Read Online A Mating of Hawks by Jeanne Williams - Free Book Online Page B

for that new nurse who’s supposed to show up today.”
    Tracy gave her head a despairing shake and kissed him good-bye. She could imagine that he might be a real terror to a nurse, but surely it was better for him to be feisty and a bit lecherous rather than lie there as if completely paralyzed.
    Downstairs, she went in search of Vashti to see if there were horses handy or if she should drive to the old ranchhouse. Vashti was sunning by the pool, an almost empty glass beside her. An emerald string bikini bared her seductively curved body and she glistened with tanning cream.
    That magnificent body needed what the crippled man upstairs could no longer provide. Tracy felt grudging sympathy for the woman. Even surrounded by luxury, she was in a cruel position.
    â€œI’m sorry, dear,” she said to Tracy’s question. “I don’t ride and when Judd does, he has a vaquero bring a horse. You can do that. Call Chuey, or take anything in the garage. The keys are labeled and hanging just inside the entry.”
    Tracy thanked her and was turning away when Vashti swung long legs off the lounge and looked up at her through sunglasses. “Thanks for playing valet to Patrick. He just has no consideration for the trouble it puts me to when he provokes a nurse into quitting!”
    â€œMaybe the new one will work out.”
    â€œMy God, I hope so!” Vashti drained her glass and sounded a bell that brought the young man who’d served them at table yesterday. Bowing to Tracy, he took the glass and went off without a question. Clasping her arms tightly about herself, Vashti said with drunken plaintiveness, “You know what’s terrible?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe—he wants me to lie down by him.” Vashti shuddered. “Without my clothes!”
    â€œYou are his wife.” Taken aback, sorry for them both, it was all Tracy could think of to say.
    Vashti yanked off the sunglasses. Dark green eyes blazed and her soft mouth twisted. “That’s the awful part! He’s always been such a marvelous lover, even after he went blind. Now—now he’s the way he is—oh, God! It’s like lying down with death!”
    â€œYou must be life to him, and warmth,” Tracy pointed out. “Can’t you, Vashti, knowing how it is for him?”
    â€œI—I’ve tried! I just can’t bear it.”
    Grief for Patrick swept aside Tracy’s pity for the woman. She said in a grim voice, “If that’s how it is, then I think you should get a nurse who won’t feel that way.”
    Vashti took a long swallow from the glass the young man had quietly placed on the table. “It’s all so silly! Apart from touching, he can’t do anything.”
    â€œTouching’s mightily important.” Tracy knew. She often hungered for simple physical closeness, just holding and being held.
    Vashti thrust on her sunglasses and lay back, the belly beneath her rib cage taut and flat as a girl’s. Her fingers brushed nipples that pressed visibly against the bikini top. “You don’t understand,” she muttered.
    Tracy did, too well. Patrick’s wife felt only revulsion for his helplessness, his longing to be warmed by a woman’s body. At the same time, Vashti missed their former sexual passion. Maybe, tormented by that, she was as incapable of the nurturing Patrick craved as he was of the prowess of which she felt cheated.
    In such a miserable deadlock, reproaching Vashti would be useless. Feeling at a loss, Tracy said not to wait lunch for her and walked around the house to the long garage.
    The doors were closed behind a wine-red truck fitted with rifle racks and super-wide heavy tires, a powerful camouflage-painted RV and a dark-blue Mercedes, the last probably Judd’s. Tracy also dismissed a silver Cadillac, which had to be Vashti’s. That left a Ford pickup, a shiny yellow Toyota truck and a sage-green Plymouth