Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (42 page)

      
“Sorry if I frightened you, but there are a few matters we need to discuss. No one is in the office now. Would you join me?”

      
Nodding, Charlee swallowed, and preceded him down the hall into the small, comfortable room where Deborah kept her books and records for the boardinghouse. When he closed the door behind them, she took a deep breath and turned, feet planted squarely apart, hands on hips. “Well, Mr. Fleming?”

      
He quirked one black brow at her feisty stance and said, “I'm not going to devour you, Charlee. I've asked you to call me Rafe. I know you're Deborah's friend and feel protective of her, but I'm her husband and I think my rights take precedence over yours.”

      
Of all the smug, arrogant male vanity! “You're a regular Creole version of a certain
Tejano
I know, damned if you aren't!”

      
He ignored her outburst and slung a long leg casually over the corner of the big oak desk, sitting back on its cluttered top. With a sweeping gesture at the books and papers on the desk, he said, “Think you could handle all this, run this place if we sold it to you?”

      
Charlee arched one eyebrow. She strolled over to the window and said, “Oh, so that's it. I guess you didn't have time to ask Deborah what she planned to do yet, did you?” She turned like a triumphant little cat, her green eyes glowing. “I'm buying her boardinghouse. We arranged it all this morning. I have a small nest egg and we agreed upon a fair price.”

      
Rafe nodded with a self-deprecating grin. “So, it's all settled. No need to ask if you feel capable of running the operation.”

      
“Deborah did it for the past six years. She was scarcely older than I when she came to San Antonio, and she raised her son beside making a success of her place.” Her tone of voice dared him to dispute the facts.

      
“Yes, she did raise our son, but from here on, everything we have, we share, for the rest of our lives.”

      
His voice was conciliatory, Charlee grudgingly admitted. Still, her anger at men in general and one fickle Texian in particular led her to say, “I suppose us Texian women seem pretty independent to a Creole gentleman.”

      
“I've lived the last six years in Texas, not New Orleans. It's been a long time since anyone considered me a Creole...or a gentleman,” he added with a wicked gleam in his black eyes. Then his expression turned grave. “I guess I approached you before talking to Deborah because I wanted to smooth over the transition of her selling this place.” He hesitated, then stood up and paced across the floor. “No, that's not the real reason,” he confessed reluctantly. “I guess I was afraid of another confrontation with her before I convinced her to go home with me.” The tension in his body was as evident as the strain in his voice.

      
“You sound afraid she might not go with you,” Charlee said. “From the way she talks, I didn't exactly get the impression you were giving her any choice.”

      
Rafe's face became shuttered. “No, I won't give her a choice...or a chance to refuse me. I've searched for her and Adam for six years. Now that I've found them, I'll never give them up again. But I don't want to hurt her any more than I have, either. I hoped to win you over as an ally.”

      
“You already have a pretty staunch one in Adam. You won him over the minute he met you,” Charlee said, recalling Deborah's pain over the child's adoration of his father.

      
Rafe smiled then, love and pride written across his face. “Yes, Adam is glad I found him. He's talking about going to our ranch and getting his own pony to ride...even having brothers and sisters. He wants to be like the other children he knows, to be part of a real family.”

      
How could she argue with a child's joy? “I suppose he has the right to expect those things,” Charlee replied thoughtfully. “He told me once that he wanted a baby brother.”

      
Rafe's face was alight now. “His mother and I've been working on it, believe me.”

      
Charlee reddened at that remark, visualizing the scene between them that she had witnessed in the backyard. Then, recalling her own near brushes with pregnancy the times when Slade had seduced her, she turned away angrily. “Men! You think you can solve all your problems in bed?” She bristled, too furious to be embarrassed any longer.

      
Puzzled by her sudden anger and not knowing its cause, Rafe replied gravely, “No. I was disabused of that naive idea back in New Orleans when she left me. I don't expect it'll be easy, and I know it'll take time; but I intend to rebuild my life with Deborah just as I rebuilt Renacimiento, my grandfather's old rancho. I love my wife, Charlee; but I terrified of losing her again by giving her too many choices here and now, not until she learns to trust me again.”

      
“And that means getting her away from San Antonio and all its ties, showing her the home you've made for her?” Charlee asked with dawning understanding. The honesty of his confession and the earnest entreaty in his eyes touched her. Despite Rafe's barbaric appearance and arrogant manner, Charlee had a gut instinct to believe what he said. ‘‘I guess you have yourself another ally, Rafe Fleming, but I plan to write Deborah regularly and she'd better answer me every time...and I'd better like what I hear from her. Agreed?” She cocked her head with a gamin grin.

      
Fleming was taken aback by her mercurial mood swings. Nodding, he replied, “Agreed, Charlee.”

* * * *

      
The weeks of Tomasina's recovery were miserable ones for Slade. It seemed that he was in a well of depression and preoccupation so deep that he would never scale his way out of it. The day of the shooting, he had been so keyed up over finally disposing of Markham, so exhausted physically and emotionally by all that had happened in the preceding two weeks, that he could scarcely think straight. Then Tomasina Carver lay bleeding, near death, and all the bittersweet memories, the old guilts and lost dreams of his youth, came rushing back to assault him. He had helped the doctor save her life and then had put her in her own bed, to rest in a drug-induced sleep.

      
Finally, he had the presence of mind to realize Charlee was gone. Then, the conversation preceding Markham's entrance flashed into his mind. What had Charlee said—something crazy about Ashley and Tomasina killing her brother and old Jake? He had sat by Sina's bedside that first night, sipping a glass of brandy, too bone tired to sort it all out. Near daybreak he fell asleep in his chair, too exhausted to consider whether or not the woman he had nearly married was really a murderess.

      
Two days later, Tomasina regained consciousness. She saw Jim across the room, asleep in a chair, unshaven and fully dressed in his same blood-stained clothing. It was her blood, she realized with a sudden gasp of agony! Her chest throbbed in screaming pain as she tried to sit up. As the horrendous events of the past week refocused in her mind, she looked at Slade and calculated what he might do.

      
Obviously, she could go nowhere for a while. Assuredly, the English gold had been confiscated and Ashley was dead. But Jim had saved her. She forced her mind back through the haze of agony as Dr. Weidermann had performed surgery on her, recalling Slade's tenderness. He had left his trashy American mistress and stayed with her. Perhaps he would not believe the cheap tart's wild accusations about the murders. She must do everything in her power to convince Slade of her innocence and Ashley's duplicity. If he would protect her from the charge of spying, she must now be sure he would also save her from a hangman's noose!

      
Because she was gravely ill and in pain, her role-playing was easier in the ensuing days. Jim was the soul of compassion and protectiveness. If part of the reason he treated her with such concern stemmed from his own guilt for using her to trap Markham, she accepted that with well-concealed rancor. Just as long as she could hold him by her side, she was safe.

      
“You have been so kind to me, darling,” Tomasina said softly in Spanish, looking soulfully into his gold cougar's eyes. Despite his solicitude, those eyes were frighteningly unreadable to her. “What were you thinking just now? You seemed so far away.” She reached for his large dark hand and fondled it delicately between her own small pale ones.

      
“I'm just glad you're finally out of danger, that's all,” he evaded. In truth, he had been thinking about how he was going to approach Charlee and explain his stay with Sina.

      
Lee, who had come several days ago with a change of clothes and other personal items for him, accusatorially informed him that Charlee was living at the boardinghouse once more, having moved lock, stock, and tomcat from Bluebonnet. He had affirmed Charlee’s story that Tomasina was involved in a double murder. The testimony of Richard Lee McAllister's diary had convinced the young vaquero just as it had Charlee. Slade had a gnawing dread deep in his gut that told him they were right. Then, he had read the diary.

      
He looked down at the drawn features of the beautiful woman in the bed. He had used her, to his dishonor, no doubt; but she had used him, too. His golden gaze locked with her fathomless black eyes and he said, “Sina, I need to know about Jake and that McAllister kid.” He could feel her hands tighten involuntarily over his.

      
Then, her eyes became liquid with big, shiny tears and she turned away. “You believe them, don't you? They are all against me. They hate me, James. Once I believed you loved me, but now...” She let her words trail off and held her breath.

      
He sighed. “I am not in love with you anymore, Sina. That much I told you a month ago. I also said I'd protect you from the charges of espionage with Markham. I hadn't counted on murder.”

      
The coldness of his voice when he made the last statement caused her heartbeat to accelerate. Grasping his arm, she tried to pull herself into a sitting position, clinging to him and sobbing in a mixture of pain, frustration, and fear. “Markham did the killing, James, not I! Jake found out about my working for him. All our plans for liberating Texas hinged on secrecy. Ashley said he had to die.”

      
“And McAllister?” He sat very still.

      
“He...he blackmailed Ashley, saying he'd seen Ashley with me, seen Ashley kill Jake. When he asked Ashley for money, Ashley went crazy. He set a trap—he did it!” She shivered and cried.

      
Carefully but coldly he laid her back against the pillows, then stood up and gazed at her with a sad, resigned look on his face. “Sina, give it up. Lee brought me the boy's diary and I read it. He was a graphically accurate reporter. You were there when Jake had his ‘accident.’ God only knows how you and Markham contrived to get rid of Dick; but it was you, not Markham, he approached with blackmail.”

      
With that Slade walked deliberately out of the room, shutting, the door with finality. He went downstairs and asked the old man who did heavy chores to bring him some hot bath water.

      
He would shave, bathe, and change, then go to Fleming’s. No, he amended ruefully, it was McAllister's now. He had been as amazed as anyone in town to hear the tale of Deborah's resurrected husband who had whisked her and their son off to his ranch up north. Of course, it did explain a great deal about the reclusiveness of such a beautiful young widow these past years.

      
Now, Charlee was the new proprietor of Deborah's establishment. Independent, willful little creature! Yet he knew she'd make a go of it. He swore at his own gullibility, realizing that she had possessed sufficient money to actually buy a boardinghouse, all the while convincing him she was an impoverished waif who needed a job! That little cat would land on her feet no matter what.

      
Slade reviewed their less than satisfactory relationship as he soaked the aching exhaustion from his bones. Indeed, he had done little but sleep and brood about her brother's diary the past three days as he watched over Sina, making sure the flighty maids cared for her properly. Now that she was safely on the road to recovery, he turned his attention back to Charlee.

      
Charlee...damn, he didn't even know her real name until he read it in Dick's diary: Chastity Charlene. He could scarcely blame her for dropping Chastity, although he rather favored the feminine sound of Charlene. Still, she would ever be Charlee, an odd mixture of hellion, waif, and seductress. He snorted as he remembered his own words to her the night of the dance—something about feelings more complicated than lust but surely not love. Was it love?

      
After so badly misjudging Sina and his relationship with her, he reconsidered his proposal to Charlee McAllister that day by the pool. At the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world to say he'd marry her. He ached for her even now, desiring that lithe little body, so wondrously passionate and responsive, made just to fit his own. Chastity she was not! But that was merely lust...well, perhaps “merely” was not the right word...

      
Certainly, he enjoyed their sparring conversations, her ready wit and earthy common sense, her unexpected flashes of erudition, perhaps most of all her continual perseverance in becoming a lady, a paragon who was always faultlessly attired, never swore or made an ungraceful move. He enjoyed it so much because she never completely succeeded. He realized with a surprising start that he never wanted her to. He had been raised to admire the cool, polished exterior of women like Tomasina Aguilar Carver; but the woman he most enjoyed being with, laughing and loving with, was neither cool nor in truth highly polished at all. He knew he had to straighten things out with her right now.