Fire on the Plains (Western Fire) (25 page)

“I killed my own brother, is what I did!
” Ben rasped, his shame, and his grief, heartbreakingly evident. “And you want to know what? They gave me a goddamn medal for doing it. Can you even believe such a thing? I shot my brother. I led an infantry charge. And then they gave me a medal. Christ! Why did they have to do that?”

His Congressional Medal of Honor
.

That’s
why Ben had been so reluctant to talk about it. And it’s also why he kept it in his saddlebag, to remind him of what he’d done on that cold January morning.

Lydia
reached for Ben, placing a hand on his shoulder. When he tried to pull away, she held her ground, refusing to let go. “You did what no other man could do, Ben: you
saved
your brother.”

“The hell you say!”

“Yes, I do say it,” she affirmed. “You saved Ethan from having to suffer an agonizing death. There are few among us who possess the courage, but, more importantly, the love, to do what you did that morning.”

“I may have loved my brother,
but I’m still a cold-blooded—”

“No, you’re not!”
Lydia forcefully interjected. “You’re a loving angel of mercy, that’s what you are.”

Pulling
away from her, Ben hunched over. He then grasped his head between his hands, his upper body shaking with the force of his emotions.

Her heart in her throat, Lydia
quickly rose to her feet. Stepping behind Ben’s chair, she leaned against his broad back, securing her arms as tightly as she could around his trembling body.

“
I want you to know, Ben Strong, that I’m still glad I married you,” she whispered in his ear, unable to check the tears that streamed down her face, heartbroken to think that he’d been forced to live with such a painful burden.

Ben twisted in his chair
. Cushioning his face against her bosom, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m not the same man I used to be Lydia. Not by a long shot,” he muttered hoarsely.

Loosening herself from
Ben’s embrace, Lydia knelt down in front of him. Framing his face between her hands, she said, “I never had the honor of meeting that man. But I do know the man who’s here with me right now . . . and it’s
that
man whom I love.”

“You
love
me?” Her husband’s brow furrowed, her declaration clearly confounding him. “When the Comanches had me staked to the ground, just before I lost consciousness, I dreamt that you said that to me. I thought that I was a goner, for sure, and . . . I remember how desperately I wanted to take those words with me when I crossed to the other side.” Gently, Ben touched her cheek. “But it wasn’t a dream, was it?”

“No, my darling, it wasn’t a dream. I loved you then. I love you now.”
While Lydia was desirous of her husband’s affection, she hadn’t declared her love to exact a similar confession from him. Ben’s emotions were too raw, too exposed. Right now, he needed to put together the shattered pieces of his life. To reconcile himself, once and for all, to Ethan’s death.

Cupping a hand around her elbow,
Ben helped Lydia to her feet. He then wrapped her in his arms and, with exquisite tenderness, he kissed her.

Sighing contentedly, Lydia
put her arms around her husband’s neck. Needing to deepen the contact, she intimately pressed her lower body against his. When she did, in the span of a single heartbeat, the mood between them suddenly changed as pent-up desires rushed to the fore.

Groaning, Ben slid both
of his hands over her buttocks as he walked her backwards, not stopping until he’d pinned her to the thick trunk of a nearby tree. All the while, he continued to kiss her, his tongue plunging in and out of her mouth, pantomiming a more carnal act. Palming her breasts, he kneaded the soft mounds, tweaking her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, quickly bringing them to aching, petulant hardness.

For too many days, they’d had to
bank their passions. Now, free from watchful eyes and wagging tongues, they were oblivious to everything except finding release. Blissful, shattering release.

Overcome with a fierce sense of urgency
, Lydia slid her hands over Ben’s muscled haunches, desperate to initiate the mating act. Responding to that need, Ben reached under her skirt and petticoat, loosening the drawstring on her drawers, quickly divesting her of the undergarment. He then caressed her bared hips before he brazenly slid a finger along the cleft between her buttocks.

Lydia moaned
as she wantonly writhed against him.

“
Unbutton my trousers,” Ben muttered against her breast, his mouth nuzzling a nipple, his heated breath scorching her through several layers of clothing.

Complying with the request,
Lydia hurriedly worked the opening of Ben’s trousers. Both of them winced as she struggled with the last two buttons, her efforts hampered by the very organ that she was trying to liberate. Finally managing to unmoor the last button, Lydia wrapped her hands around her husband’s proudly endowed manhood. The heat, the width, the length of him – it was a profound testament to the enthralling difference between a husband and his wife.

“That’s how bad
ly I want you,” Ben rasped as he thrust his hips toward her, his need blatantly obvious.

Her
need was obvious, as well. Already, wet secretions were beginning to moisten Lydia’s inner thighs.

Bunching
her skirt and petticoat in his left hand, Ben pulled the garments to her waist. That done, he secured his right hand on her buttocks and hoisted her upward, anchoring her against the massive tree trunk standing sentinel behind them.

In the next instant
, Ben plunged into her. Digging her fingers into his shoulders, Lydia whimpered.

“Am I hurting you?”

She shook her head. Later, she would tell her husband how the pain of his entry always heightened her pleasure, how the deeply intimate act of being stretched and filled was a woman’s right, a woman’s joy.

And while
Lydia wanted that joy to last as long as possible, all too soon her body began to careen out of control. To her astonishment, the pressure between her legs quickly tightened, the pleasurable sensations escalating. She had not reckoned for it to happen this fast, this violently.

Frantically grabbing at Ben’s shoulders, Lydia suddenly
climaxed. The ecstatic burst was almost unbearable, each spasm more excruciatingly intense than the one before it. Crying her husband’s name, she wantonly thrashed against him.

Burying his
face in the crook of her neck, Ben thrust his hips one last time, emptying himself into her, filling her with his warm seed.

When, long moments later, he
r husband finally disengaged their limbs and uncorked himself from her body, a warm, wet rush of mingled fluids spilled down Lydia’s legs.

Neither spoke.
At that moment, words were unnecessary. Both of them knew in their hearts that another bridge had been crossed.
Together
.

“Buenos dias, senor
.”

In a state of
shared disbelief, Ben, Lydia, and Dixie stared at the rider who’d reined his horse alongside their Conestoga. Perched on top of the
vaquero’s
head was a ridiculously wide-brimmed hat set at a jaunty angle. If that wasn’t enough of an eye-opener, the swarthy-skinned horseman wore a bright green sash around his waist and a pair of short pants that stopped at his kneecaps.

Hoping the man spoke English, Ben asked for directions to Avery Chadwick’s ranch house. Since Lydia hadn’t heard from her uncle in over four years, for all anyone knew the man was six feet under, his land
now ranched by someone else. Although Ben had already decided that even if that was the case, they’d made one helluva long trek and could be no turning back.

“
Sí, sí
.” The cowboy expansively gestured with his hands. “You are already on Senor Chadwick’s ranchero. The hacienda is no more than a mile’s drive from here. When you reach the fork in the road, head south.”

It was all Ben could do not to whoop aloud, the word ‘ranchero’ like music to his ears. For the first time in days, he felt hope, potent, tangible,
alive
, surge through his veins.

Tipping his hat
, Ben thanked the helpful
vaquero
.

“Captain Ben, when we get to our new ranch, are you going to dress like that man?” Dixie innocently inquired, her eyes round as saucers
as she watched the stranger take his leave.

As
Ben gave the
vaquero
a parting glance, he noticed how the sunlight glinted off of the silver buttons sewn down the side of the man’s knee-high britches.

“It’s not likely, Corporal Dixie. Bad enough I’m still wearing these gray rebel trousers,” he
muttered under his breath.

Clenching her gloved hands together, Lydia stared at the arid countryside, the late day sun casting a salmon glow on
to the undulating hills. “Now that we’re only a short drive from our final destination, I find myself becoming inexplicably nervous,” she remarked with an uneasy laugh. “It’s been ten years since I last saw Uncle Avery.”

Ben
shot her a sideways glance, surprised by his wife’s apprehension. “But surely you maintained a written correspondence with your uncle?”

“Yes. That is until the war
began and the postal service became so undependable.”

“Well, if it’s been a decade since the man last set eyes on any of his kinfolk, no doubt he’ll be glad to see you.”

“I sincerely hope so,” Lydia murmured.

Unlike his wife, Ben
was anything but worried. This was cattle country, no doubt about it, something in his gut telling him that he was about to embark on the kind of challenge that he’d been searching for his whole life. Everything about cattle ranching appealed to him – the uncertainty of it, the hardship, the risk.

But he wasn’t so thick-headed
that he couldn’t understand why the same rugged terrain that appealed to him agitated the hell out of Lydia. For the last ten years, she’d lived in the lush, tree-covered mountains of the Missouri Ozarks, a place abundant with sparkling streams and dense green shrubbery. That was certainly a far cry from the bunch grass and prickly pears that covered these Texas hills. And while this corner of Texas did appear an inhospitable place at first glance, Ben knew that it was just a matter of perception. The way he saw it, home was where the heart was.

Which meant that regardless of what they found at the end of the road, this is where they
would put down roots. No matter what it took, he
would
find a way to provide a good home for his wife and stepdaughter. Although there was no getting around the fact that their money woes would make things tough. At least initially.

Catching sight of
a large two-story house in the distance, Ben exhaled a gusty sigh of relief. After weeks of travel, a brutal Comanche attack, and a run-in with renegade Confederates, they’d finally arrived at their destination.

And
I, for one, am damn glad of it
. The last several weeks of trail blazing had been enough to try any man’s patience.

Smiling,
Ben reached across and took hold of Lydia’s gloved hand. “Everything will be all right,” he said reassuringly, his own spirits buoyed by the thought that a new chapter in their lives was about to commence.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Clearly awestruck, Dixie pointed to the Spanish-style house situated at the end of the drive.

While some folks might call the white stucco mansion ‘beautiful,’ Ben thought ‘unusual’ a more descriptive word. With its expansive second-floor balcony and ornately carved doors, the hacienda was strikingly different from the plain clapboard houses that he’d lived in all his life.

As they neared the imposing
residence, Ben was pleased to note that for all its exotic appearance, the place had a distinctively prosperous feel to it, attesting to the fact that there was money to be made in the ranching business. Surrounded by leafy pecan trees, the grounds surrounding the house looked like a fertile oasis in the middle of an otherwise drab, earth-toned backdrop.

No sooner
had he set the wagon brake than the front door swung wide open. A stocky, bald-headed man of late middling years stepped onto the front porch, a baffled expression on his face. Attired in the damnedest outfit that Ben had ever seen, the fella was clad in a pair of short Mexican britches on the bottom half; and a silk waistcoat and extravagantly tied cravat on the top half.

Jumping
down from the wagon, Ben hurried over to Lydia’s side, wincing as he lifted her from the seat.

“Ben, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s just that, um, last night’s frolic against that tree is starting to take its toll on my sore arm,” he whispered sheepishly in her ear.

At hearing that, Lydia’s face turned a
deep shade of chokeberry red. Unable to look him in the eye, she pushed past him and made her way to the hacienda.

“Is that my Uncle Avery?” Dixie whispered as Ben swung her off
of the wagon seat.

Ben
confirmed with a nod. While the man’s bushy Dundreary sideburns were mostly white, there were enough red whiskers still left to positively identify him as being akin to Lydia and Dixie.

As Lydia neared the front porch, the look on her uncle’s face changed from befuddlement to one of utter astonishment.
“
Lydia?
Why, I declare! It surely cannot be,” Avery Chadwick said, shaking his head from side-to-side.

Lydia came to within an arm’s length of her uncle, a timid smile on her
lips. “I’m so very happy to see you, Uncle Avery.”

“Great day in the
morning!” her uncle bellowed, boyish excitement writ large on his ruddy face. Craning his neck toward the open door behind him, he exuberantly hollered one summons after another. “Carmelita! Manuel! Both of y’all! Get out here on the double-quick! My favorite niece has come a calling.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Avery Chadwick held
out his arms. “Lydia, honey, let me be the first to welcome you to Texas.”

Without hesitation, Lydia threw herself into her uncle’s arms. Ben, holding Dixie by the hand, stood by and watched, remembering his own homecoming after the war, and how good it felt to return to the bosom of his family.

Long moments passed before the two reunited kinsmen finally pulled apart from one another, tears gleaming in both Lydia and her uncle’s eyes. Her face flushed with emotion, Lydia swiped at her damp cheeks with her gloved hand. Then, with a waving motion, she gestured for Ben and Dixie to approach.

“Uncle, I’d like to first introduce you to my daughter Elizabeth.”

Knowing that to be her cue, Dixie executed a well-schooled curtsy. “Everyone calls me Dixie,” she unabashedly informed her great-uncle, twin dimples bracketing either side of her mouth.

Chuckling, Avery bent at the waist, a hand braced on each knee. “Well, now, Miss Dixie, how about plantin’ a kiss on an old man’s cheek, hmm?”

Giggling with childish delight, Dixie put her arms around her great-uncle’s neck and kissed him soundly, not the least bit shy in her affections.

“
And this is my husband, Benjamin Strong.”

Ben held out his hand, Lydia’s uncle taking firm hold of it. “
I’m pleased to meet you, Mister Chadwick.”

“The pleasure is all mine. And please, call me Avery.” Gesturing toward Ben’s gray woolen trousers,
the older man smiled fondly. “I see, sir, that you fought for the Confederacy. Had I been a mite younger, I, too, would have taken up arms for our beloved Southland.”

Ben’s jaw tightened
as he silently condemned to everlasting perdition the Comanche warriors who stole his clothing. Before he could open his mouth to set the matter straight, Lydia hastily intervened.

“While it’s true that Ben is a veteran of the war, he proudly fought for the Union
.” As she spoke, Lydia’s gaze nervously darted back-and-forth between Ben and her uncle.

Not the least bit chagrined, Avery Chadwick good-naturedly slapped Ben on the
shoulder. “Well, it just goes to show that you’re a heap smarter than I am.”

“Given my attire, it was an understandable mistake,” Ben replied, willing to let bygones be bygones.

“I hear tell that our southern boys were forced out of necessity to commandeer blue trousers from, er, Union soldiers who no longer had need of them,” Avery diplomatically equivocated, referring to the fact that the lesser equipped Confederates often outfitted themselves with clothes and weapons taken from their slain enemy. “But I didn’t know that the same held true for the other side.”

“
Actually, these britches came from a Reb who was still alive and kicking the last time I looked.”

“Really, Ben!” Lydia
shot him an exasperated glance. “The truth of the matter is that we were attacked by a band of Comanche who—”

“Good God! And to think y’all actually lived to tell the tale,” her uncle interjected, the color
quickly siphoning from his cheeks.

“I can assure you that we would not be standing here today if not for a band of brave ex-Confederates who came to our rescue,” Lydia
informed her uncle. “Unfortunately, the Comanches managed to steal or destroy most of our valuables, including Ben’s clothing.”

“Ah
-hah! And therein lies the story of the stalwart, grim-faced Union man forced to wear enemy garb.” Clearly amused, the older man once again clapped Ben on the back.

Just then
, an older Mexican couple hesitantly stepped onto the porch.

A
very gestured for the pair to step forward. “This is Manuel and Carmelita Rojas,” he said by way of introduction. “They’ve been with me from the get-go. Isn’t that right?”

In unison, t
he gray-haired couple bobbed their heads.

“Manuel, why don’t you help Senor Strong unload the wagon,” Avery said pointing to the dusty Conestoga. “And Carmelita, I’d like
for you to show my two nieces to their rooms.”

With
a deferential chorus of
“Sí, senor,”
the pair set about their assigned tasks.

Plucking a gold watch out of his vest pocket, Avery consulted the time. “Supper will be served in an hour. That should leave plenty of time for y’all to get settled in.”

From his place at the head of the table, Avery beamed a smile in his niece’s direction.

“I always hoped that someday you’d have a change of heart
about claiming your inheritance.” Pulling his napkin free from his shirt collar, Avery signaled the official end of the supper hour. “It was your father’s dream to resettle the family in Texas, and I’m pleased that it’s now your dream, as well.”

Waiting in the wings, Carmelita quietly stepped into the dining room and began to clear away the dishes. She was soon followed by Manuel. Holding a large cigar box, he offered a cigar, first, to his employer, then to Ben.