by Bobbi Smith
"She was sure lucky that you came along when you did. Why, I hate to think how Michael would have held up if he'd lost her. She means everything to him. You should've seen them at the engagement party awhile back. Real lovebirds, that pair." He chuckled good-naturedly.
Lance winced inwardly at his declarations. He had come to respect Michael during his time here, and it troubled him greatly to think that their mutual love for Trista would keep them apart.
He glanced at Trista again as they danced past him, and by accident his eyes locked with hers. Heated recognition shot through him as he saw the same desire that flowed through his veins mirrored in the blue depths of her gaze. His jaw tensed, and only with great self-restraint was he able to keep himself from following her across the dance floor.
George spoke to him then, and he turned his attention back to the conversation at hand. Still, even as he spoke openly and animatedly with the ranchers, he was aware of Trista's every move. He knew the exact moment she left the parlor with Michael to go out into the hallway. Shifting his position somewhat, he had an unobstructed view of the front door, and he was relieved when he saw Trista disappear outside alone. Quickly making his excuses to the others, Lance moved away without drawing attention to himself. Determinedly, he followed her from the house.
Ace Page and Dan Walker had been drinking heavily. Longtime friends of the recently massacred Lawson family, they were outraged by Barrett's open acceptance of his halfbreed son and by the unquestioning support of all his neighbors. Didn't they know that the Comanche were all no damn good? The drunken pair thought it was infuriating that an Indian, even if he was a breed, could be brought into their community so easily.
They had stayed on the sidelines throughout the evening's festivities, grumbling their discontent between themselves. Despite their state of inebriation, they did not have enough nerve to voice their protest openly, for Barrett was rich, and everyone knew it could be foolhardy to cross him.
They had been watching Lance closely, making sneering, derogatory remarks about him all night. Ace was particularly angered by the way the white women present were so openly taken with him, and both men wondered how any good woman could even consider being in the same room with him, let alone speaking to him.
A hate-filled, alcoholic haze enveloped them as the hour grew late. When they saw Lance leave the house, they decided it was time for a little retribution for the Lawsons. It didn't matter to them that Lance had not taken part in the raid. All that mattered was that he had Comanche blood in his veins, and he deserved to die.
Ace and Dan stalked him cautiously. They knew that he was probably a fierce fighter and that surprise would have to be a major part of their confrontation with him. Ace led the way, emboldened by the liquor and by his own sense of righteousness.
Lance had stepped outside expecting to find Trista there, catching a breath of fresh air. It surprised him to discover that she was not on the porch, and he paused as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before moving off in search of her. He found her alongside the house in an area that was Eleanor's flower garden. Watching her for a moment in silence, it seemed to him that her mood was pensive and almost sad, and he wondered what it was that could be causing her such upset.
"Trista . . . " He called her name just loud enough for her to hear him as he approached.
She had needed a moment alone, and she gasped in surprise at having been found. "Lance . . . what are you doing out here?"
"I was looking for you, love," he told her easily. "I saw you come outside and thought I'd keep you company."
"I don't need your company, Lance. Go on back inside," Trista snapped irritably. She didn't want him to come near her. She didn't want to risk that he might touch her, and all would be lost. She had left the house because no matter where she turned, Lance had been there, looking marvelously attractive and oh, so virile. He was haunting her, driving her slowly out of her mind. She couldn't allow him to destroy her this way. Why, when she'd been dancing with Michael, all she could think of was Lance. She needed to be free of him again. Free to resume her life and live it the way she saw fit.
"I don't think so, wife," Lance answered confidently as he strode forward and boldly took her in his arms. "A husband's place is at his wife's side."
"Don't . . . Lance; please, just let me go. . . ." Rather than sounding angry with him as he'd expected, she sounded terribly, terribly weary.
"I've told you before, Trista," Lance vowed solemnly, "you are mine, and I'll never let you go. . . ."
Sensing the strangeness of her mood, Lance kept his touch gentle and caressing. Even so, Trista fought to keep herself stiff in his arms. She couldn't let him see how easily he conquered her. She couldn't let him see that all she wanted to do was to surrender to his demanding embrace. She had to maintain her dignity. She was engaged to Michael and was to marry him. . . .
All of her arguments against surrendering to Lance's will were lost as soon as he kissed her. He was soft rather than forceful. He was persuasive rather than overpowering, and the results were even more devastating to Trista's battered senses.
Trista wanted to fight the need that his nearness was arousing within her, but it was useless as his lips moved hungrily over hers. She found herself clinging to the broad width of his shoulders for support as her knees threatened to buckle. "Oh, Lance . . . "
In the study, which overlooked the garden, Michael was hurrying to refill his tumbler with bourbon so he could join Trista outside. She had told him that she would wait for him there while he went to freshen his drink. Refilled glass in hand, he paused briefly as he was leaving the room to glance out the window to see if she was there yet.
The scene that greeted him left him momentarily stunned, and he could only stand and watch in complete confusion. Trista was in Lance's arms, and for all intents and purposes, she did not appear to be fighting him off. Baffled, he frowned. He had noticed a change in Trista's attitude toward him, and he wondered if, in spite of everything that had happened, Lance was the cause of that change. Determined to find out, Michael set his drink aside and left the room, intending to confront them.
Trista was almost completely lost in the glory of Lance's embrace. It was heaven being in his arms and knowing his kiss, and yet, it was her hell, too. Tears of frustration dampened her lashes as she wondered why it had to be this way. Why was Lance the one man who could set her soul on fire with desire for him? She wanted to return his kiss. She wanted all that he was offering her and more. . . . Yet even as she admitted it, Trista realized that there was something more important at stake here than just her own desires. Her honor, and Michael, stood in the way of her willing surrender. With what little resistance she could muster, Trista pushed weakly at his chest trying to free herself from an embrace she never wanted to leave.
Ace and Dan had been pleased when Lance had moved off the porch and out into the concealing darkness. They had expected to corner him easily. They had not expected to find him attacking a white woman in the garden. Ace was completely furious, and at that moment he wished he had his sidearm with him.
"All right, you red devil, get your filthy hands off that white woman!" Ace snarled as he and Dan appeared unexpectedly on the scene just as Trista began to struggle to be free.
"What the . . . " Lance was taken completely by surprise, and he looked up to see the two white men closing in on him.
"Just step aside, little lady. We'll take care of this for you," they told her, gesturing her away from Lance.
"Lance?" Trista looked up at him questioningly and tried to grasp his arm, but he shook off her touch as his gaze locked on the two approaching strangers.
"Get in the house, Trista. Now." Lance spoke tersely as he stood his ground, poised and ready to fight.
"You've got this all wrong—" she began, wanting to explain to the men what they'd just witnessed, but Lance stopped her.
"Just shut up and get out of here." His tone was more savage than she'd ever heard
before.
Trista backed nervously away, her eyes round with worry and fear for his safety. Though she knew Lance was a fierce fighter, these two white men looked equally as dangerous.
With no further warning, Ace and Dan jumped Lance. Driven by the memory of the mutilated bodies of their friends and filled with their own brand of righteous fury, they had only bloodlust on their minds as they attacked.
Trista watched in spellbound horror as Lance managed to throw one man off, but just as soon as he was freed of one, the other came at him. Lance was battling bravely and seemed to be about to beat him when his companion recovered and came up from behind him. Trista screamed a warning, but it was too late, and his well-aimed blow laid Lance low, knocking him to his knees. Dan scrambled to help and kneed Lance viciously in the face before he could regain his senses. Ace grabbed Lance's arms and held them pinned behind his back as Dan continued to pummel him.
The sight of Lance being helplessly beaten by the two thugs snapped Trista out of her shock and into action. As the two men continued to beat him, she raced forward to defend Lance and try to fight them off.
"Leave him alone! Stop! What do you think you're doing?" she screamed, battering Ace with her fists in an effort to make him stop.
"Easy there." Ace brushed her aside. "We're just protectin' you, that's all."
"I don't need your kind of protection!" Trista choked in fury as she came back at them again.
Michael had just left the house when he heard Trista scream, and he reacted instantly, racing toward the garden at full speed. His first thought was that the scene he'd witnessed had not been willing, but as he came upon Dan and Ace assaulting Lance, he knew the cause.
"Get out of the way, Trista," Michael ordered as he grasped Dan by the shoulder and spun him around.
Dan was surprised by Michael's interference and even more surprised when Michael hit him with a hard right. He fell heavily and was slow to recover. At Michael's interference, Ace released Lance and watched in satisfaction as he fell nearly unconscious to his hands and knees before them.
"What the hell are you doing, Michael?" Ace demanded. "This here breed you're claiming as a brother was attackin' your woman. We just saved her from him. He was kissin' on her and she was fightin' and—"
"Shut up, Ace." Michael spoke through clenched teeth.
"It's the truth! We were—" Before he could go any further, Michael hit him, too, knocking him to the ground.
Trista had dropped to her knees in the dirt beside Lance as Michael had dispatched the assailants. "Lance . . . let me help you up. . . . Come on, we'll go in the house and . . . "
Lance was furious. This was what he'd expected from the whites. This was the way he had always known he'd be treated. The fact that he'd been unable to defend himself and Trista left him shamed and angry. That it was Michael who'd had to come to his rescue only made the humiliation worse.
Lance violently shoved her hand off his arm as he staggered to his feet. "Leave me alone, Trista. Go back to your fiancé," he managed bitterly as he clutched at his injured side. With one burning look, he glanced from Trista to Michael and then lurched off into the darkness to be alone.
"Let him go, Trista," Michael ordered, understanding what his brother was feeling just then.
Thinking that Michael believed what the men had just told him, she wanted to set everything straight. "But, Michael, it isn't what you think—" Trista wanted to tell him everything, to tell him that it was more her fault than Lance's that this had happened, but he silenced her quickly.
"Leave it." His statement was sharp.
Trista became quiet, miserably aware of the terrible thing that had just happened and of her own inability to deal with any of it. No doubt Michael now believed that Lance had been trying to harm her when, in fact, the opposite had been true.
"I don't think these two will be rejoining the party." Michael moved around the sprawled bodies of the slowly recovering men to take her arm. "If I ever see either of you two on Diamond property again, I'll do more than knock you down. Do you understand me, Ace?" Michael waited until he'd nodded his reply before he turned to Dan. "Dan?"
"Yeah," Dan mumbled in reply through swelling lips.
Without another look in their direction, Michael led Trista back toward the front of the house. As they were about to start up the steps, she pulled back reluctantly.
"Michael . . . wait . . . "
"What is it?"
"I don't want to go back in. It's late and the party's nearly over. Walk me around to the back of the house, and I'll just go up to my room by way of the kitchen stairs."
Michael wanted to talk to her about what had happened, but he knew this was not the time. "All right. I'll make your excuses for you."
"Just tell them I wasn't feeling well or something," Trista replied vaguely.
"I will."
A few minutes later Trista started up the back staircase, relieved that she was going to be able to escape the disaster the evening had become. Feeling completely drained, she locked herself in her room and quickly undressed. She donned her nightgown and, stretching out on the bed, pondered the deep, burning ache that was locked within her heart.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eleanor's original idea had been to have this party in order to embarrass Lance. Now, however, she realized that her plan had been a complete failure. To her utter dismay, Lance had conducted himself quite well, and to her disgust, the women had found him most attractive. There had been no community outpouring of outrage over his acceptance into society, as she'd expected.
It frustrated her that things hadn't turned out the way she'd planned. Still, she was buoyed by the hope that, if everything went the way she and Poker had planned in their private meeting earlier that day, Lance and George would soon be out of the picture entirely, and Michael would have everything he'd ever wanted . . . the Diamond and Trista.
As Mary Lou came to join her, she pushed aside all thoughts of her vicious plans to chat amiably with her friend.
"Well, Eleanor, darling, you still haven't told me what you really think of Lance turning up so unexpectedly after all these years," Mary Lou began cattily, sensing that there was something hidden behind the mask of pleasantry that had been pasted on her features all evening.
"Why, it's just wonderful, Mary Lou," Eleanor replied, not wanting her to guess the hatred that filled her.
"Did George tell you that I ran into him in town this week?"
"No, as a matter of fact, he didn't."
"He told me all about Lance's dramatic rescue of Trista and how he saved her from those savages. I must say he is a handsome man," Mary Lou remarked appreciatively, "even if he is a half-breed. If you didn't know, he could almost pass—"
"Mary Lou!" Eleanor faked outrage at her statement, wanting her to believe that she backed her husband's sentiments entirely in this matter. It wouldn't do for anyone to be suspicious of her true feelings for him. "Lance is a Barrett, first and foremost."
"Of course, dear, of course." Mary Lou was happy now that she sensed she'd hit a nerve. "I just never knew that you were particularly fond of Comanches, that's all. I mean, with what George went through after Shining Star's death . . . "
Eleanor stiffened. Mary Lou remembered far too much for her comfort. "It was a difficult time for him, I'm sure." She gritted her teeth as she made the remark. "As for Comanches . . . well, we all know what they're like, but let me assure you Lance is family. He is George's son, and they are now happily reunited. I doubt that anything will ever come between them again." Regrettably, Eleanor knew that was the truth, and it was the main reason behind the drastic measures she was taking.
"I understand Michael and Trista haven't changed their plans. . . ." The other woman led the conversation.
"No, they haven't," Eleanor answered bluntly. "Is there a reason why they should have?"
"I know all this about Lance rescuing her, but it still stands that she was traveling with him unchaperoned for sev
eral days. Her reputation, you know." She said it confidingly.
"Her reputation is intact," Eleanor huffed defensively, not liking the thought that Michael's fiancée might be the source of tasteless gossip. She had to protect Trista at all costs if she was to be Michael's wife. "However, since I notified her father of her disappearance and he will be arriving sooner than originally anticipated, they are considering marrying as soon as he gets to town."
"Certainly a wise idea, I would think," Mary Lou agreed, tongue in cheek. At Eleanor's hostile glare, she quickly changed her tone. "I mean, it's obvious how deeply they care for one another. Did you see how beautifully they danced together? Why delay any longer than necessary?"
"Indeed. Michael loves Trista very much." She noticed that Michael had just reentered the room alone. "Excuse me, Mary Lou. There's Michael now, and I do have something I have to tell him."
"Of course, dear. I'll see you later."
Eleanor made her way to her son's side. "There you are," she said casually. "Where's Trista? I thought you two left together. . . ."
"We did, Mother, but she wasn't feeling too well, so I told her you wouldn't mind if she went ahead and retired for the night."
"No, of course not. It's Lance who's the celebrity tonight anyway. Have you seen him?"
"He was outside earlier, but I'm not sure where he is now." His answer was evasive, yet truthful at the same time.
Eleanor was puzzled by Lance's absence, but she really didn't mind. The less time she spent in his company, the better.
Michael was tense as he fended off his mother's inquiries. The last thing he wanted to do was to reveal everything that had just happened outside here at the party. He would tell his father everything later in private. He had been surprised at the time that no one else had heard Trista's scream. But as he stood inside now with the din of conversation and loudness of the music flowing around him, he realized how it had been missed, and he was glad. He felt the need to protect Lance and Trista both, and he wondered at it.
Excusing himself, Michael moved off to the study to get his tumbler of bourbon. For some reason, he felt deeply in need of a few minutes alone to try to understand all that had happened tonight in the garden. Michael was relieved to find the study deserted. He took up the glass he'd abandoned earlier and drained its contents. The potent liquid seared its way to his stomach, and he found some relief in its burning comfort.
