The Girl with the Golden Spurs (24 page)

He was warm and tall and strong. After a while her teeth stopped chattering, and her knees quit feeling so wobbly.

“Feeling better?” he asked gravely, frowning when he saw her hands poking out from under her thick sleeves. Slowly he lifted her fingertips and turned them over to inspect the red scratches on her wrists and palms.

“Oh, my God! You’re hurt!” He whistled when he saw all the cactus needles imbedded in her left palm. “What are these?”

“Needles. From a cactus.”

“I mean—how’d you get them?”

“They’re not that bad.” She fought to pull her hand free, but he held on to her wrist.

“The hell you say! I’m going out to my truck to get a pair of pliers.”

“No!” She jumped closer to him.

“Now don’t be scared. I’ll be right back. Lock the door behind me.”

She nodded. When he was gone, she stood right by the door, hugging herself for a while. When he didn’t return as fast as he’d promised, she began to pace. Where was he?

Her restless gaze skimmed over the rooms. The kitchen was immaculate except for a few bits of paper in the trash can.

Odd, that there should be any trash if no hunters had
been here
.

Curious, she knelt and retrieved the torn white fragments. When she pieced them together, they formed a credit card receipt from a local hardware store in Chaparral dated yesterday that was signed by Uncle B.B.

When she heard Cole’s footsteps again outside, she wadded the receipt and slipped it into her robe pocket. Then she ran to the door to throw it open for him.

He was loaded down with cans of chili, chicken, tomatoes, tuna, pliers and a bottle of brandy.

“You were supposed to only get the pliers.”

“I couldn’t very well let an injured woman starve, darlin’.”

“Or yourself.”

“I was thinking of you, darlin’.”

She gathered a few cans off the top to help. In the kitchen he found a glass and poured a single shot of brandy.

“Here, Lizzy. This will warm you even better than a fire or hot food, and dull the pain in your hand, too.”

“Aren’t you having any?”

“I’ve already had my share tonight.”

“So that’s why you smell funny,” she said.

“Sorry.”

She bit her lip. “What…what does Suz mean to you?”

“I see her at work.” He sighed. “I had one lousy date with her.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all.”

He knelt before the fireplace and struck a match to the kindling beneath the stacked logs in the fireplace. When the fire roared to life, she moved closer to the yellow flames and swallowed the brandy, which sent more dizzying warmth through her veins.

Feeling better but still tired, she sat down on the couch. He turned on a lamp and sat down beside her and pulled the needles out with expert ease. Each needle stung as it slid out and he placed it on the table, but the brandy helped.

“You want to tell me how you got these?” he said, staring at the pile of needles.

She told him about being chased and shot at and thrown from Star, about crawling over thorns and about burying herself under high grass to hide. She told him about the rider who’d left her and had raced after Star.

“Did Star get home okay?” she asked.

His face had darkened at the question, and his whole body tensed. Suddenly she felt afraid again.

“Is Star…?”

“Did you get a look at him?” Cole demanded. “The rider?”

She shook her head. “I—I tried to call you when I was sure he was gone, but my cell phone wouldn’t work. So I walked through the brush for hours, it seemed, until I found the road and headed for this hunting camp. I kept thinking… he’d come galloping back and shoot me.”

“Thank God he didn’t.” Cole’s face had never looked so lined and grim as he stared at her. He didn’t glance up again until he finished removing the last of the needles and set the pliers down beside the little pile of thorns on the table.

Getting up and sitting down on the couch opposite hers, he said, “It’s late. You’d better wash that hand. I’ve got an ointment for it. I’ll cook us something easy and fast.”

“All right,” she whispered, feeling vaguely disappointed at his formal manner as she took the ointment and headed to the bathroom.

When she came back, she watched Cole set the table; she watched everything he did, devouring his broad shoulders and tall lean body with her gaze. Being alone with him in such a romantic setting seemed truly wonderful after the horror that had gone before. If she hadn’t nearly lost her life, she might have wasted months being too stubborn to realize how much she cared about Cole. Just looking at him made her temperature rise and her skin tingle. She felt safe and happy and treasured. Which was crazy. A maniac had tried to kill her.

Cole. Cole. Cole
. He was everything.

Every step she’d taken across rough wild country tonight had felt like a step back to him. Lying in that grass after her fall, she’d known he mattered more to her than anything else in her life. The past was forgiven. Yes, he’d married Mia, and Lizzy didn’t know why. And he didn’t seem to, either. She simply didn’t care why.

He was different now, and so was she. Those events felt like ancient history—she knew they had happened, but all emotion surrounding those happenings was long dead.

After they’d eaten and pushed their plates aside, he made her recount every excruciating detail of her misadventure.

“You know something,” she said. “For the first time in my life I wished I had a gun. Daddy used to be adamant that I
strap on my pistol when I rode, but I never wanted to. I used to tell him he didn’t always carry a gun. You know what he said?”

Cole shook his head.

“He said I was prettier than he was.”

Cole smiled as he got up from the table and began to pick up their dishes. On his way to the kitchen, he said, in a cold, formal tone she hated, “It’s late. Why don’t you go to bed. I’ll do the dishes and find sheets for the couch.”

Instantly she felt bereft.

He was gallantly giving her the bedroom when all she wanted was to be wrapped in his arms and held close. Yet she didn’t know how to tell him.

“All right,” she whispered, getting up but feeling miserable and awkward and shy as she headed to the bedroom alone. Her eyes met his and she had the fleeting thought that maybe he felt just like she did.

Later, as she pulled back the thick down coverlet and got into bed, she tried not to think about him in the next room, but, of course, she could think of nothing else. Death was somehow related to sex. The loss of her father plus her own recent brush with death had made her want Cole with an unbearable, undeniable need. She knew that someday she would die for sure, and she wanted to make every moment count. And she knew that the moments that would count the most for her were the moments she spent with him. More than anything she wanted to feel alive, and Cole made her feel that way.

She lay tossing and turning. He was being the perfect gentleman. He was being the Cole she’d always wanted rather than the dispossessed bad boy next door who wanted what he wanted regardless of other people. But he was rejecting her.

Or was he simply showing her by considering her feelings how much he did care? She had to find out.

Hardly knowing what she did, she got out of bed and padded slowly into the sitting room. At the sound of her door opening, he came to the doorway of the kitchen.

He was watching her, and she saw the desire in his eyes even though his low voice was casual. “Something wrong?” he whispered huskily.

“The bedroom was so cold,” she said, lying as she rubbed her arms.

Very slowly, hardly knowing what she was about, she fluffed her damp hair with her fingertips so that it flowed freely over her shoulders. His blazing eyes made her feel powerful and exciting.

Then slowly, rhythmically she began running her hands through the silken platinum. Even though he was still fully dressed, she lowered her hands and shakily undid the sash of the robe and let it slide off her shoulders to the floor.

“I felt lonely, too,” she continued softly, closing her eyes as if to savor her own touch. “Without you.” She batted her long lashes and smiled at him. Then she glanced up into her father’s painted eyes.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Cole said, but his warm gaze said something else. “You’re not yourself tonight. Hell, I don’t know who I really am most of the time. You said New York meant nothing. You told me to stay the hell away…”

“Shhh. I know what I said. And I know what I want. Can’t a foolish woman change her mind, cowboy?”

“Sure she can,” he whispered on a ragged note that tore her heart.

Lizzy smiled when he strode across the room faster than she’d ever seen him move. Then his strong arms were around her and he was holding her so close she could barely breathe. Their bodies were fused, and she melted into the heat of his. The next thing she knew his mouth was on hers, hard and
yet soft and warm and wet, too, exactly right, as always, and soon she was drowning in his frenzied kisses.

“Don’t ever let me go,” she begged as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

“Not a chance. Not tonight. Not ever. Oh, Lizzy, Lizzy, oh, my darlin’ Lizzy. I thought I’d never hold you like this again.”

“One more thing! Would you take Daddy’s picture down. I don’t want him watching this!”

Cole laughed. “Neither the hell do I! It’ll just take a minute.”

He crossed the room, removed the picture and stood it so that Caesar’s painted face was against the wall.

She ran into his arms, and he kissed her.

“You’re alive,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re really alive.”

P
ink light sifted through the windows and slanted across the bed. Beneath the covers they were naked. Lizzy closed her eyes and pressed herself against him, reveling in the hard contours of his long body as she began to explore him with her hands.

“What do you want now that you’ve got me all hot and bothered?” he murmured, running his palm between her thighs.

“I’m easy. Just another night of wild, unforgettable sex.”

“Like New York?”

His body heat drew her like a magnet. Snuggling closer, she parted her legs.

“Wanting you like this shows me New York meant something…meant a lot, at least to me,” she said.

“To me, too, darlin’.”

“I nearly died. Oh, Cole, make me feel I’m glad to be alive.”

“Wanting you has damn near made me crazy,” he said fiercely, his hot whispery breath falling on intimate places that made her quiver when he lowered his head and went down on her.

“It has?” she squeaked when his mouth nuzzled her there.

“What did you think, woman, that I was made of stone?”

“Only
that
part of you.” She giggled.

“Do you want to talk
or
—”

“Definitely…
or
.”

His mouth had begun stroking the delicate folds of feminine flesh, sending lava warm tingles flowing inside her. He kissed her and licked her until her body writhed. Until her hands tore the sheets. Until she begged him to take her in frantic, breathless whispers.

“Not yet. Maybe it’s your turn to return the sexual favor.”

She rolled him onto his back and rose above him. Her tongue moved down his lean, muscular body, circling him with her lips, taking the large, satiny hardness inside her mouth and flicking her tongue in circular motions until he groaned with pleasure.

Then he lifted her head and pulled her forward until she was on top of him, straddling him. He paused at the pulsing brink for a long moment before easing her gently down and thrusting up inside her.

She bent forward, lowering her breasts against his wide chest, savoring the feel of fur covered muscle against her aroused nipples. As they made love, their bodies moving in perfect harmony, all the old hurts dissolved even as fragile new hopes flamed to life.

Then she shuddered quietly while he exploded, yelling her name and gripping her fiercely. Later he wrapped her in his arms and held her close.

“You are so beautiful,” he said. “So perfect.”

She blushed, pleased. “So are you.”

“Let’s get married,” he whispered.

Maybe
, she thought.
Maybe
. Then she remembered Mia lost forever in the cold, dark gulf and pulled away from him uneasily, the old doubt welling up inside her.

Was he attracted to the Kemble name or her?

“Maybe we should just enjoy what we have for now.”

“Whatever you say.” But his voice was tense, his mood as changed as hers was.

He was lying beside her, his eyes wide-open with her at a loss as to what to say next when his cell phone began to vibrate in the pocket of his jeans, which she’d tossed into a heap when she’d stripped him.

“Don’t answer it,” she murmured when he rolled away from her.

Frowning, he leaned over the bed and grabbed his jeans.

“Always so responsible?”

“You make me sound like the bad guy.”

“I fell in love with the wild bad boy, remember?”

“Right. The real me.” His jaw tightened.

She swallowed. His sudden tension reminded her he didn’t like thinking of himself in that light. He was different now, she realized. So different. Wonderful.

She caught a glimpse of his stark profile as he stalked out of the room, his cell phone pressed against his ear, and she thought the nice Cole was the real Cole.

Life had twisted the old Cole and made him bitter. He’d believed the only way he could be whole was to get even with the Kembles. He’d schemed to use her. Then he’d schemed to use her sister. Without the bitter memories of his youth, he seemed to be the man he would have been if life hadn’t been so hard on him.

She remembered how he’d saved her when Pájaro had run away with her. Even that first afternoon she’d felt a truth between them that was more profound than his hatred of the Kembles. Her father hadn’t seen the good in him, of course. None of her family had, except maybe Mia, and now Joanne.

Maybe the past, even Mia, didn’t have to matter if she didn’t let it. Her father was dead. Her leadership was resented. Somebody had shot at her yesterday afternoon. Hap
piness was precious. Life was lived moment by moment. One had to seize the happy moments and make the most of them.

She needed Cole. She had to believe in him. She simply had to. How hard was it to see the good in a person instead of the bad?

“All’s well that ends well,” she murmured to herself drowsily, closing her eyes as Cole shut the door as he began to talk to whomever was on the phone.

“Cole, it’s Cherry Lane’s body,” Jay said. “Not Lizzy’s.”

The shock of hearing the deputy’s voice even before he understood what he was saying sent a jolt through Cole. For a second or two he’d been so disoriented, he didn’t know why Jay would be calling him or even who Cherry was.

“Tried to call you before, but you didn’t answer.”

The mists in Cole’s brain parted, and the sudden vision of a silver-haired woman being lifted out of the pond felled him like a paralyzing blow. He sank onto a leather couch, which was so cold against his bare butt, he sprang to his feet and began to pace.

Again he felt that stiff, swollen hand in his when he’d thought he’d been saying goodbye to Lizzy.

What in the hell was wrong with his brain that he could forget something like that…even for an hour, even if he’d tied on a few drinks? Only an idiot needed to jot a note to himself in his PDA about an event of that magnitude to jog his memory.

But as soon as he’d seen Lizzy, he’d focused entirely, utterly on her. He ran a shaking hand across his perspiring brow. Would he ever be himself again?

“She’s been dead a while. But my guess is she wasn’t in the pond long. A Detective Phillips is flying down from Houston tomorrow. He wants to question you. And he wants
permission to search the ranch. Says if he doesn’t get it, he’ll get a warrant.”

“Tell him I’ll give him his own personally guided tour.”

“How did Cherry Lane get in your cattle tank?”

“For God’s sake, how in the hell should I know?”

Cole hung up just as the bedroom door opened. When he saw Lizzy, looking soft and rumpled from their lovemaking, he tried to smile.

“You look awful,” she said.

“You’d better get dressed.”

She flew across the sitting room into his arms. “What’s wrong?”

“They found Cherry Lane’s body in the tank behind the cemetery.”

“Oh, God, do you think she was so upset about Daddy dying, she came here? But how could she just drive through the gate without anybody seeing her? And how could she hike to the cemetery and fall into our pond? Do you think it was another accident?”

He didn’t answer.

“What was she doing here?”

“She was already dead,” he said in a low, flat tone. “Somebody carried her here and put her body in that pond. Whoever it was killed Star, sweet gentle Star, to make sure her body would be found.”

“Oh, no!”

She was thinking about her father’s death—and her mother’s. She’d been chased and shot at. “I could be dead, too,” she said softly. “Maybe her murderer was after me, too.”

The realization slammed her. For a long moment she couldn’t speak. Neither could he.

“Probably,” he said. He stared into her eyes, and even though they’d made love, she felt a dark chasm between
them. There were mysteries to be solved, questions to be answered, a murderer to be caught, the ranch’s good name to be restored, she thought. And somehow, she had to learn to trust Cole.

Cole’s strong arms tightened around her, and for a long moment, she clung and wished she never had to let him go.

“I don’t want to face the real world,” she said.

“Neither the hell do I.”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid.”

“I’ve got to get back,” he finally said. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

She nodded wearily as he let her go.

The November afternoon had been unseasonably warm when the sun was out, so Lizzy hadn’t worn a sweater over her black silk dress for her father’s memorial service under the Spur Tree. Now dark clouds obliterated the sun, and a chilly breeze picked up the strands of her hair, blowing them about her face.

She was hugging herself and shivering as she stared at the enormous sprays of red roses, yellow daisies, orchids and irises circling the silver urn that stood at the base of the Spur Tree. The drone of the preacher’s voice as he read Caesar’s favorite scripture was somewhat comforting. Aunt Mona and Uncle B.B. looked as elegant as always. Aunt Nanette and Sam stood apart from the others. Several times Aunt Nanette raised her hand to stifle a yawn. The rest of the family stood on either side of her.

Only the family, the cowhands, a few neighboring ranchers, longtime friends, a few key players in the cattle industry and Texas politics and the detective, Joe Phillips, attended the private memorial service. Not that the boisterous press wasn’t camped outside the ranch’s front gate, demanding to know how Cherry Lane had come to be in a cattle pond on the Golden Spurs.

Joe Phillips stared holes through everybody, especially Joanne and Cole. The detective had been furious when he’d ordered an autopsy on Caesar’s body only to be told the body had already been cremated. He’d blamed Cole and Joanne.

Lizzy wished the man wasn’t here. He cast a pall on the sacred service and made her feel guilty. She was sure she went deathly white every time he looked at her and then at Cole, who was standing beside her.

Cole didn’t do anything wrong. Oh, God, why can’t you
see that?

When the preacher finished the reading, Joanne stepped forward and knelt, opened the silver vase, and held it against the ground. With a shaking hand, she poured Caesar’s ashes onto the ground near the bronze plate with his name on it that lay a few feet away from Electra Scott’s, and all the while Phillips’s gaze drilled a hole through her.

When Joanne finally stood up, she met the detective’s eyes and smiled. Lizzy’s throat tightened. What was going on?

Only vaguely was she aware that the service was finally over—that people were drifting past her to their cars or toward the big house so they could take part in the family meeting that was to be held in the library. Against Lizzy’s wishes, Leo had insisted on the meeting today since so many Kembles would be at the ranch.

Not wanting to face everybody who would be in the library, she lingered by the tree for a while. But family and friends circled her there, their hands clasping hers. They embraced her and offered their condolences. Many said what a shame it was to lose Caesar before the upcoming celebrations and the holidays.

Numbly she endured their kindnesses and managed the appropriate responses. She felt as if her grief was a wall that locked her inside some private hell. Now Cherry was dead,
too, and the press saw the ranch as the center of a real-life, lurid soap opera.

Once she caught Cole staring at her as if to see deep inside her. Did he think she doubted him? When she looked at him, his own gaze softened, and she felt comforted by his glance.

Joanne came up to stand stiffly beside her. More than ever before, Lizzy felt cut off from this woman she’d believed to be her mother. When Joanne touched her waist, Lizzy pulled away.

“Your father loved you. He loved you so much.”

Why couldn’t you have told me the truth? About who I
was? About why you couldn’t love me?

But these thoughts that tore at Lizzy’s heart went unspoken.

Joanne then went up to the tree and hung Caesar’s spurs by his brother’s. Tears burned Lizzy’s eyes, and she didn’t know what to say as Joanne touched Uncle Jack’s spurs. Suddenly Lizzy felt her control slipping.

“I’m sorry—Mother,” she whispered.

For a long moment they stood there together. Lizzy closed her eyes. Thus, she wasn’t aware of the exact moment Joanne left. When she opened them again, the wind had picked up and she was alone. She watched the ground where Caesar’s ashes blew about, some scurrying over Electra’s bronze marker.

Were her parents together now? She wanted to think so.

“Oh, Daddy, did you know what I was getting into when you asked me to take over?”

The clouds grew darker, and the wind made her shiver.

“We’d better go,” said a hard voice behind her.

Joe Phillips put his hand on her arm. She nodded. Without a word, he led her toward the house. When he opened the front door for her, the noise from the library hit them.

“Leo said I could address the family before your meeting,” Phillips said quietly.

Raised voices erupted from the library.

“Are they always this noisy?” he asked.

“Yes, but the house has terrible acoustics. It magnifies sounds.”

When she entered the library on the detective’s arm, everybody fell silent. Then Leo rushed to greet them and introduced the detective.

“Joe Phillips has a few words to say to everybody,” he explained.

Cole, who had been slouching near the fireplace, straightened; his dark face tensed. Uncle B.B. got up from the couch where he’d been sitting beside Aunt Mona and shut the library doors. Suddenly, despite the crowd, despite all the lit lamps and the fact it was two-thirty in the afternoon, the library seemed filled with shadows. Tall table lamps beamed in the corners, and the brass chandeliers above everybody cast a warm glow. But the room was huge, the ceiling high, and the leather furniture and tall cherry bookcases, heavy and dark.

Nobody had remembered to switch on the lights above the portraits. Maybe they would have helped some, but Lizzy didn’t want to draw attention to herself by doing so.

“Three people connected to this ranch are dead,” the detective began without preamble. “Electra Scott. Caesar Kemble. And now Cherry Lane.”