The Cowboy and the Lady (15 page)

“Since when did I ask you to defend me?” Jace demanded hotly.

She dropped her eyes to the green hospital gown with its rounded neckline showing above the sheet that was drawn up to her waistline. She only had two gowns with her on this trip, neither of which was suitable to be seen in. She was glad no one had bothered to bring one for her to wear.

“God forbid that I should stand up for you,” she said in a husky whisper, feeling the whip of the words even through the daze of drugs and the headache.

“Why don’t you go back to the ranch and fuss over your damned horse?” Duncan asked shortly. “He’s part of the blood stock, remember, worth far more than a mere woman!”

“How would you like to step outside with me?” Jace asked in a goaded tone.

“Please!” Amanda pleaded, holding her head as the pain swept a wave of nausea over her. “Please don’t fight. Both of you, just go away and let me groan in peace.”

“Can I bring you anything?” Duncan said tightly.

She shook her head, refusing to open her eyes and look at either one of them. “I’ll be fine. Just tell them I’m checking out in the morning, if you don’t mind, Duncan.”

“You’ll check out when the doctor says so, and not one minute before,” Jace told her curtly.

“I will check out when I decide to,” she replied, opening her eyes and sitting up straight in the bed to glare across the room at him. “I am not a woman of means anymore, as you so frequently remind me. I am one of the nation’s deprived, and that goes for insurance as well as wardrobe. I cannot afford,” she said deliberately, “to enjoy the hospitality of this lovely white hotel longer than one full day or I will be paying off the bill in my dotage. I am leaving tomorrow. Period.”

“Like hell,” Jace shot back. His face went rigid. “I’ll take care of the bill.”

“No!” she burst out, eyes blazing. “I will gladly starve to death before I’ll let you buy me a soda cracker! I hate you!”

A shadow passed across his face, but not a trace of expression showed on it. He turned without another word and went out the door.

“Whew,” Duncan breathed softly. “Talk about having the last word…”

“Are you going to argue with me, too?” she grumbled.

“Not me, darling.” He laughed. “I’m not up to your weight.”

She nodded. “I’m glad you noticed.” She smiled.

“I only wish I knew what was going on between you and my brother,” he added narrowly.

She avoided his eyes. She couldn’t tell him about the terrible accusation Jace had made. She couldn’t do that to Duncan, who’d stood by her for so long, against such odds. Her weary eyes closed. Jace could hate her and it didn’t matter, not anymore. She was tired of writhing under his contempt, tired of aching for him. At least when he was hating her he wouldn’t look close enough to see how desperately she loved him.

Less than an hour later Bea came in, her face terribly pale, her eyes troubled. She hugged Amanda gently, tears rolling down her cheeks, her normally faultless coiffure looking unkempt. She sank down into a deep, padded chair by the bed and held Amanda’s hand tightly.

“I’ve been so worried,” she confessed. “I feel responsible.”

Amanda stared at her. “Mother! Why should you feel guilty? It was my fault.”

“Duncan says you argued with Jason,” Bea said doggedly. “And I’ll bet it was about me. It was, wasn’t it, darling?”

Amanda dropped her eyes to the small, thin-skinned hand clasping her own. “Yes.” She sighed wearily, too weak to pretend anymore.

“About me…and his father,” Bea suggested hesitatingly.

Amanda nodded without raising her eyes.

Bea sighed, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “I’d hoped you’d never have to be told,” she whispered. “I was sure that Jason knew, but I hoped…” Her dark eyes met her daughter’s, and they were bright with pain. “I loved him, Amanda,” she whispered tearfully. “He was everything Jason is, and more. A man who could carry the world on his shoulders and never strain. I hated what I was doing, even then, but I was helpless. I’d have gone to him on my deathbed if he’d called me.” She brushed away a stray tear. “I loved your father, Amanda, I did. But there was no comparison between that love and what I felt for Jude. I hurt your father, and Marguerite, very much, and I’ll always be sorry for that. But as long as I live, I’ll remember the way it was when Jude held me. I’ll cherish those crumbs of memory like a miser with a treasure until I die, and I can’t apologize. He was the air I breathe.”

Amanda stared at her blankly, her lips trembling, trying to form words. When Jace had made his accusation, it had been so easy to deny it. But now she had to face the truth. Bea was revealing a love as powerful as that Amanda felt for Jace. She studied her mother’s delicate features, and saw for the first time the deep sadness lurking in her eyes. How would it be if Jace were married? Would she feel any less deeply about him? And if he wanted her, would she be able to deny him, loving him? It was so easy to pass moral judgment…until you found yourself in the shoes of the judged.

“You feel that way about Jace, don’t you?” Bea asked gently, her gaze intent.

Amanda nodded, smiling bitterly. “For all the good it will ever do me. He only wants me, Mother, he doesn’t love me.”

“With Jude, it was one and the same thing,” Bea said quietly. “I imagine his son is no different. But you have an advantage that I didn’t, my darling. Jace isn’t married.”

“He hates me,” came the sad reply. “It hasn’t stopped him from wanting me, but he hates what he feels.”

Bea’s small fingers contracted. “Perhaps you’ll have to take the first step toward him,” she said gently, with a tiny smile. “Amanda, nothing is as important as love. Nothing. Those few weeks I had when Jude was the sun in my sky are as precious as diamonds to me. Nothing can ever take away the memory of them. I keep him here, now,” she whispered, touching the soft fabric over her breast, “with me always, wherever I go. I care for Reese Bannon, in the same fond way that I cared for your father. I can be happy with him. But Jude was the love of my life, as Jace is the love of yours. I had no chance at all, Amanda. My happiness was built on the crumbling dreams of another woman. But you have the chance. Don’t throw it away for pride, my darling. Life is so very short.”

Amanda pressed the small hand holding hers, and tears welled in her eyes. She hadn’t realized that her mother was a woman, with all a woman’s hopes and needs. Perhaps all Bea’s mad sprees were her way of rebelling against a life too confining, dreams unrealized. She was childlike in a sense, but such a sad, lonely child. Remembering Jude Whitehall, how closely his son resembled him, Amanda could even understand Bea’s passion for him. She could understand it very well.

“I love you,” she whispered to her mother.

Bea sniffed through her tears. “I’m a weak person,” she whispered brokenly with a tiny smile.

Amanda shook her head. “Just a loving woman. If Jace loved me back, it wouldn’t matter if he had ten wives—I wouldn’t be able to stop my feet from taking me to him. I do love him so!”

Bea moved onto the bed and gathered her daughter into her frail arms. “Hush, baby,” she whispered, as she had when Amanda had been small and hurt. “Mama’s here. It’s going to be all right, now, you’ll see. Everything is going to be all right.”

Amanda closed her eyes and let the tears come. She hadn’t felt so close to Bea since her childhood.

* * *

She got up the next morning, dressed while holding on to the bed for support, and ran a brush through her hair. Marguerite came in to find her sitting quietly on the edge of the big reclining chair in the corner, looking pale and fragile and terribly vulnerable. The only clothes she had to put on were those she’d been wearing when she had the accident—the same jeans and white top. They were dirty and stained, but at least she was out of the shapeless hospital gown and wearing what belonged to her.

“My dear, you aren’t really going to try and go back to the ranch so soon, are you?” Marguerite asked gently.

“I’m going home,” she said in a small voice. She barely looked able to sit up. “All the way home. I’ve got the bus fare. I know Mother wants me to stay and help her plan the wedding, but I just can’t. She’ll understand.”

The older woman sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that, so I took the necessary precautions. I do hope you’ll forgive me someday.”

Amanda blinked. She felt faintly nauseated, and her head was swimming. Marguerite’s words didn’t register at first, until the door opened and Jace walked in, very elegant in gray slacks and a patterned gray-and-tan sports jacket over an open-necked white shirt.

“She wants to take a bus home,” Marguerite said with compassionate amusement, turning her dark eyes on her son. “Just as I expected.”

Jace moved forward, and Amanda jerked backward as he reached her. Something—a faint movement in his face—almost registered in her whirling mind, but she stared up at him resentfully.

“Where’s Duncan?” she asked apprehensively.

“At work,” Jace said harshly. “Where I should be.”

“Jace!” Marguerite exclaimed.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” she said through numb lips, glaring up at him. “I can get home all by myself.”

His nostrils flared, his eyes glittered. “Brave words,” he said curtly.

Her eyes dropped to his brown throat, and she felt all the fight go out of her in a long, weary sigh. Her body wasn’t up to it. She slumped in the chair. “Yes,” she whispered, “very brave. I hurt so,” she moaned, dropping her aching head into her hands as hot tears stung her eyes.

Jace reached down and lifted her in his hard arms, holding her clear of the floor.

“Don’t,” she whimpered. “They have wheelchairs…”

“And I don’t have all day to wait for them to bring one,” he growled. “Let’s go, Mother.”

Marguerite followed them out into the hall, muttering at Jace’s broad back.

“I’ve already signed you out,” Jace said quietly. “And if you say one word about the bill,” he added, glaring into her eyes from a distance of bare inches, “I’ll give you hell, Amanda.”

Her eyes closed, making the wild sensations she felt in his warm, hard arms even more sensuous. “When have you ever given me anything else?” she whispered.

“When have you let me?”

The question was soft and deep, and it shocked her into opening her eyes and looking straight up into his. The impact of it went right through her body. She couldn’t drag her gaze away from his. It stimulated her pulse, stifled her breath in her body. Her sharp nails involuntarily dug into his shoulder.

They were outside now, in the parking lot, and Marguerite had gone around the Mercedes to unlock the passenger side.

Jace’s eyes dropped to Amanda’s soft, parted mouth. “Sharp little claws,” he whispered, and Marguerite was too far away to hear. “And I know just how much damage they can do.”

She gasped, shaken by his reference to those moments of intimacy they had shared. His arms drew her imperceptibly closer before he walked around the car with her. “Shocked, Amanda?” he asked quietly.

She grasped at sanity. “Scarlet women don’t get shocked,” she reminded him shakily.

“I’m beginning to wonder if my first impression wasn’t more accurate than my second,” he replied in a low tone. His eyes sought hers. “Was it, Amanda?”

“I don’t know what your first impression was,” she reminded him.

“Pretty devastating, little one,” he said under his breath. He slid her in onto the back seat of the small car while Marguerite held the door open for him and then turned to get into the passenger seat.

Amanda met Jace’s narrow eyes from a distance of scant inches as he put her down, so close that she could smell the aftershave he’d used clinging to his darkly tanned face.

He drew away in a matter of seconds, although it seemed as if time had stopped while they stared at one another, and her eyes involuntarily clung to his tall figure while he went around the car and got behind the wheel.

“Dear, are you sure you’re up to going home with us?” Marguerite asked worriedly. She half turned with one elegantly clad arm over the back of the seat to study the younger woman. “You look so pale.”

“I’m fine,” Amanda assured her in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. She avoided Jace’s gaze in the rear-view mirror.

How could she tell Marguerite—sweet, gentle Marguerite—that all this anguish was the result of Bea’s love for a married man…for her best friend’s husband? Amanda might be able to understand her mother, but Jace never would. He’d never loved. He couldn’t know how it was to want someone so much that nothing else, no one else, mattered.

* * *

The next morning, amid a storm of protest from Marguerite and Amanda, Bea left for Nassau. She and Reese would wait until Amanda was well enough to attend the ceremony, she promised, pushing the date up a month. Reese wouldn’t mind, she assured her daughter.

“He’s a dear man,” she told Amanda. “I think you’ll appreciate him even more when you get to know him. You must come and stay with us.”

Amanda smiled at the mother she’d only just begun to know. “I may need to,” she agreed with a secretive smile.

Bea hugged her tightly. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’ll be fine now. Really, I will.”

Bea kissed the pale cheek and went out without looking back—a habit she’d formed early in life—and allowed Marguerite to take her to the airport. Amanda wished silently that she might have been well enough to go with her mother and run away.

But as she found out later, lying in the lovely blue room, staring at the ceiling with a horribly throbbing head, she wasn’t in any condition for travel.

The one bright spot in the day was the arrival of a florist with a huge bouquet of carnations, roses, baby’s breath and heather, sandwiched in with lily of the valley, irises, mums, daisies—a profusion of color and scent.

“For me?” she choked.

The florist grinned, setting the arrangement on her bedside table. “If your name is Amanda Carson.”

“If it wasn’t, I’d change it right now,” she vowed.

“Hope you enjoy them,” he said from the door as he closed it.

She struggled into a sitting position, her narrow strapped green gown sliding off one honey-colored shoulder while she leaned over to put her nose to a small yellow rosebud. Whoever had ordered the flowers knew her taste perfectly; knew how much she loved yellow roses and daisies, because they were dominant in the bouquet.