Give My Love to Rose (13 page)

Rose had found herself unable to break her
son’s heart with the truth. Langley worshiped the ground that
Marston walked on and learning that the man had abandoned them
would have destroyed him.

Rose closed her eyes and sent up her own
prayer that somehow the Lord would provide her with a way to pay
back the debt she owed the banker. Rose began to eat her breakfast,
but the pain in her throat made it nearly impossible to
swallow.

Once she had forced down as much as she
could, Rose stood from the table and headed outside to cut wood.
There were plenty of large chunks of log, they simply needed to be
cut down to size. Her weak, aching body protested the labor as she
swung that heavy ax again and again.

Sweat poured from her skin and her head swam
but still Rose continued because she simply had no choice.

Rose stood straight and stretched out her
aching back before gazing up at the sky. “Dear Lord, please give me
the strength to get through these challenges and help me to
remember that this too shall pass.”

***

“
Cry for me, you little
bitch. I love it when they cry.”

Rose sobbed and her eleven-year-old body
shook with the intensity of her fear and pain. The man smelled of
sweat, horse and tobacco and it was clear he hadn’t bathed in a
long while. He smiled at her, revealing rotting teeth before
pressing his mouth to hers and bruising her tender flesh.

The man stood and readjusted his trousers
before smacking her roughly across the face and causing Rose to cry
out.

“
That’ll be thirty
dollars,” Rose heard her adoptive father say as the man stepped out
of her bedroom.

“
That seems a little stiff
for all I got,” the man complained. “Hell, all she did was lay
there and cry.”

“
Yeah, but it was tight
and it was innocent so that’s worth at least thirty. For anyone
else it would be more. You’re getting the friend
discount.”

She heard both men laugh and she whimpered
as she yanked her nightdress down over her bruised thighs. There
was an unfamiliar dampness between her legs and Rose pulled her
knees into her chest and sobbed. She so desperately wished that she
could be back in that orphanage.

“
God, all that soft red
hair and pale skin.. you’ve got yourself a real moneymaker there,”
the stranger mused.

“
I know,” her adoptive
father agreed. “I know she’s young and inexperienced but what man
wouldn’t enjoy riding something as tight and fresh as
that?”

“
I’ll probably be back one
night soon for another turn.”

“
We’ll be right
here.”

Rose heard the stranger leave and her
adoptive father’s footsteps entered her dark bedroom. “Stop your
crying, you ungrateful brat! I saved you from that damn orphanage
and I’m putting a roof over your head and food in your belly. All I
ask in return is that you spread your legs for the gentlemen
without sniveling like a babe.”

Rose felt her stomach roll and then, much to
her horror, she lost her small supper over the edge of the bed. Her
adoptive father curled his nose at the acidic scent of vomit. “Damn
you!” he exclaimed.

Rose was hauled from the bed by her hair.
She stared at the white sheets and saw the blood staining them. Her
blood.

“
I’m sorry papa!” she
whimpered as he dragged her from her bedroom.

“
Damn right you are! Now I
have to clean up this mess!”

The cold Virginia winter assaulted her frail
body as Rose was tossed out into the snow wearing nothing but her
nightdress.

Her body hurt too badly to get up and her
eyes widened with horror when her adoptive father came striding
toward her with a horsewhip.

“
You learn to be good!” he
bellowed. “Even if I have to kill you to get it done!” He raised
that whip high in the air…

Rose sat bolt upright in bed and prayed that
her cry of shock wouldn’t wake Langley. She pulled back her sweat
soaked sheets and moved wet strands of hair from her face. Her weak
legs would barely support her as Rose slipped into her robe and
shuffled to the kitchen. She leaned against the counter and sobbed
into the night.

Dreams and memories of her childhood always
did this to her. They reduced her to a trembling, sobbing mess and
Rose hated it! She pressed her forehead hard against the upper
cabinets in hopes that she could push out the images, the memories,
the smells, the pain…

What she wouldn’t give to have that cabin
door open, to hear those muddy boots crossing the floor, to have
that big hand grip her shoulder and to find herself pulled into a
solid, strong chest. But that wasn’t going to happen. Marston was
gone and he wasn’t going to come in and hold her before offering
her a glass of water and company.

Rose tried to take a deep breath, but her
lungs cried out in protest. She cleaned her face on her robe and
walked to the water pitcher. Slowly, she sipped at a glass and
stared at the dying fire in the fireplace.

Her name was Rose—just Rose. She had never
had a last name of her own. She had lived through worse nightmares
than most people could even dream of and she had come out stronger
because of them. This would be no different. She would overcome
this sickness, find a way to pay back Winston, keep a roof over her
son’s head and forget about Marston. Once she did all of that, she
would be stronger for having done it on her own.

***

“
Well, why don’t you look
at what I just became the proud owner of!” Jeremiah boasted as he
walked out of a west Kansas saloon and stomped across the frozen
ground to where Duke and Marston were standing against the wall
smoking cigarettes.

“
What’s that?” Duke
asked.

Jeremiah held up a piece of paper. Marston
snatched it out of his hand and looked it over. It was the deed to
a piece of property and a house up in the Dakota territories. “Some
man put it up in the poker game and I won it,” Jeremiah informed
them. “He said the house is a real nice two story one too. It’s a
regular old homestead.”

“
What use have you got for
a homestead?” Duke asked with a chuckle.

Marston stared down at the paper with his
jaw tight and his heart racing. He knew a good use for this
homestead. He imagined cows in the barn and horses in the corral.
There’d be plenty of hens in the chicken coop pecking at the
ground. There’d be pretty flowers all around the big house and the
air would be filled with the ramblings of a ten-year-old boy as he
followed after Marston’s heels doing the morning chores. There’d be
a soft redhead with snow white skin and a mole above her collarbone
hanging and laughing with happiness. She’d be looking up at Marston
with all her emotions shining clear in her blue eyes…

“
You okay Marston?”
Jeremiah asked, breaking through Marston’s daydream. He shook his
head and realized that both men were watching him
closely.

“
Yeah, I’m fine,” he
grumbled, shoving the paper back into his brother’s
hands.

‘
No, you’re not. You need
to go back to them.’

Marston growled and threw his cigarette on
the frozen mud. He squished it beneath his boot and wondered what
the hell was wrong with him. It had been three months since he’d
left Rose and Langley and in that time he’d done a fairly good job
at forgetting them. But every now and then their memory would sneak
up on him and when it did the pain and longing in Marston’s chest
were nearly enough to kill him.

“
You don’t act okay,
Marston,” Duke countered. “And you haven’t for a long time. You
seem downright melancholy.”

Marston shook his head and pulled his hat
lower. “Are we going to stand around talking about feelings all day
or are we gonna ride?”

Jeremiah frowned. “Do you want the
homestead, Marston? I’d be willing to work out some kind of trade
with you.”

“
What the hell would I do
with a homestead?!” Marston demanded. “I sure as hell ain’t got a
use for one!” With that, he strode away toward Buck.

“
What the hell is the
matter with him?” Jeremiah grumbled as he folded up his new deed
and stuck it deep in his pocket.

Duke shivered. “If I didn’t know any better,
I’d say he was wanting to settle down. He hasn’t talked to you
about being in love, has he?”

Jeremiah let out a bark of laughter.
“Marston in love? Come on Duke! You taught us better than that.
Hell, Marston don’t care about anybody. You know as well as I do
that if a posse of demons got after us, he’d trip us in a heartbeat
to save his own skin.”

Duke nodded and tossed his cigarette down.
“And we’d do the same to him.”

“
That right,” Jeremiah
nodded, glad to have things the way they’d always been.

“
It still seems like
something has gotten under his skin. He’s lost his edge, Jeremiah.
He seems…softer.. somehow.”

The men shared a look of horror. Falling in
love was against the rules of survival in the life they lived. If
you loved someone then it meant you cared and if you cared then you
grew soft. Soft men died.

Chapter Twelve

It was nearing dark when the group of ten
men came upon the quiet homestead. Marston drew up on his reins and
came to a stop beside Jeremiah and Duke.

“
Well that sure looks like
home for the night to me,” Duke noted.

Marston felt unease settle into his gut. The
tiny house was barely standing. There were cracks in the wall to
let in the bitter cold. A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney
and a skinny horse meandered about the corral.

Déjà vu washed over Marston and he was
frozen in place as the rest of the men rode closer.

“
Wait!” he
called.

“
What?” Duke called back
with irritation. “I’m cold and….”

Just then the door to the house opened and
two small boys ran out, taking turns hitting one another.

“
Mama!” One of them
hollered. “Jacob hit me!”

“
He hit me first!” the
other boy exclaimed.

A thin, tired blond stepped out the door
wearing a worn brown dress. She leaned her broom against the wall
and crossed her arms over her chest. “You wait until your pa gets
home tomorrow,” she warned. The boys instantly stopped poking at
one another. “Now get back in this house before you catch your
death out in this cold.”

The three disappeared back into the
ramshackle house without ever seeing the ten men in the distance.
“Hot damn, Duke! Did you see that?” Hinkley demanded with a hungry
grin.

Duke nodded. “Yep. That poor woman looked
awful lonely, boys. Why don’t we ride on down there and keep her
company while her husband’s away?” All of the men chuckled and
nodded in agreement.

All of them except Marston.

Marston’s thoughts were in Louisiana with a
red head with tear-filled blue eyes wearing a thin white
nightdress, the shadows of her full body revealed in the lantern
light. His mind was on a bright-eyed ten-year-old boy with nails
between his lips to keep him from speaking and awe in his eyes as
he stared up at Marston.

“
Duke, why don’t we just
move on?” Marston suddenly spoke up.

Several of the men grumbled while Duke
stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Why?” he demanded. “I
don’t know about you, but I’m cold and could use a good night of
rest.”

“
Yeah me too!” someone in
the group agreed.

“
Rest ain’t what you have
in mind,” Marston practically snarled at Duke and the man raised
his brow. Marston sighed. “These people don’t have anything to
spare, Duke. Look at that place? What do we stand to
gain?”

“
Since when do we care if
they have it to spare, Marston?” Jeremiah inquired.

Duke was staring hard at Marston. “You
aren’t getting soft are you?”

Marston tensed as Duke dealt him one of the
biggest insults a man in their life could be dealt. Marston’s hand
twitched toward his gun. “No, I ain’t soft.”

The air around the men crackled as the gang
circled around much like a pack of predators. Marston knew they’d
side with Duke if it came to it. If Marston challenged Duke’s
authority, Duke would respond with deadly force and even if Marston
managed to kill Duke, he’d quickly be gunned down by the
others.

This life, this world was deadly and
dangerous and Marston wasn’t willing to die to save this woman’s
well-being. These men wouldn’t kill her, but they would probably
leave her wishing she was dead.

“
Do what you gotta do,
Duke,” Marston backed down but kept his hand near his
gun.

Duke appeared to want to speak and Marston
saw questions in his dark eyes but whatever he wanted to say
remained unspoken as Duke moved away and motioned for his men.
“Let’s go boys.”

“
What the hell is wrong
with you?” Jeremiah demanded when the brothers were
alone.

“
Not a damn thing,”
Marston snapped.

Jeremiah shoved him. “Well snap the hell out
of it.”

Marston simply glared and followed after
Jeremiah when the man went after the gang. “Hello, the house!” Duke
called.

Marston felt his uneasiness grow. He didn’t
like this. He didn’t like it one damn bit.

“
Can I help you….” The
woman’s voice trailed off when she stepped out her door and took in
the sight of all the trail worn men on horseback.

“
We need something to
eat,” Duke replied.

“
And some company,”
Hinkley added with a leer.