Read Malachite (The Jewels of Texas Historical Romance Series Book 5) Online
Authors: Ruth Ryan Langan
Tags: #western romance, #New York Times Bestselling Author, #Historical Romance
Malachite (The Jewels of Texas Historical Romance Series Book 5)
Copyright 1998 by Ruth Ryan Langan
Cover design 2016
Tammy Seidick Design
Digital design
A Thirsty Mind Book Design
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
To Patrick Jacob Langan
The newest jewel in our family crown
And to his proud parents, Pat and Randi
And of course, to Tom
Patriarch of the dynasty
And love of my life
Now Available as EBooks
Diamond
Pearl
Jade
Ruby
Malachite
Visit Ruth's website at
RyanLangan.com
for more information and to purchase.
I'm so happy to be able to bring you my Jewels of Texas series, originally published by Silhouette Books. This 5-book series follows the adventures of a family coming to terms with the death of Onyx Jewel, a wealthy, successful rancher, and the legacy he leaves—five strangers, all joined by a common bond, the father each of them knew in a very different way.
I hope you learn to love this family as much as I do.
Ruth Ryan Langan
Indian Territory, 1844
“W
eather’s changing. There’s snow coming. I can feel it.” Onyx Jewel tossed aside the furs and placed a log on the dying embers. Almost at once the flame licked along the dry bark and burst into flame.
From the nest of furs the young Comanche woman watched as he strode to the entrance of the tepee.
“You are restless, Warrior with Heart of Eagle.” His name rolled easily from her tongue. A name this white man had earned when he’d leaped into a fray between the lone chief of the Comanche and a group of brutal buffalo hunters. Had it not been for Onyx Jewel’s courage, the leader of the Comanche would have surely been killed, for the buffalo hunters had the advantage of rifles.
But though he’d saved the life of their leader, Two Deer, it had not come without a price. Onyx had teetered on the brink of death for days. It was only because of the loving care of the chief’s sister that he survived.
“Yeah, I’m restless.” Onyx peered at the land, still shrouded in darkness. “I’ve been away from my herd for too long. By now they’ve probably scattered over half of Texas.”
“Let them run free. What need have you of cattle? You are one of the People now,” she said with a lazy smile. Lifting the edge of the blanket, she coaxed, “Come lie with me, and I will make you forget the land you left and the work you once did.”
He turned and shot her a wicked smile. “That’s what you’ve been doing now for months. Making me forget everything. Look at me.” As he spoke he touched a hand to the soft cowhide leggings that molded his hips. “I look more like a Comanche than a Texas rancher. Pretty soon my hair will be long enough to braid.”
She tossed aside the furs and strode naked toward him. Just seeing the sway of her hips, the jut of her high, firm breasts had his throat going dry.
She slipped into his arms with the ease of a woman in love. Against his throat she whispered, “Why can you not forget about that other life? You are one of us now.”
Oh, how easy it would be to forget everything except the press of that lithe, young body against his. Hadn’t he managed to put aside his obligations, his hopes, his dreams for too long now?
He framed her face with his hands and stared down into those dark, liquid eyes, seeing himself reflected there. He combed his fingers through her hair, loving the feel of it against his flesh. “I love you, Evening Star. You’re the first woman to ever claim my heart. Did you know that?”
When she said nothing, he lowered his head to press soft kisses over her eyes, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth.
“You’ve taught me so much about life and love. And women,” he added with a smile. “Out here in this Texas wilderness, that’s the last thing I expected to learn. But it’s time to get back to my own people. I want you to come with me. As my woman. My wife.”
Even as she experienced the jolt of pleasure at his words, she felt the tip of a blade pierce her heart. Felt the pain, sharp and swift. For in that moment she knew. Knew, as she had feared from the beginning, that the love she carried in her heart for this brave warrior would not be enough to hold him here.
“I cannot go. I cannot leave the People.”
“Of course you can. If you love me.” He lifted her chin and forced her to meet his narrowed gaze. “Do you love me, Evening Star?”
“More than my own life.”
“It’s settled then.” He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her with a fervor that rocked her. “I give you my word. When you are my wife, there will never be another woman. You’re all the woman I’ll ever need.”
They tumbled onto the furs. And even as she gave herself up to the wild sweep of passion, she knew it would be the last time. The last time she would hold him. The last time she would savor his touch, his smell, his loving caress.
For she was Evening Star, sister to the chief of the Comanche. Her life, her future were here with the People. As was the future of the child she carried. A child that must be kept a secret from this hot-blooded warrior. For to reveal such a thing would be to tie him to her against his will. A bond that might, in time, cause his love to sour and turn to resentment. And that she could never bear.
Despite her youth she was wise enough to know that a man like Warrior with Heart of Eagle must be free. To follow his heart. To return, unfettered, to his own people. Just as she must remain here with hers.
But as their kisses deepened and their sighs whispered on the wind, she found herself wondering what would become of the child of their two cultures.
The shaman, the healer and wise elder of their people, had already told her it would be a son. A proud, headstrong warrior like his father.
Where would this child belong? With the mother who nurtured him? Or with the father, who would be a stranger to his own son?
Her gods were powerful. She would ask them to be her son’s guide on the long and difficult journey of his life.
Texas, 1871
H
e’d been in the saddle for five days, stopping only long enough to catch a few hours of sleep and change horses. The journey, from an isolated ranch in Montana to the Texas hill country, had already cost him two good horses. He’d been forced to leave the first behind in Wyoming, the second in Colorado. Still, with any luck, he should reach his destination before morning.
He slid from the back of his mount and knelt in the snow to drink from an icy stream. Running a hand over his heavily bearded chin, he waited impatiently until his horse finished drinking. Then he pulled himself into the saddle and was on his way once more.
He was driven by a sense of urgency. The message had been brief.
Evening Star is ill.
But he knew that his mother would never have permitted those four words to be sent unless the illness was grave.
He urged his mount up a hill, then into the waters of yet another ice-clogged creek. And prayed that he’d be in time to make peace with the mother whose heart he had broken so many years ago, when he had left his home and people, turning his back on their way of life for good.
* * *
The Comanche had taken refuge for the winter in a small, heavily forested area of Texas. To the occasional rancher or cowboy, their tepees were indistinguishable from the trees.
As his horse’s hooves churned up the snowflakes, the word spread quickly through the encampment. Son of the Eagle had returned.
By the time he entered his mother’s tepee, a crowd had gathered, though everyone remained at a respectful distance.
A young woman, seated beside the bed, looked up in surprise before quietly taking her leave.
At once he dropped to his knees and took his mother’s hands in his. How small they seemed. How cold.
“I knew you would come, Son of the Eagle.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. Even that small effort seemed too much.
“How could I not? I need to mend this thing between us, Mother. I should not have stayed away so long. I should have...”
She roused herself enough to place a finger to his lips to silence him. “There is no time to dwell on past mistakes. Yours or mine. Let us learn from them and move on. I realize now that a son has every right to know his father. But I refused to reveal his name to you, because I did not want to lose you to him. And in so doing, I lost you anyway. But now, before I leave this place, I must put things right between us.”
Even as he exulted at her admission, he felt the razor edge of fear slice his heart. “You aren’t leaving, Mother. You’re still young. You have a long life ahead of you.”
She shook her head. “The spirits call to me. And I have not the strength, nor the will, to refuse.”
He wanted to argue, but he could see for himself the ravages of illness. He could feel the throbbing at his temples. Could hear the way his breath left his lungs. After all these years apart, he hadn’t expected to feel such pain at losing his mother. “Will you tell me now of my father?”
“That is why I sent for you. And why I resisted the call of the spirits. For I knew in my heart that you would come.”
In short bursts, her breathing labored, she retold the legend of the courage of his father and the battle with the buffalo hunters. “Our people called him Warrior with Heart of Eagle. That is why I named you Son of the Eagle. But you had another name. Your white man’s name.”
“Malachite.” His eyes narrowed at the hated name. The others in the village had ridiculed him for it. When he’d left to work in the white man’s world, he’d taken the name Mal. Mal Eagle.
“Malachite.” His mother’s eyes softened, as did her voice. “I named you for your green eyes. So like his.”
Another thing that had caused him endless ridicule among the People. A Comanche with green eyes could never be a leader. He would always be known as a half-breed. Son of the Texan.
“Your father gave me this.” She removed a narrow strip of rawhide, on which was affixed a glowing green jewel. “The malachite is a stone that gives vision, my son. Strength. Power. That was why he gave it to me. And why I gave you the name. His name. For he was a legend among his own people, and among mine. And you are his son. You are so like him. With your own dreams. Your own goals. Go to him. Not with shame, but with pride. With love. And tell him that Evening Star carried him in her heart all the days of her life.”
His voice deepened with simmering anger. “If he loved you, why did he leave you?”
“He had to return to his own people. To follow his dreams. And they were fine, big dreams. About carving out a life for himself where no other whites had been. About building a bridge between our two worlds.”
“A bridge,” he said in a choked voice. “I see no bridge between our two worlds. I see only an endless chasm.”
She squeezed his hand, wishing there were some way to ease the restlessness that had plagued him, driven him from the time he was a young brave. “Know this, my son. Know this and be proud. Your father did not wish to abandon me. He asked me to go with him, to be his woman. It was I who chose not to leave. I was sister to Two Deer, chief of the Comanche. Among the People, I was respected. Among your father’s people, I feared I would be reviled.”
He detested the note of censure that crept into his voice. But it couldn’t be helped. These were the things he’d waited a lifetime to say. The questions he needed to ask. And now, despite her weakness and infirmity, knowing his words would hurt her, he spoke them anyway. “What you’re really saying is you didn’t love him enough.”
She took a deep breath, fighting the pain that kept building, building, drawing her toward the inexorable end. “I loved him as much as I could love any man. More than my own life.”
“But not enough to live with him.”
“Not enough to live with him.” She was surprised by the sudden rush of tears. She’d thought there were none left, for the pain all these years had been too deep for tears. “I did not have his courage. Or yours.” She waited while he wiped her tears with his thumbs. “When I follow the spirits, you will finally be free. Free to walk your own path in life, without regret, without guilt. Choose well, my son. I sense that you will follow the trail carved by your father. I ask only that you forgive me for waiting so long to tell you all these things. As I hope your father will forgive me.”
For long moments she lay so still, so pale he had to touch a hand to her throat to assure himself she was alive. The pulse was so feeble and thready he knew her time had come.
Yet she managed to open her eyes for one last look at her beloved son. He was the image of the man she’d loved. The image she’d carried in her heart for a lifetime.
“Go to him, Malachite. Go to your father. And proclaim yourself proudly as the son of Onyx Jewel.”
At last he had a name. Jewel. The name of the man who had fathered him, then left him. Onyx Jewel.
Now, finally, he had a focus for all the years of rage and anger and bitterness. All the years of loneliness and hunger and desperation. Wasn’t that one of the reasons why he’d left his childhood home and struck out on his own? Not only because he felt like an outcast among the People. But because he had been searching, looking into the eyes of every white man he’d met, wondering if he would recognize his own father in them.
His mother proclaimed him the son of Onyx Jewel. But he knew what the white man, Onyx Jewel, would call him. Bastard.
* * *
“Señora Potter. What are you doing?” Carmelita Alvarez, housekeeper at the Jewel ranch for the past twenty years, looked up from the fresh bread she was slicing.
Across the room Millie Potter was slipping an apron over her head. “I thought I’d give you a hand.”
Carmelita dried her hands as she charged across the kitchen. “You are a guest.”
“But that’s quite a crowd in the other room, and I’m used to serving crowds in my boardinghouse.”
“It has been a long time since I have been able to fuss like this,” the housekeeper said with a smile. She took hold of Millie’s elbow, steering her to the door. “Besides, there are handsome men in the other room.” She opened the door and motioned toward Byron Conner, the handsome young banker of Hanging Tree. “Go. Smile. Flirt. Let me worry about the food.”
“You sound just like Ruby,” Millie whispered. “She made me this beautiful gown and insisted that I come here tonight. But I feel so—” she made a gesture with her hands “—useless, just standing around. I’m not used to being idle.”
“Go now. Enjoy.” Carmelita took back the apron, gave her a shove and firmly closed the kitchen door.
Ruby, who had been snuggling close to her new husband, Marshal Quent Regan, disengaged herself long enough to whisper, “Millie, what were you doing in the kitchen?”
Millie shrugged. “Just swapping recipes with Carmelita.”
“Well, stay out here. We didn’t invite you here to hide out in the kitchen and think about food.”
“But I can’t help it. In my business, I’m always thinking about food. What to cook. How many I’ll be cooking for. How to use what’s left over.”
Ruby nodded toward the handsome young banker, Byron Conner, who stood to one side talking to Adam Winter, Cal McCabe and her husband, Quent, who had just joined them. “Save those thoughts for another time,
chérie.
You’re supposed to be over there, making big calf eyes at our eligible bachelor. That’s why we insisted on bringing you out to the ranch today.”
“Oh, Ruby.” Millie’s cheeks turned a becoming shade of pink.
“At least talk to him,” Ruby whispered.
“I don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Then let him do the talking. You just stand there and look pretty and listen.” Ruby linked her arm with Millie’s and dragged her close.
Jade passed among them with a tray of stemmed glasses and decanters of whiskey and wine. The Oriental beauty was wearing a floor-length sheath of green silk with black frog fasteners and a sleeveless coat of the same fabric to hide her growing middle.
“Will you have some elderberry wine, Millie?” she asked.
“Thank you.” Millie sipped and watched admiringly as Jade moved on.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone as graceful as your sister,” she said to Ruby.
“
Oui.
She seems completely unaffected by the fact that the widow Purdy says she is carrying twins.”
“Mrs. Purdy’s never been wrong,” Millie said with a smile. “So I think, if I were you, I’d be sewing two infant layettes.”
Ruby shook her head, sending auburn curls dancing. “The way our family is growing, I could spend all my time just keeping us in clothes. In the past year I have made over a dozen gowns just for my sisters alone.”
“None of them as pretty as this.” Millie smoothed her hands down the softly gathered skirt of her brand-new russet velvet gown, which Ruby had forced on her. “It’s far too fine for me. I’ll be in debt to you forever, Ruby.”
“Nonsense. I told you it was a gift.”
“It’s far too expensive a gift. I never should have accepted it.”
“If it will make you feel better, you can pay me back by allowing Quent and me to take some of our meals at your boardinghouse.”
“Fair enough. I’ll expect you to start coming around at least once a week,” Millie said.
The two walked up to Pearl, who was holding baby Amber and engaged in quiet conversation with Jade’s husband, Reverend Dan Simpson, just as Diamond also joined the group. Despite the fact that this was a special occasion, she was dressed in her usual buckskins and boots. “Oh, Dan, that was such a beautiful service. I got all teary-eyed thinking about how much Pa would have loved it.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw her infant son pull himself up at the edge of a table and reach for a glass of his father’s whiskey. In one smooth motion she snatched him up and handed him off to Adam. “Keep an eye on little Onyx or Carmelita will have his hide.”
“The way she dotes on him? Not a chance.” Adam grinned and held the baby easily in the crook of his arm while he continued a conversation with the others.
The Jewel family had gathered at the big ranch to celebrate the christening of Amber, Pearl and Cal’s baby daughter.
“Wasn’t she an angel through the service?” Pearl’s pride in her infant was so sweet and so obvious the others merely smiled. For this special occasion the new mother wore a pale pink gown. Her long blond hair had been pulled back with mother-of-pearl combs, framing a delicate face.
“Not when Reverend Dan dunked her in that water,” little Daniel said. He and his brother, Gil, who had been adopted by Pearl and Cal, hovered around the baby like mother hens, touching her, staring at her as though they still couldn’t believe she was real.
“I thought Daniel was going to have a fit right in front of the whole congregation when she started squalling,” Gil said with a laugh.
“You were none too pleased yourself,” Cal teased. Everyone laughed, while Gil, fifteen and as tall as the men, blushed.
Pearl took pity on her two sons. “Would one of you like to hold her for a while?”
“I will,” Gil shouted.
“I will,” Daniel echoed at the same moment.
“Gil first,” Pearl said gently. “And then Daniel. But bring her to me when she gets fitful.”
The two boys crossed to a sofa pulled in front of the fireplace and settled down side by side to coax smiles from the cooing infant.
“Did you hear about one of Lem White’s ranch hands?” Cal’s tone lowered so the children wouldn’t hear. “Got it in his head to chase that devil mustang. They found him dead up on Widow’s Peak.”
There was a long silence. The festivities had chilled by degrees.
“That horse is a devil.” Byron Conner glanced around the group, studying the grim faces. “As long as he runs free, there will be more deaths. And more ranches failing. And heaven knows what other bad luck will come our way.”
“That’s crazy,” Diamond said.
“Is it?” Byron drained his glass. “How many wranglers does that make who have died chasing that devil?”
He saw heads nodding and added, “And how do you explain little Jimmy Burgess? One minute he’s playing in the school yard. He spots that black stallion on a hillside, and the next minute he’s dead.”