The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(95)

Tony glanced from her to their father. “He was sweeping up the lanes. Flavio got angry.”

Her mouth parted as she searched her brother’s face. “Flavio struck him?” Impossible. Flavio would never raise his hand to injure. He hated physical confrontation, scorned it.

“He lost his temper. Threw the ball.”

Her mind couldn’t argue with what Tony had seen with his eyes. Carina looked back at the old man. Flavio could do that? To a helpless old man doing his job? Then he was not the Flavio she knew. What had he become?

Tony took her arm, spoke close beside her head. “It’s not his fault. He’s powder, waiting to explode. You must do something before—”

“Before what?” She stared into his face.

“Before you lose them both.”

She swallowed the surge of fear and hissed, “Quillan is my husband.

What would you have me do?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t know, Carina. I only know that when Flavio threw the balls, he was not—”Tony spread his hands—“he was not Flavio.”

She looked back at the old man in Papa’s hands.

Lorenzo leaned over, assisting. “He was also hit on his back. You might want to check him there.”

Carina looked back at the Chinaman as Papa eased his shoulder up from the table. She said, “Flavio struck him twice?”

“Before I stopped him.”

Carina chilled at the implication that Flavio might not have stopped himself. She couldn’t fathom it. Yes, Flavio was temperamental, introspective, and emotional, his moods unpredictable. But murder? She had warned Quillan but had not really believed it, not deep inside as she did now. Signore, is it possible? She thought of Flavio as she knew him, as she had loved him, his hypnotic appeal due as much to his unpredictability as to his charm.

But there was no appeal to such lack of control. She thought how hard Quillan had tried to avoid violence, even toward the roughs who had terrorized Crystal. Quillan protected life, though no one had ever protected him. She ached inside for the man she loved.

And then she remembered begging for Flavio’s life. “What if self-defense becomes deadly force?” And she had told him no. But now she saw what Flavio could do. What if Quillan couldn’t defend himself without killing Flavio? Or God forbid, what if he were killed? She pressed her palms to her head. “Tony, what do I do?”

He lowered his eyes, then said, “Annul the marriage.”

It was a hammer to her chest. Annul the marriage that was life to her? And what? Marry Flavio? To ease Papa’s guilt? To save Quillan’s life?

Did she love him enough to release him? For his life’s sake? She gripped a hand to her mouth and rushed outside.

Trembling and weeping, she ran out to the vineyard, stood among the vines ripped from the ground, their roots drying. She could almost hear them weeping with her. Il Padre Eterno! Help me, please. How can I give him up? How can I lose what you have given? Would you strip him from me as you stripped the baby from my womb? Must I lose everything?

She looked at the dying vines. Just so would she wither and die without Quillan. He was her life.

I am sufficient.

Spoken to her soul, the words reverberated. God had told her that before, but she had believed He added Quillan’s love to His. And, God forgive her, she had delighted more in Quillan’s. “Oh, Signore.” It was God she must love with all her being, Gesù she must love enough to surrender Quillan. She dropped, sobbing, to her knees. “I can’t do it.” Like Abraham she would hold the knife to Quillan’s heart if she rejected him now. God couldn’t ask it. Could He?

She dropped to the ground between the rows, her fists in the soil that had nourished but now killed the vines. She sobbed until she could cry no more, gripping the dirt into her hands, grinding it under her nails. “I can’t. I can’t.” But then she knew she must. If God asked it, she must do it. Her love for Quillan must be wrong, or God would not take it from her.

She slowly raised up, turned dull eyes to the hazy sky. Then closing her eyes, she said, “Signore, if you require it, I will obey.” There was no joy in that surrender, only pain and obedience. But obedience would have to be enough.

She dragged herself up from the dirt, turned, and trudged toward the house. A man stood at the gate to the courtyard, his natty dress and posture somehow familiar. He tapped a newspaper against his arm, seemingly unsure whether to open the gate and admit himself or wait to be acknowledged. He turned as she approached. “Mrs. Shepard!”

And now she recognized him. The man from the train, Roderick Pierce of the Rocky Mountain News. She sighed.

“Mrs. Shepard.” He said less confidently when he drew close enough to see her condition. “Are you . . . is everything . . .”

“What do you want, Mr. Pierce?”

He held up the paper. “I brought the article.”

Carina looked at the headline, entitled A Hero for Today?, feeling a sick ache in her stomach. An article about Quillan’s heroism, as if she didn’t know enough. “Could you not have sent it in the post?”

“I could have.” He smiled. “But, well the short of it is, the article has sparked some good things. I’ve sold Harper’s Monthly on a series of biographical sketches featuring your husband. I say, from what I learned in Crystal, it’s as good as Wild Bill Hickok. They’re crazy for it.”