He took her wrist in his hand and pulled her to him, ignoring the way she resisted. He also ignored the way she tried to turn her head away when he put his mouth on hers.
The lips under his were unresponsive, held together rigidly, hard. At first, he was amused that she was trying to keep herself under control and doing such a damn fine job of it, but as the kiss continued, and she still made no response, he pulled away from her in anger.
“You’re carrying this game too far,” he said. “You can’t be wildly passionate one minute and frigid the next. What are you, two people?”
Something in Houston’s eyes gave him the first seed of doubt. But of course he was wrong. He took a step backward.
“That’s an impossibility, isn’t it, Houston?” he said. “Tell me that what I’m thinking is wrong. No one can be two people, can she?”
Houston just stood there and looked at him with stricken eyes.
Lee walked away from her and at last sat down heavily on a rock. “Did you and your sister trade places last night?” he asked softly. “Did I spend the evening with Blair and not with you?”
He barely heard her whispered, “Yes.”
“I should have known from the first: how well she handled that suicide and she didn’t even know it was the house I’d bought for her—you. I don’t think I wanted to see. From the moment she said she wanted to go on the case with me to see if she could be of any help, I was so stupidly pleased that I never questioned anything after that. I should have known when I kissed her…
“Damn both of you! I hope to hell you enjoyed making a fool of me.”
“Lee,” Houston said, her hand on his arm.
He turned on her angrily. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t say a word. I don’t know what possessed either of you to play such a dirty little trick, but I can tell you that I don’t like being the butt of such a joke. Now that you and your sister have had a good laugh at my expense, I have to decide what to do about last night.”
He half shoved her into the carriage and cracked the whip over the horse as they tore back into town. At the Chandler house, he didn’t get out but let Houston get herself, and all her yards of skirts, out of the carriage unaided. On the porch, waiting, was Blair, her face red and swollen from crying for hours on end. Leander glared at her with a mixture of anger and some hatred before he yelled at the horse and took off again.
He paused for only moments at his father’s house before mounting a big roan stallion and taking off for the mountains at breakneck speed. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew that he had to get away and think.
He climbed with the horse until the animal could go no farther, then dismounted and led the horse, straight up, over rocks, across arroyos, through cacti and mean little underbrush. When at last he came to the top of a ridge, when he could go no higher, he pulled the rifle from the horse’s saddle, jammed it against his leg and fired it up into the air, emptying it. Once the air had cleared of screaming birds and gunsmoke, he yelled at the top of his lungs, giving vent to his frustration and anger.
“Damn you, Blair!” he shouted. “Damn you to hell.”
The sun was setting as Reed Westfield walked into the library. As he reached for the light switch, he saw the glow of one of his son’s cigars.
“Lee?” he asked, as he pushed the button for the lights. “The hospital was calling for you.”
Leander didn’t look up. “Did they find someone?”
Reed studied his son for a moment. “They found someone. What happened to the man who left here this morning? Don’t tell me that Houston regretted what happened last night? Women do that. Your mother—.”
Lee looked at his father with bleak eyes. “Spare me more of the advice about women. I don’t believe I can stand any more.”
Reed sat down. “Tell me what’s happened.”
Lee flicked the ash off his cigar. “I believe that, as they say, all hell is about to break loose in a few minutes. Last night,” he paused to take a breath and calm himself. “Last night, the Chandler twins decided to play a game. They thought it’d be great fun to switch places and see if they could fool poor stupid Leander. They did quite well.”
He jammed his cigar into an ashtray and stood, walking to the window. “I was fooled all right, and not because Blair did such a good job of pretending to be her sister. In fact, she did little more than dress like Houston. Blair assisted me in a medical case without my giving her any instruction; she was interested in my life, something Houston’s never cared much about; Blair asked me about my dreams and hopes for the future. In other words, she was the perfect woman whom every man dreams about.”
He turned back to look at his father. “And she was the perfect lover. I guess every man’s vanity wants a woman who can’t resist him. He likes to think that he can talk her into anything. So far, all the women I’ve known have been interested in the money I had in the bank. I’ve had women who weren’t interested in me when they thought I was a lowly, unpaid doctor, but when they learned that my mother was a Candish, their eyes began to sparkle. Blair wasn’t like that. She was—.”
His voice trailed off as he turned back to face the window.
“Houston isn’t interested in your money,” Reed said. “She never has been.”
“Who knows what Houston wants out of life. I’ve spent months with her and I don’t know anything about her. To me, she’s a cold woman who does nothing more than look pretty. But Blair is alive!”
He said the last with such passion that Reed narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. Houston is the woman you’re going to marry. I know Blair is a forward girl, and it’s a sh
ame about what happened last night, but I tried to warn you that that kind of thing could get you in trouble. I’m sure Houston will be angry, but if you court her enough and send enough flowers, she’ll eventually forgive you.”