The Beloved Woman (44 page)

“My wife’s safe from Salazar. That’s a load off my mind.” He hesitated, thinking. “Arid I feel like a part of my life has come to an end.”

“Oh? You are happy to see your life change?”

His eyes met Katherine’s for a moment. “I don’t know yet. I’ve got to ask some questions first.”

“Ah.” Adela cleared her throat. “I will say what I came to say and leave quickly so that you can talk with Katherine. You will have even more to discuss.” She looked at Katherine. “Your missionary companions? They are moving north. They say California has too many Catholics and not enough heathens.” She smiled wryly. “Although I think they are not sure which they want to convert most. But they are going. Good.”

“Good,” Katherine murmured. “They saw this beautiful land only as something to tame.”

“Do you love that wild valley they left behind? The Valley of the Sun?”

Katherine nodded and avoided looking at Justis.

“It is yours if you want it,” Adela said softly. She glanced at Justis. “For both of you.”

“How can that be?” Justis asked in amazement.

“A land grant from the governor will be easy to arrange for a nominal price.” She laughed merrily. “His pen will sign the deed pronto for five hundred of those Yankee gold pieces Katherine brought with her. My husband has already sent men to retrieve all her money from Vittorio’s safe.”

Katherine’s pulse was thready with both exhilaration
and despair. She could have a home, a home of her own choosing, in a place where she would be respected! But it was not Justis’s plan to stay in this remote part of the world, and she had already made up her mind to go wherever he asked.

She hid her troubled thoughts by idly studying a loose thread on the blue skirt she wore. “How much land?”

“How much do you want? My husband can ride the width of our land in three days. Would a rancho that size be enough for you?”

“Three
days
?” Justis repeated slowly.

“Well, yes, but that is riding from dawn to dusk,” Adela explained in a sheepish tone. “I did not mean to make ours sound like the grandest rancho in California.” She stood up, placed a hand on Katherine’s shoulder, and squeezed affectionately. “My husband and I would love to have the Gallatins for neighbors. You will let me know your decision soon, yes?”

“Yes,” Katherine answered, trying to sound neutral. “Thank you, dear friend.”

“
Gracias,
” Justis added, his southern drawl lending a honeyed slur to the words. “
Mucho gracias, Señora.
”

Adela applauded. “We will make you a Californio, I bet!”

Katherine followed her to the door and hugged her tightly. After Adela left she pretended to fiddle with the latch, thinking about what she was about to say.

“You want to stay here,” Justis said wearily. “I can see that. It’s the home you’ve been craving. It’s almost like an omen. You came from the Sun Land, so it seems right that you’d find the Valley of the Sun. You don’t need anything or anybody else. God, I wish you could love me the way I love you.”

Her restraint shattered. With a soft, garbled cry, she ran to the bed and knelt on the floor near his side.

“What the—” he began, startled.

She grasped his hand and kissed his battered knuckles,
then rested her cheek against them. She looked up at him with all the devotion in her soul. “I’ll make a home wherever you want. I’ll go wherever you ask me to go. I’ll be the best wife you could dream of, and I’ll raise your children proudly. I’ve always wanted to have them—half-breeds though they will be. If we teach them to be strong, they’ll do well in the world regardless.”

He shoved himself upright, his pain momentarily forgotten, a stunned look on his face. He grasped her shoulders and made her sit on the bed beside him. “What are you tellin’ me, Katie?”

“That I love you. That I always have. I knew it that day in Gold Ridge when you gave me a scalpel to cut you with. You told me to take out my grief and hatred on you. I cried because I knew I’d never find another man as special as you, but I thought we had no future together.”

“You love me?” he repeated, shaking her a little. “Do you know what you’re sayin’?”

She nodded. “I’ve had more than two years to decide for certain, haven’t I? But the hard part was that I knew for certain right away, and nothing could change it. Even when you were ashamed of me—remember back in Gold Ridge when you decided you couldn’t be seen with me in public?—even when I was mad and humiliated I couldn’t stop loving you. Don’t you see? For all my pride, I was a hopeless wreck.”

He gripped her shoulders fiercely. “I was never ashamed of you. I had a deal with Amarintha. She used her influence with Captain Taylor to get you into the stockade to doctor folks. In return I had to agree to act ‘respectable’ accordin’ to her rules. All those weeks of not seein’ you nearly killed me.”

Katherine made a sound of sorrow. “So many things came between us.”

“But … 
you love me
?” He still looked incredulous.

“I don’t just love you. I love you desperately, completely, and, at times during the past months when I
thought you’d deserted me for good, to such a miserable degree that I wished I could cut my heart out and feel nothing.”

He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” Half crying, half laughing, she ran a hand over his chestnut hair. “You shaggy, badly mauled hellion, I love you dearly and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He brought her to him and kissed her as best he could. She licked his mouth and made mewling sounds of pleasure. “We’ll go back to New York and start anew—”

“No. I’ll never belong there, Katie. I’ll never be civilized or respectable. I’m sorry, gal, I really am. It’s time I admitted the truth. I’m a wild Irishman, and I’m proud of it.”

She smiled at him. “I don’t mind your change of heart a bit. I’ve long suspected that you’d always be a wild Irishman. But where do you want to go if not New York?”

“Could you teach a wild Irishman to speak Spanish?”

The breath stopped in her throat. “You mean—and stay here?”

“Yeah. I thought … How would it be with you if we built a house near Mary?”

“You should know her real name.” Katherine leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Dahlonega. It’s the Cherokee word for gold. I wanted to honor her past—and her father’s past.”

He slid his arms around her. A quiver ran through his body. “Thank you.”

She placed loving kisses on the side of his neck. “Her real name is a secret between you and me. We are the only ones who know it. Yes, yes, let’s build a house near her.”

“Do you really want more younguns?”

“Yes. Do you?” she asked anxiously.

He chuckled. “As many wild little Gallatins as you can bear and I can manage.”

She raised her head and burned him with a look of sheer desire. “More children should be easy to accomplish, sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart.” He smiled, savoring the endearment, the first one they’d ever shared. “I’m lonely under this blanket,
honey.
”

She eased him onto his back. “I’ll be very, very gentle with your poor, battered self.”

Katherine stripped off her clothes and stretched out beside him, one leg draped over his thighs, her head on his shoulder. They held each other in silent wonder, both still stunned by the love that could be shared so openly now.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Justis whispered, his lips against her hair. “God, so many things to explain, so much I want you to understand about things I said and did.”

“No need to hurry.” She looked up at him with pure adoration. “I will always stand in your soul. We have forever to share.”

“Glory,” he said as her hands began to replace his pain with pleasure. “Glory.”

G
LEN MARY
. They both spoke the rancho’s name aloud as they stood atop a hill looking over the valley. “We’ll be happy here,” she told him.

He nodded contentedly, then reached into his trousers pocket and retrieved something. “I’ve got a present for you.”

She watched as he opened a small leather pouch. “Hold out your hand,” he said. When she did, he filled it with gold nuggets. “All straight out of the Blue Song property,” he told her gruffly. “I got ’em when I was in Georgia the last time.”

She curled her fingers over the magnificent gift. “They
have such power,” she murmured. “I can feel the Sun Land in them. Thank you, my love. Thank you.”

He hugged her and she cried a little, a bittersweet sound that made him kiss her hair in sympathy. “You’ll always miss the old homeland,” he whispered. “I know. But at least you’ve got some of its treasure—and something that ain’t so much a treasure—me. I’ll always love you.”

“My best treasure,” she said, smiling.

They kissed, then she drew her head back and looked up at him. “I’ve dreamed that we’ll go back there someday. It’s a very unusual dream, filled with people I don’t know, and yet I
do
know them. We’ll go back—or our children will, or perhaps their children. I’m not certain. It’s puzzling, my dream, but very reassuring.” She removed his gold nugget from around her neck and slipped the leather thong over his head.

He frowned. “Why did you give it back?”

“Because I want to share the spirit of home with you,” she said, touching the nugget as it lay gleaming against his shirt. “Because I never want to be apart from you again, and the gold is a talisman that will always lead us to each other if we’re lost.”

He kissed her tenderly. “Build us a future, gal. Weave it with your dreams. I’ll always be there.”

A breeze swept over the hillsides, whispering promises. The legacy of their love would reach far beyond the sunset.