Lacy

“Don’t go,” he said. “Don’t let that man make you into a plaything. He’ll use you and throw you out.”

She looked up, loving him with her eyes. “So long, cowboy.” She smiled faintly, sadly. “I loved you, Turk,” she whispered. She touched his hard face, feeling the muscles harden. “I always will, until I die. I may have other men, but I’ll never give all of myself again.”

“He’ll hurt you!” he ground out, hating this, hating the pain. He hadn’t expected that it would hurt when she left, that he wouldn’t be able to take her in his stride and walk away.

She touched her fingers to his firm mouth. “No. You’ve seen to that,” she said, her voice exquisitely tender. “No one could possibly have made it as perfect as you did. He won’t hurt me.” Her eyes searched his one last time, sad and resigned. “I’ll love you until I die, Turk.”

She turned and moved quickly away, so that he wouldn’t see the tears. It was good-bye. They both knew it.

Long after she’d left, Turk sat on the steps of the barn loft, smoking a cigarette, his eyes blank and sad. After Lorene, he’d never wanted anyone else, not permanently. He’d wanted to have Katy; he couldn’t deny that. He’d only kept his distance so long because he’d promised Cole. But now…

His body ached. Despite the feverish fulfillment he’d had with her, a completion he’d never known with another woman, ever, he was hungry all over again. He remembered her small, taut breasts under his chest, the nipples arousing him as they rubbed against his muscles….

He got up abruptly and took the cigarette outside to grind it out under the heel of his boot. His face set into harsh lines, he went back toward the house. He owed Cole so much, but there had to be a way out of this. Maybe he could talk to her, maybe they could work something out.

It had only been thirty minutes or so since she’d left the barn, long enough to smoke three cigarettes. So it came as a shock when he got to the house and found it empty.

Cassie came back into the kitchen from the pantry to find him staring toward the staircase.

“If you looking for Miss Katy,” she said shortly, “she ain’t here. She done gone, luggage and all, with that Chicago gangster.”

He felt his heart sinking. He turned, his eyes dark, quiet. “When?”

“Not five minutes ago.” She sighed. “Mr. Cole going to be like a wild man. And how is I going to tell Miss Marion?” Her tired, lined eyes misted. “My baby, gone off with that—that man! How come you let her go, Mr. Turk?” she demanded.

“She’s of age,” he said harshly, when all his fighting instincts were screaming for him to go after the man and kill him. But what could he offer her? He didn’t want to get married. And after what had happened, it would be impossible all the way around if she stayed here. His friendship with Cole would be at risk; Katy would grow to hate him. And that Chicago man did seem sincere enough, explaining patiently to Turk the night before that their late arrival had been innocent. He cared about Katy, he’d told Turk. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Perhaps he’d marry her…

Why should that hurt so much? He turned on his heels and stalked out of the house. Cassie was crying softly as he went out the door.

The shock was almost too much for Marion Whitehall. She came home to a tearful Cassie and was hit with the news just as she put her purse down on the hall table.

Her elegant features contorted; her dark eyes filled with tears under their frame of curling, silvery hair. “Gone?” she exclaimed. “My Katy, gone? To—to live with a man? Why didn’t someone stop her?”

“Mr. Turk got here too late, and Mr. Cole ain’t come home yet, that’s why,” Cassie moaned. “And I was out in the garden. Nobody was here to stop her. Mr. Turk said she was of age—and he just stomped off somewhere in a temper. Mr. Cole going to be so mad!”

Marion sat down. She felt sick all the way to her shoes. Katy. Her baby. How could she do this? “Has Ben come home?” she asked.

“I doesn’t think so,” Cassie said, sobbing. “He didn’t come down for breakfast, so I looks in his room, and he ain’t been in it. So I reckon he ain’t here. Oh, Lord! What a terrible day this is! What a terrible homecoming for Mr. Cole!”

Marion felt the tears running down her cheeks. “Did she leave a message? A note? Anything?”

“I’ll go look,” Cassie said, ambling toward the staircase.

Just then, the front door flew open, and Ben Whitehall came rushing through it, his dark eyes wild, his dark hair disheveled like his once-immaculate gray suit. “I got it!” he burst out, “I got it! I got it! He hired me!”

He grabbed Cassie and spun her around in an impromptu dance, too exuberant to notice that nobody was smiling. “I’m going to work for a brand spanking new San Antonio newspaper.” He laughed. “They hired me to write news. I’ve been out with the owner and his daughter, and I have to go back—” He stopped, frowning as the somber faces of his mother and housekeeper penetrated his enthusiasm. He let go of Cassie. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Your sister just left for Chicago,” Marion said miserably, her face a study in desperation and shame. “To live with the owner of a speakeasy!”

Chapter

Four

Ben’s face froze. He straightened, running an idle hand through his thick, dark hair. He stared at his mother. “She left with that gangster?” he asked, as if he could hardly believe what he’d heard. “Why didn’t somebody stop her?”

“Turk apparently didn’t get here in time,” Marion said quietly, her eyes wet with tears. “My little girl…in that terrible place! Oh, Ben! What will become of her?”

“Now, Mama,” Ben said awkwardly. He knelt before her, rubbing her hands in his. “Mama, she’s a big girl. Are you sure they aren’t getting married?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Cassie’s looking for a note or something. Why did she do it?” she asked, lifting eyes as dark as his own to question him. “She’s been so wild lately, but I never expected her to do anything like this. Ben—” she leaned forward urgently “—Coleman will kill him.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. It was the truth, too. Cole had a hell of a temper, and he doted on Katy. He wouldn’t put it past his big brother to get on the first train North with a pistol on his hip.

“How are we going to tell him?” she persisted, gnawing on her lower lip.

Ben forced a smile. Just his luck, he thought miserably. Here he’d came home with the best news of his budding career, and there was nobody to listen. Sister Katy had stolen his thunder.

“Here,” Cassie called from the hall, waving a piece of paper. “She did leave us a note!”

Marion took it from her with trembling hands and read it. “Mama and all,” Katy had scribbled. “Danny and I are engaged. We are going to Chicago today to meet his parents. We’ll invite you all to the wedding! Wish us luck. Love, Katy.”

Ben met his mother’s dark eyes. “Do you believe it?”

She shook her head. “But it’s important that we make Coleman believe it…Do you understand me, Ben, Cassie?”

They both nodded. Cole’s temper wasn’t something to arouse unnecessarily. It was frankly dangerous.

MEANWHILE KATY WAS SITTING jauntily beside Danny in the spiffy Alfa Romeo, forcing herself to laugh gaily and pretend wild enthusiasm for the long trip North.

Beside her, Danny Marlone was grinning from ear to ear, his complexion even darker against his perfect white teeth. He gave his companion a warm glance and began to whistle.

“You’ll love the Windy City, baby,” he said. “I’ll show you all the best places. There’s a beach…You’ll love that. I’ve got this big house, all stone, on a hill overlooking the lake, chock-full of servants. You’ll have everything you want. Everything!”

“Darling, I did tell this one itty-bitty white lie,” she said, wanting everything aboveboard.

He caught her hand and pressed the palm to his lips. “What itty-bitty white lie?”

She swallowed, trying not to think about Turk and how it had been…“Well, so that my brother wouldn’t kill you, I said we were getting married.”

“Darling! But this is so sudden!” He chuckled, grinning at her.

She just stared, taken aback.

“It sounds great, doesn’t it? Mr. and Mrs. Danny Marlone,” he said, clasping her fingers closer. He laid her open palm on his thigh. “Yeah, I like that. We’ll go whole hog, too. Announcements in all the papers, only the best people at the wedding. Your family can come. Your big brother can give you away. Oh, it’ll be great, honey!”

Her breath lodged in her chest. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing! “But I thought you just—just wanted to have an affair!” she burst out, turning to face him.

“I want you,” he said, and the look in his eyes made her feel oddly humble. That wasn’t lust. That was love, pure and simple, and even while she marveled at being the recipient of it, she ached to have that look from Turk. She never would, now. Never.