Tall, Dark, and Texan (20 page)

He lay down in the grass and closed his eyes, feeling totally alone. For a long while he thought of nothing; then slowly, wandering thoughts seemed to drift past his brain like clouds in a night sky.

His mother moving silently in her moccasins. He must have seen her run to his father a hundred times. They’d embrace at the end of each day as if they’d been apart a long time and were homesick for the sight of one another. For a while after they died, he wondered if when their spirits met on the other side they’d done the same thing. The reports coming back from where his father died at Goliad said the men’s bodies had been dismembered and finally burned. His mother had bled to death in the bed where she’d given birth to Sage. But Teagen always saw them whole in his dreams. Whole and happy.

He remembered a Christmas when Sage had been about seven. He’d signed for the land that year, and they’d rebuilt the bridge. She’d been able to start school at Mrs. Dickerson’s. That year she wanted to have a Christmas party for her friends, and Martha had talked him into it. All the kids arrived with their parents and had a great time. Teagen had watched it all from outside. He’d planned to at least stand around and watch from a corner of the room, but even the parents looked at him with worried eyes, as if he were some kind of monster or hardened hothead they feared. None of them seemed to understand that he’d done what he had to.

Mrs. Dickerson came out on the porch at one point to tell him that if he planned to make any friends, he had to stop glaring at people.

He’d almost told her of his friend in Chicago. He wanted to say that no one needed to fear him; he was still in his teens, and everything he’d done had been to protect the ranch. He wanted to say that he had one friend who understood.

But he hadn’t told anyone. He’d just stood in the cold and watched, hardening inside until he didn’t care if anyone liked him or not.

After that, he made sure he wasn’t there when Sage had friends over. He told her it was because he didn’t want to frighten them, but in truth, he didn’t want to see the fear in their eyes.

He relaxed in the summer grass, thinking how Jessie hadn’t been afraid of him. Not after that first day, anyway. Sometimes she’d lean over for no reason at all and touch him. She’d curl up in the chair next to him and talk to him as if she had no worry that he might turn and snap at her. And when he did grumble, she’d laugh like she thought he was making a joke.

Memories of the weeks she’d been on his ranch drifted in his mind. The talks, the rides, the kisses they’d shared. He’d enjoyed it all and stored away the moments because he knew she’d be moving on soon.

Only she’d lied. She had no family. Maybe the whole thing between them had been part of her game. She’d lied to him from the first, and now he didn’t know what to believe.

She’d even lied and told the judge that she loved him.

Closing his eyes, for the first time in his life Teagen thought about what he wanted. Not what he needed or what was best, but what he wanted.

He wanted Jessie. He wanted her smile every morning at breakfast and their talks over supper. He wanted the feel of her near him. He wanted her in his bed. And most of all, he wanted her honest and straight with him.

And that, he decided he might never have. She’d lied.

As the sun set, he drifted into sleep, dreaming of her laughing. As the wind kicked up a cool breeze, his dream turned dark and stormy like an ink sketch curling up in fire and smoke. Her laughter turned to cries, and he stood frozen, able to do nothing but listen. He saw death’s black hand move over Jessie mixed in dark red blood.

Teagen awoke with a start. He walked to the edge of the clearing and looked down. He couldn’t see the house from this point, but still his eyes searched the night. All was quiet.

The dream had been just that, a dream. Jessie belonged to him now. She was his wife, if only on paper. He’d see that nothing happened to her. He’d not allow the nightmare to touch her.

He had no more answers than he did when he rode up on the mountain. As he climbed down, he knew what he had to do. He’d keep his word to Jessie. He’d buy her a house in town and see that she had a credit at the trading post for whatever she and the girls needed. But she wouldn’t be his wife. Not in the real sense. He’d not allow her to hurt or manipulate him again. And in time he’d forget how he needed her, just as he’d forget the dream he’d had.

Long after dark, he returned home. When he stepped from the barn, he spotted Drummond Roak a moment before the boy fell into step beside him.

“Evenin’, Teagen,” the kid said as if it were perfectly natural that he’d be out strolling by the barn at midnight. “I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, but—”

“You’ll have to get in line to be the last one I want to see. Several are ahead of you, Roak.”

Drummond laughed. “You don’t sound like a very happy bridegroom.”

Teagen groaned. “She may be my wife, but I promise you it will be in name only.” He stopped and faced Roak when he realized he’d spoken his thoughts. “What are you doing here? You’re either way late for breakfast or way early.”

Roak was too busy thinking about what Teagen had just said to answer. Finally, he pushed his hat back and stared at Teagen with a puzzled look on his young face. “That don’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Well, I don’t want to marry Sage, I just want to sleep with her, and you, you marry a woman and don’t want to sleep with her.”

Teagen didn’t know which part of Roak’s logic to attack first and, in truth, he was too tired to fight right now. He decided to just forget he’d heard the kid. “You want to come in for a meal? I’m sure Martha left me enough for two.” He thought about adding that if Roak ever even thought of taking advantage of his sister, Teagen would kill him, but he knew Sage would get there first.

Drum smiled as he started up the steps. “You bet. I’m starving.” He slapped his arm around Teagen’s shoulder like they were friends, and Teagen shrugged it off.

The boy took no offense as they stepped into the kitchen, and he took a deep breath. “Heaven must smell like this,” he said.

They collected the food from the warmer, then agreed to split an apple pie Martha had left. Neither talked while they ate, but the silence was comfortable. From the way he shoveled food in, Teagen had no doubt that this was the boy’s first meal all day.

Finally, when Teagen walked Roak back to the porch, he asked, “Why are you here? It’s not like you to come so late when you know you’re not going to get the chance to pester Sage.”

Roak agreed. “I come with news, but I didn’t want to run into all the company passing by your place today. So I waited until that big carriage went back to the hotel. I figured if I wanted to catch you alone, I’d better stay on the other side of the bridge until all was quiet.”

“I guess you heard what happened.”

Roak nodded. “Everyone in town did. That lawyer went back to the hotel and gave a detailed account. By the time it got passed from one ear to another a dozen times, I knew I’d have to check the facts myself.”

“So you rode out, uninvited as always.”

“I was invited to breakfast. Consider I’m a tad late. But that’s not the reason I came. I wanted to fill you in on something I heard.”

“What’s that?”

“The raiders are still out there. They raided a place two days north of here a week ago, but it didn’t get them much more than a fresh supply of horses, so they headed back this direction. They know the Apache left, and they know about the two men you hired.”

“And,” Teagen asked, suddenly on edge.

“And if I were you, I’d hire more men. From what the drunk told Maria, a girl I grew up with who works in the saloon, every man who rides in the raid has been promised a McMurray horse. She said the guy admitted that the boss of the operation wasn’t interested in the stock as much as he was the land.”

Teagen frowned, already ahead of Roak and not wanting to hear the rest.

“The boss of this band of cutthroats is planning to wipe you off the land like you was nothing but grasshoppers and claim it for himself. He figures he’ll fight your brothers when and if they ever come back.”

“What do you care if I die?” Teagen suspected Roak’s sudden interest in the ranch.

“I don’t. I tried to kill you myself not too long ago. But I don’t like the idea of my woman being caught in the middle.”

“Sage is not your woman, kid. She never will be.”

For once Roak didn’t take offense at being called a kid. He simply straightened and said, “She will be, McMurray, and when she is, I won’t be fool enough to let her sleep alone.”

Teagen closed his eyes and leaned his head back, bumping it against the porch post. He’d had one hell of a day, and Drummond Roak had just made it worse. Not only were the raiders still out there and planning an attack, he had to listen to advice from a boy who knew even less about women than he did.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t surprised Drummond was gone. Something told him Roak’s information was fact, but of late Teagen’s ability to judge fact from fiction had come into question. He’d never questioned for a second when Jessie had told him her relatives were coming. Now, looking back, he should have known better. If she’d had a relative alive, she would have lived with them at thirteen and not hidden out in Eli’s bookstore.

When he walked inside and headed down the hall, he found Jessie sitting on the third step of the stairs, waiting for him.

She looked so young and afraid in her white nightgown and bare feet. He didn’t bother with a greeting. “You should be in bed. It’s late.”

She stood, holding onto the railing as if the house were a rocking boat. “I have to know something first.”

“What?” He didn’t plan on making it easy for her.

She closed her eyes, and he could see that tears already made her cheeks shiny. When she looked back to him, her brown eyes were canyon wide. “Will you be coming to my room?”

He could almost read her thoughts. She’d told him Eli had given her a room. She’d even told him how he’d come to her now and then in the middle of the night after he’d been drinking. When she’d said it, she’d looked sad, and he knew she’d hated those visits and the night alone that followed when Eli left for the pub.

“No,” he said. “I’ll not come to your room. Not tonight. Not ever. You can sleep without fear.”

She nodded and climbed the stairs. He waited until he heard her door open and close before he went to the study and finished off the bottle of whiskey. Eli might drink because he slept with Jessie, but Teagen drank because he couldn’t.

The days that followed melted together in the late summer heat. Slowly, she looked at him with only a shadow of sadness in her eyes, but she never came to the study for their talks.

He missed them, but he wouldn’t say a word. He pushed himself hard, leaving early and returning late. When he did stay in because of a sick horse or shoeing to do in the barn, he saw the girls but never Jessie. On the rare occasion they sat down at a meal at the same time, she always took the chair opposite him, never beside.

Neither knew how to cross the cavern between them. He’d told himself she’d been in the wrong and he’d not make the first step, but as the days passed, he wondered if she would. If she didn’t say she was sorry, how could he forgive her?

Without rain the grass dried to brown, and he had to move the horses to the upper pastures. Tattor Sims took over the job of picking up supplies and came home one day with three buddies from his army days. They’d been north moving cattle and were looking for work. One looked like he’d be little use in a fight. He didn’t even wear a gun. But, like the other two, he was good with horses, so Teagen hired them all.

To his surprise, Sage asked them if they’d seen a Drummond Roak up North. When they said they hadn’t, she looked relieved. Since that midnight visit Teagen hadn’t seen him, but he hadn’t expected to. He could feel Roak though. He knew the boy was somewhere watching like some kind of pesky guardian angel.

A month passed before he spoke to Jessie directly. He’d eaten alone and gone back out on the porch for a smoke before turning in when she joined him.

For a minute, he just stared as she walked out and took the chair next to where he stood watching the night. He didn’t know what to say to her. He’d missed their talks, but he didn’t want to be lied to again.

She leaned her arms on the railing and watched fireflies. Finally, when he’d about decided she’d never talk, she said, “The baby moved.”

“Oh,” he answered.

Silence again. For all their conversations they seemed to have nothing left to say. He’d gotten over being mad at her. He’d even reasoned out why she’d lied, but there seemed no way back from where they’d come.

He sat next to her, thinking it couldn’t hurt just to be in the same place with her. After all, she was his wife, and he would have to deal with her from time to time. He’d find her a place before the baby came and, once she could travel, he had no doubt Sage and Martha would help her move. She and the girls could live in town where she’d be somewhat protected and the girls could go to school. When he went to town once a month for supplies, he’d stop in and see if she needed anything. Maybe she’d even offer him a meal or a cup of coffee. Then they’d talk about the girls.

Absorbed in his plan, he hardly noticed she stood until she moved in front of him. “Would you like to feel the baby again?”

Teagen watched her a moment before nodding.

She stepped closer and took his hand.

He spread his fingers over the spot that had grown considerably since he’d felt it before. She might have asked him if he wanted to feel the baby, but he realized he was also feeling her. And Jessie felt so good to the touch.

Suddenly, something pushed at his little finger. Teagen shifted his hand and felt the tap again on his palm. He laughed in wonder.