Lacy (25 page)

His broad shoulders rose and fell. "How
could I? You didn't know what I was, what the war had made me. You didn't know
that I wasn't a whole man anymore."

"That isn't true," she said huskily.
"You're more man than I've ever know in my life, and I loved you! If you'd
been missing both your legs, it wouldn't have mattered—and even then you would
have been a whole man!"

He risked a glance toward her, recognizing the
truth in her eyes. He drew in a slow, unsteady breath. In his posture, in his
working clothes, he looked like an old-time cowboy, right down to the battered
Stetson and the stained leather chaps.

"There could only be the two of us,"
he began finally. "No children, ever. And in bed..." He turned his
attention back out the darkened window, to the faint silhouette of the flat
horizon. "In bed, it would still be uncomfortable and embarrassing."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know how," he said
shortly, glaring at her. "Don't you remember?"

"Most people don't know how at first. They
learn."

"Do they?" he scoffed. "If you
ever saw me in the light, you'd run screaming for San Antonio," he said
harshly. "You'd hate yourself for ever letting me touch you in the first
place!"

"Rubbish!" she shot back, furious with
him. "You're scarred. So what? You can walk and work and your brain is
still in good order. As for a child..." She swallowed, because it hurt
that there wouldn't be one. "It's very possible that I'm barren, did you
consider that? Some women never conceive. I might have been one of them."

Hope, like a tiny candle in the darkness, was
beginning to kindle deep inside him. He leaned back against the wall, his knee
bending as he propped back on the high, slanted heel of one boot, the spur
jingling faintly.

"It was good the other afternoon at the
corral—when you came to ask me about Ben's party," he admitted.

She blushed. "Very good," she said
huskily.

He hesitated. "It would always be in the
dark," he said slowly. "And I don't know if I could bear having you
touch me where I was burned, either."

"It hurts you?" she asked, concerned.

"No. It.. .the skin is different. Thinner,
very smooth in patches." He almost choked on the words. "I'm
damaged."

Her heart almost broke at the look on his face,
at the odd, rare vulnerability. She breathed very slowly. "If I were
burned like that, would you not want to touch me?"

His eyebrows lifted. "What?"

"If I were.. .damaged as you are, would you
find me repulsive?" "Of course not," he replied.

She smiled. She didn't say anything. She simply
stood and looked at him, until the message got through and he realized what she
was saying.

He let out a ragged breath. "I see."

"No, I don't think you do—not just
yet," she replied. "But given time, you might. I do very much like
the idea of getting to know each other before we become intimate again,"
she continued.

"So do I." He began to smile.
"And for the time being, I'll stay in the guest room. We can share the
bathroom between.. .although not at the same time," he added when she
blushed.

She nodded. Her eyes searched his. "I know
it hurts your pride that I paid for things while you were away. You might
remember that your parents took me in and supported me when my own died, so it
was more a repayment of a debt." His face went hard, and she added,
"But if you like, I'll let you pay me back when the ranch is solvent
again. As it will be," she added, with conviction. "I've never for a
minute doubted that you'll make a go of it. Even Turk says you've got few
equals when it comes to breeding superior bloodlines."

He smiled at her with his eyes. "He should
know. He had a hell of a good ranch up in Montana." He sighed. "He
misses Katy. He hasn't been the same since she left. I thought I was doing the
right thing for her, keeping them apart. Now, I'm not so certain."

"Perhaps he didn't know how he felt about
Katy until it was too late," she ventured.

Cole was watching her hungrily. He nodded, his
eyes narrow and thoughtful. "Perhaps not. Sometimes a woman comes up on a
man's blind side. He can't see her until she's gone."

She moved a little closer to him, and looked up
at his face. "Did you.. .miss me?"

"Oh , yes," he said, searching her
eyes. "In France, you were all I thought about. After I crashed, I had
nightmares about coming home and having you scream when you saw me." His
face hardened. "That was why I took the pistol—"

"I don't care what you look like!" she
burst out. "All I wanted was for you to come home alive, Cole. In any
condition at all!"

He swallowed. She made him feel humble.

"That was why you didn't want to marry
me," she said, suddenly certain as she looked up at him. "You thought
I wouldn't want you."

"I lacked the confidence to risk it,"
he replied. "Ben forced us into it, and I was terrified. I tried to keep
intimacy out of it, even then, but we started kissing each other out in the
barn.. .and my own need of you defeated me. By the time I got home that night,
a loaded gun wouldn't have slowed me down." He touched her cheek. "It
was.. .so good,"he said roughly. "So good! I didn't know a damned
thing about women except what I'd heard in the Air Service. I thought you were
enjoying it, too. Then it was over, and you cried. When I saw why, I wanted to
blow my brains out." He drew her forehead to his chest and held her
loosely, his cheek on her dark hair.

"It won't ever be that bad again," she
said gently.

He framed her face in his big hands. "You
might be happier with someone else," he said, still unconvinced.

"I'd have to learn how to stop loving you
first," she said simply.

He smiled. It made him warm inside when she said
that. He'd never really been able to let himself love anyone except his mother
and siblings. Love was a risk, because it made one vulnerable. But he could
love Lacy. Oh, yes, he thought as he bent his head toward her, he could love
her!

His mouth touched hers softly, and then not so
softly. He felt her soft lips part under his, moist and sweet and warm, and he
lifted her close while the kiss burned into his mind, his heart. He groaned
against her mouth and felt her gasp at the telltale sound that heralded his
pleasure.

The slamming of a door startled them, bringing
them quickly apart, both looking guilty as Marion came slowly into the kitchen.

She laughed delightedly at the looks on their
faces, at the embrace they were obviously just breaking. "And I thought
you weren't speaking," she teased.

They both laughed, breaking the tension. Marion beamed as they drew her into conversation. They weren't fooling her. At least here
was a marriage that had a chance. It gave her some comfort to know that Cole,
at least, wouldn't be alone when she was gone. But what of Ben and Katy? Cole
had told Ben, but what about Katy? She wanted to ask, but the lightness of the
moment was too precious to be disturbed by stark reality. Later, she promised
herself, she'd ask Lacy.

IN
CHICAGO
,
THE LETTER
from home lay all alone on the dark hall table.
Katy had seen it, and Mama Marlone had told her it was there, but she hadn't
opened it. She'd avoided it for days, until Mama Marlone began to chide her
about it. Then she took it and placed it on her dresser, in the small cedar jewelry
box that Blake Wardell had bought her earlier in the week. She didn't want to
open it. That heavy scrawl was Cole's handwriting, and she knew he was angry
with her. The past week had been very trying as Danny pushed her into Blake
Wardell's company almost every night. Blake wanted her, and he was working some
dark magic on her, because she wanted him, too. In her confused state of mind,
nothing really made much sense. She was learning how to be gay. That included
jolts of bathtub gin that were beginning to make her life bearable.

She finally opened the letter and read it, then
burst into tears. Danny was never home. She couldn't depend on him for comfort.
But that night she told Blake Wardell, and he pulled her into his arms and held
her while she cried. It was the one bright moment since she'd come to Chicago, and when he handed her a glass of gin, she drained it. For a while, it numbed the
hurt. She couldn't bear to think she was going to lose her mother.

Later, she begged Danny to let her go home. He
flatly refused. He didn't tell her why it was so imperative that she remain in Chicago, but Blake Wardell was just beginning to weaken, to give in to Danny's proposition
of a business partnership. He couldn't afford to let Katy go home. Wardell's
ardor might lessen in her absence, and Danny could lose his edge.

"Your mother will live for years,"
Danny said curtly when she cried. "My uncle had dropsy. The docs told him
he'd kick off in a month. He lived five years, for God's sake. I can't let you
go back home. You're my wife."

"Five years?" Katy asked, brightening.

"Sure," he said. "Write your mama
a letter and say you'll be there as soon as you can—that I'm too busy to bring
you and that you can't leave here without me. You'll think up something
convincing to write. And stop worrying, for God's sake. Nobody lives
forever."

He could afford to say that, she thought. He had
a living mother who doted on him. If the situations were reversed, he'd have
been on the next train like a shot. She tried again.

"I could just visit for a day or so,"
she said.

He whirled on his heel and struck her so hard
cross the mouth that her lip bled. She cried out and backed away. It was like
the night she lost the baby. He hadn't apologized for that, or said one word
about her miscarriage. He wasn't really sober enough lately to notice anything
much.

"I said no," he told her, his eyes
glittering as if he'd enjoyed what he'd done. He moved toward her, and she
backed away. He chuckled, his eyes dilated. He'd been off dope for several
weeks when he met Katy, but the withdrawal had been too hard, so he'd gone back
to his old habit. It grew daily, just like old times. It was one reason he
needed Wardell as a partner, because Wardell made money. Lots of it. He'd shot
up only that morning and he was feeling it good. He liked having Katy afraid of
him. It made him feel even better.

"Scared, kid?" he taunted. "You
cold little piece of ice. I must have been crazy to marry you!"

"Danny, don't!" she cried.

He pulled off his belt. "You'll like
it," he said huskily, aroused by her fear as he never had been by her
body. "They all like it. You'll see."

When he finished with her, she lay bruised and
sick on the satin coverlet of the bed. Danny had dressed and gone out,
whistling. Katy barely made it to the bathroom in time. She was bleeding from
what he'd done to her, bruised and humiliated by the perverted pleasure he'd
taken in her revulsion. She shuddered, wondering how she was going to survive
her marriage.

"You'll do what I say from now on,"
he'd told her when he'd finished. "You got that, kiddo? You'll do just
what I say, or I'll bring in the boys and let them watch next time." His
eyes had brightened maniacally as she shrank from him. "I like to watch.
Maybe I'll give you to somebody so I can. Wardell wants you. When he makes a
move, you go along, you get it? I've got plans for Wardell, and you're my
ticket, toots. He already knows I don't mind."

She could hardly speak through her bruised
mouth. "You'd let him...?" she sobbed.

"Why not? You were no virgin," he said
insolently. "A slut like you shouldn't care. You're nothing in bed, but
maybe he won't mind if he wants you enough. Just don't cross me, babe, or what
happened just now will look like heaven next time."

Katy bathed, wincing as the water touched her
body. She sobbed bitterly. She'd brought this on herself, with her rebellion,
her desperation to get away from a dead-end relationship with Turk. But she
still loved Turk, even now, and that was an even worse punishment than what Danny
had done to her. She closed her eyes, almost choking on fear and unhappiness.
He resented the fact that she hadn't been a virgin, despite what he'd said
before they'd married. He thought she'd had plenty of men, and he didn't
respect her.

Danny was going to give her to Blake. She cared
about Blake, but what Danny proposed doing was monstrous, like selling her into
prostitution. She was more afraid of him by the day. He'd killed a man. He'd do
that to her if she didn't go along. She was frightened, and she didn't dare go
to the police. He had several of them in his pocket, and she didn't know which
ones she could trust. Mama Marlone wouldn't help. She could write to Cole, but
it might get him killed. This was her problem. She was going to have to bear it,
somehow.