A Lady of the West

by Linda Howard

  As Jake started to lift Celia, Luis said, “I’ll take her.” His voice was tight. “You see to your woman and I’ll see to mine.”

  Jake gave him a sharp look, seeing what was etched in Luis’s eyes. He looked back down at the small, still girl and touched her bloody cheek with gentle fingers. Then Jake left Celia to the man who had loved her, and walked to Victoria.

  She was no longer fighting Ben, but stood motionless in his grip with her eyes the only spot of color in her face. She didn’t even have a shawl.

  Ben released her and she stood alone, her body rigid. She searched Jake’s eyes for any sign of hope and found none. Still, she had to ask, had to hear it said. “Is she alive?”

  Jake wanted to sweep her up and carry her inside, have her warm and cosseted in bed before he told her what he had to tell her, but she was waiting, holding herself tight inside, and he knew she wouldn’t leave until she knew.

  “No,” he said.

  Victoria swayed and he reached for her, but in the next instant she drew herself up straight, her chin high. “Bring her inside, please,” she said in a brittle but controlled voice, as if she would shatter if she let her control slip at all. “She’ll need … she’ll need washing.”

  Luis carried Celia inside, his face rigid as the wind blew her hair over his arm and teased his cheek with it. Victoria and Emma were behind him, their shoulders back despite their sudden haggardness. Jake and Ben followed, both of them watching the slender, unbending spines ahead. Jake wanted to take Victoria in his arms and give her what comfort he could, but held back. Comfort now would soften her, and she needed all the strength she could muster.

  Carmita and Lola were sobbing softly into their aprons, while Juana had her hand stuffed into her mouth. “We’ll need water, please,” Victoria said softly as she directed Luis upstairs.

  He placed Celia on her bed and knelt beside it, slowly wrapping a bright tendril of hair around his finger. The blanket covered her face, but her hair was free. “I love you,” he said to the motionless girl, but there was no answer, and his heart was dying inside him.

  Victoria put her hand on his shoulder. She hadn’t known, but now she realized that she should have guessed. Celia had changed in the past months, since meeting Luis. “She loved you, too. You made her happy.”

  He swallowed and carried her hair to his face. It still smelled like Celia. “We were lovers,” he said thickly. “It never felt wrong.”

  “It wasn’t wrong.” It went against everything they had ever been taught, but it wasn’t wrong. Victoria was struck by how much their lives had changed, how much she had changed, since coming to this wild land. When she had first stepped down on territory soil, her life had been ruled by what society designated as proper or improper, but propriety no longer mattered to her when measured against love.

  Love had changed Celia from a child into a woman. She had been content, no longer running from flower to flower as if in search of enough beauty and happiness to satisfy her need for it. She had found it in Luis.

  Still sobbing, Carmita brought the water, but as she put it down she said. “I will wash the señorita, if you like.”

  “Thank you, but Emma and I will do it,” Victoria said gently. It was the last thing they would be able to do for Celia.

  Jake came up and took Luis away with him. Ben was overseeing the building of a coffin and having a new grave dug. Gently Victoria and Emma cut away Celia’s torn clothing and began washing the mud and blood from her pale body. Rubio’s sharp hooves had opened numerous deep cuts, but they were mostly on her back; she must have cowered with her arms over her head in a futile effort to protect herself. The back of her skull was flat and soft where the killing blow had landed, but her face was unmarked except for a small scrape on her forehead. They washed her hair and brushed it dry. Her eyes were closed like a child’s in sleep, her long lashes resting on marble-white cheeks. Looking at Celia lying on the bed as they dressed her in her favorite clothes, Victoria thought that she looked as though she would wake if only they shook her, but the essence of Celia was gone.

  Victoria didn’t sleep that night. Jake insisted that she go to bed, and she did, but lay in his arms with her eyes open and burning. She had cried, but the tears hadn’t brought a sense of release and now they wouldn’t come at all. The pain clenched at her heart, sharp and unending. She had never been able to imagine life without Celia. Her sister had been as bright as the sun, and without her everything now had altered, become darker.

  Her baby moved, and Victoria touched it. “She was looking forward to the baby so much. Now she’ll never see it.”

  Jake hadn’t slept either. He was too aware of Victoria’s suffering, and his own sense of loss was acute. There would be no more conversations about riding astride or determining the sex of kittens, no more small shocks every time she opened her mouth, no more searches for items she had left in bizarre places.

  He held Victoria close; he hadn’t released her all night long and didn’t intend to. “If it’s a girl, would you like to name her Celia?”

  Victoria’s voice almost cracked. “I couldn’t. Not yet.”

  An hour later she said, “She looked pretty, didn’t she?”

  “Like an angel.”

  “We’ll have to take care of her kitten.”

  Dawn was a miracle of colors, gold and red and pink streaking across a lightening blue sky. Celia would have been entranced. Victoria looked at the sky and thought of all the dawns that would be less appreciated now, without Celia there to watch them. She got up and dressed. She had no black dresses for mourning, but out here it didn’t seem as important as it had in Augusta. Grief was in her heart, not her clothes.

  She twisted her hair into a careless knot, and Jake fastened her dress for her. She looked out the window again and said, “I want that horse destroyed.”

  Jake knew the need for revenge, knew how it could burn and fester. His hands tightened on her shoulders. “He’s a dumb animal, Victoria. We had warned her time and again to be careful around him.”

  “He’s a killer. He trampled one of the Mexican hands after you’d left that time, did you know? He should have been shot then.”

  The plans Jake had made for Rubio’s get would never come to pass if he put the stallion down. Sophie was with foal, but he’d planned on buying other mares good enough to mate with the stallion. He wanted to produce a whole line of big, strong, fast horses. His heart ached, but destroying the animal wouldn’t bring Celia back, wouldn’t accomplish anything except Rubio’s death and with it his outstanding blend of speed and strength. Victoria had been irrational about the stallion from the beginning, so Jake didn’t expect her to make a rational decision now.

  Still, it might become necessary to put him down. If no one could work with him without fearing for their lives, there would be no choice. Jake wanted to wait and see before he did something irrevocable.

  “I won’t order him shot,” he said, and watched her face become even more withdrawn. He whirled her around to face him. “Not yet. I’m not saying I won’t, I’m just saying that I’m going to think about it before I do something that can’t be undone.”

  “Celia can’t be brought back, is that damn horse worth more than she was?”

  “No, damn it, but killing him won’t bring her back, either.”

  “It’ll accomplish one thing, at least.”

  “What?”

  “I won’t have to look at the barn and know he’s in there, safe and warm and well-fed, while my sister is in her grave.”

  They buried Celia with the sun shining brightly on her coffin, making the pale new wood gleam with a golden hue that almost matched her hair.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They all retired early that night, too dispirited even to try and talk. Emma watched Jake lead Victoria into their bedroom, his arm around her waist both possessive and tender, and the door closed to lock them in their private world where no one else could enter. Ben walked past her with a quiet goo
d night and went into his own bedroom.

  Emma carefully closed her own door, went about the nightly ritual of washing and getting into her nightgown, and then was totally unable to get into bed. She sat in a chair with her hands folded in her lap, rocking back and forth in a silent paroxysm of grief.

  Death came so suddenly and it was so final, so indiscriminate. In a short time it had taken a nameless infant, an unloved whore, and a girl whose smile had made hearts break. They were promised nothing, any of them, not another year, another week, or even another day. Babies were born and every day of their lives after that was a risk. People could hide from life, but not from death.

  Celia had lived life as if it were the greatest joy. She had reveled in its beauty and ignored the ugliness unless forced to look upon it. She had tried to hide from that part of life, but in the end it had found her.

  In the end all they had was the moment, the everlasting now. One could plan for the future, one could try, but nothing was guaranteed.

  Victoria was with her husband and their child was growing in her body. Celia had reached out with eager hands to embrace her love. But she, Emma, had turned away from the love that had beckoned her. Oh, she had had very good reasons and perhaps the love wasn’t what she would have wished, but it had been offered and she had denied it.

  How would she feel if Ben didn’t survive the night?

  A mighty hand squeezed her chest and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. He might never return the devotion she felt for him, but that wouldn’t make it one whit weaker. She had turned him away, and he hadn’t asked in months now. She was alone, by her own will.

  She got to her feet and blew out the lamp. Sitting here brooding wouldn’t accomplish anything. She needed to get some sleep.

  But she could not get into that bed. She paused, staring at its pale expanse in the darkness. A cold, empty bed, just as she was cold and empty.

  She bolted out the door and down the hall. She jerked Ben’s door open without pausing to think, her eyes wide and desperate, and came to an abrupt halt when he whirled around with his gun in his-hand. The hammer was pulled back, his finger on the trigger. She looked down the unwavering barrel, dead level with her head.

  Ben aimed the gun toward the ceiling and slowly let the hammer back down. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  He wore only his pants, and the dark hair around his forehead was damp from his washing. Emma stared at the broad expanse of his chest, muscled and covered with dark hair, and felt her knees go weak.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want—” She stopped, her throat tightening. Her fingers dug into the wood of the doorframe. “Ben—” He faced her, waiting.

  “I want you to hold me,” she whispered, one hand blindly reaching out for him. “Don’t let me be alone tonight. God, I don’t want to die without knowing what it’s like to lie with you.”

  He sighed as he caught her hand, his rough fingers closing warmly, reassuringly around it. He’d given up hope that she would come to him, though he’d never quite been able to lose the dream. He had ceased to pressure her during the past few months, not because he’d wanted her less but because what he was offering wasn’t fair to her. He still found the thought of marriage distasteful, and that was what a woman like Emma should have.

  But his newly developed scruples didn’t extend to turning her down if she came to his room wearing nothing but a thin nightgown, begging him to hold her.

  Desire was already pumping through him, and he looked at her through narrowed, burning eyes. “You know that holding you won’t be all I’ll do, don’t you? There’s no way I can lie down with you and not be inside you, Emma girl.”

  “Yes, I know.” She straightened her shoulders, though her soft, wide lips were trembling. “It’s what I want, too.”

  He pulled her inside and closed the door. She was shaking as he gently freed her hair from its nighttime braid and spread it over her shoulders like a dark cloak. He lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders, then bent and covered her mouth with his. Emma’s eyelids fluttered shut, and she sank against him, against his wonderful heat and strength. Now that she had taken the step, she felt a deep calm underlying her sexual arousal, as if things had finally fallen into their rightful place.

  He caught the hem of her nightgown and lifted it up and off. She trembled even more, and her hands made slight movements as if to shield herself, then she let them lie trustingly on his shoulders while he looked down at her slender white body. Ben felt breathless. She was so finely made that he felt coarse and clumsy, likely to hurt her with the lust that burned through him. He put his hand over one breast, marveling at the silky warmth of her and the contrast of his tanned, callused hand against the alabaster globe, then he lifted it and bent down to take the nipple in his mouth.

  Incredible heat washed over her, more intense than anything he had taught her before. His taste and scent were achingly familiar; she recognized him by the primitive signs with which women have always recognized their mates. When he placed her on his bed, she went willingly.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

  “I’ll show you,” he murmured in reply, kissing her neck and ear and then her mouth. He was achingly erect, throbbing with the need to enter her, but this first time control was crucial. “You taste sweet, Emma girl.”

  Emma moaned as he moved down to her breasts and began sucking at her nipples with a power that sent fire running through her veins. Time swirled and disappeared. His hands and mouth were all over her body, tasting her, feeling her. She received a jolt when he touched her between her legs, though the hot tide of pleasure quickly drowned her surprise. There was another jolt when he slid one long finger into her, testing both her response and the strength of her maidenhead. She winced away from the slight burning, but he rubbed his thumb across and around the sensitive nub at the top of her sex and with a whimper she returned, her hips rotating in search of more.

  “Please.” She clutched at him with wet hands. “Ben!”

  He heeded her cry and stripped out of his pants, then spread her legs apart. He stopped to steady his breathing and regain his control. “It’ll hurt just this once,” he said roughly.

  She lifted herself against the shaft that probed between her folds. “I know,” she murmured as he let his weight down on her and settled his hips in the cradle of her thighs.

  He entered her with care, pushing forward with slow pressure. She gasped, and her nails dug into his shoulders. Her body was opening for him, stretching painfully. She thought it was unbearable, but found that it wasn’t. Her maidenhead gave way and he went deep inside her while tears burned her eyes. He lay very still, but she could feel his length throbbing as she tried to accustom herself to his penetration.

  Then he withdrew, and she stared at him with dark, questioning eyes. He managed a tight smile. “No, it isn’t finished. I’m just getting started, sugar, but I’m going to make certain you enjoy this as much as I will.” Then he bent to her, applying mouth and fingers to the enjoyable task, and soon she was on fire. Just as she arched in her first convulsive climax, Ben thrust deeply into her, and there was no pain, only the intoxicating passion of their two bodies joined.

  Two nights later Victoria slipped out of bed. Her eyes were burning from tears and lack of sleep, yet still she couldn’t manage to do more than doze off occasionally. Every time she did, she woke with the sound of a single scream in her ears, and dreaded hearing it again.

  It was after midnight now. Jake slept heavily, exhausted from the work he still had to do and his own lack of sleep since Celia’s death. She didn’t light a candle, knowing that it would wake him. His responses were still very much those of a gunslick, becoming instantly alert at the slightest noise or the light from a single candle. This was the first time she had managed to get out of bed in the middle of the night without waking him, which meant that she had awakened him a lot during her pregnancy.<
br />
  She couldn’t accept losing Celia, she just couldn’t. Her older brother had been killed during the war and she had grieved, but it had been different somehow. He had been a grown man, and he had chosen to fight. Celia had been on the verge of blooming into full womanhood, a promise that would forever now go unfulfilled; she had not chosen to be stomped to death by a killer horse. Dear God, how she missed her!

  And Rubio still stamped about in his roomy stall, healthy and vicious. It was just a matter of time until he killed again.

  Unless she stopped it.

  She didn’t bother with stockings, but put on her slippers. Her shawl was hanging over the back of a chair, and she wrapped it around her head and shoulders. Jake’s holsters were also slung over a chair, one sitting next to his side of the bed so he could reach them in a hurry. She tiptoed over and gingerly slid one of the heavy weapons free of the leather.

  It weighted down her arm as she slipped from the room and down the stairs. She would barely be able to hold it steady if she needed it. She hoped she wouldn’t.

  The cold air blasted her in the face as she tugged the door open. New snow was falling, fat, fluffy snow-flakes silently drifting down to cover everything in white. How Celia would have enjoyed it.

  The walk to the barn seemed longer than it ever had before. The falling snow combined with darkness confused her depth perception and she stumbled several times. Already her feet and legs were freezing. It would be warmer in the barn with the body heat given off by the animals. Sophie was in there, her barrel swelling with Rubio’s foal. And Gypsy, Celia’s calm, gentle Gypsy. Several of the other mares had been bred to the stallion, but not Gypsy, and Victoria was violently glad.

  She had to struggle to open the barn door, and a horse nickered in curiosity. The blackness seemed absolute. She left the door open, pushing it wide, then swinging the other door open, too. She knew that there was a lantern hanging just inside the right door and fumbled around until she found it and managed to get it lit. The warm yellow glow dispelled the darkness.