Susan Amarillas (24 page)

He let his eyes wander to Rebecca. She was wearing a dress—dark, full skirt, high neck, of course. She was smiling. Her hand was resting lightly on the sleeve of the man beside her.

“This your father?”

“Yes.”

Luke glanced over to make sure he hadn’t upset the boy. It appeared he hadn’t, so Luke moved a little closer to the window and pushed back the curtain with one hand to get more light.

He’d never seen Rebecca’s husband, and he was curious. What kind of a man would she marry? He had his answer. He was tall like Luke, but that was where any resemblance ended. Where Luke was dark, he was fair. Where Luke was cowboy, he was society gentleman.

He had a nice face, though, kind, Luke decided grudgingly. He could see the family resemblance to Ruth—same eyes, same mouth. His gaze flickered to Andrew, who was still working on the cowlick.

Andrew looked like...who? Rebecca, he guessed. He sure didn’t look like his father.

He glanced at the photograph again, for an instant imagining himself there, imagining what it would be like to have a family, a son.

Suddenly a sadness washed over him. Regrets and mistakes came to mind, making him feel the loss intensely. He tensed and put the photograph down with a clunk. He had enough trouble dealing with the present; there was no sense dredging up the past.

“How’s this one?” He held up the shirt.

“Good. Mama likes that one. Blue is her favorite color.”

“What’s yours?” Luke asked, unfastening the small buttons and helping Andrew slip it on.

“I like red...and green,” Andrew said, firmly glancing up from the last of his buttoning.

“Red, huh? You mean like the fire wagons?”

“Oh, yes. I like the fire wagons. Mama got me a toy one last year for my birthday. Wanna see it?”

“Sure.”

Wearing only his shirt, Andrew charged out of the room. Luke could hear his bare feet thudding on the plank flooring. A door slammed. Andrew barreled into the room, hefting a fire wagon with a double team of snowy white horses attached to the wagon’s tongue.

Luke held up the toy for a careful inspection. “That’s a beauty. Looks like the one we saw today, doesn’t it?”

“I know. It’s my favorite toy. I got it for my birthday last year. You can play with it sometimes, too, though, if you want.”

“Why, thanks, cowboy. Next time I get some free time, I’ll take you up on that, okay?”

“Okay.”

Luke helped him with his trousers, then socks and shoes. He reached for the comb. “What are you getting this year...for your birthday?”

“Ouch,” he groaned when the comb caught in a tangle.

“Sorry.” Luke started again.

“I don’t know what I’m getting this year?” He brightened. “Maybe I’ll ask for a pony, now that I know how to ride and all.”

“Well, you might need a little more practice.”

“Would you help me?”

“Sure,” Luke agreed, happy to spend time with the boy. That niggling thought got closer to the surface of his mind. There was something he’d forgotten...or something...

He shrugged. “Say, when is your birthday? Do you know?”

“Sure I do.” Andrew seemed indignant. “It’s December tenth.”

“December. That’s right. I remember your grandmother telling me. Do you mind having your birthday so near Christmas?”

“Naw. Mama always makes a big party. It’s like having Christmas two times.”

Luke was still chuckling when he dropped down on one knee to help Andrew tuck his shirt into the waist of his brown wool trousers. Andrew’s stared up at him, black eyes staring back at equally black eyes. A strange feeling moved through Luke, a sudden lightness that made his breathing shallow. A thought flashed crystal-clear in his mind. All the air rushed out of his lungs.

He did some fast arithmetic. He’d left Rebecca in March—seven years and nine months. Dear God, could it be true?

He searched the boy’s face as though he were photographing it, as though he were seeing him for the first time. In a way, he was. “Are you certain, Andrew? You aren’t guessing?” There was an urgency to his voice.

“No,” Andrew said, somewhat indignantly. “I know my birthday and my address, and I can write them down. You wanna see?”

“No.” Luke brushed the hair back from the boy’s face. Without standing, he took Andrew by the shoulders and turned him to face the mirror. Almost shoulder to shoulder, the two looked into the glass. The reflection that stared back sent an icy chill down Luke’s spine.

“Luke, we’ve got the same color eyes. Isn’t that great? We’ve even got the same cowlick. Look! See, mine’s here and yours is...”

“Here,” Luke said very softly. Suspicion became reality, soul-shattering reality. Luke sank back on his heels, his hands still resting on Andrew’s...on his son’s shoulders. Oh, Lord, he had a son. A son. The word turned into a soft, gentle feeling that wrapped itself forever around his heart.

He glanced away long enough to look at the photograph on the bureau. The fair-haired couple and the child, a boy with raven black hair and equally black eyes, just like the eyes that looked back at him every time he looked in the mirror.

His fingers tightened slightly, possessively, on Andrew’s small shoulders, and tears welled up in his eyes and slid unchecked down his cheeks.

Luke knew Rebecca was there even before he looked to the doorway. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was soft with emotions too new to name, and he thought at this moment that no man could be happier than he was. The woman he loved had given him a son. He didn’t care about the rest, about having to find out himself, about the lost years. He was overjoyed to know. He would forgive her the rest.

Rebecca’s voice was very calm when she spoke. “Andrew, why don’t you go on down to dinner? Grandma is there already, and she’ll be lonely. Tell her we’ll be along shortly.”

Andrew slipped free of Luke’s light touch. “Okay.”

“See you later, Luke.”

“See you later, son,” he couldn’t resist saying, testing the word and the feeling.

Andrew didn’t understand the double meaning of Luke’s remark, but Rebecca did. She saw the tears on his cheeks. It tugged at her heart, her guilt and regret and anger. There was one more feeling that overwhelmed the others—the sense of duty. She had a duty to the people she loved, Andrew and Ruth. She owed them security and love and protection. She would protect them, even at her own expense. Rebecca stepped into the room and closed the door softly, leaning back against it, effectively blocking it, as though she could keep the secret locked up as easily.

Luke stood and started for her, wanting to take her in his arms, to hold her and tell her that he forgave her for keeping the secret.

She stopped him with an upraised hand. “Just what is it you think you know?”

“I know that Andrew is my son.”

“I say he’s not.”

Luke hesitated. He walked to the photograph and held it up for her. The dark-haired boy and the fair-haired couple. No, Andrew had Luke’s eyes and hair and coloring. The imprint of his features was true and unmistakable. He glanced back at Rebecca. “Like hell he isn’t. I should have seen it from the first. He’s my son.”

“Try and prove it.”

The silence in the room was overpowering in its intensity. It took a full thirty seconds for the reality of her words to penetrate his brain.

In a voice that was hard and cold and ripe with menace, he said, “Goddamn you, Rebecca. All this time, and you never told me. You took what we shared and turned it into something dark and immoral. You hate me so much that you would keep my son from me.”

“I thought you were too busy chasing fame and excitement. Once you got me in the hay, you used me and left.” She said it plainly; it only took a few words to explain a mountain of anger and distrust.

“Sure I left, I—”

“Don’t give me that story about being young, because I’m not buying it.”

“I don’t
have
to explain my life to you. If you’ll remember, sweetheart, no one forced you into the hay with me. You went willingly...both times.” With that, he leveled the mountain.

“Yes, Luke, I did.” Her voice was ripe with sarcasm and regret. “I absolve you of all responsibility. There. Are you happy? It’s not your fault. None of it. You can leave with a clear conscience.”

“I’ve tried to explain to you.”

“A little late, isn’t it?” She advanced on him this time. “About a lifetime too late.”

“You got married.” He said it like an accusation.

“Yes.” Her tone was defiant. “I got married. Thank goodness Nathan was
willing
to marry me, knowing I was pregnant with another man’s child.”

“You could have written, wired. I would have come back.”

“Oh, certainly. A letter addressed to Luke Scanlin, Somewhere, Texas. Yes, that would have been a perfect choice. In the meantime, I could have gotten bigger and bigger, disgraced my family, risked my son’s name, all in the faint hope that the man who thought so little of me as to take my virginity and then ride off would want to come back and get married.”

“Dammit to hell, Rebecca. If I’d known, I’d never have left. I’m not that much of a—”

“
Bastard,
I think, is the word you’re looking for.”

He started for the door. “It didn’t have to be like this.”

She blocked his way. “What are you going to do? Tell him? Are you going to go down there and shatter his life? If one word of this gets out, the scandal will be unrecoverable. Andrew’s name will be forever ruined in this town.”

“Then we’ll go to another town.”

“This is my home, and Andrew’s, and Ruth’s. Have you forgotten that Ruth thinks Andrew is her grandson, her
only
grandson? They love each other dearly. Are you going to take that away from them, too?”

“Damn you!” he said finally, feeling trapped. “He’s my son and I want him.”

“He’s
my
son, and you can’t have him.”

“Watch me.”

He stormed from the room. Rebecca raced after him. She caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs. He stood in the doorway of the dining room and, for a frantic moment, she thought he was about to say the words that would change her life and lives of those she loved forever.

“Luke,” she entreated. “You can’t.”

He looked at her with eyes as hard as granite, then turned on his heel and slammed out the front door.

Ruth turned to Rebecca. “What’s come over him?”

H
e needed a drink, and he needed it now. If ever a man deserved to get drunk, this, he fumed, slamming out the front door, was the time. He headed for his horse, tied at the hitching post.

He snatched up the reins and the gelding shied and shook his head.

“No one cares what you think,” Luke snapped, swinging up without bothering with the stirrups. Yeah, a drink. A hell of a lot of drinks. After all, a man was entitled to celebrate when he became a father—even if it was eight years too late, he thought bitterly.

He reined over so hard the gelding reared and shook his head in defiance. Luke held on easily, and instead of softening his touch, he yanked harder, spurred the horse in the sides and took off down the street.

Ten seconds, and he reined up as hard as before. The horse skidded and pranced and pawed the ground. What the hell was he doing, racing through the city streets like this?

What’s wrong with you, Scanlin. You wanta hurt someone?

The answer was a resounding yes. He wanted to hurt someone the way he’d been hurt. That, however, was impossible. The kind of hurt he was feeling went deep, to the very core of him.

She’d lied to him. The woman he had come back to, the woman he knew he loved, the woman...
that
woman...had lied to him.

All through the nightmare of the kidnapping, she’d never said a word. All the time that had been
his
son out there. The child might have died, and he would never have known. When had she been planning to tell him—when they lowered the coffin into the ground? Had she been planning on telling him at all?

He knew the answer. His hand curled tight around the reins, and the leather cut into his fingers. Muscles tensed along the tops of his shoulders and down his spine. He urged the horse into a lope as he headed for the waterfront. That was a good place to get drunk and get into a fight. Right now, that was exactly what he wanted.

He turned onto Pacific Street. The sun was already down. The street was crowded. A patchwork quilt of miners, sailors and businessmen mingled on the sidewalk as they made their way along. They were looking for entertainment, for fun.

Fun was the last thing on his mind. He was sulking, brooding, and a man needed a dark place to do that. So he passed up the fancier places, the Palace and the Golden Lady.

He spotted the Purple Crescent at the end of the street. It was all peeling paint and raw wood. The glass windows hadn’t seen a soap-filled sponge since they’d been put up. The lettering announcing beer at twenty-five cents was so faded as to be more smudge than paint.

He tied up at the gnarled hitching post and pushed through the batwing doors. A couple dozen tables cluttered the dirt-caked floor. The scent of burning tobacco and unwashed bodies overpowered the brisk saltiness of the night air. There was a painting of a voluptuous woman, buck naked, hanging over the bar.

The place was crowded. Most of the men were standing around the faro table or over at the roulette wheel. Luke shouldered his way through to the bar.

“Bottle” was all he said to the bartender. He tossed some coins on the scarred surface of the bar. “Let me know when that’s gone.”

The barman nodded, gathered the coins with one hand and set down the bottle and a glass with his other hand.

Luke took both, then moved toward an empty table near the back staircase. It was as close to a dark hole as he could get.

It was habit that made him sit with his back to the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he could watch the comings and goings on the staircase. There seemed to be a lot of those—grinning men with scantily dressed women.

Just his kind of place, he mused, tossing back a drink and feeling the rotgut burn a path to his stomach. Yeah, this was the kind of place he was used to. It was the kind of place Rebecca had accused him of taking full advantage of.

Well, dammit, he hadn’t before, but he was here now and—he tossed back another drink—maybe he’d just go on up those stairs. Might as well, since she’d accused him of the act.

She’d accused him of a lot of things tonight, of using her, of not caring, of leaving her. Well, she was wrong! He tossed back another drink. The alcohol was beginning to work—he felt the first signs, muscles uncoiling, a fuzziness in his brain.

Lifting his hat, he raked one hand through his hair and settled it back in place.

“Hello, cowboy,” a female voice said from close by.

His gaze traveled up the trim navy skirt, past the pale yellow blouse opened at the neck, to a familiar face.

“Millie?” He took in the traveling costume and the washed face. She looked like a kid—all blue eyes and freckles, except for that red hair, of course, that was a dead giveaway.

“Yeah.” She grinned and made an awkward attempt at a curtsy. “It’s me.”

He managed a trace of a smile. “I hardly recognized you in your...out of your working...” He dragged out a chair. “What are you doing here? This isn’t your place.”

“I come by to collect some money from Sally—” she motioned with her head toward the upstairs “—before I catch the night train for Salt Lake. What about you? What are you doing here?” She settled in, her elbows on the gouged surface of the table.

“I’m on my way to getting drunk,” he said flatly, and poured another drink. “You want one?”

“Sure.” She signaled the bartender, who brought another glass. She helped herself to the liquor. “Is the boy all right?” She sipped at the drink.

“Yeah, the boy is fine. He’s more than fine.” He glanced at her. “He’s great.”

“I’m glad.” She smiled a broken-toothed grin. “I’m real sorry for what happened. Is there any news of Jack?”

“None that I know of. The police are supposed to be looking. My guess is, he left town.”

She nodded. “I hope so. Anyways, I ain’t taking no chances. I’m heading out, like you suggested.”

“Good.”

Millie emptied her glass and poured another.

“So if everything’s okay, how come you’re here—” she hefted the half-empty bottle “—soon to be drunk?” She glanced around and, quietly, for his ears only, said, “This ain’t a good place for marshals, especially if they’re a little fuzzy...if you get my drift.”

“I’m not fuzzy, as you put it. Though God knows I’d like to be.”

“How come?”

“How come, she asks,” he muttered to no one in particular. “Well, Millie,” he said with great ceremony, “it seems I’m celebrating.”

“Celebrating?”

“Yeah.” He filled her glass to the brim. “Today, I became a father.” He toasted her with his drink before he emptied the glass.

Her blue eyes flashed in surprise. “What?”

“Yeah. It’s something, isn’t it? Turns out the boy, Andrew, is my son.”

Millie let out a low whistle. “And you didn’t know?”

“Hell, no, I didn’t know,” he snapped. “That damned woman never told me. All these years I had a son, a child, and I didn’t know.”

“Oh, my.” Millie seemed to be considering this for a long moment. She turned her half-full glass slowly between her fingers. Looking at the glass, she said, “So how come you didn’t know?”

“I told you, his mother didn’t tell me.” He shifted in the rickety chair, and the wood creaked in protest.

“It’s usually pretty obvious when a woman’s pregnant. Kinda hard not to notice.” She still didn’t look at him.

“Dammit, Millie, I wasn’t here. I was in Texas. All she had to do was write me, and I woulda come back. I woulda married her, for chrissakes. She knew that.”

Millie sank back in her wooden chair. One hand holding the drink, the other in her lap. She raked him with an appraising stare that was tinged with enough surprise and contempt as to make him shift uncomfortably.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Luke didn’t like being the object of her scrutiny.

“I figured, from the kid and all, his mama is some society lady, right?”

“Society,” Luke repeated with disdain.

“So you’re tellin’ me you got some society lady pregnant, then you rode off and left her like she was...” She straightened. “Nobody.”

“No,” he retorted. “It wasn’t like that.”

Millie arched one brow questioningly.

“It wasn’t like that,” Luke repeated, more vehemently. “All she had to do was tell me. I woulda come back. I woulda married her, if that’s what she wanted.”

“Aren’t you the hero?” Millie tossed back her drink. The noise of the saloon filled their silence. The constant click-click of the roulette wheel grated on Luke’s nerves. He reached for the quarter-full bottle, wondering why the whiskey wasn’t helping to blot out the anger.

He signaled for another bottle, and the bartender obliged.

“That ain’t gonna help a guilty conscience, you know,” Millie said as he pulled the cork and tossed it aside.

“What guilty conscience? I’m not the one who did anything wrong here. She’s the one who didn’t tell me, remember?”

“Sounds to me like you’re the one who left,
remember?
” she flung back at him.

“Say, what’s this to you, anyway? Why are you taking her side in this?”

“I ain’t taking her side. I don’t even know her. But if I was some rich society lady and I let some cowboy get me in a family way and then he rode off and left me, I’d be plenty scared. I know I wouldn’t have too many choices.”

“Choices? Sure she had choices. She coulda told me.”

“Did she know where you where?”

“How many times have I gotta tell you, I was in Texas?”

“Ah...” She nodded. “Texas, according to all you boys, is mighty big. Did she know where you was?”

It was a full ten seconds before he answered. “No.”

Millie gave a knowing nod. “She musta loved you a lot, to take a chance like she done.”

“Loved me! Now there’s a laugh.” He rocked his chair back on two legs, his head resting against the smooth plaster of the wall. “She loved me so much she didn’t tell me I had a son for nearly eight years. If I hadn’t guessed I never would have known.”

“What else would you figure would make her risk everything to have your baby? She sure as hell didn’t have to.”

Luke went very still. He slowly lowered the chair to the floor. In a voice that was so soft she had to lean in to hear him over the noise, he said, “What do you mean, she didn’t have to?”

Still leaning in, Millie replied, “There are ways to take care of...unwanted babies.” She sat back, her face grim. “Believe me, I know.” The was a hint of sadness in her voice.

The truth of her words hit him like cold water on a hot day. Rebecca hadn’t had to have the child. He knew that, had heard about treatments, elixirs, even certain women who knew how to end an unwanted, embarrassing pregnancy.

“She didn’t, did she?” he muttered. “But—”

“No buts about it. She took a hell of a chance. I mean, I’ve heard them rich folks don’t take kindly to this sorta thing. Daughters get sent away, or—what do they call it? Oh, yeah, disowned, for rolling in the hay with the wrong man.”

“Yeah,” Luke put in. “I’m the wrong man, all right.”

“It doesn’t appear so. She had your baby, didn’t she?”

The words tumbled around in his brain like thunder.

She didn’t have to...

Could have ended...

Took a risk...

Must have loved you...

Slowly, reality dawned on Luke. She had spent the past eight years guarding this secret. She had protected their child from scandal and harm.

She’d been afraid, of everyone, and especially of him. He’d been the one who could guess, he’d been the one who, with one word, could destroy her life and Andrew’s.

So she’d guarded her secret, protected the child, right down to, and including, lying. He should have seen, should have realized.

But like an arrogant bastard, he’d accused her, threatened her, when what he should have done was take her in his arms and hold her until she stopped being afraid.

When he looked up, Millie was watching him closely. “Thanks, Millie.” He reached over and covered her hand with his in a gesture of sincere gratitude.

“What are you gonna do?”

Luke stood. “First, I’m going to put you safely on that train. Then I’m gonna go claim what’s mine.”

* * *

Two men met in the elegant private room of Barry and Patten’s saloon. Downstairs, the crowd was heavy, busy with the business of sin. It was easy for the men to slip in and out without anyone giving them the least bit of notice.

The room was perched on the balcony overlooking the stage, where, in thirty or so minutes, the latest songbird from New York would be entrancing the customers.

The burgundy drapes were drawn against prying eyes, and the two men seated themselves at the linen-covered table. One candle flickered in the glass globe in the center. A gas wall sconce glowed dimly, giving the room an almost romantic feel, and Frank Handley thought that more than once this room had probably been used for an illicit meeting.

He pulled out a chair—red satin and gilt trim. Elegant, with a touch of the wicked.

“We’ll have whiskey,” Frank told the uniformed waiter. “Make sure it’s Irish.”

His boss sat opposite him. His slender face was hidden in the shadows, but Frank didn’t have to see his face to know he was displeased.

The music of the reed organ carried upstairs. An energetic version of “Camptown Races,” if he wasn’t mistaken. Silently he hummed along in his head.

The waiter returned with the whiskey, served in cut-crystal glasses imported from Ireland.

“Anything else, gentlemen?” he asked with a slight bow.

“Nothing,” Frank returned, already reaching for the bottle. “See that we aren’t disturbed.”

The waiter nodded, gave another small bow and left.

The bottle clinked against the glasses as Frank poured the drinks. He shoved one toward the other man, the glass leaving a track in the white linen cloth.

“All right, Frank,” the man said softly, holding his glass up to study the contents against the flickering candle on the table. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know.” Frank took a sip of the liquor, needing to feel the calming effects of alcohol on his nerves.

“I pay you to take care of things. You were supposed to have it all set. Nothing was supposed to go wrong. Now we have a dead kidnapper, and another one running loose somewhere—” he took another swallow of whiskey “—and I’m out ten thousand dollars, I might add.”