Midnight Flame (37 page)

Walking over to Laurel and Tom, she shot them a winning and engaging smile. Lavinia had already decided that she would be kind to Laurel until after the ceremony. Then she would put her beautiful cousin in her place with Seth’s help. Any twinge of conscience over the gentle Laurel marrying her conniving stepbrother dissipated because Laurel had stolen her father’s love.

~ ~ ~

The night hung dark and heavy as a quilt over San Antonio. Not one star glittered in the moonless heavens. Seth walked with quick strides through the area known as La Villita with his head down, purposely not glancing at the Spanish-speaking passers-by. His strides took him well past the small Mexican
jacals,
or huts, made of posts driven into the ground and tied together with rawhide and chinked with mud. He didn’t want to go back to that section of town tonight, not after he had just lost a great deal of money in one such dwelling.

He cursed himself for being stupid and entering the poker game in the first place. But when Raphael Ortega had approached him about the game earlier, he had been feeling no pain. He had just drunk a great deal of tequila and had bedded Dolores, a beautiful whore, in Ortega’s bedroom. Ortega, the slimy bastard, always knew how to make him feel at home on his trips to San Antonio.

Not that this was the first time Seth had lost at the poker table. He had spent many previous hours in Ortega’s parlor, cards clutched in his sweaty hands, while Ortega’s and the other men’s crafty eyes dared him to fold. But he had always bluffed them and come away from the card table with some cash in his pocket. But for the last few months his luck had run out. He had lost, and Ortega had accepted his promissory notes.

However, this night, Seth sensed a difference in Ortega. He no longer seemed as affable or as willing to accept another note. The man’s brown eyes flickered in disdain over Seth as he signed the note, and Seth felt a coldness creep into his stomach. When Ortega left the room to escort another player to Dolores, Seth wasted no time in leaving. He wanted to return to the ranch where he felt he would be safe.

Seth’s horse was tethered to a lamppost, and he had nearly reached it when he bumped into a wiry figure. “Excuse me,” he said and lifted his head. His breath made a hissing sound when he recognized the grinning face of Raphael Ortega. A cigar dangled from between Ortega’s teeth.

“Ah, Señor Renquist, how pleased I am that I caught you before you left. You didn’t bid me farewell. And Dolores is quite broken-hearted that you didn’t kiss her good-bye.”

“Sorry, Ortega, but I have to get back to the ranch. My sister is having a birthday tomorrow, and guests will be arriving in the morning.” What a lame excuse, he thought to himself. He didn’t give a damn about Lavinia’s birthday, but he did care about what might happen to him. The red light on the tip of Ortega’s cigar burned as brightly and menacingly in the dark as the flame in Ortega’s eyes.

“Sí,
the ranch. The Little L, I believe, is the name. I’ve heard it is a fine spread, much cattle.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You’re growing impatient, Señor Seth. I don’t like impatience, nor do the men who work for me. Do you remember Claudio?”

Seth nodded, recalling Claudio as a man who possessed shoulders as broad as a window and huge muscular arms. He had seen Claudio squeeze a man to death once for nonpayment of a debt to Ortega. A cold sweat broke out on Seth’s brow.

“Bueno.
I see that you do.” Ortega looked amused. “Claudio takes care of my business associates when their debts are in arrears, as are yours, Señor Seth.”

“I’m going to pay you your damn money!”

“Sí,
I know you are, because I am going to collect. Now if you will return to my humble home with me, we can work out the details of repayment.”

Seth would have punched Ortega. He knew he could knock the small man unconscious and gain enough time to get to his horse and race for home, but Claudio appeared and placed a warning hand on Seth’s shoulder. Instead he found himself turned around, positioned like a corncob between a pig’s jaws, headed for Ortega’s hut.

~ ~ ~

Tony’s hands, filled with fire, cupped her breasts and brought them to his mouth. He suckled the rose-tipped buds until desire flared within her. Then his mouth left them to be replaced again by his hands, and his lips trailed lower upon her writhing flesh. She felt the softness of his mouth against her inner thighs, arched her body to meet his flicking tongue. But then he was atop her, gazing at her in love and passion, driving into her with subtle strokes that threatened to consume her in white heat.

Her body swirled in a heated mist, pulsating and trembling for fulfillment. Her fingernails dug into the taut flesh of his back, deeper and deeper, pulling him closer and closer against her, until the moment of exquisite release was near at hand…

~ ~ ~

“Wake up, Miss Laurel. Folks done started arrivin’ already for Miss Lavinia’s party.”

Gincie’s voice cut through the room, causing Laurel to waken with a start. Early morning sunshine streamed brightly onto the bed when Gincie opened the curtains. Laurel sat up, rather disoriented, a pillow clutched in her arms.

“What you done to that pillow, child? There’s feathers all over the bed.”

Glancing at the sheets, Laurel saw she was surrounded by wisps of duck down. Her fingers were embedded in the pillow, and when she withdrew them, she noticed that two long thin lines streaked through the soft linen material. Her cheeks turned beet red.

“I-I don’t know, Gincie,” she stammered and pushed the pillow away.

“Lordy me, but you must have been havin’ one strange dream. Must have been a nightmare to account for such goin’ on.”

Laurel blushed deeper and quickly got out of bed in a rising cloud of down. She stood near the window as Gincie began to take the sheets off the bed, careful not to disturb the feathers further. Below her, people gathered on the front lawn, where tables and chairs had been set up for the cook-out in honor of Lavinia’s twenty-third birthday. Carriages and riders on horseback could be seen rolling and cantering up the road to the house. They exchanged greetings, and a spirit of joviality filled the air. All sorts of friendly people waited downstairs, but Laurel felt alone.

She held the curtain between trembling fingers. The dream haunted her, its memory filling her with an ache so painful and deep from wanting something she didn’t care to admit to, denying to herself that Tony’s phantomlike presence in her dreams had unsettled her. She didn’t want him! She didn’t love him any longer! Why must her own body, her mind, betray her, even in sleep? she asked herself and nearly cried aloud from the pain that tore through her as she realized that she would never quench the need within her own body. Tony was the man she ached for, but she must forget him, forget him as if he had never existed.

With resolve in her eyes, she left the window and began to dress before Gincie could offer to help her. She threw on her best petticoats and over these donned a blue-and-white-checked gown with a deep ruffled flounce and a low, off-the-shoulders neckline. Instead of pulling her hair atop her head, she had Gincie pull the sides back with white combs and brushed to such a gleaming brightness that it hung in reddish-brown waves to her waist.

She pirouetted before the mirror, pleased with the result. Would Seth like what he saw? She found herself thinking in an attempt to drive Tony and her dream from her mind. She imagined herself in Seth’s arms, responding to his kisses. She was determined that today she would forget Tony Duvalier forever.

Arthur sat in the shade of the porch and watched his friends and neighbors milling about. He saw Laurel standing beneath a spreading oak tree. She was looking fresh and lovely, as she talked with some women. He smiled, seeing that she appeared to be enjoying herself. His eyes searched for Lavinia. She was nowhere in view, and he hoped she wasn’t getting into some mischief. Lavinia had been acting rather pettishly lately. A deep frown creased his wrinkled brow, as he realized his stepson hadn’t yet returned from San Antonio. It was just like Seth to miss Lavinia’s party, Arthur decided. The two of them had never gotten along, and he wondered if their dislike of each other was because of him. Had he treated Seth differently because he was his stepson? He hadn’t meant to, but then again, he had sent Lavinia away because he couldn’t bear to look at her after the sordid incident with Jim Castille.

Either way, each of his children could attest to the fact that he hadn’t been the best of fathers. Especially Laurel. He let his eyes settle upon her again, feeling the same bittersweet pain he always felt when he looked at his beautiful younger daughter. She resembled her mother physically and also reminded him of Emily in other ways. The way she would tilt her head at an angle when she listened to a person, as if she were truly listening and not just pretending to hear. So many times he had seen Emily staring at him in just that way, that seeing Laurel do the very same thing tugged at his heartstrings.

He had loved Emily Delaney with a fierceness he had never experienced before he met her or afterward. Lavinia’s mother never made him feel the way Emily had, and certainly not dear Anna, Seth’s mother. He had never loved any woman but Emily. From the moment his brother had brought her home with him, he had known that if he couldn’t possess the beautiful brunette, he would never be happy. But he was married to Lavinia’s mother, and Emily was engaged to his brother. He had thought he would die at Sylvester and Emily’s wedding. He still remembered the way he had wanted to grab her from his brother’s arms and carry her away on his horse, never to be seen again by anyone.

He hadn’t said anything to her, however, and had never told her how he felt until after his wife had died from childbirth fever. By that time he and Sylvester had started the Little L, named for baby Lavinia. Emily had taken care of his daughter, loving her as her own mother would have loved her. Sometimes, when he returned early from the range, he would find Emily alone, cooing softly to the auburn-haired baby in her arms. At these times, he would pretend that Emily was his wife, and Sylvester didn’t exist. Guilt at loving Emily had torn at him. He had wanted her so badly that one day he couldn’t contain himself and grabbed her, kissing her with a violence that stunned her as well as himself. She had slapped him and run away. At supper that night, he was unable to look at her or Sylvester. Arthur would never forget how Sylvester had accosted him after Emily had gone to bed. His brother had witnessed the whole incident and told him never to come near his wife again. The only reason they stayed at the ranch had been because the child needed a woman to look after her, and Lavinia filled an emptiness in Emily since she had been unable to conceive. And Arthur stayed away from Emily, though thoughts of her were always with him.

One night Sylvester and Emily had argued, though Arthur had never known why. He had been asleep in his room on the other side of the house, but the loud voices had woken him. Minutes later Sylvester had left, riding off into the night, and hadn’t returned home that night or the next. Emily had been beside herself with worry until one of the hands told her that Sylvester had been spotted at a fancy house in San Antonio. Arthur remembered the way her face had fallen, how shattered she had looked. He would never forget how she had turned to him, took his hand, and led him into the house to her bedroom.

None of the women he had bedded in his lifetime could compare to the one night he had spent in Emily’s arms. He had loved her and hoped she loved him, but then Sylvester had returned, and once again, Emily had become the proper wife. He had felt he was living a nightmare, unable to cope with Emily’s desertion of him. When he asked her to leave Sylvester, she had refused. She had told him that she cared about him but she loved her husband and would never leave him. In fact they had decided to head for Louisiana where Sylvester wanted to buy a plantation. They could all start over again, and he must forget her and the night they had shared.

Not until the day Emily left had he learned from Sylvester of her pregnancy. In his heart he had known she carried his child, not his brother’s, by the way she hadn’t been able to look at him or do more than nod at his congratulations about the baby under Sylvester’s watchful eye. After they had gone, he had found a letter under his pillow from Emily.

She had told him that she cared for him, but she couldn’t leave Sylvester. They had shared one night, a night she would treasure all her life. He had given her a child, she wanted him to know about the baby, not to torment him but to allow him to rejoice in her happiness. If he loved her, he would not contact her again and would never tell anyone that she had borne her brother-in-law’s baby. She loved Sylvester and would never leave him, so nothing he might do would matter in the end.