After Eden

by Joyce Brandon

  Andrea lifted her robe off the chair, sat up, put it on over her light lawn nightgown, and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  The parlor was dim. Moonlight streamed in the two barred windows on either side of the front door, casting light and shadows into the massive room. Only the dim outlines of the furniture were visible—foreign dark shapes.

  She stopped beside the door that led into the parlor. Steve might already have fallen asleep. He might have changed his mind. The sound of cloth on cloth alerted her to another presence.

  “Steve?”

  “Over here.”

  Her heart leaped. She would recognize that low-pitched tone anywhere.

  “May I join you?”

  “Yes.”

  Was that resignation in his low voice?

  Andrea moved closer. His face—tense and strangely unfocused stopped her. She felt too uncertain to proceed. He might have changed his mind. “Am I disturbing you?”

  Always, Steve thought. “No,” he said quietly.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “It’s hot.”

  “Steve…” Why had she used his name? Something had happened to her voice. Something revealing. “Do you think I could go for a walk?”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, standing up. “You might not be safe otherwise. These riders come and go. Half of them stay less than six months. Some of them are on the dodge when they come. And”—he stopped beside her—“there’s always the threat of a stray Indian.”

  He must have changed his mind, Andrea thought. He spoke as if they had no agreement.

  Even so, it felt good to be outside. The stars were bright. The moon—only a day from being full—illuminated the compound and silvered the treetops. Andrea walked north to the well near the spring house. Steve followed. The perfect brother, he was careful not to touch her or look at her.

  “Do you miss Albany?”

  She stopped by the well and leaned against the adobe brick base, enjoying the faint smell of water and the sound of crickets that chorused like a squeaky wheel from the orchard. “I miss my mother. I never realized until a couple of months ago how much I loved her. I hadn’t even thought about her until you asked, but…” She paused. “The most awful feeling of loneliness came over me.”

  “What’s your mother like?”

  “She’s too pretty to be a mother. I saw her in town once when she didn’t know I was watching her, and I was embarrassed because she wasn’t pinch-faced or dowdy like other mothers. I must have pestered her for a week trying to get her to look less attractive. I told her how pretty her hair would look in a bun. How much I liked black gowns on her. I even pointed out all her wrinkles and the tiniest little flaws. I talked about how old she was. My niggling didn’t even faze her.”

  “Did she know how you felt about her looking so young and being so independent?”

  “She knew, but she said it probably saved me a lot more unhappiness than it cost. At least I didn’t end up married to some man who would make my life a misery. To her way of thinking, the worst thing that can happen to a woman is to get married to the wrong man. My father was a little difficult.”

  “Your father?”

  “I mean my stepfather.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Oh, very dashing and handsome.”

  “Was he…Mexican?” he asked gingerly.

  “Spanish, very old Spanish aristocracy.”

  “Is it unpleasant for you to talk about your parents?” Steve asked, sensing the turmoil beneath her placid facade.

  “Does it show?”

  He nodded. Andrea was so damned lovely. It showed most in her eyes—the most expressively beautiful he had ever seen. All he had to do was look at her, and he sensed what she was feeling. He hadn’t realized when he’d suggested their meeting that it would be impossible for him to just fall on her and start kissing her.

  “Judy told me that you are a mining engineer.”

  “Engineering seemed to fit my compulsive nature. I hate cows. Johnny should have been my father’s son. He fits in here. I’m as lost on a ranch as a deaf dog in a cave on a dark night.”

  “Sounds desperate.”

  “It would have gotten that way. My father was getting sick and tired of waiting around for me to start acting like a rancher. He didn’t really understand engineering. If you can’t grow it and feed it, then he was suspicious of it. He felt if God had wanted men to have silver, they would have been born with little pouches of it hanging around their necks.”

  “Why did he buy into the mine?”

  “Darned if I know. I recommended it, and he did it. I’ll never know why. Maybe he thought it would legitimize me in some way. He was a strange man. Very strict. My mother died when I was four. Then Pa married again, and that one ran away when I was seventeen.”

  Steve and Judy didn’t have the same mother or father, Andrea reflected. They weren’t related at all, yet Steve was extremely loyal.

  “It was hard on Judy, mostly. She was only eight, and she wanted her mama.”

  “How dreadful. And then the man she believed was her father disowned her. He must have been a very bitter man.”

  “You chose kinder words than I. The night after Furnett came out to read Dad’s will, Judy tried to hurt herself. It didn’t amount to anything, but it woke me up to the fact that she was hurtin’ real bad.”

  “I didn’t know…” Andrea turned away. “What kind of man could betray a young woman’s trust so heartlessly?”

  “Truth?”

  “Please.”

  Steve expelled an exasperated breath. “One time Pa entered a contest, something judged on skill, and he came in second. Second prize was a piano, a nice piano. I remembered thinking how nice it would be to have a piano for Judy. She always liked to fool around with the keyboard when she got near one. Anyway, his friends started talking to him, telling him how he should have won first prize, that second prize was an insult to a man with his talent. He listened to them and refused the piano, and he was proud of himself for refusing. And Judy never got her piano.”

  “Did you love your father?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t a true Burkhart about that, either. When Doc Potter told me he was dying, I felt like someone had kicked the foundation out from under me. I was so disconcerted by my reaction I couldn’t even let him know.”

  Sadness edged Steve’s words. Instinctively Andrea reached out to comfort him. Her warm hand touched his chest. And just as instinctively Steve clasped her hand to stop her. But once he had touched her she was like a magnet, pulling him close, stripping him of the shield he usually clung to. Dazed, he wondered what his father would have said about his lusting after his own sister.

  “Steve…please…”

  “Don’t,” he said harshly. His hand gripped her wrist, fingers biting into the creamy softness, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I was wrong in what I said this afternoon. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

  “I’m not your sister, not really…”

  “Hush. Don’t make it any harder than it is,” he said, releasing her wrist. “Let’s go back.”

  “Let me stay out here. Stay with me.”

  “I was wrong, dammit. I had no right to ask you here, and you have no business being here with me.”

  Andrea struggled to find words to explain.

  His hands slid up her arms and shook her slightly. “You don’t belong here. Go back to Albany. Take the money I offered you.”

  “If I can’t?”

  “I’ll stay at the mine. You can have the ranch.”

  “So you can have your Sara Jane Broomstick?”

  “Can you think of another alternative?”

  Before she could speak, he took her arm and led her roughly toward the house. At the back door the moonlight beamed on his face, highlighting it into unaccustomed harshness.

  “Steve, I’m not—”

  “Judy used to tease me about our getting mar
ried someday. I always thought it was just a girlish game. How could she feel that way about her brother? I knew I didn’t feel anything like that for her…” He opened the door and motioned Andrea through it. “Get some sleep. We’ll be leaving early, but you don’t need to get up.”

  Part Two

  But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure.

  Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

  Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

  Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

  Love possess not nor would it be possessed;

  For love is sufficient unto love.

  When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”

  And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

  The Prophet

  Kahlil Gibran

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Andrea lay awake for what seemed hours. She couldn’t let Steve ride away tomorrow thinking she was his sister. She was tired of this lie. This time she would make him hear her.

  She stood up and put on her dressing gown, opened her door, and walked down the hall to his door. It was open. She stepped inside and closed it behind her.

  Steve sat up in bed, leaning against a pillow propped against the brass headboard. He too had been awake.

  Andrea was glad he didn’t ask her any questions. He stood up and she walked into his arms.

  “My God, Andrea, do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes.” She buried her face against his warm chest.

  His arms tightened around her as if they would never let her go. “If you stay here, I won’t be able to keep myself from making love to you,” he said, his voice filled with torment.

  “I know,” Andrea said. She needed to tell him the truth, but she didn’t yet know how. Her mind worked in slow, methodical ways. Things had to happen in the proper sequence for her to reach the right conclusion. Besides, she had no idea what Steve would do once he knew the truth. It had taken such courage for her to come to him, to let go of false pride and all the other fears that could get in the way of surrender…

  “God help me,” Steve whispered. He took Andrea’s face in his hands and stared into her eyes. “God help us both.”

  A tremor rippled through Andrea’s body at the proof of his need, reluctance, and inability to resist. She felt his torment deeply, but she could not risk losing this moment to relieve him of it.

  When Steve kissed her—Andrea was lost. She had been athrob ever since he’d kissed her in Tombstone. Now his touch ignited her senses. She was giddy and breathless—a woman afire. His tongue coaxed its way into her mouth and became maddened with what it found there. Her twenty-five years of being “virginal and careful” tapered to a quivering point, then dissolved in a frenzy of mutual possession.

  At some point Steve picked her up and carried her to his bed. “I know better,” he said, “but nothing will satisfy me unless I absorb every part of you.”

  Andrea knew he wanted her with the same intensity with which she needed him. That knowledge freed her. Now she could spare him. No matter what his initial reaction might be, she knew that together they could weather the storm.

  “Steve…”

  “Hush, no more words. There’ve been too many words between us already.” He smoothed her hair away from her face. “I love you, Andrea. I may burn in hell for this, but I love you, and it doesn’t matter what they do to me. If you hadn’t come to me, I’d have ridden off and tried never to come back. Don’t talk. We’re beyond words. It’s too late to change your mind now.”

  He silenced her utterances with his mouth as his hands groped futilely at her nightgown. Finally he levered himself up, and then, with a small gesture that Andrea would never forget—the sensation was keenly erotic—he spread her open with his fingers and entered her.

  The feel of him inside her was a small, fierce, hungry flame that caused her to strain against him, to wrap her legs around his taut buttocks, to go wild with need.

  His hand stroked her hip and thigh slowly as if he could not bear to be separated from her flesh. Their breathing had returned to normal, but still he held her close. She hesitated to spoil the moment, but it was time to take away his burden of guilt.

  “I love you, Steve.”

  Sleepily Steve stroked her hip. “And I love you.”

  “Will you remember that, even if you get mad at me?”

  Steve made a small rueful sound. “If I could forget it, we would not now be in this position.”

  Andrea sucked in a long breath and let it out carefully. “I’m not your sister. I’m an imposter, Steve. The one you know as Tía Marlowe is your real half sister.”

  Steve remained silent so long that Andrea sat up in bed to look at him.

  “This is a dream, isn’t it?”

  “No. I’m not your sister.”

  “If I’m awake, that’s the best news I’ve ever heard.”

  Andrea leaned down and kissed him. “You’re too lazy at this moment to be mad…”

  “Too stunned and content. I’ve been given too many gifts in the last hour.” He looked into her eyes cautiously. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because it’s true. We changed places after Tía walked in on Judy when she was preparing her Indian attack. We thought it would be fun to change places, but then we couldn’t figure out a good place to stop.”

  “Until now…”

  “Until now,” she said softly.

  “Then who are you?”

  “I’m Tía’s sister, I mean half sister.”

  “Someone will have to tell Judy.”

  “I know.”

  They lay in silence for a moment. “Steve?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don’t go tomorrow.”

  “I have to.”

  “But why? You can’t need that silver turned into cash that desperately.”

  “We don’t, but I’ve given my word to Morgan, and the plans have been made.”

  Steve frowned at the ceiling. Silver had never been the most important thing in his life, but his word was his bond. He was slow to give it, and he never took it back. He’d made mistakes in his life, but he didn’t regret them as long as he’d made the best possible decision with the information at hand. And he was not a man to keep chewing the same cud. He’d thought this out yesterday, and he saw no reason now to change his mind.

  “Stop worrying,” he said at last. “I promise I won’t look up Sara Jane Broomstick.”

  Andrea laughed. “At least you remembered her name.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “We’ll have to tell everyone.”

  “Start with Judy. The others can wait.” Steve thought about Judy for a moment and sighed. “I don’t envy you or Tía that chore.”

  “What about Rutledge? We’ll see him first. I doubt Judy will be up and around until after you’ve gone.”

  “Don’t worry about Rutledge. We can square that anytime. Make your peace with Judy.” Steve chuckled. “I’m glad I won’t be here for that.”

  “Coward!”

  “You’re darned right. I’d rather face Chatto any day.”

  Steve rolled on top of Andrea, and his mouth took charge of hers. He grew heavy and swollen again, and his knee nudged its way between her thighs. Andrea closed her eyes and forgot everything except the pleasure of loving her man.

  From the porch, Andrea watched Steve’s preparations to leave. Morgan Todd and Johnny Brago looked like two tomcats: they watched one another as if each expected imminent attack.

  Steve had convinced Andrea to leave his room before the women came to the casa grande to cook breakfast. He had checked to be sure the halls were clear, then she had slipped back to her own cold bed. She didn’
t feel sleepy the way she usually did when she got up before her body was ready. She was too excited. She felt wonderful, even hopeful.

  Horses snuffled and stomped, and sabers clanked as the soldiers slowly pulled their mounts into formation, two abreast. The blue-uniformed riders with their slouch hats and red-striped pants looked surly after a night of sleeping on the ground. Andrea pitied any Indians who attacked this bad-tempered crew.

  The sun was bright and hot overhead. The slight chill she and Steve had enjoyed in the early morning hours had quickly become only a memory. She felt sorry for these men in their buttoned-down uniforms. How stifling and hot to be riding overdressed in the relentless heat.

  Steve watched from his horse. Andrea glanced at him, and he started forward, but Rutledge saw that his men were ready to ride out, rode over to the porch, and dismounted in front of Andrea.

  Andrea had been lovely last night, but somehow today in her white lawn blouse and black skirt she looked even more beautiful. Steve wasn’t given to noticing detail, but the flounces and ruffles on her blouse gave the impression of such soft femininity and purity that he had the urge to prostrate himself at her feet. She epitomized a woman at one with her power.

  Rutledge spoke loud enough for Steve to hear over the stamp and shuffle of horses impatient to be moving. “Good day, Miss Burkhart. Please give my regards to Judy. Your gracious hospitality was most appreciated.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Go with God.”

  For a moment Rutledge actually looked very mortal and human. Then he recovered, bowed, and clicked his heels. “That is always one of my first priorities, especially when there are beautiful women to come back to.”

  He mounted his horse and waved his right hand. Andrea waved. Some soldiers saluted smartly; a few grinned and lifted their slouch hats. Rutledge led off, and the horsemen at the front of the column peeled off behind him. It looked momentarily chaotic, but as the captain and the front of the column reached the front gate, the riders had snaked around and formed the column behind him.

  It was a relief to Andrea to watch the blue-clad column—red-and-white banners flying against a bright, cloudless sky—ride through the wide-flung gates. The company’s wagons, cannons, and extra horses followed them out, and the sentries pulled the gates of the compound closed.