How strange that Josh, whom she’d known from childhood, the son of a rancher, should have ended up the richest dot.com king in Houston, only to lose everything as swiftly as he’d made it. Still, for five years they’d lived in this castle in River Oaks, Houston’s most reputed posh enclave for its millionaires and billionaires, especially those who have a flair for high drama or scandal.
Unconsciously she pressed against her thickening waistline. Just as quickly, her slim fingers fluttered away before Mother Evans or any of Josh’s friends could see.
Nobody could know. Not her estranged family. Not Josh’s. Not Jet, her long-time girlfriend, nor Jet’s saintly father, Irish Taylor.
Nobody.
Especially not the baby’s real father.
Not until Josh was properly buried and all his friends and family had gone home; not until Ritz was a long way from Texas and the gossips who watched her every move, would she breathe easily.
This time she had to carry her baby full term. That would be her atonement. What else did she owe him?
She was equally determined there would be no nasty rumors or newspaper smears, no counting up of months, no wondering how Josh could have gotten her pregnant in his condition.
Ritz had known she was pregnant even before there had been any symptoms or visible signs. One day she had awakened in this house of death and broken dreams, and opened her window. The sweet peas that climbed her trellis had glowed brighter and smelled sweeter. She had breathed in their fresh fragrance and felt queasy, and she had known.
She’d whispered the name, “Roque,” and touched her stomach.
Then she’d shivered and snapped the window shut, realizing he was the last person she could ever tell and the last person she could ever desire.
Fear of him made her heart flutter when a very tall, dark masculine figure opened her front door. But it was only Irish Taylor, her father’s brilliant foreman. His craggy face was kind as he nodded at her.
Before the baby, Ritz would have said she wished she’d never met Roque Moya Blackstone. Roque, biker, cowboy, horseman, womanizer. Roque, who was way too sexy whether he covered his black hair with a red bandanna and rode his bike or whether he wore his Stetson and sat astride a prized stallion.
Daddy had always said he was the reason her life had gone wrong. She had learned a long time ago, that nothing was as simple or as black and white as Daddy had said.
Sometimes Ritz wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t seen him dance by firelight on that long-ago summer night. If some shiftless cowboy hadn’t left the Blackstone Ranch gate open the next afternoon. What if the Kellers and the Blackstones hadn’t been feuding? And what if Jet hadn’t given into temptation and locked Ritz inside “the forbidden kingdom?”
What if Jet hadn’t seen Roque naked and stolen his clothes? What if Ritz hadn’t been so curious? What if Roque hadn’t been so stormily virile and turned-on all the time?
What if he hadn’t stolen Ritz’s mare, Buttercup?
What if he hadn’t put his hands around her waist and lifted her up beside him, whispering in that sexy, velvet voice of his, “Do you want to fly?”
But he had done all those things…and more.
She’d only been fourteen.
Too young to fall in love.
Then he had to go and pretend to get hurt saving her and winning her heart. She’d given him her treasured St. Jude medal, and of course, he’d refused to give it back, and ever since, she’d been caught in the tangle of his dark spell.
Yes, looking back, Ritz could pinpoint the exact moment her life took its fatal turn. It had been the night she’d watched Roque Blackstone dance like a savage half-naked on that beach. The driftwood had burned like fire and gold, and she’d felt something alien and thrilling; she’d come alive and been changed…forever.
And a woman is prone to look back, especially at her husband’s funeral—when she’s made huge mistakes, especially man mistakes, that seem to grow and compound and haunt, mistakes that keep on rebreaking her heart until she loses all hope of peace of mind and has no faith that she can ever get her life right—at least where men are concerned.
But now she had his baby to think of and plan for.
Just because she made bad choices, did that mean that her entire life was ruined? That she couldn’t be a good mother? That she couldn’t start over? Somewhere far away from Texas and the scandals of her marriage and the grandeur of the Keller name?
One thing she knew—her heart was broken in so many pieces; it would take her a lifetime to pick them all up. She was through with men and marriage and wealth and fame.
Most of all, she was through with Roque Blackstone, the man who had shattered her as a girl and had the power to shatter her again.
If she could just get through the funeral, she would finally be free to make her own choices.
Until then she had to pretend.
Her lavish ballroom with its elaborate commode, twin fauteuils, and nineteenth century bronzes was so redolent with the cloying sweetness of white roses, Ritz almost gagged. Tables of crab, shrimp, and salmon were piled high. Unthinkingly her hand kept caressing her stomach protectively.
The organist was playing “Amazing Grace.” The newspaper obituary had been long and impressive. Everything about the grand River Oaks funeral, even his young widow in black, about whom so much had been written, was just as the deceased had planned it—solemn, stately, regal, in a word—perfect.
As outwardly perfect as the sham that had passed for his life.
His mother, queen for the day in her rustling black silk and showy diamonds, was a whirlwind of decorum and efficiency mincing from room to room in that tippy-toed gait that made Ritz want to scream. Mother Evans’s smile was even more fixed and pompous than Josh’s had been in his coffin, and she greeted everyone, except Ritz, with moist eyes and a soft, saccharine voice. From time to time she even brushed a nonexistent tear from her well-powdered, parchment cheek.
No wonder Josh had been unable to love Ritz or make her feel as Roque had. But there was no going back, no changing Josh…or his mother. Or herself.
Plump old Socorro knew the truth and sympathized. But then she had always had a soft spot for Roque.
Poor Socorro. Usually, she spent her days ironing upstairs where she could smoke and hide out and watch her telenovelas. Today Mother Evans had Socorro racing in and out of the kitchen with heavily laden trays.
The good reverend could not seem to stop with the Bible verses, either.
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life…Look at the birds of the air…consider the lilies of the field.
One more verse and Ritz was afraid she’d pop out of her black sheath.
Grief? Nerves? Guilt? Terror?
All of the above.
But it was her fear of Roque that turned her fingers into claws around her china coffee cup and made her head drum.
What if he did come?
Not much longer…and this day that Josh had so painstakingly planned would be over. Ritz had tried to talk him into a simple ceremony, but he’d selected his favorite Armani suit, saying he wanted his embalmed body to rest in state in the grand salon of their mansion for the whole day before the funeral.
So, all of yesterday, legions of Houston dignitaries had trooped by his polished casket to tell Ritz how wonderful he looked and how exhausted she appeared, poor dear. She’d stood there, enduring hugs and murmured condolences, feeling sicker and sicker, until Josh’s owlish, gray face in the casket had started to spin, and she’d fainted.
The dead roses along with the aroma