Wyoming Woman (9 page)

Rachel forced herself to shrug. “They're eighteen. It's a restless age, especially for boys.”

“Yes.” Cassandra sighed. “Yes, it is. My, how grown up my little girl has become!” She squeezed Rachel's waist again. “But Jacob and Josh are…fine. Just fine.” She repeated the word as they mounted the landing, as if to reassure herself that everything was as it should be. Rachel ached for her mother, wondering how much she knew about the activities of her precious twins.

“Your room is just as you left it.” Cassandra bustled down the hallway to open the door. “I'll bring some water for the washstand and ask Thomas to set another place at the table. Then you can tell us all about your adventure over breakfast. You can't imagine how good it is to have you home, dear!”

Alone, Rachel sank wearily onto the edge of the bed she'd slept in since childhood. She had always felt so safe in this little room, with its whitewashed walls, blue gingham curtains, braided rugs, and the painted elk skin that hung on the wall opposite the bed. How many hours had she spent gazing at the mounted Cheyenne warriors, so exquisitely rendered that they seemed to flow across the creamy surface. When Rachel was eleven, her mother had replaced the medicine skin with a framed still life of pink roses and a violin, which she'd thought more suitable for a young lady. Rachel had stormed and pouted until the painted hide was returned to its rightful spot on her bedroom wall. Her family had spoiled her, she realized. But they had done so with such unwavering love
that she had always felt happy and secure. Only now, as she gazed around her with a woman's eyes, did she understand how fragile that safe, happy world had been.

The buttonholes of her jacket were stiff with mud. As she fumbled with the buttons, the memory of Luke Vincente's searing kiss washed over her, arousing sensations so hot and strong that her nipples puckered beneath the damp lace of her camisole. She remembered the heat of his hands, the maddening restraint with which he had held her, playing with her emotions, making her almost scream for more…

Had he been surprised to find her gone? Had he made any attempt to find her? Rachel knew that her footprints would have been easy to follow over the muddy ground. But reason told her that Luke would not have tracked her very far. He had a friend to bury and two orphaned boys who needed him. And he had a thousand head of sheep to shear. Why should he waste a moment's thought on a cattleman's spoiled daughter?

But that question was not even worth asking, Rachel told herself. The things that had happened while she was with Luke were best forgotten. If she could blot out the memory of yesterday and last night, maybe her life would be whole again. She would no longer have these doubts, these worries, or these damnable, aching hungers.

The clanging of the big iron triangle that hung outside the kitchen shattered Rachel's reverie. That familiar sound had called the Tolliver family to meals
for as long as she could remember. It was one more reminder of ties and loyalties that separated her from the sheep man and his kind. It was time to stop fretting about him and rejoin her own family.

Hurrying, she stripped off her ruined underclothes and rummaged to find an old flannel nightgown in the bottom drawer of the dresser. The worn fabric was soft and warm against her skin, pure bliss after the damp, chafing travel suit. Likewise, the scuffed woolen slippers she had left behind on the floor of the wardrobe cradled her feet like two gentle old friends. Rachel finger-combed her hopelessly tangled hair back from her forehead. Then with the fresh water her mother had left, she splashed her face and washed her hands. The mirror above the washstand showed wildly bloodshot eyes set in a face that was gray with exhaustion. She looked as if she'd just escaped from a sanitarium, she thought as she reached for her faded blue robe. But her family would not care. They would only be happy that she'd come home.

Rachel had been eager to try her wings at art school, and she had done well enough; but not a day had gone by when she had not gazed at the cluttered city skyline and ached to ride across the hills with the sweet prairie wind in her hair. Now she was back on the land she loved, this time to stay.

Years ago, in the belief that she was his own blood granddaughter, the dying Jacob Tolliver had left Rachel one-fifth of the ranch. It was a tribute to Morgan's generosity that he had never challenged his fa
ther's will. Rachel's share of the family's vast holdings was enough to make her one of the wealthiest women in the state. But to Rachel, it was not owning the land that counted. It was that the land owned
her.
She had been born on the ranch, and she was as much a part of this place as the coyotes and pronghorns and prairie dogs that had lived here.

She had been away too long, Rachel thought as she descended the stairs.

Her parents were seated at the table when she came into the dining room, but there was no sign of Jacob and Josh. Only after Rachel had seated herself in her traditional place and Thomas Chang was bringing in the platters of bacon, ham, fried potatoes and airy scrambled eggs did the twins burst into the dining room, their hair and faces still damp from a quick splashing at the pump.

Catching sight of Rachel they whooped with joy and fell on her like two half-grown pups. Rachel reached up and hugged both her brothers close, her heart aching. Maybe she'd been mistaken yesterday. Maybe it was someone else's features she'd glimpsed so briefly as the red bandana fell away. She gazed into their open, boyish faces, wanting desperately to be wrong.

“For heaven's sake, you two, sit down and let your sister eat!” Cassandra was trying not to laugh. “She had a very bad time on the road. She needs to eat and rest, not be bowled over by you two young ragamuffins!”

Still grinning, the two boys slipped into their places
on the opposite side of the table and bowed their heads for Cassandra's grace. They had grown taller and filled out since Rachel had last seen them, but Jacob's ebony hair still had the cowlick, and Josh's shy smile still showed the dimple in his cheek. Neither of them, she noticed, was wearing a red bandana.

Looking at them, loving them, Rachel ached to forget all the things she had seen and heard yesterday. There had to be some mistake, she told herself. They were so innocent, so open. Neither of them was capable of driving animals to their death, let alone beating the life out of a helpless old man.

“Can Slade eat with us, Ma?” Jacob asked, glancing toward the open doorway of the dining room.

Rachel glanced up from her second forkful of scrambled eggs to see a young man leaning against the open frame of the doorway. He was dressed in work clothes, but something in the posture of his lean, sinewy body suggested the indolence of a basking reptile. His eyes were narrow, glittering slits, his mouth too large, too sensual for his narrow face. He looked to be a year or two older than the twins, perhaps, but something about the way his gaze slid over her made the eggs turn cold and greasy in Rachel's mouth.

“Slade's been helping us irrigate,” Josh put in. “He wants to take us grouse hunting after the chores are done. Is that all right, Pa?”

Morgan scowled up at the young man. “Is it all right with your uncle? I heard Lem say last week that
he needed to fence off some pasture to keep the sheep out.”

“Uncle Lem's got plenty of help with the fence, sir,” Slade replied in a tone that stopped just short of mockery. “He said I could come over here 'long as I didn't get in the way.”

Rachel forced herself to chew her eggs and wash them down with a gulp of hot coffee. She'd surmised from the conversation that Slade must be the nephew of their neighbor, Lemuel Carmody. But it was the mention of sheep that caught her like a gut punch. She'd told herself she could forget what she'd seen yesterday. Now she knew that would be impossible.

“Sit down, Slade,” Cassandra said with a weary sigh that betrayed her feelings toward the visitor. “I'll ask Thomas to bring you in a plate.”

“Right kind of you, ma'am.” He gave her a polite nod as he pulled out the chair next to Jacob, but his eyes remained on Rachel. The tip of his tongue glided along his lower lip in a way that made her flesh crawl.

Had Slade been one of the masked men she'd seen yesterday? Rachel had no way of knowing. But seeing his bold manner and the obvious influence he had over her brothers, she would have bet her life on it.

Had he been one of the old man's attackers as well? Again, she had no proof, no answers. She could not say whether it was cruelty that gleamed in those slitted young eyes or just bravado. It was not her right to judge him, or anyone, without proof. She could only curse the fate that had dumped her into the mid
dle of this mess when all she wanted was to enjoy being with her family.

Morgan paused in the act of buttering a biscuit. “Rachel, you said you'd tell us what happened with the buggy yesterday. We're all waiting to hear your story.”

Rachel felt everyone's eyes on her. This was the moment she'd been dreading, when she would have to lie to the people she loved. She had always detested lies and liars. But bringing Luke into the story would only add fuel to a fire that was already burning out of control.

“Your mother said you wrecked the buggy on your way home from Sheridan,” Morgan prompted. “Something about running into a herd of sheep.”

“Sheep?” Slade stiffened, leaning forward in his chair. “You ran into sheep on the road?”

“Right at the bottom of the hill,” Rachel said. “They seemed to be everywhere, and I couldn't stop the mule. The next thing I knew I was in the wash, with rain falling and a flood coming, and the mule hotfooting it back to Sheridan. It was all I could do to rescue what I could and get out of the wash in time.” She was already lying. If Luke had not been there to help her, she and all her things would have been swept away.

“And you walked home? On the road?” Slade's tone had become so demanding that Cassandra shot him a startled glance. But Rachel willed herself to maintain an icy calm. Slade had just given her a piece of the puzzle she was so desperate to solve.

You were there, Slade,
she thought, studying him,
and you had one of my brothers with you. Now you're wondering why you didn't see me on the road. You're wondering where I was and how much I know.

Deliberately Rachel lowered her gaze to her plate for a moment. Glancing up again, she caught him staring at her with a perplexed expression on his face.

Rachel returned his gaze, letting her silence speak her thoughts.
I don't know everything, but I can promise you this. If you've put either of my brothers in harm's way, I'll see you pay for it, you little weasel. I'll see you pay the full price!

A
fter breakfast Rachel took a steaming soak in the family's big copper tub. Then she eased her tortured body into bed for what she hoped would be a deep, healing sleep.

But sleep would not come. Restless and too warm, she lay between the flannel sheets, gazing at a beam of sunlight that crept between the closed curtains. Outside she could hear the familiar sounds of the ranch—the breathy nickering of horses, the crow of a rooster, the echoing clang of a hammer from the forge, and the staccato tirade of Chang, the patriarch of his growing clan, scolding an errant grandchild in the yard below. She had come home where she be longed, to the place where she wanted to bring her husband and raise her children someday—the place where she wanted to pass the years and seasons of her life.

If only she could hold it safe and protect it from the tragedy that loomed like a thundercloud. That
would be her mission now. And if she failed, home would never be the same again.

Rachel stretched out on her back, staring at the ceiling as she recalled the conversation at breakfast. She had managed to give a credible account of her escape from the flood and her long trek home without mentioning Luke. Jacob and Josh had not questioned her story, but the flicker of cunning in Slade's eye had told her he was less trusting than her gently reared brothers. She would have to watch her step with him until she learned more.

But what did she expect to learn? That her sweet young brothers had been led astray? That they had become vandals and raiders, and maybe even killers? Could she face the truth if it had the power to destroy her family?

Abandoning all pretense of sleep, Rachel swung her legs over the edge of the bed and brushed back her damp hair. Ten minutes later, dressed in a faded plaid shirt and well-worn denims, she was padding barefoot down the stairs to the open parlor, where her mother sat with a basket of mending on the rug beside her rocker.

Cassandra glanced up from her work. “I was hoping you'd be able to get some sleep, dear.”

“I'm too tired to sleep. And too excited about being home.” Rachel sank onto the ottoman, where she had so often sat for conversations with her mother. “But I'm not too tired to listen. I want you to catch me up on what's happened to everything and everyone on the ranch!”

Cassandra's cornflower eyes crinkled at the corners. “It's not as if you'd been out of touch, Rachel. Every time I knew someone was going to town, I wrote you a letter and sent it along.”

“I know,” Rachel said. “I must have read every one of your letters at least six times. But it's not the same as talking.”

“Precisely what I was thinking.” Cassandra reached out and squeezed her daughter's hands. “To tell you the truth, I've been counting the minutes until we could have some time alone. Where would you like me to start?”

“How are Chang and Mei Li?” Rachel took a roundabout approach to what she really wanted to know.

“Getting older,” Cassandra answered with a sigh. “Mei Li looks as if a strong breath could blow her away, but her will is like iron. She tells me she's vowed to see her first great-grandchild born before her spirit departs.”

“Will that be anytime soon?” Rachel asked, concerned. She could not imagine the ranch without the presence of Chang's venerable, doll-like wife, who tottered about on tiny bound feet. “Are any of her grandchildren married?”

“They're a bit young for that. But she's already fretting about finding wives and husbands for them. They can hardly marry their own cousins—double cousins at that, since Thomas and Johnny married sisters. So Mei Li has been writing letters to a marriage
broker in San Francisco, very expensive, she says, but very well connected.”

Rachel could not help smiling. “Matchmaking for nine grandchildren should keep Mei Li busy for a long time to come. But this is America, not China. What if her grandchildren don't want their marriages arranged? What if they want to leave the ranch and strike out on their own?”

Cassandra's needle darted in and out as she stitched down a loose button. “Mei Li understands that some of them are bound to go their own way. The girls, of course, will go with their husbands. And Thomas's son George wants to become an engineer. He's extremely bright, and your father has promised to help pay for his education. But Mei Li is hoping that at least some of them will stay here to raise their families. She loves having babies to hold.”

“And what about Jacob and Josh?” Rachel asked, plunging into the quagmire. “They were boys when I left. Now when I look at them, I see two young men.”

“Yes. Yes, they are men in some ways.” The subtle tightening of her mother's jaw told Rachel she had touched a tender spot. “In other ways, they're just boys, like two overgrown pups, running in circles and chasing their tails. It's as if they're unable to look beyond the next picnic or fishing trip to what the future holds. Nothing matters but the pleasure of the moment. I can't help thinking it's my fault. I loved them so much. I fear that I spoiled them when they were little.”

“Loving isn't spoiling.” Rachel patted her mother's arm, aware of the shift in their relationship. She had left home as Cassandra's child. Now she had returned as a confidante as well as a daughter. The change was both a joy and a burden. “They're still young,” she said, hiding what she knew. “Give them time. They'll grow up soon enough.”

Cassandra had stopped sewing. She sat with her back rigid, her small, work-toughened hands clasped tightly on her knees. “It's more than that,” she said. “I'm worried.”

“Slade?” It was scarcely a question, and her mother's silence confirmed the answer. “How long has he been coming around?” Rachel asked.

Cassandra took up her sewing again. The needle worked furiously, jabbing in and out as she spoke. “He's the son of Lem's sister, and he came from Missouri to stay with the Carmodys about two months ago. Lem's never said so, but I get the impression Slade was in some kind of trouble there, and Lem offered to put him to work and give him a new start.”

Rachel knew the Carmodys well. Lemuel Carmody, an affable, middle-aged widower, had been their neighbor on the east for as long as Rachel could remember. His son Bart had been one of Rachel's childhood playmates. “And how's Slade working out?” she asked. “Has Lem mentioned anything to you?”

“He doesn't have to. Slade spends more time over here than he does at Lem's place. Your brothers seem very much…taken with him.” Her fingers quivered as she paused to tug at a tangled thread. “I've begun
to notice changes in the boys since they started hanging around with him. They're becoming cocky, questioning almost everything we tell them. And the three of them disappear for hours on end—hunting, they say, or fishing. But it's not like the old days, when they used to come home laughing and happy, telling stories about their adventures. Now they come back silent, looking at each other as if they have secrets they don't want to tell us. Oh, Rachel—” She shook her head. “I'm sorry. I wanted this to be a happy time for you, and here I am, pouring out my worries like a fussy old hen—”

Rachel's throat tightened as she squeezed her mother's arm. Her parents had always appeared so strong, so invulnerable in her eyes. Only now did she realize it was the way she'd chosen to see them. As a child, she had created an illusion of absolute safety for herself. But the time for illusions was over. Now it was her turn to be strong.

“Can you keep Slade from coming over here?” she asked. “Maybe if you talked with Lem—”

Cassandra shook her head. “Lem seems to think it's a good idea for his nephew to spend time with our boys. And there's no solid reason we can find to keep Slade away. We've never caught him doing anything wrong, and he's never contrary or impolite to us. He's just…” The words ended in an explosive sigh of frustration.

“I know,” Rachel said. “It's as if he walks the edge of any line you draw, touching it but not quite stepping over.”

“Lem's a good neighbor. We've seen each other through some hard times. I hate to get crosswise with him over this fool boy. I just keep praying this time will pass, and Slade will go his own way before too much damage is done.”

“Jacob and Josh will be fine,” Rachel said, willing herself to believe her own words. “You and Dad have taught them right from wrong. Sooner or later, they'll see Slade for what he is.” She took a quick breath, like a diver about to plunge off a high ledge. “Speaking of neighbors, I've never seen sheep this close to the ranch boundaries before. Who owns them?”

Cassandra thrust her wooden darning egg into the toe of a gray woolen sock. “Oh, another thorn in our side—an irritating man named Luke Vincente. He moved onto that section below the bluffs while you were away. Evidently, he's owned the land for years and refuses to sell it, even though both Lem and your father have made him fair offers.”

“What's he like?” Rachel felt her pulse skip. She hated deceiving her mother, but she needed to understand how things stood between Luke and her parents.

“I've never met him—not many people in these parts have. He keeps to himself and doesn't seem to have a woman or any children about the place. Not exactly a neighborly sort—but maybe that's just as well. Lem had a detective friend do some checking on him. It seems Mr. Vincente spent time in prison for killing a man.”

Rachel felt her heart lurch. Luke had hinted at a
dark past. But it stunned her to realize that she had melted in the arms of a killer and an ex-convict.

“What does Dad think about having a sheep man for a neighbor?” she forced herself to ask.

Cassandra worked a thin strand of wool through the eye of her darning needle. “You know your father. He's a fair man. I've heard him say that as long as Mr. Vincente keeps his sheep off Tolliver land, we've got no quarrel with him. But other people aren't as tolerant. Lem, for one, thinks the cattle ranchers should band together and run him out of the county.”

She anchored the thread and began weaving a neat mat of stitches over the hole in the toe of the sock. When she glanced up at Rachel again, her delicate, almost childlike features were arranged in a smile.

“Enough of this worrisome talk on your first day back! I have some happier news. Bart came by the house with his father last week. He asked about you and wanted to know when you'd be home.” Her eyes twinkled impishly. “You used to have quite a crush on him, as I recall.”

“When I was thirteen!” Rachel forced herself to laugh. Bart Carmody, Lem's son, was two years her senior. They'd been friends as children, but thirteen and fifteen were a world apart. As young men do, he had left her behind.

“Bart had his eye on Lula Mae Evans,” Rachel said. “She had blond hair and a bosom, and I didn't stand a chance. I always expected they'd get married one day.”

“Lula Mae married Eddie Parker and moved to Nevada two years ago.” Cassandra inspected her mending job, then snipped the thread with her little silver scissors. “And you're not thirteen anymore. You're prettier than Lula Mae ever was, and smarter to boot. I wouldn't blame Bart for being interested.”

Rachel bit back a murmur of dismay. She was well aware that, at twenty-two, she was approaching the age of spinsterhood, and her mother was anxious to see her wed. She was also aware that Bart Carmody was considered the best catch in three counties. But right now she felt too drained to deal with the prospect of a new suitor, even one as handsome and eligible as Bart. Heavenly days, she had only just arrived home!

And she had come here directly from the arms of Luke Vincente.

“Why don't we go and visit Mei Li?” Rachel scrambled to her feet, seizing on the opportunity to change the subject. “Please—I would so love to see her! Can we go now?”

“Of course.” Cassandra looked startled. “But you don't have any shoes on, Rachel. You can't expect to walk all the way to Mei Li's house on those poor feet.”

“I'll be fine in my old slippers.” Rachel started for the landing. “Wait for me, I won't be a minute!”

She forced herself to hurry as she mounted the stairs, willing the pain that shot from her tender feet to blur the memory of Luke's soul-blistering kiss. But the distraction did not work. The sensual heat of his
touch lingered on her skin, burning deep, all the way to the warm, pulsing core of her body.

He had known exactly what he was doing, she lectured herself as she rummaged under the bed for her slippers. He had used her expertly, almost coldly. Even now he could be using her, knowing how the memory of that kiss would haunt her, making her ache with a desire that threatened to tear her loyalties away from her own family.

She would never go near him again, Rachel vowed. Luke Vincente was no better than a criminal. No, he
was
a criminal, she reminded herself. He had spent time in prison for killing a man.

How had it happened? she wondered as she worked her slippers onto her swollen feet. It couldn't have been cold-blooded murder, or Luke would have ended his life at the end of a rope. Manslaughter, perhaps? Never mind, whatever the circumstance, he had been judged guilty. That made him a criminal. And the hell of prison life had a way of twisting a man's nature, so that he was never again fit for decent society.

All the more reason to stay away from him, she thought. All the more reason to put Luke out of her mind and her heart.

Rachel bit back the pain as she eased her weight onto her feet and walked across the braided rug to the doorway. It would be all right, she told herself. She was home now, with the people she loved. Soon the pulse of her days would adjust to the familiar rhythm of life on the ranch. She would be busy and happy. There would be no need for her to remember the feel
of Luke's arms around her or the way his kiss had spilled molten fire through her veins.