Diamond Spur

by Diana Palmer

  Kate hugged them all. “You bet I will!”

  But when she finished, late, and went home with her beautiful dress carefully bagged, she was worrying about that trip to New York. Jason had been adamant about making her give up her career. And since she was pregnant, she had a feeling it was going to mean one royal battle to even get to go. He’d be busy with roundup again during those two weeks, and that might be her out. If Kate had to, she could sneak away without his knowing. It felt dishonest, and if anything went wrong with her pregnancy, she was going to hate herself. But as Dr. Harris himself had said, all the precautions in the world weren’t going to help if she wasn’t meant to have the baby. And in the past few days, there had been no spotting and no cramping. So perhaps her worries were over.

  The day of the wedding dawned with rain in the forecast. Kate was at the Donavan house, getting into her beautiful dress helped by her mother, who was in a beautiful lavender floor-length dress that Jason had taken her to buy. Kate moaned when she heard the report.

  “Why does it have to rain?” Kate asked the mirror as she fixed her face. “Why today, of all days? I’m only ever going to get married once in my whole life, so why can’t the sun come out?”

  “Rain is a good omen,” Sheila assured her blithely.

  “The best,” Mary agreed.

  “Sure,” Cherry added, “anybody can have a sunny wedding. Yours will be special.”

  “Has anybody seen Jason at all?” Kate asked quickly as they fastened the hooks of her wedding gown. “I haven’t seen him since I got here with mother.”

  “He was in his room getting dressed when I came upstairs,” Cherry assured her. “Now, don’t worry. He isn’t going to do anything terrible like leaving you at the altar. Have you got your something blue?”

  She did. A blue lace handkerchief. Her something old was a small garnet ring that her grandmother had left her. Her something new was the gown itself.

  “I don’t have anything borrowed,” she exclaimed.

  “Here,” Sheila put a small coin in her hand. “That’s an English sixpence coin. A boyfriend of mine gave it to me, long ago, and its been my good luck piece ever since. It will bring you luck, too.”

  “Put it in your shoe,” Cherry suggested, and Kate slid it into the toe of her white pump.

  “I’ll pass out at the altar, I just know I will,” Kate groaned. “I feel nauseated already.”

  “Did you take that morning sickness tablet?” Mary asked.

  Kate hesitated. “I don’t like to take medicine of any kind,” she confessed. “I’m so afraid of hurting the baby.”

  “That’s understandable,” Mary agreed, “but Dr. Harris is as stubborn about drugs as you are, and I guarantee he wouldn’t have prescribed anything he thought might hurt the baby.”

  That made sense. Kate reluctantly took the pill with a swallow of juice and finished dressing.

  The huge living room was clear of furniture, and chairs had been placed there for the ceremony. There was an altar with candles on either side, and huge pots of ferns and flowers everywhere. An aisle ran between rows and rows of strange faces in elegant dress. A pianist played a medley of wedding songs in one corner, and the minister of the local Presbyterian church, Reverend Samuels, was talking to Gene at one side of the altar. The Donavans had been Presbyterian for two generations, while Kate’s family had been Baptist for an equal length of time. Since Jason had been so easygoing about the invitations, she hadn’t made a fuss about having his minister perform the ceremony.

  Kate, standing quietly on the staircase, felt more nervous by the minute. There was no one to give her away, since her father was long since dead. She’d have that long walk alone. Cherry was her matron of honor, as Gene was Jason’s best man. It would be a very simple but elegant ceremony, although Kate was sure that she noticed at least two reporters. They had huge cameras and tape recorders.

  Kate felt her mother’s gentle touch, and turned to see her smile. She smiled back, nervously, her hands clutching the bouquet of white orchids Jason had sent her.

  The prelude suddenly began. Jason was already at the altar. Cherry went next. And then the wedding march announced Kate. She almost tripped getting down the steps, but she recovered quickly. She had to appear calm. She had to look regal. That was her gown she’d designed, she couldn’t disgrace it by fumbling down the aisle.

  Her chin went up. She smiled cooly. Her eyes found Jason at the altar, his dark head with its back to her, and she walked toward it. He had a sexy nape, she thought irrelevantly. Kate felt dozens of eyes watching her. She wondered how many of those elegant guests knew that this was a sort of shotgun wedding.

  At last she reached the altar. In a daze, she heard the minister performing the ceremony while Jason faced straight ahead and only looked at her when they exchanged rings. Jason had purchased simple gold bands for both of them, nothing frivolous. Later, he’d told Kate, she could have a different design if she wanted it, but these would suffice for now because they didn’t have the time to shop for permanent rings.

  As Kate looked down at the thin band of gold on her finger, she heard the minister, somewhere in the back of her head, pronouncing them man and wife. She looked up into Jason’s steady, quiet eyes as he slowly lifted her thick veil out of the way and looked at her. After a brief hesitation, during which his eyes darkened, he bent and kissed her. His lips were cool and brief. He lifted his head a fraction and searched her soft eyes.

  “No,” he whispered, “no, not like that. Like this….”

  And he kissed her again. This time, it was everything it should have been. Kate grasped his muscular arms through the fabric and held on while his hard mouth warmed hers. A long, exquisite moment later he drew away, and the smile he gave her, although she knew it was only for the benefit of the guests, like the kiss, was the tenderest she ever remembered seeing on his hard face.

  After they left the room, Kate ran upstairs to change. They were flying to Jamaica for three days, a short honeymoon because of work pressures on his part and Kate’s. They were to leave following the reception. It was all very rushed, but Jason had insisted that it was the only way to do things.

  The reception was very brief. Kate spoke to Roberta and introduced her to Jason. She wasn’t quite prepared for Roberta’s very warm attitude toward her new husband or the frank desire in the woman’s eyes. Kate was having second thoughts about her newest friend. She hadn’t realized that to Roberta, a wedding ring had never been a barrier. Not that Jason responded. It was fascinating to see his black eyes turn Roberta away without a single hard word to mar the day. He couldn’t have made his disinterest more obvious if he’d worn a hands-off sign. Kate had seen him back down fighting cowboys with nothing more than that level, cold, unblinking stare. It had a sobering effect on most sane people.

  But Jason’s friends were the hardest to deal with. They talked mostly to Jason after realizing that Kate wasn’t knowledgeable about big business or the latest business trends. They weren’t snobby about it. They were simply like Jason, feeling that women had no place in the business world.

  Their wives were distantly pleasant, congratulating Kate on her “catch” and also on the lovely gown she had worn.

  “Neiman-Marcus,” Jason informed them, toasting his lovely wife.

  “Kathryn Whittman Donavan,” Kate corrected gently. “I designed it myself, and the sample room staff made it up for me.”

  That produced an unexpected flutter of exclamations, and renewed interest in her gown. And not only from the guests, but from the reporters as well. This was a nice little tidbit to add to an otherwise routine society wedding story. The bride was a budding designer and had done her own gown.

  Jason didn’t like it. Not one bit. He and Kate had discussed this before, and he’d made his opinion known. He didn’t say anything, but Kate knew he would. No way was she going to get out of this without a fight, but she was ready for him. They might as well settle the career question now, at the beginning
of their life together.

  After she helped him cut the cake, they mingled until everyone was full of cake and conversation. She’d been sticking close to her mother and Sheila and Cherry, and with one eye she’d watched Roberta mingling with the rich men present. Roberta was like a butterfly, beautiful and vaguely surface with her emotions. Kate liked her, but she was secretly glad that the woman wouldn’t be around Jason very much. Even a man of principle could be tempted by a woman that lovely.

  Kate wore a pale mauve suit for the getaway. Her bag was already packed, although she imagined Jason wasn’t going to like having the shabby thing next to his in the airport. Hers was old and tattered and the handle was half off. But it was all she had.

  She barely had the chance to kiss everyone good-bye before Jason escorted her out the door and into the Mercedes. Minutes later, they were speeding away from the house. Married.

  “I thought I told you to buy the gown at Neiman-Marcus,” he remarked quietly as he pulled out into the main highway. He didn’t look at her even then.

  She took a deep breath. Just as well to get it over with now, she supposed. “You did,” she replied.

  “Then why did you deliberately go against me?”

  He didn’t look that angry, but with Jason, it was hard to tell. She couldn’t see his eyes, and they would have told her what she needed to know.

  She studied him silently for a moment, absently registering how handsome he looked in a light gray suit and a matching Stetson and boots. He was her whole heart, although she wouldn’t be able to tell him that. It was the first time they’d been alone since the day he’d come for her at the plant, and despite the wedding ring on her finger, she felt nervous with him.

  “It wasn’t a matter of going against you,” she said finally. “Jason, I design clothes. It’s what I do for a living. I just wanted to create something special for my own wedding, that’s all.”

  “You aren’t going to do anything for a living,” he said, and now the anger was creeping into his deep voice. “Not while you’re my wife.” He glanced at her. “And that includes being a designer.”

  She lifted her chin, glaring at him. “I gather that we’re going to spend our honeymoon having this out?” she asked coldly.

  “What did you expect, honey, that I’d back down?” he countered. “Kate, you know me better than that by now.”

  “I know very little about you,” she said, her voice as quiet as his own. “I can’t get near you, Jason, especially since the wedding invitations went out. I feel as if you’re doing your best to push me right out of your life.”

  “I told you I wanted the baby,” he said tersely, which was no answer at all. He lit a cigarette as he drove and blew out a thin cloud of smoke. “I meant it.”

  Of course he wanted the baby. He just didn’t want Kate. She leaned her head against the seat and stared out at the passing landscape with eyes that hardly saw it.

  “You haven’t had any more problems, have you?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “No,” she said flatly. She glanced at him as they sped down the deserted highway. “I guess if I said I had, you’d turn the car right around and go home.”

  “I’m not risking the baby for a holiday,” he told her.

  “Listen, Jason, if I’m meant to have this baby, I will, and nothing in the world will stop it from coming,” she said heatedly. “On the other hand, if it isn’t meant to be, all the protective instincts in the world won’t save it.”

  “I suppose that means you don’t plan any falls down a flight of stairs?” he asked mockingly.

  She felt the first tears sting her eyes. She’d worked herself half to death trying to organize her wedding and finish her collection, now she was on the threshold of a career she’d worked toward for years, and she’d been made pregnant and forced into a marriage Jason didn’t want. Now he was making snide remarks about the baby. She hated him. She hated the whole idea of marriage. She wished she could take off the ring and throw it at him.

  Her silence caught his attention. He looked toward her with narrow eyes that saw the glimmer of unshed tears. “Hell, I didn’t mean that,” he bit off.

  “I didn’t get you pregnant,” she said through trembling lips. “I didn’t force you to marry me. All I ever wanted was to make something of my life. I’m sorry if you feel trapped, but you might consider that I’m just as trapped as you are.” She choked back a sob. “You should have stayed away, Jason. It would have hurt for a little while, but we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  That took some of the anger out of him. “Did you miss me, Kate?” he asked, and now there was gentleness in his deep voice.

  She stared through tears at her folded hands. “Yes, damn you,” she sobbed. “You were the only friend I had….”

  “You were the only friend I had, too,” he replied quietly. “The only woman in my life that I ever liked.” His jacket strained against powerful muscles as he turned at a crossroads onto the road that led to San Antonio. “I’m sorry it turned out like this.”

  “We should have taken precautions,” she said defensively. “I didn’t even know how. I thought you were going to…you know.”

  He had, he thought bitterly. But he’d lost control completely, and that loss of control was half his problem now. His father had drilled it into him, that desire was the weapon a woman used to control a man. Sex was something a man who was a man could do without, his father had raged. It was only meant for the act of creation, anyway, and there were better things to do with a man’s time. Jason had been little more than a child, he hadn’t understood how deeply his father had been grieving for his wife or how hurt he’d been at her desertion. Jason had taken the words for gospel. And because he had, they’d warped his attitude toward women and sex. Sex brought guilt, and loss of control was devastating to him.

  Even now, remembering his weakness was causing him some problems. He couldn’t let that happen again, he couldn’t let Kate know how vulnerable he was to her.

  “In the heat of passion, men forget, too,” he said cooly. “Going over it won’t do any good, Kate. You’re pregnant and we’re married. Now we have to live with it.”

  “I suppose we do.” She drew in a slow breath and dashed away the tears. “Can you spare the time to go to Jamaica, really?”

  “Every couple needs a honeymoon of some sort. Three days is better than nothing, and I thought a little time away from that damned textile plant might convince you that the world doesn’t begin and end there.”

  “Can’t we…not argue, just for the next three days?” she asked, and looked across at him with faintly pleading eyes. She smiled shyly. “I’ll be your best friend.”

  Jason felt his heart soar. That was the Kate he remembered. The laughing, happy Kate who’d taken his mind and then his body, and ultimately possessed him. He reached across the seat with his free hand and linked it with hers gently.

  “You’ll like Jamaica,” he said lazily, neatly dismissing the subject of her job. “We’re going up to Montego Bay, where it’s a little less hectic than Kingston. We’ll laze on the beach and drink piña coladas and go disco dancing.”

  “Your baby and I will not have a piña colada, and neither of us is up to disco.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Excuse me, little mama. Make that a pineapple punch and a two-step.”

  “That’s better.” She wrapped her slender fingers around his and pressed them warmly. He returned the pressure.

  It was going to take time, a lot of time, for him to adjust to the loss of his freedom. Well, she had that, didn’t she? She was content with her lot for now. She was going to make him the best wife he’d ever believed possible, if she could just make him give her enough freedom to be herself and not try to remake her in his own image. He and the baby were the most important things in her life, but if she lost this chance to show what she could do with her talent for design, she was never going to be truly satisfied. But for now, she was going to enjoy being with Jason and try not to th
ink about the future.

  That resolution carried her aboard the big Air Jamaica jet, where they had first-class seat reservations. It was nice and roomy and she had Jason’s hand to hold during the two hour-plus flight to Montego Bay.

  Aboard the plane she’d gotten accustomed to the musical West Indies accent, but she heard a lot more of it when they got into the airport in Montego Bay.

  When they got off the plane, the tropical breeze hit Kate in the face like a warm wet towel. She actually caught her breath, not only at the moist heat of it, but also at the floral scent. What she could see of the landscape was unencouraging, but then airports wouldn’t be likely to locate downtown.

  Jason got their carry-on luggage on a small cart with wheels that he’d packed, and now she understood its purpose. The little luggage rack was perfect to save them the discomfort of lugging their bags the distance from the plane inside the terminal, and through immigration and customs.

  Kate, who’d never been out of the country at all except once to Mexico, was fascinated with the procedure. Jason had obtained a voter’s registration certificate for her, since she didn’t have a passport. He had one, which he gave to the official at one of the multilaned counters. They were welcomed to Jamaica, asked if they had tobacco or alcohol, drugs or firearms, and then sent to a window to cash in their traveler’s checks for Jamaican currency.

  “It’s been illegal to spend American currency here,” Jason explained to her, “because the Jamaican economy has been in bad shape. It’s improving, but it’s still against the law to take their money out of the country.”

  “I like their money,” Kate mused, examining her bankroll as they climbed into a cab and were driven off toward the big Holiday Inn where Jason had reserved rooms for them. “It’s so colorful.”

  “First time on the island?” the cabdriver asked with a big, welcoming smile in the rearview mirror.

  “Not for me. But my wife hasn’t been here before,” Jason replied, with an indulgent smile for Kate. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

  “Best place for that,” the cabdriver laughed. “No place like Jamaica, to live or to vacation. You must see the banana and coffee plantations, and there are some houses you might enjoy seeing. Also many historic places here. Much to see.”