Dragon Fire

by Linda Ladd

  "I don't intend to go anywhere until she's better." He strode across the room and sat down on a low hassock in front of her. His eyes searched her face. "You'll like her, Carly, I know you will. You'll find her a lot different from anyone you've ever met, but she's smart and beautiful and good—"

  "You're in love with her, all right," Carlisle said, then laughed and nodded her approval.

  Stone gave a rueful shake of his head. "I think I fell in love with her the first moment I ever saw her, even though I thought she was a nun at the time."

  Carlisle laughed again, but her brother's face retained its somber lines.

  "You've got to help me, Carly. You've got to convince her to marry me."

  "I'll try, I promise I will. You know how persuasive I can be when I set my mind to it."

  "Most mornings she gets up early and takes a walk in the patio."

  "I'll be up with the boys anyway."

  "Thanks, Carly. You don't know what this means to me."

  Brother and sister shared a smile, and then Carlisle hugged him tightly, so glad he was home again. She hoped Gray and Tyler had received his telegraph message and would come soon. Both of them had been very worried about him. Once they arrived, surely the four of them together could convince Stone not to go after Emerson Clan.

  26

  When the pearl-hued mist of dawn drifted like gossamer over the night, Windsor rose naked from the bed. In the cool air of early morning, she hurriedly bathed her face and donned her clothes. Before quitting the bedchamber, she paused with her palm resting lightly atop the curved brass door handle. Stone lay motionless, half concealed by the smoky darkness of the draped tester bed. He slept on his stomach, the arm he had curled protectively around her throughout the night still outflung where she had slipped from beneath it.

  After their lovemaking, he had pulled her tightly against the warm, muscled length of his body and kept her there, sweetly, possessively, her head cradled in the hollow of his broad shoulder. He had told her in whispers how much he loved her, and Windsor had wept because he had been so tender, because she knew he loved her as much as she loved him.

  Yet she still had not told him about the baby. She couldn't, not while filled with the fear that he would never be able to accept the stamp of evil Emerson Clan had left upon her body. How many times had Clan leered into her face and reiterated why he was abusing her? To torment Stone, to make sure Stone would never forget that Clan had taken his pleasure with her body. No matter how much Kincaid says he loves you, he'll never get over me touching you like this, Clan had said with his evil laugh. Not as long as he lives.

  Pain cut into her, slicing through her heart like jagged glass. If only the gods would allow the child growing inside her body to have sprung from Stone's seed, she thought, gripped by an awful burden of helplessness. Hot tears burning, she turned and left the room.

  She wouldn't weep, she decided, resolutely attempting to rid her mind of such thoughts. She leaned over the wall supporting the arched stone colonnade that ran along the upper gallery. Below her in the quiet patio, the trees were barely visible, hidden in the mists of dawn. It seemed as if she was peering into her own eerie dreams, and she wanted to walk into those murky shadows by herself, alone.

  Descending the steps, she ducked beneath the low-hanging limbs of a gigantic mimosa tree, the feathery pink blossoms enveloping her in sweet perfume. She avoided the path of flat tan stones, stepping instead across the yard where neatly tended beds of geraniums were set apart by whitewashed rocks, and pink hollyhocks bloomed on tall stalks to disrupt the neutral shades of daybreak. Although the grass was still damp from the night's rainstorm, she knew the heat of the day would soon dry it.

  All around her was deep silence. Only occasionally did a bird flutter awake and erupt into sleepy song. Like the Osage, Windsor had always praised the sunrise and risen to watch the sun burn away the night. When she was little, she and Hung-pin had padded barefoot over similar cold, flat stones and knelt with reverent respect at the knees of the Old One. Now both her dear friends were gone from her, neither one able to impart the calm and quiet wisdom she needed so much to hear.

  Sighing with a regret that plunged to the bottom of her bruised soul, she moved beneath a long arbor constructed of willow twigs bent over a wooden frame. A different, delicious scent floated from the thick honeysuckle vines clinging to the curving bower, carried on a wisp of breeze, so gentle it barely stirred the soft petals. Somehow she felt secure behind the tall white walls of the Hacienda de los Toros. She felt more at home here than in any other place since she had left China. The peacefulness and isolation of the old adobe house reminded her of her beloved Temple of the Blue Mountain.

  When she came to a gushing fountain, she sat down on a stone bench, watching water pour from a cornucopia held by a matador fashioned from shiny black stone. She felt better that morning than she had in a long while. She had rested well lying close inside Stone Kincaid's embrace, her mind at peace because she was where she belonged.

  How she wished she could retreat into herself as she used to do. Perhaps there, staring into the white light, her mind would open and hear the soft words the Old One might have murmured to soothe her fears. He would have understood how much she had changed since she had traveled to the land of the Western barbarians. Before she had come to America, she had diligently practiced her fighting skills and trained to become a disciple of the Dragonfire, but now her desire to be with Stone Kincaid overrode her dream to join the warrior sect.

  And although the Old One had warned her of the temptations of the flesh, he would not have condemned her love for Stone Kincaid. Love was the answer to all things, he had taught. He would have been more eager to help her accept what she had suffered at Clan's hands. He would have preached forgiveness. Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love, he had told her often, his gnarled, blue-veined palm resting gently atop her head.

  Folding her legs into the lotus position, she closed her eyes and pressed her palms together. She longed for the day when she could once again attain the inner tranquility so necessary to her existence. Every day since she had been with Emerson Clan, she had tried to reach that plane of tranquility. Every day, she had failed.

  The ancient sutra rolled easily from her lips. She had performed the slow, resonant hum many hundreds of times in her life, but she broke off almost at once as a violent heave lurched across her stomach. The nausea brought each morning by her unborn child lasted only a moment, but it would return, a reminder of her fears.

  Molding the slight mound of her abdomen with her palms, she sought to use her mind as she had been taught, to travel through her own skin, to penetrate muscle and bone, to seep into her own rushing bloodstream until it took her into the body of her unborn child.

  With quiet desperation, she longed to feel maternal love for the life growing inside her womb, to experience the warm kinship a mother should feel for the baby. Instead, a vision of pale hair and eyes, of screams and blood, filled her head, and sharply, like puncturing claws, she felt pangs of revulsion to think that the child might be the offspring of a demon.

  Appalled at herself, she squeezed her eyes shut, slamming a mental door on Clan's horrid image, forcefully pushing all conscious thought inward to her core, to her beating heart, to the beating heart of her baby. She fought for peace of mind, for understanding of her dilemma, for hope for her confusion. But though she groped in the darkness of her despair, searching for the light, she found it not. Instead, she felt empty, floundering in a chilled, stagnant vacuum as if her body were a brittle shell. It was as if the purity of her soul had flapped away like a frightened crow the first time the Evil One had touched her flesh with his unspeakable cruelty, tarnishing its brightness until it was forced to cower in the shelter of darkness, blackened, torn, and bleeding.

  Her skin grew clammy, her body cold to the bone, as if her internal organs were crusted with frost. She remembered how Clan had looked at her, how he had smelled when he put his han
ds on her—as sweet as the rose-oiled concubine of a Peking nobleman.

  One vertebra at a time, an awful, debilitating shudder rolled down her spine. The baby could very well be Clan's, she thought, feeling her panic rise. It could look like him, could act like him. The child could grow up filled with his inherent evil, could torture and maim innocent people the way Clan had hurt her and Nina and Stone, and many others known only to the demon-gods who roamed the earth.

  Her teeth dug into her lower lip. She had to stop thinking such things, she told herself, tightly entwining her fingers to check their trembling. Even if it were Clan's child, she was still the mother. She would bring it into the world and teach it the truths she had been taught.

  "Near vermilion one gets stained pink, near ink one gets stained black," she whispered firmly to herself, finding comfort in the words taught to her many years ago when the Old One had demonstrated his adage by gently dipping her small fingers into first one pot of dye, then another. She must cling to his teachings. She must not dwell on the evil, but on the good.

  She would try to think of the baby as Stone Kincaid's. She had been with him first; they had touched each other with tenderness and respect; they had created this child together as a testament to their love. Stone Kincaid was a good man, strong and kind and honest. The baby would have hair as black as a raven's wing and a smile that melted her heart. The baby had to be his, she thought. The baby was his.

  Windsor looked up as a sound filtered through the quiet garden. As the sun rose to warm away the mists and dry the dew, someone was humming a lullaby. A moment later, a figure approached, a young woman whose slender form was wrapped in flowing pink nightclothes, her long hair woven into a braid the color of fire. She carried a small white bundle in her arms.

  "You must be Windsor," the stranger said as she shifted the swaddled infant until it lay propped against her shoulder. She smiled, setting aglow her pretty heart-shaped face until Windsor thought she looked quite beautiful. "I'm Stone's sister, Carlisle. You were sleeping last night when we arrived."

  Windsor studied her face but saw no resemblance between Carlisle and her brother. "Stone Kincaid will be very glad to see you," she told Carlisle. "Does he know you're here?"

  The young woman laughed, a merry, infectious sound. "Do you always call my brother that? By both names, I mean."

  "I am from China. It is the Chinese way."

  The baby began to squirm inside the fluffy white blanket, and Carlisle rocked him.

  "I'm sorry if I offended you," she apologized, "but it sounded so strange. And, yes, Stone heard our coach on the drive last night and came downstairs to see us. We had a nice long talk." Carlisle sat down beside Windsor, turning the child to face her while she gently bounced him on her knee.

  "Your baby is very pretty," Windsor remarked, gazing down into a round little face dominated by enormous green eyes.

  "Yes, he is, isn't he?" Carlisle answered, beaming a proud smile. "And he's the best little thing you could imagine. He just has a nasty habit of getting up before sunrise. I brought him out here so we wouldn't wake up his brother."

  The words had barely left her lips when several sharp wails pierced the upstairs gallery, inducing several birds to flutter off the wall in frantic flight.

  "Oh, dear, that's Enrico now," Carlisle said, jumping to her feet. "He's not the least bit quiet when he wakes up, not like Esteban here. Rico will yell at the top of his lungs until he gets what he wants. My husband, Chase, says he gets that from my side of the family." She laughed as she plunked her child into Windsor's lap. "You don't mind holding him for me, do you? Please, it won't take but a moment for me to fetch Rico. Then you and I can get better acquainted."

  Windsor had little choice, because Carlisle hastened back through the arching, vine-hung bower without awaiting an answer. Windsor studied the tiny man-child she held. She had never seen a baby so young. She cupped the back of his head in one hand, his bottom in her other, awed to think there was barely enough of him to fill her lap.

  Wordless with wonder, she stared at him until the infant grew impatient and began to twist his shoulders. Afraid he might squirm out of her hands, she knelt on the ground, carefully spreading his blanket and placing Esteban upon his back in the middle of it. As soon as she did, he began to fuss and grunt, kicking his feet and angrily waving his tiny fists.

  "Ga-ga-ga," he gurgled, drooling and sucking on his fingers.

  When Windsor leaned down close, he grew still, focusing bright, unblinking eyes on her face.

  "Shh, little one. Your mama will come back for you soon," she whispered softly. He began to gurgle again as Windsor straightened his rumpled gown around his feet. He wore a long white shirt embroidered with miniature yellow ducks and a soft, snowy swaddling cloth, but his legs were bare. As she held one tiny foot and examined an even tinier toe, he kicked hard, freeing his heel from her gentle grasp. "You are a strong little man. You will grow up to be long of limb and tall of stature."

  Esteban seemed to consider her words with great solemnity; then he stretched his small mouth into an impossibly wide grin, exhibiting toothless pink gums. A tender smile was forced from Windsor, a deep reverence overwhelming her as she realized she would soon give life to another human being. Inside herself, she would create a tiny person with two eyes and two ears, and ten fingers and toes, and perhaps even a happy gurgling chuckle like Esteban's. How could one so little and untried be anything but innocent and pure? How could a tiny newborn babe be otherwise?

  Astir with new motherly feelings, she lifted Carlisle Lancaster's child and tenderly held his head close to her neck as she rocked him to and fro. Her unborn child was a part of her. She would breathe life into him and she would love him. How could she have ever doubted that?

  "I'm sorry I took so long, Windsor, but Rico was all wet and as mad as a whole nest of hornets," Carlisle said, coming up behind her. She knelt beside Windsor and held her son so that Windsor could look upon his face. "You see, they're identical twins. Isn't it amazing to think they're exactly the same in every way? It's like a miracle."

  Windsor agreed, stroking Enrico's pudgy hand. He grabbed her finger tight in his fist and shook it as fiercely as a puppy with a sock. Windsor smiled at Carlisle. "You are lucky to have given your husband two fine, strong sons."

  "Maybe you'll have a baby someday, too." At Windsor's startled look, she went on quickly. "Stone told me last night that he's going to marry you or die trying." She laughed. "I have to warn you that Stone is the most determined person I've ever met. When he makes up his mind about something, he never, but never, gives up." Smiling, Carlisle continued in the easy, companionable way she had about her. "And I must say that I'm very glad he found you to fall in love with. I was beginning to wonder if he planned to stay a bachelor all his life."

  Windsor remained silent. She wondered if Carlisle knew what Clan had done to her. Windsor looked up as a man appeared on the path leading from the gallery.

  "So here you are," he said, taking several long-legged strides to Carlisle, then bending down to kiss her.

  Carlisle laced her fingers through his long ones, then introduced him to Windsor. "Windsor, this is my husband, Chase Lancaster. Chase, this is Windsor Richmond, the woman Stone is going to marry."

  "Buenos dias, Senorita Richmond," Chase said, politely inclining his blond head toward her. "Welcome to my rancho. I see you've met my sons." He reached down and picked up Enrico, who had begun to cry. Again, forcefully, Windsor's feelings were touched by the sight of a father so obviously proud of his children. Would Stone be able to look so fondly upon the child she carried? If its hair was white, could he bring himself to touch it?

  Chase shifted the crying infant comfortably in the crook of his elbow, chucking him under the chin with his knuckle. Enrico's whining stopped at once.

  "He just wanted a man to hold him," Chase explained, winking at Windsor. "He's tired of you women exclaiming over him all the time. He's no sissy."

  "As you can s
ee, Chase is a doting father," Carlisle teased.

  "There is an old Chinese adage which says that the father in praising his son extols himself," Windsor said.

  "Stone picked himself a smart lady," Chase observed to Carlisle, grinning.

  "Don't encourage him, Windsor. He already thinks he's the best father who ever lived."

  "Well, I am."

  "I hope so, mi hijo," Dona Maria interjected as she joined them from a different pathway. "But where are my precious ones?" The eager grandmother had no trouble finding the babies and immediately took Enrico from his father. She nuzzled his neck with her nose, then held out her other arm for his brother. "Come, Chaso, and you, too, Carlita. I wish to show off my grandchildren to Rosita and cook." She paused to smile at Windsor. "Would you care to join us, niña? Breakfast will be ready soon."

  "Thank you, but I must go and awaken Stone Kincaid. He is still abed."

  "Well, that's a good sign," Carlisle remarked. "He hasn't slept this late for years. You must be very good for him. Wake him up soon so we all can have breakfast together."

  Windsor nodded. With a wave of her hand, Stone's sister moved off down the path after her husband and mother-in-law, leaving Windsor alone by the fountain. She sat quietly for a moment, reflecting on what was in her heart. Suddenly, by looking upon the innocence of a babe, she had found peace. Now was the time for her to speak of the child with Stone Kincaid. Her face resolute, she walked down the flagstone path toward their bedchamber.

  27

  When Stone opened his eyes, Windsor was sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, intently watching him. He smiled, remembering how good she had felt cuddled close to him throughout the night. He lifted the sheet and held out his arms to her.

  "Come, I want to feel you against me." Windsor came forward on her hands and knees, stopping beside him. Instead of lying down, she picked up his hand and pressed her lips against his tanned knuckles.