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 of smoked salmon were really getting to her. So, she moved out of the dining room. Oh, how she longed to breathe fresh air—to never ever come back inside this ostentatious house that she couldn’t afford on six acres in Houston’s posh heart.
“She’s shameless…all that bleached yellow hair,” pronounced her busybody neighbor, Mrs. Beasley to Mother Evans as Ritz glided past them.
The scarlet poppy on Mrs. B’s big black hat swished back and forth like a conductor’s wand.
Mother Evans fixed Ritz with a chilly smile.
“I live next door.” The old lady’s voice lowered to a whisper, assured that everybody including Mother Evans would stop talking and listen. “The things that have gone on in this house since he married her—”
Ritz stared at a vase of roses on the fabulous commode by Riesener that Josh had found in Paris.
“—all those young boys—”
When? Oh when would it ever be over?
One minute Mrs. Beasley was queen of her gossipy little clique.
“—never loved your poor boy—”
But I thought I did.
“—high school sweethearts—”
Socorro let out a muffled cry. The front door slammed open, and a gust of hot, humid air swirled inside along with the tall, lean man clad in black leather.
Noses high in the air, everybody turned to gape at the biker with the windburned face, who stood framed in the rectangular white glare.
Only when he knew he had their attention did he shut the door, and so quietly, his gentleness was hostile. Like a magnet, he pulled every well-bred woman’s gaze into his bad-boy orbit.
“Roque….”
A green wave of nausea hit Ritz. Her heart began to pound like a rabbit’s. She didn’t know whether to freeze or run.
It wasn’t him—
Who else had high cheekbones that looked like they’d been hacked with blades? Who else would show up at a funeral with a red bandanna tied like a skullcap over his head to hold back blue-black hair that was way too long? Who else would sport a silver stud at his earlobe…in River Oaks…on such a sacred day?
Her head buzzed.
Or show so little respect to a man of Josh’s stature as to wear a black leather jacket with a four-inch rip at the shoulder?
Roque’s black-lashed, green eyes drilled Ritz. The frank sexuality in them turned her insides to water as they had that first night when he’d danced so wildly before that leaping fire.
She fought to look anywhere but at him.
Impossible.
She winced and had to hold herself in check when she saw that there was blood on his cheek and that he was limping a little.
A dozen voices interrupted Mrs. B.
“What’s Blackstone doing here?” Irish, Ritz’s father’s foreman, demanded almost savagely.
Roque’s green eyes never left her.
Ritz felt as if electric currents vibrated in the air around her.
When she stiffened, the lines under his eyes tightened imperceptibly.
His skin was so brown. Everybody else was so white.
“Excuse me,” she whispered to no one in particular, desperate to get away from him and everybody else’s prying eyes.
A waiter held up a platter of lobster and pink salmon on a bed of parsley and offered to make her a plate. The fishy odor made her throat go dry. Hot little salty drops popped out on her forehead.
She couldn’t breathe. “No…please…just…take it…back to the kitchen…anywhere…”
She fought the urge to be sick and then bent double.
The last thing she saw was Roque. His swarthy, piratical face went white and his green eyes brightened with fierce concern. Then he rushed to help her.
“No…no….”
Tight spasms sent
