by Susan Fox
Sam almost reached the lovely headstone at Lenore’s grave before the very last of his strength began to wane. He didn’t make it to the shade before he collapsed.
“God, Rio, don’t tell me you’ve come in to hang around the house.” Ramona made a face as Rio rushed past her from the back door. Rio was in such a hurry to find Kane that Ramona barely made an impression. She raced down the back hall and charged into Kane’s office.
Her breathless, “Where’s Sam?” was choked. Kane glanced up, took in her pale face, then returned his attention to the stack of papers before him.
“He’s been in bed since after breakfast,” he told her. “Doc Kady’s coming out for lunch so he can check on him.”
Rio shook her head. “I just saw him take Spinner out.”
Kane grunted. “He’s not well enough to ride, Rio, you know that.”
“Then explain how he did it,” she blurted.
Ramona stood in the open doorway. “Kane, why do you allow her to speak to you in that tone?”
Kane didn’t answer either of them, but fired a question at Ramona. “Is Sam still upstairs?”
Ramona seemed surprised, but shook her head. “No, he said he was going down to the stable. His color wasn’t the best, so I thought it would do him good to get some sun.”
Rio felt a surge of rage she could barely contain. It was just like Ramona to think in such a superficial way about the seriousness of Sam’s illness. Kane was on his feet in an instant, coming quickly around the desk before he suddenly stopped and turned back for the cell phone beside the lamp.
An instant later they were both running through the house to the back door. Kane slowed long enough to order Estelle, “Check the house for Sam. If you find him, call me right away on the cell phone. If you don’t, call Doc Kady, tell him we think Dad’s gone riding, and have him come out early.”
They both were out the door and halfway across the patio before Estelle could reply.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE heat reminded Sam of that first day. He’d been riding the bad manners out of a green-broke colt and had ended up checking the fence along the south highway. He’d seen the old brown pickup, seen the back end sagging under the weight of mismatched furniture and cowboy tack. One of the front tires was flat.
Then he’d seen the woman. Tall and willowy, she wore her dark hair wound up in a loose knot. The blue flowered dress she’d had on belled and fluttered in the light breeze. She’d been balancing a sleeping baby on one slim hip and she’d lifted a hand to shade her eyes when she caught sight of his approach.
He’d drawn the colt to a halt at the fence. She’d smiled at him then, a sweet, shy, nervous little smile that had got him by the heart. He’d tipped his hat, then dismounted and tied the colt to the fence.
Neither he nor the woman said a word to each other until he’d crossed the shallow ditch. As he got closer, he saw that her lovely eyes were a breathtaking blue. Her face was delicate, her nose and high cheekbones already turning pink from the sun. The one-year-old she balanced on her hip was a rosy-cheeked cherub of a child, her small dark head on her mama’s shoulder, sound asleep.
Sam reckoned then that he’d never seen a more lovely sight. The beauty and her babe. And as he’d looked into her remarkable eyes, he’d seen the sweetness, the tender spirit of her, the loneliness and the lifetime of yearning he’d felt in his own heart…
The pain in his chest almost made him pass out. Sam forced himself to stay conscious, unwilling to let go of the memories until he came to the one he loved most…
Lenore, working in her garden behind the little house her family lived in on Langtry. She’d grown flowers around the neat plot of vegetables. Beautiful flowers. Some she’d dug from a pasture and reset, some she’d grown from dime store seed. More than a dozen different kinds, dozens of colors and hues.
She’d had on a faded housedress with no sleeves. She’d been barefoot, walking among the profusion of blooms without crushing a single stem. Carefully, tenderly, she’d been clipping off a bloom stalk here and there, adding to the rich bouquet she’d been gathering.
She’d looked up to see him, smiled that tender Madonna smile, and started toward where he stood, hat in hand, at the edge of her garden. She’d shyly thanked him, for at least the tenth time, for allowing her to plant a garden. He’d gallantly told her that if he hadn’t needed to graze cattle he might have had the whole of Langtry plowed so she could grow flowers.
That’s when she told him she’d been picking the bouquet for him. “For some brightness in your day, Sam,” she’d said in her quiet, shy way. “The sweet smells and colors always give my heart a lift. I surely hope you might enjoy them, too.”
Oh, God, he had! He could still feel the feather-light brush of her slim fingers as he’d taken the flowers. The lump in his throat had about strangled him, but he’d managed to thank her, even as his heart clenched with love and need and despair.
Because he could never have her. He’d struggled with the agony of the moral dilemma, struggled to contain his feelings, struggled not to beat hell out of her husband for not appreciating how lucky he was.
And he’d kept that bouquet He’d bought the biggest, heaviest book he could find in-Austin, and he’d pressed every blossom in its pages. No bloom had been too frail, no petal too small. He’d left the book for Rio…
“Sam?”
Lenore’s voice was barely audible above the pain.
“Sam?”
He could feel her cool palm on his cheek. Only because he thought it was Lenore did he open his eyes. The haze of pain eased enough for him to see that it was Rio, and his emotions rose again as he noted her distress.
“You’re her image,” he managed to tell her.
He felt the tremor in her hand as she stroked his forehead. Her tearful, “Please, Sam,” carried an edge of pain that he expected. God, he hated that after everything Rio had meant to him over the years, that he was going to end up hurting her.
He was glad to see Kane with her, relieved that their concern for him was bringing them together. They each had taken hold of his hands and he wondered if either of them knew how wonderful it was to touch them, to feel the vitality of their youth and the power of their love for him one last time.
The sun must have gone behind a cloud bank. Sam welcomed the dimmer light, welcomed the gust of coolness that swept him. The pain in his chest was still intense, but there was an odd numbness that made it more bearable.
It took so much for him to get the words out. “Love you both. Take care of each other,” he whispered. “The letters…say for me…”
The last pain didn’t hurt so much as it paralyzed. Sam was looking up into the two faces he loved most when his eyelids grew too heavy. His last breath eased away and took the pain with it.
Rio stared in disbelief as she watched Sam’s eyes close and felt his weak grip go slack. Grief settled so heavily in her chest that she thought at first the pressure would crush her.
Tears blurred her eyes, but not so much that she couldn’t lean over and place one last kiss on Sam’s cheek. She laid his hand reverently across his middle, painfully aware of Kane.
Somehow she made herself turn from Sam and get to her feet so she could take a few steps away. Shock made her feel dazed and sluggish. The reminder that Sam was the only person she could have safely shared this terrible grief with made her feel even more desolate.
She wrapped her arms around herself, and when the first spasm of sobs came, she couldn’t get control of them for a few moments. She jumped when she felt Kane’s big hand settle on her shoulder. The compulsion to turn to him and fling herself into his arms was so strong suddenly that she shook with the effort to control the impulse.
It was a relief when she heard him speak quietly into the cell phone. His attention wasn’t on her, and his distraction gave her more time to compose herself.
It was the warm weight of Kane’s hand, or rather, the deceptively consoling feel of it, that made R
io ease away and walk through the gate to where Spinner waited at the hitch rail. She and Kane had brought the Suburban. Once some of the men arrived, they would take Sam home in the back of the big vehicle.
Spinner gave her a gentle nudge. Rio stroked the old cowpony’s head, then fought a new flood of tears when the horse pushed his head against her as if he, too, were grieving for an old friend. Rio wrapped an arm around the horse’s neck and hugged him.
The sound of a ranch pickup was almost welcome. Rio turned and glanced over her shoulder toward it. Kane was standing between her and the oncoming truck. Her gaze connected with the bleakness in his, then veered away.
“Come on, Rio,” Kane said, his big voice sounding odd, choked. “Someone else can bring Spinner in.”
For a moment, Kane thought she’d refuse. She nodded and he watched as she drew herself up straighter, tighter. He could see she was still shaking. She looked as shell-shocked as he felt, and though she managed to control her tears, he could see the stark grief in the wild shine of her eyes.
Sam was laid gently on a pallet in the back of the Suburban, his black Stetson resting over his face. Kane and Rio rode on either side of his body. By the time they arrived at the headquarters, it was noon. The ambulance had already arrived.
Rio couldn’t watch as Doc Kady directed the transfer to the ambulance. She felt chilled, and the restlessness she felt made it almost impossible to stand still. It seemed every ranch hand on the place was there, hat in hand, looking on soberly.
When at last the ambulance pulled slowly away, Kane started for the house. Rio automatically followed, then hesitated. Now that Sam was gone, there wasn’t a person at the main house who wanted her around. The desolation she felt was compounded by the worry that Kane might expect her to leave the ranch as soon as possible.
The reminder that she’d not only lost Sam but her home and her place in the world filled her with dread. The anguish she felt overwhelmed her and she turned from the house, so restless and unsettled inside she thought she might fly apart.
Instinct drove her to hide, to vent her grief in private, until the worst of it was over and she found the courage to face what was ahead. She’d done that when her mother died, and later when her father was killed. There were several safe places on the ranch, beautiful solitary places that she might never see again once Sam was laid to rest and she was finally banished from Langtry. She could find them all one last time and say goodbye to them just as she somehow had to say goodbye to Sam.
Indecision made her waver only a moment more before she was rushing toward the stables and the sanctuary of the land.
“Do you know where the will is?”
Ramona’s question stunned him. Kane had just told her that her husband had passed away. Ardis and Estelle were already crying, and Tracy was teary-eyed, but Ramona’s first response was to ask if he knew where Sam’s will was.
He saw the flash of horror in her beautiful eyes when she realized her gaffe, and she scrambled to recover herself. “Won’t you need it right away to ensure a smooth transition of ownership? I mean, there must be a million legalities with the ranch and all those holdings and investments. I—I’m certain your father wouldn’t want you to be further upset at a time like this.”
“That’s right, Ramona, he wouldn’t,” Kane said bluntly, then abruptly turned to leave the room.
But Ramona stepped in front of him and pushed her way into his arms, doing an elegant job of dissolving into the teary show of grief that had been a bit long in coming. Kane automatically put his arms around her, but he tolerated her delicate sniffles only a few moments before he set her away from himself and left the room.
Rio didn’t come back to the headquarters until after dark the next evening. The desolation she felt had kept her riding over the Langtry range for hours at a stretch. She’d stopped periodically to water her horse and unsaddle it to graze, but shock and restlessness pushed her to keep moving, keep riding, in an attempt to make it ease.
At last, dazed by exhaustion and hunger, she rode back to the stable. She took care of grooming her horse, then turned him into a stall with fresh water and a generous measure of grain. On the walk to the house, she slowly became aware of the number of cars and pickups that virtually clogged the ranch drive and covered the lawn around the house.
Panicked by the sight that promised a houseful of guests, she changed course and circled the lawn, hoping to slip unnoticed into the kitchen from the patio. She couldn’t face so many people in her present state. Besides, Sam wouldn’t be there now. Without him to ensure her acceptance, Rio wasn’t certain she wanted to put anyone’s real feelings toward her to the test.
She made it into the kitchen, relieved that no one was there. Ardis and Estelle were probably waiting on guests, so she hurried to the back hall and the stairs.
She didn’t escape unseen, but was forced to give a small wave of acknowledgment to two ladies from church who were carrying empty trays back to the kitchen. The surprise on their faces made her flush self-consciously, but she rushed up the stairs then along the hall to the safety of her room.
Once there, she closed the door. She didn’t turn on the lights, but tossed her hat toward a chair and made her way across the room by memory. She entered her bathroom and sat down tiredly on the edge of the tub. The murmur of voices from downstairs was faint, but she could hear them. She leaned forward and braced her elbows on her knees. She combed her fingers into her hair and rested her forehead wearily on the heels of her hands.
The church ladies’ surprise was probably fright. After most of two days and a night on the range in the dust and wind and heat, she knew she was a sight She was just working up the energy to stand and get undressed for a hot bath when a loud pounding started on her bedroom door.
She jerked her head up, but before she could call out, the door swung inward. Kane’s tall, broad-shouldered body blocked the light from the hall momentarily before he stepped in and flipped the light switch. Once he looked across into her bathroom and saw her sitting on the edge of the tub, he shut the door with a snap.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
Rio thought she had her emotions under control— she’d cried until she was numb—but the. moment Kane snarled at her, the misery she’d worked so hard to distance herself from came flooding back.
“You look like hell,” he went on as he stalked toward her and stepped over the threshold into her bath. He mercilessly switched on the light and Rio winced from the brightness.
“I feel like hell, too, Kane. Leave me alone.”
Kane stared down in private horror. Rio was a mess. She was all-over dust, her unbound hair looked like a hip-length tangle of witch’s hair, but the desolation in her eyes was frightening. He thought about Ramona downstairs, her hair perfectly coifed, her makeup just so, and wearing an elegant black dress. She was carrying a black lace hankie around as a prop, but as far as he was concerned, her grief was playacting compared to Rio’s.
He lowered himself to a crouch before her and Rio instantly turned her head. She’d started shaking again, he noted, and he could tell from her tense profile that she was biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
“Think you could eat something hot if I brought it up to you?”
If Kane’s harsh tone upset the frail control she had over her emotions, his gentle drawl blew it to smithereens. The breath she’d been slowly exhaling suddenly jerked back in on a sob. She sprang to her feet and tried to step past him. Kane stood and blocked her way.
“Damn it, Kane—why are you—mean—then nice?” Rio got out around the series of sobs, then covered her face with both hands, mortified that she was crying in front of him.
“Because I worried about you,” he growled.
His answer was so unexpected that Rio lowered her hands to look at him, her tear-filled eyes wide. As if he’d been waiting for her complete attention, he went on brutally.
“But I don’t want to worry about you, do
you understand?” He leaned aggressively toward her and she drew back, dismayed that his wonderful confession had been dashed. He caught her wrists to halt her retreat. “I don’t want to worry about you. I don’t want to think about you—I don’t want to feel the things I feel when I look at you.”
Rio stared at the fierceness on his handsome face, cut to her soul by his angry words. She looked away from him and gave a small, stiff nod, her heart so heavy with the added grief Kane’s words caused her that she was amazed she didn’t die.
Her whispered, “All right, Kane, I get the message,” was barely audible.
Kane gave her a small shake that brought her dispirited gaze back to his. “No, you don’t, Rio. You don’t get it at all.”
He let go of her then, but slowly. The turmoil in his eyes riveted her. Either she was too exhausted to break contact, or she was mesmerized by his intensity. His hand came up briefly to her cheek, the tender caress part consolation, part apology.
It was Kane who ended those tense moments for them both. He turned abruptly from her and stormed toward the door, leaving her room just as suddenly and forcefully as he’d entered it.
Rio’s appearance at breakfast the next morning was a necessity. Kane had brought a tray of food to her. room last night while she was in the tub, but she’d only picked at it. She wasn’t certain she could eat much now, but because she’d gone most of the past two days without food, she knew she had to try. Kane was already at the table. He glanced up when she entered the dining room. Rio sat down, quietly thanked him for the tray he’d brought up, but neither of them said anything more to disrupt the pall of silence in the big room.