by Wynne Roman
Moments later, Mariah clattered into the room. “Smelling salts.” She held up a familiar-looking sachet. The family had long ago accustomed themselves to his mother’s fainting spells, or the vapors, as Carolyn herself referred to them.
Mariah held the small black pouch under his mother’s nose, and almost immediately Carolyn began to moan. “Oohh.” She brought the back of one hand up to her forehead.
“Relax,” Mariah whispered and leaned in close. “Just rest.”
Carolyn blinked, allowed her lids to drift closed for several seconds, but then her eyes grew suddenly wide. “Nathan?”
He pulled his dusty hat from his head and lowered himself to one knee. “Mother.” It felt awkward and made him uneasy, but what else could he do? He would never have called her something so familiar if his father hadn’t been dead.
Familial terms showed weakness, Jordan had claimed on Nathan’s twelfth birthday, and he had forbidden them from then on. Nathan wondered why Jordan hadn’t demanded the more formal Mr. Fairchild, as a show of respect, but he hadn’t asked. By then, he’d learned never to question his father.
Now, Carolyn stared at him, continuing to blink as though she didn’t trust her eyesight. He forced himself to wait patiently, a virtue he normally struggled with even on his best days. Today it proved to be damned near impossible. The simple, if long-overdue, family reunion he’d expected had been blown to smithereens.
Carolyn lifted a hand to his face, hesitating for just a moment before she began tracing feather-light fingertips over his cheek. Did she think he would disappear if she touched him? More fanciful than that, he told himself, was the almost tender glow he imagined in her gaze.
His mother rarely showed her love for another, not even his father. That had been a relationship of domination and subservience, with her only goal to please the man who had held the very reins of her survival in his hands. Jordan hadn’t approved of his children being coddled by such emotion either, so tenderness had always been in short supply at the Fairchild household.
Either Jordan’s death or Nathan’s miraculous return had apparently broken something free in Carolyn’s emotions.
“How . . . what . . .” She couldn’t contain her confusion. “Mariah?”
“I’m here.” His wife stepped from behind his shoulder, drawing his mother’s gaze.
“I don’t understand. He was . . . they said . . .”
“I know.” Mariah nodded, and when she spoke, her voice was soft. “There was a terrible mistake.”
“But . . .” His mother couldn’t seem to go on.
“I don’t understand it all myself,” Mariah agreed. “I’m certain we all have many questions. It’s best if we wait until we’re all together. Then Nathan can tell us what happened.”
“Oh, my baby boy!”
Nathan set his jaw against the strident cry, recalling the many times Carolyn had relied on that precise tone to get her way. He couldn’t see any perceived advantage to her now, however. Could that mean her wailing was genuine?
He lost track of his thoughts a moment later when she threw herself against his chest and began to sob. Immediately, awkwardly, he wrapped his arms around her, even as he stiffened against the contact. He’d rarely known his mother’s embrace, and it felt wrong now too.
A crying woman is never a good thing, uncertainty tried to warn him, and Nathan knew it was true. Carolyn’s histrionics had become legendary over the years. He didn’t begrudge her a few overwrought moments in this case, but how in the devil could he put a stop to it?
“Don’t cry anymore,” he said finally. He sounded gruff but did nothing to soften his tone. “I’m back.” He couldn’t quite say home. “I’m safe, and we’ll sort it all out.”
“Oh, Nathan!” she wailed, still clinging to him.
“Be quiet now. This isn’t good for you.”
He shot Mariah a somewhat irritated glance as the older woman continued to weep, prompting his wife to take a seat on the settee. She laid a hand on her mother-in-law’s back.
“Carolyn,” she said gently, “calm yourself now. You’re going to make yourself ill.”
Gradually the tears began to subside, and when Nathan would have pulled back, his mother turned her face to rest against his chest. She and Mariah seemed to be exchanging some silent communication when Carolyn finally sniffed.
“He’s home.”
“I know.” Mariah nodded, and though her smile looked somewhat genuine, he didn’t miss the underlying disquiet. “It’s a miracle.”
“A miracle,” Carolyn repeated.
“Now, why don’t you go upstairs and lie down.” Mariah stood, encouraging his mother. “This has been a tremendous shock. You should rest, and I’m sure Nathan would like to clean up a bit.”
“Of course!”
Like a child distracted by a shiny new toy, Carolyn perked up. She straightened and looked at him with bright if still somewhat watery eyes. “You’ll understand, won’t you, if I need to rest?”
“Of course.” Wisely, he said nothing more.
He stood, helping his mother to her feet, and then Mariah stepped in. “I’ll help you, Carolyn.”
“No.” A clear woman-to-woman message passed between them, though Nathan couldn’t quite interpret what it meant. Female insight had mostly eluded him in his adult years—lack of interest, he was sure—and he now regretted such disregard.
“But—”
Carolyn cut off Mariah’s dissent with a shake of her head. “Stay with your husband. It’s where you’re needed now.”
He caught his wife’s gaze and her hesitation. His mother’s words echoed.
Stay with your husband. It’s where you’re needed now.
But was it?
5
The Rancho de Sangre Real had a bathing room. Mariah knew of no other ranch house in any of the surrounding counties that could boast such an extravagance. Jordan had had it built for Carolyn before the war. No one knew quite why, but speculation had always been that he’d done something terrible, and the bathing room was the price for his wife’s forgiveness.
The room it occupied had once been a small bedroom intended for a maid or housekeeper. The Fairchilds hadn’t employed either for some years and, considering Jordan’s reputation with the ladies, Mariah had always wondered if that explained the something terrible. Whatever the reasoning was, the room had become Carolyn’s precious bathing room. Mariah had never cared about her in-laws’ motives; she had simply enjoyed the relative convenience of having a dedicated room for bathing.
Not that it was all ornate and fancy. It wasn’t. A decorative sampler cross-stitched with the words Home Sweet Home hung on one wall. A curtained window looked out over the crooked little creek that ran behind the house, but the fabric had been tacked down at the sides and corners so no one could look in or out. Ever.
Other than that, the room contained merely a large copper tub, a wooden table, and its matching chair. A small stove squatted in one corner for both winter-time warmth and heating the water. The most amazing thing about the arrangement was the drainage pipe that led under the house and angled downhill toward the creek. Only the biggest cities boasted any kind of indoor plumbing, and Jordan had had it installed here!
When she’d first moved to the Sangre Real and learned of the lengths her father-in-law had gone to in satisfying his wife’s demands, Mariah had known that Jordan’s perfidy must have been worse than simply terrible.
Today, she had the stove fired up to heat water, as well as carrying water she’d heated elsewhere. It was autumn, and heating water in the bathing room kept things pleasantly warm. In the summertime, however, when the heat and humidity could be sweltering, she preferred carrying water from the cookhouse. Located just behind the main ranch house, it became a relatively simple task to carry the water that had been heated on the larger cooking stove.
With the drain plugged, she’d already poured a number of large pans of heated water into the tub. She had several more
waiting on the little stove and now carried a large pot from the cookhouse to the house.
Heavy bootheels struck solidly on the hardwood floor, warning her of a man’s approach. She had little doubt that it would be Nathan returning. He’d gone to the barn to check on his horse and collect his belongings.
Had he done anything else? Anxiety crawled up her spine. She swallowed. Would he seek out Gabriel and—what? Ask questions? Demand answers?
The possibilities ate at her, but she had to put it behind her for now. She couldn’t reveal what she didn’t yet understand. She could only pray that Nathan hadn’t witnessed enough to be overly suspicious. Or, if he did decide to talk to Gabriel, that the Segundo would be discreet.
Of course he will! If the voice of encouragement sounded a bit frantic, she ignored it. She had to believe that. How could he even think about handling their relationship any differently? Especially now, when everything around her seemed topsy-turvy. Anything else would open a Pandora’s Box that no one was prepared to deal with.
And what will you say if Nathan questions you further? asked an anxious voice from deep inside her.
Oh, no. This wasn’t the time to invite anything less than strength and confidence. Fearful nerves would have to wait until she could be alone. To think. To understand the absurdities of life—her life—and how she could move forward.
Nathan was alive, filling her heart to bursting and confusing her to the depths of her soul.
She turned the corner from the back door just as Nathan stalked down the hall from the front of the house. He carried his knapsack over his shoulder and frowned when he caught sight of her.
“Here.” He snatched the container from her hands before she quite realized what he was about. “That’s too heavy for you.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
“You shouldn’t carry something so heavy.”
“I have to if you want your bath.”
“What?”
“I can manage. It is the biggest pot I can carry,” she admitted a bit sharply, “but I’ve lugged it in here many times. For my own baths and—” She cut the words off, regretting having gone that far the instant it was too late.
“And?”
How could she carefully phrase Carolyn’s self-indulgences? And why should she have to explain anything to the woman’s son? He knew his mother; he’d grown up with her.
“You know how your mother likes to, uh, pamper herself.” Her answer, when she finally spoke, was short.
“She has you fixing baths for her?”
“Yes.”
“Like you’re her maid?”
Mariah’s eye twitched, and she lifted one shoulder. “Nathan . . .”
He shook his head. “Never mind. I do know what my mother’s like.”
He said nothing more but nodded toward the door, indicating she should precede him. She did, and he followed her into the bathing room, poured the water into the tub, and then shrugged the knapsack from his shoulder. With a flourish of his hands, he dropped the empty pot and his pack onto the table. The dusty, wide-brimmed hat he’d been wearing quickly followed.
Mariah pretended to ignore him and instead busied herself with pouring the other two kettles of water into the tub. The vessel wasn’t full—they never filled it up completely—but certainly the water was deep enough for Nathan to bathe in comfort.
She turned to deposit the empty kettles on the table, only to discover that he’d shrugged out of his suspenders and begun to unbutton his shirt.
“Nathan!”
“What?”
She gestured in his direction and averted her gaze, only to discover that the door was closed. When had he done that? “Ahh . . .” she tried again, but couldn’t think clearly enough while he undressed like that. In front of her. In the middle of the day.
“What?” he said again.
She couldn’t ask him the awkward questions, so she took a quick breath instead. “I’ll leave you to your priv—”
“Stay.” His voice cracked around her like the flick of a whip.
“What?” Her gaze snapped to his as she said the word this time. Her voice sounded unnervingly breathless.
“Stay,” he repeated. “You help my mother when she bathes. You can help me, too.”
His demand rattled her nerves. “Help you bathe?”
He shrugged. “Why not? I’m your husband.”
“But I’ve never done that before.”
She sounded silly, and she knew it. But, how was she expected to think clearly when her breathing had gone ragged and her fingers trembled?
Memories of the many times she had been intimate with her husband darted in and out of her consciousness, swimming like fish in a pond. Their wedding night; the night he’d collapsed on her and slept for a few hours; the nights when he’d claimed his rights hard and fast, like he couldn’t be finished quickly enough; and the nights when he’d taken his time, almost as though he’d wanted to savor the moments.
The common thread to all those moments came in the form of timing. Their encounters had all happened at night. Under the cover of darkness and without the pleasure of tenderness, endearments, or even kissing. They had been passionless encounters during which Nathan had slaked his manly lust, and she had received him.
Other than appreciating his closeness, she had never received any pleasure from it. She had never once seen him naked.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone all shy on me now,” he demanded, his disbelief plain.
She closed her eyes just long enough to take a deep breath and straighten her shoulders. “You never came to me during the day, and certainly not anywhere outside of my bedroom.” She sneaked in another breath. “You definitely never showed me your body.”
“My body?” He barked out a laugh that sounded oddly frustrated as well as amused and strode closer. “Is that what you’d like? To see my body?”
“Stop it.”
He didn’t, not until the toes of his boots touched hers. His hand came up, two fingers tracing the apple of her cheek, the curve of her jaw, the slope of her neck. She swallowed and held herself still.
“Do you want to touch me, wife?” He sounded so seductive!
“Why do you call me that?” she snapped, ignoring his question and trying to pretend his hand wasn’t resting comfortably over her shoulder.
“What? Wife?”
“Yes. Everyone knows it already.”
“Do they?”
Pretense dropped, he stepped back and released her from his gaze. He tugged his outer shirt from the waistband of his trousers and finished unfastening the buttons. Tossing the garment to the floor, he removed his under shirt, and then stood there, his chest bare.
His shoulders were broad; he was not quite as well-muscled as he’d once been but still strong and powerful looking. The faint thought skipped through her brain that the deprivations of war and his time on the trail may explain his weight loss, but she couldn’t preserve that line of thinking. Instead, her attention stumbled over the sight of a smattering of wiry, almost coppery-colored hair that she remembered so well. It spread lightly over his chest, and Mariah drank in the sight of the only part of his body she’d ever glimpsed. It left her as breathless now as it had when she’d first seen him on their wedding night.
“Rye?”
His voice startled her, low and almost curious, calling her the childhood nickname only he and Tristan had ever used. Neither of them had called her that in years, and Nathan had stopped well before they married. Why use it now?
“What?” she breathed.
“Do the others know you’re my wife?”
The question was odd, both in the asking and the answer. How could she explain?
“Yes,” she finally said softly, forcing her gaze to meet his. “Of course, they know I was married to you. Am married to you. To Nathan Fairchild. What they don’t know is that you’re alive.”
He held her gaze, but his fierce gray eyes revealed nothing beyond i
ntensity. The familiar expression never ceased to disappoint her. It always seemed to put so much distance between them.
A heartbeat, two, even three elapsed, and then he blinked. “It’s time they learned I’m back.”
He didn’t look away, but instinct warned her of his movements. She blinked, glanced down without thinking, and discovered his hands had begun working at the fastening of his trousers.
“Oh!” The word came out as a tiny squeak, not worthy of her at all, but she couldn’t manage anything more substantial in that moment. Mariah spun on the balls of her feet and rushed over to the table. She snatched up both of the smaller kettles and announced, “I’ll fill these.”
She closed her eyes briefly, knowing her voice revealed far too much with its breathy, strident tone, but she couldn’t take it back now. She tried to make it better. “For your hair. To rinse.”
Rushing to the door, she had to stop long enough to fumble with the knob. The sound of Nathan’s laugh shocked her, but she couldn’t spare a second to let herself wonder about it. Instead, she let it chase her from the room.
6
Nathan wasn’t going to see Tristan until dinner. He expected as much and found some relief in the delay. Anything else would have been too much too soon. He needed time to adjust to the contrast of what he’d anticipated finding upon his return and the extremely changed reality of present-day life on the Sangre Real.
He counted on having those extra few hours work to his advantage. He assumed that Tristan wouldn’t know of his arrival until his brother rode in, and Nathan preferred it that way. They would meet up soon enough, and who the hell knew what that would entail? The years of Jordan’s bullying and abuse, coupled with the horrors of war that both men had witnessed over the years, could send things careening in any one of a dozen damn directions.
Nathan appreciated the wait in an odd, distant sort of way that he didn’t quite understand. After his little flirtation with Mariah, he’d bathed and then dressed in his only clean clothes before making his way to the bedroom. His bedroom, from the time he’d been a child. Their bedroom, beginning on the day he’d married Mariah.