by Ann Major
“Incredible,” Lizzy said. “I can’t believe you know who she is.”
“I went to Princeton, kiddo. Electra Scott’s, like, really famous. Not to mention supercool. They had an exhibit of her stuff at the Met when you lived here. You’re her daughter? Way cool!”
“You mean you went to her exhibit?”
“Yeah. They were black-and-white close-ups she’d done of kids and animals all over the world. She loved children, all colors and shapes.”
“Then why did she ditch me so fast?”
“She had special gifts. She made a choice. Life’s all about choices. It’s not like she threw you out to starve.”
“But I’m all mixed up. I always have been because of what she did.”
“Did you never have to make a hard choice where there was no perfect solution?”
“Who made you such a guru?”
“You called me, kiddo.” She let that hang. “Hey, I gotta go. A customer just walked in. Looks like a live one, too. You should see her. Black bondage outfit. Diamond piercings. Oh, she just stopped at the edible undies section. Gotta reel this baby in, kiddo. Did I tell you the manager put me on a commission? You’re gonna figure this out, so lighten up.”
“Nice to hear your voice at least. And thanks for keeping an eye on my New York apartment. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get back there, but at least it’s in good care.”
“No problem, kiddo.”
When Mandy hung up, Lizzy felt restless and out of sorts and abandoned. Her thoughts turned to Cole.
He was the next person she wanted to tell about her real mother. Why was that? Why did he have to pop into her mind all the time? Like he was someone special to her?
When she called Joanne to find out how her father was, Lizzy felt more awkward with her than usual. “S-so, how’s Daddy?”
“More or less the same, but they’re moving him out of ICU.”
“Thanks—Joanne.”
She had never called her that before.
“Are you all right?” Joanne asked.
“Fine.”
The line fell silent long before each of them hung up.
After lunch Lizzy put Vanilla down for a nap and took a walk, wandering to all Joanne’s favorite places for reasons she didn’t fully understand. Joanne drove everywhere in a golf cart, so there were paths cut through the brush for her cart. Lizzy followed the path that led to the fenced garden and Joanne’s greenhouse.
Inside the greenhouse, thorny plants burst out of terracotta pots. Lizzy flipped through a gardening book that told how to grow things and how to kill weeds without poison. Weirdly shaped sticks, interesting bones, turkey feathers and rows of antlers had been precisely lined up on low shelves. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Joanne was a naturalist and an environmentalist, as well.
Lizzy had come here as a child when she’d been curious about her mother and wanted to feel close to her. She lifted one of the antlers and turned it over, studying its graceful shape. Who was Joanne really? Had the war between her parents been about her? Mia and she had been the same age. Had Daddy gotten two women pregnant at the same time?
Why had Joanne and Daddy married if they hadn’t loved each other? Would she ever know? Were one’s parents always a mystery?
The last of Joanne’s retreats that Lizzy visited was the aviary. Joanne had put wire mesh in a stable and then had knocked a hole in the back wall of the barn and had had a huge screened aviary built when the birds had multiplied.
Cole found her there, cooing like an idiot to seventeen white fantailed pigeons.
“Your mother’s babies,” he said as he let himself through the screen door. “She started out with four. You know. If she doesn’t start giving birds away, she’s going to have to add on again.”
He took off his Stetson and propped a shoulder against the rough wood wall. Crossing his legs, he leaned back, his gaze traveling over Lizzy.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she said, frustrated by his heated perusal.
“Like what?” His black brows went up in feigned innocence.
“You know.”
He chuckled. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. It’s really your fault you know.”
“How is it my fault?”
“For looking so sexy.”
“I thought you had a new girlfriend.”
“If you say so.”
Wild turkeys silently picked at the ground outside the aviary. Dragon flies sparkled like jewels in the air. The wind was light and balmy. Even with Cole here, and the aviary feeling smaller by the second because he was inside it with her, Lizzy felt a sense of peace she’d never once felt in Manhattan.
He leaned toward her. “Missing your mother, are you?”
His deep voice was so gentle her throat constricted. More than anything Lizzy longed to tell him about Electra. She’d read all her mother’s letters.
In her own way her real mother had loved her. She’d kept up with her through the years. Her father had clearly been proud of Lizzy, too. Lizzy felt good about that, and she wanted to share her feelings with Cole. She felt a new confidence in herself now that she knew her true story.
Why was it becoming harder and harder to remember why he was so wrong for her?
“Are you okay?” he asked, his low tone, huskily protective.
She felt herself softening toward him again.
“I’d better go,” she said. “Like you said, you have a new girlfriend. So, I’m sure you’ve got lots and lots of better things to do than to waste time with me.”
“Not really. But I get it. I know a brush-off when I hear one.”
He slammed out of the aviary so hard there was a wild flurry of white wings. Pigeons flew about her face in a mad rush to reach the safety of the rafters overhead.
“Cole!”
When she ran after him, he turned.
“You scared them,” she said.
“Sorry.” His black hair gleamed in the sunlight. Never had his shoulders looked broader or his hips leaner. But he looked hurt and confused, too, and that made her feel even more vulnerable to him. Oh, why did he have to be so dear and so dazzlingly handsome and look like he cared? Suddenly she forgot to worry about Suz or Mia or New York or his old greed and quest for revenge.
“Sorry—you looked so lost and sad, I forgot the rules,” he muttered. “Won’t happen again.”
He turned his broad back to her and plopped his battered
Stetson on top his head. Squaring his shoulders, he strode down the golf cart path toward the big house.
“Cole!”
He sped up without looking back.
It was dark. Caesar hated the dark, hated the long nights when all his visitors went home and he couldn’t sleep.
His tiny, prisonlike hospital room reeked of antiseptics. Caesar couldn’t move, not even to twist his head. Joanne was gone. So was Hawk. Thus, he was alone with his thoughts and regrets. All he could move were his eyelids, so he glared at the ceiling tiles.
Electra Scott was dead. She’d taken up such a big place in his heart for so many years it was hard to imagine her dead or murdered or believe that all that was left of her were her ashes that he’d scattered under the Spur Tree. So, he didn’t think about her being dead, maybe because he couldn’t bear it.
Nothing had turned out as he’d planned. He remembered the day they’d met. He’d been in a foul mood because Joanne, the girl from the ranch next door, had slept with his older brother, Jack, who now felt duty bound to marry her.
Jack had wanted to elope. Joanne had wanted a big wedding. As usual Joanne had won. The next thing everybody knew, Joanne’s best friend from The University in Austin, as that school was so arrogantly called, at least, in Texas, had been asked to be maid of honor and was on her way to the ranch to help plan the wedding.
A few days later she had landed on Caesar’s doorstep. Bold as brass, arms crossed under her ample breasts, her triangular chin thrust willfully in his face, she stood pale and tal
l, a warrior goddess, not his type at all. She had thick platinum hair that flowed to her waist in silken waves and a lush red rose that matched her red clingy dress tucked behind her ear. Her bright lavender eyes burned a hole through his heart.
His preference ran to small, soft brunettes, not Amazons who didn’t know how to dress and he was tempted to tell her so.
“Hello. I’m Electra Scott. You must be Jack.” She licked her lips as if he looked delicious enough to eat.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he muttered, furious at her because of her instant power over him.
“Who says I’m disappointed? Who the hell are you, cowboy?”
“His little brother. Not that it’s any of your business.”
She laughed. “Well, I’m glad you’re not Jack.”
“Why?”
Her eyes went hotter than ever. “Because it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
She was right. He’d known from the first minute he’d seen her, before he’d even touched her, that she was the woman he’d been waiting for all his life.
Her eyes locked on his again and stole a piece of his soul. She knew she had him.
“It wouldn’t have mattered? You’re her best friend,” he lashed.
“Last I hear God doesn’t hand out a rule book. Until he does, I’ll make my own rules.”
He frowned.
“And you don’t care. Not the least little bit,” she said.
He was furious at her for being amused, furious at Joanne for bringing this force of nature into his life because even then he sensed Electra would consume him.
“Joanne’s inside.” He stormed past her out to the barn.
Instead of looking for Joanne in the house like a proper maid of honor, Electra stalked him to the barn stall that smelled of oats, molasses, hay and horse.
When she closed the door, locking them inside the stall together, a drum began to beat in his head. He had never felt so overwhelmed by the virile male beast that raged inside of him. He’d intended to saddle Raven and disappear until he regained his own will.
Barns and horses could calm him as nothing else could. He loved grooming them and riding them. Just watching them drink through their lips that seemed to be closed or watching them gobble great mouthfuls of grain or chase the pile of kernels around their feeding tubs could make him smile.
But not tonight. Not with her here, too.
“I came here to be alone. If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from me,” he growled as she approached him.
“Sometimes playing dumb is way more fun.” She removed the rose from her ear and slid the soft petals against her cheek, then lower down her own swanlike throat. Then she pulled a strap of red gown down and caressed her breast.
The stall still smelled of fresh hay and horses, but now of her and of that damnable red rose that she slid between her teeth, too.
“So that’s how you want to play it,” he said.
She lifted the rose to his lips and slowly, languorously teased his flesh with those sweet velvet petals until he wanted to scream.
The next thing he knew, red silk was sliding off her voluptuous body, and she was gloriously naked.
Instinct told him not to touch her, that she would not be a trivial affair, that if he so much as laid a hand on her, she would own him forever.
But he was a man possessed. Even when she began to laugh, he had to have her.
He seized her and threw her savagely against the wall of the stall. “What’s so funny?”
“Life isn’t a serious affair, or haven’t you heard?” She stared at him, her lavender eyes blazing. “Why are you just standing there like a big old bull, snorting and panting? Hasn’t anybody ever taught you to make love, cowboy?”
“Is that what you’re going to do?”
“I’ll bet you’re a fast learner. Talented, too.” She took his big rough hands in hers and moved them over her body, holding them against her breasts for a long time, smiling whenever he touched her in a way that gave her the most pleasure. He ripped off his clothes.
“There’s no hurry,” she said.
She’d made him wait. She made him be gentle. She began by licking him everywhere and running those soft rose petals over his arms and legs and engorged penis.
Finally, when she let him take her, and her body was twisting and writhing beneath him and she laughed no more, he knew he could never let her go. When he exploded inside her and told her how he felt, that he loved her, that he would always love her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close as though she could never let him go, either.
To his surprise, she began to cry.
“Why aren’t you laughing now?” he murmured.
“Because some day I will have to let you go. Because I could never live here for long or belong to any one person—even you. And you can never live anywhere else.”
“What are you saying?”
“The truth. I love you. I will always love you. But in my own way. Which isn’t your way, my love.” Her voice was so sad, it made his own heart feel heavy.
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m never wrong about me. I tried once to live as others do, but I hurt people. In time I always have to be free.”
That night he hadn’t believed she was the woman she said she was. He’d believed what they’d shared—what they’d felt—had been bigger than both of them and that in time, she would change for him. For how does one let go of one’s own soul and go on living?
But they had.
When he’d finally understood her and realized that there was a wildness in her that was like the wildness of an untamed creature. Not a vicious wildness, just something free and true that was her nature. She could no more be domesticated and live happily than a panther or a deer or a javalina. She was no bronc to be tamed to the saddle, nor a tree with roots. She was like the wind that blew freely.
In the end, he’d loved her enough to let her go.
There were footsteps in the hall. The door opened. He felt a whoosh of air, and a cone of whiteness from the hall flashed across the ceiling tiles.
It wasn’t Joanne or his nurse because they always spoke to him.
“Goodbye, Caesar,” said a harsh, yet familiar and beloved voice.
His tension eased until he heard rustling near his IV tube. Then alarms went off inside him. In vain he struggled to twist his head.
What was going on?
“Surprised? Well, don’t feel self-righteous. You killed for the ranch, too. You killed your own brother, Jack, didn’t you?”
No!
Caesar felt a strange, stinging heat in his veins, and he knew.
“I set you up with Cherry to ruin your reputation, so you’d be removed from your position. Too bad for you they kept you on.”
He was going to die.
Images flashed before him. He saw Lizzy as she’d looked leaning over his bed, her hair falling softly against his cheek.
He’d thought she’d looked more like her mother every day. He saw his sons and Mia, and then Joanne. He saw Jack’s broken body in the dunes.
Then he saw Electra. She stood in a circle of pink light at the end of a brilliant tunnel, and she was holding out her arms to him.
There was a roaring sound, and he was rushing toward her.
A voice behind him called, “Adios, Caesar.”
Then he heard laughter.
The murderous bastard was laughing at him.
I trusted you! Caesar wanted to scream, to cry out a warning, but his lips seemed made of stone and wouldn’t move.
Slowly, slowly, the ceiling tiles above him dissolved and were lost forever in the darkness.
BOOK THREE
Smart Cowboy Saying:
If you find yourself in a hole the first thing you do is stop digging.
—Anonymous
Fifteen
Electra Scott. Lizzy couldn’t think about anything else except that the woman was her real mother.
Lizzy’
s back hurt and her shoulders felt numb when she got up from the computer. She rolled her shoulders forward and then backward before beginning to pace.
After breakfast Cole had shown Lizzy exactly how to buy and sell livestock on the Internet. Then he’d left her a list of livestock that needed to be sold and asked her to e-mail the owners of a couple of bulls he was interested in buying. Not that she’d been able to concentrate with her mind on Electra. Still, she’d tried. But when she’d finished e-mailing the bull owners, she’d typed Electra Scott’s name into the search engine and hit Enter.
A wealth of stories about her famous biological mother abounded on the Internet. Electra had had shows everywhere and numerous grand openings. All her photographs showed her dressed as a gypsy—just as Lizzy preferred to dress—and she was always laughing.
More than anything Lizzy wished she could hear her mother laugh. Lizzy had discovered that she’d done a series of extraordinary photographs during her stay on the Golden Spurs, and had them published in a book. She wondered if maybe one or two would be suitable for the museum, which was about the history and life on the ranch. She would probably have to fight Joanne. Still, it was something to think about.
Electra Scott had traveled the world doing her thing. Nothing had stopped her except a murderer, who’d assaulted her in the primitive hut where she’d been camping in Nicaragua while she photographed endangered tropical birds. The camp had been in a remote area. Somehow she’d been raped and strangled without her staff hearing a thing.
With growing dismay, Lizzy read two more stories about her mother’s death.
“Why did you have to die before I ever got to meet you?”
Lizzy felt sad until she remembered that her mother had always known where she was and had never taken the trouble to meet her or even call her. Then anger washed away her sorrow.
The phone rang and Lizzy jumped. Sam was calling her from his cell phone.
“I can barely hear you,” she said.
“I’ve been in San Antonio in a meeting with Leo. Bobby Joe and I are on our way back to the Chaparral Division. Thought maybe we’d stop by for lunch, if you were going to be in. We want to check out the progress on the museum.”
