Orchids in Moonlight (39 page)

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The service was held in the ballroom, which again had to be used for the large crowd attending. Afterward, only a few joined the procession on the rugged path to the old mission cemetery. The rest remained to enjoy the refreshments Enolita had prepared with the help of a dozen other servants.

The minister led the way, as six of Stanton's guards carried the flower-bedecked casket. Jaime stiffened as Blake took her arm and drew her next to him to walk behind it.

At last it was over. The minister offered a prayer. The wooden box was lowered into the grave and covered with dirt and rocks. Everyone wandered away, but Blake held tight to Jaime and refused to budge. She knew grief for his father was not the reason, for she could see how his eyes were fixed on his mother's grave.

It was getting dark. Jaime squirmed uncomfortably and tried to pull from his grasp. "I'm ready to go back now. Stay if you want, but let me go."

He held tight. "Surely you can stand my company a little longer."

"It's not yours I mind," she said with a shiver and waved with her free arm at the graves around them. "It's theirs. I don't like being here."

With a somber nod at his mother's resting place, he murmured, "She doesn't either," and then, reluctantly, led Jaime away.

Despite Jaime's protests, as soon as everyone had left, Blake ordered Enolita to prepare and serve a sumptuous dinner for the two of them. Afterward, Jaime thanked him politely. "It was thoughtful of you to want to have a nice meal for me my last night here, but it really wasn't necessary."

"It's just something I wanted to do for you." He held up his glass of wine in toast to her, took a sip, then added somberly, "But it isn't your last night here."

Jaime's brows raised sharply. "Yes, it is. I agreed to stay till after the funeral."

"Our agreement," he corrected frostily, "was that you would stay till it was all over. It isn't. Not yet. I want you to stay a few more days. I'm making arrangements to move out, and until I do, I don't want to be alone."

She bit out the reminder. "You've got servants."

"It's not the same. You're my friend." He smiled almost petulantly. "Besides, it won't look good for you to leave the day after the funeral. Where do you have to go, anyway?"

Jaime looked him straight in the eye. "I will stay two more days, and then I am leaving, with or without your financial help. I will walk to San Francisco if I have to. I will stand on street corners and beg like the man who robbed me, if necessary, but so help me I mean to go."

She excused herself and fled to her room. He might be able to make her stay two more days, but that didn't mean she had to spend her time with him.

It was dark. Moonlight spilled in through the open window. She started to light a lantern, then decided she liked the mysterious silver shadows and opted for the darkness.

Sitting on the divan, she stared at the bed and thought of that last night in Cord's arms when he had held her, kissed her. Never would she forget those enraptured moments. She would always hold them in her heart to take out and savor on a moonswept night. She could hold an orchid to her lips, and think back, and—

Where was the orchid?

She remembered she had left it on the table near the window, but as she got up to get it she was startled to see it lying on her pillow. Enolita had probably put it here when she made the bed, and she was touched. The grumpy Mexican had never acted as though she liked her well enough to do anything beyond what was expected.

Jaime picked up the flower and pressed it to her cheek. Walking to the window, she gazed out at the ocean, glimmering with specks of silver. She stood there for long moments, sorrow coming in great shuddering waves to think of Cord and how deeply she loved him.

Finally, she told herself she had to go to bed and try to sleep, even though her dreams were haunted by the glorious memories of the happiness, the passion, they had shared.

She laid the orchid on the table, then froze as she saw there was another right beside it.

Two orchids in the moonlight.

She gripped the edge of the table to steady herself as every nerve screamed raw and ragged.

It had to be.

There was no other explanation.

Moving as fast as she dared on her shaking legs, Jaime managed to make her way downstairs and out of the house.

Where would he be waiting?

Picking her way among the rocks in the silvered night, she returned to where she had found the first orchid. She was not surprised to find another there and felt a thrilling rush as she grabbed it up and clutched it to her bosom.

Then it came to her: the beach. He had said it would be safe there.

She forced herself to go slowly down the crumbling stairs, despite the urging of her heart to hurry, lest it be a dream that would end any second.

At last, she reached the bottom safely and stepped into the sand.

Whirling around and around in the whipping wind and mist from the crashing waves in the distance, she dared call out, "Cord, are you here?"

He came from out of the darkness to silence her with his lips, and they clung together for long poignant moments that left both of them shaken.

"You're alive," she whispered in awe when she could at last speak. "I can't believe it." She ran her fingers over his face, his neck, Ids shoulders, wanting to be sure he was real.

Anxiously, he told her how he had feared she would leave before he could let her know he had survived.

"But how did you?" she asked, laughing and crying all at once.

"I managed to lunge out far enough that I missed the rocks and hit the deep water. I stayed offshore while they searched. God, Jaime." He drew a deep breath of incredulity as he gazed down at her moon-bathed face. "I wasn't sure you'd understand the signal with the orchids. I left the first one where I jumped off, hoping you'd go back there, but when you didn't come last night, I had to take a chance and go in through the window and leave another on your pillow."

"That's when I realized it had to be you." She threw herself against him once more, wanting to touch and feel and savor the miracle of it all.

"Jaime, there's something I have to tell you."

She drew back, hearing the tension in his voice. Then, through a sudden fog of hope wrapped in fear, his words penetrated.

"I found your father. He's alive. I haven't spoken to him, but it could only be him,"

She would have fallen had he not been holding her so tightly. He went on to explain how he had spent the last few days confirming his suspicions. "I had a feeling all along he didn't just disappear. Lavelle had nothing to gain by his death and everything to lose, and I figured he'd been holding him captive somewhere, determined sooner or later he'd give him the location of his mine.

"What puzzled me, however," he continued, "was why he didn't use you to make your father talk as soon as he had you in his clutches. Then the pieces started to fit together. Blake falling for you complicated things. Lavelle couldn't whisk you away without Blake getting suspicious, and he didn't want to risk that. It was easier to try and get the map away from you. But, the most important thing is, I don't think he ever knew where your father was."

Jaime blinked, confused. "I'm not following you."

"It was Morena, don't you see? She knew Lavelle was desperate for that mine, because he firmly believed it had a mother lode. The man I talked to in San Francisco told me Lavelle had got an assayer's report on the ore your father put up as proof of the worth of his mine, and the assayer assured Lavelle it came from the area where it was supposed to.

"Anyway"—he rushed on—"as long as Morena had your father, she had control over Lavelle, but all that changed when you came along. I believe that's why she murdered him. He probably got fed up and told her to go to hell, because he had you and didn't need her or your father anymore. So her plan now, of course, with Lavelle dead, is to get to you and use you the way she planned all along."

"But where is my father?" She cried anxiously. "Take me to him, please."

He hated to tell her it was not possible right then. "He's being held in a cave about a mile north of here. Some of Morena's Yahi friends watch over it. That's how I pinpointed where he was; I saw them taking food in. But we can't risk getting him out unless their attention is diverted, which I'll do tomorrow night. We've got to wait till then. But tell me," he asked anxiously. "Have you seen Morena?"

"Not since the night of the murder. Blake says she knows better than to come back."

"But she will. She's just been waiting till after the funeral, when there won't be so many people around. Now here's what I want you to do. Go back to the house, but don't sleep in your room."

"But Blake had the opening to the passage sealed. She can't get in if I bolt the door from the inside."

"It doesn't matter. I won't feel safe with you there. Sleep somewhere else, so she won't know where to find you."

"I could go to Blake's mother's room."

"Fine. And tomorrow night, be ready to leave." He outlined his plan to build an altar and light a fire to make the Yahi think their dreaded god, Cooksuy, was miraculously appearing without being called. "They're superstitious, and they'll come running and forget all about the cave. After all this time, they aren't very diligent about keeping an eye on it anyway, or I never would have been able to get as close as I did. Still, I spotted two of them sleeping near the entrance, so I've got to lure them away, even it means waking all of them up, but they'll head to the beach to see what's going on."

He told her exactly how to find the cave and said she should go there at twelve. As soon as he made sure the Indians were concentrating on the fire, he would meet her up there.

Worried, she asked, "What if somebody sees us? We'll be trapped between them and Blake's men."

He took yet another orchid from inside his shirt and, though it was mashed, tucked it in her golden hair and smiled. "I've already taken care of that, Sunshine. You can swim, can't you?"

She swallowed and nodded nervously, wondering what he had in mind.

"I know of a calm little cove not too far away. There's a path leading to it opposite from where the Indians will gather. I'll steal one of their boats and hide it. We'll make our way there to escape and head for San Francisco and the law so we can make sure Morena pays for what she's done."

He pulled her close for one last kiss.

"Go now. I've got to go back in hiding in case she's sneaking around. It would ruin everything if she finds out I'm alive, and you need to make yourself safe for the night."

He started to melt back into the shadows, but Jaime did not—could not—move. She called to him, and he turned. "Cord, I—" She faltered, drew a sharp breath, and then spoke from her heart. "I thank God you're alive."

He blew her a kiss and hurried away, afraid if he stayed one more second he would never be able to leave her.

Chapter 25

Jaime could not bear to lie in the bed where Emily Lavelle had killed herself. Instead, she settled on the sofa in her room but was far too excited to sleep. Dear Lord, she was still dizzy to think how this night she had learned Cord was not only miraculously alive but had also managed to discover her father's whereabouts.

Cord had held her and kissed her, and it was no dream or fantasy brought about by either sorrow or misty moonlight. It had been real.
He
had been real.

And tomorrow night she would see her father for the first time in ten years. It grieved her to think how he had suffered, but she shuddered to imagine what his fate would have been if Cord had not discovered the truth.

For hours, Jaime's mind whirled, but eventually weariness overcame her anxiety and she slept. When she awoke, sunlight was streaming through the window and Blake was shaking her as he demanded in a near frenzy, "What are you doing in here? You've had everyone scared to death."

Jaime looked from him to Enolita, both staring at her with wide, anxious eyes. She offered the only explanation she could think of on short notice. "All of a sudden, I couldn't bear to be in that room after what happened the other night. I didn't think you'd mind if I came in here."