Fires of Paradise (11 page)

Every time Lucy turned around, it seemed like Shoz was there, lurking in the background. She took Leon for a morning ride, and there he was, fixing the fence in the south pasture. In the hottest part of the day, they sought the shade of the swing beneath the big oaks, and he was there, too, painting the porch railing. She and Leon could not even stroll in the moonlight without crossing his path.

Yet he ignored her. He did not spare them a glance, not ever. Lucy's feelings changed from confusion to disappointment to displeasure. Severe displeasure. What was she, invisible?

Perhaps it was fortunate that Shoz always seemed to appear when he was not wanted. One afternoon Lucy, Leon, and Joanna planned a picnic at Pete's Peak, but at the last moment Joanna pleaded a headache. Lucy and Leon went alone. Lucy spent the entire first hour fighting off Leon's kisses, finally succumbing to them out of sheer fatigue. In this case, his will was stronger than hers. But when his hand ran down her waist and then up and over her breast, she leapt to her feet, absolutely drawing the line then and there.

Leon apologized. "I'm sorry, Lucy, but we haven't had a minute alone all week. I'm going crazy for your kisses!"

His smile didn't work on her. "That wasn't a kiss," she said hotly, "that was groping." She chose that moment to remember having been the willing partner to a lot more than just groping not so long ago, and her color increased. Leon took it as a sign of her ire.

"I am sorry, truly. Now come back here." He patted the blanket where he sat.

"I had better not, Leon." Now that she was free, Lucy had no intention of getting caught in his embrace again.

Somehow, he no longer held the appeal he once had—and she knew why. Under her breath she cursed Shoz for ruining her interest in the best beau she had ever had. Because until Shoz had come along, she had found Leon utterly fascinating: charismatic and handsome and quite perfect.

She was really angry because even now there was no comparison between the two. Leon had everything and in abundance, Shoz had nothing. Leon was gorgeous—Shoz was rough. Yet envisioning them together, Leon's perfect looks seemed faded and almost delicate, while Shoz's dark features seemed dangerous and irresistibly virile.

"Lucy," Leon was saying, "do you think it was easy to get Joanna to agree to fake a headache and stay behind? What's wrong with you? Come here."

Once Lucy might have been flattered at the effort he had expended to get her alone, but she wasn't now. She was furious. "I think we had better go back, Leon."

Thereafter, Lucy made it a point not to be alone with Leon. Joanna was invited everywhere with them, and Lucy made sure she came. If Leon knew what she was contriving, he gave no outward sign. Lucy was certain he knew, but was gracefully bowing to propriety, for despite having schemed to picnic unchaperoned with her, he was a born gentleman and he did know better.

And then, finally, the day dawned. The day of her parents' and family's arrival, the day of Derek's eightieth birthday.

Lucy was tense with excitement—and anxiety. If the truth would ever be discovered, it would be now.

Lucy was up with the sun, but stayed in her room, because to do otherwise would most definitely arouse her grandfather's suspicions. She was trembling with excitement. At the moment, her fear of discovery was overwhelmed by the joy of the impending family reunion. At eight o'clock, as planned, the ranch foreman came up to the house and interrupted Derek's breakfast. The fence had come down in the north pasture and all the blooded mares and foals had gotten out. Derek left immediately. In actuality, the stock had been moved early that morning to a different location, and her grandfather and the cowboys would spend the next six or seven hours trying to track down the escaped animals. By noon everyone would have arrived and the party would be set up.

Lucy ran downstairs to await the arrival of her parents and brothers, her aunts and uncles, and especially her cousins. Already wagons were rolling in from town with the supplies and food and decorations for the party. The men were already digging the barbeque pits out back and setting up rows upon rows of picnic tables. Lucy was soon occupied in the kitchen with last-minute chores.

She was up to her elbows in lemons when a familiar voice cried her name from the doorway. "Miss Bragg!"

Lucy shrieked and whirled. "Lady Shelton!"

The two cousins ran into each other's arms. "I'm so glad to be here!" Nicole cried.

"I'm so glad you're here!" Lucy said. Nicole was her Uncle Nick's eldest daughter, a stunning, exotic beauty so much like her father—tall, dark-haired, gray-eyed, with a golden complexion and high, high cheekbones. She had just turned twenty-two that May.

"What are you doing?" Nicole laughed, eyeing her disheveled appearance. "Is this my cousin or some impos-ter?"

Lucy grinned. "I'm a disaster, I know."

Nicole was unfazed. Although her appearance was usually impeccable, it was a shocking contrast to her behavior— which rarely was. She was one of Lucy's favorite people in the entire world, and they had been partners in crime more often than not. "I've never seen you in your shirtsleeves before," Nicole laughed. "Change that awful outfit and put on something utterly wicked!"

Charting nonstop, the two girls ran from the kitchen. Lucy screeched to a halt in the foyer, which was crowded to overflowing with her entire family. Everyone was talking a mile a minute, hugging, laughing, crying. It was chaos.

Her father, Rathe, was embracing his older sister, Lucy's aunt, Storm. She was a tall, handsome, formidable woman, equally at ease in the backwoods as she was in her Nobb Hill mansion. Lucy had had a secret crush on her husband, Brett d'Archand, when she was a child. He was tall and dark and dangerous-looking, and so very elegant in his tailored black suit. He was pumping her Uncle Nick's hand. He was Lord Shelton, the Earl of Dragmore. He had one of his arms wrapped around his unbelievably gorgeous, petite blond wife, the famous actress, Jane Barclay, who was trying to wrest herself free to hug Lucy's mother, Grace. Years ago in New York, the two had become best friends, or so they said.

    Then there were her cousins. Brett's sons, Stephen and Lincoln, and their wives were surrounding and embracing Miranda, who was crying. Their six small children were racing around the room shouting like Indians with a gangling shepherd puppy, which seemed to be dragging one of them on a leash. Lucy's youngest brother, Colin, age eight, was racing with them, whooping the loudest of all. Her brothers Brian, Greg and Hugh were trying to catch the younger ones and restrain them. Mark was suspiciously absent. Lucy didn't have time to think about this, though, because Nicole's brothers, Chad and Ed, and her younger sister, Re-gina, rushed forward to envelop her in big bear hugs.

Over Regina's shoulder, Lucy caught her father's glacial eye.
He knows,
she thought, panic knifing through her. He knows about Shoz!

She went white, meeting his stern, disapproving gaze— and then realized that he could not possibly know about Shoz! Her knees almost buckled. Regina gave way to Stephen. She hugged him, filled with relief. Daddy was only angry because he'd found out she'd gone to Texas without Mrs. Seymour!

Things began to quiet down. Not much, but a bit. Lucy said hello to everyone, avoiding her parents. Her mother had also given her a sharp "we're going to talk" look. "Where is your brother, Mark?" Nicole asked.

Lucy was about to reply that she didn't know when he appeared from outside, stepping into the crowded foyer. Something was in his arms, something furry, something yowling. He released it. The oversize puppy barked and lunged. The cat screeched and ran. Chaos reigned again.

***

All the guests could not possibly fit into the house to hide in order to really surprise Derek. At noon everyone was milling outside, chatting and renewing acquaintances, or making new ones. Over a thousand people from coast to coast had turned out for Derek's eightieth birthday, and they took up most of the grounds behind the ranch house.

Ten huge barbecue pits were already fired and smoking. The band was tuning up. Giant caldrons were already simmering with chili, and bartenders were serving everything from martinis to cream sodas. Cowboys in denims and hats mixed with ladies in silks and parasols, their husbands in white or navy sack jackets and linen trousers; children played hide-and-seek noisily, grandfathers sat smoking pipes and watching, their wives eating and gossiping. Shortly after one, Derek Bragg rode in.

On a platform boasting the flags of both the United States of America and the state of Texas, Nick, Storm, and Rathe stood, grinning happily. Nick raised his hand, and the crowd shouted, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEREK!"

Derek rode up to the platform, eyes wide, as if stunned beyond belief. Watching by the side, Lucy bit her lip. "What the hell is going on?" Derek roared.

"SURPRISE!" A thousand people roared back.

Derek's hand went to his heart and Lucy gasped. Then she realized her grandfather was hamming it up. He slid from his mount and was practically dragged by his sons onto the platform. Derek was grinning, but protested. "I don't know what the hell is going on here," he said into the megaphone. Everyone laughed and Nick appropriated the speaker.

"Father," he said, "I'm happy to enlighten you." He grinned. "You gave me the perfect opening. All of these people have traveled a helluva distance to honor you on this occasion, the day of your eightieth birthday. They've come not just out of friendship, but out of respect. No one man symbolizes more what this country and this state stand for.

"You were born in the mountains in a shack in obscurity. Yet today you have become one of the most powerful men in this state and in America. And everything we see here—" Nick gestured "—was created with your own two hands, with your own sweat—with your own blood and guts. You are a testimony to the success of the American pioneer through courage, integrity, and perseverance against the worst odds. Against the odds of foreign powers, like Mexico, whom you fought against to liberate this land, just as you fought against the Comanches, to civilize it, and most of all, against the brutal and unyielding land itself. Your success is not just your own. It is the success of this state and this country. The greatness of Texas and America would not have come about without the ambition and courage and dedication of men like yourself."

Lucy hollered and cheered with everyone else, tears streaking her cheeks. Next to her mother and Aunt Jane, Storm held her grandmother, who was both smiling and crying at the same time, her rapt gaze on her husband. Lucy thought that Derek's face looked a bit red when he took the megaphone from Nick.

"Thanks, son." He coughed. "I think enough's been said for the moment. I only want to add my thanks to everyone here, and everyone who couldn't be here but wanted to come. And to my family. To my children and their children, to my wife. It's for them that I did all of this, not for anyone else." He paused when thunderous applause greeted this. He grinned and leaned forward. "Now let's have a fiesta!"

Shoz stood in the shade of a tree, leaning against it, arms crossed, and eyed the guests.

To one side, hundreds of steaks were being barbecued on ten huge grills, and a dozen vast pots were simmering with beans. A score of picnic tables were cheerily draped in red, white, and blue bunting with the words
Happy Birthday DEREK
stenciled across the top of each one. One was set up just to serve hundreds of fresh rolls, thousands of ears of corn on the cob, fresh salads, desserts, and punch, sangria, lemonade, and coffee.

Guests milled everywhere, easterners and locals mixing with the hired hands. To the other side, a Spanish band was playing, and already couples were whirling across an area covered with sawdust and marked off by bales of hay. Shoz had to admit, the Braggs knew how to throw a party.

He took his time inspecting the ladies. There were more than a few pretty faces and alluring bodies in the crowd, but he was disappointed when he realized no one could compare to Lucy Bragg. He knew where she was—he'd known all along. She was impossible to miss.

She wore a low-cut flame-red dress that left her shoulders completely bare, her hair hanging loose in riotous titian waves. She was dancing enthusiastically with Billy, who'd finally claimed her from that easterner.
That easterner.
For a moment Shoz stared at him, while he stared in annoyance at Lucy and Billy.

Shoz disliked everything about the man, from the tips of his polished shoes to his impeccably starched shirts. He disliked the man's casual elegance, his blond good looks, his background, breeding and wealth. All of it showed, and if he'd shouted to the heavens who and what he was, it couldn't have been clearer. He was Lucy's equal in every way.

They made a handsome couple.

One day, they'd make the ideal man and wife.

     Shoz did not care. Why should he? Lucy was nothing to him but a passing distraction. In fact, it was amusing the way she struggled so hard to be proper with Leon—when she hadn't been proper with him at all. He wondered how Leon would feel when he took his wife and found out she wasn't a virgin. Shoz uncharitably felt satisfaction at beating the man on that one score. Leon would not be pleased; in fact, Shoz was a good judge of character, and he suspected he would be downright ugly about it. The man might have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he was cold and ambitious, not soft at all. He laughed as he thought about warning Lucy to fake her virginity on her wedding night.

He stared again at Leon. It was the utmost irony that he was Marianne's son. When he had first seen Leon, he had thought there was something familiar about him. He knew Marianne adored Leon, from the few conversations they'd had when they'd been lovers, and he knew she wanted him to attain vast power and wealth. Undoubtedly she approved of Lucy Bragg for her son. Shoz felt even better about having taken what Leon wanted so much. Even though his interest in Lucy had nothing to do with revenge, the coincidence, of who her beau was, was damn nice.