by Jan Hudson
“Bess?” Max asked.
“Bess. Like someone else around here I could name, she has him wrapped around her finger. Or paw, I suppose it would be with dogs.”
Max wound her arms around Sam’s waist and laid her head on his shoulder. “Who has wrapped who?”
He laughed. “I was speaking of myself, but I hope it’s mutual. Lord, I was lonesome for you today. This place is empty when you’re gone. Don’t go off without me again.”
“I finished all my business this afternoon. I don’t have to go anywhere else until we start drilling Friday morning.”
“You have a driller lined up?”
She nodded. “I hired the most experienced well driller in these parts.” She didn’t think it was necessary to mention that the reason he was so experienced was because he was over eighty years old. Sam would have just fretted about it. “He was a friend of my grandfather’s.”
“Max, are you sure you don’t need some financial help with this?”
She stiffened in his arms. “I’ve told you a hundred times, I can handle it by myself, Sam.”
“Sweetheart, don’t get in an uproar. It’s just that I know how expensive drilling around here can be. I’ll be glad to make you a loan if you need it. Strictly business, you understand.”
“Thanks,” she said, “but I have a little extra in the bank for emergencies.” She pulled away and whistled for Dowser. He came running to the fence when he saw her. She dropped to one knee and petted him as he licked her face through the fence. “I see you have a new ladylove.”
Dowser gave a tongue-lolling grin and looked back at Bess. Then he bounded away toward the cluster of sheep.
Max and Sam went inside to wash up for dinner. After they had eaten, they decided to dress and go to the opening of a western art exhibit by several of the local artists.
Sam knew a number of people there and introduced Max to them as “my special lady.”
At the end of the evening, Max sighed as she watched him write out a check for a magnificent sculpture of a copper stallion she’d admired. Something in the power and the tones of the figure had reminded her of Sam. She could hardly take her eyes off it, but she hadn’t meant for him to buy it.
“Humor me,” he had said.
The statue cost more than she’d got for her truck. It was getting hard to be independent. She’d rather have her Silverado.
* * *
After Sam was asleep, Max feathered a kiss on his forehead and slipped from the bed. She took her guitar and went out on the patio. The moon was especially bright and stars studded the sky like winking fireflies. Night sounds, soft and mysterious, blended in with the rush of the river over its rocky bed.
Strumming a few chords, Max began to sing in a husky, bluesy voice that was perfect for a country ballad.
“When the night takes hold
And shadows fill my soul,
I chase my haunted dreams
With green, Guadalupe-green . . . cries.
“Rocky river shining clear,
Texas hills I hold so dear,
Lovely memories always mean
It’s green, Guadalupe-green . . . sighs.
“Now your arms enfold me.
Come close to me and hold me.
I’ve found my love it seems
In green, Guadalupe-green . . . eyes.
“Green, green, Guadalupe-green
Willow water wise.
Green, green, Guadalupe-green
It’s the color of your eyes.”
Sam stood in the shadows and listened with tears in those green eyes. He’d never heard anything more beautiful, nor had he ever been given a more precious gift.
Chapter 8
When the last notes of the refrain drifted away over the water, Max looked up to see Sam standing beside her. For a moment neither of them spoke. Instead, they savored the magic that brightened the moon and pirouetted around them, weaving a wondrous spell.
“I love you, Angel.” His voice was a husky whisper.
“And I love you,” she answered, holding out her hand to draw him down beside her on the wide padded chaise. She laid down her guitar and snuggled in his arms, her head on his chest, his cheek on her hair.
Simply holding each other, they listened to the rippling water and the whisper of the trees, soft chirrs in the night. An intense emotional awareness wrapped them in invisible bonds as they breathed enchanted air flavored with a faint sweetness like dew-touched jasmine.
“I—I can’t seem to find the right words,” he said. “I could almost feel your soul when you sang. God, the power of the music. And the words. They’re simple, but the way they came out of you grabbed my heart like a fist.”
“I suppose that’s the reason I’ve always liked country music. It deals with complex emotions in simple ways that people can relate to. Most of it is about love or about pain of one kind of another. Blues and country songs reckon with pain a lot. I think it’s because most people are hurting somewhere down deep. They have wounds and shadows and haunting memories, and they’re all looking for love.”
“Tell me about your shadows, Angel.”
Talking to Goose about her childhood had given her a better perspective, greater distance, and made the telling of it to Sam easier.
“I really don’t remember much about my early childhood except that I was terrified all the time. I told you that my father frightened me with monsters to keep me quiet and out of his way. I told you that he didn’t like me very much. That was an understatement. He despised me. My very presence seemed to be an abomination to him. Nothing I did pleased him. And I tried. Lord, how I tried.
“By the time I started kindergarten, I’d somehow learned to cook and clean and do laundry in my childishly inept way. In school I was a model student with A’s in every subject. I desperately wanted his love. Or at least his approval, but nothing I ever did was enough. I don’t remember his ever being physically cruel, but his words hurt more than any blows could have. He constantly told me how stupid I was, how ugly, how helpless to make anything decent of myself. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over or go anywhere, not even to Sunday School. I couldn’t have dates when I got older. I became very much of a loner.”
“I could kill the son of a bitch for what he did to you.” Sam’s voice shook with fury and his whole body was trembling.
With gentle fingers, Max smoothed the frown from his forehead and caressed his clenched jaw. “I told you, he isn’t worth the bother. I know that now. And it wasn’t all bad. I had my grandfather. But if it hadn’t been for my wonderful summers with Gramps, I don’t think I could have survived. He was gentle and kind and full of fun. Until I could earn my own money when I was older, he bought the only decent clothes I had, and he taught me about love and laughter and courage. When we used to walk the hills together, he talked to me for hours about inner strength and determination and pride. Gramps made me believe that I could do anything and be anything I set my mind to. He gave me my guitar and taught me to play. It became my friend and my solace. I’ve never been able to express my feelings very well, except with music.”
“Sweetheart, you have a real gift. With your talent, you should be a professional.”
She laughed softly. “I tried it once about a year and a half ago when I discovered that the prospects for a geologist were very grim. I had always fantasized myself as another Marina McBride or Faith Hill. Unfortunately the fantasy was very different from the reality. Singing by oneself is not the same as singing in front of an audience. I had terrible stage fright. Worse than terrible. I couldn’t even manage a croak from my throat and my fingers had to be pried from my guitar. It was awful.” She shuddered at the memory and cuddled closer to Sam. “I’ll stick with writing songs, thank you.”
“Do you mean you’ve written others?”
“Tons of them. I even have an agent in Nashville, but I haven’t sold anything so far. There are more songwriters in this country than there are rocks on Honey Bear’s hil
l. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.”
“If the rest of your songs are as good as the one I heard, I think somebody would be crazy not to buy them.”
She smiled. “I think you’re prejudiced, but thanks for your confidence, Sam. You’ll never know how much it means to have someone believe in me.” Her hand slipped back and forth along the arm of his robe, the feel of the soft velour bringing tactile comfort. “It’s one of the most important things in the world.”
“I believe in you, love.”
“Don’t ever stop, Sam.” She hugged him fiercely. “Please, don’t ever stop.”
“Never,” he promised. “And nobody will ever hurt you again.”
* * *
On Wednesday morning they walked across the cobblestones of the plaza, then Max stopped and stared at the tiny, battered mission before her. Fluted columns and Spanish arches decorated the weathered stone facade of the historical structure, which seemed out of time and place in downtown San Antonio. “It looks just like the pictures I’ve always seen, but I never dreamed it was so small.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never seen the Alamo.”
“I suppose it’s like New Yorkers who’ve never seen the Statue of Liberty. I think the only time I was ever in San Antonio was for a geology conference, and we barely got out of the hotel.”
Earlier that morning when their conversation had turned to Texas history, Sam had been appalled that she’d never visited the famous Texas site. Nothing would do until he’d planned a trip to the neighboring city. Although it was little more than an hour away from Kerrville, they decided to pack a bag and stay overnight to enjoy the sights. Sam had phoned for hotel reservations while she changed into khakis and a bright blue shirt and pondered over what to take with her from her meager wardrobe.
Max had offered to let him drive the jeep, but Sam had held open the door of his Jaguar and shot her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look that made her giggle. Even before they checked into their room, he’d parked in a garage near the mission so that she could see it right away.
Sam stuck his sunglasses in the pocket of his shirt and shepherded Max toward the cherished shrine. Inside, thick walls shut out sunlight and traffic noise. The chapel was cool and eerie. The air was permeated with the musty smell of history and traces of anguish from those long dead.
Apprehension slithered up her spine and chill bumps popped out on her arms. “I can almost hear the echoes of the past,” she whispered. “Shouts and screams and cannon’s roar. Flame and lead raining down like sleet. There are ghosts here. Can you feel them?”
He hugged her to him and rubbed her arms to warm her. “It’s strange how this place can affect you. I couldn’t have been more than about six or seven years old when I first came here. I remember that tears came into my eyes, then I got angry. I wanted nothing more than to be magically transported back in time so that I could fight beside Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. I closed my eyes and wished with all my might.” He looked down at Max and smiled. “I was devastated when I opened them and saw only my mother retying my little sister’s hair ribbon. I sulked the rest of the day.”
Max laughed and they spent a few more minutes inside before they walked out into the courtyard where the sun chased away the shadows. “Tell me about your family. I know Adrienne is your older sister.”
“I have two sisters. Adrienne is three years older than I, and she’s married to Jim McFarland, an ex-jock turned insurance executive. They live in Dallas and have a teenaged daughter, Linda, who loves loud music and plans to be a brain surgeon this week. Last week I think she’d decided to be a truck driver.
“Susan came along two years after me. She’s a geographer and lives in Washington, D.C. She works for one of the government agencies doing some kind of hush-hush work with maps.” “Sounds impressive,” Max said. “Is she married?” He shook his head. “Divorced. No kids.”
“Do your sisters have green eyes like you?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a smug little grin as he nodded. “You really like my eyes, huh?”
“I really do. It was the first thing I noticed about you. Well, maybe not the first thing.”
One eyebrow lifted. “What was the first thing?” His tone was playfully suggestive.
“How big your foot was.”
She dodged his swat on the bottom and danced ahead of him, laughing over her shoulder. They stopped and bought snow cones from a vendor across the plaza, hers strawberry and his, grape. They traded bites and argued over which flavor tasted best. When hers started leaking, they tossed them into a trash barrel and Sam whipped out his handkerchief to wipe her sticky hands.
“How are you related to the Bartons?” she asked as they walked back to the car.
“Buck is my mother’s older brother.”
“Are both your parents still living?”
“My mom is. She lives in a condo in Austin when she’s not gallivanting around the world with some of her cronies. She’s in London now. She always wanted to travel, and Dad promised her that they would once he retired. But he died the year before he’d planned to retire. Heart attack. They never got to do the fun things together. He was too involved with his business.”
Max was quiet as he started the Jag and drove the few blocks to the hotel. “So you decided to retire early?” she asked at last.
“Yep. I expanded Dad’s small construction firm and devoted every bit of my time and energy to making all the money I’d ever need. I intend to spend the next thirty or forty years taking life easy and enjoying my wife and family.”
“But you don’t have a wife.” A terrible thought sucked the life from her face and settled like a lead ball in her stomach. Her eyes grew large. Dear God, surely he wasn’t married. “Do you?”
He pulled to a stop beside a liveried doorman outside the hotel. A lopsided grin crinkled the corners of his eyes as he brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Not yet. That’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Before his comment fully registered, her door was opened and they were set upon by a retinue of obsequious hotel employees. Max was flabbergasted at the treatment. With all the bowing and scraping and smiling, you would have thought they were visiting royalty.
She let out a low whistle when she entered the suite. It was sumptuous. With pale sea-green carpet, soft and thick as mink, the room was a rich, eclectic blend of contemporary, oriental, and French antique. A pair of intricately carved gilt arm chairs flanked a long, low couch of flame-colored silk which looked soft and poofy enough to get lost in. Behind the couch stood a six-panel screen, so magnificent it took her breath away. Done in gold and vibrant colors and intricate inlays of mother-of-pearl, it was a delicate water scene with wading birds and water lilies.
A bowl of Fuji mums sat on an oriental dining table of finely polished burled wood, and a similar floral arrangement was on a low chest in the bedroom. The king-size bed was covered with a stunning silk spread embroidered with flowers and birds that reminded her of the screen in the living room.
After Sam dismissed the bellman, he came up behind Max. She was staring at the opulent bathtub with gold swans as spigots. Big enough for a basketball team and shaped like a huge salmon-colored shell, it was more a spa than a tub. And deliciously decadent. He put his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him. “Like it here okay?”
“What’s not to like? It’s like something out of Architectural Digest. Are you sure they don’t have us mixed up with William and Kate?”
“Not likely,” he said, nibbling on her earlobe. “You’re prettier than Kate and nobody would confuse me with William.”
She chuckled. “The service is certainly great here. Even the manager nearly tripped over his toes welcoming us. Does everybody get that kind of treatment?”
“I hope so,” Sam said, turning his attention to the side of her neck. “But I suspect it might be because I own a piece of the place.”
“Ahhh,” she said, partly in res
ponse to his comment and partly in response to the lovely things his tongue was doing.
“Angel, about what I was saying when we were interrupted by the doorman—it is something I want to talk to you about.”
She considered playing dumb or coy, but she was neither. And she knew exactly what he was referring to. But, as wonderful as things seemed between them, their relationship was still too new to think of commitments. Plus, she had to get her life straightened out before she could seriously consider anything else. She’d told Sam about her father, but he could never understand the power of her need to prove her own self-worth once and for all. She had to “shed the haint of her pa” as Goose had put it. And she had to do it alone.
“Let’s put that topic on hold for now, Sam. We need some time.”
Sam didn’t want to put the topic on hold. He’d known almost from the first that Max was the woman for him, the one he’d always imagined sharing the rest of his life with. They suited each other. Not only was their lovemaking beyond his wildest dreams, but they had lots of other things in common. They both loved the hill country, and they’d talked about all the places they would love to visit. Max had admitted to a secret yen to travel to Greece and Scotland and the mountains of Peru, all the same spots he wanted to see. He had the time and the money for them to do anything they desired. Nothing would please him more than to be able to lay the world at her feet and watch her smile. His chest swelled at the thought of it. Anything that money could buy or love could provide would be hers.
And he knew she’d make a wonderful mother. He could almost visualize a black-eyed little girl with golden curls. A smaller angel. Maybe a couple of boys. They would have an ideal life together.
If it were up to him, they’d be married before sundown. He didn’t need any more time to figure that out. She was his. He was hers. Simple as that. Call it fate or call it karma. They were created for each other. He knew it. But convincing Max seemed to be another matter. He’d wait a while. But not too long. Maybe another day or two.