The Wildest Heart (33 page)

“So you haven't forgiven him at all, have you?” I whispered. In spite of myself, his impassioned speech had caught my mind, making me wonder what else lay under the surface here. “And what of Elena?” I hadn't realized that I had put my thought into words, until I saw Montoya smile his crooked smile at me again.

“Ah, so you've noticed that too? Elena is like a distant star, the goddess all men crave for. I have always wanted her. Even when she was married to my closest friend. Even later, when I knew what killed him. And now… I do not know. Perhaps it is habit. Perhaps we are really friends at last, after all the years that have gone by, and the understanding we have gained of each other. I have a tremendous admiration for Elena. I respect her, as I have been able to respect no other woman. More than that, you will not get from me! I have told you more than I should. I wonder why.”

He looked down at me thoughtfully. And it was at that moment that the music stopped for a few seconds, while Chato held a bottle of tequila to his mouth and drank thirstily from it.

When he turned back to his guitar again, one of the
vaqueros
accompanying him on the mouth-harp, it was Lucas who held me in his arms, while Elena, laughing, danced with Jesus Montoya.

How it had happened, I could never be quite sure. I had time to notice how well Luz and Ramon danced together, and then, because I became stiff, and my feet seemed to stumble of their own accord, he took me off into a corner of the patio, and lifted me up by the waist, so that I found myself sitting on the wide adobe wall.

I had had no time to struggle, nor even to protest. I remember that the moon was behind him, and I could not see his face clearly, only the bronze glints in his hair as he continued to hold me, his hands still on either side of my waist.

“You have a way of making men open their minds to you, without your feelin' a damn thing yourself, don't you, Rowena?”

I started to say furiously, “You have no right to
question me…” when he cut me off, his husky voice curiously harsh.

“When will you stop playing games with me? And why only with me? I didn't drag you off here to start another argument with you, only to ask you something, for God's sake! I know how you feel about me, and maybe I've deserved most of it, but at least I've been honest with you Rowena. An' that's all I'm asking of you now.”

It was to combat my own sudden breathlessness that I made my voice so icily cold. “I don't understand you, Lucas Cord. At one moment you attack me, and the next you demand honest answers from me. Answers to what? And why from me?”

His voice quieted, but I felt the involuntary tightening of his hands about my waist and flinched.

“You and Montoya. I saw how long he talked to you, and I watched your face. He told you, didn't he?”

“What was there to tell? Or does your conscience bother you? One more example of your callousness… your selfishness! You did not want Luz, but you took her from a man who might have married her, and brought her here to this prison! And for what? Will
you
marry her? How long must she wait while you go off when you please and return if you please? Is there any feeling to
you
except for your ill-conceived lust for Elena and your hate for Todd Shannon? Why, you move everybody else around as if they were pawns, don't you? You brought me here to suit your own ends—because I was Todd Shannon's fiancée, and because my father left me a fortune. And if I had not promised to Ramon, what would you have done with me? Kept me here as a slave forever? Sold me across the border? Or would you kill me, as you tried to kill Elmer Bragg?”

My voice was shaking when I had finished. I had not meant to say so much, but suddenly, it was as if everything I had been holding inside me burst out, and I could not help myself. He had asked me for honesty and I had been honest with him.

He had dropped his hands from my waist and was staring at me, his head slightly tilted so that he could study my face. I thought I heard him suck in a deep breath and tensed myself for the angry tirade that must surely come. There was an aura of barely suppressed fury that I could feel emanating from him, and knowing his uncertain temper I should have been afraid. But there was such a welter of confused emotions within my mind by now that even if he had struck me I might almost have welcomed it as a release from the terrible tension that was between us at that moment.

But he had more control over his feelings, whatever they were, than I had shown tonight.

“Guess there's nothing more to be said between us now, is there? Come on, I'll take you back to Ramon now.” His voice was flatly expressionless, and this time, instead of seizing me by the waist, he held his hand out to me.

I did not—could not—take it.

“I can manage quite well!” I said childishly, wondering why my voice still shook. My hands shook too, as I tried to lever myself off the wall, feeling the skirt of my gown catch on some slight protuberance as I did.

Afterwards, I blamed the cuts on my fingers, which had begun to sting and throb painfully again, and my misjudgment of the height of that wall, which seemed so low. Perhaps I had had too much wine to drink. But I felt myself pitch forward, and then his arms caught me. I was being held far too tightly and too closely, my face pressed against his shoulder, and I was too weak with shock and reaction to move.

I did not want to. I discovered that I was breathing far too fast, and that it made my head dizzy, so that I was forced to lean even more closely against him; and my most treacherous thought of all, I knew that I would not be able to bear it if he released me now.

There are certain times when certain actions seem natural and foreordained. Still holding me against him, Lucas put his hand in my hair, pulling my head back almost cruelly. Perhaps he read in my face what I could see in his: wonder. Even a kind of bitter anger. And hunger. Then he kissed me, with a violence and a passion that was like an explosion, stunning us both.

I felt the wall against my back, and his body against mine as I pressed myself closer to him with a shameless ardor I would not have believed myself capable of. I could no more have denied my longing for him than I could have commanded myself to stop breathing. We kissed, and kissing was not enough. With a passion I had been taught once, but now became natural and artless, I slipped my hands under his shirt, holding him with my palms against his skin, feeling the muscles in his back move.

I felt him wrench his lips away from mine and almost cried out loud as my eyes flew open. His breathing was as uneven as mine—I noticed that, and wondered why he had stopped kissing me.

“Lucas…”

“
Don't,
for Christ's sake! What were you tryin' to prove this time? What a lecherous, dirty bastard I am? That I'm incapable of resisting any female who falls into my arms and presses her soft body against mine, even if she happens to be my father's wife or my brother's fiancée?”

I felt as if he had slapped me. I could feel the blood drain from my face and then flood back, leaving my cheeks burning. He had held me, kissed me, forced me into betraying myself a second time by using my own weapons against me. If I had had a gun with me, I think I could have killed him then.

“Is that how it happened with Elena too?” I said in a choked voice I could barely recognize as my own, and I raked my nails viciously across his back, wishing they had been knives. I felt—oh God, I felt the tearing of his skin and the warm stickiness of blood; then, with a grunt of pain and shock, he caught me by the shoulders, pushing me so hard against the wall I thought my back would break.

This time I would not close my eyes weakly when he brought his face close to mine. I glared into his eyes, and they looked dark and glittering, like the eyes of an Apache. I clawed at him again, and he slapped me; then before I could cry out he had leaned his body into mine and was kissing me again—so hard and so painfully that I felt I could not breathe, that I would forever feel the imprint of his lips on mine. My hands were pushing against his chest now, and I could hear my own helpless whimpering in my throat.

“Is
this
what it takes to keep you quiet?” He whispered it against my bruised, open mouth, and then, his hands moving from my shoulders to my breasts, “Whatever I am, whatever you are, I can't stop myself from wanting you.”

I hit him, as hard as I could across the side of the face, using the back of my hand. “And I despise you, for the animal you are!”

My knuckles felt bruised and I almost sobbed with the pain, but I had the satisfaction of knowing I had hurt him too. There was a livid welt across his cheekbone that he had begun to rub at absently while he stared down at me.

“Damned if you aren't the first woman ever slapped me that hard,” he said quietly, almost wonderingly.

“But I'm sure you deserved it this time at least.”

I gasped, and pressed my aching knuckles against my lips.

When had Ramon come up? And how long had he been standing here?

“You should have chosen a more isolated place for forcing your attentions upon my
novia… brother
!”

I had never known Ramon's usually easygoing, pleasant voice to sound so hard, nor seen his eyes so narrow and cold.

I felt as ashamed and humiliated, but his eyes had merely flickered over me, their expression unreadable, and now they were fastened upon Lucas, who turned slowly to face his brother.

“Well? Surely you have some explanation. You are not usually at a loss for one. Were you merely testing her true feelings for me? Or would you try and make me believe that she threw herself at you and deliberately enticed you into making love to her? Come, you must admit that I am patient! By now another man in my place would have shot you as you stand.”

I noticed, for the first time, the awful, ominous stillness that surrounded us. There was no more music in the background. Here in this secluded, shaded corner even the torchlights were merely a faint glow somewhere behind us. And I saw, as he casually moved his hand upward, the gun that Ramon had carried against his thigh.

I opened my mouth to say something, but I could not make any sound emerge from my suddenly dry throat.

It was Lucas who spoke, his voice quiet. “I have nothing to say. No explanations.”

“And you expect me to be content with that?”

The hammer clicked back on the gun. I felt as if I had been trapped in a nightmare.

“It seems as if you will be content with no less than to pull that trigger, Ramon. Why don't you do it quickly before your scruples get the better of you?”

Even in my half-dazed state I could not mistake the soft, deliberately taunting note in Lucas Cord's voice.

And it seemed to me in that tiny, suspended moment when they faced each other—Ramon with the gun in his hand, his face grim, and Lucas, standing so negligently, his arms at his side—that some men appear to court death deliberately, and that Lucas was one of these.

I know Ramon realized this too, and his handsome face twisted in a snarl of bitterness.

“I think you would like me to murder you and carry that guilt with me for the rest of my life. But I will not make it so easy for you. Where is your gun?”

“I saw no need to wear it this evening. And in any case, Ramon, I will not duel with you, if that is what you have in mind. For God's sake!” I saw Lucas's eyes narrow, and his voice turned harshly impatient, “Must we stand out here acting out some stupid drama? I kissed Rowena, and she slapped my face. Now… if you feel you ought to shoot me for that go ahead an' shoot. Or else I'm walking away.”

“Must you be reminded that you are no longer dealing with a little brother, but a man you've insulted? I saw you strike my
novia,
and had I been close enough I would have killed you then!”

I saw, even in the darkness, the look on Ramon's face, and I managed to say faintly: “No, Ramon!” But Lucas, although he must have seen it too, merely raised an insolent eyebrow and started to walk past him. Perhaps he meant to take the gun from Ramon, perhaps he did not really believe that Ramon, the quiet-spoken gentleman who had been brought up by Jesuits, would actually shoot.

The gun went off with a blinding flash. I think I screamed, and the smell of powder was bitter in my nostrils. It is strange how the small details come soonest into one's mind afterward, when the recalling of violence is too frightening or too painful.

I remember that I leaned back against the wall, feeling my legs suddenly too weak to support me. I remember the warmth of the rough adobe bricks under my ice-cold hands.

Ramon had taken a step backwards, and now he took another, the gun still steady. Lucas had seemed to stumble, but now he stood still, staring at Ramon. Very slowly he touched his right arm, and I saw him look down at fingers that were sticky with blood.

He looked back at Ramon then, and his voice sounded abstracted. “Either you're a very bad shot,
hermano,
or an excellent one. You've drawn blood. Does that satisfy your honor?”

“You have a poor idea of honor if you think so! Now, will you draw the knife that you carry in your boot, or will you stand there like a coward and let me use you as a target to prove that I am as good a shot as you are?”

“So it's to be knives, now?” Lucas's voice sounded faintly contemptuous. “Ramon, you're making a fool of yourself! Can't you see that?”

The gun boomed again.

This time the bullet had grazed his thigh, and already the blood was starting to drip down his pants leg, leaving an ugly, dark stain. I thought I saw a look of shock on Lucas's face as he looked from his wound and back at Ramon.

The moon had disappeared behind a cloud, but one of the torches suddenly flared in a rising wind, and I saw the cold determined look on Ramon's face. “Have I convinced you yet, Lucas?”