by Janet Dailey
At the ranch everyone linked her quietness and preoccupation to Rube’s death. No one seemed to notice how seldom her gaze strayed from Holt. Despite this feeling of foreboding, it didn’t override her sense of obligation as hostess. When she saw the minister and his wife standing alone, Diana walked over to speak to them, suggesting they help themselves to more refreshments, but they declined.
“This is a fine turnout,” the minister commented.
Diana glanced around the room, knowing if it had been the Major’s funeral, the people would be spilling into the yard. “There aren’t many.”
“No, but those who are here sincerely cared about Mr. Spencer and have gathered for that reason, not out of a sense of social obligation.”
Mr. Spencer. It sounded odd. He had always been Rube. His last name had probably been forgotten by half the people here, Diana thought, but didn’t say so.
“We will miss him,” she admitted instead.
“I understand Mr. Spencer had worked for your father a goodly number of years.”
“He’s been here ever since I can remember. I’ve known him all my life.” Unaware she hadn’t used the past tense, only aware that she had never known him at all.
“It was such an unfortunate accident,” the minister’s wife murmured, “to be dragged and trampled by your own horse.”
Was that the explanation that had been given? Diana hadn’t known. No one outside the ranch had questioned her about it. The involvement of the white stallion had been concealed. How easily she could have let it slip.
“It was unfortunate.”
“I understood you were there when it happened?” the woman questioned, her gentle smile ringed with sympathy.
Diana nodded. “Yes.”
“Was he able to speak before he died? I do hope he was able to make his peace with God.” The only remark made by the minister’s wife was almost a fervent prayer.
“Rube was in a great deal of pain. He knew he was dying, and . . . yes, he did speak of heaven.” She didn’t think Rube would object if she stretched the truth to ease the woman’s mind.
“I am so glad.”
“Excuse me, would you?” Diana requested, needing to retreat from this conversation. “I should check to see if Sophie needs any help in the kitchen.”
Again the couple extended their sympathies before she left them. Carrying out her statement, Diana walked to the kitchen, certain that the competent Sophie wouldn’t require her help. The housekeeper was scraping and stacking the plates that had been used.
“Is everything all right, Sophie? Do you need anything?” A glance around the kitchen seemed to indicate everything was under control.
“Everything is fine, Miss,” was the bland response to what had been perfunctory questions. When Diana would have left, the woman turned hesitantly from the dishes. “This is a fine thing you and the Major are doing.” At Diana’s puzzled look, the housekeeper went on to explain, somewhat nervously: “I mean the funeral, the marker for his grave, and having all these people out here.”
“Thank you, Sophie.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Rube was always . . . very fond of you, Miss.” The woman seemed uncertain, as if afraid she was speaking out of turn. “Holt told me you were a great comfort to Rube when he died.”
“I ... thank you.” Diana couldn’t remember Sophie ever speaking at this length unless the subject dealt with household matters. She supposed Rube’s death had touched them all in one way or another.
The housekeeper turned back to the dishes, her sparse frame beginning to bend with the accumulation of years, the braided coronet atop her head revealing the thinness of her graying hair. “I wasn’t sure that you’d ever taken any notice of Rube. You were always so wrapped up with the Major as a child, and he was so wrapped up with you. There never seemed to be room for anyone else in your lives. I know Rube can see what you’re doing for him, and I know it will make him happy.”
And Diana realized Sophie was speaking for herself, revealing how she had felt all these years. She let her hand rest lightly on the woman’s shoulder for just a second.
“Thank you, Sophie.” And she knew it was the first time she had touched the woman with any measure of affection.
Leaving the kitchen in silence, Diana returned to the main room. Automatically, her gaze searched for Holt. She saw him as he approached the Major, say something to him which received an agreeing nod, and walk with him toward the privacy of the study. The audience Holt had requested was going to take place now, Diana realized.
She moved quickly across the room in the direction of the study, nodding to those who spoke to her, but not allowing any of them to sidetrack her into a conversation. She opened the door within seconds after Holt had closed it. Impatience flashed in the look he gave her when she entered.
“How are you feeling, Major?” Diana walked to her father’s side. “You aren’t getting too tired, are you?”
“No, I’m fine.” He sat down in the leather-covered chair behind the desk. “Holt merely wanted to speak to me in private for a few minutes.”
“I see. You don’t mind if I sit in, do you?” She was firmly ensconced in one of the side chairs when she issued the challenge.
Holt’s voice was dry, his irritation contained. “I doubt if my objections would make any difference.” He didn’t take a chair, but stood in front of the desk, indicating by this action that whatever he had to say wouldn’t take long. “I’m going after the mares in the morning . . .”—adding after a pregnant pause—“. . . and the stallion.”
“No!” Diana had the premonition all along that this was what the discussion would be about.
“I’m afraid I must agree with Diana,” the Major said soberly. “I think it’s time we turned the matter of the wild stallion over to the Bureau.”
“Their hands are tied. The law prohibits the killing of any wild horse. If the Bureau tries to catch that white stallion, someone else could end up dead or maimed.”
“Leave the stallion alone. Let him keep the four mares,” Diana argued.
“If I thought four mares would appease him, I might agree with you, but it wouldn’t.” Although he was responding to her argument, he addressed it to the Major. “The stallion will be back for more. Why shouldn’t he? They are virtually free for the taking. He doesn’t have to fight any other stallion for ownership of the mares. Any fear the stallion might have had for man seems to be vanishing. He isn’t simply a nuisance anymore. He has become a menace.” Holt stated his case in a flat, unemotional tone. “The stallion has to be destroyed.”
“No!”
“There is logic in what you say, Holt, but—”
“I am not asking your permission, Major,” he interrupted. “I would have preferred to ride out in the morning without telling you of my intentions because I don’t want you to be involved. I am taking full responsibility. Whatever repercussions come from what I do will be solely mine.”
“You aren’t going alone?” There was concern in the Major’s acceptance of Holt’s decision.
“No. Don has asked to go with me”—he hesitated—“and I imagine Guy will come along.”
“He doesn’t know yet?” Diana held her breath.
“Not yet.”
“He’ll do everything to stop you.”
“He’ll try.”
“Don’t do it, Holt.”
But he was already ignoring her again. “I probably won’t see you until we get back, Major.”
“Take care.”
“I will.”
Turning on his heel, Holt walked to the door. Diana stared after him, searching for any argument to change his mind, but finding none. The door closed and she turned to appeal to the Major, the only one Holt might listen to.
“You’ve got to stop him.”
“How?” His look was tired and indulgent. “I can’t stop Holt. He is a man. I can’t keep him from doing what he feels has to be done.”
“But he
works for you. If you—”
“Are you suggesting that I threaten him with dismissal, Diana? It wouldn’t work. He’d call my bluff, because that’s all it would be. And if I did carry it out and fire him, Holt would go after the stallion, anyway. You heard him. He wasn’t asking for my permission because he knew I wouldn’t give it.”
She knew all that, but she refused to accept it. “You can’t let him do it!”
The Major tipped his head to the side in a curious thoughtful pose. “Are you concerned for the stallion or Holt?”
“Holt is a human being. The stallion is just a horse, an animal. Of course I’m concerned for Holt.” Diana rose in agitation.
“And that is your only reason?” he probed.
“There has to be a way to stop him. You love him, too,” she protested, too concerned to care what she was admitting. “You’ve treated him as your son almost from the day he came here. Holt has been everything to you that I could never be. How can you let him do this when you care about him as much as I do?”
“It is true. In many ways, I have treated Holt like a son. But I don’t like what you are implying.” His brow was furrowed. “My affection for him has never taken precedence over my love for you, my own daughter. Given the choice when you were born, I would never have traded you for ten sons like Holt.”
“Then stop him. Stop him for me!”
“I would do anything humanly possible for you.” There was sorrow in his aging features. “I would give you the moon if I could, Diana. But what you want isn’t within my control. I can’t stop Holt, not even for you.”
“There has to be a way.” She clung desperately to the hope.
“I know of nothing that could sway a man like Holt from his course once he’s set it.” He shook his head sadly.
“I have to try if you won’t.” Diana started for the door, then hesitated. “If I can’t persuade him to change his mind ... I’m going with him tomorrow.”
Stern denial flashed across her father’s expression until he realized that, like Holt, Diana wasn’t asking for his permission. The look faded.
“I can’t stop you, either,” he admitted.
“Thank you.” Tears misted her eyes, but Diana quickly blinked them away. “I wouldn’t have liked to disobey an order from you, Major.”
“Wait.” He halted her when she would have left. “Why don’t you give me a few minutes to rejoin our guests and you can slip out the back way, without being waylaid by a lot of people wondering what happened to their hosts.” Her father smiled indulgently. “I presume you are going to speak to Holt now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.” Fighting the premonition that it was all a waste of time.
Rising from his chair, he walked around the desk to the door where she stood. “Give me five minutes.” In a spontaneous and unexpected display of affection, he bent and kissed her cheek. “Good luck, my dear.”
Chapter XX
Five minutes later, Diana was slipping out the side door and working her way through the trees to the fourplex. A knock on Holt’s door received no answer. She walked in, calling his name, but the rooms were empty.
She hesitated. Where else could Holt be? Perhaps at the stables, beginning the preparations for the morning’s journey, she decided. She hurried out of the unit toward the stable, the spikey heels of her shoes forcing her to slow her pace over the rougher, graveled ground.
Sliding open the stable door, Diana paused to let her eyes become adjusted to the relative gloom of the barn. A horse whickered in its stall, the aroma of horses and hay strong in the warm air. There was no movement around the stalls, so she turned to the tack room.
At that moment, Holt’s voice called, “I’m in here, Don.”
His back was to the door when she entered. He hadn’t changed clothes, although his suitcoat and tie were tossed over a bench. He was bent over the packsaddles.
“We’ve got a weak cinch here that will have to be replaced. Hand me a new one.”
When there was no sound to indicate his command was being heeded, Holt glanced over his shoulder. A muscle tightened in his jaw as he straightened and turned to face Diana. The white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, accenting his rugged good looks. She felt the fluttering in her stomach, his raw animal magnetism working its magic on her.
“You know why I’m here,” she said.
“I can guess.” His voice was as dry as the desert wind.
His level gaze swung away from her as he walked to the wall where various sizes and lengths of cinches hung. Holt selected one and carried it back to the packsaddle. Diana realized he would continue to ignore her as long as she let him. She walked to where he worked, replacing the old cinch with the new.
“Holt, look at me,” Diana ordered with impatience.
His eyes made a raking sweep of her before returning to his task. “You aren’t exactly dressed for the stables, are you? Don’t wander too close to the stalls or you’ll end up with manure all over your shoes.”
“You didn’t change clothes, either,” she pointed out and immediately became irritated with herself for letting his comment sidetrack her from the issue.
“I came to check the equipment we’ll be needing in the morning.”
He didn’t look up. Perspiration was beginning to make his shirt cling to his skin, the white material molding to the rippling muscles in his shoulders and back. His physical attraction was beginning to sway her attention again. She closed her eyes in an effort to shut it out.
“Don’t go, Holt.”
“It’s no use, Diana. You’re wasting your breath.” His answer was clipped, discouraging any more discussion.
“What do you think you are going to accomplish?” she argued.
“Two things. I’m going to get the mares back and get rid of the stallion, eliminate a potentially dangerous problem.”
“Is it as simple as that?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” Diana challenged. “Or have you appointed yourself to avenge Rube’s death? Do you think by killing the stallion you are going to compensate for Rube’s death in some way?”
“Dammit to hell, Diana!” The packsaddle and cinch were discarded in a burst of lightning temper as he rose to confront her, scorching her with his anger. “Isn’t Rube’s death proof enough that the stallion has to be destroyed?!”
“No, it isn’t! Because you’re just using it as an excuse. You’ve been obsessed with this stallion from the beginning. You have wanted the stallion dead since you knew of its existence. First it was because he killed our stallion, then the foal that died of a broken neck. Now Rube’s death makes you feel justified in going after the horse so you can hide your obsession behind a cloak of vengeance. Don’t do it, Holt. Don’t go after him.”
“If anyone around here is obsessed with that horse, it’s you and Guy. You’ve listened to all those legends Rube and the Major told you about the other white stallion and you’ve become convinced he has been reincarnated. He is a wild horse, a rogue. Nothing more.”
“No, I’m not obsessed by him,” Diana denied his accusation, suddenly becoming calmer. “I know what it’s like to be obsessed by something. For years I was insanely jealous of you—without cause, as it turns out.”
“Jealous?”
“Yes, jealous.” She nodded. “From the first moment I saw you with the Major, I hated you. I never fully understood why until just recently. But when I saw you, I knew instinctively that you were all the things the Major would have wanted in a son. I hated you for it.”
“But you are his daughter, his only child. He adores you.” His frowning gaze searched her expression.
“Don’t you see? That was the problem. I was his daughter, a girl.” Even now, there was a faint bitterness in the laugh she gave. “The Major never said he wished he’d had a son instead of me. But this . . .”—her hand made a sweeping gesture to envelop everything around them—”. . . is a very macho environment. Isn’t it taken for granted that a
man would rather have a son? So somewhere along the line, I got the idea that the Major wished I had been a boy. I tried to be what I thought he wanted—riding and roping, more at home in boots and jeans than in skirts. When you came, you changed it all. First it was not exercising the stallions, then not going along on the roundup, because I was a girl. Suddenly the Major wanted me to be a lady. He didn’t want me the way I had been, and I thought it was all because of you, because you had become the son I had tried so hard to be. I hated you. I wanted to get rid of you. I even used Guy to try to make your life so miserable here that you would leave.”
Holt turned to the side, savagely raking his fingers through his hair. She could hear the cursing ejaculations beneath his breath. Diana wanted to touch him, but she knew any attempt would be knocked aside. He was angry and she didn’t blame him.
“After a couple of years, I finally realized there wasn’t anything I could do to make you leave,” she continued. “So I started out to become whatever the Major wanted. I felt I had to be the best at everything so he’d love me. When he had the first attack, I wanted to take care of him. But he said no, he had you and he didn’t want me tied to the ranch. He wanted me to marry. My God, Fm afraid I even married Rand because I thought he was the kind of son-in-law the Major wanted. Do you know what the Major told me a few weeks ago?” Diana paused as Holt’s smoldering, dark gaze swung to her. “That he used to wish I would marry you. If I had known that back then, I probably would have married you to please him, no matter how much I resented and despised you.”
God, she wished Holt would say something, release all that contained fury, instead of standing there, all raw masculinity and coiled power. She was baring her soul to him. Didn’t he realize what a weapon she was handing him? He could destroy her. Or maybe was that what he was waiting for?
“You see, Holt, I know what it’s like to be obsessed. There was no rhyme or reason to it. I created it all in my mind.” Diana was practically begging him to understand. “I am not obsessed with the white stallion, but you are. I don’t think it’s just because of the horses we’ve lost, or even Rube’s death. In some way, I think you’ve blamed the stallion for that first time you made love to me—a case of ‘if we hadn’t been chasing him, it wouldn’t have happened,’ and Guy wouldn’t have seen us and started hating you to the point of wanting to kill you. It isn’t true, Holt. That chemistry between us was always there. If anything, the stallion merely served as a catalyst.”