Love a Dark Rider

by Shirlee Busbee

  He made the word sound incredibly nasty and Sara gaped at him, some of her anger fading. Not willing to let the implications of his words sidetrack her from the far more important issue of her marriage to Sam, she asked tightly, "And my marriage to your father? What about it?"

  Yancy sighed and his mouth twisted. "You don't give any quarter, do you, lady?" And at Sara's vehement shake of her head, he added bluntly, "Your marriage to Sam was a handy weapon ... but I think it's served its usefulness."

  Sara's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"

  He grinned, a mocking light dancing in his eyes. "Why, only that I've known for weeks that you must have been telling the truth."

  Not giving her a chance to comment—even if she could have thought of anyihing to say to his outrageous statement—he spun her around and, swatting her playfully on her bottom, he said teasingly, "There will be no more confessions tonight! Run along to bed, chica I hope you sleep well—you're certainly going to need plenty of rest for our wedding night!"

  Indignantly Sara jerked around with the clear intention of continuing the battle, although she was no longer clear what it was that she was fighting for, but Yancy was walking away from her... whistlingl

  To her astonishment, Sara did sleep well that night, and if her dreams were full of indecently explicit acts

  with a certain infuriating, bewildering, oh, and completely fascinating black-haired devil with mocking amber-gold eyes, she preferred not to dwell on that fact. She woke with a ravenous appetite and with a decided sparkle in her green eyes. Fighting with Yancy was very stimulating!

  Another long day stretched before her, but for the first time since she had remmed to the hacienda, Sara was actually looking forward to the evening and another skirmish with her impossible husband-to-be! There was a new spring to her step and she couldn't seem to stop smiling, although she had no idea why it should be so. When Maria brought her a fresh pitcher of lemonade and some freshly fried sopas filled with picadillo dulce, a sweet, spicy combination of raisins and pork, Sara was actually humming happily to herself. Maria said nothing until after she had placed the tray on a black iron table; then, hands on her hips, a twinkle in her dark eyes, she murmured, "I would very much like to have been a tiny bird last night."

  Sara glanced up at her and Maria grinned. "Senor Yancy, who has been a snarling tiger for weeks, left this morning smiling and whistling, and now I find you sitting here all alone with a silly little smile on your face! It does not take the village wise man to guess what has happened!"

  Sara blushed hotly right up to the roots of her hair and, pouring herself a glass of lemonade, said with a valiant attempt at airiness, "Why, I have no idea what you're talking about— nothing happened!"

  Maria snorted and had just started to go back into the house when they both heard a noisy hullabaloo which came from the direction of the village. They exchanged a startled glance and then, as one, the two women hurried to the front of the hacienda. Sara had no thought of danger as she picked up her skirts and petticoats and

  sped down the broad steps of the portico and ran past the huge three-tiered fountain in front to the iron gates that were standing open this hot June day. The sounds they heard were not those of fear, but of excitement.

  Dolores and Juan had joined Maria and Sara, and together the four of them spilled through the gateway. With hands shading their eyes from the blinding sunlight, they stared at the procession winding its way snakelike along the village street.

  There were a half-dozen riders on horseback accompanying three wagons of varying sizes, each wagon obviously heavily laden. Sara recognized Yancy on his favorite mount, the big buckskin, and some of the other riders as del Sol vaqueros, but it took her a second or two before she realized that the tall, dark man on the bay gelding was Bartholomew! Having recognized Bartholomew, she understood instantly what she was seeing—the household from Magnolia Grove had arrived!

  It was indeed the household from Magnolia Grove. Not only Bartholomew, Tansy and the other three servants, but Ann and Thomas Shelldrake as well as a sullen-faced Hyrum Bumell. But Sara barely noticed anyone but Bartholomew and Tansy. Bartholomew had hardly dismounted from his horse before she excitedly flung herself into his arms, suddenly realizing how very much she had missed him!

  Bartholomew smiled down at her and asked teasingly, "Does this mean that you have forgiven us our part in your abduction?"

  Happiness bubbling up inside her, Sara scowled with mock fierceness. "I shall never forgive you!" she exclaimed sternly. "It was a mean, underhanded trick to pull on me!" Then, unable to maintain her facade, she burst out laughing. "Oh, Bartholomew! I have missed you so!"

  "Is that my man you are pestering, young lady?" demanded Tansy from her seat in one of the wagons. Dark eyes dancing with amusement, she went on. "I just don't know what the worid is coming to these days—^tum my back for an instant and what do I find? Some cheeky young thing is hugging and kissing my husband!"

  Yancy had dismounted from his horse, and after helping Tansy down from the wagon, he sent Sara a mocking glance before saying to Tansy, "You won't have to worry about that cheeky young thing much longer. We're getting married in two days and you can be assured that, as my wife, she won't be running up and throwing herself at strange men!"

  The wagons were in a semicircle in front of the gateway to the hacienda, the outriders and their horses crowding close. Out of the comer of her eye Sara saw Hyrum's mouth tighten, but he gave no other sign of his reaction to the announcement. Such was not the case with Ann Shelldrake.

  "MarriedV Ann exclaimed furiously, her blue eyes snapping with displeasure. She was seated regally in the second wagon, the old black man, Noah, who was driving the wagon, at her side. Her gaze locked on Yancy's dark face. "You're not actually going to marry her, are you?"

  Yancy carelessly pulled Sara to his side and draped his arm possessively around her slender waist. He cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Ann and said bluntly, **That is certainly my plan, and I fail to see what business it is of yours!"

  Ann flushed angrily, but recalling that she was Yancy's guest—his not-exactly-welcome guest—she controlled herself. Forcing a conciliatory smile onto her lips, she said, "Forgive me! I was just taken aback, knowing as I do your views on marriage." A sly expression in her eyes, she murmured, "How bizarre! I don't know that

  I've ever heard before this of anyone marrying his own stepmother!"

  Yancy's eyes were hard as they rested on Ann's lovely features. "I'm sure," he said grimly, "that there are any number of things that you have never heard of in your narrow little world!"

  "Oh, dear!" Ann said, prettily contrite. "I've angered you! I'm so sorry—I never meant to!" She smiled coquet-tishly at him. "My dreadful tongue—you know how it runs away from me! Come, now, let us put it behind us and help me down from this horrid wagon! I vow I am sick to death of it after all these weeks in the wretched thing!"

  Yancy looked at her for a full moment and then said deliberately over his shoulder, "Hyrum, since you invited yourself along, make yourself useful and help Mrs. Shelldrake down from the wagon."

  Ignoring Ann's indignant gasp, Yancy drew Sara along with him and, approaching the last wagon, stopped and smiled up at Tom Shelldrake and Peggy. Addressing his words to Tom, he said warmly, "Hello, sir. I hope that the journey was not too hard on you."

  Tom Shelldrake looked worn and tired and it was obvious that his bad arm was aching, the way he kept rubbing it with his other hand. He smiled wanly and murmured, "Not too hard, son, but I can't deny that I'm glad I'll be able to sleep in a real bed tonight and not on the ground!"

  Yancy grinned at him. "It will be my pleasure, sir, to see that you sleep tonight in the softest feather bed in the hacienda! May I help you down?"

  It was apparent as he scrambled down awkwardly that Tom was grateful for his help, and Sara stared at Yancy curiously. He was such a confusing mixture. Hard. Kind. Arrogant. Demanding and yet capable of being so very tender and thoug
htful. So would he have been with his

  father, and she was aware of a tight httle knot in her chest when she thought of the time that Sam and Yancy had missed together. Time that could never be recaptured or undone . ..

  It was a busy afternoon and Sara was pleasantly tired by the time the last object from Magnolia Grove had been unloaded from the wagons and placed momentarily in the storehouse near the hacienda stables. Ann and Tom had disappeared into the grand suite of rooms that Yancy had told Maria to give them, and from the numerous trips made by the various servants throughout the afternoon to those rooms, Sara guessed that Ann was reveling in the delight of having people at her command once more.

  Bartholomew, Tansy and Peggy were happily settling into a small adobe house which Sara had previously noticed sat off to one side of the hacienda. A little frown between her brows, she watched as Tansy bustled merrily around, familiarly stowing their few belongings here and there. Tansy seemed to know exactly where everything should go and Sara finally asked, "Have you been here before?"

  Tansy glanced at her in surprise. "Of course! This has always been Bartholomew's quarters whenever Master Sam was at del Sol. You forget that Bartholomew saw Master Yancy bom and that Master Sam often left him here with Master Yancy and his mother when he had to be at Magnolia Grove. Del Sol is almost as familiar to us as Magnolia Grove—we have always considered the rancho our real home."

  Despite the arrival of the inhabitants of Magnolia Grove, that evening was very quiet—the Shelldrakes remaining in their suite and all the others busy settling into their new quarters. Sara knew that Noah and his woman, Mercy, had been given a tiny house in the village to stay in and she wondered where Yancy had

  put Hyrum. Hyrum was a good man. She was positive that, given the chance, he would work hard for del Sol. Hopefully, Yancy would put aside his unfair animosity and realize that Hyrum could be an asset to the rancho. Mostly, she just hoped that Yancy would treat the former overseer of Magnolia Grove with the same polite courtesy he extended to all the people who served him.

  Sara didn't see Yancy or any of the others that evening, but she was aware that their arrival had changed the even tenor of the hacienda and that her wedding was less than two days away... . She woke the next morning with an odd heaviness of spirit and realized guiltily that while she was delighted that Bartholomew and the other servants from Magnolia Grove had arrived, the presence of the rest of them—^the Shelldrakes and Hyrum—was not as pleasing to her. The three of them were indelibly linked in her mind to that unhappy time following Margaret's murder, as well as to the dreadful days following Sam's death. It was a curious distinction. Bartholomew and the others had all been present during those times, yet it was only those three, Ann, Tom and Hyrum, who aroused in Sara a sense of uneasy gloom.

  With an effort she pushed aside her thoughts and sprang from her bed. No one seeing her a half hour later would ever guess that she had been the least bit melancholy when she had awakened that morning, because she was smiling warmly and a sweetly serene air seemed to surround her.

  Having eaten a light repast in her room, she was eager to locate her personal belongings from Magnolia Grove. The scanty wardrobe packed by Tansy had definitely begun to pall and she was looking forward to wearing something other than the watermelon silk that evening. When Maria appeared in answer to her pull of the velvet rope, Sara said brightly, "In the confusion yesterday, someone neglected to bring my trunks and things to my

  room. Do you know where they put them after they were unloaded from the wagons?"

  Maria looked surprised. ''Si Senor Yancy ordered them taken to his rooms." Smiling archly, she added, "After tomorrow night, his rooms will be yours—where else would your belongings be?"

  Some of Sara's serenity slipped and she cursed the blush that suddenly stained her cheeks. Not meeting Maria's laughing eyes, she said with false nonchalance, "Oh, naturally, that's where they would have taken them! How silly of me to have thought otherwise!" She started to breeze out of the room, only to stop abruptly at the door. Making a face, she glanced at Maria. "Could you please show me the way to Yancy's rooms?" she asked meekly.

  Maria laughed and said warmly, "Come along, chica. They are just down the walkway."

  Yancy's quarters consisted of two grandly furnished, enormous rooms connected by a charming sitting area and two large dressing rooms. Sara felt slightly intimidated by the size and richness of the quarters, but spying three leather-bound trunks resting in the middle of the smaller of the two bedrooms, she forgot everything but the happy prospect of reacquainting herself with her belongings. She and Maria spent a pleasant morning unpacking and hanging her clothes in the huge mahogany wardrobes that lined two walls of one of the spacious dressing rooms. A few personal objects, her silver-backed brushes and combs that Sam had given her on her eighteenth birthday and two exquisitely shaped crystal flagons, now rested on the gleaming top of a satin-wood dressing table. She had little jewelry—most of the expensive jewels that Sam had given her had been sold to finance the war—but she did have a few small trinkets which she placed carefully in one of the smaller drawers of the dressing table.

  Maria watched her with a frown. "Have you no jewelry box?" she finally asked.

  Sara smiled at her. "No, but it doesn't matter. I don't have that much jewelry anyway."

  Maria was not happy. She liked everything in its place, and it was unseemly that the soon-to-be-mistress of the hacienda had to put her jewelry loosely into a drawer like some ill-bred taberneral A thought occurred to her. Beaming, she said happily, "Oh, wait! I know! There is a carved box in Senor Yancy's wardrobe that will hold everything just fine!"

  Spinning on her heels, she raced into Yancy's room, to return a few minutes later carrying a richly carved box of some dark wood. Approaching the big, high, old-fashioned bed which dominated Sara's new room, Maria shook the box lightly, and hearing something rattling inside, she said, "I don't know what he has in here, but I'm sure he won't mind if we put it someplace else and you use the box temporarily."

  With Sara at her side, Maria opened the box and flipped its contents onto the brilliant sapphire quilt which covered the bed. There was only one thing in the box Maria had taken from Yancy's wardrobe, and Sara gasped as she stared at the ornate silver dagger that lay glittering in the sunlight that poured onto the bed. She recognized it instantly. The last time she had seen that dagger, it had been buried in the breast of Margaret Cantrell.

  G^15

  As Sara stared in horror at the silver dagger lying so innocently on the sapphire quilt, there was a sound behind her, and she whirled around to see Yancy standing in the doorway of the sitting room. Unaware of the tension coiling through Sara, Maria glanced at him and said smilingly, "Oh, senor, it is good that you are here. I have just told your novia that you won't mind if she uses this box to hold her jewelry. You yourself can now reassure her."

  His dark face revealing nothing, Yancy said, '*Gracias, Maria, I shall do just that. In the meantime, would you mind leaving us alone, because there are some things I'd like to discuss with my novia.''

  Oblivious of the undercurrents between the other two, Maria smiled knowingly and hurried from the room. Silence greeted her departure, and for an endless time Yancy and Sara stared at each other across the expanse that separated them. Seu'a's emerald eyes were full of accusations; Yancy's amber-gold gaze was opaque and watchful.

  Sara didn't like the thoughts that were churning through her brain. She had convinced herself that Yancy had not murdered Margaret—even now her heart shrieked out that things were never what they seemed, that there was an explanation, that the man she

  had agreed to marry, a man she loved deeply, could not have committed cold-blooded murder. And yet... All the evidence had always pointed to Yancy, and despite the agony in her heart, the cool logic of her brain told her that a murderer could wear many faces, and that sometimes blackhearted villainy hid behind a charmingly handsome visage. Sometimes the most loathsome evil could
take the form of a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mocking smile and a beguiling manner....

  Her accusing green gaze on his, Sara asked stiffly, "Is that the same dagger?"

  Yancy smiled thinly, and walking with that careless, predatory grace of his across the room toward her, his eyes never leaving hers, he inquired silkily, "Do you really want to know? Haven't you already made up your mind that not only is that the dagger that killed Margaret, but it was my hand that drove it into her breast?"

  Sara met his gaze squarely, wondering miserably how events could have changed so swiftly between them. She had been happy five minutes ago, actually looking forward to their marriage in less than two days, certain that whatever obstacles lay ahead could eventually be settled. And now .. . Sara swallowed with difficulty. And now they were staring at each other like bitter antagonists.

  When she remained silent, her expressive features mirroring all the chaos roiling inside her, Yancy's grip on his temper broke, and he reached out and dragged her up next to him. "Damn you!" he cursed softly. "Which is it? Either I killed Margaret or I didn't! What am I, Sara? The man you intend to marry, or a murderer?" At her look of agonized indecision, he swore under his breath and disgustedly threw her from him.

  Sara fell against the bed and the shock of his violent action loosened her tongue. Tears stinging her eyes, she cried passionately, "You're unfair! All the evidence always pointed to you! You've never denied killing her!

  Not once! And now I find in your possession the weapon I know killed her—a weapon you and Sam told me wasn't there—and you want me to just blindly trust you? Why should I?"

  Hands on his lean hips, he regarded her bleakly. "Why should you indeed?"