Maybe she had changed, as Paco said, but he was damned if he knew how permanent it would be. He didn’t trust her not to revert to her old ways.
Hell, he couldn’t trust himself not to lapse into his more familiar role as an indifferent husband. It would be far too easy to forget their recent vows to revive their marriage for the sake of the children as well as their own mutual need. With Ginny, he always felt as if he were walking a tightrope, balanced precariously between heaven and hell.
The dragging creak of chains was suddenly loud, and diverted his attention to the fact that the ship was about to depart. Steve left the rail and Paco, and headed down the passageway belowdecks. The pungent scent of damp wood and cargo was thick in the air, redolent with vestiges of spice and tobacco, even whiskey.
The Liberty made frequent voyages to the Texas-Mexico border to deliver cargo, some of it not as legal as the ship’s manifests recorded. It was sleek and silent, a vast advantage over the noisier, more visible steamships of the line, and able to slip into port without much notice.
Ginny was seated on the narrow bunk that served as their bed. She looked up when he entered, her eyes a cool green in the bright light of a lamp on the opposite wall.
Their eyes clashed briefly before he crossed the small cabin to open the round porthole. “Even damp air is better than none,” he said casually, but she didn’t respond to his comment.
Shouts and curses filtered into the cabin on the rush of brackish air; chains rattled and ropes shrieked as sails were hauled. Ginny stood up, put a hand against the wall to steady herself as the ship lurched and met his gaze.
“I have been thinking about the political situation in Mexico. It occurred to me that I could be of use in meeting with Don Porfirio and Señor—President Lerdo. If your intent is to be a mediator between them, remember that I know both men, even worked for Don Porfirio at one time. There’s no reason for us to be separated from one another—unless you just don’t want me with you.”
Beneath the mask of indifference she wore like a banner he sensed her uncertainty, her apprehension.
“You’re quite clever, love. Why would you think it wise for you to meet with Díaz or Lerdo?”
“Because Don Porfirio was quite pleased with me when we were in Puebla, and he enjoyed my educating him in French and even English. And Señor Lerdo was nice to me in San Francisco. I think he even tried to protect me from—the prince. That was at first. He tried to warn me about Ivan, I think, and it was Lerdo who told me that you had agreed to the annulment of our marriage.”
“That was your father’s decision, not mine.” Steve leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, deliberately cool and remote. Ginny had removed her voluminous cloak, and the silk gown clung to her curves. It was a soft yellow that brought out the copper tones in hair loose and waving around her serious face. She looked like a gypsy, with her slanted eyes and high cheekbones, familiar, yet as mysterious to him now as she had been the first time he saw her.
How beautiful she was…. It still mystified him that she had crept under his guard as she had, and made herself indispensable to him. Even now, knowing that she would be angry when he finally told her what he had to do, he could admit the depth of his feelings for her. Hell, he loved her. He had for longer than he could remember.
If he did what Bishop wanted they’d be separated again, and that was when trouble always seemed to keep them apart. Was it worth the risk? Maybe he owed her honesty, owed her the chance to make her own choices….
“When we get to Mexico,” he said abruptly, “I’m to leave you at my grandfather’s and go on to Mexico City.”
Ginny’s brow shot up. “For how long?”
“Not long, just long enough to see which side is going to come out the winner in this coup. From what I’ve learned, Lerdo is losing, but we can’t be certain until it’s over. My job is to find out all I can, then make sure the victor keeps the best interests of the United States in mind.”
“Was leaving me behind your idea or Bishop’s?”
Her chin came up in that familiar, stubborn tilt that always meant trouble, a defensive gesture that he recognized from long experience. She made him think of a wild forest creature, ready at a moment’s notice to flee or fight.
“Christ, Ginny, why would you ask me that?”
“It’s a reasonable question. You can’t pretend that all of your disappearances have been Bishop’s fault, after all. There were the times you wanted to disappear. Which is this? Am I to languish at your grandfather’s hacienda, waiting for you to come back—if you come back?”
A lift of her shoulder was casual and indifferent, but her green eyes burned with banked fires.
Steve knew what was worrying her. It had crossed his mind, too, the danger that was always inherent in a revolution, but there was little he could do about it. And even if he could, he wasn’t sure he would. Another revolution would drain Mexico of her resources, leave the country vulnerable again to her enemies. If Spain decided to take advantage, it would put them on America’s doorstep. Then both countries would be at risk.
He told himself these things, justifying his decisions, but there were times, like now, when he wondered if he was only fooling himself. In the past it had been the excitement and element of danger that attracted him. Was that still the reason? Was that the reason he’d been so restless lately, and frustrated by delays? He had thought he was ready to settle down now that he had a wife and two children he was only just getting to know?
Once, Ginny had accused him of deliberately flirting with danger, and he’d teased, “I guess I’ve just got a restless devil soul, sweetheart.”
Maybe that was still more true than he wanted to admit, even to himself.
“Ginny, I’d rather keep you out of this,” he said now and saw her eyes narrow speculatively at him. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear. I have my own details to take care of first, then we’ll be together again in Mexico City. Paco will escort you there from my grandfather’s. It will give you a chance to visit with Renaldo and Missie. Didn’t you say not so long ago that you wanted to see them again?”
“Yes, but I thought it would be with you and the twins at my side.” She took an irritable step across the small cabin to shove at the open porthole hatch. It swung wider, admitting the effluvium of a river port on the breeze that washed inside. “This is not what I expected.”
“As you know better than anyone, plans change. Hell, my plans weren’t to get mixed up in another bloody revolution. Do you think I want to get involved, to be away from you?”
“Yes,” she said frankly, and when he swore at her, said in a rush, “Maybe not be away from me, but you do want to be involved. You might as well admit it.”
“All right, maybe I do want to stop another long, useless war that only profits politicians and not the citizens. Is that so damn wrong? It affects you and our children as well as the rest of Mexico, and even America, if outside interests get involved.”
“Oh, Steve…I know that. I suppose what I’m asking is if you’re already tired of me, already wanting to be gone. If you think about it, we haven’t been together this much in a long time—maybe since we’ve known each other. Not, at least, without some sort of crisis separating us, putting miles and anger between us.”
An impatient reply formed, but then he saw her eyes, the naked honesty gleaming from her face, and held his tongue. He wouldn’t do as he had the last time—hell, every time they parted. It had made it easier to part if he drove her away with cruelty and indifference, but it had torn them apart, too. He shrugged, said lightly, “Hey, green-eyes, you know I never get tired of you. Not even when you’re nagging me like you are now. But there are some things I can’t tell you. You know that. Just be content with knowing that I have no intention of letting anything or anyone ever come between us again.”
In the soft silence that fell, he heard what sounded like a sigh of relief, but her eyes remained fastened on his face wit
h intensity.
“I hope you mean that,” she said finally, and there was a slight husky note in her voice before she turned away to gaze out the open porthole. “It’s long past the time for us to make our marriage work. I’m so weary of running, of being lonely and uncertain. Perhaps I am behaving as you’ve said I am before—a nag, but only because I don’t want us to fall into that trap again.”
“We won’t. Have some faith in us. Just don’t try to talk it to death, Ginny.”
She turned back to face him; growing light spread over her face, illuminating the spare cushion of high cheekbones and the straight, slim nose above her deliciously tempting lips, the mouth of a demimonde curving into a faint smile. A dimple flirted at one side and the cleft in her chin deepened as she laughed softly.
“I’d forgotten how blunt you can be when I least expect it. I suppose I should be grateful you’re not your usual sarcastic self.”
Her smile eased the tart words and she shook her head the smallest bit when he shrugged.
“Yeah, I’ve been told that I’m not always so charming.”
“I have no doubt of that, and by more women than I’d care to know about, I’m certain. Oh, don’t look at me that way. I have no intention of asking for names and places. It would take far too long. You have had far too many women in your life.”
“But none of them ever haunted me like you have,” he said, an attempt at levity that fell flat. It was faintly surprising to realize he meant it. No woman had ever stuck in his mind like Ginny…not even the other woman he had once asked to marry him.
Elizabeth Cady Burneson stepped out onto the porch of the rambling ranch house and stared at the black hills outlined against a red sky. Sunset was beautiful, a time of peace for her, as the day’s chores were nearly finished and the children ready for bed. She sagged against a weathered post, weary but content. Lingering scents of a fresh apple pie drifted on the soft air, late summer blending mellow light and fragrances most pleasantly.
A muffled giggle drifted out the open door and then a childish shriek; she smiled as she heard Martin’s laughter.
He was so good with the children, as he had promised he would be. Even with the child who was not his own, but another man’s son, the child that his real father had never seen, or even knew about. The only legacy of his parentage was in his middle name. He had been christened Matthew Morgan Burneson, at Martin’s insistence, for he said that the boy should inherit something of his real father, even if only a name.
“One day we’ll have to tell him the truth, Elizabeth. When he’s old enough, he’ll deserve to know about him.”
Steve Morgan. His face remained a vivid memory still, the blue eyes so intense in a hard face, his lean competence and drawling, husky voice…. She shivered. He came to her in dreams on occasion, and it was as frustrating as it was perplexing. Why? Why should she think of him at all? Martin made her happy. He was a good husband, a good provider, a good father to their three children. Emily was nearly two, and the baby less than a year old. Matthew was almost three now, a lively boy who possessed his father’s reckless streak.
Perhaps that was why she thought of Steve Morgan. Each time she looked into her child’s dark-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, she saw Steve looking back at her—the man she had called Smith, the man she had fallen in love with and yet never really knew. Had never forgotten. Yet it was a bittersweet memory when she thought of him, for she knew that he could never have given her what she needed in life—stability.
No, Steve Morgan was too restless and reckless, too much of an adventurer. Had he ever remarried? Somehow, she thought not. His eyes, when he had told her of his wife’s death, had been too haunted.
And perhaps it was that, more than anything, that had convinced her she should not accept his request to go away with him, the knowledge that his heart did not truly belong to her and never would. Perhaps she could have borne the life he led as long as she could be with him, but never could she have endured knowing she did not have his entire heart.
It was far easier to lose him than to share him….
“Beth!” Martin was laughing, calling out to her. She turned away from her view of the hills and the past, smiling as she went back into the house, to her husband and her children, to the security she craved.
12
The Liberty sliced through the gulf waters easily, its prow cutting cleanly through choppy waves. A squall had blown up and threatened to blow them off course, rocking the vessel violently and keeping most passengers belowdecks.
Ginny lay on her bunk while the ship pitched and rolled from side to side. Despite the thud of feet above, she heard and recognized Steve’s step in the passageway outside their cabin. She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bunk as the cabin door opened.
He stepped inside, bringing with him the fresh scent of rain and saltwater. He’d forsaken the garb of an English gentleman again, and was clad in dark corduroy pants, a blue shirt open at the neck and an oilskin that crackled as he shrugged out of it and hung it on a peg fastened to the back of the cabin door. Even with the oilskin, his shirt was damp, outlining smooth muscles in his arms and back. All he needed now was his hat and familiar gun belts to complete the familiar image of a gunslinger.
His mouth quirked in a smile. “Got your sea legs, I see. Does nothing ever faze you, green-eyes?”
“A few things.” She slid off the bunk and stood up, but the ship rose sharply, hung for an instant on the crest of a wave, then plunged into the trough like a bucking horse, knocking her off balance. Steve caught her easily, his arms hard around her waist, holding her against his chest. He laughed softly.
“If you want me, just say so, querida. You don’t have to throw yourself at me.”
With her hands against his chest, she looked up at him. His damp shirt smelled like wind and rain.
“If I wanted you, I know how to get you,” she replied with a teasing lift of her brow. “You’re easy enough.”
“Now you’ve hurt my masculine pride.” He released her and she curled one hand around the frame of the bunk to stay on her feet, watching as he crossed the small floor with an enviously easy grace.
“Steve—” She paused, suddenly feeling foolish as he turned to look at her. How did she say what was on her mind? How did she say to him that when they’d boarded this ship he had still been as much a stranger to her as he’d been the first time she met him?
Though she was as familiar with his body as she was her own, she knew nothing about Steve, who he was, what he wanted to be or perhaps had once intended to be. Nor had she ever told him about her own dreams….
Soon they would be in Mexico, and the time for talking, for the sharing of souls, would be lost in the inevitable duties and chaos of traveling. She may never have a better time to talk to him, to bare her own soul.
“Steve,” she said swiftly before she could change her mind. As he turned to look at her, she blurted, “I have some things I want to tell you, that I must tell you.”
Slowly, she began to tell him about what she’d done while they were apart, making no apologies and expecting nothing from him. If ever they were to survive together, he had to know everything. No more secrets, no more surprises or men from her past. If he left because of it, he would have left anyway one day if—when—he knew the truth.
“Because the truth has a way of destroying the lie when you least expect it,” she said, meeting his eyes with a show of confidence she didn’t feel. Inside, her heart was madly thumping, her nerves stretched so tautly that she thought he must be able to feel the tension inside her. “You already know most of this anyway. You deserve to hear the little you don’t already know from me.”
Amazingly, he accepted it all without comment, no harsh words or sarcastic criticism when she told him about Andre Delery, with whom she had left New Orleans after finding out Steve had slept with her stepmother, and she told him that she had loved Richard Avery, but not with the wild, sweet passion she fel
t for him. She even confessed about Boris Shevchenko, the burly bear of a Russian who had escorted her from Stamboul when Richard sent her away. She spared herself nothing, unflinching from harsh facts.
“I don’t expect you to reciprocate,” she ended flatly, “or to tell me about all your past amours. I just wanted us to start our new life together with no more lies between us, no secrets, no swords hanging over my head.”
Darkness had fallen while she talked, so that the tiny cabin was lit only by the soft glow of a single lantern on the wall opposite the bunk where they lay. The storm had blown itself out and the ship glided swiftly toward their destination—and their future.
Steve’s eyes were dark, a midnight blue in his lean, tanned face, narrowed at her with an expression of fierce attention. She couldn’t tell if he was angry, disgusted or hurt, and dismay clogged her throat so that she found it difficult to swallow rising panic.
Finally he moved, his long, lean fingers brown against the pale skin of her hand as he reached for her, curling them around her wrist to force her clenched fist open. He held her hand, silent, only a muscle leaping in his jaw to betray his tension as he studied her face in the gloom.
“Christ, Ginny,” he said at last, softly, “did you think I would stop loving you if you told me all this? You look like a scared rabbit. You know I’ve been no saint myself. I know you don’t expect details, like names and places, but I can give them to you. What I remember, anyway.”
“No,” she said, surprised to find she meant it. “That’s behind us now. The important thing is that we never really loved anyone else, that our hearts have always belonged to each other. Oh, Steve, it’s all that’s important!”
“Ginny—”
“You don’t need to remind me of all that’s happened between us, because, believe me, I remember it far too well to ever forget. But I do know that despite everything—or, maybe in some strange way because of it—we’ve always loved each other that much stronger. I’ll admit that I’ve been jealous of you, of your women like Concepciόn and Francesca di Paoli, even the arrogant Miss Lorna Prendergast and her obvious designs on you. Does that surprise you?”
Savage Desire Page 12