Stephanie returned the invitation and sauntered over to the sink. Her back was to her mother as she rolled up her blouse’s sleeves and began pumping water. "And have everyone think me a coward, mama?” she answered flippantly while she washed her hands. "No, I’m going to the wedding. I will see Wayne again, if only for a moment. I will not give up. I will wait until that last moment when the padre encircles the couple with the bridal rope and blesses them as man and wife.”
* * * * *
The Rhodes family left for Las Vegas the first day of June, five days before the wedding, which was to be held in the stately flagstone Church of Our Lady of Sorrows. While Stephen negotiated with a Charles Blanchard to introduce the first telephones in New Mexico, Stephanie and Rosemary shopped among the boutiques hidden in small alcoves off the plaza. At last Stephanie found the dress she wanted, and it needed only a few alterations.
She knew it was daring to consider wearing the dress to Inez’s wedding — white eyelet cotton over batiste, but it was too beautiful to pass up. As she dressed for the wedding she realized she had forgotten the pleasure of a woman’s beguiling finery. Beneath her lace-ruffled underskirts and wire darb, suspendered garters held up fine silk-embroidered hose. Her wide- brim leghorn hat, abounding in magnolia blossoms of silk and organdy, was tilted at just the right angle over her face. Long white-laced gloves set off the picturesque summery dress.
When Rosemary entered Stephanie’s room, she carefully shut the door behind her, leaning against it, and took in her daughter’s dazzling beauty. There was sadness in her face, and Stephanie asked, "What is it, mama? Don’t I look pretty?” She twirled so that her voluminous skirts flew out. "Well?”
"You know you do. And you also know that these days white is reserved for the bride. I should never have let you purchase the dress.”
Stephanie’s lower lip thrust out in a pout. "It’s time someone broke the tradition. What’s so wrong with wearing white? Cody would chuckle if he could see me now.” She suddenly wished she could have persuaded him to come with them to Las Vegas. She needed his company, his open admiration now more than ever. Facing Inez and Wayne alone would be difficult.
"Cody’s always admired your daring,” her mother said carefully. "But Inez has been your friend since childhood. This would hurt her.”
Stephen knocked and entered the room. "It’s gorgeous you look, Stephanie!” He crossed to her and caught her chin between thumb and forefinger. "You shall make a lovely bride, me dearest.”
Stephanie smelled the liquor that seemed to perpetually scent his breath those days. "Getting married today was not what I had in mind,” she said and twisted her chin free of his grasp.
Stephen flicked a glance to her mother who sat on the bed watching him with a dispassion that had to be a continual source of irritation to him. "You’ve your mother’s beauty,” he said, never taking his red-rimmed eyes from Rosemary, "but not her guile. Why not admit it, Stephanie — you’re hankering after Wayne Raffin.”
She cast her mother a worried glance. "No,” she began.
"Don’t be trying to pull the wool over me eyes. Go ahead and hanker after Wayne. Nothing wrong with it. Just don’t get caught. And especially by Hubbard. ’Cause you are going to marry him.” He grinned and pinched Stephanie’s pale cheek. "As soon as he returns from his Colorado mining exploration. I’ll not let you postpone the marriage any longer.”
After Stephen and her mother left the room, Stephanie clenched and unclenched her hands, letting the circulation flow back in painful pricks. She had been aware of her mother’s warning look that she must not betray their hope for Lord Gallagher’s intervention. But it made no difference. She would never marry Burton Hubbard.
She poured herself a glass of wine that had been left in the room, compliments of The Exchange Hotel management. With a vow she would make Wayne want her, she drank the glass dry. Did she not know the ways of a man now? Wayne could never want Inez after having her. They could run away together and laugh at everyone who stood waiting at the cathedral for what would never happen.
There were still two hours left before the wedding. She filled the glass and drained it once more before she left her room and headed down the hall to the room Wayne occupied. Only then did it occur to her that his father or mother might be inside with him, but it was too late to change her mind, for Wayne opened the door at her first hesitant knock.
His starched, ruffled white shirt lay open, his golden locks tousled. "Wayne,” she breathed, the pain at seeing him again hurting like a blow to her stomach. She threw her arms about his neck. "I can’t stand it, Wayne. Don’t do it. You don’t love her! I know you don’t!”
Wayne tried to disengage her hands. "Stephanie, it won’t work. Not even with you. There’s no hope!”
She pulled his face down to meet hers, her lips offering him her love. "My God,” he groaned, pulling away. "You don’t understand. I — ”
A polite "ahmmm,” interrupted them.
Stephanie whirled to see a small-boned, urbane man watching from the overstuffed chair in the far corner. He was only half dressed and looked as rumpled as Wayne. "A touching scene,” he lisped.
Stephanie’s glance flew back to lock with Wayne’s. "My best man, Stephanie,” he said, his voice tight and hard. "John Duncan, my roommate at Richmond University.”
She spun away and ran blindly down the dimly lit hall. She wanted to hide, to cry. Now it’d be out all over the Territory about how Stephanie Rhodes had thrown herself at Wayne Raffin. Her hands groped for her own doorknob. She let herself in and collapsed across the bed. Her shoulders heaved with tears she would not let herself shed. She wanted more than ever the safety and security of Cambria. But she would not run away. She would go to the wedding. And dare anyone to say anything.
CHAPTER 37
Instantly Cody came awake. His hand slid under the pillow to grasp the Peacemaker. Slowly, quietly, his thumb cocked the hammer. In the cabin’s darkness his eyes perceived the slightest light of moonlight seep through the door’s aperture. A shadow interposed itself, moving closer to him. With cool deliberation born of years of daily facing danger, he raised the pistol.
"Cody,” Stephanie whispered.
"Kid! What the hell are you doing here?”
She reached out in the darkness for him, and his arms encircled her, bringing her safely to his bed. "I haven’t been able to sleep,” she told him, her body sliding to fit in the familiar curves of his nude one. "Not for a week now.”
"Since Las Vegas, eh? That’s a long time to go without sleep.”
"Don’t, Cody,” she said, her voice tremulous. "I came for consolation. Not to be teased.”
Cody slipped his arm around her shoulder; his fingers played with her unbound hair. "It’s that bad. Want to tell me?”
Yes, she wanted to tell him and knew she could not. Not everything. Not how the want for Wayne was eating away at her soul and body and mind, so that it seemed she was nothing but an empty shell. "Cody, do you love me?”
"Is that what you wanted to say?”
She twisted her head, trying to make out the strong line of his profile in the dark. "Why haven’t you asked me to marry you? You’re only thirty-six. Stephen was much older than that when he married mother.” She paused, then asked, "Are you still in love with her — your wife?”
His voice was calm, dispassionate. "I have no wife, Stephanie. Only a memory. I told you, she’s dead.” He raised up on one elbow, and he could make out now, from the shadows of her face, the beautiful, impassioned eyes. "And as for why I haven’t asked you to marry me—I’ve been waiting for you to find out just what it is you want. Now, my lack of proposing,” he went on, "hasn’t been what’s kept you awake. So, what’s the trouble?”
Her fingers slipped up to touch the lips and moved on to wander through his thick hair. "Cody, Stephen’s determined he’s going to make me marry Burton Hubbard — and you know what he’s like!”
Cody chuckled. "You could be getting a lot
worse, kid.”
"I’m serious. And stop calling me kid! I’m a woman!”
"I know, I know.” Involuntarily his lips brushed her neck. "You’ve made me well aware of that.”
He heard her breath catch.
“Sometimes when I’m with you, I get the same kind of funny feeling I used to get as a kid when Jamie and I and Wayne would sneak a light of that foul-smelling, wretched-tasting jimson weed. Invariably I would later become ill at her stomach and swear off the stuff for another summer.”
“So what is it you’re swearing off now, kid?” He willed himself to patience.
She didn’t answer his question. “But being around you, with you, never left me with any nauseous aftereffects. Only this . . . this earthy desire, this lust . . . that can’t be dampened.”
He raised his head, halting the feathery trail his lips were making at the hollow of neck and collarbone. "Well? What are you going to do?”
"I . . . damn it! You know what I’m trying to say. Stop making me squirm, Cody Strahan!”
Cody sighed. "You’ll manage to wriggle out of the wedding some way. If I thought you were in love with me, Stephanie, I’d marry you quicker than a coyote on a rabbit. But you aren’t — and I’m not going to make things worse than they are. Like it is — I can leave here with . . . warm memories.”
"Memories!” she hissed. "Is that all I am to you? A good tumble in the hay till you can get back to your precious ranch? My God, you’ve been living off your wife’s memories all these years! Aren’t you man enough to take on something real?”
He fought the constriction of his muscles. "You’d better go climb in someone else’s bed, kid.”
Her fingers came up to rake down his cheek. Jerking up half over her, he lashed back, his hand snapping her head to one side. Beside him, she lay stunned. With heart-slicing remorse, he caught in the cabin’s dimness the tears that rushed to her eyes.
“Never, never, in all the years that I have adored you,” she whispered rawly, have you ever been anything but gentle.”
His fingertips brushed away the tears that rolled from the comers of her eyes. "I’m sorry, Stephanie,” he whispered. "Hurting you was the last thing I wanted to do. I guess it’s better I move on. I never figured to hurt you.”
She clutched at his hand, holding it between her breasts. "Cody, don’t leave me. I don't know what to do. Please. There’s the ranch. It’d be yours someday, if you married me.”
He sighed. "You don’t know me at all, do you?” He pulled her into his arms and lay back beside her. "Tell me, is escape from marriage with this Hubbard guy the only reason you want to marry me?”
"You mean am I — am I carrying your child?”
"That’d do for a start.”
After a silence, she said, "No, I thought about lying to you, but I couldn’t. Besides, you’d find out sooner or later.”
"Glad to hear that decision. Is that all? Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
"Should there be anything else?”
"I’m asking you.”
She raised her head and softly kissed his lips. "Only that I want to hear you tell me you love me.”
He crushed her to him. "You’re a little pisser!” he growled, but nevertheless his hands were gentle as he gave her what she wanted and showed her what he wanted, hoping beyond expectation she might come to understand what lay behind the giving of himself. And when she did not, as he had known she wouldn’t, he rode her hard, draining her of all her frustrations so she was at least at peace with herself.
* * * * *
Stephen leaned back in his chair and looked across the desk at his foreman whose length was stretched out in the leather-stuffed chair next to the desk. He ignored his daughter who sat, skirts spread demurely, on the sofa. He had been expecting it for some time now. Ignacio and Julio didn’t miss much. And he hated it because Strahan was his best employee. "What’s on your mind, Strahan?”
"Stephen,” his daughter began stiltedly. He was well aware that she rarely addressed him these days if she could avoid it. His black eyes squinted, hard and unyielding, but she would not give ground. Not this time.
"Stephanie,” Cody said. Quietly and firmly. Stephanie bit her lip but deferred to Cody.
"I’d like to marry Stephanie,” Cody said. "With your blessing.”
Stephen raised a grizzly brow. "And if I say no?”
"I’ll marry her with — or without your approval. But I’d like to have it. It’d get our marriage off on the right foot.”
Stephen smiled. "I didn’t take you to be ambitious, Cody. Seems I was wrong.”
The muscles in Cody’s jaws flickered but his voice was unruffled, smooth as a summer breeze on the Pecos. "You are wrong. After the wedding, I’m taking Stephanie back with me to Loving’s Bend.”
He laughed out loud. "You be thinking that way? Do you think, man, I’d let Stephanie marry some two-bit cowpoke?” His fist banged on the desk. The smile erupted into a snarl. "As far as the Territory’s concerned, she’s a Rhodes! Do you know what that name means in New Mexico?”
"I don’t care what the name means, Rhodes. I care about Stephanie. Can you say that much?”
He rose to his feet. Both fists rested on the desktop, the knuckles rigid and white. "How far do you think you’d get with her? There are one hundred and thirty men give or take some out there to fill you full of holes if I give the word.”
Cody rose, towering over him. "Most of those men have never even seen your face, Rhodes. Most of those men have fought by my side — the Indians, nasty weather, a stampede. You name it. We’re compadres. A word I doubt you’d understand.”
Stephen shook now, something he had never done before he had begun drinking so heavily. "Get out! Get off Cambria! And if I even hear of you in this Territory, I’ll see to it you’re strung up to the nearest windmill!”
Cody clamped his hat on his head. "I’m not sneaking off with Stephanie like some horse thief. I’m riding to Las Vegas for a minister — a priest, if need be. And I’ll be back tomorrow for her.”
* * * * *
Rosemary really was not asleep. Behind the closed lids frightening scenes played out so realistically that the speed of her heartbeat increased, her mouth grew dry, her palms sweaty.
For years, how many years . . . twenty-one, twenty-two . . . she had endured Stephen’s ruthlessness, his megalomania. The dutiful wife. He had destroyed their son, almost destroyed herself, and now. . . was Stephanie the next sacrifice for the Rhodes empire?
Stephanie deserved her chance, and Cody could give it to her.
Rosemary saw again her son’s limp body, the bluish face. Was that ever her son? The tiny, soft form, with dimpled knees and elbows, that she had held to her breast? The pudgy fingers and pot belly? What hopes one has for their children, she thought. For the future.
Her future was gone. And Jamie’s. Yet there was still hope that Stephanie might survive Stephen’s manipulations. But how? Rosemary swallowed. Her mouth felt like cotton. Maybe she would slip downstairs for some fresh water. What if she awoke Stephen? She could not take it, not tonight.
Warm air stirred about her. She opened her eyes, thinking she ought to close the shutters. The insects seemed to be worse than usual.
A hand clamped over her mouth. Something sharp pricked at her throat. Black eyes gleamed above her.
Lario!
No! It couldn’t be! Fifteen years!
Even in the darkness the shape of his face was unmistakable. Why shouldn’t it be? She had memorized it every night of her life. The wide cheekbones, the flaring nostrils, the generous lips — and the oblique eyes that always had seemed to see clear through her. And the memory of another night flashed before her, when she had awakened in Lario’s hogan after running away from Stephen. That night, like this one, she opened her eyes to the sight of Lario’s brilliant black ones. Black eyes that could be as soft as velvet in making love or as hard as jet in anger.
His voice came quietly, harshly
. "For years I have thought how I would kill first Raffin, then you. After a while, after months of sores and hunger and beatings, I realized how much better to kill Raffin — and leave you to live without him — to tear out your hair and cut your face and rub in the wounds the ashes of a widow’s grief.”
She lay there. Her eyes devoured him. Her body trembled. But her expression was fearless.
What must have been anger that had festered over the years like sores took hold of him. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, so that her head jerked back and forth like a rag doll’s. "Bitch! Whore!”
She managed to grasp both sides of Lario’s face. Despite the violent way he shook her, she pulled his face down to hers. "Lario, you must listen to me. It was for you I played the whore. Grant promised to save your life if I — ”
His hand lashed downward, and her head snapped sideways with the impact. "Life! Death would’ve been better than the hellhole where you two sent me!”
Her eyes smarted with tears. Yet her arms encircled his muscle-roped shoulders. "Lario,” she whispered hoarsely. "I love you.”
With an almost pantherish snarl of rage his hands went around her neck. "Damn your soul to the white man’s hell! Every night of my life, every breath of mine dust I ate and breathed reminded me — like a drum beating in my head — how I would kill you.”
She did not struggle. Instead she pressed her body against the length of his. "Then kill me,” she gasped.
Surprised, Lario’s fingers relaxed only barely, and she seized the opportunity to find his lips with her own. Her fingers dug into his long, thick hair, caressed the back ridged by scars. Her hips moved against him, taunting with passion.
He yanked away. She saw in his blazing gaze that he had thought — no, hoped — she would beg, grovel for her life, for Grant’s. With one hand he ripped the cotton nightgown from her while his other fumbled at the buttons of the canvas pants. But her own hands were there, loosening, sliding them below his hips. Her lips seared his belly.
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