Adobe Palace

by Joyce Brandon

  He scanned the papers, then crumpled them in his fist. Yoshio walked into the room. “You ’leady eat now?”

  “Pack my bags. I’m going away for a week or so.”

  “Away?” Yoshio repeated.

  “Away,” Lance said firmly.

  At the new house, Samantha and Steve found Nicholas and Juana camping in the basement instead of in Steve’s cottage. “It was almost feenish,” Juana explained. “So señor Macready bring our beds from the old house. And, since we would be here for such a short time—”

  “We’re not going back down the mountain,” Samantha said, interrupting her.

  “Then, can Young Hawk come up here?” Nicholas asked.

  “It’s too hot down there, now that summer’s coming. We’ll stay in the basement here. It looks fine to me.” The basement had no roof, but it had a subfloor and walls to shoulder height.

  Samantha knelt down, pulled Nicholas into her arms, and hugged him.

  “You smell like lye soap.”

  Samantha expelled a heavy breath and held him away from her, so she could see him. “Your friend Young Hawk and some of his family died.”

  The glad light that had shone in his eyes at the sight of her faded. He seemed to shrivel up before her eyes. It could have been her imagination, but he seemed to shrink, to turn inward on himself. He looked so miserable she ached.

  Steve watched the boy, too. When the truth registered in him, he flashed Steve a look that caused deep uneasiness in him. It was the sort of look a man didn’t want to see on a little boy’s face. It was too complicated a look to interpret in a flash, and before Steve had, it was gone. Nicholas turned away and started to cry.

  He asked several questions, but not the one Samantha had been afraid of. Nicholas cried long and hard, and that was good, but Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that Samantha had been right about the boy.

  Lance stepped off the train in San Francisco two days after he’d left Phoenix. The weather alone would have been worth coming for. A cold breeze whipped off the ocean.

  Lance breathed deeply of the chill, salty air and then headed for the curb. He caught a cabriolet to a nearby hotel and then asked directions to the offices of Stern and Pentecost.

  He spent ten minutes with Mr. Elroy Stern, a middle-aged man of medium height with a thin, arrogant face and the glinting eyes of a tent preacher.

  “I realize my wife is hoping that I will provide her with grounds, but unfortunately, I’m not an adulterer, Mr. Stern. And I didn’t desert her—she deserted me.”

  “Well, I don’t handle complaints here, Mr. Kincaid,” he said, with a facetious smile.

  Lance pinned him with a hard stare. Stern reddened.

  “I’ll get in touch with Mrs. Kincaid,” he said, clearly flustered, “and arrange a meeting, so we can discuss the matter.”

  “Thank you.”

  That very afternoon a messenger came to Lance’s hotel with a note telling him that Mrs. Kincaid could meet with them at three o’clock on the following day.

  At the appointed time, Lance was ushered into Stern’s office, where Angie was already seated across from the attorney. She was dressed in what had to be the latest San Francisco fashion—a lovely yellow velvet gown with matching hat and gloves. She looked paler and thinner—and even more beautiful than he remembered. The sight of her caused the blood to pound in his temples and loins.

  “Mr. Kincaid,” Stern said, rising to shake hands across the desk.

  Angie glanced up and nodded at him. He took the seat beside her and rearranged it, so he could watch both of them.

  Stern cleared his throat. “It seems we have a slight problem…”

  “A bald-faced lie is hardly a slight problem,” Lance said bluntly.

  “I assure you, Mr. Kincaid, that no papers have been filed in court as yet. Our paperwork was preliminary in nature and based entirely on the testimony of your wife—”

  Angie flashed him a look the likes of which he hadn’t seen since the day he’d met her, brawling on the mayor’s lawn in Phoenix.

  “I signed an affidavit,” she said through clenched teeth, “saying that I had personal proof of your infidelity and desertion.”

  Lance pinned Angie with a hard stare. “Oh, really. When and where did I…perform this dastardly deed? Before or after I deserted you?”

  She shrugged and smiled her sardonic smile. “How was I to know that your healthy male drives would fail you?”

  “Fail me? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps not every man on this continent is in rut?”

  “Not once, unfortunately.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  Stern cleared his throat and began carefully. “I was under the impression…ummm…based on my conversations with Mrs. Kincaid—”

  “That,” Angie said firmly, flashing Lance a clear warning, “this was going to be an amicable divorce.”

  “Amicable divorces do not start out with blatant lies and name-calling,” Lance growled.

  “I warned you that adultery was the least objectionable of all the choices.”

  “Then why the desertion?” he growled.

  “Because unfortunately, adultery alone is not grounds for divorce against a man. Only women can be divorced for adultery,” she ended acidly.

  “Well, if you want this divorce so badly, why don’t you provide the grounds?” he said angrily.

  Stern rolled his eyes. “I warn you that I am an officer of the court; I cannot be a party to any attempt at collusion.”

  “Read the grounds to him,” Angie insisted.

  Stern picked up a book from his desk. “‘Inability to consummate the vows, insanity, conviction of a felony, cruelty, habitual drunkenness, desertion for one year, habitual drug addiction, neglect to provide—’”

  “I know all that,” Lance growled, waving the man into silence.

  “Then why didn’t you volunteer a basis?” Angie hissed.

  “Why the hell didn’t you pick something that you could confess to? Like desertion?”

  “I didn’t desert you,” she said, protesting.

  “What the hell do you call it? I’m cooking my own meals and sleeping by myself.”

  “Yoshio cooks your meals, and I don’t believe the other, either.”

  “She’s a lousy judge of character, too. Mark that down somewhere, Stern,” Lance directed. “Mark it down,” he growled, when the man hesitated.

  “Yes, sir,” Stern said, picking up a quill and making a few scratching sounds on a piece of paper.

  “This is ludicrous,” Angie said, glancing from her attorney to Lance.

  “Well, it was your call. Why don’t you tell us what your next brilliant move will be?”

  Angie exhaled a frustrated breath. “Well, apparently we need to negotiate suitable grounds that don’t upset your sensitive feelings.”

  “How the hell would you like being labeled an adulterer and deserter?”

  “I thought you’d see it as a compliment—”

  “Like hell you did.”

  Angie shrugged and crossed her arms. Stern glanced up from the paper he’d been writing on. “How about desertion?”

  “He wasn’t deserted!”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “You were not! You practically ran me off.”

  “Liar!”

  “Who left the conjugal home?” Stern interjected.

  “She did. Months ago.”

  Stern cleared his throat. “Then it appears that Mr. Kincaid should be the one filing for divorce…”

  “I’ve paid you all this money,” she said to Stern. “I expect results.”

  “Well,” Lance said, “since we’re going to change the grounds for divorce, maybe I should take over paying the rest of the attorney’s fees.”

  “You’re trying to buy my attorney,” Angie shouted.

  “Pay our attorney,” Lance corrected firmly.

  “Ohhhh!” Angie stood up and flounced out of the room.

  Lance p
eeled off two hundred-dollar bills and tossed them on Stern’s desk. “Don’t do anything until you hear from me.”

  Angie ran down the steps, not choosing to wait for the elevator. Lance caught her at the second landing. Angie had sagged against the wall and was panting for breath. She refused to look at him.

  “Hey,” he said softly, “I’m not your enemy.”

  “How can I remember that when you’re buying off the only protection I have?”

  “Protection? Do you really believe you need protection from me?”

  Angie shrugged.

  Lance put his finger under her chin and tilted it until she finally lifted defiant eyes and looked at him.

  “Do you?” he asked again.

  “Maybe not from you personally.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “It won’t do any good.”

  “Maybe not for you, but I need to know why you left me. Why you’ve stayed away.”

  “I’ve told you that already.”

  Lance took her arm and led her out of the stairwell and over to the elevator. “Well, I need to hear it again.”

  He took her to the hotel dining room in the next building and ordered from the dessert menu to satisfy the food requirement. After the waiter left, Lance asked. “How have you been?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Same thing…just different location.”

  “Where are you living now?”

  “In a brownstone on Davis Street, near the Columbo Market.” She smiled. “I can shop there as early as four in the morning.”

  “Not like Durango,” Lance agreed ruefully.

  “No.” Angie sighed.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, his voice husky. “I guess being rid of me agrees with you.”

  Angie felt perilously close to losing control. Lance looked wonderful to her, too. Handsome, virile, rugged. Her heart ached with all the things she didn’t dare say to him.

  “I guess I’d better go,” she said softly.

  “You haven’t told me why you left.”

  “I…had to. I can’t give you what you need. Samantha can. No sense my being in the way.”

  “Angie, dammit, did I ever once say you were in my way? Be truthful.”

  “No,” she said firmly, “you never did. But some things can’t be said. And you were always a gentleman.” She stood up. “I really have to go.”

  “Let me walk you home.”

  “It’s a long walk,” she protested.

  “I may not be competent enough to commit adultery on cue, but I can walk.” Lance tossed a bill on the table and followed her out the door. On the sidewalk, she headed toward the waterfront.

  They followed Market Street to Davis, and then Davis to Pacific. In front of a discreet brownstone, she stopped and faced him, her cheeks flushed from the cold wind whipping off the ocean.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “Let me come up?” His question surprised him as much as her apparently. But he clamped his jaws and didn’t back down. Angie knew better, but she couldn’t refuse him.

  “It’s probably a mess,” she said weakly, turning to unlock the door before he could leave. The entry opened onto a parlor, filled with late afternoon sunlight from a row of tall windows.

  “This isn’t bad,” he said.

  “You haven’t seen everything yet.”

  “I don’t need to see everything,” he said, his voice a mere husk, a warning. He reached out and touched her arm, and his touch vibrated through her. She felt disoriented again, and it reminded her of a time long ago, before they’d been married, when they had walked together on the desert. He’d made love to her that day, with the wind blowing her hair and skirts around her and thunder rumbling in the distance.

  “I’ve missed you, Angie,” he rasped, the words coming of their own volition, despite his careful plans to remain as aloof as she.

  “How’s Samantha?” she asked pointedly.

  “Don’t know. I haven’t seen her lately.”

  “How was she last time you did see her?”

  “A little jangled. Nicholas got sick.”

  “How is he?” Angie asked, her dark eyes filled with real concern now.

  “Fine. It turned out to be measles. I smelled them when I walked in the door.”

  “I remember you claiming to have that ability.” She paused. “So why didn’t you make love to Samantha?”

  “Clumsiness on my part and wisdom on hers.”

  “So, you admit you tried.”

  “I was in so much pain, I would have tried anything.” Lance hadn’t meant to say that, either.

  Angie frowned. “Just…how clumsy were you?”

  “Incredibly clumsy.”

  “I can’t imagine such a thing.”

  “Well, I guess you haven’t seen me at my halfhearted best.”

  Angie looked into his eyes; something twisted in her belly, deep down. Anger? Jealousy? Relief? She couldn’t tell, but she was suddenly glad he hadn’t made love to Samantha. If he hadn’t.

  “Remember,” she whispered, slightly dazed by the warm, masculine smell of him, so close and yet still so far away, “what you told me once? You said, ‘I have no heart for marriage.’”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, you said it. And as it turned out, I’m the one who has no heart for marriage.”

  “Yes.”

  “That same day you asked me if I wanted romance. I do want romance, but apparently I’m the one who can’t stand the responsibility of making someone else happy.”

  “I was happy,” he growled. “I just wanted more than you could give.”

  “You’ll always want more than I can give,” she said, suddenly despairing.

  “No. I’ve learned my lesson. I can be happy without anything, except you.”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  His hand slipped down and tightened on her wrist; she turned blindly into his arms. Lance enfolded her and pulled her against the heat and hardness of his strong chest. She wanted him so badly her whole body burned and throbbed.

  She was trembling so hard he could feel it beneath her long coat. He lifted her face and kissed her warm, hungry lips, and his own body began to shake. He tasted tears, and he didn’t know whether they were his or hers. Groaning, he picked her up and carried her toward the sofa.

  “No,” she whispered. “The bed is in there.” She pointed down a long hallway.

  For Angie, it was like déjà vu. He lowered her onto her bed; with trembling hands she helped him lift her skirts and unbutton his pants. In a fever of wanting she guided him into her, kissing his face, his throat, his lips, stunned into blindness by the achingly familiar feel and taste and smell she had hungered for so long, cried herself to sleep remembering on so many lonely nights. She clung to him and allowed him to immerse her once again—perhaps for the last time—in the wild feverishness of their own special madness.

  He stayed with her all that night, neither of them sleeping lest they miss one minute of their time together.

  The next morning they ate breakfast in bed. Angie was about to prepare a bath for them when a knock came on the front door.

  “Drat,” she muttered, grabbing a bathrobe and hurrying to answer it.

  She opened the door to Savannah, the seven-year-old daughter of her best friend and neighbor. “Hi, Savannah.”

  “Mrs. Kincaid. My mother wants to know if you’d like to come over for breakfast. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  Lance, who had somehow managed to dress himself, stopped behind her and touched her waist. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see his face soften at the sight of the girl.

  Lance noticed her watching him and masked his reaction, but she’d seen enough. He wanted a child of his own, and he was entitled. His need triggered an answering need in her. It all c
ame back to her. She ached for a baby to give him. It was an awful feeling—needy and hungry and despairing—and she hated it as much now as she had in Durango. And him for causing it.

  She felt like a woman teetering on the brink of an emotional precipice, and she knew that to go over was to fall into some horrible gaping maw from which there would be no escape.

  In the grip of that terror, she thanked Savannah and asked her to give her mother her regrets, explaining that she had company. Then she led Lance back to bed and made love to him one last time. This was different from the other times. More violent. More angry.

  Even Lance noticed it. “You’ve become a predator, woman,” he whispered, as they lay there panting.

  “Have I?” she asked, forcing herself to laugh.

  “I think I’ve just been ravished,” he said, pulling her back into his arms.

  She realized that she loved him enough to die for him. She loved the way he looked, the way he smelled, the way he felt under her hands. As long as she lived she would hunger for him. She knew that everywhere she went, she would search for the sight of his dear familiar face, the angle of his jaw, the way his hairline angled over his forehead that little bit. And knowing that, filled with the pain of that knowledge, she kissed him one last time, pressing her lips against his with such an aching need that she felt certain he would see her heart bleeding. But she allowed herself this luxury.

  Then when she couldn’t stand it any longer without bursting into tears, she relinquished his lips, turned away from him, and buried her face in the pillow until she had regained control. Then she stretched languorously against him, rubbing her breasts against his chest. “Well, darling, this has been wonderful, but if you don’t get out of here soon, you’re going to run into my fiancé.”

  “Fiancé?” Lance asked, looking stunned.

  “Well, it isn’t official yet, but you remember Hal Stockton, my editor and cowriter who sometimes accompanies me on field trips?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well”—she shrugged and gestured prettily with her hands—“you know how things happen.”

  Lance stood up and began to pull on his pants. “Apparently not,” he said grimly.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, pretending not to know.

  “Back to Durango.”