Texas Homecoming (22 page)

“What caused you to change your mind? You gave a very different impression last night.”

“I should apologize for—”

“I don’t want your apology. I want to know why you changed your mind.”

“I thought I could marry you, but it would never work,” she said, facing him squarely this time. “There’s too much animosity between our families. You only have to listen to your grandfather—”

“What you mean to say is you got what you wanted, and now you’re trying to back out of the deal. Is that an example of the honesty and trust you were talking about a few nights ago?”

Once again he saw hot anger flash in her eyes like javelins of fire, but she quickly hooded her eyes. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew she wasn’t telling the truth. Her grandmother had told her something that made her furious. What he didn’t understand was why she thought she had to keep it to herself.

“My grandmother and I have decided to offer you a new agreement. If you’ll round up and brand all our cows, we’ll give you a portion of any money you get for those you manage take to market.”

“And if I don’t get any to market?”

“You will. Nobody can stop you. You’re too smart.”

“If I’m so smart and unstoppable, why don’t you want to marry me? I sound like exactly the kind of husband you would want.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“I do.”

“It won’t change anything. Grandmother and I will—”

“We can talk about this after we get settled at the hacienda.”

“I don’t want you at the hacienda. I don’t see any reason—”

“Understand this. I go to the hacienda or I don’t touch one cow on your place. I don’t protect you from more squatters and I don’t protect your herds from Cortina. But I’m not going to let you decide. You’d probably try to hire your own men without realizing that any men you hired would be in an even better position to take advantage of you than the squatters.”

“I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t—”

“You’re not experienced. I am. I’ll round up and brand your cattle. And I’ll take as many to market next spring as I can. In the meantime, I mean to find out what has caused you to change your mind. You’re lying about something.”

“You don’t want me to lie to you, but you can lie to me and expect me never to question a word you say.”

“What are you talking about? When have I lied?”

He nearly stumbled over the last words. He had lied to her every time he talked about Laveau, and he had to keep on lying.

He’d taken an oath.

The anger that flared in her eyes this time didn’t fade. She turned away and started back to the house. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is I will never be your wife.”

*          *          *

Cade had never liked Senora diViere, but he felt sorry for her as she gazed at the destruction of what had once been her home.

“Wait until we can clear a room for you,” Cade said.

The old woman ignored him. She walked through the barren space that had once been her courtyard with the same dazed look he’d seen on some of the young soldiers after their first battle.

“Do you want me to ask Holt to see to her?” he asked Pilar.

“Leave her alone,” she said fiercely. “Can’t you see she’s suffering?”

“That’s why I want Holt to check on her.”

“Just leave us alone.”

“Maybe I will when you tell me what’s eating you. Now I’ve got to speak to Holt.”

But even as Cade explained his worries about Senora diViere, he couldn’t stop thinking about Pilar. Her attitude toward him was worse than ever. He’d thought at first that she’d been angry because he’d insisted they wait until the men returned from San Antonio. But she’d been spitting angry all day, getting madder the closer they came to the hacienda. She’d stopped trying to talk him into going back long before they reached halfway.

“Where do you want us to bed down tonight?” Rafe asked.

“Anywhere inside the hacienda,” Cade said. “Owen’s worked out a schedule for guard duty. I don’t think anyone will attack the house, but we can’t be sure.”

“The horses?”

“Hobble them so they’ll stay close. Put the mares in the stables.”

Cade spent the next half hour arranging the defense of the hacienda. After that, he talked with Rafe about the roundup. Rafe never said much, but Cade had learned almost from the beginning that Rafe knew as much about ranching as he did. The other men had thrown themselves into the work of clearing rubbish from the rooms. They pitched stuff into the courtyard from both floors.

“Where is Pilar?” he asked Holt, who appeared to be in charge of the cleanup.

“Somewhere in the house,” he said. “Ivan offered to make sure all the rooms are safe.”

Cade tended to forget that Ivan had been trained as an engineer by the Polish army.

“There’s nothing wrong with this house,” Holt said.

“I think Ivan just wanted to reassure Senora diViere. She’s not taking this very well.”

“I heard Pilar say she wanted her grandmother to lie down,” Holt said.

Cade remembered the room Pilar said had belonged to her grandmother. It had been spared much damage, but he hoped Owen had thought to remove the clothes that had been cut up and strewn over the floor. That might be too much for the old woman.

He found Pilar coaxing her grandmother to lie down on a bed that had been covered with blankets brought from the Wheeler ranch. The dog lay in the corner, watching everything Pilar did.

“Is your grandmother okay?” Cade asked.

“No, she’s not, but she will be better once she gets some rest. Ask the men to be quiet.”

“They have to clear places to sleep.”

“Why can’t they sleep outside? You said you did it all the time during the war.”

“It doesn’t make sense to have all these beds and not use them.”

She looked angry, but apparently realized his words were reasonable.

“Have they cleared your room?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve got them working on Laveau’s bedroom now. I’ll use it for a sitting room so Grandmother won’t have to go downstairs.”

“You can’t use that room.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m going to use it for my bedroom.”

“But it’s next to mine.”

“I know.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Pilar was so angry she could barely control herself. While she made her grandmother as comfortable as possible, she planned her argument. The idea of Cade occupying Laveau’s room was an insult she could not bear.

When she went looking for Cade, she found him in Laveau’s room. The spacious chamber had traditionally been the bedroom of the head of the family. It was twice the size of any other bedroom except the one she occupied, the traditional bedroom of the don’s wife. A door connected the two rooms.

“You can’t stay in this room,” she said the moment she stepped inside.

“It isn’t that bad.”

“This is Laveau’s room. I don’t see how you can sleep here with a clear conscience.”

“I promise not to dirty his mattress.” He frowned. “I’ll probably buy him a new one.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?” Cade said, turning on her with a suddenness that caused her to catch her breath. “You’ve been fuming about something for the last few days. It’s time you got it out of your system.”

“How dare you say something like that when…” She choked off the words, remembering her promise to her grandmother.

“When what?” Cade demanded. He grabbed her by the shoulder when she tried to turn away. “You’re not leaving. You’re almost angry enough to tell me what’s bothering you.”

“That’s not it. It’s just that—”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Her face went white. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, would say that to me. You’ve lied to me from the start. Even after I bared my soul, you kept right on lying.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Liar.”

He shook her so violently she almost bit her tongue. “Tell me what you’re talking about!”

She tried to hold back by thinking of the money they needed to survive, the independence it would give them, but she failed. His betrayal loomed larger than money or independence. She had been on the point of giving him her heart, doing what her grandmother said no properly reared lady would ever do—falling in love. She’d betrayed her class, her heritage, her family, and all for a man who had no more integrity than the squatters he’d driven out.

“I’m talking about your blaming Laveau for the people dying in your troop. I’m talking about your using me to find out when he’s coming home so you can hang him.”

Cade seemed to freeze. All the passion went out of him. “You got another letter from him.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what he said.”

But he didn’t let her tell him. He cut her off with anger such as she’d never seen flaming in his eyes. “Laveau diViere betrayed the troop he had ridden with for three years. He led a Union Army detachment to the farm where we were sleeping. We were surrounded. Twenty-four men were shot down like ducks on a pond. Eleven of us swore an oath on the sword of Nate’s dead brother that we wouldn’t rest until he was brought to justice, but only seven survived the war.”

“I don’t believe you. Laveau would never do anything like that.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when his fingers closed around her wrist in a painfully tight grip and he practically dragged her from the room. He headed out and down the stairs so fast she had to run to keep up. “Owen!” he shouted. “Get the boys together. Pilar has something to say to them.”

“I don’t want to talk to your friends,” she said, trying to pull back, but her strength was as nothing against Cade’s.

“Maybe not, but they have something to say to you.”

She stopped fighting him. This was not the Cade she knew. There was nothing soft or forgiving about him. Nor was there anything false. The rage that poured off him like rainwater was pure and hot. Whatever the men were going to tell her, it wouldn’t be that Cade had lied.

“I don’t want to go down there,” she said as he pulled her down the steps.

“Once you’ve heard what the boys have to say, you’ll want to hide in your room for the rest of your life.” They
reached the bottom of the stairs and he turned to her. “But you’ve got too much character, too much innate honesty for that. Your loyalty is misplaced, but you’re not a weakling.”

“What’s wrong with being loyal to my brother?”

Cade didn’t answer. The men had gathered, their expressions ranging from curiosity to amusement.

“Are we here to arbitrate a marital spat?” Holt asked.

“
Premarital
,” Owen said, “or have we missed something?”

“Pilar’s grandmother got a letter from Laveau.”

Pilar was shocked to see the instantaneous change that came over the men at the mention of her brother’s name. They looked as coldly furious as Cade.

“Laveau says he didn’t betray our troop, that we’re blaming him for what another man did because I want to steal the diViere ranch. He says we were so successful at turning everybody against him, he had to desert to save his life.”

Pilar closed her ears to the string of curses that erupted from Nate. His rage squeezed his words until they were barely understandable.

“My brother died in that raid,” he managed to say. “He was only sixteen. Mama said I had to take care of him, so I always made him sleep next to me. I told him to get up, that Cade thought we ought to move into the barn. I got up and rolled up my blankets, but he didn’t move. Do you know what he said? ‘
I feel all warm and safe
.’ Those were the last words he uttered.” His voice broke, and he covered his eyes with his hand. “They shot him right where he lay. If Cade hadn’t dragged me into the barn, they’d have killed me, too.”

Pilar felt sorry for Nate, but that didn’t prove Laveau was the one who’d betrayed them.

“I used to be an actor,” Broc said. “I was born into it,
grew up with it. It was my life. My mother often told me, ‘Your face is your fortune, son. Take care of it.’ He turned the scarred side of his face toward Pilar. “One of the soldiers put a gun to my head, would have shot me where I lay if I hadn’t moved. There are times when I wish he’d been a little quicker on the trigger.” He pulled up his shirt to disclose another scar. “He shot me as I tried to crawl away. I was going in the wrong direction. There was so much blood in my eyes, I couldn’t see.”

Pilar tried to break Cade’s hold. She didn’t want to hear any more.

“They killed a young girl,” Owen said. “I’d only known her a few hours, but she was beautiful and eager for the war to be over so she could explore life. She treated us like heroes, white knights on big black horses. She was running from the orchard toward the house, her laughter floating on the air. I wanted to go after her, but Cade said I wasn’t good enough for her. I argued with him, turned to call to her. I saw her stumble before I heard the shot. They killed her because she was with me.”

“But that doesn’t prove that Laveau did it,” she protested.

“I thought he was my friend,” Ivan said. “I told him about the money I’d saved, where I hid it. After the attack, it was gone. And so was Laveau.”

“That still doesn’t—”

“The only man missing was Laveau, and he was the only one who knew where the money was.”

“He escaped,” Pilar said, desperate to believe they blamed her brother unfairly.

“He had time to take everything with him,” Cade said, “his horse, his saddlebags, his guns and ammunition. Later
we discovered that no one had seen him since we’d reached the farm.”

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“We had set a guard,” Cade said. “He could only have been approached by a friend. He was stabbed to death. We found the hoofprints of Laveau’s horse next to his body, hoofprints that led away from the farm.”

“What about you?” Pilar demanded, turning angrily to Rafe. “Don’t you have some horror story to torture my dreams?”

Rafe just stared back at her.

“I didn’t lose anyone,” Holt said, “but I spent four years trying to piece together the broken bodies of boys who should have been courting their first girl, not trying to kill each other. I can’t imagine what kind of man would lift his hand to kill one of his friends so the enemy could massacre the rest.”

“But you don’t know…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. The faces around her told her what she could no longer deny.

“It couldn’t have been anyone else,” Cade said.

“So you’re just going to hang him,” she cried.

“We’ll give him a chance to speak for himself,” Cade said.

Pilar’s laugh was harsh. “You’ve already judged him. Why go through the mockery of a trial?”

“He took my brother’s life for no reason,” Nate said. “But I won’t have it said we did the same.”

“He didn’t kill your brother,” Pilar protested.

“He killed those men just as surely as if he’d held the gun himself,” Cade said. “We rode with him. We knew him. We trusted him.”

Pilar jerked her wrist from Cade’s slackened grip, turned,
and ran up the stairs, away from the angry faces, the accusing words she could no longer deny. She ran into her grandmother’s bedroom and threw herself on the bed sobbing.

“What is wrong?” Her grandmother didn’t sound as though she’d been sleeping.

“It’s Laveau,” she said.

Her grandmother sat up abruptly. “Has he come? They have not hurt him, have they? If they touch—”

“He won’t come. He betrayed his friends,” she told her grandmother through her tears.

“If you dare say such a thing of your brother again, I will slap you.”

“Then go downstairs and ask Cade.”

“I will not believe anything a Wheeler says.”

“Are you going to disbelieve the rest of them—Broc, Nate, Ivan?”

“Ivan would not say such a thing of your brother.”

“Ivan said Laveau stole his money.”

“You will not believe such lies. Somebody else stole that money, and Cade Wheeler wants to blame poor Laveau.”

“Laveau was the only one who knew where he kept it. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“If you believe—”

“I don’t want to believe them. I tried not to, but Laveau was the only one missing after the raid. He had taken his horse and everything with him. He couldn’t have gotten away unless he left before the attack. They were surrounded.”

“I do not—”

“You can’t keep denying it. Laveau is a traitor, and his treason caused twenty-four men to die. Your beloved, infallible grandson is practically a killer.” She tried to cry
some more, but all the tears had dried up. She couldn’t cry for Laveau, herself, her grandmother, or the death of another dream. “I should have known something was wrong when Major Kramer told me Yankees despised a traitor, too. Now I see what kind of traitor he meant—the worst kind, the kind who betrays his friends.”

“Stop it!” her grandmother said. “It is not treason to turn your back on a man who steals land from your family.”

“It’s not only Cade. It’s all those other men. Did you know—”

“I will not listen to anything they say. It is all lies. Laveau would not do such a thing.”

Pilar didn’t try to argue. Once her grandmother made up her mind, nothing could change it.

“Even if he did those things, it would change nothing. He is your brother. You owe loyalty only to him. You must help him against these men.”

Pilar couldn’t argue that Laveau was her brother, or that she would always want to protect him, but she couldn’t accept the rest. “How can you expect me to help him after what he did?”

“They were not family. It does not matter.”

Pilar sat up, looked hard at her grandmother. The old woman’s face was set, implacable.

“He’s my brother, I can’t change that,” Pilar said with less heat than she felt, “but he’s destroyed any feeling I had for him. He has no honor, Grandmother. What’s to keep him from betraying us?”

“He would never do that.”

“Hasn’t he already? He didn’t come home even though he knew we needed him. Now he asks me to betray the men who did help us.”

“They are hired hands,” her grandmother said. “We owe them nothing.”

“They were not
hired.
We haven’t paid them anything because we can’t. They knew that and helped us anyway. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Nothing is more important than family.”

“Not even honesty, loyalty, integrity?”

Her grandmother fixed her with an eagle eye. “Would you betray your brother to those men down there?”

She didn’t have to search for an answer to that question. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“There, you have your answer. We will use them as long as we can. When we no longer need them, we will send them away. Now leave me. I need to rest. Though I doubt I will be able to close my eyes with all that noise. Please ask them to be quiet.”

“They’re cleaning up
our
home, Grandmother. I wouldn’t think of it.”

The week had gone by in a flurry of activity for Cade. The men rode out at dawn each day to round up and brand cattle. Ivan and one other man stayed at the hacienda to guard against a second attack and to help with the cleanup. Ivan was only a tolerable cowhand, but he was a superb engineer. He had already planned several changes that would make life more comfortable once they had money to pay for them.

Though he wanted more than anything to stay at the hacienda, Cade left with the other men. As the man who would marry the daughter of the house, the role of leadership fell naturally to him. He had not told the men that Pilar had changed her mind because he hoped to change it back again. His reticence also postponed some uncomfortable
questions for which he had no answers.

“When is the wedding day?” Owen asked as they neared the hacienda after a particularly grueling day. The squatters had preferred to kill younger animals, so the older ones had just gotten bigger, stronger, and meaner. Every muscle in Cade’s body ached. He couldn’t wait to sell these steers for slaughter. It would be just retribution for what they’d done to him.

“We’d have to go to San Antonio for a priest,” Cade said, “and there’s too much work to do to take that much time off.”

“I’d have thought you’d be so anxious to get to the marriage bed, you’d have been willing to forgo a couple days wrestling steers.”

“To wrestle with my wife?” Cade said, adding what he knew Owen had intentionally left unsaid.