Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (26 page)

      
“What a beautiful setting,” Melanie said, taking in the gently sloping trail to the canyon floor, carefully graded to allow wagon and carriage traffic.

      
“I didn't want to build on the old ruins a second time,” Lee explained as he urged the horses on. “Too many memories, I guess. Anyway, I've loved this place ever since I was a boy. When I first came home, I camped where you found me by the ruins. One evening I couldn't sleep.” He paused, recalling his nightmares. When she looked questioningly at him, he continued, “I rode here. It was as if I were drawn irresistibly. I was trying to decide whether or not to stay and start over. That's when I found them.”

      
“Them?” she asked softly, oddly pleased for him to explain this much to her.

      
“The evening primroses. They grow along the edge of the stream by the canyon wall.”

      
“Night Flower? You named the ranch for them,” she said in sudden understanding.

      
“I thought of it as sort of an omen, I guess. Fouqué would say I spent too much time with Indians,” he added, scoffing, abruptly breaking the mood of closeness between them.

      
When they arrived at the house, an enormous man, even bigger than Wash Oakley, stood outside the front entrance, apparently awaiting them. His dark mahogany skin was scarred and his expression forbidding.

      
‘That's Kai?” Melanie asked, suppressing a tremor of uneasiness.

      
Lee gave a low chuckle. “I told you, he's really a lamb.” The young rancher called out a greeting in an unfamiliar melodic tongue.

      
The big man replied in the same language and then reached up to help Melanie from the carriage, a smile now creasing his face. Several front teeth were missing, but despite that and his fearsome scars, Melanie sensed his instinctive kindness. “Hello, Mr. Molokai,” she said politely.

      
“Welcome to your new home,
Señora
Velasquez,” he replied in English that was oddly accented with Spanish. “Please call me Kai. Everyone does.”

      
“Only if you call me Melanie.” She smiled at the giant and he was won over. “I understand from—my husband,” she almost stumbled on the words, “that you are a very good cook. Perhaps you can teach me?”

      
“It would be an honor, Melanie.” He went around to the rear of the carriage and began to lift her trunks as if they weighed nothing.

      
Lee stood beside her, watching her charm Kai, feeling surprised at her easy camaraderie with the Kanaka. Larena had been terrified of him. “Let's go inside and I'll show you the house,” he said, taking her arm possessively.

      
The interior of the house was as lovely as the outside promised, with spacious, airy rooms and an enchanting central courtyard. Lee ushered her across the wide front sala and out onto the patio. “It's beautiful,” she exclaimed, looking from the sparkling water tumbling down into the shallow limestone pool to the scattered pots filled with miniature orange trees, fig trees, and other flowering shrubs, many so exotic she'd never seen their like.

      
“I had the patio plants brought up from Mexico City. My Uncle Alfonso was an amateur botanist of sorts,” he said. “I'll show you the rest of the house if you like.”

      
The rooms were indeed sparsely furnished, with only a few massive oak pieces in most. The white walls and dark stained furniture made a dramatic contrast, crying out for brightly colored rugs and wall hangings to accompany them. “I saw a bright orange and yellow rug at Frascatti's Emporium last week that would be perfect for the
sala
,” Melanie said impulsively after they had briefly inspected the dining room, library, and smaller sitting room. “That is, if you would like those colors,” she amended quickly, remembering that this was meant to be Larena's house.

      
“As I said, it's not finished and needs a woman's touch. One of the hands can take you to town tomorrow and you can buy whatever you want.” His expression was shuttered and Melanie felt her enthusiasm wane.

      
Tomorrow I must go to the
Star
office and explain to Clarence,
she thought with a shudder of dread, imagining his scathing reaction. She said nothing aloud to Lee.

      
“If you want to freshen up before dinner, I'll show you your room,” Lee said stiffly, not bringing up their agreement, yet subtly reminding her of it.

      
When they turned down the other wing of the house, where the bedrooms were located, Kai was in the process of setting the last of her trunks in a large bedroom at the head of the hallway, obviously the master suite where Lee slept. The bed was large, made up with a bright blue spread. The masculine room was furnished with a tall oaken armoire and a wide library table spread with papers and books. A gun belt was slung carelessly over one chair and the makings for cigarillos lay spilled on the table. Several butts had been crushed out in a heavy brass ashtray.

      
As if he spent a sleepless night here last night,
Melanie thought immediately. Before she could frame anything to say, Lee interrupted with a command.

      
“The
señora
will not be using this room, Kai. Put her things in the room at the end of the hall, next to Genia's.”

      
The Kanaka's face was impassive, but Melanie knew he was wondering about the sleeping arrangements.
Obviously he was under the mistaken impression this is a real marriage,
she thought in humiliation. “Are you sure you'll be safe with only three rooms between us?” she muttered when Kai had taken the first trunk down the big hallway.

      
“Are you sure you'll be?” he countered darkly.

      
“Who is Genia?” she asked quickly, changing the subject.

      
“The housekeeper. She came from Mexico City. She worked for my Uncle Alfonso until he died. When I finished this house, I sent for her. She's probably out in the garden, selecting some herbs to sweeten our bridal bed,” he added sarcastically.

      
“How shortsighted of you not to have explained the nature of our arrangement,” she replied stiffly, affronted at his temerity.

      
“I did, but Kai and Genia believe what they want to believe.”

      
Genia was a plump, smiling woman of indeterminate years with a heavy Spanish accent. Lee was right about both his house servants' attitudes. He had married Melanie in church; therefore, the match was sealed; and she was mistress of the ranch.

      
As they chatted while Genia unpacked her clothes, the housekeeper said bluntly, “I do not like your being so far from
Don
Leandro's room. At least you should be in the adjoining one.”

      
Melanie colored in mortification. “Genia, Lee must have told you we were forced into this marriage. It isn't—that is, we aren't going to...sleep together.”

      
“And the sun will not rise in the east,” the older woman scoffed in disbelief. “You are both young and fine-looking. Put a match to kindling and watch sparks fly! You both have passion. I can tell,” she said, chuckling at Melanie's horrified expression. “Sooner or later it will happen. Not even three walls between you can stop what is meant to be.”

* * * *

      
You both have passion.
The old housekeeper's words haunted Melanie as she lay staring at the ceiling in her big lonely bed that night. How true that was! If not for his fierce lust and her inexplicable response to his kisses, they would not be trapped in this travesty of a marriage. Painfully, she reviewed her relationship with Lee Velasquez. Ever since her first encounter with him as an impressionable and frightened twelve-year-old girl, she realized, there had always been an attraction. The chance encounter in Austin just after his first marriage had devastated her. There, she had finally admitted it to herself, aware it was after that meeting that she had first begun to rebel against being female. Boston only gave her a rhetorical vocabulary with which to rationalize her feelings.

      
Tears again. They slipped from her eyes and ran down her temples, soaking into her thick ebony hair. “Damn him for making me cry,” she gritted aloud in the silence of the night.
Damn him for making you want him,
the night whispered back.

      
Lee could not sleep either. Visions of his wife's soft, golden body and gleaming ebony hair haunted him. He could still feel her breasts and hips, so generous for a woman with such a tiny frame. He remembered the smell of her, like wild roses. Her wide eyes were the color of the night flowers blooming outside his bedroom window. Rolling over in anguished frustration, he scoffed at himself, “You named your home after her, you fool, and you didn't even know it!”

      
Passionate little bitch
, he thought angrily, no doubt just like her octoroon mother. All the fancy schools in Boston and the airs Rafe Fleming led her to put on couldn't disguise the fact she was a
placée's
daughter. She exuded an innate sensuality that drove men to act irrationally.
And you, you dumb bastard, want her—just like Fleming wanted her mother—as a mistress, not as a wife!

      
But Lee knew he could not take her now, not while they were married. That would shackle them together for the rest of their lives. He desired her, but he knew her accusations that day in the orchard were true. He did not want children of mixed blood carrying the Velasquez name.

      
He wanted a woman with a fine old Hispanic pedigree, someone traditional, dutiful, decidedly not like Melanie. Even if she hadn't been an octoroon's bastard with hated Indian blood in her veins, she was still headstrong and spoiled, filled with all sorts of crazy ideas about women being equal to men! Of course, raised by Deborah and hanging around Charlee and Obedience, that was scarcely a surprise. He stared at the ceiling and forced himself to think of Larena. Somehow he would win her back.

      
Melanie awakened in the strange bed, hearing familiar noises outside her window. The cowhands were down at the corral saddling up. She could hear muffled curses and shouted greetings echoing across the valley floor. Dim gray light filtered in the window. Sweeping the covers from her body, she sat up and looked around the room. Like all the others, it had roughly plastered whitewashed walls and was innocent of furnishings except for the bed in which she slept and one heavy, low chest.

      
Genia had unpacked her combs and brushes and had set up her dressing mirror. A white porcelain pitcher and bowl sat alongside her things on top of the chest. At least she could wash her face and perform a simple toilette. The stone floor was chilly to her bare feet as she stood up and stretched. It was rainy and gray outside, weather that reflected her feelings on the first morning of her married life.

      
Although she dreaded it, Melanie knew she must go to town and face Clarence. Of course, with all the gossip, the shrewd old editor would know every humiliating detail about her face-saving marriage. “If only I can convince him to keep me on,” she murmured under her breath. Then, remembering the story about the rustlers who killed Jameston's men and stole his cattle, Melanie knew what she would do.

      
Rummaging frantically through her book trunk, she came up with pencils and note pad. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she began to write.

      
Feeling refreshed and self-assured, Melanie walked down the long hall toward the heavenly smells emanating from the kitchen. Dinner last night, for all the strained tension between her and Lee, had been superb. “At least I won't starve to death on his accursed ranch,” she muttered as she inhaled the fragrance of coffee and fresh-baked bread.

      
She hesitated on the threshold of the kitchen, half afraid Lee might be there, scowling at his late-rising wife. Wife. She was married to a hostile stranger who wanted no part of her. His feelings had been abundantly clear last night at the supper table when all Genia and Kai's efforts to make the bridal meal festive and special had met with irritation and impatience on his part. He had eaten perfunctorily and quickly, then had excused himself to go outside and smoke a cigar.

      
Little hoping his mood had improved with a night's sleep, Melanie had dallied until she was certain he had left the house. She did not relish a fight over her ride to town this morning. It would be just like him to renege on the bargain struck that day in the orchard and forbid her to work at the
Star
in any capacity.
Of course,
a voice niggled at her conscience,
you're reneging on the bargain
. She would not only file Moses French's story about the rustling and murders, but continue to pursue leads to uncover who was working with Lucas Blaine.

* * * *

      
Taking a deep breath to bolster her courage, Melanie opened the door to the newspaper office and stepped inside with a jauntiness she did not feel.

      
Clarence scarcely looked up from behind the cluttered barricade of his desk to acknowledge her. Without skipping a pen stroke, he continued writing and spoke at the same time. “Are we to assume the honeymoon is over so soon?”

      
“As I'm sure you've deduced from the circumstances of our marriage, there was no honeymoon,” she shot back, heading for the small table in the corner that doubled as her desk. “I have the story about a herd of cattle being stolen and the murder of two hands—renegade Comanche did it.”