No Quarter Asked Read online

  'What was it?' Stacy asked, slightly curious despite her annoyance with the arrogant man.

  'Only an old family cemetery. I'm sure some ancient gravestones wouldn't interest your sophisticated tastes,' Cord replied sarcastically, his back now turned to her.

  'I would like to see it.'

  'It's not necessary,' he answered, as if this was an attempt at an apology on Stacy's part.

  'Mr. Harris, the last thing I would do is go to patronize you. You said earlier that we should bury the hatchet and be friends. Obviously your wounded ego can't comprehend anything but undying loyalty. Now I would like to see ‘your’ cemetery. If you don't want to accompany me, tell me where it is and I'll go by myself.'

  The biting tone of her voice turned Cord toward! her, his cool eyes examining her face as if assuring himself of her genuine interest.

  'It's only a little way from here, but it's uphill. I wouldn't want you to overdo it your first time out. Perhaps we should postpone it.' At the angry denial forming on Stacy's lips, Cord went on, 'But if you're sure you want to go, I'll go with you.'

  'I'm sure.'

  'Very well.'

  He started to take her arm again, but Stacy shrugged him off and began walking in the direction he had indicated. Cord followed a step or two behind as they made their way up the knoll behind the house. The incline was slight, but in Stacy's weakened condition she found herself out of breath when they reached the top. She managed to ignore the sardonic gleam in Cord's eyes and pushed on towards the wrought iron enclosure ahead.

  The assorted crosses and gravestones were dwarfed by a large monument in the centre. Years had weathered most of them, but Stacy noticed that the area was well kept. The grillework, which should have rusted front age, still had a certain freshness in its black exterior and the ground had been seeded with grass, its green blanket lovingly covering the graves in a spring shroud. Cord opened the gate and Stacy walked inside.

  The two walked silently on the trodden path around the dozen headstones before coming to a stop near the centre. Most of the dates were in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Four of the smaller crosses marked children's graves. One stone was recent, dated eight years ago and bore the words 'Stephen Harris— Father'.

  'Is that your father's grave?' Stacy asked quietly, the word ‘father’ bringing a melancholy to her voice as the freshness of her own loss washed over her.

  'Yes.'

  'I didn't notice your mother's. Is she buried here?'

  A shadow passed over his face as Cord replied, 'She's buried back East with her family.' There was a briskness in his voice and a hardness in his eyes. 'She couldn't' stand the ranch and its demands on her and my father. A few years after I was born she went back to her family.'

  'She left you?' Stacy asked, pity in her heart for the now dead man and his abandoned son.

  'Father gave her no choice,' Cord said, his steel black eyes on her face, rejecting the sympathy he saw. 'I doubt if you'd understand. This is a hard land. You must take what is yours and then fight to keep it. My mother was a pampered child used to being waited on, so the future that was offered meant nothing to her. She wanted the luxuries she was accustomed to and her demands never stopped, not on my father's attention or his money. There wasn't enough of either for her.'

  'And the ranch came first,' Stacy murmured astutely.

  'Do you see this marker here?' Cord asked, turning to the centre monument. 'Elena Teresa Harris, my grandmother. She was a Spanish aristocrat who fell in love with my grandfather, who was a struggling rancher at that time with a lot of dreams. She was a real woman. He had nothing to offer her but an old adobe three room house, a few head of cattle and a lot of land that was dry most of the time. But it didn't matter to her.'

  There was no denying the respect and admiration in his voice as he spoke. Momentarily he stepped forward and opened the gate for Stacy, following her out. Engrossed in their conversation, she accepted his hand on her arm as they walked to the edge of the knoll looking down on the ranchyard below. With his other hand, Cord pointed towards the western mountains, purpled in the twilight.

  'The Mescalero Apaches used those mountains as a stronghold and raided settler and small ranchers at will. And the ‘Comanche War Trail’ is not far from here either. At the turn of the century the Indian menace had ended and this western region was populated by cattlemen seeking these rich pastures where grass was so abundant. Most of the settlers ran more cattle than the land could support—overgrazed it. That's why there's so much desert land out here today.'

  'Can't it be reseeded? Left alone to grow back?' There was concern in Stacy's upturned face.

  'It's too late for most reclamation. Either the wind carries the seed away, or the rain doesn't come when it's needed, or it washes the seed away before it gets a chance to deepen its roots. Ignorance and greed do more damage to the future than they do to the present,' Cord answered grimly. 'But my father and grandfather realized this. In more than one way, I have them to thank for what I have today.'

  'You must be very proud of them,' Stacy said with a smile. 'A lot of things have changed since your grandfather's time.'

  'He was a cattleman, tried and true. He'd turn over in his grave if he saw sheep grazing on his land,' Cord chuckled.

  'Sheep?' Astonishment was written on Stacy's face. 'You raise sheep?'

  'Yes, I have a few hundred head of registered stock on the higher pastures.'

  'You don't run them with the cattle?'

  'Sometimes, usually in the summer when we move the cattle to the foothills. We also have some Angora goats, but they're in the experimental stages as far as our ranch is concerned. Quite a number of ranchers have had good success with them. And there's our quarter horses. We have two exceptional studs and several; young breeding prospects. I've doubled the number of brood mares in the home herd. We have an auction on the grounds every spring, selling some of the yearlings and two-year-olds that we aren't going to keep or older brood mares we want to replace with new blood.'

  ‘I didn't realize you had so many individual enterprises,' Stacy mused, awed by the size of the ranch's operation. 'I suppose there are oil wells, too.'

  'No civilized Texas ranch would be complete without them,' Cord laughed quietly at the dazed expression on his companion's face. 'We have four on the east boundary. Only two are still in operation. Most all of the ranch property is outside of the oil-producing region.'

  'I'm beginning to understand what the expression ‘cattle baron’ means,' Stacy commented, looking up at the bronze face.

  'Don't let the magnitude of all of it lull you into thinking it's an easy life,' he warned her. 'As diversified as the ranch has grown, it's only increased the work load and the difficulty of control.'

  Stacy grimaced at his words. It was hard to imagine this powerful man not in control. He was so sure of what he wanted that nothing would dare stand in his way.

  'Looks like Dr. Buchanan's car driving in,' Cord went on, watching a station wagon pull up behind the house below. 'We'd better go down. Marie will probably have dinner ready shortly, anyway.'

  Nodding her agreement, Stacy followed him down the slope. By the time they reached the veranda, the smiling face of the young doctor was there to greet them. To Stacy's pleasant surprise, his wife Mary had accompanied him. The happy red-haired woman walked forward, arms outstretched to the younger girl.

  'You look marvellous!' Mary exclaimed, clasping Stacy's hands warmly in hers. 'Tell me, Stacy, how have you two been getting along?' she teased in a low voice. 'I don't see any battle scars.'

  'Cord and I have buried the hatchet, haven't we?'Stacy replied with a throaty laugh. Glancing at the tall figure standing beside the doctor, she continued, 'We found some common ground that we both agree upon.'

  Only the rancher understood the oblique reference to their earlier dialogue about their opinions of each other. Coolly she met his dark eyes, keeping the smile off her lips with difficulty. But in Mary's matchmaking mind, a tot
ally different conclusion was reached.

  'Well, this is news,' Bill Buchanan remarked. 'The last time I was here, Stacy, you couldn't wait to leave.' With a grin on his boyish face, he added to Cord, 'Maybe my patient's suffering a relapse.'

  'I think she's just recognizing some of the attractions that can be found here,' Cord replied, quirking his mouth into a smile. 'With a girl as pretty as Stacy, I'll have to act as a guide myself to keep the young men from falling under her spell.'

  Stacy caught the emphasis on her name, realizing he had noticed she had used his Christian name for the first time. Deliberately she met his mocking gaze and taunting words.

  Stacy couldn't explain, even to herself, why she had referred to the angry words they had had before. She had enjoyed the easy companionship on the hill and the informative talk. Why had she taunted him? Did she feel safer with his mocking words and sarcastic smile? Pointedly she turned the conversation to Mary's two children. Several times she felt Cord's eyes searching her face, but she deliberately avoided looking at him.

  'I'm afraid we're rather poor hosts, Cord,' she murmured, trying to cover the confusion he was causing by standing so close to her. Unaccountably, her hand’ drifted on his arm. 'We didn't offer the doctor and Mary something to drink.'

  There was a darting look of surprise in Cord's eyes as he looked at the upturned face, but it was quickly suppressed by a smile to his guests. Guiltily she dropped her hand.

  'I'll have Maria bring us something. Anything special you'd like, Bill, Mary?'

  'No,' Bill laughed. 'Anything tall and cool will do.'

  Cord left them for a moment to arrange for the refreshments. During that time Mary and her husband seated themselves in two of the garden chairs while Stacy settled on the cushioned settee. A few minutes later Cord returned followed by the plump Mexican woman carrying a tray laden with drinks and hors d'oeuvres. To Stacy's chagrin, Cord sat on the settee with her. Her annoyance escaped the other couple's attention amidst the confusion of accepting the refreshments Maria offered, but the one-sided smile on Cord's lips indicated that he had noticed her dismay.

  To Stacy's relief, the conversation remained on a light vein. Several times she was uncomfortably aware of the dark brown eyes studying her and the magnetic closeness of the outstretched arm on the back of the couch. Mary, with her naturally lively personality, monopolized most of the conversation with anecdotes of the children, but gradually the subject turned to Stacy and her accident.

  'When Bill told me that day about your fall, I practically insisted on bringing you into town with us,' Mary chattered. 'But he assured me it was better to leave you here where you would have ample opportunity to rest.'

  'Actually what I said was ‘peace and quiet’,' inserted the doctor with a smile. 'That's something hard to come by in our house.'

  'He's always complaining about the boys,' explained Mary, 'but he loves them as much as I do. Anyway, I can see how right he was. You look the picture of health. Of course, with this kind of scenery who would want to stay in bed?'

  There was a twinkle in Mary's eyes as she gave Cord a sideways glance. Hastily Stacy spoke up, not wanting the innuendo to go any further.

  'This is a beautiful ranch,' she rushed. 'The whole land around here is fascinating. It reminds you what little time has passed since it was a frontier.'

  'Texas history is fascinating,' agreed the blue-eyed doctor.

  'Were you at the cemetery when we came?' Mary directed at Cord. Without waiting for his affirmative nod, she continued, 'I wish you could have met his grandmother, Stacy. She was a wonderful old woman. You never thought of her as old, though. She was much too vital and active. I was only nine or ten when she died, but I remember her so well.'

  'Cord told me a little about her,' Stacy said.

  'She was remarkable. Somewhere amongst all her Spanish ancestry she inherited a pioneer spirit that was indefatigable,' Mary went on. 'But there was a certain way about her—the way she carried her head or looked deep inside you—that reminded you of her blue blood. My mother always said Dona Elena was the only one able to handle Cord.' In a conspiratorial aside to Stacy, she added, 'He was really a terror as a child—fantastic temper!'

  Cord chuckled at Mary's words. 'You forgot to mention Grandmother's temper. I've always thought she cared so much for me because I inherited her temper.' In a mockingly tender tone, he added for Stacy's benefit, 'Thank heaven, I've learned to control it.'

  'I'm afraid, Cord, there've been a few times when you've caused us to doubt your words,' Bill Buchanan smiled with a dubious shake of his head. 'Don't get me wrong, Stacy, I'm sure the right woman would be able to deal with him, but I would hate to be on the receiving end of his temper when it does go out of control.'

  Embarrassed by the sly matchmaking of the married couple and the recollection of the controlled display he had shown that day on the road, Stacy murmured a vague response. Thankfully, she was interrupted by Maria announcing that dinner was ready.

  'You will be joining us, won't you?' Cord asked. Mary began to make an excuse, but Cord interjected, 'I'm not taking no for an answer. It's too seldom we have social visits and we won't let you go away so soon, will we, Stacy?'

  He extended a hand to her which she was unable to refuse without being obvious. Distracted by his touch, Stacy half heard the lighthearted banter and acceptance by the pair. She felt herself being ushered into the dining room behind them, the tall shoulder of the rancher brushing against her. Her muscles tensed as she stifled a desire to pull violently away from him.

  She had baited him at first about their earlier quarrel and became a little personal, acting as hostess when she herself was only a guest. Playing the little charade had amused Stacy at first as she had enjoyed seeing the surprised look in Cord's eyes. But now she had the distinct feeling that he was laughing at her. Somehow he had succeeded in turning the tables on her, making her the brunt of the joke. And she wasn't enjoying it at all.

  As if he had read her mind, Cord whispered to her as he seated her at the table, 'You should have checked the rules.'

  Stacy's brown eyes looked apprehensively into his, but she couldn't find any words to answer him. His expression as he seated himself opposite her at the head of the table was pleasant, but his eyes hardened speculatively as he watched her flushed cheeks turn away to respond to a question from Mary. Twice during the meal Stacy was forced to look away from the probing glance of the aquiline face. The dinner seemed to last so long that she was sure it would never end. She was so tense she felt she was sitting on a lighted powder-keg that would explode at any moment. But when Maria served the coffee and dessert the conversation was still on safe topics. A tide of relief washed over her at the end in sight.

  'Hey, come back!' Mary teased, waving a hand in front of Stacy. 'Didn't you hear what I said?'

  'I'm sorry, Mary, I'm afraid I was daydreaming.'

  'I was wondering if your accident had changed your plans, about staying?'

  'No, not really,' Stacy replied, avoiding Cord's interested look. 'I'll be staying a couple more weeks before going back.'

  'I'm afraid our country is a little too hard on her,' Cord interposed with a smile. 'After all, Mary, we were raised here and are used to it, but Stacy is from the East. I imagine it's a little tame and boring around here.'

  'That's not true at all,' Stacy retorted impatiently.

  'It's just that there's no future here for you, isn't that it?' A sarcastic smile played on Cord's mouth.

  'Yes—I mean no,' stammered Stacy, recognizing that she was under a subtle attack.

  'Now, Cord—-' Mary began.

  'Surely you realize that the newness of the adventure has probably worn off for her,' he interrupted. 'After all, how many mountains do you have to see before you've seen them all? A lot of people have come West with grand ideas, only to run back when the inconveniences and isolation have become too much for them.'

  'I don't mind all that,' Stacy denied. 'I love this country.'r />
  'You know, Mary, it takes stamina to carve out a future in this land.' Cord was deliberately ignoring Stacy and addressing his remarks to the redhead on his right. His voice was low and vindictive. 'Luxuries become vastly important when you're suddenly denied them after having them all your life.'

  'He's comparing me with his mother!' Stacy thought indignantly. 'You don't know what you're talking about,' she said, crumpling her napkin on the table.

  'Of course. How stupid of me not to realize that appearances are deceiving,' the mocking tone in his voice and a sarcastic curl on his upper lip. 'I should have recognized that behind the high-fashion clothes, the expensive sports car and the blooded horse there beats the heart of a country girl, unspoiled by a life that's catered to her whims.'

  The room was filled with tension as the two glared across the table at each other. Stacy longed to lash out at him, but she knew she would only be playing into his hands. She sensed the discomfort of the other two at the table. Somehow she managed a feeble laugh.

  'It seems you have me figured out.' A weak smile on her flushed cheeks. 'I'm just a simple country girl.'

  A flicker of admiration crossed the tanned face, replaced quickly by a derisive gleam.

  ' ‘Simple’ is a particularly appropriate adjective, as it denotes showing little sense,' Cord replied. 'You showed a remarkable lack of it when you journeyed unescorted out here where you knew no one, and proceeded to live alone in a remote cabin, unprotected from possible molesters, and went out riding alone on a horse you couldn't control to places you didn't know. By a stroke of luck you're not lying dead out there now.'

  'I don't think that your guests are interested in your opinions of me and my behaviour,' Stacy replied, pushing her chair away from the table.

  In the living room, Mary caught up with her.

  'What's up with you two?' she asked.

  'We just don't get along,' Stacy answered, her hands clutched tightly together. She glanced nervously over her shoulder into the other room.

  'You seemed so friendly when we first came that to be honest, I'd hoped you two had made a match of it,' Mary went on.