by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
She walked briskly, following the well-trodden path she had seen Rueben use, past the stable, along the paddock fences, then through a gate and straight across the pasture. Almost at once she could feel her spirits lift; it was not Leila's nature to be gloomy for long. And it was not so humid today. There had been a little rain in the night, and this morning some leftover mist and fog, but that had blown away in a light cool breeze and now the sky was a bright blue patterned with a few billowy clouds. The pasture was spotted with little yellow flowers, and white butterflies fluttered dizzily among them as if they had been sipping fermented honey. Once a bird flashed by in front of her, a stunning streak of blue that made her gasp in wonderment.
The pasture sloped gently downhill. Soon, in the little valley just beyond the lower fence, Leila could see trees, and the pale gray roof of a long, low house made of red bricks. Near the house, in the shady spaces between the trees, she saw a volleyball net, a metal stove for cooking outdoors and long tables laden with food. And people. People seemed to be everywhere, gathered around the stove and the tables or sitting in chairs under the trees. Some held babies, or watched indulgently while small children played on the grass near their feet. Older children darted here and there among the adults, and a few were hitting a ball back and forth across the net.
All four dogs bounded out to greet Leila as she came through the gate from the pasture. Then someone else noticed her and called out, "Ma—you got company!"
A door to a screened porch opened and Betsy came out, wiping her hands on a huge apron. When she saw Leila she threw her hands up in the air and gave a squeal of welcome. "Oh, good—you changed your mind. I'm glad you came. Come here—come and meet my kids. Hey, everyone, look who's here—it's Cade's new wife! Everybody—this is Leila."
There were squeals of amazement and surprise: " What? Cade got married? When did that happen? I don't believe it!"
Shouts of welcome: "Hey, Leila—you're just in time, food's almost ready. Hey, Leila, come on down! Hi, Leila, hope you like chili..."
Betsy began to point to people left and right and call out names. A few of the children she got wrong, which made her clap a hand to her forehead while everyone laughed and teased her about losing her memory. Leila's head was spinning. How many children did Rueben and Betsy have? She had lost track of who was married to who, and she knew she would never remember anyone's name, but it did not seem to matter. She knew nobody really expected that she would.
A brown, stocky boy of about ten, wearing only a pair of blue jeans that had been cut off above the knee, came running up just then, yelling, "Gramma—Gramma—can we go swimming?" He was flushed and sweaty from playing volleyball and wore an expression of extreme pain on his face as he pleaded, "Please?'
Betsy gave him a stern look, which it was clear no one believed. She called across the yard to where Rueben and several younger men were gathered around the metal cook stove. "Hey, guys—how soon is dinner gonna be ready?"
Somebody lifted the lid of the stove, peered into it then yelled back, " 'Bout half an hour.. .maybe little bit more."
Betsy put a heavy hand on the boy's head and glared at him. "Okay, but just a quick one, you hear me? If your momma says okay..."
The boy was already dashing off across the grass, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Mom—Gramma says it's okay! Hey, you guys, did you hear that? We can go swimming!"
"Where do they swim?" Leila had not seen a pool. Perhaps she should invite the children to swim in Cade's—in her pool.
But Betsy waved a hand toward a thick, dark bank of trees. "Oh, there's a place down at the creek where they like to go. Been there a long time."
"That's where I learned to swim," said one of Betsy's daughters, and another chimed in, "Yeah, I think we all did."
Leila gazed at them with a combination of fascination and doubt. She and her sisters had enjoyed swimming in the sea, in a secluded cove near the palace, but she could not imagine how one would swim in a murky creek, among all those trees. "May I.. .see this place?" she asked, both hesitant and eager.
"Oh, sure! Yeah, go on—it's nice!" several voices immediately responded, and Betsy added, with another wave of her hand, "Go right on down—the kids'll show you. Just follow all the hollering."
Leila hesitated only a moment more, her lower lip caught between her teeth and her breath quickening. Then she set off after the disappearing children, and after the first few steps broke into a light, skipping run.
Following shrieks and shouts of glee, she made her way along a well-worn pathway across the lawn and into the trees, and soon came to a place where the creek widened into a small pond, where large rocks and very old trees fought each other for space along the mossy banks and sunlight sparkled on the dark surface of the water. Leila caught her breath and laughter bubbled up in her throat as she watched children of all shapes and sizes hurl themselves into the water from the rocks and low-hanging branches, arms waving, legs pumping, smooth brown bodies gleaming in the sun. Entranced and envious, she crouched down on one of the rocks with her skirt over her knees and her arms wrapped around them and watched the children surface, slick and agile as otters, blowing and wiping water from their faces, laughing and splashing one another.
"Look," one of them cried suddenly, pointing at Leila, "it's that lady."
Several of the children drifted toward Leila's rock to gather in a half circle around her, curious and friendly as a school of dolphins.
"Hey, are you gonna swim with us?"
"You can come in—it's deep enough. See?" To demonstrate, several of the children sank beneath the surface, like dolphins sounding, to rise again seconds later blowing water and wiping grins with their small brown hands.
"Come and swim with us, lady. It's not too cold—a little bit, but it's fu-u-n!" And again they subsided, amidst waves and splashes and shrieks of laughter.
Oh, Leila thought, if only I could!
And then she thought: Why can't I? There were no men around, only children, and besides, she was in America now. Such things were permitted here.
Almost as quickly as the thought formed in her head, she was slipping off her sandals and pulling her T-shirt over her head, and her teeth were clamped on her lower lip to hold back laughter. The wraparound skirt was still settling into a multicolored puddle on the rock as she jumped. She felt for only an instant the rush of soft air, and then the water's cool and delicious embrace. Her lungs contracted; her feet met the sandy bottom of the pond. She pushed herself upward and exploded from the surface with a gust of breath and a cry of delight. Several of the children paddled around her, blending their giggles and squeals with hers and looking as pleased as if Leila were a protege of whom they were especially proud.
"See?" they cried. "We told you—it's fun, huh? And look what I can do—can you do this? Watch me—I can do a backward somersault, can you?"
And for a short and wonderful time, Leila became one of them, those anonymous, exuberant children. Never in her life had she felt so free, not even when she herself had been a child such as they. For a short and wonderful time she did not think at all about the stranger she had married who did not seem to desire her, or the home and family she had left behind.
* * *
It seemed as if Cade had been hit with just one surprise after another. Ever since, returning from his hunting trip several hours earlier than expected, he'd walked into his house and found it empty. That had been the first surprise. The second had come when he'd realized how much he minded.
It wasn't that he wasn't used to coming home to an empty house; most days, by the time he got home from work, Rueben and Betsy would be long gone and his dinner left for him, wrapped and microwave-ready in the refrigerator. And he sure didn't plan on getting used to having a little wife waiting for him, either. The wife was a temporary circumstance; he'd already made that decision, it was just a matter of finding the right time and place to finalize everything with Leila.
So why today did his house seem to
ring with silence? What was this strange heaviness he felt in his chest as he wandered from room to room, calling the name of someone he hadn't even known ten days ago? Could it possibly be.. .disappointment? Had he actually been looking forward to seeing her again?
Ridiculous. The denial came so quickly it bordered on panic. Hell, he told himself in disgust, I'm responsible for the girl. If she's run off, or been kidnapped... Ridiculous.
Nevertheless, it was with as much relief as exasperation that he discovered the towel-draped chaise longue beside the pool and the backyard gate open. That, together with the salsa music he could hear pumping up from the Flores' place gave him the obvious answer. Rueben and Betsy were having one of their family barbecues, and Betsy, being the mother hen she was, would have insisted on inviting Leila. Mystery solved.
Less easy to explain—if Cade had bothered to try—was the fact that he didn't even take time to shower and shave and change out of his ranch clothes before setting out for the Flores' place. Before going to find his wife.
Nobody noticed when he came through the pasture gate; everyone in the Flores' yard was gathered around the food tables, loading up their plates with hot dogs and hamburgers, spare ribs and chicken, potato salad, cole slaw and, of course, Rueben's special five-alarm Tex-Mex chili.
Cade had been to enough of Rueben and Betsy's gatherings to know that for the next ten or fifteen minutes or so, nobody was going to be paying attention to anything but food, so instead of announcing himself right away he paused and leaned a shoulder against the trunk of a pin oak tree.
He was feeling just a tad wistful, as he always did when he saw their family together like this and thought about how lucky Rueben and Betsy were. They'd known each other forever, just about, had grown up together and knew each other so well. Theirs was a great marriage. A great family. The kind of marriage, the kind of family Cade would have chosen for himself, if he'd had any say in the matter. The kind he'd never had, and finally accepted he probably never would have.
Definitely not with Leila.
He straightened abruptly and lightened the heaviness inside him with a breath while his eyes searched for her in the crowd.
She wasn't easy to find. Naturally, with that black hair of hers she'd blend right in with this Flores bunch as if she belonged there. When he finally did spot her, in the thickest part of the crowd around the food table, it was because he'd heard somebody call out her name.
"Hey Leila—you ever eat chili?"
"Chilly?" Her voice was unmistakable and instantly recognizable to him—another surprise—and musical as a flute. "I do not think so. This means cold, no?"
There was laughter, and someone yelled, "I don't think so!"
Then there was a clamor of voices explaining, urging Leila to try some chili.. .some warning her not to. Cade had moved unconsciously closer, alert as a bird dog on point as he tried to see what was happening in the center of the knot of people gathered around the chili pot. He was a little apprehensive, too—Rueben's chili was notorious. After eating a bowlful Cade didn't stop sweating for hours. And he was used to the stuff.
An expectant silence had fallen around the food table. Cade found that his heart was beating faster. He really did wish he could have seen Leila's face when she tasted that chili.
And then the knot of people seemed to loosen and shift, as if everyone had decided to give her a little more breathing room. And suddenly he could see her face—perfect oval, breathtakingly lovely, smooth and fresh as a child's—as she lifted a spoonful of the rich, red-brown chili to her mouth. Cade's heart gave a kick, then seemed to stick at the bottom of his throat, thumping away to beat the band while Leila chewed and the suspense grew. Cade held his breath along with everyone else while a tiny frown etched itself between her eyebrows. Then she tilted her head, and her lilting, slightly husky voice carried even to where he stood.
"It is very good...." she said, still with that uncertain little frown, and now she was turning her head, as if she were looking for something, there on the table ".. .but I think I would like—yes, there—what are those little yellow peppers called? Jalapenos—yes. I think I would like some more jalapenos in mine, please."
There were shouts of amazement and laughter from everyone, and smatterings of applause which Leila acknowledged with a winsome display of dimples. Cade let out the breath he'd been holding. He was smiling in spite of himself. The suspense had broken, so why was his heart still beating so hard and so fast? And why this growling in his stomach when he wasn't hungry?
"Hey, Cade—hey, Ma, look who's here! Come on over, Cade, grab yourself a plate."
His cover blown, he grinned, shrugged and pushed away from the tree trunk. But while the grin, shrug and a little deprecating wave of his hand were for the assembled crowd, his gaze stayed where it had been, on Leila. So he knew exactly the moment her body stiffened and the dimpled smile froze on her face, when the liveliness drained out of her so that she seemed to become a flat black-and-white photograph of herself.
So, he thought dismally, she isn't exactly happy to see me. Did that surprise him? Why would he expect her to be? But his heartbeat now was a slow, dirge-like pulse, and his breath tasted bitter in his throat.
The knot of Flores' family loosened and Leila came toward him, carrying her plastic plate in both hands, carefully, like a child. And it seemed to Cade that she carried herself the same way. With constraint. Yes, that was the word he was thinking of—as if she held her natural exuberance under a tight rein. But a moment ago with the Flores bunch she'd been lighthearted and free as a bird, so it was pretty obvious she felt that constraint only because of him.
He felt heavy, suddenly. And his heart hurt, as if the heaviness was right there, pressing in all around it.
"I did not expect you until later." Her voice sounded breathless, although her face remained pale and calm.
He shrugged that aside. "Hunting was lousy and the power went out at the ranch, so we decided to leave early." He nodded his head toward her. "Looks like you've been having fun."
It had just occurred to him that she was wet, under the loose oversized T-shirt she was wearing. Her hair hung in a thick, sodden braid down her back, except for tiny spikes and tendrils around her face and neck that had begun to dry. The T-shirt clung to the dark wetness of the bathing suit, outlining her breasts in bold relief, and it came to him with a small sense of shock that until that moment he'd had no idea what her body was actually shaped like. That one glimpse made him feel the way he did when he was good and hungry and smelled Betsy's bread baking in the oven.
"I have been, yes." Leila said, responding to something he barely remembered saying, and she was nodding earnestly, obviously completely unaware of the direction his gaze—and his thoughts—had been taking. "Betsy and Rueben have such a nice family, have they not? They have been very kind to me, all of them. Even though," she added, showing him a brief glimpse of dimples, "I do not think I will remember any of their names."
"I see you've been swimming," Cade said bluntly.
Her eyes flicked downward toward her own chest, then jumped quickly back to his. Her lips parted in dismay. Letting go of her plate with one hand, she plucked the shirt away from herself as color blossomed slowly in her cheeks, going almost imperceptibly from delicate to sublime, like a sunrise.
"Yes—with the children. In the creek. Was this all right?"
"What? Sure, it's all right."
"You do not mind?" Again her voice sounded breathless.
"Why should I mind?" His voice sounded angry, though he wasn't. And damned if his heart wasn't beating too fast again. As if they were having an argument. Which they weren't, not as far as he was concerned. He wasn't so sure about her.
"I am very glad you do not." Her head was high and her eyes seemed to flare and blaze like coals, with something that looked like defiance—though he couldn' t think what she might be in defiance of. He'd never told her she couldn't go swimming—or anything else, for that matter. And he had n
o intention of ever doing so. He was her husband, dammit, not her father, even if she was ten years younger than he was.
"Because I liked being with the children," Leila went on. "Very much. I like children. I would like—" She broke off and looked away, and her throat moved with a swallow. He knew she'd meant to say more, but had no idea what it might be.
I want to have children. A lot of children—like Betsy and Rueben. I want to have your children, Cade Gallagher.
A little shudder quivered through Leila as she realized that she had almost said such a thing out loud. Perhaps, she thought, it is wrong for a wife to be too proud with her husband. But she was not only a wife, she was a princess, and she could not—she would not say such a thing to a man, husband or not, who did not seem to want to make babies with her at all.
"Have you been to this place where the children swim?"she asked after a moment, watching him from under her lashes. "Did you swim there also, when you were a child?"
"What?" Cade was staring at her with that fierce, rather puzzled frown. "Oh—no. I only bought this place about six years ago. Rueben and Betsy came with it—Rueben had worked for the previous owner forever. Most of their kids grew up in this house. But no, I never swam there when I was a kid."
In spite of the photograph she had seen in his study, Leila could not imagine Cade as a little boy, with knobby arms and legs and a lean brown body, golden hair dark and slick as a seal's, leaping and splashing and squealing with pleasure, like Betsy's grandchildren. Not this man, with a face so rugged and shoulders so broad, in his cowboy hat and blue jeans, and whiskers beginning to show on his chin. What was it Samira had called him? Oh yes. Imposing. It would be hard, she had said, not to be intimidated by such a man.
But Leila Kamal would not be intimidated, not by any man.