Jane Bonander (20 page)

“Why don’t we wait and see what happens.” He turned, his face pinched with anguish. “I want to believe you, Susannah. I do. But there’s still a part of me—”

He left without finishing the sentence, and Susannah had the deepest, saddest, most miserable urge to bawl.

Louisa forced her to leave Corey’s bedside, but instead of going to sleep, Susannah went to the barn to see her dog. Her mouth twisted into a wry smile.
Her
dog?

She stood, watching Jackson dip a cloth in water and wring it into Max’s mouth. Whatever happened, if, by some miracle, Max survived, she would have to leave him with Jackson. She’d never known a bond to be forged so quickly and deeply before.

“How is he, Jackson?” As before, she was sure he didn’t understand the words, only the question.

A frown nicked his brow. With gentle fingers, he touched Max’s head and said a word Susannah didn’t understand. Glancing up at her, he repeated it, closed his eyes and placed his hands against his cheek in a gesture of sleep.

“I see,” she said, not really sure she did. She bent down beside Max and stroked his ears. He’d been scraped badly, too. Someone, perhaps Jackson himself, had cut the hair from his wounds and cleaned them.

“You’re doing a fine job, Jackson,” she said, giving his hand a confident squeeze. Before she could draw her hand away, Jackson gripped it.

“Corey?”

Nodding, she gave him a warm smile. “He’ll be all right.”

She left the barn and let her gaze wander over the range of mountains that protected them from the ocean. There was a faint dusting of snow on them, but she wasn’t surprised; it was well into November. There was a bite to the air that bode of winter.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in a copse of incense cedars. She turned her head and saw someone kneeling. With a fluttering constriction near her heart, she realized it was Nathan. One knee on the grass, his arm resting over his other thigh, he was staring at something on the ground. The stricture around her heart tightened. He had the posture of a man communing with the dead.

Staying behind him, she moved slowly in his direction. She saw the slightly raised granite slab and understood. New emotions tumbled over the old, and she felt a brief but unconscionable wash of self-pity.

She crossed her arms over her waist, hugging herself tightly. The scene before her didn’t surprise her, she just wished it didn’t give her such a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

As she watched him, his head bowed and his shoulders slumped, her self-pity disappeared. He looked so sad, so vulnerable. He was still wrestling with his feelings for Judith, and she wanted to understand. In some ways she did. In others, she wondered if he would ever resolve his feelings and his guilt. It made her angry.

Feeling like a voyeur, she turned to leave. Her foot snapped a twig.

“What do you want?”

She whirled around and found Nathan standing, feet apart, hands balled into fists at his sides, his expression commensurate to a thunderhead.

She felt part of her anger dissolve in the face of his pain. “I . . . nothing. I saw you here, and I—”

“And you what?” His voice was threatening.

“And . . . and I wanted to see where she . . . your wife . . . was buried.” She swallowed hard, hating the suffering she saw in his eyes. “Oh, Nathan, I’m so sorry—”

In two long strides, he was in front of her, his hands clamped to her shoulders. “I want to hate you.” His harsh whisper chafed her skin, bruised the fragile petals around her heart.

She stared into his tormented eyes, the remainder of her anger dissipating like smoke on the wind. “Oh, Nathan, I—”

His mouth came down on hers, hard, angry and as hungry as her own. He held her head with one hand, forcing the kiss, devouring her mouth, and swept her back and her buttocks with the other. He pressed her close; she felt the thick ridge behind his fly against her stomach. In spite of her answering response, she felt unclean having such sensations here, so close to his wife’s grave.

“Nathan, not here, I—”

He lifted her up, bringing his shaft against the kernel of sensation that was buried in the folds of skin behind her drawers. He rubbed against her, tentacles of desire leaving her shaky and wanting more, yet she knew he was responding out of frustration, anger and pain, not out of any love for her.

His breath was ragged as he dragged his mouth from hers. “I want to undress you, throw you down on the grass and plunge myself into you.” He kissed her again, sucking her lips, probing the soft underside with his tongue. She opened to tell him to stop, but his mouth devoured hers again, and in spite of herself, she answered his kiss.

She finally tore her mouth away to catch her breath. “Nathan, no. I—” She gasped as his hand found her breast, fondling it roughly. With a harsh groan, he ripped the front of her dress, sending the buttons flying. His hand dipped inside and she felt heat scorch a path from her nipple to her pelvis. He dragged one side of her dress and her chemise over her shoulder, freeing her breast. He pulled away briefly, gazing down at her, his thumb moving back and forth across the turgid nipple.

“Beautiful,” he said on a husky whisper. “So damn beautiful . . .” He bent and took the nipple into his mouth, rubbing it with his tongue. With a groan of reluctance he raised his head and stared at her, his eyelids heavy with desire. He dragged up her skirt and petticoat and moved his hands to her buttocks, lifting her so that his thick need pressed against her. She clung to him, tears of frustration wetting her cheeks and her lips. She forced herself to remember where they were, but her reluctance for him to take her was all but gone.

He sank to his knees, bringing her with him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

She was drowning in sensations. Still, a seed of respect nested amid her desire, and she pushed against him, fighting the inexorable desire that expanded between her legs, where her womanhood cradled the hard, enormous length of him. He was angry, she knew that. And she sensed that he didn’t
want
to want her.

“Oh, God, N-Nathan.” She sobbed as she fought him. “I understand. I really do, but not here, not like this!” She was as close to the edge as he. She bit his chin and pinched him, but her efforts had become futile, as had her wish to do so.

He expelled a ragged, pain-filled moan.

“It’s all . . . all right, darling.” She knew everything he was feeling, for she felt it too. But they had to stop. They
had
to. She knew he would sink into a deeper pit of guilt if they didn’t. “No, Nathan. Please,” she pleaded, “you don’t want to do this. Not this way . . . not here—”

He jerked away, the desire fading quickly from his eyes. He stood, dumping her to the ground.

“Get away from me.” His voice was laced with misery.

With one hand she held her dress together over her bosom. With the other, she wiped her face, her tears continuing to drip from her chin. “Nathan, oh, Nathan, I understand—”

“I said go away!” His face was drawn with disgust and guilt as he eyed her desire tumbled appearance. “Only a whore would seduce a man on his wife’s grave.”

All remnants of her own desire scattered like buckshot in the wind and her anger surfaced. “What?”

“You heard me,” he warned, turning away from her.

She glared at him, knowing his attack was in self-defense because of his own guilt. It did nothing to soften her own anger. “Oh, I heard you. More of Sonny’s verbal vomit, no doubt.”

“Are you saying your mother wasn’t a whore?” It was more of an accusation than a question.

Susannah swallowed, unsure if she was angrier at Sonny for feeding Nathan so many insulting suggestions or at Nathan for believing them. “No. My mother was a whore. But that doesn’t automatically make me one.”

“Go ahead, Susannah. Convince me I’m wrong about you. Damnit, prove to me that Corey is Harlan’s boy.
Prove
to me you didn’t sleep with your own brother-in-law, or someone else for that matter.”

She saw red. Livid, bloodred. “You
ass
. I don’t have to prove anything. That part of my life is as clear to me as the cloudless sky above us. And even if it weren’t, what difference should it make to you? Why in the bloody hell do you care what I did years before I even met you? If it’s so damned important to you,
you
find the proof. But you won’t do that, will you? You only believe what you want to believe.” With one hand still holding her bodice together, she got to her feet, amazed that she could stand without help.

“Meaning what?”

She riveted him with a hard glare of her own. “Why is it that with me, ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’? Yet with Corey, you don’t ‘blame the child for the sins of the mother’?”

She left then, striding across the uneven ground as quickly as she could, hoping to put as much distance between them as was humanly possible.

N
ate watched her storm to the house, hating himself . . . hating her . . . He staggered to an old cedar and slumped to the ground, resting himself against the trunk. Yeah, she was right. He’d used analogies as they suited him. Corey was innocent; she probably was, too, but the question of who Corey’s father was still gnawed at Nathan like a toothache. Because of that, he’d lashed out, using it as an avenue for his own guilt.

He’d wanted her with the urgency of a man being buried alive, gasping for air. He’d thought he could use her as he’d used other women, but found that he couldn’t. In spite of what he wanted to believe about her, in spite of his itch and his craving for her, he couldn’t just use her callously then toss her aside. He’d had no trouble doing that with other women after Judith died. But damnit, why wouldn’t Susannah tell him what he wanted to know? What was she hiding?

A squiggle of sanity made him ask himself why it was so damned important.

He wanted her; he could admit that. He just didn’t want to need her, but need her he did. He rubbed his hands over his face, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. And he couldn’t leave her alone. Even now, so close to Judith’s grave, he’d wanted to take Susannah and bury himself deep inside her.

His gut flamed, shaming him. His need was so overpowering, he would have taken her here had not his guilt been stronger. He was no longer imprisoned by his love for Judith, only the guilt he felt at not loving her enough, and not being there when she’d needed him.

God forgive him, but he wanted Susannah still. Thoughts of her were etched in his memory, even in his heart. Had they been anywhere else on his ranch, he would have taken her for certain. And he’d want it to be angry and violent, but he knew himself better than that. Susannah, no matter what she was, was the kind of woman he’d been looking for even before he met Judith.

He lifted his gaze toward the cabin. Kito came toward him, his limping strides purposeful, his look threatening. When he reached Nate, he stood and looked down at him, his powerful fists clenched on his hips, his face barely masking his anger.

“What’re you doin’ to that gal?” Even without the words, he was a threat.

Nate glanced away. “You don’t know the whole story, Kito.”

“You promised me you’d never hurt her. ’Member that?”

Nate nodded, remembering well. “That was before.”

“Before what?”

Nate sat with his elbows on his knees, his arms hanging down between his legs, and studied the man. There wasn’t a trace of Sambo left in his demeanor.

“Before I discovered she had so many secrets,” he answered, unable to curb the angry edge to his voice.

“‘Before I discovered she had so many secrets,’” Kito mimicked in a whiny voice.

Nate ignored him. “I learned that her husband wasn’t the father of the boy, Kito. Why won’t she tell me the truth?”

“I ’magine you asked her all nice-like,” Kito responded, his expression grim.

Nate dragged his hands over his face. “It’s not an easy question to ask politely,” he rebutted.

“Do it really matter so much, Mister Nathan?”

Nate swore. “It wouldn’t matter at all if she’d just tell me the goddamn truth!”

“An’ how do you know she ain’t?”

Nate slammed his head against the tree trunk, welcoming the pain. “Because there’s proof that she isn’t.”

Kito shifted his weight off his bad leg. “Guess at some point a person’s gotta have faith, Mr. Nathan.”

To change the subject, he asked, “Has there been any word on this McCloud fellow?”

“That’s what I come out here to tell you.”

Nathan stood, unsure whether it was dread or anticipation that slammed at his heart. “Well? What is it?”

“He’s in town. He’ll meet you at the saloon in the mornin’.”

Dust and smoke danced together in the streams of daylight that sifted into the saloon through the wooden slats that covered the windows. The room had a sour smell as stale sweat and cigar smoke mingled with the potent odor of rotgut whiskey.

It was barely noon; the room was quiet, except for the man behind the bar, and a table filled with early morning poker players near the door. Nate stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light. A man sat at a table in the back, his chair tipped against the wall, his hat nearly covering his eyes. Nate threaded his way around the empty tables and chairs until he stood in front of him.

“You McCloud?”

The man brought his chair to the floor and shoved his hat to the back of his head. He was a breed. Inky hair hung nearly to his shoulders. High, sharply ridged cheekbones marked his facial terrain like a craggy mountain chain. His eyes were the startling shade of whiskey aged in smoke. An expensive cigar was clamped between his strong white teeth.

“And if I am?”

Nate straddled a chair across from him. “Nate Wolfe,” he announced, not bothering to extend his hand.

McCloud poured himself a shot from the bottle that stood on the table. By way of offering, he lifted the glass toward Nate.

“It’s a little too early for me.”

With an indifferent shrug, the breed removed the cigar from between his teeth and tossed back the whiskey, slamming the empty glass on the table when he was done.

“Your boy all right?” He kept the cigar between his first two fingers.

Nate nodded. “Do I have you to thank for bringing him home?”

“It was the least I could do.” He circled the empty glass with his forefinger. “I saw the whole thing happen five years ago.”

Nate’s insides went cold. “You were there?”

McCloud nodded. “Before you get any ideas, I think you should know that what you were told was a lie.”

Nate leaned in close, gripping the rungs of the chair so tightly his knuckles went white. “What the hell are you saying?”

McCloud poured himself another shot but didn’t take it. Instead, he appeared to study it. “I was a scout for Commander Phillips out of Fort Humboldt.” His gaze left the glass and landed on Nate; it was filled with disgust. “Your wife and son weren’t the victims of an Indian raid, Mr. Wolfe. They were victims of a careless mine explosion. An explosion planted by Commander Phillips’s men to close down the passageway to the Alhambra mine.”

Nate swallowed hard, barely hanging onto his fury. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened, and how my family got involved.”

McCloud tossed off the whiskey, then plugged the cigar between his teeth again. Closing his eyes, he took two deep puffs, accentuating the hollows beneath his stark cheekbones. “Damn fine cigars, these Caribbeans. Got them from a whore.” He puffed again, then blew out a ring of smoke. “She was a little long in the tooth, but I like ’em that way.”

Nate held the reins on his agitation, knowing the breed was drawing out the moment.

McCloud tapped out the ash on the edge of the table. “About your family, Mr. Wolfe. I don’t know what they were doing there. Phillips thought he’d sealed the area off. Hell, the place was thick with blackberries and we found a basket nearby. I guess they could have just selected the wrong place to pick berries.”

Nate rubbed his temples, trying to ward off a massive headache. “Then what happened?”

The breed spun the empty glass on the table. “We were ordered to leave, but about an hour later I doubled back. That’s when I discovered your wife was dead, but the boy had disappeared.”

Nate was reliving it again, pulling in the guilt, allowing it to eat at him. He wasn’t able to suppress his feelings, nor did he want to. The guilt was deserved. “How did you know my son was alive?”

“I didn’t think he was. The lieutenant in charge of the blasting ordered us to leave and concocted a story about the marauding Indians. When I found the boy gone,” he continued, lifting one sharp, black eyebrow, “I searched the ground, found blood and realized he might have been dragged off by . . . by something. Coyotes, maybe. Hell, I didn’t know. That’s what I thought until a few months ago.”

Nate’s head continued to ache and spin; his stomach felt rancid with bile. “What changed your mind?”

McCloud shoved the empty glass between his thumbs. “I heard rumors about a white boy living among the Yuroks. They aren’t my people, but I’ve had some dealings with them.”

Nate massaged the knot in his neck. “Thank you for bringing him home.”

The breed gave him a casual shrug. “I figured it was the least I could do. He hadn’t been mistreated. Fact is, he’d been adopted by the tribe.”

“And they let you take him?”

A grim smile cracked McCloud’s mouth. “I had to do a little bartering.”

Nate had to ask. “What about my wife? I was wondering . . .” He sucked in a painful breath of air. “I’ve had a recurring nightmare that the woman buried on my ranch isn’t her.”

McCloud studied him, his unusual colored eyes carefully masking whatever it was he knew, or was feeling. “Put your mind to rest, Mr. Wolfe, it’s her. Her body was identified by Doc Madison. He’s probably got some records over there. I suggest you talk to him.”

Almost relieved, Nate put his head in his hands. Maybe now he could put it all behind him. God, he hoped so.

“Your ranch looks a little seedy. Run-down.”

Nate nodded. “I’ve been gone a long time.”

“I’m a fair carpenter. Could you use some help?”

Studying the breed, Nate realized that giving him a job was the least he could do as payment for returning Jackson. “Can’t pay much, but would room and board do?”

The breed shrugged. “Better than nothing.”

Nate stood, studying McCloud only briefly before leaving the saloon and returning home.

Susannah mixed biscuits for supper, but could still feel the verbal slap from Nathan’s attack the day before. Odd as it was, his anger and the way he chose to channel it had a deeper and more lasting effect on her than all of Harlan’s slaps and punches. But she knew why. She loved Nathan; she’d loathed Harlan.

She glanced at Louisa, who was stirring dough for molasses cookies and humming softly, a smile creasing her generous mouth.

“Married life agrees with you.”

Louisa gave her a sly smile, then returned to her chore. “I’m ten years older’n you, Honeybelle. Thirty’s nippin’ at my butt like a hound huntin’ down a possum. In all my born days, I never expected to feel this way. But I’ll tell you what, the minute I laid eyes on that man, I knew he’d be mine “

A tangle of emotions clogged Susannah’s throat. She couldn’t help but feel envious at Louisa’s good fortune. On quiet nights, she could hear the sounds of their lusty lovemaking, and it made her ache for what she couldn’t have. “You know how happy I am for you.”

Louisa stopped what she was doing. “Why’re you so danged stubborn, Honeybelle?”

Susannah dumped the biscuit dough on the counter, kneaded it a few times, then pressed it into a thin slab with her fingers and the heels of her hands. “Stubborn? What do you mean?”

“You know full well what I mean,” Louisa scolded. “That scalawag of a man has all sort of crazy notions about why you married Harlan. Why don’t you jes’ tell him the truth?”

“If he’d wanted the truth, he wouldn’t have been so easily taken in by Sonny. The worst part, though, is that he has some insane notion that Harlan wasn’t Corey’s father.”

Louisa sifted another cup of flour into the cookie dough then mixed it in with her hands. “So you’re jes’ gonna let him come to his own conclusions, is that it?”

“He says he wants to believe me, Louisa. Why is it up to me to convince him? He worked for Sonny. He should know him well enough to realize when the bastard’s lying.”

“Why would he think Harlan weren’t Corey’s pa?”

“Oh,” Susannah answered on a whoosh of air, “some crazy story about Harlan having the mumps when he was young, therefore rendering him sterile or something”

Louisa stopped working altogether. “Can that happen?”

“How should I know!” She felt immediate remorse. “I’m sorry, Louisa. None of this is your fault. But having mumps didn’t make Harlan incapable of fathering a child. Corey’s proof of that.”

Louisa went back to her dough. “I see what you mean, Honeybelle.” She pulled out a cookie sheet and began dropping miniature balls of cookie dough onto it. “But no person alive ’cept you and me and Sonny knows what went on in that Walker house.”

With a tin cup, Susannah cut out biscuit circles and placed them on a baking sheet. “Well,
I
know I didn’t sleep with Sonny, and
you
know I didn’t sleep with Sonny. If Nathan can’t accept my word for it, then we weren’t meant to be together.” She slid the sheet into the oven. “Maybe it would be best if we left, after all.”

“If you leave, we’ll
all
leave.”

“No,” Susannah argued, wiping her hands on a towel. “You and Kito have found a home here. I’ve never seen you both happier. I think it was a blessing that he lost his job in Angel’s Valley. You’ll both be so much happier here.”

“We can be happy wherever you are, Honeybelle. You think I could let you take my li’l mister away again? Hell, no.”

Susannah refused to argue. As much as she wanted Louisa and Kito with her, she knew that Nathan’s ranch was the perfect place for both of them.

She went to the window and caught a glimpse of Jackson as he stepped into the barn. He hadn’t come up to the house since they’d hauled poor Max out of the well.

She quickly prepared a lunch of cold chicken, bread and cookies, placing it in a tin pail with a handle. Hurrying to the back of the stove, she filled another smaller pail with oatmeal, lacing it with molasses and cream.

Crossing to the coat tree by the door, she lifted off her threadbare cape and slid it around her shoulders. “Louisa, I’m going out to try to get Jackson to eat something. When Kito comes in for lunch, would you bundle Corey up in a warm blanket and ask him to bring him to the barn?”

“What you plannin’ to do, Honeybelle?” There was slight disapproval in her tone.

“Earlier this morning, after the doctor was here, Corey had insisted on seeing Max for himself. I promised him that if he took a good, long nap, I’d take him out to see the dog.”