"Have you had a period since that night in Nogales?"
His tone was soft, even, but the words hung between them as if he had shouted. She went very still in that way of hers, motionless except for her breathing. Finally she replied with caution, "No, but I've never been regular. A lot of times I'll completely skip a month."
He'd wanted certainty but realized he wasn't going to find it yet. He rubbed his hand over her stomach, then up to lightly cup a breast. He loved her breasts, so firm and high and elegantly shaped. He watched in sensual delight as the nipple immediately began to pucker, standing up as if begging for attention. Were her nipples slightly darker than they had been that first night? God, he loved her reaction, the immediate response to him.
"Have your breasts always been this sensitive?"
"Yes," she whispered, her breath catching as pleasure flooded through her. At least they were whenever he looked at them, or touched them. She could no more stop her reaction to him than she could halt the tides.
He wasn't immune himself. Though it hadn't been long since they'd made love, his sex stirred as he watched color flush her breasts and cheeks.
"How did you manage to stay virgin for twenty-seven years?" he marveled, thrusting himself against the cleft of her bare thighs.
"You weren't here," she said simply, and the open honesty of her love humbled him.
He nuzzled her hair, feeling himself grow more urgent.
"Can you take me again?" To make his meaning plain, he pushed his erection even harder against her.
For answer she lifted her thigh, sliding it along his hip, up to his waist. Webb reached down and guided himself to the soft, swollen opening and pushed inside.
He didn't feel any urgent need for orgasm, just the need for her. They lay together, gently rocking to keep the level of305
sensation. The morning was getting older, and the chances were increasing that they would be caught naked in bed together. Of course, everyone was more likely to sleep late today after the party last night, so he judged it fairly safe to indulge themselves for a while longer. He didn't want to embarrass her, but neither did he want to let her go.
He loved being inside her, loved the tight clasp of her body. They began to slip apart, and he put his hand on her bottom to anchor her to him. She might not think so, but he'd bet the ranch that she was pregnant, and the thought of her carrying his baby at once thrilled him to his bones and scared him half to death.
Maybe it wasn't the most romantic conversation to be having while they were making love, but he tilted her chin up and looked square into her eyes, so she would know he meant it.
"You have to eat more. I want you to put on another fifteen pounds, minimum."
A shadow of insecurity darkened her eyes, and he cursed aloud even as he thrust deeper into her.
"Don't took like that, damn it. After last night, there's no way you can doubt how much you turn me on. Hell, what about right now? I wanted you when you were seventeen, and I sure as hell want you now. But I also want you strong and healthy enough to carry my baby."
It took her a moment to catch her breath after that strong thrust. She moved against him, an enticing wiggle to make herself more comfortable.
"I don't think I'm-" she began, then stopped, and her whiskey eyes widened.
"You wanted me then?" she whispered.
"You were sitting on my lap," he said wryly.
"What did you think, that I was carrying a lead pipe around in my pocket?" He thrust again, letting her feel every inch of him.
"And after the way I kissed you-" "I kissed you," she corrected. Her face was growing flushed, and she clung tighter to him.
"You started it, but I didn't push you away, did I? As I remember, it took about five seconds before I had my tongue halfway down your throat."
She made a little hum of pleasure, perhaps at the memory, more likely at what he was doing to her now. A hard surge of sensation brought him to the realization that the need for orgasm was abruptly urgent, for both of them. He stroked her bottom, trailing his fingers down the cleft until he reached the point of their union. Gently he rubbed her, feeling how stretched and tight her soft flesh was around him. She whimpered, arched, and dissolved. It took only two thrusts for him to join her, and they strained together in completion.
He was still sweating a long time later, when he maneuvered out of her arms and out of bed.
"We have to stop before someone comes looking for us," he muttered. Swiftly he dressed, stepping into wrinkled black pants and picking up his equally wrinkled shirt. He leaned down to kiss her.
"I'll be back tonight." He kissed her again, then straightened, winked at her, and sauntered out onto the veranda as casually as if it were perfectly natural for him to be leaving her room, half naked, at eight o'clock in the morning. She didn't know if anyone saw him or not because she jumped up, grabbed her nightgown, and darted into the bathroom.
She was still quivering with excitement and pleasure as she showered. Her skin was so sensitive from his lovemaking that even the act of bathing felt sexual. She couldn't believe the raw sexuality of the night, but her body had no such difficulty.
Her hands moved over her wet abdomen. Was she pregnant? It had been three weeks since Nogales. She didn't feel any different, she didn't think, but then it had been an eventful three weeks and her attention hadn't been on her menses. Her periods were so irregular anyway that she never paid much attention to the calendar or how she felt. He seemed oddly certain, though, and she closed her eyes as sweet weakness made her tremble.
She was glowing when she went down to breakfast. Webb was already there, halfway finished with his usual hefty meal, but he paused with his fork in midair when she307
entered the room. She saw his eyes linger on her face, then slip down her body. Tonight, she thought. Tonight, he'd promised. She filled her plate with more than she usually took and made an effort to eat most of it.
It was Saturday, but there was still work to be done. Webb had already gone into the study, and Roanna was lingering over her second cup of coffee when Gloria came down.
"Lucinda isn't feeling well," she said fretfully as she began dipping scrambled eggs onto a plate.
"Last night was too hard on her."
"She wanted to do it," Roanna said.
"It was important to her."
Gloria looked up, and her eyes were sheened with tears. Her chin wobbled a bit before she controlled it.
"It was silly," she grumbled.
"All that trouble for a party."
But Gloria knew, as they all did: that had been Lucinda's last party, and she had wanted to make it memorable. It had been her effort to set aright the wrong she felt she had done to Webb ten years ago by not standing up for him.
Lucinda had been holding her decline at bay by sheer willpower, because there had still been things she wanted to accomplish. Those things were done now, and she had no more reason to fight. The snowball was rolling downhill now, picking up speed and hurtling toward its inevitable end. From long, quiet talks with Lucinda, Roanna knew this was what she wanted, but it wasn't easy to let go of the woman who had been the family's bulwark for so long.
Booley Watts called Webb that afternoon.
"Carl told me what happened," he drawled.
"Interesting as hell."
"Thanks," Webb said.
Booley chuckled, the sound ending in a wheeze.
"Carl and I both watched the crowd last night, but we didn't see anything out of the way except for that little scene on the patio. Roanna was something, wasn't she?"
"She took my breath away," Webb murmured, and he wasn't thinking just of the lovemaking that had happened later. She had been standing in the middle of the crowd like a pure, golden candle, her head high, her voice loud and clear. She hadn't hesitated to wade into battle on his behalf, and the last part of him that had held on to the image of -little Roanna" had faded away. She was a woman, stronger than she knew and perhaps beginning to realize that strength. She was a Davenport and, in her own way, every bit as queenly as Lucinda.
Booley's voice intruded into his thoughts.
"Have you thought of anybody who would carry a grudge against you for that long, a grudge serious enough that Jessie was killed because of it?"
Webb sighed tiredly.
"No, and I've wracked my brain trying to come up with something. I've even gone over old files, hoping I'll notice a detail, remember something that would make sense out of all this."
"Well, keep thinking. That's what bothered me about Jessie's murder from the beginning: there just didn't seem to be any sense to it, no reason that I could see. Hell, even drive-by shootings have a reason behind them. So whoever killed Jessie-and I'm saying now that I don't believe you did it-killed her for a reason no one else knows. If your theory's right, then the reason didn't apply to her anyway. Someone was after you, and she got in the way."
"Come up with the motive," Webb said, "and we come up with the killer."
"That's the way it's always worked for me."
"Then let's hope we can figure it out before he takes another shot at me ... or someone else gets in his way." He hung up and rubbed his eyes, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together but they simply refused to fit. He stretched and stood up. He had to go into town on an errand, so he had a decision to make: play it safe and take a roundabout route, or drive his usual route and hope he got shot at so he'd have another chance at catching the gunman-assuming the shot missed. Some choice.
Lucinda came down for supper that evening, the first time all day she'd been out of her room. Her color was waxy, and
the palsy in her hands was worse than it had been before, but she was jubilant over the success of the party. Several of her friends had called her during the course of the day and told her it had been simply wonderful, which meant she had accomplished her aim.
They were all at the table except for Corliss, who had gone out earlier in the day and hadn't yet returned. After chattering excitedly for several minutes, Lucinda looked at Roanna and said, "Dear, I'm so proud of you. What you said last night really made a difference."
Everyone else, except for Webb and Roanna, looked confused. Lucinda had never missed much that was going on, though probably it was one or more of her cronies who had filled her in on what had happened on the patio.
"What?" Gloria asked, looking from Lucinda to
Roanna and back.
"Oh, Cora Cofelt made a snide remark about Webb, and Roanna took up for him. She managed to make everyone feel ashamed of themselves."
"Cora Cofelt?" Lanette was aghast.
"Oh, no! She'll never forgive Roanna for embarrassing her."
"On the contrary, Cora herself called me today and apologized for her own bad manners. Admitting when you're wrong is the mark of a lady."
Roanna didn't know if that was a dig at Gloria or not, for Gloria had certainly never admitted being wrong about anything. Lucinda and Gloria loved each other, and in a crisis they could each be relied on to support the other, but their relationship had its sharp edges.
Webb's eyes met hers, and he smiled. Slowly, blushing a little, she smiled in return.
Number six, he thought triumphantly.
The front door slammed, and heels clattered unsteadily across the foyer tile.
"Yoo-hoof" Corliss yelled.
"Where is everybody? Yoo-" "Damn it!" Webb said violently, shoving his chair back from the table. The alarm went off, shrieking like all the fiends in hell. Everyone jumped and covered their ears. Webb ran from the room, and after a second Brock followed him.
"Oh, no, the horses," Roanna cried, and darted for the door. When the alarm had been tested, the horses had all panicked. Webb had debated changing the alarm to one less shrill but had opted for the safety of his family over the nervousness of the horses.
The godawful racket stopped as she reached the hall, and instead she heard Corliss whooping with uncontrollable laughter and Webb cussing with every breath he drew. Brock turned on Corliss and yelled, "Shut up!"
Everyone else piled into the hall behind Roanna as Corliss straightened from where she was clinging to the huge, carved newel post at the bottom of the stairway. Corliss's face twisted with fury. She worked her mouth and spat a gob of saliva at her brother.
"Don't tell me to shut up," she sneered. The spit missed Brock, but he looked down at the wet splatter on the floor with disgust etched on his face.
Lanette stared at her daughter in horror.
"You're drunk!" she gasped.
"So?" Corliss demanded belligerently.
"Just having a IN fun, nothin' wrong with that."
Webb gave her a look that would have frozen antifreeze.
"Then you can have your fun somewhere else. I warned you, Corliss. You have a week to find somewhere else to live, then I want you out."
"Oh, yeah?" She laughed.
"You can't throw me out, big boy. Aunt Lucinda might have one foot in the grave, but until they're both there, this place isn't yours."