Lacy (10 page)

"But so were you. The world's changing. If
you can't change with it, you'll be left behind. Car's over here."

He went ahead of them, looking so ruffled and
trying so hard to be dignified that Lacy had to fight back a smile.

"No censure?" Cole chided, glancing at
her. "I thought you'd jump to his defense."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry you didn't
hit him harder," she replied calmly.

He stopped walking and looked down at her,
finding the same wild spirit in her eyes that he'd seen and liked when she was
still in her teens. It would have matched his own-—in another time, another
place. What a hell of a pity, the way it was between them. Perhaps he should
have told her in the very beginning how little he had to offer. He should have
told her the truth.

His fingers touched her hair. It was soft and
cool, and he wondered why she was so rigid, hardly breathing.

"Does that frighten you?" he asked,
searching her eyes. "You've stopped breathing."

"I don't want you to stop," she
confessed in a whisper, returning the soft scrutiny. "I was afraid that if
I moved, you'd think I didn't want you to touch me."

His fingers actually trembled. "Lacy—"

"Are you two coming with me or not?"
Ben called belligerently from the car.

Cole couldn't help laughing. "Young
rooster," he muttered. "Okay, son. We're on our way."

Lacy sighed softly as Cole moved ahead. Thanks,
Ben, she thought viciously. Someday I'll do
you
a
favor!

Just as they reached the car, a small blond
whirlwind erupted from a horse and ran pell-mell toward Ben.

"Hi!" Faye Cameron burst out, jumping
on to the running board to plant an airy kiss on Ben's cheek. "I didn't
know you were back from the big city! How are you? Hi, Lacy. Good to see you
again. Cole, you're looking good."

"What do you want?" Ben muttered,
glaring at her. "I told you—I don't have time to come calling right now.
I'm busy."

"But it's my birthday party," Faye
told him, her big blue eyes wide and hopeful. "I'll be eighteen. Oh,
Ben... You promised you'd come. It's tonight!"

Ben shifted his hat on his head and looked and
felt uncomfortable. That was the trouble with women, he thought irritably. You
took them to bed once or twice and they tried to own you. Still, he thought,
watching her, she was a hot little thing in bed, all soft little breasts and
hot skin—and she'd do anything in the world to please him. If it hadn't been
for her father, he'd have been over to see her before this. But the old man
didn't like him, and Ben wasn't sure what Ira Cameron might do if he found out
Ben had seduced his only child.

"Gee, honey, I'm sorry," Ben said
soothingly, tweaking her hair gently. "But I've just got myself a nice job
in San Antonio, writing for a newspaper."

"Ben, how great!" she burst out, all
smiles.

Well, at least he had one person to share his
triumphs with. He grinned. "I'll be the only reporter on the staff, too.
Mr. Bradley said I was so good that he wouldn't need anybody except me! I get a
pretty good salary and my own office, and I've even been invited to visit the
Bradleys at their home."

"That's swell, Ben," Faye said. She
frowned. "But doesn't a big city newspaper need more than just one
reporter?"

Ben had wondered about that himself, but he
glossed it over. "I'm good, I tell you. And even people in San Antonio know about the ranch and that we're solid citizens. Mr. Bradley said that was
good for business. I'll come over in a week or two and tell you all about it,
okay? But just now I've promised to meet my employer and his daughter at their
home for dinner," he added, and Faye seemed to understand. "I'll make
it up to you."

"Sure," Faye said, but it was with a
pale smile. So the boss had a daughter. And her Ben was so ambitious... She
moved back from the car, all her bright laughter gone, her beauty diminished.
"Sure. Well, nice seeing you. 'Bye!"

She ran for her horse, but not before Lacy had
seen the pain and tears in her eyes. Poor little thing, she thought bitterly.
Ben was so thoughtless!

Cole didn't say a word. Perhaps he thought Ben
was justified. Men!

They got into the car, and Ben cranked the
engine. Behind them, Faye Cameron sat tall in the saddle, her young breasts
thrusting against the fabric of her yellow shirt, her well-rounded hip
emphasized by the jeans. The sun made a halo of her blond curls, made silver
tracks of the wash of tears on her pale cheeks. As she watched them drive away,
she dashed an angry hand over her wet face.

"I'll make you care someday, Ben Whitehall,"
she whispered brokenly. "Someday, somehow, I'll make you care!"

She wished she knew more about men. She'd tried
to be everything he'd wanted in bed. She'd let him do the most incredible
things to her young body without a single protest, when she wondered if it was
quite normal. He'd even kissed the inside of her thighs!

Of course, Ben was experienced. He'd told her
once about one of his women, describing in detail exactly what he'd done to
her. Faye had turned red and gasped at the brazen conversation, but she'd
listened all the same. And when he'd finished, and Ben saw the look on her
face, he'd thrown her down on the bed and taken her, standing up, her thighs in
his strong hands as he looked down at her body on the bed; then he'd laughed as
he shuddered with completion. The memory made her hot all over. She shifted uncomfortably
in the saddle, her lips parted, her breasts gone hard with desire. She wanted
him to follow her home and make love to her. But he wasn't going to do that.
She'd have to wait until he could fit her into his busy life.

She turned the horse slowly, hurting as she
never had before. If only she could read and write, if only she were
intelligent and educated. Ben only wanted her in bed because she wasn't smart
enough to associate with him in public. But maybe if she got pregnant, he'd
want her. Her lips pursed. Yes. Maybe that was the only way she'd ever get him.
And Cole would make him marry her. She smiled. It would be poetic justice,
even, since it was Ben who'd forced Cole to marry Lacy. She sat up straighter
as she urged her mount into a canter. It was a beautiful day after all. It felt
good to be eighteen and already a woman.

Behind her, the roadster lurched into motion as
Ben pushed down the accelerator. He wondered if Faye was going to be difficult.
She was a sweet kid, but that Jessica Bradley was some chick!

He couldn't think of anything he'd like better
than doing to the sleek brunette what he'd been doing to little Faye. Only more
of it. He began to whistle as the car went racing madly down the long dirt road
toward Spanish Flats.

Chapter Five

Ben
had the top down, and
the old 1914 runabout was filled with choking dust. It was a good thing his
mother had stopped him from putting that Lizzie label on it, Lacy thought wryly,
or people would have done some staring. GIRLS, WATCH YOUR STEP-INS painted on
the side would have drawn a few eyes! That fad had really caught on with the
young people, even in Spanish Flats.

The runabout was a tight fit for the three of
them. It was as old as Cole's big Ford touring car, but few local people could
afford new cars anyway. Just to be able to own a Tin Lizzie was quite a feat
following the war, given the problems of depending on agriculture for a living.
Lacy felt her lungs filling with dust, but she held her tongue. Cole was used
to dust; he lived with it day in and day out. He'd only think less of her for
acting like the tenderfoot she sometimes was.

Sitting close beside her, his long arm over the
back of the seat, Cole stared straight ahead, his body as taut as drawn cord.
Lacy felt that tension and was puzzled by it. Surely the argument with Ben
hadn't caused it, and she was certain it wasn't proximity to her. Perhaps it
was the memories young Ben had unwittingly aroused. Or maybe, she grinned to
herself, it was that Ben was driving. Odd that Cole hadn't protested, but he
sometimes indulged his younger brother. And it was obvious how much Ben enjoyed
driving. Cole tended to be more at home on horseback. Once he'd driven his big
car through a haystack, and the guffawing cowboys who saw him do it were saved
from certain death only by divine intervention. It had started raining just as
Cole went for the first man. Cole hadn't driven a lot since then.

"How was the big city?" Ben yelled at
Lacy above the road and engine noise.

"Lonely," she said, without thinking.

"That isn't what Katy said after she went
to that last party!" Ben chuckled.

Lacy stared at her hands in her lap. "No, I
guess not." She remembered the party. It had been like all the others she
gave. Wild and bright and long. And the only person who hadn't enjoyed it was
Lacy herself. She enjoyed nothing without Cole.

His fingers touched her neck, lightly brushing
it, as if by accident. Her pulse increased, her breath decreased. She looked up
into dark, searching eyes and felt her whole body go rigid with mingled desire
and pleasure.

His eyes dropped to her mouth, lingering there for
so long that her lips involuntarily parted. She wondered what he would do if
Ben weren't sitting beside them, and thought in her heart she knew. She would
have given anything at that moment to have Ben leap out of the car and vanish,
so that she could be totally alone with her husband.

Ben didn't vanish, of course, and Cole was
distracted by a herd of cattle being moved in the distance. His eyes narrowed,
watching, and Lacy smiled at that intense scrutiny. Just like a cattleman to be
fascinated by anything on four legs.

It took only a few minutes to get to Spanish
Flats, and Marion came rushing out to meet them. She didn't hug Cole—that was
forbidden, and everyone in the family knew and respected his dislike of
physical contact. But she hugged Lacy, warmly and for a long time. Marion did look thinner, older.

"I'm so glad you're here to help me cope,
darling," Marion said brokenly. "My baby's run off with a gangster,
Lacy!"

Lacy patted her on the back awkwardly.
"Now, Marion. She's a big girl, all grown up."

"And if she isn't now, she soon will
be," Cole said shortly. "Is it true—about the marriage?"

"Why, yes, of course." Marion lied glibly, not believing it would really happen. She even smiled. "We'll all
be invited to the wedding."

"You can go for all of us," Cole said,
his smile as icy as his tone. "If I went, I'd kill the—" He almost
said it, remembered Lacy and his mother in the nick of time, and walked off
without another word.

"Whew, that was close," Ben said, with
a shudder. "I opened my mouth out of turn and set him off at the siding.
He's still mad."

"Why did you do that to him, Ben?"
Lacy asked softly, her eyes quiet and accusing. "You know he won't talk
about the war."

"Maybe that's why," Ben muttered.
"He's hiding something. He's been hiding it ever since he came back, and
Turk helps him. Neither one of them will tell the truth..."

"What happened is their business," Marion said, touching her son's arm lightly. "It's none of ours."

Ben sighed roughly. "Well, maybe so. I'll
put up the car and bring your bags in, Lacy."

Lacy followed Marion inside, to be grabbed and
soundly smothered by Cassie, who cried all over her and enthused about her
coming home—and then rushed off to get hot tea to serve.

"You look well, at least," Marion said later as they sat alone in the elegant living room sipping sweet tea from the
dainty china cups Marion had brought here from her girlhood home in Houston.

"I wish I could say that I felt it,"
Lacy confided. "I've been dead for eight months. It's been horrible
without him."

Marion
put her cup down gently
on the carved oak coffee table. "He hasn't been the picture of joy,
either. He's been even more quiet than usual working until all hours. You know,
I didn't even have to twist his arm to get him to go see you. He almost volunteered."

"Maybe he wanted to see how many lovers I
had." Lacy laughed bitterly.

"He knows better than that," the older
woman scoffed. "So do I. I used to watch you, watching him. So much love,
all wasted on him. He and Turk are much alike, Lacy. They wrapped themselves in
steel after they came back from the war, and now they're trying to live without
ties of any kind. I don't know what happened, of course, but I'm almost certain
that Katy didn't go to Chicago for love of that smooth-talking gangster she's been
dating."