The Girl with the Golden Spurs

“Darling, darling, what would I do if I didn’t have you?”

Blue eyes sparkling, Vanilla grinned at her impishly.

Lizzy fought back hot wet tears. She wasn’t going to cry, and she wasn’t going to call home, either, no matter how much she suddenly wanted to talk to her mother—even though Mother had never understood her.

Nobody could know the terrible turn her life had taken. Nobody.

Lizzy wasn’t going home to Texas in defeat. Maybe her perfect life was unraveling, but she wasn’t going home. She’d get her job back and she’d get Bryce back, too. It was all a mistake. A terrible mistake. All she needed was a plan. Affirmations. She’d do some affirmations.

Downstairs the big doors banged, and she heard the fa miliar tread of boots on the stairs.

Walker! She’d forgotten about him.

The video!

Her brother was loping up the stairs two at a time as she shoved the tape underneath the cushions of her couch.

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, she pulled Vanilla into her lap and fought to look calm and composed.

By the time Walker entered the apartment and called to her, she and the baby were playing an innocent game of patty-cake.

“How’s it going, Little Lizzy?”

“F-fine.” She swallowed.

Their eyes met, and she knew he knew something was wrong.

Walker could read souls.

He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he reached for the baby, who started clapping.

Then all he said to Lizzy was, “What’s for supper?”

Three

Houston, Texas

Caesar

“Hi there.” Cherry’s lazy velvet voice caressed Caesar across twenty feet of darkness, but it was as if she reached out and circled his cock with her hand and lowered her head. His groin got as hot as if her talented tongue was already wetting him there.

Not that he was in the mood for sex or her lies. Hell, he’d just flown in from a board meeting in San Antonio. His temples ached with tension. He’d gone to the meeting hoping to iron out the details of the Golden Spurs Ranch Museum opening and the following celebration.

Only Joanne had been there. She’d asked the board to tell him to break up with Cherry or step down. She’d listed various ranch crises and how little he’d done for the ranch lately and how much she’d done. And how much Cole Knight had done as well—damn his rotten soul!

“You have no right to air our dirty laundry to the board,” he’d growled when she’d gone on and on about Knight.

“My children own stock in the ranch,” she’d said.

“She has no right to be here,” he’d yelled at the board, pointing toward Joanne.

Then Leo, the CEO stood up. “I invited her here.”

“Who is she—who are you, any of you—to tell me what to do?”

“I said, ‘Hey, there…’” Cherry’s warm, silky voice floated to him again.

“Sorry.” He rubbed his aching temples. “My mind’s a million miles away.”

Break up with her? In a week?

He was furious at the board, at Joanne, at himself, and at Cherry. And he had a hard-on.

So what else was new?

Lately he hadn’t thought about Cherry much when he wasn’t with her. Why was that? But when he was with her, she consumed him.

Lying naked beside her, he loved her female scent and the dark color of her nipples. He loved the way they lay together afterward, drinking Scotch from the same bottle. The only reason he’d agreed to marry her was that she’d said she wouldn’t let him screw her anymore if he didn’t. When she’d stuck to her guns, he’d figured he’d get out of the bargain somehow. Then he’d given her a great big diamond and a credit card at her twentieth birthday party to appease her. Ever since he’d felt like his life was hurtling toward some fatal destiny that he was powerless to avoid.

He slammed the door of her Houston studio apartment and stomped toward her.

“Want me to give you some special candy, lover buver?” she whispered.

His groin tightened. Special candy was their secret code.

Caesar flushed as he pitched the wad of credit card bills onto the low table near the bed.

“Did you bring me a present?” she cooed.

He looked around, pained. Sequined costumes, thong panties and bras dripped from chairs. T-shirts and dirty jeans littered the stained, turquoise shag carpet. Lingering in the closed room was a stale smell that he associated with airless rooms and unwashed sheets after too much sex.

Joanne was a neat freak. He used to hate the way she hung up each garment as she took it off—even when he was on fire to have her—and the way she stripped the sheets off the bed seconds after he came.

Caesar’s head ached. He’d taken more Tylenol than he should’ve today, but the tablets weren’t cutting it. The pill bottle in his glove compartment was running on empty. He felt old today, way older than fifty. Everybody told him, at least those who dared, that he was looking bad, that Cherry was dragging him down.

He’d given Cherry lots of presents because her joy in receiving them had always been rapturous. For her, presents were an aphrodisiac.

When he spoke, all he could manage was a rough, semiharsh whisper that didn’t sound much like himself. “You’ve been buying yourself quite a few presents lately. More than I can afford.”

She laughed. “Oh, is that all that’s eatin’ you, big daddy? You’re rich. I’m poor.”

“Land rich. Cash poor.”

“If it was the other way around, I’d give you the moon.”

Would she? Would she even look at him twice?

“Relax, big daddy. Relax.” She sounded young and spoiled and very self-confident.

He knew their affair was as ridiculous as everybody said it was. When he’d agreed to marry her, he’d made himself the laughingstock of the state. Joanne’s lawyers were having a field day, and still, he couldn’t stop seeing Cherry. He simply couldn’t…not when he remembered how he’d felt before he’d met her.

Sheets rustled as she rolled lazily across her bed toward him. Her diamond ring flashed. “Why don’t you come to bed? I’ve gotten real horny lying in this big ol’ bed playing with myself.”

The room smelled muskily of other men. Not that he’d been here lately. He wasn’t so stupid he didn’t realize that she didn’t crave him a tenth as much as he craved her.

He leaned down and yanked at the chain of the lamp beside the bed. Golden light flooded the messy room and lit up the silver sequined cowgirl hat she’d hung on a nail on a far wall. She’d been wearing that hat the night he’d first laid eyes on her. The rest of her fetching costume had been matching pasties, a G-string and high-heeled, sequined boots.

He pointed to the bills. “We need to talk.”

She stretched like a cat. She slept in the nude. Deliberately she pushed the sheets lower to expose her soft, round body. Then she smiled up at him, batting her long lashes.

Don’t look at that bright red mouth. But he did. Next he thought about what those lips did to pleasure him and was instantly aroused. She saw, and her smile brightened with childish delight.

“Come to bed, love. Let little mama scratch your itch.”

Then she shoved the bills onto the floor and said, “Let little mama prove she’s worth every single penny—and way, way more.”

He laughed. Within minutes her expert hands had stripped him of his jeans and boots. Soon she lay on top of him, her mouth licking, circling, wetting his tanned flesh everywhere. She started kissing somewhere beneath his ears and worked down across his chest and stomach and then his belly, her tongue dipping into his navel and then moving lower, trailing up and down between his legs…back and forth, and around and around until he burned like a wildfire. When he was breathing hard, she lowered her head, her long silver-blond hair tickling his stomach as she began to nip and nibble at the most erotic places.

Her damn mouth was like a vacuum. He was rock hard. His blood thrummed. His heart pounded. He felt wonderful, too wonderful for words, until the nagging pain began in his right temple.

Then it struck as viciously as a hammer blow. He felt an explosion in his head like his brain had come out of his skull, and then the pain stopped, and he felt different…numb…not in touch with himself…as if he were floating above them. He’d had the same out-of-body sensation when he’d been bucked off a bronc once and suffered a spinal injury. Only those symptoms had cleared after a day or two.

Like before, he couldn’t feel his hands or his legs. Only this time he couldn’t move anything, not even his lips or his tongue. It was as if his entire body were dead.

With total clarity he wondered what would happen when she figured out he wasn’t all right. Who would she call first—the police, or an ambulance? Would this make the papers and cause still more scandal?

Cherry kept licking him, unaware of the change in him for a while, but he couldn’t feel her tongue anymore. And he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything. Not the ranch. Not Mia. Not Electra.

Her platinum head bobbed back and forth over his hard dark body for what seemed an eternity. Finally she stopped and looked up at his face, and her eyes grew so startled, they blazed in her white face.

With her fists, she pounded his chest. “Move! Say something! Do something!”

But he was made of petrified stone.

“What’s wrong?” He knew she was shouting, but her voice was dim. “What’s wrong with you?”

She slapped him hard across the face.

He didn’t feel her hand, either, or her nails when they dug into his cheeks a little.

She slapped him again. “Say something!”

All he could do was stare at her as she slapped him again and again.

When she began to cry, he thought about Lizzy.

Would this bring her home? Would she finally realize she had to come home? Would she ever forgive him for the disgrace and scandal he’d brought on her name? Or for Cole?

Vaguely he was aware of Cherry sliding off him and reaching for the telephone. To his surprise she didn’t call an ambulance or a doctor or even the police.

When he heard the name of the person she called, a chill went through him.

“You got me in this!” she screamed. “You made me hit on him! What do I do?”

He had been set up. When Caesar remembered who’d suggested that first night at the strip joint, his next thought was for Lizzy.

First Electra. Now him.

If Lizzy did come home, would she be next?

Cherry hung up and dialed another number. “You wanna know who I’m calling, I bet.” She flashed him a hateful smile. “Well, I’m calling your wife!”

“Hi there—Mrs. Kemble.” Brash as she was, even Cherry hesitated for a moment. “It’s me—Cherry. Your husband’s fianceé.”

Joanne must have had plenty to say on that score because it was a long time before Cherry could get another word in.

“Y—yes, well, I—I don’t care about any of that. He’s in my bed…not yours. And he’s as still as a stump. Somethin’s bad wrong with him. If you don’t send somebody to get him out of here, and send him fast, I’ll call an ambulance, and, and the newspapers. And if I do that—all hell will break loose.”

Another long silence.

“No, he’s not dead, and I don’t want no corpse in my bed! Do you hear me? No! I didn’t do anything to him. We were making love.” Another long silence. “No. No drugs. A stroke maybe… I’m not a doctor. I don’t know. Just hurry!”

Lizzy—he had to warn her.

Why in the name of God had he told everybody he wanted her to succeed him? By doing so, he’d signed her death warrant.

He fought to say her name, but his lips felt like cold concrete.

Imprisoned in his own body, he could only stare helplessly at Cherry, who was watching him, too. Her pretty face beneath her straw-white mane was a mask of disgust. Her eyes were cold and soulless. His throat tightened.

She got up slowly. Lifting her sequined cowboy hat off its nail, she put it on. Then she twirled round and round for him just like she had the first night.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours, big daddy?” Spreading her long legs, she made a faux bow.

She pitched her hat toward the bed and went to her mirror where she made up her mouth with vivid red lipstick and combed and fluffed her hair.

When she turned around again and smiled at him, she looked more ravishing than ever.

But it didn’t matter. He felt nothing, absolutely nothing for her.

Only Lizzy mattered.

And Electra. She would always matter.

He remembered the day he’d stood in the rain and scat tered her ashes under the Spur Tree because she’d written in her will that that was her final wish. She’d chosen to be with him in death at least.

Joanne had been furious when he’d had a bronze marker placed beneath the tree with Electra’s name on it.

“Jack’s spurs are there, aren’t they?” he’d said to shut Joanne up.

Electra. Always Electra.

He had to stay alive to save their daughter.

Four

Manhattan

Too much was happening to her.

The phone was ringing, but Lizzy ignored it. She was too busy watching the two naked men writhe on her television screen with a total absorption that would have embarrassed her had she been of sound mind, which after the catastrophic events of today—she was not.

The late-afternoon sunlight was still red and sparkling outside her window, and the air was crisp and cool. It was a gorgeous evening for a walk. The smart Lizzy had known she should have gone with Walker and Vanilla when Walker had been nice enough to invite her, but the self-destructive Lizzy had been depressed at the thought of an activity that might cheer her up. That Lizzy had wanted, no, needed, to indulge in her very own pity party.

How could such a gorgeous day have been so terrible?

Finally the phone was silent.

For the first time in her life Lizzy wished she’d listened to her friend Mandy and had gotten into astrology or something useful. Maybe then she would have seen some cosmic warning in her horoscope or palm today.

Your life as you know it, as you dream it, is over now.

Her life was a joke. First Bryce. Then Nell. And now Walker.

It’s your own fault that you know about Walker.

Curiosity had led her to darker places before this, surely it had, although she couldn’t think of any.

Finding out about Walker’s private tape collection was the last thing she needed tonight. So why had she played the video the second Walker had left with Vanilla?

Because I’m a glutton for punishment. Because like every other female on earth, I’m like Pandora. If you tell me something is forbidden, I just have to open the box.

She remembered her father being hell-bent on making a man of Walker, as he’d put it. He’d made Walker hunt and ride and participate in rodeos. Daddy had bragged and bragged about how Walker had tamed the wildest broncs or killed the most game while both Hawk and Walker had flushed and looked uncomfortable. She thought about how Hawk had always been so protective of Walker.

The phone started ringing again, and Lizzy felt heavy demands from home. She felt guilty about not answering and torn because she actually wanted to talk to her mother. But if she talked to her right now, she’d tell her everything. Maybe she’d even mention Walker.

Mother—get a life.

Tough talk for a self-destructive wimp.

How many times had Mother called already? Seven? It seemed to Lizzy the phone had been ringing forever as she stared at her television screen where two men, obviously lovers, embraced. Then almost immediately the men lay down together on the bed again, and their bodies began to writhe.

The phone stopped ringing for at least a whole minute. Not that the lovers stopped what they were doing on that bed.

Just because he has a gay video doesn’t mean he’s gay. Maybe he was just curious and bought it as a joke. Maybe some gay guy with a crush on him had slipped it into his luggage… Maybe…

The phone started again. Mother had to be the most persistent human being in the world. Lizzy knew it was her mother because she’d checked her caller ID twice before when the phone had rung right after Walker had taken Vanilla down for a walk in the park and to buy take-out Chinese. She’d been hoping, of course, that it was Bryce or Nell calling to say they hadn’t meant any of it.

As the phone continued to ring, Lizzy wiped at her damp eyes. One of the men was tall and blond, like Bryce; the other short and dark and very muscular like her cousin, Sam. The darker man had seven little daggers tattooed onto his forearm. Lizzy knew exactly how many daggers—because she’d counted them twice, maybe to keep her gaze there instead of drifting to the lower part of the men’s bodies, which the camera was now focusing upon.

She averted her gaze, but out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of the men’s supple, perfect bodies tensing, coming closer to some fatal edge. She saw all the parts of their magnificent bodies, yes, all the parts, those long rigid parts with the thick purple veins, and suddenly she started thinking about how long it had been since she and Bryce had had sex.

Men liked watching women with each other. Why? Should she be turned on by watching two men? Was something wrong with her because she resented this video? She thought about Bryce…about his leaving her…about her being too dull…especially in bed.

It was all her fault. What would a kick-ass fantasy heroine do?

What if…what if she proved to him she wasn’t as dull as he thought she was? What if she made him see her as a completely different kind of woman…the way she was seeing Walker in a whole new light?

The men in the video were shouting at each other, soundlessly, because Lizzy had muted the volume.

Look away. Don’t watch anymore. Don’t torture yourself.

She felt far too insane to take sane advice, even from herself. It made her feel crazy to associate her sweet, wonderful brother with what she was watching. Walker had been so dear and thoughtful before he’d left with Vanilla. He’d sensed something was wrong, but unlike Mother, he hadn’t pushed her. He’d simply offered to take the baby out and buy dinner for them. He’d given her space, a precious commodity in Manhattan if ever there was one. Especially, for a Texan used to wide-open spaces.

“You’re sure Bryce won’t come home starved—”

She mumbled something to Walker about Bryce working late.

“So, if Bryce isn’t coming home, are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” His eyes had been so kind. As if he knew. “It’s a beautiful night.”

“Just go. I’m really tired.”

He’d lingered at the door, tall and cowboy dark in a plaid shirt and jeans, until she’d said, “go,” again.

Walker was all male, tougher than any cowhand she knew. He was! Hadn’t her daddy told everybody that over and over again? Walker wasn’t… He couldn’t be…gay. Not her brother.

But despite her fierce determination to cling to what she wanted to believe about him, her life with him was flashing before her eyes like images on cards. Only now every image had a new meaning as she viewed it with fresh insight.

Walker was as formidably large and male as his brother Hawk and as tough as any man. He could stay on a bucking bronc longer than any of them—but he was so kind and gentle and thoughtful. He never bulldozed over people the way Daddy or Hawk or even Cole sometimes did. He loved art and the theater.

Walker couldn’t be gay. Women threw themselves at him.

They asked him out on dates.

But he never asked them.

The big glass doors downstairs opened and crashed closed. Even before she heard Walker’s heavy boots on the carpeted stairs, she jumped up, took the tape out of the player, rushed to the second bedroom and hid it in a drawer.

As her brother strode up the stairs, she ran into her own bedroom and took the phone off the hook, so it couldn’t ring again. If he knew Mother was calling, he’d call her.

By the time Walker walked inside carrying Vanilla, Lizzy was back on the couch with her hands folded primly in her lap.

Vanilla clapped when she saw Lizzy.

Lizzy wished she’d had time to turn the lamp on. She wished she’d grabbed a book or something. It probably looked odd, her just sitting there in the dark.

She steeled herself to look at Walker and felt instantly guiltily disturbed when she did. Instead of his kind, handsome, dark face, she saw those seven tattoos and the joined forbidden parts of those two male bodies.

She took a deep breath.

“You seem in an odd mood,” he said.

“I—I’m fine. H-how come you and Daddy… How come you left Texas?”

“Well, I never was Daddy’s favorite. Maybe I got tired of always having to prove myself.”

“What did you and Daddy fall out over?”

“We had a different vision for the museum.”

“That artist painting the murals was a friend of yours in college, wasn’t he? You brought him home to the ranch once? Were his paintings too abstract or something?”

“Something like that,” Walker agreed vaguely.

Their father had very strong opinions about modern art. If a painting wasn’t like a photograph, he thought it was hogwash.

“You hungry?” Walker asked, changing the subject abruptly, but still in that gentle, comforting tone, as he carried Vanilla to her.

“Starved,” she managed to say as she took Vanilla, who clapped and smiled some more.

Walker made Vanilla a bottle while Lizzy settled Vanilla in her high chair with a cardboard book. She got plates and silverware out, then brother and sister sat down together at the scarred table she and Amanda had bought at a fair in the Village. Vanilla placed the book aside and guzzled her bottle noisily.

Walker spooned steaming rice and vegetables onto their plates. With her chopsticks, Lizzy toyed with her food. Everything was exactly the same between them as it had been before she’d watched the video, and yet nothing was the same.

“I never did find the knack of eating with those silly sticks, either,” Walker said.

Lizzy dropped them with a clatter and picked up her fork. Then she took a deep breath to ward off the panic that threatened to overwhelm her.

He watched her when she set her fork down a few minutes later.

Vanilla pounded her high-chair tray with her bottle, and Lizzy forced a smile.

“You want me to go out and get something else?” Walker said.

“No… No. The food is great…really. I guess I’m not as hungry as I thought I was.”

Her stomach churned. No way could she swallow a bite.

“Well, I reckon I’ll be leaving in the morning,” he said. “Early—before you get up.”

“Are you going home?”

“No. I’ll call from time to time to see how you’re doing. I’ll give you my new address when I have one.”

It occurred to her he was going through some crisis as bad or maybe even worse than hers. But her own pain and inhibitions wouldn’t let her reach out to him.

Maybe that was for the best. She hoped so. Maybe it was better for them both if he kept his secrets and she kept hers. That way, their lives looked perfect…on the surface.

“I’m glad you came,” she said, studying him until he looked up and did the same.

He nodded.

She lifted her fork again and then set it down. “Come back anytime.”

“New York’s a great city. Tell Bryce…”

She bit her lips. Then her hand knocked the fork off the table.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s okay.”

“I know. Everything’s fine. Just fine. Perfect.”

“Sure.”

“He’s just working late.”

“Sure. You oughtta take him home to meet the folks some time.”

She drew a deep, shaky breath and looked away. “I—I will. First thing.”