by Diana Palmer
Chapter Three
Aggie Lopez, Jude’s housekeeper, met them in her dressing gown, yawning.
“Is Bess’s room ready?” Jude asked curtly.
“Yes, Señor Langston,” Aggie said agreeably, giving Bess a brief but thorough appraisal. Then she grinned. “You need some feeding up, señorita. A few weeks of refritos and enchiladas and my good Texas chili will put meat on those bones, I promise you. Come, I will take you up to your room and then I’ll bring you some food. The little one has only just gone to sleep. She was so excited…!”
“But it’s after midnight,” Bess exclaimed.
“Go ahead,” Jude growled, glaring at her with piercing green eyes, “say something about her bedtime hour. You’ve managed to disapprove of every other damned thing, why not that as well?”
She glared back at him, her chin lifted. “Children need their rest just like adults do,” she threw at him. “And speaking of rest, look at you!”
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked pugnaciously.
“Oh, Lord, just give me a full day with no interruptions and I’ll be glad to give you an itemized list!”
Aggie was staring at them with her jaw in a slightly drooping posture, her small, plump figure glued to the banister of the long staircase that ran up to the second story.
Jude glanced at Aggie. “Well, what the hell are you gaping at? Are you going to show her upstairs or not?”
“You are…really getting married?” the older woman asked, lifting her eyebrows until they almost touched the salt-and-pepper hair that was drawn into a tight bun.
“It’s a love match, too,” Bess assured her with a tight smile at Jude. “He loves my stocks and I love his daughter.”
Jude said something rude under his breath and turned on his heel to stomp off into his study. He slammed the door with hurricane force behind him.
Aggie flinched. “Someday he will break all the windows,” she said, sighing. “Ay, ay, life is so exciting since I came to work here.” She eyed Bess. “It is none of my affair, you understand, but you are not the picture of a happy bride.”
“I don’t want to be a bride,” she muttered. “He’s trying to make me.”
“As I thought,” Aggie said. She shook her head. “I will not ask why you do not refuse him. Six months I have worked for Mr. Langston. In that time, I have never known him not to get his own way. Have you known him long, señorita?”
“I’ve known him most of my life,” Bess grumbled as she followed the older woman up the staircase.
“Then I do not need to tell you anything about him,” Aggie said quietly. She glanced at Bess as she stopped in front of the room where Bess always stayed when she visited the ranch. “He said that you have lost your mother. I am very sorry.”
Tears welled up in Bess’s eyes and her lower lip trembled precariously. “Yes.”
Impulsively, Aggie put an arm around her. “Señorita, grief passes. I, too, lost my mother many years ago. I do not forget the hurt, but time is kind.”
Bess nodded jerkily and tried to smile.
“Here, now. Katy insisted on redecorating the room when she heard you were coming.” Aggie led Bess into the spacious room, which boasted a new bedspread and matching curtains of cream with beige and blue flowers, a deep blue carpet and elegant wallpaper. There were fresh flowers, mums, in a vase on the chest of drawers.
“It’s beautiful!” Bess burst out.
“Oh, I hoped you’d like it!” came a joyous voice from the connecting door across the room.
Bess’s eyes lit up. “Katy!” she exclaimed, and held out her arms.
Katy ran into them, laughing. She was the image of her father—pale green eyes framed by black hair and a stubborn square jaw. She was going to be tall, too. She already came up almost to Bess’s shoulders.
“You smell nice,” Katy remarked as she drew back to look at the older woman. “Like flowers. You always smell so good, Bess!”
“I’m glad you think so,” Bess said with a grin.
“How’s school?”
Katy made a face. “I hate math and English grammar. But band is great. I play the flute! And I like chorus pretty well, and art class is neat.”
“I’d love to hear you play,” Bess said. She ruffled the short dark hair. “You’re the nicest welcome I’ve had so far.”
“Been at it with Dad again, huh?” Katy murmured with a wicked smile. “I heard,” she confessed.
Bess colored delicately. “We, uh, had a slight disagreement.”
“They have slight disagreements over the color of the sky,” Katy told Aggie without blinking an eye, and she laughed. “Dad likes to give orders and Bess doesn’t like to take them.”
“Now, Katy…” Bess began.
“I know. ‘Now, Katy, mind your own business.’“ Katy sighed. She arched her eyebrows. “But you’re going to be my mom, so it is kind of my business, isn’t it?”
At the sound of the word, Bess’s eyes glittered again with unshed tears. She was going to have to stop this!
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Katy said quickly, after a speaking glare from Aggie. “I’m very sorry, I forgot!”
“It’s all right,” Bess said, brushing away the tears. “It’s just so fresh, you know. I loved her very much.”
“I never knew my mother,” Katy said, “but Dad said she was a first-class bit—”
“No!” Aggie burst out, horrified. “You must not say such things!”
Katy’s lips pouted. “Dad does.”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t speak that way of your mother,” Bess said gently. “Besides, ladies don’t use language like that.”
Katy just stared at her blankly. “Huh?”
“You’ll have to show me around the ranch tomorrow,” Bess said quickly, deciding to let it drop for the time being. “It’s more than a year since I visited. I’m sure there are a lot of changes.”
That brought the smile back to Katy’s young face. “You bet! Unless…you wouldn’t rather Dad showed you around?” she asked with a calculating look, and Bess knew she was thinking about that dreadful lie Jude had told her.
“He can show me around later,” Bess promised the young girl. “Now, how about bed? I’m so sleepy I can hardly stand up.”
“Where are your things, señorita, and I will unpack,” Aggie volunteered.
“I’m wearing them,” Bess said gaily, opening her coat to disclose the dress underneath. “Jude decided that I could do without clothes, makeup and all those other frivolous things.”
Aggie scowled. “I will lend you one of my gowns,” she said. “Men, they never think about these things,” she muttered as she went out the door.
Katy was watching her closely. “Why didn’t you pack a suitcase?” she asked slowly.
“Because your father picked me up in what I have on and carried me bodily out the door, that’s why,” she said.
Katy tried to stifle a laugh, but it burst out anyway. “Good night, Bess!” she said, and beat a hasty retreat back to her own room, closing the door quickly. Behind it, there was hysterical laughter.
* * *
Bess had forgotten just how big Big Mesquite really was until she walked around the grounds with Katy the next day. The house, which she’d always loved, was very old and very Victorian, with a turret and exquisite gingerbread woodwork. Jude had obviously had it painted not too many months ago, because it was blistering white.
“I remember summers long ago when I used to swing in that front porch swing,” Bess recalled dreamily, hanging on to a small mimosa tree in the front yard as she stared toward the house. “And your grandmother would make iced tea and big, thick tomato sandwiches and I’d swing and munch.”
“Did you and Dad used to play together?” Katy asked, all eyes.
“No, darling,” Bess said, laughing. “Your father was already a grown man when I was barely in my teens. I hardly ever saw him in those days. He was away at college, and then in Vietnam.”
“Oh, yes,
I know all about the war,” Katy said seriously. “Dad’s got an awful—”
“Katy!” Aggie called out the door. “Deanne wants to talk to you on the telephone!”
“Okay, Aggie!” Katy moved away from the tree. “Deanne’s my best friend,” she explained. “I won’t be long.”
“Don’t hurry on my account,” Bess told her. “I’ll just ramble around and look at the stock.”
“Don’t go close to the corral. Dad’s got Blanket in there,” the young girl cautioned.
“What a name. Does it belong to a bull?”
“No, a horse.” Katy laughed. “They call her that because she likes to fall on people—like a blanket.”
“I’ll watch my step,” Bess promised.
Katy ran into the house and Bess wandered quietly around the yard in the same jersey dress she’d worn the day before. She had one of Jude’s Windbreakers wrapped around herself to keep out the cold, and she hated the pleasure it gave her to wear something of his. She was really going to have to stop feeling that way. If he ever found out how he affected her, it could be a disaster, in more ways than one.
As she was thinking about him, he came out of the barn with a halter in his hand, heading straight for Blanket.
Bess climbed up on the fence and leaned her arms over the top rail. “Going to bounce around a little?” she asked. “Don’t fall off, now.”
“No, I’m not going to bounce around,” he said curtly. “I’m going to put her on a halter so Bandy can work her.”
She watched him approach the horse, talking softly and gently to it in a tone she’d never heard him use except, infrequently, with Katy. He moved closer inch by inch, soothing the horse, until he was near enough to ease the halter over the jet black muzzle and lock it in place. He continued to stroke the silky black mane while the horse trembled in the chill air, not from cold but from nervousness.
Bess didn’t speak. She didn’t dare. Jude would climb all over her if she spooked the horse. But he glanced at her warily when the little bowlegged cowboy named Bandy came out of the barn with a lunging rein to attach to the halter.
Jude said something to the cowboy and then climbed over the fence, perching himself on the top rail near Bess. He was wearing denims and the old battered gray Stetson he used on the rare occasions when he was around the ranch. He looked good in denim. He looked good in anything, that long, muscular body sheer elegance when he moved.
“Don’t trust her too far, Bandy,” Jude said as he lit a cigarette. He glanced at Bess. “She’s a lot like some women. All long legs and nerves.”
Her chin lifted. She’d put up her hair to keep it out of her face, and she looked chic and elegant even in his leather jacket.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, indicating the jacket.
“Aggie got it out for me,” she said defensively. “You wouldn’t let me pack,” she reminded him.
“It doesn’t do much for you,” he remarked derisively. “It keeps me warm,” she returned. “But if you want it back…”
“Oh, hell, stop playing Joan of Arc,” he growled, his green eyes glittering at her over a wisp of cigarette smoke. “It’s an old jacket. I had it when I was in Vietnam.”
And probably it brought back memories he’d rather not dredge up, she thought, feeling guilty. She averted her eyes to the cowboy working the young filly on the leading rein in a long, wide circle.
“You didn’t hit the floor screaming bloody murder this morning,” he remarked. “Does that mean you’ve stopped fighting the idea of marriage?”
She drew one long, polished fingernail across the top rail of the fence and watched it scar the old wood. “Katy was so excited,” she said quietly.
“Yes, I told you that.”
Her dark eyes pinned him. “I don’t like you very much, Judah Barnett Langston,” she said.
He took a long draw from the cigarette and pursed his chiseled lips. “What a disappointment,” he said after a minute, and his eyes were mocking. “I thought you might be harboring a secret passion for me.”
“Sorry to dash your dreams,” she replied. “I’d rather lust after a rattlesnake.”
He chuckled softly, and his cold green eyes wandered over her slimness slowly. “You’d have better luck there, all right,” he remarked. “Hell, you’re too fragile for sex.”
She gasped at the unexpectedly intimate remark and felt her face go hot.
His eyebrows lifted at her expression. “Well, my God, I do know what sex is,” he said.
“I didn’t say a word,” she chewed off.
“You were thinking it,” he said. He smiled tauntingly. “I didn’t find Katy under a cabbage leaf.”
Her eyes fell away from his. The discussion was getting far too intimate for her taste. She knew hardly anything about intimacy except for what she’d read. And the last person she wanted to learn that kind of lesson from was Jude Langston. She couldn’t picture him being either patient or tender with a woman.
“Is Katy matchmaking?” he asked after a minute. “She deserted you.”
“Her friend Deanne called,” she murmured.
He scowled. “Deanne is a city kid. Very sophisticated for her age. I don’t like Katy associating with her.”
“Why, because she wears dresses?” she asked. “Is Katy going to run the ranch for you when she grows up, bullwhip and all?”
He just stared at her until she dropped her eyes. She’d never been able to outglare him, not ever, and it rankled.
“I wish she’d been a boy sometimes,” he said, surprising her. “But that wasn’t her fault.”
“She’s going on ten,” she said quietly. “The age of parties and pretty dresses and boys is coming along down the road. It would be sad if she was excluded from all those things because she was too tough to fit in. Wouldn’t it?”
He glared at her and threw down his cigarette. “Why don’t you mind your own damned business? Go arrange some flowers or something. That’s all you’re good for!”
He got down off the fence, and tears stung her eyes as she did likewise. She turned on her heel and stomped back off toward the house.
A piercing whistle split the air and she stopped and whirled. “What!” she yelled.
“Go into town and get some clothes. I’ve opened an account for you at Joske’s.”
She caught her breath. Things were moving fast. Too fast. “I don’t want any, thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” he said carelessly. “If you want to be married in your slip, it’s your business.” He turned back to Bandy.
“I’m not going to marry you!” she yelled at him.
“You are if I can’t find another way to get those shares!” At that, she almost scooped up a rock and threw it at him. But she knew Jude too well, so she didn’t.
* * *
By the end of the week, it was sadly apparent that there were no loopholes in Bess’s mother’s will. Jude came in Friday afternoon looking as if he’d like to tie her to a stake and roast her. Instead, he ordered her into the living room and closed the door behind them.
“There’s no way out except marriage,” he said without dressing it up. “We can’t break the will unless we can prove mental incompetence, and your family attorney assures me that we can’t.”
“No,” Bess said, “she was in her right mind up until the very end.”
He picked up a book on the table by the window and abruptly slammed it down on the highly polished surface. “Damn it, I don’t want marriage!” he cursed, glaring at Bess.
“Well, don’t blame me,” she shot back. “I didn’t drag you off out here and try to force you into it. I’d just as soon forget the whole thing!”
“So would I, but I’ve got to have those damned shares, and soon. It’s no use fighting me, Bess.” He rammed his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks. “I’ll talk to a minister about the ceremony. We can have it at San Jose, if you like.”
“At the mission?” she asked. Her eyes brightened a little. �
�That sounds nice.”
“Then you’ll agree to the marriage?” he asked quietly, and she knew he was in deadly earnest.
“I don’t seem to have much choice,” she replied. “And you’re right—Katy does need a woman’s touch. And I need her. I don’t have anyone else to love now that Mother’s…” She broke off, trying desperately to keep the tears from falling. “She was all the family I had in the world.”
He turned away, obviously uncomfortable at her show of emotion. “You’d better go to the printer and get some invitations sent out. I’ll have my secretary make you a list of people to invite.” He glanced at her. “Do you want your stepsister to come?”
“No,” she said without thinking.
He laughed shortly. “Somehow, I didn’t think you would. But you owe her the courtesy of telling her about the marriage. She is your only living relative.”
“I will.” Several weeks from now, she added silently.
He studied her. “You don’t like Crystal, do you?’
“Neither would you, if she didn’t worship the ground you walk on,” she said with bitter sarcasm. “Crystal’s main ambition in life is to keep Crystal happy and comfortable. But men don’t notice that very often.”
“No,” he agreed, “they’re too busy noticing how much woman she is.” His eyes went up and down Bess’s slender figure. “She puts you in the shade, doesn’t she?”
Not for the world would she have let him see how much that hurt. She smiled coolly and turned to leave the room.
“So proud,” he chided. “So poised. Does anything ever ruffle you, society girl? I’ll bet you’d be that way in bed with a man, all cool discipline and—”
“Stop that,” she bit out, glaring at him. “How I’d be is none of your business.” She stopped, her eyes uncertain.
He laughed shortly as he read the fear in them. “Don’t get your hopes up, Bess. You don’t turn me on. It won’t be a marriage in that respect.”
“Thank God,” she muttered, opening the door with her back to him so he couldn’t see her hot cheeks.
“I can’t imagine you blazing with passion,” he said thoughtfully. “Some women are born cold, I expect.”