The Enchantment (14 page)

Larence shook his head in amazement. How could anyone choose not to see the beauty in life?

He looked at her, long and hard. She was, as usual, sitting board-straight, her no-nonsense blue and white striped parasol cocked against the sun. Her black skirt billowed like twin balloons over her hips and down to her knees, and below the dusty brown hem, her cotton-clad legs dangled to the ground.

Dust-caked black walking boots wiggled just above the dirt.

He consulted his pocket thermometer. It was seventy-five degrees out here. And there she sat, ramrod-straight in a wool traveling suit that had to be killing her. She looked ridiculous.

But Larence didn't laugh. He wanted to; oh, how he wanted to. But every time he realized how ridiculous 124

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she looked and started to smile, he'd look in her eyes. And the laughter would shrivel in his throat.

She was not a woman who liked to be laughed at. Normally that wouldn't have stopped him, but anger wasn't the only emotion that flashed in her eyes when he made fun of her. There was something else, something fleeting and quickly suppressed that made him feel uncomfortable. Made him feel he'd actually hurt her.

He studied her profile, drawn as he always was to her pale, classic beauty. She stared straight ahead, apparently fascinated with Diablo's hindquarters. Only the taut, clenched line of her jaw and the white-knuckled curl of her fingers around the reins betrayed the impatience she felt.

He found himself wishing she'd look at him. On rare occasions, like when he'd told her that they'd leave the Indians behind, he'd seen her eyes without the protective barrier that so often hardened them. In those moments, he'd seen something that made his heart thud against his rib cage, made his breath quicken. Something he longed to see again.

But those moments were so rare, so transient, that after they'd passed, he was left wondering whether he'd dreamt them.

He sighed. If only she'd relax. Let that glorious hair tumble down, loosen her nail-straight spine, and let herself enjoy this wonderful adventure. She could be having as much fun as he was. They could be sharing the joy.

' 'Larence ..."

Through the swirl of his thoughts, he heard her voice, knew it was her voice, and yet, in his mind it was his grandmother who spoke his name so harshly.

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' 'Larence, come away from that window. There's no use watching the other boys play. You 'II never be able to join them. " And if he didn't move at once, it came again. That voice, that word. Harsher. More impatient. "Larence ..."

"Damn it, Larence—"

At the sound of Emmaline's voice, he snapped out of the past. Instinctively his hands balled up, his cheeks turned hot.

He'd spent the ten years since his grandmother's death reinventing self-confidence and teaching himself to love life. And he'd be damned if he'd let Emmaline plow through his dream and turn it into rubble. She could live in a shriveled-up soul if she wanted to, but by God, she wouldn't suck the life out of his. He wouldn't let her.

Ramming his fists into his pockets, he strode over to her. Astride the little burro, she was almost eye level with him.

She turned to look at him, and there was no mistaking the impatient anger in her eyes.

He stepped closer.

She frowned, leaned back, trying to maintain her precious distance.

He took another step toward her. His heel crunched on a loose stone. She winced. He heard her breath stumble.

Good, he thought with a surge of self-confidence, let her wonder what I'm going to do. "Emmaline," he said without preamble, "do you want to take the compass and the map and lead us to Cibola?"

Her frown intensified. Wariness replaced the uncertainty in her eyes. "No."

"Then it's time to set a few ground rules. Rule number

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one: This is my expedition. I'm in charge. When I say go, we go. When I say stop, we stop. If you don't like that, or can't live with it, turn around. Because I won't be hurried—not by you or anyone." He leaned closer, close enough to see the tiny navy blue flecks in her sapphire eyes. "Understand?"

She licked her lips. "But—"

"Understand?"

She nibbled on her lower lip. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She'd give anything to seize control of the expedition right now, to take the compass and map and lead them to Cibola. But she couldn't. He knew it. She knew it. Nothing in her life had prepared her to lead this expedition. It was his and his alone.

After a long, silent moment, she swallowed hard. "I understand."

Triumph surged through Larence. He had to turn around quickly to hide his burgeoning grin. He started toward Diablo on feet that felt like they were inches off the ground.

Point one. Larence makes the Scoreboard.

God, he felt good. Suddenly he hoped this expedition lasted forever. He was having the time of his life.

They were in hell.

Emma lifted a damp hand to her even damper brow and let out a long, quivering sigh of pure defeat.

She was being punished for all the years of missed church services. In her religious naivete, she'd thought only dead people landed in hell, but she'd made a fatal mistake in her thinking: She'd underestimated a deity. And she was paying for it now.

The sun's hot fist slammed through the ineffectual barrier of her two-dollar fashion parasol and hit her face. Perspiration trickled down her cheeks and collected inside her tired stand-up collar. Hot, wet cotton clung to her parched throat. The salty, humid scent of her own sweat clogged her nostrils.

With a bare, shaking hand, she swiped at the stringy blond curls plastered against her brow. The effort was almost too much for her. Panting like a puppy in July, she reached into her breast pocket for the saturated scrap of lace that once had been a hand-woven Irish linen handkerchief. Balling the wrinkled white square in her wet palm, she dabbed at her sweat-slicked forehead.

The linen soaked up a feeble amount of moisture, and left the rest streaking in hot rivulets down her cheeks. With another sigh, she let her limp wrist drop

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onto her lap. The monogrammed white handkerchief fluttered like a surrender flag against the black wool of her skirt. Emma eyed it with open hostility. The tiny bit of fabric had obviously been designed by men for women who "glowed."

Well, she'd "glowed" until about nine o'clock this morning. From nine to eleven, she'd perspired. And in each of the lifetime-long seconds since lunch, she'd sweated. Buckets. Bathtubs. Troughs. There wasn't an inch of her skin that wasn't soggy-wet and itchy beneath her clothes.

Larence's carefree whistle floated on the infinitesimal stirring of air that constituted a breeze. Emma gritted her teeth—not a difficult thing to do since they were coated with dirt—and tried to ignore him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something green. Hope surged through her blood, giving her the energy to actually lift her chin.

She used her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her eyes. The moist, harsh wool scraped across her sunburnt skin, setting off a thousand pinpricks of pain, but she didn't care.

A tree. Could it be the one? She held what little breath she had. Please, God, she prayed, let Larence pick this one.

All she wanted now was to slide off this damn burro, fall face-first on the welcoming ground, and sleep for ten hours. It wasn't so much to ask. . . .

He rode right past it.

Her shoulders sagged, her chin bobbed back down to her chest. She swallowed thickly, wishing, inanely, that a fraction of the moisture crawling along her flesh would puddle in her throat. Only the thought of having to later relieve herself kept her from reaching for her canteen.

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She'd already squatted behind one bush today—while Larence had sat on that stupid horse not more than fifteen feet away from her makeshift necessarium, whistling—and once was bloody well enough.

God, she felt awful. The inside of her mouth felt like a sunbaked riverbed. She was hot and tired and cranky and—worst of all—she was unable to control Larence.

That she—she—Emmaline Amanda Hatter, the great and feared "Mad Hatter" of Wall Street, should have to sit in silence behind him was . . . was—

Think about something else.

Yes. She had to learn to make the best of this horrid situation; she had to learn to—she gulped at the thought—follow.

Larence stopped whistling for a second and said something to her. She couldn't make out the words and didn't try. Why should she? All of his comments were the same: garbled, laughter-tinged babble about how beautiful something was, or how grand it was just to be alive.

She scowled at the bright yellow and white stripes on his serape. Any second now he'd probably slide off Diablo's broad back, grab his sacred notebook, and start doodling.

He babbled something that sounded suspiciously like "Look! A desert shrew!"

Before she even had time to roll her eyes, he was off Diablo and limping toward the furry little rodent.

Emma saw her chance and seized it. She slid off Tashee's back and plopped onto the hard, bone-dry dirt. The bunched-up muscles in her thighs screamed in protest. She grabbed hold of Tashee's wiry mane and kept herself upright until the painful tingling in her legs sub-130

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sided. After a few seconds, she let go of Tashee's mane and stepped away from the little burro.

She was standing. Standing. Relief spread through her body, rejuvenated her spirits. Thank God. A sudden breeze came up and ruffled the curly tendrils of hair that had escaped the thick coil at her nape.

She tottered toward the pack mule.

"What are you doing?"

Emma winced. Damn. She'd hoped it would take longer to draw a rat than that. Oh, well. There was nothing to do but answer. "Getting my things. I thought we'd stop here for the night."

Deep, rumbling laughter floated to her ears, raked down her back.

"Turn around, Emma."

Reluctantly she did.

"You thought we'd camp here for the night?" A quick, cocky smile punctuated his sentence.

She licked her paper-dry lips and nodded. "I did."

He limped toward her. The pointedly teasing look in his eyes made her stomach clench in angry frustration. She'd seen that look in his eyes before, when he'd offered her the compass: it was his "lesson"

look.

The thought of a second lesson from Larence was almost more than she could bear. She backed away from him and found herself pinned against the mule's sweaty flank.

He came close and stopped. She forced herself to return his steady gaze. As they stared at each other, the hint of a breeze evaporated, leaving in its stead an oppressively hot silence. Emma felt each breath like an anvil in the chest. The only sound for miles was the soft threading of their breath in the hot, motionless air.

Her overtaut nerves snapped. "Spit it out."

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"Only the leader of an expedition can decide where to camp for the night."

Emma's fingers itched to slap his face. She balled her hands into tight white fists. "Fine." Without another word, she pushed him aside and staggered back to Tashee. Remounting, she stared dead ahead.

Still smiling that same irritating, obnoxious smile, Larence ambled lazily over to Diablo. Within seconds, the melodic warble of his whistle floated across the desolate landscape.

Emma glowered at him, a thousand silent curses jockeying for position in her mind. A dozen dark, angry emotions pulled at her, but the strongest of them was regret.

She should have taken the damn compass when she'd had the chance.

"We'll camp there by the river."

The words wrenched Emma out of her heat-induced stupor. She lifted her head. The world spun crazily.

Diablo's hindquarters went in and out of focus.

She blinked to clear her vision, and immediately wished she hadn't. It felt as if sandpaper were scraping against her aching, too-dry eyeballs. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Gripping the reins in slick, white-knuckled hands, she ran her tongue along the cracked, dry surface of her lower lip and recocked her parasol against the lowering sun. Then, hesitantly, she opened her eyes.

They were in a narrow valley, alongside a thin, twisting ribbon of water. The brownish stream chattered with swirling ripples, lapped against the low, sandy bank. Dozens of old cottonwood trees lined the river's edge, their arching branches raised like defiant fists against 132

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the hostile sun. Golden-white beams of light streaked through the cathedral-like dome of rustling leaves and mottled the sandy earth.

Surprise rendered Emma momentarily speechless. It was . . . pretty. Not beautiful perhaps, but pretty, in a harsh, raw sort of way. For the first time all day she noticed how blue the sky was, how white the clouds. . . .

"Here we are, home sweet home."

She was afraid to believe the words. No doubt the heat was playing tricks on her, and what Larence had actually said was, We're halfway there. Just another sixteen hours and we'll 'II make camp.

"We're here?" she breathed.

He twisted around and gave her a bright white smile. "Yep. We're here."

"Yep?" she said to herself. "Yep?" Where was he getting his dialogue? Bad dime novels?

He eased out of his saddle and dropped to the sandy ground. A low, masculine groan of pure pleasure accompanied his every movement as he bent and stretched.

Emma clicked her parasol shut and tossed it to the ground, then eased off Tashee's sweaty back. The second her boots hit the soft-packed earth, her legs turned to jelly and she crumpled to her knees in the dirt.

"Yep. The beauty makes you want to get down on your knees and pray."

Emma was too stunned by the stupidity of his remark to reply.

He didn't seem to notice that she was glaring at him. Quite the contrary, in fact. His smile got bigger. And whiter. "Did I ever tell you that I once wanted to be a priest?"