Texas Lily (47 page)

"Heard there's trouble."

Cade swept him a sour look. "Isn't there always?" Without waiting for a reply, he finished, "It's Ricardo. You'd better beware. If he's decided to rewrite the records to declare this side of the river part of his land grant, you're in danger too. He won't let a small thing like revenge stand in the way of a profit."

"He can't rewrite the records. We've all got deeds."

Cade watched a hawk floating toward the sunset. "Deeds are worthless if he declares Austin had no right to issue them."

The other man remained silent for a minute. "We've got friends we can call on," he finally answered.

Cade sent him a smoldering look. "Even if I had any friends, I wouldn't put them in Ricardo's path and still call myself friend. Stay out of this, Langton. It's time I took care of Ricardo. I don't think turning the other cheek works against devils from hell."

"You can't go taking the law into your own hands, Cade. Think about Lily."

"I am thinking about Lily. If I weren't thinking about Lily I'd be out of here now, chasing Satan back where he came from." Cade paused and gazed at some spot in the distance, then turned his head to Langton and asked, "Do you think the courts would accept Indians as witnesses?"

"Nope. What are you getting at?"

"Hell, I don't know." Tiredly, Cade admitted, "I think I've got a witness to Jim Brown's murder. I've spent the better part of my life studying Mexican law to keep myself and Ricardo's victims out of trouble, and now there's no damned law at all. I don't have any choice left, Langton. I have to go after him."

Langton stared at him but didn't question further. He knew as well as Cade that an Indian witness would be worthless even if there were a court to bring him to. "There will be a law," he said slowly. "You've just got to be patient. Law or no law, you can't kill a man without getting hung. There's too many willing to witness a good hanging."

"Then I guess I'll just have to hang him." Stating that with quiet finality, Cade spurred his horse into a gallop in the direction of Lily and home.

She was waiting anxiously for him. Seeing the worried look on her face, Cade attributed at least part of her concern to himself. He needed to feel wanted for just a little while. He swept her into his arms and held her close and allowed the warmth of her embrace to ease his hurts just a little.

"You've been gone for hours. I was afraid you weren't coming back," Lily murmured against his open collar.

Those words were balm to his angry heart, and Cade pressed a kiss to the golden spill of her hair. "I came as soon as I could. You'll have the child all stirred up and complaining if you go working yourself into this state just because I'm out for a little while."

"Out for a little while!" Lily tore out of his arms and, hands on her hips, glared at him. "You go riding out of here with your troops and stay the better part of the day and come back and pretend you were out stargazing? What the hell happened, Cade de Suela?"

Her worry might be balm to his heart, but her fury was balm to his spirit. Cade grinned and, lifting her up, deposited her in the newly repaired rocking chair. "Sit. I don't want that child leaping out to get me with a hatchet in his hand." He turned to a worried Juanita. "Bring me something to drink. Rounding up cattle has me parched."

"Rounding up cattle!"

Cade had Lily in a state halfway to fury by the time Travis ambled in. As a tin cup flew across the room, Cade ducked and Travis jumped out of the way, letting it slam against a far wall with a satisfying crunch.

Travis lifted an inquiring eyebrow and caught the next cup that flew at him and set it on the table.

"I don't suppose the two of you ever thought of sitting down at the table and discussing things rationally, did you?"

"Look who's talking!" Shoving her straying hair back from her face, Lily looked scathingly at the mud stains on Travis's shirt. "Just tell me what happened out there and don't give me a cock-and-bull story about rounding up cattle. Something's happened or El Monstruo over there wouldn't be grinning all over himself."

Travis shrugged and took the mug Juanita handed him. "Can't rightly tell you more than that. I've been up visiting with the Indians myself."

Juanita retrieved his mug and dumped the contents over his head. Travis howled, and Roy—sitting quietly on the hearth—finally gave in to mirth. Serena, not to be left out, giggled and pulled herself into Travis's lap, patting her small hands against his wet shirt and making smacking sounds.

Looking around at the bedlam that was his home, Cade pulled Lily against his side and kissed her soundly before she could offer any protest.

"I'll wager they're married before the baby comes."

"I'll wager she kills him before then." Lily poked a fingernail into Cade's side to indicate the threat worked for both of them.

"You'll not do it," Cade declared boldly. "If you did, who would you have to..." he whispered the rest of the sentence so little ears couldn't hear.

As it was, the whispered words singed Lily to her toes and made her cheeks redden. It was obvious she wouldn’t get anything sensible out of him any time soon, but he would regret making her wait. In the meantime, she turned her mouth up for a kiss, bit Cade's lip, stepped on his toe, and sidestepped his grab as she sashayed out the door in search of their belated supper.

Chapter 37

"The box was there, but the deed is gone. What are we going to do, Cade?"

Lily whispered the words as they lay in each other's arms that night. The day's emotions had taken their toll, and exhaustion weighed heavily, but she was too frightened to sleep.

"There will be a copy of the deed in the
alcalde's
office, and Austin will have the plat marked in his records. A piece of paper is meaningless if Ricardo means to change the rules. There's such chaos right now that they had to close the land office. Nothing legal can be done until they reopen. It's terrorism that Ricardo wields best."

Lily held her hand against Cade's broad chest, hearing the frustrated fury through her fingertips as well as with her ears. He had made it more than evident that Ricardo had been the bane of his life since he was a child. He had disappeared into the vast open spaces of this land to stay out of Ricardo's way, but Ricardo had always found him. And now he was threatening more than Cade. Lily had been surprised when Cade hadn't run to save his grandfather from Ricardo's clutches. She wondered what held him back now.

"What are we going to do?" she asked quietly.

Cade shrugged. "We'll wait. There's nothing else that can be done." Trying to ease the mood, he stroked the place where his child grew. "We'll watch our child grow and wait for the corn to rise."

That was what she wanted to hear, but Lily had a feeling that wasn't what Cade wanted to say. She could almost feel him erupting inside, feel the frustration and the fury tearing at him. She knew that despite his size, Cade wasn't a violent man, but there was a limit to how much any man could take. Lily very much suspected Cade had been pushed to his limit, but still he lay here calmly telling her he was content to wait for events to happen.

"I think, perhaps, it is time for you to go to your grandfather," she suggested, testing the waters.

Cade stiffened. "Bexar is several days' journey. I would not leave you now. My grandfather has friends who will watch over him."

Lily pushed up on her elbow and stared down at him incredulously. "You are staying because of me?"

For him, she had worn her hair unplaited, and it spilled across her shoulders and breasts now. Cade ran his fingers through the strands before answering, "You and the child are more important to me than all the land in the world."

Lily couldn't believe she was hearing this. She searched his face for lies, but whatever Cade might be, he wasn't a liar. The wall that he had built around him was finally opening, and she could see the shadows of his doubts and fears in the look he returned to her. Lily fell into the wicked trap of her emotions.

If she loved him, she had to let him go. Returning to Cade's side, she curled there, fear and desperation and a terrifying wave of love sweeping her downriver and over dangerous shoals.

She meant more to him than the land. It wasn't a gallant, romantic declaration of love, but it spoke the truth as Cade knew it. And her hopes swirled, spiraling upward to new and previously unexplored heights. She hadn't thought love was real, but whatever this was she couldn't control it, couldn't rationalize it, couldn't even speak of it, it was so new—and frightening.

Lily said what came to her heart, responding to Cade, reaching out to ease his ache despite her own. "I am in no danger here, Cade. Your grandfather might be. It could be weeks yet before the baby comes. I think we will both feel better if you find out what is happening."

She chose the words as carefully as possible. She didn't tell him to seek out Ricardo and kill him. She didn't tell him that the idea of having this child alone scared her to death, but Ricardo scared her more. She didn't tell him to do this for himself, but for both of them. She knew how to use words to say what he needed to hear, and she did it because she loved Cade, not for her own sake.

Cade lay quietly holding Lily until he could find the words to speak. "I spent the months with Houston regretting leaving you. When I heard you were no longer with my grandfather, I thought I had lost you. I don't ever wish to live through that time again."

Perhaps Cade would never say the words Lily wanted to hear, but she had never thought to hear them anyway. He had spent a lifetime trapped inside himself. She couldn't expect him to come out too often. What he had just told her was sufficient proof of the tie binding them, a tie she had never believed could exist between the taciturn Indian and herself. It was amazing what she could do once she knew it was more than lust binding them.

"I do not want you to go, but I know you must, just as I knew you had to go with Houston. I'm not going to leave you, Cade. We're bound together for the rest of our lives, no matter what is thrown our way. I know the words were never said, but in marrying you, I agreed to be your wife until 'death do us part,' Just don't go getting killed on me. This brat of yours will need a man's handling."

Cade smiled at the roof over their head. He had never owned more than a horse and a saddle, and he knew he didn't own Lily, but she was his, just the same, by her own admission. He liked the notion of having a companion for life, one who wouldn't walk out when she got bored or irritated. He sure as hell was tired of talking to four walls.

And it wasn't just an end to loneliness, the beginning of something more. Remembering Lily's heated arguments and equally heated lovemaking, Cade's smile grew broader.

"I think I'll bring a priest back with me. I want to hear those words said before a man of the cloth. I think I will feel much better if I can produce a witness when you start throwing things at me again."

Lily laughed against his shoulder. "I'll hold you to that promise. I don't want you disclaiming this child when he starts screaming all night. If you think Ricardo is a formidable foe, you've never tended an infant."

* * *

The garden gate to the hacienda was barred, as Cade had known it would be. Sliding his knife between the gate and the frame, he pried at the dried-up board until it fell with a soft "thunk." In moments, he was inside the gardens.

Getting inside had been the easy part. The unexpected that lay ahead would be the danger. Perhaps his Indian training hadn't been thorough, but experience had taught Cade how to walk silently and keep to the shadows.

The lamp in his grandfather's room was still lit. No guard waited in this supposedly inaccessible part of the house. Reassured that Ricardo's arrogance ran true to form, Cade slipped to the hacienda walls and climbed on the timbers jutting through the adobe to look into the upper story.

His grandfather looked haggard but well as he sat at his desk, painstakingly writing in his journal. The window was too small for Cade to squeeze through, but there was no glass to interfere with speech. Whistling lightly, he made Antonio turn.

The old man's face lit eagerly as he recognized him. He whispered, "One of the men walks through the gardens at intervals. Beware."