of my long-lost daughters, I feel she should be treated as such,” Felipe said, looking directly at Rafael.

  “If you feel strongly about this, I will bow to your wishes,” Rafael said. “Gaby shall be treated with the respect due your daughter.”

  “I am not his daughter,” Gaby shouted. “I am an Alvardo, a companion to your mother.”

  “Not any longer,” Rafael said as calmly as possible. “A room will be prepared for you and you shall be treated as the Galvezes’ daughter until it can be proven otherwise.”

  Rafael knew he was headed for trouble as soon as Gaby smiled.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Don Rafael?” she asked sweetly.

  He was afraid to ask, but he had no choice. He couldn’t stop himself from adding fuel to an already raging fire. “What is that, Senorita Galvez?”

  Gaby’s dark eyes widened at the name, but her smile remained constant. “I’m a thief!”

  Dona Isabel moaned. Don Felipe laughed. Padre Jose crossed himself... twice. And Rafael rolled his eyes to the heavens.

  “Now I know why you always cross yourself around her and pray to God,” Rafael said to the padre.

  “Has a will of her own, does she?” Felipe said.

  “An iron will,” Rafael conceded.

  “Just like her father,” Felipe boasted proudly. “But tell me, is she really a thief?”

  “A pure misunderstanding,” Rafael assured him.

  “No, it isn’t,” Gaby insisted. “That is why I am Dona Maria’s companion. I’m serving my punishment for stealing his horse.”

  “Rafael!”

  Rafael winced when he heard the disbelief in his mother’s voice. He shot Gaby an angry look that warned her to behave. She ignored it.

  “Yes, it is true, Dona Maria,” Gaby said, “but then you can’t be too sure what I say since a thief lies and a liar th—”

  “Enough, Gaby!” Rafael shouted, not wanting to hear his own words tossed back at him.

  “Rafael, watch how you speak to my daughter,” Felipe demanded.

  “I am not your daughter!” Gaby yelled. “I am not, and I don’t want to be.” She ran from the courtyard, refusing to obey the shouts ordering her to stop.

  The courtyard turned to chaos. Everyone spoke at once: his mother demanding, Felipe yelling, Dona Isabel crying, Louisa insisting on an explanation. He stared at them for several seconds, then turned and went after the one person he was worried about the most—Gaby.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Rafael never expected to find Gaby in his room. It was the last place he would have thought she’d be, yet he went there first. Why, he had no idea, although he had hoped she would seek her comfort from him... and she did.

  Gaby lay on the bed crying hard tears. Rafael was beside himself. He had never seen her so distraught. She was always so strong and so determined in her opinions and nature. But this news had devastated her, punctured her armor and left her vulnerable and his heart went out to her.

  “Gaby,” he said, anguish and worry clear in his voice as he sat down on the bed next to her.

  She turned, sat up, flung herself into his arms, buried her heavy sobs in his shirt and threw her arms around his waist as she continued crying.

  Rafael’s arms coiled around her and he hugged her close. He wasn’t certain how to handle this situation. She had never broken down in front of him and her pain tore at his heart.

  “We will soon float away on your tears,” he said teasingly, hoping to ignite her stubborn streak.

  “Will we,” she took a deep sigh, “float far away?”

  “Do you wish to?”

  She drew another heavy sigh. “Yes— far away—just you and me.”

  The impossible thought appealed to Rafael. “That sounds tempting.”

  Gaby sat up and sniffed back her tears in between sobs. “Will you sail away with me, Gaby Alvardo, or do you wish me to be one of the Galvez twins... the one you were betrothed to?”

  It would be so easy if she were Annabelle Galvez. All his problems would be solved, or would they be just beginning? Gaby thought herself a peasant and that was the way she wished to be accepted. Could he accept her? Or would he hope she was the twin thus settling the problem?

  A large, fat tear fell and splashed on Gaby’s cheek. “You are set in your ways, Rafael, you will accept no other. You torture yourself over a past that was not your fault. You follow a way of life that brings you only heartache. And you refuse to see the truth in people.”

  “You mean I’m as stubborn and thickheaded as you?” he asked with a laugh and reached out to wipe away her tear wishing he could wipe away their problem so easily.

  Gaby smiled, against her better judgment. “In some ways we are alike.”

  He slipped his hand around the back of her neck. “Come here,” he said softly and urged her to him.

  She accepted his comfort. After all, she had gone there for it, hoping he would follow, would care enough to seek her out. She snuggled her cheek against his ruffled shirt and settled in the shelter of his arms.

  “You do not wish to be the Galvezes’ daughter?”

  “Do you wish me to be?”

  He held her firmly as though his answer would disturb her, and she would take flight. “It would make things easier for us.”

  “You mean it would be permissible for you to marry me than, for I would no longer be of peasant stock and, of course, no longer a thief.”

  He wanted to shout at her that he wanted to marry no one but her. That with time and patience he would change the ways that had been drilled into him since childhood. That she had taught him that he could love and love deeply. Now, however, did not seem the appropriate time to say all those things. She would only assume that he was attempting to placate her.

  “I don’t think we should jump to conclusions,” he offered, hoping to appease her, yet knowing she needed to hear more, so much more.

  “And what conclusions are they? That it
is permissible for you to marry me, or that I am no longer a thief in your eyes?”

  “You are not a thief, Gaby.”

  She sat up, pushing away from him. Her dark eyes were shiny with tears, and they held a spark of defiance. “Why? Because I now may be of noble blood and noble people don’t steal?”

  He shook his head and grinned. “No. It is because your brother Juan told me how he faked an accident and frightened his sister Teresa, who in turn frightened you. He was quite brave. He even told me he was willing to take his punishment like a man.”

  “When did he speak of this to you?” she asked, surprised.

  “At the Holy Day Festival.”

  “And all this time you knew I didn’t steal your horse?”

  Rafael reached out and ran his finger along her lower lip. “I didn’t need Juan to tell me what I already knew. You could never steal, querida,” he whispered as he pulled her close and kissed her.

  It was a soft yet hungry kiss, followed by more of the same.

  “I hate to see you cry,” he murmured between kisses.

  “I don’t—”

  He kissed her words away, but she persisted.

  “—usually cry—”

  He kissed her again, though hungrier.

  “Rafael, we need—”

  “Shhhh,” he demanded.

  “We must—”

  “Make love,” he finished and pulled her down along the bed next to him.

  “But what if I’m—”

  He stopped kissing her and cupped her face firmly in his hands. “Tonight, I make love to Gaby Alvardo. The stubborn, willful, disobedient—”

  She silenced him with a quick kiss. “Peasant girl who loves you with all her heart.”

  The words stabbed at his heart. He had so wanted to hear them, waited to hear them and had hoped he could return them. But now wasn’t the time. He doubted she would believe him. So he showed her how much he loved her.

  His hands were gentle, his lips tender as they touched every inch of her body with precise slowness. He was extra gentle when he roamed her backside and pleased to see that the welts were already healing nicely. He lingered over her neck, her breasts, her belly, her legs, her ankles, and then he retraced his path.

  By the time he moved inside her she was close to tears. But he kissed her eyes closed, shutting them away and whispered, “Feel me, querida, feel all of me.”