The Rawhide Man Read online

  Jude slipped a ring onto her finger. More words were spoken. She said two of them. Jude bent to touch his cold mouth to her lips in their first kiss as man and wife—so removed from the heated confrontation in the hall when he’d looked as if he’d kill for her mouth. And they were married.

  She heard the mariachis begin to play as Jude led her out to the church steps where the guests were waiting with rice. The rice stung. She was cold because the beautiful white dress wasn’t meant for warmth on a cool December day. But she laughed and pretended that it was the happiest moment of her life as she crawled into the black Mercedes with Jude and Katy. They drove toward home, and her eyes turned back for a last glimpse of the mission complex. Now that it was all over, she wished she could go back and really see the historic shrine.

  “We’ll come back again someday and you can see the rose window, Bess,” Katy promised. She blushed. “I mean, Mother.”

  Bess caught her breath as she looked over the seat at Katy, whose face was radiant. “I like that,” she told the young girl with affection. “Oh, I like that very much. It sounds just right.”

  “It sounds absurd,” Jude snapped, glaring at both of them. “She isn’t your mother.”

  Katy’s lower lip trembled and she looked down. “Yes, sir.” Her eyes went to Bess. “Congratulations anyway…Bess.”

  “Thank you,” Bess said, ignoring Jude’s deliberate cruelty. There would be plenty of time later to tell the sweet man what a crude, unbearable, insensitive ass he was.

  * * *

  But in the days that followed, Jude made a point of staying away from the house. If he saw Bess at all, it was rarely, and he made no attempt to come near her at night. Apparently he’d meant exactly what he’d said about their marriage. It was to be a merger, period, with no intimacy of any kind. Bess was almost relieved; it prevented any more of the horrible confrontations that had occurred before their wedding. With plenty of time on her hands, she concentrated on preparations for Christmas.

  “We never have a tree or anything,” Katy said sadly when Bess started talking about where to put one. “There’s no Santa Claus, so Daddy says it’s just a bunch of nonsense.”

  Bess was horrified. She stood in the middle of the floor gaping at Katy. “But, darling, don’t you know what Christmas means?”

  Katy shifted uncomfortably. “The teacher tells us about it,” she murmured.

  “But don’t you go to church on Christmas Eve and…?”

  Katy looked even more uncomfortable. “Daddy says—”

  “Daddy says entirely too much,” Bess burst out, dark eyes flashing. “Now, Katy, we’re going to have a tree and presents, at least from each other,” she said firmly. “And you and I are going to the Christmas Eve service at church, whether or not your father goes with us. And Aggie and I are going to fix a turkey with all the trimmings, and we’re going to have Christmas.”

  Katy’s eyes sparkled and she burst out laughing. “Oh, Bess, you make it sound so wonderful.” Then the smile faded and became bittersweet. “But Daddy won’t let you, I’m afraid.”

  “We’ll see,” she said firmly. “Now.” She turned her attention back to the living room and pursed her lips. It was a massive room, and there were double windows facing the porch, which in turn faced the road. “We’ll put it right there,” she decided, “so that it can be seen outside. Do you have ornaments or decorations?”

  Katy shook her head.

  Bess frowned. “Haven’t you ever had a tree?”

  Katy shook her head again.

  She’d barbecue Jade, Bess decided. Over an open pit on Christmas day with an apple in his mouth. “We’ll go to the store, then,” Bess said. “Get a sweater. After I speak to your father, I’ll get one of the cowboys to drive us into town to get a tree and ornaments and things.”

  “You will?”

  “I certainly will.” Bess pulled on Jude’s leather jacket and went out to find him.

  She found him in the barn talking with one of his men, and Bess waited patiently until he finished, enjoying the nip in the air.

  He came out a minute later, wearing dark slacks with a white pullover sweater and a sheepskin jacket that must have cost the earth. He stopped in the act of lighting a cigarette and stared at Bess.

  “Did you want something, Mrs. Langston?” he asked with deliberate sarcasm, his green eyes alive with it.

  “Yes, Mr. Langston, I did,” she said imperturbably. “I want you to have someone drive us to town so that I can buy a Christmas tree and something to go on it.”

  “No,” he said coldly. “Not in my house.”

  She had realized already that it was going to take a fight. She was prepared. She lifted her head with the blond hair coiled haughtily atop it and stared at him.

  “Before we married, you agreed we should try to get along, didn’t you?” she asked. “I haven’t asked anything of you up until now. Not one single thing. But now I want half the living room. In fact, I want the half that faces the road. It has a double window. Then,” she added, watching his eyebrows slowly go up in astonishment, “I want a tree—something bushy, I don’t care what kind—and some ornaments and a turkey and a ham.”

  “Are you going to put the turkey and ham on the tree?” he asked.

  She glared at him. “I also want you to buy something for Katy to go under the tree. A present that you pick out yourself, not that your secretary runs out to get on her lunch hour.”

  He took off his hat and idly brushed it against his leg while he looked at her. “Anything else?”

  “No. That’s all.”

  He searched her eyes and laughed shortly. “You’ve said your piece, now I’ll say mine. Christmas is for featherbrains who haven’t anything better to do….”

  “You hush!” she said under her breath. “You know very well what Christmas is and why we celebrate it, and shame on you for spoiling it for Katy! How do you think she feels when all the other children are telling her about their Christmases and all their presents and going to church together to thank God for them? What do you suppose she says?”

  He looked stunned for an instant. “It’s only another day,” he said defensively.

  “Not to a little girl without a mother,” she said quietly, and felt her own loss keenly at that moment.

  He drew in a heavy breath. “All right, damn it,” he bit off. “Have a tree. Have a turkey. But don’t expect to drag me to church, because I won’t go.”

  “Don’t worry,” she returned hotly, “I wouldn’t want to have to be seen with you anyway!”

  She was turning on her heel when he caught her arm and jerked her back.

  “Where are you going for the tree?”

  She swallowed. He was much too close. “I don’t know.”

  His hand loosened, became slowly caressing on the leather sleeve. “You’ve got Katy all het up about this, I suppose,” he growled.

  “She only wants what other children have.”

  “All right. I’ll drive you to town.”

  She turned, gaping up at him. “I…I thought I’d ask one of the boys. I didn’t expect you to go.”

  His eyes searched hers slowly. “Don’t you want me to?”

  She couldn’t answer him. Her gaze caught in his and couldn’t free itself. For a long, hot moment they stood in the cold and just looked at each other.

  “Hell, if we’re going, let’s go,” he said irritably, throwing her arm away. “Get Katy.” He slammed his hat over his eyes and stalked off toward the garage.

  It was astonishing that he’d agreed to it. All the way to town, Bess cast curious glances his way.

  “I need to run by the office for a few minutes,” he said after the silent drive into town. “I’ll leave you both downtown and let you shop. Meet me in front of the Menger Hotel at three.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bess said smartly.

  He glared at her as she clambered out with a giggling Katy, and his eyes promised retribution in the near future. Bess gave him her s
weetest smile and blew him a kiss. That really set him off; he left rubber behind when he accelerated.

  “The police will get him if he does much of that,” Bess said smugly.

  “He never has before,” Katy murmured with a teasing smile. “My, my, he sure is strange since you came.”

  Bess laughed, impulsively freeing her hair from its bun and letting it fall around her shoulders. “It’s nice out today, kind of like autumn.” She frowned. “What am I saying, it is autumn until the twentieth, isn’t it?”

  “Everybody thinks of December as winter,” Katy said. “Bess, is he really going to let us have a tree?” she added excitedly.

  “Yes, he is,” Bess said, without adding what a fight it had been. “Now. Let’s get busy.”

  She and Katy bought boxes of ornaments and tinsel and a tree stand and skirt with the wad of bills Jude had pushed into her purse. She sent Katy into a bakery to get breads and cookies, and while she was gone Bess quickly bought some items that the little girl had expressed a desire for. Before she could regret it, she added a new model of pocket computer that Jude had been muttering about, along with a nasty-looking tie that he was sure to hate. On Christmas morning she’d decide which of the presents to give him, she promised herself.

  Jude picked them up in front of the historic old hotel near the Alamo at three, and Bess glanced hopefully down the street toward the building.

  “Not today,” he said flatly. “I’ve got a budget meeting tonight. We’ll only have time to buy the damned tree and go home.”

  Katy looked sad, but Bess smiled over the seat at her. “You and I will go another time, okay?”

  The car jerked suddenly and he gave her a look that would have stopped traffic, but she turned away and ignored it.

  “So brave, aren’t we?” he murmured as he flicked on the radio.

  It was playing a particularly mournful song about lost love, with a line that was repeated to the point of madness: “I feeeyul sooo sick in mah heart for you.”

  Bess lifted her eyebrows and smiled at Jude.

  “What are you grinning about?” he challenged.

  “I feeyul sooo sick in mah heart for you,” she drawled off-key, and Katy rolled over in the back seat, muffling her laughter.

  One corner of Jude’s mouth actually curled up as he glanced at Bess. He’d stopped at a traffic light, and his lean hand shot out to catch a strand of her loosened hair and jerk it roughly.

  “Thorn in my flesh,” he muttered, letting go when she squealed. “Life was so peaceful until I got tangled up with you.”

  She pushed back the long hair that he’d tugged. “Is that what you call it? I was thinking you were probably just bogged down in bad temper.”

  “Careful, lady,” he cautioned as he lit a cigarette. “Eventually, you’ll be unprotected.”

  She knew what he meant, but there was a wild sweet recklessness in taunting him.

  “You don’t scare me, masked man,” she replied. “My ancestors survived carpetbaggers and reconstruction. I reckon I can survive you.”

  “Out here we had Apaches and Comanches,” he said, glancing at her. “As a matter of fact, my grandmother was a full-blooded Apache woman.”

  That explained his black hair, dark complexion and high cheekbones, she thought, studying him.

  “Yes, it shows, doesn’t it?” he asked. “We’ve got photographs of some distant cousins. Get Katy to show them to you.”

  “Oh, yes,” Katy agreed, all eyes, “and there’s a bow and arrow, and a skinning knife and a buffalo robe!”

  “I used to read a lot about Cochise and the Chiricahua Apaches,” Bess volunteered. “Western history was Dad’s passion. He had books full of old photos of the war chiefs. Some of them were beautiful,” she recalled, memories of those sculpted, proud features flashing through her mind. Involuntarily her eyes were drawn to the smooth skin of Jude’s face, with the faint shadow of new beard around his mouth and chin.

  He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Some Apache men took white women for their lodges, you know.”

  She turned back to her window. “There’s a Christmas tree lot over there,” she said quickly. “Could you stop?”

  He pulled into the side street and parked the car. Katy ran ahead of the adults to the small dirt lot where pine and spruce trees were displayed.

  “This is stupid,” Jude growled, out of earshot of the civic club men who were operating the lot. “Why buy a tree when we’ve got thousands on the ranch?”

  She looked up at him. “Because the money goes to provide Christmas for children who wouldn’t have any otherwise,” she said gently. “Suppose Katy lived like some of the families whose houses we drove past to get here, Jude?”

  His eyes lowered to hers and that same odd, penetrating look was back in them again. It made her feel trembly all over.

  “Money doesn’t bring happiness,” she continued, “I realize that all too well. But the lack of it can cause a lot of misery.”

  He shifted his broad shoulders uncomfortably and glanced toward Katy, who was signaling wildly. “She’s found one she likes.” He glared down at Bess. “You’ll have to decorate the damned thing.”

  She beamed. “I like decorating trees. We bought all sorts of things to put on it.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said with a rare smile. “A turkey and a ham.”

  She laughed gaily, and it changed her eyes. They were filled with warmth, and her creamy complexion glowed. She tossed her head, and her silver gold hair caught the sunlight and shone like metal. Jude stared at her for a long time before he moved abruptly and went to join Katy.

  The tree the little girl wanted was a huge pine over eight feet tall. Jude tried to steer her toward something smaller, but it was the only tree she wanted and she wouldn’t change her mind. So Jude gave in, growling a little, and handed the man with the cash box a large bill. Bess and Katy had gone back to the car because the wind was coming up and it was cold. But Bess glanced back in time to see Jude refusing any change, and she wanted to cry. It was just a little victory, but it was solid gold.

  * * *

  Jude put the tree into the stand for them and set it up; then he glared at both of them and went into town for his meeting, announcing that he’d have dinner there before it started.

  Bess giggled, and Aggie came in with a puzzled frown. “He never eats in town,” she said. “I do not understand.”

  “He’s in a snit,” Bess explained, laughing at the older woman’s puzzled expression. “He’s furious because he had to buy us a tree.”

  Aggie laughed. “But such a magnificent tree!” she exclaimed, sighing over it as she dried her hands on her apron. “Of course, at home we always made a nacimiento—a nativity scene. But the tree is lovely, too.”

  “We bought a little nativity scene, though, Aggie,” Katy told her excitedly. “And we got lights, and all sorts of stuff! I have to call Deanne and tell her!”

  She ran off and Bess sighed, smiling, as she studied the huge tree. “She’s been like that all afternoon,” she confided. “So happy and excited. I could have cried.”

  “The men tell me the señor has never liked to see celebrations, señora,” Aggie said sadly.

  “Well, we’re having one this year,” Bess said shortly. “I insisted. We’re even going to have turkey. And a ham, and all sort of trimmings. I have a recipe book—I had a recipe book,” she added on a sigh. “I know, I’ll call the caretaker and have him send it out here express mail!”

  “You have sold your home?” Aggie asked.

  “Oh, no. I had Jude hire a caretaker for it,” she said. “It’s been in my family for a hundred years. I just couldn’t sell it. It was part of the marriage contract. I gave him his blessed shares, and I got my home. And part of the living room,” she added, glancing toward the tree. “He said he wouldn’t have it in his house. I figure part of the house belongs to me now that we’re married, so I told him I wanted half the living room.”

  Aggie laughed. “Seño
ra, you have him on his head. I have never seen him so confused. He curses all the time. But I have seen him smile when he looks at you. A true smile, that of a man who is pleased with what he has.”

  That was shocking. Bess had to restrain herself from pumping Aggie about her remark. But she didn’t dare hope. Jude was determined to keep her at a distance, so she’d better not expect very much from him.

  She and Katy decorated the tree, finishing just before Katy’s bedtime. When Bess plugged in the lights, the young girl stared at it as if she’d never seen anything so beautiful. She hugged Bess hard.

  “I love you,” she choked out, and then ran away before Bess could reply.

  She stood watching the tree with tears in her eyes. Who’d have thought it would mean so much to the little girl? She thought about Christmases when she was a child, and the trouble her mother and father had gone to to make them special for her. The tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. They’d been such a happy family, so happy. Then her father had died and her mother had married Crystal’s father, and Bess’s fragile happiness had collapsed. She couldn’t help feeling sad about the past. It had been so lovely to have a family, to be part of that warmth. That was why she wanted to make it beautiful for Katy. A little girl should have some sweet memories to look back on when she grew up.

  It was midnight when Bess went up to bed, and Jude hadn’t yet come home. She was still amazed that he’d agreed to her demands. But, then, he was full of surprises, and she wasn’t certain yet that he wouldn’t get even with her for forcing his hand. Maybe Katy’s expression on Christmas morning would be enough to stall him.

  * * *

  As it turned out, Jude didn’t make any snide remarks about the tree; in fact, he pretended it wasn’t there at all. But she saw him bring in a big, bulky package one night before Christmas and take it upstairs without saying a word about it to anyone. And suddenly her heart soared with happiness for Katy.

  The only unpleasant note in the week before Christmas was a card from Crystal, saying that she’d only just gotten Bess’s note about the wedding and would come to spend the holidays with her and Jude. That was enough to spoil the spirit of anticipation that was building inside Bess. Crystal was all she needed right now, to shatter the delicate truce she was establishing with Jude.