"It doesn't matter, darling."
He was silent a moment. The fight seemed to go out of him, his eyes dulling. "It does to me." He turned away from her, curling up on the settee, stiff and unyielding.
"Jay—"
"I want to be someone's son."
"You're my son. And you always will be." Tears brimmed in Allie's eyes. Would she ever be able to make him see how much he meant to her? All those years she'd spent at the orphanage, she'd dreamed of a loving family to adopt her. To love her and care for her. Instead, she'd gotten Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Nielson – two of the vilest people on earth. It had not turned out the way she'd hoped.
But she'd made her own way, and when she left the wretched "home" they'd provided she took two things: Nielson's money, and her former name. Taylor. Allison Taylor. That was a secret best left alone. Now, she needed to deal with Jay, and with Brandon.
"I know I'm yours," Jay whispered, calling her back to the present. "But I still don't have a pa."
Chapter 7
Brandon lay between wakefulness and exhausted sleep, drifting in a gray mist of uncertainty. His fever was high, and his dreams shifted from burning alive to being trapped in a sudden winter storm.
When the snowflakes parted and the fires began again, he awoke with a jerk to find himself looking into the flame of the low-burning lamp, then Allie's concerned face, as she hovered over him.
He put out his left hand unsteadily to touch her cheek. She smiled at him, but there was a well of concern in her eyes that he didn't miss, even in his condition. His hand didn't quite connect with her skin before he dropped his arm back down to the bed.
"You didn't slip me…some laudanum, did you, Allie?" This weakness… He'd been hurt badly before but never felt so…disconnected from everything.
"No. Morphine. But it was Doc, not me."
The bed sank beside him, and then the soft satin of Allie's skin glided unexpectedly against his. Once she settled herself close to him, disappointment registered slowly in place of the sudden leap his heart had taken. She wasn't unclothed, completely. She had her chemise on, still. But of course, she would, with the doctor here, and Jay. And what she was wearing right now was probably too scant to be any kind of proper in anyone's eyes, anyhow. She might as well be naked. He wished she was. Although, there was nothing he could do about it at this point, anyway. And though the thought of lust for her was in his mind, right now the desire was absent in his heart. He found he only wanted to hold her, to feel her skin against his, sweet and warm.
"I wish you were naked," he muttered.
She smiled against his side, and his arm came around her, gently.
"I know. But this is the best I could do."
"You dare much, Allison." His voice was low, distant to his own ears. Drugged…
She giggled against him, and his lips curved at the sound of it; a melody long silent, but not forgotten. His heart would remember it, even if his mind was rusty.
"I don't think I have anything to fear tonight."
He was silent a minute before he answered. "You never have anything to fear, Allie. Not from me. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes. I know."
"Only…the others. They – they need to be afraid. But never you."
"The others…the men from town, you mean?"
He didn't respond immediately. Then, very quietly, he murmured, "They're dead."
Allie nodded against him. "They know it too."
Brandon gave a faint smile. "You showed 'em, Allie. You…looked so damn beautiful."
She raised her head, startled at his words.
He went on softly, not noticing her surprise. "You were an angel – an angel with murder in your eyes."
She smiled at his odd description. "That morphine is making you say things you might regret later, Bran."
"Bran," he repeated with a low chuckle. "You're the only one who ever called me that." He shifted, moving to find a cool spot in the sheets. "I like it."
Allie laughed softly. "I like it, too." She reached to touch his hair, feathering it away from his face gently with her fingertips to dissipate the heat of his fever.
"Why don't you say it?"
Allie gave him a puzzled look. "Say what?"
"'I love you.' Why don't you…tell me?"
His words hung in the air. Allie swallowed hard, watching him. His eyes were shut, his voice low and rough.
After a few seconds, he cracked his lids open and met Allie's searching stare. "I see it every time you look at me. It's…been there…forever, Allie. Why don't you say the words to me?"
* * * * *
The air sizzled between them, and Allie tensed. Then, she gave an embarrassed chuckle and looked down, unable to hold his intense, all-seeing gaze a second longer.
"Bran, that morphine truly is playing tricks with your mind."
He was silent a moment. Then, "I don't think so, Allison. I know what I see – morphine or no."
"Ten years between us, Brandon," she whispered. "How do you know the love is still there? We were kids—" She stopped herself abruptly. She had almost said too much – and for her, there was no morphine to blame. "We'll talk tomorrow when you're feeling better."
"I feel…fine." His tone was dreamy, though, and quiet. "Ten years…the same as ten seconds. It's still there. Always will be."
Allie patted him gently, finally finding her voice. "Go to sleep, Brandon. It's what your body needs right now."
"Huh-uh," he argued as she started to rise. "What my body needs right now…is you. Here, with me."
Allie lay back down, her head pillowed on his shoulder. "I'm here."
"What're you afraid of?"
She almost smiled at the seemingly unrelated question. But she knew him well enough to know he'd gone back to the earlier topic.
"Nothing," she whispered, nestling against him. How could she dare admit the one thing she was most afraid of, now that Brandon Gabriel had re-entered her life? She couldn't bear to think of losing him again – for another ten years – or permanently.
As if he'd read her mind, he took a deep, contented breath that spoke of a secret knowing. "Don't worry, Allie. I'm not gonna…run out on you…leave you alone. Just – make me well, sweetheart."
"Then what?" She couldn't help whispering the words into the darkness, hating herself as soon as the question was spoken.
"Then…I'll make it safe for you again. Clean out Spring Branch."
"Then…you'll move on." Her voice was quiet, tears suddenly stinging her eyes.
"What else?" He gave a brittle laugh. "Can't stay here."
* * * * *
Morning. Brandon felt the difference as the shadows of night slipped away, leaving the early gray dawn in their place. Allie was trying to disentangle herself from his bare limbs without waking him. He cracked one swollen eye open and felt her go still beneath him.
God, he'd taken possession of her in the night; appropriated the gentle curves of her body as his own full-length pillow. He realized that he lay on his left side, his right leg shamelessly thrown across her. Her head was nestled on his shoulder, his chin just at the top of her head. His right arm lay across the rise of her breasts, her nipples hardened beneath his forearm, with only the thin layer of cotton separating their skin.
She raised her head slightly, meeting his sleepy appraisal. When she smiled, it was like the rising sun. His heart took a funny tumble.
"Too heavy?" he half-whispered. He started to move, but Allie laid her hand across his bare thigh.
"No, don't move."
"I don't want to…crush you."
She shook her head against him. "You won't. It feels good. Right."
Hard, he wanted to add. He was fully, painfully erect. He'd been wanting her for a long while, he thought, even in his sleep. Longer, even, than that… For the last several years. Never should have left her there alone at The Benevolent Christian Home. Yet, if he'd stayed, he wouldn't have survived. And he'd have been of no use to her d
ead.
"I know something that would feel better," he teased. "And even more 'right'."
She giggled and rose up the scant inch between them to kiss his whisker-rough cheek.
He gave her a grin and brought his left hand up to touch her face, the laughter slowly fading from his bruised eyes. "Thank you, Allie."
"For what?"
"For sleeping with me." The seriousness came over his swollen expression once more. "You thought it was the morphine talking," he said huskily, "but I meant what I said to you…every bit of it. I'd sell my soul to see that look on Smith's face again when you pulled the trigger."
She looked down. "I wish I'd put that bullet through his heart."
Brandon shook his head. His words came out slow and rough. "No, you don't, Allie. You're no killer. You're like Mother Earth – the life-giver; the nurturer." He raised his right hand to touch her cheek. "I saw that in you even back when we were at the orphanage. You haven't changed."
A shadow flitted across her face, deepening her somber expression. "Sometimes, I wonder."
Brandon gave a low laugh. "That's one thing I can never say, Allie. I never wonder about you. You're steady as a rock."
There was a question Allie had had on her mind for ten years. It could wait no longer. "Where did you go, Bran? When you disappeared? I knew you couldn't stay there – not with Preacher Tolliver so handy with the whip." He didn't reply, and she settled herself back down, her head on his shoulder again. "I wish we had been able to at least say goodbye," she whispered, all the years of the pain of the uncertainty in her words. "I – wondered how you were. Where you were."
He toyed with a strand of her hair, not looking at her. "I was trying to figure out who I was, for the most part."
"And – did you?" She traced a lazy pattern on his forearm. "Figure it out, I mean?"
A quick grin touched his battered lips. "I think so. More than I knew back then, anyhow."
They were both silent a moment, and finally he asked, "And you? I've always felt – I shouldn't've left you there. Not after it was so clear where your sympathies lay," he added wryly. "What happened – after I ran out on you?"
He tried to make his tone light, but it fell flat in the wake of his guilty anxiety.
Allie didn't answer for a few seconds. She took her time, steadying her voice to get past the lump in her throat. She'd never realized he felt responsible…yet, she should've known. "First of all, Brandon, you never 'ran out' on me. I knew – I knew you had to leave. Eventually, Tolliver would've killed you if you'd stayed there any longer. I never thought that you deserted me. I understood." Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back, thinking of the horrific abuse that had been a way of life for both of them. "Of course I missed you, but – I knew, or at least hoped, you were safe somewhere. Anywhere but there. All that you suffered at that man's hands – I've felt guilty all these years. But there was no way to make it right. No way to tell you how – how sorry I was."
The catch in her voice was almost a sob. Brandon tensed at her admission. "Guilty? Why?"
She swallowed hard. "I took that piece of bread, Bran. The one you got whipped for."
He was silent a moment. "I knew that, sweetheart. I just never knew why. It was enough that you took it – you must've needed it. Maybe – you were hungry."
She bit her lip to keep her emotions in check. It was enough that you took it – you must've needed it. His blind trust in the reason for her disobedience nearly broke her heart, even now. "It wasn't for me. It was for Dickey Jackson. Remember him?"
Brandon nodded. "Lula's little brother. Whatever happened to him?"
"He died. A few days after you left. The bread was for him – to try and make him better. He wouldn't eat." Her voice was barely audible as she tried to hang on to her self-control. "He was dying, and they – they did nothing. We were trying to…to make him well."
"Poor little guy. He couldn't've been more than five, six years old."
Allie nodded. "I know. It was…well, we couldn't help him." She sniffed and looked away. "Of course. Being children, we didn't realize…" Her voice trailed away. "I never got to thank you."
"No need for that." He touched her hand. "I'm glad it was all for a good cause."
"You never did say where it was you went when you left." She changed the subject quickly. Dickey's death still haunted her, after all these years. The feeling of helplessness was something she'd never forget.
"I went back to my grandmother's house to heal. Just for a few days. Then, I was gone again." He said it as if it were nothing.
Allie gave him a piercing look. "I didn't know you had anyone, Bran. I thought your mother—"
"She died when I was eight," he said, almost curtly. "I lived on the streets of Kellyville for nearly two years until the good townsfolk rounded up the 'beggar boys' – there were about six of us – and shipped us off to the orphanage. We all had our 'crimes'. I was too Indian."
"Why didn't you live with your grandmother?" Allie asked softly, lying down again.
She nestled beside him and he smiled against her hair. "For that, I was too white." Before she could say anything, he steered the subject back to her. "What about you?"
She stiffened at the question, unable to stop the reaction. "I – eventually got 'chosen'. By an older couple."
Brandon hesitated. "Allie? What? Was it bad?"
She gave a rueful chuckle. "Well, it wasn't good."
"You can tell me, sweetheart. Anything."
She'd never told anyone about her time with the Nielsons. It didn't come easily. After a moment, she said, "Mrs. Nielson was ill. She didn't need a daughter – she needed a nurse. Which is how I spent the two years following my so-called adoption. I'd just turned sixteen when she died."
Brandon's throat tightened. Something had happened. He knew her well enough to read between the lines. Her hesitancy, her gaps in the story, the way she picked her words so carefully…
"And what of Mr. Nielson? What did he want?" Somehow, he already knew before she voiced it.
"A virgin. Someone he could – " She didn't finish, only snuggled close to him.
With a curse, he wrapped her in his embrace, holding her near, the rage filling his veins until it squeezed out the space for his blood. His heart thundered against his chest. He had abandoned her to monsters.
"What did he do to you?" His own voice was raspy with anger, and he made himself relax his hold on her.
"You said I wasn't a killer, earlier. Remember?"
He nodded, closing his eyes. "Yeah. I remember."
"But, I am, Brandon. I – I killed him. I didn't mean to, but I couldn't let him do what – what he tried to do. I was just a child. I didn't mean for it to happen." Determination replaced the sadness in her tone. "I'm not sorry. I'd do it all the same way, if I had to do it again."
Brandon let his hand rest on her hair, his fingertips nestled against the silky texture. "Tell, me, Allie. Tell me everything."
* * * * *
At first, she thought she'd never be able to say it aloud. She'd never spoken of it to another living soul. But Brandon was different. In spite of all the years that had passed, the bond they shared as children, born of an unshakable trust, was still there – strong as it ever had been, even through the passage of time.
Brandon's fingers twined in her hair gently, possessively, and Allie burrowed as close to his side as she dared, careful of his bandaged ribs.
He held her, letting his strength flow into her. His patient breathing comforted her, and finally, after nearly five years of silence on the event that had changed her life forever, she began to speak.
"Mrs. Nielson had been buried, and Mr. Nielson and I were on the way home from the funeral. She wasn't like a real mother – not like my own mother had been before she died…but she was kind to me in her own way. I always suspected that she might have had an idea about what – what Mr. Nielson had in mind for me, even before she died."
"Why?"
&nb
sp; "Just – the way her eyes followed me sometimes when she thought I didn't know." Allie shrugged, not looking at Brandon. "She was a sad person, but not just because she was so ill. She had to realize Mr. Nielson's heart – or lack of it.
"We were in Mr. Nielson's carriage, coming onto the circle drive of their estate. He hadn't spoken a word to me, so I was surprised when he asked me to meet him in his study in an hour."
Brandon shifted beneath where her arm lay across him, and she looked up to meet his eyes.
"I take it they were quite well off, from your description."
Allie laughed softly. "Yes, you might say that. They owned a beautiful old hacienda just outside of Santa Fe. My fa – uh, Mr. Nielson was an ex-territorial governor."
Brandon gave a low whistle. "Surely they had plenty of servants, then."
Allie nodded. "Yes, for the household. But both of them had an aversion to the Mexican women for – other pursuits. Mrs. Nielson wanted a white girl to attend to her personal needs – and, evidently, so did her husband."
"So, rather than paying for a white servant, they adopted one," Brandon observed quietly. "What happened when you met him in the study that day?"
She hesitated, then said, "I was scared. Mr. Nielson and I had never really said too much to each other, except – at the end. When his wife got so much worse.
"I knocked on the door and he called for me to come in…"
Chapter 8
Hiram Nielson sat behind a massive oak desk, a glass of fine port at hand. An extra glass stood beside it, poured and ready for his guest. He glanced up as Allie entered, his blue eyes piercing her soul as he watched her in silence.
"Come in, my dear." His tone carried a trace of irritation at her hesitancy. He motioned to the overstuffed leather office chair before his desk. "I don't bite, Allison," he sniffed. "Do sit down – we have matters to discuss, now that poor Lucinda is gone from us."
"I shall miss her," Allie ventured, taking the seat he'd offered.
His smile was brittle. "As shall I, my dear; as shall I. But, we must move forward. Carpe diem, as the Romans said; seize the day."
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