Vowing it would be a cold day in hell before he gave her up, Lance glanced around the parlor. He had never been inside the Weston house before, and he found himself looking for glimpses of Summer, unwillingly comparing the elegance she had grown up with to the rugged simplicity he’d always known.
When his gaze roamed over the stone fireplace, his eye caught the small gilt-framed portrait sitting on the mantel—and his breathing suddenly seemed to stop. Summer. How did he always manage to forget how beautiful she was?
The portrait was Summer as he’d known her five years ago—laughing, face upturned, innocent green eyes dancing with that feminine come-hither glance that could tempt a man’s soul from his body. Even then she’d been sure of her own power.
He hadn’t heard much laughter from her lately, nor had he seen that alluring look directed at him, but she still held that same devastating power over him. She could wound him without even trying.
Was that what she’d done? Her note had said she’d been forced to leave Belknap at Amelia’s insistence, that she was sorry but she had to take her sister home—but was that the truth? Was her regret real? Or had she simply been running from him, trying to postpone the moment of reckoning?
His dark musings were interrupted just then when Reed limped through the door. Lance looked up—and tensed as he met the other man’s gaze. Reed’s blue eyes were unsmiling, his expression as solemn as a funeral.
Mentally Lance girded himself for battle, but to his surprise, Reed balanced one crutch under his arm and held out his hand. Lance looked at it warily for moment, then reached out his own to accept the handshake.
“I can’t ever repay you for what you did, Calder,” Reed admitted in a low voice. “Thank you for saving my sister.”
“I don’t want your thanks,” Lance retorted more gruffly than he’d intended. “I want my wife.”
Reed tried to smile. “Of course. Summer should be down in a minute. I sent Maritza to fetch her.”
Lance’s stiff stance relaxed the slightest degree.
“You made good time. Summer said you wouldn’t be here for several more days.”
“I didn’t wait for the stage.”
Reed’s eyebrow rose. “You rode all that way?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
This time Reed managed a reluctant chuckle. “You haven’t changed one damn bit, have you, Calder? You’re still just as prickly as you were when you hired on five years ago. But there’s no reason to take my head off. I meant no insult. Indeed, I’m envious you can sit a horse that long. This damned stump of mine”—he glanced down at what remained of his left leg—“won’t let me even climb on one, let alone ride hundreds of miles. Ten minutes in the saddle would put me on my back for a week.”
It was said lightly, not at all a plea for sympathy or pity, yet Lance felt both. The Comanches had no place in their society for crippled warriors. He couldn’t imagine living as Reed was trying to do, being forced to hobble around, being dependent on others, especially a household of women. But then, Weston didn’t need his pity. He had plenty of servants and hired hands to do his bidding. All he had to do was crook a finger and his wishes were met. A damned far cry from the way Lance himself had been raised.
Still, Reed was obviously making an effort to be amiable, not as if he intended to kick his unwanted visitor off his land. Lance felt some of his resentment, his age-old hostility, drain away. If Summer was going to divorce him, would her brother be standing here now, acting so polite? Unless Reed was trying to soften him up—
He heard the silken rustle of a woman’s skirts, and looked beyond Reed to find Summer poised in the doorway. Lance was aware of his heart thudding slowly against his ribs, of anger and hurt and fear swelling again in his chest.
“Lance.” Her voice was a soft murmur as she offered him a tentative smile. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”
Without waiting for a reply, she swept into the parlor, offering her hands to him graciously—the lady of the manor to the hilt. Except that Summer went one step further. Raising on tiptoe, she tilted up her face and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek.
It startled him so bad that the gruff retort he’d meant to make died in his throat.
“How is your wound?” she asked, then glanced over her shoulder at her brother. “Reed, I told you about the terrible knife fight Lance was in.” She turned back to Lance. “It isn’t any worse, is it?”
If he didn’t know better, he would swear Summer sounded nervous. And to his surprise, her unexpected reception threw him off balance. He’d come here prepared to battle for his life, but he didn’t know how to act in the face of her insecurity.
He wanted to haul her into his arms and shake her till her teeth rattled for taking off the way she had. He wanted to crush her to him and strip off her clothes and his own and take her right there in the parlor—except that her brother was hovering protectively nearby, and his own clothes were much too filthy for any well-bred lady to get close to.
Instead of doing either, he brushed his hat against his thigh in a gesture of restrained impatience. “The wound’s fine.”
“I know you must be unhappy with me,” she began, sweetly reasoning. “And you have every right to be, but truly, I had no choice but to come home when I did. If you had heard Melly’s sobs, you would have done exactly the same thing. I know you would have, Lance. Beneath that fierce scowl of yours lies a kind and generous heart.”
He knew what she was doing with her flattery—trying to wrap him around her little finger—but d
ammit, she was succeeding. And her explanation did mollify him a bit. He knew what dealing with that hysterical sister of hers was like.
“Maritza said you rode in,” Summer went on at his silence. “I’ll have her husband take your horse to the barn and carry your things up to your room. You can sleep in our brother Jamison’s old bedchamber—”