Her laughter was most welcome. “No,” she told him. “You confessed no such thing, although that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” She shrugged. “Do you see my dilemma?”
“No,” he said. “Not unless you’re falling in love with me. Then it would be extremely problematic for me to have a wife and children. I don’t, though.”
“How do you know?” she said.
Because if I did, I wouldn’t feel this way about you, he wanted to say. Instead he offered a smile. “Don’t you think that a vow like that and a love that produces a family would be something that would never leave a man? Even if he cannot remember the specifics, he would remember they exist.”
He looked over at her. “You look doubtful.”
“That is because I have been doubting you ever since you floated up on Valmont land full of shotgun holes and trying to die on me. I have doubted who you are, doubted what you were doing there, and doubted where your allegiance lies. Clay Gentry, I am extremely tired of doubting.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
Her green eyes narrowed. “Are you making a joke?”
He was, but Clay had the distinct impression that his timing was not the best. So he improvised. “No, it does sound, well … exhausting.” He shook his head. “Yes, I was trying, but I failed. Look, Ellis, I am bad at this. I’m willing to read your notes now or wait until we make camp for the evening. You decide.”
She looked away and then returned her attention to him. “Now.”
“All right.” He steered the wagon to a shady spot where he could water the horse.
Ellis climbed into the back of the wagon and pulled a book out of her bag. She turned around to pass it to him but kept her hand on it.
“Have you changed your mind?”
Shaking her head, she tightened her grip. “Understand that I wrote down things in no particular order. At first I wasn’t keeping track of what you were saying because you were so ill. And we didn’t think you would survive.” She shrugged. “When I realized you were saying things that could be important—if they were true, that is—I did not write them down so that you could read them later.”
“No?”
“No.” She paused and released the book. “I wrote them down because I thought you might be some kind of spy and I would need to tell someone about you. If you lived, that is. And then I thought maybe there were others like you out there and someone ought to be told and then …” Ellis took a breath. “Oh, never mind. Just turn all the way to the back of the book and start there.”
Clay turned the book over in his hand and then took note of the title. “You wrote the things I said in the back of your book of psalms?”
“It was all I had. I’ve been memorizing Psalm 91, or trying anyway, so when it was my turn to sit with you in the barn, I brought this book. I like making notes to help me memorize, so that is why I was able to do all of that writing when you were saying those things.”
“Those things?” he repeated as he turned to the back of the book. “Were they so peculiar that you didn’t believe they were true?”
“Not exactly peculiar.” Ellis nodded toward the book of psalms. “Just see for yourself.”
Ellis sat very still as Clay read her notes. A few times he asked what a word was, but otherwise he sat still and read in silence.
When he was done, he closed the book and handed it back to her. Then he picked up the reins and set the wagon in motion again.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” she demanded when she realized his intention to remain silent.
“No.” He kept his eyes on the road and a tight hold on the reins, not sparing her a glance.
“No?” She shook her head. “Did you read it all?”
“I did,” he said calmly.
“All right.” She waited a moment and then tried again. “You have an important job, Clay, and I have kept that from you. The meeting you have in a few days could mean the difference in winning the war.”
Clay shook his head. “First, I doubt that. Yes, I believed I had to be at Mission San Jose on November 18th. That is true.” He spared her a glance. “But how much of that came from something else that got mixed up in my mind? I don’t know if you’ve ever taken any of those herbs you use to make people sleep, but they are powerful. Isn’t it possible that what I said—all of those claims I made—were caused by what I had taken?”
“Anything is possible with a head injury, but—”
“But now that I have read all of that, I am more convinced than ever that there never was any secret mission. I’m just a man who believed in a cause and joined up with the Greys in order to put some action into that belief.”
Stunned, Ellis sat back against the seat. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been worried about losing you to the mission, then. We can forget going to Mission San Jose and proceed to San Antonio de Béxar to find Thomas.”
“Exactly,” he said.
They rode in silence until it was time to stop again. While Clay watered the horse, Ellis took a walk. Somehow she had gone from disbelief to doubt to worry and now this. It was all too much.
The longer she walked, the less sense any of this made. Did Clay truly believe all of that was the ranting of a mind influenced by her sleeping medication? Surely he did not.
She stopped short.
No. Of course not. Ellis smiled. All of that was correct, and he was just trying to keep her from seeing the truth.
She picked up her pace as the knots in his story unraveled. If a man came to Texas as a soldier and had a secret mission to complete, he certainly would not want anyone to know about that mission. If he happened to be wounded before he could finish what he had come to do, then how would he handle that?
“He would keep the mission secret until the time came for him to complete it, even if that meant pretending to have forgotten everything.”
“That’s very clever, but you’re completely wrong.”
Ellis stopped short and then whirled around to see Clay walking toward her. Until now she hadn’t taken the time to notice how very handsome he looked in his uniform.
How very much like a soldier on a mission.
“Why are you following me?” she demanded. “Don’t you have something to do back at the wagon?”
“I am following you because you’ve been gone the better part of half an hour and have walked a very long way away from the wagon and you are completely alone and without a weapon.” He shook his head. “Are you aware that the enemy could be hiding anywhere in these hills?”
Ellis touched her rebozo. “I have a knife in here.”
“Considering I was able to walk right up behind you without you noticing, how well do you think a knife hidden in your scarf would work on a man who meant to harm you?”
“You know what, Clay Gentry, any man who tried to harm me would be very sorry.” With that, she walked around him and stormed back toward the wagon. Unfortunately, he easily caught up to her.
“I guess I did pretty good work on your injuries,” she said when he fell into step beside her. “Between the hole in your leg and the bullet in your shoulder, you certainly couldn’t move this fast a few weeks ago.”
“Thank you for that.” He stepped in front of her, causing Ellis to stop or slam into him. “Truly,” he repeated. “Thank you.”
She looked up into his eyes and saw sincerity there. “It is what I do,” she said simply. “I am glad you lived.”
“So am I.” He grasped her gently by the shoulders and offered a smile. “About those things I said …”
“So you do believe you said them?” she asked.
“I do,” he said. “But those were the words of the man I used to be. I don’t know that man, at least not fully, but I know who I am today. And today I am a man who keeps his promise. We will find your brother. Then I will go to Mission San Jose.”
“Oh.”
The grip on her shoulders softened but his hands remained. “I keep my promises, Ellis.” He steppe
d back with a grin. “Now if you are finished delaying our mission with your walk, I would like to get a few more miles down the road to San Antonio de Béxar before we make camp for the night.”
She shook her head. “Our mission?”
“It is now,” he said. “Come on. Your leisurely stroll is costing us valuable time.”
Ellis gave him a sideways look and then picked up her pace. Of course, he matched it.
So she walked faster. So did Clay.
With the wagon in view, she picked up her skirts and raced toward it, arriving a split second before him. As Clay landed against the wagon, she raised her hands in victory.
He leaned against the rough wood with a half smile. “Oh sure, you enjoy that victory. You beat a man with holes in him.”
Ellis quickly sobered. “Oh Clay, I’m so sorry. You seem so healthy and recovered that I forget I had to patch bullet holes in that uniform you’re wearing. Are you hurting?”
“Only my pride,” he said as he lifted her up onto the wagon seat. “I had no idea you could run that fast.”
“I grew up with brothers,” she said. “Three older and two younger. Of the older brothers, only Thomas survives.”
He nodded. “All the more reason to bring him home.”
The remainder of their trip to San Antonio de Béxar passed quickly, with Clay guiding the wagon within view of the city on a cool November afternoon just two days before he was due to make the trek to Mission San Jose. “Wait here,” he told her, “and I will go and see how things are at San Antonio de Béxar.”
She opened her mouth to protest and then thought better of it. A nod sufficed for an answer as Ellis watched Clay walk away in his Greys uniform with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Had she not known better, she would think he was marching off to war.
Clay walked into San Antonio de Béxar as if he was marching off to war. Searching the streets as he made his way along, he looked for men wearing his same uniform. Men who would have been arriving alongside him on that beach in Velasco.
He found the streets fortified and trees cut down. The sound of a cannon alerted him to dart to safety even as he continued his trek toward the mission. Men were racing about, some filling cannons and others bringing supplies or aiming weapons at the old church.
He stopped a man dressed in homespun clothes. “What is the situation?”
The man looked him up and down and then shook his head. “You’re one of those Greys. You ought to know there’s a meeting to be held up at Mission San Jose. Your fellows are joining up with the Texians there.”
Clay shrugged to cover his astonishment. “How do you know this?”
“We’ve all been waiting for them,” he said. “Old Cos, he’s running scared. He knows we’re about to make him surrender. He wants to be gone from here before the next wave of troops arrive.”
“I wonder how the prisoners are faring.”
“I’d say they’re faring much better than the Mexican soldiers.” The soldier shrugged. “The general wants to bargain his way out of here, and the only thing he’s got to bargain with are those men he is holding. Only a fool would harm them. Like as not they’re being fed and catered to well away from the cannon fire. Safer in there than out here as it were.”
“I appreciate the information,” Clay told him. “I’m looking for a fellow by the name of Thomas Valmont. The word we received is that he was taken prisoner at Goliad.”
He nodded toward the church. “Then he’s either escaped or is held in there. We’re about to take the church, so you’ll likely see him soon if he’s in there.”
Another volley of cannon fire prevented further discussion. Clay made his way back to Ellis to share what he was told.
“So we cannot get into the church to search for him?” she asked.
“Not unless you can figure out how to get behind enemy lines into a church that is under attack by our own forces.” He paused. “The good news is if he is indeed in there, he will remain safe until the negotiations for General Cos to surrender are complete and then he will be released.”
She sighed. “Then there is only one thing to do. We go to Mission San Jose and wait for word that the Alamo is back in Texian hands.”
Clay nodded and turned the wagon in the direction of the mission. Just under seven miles away, the mission also sat along the banks of the San Antonio River. They rode in silence with the occasional sound of cannon fire echoing behind them. A few hours later, the spire of Mission San Jose came into view.
Clay drove the wagon up to the mission and under the archway that allowed access to the city-sized walled area of the mission. There he found an active community of citizens strolling about as if a war was not raging just down the river.
To his right were rows of small dwellings built right into the thick stone walls. To the left, barracks and other more utilitarian spaces had been situated. The church building loomed directly ahead, and in the immense space in the center of the plaza were men and women going about their daily work.
Behind the church were more buildings hidden by a wall decorated by an arched walkway. There he saw several groups of men in uniform, though none bearing the colors of the New Orleans Greys.
After situating the horse and wagon, Clay escorted Ellis toward the imposing edifice that constituted the main church building. “Who are we looking for?” Ellis asked as she stepped through the massive wooden doors.
“I have no idea,” Clay admitted. “But someone here must know what’s about to happen.”
“You there,” someone called from the plaza.
Clay turned around to see a man in the cloaks of a padre hurrying toward him. The man gestured for him to follow, and together they walked across the plaza to pause beneath the arched walkway.
“You are early,” he told Clay as Ellis hurried to catch up to them. “And who is she?”
“She is under my protection,” was all he was willing to say as he studied the old man’s face. With skin darkened by the sun and a black beard heavily speckled with grey that hid most of his face, the man could indeed have been a padre.
The man thought a moment. “Then she is also under mine.”
“Thank you.” Clay motioned for Ellis to join them. “This is Miss Valmont. She is in search of her brother who has been rumored to be held prisoner by the Mexican army, possibly at the Alamo.” He returned his attention to the priest. “And you are?”
“A friend.” The older man smiled. “Miss Valmont, I will send a man to find your brother. What is his name?”
“Thomas Valmont,” she said. “And thank you very much.”
After a nod in response, he continued, “In the meantime, please be my guest here at the mission.” He lifted his hand, and three of the soldiers hurried to his side. “Make Miss Valmont comfortable, and put out word that I am seeking news of a Thomas Valmont who may be held by the Mexicans at the Alamo.”
Clay stepped in between Ellis and the soldiers. “Where do you propose to take her?”
“The women’s quarters,” the old man said. “She will be safe. But why don’t you go along with them to assure yourself of that? I will wait here.” He ignored the man to look down at Ellis. “We do not have to stay here.”
“That is true.” She touched his sleeve. “But I trust you. Go and do what you think is right. I will be safe here. After all, it is a church.”
He wanted to remind her that battles were just as often fought at churches as they were anywhere else in this war. Wanted to add that the Alamo was also a church.
Instead he nodded and then looked back at the padre. “I will go to see her settled in.”
“And I will wait,” was his response.
Clay grasped Ellis by the elbow as they followed the soldiers along the arched walkway and then turned to step out into a small courtyard lined with what appeared to be apartments. The soldiers led them up the stairs and then opened the door to a room that would equal any inn of quality.
When the soldiers stepped awa
y to allow entry, Clay released Ellis and they both walked inside. “What do you want to do?” he asked her in a voice soft enough to prevent their escorts from hearing.
“I want to find my brother,” she whispered. “And I want a bath, clean clothes, and a very long nap in an actual bed.”
Clay laughed. “Well, it appears you will do fine here.” He turned to instruct the soldiers where they could find Ellis’s things and then requested they be delivered to her.
The men hurried away, leaving Clay alone with the green-eyed woman. “I cannot promise when I will return,” he told her. “But I will return for you.”
She smiled. “Goodness, Clay, we sound like an old married couple.”
In that moment, he allowed the briefest thought of what it might be like to come home from war to a woman like Ellis Valmont. Life with her would be a trial and an adventure, both of which just might suit him well.
“That is not the worst thing you’ve said to me,” he told her.
And then, defying all logic, he kissed her.
Ellis gasped, and he quickly released her. Before he could apologize for his clumsy and idiotic actions, she fell into his embrace again.
“I don’t know what came over me,” he told her. “I had no right to—”
“Don’t you dare apologize or I will think you were taking advantage and not expressing something of what you were feeling.”
He shook his head. “I would never take advantage of you, Ellis.”
“Good,” she said in that matter-of-fact way she had of putting difficult things into perspective. “Promise me you’ll come back and kiss me again like that, and I will believe you,” she told him.
“Still doubting me?” he asked lightly. “I am only going downstairs to speak to the padre. You act like I am not coming back.”
“Clay,” she said as she looked up at him with all humor now gone from her face, “you and I both know that is a distinct possibility. I want you to take this and wear it. I have no need of it here.”
The Alamo Bride Page 19