Touch the Wind (6 page)

At the searing stab of pain, Sheila started to cry out, but his mouth covered hers to smother the sound until she could hardly breathe. He took her like a rutting boar, rolling off when he was satisfied.

Tears of shame and an odd sense of degradation drenched her cheeks, already moistened by the initial tears of pain. She felt used and abused, cheapened somehow by an act that should have been a consummation of their love. Weakly, Sheila tried to move away from the male form beside her, but her aching, trembling muscles wouldn’t obey.

Propped into a half-sitting position by an unsteady elbow, Brad studied her with a cynically amused look. “What the hell are you crying about?”

If he had been kind to her, if he had said one gentle word to make up for the callously indifferent way he had used her, Sheila might have forgiven him. She might have blamed it all on his heavy consumption of alcohol.

Instead, she briskly wiped the dampness from her cheeks with the back of her hand, pride surfacing to conceal her longing for a soothing hand, even Brad’s.

“Nothing,” Sheila retorted in a husky, throbbing voice.

“Good.” He rolled onto his side. “God, I’m tired,” he muttered in a sigh.

Within minutes Brad was snoring away, the liquor
finally taking its toll. Sheila wished the tiredness would have claimed him earlier, before . . .

She slid from the bed, ignoring the fiery, aching soreness in her loins. Unaware of her nakedness, she walked to the hotel window overlooking the street below. There were people on the sidewalks and small boys hustling and begging.

Sheila had always considered herself a realist. She had never expected birds to sing or bells to ring. She had never thought she had any romantic illusions about love. Now Sheila realized that she had.

Her system was shocked, her emotions appalled by the carnal knowledge of a man, a man who was her husband. Sheila had anticipated pain and a certain amount of displeasure, but not this disgust and rejection that coursed through her. Sex was not an intimate union of two lovers. It was a violation, a demanding act of subservience to a man’s will.

Brad had taken her selfishly for his own pleasure and satisfaction. The niggling question remained: Was it because of the liquor he had drunk? Would it be different when he was sober? How much of the revulsion she was feeling now was overreaction to a traumatic experience? And how much was justified?

The coolness of the night air wafted over her bare skin. Sheila turned away from the window, confused and uncertain. Her filmy nightgown lay on the floor. She hesitated, then picked it up and drew it over her head. Maybe by morning the memory of her experience would dim and everything would be all right again.

Brad awakened with the sun the next morning. At his first stirring, Sheila feigned sleep, something that had been denied her as her mind kept replaying her wedding night.

He made no attempt to awaken her when he rose and began dressing. Through the slit of her long lashes, Sheila watched him tucking his shirt into the waistband of his trousers. He reached into his pocket and took out the wad of bills. Money-hungry, her father had called him, and now Sheila was half-convinced he was right. Brad had not sought out his new wife the first morning after their marriage. His first interest was her money.

“Come on, sleeping beauty, wake up,” he ordered crisply without glancing at her.

After a brief debate whether or not to obey his command, Sheila slowly opened her eyes, keeping them expressionless of her inner thoughts. He had not bothered with a greeting, and neither did she.

“What is it?” Her thighs were still cramped and sore, protesting any movement.

“I’ve decided we should go to Acapulco,” Brad announced, looking quite pleased with himself.

“You’ve what?” Sheila asked.

“This overcrowded border town is no place for a honeymoon.” His gaze flicked to the hotel window, where the morning turmoil of traffic and people filtered through the panes. “My pampered wife deserves a more exotic locale.”

When his brown eyes glanced back to her, Sheila could tell he wasn’t the least bit interested in what she wanted. Brad was the one who had decided that Juárez was not good enough for him. Juárez was for the tourists, and Acapulco was the resort spot for the moneyed class. And Brad had elevated himself to that group by marrying her.

“I don’t care about going to Acapulco,” she said tersely.

“You are forgetting, my love—whither thou goest, I will go,” he quoted mockingly. “Come on. It’s going to be a long drive. You get up and get packed while I go check us out of this dump.”

“There is nothing wrong with this hotel,” Sheila insisted, but Brad was already walking to the door.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He laughed at her, his hand poised on the doorknob. “I want to give you a real honeymoon. So don’t argue.”

With my money,
Sheila thought as he stepped into the hallway. A bubble of hysterical laughter welled in her throat. She choked it back and threw off the bedcovers to rise.

In the bathroom, Sheila washed quickly. She took no pains with her makeup, applying brown mascara to the curling sweep of her lashes and a dusty-rose shade of gloss to her lips. A quick brushing to rid her streaked hair of its tangles, and she was finished. The bathroom mirror showed that the minimum of makeup did not lessen her natural beauty.

Emerging from the bathroom, she searched through her suitcase for clothes, wanting to be dressed before Brad returned. As quickly as her throbbing muscles
would allow, she pulled on a pair of panties and stepped into brown slacks. The door opened and Brad walked in, eyeing the soft curves of her figure.

His interest waned in a surge of impatience. “You aren’t even dressed yet,” he accused.

With a toss of her head, Sheila faced him, a brassiere in her hand, her fingers curling into a lacy white cup. “Brad, we don’t have time for a honeymoon now. We both have classes to get back to, and you have your job.”

“We have all the time in the world,” he insisted.

Sheila frowned. “But what about college? Your degree?”

“Who needs it? There isn’t anything those professors can teach me. Besides, it’s not what you know—it’s
who
you know and how much money you’ve got.” He patted the bulge in his trousers pocket. “And we have enough to live like royalty here in Mexico.”

Her mouth opened, although Sheila didn’t know why she was surprised by his statement. There had been a lot of clues. She had just not been as willing to see them as her parents had.

“That money won’t last forever,” Sheila reminded him stiffly. “Sooner or later, it’s going to run out, even in Mexico.”

Lazy, strolling strides carried Brad to stand in front of her. “It will last us easily until you receive your inheritance. You’ll be twenty-one in a few months.”

“Do you think I’m just going to hand it over to you?” The cat-gold flecks in her eyes flamed brightly.

Brad seemed to find her display of anger amusing. “We’re married. What’s yours is mine. And what’s mine is mine, too,” he joked.

But Sheila didn’t find it laughable. All her glorious plans for their future were disintegrating one by one. She was beginning to realize that they had always been “her” plans. Brad had simply endorsed them, probably because he knew it was what she wanted to hear.

“Don’t you have any ambition?” There was a sarcastic curl to her lip even as her chin trembled.

“It’s going to be a full-time occupation being married to you.” He fingered the strap of the bra in her hand, his eyes touching her breasts as they returned to regard her face. “For a while, at least.”

“Then what?” Sheila challenged.

I’m sure your father can find me a position that will be suitable employment for his son-in-law.” Brad smiled complacently.

“Something that pays very well but doesn’t take up too much of your time,” she concluded, widening her eyes with false innocence.

“That’s the idea exactly.” He grinned. “But that’s later. Right now we are off to Acapulco for some lazy days on the beach.” Brad wound his finger around the bra strap and pulled it from her hand. “You won’t be needing this,” he declared, holding it out of reach.

“Give that back to me.” Sheila refused to try to grab for it.

“It’s going to be a long, boring drive today.” He tossed the bra into her suitcase and closed it. “I’m going to want a little diversion from time to time. And I know my bride will want it, too.”

Sheila shuddered away from the abrasive touch of his fingers. His hand hovered in the air as he gave her a long, level look.

“There’s no need to be shy. We’re married. Come back here. I don’t have the time to be patient with you now as I was last night.”

“You were patient last night?” She breathed tightly.

“More patient than I am now. You like the caveman technique, anyway.” His hand closed over her breast, fondling it briefly before Sheila stepped away. Brad chuckled. “You can put your blouse on now. I’ll pack the suitcases while you get your things from the bathroom.”

Numbed by the unveiling of the true Brad Townsend, Sheila did as she was told. When she emerged from the bathroom, Brad was ready to leave. With a hand at her elbow, he hurried her down the hallway to an exit door.

“Aren’t we going to have breakfast, or at least
coffee?” Sheila tried to slow her steps as he pushed her toward the door.

His gaze disdainfully swept around him. “No, I want to get out of this place. We’ll stop somewhere later on.”

There was no one in the small parking lot of the hotel. Sheila climbed into the passenger seat of her blue Thunderbird while Brad stowed their cases on the rear seat. When he slid behind the wheel, he leaned over to kiss her. Sheila turned her head at the last second and he kissed the corner of her mouth, instead.

“Still hung up about displaying affection in public?” he taunted her. “We’ll see if we can’t free you of some of your inhibitions during our drive.” He winked and started the motor.

While Brad drove the car through the city traffic of Juárez, Sheila huddled in the seat corner nearest the door. Tired and dispirited, she felt trapped by fate. The cream-yellow silk of her blouse was cool to her naked flesh, a physical reminder of the type of man Brad was.

The outskirts of Juárez, with their squalid, hilltop shanties, were soon behind them. A road crew repairing some minor damage to the highway forced Brad to slow the car temporarily. Then they were speeding along.

With each rotation of the wheel, the certainty grew within Sheila that she had made a terrible mistake. She would arrange for an annulment, a divorce, anything that would bring this farcical marriage to an end.

The decision made, an exhaustion that was both mental and physical began to overpower Sheila. Soon she was drifting off to sleep, lulled by the steady rhythm of the engine and the turning of the tires. It was a heavy, dreamless sleep.

Hours and miles sped by before the uncomfortableness of the car seat began to prick Sheila awake. Her neck was stiff and sore and her head was bouncing against the backrest.

Rubbing the crook in her neck, Sheila slowly opened her eyes. With difficulty, she focused her gaze on the
countryside. It resembled the west Texas landscape in many respects, but the looming range of the Sierra Madre Mountains in front of them confirmed they were in Mexico.

They were no longer traveling on the modern highway. A rutted dirt track stretched through the bush before them, the rough road jolting them. Sheila glanced at Brad in confusion.

“Where are we?” Her throat was parched and cottony, thickening her voice to a husky sound.

The set of his jaw was grim and angry. He couldn’t spare a glance from the uneven track to look at her. “We are supposed to be on a shortcut through the mountains to the west coast, but I don’t think the stupid Mexican who told me about it knew what he was talking about.”

“It’s quite impossible that you could have taken the wrong turn,” Sheila remarked with dry sarcasm.

His gaze slashed to her for a brief second and the steering wheel was nearly wrenched from his hands as a front tire bounced into a pothole.

“This is probably his idea of a good road, but it’s going to ruin this car,” Brad muttered.

It was nice of him to be concerned, Sheila thought cynically, considering it was her car that he was driving. But she kept silent. There was a chill in the air. She looked again to the fabled mountains and guessed that the higher elevation had caused the temperature to drop. Suppressing a shiver, she hugged her arms around her.

“It’s getting cold. Can’t you turn the heater on?”

“It isn’t working,” Brad snapped.

“Somewhere there is heat because the warning light on the dashboard is lit,” Sheila observed caustically. “Is that steam rising from the hood?”

Brad barked out a string of savage imprecations. Stopping the car and leaving the motor running, he charged out, slamming the door. Steam billowed into the air when he raised the hood.

With the same volatile impatience that had marked his departure, he returned to the driver’s seat and
angrily switched off the motor. He sat there for a charged minute, his hands clenching the wheel.

“Damn!” He pounded his fist against the wheel.

“What’s wrong?” Sheila was deriving a peculiar kind of satisfaction from his frustrated rage.

“A broken water hose,” Brad growled.

“Can you fix it?” Her eyes were rounded and blinkingly innocent of any deliberate provocation. He abhorred manual labor.

His face was livid with fury. “Oh, sure, I always carry around spare parts.”

“I didn’t know.” She shrugged. “I just thought that you might have foreseen the possibility of a breakdown and planned for it.”

“Just shut up, Sheila,” he snarled.

“What are we going to do now? Sit here and wait for someone to come along? This is such a well-traveled road that—”

With the swiftness of a striking cobra, his hand encircled her throat, choking off the rest of her words. The handsome face was mottled with rage as he brought it close to hers.

“Don’t open your mouth again until I tell you,” he ordered. His fingers slightly tightened their grip, causing Sheila to gasp for air.