Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (50 page)

      
“And you sensed the same thing in me—that I wanted you. But you were already married to the right girl. I was the wrong girl....” Her voice trailed off in quiet amazement. So many things made sense now.

      
“When I told Charlee I still wanted to marry Larena, she told me how much better suited you'd be for me than Dulcia or Larena. Then Larena told me the same thing. They both were a lot smarter than I was,” he added ruefully.

      
At that last remark, Melanie's eyes lit up. “In spite of being hatefully jealous of Larena, I always knew she was a woman of rare common sense.” Suddenly her heart took flight, as if freed from the constriction of iron fetters that had manacled it for long months—perhaps all of her life. She framed her husband's handsome face with her hands and said joyously, “I love you, Leandro Angel Velasquez. I have loved you since I was twelve years old....” She kissed him softly on the lips. “Oh, Lee, I've always been afraid—afraid to love a man, to trust my life to a husband, someone who would own me body and soul; but with you I'm not afraid anymore.”

      
Why should you be? Can't you see, Night Flower, you own me too—body and soul?” He kissed her softly, gently, as if afraid she'd break.

      
Melanie, however, had just spent a week recuperating and felt a great deal less fragile than her husband imagined. She returned his careful caress with abandoned ardor, pulling him tightly to her and wrapping her arms around his waist. When he felt her hot, searching mouth open in invitation, he responded instinctively, kissing her back passionately as their tongues eagerly entwined and their breathing accelerated. Only when he began to run his splayed fingers down her throat and lower, cupping a breast and fondling it, did he feel the thick bandaging below it that reminded him of her injury.

      
Slowly, he gentled their passion, raining light butterfly kisses across her cheek and neck, onto her throat. Then, he drew one of her arms from around his waist and pulled it in front of him so he could kiss the soft bend of the elbow and inner wrist, then the palm.

      
“You are a passionate little creature, aren't you?” he teased softly. When she stiffened, he gave her no chance to speak but pressed his fingertips to her lips. “Don't start with more hurt and guilt. I just told you I wanted my wife to love my touch, not shrink from it. Oh, Night Flower, I need your passion, but you're not recovered yet.”

      
To prove his point, he reached down very carefully and touched the thick packing around her waist. When she let out an involuntary gasp of startled pain, he immediately kissed her lips softly, saying, “See. You're still in pain, but just wait, Mrs. Velasquez, until Doc Westin pronounces you recovered. I think I owe you a honeymoon, and I intend to pay my debt—with interest.”

      
She blushed beneath the teasing scrutiny of his hot black eyes, but stared back into them boldly and said, “I shall do my very best to follow doctor's orders to make a full recovery—very, very soon.”

Chapter Twenty Five

      
Melanie's story was printed on the front page of the
Star
the first of the week, and a beaming Amos Johnston brought a page proof out to the ranch to show her early that day.

      
Later in the afternoon, Father Gus came to bring her the sacrament and regale her with the latest tales about the antics of the children at school.

      
“Lame Deer is he still at the head of his class?” she asked with a small frown. “He's been here so much, I feared he was neglecting his schoolwork.”

      
“Ach, not to worry. That young rascal is very bright. And now that his mama works in the Abbess' kitchen, the family has enough food and money, so he need not resort to, er, undesirable means of earning money,” the young priest said with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

      
“Lee's given him some simple chores at the corral. Mostly I think it's an excuse to keep him out of here long enough for me to get a few catnaps during the afternoons, and it also gives him the chance to ride Prancer and learn skills from the
vaqueros
. Lee says he's becoming quite a horseman.”

      
Noting the way her eyes lit up when she talked of her husband, Father Gus could not resist teasing, “A lesson in faith it is—the way my earnest prayers—and the good Baptist ones of the Abbess—were answered.”

      
Melanie looked at him in perplexity. “You prayed for Lame Deer?”

      
He threw back his head and chuckled. “When he stole my burro and a few times after that,
ja
, but that is not what I meant just now. Do you remember the day I married you and Lee? Your eyes flashing defiance and his dark sullen look. Ach! I see you do. It is not that way any longer. Maybe by next year this time we baptize a new little Velasquez,
ja
?”

      
Melanie mulled over what the priest had said to her after he left.
A new little Velasquez
. She dearly wished for children. For the first time, instead of dreading the physical confinement of pregnancy and with it the increased dependency on her husband, she actually welcomed the thought.

      
But what of Lee? He had said he loved her and accepted her mixed blood. He wanted a passionate, responsive wife. That must inevitably lead to children. Heirs for Night Flower Ranch.

      
“There are a great many things we've never been able to talk about before,” she murmured aloud to herself. “Now we can.”

      
That evening was to be her first meal in the dining room. At last she was free of the confinement of eating in bed! Melanie ran her hands over the gowns in her wardrobe, once again grateful to Charlee Slade for talking her into abandoning “sensible clothes.” What she planned to wear tonight was certainly not sensible in the least!

      
When she walked into the dining room that night, the vision in a froth of pale pink looked far more appealing to Lee than Kai's elaborate banquet. Her gown was all lace, yards and yards of it in a softly swaying full skirt that accented her tiny waistline. The long fitted sleeves had lace cuffs that spilled daintily onto her delicate wrists. Her only adornment was a cluster of pale pink roses pinned in her upswept hair.

      
“You are a vision,” Lee said simply. He walked across the room to kiss her very carefully, making certain he did nothing foolish to inflame the passion he had been struggling to control during her convalescence. The very innocence of the delicately hued lace gown added to her aura of ethereal sensuality.

      
She inspected his white stock and the silk shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders, then let her eyes travel down the immaculately tailored brown suit jacket to the tightly molded pants that encased his long legs. Remembering the last time she had dressed elaborately for dinner and found him in casual attire, she appreciated the care he had taken and was touched by the importance he, too, placed on this evening.

      
“I might say,
Don
Leandro, that you look like a vision yourself—tempting a poor woman's soul to perdition. I'll have to ask Father Gus to pray for me,” she teased.

      
“No, you won't. We're married—it's all right to be tempted now.” He grinned and added, “Anyway, after as long as it took us to see the light, I suspect the good father's knees are pretty worn out by now.”

      
She laughed and placed her left hand on his arm. “Escort me to dinner, husband?”

      
“First, I have something for you—to match that,” he said, running his fingertips lightly over her heavy ruby-and-gold wedding ring. “While I was in New Mexico, Jim and Charlee saved all my family's personal belongings—the things I left behind in the old house before it was burned out. What I didn't know until the day of our wedding was that Charlee had found another trunk stored by old Will Slade at Bluebonnet, filled with things he had salvaged from the Comanche raid when my family was killed.”

      
“That's where my wedding ring came from,” she said quietly.

      
He raised her hand and kissed the ring finger lingeringly. “It was Charlee's idea to surprise me with it and have Jim hand it to me in church....”

      
“Where you couldn't back out and had to give it to me.”

      
He smiled sadly and said, “They knew better than I did, sweetheart. But my mother's ring wasn't the only thing in the trunk. With it came these.” He pulled a slim velvet box from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. The fabric cover was very old and brittle, embossed with an old coat of arms probably dating from the days when Velasquez men served the Spanish kings.

      
She opened it reverently. Inside lay a necklace and earring set that matched her ruby-and-gold wedding band. She gasped in awe at the intricate workmanship of the gold filigree and flawless perfection of the gems. ‘They're exquisite, Lee—and so old—family heirlooms from generations ago.” She lifted the necklace out and held it up in the candlelight, unable to say more, her throat closed with emotion.

      
“Here, allow me.” He took the necklace and fastened it about her slender throat. The graduated rubies dropped gracefully so the largest one nestled in her cleavage. With trembling hands, she put the long, delicately tapered drop earrings in her ears. “If I'd selected your gown to match the jewelry, I couldn't have chosen better. This was my great-grandfather Velasquez's betrothal gift to his wife. Each generation it's passed on, traveling from the Old World to the new land of Texas.”

* * * *

      
Melanie concentrated on her recovery, doing stretching and bending exercises in secret and riding Liberator each afternoon for a brief stint while she was certain Lee was busy elsewhere.

      
Another week passed and Melanie's restlessness was matched by Lee's.
If we don't get that long-promised honeymoon soon, we'll be at one another's throats like caged wildcats,
she thought one morning after another night of tossing and turning, with him in one room, her in the other. But he was so fearful of hurting her, so guilty because she'd been shot in the first place, that he'd insisted they wait a while longer.

      
Doc Westin was a fussy old maid who still advised she not overdo, even though he had removed all the bandages and admitted the wound was nicely healed. Somehow, she could not bring herself to ask him if it was all right to resume marital relations with her husband. She had far fewer qualms about asking Obedience Oakley. Obedience had not ridden to the ranch for a couple of days. After seeing her charge mending so well, she had trusted Kai and Genia to tend Melanie.

      
Today, Melanie decided it was time for Mohammed to go to the mountain, since the mountain hadn't been inclined to come to the ranch. Of course, if Lee knew she was up on horseback, he'd skin her; but then, that might not be so bad, she giggled to herself. The ride to town was tiring, she admitted; but as luck would have it, not completely necessary. She was about halfway there when the familiar old buckboard wagon and its Amazonian driver pulled into view.

      
“Jeehosaphat! Lee know yew ‘n thet big devil er out gaddin' round?” She observed Melanie's pallor and was well prepared to scold until the girl revealed her plight and plan to the older woman.

      
“Look, Doc took all the bandages away, but he's too fussy and Lee's too overprotective and I'm...well, randy as a she-cat in heat to have my husband back in my bed!” she finished on a note of bravado.

      
Obedience slapped her thigh with a ham like hand and let out a loud guffaw. “Yer ma wouldn't a never said it so open—but Charlee would! Bless me, child, if 'n I don't think her ‘n me been a real unladylike influence on yew!”

      
“Then you'll ride back to the ranch with me and deliver a personal report to my husband about how fit I am?”

      
“Huumph! Do better 'n thet. We'll show him! Let's git goin'. Time's awastin'. I'll jist take this here lunch ta Lee out at th' corral—‘n happen ta mention seein' yew out fer yer usual mornin' ride.”

      
At Melanie's look of alarm, Obedience added with a wink, “After I tell th' young jackass yore fit as th' day he married yew!” She was off, calling over her shoulder, “Jist ride near th' ranch house round back by th' creek ‘n thet pond.”

      
Within half an hour, as she sat sponging her neck with cool water from the pool out behind the house, she heard Sangre's hoof beats pounding down on her. The big blue's hooves kicked up pebbles and sprayed them into the clear water as his irate rider stopped the horse by the edge of the pool.

      
“A few more feet and you'd be very wet,” she teased, getting up to face his thunderous face as he dismounted.

      
“What the hell are you doing riding without my permission?” He took her by her shoulders and almost shook her before reason reasserted itself and he dropped his hands into clenched fists.

      
“I've been riding every day for the past week,” she replied over sweetly, “and what's this tiresome stuff about permission again? I thought we had that settled. I can scarcely track you down on this big ranch every time I need permission to cover a story for Clarence, now can I?” She watched his mounting fury and danced just out of his reach, luring him away from Sangre as she neared where Liberator was standing.

      
“Mellie, I'm warning you. You—you and Obedience cooked this up, didn't you?” By the time he finished the rhetorical question, his agile little wife had swung up on her big black and sped away toward the ranch house, calling back to him, “Catch me if you can!”