Courage to Love (Flynn Family Saga)

THE COURAGE TO LOVE

by Erica T. Graham

Copyright 2012 Erica T. Graham

Cover Art by Marta Ruliffson

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COURAGE TO LOVE – Book 3 of the Flynn Family Saga
- Maggie's first child, Sarah, is born dead.  Flynn runs from his grief and his past, abandoning Maggie when she needs him the most.  Will they find the strength to heal from the loss of their child and the courage to love again?

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Look for books 1 and 2 in the
Flynn Family Saga
at
Amazon.com
.

SHATTERED LIVES – Book 1 of the Flynn Family Saga at
Amazon.com
- The Civil War shattered the lives of thousands of Americans on both sides of the conflict.  Robert Sean Flynn fought in the war while Maggie O'Brien waited for her father to come home.  Both of them thought that life would return to normal when the war ended.

Both of them were wrong.

DANGEROUS MEN – Book 2 of the Flynn Family Saga
- The old west was filled with dangerous men: outlaws and gamblers and Indians.  But for Maggie O'Brien Anders, the most dangerous man is Robert Sean Flynn, the man who holds her heart—and her fate—in his hands.

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Coming Soon

The Flynn Family Saga continues with
BLESS THE CHILDREN – Book 4 of the Flynn Family Saga
- Cade was trouble.  From the day Maggie and Flynn adopted him, he was trouble: stealing, fighting, running away.  But when he joins a gang of bank robbers, things go terribly wrong, for Cade and for the rest of the Flynn family.

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About the author:

Born and raised in a large, eastern city, Erica T. Graham hitchhiked alone from Buffalo, New York to Portland, Oregon.  Without knowing it, she retraced the trail most wagon trains took on their way west.  She fell in love with the empty, silent places.  She lives in a cottage nestled in the woods on a mountain in Pennsylvania.  Any typos are the fault of her cat, Pixie, who likes to offer her editorial comments by walking on the keys.

Connect with Erica T. Graham online at:
www.flynnfamilysaga.com

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the writers who began to share their experience with me way back when Prodigy was the primary social network.  They taught me everything I know.

I would like to thank Dr. Sam Castimore for his help with understanding horses.  And yes, giving horses sugar lumps is a bad thing, but they didn't know that back in the 1800s.

I would like to thank Lawrence Obrist of the Lincoln, Nebraska Historical Society for his help regarding the development of Nebraska and the trails the wagon trains took and the Native Americans of the area.

I would like to thank Roxanne Scott of the Milford Historical Society for her help with the clothing and furnishings of the period.

The Lakota words used in this series come from the website:
http://members/chello.nl/~f.vandenburk.htm

And last, but not least, I would like to thank my friend Barbara for proofreading the manuscripts, and her husband, Mike, for supplying me with cups of tea.

The good information is theirs.  The mistakes are mine.

Erica T. Graham

 CHAPTER ONE

Hidden Valley,
Missouri

March 1, 1873

Robert Sean Flynn dreamed of the Union prison camp in Elmira.  A cold wind knifed through his thin shirt, and snow fell silently, softening the harsh edges of the stockade fence.  He walked between the graves, trying to count them, trying to remember the names of the men he had buried there, but their faces all blurred together.  A man gripped his wrist tightly.  Flynn knelt beside him.  “Please.  My wife...”

Flynn nodded.  He took out a notebook and the stub of a pencil.

“I need to tell her that I love her, that I’m sorry I won’t be coming home to her.”

Flynn nodded again.  His throat ached as he wrote the letter to a woman who would lie alone and wonder how her husband had died.

He died bravely, ma’am.  His last thought was of you,
Flynn wrote.  His throat ached as he wrote the words he had written hundreds of times, but he could not cry.

The man’s grip tightened painfully.  “I’m scared, Lieutenant, scared I’ll spend eternity in hell because of all the men I killed.”

Flynn shook his head.  “Ask their forgiveness, soldier.  It was war.  They’ll understand.”

A little of the fear left the man’s face.

Flynn sat beside him through the long, cold night.  Near dawn, the man sighed as his spirit left him.

Overhead, an eagle flew, screaming in defiance of gravity and civilization.

Flynn looked up.  “Eagle Heart,” he whispered.  “That was my name.”

Then, he remembered the massacre and the day Pathfinder had cast him out.  Grief tore at him, like an eagle’s talons, but he could not cry.

Flynn stood and walked among the mounds of the dead.  He was looking for something, but he could not remember what it was he sought.  He came to the last mound.  Unlike the others, there was a marker set into the frozen ground.  Snow had drifted into the letters.  Flynn brushed the snow away.

Maggie O’Brien Anders Flynn

“No!”  Flynn sat bolt upright.  He blinked and rubbed his eyes.

Maggie lay beside him, asleep.  Firelight played on her white skin.  She looked so young, so vulnerable.  Flynn ached to protect her from all harm, all hurt.

For the first time in years, he wished that he could cry.

Maggie woke, as if she knew he was in pain.  She always knew.  She smiled at first, and then she saw his face.  She touched his cheek.  “A nightmare?”

He nodded.

“About the war?”

Again, he nodded.

She sat up, comfortable in her nakedness, now that she was his wife.  He remembered how frightened she had been on their wedding night, and he was struck again by her courage.

“What?”  Her voice was breathless.

Flynn smiled sadly.  “I don’t deserve you.”

Maggie made a rude noise.  “Robert Sean Flynn, you are the most remarkable man I know.”

Flynn closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair.  He remembered.  He remembered the things he had done in the war, and he knew that he was right, that he didn’t deserve her.

Maggie stroked his back and spoke to him softly, like she would to a skittish horse.  “It’s all right, Flynn.  It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t!”  He pulled away from her.  “It was real!  I buried those men!”

“I know.”  Her voice was calm and even.  “I only lost a handful of settlers that first trip west, Flynn, but even losing one person can hurt.  You lost almost three thousand.”

His breath caught.  He cupped her face in his hands.  “Maggie O’Brien Anders Flynn, where did you come from?”

She smiled, and a dimple appeared beside the left-hand corner of her mouth.  “Well, I was born in Manhattan...”

Flynn pulled her close.  She tilted her face up and kissed his chin, which was rough with stubble.  He grinned at her.  “You’re going to have beard burn.”

She grinned back.  “It’s worth it. 
You’re
worth it.”

Flynn brushed her mouth lightly with his lips.  Then, he lowered her onto her back.  He trailed kisses from her mouth to her navel.  Then, he moved his mouth to her breast.

Maggie groaned and arched her back.  “Please, Flynn.”  Her hands moved down his belly toward his groin.

Desire ignited in him, driving out his fear and grief and guilt.

They made love on a bearskin rug in front of the fire until the rising sun stained the snow outside the color of blood.

*  *  *

Near the end of February, the snow began to thaw.  Maggie cried as they packed up the cabin.

Flynn kissed her and took her hands in his.  “We’ll be back next winter.”

Maggie nodded.  “Flynn?”

“Yes, Maggie?”

“Do you really think anyone will travel with a woman wagon master and a one-legged scout?”

Flynn hesitated, and for a moment, he looked unsure of himself.  Then, slowly, he grinned.  “They will when they find out you’re the Major’s daughter.”

Maggie grinned back.  “And you’re Robert Sean Flynn, made famous by a book a certain young girl once read long ago when she lived in Manhattan.”

“Would that young girl happen to have red hair and freckles?”  His grin broadened.

Maggie put her hands on her hips.  “I do not have freckles.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

Flynn won the argument by kissing her.

A few flakes of snow drifted down from a gray sky as they saddled their horses.  Wakta knelt, and Flynn swung his wooden leg over the horse’s back.  Maggie mounted Patches, and together, they rode south toward St. Joseph, Missouri.  They reached the town at sunset.  There were few people outside, even though there was only a light dusting of snow in the street.  They rode to the little house Sam had bought for Kate.  The door swung open before they could knock, and Sam grinned at them.  “Welcome home, you two!  What kept you so long?”

Maggie blushed, and Flynn laughed.

They entered the house.  Maggie noticed that Kate had embroidered a motto and hung it on the wall of the parlor.  “
Home is where the heart is
.”  Maggie looked at Flynn and smiled shyly.  “Wherever you are, that is my home,” she whispered.

Again, Flynn felt a pang of guilt.

They carried their gear up the stairs.  Flynn was limping by the time they reached their room.  He opened the door and sank down on the side of the bed.  Without a word, Maggie took a jar of salve from her saddlebags.  She pulled off Flynn’s boot and rolled up the leg of his jeans.  She unfastened the wooden leg and examined the stump.

It was red.

She sighed.  “I guess I’m going to have to learn how to sew.  It needs some kind of padding.”

“It needs to be refitted, too.  Jack Hallie told me that the leather stretches.  I’ll see if he can do it tomorrow.”

Flynn shook encircled her wrists with his hands and pulled her close.  Maggie allowed him to draw her down onto his lap.  He nuzzled her neck.  Maggie shivered.

Flynn grinned at her.  “Cold?”

Maggie shook her head and grinned back.  “I’m feeling quite warm, thank you.”

“Where?” he whispered hoarsely.  “Where are you warm?”

She chuckled and drew his hand down between her thighs.