Summer Moon (10 page)

“Stop saying that! There
is
no marriage. I don’t even know that man in there.”

“Get to know him. Fight to save your dream.”

Without another word, Sofia let go and walked toward the door. Then she paused. “One more thing, Katherine. If it turns out that marriage to Reed is what you want, then
do
fight for it, but not forever. Try, señora, but do not waste your life waiting for Reed Benton to fall in love with you. Do not make the same mistake I did.”

Shaken, Kate found herself staring down at the little quilt, the scorched wooden horse, the tarnished silver, and the silver frame spread out on the bed. Pieces of Daniel’s past. Of Reed’s, too.

Everyone but Sofia had given up hope, but by tucking these things away, the woman had kept faith in the boy’s return.

Now she expected Kate to make her own miracle.

14

Wobbly as a newborn colt, Reed sat in the rocker and studied the bed. How was he going to make it back?

Sofia had come in once more, changed his sheets, told him good-bye, and left him the letters the spinster had written to his father. He told her he didn’t want them, but she tucked them in the bottom drawer of the dresser before she walked out.

Scrappy had already left for the Ranger camp to let Jonah know he would be laid up for a few more days. Finally, Reed had gotten up, determined to dress.

He made it as far as the dresser, where he found his underdrawers washed and neatly folded inside. Struggling to get them on, he felt so faint that it was all he could do to get to the chair before he hit the floor.

There he sat, light-headed, trembling, damning his weakness, trying—by sheer force of will—to gather enough strength to walk back to the bed, when he heard someone pause outside the door.

There was only one person left who could be hovering on the other side. He wished to God he could simply ignore her, but he was starving and cotton-headed, and as much as he hated to admit it, Kate Whittington was the only one who could help him right now.

He didn’t try to keep the resentment out of his tone when he yelled, “Come in.”

There was more hesitation before the door slowly opened and the woman stepped into the room. Shock registered on her delicate features when she noticed his empty bed.

She whirled around and her warm dark eyes found him immediately. A blush crept across her cheeks and down her throat when she realized he was sitting there in his long white drawers.

He thought for a minute she was going to bolt, but then had to give her credit when she squared her shoulders and marched across the room to where his pants lay in a wad. Ignoring him, she picked them up, shook them out with a snap and draped them over the top of the chest of drawers.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Do I look all right? I tried to get dressed and almost passed out cold. Now I can’t even get back in bed.”

Her forehead wrinkled in a deep frown. She looked everywhere but at him and finally wound up staring hard at his bare toes.

He glanced down and realized he had not yet done up the four buttons down the front of his damn wool drawers. There was a yawning gap in the material over his privates.

“No need to be embarrassed,” he said as he fought the stubborn buttons with fingers that were worthless. “Nothing down there you didn’t see last night.”

After a gasp she said, “There is no need to be crude.” The retort was issued in little more than a whisper. Except for two bright spots of color on her cheeks, her face blanched white above the high collar of a sorrowful mud-brown dress.

A long, strained silence followed before she volunteered, “Let me help you back to bed.”

The offer surprised him. It meant she would have to move closer, even touch him. An unwanted image flashed into his mind, one of Kate with her long hair flowing free, cascading down her back. He could almost feel it swaying to the rhythm of her movements as she straddled him, riding him to fulfillment.

He closed his eyes, shook his head. Now surely
that
was no more than a fever-induced hallucination. No virgin, no untried schoolmarm would have ever been so bold her first time.

He caught the scent of roses. When he looked up again he found her beside him, waiting to help him to the bed.

“Can you stand up?”

Trim, but not overly thin, she did not look strong enough to lift him to his feet. “I think so. Just steady me.”

He hated like hell to be dependent upon anyone, but most especially her, this woman who had been his father’s choice, the bait to lure him home. Sofia had claimed Kate innocent of his father’s scheme. If she was so innocent, why the hell had she climbed into bed with him?

Without hesitation, she reached down and slipped her arm around his waist, rose with him as he pushed himself to his feet. When the room started to whirl, Reed found himself leaning more heavily on her shoulder.

Her strength surprised him. She bore his weight without complaint as he forced himself to shuffle toward the bed, afraid that he would black out before they made it.

The dizzying journey seemed to take forever, but eventually she was propping him up against the pillows and tucking him beneath fresh sheets.

From all outward appearances, Katherine Whittington was all business, from the efficient way she turned down the top sheet and smoothed it across his chest, to the careful, measured way she poured another glass of water and handed it to him without his having to ask for it.

Their fingers touched as he took the glass, and Reed was shocked at his body’s involuntary reaction to her. An arousing warmth coursed through him after the brief connection.

He reminded himself that they had shared a bed last night. As he sipped the water, he wished the memory of it would come back to him in more than bits and pieces of recollection. She waited in patient silence to take the glass. He was careful to avoid touching her as he handed it back.

His empty stomach growled louder than a bobcat when the water hit it.

Kate carefully set the glass down on the precise spot where it had been. Absently, she stroked the tabletop and then looked at her fingertips, inspecting for dust.

“Are you hungry?” she asked over her shoulder.

“I’m starved.”

Initially she was silent; then she walked over to the rocker and perched herself on the edge. With her knees pressed together beneath her skirt, ankles touching, she primly rested her folded hands on her thighs and looked him in the eye.

“Sofia left an hour ago. The way I see it, you have three choices, Mr. Benton. You can lay there and grow weaker, you can try to get up and feed yourself
and
Daniel, or you can hire me to stay on and run this house until you find a suitable replacement.”

Scrappy wouldn’t return until tomorrow night at the earliest, and the way he felt now, he might very well starve. By then his intestines would be gnawing through his backbone.

“You surprise me, ma’am. Blackmailing a sick man with food.”

“I have no option, I’m afraid.”

“I told Scrappy to look for a housekeeper in Lone Star on his way back.”

Let her chew on that.

Her face clouded over, but rather than feeling pleased with her reaction, he felt oddly guilty.

“What about Daniel?” She sounded confident, but her bravado had noticeably slipped a notch. There was a telltale quiver in her smoky voice.

“What about Daniel?”

“He can’t walk. He certainly can’t care for himself any more than you can right now. I think he’s beginning to respond to me—” She stopped abruptly, as if loath to argue too strongly.

Reed sighed and rubbed his shoulder. His damn stomach growled again, giving him away.

He wished she hadn’t brought up the boy. He didn’t want to think about Daniel yet. The dirty, sullen creature he had fought with all the way home wasn’t his sweet little son anymore. Daniel was exactly what Reed had feared he would become if captured. Still, the woman was right. The boy needed care, and Reed wasn’t in a position to give it.

Kate Whittington had him over a barrel, but if she knew it, it didn’t show on her face. He left her on pins and needles, wishing he had read some of her letters as he tried to recall everything Sofia had told him about her.

She had given up everything to come to Texas. Supposedly she believed she was his wedded wife when she climbed into his bed last night, but she could have been aware of his father’s scheme when she stepped into his hallucination as Becky. By sleeping with her, he had unwittingly fallen into their hands. Still, in his mind he had every right to send her packing as soon as help arrived.

So why did he feel so guilty considering it?

He studied her from head to toe as she waited, white knuckled, for him to decide. His gaze lingered a bit too long on her breasts, and when she looked up, she caught him staring. Her face and neck blushed crimson.

Reed sighed. He
was
starved. Weak as a kitten, too. His body felt as if he had been dragged twenty miles behind a runaway wagon. He definitely couldn’t do much for himself yet, let alone care for Daniel.

“Looks like you win for now, Kate Whittington. You can stay until help arrives.”

“Thank you.” If she was relieved, she did not show it. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

“Don’t bring me something you would feed an invalid. I don’t want any damn broth or runny gruel. I need real food so I can get on my feet.” Maybe with something in his stomach, he would be able to stand up without seeing stars.

“I understand.”

“Beef. Fried potatoes. And plenty of ’em.”

“Yes. All right.” She frowned, deep in thought.

“Something wrong?”

“Well . . .” She paused and tapped her thumbs together above her folded hands. Tap, tap, tap, without speaking.

“You don’t cook, do you?”

She cleared her throat. “That’s not exactly true. At the orphanage I helped cook, but not often. Everyone took turns in the kitchen, preparing food, cleaning up. But one of the nuns always did the actual cooking.”

“Have you ever put out a meal by yourself?”

He thought for a second she would lie, but she obviously knew her own limitations when it came to deception.

“No, not really.” Then she brightened a bit. “There are still some covered dishes left over from the burial. And I have brought along a book on housekeeping and a few recipes.”

“That’s a relief.” Dry leftovers would be better than nothing, he reckoned.

She pushed herself up out of the chair. The rockers tapped against the bare wood floor until the sound and motion slowly died.

“I’ll go down and fix a dinner tray for you. It won’t take but a few minutes.”

Armed with purpose, she bustled out of the room. Reed stared out the open window, across miles of yellow grassland baking beneath a warm May sun.

He had grown used to living with men, used to action, not forced inactivity. Life in a Ranger camp was rugged. They lived in tents, hunted, fished, scouted renegade Indians, and chased down bandits. He doubted he could stand being laid up very long, doubted he could ever live on the ranch again.

Reed Senior had hired an expert crew. Early on, he had divided Lone Star Ranch into quadrants and given the responsibility of each section to four experienced foremen he had lured away from other, more established ranches. The cowhands working under them were every bit as loyal and hardworking as their bosses. His father made certain of that by establishing as safe an environment as he could for the families in the small town he had created almost overnight. Because he had raised beef for both sides during the war, Lone Star was virtually untouched by the fighting.

So, although his father was gone, Reed really had no responsibility to the ranch yet. He would be more than willing to turn everything over to his father’s lawyer’s keeping, step out of the way, let the place run itself.

He already felt the confines of his father’s house.

As he stared out at the prairie, Reed hoped that Scrappy would return sooner than later. Before the leftovers ran out.

15

Fast Pony smiled to himself as he sat alone in the too-soft bed, watching the stars appear far beyond the opening in the wall. He was waiting for Soft Grass Hands to come back, to sit with him in the yellow glow of lamplight.

She had been with him almost all the time, talking to him, bringing him food, sitting beside him until he fell asleep. He knew that he shouldn’t look forward to her visits, but it was better than sitting in the room all alone. He ate whatever she offered, but refused to say any of the words she urged him to speak, even the name she called him. She had no idea what he was really thinking, or that he was growing stronger, planning to escape.

Earlier she had insulted him by giving him an old fireblackened horse made of wood. It was a toy that might have pleased a baby, but not the son of Many Horses, the great Nermernuh warrior.

Before the raid he had owned a real horse of his own, a strong spotted horse that ran fast as the wind. Like all of The People, he learned to ride long before he could run. He could hang from his pony’s mane and scoop up small objects from the ground at full gallop.

To please Soft Grass Hands, he had taken the toy from her anyway and felt oddly comforted when the worry lines on her forehead disappeared.

He gave her a false smile and held on to the old thing for a while, just so she would think that it made him happy, but it didn’t. A bad spirit dwelled inside it. One that made him feel sad whenever he looked at the wounded wooden horse.

She called him
Dan-iel
over and over as if trying to make the name stick to him. But he knew in his heart that his true name was Fast Pony, the name his mother and father had given him, and he would never, ever forget it.

He glanced over at the mute wooden horse with its terrible blind eyes and straight stiff legs. Stretching across the bed, he squeezed its fetlock. Soon his own ankle would be just as strong as the hard wood. Soon he would be able to walk, and then run. Then he would escape, and this time they would never find him.

He heard the woman outside his door and lay still so that she would not suspect how much easier it was for him to move now. The door opened and she walked in carrying a large woven basket in her hands. As usual, she was smiling and talking gibberish.

He settled back, biding his time, waiting to see what she was up to now.

Time could be as mercurial as the weather.

It crawled past when Kate had lived in Maine anticipating the trip to Texas. Now that her situation here was tentative, it flew by.

She could not decide whether the three-day reprieve she had survived was a blessing or not. She had taken over care of the house, of Daniel, and of Reed, but her mind was full of the haunting notion that Scrappy could return any day with a new housekeeper in tow.

Her feelings vacillated as she did the best she could for Daniel, as she concentrated on putting together simple meals for him and Reed and tried not to think of what she would do if a replacement arrived.

For now, it was enough that she was still here with a roof over her head. She would take one day at a time.

“Hello, Daniel.” She shifted the basket in her arms.

As usual, he watched her but did not speak or smile. His wooden horse stood neglected on the bedside table. Because her time with him could end at any moment, she had decided to show him all the items in the basket tonight, including the photograph of his mother, in hopes of prodding his memory.

Kate sat on the edge of the bed. He had been remarkably calm over the past few days, almost as if he was finally resigned to his fate.

“How are you this evening, young man? Sleepy yet?” Setting the basket on the bed behind her, she reached in for the small piece of patchwork first. Slowly, she unfolded the blanket and held it in front of him.

“Do you like this? It was yours when you were just a little baby.” Shaking out the quilt, she spread it over his lap and smoothed out the puckered red, white, and blue stars.

Daniel watched her closely, his glance falling to the quilt and then back to her eyes.

“I wish you could talk to me,” she said. “I wish you could tell me what you are thinking. I wish I could tell you that your heart will heal, even though you will never forget the family you left behind.”

She went on to explain that someone had made the quilt, most likely just for him. She wished she had thought to ask Sofia who had taken such care to cut and stitch the countless small pieces together.

Daniel did not move, although he stared down at the quilt for so long that she wondered if perhaps he remembered the bright colors and star patterns. She let him study it a while before she drew out the silver cup and held it out to him.

Slowly, he reached for the inscribed piece, turned it over and over and then looked at her questioningly.

“That was your cup. Daniel’s cup,” she said, pointing to the name on the silver piece before she handed it to him. When he lost interest and offered it back, she carefully set it beside the horse on the table.

The only thing left in the basket was the small silver case with the photograph of him and his mother. She took a deep breath, arrested by the image of the young woman who had taken her own life rather than stay with her son, no matter the outcome.

Becky was smiling a wistful hint of a smile. What had she been thinking as she stared into the camera’s lens?

Daniel, dressed in a long white gown, was perched on his mother’s knees. Around two years old, his features, though pudgy with baby fat, were virtually the same as now. There was no denying he was the child in the picture—but would he recognize himself? Kate set the basket down, hoping that if Daniel did remember his mother, it would not overly upset him.

He watched her intently, waited expectantly for her to show him the object in her hands.

“This is a photograph,” she told him, turning the case so that he could see it better. Lamplight reflected off the surface of the glass inside. Kate held her breath as the boy took the silver case shaped like a small book into his own hands. He bent over it and stared for a long time.

Then he touched his forefinger to his face in the photograph and afterward, through a shock of hair that fell across his face, he looked up at Kate questioningly. Without thinking, she brushed his hair back and tucked it behind his ear.

“That’s you. That’s Daniel.” She pointed to the photograph and then to his chest. “And that’s your mama. Can you say
Mama
?”

He glanced down, then back up at her with a quizzical expression on his face. He squinted hard at the glass and then quickly pulled back.

“
Mama.
That’s your mama. Do you remember her?”

Relieved to find that after a few days of rest his head had cleared and he was able to dress by himself, Reed paused in the doorway of his room, drawn by the seductive pitch of Kate’s voice. Down the hall, lamplight spilled out of the boy’s room. Both the enticing sound and the light beckoned him.

He was already sick to death of being laid up and forced to eat some of the worst food he ever tasted while Kate had hovered in his room, anxious to see if he would eat or not, busying herself straightening and dusting, fussing and fluffing.

More times than he liked to admit, his gaze had sought her out as she worked. Sometimes he caught her watching him with undisguised hope and unrealized dreams in her eyes—hopes and dreams that silently spoke of home fires and family, of traditions and trust—the kinds of things that made a man like him want to ride out and never look back.

Every morning she would come in fresh-faced and glowing, ready for each new day. No matter how businesslike she tried to appear, the high color in her cheeks and her shy glances gave away her embarrassment.

She never stayed long in his room, just long enough to serve him a meal and putter while he ate. When she wasn’t there, he would hear her down the hall talking to Daniel, or downstairs, rattling pans in the kitchen below.

That afternoon he had pulled himself over to the edge of the bed and tried standing. Able to walk to the window, he had stood there in the nightshirt she had insisted he wear, watching her hang out the wash. She stretched up on tiptoe to reach the high line, and each time she did, the breeze would mold her skirt to her long legs, her bodice to her breasts. Then she would bend over the laundry basket, pull out another piece, and repeat the process.

At one point, as if she sensed someone was watching, she paused and looked around. As she turned her head to look up toward the window, he quickly stepped back so that she would not see him. He stood there beside the window frame with his back pressed against the wall, his heart beating like a racehorse’s, feeling like a randy, inexperienced youth.

Now, moving toward the light, he leaned against the door jamb when he reached the boy’s room where she sat on the edge of Daniel’s bed. Lamplight ignited the auburn highlights in her hair, a sharp contrast to her faded powder-blue robe. Only the hem of her white nightgown showed where it teased her bare feet. He could hear her speaking in low, warm tones to Daniel. The sound of her voice was haunting, unforgettable.

It was a homey picture—warm and cozy—the woman and the boy sitting with their heads together, looking at something Daniel held in his hands. It was the kind of scene in which he had always longed to see Becky with their son, but she never had an instinct for mothering any more than she had for being a wife.

As Reed watched Kate, he tried hard to forget that it was he who used to tuck the boy in at night, he who told his son bedtime stories, sang him songs and kissed his tender cheek.

As he strained to hear Kate’s soft words, he pitied her in her efforts. Didn’t she know that no matter how well she scrubbed him, no matter how nice she dressed him, that Daniel had a Comanche heart now?

Given half a chance, he would cut their throats.

She could pamper him and coddle him, but the shuttered sullenness in Daniel’s eyes would not disappear until he returned to the people he believed to be his true family.

A weathered woven basket stood on the floor, tucked beside her bare feet. It yawned open and empty. Reed took a good look at the things on the bed and table, felt his heart jump to his throat and stick there like one of her bad biscuits. He was appalled by a sudden, fleeting ache to have the years roll back when his gaze touched each object again. The wooden horse. The silver baby cup. The star quilt that had once been his own. Chunks of the past resurrected. Painful memories come back to haunt him.

Memories he thought long buried, along with painful images of Daniel toddling across the floor, dragging the quilt behind him. Recollections of the night he had gone outside to search for the lost horse so that the little boy would stop crying and go to sleep. The day Daniel was born, his father presented them with the engraved cup.

The memories hit him harder than the bullet he had taken in the shoulder.

Kate, still unaware of his presence, spoke a little louder to the boy, and Reed heard her.

“
Mama.
That’s your mama. Can you say
Mama
?”

When Reed realized Daniel was holding a photograph, he stopped breathing.

Without warning, the boy erupted and threw the picture case across the room where it hit the wall. The glass shattered, and the front of the case broke off its hinges. Daniel started shouting, cursing at Kate in Comanche. His face turned scarlet with anger as he shook uncontrollably.

Reed crossed the room before he even knew he had moved. Both the woman and the boy jumped at the sound of his voice. “What in the hell were you thinking?”

Kate leapt to her feet. Reed sidestepped her, picked up the pieces of the photograph case, glanced at the likeness of Becky and the boy, and then tossed it on the bed. Daniel moved his good leg and kicked everything to the floor.

Kate stood perfectly still, unwilling to give ground. “Sofia gave me some things she had saved for Daniel. Some of his baby things. I was just showing them to him.”

Reed glanced down at Daniel. No longer the sweet innocent toddler in the photograph, he had melted back against the huge pillows. His posture betrayed his fear, but there was still simmering anger in his blue eyes. In them, Reed saw the hatred and defiance he had shown his own father.

“I thought that seeing these things might help him remember,” she said.

“Remember what? The night his mother blew her brains out?”

The spinster was shaken but not deterred. “His life before he was captured. His things. His mother. And . . . and you. Or don’t you care if he remembers you?”

“What I care about is none of your business.”

He had cared once, about everything, and all that had brought him was hurt.

He wished she were wearing one of her worn, shapeless brown dresses instead of the nightgown, wished that the essence of roses wasn’t filling his head, calling flashes of memory to mind, confusing the situation. He wished he weren’t standing close enough to feel the warmth emanating from her, to see the pulse point beating at the base of her throat.

He let his gaze wander to the opening of her robe, watched her full breasts rise and fall beneath the white cotton gown.

When he looked into her eyes again, he was afraid of falling into them, of losing himself. Her eyes were wide and guileless, openly staring back, filled with uncertainty and confusion. More than that, he saw her bottomless hope—hope that things would change, hope that she would awaken to find it had all been one great lie, that everything was really the way she believed it would be when she boarded the train in Maine.

Involuntarily, his hand closed over her arm. He had to get away from Daniel, with his long Comanche hair and the haunting familiarity of his eyes. Before he could change his mind, he pulled Kate into the hall.

“I don’t want you getting close to him,” Reed told her once they were by themselves.