Читать книгу Bandera's Bride - Mary McBride - Страница 11

The Crippled B’s beautiful, but uninvited guest slept late the following morning, for which John was grateful since it gave him some additional and very necessary time to get not only his house in order, but his mind as well.

The night before, after Emily had gone to bed, John had gathered up all of her letters, along with her photograph in its hammered tin frame, then locked them away in the safe where he kept the deeds to all his property and the cash he kept on hand to meet the monthly payroll.

Right now there wasn’t anybody to pay, thank God, or to tell Emily Russell that they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Price McDaniel in three years. John decided that he didn’t have much cause to worry about Señora Fuentes or her daughter, Lupe, since neither one of them spoke more than one or two words of English.

As far as he knew, Emily’s knowledge of Spanish was limited to a few assorted words he’d written in a couple of his letters to her. Besides, Price had left long before John had hired the housekeeper. As far as he knew, Señora Fuentes and her daughter didn’t even know his missing partner’s name.

It was different, though, with some of the longtime ranch hands, the ones who’d been around from the beginning of The Crippled B. Fortunately, two of the old-timers, Diego and Hector, only knew enough English to order a halfway decent meal in an Abilene cafe. But then there was Tater Latham. The lanky Kansan not only spoke English, but spoke it at such length and at such great volume that people were always telling him to shut up. Tater, when he returned, could be a problem.

The obvious solution, of course, was sending Emily back to her home in Mississippi. And during a long night with hardly any sleep, John had decided to do just that. Send the beautiful Miss Russell back to Russell County where she belonged.

But not yet.

Dios, not just yet.

Although he had fallen in love with his Emmy’s words on paper, it had only taken him moments to realize that those words had been a perfect reflection of the flesh-and-blood woman. She was as bright as she was beautiful. As kind as she was fair.

She was a lady through and through, and yet far more sensuous than he’d ever have believed with her full lips and her direct blue gaze. Her accent reminded him of Price, but his partner’s voice had been salted with sarcasm while Emily’s flowed like the sweetest clover honey.

And lady that she was, she’d given him not the slightest indication that the color of his skin offended her or his accent grated on her ears or his lack of proper parentage affected her at all. She seemed oblivious to any difference.

Last evening John had even caught himself studying her calm expression and thinking that maybe it didn’t matter to his Emmy one bit that he wasn’t a blue-eyed, fair-haired, fine-blooded gentleman like Price. But, of course, it had to matter. How could it not? Miss Emily Russell of Russell County, Mississippi, was just too kind and too polite, too much of a lady, to allow her disdain and her distaste to show.

“You’re a damned fool,” John muttered to himself. “Loco. Estupido.”

He swore again as he jerked open the center drawer of the desk, withdrawing a sheet of paper to make a list of supplies they’d be needing soon for The Crippled B. Maybe, he hoped, tallying pounds of flour and salt and chicken feed, and figuring yards of hemp rope and muslin and wire would take his mind off the woman who was sleeping nearby in Señora Fuentes’s bed.

He’d only managed to write a few items on the page when he heard her honey voice.

“Good morning, John.”

She seemed to float into the front room, her blue silk wrapper whisking about her legs and her golden hair spilling over her shoulders like warm morning sunshine. Then she stood still, staring at the desktop.

“Oh, you’re busy writing. I’m so sorry, John. I didn’t intend to interrupt you.”

“No. It’s all right. You’re not interrupting at all. I was just…”

The words stuck in his throat all of a sudden when he looked down at the list and the dark, distinctive penmanship there. Had she seen it? With a flick of his wrist, he turned the telltale paper over.

“This can wait,” he told her, putting down the pen and rising from his chair.

Emily continued to stare at the desk, though, with a wistful slant to her mouth and an odd, distracted light in her eyes.

“I was just thinking about Price,” she said almost dreamily. “I imagine this is where he sits when he composes letters, isn’t it?” She gestured to the chair John had just left.

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

She moved forward then, reached for the steel pen he’d only just put down, and held it delicately, as if it might break from a mere touch.

“You must think me very silly to be so sentimental about an inanimate object like this. It’s just…” She clutched the pen tighter. Her eyes shone with tears. “When do you think Price will be returning from Kansas? Will it be days? Weeks?”

“I don’t know.” Never, he longed to say. Jamas.

Under the golden shawl of her hair, John could see her delicate shoulders slump a fraction. He ached to take her in his arms, to comfort her. He had to clench his fists to keep his hands from reaching out. She was so fragile just then, so pale and vulnerable, and he thought of how Price had described the Southern belles he claimed to know so well. Gardenias, he’d called them. Touch them and they bruise.

Emily put the pen down with exquisite care, sighed, and then turned to him, attempting to smile.

“Well, enough of that. Nobody likes a sad and weepy female for a guest, do they? I’ll try to be better company, John. I promise. Now, don’t let me take up any more of your time. I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

He shrugged again. “There’s not so much of that this time of year.”

He wished there were. He wished he had a ton of work to distract him. A score of horses to be broken. A hundred mavericks to be branded. A thousand back-breaking chores. Anything to put some distance between himself and this woman. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. Distance.

“I was planning to ride out today and check on a few of the line shacks,” he said. “To see if they need repairs.”

Emily was gazing at him so intently now, such bright curiosity shining in her eyes, that he found himself uttering words he’d never intended.

“You could come along if you want. With me, I mean. See some of the ranch.”

Then, before he could take the invitation back, Emily’s whole face fairly glowed. “Oh, I’d love that,” she said. “I’ll hurry and get dressed.”

Emily surveyed as much of herself as possible in the little mirror that hung between Señora Fuentes’s wooden crucifix and a candle sconce. She’d laced her corset as loosely as she could before putting on her lightest gabardine dress. She looked healthy and plump, she decided, rather than three, nearly four months pregnant. And she was looking forward to her excursion around The Crippled B.

“Best bring some extra belongings,” John had told her, and when she’d raised an eyebrow, he had added, “This is Texas. We may not make it back tonight.”

She had simply nodded in agreement, and now she wondered why the prospect of overnighting in the wilds with a near stranger—half Indian, at that—didn’t bother her in the least. Quite the contrary as a matter of fact. She was looking forward to seeing as much as possible of Price’s ranch and, somewhere deep inside her, in some curious little corner, she was looking forward to being with John Bandera, listening to his deep, Spanish-accented voice, stingy though he was with it, and looking into his dark amber eyes.

“Why, Emily Russell, you shameless hussy!”

She grinned at her own reflection in the mirror, thinking that being out West had already stripped her of more than a few constraints of polite society. There was the loose corset, of course, but that was a necessity in her condition. But she had also brushed out her hair and pulled it back with a blue ribbon, something she never would have done back home. Nor would she have found herself so drawn to a man who was little more than a stranger. Or attracted to anyone, for that matter.

The incident with Alvin Gibbons had had nothing to do with physical attraction, but everything to do with her broken heart and devastated hopes. There hadn’t been a second she’d spent with Alvin that she hadn’t wished that he were Price. On the night that they made love, she almost managed to convince herself that he truly was Price.

Funny, she thought. All of a sudden she didn’t feel so brokenhearted anymore or quite so hopeless. No doubt that was because she was here, at The Crippled B, surrounded by Price’s land and his possessions. Now, if only Price himself were here, everything would be perfect. Or almost.

She smiled softly, remembering the feel of his pen in her hand a while earlier. That little piece of steel and all the poetry that had flowed from it had changed her life, she thought. She could only pray now that it was for better rather than worse.

Then she sighed, picked up the carpetbag she’d packed, and went to meet John Bandera for their excursion.

John had already stacked an assortment of lumber and tools in the wagon bed. Then, just as he was lifting a keg of nails, he caught sight of Emily coming from the back of the house. He nearly dropped twenty pounds of iron right on his toes.

She looked so pretty and prim in her tan getup with all its pleats and swags and bows. Like a little birthday cake swirled with pale chocolate icing. Like the best of birthday gifts. He had to firm his lips against the smile that was itching across them.

“You can’t wear that hat,” he said almost gruffly as she approached, narrowing his eyes on the straw and velvet concoction atop her head. “You’ll burn to a crisp. This is—”

“Texas! Yes, I know.” She laughed as she brought a beige silk parasol from behind her skirt, then snapped it open and lifted it above her head. “There. Will that do, John?”

He grinned in spite of himself, thinking he’d never seen anything quite so charming or half as silly. “Fine with me, if you want to hold that umbrella for ten or twelve hours.”

“It might even shade us both,” she said.

John had no intention of sitting that close. Where the hell had his head been when he’d conjured up this trip, then suggested she come along? Hell, if he’d used his head six years earlier instead of his heart, if he’d never sent that first fateful letter, he wouldn’t be in this situation now, would he?

While Emily waited in the dainty shade of her parasol, he finished loading the wagon. He tossed his saddle in and then brought his favorite mare from the corral, slipped the bridle over her head, and secured the reins to the tailgate.

“That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She stood on the opposite side of the wagon, smiling pleasantly, twirling her parasol, making no effort to move. He found himself staring at her stupidly while it slowly dawned on him that it had been a while since he’d been with a person hindered by her own clothes, one who required assistance getting into, out of, up on, down from, and around.

Madre de Dios. That meant he was going to have to assist her, to act as if he wasn’t terrified to clasp his hands about her waist, to feel the size and the warmth of her through her dress when he lifted her up. And then he was going to have to let her go, to pretend that touching her meant nothing to him at all when it meant everything, when it was all that he’d longed to do and dreamed about for years.

For a second John was tempted to unload the wagon and drag all the lumber and tools back into the barn, to tell Emily the weather looked bad or the horse looked lame or the axle looked cracked or any excuse he could conjure up to stay here, not to have to put his hands on her.

Caught in his quandary, John didn’t immediately notice that Emily had already taken matters—as well as her skirt—into her own hands. She had collapsed the little umbrella in order to grasp the back of the wagon seat to haul herself up, but in another second it was going to be confounded Emily who collapsed if he didn’t help.

John sprinted around the rear of the wagon and got his hands up just as she was coming down, then he stood there—half dazed and wholly mute—with his arms full of his Emmy, her twenty yards of skirts and petticoats, and her damn blasted parasol.

The little shriek she’d uttered when first falling turned into a bright peal of laughter now and her blue eyes sparkled up into his, reminding him of high mountain lakes and wide summer skies and how much he’d loved the sense of humor that always came through in her letters, making him laugh out loud when he read them. He wanted to laugh now in concert with Emily, but he didn’t. He didn’t dare.

Instead, he let out a scorching curse in Spanish before he growled, “You need to be more careful. You almost broke your blasted neck.”

She blinked at his harsh tone and her laughter stopped immediately. The light in her eyes darkened. The lovely sparkle disappeared.

He shifted her abruptly in his arms, then lofted her brusquely onto the seat. “Hang on, will you? It’s a long drop to the ground.”

Emily nodded, thinking suddenly that the drop was longer and more treacherous than John could know for someone in her delicate condition, a fact that she’d breezily ignored when she’d attempted to climb into the wagon without his aid.

Ever since her arrival in Texas, she’d felt young and adventurous. That wasn’t good. At twenty-six, she wasn’t all that young. At more than three months gone with child, she shouldn’t feel the least inclined to adventure. In any condition, she shouldn’t be so excited about the prospect of an excursion with a man she barely knew.

What would people in Russell County think of her outrageous behavior? What would Price think when he learned that she had gone off so cavalierly with his partner? Surely he wouldn’t approve.

But no sooner had that idea struck her, than she realized just how ludicrous it was to worry about Price’s or anybody’s approval or disapproval. Her reputation was already ruined. She was already a fallen woman. All things considered, how much farther was there for her to tumble?

Emily snapped open her parasol and positioned it over her head just as the wagon seat canted leftward, pressing her—shoulder to thigh—against John for a moment before he shifted away.

“You ready?” he asked.

For what? Emily thought suddenly before she nodded an enthusiastic yes.

“Vamanos,” John said, and his big, dark hands gently flicked the reins.

By three that afternoon the sun was still beating down on them like a white-hot hammer. To the west, mirages pooled in the distance under miles of dry mesquite. To the south, however, the sky had been darkening ominously for the past hour and now it was taking on a sickly greenish cast that John didn’t like one bit.

Emily wasn’t faring too well in this heat, in his opinion, even though she kept protesting that she was used to it back home in Mississippi. They’d stopped for a bit to eat at noon, but after a single hard-boiled egg she’d begun to look queasy. When she excused herself and disappeared around a live oak, John was fairly sure he heard that hard-boiled egg coming right back up.

Now, with what looked to be a good-sized storm moving toward them, he cursed himself once more for bringing her along. He should have kept a weather eye on the sky instead of a lover’s eye on her. He should have considered her comfort instead of his own misguided desire to be close to her. She wasn’t some sturdy, rawboned farm girl, used to scorching heat and hardships. She was, as Price had said, a gardenia. And even though John had never seen one of those, he could well imagine their pale delicacy after seeing Emily.

He wrenched his gaze from the approaching storm to look at her now, and her eyes met his as frankly as they always did, while her mouth curved into a lovely and contented smile.

“I’m so enjoying this, John. It’s hard to believe we’ve been traveling for over five hours and we’re still on your land.” Her smile grew even lovelier and warmer. “You and Price have done very well for yourselves.”

“I guess,” he said. “It’s not so hard, though, when one partner’s all money and the other’s all muscle.”

She gave him an odd look then, and John immediately realized he was quoting directly from a letter he had written her several years ago. A letter Price had written her.

“That’s what Price always said, anyway,” he added quickly. “What he says, I mean.”

Damnation! He was digging himself in deeper every time he opened his mouth. There was so much he couldn’t say that he couldn’t even begin to remember it all.

“Price loves this place,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t at first, but I’ve gotten the impression over the years that The Crippled B truly has come to be his home. I suspect it’s the same for you.”

“Do you?”

She nodded. “I’ve been watching you today. Watching the way your eyes fairly drink in the landscape. The way you smile at the young calves chasing after their mothers and at the deer when they disappear into the brush. I saw the worry in your eyes when you pointed out those coyote tracks a few miles back.”

Now she tilted a little grin at him and wagged a finger. “You can’t fool me, John Bandera.”

“No?”

“No. You love this place every bit as much as Price does.”

“Maybe,” he said, remembering how his missing partner came to hate the dust that settled over everything and the relentless heat and, toward the end, even the sight of a longhorn. Price had even started talking about going back to Mississippi—the lesser of two evils, he had claimed—before he suddenly took off for parts unknown and no doubt just as evil once he arrived.

Emily closed her parasol now, for the sun had been obliterated by thick, churning clouds. A gust of wind tugged at her hair ribbon. “One thing Price mentioned that he especially loves here is being able to see weather coming in. He says…Oh, how did he describe it? That it’s a little like watching a herd of buffalo stampeding across the sky.” Her gaze lifted. “He’s right. I can see it for myself. It does look like a great wild herd of buffalo.”

Green buffalo, John thought. Fierce ones, too, and coming on fast. He and Emily were about to be trampled by their thundering hooves. He thought briefly of whipping the horse and trying to outrun the storm, but he realized it was no use. Though he’d only been in one twister before, years ago in Indian Territory, he’d learned only too well that you didn’t run from these wind devils. You hid.

The roiling clouds were beginning to dip all around them now and the wind was starting to pick up dust and dead leaves and dry sticks. The pressure in his ears shifted suddenly, and just then a bolt of lightning split the sky to the south, then another, and another.

He pulled the wagon up, and at the same time did a quick and desperate reckoning of the terrain. The dry, narrow bed of an arroyo lay just a hundred feet or so to the left. They could make it—maybe—if they ran.