Free Tender Savage by Iris Johansen Page B

she bathed. When she came out of the water, she found he had set out green army fatigue trousers, two pairsof socks, boots, and a shirt that were all spotlessly clean. She supposed it was too much to hope for underclothing. The clothes hung almost as loosely on her small frame as Manuel’s garments did on him. She rolled up the sleeves of the shirt and put on one pair of dark-gray socks and stuffed the combat boots with the other pair to make them fit.
    “You shouldn’t have put on the shirt.” Manuel frowned in disapproval as he turned around to look at her. “Ricardo told me he wanted to look at your wounds.”
    “There’s no need. They’re healing well.”
    “Ricardo said he wants to look at them.” Manuel’s jaw set stubbornly. “I’ll go get him.”
    “He’s probably forgotten he told you that,” Lara said lightly. “He has a war to run.”
    “Ricardo doesn’t forget.”
    “Everyone forgets things when they’re under pressure.”
    Manuel shook his head. “Not Ricardo.” He turned on his heel and trotted off.
    Another worshipper at the altar, Lara thoughtwearily as she began to run the brush through her damp hair. How did the man do it?
    The question was rhetorical. She knew exactly how he did it. She had a taste of that charisma herself at the Abbey. With the sheer force of his personality and his honeyed tongue he had built a world that had swept her away from fear and desolation into a country where only beauty and love existed. A man with power and eloquence on such a scale could move hearts as well as mountains.
    But the country he had created for her had not really existed. Those hours they spent together had been a mirage, a time apart. They had been forced together in the most intimate of circumstances, which had distorted the reality of how different they were. Now that they were free of the prison, she was sure she would be able to look at him with the same objectivity she had before she arrived on Saint Pierre. The sense of loneliness and depletion she had felt when she had first awakened was a bizarre aftereffect of the traumatic events at the Abbey.
    “How are you?” Ricardo asked from behind her.
    The brush running through her hair stopped in mid motion as her heart gave a leap. She drew a deep breath and didn’t turn around as she resumed brushing her hair. “I told Manuel I was fine. You didn’t need to come and see for yourself.”
    “But I’ve not always found you entirely honest.”
    “I’ve never lied to you.”
    “You don’t always have to lie to deceive.” His tone was hard and unrelenting. “You manipulated me. Paco knew I’d never permit you to put yourself into that kind of danger to save my neck.”
    “Things went wrong. He was supposed to arrive with the cavalry earlier,” she said lightly. “I probably wouldn’t have been hurt at all if everything had gone as planned.”
    “Things always go wrong in a war. Paco knows that, even if you don’t.”
    “Renalto’s not to blame. He warned me it would be dangerous.”
    “Dangerous? My God, you could have been beaten to death or gang-raped before he got there. Don’t you know how little time it takes to—Turn around and look at me, dammit.”
    She didn’t want to look at him. The fierceness in his voice hurt her too much and she didn’t want to see that same unforgiving fierceness in his expression. But it had to be done sometime. She carefully put the brush down on the rocky ground beside her, stood up, and turned to face him.
    He looked different. It wasn’t only the clean uniform and the fact that his long hair had been cut several inches and no longer flowed down his back. That aura of indomitable strength that he had been forced to keep suppressed while he had been a prisoner was now almost visible to the naked eye. She felt as if she could reach out and touch it. Her gaze lifted to his face and she shivered. His expression was as forbidding as she had thought it would be. His dark eyes were