Reluctant Enemies

by Vivian Vaughan

  “…the sins of the fathers,” Charlie was saying. “Whatever happened between your father and me, Will, whatever you choose to believe, don’t let it interfere with you and Priscilla. If you love her…”

  Will turned on him, astonished. If he loved her?

  “I love her, Charlie. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  Charlie ran a gnarled hand through his wiry hair. “Then why don’t you hang around and see if we can work things out?”

  Nineteen

  Priscilla paced the courtyard, while her mother sat at the little table beneath the overhang. Self-defense! She’d known it had to be something like that. Pa wasn’t a murderer. Not Pa. But to kill his best friend, Will’s father. What a dastardly secret to have lived with all these years. Poor Pa.

  But at least he hadn’t murdered Will’s father. Her relief was short-lived for suddenly another worry surfaced: It didn’t matter what she thought. It was what Will thought that made a difference. What Will believed.

  Turning, Priscilla ran down the path to the far end of the courtyard. Not to get away from her mother, but to escape herself, and the fear that rose in her chest and her throat and suffocated her. She felt like someone had stuck a horseshoe magnet to her body and pulled all her fears into a gigantic pile, forming one overwhelming mass of terror.

  Kate came up behind her, took her by the shoulders.

  “I love them both, Mama.”

  “I know, darling.”

  “But Will hates Pa. Even if he believes him, he’s hated him so long, what if he can’t ever…I mean, what if he can’t believe…or forgive?”

  “Sh, darling. Wait and see what happens.”

  “But I can’t lose Will, Mama. I love him so much, so much it hurts.”

  “I know, Priscilla.”

  “I love him more than…more than…”

  The truth hit Priscilla without warning, inundating, devastating her. Tears came in a great rush of sobs and she couldn’t stop them. The truth, that she loved Will Radnor enough to leave, not only Spanish Creek, but Mama and her beloved Pa, enough to go anywhere in the world with him, knowing she could never return.

  She would change her name, she thought. When they married her name would be Radnor, then Will wouldn’t ever have to be reminded of the past. But to leave…all this, the home where she’d been born, the parents whose love had sustained her through childhood woes and who would continue to sustain her…for the rest of their lives. But to live without Will—

  The jangling of spurs alerted her.

  “They’re here, darling.” Kate dropped her hands from Priscilla’s shoulders and stood back. Priscilla turned slowly, filled with apprehension, yet, strangely ready to get through whatever lay ahead.

  Charlie and Will stood side by side in the doorway, solemn-faced and silent. She looked from one to the other but could perceive no clue as to what the outcome had been. Then Charlie held his hand to Kate.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go see what Sog’s cookin’ up for supper.”

  Will held Priscilla’s gaze. She heard her mother walk up the path. She saw the shadowy forms of her parents leave the courtyard, heard their footsteps on the tiled corridor inside the house.

  Yet she couldn’t move. She and Will stood in their tracks, drinking in each other, as though words were too painful, Priscilla thought. But the words had to be spoken.

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, Will.”

  “Maybe I just wanted to believe him.”

  “You wanted to?”

  Suddenly, without being aware they’d moved, they stood in the middle of the courtyard, locked in each other’s arms. Priscilla felt Will’s heart thrash and knew hers did the same.

  “I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life,” he said.

  “Never?”

  “Never.” Clasping her face in his hands, he covered it with kisses. She opened her lips and felt him dip inside. She pressed herself against him and waited for her fear to abate. He pulled their faces apart. “Never,” he repeated. “Never…ever.”

  “Oh, Will, I’ll come with you. Now. Tonight. We’ll get married and I’ll change my name and you won’t ever have to hear the name McCain again.”

  Her words ran out. She stood in his arms, breathless, trying to read the strange expression on his face.

  “You’d leave Charlie? And Spanish Creek? And your mama? For me?”

  “Of course, Will.”

  He cocked his head, stared at her. “What’s this, ‘of course, Will’?” The hint of a grin played at the corners of his mouth. “Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve worked tooth and toenail to save Spanish Creek and Charlie McCain, with no thought for anything or anyone else. Now you’re ready to leave them, just like that?”

  “Not just like that. They’re my family. This is my home. Yes, I’ve idolized Pa. Maybe too much, I don’t know. But none of it matters if…I mean, while you were in there with Pa, I realized…I mean without you…”

  She watched a grin spread slowly across his face.

  “You’re going to make me say it?” she accused.

  “Yes, I’m going to make you say it. Every word.”

  As seductively as she could manage under the weight of lingering fear, she pulled his face down until their noses touched. His eyes looked like huge brown marbles from this close. “I’ll leave Spanish Creek and Pa and roam the world with you, greenhorn. If that’s what it takes for us to be together.”

  This time when he kissed her, she was able to respond. Strange, what a grin would do to relieve one’s fears. Some of them. When she pulled away again, he was ready to talk.

  “You won’t have to leave anything, not even Charlie.” He nipped kisses to her face. “But it was nice to hear you say it. I never thought that day would come.”

  She pretended to be miffed but wasn’t too successful. “What happened in there?”

  “Charlie and I are going to try to work things out.”

  “How? What?”

  “Well, I’m the only person left in the family who really cares. And, to tell you the truth, it’s kind of nice being with Charlie. He’s…well, he knew my father better than anyone else ever did. They roomed together in college and later in law school, then they practiced law together. I’ve never known anyone, not even my mother, who claimed to think more of my father.”

  “But you still don’t believe him.”

  “I believe him.”

  “Something’s wrong. You’re not satisfied about something.”

  “I’m satisfied. My brain is, anyway. It may take a while for my emotions to catch up. I’ve lived for this day, and lately dreaded it, too long now. The records make it plain. Mr. Peters was the accountant, and it’s obvious where my father changed the numbers in the ledger. Charlie has samples of my father’s handwriting, and Mr. Peters made a statement in the back of the book, exonerating Charlie from embezzling Radnor funds.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He stared at her, not through her like he used to do. Now she understood. He’d worried about this day ever since he met her. Every time he looked at her, he’d seen Charlie and the end, the showdown.

  “The time for sympathy is long past, Priscilla. If we were to go back and change part of the story, we’d have to change it all.” He pulled her to him, pressed her body to his with a sweep of his hand. “And right now I feel like I’ve come home…to the only place I ever want to be…with you.”

  Suddenly she felt giddy, free, like a child again. Breaking loose, she took Will by the hand and fairly dragged him from the courtyard. By the time they reached the front veranda, Sog had begun banging the iron triangle that served as a supper bell.

  Priscilla didn’t stop.

  “You that hungry?” Will called.

  But she was headed for the barn. They passed Crockett and Jessie and Bart, all going the other way.

  “What’s wrong, Jake?”

  “Nothing, Uncle Croc
kett.”

  “Where’s the fire, Priscilla?”

  “Nowhere, Jessie. Go ahead to supper. We’re not hungry.”

  “We?” Will asked.

  “We.”

  “Oh, sure. My stomach thinks my mouth has been sewed up with catgut, but we’re not hungry.”

  At Sargeant’s stall, she dropped his hand.

  “Saddle your horse, greenhorn.”

  “My horse?”

  “Come on. Hurry.” When she reached for her saddle blanket, he grabbed her by the waist and swung her around.

  He was laughing. “I just rode in from almost a week in the saddle. I wouldn’t step back on a horse for all the gold in Silver Creek Canyon.”

  She tilted her chin, teasing, challenging. “You don’t know what you’ll be missing.”

  “I don’t intend to miss a thing, Miss Priss.” With that he pulled her out of the stall and through the barn. They followed the same path she had taken earlier, when she ran from him, from his tale of murder and horror.

  But this time they were together. Hand in hand, they walked, they ran, and by the time they reached the little burbling mountain stream, they were breathless.

  “If we’d ridden, we wouldn’t be out of breath.”

  “If we’d ridden, I’d be in no shape…” Reaching for her Will dragged her to him. “…to do what we came down here to do.” Their gazes probed. Their smiles faded.

  Sobered, they fell into each other’s arms. He squeezed her to him, felt her body meld to his. He cradled her head to his shoulder and fought back tears. “I never thought,” he began. “I never thought things would work out, could work out.”

  Priscilla lifted her face, stared into his loving gaze. “I never doubted it.”

  “But you didn’t know—”

  Using a tactic she’d learned from him, she covered his lips with hers, shutting out his words, closing out the past. While their lips played with wet and sensual abandon, her hands tugged his shirttail from his britches. When she caressed his bare skin, he shuddered.

  Drawing his lips from hers, Will cast a longing glance around the little glen that lay cupped like the palm of a hand within a ridge of hills.

  “This is my own special place,” Priscilla told him, as if sharing secrets with a friend. “Where I come to lick my wounds and gather my wits. No one would dare disturb me here.”

  He kissed her, little kisses that set her on fire. “Good,” he said between kisses. “Good.”

  They hurried, then, as though outrunning a prairie fire. Their lips joined while their hands rushed to disrobe, then to touch, skin to heated skin; body to begging body. He set her gently on their two spread shirts, knelt beside her; his gaze devoured her. Moisture filmed his eyes.

  “I’m so happy, Priscilla, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  She reached for him and he came to her, lay beside her, touching, his hands seeking, finding, caressing until she squirmed with eagerness. He fondled her breasts, tweaking a nipple, showering her with a fiery spray of desire. But when he dipped his head to take one in his mouth, she stopped him.

  “Oh, Will, please. It’s been so long. Hurry.”

  He moved over her then, possessed her lips, her body. She opened her legs to him, crossed them around his hips, pulled him deeper and deeper inside her. She caught her breath at the longing, the joy, the absolute pleasure of being with him, being one with him.

  Will watched fire ignite in the sparkling blue depths of her eyes, and he knew he had found heaven. “What would you say now if I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me?”

  She grinned. That sickly little grin, made stiff with passion. “Try me and see.”

  With his elbows resting on either side of her face and his body sunk deeply into hers, Will savored the moment he had been so sure would never come. “Priscilla McCain, will you, the best danged cowboy in New Mexico Territory, stoop to marry me, a known greenhorn?”

  Her eyes smoldered. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “I hope that means yes.” He moved then, at last. They moved together, racing, not time, for they had all the time God in his wisdom would decide to give them. But they raced a passion that flamed ever hotter as they moved ever faster, together, in unison. Feeling her climax, Will allowed his, and it was as if the mountains had tumbled from their perches. Wave after wave of passion exploded inside him, releasing emotions he had held in check for twenty-three years. At length, he collapsed, pulling Priscilla to her side along with him.

  “Of course it means yes, greenhorn,” she whispered against his sweat-laved cheek. When their breathing steadied, she said, “Tell me again, now that I’m no longer your enemy.”

  “My enemy?” Will drew his head back, looked into her teasing eyes. “You were never my enemy.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Tell me again,” she repeated.

  He raised on an elbow, cradled her head on his forearm, and traced a finger down her cheek. “I love you, Priscilla.” Suddenly tears gathered in his eyes. He felt the sting. One rolled down his cheek.

  She caught it on a finger. “Don’t cry, Will. There’s nothing left to be sad about.”

  “I’m not sad.” He couldn’t stop looking into her eyes; he had the strangest feeling he never could, that they were frozen here in this place, in this time, forever. Foolish, though, he thought, for the worst was over. Truly, now, the best was yet to come. Except…

  “That was the first time we’ve ever made love that I didn’t think the whole time that it would be our last.”

  “Oh, Will, I love you so much.” She kissed his cheeks, where his tears had stopped; his lips, where passion was again incited.

  “How long till Christmas?” he asked suddenly.

  “Christmas? Well, this is August—five months, I guess. Why?”

  “Do you think I might make the grade of cowboy before December?”

  “Might. For a greenhorn, you definitely have possibilities.”

  He kissed her softly. “I’d sure like to take my wife to that Cowboy Christmas Ball. But I have a feeling a greenhorn would be about as welcome as a lamb licker.”

  She smiled that sweet, innocent, seductive smile. “You didn’t come to New Mexico to be a cowboy, Will Radnor.”

  His heart caught at the reminder.

  “You came to love me.”

  His gaze held hers. He felt lost in her, lost and wandering around, unable to find his way out. But who would want to find his way out of heaven?

  “Lordy, Miss Priss, did I ever.”

  Epilogue

  One month later.

  “Get back inside, Priscilla.”

  “I’m looking to see if Mama and Pa have arrived at the cathedral.”

  “And every man in the plaza is looking to see you in your first pair of frilly drawers.”

  “Will, I’m holding the curtain over me!” Stepping back into Will’s small room atop the cantina, Priscilla dropped the covering and looked down at her white pantaloons and camisole. “They really aren’t me, are they?”

  “Wait till we get finished. I’ll think I’m marrying the wrong woman.” He held out the corset. Priscilla eyed it.

  “Sure you want to go through with this?”

  “Yes.” Taking the corset, she turned it this way and that.

  “Here, let me.” Will fitted the corset around her waist and under her breasts. “Never thought I’d marry a woman who knew less about feminine attire than I do.”

  “Keep what you know about feminine attire to yourself, Will Radnor. I don’t want to hear it. Nor how, nor where you learned it. Not on my wedding day.”

  Will turned her around backwards. “Hold onto the bed post.”

  She grabbed hold, just as he began to jerk the lacings. She gasped.

  “I never thought I’d have to dress my own bride, either.”

  “Then don’t.” Gasp. “I’ll do it myself.”

  “There’s no way in hell yo
u can get yourself into all this gear, Miss Priss. You don’t even know what half of it is.” He jerked again. She gasped again.

  “Would you stop belittling me? I should have found someone else to help.”

  “Who?” This time when Will jerked the laces, he kissed her nape and she let out a strangled sort of sigh instead of a full blown gasp. “Jessie’s run off with Bart, so you couldn’t have asked her.”

  “Do you think they’re all right?”

  “Jessie and her outlaw? Sure. They’re probably already in Wyoming by now.”

  “I hope so.”

  “And you refused to ask the one person whose place it is to dress the bride—your mother.”

  “I wanted to surprise them, Will.”

  “You’re fixing to. It’ll be some surprise if they walk in on me dressing their daughter—before I marry her.”

  “They’ll understand.”

  “You bet.” He turned her to face him, nipped a kiss to her nose, and thrust a pile of crinolines in her arms.

  “They know we’ve been…” She stepped into the first petticoat and squeezed the waistband while Will fastened it in back. “…together.”

  When she tried to pull a second petticoat up over the first, Will took it from her hand. “Knowing and seeing are two different horses.” He dropped the second petticoat over her head, tugged it past her shoulders, over her breasts, and settled it at her waist.

  “My parents are different.” Three more petticoats followed.

  “I suppose you’re prepared to be as liberal-minded with our daughters.”

  “Maybe it’ll be a son.”

  It was time for the dress. For a moment they both stared at the white lace confection that hung on the hatrack beside the bowler Will had worn in from Philadelphia and the Stetson that had become his standard headgear. Priscilla sighed.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have done this.”

  Will took her by the bare shoulders and kissed her tenderly on the lips. His fingers feathered their way across her chest to her breasts, which bulged above the corset and nestled in the resulting lace pockets.

  “That gown is so beautiful, Will. Maybe I should leave it hanging—”