Amelia (33 page)

He stood without moving, his reins in his hand, the horse neighing softly behind him while he felt the depths of despair well up in him.

"I love you, Maria," he said unsteadily.

She didn't answer. She turned and went back into the hut that had been Rodriguez's. The rest of the inhabitants of the small pueblo turned their backs on him and left him alone on the outskirts of the settlement. Quinn stayed there for a minute, but it was apparent that Maria was too hurt to come back. He mounted his horse and rode back toward Texas. He felt as if he no longer had any purpose in life. Everyone had deserted him. He didn't dare think about the loss of Maria, or he'd go mad. But the road ahead looked very lonely indeed.

«
^

 

A
melia was just sitting down to dinner in the hotel's elegant dining room, all by herself, when conversation stopped and heads turned toward the door.

A rough-looking, unshaven man in jeans and a checked shirt and a disreputable hat and boots was striding toward a nicely dressed young blond woman in a white lacy dress and black shawl. She stared at him from a face gone white, but he didn't appear to notice her distress. He went to her table and, without a word, pulled her chair out, lifted her high in his arms, and strode out the door of the hotel toward a waiting buggy. It would be a long time before the citizens of El Paso forgot the sight of King Culhane carrying his escaped bride back out to Latigo!

"How dare you embarrass me so!" Amelia raged as he snapped the whip at the horse's rump to start him off down the street. The straining sound of the leather harness and the dusty thud of the horses' hooves on the hard-packed dirt did nothing to muffle her angry voice.

"You shouldn't have run away," he said pleasantly.

"You left!" she accused furiously. "You rode off and left me there with all our guests, after you ordered my poor brother off the place! What did you expect me to do, sit and simper while you went off to mourn your late fiancée?"

"You're shouting, Amy."

"I am not…" She cleared her throat. "I am not shouting. I am simply making a point. I do not wish to go to Latigo with you. I am making arrangements to live with my cousin Ettie in Jacksonville, Florida."

"Not without me, you aren't."

"I do not wish to live with you," she informed him haughtily. "You are rude, overbearing, domineering, mannerless, thoughtless, and cruel!"

He shrugged. "A man must have a few faults in order to be interesting." He glanced sideways at her, and his face softened magically, like the silver eyes that held hers. "You look very pretty in white."

"Flattery will not erase your past behavior from my mind."

"I have something much more physical planned."

"You will not touch me, sir!"

"Yes, I will." He glanced at her with slow, possessive eyes. "Until you make love with me, our marriage is not legal."

"You don't want it to be legal," she countered, face flaming.

"Indeed I do," he replied. "I find you congenial company. There is, of course," he added with a lingering appraisal of her, "the matter of your regrettable temper."

"I do not have a temper!"

"And you have a tendency to run away."

"I didn't run, you threw me out!"

"I threw your brother out," he corrected.

"There is no difference!"

"Between your brother and you? There most certainly is! I have no desire whatsoever to kiss your brother," he added with a slow smile.

She flushed, and her hands became nervous in her lap. She stared at them without looking up. Her anger was leaving her, and she was becoming vulnerable all over again. He was close beside her. She felt his warmth and strength and knew a slow-growing ache to be in his arms again, with a return to the affection that had been blossoming between them.

He pulled the buggy into the shade, where there were patches of grass for the horses to nibble. He looped the reins over the brake and rested his booted foot next to it while he turned to look at Amelia without humor.

"We got off to a bad start," he said bluntly. His silver eyes searched hers closely. "It was my fault. I lost sight of a lot of things in a burst of bad temper. That's something you'll have to get used to, because I can't change. I'm prone
to
outbursts and impulses, it's my nature. But you've a temper of your own, so you should be able to cope quite well."

"With your temper, yes. With the memory of Alice…no," she added weakly, averting her eyes.

He put a gentle hand to her face, turning it back to his. "Rodriguez has been a thorn in my side for a long time. It was being helpless, knowing that someone I cared for was murdered and I was unable to prevent it, to help her. Amelia, I would have felt just the same if one of my men had been butchered in such a manner."

"Oh."

He traced the hair at her cheeks, loosened it on the breeze. "I heard in town when I asked for you at the desk that Rodriguez was found dead in his cell today," he added. "The opinion is that he committed suicide rather than stand trial."

"Poor Quinn," Amelia said softly. "His Maria will not be quick to forgive him, I fear."

"Perhaps not. But I hope that you, and he, will be able to forgive me," he added quietly. "I said some unkind things in the heat of anger, Amy, things for which I am sorry."

She drew in a steadying breath and slowly relaxed, leaning toward the hand that was caressing her face. "You will be a very difficult husband," she said slowly.

He brightened, because she was no longer talking of leaving him. "Probably," he admitted. "But then, what challenge is there in a compliant one?"

She smiled, and all his fears began to vanish. He pulled her gently into his arms and turned her over his lap.

"I will not let you leave me," he said, breathing against her mouth as he took it slowly under his own. "Never in a thousand years!"

She reached up and held him, giving him back the long, slow kisses that left them both trembling with frustrated need. She finished with her face in his hot throat, clinging madly to his strength.

He held her until the feelings calmed somewhat, gently smoothing her hair.

"I will cherish you until I die," he said huskily. "All my life, Amy."

"And I, you." She shivered as she nuzzled closer. "Oh, King, I do love you… so!"

His arms contracted involuntarily, bruising. His mouth searched blindly for hers. "Say it again," he bit off against her lips.

"I love you… love you…"

He whispered it back to her, parted her lips with his, found her soft body with his hands. She wept when he stopped abruptly and folded her protectively close but without passion.

"Don't stop," she whispered.

"I have to," he said hoarsely. "This is hardly the place," he added on a husky laugh.

"Your parents are still at the house."

"They are discreet," he replied gently. "They will find a way to absent themselves. For now," he added, clasping her hand in his, "it is enough that we're together."

A statement with which Amelia could hardly disagree. She had something very special to tell him. But it would keep, for a little while.

 

There was no one to greet Quinn when he rode back into town. Gossip was rife about Amelia and King, however, and he permitted himself a tiny smile when he realized that whatever King's qualms about the marriage had been, he knew what he wanted now. It looked as if King and Amelia were back together for good. He went upstairs early, carrying a bottle with him, and drank himself into quiet oblivion.

Brant and Enid were overjoyed when they saw King walk in with a radiant Amelia. They decided very quickly to go after Alan, and since their bags had already been packed, it was a simple matter to have one of the cowhands drive them in to the train station.

King and Amelia waved them good-bye from the porch and then went back inside, arms around each other, to begin their marriage.

He lifted his radiant bride and carried her down the hall to the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them. He laughed softly at her flush as he carried her to the bed and put her down gently on the bedspread.

"Are you truly so nervous?" he chided. "This is not our first time together."

"I wish that it were," she said with faint sadness.

He sobered quickly. "I can understand why you might feel that way. I was wrong about you, Amelia. I made some terrible assumptions and acted on them. I wonder that you wanted to let our marriage continue at all."

Her dark eyes smiled up into his silver ones. "But I love you," she said simply. "What choice did I have? Although," she added with a soft sigh, "I do fear that I was right when I said you would be a difficult husband." Her arms circled his neck and gently pulled him toward her. She reached up to kiss him very softly. "You have a tendency to talk too much!"

He chuckled, all the sadness vanished, as he followed her down onto the bed. Not another word was spoken for quite some time.

She curled into his arms, shivering a little in the aftermath of the most tender loving she could ever have imagined. "Will it be… like this from now on?" she whispered, shaken.

"Always," he promised. He curled her closer into his body, cradling her while he sought to calm his violent heartbeat and erratic breathing. Her body had given his pleasure beyond belief, even surpassing their first time together. He had caused her no pain this time, making certain that he was slow enough with his caresses to bring her to an incredible level of need before he joined her body slowly to his. Even then, it was he who kept the lazy pace when she pleaded for him not to torment her. At last, when they fell through the stars together, she wept violently. Her sweet cries increased his own pleasure, so that it was an ecstasy that brought a brief loss of consciousness with it.

"What are you thinking?" she asked daringly.

"That I have never felt such pleasure," he said honestly. He looked down into her misty eyes and bent to brush his mouth over their tired lids. "Perhaps I dreamed you, Amelia," he whispered. "I could be forgiven for thinking so. I love you so much… !"

She clung to him, answering his hungry mouth, but too tired to do much more than that.

He laughed wickedly. "Have I exhausted you, my dear?" he asked gently.

"You, and our child," she whispered, watching his eyes as she said it and then smiling at the stunned reaction that stilled his expression.

He scowled. "Our… child."

She nodded. She took his lean hand and placed it over the faint swell of her stomach, no longer shy or inhibited with him, though neither of them were covered. "Will you mind, so soon in our marriage?"

"Oh, no," he said genuinely, and his eyes began to sparkle with feeling. "No, I will not mind." He began to smile and then to chuckle as his eyes boldly wandered over her. "I thought this very becoming radiance was my doing, but I can see now that it is not." He bent to kiss her, cherishing her mouth. But when he drew back, his eyes were troubled. "It was the first time, that we made this baby," he began slowly.

She put her fingers over his mouth. "I loved you even then," she said quietly. "Let us not speak of it again."

He brought her palm to his mouth and kissed it hungrily. "Forgive me!" he whispered roughly. "I wish that I could take back every hurtful thing I have ever said or done to you!"

"Time will erase it all," she promised. "And now we have not only our happiness together but a new life to look forward to. Oh, King, we are so, so lucky!"

He looked into her eyes and agreed with such fervor that she laughed and pulled him down to her again.

 

Three weeks later, King had to go into El Paso and rescue a very drunk Quinn from the county jail. He took his brother-in-law out to Latigo and established him in the guest room.

"It's that girl, Maria, Rodriguez's daughter, who haunts him, is it not?" Amelia asked King later, after she'd checked on her unconscious kin.

"I believe so," he replied. "He has resigned from the Rangers, they told me at the sheriff's office. I am certain that he would never have taken such a step unless he was not all himself."

"They have reorganized the Frontier battalion, and he was not happy with it," she reminded him. "Also, he has not been the same since Policeman Stewart was shot and killed by those army men from Ft. Bliss after the arrest of their disorderly comrade."

"A tragedy," he agreed, "but the perpetrators have been brought to justice."

"That does not bring back Mr. Stewart," she pointed out. "Quinn admired him."

"I know. So did many of us."

"What shall we do about him?"

King thought for a moment. "I believe there is only one solution," he said grimly.

"Which is?"

He brought her face up to his and kissed her warmly. "Don't wait supper for me."

He walked out while she was still trying to question him, got on his horse, and rode away.

 

Malasuerte was not hard to find. It took King a little over three hours to get the information he needed from the sheriff and proceed over the border.

He asked for the girl and was politely escorted to a small hut in the pueblo which was, presumably, hers.

King took off his hat as he was admitted. The girl was very pretty, he thought. She was slender and well-made, with black hair and blue eyes. Those were very sad eyes, though. Lonely eyes.

"What do you want,
señor
!" she asked dully. "My papa is dead, you know. Rodriguez is not here anymore."

"I didn't come about Rodriguez." He twisted his hat in his hands as he squatted down to talk to the girl, who was making tortillas over a small fire. "I married Quinn's sister, Amelia."

Her hands slipped, and one of the tortillas tipped off the pan into the flames. She moved the pan off the fire and stared, with tragic face and eyes, at King.

"Quinn!" she said miserably. "I sent him away. I blamed him for Papa's death, for everything."

"Yes, I know," King said dryly. "He gave up his Ranger badge and has apparently determined to become an alcoholic. At least, he certainly gives that indication."