Conall's Legacy (11 page)

She broke into the clearing. Drake sat on her favorite boulder, cradling his head in his hands. Dark hair stuck between the fingers tangled there. His shoulders slumped, and he didn’t move. Fresh pain assaulted her.

A twig snapped under her foot, and his head jerked up. Glances exchanged, slipped away. He slowly dropped his hands and rose to his feet. “I’m sorry. Am I in your spot?”

“I don’t have a claim on it.” She tried a smile and felt it fail. She shifted from one foot to the other, debating whether to walk farther along the banks of the nearly dry riverbed. The muddy scent of the trickling water drifted to her. She pulled the band from her hair, shaking the waves loose around her face and stayed, holding her ground.

“I saw you have company. Friend?”

Luisa’s heart trembled. “No. My mother.” A tear gathered in the corner of her eye, and she impatiently wiped it away.

#

Drake watched her slide her fingers across her eyes, saw the frown that deepened the downward curve of her full lips.
So, things aren’t all right with this world of yours after all
.

“Surprise visit?”

“Not really. She called a few days ago. I was sidetracked and didn’t realize she was arriving today.”

Tension radiated around her body like an electrical current. Perhaps her mother was behind the pain she felt. “Why don’t you sit for a minute?” Drake pushed aside his own doubts and lifted a hand toward the large rock he’d been sitting on. Maybe he could draw her out the way she did him when he needed it.

“I don’t feel like talking, but I’ll sit with you.” She eased onto the rock and stared toward the flow of brown water oozing between rocks.

Drake’s gaze followed hers. “Not a very big river.”

“No. It comes and goes seasonally.”

Drake scanned her face, noted the radiant light in her eyes and the soft curve of lips that came whenever she spoke of anything to do with this wilderness.

“You love it here. You’ve mentioned your dad. Did he love it, too?”

“Nothing would have taken him away from here. This place was his heart.”

She shivered in spite of the hot day. Drake sat beside her and slipped his arm around her shoulder to capture her against his side. Luisa leaned into him, trying to draw the strength out of his body.

“You said you didn’t feel like talking much, but I’d like to know what happened.”

She hesitated a full thirty seconds. “He ... ah ... had a stroke.” She pulled away then, straightened her shoulders, and sat stiffly beside him. Her shoulder rubbed his. “The government condemned the land so they could take it. They wanted to preserve what little bit of wetland we have in this area, and they didn’t trust the ranchers to do it. In some cases they were right, but,” her chin lifted defiantly, “Dad would have protected it. He loved every inch of this place and all the birds and creatures that come to it. But the government didn’t trust him.”

“Can they do that?”

Luisa scoffed. “They did it.”

He shook his head.

“Anyway, Dad took our last bunch of cattle to the sale. He was pretty upset.” She shuddered. “He had the stroke and died inside an hour.” Her voice was flat.

“How long ago?”

“Eight years.”

Sympathy flickered for the young woman left alone to deal with the death of her father and everything that was a ranch. Sorrow followed.

“You’ve been alone on this place all that time?”

“That’s right. It’s my home. I’ll never leave it.”

“But how--”

She read his question. “The government gave the former landowners lifetime leases of the houses and barns, plus limited grazing rights. Most of the other ranchers moved off their land. We stayed.”

“Where does your mother fit in the picture?” He wondered about the expensive tastes of the woman he’d seen. Of her sophisticated style. She didn’t match his image of a ranch wife.

“She didn’t fit in. That was the trouble. When mom and dad were in their early twenties, she came out here for vacation. Her family went to a local rodeo.” Luisa shrugged. “She met Dad and they fell in love almost on sight.” Her voice trailed away and her eyes lost their focus.

Drake let the silence hold for a couple of minutes, leaving her to her thoughts. When a single tear rolled down her face, he lifted his hand to wipe it away with the back of his fingers. She ducked away. His hand froze in mid-air, then dropped to pick up hers and squeeze it.

“What happened?”

“They married very quickly, had me, and lived on the ranch for nine years. Then I had an ... accident, and Mom left, taking me with her. She couldn’t stand the isolation here, and I guess she worried about me.”

How had Luisa scarred her face? Drake felt the fear that must have choked her as a child. The pain that would accompany such a wound. He cupped her chin in his other hand, holding tight to her hand when she tried to duck away. He turned her toward him and forced her chin up until he looked directly into her eyes. She tipped her head sideways so her hair fell across her cheek.

“Luisa, don’t.” He placed his fingertips on her temple, carefully, expecting her to withdraw. His gaze locked with hers, held her, mesmerized her. When she remained frozen, he caressed her face, ran his fingers across the puckered scar.

She grabbed his wrist and tried to pull his hand away, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t you realize how beautiful you are? This,”--he touched the scar again--“means nothing.”

He slid his palm down her throat, between her breasts, and rested it over her heart. She shivered beneath his touch.

“
This
is what’s important. It’s what’s in here that counts. The rest is surface stuff.”

“I face facts head on, Drake. That’s how I was raised.” She shook her head. “I’ve never been pretty.”

Deep sadness cloaked him. He deserved to feel such pain, but what had this woman ever done to bring this on herself? “You have no idea how special you are, do you?”

“I don’t do anything but work here on this ranch with my animals and write little books for kids.”

The depth of her sadness tugged his heart.

“Luisa, you care for these creatures. You wouldn’t let a snake starve. You ride like you’re part of the horses. You write wonderful stories to teach and uplift children. You’re ...” He shrugged. “Something else. I don’t know how to describe it. I’ve never seen anyone as kind as you.”
Not even Rebecca
. The thought intruded, unwanted, and he cast it out.

“Being here, meeting you--I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“You mean about Conall and Rebecca and your part in all that, don’t you?”

“That’s right. I’m not sure what to think anymore.”

Luisa frowned and Drake slid his fingertips across her brow to erase the deep furrows there. His hand slid behind her head and held her, supported her, as his lips eased onto hers. Afraid to spook her and send her back into the brush, he barely tasted, teasing instead.

Her soft sigh caressed his cheek as he pulled back. Rosy color kissed her face and her eyes glistened, but this time it wasn’t from tears.

Drake closed his large hands over her shoulders and lifted her to her feet as he stood. His heart thumped like a slow-beaten drum, echoing through the woods. Luisa leaned into him, raising her lips to his.

She offered--he took.

Drake deepened the kiss, pulling her energy into his soul. His arms went around her, urging her close, body to body, heart to heart. When her arms locked behind him, fought to bring him closer still, Drake jerked back.

What did he think he was doing? How could he touch her this way? He loved Rebecca. He’d promised Conall. The thoughts stammered across his mind as guilt hammered into him.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Confusion clouded her eyes. “Why not? I wanted your kiss. Needed it as much as you.”

He set her aside while he still could. “I don’t have any right to touch you like that.” How could he when he owed Rebecca so much? Owed? Loved, that’s what he meant.

Confusion brought a frown to his face. What the hell was going on? The image of a liquor bottle slid into his mind, uninvited, unwanted.
Damn it. I won’t take that way out again
. He cast away the picture of empty, overturned Scotch bottles and the oblivion they promised.

“Look, Luisa, I have things to sort out.”

“It’s not only your choice, you know.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, withdrawing and effectively closing him out.

“I know. But ... Never mind. Remember one thing.” He lifted his palm and cupped her scarred cheek. “You are beautiful, inside and out.”
And deserve a man who isn’t living on the edge of alcoholism and guilt
. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m no good for anybody.”

He dropped his hand and left her standing alone by the trickle of water that was the San Pedro River.

CHAPTER NINE

Luisa pressed a hand against her chest to calm her racing heart. It didn’t work. Her pulse roared in her ears, trembled in her throat. Need churned with the fire of intimacy too long banked. Heat radiated from her face, and she was sure a blush still lingered.

She ran her fingertips across the jagged scar, bumping across lumpy tissue. Since the accident, childhood classmates had teased her, and she’d hidden her face from everyone but Cindy and the ranch hands. The memory of the taunts still haunted her.

Drake had called her beautiful. No one ever had, except her father, of course. Hope fluttered around her heart. Had he meant it?

Guilt grabbed her. She wasn’t a teen-aged girl who worried about what a boy thought, for Heaven’s sake. Her mother had some sort of problem. How could she focus on Drake and her own desires now?

Her mother’s visit was her immediate problem. As if she didn’t already have enough of her own. She had foals coming, book deadlines approaching, an attractive man way too close to handle, and a busybody best friend pushing her to see a shrink. Luisa paced to the water’s edge and back to the boulder she and Drake had shared. Then back again to the water’s edge.

She wished for the early spring to return. Her writing career had been in high gear, her horses doing well, the promise of new life yet to arrive. Then the summer had dropped to slow motion, limping along, and progressing over one obstacle at a time. First, Cindy and her psychiatrist friend, then Drake, and now her mother. She wondered if the chaos would ever end and her life would return to normal. Luisa wanted back the peace and quiet, the solitude that allowed her to do all the things she loved.

Doubts clouded her thoughts. Why had her father let her believe her mother had divorced him and not offered to help them? The conversations Luisa shared with her father on the porch filtered back. He never spoke those actual words--separation, settlement, divorce. He simply left Luisa to make her own assumptions.

That’s always a smart thing to do
. She kicked her toe into the dirt, sending chunks of earth plunking into the dirty water. In her case, the assumptions had been wrong. Shame slid insidiously into her heart and made it flutter. How could she have assumed the worst of her mother? What else didn’t she know?

A ripple of fear shimmied over her skin. Tonight, she would sit across the dinner table from her. It was time to find the truth. What brought Marie to the ranch? She didn’t travel where there were no five-star hotels and restaurants unless she had no choice.

They’d have to discuss whatever was on Marie’s mind, but Luisa’s emotions were in turmoil already. For the moment, she didn’t want more upheaval.

Rooster slipped silently from the underbrush and sat at her feet. “How’d you find me down here? You always know when something’s wrong, don’t you boy?” Luisa picked up a stick and hurled it into the trickling river. Rooster launched away from her and into the water.

His momentum and lack of hesitation impressed her. She’d learned at least one lesson from her father--don’t put off the inevitable. Resigned to the evening that lay ahead, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Her mother was hiding something, and it wasn’t good. That much she was sure of. But she’d dealt with a trailer-load of trouble before; she’d deal with whatever her mother was prepared to throw at her now.

She left the calmness of her river behind, determined to know the truth before the sun set over the desert one more time.

#

Dust billowed above the road before Luisa heard the quiet engine of Cindy’s small car. Luisa waited on the front porch as Cindy pulled in and jumped out, a smile spreading across her face.

“Hi. How goes it?” Cindy called out, balancing a cloth-covered dish in her hands.

“Great, just great.” Luisa forced a lightness she didn’t feel into her voice. “What are you doing here?” Hope rippled through her. Was Cindy going to stay a while? Had she known moral support would be welcome today?

“Inviting myself to dinner and coming to say hi to your mother.”

Luisa nodded at the dish in Cindy’s hands. “You didn’t need to bring anything.”