by Susan Fox
Kane lifted his hand and held the ring between them. One side of his handsome mouth kicked up in a half grin. “If it’s the ring you don’t like, you can pick out something else. I can have the jeweler bring a selection to Langtry before supper.”
Rio released a short, surprised breath and shook her head. “It’s beautiful, Kane,” she whispered.
“Then will you marry me, or do you need to think about it?”
She felt herself melt as she stared into the intensity in his eyes. She recognized the look, the unyielding resolve of a strong, powerful man who decides what he wants and goes after it. It reassured her to see that in Kane and to know that she was the focus of that resolve.
Her quiet, “I’ll marry you,” was barely audible.
Kane’s intense expression relaxed and he reached for her hand. Rio felt a bit dazed as she watched him gently slide the ring on her finger. He lifted her hand and placed a tender kiss on the back of it.
He looked into her eyes then, his gaze hot and sensual. He kissed her hand again, then turned it over and kissed her palm, all the while watching her face to gauge her reaction. Rio leaned toward him and he met her lips with a kiss so tender and profound that it flooded her heart with joy.
* * *
The world had shifted on its axis. It was the same sun, the same moon and stars, the same year and month, the same house and ranch, the same people involved who had always been involved—and yet everything had changed. Kane had changed and Rio realized she was changing because he had. The world was new suddenly, and she felt like a child at Christmas.
Kane Langtry loved her at last and though he was not publicly demonstrative, everyone saw instantly the change in their relationship.
Ramona noticed right away and her reaction to the news of their engagement surprised Rio almost as much as Kane’s proposal had. The older woman gave every impression of being delighted with the match, even going so far as to volunteer to help with the wedding or to recommend a wedding planner.
Tracy seemed as aloof as ever, though she coolly offered her best wishes and seconded her mother’s offer of assistance. Ardis and Estelle reacted reservedly to the news, as they always did, but it pleased Rio when they started making plans for a thorough deep cleaning of the house for the wedding reception and began to pester Kane about making a few decorating changes.
The days following the riding accident passed swiftly for Rio. Though she was still quite sore from the stitches and bruises, she wasn’t one to lie around and wait for herself to heal. She couldn’t ride yet or do outside ranch work, but paperwork suited her. She did her best to work the soreness from her abused body by walking and doing simple exercises. The removal of the stitches made increased activity a bit easier, and by the end of the second week, she was riding for short periods of time.
Kane was wonderful to her. He took her along on two day-long business trips, one to Austin, the other to Dallas. Both days, he finished business by noon, then took her to lunch and shopping. While Kane had been in his morning meetings, she’d checked on wedding consultants in both cities, selected one, then immediately panicked at the number of things that needed to be done.
“Hell, I’ve heard for years about the pomp and bother of big-ticket weddings,” Kane told her as they flew home from Dallas. “But I figure to be married only one time, and since I aim for you to marry only one time, I’d like our big-ticket wedding to be something along the lines of spectacular.”
That said, he smiled over at her doubtful expression, then reached over and caught her hand. “Come on, baby. I’m proud to marry you and I want everyone in Texas to know it. That wedding consultant you hired can take care of the headaches. All you’ll have to do is put on the dress, walk down the aisle, then promise to love and obey.”
That startled a laugh from Rio. “I thought it was the groom who promised that,” she told him.
Kane shook his head adamantly. “No you don’t— the traditional vows suit me just fine,” he declared, then looked over at her, a gleam of laughter in his eyes. He tugged on her hand and brought it to his lips to kiss the back of her fingers before he returned his full attention to flying.
Rio settled deeper in her seat, marveling at the easy companionship between them, grateful beyond words that they were no longer at odds with each other. She still missed Sam terribly, but her new closeness to Kane eased the hurt.
Sam had told her in the letter that he’d somehow know when they settled their differences. She wasn’t certain he’d had in mind a marriage between them when he’d written the letter, but plans to marry certainly signified a level of harmony and cooperation they’d never had while he’d been alive. The reminder gave her a pang. How much better it would have been for them to come to this point while Sam had been around to enjoy it. On the other hand, it had happened at last. Rio hoped Sam really did know about it somehow.
As had become their habit, Kane slipped into her room later that night just before their early bedtime. He was there waiting when she emerged from her shower and the bathroom.
He was lying on her bed with his shoulders braced against the headboard, his hands resting on his lean middle and his legs crossed at the ankles. His blue gaze was smoky with desire as he watched her walk out of the bathroom and cross to the side of the bed. His lips twisted faintly. “That bathrobe ought to wear out one of these days, baby. If it doesn’t in time for the wedding, I promise to burn it.”
Rio couldn’t help the shy, pleased smile on her face. Kane had a difficult time reining in his libido, but he did. He understood her reluctance to preview their wedding night. But although he complied with her wishes, he either made up outrageous stories about how debilitating abstinence was for Texas males, or he came up with new destruction scenarios for her robe.
Rio gave him a look of mock reproof, then pointed at his feet. “Boots off the bed, cowboy.”
A slow smile spread across his handsome mouth. “Make me, darlin’.” The sultry look he gave her was an enticement to come closer.
When she hesitated, his hand shot out and caught the hem of the terry-cloth robe. She reached down to catch his hand as he pulled on the robe to draw her closer. Suddenly he seized her wrist. Just that quickly he pulled her down on top of him then rolled over, neatly pinning her beneath him.
She answered his gruff, “Am I hurting you?” with a slight shake of her head.
His mouth opened voraciously over hers, urging hers to open and respond before he deepened the kiss and his tongue did a strong imitation of what they both ached for. Rio was breathless before he eased his lips from hers and slid down her body to nibble at her neck. The expertise of his hand beneath her robe made her tremble.
“Oh, please, Kane—it’s wonderful,” she panted. Then, frustrated with herself, rasped a pained, “S-stop.”
Kane complied, but slowly. She could feel the tension and hardness of his body and realized dazedly that this time, they’d almost instantly reached the point of no return. It didn’t take much anymore for a kiss or a touch to send them soaring, and she began to have real worries about being able to wait until their wedding night. She had just as many worries about whether she might perish from frustrated desire before they could get to the altar.
Kane growled against her neck and slid his hand from beneath her robe. “Damn, baby, one of us needs to move that wedding date, or we won’t have a snowball’s chance of making it.”
“T-the soonest is four weeks from Saturday,” she stammered, absolutely horrified that four weeks wasn’t much time to pull off the huge wedding Kane seemed to want.
Kane’s groan was so eloquent that it made her giggle. He lifted his head and looked down at her. “That sounds nice. And that smile. Just wraps around my heart, darlin’, and makes me feel fine.” He lowered his head and feathered a few gentle kisses over her lips. “I love you.”
Rio felt her heart burst. Kane told her regularly now that he loved her, and each time he said it was more thrilling than the last. Her so
ft, “I love you,” was almost painful because the words were so inadequate to express what she felt for him. She reached up with both hands and slid her fingers into his thick, dark hair. She lifted her head from the pillow and pressed her lips against his, starved for the taste of him.
Kane kissed her back and Rio melted beneath him until, reluctantly, he pulled away. “This would probably be a good time to give you what I found. Otherwise…”
He rubbed his jaw on her cheek, then eased off her and rolled to his back. He rested his forearm over his eyes and gave a deep sigh. They both lay quietly, and though they were no longer touching, Rio could feel her body straining toward the male heat of his.
Kane reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze before he sat up and got off the bed. Rio rolled to her side and tried to hold her robe together as she followed. She stood by the bed as Kane walked to her dresser. When she glanced past him and saw the huge book, she sprinted after him.
“Is this the book Sam left for me?” The question was an outburst of surprise and delight because it was plain that it was. Though the title Plant and Animal Species of the World was the one Sam had indicated, it was also obvious that the book was so crammed with pressed flowers that its cover would never lie flat.
“Sorry it took so long. I didn’t find a key until this evening. I was about to pry the lock on the drawer I thought it might be in, when I remembered a collection of old cabinet keys Estelle keeps in a pantry drawer. One of them worked in the lock.”
Rio touched the book then slipped her fingers under the edge of the front cover and carefully opened it. The first thing she saw was a photograph of her mother and five other women at a Langtry barbecue. The other women were each holding up a dessert they’d made. Her mother was holding up a tall chocolate layer cake.
It startled Rio to see the picture. She’d never realized how much she looked like her mother. She’d seen other pictures, so she’d known there was a strong resemblance, but it was even more evident in this photo.
“You and your mama could be taken for twins. She was a beautiful, tenderhearted woman,” Kane said quietly as he looked on. “He was in love with her, you know.”
Rio looked over at Kane. “I didn’t know, exactly. He spoke fondly of her.” She paused and glanced down to turn a page. “But until I realized he and my mother were going to be buried next to each other…” She shook her head. “I can’t think of a single time that I ever saw them touch or talk about anything other than the weather or her garden or her health, and yet, now I feel the strangest…” She paused and turned another page.
She carefully leafed through the first few pages. The flowers were dry and frail. She suddenly had a mental picture of Sam’s big, calloused hands tenderly laying each stem and bloom between the pages. For all his tough, rugged looks, and hard-edged masculinity, Sam Langtry had had a core of gentleness and compassion that you didn’t suspect when you looked at him.
Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them back to turn another page. A small square of blue plaid cotton had been smoothed between these pages. From the look of it, probably taken off the wire barb that had torn it from a dress. Rio touched the fabric. Shapes cut from the same fabric had been pieced into the quilt top in her mother’s sewing box.
Kane’s voice was low, almost hushed. “How sentimental does a man have to be about a woman to press flowers she’s grown in a book and keep them all these years?”
It wasn’t really a question he expected an answer to and Rio didn’t answer it. “Sam never said anything to me,” she said quietly.
“He didn’t say anything to me, either. I knew he thought she was a fine woman and too good for Ned, but I never would have known he was in love with her if I hadn’t overheard them talking.”
Rio turned her head to look at him. “When was this? What did they say?” She was suddenly hungry to know. She couldn’t imagine a more perfect childhood than if Sam and her mother had married. Because her father had been so abusive, the reminder that her mother would have had to divorce him to marry Sam didn’t bother her.
“You must have been about seven, because I was seventeen. I knew your mother was going to take you down to one of the hay barns to see a new litter of kittens. My father must have joined her there, because I was walking up from the creek and heard them.”
Rio carefully closed the book and gave Kane her complete attention. “What did they say?”
Kane glanced away a moment as he remembered. “Lenore’s voice was shaky, which got my attention, since she was always so cheerful, even when she didn’t have much to be cheerful about. She was saying, ‘We’re both people who honor the Good Book too much to let our emotions lead us, Sam. I know Ned’s not much as a husband or provider, but I made vows with him before God.’” Kane’s gaze came back to hers. “That’s when I heard my father say that he’d never put her in a position to choose. He told her he’d love her till his dying day, but unless she became free, he’d keep his feelings to himself.”
Rio’s lips parted in shock at the enormity of what Kane was telling her. She left the book on the dresser, then walked, stunned, toward the bed and sat down on the edge as she tried to recover.
“Then they were in love with each other,” she whispered as she looked over at Kane.
“For all the good it did either of them,” he said darkly. “I think it about killed him when she got sick and died. He got the very best doctors for her, but there was no hope.” Kane went silent for a long time. Rio glanced away and didn’t speak, either.
She was suddenly awash with memories of her father’s drunkenness and his terrible temper. She still had dim memories of him backhanding her mother or shoving her around. Most times, it seemed he barely noticed there was even a child in the house, much less that the child was his. “Why didn’t she do something? Why didn’t she divorce my father?”
“Too much honor, I reckon,” he said solemnly. “She’d made a vow she felt bound to keep. My father apparently couldn’t bring himself to steal another man’s wife, no matter how bad a husband she had.”
Kane’s lips quirked humorlessly. “Old-fashioned morality at its most noble and most painful. You don’t often hear about honor like that these days. I admire their restraint.”
“And that’s why they’re buried so close now,” she guessed.
Kane nodded. “Reckon so.”
Rio’s eyes stung as she looked over at the book. “Thanks for finding it for me. If you’d like, you can look through it yourself.” She was so overcome with emotion that she had to push the words out.
“I think I’d like to save it for another day, when it’s not so late in the evening and Dad’s passing isn’t quite so fresh.” He paused, then walked over to the bed and crouched down before her to take her hand. “And I’d rather you took it in small doses yourself. I don’t think he left it for you to make you sad.”
Rio reached up and put her hand on Kane’s hard jaw, touched by his concern. “I know,” she whispered. “I probably can’t get through all of it in one sitting anyway. It looks like there’re other things besides flowers in it. On top of which,” she said, then took a bracing breath, “I’m still a little in shock about finding out that they were in love with each other.”
“Are you gonna be all right?” he asked gently, and she nodded. He smiled at her. “All right then, baby, give me a kiss to last till morning.”
Rio smiled then and leaned forward to touch his lips with hers.
CHAPTER TEN
TWO days later, Kane went to Dallas on business. Since he planned to be there for the next few days, Rio stayed behind to meet with the wedding planner and draw up a guest list.
Their foreman took over for them both while Rio met with the planner and her assistant. To her relief, one of the few tasks left for her to do in preparation for the wedding was to select her gown and those of her bridesmaids. Her two closest friends, whom she’d met at college, had been thrilled to hear she was marrying Kane and that she wanted th
em to be her bridesmaids.
She made a quick trip to Austin to shop for the dresses, then decided not to choose until she’d seen what else was available in Dallas.
It was while she was packing an overnight bag for a trip to Dallas to shop for a dress and to drop in briefly at Kane’s office there, that she glanced over at the book Sam had left for her. Kane had been right about going through the book slowly. She’d already found a couple of notes to Sam from her mother. One was in a sympathy card Lenore had sent when Sam’s cousin had died, the second was about the doctor’s prognosis of her illness. Both had made her more emotional, and she’d found that giving herself a chance to absorb each new thing was preferable to one long, intense session.
Because she was planning to be gone until late the next day, she finished packing and carefully leafed through the next few pages of pressed flowers, until she came to a page with a single sheet of paper wedged in the seam.
She knew at first glance that it was a birth certificate. The raised stamp of the notary public authenticated the document. She saw her given name, Rhea René Cory, her birth date and the Texas city and county she’d been born in, before her eyes skimmed over the names of her parents.
The name Samuel Kendall Langtry jumped out at her. At first, her mind refused the words. A hot, painful pressure began in her chest and shot upward to the top of her head. Her hands started to shake. Samuel Kendall Langtry.
No matter how many times she forced her eyes to read the name, it didn’t change. Instead of Ned Cory’s name in the space where her father’s name should be, Sam Langtry’s name was neatly typed.
Panicked, she snatched up the document and examined it closely, as if by doing so Sam’s name would suddenly become Ned Cory’s instead. The name didn’t change and the horror she felt made her nauseous.
It took several minutes for her brain to start working again. She remembered the boxes of her mother’s things still sitting in her closet. All Lenore’s legal papers were there, and Rio felt a glimmer of hope. Of course—her real birth certificate had to be in the small metal box. She’d needed it when she’d got her driver’s license and again for college, hadn’t she?