Rising up on one elbow so he could look down at his precious wife, Alex leaned down to kiss her gently. “I almost wish you didn’t. If you love me, then what happens to me tomorrow is going to hurt you terribly. It’s a scar on my soul that I’ve brought this pain to you. One more thing I need forgiveness for.”
“Okay, I forgive you.” Beth lifted one of her strong, healing hands and rested it on the rough stubble of Alex’s face.
He hadn’t bathed in days, unless he counted muddy floodwater—and he didn’t. “I shouldn’t be near you. I’ve got no right to touch someone as wonderful as you. I shouldn’t let you touch me. Your pa was right.”
The room was dark with the lantern extinguished, but the moon washed the room in silver. Alex saw Beth, her skin cast midnight blue. Her eyes sparkling like stars.
“It’ll be settled tomorrow, Beth. And I will face whatever punishment they have for me. I am so thankful for the short time I’ve had as your husband.”
“Hush.” Beth rested her delicate, healing fingers on his lips. “We’ll figure it out, Alex. Don’t talk like it’s settled. Don’t give up hope.”
“I wish I could give up hope. It might hurt less if I didn’t have any.”
“Well, don’t ask me to give up. Because I will never give up on you, Alex. Not as long as there is a chance.” Beth pulled his head closer.
Alex resisted, feeling like he sullied her even by holding her close.
But Beth had been stronger than him from the beginning. She got her wish for closeness.
Alex didn’t get his wish to give up, because having Beth in his arms gave him a hope that would not die.
“Mandy, I’d like to talk to you outside, right now.” Sidney glared between Mandy and their guests belligerently.
“Care to tell me who Celeste Gray is?” She met his eyes.
His arms came uncrossed and the look on his face changed. Mandy wasn’t sure what she looked like exactly but it must have been fearsome because Sidney backed up a step. “C–Celeste?” Sidney’s stuttering told Mandy all she needed to know.
“Yes, she’s dead by the way. But then, I bet you’re not going to mourn your wife’s death, are you?” Mandy rubbed her thumb over that little callus on her trigger finger.
“Celeste’s dead?” Sidney had the wide-eyed look of a deer who knew he was shortly going to be venison.
“Yes. In fact it sounds like she died in time.”
“In time for what?”
“In time for our marriage to be legal.”
“Who told you about Celeste?” Sidney’s eyes went from Luther to Buff. He tried for a scowl, but it wouldn’t stick on his face when he confronted the two extremely serious men who now sat at Mandy’s table.
“What kind of a sidewinder courts and marries a woman when he’s already married?” Mandy couldn’t believe she’d said those words aloud. “It was all lies, wasn’t it? The chance for a job in Denver. You must have known we were leaving Mosqueros long before you announced it to me.”
“No. Mandy, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Celeste and I were never married. I knew her. But she … If she claimed we were married she was lying.”
Mandy held the letter up to show Sidney. “I wonder what my pa wrote in this letter he sent along with Buff and Luther.” She waved the letter. “It’s fat. Room for lots of details. Maybe even proof. My pa has never lied to me. Luther and Buff have never lied to me.” Mandy stood so suddenly that her chair toppled over backward with a loud clatter. “In fact, I’ve really never been lied to much in my life. That’s why I didn’t recognize it when lies started pouring from your dishonest lips.” Mandy ripped the letter open with a vicious wrench of her hands. The envelope split with a loud sizzling hiss.
“No, Mandy. Don’t read that. You’ve got to give me a chance to prove I’m telling the truth.”
Mandy pulled a heavy sheet of folded paper from the envelope, along with a thin letter. She unfolded the heavy document first and read it. “A marriage license.” She looked at the next thing contained in the envelope. A picture of Sidney sitting, dressed formally. Behind him stood a pretty, dark-haired woman in a gown that looked white. Both of them looked terribly serious.
“Those were found among her things.” Luther had such regret in his voice that Mandy felt bad for Luther. He understood how badly this made Mandy feel, and in his whole life, Luther had never caused anyone in her family a moment’s pain. “Your pa wrote a letter explaining everything. We’re here to take Mandy home.”
Raising her chin, she stared at Sidney.
Letting him see her anger.
Her sense of betrayal.
The—she faltered over it—the pain. It was as if her heart broke in half. She physically felt the agony in her chest.
“Mandy, please, you’ve got to listen to me.” Sidney was across the room in two long strides.
Scraping chairs drew Mandy’s attention, and she saw Buff and Luther standing, wary, ready to step between her and Sidney.
The humiliation.
Everyone knew about this. She looked back at Sidney. “You have disgraced me. Made a fool out of me.” Her eyes fell shut under the weight of it. “I can’t believe anyone is possessed of such a lack of honor.”
Sidney took the marriage license from her hands and she didn’t fight it. Why bother?
Mandy forced her eyes open to watch her husband squirm.
Sidney studied the parchment for far too long, and Mandy knew he was spinning his lies, testing them in his head before he spouted them at her. “This is a forgery.” He glanced up then away. Then he looked back, his gaze strong, his shoulders square. The man had learned how to lie very well, which spoke of much practice at the sin. “I’m telling you, this isn’t true. We had this tintype made. I can’t deny I knew this woman. But I never married her. You and I are married, legally married. I love you and I thought you loved me.” Temper flashed in his eyes. “I expect you to trust me.”
“Over my father? Over Luther and Buff, whom I’ve known and trusted all my life? Over my own perfectly good two eyes?” Mandy hated Sidney’s sincere tone, that injured anger. It broke Mandy’s heart yet again to know she couldn’t tell if this was the truth or another lie.
“No, I’m not saying they’re lying. They got this and they believed it. I don’t blame them. And your friends rushed up here to protect you. I respect all of that. I’d have done the same for my own daughter.” Sidney reached out and grasped Mandy’s wrist. His words were a stark reminder that they could indeed have a daughter on the way. Or a son. That was the way of married life.
“But they were fooled by this woman. Just like I was. I knew her, and for a while I thought we might be in love. But I found out she was a dishonest schemer and left her. She’s followed me before and caused trouble for me. Nothing like this, but it’s true that part of the reason I came West was because of her—her obsession with me. That’s the only word I can use to describe it.”
Mandy just didn’t know.
“That’s an official marriage license.” Luther spoke from his spot on the table.
Sidney gave Luther a single furious glance. “She’s very good at what she does. And she has enough money to pay dishonest men to do fine work for her.”
“A judge has signed it and it bears his seal.” Mandy could see that Luther still didn’t trust Sidney a whit.
Well, now neither did Mandy. How could she be sure of anything he told her, ever again?
Shaking her head, Mandy stood and stared at her husband, trying to see inside Sidney’s head.
The corners of his mouth turned down, his eyes shown with hurt. Yes, hurt. She’d hurt him by not trusting him. Or else he was a very good liar.
“There’s a way to find out.” Luther pulled Mandy’s attention again and she could see that Luther knew her mind. Knew her doubts. Knew her hurt and love and betrayal and wasn’t going to stand for her taking Sidney’s word for anything.
“How?”
“You stay out
of this.” Sidney turned a grim face to Luther. “You come in here with your lies and—”
“How!” Mandy spoke loud enough to shut Sidney’s mouth.
He turned back to her, forbidding and annoyed.
Mandy felt a strange kind of power in no longer worrying about making Sidney happy. He’d been prone to sullenness, and she’d worked hard trying to please him. Well, no more. It was now his turn to do some hard work.
“There’s a judge’s name affixed to that license and it’s from Boston,” Luther said. “We wire him and ask if he really signed this document. This looks mighty official to me—”
“Celeste is a skilled forger,” Sidney interjected.
Luther talked right over him. “And it’s not some small wedding in a church in the middle of West Texas, where the parson might be a circuit rider and have moved on and the witnesses might be few. Wire the city and have ’em check the records.”
Mandy turned to Sidney. “That sounds fair.”
“No, it’s not fair.” Sidney stepped so close he was nearly plastered against her. He loomed over her, bending down to glare until their noses almost touched. “You should take my word for this. You should trust me. We took vows, love, honor, and obey. You are not honoring me, Mandy Gray.”
Mandy almost laughed in his face. “I’m not honoring you? Even if you’re telling me the truth, Sidney, you should have told me about this woman. You’ve never told me anything about your life. You know what? That’s the reason I doubt you now. Because I know nothing about you. Why is that, I wonder?”
“I haven’t had an easy life. I don’t like to talk about it.” Sidney sounded pouty. Well, his pouting days were over if he wanted to clear up this mess.
“Maybe your life was hard.” Mandy didn’t bother to point out that she’d lived with her mother and sisters in a thicket for a few years after her first pa died. They’d had a tiny, rickety shelter and they’d lived on rabbit and fish and greens. Her life had been hard, too. And she’d told Sidney all about herself. “Maybe you don’t like talking about it and maybe you’ve kept quiet partly because of this woman, but what it adds up to is I don’t really know you. I spent the last two months listening to you be charming and sweet and flattering, but I didn’t hear a word about who you are. If you’d talked with me about your growing-up years, including the trouble you’ve had with some obsessed woman, we wouldn’t be in this spot right now, would we? To my mind that makes you a liar. Whether a liar about being married or a liar about who you really are, I’ll decide for myself after the judge writes back. For now, you’re going to have to sleep in the barn.”
So many things flickered across Sidney’s face Mandy could barely keep up. Anger, hurt, disdain, contempt. Love. He might really love her. And he was really married to her. But what kind of tragic excuse for a marriage did they have with all this unknown between them?
“I’ll do it, Mandy. I’ll move out of the house and we’ll send your wire and wait for your answer. I’ll do it all because I love you. But when the truth comes out, I’m going to make you beg me for forgiveness.” Contempt won over all Sidney’s warring emotions. He stormed out of the house.
Mandy realized he’d always looked down on her. He’d done it in subtle ways, but she knew now he’d made her grateful that he loved her. While he’d been charming her, he’d let her know in a hundred little ways she was lucky he’d chosen her.
Pa had known that. He’d never forbidden Mandy to see Sidney, but he’d pressured them to take more time before they married. And when Mandy wouldn’t listen, he’d pressured them to stay in Mosqueros, probably knowing it would fall to him to take care of his daughter once Sidney’s true nature was revealed.
But Mandy hadn’t listened to the wisest man she’d ever known, a man who loved her with all his heart.
And once she realized that, Mandy held herself in contempt.
Thirty
The four of them had plenty of time for breakfast—more dreadful stew. Then they had time to sit. Alex wound up tighter and tighter.
Clay had gone early to find the lieutenant and returned to say he wasn’t in his office yet and no one would dare bother him at his residence. He’d also sent a wire to someone back East he’d known during the War.
At Sophie’s urging, Alex cleaned himself up after breakfast. He shaved and washed up good. Clay even found a store on the base and, with Sophie along to advise, got clean clothes for Alex and himself.
Alex felt like a fool getting gussied up to go face a hanging, but the hours were creeping by so slowly, Alex agreed more to keep moving than for any other reason. Back in his room, Alex poured water from the ewer into the painted china bowl then removed his shirt.
Beth gasped. “What happened to you?” She came up behind him, where he stood in his undershirt with his hands cupped in the water of the water basin.
Alex let the water flow back into the basin as he looked over his shoulder.
Beth touched his upper arm, beside the strap of his sleeveless undershirt.
“A scar from the war.” He wished he’d never let her see it. He forgot about those scars for the most part. It was the scars inside his head he couldn’t forget.
Beth pulled the shoulder of his shirt aside then pulled down on his neck. Another gasp followed as she looked at his back. It was ugly. He’d neglected his wounds until they’d festered. He’d nearly died from them. They were rough and they covered his back and his neck, and there were more above his hairline and below his belt.
He turned to face her. “Forget the scars, Beth. They’re nasty but they’re all healed up, have been for years.”
Beth’s brow furrowed. “You told me you’d been wounded, hit by shrapnel, but I had no idea it was this bad.”
Shrugging, Alex said, “I didn’t know it either. Never have given it much thought. The wounds were long healed up without much attention from me. It’s the nightmares that came with the war that are my real scars.”
Beth pulled him close.
He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m so sorry I got you into—”
Beth silenced him with her lips. He felt her arms around him, touching his back and the deep ridges and gouges of his wounds. One more burden he’d laid on his precious wife.
When he pulled away, he hated to turn his back, knowing the scars would bother her.
She seemed to know it, with the sensitivity she showed in everything. “I’ll go wait with Ma and Pa.”
He nodded and she left the room, then he got back to cleaning up.
The noon meal had come, stew again, this time with the added bonus of being cold. There was coffee that tasted—crunchy.
Alex did his best to cover his nerves, to put on a good front for Beth.
“I’ve sent a telegraph home to Mosqueros tellin’ the family where we got to.” Clay grimaced at the coffee but kept drinking. “And I’ve asked the telegraph office there to forward any wires that came from Luther.”
“I wonder if he’s found Mandy,” Sophie said.
Alex had heard just enough about the man Beth’s sister had married to wonder what was wrong with these McClellen girls to use such poor judgment picking husbands, himself being the prime example. The fact that Beth loved him only made him wonder the more.
Clay shook his head. “I reckon he’ll let us know as soon as he catches up to her.”
A sharp rap at the door drew their attention, and Clay went to answer it.
An older soldier waited there, his hair gray where it showed beneath his cap. “The lieutenant will see you folks now.”
“It’s about time,” Clay snapped.
Alex knew he was wound up like a fifty-cent pocket watch, but Clay had acted pretty calm until now. Maybe it was the same act Alex was putting on for Beth. Most likely all four of them were putting on acts.
“Didn’t see no sense in hurryin’ you along.” The soldier, his face clean shaven and his uniform clean and sharply pressed, looked worried. “You’re not gonna like the lieute
nant. In fact, were I you, I might just forget this whole thing and head for the hills. You rode in, you know. No reason you couldn’t just ride right back out. Wait a while ‘til the colonel comes back.”
“Let’s get going,” Clay ordered. “We’re not running.”
The soldier shook his head with what looked like genuine regret and escorted them across the yard to the commander’s office. They walked past a man sitting at a secretary’s desk and heard a loud voice ranting in the next room—Cletus already spewing his lies.
As they entered, Cletus glared at them without taking a break in his complaints. “I was attacked by the doctor and his cohorts. I had a right to bring him in, and by fightin’ me, they threw in with him and committed their own crimes. I want the lot of them locked up.”
The lieutenant’s eyes shifted from Cletus to them. He had eyes so light blue they looked gray. His uniform was so posy fresh Alex wondered if he changed it several times during the day, not a bit of this desert dust anywhere. He had a white plate in front of him, half-full of the mess they’d had for dinner. He was chewing as if every bite nearly killed him. The lieutenant ate his on thin fine china, with a long-stemmed goblet that looked like crystal to Alex. The silverware was placed in almost painful precision above the plate.
The lieutenant quit eating, leaving most of the food behind, then lifted a napkin from his lap and dabbed at his mouth as if he wished he could wipe the whole meal away. “Take the table service away, sergeant. And when I’m done with these folks, bring me that cook. She’s fired.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll have the cook brought in as soon as this meeting is over.” The older man moved quickly to lift the dishes. “But, sir, I don’t think you can fire the colonel’s wife. I mean the colonel’s gonna come back sometime and he might not like it.”
“Bring her in here!” Lieutenant Deuel roared.
Alex and Beth exchanged glances.
The soldier toted the dishes out, and two other uniformed men stood stiffly at attention. They were positioned on either side of the lieutenant behind him, posed so rigidly they matched the flagpoles standing proudly beside them.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 26