Rafe refused to allow him to lead her away, distractedly noticing that Lacey wouldn’t even look at him now.
He couldn’t know that she did not trust herself to risk meeting his eyes while April’s words were still ringing in her ears.
Curt was not about to back down this time. Lacey’s silent appeal firmed his purpose. “Surely, Rafe, you don’t intend to deny me some time with her. She is obviously upset, but more, I need to talk to her. Be gracious enough to step aside like a gentleman.”
Where she found the strength to speak then, Lacey didn’t know, she was just grateful that she could. “Goodness, Curt, we are not living in the dark ages. Rafe will not be dictating who I may speak to.” She risked a quick glance at Rafe. His eyes lost a bit of their forbidding heat, and his mouth quirked in an odd sort of smile. With a light little laugh, determined that no one, not April, and most of all not Rafe, should see how devastated she was, Lacey placed her arm on Curt’s. “We have our little agreement, dear.”
“Lacey, I think you should—”
“Come now, my dear husband, you won’t deny me a few minutes with Curt?” Her hazel eyes were sparkling with spite. “April will keep you amused, won’t she?”
With a jaunty toss of her head she smiled up at Curt. “Shall we find a quiet corner? It’s much too crowded.”
Curt guided her toward the open doors and out into the hallway. Lacey held on to his arm, refusing to think about what April said. But she really didn’t want to be alone with Curt. When she said as much, he stopped.
“Lacey, I do have to talk to you. I just got back from Austin. You did ask—”
“Not now. I don’t want to hear or know any more about Rafe. That damn report was enough.”
“No, it couldn’t have been. You married him, didn’t you?”
Rebecca and Maggie chose that moment to walk by them. Lacey forced a reassuring smile for both women, but Curt spoke to them.
“I was just telling Lacey how pleased Sy would have been with all you have done for her.”
“It’s no more than she and Rafe deserve,” Maggie answered, noting Lacey’s bright eyes and flushed cheeks. Rebecca urged her on, and Maggie reluctantly left them.
“Curt,” Lacey began as soon as they were out of earshot, “you knew weeks ago that Rafe and I would marry. I made no secret about it. Fletcher said you were with Spanish Mike the day he told him about it.”
“But Fletcher didn’t tell you that I gave him a message for you to wait until I came back?” He grabbed her arms and pushed her back against the wall. “I told him I had to go to Austin. Unfortunately, my trip had to be delayed. Did he tell you?”
“No. No, he never said anything. But I still don’t—”
“The letter, Lacey. Remember the letter the judge withheld from you? I went crazy when I got to the ranch this morning and found out you were getting married today.” Pulling the envelope from his inner jacket pocket, he handed it to her. “Please, when you read this, keep in mind that I tried to warn you.”
First April and now Curt making aspersions about Rafe. Lacey knew she had forgotten about the letter. She had forgotten or pushed aside everything but those few glorious weeks when Rafe filled her every thought. She didn’t want to cope with this now, but Curt pressed her fingers around the letter.
“Go on,” he urged. “I’ll make sure you’re left undisturbed.” Her hesitation made him add, “If you don’t read it, you’ll never know why Rafe pushed so hard for this marriage.”
Lacey once again found herself defending Rafe. “If this is a ploy on your part to hurt either of us—”
“Is this what that bastard has done? Has he managed to destroy your trust in me?”
Her eyes flared darkly, pinning him with a condemning stare. “Rafe never spoke against you.”
“I’m not talking about words. That man gave you the Reina. It’s what you’ve always wanted. No one knows that better than I. I just can’t believe you would easily forget that I love you.”
“I never forgot, Curt. I can’t give you the love you want.” Tears sparkled wetly in her eyes before she turned away. Clutching the letter, she walked to Rebecca’s sitting room, thankful that Curt did not follow. She wanted to read the letter from Sy, and yet something warned her to throw it away. For a wild moment Lacey wished that Rafe were there, holding her, kissing her senseless. Staring at the envelope, Lacey knew she was afraid of what it might reveal. The thought that Sy may have explained the circumstances of her birth and the reason why he called her his daughter gave her the courage to rip the envelope open.
Sy’s bold scrawl covered the single page she unfolded. It was dated almost a year before he died.
Lacey,
If you’re reading this, I’m gone and can’t be asking for forgiveness. I wronged you not telling you the truth all these years. You got to make your own choice about what you feel for me. I raised you hard.
I know it. I’m still asking you to be kind to my boy when the judge finds him. You ain’t never had a hungry belly, and I ain’t never taken a strap to your back. I know you’re wondering what I done with the money I got from mortgaging the Reina. It’s only fair that I be the one to tell you.
It’s all for Rafe. Not all at once, mind you, I ain’t that much of a fool. The boy gets fifteen thousand in gold when he sets foot on the Reina. It ain’t much for the years I didn’t have him, but if he don’t want part of the land, the money gives him a start somewheres else. If he stays and works out his first year and marries you, Lacey, to keep the Reina whole, the judge will give him another ten thousand.
If things don’t work out like I want, the boy gets this extra money at the end of his first year. Good beef prices will pay most of the notes. If not, I hope he’ll do the right thing by you and the Reina.
Keep the land I loved safe. Your mother was a weak woman. I couldn’t raise you to be the same. She never learned to love the land and you did. I ain’t got the right, but I’m asking just the same. Give my boy a chance.
Seymour Garrett
It was long minutes before Lacey once again heard the music and noise from the front parlor. The letter lay where it had fallen from her nerveless fingers as she was forced to sit down. Her legs were shaking badly, she attempted to draw them together to still the involuntary moves, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t seem to make herself believe what she had read. But Rafe’s voice came from her memory, asking about the letter. And then, once they had become lovers, he never mentioned it again.
Now she knew why. Blessedly, her mind stopped all thoughts of Rafe. She felt numb, unable to move or feel or think.
But as the minutes went by and Lacey did not return, Rafe grew anxious. Someone had come in with a fiddle, and another man added his harmonica to the lively tune played on the spinet. The doors were open, people milled about, but he couldn’t find Lacey. Rafe began to push his way through the crowd, coming out into the hallway. His gut was screaming a warning for him to hurry and find her. He shoved several people aside and began opening the doors, growing desperate when the rooms proved empty.
Fletcher was right behind him, as was Bo and Evan. Rafe opened the door to Rebecca’s sitting room, saw Lacey, and shouted for everyone to leave them alone. His look toward them was blackly forbidding as he slammed the door closed. He hesitated before facing her, but when he did, her blank stare had him frantic to find the reason. He spied the paper lying beneath the folds of her gown and had to force himself forward to pick it up. Rafe’s curse was swift and sure for Curt’s duplicity.
“Lacey?” he whispered as she focused on him. Her eyes glowed with unusual brilliance, her teeth gnawed her bottom lip, and when he reached for her hands, Rafe found them cold. She offered no resistance as he pulled her up into his arms. He found himself searching for a way to evict a response from her, settlin
g on invoking her pride. “You have April believing that you ran from your own wedding because of her. Deserting your husband has caused speculation, Lacey. You did promise to be a proper wife in public.”
She weakly pushed against his chest, and Rafe tightened his hold. He was suddenly afraid to let her go. He sensed what a fragile hold she had on herself, and the memory rushed forth of the first day he had held her. Shocked as she had been, Lacey had not appeared this remote and cold. He could feel the chill of her body. “Answer me, Lacey. I can’t do anything unless you talk to me.” Pressing light, almost desperate kisses against her hair, he murmured incoherently.
Lacey felt the coldness slowly leave her body in Rafe’s embrace. She barely managed to tilt her head up to look at him. Searching his features, staring deeply into his eyes, finding them concerned, she tried to deny what April had told her and what she had read for herself. From somewhere she found the courage to speak.
“Did you know what was in the letter, Rafe?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, bitter with the thought of Curt holding on to the letter, waiting until now to show it to her. He had forgotten it, forgotten everything when he had finally claimed her for his own. And afterward, he had believed it wouldn’t matter, that she loved him without any questions. First April, now Curt. But why were they enemies bent on destroying what he and Lacey had?
The dark, scowling look he wore, the lips compressed with anger told Lacey she no longer had to hear an answer. Yet a devil nagged her to know the truth even as she wished she could forget. Her lips seemed to form the questions of their own volition. “You knew what Sy wrote to me all this time, didn’t you? You knew before the judge ever brought you to the Reina. But why did you lie? Why did you let me believe it was me you wanted?” A dark flush of anger colored his cheeks. She struggled for breath and freedom, both terrified and furious that he wouldn’t let her go.
“Don’t touch me, Rafe. You’re an arrogant sidewinder!”
Attuned to his moods, Lacey knew his control slipped.
“Lower your voice, Lacey. Or are you hoping that someone will come in and make you a widow? Someone like Curt? Let me explain why I never told you. Don’t deny me this.”
“Deny you?” In disbelief she stared up at him. “I withheld nothing from you. I made it all easy, didn’t I? You conniving bas—”
“Stop it!” He released her, fighting the urge to shake her until she would listen to him. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like? What excuse lessens the hurt? You took everything from me!” She took a hurried step back seeing the sudden blaze of fury in his eyes as his hand snaked out to grab hold of her. “Go on, Rafe,” she taunted contemptuously. “Use force. You’ve already proved that brute strength can silence me.” There was no rationalizing why she gloated to see him stop. Her pain needed release, and she lashed out at him.
“How does it feel to know he mortgaged the ranch to make you twenty-five thousand dollars richer? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? You used those damn notes as a wedge to force me to marry you! Were you afraid that once I knew the terms, I’d kill you before I let you near me? Did you,” she grated after a deep shuddering breath, “think I’d come to you willingly, husband mine, knowing that you were paid to marry me? Did you?” she screamed.
She could see the barbs were striking deep by the thunderous rage in his glittering eyes that narrowed to slits. His jaw was clenched tight as if he had to stop himself from uttering a sound. Lacey saw the muscle twitch in his cheek, but she wasn’t afraid of him. Not now when she had him at her mercy.
“Nothing to say? Moments ago you were begging me to listen to you. You’re so quick with caustic remarks, Rafe.” Lacey lifted her chin, her eyes challenging. “You should have told me the truth. I was honest. I told you I only agreed to this marriage to get the Reina.”
“Did you?” His voice was softly brutal, and his look denied her solace from her statement.
“You make it easy to hate you, but I’m sure you already know that.” Her voice cracked under the rigid constraint she demanded of herself. “You asked me this morning if selling myself for the Reina was worth it. You made me feel like a whore. Tell me, Rafe, since you get the money now, does that make you one, too?”
“Lacey,” he warned, tossing the crumpled letter to the floor and almost lunging at her. His hands clenched at his sides, and he turned, grabbing hold of a small side chair.
Lacey stared in horrified silence as his knuckles whitened with his fierce hold. Her gaze flew upward, drawn by the force of the fury that gripped him. Once again she stepped back and away, afraid of what he would do. She stifled her cry with one hand, the other clutched her gown as Rafe lost control.
It was the chair that shattered under the force of his throw, and he cursed her with a despising tone.
“Basta ramera! Por Dios el bruja mi destruir.”
More than the chair had shattered. Lacey’s frozen state dissolved. Her laughter was brittle before she thanked him for teaching her his dialect. “Whore, yes. But I only wish I was a witch that could destroy you. And you, dearest, are the devil’s own bastard.” She flinched as his rage once more exploded, a rage that reached out across the room to her before he started toward her and then abruptly stopped.
“Then we make a fine pair, lovely wife. The desirable bitch and her bastard. I won’t waste time arguing or explaining. You won’t believe me. But I got what I wanted from the first.” The set closed expression on her face made his voice hard and flat.
“You’re my wife. I don’t care why you think I married you. I tried to tell you about the money the night I came back from Austin. But you drove everything from my mind but having you. It’s done. We’re married. You can’t forget it.”
“Perhaps not. But I can despise you for destroying any love I had for you. And I can hate you for laughing with April over what you did to me.” Determined to prove that she wasn’t afraid of him, Lacey stepped closer. “April warned me before Curt ever gave me the letter.”
“And you believed her? But of course. You believe everything and anything April or anyone else tells you before me.” Rafe couldn’t help the incredulous tone of his voice. He was sure the shock of what she told him was written all over his face. He wanted to put his hands on her and silence her the only way he knew how, but even as he desperately tried to think of how April knew about the money, Lacey refused to give him time.
“Once I warned you that if you forced me into doing something desperate again, I would kill you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I didn’t mean it.”
“Don’t you know by now that your threats mean nothing? You want to believe I betrayed you.” The words came from behind gritted teeth as he tried once more for a semblance of control and found himself losing the battle.
“That’s not true. I can’t do anything else,” she whispered brokenly.
“Be still! The money wasn’t important. Not after I saw you.” Dragging his gaze away from her, Rafe pushed his hair back with an impatient move. He was damned if he would beg her to listen to him. He had already made himself a fool over Lacey. And yet, glancing at her again, he couldn’t make himself leave.
Lacey heard his impassioned voice replay in her mind. She didn’t want to listen, but it nagged her. If the money wasn’t important, why had April taunted her about it? And she found herself asking him as much. “If you didn’t tell April, then who did, Rafe?”
“Damned if I know.” His lowered lashes hid the lie in his eyes. He was sure that Curt was behind it. But why? He couldn’t think clearly with her near him. “It doesn’t matter. None of this does.”
“How can you say that?” She turned her back on him, and he was behind her in an instant, forcing her around.
“Did you think about why Sy made that offer to me?” He held her arms at h
er sides, shaking her. Lacey tossed her head from side to side as the only way she could answer him. Her throat was closing and her cry was a whimper. Rafe stopped shaking her but he didn’t release her.
“He did it to make up for the years he denied me. Besides, you know I would’ve gotten the money anyway after I took title to the ranch. It didn’t matter that I married you.”
Her face whitened, but Rafe was beyond caring how he hurt her. “Do you know me so little that you believed any man, dead or alive, could force me or bribe me into doing something I didn’t want for myself? Why did you let what happened with Curt destroy all that’s soft inside you?”
“No more!”
“Why the hell do I have to be the one to pay for it?” He released her, and she brushed past him, but barely reached the door when the controlled violence in his voice stopped her. “Don’t leave, Lacey.”
She swung around to face him and knew she should have been warned. He hadn’t made a sound, but he was right in front of her. His broad chest filled her sight, the wide, crisp white ruffles of his shirtfront brushed her cheek when she refused to look up. Lacey knew she couldn’t last another moment in the same room with him. Not when she felt the heat of his rage. Yet she strained to hear him whisper.
“Your pride bent before. I know I can bend it again. The marriage stands. If you’re foolish enough to believe that money drove me, Lacey, you’re wrong.” She looked up, and he smiled. “I wanted you the moment I saw you standing like a princess, facing them down. I still want you. After last night we both know there’s nothing to stop me from having you, is there?”
Chapter 19
A strange new expression crept into his eyes, leaving Lacey bewildered and distracted. He made no move to touch her, but she felt herself drawn against him even as her mind screamed in denial. Every nerve ending warned her to rum, but she refused to listen. His hand shot out, his fingers tangling in her hair, holding her still. She had to close her eyes against the blaze that sprung to life in his. He pulled the lace veil from her head, and Lacey shivered as it barely touched her shoulder.
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