This Fierce Splendor (36 page)

He looked tired. His dark curly hair was frosted with fine motes of dust, and his green shirt, darkened by perspiration, clung to him like a second skin. Tenderness tightened her throat and moved through her in a soft, glowing tide. “You’ve been working hard at Shamrock?” She jumped to her feet and crossed the room toward him. “Are Anne and William well? Would you like me to tell Rosa to heat water for your bath?”

He shook his head and answered the last question first. “I only have time to wash some of the sweat off me and grab a couple clean shirts. Da doesn’t want to let Torres’s trail get cold.” He crossed to the washstand against the wall and poured water from the pitcher into the basin. “Anne and William are fine.”

“I was hoping you could stay until tomorrow morning,” she whispered as she stepped behind him. Her arms slid around his waist and she pressed her cheek to his back. “I have missed you. Have you missed me?”

“Yes.” She could feel the muscles of his spine tense against her cheek. “Yes, I’ve missed you.” He dipped his palms into the basin and splashed water onto his face. “Hand me that towel, will you?”

She stepped back and handed him a white towel from the rack. Loneliness. Yet he had said he had missed her. She mustn’t demand too much. She knew he didn’t like to be crowded, but it was so hard not to— “You’re tired. Perhaps you could join them later.”

He shook his head as he dabbed the water from his face. “I want my chance at Torres.” His voice was harsh. “He shot my brother, dammit.”

“It was not a serious wound.”

“That’s not the point. He shot him. No one is going to hurt one of my family and ride away. You should
know by now that Delaneys don’t forgive harm to one of our own.”

She flinched. “I do know that, Joshua.”

“I guess you do,” he said wearily, staring into her strained face. He threw the towel onto the washstand. “I’ve got to get downstairs. Da wanted us ready to leave by the time fresh horses are saddled and the provisions packed.” He took a step closer and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Are you all right?” he asked awkwardly.

“Yes.”

He hesitated, looking down at her with a curiously tormented expression. “And the child?”

“Well. I think it must be a boy. He kicks with the strength of a warrior.”

A shadow crossed his face. “You’re not in any pain?” His palm gently cradled the curve of her cheek. “He doesn’t hurt you?”

Her hand covered his on her cheek, holding it there, desperately savoring the tenderness of the action. “There is no pain, and if there were, it would be pleasure-pain. We are going to have a fine son, Joshua.”

He stared down at her softly glowing eyes and for an instant she again saw the torment before his hand dropped from her cheek and he turned away. “Take care of yourself while I’m away.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. We’ll be gone as long as it takes to find that bastard.” The hardness was once again in his voice. “We don’t want him on Dom’s trail.” He opened the door. “Good-bye, Star.”

“Joshua—”

He looked back over his shoulder inquiringly.

“Nothing.” Her teeth pressed into her lower lip. “Good journey. I will miss you until you return.”

He smiled. For a moment there was no torment, no harshness, no veil of guilt or memory between them. He was the young Joshua who had come to her village and captured her heart with his boyish smile and loving passion.

He closed the door behind him, leaving her with loneliness … and hope.

Silver threw open the door and burst into the room. Her clothes were as dusty and her skin as dirty as Joshua’s had been. Her gray eyes were flashing. “Is it true?” she demanded. “I saw Patrick downstairs. He told me of the wedding, the shooting, Torres … Elspeth has really left without me?”

A tiny smiled appeared on Rising Star’s face. “I believe that was always her plan. That’s why you went back to the village to hire a fine guide for her.” Her gaze searched Silver’s face. “But I think you had no intention of fetching a guide to lead her to Kantalan.”

“I did not lie,” Silver said hotly. “I went to the village as I told her I would. Can I help it if I am the best guide in the village? She is far better off with me.”

“Elspeth has Dominic now. He will see that she comes to no harm. You trust Dominic, Silver.”

“Yes, but I wanted …” Silver nibbled at her lower lip. “This is all very strange. Did the old woman force her into the marriage?”

Rising Star shook her head. There was no use arousing Silver’s fervent protectiveness by revealing Torres’s schemes. “It was not Malvina’s doing. Elspeth wed Dominic of her own will.”

Disappointment clouded Silver’s expression. “I thought perhaps …”

“I know.” Rising Star picked up the folded slip of paper from the desk and handed it to Silver. “She left this note for you.”

Silver unfolded the paper and scanned it quickly. Disappointment showed plainly in her expression. “I am not to follow her. She will see me when she returns. She holds me in the greatest affection.” She suddenly crushed the paper in the palm of her hand. “But I want to be
with
them.”

“She would only send you back,” Rising Star said gently. “She feels she has taken too much from you.”

“She does not understand. I want to help,” Silver said. “Why does she not understand?”

Rising Star understood, if Elspeth did not. To be permitted to give service was to belong, to be denied the giving of gifts was to be shut out in the cold outer darkness. Oh, yes, she understood very well. “She wants to keep you out of harm’s way. She does not mean to close you off from her or to hurt you.”

Silver’s head lifted, her light eyes glittering proudly. “She did not hurt me. I did not really want to go chasing after a dream city. It is probably better that I stay here. It is more important for me to help find Torres.” She walked swiftly to the door. “Yes, I am needed more here.”

“Silver, no!”

But Silver was gone, the bedroom door left ajar, and the soft thud of her moccasinned feet sounding on the stairs.

Rising Star moved slowly across the room to close the door, sympathy for Silver engulfing her. Would the girl never learn she could not force them to yield a place for her? She had received a thousand cuts to her soul, and yet she still rushed forward with reckless passion.

No, her own way was best, Rising Star thought. Patience and conformity to the rules of the white world were the best attributes for an Indian who wished to survive and live with them. Silver would just have to learn that lesson as she had.

Lanterns, hung on the posts of the corral so the linen could see to cut out and saddle the horses, cast a soft glow over the scene. About twenty vaqueros were mounted and waiting to ride out. Cort, Sean, and young William were strolling toward the corral from the direction of the barn and Silver could see Patrick, Joshua, and Shamus just ahead, their destination the same as hers.

“Wait!” Silver ran across the flagstones. “I’m coming with you.”

“The hell you are.” Shamus whirled to face her. The
gray stetson on his head threw his face into shadow, and the lantern light behind him made his body look ominously large and dark. “This is Delaney business.”

“That’s why I’m going with you. You need me to help you find that son of a bitch who shot Dominic.”

“Watch your language,” Shamus said sharply. “You may not believe you’re a female, but I won’t have Malvina’s ears sullied by your filthy mouth.”

Silver made a gesture of impatience. “Malvina’s still in the house. Besides, that is not important. Do you want to find Torres or not?”

“We’ll find him,” Shamus said. “Patrick is a damn good tracker. We don’t need you.”

“I
taught
Patrick,” Silver snapped. “When we were children I took him out into the woods and taught him what I had learned from my grandfather, Black Bear.”

“That’s right, she did, Gran-da,” Patrick interjected quickly. “There’s no one better on the trail than Silver.”

Silver shot him a glance of passionate gratitude that was immediately hidden beneath a facade of nonchalance. “You were not as clumsy as I thought you would be,” she conceded. “But you were never as good as me.”

“Thank you.” Patrick’s voice held a note of dry humor. “I’m glad you think I’m not completely beyond help.”

“Patrick’s good enough,” Shamus said. “You get along back to the house.”

“Why?” Silver’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I can help you. Only a very stupid man would refuse help when it is offered.”

“Or one who doubts the quality of the help,” Shamus said. “I told you the Delaneys have no—”

“You
do
need me.” Silver took a step closer. “I can track and live off the land. I can read the turn of a stone or the way a blade of grass is crushed. I can do anything I want to do. Hell, if I wanted to, I could build a fine rancho like this one. No, a much finer
rancho. And I’m a Delaney too. There’s no shame in accepting help from me. Let me find this man for you.”

Shamus’s eyes narrowed on her face. “You think you can do anything in the whole damn world.”

She stared back at him unflinchingly. “Why not? Don’t you, old man?”

Shamus started to turn away.

“Stop!” Silver’s voice vibrated with emotion. “I want to hear you say it, Shamus. Just this once, tell the truth. You know I am a Delaney. Say it!”

He glared at her over his shoulder. “Why should I change my mind? There’s no proof you’re Boyd’s daughter.”

“You know it, old man.” Silver’s eyes blazed. “And I know it! I want nothing else from you. You can keep your rancho, your fine horses, and your cattle. I want only one thing from you.
Name me your kin
.”

Shamus gazed back at her, anger, defiance, and an odd element of pride illuminating his harsh features. He turned away. “We’ve got no time for this nonsense. Go back to the house and tell your aunt I told her to teach you some manners.”

“
Tell
me.”

He stopped and was silent for a long moment, his expression hidden from her. Then he looked back over his shoulder. “You’re no Delaney. I said it fifteen years ago and I say it now.”

Silver’s lids fluttered for the tenth of a second, her body tensing as if it had received a blow. Her eyes shimmered in the lanternlight like crystal under clear water. “Then you lie,” she said slowly. “And I am done with your lies.” She turned and strode majestically toward her mare tethered at the corral. “And I am done with the Delaneys. I will not return here.”

She ignored the silent vaqueros as she mounted then walked the horse up to where Shamus, Patrick, and Joshua stood watching her. She looked down at Shamus. “What a fool you are, Shamus Delaney,” she said clearly. “Can you not see what you have lost in me?” She turned and kicked the mare into a gallop,
her straight dark hair streaming behind her in a wild silken pennant as the mare stretched out in a dead run.

Patrick muttered a curse beneath his breath and took a step toward his horse.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shamus asked sharply.

“After her,” Patrick said as he swung into the saddle. “She meant it, dammit.”

“No.” Shamus mounted his own horse.

Patrick frowned. “Gran-da, Silver shouldn’t—”

“I said no! I still run Killara and this family, don’t I?”

Patrick didn’t answer, gazing mutinously in the direction Silver had taken.

“Don’t I?” Shamus asked again with dangerous softness.

Patrick nodded jerkily. “But you’ve made a mistake.”

“And now children are teaching their elders,” Shamus drawled. “Next, young William will be telling me how to run my family.”

“I’m no youngster,” Patrick said, stung.

“Then concentrate on tracking Torres and on keeping him from killing your uncle.” Shamus kicked his horse, and the animal bounded forward. The vaqueros fell in behind him and the stableyard was suddenly filled with clouds of dust and churning earth.

“You’d better catch up with him.” It was Josh’s quiet voice beside Patrick. “It will be daybreak soon and he’ll need you when we reach the foothills.”

“He was wrong, Josh.”

Joshua’s hand grasped Patrick’s shoulder in silent support. Then the reassuring touch was gone and Joshua was gone, too, moving through the column of vaqueros to ride beside his brothers and Shamus.

Patrick could feel a little of the tension drain from him. Joshua always had that effect on him. Since he was a kid younger than William, Joshua’s quiet strength had always seemed to spread a tranquil
balm when he was at his rawest. It had been Joshua who had taken the time to teach him to throw a lariat, to mend a fence, to ride the wild range ponies. Joshua who had been neither father nor brother but something in between. How many cattle drives, how many nights in the hills had they spent together in quiet companionship? Nights that Rising Star must have spent alone, Patrick realized suddenly.

His gaze flew to Joshua, riding now beside Shamus. Joshua’s eyes were fixed straight ahead, a faint smile lifting his lips at the corners at something Cort had said. He didn’t look back at the house where Rising Star waited for him. Why didn’t he just look over his shoulder and lift his hand in farewell? Rising Star would be standing at the window watching Joshua leave; Patrick had seen her there a hundred times since she had come to Killara. And Joshua must know she’d be there tonight.

It wasn’t any of his business why Joshua didn’t acknowledge her presence, Patrick told himself desperately. Perhaps she wasn’t at the window, maybe Joshua knew she was tired and had gone to bed. There wouldn’t be any sense in Joshua looking back if he knew she wasn’t there.

But she
would
be there, Patrick thought, prepared for bed, her hair brushed to hang straight and shimmering around her. She would be dressed in something loose and soft and white and the light behind her would reveal the grace and strength of her body. Joshua should know, no matter what she said, that she would be at the window watching them leave.

They would be out of the stableyard soon and it would be too late. She would turn away, her shoulders would slump with disappointment. She would turn out the lamp and go to bed. Alone. Hell, why didn’t Joshua— Joshua wasn’t going to turn around.