Authors: Parris Afton Bonds
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Historical Romance
She groaned.
“And I’m the biggest of fools.”
CHAPTER 61
“
G
o on to lunch without me, Kathy.”
“
You’re not eating?” her friend asked. “The doctor would throw a tizzy, if he knew.”
Amanda smiled. “
But he doesn’t, does he?”
“
You’re not upset, are you—over that photo of Paul and that Washington party hostess, what’s her name?”
She sighed. “
No, I’m truly not. It’s just that I always seem to be sleepier these days, and it takes me longer to get everything done. Bring me back a sandwich, will you?”
Kathy hesitated at the door. “
You know, when Nick Godwin came by our house for Trouble earlier this year, I thought he might be the one, but I seem to be wrong about both the Godwin brothers.”
Amanda managed a smile. “
If you see any good-looking soldiers on leave, grab one for me. The baby needs a father.”
Kathy laughed and left. Amanda sighed. She didn
’t know why she pushed herself like she did. There really weren’t that many clients pounding at her door, though she had enough to keep her reasonably occupied. When word of her broken engagement reached the newspapers, a great many of her “social clients” dropped off like flies in winter’s first freeze. And she was certain that as word spread of her pregnancy, she would lose many more clients, regardless of how successful she had been in the courtroom. At five months pregnant, her growing abdomen was almost impossible to hide, especially on her otherwise slender figure. And the tent dresses she wore weren’t really that becoming to a professional woman.
Soon all of Tucson would be gossiping, asking who the father was. Only Larry and Kathy and, of course, Paul knew, though s
he had never mentioned Nick’s name when she told him she was pregnant and breaking off the engagement.
“
I still want to marry you, Amanda,” he had told her. It was his first evening back in Tucson since his proposal, and they were eating at the Westward Ho, one of the many guest ranches that had sprung up in Tucson’s Santa Catalina mountains.
She looked away from the handsomely distinguished face. Her eyes shimmered like Tucson
’s night lights stretched out below the restaurant’s panoramic window. “It wouldn’t work, Paul.”
“
Why don’t you give it a try?” he asked gently.
She looked back at the face that was etched with tender concern. “
Like my grandmother,” she said, managing a faint smile, “I seem to be caught up between two stepbrothers.”
“
It does seem a strange parallel,” he mused. “As I recall the story of the Ghost Lady, in the end she had neither stepbrother.”
“
So a version of the story goes,” she whispered, still clinging to her inane smile. "So why change what’s fated to be?”
They part
ed that night, vowing their friendship, though she knew that Paul felt more. She swore Paul to silence about her pregnancy. “You don't want Nick to know?” he asked.
She nodded. “
He’ll know soon enough, along with the rest of the world. But the child’s father I want to remain unknown.” She raised her chin. “I won’t have anyone feeling sorry for us.”
“
You promise you’ll call me if ever you need me?” he demanded of her before he kissed her goodbye.
She knew she never would. Somehow she would make it on her ow
n. There were a lot of mothers who had lost husbands in the war and were raising children by themselves, she reminded herself fiercely. She could not castigate herself for having given away her life's dream. Her hand descended to her stomach to the little soul that stirred there, and she knew that since she could not have both, she had made the only choice she could live with.
She returned her attention to a case outlined in the United States Code Annotated. The door opened, and she looked up to see Nick en
ter. She gasped and almost stood but then thought better of it. She could not let him see the gentle mound beneath her dress. When he was near enough she searched those cool blue eyes for the quick anger that seemed to be ever present when the two of them came together. But this time she could not make out what that gaze held.
He came around the desk and hunkered one thigh on its top, so that he looked down into that face that had hounded him for so many years. “
Your friend Kathy told me you’d still be in,” he said in that voice that was like low thunder.
Stunned, she said nothing. She had not the strength to face his anger as she so often had had before
“Dammit, I have known from that first meeting at Cristo Rey that you had hooked my heart . . . if it is possible for a boy of thirteen to know and understand such a feeling.”
She blinked at the bold admission.
“You came here just to tell – ”
“
It didn’t take me long to find out that you were the daughter of a Japanese. Falling in love with you could only hold me back, and I had tried every way under the sun to deny my love. I had tried to go without seeing you. I had tried other women. I had tried replacing the love of you with the love of power. And I had tried calling the love for you lust. Nothing had worked. There was no magic potion to cure me of your Oriental sorceress’s spells.
“
After I read that your engagement with Paul had been called off,” he continued, “I kept hoping I’d hear from you. But I should have known your stubborn pride would stand in the way.”
Her fingers clenched the book she held so that they would not reach up to caress the homely-handsome face she loved so much. He was her Stronghold. Had always been her heart
’s stronghold. “Nick,” she whispered, “I can’t go back to you.”
His brows rose
. “Then I’m wrong? No, I don’t think so. What’s between you and me, Mandy, I could never be wrong about.”
Gently he took her shoulders and pushed her back against the chair. But there was nothing gentle in the mouth that claimed hers hungrily. Despite her
determination not to, she returned the kiss, her lips following his lead. That same damnable itch that always plagued her when he was near began again in spite of the other changes motherhood had wrought in her metabolism. Nothing could ever change that burning knot inside her for Nick Godwin.
When his lips finally released hers, she realized his hand rested on her swelling abdomen. Her lids flew open. “
You know?’’ she rasped.
“
About our child?" He grinned. “Not until Kathy lit into me with a sermon. She hit me with both barrels right there on Pennington and Court. I think if she'd had her way, the police would have dragged me off to the old whipping post.”
"I won
’t be your mistress again, Nick. I won’t subject my child to that kind of life.”
He leaned over
her and began to nibble at her earlobe. His hand slid boldly beneath her dress's V-neck to caress one of her breasts, engorged now with motherhood. “Would you settle for marriage?”
Her lungs ceased to function. Nick
’s hand didn’t. She pushed it away. “Danielle?”
He feigned a sigh. “
Don’t tell me that I’ll have to forgo the delights of your marvelous body the rest of your pregnancy.” “Your marriage to Danielle?” she persisted.
“
The night I came here I was going to tell you that I had asked her for a divorce.”
“
Oh, no, Nick. The destruction of your marriage—it could only hurt whatever it is between us.”
His fingers were slipping back inside her dress, cupping one full breast, squeezing it gently. “
They’re delightful!” he murmured, his lips descending to burn a trail along the graceful column of her neck, while his hand loosed the buttons of her dress.
“
You’re not listening!” she cried indignantly.
“
Oh, yes—yes, I am, love,” he said huskily as he freed the golden globes.
Her hands tried to shield herself from his probing lips, and he sighed again. “
Now listen to me this once, Mandy Shima, soon-to-be Mandy Godwin,” he said, prying her fingers away from her buttons. “You are not responsible for my marriage’s failure. Danielle’s and my marriage has never been the kind it should have been. It was only after you left that I knew I couldn’t continue the farce any longer.”
“
But your career—what will people say when—”
He chuckled. “
Have I ever worried about what people said? I told you once before I’m a gambler and it’s the game and not the stack of chips, or lack of chips, at the end that counts. Besides,” he added, his hand slipping down to cup the weight of one of her breasts again, “with your drive and my gambler's daring, there’s no way we can lose, love."
He bent his hand once more to tease the rose-tinted breast, and with a soft sigh she gave up resisting him. It was useless. She simply was not ever going to rid herself of the hunger for Nick Godwin. It tormented her like a pl
ague.
Damn the animal!
And her hands slipped up to enfold him to her.
As a grown woman with a child of my own, a daughter with honey-colored hair and dusky skin, I still return occasionally to the wilderness of Cristo Rey . . . only as a visitor, for with Paul Godwin’s death, my husband, Nick, deeded the land over to become part of the Coronado National Park, which was as it should have been, I know now.
But that does not stop me from recounting to our daughter, Catherine, the stories of her grea
t-grandmother, her namesake, the stories of the Ghost Lady. And when she asks if I have ever met the Ghost Lady, I tell her, "Only once, the day I agreed to become your father's wife.”
At least I think I did. I realize that no one believes in ghosts in the
se modern times, but still I think . . . I think that the tortured soul of my Ghost Lady was at last returned to its resting place that day . . . to the chimerical arms of the lover long denied Catherine Davalos in life.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
A great many of the characters in Deep Purple are authentic people out of history. For those interested readers, Sam and Atanacia Hughes really did exist. Atanacia went on to have the fifteen children she wanted and celebrated her golden anniversary with her beloved Anglo, Sam.
I felt the Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral was an important part of Tombstone, Arizona, history, but in order to retain the continuity of the story, I had to date the event two full years later than it actually occurred, and I beg the reader
’s pardon for my literary license.
Lastly, I must thank both Lori Davisson and Bruce Hilpert of the Arizona Historical Society and Helen Weber and Gina Smith of the Lewisville Public Library for all their help.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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