Nick chuckled. “It must hold the state record at least.”
The playful banter between them seemed to set the mood for the rest of the journey, and for the first time since Cozumel she relaxed in Nick’s presence and enjoyed the breathtaking scenery. She had never been to Taos and found the mountain hamlet held the same old-world charm as the central, older section of Sante Fe. Almost all the homes and commercial buildings were of adobe, giving the town an atmosphere of being encapsulated there by the mountains against civilization’s progress. She could well understand why people like Kit Carson and D. H. Lawrence had sought out Taos as a hideaway.
Outside Taos they passed the four- and five-story-high abode structures where Pueblo Indians had lived since prehistoric times; then the road began to climb again to dizzying heights before it dropped down through the sheer walls of Cimarron Canyon and into the lush valley of the San Ramon land grant.
The sun was hanging low over the serrated mountains by the time Nick turned off onto a meandering gravel drive that paralleled a narrow mountain creek. At the top of a hill the San Ramon house came into view. The dying sunlight fell on the old Victorian mansion, tingeing the house’s turrets and dormer windows with a warm purple glow. “Oh, Nick, it’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I don’t see why you don’t come here more often.”
“I wouldn’t come here at all if it weren’t for my grandmother,” Nick said grimly as he parked the car in the carriage house that had been converted to a garage.
She ached to reach out and smooth away the harsh lines at either side of Nick’s lips, but she knew she could not betray her feelings for him or she would become just another one of the women he had grown tired of and eventually discarded.
The old woman with the silver-gray hair who stood regally on the veranda bore a great resemblance to Nick. Her face possessed the same strong lines as his, and she discovered that the blue-gray eyes sparkled with the same fascinating warmth as Nick’s.
Nick hugged the old woman with obvious affection. “Grandmother, I want you to meet my wife, Julie.”
Elizabeth Waggoner flashed Julie a mischievous smile. “So this is the lovely lady I read about in the newspaper. What was it that Dee Morley wrote—‘the siren whose song has lured Nicholas Raffer into the perilous sea of matrimony’?”
Julie blushed. “I’ve never thought of myself as a siren, Mrs. Waggoner.”
“Please call me Grandmother,” the old woman said, leading Julie inside. “Maybe you’re not quite the siren, then, but certainly an enchantress to have captured Nick. I was afraid my grandson was never going to fall in love.”
Julie’s gaze flicked to Nick, who was shrugging out of his cowhide jacket. But Nick made no effort to refute his grandmother’s statement. Instead he laughed. “The truth is, Grandmother never approved of any of the women I dated, Julie.”
“Frivolous, empty-headed creatures they all were. But I’ve been reading Julie’s column for several years now. Your wife has a head on her beautiful shoulders, Nicholas. And she’s not afraid to call the balls like she sees them, is she?”
Nick flashed Julie a roguish smile as he tucked his plaid shirt into his Levi’s. “I think you could safely say that, Grandmother.”
Elizabeth took her through the elegantly furnished rooms that whispered of a bygone era and showed the couple to their bedroom, which had been restored as it actually was when Elizabeth’s parents had the room.
“I always dreamed of having a room like this,” Julie said as her gaze traveled over the calico-papered walls, the hand-carved four- poster bed and the maple washstand. Her eyes strayed back to the four-poster, smaller than Nick’s king-size bed, that she and Nick would be sharing. How much longer could she stand being so near to him, touching him, wanting him . . . but not having him? And an insidious voice inside her asked if it was Sheila Morrison who was the recipient of his caresses for the present.
Julie had thought she would feel out of place at the legendary San Ramon mansion, but after the first few moments Elizabeth put her at ease with her interesting tales of what the place had been like when kerosene lamps were still used and water was pumped at the kitchen sink—“which wasn’t so long ago, mind you,” Elizabeth said.
With the help of Marta, a large Mexican woman who had been with the family for years, Elizabeth had prepared a dish indigenous to New Mexico when it was still a territory—mutton stew and baked squash topped with red chilies, and for desert an apricot cobbler. Over dinner the conversation between Elizabeth, Nick, and her revolved around such stimulating subjects as the state’s fiscal and monetary responsibility and the importance of supporting the Indian arts, so that by the time dinner was over and Nick had finished his cigarette, she felt as if she belonged, as if she were truly a part of the family.
Yet, when it came time for bed, Nick lingered, discussing with his grandmother improvements that needed to be made on the ranch. And Julie found herself lying in the four-poster alone. She meant to stay awake to wait for Nick in hopes they might reconcile their ill-started marriage. Just one word of love from Nick, some sign that he cared, was all she wanted. But the mattress, an old- fashioned kind stuffed with fluffy wool, lulled her to sleep within minutes, and she was unaware of what time Nick finally came to bed.
The next morning was Christmas Eve day, and she learned that Nick had arisen and left before she awoke to talk with some of the ranchhands. She helped Elizabeth and Marta in the kitchen as they prepared the traditional turkey dinner. Marta, her round brown face beaming, told tales of Nick’s boyhood pranks that kept Julie laughing.
Dinner was just as enjoyable, and afterward she surprised Elizabeth with a bottle of White Shoulders cologne. She had intended it as a Christmas gift for Pam, but since Nick had not given her much warning about the trip, it was the only gift she could come up with on the spur of the moment.
Elizabeth looked touched by her thoughtfulness. “You know, Nick never warns me when he’s going to come, so I can’t tell you how happy he made me, Julie, when he phoned yesterday to tell me he was bringing you.” She leaned over and pecked her on the cheek. “You’re the kind of granddaughter I always hoped to have in the family.”
Affected by the woman’s sincerity, she looked away to find Nick warmly regarding her. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand, “let’s get the kinks out of our muscles. We’ll saddle up two of the horses and ride some of the land.”
“I haven’t ridden that much,”she said, her face an apologetic squinch.
“I know,” he said with a grin, and she realized he was talking about something else. “But we can remedy that.” Then, with a straight face, “The horses are quite gentle.”
She changed into an old pair of jeans and a white turtleneck sweater she had brought along with a new pair of western boots and a suede jacket with fleece lining. Just before she left the bedroom she brushed her hair so that it feathered back from her face and added a hint of raspberry lipstick.
Nick was waiting for her on the veranda, his hands jammed into his worn cowhide jacket against the cold. The dusty gray Stetson he wore was pulled low over his eyes. “Ready?” he asked, his gaze raking over her in an appreciative manner.
She nodded, warming under his obvious male scrutiny. She turned to descend the steps, and Nick said, “Just a minute.”
She turned back, her eyes questioning. Nick removed his Stetson and, gathering Julie’s shoulder-length hair in hand, set the Stetson on her head. He tucked the remaining stray wisps up inside the hatband, saying, “It’ll keep you much warmer.”
“What about you?” Julie asked, thrilling at his nearness, at the feel of his warm breath tingling her face and his hands lingering at her neck.
Nick pulled his collar up around his ears with a smile. “You forget, I’m used to these winters. Rarely a weekend goes by during the winter that I’m not out hunting in Ruidoso or riding the range here at San Ramon.”
The two horses they rode, a roan and a paint, pranced over the night’s light
layer of snow, their breath steaming about their nostrils. For a quarter of an hour or so she and Nick rode in silence as they followed a barely visible cow trail that led to a stock tank frozen over about the edges. The utter quietness of the winter morning, the majestic beauty of the deep purple mountains and towering pines that isolated the area, stirred her soul, as Nick’s nearness stirred her heart.
Occasionally their legs would brush as their mounts were forced to pass close when the trail suddenly narrowed, and her breath would catch, the sudden cold air searing her throat. Once, when Nick dropped back on the trail to let her precede him, she turned about in the saddle to find his bold gaze riveted to the curve of her buttocks, and she knew that he was as aware of her as she was of him.
As he called her attention to the newest calves following a single-file string of cows or a section of barbed-wire fence he had strung as a teenager, she could hear the pride in his voice. His uncompromising countenance even seemed more relaxed as he laughingly pointed out the first windmill in the territory. “My great-grandfather once tried to hang a cattle rustler from it, and his wife was so furious she held a rifle on her own husband and forced him to let the rascal go!”
She almost hated to return to the house, she was enjoying herself so much—and enjoy¬ing the way Nick looked at her and talked to her, the way a man would look and talk to a woman he cares about. But she reminded herself that Nick was very experienced with women. He knew all too well how to make each woman feel as if she were the only one he was interested in.
Still, her heart was thudding like a schoolgirl’s by the time they returned to the barn. She knew she was destroying herself by loving Nick. Oh, she fully realized she could arouse his lust, but why couldn’t she arouse his love? She forced her eyes to meet Nick’s as he helped her dismount, his hands closing about her waist. Slowly, as if he were enjoying tormenting her, he slid her down along his length until her boots touched the barn’s hay-covered floor.
His head bent over hers. “You know the safe word, Julie,” he warned huskily before his lips claimed hers in a punishing kiss. A flame of desire leaped to life deep, deep, deep in her, warming her with the want of Nick. She molded herself against his hard, lean body, setting fire to his blood as he had hers.
Her hands slid inside his jacket and up to his shoulders, savoring the heat that burned through his woolen shirt. Nick tipped her chin back, reclaiming her lips with a thorough kiss that left her shaken. Her Stetson slipped off, and her hair tumbled free about her shoulders.
The odor of the musty hay and old leather combined with Nick’s own musky male scent to fill her with a kind of primeval abandon, so that when Nick finally released her with a shuddering reluctance and demanded roughly, “Tell me it isn’t so—tell me you’re not mine,” she could only nod mutely and offer her lips up to the possessive mouth.
The warm hay was their bed, the nickering horses their watchguards, as Nick divested her of her jacket and Levi’s and finally her sweater and underclothes. And what began in the rough heat of desire turned into a sweet passion of giving. When Nick withdrew from her, his body still partially covering hers, she closed her eyes, unable to meet his searching gaze. She was afraid she would find the look of indifference stamped on his face now that she had willingly given herself to him.
Nick reached up and disentangled a piece of hay from her ruffled curls. “My grand-mother’s right, you know. You are an enchantress, Julie Raffer.”
Her heart shriveled inside. Why couldn’t he have said something about love? Because this man doesn’t know how to love. Listen to his own words, Julie. Always listen to what someone says. Listen long enough and you’ll learn what you need to know. Nick measures the potential of relationships to that of his parents’. Thereby all destined for failure. Suddenly the warmth that Nick’s lovemaking had ignited flickered out, and the chill winter air seeped in around her nude body. She rolled from him and gathered up her clothes. He lay there, watching her, and a blush suffused her skin as she struggled into her jeans before his passionate gaze.
When the last of her jacket’s buttons were fastened, she turned on him. “You were right, Nick, I am yours. My body’s yours—but never my heart.”
With the lie on her lips, she spun around and stalked to the house. As she entered the living room, Elizabeth, who was sitting in a rocker near the fire, looked up from a book she was reading. she knew then that Nick must have inherited his observant gaze from his grandmother, for the old woman took one look at her flushed face and said, “I can see Nick’s eloquence with words fails him when it comes to love.”
“Love?” she echoed. Slowly she crossed to stand before the fire. She held her hands out to absorb the blazing fire’s heat. “Mrs. Waggoner—Elizabeth—I can’t continue to deceive you.” She looked at the old woman and, embarrassed, returned her gaze to the orange-red flames. “Nick and I—we didn’t marry for love. We were, I guess you might say, compromised.”
Elizabeth made a chortling grunt. “Most people in my day didn’t marry for love, either. But they came to love each other. As you and Nick have.”
Julie turned now to fully face the woman. “It’s true, Elizabeth, I’ve fallen in love with your grandson. But he doesn’t love me.”
The old woman put aside her book. “Don’t let Nick’s cool exterior fool you.” She sighed and said, “As you must know by now, Nick loves San Ramon, but the years he spent here growing up were often marked by violent and bitter quarrels between my daughter and her husband—his parents.
“But, Julie, just as he loves this place and won’t admit it, he loves you. Give my grandson time.”
Chapter Ten
Below the Sangre de Cristos the capital of New Mexico sparkled like a diamond against the black velvet darkness of Christmas Eve. As the Blazer descended into Santa Fe, it passed homes that were gaily decorated with Christmas candles anchored in brown paper sacks called luminarias. It was supposed to be a time of joy to be spent with those you love; yet she, who was with the one man she loved, felt no joy as she watched the city’s colorful lights pass by her window.
Throughout the return trip from San Ramon, she had kept her head averted from Nick’s chiseled profile. The silence in the car had been unbearable for her. She had wanted Nick to rage at her, to threaten her into submission, anything but his cool, dispassionate treatment of her.
It was as if he were confident she would eventually surrender totally to him and content to wait until she did. And she knew all too well Nick’s unlimited patience. It was the patience of a hunter. She could only think how ironical it was that the thing she wanted to do most, surrender to Nick with both her body and her heart, would mean losing him.
Nick halted the Blazer before their darkened home, but when she moved to get out he said, “Wait. I have a surprise for you.”
She tried to make out his expression in the blackness of the car, but it was unreadable. She let him lead her to the house and stood passively outside the doorway while he turned on the living-room lights. “All right,” he said.
Slowly she walked inside. For a minute, unaccustomed to the bright lights, she did not notice anything. Her gaze moved around the room; she wondered what it was Nick wanted her to see. Then she saw it, above the fireplace.
Suspended from the gypsum-whitewashed wall was a gigantic blue sailfish, its streamlined body arched in flight, its spotted tail fanned wide. It was the sailfish she had caught in Cozumel!
“That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go to San Ramon,” Nick said quietly behind her. “I wanted to get you out of the house so the saiifish could be mounted in time for Christmas.”
For someone else a mounted saiifish for Christmas might be a letdown, but for her it showed he had must have recalled more than once their honeymoon and that one sunny afternoon when everything was right between them.
She turned around to face Nick, who leaned casually against the doorway, watching her reaction. She bit her lower lip, trying to contain the emotions that fill
ed her. Joy, pleasure, surprise. “Nick, I . . .” She could not find the words, and he made no effort to help her.
Flustered and unable to restrain herself, shee ran across the space that separated them and threw her arms about Nick’s neck. Her lips brushed the warm hollow beneath his jaw, and she felt the muscle there flicker in response. “Nick,” she breathed, “I lo—” But she caught back the betraying word in time and said, “I think it’s the most wonderful gift anyone has ever given me.”
Nick’s hands went to her waist, and he set her from him. He looked down into her upturned face. At last he said, “I wanted something special for you, because you are a very special person.”
She wanted so badly to believe him. She wanted to believe that she was special to him. Just for the Christmas holidays. I will let myself believe Nick. I won’t ask questions. Shyly she pulled away. “I have something for you also, Nick.”
She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. “It seems we both had the same thing on our mind when we picked out gifts,” she said softly as he unwrapped the box.
He took out the reel as reverently as if he were handling some great religious artifact. “You don’t already have one, do you?” she asked anxiously.
Nick smiled then, and she was certain she saw pleasure in his eyes. “You won’t believe it,” he said, slipping his hand up around her neck in an intimate gesture that only a husband or a lover would use, “but I had a reel like this. It was my favorite, and I dropped it in Elephant Butte Lake. I’ve been meaning to try and find another one but just haven’t had the chance.”
He bent over her and gently brushed her lips with his. “Thank you, Julie – Mrs. Raffer.”
Reluctantly she stepped out of his embrace and began to gather up the discarded Christmas paper and wrapping. She was besieged by conflicting emotions. At one moment she wanted Nick to make love to her again, for her skin still burned with the ferocity of his lovemaking that afternoon. On the other hand, each time she gave herself up to Nick, she felt as if she were losing a part of herself. Soon she would be nothing but a mindless puppet in his control. . . and then she would become like the other women he had tired of so quickly. All except for Sheila Morrison, she reminded herself.
Made For Each Other Page 10
