The Spaniard's Summer Seduction: Under the Spaniard's Lock and Key / The Secret Spanish Love-Child / Surrender to Her Spanish Husband. Maggie Cox
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solemn-eyed little boy who raised his arms to Maggie when she reached him, hefting him into her arms. She turned, pressed his face into her shoulder and tried to run; her legs felt leaden. They worked painfully slowly as she fought against the inertia, struggling to suck air into her oxygen-starved lungs.
She could hear the danger approaching but didn’t dare look… Convinced she wasn’t going to make it with her last ounce of strength she flung the little boy at a young man who was running out to meet them.
She saw him safe and closed her eyes as the adrenaline rush in her bloodstream dipped dramatically. She tried to run felt her legs give and cried out. Safety was tantalisingly near but she couldn’t… Her face scrunched into a teeth-clenched mask of determination as she tried to push herself forward.
Then something hit her. For a brief moment she thought it was the loose timber, then she realised the solidity was warm and male—it was Rafael. She stopped fighting as he carried her from danger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE impetus of Rafael’s sprint carried them both past the crowd of cheering villagers and to the brink of the grassy slope beyond. He dug his heels in but the momentum he had built up was too great to resist and they went over the top, Maggie still in his arms.
As they landed at the bottom the breath left her body in a painful whoosh as she sank into the mercifully soft ground. For a moment she couldn’t breathe or speak…but euphoria made her want to explode. She was alive—that was a big, a massive, plus considering the way things had been looking seconds earlier. A little detail like speech loss was fine, bruises were fine, Rafael on top of her was…
Her chaotic thoughts slowed from a breathless gallop to a slow canter. Rafael was on top of her!
He was breathing like a marathon runner. She was underneath him, a position that if she was honest she had been imagining pretty much from the second she saw him.
She felt fingers frame her chin and heard a deep voice harsh with concern ask, ‘Are you all right, Maggie? Can you hear me?’
‘Of course I can hear you. I’m not deaf.’ She opened her eyes, his face suspended above her was very close.
His heavy-lidded eyes blazed, the heat in them pinning her as surely as his body; the bones of his face stood out in stark prominence beneath his gleaming golden skin.
She got breathless and it had nothing to do with his weight pinning her down—well, only partly. The veneer of cultured civilisation and urbane charm was totally stripped away, revealing the essence of the raw masculinity beneath.
Without a word or taking his eyes from her, he bent his head and fitted his mouth to hers, kissing her hard, then without a word he rolled off her.
‘You went back?’
She turned her head in response to the stark incredulity in his voice. Rafael lay on his back, one arm curved above his head, staring at the sky. She could see his chest rising and falling in sync with his laboured inhalations.
She decided that if he could pretend the kiss hadn’t happened, so could she. She could definitely ignore the fact her lips tingled and his taste was in her mouth, a piece of cake!
‘I think you saved my life, thank you.’ Twice, if anyone was counting.
She expected him to mention the fact. He didn’t.
‘I don’t want your thanks.’
She lay there on the floor as he got to his feet in one lithe athletic bound. He dragged the hair back from his brow before extending a hand.
After a pause Maggie took it and found herself hauled to her feet.
‘You insane idiot, do you have a death wish?’
Maggie was spared from responding to this savage question because at that moment the village en masse swept over them like a blanket of goodwill and concern.
Maggie was carried away on a wave of hugs, kisses and tears, taken quite literally to the heart of the village.
She was declared a heroine bilingually. It was all very emotional and Maggie, both embarrassed and overwhelmed by the attention, went very quiet.
She lost count of the number of times she said she was fine. It was Rafael who finally rescued her from the love and adulation, saying firmly that she needed rest, could they not all see that she was about to collapse?
She repressed her natural inclination to deny she was that pathetic and allowed herself to be escorted back to his car. It seemed to Maggie from his manner that Rafael’s intervention was motivated more by irritation than concern for her well-being.
He had received his share of gratitude too and with every thank-you his mood seemed to have got darker.
Was she paranoid or was she the focus of his annoyance?
Maybe he was actually hurt but was too macho to admit it. She had got the definite impression when they were falling that he was trying to shield her using his body and his arms, which had circled her like a steel barrier to cushion the impact.
And despite his assurances to the contrary the cuts on his dark face did suggest he hadn’t escaped as lightly as she had. His dark hair was tousled and his shirt was ripped almost off his back, revealing a very distracting expanse of brown chest, well-developed shoulders and flat, muscle-ridged belly, not to mention a hand-sewn label that explained in part his irritation: his shirt was no more off the peg than his body was.
Maybe he blamed her for everything, including the ripped shirt. She thought about the angry kiss—hard not to—her eyes half closing as she remembered the texture of his firm lips, the warmth of his breath…the brief explosion of mind-numbing passion.
It was lucky, really, that everyone had assumed her numbed state was caused by the trauma of the accident. She wanted them to carry on believing this version. For Rafael to even suspect that a kiss that had barely registered on his radar had turned her the next best thing to catatonic would have been too mortifying.
She lifted a hand to her mouth and tilted her head back to catch a glimpse of his beautiful sculpted mouth, and immediately stumbled on the rocky ground where the cars, including Rafael’s, had been parked.
Several pairs of arms reached to catch her but Rafael’s were there first. Ignoring her weak protest, he swung her up into his arms, barely breaking stride.
Reaching his car, he deposited her in the front seat.
‘That was quite unnecessary,’ she said frostily.
‘You are welcome.’ He inclined his dark head, his grey eyes mocking her.
Maggie managed a stiff smile as one of the women placed a blanket over her knees. The man standing beside the woman waited until she had tugged it snugly around Maggie before he leaned into the car and clasped one of Maggie’s hands between both of his and said something in Spanish.
Maggie gave a helpless smile and the old man looked to Rafael.
‘The little boy you went back for was Alfredo’s grandson. He says to tell you that you are an angel sent from God.’
Maggie gave an embarrassed little shrug, then turning her hand to grasp the teak-coloured gnarled fingers that lay on top of hers, she squeezed and smiled saying huskily, ‘I’m glad nobody was hurt.’ She glanced at Rafael, bit her lip and, struggling to control the husky throb of emotion in her voice, said, ‘Tell him what I said, please.’
Rafael’s eyes lingered on her face, moving up in a sweep from the graceful line of her slender neck, the curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips and her wide-spaced liquid dark eyes. Alfredo’s description seemed apt—she did look like an angel, a sad, sexy angel.
This was a situation where seeing both sides of the argument was not useful. Maggie Ward might have many excellent qualities beyond a kissable mouth and a sinfully sexy body, but he didn’t want to know about them. It confused the issue.
She