Thirty-six
“Where’s Sunny McKenzie?” Dena’s voice shook as she demanded answers of her husband. Rex was in the stable watching as Mac, the foreman who had been with Rex for as long as Dena could remember, drove his old truck away from the ranch. Dust and the smell of diesel filled the air.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Like hell.” Dena’s anger was out of control. She felt the heat in her face, knew her lip was trembling in rage. For over a week she’d felt as if she were walking a tightrope, her stomach in knots. The pills her doctor had prescribed, little capsules that were supposed to “calm her nerves,” didn’t help much. She was already upping the dosage. “Look, Rex, I’ve put up with a lot over the years. I knew about you and Sunny—”
He scowled defensively, his eyes sliding away, as if he were suddenly interested in the mares and foals grazing in a far pasture.
She brazened on. This was her life, too, damn it. “For the most part, I turned my head, even though it hurt me, but I won’t allow you to harbor her around here somewhere. She’s an escapee from a mental hospital, for God’s sake!”
Rex rubbed the back of his neck as he stared across fields dotted with the most expensive horses in the county. “Sunny’s the most sane person I know.”
“Oh, for the love of St. Mary. Will you listen to yourself Rex? Sane? A woman who made her living reading palms, and listening to voices or seeing visions or whatever it was? Sane? She tried to slash her own wrists, for God’s sake! Why do you think Willie is a half-wit?”
“’Cause he nearly drowned, that’s why,” Rex said, his cheeks reddening as he faced her. “And it’s my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“I should’ve claimed him from the beginning, or at least paid Frank McKenzie enough so that he could keep a decent place for his family.” Rex closed his eyes. “I’ve been a coward, Dena, afraid to tarnish my reputation, but no longer. I’m going to call Cassidy at the Times. Let her print the story.”
“Oh, Rex, no—”
“It’s time, Dena,” he said, offering her a kind, patient smile—the one he reserved for hotheads and neurotics. Oh, he’d changed from the man she’d married over thirty years before. He’d been strong, then. Forceful. The most powerful man in three counties and now in his old age he seemed to be weakening, trying to make his peace, forever trekking up to the cemetery and reliving the past.
“God’s punished me for my cowardice,” he said. “First Lucretia, then Buddy’s accident, then…then Angie.” His voice cracked.
“God isn’t punishing you.”
“Of course He is.” Rex lifted his hat, smoothed his hair and frowned as he squared the cap back on his head.
“I won’t let you ruin my life. Or Cassidy’s,” she said.
“The truth won’t ruin anything.”
“The truth is that your first wife was a cold bitch who decided to end it all in the garage. As for Sunny McKenzie, she’s nothing better than a half-crazed whore—”
“Stop it!” he hissed, startling a spindly-legged colt in the next paddock. The colt let out a frightened neigh and bolted. Rex’s big hands curled into fists. “Never, and I mean never, will you denigrate Lucretia, Sunny or Angie.” He stepped closer to her, his rage evident in the flare of his nostrils, his body stiff and seeming four inches taller than it had been only seconds before. Some of the old fire blazed in his eyes. “If I ever catch you badmouthing any of them, I’ll personally come at you with a belt and after that, by God, I’ll divorce you.”
“But you couldn’t. Your faith—”
His lips curled into a sneer. “Okay. If divorce won’t work, then I’ll kill you, Dena. It’s that simple. Somehow, I think God would forgive me.” He turned and strode into the stable and Dena, barely able to control her bladder, watched as he picked up the telephone extension. She leaned against the fence and, horror-stricken, overheard his part of the conversation as he spoke with Cassidy—their daughter—the one he’d barely noticed when Angie was alive—and told her to print everything about Sunny McKenzie and the fact that she’d borne Rex Buchanan a son, Buddy McKenzie, known as Willie Ventura, who from this day forward would be recognized as Rex’s son. He’d be called Willie “Buddy” Buchanan.
“Oh, God, no,” Dena whispered, her knees weakening. She imagined the hidden smiles she would notice from the corner of her eyes as she slid onto her knees during mass; the whispers that would be just loud enough for her to hear Sunny’s name over and over again as she walked through town, the quiet little coughs and sniggers at the social functions she and Rex planned to attend. A part of her died in that instant. She would be mortified, humiliated, reminded that she was only Rex’s secretary who had been blessed with the good sense to get herself pregnant after Lucretia—sacred Lucretia—had died so that she could become the next Mrs. Rex Buchanan. But she’d always been second-best. Wife number two. She’d never had the hold over her husband that Lucretia still held, even after being dead for decades. Nor did she fascinate Rex as Sunny McKenzie, a half-breed palm reader, did.
She heard him slam down the phone and then he was beside her again, squinting against the bright sunlight. All of his rage had disappeared. It was as if he’d just come from the confessional, or given a fifty-thousand-dollar check to a charity. “I’m relieved, Dena,” he admitted, smiling benignly again, no trace of the man who had threatened to kill her just minutes before. “This was long overdue.”
He’s a simpleton. Somewhere along the road, he had lost that razor-sharp edge that had made him so successful. “Oh, God, Rex, you don’t know what you’ve done.”
“I’ve cleared my conscience, dear,” he said tenderly, almost as if he meant it. “I’ve made my peace.”
“And now what?”
He glanced at the sky, clear and blue and still holding fast to summer. “I can die anytime God decides to take me.”
Sometimes the tension in the house was more than Cassidy could take. The glowering glances, the short responses, the ever-present feeling that there was a storm brewing, right under the surface, whenever she and Chase were in the room together. The wires holding his jaw together had been removed. He buried himself in the work that a messenger brought from the office or in his physical therapy, which was twice daily now, the therapist coming each morning and late afternoon. Chase had insisted that he wanted to improve as quickly as possible. He’d push himself to be whole again.
He avoided being alone with Cassidy and yet there were times when she was certain he’d been staring at her, not in hostility, but as if he were trying to figure her out. And he wasn’t as immune to her being a woman as he’d like to let on. She’d felt the heat of his gaze on her back when she swam in the lake, part of her daily ritual.
Early each summer morning, when the sun was barely up, the water ice cold, the stars just beginning to fade, she’d carry her towel to the edge of the pond, let her robe fall into the sand and swim naked as she had for as many summers as they’d had the lake. When they had first moved back here, Chase would often sneak out to the water’s edge, watch her for a few minutes, then join her. They’d make love in the water or later, when he would carry her laughing back to the house and drop her, wet and chilled, onto the bed.
Over the years, he’d stopped following after her, stopped showing any interest in her at all, stopped making love to her. She’d wondered if he’d taken a lover, but it didn’t seem his style and she never found any evidence nor heard any rumors to suggest he was involved with anyone else. She’d even asked him once, and he’d laughed at her. That night he’d made love to her. Not tenderly, but roughly, angrily, as if he were trying to exorcise some inner demons that he kept secret from her.
Now he was interested again, she thought as she cinched the belt of her robe tight around her waist and hurried out the back door, letting the screen door bang shut. Her feet were bare as she followed the flagstone path that cut through the gardens and lawn before the stones gave way to a sandy trail curving through sun-bleached grass that brushed her calves and knees and bent in the breeze.
As she had since the weather had turned hot, she dropped her robe under the tree, took three steps across the sandy strip of beach and ran into the water. Cold as an arctic storm, it nearly burned her skin. She dived deep, following the contour of the bottom of the lake, feeling her body tingle in the frigid depths before she rose to the surface, flinging her hair from her eyes and gasping with the cold.
“Feel good?” Chase’s voice seemed to reverberate through the morning. He was standing at the edge of the water, wearing faded jeans with one leg cut out for his cast, no shirt and propped on one crutch. He’d given up his eye patch two weeks before.
“Great.” She was treading water, aware that her breasts were white in the darkness, her nipples round and visible through the ripples. Just like Angie had been aware when she’d lured Brig to the pool all those years ago. “You should join me.”
“I don’t think so. With the cast, I could drown.”
“I wouldn’t let you,” she said breathlessly, and his face relaxed a little.
“You don’t have to be my savior, Cass. You don’t owe me anything.”
The wind whispered across the lake, stirring up the water as the gray light of dawn was fast turning golden over the ridge of mountains to the east. “I’m your wife.”
He pinned her with his harsh glare. His face was beginning to take shape again. Though not the same, he was starting to resemble himself, the man she’d vowed to live with forever. “I shouldn’t have come out here.”
“Why did you?” she asked, swimming close to the shore.
“Couldn’t sleep.” His gaze never left her, and even in the cool water, she felt his heat. Her skin tingled as her toes found the sandy bottom of the lake. This attraction was something neither could deny, but they’d both ignored it. It was safer that way.
“Neither could I.” She walked out of the water, twisting the moisture from her hair and acting as if it was nothing out of the ordinary to stand naked before him.
“You haven’t had your swim.”
“It’s okay.” Her robe was on the ground, but she ignored it. She studied him a moment and her throat caught, aware of the changes inside her, the feelings that she couldn’t tamp down and didn’t begin to fathom. Her skin tingled when he didn’t look away.
“Chase—”
He closed his eyes.
She wrapped chilled arms around his middle and he quivered, the touch of her wet skin against his warm flesh sending a tremor through him.
“Get dressed, Cassidy,” he muttered, though he didn’t say it with much conviction. “I’ve got coffee started.”
“I don’t want coffee, at least not yet.” She angled her face up to his and saw the flare of interest in his eyes.
“What do you want?”
She didn’t have an answer. She just waited.
His newly mended jaw, still partially wired, seemed to clamp down harder. “I can’t—”
She kissed him then. Pressed her wet lips to the bare skin of his chest. There were scars on his skin, burn marks, scratches that had healed, but he didn’t flinch.
“Oh, God.” The sound was torn from his throat. “No—”
She didn’t stop and her tongue found his nipple.
With a dry, desperate gasp, he wound his fingers in her wet hair and pulled her head back angrily. “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he warned. “Cass, I—”
Her fingers found the top button of his fly. With a loud pop his waistband opened and a series of snaps resounded like the ripple of muted gunfire ricocheting across water.
“Don’t—I told you I don’t want you to touch me.” Rasping, painful words. Lies.
“Chase, please, let me—”
“No!” But she felt him surrender. The steely resolve wavered, and the crutch fell with a thud to the sand. Leaning against her, he balanced as his good arm surrounded her shoulders. Strong muscles dragged her close. “You’re dangerous,” he growled.
“So are you.”
They tumbled to the ground and she kissed his battered face feeling his lips against her own, tasting of him and losing all control. He was warm and hard and hot on this shimmering summer morning. While dawn chased the stars away, she held him close, loving him, feeling his hand touch her already-stiff nipple, sighing into his mouth.
Her fingers explored the surface of his skin, taut skin over ribs and firm muscle, sinewy flesh that seemed to grow more taut with her touch.
“You don’t know what you’re doing—oh, God.” She slid her hands into his pants, her fingers grazing the hard texture of one thigh as she delved into his boxer shorts, and surrounded his erection with cool fingers.
His abdomen retracted, giving her more access. A groan escaped his lips and he closed his eyes, holding her close, dragging her body over his until she lay atop him, naked and straddling, her breasts plump and poised over him. He touched her, gently at first, then more roughly as he held her with his casted arm and fondled her with his free hand. Her back arched of its own accord and she offered herself to him, two proud peaks, with stiff little nipples hovering above his face.
Shuddering at the touch of his tongue, she let out a sigh as soft as the wind and felt the first burst of sunlight touch her back. “Cassidy,” he said, his voice filled with emotions she couldn’t begin to understand. “We can’t—”
She quieted him with a kiss. The words were too desolate, destroying the beauty of the morning. Closing her eyes, she listened to her body, to the desire singing through her veins, the rapture being murmured in her heart.
He suckled gently at first, kissing and tasting, then more ardently, holding her fast, causing her heart to thrum, her breath to be quick, shallow whispers. “Sweet Cassidy,” he said, his voice rough and needy as her fingers worked their magic. She stroked him and kissed him and loved him, knowing that while his leg cast was in place, she would have to be satisfied with touching. He didn’t try to stop her, just succumbed to the magic of her touch, straining, writhing, fighting the inevitable, and when at last he let go, his release was quick—a convulsion that caused him to lift from the ground before settling down again.
He grabbed her and held her close. “You didn’t have to—”
“Shh,” she whispered against his chest. “It was time, Chase.”
“But you didn’t—”
“It’s all right.”
He stared deep into her eyes. His own a determined shade of blue. “Roll onto your back.”
“What—?”
“It’s your turn.”
She laughed. “Hey, I’m not keeping score.” She reached for her robe. “This doesn’t have to be even.”
“Of course it does.” He clasped a strong hand over her forearm, causing the terry cloth to drift from her fingers.
“Chase—” But he was relentless. He moved quickly, forcing her onto her back, and then holding her down with his casted leg, he began his ministrations. Slowly he touched her. One finger tickling her spine, while his lips found soft crevices and valleys she’d forgotten existed.
He explored her with experienced fingers and a tongue that caused liquid heat to burn deep within her soul. Her body, so long ignored, turned torrid. Sweat clung to her skin as he slowly parted her legs and his fingers delved deep, sliding easily to her warmth, causing her mind to spin in wild, erotic circles. She twisted on the sand, gasping for breath, bucking anxiously as he kissed her belly, her breasts, her thighs. She couldn’t stop herself, felt the first rush as he whispered her name. “Cassidy, oh, love—”
The world collided.
Lights exploded behind her eyes, sending sparks of vibrant colors that melded somewhere deep in her heart and far away to the ends of the universe. She lay gasping, drinking in the sight of him and wondering about their future. Together? Apart? Her throat ached with the need to know, the desire to trust him and love him and close her eyes to the rest of the world.
“Satisfied?” he asked in a voice devoid of emotion. Sitting on the sand beside her, he’d somehow managed to button his pants. Regret shaded his eyes.
“Yes, but—”
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” The words cut like the bite of a whip, and yet there was more than anger etched in the lines of his face. “Or at least the best I can offer right now.”
“I don’t understand—”
He stared across the lake. “You wanted to seduce me and you did.”
“Me—seduce you?” she said, her senses suddenly clear again, anger chasing away any lingering hint of afterglow. “You followed me out here.”
“Just like you expected me to. You knew that I couldn’t stay away, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie, Cassidy,” he said, pulling himself upright by his crutch and staring down at her. His mouth, so warm and loving only minutes before, had flattened into a thin, unforgiving line. “It doesn’t become you.”
The spell of the morning was shattered. “Get dressed,” he said, ramming his crutch into the sand. “Someone else might see you, and you could get more than you bargained for.”
“You arrogant, self-serving son of a bitch,” she cried. “You think I’d—”
“I don’t know what to think, Cassidy. Because I really don’t know you anymore.”
“Chase—”
“And you don’t know me.”
He staggered away and she was left staring at the smooth muscles of his back. Seamless and fluid, they served to remind her just how much she wanted his touch, how anxious she was for him to make love to her, how desperate she’d become. “Fool,” she ground out, kicking at the sand and throwing her robe over her shoulders. Cinching the belt, she watched as he disappeared around a bend near the patio. She felt a nagging little thought—something more than her fury—something deeper and worrisome, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand what it was.