Catch a Shooting Star jd edit 03 12 2012 html (9 page)

She reached for the etched brass knob and hesitated before regaining her composure and, with a deep decisive breath, she burst into the room with a confidence that she truly did not feel.  Passing her perspiring palms over her skirt in an effort to calm her nerves, she stood in front of the man who would cause this same apprehensive sensation in her for years to come.

“Come, my dove,” Diego cooed from behind the heavy mahogany desk.  As he rose to greet her in a manner that belied fondness, he took her hand into his and led her to the small settee that sat in front of the brightly lit bay window.  His smile faded as he waited for her to settle herself on the green velvet cushion before he followed suit and faced her, his countenance a mask of determination.

Remarkably, he could read the ill-disguised forlorn look on her face and with a concerned frown, he inquired, “Are you ill, Savannah?”

She shook her head and stared at her hands which nervously gripped a wrinkled handkerchief as she answered, “No.  I just fear that Father’s health is failing quickly.”

“Ah,” Diego breathed as he laid a palm upon her hands to steady them.  “I am afraid it will not be long, my dear.  You must be very saddened by your impending loss.”

Nodding and dabbing the handkerchief to her eyes as a ploy to remove his hold on her hands, she sobbed quietly, “I will miss him dearly.”

With more compassion than she had anticipated, Diego pulled her into his arms and with a soothing voice, he whispered into her ear, “I know, my love.  He is a great and loving man.  And I know that you are so very close to him.  You are his only child and he loves you more than you know.”

Sniffing back the tears, Savannah shrugged away his embrace and toyed with the handkerchief as she replied, “No one will ever take his place.”

This caring attitude that he was displaying was unnerving her to no end.  She stood up and walked toward the great hearth that loomed over the large desk that had been her father’s favorite place to sit and write or read or entertain his guests.  She ran a finger over its carved mahogany edge and remembered the day that this desk had been delivered when she was only five years old.

Her brother, Richard, had skipped around the desk to be the first to sit in the large leather chair and pretend to be the head of the vast plantation.  Her proud father had tousled the twelve-year-old boy’s head and had told him with all the love in his voice that he felt for his son, “In time, my son.  All this will be yours.”

But with a sigh of sadness, Savannah pushed the chair underneath the desk as if saying that no one else would ever sit in it, for she had lost her brother to pneumonia when he was nineteen, and will soon lose her father.  She knew, too, that she would never have a chance to sit there, for her future husband had plans to take her far from this heirloom and her home to a place that she feared was horrible and despicable.

As if he could read her mind, Diego’s voice pierced the air as he told her, “If you like, we can ship anything that you desire to our home.”

“Thank you,” Savannah heard herself saying as she reached for the small frame on the mantle and cradled the portrait of her mother as if it was a beloved child.  Tucking the frame into her pocket, she sniffed haughtily in order to gain the courage to ask of her intended, “Why can’t we stay here?  This home is all I know.”

“You know why, my dove,” Diego started as he rose to join her at the fireplace.  “I have a ranch to run.  I cannot leave it much longer or I will lose all of my workers.  They are a restless bunch, you see, and need me to keep them in line.”

She could see that there was no arguing with him, so she consoled herself with the fact that some of her things could travel with her to the home that he called ‘Casa de Flores’.  From his elaborate description of the house and grounds, she knew that it would be a beautiful palace fit for a queen, but she was so far from wanting to be anything but her father’s daughter here on Robin’s Glen where she felt she belonged.

With a heavy heart, she realized that this man whom she despised was her only hope for a family.  With her mother and brother already in Heaven and her father soon to follow, Savannah was left with only ‘El Diablo’ as her kin and that prospect seemed to send her into a depression that nothing could cure, not even the upcoming festivities of her wedding.  Her impending doom seemed to transfer the spirit and defiance that she normally demonstrated to an uncharacteristically agreeable attitude. 

As if in a dream, she floated on a cloud of catatonic complacency while her life was set adrift in a sweeping and stupefying departure from what she had been accustomed to and into a world that she had never imagined would encompass her.  While the days floated by, she rode as if on a raft through the rapids of what was to be her existence and she was powerless to prevent or even alter it.  And, without the strength to fight it, she let it carry her away from all that she knew to a future that was not only uncertain but most certainly dismal.

Travis Austin Corbett sat leisurely in his saddle as Blazer plodded down the familiar trail that led to the Heart MT ranch.  It had been a long and arduous journey from Georgia to Texas where his life had suddenly changed years before but he was in no hurry to set foot on the land that was once his favorite place in the world. 

Having taken several trains and riding when a train would not transport his mount, he finally found his way back to Galveston Island where his cattle ranch covered a small portion of the island just a few miles from the City of Galveston and was located on Sweetwater Lake.  The last leg of his journey took him over the causeway which linked Galveston Island to the mainland by railroad.  Skirting Blazer around the city to avoid the traffic of some thirty thousand inhabitants, he finally made his way around the southern horn of the lake and onto the long and lonely road to his diminutive ranch. 

Looking around at the land as he passed, he suddenly felt a familiar tug of longing for this seemingly barren land.  With its marshes and grass-filled elevated terrain, it called to him upon a salty southeastern breeze.  The deer that hunkered down around him in the waving saw grass rose to bounce away as if remembering his expert marksmanship from long ago.  The snakes that sometimes slithered about in a tangle of scaly clusters glided toward cover as the stallion’s hooves plodded beneath him.  And the birds that made this island a stopover for their bi-yearly migration looked cautiously at him before either settling down again or flapping away in fear.

Now, as he rode beneath the iron arch that bore the ranch’s name, he pulled on the reins to reflect on his past.  He had met his bride only seven years ago when he had relocated here to Galveston, Texas in an effort to expand his family’s catalogue industry to the lower southern states.  Melody Marks, whose parents had owned a furniture store, had caught his eye one sunny morning when he had called upon them in order to drum up more business.  And, after several more visits on a personal basis, he had asked her to marry him. 

They had bought the small forty-acre ranch on the lake and had built the modest home on the sandy ground where they had nurtured their love for almost two years until he was compelled by his parents to continue to find more outlets for their products and he had left his pregnant wife behind in the care of his foreman Tom and the man’s wife Abigail.

While he was away, however, Melody had offered a room in their home to a stranger whose ship had been forced into the bay for safety against an oncoming hurricane.  She had met the unfortunate man in the seaside diner where she had taken her lunch one day after shopping with her mother and, being a compassionate woman, had suggested that he stay on the ranch.  Diego Fernandez had seemed to be polite and grateful to her in the beginning, but to her surprise and horror, he had tried to force himself upon her one night after Tom and Abigail had gone to bed in their little cottage next door.  Melody had resisted and Diego had beaten her until she was unrecognizable by any who had known her and had left her for dead at the bottom of the stairs in her home.  As his calling card, he had slit her arm from the wrist to the elbow with the point of his saber before he had stolen her prized mare and had boarded his ship once again, continuing his journey to the glorious shores of Georgia where he would make a financial arrangement with a plantation owner.

When Travis had gotten the telegram that told him to hurry home to be with his dying wife, his heart had fallen but he had rushed home as fast as he could.  When he had arrived, Melody had been within a few moments of dying and the doctor had stood by, waiting for her to take her last breath in order to deliver the child by surgery, which would have certainly killed the mother.  Refusing to take his tiny daughter into his arms, Travis had turned away from the only reminder of his beloved wife.  He had waited to attend the funeral out of respect for her parents, but then as soon as it was over, he had given the child to his caretakers and had raced away from the ranch determined to never return.  Since the child had been brought into the world prematurely, he had been certain that she soon would follow her mother on her journey to Heaven and he had neither the stomach nor the heart to watch her die as he had his sweet Melody.  And without even giving the baby a name, he had turned his back on her as if she were a sickly calf and had made his way toward the man who had brought this misery upon him.

Ignoring his parents’ advice to continue to work in order to ease the pain, he had turned his back on them and their business as well.  He had cut all ties to the people who had urged him in the dawn of his marriage to leave his beloved wife in order to bring in more money for the company.  And, for five long years filled with livid vengeance, he had followed lead after unyielding lead to find the man who had brought such anger and grief into his life.  But now, putting that vengeance to rest, at least for the moment while he wrestled with wondering what the confounded emergency at home was, he turned his attention to answering that burning question.

Returning at long last to the house that had caused his pain, he hesitated instead of urging his mount forward.  Nightmares, memories and agonizing doubts rushed back to him, sweeping him into a whirlwind of immeasurable dread and unfathomable fury as he unconsciously spurred the stallion into a canter.  Thrusting aside all that troubled him, he pulled his hat low on his head and hunkered down in the saddle as the Palomino carried him back home.

While he trotted into the yard, he looked about for his foreman Tom, but saw no trace of him as he had expected.  So he dismounted, tied the horse to the rail of the covered porch and stepped onto the wooden planks.  A rush of visions assailed his mind as he passed the rocking chair that Melody had sat in many times, but pushing them aside, he purposefully strode through the screened door and into the kitchen.

The old woman sitting at the table dropped her knife and screamed in surprise at his sudden appearance, but recognizing who had intruded, she lowered the hand that had gone up to her chest and crumpled the apron as she wiped both hands clean before she screeched, “Mr. Corbett!  You’re here!”

She rounded the table and met him before he took another step towards her.  She wrapped her spindly arms around his neck and patted his shoulders as she exclaimed, “I was hoping you would get here quickly.”

Travis pulled her to arms’ length and looked into her wrinkled face, almost demanding, “What is the emergency?”

Sighing sadly and sliding her palms against her skirt, she shook her gray head and clucked before admitting, “I need you to take over here.”

As he guided her back to her chair at the end of the table, he removed his Stetson and hung it on the back of the chair beside her as he folded his large frame into it and inquired, “Why do you need me?  Tom is capable…”

“Tom is dead,” she blurted out as she dabbed the corner of her apron to her eye and continued.  “He died two months ago and I am afraid that my own heart is failing.  The doctor said that I am to take it easy now or I’ll join Tom in Heaven.”

A dagger of sadness ripped through his chest as he heard the news about the older man who had taken care of his ranch since the day that he and Melody had bought it.  He covered Abigail’s hand with his and he whispered, “I’m sorry.  It must have been hard for you.”

“It was,” she started while sniffing and blinking away the tears.  “And that little one is such a handful.  Why, I can’t take care of this place and that one too.”

A blank and dumbfounded expression passed across his face as Travis wondered of whom on earth she spoke and with his forehead furrowed in question, he queried, “What little one?”

“Why, the girl,” Abigail said as if he should have known.  “The child that you left with us.”

Still numb with confusion, he shook his head and then stopped suddenly as he realized that he had completely forgotten about the baby that Melody had given her life for.  Placing his palms on the table top in order to prevent them from shaking, he asked incredulously, “She lived?”  

“She did.  And thrive she did.  Why, she’s as healthy as a horse and as spry as a grasshopper,” the older woman said with a chuckle.

Whistling and shaking his head once again, he looked around the large room and asked, “Where is she?”

“She’s down at the creek fetching me some water,” Abigail said as she resumed her potato peeling.

“She could only be five years old,” Travis mused, scratching his head.

“She will be in May,” she agreed nodding once.