New Way to Fly (17 page)

She smiled mistily at him and reached out to ca
ress him, drawn by the thrusting hardness of him, aching with need. At her touch he groaned and lowered himself against her. His hand moved down the length of her body and became more purposeful, his fingers feathering against her with a gentle sweet insistence that warmed her, opened her, roused her to an intensity of desire that she was afraid she might not be able to endure.

But he seemed to know when the feelings became unbearable and paused in his tender caresses, moving his hand aside and drawing her into a warm curving embrace, then arching above her and entering her body so gently and with such confident ease that she gasped, stunned by the way he felt inside her, the wonderfully satisfying richness of his body filling and covering her own.

“Brock,” she murmured against his throat. “Oh, God, it feels…” She moved slowly beneath him, searching for the words to tell him how she felt.

“What, darling?” he asked, covering her mouth with his own, murmuring against her lips. “What does it feel like?”

“Like heaven. Like nothing I ever…Oh, God…”

And then there were no words, no thoughts, nothing but pounding rich sensation and a soaring flight that carried her so high she was frightened, lost, unsure of where she was being taken or how she would ever find herself again.

A last she felt a shattering wave of pure pleasure, then a throbbing aftermath of fulfillment, of gentle quivering happiness that ebbed through her body in ancient tides, shifting and lapping quietly onto some distant sun-washed shore.

Slowly Amanda returned to herself, became aware of the man who lay silent and content in her arms, of the soft blanket against her bare skin and the leaves rustling overhead, of the distant bellows of the bulls down at their crowded water trough.

She stroked Brock's rich dark hair, but her mind was already troubled as he began to stir and murmur in her arms.

What have I done?
Amanda thought, gripping him tightly and staring with blind panic at the cloudless arching sapphire of that calm Texas sky.
Oh, dear God, what have I done?

M
ARY
G
IBSON MOVED
quietly through the visitors' room, looking trim and attractive in a tailored rust-colored jumpsuit that brightened the highlights in her hair. She wore a skillful touch of makeup and dainty gold earrings, and her slim waist was accentuated by a wide belt of tan leather.

Her husband sat at one of the tables waiting for her, gripping a stained coffee mug. When Mary approached the table he stood clumsily and pulled out a chair for her, dropping his hand onto her shoulder in a brief awkward caress before he sank back into his own chair.

“You look so pretty, Mary,” he said wistfully. “All them new clothes of yours, they sure do make a world of difference.”

Mary smiled at him. “I know. I should have done this years ago, Al. I'm just ashamed that I needed a city girl to come along and teach me how to look after myself.”

He nodded, falling silent as the young woman at
the next table burst into a noisy storm of tears and her husband dragged his chair around the table, then leaned close to her and whispered urgently in her ear.

Al cleared his throat awkwardly and glanced at his wife across the table. “I guess things back home aren't any better, Mary?” he ventured, echoing her own gloomy thoughts.

Mary looked up at him, trying to smile. “Not much better, Al,” she agreed dryly. “In fact, now there's a deadline.”

He shifted nervously in his chair. “A deadline?”

“The end of November. Cody says that by the end of November, I have to present him with a financial plan for the next two years. He wants me to show him how I intend to double the income of the ranch, or he'll have to call in the notes.”

Al Gibson stared at his wife, aghast. “
Double
the income? Mary, he can't be serious.”

“Oh, he's serious, all right,” Mary said grimly. “And I can't do it,” she added, her voice taking on a note of despair for the first time. “Al, I just can't
do
it. I've been over the damned books a hundred times, tried every way I could think of to cut costs and increase productivity, but unless beef prices go sky-high, it's just not going to be possible.”

“Well, then, I guess we have to live with that,” Al said gently, taking her hand. “We can just go
ahead the way I told you, sell the place an' let you move away, back up to Connecticut.”

“I don't know why you're so all-fired anxious for me to move to Connecticut,” Mary said, keeping her voice deliberately tart so she wouldn't break down and cry. “Are you that sick of the sight of me, Al, that you need for me to be thousands of miles away?”

He gazed at her, appalled, his eyes suspiciously moist. “God, Mary, don't say things like that,” he whispered huskily. “These visits of yours, they mean the whole world to me. You're the sunshine in my sky these days, girl. In fact, it took a while in this place for me to understand what matters, but now I know what I've thrown away an' just what a fool I've been. Wherever you go, Mary, I'm gonna be followin' after you as soon as I can, beggin' you to take me back.”

Mary stared at him across the table, unable to hold back the tears any longer. “Oh, Al,” she murmured, her heart breaking. “Oh, Al, I don't know what to say.”

“Don't say anythin',” he told her, taking a tissue from the pocket of his prison trousers and reaching over to dab clumsily at her cheeks. “Don't say a word. I got no right to talk like that to you, girl, an' I won't do it anymore. You just go ahead an' live
your life, an' try to find some happiness. I caused you enough misery for one lifetime.”

Mary nodded and swallowed hard, still reluctant to trust her voice but anxious to steer their conversation out of these treacherous personal depths. “About the ranch,” she said finally, drawing a sheaf of papers from her handbag. “I brought these balance sheets, Al, and I thought you could go over them with me, see if you can think of anything I've missed that might squeeze a few more dollars out of the place.”

He nodded his shaggy graying head and took a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of his blue shirt. With the steel-framed glasses in place he looked older and more vulnerable than ever. Mary's heart began to ache all over again.

“There's no hired help there anymore?” he asked, glancing at her over the rims of the glasses.

Mary shook her head. “A couple of them left right after you…went away. And the others I had to let go. I just couldn't pay their wages, Al.”

“And young Luke, here—” Al tapped the papers “—he just works for free?”

Mary shifted uncomfortably and felt her cheeks growing warm. “Just for room and board and some pocket money on weekends. He needed a place to live, and I—”

“Vern was up last weekend,” Al interrupted, his
blue eyes fixed steadily on his wife's face. “He says there's some gossip around town about you an' Luke.”

Mary stared, appalled, and felt herself growing even more hot and flustered. “That's just…that's just so ridiculous!” she burst out angrily. “Luke and me…oh, Al, you
have
to know that there's never been one single—”

“It don't matter, Mary,” he interrupted quietly. “It don't matter at all. But Vern made me realize how it feels.” Al gave her a small wintry smile. “It sure don't feel good, Mary, knowin' people are gossipin' about your wife an' some guy who's twenty-five years younger. An' I guess it didn't feel no better for you, did it? What I did, it was a real terrible thing, Mary. I don't think I even realized until Vern told me that, just how awful it was. But now I do. An' I'm just so sorry.”

Mary brushed at her tears again and reached out to grip his hand, holding it tightly in both her own. Her knuckles whitened with the pressure, and her old wedding ring shone dull gold beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.

 

T
HE COUNTRYSIDE
swam by, bathed in late-afternoon sunlight that was blurred by Mary's tears. She couldn't seem to get her conversation with Al out of her mind. Or the gentle way they'd passed the time
before she left, sitting quietly together in a silence that said more than words.

She couldn't remember the last time they'd shared one of those long eloquent silences, each understanding and accepting the other, knowing without words what the partner was feeling. Mary realized that this deep communion was a feeling she'd missed terribly in recent years.

She gripped the steering wheel and swerved to avoid a raccoon scuttling across the driving lane. Mary brought her little car back under control and drove on, smiling grimly at the irony of her situation.

There'd been a time when she and Al had everything a couple could wish for. The whole community had envied their solid thirty-year marriage, their beautiful daughter and bright happy grandchildren, their big prosperous ranching operation and warm circle of friends.

Now, all that had turned to dust and ashes, crumbling in their hands and blowing away on the wind like a scattered handful of dried flower petals. Yet somehow today a new spark of intimacy had emerged, small and tremulous, incredibly fragile but nonetheless real.

But what could they hope for? Mary thought in despair. They had to sell their ranch, she would have to find another place to live, and what would happen to her husband? Would he join her when he was
released from prison, living with her in some small city apartment, walking down to the corner store in the morning to buy milk and pick up a newspaper?

She couldn't imagine her husband in a setting like that. Bubba Gibson, the good ol' boy, the rancher and cowboy and colorful local character, was not a man to be confined to a few rooms in the city.

Mary's gentle face twisted in bitter frustration and she pounded her gloved hand against the wheel.

Why did she feel so guilty? Why had everything somehow fallen to
her,
the need to save the marriage and the ranch and her husband's happiness? Al was the one who'd made the mistakes, been unfaithful, even broken the law in his own wild urge to grab some fleeting image of youth and sexual excitement. So why was Mary left feeling responsible?

Throughout her married life, Mary Gibson had wielded little power of any kind. Her husband had made the decisions, and though they usually discussed the important issues, it was understood that Al's word would ultimately be law. Mary had been coddled, protected, shielded from the harsh realities of life, but she had also learned very little about the workings of the ranch and its financial affairs, and even less about the hidden mysteries of her husband's private mind.

Now, suddenly, everything rested on her shoulders. Mary Gibson was apparently the only person
able to make decisions, to take charge and determine the course of events for all the future. Trouble was, she hadn't the faintest idea of how to go about it.

She felt a sudden wistful longing for Amanda, for the young woman's proud independent spirit. Mary knew that Amanda had problems of her own, that sometimes her lovely blue eyes were full of doubts and even fears. Still, Amanda Walker represented a new kind of woman, a person fully able to take charge of her life and make firm decisions all on her own.

I wish she lived closer to me,
Mary thought in despair.
I wish I could talk to her more often. Oh God, I wish…

Suddenly Mary's mind began to whirl and her eyes widened in amazement. She braked and lurched to a halt on the grassy shoulder of the road.

In the field beside her, three ostriches ran along the fence line, their heads erect, wide short beaks extended, heavy legs lifting and pumping in a flowing rhythm that seemed elegant and almost ethereal out here on the treed plains of west central Texas.

Mary stared wildly around at the passing cars and trucks, wondering if they saw anything unusual or if she was just imagining the huge birds. But the traffic rolled by at a steady rate while Mary sat alone, staring into the field.

She wasn't imagining them. She couldn't be.
They'd even paused now, right beside her car, and were looking over at her with a gentle curiosity, so close that she could see their huge bright eyes, their thick dark eyelashes. The male was richly iridescent, with black and white feathers that glittered in the waning light. His head towered eight feet in the air, proud and arrogant next to the smaller dun-colored females who stood nearby.

The ostrich gazed at Mary for a while longer, then turned, gathered the females and started off at a brisk stiff-kneed walk. Soon they broke into their elegant rocking gallop once more, while the male glanced back over his shoulder at Mary's parked car.

Dry-mouthed and shaking, consumed with a pounding excitement that she couldn't begin to understand, Mary shifted into gear, drove back onto the highway and pulled off at the next exit. She drove up a winding approach road, over a hill and into a dense stand of trees, following the swaying bodies of the three ostriches in the distance.

 

“W
HO'S THAT
?”
Edward asked, following Amanda's gaze as she smiled and waved at a pair of couples in a corner alcove.

“J. T. McKinney and his wife, she's the pregnant one, and Vern and Carolyn Trent,” Amanda said. “Vern's a local realtor, and Carolyn is J. T. McKinney's sister-in-law. At least she used to be, because
her sister was J.T.'s first wife, but now he's married to—”

“Spare me,” Edward said dryly. “I'll never master all these local intricacies, Angel.”

Amanda nodded and smiled automatically at the white-shirted waiter who delivered their meals. Then she returned to her examination of her dinner companion.

She and Edward were dining at the Crystal Creek Country Club after spending a day at the races. In this quiet elegant setting, Edward was at his best, tanned and trim, lounging with easy grace in one of the shining antique chairs. He was dressed casually but still looked impeccable in his pleated corduroys and soft cashmere pullover.

“I do recognize your friend Beverly and her boyfriend,” he added, nodding courteously at the slim blond woman who entered and sat at a table near the other two couples, followed by a cheerful young man who grinned boyishly over at Amanda and her escort.

Amanda waved again, then turned back to Edward.

“I should have mentioned that. Carolyn is Beverly's mother,” she said. “And her boyfriend, Jeff Harris, is the brother of the man who bought the—”

Edward groaned and clapped a hand to his forehead in mock despair. “
Please,
Angel,” he said. “I just can't take it all in. If you must do this, at least
introduce me to these people one at a time and let me try to memorize the names.”

Amanda nodded, turning her attention to the meal in front of her.

“I
despise
Mexican food,” Edward announced, staring gloomily at his plate. “I wish I hadn't let you talk me into this.”

“Oh, just eat it,” Amanda told him with a sudden impatient edge to her voice. “It's really delicious, Edward,” she added, smiling in quick apology for her brusqueness. “The kitchen here is wonderful.”