Johnston - I Promise (11 page)

She needed to tell someone.

She couldn’t tell anyone.

Oh, God, what was she going to do?

Wretched sobs racked her body, and she muffled them against her pillow. She didn’t hear her door open. She didn’t know anyone was in the room until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She jerked herself upright and found herself reflected in Rachel’s worried hazel eyes.

Rachel sat in her nightgown on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked under her. The first rays of morning light touched her tangled hair and turned it golden. “Delia? Are you all right?”

A tear crawled its way down Delia’s cheek. She brushed it angrily away, and clutched her pillow tight against her chest. “Do I look all right?”

Rachel stared down at the hands knotted tightly in her lap. “Did Daddy hurt you, too?”

Delia’s heart stopped. For a whole second. “What?”

Rachel glanced up, and Delia saw the ageless look of despair in her sister’s eyes.

“I cried, too, Delia. It hurts awfully, doesn’t it?”

“Rachel . . . Did Daddy . . . ?” She didn’t need to ask. She knew. And felt a terrible, ungovernable rage. Ray John had said if she let him keep using her, he would leave Rachel alone. But he hadn’t.

Rachel’s revelation also explained why Ray John hadn’t come to Delia’s room once in the past three weeks. Delia had thought it was because he was angry with her. He must have been going to her sister’s bed instead. Oh, poor Rachel!

“He loves us, Delia. He doesn’t mean to hurt us,” Rachel said in a small voice.

Delia recognized the words. They were what Ray John had told her in the beginning, too. She knew them now for the lies they were.

“He doesn’t love us,” Delia countered. “He doesn’t love anyone but himself.”

“I . . . I hate him, Delia,” Rachel whispered. “I wish he were dead.”

Delia watched the tears spurt from her sister’s eyes at this horrendous confession. “Oh, Rachel.”

The two sisters clung to one another.

“We have to tell Mama,” Delia said. “We have to go to her and tell her what he’s done to both of us.”

“We can’t!” Rachel said. “Daddy said—”

“I know all the things he’s said to keep us from telling on him,” Delia said. “But Mama has to believe both of us together. She won’t have any choice.”

“I can’t tell Mama. I can’t,” Rachel wailed.

“Shh,” Delia crooned. “Don’t cry.” She brushed the blond curls back from Rachel’s face and kissed the tears from her cheeks. “I’ll do it for both of us. Mark my words. If Mama gets mad at anyone, it’ll be Ray John, not us. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Rachel looked at her with hope . . . and fear. “Are you sure, Delia?”

“It wasn’t your fault, Rachel. And it wasn’t mine.”

Delia felt very powerful suddenly. She would never be a victim again. Ray John had crossed the line when he defiled her sister. Delia was going to make sure he paid for his sins. It was a good thing, she realized, that she would be speaking to her mother alone. Rachel didn’t need to hear the full extent of their father’s heinous deeds. She didn’t need to know he had impregnated his elder daughter.

Delia thought of having to leave home to go have her baby somewhere else. Somewhere nobody knew her. She felt an ache of loneliness. And a deepening hatred for Ray John Carson.

“I’ll go see her now,” Delia said. “You go to your room and lock the door and don’t let anyone but me or Mama in.”

“What if Daddy comes? Sometimes he does, when he gets back from the Kincaid. What if he orders me to unlock the door?”

“Tell him he isn’t allowed in your bedroom anymore.”

“I can’t do that,” Rachel said, aghast.

“You can. And you will.”

Delia escorted her sister across the hall and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry, Rachel,” she murmured. “I’m so very sorry.”

“For what, Delia?”

“I should have found a way to stop Daddy earlier. Before—” Delia’s face scrunched up as she fought tears. She pounded her fist against the doorjamb. “If only I had gone to Mama sooner!”

“Stop, Delia. Please, don’t blame yourself.” Rachel’s lips quirked in a wobbly smile as she laid a comforting hand on Delia’s shoulder. “It wasn’t our fault. Remember?”

Delia felt her lips wobble in an answering smile. “Right.”

Delia made sure Rachel locked the door behind her, then sought out her mother. Hattie usually spent time early in the morning in her office downstairs, which had served as a sewing room for past generations of Circle Crown ladies. Ray John had already left for the Kincaid Hotel to have coffee and hear the morning stock reports. She and her mother had perhaps an hour alone before he could be expected to return.

It had been easy for Delia to say she would confront her mother with the truth. The reality of it was somewhat daunting. She stood for several moments in the open doorway, watching her mother sign checks to pay the expenses of running the ranch.

“Mama?”

Her mother glanced over her shoulder. “What is it, Delia? I’m very busy.”

Delia took a deep breath and stepped into the room. “Mama, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Marsh had been wrestling with his feelings ever since he had been forced to acknowledge the true relationship between Delia and her father. He could think of no other explanation for what he had heard her father say. It made him sick to think of what might be going on between them right now. He hadn’t seen Delia for three whole weeks.

Marsh yanked on the strand of barbed wire and tacked it tight to the mesquite post. He wasn’t taking any chances on North cows straying onto Carson land again. Ray John had promised a personal visit next time. Marsh wasn’t sure what he would do if he met Ray John face-to-face. If he had been carrying a gun with him three weeks ago, the man would already be dead.

Barring murder, Marsh’s first instinct had been to go straight to Sheriff Davis. But that would have meant exposing Delia’s dreadful secret to the whole world. And he had no proof of anything.

He felt confused. Angry at Delia and sorry for her at the same time. Appalled. Revolted. Disgusted. He had heard such things happened, but not in the town where he lived, not to someone he knew. He wondered how far it had gone. He wondered if Delia had done it with her father.

And hated himself for what he was thinking.

Of course she hadn’t. She wouldn’t even do it with him.

But maybe that was why she wouldn’t do it with him. Because then he would know she wasn’t a virgin. He imagined her with her father. And felt the bile rise in his throat.

He pulled off his gloves and tucked them in his back pocket, then dropped his Stetson on the fence post and tunneled all ten fingers through his sweat-damp hair, leaving it standing on end.

He turned to look across the fence. He should just go knock on her back door and ask to speak with her.

What would he say? What could he say?

I understand.
He didn’t.

I was shocked by what I heard.
She had to know that already.

What the hell is going on between you and your father?
He didn’t really want to know. He was afraid he already did.

He shoved his hair flat with his fingers, slapped his hat back on, and tugged it down to shade his eyes from the midday sun. He put the tools he had been using back in his saddlebags, mounted his horse, and headed for the live oak where he had spent so many hours with Delia.

She wouldn’t be there. She hadn’t come in three weeks of waiting. But he couldn’t keep himself from going.

Today she might come.

One thing had become clear to him amid all the confusion. He still loved her. He still needed her. He still wanted her. More than that, he wanted to rescue her. Except he had no idea how to do it.

For the first time in a long time he wished he was on better terms with his father. He wished he could talk to him, get his advice, maybe even his help. But Cyrus was drunk most of the time. Marsh wouldn’t trust his father to keep what he knew to himself, let alone offer any useful suggestions.

Marsh thought how much worse it must be for Delia. The person responsible for keeping her safe from harm was the very person assaulting her. He wondered if her mother knew. Surely not. No woman could possibly condone such behavior by her husband. Why didn’t Delia tell her mother, so she could put a stop to it?

Marsh was formulating answers to that question in his head when he realized Delia’s palomino stood grazing under the live oak. His eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of her and finally located her lying curled up in the grass.

He spurred his horse to a gallop and raced the rest of the way to the fence. He leaped off the animal and edged his way between the strands of barbed wire rather than fussing with the gate. He jerked his shirt free when it caught on a barb, not caring that it ripped, not even feeling the bloody gouge the barb tore in his flesh.

All he saw was Delia, lying on the ground as though she were dead. He ran the short distance from the fence to the tree, and dropped to his knees beside her, completely out of breath.

“Delia!”

As he rolled her over, she opened her eyes. They were red-rimmed and brimming with fresh tears. She wiped her runny nose on her sleeve as she sat up.

“Marsh?”

He saw the uncertainty in her eyes. “Come here,” he said.

She launched herself into his arms, sobbing incoherently. He could understand very little of what she said, but one word stuck out.

Arrested.

“Your mother’s having your father arrested?” he asked. “It’s what she should do, Delia. There’s no reason to cry anymore. It’s all over now.”

“Not Daddy!” she cried. “You! She’s having
you
arrested.”

“What?”

“For rape.”

“What?”

He rose abruptly, pulling free of her grasp, and stood staring down at her with his mouth gaping. “You told your mother I raped you?”

She scrambled to her feet. “No, no. You don’t understand.”

“I sure as hell don’t!” She laid a hand on his arm, and he jerked himself loose. “If somebody’s been fucking you, Delia, it hasn’t been me!”

She stared at him, her eyes wide and wounded. “I told her the truth. I told her Daddy got me pregnant. She wouldn’t believe me.”

“Pregnant? You’re
pregnant?”
He realized he was shouting.

She started crying again and slumped to the ground in a heap. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”

His mind was too busy whirling with his own problems to handle hers.

Sheriff Davis was going to arrest him for raping Delia. No one would believe he wasn’t guilty.

He looked down at Delia, at the pitiful picture she made, and was struck by two other horrible truths.

The woman he loved was pregnant. Her father was the father of her child.

He dropped back onto his knees beside Delia and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her flesh was tensed as hard, and felt as cold, as marble.

“I want to die,” she choked out. “I want to die.”

He lifted her into his lap and pressed her face against his chest. “It isn’t your fault,” he muttered.

“How do you know?” she challenged. “Maybe I liked it. Maybe I wanted him to do those things to me.”

“Is that what your mother said?” Marsh asked.

She grasped handfuls of his shirt and sobbed against it. “Yes. Oh, God, yes. She said I must have tempted him. She called me terrible names. She said . . .”

She was crying so hard she could barely catch her breath. He made soothing sounds and held her tight against him. He had never felt so helpless in his life. There was nothing he could do to save either of them.

Except hold her. And tell her he still loved her.

Only, when he tried to get the words out, they stuck in his throat.

“I’m sorry, Marsh. I’m so sorry,” she moaned.

He couldn’t offer solace. There was none to give.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Delia.”

“I let him . . . I let him . . .”

“Shhh,” he said. He felt a tickle in his throat, an unfamiliar feeling of tightness. He squeezed his eyes shut, very much afraid he was going to cry. It had been so long, the feelings were foreign.

He fought the tears, battled the ache in his throat, and lost. He tightened his arms around Delia, so she couldn’t look up and catch him crying like some dumb kid.

Something else rose to replace the pity he felt. A deep hatred for the man who had done this to Delia. Someone ought to rid the world of Ray John Carson.

He didn’t know how long he sat there holding her, but when he looked down, she had fallen asleep in his arms. He brushed away several strands of hair stuck to her damp cheek. His heart welled with feeling for her.

What was going to happen to them?

By now Sheriff Davis would have come to his house looking for him. His father would have told the sheriff he had gone to mend fence. He wondered if the sheriff would come after him, or whether he would wait at the house for his return. Likely the latter, since they wouldn’t know Delia had come to warn him. Well, he wasn’t going home anytime soon. He had a few things to do before he let himself get put in jail.

“Delia.” His throat hurt, and his voice grated like a rusty gate. “Wake up.”

Her eyes opened slowly, and he saw the panic before she realized who was holding her close.

“You have to go home now.”

She clutched his shirt, and he saw the desperation mount in her eyes. “I can’t go back there, Marsh. Can’t I stay with you?”

He shook his head.

When she ripped herself from his embrace it felt as though his skin were coming off along with her. “I thought you cared. I thought I could count on you. It was all lies, wasn’t it? You’re no better than Ray John!”

“Wait one damn minute before you start comparing me to your father,” he roared, coming to his feet after her.

“You’re both liars,” she accused.

“I’m not the one who was having a love affair with my father on the sly,” he snapped back.

She looked as though he had slapped her. He might as well have. He couldn’t have hurt her worse if he had physically hit her. “I’m sorry, Delia. I don’t know what came over me. I—”