Lacy

“For keeps?” she whispered.

He nodded. He pulled the car to the side of the road and let the engine idle while he stared at her. “For keeps. Let’s get married.”

“I’m not a virgin,” she said straight-out, without going into detail.

“Neither am I. So what?” he asked bluntly.

Her cheeks went rosy. She smiled, feeling really shy. “Well…”

He bent and put his mouth over hers. It wasn’t unpleasant, letting him kiss her. He ran his hands slowly over her shoulders, down over her breasts, and that wasn’t unpleasant, either.

He laughed. “You’re not that experienced, either, chick,” he whispered as she flushed again. He winked at her as he moved back under the wheel and put it in gear. “We’ll get along okay. Now sit back and watch this baby run!” He hit the accelerator, and the car shot forward with a surge of pure power.

Katy, sitting beside him, suddenly felt as if she’d won a lottery. So there wouldn’t be any disgrace. She’d be a respectable married lady, and Cole wouldn’t come and kill Danny. She closed her eyes and smiled. She wondered what Turk would say when he found out. He’d probably be relieved to hear that she was out of his hair once and for all, she thought bitterly. She comforted herself with the hope that she wouldn’t be pregnant. Turk had tried to spare her that shame. It was one thing to go to Danny without her chastity, quite another to present him with another man’s child. She had too much character for that kind of dirty trick. But…what if Turk’s actions had been too late?

FAR AWAY, ON THE NORTHERN end of San Antonio, Lacy was clutching her husband’s sleeve as he helped her on board the morning train that ran down through Floresville and stopped on a siding near Spanish Flats.

He was deadly quiet this morning, all business. Still in his work clothes, he drew feminine eyes nevertheless. But he never returned those sly glances, or even acknowledged them. He helped Lacy into a seat and slid lazily down beside her. Deceptive, that slow movement of his lean, hard body. She’d seen him in a hurry once or twice, and he was as quick as greased lightning and twice as dangerous.

“Katy will be glad of some young company,” he remarked as the train pulled slowly out of the station, lurching with the first movements.

“What’s he like, this Chicago man she’s seeing?” Lacy asked.

He shrugged. “Italian. Dark, well mannered, a little shady. Turk doesn’t like him.”

“Turk doesn’t like anybody around Katy, and you know it,” she murmured dryly, glancing up at his hard face.

Dark, angry eyes cut down into hers. “Turk is the best friend I have in the world. But even he isn’t permitted that kind of familiarity. Katy isn’t going to become one of Turk’s castoffs.”

“Oh, no,” Lacy said demurely, folding her hands over the lap of her dark skirt. “But she’s perfect for a gangster?”

“It isn’t that kind of relationship. She’s young. She’s just having a fling,” he said.

She watched him cross his long legs and roll a cigarette. He was so capable, she thought. Always in perfect command, taking charge, making everything all right. She’d felt secure with him, even in their early days together. She’d never been afraid when Cole was anywhere around.

“Why won’t you let Turk near her?” she asked bluntly.

He turned in the seat, with his arm draped carelessly over the back, and studied her. “Because he seduces everything in skirts,” he said matter-of-factly. “Katy would be easy prey. Then it would be impossible. He’d be embarrassed and guilty about it, and she’d be compromised or worse. I’d have to do something about it, and that wouldn’t help anybody. No. It’s better this way.”

“You don’t think he could settle down, maybe get married?” she persisted gently.

“He was married,” he said. “She died. He’s never wanted anyone else like that. I’m not sure he can. He likes his own company now.”

“Like you,” she said, smiling faintly.

His broad shoulders lifted and fell. “I’m used to it. It takes too much time and effort, letting people get close. More often than not, they find a weakness and exploit it. If you keep them at arm’s length, that can’t happen.”

“It’s a pretty lonely life,” she reminded him, gray eyes soft and searching.

“Loneliness and independence are different words for the same thing. Freedom. I like mine. I don’t think I could survive being hog-tied and smothered.”

“I never tried to smother you,” she said, defending herself. “I just hated being ignored constantly.”

“And the one time I didn’t ignore you,” he replied quietly, watching her blush, “you cried all night long. I heard you, even through the wall.”

She turned her face away, but he caught her chin and jerked it back around to search it, his eyes dark and fierce.

“You walked away,” she said unsteadily, glancing around. There was no one near enough to hear them; the train was remarkably uncrowded for that time of day. She looked back at him. “You knew you’d hurt me, and you couldn’t get out fast enough. Of course I cried.”

“What could I have said or done then?” he asked, eyes narrow and dark. “I thought you wanted me. You seemed to, that morning.”

Her lips parted at the memory of it: his mouth warm and searching, his body hard and hungry against her own. It had been so sweet, so heady. “Yes, I wanted you,” she whispered. “I thought it would be the way it was that morning. But afterward, it was like being…used,” she said falteringly. “You wouldn’t even let me touch you.”

His jaw clenched as he stared down at her, his chest rising and falling unevenly. He did want, so desperately, to tell her why he’d hurt her. But he wondered if she’d believe him even if he could make his pride bend that far. “That’s past history, anyway, Lacy,” he said curtly. He lifted the cigarette to his parted lips and took a long draw. “We’ll have to make the best of things, if we can.”

She looked out the window, to the low horizon and acres of flat, unfenced land outside it. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that we could get a divorce?”

“No. So it looks as if you’re stuck, doesn’t it, kiddo?” he asked, with a cold smile.

“Or you are,” she replied sweetly, and smiled back.

He glanced down at the neat dark suit she was wearing and the pretty little hat on her dark head. “I’m glad you aren’t wearing any of those outrageous new dresses like what you had on last night,” he commented. “I have a hell of a time keeping my cowhands working as it is, without you women driving them crazy. They’ve been hanging around the house for weeks now, trying to get a glimpse of Katy’s legs. I finally burned two of her more revealing dresses.”

“Just your style, cattle king,” she taunted. “If you can’t reason with people, run over them. You were always like that, even when you were younger.”

“Don’t expect me to change, Lacy. I’m too old.”

She shook her head, staring at the rugged features, the straight nose and chiseled, wide mouth, the square jaw. It wasn’t the nicest face she’d ever seen on a man, but it suited him, and she loved every hard line of it. Bronzed skin, deep-set dark eyes, heavy brows, thick straight hair that fell into an unruly heap on his broad forehead. He was sensuous. Yes, he really was, she thought suddenly, even in the way he moved. But it was only an illusion, because he was more repressed than any man she’d ever known and he hated the very idea of sex. She’d wondered a time or two how many women he’d had in his life. Oddly, enough, she sometimes thought there had hardly been any.

“You’re staring, honey,” he chided, watching her intense scrutiny.

“You’re a very sensuous man,” she said quietly, watching the impact of that statement freeze his hard features.

He turned his face away from her and leaned back to smoke his cigarette in a frigid silence.

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said after a minute, settling down into her own comfortable seat as the train gathered speed.

“No. It wasn’t that,” he replied, his voice even, quiet.

Well, whatever it was, he didn’t volunteer anything more. He sat with his hat down over his eyes, the cigarette smoking between his lean, dark fingers, and he didn’t say another word.

Still, her eyes continued to study him, running like hands down his long, lean body with its rippling play of muscle as he shifted.

“Why do they call Jude Turk?” she asked unexpectedly.

His thin lips actually smiled, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Because there aren’t any fiercer fighters than the Turks. He’s a force to behold when he’s mad, kiddo. A mean man.”

“As mean as you?” she teased softly, her blue eyes twinkling in their frame of soft, forward-curving hair.