The Enchantment (32 page)

she'd discarded like so much trash. God, she'd missed so much in life by wanting so little—and needing that little so desperately. She'd let everything hinge on

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money—such a little thing, but she'd needed it so fervently. And God help her, she needed it still. . . .

Once again Larence's dreams spurred thoughts of her father's feeble, grasping prayers. She tensed, waiting for the familiar surge of resentment to hit her. Amazingly, it didn't. All she felt was an aching, almost overpowering sense of loss.

Something tantalized the edges of her mind, something elusive and yet important. She reached for it, tried to take hold of the insight that had eluded her for years. Somehow she knew Larence was the key. She tried to come up with the connection, but had no luck. Whatever the revelation was, she'd have to have it another time. Snuggling closer to Larence, she asked, "What made you first start looking for the city?"

"It started as nothing more than a dream. I was young then, and in a lot of pain. The dream . . . made me want to live."

"Oh," she said quietly as he went back to his description of the city and legend surrounding its disappearance. But she was no longer listening to him; she was thinking. The revelation slipped silently into her mind and changed her point of view.

Was it possible that she'd had it backward all these years? Had it been the dreams that had kept her father alive during the long, cold years of their poverty? He'd always lived in a dream world, always told her that tomorrow would be different. Better.

What if he hadn't been able to believe his own dreams, or if he hadn't been able to dream them at all?

Would life have been so terrible, so dark and unbearable, that he'd have killed himself years before?

Emma chewed on her lower lip. Could it be true?

If it was, then the dreams hadn't made him take his

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life; the death of those dreams had been the culprit. Perhaps when Mum died, she took the last of his dreams with her—and he simply didn't have the strength to live without their light.

She felt as if a ten-pound rock had been lifted from her shoulders. Maybe it was dreaming, and believing in dreams. That made life wonderful, instead of merely bearable.

Larence's monologue broke into her thoughts. ". . .The cross was big—as big as the man who carried it—and painted the brightest, most flawless shade of white. . . ."

She closed her eyes and let the words pour over her, filter through her. The story wound around her, captured her heart and soul. For the first time in her life, she let herself dream. Visions of a beautiful, forbidden city swirled through her mind, fueled her imagination. Gold; she saw a thousand shimmering doubloons of gold. Enough to keep her safe and warm and secure all the days of her life.

Her breathing sped up, her heart beat faster. She began to believe. And not just for herself, but for him.

For Larence.

Huddling closer beside him, she smiled. It was the first time she could remember wanting something for someone else. It was a good feeling. She planted a kiss on the hard ball of his shoulder.

For the second time since meeting Larence, she had hope for her future.

Hope for her soul.

Larence watched Emmaline brush her hair. Yellowish pink postdawn light wreathed her, turned her hair into a fiery spray of silver and gold. The brush moved

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slowly through the curled, tangled mass, and with each stroke Larence felt something in his chest tighten.

God, she was beautiful. He knew it was cliche, this image of a woman brushing her hair in the dawn's tenuous light, but what was cliche to other men was new to him. Even now, after spending a night wrapped in the warmth of her embrace, he couldn't believe his good fortune.

If only he could tell her how much he loved her.

He ached to say the words, had ached to say them from the moment she'd first kissed him. But he wasn't stupid; she wouldn't want to hear about his feelings. And she sure as hell wouldn't share them. Oh, she might kiss him, might take him into her bed—for Emma, those were easy things. The one place she kept protected, the one place he'd never be given access to, was the place he most wanted to touch: her heart.

A small, wry smile tugged his lips as he thought of all the women he could have fallen in love with; women who'd long ago given up on love and would gladly take a broken-down, crippled professor into their hearts.

He sighed, feeling suddenly old and lost. He belonged with such a woman.

The irony of the situation struck him, and he smiled in spite of himself. He should have fallen in love with a homeless wren, and instead he'd picked a fairy-tale white swan. He'd almost assured the fact that his grandmother's words would come true.

He, a lonely, inexperienced cripple, had fallen head over heels for a self-confident, independent, breathtak-ingly beautiful woman who had the face of a Madonna, the brain of a railroad tycoon, and the body of a high-priced whore. A woman who could have any man she wanted—and obviously had.

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He sighed again, wishing for one fleeting second that things were different—that he were different. That he could be the kind of confident, devil-may-care man who would know how to handle a woman like Emma. That he could be a spray of alcohol to her fire, instead of a cool, calm puddle of rainwater.

Then his hope fled. He wasn't that kind of man; he never had been and he never would be. In truth, he didn't even want to be.

He was lucky to have what he had. Whether it was a night with Emma or a dozen nights. It didn't matter.

He'd been given a wonderful, irreplaceable gift. And he intended to make the most of it.

"Look, Larence! It's another one of those black and orange daisies. A big one."

He grinned down at her. "Black-eyed Susan."

Stopping, they slid off their mounts and walked hand in hand to the clump of wild-growing flowers. As they sat side by side on a big, flat rock, Larence pulled out his notebook and began to sketch.

"No, that's not right."

Larence turned to look at her, trying to hold back the smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. "Oh, really?"

She shot a quick glance down to the notebook, then she looked up at him. There was a tentative shyness in her eyes. "May I try?"

Wordlessly he handed her the pen and notebook. She worked at a snail's pace, making sure each line, each stroke, was perfectly drawn. He slid his hand along her tensed shoulder, reveling for a moment in the soft feel of her skin, and even more in his right to touch it. His 298

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palm moved slowly from the ball of her shoulder to the curve of her throat and back again.

Idly he glanced around. The earth had changed again since the Malpais, and once again they were in a strange new land, except this time there were familiar sights and scents. Green grass, colorful wildflowers, trees. And always the mesas, ancient, wind-twisted earthen mesas cutting through the high-altitude plain like thrusted tableaus of nutmeg-colored rock.

Cibola was just around the corner, As usual, the thought brought a quick surge of excitement. His mind drifted lazily to the images that had sustained him all his life. Golden streets, silver doors, turquoise window-sills. And answers. Glorious, all-important answers.

Soon they'd see the entrance to the box canyon. . . .

Emma jabbed him in the side. "Larence, I'm talking to you."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. What did you say?"

She showed him her drawing. "What do you think?"

Larence suppressed a smile at the pride shining in her eyes. It had finally happened. Emmaline had taken over his notebook. "It's perfect." He planted a long, slow kiss on her mouth. "Just perfect."

By dinnertime, Emma's newly discovered hope for her future had dissipated.

"I don't know," Larence said in a clipped, angry voice she barely recognized. "It should be here."

A headache started behind her tired eyes. She pressed two fingers to the throbbing, pounding hollow of her temple and glanced dully around. They were in a box canyon—the box canyon if that damned diary was worth spit. All around them gold-red stone mesas stood like ancient, dour-faced guards, trapped them. Trees stood

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stiff and motionless; no wind reached the hidden valley. The animals walked freely, their only avenue of escape a thin, twisting passageway that Larence had roped off.

He paced past her, muttering angrily.

"Larence," she said softly, "there's no point in—"

He spun around and speared her with a shriveling, don't-you-dare-say-it glare, then he pivoted again and marched toward the nearest mesa. Staring at the huge, fistlike block of golden-red sandstone that jutted up from the grass-and-black-eyed-Susan-carpeted plateau, he snapped the diary shut. The sound echoed feebly in the stone prison. "It should be here, damn it," he yelled at the rock. "Here. "

Emma took a few halting, hesitant steps toward him. "Larence ..."

He turned suddenly. Their gazes met and held. She saw the strange burning passion that filled his eyes, and it frightened her. For a single second he was someone else, someone she'd never met before. A zealot.

"Larence ..." She said his name again. Hopefully.

Quietly.

He deflated before her eyes, turned from a towering, angry man to a small, defeated one. His broad shoulders caved downward, and a bleak, desperate darkness clouded his eyes. The zealot's light went out. Emma swallowed thickly. She felt the loss of that fire, that burning passion, as keenly as she'd ever felt any loss in her life.

Her heart wrenched, her steps faltered. She felt helpless and lost and useless.

What could she do or say to ease his heartache? The diary was wrong. Wrong.

They'd scoured every inch of this box canyon, and there was no passageway to be found.

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Larence tore his defeated gaze away from her and looked once again at the fist of rock. The leather-bound diary slid out of his numb fingers and plopped in the grass.

"Why?" he screamed suddenly. The single word bounced off the silent rock, vibrated through the grassy sanctuary, and threaded through the pine needles before the silence snuffed it out. Then, quieter. "Why

..." He dropped to his knees beside the fire. Emma walked over to him, and the moment she saw him, she knew he could just as easily have dropped into the flames. He was staring into space with the glassy-eyed look of a drunkard with no bourbon. His eyes saw nothing save the city that had called him all his life.

Except there was no city. His life's work, his life's dream, had been a lie.

The enormity of the situation struck her. Cibola wasn't here. Larence hadn't found his city, and she hadn't found her treasure. She was broke. Flat broke.

She had no fortune, no future. She'd return to New York as penniless as she'd left it. Rosare Court rose in her mind like an evil specter. A chill slithered icelike down her spine.

No. She forced the image away. Now wasn't the time to think about her own paltry loss. In truth she'd lost nothing; she'd never really believed in Cibola anyway. Larence had lost everything. And she was afraid—more afraid than she liked to admit—that he'd also lost his spark. His soul.

She stood a few feet away from him, staring at his

hunched back. Raw, agonizing indecision consumed

her. She wanted to go to him, to take him in her arms

and tell him everything would be all right.

And yet even as the thought surfaced, she shoved it

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away. Tell him what? her practical businesswoman's mind railed. That he'd find another life's work tomorrow?

She lifted her gaze from his hunched, defeated body and stared silently, angrily, at the stone walls. The diary had led them to this hidden canyon's secret center and then deserted them. Far above, the barest hint of a breeze rustled through the treetops, and the sound was hideously akin to human laughter. . . .

Unexpectedly, Pa-lo-wah-ti's words returned to her. You are meant to seek, but not to find. Leave now.

While you still can.

Still can . . . still can . . .

She snapped out of it. She had to do something. Now. If she didn't, she would go quietly mad. . . .

She walked to the canyon's small, spring-fed pond. Diablo and the pack mule were lazily drinking the crystal-clear water, and Tashee was nearby, munching greedily on the shin-high green grass. Emma leaned against the burro's dusty rump, listening with half an ear to the continual snap of grass being ripped from the earth and the slow, grinding chomp of Tashee's teeth.

What could she do to help?

Maybe someday I'll get lucky and you'll make real

stew.

Larence's joking words came back to her. She latched on to them; they weren't much, but they were something.

She hurried over to the pile of supplies and dug through the overfilled saddlebags for Larence's Guide to Edible Plants and Herbs in the American Southwest. Finding it, she dropped cross-legged on the hot grass and began flipping through the sketches of edible plants.

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When she knew what she was looking for, she tucked the book under her arm and headed out.

An hour later, Emma was humming an almost happy tune. Tucked in her waistband was a small bag filled with bitterroot bulbs, common camas bulbs, wild mustard leaves, and shepherd's purse leaves (which supposedly tasted like cabbage, although Emma had her doubts). All she needed now were a few wild potatoes—and the guide assured her they were here to be found.

She moved one step at a time, her nose bent to the ground like a prized Labrador. The grass crinkled beneath her feet, let off a fresh, familiar scent. Dozens of wildflowers and black-eyed Susans fluttered alongside her skirts. Tiny burrs leapt from their waving stalks and stuck to her skirt.

She saw something. Her step slowed. She bent farther down. Up ahead, winding through a crack in the red-gold sandstone wall, was a forest green plant with large, arrow-shaped leaves. Dotted throughout the leaves were long, spiraled, unborn blossoms.