Texas Homecoming (25 page)

She didn’t want it to stop.

She wanted to consume Cade’s body just as he consumed hers, but she was powerless to divert his attention from her breasts. He tortured one nipple with his teeth and tongue while he lightly pinched the other between his fingers. She ran her fingers through his hair, digging her nails into his scalp as the sensations rocking her body caused her to arch off the bed. She pushed against his shoulders, struggled to escape the sweet torture, hoping he would never let her go.

During one of the times her body rose off the bed, Cade pulled her nightgown down to her waist. The feel of the
night air on her moist nipples caused them to turned marble hard. But Cade didn’t notice. He was too busy kissing the curve of each rib.

And sliding her nightgown under her hips until she lay naked before him.

The suddenness of it startled her. It seemed only moments ago that he had stepped through the door into her room, much too short a time for her to have allowed him to undress her. Yet she lay before him, her body entirely exposed.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, “even more beautiful than I imagined.”

She didn’t feel beautiful. She felt awkward. All her life she’d been told that personal modesty was the supreme virtue, that no part of her body could ever be exposed to a man’s gaze. She’d been forced to conceal herself behind doors, curtains, even traveling in a stifling closed carriage. She had always been forced to remain out of sight when strangers came to the house. She loved Cade, but the change was too great, too abrupt. The heat that had warmed her body began to fade. She felt herself grow stiff, begin to withdraw.

“Are you cold?”

She didn’t know how to explain what she felt, so she nodded her head.

He pulled a sheet over her body and leaned on his elbow. “I went too fast.”

She felt him begin to pull away, and that stopped her withdrawal. She didn’t want him to leave. She needed his presence, his touch, the reaffirmation she was beautiful, that
he loved her.
She reached up and cupped his cheek in her palm. “Hold me, and I won’t be cold.”

He put his arms around her and pulled her close. She
put her hand against his chest, pushed her fingers through the sprinkling of light brown hair in the center. She nuzzled his neck as he gently placed kiss after kiss in her hair.

“Take off the rest of your clothes and get under the sheet with me.”

She didn’t know where she’d found the courage to say that. She just knew she wanted to feel as close to him as possible.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The cold returned when he withdrew from her, but it was the cold of separation, not of fear. It didn’t last long. Cade could hardly have removed his pants more quickly if he’d used magic. He opened his arms to her, and she moved quickly into his embrace. The feel of his bare skin against hers restored the heat to her body. The evidence of his arousal, freed from restraint and pressing insistently against her thigh, turned up the heat in her. “Hold me close.”

“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

He was already holding her tight, but it wasn’t enough. She placed his hand on her back and pushed her body against his entire length, but that still didn’t give her the feeling she wanted. She felt herself growing more agitated as she sought a closer joining with him.

Cade’s hand moved down her back, over her bottom, across her thigh, and between her legs. Instinctively she drew back, opened to him. She heard herself moan softly when his finger entered her, felt her body tense as he gently stroked her. Yet even as the waves of pleasure began to lap at the edges of her senses, as the heat coiled in her belly began to loosen and spread throughout her body, she knew this wasn’t enough. It was wonderful, exciting, and her body yearned for more, but somehow it wasn’t enough.

Gradually the waves of pleasure overcame the sense of incompleteness, rendering her incapable of feeling anything but the sweet agony that made every part of her ache deliciously. She moaned softly, breathing hard as if she were running a race. Then with a suddenness that caught her by surprise, the sweet ache crested into intense pleasure and flowed through her like water cascading over a fall.

Pilar collapsed against the bed, her muscles spent, her breath slowing. Gradually her sense of being connected to the external world returned and she realized Cade was above her, entering her again, but this time she had to stretch to accommodate him. She heard him gasp softly as he entered her fully, heard her answering moan.

She had found all that was missing.

She felt joined with Cade. She felt complete.

Now, as the currents of pleasure began to pulse in her body, she sensed the same feelings building in Cade. When she moaned or gasped for air, she heard him do the same. The knowledge that she could give him as much pleasure as he gave her awakened a new sense of power in her. She was no longer merely the recipient, no longer waiting for a male to make her complete. She was a partner, equally capable of reducing Cade to the same state of uncontrolled, mindless, nerveless ecstasy she had enjoyed only moments earlier.

She joined eagerly in the building of the passion that united their bodies more deeply in its spiral with each passing moment. She clung to him, moved with him, covered his face with kisses. She wanted to become part of him, to feel absorbed by him, wrapped in his embrace, protected from the world by him. As the pulse of shared passion coiled through them, she achieved a feeling of oneness that answered all her longings.

And with that came the peak, complete surrender, a falling open and away. But she had fallen into Cade’s arms, and that was where she wanted to stay.

Pilar had made the most momentous decision of her life. She would marry Cade. She didn’t know what she would do about Laveau, but somehow she would find an answer. Maybe she would ride out and find him, convince him it was better to go away and never come back. She could send him half the income from the ranch.

She had awakened to find herself in Cade’s arms. The initial shock had given way to indescribable happiness, a feeling of peace and well-being unlike anything she had ever known. Everything felt right, all her doubts resolved, all her worries pushed aside. Everything would be okay as long as she loved Cade and he loved her. She was certain that would last forever.

“You’ve got to go back to your own room,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Because my grandmother might come in here any minute.”

“That will be a good time to tell her you’re not going to marry Manuel.”

“There will never be a good time for that. Now move. I’ve got to start breakfast, or your friends will be banging on my door as well.”

She pushed him through the door into his room, laughing so loudly she feared her grandmother would hear. She thought of checking on her but decided against it. She was already late.

She had herself under control by the time the men came to the table, but she found it nearly impossible to contain her emotions once Cade entered the room. Owen noticed
it immediately. “Do I notice a thaw in the atmosphere?” he asked, his gaze focusing on Pilar.

“We’ve decided to call a truce,” Cade said. “Some things take time to figure out.”

“And just when did you decide this? It wasn’t by chance after we all went to bed, was it?”

“I can’t say,” Pilar said, “not being aware of when you go to bed. Would you like more coffee?”

“You haven’t come to any secret agreements, have you?” Nate asked.

“We’ve come to no agreements you need to know about,” Cade said. “Now if you boys have finished eating, we have cows to brand.”

Cade had managed to be the last to leave the room. “I love you,” he whispered before he left. “Always remember that.”

She hadn’t thought of anything else all morning. In fact, she was so preoccupied, she was late with her grandmother’s breakfast. Her grandmother had clung to the same habits for her entire life. The world around her might go to pieces, but she expected her part of it to stay the same. Pilar put her grandmother’s breakfast on a tray and hurried upstairs with Wheeler at her heels.

Her grandmother opened the door before she could knock twice. She pulled Pilar into the room so quickly she nearly closed the door on the dog.

“Bring more food. Laveau is here, and he has eaten nothing since yesterday.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Pilar’s breath caught in her throat. She was relieved to see Laveau. She had been afraid she would never see him again. Yet she knew his return would destroy any chance for peace between the two families.

Laveau grabbed the tray from her. “How do you expect our grandmother to survive on so little, especially when you don’t bring it until nearly noon?”

Her reaction was immediate and unmistakable. She resented his arrogance, felt anger that he spoke to her as though she were a servant. She swallowed her anger. She hadn’t been hiding out for the last several days, as he had, most likely hungry and miserably uncomfortable. She hadn’t been afraid for her life. He had a right to be upset.

She held out her arms and walked toward her brother. “I’m so glad you’re home. Grandmother and I have been praying for your return.”

Laveau ignored her welcome, concentrating on eating his grandmother’s breakfast as quickly as he could stuff it
into his mouth. “Bring me some more food. When I’ve eaten, I’ll tell you what you have to do.”

“When did you get here? How did you get in without anybody seeing you?”

“I said get me something to eat!” he hissed. “Can’t you hear, or has Cade’s treating you like some kind of princess given you an exaggerated sense of your importance?”

Pilar had never really known Laveau well. The lives of men and women in the diViere household converged only at meals and social events, when men consumed most of the attention and dominated all conversation, but Laveau had never shouted at her. He’d ignored her, but even in that there had been a sense of family, of belonging, of the way things were.

Laveau seemed to have forgotten that.

“I can hear you quite well, and I imagine Ivan will hear you, too.”

“Is that fool here?”

“Do you call him a fool because he trusted you enough to tell you where he hid his money?”

“If I hadn’t taken it, someone else would have. The fool kept it in the bottom of his portmanteau.”

“He thought you were his friend.”

“I needed money. The Army didn’t pay us. Half the time we didn’t have anything to eat that we didn’t steal.”

“You must have eaten quite well.”

“War changes men.”

“I’m sure it does, but it doesn’t turn them all into thieves.”

Why was she fighting with her brother? She should be overjoyed he was safe. She should want to celebrate, tell the whole world … but she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell anyone.

“What have you done to her?” Laveau said, turning to his grandmother. “She never used to act like this.”

Pilar’s sympathy froze under the coldness of her brother’s scorn. “I never before had been left alone to run a ranch, driven out of my home and forced to learn to cook for a foul-tempered old man to keep from starving. The war changed me, too.”

“I’ll damned well change you right back.”

“I suppose this is where the part about being treated like a princess comes in. What did you tell him?” she asked her grandmother.

“She told me that you’d agreed to marry Cade Wheeler and give him half this rancho.”

“Grandmother wanted me to pretend I was going to marry him so he would drive out the squatters.”

“What was wrong with that?”

“I don’t like lying.”

“It’s not lying if it’s Wheelers.”

“What’s happened to you? You were never like this before.”

“You change when you discover a man wants to kill you. When you come home to find him sleeping in your bed and preparing to marry your sister, you don’t know who you can trust.”

“You can trust me.”

Immediately she felt guilty for uttering those words. While he’d been sneaking into the hacienda last light, she’d been making love to Cade. While Laveau was waiting for food, she was making up her mind to marry Cade. Now she was thrown back into the same quandary she thought she’d escaped.

“You can prove that by helping me kill Cade.”

“What!” The word exploded from her, driven by shock and fear.

“He says Cade and the others have taken a vow to kill him,” her grandmother said.

“They want justice,” Pilar said. “Cade is an honorable man.”

“That shows how little you know your future husband.”

“He would never betray his friends,” she said.

“I didn’t have any choice. I had to do something that would convince the Union I wasn’t a spy.”

“So you stole your best friend’s money and watched twenty-four of your fellow soldiers die.”

“I was miles away when it happened.”

“How can you admit what you’ve done without being overcome by shame?”

“Shame? Do you think I gave a damn for any of those men? I’d have sacrificed every one of them to see Cade dead. Curse that man! He always did have all the luck.”

“I think his good fortune comes from hard work, attention to detail, and the ability to inspire confidence in those working with him.”

“I don’t care what you call it as long as you help me kill him.”

“I can’t. I won’t.”

“But you must,” her grandmother said. “Only then will Laveau be safe.”

Pilar had been shocked that Laveau could casually consider killing anybody, but she was stunned that her grandmother could feel the same way.

“There are seven men who want to see you face justice.”

“They’ll leave once Cade’s dead.”

“They’ll be even more determined to hang you.”

“I’ll kill them all first.”

“The land isn’t worth the lives of so many men, and I don’t believe you care about it that much. I’ve heard you say it’s more than you could look after.”

“It was my land,” her grandmother said. “It came to your grandfather with my marriage. It belongs to us.”

Pilar couldn’t argue that, she didn’t want to, but it hardly seemed reason enough to warrant so many people dying.

“I can’t help you kill Cade,” she said. “I wouldn’t know how to begin. I wouldn’t do it if I did.”

“Then you’re a traitor.”

“I’ve made no promises to go back on. I’ve betrayed no one. No one has died because of me.”

“Don’t you have any family loyalty?”

“Don’t you preach loyalty to me. I’m not the one who ran off and left two women to fend for themselves. I’m not the one who slunk around, hiding in bushes, afraid for his life, while somebody else protected his grandmother and sister.”

“They would have killed me if I had returned.”

“They’re angry, but I think I could talk them out of it.”

“You know nothing about them.”

“I have worked with them for the past several weeks. They’re all hardworking, honorable men. I like them.”

“They’d all like to kill me.”

“Then I suggest you leave.”

Her words shocked her as much as they obviously shocked her brother and grandmother.

“This is your brother,” her grandmother said. “You owe him your loyalty and your allegiance.”

Pilar could no longer accept this, blind, reasonless loyalty, especially when doing so would result in evil. “I am loyal to him, but will not help him commit murder. I could never look myself in the face again.”

“It is your duty. You must support your family in everything.”

“I support my family, but—”

“There can be no exceptions,” her grandmother said.

“You’re either for me or against me,” Laveau said.

Pilar had never expected that Laveau would draw such a line, but she couldn’t do as he asked.

“If you leave, I’ll send you half of everything we earn,” she told him. “I’ve asked Cade to manage the herd for us. He will sell—”

“You’ve done what!”

“I had to hire somebody. He’s a good rancher. He’s honest, dependable, and—”

“You sound like you’re in love with him.”

She wouldn’t have given herself away if his accusation hadn’t been so unexpected. She knew her flush was undeniable. “Yes, I am in love with him.”

Laveau’s face went cold and hard. She saw the hate-filled expression of a man she didn’t know. “You greedy little bitch! You’ve probably been plotting all along to marry him and keep the whole ranch for yourself. You probably knew I was here and sent somebody to warn Cade. Now you’re keeping me here until he arrives.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, barely able to collect her thoughts in the face of his spewing hatred.

“How is it being ridiculous to suspect my sister when she’s going to marry the man who wants to kill me?”

He came toward her, his expression so violent she almost believed he would kill her. Wheeler was between them in an instant, teeth bared, a growl deep in his throat.

“I’d be careful if I were you. He nearly killed the last man who tried to hurt me.”

“I’ll kill him first.”

Pilar stepped forward to protect Wheeler. “Your quarrel is with me, not the dog.”

“Now that you are here, we can tell Cade to go,” their grandmother said to Laveau.

“You don’t understand,” Laveau shouted. “He means to kill me. I can’t stay unless he’s dead.”

“Then leave before the men come back this evening,” Pilar said.

He looked like he didn’t believe her words. “You would throw your own brother out?”

“Stay if you wish.”

“You’ve got to help me—”

“No! I won’t help Cade find you, but I will have no part in your harming even one of these men. I have no money, but I will prepare some food.”

“Harlot!”

“Think what you want of me. I don’t care anymore.”

“There’s nobody else in the house now,” Pilar said to Laveau. “You must go. Now. Ivan may return any minute.”

She had led him through a storeroom to a door that opened out on what had been the kitchen garden. Little remained of the trees and vines that had once flourished there, but it offered Laveau a means of escape.

“I could kill him.”

“You’d have every man in the area on your trail,” Pilar said. “Cade would see to it.”

Laveau cursed long and hard. He wasn’t even grateful when Pilar gave him the last pieces of their grandmother’s jewelry.

“This is not enough.”

“It’s all we have.”

Pilar was thankful that Ivan was working on the other
side of the stables. She was equally thankful that Manuel had decided to ride out with Cade. Laveau made no attempt to keep his voice down.

“I’ll come back, and I’ll get even with you and your lover.”

Pilar couldn’t tell him Cade wasn’t her lover because he was. “I hope you will come back. Maybe in a few years Cade and the others will forget.”

“
I
won’t forget, and I’ll make sure I shoot that dog.”

Pilar said nothing. She was certain it must be hard for Laveau to be driven out of his own home knowing his most hated enemy was welcome.

“Write me as soon as you get settled,” Pilar said.

“So you can tell Cade where to find me?”

“Cade knows I will not do that. I can’t send you any money if I don’t know where you are.”

“When can I expect money?”

“Cade said he’d take the first herd to market in the spring.”

She listened to him complain that he didn’t know how he’d live until then. She didn’t say anything because she didn’t know what to say. She watched him look around carefully and then make a run for the nearest sheltering trees. They swallowed him up, and she saw him no more.

She felt guilty that the most prominent emotion she felt was relief. She turned back toward the hacienda. She looked up at the huge building and wondered how she could have thought that coming back here would be the answer to everything.

She thought of the promises she and Cade had made to each other, that they could turn their backs on all this and live at the Wheeler ranch without regret. She wished it
were possible. She had been a fool to make love to Cade, a fool to think it would change anything.

She still couldn’t marry him.

In that same instant she knew something else as well.

“I’m not going to marry you,” she said to Manuel. “I want you to return to Mexico immediately.”

Manuel looked from Pilar to her grandmother and back. “You don’t mean what you’re saying. You’re just upset Laveau has had to run away because that man—”

“This has noting to do with Laveau. If I can’t marry the one man I want to marry, I won’t marry anyone at all.”

“You must stop her,” Manuel said to her grandmother. “She can’t do this.”

“I have talked to her and talked to her. She refuses to change her mind.”

“I have a signed contract.”

“I didn’t sign it,” Pilar said.

“I will make you. I will—”

He had approached her as he argued, his voice rising with his anger. But as he got close to Pilar, he found himself facing a large dog rather than a helpless woman. A loud bark caused him to jump back.

It also brought Cade into the room.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve just told Manuel I’m not going to marry him. I’ve asked him to return to his home immediately.”

“What are you waiting for?” Cade asked.

“I cannot be dismissed like this. I—”

“Take your choice. Leave under your own power, or I’ll
dismiss
you right through the window. And if you don’t move out of the way in a hurry, you’ll get hit by your own luggage.”

As angry as Manuel was, no one had any doubt that Cade would be as good as his word. Gathering what little dignity he had left, Manuel marched to the door.

“I will vacate this house within the hour.”

“Make it half an hour,” Cade said.

Manuel slammed the door behind him.

“I hope you are satisfied with yourself.” Her grandmother almost stuttered, obviously caught between the desire to pour out her anger at Pilar and her aversion to saying anything in front of Cade.

“I’m not satisfied with anything that’s happened for as long as I can remember, but refusing to marry Manuel was the best for him as well as me. I would have made him a horrible wife.”

“It is not for a woman to judge these things. It is for a man to decide—” her grandmother began.

“We’ve been over this before. I’ve changed,” Pilar said.

“It is your fault,” Senora diViere said, turning on Cade. “She never was like this before you came back.”

“If I encouraged her to think for herself, I’m glad. Nobody in your family ever thought of her as anything but a poker chip.”