Lacy (44 page)

He stopped and looked down at her with furious
eyes, almost shaking with rage.

She shivered at the look, pulled her coat closer
He was at the outer edge of his control, so she decided not to tempt fate. Turk
in a temper was dangerous. She dropped her eyes to his broad chest. "You
followed me," she said accusingly.

"I wasn't going to let you go out alone—not
after what you'd already tried to do," he said doggedly.

She didn't like remembering what she'd tried to
do. But she hadn't known that Turk cared that much. She'd thought he was trying
to make her go away again. She still wasn't quite sure of him, despite what
he'd said to Wardell. And he looked more murderous than amorous at the moment.

"How did you get into town?" she asked
nervously.

"I hitched a ride, same as you did. Now
we'll both have to wait for Cole before we can go home." He dropped her
hand and stared at her. "Do you know where he left the car?"

She looked around the square until she found it,
parked in front of a towering oak tree. "It's over there."

He walked with her to it and drew her down on a
bench that faced the car and the street, near the statue of a Confederate
soldier who stood guard over Spanish Flats. Lacy's people had settled here from
Georgia, most notably her great-uncle Horace, who'd made his fortune in nearby
San Antonio.

Katy clutched her purse, snapping and unsnapping
the catch while Turk rolled and lit a cigarette, crossing his long legs as he
glared down at her.

"You don't love Wardell?" he asked.

"I suppose I do, in a way," she said
sadly. "But not enough to go away with him, and not in the way he wants me
to. If I did go with him, I'd be cheating him. It's a very empty thing, desire
without love. I learned that from you."

"From me?" he asked, frowning.

"Wardell had no more from me than I had
from you," she said, with resignation. "It was only desire."

"I considered it safer to let you think
that," he said enigmatically, watching her closely. He lifted the
cigarette to his mouth and stared out at the sparse traffic. "I loved my
wife," he said absently. "We'd known each other all our lives. I knew
that snows came quick and deep, but we needed the money badly. I left her
because I had to. It didn't help my conscience when I got home and found her
dead. It took years to get over it, to stop blaming myself. I didn't think I
could ever love anybody else."

Neither did Katy. She realized what he was
telling her and it hurt. "You don't have to explain anything," she
said.

He glanced down at her. "How in God's name
could you think you disgusted me?" he asked abruptly.

"Every time I mentioned Blake, you got
upset."

"I was jealous," he said simply.

"That was a waste of energy," she
replied dully. "It's like being jealous of yourself." "I don't
understand."

"He's very like you," she said
hesitantly. "The way he smiles, certain mannerisms..."

His eyes were piercing. "You pretended
Wardell was me?"

"Not—not consciously," she stammered,
averting her eyes.

The anger was draining out of him. He'd noticed
a faint similarity himself. So
that
was why she'd been so
fond of the other man. Not that he liked what she'd done, but it was more
bearable now.

He could certainly live with it, if his only
other choices were to let her go to Wardell or kill herself. His own past
wasn't lily-white.

He tilted her face up to his and studied her
boldly. "Katy, were you only leaving because you thought 1 was disgusted
with what happened in Chicago?"

She nodded.

"It wasn't disgust," he said firmly.
"I felt sorry for you, but I don't think less of you because you had a
lover. Did I really behave so badly over Wardell?"

"When you weren't raising the roof every
time I mentioned Blake, you were withdrawn and very distant," she said
helplessly.

"I thought that was what you wanted," he
replied. He tossed the cigarette down and ground it out under the heel of his
spurred boot. He turned back to her, framing her face in his cold hands, and he
bent to her mouth. "Since it isn't, however..."

The words went past her shocked lips. He
couldn't be doing this in broad daylight, in the middle of town!

But he was! She felt the cool insistence of his
lips, parting hers, while his arms gathered her up against him. She stiffened,
but he wore her down.

"Give in, Katy," he whispered
mischievously, nipping her lower lip with gentle affection. "You know you
love kissing me." "We're in town—" she began.

"So we are. Open your mouth," he
whispered outrageously, nudging it with his parted lips. "Remember how it
felt the first time?"

She did. She moaned softly and gave him what he
wanted, drowning all too quickly in the fires he kindled.

"I was your first man," he breathed
roughly. "And I'll be your last man. The children you bear will be mine.
The rest of it doesn't matter. I'm sorry for Wardell, but he can live without
you. I can't." He lifted his head; his eyes were tortured as they searched
hers. "I can't live without you, Katy. I wouldn't want to... Come here,
little one!"

His mouth crushed hers, and she yielded without
a struggle. The scars seemed to have gone, or at least settled, because she
felt the first pangs of desire still in her body as he kissed her. She wasn't
quite dead inside, she thought dizzily. Not if she could still feel like this!

Back at the cafe, Cole and Wardell had finalized
their arrangement. Wardell was getting ready to board the train for the return
trip to Chicago.

As they left the cafe, en route to the train
depot across the street, they spotted Katy and Turk in each others' arms,
oblivious to the whole world.

Wardell shrugged, then he smiled. "She'll
be happy," he said. "I can't regret leaving her here. It's hell
loving someone who can't love you back."

Cole nodded. "It was like that with my wife
when we first married. I thought I'd killed what she felt for me." He
smiled slowly. "Life is full of surprises."

"Some of them are good ones "the older
man agreed. The train had just pulled into the station when they reached it.
Wardell turned to shake hands with Cole.

"You'll never know how much I appreciate
this," Cole told him. "Heritage is important. I won't ever have kids,
but somebody will inherit this ranch one day."

Wardell frowned. "What do you mean you
won't have kids? Don't you like them?"

Cole told him why.

The older man grimaced. "You and me
both," he said, shaking his head sadly. "Hell of a shame, isn't it?
Two handsome devils like us! Think what beautiful kids we'd have
produced." He clapped Cole heavily on the shoulder. "I guess we'll
have to settle for being handsome and rich. Make me a lot of money. I've always
had a yen to be a cattle king."

"Thank you," Cole added, "for
what you did for Katy."

"Oh, that." He smiled wistfully.
"I just opened her eyes, that's all. Sometimes people have to be told what
they want, instead of asked. I'll be in touch. And remember, not a word to
Katy. That gray-eyed fire eater she's going to marry would have a screaming
fit."

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him,"
Cole said.

"Just what I thought."

Cole watched him off before he went back to the
car. Katy was wild-eyed and shaken, her lips swollen. Turk wasn't in much
better shape, and he was as irritable as a teased rattlesnake.

"I thought you two had patched up your
differences," Cole remarked.

"Let's go home,"Turk said, jerking his
hat low over his eyes. He put Katy in the front seat and he sat in the back,
crossing his arms and legs and looking gloomy. "What's wrong?" Cole
asked Katy.

"He wants to get married right away,"
she said dully. "I don't."

"She's still mooning over her
gangster!" Turk raged.

"I am not!" She glared over the seat
at him. "I just want you to be sure, that's all. You can argue until the
cows come home, but you never even thought about marrying me until I came home
hurt! I'm not some poor, hurt little calf who needs tending. I'm a woman, and I
may have thrown my heart at your feet in the past, but I'm older and wiser now.
I don't want a man who isn't sure himself how he feels about me. And you
aren't, Turk," she said when he tried to speak. "You think you've
saved me from hell by keeping me from going back to Chicago. But that's a far
cry from loving me."

Turk's pale eyes glittered at her from under the
wide brim of his hat. "You won't listen, will you?" he asked
furiously.

She turned back around, unaware of Cole's
efforts to stifle amused laughter at their expense. "No, I won't
listen," she said stiffly. "I do have a little pride and dignity
left. At least enough to keep me from marrying a man who only sees me as a
charity project."

Turk started to reply heatedly, but Cole cut him
off.

"You two can hash this out when we're
home," he said firmly. "This isn't the time or the place."

Katy had to agree. Then a thought occurred to
her. She looked at her brother with open curiosity. "Why did Blake Wardell
come here?" she asked suddenly.

Chapter Twenty

Cole
stared straight ahead,
trying to think fast enough to field Katy's unexpected question. Well, he had
to admit she was a Whitehall through and through, and much too sharp to be put
off with lies. He had to come close to the truth.

"I asked him to come,"he said, which
was gospel. "Because I was worried about what you might do. And Turk had
mentioned that you might be missing him. We were all afraid you might take your
life."

Katy gnawed her lower lip. "I see."

"He cares about you," Cole said.
"He was more than willing to take you away if you wanted to go."

"You had no right!"Turk said
furiously.

"I had
every
right,"
Cole replied. "She's my sister."

"All the same, this is our business, not
Wardell's!"

"He saved Katy once before," Cole
reminded him. "Or have you forgotten?"

Turk calmed down. "All right." He
sighed roughly. "I suppose he did, at that. But she's not going off with
him!"

"That was her decision to make."

"Well, she'll marry me just the same,
decision or not,"Turk said, his eyes glaring hotly at Katy. "I'll
talk to the minister and make the arrangements. And she'll go to the altar
hog-tied and gagged if that's what it takes!"

Katy caught her breath. "You wouldn't
dare!" she raged, showing more spirit than she'd exhibited since her
return from Chicago.

"Stand back and watch me," he said
smugly. "Your running days are over. You'11 marry me, and you'll like
it."

She turned back around in the seat, facing
front, crossed her arms, and glared through the windshield without answering.

Cole didn't say a word. But he had a feeling
that Katy was going to find herself wed before she had time to think about it.
He approved, too. Turk would settle down nicely with Katy, and there would be
children at Spanish Flats; Katy's as well as Faye's.

Lacy and Marion laughed merrily when Cole told
them later, in private, what had happened in town.

"Poor Katy!" Lacy said breathlessly.
"She'll never live it down."

"I'm delighted," Marion added, with a
smile. "She'll be happy with Turk. But what about the mortgage,
Cole?" she added worriedly. "How will we manage, now that the bank
won't loan us the money?"

"I found a bank that would," Cole
replied, and smiled.

Lacy lifted an eyebrow and gave him a knowing
look, but she didn't interrupt Marion's excited monologue about her certainty that
Cole would be able to cope.