Cheyenne's Lady, page 22
A fireplace had been constructed of stones and vented out the front wall. A braided straw rug adorned the dirt floor and wooden pegs jutted from the back of the door. Tin cups and plates waited on a tabletop perched on the stumpy branches of a dried tree carcass, and coffee boiled in a kettle over the fire.
Her gaze wandered to the corner where they had made their bed before, and she bit her lip to hide her gasp of surprise.
Luke had constructed a small bed of green wood and leather thongs and covered it with a mattress made of blankets, dried grass, and evergreen. Over that he had thrown a colorful quilt. The care he had taken told her much, and she feared to meet his eyes. He had not built that bed for an afternoon’s dalliance. He meant to share it with her for much longer than that.
Luke lowered her feet to the ground. A surge of desire prevented her from turning from his embrace. He stroked her hair, and she laid her head against his shoulder, clinging to his shirt.
“The sheepherders will think they’ve been visited by fairies,” she murmured.
Luke tightened his embrace. “There’s no grass left on this side of the range for sheep. They won’t be using it for a while. Once I get this job done and a few things straightened out, I’ll do better.”
Maria glanced up at him, but she could not determine his meaning. He was already unbuttoning her shirt, and it didn’t matter what he meant. She wanted his touch against her skin.
They barely had time to remove their clothes before they fell on the bed, tangled in each other’s arms. Luke’s heavy weight pressed her down against the covers, and she reveled in his muscular strength.
They had no thunder to urge them on now, but they needed none. With more care than their previous passionate couplings, Luke guided Maria to the brink of bliss time and again. He would have her know all that could be between them before he left. She learned so eagerly, he had no doubt that her need was as great as his. It would take time, but he would teach her where such desire could lead.
In the hours and days that followed, Luke accomplished his objective most thoroughly. A day didn’t pass that they couldn’t find some time to steal away and meet in this shelter from the world’s eyes. Only here could they truly be together. In the company of her uncles they barely dared speak to each other. To look and touch were out of the question. Here, they could speak their minds and hearts and learn those secrets lovers need to know. Although Luke never talked fully of his past, Maria learned of the long hours he had spent on cattle drives and stagecoaches, hours when he had accumulated the wealth of songs he used to shorten lonely nights. She spoke of her mother and father and the love she had known when she was young.
When the words died beneath the need to touch and learn the secrets of their bodies as well as their hearts, they turned to each other’s arms without doubt or hesitation. No longer did Maria question Luke’s right to touch her like this. It could not be any other way between them.
Maria had a soul as pure as gold, and Luke believed she would wait through whatever it would take until he came back to her.
“Mi carina, mi novia, I wish you were going with me,” he murmured. Her full breasts pressed against his chest, and her buttocks fit nicely into the curve of his hand. She was made for him, and he was reluctant to let her go.
“Where you go, I’ll follow,” she whispered in his ear.
Luke sank his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back so he could study the deep green of her eyes. The pupils were wide and dark, and he memorized their beauty as he spoke.
“You will stay here and act as if everything is normal,” he informed her. “To do otherwise would only bring danger to yourself and to others. Are you listening, Maria?”
Anger flared and the gold flecks disappeared as her pupils narrowed. “I am listening and I do not like what I hear. You really mean to leave me here to dance attendance on my uncles and Manuel while you ride off to heaven knows where to do heaven knows what? I see no reason why I should stay behind.”
“You will stay behind because I tell you to.” Luke slid from beneath the covers and reached for his pants. He saw no need to explain himself. If all went well, she would know in good time. If all did not, she was better off thinking him a wretch best forgotten.
“Luke!” Maria threw back the covers and caught his shoulder.
She would not beg or plead—pride stood in the way of that—but Luke understood and pressed a kiss against her brow. “I will be back, poquita. Just do as I say and be patient. Sean will be nearby if you need him.”
“You are going to do something dangerous and get yourself killed.” Frightened and hiding it with anger, Maria sprang from the bed and grabbed up her clothing. “Then I will have to marry Manuel because no one will want me.”
Luke grabbed her by the shoulders, jerking her around until their gazes met. “You will go back with your uncles to the city in that case. Under no circumstances are you to marry that bastard, do you hear me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Maria pulled away from his grasp and gave him a scathing look. “I am betrothed to Manuel. He will come home expecting to declare a wedding date. What do you want me to say? ‘Oh, certainly, Manuel,’” she mimicked a sweet, lilting voice, “‘just let me wait to see if my lover returns’?”
“You will not tell him anything. You will string him along just as you have been doing, but if I ever catch you alone with him, I’ll blister your hide.” Luke sat down and began to jerk on his boots.
“String him along! Is that what I’ve been doing? Or is that what you’ve been doing? Just stringing me along until the next town or the next woman?”
With only her chemise and her hair falling in thick ebony waves over the full curve of tawny breasts, Maria presented a picture Luke could not face without throwing her back to the bed again. Stonily he continued pulling on his boots.
“If it will make you happy to think that, fine. Just remember I’ll be back, so think twice before you do anything foolish.”
“I’m thinking twice now. I’m thinking I’ve already been a fool. I knew it all along, but I kept telling myself you were different, that I couldn’t be so stupid as to be one of those poor, lonely women who fall for exciting, dangerous gunfighters. But I’m just like all the rest, and you’re no better.”
Maria jerked on her shirt and reached for her pants, her wrath growing with his silence. “You’ll be back, all right, if they don’t hang you or shoot you first. You’ll be back long enough to have me believing you’re going to stay, and then you’ll be gone again. I’m telling you right now, Luke, I won’t have that kind of life. I want children and I want them to have a father, and you’re damn well not the kind of man to do that.”
Boots and trousers on, Luke stood up and caught Maria by the waist, pulling her against his bare chest while his mouth expertly found hers. She fought like a tigress, but her body responded long before her will. Her nipples had sharpened into taut points even while her eyes flashed dangerously.
“Maybe I’m not. I never said I would be. I make no promises I can’t keep, Maria. I’ll be back, of that you can be certain. What you wish to do with the knowledge is your choice.” He wanted to warn her again of Manuel, but in this mood she was just as likely to do the opposite of what he said.
She didn’t know Consuela had left town, but she was quite capable of putting two and two together if he told her of Manuel’s habits. She would go after the Spaniard with a knife if she learned what he had done, and Luke had no mind to come back and find her in pieces. He would have to rely on her survival instincts and Sean’s proximity until he got back.
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.” Maria flung herself from his arms. Furiously she turned her back on him and began to button her shirt, shoving it into her boy’s britches.
“Too well,” Luke replied sarcastically. Why in hell he’d got mixed up with a firebrand like this one, he’d never know, but he wasn’t turning back now. The challenge was still there. She wasn’t his yet. But someday . . . He let that thought go and strode outside to saddle the horses.
Chapter 6
Maria listened in frustrated silence as her uncles argued over her future as if she were not there. Luke had been gone nearly a month, and they seemed convinced he would not return. Now that the cattle had been sold off, they were eager to return to their families. Maria could not blame them, but she wished they would leave her out of their plans.
Treading a well-worn mental path, Maria returned to a more personal threat to her peace of mind: the neat stack of unused linen in her drawer upstairs. Pieta was already giving her odd looks, and she was only two weeks late. She had never been two weeks late since her monthly flux had begun. Perhaps if she went riding it would jog the blood into flowing again. She would try again in the morning.
She tried to concentrate on the conversation around her, but her uncles’ arguments missed the one salient point that made them all moot. It was bad enough that they meant to pass her off as a respectable maiden, but they could never explain away her swollen belly if she carried Luke’s child. She would have to tell them before it got to that point. It was too early yet. She had to be certain before facing the condemnation that awaited her.
Worse yet, she knew Manuel had returned, and he had yet to visit her. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened. He could just be making her suffer for her temper tantrum before she left for Santa Fe. She would even that score should she tell him there was a possibility she carried another man’s child.
The thought of telling him frightened her, but she could not offend his pride by allowing him to court her under the circumstances. If he continued to court her. She didn’t know how badly Manuel wanted the land, but he did offer that one small ray of hope.
She didn’t dare let her thoughts dwell on Luke. To do so invited visions of his body hanging from a gallows, his neck bent and buzzards circling overhead. She wondered if the symptoms of pregnancy included an overactive imagination and morbid thoughts. It was better to remember her anger. He would return, the foul, rotten beast, expecting her to fall back in his bed again. She would announce her pregnancy and he would run like a scared rabbit and hide in Wyoming Territory. Perhaps he was even married. Maybe Caroline was his wife, and he had done something dreadful and could never return to her. That sounded likely.
Maria gave up on the conversation and asked to be excused from the table. Her uncles almost appeared surprised that she was still there. Maria wandered out to the kitchen, where Pieta was mixing bread dough. She didn’t dare venture to this haven unless Carmelita or Pedro were nearby. Pieta’s questions were too sharp by far, and she could not relax for a minute.
Too late she realized the hour and that Pedro would be in bed. Instead of helping her mother, Carmelita was out mooning over her novio. A date had already been set for their wedding, and guiltily Maria realized the gowns that had been made up for her own wedding would most likely be worn at Carmelita’s instead. Perhaps with a little altering she and Carmelita could trade gowns. Before Maria could make some excuse and escape, Pieta handed her a towel and a pot to be dried.
“You do nothing anymore. Make yourself useful. Or do you still plan on wedding Manuel and not having to work at all?”
Maria bit back a sigh and began to rub the heavy iron pot. “If you want to plot my future, go talk with my uncles. My opinion has not been asked.”
“Bahhh, men!” Pieta threw up her soapy hands in a gesture of disgust. “They never see what’s right before their faces. You will have to tell them what you want and act on it, if you know what it is you want.” This last part she added with a shrewd look to Maria.
“Right now I’d like to see all men banished to hell, except Pedro. I’ll keep him.” Maria set the dry pot aside and reached for another. If she went with her uncles, she might never see Pedro again. That thought generated her earlier uneasiness. With a bluntness she would not have dared a month ago she asked, “Who is Pedro’s father?”
Pieta accepted the rude question without anger. “You do not know?” She looked up from the dishes and must have read Maria’s surprise. “You were too young to understand. It does not matter. Pedro is my own. I will care for him.”
Doggedly Maria persisted. “When my father was ill, he talked of calling his lawyer. When he started getting a little better, he mentioned going to Santa Fe, but he never got there. Is there a reason he might have wanted to change his will? That is the only reason I know of that he would want his lawyer.”
Pieta shoved another pot in her hands. “You ask too many questions. It does not matter now. What matters is what will become of you. When is this gunfighter of yours returning?”
“For all I know, they’re stringing him up somewhere. And if you won’t answer my questions, I’ll ask Charlie. He’s not too young to understand.” Maria set the pot down.
“Maria.” Pieta’s sharp command brought Maria to a halt. “The lawyer and the will does not matter. Comprende? The land was as much your mother’s as your father’s and now it is yours. Do not let them steal it from you.”
Maria rested her hands against the table top and stared at the plump, black-haired woman who had been like a mother to her for half her life. “I don’t care about the damned land. May the lightning come down from the clouds and strike me dead, but the land is nothing to me. I love my home and my flowers, but without the people in it, it is just another empty house. I want a home, Pieta. Not just any home, but mine. My mother and father are gone, and I was never blessed with brothers and sisters, and those two men in there are strangers to me. Perhaps someday I will learn to love them but not now. If I had a home to fight for, Pieta, I would fight.”
Pieta’s dark eyes softened and a tear glistened in the corner of her eye. “Sometimes I forget you are not a man. The land was everything to your father. He loved you and your mother equally with the land. Perhaps he loved Pedro in the same way, because he had always wanted a son, but he had too much else to occupy his mind by then. You have a home, Maria, anytime you want it. Do not go away thinking there is nothing left for you here.”
Maria burst into tears. She could not help herself. All the torment and confusion of these last weeks and months surfaced. She fell into Pieta’s comforting arms and sobbed as she had never done. She had lost so much, she had so little left, and the future loomed large and terrifying. The love Pieta offered filled a gaping need.
She had a brother. The miracle of this discovery swept aside her tears. They should have told her before. She had missed so many years of this joy. She had dozens of questions to ask, but she could not voice them. She understood now what she might not have understood before Luke came along. Her father had been a lonely man with a passion for life. Pieta was a loving, understanding woman. She could not ask for details, but she could see her father now with whiskey in him, turning to a woman whose arms would welcome him without question or expectation. And Pedro was the result.
Maria looked up to her foster mother with a gleam of mischief. “Do we look alike? Can you tell we are brother and sister?”
Pieta snorted and wiped her hands. “You come of two different mothers. You both have your father’s temper, but Pedro has my control and you have your mother’s lack of it. Beyond that, who’s to say? Your coloring is alike except you have your father’s eyes. You both favor your father about the mouth. Your smiles are his. But there will always be a difference. Keep that in mind, Maria. You are a wealthy young lady. Pedro is an unnamed—”
“Don’t you say it!” Maria clenched her fists. “He is my father’s only son. He has an uncle he ought to know in that other room. What do fancy words said in a church or a piece of legal paper mean? It is blood that ties us together.”
Pieta gave her a curious look. “That may be, but it is the piece of paper that people believe. Without that your child is nobody with no claim to anyone or anything. Pedro at least has a name, even if it is not the right one. I am the only one who can name him bastard. Think about that carefully, Maria.”
Maria blushed and looked away. “If it is the name that matters and not the blood, then perhaps no name at all would be preferable in some instances. I will think about it.”
She left the kitchen and wandered through the yard to the patio on the other side of the house. She had much to think about. Learning Pedro’s parentage complicated things. Pieta had no reason to lie. There was no money left. Pedro could not benefit even if there were. Her uncles would see to that. No, the only one who benefited from the knowledge was herself. She was not completely alone now. She had someone to love, someone to take care of. If she carried a child, she would see that he knew his uncle better than she knew hers. They would grow up together.
That was a lovely thought, but not a very practical one. Her uncles would sell the ranch and Pedro would be without a home. She didn’t know where she would be. If only there were some way of keeping the ranch. Would Manuel let her keep Pieta and Pedro here?
By the next morning, Maria had dark rings under eyes, but she had come to no conclusions. She rode out on Erinmeade alone, despite Charlie’s warnings. She had always rode alone. She saw no reason to stop now that she wore skirts more frequently than pants. Men had odd ideas of propriety.
The day would be a scorcher. Already the hot sun beat down upon her hat and shoulders. She could not ride Erinmeade too hard in this weather, and she was no longer certain that she wanted to jar her insides until the blood flowed again. She felt strangely content with the idea that she might be carrying a new life inside of her.
The heat began to make her dizzy, and she stopped in the shadow of an overhanging rock to fan herself with the sombrero Luke had bought for her in Santa Fe. She had contemplated going up on the ridge as she had nearly every day for weeks to the shelter Luke had prepared, but it no longer seemed worth the effort. If Luke were going to return, he would not go there first—if he returned at all. It did not take a month to ride to Santa Fe or even Albuquerque and back. Something had happened.
