Fire Brand

by Diana Palmer

  Gaby had to fight down laughter, but it wasn’t really funny. She smoothed the silver-threaded short hair gently. “Did you really give it a chance, Aggie? You had so little time together.”

  “Time enough to know that I’m not cut out for the life he had mapped out for us,” she said miserably. “I know I’m flighty, and I can’t keep house—why else would I have Montoya and Tía Elena? I can’t cook, because I’ve never had to. I couldn’t milk a cow on a bet. He’s unreasonable!”

  “What did you tell him?” Gaby asked.

  “That I wasn’t about to give up Casa Río for a shack in Wyoming,” she said stiffly. “And I’m not. I like my life as it is. I can get over him. It was just a holiday infatuation.” She lowered her eyes to her lap. “He said I was too modern to suit him, too,” she added in a subdued tone.

  Gaby frowned. “Too modern?”

  She colored a little. “I didn’t mind if we slept together before we got married, and he got all stern and arrogant and said where he came from, people didn’t do that sort of thing.” The color got worse. “Well, they don’t where I come from either, but I did want him so terribly,” she whispered huskily. “So much that I was shaking with it, and he just got up and walked away!”

  Gaby didn’t understand—she couldn’t pretend to. She’d never felt like that. But she patted Aggie’s shoulder and made soothing noises.

  “He won’t come back, you know,” she said. She sat up straight and dabbed at her red eyes. “I’ve told everyone we’re engaged, and now I’ll have to live it down.” The tears came back again. “Oh, Gaby!”

  “You worry too much about what people think,” Gaby said sternly. “At least, from time to time you do,” she amended dryly. “Now, dry your eyes and let’s go have a nice cup of coffee. You have to get yourself together before Bowie gets here. You wouldn’t want him to gloat...?”

  “Bowie’s coming home?” She groaned. “When it rains, it pours. He’ll laugh himself sick!”

  “He will not,” Gaby assured her. Not if I have to have Montoya tie him up, she added silently. “Now, come on. You’ll feel better when you’ve had something to drink and eat. Have you had supper?”

  She shook her head. “No appetite.”

  “No wonder you’re miserable. Your blood sugar’s low. Come on, now, Aggie, it will all work out. And I wouldn’t sell your Mr. Courtland short, either,” she added, remembering the stubborn determination she’d seen in that gentleman’s hard face from time to time. “He isn’t like a lot of men.”

  “That’s right,” Aggie agreed. “Most men these days don’t expect their wives to milk cows and pull a plow!”

  Gaby just shook her head as she coaxed Aggie downstairs.

  They had small sandwiches and coffee, and only a little later, the sound of Bowie’s car driving up broke the silence.

  “Go and watch TV, Aggie,” Gaby said gently. “I’ll break it to Bowie.”

  “If he laughs, you hit him, Gaby,” the older woman said coldly. “Just as hard as you can!”

  “He won’t laugh. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Gaby rushed out the front door and through the wrought iron gate. Bowie was just getting out of the car, holding a suitcase and an attaché case linked in one hand while he closed the door. He looked up and his black eyes danced as Gaby ran to him.

  “Well, what a nice surprise,” he murmured, putting down the cases. “Come here, cupcake.”

  Before she had time to say anything, he lifted her by the waist and kissed her softly on her cheek, drawing back instantly as he set her on the ground again.

  “I got sidetracked down to Texas making inquiries about our Mr. Courtland.” He grinned. “I hired a private detective to speed things up. Speaking of the gentleman...”

  “He’s gone.”

  He didn’t seem to move. “Gone.”

  “That’s right. Back to Wyoming.” She drew in a slow breath, a little stunned by his brief kiss and brotherly manner. He didn’t act like a lover—he acted more like the stepbrother everyone seemed to think he was to her. Had he decided that he didn’t want her anymore? Had she turned him off altogether with her reticence? It didn’t even bear thinking about—not when she’d ached to be with him for days and dreamed of him every night.

  “Why?” he asked, frowning.

  “Aggie doesn’t want to milk cows and pull a plow,” she explained with wide eyes. “Besides all that, he wouldn’t go to bed with her because they weren’t married.”

  He actually leaned back against the car. “I beg your pardon?” he asked curtly.

  “Older people do sleep together,” she reminded him. “They were in a clinch out by the stable Sunday that would have kept you awake for days running. They want each other, but he’s one of those Puritans who won’t allow himself to be coaxed into bed without a wedding ring. Aggie got mad and sent him away.”

  “Because he wouldn’t sleep with her?!” he burst out, aghast. “My God, we’re talking about my mother...!”

  “Yes, I know.” She smiled shyly. “Isn’t it exciting? And I thought I’d be bored down here without gun battles and political in-fighting.”

  He lit a cigarette. “Damn it, I’d almost quit,” he muttered, glaring at the cigarette. “Now she’s set me off again.” His black eyes held Gaby’s. “Courtland’s gone home? For good?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “They fought.”

  She nodded. “Because he wouldn’t go to bed with her, if we’re making guesses. I don’t think milking cows had a lot to do with it. I think Aggie’s frustrated.”

  His chest rose and fell in a huge sigh and his black eyes slid down Gaby’s gray dress, over her high, firm breasts, narrow waist, sensuous hips, and long, elegant legs. “I know all about frustration,” he murmured to himself. “But I can’t picture my mother feeling that way.”

  “She isn’t ancient,” Gaby pointed out, trying not to flush at his explicit appraisal. She’d worn the tight belt with this dress for the first time today, and had been amazed at the pleasure it gave her to emphasize her small waistline and look feminine. “And they’re in love, or I miss my guess.”

  “That doesn’t matter, as long as he’s out of the picture,” he said curtly. “Thank God! I was afraid I might have to resort to blackmail to shoot him out the door.”

  Gaby was shocked and looked it. “Bowie, she’s your mother. You have no right...”

  “I have every right,” he returned coldly. “This is my birthright, and I have an obligation to my father to preserve it for Aggie as long as she’s alive, and for myself afterward. I’m not handing it over to any gigolos without a fight.” His lean hand lifted the cigarette to his lips. “What’s mine, I keep, honey. And Casa Río belongs to me.”

  “You’re so stubborn,” she muttered.

  “My father taught me to see one side of any issue—my own. That way, I don’t make the mistake of trying to be too understanding.”

  “But it’s ruthless, don’t you see?” she argued, her olive eyes pleading with his. “You’re not the only one with rights.”

  “Where Casa Río’s concerned, I am.” He touched her hair. “I like it long, like this,” he mused.

  “What are we going to do about Aggie?” she persisted, and her body rippled at the gentle touch on her hair. “She’s been crying ever since he left.”

  “We’ll show her some family movies and take her up to Tucson for the rodeo tomorrow,” he said. “It’s about time we did a few things as a family. That’ll cheer her up.”

  “Tomorrow?” she said. “Bowie, I’ve got to fly out to Los Angeles and see the vice president of this agricultural business. And tomorrow night, the Lassiter city council meets. I’m going.”

  The cigarette poised in midair. “If you go to that meeting, I’m going with you,” he said. “No
way are you going to drive around this territory at night without protection.”

  The way he said it, and the look on his face, startled her. “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you? I told you in Phoenix that I’d had threats. They haven’t stopped just because everything’s on hold.”

  She didn’t like the intrusion of that possibility into her mind. She stared up at Bowie and tried to think how she was going to feel if anything happened to him. It was simply unbearable.

  “You could back down,” she suggested, knowing even as she said it how impossible it was for him to give up when he wanted something.

  “I could take up knitting, too,” he returned. He smiled faintly. “Worried about me?”

  “Of course I’m worried about you,” she said coldly. “You could get yourself shot over a few acres of land!”

  “A few thousand,” he corrected.

  “Whatever! It isn’t worth your life!”

  “Anything worth having is worth fighting for, Gaby,” he replied. “If I didn’t feel that way, I’d have let you run back to Phoenix the day after you got here, because you wanted to run.”

  She felt the ground giving way under her. She couldn’t meet that level, intent stare. “Maybe I did,” she said. “But staying here hasn’t been much more sensible.” She drew in a slow breath. “Bowie, can we be friends?”

  “Friends and nothing more?” he said for her, without a smile. “That’s what you mean, I gather?”

  She leaned against the car beside him, staring at his light suit jacket. “I watched Aggie kissing Mr. Courtland Sunday,” she said slowly, choosing her words. “It... I don’t know, it shook me a little, I think. You see, Bowie,” she said in a weary breath, “I’ve never felt that kind of emotion. I don’t know if I can feel it. I only know that passion is as alien to me as the lack of it would be to you.” She looked up at him, searching his narrowed eyes. “I don’t want to know the kind of pain Aggie’s feeling right now. I think it might be that bad for me if we...if we grew any closer, and it fell apart.”

  “You don’t want the risk.”

  She shifted. “No.”

  “And if I could teach you passion?”

  The deep, frank note in his voice ruffled her nerves. She looked up at him with curiosity and fear mingling in her soft eyes. “Can it be taught?”

  “Stick around and let’s find out,” he returned. He didn’t make a move toward her. He smiled. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, honey.”

  “There must be dozens of women who’d jump at the chance,” she murmured, her eyes delighting in his extraordinary good looks.

  “Dozens who’d love my money,” he returned with faint cynicism. “Not many who’d want me without it.”

  “I’ve got to get you a good mirror,” she said, shaking her head, “and maybe some glasses. Have you really taken a good look at me?” she asked with a short laugh.

  His black eyes narrowed and he took a draw from his cigarette before he answered her. “You’re soft-hearted. You like animals and sunsets and romantic music. You daydream. You stick to your guns when you think you’re right, and you’re loyal to the people you love. You’re generous, hard-working, and a good companion.” He leaned closer. “And you’re just pure sweet heaven to kiss. Yes. I’ve taken a good look at you. I like what I see.”

  She blushed at the way he said it. Her eyes slid to his stubborn chin and lingered there. “Aggie said that you liked poetry,” she said absently.

  He traced one of her dark eyebrows. “Did she? Do you?”

  “Oh, yes, very much,” she whispered.

  His lean finger moved down to her lips and touched them with lazy delicacy. “‘...Desire still on stilts of fear doth go. And yet amid all fears a hope there is...’”

  Her heart jumped at the softness in his slow, deep voice. It was perfect for reading poetry, she thought, even as she tried to fit the sonnet with its elusive author.

  “Sidney,” he said, smiling down at her. “Sir Philip Sidney, a sixteenth-century Elizabethan gentleman. Sidney died with utmost chivalry on the field of Zutphen, and Spenser was sufficiently moved to dedicate his own work, The Faerie Queene, to him.”

  “I never thought of you as a student of literature,” she said softly.

  “But then, you don’t know me, do you?” he asked, his voice deep in the stillness. His finger traced her upper lip with an intensity that made it tremble.

  Her instinct was to catch his strong wrist and pull his hand away, but she fought with it. She liked the sensations he was causing. Her eyes sought his in the growing darkness, and when he dropped his cigarette and moved closer, she lifted her mouth without protest.

  He brought his hands up to frame her face and held it firmly as he bent slowly toward her hungry mouth. His breath rustled against her parted lips and she could feel the heat from his big body. It would be rough this time, she thought while she could, and for the first time, the threat of it didn’t frighten her. She wanted him to be rough, just once—to kiss her with the same hard passion she’d seen when Ned Courtland had kissed Aggie...

  The front door opened and Bowie’s hands contracted. “Oh, God, no, not now!” he bit off, his lips almost touching Gaby’s.

  “Señor, gracias a Dios. Lo Siento, pero su madre...!” Tía Elena was rattling off her perfect Spanish, gaily oblivious to the explosive kiss she’d just prevented.

  Bowie stamped out the cigarette burning in the dust with a violence Gaby had rarely seen him display. “Yo sé, Tía Elena,” he said shortly. “¿Donde esta mi madre?”

  Tía Elena answered him, holding the gate while he and Gaby walked into the courtyard and up the steps. Bowie put his cases down in the hall for Montoya to deal with and went into the living room, where Aggie was waiting. He didn’t look at Gaby. He couldn’t, just yet. He was all but shaking from the fever of so nearly having her in his arms again.

  “Go ahead,” Aggie said through her teeth. “Laugh.”

  “I’m not laughing, Aggie,” he replied. He sat down beside her, his black eyes searching her wan face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?” she demanded. “You wanted to break us up.”

  “I wanted you to be happy,” he returned. “Maybe I went a little overboard.” He shrugged. “And maybe I forgot that you’re still human, even if you have got a few gray hairs,” he added with an amused, knowing smile.

  Aggie actually flushed, and then she laughed. She started to touch Bowie and suddenly drew back.

  “What’s wrong?” he queried with pursed lips. “Are you afraid you’ll get warts if you hug me?”

  Aggie flushed again and laughed, and abruptly reached out toward him. With a deep laugh of his own, he gathered her into his arms and rocked her, because she was crying again.

  To Gaby, it looked very much like a milestone in their relationship. It delighted her to see mother and son so close, probably for the first time in Bowie’s adult life.

  She went to get coffee, and by the time she and Montoya got back, things were back to normal—on the surface, at least. Bowie was telling Aggie about his trip to Phoenix. Gaby noticed that he said nothing at all about going to Texas as well, and she didn’t give him away.

  They settled down to watch television while they sipped coffee, but the news was the only thing interesting, and it dealt with a subject guaranteed to curl Gaby’s hair—an assault on a local woman.

  She got up as soon as she decently could and announced that she was going to have an early night, hoping against hope that Bowie wouldn’t offer to walk her up. She didn’t want to have to explain her nervousness.

  He seemed to know, all the same. He wished her a pleasant good night, along with Aggie, and watched her retreat with quiet, curious eyes.

  She pulled on her soft cotton gown and climbed into bed, hoping that
the news story wouldn’t affect her sleep. Of course, inevitably, it brought the nightmares back.

  With her body bathed in sweat, she relived those frantic minutes in the Kentucky stable, the brief terror that had colored her life, steeled her to living as a solitary woman. Not even a woman—a neutered thing, a shadow of her true self.

  She felt again the hands tearing at her clothing, smelled the whiskey, heard the drunken laughter. She knew the helpless revulsion of hands on her skin, of a heavy, hurting body bearing down on hers. And then, to add to that horror, there was the sudden curse and the hard blow and blood everywhere. Blood...!

  “Gaby!”

  She fought the hands that were holding her arms, struggling, her teeth clenched. “I’ll...kill you...” she panted. “I’ll kill you! Let me go!” she cried piteously.

  Suddenly she was jerked upright and shaken with tender ferocity. Her eyes flew open and Bowie’s hard, concerned face was there. She was awake. It had only been a dream, after all—a nightmare.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks and she was breathing in shaky gasps, her face white, her eyes enormous. She shook helplessly.

  Bowie didn’t know what to do. He was afraid to upset her any more by taking her in his arms, because it was quite obviously memories of a big man that had left her this way to begin with. But he couldn’t walk away, either.

  “I want to hold you,” he said gently. “That’s all. Just until you stop shaking. Come here, Gaby. I won’t let anything hurt you, not ever again.”

  She lifted her arms. “Bowie,” she whispered through her tears.

  He gathered her up with breathless tenderness, amazed to find himself bristling with protective instincts. If only he could find the man who’d done this to her, and beat him into pulp!

  “It’s all right, baby,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve got you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  He stood up, his powerful muscles rippling as he took her weight, and walked the floor with her. Holding her close against his heart, he whispered soft endearments as she cried out the pain and fear of the last few minutes, clinging to his neck.