But Eric wasn’t coming back, she told herself fiercely. And even if he did, Adam would protect her. Eric would never hurt her again.
She clung to Adam and wept away her terrors until she was too exhausted to weep anymore. Only when she lay spent against his chest, silent except for the occasional hiccup, did she realize dawn had broken. Soon it would be time to get up and start a new day. Instinctively, she tightened her grip on Adam, not wanting to let him go ever.
“What in God’s name were you dreaming about?” he asked her again, pushing her away slightly so he could gaze down into her face. He looked so dear with his hair mussed from sleep and the day’s growth of golden whiskers stubbling his chin and the worried frown creasing his handsome face that she wanted to weep all over again. She certainly didn’t want to tell him about her terrible dream.
He smiled slightly when she did not respond. “Surely, you don’t believe that old superstition that if you tell a dream it’ll come true,” he said, trying to tease her.
“It already came true,” she told him wearily. “I dreamed about him, about when he attacked me.” She shuddered at the memory, and feeling her reaction, Adam tightened his arms around her.
“It’s all right,” he assured her, brushing the hair away from her damp cheeks. “It’s over now and it won’t ever happen again.”
And it wouldn’t. Adam would see to that, because he had no intention of ever sharing Lori with any other man. And as alarmed as he had been to see her in the throes of the nightmare just now, he also knew a sense of triumph. Lori might have once loved Eric, but if this dream was any indication, his brother had hurt her in ways Adam was only beginning to understand.
Perhaps there was more hope than he had realized. Perhaps Eric’s violence really had destroyed Lori’s tender feelings for him, or at least damaged them. If that were true... Well, if that were true, Adam would be a fool not to damage them even more, wouldn’t he?
“Lori,” he said, still stroking her lovely face. “I wasn’t completely honest with you about something.”
He saw the fear spark instantly in her beautiful dark blue eyes, and he hastened to relieve it.
“What I told you about Eric, about him shooting me, that wasn’t true. Or at least not completely true,” he amended quickly. “He did shoot me, but it wasn’t an accident. That’s what I told my father and everyone else, but that’s not how it happened.”
Her eyes grew wide as the horror of the truth dawned on her. “He shot you on purpose?” she asked incredulously.
“He was lying in wait for me. I think...” His voice broke on the words he’d never spoken aloud to anyone because he had never, until this moment, wanted to admit they were true. “I think he intended to kill me.”
She cried out, an incoherent sound that was part sob and part protest that yet spoke eloquently of her outrage and horror. After a moment, she managed only one word, “Why?” He felt something inside of him, that terrible secret fear, ease with a swiftness that was almost painful. She hadn’t defended Eric! She hadn’t even considered the possibility that Adam might be wrong.
“He hated me,” Adam told her baldly. “I told you how my father blamed him for killing our mother. He made Eric suffer every day of his life. I tried to protect him, and Sudie did, too, but we couldn’t, not when my father was so determined to punish him. And after a while, Eric seemed determined to suffer. He almost went out of his way to provoke my father, as if he believed a beating was better than simply being ignored.”
“But why would he hate you?" she asked. “You tried to protect him! If he wanted to hurt anyone, I’d think he’d want to hurt your father.”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out for over ten years now. The only reason I can come up with doesn’t make any sense to me, but it’s the only one that makes any sense at all. I think he must have believed somehow that if I was gone, our father would love him instead, that Eric could take my place.”
“That’s crazy!” she insisted.
“He was only a child, barely twelve years old. But you should have seen his face that day. The ball went in my leg and knocked me down. I was lying there in the dirt, bleeding and writhing in pain, and he stood over me and laughed.”
“He laughed?” Lori echoed in horror.
“I never told anyone that,” he confessed. “If I had, my father would have killed him. As it was, he almost did anyway, even though I swore it was an accident.”
“Why did you protect him? Why didn’t you tell the truth? He didn’t deserve your help!”
“He didn’t deserve a lot of what had happened to him, either. It wasn’t his fault that our mother died, and he was as much my father’s son as I was. I felt guilty because I was loved and he wasn’t, and so I’d been protecting him—or trying to—all of his life. But I can see now I made a mistake. If I’d told the truth then... well, maybe he wouldn’t have hurt you, too.”
“Oh, Adam,” she said, and tears filled her eyes again as she gazed up at him adoringly. Perhaps she didn’t love him yet, but she loved Eric less now.
His conscience pricked him just a bit. Once again, he was taking the love that should have been Eric’s, just as he was taking Eric’s woman and Eric’s child. But if his motives were selfish, they were also just, because Eric had forfeited any claim to Lori and her love when he had abused her so cruelly.
“But if he hadn’t hurt me,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts, “then you and I wouldn’t be together now.” Her smile was so sweet that Adam could almost imagine the emotion shining in her eyes was love instead of merely gratitude. Longing throbbed painfully in his chest, the desire for what he needed so desperately and feared he might never have.
“Do you think us being together now was worth the pain?” he asked to torture himself, knowing perfectly well she couldn’t lie about that, not even to please him.
But to his amazement, her smile never wavered. “It was worth almost anything,” she assured him.
That was when Adam understood the true depths of his own obsession, because he was so eager to accept her lie.
***
Eric wanted to go home. Nobody was likely to care if he did, of course. It wasn’t as if he was in the real army or anything. But he couldn’t go home, because if he did, everyone back there would know he’d run away. That would pretty much ruin whatever respect he’d gained from joining up with this godforsaken bunch in the first place.
He should’ve joined the regular army. He could see that now. At least he would’ve gotten some glory and seen some real fighting. The regular army had uniforms and guns and ammunition, too. None of that had seemed very important before, when he was back home in the comfort of Elmhurst. Why, he’d thought then, should he risk his neck to fight ir a war to protect a cause he didn’t give a damn about? Southern honor? He’d seen enough Southern honor to know it wasn’t worth protecting, and it for damn sure wasn’t worth dying for.
But that was before he started getting all those funny looks from people who thought he was a coward or worse. Who thought he ought to join all their sons and fathers and husbands in the fighting. What the hell did they expect? He’d already paid some poor son of a bitch to take his place, and what good would it do if he went himself? One man wasn’t going to make a difference one way or the other.
But then he began to realize that if he didn’t go he might suffer more than he would if he did. He began to realize that the men who had fought and died for the South were now saints, and the ones who had fought and lived would be heroes. But the ones who hadn’t fought at all would be outcasts, despised by one and all.
Eric had had enough of being despised by his father. He didn’t want to have to face it from everybody else, too. So when the call had come from Rip Ford to protect Texas from the Yankee invasion, he’d ridden to join them.
Glory. Honor. Respect. That was all he’d wanted. Instead, he’d gotten dust and mud and wormy rations and a bunch of snot-nosed kids who didn’t know their asses from their elbows.
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That was Eric’s last thought when he heard someone banging on a pan to rouse the men from their fitful sleep. Eric threw off his blanket in disgust and rose stiffly from the hard ground. The scarlet sky, he saw at once, boded ill. A red dawn meant more rain and more mud, and then the steaming heat that would follow.
Eric would have killed a man for a cup of real coffee, but this army hadn’t seen real coffee in weeks. He settled for “borrowing” some of the putrid brew that one of his “men” had made from scorched mesquite beans. At least it was hot.
“When are we going to see some more Yankees?” one of his snot-nosed “men” asked crossly.
“Pretty soon,” another reported. “I heard they wasn’t far from here.”
The talk swirled around him, but Eric didn’t deign to join in. The boys weren’t as much fun now that Billy was gone. And they looked at Eric differently, too, like they thought it was his fault Billy’d gotten himself killed or something. The hell with them. Eric didn’t care what a bunch of kids thought, anyway.
He was chewing on a piece of hardtack when the orders came down. They were going to attack the Yankees who were camped at a nearby ranch on the banks of the Rio Grande Captain Dunn would lead them, and Colonel Showalter men would go with them. Hell, Showalter might even be sober, since it was so early in the morning.
Eric felt his blood begin to stir, the first time he’d felt anything like excitement in weeks. By the time they were mounted up, a slow rain had already begun to fall.
“We’ll drive them damn Yankees into the sea!” Dun shouted as the order came to ride. The old ranger sure got worked up, but Eric was pretty worked up himself.
Half-expecting the Yankees to be gone by the time the got there, the men rode hell-bent up to the ranch only to discover they were still there. Shouts and Rebel yells filled the morning air as they charged straight into the Yanks ranks.
As the drizzle became a sodden downpour, men fought hand to hand, screaming and bleeding and dying and charging onward. Using the sword he’d taken off a dead Yanks several weeks back, Eric slashed his way into the melee.
Swinging furiously at a blue jacket, he felt the shock up to his shoulder when the blade struck bone. The man’s howl of agony filled Eric’s head as the man’s blood spurted hot in his face. The sensation was nothing he’d ever experienced before, and he felt a rush of joy that was so much like sex that he actually clutched his crotch with his free hand for a moment. And then another Yankee charged him and Eric cut him down with one swift blow. More screams, more blood, and Eric was lost in the lustful frenzy of death and destruction.
The Rebels were unstoppable, and beneath their assault the Yankee line shattered. As Confederate reinforcements arrived, the Blue Coats broke and ran. The Rebels reloaded empty muskets and fired after them, cutting them down their tracks. A handful managed to reach the river and swing to safety in Mexico. A few more were captured, but most were left in ignominous death on the muddy banks of the Rio Grand
Eric got himself a new pair of boots from a dead Yankee corporal, and some tobacco from a dead captain. And they all had coffee and real meat that night from the supplies the Yankees had left behind. There were guns, too, and horses and wagons. The Cavalry of the West wasn’t quite so pitiful anymore.
And neither was Eric.
“Did you boys see me out there today?” he asked as he approached them that evening. They were sitting around a campfire the evening after the battle. “I near cut a Yankee’s arm clean off!”
They watched him warily as he took his seat among them. They were, he was gratified to notice, looking at the bloodstains on his tunic.
“It was just like at Antietam,” he continued now that he had their attention. “Guns were a waste of time. A man couldn’t get his rifle reloaded because the Yankees were right on top of us before we knew it. It was all fists and bayonets. I always swore I’d get myself a sword before I went hand-to-hand again.”
The boys were staring at him, with admiration he was sure. He rubbed one of the bloodstains just to remind them of what he had done that day.
“I finally got to kill me a Yankee,” one of them said suddenly, trying to draw their attention to himself. “Shot him when he was running into the river.”
“You’ll get a lot more chances,” Eric said, drawing them back. “We’ve got them cornered now. They’ve got the sea to their backs, so they’ll have to stand and fight at Brownsville.”
He glanced around at the circle of faces and saw exactly what he’d wanted to see. They held him in awe again. They’d forgotten about Billy, and he was once more their leader.
He reached into his pocket for the tobacco pouch he’d taken from the Yankee. “Anybody want a smoke?” he asked generously.
As the boys passed the pouch and stuffed the tobacco into the crude pipes they’d fashioned or brought from home, Eric smiled.
“Too bad there ain’t no women around here,” he said rubbing his crotch as he savored the memories of the battle “But wait ’til we get to Brownsville. That’s where we’ll have us some real fun.”
CHAPTER TEN
“You feelin’ poorly this mornin’, Missy?” Sudie asked Lori when she had gone back into the house that morning after seeing Adam off for the day.
Instinctively, Lori touched her head which still ached from the awful dream she’d had just before dawn this morning.
“No, I’m fine,” she lied automatically, then just as quickly realized how foolish she was being to try to conceal the truth from the one person who might be able to offer her comfort. “I just... I had a bad dream last night.”
Sudie stopped in the middle of the hall, and her worried frown instantly became sympathetic. “About him? About that man what attacked you?”
Lori nodded, not wanting to even think about it but know- ng she had to if she ever hoped to be normal again. “I dreamed I was back there, that it was happening all over again.”
Sudie nodded her understanding. “I reckon you was mighty scared.”
“I was sure I was going to die. Just like I was then. Oh, Sudie, I thought I was over it!”
“You never be over it,” Sudie told her but hurried on at Lori’s cry of protest. “That don’t mean you can’t be lots better, though, and one way you can is to change your dreams.”
“What?” Lori asked, certain she had heard wrong.
“Change your dreams. Like last night. I reckon you dreamed it just like it happened, right?”
Lori nodded reluctantly.
“Then next time it happens, you change it.”
“I can’t change my dreams!” she insisted.
“Yes, you can,” Sudie insisted right back. “You start with figurin’ out what you wish happened instead of what really did.”
“I wish I’d gotten away from him!”
“Is that all? Don’t you want to hurt him back, too? Make him sorry he ever touched you?”
Of course she did, although she’d never admitted it, not even to herself. She nodded reluctantly.
“Then that’s what you think about. You picture it in your mind, how you want to fight him and hurt him before he can hurt you.”
“I couldn’t do that! I don’t want to think about him at all!”
Sudie shrugged, as if it was all the same to her. “Suit yourself, only you’ll keep havin’ them dreams, and they’ll get worse, maybe even worse than it really was.”
Lori felt herself grow cold at the very thought. How could it possibly be any worse? And how would she survive a dream like that? “But how can I change the dream? How can I make it come out different?”
“Do like I said. You picture in your mind how you want things to happen. Don’t be afraid, neither. You be just a mean to him as he deserves. Keep doin’ that, and next time you have the dream, it’ll come out different.”
Before Lori could weigh the truth of that promise, she felt a strange sensation low in her side that could only have been a kick.
She cried out in surpris
e and laid a hand on her abdomen. “Somethin’ wrong?” Sudie asked in alarm.
Lori smiled to reassure her. “No, I... I think the baby just kicked me.”
Sudie nodded wisely. “He tryin’ to tell you I’s right.”
“Sudie...” Lori said, warning her she wouldn’t listen to any more tall tales.
“You think he can’t hear when we talk? You’ll see when he born. He knows your voice and Massa Adam’s, too.”
“Adam’s? How?”
“ ’Cause he hear it all the time, that how,” Sudie assured her. She started down the hall again, a silent signal that they should be getting to work, and Lori fell in step beside her. “You think of a name yet?” she asked casually after a moment.
“A name for what?” Lori asked absently, still intrigued by the possibility that her child could hear her when she spoke.
“For the baby,” Sudie said, surprising her all over again.
“I... no.” She hadn’t even considered such a thing.
“Better talk it over with Massa Adam,” Sudie suggested. “Can’t go callin’ that young’un ‘hey you’ when it gets here.”
Lori tried to smile, but the prospect of discussing the baby with Adam was still entirely too daunting, even after their talk last night when he’d assured her he would be a real father to her child.
That night as she and Adam sat in the parlor, Adam read silently and Lori stared blindly at her knitting, doing the intricate stitches by instinct rather than by conscious thought. Her conscious thought was miles away, under the big oak tree where she’d thought to meet Adam and where she’d met his brother instead.
What would she have wanted to happen instead? The question seemed easy enough until she considered it. She wanted it to have never happened at all. She wanted to have ignored the letter Eric had given her. She wanted to have been smart enough to know he was tricking her. But she knew Sudie would tell her that wasn’t enough. She couldn’t pretend the attack had never happened. She’d already tried that, and it hadn’t worked.
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