Carson considered her closely. Her green eyes were flashing fire and her nostrils flared with the heavy breaths she took. Then he understood. “You’re jealous of the girl, aren’t you, Olivia? She came between you and Jared. I showed her some paternal affection. And Ben—”
She pounced on the name. “Yes, Ben! He had humiliated me for years with that whore of his. People laughed behind my back because my husband preferred that Mexican bitch to me. He loved her son as much as he did mine. His liaison with her was a continual insult to me. Me!” She punctuated the pronoun by pointing to her chest. “The belle of New Orleans society. Me, from one of the most respected, affluent, influential families in the history of that city. He brought me to this barbaric, godforsaken country and expected me to live like one of his Mexican peons.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. In all the years he had known her, Carson had never seen Olivia cry.
“And he didn’t love me,” she added miserably, pitifully. “He didn’t love me.” She was still for a moment and then she tilted her chin in that autocratic way she had. “But I wasn’t going to stand by and let him deposit his latest doxy here in my own house. I’d be damned first!”
Carson spoke softly, “Olivia, you know that Ben brought Lauren here in hopes that she and Jared—”
Once again, she interrupted. “That’s what he said. But you heard the way he talked about her. Lauren was so beautiful. She was so kind, so innocent, so sweet, so polished.” She buried her face in her hands as her elbows supported them on the desk. “Why didn’t he love me? Why?”
The words tore at Carson’s heart. He didn’t want to ask, but he did. “You’ve loved Ben all this time, haven’t you?”
“No!” she cried. “I hated him. I hated him!” She pounded on the desktop with her fists.
“No,” he said quietly. “You loved him.”
Olivia looked up at him suddenly as if remembering that he was still there. Her eyes were bright with tears, the lashes spiky and black. “You!” she snarled with contempt. “Don’t you see that you were used as a means to hurt Ben? I carried on a shabby affair all these years with his best friend and business partner as revenge for all the humiliation he had heaped on me.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “But he just turned his back and forced me to tolerate you all these years. I look so forward to the day when the railroad is completed, Vandiver is satisfied, and I can throw you out of my house, my life, and never have to look at you again. Didn’t you ever ask yourself why any woman would want a short, fat, balding man who made love like a sloppy adolescent when she was married to a hard, virile stallion like Ben Lockett? You are a fool.”
The words really didn’t have any meaning for Carson. He had already been shattered to learn that he had given the prime of his life to a selfish, shallow woman. He had given up having a wife, and children, and the respect of his best friend for a chimera, an illusion. Worst of all, he had sacrificed his self-esteem. He looked at himself now and found himself wanting in every facet of his being. He was a shell of a man. Olivia’s words had not hurt him. He was too empty to hurt anymore.
Olivia sat staring straight ahead, her eyes glazed. She didn’t see Carson remove the derringer from his inside breast pocket. He moved the gun close to her head, and when at last she saw it in her peripheral vision, she looked up at him and laughed.
Her mouth was wide, her eyes streaming tears, and her head was thrown back in laughter as he pulled the trigger. He watched sadly as her head fell forward and thudded onto the desk. She was so beautiful. So beautiful.
He was still looking at her as he raised the pistol to his own temple.
Chapter 25
The heavy rainfall wasn’t making the tracking any easier. Had it not been for Thorn’s innate ability, Jared would have been even more desperate than he already was. Thorn had taught him and Rudy in their youth to track with precision but, though they were keen pupils, they still wouldn’t have been able to follow this mud-obscured trail. The darkness and the blinding rain made it nearly impossible to find.
They had been riding for an hour and a half when the tall Indian pulled the reins of his horse. “They’re headed toward the river.”
Jared heard him over the loud rumble of thunder and said, “Well, let’s get on with it.” He was puzzled by Thorn’s hesitation.
Rudy intervened. “Jared, do you know what the Rio Caballo will look like? It will be raging. I don’t think they could have crossed it, and even if they did, we couldn’t pick up the trail until morning. Shouldn’t we go on to Keypoint and wait out this storm? We can start again at dawn.”
“Hell, no!” Jared’s roar challenged the thunder. “If you aren’t coming with me, I’ll go by myself. No telling what that bastard has in mind for her. And she’s afraid of him. I know it.”
He wore the determined look he had inherited from two very forceful personalities. Rudy and Thorn exchanged looks. Rudy’s was exasperated. Thorn’s was totally noncommittal, as if it were of supreme indifference to him that he was riding around the countryside in the middle of the night in a fierce spring thunderstorm. Without speaking, he turned his horse toward the river and focused on the rapidly dissolving hoof prints.
“I don’t know how we’ll cross that damned river when we get there,” Rudy muttered. He was surprised when Jared answered, thinking he couldn’t have heard him over the sounds of the storm.
“I don’t know either, but we have to go on. I’ve got to find her. We’ll proceed with Thorn’s plan—it’s our only hope.”
The trio rode on in silence.
* * *
The dull throbbing in Lauren’s head had increased to excruciating proportions. She suspected that when she was seeking the surface of the water and banged her head on the tree branch, she had been hurt more seriously than she had first thought. Waves of nausea threatened to make her vomit, and she struggled not to give in to them. She wanted to keep the focus of attention off herself. The other three in the confines of the cave with her were entertaining themselves with a bottle of whiskey. She had time to think.
Lauren’s main concern was for the baby she carried. She was still somewhat ignorant about pregnancy, but she was sure that an exhausting horseback ride, falling into a raging river, and receiving a severe blow to her head were not good for the embryo in her womb. She prayed fervently that it had not been injured.
What was going to happen to her at the hands of Kurt and Wat Duncan? Had she not been in such pain, she would have been more afraid. As it was, she more or less accepted her fate with a passive resignation. She couldn’t fight them. She lacked the strength and the ability. She couldn’t escape them. Where would she go in the middle of the night in a fearsome storm without anyone to guide her over the rough terrain? Just don’t hurt my baby, was her only lucid thought. That and the slim possibility that Jared might rescue her.
Kurt hadn’t mentioned him, and she was afraid to ask. He hadn’t been shot. At least, he hadn’t been brought here as Kurt had told her. He could have been wounded or… killed. No! She wouldn’t even think that. He might—just might—be alive and searching for her. He might not be motivated by any grand passion for her. He had made his feelings clear earlier this evening. But he might be motivated by pride. He wouldn’t let Kurt Vandiver take away anything belonging to him. Lauren grabbed on to that thought and clung to it.
Too much thinking had caused her head to ache even more, so she held that one thought and kept repeating it to herself as though to will it into a reality.
Wat Duncan and Kurt Vandiver were having an argument and, as their voices rose, Lauren raised her head and looked across the cave floor from where she sat on an old blanket toward the two men. It was hard to focus on their figures no matter how she squinted.