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“You should bandage th...that cut,” I said through my shivers. The night was cool, the heat from the blistering sun had vanished.
“When we get back to the house. In the meantime, you’re going to freeze to death and probably go into shock, which will make things even more of a clusterfuck than they already are.”
“I don’t like your l...language,” I said primly.
“And I don’t give a fuck.” He was stripping off his loose cotton shirt, and for a moment I thought he was going to bandage his arm after all. Instead, to my shock, he wrapped it around me.
It still held his body heat. It smelled like him, and I wanted to close my eyes and pretend it was Marcus’s, but that was stupid. I tried to shrug it off. “You need it more than I do,” I protested.
“I haven’t been freezing my ass off in a cave for six hours.”
“Six?” I echoed. “What took you so long?”
“That’s not the right question.”
Ian wasn’t as broad as his brother. He had a narrow body, wiry, with slightly bony shoulders. But he was stronger than he looked, and he scooped me up effortlessly before I could protest. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Being held by a shirtless boy was...confusing. His skin was warm, smooth, a furnace against my chilled flesh, and the muscles beneath it moved easily as he carried me up the steep embankment. I kept expecting him to make some snide comment about how much I weighed, to call me Podge again, but he said nothing, moving through the woods at a steady pace. I closed my eyes and was silent too, letting my head rest against his warm shoulder, simply because I was too wrung out to keep it upright any longer. Everything hurt. Everything but where Ian’s warm skin touched mine.
Chapter Six
The fallout from that misadventure had been surprisingly slight. Once we returned to the safety of the big house, the doctor had been called, and my cracked ribs and broken tibia had been dealt with quickly and efficiently, as well as the scrapes and bruises that covered my body. Granda was fortunately out that night, and he had no idea what time of day I’d been injured. He was told I’d fallen near the rocks at the edge of the vineyard, and apart from vast annoyance and the surprising appearance of a plate of my favorite cinnamon buns, no mention was made apart from a few dozen stern warnings. Even Mary Alice couldn’t find out the truth about my injuries, or she would have immediately told Granda, so I managed to recover with just the right amount of pampering.
For some reason, I’d been too embarrassed to meet Ian’s disapproving gaze in the next few days. I avoided him, as I avoided Bella and Marcus. For once, her sweet excuses didn’t penetrate the deep hurt I felt, and I stayed in the women’s salon, my splinted leg straight out in front of me, reading romances and not giving a damn who saw me. I didn’t realize until later that Ian had been fool enough to ignore the gash in his arm, when a few stitches and disinfectant would have taken care of everything. Instead, it got infected, and while I had healed very quickly, he still bore the scar of our misadventure to this day.
My misadventure. My stupidity. And it suddenly struck me that I had never, ever thanked him. He had rescued me, saved my life, and I had been too self-conscious to say a word to him.
“Shit,” I muttered beneath my breath, suddenly filled with the need to say something. But I couldn’t. I was Bella-Beast—I could hardly tell him I was sorry I had never thanked him.
Or could I? It was after nine, early for a Spanish evening, and given the jet lag and my long nap, I still had plenty of energy. I needed to go find something to eat, but first I needed to take care of business. After all, that was why I was here, wasn’t it? To right any wrongs I may have done, to finally let go of my obsession with this place and my lost family.
Now was as good a time as any. Tomorrow, Marcus would be here, bringing his own set of issues, and I would need all my wits, all my energy to deal with him. I could dispense with any lingering issues with Ian tonight and move on.
I passed no one as I moved through the tiled halls with their towering ceilings. Mariposa, in its current incarnation, was a bit over two hundred years old. Beneath the maze of cellars were Roman ruins, with Moorish ones laid on top of them, and the Moorish influence could be seen throughout the house. The tiles were cool beneath my bare feet, and I considered heading upstairs to grab a pair of sandals with their teetery heels, then thought better of it. I headed for the kitchens and the door to the side courtyard, the stretch of drive that lay between the old stables and the big house.
As I expected, there were a number of pairs of mud boots, work shoes, and even clogs. I slipped the clogs on and headed out into the warm night.
It was easy enough to see where he lived. The original stables had been vast, large enough to hold the army of horses, both for riding and working the land Mariposa had required before the advent of tractors. Now most of the stables had been converted, leaving only a small section that still held half a dozen horses.
The first floor was ablaze with light, and I could hear music on the night air. I recognized Juanes, and smiled. I loved Juanes, the warmth of his voice, the passion in his heart. I would never have thought Ian the Wretch would share my taste in music.
I glanced around. He’d said he had plans for the evening, but I could see no sign of a car near the building. He’d probably been lying, trying to annoy me. As if I cared what he was doing.
The stairs were the same, worn, narrow stone. We had played up there occasionally, but back then the dusty space, once lived in by the stablemaster, was simply filled with storage. Typical of Ian that he’d choose to live in a hovel rather than enjoy the comforts of Mariposa.
My stomach was in a knot, but I knew this had to be done or I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I wish I didn’t remember it all so clearly, but there was nothing I could do except face it and get it over with.
I knocked on the door, loudly. A moment later the music was muted, and I heard Ian walking toward the door. What if someone had come here some other way, I thought suddenly. What if I’ve interrupted some idyllic sexual encounter?
No, sex would never be idyllic with Ian. He was too big, hard, unrelenting. And I felt heat flame my face at the thought.
The door was flung open, and he stood there, all six feet two of him, looking thoroughly annoyed. “What do you want now, Bella-Beast?”
I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. He was only Ian the Wretch, not some big, scary monster. “I wanted to talk to you. If you’re busy I can go away...”
“I wish you would,” he muttered beneath his breath, so low I could barely hear him. “I’ve got a minute,” he said in a louder voice. Belatedly he stepped back. “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”
I gave him a withering glance as I stepped inside, then stopped. The place had been transformed. The wood floors had been varnished, the walls painted a soft white, the carpets rich and colorful. I recognized some of the furniture from the big house—a carved wooden chest, a beat-up old sofa that had once been in the so-called nursery, a wooden chair fit for a legendary Spanish monarch. On the wall hung the small, dark El Greco that had once adorned the west salon, and I drew in my breath.
