Summer Moon (14 page)

She had come to Texas with stars in her eyes, and her hopes had been dashed. He felt bad enough about what happened right now to see if maybe those stars were still there, banked like embers that, with a little attention, just might flare to life.

But he wasn’t a man to start something he couldn’t finish, so he forced himself to step away.

“I think I’ll go take that nap you suggested,” he told her.

He couldn’t tell if she was relieved or disappointed when he turned and walked away.

21

There were still three days left in May, but Texas nights were already so hot that Kate found it hard to sleep. She wondered how she would ever survive July and August.

She had taken refuge in her room with all her windows raised; a book of poetry she had found in the parlor bookcase rested open on her lap. About to give up and turn down the light, hoping that darkness might make the room seem cooler, she was reaching for the lamp when she heard Daniel yell.

Without taking time to grab her robe, she whipped open her bedroom door and started running down the hall. The deep flounce around the bottom of her nightgown billowed. Her long braid swayed like a pendulum against her back.

Loud, angry Comanche words echoed down the hall. She was about to rush into Daniel’s room but stopped on the threshold the minute she realized that Reed was already there.

Reed, in fact, was the target of the boy’s curses. Kate’s hand went to her throat. Daniel had somehow gotten out of bed and managed to crawl, hop, or drag himself over to one of the open windows. He was clinging with his arms looped over the sill, half in and half out.

Reed had the tail of the boy’s nightshirt in his fist and appeared willing to let Daniel vent his rage. “Go ahead and holler all you want, you’re not going anywhere,” Reed told the frustrated child. “I don’t think you really want to fall out on your head anyway. This is all for show.”

Kate’s first instinct was to step in and help him calm the boy but seeing Reed finally trying to deal with his son kept her from reacting. Knowing that she was running out of time, she had tried all week to get him to sit with Daniel, to carry a meal up to him, or to read to him the way she had started to do—but Reed had either refused outright or found some excuse not to be with the boy.

Fearing Reed would see her, she stepped back into the hall and let him handle Daniel’s rage, even though it appeared that his solution was to let the boy yell his lungs out. Every now and again Daniel would try to kick Reed away with his good leg while still clinging to the sill.

Charm came running down the hall half-naked with her curly hair standing out around her head. Kate took one look at the short black chemise that barely covered her breasts and at the girl’s long, bare legs and was speechless.

“What’s wrong?” Charm whispered, trying to peer around Kate into Daniel’s room.

“It’s all right,” Kate whispered back. “Reed’s with him.”

Charm rubbed her eyes and smiled a sleepy smile. “Good. It’s about time.” She turned around and headed back to her room without giving the situation a second thought.

Reed waited, not so patiently, until the boy slowly quieted, then Kate saw him reach down and pick Daniel up by his waist and none-too-gently deposit him on the bed. Then he went over to the open window, closed and locked the bottom pane. With a bit of pulling and banging on the frame, he got the window to open from the top, where Daniel could not reach it.

While Reed was moving from window to window in Daniel’s room, reaching up to open them and then lock the bottom halves shut, Kate stepped farther away from the door and waited for him in the hall.

She hoped that Reed would stay and talk to Daniel now that the boy was calm again, but almost as soon as the pounding stopped, he stepped out into the hall. He closed Daniel’s door and turned the key in the lock.

“Is everything all right?” Kate tried to act as if she had just come moseying down the hall.

One of his dark brows arched. She could tell that he knew very well that she would not have waited to see what was bothering her charge.

“Everything’s all right now. I found Daniel hanging out of the window. He had a fit when I tried to pull him back in, so I let him get it over with. He’s back in bed but not very happy about it. I opened the windows from the top so he can’t climb out.”

She was tempted to go in and see if Daniel was indeed settled, but she wanted Reed to have the last word this time.

Reed glanced back at the door. “We can’t keep him locked up forever.”

“He’s changing, Reed. He really is. Slowly, but surely.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t see it.”

“Because you aren’t with him enough. He lets me read to him. Charm sits with him and bakes him cookies, which, by the way, he loves. You would know that if you spent some time with him.”

He walked down the hall to the room at the end, one that had been his father’s office. She followed him, bound and determined not to let him ignore her this time. As he strode inside, Kate lingered in the doorway, watched him walk over to the massive wooden desk that shared stacks of papers and receipts with a fine crystal cigar humidor and a matching inkwell. A sterling letter opener lay amid the clutter.

She had come in once to dust, taken one look at the desk, and decided not to disturb anything and closed the door. Reed walked over to a tea cart beneath the window, where a collection of crystal decanters was gathered along with an array of glasses. He picked up a bottle of amber liquid, carefully laid the top aside, and poured himself half a tumbler full.

Kate watched him as he raised the glass to his lips and took a sip. He was still dressed, and from the looks of it, he had been seated in the deep leather chair, working at the desk earlier. He wore his hair long enough to tease his shirt collar. It was neatly trimmed, thick and dark. She found herself taking in every detail, from his height to his confident stance to the way his strong hand dwarfed the crystal tumbler.

Over the past week they had trodden carefully around each other. Over time she had grown used to being near him, used to the differences of living with a man as opposed to a houseful of women.

His footsteps were always loud and firm, filling the house with sound whenever he was about. His temper was mercurial. While recovering from his wounds, he spent his time lost in deep thought, his mind taking him places he was not willing to discuss.

Except for the attempts she had made at bringing him closer to Daniel, she had left him pretty much alone, but she was ever aware of where he was and what he was doing, whether he was here in the office or out in the corral with Scrappy.

“How did you know he was trying to escape?” she asked, still hovering in the doorway.

Reed turned with a startled look on his face, as if he had forgotten she was still there. Then he looked down into his drink as if the answer might be there. “I went to look in on him.”

“I’m glad.” Knowing he had made the effort lightened her heart.

He walked closer. “I’ve gone in to see him every night after he’s fallen asleep.”

“Thank goodness you were there tonight.”

“I meant what I said, Kate. You can’t keep him locked up in there forever.”

“I don’t intend to. In fact, I think we should try taking him downstairs tomorrow. He’s been here almost two weeks. If it was you or I, we might have tried to jump out of the window by now, too.”

He actually smiled.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“That I’d like to see you climbing over that window ledge in your nightgown.”

She gasped and looked down, felt herself grow hot with embarrassment, and crossed her arms over her breasts even though the gown was not transparent.

A modest, serviceable nightgown is a girl’s best friend.

Mother Superior had made certain every girl had two.

“I don’t think you need to worry about your modesty in that thing, Kate. You’re covered from neck to toe.”

“But . . . it’s my
night
gown,” she whispered, appalled at herself. Mother Superior’s hair would be standing out around her head if she could see her now.

“I’ve seen women in
dresses
that show more than that thing shows. Some women sleep in a lot less.” He tossed back the rest of the drink and set the glass down on the desk.

She thought of Charm and blushed again.

“Before I went to see about Daniel, I was looking through my father’s papers for a copy of the forged marriage document.”

“Did you find one?”

“No. I’m sure that his lawyer must have one, but Jeb’s out of the country. I’ll make certain that as soon as he’s back, he’ll start clearing things up.”

And then the marriage, even if it is false, will be over.

She was not fooling herself. There was nothing to bind them to each other now save a night of lovemaking that he could not recall and a stolen kiss, and yet, at times she found herself hoping that there could be more between them, wishing that he would stay and not go back to the Rangers.

Her gaze dropped to a nearby book stand where a small daguerreotype stood upon a stack of receipts. A woman’s face stared up at her. It wasn’t Becky’s. The woman was thin, almost gaunt, with light eyes that gave her a ghostly look in the picture.

“Is that your mother?” she guessed.

He nodded. “Her name was Virginia. She was from Georgia.”

She had learned as much from his father’s letters, but since Reed was opening up at last, she let him talk.

“She died when I was thirteen.”

“Was she ill?”

He shook his head. “Not that I could see. I blame my father for her death.”

She realized then that the burden of hatred he carried for his father was a far heavier one than she had first thought, that their troubles started before he met Becky. It was far too heavy a load to tote around now that the man was dead.

He continued without her having to question him. “She hated Texas. She was spoiled, a planter’s daughter who always had everything she ever wanted. My father, when they met, was quite poor. Her family thought she married beneath them and told him so. Later, my father loved to tell folks how after the War, her family lost everything and how he had become one of the richest men in Texas.”

“But if you were only thirteen at the time, then she died well before the War.”

“Thankfully, she died without knowing what happened to her family. She had four brothers, all strapping Irishmen—that’s what she liked to call them. I tried to write to them after the War, but I learned they were killed fighting for the Confederacy.” He shook his head, his mouth in a grim line. “I’m glad she didn’t live to see it.”

She leaned back against the doorjamb, content to let him talk, wanting to know more about him, about his life.

“She knew my father was making a place for himself here, so she never insisted that he take her back to Georgia, ‘back to the home place,’ as she called it. She had wanted ‘a passel’ of children, but she wasn’t a strong woman. She only had me.

“My father was devoted to one thing in his life, and that was Lone Star. When she finally came to realize that, it broke her spirit. She told me once that her love for me was the only thing that kept her alive. Eventually, she developed what my father called ‘female trouble.’ She was sad most of the time, real quiet. There was no one in town she ever considered on her social level, so she had no close friends. She spent a lot of time alone, staring out at the prairie. One morning she up and disappeared. Later one of the men found her hanging in the back of the barn.”

“Oh, Reed.” She didn’t know what else to say. He had lost the two women most important to him to suicide.

“Unfortunately, she had done a poor job of trying to kill herself, and she lingered for a day in agony. Her last wish was to be buried in Georgia.”

“Was she?”

“Of course not. My father buried her out by the old dog run where they first lived when they moved here.”

The old cabin that Reed had loved before the Comanche burned it to the ground. The very place he had later moved to with his wife and Daniel.

Kate realized then that he had a sentimental side after all and that he had suffered from more than guilt because of Becky’s loss and betrayal. His mother had left him, too.

She looked up, found him watching her closely.

“I don’t usually talk about her,” he said.

He walked over to the desk, stared down at the papers lying there, but she could tell that he was not concentrating on them.

“Is there much work here?” She indicated the desk.

He shook his head. “No. Not until Jeb gets back from Europe. I’m content to let things go on just as they did before and let the foremen run the ranch.”

“Surely there will come a time when you’ll need to be here to take care of things.”

He shook his head, drowning the spark of hope that he might stay and take over.

“I can’t stay here, Kate.”

“I understand why you would feel that way, but—”

“You still don’t think I should leave.”

“Your father’s gone, but Daniel’s back. He’s just a child. A little boy who needs a home and a family. He is either your son . . . or your half brother—”

“Don’t.” He held up his hand.

But Kate refused to be ignored. The boy’s welfare, his future were dependent on his relationship with this man. If she was going to do all she could for Daniel, she needed Reed’s help. “You can’t turn your back on him. He’s family, one way or another.”

“You don’t want to take care of him now, is that it?”

“That’s not it at all. I’ll stay as long as he needs me, but he’s
your
responsibility. He is the innocent one in all of this. He’s still the little boy you thought of as yours for three years, the boy you called your son until Becky put doubt in your mind. Can’t you find it in your heart to love him again?”

Her challenge went unanswered. Reed ran his hand over the back of his neck, wiped the sweat off his brow with his shirt cuff. The room was stifling, the night air still as death.

“I’m leaving day after tomorrow,” he said with finality.

How could she ever bring him and Daniel together if he left?

“If anything comes up, Scrappy knows where we’ll be camped for the summer.”

The summer. The whole summer.

“This isn’t going to help things between you and Daniel. You’ll have to start over with him when you come back.”

She could see by the look on his face that he had no intention of coming back. If he did, it certainly wasn’t any time soon.