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“That’s somethin’ I mean to find out. But I still aim to kill Shannon. An’ you don’t like hearing that, do you?”
“No I don’t. Because it’s not for yourself you feel you have to do it, is it? It’s for Elena—because of what happened years and years ago, before you were born, before I was born! And you don’t like hearing that either, but I’ll say it anyhow! Elena—Elena! Every time I say her name your face changes. How old were you when you first discovered you loved her? How long have you waited, and for what? How much does she love you? Or are there conditions you have to fulfill first, like killing Todd Shannon?”
“Don’t say any more!” His voice was threatening, but I had gone too far to turn back now.
“If she loved you, nothing else would have mattered. She would have gone away with you, gone anywhere. And you would have done something about it! Why haven’t you, Lucas? What have you been waiting for?”
His hands were on my shoulders, bruising, hurtful.
“That’s enough!”
“No, it’s not enough. It’s time you faced the truth, and it’s time you were honest with me. What do I mean to you, Lucas? Just another woman to keep you warm? Another weapon to use against Todd Shannon? Or am I substitute for her!”
I remembered that he had held me against him; his lips against my hair, I held that memory like a talisman against my doubts.
“Will you stop it, Ro? Stop tormenting yourself an’ me.” His voice had sounded muffled, as agonized as the beating of my own heart. “I’m not the kind of man you need. Remember you told me once you wanted all of a man? I can’t give you anything like that. I can’t make you any promises. You ask about Elena, and what you mean to me, an’ all I can tell you is that lovin’ can’t be measured out. Think I’ve loved Elena about as long as I can remember—and I know that there’s been no other woman I’ve wanted the way I want you. What do you need from me, Ro? You’re the only woman I’ve been with who hasn’t asked if I loved her. You’ve been like a nagging question in my mind I had to find an answer to. An’ I don’t have any answers for you—not the kind you need. I can’t find the right words as easily as you can. I don’t have the knack for taking feelings apart and weighing them.”
It was all he had to offer me, and I took it, afraid to probe for more. When Lucas kissed me, when his arms held me and his body claimed mine fiercely and possessively, I told myself that it was enough.
But now, with the sunlight making the fire seem weak and ineffectual, I wondered.
Lucas had come as close to admitting that he loved me as he dared, without putting himself in a position where I might demand that he make a choice. But I wanted all of him, and he offered me nothing except the meager knowledge that he cared enough for me to send me away.
“I won’t go!” I breathed the words out loud. “I’ll use every weapon, every despicable wile and tactic I can think of—and I’ll win. She shan’t have him!”
But for all my brave words, I was afraid. And when I met Elena Kordes’s dark, inscrutable eyes again for the first time since I had rushed so blindly from her house into the storm, I almost felt sick to my stomach. Elena, Jesus Montoya, and his silent man Chato had started out to find us, and seeing her, she was as immaculately beautiful as always, the velvet of her riding habit forming a richly glowing contrast to the high-piled dark hair. It was difficult to imagine that this was the same woman who had watched me from the gallery as I left the house, whose haggard face and angry voice had taunted me with her possession of the man I loved. Was it only because she was so completely sure of her hold over him that she had let me go? Had she come to look for him, or only because she hoped to find what remained of me?
I couldn’t see the expression on Lucas’s face as we rode up to them, and I was almost glad of it. He held me before him in the saddle, with one arm around my waist to hold me closely against him, and until I saw Elena’s eyes upon me, I hadn’t been aware of my disheveled appearance. I was wearing a shabby pair of pants that Lucas had given me, held around my waist with a red bandanna; a shirt that was far too large and I was soaking wet.
“Lucas! Thank God! If you only knew how worried we have all been! I would have sent someone, or come myself before, but the flood—”
“The water was down far enough to where Diablo could keep his footing.” Lucas’s voice was noncommittal, but he couldn’t help the involuntary tightening of his arm around me, and I caught a small, triumphant flicker in Elena’s eyes.
“But at least you’re back, and you’re safe—both of you.” Her inclusion of me was a deliberate afterthought, and I lifted my head defiantly, but Jesus Montoya smoothed over the awkward moment; a sardonic smile lifted one corner of his mouth under the narrow black moustache.
“It is not for me to play the host in your own hacienda, of course, but since we have all found each other, and you two are very wet, would it not be more sensible to continue this happy reunion in the house?”
I felt like a prisoner being escorted back to a cell, with Montoya and Elena riding on either side of us and Chato behind. A slight breeze swept down the valley, and I shivered.
“You poor child! Why, you must be cold. How thoughtless of me!
” Elena’s voice was all sweet consideration, but her eyes mocked me. “Here, you shall take my shawl. Lucas, what’s the matter with you? You should have taken better care of her, she looks so pale and exhausted!”
I would gladly have flung the fleecy white shawl back at her, but Lucas had already taken it, and was putting it around my shoulders. All this time, he had said nothing, but when he bent his head to mine I thought I felt the brush of his lips against my hair. Was it to give me reassurance, or because he needed it himself? I was surrounded by Elena’s faint, sweet perfume as she had meant me to be. It was as if she had subtly put her presence between us, for how could Lucas fail to be reminded of her, even though it was my body he held within the circle of his arms?
Jesus Montoya carried me upstairs, followed by a sullen, tight-faced Luz. No doubt Elena herself would see to Lucas. The exertion of the climb down the slippery, narrow trail that wound down the side of the canyon, and the battle against the muddy, still-fiercely flowing stream had tired and unnerved us both, and I had noticed that Lucas’s wounds had begun to ooze blood again. When we had arrived at the house he had helped me down from the horse, and it was only then, when I felt him stagger slightly, that I noticed how pale he had become.
“Lucas!”
He shook his head almost angrily, as if in negation of my half-uttered cry of concern.
“I’ll be all right, Ro. You go get some rest, an’ I’ll see you later.”
I had ignored the others then. “We have to talk, don’t you see that? I won’t have you planning what’s to be done with me without even…”
“You foolish, crazy children! Haven’t you been reckless enough? You can quarrel later. Now I must insist that you both rest and change out of those wet clothes.” Elena scolded like a mother, but the contempt in her eyes was meant for me. She wanted me to see myself through her eyes, a pitiful creature picked up in a storm.
I looked away from her, back at Lucas, and there were beads of sweat standing out on his forehead as he leaned against the gallery pillar, his eyes half-closed. But how much of his pain was from his wounds, and how much because of Elena? Another wound reopened.
