Lacy Read online

  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."

  "You think Turk said something to her?" Lacy asked, studying the wrinkled face.

  "I'm certain that he did. Perhaps he told her that there was no hope, or said something cruel to her. But Katy wouldn't have gone like that without a reason. And she didn't seem in love to me. At least not with Danny Marlone!"

  Katy was her friend, but Lacy wondered if anyone really knew her heart. Lacy never had, although she loved the younger girl like a sister. If there was one man in the world Katy would die for, though, it was Turk. Just the least notice from him could put the younger woman into dreams of ecstasy for hours. It was almost pitiful, the way she watched him and found excuses to be with him. Turk, on the other hand, was, as Marion had said, a lot like Cole. His face gave away nothing, and he seemed to hide his own vulnerabilities in humor. If he had vulnerabilities. Perhaps personal tragedy had damaged him, too. Cole had said that Turk's wife died. That would be shattering, especially to a man who was so much a man. It would be like an indictment of his masculinity that he'd failed to save her.

  "You're very quiet," Marion murmured.

  "I'm worried about Katy, too," she confessed. "Is he a nice man, this Danny? Will he be good to her?"

  "I suppose so, darling. But it's his business that bothers me. He owns a speakeasy, and I don't think he's above making dishonest deals. It bothers me. Still, what can we do? She's a grown woman now. I was married and had Coleman when I was just her age. My hands are tied." She took another sip of tea. "At least Coleman believed me. He won't go rushing up there with his pistol."

  "Believed you?" Lacy probed.

  "Darling, I don't believe a word of the note Katy left me," came the quiet reply. "I don't think that man has any intention of marrying her."

  "Oh." Lacy felt shattered by that statement. She loved Katy. Katy had always been a good girl, despite her coquettishness. And now, for her to go and—and live with a man! Oh, Katy, how could you? she thought miserably. How could you let Turk cause you to do something like that?

  Then she remembered her own threat to Cole if he didn't share her room. About George. Well, she comforted herself, the ends justified the means, didn't they? But until tonight, she wouldn't know. And remembering the last time, she wondered if she was going to have enough courage to go through with this. She did love Cole. But would her love for him be enough to save their marriage?

  Ben borrowed the car for his dinner date, careful to reassure his mother that he was leaving in plenty of time for the long drive— and that he wouldn't wreck her pretty little black runabout.

  Mothers, he thought to himself as he gunned the engine going down the long, winding dirt road. The sky was cloudy, but perhaps it wouldn't rain. Anyway, there was a top—if he could remember how to put it up!

  He was still bothered about the new atmosphere between himself and Cole. In all the arguments they'd ever had, Cole had never lifted a hand to him before. That was out of character, even if the display of temper wasn't. He'd certainly hit a nerve. He knew that his big brother was hiding something; he just couldn't figure out what it was. Marion had said it was none of his business, but he wondered all the same. Cole was so secretive about his private life. And especially about Lacy.

  Ben grimaced, remembering how he'd brought about that di­sastrous marriage. He hadn't meant to force them into a corner; it had all been a big joke. But it wasn't funny the next morning when they were let out. Lacy had been white as a sheet and crying, something the spunky girl had never done in front of him before. Of course, the look on Cole's face had been enough to reduce a strong man to tears—utterly ferocious. Ben had gone to visit an aunt in Houston the same day, to get out of Cole's way while he cooled off. And by the time he came back, Cole and Lacy were married.

  He'd wanted Lacy for himself. She was so lovely, so cultured. While Coleman had been way during the war, Ben had been Lacy's shadow. Then when Coleman had come home again, the older man had been so cold and remote that no one could approach him except Turk. He'd actually backed away from Lacy when she'd gone running, with her heart in her eyes, to welcome him home from France after armis­tice was declared. He knew he'd never forget the way Lacy had looked, or how she'd reacted to Cole's distance during the months and years that followed. She'd been talking of leaving the ranch, for the first time, when Ben had hit on his practical joke. He'd asked Lacy to marry him, in desperation, and she'd refused with such gentleness.

  It had almost killed him to know, finally, that she'd only felt affection for him, and that had rankled. Like Katy, Ben was used to getting his own way, especially with women. He sighed, thinking about the girls he'd been out with in San Antonio. He sometimes felt certain that he knew more about women even than Cole did. Cole seemed remarkably repressed; he always walked off when Ben and Turk star
ted talking about their conquests. Especially since the war.

  Turk was a rounder, he thought. The ace pilot had been his hero for a long time. Cole was too hard an act to follow. Turk was more human. Ben admired his success with women, his cool, easy manner. Turk was high-tempered, too, like Cole, but he was a little more forgiving and less rigid in his attitudes. Ben wondered how Cole got along with Lacy when the lights went out. He thought that might have been why Lacy left him in the first place. They'd had separate rooms, and Ben suspected, as did the others in the family, that the marriage had never been consummated. That would hurt a woman like Lacy, to have everyone think her own husband considered her undesirable. She'd stayed in San Antonio eight months, and there had been a man hanging around her, from what Katy said. But for Lacy to come home with Cole, the man must not have meant much to her. Lacy probably still loved Cole, despite everything. Looking back, he couldn't remember a time when Lacy hadn't looked at the older man with her heart in her sad eyes. But Ben hadn't noticed—not until he'd played his infamous practical joke and forced Lacy into the anguish of a loveless marriage. He sometimes felt very guilty about that.

  His mind went back to meeting them at the siding, to little Faye Cameron's sudden appearance. She was a cute thing, that blond tomboy, but hardly the kind of woman he needed. Writers, he decided, were loners. They couldn't be restricted to just one woman. They needed lots of women.

  Of course, there was Jessica Bradley, the daughter of the new periodical's publisher. She was a dish. Very dark, with creamy skin, and a very kissable mouth, and a body he was aching to get his hands on. Now there was a sophisticated little doll. He began to whistle as he thought about her and increased his speed. Poor little Faye would just have to set her sights a little lower. A rancher's daughter needed a cattleman, anyway, not a famous writer.

  The Bradleys were waiting for him when he got to the elegant residence near the Alamo. Randolph Bradley was tall and silver-haired, with a neatly clipped mustache and very blue eyes. His daughter apparently took after her mother, whose portrait hung above the elegant mantle in the Victorian living room.