Enchanted Heart

by Brianna Lee McKenzie

  Chapter Forty

  But, as the days turned into weeks, she became more and more healthy and soon she was sitting at the dining room table with Greta, Buck and Linda. Every once in awhile, she would get a feeling that living was not so bad after all and she would laugh with them in spite of her depressed disposition.

  Life all around her seemed to go on, she found as she woke up each morning and faced yet another day of loneliness. Outside her window, trees produced fruit, baby birds left their nests and waves of bluebonnets swayed in the breeze, making the field beyond the stream remind her of the deep blue ocean that she had crossed as a child, and ultimately, it reminded her of the day that Caid had explained the legend behind those beautiful blue flowers. What a sacrifice Marty had made when she’d lost her husband and then the child growing inside her, she thought sadly as she turned away from the cheerful sight of the flowing field of blue. But rain in the form of tears seemed to be the only reward for her sacrifice besides the horrible hunger of loneliness that ate away at her unfortunate heart.

  Inside the house, Greta’s belly grew ever larger, Buck grew more in love with his wife and Linda Blue Sky found a puppy on their doorstep, a bouncy reminder that life in its blissful existence carries on and all one has to do is embrace it, nurture it and love it.

  But for Marty, it all carried on around her. For her, the perception that life still went on was obscure; in fact, she could not understand why it so cruelly did. She still wished that hers had ended as had the lives of her husband and children. For her, life had no meaning at all.

  But, still, it went on whether she liked it or not. One afternoon, they were all sitting on the back porch, conversing and sometimes listening to the stream that flowed behind the house. Marty watched Buck gently press a large hand onto Greta’s belly and then bent to kiss the rounded mound. Greta ran her fingers through her husband’s hair while smiling down at him with love in her eyes. Linda Blue Sky tried to teach her puppy to sit for a treat but was disappointed with the outcome. The gangly black puppy seemed to want to jump as high as it could in order to cover her face with slobbery licks.

  Then, the puppy turned toward Marty to jump into her lap and cover her face with dog slime, as her mind called it. But she patted the puppy on the head and coaxed it back onto the porch again, saying, “Good boy!”

  For some inexplicable reason, the puppy looked at her as if he respected her and it sat on its haunches, wagging its tail and expecting a treat for its efforts. But a pat on the head was all he received, and surprisingly, a pat was enough to make him happy. Marty smiled at the dog and thought of Caid and his genuine love for animals and her heart crumbled. She tried hard not to cry in the presence of the family that had moved on while she still lingered in the misery of her loss.

  Despondently, she looked beyond the love that seemed to pass around the porch to the field that offered a recollection of her own lost love. She watched the bluebonnets bob in the breeze while she tried hard to keep her memories of her life with Caid from fading away. Wistfully, she sighed and unconsciously massaged her empty belly while she turned her head back toward her sister. In spite of her sadness, a smile creased her face when she saw the love that Greta shared with Buck.

  “It won’t be long now,” Marty told them, receiving a nod from both.

  “My little girl will be the most beautiful girl in the world,” Buck boasted as he stared lovingly into his wife’s light blue eyes.

  Greta smiled at Buck and asked, “And what if it’s a boy?”

  Buck stroked his clean-shaven chin and contemplated the notion for a bit. Thoughts of having a son with a high probability of inheriting hemophilia darted into his mind but he pushed them aside. They would face that adversity when and if it happens. He smiled at the thought of a son with his wife’s auburn hair and light blue eyes before he replied, “Then he’ll be the most beautiful boy in the world!”

  Everyone laughed including Linda, who whirled around the porch with her puppy bouncing around her. She narrowed her eyes at the young dog and said sternly, “Sit!”

  But still, the dog refused to follow her command. Hiding her embarrassment, and changing the subject, Linda uttered to Greta and Buck, “He will be strong.”

  They all agreed, thinking that she was referring to the puppy but, secretly, she knew that the boy that Greta carried would be healthy despite his family traits. She knew, too, that Mr. Caid was well and was trying to make his way back to Mrs. Marty. But she knew better than to get the woman’s hopes up. She had been wrong before when she had ‘seen’ Mrs. Marty with a baby daughter in her arms. That had ended in an unfortunate heartache for the woman and Linda Blue Sky did not want her friend to be sad anymore.

  Before she could consider it further, they heard a child’s voice calling through the house from the front porch. She jerked her head toward the voice and again, she recalled a vision of a little girl with springy blond curls and she knew to whom the voice belonged.

  Immediately, Greta knew it was her daughter and, against reprimands from her sister and her husband, she jumped up to limp to Seraphina and take her into her arms. Elsa and her husband and children burst into the house and hugged everyone, even Buck.

  “We found your wagon on our way here and we brought some of your things!” Elsa told Marty and Greta, who were unconcerned about having their belongings again. For Greta, having Seraphina home was more important to her than mere worldly possessions. And for Marty, those things did not seem essential in her lonely life now. To her, all they represented were memories, reminders of the loss of the one thing that she had cherished, her precious love, her husband Caid.

  When the excitement lulled, Greta introduced Seraphina to her new father. The little girl looked up at the grizzly man and smiled, raising her arms to invite him to lift her into a bear hug. Seraphina hugged Buck’s thick neck and nuzzled his square chin while Greta hugged them both.

  Marty watched Greta, her husband and their daughter cling together in a tight entanglement of family love and she could take no more, for her jealousy of her sister’s happiness, her anger at her own fate and her grief for all that she had lost was just too much to bear. Turning her face so that the others could not see her tears, she excused herself and walked calmly out the back door and over the porch where she began to run toward the barn. She shut the door behind her and dove into a heap of hay where she curled up into a ball and cried.

  Repeatedly, she wiped angrily at the tears that slipped down her cheeks while her body bobbed in her miserable self-pity. Finally, she gave up trying to keep up with the tears and cupped her hand beneath her cheek and sobbed silently in miserable abandon.

  She heard the barn door creak open and Linda’s puppy bounded into the barn to cover her with slobber while he jumped all around her where she sat. She growled at the overexcited dog, “Go away!”

  A male voice echoed across the barn as he asked, “Are you sure you want me to go?”

  Thinking that she was dreaming and not altogether believing her ears, Marty sat up abruptly and tilted her head, screeching, “Caid?”

  She got to her feet before he could answer her and she saw his outline in the streaming light of the open barn door. She ran to throw herself into his arms screaming, “Caid!”

  “Well, that’s better,” he chuckled into her hair as he held her close.

  She clung to him, mumbling into his chest, “I thought you were dead.”

  “I almost was,” he said, which made her pull away from him and give him a questioning look.

  Linda’s puppy still bounded between them, demanding attention from either or both of the people who stood within arms’ length of each other. Finally, Caid had enough of its intrusion and he said sternly, yet with love in his voice, “Sit!”

  Miraculously, except in Caid’s mind for it was as he’d expected, the young dog sat obediently and waited patiently for the next command. And he sat there, waiting with a wagging black tail that swiped a semicircle in the straw all the
way to the dirt floor, until Caid’s order to move was spoken.

  “What happened to you?” Marty asked, noticing the bandage on his head.

  He drew her to a bench and asked her to sit while he explained the escapade that had taken him so long to get back to her, stepping around the puppy that watched them move away from him, yet he dared not move.

  For a few anxious moments, Caid gathered his thoughts before he found the words to explain the ordeal that had kept him from finding his way back to her.

  “I was on my way to Fort Concho, along with the boys, when we were passing the Enchanted Rock. Well, I just couldn’t pass it by without climbing up there and telling the whole world that I love you.”

  He waited to see her reaction, and grinned at her reminiscent smile before he continued, “So, I told Sunny and Hunter to go on ahead and I would catch up with them. I climbed up to the top and I was standing there, ready to shout out the words that I felt in my heart.”

  This time, when he paused, he winked at her before he said, “Then I saw this little tiny rabbit perched on a ledge, shivering and squealing for its mama. I reached down to grab it but I lost my footing. I had the little rabbit in my hand as I slipped down the side of the rock. Somewhere on the way down, I must have hit my head. The last thing I saw was that bunny scurrying into a hole.”

  “Caid, I…”

  He stopped her with a wave of his hand while he continued, “The gravel that I had been standing on carried me all the way down into a crevasse where I lay until the boys finally realized that I wasn’t going to catch up. They came back and found me and they thought I was dead.”

  To this, Marty drew in a breath of distress. And, instinctively, as if sensing distress in the barn, the lanky dog moved his nose toward the bench, sniffing, but still, he waited expectantly.

  But, Caid resumed without hesitating, “They hauled me down to the bottom and proceeded to dig me a grave. I must have moved or moaned or something and they realized that I was alive. Neither of them knew how to fix the crack in my head, so they decided that the best thing to do was to take me to their village.”

  “Why didn’t they bring you here?” Marty asked while she shook her head in disbelief at the hardships that he had endured in order to come home to her and she was silently thankful that he had lived through it.

  “I don’t know. I guess they panicked,” he said while raising a hand toward the sky. “Besides, I think the village was closer.”

  Caid touched the bandage that still covered his head and said, “Their shaman worked his magic on me and in a few weeks, I was feeling better. But he insisted that I stay there where he could keep an eye on me so I was stuck there for a few more days. But it turned out to be weeks.”

  “More than weeks, you’ve been gone for more than three months,” she retorted with less resentment than sorrow in her voice.

  He touched her face tenderly before he sighed a melancholy sigh and said, “I’m sorry, my love.”

  Marty stared into his deep blue eyes and a tear slipped from her eye while she told him, “It was beyond your control.”

  He shifted on the bench, easing his body closer toward her and enclosing her in his arm while he pressed his lips into her hair and whispered, “I hated being away from you. I hated lying there, wondering if you would think that I had abandoned you and the baby.”

  Marty lowered her head in shame, moving away from him as if he would reject her for her actions when she revealed, “I lost the baby.”

  He drew her into his arms and pressed his cheek against her forehead while he softly whispered, “Greta told me.”

  He wrapped her in his strong and loving arms, holding her, caressing her in an effort to relieve the pain in her breaking heart. His warm body enveloped her, reassured her, healed her. He held her for long, adoring, soothing moments before he kissed her head, kissed her cheeks and then kissed her soundly on the lips. Then, he searched her eyes for a sign that she had forgiven him for leaving her, for inadvertently causing the demise of their child.

  Blue Skies, Marty thought as she smiled at him and said, “We can’t change what happened. All we can do is move forward and accept it as a part of life.”

  He kissed her head again, saying, “You are a remarkable woman, Marty McAllister!”

  Recalling Linda’s words, she said, “I am only me.”

  “Ah, but you are more than that, my love,” Caid said with pure love in his eyes. “You are more to me than you will ever know.”

  She smiled and kissed him, saying, “You are my heart, Caid. You are my life, my soul, my reason for living. When I thought I’d lost you and then I lost the baby, I gave up. I simply gave up. There was no reason for me to live.”

  Again, Caid whispered remorsefully, “I’m so sorry…”

  “What matters is that you are back now,” she assured him while she encased his face with her hands. “You are safe. We are together. That is all that matters.”

  Caid nodded, moving her hands up and down with his head as he agreed, “That’s all that matters. We are together.”

  Marty dropped her hands into her lap and sighed, pulling in a breath before she asked cheerfully, “So, how did you finally escape from the shaman’s loving care?”

  “Well, one night, I decided that I’d healed enough and I snuck over to the boys’ pallets and told them that I was going to Fort Concho and they could join me if they wanted to. We waited until just before sunrise to slip out of the village, but not before I whispered a thank-you into the shaman’s ear while he slept.”

  He chuckled then when he recalled, “The old man never opened his eyes when he whispered back to me, ‘You are welcome, my son!’”

  He took a deep breath before finishing his story, “We met Elsa and her family on the way from Ben Ficklin and I told her that I’d take Seraphina back to her mother and they could go back home, but she said that she wanted to visit her cousins anyway. So, we traveled together back to Fredericksburg. We stopped to pick up a few of your things from your wagon.”

  He paused to watch her reaction, which was insignificant, before he continued, “Then, because of my head injury, I lost my balance and almost fell off my horse.”

  With that, Marty drew in a breath of concern for his welfare and she immediately felt guilty for expecting him to hurry back to her while he still struggled to heal himself.

  But, he waved away her comment to that fact and continued talking, “Elsa made me ride in the wagon with her children the rest of the way, but when we came through town, I got out and rode my horse because I didn’t want you to see me riding in the wagon like a woman.”

  Marty scoffed at him for thinking that she would lose any respect or love for him for any reason and she said, “I would never think such a thing.”

  Caid ducked his head and said, “I know you wouldn’t. I guess it was my pride that made me do it. But when we started up Main Street, my horse threw a shoe.”

  He paused to let Marty ask, “Was it the same shoe that Sven fixed?”

  With a chuckle, Caid answered, “Naw. It was another one. Those Texas hill country rocks are hard on the hooves. Anyway, I had to walk him the rest of the way, so I got here a little later than everyone else.”

  “I was devastated when I got the telegram from Elsa saying that you never came to get Seraphina,” Marty admitted with tears welling up in her eyes. “And then when they all showed up filled with excitement and joy, I just couldn’t bear…”

  She turned away from him to fight back the tears that spilled from her lashes to her blouse. Words stuck in her throat as she began to shudder and sob.

  Caid touched her cheek with the back of his fingers before he said, “I’m sorry I made you worry about me. But I’m here now, safe and sound.”

  Marty nodded and turned back to face him with a tearful smile muttering, “Don’t ever leave me again!”

  He wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders and promised, “Never, my love!”

  Chapter Fort
y-One

  Caid kissed her then, kissed her like he’d never felt the softness of her lips, like he’d never tasted the sweetness of her breath, like he’d never smelled the lavender wafting from her hair, like he’d never heard the eager moans rising from her impatient body. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the mound of hay where she had, just moments ago, drenched it with her tears. There, he intended to reclaim the love that he had thought he’d lost while he had stood on death’s door and waited for someone to answer. There, he would relinquish all of his fears, all of his worries to passion’s promise that love endures every adversity.

  Cupping her face after releasing her to the billowing straw pillow, Caid kissed her again, his persistent lips undulating against hers, pulling away and then eagerly returning with more hunger than before. Slowly, his lips moved from her face to her chin, down her neck where they lingered ever so slightly as her pulse pounded against them in hastened glory. Then, down to the collar of her gingham dress where his fingers deftly worked to unbutton the long line of exasperating buttons until her creamy skin was revealed. A trail of kisses followed as the fabric was unveiled, down her breastbone, between her breasts, over her ribcage until he realized that her skirt was an equally infuriating barrier. He growled impatiently and reached beneath Marty’s back for the button that held the matching gingham skirt in place. With her help, the skirt was removed but the blouse was tossed aside, still clinging to her shoulders. Thankfully, she had decided not to wear her cotton chemise, which would have caused undue irritation in both of them.