Prairie Song (28 page)

Cherish could see people running and shouting, but their voices didn’t reach her ears. All she could hear was Father Daniel’s last words as he ran back toward the fire.

Maggie saw the flames from the cemetery. She’d been busy thanking everyone for coming and had hardly noticed when Cherish slipped away with the excuse that she was going ahead to check on Grayson.

Now, Maggie felt like her heart was exploding. She lifted her skirts and ran up the hill, knocking folks out of her way without giving any thought to her improper behavior. She didn’t care that her only-ever home was on fire. It didn’t matter that everything she had in the world was in the fire. All that mattered was that somehow Cherish and Grayson had gotten out safely.

When she saw the front door ablaze, she prayed they’d gone out the back. She ran around the house, not caring that the flames were licking dangerously close to her skirts. Vaguely, she heard someone yell that they saw Brant Coulter in one of the upstairs windows. Maggie didn’t care about anything or anyone but Cherish and Grayson.

As she reached the backyard, smoke was billowing from the downstairs while flames lit the upper floor like a crown of fire.

“Grayson!” she screamed again and again, furious with dread that there was no answer.

Maggie dropped to her knees in the center of the yard. All her life all she’d ever dreamed of was having her own house and now it didn’t matter at all that the house was afire. All she wanted was those she loved. “Grayson! Cherish!”

“Stop your screaming, Maggie,” Grayson yelled from behind her. “I’m moving toward you as fast as I can.”

Maggie jumped to her feet and ran toward the three shadows moving from the barn. She hugged Cherish wildly, then turned to Grayson. All at once she was crying, something she’d never allowed herself to do in front of others.

“Maggie.” Grayson’s strong arm crushed her against him. “It’s all right. We’re all fine, just a little smoke-cooked.”

“But I heard someone yell that a man named Brant Coulter died in the fire.”

Grayson looked at the priest. “Brant Coulter did die in the fire, cheating a hangman’s noose. Half the lawmen in Texas can stop their searching tonight.”

Bar ran around the corner of the house. He saw them all safe and let out a hoot that could have been heard all the way to Dallas. He didn’t know the words to tell them how much they meant to him, so he danced around them, smiling his joy.

Grayson pulled Maggie close. “Cherish, why don’t you help the father to the mission. He may need you to look at that hand of his.”

As the young couple turned away, Bar moved to Grayson’s side. “But that ain’t Father …”

Grayson slapped his hand across the boy’s mouth so hard he felt his teeth give a fraction. Grayson’s words were low and deadly serious. “Now, son, don’t go talking about the father. Especially since he’s going to be leaving in the morning for a long mission trip.”

Bar might only be a boy, but he wasn’t stupid. He nodded slowly and was thankful that when Grayson removed his hand his teeth were still rooted in his mouth.

The huge man leaned his hand on Bar’s shoulder and allowed the boy to take some of his weight off his wounded leg. “If the two of you will help me, we might be able to get a room down at the hotel tonight. I think my bed downstairs in the parlor may be a little warm for my liking. Come morning, we’ll figure out what to do.”

“But shouldn’t we wait for Cherish?”

Grayson smiled. “Someone’s taking very good care of Cherish. She’ll be fine at the mission.”

Brant led Cherish along the back path until they reached the simple quarters behind the mission that had been Father Daniel’s. The walls were thick and whitewashed. High, tiny arched windows ran near the roof line. A single candle burned low on the room’s only table. Everything in the room was simple and plain, as though the man who lived there had nothing to hide.

They stepped into the soft light. Brant hesitated by the doorway. His warm eyes studied her closely as though he’d been deprived of the sight of her for far too long. “You’ll be safe here,” Brant whispered as he pulled his hat low to hide the emotion she’d already heard in his voice. “I have something I have to do.”

Cherish fought the urge to run after him. She didn’t want to be alone. She needed his presence beside her, but she trusted him, so she only nodded and watched him go.

After he’d closed the door, Cherish allowed her brave stance to crumble. She curled onto the tiny bed and let the tears flow. Above the horrible memory of the fire, she kept thinking, what if I’d lost Brant? She’d seen wives fall apart when told their man was dead, but she’d never understood until now what the depth of that pain must be like. Brant’s love had unlocked her heart. With the joy of love came the feelings of fear that she might lose him. When she’d first held him, she’d thought she would just experience his loving and walk away. But there was no turning away, and a million nights in his arms wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her longing.

Suddenly, she had to be with him. She didn’t want to spend another moment of her life without him. She ran to the door and out into the wide hallway. A light shone from the mission chapel, beckoning her near with a warm yellow glow. She ran toward it.

As she entered the tiny church, she didn’t see anyone for a moment. Several candles were burning from different corners of the room, brightening a small circle of space around each, but leaving most of the chapel in shadows. A lone man in black knelt at the altar. For a moment Cherish saw Daniel, not Brant, and the air left her lungs.

Brant moved, bending slightly as he pulled something from just beneath the altar. She saw his face and the nightmare of Daniel vanished. As she moved closer, she saw that he was pulling out weapons.

“Brant?” she whispered, not wanting to startle him.

Turning toward her, he smiled, a smile somehow laced with sadness. He sat on the step where he’d been kneeling and motioned for her to join him. The moment she was close enough to touch, his arm pulled her against him.

Cherish felt suddenly nervous. “I didn’t want to be alone.” He was silent, so she added, “I didn’t want to be without you.” She felt as though she’d broken into his privacy and wished she’d waited in the room.

His hand was reassuring as he brushed her hair off her shoulder. “I know,” he whispered. “I feel the same, but I had to get rid of these before someone found them. I guess I feel I have to help Daniel keep his secret forever now. These guns might link him to the murders.”

Cherish looked at the pile of weapons lying on a blanket beside the altar. “Those were Daniel’s?”

Brant closed his fingers around a rifle in almost a farewell embrace and nodded. After a moment he said, “I’ve known for a long time that he’d have to die. He couldn’t go on murdering, even people he thought needed killing. But he saved my life and we were like brothers. Until I met you I didn’t really care that I was taking the blame for most of his actions.”

Tears welled in his eyes, but he wouldn’t allow any to fall. “I know what he did wasn’t right, but I couldn’t betray the friend I’d made in him years ago. I owed him too much. Even now, no one but Grayson, you, and me will ever know the truth about what happened during the fire.”

The tiny muscle along his jaw twitched and Cherish knew he was fighting his emotions as he continued. “In the end, he gave me back my life and I’ll give him his respectability even in death.”

Cherish moved up a step above him and pulled his head against her heart. For a long moment she just held him close, rocking slightly back and forth. She brushed his hair lightly with her fingertips and whispered, “In the end, you proved your friendship by offering to die with him and he proved his by not allowing you to. When we pick our friends, we have to take the good with the bad, but if they’re with us until the end, I guess that’s what matters.”

Brant raised his head until their eyes were level. His eyes were the color of autumn’s browns and rusts. “And you, Cherish, are you that kind of friend?”

“And more,” she answered.

Brant stared at her for a long moment, looking into her very soul for the answers he needed. Finally, he smiled and kissed her forehead. “Go back to the room while I get rid of these guns. I’ll only be a few moments.”

Cherish followed his order and he was true to his word. When they were safe behind the locked door, Brant pulled her tightly against him as if he could no longer live without her in his arms. The horror of the evening danced in both their minds as their need to be close mounted. She’d declared her love and her loyalty and they’d both been tested by fire. No doubt lingered in his heart: he knew he was as vital to her as she was to him.

His kiss was hard and demanding as he washed the night away with the taste of her. Her mouth was warm with need and hungry for his lips.

She matched his longing with her own as she pressed her body against him and met his advances with surrender. Her hands threaded through his hair and knotted into fists, pulling his head even closer. A need for him started deep in the pit of her stomach and spread like liquid fire through her veins.

Her mouth opened, her body yielded, and he could no longer control his longing for her. He passed his hand beneath her cape and ripped her blouse open with one mighty jerk.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as his warm fingers slid across her cool flesh. But he showed no sign of remorse and she made no protest.
Be gentle
, he reminded himself, but he couldn’t dam the flood of his love for her. She’d wrapped her way around his heart and soul until the smell and taste of her were staples in his life.

He shoved her cape from her shoulders so that his eyes could see all that his hands longed to touch. Each time he looked at her she was more beautiful than even the pictures his memory had painted during the long days without her. As her fingers moved along his chest in light, feathery strokes, he became drunk with a delight that warmed with a passion that needed no stoking.

“Your clothes smell of smoke,” she teased, shoving his shirt open and pulling it from his belt with impatient tugs. As he stood watching her, she slowly moved her fingers over his hard chest, examining his flesh like a sculptor examines a finished work. His body was slim, tight, and strong like a whip.

Her fingers played with the hair in the center of his chest and followed its thin line down below his belt. He remained like stone as she moved her palm over his ribs, pausing over his heart to feel its pounding. When she leaned forward to taste his skin, he felt his knees buckle and he almost stumbled forward. She only laughed and repeated her action.

Looking up at him, her green eyes alive with passion, she pleaded, “Make love to me, please.” Somehow, the fear they’d felt earlier now sharpened all their senses.

She was in his arms and halfway across the room in a heartbeat. He tossed her onto the bed and fell on top of her. “You’ll never have to ask twice, my love,” he answered.

Cherish held him tightly and laughed. “I love you, my outlaw.”

He made love to her then, wild and hurried as young lovers always do. Their clothes flew from the bed and cluttered the room. Each time he would have slowed down, she pushed him farther, for after almost dying, she wanted to feel him inside her. She wanted to know that she was wholly alive, the kind of alive only he could make her feel.

When they finally collapsed, sweaty and exhausted, they held to one another as if there were no world except the one they found within each other’s arms.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” he whispered as he pushed the wet hair from her face and looked down at the only woman he’d ever loved. “For the first time in my life I was about to lose something important to me, someone worth living for.”

Cherish hugged him to her, loving how he felt so right in her arms. “I know,” she answered. “Now that Daniel’s gone, you wouldn’t be betraying him by telling me about him.”

“Are you sure you want to know?” He seemed hypnotized by the way her hair lay across the pillow.

“Yes,” she answered, gently stroking his back. Her action was absentminded, but the tenderness of it touched him deeply. “I want to know all about your past.”

Brant lay beside her for a long time before he was able to talk, and when the words came they tumbled out on top of one another. “At first Daniel only killed the men who had murdered a shipload of slaves. But then the killings didn’t slow down. I knew someday I’d have to stop him and I figured it would be the end of both our lives. He couldn’t stop killing and he couldn’t wash the blood from his hands with the good he did as a priest. He thought if he destroyed the list of the Knights no one would ever know that he’d once been one of them.”

“Were you one?” Cherish had to ask.

“No, I was too young. Daniel, being two years older, was signed into the organization; but I was only about fifteen, so I was just used to run errands. We were left on board a burning ship full of slaves once and he pulled me safely into the water. We swam for hours, chained by the wrists. Finally, we reached shore, then walked several days to arrive at a settlement. It took us almost six months to get back to Fort Worth. The chains left permanent scars on our wrists … and on our souls. By that time the war had broken out. I went to Hattie and begged her to give us the list so we could destroy it, but she thought she needed it for protection. Finally, I gave up and joined up to fight for Texas, but Daniel took over the duties of a young priest who hadn’t made it past the Indians into town. We’d grown up around the mission so the old priest accepted him without question. That way he could keep an eye on Hattie and hopefully find the list.”

Brant held her tightly. “Daniel tried everything from drugging her to threatening her life, but the old girl wouldn’t give up the list. I think he would have killed her if her days weren’t already so numbered. Every time he killed, he’d do months of work here at the mission, trying to somehow wash the crime away.”

“What about the children he keeps here?”

“The sisters will take care of them. They’ll send for another priest.”

She was silent for a long time before she asked, “Can we stay here all night?”

“If you like. I’ve spent many a night here, wondering where Daniel was and what harm he was doing.” Brant smiled down at her, thankful that the nightmare was finally over. “There’s water in the pitcher. Why don’t you wash the smoke off and I’ll be back in a little while.” When he pulled away, she clung to him and he added, “Don’t worry. Nothing on the earth could stop me from coming back to you.”

He dressed and left her alone for half an hour while she washed. When he returned, his hair was wet from the stream and he carried a box of medicines under one arm.

“I think there’s some cream here that will help your face. It looks a little burned.” Brant tried not to notice how wonderful she looked with her hair combed free. She was wearing one of Daniel’s long white shirts and for a moment she looked twelve and not twenty. He thought surely God would miss one of his angels any minute and pull her back to heaven.

Cherish suddenly remembered how he’d burned his hand opening the door to the cellar. “What about your hand?”

“It’s fine.” Brant pulled his fingers away from her grasp.

“No, let me see it. I could wrap the burn.”

Brant slowly turned his palm up. The skin was red, but not blistered. “I didn’t want my hand wrapped. I didn’t want anything to come between us when I touched you.”

Cherish smiled. “You’ll have a lifetime to touch me, Daniel.”

The name shocked Brant. He tried to pull his hand away, but her stubborn fingers held tight. For a flash he thought she’d accidentally called him by another lover’s name, but her face was too angelic and her touch too loving.

Cherish brushed his chestnut hair away from his eyes. “Brant Coulter died in the fire, but Dan Coulter will show up in Denver in about a month with a new beard and a new wife. No one will think the married man is really an outlaw.”

Brant laughed. “You’ve got it all figured. Who do you think is going to be this Dan Coulter’s wife?”

“I am,” Cherish answered. “Even if I have to kidnap him and take him to the preacher at knife-point. He’s going to marry me.”

Brant smiled, a rare smile that reached his eyes and warmed her heart. “I may have it wrong, but I thought the man was supposed to do the asking.”

“You’re right,” Cherish answered. “You do have it wrong. The woman says yes and then the man asks. Well, I’m saying yes.”

Kneeling on one knee, he folded her hand in his and said, “Well, I guess I’m asking. Will you marry me?”

Cherish looked around the room, anywhere except his handsome face. “I’ll think about it while your beard grows.” She walked away from him as if he were only one of many men who’d asked her the same question that day.

“And where are we going to stay while my beard grows?” Brant stood and followed her.