Adobe Palace

by Joyce Brandon

  “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “Give me a minute with Ian.”

  Steve spoke briefly with Macready, who then left to oversee the unloading of the equipment and supplies into the wagons Steve had led down the mountainside. Steve took Samantha by the elbow and steered her toward the barn.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked, laughing even as she checked to be sure Lance and Chane were not watching.

  “Privacy.” When they were deep in the barn and well away from prying eyes, he stopped and faced her. “What’s up?”

  Dust motes gleamed in the sunlight slanting in the window near the stall where he’d stopped. Steve had sprouted a growth of beard on his usually smooth-shaven cheeks. Somehow that changed him, made her even more aware of his masculinity and the way his eyes softened when he looked at her.

  “Rathwick was here,” she said. “He claimed the Indian girl he’s looking for is wanted for murder. He says she killed a whole party of Indians. And Chane and Lance are here.”

  “Lance? The one you’re—”

  “Yes. They came because Chane got my palace car back all shot up. He said they’d heard in Phoenix about a crazy Indian woman murdering people all over this area. Tristera was furious at that—and I haven’t even told her all of it.”

  “Don’t blame her.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I know Tristera didn’t kill anyone, but if the army is determined to say she did, it’ll be her word against theirs. I know she wants her name cleared, but I got there after the men were dead. I’m a fugitive of sorts myself. I lived with the Indians long enough to know better than to advise her to turn herself in, even with my testimony. I’m sure Tristera’s learned that lesson, too. She won’t volunteer for trouble.”

  “So we just continue to hide her here?”

  “Unless you’re no longer willing.”

  Samantha looked startled. “Why wouldn’t I be willing? You mean, do I think she killed them? Of course not.”

  Steve peered into her eyes, searching for she knew not what. His gaze seemed to see inside her, as if this had taken on some special significance for him. Finally he nodded.

  “Then I’ll talk to her.”

  “Thank you, Steve. She respects you so much.”

  He grinned. “And what about you? Do you respect me?”

  Samantha smiled. “Of course.”

  Steve leaned close to her; his nearness ignited such warmth in her belly she felt the smile on her face wavering. Steve closed his eyes and touched his warm lips to hers. A spear of heat impaled her; a tiny moan escaped.

  Steve took that as encouragement. His tongue teased her sensitive lips, seeking entry into her mouth, and his arms came around her, pulling her closer against him. His kiss turned devouring, and much to her surprise and chagrin, Samantha realized she was as hungry for his touch as he seemed for hers.

  Her mind still struggled for some way to explain this amazing behavior of hers, with Lance in the house waiting for her. But she could not will her arms to push Steve away. To her further astonishment, they twined themselves around Steve’s warm neck and pulled him closer. Her mouth, her traitorous mouth, opened to his devouring kiss, and the weakness grew more debilitating and intense.

  Long before she wanted him to, Steve relinquished her lips and buried his face in her throat. “Samantha,” he groaned huskily.

  The main barn door creaked, and a man yelled, “Samantha!”

  Despite her bedazzled state, Samantha recognized Lance’s voice and flinched. Fortunately Lance could not see them from there, but ever mindful of her reputation, Steve groaned softly and stepped away from her. Luckily she was still leaning against the stall, so her feeble legs didn’t actually collapse as she feared they might.

  “Yes?” Samantha called out.

  “Where are you?” Lance demanded, irritated.

  “Get rid of him,” Steve whispered.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “Be right there,” she yelled, rushing forward with pounding heart. Steve followed. She looked back at him, willing him to stop or disappear, but he just kept coming.

  “Wait here,” she whispered loudly over her shoulder.

  Something about her expression must have alerted him.

  “Why? Who is it?” he asked.

  Too late. Lance was upon them. She almost bumped into his broad chest. “Sam!” he said, steadying her.

  “Lance!” she gasped, as breathless as if she’d run a mile.

  “What’s going on?” Lance asked.

  “On?” Samantha repeated, stalling for time. “Nothing. Steve was just…”

  “Is this Sheridan?” Lance asked, his eyes meeting Steve’s.

  Steve knew instantly this was going to end badly. The man was at least two inches taller than he was. His finely chiseled features fit together into a thoroughly masculine face dominated by heavy black brows and piercing blue eyes. His smile was one women would like—it could mask anything or promise the world. Steve would have preferred that Kincaid be more obviously flawed. Like maybe an extra hand coming out of his forehead.

  With a sinking heart Steve stuck out his right hand. “Yes, it is, and you must be…”

  “Kincaid, Lance Kincaid,” the man said, slowly extending his right hand.

  Steve shook his hand, a little more forcefully than he needed to. Then both of them turned in unison to look at Samantha, whose cheeks flushed becomingly.

  “Let’s get out of this barn. It’s hot in here,” she said, leading them toward the barn door.

  Just as they reached the door, Chane opened it and peered inside.

  “Chane!” Samantha said, again showing a little too much excitement.

  “What’s everyone doing in the barn?” he asked, glancing from Samantha, to Steve, to Lance.

  “I just needed to ask Steve a question,” she began lamely.

  “In the barn?” Chane asked, looking at her, then at Steve.

  “It was a structural question,” Steve explained smoothly.

  A milk cow walked toward Chane as if to step around him and go outside. “I hear you’re a builder, Mr. Sheridan,” Chane said pointedly as he pulled the barn door closed behind him to thwart the escape. He elbowed the cow aside and pushed her back toward the stall she had somehow escaped.

  Chane Kincaid was an inch taller than his tall brother. He was also broader of shoulder and with an even more commanding presence, if that were possible. He looked like a captain of industry. Steve could imagine him at the helm of a large corporation. Lance was impressive as well, but he looked like a loner. However, side by side, the brothers were undeniably a formidable team.

  “Yes,” Steve drawled. “I guess Sa—Mrs. Forrester told you I’m building her a new house.”

  “We brought a lot of men and building materials with us, but I failed to see any activity to justify it,” Chane said, scowling. Lance watched Steve as if he expected him to crumble under the pressure of two Kincaid males glowering at him.

  “I’d have to be a fool to recommend that Mrs. Forrester build near here. This is hardly an appropriate site for anything, much less a private residence.”

  “So, you’re recommending another site?”

  “I consider that one of the least of my responsibilities,” Steve said curtly.

  “I see,” Chane said, squinting suspiciously.

  Samantha couldn’t believe Chane was acting so pompous and brotherly. “Steve picked a beautiful site, actually.”

  “Mind if I ask where?” Chane asked, still pinning Steve with his most penetrating look.

  “About a mile from here, on the side of the mountain,” Steve said. “I’ll be happy to take you up there to see it, if you like.”

  Chane nodded. “Thanks. That’ll do for starters.”

  Samantha realized that Chane, who was also a builder of some repute, fully intended to inspect every inch of the work site and second-guess every decision Steve had made. If Chane found any flaws at all, he m
ight just insist that she turn the project over to someone else. The thought of his humiliating Steve in that fashion frustrated and irritated her. Suddenly she felt sixteen years old.

  Before she could think of any way to stop Chane, he took Steve by the arm and led him outside. Samantha started to follow them, but Lance caught her arm and held her back. “What is this?” she demanded, suddenly angry.

  “For your own good,” Lance rasped. “If he’s a shyster, better you find out now, before you’ve dumped any more money into this—” He paused.

  “Boondoggle?” she demanded. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  Lance shrugged.

  “You think I’m not perfectly capable of choosing a builder and…”

  Lance pointed at her house, visible through the barn window, as if that were all the proof he needed.

  Samantha frowned. “That’s not a fair comparison. This house was built by an Eastern builder before I got here. He had no idea what he was doing.”

  Lance laughed. “I rest my case,” he said, grinning. Samantha expelled a frustrated breath.

  “Relax,” he said. “If this guy’s any good, Chane will know that, too.”

  “I just don’t like the idea of my brother storming in and taking over. As if—”

  “As if you don’t have perfectly good sense yourself,” he finished for her.

  “Right.”

  “Is this builder someone special to you?”

  “No.” Her quick response didn’t ring quite true, but fortunately Lance didn’t seem to notice. “Chane could have checked up on me by himself. What brings you here?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.

  Lance shrugged. “I just wanted to see you.”

  “You did?” she asked, surprised.

  “Yeah. Something wrong with that?”

  “Not wrong. But unusual. Is everything okay?”

  “No,” he rasped, scowling suddenly. “Angie left me. She’s filed for divorce.”

  “Oh, no!”

  Pain clouded his usually clear blue eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Hell…I don’t know.”

  Samantha wanted to press for information, but it was apparent he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

  Steve’s men loaded the supplies onto wagons. Steve introduced Chane Kincaid to Ian Macready, dealt with Ian’s questions, and then excused himself. While Kincaid was grilling Ian, Steve tracked Tristera to the kitchen. He found her talking to Juana, who was stirring a pot on the stove and nodding occasionally in sympathy as she listened.

  “Señor Steve!” Tristera cried out at the sight of him.

  “Rathwick made you mad, huh?”

  Tristera told Steve the same story he’d already heard from Samantha. “What can I do?” she ended.

  “Stay here. Apparently you’re safe here.” Steve thought of a question he’d wanted to ask before but hadn’t. “Where were you coming from when they attacked your party?”

  “We left the train at Globe and were going home.”

  “Why were you on the Globe train?”

  “We had been to see the Great White Leader of the American people. We got on the wrong train somewhere.”

  “You saw President Cleveland? Why?”

  “He wanted to give us a new treaty that would guarantee each person in our tribe forty acres of land. But I explained that this would not work for the Hopi. I told him that we must live on the mesa—where it is safe—and only go down on the plain to farm in the daytime when the men can protect one another from the Navaho.”

  “And that was all right with him?”

  “Sí.”

  “Do you think the old men were killed on purpose?”

  “I don’t know. Why would they be?”

  “Was anyone else with you?”

  “The Indian agent went to Washington with us, but he didn’t come back with us. He entrusted us to a guide.”

  “Was this guide killed?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I had forgotten that. He said he was going ahead to scout.”

  “He was in on it then. You were set up.” Steve pondered for a moment. “I’m not doubting what you say, but it’s a little hard to believe that the Hopi elders would take along a female to an important meeting like that,” he said, frowning.

  “They didn’t want to take me, but Tuvi convinced them to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why, but I know how.”

  “How?”

  “He asked them to search their hearts for reasons why I should not go, and they went inside and then came out and they were silent.”

  Steve frowned his puzzlement. “I don’t get it.”

  “Disputes,” Tristera explained, “among the Hopi elders, are settled by the priest with the highest spiritual attainments.”

  “So, Tuvi won on that score, and they invited you, in spite of…” Steve stopped.

  But Tristera finished it for him. “Yes, even in spite of being a female who had been publicly shamed. The Hopi care less about those things than they do about the Great Mystery.”

  Steve remained silent, remembering.

  “Someday,” Tristera said softly, “the capitán will figure out that I’m the girl he’s looking for.”

  “Not as long as you keep making eyes at him. You’ll keep him so off-balance, he’ll be lucky to walk upright.”

  “Thank you, Señor Steve.”

  “Be careful, little one.”

  Steve went back outside to supervise the unloading of the train and the loading of the wagons. In less than two hours, the men had filled the wagons and were ready to head up the hill. Unfortunately Chane Kincaid was still determined to go with them.

  Steve looked for a chance to say good-bye to Samantha in private, but it didn’t come. Her lover had spirited her to the far corner of the porch and was keeping her to himself. Steve had never felt lower in his life. He was going to be chaperoned by the big brother while Samantha was courted by a man who looked like nothing but trouble to Steve.

  As they set off for the work site Chane and Ian were talking like old friends. And Samantha was standing on the porch beside her lover looking sweetly confused by the attention he was showering on her. It was a dark moment for Steve.

  Lance remained quiet through dinner and putting Nicholas to bed. Then, instead of the usual awkwardness between them, he took her hand and asked her to walk with him out on the desert.

  Samantha was so aware of his warm hand on hers that she felt jumpy all over. They walked out a-ways and stopped by the rock-strewn creek bed south of the Indian camp. Lance let go of her hand and leaned against one of the boulders. She leaned on the other side of it.

  “I’ve decided to sell my cattle. My herds are being ravaged by the drought and rustlers. Steve and Eagle Thornton, my ramrod, are urging me in that direction.”

  “Sounds like good advice to me. If you’re going to do that you might want to do it soon and get a jump on the market. Prices are still good right now.”

  “I have five hundred head of my special breeding stock and I thought I had ten thousand head of range cattle, but my foreman says I’ll be lucky if they find three thousand head.”

  “You’re missing seven thousand head of stock?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s highly unusual, even if you lost them over the entire three years you’ve been here. I’ve chased a lot of rustlers in my day. They were small operations, though.”

  “I’ve decided to sell the rest, before they all starve to death or get stolen.”

  “You know…we did have a large-scale rustling operation near Phoenix in ’88. Peter was instrumental in breaking up that gang.”

  Peter was Jennie’s brother, who had been missing for seven years. He had turned up in Phoenix last year alive and well, long after Jennifer had given him up for dead. She learned he had been forced into outlawry following the murder of his wife and unbo
rn child. Only last year, with Chane and Jennie’s help, he had finally cleared his name and paid his debt to society by breaking up Dallas Younger’s rustling operation, one of the biggest in the territory. This had earned him a pardon and the right to re-enter society as a respected citizen.

  Peter was currently working for the Texas and Pacific as head of their security network. His reputation alone was almost enough to assure the safety of the railroad’s cargoes.

  Lance scowled and narrowed his eyes in chagrin. “But some of them may have resettled here. I’ll talk to Peter about that possibility, and I’ll start looking for a buyer for you as soon as I get back to Durango.”

  “Thanks.” They stood in silence a moment, then Samantha ventured gently, “It might help to talk about what’s bothering you.”

  “I was just wondering why no one ever mentions that loving someone isn’t enough to make a marriage work?” he asked, shaking his dark head and looking past her toward the horizon, where the luminous gray of the sky was turning purple.

  “What happened?” she prompted, studying his face in the moonlight. She remembered how he had looked at every age. Even as a youth he had been tall and beautifully proportioned. He had never gone through a gangly, awkward stage. Most boys grew in spurts, with one feature leading the way. But Lance had grown with steady grace, elegance, and masculine proportion. Now he had matured into an even handsomer man than he’d been at twenty-eight when he’d married Angie. At thirty-five, he seemed to have become even more solid, more confident, more magnetic. Tonight he looked like a man in torment. Compassion twisted her insides.

  “We had a fight. Angie walked out.”

  “But why?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense, so quit asking me that.”

  “What did you fight about?” Samantha persisted.

  “Damned if I know,” he growled. “A friend of Sarah’s died in childbirth, leaving a baby boy behind. I suggested Angie go help with the baby…” Muscles in his square jaw bunched beneath his smooth skin. His eyes were bleak and filled with despair, but no tears came. Some men could cry, but Lance wasn’t one of them. He cried on the inside, where it hurt more. Samantha ached for him.

  After a moment, he continued. “I…uh…mentioned…” he said, his husky voice a low rasp of suppressed pain. “The woman’s husband had died a few months ago, after a fall from a horse. I suggested to Angie…that maybe we could adopt the baby. Angie got so furious with me that she packed and left. I got a letter a few days ago from San Francisco saying she wouldn’t be coming back. That she’s filing for divorce.”