Papa tucked his thumbs in his vest that covered his expansive stomach and smiled. “But certainly, my boy. We are all going to be just one, big happy family.”
Amethyst watched in helpless frustration as Bandit led Monique out onto the dance floor. She felt suddenly rejected as she watched the pair. They danced well together, as if they had done it many times before. Over the heads of the crowd, she could see the pair carrying on an animated conversation, but of course over the music and laughter, Amethyst couldn’t hear a word. Santa María! She’d give anything to be close enough to listen in on the conversation.
Mona looked back over her shoulder at the petite brunette, smiled a little too sweetly, then turned her attention to the man in her arms. “Bandit, dammit, why didn’t you let me know you were here? I about dropped my drawers when we were introduced!”
The big Texan laughed. “I was the one who almost fell over! Where’d you pick up that French accent and the name? When we knew each other, you were plain little Mona Dulaney.”
“Ain’t it a small world, though, handsome! Thanks for not giving me away. That Durango fella thinks I’m a high-class but poor aristocrat who’s all alone in the world, needs protecting. ”
“He’s the one who needs protecting, honey, if you’re after him.”
“I might say the same about you and his syrupy little daughter.”
“You two don’t like each other?”
Mona shrugged. “She thinks I’m trying to get her out of the way, that I’m after her old man’s money.”
The cleft in his chin deepened as he smiled. “Aren’t you?”
I was until you came back into my life, she thought, remembering how long she had loved the Bandit. “Anyway, handsome, thanks for not tellin’.”
He shrugged. “I figured if I gave you away, you’d tell on me, too. You gonna marry that nice old man?”
She looked up at him. She’d never loved a man like she loved Bandit. All these years . . . The first day she had seen him, he was four years old and she was almost nineteen. She had helped raise him. “You got objections?”
All he had to do was say the word and she’d forget this whole plan, money and all. Mona figured any woman who had ever shared the bed of the Bandit from Bandera would throw it all away if he’d just say, I want you, let’s run away together.
“No,” he said. “It don’t make me no never-mind. Remember I’m scheduled to marry his daughter.”
Mona winced inwardly. That petite, stubborn little bitch! Amethyst had seen through her like a windowpane and had voiced objections. “Well, thanks anyway for not letting on about . . . well, you know, my past.”
“You’ll be lucky if he never finds out. But I was never one to smear a lady’s reputation.”
She looked up at him, loving him as always although it had been four or five years since she’d last seen him. “You were the only one who ever treated me like a lady, Bandit. The others always treated me like a whore, a bought-and-paid-for object for their pleasure.”
He smiled gently, sympathetically. “Last I saw of you, you were still at Miss Fancy’s in San Antone.”
“A gunfighter there started giving me trouble, so I left. He was crazy jealous and I gót scared, went back to New Orleans where I grew up. Sometime you’ll have to tell me how you got yourself into this Mexico mess.”
“How did you?”
She sighed. “I’m almost forty, getting a little long in the tooth to work the best places anymore.”
“You don’t look a day over twenty-five, Mona,” he said.
“Liar! But you was always so kind to the girls at Miss Fancy’s, Bandit. We all remember how kind you was.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment as they danced. “I know how rough life can be for the girls of the parlor house,” he said softly.
Mona didn’t look into his eyes. She had never told him she had been responsible for getting his mother a job in a whorehouse back in Gun Powder. Lidah Anton had been a pretty, half-breed girl struggling to support her little boy by working as a maid when Mona met her. The night Lidah died by her own hand was the night Mona first took the mature, twelve-year-old boy to bed and made a man of him. Thinking of Lidah made her think of Miss Callie. . . .
Bandit interrupted her thoughts. “You’re awfully quiet, Mona. What’re you thinkin’ about?”
Mona started guiltily. “Nothin’. Nothin’ at all. You intend to go through with your masquerade? Marry Amethyst?” She half hoped to hear Not now that I’ve found you again. Why don’t we forget all this and run off together?
“Yes. And you?”
Her heart turned over. How could she bear to spend the rest of her life so tantalizingly close to him, knowing he slept each night in that little brunette’s arms? Probably the old man was impotent. He’d been so respectful, so careful of her reputation, he’d insisted on her bringing a chaperone along to Mexico. If he only knew . . .
“Mona?”
She was jolted out of her thoughts. “What? Oh, yes, I guess so. A girl’s looks don’t last forever.”
He whirled her around. “When’d you go back to New Orleans?”
She resisted the urge to rest her face against his shoulder, knowing it would cause gossip. “A couple of years ago. Dad died, so I had to go home and close the pharmacy anyhow. Mother was gone, and the other kids had scattered.”
“Remember how much fun we had at old Don Diego’s birthday party at the Triple D Ranch in ’sixty-four? You were still working at Miss Fancy’s then.”
“Yeah, I remember. Some party!”
His hand felt warm against the back of her green dress. “Those Durangos same family as these Durangos?”
“Distant cousins, I think.” She waited for him to ask about Romeros, decided he didn’t know. “So anyway, when I’m introduced to this plump old gent and hear the name Durango, I figure he’s got to have money, too.”
Bandit laughed. “Good old Mona! Always playing the odds. I was on the run and stumbled into this deal.”
“Maybe we’re both in luck.” She brightened suddenly. It occurred to her that eventually Bandit would control the Falcon fortune and Old Durango couldn’t live forever. She and Bandit might then have each other and both fortunes. But there was still Amethyst . . . and Mona’s lover. . . .
“Well, Mona,” Bandit said, “I wish you luck. You’ll need it to pass yourself off as a high-class French lady. But everyone ought to be given a chance to start over, straighten out his life.”
She wondered suddenly if he were talking about her. . . or himself? “I need a new start, Bandit. I’m runnin’ out of time, you know that. All a whore’s got are her looks and when those are gone, well, you know.”
She shouldn’t have said that. The life and liquor had aged Lidah long before the heartbroken Czech-Indian girl had taken her own life.
He squeezed her hand. “You’ll never be a whore to me, Mona. I’ll always think of you as a lady. We go back a long time and I won’t forget it.”
She nodded without speaking. The broken-hearted boy had taken refuge in Mona’s experienced arms the night of his mother’s death. She hoped he never found out that she had inadvertently caused that death by telling Lida . . .
The music stopped. Bandit bowed low and said loudly. “Ah, Mademoiselle Monique, such a pleasure to dance with you. Señor Durango is indeed a lucky hombre.”
She gave his hand one last, promising squeeze but he didn’t respond as he escorted her back to the small group. The color of the small raven-haired beauty’s eyes had turned deep violet with suppressed anger. Mona wondered if Bandit had slept with the girl yet? She wondered if the girl knew her father’s fiancée had slept with Bandit? From the look on her delicate face, Amethyst suspected something. But what could she do about it? As long as Mona and Bandit were careful, that little snip had no proof.
Old Gomez yawned. “It’s been a wonderful party, my friends,” he said to the Falcons, “but it’s late and I’m very tired.”
Señor Falcon smiled and slapped his old friend on the back. “We’ll have many more parties like this, Gomez. And in the future, Falcon-Durango grandchildren to play with.”
Mona’s smile stayed frozen on her face. She had suddenly pictured Bandit in Amethyst’s arms, kissing her with abandon, driving hard into her body to give her his child, while over at the adjoining ranch, she herself would be tossing and turning restlessly as the pudgy Gomez snored. Bandit. So near, and yet he might as well be a thousand miles away for all the good it would do her.
She must not think of that now. In her most cultured, practiced accent, she said, “Señora Falcon, it has been a lovely party. After our wedding, Gomez and I will give a party and I hope you will all come.”
She accentuated the all, looking at Bandit who pretended not to have heard.
Señora Falcon said, “So glad you enjoyed it.”
Mona extended her hand to old Don Enrique and he kissed it, but she sensed as she had in the past that the Falcons didn’t really like her, thought Gomez an old fool. Everyone had expected him to marry his daughter’s longtime governess. She felt guilty about Miss Callie. That was twice that Mona’s knowledge—
“I’ll get your wrap, my dear.” Gomez smiled fondly, and his three chins jiggled.
Around them, people were saying their good-byes. As Señor Falcon had their carriage brought around, Mona gave Bandit a flirtatious glance, then saw the little brunette staring at her and realized the girl had seen the look. If she intended to resume that old love affair, Mona decided, she’d have to be more careful in the future. For a lot of reasons.
On the way home, the four of them rode quietly. Gomez and Mrs. Wentworth dozed off and snored, Amethyst seemed preoccupied, and Mona stared out at the sparse landscape. What was she going to do now that an old love had reentered her life? Mrs. Wentworth belched and Mona sighed. It really was hard to pass off her former madame as a proper chaperone, but Sadie was getting a little long in the tooth, too, and needed a secure position for her old age. Mona could only be thankful that Mrs. Wentworth had never been in Texas so she didn’t know Bandit. At the moment, the secret of their old friendship was safe between the two of them, although she figured Amethyst suspected it.
Gomez came awake and said something.
“What?” Mona glanced up, startled. He really was a fat old fool, although she was fond of him as one was of a pet dog. It was his daughter who worried her. That little Amethyst was too smart for her own good. “What, my dear?” Mona forced herself to smile. “I was lost in thought.”
“I said the idea of a double wedding appeals to me. What do you think, my darling?”
The thought made her miserable. Marrying him while his daughter married the man Mona wanted. It was a cruel justice for her sins, maybe. She looked over at Amethyst’s hostile face. Obviously the girl didn’t think much of the idea either.
“We’ll talk about it,” Mona answered vaguely.
When they reached the sprawling. Durango hacienda, Mona went to her room. Reluctantly, she put on her finest negligee, loosed her hair and brushed it. He would be coming later when the house was quiet and dark. She endured him by way of compromise.
To survive in the grandiose style she liked, Mona had learned to compromise many years ago. Otherwise, she still might be working in her father’s tiny drugstore. Long hours and poverty didn’t appeal to her. That time she had delivered medicine to a New Orleans bordello, she’d decided it could provide an easy life and good money for a pretty girl who didn’t have qualms about how she earned it.
The big house was dark finally, everyone and everything in it deep in slumber. Except Mona. She blew out her lamp, opened the French doors leading onto her balcony, and stood there feeling the slight May breeze on her face. It smelled of mesquite and cactus blooms. With regret, she stared off in the direction of Falcon’s Lair, waiting. He would be coming soon. She thought of pale blue eyes and blond hair, imagined his big, square hands on the small of her back pulling her to him, his hot but gentle mouth on her sensitive nipples.
Sighing, Mona closed her eyes and remembered how it had been to be held tightly against that broad chest. Bandit. Oh, Bandit! Why did you have to show up to complicate things when I had the rest of my life all planned out?
She leaned against the opened French door, listening; waiting. The breeze blew her sheer nightdress against her long legs. She remembered how his hard, muscular body had felt between her thighs so many times past as she’d locked around his hips, pulling him down into her depths.
She felt her body moisten as it, too, remembered the matings. Tears trickled down her face and the breeze cooled them, even as it blew her long red locks about her face. Often Bandit had tangled his fingers in her hair, pulled her to him to kiss her. Mona ran her tongue across her lips without thinking, remembering his gentle, probing tongue, the taste and heat of him.
She laughed bitterly. Once an old priest had told her that maybe people created their own hell and heaven, depending on what they deserved. What she’d gotten herself into was hell, all right, but there was no turning back now. She’d have money—plenty of money—and a secure place for herself and Sadie Wentworth for the rest of their lives. But while fat old Gomez struggled to make his manhood rigid enough to penetrate her, the man Mona loved would be slamming like a hammer into Amethyst’s womb. It was gonna be hell, all right.
Mona looked out across the shadowy landscape, the night with its distant stars. Soon, he would arrive to mount her in a frenzied, joyless mating as he had before. She sighed with regret. Some compromises were more painful than others, but always they were necessary to live the good life. She leaned against the open door of the balcony, listened to a coyote howling in the silent darkness. It sounded as sad as she felt. Soon her lover would arrive.
Chapter Ten
Romeros paced his cramped bunkhouse room in the moonlight, waiting for the sprawling Falcon ranch to settle down after all the excitement of the night’s party.
Dammit! This whole thing was getting a lot more complicated and risky than he’d expected, and that was a fact. Romeros paused in chewing his match stem, looked around at all the old bull-fighting posters on his walls. If he’d had a chance to become a great matador, he wouldn’t be here now at the Falcon’s Lair, holding a position not much better than a servant’s.
He looked out the window toward the big house and frowned. Up there that Texan slept in a large, elegant room and enjoyed all the privileges of the high born and wealthy. Soon the impostor would even get to bed the elegant and beautiful Amethyst Durango. That wasn’t fair, either. Romeros had watched the dark beauty grow up, always hungering for her but knowing she was beyond the reach of a lowly ranch foreman.
Romeros ran his hand through his silver-streaked hair in agitation. It had been evident to him, though possibly to no one else at tonight’s party, that Bandit and Amethyst Durango had met before. Romeros had seen the slight widening of her eyes, the sharp intake of her breath. And Mona. That cheap whore seemed to recognize Bandit, too.
Damn that Texan! He must know every woman in the world. Was this going to wreck Romeros’s scheme? He’d been so sure many years ago when he showed up here that he could replace the dead brother in the grieving Don Enrique’s affections and in his will. Then the new baby boy had wrecked that hope.
Romeros had been delighted to run across Mona in New Orleans, and had worked out a plan to introduce her to the widowed Gomez Durango. Romeros figured on getting control of the Durango ranch through her.
Then Bandit had come along, looking a little like the missing heir and promising something even better. The saddle tramp would end up controlling the Falcon fortune, and Romeros would control the saddle tramp. The foreman paused and considered. He had an increasingly uneasy feeling that the big Texan would be hard to dominate and subdue.
He paced again, thinking about the two women. It appeared they both knew about Bandit, too, and that was two too many. Women couldn’t keep secrets. Now t
hat was a fact.
He stopped pacing, stared at the faded posters without really seeing them. He didn’t think Mona would talk, she had something to hide herself. But there was no way he could keep that little brunette’s mouth shut. He didn’t have anything on her.
Still, if she knew and was going to tell, why hadn’t she done it tonight at the party? Romeros chewed his match, and considered. When he sat down on the edge of his bed, his hand automatically went to the knife in his boot. If he slipped over and cut her throat as she lay sleeping, she couldn’t give the plot away. He wasn’t above killing people who got in the way of his ambitions. He’d done it before. He took the match from his mouth, stared at it. He didn’t want to cut that little beauty’s throat, he wanted to sleep with Amethyst.
Women. They were good for only one thing. Romeros’s lip curled in bitter derision as he tossed the match away. His mother had been an example of that, a stupid Yaqui beauty who had caught the eye of the cruel Don Vicente Romeros whose vast holdings sprawled across California. Don Vicente kept what could be considered a harem of beautiful women at the great ranch that he seldom visited. The Yaqui girl had been one of them . . . until she was no longer young, no longer beautiful.
He frowned in the darkness, remembering his father. The great don came seldom to the ranch, preferring his comfortable mansion in town, but his young son adored him, waited hopefully for each visit, followed him about adoringly. Since the don smoked cigars, the half-breed boy took to carrying matches so that he might step forward, light el patrón’s cigar and thereby get his notice, his attention. To always have a match ready, Romeros had acquired the habit of always having one stuck in the corner of his mouth.
His Yaqui mother gradually took to drink, was put to scrubbing pans in the kitchen while younger, prettier women replaced her in el patrón’s bed. Finally the Yaqui girl drank herself into a stupor one night, fell head first into a horse trough, and drowned unnoticed and unmourned.
Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family) Page 16
