Heiress (68 page)

"Thank you, Maria." Lane absently moved the papers off his lap and rose to greet his guest. "Hello, Ross. I wasn't aware you were expected." Briefly he shook hands with him, then motioned to the deck chair next to his. "Have a seat."

"Sorry, I can't stay." Ross removed his cowboy hat and briefly ran his fingers through his curly hair, then used both hands to turn the dark hat in a circle in front of him, inching it around by degrees. "I just stopped by to see how Rachel is. I know how upset she was over Sirocco. I only wish I could have stayed—"

"I understand." Lane found it strangely ironic to be standing here talking to Ross about Rachel. Although why not? They were two men who loved her. "She has taken the stallion's death very hard."

"Where is she?"

"Over there. By his grave," he said, pointing out the general location with a nod of his head. "She insisted on having him brought back for burial here at River Bend. At the time, I didn't see any harm in it. Now I'm not so sure it was a good idea."

"Do you mind if I go talk to her? I've brought something with me that might. . . well, make her feel a little better."

"Go ahead." At this point, Lane didn't care who brought Rachel out of her deep depression as long as someone did. He couldn't stand to see her this way.

With a self-conscious nod, Ross acknowledged the comment, then pushed the hat onto his head and walked away, cutting across the lawn toward the unmarked grave set off by itself near the fence line to the back pasture, halfway between the house and the barns. Lane watched him go, wondering if he would succeed, wondering if Rachel would wind up in his arms—this time for good. Yet she had turned to him, not Ross, when the accident occurred. Surely that action had to have been an instinctive one. At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

"Daddy. Daddy, did you see the big splash I made?" Alex came running around the pool to him, his wet, bare feet making slapping sounds on the concrete.

"I certainly did." Lane made a concerted effort to give Alex his whole attention. Too frequently in the last few days Alex had been shunted aside, Lane's concern for Rachel taking precedence over him. "You nearly got me wet."

"I know." Alex grinned with a trace of impish glee. "Would you like to swim with me for a while?"

"I'd like to, but I can't. I have some papers to go over, but I'll watch you."

Alex thought about that. "I think I'll just sit here with you for a while and rest. Swimming is pretty tiring."

"Yes, it is," Lane agreed, smiling faintly as Alex climbed onto the deck chair by the table.

Resuming his seat, Lane picked up the purchase agreement, but left his glasses on the table. Alex tapped his hand idly on the tubelike arm of the deck chair and gazed off in the direction of the grave. "What did Mr. Tibbs want?"

"He came to see your mother. He brought her something that he hopes will cheer her up a little."

"She's awfully sad, isn't she?"

"Yes. She loved Sirocco very much. She was there when he was born. You were just a tiny baby then. So she'd had him almost as long as she's had you. It hurts when you lose someone or something you care about a lot."

"I wish there was something I could do to make her feel better."

Lane caught the wistful note in Alex's voice and understood the need he felt to contribute something, however small. "Maybe there is."

"What?" Alex looked at him hopefully.

"A lot of times when you're very sad, little things mean more than anything else. . . thoughtful little things that say you care. For instance, you could pick your mother some wildflowers and give them to her so she can place them on Sirocco's grave. Or you could make her a card—"

"I could draw her a picture of Sirocco and color it for her. That way she'd always have a picture of him to remember what he looked like," Alex suggested excitedly. "She'd like that, wouldn't she? I can draw really, really good, Mrs. Weldon says. And I'd draw this extra good."

"I know you would. And I think your mother would like that very much." Lane smiled.

"I'm going to do it right now." Before the sentence was finished, Alex had scrambled out of the chair. He took off at a run for the house.

Watching him, Lane couldn't help thinking that it must be wonderful to be young and innocent enough to believe that you could find the answers for life's sorrows.

Rachel sat on the grass next to the long rectangular patch of freshly turned earth, something childlike in her pose: her legs curled up to one side, her head and shoulders bowed, one hand resting on the clods of dirt. A soft breeze ran over her dark hair, lifting tendrils and laying them back down like a mother lightly playing with a child's hair in an attempt to soothe and comfort.

As Ross walked up to her, she gave no sign that she was even aware of his presence. He paused, struck for a few seconds by the stark grief in her expression. There were no tears. He almost wished there were. He had the feeling they would have been easier to cope with than this intense sorrow that went so much deeper.

"Hello, Rachel."

At first he wasn't sure she'd heard him. Then she looked up. Her eyes were dull and blank, with almost no life in them at all. Even though she looked straight at him, Ross wasn't sure she saw him standing there. Then she seemed to rouse herself to some level of awareness.

"This is where Sirocco is buried. I'm having a marker made—a marble one, engraved with his name and the dates of his life, and a verse from a poem I once read. I've changed it a little to make it just for him." Almost dreamlike, she quoted the line, "'If you have seen nothing but the beauty of his markings and limbs, his true beauty was hidden from you.'"

"It's beautiful."

"Feel the earth." She dug her fingers into the dirt. "It's warm. . . like his body was."

"It's the sun that makes it feel that way."

He started to worry about her, then she sighed dispiritedly and gazed up at him. This time the pain was visible in her expression. "I know," she said. "But sometimes I like to pretend it's from him."

"You can't do things like that, Rachel. It isn't good for you."

"I don't care. I want him to be here. . . with me," she declared insistently.

"Don't do this, Rachel. He's gone. You can't change that. I'm here with you. Please, come walk with me." Taking her by the shoulders, he gently forced her to stand up.

She offered no resistance, yet she continued to stare at the grave, reluctant to leave it as he turned her away. "He should be here, nickering to those mares in the pasture."

"I wish there was some way I could make you feel better—something I could say. . . or do. But I just don't know the right words." He felt helpless and frustrated, just like at the track. "You don't know how many times I wished that I hadn't left you that day, but I had to. There didn't seem to be anything I could do there. Lane was with you. I knew he'd look after you and see to everything."

"Lane's always there, every time," she murmured.

"I know." It bothered him that she had turned to Lane in those first shocked seconds after the accident occurred. She was supposed to be in love with him. "Look, I'm due back in Nashville tonight. My record company wants me to cut a new album and I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow with the producer. But if you want me to stay here with you, I'll cancel it."

"There's no need. It doesn't matter whether you're here or not. Nothing matters anymore."

She was so indifferent, so distant with him, as if he were a stranger, not the man who had held her in his arms and made love to her countless times in the past. They were walking side by side, his arm was around her, yet there was no sense of closeness. Somehow he had to change that.

"Come on. I have something to show you." He picked up their pace as they neared the palatial barn, but his statement sparked no interest from her. "Aren't you going to ask what it is?"

"What?" It was obvious she asked only because he prompted her. "It's a surprise, but I can guarantee you're going to like it. Just wait and see if you don't."

But when Rachel spotted the truck and horse trailer parked outside the barn's imposing main entrance, she pulled back. "Somebody's here. I don't want to see them."

"It's okay. Honest. That's my rig."

"Yours? I don't understand." She frowned at him. For the first time, Ross had the feeling that he'd finally gotten through that wall of grief that insulated her.

"Remember I said I had a surprise for you." He motioned to the handler standing at the back of the trailer, gesturing for him to bring the filly out. "Well, here it is." Stopping, he turned to watch her face as the man walked the filly into her view. A puzzled look flickered across her face as she stared at the young Arabian, the morning sunlight flashing on her bronze coat. "It's Jewel," he said.

"Yes, but why did you bring her here?" She turned to him, her frown deepening.

"I want you to have her." As she drew back from him, still frowning, Ross went on. "I know how much you've always wanted her, and I meant it when I said she wasn't for sale. We're never going to have that foal out of her by Sirocco, so I'm giving her to you—as a present."

"No." She backed another step away from him, vaguely indignant and angry.

Puzzled by her reaction, Ross took the lead rope from the handler and offered it to her. "Please take her." But she shook her head and hid her hands behind her back. "I want you to have her, Rachel. I know she's not Sirocco, and. . . maybe I can't make it up to you for not staying with you after the accident, but let me try."

Something inside her seemed to snap. "Why does everybody always give me presents? Do you think you can buy me?" she cried in outrage. "Presents don't make up for all the hours I've been alone. I'm not a child that you can give a bauble to and think that will make the hurt go away. It won't work anymore!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ross said, confused and taken aback by her sudden outburst. "I'm not trying to buy you. I—"

"Then what do you call it? You feel guilty, so you want to give me your horse so you can ease your conscience. Well, I don't want your horse! And I don't want you! Just take your horse and get out of here. Don't ever come back! Do you hear? Not ever again!" Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides as she stood before him, trembling with anger, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Rachel, you don't mean that. You're just upset." Stunned, Ross struggled to find an excuse for the abrupt change in her. "You don't know what you're saying."

"I know precisely what I'm saying," she retorted, her voice quivering with anger. "And if you don't have that horse loaded up and out of here within five minutes, I'm calling the sheriff and ordering him to escort you off this farm." She turned on her heel and headed for the barn, breaking into a run when she was halfway to the door.

"Rachel. . ." Ross took an uncertain step after her, unable to believe any of this was really happening.

"I think she means it," the handler said behind him.

Ross was forced to agree.

Sobbing in despair, Rachel ran straight to the section of the barn that housed the broodmares, not stopping until she reached the third one from the end. Hurrying frantically, she unhooked the webbed gate and went inside, pausing long enough to fasten it behind her, then throwing her arms around the neck of the dappled gray mare inside and burying her face in the charcoal-streaked mane.

"Simoon, Simoon," she cried brokenly. "Why do they always do this? Why? They keep trying to give me presents, when all I want is their love. Nobody really cares about me. Nobody." As she sobbed out her anguish and hurt, she felt the mare nudging her anxiously, accompanied by a soft whicker of concern. "No, that's not true, is it? You care, don't you, my beauty?" Rachel murmured, moving to face the mare and taking her head in both her hands, smiling faintly as the mare nuzzled at the tears on her cheeks, then, with a slurp of her big tongue, licked curiously at the salty wetness. "I love you, too, my Simoon. You've never let me down, have you?"

Straw rustled in the adjoining stall as the aging red gelding moved closer to the dividing partition and nickered for attention. Turning, Rachel scratched the underside of his grayed lip through the bars while she continued to rub the hollow behind the mare's ear.

"I know you care, too, Ahmar. I haven't forgotten you," she crooned, still intensely sad.

Overhead, circulating fans whirred, constantly moving the air and stirring up the strong smell of horse, hay, manure, and grain. Rachel turned back to the mare and rubbed her head against the mare's cheek, cuddling close to the Arabian, enjoying the slickness of her coat and the heat from her body, and breathing in her stimulating odor, finding a reassurance in the equine contact that she needed.

"Are you all right, Miz Canfield?"

Startled by the human intrusion, Rachel caught a quick glimpse of the groom standing at the stall entrance, then ducked back behind the mare, keeping her face hidden so he couldn't see her tears. She didn't want him or anybody else feeling sorry for her. She didn't need or want their pity.

"Yes, I am," she asserted. "I'd like to be alone. Please. . . go."

"Yes, ma'am."

Ahmar snorted as the groom passed his stall. When the gelding's attention swung back to her, Rachel knew they were alone.

"It always was the three of us, wasn't it?" she remembered, then reconsidered her statement. "Not always. For a while there were four. Now. . . Sirocco's gone. I miss him so much." She could feel the sobs coming again and hugged Simoon's neck. "Why did he have to die like that? It isn't fair. Your son's gone, Simoon. Do you understand that? Your son. . . and mine, too."

She began to cry softly, her tears wetting the dark gray hairs on the mare's neck. Here, she felt free to pour out her sorrows and her pain, free to grieve over the death of her beloved stallion and the betrayal by yet another man who hadn't truly loved her.

Simoon snorted and swung her head toward the stall opening, warning Rachel of someone's approach. Sniffling back her tears, she wiped frantically at her wet cheeks and eyes and struggled to summon a modicum of composure.