For Bitter Or Worse, page 8
Travis chuckled softly at her dry wit. Stacy smiled stiffly. There was no point in apologizing to them or making excuses for Cord’s behavior. Yet something inside her wouldn’t let him exile himself to the veranda alone.
Glancing at Maria, who was setting Cord’s cup back on the tray, Stacy said, “I’ll have my coffee on the veranda, too, Maria.” Briefly she nodded to Travis and Paula. “Excuse me,” she said, and rose from her chair.
Seven
* * *
The night air was sultry from the afternoon’s heat. The starfire shimmering from the sky cast soft shadows on the whitewashed arches of the veranda.
Cord murmured a terse “thank you” when Maria set the tray on a table near his wheelchair. His gaze riveted itself on the two cups sitting on the tray, recognizing the significance of them and knowing he wasn’t alone.
Stacy paused behind him, feeling the invisible crackle of electricity in the still air. Her heels clicked loudly on the cobblestones as she ignored his silent demand to leave and walked to a chaise longue beside him.
“What are you doing out here?” he muttered impatiently, then continued without allowing her an opportunity to reply. “If you’ve come to tell me that I’ve rudely left our guests, you can save your breath.” His voice curled sarcastically around the word “guests.” “If I’d stayed inside, I doubt if I would have kept my promise. So be grateful for a small show of bad manners.”
“I am.” Stacy leaned back in her chair and sipped at her coffee, refusing to respond to his baiting tone.
The starlight glittered over the tightly clenched line of his jaw. “Shouldn’t you go back inside with our guests?” There was a savage undercurrent in his biting mockery. “One of us should be in there to entertain them.”
“Travis isn’t exactly a guest,” she replied evenly. “He can keep Paula company for a while.”
“You make it sound as if he’s practically a member of the family instead of the foreman,” Cord jeered with disdain.
“I guess I do think of him in that way,” Stacy admitted. “I don’t believe you realize how much help he’s been to us through all this.”
“To you, you mean,” he corrected. His mouth quirked bitterly. “Do you confide all your troubles to him and cry on his shoulder?”
“I don’t cry on anyone’s shoulder.” She was too independent to do that and she knew it, even if at times she wanted to pour out her troubles to someone. “The help I referred to that Travis had given us was shouldering the bulk of the ranch operation. I didn’t mean help that he had personally given me,” she explained.
Travis’s knowledge of her problems was gleaned from what he had witnessed or guessed and not from any confessions from Stacy, regardless of Cord’s accusation to the contrary.
“And you’re so grateful for his assistance that you’ve left him in the house alone with that barracuda,” Cord jeered.
Stacy breathed in deeply, fighting to control the spark of temper before it burst into flame. He seemed determined to incite an argument and she was just as determined not to oblige.
“Cord, I came out here for some fresh air,” she said slowly and distinctly, “certainly not to become embroiled in a bitter dispute with you. If you don’t want to enjoy the peace and quiet, then I’ll move to another part of the veranda where I can.”
His cup clinked loudly in its saucer. Stacy’s heart thudded rapidly in the heavy silence that followed. It was not a desire for fresh air that had brought her outdoors but the sensation that Cord had wanted her company. She wanted his, but not if it meant arguing. She had endured all the embittered and angry exchanges that she could stand for one day.
Gradually the prickles at the back of her neck eased and Stacy relaxed, resting her head against the back of the chair cushion. Miles away, a coyote yipped. The sound echoed clearly to her ears.
Her thoughts drifted to the cattle drive as she gazed at the stardust sky. Somewhere out there a night rider was watching over the herd, taking his turn while others slept in bedrolls around the campfire. A lump entered her throat as Stacy remembered again the nights she and Cord had camped out.
Eager to rid her mind of the haunting image, she focused her attention on the mechanics of the drive and Travis’s recounting of the drive’s success so far this year. It had been almost unbelievably smooth and without incident.
“It’s a relief that the cattle drive is going so well.” The absent comment was out before Stacy realized that it was her voice that had broken the silence.
Darting a quick, sideways glance at Cord, she held her breath. There wasn’t any tightness to his smooth jawline that was usually present whenever any mention of the ranch’s operation was made in his hearing.
He appeared relaxed and calm as he gazed heavenward at the stars. The tensing of her nerves eased. Stacy decided he hadn’t heard her inadvertent remark and breathed a silent sigh of relief. She let her gaze swing back to the stars.
“I can almost smell the smoke from the camp fire,” Cord murmured softly.
The starlight seemed to glow more brilliantly, filling her brown eyes with hopeful light as his warm voice rolled caressingly over her. Hesitantly she glanced at him, wondered if he, too, was remembering the nights they had spent alone on the trail. The affirmative answer was in the glittering darkness of his gaze on her face.
No words were spoken as they gazed at each other. Sometime during the eternity of seconds, his wheelchair glided silently to the side of her chair. Stacy wasn’t aware of its actual movement. She wasn’t certain that Cord knew he had done it.
He was simply there, near enough that she could have touched him with only the slightest movement of her hand. But she didn’t. His previous rejections of any physical contact with her were too painfully branded in her heart. Any touch or caress would come first from Cord or not at all.
As he remained motionless for several more seconds, Stacy quivered with the aching longing to be in his arms. He leaned forward, his hands clasping her rib cage to draw her toward him. She didn’t need the assistance to move to the hard male line of his descending mouth.
The searing possession of his kiss burned the softness of her lips. Fire rocketed through her veins as she responded to his hungry demand. Her hands cupped the powerful line of his jaw, hard and firm beneath her fingers.
Too soon, his hands were decisively but slowly pushing her away from him. Her own hands retained the shape of his face, suspended in air, as Cord set her back in her chair. Unwillingly her lashes fluttered open. His eyes were black, fathomless pools of torture.
“Stacy, my life,” Cord whispered with agony. “What am I doing? I’m destroying both of us. For bitter or worse, you said. But how much more bitter can either of us take?” He turned away, his profile hardening into an unrelenting silhouette in the starlight. “God help me, I can’t let you go. I’ll never let you go!”
“Cord, I don’t want to go,” she murmured huskily. “I only want you to stop shutting me out. I want to share in your life.”
A dark eyebrow arched with bitter cynicism. “I can’t share. What is there for me to share? My wheelchair? It’s my prison.” His mouth twisted in sardonic amusement. “The wheelchair is my prison, yet I’m your jailer. I’ll never let you go free.”
“I don’t want to be free,” Stacy protested with a faint catch of pain in her voice.
“Do you know what I’m afraid of?” There was no humor in his chilling smile. “That some day you’ll say that so often I’ll finally believe you — even though I know it’s not the truth.”
“No.” It was an inaudible denial, lost in a choked sob that Cord didn’t hear.
There was the quiet swish of his wheels turning. Stacy’s head was bowed so she didn’t see him reenter the house. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her in desperate prayer. Pain reverberated through her body, racking her muscles until she wanted to cry away the hurt, but she held the flood of tears in check.
It was several minutes before she was in sufficient control of herself to join Travis and Paula in the living room. A hand wearily pushed the hair away from her forehead as she walked into the house.
The sight of Cord in the living room brought her to an abrupt halt. She had been certain he would retreat to his bedroom.
The impregnable hardness of his gaze swept over her, noting the ravages of her storm within. A cigarette was in his hand, and the gray smoke outlined the ebony blackness of his hair.
Not a sound had betrayed Stacy’s entrance into the living room, yet Paula glanced up, as if sensing a change in the atmosphere. Her azure eyes narrowed briefly on Stacy’s wan cheeks, and a split second later a smile of warm greeting was rimming the blond woman’s face.
“You’re just in time, Stacy,” Paula declared, darting a fleeting sideways glance at Travis. “I was just trying to find out more about this annual horse sale you have from Travis. He said you were in charge of that, and that it had been your personal project for the last several years.”
“That’s true.” Stacy started forward, grateful for the safe topic of conversation and the lack of any comment about where she had been. “What did you want to know about it?”
“Well, I — ” Paula began.
“Isn’t there something else we can discuss?” Cord interrupted with a snap. He ground his cigarette out in an ashtray, suppressing anger in the action.
There was a challenging tilt of the physiotherapist’s head in his direction. “I was only going to ask Stacy what she was doing now — in connection with the sale.”
“What difference does it make to you?” Cord met her look and returned the challenge.
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” Paula shrugged. “I was just interested.”
“Well, I’m not!” he retorted.
“Do you mean you’re not interested in what goes on here at the ranch?” she asked with a long considering look.
“That’s precisely what I mean,” Cord replied sharply.
“I understood it was your ranch.” Paula tapped a cigarette from the pack sitting on the table in front of her.
As she placed the filtered tip between her lips, Cord’s gold lighter was there to touch a flame to the tobaccoed end. Stacy saw their gazes lock above the yellow flame.
“It was,” he agreed, stressing the past tense. “Since my accident, Stacy and Travis have taken over the operation of it. It’s not my affair anymore.”
“Why?” Paula blew a stream of smoke into the air.
“They make all the decisions,” was the answer.
“Why don’t you, if it’s your ranch?” she challenged.
“In case it hasn’t occurred to you, Miss Hanson — ” there was a sarcastic inflection in his voice “ — it’s difficult to oversee an operation of this size from a wheelchair.”
“Difficult but not impossible, Mr. Harris,” returning his cutting formality in kind. “Other men confined to wheelchairs have controlled holdings larger and more complex than yours.”
A muscle leaped in his jaw, the only indication of his severely checked anger. “Really?” he drawled with indifference.
“When I first met you, I thought you were that kind of man,” Paula continued. “It never occurred to me that you would let a woman rule your life, even if she is your wife. Of course — ” she shrugged nonchalantly “ — initially I thought you were a man.”
“Meaning?” he demanded coldly.
“Surely I don’t have to explain.” Paula blinked her widened eyes. “You’re the one who’s hiding behind your wife’s skirt and letting her make all the decisions. You could hardly be described as the master of your own destiny.”
Stacy had apprehensively sunk her teeth into her lower lip at the insult to Cord’s masculinity in Paula’s last remark. She took a step forward, but Travis caught her eye and shook his head.
Stacy breathed in sharply in surprise when she saw Cord lean back in his chair and laugh silently, admittedly without humor.
“You’re not opposed to hitting below the belt, are you?” The grooves around his mouth deepened with satirical amusement as his gaze narrowed on his blond adversary.
“Why should I be?” Paula countered. “You don’t seem to be bothered when you hurt people who care about you.”
Just in case Cord didn’t understand her vague reference to Stacy, Paula glanced pointedly at her, dwelling on the lines of strain around her mouth and eyes. Cord followed her look. There wasn’t even a glimmer of guilt or remorse in his impassive features. He turned back to Paula, a suggestion of arrogance in the tilt of his head.
“You can do all the hitting below the belt that you want, Miss Hanson,” he said calmly. “It doesn’t bother me in the least. As for my wife — ” his gaze slashed to Stacy; its mockery chilled her “ — Stacy and I understand each other. I’m perfectly aware of what she wants. I doubt very seriously, Miss Hanson, if you do. Now, I’ll bid all of you good night and relieve you of my uncomfortable presence.”
As he started to move his wheelchair forward, Paula suggested smoothly, “I think you’re the one who is uncomfortable, Mr. Harris.”
Cord paused, met her challenging glance, and smiled. “I’m bored, but not uncomfortable.” His smile deepened, carving grooves near his mouth. “As a matter of fact, Miss Hanson, I’m now beginning to realize that these little battles with you just might relieve my boredom.”
A silence followed his departure from the room, with all three pairs of eyes watching him leave. All of them were a bit stunned by his curious about-face and what it meant.
“Round two was a draw,” Paula breathed finally. “I think I’m going to have to be on my toes tomorrow morning if I expect to come out on top.”
“Cord isn’t the type to let anyone else stay on top for long,” Travis commented idly, unaware that he had spoken his thoughts aloud. “He always lands on his feet, like a cat.”
“I hope I’m just as agile,” Paula tacked on thoughtfully.
An icy finger trailed down Stacy’s spine and she shivered. Her world was being turned upside down and there seemed to be nothing she could do or say to put it right. Earlier Cord had called her his life. In the next breath, he had declared he didn’t believe her when she said she never wanted to leave him.
Time was on her side and she could overcome that. But that wasn’t what was making her blood run cold. It was his comment that Paula would provide a diversion to his boredom. Stacy was afraid of what that might mean. Cord was virtually a stranger to her. She didn’t know him anymore.
A lump rose in her throat. Her stomach churned sickeningly, and rubbery legs threatened to give way beneath her. She swayed unsteadily, a hand pressing itself against the flat of her stomach to quell the convulsing muscles.
“I — I think I’ll check on Josh.” She needed to escape, so she grabbed at the first logical excuse.
“Stacy.” Paula’s voice checked her first awkward step from the room. “Before I forget, will you be here at the house tomorrow morning?”
“I — ” She couldn’t think. Tomorrow was an eternity away and her mind couldn’t seem to focus on it.
“You mentioned something about going into town in the morning,” Travis prompted gently.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Stacy laughed brittlely, running a trembling hand along her temple. “I have to take the yearling list for the sales catalog to the printers in the morning.” Her nerves were threadbare. “Was there something you wanted, Paula?”
“No.” Paula inhaled briefly on her cigarette and snuffed it out in the ashtray. “I was going to start initiating your husband to his exercises and I just wondered where you would be.”
“I can postpone going into town until the afternoon if you’d like me to help.” The offer was made almost desperately as Stacy turned, her chestnut hair swinging silkily around her shoulders. She wanted to maintain any link with Cord regardless of how rusty the connection might be.
“Don’t do that.” The blonde shook her head.
“I don’t mind. I — I want to help.”
For the first time, Stacy noticed a flash of uncertainty in the woman’s face. The blue eyes looked in her direction without looking directly at her.
“Actually, Stacy, it would be better if you weren’t here — at least in the beginning,” Paula hastily added. “I’m afraid you would be more of a distraction than a help, however good your intentions. The therapist-patient relationship is very important, especially in your husband’s case. Besides, the first few days or more will probably be pretty rough on Cord. Caring about him the way you do, your instinct would be to try to make it easier for him. I’m sorry, but it’s nothing personal.”
“I understand.” Did she though? Stacy didn’t know. There were so many things she didn’t know or understand anymore. Not the least among them was Cord. “Excuse me,” she murmured, and this time made her exit from the room.
The next morning Stacy had genuinely intended to be gone from the house before Paula started her exercise and therapy program with Cord. But one minor interruption after another kept her in the study until half-past nine.
With the list in her hand of the yearling colts and fillies to be sold, Stacy walked out of the study. The door to the master bedroom was ajar. It drew her gaze like a magnet. A muffled exclamation of pain made her hesitate.
“Dammit, that hurts!” she heard Cord mutter savagely.
“Well, dammit, it’s supposed to,” was the unruffled response from Paula. “It’s going to hurt a lot more before we’re through.”
“I don’t like it when a woman swears,” he retorted with a muffled undertone of discomfort.
“For once we share a similar viewpoint, Mr. Harris,” Paula declared. “I find it offensive when a man swears.”
Suddenly Stacy realized that she was eavesdropping. That realization was followed immediately by a niggling doubt that she had allowed herself to be detained at the house when she could have left earlier as planned. With a guilty start, she hurried toward the front door before her presence was discovered.
