Read Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] Online

Authors: With Hope

Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (48 page)

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]

7.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads

“I ought to kill you!”

“That’ll be the state’s job, Dolan.”

“Why burn the house? Wouldn’t she go with you?”

“I never burned no house. I swear it. I waited till she come out like she done other nights and followed her. I thought she was goin’ to meet the man in the fancy car—”

“What fancy car?”

“The one parked in the Austins’ woods. She didn’t go there. She went to the place by the creek, where she always went.”

“Christ! Do you suppose Marty Conroy tried to burn me and Emmajean up in that house? That little weasel! If I find out he burned my house, I’ll beat hell out of him.”

“Let it go, Dolan. You can’t prove it.”

“I could beat it out of him.”

“What good would it do? Untie Fat’s legs, Hardy, and help me get him in the car. The slob’s too big to carry. The rest of you follow me in. You’ll have to convince Judge Foster that Fat killed Mrs. Dolan before he’ll let Pete out.”

“Want me to ride along with ya and keep a eye on this hunk a lard, Sheriff?”

“Be all right, Hardy. Climb in.”

Jude was smiling. “Told you, Johnny. Told you Pete didn’t do it.”

“You did good, Jude. Real good.”

“I got to give Hardy credit for makin’ Fat own up. Lordy, but he was mad. If he hadn’t had to turn him over to the sheriff to get Pete out, he’d a stomped him to death. He thinks a heap of Pete.” Jude shrugged. “It’s no wonder. Folks say Pete’s just like Hardy was when he was young.”

* * *

It was late evening. Jay was in bed, Aunt Dozie was listening to the Texaco Fire Chief on the radio, and Johnny had taken the car and gone into town. The only sound was the squeaking of the chains that held the porch swing.

“Does the wind blow like this in Nebraska?”

Henry Ann and Tom sat in the gently moving swing. His arm was around her, with her shoulder tucked beneath his arm. Her hip and thigh were pressed firmly to him. Occasionally his mouth brushed undemandingly across her lips.

“Sometimes,” Tom murmured. “I don’t remember the dust blowing like it does here.”

A contented silence followed until Henry Ann said:

“I’m glad it wasn’t Pete who killed Emmajean.”

“Why? You’re not getting a soft spot for him, are you?”

“No, silly. I’ve only got a soft spot for you.”

“I’m jealous of every man you look at. For a while I hated Grant being here with you.”

“You didn’t! Guess I’ll have to get you a pair of horse blinders.”

“I love you.” Tom moved his face until it was only inches from hers. “I love you more every day. I’ll love you when you’re rocking our great-grandchildren.”

“But . . . I’ll not have any teeth!”

“You’ll be beautiful without teeth.”

When Henry Ann was with this gloriously wonderful, exciting man, the magic of him threatened to draw every little speck of logic from her mind. She felt the warmth of his breath and savored the thrill of being close to his hard, warm body and inhaling the very presence of him.

“When we’re alone in the dark, Tom, the world shrinks until there is only you and me. It’s so calm and peaceful.”

“For me, too. With you I feel a peace I haven’t known for years. With you, I don’t feel lonely inside anymore.”

The sincerity in his voice touched her heart in a way his words did not. She remembered the pain in his eyes the day he had given her and Isabel a ride home. She hadn’t guessed what goodness existed in the man with the gruff voice, wild hair, and dark, pain-filled eyes. They sat quietly now, neither intruding on the other’s thoughts as they enjoyed the simple pleasure of being close.

“I don’t want you to go back over there.” She loosened a button on his shirt and slipped her hand inside to stroke his chest. His skin was warm, and she could feel the quivering of his flesh. “Why don’t you bring everything over here and stay?”

“Honey, folks are already talking—”

“I don’t care. Let them talk.”

“If we were going to move away, it wouldn’t matter.”

“We’d be foolish to give up what we have here. We’d not get half what the farms are worth.”

“I realize that. I like it here, but I don’t want you to be hurt by gossip.”

“There are different kinds of hurt. Daddy was hurt. He was lonely. If he had found someone to love, Dorene, just for spite, wouldn’t have let him go. I want to be with you and Jay and have your babies—”

Tom lowered his lips to hers and kissed her with slow deliberation. His lips caressed her mouth gently, sweetly, for a long time. When he drew back to look into her face, his eyes were smiling.

“How about getting married . . . tomorrow? I want to be with you day and night. I’m tired of long lonely nights. I love you, love you. What do we care if people think I married you for your farm? We know it isn’t true.”

Henry Ann laughed happily. “You’re bringing far more to this union than I am. You’re bringing Jay—the sweetest, most wonderful little boy in all the world.”

“I thought I was the most wonderful boy in the world.” Tom hugged her as if she were about to be snatched away from him and drugged her with deep, moist kisses.

“You’re the most wonderful
big
boy in the world.”

“Oh, God. It purely scares hell out of me to think I might never have found you.” After a dozen more kisses he said, “I love you.” A groan of anguish left his throat. “Kiss me again, Henry Ann Henry. Tomorrow you’re going to be Henry Ann Dolan!”

* * *

Aunt Dozie had come from her room to get her snuffbox and had paused beside the door to see the couple in the porch swing wrapped in each other’s arms and heard their whispered words.

Dozie chuckled silently, her rounded belly moving up and down under her nightdress.

Mister Tom be a full-blooded man. He give my Henry Ann plenty of love . . . and lovin’. Dem babies’ll be comin’. Thanks to de Lawd. It’s what I’s been hopin’ for.

S
UMMER
1934

Epilogue

The hope that times would be better as soon as Franklin Roosevelt was elected president was still strong in the hearts of the people of Red Rock. The National Recovery Administration, the NRA, had been established to stabilize prices, regulate business, and initiate programs for agriculture. A public works program would be called WPA. In his “fireside chat” radio addresses, President Roosevelt urged the American people to have faith in the banks, to be patient, support the New Deal, and, above all, not to give up hope.

Henry Ann and Tom Dolan were better off than most. Henry Ann insisted that their combined acres of land be called the DOLAN RANCH. The cotton crop of 1932, for the fourth year in a row, had been a failure. That fall, after the meager crop was picked, Tom and Johnny decided to sow the fields in grass for grazing. Johnny Henry very much preferred herding cattle to chopping cotton.

He was now twenty years old and thinking about joining the navy. Pete Perry had signed up as soon as he left Sheriff Watson’s jail, and his letters to Johnny had whetted the boy’s appetite to see faraway places. To the surprise of everyone, Pete had finally found a place where he was accepted for his abilities and not branded Mud Creek trash.

After Grant and Karen were married and Grant had opened a practice in Oklahoma City, he took an interest in Jude and helped him enter the University of Oklahoma. Jude had decided, after a brief acquaintance with Grant, to become a lawyer.

Hardy Perry married a young girl from Ringling who liked to dance and not do much else. Prohibition was repealed, and Hardy was out of the bootlegging business; but he was scraping out a living somehow, apparently without much work.

It was a surprise to all when Fat Perry died of a heart attack in Sheriff Watson’s jail before his case came to trial. His death saved his kin on Mud Creek from having to testify against him.

The big news at the Dolan Ranch was that Henry Ann was due to deliver their first child any day. Tom was beside himself with anxiety. He was never gone from the house for more than an hour at a time. Johnny was almost as bad. It was canning season. Tom volunteered to wash jars and Johnny insisted on digging and washing beets.

“Hee, hee, hee,” Aunt Dozie laughed gleefully one afternoon. “We gettin’ all dis help cause yo got a big belly. Yo’re goin’ to have ta get ya one ever’ year at dis time.”

That night, lying in bed, Henry Ann told Tom what Aunt Dozie had said.

“And what did you say?” He lifted her nightdress so he could rub her back. “I don’t know why you wear this thing,” he grumbled. “It’s just in the way.”

She smiled at the complaint she’d heard many times before, then ignored it.

“I said that I’d not let you in my bed during the fall months if you were going to make my belly this big in July.”

“And who around here is big enough to keep me out?” He laughed, delighted with her, and nuzzled her neck. “It won’t be Jay. He can hardly wait to have a brother . . . or sister.”

The time Henry Ann loved the most was when she and Tom were in their bed, nothing between them, whispering important and nonsensical things. She turned to him now, pulled his head to her shoulder, and rested her protruding stomach against him. His large hand stroked the taut flesh.

“I felt him,” he said in an awed whisper. “He’s clamoring to get out of there and get a look at his pretty mama.”

“It can’t be too soon for me. Whoa! Did you feel that? The little dickens kicks like a mule.”

“That’s my boy. Strong like his daddy.” Tom continued to run his hand over the mound that was his child growing in the body of the woman who was as necessary to him as his heartbeat.

“Stubborn like his daddy, too. What are we going to name him or her?”

“I’ve got that all figured out. If it’s a boy we’ll name him Dolan Dolan and if it’s a girl,” he added quickly, “we’ll name her Dolan Ann Dolan.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Henry Ann could feel the deep silent laughter he was trying to surpress, and began to giggle. “I’m warning you. My bladder is not too reliable these days. You make me laugh, and you’ll have to go find dry sheets.”

He traced a ring around her navel with his fingertips and moved up to cup her breasts and stroke the dark nipple with his thumb. His lips moved along her jaw to her lips. He kissed her swiftly, urgently. He had not known what happiness was until she had come into his life.

He was hard now and throbbing, but he could wait.

“I’ve missed being with you the past few weeks. I plan to make up for lost time when our son finally breaks out of his cocoon. I’m jealous of him having you all to himself.”

Henry Ann’s heart skipped a beat, then another. He was her everything: her husband, lover, friend. She loved him with such fierce intensity that it sometimes puzzled her. Feeling loved, and cherishing this time when she could give him all her attention, she hugged his shaggy head to her breast.

Before another hour passed she was going to have to tell him to get in the car and go for Doctor Hendricks. But there was time for her to hold him a bit longer.