There was a lantern burning on the worktable beside the stove, and Landry cast a glance over the floor to make sure he wasn’t throwing a shadow. He saw Miranda’s reflection in the glass of the window across the room, and Houghton’s, along with the faintest suggestion of his own, and held his breath.
Miranda was standing only a few feet from Houghton’s chair, and she was directly in the line of fire between the center of that bastard’s heart and Landry’s rifle. He willed his wife to step aside, willed it so hard that for a moment he was afraid he’d actually spoken aloud.
A horse nickered outside.
“What’s that?” Houghton asked. He was quick, that one.
Miranda’s arms were folded. “I reckon it was a horse,” she said, and if she was afraid, there was nothing in her voice to indicate as much. “My husband’s back, I guess. You’d better start saying your prayers.”
Under any other circumstances, her audacity would have made Landry smile. As it was, he was too worried about keeping her alive to be amused. He knew he cared for her, that was plain by the way his gut was wound up around itself, but they’d sort that out later, when he’d dealt with Houghton.
Houghton went toward the window, taking the pistol with him. That must have been when he saw Landry’s almost transparent image in the glass.
He whirled and in an instant the air was singing with bullets, Landry’s, and Houghton’s as well. Landry heard Miranda scream, heard the baby wailing in fright somewhere nearby, watched as the other man dropped to the floor, bleeding from the shoulder.
Landry was wounded himself; he wasn’t sure where, though he’d bet on his ribs being cracked, and didn’t give a damn. He crossed to Houghton and kicked the handgun out of his reach.
Miranda stood staring at him, both hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes big as pie tins. “You’re shot,” she sobbed. “Oh, Landry, you’ve been shot—”
“Hush,” he said, as Jamie and Marcus poured into the room from the pantry, having entered, as Landry had, through the root cellar. Marcus picked up Houghton’s gun and held it on him. He was face-down on the floor, bleeding copiously, moaning and just beginning to pull himself up toward consciousness.
Miranda flung herself at Landry then, hurtled right into his arms, like a little cannonball, and he held her, even though it hurt. Held her tight. Thank you, he said to God, in the silence of his heart.
“Did he hurt you?” Landry asked, with the next breath. “Or the baby?”
She shook her head, her beautiful violet eyes brimming with tears. Landry would never forget the way she’d held up tonight; she had more courage than a lot of the men he’d known in his life. “But you’re shot,” she sniffled insistently. Poor little Isaiah was still howling.
“What should we do, Pa?” Marcus asked.
He didn’t so much as glance in the boy’s direction. “One of you tie up that polecat, hand and foot. Make sure he can’t get loose. The other, head for Springwater and bring back Trey Hargreaves.”
Just that morning, before church—Lord, it seemed like a lifetime ago—Landry and the other men had made an agreement that Trey would serve as a sort of unofficial lawman, just until they managed to rope in a real one. He’d been chosen because he had steady hands and a mean streak, as well as a storeroom with no windows and a door three inches thick.
“Let me look at you,” Miranda said, stepping back at last, pulling Landry’s shirt out of his trousers, clawing at the buttons. “Look at all this blood—”
The room swam around him, seemed to undulate, like a heat mirage in the field. He caught both his wife’s frantic hands in his, stayed her from undressing him right there. “Miranda,” he said.
She swallowed convulsively and stared up at him, speechless. He felt her shivering. “Wh-what?” she asked, after a long time.
“Go get that baby before he brings the roof down with his hollering,” Landry said. Then he let go of her, sat down in his chair at the table, and did his level best not to pass out from the pain.
CHAPTER
7
BY THE TIME Trey came to fetch Mike Houghton, bringing an exhausted Doc Parrish with him, the sun was high and Miranda had already cleaned Landry’s side wound and bound his ribs up good and tight with an old sheet torn into strips. He was asleep in his own bed.
The Doc came in and examined him, first thing, while Miranda hovered nearby, twisting her hands. Landry awakened and grinned wanly.
“Hello, Pres. How’s Toby?”
Doc smiled. “He’ll be fine in six weeks or so. Young bones heal quickly.” He cast a reassuring, sidelong glance at Miranda, and that eased her mind. “Near as I can tell, this bride of yours did a good job fixing you up. That’s a flesh wound you’ve got there. Your ribs are a little the worse for wear, though. You’ll have to take it easy for a while. No heavy work.”
Landry tried to sit up in protest. “I’ve got a field to plow under—”
“I guess it’ll just have to wait,” the Doc said, in dismissive tones. “Now I’d better go out there and have a look at that fellow your boys have got hog-tied on the floor.” With that, he went out.
Landry looked pale, lying there against his pillows, but handsome, with his rumpled brown hair, new beard, and soft, expressive eyes. While she was undressing him, her thoughts had been anything but romantic, but now that the danger was past, well, it made her warm inside to remember. He extended one hand to her.
“Come here,” he said.
She went to him, sat down carefully on the side of the bed. All of the sudden, her throat was so tight and dry that she couldn’t speak, didn’t even dare to try.
“Looks like we might have to put off that honeymoon in Choteau for a while,” he said gently, “but we’ll go, Miranda. I promise you that. Before winter sets in.”
She had to blink back tears; she loved him so much, and she’d come so close to losing him. The slightest turn of Houghton’s wrist, just a hair’s breadth to the left, and that bullet would have gone straight into Landry’s heart instead of creasing his ribs. She and all three of her boys would have been alone.
“I love you,” she blurted out. She shouldn’t have said it aloud, she supposed, but she hadn’t been able to help it any more than she could help drawing her next breath.
He was still holding her hand, and he raised it to his mouth, ran her knuckles lightly across his lips. His eyes were warm, with a tender look in them that affected her just the way a summer sky did, when it was a mite too blue to be borne. “I love you, too,” he said quietly. “I knew that when I saw Houghton’s horse tied up out there last night and realized that I might lose you. We can build on what we feel, Miranda, if you’re willing to give me, oh, say, fifty years of your life.” He grinned impishly. “Starting right now.”
Having said that, he drew her down and kissed her soundly, for the first time, right on the mouth. It made Miranda feel as though she’d just sat herself down on a shaft of lightning, spearing upwards through her vitals and exploding in the center of her soul like fireworks.
She was gasping when he released her, and surely flushed, too, since her blood felt hot. “My goodness,” she said. Tom had never kissed her like that; she’d remember if he had. Not that she could rightly recall what he’d looked like, let alone how it was when he touched her. He might have been somebody she’d heard about in a story, for all the substance of his memory.
Landry laughed, but his expression was ever-so-tender. He traced the outline of Miranda’s jaw with the tip of one index finger. “You move your things in here when you get a chance, Mrs. Kildare. You’ll be sleeping with me tonight, and every night after this.”
Miranda felt a swell of joy and anticipation. She didn’t figure Landry could manage much in the way of lovemaking, laid up like that, but just lying beside him, like a real wife, would be pure bliss to her. She nodded shyly.
Landry reached past her, to the bedside table, and when he drew back his hand, she saw that he was holding the wedding pictur
e he’d taken with Caroline, so long before. He seemed to be bidding the image a silent farewell, then he held it out to Miranda. “The boys will want this one day. Will you put it aside for them?”
Again, Miranda couldn’t speak. She nodded, trying not to cry.
Landry cupped her chin in one hand and ran the callused pad of his thumb across her mouth, setting her insides on fire all over again. His grin was both rascally and gentle. “Don’t,” he chided softly. “I’ll never give you reason to weep. You have my word on that.”
She leaned forward, let her forehead rest against his chest. It was a while before she could bring herself under control. “I’ll do you proud, Landry. I promise I will.”
He touched her lips again, made her want him, and desperately, as easily as that. “You already have,” he said.
“I can’t read too well,” she confessed. She didn’t want to mislead him, make him think she was smarter than she was.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
That was when Miranda knew for sure that everything was going to be all right, that, together, she and Landry would build a love with walls as thick and sturdy as any castle in faraway England. It might take time, it might take effort, but it would rise against the sky to stand forever, providing shelter and solace to them and to all their children, born and unborn.
*
When Mike Houghton had been locked up in Trey’s storeroom for a solid ten days, the U.S. Marshal came out from Choteau to collect him. He’d been implicated in half a dozen holdups, Houghton had, and the lawman said it was likely he’d be in jail for a long stretch. Long enough, it was safe to assume, for Toby to grow up and become his own man.
In the meantime, of course, he would remain with the McCaffreys. Somewhere along the line, he’d taken to calling Jacob “Pa,” and June-bug “Mama.” Nobody corrected him, and Jacob was like a new man, gaining weight, preaching a rousing sermon that first Sunday after the marshal took Mike Houghton away.
Winter was coming, and the snows would be upon them soon, but the people of Springwater were in high spirits, almost giddy with relief. Whatever affected one of their number, for good or for ill, affected all of them, in one way or another. They were a unit, a family, and growing fast.
Miranda stood with her husband that blustery day, Landry using a cane but already much recovered. The preaching was over, and they were waiting for the stagecoach. Its approach was clearly audible in the near distance, even over the excited talk of the folks gathered to bid Mr. and Mrs. Kildare Godspeed on their honeymoon trip to Choteau. Miranda, clad almost entirely in borrowed clothes, was so excited she could barely keep from dancing for joy. She had never in her life made any kind of journey just for the sake of pleasure.
Savannah, eyes bright with happiness at the prospect, was to keep Isaiah, who had taken well to the bottle, and Marcus and Jamie, somewhat subdued—Miranda was sure it was only temporary—since their latest brush with disaster, would stay right there at Springwater station, with Jacob and June-bug. Landry had promised them a memorable hiding if they got into any kind of trouble while he and Miranda were away, and since he’d laid one hand on a Bible when he said it, everybody knew he’d keep his word, even though he was not a man to administer harsh punishment.
Finally, the stage came, and it was empty, except for Guffy O’Hagan, the driver. He was a big man, with hair the color of ground ginger and eyes as brown and gentle as a deer’s. Even though he actually lived in Choteau, everybody at Springwater considered him one of them.
“Well, then,” Guffy boomed, remaining high up in the box, reins in hand, as Landry helped Miranda into the coach, as fancily as if they were two storybook people about to take an airing in a golden carriage. “So I’ve got me a pair of passengers after all. Thought I’d be making this run alone for sure.”
Landry paused to grin up at him, then hoisted himself into the coach and sat beside Miranda, laying his cane on the opposite seat. Ever since they’d declared themselves, one to the other, Miranda had shared Landry’s bed, but they hadn’t done much besides some kissing and the kind of touching that made the blood sing but never quite satisfied. Now, Landry was almost well, he’d made that plain in a hundred ways, and when they’d gotten to the hotel in Choteau and locked the door of their room behind them, he meant to make love to her. For real.
The trip did not pass quickly; it was a long, rough road from Springwater to Choteau, but Landry and Miranda had a great deal to talk about. They worked out how many children they’d like to have—three more, all girls—and what they ought to plant in the field Tom Bellweather and Scully Wainwright had plowed under for him while he was laid up. There were long silences, too, times when they just looked out the windows and watched the countryside jostle by, thinking their own thoughts, and that was as comfortable as the talking.
Some men, Miranda knew, might have taken advantage of being alone with their wives in a moving stagecoach, but Landry was a gentleman. It wasn’t, he told her, eyes twinkling with affection and mischief, that he didn’t want to strip her to the skin and learn every part of her. He’d do that on the way back, if they had the coach to themselves again, he warned, but he wanted their first time to be a little more leisurely and a lot more comfortable. He wanted to have her on a bed, he said, and he told her in great detail what he meant to do, and even outlined how she would respond.
By the time they finally pulled into town, when it was nearly nightfall, Miranda could barely keep from squirming, she was so aroused.
The stagecoach stopped in front of the National Hotel, where a man with a young and very nervous wife was waiting to board. Miranda overheard the man telling Guffy that their name was Barnes, and they were on their way to Springwater to start up a newspaper. They had equipment and a stake to put up a building, though they meant to winter over at the coach station run by some people name of McCaffrey.
Miranda smiled to herself as her husband squired her toward the open doors of the hotel. Jacob was right; Springwater was growing, and a newspaper would probably draw a lot of new settlers. They would make a point when they got back home, she knew, of paying a call at the station to welcome the Barneses.
The lobby of the hotel would have been rugged by Savannah’s standards, Miranda thought, and especially by Rachel’s, but to her it looked like a grand palace, with its horsehair settees, potted plants, and long wooden registration desk. Blushing a little, eyes downcast—surely everyone must know that she and Landry were on their honeymoon, about to go upstairs and, well, be there. Upstairs. Alone together.
She swallowed hard. Don’t let me faint, she prayed.
In good time, Landry had the key to their room, number forty-four, at the back, as requested in Mr. Kildare’s letter, the clerk said, and Landry took Miranda by the arm and squired her toward the stairway. He must have felt just fine, because he didn’t even seem to realize that he’d left his cane behind, propped against the desk where he’d signed the guest book with a flourish. Mr. and Mrs. Landry T. Kildare, Springwater.
The room itself was small, dominated by a large brass bed, but the spread looked clean and the sheets, white and clean, had hardly been mended. Miranda took notice of that when, as soon as a boy had brought their satchel up from downstairs and left with a nickel for his trouble, Landry immediately drew back the covers. He hadn’t even taken off his hat yet.
Miranda stood stiffly in the center of the room, which still put her within her husband’s easy reach, since she could almost have touched any one of the four walls from right there. Landry’s eyes, usually full of lively humor, smouldered now, they seared Miranda’s flesh wherever his gaze lit—at the hollow of her throat, on her mouth, on her full breasts, which were practically back to normal, since she’d stopped nursing Isaiah. Practically. They were still unusually sensitive.
Landry tossed aside his good, go-to-preaching hat, then his one and only suit coat. He was unfastening his celluloid collar, which he hated with a passion usually reserved for the territorial
governor, when he finally spoke.
“Get out of those clothes, Mrs. Kildare, and let me look at you.”
Miranda wanted him to look, wanted him to touch—with all her heart, she did—but she was nervous. What if he found her lacking in some way—in a thousand ways? She didn’t know much about lovemaking, or about pleasing a man, for all her supposed experience. Tom hadn’t expected her to do anything but lie there while he strained over her.
Trembling a little, she untied the ribbons that held her bonnet in place, and set it aside. Took off her cloak.
“Let down your hair first,” Landry said hoarsely, when she moved to undo the buttons at the front of her bodice. He’d stopped undressing after removing his shirt, to reveal the bindings still tightly wrapped around his middle, and his suspenders were hanging in loops at his sides.
Miranda raised her arms, pulled the pins out of her hair, so that it tumbled, heavy and rich, around her shoulders.
Landry made a growling sound and took a step toward her, and that was far enough, because there hadn’t been much space between them in the first place. He pulled her close, held her against his hard chest, and bent his head to take her mouth with his own.
Knowing there would be no stopping, that this time they would truly become one flesh, set Miranda’s blood afire. She moaned as Landry deepened the kiss, at the same time finding her breasts, weighing them in his strong, working man’s hands. He smelled deliciously of laundry starch, sunshine, and—even though it was early November—summer grass.
Nimbly, as though he’d practiced the motions in his mind a thousand times beforehand, he opened the front of her dress without breaking the breathless kiss, and Miranda felt a sweet, fierce catch, somewhere down deep, when he broke away to look into her eyes.
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