One Bright Morning (38 page)

“
Oh, Jubal, this is
lovely.”

Jubal looked around and wondered what Maggie
could see here that he couldn’t. “Looks mighty bleak to me,” he
said at last, honestly.

“
Oh, but just imagine what
it could look like,” Maggie whispered. Her voice was hushed with
the visions her imagination had already begun to spin for the
place.

Jubal grunted. “Yeah. My father had plans
for it. Mulrooney and my mother killed them and him before he could
do anything about it.”

“
Mulrooney and your mother?”
Maggie’s voice held shocked surprise.

Jubal led her over to a carved stone bench,
one of the few amenities his father had been able to provide before
the worries of his life took over and prevented his plans for the
patio from reaching completion.

“
Sit down, Maggie. As long
as you’re involved in all this, you might as well hear the story.”
Jubal sounded weary, as though he himself were sick to death of the
story.

“
Thank you.”

So they sat in Jubal’s father’s patio, the
one for which he had had such happy plans, underneath the wide
Texas sky, in the flickering light of a torch, and Jubal talked to
her. He told her the story of his parents and Prometheus Mulrooney,
and how that story had put an end to Jubal’s father’s plans and had
followed Jubal’s father’s sons right on down to this day. That
story had haunted Jubal’s brother into an early grave and left
Jubal alone on his father’s ranch and wondering what, if anything,
was worth a bucket of warm spit in this life. He didn’t say that,
but Maggie understood he meant it.

Half-way or less through his recitation,
Maggie put her other arm through his and hugged him tight. She
wanted to cry when he told her about the two little boys who had
been born to Benjamin and Marianna Green and then left, bewildered
and alone, to fend for themselves because their parents were too
distracted to love them. Jubal was a year older than his brother
Benny, and Maggie could tell that he’d never forgiven himself for
failing to protect Benny from the wrath of Prometheus
Mulrooney.

She found out how Dan Blue Gully and Jubal
had become friends. She heard about the band of Mescalero who
camped on Jubal’s father’s land and about how Jubal’s father had
not paid any attention to them because he’d been too preoccupied
with Mulrooney and his own failing wife. She learned about how
Dan’s father had been wounded and left behind by the Apache band
when they ran, and how Dan’s mother had stayed with her husband and
welcomed Jubal and Benny into their camp.

At least when Dan’s mother and father had
succumbed to the rigors of their own life, Jubal’s father had let
Dan live with them. The three boys, Jubal, Dan, and Benny, had
grown up together and formed a bond of brotherhood that was
stronger than the bond between the Green children and their
parents. Dan had become as involved in the Green-Mulrooney feud as
either son born of Benjamin Green.

Somewhere along the way—Jubal couldn’t even
remember when—Dan brought home a wounded Mescalero child, abandoned
in a wild fight between whites and a renegade band. Dan and Jubal
had bound up Four Toes Smith’s foot and nursed him until he was
healthy again. Jubal said they’d called him Four Toes Smith as a
joke, because of the nature of his injuries, and because he’d been
too little to tell them his real name.

“
I think it was a year or
more before my parents even realized they’d adopted another Indian
kid,” Jubal said with wry amusement.

Maggie didn’t think it was funny.
Surreptitiously, she wiped away a tear. She knew Jubal would frown
if he found out she was crying.

At first she felt a vague sympathy for
Marianna Green. She envisioned Jubal’s mother as a beautiful,
fragile creature, not tough and gritty like her, brought to the
rugged West Texas frontier by Jubal’s father. She must have been a
weak woman, unprepared for the hard life that awaited her here.
Then, when Mulrooney began to torment the couple, her spirit had
died completely, leaving her the hysterical, shadowy, wraith-like
woman her son now remembered only with scorn and a deep, deep hurt
that Maggie could tell he’d never acknowledged. She figured it
might be too painful to acknowledge such a hurt, and she wondered
if anyone could ever truly recover from a loveless childhood. She
herself had only a shimmering, flickering memory of her own mother,
but she held that golden memory close to her heart because her
mother had loved her. She knew it.

She watched Jubal’s hard face in the
wavering torch light and decided, vague sympathetic stirrings
aside, she’d never forgive Marianna Green for what she’d done to
him. No matter how hard her own life had been, she should have
loved her sons. In Maggie’s book, there was never a good excuse for
shirking one’s responsibility to one’s children.

She had died a suicide. Maggie flinched when
Jubal told her that. She poisoned herself one day after a
month-long pout. Then Jubal’s father had been killed a week or so
later as he was riding on the vast range. Nobody knew why he went
out alone. He knew better.

“
So that’s it,” Jubal ended
simply, with a bleak gesture that included his whole life. He
stared off into the unfinished middle of the patio fountain as
though he were still walking down those long, painful, arid years.
His voice sounded tight.

Maggie didn’t know what to say or do. She
stared at the fountain with him and hugged his arm to her
breast.

She finally said, very softly, “I’m
sorry.”

Jubal put an arm around her shoulder and
squeezed her to his side. He knew better than to think anything as
fine and good as Maggie Bright would stay with him now that she
knew about him. But he could offer her his protection in the mean
time, until she left him again. Anyway, by that time, maybe he’d be
over this love problem. He had a depressing feeling that he was
indulging in wishful thinking. Maggie Bright might walk out of his
life, but he didn’t expect she would leave his heart any time
soon.

“
May I try to fix up the
patio, Jubal?” Maggie whispered.

He looked down at her with real surprise.
That offer sounded mighty permanent. Maybe she wouldn’t leave him
after all. He decided not to get too optimistic.

“
Sure. Dan and Four Toes can
help with the fountain. My father had pipes laid from the river. I
guess you and Four Toes can plant stuff,” he added
vaguely.

Maggie laughed softly. “I guess we can.”

Jubal cleared his throat. “Maggie,” he
ventured hoarsely, afraid of her answer, “will you sleep with me
tonight?”

Maggie peered at his profile. He was still
staring at the unfinished fountain, as if he didn’t want to look at
her. She couldn’t swear to it in the dim light, but he looked
almost afraid and she wondered why. She didn’t say anything for a
good few moments. At least he hadn’t asked her to be his mistress,
to pay her way with her body, even if he hadn’t offered anything
else.

“
I don’t reckon I should,”
she said at last, and dropped her gaze quickly.

“
Why not?” Jubal finally
looked at her. He was surprised at her answer. He’d expected a
flat-out no, and maybe even a slap, now that she knew all of his
sordid secrets.

“
Well, because we’re not
married or anything,” she said in such a tiny voice that he could
barely hear her.

After the merest hint of hesitation, Jubal
said, “Well, we could change that.” Then he swallowed hard and
wondered what on earth had come over him to make him completely
suppress his better judgment and speak so rashly. And to a woman,
of all people. What if she said yes? Worse, what if she said
no?

But Maggie only looked up at him in
astonishment. “You—you want to marry me?” she asked
incredulously.

Jubal cleared his throat again. “Well—well,
I’ve been thinking about it,” he admitted.

“
Oh, my goodness,” breathed
Maggie, stunned, after the first soaring burst of happiness shot
through her heart. This amazing turn of events surpassed her
wildest imaginings. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

Jubal was getting grumpy now. Hell, he’d
asked her to marry him and she didn’t know what to say?

Maggie saw his brow furrowing up, and
swiftly added, “I mean, I—I have a farm and all, and a baby,
and—oh, I just don’t know.” Oh, Lord, why did everything have to be
so darned complicated. If she didn’t have the farm, if she didn’t
have Annie, if sweet Kenny Bright weren’t buried up there in the
New Mexico mountains, she’d marry Jubal Green in a second. Less
than that.

Jubal sighed. There was the
damned farm again. He was sort of surprised she hadn’t already
mentioned her dead husband’s grave. Then he
decided
, Aw, to hell with
it
.

“
Well, at least kiss me,” he
commanded.

And before Maggie could say another word, he
had her in his arms and was kissing her, and Maggie had turned to
molten jelly. She was amazed at how quickly her body responded to
Jubal’s touch. It was if it anticipated the joys to come and ran on
ahead, leaving her brain behind to flail blindly with the morality
of the issue.

Jubal grunted in carnal satisfaction. Her
reaction triggered his, and he was hard as a rock in a second.

“
Oh, God, Maggie, I thought
once I had you, it would be over, but now I just want you more.” He
hadn’t meant to confess that, but it slipped out, along with his
tongue.

Maggie didn’t even hear him. Her ears were
ringing with the sudden rush of heat, and his tongue was driving
her wild. Her arms tightened around his shoulders and she pressed
herself against his broad chest as if she wanted to climb inside
his body. She knew she had it backwards. He was going to be in
hers. She didn’t even bother to fight it. She loved him.

Jubal broke the kiss with a deep groan. But
he didn’t let go of Maggie. Instead, he scooped her off the stone
bench and marched her back inside the house. He didn’t even notice
if anyone was around to watch as he carried her down the hallway to
his bedroom.

He held Maggie with one arm as he pulled the
covers away from his pillows. Then he laid her down in the middle
of his bed and stood up. His hands were already tearing at the
buttons on his shirt when he told her raggedly, “Take your clothes
off, Maggie.”

The day before, when Jubal had first carried
her to his bed, it had taken Maggie a while to feel the insistent,
scorching pressure building inside of her. But today, her body was
primed. She was already about to explode with desire. Her fingers
trembled as they unfastened the buttons of her shirtwaist.

Jubal watched with greedy eyes when she
shrugged the garment off of her shoulders and began to unbutton her
skirt. When she kicked that off and she was left in her chemise and
drawers, he said hoarsely, “Let me, Maggie.”

His big, callused hands sent shivers of
anticipation shimmering through Maggie’s body as he quickly tugged
her chemise over her head. Then he untied the tapes to her drawers
and pulled those off. That left her naked to his eyes and the cool
night breezes, except for her black stockings that were tied with
pretty pink garters.

Jubal was naked as a jay himself. He stood
beside the bed, eating Maggie’s body with his eyes, while her own
eager gaze feasted upon the treat he made.

“
Lord, Maggie, you’re a
picture.”

“
So are you, Jubal,” Maggie
whispered. Her hand reached out to stroke those massive thighs.
“When I first saw you naked, I was afraid you’d die. I never
thought I’d get to see you healthy and perfect like this.” Her
fingers touched the ugly, scarred indentation left by French Jack’s
bullet, and stroked it lovingly.

“
Perfect?” Jubal’s chuckle
was hoarse with desire and surprise. “I’ve got scars in places
people don’t even talk about, Maggie.”

“
I think you’re perfect,”
she murmured. She was now staring at his rigid manhood, stiff, hot
and huge, and her fingers tentatively lifted from his thigh to
stroke it. He gasped in pleasure.

“
Ah, shoot,
Maggie.”

Jubal couldn’t stand it any longer. He dove
into the bed next to her and crushed her to his chest. Her perfect
breasts smashed against his hardness, and he felt her nipples,
succulent, ripe berries, press into him like bullets.

He entered her silky wetness with one deep
thrust that made him shudder when he was finally buried up to the
hilt in her tight sheath.

“
Oh, Lord,” whispered
Maggie. Her legs wrapped around him in response to his invasion,
and she lifted her hips high, as if she wanted to receive him, body
and soul, into herself.

Jubal had his head buried in the hollow of
her shoulder, trying to hold onto his seed which was clamoring for
release. When he thought he could move without exploding, he began
to kiss Maggie’s throat. He tongued the thrumming pulse at its base
and almost lost control again at her gasp of pleasure. He didn’t
understand it. He’d never had this reaction to a woman before. It
was because this was Maggie. He knew it. She just wasn’t like
anybody else.

“
You feel so good,” he
mumbled into her tumbled hair.

His hands left off where they were cupping
her face, and trailed down to feel her wonderful breasts. And then
he started to move in her.

Maggie couldn’t help herself. She knew she
was behaving like a total wanton, but she couldn’t help it. She’d
never felt anything like the way Jubal made her feel. She arched
herself against him, trying to take more and more of him. She
realized she was whimpering, but she couldn’t find it in herself to
care right now. Her nails raked his shoulders and her legs lifted
even higher and wrapped around him so that her hips cradled him
perfectly.