Always and Forever (37 page)

“You really think I might have more than one?”

“Anything is possible, I suppose. Are there any twins in your family?”

She shrugged. “Not that I’m aware of. I’ll have to ask the aunts when we get home.”

She searched his eyes for a moment, then asked quietly, “When
are
we going home, Jackson?”

He knew this subject would come up eventually, but in light of the good times they’d been having lately, he hadn’t wanted to be the one to spoil everything by bringing it up.

So, in answer to her question he replied just as quietly, “I am home.”

Grace dropped her head for a moment. “Jackson, I have to go back to Chicago.”

“I know, but I’ve got things to do here.”

“What more can you do?” she asked, trying not to get upset.

“I want to go back and talk to Maybelle.”

“Didn’t she say she didn’t know anything about her brother, Champ?”

“I think if I can talk to her again—”

Grace rolled away and sat with her back to him. There was silence for a moment as she tried to put her feelings into words. “Jackson, this Texas of yours scares me to death. Call me a northern coward, or whatever you wish, but I can’t live here, not knowing that while me and my babies are sleeping, night riders could barge in and take our lives, and nobody would care.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Is that so selfish of me?”

“No,” he admitted, not liking how this conversation would eventually end or the actions they’d probably be taking as a result. “I’m not going back to Chicago, at least, not right away.”

She looked into his eyes and he met her gaze steadily.
This is the beginning of the end
, she said to herself. “Jackson, I understand that you want to do this for your father, but—”

“It’s not just my father. Trent bragged that he has the warrant for my arrest. If I can get my hands on it, I can start over,
we
can start over.”

“We can’t do anything if you’re dead.”

“I didn’t ask you to follow me down here, remember?”

“And if I hadn’t, you would be dead,
remember
?”

He looked away.

Keeping her mouth shut lest she say something she shouldn’t, she picked up her skirt and put it on. “I’ll fix us some lunch.”

Grabbing up the rest of the clothes, she draped a clean towel around her torso and left him alone in the bower.

Jackson wanted to throw something, but he knew it wouldn’t change things. She’d mapped out her position and he’d done the same. He knew he had little chance of getting his hands on that warrant or bringing Lane Trent to justice, but his pride refused to let him give up. Trent and his friends had murdered his father, he couldn’t just walk away from that. He also owed Trent for the dragging. Grace shouldn’t’ve had to witness such horror and Jackson owed Trent for that, too.

Grace had spent quite a bit of time around her father’s adult friends, so she knew a bit about men and pride. For some men pride was their driving force, and Jackson was one of those men. She wanted to grab him by his shoulders and shake him for placing his life in danger
this way, but she knew she had no say in how he chose to handle his life. She, on the other hand, had the well-being of her child to consider and she had no plans to raise it in hell. If he didn’t want to return to Chicago with her, she’d go alone.

Lunch consisted of leftover wedges of roast duck between slices of the bread she had made yesterday. It was eaten in silence.

When they were done, he stood and said, “I’m going back to the outside when M’dear and William come back.”

Since he’d said nothing about getting her to the train station or even escorting her back to the outside, she supposed she was to make her own arrangements for home. She wondered if he could see the ache in her heart.

He could. “I told M’dear I’d finish chopping that wood I brought in the other day. I’m going to go take care of it now.”

He noted she hadn’t asked to be escorted back to the train station, or even back to the outside. Independent to the end. Without another word, he stepped off the porch and walked away.

For the next two days they moved around each other like ghosts. He slept in the hammock outside and Grace went to the bed alone. She refused to cry. They argued fiercely.

“Explain to me,” Grace asked him one afternoon, “what it is you’re seeking here. I want to understand.”

“Justice.”

“Jackson, it’s 1884. There is no justice for us. Maybe in seventy-five or another hundred years.”

“I know what year it is, Grace, but should I just give up? Should I just walk away and maybe let Trent kill another child’s father?”

“Your death is not going to bring your father back into your life. It’s not.”

“I know that too.”

“Then why don’t you turn your back on this and walk away? Why let Trent control you like this?”

“He doesn’t control me.”

“Sure he does. You are so much in his control that you’re actually helping him by placing yourself within his reach. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Then go back to Chicago, where things make sense.”

Grace’s lip tightened. “Fine.”

She walked back to the cabin with angry unshed tears in her eyes.

When M’dear and William returned, the old woman looked tired as she used her cane to aid her onto the porch.

Grace, sitting on the porch, snapping beans, smiled for the first time in days. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you. It’s good to be back.”

“How’s the child?” Grace asked.

“Doing well, doing well. Snakebite. How are you?” M’dear countered, sounding weary as she eased down onto the cushioned seat of her favorite rattan chair. “Where’s that man of yours?”

“Fishing downstream. Said he’d be back later.” Grace tried to keep her voice light.

M’dear wasn’t fooled; she leaned over and peered into Grace’s face. “You two spattin’?”

Grace’s lip tightened. “He’s going back to the outside. I’m going back north.”

For a moment there was silence as M’dear searched her eyes. “I see. Almost losing his life wasn’t enough of a sign for him?”

“I guess not.”

M’dear sighed. “Some folks have to follow the path to the end.”

“Trent’s going to kill him.”

“You don’t know that, child.”

Admittedly, Grace didn’t, but when this whole mess had started, she’d pledged to follow him into hell, and she had. Now she was ready to leave. Lane Trent would not have the satisfaction of killing off another generation of Blakes. She was taking her baby home.

She did want to stay here a while longer, though. She’d need to grieve once Jackson left her, and she’d rather shed her tears here, surrounded by familiar peace and tranquillity, than on the long, impersonal train ride home.

Grace turned back and looked to M’dear. “I would like to stay on a few days, if I might.”

“Stay as long as you wish. William will see you to the train when you’re ready to go.”

Jackson decided he’d head down to Austin and see if he couldn’t find Jeb Randolph. Randolph had been a Texas Ranger back during Jackson’s sheriff days and had always been a man of integrity. He was probably the only man who could help Jackson reconnect the strings on a ten-year-old killing and offer advice on how to go about it.

As he packed his gear, he tried to avoid thinking about Grace, but couldn’t. He understood why she wanted him to leave. She was afraid for his life, and Chicago was decidedly safer. But if Jackson didn’t try and right his past, he’d spend the rest of his life with the injustice of his father’s death burning in his heart. Soon he’d wind up blaming her for being the cause of his discontent and he didn’t want that. If he did return to her, he knew he risked having her turning her back on him and not letting
him back into her life, but it was a chance he’d have to take.

On one hand, he’d forced her to marry him because he hadn’t wanted his child to grow up without him, but on the other, how could he look his child in the eye knowing he’d done nothing to avenge his own father’s death? For Grace, going back to Chicago was a simple, logical decision, but for him it was much more complex.

So he would leave her in an effort to find his own peace, and hope she still loved him when he returned.
If
he returned.

Later that afternoon, Jackson loaded the last of his gear onto the raft, then went into the cabin to say good-bye.

“Grace?”

She had her back to him and turned. He could see the tears standing in her eyes.

She whispered fervently, “Don’t do this…”

He felt his heart break. “I’ll come to Chicago as soon as I can.”

He walked over to where she stood and stared down into her watery eyes. He traced a finger across her freckles and wondered if he’d ever see her again. Hastily burying that thought, he pulled her into his arms and rocked her silently. She held him just as tightly.

“I love you so very, very much, Grace.”

“I love you too, Jackson.”

She looked up and whispered, “Come back to me.”

He wiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks, then kissed her eyes. “I will, darlin’. Don’t worry.”

In spite of their differences, neither wanted to part in anger. And so the kiss they shared was filled with sweetness, love, and a bittersweet good-bye.

When they parted, he left without a word.

Grace stood in the doorway and watched William pole
the raft away from the bank and take Jackson out of her life. She was sad, angry, and most of all, fearful, wondering if she’d ever see him again.

That evening, after dinner, M’dear handed her a folded piece of paper. “He wanted me to give you this after he left.”

Grace unfolded the note and read:

I lov’d thee from the earliest dawn,
When first I saw thy beauty’s ray,
And will, until life’s eve comes on,
And beauty’s blossom fades away;
And when all things go well with thee,
With smiles and tears remember me.

I’ll love thee when thy morn is past,
And wheedling gallantry is o’er,
When youth is lost in ages blast,
And beauty can ascend no more,
And when life’s journey ends with thee,
O, then look back and think of me.

When she finished reading there were tears in her eyes.

After leaving the swamp, Jackson headed his horse south to Austin, and Grace spent the week helping M’dear in her garden, listening to her stories of times gone by and missing Jackson.

Although she tried to convince herself that if she didn’t think about him she wouldn’t worry, it didn’t work. He was the first thing she thought about in the morning when she opened her eyes, and the last thing she thought about at night before going to sleep. Ques
tions of where he might be and if he were safe were with her constantly.

It was now the end of September and it had been almost a month now since Iva had brought Grace and Jackson to M’dear’s Sanctuary. Grace continued to enjoy the solitude and peace, but knew the weather would be changing soon and if she didn’t head for home shortly, she might be forced to stay the winter. With that in mind, Grace and M’dear prepared for her departure.

Grace had decided to leave in two days’ time, but problems arose that afternoon when the faint call of the drum echoed on the air. Six beats sounded from a long way off. Six more beats followed and then two.

As the pattern repeated itself, William quickly went to the raft and Grace looked to M’dear, who said, “The two sixes announces a friend, the two alone means there’s trouble.”

Grace remembered Iva pounding out the same drum beat when Jackson was first brought here. She wondered whom it might be this time and how M’dear could help?

M’dear said, “William will fetch them. No sense in worrying until he returns.”

William returned less than an hour later with Iva. When Grace saw the awful bruises on the woman’s face, she quickly called for M’dear, then ran to meet Iva as she came up the bank.

“What happened?”

“Trent,” she managed to spit angrily. Her lips were so swollen they were twice their normal size. One eye was black and blue and swollen shut. She’d taken a tremendous beating, it appeared.

“Where’s Jack?”

“Gone.”

Iva stopped. “What do you mean, gone?”

“Gone.”

“Where?”

“I’ve no idea,” Grace admitted.

Iva scanned Grace’s face, then she shook her head. “Let’s hope he’s somewhere safe.”

After M’dear saw to Iva’s injuries as best she could, Iva told her story. “Trent and his night riders are terrorizing the county looking for you and Jack,” she said, turning her battered face toward Grace. “Paid Riley a visit night before last and me last night, and as you can see, he didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know where you two were.”

Grace felt awful. “Iva, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me. It’ll take more than a bunch of cowards in sheets to put me in the ground. And if they do, I’ll be going to Glory anyway, so to hell with them.”

Grace smiled.

Iva turned to M’dear. “He’s turned over every rock and privy in the county; burning houses, questioning folks. Common sense says he’ll look here next. This is all that’s left.”

M’dear looked to William. “We’ll be fine. If Lane Trent brings his hate to my front door, the next door he enters will be Satan’s.”

It was agreed that in order to circumvent the problems that might arise should Grace return to Marshall, William would raft Grace into Louisiana and she’d get a train there. Iva said there were rumors that Trent had men posted at the Marshall train station with hopes of catching Jackson and Grace should they try and leave town.

Iva then asked, “So where did Jack go?”

Grace shrugged, and the uncertainty made her irritation with him surface again. “Other than that he was
going to try and talk to May belle Champion about her brother, that’s all I know.”

“I don’t think he realizes how much things have changed since he’s been gone. Trent will kill him.”