Lacy (5 page)

Her fingers plucked nervously at the buttons of
his shirt, tingling as they felt the warmth of his bare torso under them.
"Of course," she said, almost strangling.

His lean hands framed her face with an odd
hesitancy and he moved closer, towering over her.

She could barely breathe. She'd dreamed of this
moment for years, lived for it, hoped for it. Now it was happening, and she was
self-conscious and shy and scared to death that she wouldn't live up to his
expectations.

"I.. .know nothing of kissing," she
confessed quickly.

She felt more than heard his breath catch, but
the only sign he gave of having heard her was the jerky pressure of his hands
increasing as he bent toward her.

"Practice makes perfect, don't they say,
Lacy?" he asked in an oddly husky tone, and his rough, coffee-scented
mouth ground into hers without preamble or apology.

She gave in without a protest, yielding to his
superior strength, to his growing hunger. She knew nothing, but he taught her,
his mouth invading hers in the silence of the big, high-ceilinged room, his
arms slowly enveloping her against the taut fitness of his tall body.

He lifted his head just briefly, to draw breath,
and his dark, narrow eyes met hers. She was dazed, weak, clinging to him while
her parted, swollen lips invited again the madness he was teaching her.
"Don't stop," she whispered shamelessly.

"I'm not sure I could, in any case,"
he whispered back. His head lowered again and this time his mouth was gentle,
teasing, exploring hers with tenderness and lazy hunger that grew to anguished
passion in no time at all.

She felt the wall at her back, cold and hard,
and Cole's heated body pressing her into it, in an intimacy that she'd never
even dreamed. The contours of his flat stomach had changed quite suddenly; his
mouth was hurting hers.

Frightened, her hands pressed frantically
against the hair-roughened strength of his chest.

Cole drew back at once, his own eyes as shocked
as hers at the barriers of decency he'd overstepped in his mindless desire. He
stepped away from her, dark color overlaying his high cheekbones.

Lacy's swollen lips were parted as she struggled
for breath and composure, staring up at him with embarrassed comprehension. He
shuddered just slightly, and, Lacy's eyes encountered with sudden and startled
starkness the visible evidence of his loss of control. She blushed red and
averted her eyes even as Cole turned away from her.

She didn't know what to say, what to do. Her
body felt oddly swollen and hot, and there was a tightness in her lower stomach
that she'd never experienced. Her bodice felt far too tight. She tugged at the
lace of her white midi blouse and searched for the right words.

"I beg your pardon, Lacy," Cole said
in a taut, all-too-formal tone, although he didn't look at her. "I never
meant that to happen."

"It's all right," she replied huskily.
"I—I should have protested."

"You did. Too late," he added, with
faint dryness, as he turned toward her, back in command of his senses once
more. His dark hair was disheveled, lying over his broad forehead, and there
was still that faint color on his high cheekbones. His deep brown eyes held a
light that was puzzling as they swept with new boldness over Lacy's slender body
and back up to her own vivid blue eyes.

"I—I should go," she faltered.

"Yes, you should," he agreed.
"You'll be compromised if any of the family find us alone like this in my
bedroom." But she didn't move. Neither did he.

His chest rose and fell deeply. "Come
here," he said softly, and opened his arms.

She went into them gracefully, and laid her hot
cheek against his cool, damp chest, the thick hair tickling her skin. His
heartbeat was deep and quick, like his breathing, but he held her with utter
decorum, his arms protective rather than passionate.

"Wait for me," he whispered into her
ear.

"All my life," she replied brokenly.

His arms contracted then, and he shivered with
feeling. But after a few seconds, he put her away from him, searching her eyes
with banked-down hunger.

"I love you," she said unsteadily,
damning pride and self-respect.

"Yes," he said, his voice deep and
quiet, his face giving nothing away. "Try to help Mother with Katy and Ben
while I'm away. Stay close to the house. Don't go out alone, ever."
"I won't."

He drew in a slow breath. "The war won't
last forever. And I'm not suicidal. No more tears."

She managed a shaky smile. "Not until you
leave, at least," she promised.

His fingers traced her cheek tenderly. "I
thought you were afraid of me, all these years. But it wasn't fear, was
it?" he asked, his jaw tightening as he looked at her. "You've loved
me for a long time, and I never saw it."

She nodded slowly. "I never meant you to
know."

"It's just as well that I do, now,"he
replied. He bent and brushed a slow, tender kiss over her lips. "Write to
me,"he whispered. "I'll come home, Lacy."

"I'll pray every night for you," she
replied. "Oh, Cole... "

"No more tears,"he said sternly when
her eyes began to sparkle with them. "I can't bear to see you cry."

"Sorry." She drew back from him, her
heart in her face. "I'd better go, hadn't I?"

"I'm afraid so." His eyes swept over
her one last time. "We'll say our proper good-byes when I leave."

"Our proper good-byes," she agreed.

It had been the last time she'd seen him alone.
He said a very formal good-bye to the family before a neighbor drove him to the
train station. Lacy watched the Model T Ford drive away and she cried
piteously, along with Marion and Katy, for the rest of the day.

Cole did write, but not to Lacy. He wrote to the
family, and because there was no mention at all of what they'd shared in his
bedroom, she didn't write to him, either. Apparently he was eager to forget the
intimacy. It was never referred to. His letters were full of airplanes and the
beauty of France. He never spoke of the dogfights he participated in, but his
name drifted back home to Texas in newspaper accounts of the air war, and along
with several other Americans, he became known as an
ace.

Katy grew wildly infatuated with the aces she
read about—and especially with one they called Turk Sheridan, a blond Montana
boy with nerves of steel who was considered the most daring of the fliers.

Late in 1918, as life droned on at the ranch,
they received word that Cole had been wounded. Lacy almost went mad before they
finally found out that he wasn't critically ill, and that he would live. The
letter came from Turk Sheridan, who added that he might come back with Cole to Texas after the war as the two men had become fast friends and Turk himself was a rancher.

Katy was over the moon about their prospective
new lodger, but Lacy was worried about Cole. When his letters came again, they
were in a different handwriting, and the tone of them was stiff and distant.

Cole came home soon after the armistice in 1919,
with the big blond Turk in tow. Lacy went running to Cole, despite all her
stubborn determination not to. When he put out his hands and almost pushed her
away, his rejection total and all too public, Lacy felt something die inside
her. There was no expression on Cole's hard face, and nothing in his eyes. He
was a different man.

He threw himself into the business of trying to
get the ranch back on its feet, while Katy began a long and determined pursuit
of Turk Sheridan, whose real name was Jude. Soon after the war, a wealthy
great-aunt of Lacy's died and left her an inheritance of monumental
proportions. Lacy was grateful because it gave her some measure of
independence, but it seemed to set her even further apart from Cole, who was
foundering in hard financial times following the war.

They planted crops to supplement the cattle they
raised, and Turk got his hands on an old biplane and used it to dust the crops
with pesticides. It amazed everyone that not only did Cole refuse to go near
it, he didn't even care to discuss airplanes anymore. That shocked Lacy, who
one day made the mistake of asking him why he'd lost his fascination with
flying. His scalding reply had hurt her pride and her feelings, and she'd
walked wide around him afterward.

About that time, young Ben developed a huge
crush on Lacy. It was disturbing, because he was eighteen to her twenty-three
and Lacy's heart had always belonged to Cole, even if he didn't want it. She
let Ben down as gently as she could, but in revenge, he coaxed Lacy and Cole to
a line cabin and locked them in, having had the foresight to also nail the
shutters closed so that they couldn't be forced from the inside.

Cole mistakenly thought Lacy had put Ben up to
it, knowing how she felt about him, and Lacy shivered remembering the harsh,
furious accusations he'd thrown at her all through the long night until some of
the ranch hands rescued them the next morning. Lacy was compromised, and Cole
was forced to marry her—not only to spare her reputation, but to save the
family's good name.

He'd been glad enough when she'd left. If that
was so, then why, she wondered, did he want her to come back now? She didn't
dare think about it too much. With any luck, it wasn't purely because of his
family. There was a small possibility that he'd actually missed her.

She'd bluffed him into agreeing to her terms, to
sharing a room. But remembering that night he'd stayed in her bed, she had
faint misgivings about the wisdom of her actions. Despite her longing for a
child and the depth of her love for him, she dreaded its physical expression.
Well, she thought, that was a bridge she'd cross when she had to. Meanwhile,
going home had a delight all its own. She was getting tired of the high life.

Chapter Three

Katy Whitehall opened her eyes to a blinding
whiteness. She groaned and turned over, shielding her eyelids from the sunlight
coming in through the white curtains.

Her long dark hair lay in tangles around a white
face, and huge green eyes opened, wincing. She tried to lift her head, groaned
again, and fell back onto the pillows with a resigned sigh.

The door opened and Cassie came in, shaking her
gray head, glowering down at the young woman as she put a cup of hot tea on the
bedside table.

"Told you, I did," she said in her
deepest drawl, her black eyes accusing. "Told you that firewater would
give you the devil's own headache. Shameful, that's what it is, coming in here
in the wee hours of the morning. Mr. Cole would horsewhip you, was he here to
see!"

"Well, he isn't. He's in San Antonio,
selling cattle." Katy dragged her slender body into a sitting position,
her small breasts outlined under the pale fabric of her gown. She pushed back
the weight of her hair and reached for the tea.

"Maybe he's gone to see Miss Lacy, as
well," Cassie ventured, her hands on her broad hips.

Katy eyed her carefully. "Think so?"
"Well, miracles happen, don't they?"

Katy forced a smile as she sipped the sweet tea.
"So they say. Ben shouldn't have done that to them," she murmured.

"One joke too many," Cassie agreed.
"Left alone, they might have come to marriage all by themselves, for the
right reasons." Her dark face puckered as she pursed her lips. "He
used to watch her, when she first came to live here," she reminded Katy.
"My man Jack Henry said he'd be mechanicing and he'd see Mr. Cole watching
her like a chicken hawk, them dark eyes just fiery and full of longing."

"You read too many of those outrageous
novels," Katy chided, giggling as the old woman shifted uncomfortably and
averted her eyes. "You know very well that Cole's immune to women. If he
wasn't, he'd have married long ago. He never was around girls very much. It was
always business."

"Had to be, didn't it?" Cassie
defended him. "After Mr. Bart died, weren't nobody else to take care of
his place. Ben were too young, and Miss Marion never had no business
head."

"Thank God Cole did, or we'd all be out
looking for work." Katy stretched, shuddering as the movement hurt her
head. "I never should have had that third drink," she moaned, holding
her forehead in both hands.

"Mr. Turk had words with that young man who
brung you home last night," Cassie volunteered suddenly.