Texas Heroes: Volume 1 (34 page)

Perrie rubbed her arms against the chill. Tending the dying fire would wake him.

She spotted an old quilt folded on top of a chest. Tiptoeing quietly, she retrieved it and moved to Mitch’s side.

Holding her breath, she covered the sleeping man.

I promise I won’t involve you any more than I must, to save my son
.

He shifted slightly. Before he could awaken and ask her questions she could not afford to answer, Perrie rose. Making her way back into the waiting darkness, she prayed she would find her own answer soon.

Chapter Four

I
n that half-world between sleep and waking, Mitch wondered what was different. Unlike his usual snap to attention, something held him in a softer, sweeter place—a place he had not been in all the years passed since that one fateful rainy night.

For just one moment, he could almost hear laughter, almost feel the warm glow of belonging. His eyelids heavy, he cast his thoughts toward the elusive tendrils of the place that had once been home. He rolled over to his side and pulled the quilt—

Quilt
. Mitch awoke and frowned. He was lying in front of the dying fire in Cy’s cabin. With a quilt spread over him.

For one traitorous second, Mitch remembered being tucked into bed as a child, remembered the sense of safety and order, of being wrapped in the arms of love. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, hoping to sleep again and recapture just one more fleeting moment.

But sleep had fled and with it, illusion. He hadn’t been a child for many years, and he had lost all right to love through his own failings. He had killed the woman who had loved him from birth, and he had been banished—and even that wasn’t payment enough. What he had done to destroy his family could not be put right.

So he lived alone.

And he would live alone again, once they were gone, the boy who reminded him so much of Boone…and the fragile woman who had covered him with a quilt.

They could not leave soon enough. He was ready, more than ready, to knit silence around him once more. He had talked more in the last two days than in the last two years. He could not need, could not let himself want more than he had. The peace he had reached had required years to build and in a matter of days, the boy and his mother had breached his walls. Where quiet stillness had reigned, now too much lay tumbled like a fallen house of blocks.

Mitch shoved to his feet, throwing the quilt aside with a muttered curse. He strode to the window and scowled, seeing that it was still full darkness outside.

Pacing the floor like a caged beast, he wanted nothing more than to walk away, to seek the stillness of the forest, to lose himself in the call of a bird, the rustle beneath the branches. To think of nothing more than the tracks on the ground before him, to become not a man but simply a thread in the fabric of nature. Nature had no expectations to betray. Mother Earth simply was. You learned her many faces, and you stayed alert to stay alive. In the keen pitch of attention she required, the world of people, of pain and loss, could not compete. Could not torment.

But even as he craved that immersion, Davey’s little face rose before him, blue eyes alight with the magic of seeing the forest through new and innocent eyes. For one sweet second, Mitch imagined that the boy was his, imagined guiding the child to manhood. Swiftly, like an assassin, longing pierced, needle-sharp.

Mitch abruptly turned from the window and faced the door of the room where they slept, the golden-haired, faithless mother and her child. No matter what he wanted, no matter how much he longed to walk away, he would not. She was too weak yet, the boy too small, this place too remote and wild.

As soon as she was stronger, he would know why Perrie was here and when she would leave. When he could be alone again.

But for now, he would watch over them both.

From a distance.

Mitch picked up the quilt and folded it, trying to shake off the image of delicate hands touching him while he slept.

“Mom, what about the new story?”

Perrie lay back against the sofa cushions, wondering about Mitch. He’d been gone most of the day, and now they’d finished supper and he hadn’t appeared yet.

“Mom? Did you hear me?”

She pulled her gaze from the doorway and took Davey’s chin in her hand. “I’m barely started on it.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes you take a long time.”

He was right about that. Sometimes the stories required weeks, even longer. She’d had little time or energy since before they left to begin a new one. Truth be told, she wasn’t ready now. But Davey had accepted so much change in his life; this she would not deny him.

She’d always spun stories for herself as a child, then for Davey. It was a pleasure they shared, a gift she could give him. Even through the years after she’d discovered the nightmare of marriage to Simon, she’d been able to hold onto the refuge of her stories. She’d known it would be the final defeat if she let Simon kill that part of her, so she’d held on for dear life. The stories and Davey had been the only color in the prison she’d entered the day she married the man she’d thought was her prince.

“This one might take a while,” she said. “Ermengilda’s a complicated girl.”

Davey giggled. “What a dumb name!”

Perrie lifted her chin playfully. “She can’t help the name she was given. She’s a princess, even if she looks like a trout.”

“A trout? Like the one I caught?”

“This is a very special fish, much too clever to be caught.”

“Mitch could do it. I know he could.”

Perrie frowned slightly. He shouldn’t get attached.

Davey laughed, blue eyes shining. “A girl fish named Ermen—”

“Ermengilda.”

“I can call her Ermie.”

“Oh no, you can’t, young man. She’s a princess, and a princess would never have a nickname like Ermie.”

“I’m glad I’m not a princess. Davey’s a better name, anyway.”

She grabbed him around the waist with one hand, tickling his ribs with the other. “Not for a princess.”

His knees buckled under him. But gamely, he reached for her ribs.

She was ticklish, too.

For as long as she could summon the strength, they played, each seeking to avoid the other’s fingers but grasping for tender places. Much too quickly, Perrie had to cry uncle.

“Okay, okay, you win.” Falling back against the pillows, she felt her head spin.

Davey rose above her, towheaded hair sticking out all over the place, sweaty curls around his scalp. Leaping to his feet, he danced around, arms lifted in victory. “Yay, I win! I’m the champion!”

“Watch it, Buster. Losers don’t like telling stories to winners who gloat.”

He turned a much-too-wise smile on her. “You like telling me stories.”

Reaching up to pull him close, she cradled him against her body, already conscious of how much he was growing…how soon he’d be too big to want this. “You know me too well.”

Outside the cabin, Mitch stood in the shadows, watching the two golden heads together through the window. He had heard their laughter from across the clearing, and it had called him like a siren. He would listen to this story and see what he might learn about this woman who had so many different faces.

Perrie snuggled Davey’s bony shoulders closer, smoothing his tousled blond hair. Their tussle had released that boy scent—a little sweet, a little sharp, a little of sweaty socks—the smell that seemed to be Davey’s alone.

She began the story.

“Ermengilda Trout was sure she was a princess. Of course, there were no mirrors in the river so she couldn’t be certain that her hair was long and flowing or her eyes like sparkling jewels. Henry Sunfish told her she was just an ugly old girl, but her mother smiled and said her scales shone beautifully in the sun.

“Bernie the Catfish, never very talkative, simply said, ‘Nothin’ wrong with dreamin’, child.’

“Ermengilda knew they were all wrong. She was a princess, and someday she would show them. Her prince would come and rescue her. He’d see past her scales and tail and bugging eyes, see inside her to the heart that beat strong and brave and true.

“One day she and Henry were playing. She looked up through water bright with sunlight. Up past teasing dragonflies. Up and straight into the face of what must surely be the Prince of the Pretty People.

“‘Pretty?’ Henry snorted. ‘He has no tail, you dumb old girl. He’s got stupid stringy black things sprouting from his head. His scales have no color. And his eyes—’ Here Henry shuddered. ‘They’re—eck—blue.’”

“Hey!” Davey complained, sitting up slightly. “My eyes are blue.”

“Shh,” Perrie urged. “Listen to what she says.”

“Okay,” he subsided, snuggling back down, his eyes growing heavy once more.

“Like mine, thought Ermengilda. Like my princess eyes. Maybe he’s the one. The one who’ll see me as I am.

“But to Henry, she merely replied, ‘That black stuff is called hair, silly. He has black hair.’

“‘What use is that?’ Henry protested. ‘It will only—eeek!’ He screamed and darted away from the giant arm that had plunged into the water.

“‘Swim, Ermengilda—swim for your life!’