The Bad Luck Wedding Dress (32 page)

He mumbled a mouthful of curses. “It’s all that digging, goddammit. You need to lie down, Jenny. Elevate your feet. Here, this is a big bed. I don’t bite.” Tye grimaced as he shifted over to one side. “Let’s take care of that baby, all right?”

Jenny didn’t argue. What difference did appearances make when her baby’s life might well be at stake? Tears stung her eyes at the thought.

Removing her shoes, she climbed into bed. Old nightmares of escape attempts and scorpion stings faded from her mind as she prayed for the health and well-being of her expected child. She loved this baby already, and it would kill her to lose him.

Imagine how Trace must feel at the thought of losing Katrina.

For the first time in a while, Jenny thought of the news that had sent her looking for Trace’s brother that morning. She observed Tye as he plucked the bandage against his bare skin, making a face when the action obviously caused him pain. “Leave it alone, Tye,” she said. “You’ll cause it to bleed again and you certainly don’t need to lose any more blood. Your complexion is frightfully pale.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse incidents before. If I haven’t died yet, I won’t. Give me an hour or two and I’ll be good as new.” He looked at her, concern written across his brow. “I’m more concerned about you. Do I need to go for a doctor?”

Jenny shook her head. He couldn’t ride a horse in his condition. He’d fall off before he traveled a mile. “I’m better already,” she said. “I think I needed a bit of rest myself.”

“Are you sure?” He tested her temperature with the back of his hand.

Jenny smiled and batted his hand away. “I don’t have a fever, Tye, I have a backache. I don’t need a doctor. I’ll be fine, really.” Reaching over, she clasped his hand in hers. “If you want to help, hold my hand. I like knowing I’m not alone. It’s been an eventful day and fear takes a lot out of a person.”

Tye studied her face. “Are you still scared, Jenny?”

“No.” She blinked away tears as she showed him a weary smile. “Well, maybe a little.” After a pause, she met his gaze and softly confessed, “I don’t want to lose my baby.”

“I don’t want you to lose your baby, either.” He gripped her hand tightly. “It’s a god-awful thing to happen to a person.”

Long minutes passed in silence. Jenny had heard the pain in his voice, and since the subject was now broached, albeit in a roundabout way, she chose to ask her questions. “Is it, Tye? I hear it happened to you. Is it true?”

He shut his eyes. “Trace told you about Katrina,” he said flatly.

“Last night.” She rolled over on her side to better view his face. “He thinks you’ve come to take her away from him.”

Again, silence stretched between them. Tye’s voice challenged her as he asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t think you’re the type of man who’d rip a child away from her family.”

“He did it. Am I a better man than my brother?”

“I think you love your brother.”

He stared up at the rafters and she could almost see him thinking. Finally, he said, “I’m tired, Jenny. I need to sleep, all right?”

What could she do? She couldn’t force him to talk about Trace. Besides, she could use a nap herself. Maybe her backache would disappear as she slept. Then she’d be free to concentrate on the problem of Katrina’s two fathers without distraction. “All right, Brother-in-law.”

He gave her hand a squeeze as if to say thank you, but Jenny shook her head and warned, “Get your sleep, but don’t think this is the end of it.”

“You’re a stubborn woman, Jenny McBride.”

“I do what I do for my family.”

He sighed. “So do I, honey. So do I.”

On that note, they both dropped off to sleep.

THE COLD front hung in a blue line on the horizon. Trace eyed the sky, instincts ages old telling him to batten down, to join the rest of nature’s children scurrying for the southern lee of trees or bushes or boulders. Time hung suspended, a sweaty hush of waiting for the hard shove of bitter, shuddering wind.

Trace wouldn’t feel the cold. The temperature could drop forty degrees and it still couldn’t come close to matching the chill in his soul.

He glanced down at the whimpering form lying huddled at his feet. The beating he’d administered to Big Jack Bailey had drained the rage that pounded through his veins since learning of Jenny’s abduction, but the information that poured from the whining man’s mouth had coated his soul with a numbing layer of ice.

Reality tunneled to a pinpoint as Trace’s world altered to a jumbled confusion of past and present. Standing beneath the sloped roof of the lean-to, he gazed toward the rough-hewn walls of the Lucky Lady homesite and saw instead the brick facade of an overseer’s cottage in South Carolina.

His brother and his wife were inside those walls.

He shifted his gaze from the cabin to his own right hand where the unfamiliar weight of a well-remembered gun lay cradled in his palm. The Colt was one of a pair, each engraved, their barrels glinting with gold inlays and their stocks adorned with mother-of-pearl. Years ago, he’d worn this gun holstered on his right hip; his brother had worn its mate on his left. He’d retrieved the weapons and the gunbelt from the Rankin Building apartment before leaving town. It was the first time he’d touched this gun— or any gun—since aiming it, barrel still smoking from the shot that had murdered his wife, at his twin brother’s heart.

The present and the past overlapped as he tested the trigger’s give. Constance and Tye. Jenny and Tye. Love and betrayal. Katrina.

Tye and Trace.

With a sweep of leaves and dust, the first big slam of cold hit. Trace lifted his face to the sky. An arched crescent cloud rolled high and fast upon him. Like sin on the soul, the blackness advanced, consuming all color in its path.

If a white cat crosses your path you will have good luck
.

CHAPTER 19

TYE MOVED CLOSER TO the warmth and continued to doze until the throb in his shoulder tugged him to consciousness. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

The storm had moved in while he slept, bringing darkness with it. Outside the wind howled, and inside the air on his face was an icy kiss. Were it not for the body snuggled up against him, he’d be frozen half to death.

But Tye was comfortably warm. In fact, if it was any woman other than Jenny McBride plastered against him, he’d be downright hot.

He’d already desired one of his brother’s wives. He’d be damned if it would happen again.

Intending to rise from the bed to light the fire, Tye rolled onto his side and blurted a curse. Pain rolled through him in waves.

“What is it?” Jenny asked in a sleepy voice. “Are you bleeding again?”

“No.” He cleared his throat and unclenched his teeth. “I moved the wrong way, that’s all. Sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I think we must have slept, though. A long time and soundly, too. I never even heard the storm sweep in, and that’s unusual for me.”

They discussed the weather as Jenny scooted up to a seated position and lit the bedside lamp. “I’ll light the fire,” she said, the chimney glass rattling as she replaced it on the base.

He placed a restraining hand on her shoulder when she moved to leave the bed. “I’ll do it.”

“But Tye—”

“No. I want you to stay right where you are.” He paused, almost hating to ask but knowing he must. “How do you feel, Jenny? Better?”

The lamplight lit her face. Her smile brought a glow of warmth to the cold spot of fear in his heart.

“Yes, I do feel better. You were right, Tye. Sleep was just what I needed.”

“No more backache? Cramping?”

Her skin flushed with embarrassment as she shook her head.

He blew a sigh of relief. “Good. I was worried about you.”

“Well, to be honest, I was a little worried myself.”

“So let’s not rush things, all right? Give yourself a little more time. I can manage a fire.”

She nodded and settled back against the pillow while he rose and padded across the room toward the hearth. “Dang this floor is cold,” he grumbled. “I may as well be barefoot for all the good my socks are doing.” Of course, the chill to his feet wasn’t the reason for his grimace. The fire in his shoulder burned hotter than the one he lit in the grate.

He built a nice blaze, but when he bent to poke the logs one last time, a wave of light-headedness hit him. “Come back and lie down before you fall down,” Jenny said. “I won’t be able to lift you if you do, and that floor will turn more than your toes cold. Besides, I want to see your face while we talk.”

“Talk?”

“Yes, talk. I believe you were about to tell me about Constance?”

“I was?”

She nodded. “Right before we slept.”

“God bless, woman. Don’t you ever give up?”

“No, not often.”

Tye sighed. He didn’t want to do this. He
really
didn’t want to do this. “Jenny, you don’t want to know this story, believe me. It’s ugly.”

“It’s my family, Tye.”

He cursed beneath his breath, then joined her in bed. “I darn sure don’t have the strength to tell this story standing up. Give me some of that quilt. I’m cold. Some wildcat robbed me of my shirt.”

Her voice was dry as she replied, “And lucky you are she did. Now, Mr. McBride, talk to me.”

Tye winced as he lowered himself carefully to his pillow. “What has my brother told you about Constance?”

“He said he killed her. He never said how or why. I assumed it was accidental.”

“An accident.” He pursed his lips and thought about it for a moment. A bitter note entered his voice as he mused, “Hell, I don’t know the answer to that one myself.”

Jenny looked at him suspiciously. “You don’t mean that, I know. Now, tell me how this tragedy came about.”

Anguish lay below the surface of his flippant tone as he asked, “Which tragedy do you mean? My sister-in-law’s death, or the fact that I slept with my brother’s wife?”

“Oh, Tye.”

The pity in her eyes damn near killed him. He shifted his gaze away and stared across the room toward the fire. The familiar guilt that plagued him, punished him, weighted his chest and made it difficult to draw a breath. When finally he spoke, his tone was low and weary. “I’m a sorry bastard, Jenny. I betrayed him in the worst possible way. Are you sure you want to hear what I have to say?”

“Yes, I am.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I must know before I can try to help. It’s important to me, but it’s also important to you and Trace and the girls. Especially Katrina.”

“Katrina.” Tye closed his eyes as a great yearning filled his heart. Katrina. A great wrong that somehow managed to be so perfectly right.

He cleared his throat and glanced at her. “It’s a long story, but it’ll make more sense if I start at the beginning.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He smiled sardonically and began. “Trace and I were boys when the war started, but before General Lee surrendered we saw our share of the fighting. Battle was … memorable.”

Tye shook his head. Now, there was an understatement. His mind drifted back.

He tiptoes over pieces of bodies strewn across a field. Where is Trace? He hasn’t seen him since the battle began. “Halt.” His captain reaches down, lifts a head—only a head— with his gauntlet’covered hands.
“
My brother,
”
the captain said.
“
I believe that’s his body up ahead
.”

A tremor racked Tye’s body. That memory would haunt him to the grave. “I started drinking and couldn’t stop. It went on for years until Trace finally got tired of me and my excuses and my lies and decided to do something about it.”

Jenny touched his hand and he grasped it, holding it like a lifeline. “What did your brother do?” she asked.

Tye smiled crookedly as he recalled the moment. “He abducted me. Stole me right out of a whore’s bed and carted me off to a cabin in the woods. A very dry cabin in the woods, if you get my meaning.”

“No liquor.”

“Not even a brandy-soaked fruitcake. We stayed there for two months. At times I truly wanted to die, but Trace forced me to keep fighting.” He paused for a moment, then added, “No doubt he’s regretted it since.”

For the first time since starting his story, Tye met her gaze. “I didn’t take a drink for years. Not until Constance.”

Constance
. The name hung on the air like a bad smell. Jenny pulled her hand away from his.

“Trace met her on the second day of a business trip to New Orleans and married her before they left three weeks later. Due to our grandmother’s connections, we’d managed to hold on to the family plantation after the war. Trace moved his bride into Oak Grove and there we were, one big happy clan.”

Jenny questioned his sarcastic tone. “You didn’t like her?”

“She flirted with me from the very first—just a shade past innocent. I didn’t think Trace noticed at the time, and frankly, I loved it. I was happy for Trace and jealous as hell at the same time. A beautiful wife, a successful profession, and soon, Emma came along. I wanted children of my own.”

“You never married?”

He shook his head. “No. I almost did once. In fact, it was about the time Maribeth was born. By then, Trace and Constance had moved into Charleston. My fiancée was the daughter of a business partner of Trace’s. But shortly before the wedding, the lady decided she preferred a Yankee banker.”

“The woman was obviously a fool,” Jenny said with a disdainful sniff.

“You’re too kind, ma’am. You know what? Constance said the same thing. She went out of her way to comfort her broken-hearted brother-in-law.”

“Did you fall in love with her?”

“A little bit, maybe. But she and Trace were still happy then, or at least, I thought they were.”

Jenny shut her eyes and Tye knew this must be difficult for her to hear. “Never mind, Jenny. Let’s forget about this. How’s your back? Are you feeling any better?”

She sat up and twisted her torso in a stretch. “My back is much better, thank you, and I want to hear the rest of it.”

“You’re like a puppy with a bone.”

She nodded. “I’m very persistent.”

Tye fiddled with the bandage on his shoulder. Damn but he ached—both in body and in mind. He’d almost rather take a bullet in his good shoulder than finish the tale. Sighing, he said, “Trace got caught in the middle of a Reconstruction political battle and his professional name took a direct hit. He damned near went broke. They sold the house in town and moved out to Oak Grove. That’s when Constance went to work on me.”

He fell silent for a time as memories rushed at him like a bitter wind. “She didn’t like watching her pennies or being Mrs. Trace McBride when McBride wasn’t the most popular name to be.”

“You’re a McBride.”

“That’s right. But I was a McBride with money. And Trace was acting stupid—dangerously dumb. He made enemies out of some powerful people, and the repercussions affected all of us. Politics—why he couldn’t just let it alone I’ll never know. The night they rode on Oak Grove and burned the fields I could have killed him.”

Jenny opened her mouth to say something, then obviously changed her mind, instead making a neutral observation. “Trace is opinionated when it comes to politics even today.”

Tye thought about the letter to the editor that had led him to his brother. “I guess some things never change.”

“So that’s when you and Constance became … close?”

His gaze fastened on the rafters and he recalled with shame how foolish he’d been. “I thought Trace was being an ass. I felt sorry for her. That’s about the time Lord Howard showed up on our doorstep.”

Jenny winced slightly as she asked, “Who is Lord Howard?”

Her expression worried Tye. Maybe the rest wasn’t helping her backache after all. Maybe he should try to get to town. He was feeling better. Surely he could drive the wagon.

“Tye? Lord Howard?”

“Jenny, are you certain you don’t need a doctor?”

“I need you to finish your story.”

Now it was Tye’s turn to grimace. “Lord Howard was a cousin, many times removed, from England. Baron of something or other. The title sent Constance into raptures. She wanted to host a ball, an old-fashioned southern ball to introduce the English peer to Charleston society and hopefully buy Trace’s way back into good graces. I didn’t see what it would hurt, and I offered to foot the bill. Trace took exception to that.”

“I can just imagine,” Jenny observed dryly.

“He was a real bastard about it, to me and to her. Later on, I came to wonder if something more was going on I didn’t know about. But at the time I was still angry with him about his damned politics, and when she came crying on my shoulder, well, I let her.”

Tye closed his eyes, remembering. A rainy afternoon. An empty parlor. A kiss. “It proved to be the beginning of the end.”

Constance was like a black widow spider, drawing him in. He wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman—before or since. “She was my twin brother’s wife. I loved him, I hated him. And I fell in love with her. She came to me one night, but I sent her away.” He turned his head and stared at the woman beside him. “I sent her away, Jenny. I swear I did.”

Her eyes glistened as she said softly, “I believe you, Tye.”

“She and Trace had a battle royal before the ball— loud enough to shake the chandeliers. She came to my room, crying. Pleading for me to help her. She said he’d hit her.”

Jenny stiffened. “Trace would never hit a woman!”

“I didn’t believe her, either. I thought it was a ruse to get me to … well… she wanted me to send Trace away from Oak Grove, but allow her and the girls to remain. I told her that Trace was her husband, and that there could be nothing between the two of us. I sent her away.”

Tye lifted his uninjured arm, bringing his hand to his brow as if rubbing it could rub away the memory of the pain. “It hurt; God, it hurt,” he confessed. “I felt like my heart had been ripped out. I loved her, and I’d given her up out of loyalty to my brother—a brother I didn’t particularly like at the time. I went downstairs to the ball feeling like a martyr for the cause.”

“What happened?”

He chuckled humorlessly. “Good old cousin Lord Howard happened.”

Jenny studied him, and he watched the certainty dawn in her expression. “He gave you a drink.”

“He gave me a bottle,” Tye corrected. “About halfway into it, Constance found me in the garden and showed me her bruises. On her arms. Her back. She said he only hit her where it wouldn’t show.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jenny said.

“Well, I was drunk as a skunk and I believed it. I was furious with Trace. I felt so bad for her.”

He fell silent, remembering. After a long few minutes, he said softly, “She asked for comfort and I gave it to her. We did it there. There in the garden. And in the gazebo. And upstairs in my room.”

Although Jenny didn’t move an inch, he sensed her subtle withdrawal. No surprise, there. If he could have jumped out of his own skin, he would have.

“The next morning, I went to Trace. Of course I didn’t tell him I’d pegged his wife, but I did ask him about the bruises.”

“He didn’t do it,” Jenny said.

Tye nodded, the vision rising in his mind as clear as yesterday. A stone-faced Trace, swearing on their parents’ grave he’d never laid a hand on his wife in anger. “That morning I hated him, and I hated her. But not near as much as I hated myself. I gave her some money, enough for her to leave him, and I left for Europe that very afternoon. I drank my way across the Atlantic.”

Jenny wet her lips. “And Constance was pregnant. With Katrina.”

Tye nodded. “And she never got around to telling my brother the baby wasn’t his.”

Pain lanced Jenny’s heart. Her hand lifted to cover her womb as she shut her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Trace.”

She had a sudden vision of Trace as Mr. Throw-Fish, frolicking with his daughters in the summertime water at Quail Creek. His love for his girls was as much a part of him as the color of his eyes. She could only imagine the depth of his pain upon learning that his brother had fathered Katrina.