Merline Lovelace (12 page)

Taking shallow, pinched breaths, she gradually made out two rows of cots tucked under the sloping canvas sides. Slop buckets were set beside each cot, some filled with scummy water, others with bloody bandages.

It took a moment for her to spot the orderly bent over one of the cots, and a moment more to see the tall, broad-shouldered officer standing at the rear of the tent. He wore a thick bandage under his half-
buttoned shirt and was in deep conversation with a slender, dark-haired nurse in a soiled white apron.

As Victoria watched, her heart in her throat, Sam lifted his unbandaged arm and cupped Mary’s cheek. The gesture was gentle and infinitely tender. Victoria stood frozen, unable to breathe, unable to speak, while Sam bent his head and brushed the woman’s mouth with his.

In that moment, Victoria’s hopes and dreams splintered into a thousand, knife-edged shards. Without a word, she backed out of the tent.

Blinded once again by the sun, she stumbled down the cane-lined path. Pain lanced into her with every step.

“I say! Miss Parker.” Richard Davis caught her elbow. “Are you all right?”

“I— I—”

Struggling for breath, she lifted her chin. She wouldn’t cry. She
wouldn’t!
Not now. Not here, in front of all these strangers.

“I’m quite all right.”

Frowning, Davis glanced over his shoulder. “Did you find Captain Garrett?”

“I found him.”

The strangled reply raised instant alarm on the journalist’s face. “Good Lord! Was his wound more serious than we thought? Is he in distress?”

“He—” She had to fight to speak around the
lump lodged in her throat. “He seems to be doing quite well. If you don’t mind, I should like to return to Siboney now.”

He cast another curious glance over his shoulder. A dozen questions burned in his eyes, but he asked only one.

“If you’re sure?”

“Quite sure,” she whispered.

The sun blazed red and low above the sea when they reached town again. Victoria was too heartsick to appreciate its molten beauty, too numb to lift her gaze from the small slice of the world framed between her mule’s ears.

“Are you staying in town?” the solicitous Davis asked when they reached the taverna in the main plaza.

She hadn’t thought beyond getting away from the hospital, hadn’t considered anything except the need to put the sight of Sam and Mary far behind her. Aching and weary to the point of near collapse, she hooked her leg over the pommel and all but dropped out of the saddle. Her arms felt like lead when she reached up for her valise.

“Here, let me.”

Davis got it down for her and stood patiently while she summoned what she hoped was a smile. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone, particu
larly this dashing, worldly correspondent, seeing her hurt spill into tears.

“I’m not staying in town,” she said in answer to his question. “I’ll get one of the longboats to take me back out to the
Star of Texas.
”

“I’ll walk you down to the quay, then.”

“No!”

She had to get away, had to have time for the searing pain to dull before she faced another living soul. Almost snatching her valise from his hand, she fought to keep the tremor from her voice.

“I’ve already taken up your whole afternoon and I’m—I’m sure you have dispatches to write before the cable office closes. It’s only a short walk to the dock.”

“Really, I wish you’d let me—”

“Goodbye, Mr. Davis. And thank you. Thank you so much.”

She left him standing outside the taverna and made her way across the square. Heat, exhaustion and the ache that went right down to her soul had her staggering long before she reached the rickety wooden dock.

Only after she’d stepped onto the planks did she lift her head and narrow her eyes against the glare of the setting sun. Her glance skipped from one anchored ship to another, searching for the
Star of Texas.
It took her several minutes and a rather frantic inquiry of the sailors bringing in a longboat to
ascertain that the ship had steamed out of port almost an hour ago. For Daiquirí, they thought, but they weren’t sure.

Her valise slipped from her numb fingers. In a state of utter desolation, Victoria sank down on top of it, wrapped her arms around her waist and stared out at the bloodred bay.

V
ictoria sat on the Siboney dock until mosquitoes and curious looks from sailors still ferrying troops and baggage ashore drove her back to the main plaza.

Shielded by darkness, her valise clutched tight in her hands, she stood beside the rubble of the fountain and surveyed the brightly lit taverna across the plaza. Richard Harding Davis and his companions were still there. Rum bottles littered their table. Clouds of cigar smoke kept the mosquitoes at bay.

The thin, sallow Stephen Crane appeared to be relating a long tale, lifting a hand every so often to dash his black hair back from his forehead. Remington, the artist, sprawled at his ease. Davis looked more like a
bandito
than ever with his leather cross belt and the beard stubbling his chin.

They formed a tight brotherhood, Victoria thought dully. As close as that of the troops they
had journeyed to war with. It took her a moment to remember that she, too, was now a member of the fraternity. With great effort, she squared her shoulders, hefted her carpetbag and crossed to the taverna. Remington saw her first and nudged Davis, who scrambled to his feet.

“Miss Parker! I say, have you changed your mind about going back out to the ship?”

“It appears my mind was changed for me. The
Star of Texas
has left Siboney.” She swiped her tongue along her lower lip. “I wonder if I might impose upon you once again to procure me a hotel room. I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish.”

“I’d be happy to, but there’s not a hotel room to be had. The army has commandeered every building of any size with a roof over it.”

“I see.”

“Look, Crane here rented us a room in a house that wasn’t damaged too badly during the barrage. We have it just for a few days, as we plan to rejoin the troops for the push to Santiago, but we’re so busy exchanging notes and cribbing our stories we probably won’t sleep at all tonight. You’re welcome to bed down there, isn’t she, Stephen?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course.” The novelist flashed her a charming smile. “You’re a member of the press, after all. We must look out for one another.”

Victoria had long passed the point of pride. With
a grateful nod, she accepted their offer. “Thank you.”

“I’ll take you there straight away and introduce you to the people who own the house, shall I?” Easing her bag out of her hand, Davis smiled. “I can fix you up with a few essentials, too. Unless you thought to pack mosquito netting, a pith helmet and a bar or two of soap in here.”

“I’m afraid it’s filled mostly with my notebooks.”

Crane gave a shout of laughter. “You are most
definitely
a member of the press.”

Less than an hour later, Victoria stripped down to her chemise and drawers and used a damp cloth to clean away her layers of mud before she crawled under a tent of netting. Straw rustled as she stretched out on the mattress and waited for the tears.

None came. Eyes dry and burning with fatigue, she stared up at rough-hewn ceiling beams painted silvery gray by the moonlight filtering through the shutters. Sometime between her agonized flight from the hospital tent and the long moments she sat on her valise and gazed out over the bay, she seemed to have lost the capacity to cry.

But not to hurt.

Dear God above, not to hurt!

Like a wild beast released from its chains, the
pain leaped and clawed through her again. Moaning, she clenched her fists. Still the tears didn’t come. Only the bitter, bitter truth.

Here, in the suffocating darkness, she forced herself to face it. She’d known all along that Sam didn’t love her. Not with the passion she felt for him, anyway. He held her in affection. He cared for her in his careless, casual way. And he lusted for her. Their hours together at the Tampa Bay Hotel had left no doubt of that in her mind.

But he didn’t love her.

He loved Mary.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Victoria tried to block the image of a tent filled with cots. A bandaged soldier. A nurse in a soiled white apron. A gentle, tender kiss.

When Sam pounded on the door of the house the next morning, Victoria was in the kitchen, picking at a breakfast of fried plantains and black beans wrapped in a flat bread.

Although artillery shells had destroyed a good part of the home, the kitchen had survived intact, as had the garden outside its windows. A riot of red and orange bougainvillea climbed the garden walls. Tall, glossy-leafed banana trees waved their fronds in the sun. Victoria was just thinking dully that she should record the exotic scene in her notebook
when the hard hammering sounded at the front door.

She heard a swift exchange in Spanish, then the rapid thud of boots. Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, she turned her gaze toward the kitchen door.

“Hello, Sam.”

The calm greeting stopped him cold. His eyes narrowing, he raked her with a hard look.

He looked terrible, Victoria thought dispassionately. Beneath the brim of his slouch hat, his face was haggard. The beginnings of a bristly beard shadowed his cheeks and chin. Sweat darkened the armpits and collar of his blue flannel shirt, which showed rusty stains on its left shoulder. From the Mauser bullet, she realized with a swift clenching of her stomach.

“I’ve been looking all over this damned town for you,” he said, a muscle ticking in the side of his jaw.

Crossing the uneven tiles, he stopped in front of her. In another time, another place, the savage fury in his eyes might have frightened her.

“All right, Victoria. Let’s start with an explanation of why I had to learn from one of the troopers that you’re in Cuba. While you’re at it, you can also explain why you came up to the field hospital yesterday afternoon and left without seeking me out.”

“Does it really matter how you learned about my
presence in Cuba? And as for yesterday afternoon…”

During the long hours before dawn, she’d considered and rejected a dozen or more excuses for her precipitous flight from the hospital. Finally, she’d decided on the truth.

“I did seek you out. I found you in one of the tents.”

“Did you?” The fury in his face didn’t abate. “Strange. I don’t recall seeing you.”

“You were rather occupied at the time. With Mrs. Prendergast.”

He didn’t move a muscle.

“I saw you kiss her,” she said in a voice carefully devoid of all nuance. “Rather than announce my presence and embarrass us all, I turned and left.”

His reply was a long time coming. “That kiss had nothing to do with you and me.”

Astonishingly, she managed a smile. “I wonder how many men have uttered those same inane words down through the centuries.”

The muscle in the side of his jaw jumped again. Once. Twice. In a detached corner of her mind, Victoria was proud of her calm as she gestured to the blue-painted wooden chair opposite her.

“Do sit down, Sam. If we must discuss this sordid little tangle, let’s at least do so in a civilized
manner. Would you care for some coffee? It’s quite bitter, but I believe there’s some left in the—”

“I don’t want any coffee!” Yanking off his slouch hat, he dropped into the chair. “I can see how you might have formed the impression this is a—a tangle, but I assure you there’s nothing sordid about it.”

Her careful calm slipped a bit. “I suppose that depends on where you’re standing when you view it,” she snapped. “From where I stood, it looked very much like—”

“Listen to me, Victoria! Mary had just spent long hours caring for one of our men. He took seven bullets. Seven. The surgeon removed most of his organs in an attempt to save him before giving up. The doctor didn’t have time to stitch the poor bastard together before moving on to the next patient. Mary stayed with him as much as she could, holding his hand, keeping the flies from his gaping wounds. After my wound was dressed, I sat with her. Neither of us expected the man to take so long to die.”

“Sam…”

“Even a nurse needs comforting after something like that.”

Once more, Mary’s noble profession defeated Victoria. Her throat aching, she nodded.

“Yes, I can see she would. And I can see how you would need to comfort her.”

It was time to lay matters out into the hot, bright sun.

“It’s all right, Sam. I know you love her. I’ve known since the night of Elise’s birthday party, but I was too vain to admit it.”

And too stupidly, childishly confident that a gown with a plunging neckline would dazzle this man so much he’d become blind to every woman but her.

Suddenly, she felt as though she’d aged a thousand years since that snowy February night. So much had happened, so little was now familiar, she might have traveled to a distant planet. One filled with steamy jungles and the anguish of a broken heart instead of happy, girlish dreams and wide, windswept plains.

“I’ve never denied that I have a deep regard for Mary.” He held her eyes, his own unwavering. “I told you as much the evening we became engaged.”

“Yes, you did.”

“That regard doesn’t in the least alter or affect what I feel for you.”

At last they’d come to it, Victoria thought with a wrenching pain. The conversation they should have had before he’d offered and she’d so joyously agreed to marriage.

“What
do
you feel for me?”

The question put a match to the fuse of anger
that still simmered in Sam’s veins. It wasn’t as violent as the fury that had gripped him when several troopers swore they’d spoken to Victoria yesterday afternoon. Or as savage as the rage that consumed him as he searched all over Siboney for her, torn between fear for her safety and the urgent need to return to his regiment. Or as fierce and hot as his resentment that she’d think he would dishonor the pledge he’d made to her.

He’d kissed Mary to comfort her. Only to comfort her. The brief brush of his lips on hers had stirred nothing like the near primitive lust Victoria’s kisses roused in him. For some inexplicable reason, acknowledgment of that fact set Sam’s anger to boiling again. Abandoning his chair, he rounded the table.

“I told you back in Cheyenne what I felt for you.”

She rose to meet him, looking completely unlike the Victoria he knew in a soiled white blouse and muddied skirt, with her hair pinned up haphazardly and bluish circles under her eyes. But the angle of her chin was all hers.

“I need you to spell it out again. In plain words.”

“In plain words,” he growled, “I’m feeling the overpowering urge to toss you over my shoulder, haul you down to the dock and pay the first ship captain I encounter an exorbitant sum to lock you
in the hold and keep you there until his ship steams out of port.”

A gritty determination came into her eyes. “Oh, no! You’re not going to use bluster or threats to evade my question. I need to know the emotions I rouse in you. Tell me, Sam. Honestly.”

“Honestly?”

He curled his hand around her throat and raised her chin another notch.

“Anger. Admiration. Exasperation. Occasionally amusement. And always,
always,
desire. I want you, Victoria. Even when I tried my damnedest not to, I wanted you.”

She opened her mouth, gulped back whatever she was going to say. Sam felt her muscles ripple under his palm, felt as well the tension in the cords and tendons.

“When we became engaged,” she said at last, forming each word carefully, “wanting was enough. I was so certain it would lead to—to something deeper. A week ago, when I gave myself to you, I thought the hunger that drove us both would be enough. But it isn’t. I’m sorry, Sam, but it’s not nearly enough.”

He smothered a vicious oath. He’d laid his need for her bare, admitted she stripped him of any claims to restraint where she was concerned, and it wasn’t enough?

Well, he couldn’t give her anything more. Not at
the moment, anyway. His shoulder hurt like hell and his company was regrouping to move on to Santiago. He was damned if he’d start spouting flowery phrases of love and devotion.

“This isn’t the time or the place for this discussion,” he bit out. “I have to rejoin my regiment. The word to advance on Santiago could come at any time. I have to get you aboard a ship immediately.”

Victoria moved away from his touch. With a little shake of her head, she refused his services.

“I’m not leaving.”

“The hell you’re not. I wasn’t joking about tossing you over my shoulder. I will if I have to. I’m not going back to my regiment with my fiancée alone and unprotected in a war zone.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Sam.”

Slipping a hand into her skirt pocket, she drew out a folded handkerchief. Carefully, she opened the folds. Just as carefully, she offered him back the sapphire-studded pin he’d given her as an engagement gift.

“I’m no longer your fiancée. I’m releasing you from your promise to marry me.”

He took a step toward her, fire in his eyes. Victoria stood her ground for the simple reason that the table blocked her path of retreat.

“There’s something you don’t seem to understand. I took not only your pledge, but your virgin
ity. You gave yourself to me in the most elemental sense of the word and I’m not relinquishing my claim on you.”

Victoria’s fist closed around the locket. She’d agonized over this decision for most of the night. In her heart of hearts, she’d expected Sam to register a vigorous protest. But not once had it occurred to her that he would flatly refuse to acknowledge her right to terminate their engagement!

“May I remind you we’re about to enter the twentieth century?” she said, struggling to maintain her composure. “A woman might have been held to betrothal against her will five hundred years ago. One hundred, even. But not today. We’re no longer chattles to be passed from father to husband. Nor,” she added on a sharper note when he appeared completely unimpressed with her speech, “am I a section of land or—or a muddy stretch of creek that you can simply stake a claim to.”

For the first time, she caught a glimpse of the old Sam in this hard, angry man. The grim cast to his jaw softened, and what looked suspiciously like amusement flickered in his brown eyes for a second or two.

“I’ve never thought of you as a muddy stretch of creek, but I must say you come closer to fitting that description today than I would have thought possible.”