Each Time We Love (4 page)

Bodene grinned back. "
Exactly
!"

She stared at him for a long moment, then carelessly swung the
rifle over her slim shoulder. "You can come inside, but I'm warning
you—no tricks! I'm not going to let you try to cheat me out of the
tavern, like you tried to do the last time you were here!"

Turning away, she strode rapidly over to the building with the
sign and mounted the steps, then crossed the rickety porch and
disappeared inside.

The inside of the building belied its shabby exterior,
although it certainly was not elegantly appointed. Some effort,
however, had gone into making it not only habitable, but comfortable as
well. It was astoundingly clean; the wooden floors were scrubbed and
had been painstakingly bleached to a soft white patina; a colorful
quilt adorned one rough wall, and the few pine tables and chairs which
were scattered about gleamed from frequent polishing. Against the back
wall there was a long oak counter and behind it, neatly arranged, stood
several gleaming bottles of liquor and various glasses and mugs. The
scent of a spicy venison stew simmering in the kitchen behind the
tavern, which was attached to the main building by a dogtrot, wafted
tantalizingly in the air.

The aromatic smell of the stew reminded Bodene that he hadn't
eaten since very early that morning, and shrugging out of his jacket,
he murmured, "Is there any chance that you will feed me before we start
arguing again?"

Standing behind the counter and deftly pouring a glass of
whiskey, Savanna felt her lips twitch. Covertly she studied her cousin
as he pulled out a chair and made himself comfortable, his long legs
stretched negligently in front of him, his wide shoulders resting
easily against the back of the chair. He looked supremely confident,
very sure of himself, and Savanna toyed idly with the notion of
throwing the whiskey in his handsome face, but promptly discarded
it—Bodene's vengeance was always swift and exceedingly uncomfortable!

Thinking of the devilish revenges they had wreaked on each
other through the years, Savanna finally let the grin that had been
tugging at her lips have its way.
Dios!
How she
had missed him and his infuriatingly overbearing ways!

Placing the whiskey beside him on the table, she asked
curiously, "Did it ever even occur to you that I might really shoot
you?"

Bodene took a long, appreciative sip of the liquor before he
answered. His dark eyes full of laughter, he looked up at her and
murmured, "In a rage, without a doubt! But not in cold blood. And since
it's been some months since the last time I, er, annoyed you, I figured
you've had plenty of time to get your temper under control."

Savanna sent him an exasperated look. "Someday, Bodene, you
are going to push your luck too far, and I only hope that I'm around to
see you get your comeuppance!" She walked over to the small doorway
that led to the dogtrot and, opening the door and sticking her head
through, she called out, "Sam, we might as well feed him! Bring some of
the stew and bread when you can,
por favor."

While they waited for the food, Bodene savored his drink and
looked around, smiling as he caught sight of a beautiful silver bell
hanging over the doorway of the dogtrot—trust Savanna to instill a
touch of elegance even here! he thought. Savanna busied herself behind
the counter, absently fiddling with the glasses and bottles, studiously
ignoring her cousin. There was, however, a not uncompanionable silence
between them, each one busy with his own thoughts.

Not even aware that she was doing it, Savanna sighed, wishing
that Bodene's unexpected appearance hadn't aroused such a storm of
ambivalence within her. Part of her always yearned impatiently for the
next time he would breeze into her life; part of her was certain she
never wanted to lay eyes on him again. I'm happy with my life, she told
herself stubbornly; yet when she listened wide-eyed to Bodene's
enthralling tales of New Orleans, when he described in vivid detail the
sights and the smells of the city, the houses, the people… the stunning
gowns worn by the women, Savanna was increasingly aware of a dangerous
longing deep within her.

Giving herself an angry shake, she asked abruptly, "How's
Mother? Did she know you were coming to see me?"

"She's fine, relieved that the war is finally over," Bodene
answered easily. "And yes, she knows I'm here to see you—she gave me
her blessings."

"Naturally," Savanna returned dryly. "Although why, since she
can't convince me to marry that fool Henry Greenwood, she would want to
see me established in your gaming house is beyond me!"

Bodene's lips thinned. "You know damn well that I would not
allow you to work there!"

"And how else would I earn my living?" she asked sweetly. "As
a charwoman? Or perhaps a rich man's toy? Or do you think I'd make a
good whore?"

Forcing himself not to rise to her baiting, Bodene settled
back in the chair. "You know, someone ought to have strangled you at
birth—you certainly are the most infuriating woman I have ever known!"

Having ruffled his feathers, Savanna laughed delightedly, an
infectious sound that caused Bodene's own mouth to soften into a smile.
Sam entered just then with a tray of food, and the next several minutes
were spent in eating.

During the meal, the cousins put aside their differences and
concentrated on exchanging current news. Savanna did not have a great
deal to contribute. O'Rourke's Tavern was situated in one of the many
uninhabited and largely unexplored wilderness stretches along the
Mississippi River between Natchez and New Orleans, and consequently it
was not a hub of activity. The fact that the site of the tavern was on
the opposite side of the Mississippi River from the bustling, more
well-known river towns also added to its isolation, and the few
visitors eager to partake of its modest amenities were mostly men on
the run from the law, although there was the occasional brave settler
who stopped for the night. The isolation, however, suited Savanna
perfectly—she had grown up in such surroundings and the wild, trackless
wilderness called to something deep within her and gave her a sense of
peace and satisfaction she had never experienced at her father's home,
Campo de Verde. Even the lawless men who crossed her path were more
like old acquaintances, which in truth they often were, than like
outlaws to be feared, and—except for a few such as "Murdering" Micajah—
having known her as child, for the most part they treated her with a
rough sort of respect and admiration. Savanna felt
comfortable
here, this way of life was familiar to her, whereas life at Campo de
Verde had seemed stultifying and unnatural. Although the tavern was
often a lonely place to reside, Savanna loved it, and since Bodene
lived in the glamorous and sinfully exciting city of New Orleans, it
wasn't surprising that Savanna and Sam were listening with bemused
attention to his every word.

"You actually saw the pirate Lafitte
and
General Jackson?" Savanna asked breathlessly, her food momentarily
forgotten.

"Mmm, that I did, sweetheart," Bodene murmured as he soaked up
the last bit of gravy with his bread and popped it into his mouth. "The
Battle of New Orleans made some very strange bedfellows, I can tell
you!"

Her elbows resting on the table, her hands propping up her
chin, she stared with dazzled eyes at her cousin. "What did they look
like? Oh, tell us more, Bodene!"

Bodene complied with alacrity and they spent a very enjoyable
hour together as he related the exciting events that had taken place so
recently in New Orleans. But eventually the conversation drifted onto
dangerous ground.

"And Mother—was she frightened when the British attacked? Did
she come into the city or stay at Campo de Verde?"

"She came into the city—there was concern that the plantations
south of New Orleans might fall into British hands. She wasn't
frightened in the least— thought it most exciting, even when the
artillery was at its most thunderous." Bodene sent Savanna a long look.
"There is only one thing that frightens your mother," he said
deliberately, "and that's the thought of you up here at the mercy of
whichever murderous bandit happens to be in the area."

Savanna's face tightened and, dropping her hands, she pushed
herself away from the table. "It didn't seem to frighten her when we
lived—if you can call it that—at Crow's Nest!" she snapped.

"Davalos was still alive then, and that's where he wanted her
to be, you know that," Bodene answered reasonably, his expression
revealing none of his own emotions.

A silence suddenly fell as they both were lost in remembrances
of the unpleasant days of their youth.

Bodene had been three years old when his mother, Ann Sullivan,
had died and his father, Innis O'Rourke, a wealthy planter in
Tennessee, had reluctantly taken in the motherless boy. His parents had
not been married, and, unwanted and unloved, Bodene had endured a
miserable existence until Savanna's mother, Innis's gentle
sixteen-year-old sister, had arrived two years later from Ireland for
an extended visit. Elizabeth O'Rourke had taken one look at the
black-haired, dark-eyed, unhappy little boy and had instantly opened
her generous heart to him. Life suddenly became idyllic to the unwanted
child, and Elizabeth became his shining angel. But those days at his
father's plantation, Sweet Meadows, had not lasted long—Innis and
Elizabeth eventually had gone on a long trip to New Orleans, and within
weeks of their return, Elizabeth seemed to cry all the time and Innis
was in a black, violent mood.

Then the Spaniard had arrived, Bodene had not trusted Bias
Davalos from the very first second he had laid eyes on the slim,
arrogant man, and his mistrust had turned to white-hot hatred when it
gradually dawned on him that this man was the cause of his adored
Elizabeth's tears and Innis's rages and her eventual banishment from
Sweet Meadows. He still vividly remembered being awakened in the middle
of the night by a sobbing Elizabeth and hurried into his clothes and
hustled down the wide, curving staircase into the small gig driven by
Davalos. He had never seen his father or Sweet Meadows again.

Bodene didn't remember a lot of those first days after he and
Elizabeth had gone away with Davalos, and it was years before he
realized that Savanna's birth, in one of those dreary little
settlements along the Mississippi, had brought great shame and disgrace
upon Elizabeth and had made her an outcast from her own family. And
that by neglecting to marry Elizabeth, Davalos had branded his own
child a bastard.

If Bodene had not trusted Davalos on sight, Savanna's earliest
memories of her father were somewhat hazy. She was nearly six years old
before she fully understood that Davalos was actually her father— which
wasn't surprising, since Davalos would conveniently abandon them for
months, sometimes even years on end. Life was hard for them during
those times, but when he would unexpectedly appear, for a while
everything was very different: there were sudden luxuries—extra money,
a silk gown for her mother, a fine knife for Bodene, a china doll and
sweets for her. As a very young child, she had equated Davalos's
infrequent appearances with mostly pleasant things—her mother's
delight, the dazzling gifts he lavished upon them and the general air
of gaiety that seemed to abound while he was with them. In those days,
Davalos was a wondrous figure to her, someone whose presence made every
day happy and exciting. But he stayed only a week or two, never more
than a month, and then one morning he would simply mount his horse,
leave her mother in tears and disappear… back to his
real
life, back to the life that did not include the gentle woman he had
disgraced or the child she had borne him. Only as she grew older did
Savanna come to bitterly understand that she and her mother had played
a very small part in Davalos's life; that while he had been alive he
had deliberately hidden their existence from the other world in which
he had lived.

It had taken her a long time to piece together the puzzle that
had been Davalos, but from things her mother had said or
not
said, and from Bodene's recounting of his early memories, Savanna had
finally come to several unpleasant conclusions about her father: he had
seduced Elizabeth because he had assumed that Innis would settle a
fortune on her, and when that had failed, he had kept their very
existence a secret because he didn't want to lessen his chances of
perhaps making a wealthy match for himself. Savanna had wondered grimly
for many years why he had even bothered with them at all, and it was
only recently that she had concluded that, in his fashion, he
had
loved Elizabeth, and perhaps even herself…

Bodene glanced across at Savanna's set face, knowing that as
hard as it had been for him to deal with his illegitimacy, to ignore
the taunts and sly jeers, the contemptuous looks and scandalized
glances, it had been a hundred times harder for her.

Savanna suddenly gave an uncomfortable laugh and flashed him a
wry look. "Sorry," she muttered, "but every time I think about those
days, I'm afraid I live up to my red hair!"

Bodene smiled faintly, but there was a thoughtful expression
in his dark eyes. "Savanna, someday you're going to have to forgive
him… What he did may be incomprehensible to us, and how Elizabeth could
have gone on loving him may always mystify us, but you're going to have
to accept it. As long as you hold the past against him, it's going to
eat you alive."

Her features instantly closed down and Bodene bit back a
curse. "You have every reason to be angry with Davalos—he should have
married your mother, I don't deny it. But he didn't, and the man is
dead!"
he said urgently. "Has been for over ten years! He can't change
anything now, so give him credit for trying to rectify some of the
wrong he'd done to you—didn't he leave you everything he owned?"