Lorraine Heath (22 page)

He hunkered down before her and draped his hands over his knees. “Thinking about tomorrow?” he asked.

She laughed self-consciously. “Yes. You?”

“Yep.”

She squeezed her hands between her knees to stop their trembling. “I guess people have gotten married who knew each other less than we do.”

“My pa met my ma the day he married her.”

“I wonder if your mother was as afraid as I am now.”

“I won’t hurt you, Amelia.”

“But I might hurt you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to give you my heart.”

“I’m not asking for your heart. Just your hand, your loyalty, and your respect.”

The warmth flared through her cheeks. “And a son.”

“That would please me greatly.”

“What will we name him?”

He smiled broadly in the moonlight. “What would you like to name him?”

Amelia shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, we have a few months to think about it. It will be your choice, but I’d like a strong name. Sometimes, all a man needs is his name to make his mark on the world.”

“Mark,” she said quietly. “We could name him Mark.”

“Short for Marcus?”

She nodded. He smiled. “Marcus it is. Marcus

Leigh.” He looked into the distance. “All of this is for him, Amelia. His legacy.”

He brought himself to his feet. “I’d best let you get some sleep.” Reaching down, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

“My pa told me once that love is something that grows over time. I think that’ll be the way of it with us.” He kissed her palm, his mouth warm, his mustache soft. “Until tomorrow.”

Amelia wrapped her arms around the beam and watched him disappear into the night. She pressed her hand against her stomach. Marcus Leigh.

She would love the child, respect and honor his father, and forget that his uncle had the ability to curl her toes.

Houston sat on his front porch and listened to the night. The wind blew cold around him, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as his heart.

He rubbed a hand over his unmarred cheek. Fate had been cruel enough to leave a portion of his face unscathed so he would forever be reminded of what he would have had … had he chosen differently.

Unmercifully, he pressed his fingers to his scars, slowly tracing every ridge, every valley, every section of knotted flesh. Each served as a testament to the man he was.

The man he would always be. The boy he had been.

“Dallas, I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. Ain’t nothing to fear but fear itself. That’s what Pa says.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It just means don’t be afraid.”

But he had been afraid. Thirteen years later, the fear still hovered around him, the memories strong enough to catapult him back in time.

Houston could hear the roar of the cannons, feel the pounding of the earth. The land had been so green, so pretty at dawn. Then it became blackened, red, and torn. The air hung heavy with smoke and the shouts of angry men, brave men, scared men, dying men.

Houston Leigh buried his face in his hands and did what he’d been too afraid to do thirteen years before.

He wept.

The frigid winds whipped through near dawn. At Dallas’s insistence, the men left the herd unattended on the range while they crowded inside the parlor, shoving and elbowing each other like children anxious to get outside.

A fire blazed within the hearth, but its warmth could not penetrate the chill seeping through Houston’s bones. He stood beside Reverend Tucker, waiting for the hell to end, for decisions and choices to be taken out of his hands.

The men fell into silence as Amelia walked into the room, Dallas at her side. She again wore the green silk dress. He’d never asked Dallas for payment, wouldn’t have accepted it if it had been offered. Everything he’d ever given her was his way of apologizing for intruding in her life.

If the value of a gift was based upon what it meant to the giver, he was about to give her the finest gift of all: his brother as her husband.

Dallas stood on one side of Amelia, Houston on the other. Austin fidgeted beside Houston in a brown jacket he’d outgrow before he had the need to wear it again.

Outside, the wind howled and the sky turned gray.

Inside, the fire crackled, and Reverend Tucker asked one and all to bow their heads in prayer. As his voice rang out, Houston studied the woman standing beside him. She hadn’t looked at him as she had walked into the room, and he couldn’t blame her.

They’d traveled through hell together and survived. She’d clambered out of it. How could he drag her back into it?

Reverend Tucker ended the prayer and spoke about marriage, commitment, and duty. Houston stopped listening to the words. They weren’t for him. They were for Amelia and the man standing on the other side of her.

Then Reverend Tucker’s voice was pounding through his head, reverberating around his heart. “If anyone knows why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Amelia turned her head slightly, caught, and held Houston’s gaze. He wanted to tell her. God help him, he’d rather have the disappointment in her eyes than the hurt.

She turned away, and he knew that she’d said farewell at that moment, that there would be no turning back the hands of the clock. For her, he’d held his silence, would forever hold his peace.

As Dallas took Amelia in his arms and kissed her, Houston plunged into the darkest depths of hell.

The winds were cold as Houston stood on the back porch, his duster flapping around his calves. He should head out before it got much darker, taking Austin with him so the newly married couple could have some privacy.

He heard the door open and glanced over his shoulder to see Amelia. “It’s cold out here. You’d best stay inside.”

“Don’t I have a say in where I stand?”

He smiled at her comment, but he had no desire to tease her back. She’d do what she wanted, just as he’d done what he had to do. He turned his attention back to the horizon.

She walked to the edge of the porch, briskly rubbing her hands up and down her arms. He wanted to take her into his embrace and warm her. Instead, he shrugged out of his duster and wrapped it around her. She closed it tightly around her.

“Marcus,” she said softly.

He glanced at her. “Marcus?”

She nodded. “That’s what we’re going to name our first son. We’ll call him Mark because Dallas expects him to make his mark on the world.”

“With Dallas as his father, I imagine he will.”

Her knuckles turned white as she clutched his coat. “I’m nervous about tonight. I don’t have any women to talk to … and I … I always considered you … a dear friend. I was hoping maybe you might have some words of wisdom to share so I won’t be afraid or disappoint him.”

“You could never disappoint him.”

“Unless I give him a daughter.”

“Not even then.”

Her cheeks reddened, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with the cold chafing her skin.

“Will it hurt?” she asked quietly.

He felt as though he’d just been kicked in the gut by a mustang. What the hell did he know about a woman’s first time? He knew whores. Their stench, their bodies that were always ready for a man, their outstretched hands asking for more money. He looked away. “Christ, I don’t know.”

A thick silence built between them.

“Thank you,” she finally said and turned to go.

He grabbed her arm and looked at her, really looked at her for the first time, into the green depths of her eyes. He could see the terror. He pulled her against him, wrapped his arms around her, and touched his cheek to her soft hair.

“He won’t hurt you,” he said quietly. “If he can help it, he won’t hurt you. The women I’ve known were so used … He’ll kiss you … and he just won’t stop.”

“But kissing won’t make a baby.”

He slipped his thumb beneath her chin and tilted her face up, wanting desperately to remove the worry from her green eyes. He swallowed hard. “He’ll lay his body over yours.” He cradled her face, wishing he could cradle her body. “And he’ll give what he always gives: the best of himself.”

She smiled then, so sweetly with so much trust that his heart ached. “I’ll miss you,” she said quietly.

“You know where I live. If you need—” She shook her head with a profound sadness. “No, this at long last is our final good-bye.” She stretched up on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips.

He couldn’t stand it: the betrayal reflected in her eyes, the hurt, the disappointment. He’d rather have the hate. “I killed my father.”

He released his hold on her and averted his gaze. She’d hate him now, hate him as he hated himself.

“I don’t believe you,” she said softly.

He laughed derisively. “Believe me, Amelia. For thirteen years, I’ve run from it. For thirteen years, the truth has stayed as close as my shadow.”

“How did you kill him?”

“You want the gory details?”

“I want to understand how the man I traveled with could have possibly killed his father.”

He stared into the distance, stared through the passing years. “I was his drummer. He gave the orders and the beat of my drum told the men what those orders were. In the thick of battle, you can’t hear a man’s words, only his dying screams and the sound of the drum. The smoke grows so heavy that it drops like a fog, surrounding you, burning your eyes, your throat, suffocating you until you can’t see the man issuing the orders.

“But you can hear the beat of the dram. So wherever my father went, I had to be. When he rode into battle, I ran by his side, beating … beating my drum while bullets whistled past and cannons roared.”

His mouth grew dry with the familiar fear licking at his throat. He could smell the smoke and blood. He could hear the screams.

“His horse went down, kicking at the air, screaming in agony. My father scrambled to his feet and pulled his sword from his scabbard. ‘Let’s go, boy!’ he yelled.

“Only I couldn’t. The man standing beside me fell. The ground exploded in my face. My father hollered at me again. I started to run. As fast as my legs would take me, I started running back to the place where I’d slept the night before.

“He came after me, yelling, ‘By God, I won’t have a coward for a son!’

“He grabbed my arm, jerked me around, but I turned away from him, struggling to break free. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, a bright light, pain … and he was gone. And then there was nothing but blackness.”

“That’s when you were so terribly wounded?”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, I should have died, too, but I didn’t. I prayed for death hard enough, but some prayers just aren’t meant to be answered.”

“You can’t really believe you killed your father?”

“If I hadn’t run, he wouldn’t have died. I was just what he always said I was. A coward. A weak no-account excuse for a son.”

“But you were a child.”

“I was old enough. At fifteen, Dallas was marching into battle with a rifle in hand and men following him.”

“You’re not Dallas.”

He finally turned from the past and met Amelia’s gaze. “That’s right, Amelia, I’m not. And that’s why I held my silence. Because you deserve better than me. You don’t deserve a man who runs from his own shadow, who’s afraid of life.”

She tilted her head, that familiar gesture like a puppy who is sizing up another dog and deciding if he can outfight him for the bone. “Does Dallas know that you prefer solitude and have an aversion to towns?”

“Yeah, he knows.”

“Yet he sent you to fetch me anyway.”

“He didn’t have a choice. As much as he trusts his men with cattle, I’m not altogether sure he’d trust them not to take advantage of a pretty lady on a long journey.”

“He could have sent Austin.”

“Austin?” Houston chuckled. “Austin is just a boy.”

A deep sadness swept over her features, tears welling in her eyes, as she laid her palm against his scarred cheek. “He’s older than you were the last time you stood on a battlefield.”

Her words slammed against him, stunned him, left him paralyzed. He had to have been older than Austin. Austin … hell, Austin had shaved for the first time that morning.

The door opened, and Dallas stepped onto the porch, Austin in his wake. Austin crossed the porch, leaned down, and bussed a kiss against Amelia’s cheek.

“What was that?” Dallas asked.

Austin flushed. “I was just practicin’.”

“For what?”

“Houston’s taking me to a sportin’ house tonight.”

Houston shoved Austin’s shoulder and fought to find his voice. “That’s between you and me.”

“What?” Austin stumbled down the steps. “I don’t understand anything anymore. We wanted a woman here so bad, and now that we’ve got her, we’ve all gotta change. It makes no sense to me at all.”

Houston stepped to the ground. Austin brought up his fists. “I’m tired of getting hit, yanked, and yelled at for being me.”

Houston slowly shook his head. “I’m not gonna hit you. Go get your horse.”

Austin’s eyes widened. “You still gonna take me?”

“Told you I would. Now go get your horse.”

Austin released a whoop and started running toward the corral. Houston turned to the couple standing on the porch. “Thought I’d get him out of your way for a couple of days.”

“ ’Preciate that,” Dallas said as he removed Houston’s duster from Amelia’s shoulders and tossed it to him. He shrugged out of his own jacket and wrapped it and his arm around Amelia.

She glanced up at her husband and gave him a hesitant smile. Houston wished to God she didn’t look so small standing beside his brother, so small, and so damn vulnerable.

Houston backed up a step and threw his thumb over his shoulder. “Reckon we’ll be goin’.”

“Take care,” she said quietly.

“We will.” He started walking toward the corral, stopped, and looked back over his shoulder.

Dallas was escorting his wife into the house, her back straight, her chin held high.

The Queen of the Prairie.

D
usty Flats wasn’t much more than a hole in the ground, a place for cowboys to spend energy and money when they were trailing cattle. It boasted one cantina with a bathing room in the back; a general store with so little merchandise that people simply traipsed in, picked up what they needed, and slapped their money onto the counter; and a house filled to capacity with sporting women. No church, no school, no town hall.