by Diana Palmer
“Julie hates it here,” he said, stifling a yawn. “And I don’t think Sissy’s going to last much longer. Did you see her face when the Indian smiled at her?”
“I think you underestimate Sissy,” she replied, feeling a sudden surge of indignation. “She isn’t a coward. And if she’s studying Indians in anthropology…”
“She’s a silly little chick with no brain.”
Trilby’s eyes flashed. “She’s quite educated, actually—and in her own element, she’s very composed. The wild West isn’t everyone’s favorite place.”
“You poor darling, it certainly isn’t yours. You look drab, Trilby,” he said thoughtfully. “Wan and thin and all bones. You should come back East with us, I think.”
She brightened. “Do you think so?”
“Certainly! You could find someone to stay with, couldn’t you?”
He acted as if it was of supreme indifference to him whether she did or not. Her face fell. She’d hoped for so much. And she had so little. She smiled, as if it didn’t matter, and went back into the kitchen to help Mary. Her dream visit was becoming nightmarish, and he’d only been in residence for a day.
She’d thought it couldn’t be any worse, but it progressed downhill from that day. Richard found everything irritating, from his bedroom, to the lack of indoor facilities, to the well-drawn water that had to be heated on the stove for baths. He simply had to have a bath daily, and when Jack mentioned that water was a valuable commodity, he only laughed.
Ben was less abrasive. He spent most of his time with Teddy and Mosby Torrance and the cowboys, learning about cowboying. To everyone’s amazement, he took to horses like ducks to a pond and within two days was riding like a native. He even donned cowboy regalia and wore it so naturally that one of the Mexicans remarked that he belonged to the ranch already. When he wasn’t riding, he was sitting with Teddy, listening to Torrance’s tales about the wild old days with flattering interest. Torrance took a shine to him at once, and it seemed a mutual thing.
Sissy stuck to Trilby like glue, which made any conversations with Richard awkward. It didn’t matter much, because Julie, when she wasn’t sleeping, was clinging to Richard’s arm.
“The Indians aren’t going to attack, really they aren’t,” Trilby assured Sissy. “You simply have to relax and stop looking for war parties.”
Sissy sighed and grimaced. “Is that how I look? I’m not afraid of war parties,” she said, although she couldn’t admit that what she was looking for was one particular Apache whom she found fascinating. Silly to think he might seek her out.
With her dark hair in a bun, wearing a middy blouse with her long skirt and lace-up high heels, Sissy looked very ladylike. Even her spectacles didn’t detract from her pretty face and big green eyes. And when she smiled, she was lovely. But she’d been oddly silent since she’d been here. She wasn’t the bubbly, enthusiastic companion Trilby had known in childhood. She seemed preoccupied.
“Julie seems to be enjoying herself,” Trilby ventured, watching Julie and Richard through the hall doorway as they played checkers in the living room.
“She’s crazy mad for Richard,” Sissy said sadly. “I’m sorry. I know you were sweet on him. But they’re very much alike, don’t you see?”
“I suppose.” She didn’t want to; she felt miserable.
Sissy hugged her impulsively. “Don’t worry so, you’ll get lines in your face. It will all work out as it’s meant to, you know,” she added gently.
Trilby hugged her back. “I’m so miserable. Does it show? I thought he’d missed me, but he hasn’t really. Nothing’s changed—except that I’ve daydreamed too much. He’s wild about Julie.”
“I know. I wanted to write and tell you, but I couldn’t. Perhaps this visit is really a good thing. I love my brother, but he doesn’t deserve someone as sweet as you, my friend,” Sissy said solemnly. “He’s not half the man Ben is.”
Trilby laughed softly. “My head knows that, but my heart won’t listen. I’ve loved him forever.”
“I don’t know very much about love,” Sissy murmured, her eyes on the horizon. “I don’t suppose any man will ever love me. It’s just as well,” she said quickly when Trilby started to protest. “I don’t really think I’m suited to the life of a housewife and mother. I’m too odd. Trilby, do you think we might go exploring in the mountains?” Sissy asked suddenly. “I’d simply love to look for old ruins. The Hohokam Indians lived in this area long ago, Dr. McCollum said.”
“Imagine your Dr. McCollum being Thorn Vance’s friend. I suppose he knows a lot about this area,” Trilby said.
“Indeed, yes, but he tells us very little about the Apaches,” Sissy added, with a curious frown. “I do remember some of the other students talking about a particular Apache that McCollum mentioned in a lecture, but I was out sick that day and the notes I borrowed didn’t include a reference to it.” She glanced at Trilby. “There must be artifacts in this area; it’s so historically rich.”
“Yes, I think we might be able to go fossicking. I’ll ask Papa.”
“Thank you,” Sissy said. “That would be so lovely. And are we really going hunting? I don’t want to shoot anything….”
“We won’t have to. That’s something the men enjoy. But camping out would be fun, wouldn’t it?” Trilby asked. “I’ve often wondered what it would be like. I’ve never had the opportunity. But with all of you along, I don’t imagine it would be very fraught.”
“No, indeed,” the younger woman said, smiling. “What a grand idea, Trilby! I’m so glad I didn’t decide to take classes this quarter so that I could come.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, too,” she told her friend. But her sad eyes never left Julie and Richard. “College will still be there in January when the next quarter begins.”
Richard heard Trilby’s soft voice and sensed her scrutiny. He was enjoying being the center of attention in a tug-of-war between shy little Trilby and sophisticated Julie. He glanced up and caught Trilby’s eyes and smiled slowly. She blushed, and he laughed.
“Something amuses you?” Julie asked him curiously.
“Why, I find the game invigorating,” he replied. But it wasn’t checkers he was really talking about.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LISA MORRIS WAS chafing under the knowing glances and pitying looks from the other officers’ wives. She was used to army life, having grown up in barracks. She was even used to her husband’s affairs. But she’d never before had him flaunt one of them so that his behavior became common knowledge.
The only excuse she could find was that he might be genuinely in love this time. If so, surely he would be pleased to let the divorce go through. She had to tell him, and soon.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she walked straight into a tall, khaki-clad man without seeing him.
“Steady on there, Mrs. Morris,” a gruff, curt voice sounded over her head. Strong, firm hands grasped her shoulders…and as quickly let them go when she was steadied.
She looked up into the incredibly blue eyes of the post physician, Dr. Todd Powell. He was a captain, and a totally different sort of man from her husband. He was so fierce that none of the soldiers on the post ever pretended to be ill to get out of unpleasant details. He had a vicious temper when he was pushed, and he occasionally drank to excess.
But to Lisa, he’d been kind. When she lost the baby, and her husband was gone on maneuvers, it was Todd Powell who sat beside her bed all night long while she cried and slept. It was Todd who’d buried the tiny infant. It was Todd who’d talked to her, and listened to her, and finally forced her back to life again. He might frighten everyone else, but Lisa felt a strange and curious tenderness for him.
It reflected in her soft eyes when she smiled up at him. “Thank you, Captain Powell,” she said gently. “I had my mind on other things, I’m sorry.”
He drew in a rough breath. “Other things being your husband’s latest paramour, I gather?” he asked bluntly.
Sh
e flushed. “You should not say such a thing to me.”
“Someone must talk some sense into you, madam. How long do you intend to put up with your husband’s outrageous behavior? You must have heard the gossip.”
“I have, of course.” She hesitated, glancing around to make sure nobody was within earshot. “I…have instigated divorce proceedings. I have no idea where I shall go….”
His face softened. So did his eyes. “I have.” He took her arm and led her back the way she’d come, toward a car. “You come with me.”
“Captain Powell!” she protested.
“Just to meet someone,” he said. He put her inside and got in next to her, cranking the car with some difficulty before he got it into gear, muttering impatiently all the while.
The wind felt good in her face. She stopped worrying about more gossip. Dr. Powell had a take-charge manner that made her feel as if she were being swept along on a comfortable breeze. She smiled at the irony of being looked after. She’d spent most of her life looking after her father and then David. It was rather nice to have someone treat her with such care.
He didn’t go far, just to a small settlement beyond the post, near the small town of Courtland. “Here it is,” he said, and led her to a neat white house among several that flanked the tiny post office. He knocked on a door—and smiled, doffing his hat, when a thin, elderly woman answered it.
“Hello, Todd,” she said in welcome. “Who’s this?”
“A young woman who’ll be needing a place to stay very soon,” Todd said. “Do you still have a spare room to let?”
“Of course I do,” the woman said kindly. “I’m Mrs. Moye. And you can trade chores for your keep, if you need to.”
“You don’t know me—” Lisa began.
“I know Todd,” Mrs. Moye said. “His opinion of you is enough for me.”
“I’m not quite ready—” Lisa began again.
“Whenever you are, the room will be free,” Mrs. Moye said. “Won’t you come in and have a nice glass of tea?”
“I wish we had time,” Todd said courteously. “Perhaps next time.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Goodbye, my dear.”
“YOU DIDN’T INTRODUCE US,” Lisa remarked as Todd opened the passenger door for her.
“It wouldn’t have been wise.” His blue eyes stabbed down into hers for a long, intent moment. “You’re too thin,” he said shortly. “But you’re still lovely.”
She felt giddy. No man had ever looked at her as Captain Powell did. He made her feel odd sensations stabbing into her thighs, her lower belly. She seemed to tingle all over. Even at his most intimate, David had never provoked such pleasure.
Todd cleared his throat. “I suppose we had better make haste back to the post.”
“Yes. Yes, certainly.”
She got in. His hand on her wrist was meant to assist, but it lingered just for a moment. She looked up at him and her whole body felt on fire. He was tall and big but not fat. He had hands the size of hams and a face that was craggy and rough and not at all handsome. His thick black hair was straight and unruly, falling over his broad, sweaty brow. He had thick eyebrows and a huge nose. He wasn’t handsome. But he had a mouth that she wanted to kiss, and her eyes fell away from it in something like panic.
“Watch your skirt,” he said curtly.
He closed the door and went around the car. She watched him with uncertainty and longing. She couldn’t afford to let herself care about him. He was only being kind.
He knew what it was to hurt. His wife and son had been killed many years ago. He drank sometimes when he remembered. He’d told her about it while she lay sore and anguished, after the loss of her baby. He knew how it felt to lose a child, he’d said. He’d told her about the Apache uprising that had caused the death of his family, about his own anguish. He had, he told her, spoken of it to no one else.
It had been a moment out of time, one that had embarrassed them both a little afterward. They’d skirted around the faint intimacy and never mentioned the incident. But ever since, there had been an affinity between them that grew stronger by the day. He watched her when she was out of her husband’s barracks, just as she watched him when he wasn’t looking. She tried not to. She was an honorable woman, and Captain Powell was an honorable man. But if she hadn’t been married… Oh, if only!
They arrived back at the post without any prying eyes watching.
“Thank you,” she told him hesitantly. “It’s very nice to know that I’ll have a roof over my head, if I should need it.”
“He will not stop, you know,” he said quietly. “If anything, you can expect the affair to worsen with time. He is reckless, and she is deeply in love with him. She isn’t a bad sort,” he added gruffly. “She’s a rather nice woman, and not the kind to chase after a married man. The advances were his, not hers.”
“I see,” she replied. She searched his eyes. “You know her?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I know of her. Her family is poor, but honest and honorable. They do not approve, but she is young.”
She shifted a little. “Perhaps he, too, is in love,” she said quietly. “It would explain his most recent behavior.” She lifted her eyes. “Thank you for helping me.”
His jaw clenched. “It is no hardship to help someone in need. Good day, Mrs. Morris.”
She watched him walk away, his hands clasped behind him in his own characteristic posture as he strode back toward his dispensary. He looked sad and lonely, and she was sorry that he was alone. In a very real way, so was she. Tonight she had to tell David about the divorce, she decided. Putting it off would serve no purpose….
She’d only just put supper on the table when the front door slammed and heavy footsteps echoed into the kitchen, where she was lifting the coffeepot from the stove.
“Captain Arthur said that you’d gone riding with Captain Powell,” David raged, red-faced.
She turned to him very calmly. “Why, yes, I did,” she said. “Your supper is on the table.”
He didn’t speak for a minute. She could almost see his brain working, trying to decide how to deal with this new, odd behavior.
“Why were you riding around with the post physician?”
“Because he knew of a room to let,” she said, her eyes very steady and unblinking, like those of a snake poised to strike. The difference it made in her appearance was uncanny. From a mousy, quiet girl, she’d suddenly transformed into a stubborn, independent woman. Even her posture was different.
“It looks bad for you to be seen in the company of another man—” he began.
“Does it look better for you to be seen with another woman?” she asked quietly.
He flushed. “Selina is none of your business,” he said tautly.
“It’s the entire post’s business, or didn’t you know that the wives of your officers take great delight in pointing it out to me?” she asked.
He ran an irritated hand through his thick blond hair and looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t realize that,” he said slowly.
“It doesn’t matter, David. Not anymore. I’ve seen a lawyer,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m divorcing you.”
He looked absolutely stunned. He gaped at her. “You are…what?” he burst out. “How dare you!”
She clasped her hands tightly in front of her. “It is for the best… Surely you realize that? If you truly love this girl, and she loves you…”
He was stunned speechless. His career was his first thought. A divorce would be a reflection on his manhood, especially if his wife left him, instead of the reverse.
“You have to stop the proceeding,” he said icily, his eyes dangerous.
“I will not! David, we both know that you only married me for position. For years, you’ve disgraced me with every woman who took your fancy. But this latest affront is unbearable. You have made me a laughingstock. I am divorcing you. And there is nothing you can say or do that will stop me!”
He lost his head. W
ithout a thought beyond revenge for the humiliation she intended, he lifted his hand and struck her full across the cheek, the blow hard enough to knock her back into the hot woodstove.
She screamed and jerked away as a white-hot lick of pain burned along her hip where the fabric touched. It burst into flames quite suddenly. She beat at it with her hands, the fear and pain taking the sting out of her cheek as she desperately tried to put out the fire.
David was stunned for a moment. Then he reacted quickly. He grabbed the bucket of water on the cooking table and flung the contents at her skirts. The fire went out, but she’d been badly burned. He could see the blistered red flesh of her hip and side through the blackened hole.
“Lisa, forgive me, I never meant to…” he began hoarsely.
She slapped at his hands, weeping in pain, and got a chair between them. She felt sick all over. The pain was terrible. He suddenly blurred in her sight and a black oblivion washed coldly over her.
TODD POWELL WAS bending over her in the post dispensary when she awoke. He had a coldly cynical look in his blue eyes and a blunt way of speaking that managed to offend almost everyone. The men were as afraid of him as they were of the Indians, which amused him no end.
He narrowed one eye as he studied the unkempt hair and bruised cheek of the woman on the cot. Behind him, David Morris looked wan and sick.
“I’ve given you a little morphia for the pain, Mrs. Morris,” Powell told her curtly. “You’ll have a bad burn, and probably a scar, but you’ll live.”
“Thank you,” she said drowsily.
“May I take her home now?” David asked.
Powell turned and looked at the younger man. “No.”
“I am your commanding officer,” David pointed out.
“I am neither blind nor ignorant,” the physician replied, undaunted. “One look at her cheek explained this…accident…to my satisfaction, Colonel Morris. Your illicit activities are known to all of us. And I know that your wife has instigated divorce proceedings. She will not return to your barracks. Unless you relish the thought of a court-martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, I advise you not to press the issue.”