Heiress (46 page)

With renewed resolve, she turned to Dobie. "Are you sorry?"

"No." His smile, his whole expression, was filled with adoration. "I could never be sorry. I love you, Abbie."

"You have no idea how much I wanted to hear you say that," she declared fervently.

Three more times in the next few days, Abbie arranged to be with Dobie. Finally, on the day before Christmas Eve, she convinced Dobie that marrying him would be the most wonderful present she could have. That afternoon they were married by a justice of the peace and spent their wedding night at a Galveston motel.

When they drove back to the farm that gray and drizzly Christmas morning, Abbie was legally Mrs. Dobie Hix. She had the ring on her finger to prove it. But if anyone bothered to look closely at it, they could see it was only gold-plated, like her marriage.

Chapter 29

Low clouds shrouded the windows of Lane and Rachel's Houston penthouse, obscuring the view of the city beyond. MacCrea stared at the thick clouds a few more minutes, then moved restlessly away and prowled about the living room. Over twenty minutes ago Lane had been called to the telephone by his houseman. MacCrea glanced at his watch, wondering how much longer Lane was going to be tied up. Irritable and impatient, he tried to blame his short temper on the damp and gloomy weather that had blanketed the Gulf Coast for more than a week and turned his drilling site into a swampy quagmire.

A key rattled in the door. MacCrea turned as the door swung open and Rachel walked in. The midnight-blue raincoat glistened from the droplets of moisture that beaded on the water-repellent material. As she started to unbuckle the wide belt that cinched the raincoat tightly around her waist, she noticed him standing there.

"MacCrea, this is a surprise. Lane didn't tell me you were coming."

"He probably forgot."

Unobtrusively the houseman appeared to take Rachel's raincoat and closed umbrella. "Did you receive the Christmas package we sent you?" She surrendered them automatically, with barely more than a nod at the quiet servant.

"Yes, and thanks for the sweater. I liked it." In truth, MacCrea couldn't even recall what color it was. Christmas had been just another rainy day to him, spent alone, without a tree or decorations like those that still adorned the Canfields' apartment.

"I'm glad." She glanced around the living room. "Where's Lane?"

"A long-distance call came in for him. He shouldn't be much longer." MacCrea hoped he wouldn't be. He was uncomfortable with Rachel and the memories of Abbie she evoked. "How's the house coming?"

"Luckily they got it all closed in before the rains started, so its coming along fine." As she wandered over to him, there was something catlike in the way she studied him. "Have you heard the news yet?"

"News?" He arched an eyebrow, a little voice warning him that this news had something to do with Abbie.

"It seems my neighbor eloped over Christmas."

"Eloped. You mean she got married?" He reeled inwardly. Of all the things he'd braced himself to hear, that wasn't one of them. After the shock came anger. "Who to?"

"That redheaded Hix boy."

"That little—" MacCrea clamped his mouth shut on the rest, clenching his jaw so tightly his teeth hurt.

"You know why she married him, don't you?"

"No." Hell, she didn't love that little wimp. She couldn't.

"She did it to get back at me."

"How?" He frowned, not following her jealous logic.

"Practically all the land those Hix brothers own was once part of the original Lawson homestead. She only married him to get her hands on that land. You know how much she hates it that Lane and I have River Bend. Now she's going to see that we don't get our hands on any more of the family's former holdings."

"I see." It made sense to him. It was just the sort of twisted little plan Abbie would come up with. He knew just how eaten up with jealousy she was. Rachel was the reason Abbie had refused to marry him and destroyed everything good they had; now she was the reason Abbie had married Hix. "The stupid little fool," MacCrea muttered to himself.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing." Absently he shook his head, not wanting to believe the news. She was married now. He tried to tell himself that he was well rid of her, and all her stupid jealousies and hatred. He could almost convince himself of that. Almost.

Chapter 30

Abbie waited until the second week in January to go to the doctor and obtain a medical confirmation of her pregnancy. When she told Dobie, he was ecstatic. He insisted they go over to her mother's house and tell her the good news. His absolute joy when he told Babs and Ben was almost more than Abbie could cope with. At the first opportunity, she escaped from the living room and slipped into the kitchen on the pretext of making coffee.

Ben came in. "Are you not feeling well?"

"I'm fine," she insisted impatiently, tired of all the questions about her health. She had answered too many of Dobie's already. From the living room came the sound of his laughter, rich with jubilance, but it just irritated Abbie more. "Listen to him. I never dreamed he would be so proud and happy."

"It is a wonderful thing to be having a baby."

"Yes, but the way he's acting you'd think he was the father."

"Is that not what you wanted him to think?"

For a fraction of a second she paused, then hurriedly pried the lid off the coffee canister. "Yes." But she wondered how MacCrea would react if he knew about the baby—whether he'd be bursting at the seams the way Dobie was. But she'd never know, because he wouldn't find out about it. That's the way she wanted it—for herself and the baby.

Later that night, Abbie lay in the double bed with her back to Dobie. She knew he wasn't asleep. He was like a little boy on Christmas Eve, too excited about Santa's impending arrival to close his eyes. She felt the mattress shift under his weight as he turned toward her. His hand moved over the top of the covers to touch her arm.

"Please, Dobie, I'm tired." She couldn't bear the thought of him making demands on her tonight.

"I know, honey. I was just thinking that from now on you need to take it a little easier."

"Yes." She didn't feel like talking, certainly not about the baby anymore.

"I've already told your mother that she'll have to find somebody else to help her with the parties 'cause you won't be able to."

Stunned by his announcement Abbie rolled over to face him in the darkness. "You did what?"

Ever since they'd gotten married, he'd been hinting that it wasn't necessary for her to work anymore. She was his wife now, and she should be content to stay at home and cook and keep house for him. He'd give her whatever spending money she needed. Considering the way he squeezed a dollar, Abbie knew that wouldn't be much. For the most part, she had simply ignored him, believing that in time, he'd get used to the idea of his wife working.

"I told her you couldn't work like that anymore and stay up 'til all hours of the night at those parties. You need your rest now. And tomorrow you'd better call the owners of those horses you've been keeping here and tell them to come get them."

"I will do no such thing! The Scottsdale Show is less than three weeks away, and I've promised two of the owners that I'll show their horses there. It's one of the biggest Arabian horse shows in the whole country. And I've worked long and hard to get these horses ready for it. The stalls have already been reserved, the entry fees have been paid, and a hauler has already been lined up to take them there. Even if I could find somebody else qualified to show them at this date, I wouldn't."

"You aren't really taking off to Arizona for two weeks and leaving me here alone? You're my wife now." Even in the shadowed darkness of the bedroom his disbelieving frown was visible.

"Yes, I am going. You knew all along I planned to," she reminded him. "You're welcome to come." But she doubted that he'd be willing to leave the farm for that length of time—or spend the money to go.

"But with a baby on the way, you shouldn't be bouncing around on those horses."

"In the first place, Dobie Hix, I don't bounce. And in the second, I'm not going to quit working with the horses—or my mother. So you might as well get that out of your head right now.”

"I'm only thinking of you. You need to stay home and take care of yourself," he argued.

"No, I don't," she stated emphatically. "I am a normal, healthy woman who is pregnant. It isn't an illness, Dobie. As a matter of fact, the doctor said that as long as I exercise and eat sensibly, everything should be fine. Until he tells me differently, I'm going to keep working. Besides, I'd go stark, raving crazy if I had to sit around this farmhouse day in and day out." That was the truth, but she hadn't meant for it to come out so harshly. "And there's Ben to consider. Those horses are his source of income."

"He could always work for me on the farm."

Abbie knew Ben would hate that. "If he couldn't work with horses, I think he'd die. They're his life, just like this farm is to you."

Dobie rolled onto his back and stared at the textured ceiling, his frustration almost palpable. "I swear I just don't understand you sometimes, Abbie," he muttered. "What are people going to think? You're my wife, and here you are working—and gallivanting all over the country."

"I don't care what they think. I'm going to keep working, and that's final. I don't want to discuss it anymore." She turned on her side and punched the pillow into shape, then lay her head on it and determinedly closed her eyes. When he started to say something, she cut him off with a sharp "Good night, Dobie."

But the topic became a running argument between them. At one point Dobie reminded her that he owned the farm, and if he didn't want horses on it, that's the way it was going to be. Abbie had quickly pointed out that he had signed a legal agreement, leasing her the barn area and pasture. And if he chose not to renew the lease when it expired in seven more months, then she'd find somewhere else to keep the horses.

When he brought up the parties, she asked him exactly how he expected her to pay the stud fee to have River Breeze bred in the spring. Was he going to give her the ten or twenty thousand dollars it was going to cost—plus boarding and transportation expenses? In his opinion, it was a stupid waste of money.

The situation between them didn't improve when he saw all the cocktail and evening dresses she was packing to take to Scottsdale. She was supposed to be going to a horse show. Abbie tried to explain to him about the gala parties that were an integral part of the Scottsdale Show scene. But he didn't think his wife should be going to parties—not even with Ben as her escort. By the time she set out to drive to Arizona with Ben, she and Dobie were just barely on speaking terms.

In Arabian horse circles, the Scottsdale Show at Paradise Park was considered one of the most prestigious, and some claimed expensive, shows in the country and the premier sales arena in the nation. The giant parking lot next to the show grounds was jammed with horse trailers and vans bearing license plates from all four points of the compass, from as far away as Canada. The trailers ranged in size from a simple single-horse trailer to luxury models capable of hauling six horses with room left over for living quarters.

Arriving a day before the show actually started, Abbie and Ben checked into an inexpensive motel a couple of miles from the park, her small single room a vast change from the plush condo she had usually stayed in when she had attended the show with her father. But many things had changed in her life.

The first two days of the show were hectic ones, getting the horses settled in, clipped, and groomed, with more exhibitors arriving all the time, florists delivering huge potted plants to various stables to aid in the transformation of common stalls into showcases, and carpenters and electricians swarming all over the place like so many flies in a barn. Outside the main show ring, the bazaar area was growing as more booths opened for business, selling everything from syndicate shares to fried ice cream, horse tack to mink coats, and oil paintings to tee shirts.

But those first days were fun days, too, for Abbie. At every turn, she ran into someone she knew. All of them had heard about her father's death, and the subsequent sale of River Bend and its Arabian stock, but it didn't seem to matter to them. They were glad to see her, glad to see she was still competing, even if it wasn't on horses her family owned.

After competing in a late afternoon class, her first in the show, Abbie telephoned the horse's owners and informed them that their mare had made it through the first elimination round, then grabbed her dress bag and overnight case and hurried over to the ladies' shower trailers to get cleaned up. Desert Farm Arabians was holding an aisle party that evening to present their stallion, Radzyn. Abbie was anxious to attend and see the stallion that she regarded as a top choice for her young mare.

When she saw the striking blood bay stallion, he was all she had hoped he would be and more. Despite the crowd that had gathered around him, partially blocking her view, she was impressed by his regal arrogance as he stood with his head held high and his ebony tail flagged.

"What do you think of him, Ben?" She glanced at the elderly man beside her, still wearing his same serviceable tweed jacket. His one concession to the party had been the tie he added.

He studied the horse critically. "He does not have the classic jibbah I would like to see," he said, using the term that referred to the prominent forehead, a distinctive feature on an Arabian horse.

"Breeze does. And Radzyn has the level croup and well-sloped shoulders. Breeze has the classic features, the long hip and short back. Where Radzyn is weak, she's strong—and vice versa. They should make a good nick, I think."

Slow to make up his mind, Ben finally nodded. "I think so, too."

"Good. That much is decided anyway." She hooked an arm with his, her dress sleeve of scarlet silk jacquard at odds with his worn tweed sleeve with its suede elbow patch. The other guests were wearing everything from tee shirts and jeans to sables and Gucci. "Now all we have to figure out is how we're going to pay the stud fee. They want fifteen thousand for a live foal guarantee or ten thousand without it."