Indigo Blue (43 page)

The pain she felt was unbearable. She huddled there on the floor and held her middle. How could she have let herself trust another white man? Wasn’t once enough to teach her?

She was nothing to him. Just as she had been nothing to Brandon. He was using her. He probably didn’t even consider himself married, since she was an Indian. Even if he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to get a divorce. But worse than that was what he was doing to her father. Ruining him. Destroying everything he had worked for these last twenty years.

How could he? Oh, God, how could he?
Easily
, a small voice in her mind replied.
Your father’s a nothing, just like you are.

With an enraged sob, Indigo sprang to her feet, envisioning her father, broken and unable to stand. She started across the room. Her gaze froze on the spot where Jake had gone down on his knees to her. She stumbled to a stop as the memories of that washed over her. Confusion swam in her head. She recalled his gentle lovemaking, his husky whispers. Her legs felt as though they might buckle, and she sank onto the settee to stare at the letter. A liar? A consummate actor? How could any man as tall and strong and proud as Jake Rand go to his knees and humiliate himself like that for a woman unless he sincerely cared for her?

 

When Jake threw open the door late that afternoon, the last thing he expected was to see Indigo sitting on the settee, her face swollen from crying and streaked with black soot.

“My God, what’s happened? Is it your father? Your mother?” He cast a glance around the room. “Where’s Sonny?”

Indigo stared up at him. “He’s asleep under the bed.”

Jake closed the door and leaned against it. His heart began to slam. “Honey, is it Toothless? What made you cry?”

She didn’t answer, just kept staring at him. Framed by black soot, her eyes looked so light a blue, they reminded Jake of endlessly deep, clear pools of water. He looked into them and felt as if he was drowning. A loud silence settled around them. Then an eerie sensation slid over him. He felt as if she was looking clear to his soul.

Then it hit him that she might be doing just that. She had gone unnaturally still, and there was a faraway expression on her face, as though she was listening to something he couldn’t hear. Jake felt vulnerable in a way he never had, and naked. He wanted to look away. He nearly did. But he sensed that to do so would be an irrevocable mistake.

After a long while, she pushed to her feet and extended a trembling hand toward him. He saw that she held a charred piece of stationery in her slender fingers. His gaze whipped to the fireplace.

“All of it didn’t burn,” she said simply.

Jake groaned. “Damn it to hell.”

“I’m afraid that’s not what I want to hear.”

Jake held up his hands, then dropped them. “It’s not as bad as it—” He gave a bitter laugh. “Actually, it is as bad as it looks. That’s why I didn’t have the guts to tell you.”

“Tell me now,” she said softly.

Jake swallowed. “I suppose you’ve already told your father.”

Pain flickered in her eyes. “I nearly did.” Her mouth trembled slightly. “If things are the way this letter makes them look, I owe you nothing but a knife in your gut. And then, of course, I should spit on your grave.”

Jake closed his eyes. “Jesus, Indigo. After all that we shared last night, you can’t mean that.”

A glitter crept into her eyes. “Did we share something special? Or were you just using a stupid squaw? Who is Emily?”

“She’s, um . . .” He threw up his hands again. “She was my fiancée.”

Indigo looked him dead in the eye. “Have you broken the engagement? Or do you plan to return to her once you’ve had your fun with me?”

Jake gave a humorless little laugh. “You can’t believe that. I married you, for God’s sake. I’d say that effectively ended my engagement to Emily. I just haven’t had time—” He broke off, no longer able to color the truth. Since knowing Indigo, he had a whole new definition of honesty. “Actually, I’ve had plenty of time to write her. I just couldn’t find a way to do it behind your back.”

“Because I would have found out about her?” She lowered her arm and let the paper flutter to the floor. “So I’m married to a man who’s engaged to another woman? To a man who loves another woman?” Her body went rigid. “When I think of the things I allowed you to do last night—I feel so dirty and used. Worse than Brandon made me feel. At least I fought him. He tried to rape me with force, which was at least honest. You rape with lies.”

“Indigo, you have to listen to me.”

Her narrow shoulders straightened. “Why do you think I’m still here? I felt I owed you that much. Even though it appears that your ‘dirty work’ nearly killed my father. Even though it looks as if you have made a bigger fool of me than Brandon ever dreamed of.”

Her voice shook with the intensity of her feelings. “Even though it seems that everything you led me to believe has been a lie, I couldn’t betray you without first hearing what you had to say.” She slid her arms around her waist and stared up at him. “If there’s anything you can say to make the hurting inside me stop, please do it.”

Jake brushed his sleeve across his mouth. He wanted nothing more than to cross the room and take her into his arms. He was afraid to try. She looked as though she might shatter if he touched her. But there was hope. She must still love him, or she wouldn’t be here.

“I love you,” he said hoarsely. “That isn’t a lie, and it never was. And no matter how bad it looks, I came here to help your father, not hurt him.” On legs gone quivery with nerves, Jake strode to the settee and sat down. The crushed look on her face was scaring the hell out of him. “It wasn’t my dirty work Jeremy was talking about in the letter. It was our father’s.”

Haltingly and not at all sure he was making any sense, Jake dragged the story up from his guts. She stood listening in a frozen, awful silence.

“I never told you an outright lie.” He gestured with his hands. “I know I haven’t been honest. I’ve lied by omission. Believe it or not, where I come from, that’s not considered lying. I know that doesn’t make a damned bit of sense to you, not the way you see things, but in my world, if your intentions are good, which mine were, and hiding the truth facilitates matters, it’s more power to you.”

She still said nothing.

“Indigo, when I came here, all of you were faceless. I never intended to hurt anyone with the deception, only to help.” He strained to swallow. “I never meant to fall in love with you. By the time I started to realize how much I cared about you, I’d already dug my grave. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I put it off, praying Jeremy would find proof our father wasn’t behind it all. Then, at least, the telling wouldn’t have been quite so awful.”

She still didn’t speak.

Jake dropped his head into his hands. “I suppose you’re still waiting to hear about Emily.”

“How astute of you.”

He glanced up. “I never really loved her. We spent a lot of time together. I enjoyed her companionship. She came from an acceptable family. I was nearly thirty. Asking her to marry me seemed like the thing to do. I’ve regretted it since—long before I met you, I began to regret it. I’m fond of her. I’d never deliberately hurt her. But there was no magic there for me. Not the way there is with you.”

“Is she beautiful?” she asked in a hollow little voice.

Jake longed to say Emily had jowls like a hound and constantly drooled. “Yes, she’s pretty.” He knew those words would cut, but he was finished with lies. “She’s a lovely woman and a lovely person. You’d like her, I think.” He clenched his teeth, then sighed. “But I don’t love her. I love you. I can’t even remember exactly what she looks like.”

“D-does she wear flounces and ruffles and lacy petticoats?”

Jake knew he was on dangerous ground. Indigo felt inferior to women like that. “I’ve never seen her petticoats.”

She fastened bruised- looking blue eyes on his. “You say she comes from an acceptable family. You’re—You’re rich, aren’t you? The house you told me about that day in the hayloft, the one that’s so big your family can get lost in it, is a very fine house, isn’t it? A rich man’s house?”

Jake thought of his home and the many elegant rooms. He could lose her over this. And for what? His life in Portland? He couldn’t settle for that now. For years, he had thought poverty was what he had experienced as a child. Now he realized the most wealthy of men could be starving. Here in Wolf’s Landing he had found things money could never buy—love, loyalty, laughter, intrinsic honesty, purity of heart. The most priceless of all, of course, was the girl standing before him. How in God’s name would he live without her now that he had discovered how beautifully sweet life could really be?

“Yes, it’s a rich man’s house,” he admitted hoarsely. “Except for one room—my office.” He searched her gaze. “It’s probably the only room there that you’d love. It is the only one I love. Everything’s handmade and simple.” He swallowed. “I’m wealthy. I can buy just about anything I want.” With a shrug of one shoulder, he said, “A seven-hundred-dollar wife, a three- hundred-dollar wolf pup. Everything else I ever bought didn’t mean squat to me. So I had my office to hide in, and I filled it with pictures of all the things my money couldn’t buy. Mountains and trees and clear streams. I grew up in this kind of world, and I missed it. I first began to realize that the day we had the picnic at the Geunther Place.”

She rubbed her arms as if she was cold. There was a stricken look in her eyes. “You should be married to a lady, someone you can be proud of when you introduce her to your family. A woman from an acceptable family.”

Jake heaved a sigh. Raking a trembling hand through his hair, he said, “Actually, I’m far more worried about being proud when you realize the kind of life I’ve led. I can take you anywhere and be proud of you, Indigo. But I can’t hold my head very high knowing what my father has done. It sullies everything I ever believed myself to be. You’re so worried about being good enough for me? Honey, the truth is, I’m the one who doesn’t measure up.”

“I’m not married to anyone in your family but you,” she replied softly. “Another’s sins aren’t yours.”

Jake felt the first stirrings of hope.

She licked her lips. “I think you should go speak to my father. He deserves to know everything you’ve just told me.”

Jake tried to imagine Hunter’s reaction. “Before I do that, I have to know where I stand with you, Indigo. What if he throws me out on my ear?”

With an aching sadness, her gaze clung to his. “I will pray that doesn’t happen. But if it does—” She looked at the soot on her hands, then lifted them in supplication. “If you truly love me and want me as I am, then I—”

“Oh, I want you,” he assured her in a ragged voice. “I want you, Indigo.”

Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Then I’m willing to say you’ve been a very stupid man and start again with no lies between us.”

Jake couldn’t quite believe he had convinced her so easily. He? The man whose tongue got tied into knots around one-syllable words? He slowly rose from the settee. “And if your father tells me to get the hell out of his house and the mine?”

Her mouth quivered. “I think you will find my father listens with his heart and that he hears more than words. He will look into you, if you will let him, as I have, and he will see the goodness shining through all the lies you have told.”

Jake remembered how she had looked into his eyes when he entered the house, the naked feeling. “What else did you see within me, besides some goodness?” he asked softly.

Her eyes turned cloudy. “I think you know. You looked back this time and opened yourself up so I could see.”

Jake’s throat felt tight. “You must have seen love then. And fear, because I was scared to death of losing you.” He moved slowly toward her. “And sorrow, because I wish I’d been honest from the first. I’ll never lie to you again. I swear it.”

She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“And I’ll write Emily tonight. You can read the letter and mail it yourself. Will you forgive me?”

Her reply was to walk into his waiting arms.

INDIGO WAS IN THE KITCHEN TRYING TO wash the soot from her hands and face when she heard the front door open. A deep voice boomed, “Well, I’m here, dammit. So where’s my welcome?”

Though she hadn’t expected Jake to conclude his talk with her father and come back so quickly, the voice sounded like his, and the tall, dark man she glimpsed through the kitchen doorway looked like him.

“In here,” she called back. “I’m covered with soap!”

She leaned over the washbasin and rubbed at her face. “I’m trying to get the black off.” She rinsed, then groped for the towel. After dabbing her eyes, she squinted at the blurry, broad-shouldered figure in the doorway. “What did he say?”

“The only he I’ve talked to said Jake Rand lived here,” a rich voice replied. “Have I just done the unforgivable and walked into the wrong house?”

Indigo blinked and tried to focus. The darkly handsome face grinning back at her didn’t belong to her husband. She slowly straightened and blinked again. He looked very like Jake, so much so that they might have passed for twins.

“Oh. . . . No, you’ve got the right house.” She felt heat rising up her neck and prayed she had all the soot washed off her face. “You must be Jeremy.”

He snapped his fingers, leveled a finger at her, and gave her a wink. “You have me at a distinct disadvantage, and when it comes to a lovely young lady, I can’t have that. Who are you?”

In all her worst imaginings, she had never once considered that Jake wouldn’t be present to introduce her to Jeremy when he arrived. She didn’t have the nerve to mention their marriage and face his brother’s disapproval alone. “I’m Indigo.”

His dark eyes traveled slowly over her and warmed with appreciation. “Indigo? . . .” He inclined his head, urging her to complete the introduction.