Surrender to Love (32 page)

“I should throw you out of my home for the disturbance you have caused,” she snapped.

Michael rolled his eyes in exasperation and gestured helplessly.  Was the whole world against him tonight?

“I’m sorry,” he amended with forced patience.  “I need to talk to her.”

Crossing her eyes, Marta eyed him critically.

“I am not so sure I want to risk you hurting her further,” she decided.  “Sabine has been in there for the better part of an hour crying her heart out over this entire situation.  I
thought you would have the good sense to give her the reason why she must leave.  She thinks it is because you have tired of her.  Because she has no money.  Because she is not a white woman.”

Those last words slapped him hard in the face, and Michael gaped at Marta in disbelief.

“She said
what?”

“I do not believe I have an impairment in my speech,” Marta replied in clipped tones
as she moved from the door.  “But if chooses to speak with you, you may go in.”

She walked away, leaving Michael to stare blankly at the door.  How could Sabine even think those things?  That he didn’t want her? 
Hadn’t he shown her, told her enough time for her to believe him?

But that she didn’t have money?  That she wasn’t
white?
  Where the hell had she come up with those ideas?  Not once had he given her cause to believe any of those things?

He didn’t give a damn about money or color or any of the other rules society revolved around.

He wanted
her,
plain and simple.

The hinges opened without much protest, and Michael slid unobtrusively
into the room, swallowing the lump in his throat as his gaze settled on her.  She lay curled in the corner of one of the settees, her shoulders shaking from the muted sobs that barely reached his ears.

He stood there – paralyzed – watching her as guilt stabbed repeatedly at his insides.  Would it always be this way?  Would he be forever hurting her?  Always crushing those hopes and dreams she refused to reveal for fear they’d be wrenched away and crushed to bits?

Would she be willing to give him one more chance to make it all up to her?

“Sabine, I – “

“Go away,” she said flatly, not bothering to look up at him.  Michael sat down beside her, his hand resting between her shoulder blades, his thumb hesitantly smoothing an imaginary wrinkle in her red calico dress.

“I just thought you deserved to hear the explanation I tried to give you earlier,” he said quietly.  “And I’d like to know why you’re so afraid to return to the States.”

“It’s none of your business,” she shot out, brushing his hand from her forcefully as she straightened.  “And I don’t care what you have to say, Mr. Pierson, for I’m sure everything would be lies.”

“Look,”
Michael began wearily as she crossed to the door, “why is it when I try to explain myself, you take it in your head to shut me out?  Just like at the party.  You don’t listen, Sabine.  You hear only what you want to hear.”

“I do, too, listen,” she shouted in denial, turning back to him.  “You don’t understand.”

“If you gave me a chance, I just might.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she replied, her words dripping with biting sarcasm.  “Pity the poor mulatto
girl and listen to her problems for a while.  Pretend you care.  Of course, that’s after you’ve taken everything there is from her.  Don’t make me look like a complete fool, Michael.”

“You’re not,” he said tiredly, holding his head in his hands.

He realized the entire confrontation was pointless.  She wasn’t going to listen, and he wasn’t going to continue to beat his head against the wall.  He was going to tell her, and then she could decide whether or not to believe him.

“I killed a man, Sabine,” he spoke, his raspy words subdued as they carried in the weighty stillness that fell over them.  “It was an accident, and it was in self-defense.  Unfortunately, he had some friends, and they didn’
t seem too thrilled by the decision handed down by the sheriff in Lawrence, Kansas.

“They tracked me as far as here, and I want you gone before something happens.  I can’t bear to even imagine what they’d do if they found you with me.  Just the thought of you makes me sick.”

Michael drew a breath and waited for a response, but his expectation was only met with the same silence as before.  Couldn’t she just say something – anything – to let him know that she had heard?  Give him some sort of sign that she understood the painful indecision that ripped through him whenever he thought of losing her?

“Are you finished?” Sabine finally asked, her manner distant, almost unbearably cold.  “I’d at least think you could come up with a better
lie than that.  You sound like a serial in a ladies periodical.”

“Sabine – “

His voice broke as he called out her name desperately.

But she left him, the solitary click of the door separating them forever, and Michael leaned into his hands and wept.  Wept for himself.  Wept for the future he would never have – the future  he had counted on having when this whole mess was cleared up and Sabine was back in his arms for a lifetime.

Dammit, everything was wrong.  The world was wrong.  Life was wrong.  He was wrong.

And none of it even mattered anymore.

“Michael?”

Enrique’s inquiry came from the doorway hesitantly, and Michael merely remained where he was, his hands hiding the shame of his weakness as the tears continued to seep through the tightened lids of his eyes.

“She thinks I’m lying,” he said raggedly, and a half-hearted laugh of disbelief escaped him.  “I need you to get her out of the country.  I don’t care how you do it, or where she goes, but you’ve got to get her out of here.  Take everything I’ve got – the house, the land.  Advance me on my wages if you need to.  Just get  her some place safe.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Yes, I can tell you where he is.”

The man was obscured by darkness, but the moonlight glinted ominously off the gold of the ruby ring he wore on his left hand.

“Well,” the wiry man prompted impatiently through his moustache as he leaned against the wall and kicked the alley muck from his boot heels.

“About ten miles south of here,” the man in the shadows instructed.  “But I advise you not to ride hard.  The way is rough and your horses will go lame.”

The small, lean man grunted in agreement and shifted his weight against the crumbling wall.

“He has a girl with him now,” came the heavily laced, practiced Castilian accent.  “A mulatto with green eyes.  If you want to get to him, use the girl
.  He will do anything for her.”

The American gave a short laugh as he drew his pistol and inspected the smooth, ivory grips closely, his fingers obscenely stroking the length of the barrel.

“Well, I s’pose me and the boys can find a number of uses for any woman of Pierson’s.”

The Cuban took a long draw on the lit
cigarrito
he held, its smoke curling into the pale moonlight, and said, “I hope you finally manage to put the little whore in her place, and rid the face of this earth of Michael Pierson once and for all.  I am tired of the carrying on about him by the woman who now shares my bed.”

“You won’t have a thing to worry about.  I intend to see that justice is finally served,” the American said without a hint of emotion, and slipped into the Havana darkness.

XXX

Sabine stood at the window, her fingers crushing against the plush velvet of the burgundy draperies as she blankly looked past the decorative ironwork that protected the
glass panes, and onto the lush greenery that enshrouded the white-washed brick home.

She should have been deliriously happy to be in Havana, free from the gripping fear that had torn at her insides whenever she thought of having to return to New Orleans; in fact, she had thrown her arms around Marta’s neck in gratitude when the older woman had opened her city residence to her.

“I will not,” Marta had whispered conspiratorially in her ear, “tell a soul where you are.”

Sabine thought the secrecy odd at first, especially when she overhead Marta
Luís that “their ship” would be departing in the morning, but her brain had been too jumbled with other concerns and anxieties to worry about such things; for a full twenty-four hours she drifted through a fog of nonexistence – as though everything around her was no more than a stage play that she had concocted in her sleep.  Real, but not
really
real.  Imagined, yet far too tangible to be a dream.

That had been three weeks ago.

Now she was here, and she ought to feel safe for she was free from Troy’s claim on her and the insidious lies Michael had so audaciously expected her to believe.

Vigilantes, indeed.  How much of a gullible fool did he think she was?

But still, no matter how hard she wanted to fight or ignore it – no matter how hard she tried to hate him – the sick, empty feeling that settled in her stomach stubbornly refused to dissipate.  Desperately she missed the home she had come to think of as hers…the lovely things Michael had given her…

Michael.

Oh, God she missed him most of all.  The way he looked at her, the way he made her laugh.  How many times had she found herself thinking of him over these past weeks as the idleness of her existence pressed at her anxious mind?  How often had she caught herself pondering how she had heartlessly called him a liar and walked out as though he weren’t even fit to share the same room with her?

Sabine blinked back the tears that settled in the corners of her eyes as she turned back to the library.  She
should
have been happy with all the lovely stories and needlepoint projects she had at her disposal, and the extravagant garden party she had attended yesterday afternoon…and even the three fancy gowns Marta had sent – including a seamstress to assure perfect fits.

She should have been happy – but she wasn’t.

Another woman might have snatched up the rich offers without so much as a second thought.  A regular Cinderella, they would have said, complete with the generous affections of a fairy godmother whose guise came in the form of a tiny, elderly Spanish woman.

Only, Sabine didn’t care much for those dreams anymore.  They were simply the senseless wishing of a ridiculous schoolgirl who refused to believe that dreams never really did come true, and life wasn’t made of princes and happily-ever-
afters.

Hadn’t she seen to that already with her
cutting words and stifling silence?

Sabine rubbed away the chills of guilt that crept up her arms and settled uncomfortably in her heart.

Michael’s words…

Inklings of doubt pricked her conscience, and her memory brought forth his troubled image the night he had walked out.  Defeated.  His voice imploring her to believe, to have faith in him.

She had nearly laughed in his face.

A liar would not have come to her so plainly, his voice breaking with emotion as he told his story.  A liar would not have demanded she listen, chastising her for ignoring his pleas. 
A liar would have just let her walk away without so much as a word to hold her back.

But he
was
a liar…wasn’t he?

Sabine wasn’t quite so sure anymore.

XXX

The red and white heifer calf had been off her feed for over two weeks now, and nothing Michael did could convince the stubborn cuss to eat.  Maybe if he persuaded Sabine to set aside those breakfast dishes for a few minutes to come out and…

“Damn,” he muttered curtly and rested his head on his forearms, shutting his eyes against the realization that swept his thoughts aside.

Why couldn’t his mind just accept she was gone?  She was not inside.  Sh
e not finishing the breakfast dishes.  She wasn’t
there.
  And she wasn’t going to be there ever again.

Angrily he scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt, idly kicking at the stall slats as he bit back another curse.  There were days he wished he had never laid eyes on her in the first place; never saw the
frightened girl who had managed to run off with his heart and any semblance of dignity he had.  He had
never
shed tears for a woman in his life – not even close – and in the short span of a few months – Sabine had managed to reduce him to a blubbering idiot.

But he missed her, and every time he found a new reasons to be glad she was gone, two new ones pushed their way into his consciousness, contradicting his rejection of her as they boldly reminded
him of the way she looked, the way she felt.  There were even nights he had dreamed of her soft touch against his chest…the brush of her lips on the curve of her jaw.  And when the feeling jerked him to awareness, he was alone – left in the darkness with an emptiness in his heart that reached to his very core.