One Bright Morning (48 page)

Some day, she promised herself.

And not only did she have a wonderful
husband and a beautiful home, enough money to see to her baby’s
future, and friends, but she also could look forward to her bodily
functions without dread.

She’d had one monthly since she and Jubal
had begun sleeping together, somewhat to her initial dismay, but
the fact that she needed no longer to fear a brain-shattering
headache cheered her up considerably. Never again would she be
forced to endure a week of having to function through a thick,
gummy fog of pain, of trying to take care of her baby properly
while she had to blink back double images, of having to cook when
the very smell of food made her sick. Maggie couldn’t even begin to
explain to anyone how blessed she felt for the gift of Dan Blue
Gully’s aunt’s headache bark.

Still, she harbored a secret terror, tucked
away in a hidden corner of her heart, that Prometheus Mulrooney
would somehow snatch all of this happiness away from her. Maggie
wasn’t used to good things sticking around for very long.

Four Toes Smith was seldom far from her
side. He guarded her closely. Since they were working in the patio
together for many hours every day, Maggie didn’t realize that he
had been set to watch out for her. She only figured him for a dear
friend, just as he was a wonderful friend to all the children on
the ranch.

Four Toes gave Annie unlimited horsy rides.
He told Henry, Jr., that he was too big for horsy rides, but he
carried the little boy around on his shoulders everywhere they
went. He also helped Connie plant the garden, and he finished
repairing the fountain.

Maggie, Beula, Connie, Henry, Jr., and
little Annie all shrieked with glee when Four Toes opened the lines
and water began to splash into the renovated pool at the fountain’s
base. Water splattered up like diamonds in the sunshine and, if she
looked at it from just the right angle, Maggie could even see a
rainbow. She made the whole household eat supper outside in the
patio that evening.

“
I didn’t know the place
could look like this,” Jubal admitted as he peered around the
beautiful, candlelit patio.

He wondered why his mother hadn’t done this.
Instead of worrying and fretting and making everybody’s life a
living hell, she could have been using her energy to make it nicer.
His heart ached with love as he watched his pretty little wife
putter about her renovated kingdom.

Maggie was really excited when little green
shoots began to appear where she and Connie had planted dahlia
seeds.

“
Oh, my land, look at that!
We’re going to have flowers, Connie!”

Four Toes smiled at the two of them. “You
should have a whole garden full of them come summer. That’s when
you ought to hold your wedding party.” He was looking at them as
though he wanted to keep this memory like a photograph in his
heart.

Maggie thought that was a perfectly splendid
idea.

The gourd dolly that Four Toes had given
Annie was her favorite toy, and she carried it with her everywhere.
Maggie had to glue its yarn hair back on twice in the ensuing few
weeks, and she made it a change of clothing out of scraps of green
calico. Annie was ecstatic.

“
Look, Juba,” she cried
happily when Jubal came home to supper. “Mama make dolly dress like
mine.”

Jubal was mightily impressed with his
Maggie. “Your mama’s a wonder, isn’t she, Annie?”

“
Mama’s a wonder,” Annie
confirmed with a serious nod of her head.

Maggie laughed at them, but she was pleased
that her husband seemed to appreciate her.

Jubal himself hadn’t realized how sweet life
could be. Until now, he had lived his life under the curse of a
family feud that had drained the humanity from his parents and
colored every aspect of his growing up and everything he did and
was.

He never even dared to imagine that there
was such a person as Maggie in the world for him. If anybody had
asked him before he met her, he would have said that women were
worthless, annoying bits of flesh except occasionally; that he had
no use for them but for those occasions.

He was, therefore, totally unprepared for
his every bitter barrier crumbling before Maggie’s unstudied
goodness. She didn’t try to be good. She just was. It amazed him.
He couldn’t have remained unaffected if he’d tried. In fact, he did
try at first, and his efforts were for naught. Every day, his heart
softened a little more and a little more. He looked into his
shaving mirror in the morning and barely recognized the man staring
back at him. It had never even occurred to him that love could be a
part of his life.

“
You’re turning me into
mush, Maggie,” he told her when they went to bed one
night.

“
You don’t feel like mush to
me, Jubal Green,” Maggie said saucily as she touched him
intimately. She never even imagined she’d be able to tease like
this and not feel wanton. But she didn’t feel wanton with Jubal.
She just felt good.

“
I’m not mush there, wife,”
Jubal growled into her ear. He nibbled on her lobe and dipped his
tongue into her ear.

“
That’s what I said.” Maggie
gasped under his gentle assault.

“
I’m mush in my heart,
wench,” her husband informed her. His words were muffled because
they were spoken as he nibbled his way down her neck and over her
shoulder and across her collar bone to her delectable breasts,
where he stopped to suckle greedily.

“
Oh, Lordy, Jubal. You can
be as mushy as you want to be as long as you keep doing that to
me.”

Maggie’s body reacted to Jubal’s
ministrations with an electric tingling that shimmered over her in
waves. She groaned with desire and her hand sought his hardness.
She loved the feel of him. He was so hot and silky. And he was
pulsing with life. Maggie wanted him to give her body that life.
She wanted to have his baby, to have a family with him. It would be
a family for both of them, and neither one of them had ever really,
truly had one.

Before she met Jubal, she didn’t have much
experience with the physical side of marriage. Her Kenny had been
sweet and gentle. Now she was learning that he had been rather
inexperienced. Not so Jubal Green. Every night was a marvel of
newly discovered pleasure for Maggie.

It astonished her that this facet of
marriage could hold so much incredible pleasure. She’d always
submitted to Kenny with love and resignation. She’d never objected
because she was so grateful to him, but she’d never really enjoyed
it much, either. Now she spent all day just waiting and longing for
bed time so she could love Jubal some more.

She told Jubal that.

“
Oh, God, Maggie. I can’t
even think about my work anymore because I’m always thinking about
you. I want to be in you. All day long, all I can think about is
coming home and doing this.”

At the moment he was dipping his fingers
into her hot, moist womanhood, and Maggie nearly screamed with
pleasure. His words caught her attention though.

“
Don’t you dare think about
me when you’re supposed to be thinking about keeping yourself
alive, Jubal Green. If you get killed by that awful man, I’ll never
forgive you.”

Jubal couldn’t stop the deep chuckle that
rumbled out of his mouth and into Maggie’s as he covered her lips
with his. His tongue followed his laughter and sparred with
Maggie’s. When she guided his throbbing erection home, he uttered a
deep, guttural hiss of satisfaction.

“
Lord, Maggie, I’ll keep
safe. I promise. I promise I’ll keep safe for you. For this. Oh,
Lordy.”

Maggie could only gasp in response. Already,
she was spiraling out of control, spinning higher and higher until
she hurtled over the edge into a shattering burst of diamond
sparks.

“
Oh, yes, Maggie. Oh, God,
yes.” And Jubal joined her in the fantastic land that they had
discovered together and in which nobody else was allowed. It was
theirs, and it glittered and sparkled with their love.

# # #

Sammy Napolitano was worried. He wasn’t
particularly worried about Prometheus Mulrooney, but he was worried
because there seemed to be an epidemic rampaging among his security
forces.

“
They’re all getting sick,
Mr. Green,” he complained one morning about three weeks after Jubal
and Maggie had tied the knot. “Every morning another couple of them
wake up puking their guts out.”

Jubal grimaced at Sammy’s vivid description
of his little army’s condition.

“
Should I send for Doc
Warner?” Jubal didn’t want anything to weaken his forces. He knew
he needed every one of his men.

“
Well, I guess it will be
all right. It only seems to last for a day or so. Then they’re
weak, but it doesn’t take long for them to be on their feet again.
I’ve hired a couple more men to pick up the slack.”

“
Be sure to let me know if
you think it’s getting serious, Sammy. I don’t want to let down my
guard now. Mulrooney’s in El Paso. Dan and I are going in there
tomorrow.”

Sammy nodded. He knew the plan. His boss and
Dan Blue Gully were going to make their move the following day.
Jubal and Dan planned to make their circuitous way to El Paso,
being very careful to elude any sentries Mulrooney had on the watch
for them. They knew there would be sentries, too. Once they got to
El Paso unobserved, they planned to kill Mulrooney. Any way they
could.

Too many lives had been lost for either side
in the long feud to feel compelled to act honorably. Of course,
honor had never been a consideration for Prometheus Mulrooney. But
before Jubal’s life had scarred him so badly, he once believed that
he should fight Mulrooney fairly, face to face. It wasn’t very
long, however, before he realized that Mulrooney never fought face
to face. Or fairly.

So tomorrow, Jubal Green planned to sneak up
on Mulrooney and murder him before he had a chance to so much as
blink. Jubal didn’t even care if Mulrooney knew what hit him. He
once thought he’d like Mulrooney to know who had sealed his doom.
Now Jubal only wanted him dead and he didn’t care who did it or
how. He wanted no further threats to himself or those he loved.

It was difficult to keep from becoming too
excited now that he could see the end to a generation and a half’s
worth of misery. But he knew he needed to be completely,
methodically, coldly in control of himself or he would fail.

“
We’ve got to keep calm,
Danny.”

Dan eyed him with a wry grin. “I’m not the
one you have to remind of that, Jubal.”

Jubal sighed. “You’re right, Danny.”

“
Just try to think about the
job, Jubal. Don’t think about Maggie.”

“
It’s hard not to, Danny.
I’ve never had so much to lose before.”

“
I know,” his friend said.
His words were solemn with compassion. “I know.”

Chapter Twenty

Jubal didn’t tell Maggie what his plans for
the day were that morning when he was getting dressed. For her
sake, he tried to act normal, as if this were going to be just
another day. He didn’t want her to worry. Still, he couldn’t help
grabbing one last kiss, and making it a deep, lasting, memorable
one.

“
My, Jubal, you’d better not
do any more of that, or you’ll never get out of here.” Maggie
rubbed herself against his hardness, and gloried in the feel of
him.

Jubal groaned. “Would that be so bad,
Maggie?”

Maggie’s voice was soft as a summer cloud.
“I’d love it, Jubal Green. I’d purely love it.”

Her whisper elicited another deep groan from
Jubal. He tore himself away from her only with difficulty. But, he
told himself, if the day went the way he and Dan planned it to go,
he’d never have to leave her again. Not like this, with his life
and hers in the balance.

“
Tonight,” he promised her.
“I’ll make it up to you tonight.”

“
I’ll hold you to
that.”

Maggie caressed his cheek and wondered why
it was so much harder for her to let him go this morning than it
usually was. With a sigh, she yawned and figured it was just
because her monthlies were almost upon her. She always got
emotional right before her monthlies. Thank God for Dan’s magic
bark. At least she didn’t have to deal with headaches any longer.
She’d take emotions any day over those killing headaches.

This day she and Four Toes were going out
onto the desert to look for plants. Four Toes told her that she
could make the front of the ranch house look pretty if she used the
prickly plants that grew on the desert. The only trick was that she
needed to select them judiciously and plan her landscaping. Maggie
was skeptical at first.

“
You mean those prickly
pears and cactuses and things? Aren’t they real thorny?”

Four Toes laughed. “Yeah, they’re thorny,
but they can be pretty if you plan them right. You can put flowers
and things in between them. You can eat the fruit, too, and if you
use the plants that grow around here, you won’t have to be forever
haulin’ water out to the yard.”

Maggie looked at him thoughtfully. That idea
had a certain merit, to be sure.

“
Well, all right. It will be
fun to go out for a picnic, anyway.” A picnic might take her mind
off worrying about her husband.

She fixed a lunch and packed it into the
pretty wicker basket Jubal had bought when she admired it at
Garza’s. Every time Maggie looked at one of the many gifts he’d
bought that day, she smiled and her heart glowed. Nobody had ever
bought her things before.