Texas Homecoming (24 page)

“We expect he’ll try to contact you,” Broc said.

“Not as long as you’re here. He knows what you want to do to him.”

“He has no idea what I’d like to do to him,” Nate said, hatred in his voice. “If he did, he wouldn’t come within a thousand miles of this place.”

“I’m sorry,” Pilar said. “If I could do anything—”

“You can,” Nate said. “Let us know if he tries to contact you.”

“It may not be Laveau.”

“It doesn’t really matter who this man is,” Nate said. “Sooner or later Laveau will try to contact you, and we want you to let us know.”

“So you can hang him?”

“Men who were our friends died because of him,” Broc said.

“My brother died because of him,” Nate said. “Do you know what that’s like?”

“No, but if you have your way, I will.”

That seemed to give them both pause, but just for a moment.

“He’s a traitor,” Nate said. “He has to die.”

“I hope it’s not Laveau,” Pilar said. “But if it is, I will not help you catch him. Whatever he did, he’s my brother.”

“You’re honor bound to help us,” Nate said.

“I’m honor bound to protect my family.” She tried to move past them, but Broc blocked her patch.

“People have to live by rules,” he said. “If they don’t, society will crumble.”

“Do you call fighting a war a rule that society must live by?” she shot back. “Wars cost me my father and grandfather. They took your friends, Nate’s brother. And now they’re threatening to take my bother. As far as I’m concerned, society has already crumbled and fallen apart.”

“Cade’s holding it together for you.”

“No, he’s not. He’s on your side. Now let me pass.”

They let her pass, but Nate’s voice stopped her before she had gone far.

“What he did was the act of a coward,” he said, speaking softly. “He traded his honor and integrity for a few acres of land. He has to pay.”

Pilar hurried away, not wanting to hear any more. She was afraid that Nate was right. And she was even more afraid that Cade would be the one to bring Laveau to justice.

*          *          *

“You shouldn’t have said anything to her,” Cade told Nate. “How is she supposed to react when you ask her to help catch her brother?”

“I know he’ll try to contact her,” Nate said.

“We don’t know it’s Laveau, we don’t know he’ll contact her, and I can promise you she won’t say a word if he does.”

“You took the same vow we did,” Broc said.

“Pilar didn’t.”

“But you’ve got to help.”

“Not by trying to force Pilar to turn on her own brother. I never had a brother, so I don’t know how I would feel in her position, but I doubt you’d have turned on your brother, Nate.”

“My brother would have let himself be tortured before he turned traitor.”

“And you’d have let yourself be tortured before you betrayed him.”

“It’s not the same,” Nate said.

“You can’t expect Pilar to see it that way.”

“But I expect you to.”

“She’s not going to marry me, Nate. Get this through your head. I have no influence over her.”

“She can’t mean to marry that stuffed quail who’s been strutting around here the last few days.”

“If you mean Manuel, yes.” Cade smiled grimly. “But she doesn’t mean to give up control of one bit of her dowry. She’s offered us fifty percent of the profits after expenses if we’ll manage her herd along with mine.”

“Manuel will never go for that.”

“Then she says she won’t marry him.”

“That means you—”

“That means there are two men she won’t marry. I’m still at the top of the list.”

“You can still try to convince her to help us.”

“No. And don’t remind me of my vow.”

“You’re not backing out, are you?” Broc asked.

“No. If I find Laveau, I’ll do everything I can to capture him. Those men were my responsibility. I failed them.”

“Nobody holds you responsible,” Broc said. “If you hadn’t warned us, we’d all be dead.”

Knowing that didn’t help Cade. It never had. “I need to find Pilar to tell her we’ve accepted her offer.”

He hadn’t seen her since supper. He suspected she was hiding from him. He returned to his room to give her time to get over being upset. She would have to return to her room eventually. He would hear her. He’d talk to her then.

As the minutes began to weigh heavily on his mind, he found himself thinking more about himself than Pilar. It was ironic that he was in this room, sleeping in the bed occupied by the heads of the diViere household for three generations, the Cordobas before that. Cade Wheeler, the poor white from the hills of Virginia, the man so far removed from them that no diViere would talk to him. And yet he had come close to marrying the daughter of the family and coming into possession of half of everything they had.

You had to laugh at the twists of fate that could turn men’s lives upside down and inside out until nothing was recognizable. He hadn’t done anything special to get here. He’d just been luckier than the other guy. Even when his side hadn’t won, he won. He’d come within a hairbreadth of getting everything he’d ever wanted, and it had been denied him by a matter of principle.

Ironic. He was the man who didn’t believe in love, who never expected it, didn’t want it, and now it was the only thing he wanted. Was he in love? He still didn’t know. He
told himself he didn’t believe in love, but his reasons had nothing to do with money. They had to do with a little boy being abandoned by a mother who didn’t want him, who said he belonged with the cactus and the heat and the wild longhorns, a mother who in all the intervening years had never once bothered to contact him to see if he was alive.

He had been afraid to believe in love after that. Sometimes he wanted to, sometimes he even tried to convince himself it was possible, but so far he hadn’t succeeded. He had been willing to do without when the least likely woman in the world had changed everything.

The faint sound of a door closing interrupted his thoughts, caused him to flinch. Pilar had entered her bedroom. He felt conflicting impulses—to go in immediately, to put it off until tomorrow. Nothing he could say would change anything. He was already half undressed. He’d probably be better off going to bed.

But the need to see her, talk to her, be near her never left him. He hadn’t accepted her decision to marry Manuel. He wasn’t an expert at love like Owen, but he didn’t have to be a genius to see she didn’t feel about Manuel the way she felt about him. She didn’t follow him with her eyes, yet avoid talking to him. She didn’t want to know everything about his day, yet pretend her feelings for him were dead.

It was time he stopped pretending, too. He’d held back out of pride, out of uncertainty about his feelings. He still wasn’t sure what he did feel, but he knew he wanted Pilar to be his wife. He also knew he didn’t give a snap of his fingers about her money or anything else.

He walked over to the door that joined their two rooms and opened it before he had time to change his mind.

Chapter Twenty-four

At the sound of the door opening, Pilar swung around, not knowing what to expect. The sight of Cade stepping into her bedroom in just his pants sent the blood thrumming through her veins. He shouldn’t be here. She had already changed for bed. She would ask Ivan to nail the door shut. She wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that Cade could enter her bedroom at any moment.

She backed away, keeping the large bed between them.

“Nate told me what he said. I came to apologize.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“I wanted to do it anyway.”

They just stood there, too far apart and yet much too close. She wondered all over again how her grandmother could think she could prefer Manuel. His presence didn’t make her heart beat faster, her breath become shallow, or her body grow tense. His nearness didn’t reach out and encompass her as though it were the natural way things should be. She didn’t feel energized by his presence. She
wasn’t drawn to him by an invisible force almost too strong to resist. She didn’t think about him nearly every moment she was awake.

She didn’t long to have him look in her direction, didn’t wait breathlessly to see him smile when he caught sight of her, wouldn’t listen eagerly when he spoke. More importantly, she didn’t long for him to hold her close, to kiss her, to tell her that he loved her. She would have been upset if he had. She was upset that Cade hadn’t.

“Do you think that man is Laveau?” she asked.

“There’s no way to tell. He seems to know the area, but anybody living here would know it better than Nate and Broc.”

“Does he know it as well as you?”

“Better.”

She felt something heavy hit the bottom of her stomach. “Then you think it’s Laveau.”

He was reluctant to answer, but he didn’t try to be evasive. “Yes.”

“I won’t help you catch him. You can’t expect me to.”

“I don’t.” He emerged from the shadows that lurked in the corners of the room and came into the sphere of light provided by her lone candle. The clear view of his half-naked body caused her belly to tighten.

“But you said—”

“I felt guilty, responsible for the deaths of my men. I was trying to use you to help ease my conscience. That was wrong. I’m sorry I wasn’t smart enough to see that from the beginning.”

The sense of relief astounded her. She’d had no idea she’d been so upset thinking he’d hate her for not helping.

“Nate and the others don’t feel the same.”

“It’ll be hard at first, but they won’t blame you.”

“Are you sure you don’t blame me?” She stepped closer. She wanted to look into his eyes, make sure she could believe his answer.

“I couldn’t turn against my grandfather, cantankerous, bullheaded know-it-all that he is. War changes the rules. Its lessons are brutal, impossible to forget. Afterward it’s hard to change back to the way things were.”

“I can never go back.”

“Then why are you marrying Manuel? Why can’t you marry me?”

He stepped forward, and she moved back.

“I can’t marry a man who wants to hang my brother.”

“So you’re going to marry a man you don’t even like.”

“I like Manuel.”

He moved closer, and she backed around a chair. “No, you don’t. You don’t look at him when he’s in the same room. You stay as far away from him as possible. Hell, you don’t even talk to him when you can help it. How are you going to have a decent marriage with this man?”

“That’s not your concern. All you have to know—”

He moved so quickly she couldn’t stay out of his reach. When he gripped her by the arms, she glanced around to see if Wheeler would come to her defense, but the dog had gone to sleep on the hearth. He trusted Cade. So much for the intuition of a dog.

“It is my concern,” Cade said.

“Why?”

“Because I care about you.”

“You don’t care about anything but the land and the cows,” Pilar said, throwing at him the fear she’d harbored for so long, that no one could care for her without caring for her possessions even more.

“That’s not true,” he said.

“Even when you were lying to me?”

That caused him to pause but not stop. “Even then. I always liked you.”

“Not me, but what I represented. You said yourself that running off with me was just a way to thumb your nose at my family.”

“It was also a way to discover you were human, made of warm flesh and blood, not the heartless doll I saw through a window or in a carriage.”

“You watched me through my window?” He couldn’t have. That would have meant he had somehow gotten onto their property.

“Your
vaqueros
were too well-fed. It was easy to slip into the thickets at night.”

“But those were the pranks of a boy. We’re adults now, and we’re talking about the rest of our lives.”

“That’s all the more reason you shouldn’t spend it with a man who disgusts you.”

It was useless to pretend. “Manuel and I have been betrothed since we were children. This is the way it’s done in my family.”

“So you’re going to allow your grandmother to trade you off like a piece of property just like your class has always done with women.”

“I’m not giving up my property.”

“You might as well. Anybody who works for you will take orders from Manuel.”

“He won’t be here. He’ll live on his ranch in Mexico.”

“And he agreed to that?”

She hoped he wouldn’t. “I haven’t told him yet.”

His grip on her arms tightened. “Pilar, don’t sell yourself to a man you don’t love.”

“I thought you said you didn’t believe in love, that people
of my class
didn’t know what it was.”

“That’s no reason to marry a man who disgusts you so much you can’t stand to live in the same country with him. If you must marry somebody, marry me. At least I love you.”

The word hit her with the force of a lightning bolt. Did he mean what he said, or was this just another lie to help him get what he wanted?

She fought off the birth of hope. Cade didn’t believe in love, for him or for her. Yet hope would not be held down. Ever since she could remember, she’d wanted to be loved for herself. No one had ever made her feel that way including her grandmother or Laveau. She wasn’t sure any man could, but surely the least likely would be Cade Wheeler.

Cade’s words appeared to have affected himself no less profoundly. Her grandmother would have said he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. She would say he’d just realized he’d made a promise he couldn’t keep, and his conscience was pinching him.

“Do you know what you just said?”

“Yes.” He still looked as if he’d swallowed something that had caught in his throat.

“You don’t believe in love,” she said.

“I know.”

“Did you believe me when I said I loved you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“No woman has ever loved a Wheeler enough to stay with him.”

“If I married you, I’d never leave no matter what. Do you believe that?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t believe her. How could she expect him to when his own mother had walked out on him?

“We should never have met. The worst thing we could have done was fall in love,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because neither one of us believes in love, yet we want it so badly we’re willing to make bargains with the devil.”

“I don’t know if what I feel is really love, but I know it has nothing to do with cows, land, or this hacienda. I’d want to marry you if you came to me barefoot.”

“Do you mean if I walked up to your grandfather’s ranch and said I had no land, no cows, no hacienda, you’d still want to marry me?”

“Yes.”

He meant it. She didn’t know if he
really
meant it, deep down where true desires hide, but he thought he meant it.

“Do you love me enough to give up this hacienda and come live with me and my grandfather?”

Even though she’d been promised to Manuel, she’d always pictured herself living in the hacienda with her husband and family. The roots that bound her to her family’s past and traditions were so strong, she had never considered severing them. And she knew that moving to the Wheeler ranch would mean cutting herself off from her family.

That thought frightened her. She had never been cut adrift. Even when she’d been driven from her home, she had her grandmother, who never ceased to invoke the past when the uncertainties of the present became too great. And in an odd sort of way, Earl Wheeler supported that vision. He complained about her grandmother, never said anything nice about her, considered all her pretensions
hogwash, yet moved out of his own house, his own bedroom, and never once demanded it back.

“I would be very frightened and unsure of myself, but as long as I could feel your love, I would do it,” she said.

She expected more conversation, more attempts to figure out what had gone wrong between them. But Cade had apparently finished with words. He took her into his arms and began to kiss her with the hunger of a man long denied everything essential for the continuance of life. Pilar knew she should resist, that yielding to temptation would only make it harder to step back later, but she couldn’t help herself. Nothing had ever felt so good. All of the tension of the last few days melted away and she dissolved into his embrace, willing to let him do whatever he wanted as long as he did it with her.

She didn’t understand how simply being held in his arms, being kissed, could infuse her with such energy. She felt the fatigue of the day fall away like a discarded cloak. She wanted to kiss Cade as hard as he kissed her. She wanted to hold him as tightly, press herself against him until she felt absorbed, become so much a part of him that they could never be separated again. She couldn’t explain this need to feel attached to him, but it seemed vital to her very existence. She didn’t know how she could think of living without him. He was as necessary as the air she breathed.

“I think I’ve always wanted you,” Cade said, “but I wouldn’t let myself think about it. It seemed too impossible.”

“I never dreamed about you until you ran off with me. Then I dreamed about you all the time. I told myself I was dreaming of some duke or noble warrior—I even gave them names—but they always ended up being you.”

“The women in my dreams were faceless. Or maybe they were all you.” They had worked themselves over to the bed. Cade sat down and pulled Pilar into his lap. “But they haven’t been faceless for a long time.”

She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the nose and eyes. She kissed him all over until he started to laugh. That goaded her into redoubling her efforts. Cade laughed so hard he fell back on the bed, pulling her over on top of him.

“What is so funny?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s like there’s a big bubble of happiness inside me I can’t keep down. Have you ever felt that way?”

“No, but it sounds wonderful.”

He pulled her down and kissed her soundly. “It feels wonderful, too.”

A quick body movement, and she found herself on her back with Cade’s face looming over her, his elbows resting on either side of her.

“No fair,” she said through her laughter. “You’re stronger than I am.”

“I want to see your face, but the light was behind you.” He indicated the single candle.

“But I can’t see your face.”

“You’re prettier than I am.”

“Who told you that?”

“I have a mirror.”

“Well, it’s wrong. You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met.”

“Just my luck. Fall in love with a woman, and she goes stark raving mad.”

Pilar punched him. “I’m not mad,” she said, though she didn’t care what he said about her as long as he prefaced
it by saying he loved her. “You are handsome. Any woman would tell you so.”

“Unfortunately for my ego, none have. But that doesn’t matter as long as you think I’m handsome.”

“I do.” She pulled him down so she could kiss him.

She liked the weight of him pressed down on her. It made her feel more connected, more protected. She didn’t like to admit that was so important to her, but after living for so long in perpetual fear, it was wonderful to know that Cade was there, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

And it was absolutely wonderful to be so important in a man’s eyes.

For too long she was important only for what she represented. She was criticized, chastised, cloistered, her wants ignored, her opinions rejected, her compliance taken for granted. To be thought beautiful, to be cherished for herself alone … Well, that was more than she could fathom.

“You should be surrounded by a thousand candles,” Cade said.

She laughed. “I’d faint from the heat.”

“I could sit and look at you for hours.”

“I’d rather you spend the time kissing me.” She pushed him over and rolled onto her side. “It’s not fair. The light is still behind you.”

“I have memorized every part of your face.” He closed his eyes. “I see you as clearly as before.”

Pilar closed her eyes and was delighted to discover she could visualize Cade’s face. She would never be without him again.

Keeping his eyes closed, Cade started to kiss her again, but he quickly deserted her lips for her neck and the top of her shoulder. The feel of his lips sent shivers racing up
and down her spine. Her grandmother said a gentleman only kissed a lady’s hand.

But why would she have assumed that Cade would stay within any limits outlined by her grandmother?

Cade’s lips had wandered to the tops of her breasts, and her thoughts catapulted back to that night outside the hacienda. Just thinking about it caused her body to quiver. She had dreamed of it nearly every night since, more than once waking to find her body covered with a film of moisture. Cade’s kisses were making her so hot she felt like pulling off her clothes to keep from fainting.

Cade took care of that. He reached inside her gown, freed one breast, and took the nipple into his mouth. Pilar thought she would rise up from the bed. It seemed impossible that such a small part of her body could have such a powerful effect on the rest of it. She felt as though every inch of her had been transformed into pulses and nerves. Even the material of her gown touching her body had a sensuous feel about it. She felt so alive, so intensely, acutely aware of every part of her, that she felt unable to concentrate on anything.