Adobe Palace

by Joyce Brandon

  Steve gathered his things from the barn, found a shovel and a few tools he could use, caught a mule from the corral, and put a pack on its back. Once he had everything in readiness, he walked to the house.

  Juana gave him a big glass of lemonade, which tasted wonderful to his parched throat. Samantha was nowhere in sight. He was glad—and miserable—about that.

  In the dining room, at the end of the table not yet set for dinner, he wrote out two wires, one to his San Francisco office, telling them to send Ian Macready, one of the best building superintendents in the country, and enough tools to build an adobe palace bigger than the limestone castle in Waco. The other wire went to his partner in Waco, telling him that he had taken another job and to carry on without him.

  As he straightened, Samantha walked into the room. She’d changed into a white gown of some light fabric that made her look cool and sweet, as much like an angel as he was ever likely to see on this Earth.

  “Send a man into town with these wires,” he said, handing them to her. “I may be some time getting back.”

  Samantha frowned at the prospect of his going off without her. “I don’t wait well, you know.”

  Steve laughed. “No.”

  That lightened the mood. Samantha relaxed slightly. “Are you taking enough food?”

  “Juana’s packing at least a month’s supply.”

  “Well, if you run out, send up a smoke signal.”

  “No one knows where I’ll be except you.”

  His statement implied…what? That she wouldn’t come even if he sent up a distress call? “I may look useless, but I’ve been known to accomplish quite a lot.”

  “I’m sure of that,” he said, stalking toward the door.

  She followed him out onto the porch. Steve clumped down the steps, stepped into the stirrup, and swung into the saddle with ease. “Adios,” he said.

  “Hurry back.”

  “If I were you, I’d set my men to riding the boundaries and mending any breaks in the fences.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that,” she said, and smiled sweetly.

  That stumped him. Just when it seemed she’d do anything except what he wanted, she became tractable. Confused, Steve touched the brim of his hat and kicked the borrowed horse into a gallop. The pack mule, its reins tied to Steve’s saddle, brayed loudly, but it followed.

  What Samantha had told Steve was true—she did not wait well. She hated uncertainty. She especially hated not knowing what was happening.

  The days passed so slowly, she lost all hope. She was convinced that he had found no granite, no water, and no place on which to build a cesspool. They would not be able to build the house on the site she wanted, or on any other.

  Nicholas sensed something was wrong. When she tucked him into bed, he asked solemnly, “Did Steve get killed like Daddy did?”

  “Heavens, no! Now you go to sleep.”

  Angie Kincaid stepped off the train in San Francisco to a gust of cold, damp air. She grabbed her hat and inhaled deeply, glad for a town that had something that passed for seasons. In Durango, every day was a different sort of summer.

  She hailed a conveyance and gave the driver the address of her publisher, Rutherford and Marks, on Market Street.

  She kept so busy the first three days she didn’t allow herself time to think about Lance or what she had just done to her marriage. But after the initial meetings with her publisher and her editor, and a few authors she knew from past visits to the city, she found herself with an hour to kill and no camera in her hand.

  Her hotel room, while quite opulent in the style of better hotels, did not afford her any activity other than reading the newspaper or looking out the window.

  So she stood by the window, drapery in hand, glancing down at the passersby on the street three floors down. A man, tall and broad of shoulder, stepped out of a store on the ground level, and Angie gasped. For just a second she was stunned by the thought that Lance might have followed her here. As the man walked into the wind, pulling his greatcoat around him, even the way he held his shoulders reminded her of the husband she’d left behind.

  The image of Lance’s face, confused and hurt and angry, filled her mind. She remembered the first photographs she had taken of him. She had been amused at first by his expressions and how easily and effortlessly he projected his emotions—in one picture he’d looked tired, in another curious, in yet another cranky. But in all of them he’d exuded that smoldering energy and intense concentration that had eventually been her downfall.

  Lance Kincaid had been an Arizona Ranger when she met him. Mrs. Lillian, the Kincaid family nanny, had fondly told her he was strong and intuitive—and almost as blind as a stick when it came to seeing anything he didn’t want to see.

  Usually Angie loved remembering those old days, but so much had gone wrong since then they seemed a hundred years ago.

  She had met Lance in Nogales when she was on her way back to Durango after being at school in the East for three years. He’d ridden into town with an exhausted posse and eighteen dead bodies draped over tired horses. He’d barely dismounted before he’d been challenged to a gunfight in which he’d been shot. She’d taken pictures of it all.

  They had gone their separate ways that day, and she had never expected to see him again. But she remembered mooning over those photographs of him time after time, wondering if he’d lived or died.

  It hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but later she’d realized that the tiredness she saw in those first photographs must have been bone deep. Because he wasn’t a man who believed in killing. There had been rage underlying his words when he’d told the townspeople: I had to see them die. You can see them dead. Maybe folks’ll finally understand that the law isn’t going to put up with all this rustling of cattle and fleeing across the border.

  Lance had been a magnificent specimen of manhood. Still was. He had matured into an even more attractive man than he had been at twenty-eight. Seven years of operating the mine—and occasionally swinging a pickax alongside his men—had hardened him into such virile manhood that it almost hurt her to look at him. Especially lately, because it reminded her that he was being wasted on a woman who couldn’t give him the family he needed and wanted and deserved.

  Of course, darling, Lance does have that smile. He could sell dead horses to the cavalry. Virginia Trumbull’s voice reminded Angie that before he’d married her and been so disappointed by her inability to give him the children he wanted, he had smiled more than he had scowled.

  The second time Angie saw Kincaid, she and Virginia and Tennessee had been riding in a cart like witches to the woodpile. They’d been arrested for inciting a riot on the mayor’s lawn in Phoenix after he had made the comment that, Women, with their limited mentality, need to be protected from the rigors of the voting process.

  Virginia and Tennessee were cousins and best friends—as well as being two of the leading militant feminists in America. Their dry wit and provocative remarks about Lance Kincaid as they clung to the sides of the wobbly cart had only increased her fascination with him. And remembering the sardonic smiles between her friends, she was sure now that that was exactly what they had been intended to do. Both women loved a good scrape and a good romance. They flaunted their many love affairs in print, which had made them unacceptable even to many feminists who should have been their allies.

  Angie’s throat tightened. Rather than stay in her room and cry, which was what she was about to do, she grabbed her coat and rushed out the door, almost colliding with an elderly couple coming out of the door across the hall.

  “Sorry!” she called, not slowing as she ran past the lift. Elevators were too slow for the demons chasing her.

  She was more circumspect in the lobby, forcing herself to walk and nod and smile at all the right times until she was through it. Then out on the street, she ran toward the cable car tracks. That was one of the reasons she loved San Francisco. It was acceptable, even for a woman, to run in the streets.


  She caught the cable car just in time and clambered aboard, accepting a man’s hand to steady her as the conveyance clanged forward and up the hill.

  The car took on so many people as it headed for the Embarcadero that Angie was almost crushed in the crowd. But it felt good to be outside and to have other things to look at and think about. She didn’t want to think about her handsome husband falling into the clutches of a woman who had loved him since childhood.

  The cable car clanged to a stop and people were streaming off. Angie stepped down and walked toward the ocean. On the pier, she walked out and leaned against the waist-high fence that kept pedestrians from falling off into the murky, choppy water below.

  Lance’s face floated between her and the water. The image that tormented her now was another of those early photographs she’d taken of him. In it his narrowed eyes had looked directly into her camera. The deep smile lines on either side of his sensuous mouth looked sardonic. He looked like a man capable of anything. Of tenderness, or violence, or strength. A man who could kill a man in a dusty road or take a bullet in the side and joke with his men, even while he winked at her to allay her fears for his safety.

  Her throat constricted. Love and pain were so mixed up in her she bent nearly double. She wanted to let the angry tears out, but she was too aware of the presence of others promenading on the wharf. She prayed for the strength to do what she had to do to put Lance out of her mind.

  A woman walked by with two children—a girl seven or eight, the other no more than two. The girl held the toddler’s hand. They both wore dresses under their open coats, but the toddler might be a boy. All toddlers wore dresses, regardless of sex. The girl smiled down at the child with open adoration.

  A terrible feeling welled up in Angie. She wanted to tell the girl not to do that. Let his mother take care of him. Don’t get involved. Don’t start to love him, because—

  Her mind refused to finish that thought, but tears filled her mouth and eyes. Oh, God. She prayed for the strength to hold them back, but they spilled down her cheeks and into her mouth.

  Four days had passed, then five, without Steve’s coming back. On the sixth night, Samantha woke to the sound of the barn door creaking on its rusty hinges.

  Heart pounding, she threw off the covers, picked up her robe, and ran to the window. In the moonlight silvering the chill landscape, a man walked from the barn toward the desert. She recognized Steve Sheridan’s sturdy form and opened her window.

  “Steve!” she called.

  At the sound, he changed direction. Barefoot, she skimmed down the stairs and through the silent, darkened house. Steve waited on the porch. A cold wind whipped her gown and robe around her feet and chilled her legs. The dry air smelled of sage. Bright stars twinkled overhead.

  “I thought you’d been killed,” she said.

  He gave a soft laugh. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

  “I heard the barn door creak.”

  She looked pale and slim in her nightclothes. He’d thought he was tired, but the image his mind made—of her warm and naked under her bedclothes—tingled through his loins. All tiredness left him.

  “You shouldn’t be out here like this,” he said. His words came out huskier and more revealing than he’d have liked.

  “What happened up there?”

  “I found everything we need.”

  “At the site I wanted?”

  “At both sites. So, you’ll have to choose.”

  “I want the second site. The one you found,” she said, without hesitation.

  He was so pleased, he wanted to pick her up and swing her around. At the very least he wanted to touch her, to get close enough to smell the warm, peppermint fragrance he knew surrounded her. He was only inches from her sweet, upturned face.

  “You must be hungry,” she said, watching him.

  He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. At the mention of food his stomach growled. “I’m okay. You need to get back to bed.”

  “We still have some of the peaches Juana put up last summer. There’s cold milk in the springhouse. And I can slice some of the leftover chicken and put it between a couple of biscuits…”

  Steve’s stomach growled again. Samantha laughed. “Come along. It’s been taken out of your hands.”

  Steve had six biscuits with chicken, a quart of peaches, and two glasses of milk. Then he leaned back with a sigh and held his stomach. “I think I overdid it,” he groaned.

  “Nonsense. Any man who finds everything we need to build my house is entitled to eat anything he wants. What will you do tomorrow?”

  “I’m going into town to start hiring men to build your house and ramrod your stock. Did Silver Fish come back?”

  “He sent word that they’d found the sheep. They’re holding them in a canyon with a small creek and good graze.”

  “How’re Ramon and Sender?”

  “Ramon’s long gone from our hospital ward. Sender is healing very fast. He’ll be well in no time.”

  “Pays to be young.”

  “So what happens next?” Samantha asked.

  “When I come back from town, I’ll take you up, so you can christen the site.”

  “Let’s go now,” she said, eagerly.

  “You mean tomorrow?”

  “Please?”

  She looked so lovely that Steve relented. “Okay. You need to make some decisions before I go into town. They might be easier if you’re at the house site.”

  “I’ll have Juana pack us a lunch.”

  Steve laughed.

  Samantha went back to bed, but she couldn’t sleep. She kept seeing how handsome Steve Sheridan was when he laughed, the way his khaki eyes narrowed, the manly shape of his strong chin. He was more appealing than she’d thought when they’d first met.

  Annoyed at herself, she decided to put thoughts of Steve Sheridan out of her head. He was building a house for her. For her and Lance, if her dream came true. She needed to sleep now, so she would be fresh tomorrow.

  Samantha punched up her pillow and closed her eyes. Her mind conjured up another picture of Steve Sheridan smiling at her. She tried to change it into one of her beloved, but the image stayed steady. The tiny gleam of gold on his canine tooth would not go away. She noticed how neatly his features fit his oval face. Some men’s features seemed to be crowded too closely around their noses or spread out too far.

  Irritated, she tried to clear his face out of her head, but she couldn’t. Then his smile changed, and a heated look came into his thickly lashed eyes. He reached out and pulled her into his arms.

  “No!” Heart pounding, Samantha sat up in bed. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to talk Steve into taking her back up to the house site.

  Slowly she lay back down. No, this was just because she was tired and lonely. She’d be fine by tomorrow. She had nothing to fear from Steve Sheridan. He worked for her. He’d behave himself because he had to. And she would behave, too.

  Chapter Eight

  Late February was beautiful in the low mountains. The long, high sweet warble of an oriole sounded in the trees overhead. The weather was warm and pleasant. Riding beside Steve made Samantha feel carefree and excited, and only a little guilty. Nicholas had wanted to come with them, but she’d refused because they might not get back before the afternoon winds came up.

  They reached the south plateau in less than an hour. It was cooler up here, and the wind made a wonderful soothing sound in the treetops high overhead.

  They walked the plateau for an hour, then Steve sat her down where the house would be, got out his tablet and pencil, and asked her a thousand questions. She had to decide what kind of wood she wanted for the interior walls, floors, windows, doors, ceilings of each room. She had to decide between marble and hardwood, between light and dark oak, cherry wood and mahogany, between plain or fancy ceramic toilets and washbasins, between six-foot or eight-foot bathtubs, between thirty-inch and twenty-four-inch adobe walls for the basement. Steve patiently explained
the meaning of each choice in terms of benefits, dollars, labor, and length of building time.

  By the time he was satisfied, she was dizzy.

  “You’ve earned your lunch,” he said.

  “So you’ve decided exactly where you’ll put the house?” she asked.

  Steve laughed. “I wish I were that fast. While the men are building the road, I’ll spend another week or so up here siting the house on the lot.”

  “Why so long?”

  “Tests take time.”

  “Well, why didn’t you just say so,” she said, laughing.

  They ate Juana’s cold chicken and biscuits in silence. When they finished, Steve lay down on the pallet and closed his eyes. Samantha watched his even breathing for several minutes, but it did not make her sleepy. The sight of him, stretched out so relaxed and unself-conscious, stirred the part of her that had missed having a man in her life. She could not imagine any of the men who had courted her stretching out like that without half a dozen apologies. Every one of them would fear that action would be misunderstood.

  Steve just seemed to take it for granted she would understand him and his intentions. His taking a nap was fine, though. She didn’t see it as an affront, the way some women might.

  She stood, stretched, and walked the site over again, looking at it from every direction. It was so perfect that it reminded her of a Japanese garden she’d seen in Tokyo the year of her grief-stricken grand tour following her beloved’s marriage to another woman.

  Samantha closed her eyes and leaned against a tree. She shouldn’t have remembered that. When Lance married Angie Logan, the grass turned brown, the skies black. Remembering that terrible time was almost as bad as living it originally.

  Tears slipped down her cheeks. Glancing at Steve, she wiped her eyes and stepped behind the tree trunk. She didn’t want him to see her crying like a schoolgirl, but once started, tears were not that easy to stop. Thinking about losing Lance filled her with such grief, tears were not enough to relieve it. She cried silently, harder than she had in years. She could not imagine why she was reacting this way today of all days. Today she should be happy; she was starting a new and better phase of her life.