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Authors: Martha Hix

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BOOK: Magic and the Texan
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Jon Marc strode to an empty chair, apparently hauled from the kitchen to await him, and sat down. Arms folded over his chest, he decided to ease into demands. “How-d-ya-do?”
Rousing, Eugene flashed a golden smile, the one that had charmed a maidenly Tessa but didn't hold water with Jon Marc. “Allah be praised, I am fine.”
Beth took a seat.
“Do ye have not a welcoming word for me, Jonny?”
Jon Marc glared at Fitz, and got right to the point. “You are out of line, visiting without being asked.”
“I doona need an invitation to visit an O'Brien,” Fitz came back.
“You reneged on your word.” Jon Marc scowled. “I wrote and asked you to leave me be while I got my wife.” The family hadn't left his half brothers alone. He might have known he'd be no exception, the bastardy of his birth not carrying weight when it came to curiosity. “You got Pippin to do your answering. You said you wouldn't darken my doorway.”
“ 'Tis not ye I be here t' see, Jonny.”
Right. Jon Marc bounced his gaze to Beth, who sat with hands in her lap, while he addressed his words to the grandfather who wasn't. “You're here to see what magic brought me.”
And to lasso and hogtie me to that coach for a return trip to Memphis.
Memphis, Jon Marc wouldn't bring up.
Eugene, sitting next to Beth, smiled anew. “A plum, bright and ripe, is your Beth.”
Jon Marc's scowl settled on the genie. “Don't mean to be rude, Jinnings, but . . . go get those children from the pigpen. Take your time doing it. Wait for us in the kitchen.”
Lifting his large body from the chair, Eugene dragged himself away, whistling a tune as he went.
“Where would we be finding Abbott?” Fitz then asked.
“He'll be here directly.” Jon Marc didn't find it strange that Fitz would ask after India's nephew. “He's securing his cabin. And gathering my vaqueros.”
“Hoot,” Beth said succinctly.
Jon Marc nodded. “Right. Hoot. Todd isn't to be trusted.”
“There's a thousand dollars in the cookie jar that says he isn't as bad as you claim. Of course, that was before Peña,” she added, her voice trailing off.
It took biting his tongue for Jon Marc not to ask his wife to follow Eugene. He couldn't demand she leave. She was, after all, his spouse. She had a right to hear whatever he and Fitz had to say to each other. Again, Jon Marc wondered when the subject of Fitz & Son would rear its repulsive head.
He said to the old man, “You've come at a bad time.”
“Aye. Yer wife told me. Trouble with the one calling himself Hoot.”
“You need to pack up and get gone, Fitz.”
“Ye ought t' know I doona run from fights.”
“You're too old for this one.”
“I can still fire a rifle, if Pippin will load it for me.”
Jon Marc said, “You should leave for his benefit. It's going to get ugly around here.” The boy, natural son of a now-dead trapeze artist and a woman not fit to bring a child into the world, had suffered before Susan O'Brien, then Susan Seymour, had rescued him from a circus. Pippin even knew what it was like to have his first father threaten to throw the child into a lion's den. “Pippin's had enough ugly.”
Beth shot up, like a soldier raring for combat. “I won't allow it to get ugly. I'll find Hoot, and—”
“Sit down, wife! Now. You're staying put.”
While she retook a seat, her eyes spoke: Bully, my methods are superior to yours. Jon Marc tended to agree. But Peña was dead. They had to go from here. That wouldn't include cowering behind his wife's apron strings.
He asked Fitz, “How far to the rear are Tessa and Phoebe?”
“The girls dinna break their word. Contessa stayed in Memphis. Phoebe and her husband are cozy in New Orleans.”
It was unfathomable, the aunties being unwilling to appease inquisitiveness, especially with Fitz making this trip. But they had. Jon Marc swallowed a smile, such an expression not what he wanted to convey at the moment. At least he could trust the aunts.
“Ye will be having another visitor, ye will,” Fitz hinted. “No more than a day or two behind me party.”
“My brothers?”
“Not at all,” Beth said, and Jon Marc resented the hollow feeling that went through him, as well as the yearning to have brotherly love once more. Dammit. Did a man never learn?
“Who?” he wanted to know.
“A chap knowing how to handle a firearm, is me thinking.”
“Don't talk in riddles, Fitz.” The heel of Jon Marc's hand sliced the air. “I'm in no mood for it. Who is the mystery visitor?”
“Marcus Johnson.”
 
 
Eugene Jinnings, eunuch, known in the Arabic lands as Marid, beheld a sty of swine and two beautiful youngsters, one as foreign-looking as the genie himself. “Hark, children. You must come with me.”
Pippin O'Brien, older by several years than the girl, stopped filling a trough with what appeared to be chunks of fish. “Will Uncle Jon Marc let us stay?”
Having eavesdropped on the conversation at the house, Eugene tugged on his ear bob. Jones had not reacted well to the news that Marcus Johnson would make his presence known.
A mess that needed the grace of Allah, that was what this trip had unearthed. It followed that the Creator would grant no goodwill to heretics. This is where a genie needed his lamp.
Although no one was aware of it, outside Eugene himself, the lamp still existed.
At least a piece of it remained. The genie had retrieved a portion of the bowl, after the
Yankee Princess
went down in 1868. Not a soul knew that. Or that it was buried behind the O'Brien manse in Memphis.
Tired of toiling at the lamp's behest, Eugene couldn't breathe a word about the lamp's existence. He abhorred work. Or anything related to it. Wishes on the lamp meant work.
This journey had been too much for a lazy jinn, truth be told, which it had been fruitless to mention, Fitz having been set on the trip. A loyal son-in-law, Eugene had proven. Yet he would have preferred to be ensconced at the O'Brien lair in Memphis, tucked up with a hot mug of chocolate and a plump wife who accepted that his tongue was the hardest object that would prod her treasure trove.
Eugene licked his lips.
“Will Uncle Jon Marc let us stay?” Pippin repeated.
“I do not want you to leave.” Shyly, Sabrina sidled up to the older youth. “You have much to learn about pigs.”
“Aw, hush. I ain't here to learn about pigs.”
Eugene sighed. “Do not say ain't. Susan would object.”
The boy's face boiled with indignity. “Momma ain't here. Anyways, she's got sons of her own to teach not to say ain't.”
Thick lips flattened. It was work, trying to make this boy understand his adoptive parents loved him, with no partiality toward their two baby sons. “She would object to your saying ain't. She has standards where you are concerned.”
“Well, she ain't here, is she?”
Again, Eugene sighed. Why was it that so much trouble attached itself to families?
Why couldn't these O'Briens be happy with their lot?
Fitz on his never-ending quest for an heir.
Jones with bandit problems. If the genie could read unsettled faces, which he could, being a canny genie, he knew something smelled in Denmark, where the newlyweds were concerned.
Add that to Pippin's unhappiness at thinking he was odd son out—In the words of Eugene's old friend, Shakespeare, something was rotten in Denmark.
Too much work, too much work.
There was no rest for this genie. Pippin needed to know he was loved, so Fitz had demanded the boy come on this trip to “wheel me chair.” The true reason? The patriarch knew his great-grandson admired the wayfarer Jones. Fitz believed the boy would benefit from being near his uncle. Possibly not.
Oh, for a cocoa, a cuddle, and a nap . . .
“Scoot, Pippin,” Eugene suggested. “Go to the house. Work magic on your uncle. So we can be gone at the earliest.”
“How'm I supposed to do that?”
“What is work magic?” Lovely eyes went round as pita.
Pippin cast her a look of disgust. “ 'Brina, don't you know nothing about English? Uncle Eugene knows I'm the best one to make Uncle Jon Marc see the light.”
“I do not understand. You speak too quickly.” The girl bored hazel eyes into Pippin. “What is ‘see the light'?”
A beacon Jones will never see.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The last light of day faded.
Jon Marc lit a lantern, set it on the passageway floor, and wished he could retreat from his wife and nephew, plus Hoot's daughter, who'd gathered to catch evening breezes. Perhaps he just needed an excuse to be away from here, where he could think. Quietly, silently. And come to grips with the news that his begetter was on the way.
Too bad there couldn't be a limit on how many problems a man could tackle at once.
“Wanna play some checkers? Great-granddaddy brought his set along.” Pippin grinned at his uncle. “Bet I can beat you.”
Jon Marc swallowed a groan, knowing he could have Sabrina halfway to Fort Ewell by the time he finished a game of draughts. For his nephew's sake, he couldn't be rude.
“No checkers,” Beth put in with the authority of a mother. “It's late. And you, young man, have had a long journey. Off to bed with you. You, too, Sabrina.”
Already Fitz had settled into the parlor. Beth had insisted old bones shouldn't sleep on a cot, even though Fitz had slept on a cot since leaving the steamship that brought his party to Galveston for the overland trip here.
Eugene would put up on that cot, next to the sofa. Beth had made a pallet for Pippin, next to the cot. When Sabrina asked where she might light her head, Beth smiled sweetly, assuring the girl no one would mind having her pallet beside their bed. Jon Marc would gladly strangle his wife for her suggestion.
She wanted to save face, he figured. If he took to his bedroll, it wouldn't bode well for their standing as newlyweds. Jon Marc would not light his head beside hers, face or no face.
Beth got a stern look. “Get ready for bed, children.”
“Okayyyy.” Pippin's grouse lost its fizzle as he clipped salutes to the hostess and to Sabrina. “Tomorrow we'll play checkers. I'll teach you, if you want, 'Brina.”
No telling what the morrow would bring.
“Count Sabrina out,” Jon Marc informed his nephew. “She's going home.”
“I do not have a home.”
“Yes, you do.” Jon Marc crossed arms over his chest. “With Padre Miguel.”
“But I want to stay with Tristan.”
“Tristan?” Jon Marc and Beth echoed in unison.
“That's the name 'Brina picked for me.” The boy slid a hand behind Sabrina's waist. “Momma and Dad said I could choose my own name, whenever I wanted to. Pippin just ain't proper for a grown fellow. My woman's got good taste.”
Great, just great. On top of everything else, they must contend with puppy love. Jon Marc, before stomping away to gather a rope to hogtie Sabrina, bent his glare at an equally strong-minded female.
This is your doing, Beth O'Brien.
“Husband?”
Why was Jon Marc not surprised at hearing Beth's voice? He might have known she'd follow him. He should have walked faster, since she'd no doubt try to stop him from his rope-goal. Turning to her as she fell into step, he sued for reason. “You've got to agree to send Sabrina back to Santa Maria. You've got to understand why it's necessary.”
“I do. It's for the best. She'll have to go.”
“Thank you.”
“It's been a long while since you've thanked me for anything,” she said in a hushed tone.
He knew what she meant. Once, he'd told her gratitude would accompany each kiss, but that had been in his gullible days. “So be it.”
“Jon Marc, I know you have problems, but would you please listen to mine? I-I'm crying on the inside. For you, for me. And for Sabrina. I fear—especially now, with things unsettled around here—Terecita will send her away. Forever.”
He studied his wife. Even in the darkness of night, he could read the anguish in her features. Beth, who loved that kid, and probably the hombre she'd tricked into marriage.
Oh, Beth. What am I going to do about you?
The meanest varmint in the county couldn't have denied her a comforting arm. Jon Marc surely didn't. He laced an arm around her shoulders. “Honey, Sabrina will be better off, away from La Salle County.”
“Would you allow me to help her? Please! I'll repay you. I'm growing plenty of vegetables. I can sell them. And I could take in sewing. Anything! If I pay her tuition, she can go to school in town. At least I'd be able to see her occasionally.”
“For your own good, you need to cut loose from Sabrina.”
Beth's shoulders wilted. “I can't. I love her.”
“She's not yours.”
Balling her fist, she thumped it against her chest. “She is in my heart. Right here! And here she will stay.”
Jon Marc took her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. “You may not have a choice in it. Her mother makes Sabrina's decisions. But . . . oh, Beth, if Terecita allows it, I don't see why we can't do what we can to educate the girl.”
Complete reversal—this was the change in Beth's demeanor. Quick as a blink, she threw her arms around him, bracing on tiptoes to kiss his lips.
Hands that ought to know better slid into her hair. His mouth responded to hers. So did Mighty Duke.
Fool, stop. You don't know enough about this wife of yours.
He set her away. “Enough.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. I shouldn't push you.” Hugging her arms, Beth took off to the right to study the ground, then the sky. She whirled around. “We should keep a distance, until you know I love you.”
“That's right.” His tone was crisp, his heart shaky. But he had to set something straight. “Beth, I want you to know something. I tried to find Todd. To make peace.”
“You don't know how that pleases me,” she said, her voice showing every bit of it.
“Let's hope it works. I don't know how to deal with a jackal.”
“He's not as unreasonable as you might believe.”
“Beth . . . I'd prefer not to discuss Todd with you.”
“Maybe we should change the subject.” She stepped closer. “Jon Marc, Fitz brought a message from your brother. Burke. You should ask about it.”
“You tell me.”
“Burke tried to write several times, but never felt he got the wording right. So he never sent a letter. Anyhow, he feels awful that he didn't get his feelings across, before you left Louisiana. You see, he got over resenting your shooting that madman. But Burke was so caught up in reconciling with his wife that he didn't express himself. He bears you no grudge. And hopes the two of you can be brothers again.”
Eyes closing, Jon Marc dropped his shoulders. So, Burke wanted to mend fences. A thousand thoughts crossed his mind, one on top of the other. He settled for a halfhearted “That would be nice.”
“I'm relieved you feel that way.”
Trouble was, she didn't leave well enough alone. Having softened her husband up, she went in for the kill. “Jon Marc, Fitz didn't tell everything about Marcus Johnson.”
The lousiest feeling caved through Jon Marc; it got more hollow. “I don't want to know what it is. My haven's been violated, infringed upon. Trespassed against. And the main encroacher has done me even dirtier. Why on earth did Fitz see fit to tell Johnson where to find me?”
Her fingers wrapping around the heel of his hand, Beth urged him to a stop. “Look at me, husband.”
He did. And saw an artless face, silvered by moonlight. Beth, a magician who needed no magic lamp to work wonders. At least with outlaws, saloon dancers, and priests. Unless she was worked against, as Jon Marc had worked against her.
She said, “Fitz hired a sleuth to track Mr. Johnson down. A lady from New Orleans, I understand. A well-known sleuth who had a fine record for unraveling mysteries. Fitz thinks if you know the whole story about your mother and her paramour, you'll be more of a mind to . . . for family harmony.”
“He wasted his time.”
“Do you think it was easy for Fitz, to track down the man who caused his son's death? Doesn't that mean anything to you?”
In truth it did. Jon Marc had long known how deeply Fitz had been crushed by Daniel's death, and despised Johnson.
“Jon Marc, would you be terribly offended if I put my arms around you?”
He tensed, not wanting her magic, yet his heart cried out for it at the same time. What would it hurt, one more hug? “As long as you know it'll go no further.”
She moved in front of him to slide her arms around his waist. Her cheek nestled at his shoulder. It felt right, having her here. His wife. The Kansas beauty who had traveled to Texas to become his wife. Right now it almost didn't matter, the virginity business.
He longed to lace his arms around her. Enclosing her in those arms, he rested his jaw against her sweet-smelling hair, admitting, “I need this.”
“We need each other, darling.”
“The world has gone to the devil around us.” He shouldn't expose his heart, yet he somehow couldn't stop. “Time like this, a man needs his wife.”
“And vice-versa.” Beth pressed lips to his turbulent heart. “Jon Marc, you
must
know something. Before it's sprung on you. Marcus Johnson isn't your father.”
Shock. It had to be shock that weakened his pulse. Everything he'd ever known in his life about his parentage—none of it had been real. Yet reason kicked his veins.
“It's a trick, Beth,” he muttered. “A dirty trick.”
“I don't think so. Fitz told me—”
“I don't want to hear it. It's a trick. I won't be tricked. If there's anything worse than being lied to, it's compounding it with another lie.”
Jon Marc took his arms from Beth. And set off to saddle León and collect that rope.
 
 
She kicked and screamed, howled to the night sky.
Bethany, her heart heavy for her husband and his magnified problems, dashed after the mount that carried him and the screaming Sabrina away from the Caliente.
While she must stop her niece's terror, Bethany yearned to make everything right for her husband. Her husband, who thought it terrible to compound one lie with another. Her husband, who had known solace and heartache tonight. Her husband, who had married a fraud.
“Uncle Jon Marc, you're not very nice!”
Pippin. Bethany glanced over her shoulder. Barefoot, running toward León, the youth flailed his arms.
Jon Marc twisted in the saddle, shouting, “Beth, for God's sake, calm the boy!”
She hurried back to Pippin. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He rubbed a pajama sleeve beneath his watery nose. He was a troubled child. And, if Bethany was any judge, his troubles hadn't started with Jon Marc taking his playmate away.
“Shh.” Bethany tried to comfort by patting his shoulder. “Be patient, Pip. He's not hurting Sabrina, I promise. There are many things you don't understand about this situation. Your uncle is very nice. And you are quite important to him.”
“He's making my friend cry.”
“You'll see Sabrina again. Mark my words, she won't cry.”
“When will I see her?”
“Soon.” Bethany squeezed his shoulders. “Trust me, Pip. I am good for my word.”
Todds always are
. “I'm going to ride after her, make certain she's not crying when she reaches the church.”
Pippin cocked his head, scrutinizing Bethany's expression. On a sigh he relented. “Then go on. Don't tarry.”
She didn't.
Jon Marc wasn't the least bit pleased when Bethany and Arlene caught up with him and his unhappy burden, since she'd promised to keep an eye on the house. They were now less than a mile from Fort Ewell. Grudgingly, he allowed her to follow him, once she calmed Sabrina.
The bang of piano keys thundered through the air as they approached the church. Terecita was practicing.
“She hates you,” Bethany pointed out, once they had dismounted and Sabrina had run into Padre Miguel's beckoning arms.
“Terecita will never tell you where to find Hoot. I'm in good stead with her at the moment. Let me talk to her alone. Please. I think she'll tell me where to find Hoot.”
“I don't like this,” Jon Marc muttered.
For the second time tonight, Bethany begged trust. “You've got to listen to me.”
“If I agree, will you turn around and go home?”
She could lie, but wouldn't. “No. I won't. You need a partner, if we're to have harmony with Hoot Todd.”
“Mine is man's business.”
“You've got several platesful of business.”
“I'm going back to the Caliente. Get my men.”
“No! It's better if we speak with Hoot, just you and me.” She took Jon Marc's hand, as she had before they left the Caliente. Again, he didn't pull away, which elevated her hopes for the two of them. “Darling, you're not going to stop me.”
BOOK: Magic and the Texan
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