Chapter 1

"Hoo-boy, looks like the Ramirez Woman's Curse has struck the Calvertons again. Guess we don't get no High Society party."
 

The clatter in the diner paused momentarily at the booming bass of the biggest gossip in town.
 

"Yep, appears to be that Calder Calverton's third engagement has bit the dust."
 

Nita Ramirez Gonzalez's heart tripled-thumped. A member of the third generation of Ramirez women since The Curse's so-called inception, she didn't want believe in The Curse.
 

But if The Curse did work, she sure didn't want to admit the hope igniting through her at the idea that Call might not be getting married.
 

With a straw, she stirred her iced tea, then sucked up some, the honey-sweetened lime tartness eased her dry mouth.. Maybe the thoroughly chilled tea would also cool the heat flashing through her. She had to get over this insane attraction for Calder Calverton. Her fantasies were getting completely out of hand, especially for someone who was practically a brother to her.
 

In the voice style used every Friday night under the football stadium lights, the self-appointed announcer proclaimed play-by-play to the other patrons as if they couldn't see what was happening outside the diner's windows.
 

"Calder has left his truck and is heading to the diner door. No hoity-toity New Yauwk Cidee woman in sight. Boy looks madder than a snake. I do believe we're about to find out who won The Kitty."
 

Nita hunched into her booth. She hoped the burly Border Patrol officers sitting in the booth behind her back hid her from Call. She peeked around the curtains imprinted with the ubiquitous Southwest design of turquoise, bronze, peach. Matching colored geckos sprawled across the cream above the zigzags. She could smell the dust in the material.
 

Dust puffed from beneath the soles of Call's boots and swirled hurriedly out of his way.
 

The now familiar pull of fantasy took Nita from the here-and-now.
 

Nita stood on the cliff edge and peeked through the manzanita bushes to watch Call ride across the valley floor. Dust puffed from beneath the horse's hooves and swirled hurriedly toward her.
 

He tied his horse in the sparse shade beside the creek and climbed through the scrub brush to where she waited in the shade of the mountainside. He tossed his saddlebag and a blanket to the ground.
 

He towered above her. However, unlike most men, he didn't use his height and build to intimidate. Nita knew whatever was to happen between them, he would keep her safe from his people and her own.
 

Nita looked into blue eyes that matched the summer lit sky behind him. She saw wonder and awe and a bit of apprehension. She's seen that look once in the eyes of fawn hidden in the woods. She'd given him her promise she would be here. She was here.
 

"Brought some food."
 

Despite the brusque tone, his rough voice slid through her to settle in a warm pool between her legs.
 

"Hungry?"
 

Nita shook her head. She couldn't eat. She didn't think she could swallow.
 

Call's gaze slipped down to her lips. Her mouth suddenly went dry.
 

She lifted her own canteen, her fingers trembled when she tried to unscrew the cap. When he took the canteen from her shaking hand, thick calluses from work with cattle and horses covered his fingers and rubbed gently against her skin.
 

How would those fingers feel against the more tender skin of her body? She'd felt his hands on her through the heaviness of her clothes. Would she be able to carry forward her plan to feel him against her skin? She knew she could no longer bear to push him away in obedience to her mother's and the priest's commands.
 

He deftly untwisted the cap, then helped her hold the canteen to drink. Her hand looked small against his. Her fingers had their own calluses and nicks from her work. She did not have the soft, pretty, soft, dove-white hands of the other girls he knew, the daughters of his father's friends.
 

She drank, easing the dryness in her mouth and throat. Yet the dryness returned when she looked into his eyes.
 

He lightly ran his index finger across her lower lip then down her chin. "Got a bit of water dripped on you."
 

He capped the canteen and set it with his saddle bag.
 

Approaching her the way he moved to a skittish colt, his finger followed the elusive drip of water down her throat and across her collarbone to skim the top swell of her breast.
 

Nita shivered, yet she felt no chill. Heat whipped through her making her as dizzy as sunstroke. This time she did not pull away from his touch, but took a deep breath to give his finger permission to further explore her breast.
 

"You're sure you want to keep going?" The soothing tone he used to gentle horses really held no question. He knew she was ready with the same surety she knew.
 

For months, they had been meeting. First meetings developed from the curiosity of two different families of very different cultures.
 

In the span of time, her family had been here for generations. Apaches had roamed the area. Apaches who married into or were assimilated by the Spanish conquistadors and mission priests who were supplanted by the Mexican rancheros.
 

His skin, almost as deep brown as her brothers', had been bronzed by the sun, not by heritage. His family had run cattle in the area for but a single generation.
 

Gradually, inevitably, the meetings had changed to the curiosity of male and female differences.
 

Now she wanted to become one with him.
 

He spread the blanket on the cliff floor, the back of the mountain watched over them. "Let's just sit a bit."
 

She allowed him to take her hand and lead her down, but surprised both of them by boldly sitting on his lap instead of demurely beside him. She put her mouth on his and felt his lips smile under hers.
 

She didn't want his smile. She wanted his taste. She tentatively flicked her tongue across the smile. The warmth of his exhale slid into her and she hesitated a moment. Their last time together he had taken command at this point and pushed his tongue into her mouth as though he were dying of thirst and her mouth a well of clear, cool water.
 

This time he seemed be waiting. Gathering a bit more courage from the co-mingled bloods of her ancestral heritages, Nita began an exploration of his mouth.
 

His tongue welcomed hers, wrapped around it in a wet, dark hug. How could wetness kindle fire? Yet, the thrust and stroking of his tongue ignited a blaze that flared throughout her.
 

She ran her hands across his cotton shirt trying to maintain a purchase on reality. She clung to his neck. If she let go, she'd flare into ash. His arm supported her back. Beneath the thin cotton of her blouse, she could feel his arm muscles, strong from holding cattle during the branding season, from rescuing orphaned calves. His scent smelled of warm horse, of lye soap lightly scented with juniper, of the crispness of sunlight, of the earth. She needed to be closer to the scent of him.

She needed her skin against his.
 

The heat burned through her. Her clothes grew too tight. She needed the coolness of the air against her burning skin.
 

She broke the kiss and pulled her blouse loose of the waistband of her skirt. She reached to pull the blouse off and his hands helped.
 

Nita ducked loose from his seeking mouth and struggled to pull his shirt free. With a low chuckle, he pulled his shirt over his head and discarded it. Nita spared a brief glance to his shirt landing on top of her blouse. The dampness between her thighs grew more wet, more hot when she realized in but a short time he would cover her body with his the way his shirt covered her blouse.
 

She turned back to meet his eyes. The light blue had darken to the deep slate of summer storm tossed sky. Despite the lightning of man lust blazing in them, his eyes still held the calmness that Nita trusted with all her heart. She knew at any time she felt unready she could tell him to stop and he would do as she asked. Each step of this would be her choice. No matter what decision she choose, she knew he would bear her no ill will or force her to go beyond where she could tread.
 

But this she wanted. This man. No other. From this day forward, no other man would have her. She did not need the priest's blessings. Here on the side of the mountain, the sky and the earth blessed them. The sun would give her the father's kiss she would not receive from his father. The wind would give her the mother's caress she would not receive from her mother. To this man with his turquoise eyes and sun-bronzed skin, she would belong for this day forward even beyond death.
 

His blunt fingers fumbled with the ribbons of her chemise in his eagerness.
 

"Wait," she said, reluctant as he to end the contact of the sides of his hands when they brushed across her nipples.
 

She left the heavy weight jutting her thighs with life of its own as though it were searching blindly through his trousers for the dampness of her bloomers. She sat on his saddlebags and removed her boots.
 

Some day in the far hoped for future, she would see those fine lines crinkle with age around his eyes and mouth and know she gave him the smiles that embedded them into his face. Now he followed her lead, removed his boots and stockings, and set them next to her boots.
 

She untied the waistband of her skirt and petticoat. Then she stood and let it and her petticoat drop to the blanket.
 

His eyes grew wide with wonder and pleasure. He reached loosened his belt, but before he could fully unbutton his pants, a sudden shyness swept her and she lowered her eyes to the earth.
 

She felt his hand sweep her hair from the crown of her head to its full length past her thighs. He touched nothing but her hair.
 

Then his hand stroked her face from her temple to her chin. "It's fine. We can stop."
 

"No." She lifted her chin, firmed the nervousness from her jaw, and her eyes met his. "I want this. I want you."
 

"And I want you." He took her left hand in his. "I found something for you."
 

He opened her palm and placed a nugget of turquoise in it. The raindrop shape held the color of the deep summer sky with golden sunlight traced across like Father Sun's beams in blessing. Its blue matched his love filled eyes.
 

"I found it in the caves. I kind of wonder if it's part of the vein that your Indian grandfather told you about."
 

The turquoise throbbed in her hand. The years blew through her connecting her to the past when in darkness and pressure, the stone formed into a piece of the sky.
 

"I'm going back into the caves to find another piece. Then I want to make them into rings for us when we marry."
 

She'd heard her brothers talking late one night when they thought she was asleep. Amongst the laughter and coarse jokes, they gave each other advice on the quickest way to get between a woman's legs. Most of them agreed with her middle brother's suggestion. "Promise them marriage. They drop their drawers fast then."
 

"Si," her oldest brother agreed. The bitterness in his voice lanced Nita's heart. "Then they assure themselves you will marry them when there is a baby on the way."

Her eyes met his. His eyes held no deceit.
 

Nita clutched the nugget and looked through the dark veils around him hiding the future. Her half Apache grandmother had taught her some of women's magic, the way to focus to see parts of the important things of life.
 

Finally, she saw a vision through the darkness. Despite the years of passage, he still remained young. His love for her still shone strong. She searched the future line for children. She did not want him to have the bitterness her brother had for his wife. She could see no children that took away the love he carried.

The veils shut down again leaving her standing on the mountainside in the sunlight in front of him. She knew her monthlies well. This time there would not be a child.
 

As for the future…
 

His love for her would remain strong. No unplanned child would diminish his joy of her.
 

She carefully set the turquoise nugget near their clothes. Then she undid the last button on his pants and pushed them past his hips. He stepped out of them and kicked them to join her skirt and petticoat.
 

Amazed at the sight of his manhood pushing the fabric of his drawers forward, she caught her breath, then said, "Sit, please."
 

Knowing he was watching her, Nita slowly rolled down and removed first one, then the other of her stockings. She untied her chemise and let it hang open. Then she untied her bloomers. As she started to push them past her full hips, the shyness struck again.
 

She looked into his eyes. They held no disappointment, just the same steadfast calmness and strength she'd grown to love.
 

She pushed down the bloomers and shrugged off the chemise. She tossed both pieces onto their pile of clothes and stood proudly in the sunshine. She knew she had the thick bones and short stature of her heritage. Her hair furred darkly on her arms and legs, puffed under her arms, and at the middle of her legs. She did not have the dove white skin of his father's friends, those blonde and red-haired girls he danced with at parties.
 

But she was the one to whom his eyes gleamed as sunlight on a creek bed.
 

He stood and approached her as slowly as he would move to a small frightened animal.
 

"You are beautiful," he said, his breath sweet in her nostrils. He placed a roughened palms on her breast as he untied his drawers and let them drop.

She'd seen men's male members before. She's cleaned dirty diapers, caught an inadvertent glimpse of her brothers urinating in the chaparral, even cared for her grandfather in his dying days.
 

She'd grown up on a ranch. Cattle, horses, dogs, cats: all had bred before her eyes.
 

Nothing had prepared her for this.

The heat that had scorched through her at his kisses, at the touch of his hands through her clothing became no more than the slight sting of a hot coffee cup against her palms compared to the wildfire that now consumed her. Thick and long with dark blue veins pulsing across it, it looked like it had a life of its own. A tiny bit of moisture gleamed as a jewel on its tip. Her own moisture flooded between her legs. She tightened her inner muscles in a futile effort to relieve the aching need without her fingers. She needed to touch him, to have him touch her.
 

As though her hand belonged to someone else, she watched herself reach forward, slowly dragged her fingers the length of his shaft, and caught the glistening drop on her fingertip. She studied it, then licked it off her finger. It tasted of salt, the beginning essences of the world. She closed her eyes to savor the flavor of him.
 

At the touch of a finger between her legs, her eyes snapped open. As slowly as she had, he dragged his finger between the folds of her legs much more gently than she rubbed herself. He held his hand to study his finger now wet with her fluid, then slowly licked it, savoring her as she had savored him.
 

She widened her legs to silently ask him to touch her again. Instead he simply looked at her with a slight smile to remind her she was to be the one to set the pace.
 

"Touch," her breath caught at the audacity of her request.
 

"Touch what?" Wicked man. She could hear the laughter hiding in his voice.
 

"Touch me again."

"Where?"

She wanted to grind her teeth in frustration. She took his hand and placed it between her legs. "Touch me here. Please. Now."
 

His finger strokes, first tentative and gentle, grew hard and rougher as she ground herself against his hand. The wildfire streaked through her the way the fires had burned on the mountainside after a lightning strike. She would not be able to bear this. She could not bear this to ever stop. She reached higher and higher within herself, barely aware of her body except the beginning of time part of her he continued to slide his fingers in and out of. Just as she knew she could reach no higher pleasure, she felt his mouth suckle hard on one nipple. At the same time, his fingers rasped across the most aching knot within her sending waves upon waves of pleasure spiraling upward through her to thicken her throat with a scream.
 

Nita abruptly ripped herself from the daydream fantasy. Her body shook trying to contain the orgasm still cresting through her. Oh, my God, she just about had a screaming orgasm here in the diner just like Meg Ryan's pretend one in "When Harry Met Sally." But hers was real. Her nipples ached and throbbed against her bra. Her panties were sticky under her jeans. She shifted in her seat even though she knew the heavy denim's seam wouldn't be able to relieve her any more than a Kegel exercise did.
 

Dimly, the fantasy flashed back through Nita. What was that all about? She'd never been into the Recreation thing, dressing up in a different time period's costumes. Hell, she wasn't even crazy about Halloween costumes. These days she tended to wear an orange or black tee shirt with a cat or witch or Jack-o-lantern on it with her jeans.
 

She'd never worn bloomers or a chemise in her life. She wasn't even quite positive where that cliff side was. She sure knew Call hadn't been her first lover or any lover, for that matter. He'd never even had his tongue in her mouth.
 

Nita swallowed iced tea and wished like hell it could cool her down. All she'd done was watch Call walk across the dusty parking lot and wham-oh! It was like she was in somebody else's body. Almost having a great orgasm. Damn.
 

"Hey, Call."
 

"Afternoon, Call."
 

"Yes, the wedding's off," Call's rough-timbered voice coolly addressed the question before anyone ask. His voice and words were music to her ears and slid through her body to add to the warm, sticky pool between her legs. "Figure out who won the damn Kitty."
 

Despite trying to make herself small and hide behind the Border Patrol officers, Nita knew it didn't matter. Call always knew exactly where she was.
 

"Tea and pie," he told the waitress as he slid into the booth beside Nita.
 

"God damn it, Nita." The cabochon turquoise in the ring on the third finger of his right hand gleamed like a sunlight sky. He tossed a diamond encrusted wedding band and an engagement ring onto the table in front of her. "I'm beginning to believe in the god-damned curse myself. What the hell's wrong with me?"
 

"Not a thing and you know it, Call." Nita looked straight into the eyes of the man she'd been in love with since she was thirteen.
Nita's body shuddered with shock. The turquoise eyes of her fantasy lover didn't look at her from Call's face. Looking at her in puzzlement, with the eyes she'd known all her life, were Call's soft deer-brown eyes.