Lacy (6 page)

Katy's heart jumped, but she didn't look up
immediately. Her big green eyes widened. "Turk did?"

Cassie smiled. Katy was only twenty-one; every
single emotion showed on her face. Cassie had always known how she felt about
Turk, but it wouldn't do to encourage her. Cole wouldn't stand for it. He'd
already made that clear.

"Mr. Cole told him to watch out for
you," the old woman said.

Katy glowered. "I don't need
watching."

"Yes, ma'am, you do," came the hot
reply. "Carousing all hours, drinking in public, cussing like a sailor...
You're shaming us all! Your poor mama won't even go to her bridge club because
she's so afraid somebody will say something about you to her!"

The younger woman sat up straighter. "Well,
Danny Marlone doesn't think I shame him," she replied, hiding her sudden
vulnerability to her mother's pride in blustering.

"He's a gangster!" Cassie was off and
running now, her eyes huge in her face. "Yes, he is— One of them Chicago mobsters, right down to that striped suit he wears and them fancy cigars he smokes
and that big fedora! He's not the man for you! He's leading you off into hell!"

Katy sighed wearily. "Danny's a nice man.
He's just a northerner, and that's why you don't like him. I like him a lot.
He's good to me. He buys me things," she added, touching the diamond
necklace he'd given her just last night. She smiled. "He's very generous."

Cassie's eyes narrowed. "And what you
giving him in return, girl?"

Katy actually blushed. "Not.. .that!"
she burst out, sitting straighter and then groaning when it hurt her head.
"I'm not sleeping with him!"

"Maybe he'll expect you to, what with presents
like that," Cassie replied gruffly. She turned and went to the door.
"Miss Marion has rode into Floresville with Mrs. Harrison to get her hair
fixed, on account of Mr. Ben ain't brought her runabout home yet. She say she
be back about noon. Which it nearly is."

She closed the door with a bang, and Katy glared
at it. Danny was not a gangster. Not really. He might have done a few shady
things, and he did run a speakeasy in the Windy City. But he was slick and
Italian and handsome, and she liked being seen with him. She especially liked
having Turk see her with him. Because she knew the foreman didn't like it, and
that made her blood sing.

Damn Turk! she thought, dashing aside the
covers, headache and all, to get to her feet. Damn him! Letting Cole order him
around, heeding that warning to keep his hands off the boss's sister! She'd
gone right through the roof when Ben had told her that. He'd overheard a hot
argument between Turk and Cole, with Cole coming out on top, as usual. Turk had
added that he liked women, not little girls, and that he didn't have any
interest in young Katy in the first place! Oh, how that had cut. It had cut her
young heart to shreds. She'd been avoiding Turk ever since, and when she'd gone
to that party in San Antonio and met Danny Marlone, she'd encouraged him like
crazy. For the first time, she'd used her femininity to attract a man. It
didn't help that she began to wonder if it might even work on Turk. It was too
late now. Cole had seen to that.

Sometimes she hated her big brother's tyranny.
Cole had been like this as long as Katy could remember. Always in charge,
always throwing out orders. Ben had worshipped him for a long time, although
her baby brother was beginning to lose that enchantment as he aged. But Lacy...
Oh, poor Lacy. The older woman would wear her poor heart out on Cole's utter
indifference, and Katy could have cried for her friend. Cole had been quieter
since Lacy'd left. Almost lonely, if the iron man ever got lonely. At any rate,
he was working himself to death. And when Marion had asked him to stop and see
Lacy, he didn't even protest. Maybe he missed her. Katy grinned impishly. That
would be something to have her indomitable older brother actually fall in love.
Cassie could be right; he might feel something. But he had a lot of practice at
hiding his emotions. Especially since the war.

She tugged on a blue polka-dotted little frock
with a swingy skirt and puffy sleeves that gave her a baby-doll look. She left
her hair long and tied it back with a bright blue ribbon. Not bad, she told her
reflection in the mirror. Not bad at all. She lifted her hair. Maybe she'd have
it cut, like Lacy's. She liked Lacy's hair. She liked Lacy.

Her thin brows drew together as she thought
about her best friend in San Antonio. She'd visited Lacy once or twice in the
past month, once to go to a party. Odd, it didn't seem like Lacy to have a
houseful of people and all that booze. Katy had always been the flashier of the
two girls, always out for adventure and excitement, the wilder the better. It
had been Lacy who was quiet and dry-witted, bubbly only with people who knew
her well. That Lacy wouldn't have liked wild parties. But Cole had changed her.
His constant indifference and neglect had done something terrible to her
friend. It had aged her. Ben and his stupid plotting! If only he'd stopped to
think what he was doing. Locking them in a boarded-up line cabin that not even
Cole's fabulous strength could break them out of. She shook her head. Ben
should have realized that

Lacy wasn't for him. And there was little Faye
Cameron, who worshipped him from afar, hanging on his every word. But Ben had
no time for that tomboyish child with her soft blond hair and big blue eyes,
despite the fact that most of the boys on the ranch adored her. Ben thought her
young and frivolous and not nearly sophisticated enough for a fledgling famous
writer such as himself.

Well, poor little Faye would have to fight for
her own ground; Katy didn't have time. She was expecting Danny later in the
day, and she knew he was going to ask her to go back to Chicago with him. She
wasn't sure what she was going to say. He had to leave the following morning.
His business in San Antonio was over, and it hadn't included an impromptu
meeting with a young Texas lady at a local party that had led to a week of
frantic dating.

What would Turk say if she agreed to go with
Danny? The question intrigued her. She knew very well what her brother would
say and do. And it would be prudent to leave before he returned from San Antonio if she wanted to go through with it. But first she wanted to see Turk. She
wanted to see his face when she told him.

He was down at the corral, tossing out orders to
a few cowhands on horseback. Katy's green eyes adored his tall, muscular body
as he stood with his back to her, his deep voice faintly raised as he spoke.
His hair was blondish brown, sun-bleached and thick and straight. His face was
handsome enough, with strong lines and a mouth she'd dreamed of kissing. He had
big, rough-looking hands and equally big feet, and her heart went crazy just
looking at him.

The cowboys turned their mounts and rode off.
Turk stared after them, his wide-brimmed straw hat pushed to the back of his
head, his jeans close-fitting, sensuously clinging to his long, powerful legs
above booted feet.

"Hi, cowboy," Katy drawled. At least
her head hurt less, but her heart didn't. It got bruised every time she looked
at him.

He turned, one corner of his chiseled mouth
tugging up at the sight of her in the revealing fabric of her dress.
"Hello, tidbit. Going somewhere?"

"Just waiting for Danny." She
shrugged. "He's taking me for a drive in his Alfa Romeo."

The gray eyes darkened. He didn't say anything,
but the rigidity of his face spoke volumes. "Cole won't like it."

"Cole isn't here," she replied
haughtily.

"For God's sake, Katy! What's gotten into
you lately?" he demanded. "You've gone hog-wild, and at the worst
possible time. Cole's got enough worries, with foreclosures all over the place
and your mother's health failing."

That was true. Despite her vivacity, her trips
to the hairdresser, her forced cheeriness, Marion was growing thinner and weaker
by the day. Katy didn't like being reminded of it, and her chin lifted.

"Nothing I do will help Mother," she
told him. "She's not been the same since Cole ran Lacy off."

"He didn't run her off," he said
curtly. "She left."

"What was there to stay here for?" she
demanded, exasperated. "When he wasn't ignoring her, he was treating her
like a rug. They didn't even share a room! Cole never wanted to marry her; Ben
forced him to."

"Little Ben has a bad case of exalted ego
"Turk said, his eyes cold. "Someone needs to show him how to be less
self-centered."

"Faye's trying," she said
mischievously. "Maybe if she chases him long enough, she'll catch
him."

"They're worlds apart," he replied,
his gaze wistful, as if he were talking about someone else. "Nothing in
common except their birthplace. He's a city boy, despite the fact that he grew
up here. She's a country girl."

"Two worlds can merge." She looked at
her feet. "You were a city boy," she said. It was blatant fishing,
because she didn't know that. She knew nothing about Turk except his real name
and his war record.

"No,"he replied. "I was born in Montana. I grew up on a ranch down on the Yellowstone."

"You didn't go back there after the
war," she murmured.

His eyes darkened as they studied her averted
face. She was fishing. Always fishing, always wondering about him. He wondered
about her, too, but it wouldn't do to let it show. Cole had said hands-off, and
he owed Cole too much to argue. Besides, he told himself, Katy was just a kid.
She'd get over him.

"There was nothing to go back to," he
said. His eyes grew dull and sad as the memories came back. "Nothing at
all."

"Don't you have family anywhere?" she
asked curiously.

That shouldn't have set him off, but it did.
Sometimes Katy irritated him with her constant probing into his life. He didn't
like it. He didn't want her any closer than she was right now. In that, he and
Cole were almost too much alike. Okay. If she wanted the truth, she could have
it. He stared harshly down at her. "I had a wife. She died one winter,
while I was away selling cattle. She froze to death sitting up in a chair.
She'd gotten sick and couldn't build a fire. She was pregnant."

Katy felt her body go rigid with the words. She
looked up into a face like stone.. .and suddenly understood so much. A wounded
man. A badly wounded man, heart dead, and he wanted no more of love or
commitment. And now it all made sense. The way he'd avoided her, the way he
went through women as if they were no more than toys with which to amuse
himself. Of course. There was safety in numbers. If he had a lot of women, he
didn't have to worry about the risk of involvement.

Her face went white. She stared at him
helplessly, all her dreams dying slowly in the green eyes that went quietly
dead in her face.

He saw that, and his conscience stung.
"Yes,"he said curtly. "Yes, I thought so. Bringing that Northern
hoodlum down here, running wild, all of that was because of me, wasn't it?
Because I wasn't dancing attendance on you!"

It hurt to hear it put into words. It stung her
eyes and made them water.

He saw the tears and felt vaguely guilty. She
was just a kid, after all. And even if he wanted her as much as she wanted him,
there was no way it could work. He wasn't sure he had anything to give. Like
Cole said, Katy was too vulnerable for a quick affair.

"Katy, I'm sorry if that hurts. But, girl,
I've got nothing left to give," he said softly. "I don't want your
young heart, Katy. I can't give you mine. I lost mine when I lost Lorene. If it
weren't for Cole, I wouldn't even be alive. Don't you understand? I loved
her," he said roughly. "I can't ever love anyone else!"

"I haven't asked you to love me! I don't
feel like that..." she burst out, hurt pride and frustrated passion making
her wild.

"I'm not blind!" he tossed back, his
gray eyes stormy. "You've followed me around, sighed over me, made love to
me with your eyes for the past few months! You've done everything to make me
notice you except strip naked!"

She drew back her hand and slapped him across
the cheek as hard as she could. Her face was wet, and she didn't even realize
that it was soaking with spilled tears. She sobbed as she looked at the redness
her fingers had made. "Damn you! Damn you! I don't care about you. I never
could!"

"Oh, for God's sake "he growled. It
was all getting out of hand. He started to reach for her, to try and explain.

But she shrugged off his hands and ran, blind,
uncertain of the direction she was taking. She ran past the corral where the
remuda was kept, through the spread of mesquite trees with their feathery,
thorned fronds blowing softly in the wind, down the trail into the hay barn.
Sobbing, she fought her way through the bales to a dark, quiet corner and lay
in the yellow, sweet-smelling hay, her body shaking from the force of her pain.