by Nan Ryan
Nodding, blinking back her tears, Margaret composed herself and hurried on ahead to LaDextra’s room. There, just outside the door, she took a spine-stiffening breath and knocked.
Brit opened it. “Why, here she is now,” he said over his shoulder to LaDextra.
“Anna?” LaDextra’s weak voice came from across the room, and Margaret, exchanging worried glances with Brit, went directly to her.
“I’m here, LaDextra,” she said, stepping up close to the bed, smiling down at the pale, white-haired woman. “I’m right here.” She took LaDextra’s hand in both of hers.
“Thank God,” LaDextra murmured, gazing up at her. “I did so want to see my precious granddaughter one last time this side of heaven.”
Margaret swallowed hard. She said, “LaDextra, there’s something I must tell you.”
LaDextra smiled at her. “What is it, child? You can tell me anything, you know that.” And her pale, sick eyes shone with deep affection.
Margaret battled with herself for only a second. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell this dying woman that she was not her long-lost granddaughter. It was too late for honesty. She couldn’t unburden herself now. LaDextra Regent was dying. She should be allowed to die in peace.
Margaret leaned over and laid her cheek against LaDextra’s sunken cheek. She said softly, “I just wanted you to know how much I love you, Grandmother, and to tell you that this past summer here at The Regent has been the happiest time of my life.”
LaDextra said, “Oh, child, how I’ve longed to hear you call me Grandmother. And now you have. Bless your heart.”
“Can I get you anything? Do anything for you, Grandmother?”
She made no reply.
Margaret anxiously lifted her head, looked down at LaDextra. Her breathing had changed. She struggled for air. Margaret shouted for Dr. McCelland. The doctor rushed in, with Brit right behind him.
But it was too late.
LaDextra Regent had peacefully passed away.
Thirty-Seven
Twenty-four hours after her death, LaDextra Regent was buried beside her husband in the family plot high up the sloping valley behind the house, in the shadow of El Capitán peak. Her final resting place was high above the parched desert floor, in the cool shade of an elm tree.
After the brief morning services, the mansion was filled with mourners, as it had been since the moment of LaDextra’s death. While old friends talked and visited, Will Davis quietly called Brit into the study.
Producing a packet of papers from the inside pocket of his dark suit jacket, Will said, “LaDextra’s last will and testament.” Brit felt his knees go weak, his throat go dry. He said nothing, just looked at the attorney, who told him, “Brit, she never changed the will. You are the sole heir. Everything goes to you.”
Stunned, Brit said, “What about Anna?”
“She left nothing to Anna.” He handed the document to Brit and asked, “Shall I tell her?”
“No, don’t.” Brit said. “I’ll tell her.”
Will nodded, recalling what LaDextra had said shortly before she died: “If I leave The Regent to Anna, Brit will never admit he loves her. But if I leave everything to him…”
The two men exited the study. Brit immediately began looking for Anna. He’d had no chance to speak with her alone since they’d made love. There was so much he had to say to her. He spotted her across the crowded room.
“Excuse me, Will,” he said, and started toward her.
But he never made it.
An out-of-breath ranch hand arrived and intercepted him.
“Sorry to bother you at a time like this, Brit,” said the cowboy, “but I figured you’d want to know. There’s a large portion of fence down on the mountain tract. Lots of cattle getting out.”
“Be right there,” Brit said.
Ever the concerned ranch manager, Brit quickly made apologies to the guests and left without saying anything to Anna. That would have to wait. He’d talk to her as soon as he got back. She would understand.
The crowd of friends and relatives began to thin out by late afternoon, and Margaret was relieved. She had acted as hostess since the moment LaDextra had died, organizing the help, greeting callers and making sure everyone had something to eat and drink.
She hadn’t minded being busy, but she had minded the fact that there had been no opportunity to talk to Brit, to see him alone. Overnight guests had quickly filled the house. There hadn’t been a single minute when the big mansion wasn’t full of people.
By sunset the great house was quiet again. Nearly everyone had gone. At bedtime only the closest of friends remained.
In her room Margaret waited anxiously for Brit. Surely he would come to her tonight. She bathed in a tub full of bubbles and brushed her long hair a hundred strokes. She slipped into a shimmering white satin nightgown that clung to her body. She dabbed her most expensive French perfume between her breasts and behind her knees.
But the sleepless hours of night went by and Brit did not come. Doubts torturing her, Margaret worriedly walked the floor, wondering if he even meant to come to her. Was she once again being foolish to suppose that he would? She needed reassurance. She needed to have his arms around her, to hear him say he loved her.
Those troubled hours between darkness and dawn gave Margaret far too much time to think, far too much time to worry and wonder. With uncertainty plaguing her, guilt nagging, she told herself that there was only one thing to do.
Before the dawn broke she had decided that she would—that she had to—leave The Regent. She knew the truth now. She wasn’t Anna and she had no right to be there. The Regent was not hers and never would be. It belonged to Brit. It belonged to the man she loved.
The man who did not love her.
Sure, Brit had repeatedly murmured “I love you” as they had made love, but she had no reason to believe that he had meant it. He had, she felt sure, told dozens of women that he loved them. He hadn’t meant it when he’d said it to them and he hadn’t with her, either. She was nothing more to him than all the others.
LaDextra had told her that Brit Caruth had been loved by many women, but that he had never loved a one of them.
Dark, ominous clouds filled the sky the next morning. It looked like The Regent was finally going to get some much needed rain. The blazing heat of summer had cooled and there was a slight nip in the heavy air.
Brit, Margaret learned from a servant, was still away from headquarters.
It didn’t matter. She had made up her mind. She would leave today. Now, while Brit was away.
Margaret packed a few of her dresses and shoes. She was about to close the valise when she remembered something. She stopped, turned and hurried to the bureau. She pulled out the top drawer, reached underneath some lacy underthings and withdrew the little tied bundle she had brought with her to The Regent.
She returned to the bed and spilled the contents out onto the beige counterpane. The turquoise-handled knife. The bits and pieces of cloth. The baby teeth. The gold locket.
And the gleaming silver concho she had twisted from Brit’s charro trousers. She had added the concho to her valuables. She bit the inside of her cheek, lifted the silver circular disk and pressed her lips to it. It was all she had of Brit.
All she’d ever have.
Margaret slipped the concho down inside the bodice of her dress, allowing it to come to rest directly over her aching heart.
She then lifted the gold locket with the initials M.S.H. She could now wear the locket. She would wear it. She was Margaret Sue Howard and she would tell the world that’s who she was.
She lifted it, draped the delicate chain around her neck and smiled when she realized that it was too small. It was a child’s necklace and she was a woman. She wrapped it twice around her wrist and closed the clasp. The locket dangled on her hand.
She gathered up the few remaining keepsakes, put them back into the bundle and tossed it into the open valise. She left the room without t
urning back for one last look.
She slipped down the stairs and, seeing that the coast was clear, let herself out the front door before anyone knew she was gone.
Margaret rushed down to the carriage house and ordered one of the old Regent drivers to take her to the rail spur to meet the eastbound morning train.
When she alighted from the carriage at the platform, she pointed a finger in the old man’s face and said, “Now, Roberto, promise me you will not tell anyone that I have gone. You understand me? You know nothing. You didn’t know I was gone. You don’t know where I went, comprende?”
The puzzled Mexican driver frowned worriedly. “Where are you going, Señorita Anna?”
“Away,” she told him. “Far, far away. Tell them that, if you must tell them anything. Tell them that I have gone away and I won’t cause any more trouble.”
She heard the train whistle. “Here it comes. Goodbye, Roberto,” she said, then turned and hurried up onto the wooden platform.
A few sprinkles of rain struck her face as she waited for the train to reach her. She lifted her eyes heavenward. The clouds had darkened. Off to the west a bolt of lightning streaked down out of the sky, followed by a low rumble of thunder.
The rain began in earnest as she stepped onto the train. Her valise in her hand, she moved down the aisle and took a seat beside the window. She looked out and saw that old Roberto was still sitting there in the carriage, letting the rain fall on him. She waved him away, but he didn’t budge.
The train began to move and Margaret felt her heart lurch along with its jerky movement. The locomotive slowly began to pick up speed. Margaret looked out the rain-splattered windows, thinking that at long last the dry, dead pastures were going to get a good soaking.
She smiled wistfully and gazed out on The Regent rangelands, stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction.
The rain was coming down in thick blinding sheets now, pounding against the train’s steel roof, drenching the dry soil and starting to fill the long-empty water holes. Lightning streaked brightly across the night-black sky and thunder boomed across the plain.
Fighting back the tears that were stinging her eyes, Margaret sighed wearily, leaned back in the seat and wondered if she would ever forget the summer she’d spent at The Regent. She knew that she wouldn’t. She had told the dying LaDextra that it had been the happiest time of her entire life, and it had.
No matter how it had ended.
Daydreaming, reminiscing, Margaret was jolted from her musings when the fast-moving train abruptly began slowing.
Puzzled, curious, she leaned over, tried to look out the window. She could see nothing through the rain-spattered glass. Annoyed, wanting to know why they were stopping, Margaret impulsively raised the window, stuck her head out and looked up the tracks.
Nothing.
No reason at all for the train to be stopping.
She turned her head, looked back down the tracks and felt her heart race out of control.
A hard-riding cowboy astride a big iron-gray stallion was thundering after the train in the pouring rain.
“Brit,” she murmured. “Brit,” she said more loudly as the fleet-footed stallion, galloping at full stride, easily overtook the locomotive.
Unable to move, unable to think clearly, she stayed in her seat as the train rumbled to a complete stop. Tense seconds ticked away and then the handsome, hatless Brit Caruth stepped into the car. He stood unmoving for a minute, booted feet apart, flashing eyes fixed on her.
Then, while passengers stared and mumbled, he stalked up the aisle, decisively plucked Margaret out of her seat, swung her up into his arms and hauled her right off the train.
With the rain peppering their faces and saturating their clothes, Brit lifted Margaret up across Captain’s saddle, swung up behind her, reined the gray stallion about and turned toward home.
Soaked to the skin, laughing and crying at once, Margaret shouted above the tempest, “Brit, you don’t understand. I’m not Anna. You were right about me all along. I’m an imposter. I don’t belong here on The Regent.”
His strong arms protectively enclosing her, his handsome face wet with rain, he laughed and said, “Of course you belong here on The Regent. Where else would my wife, the mother of my children, belong?”
Her heart swelling with so much happiness she could feel the silver concho pressing against her left breast, she said, “You mean it. Brit? You…you love me?”
“Yes, I love you, sweetheart,” he said, and in his dark eyes was the testimony of that love. “You’re the only woman I have ever loved, will ever love.”
“Brit, oh Brit,” she sobbed, her tears mixing with the rain on her flushed cheeks. “You’re not angry with me for—”
Interrupting, he said, “I wanted you the minute I saw you and I’ve loved you from the first time I held you. I don’t care who you were before, only who you are now. And now you’re mine. My one and only love. The woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Marry me, sweetheart. Marry me and let’s share this vast, wild land called The Regent.”
More from Nan Ryan
The Last Dance
Lucy Hart sets out on an adventure. On the verge of spinsterhood, she is determined to venture out of her world of comfort and responsibility, and to make lasting memories in the fading glory of Atlantic City.
Blackie LaDuke has had enough adventure. In Atlantic City, looking to escape New York City—and matrimonial—heat, he is instantly intrigued by the prim Lucy.
Soon, an unlikely friendship blossoms and before long, Blackie finds himself wanting to be the man worthy of Lucy’s affection. Hoping to leave their old lives behind, can Lucy and Blackie start a new one together?
Wanting You
Anna Regent Wright, the long-lost Regent heiress, has finally returned. With no memories of her life before being captured by the Apaches, she is suddenly given a name and a past, and thrust into a new world that holds a future beyond her wildest dreams.
Brit Caruth is positive that Anna is an imposter, and he’s determined to prove it before Anna inherits the fortune that is supposed to be his. But his attraction to the beautiful stranger is undeniable, and as love blooms, resentment fades.
But when the truth finally does out, whose future will it put in jeopardy?
Wayward Lady
When her fiancé is killed, Suzette Foxworth is left devastated, but not alone. It is Austin Brand, a rich and powerful rancher, who takes her as his wife and secures her future. Though their marriage is one of kindness and security, it lacks the passion Suzette yearns for.
It isn’t until Suzette is taken captive by the bandit Kaytano, long-time enemy of Austin, does she feel the spark of heat her longing heart had been missing. Before long, Suzette willingly becomes Kaytano’s prisoner of love, with no desire to ever be freed from the shackles of his embrace.
C.C.'s Daughter
C.C. McCarthy had a gift. His beautiful singing voice captivated the women who heard it, including Valentina Trent, owner of Bluebonnet Records. But when C.C. turned down Valentina’s offer of a contract—and herself—he had no idea that he’d ignited a feud that would outlive both his career and his life.
Years later, Laura McCarthy has just lost her beloved father, C.C., to drugs. Devastated by his death, she finds herself on a wayward path that steals her innocence and shatters her illusions. But with steadfast determination and her father’s memory to give her strength, Laura vows to overcome the shadows of C.C.’s mistakes and restore his legend, against all odds.
Love in the Air
Kay Clark and Sullivan Ward were once the hottest radio duo in the city. But when Kay left Denver—and Sullivan—to continue her career in Los Angeles, their romance wilted before it ever had its chance to fully bloom.
Now, five years later, Kay is back and though she’s changed, her feelings for Sullivan haven’t. As they take the air together once again, an old flame sparks anew and blazes hotter than ever—on and off the
air.
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