Sunrise Over Texas

by MJ Fredrick

  “Then I’ll say good night.” He nodded to the other two women and slipped out.

  ***

  A blood-chilling scream woke him in the middle of the night. He’d come awake and was shoving his feet into his boots when someone pounded on his door.

  “Get your gun!”

  Kit. He lunged for the door, half in one boot, and flung the bolt. She stumbled into the room, looking much as she had last night, hair tumbled, nightgown askew. But this time instead of her eyes flashing fire, they were bright with fear. And she carried her rifle.

  “Indians!” she said before he could ask.

  Then he heard it, the movement beyond the walls. He grabbed his rifle and the pistol under his cot, then his saddlebag with his ammunition. Heart pounding, he mentally ran through the layout of the fort. Where could he stow her safely?

  “Is there a place where you can hide with Mary and Mrs. Barclay?”

  She looked at him, askance. “I’ve already put them in the root cellar. I need your help on the wall.”

  His help? “No, ma’am. I want you in the root cellar too.”

  Her lips pressed together in that stubborn expression he was beginning to know so well. “You can’t do it alone.”

  “I can’t do it worrying about you.”

  “Trace. Be reasonable.”

  How could her voice be so calm when terror squeezed his heart at the thought of what could happen to her? He hadn’t protected Angelina, but could he protect Kit and her family from Indians?

  He couldn’t waste time arguing.

  “Show me the quickest way up to the wall.”

  Without acknowledging the concession he’d just made to her, she turned and hurried back into the yard, heading straight across it. He grabbed her arm, pulling her into the shadows of the wall. He motioned that they’d follow the line of the wall instead of risking themselves out in the open. She nodded but he could sense her impatience. God, did the woman have no fear? He followed her up the stairs to top of the barracks. How would the two of them hold off a band of Indians? He’d never fought Indians before, never fought anything but drunken rich boys in bars in New Orleans. And that had never been life and death.

  Kit ducked as she reached the top of the stairs and dropped to her knees. She rested the rifle on the wall and tracked something through her sights before firing. A cry of pain echoed through the cold night. Trace crouched beside her, easing up enough to see over the top of the wall. Dozens of Indians with long bows circled the fort. He muttered a curse that drew Kit’s glance as she reloaded. He brought up his pistol, fired and missed, though his target leapt in shock as the bullet struck the ground in front of him. Kit took another shot—she loaded as quickly as a soldier—and Trace fired his rifle. She hit, he missed again.

  “We’ll run out of ammunition before they give up,” she muttered as she reloaded, fired and reloaded again. “We need to get to the cannon.”

  “Didn’t bring anything to light it,” he replied, drawing a bead on a particularly tall Indian, shooting, and dropping him in his tracks.

  “Go get the piece of rope that I keep near the hearth. Put it to the fire until it smolders and bring it to me.”

  He snorted. “I’m not leaving you up here.”

  She cast a scornful look at him. “I’m a better shot. Reload your weapons, and they’ll be ready to reload again by the time you get back up here.”

  That she was right rankled his pride. He’d never had occasion to become a better marksman. Now he was no help to her unless he did as she asked. He pivoted on the ball of his foot and sprinted for the stairs, taking the flight in three leaps. Bursting through the door of her quarters, he recoiled as she fired his pistol. He looked around, grabbed the smoldering rope from its place near the fire as she fired one rifle, from farther down the wall. She was closer to the cannon.

  He raced out the door, not bothering to shut it, and bolted up the stairs as she fired her last shot. He skidded to a halt beside her as she crouched with her back to the wall and began to reload her rifle. He did the same, and they fired them, reloaded and moved in the direction of the cannon.

  She loaded the cannon with an efficiency he didn’t expect, even after hearing her fire it every day. When she was done she touched the glowing rope to the fuse and then dropped down beside the barrel, covering her ears. He did the same just as the blast knocked him against the wall. Holy hell. Kit was on her feet before the echo had died, reloading the cannon, as cries of alarm sounded below them.

  “Help me turn it,” she ordered.

  He scrambled up to help her drag it around so it pointed southwest. She fired again. In the wake of the blast he heard the retreating shouts of the Indians. Kit reloaded and fired two more times before she dropped down against the wall, her head tilted back against it, and looked at him with weary eyes.

  He cupped her soot-streaked face in his hand and rubbed his thumb over her cheekbone. “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.” Then he leaned down and kissed her.

  She tasted of gunpowder and wood smoke and fear and relief, but mostly she tasted of Kit, and she opened her mouth to him as she slid both arms around his neck, rising up on her knees to get closer. Her mouth was greedy, her teeth pulling on his lower lip, her tongue darting into his mouth. She tangled her fingers in his hair, tugging almost painfully.

  Need swamped him. He was so aroused he couldn’t think of anything but getting her beneath him, of tasting every inch of her skin, of feeling her breasts, so soft beneath her night rail, against his chest, in his hands, in his mouth.

  Breaking the kiss might bring her back to her senses, but he didn’t want to make love to her here on the wall, in the cold. He wanted to savor every minute, every touch, every stroke.

  “Too cold up here,” he murmured in the hollow below her ear. “Inside.”

  She nodded, the movement jerky, and pulled away. She had the presence of mind to gather the guns, ammunition and the rope before she led the way downstairs. In moments she’d be in his arms again and he’d be touching her, pleasing her, holding her against him. He shook with anticipation.

  She glanced back at him with a chiding expression when she walked through the open door into the now-chilly room.

  “I’ll get the fire,” he said, turning to close and bolt the door.

  But before he could, Mary popped out of the root cellar a few feet away, a blanket wrapped around herself, eyes alight with fear and excitement. “Is it over?”

  Chapter Five

  After she’d finally convinced Agnes and Mary that the danger had passed, Kit stepped out of their bedroom and crossed the common room to the stove. Trace sprawled across the narrow bed that had been Mary’s when she was sick, which they hadn’t yet dismantled. His back was against the wall, his booted feet crossed at the ankles as he watched her. She couldn’t meet his gaze. What must he think of her after her behavior on the top of the wall? She’d put her tongue in his mouth and almost climbed on his lap, for heaven’s sake—and him a married man!

  “Would you like some coffee to warm you?” She kept her tone prim, to hide the shaking in her voice.

  The wooden legs of the cot scraped over the floor as he rose. She stiffened as she sensed the warmth of his body against her back.

  “Do you have any whiskey?”

  She bent to push aside the fabric surrounding the basin’s legs and grasped the neck of a glass bottle, almost half-empty. He chuckled and reached around her to take it.

  “We use it for medicinal purposes,” she said.

  “What else?” he drawled. “Cups?”

  She took two mugs from the shelf, feeling decadent and silly. But good. For the first time in a long time, good. She turned to face him, tilting her chin up. They’d just battled Indians and won. Temporarily, she was sure, but the relief was still there, and the elation. She was giddy as he poured the whiskey and then saluted her with a cup while handing her one of her own.

  “To the bravest woman I know.”
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  “You don’t know many women,” she chided, but tapped his cup anyway.

  “None like you,” he insisted, his gaze steady. He drank.

  She did as well, and the alcohol burned the membranes of her throat, the inside of her nose. Perhaps she wasn’t as strong as she thought, not if she gave into her passions so easily. She set the cup down, feeling like a stranger in her own home, in her own body. She didn’t know where to sit, but she couldn’t stand any longer, her legs weak after her adventure on the wall.

  She pulled out a chair, but he captured her hand and guided her toward the bed.

  She dug her feet in. “Up on the roof, we made a mistake. We weren’t thinking, just feeling.”

  “Come sit with me, Kit, that’s all I want. To have you beside me, safe.”

  The tone of his voice—so soft and cajoling—convinced her. If she hadn’t wanted to feel his warmth, be reassured by his strength, she could have resisted. He sank to the bed, soft with blankets though they’d removed the mattress and burned it. She retrieved her cup and sat down facing him, cross-legged, with her back to the fire. His breathing changed for an instant and his eyes flicked down, then up again, the heat in them searing. With a gasp of realization that she was still only wearing her thin night rail, she reached for her shawl on the back of a chair. Once securely wrapped, she chanced a glance at him, to see him sipping his whiskey, not looking at her. But when he lowered his cup, she noticed his jaw was tight, as if he was willing himself to hold onto his control. She reminded herself she wanted him to, and the best way was to distract him.

  “That many have never come at once before. I wonder if they saw you when you left the fort. No one’s left in a while.”

  He shifted to face her. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  “I don’t know.” She pushed her hair back and tucked her shawl more tightly around her. “I don’t know if we convinced them there are more of us than there are. I think that’s the only thing that will keep them away. It would probably be a bad idea to leave the fort again for a while. How long do you think the grass you cut will last?”

  “Not a week.”

  She looked down into her cup, disappointment a cloud in her mind. “I so looked forward to eggs too.”

  “Just a few days. Then we need to think about leaving.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  He shifted. “Kit, you know your husband isn’t coming back, don’t you?”

  She heard the frustration in his voice but kept her gaze on the liquid in front of her. “I know.”

  “Then what’s keeping you here?”

  She lifted her chin and looked into those dark, exasperated eyes. “My baby is here.”

  He drew in a sharp breath, easing back. “Your baby.”

  She nodded. “My son Daniel. He’s buried by the barracks.”

  “I didn’t—I’m sorry.” He set his cup on the floor and rested a cautious hand on her knee. “How long ago?”

  She looked at the hand, big, strong, capable. Trace was someone she could lean on, if she let herself. “Just after I received word that John died. He had the fever, as you did. Mary caught it, then, too.”

  “So he was the reason you didn’t leave with the soldiers.”

  “I couldn’t walk away from my child.” Her nose burned with the need to cry, so she sipped her whiskey instead.

  “How old was he?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head. “I don’t talk about him.” She couldn’t, couldn’t remember his sweet blue eyes, his chubby little cheeks, his reaching arms that would hold onto her neck so tight. She couldn’t remember the games they used to play when he’d go to bed, how she’d nuzzled his little throat until he giggled, how she’d had no joy like that in her life, how no joy could match that again. How no despair could be as deep.

  She couldn’t think of the tiny grave she’d had to dig by herself.

  “I never got to hold my son.”

  The soft rumble of his words surprised the melancholy from her and she whipped her head toward him. He kept his gaze on the fire. “Your son?”

  “He died before he was born. I saw him. He was blue and still, and the midwife took him away.” He lowered his head. “I didn’t follow, didn’t stop her, and I never felt him in my arms.”

  She covered the back of his hand with hers, linked her fingers through his. “I’m sorry.”

  “My wife, Angelina, she’d labored close to three days. It took her strength, and when she heard he was dead, she stopped fighting.”

  Her other hand went to her mouth, as if by covering her own she could stop his words. “Trace, no.”

  He looked up, his eyes glinting with tears. “I lost her too. I couldn’t bear to be in the place where they’d been, where everything had been so full of hope and happiness, where we planned for the birth of our child. So I left.”

  “And came to Texas.”

  He nodded, lowering his head again. “And came to Texas.”

  “No hope and happiness here.”

  “So I thought.”

  She snapped her head up to look into his eyes.

  “Come here.” He held his arm out, gesturing for her to move closer and tuck against his side, to feel his strength.

  She hesitated only a moment, needing to be held so bad, and eased cautiously against him, her head against his shoulder so she could feel the beat of his heart in that big chest. He closed his arm around her, warming her, stroking his hand down her hair in a soothing motion.

  “Do you talk about her?” she asked. “Angelina?”

  He made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Haven’t been around people since she died.”

  “Would it hurt you? To talk about her?”

  “You want to hear about her?” This time surprise tinted his voice.

  “I’m trying to imagine her. I’ve been trying to, since you—called me her name.” Since he kissed her. “I wondered what kind of woman would hold your heart though you’d left her behind.”

  He tightened his arm around her. “She was a beautiful Cajun girl, just this amazing beauty, dark-haired, with an…inner sureness. She could talk to anyone about anything, and made people feel at ease. People wanted to be around her, women and men, even children. We couldn’t walk in the park without stopping every dozen steps because she knew someone, or wanted to meet someone. She never did things part-way. She threw her whole self into any project she set her mind to, and it came out beautifully every time. She had a golden touch. And she had a beautiful voice. She could sing anything. She would have been an amazing mother. Our son would have been reading by the time he was talking.”

  His voice warmed as he spoke, and she could picture him in awe of and in love with his wife. She imagined him devastated by her death. And she wondered how she measured up to such a paragon.

  That thought surprised her, and she pulled away, as if putting distance between her body and his would jolt her heart into realizing that now was not the time to let her emotions lead. They’d both lost much in the past few months. Her heart hadn’t had time to recover from her losses. She couldn’t open herself to that pain again.

  But he curved his arm just a little more securely about her, holding her to him, stroking her hair against her head. The movement soothed her. Her limbs grew heavy, her breathing slowed, her eyelids drifted closed.

  “Get some sleep, Kit,” he murmured, his mouth close to her ear. “I’ll keep watch.”

  For the first time in months, she let someone else take over, and she slipped into sleep.

  ***

  “What the devil is going on out here?”

  Kit jolted awake at the shrill question from Agnes. Several things registered at once—the brightness of the room that told her it was full daylight, her mother-in-law standing in the bedroom doorway…the warmth of Trace’s body against her back and his arm across her waist. She pushed upright, and his arm dragged away as he shifted, the change in his breathing signaling that he was waking.
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  And that he realized, as she did, that her night rail was bunched up and her bottom was very snug against his hips. Very snug. More than his breathing was changing. At least, at some point during the night, he’d pulled the quilt over them.

  Which damned them in Agnes’s eyes.

  Her face heated, remembering what had almost happened between them last night, what very well might have if they hadn’t talked instead. Her heart squeezed at the memory of their conversation, at the mixture of grief and pride she’d heard in his voice last night.

  Trace tensed behind her and rolled off the bed in a single movement, but Kit couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t be sure what emotions that would reveal—either to him or to Agnes.

  “Nothing happened, Mother,” she said wearily, tugging her shawl around herself and swinging her bare legs off the bed. She hated the shame that burned in her veins. True, they hadn’t done anything wrong, but she’d wanted to. God, she’d wanted to. “We were just tired. I didn’t want him to go back to the barracks in case the Indians returned. We fell asleep keeping watch.”

  Agnes pursed her lips, dragging her gaze up and down Kit’s body, looking for signs of love play. Kit resisted lifting her hand to her throat, where she could still feel the rasp of Trace’s whiskers.

  Agnes strode into the room, insinuating herself between Kit and Trace, who moved toward the door and picked up the water bucket. Kit still couldn’t look at him. After he had slipped out, Agnes planted herself in front of the door and folded her arms.

  “I told you not to be alone with this man. What does this say about your feelings for my son?” She flipped a hand toward the yard. “Do you disrespect him so much that you forget him before he’s a year in the ground?”

  Kit drew her shoulders up and bit back the resentful retort that hovered always in the back of her mind, the thought that he’d brought her here and abandoned her. He could have left her in New Orleans, where at least she’d be around civilized people. She’d have real food instead of porridge. She’d have her mother and doctors and no angry Indians and not have to depend on her own wits. She wouldn’t have had to dig her own son’s grave, could have given him a proper burial in a church, in a cemetery, if he’d died at all.