Heartbreak Ranch: Amy's StoryJosie's StoryHarmony's StoryArabella's Story

by Chelley Kitzmiller

  She wanted to experience his kiss again. She admitted it. She wanted to feel his hard chest against her. She wanted to feel Ben’s gentle hands sweep her body, to taste his mouth plundering hers, to hear his sweet words of praise and affection. She stared at the water, recalling the primal heat that had burned in her breasts and between her thighs at Ben’s touch.

  Over at the pens, a last family called from their wagon to their teenage daughter, who giggled as the boy kissed her again before she skipped away. Watching them, a yearning for a man of her own knifed through Harmony. She wanted the joy of belonging, the natural joining of a male and his woman. The mindlessness and overwhelming joy. She wanted Ben.

  Her gaze dropped to the light of the moon glinting upon the water in the trough.

  When his reflection appeared on the surface, she was not surprised. Moonlight clearly outlined Ben’s black hat, his broad shoulders, his tall, silent frame. A force of nature, a man, a flesh-and-blood animal who called to his mate, Ben’s simple masculine presence brought anticipatory tingles to her skin. In their shared image she saw the contrast of her blond hair with his dark-featured face. They were darkness and light, rising sun and waxing moon.

  It was as if they were two halves of a whole.

  Without speaking, he put a hand in her hair, burrowed it beneath the silky weight to caress her sensitive nape. She shivered and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to turn toward him.

  Gathering her to him as though he’d waited a lifetime to do so, he kissed her and she melted in his arms.

  This was right. This was fate, she mused dreamily. How silly she’d been, picturing herself with anyone else. Ben was the man she’d waited for all her life, and she’d found him, quite literally, in her own backyard. He wasn’t a rancher’s son—they’d all already made their offers. He wasn’t terribly educated—but he was intelligent in more important ways. He wasn’t wealthy. He wasn’t white.

  Ben’s steady, enduring affection, his capability, his integrity far surpassed that of any man, white or Indian, she’d ever known.

  Smiling to herself, she realized one thing more: no man but Ben had created such explosive sparks within her. The hot blood of accomplished courtesan Bella Duprey pumped through her veins, wild and uncontrolled. Harmony was the granddaughter of Bella’s daughter—a throwback, a soulmate through time. Tonight, she decided with great certainty, she would give herself to Ben Panau. She clung to him.

  Suddenly, a shocked cry rent the magical night air, shattering it. Harmony and Ben jerked apart to find Randolf and Edna staring at them, mouths agape. Randolf held aloft a kerosene lantern.

  “Harmony!” Edna gasped in shaming tones. “An Indian?”

  Small eyes searing, Randolf scowled ferociously at Ben like a giant bird of prey. In hateful tones, Randolf spit out, “Take your filthy hands off her.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “DON’T YOU MEAN my filthy half-breed hands?” Ben ground out hoarsely. Harmony let out a strangled cry. He ignored her. He could feel the familiar flush of helpless shame and fury coursing through him, rushing to his head until it crashed in a wave of futility and defeat. The bitterness and anger he’d known all his life came flooding back.

  Randolf lifted the kerosene lantern high. He and Edna peered at Harmony. In the harsh, artificial light her hair was mussed, and curled about her face in wild tangles. Her lips were moist and rosy. He could even see pinkish marks on her arms where, in his passion, he’d clutched her. Her mouth trembled.

  Self-hate engulfed him.

  “How dare you?” Edna’s agonized whisper sounded as loud as a shotgun blast.

  Ben shook his head. “Guess I forgot my place.” Though meant to be sarcastic, even Ben knew the truth of his statement. When had he begun to reach above his station, begun to covet the highborn Harmony Heart?

  He took one last glance at her. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She’d been caught in the embrace of a no-account half-breed, a disgrace from which she might never recover. Lost in drowning guilt, Ben couldn’t deny that he’d known that a relationship with him would put her in an untenable position. Had he killed any chance she might have for a suitable marriage with someone like herself—a white man of property and breeding? It had all been a dream, an impossible, damnable fantasy for which innocent Harmony would pay the price. He should have kept his hands to himself. He never should have done anything that might hurt her.

  Bile rose in his throat. God, he despised himself.

  Harmony began babbling now, making little sense. “It’s not what you’re saying. I don’t want you thinking that Ben—”

  “It’s all right, missy,” Randolf soothed, putting his scrawny winglike arm around her shoulders and urging her toward the house. “We’ll keep the dirty savage away from you—”

  Ben choked.

  “No!” Harmony protested vehemently, digging in her heels. “He’s not a savage. He didn’t force me—”

  “We’ll try and be understanding, dear,” Edna said, struggling with excuses she felt Harmony needed. “You’re an impressionable young woman. You lost your head.”

  “No,” Harmony insisted, “no. I know what I’m doing. Ben, tell them... Ben?”

  He was gone, vanished from the circle of hostile light.

  Randolf took hold of one arm, and Edna firmly attached herself to Harmony’s other. “Now, come to the house. I’ll fix you some nice tea.”

  “Tea? Tea?” Harmony rolled her eyes and wrenched herself free. In an effort to calm herself, she drew quick, furious breaths. Fighting the impulse to chase after Ben and apologize for the Wilkersons, she decided she should fill them in on a few home truths first.

  “Come to the house. Now,” she commanded, forgetting they’d been trying to get her there all along. She marched up the steps, stormed into the house. Once in the parlor, she whirled to face them.

  Edna kept wringing her hands and taking worried little glances at her husband as if hoping he would solve everything. Randolf set his lantern on a high table and strode to the stone fireplace. There, he placed an imperious arm along the mantel. Harmony frowned. She didn’t like his assumed lord-of-the-manor air. She took her own position in the center of the room, arms akimbo.

  “You both will listen to me,” she stated, keeping her voice low. “There are some things you must know. I am not, as you like to think, an impressionable young girl. I know exactly what I’m doing. Do you understand? My father left me in a position of the highest authority when he and my mother left. I am ranch manager. As such, the foreman answers to me.”

  “What’s this?” Randolf barked. “Manager? I don’t believe it. I haven’t seen William in twenty years, but I’m certain he would never countenance—”

  Harmony ruthlessly cut him off. “I didn’t tell you before because you seem...old-fashioned in your ideas about women. Furthermore, not that it’s any of your business, but since I was sixteen, I’ve received offers of marriage from nearly every eligible male in Kern County. I’ve refused them all.”

  Edna gasped. The older woman put a steadying hand on the back of the sofa as if for support. Her skin went white.

  “I didn’t love them,” Harmony explained, taking temporary pity on the woman. “I’m twenty-one now, well past the age of marriage, had I wished it before. Now, at last, I’ve found a man I can love. A man whose integrity and goodness of character—well—I’ve never encountered his equal.”

  “I hope to God,” Randolf shouted, “that you’re not talking about that digger Indian. He’s beneath you, Harmony. He’s trash. A man of no position, no wealth.”

  “In this house, you will not use those terms when mentioning Ben Panau,” she shouted back.

  But Randolf was working up a righteous sermon. “He can offer you nothing, nothing! And what will your parents say? Think, girl. Do you believe William would want you to consort with a redskin?”

  Harmony flinched and firmed her lips. She could not let Randolf see how he’d put his finger on the wound. �
��My parents would never condone such hateful prejudice,” she said, hoping against hope this would turn out to be true. “Ben Panau is a fine man any woman would be lucky to have. I only hope I’m worthy of him.”

  Edna came alive. “Oh, dear, what’s come over you?” She fluttered her fingers anxiously. “You’re settling for a man so—so unsuitable. Harmony—a mixed marriage? It’s...disgusting.”

  No more, Harmony thought. She would take no more. Lifting her chin, she said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave the ranch. You may stay until morning.”

  With as much dignity as she could muster, she gathered her skirts and swept from the room, outside and into the night. She needed no lantern to guide her to the bunkhouse and to Ben.

  She rapped her knuckles sharply on the weathered wooden door.

  It creaked open, Ben on the other side. Pushing past him, she charged in and glanced around. The long open room of bunks was empty. The men had chosen to continue the festivities elsewhere; even Old Clay had been driven to town after the fiesta.

  Lit only by an oil lamp, the room was cast in shadows. She faced Ben, who remained near the open door, one fist still clamped around the latch. Flickering light threw his features into a tautly forbidding canvas of leather.

  She drew a breath. The Wilkersons had wounded him deeply, but she was confident she could soothe the furious beast inside. Presenting him a soft smile, she held out her hand. “Ben, I don’t care what those people say, you know that.”

  He said nothing, ignoring her outstretched hand.

  She let it fall to her side. “I want you, Ben.”

  Still nothing.

  “I...I love you. There. I’ve said it. I love you. Now you know the truth about how I feel. You love me, too, I know you do.”

  He snorted. “Love? You’re playing at love, Miz Harmony. I’m just a summer romance to you. Somebody you can frolic in the creek with. Those people are right. You belong with a man of your own social position.”

  “I belong with you,” she said quietly, determined to win him over. “I want to be your wife. And right now, I need to be held. Will you take me in your arms, Ben?”

  “No,” he said baldly. “Never again. You don’t know what real love is. This—” he made a hand gesture between her and himself “—is just a game, just temporary. Soon enough, you’ll forget about me.”

  The fuse of her anger ignited. “I wish everyone would stop treating me like a baby,” she fumed. “I’m a grown woman. I can make my own decisions.”

  “The Wilkersons are right. I’m no good for you. I’m nothing but a poor breed.”

  “I’m a breed,” she retorted, beginning to sense the depth of his implacability. “One quarter Hawaiian, remember?”

  “It’s not the same.” He faced away from her, looking sightlessly out into the night, stoic and stubborn.

  At a loss, Harmony tried again. And again. But Ben proved more resolute than she could have imagined. Where was the man who’d spoken so sweetly to her, held her like a precious treasure? And who was this cool, harsh man with his closed features and rigid stance?

  “Ben,” she whispered from a throat raw with emotion. “Please.”

  He remained adamant, unbending. “If you aren’t humiliated, you should be. You don’t know the slurs, the dishonor you’d have to endure as my wife. And you never should. Go on up to the house,” he instructed with maddening control, “where you belong.”

  At last she had no choice but to leave him. Behind her he closed the door, its weathered pine as staunch and forbidding as a lead vault, so effectively did it shut her out. She choked back a sob.

  It was dark and difficult to see her way home through the gathering moisture obscuring her vision. She stumbled up the stairs, then paused to take great, gulping breaths. In her heart the flame of hope wavered, despair threatening to extinguish its light. She had rejected the overtures of all other men, in favor of waiting for her true love. And now he wouldn’t have her?

  The bitter taste of loss filled her mouth. Without Ben’s love, all the years ahead stretched out empty and miserable. She’d always known that once given, a Heart woman’s devotion was forever.

  Harmony would never love another man.

  She lifted her head and swiped the tears away to look at the same moon that had shone down upon all the generations of Heart women. Somehow, its pale green light comforted her. Oh, Ben, her soul cried out. I love you. The moon continued to glow—a true and constant companion in an unpredictable world.

  Gradually her vision cleared.

  Her idols were resolute, confident females like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul. Those women fought through trial and adversity for the dignity and rights of women. They would be ashamed of her behavior now. And weren’t the Heart women resolute in the pursuit of their goals and of the strong men they loved?

  How could she not live up to their legacy?

  With a deep breath, she raised her chin.

  In their example, she would sally forth. Her motto would be: Never Give Up; her banner, love; her weapons, determination, her body and her wits.

  The battle, she swore to the moon, was joined.

  * * *

  THE WILKERSONS’ indignant packing up and leave-

  taking barely registered with Harmony. In shrill voices they vowed to write her parents, complain about her insolent inhospitable treatment, inform them of her ill-advised liaison with “the Indian.” Harmony merely shrugged.

  During the long night, she struggled with the dilemma of how to win over Ben. When finally she lay down, hoping to sleep, she recalled the old stories. All her life Harmony had heard tales of the journal her great-grandmother had written. The diary, she’d been told, was for future generations of Heart women. The contents were unknown to her, but there to be read when in dire straits.

  She must find the journal.

  * * *

  HARMONY SPENT DAYS searching the big house. She looked through cupboards and cabinets, scoured the attic, investigated crannies in her old nursery, nooks in the basement, closets in bedrooms.

  Meanwhile, Ben continued to report to her each morning. But it was a new Ben, and nothing Harmony did or said had any effect on him. It was as if a cold, hard stranger had taken his place. He was scrupulously efficient, frostily aloof. The days passed and he did not relent. In agony Harmony lost sleep, and her search for Bella’s journal became frantic.

  At the end of the second interminable week, she found the precious journal exactly where she should have looked in the first place: at the bottom of her mother’s beloved hope chest. The trunk was scarred and old, with metal bands clamped over the top.

  Inside she found a wooden box with a beautiful tiger painted on the lid. The tiger’s green-jeweled eyes gleamed. Also in the chest were a pack of playing cards, a gem-studded collar and several nearly empty bottles and vials. Gasping, she withdrew a crimson velvet gown and held it to her face. The beautiful fabric exuded an exotic circus fragrance, and in her mind rose the image of the formidable woman who’d worn it.

  Above the big four-poster in her parents’ bedroom hung a grand, opulent oil portrait of Bella Duprey. The Queen of the Courtesans reclined upon a velvet chaise. A satin wrap, draped over the back of the lounge, had obviously been rejected, for she lay in all her nude glory. An enigmatic smile barely touched the edges of her mouth, her blond hair curled thickly down her back, and in her violet eyes sparkled a mischievous light.

  Harmony decided it was fitting to open the journal beneath her infamous great-grandmother’s gilt-framed portrait. On the cover were the scripted words The Art of Fascination. Sinking to a thick Aubusson rug, Harmony tucked her legs under her and began to read. In the yellowed pages, she was shocked and delighted to read Bella’s innermost thoughts and secrets.

  She skimmed a section containing exotic beauty tips—one called “Bosom, a Beautiful One How Obtained”—tips on coquettish behavior and even sexual positions to maximize a couple’s plea
sure. Entitled “The Texas Tongue Massage,” and “Around-the-World Switch” and the confusingly designated “Exotic Body Chew,” they were meticulously detailed. At these last, Harmony felt every inch of her flesh blush.

  But she read them avidly.

  There was even a section on what appeared to be obedience training for dogs. Why dog training should be included, she couldn’t fathom. She shrugged and skipped past it until a small section caught her attention.

  Love Potions, etc. Beneath the heading were catalogued ingredients and directions for concocting and administering several different elixirs. Including love potions.

  Harmony did not believe in love potions.

  Yet she was too desperate not to try.

  Biting her lip, she scanned the neatly lettered list. The wartsworth she could dig up in the damp undergrowth where mushrooms grew behind the house. The blood of a virgin would be no problem, she decided ruefully, as only a drop was needed and she could easily pierce her finger.

  But elements such as “Jonquil, for Sexual Desire,” “Azalea, for Passion,” and “Cedar Wood, for Love,” would be harder to come by. And there was “Wild Columbine” and “Purple Boneset” and others she’d never heard of. Finally, “Vanilla, an Aphrodisiac,” was called for, and Harmony hoped Cook kept some in the pantry. She needed all the help she could get to penetrate Ben’s awesome restraint.

  She’d go into Caliente and try to purchase some of the makings from the local healer. Outside the window, she heard Ben’s voice calling orders from down in the corral. Closing her eyes a brief moment, she cradled the worn journal to her chest and whispered a prayer for the potion to work.

  When she opened her eyes, she studied Bella’s scandalous portrait. It seemed as if the woman were looking back at her, the violet eyes hauntingly familiar. She supposed that was because she saw them every day in her own mirror. For a moment, she fancied that Bella, indeed, stared into her eyes and then slowly closed one lid in a wink of encouragement.