A Rancher's Vow Page 9

  Hopefully, Reba’s untimely death wasn’t a bad omen for her upcoming marriage. She and Reed were to have a small, private ceremony and reception on Sunday. Thirteen people in all, including the Reverend and Mrs. Prescott, who would drive out yet again. Reed’s family with the exception of his mother, who was tending to a sick husband in Phoenix. Her own father would be present, of course, since he lived in Taos. But her mother, Nancy, was traveling with friends somewhere in France and incommunicado, and her brother Charles, who spearheaded a financial operation in Boston, had to chair the company’s annual meeting that would run through the weekend.

  In the meantime, Alcina had hardly found a moment to speak to her fiancé. Reed had been too busy working. What had she expected? Their relationship was based on business rather than romance.

  Still, he could have found some time to be alone with her.

  Reed had brought her to the church that morning, true, but he’d been with his brothers since. They and three other men from the town were the coffin bearers.

  Reverend Prescott waved over a few stragglers. “C’mon, gentlemen, we’re ready.”

  Alcina glanced over her shoulder to see a couple of old cowboys. Still no Cesar Cardona.

  “What was she thinking?” Pru murmured despondently. “Taking narcotics with alcohol.”

  Alcina had witnessed Reba using whiskey to soothe the abscessed tooth. Obviously, her good sense had been dulled. She’d been unable to make a clearheaded choice when the dentist had prescribed her the painkillers. Or…

  “Reba wasn’t depressed, was she?” Alcina whispered.

  “No! She didn’t commit suicide,” Pru insisted. “Not Reba. She didn’t realize the danger.”

  Indeed, the medical examiner had declared Reba Gantry’s death to be accidental.

  No reason to blow it up into something else.

  Still, Alcina had a difficult time concentrating on the short prayer offered by Pru’s father. Before she knew it, Reed, Bart, Chance, Hugh Ruskin and two young cowboys—newcomers whose names escaped her—were lowering the coffin into the grave.

  The mourners said their last goodbyes and started back for the church to share a potluck supper.

  Halfway up the incline, Alcina hesitated and turned for one last look.

  A few stragglers were leaving the grave site. One man remained. He dropped a single red rose onto the coffin and paused there, head hung as if in prayer.

  Alcina started.

  She hadn’t been aware that Vernon Martell had known Reba Gantry all that well. He’d probably eaten at her café, of course, but beyond that…well, the man was married, even if Lettie Martell was an invalid. Alcina looked around, but of course Mrs. Martell wasn’t present.

  She shifted uncomfortably, wondering what the rose meant.

  Martell lifted his head, his gaze meeting hers. Some fleeting expression that she couldn’t define crossed his features. Then it was gone. And so was he.

  He whirled around and stalked between grave sites to his vehicle.

  How odd.

  Alcina quickly joined the women, who were setting out the communal supper, mostly covered dishes and Jell-O molds. She and Pru set up the coffee table.

  “You’ll never guess what I saw,” she said quietly. “Vernon Martell leaving a rose on Reba’s coffin.”

  Pru made a face.

  “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Yeah. Reba liked men. I mean, she really liked them.”

  “Even married ones?”

  Pru shrugged. “I’m not sure a wedding ring meant much to her. Oh, double damnation, I’m not sure who she kept company with and who she didn’t. What does it matter, anyway? She’s dead, for heaven’s sake!”

  The mention of wedding ring sparked Alcina’s memory. Somehow, the diamond’s existence had escaped her with the news of the café owner’s death. But once reminded, she told Pru all about Reba’s visit.

  “I heard about her finding it, of course,” Pru admitted. “But no one has said anything to me about losing a stone.”

  “I can hardly believe it,” Alcina murmured. “That diamond is at least two carats and, considering the unusual cut and clarity, must be worth close to ten thousand dollars.”

  Though diamonds didn’t hold a particular appeal for her, she’d been around enough fine jewelry in New York to know something of what quality gems were worth.

  “You’d think a woman would know if the stone fell out of her engagement ring,” Pru said.

  “I don’t think you’d find a triangular-shaped stone in any of the engagement rings around here.”

  “That would be very unusual.”

  “I’d say you’d be more likely to find a cut like that in a fancy bracelet or watch or cuff links or even in a man’s ring.” Alcina shrugged. “Anyway, I’ll get the stone later. Reba wanted me to give it to you for safekeeping.”

  Pru stopped and stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding. With Hope and my sister Justine’s three girls getting into everything, nothing is safe in that house. Do me a favor and hang on to it, would you?”

  Alcina’s agreement lacked the proper enthusiasm even though she figured the stone was safe enough for the time being. But what if no one ever claimed it?

  A situation that made her uneasy. Someone should have claimed it by now…

  “So, about your wedding,” Pru said, switching topics. “Have you had that talk with Reed yet?”

  The one where she told him she’d been married before, a fact that she’d buried long before returning to Silver Springs?

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  The fewer people here who knew what a fool she’d been the better, her best friend being the exception. Alcina didn’t mind the title “town spinster.” Better than “town fool.”

  Besides, what had been the point of bragging about the biggest mistake of her life and one made so long ago?

  But she hadn’t told any of this to the man she was about to marry on Sunday, and Reed did have the right to know, Alcina supposed. He would expect total honesty of her, even as she did of him.

  “Thinking about telling him about my mistakes and doing so are two very different things,” she told Pru. “It’s just…too complicated to go into.”

  Because Reed had been directly in the center of her decision to return to New York where she’d met and married Jeffrey on the rebound, so to speak. She wasn’t quite sure how rebound applied since she and Reed had never been an item. Nevertheless, she’d lost her good judgment after hearing that Reed had gotten himself engaged to a neighboring rancher’s daughter.

  What irony, though.

  Reed hadn’t actually gone through with his marriage and hers hadn’t lasted a year. Alcina hadn’t been able to stay married to Jeffrey once she’d understood his true intentions in pursuing her in the first place.

  Love had not been involved. Business had. Her family’s financial business.

  The situation might be similar, but the men weren’t, an uneasy Alcina reminded herself. And at least she knew where things stood this time.

  Reed wasn’t a cheat.

  He was one of the last good, honest men.

  Pru was giving her the evil eye. “I never knew you to be a coward, Alcina Dale.”

  “I’m not, so you can stop looking at me like that!”

  But merely thinking about being honest with Reed at this point made Alcina’s stomach curl and her knees weak.

  What if he were to call off the wedding at the last minute?

  Her uneasiness bloomed into barely controlled panic.

  REED HADN’T MEANT TO PROPOSE to Alcina on their first date. He hadn’t meant to marry her on their second. But it looked as if that was the way his luck was going. His sharing supper with her and his family at the funeral didn’t count.

  Neither did their walk home.

  “Any new crises on the Curly-Q?” she asked once they were away from the graveyard.

  “Not today. Not
that I know of.”

  But the spread had experienced another bad-luck incident earlier in the week. Missing cattle. From what Pa had said, the episodes were coming closer together now, as if the perpetrator was nearing some kind of deadline.

  Alcina slipped a hand around his arm to hang on to him. Her touch was firm but light. Surprised, but liking the feeling akin to one of possession, Reed enveloped her fingers with his free hand.

  Her skin was smooth and silky, her fingertips soft to the touch, unlike his own work-callused pads. He absently traced a pattern along the back of her hand, and she shivered slightly.

  “Chilly?”

  “A little.”

  Guessing that to be a lie—she was wearing a dark gray wool suit and had draped herself with a wool wrap that looked like the fur of a big cat—he grinned. The thought of touching her all over in the same manner, making her quake with delicious discomfort, made him grin even harder.

  But his amusement was wiped clean away when, a little breathless, she asked, “Did you ever find any of those missing cattle?”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid a couple dozen head are gone with the wind.”

  Not to mention the several thousand dollars they would have brought at auction.

  All week, he and Bart and Chance had been frustrated by this newest invasion of their property. Someone had pulled down the fence and had backed an eighteen-wheeler right into their northernmost pasture. The tire tracks had still been there to prove it.

  They’d had no idea how many head were missing or if there was another piece of downed fence somewhere else on the property. That meant riding fence and counting head—an all-consuming task on a range the size of the Curly-Q.

  “From the looks of it,” Reed said, “Bart figures we’ve been rustled by professionals.”

  “Does he have any ideas about who was behind this?”

  “His being a lawman doesn’t make him psychic!” Reed snapped. Then, realizing Alcina had stiffened at his tone, he muttered, “Sorry, didn’t mean to take it out on you. It’s been a tough week. And, as good a lawman as Bart might be, tracking cattle rustlers isn’t his specialty. He doesn’t have the time for it, either. None of us do.”

  “So much money lost, though,” Alcina said. “What a shame, there doesn’t seem to be an end to the bad luck on the Curly-Q.”

  Didn’t he know it.

  Though Reed had hoped the cattle rustling was a stand-alone incident having nothing to do with the others, Pa had received another of the dreaded telephone inquiries from a real estate agent on the very next morning.

  And, to Reed’s frustration, Pa still refused to let him tell his brothers about the threat. Did Pa really think Bart and Chance hadn’t figured out that someone was waging a campaign to get the land itself?

  But to what purpose?

  Land development? The name Cesar Cardona immediately came to mind.

  Or increasing the size of someone else’s spread? Like the VM Ranch owned by Vernon Martell.

  Reed wouldn’t doubt that his brothers were speculating, as well. Neither of them was naive enough to believe all those incidents really had been a matter of luck. Only, no one had come up with an actual theory about who or why.

  And, hell, Pa could be right about his brothers, after all, Reed told himself. If they had a way out offered them, they might take the money and leave him hanging out to dry.

  “Reed, about the wedding,” Alcina suddenly said. “Are you sure you want to go through with it? If not, say so now, please. Let’s not make another…um, a mistake.”

  Reed had his doubts, all right.

  Here he was, less than a week after proposing, approaching what should be the most important day of his life and dreading rather than anticipating it.

  Even though Alcina had agreed to marry him without the romance that most women expected in their lives, he felt as if he was cheating her because he couldn’t be totally honest. Couldn’t tell her that this marriage was Pa’s plan to save the spread.

  If Tucker Dale came through the way Pa was expecting him to, that was.

  Committing himself to what could be a lost cause…Reed couldn’t help having second thoughts about doing so.

  But in the end, he would keep that commitment.

  With all that had been going on over the past few days, he’d had neither time nor energy left over for Alcina.

  “If you’re worried because you haven’t seen much of me until today, it couldn’t be helped. I’m real sorry that I’ve had to leave the wedding plans strictly in your hands,” he said, “as capable as I know them to be.”

  Alcina digested that for a moment before nodding. “I’d say yours are full right now, so don’t worry about it. Everything is under control.”

  The wedding maybe, Reed thought, but not his life.

  Which had been eating at him all week.

  As they approached the bed-and-breakfast, Reed casually asked, “Your father will be here, right?”

  “Of course Daddy’s coming. Why? Are you worried about it? I mean about our fathers being in the same place at the same time?”

  “I expect Pa knows to behave himself.”

  “Daddy, too.”

  “Some fence-mending would be in order,” Reed said, hoping that Alcina would volunteer to referee.

  But all she said was, “I’ll settle for a permanent truce.” She climbed the two steps to the roofed porch that ran the length of the territorial-style building. “What ever did go wrong between them in the first place? They were partners for so many years, both in the mine and in keeping the town running. Not to mention they were best friends.”

  Following her onto the porch, Reed said, “I’m not sure. Probably the usual with Pa. Him getting on a high horse about something or other. Making impossible demands of your father. Trying to micromanage everything. Driving him away just like anyone who ever cared for him.” Even as Pa had driven away his three wives and, later, his three sons, Reed thought. And yet another partner. “Noah Warner didn’t last out the first year under Pa’s thumb.”

  “Yes, but we don’t really know that your father was at fault. Some men simply aren’t cut out for hard work and Noah Warner might have been one of them,” Alcina said. She leaned her back against a support post for the porch roof. “Well, I’ll demand that Daddy steel himself if anything that has to do with your father happens at the wedding. Or after. Surely he can give a man who’s dy…uh, sick…a little leeway.”

  “You can say the word dying.”

  “Oh, Reed, I’m really, really sorry about that.”

  Alcina’s soft gray eyes were liquid with something that stirred him inside. Her expression held great sympathy. He’d never seen her more beautiful.

  “We’re all sorry about Pa.” Reed curled his hands into fists. “Can’t hardly believe it, though. Not any of us. Not when he seems okay most of the time.”

  “It’s difficult to think about losing someone we love, especially a parent,” Alcina said, moving toward him. She placed her hand on his chest, the featherlike touch stirring him. “I want you to know that I’ll be there for you, Reed. If you need something, all you have to do is ask.”

  She meant that—he could hear it in her voice.

  Drawn to Alcina as he had been to no other woman, Reed closed the gap between them and took her in his arms. She stayed relaxed for a moment. Then she sighed and he felt her hands slide from under his ribs around his back to encircle him. She tucked her forehead to his cheek.

  A wave of tenderness washed over Reed as he held Alcina in his arms.

  Tenderness…and something more stirring.

  He dipped his head to brush her lips with his. A kiss of gratitude, he thought. For her understanding.

  And another of apology. For his not being totally honest with her.

  And a third just because he wanted to.

  “Oh, Reed.”

  Her warm breath aroused him to kiss her yet again, this time more fully as he had on their picnic, when h
e’d proposed to her. She swayed against him and he tightened his hold. This felt so right, too, that it startled him.

  He’d gotten carried away the day of the picnic and had almost made love to her right there and then. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he wanted to take her again…and yet he wouldn’t.

  Despite the way his gut tightened and his manhood sprang to life, he knew it wouldn’t be right. Guilt burdened him and he was determined to stop before it faded like the waning light already had and he did something he would regret.

  So when she murmured, “Maybe we should go inside,” he dropped his arms and backed off.

  “It’s late,” he said. “I’d better get going. I need to get up with the rooster tomorrow.”

  As if the next day would be different from any other.

  “Reed, it’s not even seven o’clock.”

  “But I have some things to take care of back at the ranch.”

  Emotions warred across Alcina’s fine features. Acceptance won.

  “All right, then. Good night.”

  She whirled around and entered her home, shutting him out with the slam of her front door.

  The irony of his situation didn’t escape Reed.

  If he didn’t plan on marrying Alcina, he’d have no compunction about taking her right here and now. Right on the front porch.

  Instead, the impending wedding and his own dishonesty kept him from having her at all.

  If thoughts like those kept rolling through his head, Reed would not be looking forward to his wedding night.

  Chapter Seven

  “I still can’t believe you’re marrying one of the Quarrels boys!” Tucker Dale growled.

  Alcina closed her eyes and groaned.

  Couldn’t her father simply congratulate her and give her his best wishes?

  She hoped she wouldn’t regret requesting this chat with him in her bedroom while she was trying to finish getting ready herself, but he’d left her with no choice. They needed to get a few things clear between them, and he’d just arrived barely a half hour before the ceremony was to begin.

  “Reed is a man, Daddy. A good man.” Alcina sat before the mirror, finishing her makeup. A swipe of color over her cheeks with a brush and a light gloss on her lips and she was done. “I remember you always liked Reed.”