Page 49 of The Bastard Heir
The ache swelled, expanding into an unbearable pressure behind his eyes and deep in his chest. “I don’t know, Carolina. I can’t make any plans past finding Derringer.”
She nodded as if she understood, but he felt the warm wetness of her tears against his chest. Abruptly she sat up, surprising him by leaning over him. “I don’t know what will happen, but I want you to know that I love you. No, don’t say anything. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t. It’s too late for that.” She covered his mouth with her fingertips. “I love how brave and honorable you are. I love that you love your grandfather enough to sacrifice years of your life to this, but I hate that it’s keeping us apart.”
His heart swelled two sizes in his chest. Taking her hand in his, he sat up and settled her onto his lap and put his arms around her. “That’s not all that’s keeping us apart. I told you I’ve done bad things. Besides that, you belong in Boston and I belong out here. No matter how I wish that weren’t true, it is. We can’t change it.”
She stared at him as if it pained her. “But can’t we…if we really wanted to?”
Castillo closed his eyes against the pain he saw in hers. He loved her. He loved her with all his heart, which was why he knew that sending her away from him was the best thing to do. She had dreams in Boston. There was nothing for her out here, and the only thing for him in Boston was her. His dreams were in Texas. “I care for you, but our lives are too different, mi corazón. It wouldn’t work.”
“If you think that, then you couldn’t possibly love me the way I love you.”
“Shh…don’t say that.” He drew her into his arms and held her. The problem was that he was very much afraid that he did love her that much. He loved her enough that he didn’t know how he was going to say goodbye to her in the morning. He loved her enough that he knew he had to.
Chapter Twenty
Castillo woke her up the next morning with kisses and murmured love words in Spanish. She opened her eyes to his tousled head and smiling eyes.
“I need you again,” he mumbled against her neck as his fingers skimmed up and down her body.
She needed him, too, and held him against her. Carolina had laid her heart before him last night, and he’d not taken it. She refused to let the bitterness of that come between them. How could she be bitter about his refusal to give up his dream when she wasn’t able to give up hers? Maybe Aunt Prudie was right. Maybe this was the point where she had to have faith that it would work out. Somehow.
“I need you, too,” she whispered and savored his groan as he moved between her thighs.
Blindly, she reached for the tin on the bedside table and pulled out the last prophylactic. He raised up enough so that she could reach between them and help him slide it on, and then he fell over her. They made love gently and slowly. He lingered overher, careful of the tenderness of her untried body. Neither one of them were willing to deny themselves the pleasure of just one more time before she left. Once it was over, they held each other, barely speaking lest something break the spell of their love. Finally when it was time, they helped each other dress.
As they left the hotel and walked the few blocks to the train station, he slipped his hand into hers and gave it a squeeze. She smiled as the warm comfort of his presence filled in all the hollows in her body. Gazing up at his profile, she noted his strong jaw with the bit of scruff he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. The memory of how it had rasped the skin of her breasts as he’d moved over her made her blush. It didn’t seem fair that this beautiful man was her husband and she’d only have the one night with him. It didn’t seem fair that he was hers, but not as much as she was his.
He felt her watching and looked down at her, giving her a half smile. “You know, I’ve been thinking.” His boots thudded on the wooden planks of the boardwalk with each step. She thought she’d remember the cadence of his step for as long as she lived.
“About what?” she asked when he paused.
“I spent so much time worried about your virginity…and here we are, married with a proper deflowering on our wedding night.” The smile stayed intact while his heavy gaze raked down to her lips.
She knew she was blushing at his crude words even as they pulled a laugh from her. She couldn’t seem to stop blushing around him. “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me,” she quipped.
He threw back his head and laughed. When his eyes met hers again, they were filled with so much emotion that a lump welled in her throat. The train’s sharp whistle cut through the air with the quarter-hour warning. The hotel had sent her trunk ahead hours ago, but only now did leaving feel real to her. She hadn’t even realized they’d come to a stop on the boardwalk until hisfingertips touched her face and ran across her bottom lip. His touch was heated, awakening all the nerve endings that had been slumbering, sated from their night together.
“Oh, Carolina,” he whispered, his eyes heavy lidded and dark.
Someone jostled past them, prompting him to take her arm and lead her to an abandoned storefront, set into the corner of the brick building. They were only a block from the station now, where her parents and Aunt Prudie were waiting for her. Pushing her back against the paper-covered glass window, he kissed her. It was a proper goodbye kiss filled with passion and longing, a tender reminder of how they’d passed their wedding night.
“Come with me,” she whispered when they broke apart to catch their breaths. “We have the money my father settled on me. We can find a little house near the university.” She wasn’t certain Castillo had even read the paperwork he’d signed yesterday. Her father had settled a healthy amount of money on them with their marriage. It wouldn’t last indefinitely, but it’d be enough to last them for a few years. She knew how he felt about his father and the silver mine. He wouldn’t have to touch that if he didn’t want to. She pressed her hands against his chest, trying her best to memorize how he felt against her. The memories would have to last.
“I cannot.” His voice was low and he’d closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against hers. “My life is here, and your life will be better without me in it.” When he opened his eyes, she saw that he truly thought that.
Despite her resolve to not allow bitterness to overtake the morning, a shard of anger tore through her. “You’re too stubborn to see how things could be so much better for us.”
“I’m not stubborn, Carolina.” He kept his voice calm and stroked her cheek. “I’m realistic.”
The sting of tears prickled the backs of her eyes, but she refused to give in to them. They were little more than self-pity. The simple truth was that he didn’t love her as much as she loved him. She shoved him away, intent on making her way to the train station alone. Better to get used to being without him now.
Before she’d gotten two steps past him, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her around so she fell into his chest, and he supported her with his back to the window, much the same as he had held her on the train. Only, this time, he was searching her face, looking for some answer when she didn’t even know the question. He whispered her name again and kissed her, gripping her face gently with his hands.
She didn’t see the man approach or sense his presence until it was too late.
***
Castillo opened his eyes to a world that had changed. Or maybe he was the one who’d changed. One moment he was holding Carolina in his arms and the next she’d been pulled away from him. He grabbed at her but was a second too late. Her eyes were wide with fear as she was whisked around the corner and into the alley, a large arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulling her away. He only got a glimpse of a dark shadow as she disappeared.
