Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (24 page)

      
God, what a mess! Melanie Fleming under her parents' protective wings, Obedience threatening to take her rolling pin to certain portions of his anatomy, and Wash ready to throttle him with one hand. Of all the times for the Fleming family to come for a visit! Of course Jim and Wash would've found him and Melanie anyway. He sighed. If there was any way out of the tangle, Charlee, the master schemer, would think of it!

      
Charlee's opinion about his looming nuptials dumbfounded him. Arms akimbo and cat-green eyes aglow, Charlee Slade planted her small, slim body squarely in the center of her kitchen and asked, “When's the wedding—tomorrow or sooner?”

      
“I came here for your help, not to be greeted like an Inquisition victim,” he replied sourly.

      
“I happen to know
exactly
how Jim and Rafe found the two of you, Leandro
Angel
Velasquez,” she said saucily, the emphasis on those two words speaking volumes.

      
He winced. “Look, I know I acted like a jackass—all right, a real bastard—but marrying the girl just because of what almost happened is ridiculous. I'm already engaged to Larena. She and I were talking about a fall wedding only last week.”

      
“Melanie Fleming will make you a much better wife than Larena,” Charlee said flatly.

      
Lee's eyes almost popped from their sockets. “You can't be serious! That wild hoyden! She's no lady!”

      
“Sounds just like the way Jim used to describe me,” Charlee said, eyes dancing.

      
“That was different,” he said dismissively. “He wanted to marry Tomasina Carver and we all know what she was like.”

      
“Yeah. A real lady. Fancy manners, soft words, knew her place around men, all right,” Charlee said sarcastically.

      
“If you mean to imply she was anything like Larena, that's ridiculous, Charlee, and you know it,” Lee replied angrily.

      
“I wasn't comparing Tomasina and Larena, but Larena and Dulcia,” Charlee said softly.

      
Lee's head jerked up and a look of bleak, shocked pain flashed into his eyes. “Don't, Charlee, don't.”

      
“Sit down,” she commanded with no nonsense in her voice. When he folded his tall frame onto a chair, she pulled out a chair for herself. Before sitting down, she selected two glasses from a cabinet and took a bottle of whiskey from a shelf. “I got this from Wash. He brought it all the way across the Rockies.”

      
Lee groaned. “The last time I drank that stuff was in Santa Fe. I swore off.”

      
“Never knew you to be temperance,” she replied cheerfully, handing him a glass. “Lunch is served,” she said, swallowing a sip carefully.

      
He took a gulp. It was fiery and smooth at the same time.

      
Charlee let him stew in silence for a moment, then plunged in. “Lee, I know Dulcia was your first love, a sweet, dutiful, lovely girl—and I hate to dredge up the pain of the past; but your whole future is at stake.”

      
“And you think I chose Larena because she reminds me of Dulcia?”

      
“Well, let's just say you're hung up on Hispanic pedigrees. Larena is ladylike, from a family with
pureza de sangre.
I know you set great store by that; but I also know that if you and Dulcia had stayed married, you'd have ended up keeping a woman on the side.”

      
Lee looked at her in incredulity. “How the hell can you say that?”

      
“I know what she thought of ‘submitting to her husband,’ ” Charlee said baldly. “She was raised that way, Lee—to be timid and proper, to be afraid of honest passions—passions Melanie felt with you.” She paused a beat, then continued, “Jim was very graphic in his description of just how he found the two of you.”

      
“I'll bet!” He stood up, unable to decide whether to be furiously angry or terribly embarrassed. “It seems all my faults, past and present, are laid bare,” he said coldly.

      
Charlee stretched out a small, tanned hand and grasped his fist, pulling him back into his chair. “They're not your faults. Dulcia didn't fail to respond because of anything you did wrong, Lee. But Melanie sure responded because of what you did right! She responded because she feels something very strong for you—and you do for her, too. Tell me honestly, did you ever kiss Larena that way?”

      
“That's different,” he said evasively.

      
“Why? Because she's a lady? Lee, you can't have a real marriage with a mirage, an idealized dream. You need a real flesh-and-blood woman.”

      
“And you think Melanie is that woman?” He shook his head in amazement and disbelief.

      
“Melanie
will
be the woman,” Jim said determinedly from the back door. He had overheard the last bit of their conversation as he walked quietly across the back porch. “Either you do the decent thing and marry her or you're finished here in San Antonio, Lee. As for the Sandovals, Uncle José will never let you marry Larena after all this scandal. You made your bed on that hillside with Melanie Fleming, Lee. Now you'll just have to sleep in it,” he concluded with a lopsided grin.

* * * *

      
Lee had never felt so powerless over the course of his life as he did that afternoon. After his surprising conversation with the Slades, he visited Father Gus for counsel. Jim Slade and Rafe Fleming together had had a long talk with the priest the previous evening. By the time he left the sympathetic but regretful cleric, Lee realized he was only postponing the inevitable. He must break his engagement with Larena and marry Melanie Fleming. He had felt more self-possessed riding alone into Mescalero camps in the wilds of the
Apachería
than he did approaching the Sandoval house.

      
Larena refused to see him, so he was forced to make his apologies and explanations to her father.
Don
José was impeccably polite but decidedly cold. It was easier to describe what had occurred between him and Melanie to another man than it would have been if he had spoken to a gently reared girl. Still, it hurt him when she would not see him, and he felt bitterly guilty for causing her such undeserved humiliation and sorrow.

* * * *

      
Melanie wandered aimlessly through the orchards in back of the boardinghouse, nibbling without appetite on a peach plucked carelessly from a low-hanging bough. The sun was warm and the breeze light, a clean beautiful Texas afternoon. “How can the day be so lovely when I'm so miserable?” she asked aloud of no one and everyone.

      
Dinner last evening had been a horror, with her whole family present, all her younger siblings silently puzzled, itching to know what had happened. Their papa had brought her back to the boardinghouse with her hair tangled, face dirt-smeared, and clothes ripped. No one openly discussed it, but Obedience and Wash, as well as Rafe and Deborah, engaged in private conversations before the meal. Several of the lady boarders stared at her as if she had sprouted horns and a tail, but old Racine Schwartz seemed secretly delighted about the situation.

      
She had fallen into a restless, exhausted sleep filled with feverish dreams in which she and Lee replayed the furious, hurtful scene on the hillside over and over. She awoke sweaty and trembling near dawn and could not go back to sleep. Visions of her father's stern features and closed expression haunted her. He and Jim Slade had arranged her life, forcing a man who despised her—whom she despised—to marry her! Damn men and their infernal rules of honor!

      
She finally worked up her courage and went to plead her case with Deborah, only to find her father was waiting with her mother. They were in agreement. She must marry Lee Velasquez. Everyone, it seemed, agreed but the bride and groom! The Slades, the Oakleys, even Father Gus. She had not had the courage to approach Clarence, wincing to imagine his scathing sarcasm at her most typically female fall from grace while on a news assignment!

      
She felt betrayed by her friends and family, alone and frightened.
What kind of life can I have as a rancher's wife? No, be honest, as
Lee's
wife?

      
As if in answer to her question, she caught sight of a tall figure striding purposefully across the orchard toward her. Lee. She stopped and took a quick calming breath, willing her heart to stop its trip-hammer beat. Oh, why had she thrown on this girlish muslin dress? She felt at a disadvantage with her hair in a simple braid and low-heeled slippers on her feet, confronting his hard, menacing presence. He towered over her, dressed in his usual uniform of buckskin breeches and white shirt open at the throat, revealing an indecent amount of that springy black chest hair. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

      
Lee watched her brace herself, like a spitting, cornered wildcat, ready to claw at him. Her physical allure still amazed him, reaching out, scorching him with desire. He remembered the feel of that soft, voluptuous body beneath his hands, the arching breasts so full and ripe, the undulating hips and small, delicately formed calves. Her simple yellow dress clung to every wickedly enticing curve in whisper-soft folds. The breeze blew the sheer fabric, molding it to her, reminding him of what lay beneath.

      
Absurdly, he wanted to grab the fat, shiny plait of hair and pull her into his embrace once more.
What is it about her that makes me act like a rutting schoolboy?
If he wanted to succeed with the plan he had formulated this morning, he must get all such thoughts out his mind immediately.

      
He scowled and removed his hat, letting the wind ruffle his hair with blessedly cool air. “I've discussed the marriage with Father Gus. He's making arrangements for San Fernando Church. Tomorrow. I know it's not much time to select a wedding trousseau; but considering everything, I imagine it's best if we return to the ranch and skip the honeymoon.” He paused and looked at her widening gold eyes.

      
“So you've made all the arrangements. How efficient,” she said contemptuously.

      
“I merely followed up on what Jim and your father have already arranged. It seems neither of us has a choice in the matter.” He watched the seething emotions boiling just below the surface, ready to erupt. “Look, Melanie, we're going to have to go through with this charade. The whole damn town is united against us.”

      
“This isn't a charade—a game! It's the rest of our lives you're talking so calmly about! It's marriage!” she cried desperately, hating the panic in her voice.

      
He assessed her emotions and decided to plunge ahead. “It wouldn't have to be a real marriage. If it weren't consummated, we could wait a year or so, until things cool down here, and then apply to the bishop in Galveston for an annulment.”

      
She stared at him blankly. Not consummated. Her golden skin flushed crimson as his meaning sank in. “You'd deceive Father Gus and lie in church? Promise to—to...and then....” She turned her head and groped with one hand for a tree limb on which to steady herself.

      
“Don't get religion so late, Melanie. It doesn't become you. You've flirted with disaster ever since I met you on the Galveston waterfront ten years ago. This time I can't just rescue you and turn you loose like before. Your irresponsible behavior created this mess. A temporary marriage is the only way out. Surely a woman as free and unconventional as you won't worry about the scandal of shedding a husband.”

      
“You bastard,” she whispered. “
My
irresponsible behavior! You took it on yourself to be my rescuer. I didn't ask you to follow me! And I for sure didn't ask you to grab me and—and do those awful things to me!” Her voice rose steadily as she spoke until it ended on a shrill cry, echoing across the empty orchard.

      
“You seemed real receptive to those awful things by the time your father and Jim came on the scene! If you hadn't had your arms and legs wrapped around me, they'd have killed me on the spot and solved both our problems at once! Think, dammit!”

      
Melanie squeezed her eyes shut in humiliation. He was right. Why had she acted that way, let him—no, encouraged him—to touch her so intimately? She stiffened her spine with pride, now her only defense. Forcing herself to gaze on his hard, handsome face, she replied flatly, “I'm a very unfeminine crusader, as you've reminded me more than once. You're the experienced man of the world. You took advantage of me, and now you're only marrying me to save face and keep my father from killing you! How do you expect me to react to such a cold-blooded proposition? With joy for my shredded reputation? ‘Well, at least he married the chit!’ I can hear Violet Clemson's spiteful tongue already!”

      
“Can you think of an alternative? That is, if you consider me brave enough to defy your formidable father?” he asked sarcastically. She made no reply. “You just moved to San Antonio. You have family and friends in other places. After an annulment you could move to Nacogdoches or Houston—even back to Boston. But I was born here and this is the only home I've ever known. As it is, I've lost the woman I planned to marry because of what's happened. Larena won't even see me,” he said bitterly.

      
“So now we get down to it, really,” she responded, forcing the words from her aching throat. “Your fiancée from her pure-blooded family! You wanted a dynastic alliance with the Sandovals—a woman to breed heirs for your
estancia
. Mindless and dutiful—oh, yes, and exceedingly ladylike!”