Rain Shadow(20)

She stepped lower, and glossy black boots came into view inside the  doorway, followed by long slim legs and torso in a tailored European  suit. Shiny black hair cut precisely around his ears, the guest turned  his elegant head.

Rain Shadow's heart stopped.

She clutched the banister as though she were sinking into a quagmire.  Dread roared in her ears. Unblinking, lips parted, she stared into the  swarthily handsome features and midnight-black eyes of Miguel de Ruiz.





Chapter Seven




She forced one booted foot ahead of the other. Anton's wary blue gaze  gauging her expression, Rain Shadow willed composure into her limbs. Her  heart, however, refused to obey, pounding against her ribs at an  astounding rate. Miguel! What was he doing at the Neubauers'? Why had he  come? And-her heart missed a beat-what if he saw Slade?

Anton stepped aside, and she stopped on the landing, protectively  between the man below and her son upstairs. The son he wasn't aware of.  Only she and Two Feathers knew the boy's sire. And-she shot a quick look  at Anton. She'd told Anton.

He looked expectantly from her face to Miguel's.

It was Miguel who spoke first. "Rain Shadow. You are lovely!"

He reached for her hand, but she stepped past him, ignoring the gesture. "What are you doing here?"

"Would not introductions be appropriate?" The rolling rs in his mellow Spanish accent raised the hair on her neck.

She realized how strange Anton must think her behavior. "Miguel de Ruiz, Anton Neubauer."

"Mr. Neubauer. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Ruiz." Anton shook the hand offered.

"I have come a long way to see Rain Shadow. Would you be so kind as to allow us privacy?"

"That would be up to her," Anton replied.

Rain Shadow nodded, but didn't meet his eyes. "It's all right."                       
       
           



       

Anton hesitated in the doorway. "Have a seat in the parlor."

She led the uninvited guest into the suggested room. He seated himself  on a couch. She stood, boxed in and guarded, impatient with his polite  facade. "What do you want?" she demanded once Anton's back disappeared.

Miguel unbuttoned his jacket and made himself comfortable, crossing long  black-clad legs at the ankle. "I want only to see you. I wondered if  you were well."

"After all this time." It was a statement. Almost an accusation, and she hated herself for it.

"I understand your bitterness," he said, drawing a long finger across  the line of his mustache. "You have every right to be angry with me."

"I don't need your permission for anything," she told him. She studied a clock on the mantle.

"The years have been kind to you," Miguel said, his persuasive voice low  and emollient. "You are beautiful. Just as I remembered you from so  long ago."

"What do you want?"

He gave her a wounded look, one that wrenched her gut and stabbed fear  into her heart. She'd seen the look more times than she could count-on  her son's face.

"I want only to see you, querida. To know you are well."

She bristled at the endearment. "Now? After all this time, why now?"

"I did not forget. I cannot forget what we had together."

She let her arms fall to her sides. "How is your wife?"

"The comtesse? My former wife is quite well."

She wished he would come to the point, because undoubtedly he had one.

"She is in Naples right now, I believe."

Rain Shadow paced the floor near the doorway. "I can't imagine why  you're here. Butler, Pennsylvania, isn't exactly the social seat of the  East."

"I deserve your sarcasm. What I did was wrong. I know that now." He  stood and stepped in front of her. "I should have married for love. I  wronged you, and in the end I wronged myself. I was young."

"You were a lot older than I was."

His raised his black eyebrows, but fixed his expression quickly. "You  are right, of course. I can only beg your forgiveness." He reached  toward her and curled long, dark fingers around her elbow.

Rain Shadow shirked away. "Why are you here?"

Obsidian eyes filled with unexpected pain. "I need to make amends for  the past. I have been through a lot since we parted. I learned valuable  lessons."

She studied his fine-bred features, black, black eyes, narrow nose and  shapely mouth. She'd once thought Miguel the most handsome of men. No  longer. Eyes she'd girlishly considered love-laden were arrogant. Lips  she'd thought eloquent spoke only self-serving words. He was polished  and smooth, well-dressed and fine-mannered, and she'd foolishly thought  herself in love and allowed him admittance to her young heart and body.  He still sounded sincere, but now she knew better.

He wanted something. Last time he'd wanted entertainment on a long ocean voyage. This time? He could be dangerously persuasive.

She turned her back on him. "Leave."

"Rain Shadow, I want to-"

"I want you out of here. Now."

"Is there someone else?"

She swung and faced him. "And if there were?"

He looked decidedly uncomfortable and glanced around the room, as if  noticing it for the first time. He nodded over her shoulder to the  dining room beyond. "Him?"

In the kitchen, Anton shot an annoyed look at the noisy metal coffeepot  boiling over the flame on the stove and cursed his bad ear. The everyday  sound was an annoying distraction.

He'd sensed her apprehension, known instinctively that all wasn't right.  How had he grown attuned to her in such a short time? He couldn't have  left her alone in this house with that snake if his life had depended on  it, and he was having second thoughts about leaving her in the same  room. He stepped nearer the dining room doorway.

Ruiz was too polished. Too slick. Did he know about Slade? Rain Shadow  wouldn't have told him, but could he have found out some other way? And  what if he did know? Anton sensed her fear and was afraid for her, as  well.                       
       
           



       

His first look at the man, gracefully lowering himself from a majestic  black stallion, had speared intense dislike through his vitals.  Black-browed eyes had turned toward him, and the feeling had  intensified. Slade's father. Not a doubt in his mind. He'd thought  Slade's dark hair and skin Rain Shadow's until now.

The whole idea sickened him. He poured a scalding cup of coffee and  cursed Ruiz. Though Anton stared out the window at a good portion of the  shady porch and the side yard beyond, his mind reeled with pictures of  the swarthy South American's long-fingered hands and wolfish mouth on  Rain Shadow. Had she responded to Ruiz the way she had to him? She no  doubt regretted ever giving herself to that unprincipled he-goat. People  made mistakes. She was only human.

And how could Ruiz, after tasting a flower like her, have married  another woman? Anton knew what it was like to touch her. Would he ever  be able to touch another woman and not think of her?

Rain Shadow's voice rose in the other room, and he strained to hear.

"You're not welcome here. Leave!" Her words carried, clear and insistent.

"Permit me a few more moments of your time," Ruiz entreated calmly. "To get these things off my-"

"I said get out!"

"She's tired of your company, Ruiz." Anton spoke from behind her.

"I mean no harm. We need to talk."

"I'll see you to the door."

Ruiz' dark eyes flamed with menace, and then as rapidly as blowing out a  candle, the glare flickered, replaced by a disillusioned furrow. "I am  sorry to upset you," he said to Rain Shadow. "It was not my intent.  Perhaps there is something you could ask of me that might prove my  sincerity."

Anton sensed the strength it took for her to keep her aplomb. She said simply, "Leave."

He followed Ruiz outside. The man plucked up his wide-brimmed hat,  settled it on his head and mounted. He rode gracefully, urging the horse  into a light-limbed gallop without visible command. Only a cloud of  dust remained when Anton returned to the house.

She perched on his father's chair, looking small and alone and-angry.  Her luminous violet gaze met his, and he remembered her belligerent  claim when he'd asked about Slade's parentage. "My son," she'd said  defiantly.

She'd told him the truth candidly. And she'd frankly dared him to think  less of her for it. She could have invented a dead husband to give her  respectability, and no one would have been the wiser. But she'd chosen  to live her life honestly, no matter what others thought of her. He'd  been so caught up in his own dilemma that he hadn't looked beyond his  own feelings and recognized hers. Now he realized his callousness, and  her attitude commanded his admiration.