'You said they were close, Rachael. Antonio and Armando. If Antonio had discovered that his wife was a shifter and they moved the family from South America in order to protect them from the elders, then he may have confided in his brother. Why wouldn't he? Antonio would have told his twin brother why he had to move his family to Florida so quickly, especially if he needed help fast and if he was leaving the running of the plantations to Armando or hired help.'
'I suppose so. But I don't know if my brother can shift shape. Why wouldn't he tell me? We talked about mom and dad a lot. Wouldn't that be a rather large piece of information to leave out?'
'Not if he was protecting you. You say your uncle took him out all the time alone. They spent a great deal of time in the Everglades. What were they doing there?'
She shrugged. 'I don't honestly know. I was a little child. I thought they were fishing or scuba diving or watching alligators. He never came back upset.'
'If you were a kid and you could run free in the Glades, shifting shape and becoming something as powerful as a leopard, wouldn't you do it? And if you did things for your uncle, such as pick up packages, wouldn't that be a small price to pay? Armando would have realized the potential of such a gift. He would have a trained assassin, as silent and deadly as they came and no one the wiser. We can swim great distances and get into places humans can't. Elijah would have welcomed the trips in the beginning. He would have felt the freedom of running and becoming something so powerful. Do you see that?'
Rachael thought of how it felt to be in the form of such a powerful creature. A teenager would have found the excitement of it a heady and addicting experience. Add in the thrill of secrecy and it would have been too much for a boy to pass up. 'I remember him coming home and being so excited after his trips with Armando he could hardly contain himself. He'd lock his bedroom door and play wild music for hours.'
'Your uncle was probably training him then, but Elijah didn't know what he was carrying, or even doing. It was all a game. He loved and trusted your uncle. Finding your parents murdered must have been a terrible shock and betrayal to him. He loved Armando and he had to have realized what his uncle was and what he'd been doing all that time. The guilt must have been unbearable.'
That brought a fresh flood of tears. Rachael clung to him, weeping for her lost brother, for their childhood, for all the things they had done and couldn't change. Rio held her in his arms, offering comfort and acceptance. He rocked her gently back and forth, crooning some nonsense, anything at all to console her. It had been years since she'd allowed herself the luxury of tears. She had worked so hard to be like her brother, not giving Armando the satisfaction of seeing her fear.
She rubbed Rio's strong jaw. 'Thank you for not condemning us. We probably did everything wrong, made every mistake, but I was a child and he was thirteen. We had no one to go to, no one to tell. Of course Armando had custody of us, and from the moment we went to live with him, we had nothing but each other. I don't think I could bear it if you despised him.'
'Rachael, love of my life, how could you think I, of all people, would presume to judge another? All one can do in this life is to try to do their best in any given circumstances.'
She lifted her head and stared into his face, his eyes. 'I don't deserve you, Rio,'
He fought back the strange lump in his throat. His people wouldn't see him or speak with him, yet she thought she didn't deserve him. His hand went to the nape of her neck, held her still for his kiss. He put every bit of tenderness he could find in himself in that kiss, tasting her tears, her sorrow, tasting love.
'I think you're an amazing woman,' he murmured when he lifted his head.
She managed to smile at him. 'It's a darned good thing because it might be difficult to get rid of me.' Rachael slowly uncurled her body, She had cried so much her eyes burned and her throat ached. She was determined to pull over the railing. 'You know those little leech things you love so much? They just sink their teeth in and hold on, well that's me with you.'
He made a face at her, reluctantly allowing his arms to drop away as she stretched and stood up to limp across the room to open the door.
'Isn't it strange how the house can feel so small at times?'
He smiled at her, knowing she was trying to regain some semblance of control. 'Why do you think I often leave the door open?' Her body was supple and strong with generous feminine curves, a body a man could lose himself in. He liked watching her move around his home. She touched a candle, her fingers gliding gracefully over it. She picked up his clothes and tossed them in the small box he never used for dirty clothes. 'I'm messy.'
A ghost of a smile curved her mouth. 'You think that's news to me?'
'I was hoping you hadn't noticed.'
Her smile widened. 'It's impossible not to notice. You like soaking dishes in the sink. It drives me crazy. What's the point of soaking them? Why don't you just do them? You've already gone to the trouble of scraping them and rinsing, you might as well get it over with.'
'There's a perfectly logical explanation,' he said. 'To wash the dishes in hot water, I have to actually use the gas or the wood. It's more economical to wait and wash a bunch together. Hauling gas in is a pain. I use it sparingly.'
She made a face at him. 'I suppose I'll have to concede the point.'
He stood up, filling the room immediately with his wide shoulders and powerful presence. 'Do you want to move, Rachael?' He had spent years building his house and the underground storage hidden beneath it. The water system had been difficult to hide. He had everything he wanted in it. But if he wanted things necessary in modern living, he would have to build a house closer to the protection of the village where they could have a generator. So far from protection, the noise and smell of a generator was too dangerous, a complete giveaway to Tomas and anyone else chasing him.
'Move?' Rachael gripped the edge of the door and turned back to look at him with her enormous eyes. 'Why would you want to leave this beautiful house? The carvings are extraordinary. I love this house. I don't think there's any reason to move.'
'We don't have a decent cooler most of the time. Hauling ice is nearly impossible, unless I get it from the village, and I rarely shop there.'
'Your system works quite well. I don't think we'll starve.'
'You might not feel that way when the kids start coming.'
Rachael stepped backwards out the door, laughing at him. 'Kids? They're going to start coming our way, are they?'
He stalked her, following her onto the verandah and pinning her against the rail. 'I think there's bound to be lots of kids,' he murmured. His hands came up to cup the soft weight of her breasts. He rubbed his shadowed jaw over her sensitive skin, gently over her peaking nipples. 'Marry me, Rachael. We can't use the ritual ceremony of our people, but Kim's father can marry us.'
'It isn't necessary. I know we're married already.'
'I know it isn't necessary, but I want to marry you. I want to feel my child growing inside of you someday. I want it all with you.' He lowered his mouth to her breasts, suckling gently, so that she arched her back and thrust into him, holding his head while he feasted on her. The rain began a slow drizzle and the wind blew endlessly but up high, in their own world, it all seemed perfect.
She lifter her face to look up at the gently falling rain over her skin. 'How many children are a lot?' Her fingers tangled in his hair. 'Are you thinking two, three? Give me a number.' She tried to listen to the songs of the rain the way he'd instructed. It was such a medley of sounds, never the same, ever changing, all of it seeping into her veins like a drug. Like the fire he produced with the hot silk of his mouth with the heat of the forest pressing in on them.
Rio straightened, held her in his arms. Just held her to him. 'We can have a houseful, Rachael. Little girls to look like you. With your laughter and your courage.'
She wrapped her arms around him, sank deep into his hard frame. 'And with all those little children running around, how are we going to manage times like these?'
Living with Rio was a sensual adventure. Her body always seemed ripe and ready, never sated for long no matter how often he touched her. She wanted more. Wanted him a million times, a million ways. She wrapped her leg around his waist, pressing her hot, slick body against him suggestively. Her fingers tunneled in his hair, her teeth nibbled his ear, his shoulder, anything she could reach.
'We'll find a way. We'll find a million ways.' Rio lifted her, so that she could wrap both legs around him, so that
