Wayward Wind (24 page)

“You don’t understand. Light left this homestead to his son, my grandfather, who left it to my mother, and she to me. There
have been Lightbodys on this mountain for more than sixty years.”

“And so this hunk of dirt and rock belongs only to the Lightbodys because your grandpa was here
first
? God amighty! I’ve heard this same stupid thing a hundred times If that’s the case, Lorna, the Indians were here
first
, and the mountain belongs to them.” Cooper’s voice grew harsh as his frustration mounted. “Understand this: I’m not coming
here to live. This place would
not
be mine. It’s your pa’s. He’s earned this homestead by right of sweat and possession. If you’ve got the sense you were born
with, you’d see that, turn loose of this place, get on with your life, and let him get on with his.”

“Well!” The word exploded from her lips. “I guess I don’t have the sense I was born with, because I don’t see
that
at all! I’ll not turn my back on Light’s Mountain for you or anyone, Cooper Parnell. Light and Maggie spent their lives building
this place for future Lightbodys, and I’ll not leave it for Frank to squander away.” Her cheeks were suffused with color,
her balled fist evidence of her anger.

“What makes you think he’d do that?”

“I just know, that’s all. My place is here—” The tremor in her voice angered her all the more. Dammit! she cautioned herself,
she’d better not cry!

“Don’t be too sure of that, little spitfire. After tonight, you could be pregnant and your place will be with me.”

“I hope I am!” she shouted to keep from crying. “Then sure I’ll be there’ll be another Lightbody to carry on.” In her anger
she had unconsciously picked up her father’s Scottish brogue.

“It would not be a Lightbody!” Cooper bellowed in his rage. “Get that through your thick, stubborn head. It would be a
Parnell
.”

“Don’t you mean a
Clayhill
?” Lorna shouted back, her aroused voice dangerously near breaking.

Cooper raised his hand as if to slap her. He used all the self-control he could muster to still his hand. She neither cringed
nor showed fear. Her eyes were bright with shards of anger and looked unusually large in a white face rigid with rage.

“Don’t ever say that again, for I might not be able to keep from striking you.” Cooper’s voice climbed shakily above his fury
to speak calmly. “Now, I’m telling you once again, we’ll go to the preacher and be wed. I’m not leaving a bastard of mine
on this mountain.”

“And I’m telling you, Cooper Parnell, when I wed, I’ll do my own choosing and in my own good time!” In all her life she’d
not felt such crushing anguish, but pride stiffened her back and held her head erect. “I’ll not leave my home and all that’s
dear to me knowing I’ll just come back for a
visit
. I’m staying right here on Light’s Mountain and if tha means having
your
bastard, so be it!”

“You’ll not have
my
bastard! I’ll make sure of that. I’ll be back, and if you’ve
took
, I’ll drag you to the preacher by the hair of your head, if that’s the only way to get you there, and wed you proper.”

“You’ll not know if it’s your bastard or not!” she spat out spitefully. “I’ll sleep with every man on this—”

“And I’ll break every bone in your body!” he roared, looking down at her with his anger beating through his eyes, trying to
glare her down, but there was no give to her. When he spoke again his voice came out on a lower, more persuasive, note. “I’m
asking you to be sensible and stop trying to make me into another Light and yourself into another Maggie. They’re dead, Lorna,
and we are two
different
people with more than half of our lives yet to live.”

She jerked her shoulders from his grasp. “If you think I’m trying to do
that
, you’re crazier than a drunk hoot owl! Go on back to your ranch, Cooper. It will take you sixty years to build it to what
I’ve got here.”

“No,” he said tightly. “I’ll not have what you’ve got here if I live to be a hundred. I’ll have something I built myself,
not something handed to me on a platter. And I’ll have my self-respect, which is more than you Lightbodys have left your pa.”

Cooper turned his back on her and began to walk toward the woodpile where he’d left his hat. Lorna followed and persisted
with her argument.

“Not many men are offered an improved homestead, Cooper.”

“Don’t you mean the loan of it, Lorna?” he asked without looking back. “Now I’m sorry I took what else you offered. I thought
you were giving it freely, but it was just a little bait thrown out to keep me here so you could try and fit me into another
man’s boots.”

“It wasn’t that! You know it wasn’t! I knew you were leaving this morning. You’ve promised to take Bonnie to your mother,
and I thank you for it. And I know you’ve got to go see the land man about the land on the Blue for Griff. But when you get
all that settled, you could come back.” She was unable to keep the hopeful quiver out of her voice.

“I’ll be back. You can bet your bottom dollar on it. I’m coming to look at you and see if you’re growing my kid. You’ll not
know I’m within fifty miles unless you look like you’ve swallowed a watermelon. Then, by God, you’re coming with me to the
preacher. After you’ve given birth you can do as you damn well please.” There was no gentleness in his tone and she wanted
to cry.

“Damn you! You… pissant! I love you!” she shouted, her temper splintering again.

“Yeah? You don’t know what love is. Love is giving, not strangling!”

“I know more about love than you do! At least Frank loved
my
mother,” she said cuttingly. After a knowing silence, she drew in a sharp, hurtful breath and her palms flew to her cheeks.
She would have given anything in the world to be able to take back the words. “I’m sorry, Cooper. I didn’t mean that.”

“You meant it.” He turned to look at her, his hurt mirrored in his eyes. “I
am
a bastard,” he said slowly, deliberating on each word. He placed his hat on his head and pulled it low over his eyes. “Nobody
knows what it means to be a bastard more than I do. But I knew the love of a good man and so did my mother. He told me that
what happened was no fault of mine, or ma’s, but it took me a long time to understand that. I promised myself that I’d never
beget a bastard and there’s been no danger of it until now. If you have an offshoot of mine, Lorna, I’ll take it, keep it,
and I’ll raise it up right. I’ll not hamstring it by forcing my ways on it, either. I’ll teach it to cut its own path. It’ll
be free to make it’s own mistakes and be whatever it’s got the guts and the brains to be.”

He went into the shed and came out with his tack. He dropped it beside the pole corral and whistled for Roscoe.

Lorna’s face mirrored her anguish. Although she had known Cooper for a short time, she was certain of one thing: nothing she
might do or say would sway him from his course. She felt tears burn her eyes, and after a long look at him, she turned abruptly
away and stood staring out into the early morning light, listening to the sounds he made saddling his horse.

His attitude boiled down to one thing, she decided. He didn’t love her. The words echoed in her brain. She began to tremble
and her legs became so weak they could scarcely support her. How could she have been so wrong about him? She’d been so sure
that he was the one for her. She was just a dumb, gullible, backwoods, mountain girl, she scolded herself. Why would he want
her when he could have a woman who knew about petticoats, pretty dresses and how to smell nice? What she had here didn’t amount
to anything compared to that. He’d probably done what they did last night with a lot of women! The thought brought a lump
to her throat and a pain to her heart.

Thunder and damnation! Pride forced abject misery to the back of her mind. She wouldn’t let him see he’d put a knife in her
soul and twisted it. She’d tell him to get the hell off her mountain. She didn’t need him! Her eyes filled with tears and
she blinked rapidly. Damn, damn him! She’d not let him know he’d just knocked the wind out of her. Oh, Lordy, she’d have to
put on a good face when she said good-bye. She lifted her chin, flung her hair back over her shoulders, and turned when she
heard the creak of saddle leather.

Cooper had pointed Roscoe toward the trail, but suddenly he turned back and stared down at her for one brief instant, as if
to carve on his memory forever the features he would never see again.

“I’m obliged to you for helping Bonnie. Tell her I’ll see her… sometime—” She stared up into Cooper’s face, her features
curiously devoid of expression, and willed reality to return and change that cold, hard face to the tender, loving one she
had known just hours ago

He nodded, his lips clamped so tightly that lines showed on each side of his mouth. Then, with one final look, he lifted the
stallion with a feather-light hand in a pivot that set it squarely down on its back trail. Its forefeet hit the ground running.
Moments later his horse’s hooves struck dull echoes through the morning stillness. As the measured beats faded in the distance,
it was replaced by a low sobbing wail that came from Lorna’s throat as she ran to the house

The door closed behind Lorna and she was alone. She could cry now. It was both a relief and a sickening misery in one. She
lay down on the bed. The tears came in an overwhelming flood. They poured from her eyes, rolled down her cheeks, and seeped
between her fingers that were pressed hard against her face. Presently she roused herself long enough to take off the blouse
and skirt and slip beneath the quilt. Her mind longed for rest and she sought the sweet oblivion of sleep although the sun
was heralding a new day.

Sometime later she awakened, vaguely conscious that there was someone standing beside the bed. She opened her swollen eyes
and tried to focus on the person bending over her. With listless disinterest she wondered what Frank was doing in her room—he
never came here. The thought seemed to travel a million miles from her brain to her lips, and finally she voiced it.

“What are you doing here?”

“Air ye sick, lass? It’s the middle of the day.”

“No, I’m not sick, just tired.”

“If that be the case, I leave ye be.” He went out of the room and closed the door.

Wide awake now, her level black brows drew together in a puzzled frown. She tried to think of a time since her mother had
died when her father had come to her room to see about her, and not a single instance came to mind. Did he know she had been
with Cooper until dawn? Oh, Cooper! The thought of him brought a flood of tears to her eyes. With him she had reached her
greatest happiness and her greatest despair all within a space of a few hours.

A desperate feeling of loneliness possessed her, a loneliness that was her future. Turning on her side, her eyes roamed the
room, taking in the wooden chest, the walnut table, the washstand her grandpa had made, and the settle beside the fireplace.
Throughout the years, an abundance of love had gone into the making of this home. She loved it, but that was all the love
she had in her life.

She sat up on the side of the bed, waited for a sickening, spinning feeling to leave her, then washed in the bowl on the washstand.
The cold water felt good and cleared her head. After she dressed in britches and shirt, she nudged the black skirt and the
white blouse under the bed with the toe of her moccasins, vowing silently to never wear them again. When she left her room
she went directly to the kitchen. It had been almost twenty-four hours since she’d had anything in her stomach but a couple
of biscuits.

Frank was dishing up something from a kettle on the stove. The aroma assailed her nostrils, making her acutely aware of her
hunger.

“Beans and ham,” Frank said as if speech was an effort. He carried his bowl to the table, sat down, hunched his shoulders
over it and picked up his spoon in one hand and a piece of cold cornbread in the other.

Lorna filled a bowl and sat down. They ate in silence, which was their usual way, but today Frank’s eyes strayed often to
his daughter’s white face. Her cheeks were hollow, her skin so pale it seemed to be transparent, and her violet eyes were
swollen and rimmed with dark circles. His daughter was hurting. It was plain to see.

Lorna looked up and was surprised to see the shadow of pain in her father’s eyes. She looked away quickly and continued eating.
As the minutes passed, the tension between them came alive. She felt emotion begin to infiltrate the icy barrier with which
she protected herself when she was with him. The bitterness she had felt for so long due to his indifference seemed to dissolve
in one long shuddering sigh, leaving only emptiness. She’d cut him loose, she thought suddenly, and make it possible for him
to go to California. He didn’t want or need her! She didn’t need him. She didn’t need anybody! She stared at him for the space
of a dozen heartbeats, her eyes dilated with pain.

Not one to dawdle once a decision was made, Lorna got up from the table and pulled a chair over to the brick chimney. She
stood on it and stretched to her full height, but couldn’t quite reach the loose stone that hid the opening to her secret
hiding place. She stepped off the chair and looked around the room for something to place on the chair to give her more height.
She heard the scrape of her father’s chair on the floor as he got up from the table. He stepped up on the chair beside the
chimney, removed the loose stone and reached for the leather pouch. Lorna caught it when he tossed it to her.

“Is this what ye be wantin’, lass?” There was no way Lorna could hide her surprise. “Not a coin be missin’, if it’s what ye
be thinkin’,” Frank said on seeing the shocked and suspicious look on her face. He sat back down at the table.

“It’s just that… I didn’t know that you knew it was there,” she said wearily, placing the bag of clinking coins on the table
beside his bowl.

“Years ago, yer mother told where ’twas stashed. Did ye think I be stealin’ from me own lass? Is that why ye didn’t ne’er
speak of it?”